Ep. #843 - People Over Profits

00:38.46
Lauren Conaway
And we are back! Thank you for joining us for yet another episode of the Startup Hustle podcast. I’m your host Lauren Conaway and we are here.

I do need to tell you that today’s episode is sponsored by fullscale.io. Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably, conveniently. And they’re going to do a great job helping you get your tech product off the ground. So thank you to Full Scale. Definitely check them out.

Today, we have with us a fantastical female founder. And you know you know that I love talking to amazing women in entrepreneurship. We have with us Ashleigh Wilson, founder and CEO of AuditMate. Ashleigh, thank you so much for being with us here on Startup Hustle.

01:27.10
Ashleigh Wilson
So thank you for having me I’m excited to be here.

01:30.58
Lauren Conaway
Ashleigh, tell us about your journey.

01:51.66
Ashleigh Wilson
So I was raised by a used car salesman and an elevator guy. So I have an interesting mix of influences in my life right? So that. Really old-school entrepreneur door-to-door salesman type and then also the blue-collar side.

My stepfather was an elevator repairman and then worked his way up in the ranks into the corporate executive world for one of the major elevator companies. So I had such a strong influence on this like gritty sales entrepreneurship. But also the like white collar blue collar mix.

I was always more interested in learning about business and running businesses. Like I refused to cook until I like was probably twenty years old or do anything with my mom that little girls want.

02:55.96
Lauren Conaway
See if you weren’t conditioned. You weren’t conditioned to do like easy bake ovens and play with the dolls, and you were a bit more rough and tumble.

03:04.79
Ashleigh Wilson
Oh yeah, absolutely I was the one that like took a bucket and a mop to the golf course at like 10 years old and started watching golf clubs for money.

03:14.77
Lauren Conaway
Oh my gosh, I love that so much. So so the entrepreneurial spirit has always been ingrained in you.

03:20.31
Ashleigh Wilson
Always and you know I remember being young and being asked. So what do you want to do when you grow up? And I’m like I’m going to change the world and they’re like okay well ah, what do you want to be? And I’m like a global CEO. And they’re like of what? and I’m like I don’t care and then go back to like playing and running. And doing it didn’t matter to me at that point. I just knew with every fiber of my being that I am here to make an impact. On top of that, I have this moral compass [which] is like almost debilitating..

04:01.30
Lauren Conaway
Oh, that is the really really interesting way to phrase that Ashleigh. I’m gonna need you to dive down a little bit deeper. What do you mean by almost debilitating?

04:07.90
Ashleigh Wilson
Yeah, if there’s something that’s outside my morals and values, I shut down. I can’t do it. I don’t want to. I have no interest. I have no motivation. It’s like I repel anything that does not feel good to me, which is really where AuditMate was founded.

So I joined the industry the elevator industry in my early 20s. I was doing really great. I was getting mentored by the CEO and doing all these global research projects and it didn’t feel good. This massive one hundred and twenty billion dollars industry was a direct result of customers not understanding their contracts and elevator companies not doing their job. And it fell gross and so I left and that’s where AuditMate.

04:55.23
Lauren Conaway
Um, right.

05:05.80
Ashleigh Wilson
that’s where AuditMate was born from.

05:06.33
Lauren Conaway
Well so so we’re gonna I want to stick a pin. We’re definitely going to talk about AuditMate and what specifically you do. But I’m gonna backtrack us just a little bit because you said something that I find super interesting. You’re talking about morals and values and clearly, you are very strong in yours. But how do you define your morals and values? How did you come to your personal moral compass?

05:33.34
Ashleigh Wilson
I think I knew it in my body before I knew how to put words to it. Our body knows way more and way faster than our brain.

05:39.22
Lauren Conaway
Oh that’s well, that’s pretty awesome. You’re such a badass all right? Yeah, but continue, please.

05:52.73
Ashleigh Wilson
I’m a firm believer in that and I have some definite woo-woo practices around decision making. If we want to go on a tangent on that later. But for me, morals and values is like being excellent to each other. That’s my North Star. That’s the company’s North Star. Is this good for me? Does this feel good for me? Does it feel good for you? Does it feel good for the people that we’re serving or impacting? Let’s look at the humans that are involved and how we’re impacting humans like forget the bottom line.

