MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Join hosts Joseph Itaya and Anika Jackson as they dive into conversations with leaders and changemakers shaping the future of digital media. Each episode explores the frontier of multimedia, artificial intelligence, marketing, branding, and communication, spotlighting how emerging digital trends and technologies are transforming industries across the globe.
MEDIASCAPE is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. This online master’s program is designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Balancing Innovation and Empathy: Ashlie Marshall's Journey in Digital Marketing Leadership
Ashlie Marshall, a dynamic mompreneur and digital marketing leader, offers a masterclass in navigating the complexities of balancing career and family life. Discover how Ashley transitioned from retail and coaching to becoming the CFO of Tier Level Digital Marketing, where she skillfully blends structure with creativity. Her compelling journey from Baylor University to the forefront of digital marketing sheds light on her strategic approach to growth, underscoring the vital difference between managing tasks and leading people with empathy and vision.
Get ready to uncover the unexpected challenges of launching a podcast and how they mirror the intricacies of running a digital marketing agency. Ashley and I delve into the world of SEO, organic growth, and the role of AI in crafting innovative strategies. Our conversation takes us inside franchise systems, revealing how collaboration and adaptability are key to thriving in the ever-evolving digital landscape. We also reflect on the pandemic's impact and the rapid advancements in AI, which demand resilience and creativity.
Imposter syndrome and personal definitions of success weave through our conversation as we explore the continuous journey of self-improvement. Ashley's insights redefine success beyond financial metrics, emphasizing the importance of balancing work aspirations with personal fulfillment and family presence. Her empathetic leadership style shines through as she shares wisdom on nurturing team well-being and personal growth. This episode is a heartfelt exploration of thriving in the digital marketing world while maintaining the essence of what truly matters.
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital changemakers, a speaker series and podcast brought to you by USC Annenberg's Digital Media Management Program. Join us as we unlock the secrets to success in an increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2:I am thrilled to have another mompreneur, digital marketer and podcaster on the show who lives very near where I lived when I lived in Texas. Ashley Marshall, you are the CFO of Pure Level Digital Marketing and you also have a podcast that you host with your CEO, c-suite Chicks, so thank you for being here today.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes, I enjoyed learning all about where you were living when you were in Texas. It's a great place to be. It's hot all the time, but it's great yes.
Speaker 2:I'd love to talk about your journey a little bit. You went to Baylor, you studied business, then you had roles at a couple of other organizations before moving into this space.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right. Yeah, baylor wasn't my first choice since you brought it up. I wanted to go to a big state school. My parents were very devout in keeping us in private institutions for all of our school, from, you know, first grade on, and I had an older sister who went there and my parents were already familiar with it. It was close to home. They were like nope, that's where you're going. And I was like all righty, yeah, I understand that, and I did enjoy it. You know not where I maybe wanted to go, but sometimes your, you know, parents guide you in a direction that you don't want to be in and then it ends up being fine Right. So I had a great experience.
Speaker 3:I did get my bachelor's in business administration, had no idea what I was going to do with that.
Speaker 3:I think every college student, you know, thinks they have this great plan and, you know, graduated, worked retail for a little bit, coached for a hot minute, and really enjoyed that, but really wanted to get into the professional world.
Speaker 3:So, little by little, I just would gain a role, and then I kept working with a recruiter and so every now and then a new role would come along and the opportunity was good, and so every now and then a new role would come along and the opportunity was good and so I would move into that new role and that just kind of unfolded, you know, for over the course of a decade basically, and I landed at a place where I met some great contacts and that kind of led me to different places and that was kind of how I ended up at Terry Level. It was more so my work and my doing and communicating and building relationships, which I learned I was actually pretty good at over time, and that was how I came on as an account manager with Terry Level. So I was very client facing, did a lot of the behind the scenes work, but my main role was to communicate with the clients all about everything that we were doing, and then over time that morphed into being in charge of paying the bills.
Speaker 2:It's funny how that happens, because I'm a communication person but I've also worked in the finance side and analytics and analytics and you know the forecasting and the PNLs and all of that. It's not my favorite thing, but it is a skill set I have, so sometimes I get pigeonholed into it. So I'd love to hear about your experience going from one to the other. And do you enjoy finance? Is that a place that you wanted to move into?
