Natalie Franke
When we talk about AI, one of the biggest challenges that business owners face is how do I discern when to lean into this technology and when not to? How do I streamline and automate and allow tech to be smart in my business while still maintaining my fingerprint on the outcome? In today’s conversation, I am sitting down with Lashonda Brown, she is a technology educator, a content creator, and a phenomenal human being that makes tech accessible so that you can truly work less and live more. If you are someone that leans into tech naturally, but wants to know what the future looks like. You’re gonna want to listen, if you are someone who has been intimidated by all of the new AI tools that are being released and truly just wants to hear from an expert on what the future might hold. You also want to listen, this conversation is packed with incredible information. And we end the episode with two tech tools that every independent business owner needs to know about, and I bet you’ve never heard of. So stick around until the end to make sure that you hear what they are. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.
Natalie Franke
One thing I hear all the time, over and over and over again, from business owners is they want freedom. Very rarely, though, do they connect the fact that that freedom is available to them through technology? And that technology can be a gateway to freedom? Do you I already
LaShonda Brown
feel like I agree. Net. Okay. Okay, so I agree completely, let’s
Natalie Franke
talk about it. So here’s the reality,
LaShonda Brown
a lot of people can diagnose the problem. But they are so slow to look for a solution. We’ll just start there. Once you realize that you want more time freedom, or more financial freedom, you need to start to look for SAS tools that are going to help you to get there. And the reason why I say SAS and I don’t say SAS isn’t sassy, I mean software as a service. Those tools are going to be affordable solutions to help you to tackle the problems that you have. A lot of people say like oh, well, I want to be these things. But I don’t have enough money. to.dot.we really need to reframe our mindset because technology is so much more accessible in the season than it ever was the software that these big corporations used to leverage to grow their businesses. Now it’s available to us for a monthly subscription or a yearly subscription. And so what we have to do is we have to become experts in diagnosing our own problems. And looking for the solutions for us, every tech tool is not right for every business, a lot of people get that wrong. So they hear oh, my friends using dot dot, well, that may not be great for you, because what you want is the time freedom. So maybe paying more for software is a better fit, because it gives you more time. Or maybe you want more financial freedom. So you need to look for a low cost solution that maybe takes a bit more time to execute. But it helps free up that money in your bank account. So we have to become better at understanding and being honest with ourselves like where am I not? What is everyone else doing? But where am I? And what software tool is going to fit my season of life and the lifestyle that I want?
Natalie Franke
Where do we start with that? How do you even uncover? You know what the software that you might need would be? Is there a way to kind of map your way there? What would recommendations do you have?
LaShonda Brown
Hands down the number one place to go if you are trying to find a software tool that will fit your situation is to go to YouTube. YouTube is the second largest search engine. It’s also owned by Google. And so what can happen if you type in that problem into the search bar and YouTube, you’re going to see a ton of solutions. From there, not only can you look at multiple solutions to the problem, but multiple creators who you can learn from, because not every creator is the right fit for you. Right. And so ultimately by searching and YouTube by supporting the Creator economy by looking at those videos and not skipping the ads, like truthfully, it does help you can find the tool that best fits where you are. And it’s not nearly as overwhelming as what appears on a Google search because there you have maybe images but not much to go off of other than the marketing copy that a product marketing manager may have created. So you want to hear from the people actually using the software people who are going to be honest about those pros and cons and the hacks and the tips. So I recommend to people who are currently overwhelmed by tech, go to YouTube Do you go to YouTube to figure out how to tie a tie, how to change a tire, you can go for your tech tools too. And honestly, the creators on YouTube are so so passionate about the tools that they spotlight, that it’s, it’s like an education and the software tool without even going to that company.
