Ep. 36 Ashley Estilette - Empowering Your Team Through a Recession

We’re excited to welcome Ashley Estilette to the Master Marketer Show! As the Chief Marketing Officer at Mitratech since 2021, Ashley has overseen some of the most transformational workplace moments of our lifetime. 

With the effects of the pandemic still looming over many businesses, and many companies continue to navigate the “in-office v. remote” discussions, one thing is for sure: it is more important than ever for leaders to actively listen and stay in tune with their teams, AND to evaluate the needs of potential hires.

In this episode, we discuss culture shifts and effective business leadership as the possibility of a recession continues to loom over businesses across the world. How does a leader effectively lead the charge as pressure mounts, and what does that mean for their teams?

Let’s get started!

MINDSETS:

• Understanding Your Culture - What is the culture you want to build for your company? Many companies are recognizing the shift to remote work as a necessity, which can LARGELY reshape recruiting efforts. Understand the culture you want to portray, and own it — authenticity is SO important.
• Intentional Leaders - Remote work pushes “water cooler talk” to extinction. So… how do you keep your team engaged? Active leadership, and celebrating wins of any caliber, keep even the most unconventional of workspaces engaged.
• Transparency - If your company is fast-paced, be forthright about it in the application process. Get to know your applicants, and get granular on their interests. Understanding their motivations and their ideal work environments will help develop that symbiotic relationship that workspaces need; remote work may not be for you, and that’s okay!
• Navigating Meetings - While not always the case, companies who made the shift to remote sought to use meetings as a means of control. It’s not EXACTLY that beneficial. Rather, two team members may be better served to work concurrently in a live document. Meetings are NOT the end all, be all of the remote work.
• Trickle Down Information - If you’re responsible for attending board meetings, it’s SUPER important to trickle that information down to your team, both for transparency and motivation. And if the board is happy, celebrate your team!

SKILLSETS:

• Speed and Agility - Sure, speed as a skill makes more room for tasks, which if effective leads to revenue — like the urgency in certain salespeople. It’s harder to coach. Too much speed, as we all know, can lead to its own trouble, like sloppy results. 
• Controlling the Calendar -TIme maintenance is, in itself, a time suck – time blocking and scheduling is just as crucial as performing your tasks, and in the autonomous world of remote work, proper time management can be one of the most important keys to success.
• Leading by Example - Above all, don’t be a hypocrite - As leaders, we want to instill good practices in our team, but if we don’t practice what we preach (like time blocking and sticking to a schedule), your team may not feel as empowered. 

TOOLSETS:

• Calendars & Time-Blocking Software
• Email 
• Live Documents Like Google Drive
• Team Chats like Slack
• Team Happy Hours
• MentiMeter (Anonymous Q&A’s)

RESULTS:

For Ashley, keeping her team in the know on initiatives, successes, and failures has been tantamount to her success as a leader. When a board of executives is excited about a new initiative, she shares that excitement with her team. We are creatures of reward, in that we like to see positive results from our hard work. Ashley has been cognizant of that for her whole career, and it’s brought her to where she is today. With the remote environment unintentionally leading to some levels of isolation, it is more important than ever for leaders to trickle down as much information as possible so that regardless of the economic situation looming over many businesses, team members will continue to see the value of their work at a larger scale. 

A bit more about Ashley:

Ashley Estilette lives, eats, and breathes leadership. She has been a champion of her teams and prides herself on the “Workplace Rally Cry,” an intentional mindset of celebrating her team’s efforts. By her admission, she is “energized by people,” something that is clearly established in this week’s episode. Ashley has been the Chief Marketing Officer of Mitratech, a software development agency designed to em