Speaker 3:You know I don't dislike finance. I do enjoy the structure. My counterpart at work, whitney. She always says my brain is like a waffle and everything has its little box. And that is very much how my brain works, although I would never have described it that way, but she did it very eloquently. So I do love the very structured side of finance. Everything has a place, everything has a dot, everything you know, so on and so forth. But the other part of what I have a heavy hand in is the strategy I love is the strategy. I love strategizing.
Speaker 3:Okay, if we move this piece here, how does that trickle down and affect all of these pieces and people over here? How can we strategically position that to where everybody benefits? And if maybe there is somebody or something that doesn't benefit, how can we lighten the blow right? Or how can we pivot that from being a negative to into something positive? I do think over the years I have gotten very good at being confronted with a problem and immediately strategizing a solution or a way to spin it out of being something negative into being something positive that's going to help us or propel us forward.
Speaker 3:That takes a lot of practice. It doesn't just happen, it takes a lot of practice, but I have enjoyed that side of it, so I don't dislike the finance part. Some of the task work is mundane, like you said the P&Ls and the this and the that. Sometimes that can be redundant every month doing the same thing. But the information that gets put in those P&Ls and gets pulled from different parts changes and watching the company grow or struggle either one has been fun to see. Oh well, we made these massive changes over here and six months later this is what happened and this was how we saw it affect us. And learning those trends and pivoting them to have a better outcome is fun.
Speaker 2:I feel like Well, we'll definitely talk about strategy and changes in the roles of finance and digital and everything that your organization does, but I want to talk about you mentioned strategy and leadership and how you've grown into these different leadership roles over time. What do you think it takes to be a good leader of an organization? Because people often confuse management and leadership. Right, and they are two different skill sets and two different things. You should have both if you're going to be a leader.
Speaker 3:but Defining good leadership? Wow, there's so many pieces to that. Answering that question, I think the biggest disconnect between you said management and leadership is understanding that management and leadership are different. They can work together, they can be things that are happening at the same time, but they're different. Managing a group of people and you, obviously, as a manager, you have your goals that were either given to you like these are the things that you need to achieve, or you've set them for yourself and for your team. Your job as a manager is not to tell everybody what to do. Your job is to trust that they know what to do and when they don't have your door open so they can come ask you for help and be ready to support them.
Speaker 3:Leadership is showing people how to behave through how you behave, how you speak to them, how you treat them. Being a leader is recognizing when somebody's struggling in an area and stepping into them privately and saying, hey, I recognize these things. I want you to know I'm here to help you in any way that you need. If you need me to leave you alone to figure it out, I will do that to a certain extent and step in when needs be, but I want you to know I'm here to support you and you. Let them guide their own piece of that ship and let them know you're there when they need it. Management making sure the tasks are done, making sure that goals are met, making sure that all the little tidbit pieces that need to fall into place are doing that properly in a timeline.
Speaker 3:But leadership you're showing people how to behave. You're showing people how to treat each other. You're showing people how to behave. You're showing people how to treat each other. You're showing people how to show up to work every day. You're showing people how to be present in meetings and not multitask. By not multitasking in meetings right, it's really hard to do that sometimes, but recognizing that your behavior is going to be mirrored.
Speaker 3:So you can't get frustrated. I say it all the time. It's just like being a parent. You cannot get frustrated when your kid comes at you and says something to you that you just said to them two days ago because, hello, you just showed them how to do it. So if you want people to treat each other a certain way, to behave a certain way, to show up to meetings a certain way, to be on time, to dress a certain way, do those things yourself.
Speaker 3:And the biggest piece is when you make a mistake or when you screw something up or you make a decision that was just crap, own it, own it, own it, because if you pass it off as somebody else's fault when you know it was yours, they see that behavior and guess what's gonna happen? Two weeks later they're gonna do the same exact thing. No, I always say all the time own your you know what and claim it like that was my screw up. I did that my bad. Here's how I'm going to fix it. But that's leadership, right Management making sure all the Legos stack on top of each other in order. Leadership is showing people how to behave while they're doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're talking about being vulnerable, transparent, authentic, honest, empathetic as a leader, and I think those are things we've seen people need more of in the workforce. I mean, we both mentioned before we got on we're both moms. It's not just moms, right. It's not just a company. There are so many dads that I speak to as well who also want some flexibility or need that, and that has to be part of it too understanding that things might come up in our personal lives that will affect our roles of work or vice versa, and managing through those situations by being open and honest to our leaders as well, yeah, and helping them understand what we're at and you know being brave to do that, and that's something I try to instill in my students a lot. Yeah, they also have to speak up and advocate for themselves, because otherwise people don't know what's going on and they might be penalized for something. That's right. That is something they can't avoid.
