Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom Jackobs: 0:36

Welcome back dear listeners to another delightful episode of the Heart-Led Business Show. Today we have the pleasure of welcoming Ally Machate a literary luminary, and the mastermind behind the writer's ally with over 25 years of wisdom. Ally flips the script on traditional publishing, crafting heart-led pathways for authors everywhere. Join us as we dive into her journey of building a business that truly puts writers first, empowering them to shine bright like these jars we are. So grab some paper because it's time to ink some inspiration. Ally, welcome to the show.

Ally Machate: 1:13

Thanks so much for having me, Tom. I'm excited to be here.

Tom Jackobs: 1:15

I'm really excited to chat with you and have your input for our listeners as well, because a lot of my listeners love writing and are aspiring writers. I have two published books-ish. And everybody loves a good book, right? And loves to Write, so I'm really excited to dive into how you design your Heart-Led Business, but of course, the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a Heart-Led Business?

Ally Machate: 1:43

Yeah, I think for me when I hear the term Heart-Led Business, it emphasizes a passion and a level of care. I think over a bottom line. Anyone in business wants to make money. You can't survive if you don't make money. But there are some business models that are less personal, less involved in helping people that are more transactional, just like really more focused on the bottom line. That's not what a Heart-Led Business is. People who have a Heart-Led Business are more interested in helping people in some way usually create some kind of transformation or offer a solution and are really in it because they genuinely care and have passion for that thing that they're doing.

Tom Jackobs: 2:25

Yeah. Oh, I love that. And that's so true for a lot of new entrepreneurs, especially these days that a lot of, I think it started, earlier than COVID, but COVID really amplified people going into their own business, and a lot of people did their passion thing and then realize, oh wait, I know nothing about business. You have a passion for it. You love to help people, but as you said earlier, you need some money to actually operate that business as well. So tell a little bit about your business and then how you've been able to manage both being heart-led and being able to make a profit.

Ally Machate: 3:00

Yeah, absolutely. I think I am the quintessential Heart-Led Business. I'm an absolute book nerd at heart. I've always loved books and reading and writing. We have a family legend that, I learned to read at the age of 3, and I was so impatient because I love Being read to, and my parents wouldn't read enough to me, so I basically was like, I'll do it myself, and started to learn to read. And I would make books out of construction, paper and crayons and give them to people and tell them that I was a book publisher. For real in my blood, my whole life. Absolutely. A lifelong passion.

Tom Jackobs: 3:37

What was the first book that you read?

Ally Machate: 3:39

I can't remember the title of it, I remember my favorite book'cause I still have it somewhere. It was a Sesame Street book where the count was taking different Sesame Street members up and down a building in an elevator and then counting like how many people were in the elevator and like what floor they were on. It was like a counting book.

Tom Jackobs: 3:59

Number two.

Ally Machate: 4:00

I was a big Sesame Street fan.

Tom Jackobs: 4:02

Oh, me too.

Ally Machate: 4:03

Yeah, it like, it just continued. I just always loved to read and I always loved to write and all the way through, I did all the typical academic things like editor of the school paper and the yearbook committee and the lit mag, blah, blah, blah. But, fast forward and I got my dream job. I graduated from college and I got a job at Simon and Schuster, one of the big five publishers in New York, which is what I wanted to do my whole life. And it was incredibly exciting to actually achieve that dream. I don't think a lot of people can really say that. And I feel very lucky that I'm one of those people who actually got my dream job. And I got into it because I did and still do really believe in the power of books to change people. And by changing people, change the world. Books are one of the last true artifacts of our culture where you can point to one singular piece of work and say that's where it's started. That's the thing that kicked off the movement. That's the thing that fueled this transformation. And I wanted to bring that to more people. And that's why I got into publishing and that's what I loved about publishing, and I learned so much working there as you can imagine just a huge lesson in the industry and how it all works. But, life conspires and we went through the dot-com bust and we went through 9-11. New York really took it to the knees for a few years. And the timing just felt like it was time to take a step back. I wasn't able to move forward in my career in the way that I wanted. I was this close to finishing a master's degree and I thought, you know what? I'll quit. I'll go full-time. I'll knock that degree out, and then I'll come back and we'll see what the landscape looks like, and hopefully there are more jobs opening up and maybe I'll move to a different publisher. I just loved working with authors directly so much. I started freelancing while I was finishing up that degree. And I really enjoyed it, and I just felt that there were so many people out there who had interesting stories and messages to share that could help other people, entertain other people. And they didn't know how to get that out. They didn't have what it was gonna take to get a traditional publishing deal. And self-publishing tools like Print on Demand had just really become viable and become a thing. And then a few years later, we had eBooks starting to become a thing. And people needed help. They needed help navigating the publishing landscape. They needed help understanding what really makes a book marketable and commercially viable and not just a good book'cause a good book is not enough to succeed in the marketplace. And yeah, keep fast forwarding and I expanded into a team and eventually became the writer's ally.

