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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast!
[0:00] Dave Charest: On today's episode, you'll hear from someone who believes the size of your business can actually be your greatest advantage, and that now is the time to embrace the technological shifts shaping our future. This is the Be a Marketer podcast.
[0:27] Dave Charest: My name is Dave Charest, director of small businesses at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business, even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer, and at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
[0:59] Dave Charest: Well, friend, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Via Marketer podcast.
[01:04] Dave Charest: Making sure I don't go off the rails. There she is, Kelsi Carter.
[01:08] Kelsi Carter: It is to hold you back in, Dave.
[01:10] Dave Charest: Yes, yes, yes. Keep us on the tracks as you always do. Hi, Kelsi, good to see you today.
[01:16] Kelsi Carter: So good to see you. Always a good day with you. Of course.
[01:19] Dave Charest: yes, great. Thank you. I feel the same. My question to you is not from a marketing perspective, but when you think about your life outside of the marketing bubble.
[01:29] Dave Charest: Are you using AI in your everyday life?
[01:31] Kelsi Carter: am. Well, Chat GBT has become my new Google. So that will do everything, but with AI it's heavy in how I do shopping.
[01:41] Dave Charest: How so? Tell me about that actually.
[01:43] Kelsi Carter: So I will ask if I have a certain amount of ingredients, if I have certain things like at home. I'll be like, what can I make with these? So that's super helpful. And then if I'm going grocery shopping.
[01:54] Kelsi Carter: I kind of ask for recipes because I struggle with coming up with new things to make all the time. I always eat like the same three things. So that AI is actually very helpful with coming up with new things and it will give you like a meal idea and then it will list every ingredient that you need for that meal.
[02:12] Kelsi Carter: And then my new favorite thing now is when Caitlin and I make a grocery shopping list, I asked Chat GBT to put it in order of aisle, and I will ask like I'll tell it which grocery store I'm going to. So then that way, because Caitlin has a habit of making a list and she'll put some
[02:28] Kelsi Carter: like that's in the same aisle on opposite ends of the list. So then we'll get one of them and then have to go back.
[02:35] Dave Charest: So let me tell you this little tip. So if you, I believe you're on an iPhone, if you use your reminders app, they actually have a list called grocery lists. And when you do that and you add things to that list and you can share that between each other and so then like I can talk to my phone and say, hey, add this to the grocery list.
[02:53] Dave Charest: When it adds it, it will automatically categorize it into those things. So you, you can skip that whole step. It doesn't give you the exact aisle numbers, but it gives you the, you know,
[03:06] Kelsi Carter: this isn't something that is nicer because we've been trying to see which stores around us because we do, we're lucky where we have a lot of grocery stores around. We're just trying to see which one's the cheapest for everything. So we've been going to like Market Basket, Stop and Shop, Trader Joe's, all these.
[03:23] Kelsi Carter: So depending on where we go, we'll put in like that store because for some reason things are very hard to find depending on where you go.
[03:30] Dave Charest: This is true.
[03:32] Kelsi Carter: Caitlin's gluten free as well. So AI has been helpful with that.
[03:36] Dave Charest: Yeah, yeah. Any other ways besides grocery shopping, you've been using it at all?
[03:41] Kelsi Carter: For DIY, if I have some projects in mind for supply lists, even helping with like TikTok ideas, we'll do that. That's like for our personal, not for work, anything like that.
[03:52] Kelsi Carter: Caitlin and I were kind of running dry on some ideas and we need some content. We'll be like, what are some things that we could do with the things that we have going on right now?
[04:02] Dave Charest: Yeah, well, the reason I bring it up is, and I think we've talked before how I've really kind of dedicated a lot, just in my professional life, leaning into using AI a bit more and on a regular basis, and but then I'm also finding myself, you know, you do your shopping recipes and those types of things. I've been using it for that. I find myself with like things like
[04:22] Dave Charest: A chef, I have a bartender, so we use it for drinks a lot, which is a lot of fun. But the reason I bring it up is because I think there is a very clear shift happening, right? You mentioned it's the new Google for you, and I think, yes, there are still things happening on Google, but as we start to look to the future, if this becomes something that is, which I think it will, right? AI being ingrained in the things that we do.
[04:45] Dave Charest: It's going to be important from a business perspective for you to understand, one, how people are using it, 2, how that works on the back end just in terms of what does it take to have things that you do, right? Or you reference or the things you sell or the things you create or the things you consult on, right? How do you become part of those things that
[05:08] Dave Charest: are given to you, right? Particularly when you think of it from a research perspective, right? Like I think when someone's saying like, hey, I'm looking to, I'm making this up here, right? But like, I'm looking to replace my roof. I live in this area. Tell me who are the local people who could do that roof for me and what are the reviews about them and who should I choose, you know, that whole thing, like, that can go and do that research for you and so.
