Ashley Evenson returns for her third appearance on The Corporate Escapee Podcast — and this time it’s a real update from the field. Two years into her escape, she breaks down what actually helped her land fractional work, what surprised her, and the biggest mistake most new escapees make once they get busy.

This is a practical conversation about network-first business development, creating momentum without feeling “salesy,” and why the long game matters more than the perfect plan.

What you’ll learn

• How Ashley landed her first fractional roles through her existing network

• Why “pick your brain” beats cold outreach for most escapees

• The content → connection flywheel: using LinkedIn engagement to reopen relationships

• What fractional work can feel like behind the scenes (and why it can get lonely)

• How Ashley uses frameworks + a single grounding slide to lead discovery conversations

• Why you must keep “breadcrumbing” even when client work gets busy

• The reality of income volatility — and how to reduce the “oh crap” moments

• Portfolio career thinking: experimenting with speaking, books, and new revenue streams

• A fun (and honest) AI/TikTok viral experiment — and what it taught her about unit economics

• The mindset truth: escaping requires hustle — but it’s a better “hard” than corporate

Key quotes

• “You’re in here for the long game.”

• “People are sick of being sold to on LinkedIn.”

• “Always be top of mind… keep breadcrumbing.”

• “Both paths are hard. Choose which hard you want.”

Resources & mentions

• Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyevenson/

• Ashley’s site: AE Marketing Collective: aemarketingcollective.com

• AI slide tool mentioned: Gamma (export to Google Slides / PowerPoint)

If this episode hit home…

If you’re still in corporate and thinking about an exit strategy:

• Start with one conversation this week.

• Don’t pitch. Ask for perspective.

• Keep one weekly “breadcrumb” habit so you don’t disappear when you get busy.

About the guest

Ashley is a fractional marketing leader with experience across agency, brand, and consul

Hi, Ashley. Welcome back to the Corporate Escape-y Podcast.

Thanks Brett, I'm excited to be here for my third time now.

Yeah. Hat trick third time's the charm. think you might only be trailing Michael Haynes, who my Australian buddy who's been on, he was back on the original hardwired for growth podcast a couple of times. So he's been through the, uh, 350 year six or 350 episode six year journey, you're within recency because I think if I did my notes, I think it was May of 24 was your first visit. Then we had you in.

Okay.

That is right.

Debbie on talking about how you guys collaborated on some marketing deals. And now we're back today, which I'm super excited about because you are the first person we're bringing back to say, all right, how's it going? Because when I first had you on, I think you were two months into your escapee journey. And I think it would be great learnings for folks to hear how's the good, the bad, the ugly, things you would have done differently, things that are going well. And

Yup.

today.

Great.

Nope.

I appreciate you taking the time to share.

Yeah. Sure. think before we officially dive into some of the things, if those one people who haven't heard my journey before, I've shared this on LinkedIn, but I always credit Brett for showing up in my TikTok one night and which was I think about, I don't know, November, December of 23. He was the first one that introduced Fractional to me. And I thought to myself,

Hmm, this is really interesting. And I really dug in. So I've always joked that I essentially changed my career path because of a TikTok, which was Brett. And, um, we had jumped on a call and I, I know I've quoted this in my other podcast, but he's like, I'm just having all these conversations. You know, 90 % of people are not going to do this. And I was like, well, I'm going to be the 10 % that does. So here I am two years later.

That's crazy.

you

And, and when I appreciate that, that's awesome. And again, because I think we were joking back in May about the tick cocks. I had literally just started getting some traction with that. And, I was used to be apologetic, but I'm like, I wouldn't be here having this conversation with you. If I wasn't on tick tock talking about all these things. So it really is built an entire, you know, the escapee thing in the collective that, that we're building. So yeah, who knew who knew right based on corporate tour we're at now.

Yep.

I need to drive to your influencer now.