Speaker 3:That's so true. You use the word be brave. I mean I talk with you, know my kids about being brave all the time, and it applies so intensely to your workday Because there are times where you don't know what you're doing. Like man, I'm not sure if I should do this. I'm really terrified it's going to completely tank. Do it anyway. That's bravery. Doing it even though you're scared to do it, moving forward even though you're terrified about the next step, like, just do it.
Speaker 3:And standing up for yourself and advocating for yourself in a respectful way is powerful. And I just got done conducting a meeting last week where I said you can say anything you want in this meeting as long as it's respectful. And I remember being a teenager sitting at my dad's kitchen table because I did something stupid and we were having a come to Jesus talk. You know, ashley, get your you know what together. And my dad always was like you can say whatever you want to say in this, at this table, but you have to be respectful. And you know, as a kid, you roll your eyes, you're like, oh, dad, fine. So you have to like, check your attitude and speak differently, otherwise he's going to shut it down, you're going to be punished. You know which is different as an adult. But saying that to a group of adults, they all understood it. They understood the assignment. They showed up, they expressed what they were feeling. Even if what they were feeling was taken as an insult or taken as a challenge, it was said respectfully and they advocated for themselves and they stood up for themselves and they came to an understanding.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, we feel the exact same way. We're just sucking at communicating about it, right? So you can get to that point. If you treat each other with respect and you be brave about what you're saying and cautious about how you're saying it, you're going to make so much ground with people and having that empathy for one another. You said it moms and dads, the role of a dad is changing these days. I mean, my husband is incredible. We are a team. If he was not around, we would. We were in dirty clothes all the time. He is like amazing. We work together so well. Well, his strengths and my strengths, and there are so many men out there that are like that.
Speaker 3:So you're absolutely right, it's a parent thing when you're taking care of other humans, whether your mom or dad.
Speaker 2:It is a lot of work I also feel like there is some people think of this as a disadvantage in the world of work, but I think it's an advantage, because you already had to help somebody you know as a guide and I really feel like they have personalities that are pretty much fully formed, without much we can do about it, but we can be their guide and we can kind of help them learn what's right and wrong and just be there for them, and I think that helps us in the world of work. It helps us be more empathetic and it helps us view things in different lenses. Was that part of the impetus behind C-Suite Chicks, your podcast?
Speaker 3:C-Suite Chicks. It came about because her and I moving into these roles that we have now was a very intense journey for lots of different reasons. We've been working together since I came onto the team in 2018. And I think some of the challenges we have faced have been things people don't normally experience in a basic role at a company, and I started listening to podcasts maybe a year into working at tier level and I was listening to non-business podcasts and a couple of the women that I listened to they were just really encouraging. You know, like you can do, xyz, you have this power. Some of them were rooted in faith, some of them are rooted in just you know, your personal everyday life, and I found it encouraging. And so over the course of the last 18 months, I've just been like I know somebody out there is experiencing this same crap that we are now going through or we went through six months ago, and if we can talk about it and talk about what happened, how we faced it, what we did that got us through, that can help somebody, that can give somebody the tools that they didn't already have, and if I would have had that when I was listening to these other podcasts that were already encouraging but could have helped me on the business side. It would have been massive to me. So I want to do that for other people. I want to talk about the muck that I have walked through and cleaned up, and some of walked through and cleaned up and some of it I haven't and some of it I still don't know what to do with. But I'm figuring it out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what has been the most interesting or surprise aspect of starting a podcast and putting it out there in the world were stronger and I think one of the biggest things. I was like oh, it's going to be so fun. We're just going to get to talk to each other and talk about these topics and have this structure. It's going to be great. And then you start doing it and you're like what am I going to talk about next time? Who wants to hear me ramble? Nobody wants to hear me ramble. I'm just basically listening to myself rambling. Who cares? Right? The biggest challenge for me has been being like so what Do it anyway? That brave aspect, right? So what Do it anyway? Keep going forward. And that has been the biggest surprise Me thinking that it was going to be fun and rose colored and it's not, and it is fun. Yes, I will say that it's so fun. I love getting on and having our conversations. The prep side of it was more than what I expected it to be, I guess.