[05:31] Dave Charest: It helps kind of point you in a place if you understand how it's going to those sources to find that information to make sure that your business is in those things so that there's more opportunity for you to show up. Just as we did with search, right, you want your business to show up in search, you're gonna want your business to show up in the AI component too. As I'm saying this out loud, I'm going to uh
[05:54] Dave Charest: Be saddened by the days where this will start to become ad driven as well, right, where people are just as you can pay to be at the top of Google, you're going to pay to be at the top of Chat GPT. I think that's just a matter of time probably, I guess before that happens and that's actually a new, a new thought.
[06:11] Kelsi Carter: You know, that's actually something I did not think of.
[06:14] Dave Charest: Yeah, I know it's a new thought as we're having this conversation right now, it's like, oh yeah, it's gonna get ruined.
[06:20] Dave Charest: But by advertising, right, because that's apparently the only thing that we know as business is to do advertising. But what I love is now that but this organic piece of it, right, this is the opportunity now to understand how that works and be in those, because I think that's actually where it's more impactful in many ways. But anyway, I bring all that up because we have a guest today really pushing us to, to think about the future, right? To think about what's happening in the world and how what that means.
[06:48] Dave Charest: For a business owner, right? So, who's our guest today, Kelsi?
[06:53] Kelsi Carter: Today's guest is Dr. Janae Duane, a behavioral scientist, entrepreneur and co-author of Super shifts. Based in Boston, Janae works with business leaders around the world to navigate the structural changes, transforming the way we live, work and connect.
[07:09] Kelsi Carter: She's also a former member of Constant Contact's innovation team and has spent years helping small business owners embrace change to gain a competitive edge.
[07:19] Dave Charest: I've
[07:19] Dave Charest: had the pleasure of working with Sinee and so it was really great to just one catch up, but really digging in a bit here and chatting to her about her latest book, Super shifts, and this conversation is really all about helping small business owners imagine what's coming, right? Identify those opportunities in new technology and
[07:39] Dave Charest: Make decisions today that really set them up for success tomorrow. It's all about being ready, both mentally and strategically. I think there's probably some mental hurdles you have to get over as well, but really thinking about what's coming next. And so in our conversation today, we're going to cover why staying small can actually give you a strategic advantage over large enterprises in the age of AI.
[08:04] Dave Charest: How you can start experimenting with technology today, even if you feel skeptical or overwhelmed, so you can actually start to see some results quickly. And then why building direct customer relationships beyond social media, this is something near and dear to our heart, of course, is essential for long term stability and growth. So, let's go to Jenay as she shares why she disagrees with the idea that small businesses need to act like scaled enterprises.
[08:33] Dr. Janae Duane: When we're thinking about technological acceleration and the size of businesses, small businesses actually have a huge competitive advantage right now, because of the fact that
[08:46] Dr. Janae Duane: Enterprise takes so long to try to scale when it comes to incorporating new technologies into their organization. There's just so much tech debt that they can't get out of their own way, or what does my tech stack look like. So a small business owner can move faster, you know, has very much that strategic advantage that a large
[09:12] Dr. Janae Duane: enterprise organization just cannot really compete with, which is why they try to, through R&D, they try to buy small businesses and, and startups in order to be able to stay competitive. And sometimes that works, sometimes you have that mechanism in place. But for the small business, what I would say is really love
[09:38] Dr. Janae Duane: and understand that the size of your business really is an advantage that you can utilize throughout the lifetime of your business, whether or not this is a business you're looking to scale. Eventually, you could still keep it small operationally, and I'm happy to, to go there. Or if this is a lifestyle business, any and all of the above, knowing that it
[10:04] Dr. Janae Duane: It is better not to take on too much, not to expand too much, because you have technology, particularly AI, which I know we'll, we'll probably get into. Um, yeah, but, you know, AI is very much a partner in your business at this point. And so I just say love and embrace that and use it for your edge.
[10:26] Dave Charest: We're going to get into some of the specifics of, of the book Super shifts, right? But first, I wanna
[10:31] Dave Charest: Maybe ask you, you know, how did you decide on writing this book in the first place?
[10:36] Dr. Janae Duane: There are times where you have something in your soul that just needs to come on out into the world. I don't know how to say that other than putting it forth in that way. What I will say is it was during COVID-19, I ended up, it was in 20.
[10:55] Dr. Janae Duane: 20. I ended up with some phone calls from Deloitte over in Europe, and they said, Look, Shana, we are looking to restart Europe because we've been shut down, and we have a whole group of CEOs across Europe in which we're trying to identify what are some ways in which we can restart. And I had been working on and thinking of
[11:19] Dr. Janae Duane: The fact that we are coming out of what we know as sort of this age of engines, you know, this industrialization where models are very centralized. The way in work, we is, you know, has been and is still changing the way in which we live, our educational systems, again, all very central.
