From Finance to Strategy: Supporting Small Businesses with Big Ambitions

On this one I was delighted to be joined by Erika Robinson, the UK General Manager of Constant Contact, a leading platform for small business marketing solutions.

This was a cracking conversation with Erika where we had a wide ranging chat discussing AI tools, career pivots, lean team leadership and some tips on how small businesses can give themselves the best chance of achieving those big ambitions.

🌟 Some of the most interesting parts of our conversation were:

✅Risk vs. reward: How to assess the financial and personal risks of a career pivot.
✅Emerging tools: The newest AI-powered tools and technologies transforming small business marketing.
✅Cultural alignment: Balancing a US company ethos with the expectations of UK customers and stakeholders.
✅Future-proofing your career: Staying adaptable and continually learning to navigate evolving career landscapes.
✅Lean team leadership: Scaling operations with a small team and external support while maintaining effectiveness.
✅Market differences: Understanding and adapting to the specific needs of UK small businesses compared to the US market.
✅Transitioning mid-career: Key differences between the corporate, entrepreneurial, and startup environments that shaped Erika’s leadership style.

A sneak peek for you here below with Erika giving some words of advice on how small businesses should start thinking about and experimenting with AI.

Transcript

Adam (00:01.747)

Okay, so today I'm here with Erica Robinson, the UK General Manager of Constant Contact, a leading platform for small business marketing solutions. Erica's had a fascinating career journey from finance to strategic leadership and even starting her own business. So Erica, welcome to the Fractional CFO show. How are doing?

Erika (00:23.308)

Good, thank you. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam (00:25.889)

Thanks for being here, thanks for being here. so today we're going to dive into how we go from finance to strategy, how you support small businesses with big ambitions. And I guess to start with, would you mind giving us a bit of an overview of how you went from the world of finance to becoming the UK general manager for a marketing technology company?

Erika (00:48.79)

Yeah, sure. mean, I've always had quite a varied career, to be honest. I, like you, studied SEMA, so I'm a management accountant by trade. But that wasn't my intention when I went to university. I studied graphic design and advertising, so completely different. And then jumped into finance pretty much soon after graduating, qualified to be an accountant. But even in my 20s, I was doing

quite broad roles and actually I managed a team across project management and marketing and finance and operations. So I've always liked to have that kind of broad management type role. I then moved into a bigger company, I worked for Virgin Media and that was a purely finance role, but they've always been very commercial roles. lots of...

creating business cases and strategy work. So then moving into strategy just seemed like a natural next step for me.

Adam (01:51.903)

Okay, great. And so obviously it'd be great to hear how that journey happened, in terms of how you transitioned and how easily you found the transition from strategic leadership to then entrepreneurship and then sort of managing a division of a large US corporate.

Erika (02:12.234)

Yeah, sure. I was actually in a finance role and I had two young children and I decided to set up my own business. And I actually think setting up your own business is one way to completely change direction. think, when you do, if you work for a big corporates and you want to change direction, it's much harder because to get another job, you have to tickle the boxes and they want to know, you know, they want to make sure that you're a safe bet.

effectively, you've done everything on the job description before. But if you set up on your own, you actually don't need any experience, you can really, it's a great way to pivot and do whatever you want. And so I had my finance and my commercial background, and had two young children and actually wanted to set up a children's play center, because I saw a gap in the market and an opportunity where I lived. Because there wasn't anything in the area to and it is a very family friendly area that I live.

And so I left my role to set up a children's place in it. I had no, other than having two young children myself and knowing what parents liked and wanted, I had no experience in that area at all. So sometimes it's best just to jump in feet first and learn on the job.

Adam (03:28.791)

Absolutely, having set up my own thing a few years ago I could completely agree. It's interesting that you say about finding it harder to shift roles in a corporate environment rather than setting up on your own.

And obviously that's with good reason, right? The corporate environment and the company want to mitigate the risk and protect themselves from someone going into a role and not quite knowing all of the challenges. What are some of the biggest challenges that you faced moving into that world of entrepreneurship, setting up on your own, and how did you overcome them?