Speaker 3:And so that has been the biggest challenge. People hear other people do podcasts all the time. It takes a lot of work to do a podcast.
Speaker 2:It's a business and you have to treat it like one. It is.
Speaker 3:It's a business and you have to treat it like one. Like it is.
Speaker 2:It's a full-time business on top of your business.
Speaker 3:And we have a team of people that help us, and I'm like how did these other amazing women start these podcasts by themselves and still have a full-time job? I don't know how they did it, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's definitely not easy, but it's worth it.
Speaker 3:So that right, there is all I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it. I'm really curious now to hear more about the agency side of things. What do you cover in the digital ecosystem? And of course, we have to talk about when you started with the company, with the agency, and then we went through a pandemic and then you, you know, generative AI became a thing.
Speaker 2:There's also financial modeling, a lot of AI on that thing, so that let the first, let's talk about what you all actually do and then talk about some of those hurdles and how you're utilizing. You know you survived the. Now are you using the high toll? Yeah.
Speaker 3:We did, thankfully so. So our digital marketing focus is on SEO, your organics. We have begun to dabble a little bit in the ad space. Majority of our clients are in a franchise system and they are part of the same franchise system and they have a corporate office that was privately, like family, owned and operated, and then they sold to an investor group and so once the investor group took over, they have kind of corporatized things a little bit, right, all for the purpose of growth. Right, they want to grow it. I'm not sure what the investment company's plan is but with this franchise system, but they are doing everything they can to put more structure, put more of a corporate feel from the inside, less of a mom-pop type operation. Right, they're making good decisions, they're moving in the right area and some of the things that they have relinquished to the franchises to be in control of and some things they've kind of taken control of right. So they've kind of shifted things around here and there and that kind of opened the door for us to offer local service ads through Google. So that works really well for that franchise system. Those LSAs are a very powerful tool for them to grow their business. So we focus on their organic, which is focusing on optimizing listings and using specific listing platforms to help optimize.
Speaker 3:In other areas. We work on their sites where we can. There are some areas where we can't do anything to their sites, but then there's content pieces that we can write refresh, which is where AI kind of comes in hand. There, right, we don't use AI to write anything. We use AI to generate ideas. When you're writing for the same industry every day for years and years, you need a little help getting creative sometimes. So that's how we have incorporated the use of AI in our work. We still have humans write everything word for word. So organics, listing sites, we do social media, we build content calendars. We do very minimal ads. There. Our focus is mostly content driven right. Content creation, strategic vision, marketing wise.
Speaker 3:We have some larger clients that we do full on marketing strategy with them. We strategize with them quarterly basis, meet with them on a biweekly basis, talk about results, talk about analytics. Right, we do those. Those bigger clients really appreciate that because essentially the way that we function is as an extension of their in-house marketing team. That is, more boots on the ground, networking, building relationships, getting corporate contracts, things like that, where everything that we do on the digital side supports their team that's out doing the work and meeting the people and building the relationships. So we very much strive to work together with our clients in that way. So it kind of sets us apart from other digital marketing agencies where they're like oh, just send us some photos and then we'll push out content for you. We take a whole-bodied approach to their marketing. We want to grow their business. We don't want to just check the box and move on.
Speaker 3:We want to see our clients go from owning three licenses to owning 10, which we've seen over the course of the last few years, 30% of our clients have increased the number of licenses that they've owned with this franchise system. Some clients we started off they had one and now they've got seven or 22. So I mean it's amazing to watch them grow and we're a part of that. We're a part of that because we care, so that's part. That is what we do as a digital marketing company. I mentioned a little bit about AI.
Speaker 3:When AI first kind of launched and became a thing, right, we had literally just shifted from using a third partyparty company to write our blogs to writing them in-house.
Speaker 3:We minimized how many blogs we were producing and it allowed us to write better content and write content that actually generated results in analytics. And when we noticed that we're like, okay, now we can't go backwards, right, but what we did use AI for it did help us to create more long form content, because the ideas that we were able to generate from incorporating AI into the strategy sessions we were having really helped open up some of the topics that we were writing about, helped open up some of the topics that we were writing about and it also allowed us to create longer form outlines and then build in you know what our real people were writing and putting it into a long form content piece. That was more effective in certain areas. We use it every now and then to assist us with social content Again, idea driven, not necessarily copy and paste content. We do not use AI for any of our graphics.