[11:38] Dr. Janae Duane: Sized models. We were seeing that shift. And really, when we think about COVID-19, it really threw those models on it, on their heads. And I thought, what a great opportunity to really get CEOs to gear into the fact that the way in which, not only that we're working, but the way in which we're learning and we're living is changing and how do we start to make those changes. And so,
[12:08] Dr. Janae Duane: That was really the beginning of this book was thinking through that, thinking through how do you communicate that as well as communicating this new era in which we are heading into. Well, a whole new age and era, I should say, so a whole new age of intelligence with AI very much as our
[12:29] Dr. Janae Duane: Our cognitive partner, if you will, and having intelligent systems, having our business be intelligent systems that are not necessarily centralized. And that is what led to many conversations with my partner, who's actually also my husband.
[12:47] Dr. Janae Duane: And we were looking at what are some of the shifts that are occurring right now that we will see occur over the next, say, 200 years, and then how do we bring those forth so that people can start to think about those, start to synthesize those, and also identify a new pathway forward for themselves as well as for their businesses as we're moving into this new age of intelligence.
[13:13] Dave Charest: So the
[13:14] Dave Charest: book opens with this idea that
[13:16] Dave Charest: We're shifting from this industrial age, as you mentioned, into this age of intelligence and
[13:21] Dave Charest: All right, so for a small business owner, right, they're trying to just keep up with the day to day. What does the shift really mean just in practical terms? Yeah,
[13:29] Dr. Janae Duane: well, and I, I love that because as any small business owner I know would go, so Janay, why, why the heck? Yeah, no, I, I totally get that. But what I would say to every single business owner is thinking again about what the future of their business could look like and may look.
[13:49] Dr. Janae Duane: Like. And so, let me paint a scenario for you. So let's imagine that we have Maya. She owns a cafe, and Maya's assistant chimes on, maybe Maya's assistant's name is Nova, and says, Maya, I'm done segmenting all of your campaigns. What would you like me to do next? And Maya goes, Great. Tell me about the conversion rates. What sentiment do we know about the various customers?
[14:18] Dr. Janae Duane: And while Nova's telling this information to Maya, maybe we have a child who comes on in with their grandmother, and the child has AR VR glasses on, and is able to look at, say, some juices that Maya has in her refrigerator in the cafe to choose from.
[14:38] Dr. Janae Duane: And he's looking to see what are the different juices, what are the flavors, what are some of his friends? What do they like, because there's there'll be sentiment analysis around that. While the grandmother also has glasses on and is utilizing QR codes to identify real
[14:53] Dr. Janae Duane: deals. So, when we think about this pictures that I've just painted for you, yes, we are not there. However, pieces of this already are, and we're already heading in this direction.
[15:09] Dr. Janae Duane: And so what I say to the small business owner, allow yourself to imagine what your small business could look like, knowing that we will have an overlay, if you will, within our small businesses where there's a, a digital interface in which we're interacting with, while we're interacting.
[15:30] Dr. Janae Duane: With the physical, that already exists and that's happening even more so. We will have holographic displays of our products, and we'll be able to show one how it can be used, as well as maybe if it's zero waste, how that works and how you can implement that in real time for consumers. And so, for the small business, it's about imagining these things, allowing yourself to go there, and then let's reverse engineer. Great.
[15:59] Dr. Janae Duane: I would love for my business to look like X. What are some ways in which I know I have this technology available at my fingertips now that, again, allows me to remain small, but also allows me to remain competitive. And I think Gen AI is a really great example of a technology that's really being used by almost everyone.
[16:25] Dr. Janae Duane: And it doesn't matter generation, doesn't matter age, it doesn't matter taste or preference, but there's ways in which that Gen AI is being utilized within large and small businesses that can really make you move faster, and give you the time that you need and you want, so that you can focus in on the pieces of the business that are more important to you, or maybe most important to you.
[16:51] Dr. Janae Duane: And that could be customer experience, that could be how you interact with your supply chain. It could be your product or just thinking about what are the next products in which we want to bring forth.
[17:03] Dr. Janae Duane: And again, you can utilize AI as that creative problem solving partner to start to come up with new ideas. You can utilize AI. To me, I love saying, great. Let's start with, where are you augmenting your tasks first? Are you utilizing
[17:23] Dr. Janae Duane: chatbots at all for customer service. Are you utilizing Gen AI or scheduling tools for either your calendar and or for your email? I mean, you can use Superhuman to do your email, and Superhuman's pretty predictive as far as how you're going to respond to an email. When you think about your marketing and your targeting,
[17:47] Dr. Janae Duane: You know, there are so many AI tools out there right now that allow you to immediately segment based on different demographics and psychographics, and you can also start to, from a customer behavior pers
[18:02] Dr. Janae Duane: perspective, then identify some of that sentiment in which you can utilize, say, chat GBT to then change up your copy and figure out how you do want to segment and market to these different personas within your customer base. So there's so many ways in which you can save yourself time right now, but it's really thinking about, again, Maya and that small business in that cafe.
