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

Ashlee, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

In the Nonprofit or Social Entrepreneurship industry one of the biggest challenges to profitability in our the actual word “NON-profit”.

Many social entrepreneurs start nonprofits and charities with this concept of individual donations as their only avenue to raise funds. In reality, there are many different ways for nonprofits and charities to monetize their mission and create profit for their organizations.

Events that may or may not be related to your organization but appeal to your donors are a great way to raise funds. Selling items to the public will allow you to raise funds as well, and simply marketing to your donors is another one of many options to create a profit. Just like for-profit businesses need to understand the inner workings of their customers, nonprofits need to get to know their donors. This makes the connection between your mission and your donors that much easier to resonate.

As a marketer and public relations consultant for many years, I like to refer to my nonprofit as a social impact BUSINESS. This reminds me that our organization is a business at its core with a social impact mission. When nonprofit founders begin to treat their mission like a business, I believe it fosters creativity when it comes to overcoming the hurdle of profitability.

Once I stopped expecting potential donors to remember my organization because it pulled at their heartstrings, and decided to approach them with something they would enjoy while at the same time highlighting our mission. We became a sustainable organization for the last 10 years.

Instead of asking for donations, we created a city-wide Mixology event. The tickets were the donor’s donation to our organization. Once there people could learn about what we do and why this event helps children, the bigger mission their donation supports, and how to be even more engaged if they wanted.

As a marketer, the key wasn’t to pump them for more funds that evening but to get as many email addresses as possible to continue speaking to them throughout the year!

If nonprofits can begin to combine business practices with a social mission, our industry can absolutely combat the challenge of profitability.

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?

Entrepreneurship is one of the few processes we start without having all of the answers. It can be one of the most grueling, exhilarating, frustrating, and fun journeys you’ll ever take. Over the last 20 years, I’ve started, pivoted, and closed quite a few businesses which is a rite of passage for most entrepreneurs.

As a business consultant and nonprofit founder, I understand the nuances between both types of businesses which allows me to work with a wide range of entrepreneurs. The biggest challenge I tend to see as a consultant is the mindset challenges we face as entrepreneurs. Sometimes consulting can be as simple as cheering someone on by letting them know they are on the right or that the challenges they are facing are completely normal. Other clients require step-by-step plans to help them build a sustainable business.

My favorite part of consulting is seeing my clients have an “aha” moment when they learn that missing link or have a good understanding of what strategy works best for their specific brand.

I like to focus on helping clients sift through all of the noise and advice to create a Strategic Brand Roadmap focused solely on their needs, strengths and abilities. Marketing a business is not a one-size-fits-all approach and I love helping my clients harness that mindset.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

YouTube has been hands down one of the best sources for new clients in my consulting business for both Social and for-profit entrepreneurs.

Focusing on YouTube content allowed me to create value for customers on demand. Whether they were searching for answers at 2 am or 2 pm, my content was available around the clock. This meant that new customers always had access to my sales funnel which led to consistent leads or new course sales.

I would recommend either writing or releasing videos on searchable media for anyone wanting to build a business or brand online.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson that I had to unlearn and that I currently teach students is that social media is not the answer to increasing profitability.

Social media is simply a tool to optimize your searchable media. If I could only choose one platform to rebuild a brand or create content for, it would be a searchable platform before social media.

Searchable content is much easier to serve up to a potential customer when they are actively searching rather than trying to catch them on social media with perfect timing.

Many of us spend countless hours on social media thinking that if we show up every day, we will gain a following. The unlearnning process is realizing that social media is a place for people to scroll and be entertained or get a quick hit of information rather than take in long-form content and build a strong foundation of trust which a long-form article or video can do in one go. The customer searching for information is ultimately in control and can decide to continue further or move on to something else as opposed to a customer who is not searching for information and may not be in the correct mindset when the information is served via an algorithm.

This simple shift helped me learn where to spend my time and effort. Even after I stopped creating new videos, the old videos kept working while I slept, consistenlty bringing in new leads and customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ashleetate.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/ashleetate_
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/ashleelaunches

Image Credits
Katie Luther Photography