About

I profile people in Northeast Alabama. Business owners, mostly. But also places and organizations that have been here long enough to have a story worth hearing.

The format is simple. I sit down with someone, ask how they got here, and write it with enough room to actually tell the story.

Who's Behind This?

My name is Matt Headley. I live in Jacksonville. I spent twenty years in music and pastoral ministry. Somewhere in the middle of that, my wife Heather and I built a flower farm. Cut flowers, farmers markets, a little retail kiosk on the Chief Ladiga Trail. We built that thing from the ground up, with our kids underfoot. And then we had to sell it.

I still drive past farms and gardens on my way to work. Some days it's fine. Some days it isn't.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 41. I'm in recovery. I was born in California and have lived in Northeast Alabama for twenty-eight years.

What I do now is help small business owners find and say the true thing about what they do. I run Plainspoken Blueprint — a messaging clarity practice built from fifteen years in the pulpit, a flower farm, and thirty pieces of software for florists, farmers market managers, pastors, and wedding vendors. One 90-minute session. One page. A message that works before you walk in the room.

Southern Legends started because the work kept putting me across the table from people, and I needed that more than I expected. Turns out sitting with someone and asking them to tell you their story is one of the ways back. I wrote more about why this site exists in the journal. My writing has appeared in the Anniston Star.

When you've lost something you built, you notice the people who are still building. You pay attention differently. You ask better questions.

Plainspoken Blueprint

Clever confuses.Clarity sells.

I built Plainspoken Blueprint for small business owners who do good work but struggle to explain it clearly. One 90-minute session. One page: who your customer is, how you help them, exactly how to say it. That page becomes your homepage, your elevator pitch. I also build websites.

Score your message free →