[18:29] Dr. Janae Duane: And for her, what would she want that would make her life easier? And then how can we start to identify where are those stepping stones now? And so it's a fun exercise of zooming out and zooming back in.
[18:42] Dave Charest: You know, it's funny. We're talking about this, right? Like this is the stuff that up until most, I mean, recently, really, this is the stuff we're seeing in sci-fi movies, right? Like this is the stuff that we've always been like, oh, yeah, imagine if you can.
[18:55] Dave Charest: Talk to somebody and then they help you with the stuff, and then you've got these glasses on and then you're seeing all of the stuff and it's like, holy, holy crap. Like, it's like this is happening, right? It's like, wow. So, you know, from your perspective and kind of what you've seen through the process of putting this stuff together, what do you think the risks are to a business if they get to a point we're starting to imagine and and sometimes that's harder for some people than others, but like, what are the risks of
[19:21] Dave Charest: Ignoring these
[19:22] Dr. Janae Duane: shifts. Well, there's more than 2 risks, but I first want to talk about before we talk about ignoring the shifts, I will say that just like utilizing any tool or bringing in any type of partner, there are biases that come along with that. And I would encourage everyone to realize that
[19:43] Dr. Janae Duane: The responses you may get from a technological tool and any type of AI will have embedded biases within that system, and that could be based on whomever has created that system or how that system is self-learning.
[20:00] Dr. Janae Duane: So those are things that I always like to make sure I put up in the forefront to go, make sure you have your critical thinking head on at all times, right? Like, at the end of the day, as a small business owner, you are driving this ship. And if you feel that there's a blind spot in either your thinking or in AI's thinking, great, how can you mitigate for those risks? So I, I always like to preface that first.
[20:27] Dr. Janae Duane: The other thing that I'd say, Dave, to get to your question is, when we're thinking about ignoring these shifts, it's not gonna matter if you ignore these shifts. What I mean by that is, these aren't mega trends. We're not talking about AI adoption, it's going to happen. These are structural shifts that are changing, and we're already seeing this, are
[20:51] Dr. Janae Duane: the way in which we live, we learn, and we work. And they are changing humanity, how we interact with one another. Though viewers won't be able to see this, but I, I just picked up my phone, the phone has become an extension of us. So in many ways, we are already cyborgs. Cool.
[21:16] Dr. Janae Duane: Maybe I, yeah, I mean, you know, we we can have a debate about that. That's my thinking about where we are. And knowing that we have as much, if not more computational power within our phones than we had going to the moon in the 70s, right? That is Crazy. Yeah, outstanding. This lovely, lovely, amazing opportunity for us as we're thinking about this.
[21:40] Dr. Janae Duane: But I bring that up because these lines between machine and humans blurring, like those those lines are are blurring now and they will continue to blur. When we think about machine augmentation of the human,
[21:56] Dr. Janae Duane: Yes, that will happen within the small business, but we'll also see neural implants, and we already see this with robotic prosthetics, like we will see augmentations of our bodies, we will see gene modification as well. All of these things are currently being worked on and will shift where we're heading.
[22:16] Dr. Janae Duane: So as we think about, and there's 9 shifts that my partner and I have identified, as we think about these shifts, some will come sooner than others, but they're all starting to come and we can all start to see them as we look out on the horizon. So, whether you're ready for it or not,
[22:38] Dave Charest: it's happening, you may want to ignore it, but at a certain point, you're not gonna be able to, and I mean, I guess your point too is, I mean, I think.
[22:44] Dave Charest: AI is also working in the background and a lot of things that you might not even know exist at this particular moment, right? Like I think of, I mean, just to bring it to constant contact for a second, you know, before, obviously now you can do things within the product that can help with content generation and campaign generation and then also, you know, as you were mentioning before, really thinking about how you're using segmentation and using the data that you have, right? There's all of that stuff, but even before that, something happening behind the scenes that
[23:13] Dave Charest: You probably don't even know what's going on. It is, we have an internal tool that scans for bad actors, essentially, right? Allows us to find people that might be trying to abuse the system so we can stop those before it happens, right? And so that's something that is there, it's working, it's doing its thing, and you don't even know that that lives there. And you're talking about this idea, and I think in the book you call it intellifusion, right, where humans and AI really start to work together.
[23:37] Dave Charest: And you know, we talked about this idea that, well, you know, a lot of business owners might even be listening to this and have like a skeptical kind of hat on when they're thinking about it. And to be fair, just as we typically see, a lot of small business owners also get overwhelmed by a lot of this stuff because there's so much stuff coming at them all the time. So we talked about a few things, but I'm wondering if you could give me like a specific example of like, OK,
[24:01] Dave Charest: So, OK, I hear what you're saying. Yes, it's inevitable, we can't really ignore it. So what's a simple way to just
[24:09] Dave Charest: For someone to just start experimenting that can actually have like a real payoff and start to see a benefit of it.