06:23.55
Lauren Conaway
Her name.

06:30.32
Ashleigh Wilson
Like if you’re doing the right thing, the rest is going to fall in place. The profits will fall in place The Enter X Y Z will fall in place. But if it doesn’t feel good for me. It doesn’t feel good for my team. My family, whomever, It’s probably not the right thing to do.

06:33.97
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, yeah.

06:45.28
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, and what’s the saying? There’s a saying out there that it’s never the wrong thing to do the right thing. Clearly, you embody that. So let’s talk about AuditMates. You know the title of this episode is “People over Profits”.

06:52.10
Ashleigh Wilson
Oh I Love that.

07:02.54
Ashleigh Wilson
Um, yep, and he.

07:04.25
Lauren Conaway
And clearly like we are already well down that tangent that is something that you value and something that you do. But how does that show up for AuditMate?

07:11.57
Ashleigh Wilson
I believe that when we put people first, profits will follow. And I believe when we focus on profits and our only goals and objectives and OKRs are around profits or revenues or metrics of any kind, we lose sight of the people we lose sight of the intent and the reason that we’re doing what we’re doing. Especially as you grow and you scale right? The more you grow and scale and you’re talking metrics and numbers and you’re not talking humans, the humans on your team. The humans that you’re serving.

You’re going to make a mistake. It becomes dehumanizing in a way and that leads to your values and morals getting kind of bendy. It’s way easier to bend your morals and values when you’re talking about numbers.

07:50.91
Lauren Conaway
Right.

08:09.61
Ashleigh Wilson
Versus when you’re talking about Mary Sue down the street.

08:12.63
Lauren Conaway
Right? Yeah well, and it’s kind of along the same lines. You know you’re always nicer to people in person than you are like on social media. For instance, when you’re not presented with the human being that has thoughts and feelings and loves and likes and dislikes.

08:20.86
Ashleigh Wilson
Um, yep.

08:30.91
Lauren Conaway
It’s always easier to dehumanize them. So I love that I know your value system. I’m kind of blown away. Actually, you’re so passionate about it. Where do you think that comes from?

08:46.91
Ashleigh Wilson
Like I said, I think it’s just it’s been in my body for as long as I could remember like it’s something you know my parents definitely like.

08:47.38
Lauren Conaway
Is it something that you learned?

08:56.60
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

09:02.28
Ashleigh Wilson
I tried to do the right thing, but it wasn’t something that was like drilled into me. It’s something that I’ve always just known. And I’ve always just followed and you know, I think in my teen years there.

09:05.61
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

09:15.79
Ashleigh Wilson
Trusting the gut got a bit confusing and I think especially as a young woman. It’s like wait, am I supposed to look a certain way? Am I supposed to act a certain way? Am I supposed to check certain boxes? Because what if those boxes don’t feel right in my body?

09:23.26
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

09:34.23
Ashleigh Wilson
Am I supposed to be uncomfortable forever? Or did they have to be uncomfortable? Right? And it’s this like reconciling that I think we go through, especially as women, and that was the time in my life that because as I said I’ve always.

09:37.89
Lauren Conaway
Right.

09:52.35
Ashleigh Wilson
Known I’m kind of different. And that difference can be our biggest power and I think it can also be our biggest demise. Nelson Mandela in his inaugural speech said something like our greatest fear is not our darkness or that we are not enough. Our greatest fear is that we’re powerful beyond measure. And I resonate with that so hard because when all I could focus on was that I was different. It became my biggest obstacle.

10:31.61
Ashleigh Wilson
I am different. I am loud. I am clear. I’m a woman. And I’m to change the world, watch me, get out of my way. That’s when things started clicking into place.

