How Smart Small Businesses Are Actually Using AI to Grow Faster with Dave Charest

0:00Ultimately, the folks that were implementing AI, no matter what the channel was that they were using and what they were doing for a marketing activity, they were seeing better results across the board. AI is really helping small business owners get stuff done and get stuff done that's enough to learn something from where AI comes in. It's about efficiency. It's not about necessarily doing more. It's about how do I do things smarter and more efficiently? This is where really AI is really helping people move in this direction and get things done. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production.

0:33We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. There's a lot of conversation around AI right now, But most of it's focused on big companies, big dollars, big things. What's more interesting is how small businesses are actually using it day to day or how they should be. New data shows more than half of small business owners are already using AI to simplify their work. Dave Sherrist, the constant contact director of small business success is right in the middle of all of it.

1:13Working directly with these businesses. That's all we got them here right now. What's up, Dave? How you doing, Ryan? Pleasure to be here with you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate your time and appreciate you for coming on. What's cooking, Dave? Where are we today? Let's tell all the deets. I know Constant Contact, I've known that name for a long time as a small business owner. Where are we physically now, Dave, where are we located? I'm in the Boston area. Constant Contact's headquarters is in Waltham, Massachusetts, about 20 minutes from Boston. I'm in a little town called Methuen, about 30 minutes north of Boston.

1:40Nice. We've been with Constant Contact for a good skinny minute here. Is that right? Yeah, I've been at Constant Contact over 14 plus years now. Congratulations on the longevity. I mean, in today's corporate world, it's like bouncing around. It says something about you and them. I'll take it. We were talking about still having hair. Same situation here. Knock on wood. I'm happy to, one, be at a place for so long, but two, also be at a place that I want to be at for so long and be able to do that. And, you know, still have a mission that I really believe in in terms of just helping small business owners who are often business owners first, marketers by necessity.

2:11And use the skills that I have to help them make sense of all that has been a great opportunity and something I've been happy to be a part of. I'm a small business owner, but marketer first. Did for other people for 15 years, it then became a small business owner. I've used constant contact quite a bit as an owner and using it myself. And then for clients that either had it when they hired us or did others, always respected the platform. And I can say this honestly, we keep it straight here, Dave, for good, bad, and the other. I've never as a marketing agency owner tried to talk someone off of it.

2:42That's the highest compliment I can get sometimes because half the time people come to me with like their marketing or something And I'm trying to talk them out off the ledge of something that they're either thinking of doing or a platform that they shouldn't be on. That's the highest compliment I can give you. I know. I love that. I'll take that. That's amazing. We have a great partner program as well for agencies who use it and use constant contact with their clients as well. It's really a tool built for small businesses and the businesses that don't need to be overly complicated and where you actually do have to have a marketing degree or something like that to actually make it work for you.

3:11Hey, we've been around for 30 plus years here, so something's working. Yeah, for sure. Sometimes the product is the topic, the topic is the product. And it's an interesting one with what constant contact means to the marketplace for small businesses. You know, I want to take it through a broader lens of what are small businesses facing. I know you're talking about them every day, but maybe through the lens of your role and what you're hearing and what you're seeing on a broad sense. And then we can talk specifically around AI and things like that. They're probably intertwined. I think they definitely are, particularly where we are in this moment in time.

3:42Constant Contact, we regularly are doing these what we call small business now reports. We do these on a consistent basis to really just kind of keep a pulse on what's happening out there with small businesses. And our most recent survey has found and research has found that right now, small businesses are actually doubling down on marketing. When you think about where they are in terms of their top concerns, inflation is a big one. And this is back in February when we kind of fielded this study. Although they're concerned with that, it's not stopping them from showing up. And the majority of the businesses that we spoke to, somewhere around 70%, are actually planning on spending more on marketing.

4:18I'd love your point of view on this too, because oftentimes where things feel like they're tight or there's some uncertainty, historically, you would typically see marketing be one of the things that people want to cut because it just feels like that's an expense we don't need to worry about right now. And particularly when you start to think about the change that happened during the pandemic times, right? So if we go back to 2020, I know So that was a period in time where a lot of people really started to understand the benefit of these digital tools like email marketing and social media and all of that, because it was really the only way they had to communicate with people.

4:50Since that time, they've seen that investing in those tools is even more important when things are kind of a little bit unstable or you're not sure what's going to happen. It's because staying visible matters. And that's what's important, because when things do come around, particularly when consumers are being more specific about where they're going to spend their dollars. it's those businesses that are top of mind. That's where they are going to spend them. That's what we're seeing here. They're actually interested in spending more, which is a little bit surprising, but also exciting because it's not typically what you would see.

