Empowering Small Business With AI & Strategy  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: Empowering Small Business With AI & Strategy - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c54e2166-e63b-4f75-baa6-6461a5e26a58 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Sara's Agency Experience** - Sara Nay shares her 15 years of experience moving through various agency roles and witnessing challenges firsthand. - She observed common issues like client demands, scope creep, and difficulty proving marketing ROI to small businesses. Transcript: Sara Nay I mean, as you mentioned in the introduction, I've been part of the agency space for about 15 years. And in that journey, I've moved from intern to community manager, account manager, fractional CMO for our clients, among other roles. And so I've really been in all the different areas of the agency space. And throughout that journey, there's definitely been times where I've noticed things that didn't quite feel right in the agency space. And even further than that, there have been several moments over the last 15 years where I've been burnt out and on the brink of saying, does this make sense to pursue even more, even further? And so I've lived a lot of challenges along the way, and there's no secret in the challenges I've seen. I think a lot of people experience this in the agency space. And so starting on that side, on the agency side of things, there's challenges with meeting client demands and managing scope creep and scaling and maintaining profitability and Retaining great talent. And those are a lot of the things that I've heard from other agency owners struggling with, but I've also experienced it myself. Also in my roles, I've been on in the sales side of our business for a while now. So I've spoken with hundreds of small business owners who have worked with different agencies or outsourced solutions over those years. And I have heard all of their stories of things along the lines of marketing doesn't work, or I'm paying this agency for X and I have no idea if I'm getting results or if anything's happening With my marketing efforts. ([Time 0:01:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/88e4ba12-fe63-47f6-94ac-38f994af8bf6)) - **Anti-Agency Model Explained** - AI enables small businesses to bring execution in-house with lean teams overseen by strategic leadership. - This “anti-agency” model helps businesses stop renting marketing and start owning it with AI doing the heavy lifting. Transcript: Sara Nay Yeah. So the whole play with the anti-agency model, as you identified, like, obviously we're not anti-agency. We're an agency ourselves. We have been for 31 years. We love agencies. And so I do keep, I keep explaining that because I don't want people to think this book is against agencies. But what it's with the anti-agency, what it's saying is the model is broken, essentially, for some of the points that I had highlighted just a second ago. So it's anti-agency model specifically. And so the way we've been doing and functioning for years as agencies, we're being forced in some ways to evolve because of the evolution of AI. And so previously to AI, it made sense for agencies to hold on to things like marketing, content, social, SEO, paid ads, all of the execution elements. But with the evolution of AI, I believe small businesses are able to take some of that stuff in-house. They still need strategic leadership and direction, but they now have an opportunity to stay a little bit more lean with their in-house marketing team by layering in AI systems below Them to help with the heavy lifting of execution. And so that's the whole idea of stop renting your marketing and taking back ownership of your marketing. You still need strategy. You still need direction. You still need leadership. ([Time 0:03:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8ae7b4e7-46c8-435f-ba4f-e01b40cd7d7c)) - **Timeless Marketing Meets AI** - Timeless marketing foundations like deep client understanding and clear core messaging remain essential with AI. - AI tools must be trained on this core strategy to produce consistent, on-brand, relevant content. Transcript: Sara Nay And so that's the second really section of the book we get into the timeless after the intro and all of that, we get into the timeless principles. And so some of the things that I touch on there are things like target market, identifying your clients on a very deep level. I think that's becoming even more and more important with the evolution of AI, because what I see is a lot of small businesses bringing in something like a chat GPT or a cloud or whatever Their tool of choice is, and they'll start just like creating content. And so it's all over the place. It's not consistent. It's not on brand. And so in your original book, DuckTip Marketing, you talked a lot about identifying your ideal client on a deep level, understanding them emotionally, what keeps them up at night, What drives them. And so with the evolution of AI, you still need to understand your clients on a very deep level. But then if you're going to bring in an AI tool, you then need to train the chat to be to your tool of your choice that you bring in on that information. So when you're creating content moving forward, you're creating content that speaks to your ideal client on a deep level and isn't just generic. Another timeless foundational principle is core messaging. We talk a lot about that over the years. So