Yeah, maybe in my own mind, but, but all right. So yeah, just to recap, people can go back and listen to that episode. think it was really interesting because you were again, just making the pivot excited. I think he had the full, full range of emotions going of where it's at. And, yeah. So, so kind of talk. So you, the first thing when you left, did you remind folks, did you have a plan when you were exiting or did you exit and then get running? what?

You

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I have

back to that decision point.

Yeah. So that decision point was, you know, I was burnt out and when I was currently doing at that time and I thought, wow, I have this unique skill set of essentially approaching marketing from three different lenses. have ad agency experience, I have brand experience and I have, big consulting experience as well. And I thought, wow, this is a really unique combination that I feel like I could offer companies that do not have access to.

consulting firms or this expertise and I'm like, I think I can do this. And I think I had mentioned the first podcast with you is I've always been very entrepreneurial. As a child, I've always wanted to own a business but never knew quite what that looked like. I didn't want to open an agency or anything like that. So when I saw this, I'm like, oh, I feel like this is something I could do and

It was just really empowering. Like, oh, I can actually own my own business without having to have employees or anything to worry about. So, you know, I dived into it. So how I found essentially my first clients was just through my own network. I just had reached out saying, Hey, I'm looking to do something like this. I just want to pick your brain. Like, do you feel like this is something that you would be interested in? And then those conversations just eventually involved to something.

where they're like, Oh, actually, I could use something like this. So it wasn't really like a hidden agenda. It was like, I trusted these people, I know they own their own businesses, and just wondering if this is something that they feel like there was a market for. And that actually led to my first two fractional role where I'm still at today, as well as like a six month project. So that was the very beginning and the foundation I started to build on from there. Oh, yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And let's, can we, can we dig into that for a second? Just because I think that's where a lot of people get hung up in corporate. They're like, what my old network? I don't know if it's network, but again, this is what I talk about because I did the same thing. It says, Hey, I'm thinking about starting my own thing. Here's where I think the value is. And you know that they could buy from you, but I think the real value is going to come back. They're going to say, yeah, I see what you're talking about. We have this problem. Maybe we can work together since you know, so it's the, the subtle sales pitch, but the worst case you're going to, you were going to get good feedback.

one way or the other that said you're on the right path, right? So.

Right. Exactly. And I think, you know, now being in this for two years, I do have people coming to me now asking for advice. And I think where I see a lot of, people get tripped up on is they go into like sales mode or they just start doing like cold outreach. Like that's like, I haven't had any success that way. And I know there's a lot of content out there. Like doing cold outreach is not the, is not the way, even just

even directly communicating with your network of like, Hey, are you interested? Like, I don't think that's the right way. I think that the interesting way is, Hey, I want to pick your brain. Like, am I headed in the right direction? Another area recently, where I found a lot of success is I've been really focused on marketing and sales interlocked because there's always you know, friction and people are like, it's alignment. So I've been talking to a lot of independent sales.

leaders or because I want to start picking their brains so I can essentially make my product and my frameworks a little bit better. But then it gets them start thinking about like, wow, I really like how you're approaching marketing. So that's another angle just to continue to grow my network is I've been partnering a lot with salespeople, because that's another way and another avenue of just building my network. I'm not selling to them. It's me having a conversation sharing what I know want to learn what they know.

interesting.

and then just evolving that, those relationships, and it could lead to something in the future as well. But coming back to my initial point is you can't just go away just trying to do a hard sell all the time. You're in here for the long game.

Right. Yeah. And I think maybe we can unpack that too, because the network, I mean, I've talked to John arms, he's got the big fractional community. Like even those folks are 90 % referrals in networking and coming for it. think where people sometimes get stuck is they think network is who I just have in my network right now. And again, I tell people you'd be shocked if you just actually would downloaded your entire LinkedIn network and there you're be able to filter out probably 70%. They, you don't remember didn't have it, but there's a

good chunk of folks just reconnecting to see what they're up to. They may know a business owner that just reconnecting with your network and then it can expand within that. You don't have to, to your point, go get this whole list of brand new people. It just kind of starts to build from who you already know. And it doesn't have to be huge for this to work.

