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Brands don't need more visibility, they need meaning. That's the thesis behind Ashley Orfus's work as founder of ALAB Group, where she helps innovative companies replace traditional PR tactics with performance-driven communication built on education, credibility, and community. In this episode, Ashley shares why platforms like Substack and Beehive are leveling the playing field for founders without big budgets, why handwritten notes and customer phone calls are now a competitive edge, and why women founders need to stop discounting their rates before the other person even finishes breathing.
Ashley founded ALAB Group at 22 years old, after leaving luxury fashion and entertainment, before entrepreneurship was the default career path it is now. For over a decade, she has been helping founders across technology, food, hospitality, and culture who are not just launching products but inventing entire categories. From audio jewelry to vertical farming to space tourism, her work starts with one question: what is your unique point of view?
Ashley challenged something I think a lot of us do. We rush to hire marketing before our product and positioning are actually ready, and then wonder why it does not get us to scale. The world does not need another business, she said. It needs yours to be clear about why it exists.
We also got into the money conversation that women founders keep avoiding and why the shift from traditional media to platforms like Substack and Beehive is creating a fairer playing field for smaller brands.
If you are building something and wondering where to put your energy, this one is worth your time.
Chapters:
🎙️ 02:18 Ashley Orfus on leaving luxury fashion to build ALAB Group at 22
🧪 06:18 The world doesn't need another business: finding your unique point of view
💡 09:08 Frends Headphones, audio jewelry, and how you explain something that doesn't exist yet
💰 12:11 Operating model over scale: why a curated business can outperform a big one
🚫 16:15 The money conversation women founders keep avoiding
🤝 22:17 Substack, Beehive, and the new media landscape replacing traditional PR
✍️ 28:43 Handwritten notes and analog strategy as a competitive edge
🎯 30:05 Don't hire marketing to hire marketing: ask the scary questions first
Links:
Your brand doesn't need more noise. Connect with Ashley and the team at ALAB Group to learn more.
Thank you to our podcast sponsor
Go From Expert to Thought Leader with the Genius Discovery Program.
Book Directly with Kent: http://talktokent.com
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⭐️ If you're interested in supporting our podcast - one episode or a season, reach out to Adrienne at Adrienne@sheleadsmedia.com.⭐️
⭐️ If you're interested in supporting our podcast - one episode or a season, reach out to Adrienne at Adrienne@sheleadsmedia.com.⭐️
Reach out to Adrienne: hello@sheleadsmedia.com
Visit our website: www.sheleadsmedia.com to learn about upcoming events or to work with me directly and get the clarity you’re seeking.
As a gesture of support for this podcast and sharing women's voices everywhere - I would greatly appreciate if you would take a moment and give our podcast a 5 Star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
By you taking this simple action, you are making a difference in sharing women's voices, thoughts and opinions.
One last thing - if you haven’t done so already, please hit the plus sign + to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much!!
By you taking this simple action, you are making a difference in sharing women's voices, thoughts and opinions.
One last thing - if you haven’t done so already, please hit the plus sign + to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much!!
XO
Adrienne
Adrienne
- (02:18) - 🎙️ Ashley Orfus on leaving luxury fashion to build ALAB Group at 22
- (06:18) - 🧪 The world doesn't need another business: finding your unique point of view
- (09:08) - 💡 Frends Headphones, audio jewelry, and how you explain something that doesn't exist yet
- (12:11) - 💰 Operating model over scale: why a curated business can outperform a big one
- (16:15) - 🚫 The money conversation women founders keep avoiding
- (22:17) - 🤝 Substack, Beehive, and the new media landscape replacing traditional PR
- (28:43) - ✍️ Handwritten notes and analog strategy as a competitive edge
- (30:05) - 🎯 Don't hire marketing to hire marketing: ask the scary questions first
Creators and Guests
What is The She Leads® Podcast - Wealth Building & Business Growth?