Natalie Franke
I love that there’s something to be said for truly learning first before leaping and implementing. And one thing that you said earlier on, was around, don’t just look at what other business owners are doing, and replicate their blueprint on your business. But actually start with your problems. Start with what you desire. And with where you’re getting stuck in the process of getting there. I’d be curious to know from you like, Have you ever been intimidated by technology tools? Is this something that’s always been really natural to you? Or Absolutely
LaShonda Brown
not? Truthfully, my background is theater. Okay. So when I tell you landing in the tech community, after being trained to play, pretend for a living is mind boggling to me. But what I started to realize is I kind of exists in this middle ground where I’ve used the tech tools as a small business owner, because my husband owns a video production company. And I have this theater background, which gives me the ability to break down really complex concepts, and give practical use cases because I’ve been there I’ve been in business over 10 years, I’ve never worked a full time job for anyone else. So I know what it’s like to bootstrap and be in the trenches. And so I kind of exist in that middle ground where I can think like a small business owner, but understand engineers and CEOs, I don’t know why. But for some reason, that’s how my brain works. And so ultimately, my community has learned to understand that it’s really helpful for me to set up that free trial for me to put those tech tools through the wringer and to report back and say, Hey, guys, I’m going to be completely honest with you. This is what it’s actually like, because I have the time to do that. Business owners don’t have the time to test out three to five free trials to figure out what’s a good fit. And so I love the fact that my community will reach out they will share Hey, I heard about this, have you tried it? Like, what do you think, and because they truly trust my opinion, my affiliate links performance, so incredibly high, because they’re the ones that turned me on to these tools. And so they want to reciprocate and support me by simply using my link. And so it’s a beautiful environment, where everyone is truly invested in each other’s growth. And I am just so thrilled to see what’s happening with that brand.
Natalie Franke
So much there. I love that, you know, the accessibility of technology is something that YouTube really makes possible, which is what I’m hearing and also even just the fact that you have access to so many different educators teaching in different styles and different ways with different insights and different opinions. There’s so much power in that. I also love hearing that tech isn’t always something that came naturally to you, as a business owner, myself, who is now working in tech, and started as a creative. I agree. And I think that there is so much intimidation that a lot of us feel in business where we know we should be doing something where we feel like, you know, I want that time freedom, oh, I want that creative freedom I want whatever it is. But there’s a gap between where you are and where you want to go. And that intimidation, that fear that fills that void that fills that gap keeps so many people from going after it and making it happen. Or they’ll say things like, I just don’t have time. Or I don’t want to spend the money on this tool. Right. And so I would love to kind of start with the question, what is the thing that business owners should not be doing manually? What are the things that you’re like, if you’re doing these things manually? I can already tell you, you got to stop. Can we get a little tough love? Can we get some honest heat here?
LaShonda Brown
So my friends like to call these moments, the mama Shonda moments, so we’re gonna have a mama Shonda moment. Everyone has a calendar. Okay, bare minimum. I’m sure you’re using some form of calendar. But you’re probably scheduling meetings manually. What I mean by that is you’re sending emails back and forth saying When are you free? Are you good on Friday. And even if you happen to have an online scheduler, I guarantee you that you’re not bridging the gap between your business and your personal life. If someone wants to have a coffee date with me that has nothing to do with business, they’re going through my online scheduler. And the reason why they’re doing that. The reason why I set it up that way, is because I want to establish from day one that my time is valuable. I think of it as marbles in a jar, I work 20 hours a week, I only have 20 Marbles, I cannot create more of them. If I give a marble to you, I don’t have that for someone else. And so if you’re going to take that marble away from a tech company or a coaching client, then I need you to be respectful of that time. I love what Laura Casey says, time is the currency that we invest in what matters most. And so it’s essential to me to be a good steward of my time, and the time of the people associated with me. So even in my personal life, and some people were turned off by it at first, and I’ll be honest with you, they were like Lashonda. Like, seriously, I know you, why are you sending me a link? And I was like, if you don’t, I’m going to forget, if you don’t, I’m going to be late. If you don’t, I’ve may not show up because I live my life by this calendar. So in order for me to show up as my best self for you at this coffee shop, I need you to take two minutes. And to use this link, and then on top of that, because I know how people are I live in the mountains. So people when they go out to lunch, they go out for hours. I say, Okay, let me Schedule A reminder a day before that says, Are we still on? Not? You’re scheduled for that. And I took the time to go in and edit that reminder, as if I was writing an original email and saying, Are we still on because I guarantee you what happens is people schedule it, life happens. And the day before they’re like oh crap, I need to tell her Shonda, I got to reschedule. And then that way, my automation is even negotiating the rescheduling of the coffee day, and you don’t even have to worry about I don’t have to worry about it. So what I encourage people to do is to really get in the weeds with your software, look at all the different things that the software is capable of doing, don’t just do bare minimum or what everyone else is doing. Because ultimately, the more that you can be efficient with your tech, the more you can set yourself up for the freedom that you actually want, whether that’s time or your finances, like, take the time to learn your tech to actually achieve the goals that you’re trying to set out to accomplish.