[24:15] Dr. Janae Duane: Yeah, and so thanks for bringing it back to that, cause I feel like this is where, to your point, you're absolutely right, this is where people get overwhelmed and they're wondering, where do I begin?
[24:26] Dr. Janae Duane: For the small business owners listening, I would say, again, look at your internal systems and let's just take your marketing systems. What are the things in which you're doing that are taking up, either that are taking up a lot of time and or can be automated, you're just not sure how. And so, I will look at, say, for us, I would look at what's my content calendar look like.
[24:56] Dr. Janae Duane: What are the promotions in which I am looking to create? What I can do right now is I can actually feed all of that into, say, chat GBT. It can create a segmented content calendar for me based on the personas that I give it, based on any content that I already have, or if I have targets that I want to hit either from a promotional side or maybe even an educational side.
[25:24] Dr. Janae Duane: And so I can get that content calendar. I then would, for me personally, if we're talking about web copy, I would end up using, I like using GPT, some people would use Gemini or would use Cloud, so there's different tools that you can absolutely use there.
[25:41] Dr. Janae Duane: But then what I would do, cause when I think about marketing, I'm also thinking about doubling down on video. Great. How can I create a video and then maybe I create it within Riverside, I create it within descript, within Zoom, but then you could put it in Ved and Ved will slice it up into clips for you, and that's it's AI tool. You can utilize Hygen in 11 labs and or runway.
[26:10] Dr. Janae Duane: To create and really in many ways automate some of the videos that you create for maybe your products or product placement. You can utilize those tools to also create marketing materials in different languages. You could create videos of, you know, your own avatar in different languages. A buddy of mine, Dan Slagan over at Tomorrow IO. I love how honest he is about their marketing team now. He said,
[26:40] Dr. Janae Duane: You know what, we have shrunk this team down. We have doubled down on the videos that we're creating and utilizing AI4. And because Tomorrow.io likes to be with their messaging, very industry specific, they have an avatar of Dan that will change the message of what's happening within the weather or announcements and do it all through AI. And that would take them normally.
[27:09] Dr. Janae Duane: That would take them days, and that's now just taking them hours, and that's every single day.
[27:17] Dr. Janae Duane: So, we're just talking about the marketing function of things. But there are so many ways in which you can go, OK, where can I run these small tests? Maybe it is around that calendar, maybe it is around copy. What is something that I hate to do? Inventory is another great example, right? So I know that inventory for a small business ends up being and, and organizing inventory ends up being
[27:42] Dr. Janae Duane: Something that gets challenging, depending also on your vendors and how things are, are provided to you. Well, I mean, there's, you can now use tools to really pull that all together, decide on how you want that output to look. You can have that output changed to, you know, say you've got everything within an Excel. You can get that output changed into key takeaways into our PowerPoint now. I
[28:08] Dr. Janae Duane: I mean, Chat will do that for you now, which it couldn't do that two months ago. So it just shows you how quickly these tools are changing, and it's about making that list of where are those time consuming items that you can then start, start to automate. You know, how do you create a chatbot that can help you on the customer service side? There's all these little
[28:33] Dr. Janae Duane: Ways. But for you, identify where is that low hanging fruit by where's the large amount of time that you are spending so that you can start to automate some of those processes. Yeah, you know,
[28:45] Dave Charest: I even found myself like this is, you know, every year I kind of start with like, OK, where am I going to focus? What am I going to do? And this was a year for me, where I was like, all right, I'm going to really embrace, you know, this AI piece and just to see how this can help. And I even think just even before you.
[28:59] Dave Charest: even get into it actually like doing things that even thinking of it as like a creative partner, right? Like someone to, particularly, I can remember having numerous conversations with small business owners feeling like, oh, I'm all alone, nobody really knows what I'm going through and blah, blah blah. And like, yes, right, because like, oftentimes, right, your friends aren't in businesses and they're going to 9 to 5s, and they don't really get it. And, and to be able to, one of the things that I love now is like sometimes I would find myself, well, you know, you know how you,
[29:24] Dave Charest: You wake up in the middle of the night, you got this idea like, oh, I'm gonna write this down, and then you wake up in the morning and go like, what the hell was I talking about? Right? You're like, what is this? Right? Yeah, so, but now it's like amazing because I can actually go into Chech BT and be like, hey, I've got this idea that I'd like to explore.
[29:39] Dave Charest: And then it's like, cool, and then it will send me some questions right away about this thing and I'm literally having like a back and forth about this thing that now I can decide whether or not I need to go dig deeper into that, but just even just understanding like, oh, wow, like I can use this to just help me unlock pieces of my brain that I just need to kind of get things out, right? Like I think that stuff is crazy.
[30:01] Dave Charest: And maybe just a simple way, cause I think you gotta kind of like ease into it, right? Particularly if you've got this kind of skepticism about it, like what is this gonna do and and you know, how am I going to use it, and just little things that get you in there, right?
