IAM2160 – Founder Helps Businesses Build Robust Marketing Strategies

Ashley emphasizes the importance of not putting all your eggs in one basket and incorporating several channels like social media, email, blog, PR, paid ads, and SEO for better results.

Website: Dash of Social 
Other: Massachusetts Business Network
LinkedIn: Ashely Mason
Facebook: Dash of Social

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Transcription:

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Ashley Mason Teaser 00:00

So we support small businesses and tech startups with their social media, email marketing, blog content. And we also offer marketing strategy and consulting because we do have clients who have an in-house marketing team, but they really need someone to provide that strategic direction and overall creative intentions and whatnot. So we can focus on the done for you services or the done with you services.

Intro 00:24

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:52

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest back on the show today. I have Ashley Mason. Ashley, excited to have you on the show.

Ashley Mason 01:00

Yeah, thank you so much for having me again here, Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 01:02

Absolutely. Super excited to have you on. And Ashley is a returning guest, and she's done so many phenomenal things. So of course, before we jump in and hear a little bit more about that, I want to read a little bit more about Ashley so you can hear about some of what she's been able to work on. And Ashley is the founder of Dash of Social, a content marketing agency specializing in social media management, blog content and email marketing. Working closely with their clients, Ashley and her team help small businesses and tech startups craft and execute value-driven marketing strategies designed to establish thought leadership, grow online communities and drive brand awareness.

Additionally, Ashley founded Massachusetts Business Network in 2022, which is the only statewide publication that provides free to low-cost resources that support organizations with increasing their visibility and establishing thought leadership through its podcast, blog, and directory. Ashley is a graduate of Stonehill College, where she received a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with a Concentration in Marketing. She's a TEDx speaker and has been named 40 under 40 honorees by Kate and Plymouth Business Media. It was recognized as a best social media specialist by Boston Business Women as well. Ashley currently serves as the board member of the Brockton Visiting Nurse Association, Middleboro Public Library, and South Shore Young Professionals Network. And when she isn't working, you could find her running on running on her peloton or crawled up on the couch with her book. And I absolutely love everything that Ashley is doing. She was on episode number 236 of our podcast.

So you have to make sure you check that out. But one of the things I was doing when I was reading a little bit more about her and what she worked on, hadn't realized that when she was younger, her and her three sisters used to pretend they would go buy things from one another with toy bunny and that I am sure plants and seeds for all the awesome entrepreneurial things that she's doing. And I love that she started a blog, I believe when she was 15. And then one of the reasons she started Dash to Social was actually because her mom had cancer, I believe. And that was one of the things that kind of spurred her to do all the awesome things. So I truly appreciate you, Ashley, as much as we want to know what you do, we want to know why you do it. So thank you so much for being such an inspiration coming back on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Ashley Mason 03:11

I am ready.

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Gresham Harkless 03:12

Awesome. Let's get it started then. So I know I touched on it a little bit, so let's rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on what you've been working on when I call your CEO story.

Ashley Mason 03:20

Yeah, so my company is Dash of Social, as you mentioned. It's a content marketing agency based here in Massachusetts. So we really thrive on supporting clients with what I call the trifecta of content marketing. So really marrying their social media, email marketing, and blog content efforts. When I had started my company, it was back in 2016. I was a sophomore in college, so I believe the first time that I was on the show, I was still in school.

But when I graduated, actually 5 years ago as of this week, I took Dash of Social full time and have been really growing it even more since then and really being able to step into that CEO role. So I'm very grateful to have a steady roster of dozens of clients that we support each month, and also an incredibly talented team who can help to manage the day-to-day aspects and management of our clients' accounts. So that way, I'm able to take more of that CEO role and position and work on overseeing the business, being able to grow it and helping to support as many people as possible.

Gresham Harkless 04:19

Nice, I absolutely love that, especially because I think so many times when I think of starting this podcast, one of the reasons I wanted to do that was so we can hear about the journey, the steps, all of those things that have happened because I think so many times you hear all the accolades and stances that you've been able to accomplish, but you don't always hear what that process is, what that ultimately looks like.

Ashley Mason 04:38

Yes, absolutely. And I think for me, a lot of that came out of the pandemic. Ultimately, you probably saw this with Blue16 media, but with my marketing agency, I was fortunate with the fact that the pandemic just exploded things for us because anyone and everyone was coming online. But because I was accepting all of these new projects left and right, it was really exciting that it happened at the time when I was in my first full year of entrepreneurship, but it got to the point where I hit severe burnout in 2021.

