I was standing in a gymnasium at twenty-two years old, coaching a group of competitive cheerleaders through a routine that would make or break their season, working three jobs to keep the lights on, and I had absolutely no idea that every lesson I was learning in that gym would one day make me a better CFO than any corporate training program ever could. Life has a funny way of connecting the dots when you stop trying to draw a straight line.
I was born in Houston, Texas, though my family traveled a lot when I was young. We moved around before eventually coming back to Houston roots when I was around eleven or twelve years old. That return to Houston planted me in the place I would eventually build my career and my family. I now live in The Woodlands, a suburb just north of the city, with my two kids and a life that looks nothing like what I planned and everything like what I needed.
My educational path was consistent even when nothing else was. Private school from second grade all the way through college graduation. My parents wanted me to go to Baylor University. I wanted to go to Texas Tech. They won that argument. I earned my Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor, and while I did not love the idea at the time, I can look back now and appreciate the discipline and standards that kind of education instilled. It taught me how to show up even when I did not want to.
But the real education came outside the classroom. I coached competitive cheerleading. I worked with young athletes who needed someone to believe in them, push them, and hold them accountable. I did not know it then, but I was learning to be a leader of humans long before I ever had a business card that said so.
When I graduated college, finding jobs was not simple. I had an internship with a nonprofit, and my boss there fought hard to convince the organization to hire me full-time. But the division where I worked was small, and they did not see the need for another position. They said no. They did not give her the funding to hire me. So I moved home without a job offer in hand.
What followed was a period of hustle that shaped everything about who I am today. I took a retail position with one of the top retail companies to work for and was on track for store management. Then the competitive cheer gym where I had coached needed help because one of the owners became pregnant. I pivoted back to coaching. It does not pay a whole lot, so I had multiple jobs at any given point in time.
That season of juggling, of figuring it out, of refusing to sit still, it built something in me that no corporate training could replicate. I learned that showing up and doing the work matters more than having the perfect plan. I learned that you can pour into people and build something meaningful even when your bank account says you should be doing something else.
The transition to corporate life came around age twenty-seven or twenty-eight, through a recruitment firm. I was far removed from college, far removed from professional things. That corporate role lasted two years before external forces stepped in. The CEO failed to disclose critical information during an acquisition process, the investing company chose to acquire a competitor instead, and me and almost everybody in my division got laid off. I was out of work for six months.
During those six months, I landed a role working for a real estate mogul near my home. It seemed random at the time. But that position introduced me to a business consultant who would change my entire career trajectory. He was quite good at his job, and him and I stayed in good communication. When he moved to ServPro to help franchise owners grow their business, he reached out about an opportunity. I said absolutely yes because where I was there was not any opportunity for me.
At SERVPRO, I started as Marketing Office Coordinator and quickly advanced to Marketing Office Manager. It was there that I first encountered Tier Level Digital Marketing as a client evaluating vendors. I hired Tier Level to do the digital marketing for those franchises. And I think I was told that I actually grilled the owner of Tier Level Digital Marketing pretty well when I was interviewing him for the role. That thorough vetting process would ironically lead to my eventual employment at the very company I scrutinized.
Ashlie Marshall is a leader who believes that investing in people is not a soft strategy. It is the most reliable path to sustainable profitability. That belief crystallized during my time at ServPro and solidified when I joined Tier Level. I came with the idea that I was going to be part of the leadership team and leading the team to continue to help other businesses grow and thrive. The reality proved more challenging than anticipated. It did not happen the way it was intended and there was a lot of bumps on the road.
But those bumps taught me something critical. Having empathetic leadership keeps people working hard for you because they know that you are in their corner. I sharpened and improved that skill set over the last three years in the midst of poor leaders. I studied Simon Sinek, John C. Maxwell, and the principles behind Leaders Eat Last. I applied those principles not in theory, but in practice, in the midst of real organizational dysfunction. And the results spoke for themselves.
Ashlie Marshall is the CFO and Executive Director of Tier Level Digital Marketing, a digital marketing agency serving businesses across the United States with a focus on service-based companies seeking genuine growth. My responsibilities span financial oversight and forecasting, team leadership and personnel development, client relationship management at the executive level, operational process improvement, and strategic planning.
I am not delivering any results or any work directly. I am having high-level conversations with high-level clients. My team handles the execution, and they handle it well. They are all working so much more independently now. They do not need me to show up to help them. They can do it themselves. That shift from dependent to self-sufficient is one of the things I am most proud of building.
What makes Ashlie Marshall different is simple: I combine financial discipline with human-centered leadership in an industry where those qualities rarely coexist. Most digital marketing professionals fall into one of two camps: the numbers people who view clients as revenue sources, or the relationship people who struggle to maintain profitability. I operate in a third space entirely.
I drive results through people development. I maintain rigorous financial oversight while prioritizing team wellbeing. And I build client loyalty through radical honesty rather than overselling. I am not perfect. I do not know it all. I am learning every day just like everyone else. But if I am showing up and putting in the effort, then I am not going to be replaced. That is what I believe, and that is how I operate.
The mission is straightforward. I want to look back and say I did the best I could. I added value to the humans that I was surrounded with. I added value to their life and they added value to mine. That is what I want to say I did successfully.
I know the mud I have walked through. I know the challenges that I have had. And if I can share that with other people, then hopefully their mud is a little less sticky and they have it a little bit easier than I did. If I can give them a head start, that is being a good human. We do that for our kids all the time. And leading people is not much different than being a parent.
If you are a business owner who is tired of agencies that promise the moon and deliver a dashboard, or a leader who believes that kindness and accountability can coexist, I would love to connect. Find me on LinkedIn or reach out through Tier Level Digital Marketing. What you see is what you get, and I would not have it any other way.
Ashlie