Tom Jackobs: 6:36

Wow. That's what a journey and I'm sure there's been a lot of trials and tribulations along the way as well. And we can dive into some of those. I'm really interested, like what's your degree then, your master's degree?

Ally Machate: 6:48

English and creative writing.

Tom Jackobs: 6:49

Okay. So you didn't do the whole MBA thing or anything like that?

Ally Machate: 6:53

Nope. I had to learn the business stuff the hard way like everybody else.

Tom Jackobs: 6:56

They don't teach that in MBA school anyway.

Ally Machate: 6:58

No, they don't.

Tom Jackobs: 6:59

That's cool. So you were going to school and then helping authors, and what specifically were you helping them do?

Ally Machate: 7:04

My main skillset at the time was as a developmental editor. That's what I did at Simon Schuster. I acquired books and then I helped to develop them to be ready for publication. And so I was doing that on a freelance basis. I also did a bunch of writing. I wrote, I dunno if anybody remembers SparkNotes. It was like Barnes and Noble's answer to CliffNotes.

Tom Jackobs: 7:23

Yeah.

Ally Machate: 7:23

I wrote a bunch of those. I did ghost writing. I did book doctoring for most of the major publishers. I did quite a bit.

Tom Jackobs: 7:30

What's book doctoring?

Ally Machate: 7:32

Book doctoring is typically a situation where an author has written a book and turned it into the publisher, and it's just not publishable. It's not holding together. Sometimes the author probably should have hired a ghost writer and didn't. Sometimes it's just not achieving the vision that the publisher really had for the book. So they bring in an expert. It's more than editing, so it's somewhere between ghost writing and editing. You really get your fingers in and just fix the book so you're not just like giving it back to the author with suggestions. It's usually a scenario where there's a time crunch and they don't have time for that, so they just call in a book doctor to just do it.

Tom Jackobs: 8:09

Oh wow. And then the author has no say in it at all?

Ally Machate: 8:12

That depends on the publisher. I was never involved in a project like that. The projects I was involved in, the authors were also involved. They were very grateful for the extra help.

Tom Jackobs: 8:21

I'm sure. So when you left Simon Schuster, what was the transformation for you then from leaving corporate to then going back to school, obviously, but then also then starting your business?

Ally Machate: 8:30

It was a steep learning curve, that's for sure. I really didn't have any kind of a business background. And as you say, even if I had gone to business school, it wouldn't have necessarily been the right kind of a background for starting a solopreneur online based business. It was a lot of learning how to communicate the value of something. I think that's actually something I still struggle with a little bit today. Book publishing is very much an industry where people see a certain version of it in pop culture or in the media, and it's like that iceberg effect, right? They see this timing little part, they see someone got a book deal and then like maybe a year later the book came out and all of a sudden they're on NPR and there's like ads and whatever, and they think, okay, that's what publishing a book is. But of course there's so much more that goes into it. Learning how to convey the value and what those things are. The things they don't know, they don't know has been a really big learning curve in particular for me. Learning how to build a team. I was a solopreneur for many years. I freelanced on my own. I started really getting serious about building the team probably around 2011, 2012. And then what the business that is now, the writer's ally really came out around 2014, a little over 10 years ago. So just. Learning how to do that, how to build a team, what that business model looks like, what it entails. All the skills of hiring people and learning how to communicate with people who are all over the world. Whether it's all virtual work, I don't have a building with a bunch of employees and at anywhere. So all of the things around that, just so much to learn. But that's actually been the part that's been really exciting for me. The mission itself, I'd say is like the number one most exciting thing. That being that kind of business where I do still believe in this power of books. And it's just an incredible honor and a pleasure. I like to say that I help people to help millions more. I help them to put that book out and then that book goes out into the world and can impact hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, and it starts with us. So that's just an unbelievable feeling. Also, I love the challenge of running a business. I love the challenge of having to learn all the things and then all the things change and you have to learn all new things, that's really fun.