Speaker 3:We have real people that create our graphics and they joke all the time about AI graphics. We have like a group text chat with our whole entire company on this one chat and our graphics team will throw in random AI generated graphics and you know. Then your phone goes off a hundred times in two minutes. But AI is a powerful tool. It's a great supportive tool and it has assisted us in being more efficient with our work, but we definitely have not leaned on it to actually complete our work.
Speaker 2:What you're describing is the perfect use case of how we need to look at AI tools yes, as tools, not as complete replacements.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 3:I spoke at a conference about this exact thing. It's so crucial that you know we are intentional with how we teach the younger generation to use these tools, and the thing about it for me is that these tools evolve so rapidly. Evolve so rapidly, so right, as you have figured out. Okay, this is how I'm going to educate my kid or this group of children. If you're a teacher, god bless you. If you were a teacher and you were trying to teach the younger generation how to utilize these tools effectively. The minute you figure out how to do that, it changes and it shifts and the climate is different and you're having to figure it all out all over again. So it is imperative that we understand that they're a tool. It's a tool to be used. You wouldn't use a wrench to unscrew the screw on the wall, right? You have to understand how to use the tool, what it's useful for, how it can amplify what you're doing.
Speaker 2:not do it for you, yeah exactly what about on the finance side? I'm on the Intuit Small Business Council this year when we went to Congress because we go every year to talk about issues for small businesses and this year, ai powers Main Street and the understanding that mom and pops need to understand how to use these tools as enhancements, not as replaces, but it'll help them streamline their efficiencies, and if you don't know how to use these tools, you're going to get left behind. But we also. I hear a lot from the finance world that AI has been running the markets and I know that a lot of tools like Intuit products have a lot of AI behind them, because that's how they figure out if somebody's at credit risk or if they can loan money to somebody or their partners. So I'd love to hear about have you experienced anything as a CFO with AI tools and AI capabilities again to help streamline processes or take over menial tasks, but not to replace you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know that's a really good question. I have been learning more and more about where I can put in good use of AI. We are a smaller operation, so on the small business side and I am pretty much the entire finance department most days. I do have some people that support me here and there with small tasks, but as I have been setting aside time to learn more about AI, I have not experienced any challenges in terms of applying it in certain areas. In terms of applying it in certain areas Very minimally right now, just because I am such a small operation on that side. But I have been learning about it a lot and understanding how companies like Intuit have kind of put it on the back end of certain things, using tools and QuickBooks specifically to help me project.
Speaker 3:Okay, if this is where we are now and this is what's in our pipeline, if those pipelines close, where will we be in six months? Where will we be in 12 months? And being able to report on that to my board meeting, right To the board of directors? But being able to learn more about the plans that companies like Intuit have for AI is more intriguing to me than figuring out how to use it on my day-to-day. I don't know that my role in our company will ever be on a landscape that will require me, to you know, actually apply the use of AI for my own benefit, outside of tools like what Intuit uses and other areas. For me, ai learns, evolves, grows, and how quickly it can create tunnel vision, if that makes sense, like it's not intended to be used that way. But again, if you don't know how to feed it data to generate what you're looking for, then you're going to go in a very wrong rabbit hole.
Speaker 3:Yes, very much so, again, it's a supportive tool and I did attempt to use it in one spot and I terrified myself and was like, oh my gosh, the company's going down. And then I was like, wait, wait, wait, read these blogs over here. And I was like, oh, I'm an idiot I did that, we're not going down.
Speaker 3:And then I was like, wait, wait, wait, read these blogs over here and I was like oh, I'm an idiot, I did that, we're not going there. I did that, that was me. Let's back the truck up here. So I have had, you know, a little playtime I guess you would call it where I was trying to forecast certain things and I did it completely wrong.