No, and I think one the best things I did recently is I started pivoting like my LinkedIn content to be more provocative and having like a hook to it. so I saw, you, I know I said, I love TikTok. It's like one of my favorite things. I didn't really like feel like I watched trash TV anymore. It's the TikTok that consumes me. Right? But I saw this TikTok, I'm not sure.

You don't have to.

Do you have Shane Co's down in Chicago? They're like these jewelry stores. So anyways, so I saw this Tik Tok and it's this jewelry store. I thought what's was local to Minneapolis because they say we're located at Hopkins crossroad and radio drive. And it sounds very, very local and you hear his voice and stuff. So I saw this Tik Tok and someone was like talking about Shane Co and

No.

Yeah.

they start reciting the lyrics to the location. And I looked at all the comments and people are like, what? That's not the right lyrics. should be the last three lines going down. I was like, my gosh, I had no idea that Shanko was a national brand. So as a marketer, I'm like, this is so brilliant. They essentially gas lit a whole generation. They're thinking they were a local mom and pop shop. Like this is brilliant marketing. So anyways, that TikTok

interesting.

led me to write this LinkedIn post, which for LinkedIn, it went fairly viral with 40,000 impressions, tons of shares and stuff. So anyways, that's a long story short, but I had hundreds of likes on this post. And so I just started to reach out to people and like, hey, I saw you liked my post about Shane called. They're like, yeah, wild. I'm like, hey, we haven't connected in a while. I would love to connect. So I had about 10 calls.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

of me just reconnecting from that post. But I've been very intentional with my posting about things that I think are going to drive engagement. may not be what I'm doing fractionally, but what are those more provocative things that I can share? had one about, essentially the CMO right now is at a very pivotal role because things are happening with AI. Google is not Googling anymore. Like 50 % of searches are not going to websites.

So I start posting some of that kind of content and that was high engagement as well. So I think it's being meaningful on LinkedIn and then just reconnecting with the people that are liking it. And then whoever's liking that second or third connections, I'm just linking in with them. So that's where I've found to be successful as well as growing to know.

That's, that's really a good idea. indirectly I just happened to, I did a, I'm starting to post more. cause I've got a newsletter on it's, LinkedIn's newsletter feature and I'll use that for more of my long form articles. I probably could just post an article, but it just seems under the header. works. But I did something. Cause I had one of those moments of right dolphins and corporate, right? You have to read the article to get where that's going.

But there was somebody, it was actually a fraternity brother of mine from a long time ago that we had connected. He had dropped a message. He's like, man, that dolphin really resonated. So I'm going to reconnect with him just because of something I didn't know if it was going to connect with people or not. But to your point, it's just, that's what we're trying to do is just regenerate some connections, get some new folks involved. And it doesn't have to take you six hours a day to do this.

No, and I think too, like people are just sick of being sold to on LinkedIn. And I think so if you can do something a little bit more edgy and just to have that it's just, it's just connection. Like I don't try to sell on LinkedIn at all. It's what's provocative out there. How can I grow my network? How can I reconnect to someone like, for example, that post I had reached out to, it was,

Yes.

was at an agency, we had someone come in and do strength finders. It's like the personality assessment. And it's fine. She had personally called mine out to the CEO. She had actually called out that I we end up having one on ones after she did the personality assessment, and we did a group thing. And she had told me, you have the personality to own your own company. So I thought that she had liked that post, I'd reach out like, Hey, funny enough. You know, I randomly think about you.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How interesting.

Because you told me that I have the personality to like own a business and this is what I've been doing. So I reconnected with her and she invited me to an event and she wants me to do some speaking engagements for her company. yeah.

That's fantastic. I'm glad she didn't tell you. She's like, Ashley, I was only kidding.

It was very like tarot card-y in a way. Like she saw into my soul. like, do you wake up at 5 a.m. to work out? I do.