Tom Jackobs: 10:45

That's great. So what is the official mission then of the writer's ally?

Ally Machate: 10:49

We work with serious authors, so people who want to publish a book that actually gets results, not just an ego project, not just something that they wanna stick in their Zoom background, but something they actually want to have it go out in the world and do something. We help them to write, publish, and sell high quality books that actually get results.

Tom Jackobs: 11:07

Awesome. And then how does your heart-led mission fit into the overarching theme of your entire business? How have you kinda integrated the heart-led piece?

Ally Machate: 11:16

I think it comes in a number of different levels. Like any business, the tone is set by the owner, right by the leader. I am very clear about my passion for books and my vision for the role that books play in our culture and in the world. So, I look for that in other people. As I build my team, everyone on my team shares that mission and shares that perspective. As far as books go, we think about books in the same way. And we have a certain level of care for the authors that I certainly hope and think is communicated. The testimonials would let me know that we are going in the right direction and that people feel that care. They feel that they're not just a number in a database, they're people with real projects and we're trying to help them achieve their vision. We're trying to help them feel confident and feel great about what they're doing. There's a little bit of author therapy that goes into every project as much as the work, the tangible work itself, right? You're working with people who are putting themselves out there in a really big way, and that can be scary and intimidating. Supporting them and helping them to connect with that same fire, that same passion, and let the insecurities fade into the background a little. I think that all comes into play.

Tom Jackobs: 12:24

Yeah, absolutely. And when you're building your team. I'm sure there's times where you know, like you make the right choice and sometimes you make the bad choice with employee. How quickly do you find out if they're following your heart-led mission?

Ally Machate: 12:40

That's a really good question. I review everything that goes out, so certainly if I were to see something that had the wrong tone. One of the things that we really set as far as like a house style, if you will, is that we believe in straightforward honesty, but also being encouraging and supportive. So we don't whitewash things. We don't just stroke people's egos. If something's not working, we tell them it's not working. If something they're trying to do is not happening on the page. We're very honest about that, but we like to do it in a way that is encouraging and supportive and always trying to help people see what they need to do and help them have the confidence to make those changes and to do those things. So the book gets the treatment that it needs.

Tom Jackobs: 13:25

Yeah. That's such a good way of balancing, giving critique as well. I always find that, explaining why it's important also is just one of those things that when you're giving critiques, it's like rather than saying, oh, this whole page sucks.

Ally Machate: 13:39

Right.

Tom Jackobs: 13:40

Of this, and this, giving them the why and then you wanna change this because of that. That's really important, especially if you're working with people with egos is you have some kid-gloves every once in a while, but also be a straight shooter. How do you balance that with some of the personalities that you've worked with?

Ally Machate: 13:58

I think it's part of what makes a good editor and obviously I'm looking to hire certain types of people who not only have the right philosophy and perspective, of course, also the right kind of experience. But I am looking for personalities. I'm looking for people. When you're motivated, I think, by the heart, and it's not just transactional. You give to a client, you give to a project in a way that's different when you're just focused on doing the work and getting a paycheck. And I look for those people who have that same level of passion and care and see themselves as being a part of the author's journey. Not the orchestra, not like the master, the master manipulator, not the person who's running the show, but a part of the author's journey. The author is the one running the show. We wanna come in and be they're outsourced team. We wanna be the experts they can turn to. We wanna be the ones who flag the things they don't know to look for, right? The pitfalls that they don't even know that they're stepping into. But we're always very conscious of the fact that the author is running the show. It's their project. It's their vision, it's their business, whatever it is. So looking for people who convey that when I talk to them, I look at samples from previous projects. I talk to previous clients, you know, and at this point some of it is instinct, certainly. But there are also criteria that I look for. And I just look for people who get it, who get what a really good editor's role is supposed to be. And, there's a certain amount of humility, I think that goes into that confidence in our own skills. We're experts. We know what we're doing, but also some humility. It's not about us, it's not our book.

Tom Jackobs: 15:34

That's quite the skill that you have to develop and as a leader, I'm sure you do a lot of that in terms of training and, development of your staff.

Ally Machate: 15:43

Absolutely.

Tom Jackobs: 15:43

That's awesome. Now, when you transitioned from corporate, that was your first job out of school?

Ally Machate: 15:49

My first significant job, yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 15:51

Okay, awesome. And so were you living in New York before or did you move to New York for the job?

Ally Machate: 15:57

I was living in New York State, but I moved to New York City for the job.