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6:13We're trying to be talked into a recession. Expensive gas and a lot of other things are real variable. I'm not diminishing that, but I do feel like four years ago, three years ago, we couldn't be trying to talk ourselves into negative sentiment. We're really good at that sometimes in the media. Regardless of that, small business prevails, rises above sometimes just sentiment. What you also have is AI revolution happening, which is greater than anything. It might be the single most impactful thing to marketing that has ever happened. If you really think about all the tenets of what it's doing, we've had that.

6:45I mean, don't get me wrong, the Internet was pretty impactful. It kind of played itself like it had an impact, but it was over 15 years. AI is having an impact over 18 months, nine months, eight months, two months, one month. The iteration is incredible. Small businesses that are in it to win it and ambitious and driven. The reason they probably want to spend on more on marketing or at least continue to spend is they're excited because their dollar goes further. They could do more things and they have these capabilities and companies like Constant Contact integrating these capabilities that were never at their fingertips until now.

7:16We've got some things that are making things a little negative, some real, some not. Frankly, small businesses are going, hey, this is a good time to be nimble. It's a good time to have these tools. I want to put them to act for my business. A couple of things here. Let's just say, regardless of what it is, every year, every month, every something is different for small business owners in terms of the adversity that they're going to face. So regardless of what that is, it's always something time and time again, they prove that they are a resilient group of folks that can maybe feel sorry for themselves for a little bit, but then it's roll up the sleeves and figure out, all right, now how do I make this work?

7:49Because this is the thing that they need to make work. That's the big thing that we see time and time again with small business owners just out of the gate. To your point about the AI piece, this is incredible what people can do with the tool and how quickly it's evolving to help you do more. We did a previous study on the state of AI where early on it was really about like, OK, what's this thing? Like now this is a thing that people understand and know that is available to them. And it's about how do I use it? We've seen just in general terms, not even getting into the specifics of it. And I have a theory on why this is.

8:19But ultimately, the folks that were implementing AI, no matter what the channel was that they were using and what they were doing for a marketing activity, they were seeing better results across the board. A couple of things, I think, come into play here. We talk about all the responsibilities of a small business owner, particularly one that is not a marketer by trade. This is the shop owner. This is the restaurant owner. The folks that want to do the thing, not necessarily spend all their time getting the word out about the thing and telling their story. Those folks have the opportunity to actually get something completed and something out the door.

8:49And my theory is that in any of this stuff, doing something is always better than doing nothing. Because even if it doesn't succeed, you've learned something that you can take with you into the next thing. AI is really helping small business owners get stuff done and get stuff done that's enough to learn something from where AI comes in. It's about efficiency. It's not about necessarily doing more. It's about how do I do things smarter and more efficiently? This is where really AI is really helping people move in this direction and get things done. Yeah, 100%. Sometimes when you were speaking, Dave, I was thinking like, might be a choice of deciding what to do, when to do it, because it does enable so many things and choosing the right things.

9:28Because I've done this myself, being semi-technical already, being a marketing guy, I go down some rabbit holes and I'm like, this is interesting, but I don't know how productive it is. Because the tools enable you to do so many things. It was probably like choosing kind of the 80-20 rule and focusing. And I know that's what Constant Contact does so well with marketing. It's still really damn effective. And especially if you do it right and you personalize it and do all these things. Sometimes the blocking and tackling isn't sexy, but it works. They're doing the basics. Talk to me, Dave, what is the sentiment here in the first quarter, beginning of second quarter, of most small businesses that you hear from?

10:03What is that tenor, the current? What says you on that? I feel like I've seen this a lot just in terms of over the years. Small business owners in general are a cautiously optimistic group. And this is what we're seeing here again. I don't think anybody starts a business thinking they're going to fail. You have to be an optimist and believe in the thing that you're going to do. That's kind of built into the backbone of that type of person who takes that step. It's the reality of like, look, I know as an owner, there's going to be challenges. I know there are things that are going to come in the way and try to keep me from doing what I want to do.

10:34the idea of getting to being your own boss, not having to answer to other people, the financial rewards that come to you versus doing things for someone else. All of those things outweigh the idea of having to go back to work for someone else. And I think that's it. And cautiously optimistic is where people are. There are challenges. I know if I believe in myself and do the things I need to do that I can make this work. I read an interesting article this morning that said all these sort of fear mongering of AI taking all these jobs and there being no jobs. It's actually leading motivated people.