The She Leads Podcast is where women entrepreneurs and business leaders get the real strategies behind scaling a business to one million dollars and beyond. Each week, host Adrienne Garland, CEO of She Leads Media, professor at NYU and Rice University, and business growth advisor, speaks with women who have actually built it: founders who broke past the revenue ceiling, executives leading thousands, and strategists rethinking how women build wealth, lead teams, and grow companies. Episodes cover business growth strategies for women, from pricing and hiring to leadership communication, AI and the future of work, networking and social capital, and the founder to CEO transition. If you're a woman entrepreneur building toward your first million or your next one, this is the show that meets you where you actually are: past the motivational fluff, deep in the work, and ready to scale.
Leadership isn't just changing. It's evolving in ways we're only just beginning to imagine. And women, we're not playing this game anymore. We're the ones reshaping the entire field, building models, movements, and businesses that serve more than just a few. On the She Leads Podcast, you'll hear real conversations with women who've broken through all kinds of barriers, revenue, identity, orders, and expectations.
Adrienne Garland:There's no sugarcoating here, just the truth told by those who
Adrienne Garland:are living it. I'm Adrienne Garland, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and creator of live experiences gathering women leaders together for over a decade. And this is the She Leads Podcast. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the She Leads Podcast. I'd like to kick off today's episode with an ask.
Adrienne Garland:If you haven't done so already, before you listen to this episode, please press pause and take two minutes to give the show a five star rating and review. In the year of the fire horse, we wanna light up the world with the journeys, stories, and wisdom of women entrepreneurs and leaders, And there's no better way to do that than to rate and review this show. Thank you so much for helping to share our incredible show with more people. Now on to our next guest. Her name is Ashley Orfus, and she's the founder of A Lab Group here in New York City, where she helps visionary founders shape how their ideas are understood, trusted, and adopted.
Adrienne Garland:Ashley works with brands across technology, food, hospitality, and culture that are introducing entirely new behaviors to the market and replacing traditional publicity with performance driven communication that's tied to education, credibility, and long term category leadership. Ashley's work centers on a simple thesis. In the era of AI and algorithmic overload, brands don't need more visibility. They need meaning. Welcome to the She Leads Podcast, Ashley.
Ashley Orfus:Thank you for having me.
Adrienne Garland:Well, I'm so excited to have you here on the show. We have so much to speak about. I can't wait to dive into it. But I wanted to start with the fact that you have background in luxury and entertainment, which sounds so exciting. And now you have your own company.
Adrienne Garland:This is dream that so many women entrepreneurs, I think, have. So can you just start out by sharing with us what prompted you to make the change in working for others to start your own consultancy?
Ashley Orfus:So I was sort of one of those rare sets where, you know, they joke and you say, like, you don't pick entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship picks you. I think my plans did were not set out to to do what I'm doing. It sort of sought me out. I always thought my dream was to be the CEO of a luxury conglomerate.
Ashley Orfus:I thought it was gonna go the path of going to an HEC or a luxury business school program. And then I was fortunate to do my senior fellowship at Ferragamo, which was an amazing experience. And I ended up staying there for a year after, and then transitioning to working for an amazing Hollywood producer. And I think in that setting, in both of those settings, I learned so much about relationship building, about social currency, about the changing landscape. E commerce was really happening in this time.
Ashley Orfus:Young brands were popping up. Luxury brands were being disrupted. I remember being in the PR department at Ferragamo and explaining to Wanda Ferragamo at the time, who was in her 90s, why we were trying to get these influencers to sit front row. And so there was a lot changing at the time. And I think kind of going back to my thesis, that became sort of the feeding ground to where the business has evolved today.
Ashley Orfus:Being embracing what I call this is very much a social science and seeing that there was a new evolution that was outpacing some of these traditional landscapes and environments.
Adrienne Garland:Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Everything has changed, right? I mean, I even, we talked a little bit about the fact that I am teaching entrepreneurship at NYU and I often learn more from the students and how they're communicating than what I learned when I, when I had my, when I got my MBA.
Adrienne Garland:Marketing is so different. Communications is so different and it's just fascinating. I think it's so, so difficult for women entrepreneurs that are oftentimes, you know, underfunded, under resourced to, you know, have what it takes in order to get in front of all of the, the right, you know, people, the right audience, not only, you know, your, your work with visibility, but also just to make revenue and and grow revenue. So I would love to talk to you about that and talk about very your your work is very forward and future facing. So can you just give a little bit of background on what you work with your clients on?