That's when people, are like, huh, the psychology. Yeah. I'm fascinated by the folks that I know the cues are there, but you know, maybe in my next life I'll study psychology and really, cause I am fascinated by people who would really do know how to do that. So, anyway, all right. So let's, let's go back. Cause I think there's so many good lessons from, cause even now you, you, you did the indirect reach out to just that, Hey, can I get some feedback from you? this a good idea? You got a customer. So you get somebody.

you

Great, yeah.

Yeah.

You came from an ad agency and you did some, so you had a general idea of how an engagement would work, but did anything surprise you as they said, Hey, yeah, I think I could use this. Did you do like a discovery session to figure out what, what was kind of your process to go from, Hey, is this a good idea to starting to work together?

Yeah, I think that looks very different from when I started. think those were just conversations and they're like, let's give this a try. And now I've been referred to a couple other companies and I've put together frameworks. And I think that's where individuals that may be leaving corporate and haven't been in consulting before may not understand is the whole concept of frameworks and deliverables. I know when I've talked to people, they're like, this is a

I went through, okay.

completely different way of thinking. So when I head into new conversations now, I definitely have some frameworks and visuals that help ground those conversations. So I have this one slide that I love to pull up of like essentially six different pillars or dig sites that I can dig into. Like, okay, these are the six things. Just doing a quick outside in analysis. So I do that a lot before the conversation, like, I quickly scanned your website and what I could find out there. And here's some buckets I find.

again, would have to confirm with data. So I help ground them to show that I did my homework, but also to like my areas of expertise. So I have found that to be a winning slide for those conversations.

Which is interesting because I think again, I'm thinking through kind of my journey. And again, I wasn't in consulting that long. I knew enough now to think about framework and how to think about it, but it's really around the areas, right? I'm thinking about growth acquisition, retention, expansion, and kind of showing a visual would have been super helpful. Not a full pitch deck of 30 slides.

Right, yeah.

But grounding people, and I think anybody in any of these column 20 different functions, Within corporate, you probably do the same thing, right? Cause you've got an area of expertise that you've been doing in corporate. Blow that out a little bit and say, Hey, here's really where I can come in and help come or however, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think that's a really good way to start conversations. And it could reframe, right? You have a few conversations and it's not landing or it's too confusing for folks.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

But it's, I never thought about, but I think that's a really interesting way to, to start, right? Cause you're not pitching any help. Here's how everything works. You now at this point know how you're going to work, but until then it was, so maybe that's secret. have to figure out how we can, I can start incorporating that into learnings for folks to say, what's your one pager look like. And it's not a one pager of services, but expertise and problems and try to zero in. So.

Right. And I think it gives credibility to also what I've been recently doing with newer clients is like, I have like an onboarding packet. I recently did was, all right, here's ways of working. Here's how to work with my calendar. And I'm very transparent. It's like, I do have, you know, another fractional gig and, you know, I always call it like an open relationship.

Yeah, it's the new world we're living in, It is. That's so true.

Or I would be when I was a fractional at AdAge, they're like, Ashley, are you going to cheat on us? I'm like, I'm not cheating you guys. It's an open relationship. You know where I'm going. Right. So I essentially now I send like a kickoff pack of like, this is how I work. Here's the best way to schedule meetings with me. Think of me as a team member. I'm, you know, log me into Microsoft or Teams or Slack.

Right? You've been transparent from the beginning. Right.

I'm very much involved. So that's been successful. I can do like about me on a page, like my background, just like picture of my dog and my family. Humanize it. I'm like, here, feel free to send this to the team before you introduce me. Explain what I do so it explains exactly what fractional is, how I work. So it's like this whole packet that they get when we sign the agreement so that they can easily explain.

Humanize it. Yeah

little bit confusing, but I essentially have this whole packet of onboarding and essentially what I need access to.

Got it. do you, I'm sorry, I mean to interrupt you. was, so who, it sounds like your ideal client may be a little bit larger than, what do you employ, 25, 50, 100 million? How do you, who's your ideal target?

Oh, that was fine.