Erika (04:05.378)

The biggest challenge for me is really just being on your own and actually feeling lonely. I know that sounds a bit silly, but actually I love the office environment. I love working with people and bouncing ideas off other people. So when the buck stops with you completely and you've got a team of people depending on you and their families depending on you.

Especially when I set up my business and the wrong kind of business to set up four months before COVID, but that's what happened. I was open for four months and then had to close for the best part of a year. so navigating that on a bit of what felt like on my own and with 12 employees at the time all depending on me, that was tough.

Adam (04:55.119)

And how did you, I mean, how did you deal with that? And that's obviously subject for another podcast. I'm sure you could probably fit that into that dealing with COVID with 12 staff, but what are some of the sort of key takeaways from how you manage that situation?

Erika (05:07.936)

Yes, so really it was my network. there were some brilliant networks out there, some community groups. There was support obviously from government, but navigating the rules and regulations and challenges, was the first time that I was really kind of exposed to that small business community and how much everybody wanted to support each other, which was really lovely. And my suppliers as well because

We all tried to help each other and support each other through it. My suppliers were small businesses themselves. So we were all in it together. But there was no like, well, I'm going to still charge you the full rent or the full charge for whatever, know, your coffee machine rental for the whole time we're closed. They were all very accommodating and supportive and they all wanted us to succeed, which was great.

Adam (06:01.695)

Okay, great. And you mentioned obviously you'd sort of had a non-traditional finance career and more strategy and project-based roles. Then moving into sort of running a small business and starting your own thing, did you find any similarities, I guess surprising similarities between the two or was it completely different?

Erika (06:23.02)

Yeah, I actually think finance professionals are really well and anyone that works in a commercial type role is really well suited to setting up a business because you've actually got one of the most important skill sets. I spent day in day out creating business cases and that's one of the key things you need to do is when you're setting up a small business for the first time. And I think also as a finance professional, we tend to be

more risk averse as well. I'd covered all bases. I wasn't going to set up my own business until I had, you know, everything covered every possible scenario played out and felt really comfortable with the level of risk. And actually it was a, and it's just, you know, it was convinced it was a great opportunity. Obviously I didn't predict COVID none of us did, but it was, you know, the business is still doing well and going strong. So it was a good move.

And then also it works the other way, I think. not only did I feel like that skill set was transferable, but then I found coming out the other end and I didn't actually intend to go back to work, but through COVID, I found that I could balance the two. I could have that corporate career. And then I had a brilliant team on the ground running the place, because they knew how to run a play center and I didn't. So I've still got this great team in place that...

manage the day-to-day operations for me now because it's not something that I actually want to do long term. And so now I've been able to move back into the corporate world. I've found that the skills I've gained as a small business owner are so valuable to businesses, especially ones that service the small business community. So that's been a big surprise to me how in demand those skills are and how valuable they are to bigger employers.

Adam (08:12.545)

Well, that's a great segue into your current career. And obviously, you know, let's talk about that a little bit. You know, Constant Contact is a well-established name in the US, but as I understand it, fairly early in its journey in the UK. So what's that been like sort of leading the charge of an established brand over there in the UK market?

Erika (08:34.462)

brilliant. It's like a startup environment which I absolutely love. We're building everything from the ground up but with the cousins in the US supporting us, like you say, it's a big well-known brand in the US, about 1200 employees. it's great to have that kind of that scale behind us and that support behind us. But it's also a company that really understands that going into a new market

requires a different approach and a different strategy, which is very fortunate, which is great, which you don't always get when you work for big US companies. I feel very, very lucky to have such a great opportunity to build out a whole team locally, to build my own go-to-market strategy and to adapt everything as I see fit to suit the UK market.

Adam (09:32.535)

Great. And how have you approached building that team? I know when you're trying to scale up and you've got the support of a larger cousin, as you say, that can be great because they give you the funds, but they obviously need a return on investment quite quickly. So how have you been able to approach building that team and scaling operations so quickly in such a new and untested market for them?