Adrienne Garland:You you talk about bringing new behaviors to the market. Can you just dive into that a little bit deeper?
Ashley Orfus:Sure. So to answer the first part of your question, I think it's really coming to the table with how are you different? What is your unique point of view? And I always tell entrepreneurs to really focus on that because the world doesn't need another business and we don't need more stuff. So what is your unique point of view in the area that you are dominating?
Ashley Orfus:And I think for me being a young entrepreneur, it wasn't sexy at the time. I started the business at 22, 23 years old. This was not as sexy. Now everyone is doing some sort of gig job or an entrepreneur, but at the time, it was not sexy. And so I think that was very clear for me, which allowed me to be able to meet with people very senior than me, because I had a very distinct point of view of what their brand was doing and how we needed to communicate it to the world.
Ashley Orfus:Fast forward to today, we're seeing a lot more innovation and we're seeing a lot more cross pollinations across multiple industries. Yes. So a lot of the clients that we're working with, we worked on a project in vertical farming, but it wasn't just vertical farming. They were really celebrating the nutraceuticals and this idea of growing the freshest produce in the world powered by your app, which would essentially tell you what you needed to grow in your farm based on your biometrics. Everything from space tourism to CPG that's changing an entire category.
Ashley Orfus:Maybe it is not just thinking about detergent, but it's thinking about healthcare as a whole. So the type of clients that we're working with are really building, I like to say a better mousetrap. And they're really building brands for the future that are impactful, they're intentional, but they're not one trick ponies. And I think a lot of the traditional PR dialogue has always been, What is that one thing? And let's narrow down on that one thing.
Ashley Orfus:And we really believe in, foundationally, we first have to believe in micro messaging. What are really the key attributes that make your business what it is? And how do we do that? How do we package that in a tangible way for the world to understand? Because for a lot of our clients and the work that we do, they're really inventing categories.
Ashley Orfus:We launched audio jewelry back ten years ago, Frends Headphones. That business sold, they exited, but now we have everything like Aura. But back then, how do you really define and explain the category? So for us, I think it's really about creating the understanding and the foundation with those entrepreneurs first and foremost. And then from a behavioral standpoint, we're sort of culturally mining with them.
Ashley Orfus:And we're developing plans that are evolving with them. That's why I said to you before when we started, this is very much a social science. And I think that also the thing that makes us very successful in that process is we are not creating a plan and setting it and forgetting it. We very much set the tone with our clients and our work that this is ever evolving and this is an integrated approach. And so they're coming to us for that creative lab style approach to working with them.
Adrienne Garland:I love this. I'm actually currently taking a course with IDEO and it's yeah, it's so much fun and just so interesting, but it's design thinking and AI and how to really leverage everything to push your thinking and to get very clear about, what is the problem that you are solving and how are you solving that problem in a very unique and compelling manner. And so when I'm listening to you speak about what your agency does, it seems very much in that vein of design thinking, right?
Ashley Orfus:Very much.
Adrienne Garland:And truly understanding the market, the context, the conditions. And so I, you know, I think so much about smaller businesses growing, operating in that environment and larger businesses that have a lot of resources to be able to hire experts to help guide them along. And it obviously gives them competitive advantage. But so many of the businesses that are launching lately, I do believe they have a bigger purpose. You know, they're not just focused on profit.
Adrienne Garland:Of course, they are focused on profit, but there's other things that they're trying to accomplish as well that hopefully, you know, will help humanity in some way. So how can maybe a smaller brand, woman owned business that is, you know, traditionally smaller, and I'm making a sweeping statement. How can somebody like that do a really good job of understanding that landscape and positioning their business so that more people do understand what it is that they're doing that's unique and different?
Ashley Orfus:Well, I think for an operation model, I feel very passionate about this topic because I think we're really seeing two areas right now in terms of performance. I think there is obviously scale, scale, scale, and that's going to create profitability. And then there's this other subset of business that we're seeing, which is a more refined approach, a more curated business model, which also can be quite profitable because people believe in service. And that's actually always been also our thesis, is that there are a lot of PR agencies and their model really is reliant on having maybe 100 clients and 100 staff. Actually our whole DNA is that we believe that our operating model, not scale, drives performance for our innovative brands.
