Episode 93: Entrepreneurs Who Grew 6+ Figure Businesses With Ashley Whaley

Ashley Whaley has been an entepreneur for over a decade. She started her first business when she was 19 years old and has never looked back. She loves the freedom that comes with being an entrepreneur because it gives her the flexibility and financial blessing to spend time with her husband and two young children. She loves people and loves adventure! She’s fired up about life and is excited for the future.

Inspiration:
Ashley was one of the “weird kids who loved to clean” and after being miserable doing sales calls for car drive tests, she decided she’d made her last call. She left her job on the spot, drove away from the high rise downtown Minneapolis job and then figured out how to make money next.

She sent a mass email to her parents, friends, and college professors and got started with her first cleaning company. She hired friends to help her out, but it wasn’t profitable, so she transitioned to real estate where she found herself working all the time, but making great money.

She got married, moved to Vegas at 24 and started a second cleaning company that later moved with her and her husband to Oregon. Her husband joined the company in 2016 after their second child was born, they’ve just rebranded the company to More Free Time Cleaning in 2020.

Challenge:
Ashley loves connecting with people, loves entrepreneurship and conversations with other business owners, but moving from Minnesota to Las Vegas, and then Portland was a challenge not knowing anyone. Freshly married and before kids, her and her husband struggled financially when they first landed in Oregon. Her husband’s truck had to be sold to pay rent. So Ashley got to work networking, especially with other business owners. The Business Network International (BNI) was instrumental in helping her meet and get clients.

The first year was a struggle that felt a bit like punishment at times. And then with her first child, her business accelerated and her husband helped put a lot of business systems into place, so she had more freedom to be a mom. A big struggle throughout their business was hiring and staffing to balance out the employees with the amount of work. Now, her team is amazing and all their core values match. Gratitude and faith got them through the struggles of business growth.

Passion:
Ashley is passionate about family and living healthy. She loves the business freedom of being there for her daughters, being a role modeal to them and being the best wife she can be to her husband.

Vision:
Ashley’s vision is total financial freedom, time and money freedom. She sees lots of travel in her family’s future, building relationships and making a positive impact. She’s had the 12-18 year age range on her heart and wants to explore having more of a positive influence on them.

Advice:
The best advice Ashley received was “the best thing you can do as a business professional is to be available and be responsive.” 

Personal Growth:
Ashley’s grown the most from being accountable, returning the calls and having good communication skills to build relationships, and to do everything with a kindness behind it.

Tools, Podcasts & Books:

• Air Pods to listen to podcasts while doing the dishes
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
• The Real Simple Magazine
• Rachel Hollis podcast

Looking Back:
Ashley would tell her younger self – Be confident, girl. Don’t care so much about what people think. Own who you are.

Interview Links:
Find out more about Ashley Whaley by visiting https://www.morefreetimecleaning.com/

________________________

Download this episode