Natalie Franke
One of the eye opening realizations that I had, in my own business was around the fact that I had said, because you’re talking about like, dig deep into the tech really set it up, don’t just like sign up and not use it, which is what a lot of us are guilty of, but really become knowledgeable and build it to work for you. I had a realization that, you know, there were certain areas of my business where I just tolerated the brokenness, I tolerated the friction. I just accepted that this was how it had to be saying things like I don’t have time to XYZ, I don’t have time to automate XYZ setup XYZ connect to these two programs. So they work together, set up a scheduler, like put my honey book scheduler together, I don’t have time. And I said that for so long that then I realized the amount of time that was wasted, compounded that because I didn’t take the five minutes, the 15 minutes, the 30 minutes to do it right from the start. Over the course of several years. Now we’re talking hours.
LaShonda Brown
Well, and here’s another thing to consider. When you find that friction in your business that you’re talking about that you feel, Oh, I can tolerate, it’s not that bad. You have to think to yourself, there is probably someone who is passionate about fixing this problem. And I’m robbing them of the opportunity to serve me well, by just letting it be broken, broken for me broken for my clients and a job loss for them. There are experts in every single software out there, you have your HoneyBook pros, you have your camera verified experts, you have these people who are ready and willing to serve and help you Yeah. And so when you find those friction points in your business, instead of just letting that thorn in your flesh, they say, wait a minute, this is an opportunity for me to support another business. Let me go seek out somebody who loves this. Someone who loves accounting, someone who loves writing contracts, someone who loves setting up HoneyBook let me equip them with an opportunity to serve me well so that I can serve other people. So we have to stop thinking about ourselves and this on this island. Like we we are a part of a community. You know, we are a part of a community of global entrepreneurs who are really trying to do their best to make it in the world and to have you find an opportunity for someone else to have a job. Go for that, you know, don’t tolerate the friction but see it as an opportunity and not a problem. And if everyone really started to reframe their mindset that this problem is an opportunity for someone else to thrive. It would change the landscape of the Creator economy but we’re so fixated on focusing on ourselves that we’re missing out on opportunities to help other people
Natalie Franke
and sometimes those other people are so much better at it than you guys better
LaShonda Brown
be and I and that’s the thing, even I could take the time to learn some software and even I will hire out for certain things. Because again, I have 20 Marbles, right? If you know Brianna can do something in an hour that will take me five it’s worth paying Brianna. Yes. Do you know what I’m saying? So like first half does we have to start thinking I was I’m reading an article one time that was talking about productivity. And it really reshaped the way that I looked at it. Productivity is about how quickly can we get things done? How can we do things in the least amount of time? Not? How can we do the most things, entrepreneurs are used to doing the most, we’re not used to being the most efficient. And so I’m thriving, working less, I’m more productive and 20 hours than I ever wasn’t 60. That’s the truth. And so there are too many people who wear their busyness, like a badge of honor, and they’re burning out left and right. Technology can do it for you, or people can do it for you. When you look at what you have to do in your business, you either need to be eliminating things that you don’t need to be doing. You need to be delegating things that another person can do better or faster, or you need to be automating your processes. And so as business owners, we have got to become more used to slowing down so we can speed up in our businesses.
Natalie Franke
Okay, what about the people that say, I struggle with letting technology do it? Because then it’s going to lose that human touch? Like I’m so I don’t want to, you know, leverage AI or I don’t want to set up an automation. I don’t want to do a scheduling link, because I it has to come from me. What do you say to that? What is your thought on that? I mean, obviously, there’s there’s room where experience that is personalized is paramount. But is that the case in every single aspect of the client flow? Have you ever experienced that fear of letting tech take over something used to do manually?