Ashley Orfus:I love that. And because of that, we create a trust. And because of that, we are in a service industry. We can actually work much more well aligned with our clients to create performance. And so I tell entrepreneurs not to get discouraged, even if you are a one man band or a two man band.
Ashley Orfus:It's not always about the size. I like to say it's about the problem that you're attacking. And so some of that can be optics. And I have great friends that you know, I have a friend that's doing $50,000,000 in in revenue a year, and she has zero employees. It's just her.
Ashley Orfus:That's incredible. Yeah. I really tell people to focus much more on, again, the business, the problems they're solving, and it will come, right? As that business grows, there'll be new experts that they need to bring in. I think there is an amazing landscape now of fractional advisors, fractional CMOs, fractional CFOs.
Ashley Orfus:I've seen a lot of success there too. So I'm much more of an advocate of really refining and making sure your product, your positioning is really strong. And I think the rest kind of can come from that.
Adrienne Garland:Do you think that when women start businesses that they should take a step back and ask themselves, is this something that can be profitable? Because what I what I see happening, and I hope that it's changing a little bit, is that women have a certain area of expertise and then they they launch a business based on that, which is, you know, inward focus, if you will. I don't know that women necessarily approach starting a business by looking for a gap or an opportunity market and then creating a solution for that. I think, you know, and I don't know why this happens. I actually did this myself too, which is, you know, why I'm I'm talking about this.
Adrienne Garland:So I had an expertise in marketing. I started a marketing consulting company and then faced, you know, a variety of different challenges in that. And then you get so deep into that that it's difficult to pivot and potentially start, I don't know, a technology company that addresses, you know, women's health issues or something like that. So do you think that a a maybe a pause, a question that women need to ask themselves before they launch their business knowing that the landscape is so very different. You know, how can I solve a problem in the market?
Adrienne Garland:Or is my expertise that unique and differentiated that I can launch a business that leverages my expertise?
Ashley Orfus:I think it's a little bit of both, but I think the conversation that's in the middle of this is we have to be better at saying we deserve money and creating a change in conversation around money and finance.
Adrienne Garland:Yes.
Ashley Orfus:I think that that is kind of the polarizing thing that's in the middle that kind of flanks us. Because I've seen it both ways. I've seen people that, we had a friend of ours who launched an amazing business. I didn't know it was gonna blow up. She during COVID found this idea that she could help men that were in another stage of their life.
Ashley Orfus:Maybe they went through divorce, maybe they're widowed. She found that from her expertise in event planning and interior design, that when they were going to the next phase of their career, their next life phase, they didn't have the support. They didn't know maybe they had kids. They didn't know they never had to do the lunches before. They never had to move it on their own.
Ashley Orfus:She was essentially the mommy poppins for these men. Wow. It blew up. She was offered a show on They were talking to her about a show. And so sometimes it does happen like that where you don't know that there's a need.
Ashley Orfus:You understand that there's a problem and the market will dictate that. And then of course the other side, which was more like me, I recognize that the landscape was changing and the traditional agency model wasn't really speaking to this subset of businesses and owners. But really fundamentally, I think the conversation has to also be about money and celebrating that and that it can be yours. And there is an intimidation around earning money. There's a guilt around money.
Ashley Orfus:And we have to, I think, change that conversation first. And I think that is is quite connected to either pathway.
Adrienne Garland:Hey, everyone. So for years, I've been working with doctor Kent and sending people in my network his way. He does so much impact work. What do I mean by that? Well, he helps people create books and podcasts and things like that.
Adrienne Garland:He even helps with this podcast behind the scenes. Doctor Kent is my thought partner. Anyone listening knows that we all need to do what we can to get our thoughts, opinions, and voices out into the world and how important it is for women to invest in other women and for women to hire other women. I am all about that, and you all know that. But in this case, I think doctor Kent is an exception.
Adrienne Garland:He's doing something really different via this new program that he's launched called the Genius Discovery Program. So he wants to work with people like me and like you who are impact driven. Doctor. Kent has an intensive program that goes for a month. He also has a three month program where he figures out where you're headed with your brand, your business, your speaking, and your signature story as a thought leader.