[30:12] Dr. Janae Duane: Yeah. So I love the fact that you do this. And so two things I'd bring up, if that's the case, like if you find your, if you're a listener and you find yourself at that point.
[30:21] Dr. Janae Duane: I mean, you might even want to go for a walk and just talk to the audio version of GBT and maybe even scenario plan. So, I've used GBT a few times to run scenarios or strategies and walk through different strategies to figure out, is it the right path for me. And so it can be very much a great sparring partner in that way. And so I love that you brought that up. And then when you're thinking of creative brainstorming,
[30:51] Dr. Janae Duane: Absolutely. What I would say to you is this. Know that when we think about the variance between the number of ideas and the number of creative ideas, humans right now will still come up with more creative, and what I mean by creative, we'll say different types of ideas versus a GBT that will come up with many more ideas, but
[31:20] Dr. Janae Duane: There'll be slight variations of those. So depending on what you want to brainstorm, it can be great, but also your input as far as what you tell it and what you're asking it is going to really help you also identify what your output is going to be. So, definitely something to take into consideration.
[31:41] Dave Charest: Yeah, so the big lesson here is like, let's start embracing this, right, because it's happening whether or not we're on board. And so you might as well use it to your advantage, I think at that point. So why don't you shift us a little bit here to talk a little bit about the social media and really Constant Contact actually just released a study recently and we found businesses within, I would say the last 5 years, right, really, so kind of built out of the pandemic, 63% of them.
[32:08] Dave Charest: They start marketing their business, social media is the place that they're going, right? And this is where they have a lot of dependence, really. And particularly early on, they don't necessarily understand or or see like the value and kind of moving beyond just social media. And so, I guess my question is, we often talk about this idea that like, look, there's danger in just building your audience on social media, right? Great tool to use, but you have to
[32:35] Dave Charest: Move beyond just that. You've got to kind of diversify. We're seeing this even today, right? Like if we're just looking at what's happening in the world just in terms of just business wise, right, in terms of just supply chain and how you're operating and those types of things. But even, you know, there's still a potential TikTok ban that's good and so if you're relying on that, putting all of your eggs in one basket, you kind of end up in this place where you're, you're hamstrung in many instances if something changes, right? And particularly when it's something you have no control over as well.
[33:04] Dave Charest: And so there's a section in the book you talk about this idea of like reality remix, and you touched on this a bit here as we were talking through the beginning, but that digital immersion and these mixed realities and from your perspective, what does this mean when you start thinking of uh your marketing strategies, particularly when it comes to that relationship building aspect of it?
[33:24] Dr. Janae Duane: Yeah, so there's so much to unpack here.
[33:29] Dr. Janae Duane: And it's funny, so I end up working with a lot of, particularly young entrepreneurs, and their marketing strategy always is, well, I'm going to go do social. That is great, but that is not the end all, end all be all.
[33:45] Dr. Janae Duane: So, a few things, and I, I love the fact that you brought up TikTok because I think that that's extremely important. When we become reliant on a platform for our business, that's almost like having a whale client, right? That can go away tomorrow, and then you're left almost at square one, depending on the situation.
[34:07] Dr. Janae Duane: What I say is, you want to know where your consumers are and your users are, but they're not just in one place, right? I mean,
[34:18] Dr. Janae Duane: Let's talk about social for a minute. So social has changed so dramatically in the 20 years that I started off in social and luckily I've moved myself away from it. But I bring that up because the original intent really was around creating community and to be a place for community. And instead, what we've
[34:42] Dr. Janae Duane: Created, yes, we do have opportunities for that, and you should absolutely utilize that within your business. But we've also created more of a broadcast system within social. And so utilize it in your mix, but know that it's not the only place in which you are going to reach your customers or your consumers. I would also say to
[35:06] Dr. Janae Duane: You, it's amazing to me that email has not changed. I mean, it's changed a little bit, but really, when we think about the past 25, 30 years, email is still email in so many ways, and it's as powerful as it was, which is what blows me away. But I, I love it and embrace it. So, thinking about that mix, knowing that
[35:30] Dr. Janae Duane: You will have an agent, if you will, from the business perspective who will end up talking to your customers. And so this might be, say, a chatbot that you put on your website or maybe on your app, but we are very, very, very soon moving to where customers and users will have their own agents. And so agents will be talking to one another.
[35:55] Dr. Janae Duane: And so something to consider is what is that value of connection? How are you providing that so that you can get folks to move away from their agents and move so that they interact with you, an area that I love that I'm seeing it come back, but it it amazes me that it's taken so long.
