Simplifying Your Business With Ashley Kang

Today we are talking all things strategy with Ashley Kang, who is the owner of AHK Business Management! We will be diving into simplifying your business and how to use your vision to move your business forward!

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Meet Ashley

“A real life Hermione Granger” is a tagline used frequently to describe Ashley. She’s been organizing, planning, and managing everything from a young age, from alphabetizing her personal library to coordinating group projects, to always having a to-do list and up-to-date planner.

The pandemic pushed her to make the leap to be full time in her business, AHK Business Management, where she helps business owners become organized and moving forward with clear direction and focus. She loves working with her clients to take their ideas, tasks, and creative chaos and turn everything into actionable plans.

When she’s not working with clients to get organized and focused in their businesses, Ashley loves quilting, kayaking, and puttering around in the garden. And in true Hermione Granger form, a book is never too far away.

How Does Vision Play A Role In Your Work With Your Clients?

Vision is necessary for your business to gain clarity and direction and start simplifying your business. Ashley stresses the importance of a loose vision that helps guide you through your business.

It’s okay to not know exactly where you want to be down the road, but having a vision will allow you to make strategic decisions for your business. As Ashley says, having a sense of your vision will help you” then craft your more short term goals and your short term priorities, like for the year and for the next month”.

Ashley also talks about how vision constantly evolves as your business grows and your priorities shift.

Some questions you can ask yourself to start developing your vision are:

What brings you joy?
Why are you in business?
What goals are you working towards?

What Is The 4 Step Framework You Use In Your VIP Days?

In Ashley’s “From Chaos To Clarity” VIP Days, she utilizes a 4 step framework to help business owners move forwards with purpose and clarity.

Align: In this step, Ashley helps business owners realign their vision and mission for the business.
Articulate: This step is about taking allll of the ideas Ashley’s clients have and simplifying and prioritizing them.
Assemble: In this step, Ashley takes the prioritized list of ideas and builds out a detailed action plan for those ideas.
Activate: This step is about finalizing and implementing the action plan laid out in step 3. Through this step, Ashley guides her clients to take action and start moving the needle in their biz.

What Are Your Tips For Prioritizing And Planning?

Ashley stresses the importance of finding what works best for you. Running a business doesn’t have a one size fits all blueprint. Ashley says that when it comes to prioritizing and planning, it “looks different for every single person; everybody’s brain works a little differently and what works for me might not work for you.”

For example, when it comes to building a plan for your business, some people work best when planning for the next 90 days, while others work best when planning just the next month.

Ashley also recommends carving out time to have a CEO day each week where you can focus on higher-level thinking and strategic planning. This includes evaluating roadblocks, prioritizing urgent projects, and “having more of a heartbeat on what’s going on in your business.”

What Are Your Fav Platform Recommendations?

Ashley’s favorite platforms are ClickUp and Airtable. It’s necessary for every business owner to utilize a project management tool in order to keep their business moving forward.

Having a project management tool is a non-negotiable in your biz and allows you “to capture all of your ideas, and again, sort and organize without having to do it manually or in your head.”

ClickUp is an incredible tool because it offers a truly customizable experience for each team. It also is a platform that grows with you and supports you as your priorities shift and grow.

Airtable is another great tool that allows you to organize data in a simple, user-friendly interface! Overall, Ashley stresses that in order to “be intentional with work and actually move the needle, you need something to track what you’re doing your tasks and your projects and that vision plan.”

What Are Your Top Tips For Productive Planning?

Ashley has found that people often get trapped in that pendulum of either over planning or under planning. She finds that people will have super thorough plans that took them hours to create or post-it notes all over the place with no clear plan in sight.

When planning, it’s super important to be thorough enough to support productivity, but also leave room for flexibility and the unknown.

Like Ashley previously mentioned, also carving out time to have a CEO day (or even a CEO hour) is also super helpful in staying on top of your action plans.

Overall, Ashley says to “take your time in the sense of you don’t have to run out of the gate and try every single thing. Because then you really can’t track what’s working, what you take joy in. Again, the whole Marie Kondo thing, what brings you joy? Simplify. And it’s the whole less is more. You can always build and add as you go. But it really is what brings you joy? And start from there and keep it simple.”

If you’re ready to start simplifying your business, connect with Ashley Kang by checking out the links below!