11:05More small businesses are being started today than anything else. It's like the fastest growing because people are going, well, I'm not going to take my job because I'm going to go start my own. It's sort of leading down that path, which is exciting on some levels and should be good for constant contact. This takes us back to the pandemic. That's where new business applications really started to go through the roof, record-breaking numbers. And the numbers are the last I looked for this year are down a little bit, but still up in those millions of job applications being started. Anytime in history where there is some type of adversity or something, it is the people that start to think about, okay, what is the solution to that problem?

11:37And that's what entrepreneurs do is they solve problems. And right or wrong, the more problems you have, there's more ways to start to think about it and what that could potentially mean. And so there's always an upside. Historically speaking, that's going to change what the market looks like. And I think it's just a regular evolution of what's available. And just in terms of even just taking jobs, it's really about how do you embrace this and use this to accelerate your thinking. Last year for me was a big year where I just personally was like, all right, how do I start to incorporate this into my day to day?

12:06How do I use it to help me so I can kind of get back to doing the things that I really love to do and enjoy? For example, I'm more of a content creator type of person. I don't need it to help me necessarily. I'll use it to help me kind of get ideas out and maybe structure them and think through them. But like, I can do that. And so I don't need it to create content for me necessarily. But someone else who doesn't have that skill set, that may be the thing that they needed to do, where they'll lean into it more heavily. And of course, as more people adopt it, we're in this stage now where there's going to be a lot of, they're calling it AI slop is out there.

12:36That's valid. But at the same time, the people that figure out how to make sure that it does sound like them, that has the uniqueness and the point of view that they offer, that colors the output in a way that the good stuff is still going to rise to the top. It's just at an accelerated rate. We just talked about just the AI in general. It's those folks that really use it to get it to work for them that are going to rise to the top and have the advantage because there is a uniqueness to it. The AI police is one of my least favorite trolls on the internet right now. It's like, and don't get me wrong, there is some slop out there and there is.

13:05And not because, again, if you're putting out nothing of value or if it truly is slop, whatever that means, and that is the common term, then sure. But if you're using it to actually advance things at 20X the rate, there's a fine line here between slop and efficiency as long as it's value. I'd rather my favorite writer put out 10 more blogs that's in their voice that may have been AI generated, but it's concepts and ideas that they had and me to get that knowledge and insight or laughter or whatever it might be, then for them not to use AI and me get one a year. It's an interesting thing of scale.

13:36Where is AI saving the most time for small business owners? It's in a few areas. One of the things that we maybe overemphasize is this content creation piece. This is great for the people that need it and maybe don't know how to get there. They suffer from the blinking cursor problem where it's like, OK, I don't know what to write. I don't know what to talk about. There's that piece of it. It's saving you time there. But I think the piece that we often don't really talk about as much, and I think we're moving to that point, but it's what AI can do for you in the terms of just processing information.

14:05This is where the real opportunity comes in, because like even let's say, OK, you're sending emails, you're doing your marketing, you're doing things on social to be able to take that information and then feed it to AI and tell AI, like, hey, help me figure out what I'm doing. need to do next here. And this is the world that we see in Constant Contact is like, how do we start to take the information that you have available to you based on the things that you're doing to say, hey, here's an opportunity. Here's something that you should try. This is the best time to send this for your audience. These types of emails seem to be performing really well.

14:35These types of posts to be able to take that information. And in many ways, you're going to get to this point where it's coaching you through what to do next. That's exciting because one, just in terms of data analysis. Not everybody has the money to hire a data analyst to then find the things that you need to do and then extrapolate that into something that you can actually take action on. This is where we're going to see AI really have a huge impact on small businesses in particular, because to be able to get into that in a way that reality is, you just don't have the time to be able to do all of that in the role as the owner, because you're doing all of this other stuff.

15:05To be able to have that and to be able to, hey, do this. Great. Now I know what to do next and I can run that and I can get back to what it is that I'd rather be doing. That's where AI is. We're at that precipice right now where it's starting to push over directly into that. And that's an exciting prospect. I love where you took this because if you're a business owner and being the position I am, I'm talking and smart people like you every day and processing all of this. And having come up, I spent 15 years working in the ad agency business on some of the largest brands in the world. And remember the research reports and analyst reports that we would do and get because the brands we were working with could afford the time, energy and money that it took to get it and big billion dollar decisions being made.

15:43And now me as a small business owner, it's like meta on some fronts talking about these things, having been on both sides of the fence, corporate side, small business side, the ability with which we can, you would have never done these things as a small business owner because you'd never spent the time, money and energy to do them because it just didn't, you didn't have them. But now with AI, you can run these reports on, okay, looking at your sales, extracting data points. These one-of-one scenarios that the time, money, and energy just would never have been feasible, but can glean insights that the big, huge corporations spend it because they're making a billion dollars.