[36:18] Dr. Janae Duane: Are the room to create real life interactions with our customers, where we're like, hey, look, you know, you might be 2000 miles away, or you might be local. If you're local, great, we have X, Y, and Z going on, or let's do a small gathering, or we're gonna do a road show. That's actually happening more and more. I've seen that start to happen more and more over the past 6 months, which has been
[36:47] Dr. Janae Duane: Amazing and lovely, but completely different than we have had, particularly in this era of DoorDash and Uber Eats, where everything is being delivered to you. So people want convenience, but they also want that connection, and they're relying on you as a small business owner to identify ways in which you can create that connection.
[37:11] Dr. Janae Duane: You will have so much data on them around their personalities, their behaviors, that you'll know what some of their interests are, and you can triangulate and start to create an ecosystem around your brand so that maybe you're bringing in other organizations, other small businesses, maybe you're creating sub-communities around different interests that people have.
[37:39] Dr. Janae Duane: That relate, even if it's tangentially, but still relate to your brand so that
[37:45] Dr. Janae Duane: Again, you're building the sandbox yourself instead of being a small little member in that sandbox. So I would say for small business owners, like that is a big area to double down on now. If you find that your customers are more digital, you might find ways in which you can build a presence within Roblox that is
[38:10] Dr. Janae Duane: is a huge area for, we'll say younger demographics and connecting with them and creating live events within Roblox is a really great example. If you happen to be within VR, there's a ton of different worlds in which you can explore there and, and build a presence there to connect folks. But I'd say, even before we get to the blurring of that digital and physical,
[38:36] Dr. Janae Duane: Identify how you can, again, build these small little micro communities around your business in the physical because they will start to transfer into the digital themselves and organically.
[38:50] Dave Charest: So I want to talk a little bit about that kind of generational kind of drift stuff that you have going on here, but before I do it, because I think there's some interesting things here, and I feel like we're going to just run out of time to talk about all this stuff, right? But like,
[39:02] Dave Charest: So your point about just, I feel like this is something that, and I guess this happens a lot, right, where things kind of start to like everything old is new again, right? Many instances where we started, where everybody was doing everything face to face, and then all of a sudden the internet comes along and 00 boy, we can connect with people and we can do things online and now everything's digital and now everyone's sick of kind of digital, and now here we
[39:23] Dave Charest: are, it's like, oh, well, now let's start doing these things in person again. But to your point, it takes that to another level because now you've got all this kind of digital data, for lack of a better term, right? Where you understand like, oh, we've got a lot of people that connect with us in this location. So we could take this show on the road, we can go there. But ultimately, I think that human connection piece is still the glue that holds everything together. It's just coming in a different way now. So I think that's really interesting.
[39:50] Dave Charest: Your point with email, right? Like, yeah, it hasn't really changed a lot, but I think what has changed is, again, it's this data piece, right? It's the ability to be able to be more targeted and specific and timely with the types of things that you're sending to people. So it's not just like the, I'm gonna write this one newsletter and then I'm gonna send this to everybody. It's actually now, oh, here's a message that makes sense for Janay. Here's a message that makes sense to Dave, right? That you, you can.
[40:18] Dave Charest: Do that now at scale, for lack of a better term, in many instances. So here's my question to you though, you mentioned this idea of like, oh, we've got this dependence on, on social media and this reliance on that as like a channel that we connect with people with, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but do we also run the risk of an overreliance on like the
[40:40] Dave Charest: AI components of this now? Like, is that a thing that comes up?
[40:45] Dr. Janae Duane: Oh, listen, I think that that's a phenomenal question. I think the answer is yes, already, you know. And here are some of the dangers of our reliance on AI. Right now, AI is, these AI.
[41:02] Dr. Janae Duane: Tools, many of them are being built by a small number of companies, a small number of individuals. And with that, we are providing a whole lot of data to a small number of individuals. They're all private companies and there's no real regulatory guidance as to
[41:23] Dr. Janae Duane: What do they do with that data? So, absolutely, there's a reliance on AI. There's lack of guardrails around, around these tech companies. But unfortunately, I will say that that's been the case when it comes to tech companies because of the exponential rate of change when it comes to technology.
[41:46] Dr. Janae Duane: Government and regulatory officials cannot keep up. And so the burden has fallen to third party governance bodies who have gone, hey, wait a minute, we're seeing that you're utilizing this tech in way X, Y, and Z, but these are some of the best practices. But that almost feels
[42:08] Dr. Janae Duane: Like it needs to be a groundswell, and that takes a little bit of time. So, yes, there is this overreliance, but I don't see that that overreliance is going to change. Another thing that is really interesting to think about when we think about the future is right now, we have models that are
[42:30] Dr. Janae Duane: Really, they're semi-learning models. So they'll learn on their own, but only based on our inputs. And so, we're coming to a point where they're going to be reinforcement models where they're just gonna learn on their own. And so then we have the existential question of, well, who's going to be running the planet as they, as they say.