LaShonda Brown
I think people need to ultimately think about what is the outcome that you’re going for? Right? So I personally, let’s give an example of scheduling an appointment. My hairstyle is, I love her. We are best friends. She’s been doing my hair since I was 18. I could text her to schedule an appointment, but it would take me hours because she’s busy. She’s at the chair, she’s going back and forth at lunch. And whenever having a scheduling link for her gives me a better experience. I’m okay not being able to talk to her because I’m able to get what I need faster. And so that’s so much more important. I was talking to a friend one time about like the carwash. Like I’m so weird about creating little routines. And so I have a little routine that I go through a little carwash after I go to church on Sunday. And yes, I’m completely capable of washing a car like I know how to do it. But the supplies, I would have to buy the shop back, I would have to pull out of my basement, all these different things are not worth my time, I would much rather take the three minutes and go through the automated carwash than to wash my car in my yard. And so yes, that’s less personal than me washing my own car. But I don’t care about that I’d rather have the time. So I would rather spend the money. Yes, it’s cheaper to do it at home, but it is faster. And it’s fun. I call it the little confetti machine. I go through and spray stuff in my car, and I love it. So that’s what I want out of life. So what do your customers want? Do they want speed? Or do they want to talk to you? Because a lot of people want things to be quicker
Natalie Franke
86% of clients book the business that response first. That is research that we just did, we interviewed it and we’ll link it in the show notes. 86% of clients just book the business that gets back to them first. So what I’m hearing you say and what is so critical, and I just hope you take this away is so often we make assumptions that aren’t even rooted in truth. We assume if I don’t send the email, if I don’t click the button, it doesn’t mean as much. Well, here’s
LaShonda Brown
the other thing, when you have that mindset, right that I can’t book a client, unless I’m the one that talks to them, I don’t want the software talking to them first, you are automatically limiting the amount of money you can make. You have to think about a global mindset. If you’re asleep on the East Coast and someone in India wants to hire you, you’re not awake when they are and vice versa. So you are eliminating so many potential customers from your business because you’re so fixated on the control of being the person to talk to them. So you have to open up your mindset to say my software can work 24/7 I can only work five to eight hours a day. So think about Wow, my possibilities of making money. Someone buy my digital product at two o’clock in the morning, someone watching my YouTube video at you know 5pm in a different time zone that’s worth the effort to learn the Tech because I can help more people. I can generate more income by getting over that hump with technology. And so I encourage people if you are not a tech savvy person, I hear that all the time. I’m not tech savvy. Find someone who is find someone who teaches in a way that does make you anxious. Find someone who when you watch their content on YouTube, you come with overwhelm and you leave inspired to take action. When you find those people when you find your people subscribe and support them and ask questions, even if they don’t have content on their channel that addresses the problems you’re having in your business. SLIDE into their DMS. That’s why I have this mindset of tip jars and ways for people to reciprocate because it opens up that conversation, instead of you creating content and avoid or serving and avoid, give people a way to talk to you, because it makes it easier for everybody. So I know that technology, at face value seems like something that’s above your paygrade or overwhelming or stressful and running a business, it’s already so stressful or you feel like you don’t have the time. I would encourage you look at your business. Is there something you can eliminate from your plate that you’re doing right now? And if you really don’t know, there are books, there are so many books, essentialism is one of my favorites, like take the time to say what can I offload to free up the time to watch a YouTube video to free up the time for a free trial to free up the time to Google who’s an expert in this tool. Because I will tell you right now, the life that I’m living now, as someone who embraces technology, versus someone who was intimidated or afraid by it is so much more free. It’s so much more fun. I spend more time offline now than I did before. Because technology is working when I’m being present. And so a lot of people have this perception that when I dig into tech, that I’m going to lose my humanity. When I start using AI, I’m going to lose my humanity. And truly, leveraging technology frees you up to be your best self. That’s the truth. And if someone hasn’t told you that, now I have, but that’s the truth. Technology doesn’t have to be intimidating. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. And ultimately, when you really start to dig deep, it actually becomes fun. Because you realize, like, wow, I can accomplish so much more or so much faster. Because some developer in some basement, and some dark, dimly lit room because they all do that. I don’t know why. But some developer created this tech that allows me to put my phone down when I’m when I’m with my kids, that allows me to leave my laptop in the car, when I’m out to dinner with my significant other like, technology can be incredible, if you let it. So all of those common misconceptions, we have to be willing to let those things go and to give tech another chance. And that’s why when you have tools, you know, like your honey books that are saying, Look, your invoicing, your contracts, your all these different things that maybe you were using separate tools to do, I’m going to give you more time freedom and financial freedom by getting rid of all those subscriptions and consolidating things in one spot. So you can see your customer journey in one place versus being spread out all over the internet. And then if your business scales to the point where you can pass that along to someone else, you can see that pass communication. And so I just think the possibilities are endless. If people are more open minded, do not look at the news and what they say about AI. Look at what people are saying on YouTube. That’s real life. Those are real people telling real stories. Don’t let the media paint the picture that you’re looking at, to reframe your life.