And so that's been a huge change that I've made for myself is really transitioning out of that workaholic mindset and tendency that I had for the first 5 years of my business, because it got to the point where I realized that the way that I was carrying on or the work mentality that I had wasn't sustainable. And so I realized that something ultimately had to change and that really led me to lean more on the incredibly talented team that I hired to help execute the things and understand that I didn't need to keep doing everything myself.

Gresham Harkless 05:35

Yeah, absolutely. And it is such a powerful thing to realize that even though you can do a lot of things, you shouldn't do all the things. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more on how it is to work with you, Ashley. So could you take us through exactly what that process looks like? And of course, I wanna hear more about that trifecta as well too and how you all are executing there.

Ashley Mason 05:54

Of course. So we support small businesses and tech startups with their social media, email marketing, blog content. And we also offer marketing strategy and consulting because we do have clients who have an in-house marketing team but they really need someone to provide that strategic direction and overall creative intentions and whatnot. So we can focus on the done for you services or the done with you services. Ultimately, I like to break it down. I'd say 95% of our clients come to us for social media management specifically because everyone knows how important it is to have a consistent value-driven online presence, but many people decide social media and they'd rather not be managing it themselves, which I totally understand.

So that's where we really come in to support them. However, I've also always felt with marketing that it's best not to put all of your eggs in one basket. So don't put all of your eggs in just the social media basket. And of course, you get the best results when you focus on building a well-rounded and diverse marketing strategy. So not just looking at 1 channel, but incorporating several channels like the social email blog, PR, paid ads, whatever it might be, SEO, like what Gresh does. Being able to incorporate all of those pieces gives you much better results and makes a much bigger impact.

So we've really focused on probably over the past two or so years, specifically shifting more towards the companies who have that mindset of well of wanting to build like a really robust marketing strategy that covers all of the bases and really being able to support them with those efforts. So it's nice to still work with the smaller companies based here in the state and even across the country. But it's also been really exciting that over the past probably two years, we've ventured more into the tech startup space and have been able to support these fast growing high pace, like really exciting endeavors and being able to dive in and help to support those needs.

Gresham Harkless 07:46

Yeah, I absolutely love that. I almost wonder when you were able to launch the business network, do you feel like because in a of course, put words in your mouth, that you had that passion to be able to help serve. But as you were able to develop that, do you feel like that helped you to be able to find and be able to serve the ideal clients you worked with because you had developed something that could help them out?

Ashley Mason 08:08

Yeah, exactly. So I feel like over the past, maybe 2 to 3 years, we've started to transition more into reaching and supporting more of those like bigger companies. So they still might be, they still might fit the definition of what a quote unquote small businesses, cause small businesses like can have up to 500 employees or something like that. So they're still technically a small business, but we're just able to work with companies that have more budgeting and more resources to work with, but being able to support those solo business owners or those smaller companies was of course really important to me still because that's where how everyone starts out. Everyone starts out by themselves and I think that they still 1000% deserve the time, attention and support.

But it got to the point where it's like, we just didn't align with what the services we were offering and what they were able to dedicate to that. So as you mentioned, Massachusetts Business Network was the perfect resource to launch for them because I could say, we might not be able to support you in this capacity, but here's a free resource that will give you so many helpful things beyond marketing. You can look at finance, law, HR, there will be so many other resources available for them and we are still able to provide way to give those resources and whatnot, which felt really good to me because I didn't want to feel like I was ultimately leaving them in the dust.

Gresham Harkless 09:25

Yeah, I commend you for being able to do that. So I almost wonder if you feel like that's part of your secret sauce or the secret sauce of the company or combination of both is your ability to be able to have, I know you have that shiny object syndrome, which I do as well too, but do you feel like that is one of the superpowers because it allows you to be able to look at things in a different and unique way?

Ashley Mason 09:45

Exactly. And so being able to understand where something might not make sense anymore, but still being able to provide the support and resources where you can, I think is so important for just being able to do what lights you have ultimately? And that's what I find is just being able to support as many people as possible is what really excites me and motivates me to do what I do every single day.

Gresham Harkless 10:06

Yeah. So that's a huge thing. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Book or even a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Ashley Mason 10:16

Oh, I love this question. So for me, it was actually taking control of my schedule. For the longest time, I feel like I didn't control my schedule, my schedule controlled me. And I'm in that aspect more of a calendar. So I'm talking specifically about meetings that many people typically tend to dread, but it got to the point where I think probably about 20, 22-ish, I started to realize that my calendar was just filling with calls all day every day, which led me with minimal time to actually get the work done that I needed to do. Most of the time, pretty much all of those calls would lead me with more work or more tasks to do once they were over.