Yeah, I mean, as a B2B marketer at heart, I don't have like the true ICP or persona. But yeah, I mean, it has to be like a larger team. I have worked with startups. But yeah, I would say, you know, and then that's probably about the ballpark I'm working with. Yeah.

Okay. Just because again, I think to your point, if you go to the startups, the smaller team, you need to build more foundational stuff. But here it sounds like you're maybe starting to connect some of the pieces because you see the bigger picture of it. And I'm curious as in the early days, you were going after the fractional and I was going after the consulting deals and I was only going after the big deals. And I know I left a lot of money on the table and I probably left some smaller projects that I

probably would have helped me build momentum quicker. I'm just kind of curious through your two years has your early approach, would you have changed your early approach knowing what you know now or was it, does it make sense when I'm asking you what would you have done differently? I guess is easier way if there is anything.

What I would have done differently is what we call, I guess, biz dev in that aspect is, I was really, really busy last year. I had essentially three things going on. And then it came a point where a large project ended and then I had another agreement. And then all of a I was down to one thing and I was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And then it was like, okay.

Whoa. Right.

like that the holidays happen and stuff like that. So I think the big learning lesson, and again, this is always the long game is always just be top of mind. so that was a huge learning lesson I did was I essentially stopped all the connections and the coffees or conversations because I was very, very busy and just talking to other, you know, people in our space, they say that's a huge learning lesson to follow is like, you have to always be.

not working, but just being top of mind, just bread crumming all the time. Because yeah, you're gonna hit those moments of like, my gosh, what am I gonna do? And then, so you have to always stay on top. So now I literally have it right in my like remarkable, making sure I'm doing like essentially one touch. you got it now? I thought.

my remarkable. I've had it. I don't have it in front of me, but I even got the mini one as the travel version of it. So I don't have to take the...

I didn't know there was a travel version. my gosh, me and Debbie are like the biggest remarkable.

fanatics. All right, we'll have to do a remarkable session at some point. But no, it's funny you say that because it's absolutely universal because we've been had one of our collective sessions last week is guys been in sales. Not sales enhancement sales, not onboarded, but sales performance and these and he's like, I've been doing fractional sales enablement for three years and I stopped doing what I teach everybody to do, which is always just keep

Yeah.

the conversations going. And so yeah, he had to jumpstart it again after taking the ball. And even now when I'm, would say I'm probably 90 % focused on building out the collective. I'm still looking and having conversations with folks because I think there's a backend business and you and I have talked about off of the collective and how to start connecting, you know, the folks in here with, businesses.

Great.

Yeah.

And so I'm still having potential partnership meetings with folks, but I'm crystal clear that says, my focus right now is this, but maybe in Q2, I'm going to start thinking about it. So I don't, to your point, I'm not stopping it because when you want to ramp up, it just takes time to get those right conversations and connections. And it's just better to make it a part of your ongoing weekly cadence. Right. So

Right.

whether that's a LinkedIn post or having coffee, like just to have one kind of breadcrumb or touch point a week.

Yeah. Cause it's, and you're going to start to see here at the two year mark. that somebody, you completely had a conversation with, you know, 18 months ago, somebody's going to refer from that conversation and you completely forgot about them because that's when it starts to pay off. And there's people I talked to three years ago that still all of a sudden I'll get a introduction from somebody like, man, I completely forgot about you, but yet you remembered that conversation that we had and

Right.

Again, it's got to be a two way street. You help and people helping people will pay off.

Exactly. And you know, what's interesting to your point is I use HubSpot for my own CRM. There is a free version. Apparently they now have more like a smaller, smaller business version. Abby uses it. haven't looked into it yet, but I love just to see because with HubSpot you can see who opens your emails. I'm like, you're opening my email again. Like, are you thinking about something? So.

Okay.

Brett Trainor (22:43.273)

Yeah, see that would yeah, I've gone across that spectrum of super detailed into the CRM and then basically getting rid of it then bringing back a smaller version of it and yeah, I'm still looking for that sweet spot of but I think you got to use what works right where you want to spend the time and in doing that. So, all right, the other thing you and I when we connected before you've been experimenting.