10:41.22
Lauren Conaway
I always tell IHKC members one of my big quotes is “you’re awesome”. You know I think that we as women, we are often…

11:01.12
Lauren Conaway
Pigeonholed and we’re told that to celebrate ourselves is arrogant. In my opinion, when you celebrate yourself for something that is true, that’s just realism. You know, let’s be real about ourselves and realize you know, we’re not…

11:16.14
Lauren Conaway
Perfect. None of us are perfect. None of us are 100% great at everything. But there are things in each of us that are innate to each of us that we are. We are beautiful. And so I love that you own yourself and who you are. I heard and I told myself when we talked I was going to bring it up with you. But I think that this is something really interesting.

There’s there seems to be this societal shift that’s happening. I think when I was growing up, like when I was in high school middle school like nerds and geeks, and you know the offbeat we were. We were marginalized and maligned. Nobody liked us. They thought we were weird and we weren’t necessarily accepted. So I have always owned being a nerd. Even when it was not comfortable to be. I find this so interesting. I’ve never heard of this term before and I want to hear more about It. You’re an elevator nerd. What is an elevator nerd?

12:21.96
Ashleigh Wilson
I find the elevator industry and elevators so fascinating right? I mentioned earlier this mix of blue-collar and white-collar. I find it so fascinating how the industry had become so siloed.

12:41.21
Ashleigh Wilson
And so binary in those differences you have the field workers and the office workers. And you’ll hear the mechanics talk about the office being like the bean counters. And you’ll hear the office talk about the field is labor again. We’re dehumanizing here, right? And again, there’s this divide.

12:56.75
Lauren Conaway
Um, right? Well you know and a lot of assumptions are being made for sure.

13:01.20
Ashleigh Wilson
And for me, a lot of assumptions are being made absolutely. I think everything I’m trying to do creates this inclusion and create this understanding. It takes lots of different kinds of people to make things work and it takes lots of different kinds of people to get to the best decision. The best product. The best enter X Y Z. And so the more that we can learn to not just tolerate people. But acceptance and compassion and learning. There’s also the values and morals piece of the industry that’s fascinating to me. I like the engineering and I also like the…

13:42.24
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

13:55.41
Ashleigh Wilson
Sociology behind it.

13:56.66
Lauren Conaway
Talk to us about the sociology behind it because I think what’s springing to mind for me is those old-timey elevators that used to have like the elevator person who worked the elevator. And you would come in and you were forced to interact.

14:14.19
Lauren Conaway
So like there’s been a really storied history of the elevator service industry. Talk to us a little bit about that.

14:21.33
Ashleigh Wilson
I think that’s interesting that you bring up the elevator operators. And there was this conversation that happened and then elevator music is a whole other topic that we could talk about.

14:40.18
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:41.20
Ashleigh Wilson
Right? Like elevator music was introduced after operators came out of elevators. To make people calmer, removing the human element. Of the operator being there then it’s like, well, what are you supposed to do in an elevator? There isn’t anyone to necessarily chat with and elevator music was introduced to calm people down.

15:04.59
Lauren Conaway
I see. I didn’t know that. That is fascinating.

15:12.13
Ashleigh Wilson
Now they’re even doing Tv screens in elevators and news and lots of new technology for how we can move through buildings, right? We’re not going to make the world any bigger. It’s just gonna go up.

15:23.40
Lauren Conaway
I’m a little bit of a history reader. That was fascinating and at some point, I’m going to drop that knowledge. At some point this week I’m going to share that with somebody random. You have powered that interaction. So thank you for that. But let’s talk.

15:42.34
Ashleigh Wilson
Absolutely just.

15:46.57
Lauren Conaway
Do tell us about AuditMate. What do you do? What does the platform look like? What does it feel like? What are you building?

15:55.56
Ashleigh Wilson
Yeah, so we are the first-ever elevator and escalator auditing and management software. So the reason for AuditMate is we found that customers are only receiving and customers being. Elevator or building owners or building managers that own elevators um are only receiving 50% of the elevator services that they are already paying for. So yeah, and then you insert the fact that this is over a hundred.

16:15.22
Lauren Conaway
So okay.

16:23.27
Lauren Conaway
Really.