identifying your core message, or we've talked a lot about talking logo as well. And so that's really identifying what makes you unique, but also what messaging resonates with that ideal client. That is still incredibly important today, but it's also important to take that messaging and train your AI tools of choice that messaging as well. So again, you're not creating generic content. You're creating content that speaks to your ideal clients with the messaging you've identified is really important. And so those foundations are still the same. But the way we're using them is evolving a bit because of the technology that's now available. ([Time 0:05:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/13090850-e4c1-45f7-9b37-b8e5417d8555)) - **Adopt AI with Strategy First** - Avoid jumping straight into AI tools without strategy; first clarify business goals and marketing strategy. - Then choose and train AI tools to support your specific objectives for efficient execution. Transcript: Sara Nay Complicates things. It causes confusion. It causes inconsistency. It causes- Amplifies the chaos that's already there, right? Right? It amplifies the chaos that's already there. And it causes so many issues for the internal team or the team using the program, but also for the clients and prospects that you're putting out content to as well. And so it's causing confusion in both of those areas. And so a lot of what I encourage small businesses to do is take a step back. I mean, if you following duct tape marketing for any period of time, you've heard us say strategy before tactics, but it's now strategy before tactics and technology is the conversation We're having with clients. Okay, we need to be using AI tools. Instead of just diving into tools first, take a step back and answer some very important questions as to what's the business actually trying to accomplish? What's the marketing strategy look like based on that? What's the team strategy or what's our current team structure look like? And then you can say, okay, what tools can help us accomplish our goals? And then once you identify what the tools are, you then need to train the tools on your strategy that you would have created to then get to the point where you're ready to execute on them Efficiently. ([Time 0:07:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7ef558c6-93c8-4c1e-ad28-194242928863)) - **Fractional CMO Plus Model** - Small businesses can afford marketing leadership now by hiring fractional CMOs who provide strategic leadership at reduced cost. - Under them, systems-oriented executors leverage AI to execute multi-channel marketing efficiently. Transcript: Sara Nay Yeah, I mean, I think, again, I keep going back to AI, but it's causing small business owners or small businesses an opportunity that we haven't had before. And so, you know, previously, let's think of traditional marketing org chart. You would have a CMO and a company and then you would have a lot of different executors under them, essentially. So you'd have like a paid specialist, an email marketing specialist, a social, all of the different channels and categories. That's never really been feasible to small businesses because they wouldn't even have a budget for a CMO, let alone all the other people that are involved in that story. And so I think the best opportunity that small businesses have is right now in terms of the org chart, because you can bring in a fractional CMO. So you're not paying a full-time salary. You're paying a set fee every single month. That fractional CMO is then tasked with creating the overall strategy, managing the budget, owning the metrics, overseeing all of the marketing department, essentially. ([Time 0:10:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d1569308-5d38-497e-8929-4e726003d4a8)) - **When to Hire Marketing Leadership** - Once revenue crosses about $1M, small businesses should consider marketing leadership to avoid the CEO becoming CMO by default. - Fractional CMOs free founders to focus on core business tasks while overseeing marketing strategy and execution. Transcript: Sara Nay Obviously depends on the business situation, revenue size, long-term growth goals. And so there's a lot of factors that I would need to consider to answer that specifically. But for me, if you're a small business and you're looking to scale up, I mean, you're doing a certain level of revenue, you've been in business for a few years. Let's say you've passed the 1 million revenue mark. I think it's time to start considering you need marketing leadership of some extent. And so when small businesses scale up to a certain point, if they haven't looked for marketing leadership, the CEO becomes the CMO and they either have marketing experience or they Learn marketing. And now it's this necessary evil that they're having to spend a lot of their time on where they never wanted to become a CMO in the first place. And so if you're scaling up and you have high growth goals, looking for someone like a fractional CMO, I think makes a lot of sense because the whole idea is as the CEO or founder, you stay In your zone of genius. You stay focused on the why behind you building the business in the first place. Or in selling. John Jantsch Stuff that actually is going to make money for the business rather than you having to figure out how to manage the technology. Exactly. Sara Nay And then you bring in a fractional CMO or a marketing leader of some extent that then is tasked with what