Natalie Franke
One of the things that you touched on as you were running through a bunch of that was just you kept coming back to the client. I kept hearing, you know, sort of like, you know, we’re talking about the business owners the fear of time, the fear of this, that in the other. But then you also have saying it’s easier for the client, it’s easier for the client, and I want to double click into that, then I want to go back to AI. But I want to double click into that, because one of the things that I’ve been talking a lot about, and I’ve just loved, I want your take on this is what we’ve kind of started calling the Amazon ification of client expectations. And it’s this reality that business owners experience more as a pain. But it’s the fact that because we’ve kind of been trained now to get anything that we want, whenever we want it have full visibility into how something works, be able to get access 24 hours a day, the big companies can do that. Now we’re moving into an era where tech is making it possible for the business a small the independence to actually be able to have their business operating like you said 24 hours a day while they’re out living their lives. And we feel like we’re coming up against some of those client expectations. Do you feel like expectations have become greater in the past couple of years for business owners or just for customers in general? Like do they want more? Are they expecting more? You know, you even mentioned the scheduler like I’m thinking about it I’m like When you’re talking to your hairstylist, you’re like, I want to be able to book it when I want to book it. But so much of the conversation is always about how the business owner feels. But in that moment, I was hearing how the client feels. So I’m curious on your take about this potential change in client expectations? What do you know, for the independent business owner listening? What are their clients really want? What is Tech really helping those clients to experience it’s better in the client flow of the business,
LaShonda Brown
it goes back to having a community mindset, you can make a lot of assumptions of what you think your customer wants. But until you give them the chance to talk to you, I guarantee you’re probably off the mark because you are not your customer. Right? You’re teaching you’re providing a service you you’re making a product, you are not your customer. So don’t rest on a your opinion, let them talk to you. Whether it is a survey or a live stream or responding to an email, talk to your customer and say, Look, would you like this to be a high touch or a high tech situation? Would you want more access to me? Or are you more interested in a faster response time, like just tell me all the time, right now on my Instagram, I say helped me make my content helped me serve you. Well, how can I serve you ask your customer. But I think one of the things that I’m seeing happening as well. In an age where we’re embracing technology more than before, we’re also embracing handcrafted, and bespoke things more than before. Right. So now people are getting back into records, then Spotify, they’re getting into I want to shop small and go into a boutique, I don’t want to order on Amazon. They’re saying I would rather receive a hamlet written note versus an email. And so ultimately, we find ourselves in the tension between the two people crave offline more deeply. But they also love the reality of tech. And so the only way that you’re going to know where your customers fall is to have that conversation. You don’t need to operate your business with this mindset of I’m a megaphone, all I’m doing is putting information out there. As business owners, we are not megaphones. We need a telephone, we need to have a conversation. It needs to be a two way situation. But too often people fall into that, you know, habit of just, I’m just posting on Instagram. I’m just posting on Facebook, I’m just posting it, you know. And the reality is, that’s not conversational. And so you’re making your life more difficult by not leaning into community by trying to guess what people need instead of simply asking them the question. And so we have got to in this age of technology, be more human, have the conversation, talk to your customers face to face, if you can, people are leaning into meetups again, people are, you know, doing zoom calls. And it’s funny, I’m listening to some of these strategies from huge influencers. And they’re talking about the fact that their conversion rate is higher on an informal zoom call than a formal webinar. Because people can see faces, people can see you it feels so much more genuine and accessible. And so sometimes low tech gives you better results.
Natalie Franke
I love this. Oh, I this is this is gold. This is gold. We were talking not not too too long ago, maybe last night, maybe over shark eatery, possibly last night, maybe you charcuterie last night as well about how, you know sometimes as a business owner, you build this business and you build it truly based on you know, like, we’ve talked about what you think people want, or what you know, you see somebody else doing. And we can get really caught into these bubbles, right? We can get as independence we can because there’s no you know, like, here’s the university for how to run an independent business in your particular niche on your particular demographic with the clients that you want to work with. There is no perfect guidebook to what you do. So you’re constantly out there searching out, they’re looking to your left to your right, how are they doing it? How are they figuring it out? This is what I think I should do. I’m just gonna run with it. And one thing that you do really well is that you have those conversations, I would love for you to share some of the ways that you do that. What are some some really easy ways that independents can start to facilitate those conversations to uncover with their clients actually want to learn what their customers truly care about whether that’s in regards to the client flow? And like we said, do they want the personalized email? Or do they just want to make sure that you get to them right away and you give them autonomy to choose when to meet with you? How do you facilitate those conversations? Is it on social media? Is it in person? What are some quick ways that we can get folks to start thinking thinking beyond just remaining in that silo?
