Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Laabs. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Ashley, so happy to have you with us today and there is so much we want to ask you about. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others developed certain skills or qualities that we are struggling with can be helpful. Along those lines, we’d love to hear from you about how you developed your ability to take risk?
My appetite for risk wasn’t formed from any adrenaline-hungry tendencies. It was primarily a coming-of-age lesson.
20 years ago, I was making my first adult decisions. And with each one, it felt like everything was on the line. As if my success or failure would predetermine the rest of my life.
Back then, the biggest risk of my life was moving away from home for college, hoping I could maintain enough scholarship money to get me through my degree. I was constantly terrified of the risk, knowing the financial stakes–and how important it was to prove I could be independent.
And once I took that leap, I trusted myself a little more when life demanded I take another chance:
Switching career paths
Leaving bad relationships
Starting a business
Moving across the country
Fast forward to the present and I’ve started over enough times to know that the stakes are rarely quite as high as we imagine, but it’s only human to keep feeling that fear. Ultimately, I’ve learned that my fear is an indication that I care. And the things we care about are always worth the risk.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My writing career began through my freelancing business 15 years ago. I maintained it even when I had full-time jobs with publications and creative agencies. It has been my safe harbor during my professional growth spurts and the economy’s lulls.
During that time I’ve had the pleasure of working behind the curtain of many big-name brands–developing brands, building marketing strategies, and writing thoughtful content. I increasingly found myself drawn to the paradoxes of the B2B world. It was healing to make business more human and helpful.
Over the years I was brought into countless pieces of content that companies built to showcase their expertise and persuade their audience. But without the full weight of leadership participation, it felt like the work wasn’t fully realized. So I started campaigning for more involvement from leadership with every project. Years later, working directly with these leaders is my primary focus.
My freelance business morphed into Composure Digital, a boutique agency that helps founders, executives, and emerging leaders share their expertise on LinkedIn. I coach people on how to grow and activate their networks, develop their reputations as thought leaders, and turn their ideas into high-value content for the people they most want to attract.
Over the last five years, especially, I saw how B2B leaders started stepping into social media. They weren’t just leading their company, they were leading their industry. CEOs were making headlines with every Tweet and building their brand’s reputation with their personal clout.
At the same time, I was meeting hundreds of leaders who were silent. They were unsure of what they had to offer, how to turn their expertise into a platform, and how to use it to make progress toward their business (and personal) goals. It felt like a risk to show up authentically and put themselves into the arena of public opinion.
That’s why I love the work I do. I get to help leaders find their voice and build communities. We need more leaders setting an example of helping others, showing their work, and inviting different perspectives.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The single most important skill in my career has been empathy. The measure of my success is often based on the ability to impact business goals, but we can only accomplish them by caring about our audience. We need to understand them, help them, and respect them at all times.
It’s easier than you think of marketing as a transaction, but in truth, it’s a relationship. One that we need to nurture over time. When we steal attention, hyperbolize, and break our promises during the customer journey, we hurt the relationship–and our odds of reaching our goals. That’s why the job of any marketer requires so much empathy. We are the ambassador for the customer who isn’t in the room with us. And ultimately, any risk we take is lessened if we’re coming from a place of empathy.
The second most important skill is structure. Creativity is a highly subjective area of expertise. You’ll have no shortage of people telling you to make changes just because of personal preference or anecdotal evidence. I think it’s a sign of deep expertise when you can use structure–guidelines, frameworks, and processes–to help people evaluate creative work more objectively.
To create more structure and improve the feedback you get, develop thorough creative briefs and brand guidelines. Agree on what success looks like from the outset. Be specific about the feedback you want from people, and consider it part of your working relationship to educate them when their feedback isn’t helpful. When you take risks as a creative person, you should always be able to justify it based on the goals and standards of the project. Once you get good at tying your work back to these objectives, you’ll find that you earn more license to take fun risks.
Lastly, a little curiosity can save you a lot of heartache. When you’ve got hard choices to make in your career, don’t be afraid to get advice from the people who have gone before you. They’re not your competition! People generally love talking about their experiences, so take every opportunity to learn from their accomplishments and mistakes.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
The last year has marked a major transformation from freelancer to business owner.
Before, I simply sold my time to anyone who wanted my skillset. I let my clients take the lead, telling me what they wanted, when they wanted it, and how they expected the process to go. I worked with wonderful people, but doing business this way ultimately forced me to relinquish a lot of control. At one point I had four email addresses, 7 Slack and Teams channels, and meetings double booked without checking my availability. I was getting distracted constantly by people who expected me to be on call for their every need.
In short, I made people-pleasing a business model. It was exhausting and unsustainable.
Transforming from freelancer to business owner had a lot to do with creating more structure. I created a process that took the burden off my clients and simplified the path to results. It became clear to me that my creative skill was important, but I would always be stuck in an unsustainable position if I couldn’t back it up with a more practical customer experience.
Anytime I felt friction in my client relationships, I saw it as an opportunity to reflect on my operations. How could I help my clients make better decisions, faster? How could I create understanding earlier? How could I make their lives a little easier? When I asked myself these questions, it almost always revealed the power of communication and structure.
So now my customers can book services instantaneously, know the status of their project at a glance, and make changes without incurring extra costs. And while I earn trust faster because I make it easy, I’ve also earned loyalty from clients who see that I’m actively incorporating their feedback.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.composuredigital.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/freelance-content-strategist-copywriter-ashley-laabs/
Image Credits
Ishmael Ramjohn Jennifer Heffner John Devaney