16:31.50
Ashleigh Wilson
Billion Dollar a year industry globally and it’s like wait. That’s a lot of money for elevator services that are not happening. So this goes into my elevator nerd too. For years I was like, how are people not riding in the streets about this? How are you not mad? You should be mad.

16:35.69
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

16:47.59
Lauren Conaway
You’re paying for service that you’re not receiving and nobody was talking about it.

16:50.94
Ashleigh Wilson
That you’re not received absolutely well. The more that I dug in and dug in and dug in. There are only four major companies that own over eighty percent of the market share globally, so it’s an oligopoly right? and so it acts a lot like a monopoly in that. They all act the same. It’s kind of a pick your poison really? Um, and there’s really no access to education when it comes to the industry right?

17:14.42
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

17:24.72
Ashleigh Wilson
You hire a building engineer and they’re going to know a little bit about electrical. They’re going to know a little bit about plumbing. They’re going to know a little bit about this and a little bit about that They don’t know anything about elevators because you can’t operate them safely without a technician. You can’t just like to do a little bit.

17:31.12
Lauren Conaway
To write.

17:38.39
Lauren Conaway
Right.

17:42.10
Ashleigh Wilson
Of your own elevator work and so the more that I talked to building owners. It was kind of this the trend that I saw was like well you just pay the bill you have to move to fuel through the building.

17:54.44
Lauren Conaway
Right.

17:55.91
Ashleigh Wilson
And they’re telling us that that we have this $100000 bill because something broke down and it’s not covered under our maintenance agreement. And I don’t know what the part is and I don’t know how much labor should actually cost but I need to get people to the penthouse. So I’m just going to pay the bill.

18:09.23
Lauren Conaway
Right.

18:10.36
Ashleigh Wilson
And then I paid the bill. My dad paid the bill. My grandpa paid the bill. You just pay the bill. This is what we’ve done forever. You just put it in the budget. There’s never been another alternative.

18:17.81
Lauren Conaway
So you’re going into these companies and you’re reviewing service contracts and you’re tracking parts and things like that to make sure.

18:34.58
Lauren Conaway
Like the end goal and the end result is to keep our buildings and our elevators safer. I don’t know too many people who intentionally think about elevators. They’re always just kind of that thing that “oh, there’s an elevator, you take it.”

18:49.28
Lauren Conaway
But imagine a world without elevators. Imagine how inaccessible so much of our world would be, you know?

18:52.94
Ashleigh Wilson
I often call elevators a non-experience. A good experience in the elevator world is a non-experience. When you have an experience, it’s a bad one most of the time.

19:08.27
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, like those are the times when you’re like yeah you’re stuck and you’re trying to get to your next meeting. Or somebody farts next to you or something, like that’s a bad elevator experience for sure.

19:10.80
Ashleigh Wilson
Like getting stuck or.

19:16.48
Ashleigh Wilson
Um, exactly? So what we do is we’ve written the only truly enforceable elevator service contract on the market. And the reason for that is we require data transparency and then what our soft. Square is doing its tracking to ensure the customer is getting 100% of what they’re paying for and then we audit all invoices proposals and state compliance. So we ensure the elevator is certified. Tested as it should be and then…

19:55.50
Ashleigh Wilson
The customers actually getting every hour that they’re supposed to be getting and they’re not paying a dollar more than they should so in essence last year we increased clients’ maintenance by 25% and we decreased costs by 27%

20:09.71
Lauren Conaway
Wow, that’s pretty impressive Ashleigh. Way to go.

20:16.75
Ashleigh Wilson
Thank you. Yeah, It’s been super exciting. We are actively releasing a portal to all of our clients and vendors right Now. So what makes our online portal different is we provide the same access and transparency to the client. We also provide that to the vendor so we show the vendor every audit that we do. We don’t hide anything that we’re doing.

20:42.90
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

20:48.28
Ashleigh Wilson
And this allows the vendor to feel like they can actually meet the contract requirements and provide timely updates because a lot of the elevator company Software does not make it easy for their internal staff to actually meet contract requirements. Funny enough.

21:05.49
Ashleigh Wilson
So we’re giving both the client and the vendor the tools that they need to understand their contracts better and then actually meet their contract requirements. So.