So I was in this never-ending hamster wheel of having a million meetings or what felt like a million meetings on my calendar each week, but having no time to actually get the work done. And so I said to myself, how can I change this so that way I have the space to focus on these deep work sessions and not feel so overwhelmed because I'm just in Zoom meetings or on phone calls all day? And so I actually decided to make a huge change and adjusted the availability that I had in my Calendly to really only accept meetings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. So previously, I think I had it Tuesdays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Anyone could book a call during that time and those days were always filled.

But I started to realize that I work best when I have several hours uninterrupted to just dive right into my work and get it all done in one swoop. And so I decided to make that change to really limit the amount of time I'm spending in meetings each week. Of course, I'm flexible if for the clients that I really enjoy working with or if something needs to get done outside of that time-frame, I'm absolutely happy to accommodate that. But as much as possible, I try to just squeeze everything into those 24 hour shifts.

And the productivity that skyrocketed out of that change was incredible. Now I have Mondays fully to myself to just catch up over the weekend and dive right into things. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to again, to have those deep work sessions and just tackle the first 5 hours or so of the day, just working on stuff. And then Thursdays, I'm really able to focus on my internal projects. So my own marketing, I can focus on Massachusetts Business Network on that day. And then it leaves me Fridays to either have off completely, which I typically do in the summer, or focus on fun things like this, like doing podcast interviews and whatnot, and the things that really lighten me up and give me a lot of excitement.

So It's incredible how many meetings there are that truly don't need to be a meeting. That really could just be an email or even like a quick voice message. And making that change actually made me realize that there were so many things that I was scheduling meetings for that truly didn't need to be on my calendar. So I just couldn't believe how much time I got back into my schedule by making that change. And just seeing the amount of output I was able to increase because of the fact that I had several more hours under my belt throughout each week.

Gresham Harkless 13:15

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So what would you get stated to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you happen to a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Ashley Mason 13:28

So one thing that I wish I had always done right from the beginning was followed my gut or ultimately listened to my intuition. Especially when I just started my business, I would accept any and every client and project that came my way because I wanted the experience and I wanted the money. And even if I got that red flag, I would ignore it and continue with the project anyway. And I'd say probably 95% of the time, those red flags were right. Like any time I felt that wrong feeling, I ended up being right in some capacity. And so I'm a firm believer in the fact that I will always value my peace and my sanity over money.

And so if I get that feeling that comes to me, if I'm speaking with a potential client or speaking with the about a potential project and I'm like, something about this just doesn't really feel right. I honor that. And granted, there have been times where I felt worried about something, but it ended up being my imposter syndrome that was speaking, not necessarily red flags. It really had to actually differentiate between the two and realize when something is just me doubting myself and also realize when something is just really not a good fit. But long story short, I wish I did that right from the beginning, was just listen to myself and believe myself when I got the wrong feeling about something because it's always led to headaches and difficult situations down the line.

Gresham Harkless 14:45

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So what I ask you now, my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and our goals to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Ashley, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ashley Mason 14:56

Being a CEO to me means to be able to focus on my passions that really inspire me and lighten me up every day, which of course is supporting businesses and being able to incorporate several fun and creative marketing strategies while also adhering to a lifestyle that's important to me. So even though I love being a business owner, I know that being a business owner should not be my full identity. I know that I'm also a friend. I'm a fiance. I'm a daughter. I'm a sister. I have so many other identities that I have. And so being able to be that CEO gives me the opportunity to fulfill those other roles in my life and ensure that I'm reaching the life goals that I have and being able to live a life that I love.

Gresham Harkless 15:35

Nice. I absolutely love that definition, that perspective. So Ashley, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best people can get a hold of you. Find about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Ashley Mason 15:52

Dash of Social or if you're based here in Massachusetts, Massachusetts Business Network. My social media handles for both of those companies across all platforms are Dash of Social and Massachusetts Business Network.

Gresham Harkless 16:04

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And of course, to make everything even easier, we'll have the links and information that's shown us as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you, find out about all the awesome things. But I truly appreciate you for coming back on and all the awesome things that you're doing. And I appreciate you for all the awesome things you're doing.

Ashley Mason 16:17

Yeah, I appreciate you, Gresh. Thank you so much.

Outro 16:19

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a 5-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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