Tom Jackobs: 16:00

That's awesome. And so what was it like making that transition from a corporate into then running your own business and certainly if there's any train wreck stories?

Ally Machate: 16:10

I don't have any train wreck stories. Certainly again, there was a learning curve. Yeah. No I was pretty lucky. Leaving the corporate structure I think for me was easier than maybe it is for some people just because of my personality. I'm a real earth sign. I'm very organized. I'm very into systems, I'm very into structure. I know that one of the things that people really struggle with when they start their own business is often self-discipline, is just when you don't have somebody else telling you when to show up for work and what your deliverables are. Having the meeting every week and having your reviews every quarter. You have to hold yourself accountable. You have to be the one who makes sure that you get up and do the things. And if it's not just related to the work when you're running your own business, right? It's also the marketing and nurturing leads. And once you have a team, then that's a whole other set of things to do. It was a lot to learn for sure. And, if I could go back in time, I think one of the things that I would change is I would start getting involved in mastermind groups and group coaching a lot earlier. That wasn't something I discovered until much later, right around the time that I was actually building the business. I started getting introduced to people who were business coaches and supporting business like mine. And I had some really wonderful coaches at that point, but I just didn't even know it was a thing before that. And if I had, it definitely would've made the transition easier.

Tom Jackobs: 17:31

Yes. Oh, I was just having that conversation earlier today too with somebody I was like, you know what? It took me 6 months and almost going broke to figure out that I needed help and to get a coach to help. I spent my last$2,000 on a coach and it paid off like.

Ally Machate: 17:45

Nice.

Tom Jackobs: 17:46

Thousand times,

Ally Machate: 17:47

yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 17:48

of the next year, which is I think as entrepreneurs and solopreneurs specifically, we see all these Instagram messages like, oh, burn the bridges. Just go all in and you can do this. Just figure it out on your own. And it's complete P.S.

Ally Machate: 18:01

Yeah. Like you can go that way. I'd run the world by now, right? If I had a coach a lot earlier on, my business would probably look a lot different. Not that I'm unhappy with where we are now, that learning curve would certainly have been a lot shorter if I were learning from somebody who knew instead of just trying to figure it all out as I went along.

Tom Jackobs: 18:21

Yeah. For anybody that's struggling with hiring a coach, I mean it's, either pay with time or you pay with money. And I would much rather pay with money than my time'cause I think time is a lot more valuable than the money. You can always make more money.

Ally Machate: 18:36

Absolutely true.

Tom Jackobs: 18:37

It grows on trees in the backyard, although my mom says it doesn't. So what kind of happy surprises have come about from being more heart-led than being profit-led?

Ally Machate: 18:51

I think it's the relationships. The relationships, both with other business owners and also with clients. This year I started something new. I started doing an open ask me anything session once a month as an experiment. The first Tuesday of every month, I think I started it late spring or early summer, so it hasn't even been all year. I just thought, you know what, like I've seen other people do this. Let's see if this is something my audience would be into. And so I just floated it out there and I started doing these sessions. I only promote it to my list and I just invite people like, I'm gonna be here. Here's the Zoom link 12 to 1. Bring your questions, come hang out. Very informal and it's been a really wonderful experience and one of the ways that it's been the most wonderful is I've been so surprised at how many previous clients have come back just to say hi, like. I've had clients show up that I haven't seen in a few years because they're still on my list. And it's funny, the whole internet business thing, right? Like you presume that people are reading your emails and are still there, but it doesn't feel like it, right? You're just sending it out. But yeah, like they're still on my list. This one client in particular, Robert Gordon who we worked with a number of years ago, and we've worked with on a few different books with him. Literally just came to say hi. He popped in, he said, I saw you were doing this. I wanted to see your face. I wanted to let you know what was going on. Gave me a little update, hung out. And it's such a nice thing. It's such a nice feeling first of all, right? You've had this relationship with somebody and it wasn't totally one sided, right? They come back a few years later, that must mean they actually like you and they enjoyed working with you. That's a wonderful thing.

Tom Jackobs: 20:28

Yeah.

Ally Machate: 20:28

And I think that kind of thing spreads, so here I am in a virtual room with 10 people, and 2 of them are previous clients that came just to say hi. And another 2 of them are current clients that popped in with some questions about what's going on with their project right now. And then the few other people are people I've never seen before, and they get to hear from my current and past clients, that's powerful marketing, right? Like they can look and say, oh, this is somebody who has her clients coming back years later just to say hello and give an update. That's incredible and it feels so good to have that happen. I don't think that happens in transactional businesses.