21:13.83
Lauren Conaway
Well, that that is that is stupendously impressive. Ashleigh, I got to tell you that I cannot imagine the level of peace of mind that you would experience as a building manager. You’re not going to find a building manager who’s an expert in elevators. It’s a highly specialized area and field. There are so many compliance issues and so many things that you have hoops that you have to jump through to make sure that your elevator stays safe.

It would be really really difficult to stay on top of that. So the fact that you’re creating some transparency around this process and the fact that you’re also creating some accountability around this process is super impressive.

Now folks, real quickly, if we’re going to be talking about transparenc, accountability, and efficiency; I do have to remind you that today’s episode of Startup Hustle is sponsored by fullscale.io. If you’re looking to build a software team and you are looking to take your tech product to the next level. If you’re looking to build something new, you’re gonna have an amazing partner in Full Sscale.

I have talked to countless clients of Full Scale. I actually get to talk to them on a fairly regular basis, but I cannot tell you how many accolades I hear about this company now. We love them because they sponsor Startup Hustle. And we love them because you know Matt Decoursey is amazing. But we really really love them because they offer their clients peace of mind and support. And as an entrepreneur, I think you all know that what we do is really really hard anytime we can get additional support. We’re going to go for it. So definitely check out fullscale.io. You will not be sorry.

And we are here with Ashleigh Wilson of AuditMate. We’re talking about a lot of things. First and foremost, we’re talking about AuditMate as a product but really what I find fascinating about Ashleigh is she has found a way to channel people. Make people the forefront of what she does.

And so Ashleigh, I’m going to kick us off again, and I’m going to get right back into it. And I’m going to ask you to tell us about your company. It has multiple touchpoints. Ultimately, you’re serving the people who ride in elevators. You’re serving the people who surface elevators. You’re serving the people who have elevators. You have people populated all throughout your process and so I want to ask you to tell us some stories about how your work has changed people’s lives for the better. I know you have them. I know you have a ton to talk to us about that.

24:05.81
Ashleigh Wilson
One of my favorite mantras and one that I say to my team often is permission to be human. And what that means to me like that’s at the core of heart-centered leadership to me. Because when we give people permission to be themselves and all of the messiness that comes with being human, we feel safer. We feel like we can come to work as our authentic selves. We feel like we can go to our boss and be like “you know what? I’m not sick, but my heart is broken and I need a few days right?” And I think Covid is an example of that when we first got locked down.

25:00.42
Ashleigh Wilson
We jumped on a meeting and everyone was like ready for the daily standup. And I was like y’all know the world feels like it’s falling apart right now. We can’t talk about work. Like I’m sad. Are you sad? This is wild. And you could kind of just see everyone kind of exhaled.

25:13.60
Lauren Conaway
Right.

25:18.74
Ashleigh Wilson
Exhale and be like oh yeah, we get to talk about that stuff here. We get to be sad here. My uncle always says to me in this family. We always give grief a seat at the table but not everyone’s going to sit in at it.

25:34.27
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

25:37.32
Ashleigh Wilson
And for me, what that means is that not everyone’s going to feel comfortable right away to be their full selves. But at AuditMate, for our internal staff, and for our clients; we really want to talk like normal people. We want to show data like normal people.

25:52.60
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

25:56.43
Ashleigh Wilson
Someone that doesn’t know elevators gets on my portal. I don’t want them to be confused by anything.

26:00.26
Lauren Conaway
Right? I love that so in it I mean it sounds like you’re a student of human-centered design which I just adore. So tell me this, have you ever dealt with a client who was maybe turned off or put off by by that style?

26:22.81
Ashleigh Wilson
No, actually I haven’t with AuditMate. I think that when we truly live unapologetically, the right people find us.

26:25.24
Lauren Conaway
Oh my gosh. That’s awesome. Okay.

26:38.99
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

26:40.95
Ashleigh Wilson
And the wrong people that don’t want to be a part of that or aren’t ready or aren’t accepting of me with 2 different color hairs and being out and proud and loud and female. They’re probably not going to come to me just organically.