LaShonda Brown
The random thing I discovered within the last few months is my community loves live streaming on YouTube. And I did some more digging, because I’m like, people aren’t really leveraging YouTube in that way. They’re doing the whole megaphone approach where they’re posting and go send them like, Is there room for live streaming on this platform. And I found a tool called stream yard. And the way that I describe it, it’s a glorified zoom call. So if you’re intimidated by the fact that you’ve never heard the name, it is literally like a zoom call. But the truth is, when I livestream through that platform, I’m able to multi stream to LinkedIn, and to YouTube. And so I’m able to engage the communities that I most value. And when people comment, what’s really exciting about the software is you can highlight the comment on screen. So when people say something to you, and you put their comment with their name, and their photo on screen for everyone to see, automatically, you communicate to them, I see you and I hear you. And when I tell you, I have launched workshops through that community stream, I have generated passive income for my tech partners, I have generated super chats, because you can actually be tipped while you’re streaming, which is crazy with YouTube. And so ultimately, I schedule a I call them work with me sessions Mondays at 10. And I literally teach on a topic which they choose. And then we have a 25 minute Pomodoro session, and we plan our week. And when I carve out that time on Monday morning to start my week by engaging my community in a very practical, intentional way. It feels me for the week ahead. Most people on a Monday, they’re not excited about their week, they’ve lost sight of why they do what they do. But having those community calls giving my community an opportunity to ask questions to engage with me live and get answers, and to support them and planning their week and setting an intention for what am I actually trying to get done. It has absolutely changed the way that I market. So I don’t need to push so hard on the other platforms. And the crazy part is, when you livestream through YouTube, as soon as the stream ends, it becomes a YouTube video. And anyone else who watches it, you get views on your channel. So immediately you have a replay, you don’t even have to worry about creating a replay or re uploading it. It’s already there. And everyone who watched it live counts as a view. And so I turn on monetization. And on top of being able to talk to my community, now I’m generating passive income just by talking to them. And so I love YouTube for small business because I get paid to market my business and other platforms are not doing that. Well. YouTube has compensated their creators in a better way than any other platform for years. And so I encourage people, if they find themselves burnout, by creating content on other platforms, try live streaming, because you are literally creating your content and people are consuming it in real time. That’s a way to free up time. How much time are you spending making Instagram content? You think you don’t have time for these titles, but I guarantee you your content creation time making those candidate graphics dancing to your reels. If you took that time and reinvested it into YouTube, your business would skyrocket. Because videos that I posted months ago, or my top videos right now, years ago, are still making me money, who’s digging in your Instagram posts that are two years old? And so people think they don’t have time. But what they haven’t done is been critical and honest with themselves about what is the ROI? What is the return for what I’m doing here? And am I even being paid to market? Because that’s the reality if you leverage that tech tool. So there are platforms that will pay you to talk to your customers. Be honest with yourself, is it worth it? And are you getting back the time? Or the freedom that you actually want? Again, getting back to why am I doing this in the first place. And so I encourage people to strategically unplug. We are too plugged into tech, take time to breathe to let your brain recalibrate, to relax, and rest. Because it’s a whole lot easier for you to be honest with yourself when you’re not inundated with notifications. So just take some time on the weekend. Don’t work on Saturday, take some time away and be honest like hmm, was I the most productive this week? Did I get the most done in the least amount of time if I didn’t? What’s one thing I can change the next week?
Natalie Franke
I love that. I want to circle back to AI. We can’t leave without talking. It’s like the hot topic in the room. And I have a love hate relationship with it. Let’s go there because I think a lot of people will either have a love hate relationship with it? They have a hope fear relationship with it. Or they’re intimidated. And they won’t even approach it because it doesn’t feel like it’s for them. Yeah. How are you feeling about AI?