Adrienne Garland:I've known Doctor. Kent for a long time. So believe me when I say that he has a ton of experience working with people that are looking to make an impact but might not know exactly how to approach them. So if you're interested in talking to him, you can go directly to talktokent.com, or you can send me a DM on Instagram at She Leads Media, or just shoot me an email over at hello@SheLeadsMedia.com. I totally agree with you.
Adrienne Garland:And this conversation is so important. I make sure that I discuss with my students, my female students about, you know, understanding finance, understanding numbers, not being afraid to ask what something means, and to really wrap their arms around it because it's going to make all of the difference in the world. I mean, I experienced this too as much as I'm comfortable with money and finances. I still have a very difficult time sort of valuing my services. And when there's a pause in the conversation, when I, you know, say this is whatever my rate is, I don't even let the person take a breath before I start discounting my services because it you know, I think women in this world, we are just conditioned to please, please, please someone else.
Adrienne Garland:And we don't we don't put that lens on ourselves. So 100%. And and also the conversation around the fact that women will be inheriting all of this wealth in the next few years, we have to know what to do with that wealth so that we're not just, you know, contributing to a philanthropic organization, but we take it and we grow it and we invest in other women owned businesses. And so we we do we need to get smart, which is, you know, I think a whole entire separate conversation. One of the things here, She Leads Media that we're super focused on is, you know, helping women to gain visibility for their businesses and their brands.
Adrienne Garland:And we do a lot of work around the media and and sort of what who that is, building relationships with the media as a founder, being confident in pitching yourself and understanding what the media is looking for so that you can align your story, your pitch to, you know, that particular media outlet. Media outlets are so different than they were even a few years ago. Can you talk a little bit about what that landscape looks like now? And then what do you even see? Because I know you do a lot of forward facing work.
Adrienne Garland:What do you see changing in the next two, five years?
Ashley Orfus:That's the fun This is the fun part for me. So kind of going back, I've always saw I've seen this shift happening in media. There's a lot of antitrust and political influence and social that have really impacted new channels, new resources. And so I've seen this shift happening for the last at least six or eight years. I think that there's also been a lot of cross pollination with traditional media.
Ashley Orfus:So there used to be a lot of different editors. They're just doing beauty. They're just doing fashion. They're just doing food. And a lot of the traditional agencies, they would actually structure their agency.
Ashley Orfus:Well, she's part of our food division and she's part of our fashion division and she's our tech. At ALAB, we've always had a philosophy of cross pollination. We've always believed that messages are sort of, they're like cells, they're like humans, right? And we really have to be able to have these stories speak to the culture as a whole. So I think we've always been well positioned for this shift.
Ashley Orfus:In terms of today, we're obviously seeing a lot more emphasis on new media. And that's everything from podcasts like this where it is, right, people are really listening. They are thoughtful. They're engaged with the content, which is really nice to see and hear that podcasts have made a huge impact in the landscape. And then we're seeing out platforms like Reddit and Substack and Beehive, which are doing a lot of things for for entrepreneurs.
Ashley Orfus:One, it's it's actually making it a lot easier for them to have a following and have their own point of view. So what we're seeing is CPG, a lot of founders CPG space, for example, they have their own Substack as a way to connect with their community. So that's definitely something that we're seeing. And it's less about pitching and more about community building. And I know that that word has kind of been abused in the industry, community authentic, but platforms like Substack and Beehive are really making it possible to do that and give a really fair opportunity to the entrepreneur where, you know, it's hard to compete with Instagram and the algorithm per se.
Ashley Orfus:But we're seeing a lot of success of founders being able to share their story either on their own Substack or Beehive, but also with writers who are making the jump, who came from Wall Street Journal or a New York Times and want to be able to express their own opinion and share about the products they really love. And we're seeing a really big impact. For us, again, two years ago, we really saw that Substack was going to make a really huge impact in the space. And we were already curating these writers and getting to learn and getting to know them. So I think that there has been a democratization of new media, which creates a really exciting and fair playing field for young brands that maybe don't have the traditional investment to just dump all their money in paid media.