26:56.78
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

27:00.60
Ashleigh Wilson
But I have absolutely dealt with with folks in previous positions that had come on and…

27:01.28
Lauren Conaway
Your vibe attracts your tribe. Is that right?

27:19.70
Ashleigh Wilson
I remember one conversation vividly. I was training another young woman and I get on a call. We knew this client was going to be angry and we get on the call and he just starts yelling at me. He’s asking questions and the second I answer the question, he cuts me off every time. For like 3 times or something. And I finally just said, sir you’re going to have to stop talking and let me answer one of your questions. If you want to have a productive conversation, if not, I’m going to hang up because you’re not allowed to talk that way.

27:58.20
Ashleigh Wilson
He was like, “oh okay, yeah”. He actually let me speak. But that moment I think was even more important for the young person that I was training and especially in the elevator industry. That’s very male.. It’s very white. It’s old boys club all day long. And you don’t have to put up with this. Stop it immediately, right? The second that you walk in, here’s how you’re allowed to treat me and here’s how you’re not.

28:20.26
Lauren Conaway
Sure.

28:27.69
laurenconaway
Yes, yes.

28:35.41
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, little known fact that I actually started my career in hospitality. I worked hotel front desks in front office management. And I used to have a nickname. People called me the Asshole whisperer.

28:35.75
Ashleigh Wilson
Go away.

28:52.42
Lauren Conaway
Ah, because I was often manager on duty at night. And so all of the people who were super upset would be funneled to me. Because there was nobody else on property to handle it and um I I just had a knack for for calming people down and and but very similar to your story I had a situation where there were a series of snowstorms and power was out like all across the city. And so everybody wanted to come and stay in hotels because they they needed heat and they wanted their TVs and all of the conveniences of home and all of that.

And so we had a situation where a guest was unhappy with his room for whatever reason. And he came down and started screaming at me. I’m kind of taking it. But as he’s yelling at me I’m attempting to solve this problem. Find another room to move him to so a technician can go up and take a look at whatever his problem was. And I just remember he was yelling at me and at one point I just had to stop. And I had to be like sir I’m gonna need you to stop yelling. I am attempting to fix your problem. You yelling is not making the situation better. Would you like me to help you? Yes or no? And he kind of said sheepishly yes and I was like, then let me do my job. I will be with you in just a minute and that was the only way to get him to dial it back. Answer his aggression with firmness.

30:18.25
Ashleigh Wilson
Um, yup, totally.

30:21.16
Lauren Conaway
But I mean like it was I remember like there. There were a couple of um, you know Bellman who came up to me afterwards and they were like Lord that was amazing. I can’t believe I did that.

30:29.20
Ashleigh Wilson
Um, totally and it it kind of goes into the whole idea of meeting people where they are and and that’s been I think a whole leadership lesson for me is is is.

30:37.43
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

30:47.43
Ashleigh Wilson
Being able to meet people where they are and we can only do that when we ask questions and when we listen and when we’re willing to be curious about where people are.

30:55.32
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, well and it’s interesting because when you when you think of the phrase meeting people where they are usually you think of it in like the nice fluffy way like how can I be more accommodating. How can I be kinder, but sometimes you have to answer strength with strength in order to and I and I think especially as a woman.

31:11.33
Ashleigh Wilson
Yep.

31:13.97
Lauren Conaway
You have to answer that strength with strength in order to get the respect. You need to get what you need to have done, done. So interesting little tangents. But I think one of the things that you do extraordinarily well Ashleigh, clearly.

31:31.00
Lauren Conaway
It is using that and meeting people where they are. Using that in its more commonly accepted phrase of turn. How can we meet people where they are? With compassion and empathy. And how can we use our gifts as human beings to bring out the best in others?

31:47.52
Ashleigh Wilson
I see one of my goals in life to make it just a little bit easier on the next generation right?

31:50.82
Lauren Conaway
Help them be as successful as possible right? Would you say that that’s accurate.

32:04.80
Lauren Conaway
Um, yeah.