you identified earlier in terms of managing team, bringing in partners or hiring Full-time team, running the technology, building the systems and processes, running the budget and the metrics. And so the fractional CMO is really tasked with leading the marketing department and working alongside you to help you reach the specific business goals that you would have laid out. ([Time 0:12:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/66c17a84-528b-4b3a-bd08-998a800def0f)) - **Agencies Must Shift Strategy** - Agencies must shift from offering only execution services to providing strategic leadership integrated with AI. - Competing with AI on execution alone is a losing race; agencies should elevate teams by working alongside AI. Transcript: Sara Nay Yeah, and there's been a lot of stuff coming out there that I've seen on LinkedIn and different articles about how many agencies are going to shut down in the next few years. I think a lot of that stuff's hard to predict, but I do think if you just keep offering execution, it's a race to the bottom in a lot of cases, because small businesses, even if they're not Doing it that effectively yet, like they are bringing in AI solutions to cut costs in certain areas. And I think that marketing execution is one of those areas. And so, you know, I think if agencies keep offering execution as their core services, it's going to be very challenging in the next few years moving forward because AI is becoming more Sophisticated. So you're basically competing against AI in that scenario versus if agencies shift their offering and they step more into this leadership role where they're focusing on strategy, They're elevating team. It can be their own team or it can be internal team, but they're elevating humans essentially with AI systems below them. ([Time 0:15:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/482a9340-a45c-442e-bb13-a3ba2f952738)) - **Take Ownership of Marketing** - Start reclaiming marketing ownership by analyzing business goals, marketing strategy, and team structure. - Evaluate outsourced partnerships critically; stop working with vendors that leave you unclear or lacking control. Transcript: Sara Nay Yeah, of course. There's two things that come to mind right off the bat. One of the first things, when I talk about this in the book as well, is the marketing strategy pyramid. We talk a lot about it at Duct Tape Marketing, but it's really taking a step back and answering some business strategic questions first. So really analyzing what are your business goals? What are your objectives? What's your revenue? Where are you growing towards? What are your mission, vision, values? And so really analyzing some of those things and then thinking through what is your marketing strategy to help you move in the right direction and then thinking through what is your Team strategy. So you have to have those two bottom layers of the pyramid first to then think about team. But, you know, to the question of how can businesses take back ownership when you're analyzing your team structure, think through like, are these internal roles? Are we relying on outsourced vendors? If we're relying on outsourced vendors or solutions, do we have clarity and confidence and control or ownership as to what they are doing? Or are we kind of left in the dark? I mean, if you're left in the dark through some of your partnerships, that's when it's time to analyze, does it make sense to continue on with this partnership? Or is there a way where we can get more ownership and control? ([Time 0:17:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/48172165-9bb4-4c8f-9a49-390ac71ced81)) - **Elevate Teams with AI** - Analyze team roles to identify human-led skills versus those that AI can assist or replace. - Focus on elevating team members with AI to future-proof roles and grow essential skills for the AI era. Transcript: Sara Nay A big part of that, I think, is doing an analysis of who's currently on your team and you're not asking the question, how can we get more work out of them or how can we get them to move faster Or be more productive? What you're answering is how can we elevate them to make more of an impact? And so one of the exercises that we've done with our team fairly recently, and this is also in the book as well, is we had everyone on our team analyze what skills are they doing on a regular Basis and then we basically had them identify what are you know human-led skills that they should continue to focus on things that light them up that they love and then we also had them Identify what skills can be ai assisted and what skills and tasks could be executed by ai and so we went through that exercise so people could essentially analyze their roles and think About how they could future-proof their careers moving forward. And so I think that's a really great exercise for anyone listening as a business leader or for your whole entire team is you should all be thinking about how can we future-proof the business As a whole. And that's a lot of what you and I talk about when we talk about shifting our model in a new direction. But you also need to be considering everyone on your team. How can you help them elevate with AI instead of be replaced by it? And then how can you help them continue to grow and focus on the skills that are becoming more important because of the evolution of AI? ([Time 0:19:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c954712a-ef45-46e4-b796-1bec6459fcb7))