Adrienne Garland:Right. And I think that one of the things that gets confusing is there are all of these different platforms that are available. How do brands choose where to, you know, place their attention? Because if you try to be on all of the different platforms, you're gonna burn out.
Ashley Orfus:I think it's a couple things. You you may or may not like the answer, but experiment. Experiment. Think that sometimes we put so much pressure on picking the perfect one. And I think it's about experimenting.
Ashley Orfus:I think Gary Vee is a good example where he joked. He's I literally posted every day, you know, on social platforms. Literally, I had, like, two audience members, and then he blew up. So I think it's really about having the patience to experiment, but also looking at the data. What is the data telling you?
Ashley Orfus:If you're posting and you're getting five new followers here, 10 new followers, 15, and it keeps moving up, I think that's a good sign. So I think that we have to have a little bit of patience. We have to also try some things out. And I don't think you should I agree, I don't think you should do everything together at once, but commit to something and do it really well. If you're going to have a substack, commit to the content, commit to making it amazing so that it's really driving somebody there.
Adrienne Garland:Yeah. There really is such a blurring of the lines between PR, communications, marketing. It's all really the same. I mean, we've been talking about that. You know, I I worked at PR Newswire back in the day.
Adrienne Garland:And, you know, we we started having that conversation about the lines really being blurred back then. And it's it's really only gotten more blurry because something that you said is, I I think, important to focus on, and that is trust. Right? It's not about these messages where it's buy, buy, buy. It's how are you bringing people in?
Adrienne Garland:How are you showing them as a brand that you care about them and their well-being or helping them to accomplish something that they're trying to accomplish? And so, you know, how do founders and people that want to scale their businesses to a million dollars and beyond, You know, how can they think about that in their business? Because I think in the past, a a brand may have hired a a marketing agency, hired, you know, even an advertising agency, hired a media buying hired a PR agency, and now that's really all together. So what are some advice that you have for these growing brands?
Ashley Orfus:I mean, I don't I think, yes, you definitely need to invest in marketing. But I will say this, if you don't, again, have a great product and a great point of view, you are spending a lot of money that will not get you to scale. So I really think we need to change the conversation about what scaling means. It could mean I need to spend that money towards another product SKU that's gonna tell a fuller story as to what our real impact is in the world, right? If a if a business has one SKU and it's one product and you just hire a fancy marketing company to push it out, that's your that's not necessarily gonna help scale and get you to a million dollars plus.
Ashley Orfus:So I really encourage people to always start at the For being such a futurist, I always really am very much a fundamentalist when it comes to the product and the business itself. Yeah. And again, you should invest some marketing, but it's much more about testing. And I think that it's less about, I need to hire this agency and this agency and this and this and this and this, and that's gonna be my problem. I actually think sometimes they're the founder doesn't get to like, for us, we a great partner for us is is we do work with a lot of founders.
Ashley Orfus:We work with a lot of CMOs as well, but we want them to learn, and we need them to be educated along the way. And that is only also gonna make the business smarter. You also want to bring in good partners into your business. So don't just hire marketing to hire marketing. Don't just hire them because they worked with your competitor and you saw some glossy visuals and ask the scary questions.
Ashley Orfus:Ask the things that are keeping you up at night to them and see how they respond.
Adrienne Garland:I love that so much. And you make me think about how when we're building these companies and scaling these companies, a really great use of time is to do a lot of customer discovery and keep that going. Because when you do bring on a partner like A Lab, those insights are going to be what you are looking for so that you can Absolutely. Position
Adrienne Garland:that company in the
Ashley Orfus:And for us, we very much like to say we have a two way doll dialogue with our clients. So if they do have a paid performance team or they do have somebody internally that's doing the analytics, we are having those conversations to say, What did we learn about the customer today? And on the simple point, again, I know founders and entrepreneurs that are doing $10.20000000 in revenue, and they're writing as simple as handwritten notes to their They're calling them, Hey, I just wanted to say I'm the founder of XYZ. I think that there is so much pressure because of social media and everything looking so instantaneous. And part of being a futurist, I also say, is looking at the opportunities of that analog can also provide you.