32:06.84
Ashleigh Wilson
A woman that’s getting funded to be a woman, that’s a CEO. To be a clear person that’s funded as a CEO, right? And to show that we can run companies and scale companies. I’m a non-technical founder right? So to be nontechnical and to have these.

32:11.98
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

32:20.55
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

32:25.76
Ashleigh Wilson
I didn’t drop out of Stanford, right? I didn’t go to the ivy league. I’m not your typical tech founder and it’s important to wear these badges proudly for me to have models out there, right? Representation matters.

32:45.50
Lauren Conaway
Hashtag representation matters exactly, right? It does matter. Ah I got to tell you so Innovateher when Kamala Harris became vice president. We had a celebration. We were like, it’s not the president. But still representation matters and we have a half Black,half Asian woman as our vice president and it’s just it’s inspiring. Be the change that you want to see. II totally get that. I think that is awesome.

33:09.12
Ashleigh Wilson
Um, yes, yep.

33:19.95
Lauren Conaway
I have a question for you. One of the things that I often talk about on my episodes is what are the tactical ways that our listeners at home can apply the lessons that we’re talking about on the show. That they can apply them at home. And so I know that not everybody is gonna get into elevator tech.

33:38.90
Lauren Conaway
That’s not their journey but everybody can show compassion for their customers and their teams. And everybody can honor the humanity and the divine in the humanity of the people that we deal with and encounter in our day to day. So I’m going to ask you for entrepreneurial founders, startup founders. The folks who listen to this podcast. What would you tell them about putting people over profit? About about showing that empathy that you’re such a huge proponent of.

34:13.30
Ashleigh Wilson
Well, I think the first step on that journey for me was finding and trusting your magic. And I think the journey really starts inward before we can apply it outward right?

34:22.59
34:32.23
Ashleigh Wilson
Understanding what it is that you are really good at and what it is that that makes you different, and being able to lean into those differences. And one of my tips of what your magic is it probably scares you.

34:47.15
Lauren Conaway
Okay.

34:50.37
Ashleigh Wilson
The thing that’s really scary and the thing that you’re like, I would do this if that’s probably the direction that where your power is. That’s probably where harnessing that magic comes from and and then second I think it’s…

34:59.51
Lauren Conaway
Yeah. Yeah.

35:09.14
Ashleigh Wilson
Find and feed your tribe. Who is the people that you need to surround yourself with? In order to pick you up when you’re down. So that you can teach people things, so that they can teach you things. Having people around you that are…

35:20.35
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

35:28.89
Ashleigh Wilson
Smarter than you in other areas. Having people around you that don’t always agree with you is so important. There’s been and I don’t often like.

35:36.69
laurenconaway
For sure.

35:42.10
Ashleigh Wilson
Get loud with my team right? and I remember one time getting loud with my team because everybody was agreeing with me. And I was like stop, if everybody agrees with every idea that I have for AuditMate, we are not going to have the best product. This is not an Ashleigh product.

35:47.71
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

35:59.25
Lauren Conaway
Right on.

36:01.49
Ashleigh Wilson
Like someone tell me I’m wrong. Someone come in and tell me how we can do it better, right? Let’s be loud. Let’s be firm. And then second to that, I’ve already said permission to be human. That’s another big one. The other huge one for me is fuck it up fast.

36:05.19
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, yeah.

36:16.89
Lauren Conaway
Um, okay yeah.

36:19.86
Ashleigh Wilson
Go mess up and by falling down, we learn how to fall down better. We learn how to get up faster right? So you’re never going to get it right? The first time you’re never going to be as empathetic as you can be. You’re never going to learn.

36:26.73
Lauren Conaway
Sure.

36:32.40
Lauren Conaway
Right.

36:37.94
Ashleigh Wilson
How to be compassionate until you screw up and you stub your toe and you scrape your knees and then you’re like oh okay, this is the thing that I need to watch out for next time so that I don’t fall down. Or here’s what kept me on the ground longer than it should have. And how I can get up faster next time and…

36:54.65
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

36:57.60
Ashleigh Wilson
When we turn our lives and ourselves into an experiment of sorts, we try to track how we can learn some of our failures and how we embrace the hardest things to go through. Only then do we level up and harness our power and find out where it lives in us.