LaShonda Brown
My biggest bone to pick with AI is people are just not doing the research. They think they understand what AI actually is. We have been utilizing AI for decades, we just didn’t call it that. AI is a key word. It is a term that the marketing industry decided to start using to describe tech tools. But you have been using automation artificial intelligence for a very long time. So by a concept, AI is not bad. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It just is okay. That’s the truth, right? So we leverage AI every single day. My problem, though, is that there are people who are taking shortcuts, that should be manually done with AI, right? They’re Outsourcing Things to AI that really needs their handprint on it. And so that’s my biggest fear. My biggest fear is that the quality of what’s created goes down. Because people are offloading things to AI that should have never been there. And so I just think people just need to be honest about it. You know, certain things are better done by tech. But certain things need your unique spin on it. Don’t put that into some tech tool, take the time to put your handprint on it. So it’s unique to you. Don’t create your own competition by leveraging a tool everybody else is using sometimes you got to do it manual. And so I think it’s always that dance. Tech is wonderful. But tech isn’t everything we are still human beings and human beings are still needed in business.
Natalie Franke
How do you discern? That’s the challenge because I agree that we were on the train Akua and I were on the train coming in actually to do to do this conversation. And I couldn’t think of a subject line for my email. And I was struggling with it. And it was, you know, funny story. I couldn’t come up with subject line. And it was like, let’s just try chat GVT. So we hop in there. And I asked chat to UBT to help. And when I tell you we were cackling we were the subject lines. We asked it to be funny, and it delivered. It was really funny. And I ended up including in the email like the subject line was written by Chad GBT. And here were the other ones. Which one would you would have chosen did it. But the discernment process, there is the challenge because I don’t know myself like, how do you discern when to use it when not to use it? Is it solely based on what the customer wants? When do your own unique talents and giftings come into play? Is it something where because I had heard somebody even on Twitter, say like, I don’t want AI to Paint me a Picture. Right? They’re like, I want to paint the picture, right? I want AI to do everything else so that I can go paint the picture.
LaShonda Brown
Well, and I want to support the artists, right?
Natalie Franke
So let’s talk about discernment. Like how does somebody if somebody’s listening to this, they’re saying, Okay, I’m starting to explore AI. I want to explore more tech tools. But I just I don’t know how to discern where I need to lean in versus lean out how to use it correctly, how not to use it correctly. Do you have any advice?
LaShonda Brown
You don’t have to start with a deepen, you can dip your toes in it, you know. So, you know, there is a tool on the back end of Canva called Magic, right? You know, they use the word magic to describe AI to make it more accessible. And so the reality is if you are staring at a blank piece of paper, and it’s going nowhere, okay, save yourself the time to just, you know, pull the ripcord and get things started, you know, you’re not reliant on AI to write your article for you. But maybe it’s just getting your brain going. Because otherwise you’d waste a ton of time not doing the thing, right. So that’s a situation where you can dip your toes in. And I think also there are certain things that are just tasks, right, these little menial tasks that add up and take time away from our day. Those are little things that you can delegate, you know, Zapier is another tool like you can use Zapier to connect tools and say, You know what, I don’t need to manually put this contact over here, like if I check if the mazing Yeah, and so like you have these different tools out there that can take those little things off your plate and essentially, that’s your ai ai doesn’t just have to be you know, copywriting for you. But I a friend of mine is a copywriter and it’s like I really had to think to myself like is chat GPT going to eliminate the need for copywriters and at the end of the day, I think it’s actually going to be the opposite. copywriters are more valuable because everyone thinks they’re a writer now, just like when you know, DSLR cameras came out. Everybody thought they were a photographer until they had to edit those photos. Do you know what I mean? So it’s like, we are fearful of tech until we realize that human beings are irreplaceable, you know, and so I thing, just start with the small things, we don’t have to throw our entire business into some tech tool, we can delegate little things to free us up to be more creative, and to be more human in our businesses.
Natalie Franke
I love that. I absolutely love that. And you know, we’ve been rolling out our new AI features, and we’re investing pretty heavily in them. And one of them, like you mentioned Canvas magic, right? You know, we have, we’re coming out with an email composer that is going to eliminate that need to just stare at the blank email screen going right? How do I navigate responding to this, it will help you, you know, there may be moments where you don’t even need to touch it. But there’s gonna be more often than not moments where it’s just getting you three quarters of the way there so that you can use your humaneness in the most, like we’ve said, productive time possible. And I think there’s so much so much power in that truly, I would love to know from you. Are there some tools that you’re really excited about that exist? Like we obviously love honey buck here, we’ve heard about Canva we all love you know, these are amazing tools. I’d be curious. You know, we were chatting actually about one yesterday called groove like, what are some of these other platforms and tools that for independent business owners listening? They can’t walk away from this conversation having not learned about it? Do you have any fun ones for us?