Bye.

with some other interesting things and while you were networking and starting to try and those new deals and it kind of sparked something in my mind that I do think it's and I post about this a couple weeks ago that I think at the two year mark was when I knew that I wasn't going back to corporate because there was an I figured out enough ways now that I know I can make money if I have to make money but what really started to happen is why would look

Yeah.

I started to find, I don't want to say chasing shiny objects, but I started to see opportunities in other areas where in the early days it was laser folk, the blinders on, let's go get these deals. And you kind of sparked that, that reminder in me when you said you were doing some things with AI and search and you kind of talked about some of the changes, but, um, was it tick tock? don't know. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but kind of, kind of share how you're, um,

Yeah.

Overall approach to it has changed now that you've been in it for a while

Yeah, I mean, you know, the term and I did a LinkedIn post about this, know, portfolio career is essentially and you know, my main goal is to have a diversified income. I would love to have like, RR model monthly recurring revenue, through something. I just haven't figured out what that is. That would be a gold state. but with portfolio career, you know, something that I'm keeping an eye on with Debbie is more speak

paid speaking engagements. So both her and I do a lot of speaking engagements like around local, but something that, you know, we're thinking about together is writing a book together. We have now found like that's actually the key to get like the paid speaking gig. So that's something that we are, you know, interested in. We're just kind of throwing around the idea. Not sure if it's going to materialize or anything like that starts, but maybe there's a way we can write a book using, you know, recording our voice.

How awesome.

and then using like Chatchity or something, be our ghostwriter. Not really sure, but that's something that, you know, would love to start really getting into the speaking space as a good revenue income stream. Cause I have friends that are, guess I'm going to say motivational speakers, but not really it is, but you know, they make a really good living doing that. And that's something that I'm passionate about and Debbie's passionate about. that's something I'm looking into. I think what Brett you're, you're leaning into was

Yeah, I gotcha.

Last summer, when all the crazy AI videos first came out, like VO3 and Sora 2, is I went to chat GPT and I said, how can I go viral on TikTok? And essentially chat GPT said, using AI video, it said, create ASMR. If those that don't know what ASMR is, it's like the soft spoken things and the t-t-t-t. And so it's like.

super in theory, right? It's supposed to relax you like the...

post relax you. And so said create an ASMR crystal hair cutting video. So I said, great, write me a prompt for that. So I use flow, which had VO three to create it. So it wrote me the prompt, I ended up having to buy like a ridiculous amount of credits with a lot of AI platforms, as you notice. And essentially, I created these AI hair cutting videos.

I went viral multiple times. I'm the top 1 % of all TikTok accounts to go viral on the very first video. I hit 10,000 followers within 10 days so that I could start monetizing. It was absolutely wild. I made $50, but it was like costing me $250 a month to buy into this like AI platform to create the videos. And as you know, in order to monetize, you have to have a minute video.

That's remarkable.

Hey

And with AI video, you can only create eight seconds at a time. So it was taking me forever. So anyways, my influencing career ended after like a month, but it was a really great experiment just to say, can I go viral? And it was absolutely wild. like, my gosh, I mean, I have millions and millions and millions of views on these videos. So if you guys want to check it out, it's ASMR Crystal AI.

That's crazy.

That's the account. Haven't posted anything in like six to seven months, but if you want to check it out. But yeah, so I have, so during my downtime, have, I was hoping that would be a monthly and RR model, but it wasn't.

That's super cool.

Yeah, but I think, but that's the beauty and where I get excited about these things. And that's kind of where the escapee came from was I did consulting, diffractional, and then did some advisory. Then all of sudden TikTok took off and that opened up a whole bunch of other channels and just kind of follow what's, what's interesting. And I think you also

unlock some potential opportunities where AI, again, we all, don't, none of us really know exactly where it's going to go, but how it's changing search. And you may have found an angle to help small businesses, how to leverage AI to leapfrog some bigger brands, because if you get the right messaging on, on TikTok, right. So I mean, it's the world's opening up and just carving out a little bit of niche. So maybe it's not, um, influencer with, you know, AI videos, but there's, there's other things. that, that, again, I think that's, what's exciting about it is.

