We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Ladd a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I officially dove in head first and decided to be completely self employed, and only self employed in March of  2020. That’s already a risk, right? but it turns out that less than a week later Texas was declared state of emergency due to COVID-19. We were all in a complete world of unknown and I was in that world as a new business owner, it was so surreal. As we slowly started to go back to our new normal and we were able to celebrate milestones again, wedding season came back full force. I quickly found myself fully involved in the bridal industry and had really fallen in love it. Word of mouth spreads quickly and it lead to over 55 wedding in 2021.

Without taking that risk and continuing to trust the process during such a hard time in 2020, I don’t know that I would have experienced such growth so quickly. It really encouraged me to trust myself. I built great confidence in myself and my ability to thrive under pressure, to adapt to changes and confront challenges in business head on in a way that best works for me and my clients. I’m confident in saying bridal is my specialty and my business has really been shaped around the bridal boom after pandemic. I’m not sure how my business would look currently if I didn’t push through. You have to believe in yourself and that you’re capable accomplishing your goals.

Ashley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started in the beauty industry in 2009 when I started working in a major retail beauty store. I had absolutely no prior product knowledge, application knowledge, or skincare knowledge. I knew next to nothing about anything cosmetic related but my resume somehow landed me the job. After getting a great deal of training, I was able to start applying makeup and interacting with clients, I absolutely loved it. I grew a decent clientele throughout the years while working there, after I left I had several clients reach out for freelancing work. I may have left beauty sales but I was never quite able to leave my love for makeup artistry behind. In 2016 I was asked to jump in for a photoshoot last minute when a MUA was unable to fulfill their agreement and I just never stopped. I worked frequently with that photographer and it kept growing from there. I was taking in freelancing work for photoshoots almost weekly with various photographers throughout our area. Through the years my clients have continued to be loyal and share my name with friends and family, that has blessed me with the ability to create Ashley Ladd Makeup Artistry in 2020 and to keep it going. Since 2020 I have added 3 commercials, publishings , I’ve completed over 100 weddings and I continue to offer makeup sessions for photoshoots, events, and makeup classes. I am hoping to add more experience and services in 2023

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I love my clients. Truly. I think most of not all of my reviews say that I felt like a friend or someone they’ve known for years. I think this is because I’m truly interested in who my clients are. I want to create a unique to them bridal dream boat of a makeup look. And for that to happen, I want every detail. I want to know their colors, bouquet inspiration, images of their dress, their venue, who their photographer is. They are all little puzzle pieces into her personality and when all of those pieces come together at the very end and she becomes emotional, seeing herself when everything has come together, it really feels like magic, it’s her personality reflected in all of those details come to life. It’s really special to be part of.  I also want to know what brought you to me. If it was a picture, website, a referral, maybe we’ve worked together. I am so grateful that they are in my seat and I try my best to really exceed the expectations they have for our session. It’s really fun to see a shift in the way they move after seeing the end result, sometimes it’s a total confidence change.

All of this and our time together creates a friendship. I have so many sessions that started as engagements, then wedding day, maternity and have just grown from there. It’s really fun to have a little behind the scenes seat to their milestones through life. People can feel when you are genuine and genuinely care about them. With authenticity and delivering quality work, loyalty naturally comes with that.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

You can’t stop. It can get seriously discouraging when you aren’t getting the results that you need on social media but you have to push through. You have to commit to posting as often as possible and keep sharing. It takes time but you see those small improvements and they get bigger as time goes on.

Contact Info:

• Website: ashleyladdmakeupartistry.net
• Instagram: ashladdmua
• Facebook: ashleylmua

Image Credits
Taviann Young Photography LLC