[42:54] Dr. Janae Duane: We are not there yet, but I also think that this is a lovely way and a lovely time to start to have the conversation of how do we make sure that there are more people perspectives at the table? How do we make sure that as we are co-creating with this technology,
[43:14] Dr. Janae Duane: Because technology will never be slower than it is today. And so this train has left the stage. And so how can we then make sure that we're moving forward in an ethical and an intentional way that also helps to train some of that ethics into the models and, and know that it's, uh, that that is a path forward, and that our intentions.
[43:43] Dr. Janae Duane: are as good as their intentions
[43:45] Dr. Janae Duane: are.
[43:46] Dave Charest: So, I mentioned we shifting to this idea of another big theme is that idea of generational drift and how just values, expectations, that all of this stuff is shifting between the younger and the older generations and
[43:59] Dave Charest: I guess what do small businesses really need to understand about how these shifts start to affect even just what they're doing from a messaging standpoint.
[44:07] Dr. Janae Duane: Yeah, I think that that's a really great question.
[44:10] Dr. Janae Duane: We are moving into a time where we are going to have more centurians than we've ever had before, right? We are living longer. We, for the first time in history, have 4+, I'll say 4+ generations in the workforce, and that's just going to continue to grow right now. So we haven't reached the cusp of that yet. And I bring that up because it just means that for a small business owner,
[44:40] Dr. Janae Duane: Your primary target audience might shift, or you might find that you're building lifetime value with that customer, and with that customer segment, but in a different way, because their needs in life are changing. They're living longer, they're taking on 2, 3rd professions and careers, you know, like in real 2030 year careers.
[45:08] Dr. Janae Duane: And so what does that mean if you're going to stay with them as they grow, and as they, they move along their journey? Do you want them to, you know, or are you staying with a certain segment? So, it's going to change messaging in a tremendous way for folks. I think knowing and, and really making the decision of, are we looking to grow with our strongest customer segment, or
[45:35] Dr. Janae Duane: Are we looking to stay where we are with, you know, say a certain demographic, but knowing then the values are going to change, knowing that the way in which they interact with products and services change. So you have a bit of a cultural shift if you do that, versus maintaining that lifelong customer and staying with them along the journey longer than maybe they would have in, in previous decades.
[46:03] Dr. Janae Duane: So those are things that are really interesting to think about, but we don't necessarily consider. The other thing that I will say is, as we're thinking about these generations,
[46:17] Dr. Janae Duane: There's also the way in which they interact with businesses are shifting. And so, I would say, as you're thinking about the future of your business, think about where you really want to double down over the next several.
[46:33] Dr. Janae Duane: years, and if it is that you are targeting, you know, we'll just say a demographic of 21 to 35, maybe right after college, and it doesn't matter where they're living within the US geographically, just know that how they interact with technology, what they want as far as values from that business will change and has changed. I mean, we've seen that, you've seen that.
[47:03] Dr. Janae Duane: And so, that will change all of your messaging. It will change your aesthetic, it will change how you brand, and it will change your communication style as well as what the customer experience looks like. So, again, thinking about the future, just knowing that you can either stay put or or go with your current target
[47:25] Dave Charest: demo. So like, what would you say to a small business owner who
[47:30] Dave Charest: Maybe even after just listening to this, right, feels like this is a little too big, maybe this is too fast, or maybe this isn't even just meant for them.
[47:37] Dr. Janae Duane: Yeah, what I would say to everyone, and it doesn't matter where you fall in this, is that, fortunately, unfortunately, the future isn't something that happens to you. It's something that in many ways,
[47:52] Dr. Janae Duane: You have agency and really can help to shape. And I hope you do shape it. Whether or not you are running a small business or maybe it's a multi-generational family business and you have a side hustle.
[48:07] Dr. Janae Duane: You decide on how you incorporate technology, you decide on how you not only view these super ships, but also how you're bringing this forward and what you want as you live to be over 100. Do you want to turn
[48:24] Dr. Janae Duane: into something that is legacy, and now knowing that legacy is changing, decide on, on what that future can really look for not only you, but also for your business. And just know it's a lovely, awesome way to spend your time because it's a great time to be alive.
[48:41] Dave Charest: Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, use your size as a strength. Large enterprises are slowed down by complexity, but small businesses can adapt quickly.
[48:54] Dave Charest: So embrace technology like artificial intelligence to move faster and stay competitive. Number 2, start small with AI. Identify one or two time consuming tasks like segmenting email lists or creating a content calendar.
[49:10] Dave Charest: And then test AI tools to speed them up. This builds confidence and shows quick wins. And number 3, don't rely solely on social media. Platforms change, audiences shift, and the algorithms update.
[49:25] Dave Charest: Use social as a tool, but focus on building your own contact list so you control how you reach your customers. Here's your action item for today. Pick one marketing task you repeat often, like writing an email or creating social content. And then use Constant Contact's AI content generator to draft it for you. Then personalize it for your audience and see how much faster you can move from idea to execution.
[49:56] Dave Charest: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/BAM. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's ratethispodcast.com/BAM. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.