I wouldn't stop everything else you're doing and plunge in, you may get some traction with it. And then if it goes, then

You never know. There is an AF4 like everyone listening, something that I've been using recently as coming from consulting, you live in slide deck. So I'm, I'm pretty good at making slides, something that I've been really helpful to create more efficiencies while AI deck making is not fully there. I feel like gamma is a great platform to help create slides and you can export to Google, Google slides or like PowerPoint. So I'll kind of pick and choose.

some slides that they've developed and then put it into and kind of just shoot up my own way. But that's something that would be great for people listening to investigate his gamma.

Yeah, that's a great idea. And maybe one of the things one last thing we can we can talk about is that you did partner with with Debbie and we had a whole obviously we brought we had a podcast talking because one of the things I tell people all the time, like unlike corporate where if you and Debbie were both in corporate, you may be competing, you'd probably be friendly and compare notes. But the fact is you may be looking for the same job or these types of things. In this world, you guys

Again, more nuance, you do have different skill sets and experiences, but if I look at both came from industry, both had corporate experience, both are CMO-ish type folks. You wouldn't think that would be a likely partnership because you'd be going after the same things, but you found a really good way to each have your own thing partner. So maybe just share a little bit of insights, how that's evolved and how that's working. one is, would you recommend that to other folks finding somebody else that's

Yeah.

comparable to what you're doing versus a compliment.

Yeah, I mean, so how Debbie and I met was we had a friend introduce us. Our friend owns a business and she's like, you two need to meet because you are like the same person. So we ended up meeting and we clicked and she was going her fractional role during So As I and we were put on a project together and it went really well. We're like, wow, what is this? And it was that

Yeah

point in that relationship, like what are we were like, you should do this together because it was really great in the aspect of each had our own individual things going on, but we come together and we like essentially split the work. She peaks in certain areas like she peaks in like big brand, I really peek in performance metrics type. we have similar backgrounds, but we definitely peek in certain areas that very much complement each other. So

Yeah.

But it's really great to obviously one work on projects together and we can like divide and conquer and really like work on a project together and push each other. Like, I don't think it's quite that way. I didn't hear it that way. So it's very great to have someone to work with, to be honest. I feel less stressed when I'm on projects with her because I know I have someone else to have an opinion about. Regardless of like work stuff, it's funny. You hear about people, best friends that start

businesses, we're the opposite. We started a business and she's literally my best friend now. Like I talked to her like every day, every day we talk on the phone. And so we've become such close friends of this, but it's like business first. So like we went the opposite way of like most people starting. so, but yeah, and I think too, because she has her own fractional thing is we don't feel alone because I think some fractional people do feel like it can be lonely or consulting. it's like,

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's cool.

we have each other. So it's just been the best. She's one of my favorite humans. Yeah.

That's so cool. And just, just from a tactile question, did you guys actually form a company together or are you guys individual and then just write it under one?

Yep. we have our own LLC together. So funny enough, it makes our lives easier. We have the same accountant across everything. So I brought in an accountant. So he oversees that, oversees our joint, and then oversees her brand. And then funny enough, our husbands have side hustles too. So now he's the accountant over everything.

Now, perfect, okay.

The solo. Yeah, that's, it's important to have that, that network of folks. So, all right. And I know everything's not always sunshine and roses. So what are some of the, maybe the learnings you had over two years that were more difficult than you thought? What were some of the challenges? Sounds like you obviously everything's pointing in the right direction, but I'm guessing there was some ups and downs as part of that.