16:16Well, you might be making thousand-dollar decisions, which is the equivalent for you, but it can be guided by more data that's distilled in a way that is useful. And that is a really impactful thing if small business owners can take that ball and run with it. Not getting too caught up. Sometimes the data, you can get too much data, yes. But man, there are some really important things and some key data points that could guide decisions better that's now more attainable than ever. Being able to be pushed in the right direction many times. And I think, you know, you have inflection points in your business as well, where at one point it's about getting to a certain level and then that changes.

16:49And then it's about getting to another level. And having, in many ways, a thought partner and push you in the right direction is just hugely valuable. Everybody has a co-founder now. Right, yeah. In a way. I was trying to think of the way to personify it. And I think that's a good way to do it. Everybody's got a third one with constant contact. I mean, I'm building marketing ideas here with you. If you think about it, I mean, that's really, in many ways, when we think about what our mission is, and it's to be the marketing partner for small business owners, to provide them the tools that they need and more with, and I think that even just opens up for a company like ours, the ability to use all of the information that we have and what we've learned over 30 years in the business to share that and put that directly in the hands of our customers so that they can use it to grow their businesses.

17:29It's just exciting times to be in this industry. Where are small businesses maybe overcomplicating AI or where is it not working or being overhyped? Maybe sometimes, I always say sometimes not. What you choose not to do is as important as what you choose to do. I'm going to look at this from a marketing perspective. Maybe not necessarily specifically to have to do with AI. We're all connected here with all of those things. There's this overwhelming sense because of the world that we're in now with the devices and the constant barrage of media and feeds and all of this. that there's a feeling that all times you have to be everywhere.

18:03And there is some truth to that. But there's also sometimes doing that when you're not ready to do it. And what I mean is you're spinning your wheels. You're trying to be here and there in this place and that place. You're putting out a whole bunch of stuff, but nothing is actually grabbing. And a big mistake is we'll see people over index on trying to be everywhere versus saying, you know what, let's just use Facebook. I'm going to work on Facebook and I'm going to come up with a plan specifically for Facebook. and I'm going to commit to that so I can get it working for me. And getting working for me means something that we often overlook because we get seduced by the metrics that the platform itself wants you to pay attention to.

18:37That makes it feel like you're doing something. You have to be very clear. Is it what am I trying to do for my business on this platform and working toward that goal and figuring out, okay, is this where my audience is? And am I comfortable being here? I'm going to invest time to get this to work. Then once you start to gain that traction, then you can start to think about, okay, I'm going to add something else to the mix because each of these platforms are a little bit different. And what we end up doing is because of this, I have to be everywhere. It becomes like a copy and paste and then nothing really works very well.

19:05And then you're wondering like, well, I'm exhausted, right? I'm doing all of these things and nothing's happening. And I think this is why it's okay. If there's any small business listening right now, I would say you have permission to not do everything all at once, start someplace and get that working for you and then add to it. What we see, this latest study tells us that social media and email marketing are the two channels that are driving the most value for people. Social media, of course, that's a box to open because that could mean different things. It's finding one of those things and then remembering to partner that with email.

19:34And this is really important because where you have social media for the reach and particularly how if you think about how social media works right now, it's a lot different than maybe 14 years ago where it was like it mattered when people followed you. It mattered not that those things don't matter anymore, but it's different because of the algorithms are now trying to put your content in front of the right people versus versus the people having to find your content. The reach is a little bit different, but what hasn't changed there is that you don't control what happens on that platform. They make a change or your reach is still really limited in many respects based on what it is that you want to do.

20:06That's where email comes in because you are getting somebody to raise their hand to say, I want to stay connected with you. And that gives you the control to say, I want to communicate with these people at this time based on this type of activity.

20:22I have to make this statement every now and then. We've been doing this show for eight years. And now's a good time to put this disclaimer in for everyone. There's a lot of videos out there where I've said this. And never forget that social media is rented land. And your email list is what you own. It's own land that you control. Proceed accordingly. What does that mean? Dave's talking about it right now. Make sure you're not just putting all your eggs in that social media basket. You're doing the things that allow you to move those people to what you're saying, the places that you control, that you have ownership of, because that's your, that contact list.

20:54What's the phrase? The money is in the list. The people that you have direct connections with, let's just say all the sites went down and this has happened. I mean, people have had their pages taken away. The sites have gone down. What if you didn't have a way to contact those people directly? This is why you need to be thinking about how do I move those. The rented land is a great way to think about it because yeah, no one's saying don't use social media, use it, but use it to your advantage, not to their advantage. Cause it was up to them. You would never leave the social media platform. Exactly.