LaShonda Brown
Yeah, so I definitely have to give groov a shout out simply because it’s a really cool hybrid between tech and humanity. Right. So groov is a way for you to virtually co work with anyone around the world and get more done. So it turns on a video camera and it sends out a push notification to up to three other people. You say what you intend on doing, then it switches to text where you can check things off your checklist, and then you come back to regroup and see how it went. And so that’s a really interesting hybrid between knowing that there are real people doing real things, helps you to accomplish more, because it leverages the concept of body doubling, which actually helps people with ADHD get more done. So if that is a huge thing right now is so many people are struggling with ADHD, you can use tech to help you to be more productive by leveraging an app like Kruth. Another one that I love, and I really think honestly, it’s perfect for you know, people who are parents or just have people that they have to care for is many chat, because a lot of us understand engaging on Instagram helps your post before more, but they cannot be by their phone at all times of the day responding to comment. So what is what is many chat. So many chat is essentially a software that utilizing key words, you can automatically respond to comments, or DMS. And so everyone has seen this, but a lot of people don’t know what tech tool is actually doing the work. So if you see a post or a reel that says comment, and it has a keyword, what’s happening on the back end of mini chat is many chat is hearing that keyword and saying when someone uses this word, whether it’s on this post or any post, respond in this way, and it goes into the DMS, it could be a response to the comment, but that’s the one that I tend to use. And so I have noticed people’s Instagram engagement goes up, people are generating more income, because the real money on Instagram is made in the DMS not on the feed. And so you’re leveraging this very inexpensive tech tool to free up time and actually provide better customer service, because you can’t be by your phone at all times. And so those two things are just two tools that aren’t super popular, but really effective and helping the independent business community. Because we all need to get stuff done. And we all would rather not be an Instagram all day.
Natalie Franke
All right, I I’m going to see if by the time we publish this, I can integrate mini chat into my Instagram. And if I can, what we will do is we will include in one of the reels the opportunity, like I want to see if we can use it, can we use it?
LaShonda Brown
We could use it on the reel of this episode. Let’s do it. Yeah, we just have, we could hide a little easter egg keyword
Natalie Franke
because this would be soap, I can just imagine how powerful this would be for all sorts of business owners. It’s been I’ve seen it a lot used with, you know, content creators and educators. I’ve seen it used a lot in the influencer marketing space or even like the, you know, fashion industry where they’ll be like, comment, you know, look, if you want my outfit, I’ve seen that used quite a bit. But the use cases for this technology are so vast and yet to be discovered, I can just imagine what our listeners could do with it. So we will try. We’ll try to get to that. And if you’re listening, maybe pop over to the Instagram account and see. And I’ll make sure we’ll include all of that in the show notes so you know where to go. But before we close this out, there’s one question that I ask all of my guests on the podcast and there’s no right or wrong answer, but I really love getting to unpack every business undertake on this. And so I would love to know from you Lashonda What do you believe is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail
LaShonda Brown
the business? says that succeed in business are the ones who know that you are constantly in a state of evolution. In the tech community, there is a framework called Agile. And what it is, is essentially you’re putting tech out there in the world, knowing good and well, there will be bugs, there will be issues, we will need to continue to refine. But if we don’t launch it, we can’t learn. And so the businesses that tend to succeed the most are the ones who are willing to say, I’m willing to put it out there and continue to refine it over time. It doesn’t have to be perfect, because what I’m actually trying to accomplish is serving my people well, so let me put it out there. Here’s the beta test. Here’s phase one, be honest about that, and then continue to grow. So many people want it to be perfect before they let people look at it. And the tech community understands there will always be room for growth. So having that mindset, being humble enough to say, I can always learn more, I can always do it slightly better, is going to help you to stay in business longer.
Natalie Franke
I love it. This has been so good. So powerful. For folks listening who want to find you want to learn more, where can they do that?
LaShonda Brown
The best place to find me is bootstrap best advice on YouTube. Subscribe. Don’t skip the ads. I love you. You can also go to the Shona brown.com to join the bootstrap Club, which is the place where I share information that doesn’t get posted on Instagram, the real life behind the scenes of what it looks like to be a full time creator to work 20 hours a week. So if you if you want the realness, go to Lashonda brown.com. If you want to learn go to bootstrap best advice.
Natalie Franke
Thank you so much for joining me today.
LaShonda Brown
Thanks for having me.
Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.
