Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brandy Ashley . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Brandy , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
Am I happier as a business owner? The short answer is yes. The more complex and transparent answer is about 85% of the time. I spent most of my late teens and early adult life living paycheck to paycheck, working endless hours to make sure that all of my responsibilities were taken care of and lived in constant fear of failure. I grew up in a small town in WV where this was the norm for everyone, you just figure out how to survive which ultimately is how my entrepreneurial mindset was born. Fast forward to today, I co-own two established businesses and am currently working on opening a mental health and suicide prevention nonprofit as well as launching an active wear clothing brand. All of this is insanely time consuming and as a business owner, I personally, never feel like I can slow down. When you pour your everything into creating a business you can also become fearful of the success coming to an end and if you are anything like I am that means that you work around the clock to make sure you are consistently growing. Part of being a business owner is constant responsibility and little shut down time whereas when you work a “regular job” your work is done when you leave the office. I couldn’t count how many times over the last five years that I have thought that I should go back to working three 12 hour shifts as a nurse and have more free time but then I realize that if I had that free time, I would fill it with creating business plans because it is honestly what I enjoy doing. 15% of me wishes I had more time for yoga and laying on the beach while the other 85% of my brain wouldn’t trade being a business owner for anything.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
For those of you that I haven’t crossed paths with yet, hi, I am Brandy Ashley, the animal loving, plant hoarding, always working on the next big thing, female empowering co-owner of TN Event Designs and TN Event Health. My wife, Sarah Ashley, introduced me to the event world back in 2017 when I would help her on the weekends fluff drape for a local draping company and stand in awe due to the beauty of whatever wedding was happening in front of me. This was a massive change up from my nursing career, but I quickly fell in love with the event industry and envisioned a future in it. In 2018 we launched TN Event Designs becoming the first 100% female owned lighting and draping company in Nashville and ran full speed at creating the brand that you see today. In 2020 as I am sure everyone remembers; the event industry came to a complete stand still and we quickly focused all of our newfound time into figuring out how to reopen the industry. TN Event Health combined my love of the event world with my first career choice of healthcare and launched in May of 2020 becoming the first nurse led covid compliance company for the event world. We started with contact tracing, covid compliance and on-site nursing for live events/ productions and eventually took on vaccination verification and on site covid testing for live events. We have conducted covid compliance and first aid for events from 25 people to 50,000 people and actively are still working on movie sets, conferences and festivals all across the world.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Being relatable, reliable and honest. In both of our current businesses, both myself and my wife Sarah are heavily involved with our clients. We treat our clients and vendor friends like family, because they truly are. We spend more time with our clients and other vendors than we do anyone else so knowing them on a deeper level and connecting outside of work-related matters is vital to all of us. In the event world you are either creating someone’s wedding, which should be one of the most magical days of someone’s life, or you are creating an event for a client that has invested a ton of time, energy and money into it so being reliable is the least you can do as an event vendor. There are few jobs that you won’t see Sarah or I on, working right alongside our crew to make sure that by the end our client is happy, and we can be proud of what we put our name on. It isn’t too common you get the owners on site in this industry, but we try to do things a little over the top. *Insert hair flip*
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
This isn’t so much of a story as it is a reminder to just take the risk and hire marketing help. I very vividly remember when we first started out with TN Event Designs, I had zero experience with graphic design or branding. Money was tight in the beginning because we had only been married for a month and I was back in school while working a full-time job and trying to launch a business so youtube taught me how to toss a website together and file an LLC. About a year in I knew I needed help if we wanted to become what I laid in bed and dreamed about every night but I also knew we could not afford to pay an agency. As work stacked up we finally ran an ad on indeed for some part time help but the person had to be willing to help with everything from website design, social media management and being a crew hand. A few interviews in we met Shelly, a scrappy, down for anything, yoga loving, figure it out kind of human and I knew that we had to take the risk of hiring her even though I had no clue how we were going to pay her. Within a few days we also took one more interview for crew hand and we met Joe, who I am pretty sure is Sarah’s twin separated at birth. Once again I knew we needed him but had no clue how we were going to afford it. Within a few short weeks Shelly rebranded the company, created a beautiful website and became my sounding board for all of my crazy ideas. She helped build the foundation of our marketing and branding and the “risk” of hiring someone when we were such a young company turned out to be a huge reward. She has now branded both companies that we have, and I know she will be heavily involved in whatever adventures come next.
Today, I am proud to say that our first two hires are still with us, both of them so invested into our vision that I can’t imagine what it would be like without either of them. Joe is Sarah’s right hand. You can typically find them together at the top of some massive ladder bickering about who looks better in their matching pants or fighting over the last orange redbull. All of that to say both of them were a risk for our young company in the beginning but worth it.
Contact Info:
- Other: www.tneventhealth.com
Image Credits
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