You

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think the big learning lesson was just always be networking and the biz dev. And I think too, you know, I still have 15 to 20 years left in my career. And sometimes I get like the moment of like, my gosh, can I hustle? Like that long to like always. So that that is I wouldn't say it's a downside, but I do have those like moments of like, my retirement seems so far away. Can I hustle for the next 15 or

Yeah.

haha

20 years doing this. So I would say that's the downside of like, hmm. But I mean, today I love it. love what I'm doing right now. I love everything. But yeah, that's probably the biggest downside I would say.

Yeah. And it's, I really should document and create a timeline for folks because again, you're what you're feeling is completely normal. Again, I probably talked to a thousand different people at various stages now. And yeah, I mean, that's one of our groups in the collective is that they're looking at, all right, built some success, right?

But right now I'm just keep trading time for money. How do I transition this into more of a service offering or something that's more repeatable that I can start to decrease the number of hours. Like you said, find that MRR or those types of things. So you're not alone in that. And there is a path out. just offhand, I couldn't tell you what it is, but, but I just know with what you're doing, where it's going, I think the speaking and some of the other things will, will definitely start to.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

to peak again, there's it I'm still even I think I told you 10 % will actually do something I think it's closer to 5 % when I actually see the numbers right and what what kind of threw me or this is recent thinking maybe even off since last time because again across all the platforms there's 100,000 people that follow me so I know they know something's wrong with corporate broken something

Wow.

there, but the number of that actually take action is in the hundreds. Right. So that's a big gap. And I was on John arm's podcast a couple of weeks, maybe just last week. And he threw a number that 70 % of all corporate workers are burned out, right. Which, which makes sense. And so I started thinking, maybe it isn't the, the job itself. It's just corporate in general, right. It's the lack of control, right. You don't have time control. You don't have money control. You don't have future control. And that just

puts even more of a stress on you. So again, and looking at those numbers that are burned out and unhappy in corporate not taking action. So yeah, I'm thinking 5 % might be might be generous. I know now that you're out, you probably feel like the entire world is doing what you're doing. But, but it's not it's it's crazy. So anybody that's out there that's on the fence, now is a really good time to do this. And even if 50 % of people took action, there's more than enough opportunity for folks. So

Yeah. And I think too, if you know, people are listening and thinking this the path, mean, obviously I talked about I had that that strength finder. It's like, it also has to be within you to like have to like hustle. Like, that's something that you know, when people have reached out to me, whether they've been laid off or thinking about leaving, I always tell like, it has to be in you to hustle. There's no like job board or anything like that.

It has to be ingrained in you to do this.

Yeah, and what I 100 % agree with you. And I think the one thing I tell people the trade off is you're going to trade away all that busy unnecessary work that you're doing in corporate and you but you have to work at this right? This isn't you just don't write a post and then six people say, hey, come come work with me. But but interesting, maybe it's just the subset of people that have come out. Most people still want to work, they want to do things, but it's you know, you know, more purpose or

getting out of the, they're making me go back to the office five days a week. And it's just those types of things. So yeah, absolutely. This, this isn't an easy way out, but I'm like both paths are hard. So choose which hard you want. So awesome. Well, Ashley time is absolutely flown by again. I thank you for coming back and sharing and updating us on your journey. And we'll have to, we'll keep tabs on you. Cause I think these are, these are interesting to see. Cause I think the next step is has she figured out how to.

Choose your herd. Yep. Yep.

create a monthly recurring, did she write the book? Did she find out a service? What is she doing? So we're gonna bookmark this and before February of next year, we're gonna check in and see if you've made any progress on that portion of the journey. Always good to talk with you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. And before let you go, if people wanna connect with you, what's the best way for them to find you?

Now you write the book.

I know.

Amazing. All right. Well, thanks for having me, Brett.

Yep, LinkedIn, I obviously will probably be tagging me. So there, I'll respond to messages. Or you can go to my website, my contact information is there. It's a marketing collective.

Awesome. And definitely check out our LinkedIn posts because you will learn that she's, don't want to say it's a blueprint, but it's a really good template to start thinking about how to, share your content and drive that engagement. So awesome, Ashley. Thank you very much. And we'll have a great rest of your day.

All right, thank you. All right.