37:24.61
Lauren Conaway
Yeah, I love that and I feel like that is a really appropriate note to end on as far as the advice portion of this episode. So I just want to ask you real quickly. What’s the future for Ashleigh and what’s the future for audit mate?

37:52.87
Ashleigh Wilson
The future for me is continuing to live in a way that I create the world that I want to live in. Because I know that there are other folks out there that want to live in that world too, and I know that there are other folks that want to be in businesses that keep people in the center of them. And I want to continue to tell my story so other people in other generations can learn from it.

38:18.84
Lauren Conaway
Yeah.

38:30.81
Ashleigh Wilson
What I’ve had to go through and I kind of spoke to this earlier. If we can make it just a little bit easier on on the next folks that are are coming up and are taking big risks, then I will be a very happy person.

38:47.33
Lauren Conaway
Awesome.

38:49.74
Ashleigh Wilson
The future of AuditMate is we want people to be empowered to understand their contracts and get the most out of their contracts. And so I think AuditMate will probably evolve into simplifying other contracts and simplifying managing other parts of business.

39:10.47
Lauren Conaway
That’s really powerful because I know so many entrepreneurs. We’re not lawyers. We’re problem solvers who are passionate about solving the problem we’re solving. So some of us might be lawyers. But most of us are not lawyers. I get nervous every time I send out a partner agreement or anytime I send out any kind of contract. It really freaks me out whenever I hit like the send button on an email. I’m like, oh now I’ve committed and it always freaks me out because these are the kinds of things that have the power to make or break your business.

These are the things that you can get sued for. This is how you lose money. This is how all of the work that you have put into building a business can fall down. So what you’re doing has a lot of power for entrepreneurs and it has the potential to have a lot of power for entrepreneurs. And so I love that vision. That fluid forward motion because it’s very sorely needed. So I want to thank you for your work. And I do want to ask you Ashleigh, I do want to ask you the human question.

40:27.86
Ashleigh Wilson
So I’m ready.

40:28.79
Lauren Conaway
Ah, you ready? So I just decided I’m going to ask you the one that we kind of talked about in the pre-show prep and actually seemed really excited about it. So this is the question that I’m going to ask; if you could be any article of clothing. what would you be and why?

40:43.78
Ashleigh Wilson
Shoes. I’m obsessed with shoes. All of them, from platforms to sneakers to everything.

40:46.95
Lauren Conaway
Okay, any particular kind of shoe or okay.

40:59.50
Ashleigh Wilson
I’m just completely obsessed and I.

41:00.23
Lauren Conaway
I love it see. You’re a pretty eclectic person.

41:17.90
Lauren Conaway
It has been so interesting getting some insight into your mind but mostly your heart. It’s been, really lovely to hear about your heart for people. So thank you so much for joining us today.

41:28.31
Ashleigh Wilson
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a wonderful time. Thank you.

41:32.33
Lauren Conaway
Absolutely and we’ll have to have you back again. And folks, we hope to have you back again. We know that we will have Full Scale back again because they are of course our incredible episode sponsors.

Check out fullscale.io. They can help you build a software team quickly and affordably. And we are very appreciative of them and their work. Also, keep an eye out. I don’t know if you all know this, but we have our very own e-commerce guru Andrew Morgans. I invite you to check out his episodes of Startup Hustle. He has amazing tips and tricks for folks who are looking to enter the e-commerce space or looking to build their brand within the e-commerce space. He just does an amazing job and he’s definitely our go-to Amazon guy. And he’s got an amazing beard. Super fun to talk to. So definitely check out Andrew. I know that he’s got some really interesting speaking gigs coming up and he’s just a really cool guy to follow. So definitely check him out.

And friends, I would be remiss if I did not thank you for coming back week after week, day after day, listening to Startup Hustle podcast. This would not be possible without you. And we are so grateful that you take the time to to listen to us. We know you’re busy and we appreciate that you come back and share this time with us together. Thanks so much and we will catch you on the flip side.