Ashley Orfus:Right? I think that there is a real opportunity and strategy there of writing the handwritten notes, of calling your customers. So again, that's kind of part of the experimental, see what really resonates with your audience, but also you as a founder. We all have our own kind of DNA, our own the things that speak to us, and that's also what's gonna come across. If you absolutely hate doing podcasts, don't just do a podcast because you think it's gonna change your business.
Ashley Orfus:I think that we really have to honor ourselves if we're talking about changing the conversation around money and feeling good. Part of that is also honoring ourselves as a founder.
Adrienne Garland:Yeah, that is such an important message. And I think it's something that social media did to us. It connected us and it also separated us like our human connection and it is so important to show that you are a human being, that you are a founder that literally cares about your customers. You can't have a business without your customers. And I think that too, people are craving that type of connection.
Adrienne Garland:And in a lot of ways, it's almost like recognition to your customer that, know, hey, you're important to me. I'm, you know, willing to talk to you because you're the one that actually is driving my company, the way that we innovate, the you know, does our product and service actually solve what it is that you're looking to solve? And if not, why not? I think that we've relied so heavily on all these digital tools to to gather that information. And a lot of times they miss the mark.
Ashley Orfus:Totally.
Adrienne Garland:Yeah. So the this human connection is so important. I also see it in the events that I do. You know, people ask me when I'm maybe partnering with somebody, you know, have you done this ad? Have you posted here?
Adrienne Garland:Have you done that? And I do all of the things I do because you have to. And I always say, and it's because it takes a lot of effort. I always say, you know, the people that ends up purchasing tickets to come to my conference or or my, like, pitch the media event, which
Adrienne Garland:is coming
Adrienne Garland:up. I call people and I talk to them one on one. I'm I'm selling like one ticket at a time. And I think that that's what it takes because people want to be reassured that when they are spending their time coming to something and committing to it, that they feel comfortable that I'm there to almost take care of them. What do they need?
Adrienne Garland:Let me introduce you to this person. And that's what I think makes the events that I do special because I literally know the majority of people in the room. If it were 2,000 people, that's gonna be a different story, and I would have to figure that out. But I'm also not interested in putting on a 2,000 person type of event. So I I think this human touch is something that that can be now a differentiating factor.
Ashley Orfus:Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's it goes a long way. Like I said, it's a competitive edge because there are people that are are are looking for the shortcuts. And I think that it does go a long way because it is so rare.
Adrienne Garland:Yeah. Yeah. I I love the handwritten notes. It's almost like, you know, when I was graduating college and going on, you know, interviews and things like that, I I had my own stationary created, you know, with my name and I would always write thank you notes and such a beautiful thing. I loved doing it.
Adrienne Garland:And of course, I've completely stopped doing that, but I might go out and get myself some more personal stationary this weekend.
Ashley Orfus:I love that.
Adrienne Garland:Yeah. So Ashley, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I I love what you're doing. I I love this forward facing aspect of things in the future and where it's going. I know that there are so many women founders that are listening to the show and who probably want to connect with you.
Adrienne Garland:So how can they do that?
Ashley Orfus:They can email me if that if that works for you. They can email me directly. I will answer every email that I get. Ashley@alabgroup.com. They can also follow us on Instagram at a lab group.
Ashley Orfus:Amazing. And yeah, looking forward to hearing from everyone.
Adrienne Garland:Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure.
Ashley Orfus:Thank you.
Adrienne Garland:And I'm really excited.
Ashley Orfus:Likewise, thank you so much.
Adrienne Garland:Thank you. If this conversation moved you, inspired you, or made you think differently, please take a moment to leave a five star rating and review. It's not just about boosting the show. It's about amplifying the voices of women entrepreneurs who are leading with vision, building with purpose, and shaping what's next. We need more of these conversations in the world right now, don't you think?
Adrienne Garland:And if someone came to mind while you were listening, someone who matters to you, send this episode to them. If there's something on your mind about leadership, legacy, or what's next, I want to hear it. Head to sheleadsmedia.com backslash voice and leave a voice memo or note. Your insight might just help shape a future episode. Make sure to follow the show and come back next week for more conversations you won't hear anywhere else.
Adrienne Garland:Thank you so much for listening.