Speaker 2:But you know, it's really us to hear that because you are a CFO, the majority of businesses are in that small to medium-sized business structure. So, your experience is going to be much more typical of how to utilize tools and how to figure out how to train them appropriately than most large organizations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I will say like if it were four years ago, it would have scared me enough to be like I'm never doing it again. But I know better. You can't do something wrong and then be like I'm never going to do that again. That's not efficient, that doesn't create growth, that doesn't, you know, create forward motion. So you do something. It terrifies you and you say, okay, why did it terrify me? How can I do it differently next time? And then next time. And then you try again, and you try again, and you try again. So I'm getting there.
Speaker 2:I've got a little bit more research to do before I try it again, but I'll keep you updated awesome, and this really goes into my next couple of questions, which are because we talked earlier about you have to just put yourself out there. You have to be brave, and you just said you're learning how to use these tools. You're not always doing it correctly, but you have to just keep trying and you have to keep iterating. Yeah, have there been points in your career, as you've moved up, that you've had imposter syndrome, that you've had to really think about? What does success mean to you and where do you really want to be and what do you want to achieve?
Speaker 3:Yes, all the time. Every week, every Monday, when I sit down and I look at my planner because I have a written planner, I have my calendars, my schedule, events on my phone but tasks, projects where I'm at things like that, I write it down in a planner. Tasks, projects where I'm at things like that, I write it down in a planner. And every Monday when I sit down and I'm like, oh my gosh, what makes me think that I can get that stuff done? I don't know how to do that right there, that one thing that I'm supposed to do on Wednesday. I don't even know what that is. I don't even know how to do it. I don't figure it out, I don't know. I have a meeting on Thursday with somebody who knows a lot more about accounting than I do. I am not an accountant, I'm not a CPA and I do not pretend to be. But sometimes when I have meetings with them, I get very nervous because, first of all, they know so much more than me in certain areas and certain aspects of the financial health of the company and I'm trying to learn from them. But I get terrified and I'm like, okay, don't say anything, that's going to make you look stupid. And then I'm like you know what, five minutes before the meeting, I'm like it doesn't matter what I say, I know that I'm stupid in these areas. Like I know that I don't know what, I don't know and I'm going to be okay with that. It's okay to not know, it's okay to say I don't know, but I'll figure it out. It's okay to remind yourself I don't know how to do that right now, but I'm going to read this blog and I'm going to look at this video and I'm going to listen to this other lady who's done it a hundred times and I'm going to just try and I'm going to be okay with that. I have to get to that point. So imposter syndrome is fierce in my world every day, but I continue to educate myself. I continue to find articles to read, to find speeches where people are talking about how they learned or how they did something that I'm interested in or know that I need to figure out. I have countless books on accounting that I ordered that I've been reading over the course of the last two years.
Speaker 3:I took accounting in college. I understand the main concepts years I took accounting in college. I understand the main concepts, but I also know that the little things make a huge difference when it comes to taxes or when it comes to learning what the laws are. We operate in multiple states. I need to understand that concept right. So, understanding those small pieces and giving myself the grace to know I'm not going to know it all, I'm not going to know it all tomorrow. I'm not going to know it all. I'm not going to know it all tomorrow. I'm not going to know it all the day after that, but I'm going to keep educating myself and I'm going to keep making the effort to learn it. And as long as I'm doing that and I'm doing the best that I can, it's okay if I fail or screw up here and there, because when you fail when you mess up here and there, because when you fail, when you mess up, you learn how not to do it.
Speaker 3:You keep going, yeah, yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Yes, be sure, I appreciate how honest you're being in our conversation. I think it's really important for people to see and to hear that, no matter what you look like on the outside, how much success you've had, we all still have these thoughts, these insecurities, the areas that we strive to know more about, and learn more be better.
Speaker 2:So what does that look like in terms of success? Because you have built up your career, you've moved into higher and higher positions. I've had a lot of conversations lately with people where we're redefining success, and it's not just about the money you make, but it's also, as we mentioned at the very beginning do you have that time and intentionality to be able to take care of your family, whether that means you have to take a couple hours off to go to a game or a teacher meeting, or whatever the case may be?
Speaker 3:Yeah, gosh. So to understand what you define as success, you have to know what motivates you. Because money, yes, do I want to make more money all the time?
Speaker 3:right, my kids' crap costs a million dollars all the time right, I always am going to want to make more money, but that's not what motivates me. That's not what makes me show up in this office and get on my computer and do my work. What motivates me is knowing that there's 35 other families that are dependent on the health and wealth of the company, and that's important to me. That motivates me to get up and work. It motivates me to lead my team to becoming the people they want to become, not the employee they want to become, but the person that they want to become, offering guidance, whatever little tidbits of wisdom that I have that I've learned along the way and hopefully we'll continue to learn.