Tom Jackobs: 21:09

No not at all. And you know, it's so funny too. I work with some clients can I just send an email to my list? That's so lazy. Come on. You have a relationship with these people. Pick up the phone or send a text. It's a personal, business. Now that's great. And relationships are the key to business success in my opinion cause they say that your network is your net worth. You can network, but you can also build relationships.

Ally Machate: 21:33

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 21:33

That's at higher level is building those relationships as well.

Ally Machate: 21:36

It's an extra challenge, I think too, like I know at my level I'm in that place where I'm removed from the business in a lot of ways. I'm not the one who's working directly with clients, I'm not working on deliverables. So my challenge has been to find those ways to maintain those relationships in a way that, protects my time. That's appropriate for my role as the CEO and founder. I have different responsibilities now that my team counts on me, right? Like I need to be doing networking. I need to do marketing so that they all have projects to work on. So to threading that needle of I still wanna talk to people. I still want to have those relationships. I think that's also part of being a Heart-Led Business, right? I'm not just in it to check boxes off on a document and collect a paycheck. It's working with the people and the creative energy and the collaboration and that exchange of personalities working with people. That's the point, like without that, any job is boring as hell. Having to figure out like, how do I still get that benefit in this new role and position in the company has been interesting.

Tom Jackobs: 22:40

Yeah. And getting transformations out of people too. It's, you can't have a transaction and also expect a transformation.

Ally Machate: 22:48

Oh, yes. So true. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 22:49

And with your passion of helping people make that transformation, a relationship has to occur at some point. That's just fascinating. I loved talking to all different sorts of businesses and especially Heart-Led Businesses when it all comes down to it, that passion that helping people. And when you do all of that, then everything else runs smoothly and works its way out. And even the big problems that do come up every once in a while, you're able to handle those with grace and ease because your heart's in it versus if there's a transactional businesses. And I've had transactional businesses before and I'm like, ah, that didn't work. Cut it off. Like you're done. When you're doing helping people, it's a much deeper meaning. Ally, this has been just a fascinating conversation, so I appreciate you spending time with us. But how can our listeners learn more about you and the writer's ally?

Ally Machate: 23:41

They can go to our site, which is the writersally.com. But I've also prepared a special gift for everyone who's listening. So if they go to offers.thewritersally.com/Heart-Led Business they will get access to my Evergreen webinar called Don't Write the Wrong Book. You know, sort of Like building on all of these things that we've been talking about. When you have a business and you are thinking about writing a book, there's these sort of 2 related myths that I'm on a real mission to dispel. One is that everybody should have a book. Not everybody needs a book. Sometimes a book is not the right tool for the job. Sometimes it's just not the right time in your business, right? So no, a book is not always the answer. And also not just any book we'll do, it has to be the right book. It has to be a book that is aligned with your business strategy, where you're clear about what you wanna do with your business and how the book fits into that picture. It's a tool that you can use for leverage. It's again, like not just a calling card. It's not just a thing that sits in your Zoom background or your email signature. It is an incredibly powerful tool, but it has to be the right book to get the results that you want out of it, and this webinar will help you to really understand what that means and take you through a 5 step process to help you get your head around your current book idea, or if you're trying to decide between a few different ideas, even if you have a draft already, it'll really help shift the way that you're thinking about it and make sure that you are writing the right book and avoiding the wrong book.

Tom Jackobs: 25:13

Awesome. That sounds like an amazing gift. So thank you so much for providing that for the audience.

Ally Machate: 25:17

My pleasure.

Tom Jackobs: 25:18

And thank you also for being on the show today and sharing your wisdom and your journey through your life. And, I can't believe 3 years old, and you're already reading I was gonna guess that your first book was War and Peace. That's awesome. So thank you Ally for coming on the show today.

Ally Machate: 25:32

Absolutely my pleasure. Thanks again for having me.

Tom Jackobs: 25:34

Of course. and thank you audience for listening and watching the show today. We really do appreciate it and make sure you're checking out everything that Ally is doing and that's all provided down in the show notes, so make sure you go down there. We're gonna put that link to the webinar also, so you can just click right there and go right to the webinar and also while you're down there clicking away, if you could do me a favor and share the show with a friend or family member that could use the information that we shared today, we would certainly appreciate that. And until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 26:03

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.