We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Smalley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.

Ashley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

For several years, I had been speaking at and leading women’s ministry events. As I began to develop marketing material to that end, I sent it out to everyone I knew, asking them to pass the word along. An acquaintance reached out and asked if I had any work-related topics that I could share in a breakout session at a Women in Business Conference that she was helping to organize. I told her I had this topic on unity that I thought could work. The event board LOVED the concept and invited me to be a breakout speaker. I delivered the presentation three times that day, and each time it was received with enthusiasm and interest. It was that day that it became clear to me that showing others how to use their influence to bring about unity on their teams was my next venture.

One of the breakout participants contacted me about offering a keynote to the All aBoard cohort of the Junior League of Fort Worth that she was overseeing. They paid me easily double anything I had ever earned in a ministry setting. In fact, their budget number caught me so off guard that I offered to do it for half! Since then, I’ve worked with the Junior League every year in a variety of capacities.

This year, I delivered the keynote to their 180-member leadership team. Since then, I’ve had at least two other engagements as a result, and now another is in the works because of one of those. So that first client was a really important one that continues to reap what I sewed on that fateful day in 2018.

Ashley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR) with over a decade of experience in the field. I’ve spent years training my own workforce, and now I have the privilege of helping other teams of people transform their culture by cultivating genuine care between teammates. I teach people at any level of an organization how to use their unique influence to build unity by the way their interact with others, because when a team is unified, people enjoy their work more and are much better at it.

People are the driving force in any organization, and they need to be seen, known, and cared for to really thrive in the marketplace. I’m working to build unity one team at a time.

I use a variety of methods to bring about culture change, including conducting team workshops, keynote addresses, and working with employees at every level of the organization.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2018, when I gave that first unity presentation, I was a full-time HR Director for an oil and gas company. I was also a part-time member of a church staff, serving as the Family Enrichment Coordinator, overseeing three different ministry areas. As I mentioned, that Women in Business conference made it possible for doors to open for more and more speaking engagements. In 2021, I realized that I was essentially working three full-time jobs.

In my HR Director role, we had come through the hardest part of Covid-related pivots and re-boots, but there was definitely an added burden for all HR professionals at that time. Anyone in ministry will tell you that there is no such thing as “part-time ministry.” When the phone rings or dings, it will rarely wait. Those two jobs alone took more than the daytime working hours.

That meant my evenings were full with content preparation and practice for upcoming speaking events and corporate trainings. Add to that two daughters, a husband, and the recent death of my dad, my plate was beyond full. I was burning the candle at both ends. Burned out. Exhausted.

It was time to pivot.

So at the end of 2021, I left my HR Director role, its cushy salary, and health benefits for my entire family. I’m down to just the two full-time jobs, half the pay, and a heart that is full with living out my purpose – stirring people to love and good works toward others.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

It was a fateful day in Mrs. Fenter’s 10th grade Spanish class. He was as cute as the day was long, and I had no idea what our future would hold. After a year full of flirting and absolutely no talk of running a consulting company, Dustin became my best friend, and ultimately my husband. We married in 2007, the same year he started working for what eventually became his own construction company. Together, we have endured the ups and downs of small business ownership in his industry for at least a decade. Last year, when I felt the need to pivot, we was excited to see me take the leap of faith that he had gotten to take all those years ago. We are the perfect complement in life and in business. My brain thinks in terms of people, relationships, and words. His thinks in terms of numbers and strategy and processes. We make an incredible team. If you had asked me what our future would hold back in 1999 when we had our first date, I couldn’t have dreamed this up this story to save my life!

Contact Info:

• Website: smalleyconsulting.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-smalley-1362bb175/