Speaker 3:Sharing that, imparting that on other people, leading by example, doing what's right and good and true, is more meaningful and more motivating to me than my paycheck. It's nice to have a paycheck, it's wonderful to have a paycheck, but it makes me more feel better about being a good person and about being good people to others and showing them what that looks like. Showing my kids what it looks like to show up at work but also show up for them when they need me. Those are the things that motivate me and because that's what motivates me, my concept of success is I accomplished my to-do list today for work. I checked it all off, I built a new list for the next day and I'm left work at, at work, and I'm now picking up my kids from school and I'm present with them and at the end of the day, some days I really mess up at parenting and some days I really mess up at work, but if, at the end of the day, I'm like, okay, these are the things that I learned before I go to bed. What could I have done better today? But what did I kill it at? What did I just man, that was awesome. Okay, if I can sit down and go through those thoughts in my head, I've had a successful day. It's successful. It's not my title, it's not my role, it's not how I'm operating in the company. It's not how I'm operating in the company. It's not my paycheck, it's.
Speaker 3:When my kids went to bed, did they say Mommy, today was great, I love you. And they went to bed and they were happy. Or were they throwing a fit crying because none of us could regulate our emotions that day? I don't know. But at least I know they're in their bed, they're safe, they have a roof over their head, they've been fed. They have a roof over their head, they've been fed, they have a full belly. They're going to wake up and do it again tomorrow. And same thing with the company. Everybody came to work today. Maybe some people had a bad day, maybe some people had a great day, but our clients are growing, we are growing. Everything is moving in the right direction. It's a great day, it's a great month, it's a great year, and the doors are still open, families are still getting their paychecks and we're doing good. Success is what you make it, and for me, that's what it is.
Speaker 2:That's really beautiful in the. I don't want to say simplicity, but it is right. Yeah, it's so easy.
Speaker 3:I mean, no, it's not easy, it's simple, yeah.
Speaker 2:Definitely not easy. Those are the best moments, I think, for so many of us, when we take a step back and look at what life really means and what we want to be accomplishing, having those quiet moments, knowing that we have the calm that we have gotten done whatever we can do.
Speaker 3:And that tomorrow is another day. Be that we have gotten done whatever we can do and that tomorrow is another day. Be okay with your best. Yeah, don't expect superhuman powers. Like you're not, you're only you. You're only one person and you're only as good as all of the others that are helping you along the way. So give yourself grace, whether you're a mom or a dad, or even if you're not a parent and you feel stressed every day of your life. Give yourself grace, like be okay. I tried my best, I did the absolute best I could. If you didn't, well, do it again tomorrow, figure out how to put more effort in tomorrow so that you could say at the end of the day I did my best today. That's all I could do. I did everything I could. That was it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. Ashley Marshall, thank you so much for being on the show today. I want to ask one last question. Do you have a favorite quote, mantra, family motto, verse, words of wisdom that help you stay motivated every day?
Speaker 3:It always goes back to my dad, my dad always had these tidbits of things right.
Speaker 3:I didn't know what he meant when he said this and I thought it was ridiculous. But he used to say if you're the smartest person in the room, you've got to find another room. And I didn't understand that until like two years ago, but I'm definitely not the smartest person in my room, so I'm just going to keep growing and keep learning and keep showing up and maybe one day I'll have to find a different room, but right now I'm right where I need to be.
Speaker 2:That's really beautiful.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this has been fantastic. That's really beautiful. Thank you so much. Yeah, this has been fantastic, and we will link to the podcast in the show notes so everybody can give it a listen, a like, a follow, a review. We always love those as podcasters. Yes, we do, you're right, and thank you to everybody who's watching or listening to this episode. I hope that you found it as meaningful and thinking through your career, your trajectory, your definition of success, success and how you can build up to being that empathetic leader that Ashley has shown us by example in her words today.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you very much for having me and I'm always available to reach out to me on LinkedIn, answer your questions. Maybe I'll have some questions for you.
Speaker 1:Fantastic To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital Media Management program. Visit us on the web at dmmuscedu.
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