Erika (09:57.174)

Yeah, I do think actually when you work for a bigger company, you do have a little bit more leeway in proving that return on investment than you would if you were a small business starting in a new market because you've got that kind of safety net behind you. So that actually helps. And in building out the team, well, yeah, I've got a local office now. I've been able to hire a few people locally, but to move really, really quickly.

We actually used an outsource partner, still based here in the UK, and that allowed me to ramp up certain functions really, really quickly. So to build out a sales function, a customer success function, an account executive function, I could do that much more quickly using an outsource partner that had the infrastructure in place. And over time, we'll start to move that in-house, but that was a...

a great opportunity to just move as quickly as the head office wanted us to in the new market.

Adam (10:59.955)

Interesting, I'm going to pick your brains about that later on in terms of that partnership, very interesting. One other question just about, because I've worked in large corporates where you've got a sort of US parent company and the local autonomy gets chipped away or gets reduced in certain areas. How have you balanced that being local and having that local autonomy with the support?

which is desperately needed, but it can be overbearing perhaps with some companies. How have you balanced the two?

Erika (11:32.878)

Yeah, I do know what you mean, because I've worked a lot of my career has been working for US companies. And so I have experienced that and I've seen it in waves, really, I've seen, you know, sometimes it moves that you get more autonomy, and then some of it gets pulled back, and then you're given more autonomy again. so I do totally know what you mean. At Constant Contact, I do feel it's different. And I think one of the key differences is our CEO is Canadian.

So he comes from a smaller market, he's got lots of international experience and really understands that need for local autonomy. So I'm very fortunate. But at the same time, our international expansion is a key objective for the overall company. And it means that everybody I deal with, sorry, I knew that was going to happen. I don't know where to start again. Let me just grab some water.

Adam (12:26.262)

No problem.

Adam (12:30.152)

Just while you're doing that you're talking about the Canadian CEO and the understand the understanding he has for local autonomy

Erika (12:38.808)

Yeah, so I'll go back to... Yeah, it's hard to... losing your thread there, don't you? I'm very fortunate that our CEO is Canadian and has a lot of international experience. So he understands the need for the autonomy in local markets and the localization, which really, really helps. But at the same time, I've got that support.

Adam (12:48.758)

Yeah.

Erika (13:08.696)

from the entire workforce, I feel like in the US, international expansion is a key driver to our overall company growth and for us to meet our objectives. So it's great to have that support when I need it.

Adam (13:24.949)

Okay, excellent. And maybe that's a good time to shift to understanding a bit more about Constant Contact. And I was reading that your mission is to help the small stand tool. And I'd love to understand a little bit more about the tools that you offer to small businesses to help them do that. What are some of the key areas that you support them with?

Erika (13:47.402)

Yeah, so we are a digital marketing platform and it's, as I say, a very well established business in the US. So we've been around for 30 years and original pioneers in email marketing, but we offer so much more than that now. So we offer email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, online advertising, events, CRM.

So effectively for small businesses, it's bringing all their marketing, all their digital marketing together into one place, which makes it a lot easier for them to manage. also, it uses AI and has some amazing tools like Campaign Builder, which allows small businesses to simply write a few sentences about their objective, their goal, tone of voice and duration.

and Campaign Builder will build out an entire marketing campaign for them, including their emails, their social media posts, their events, if that's relevant for that particular campaign, and schedule everything all ready to post. So it really is like having marketing support in your pocket and makes life a lot easier because you know, as a small business, you're trying to do everything. You're trying to run your business while also being

CFO, CMO, CEO, and this really simplifies it. And it's aimed at small businesses. So it's really, our sweet spot is really for employers up to, sorry, I'll do that a bit again. And it's aimed for small businesses with up to 20 employees. And we make it really, really easy for small businesses to use.

Adam (15:38.677)

Great, and I know small business owners can be excellent at doing sort of their passion, what they started the business to do, but they're not all always so tech savvy. And you mentioned their AI, and I'd like to come onto that in a bit, but specifically around AI and technology in general, how do you help simplify for...

small business owners who might not be so tech savvy, what do you do specifically to help them sort of navigate this very rapidly changing environment?

Erika (16:13.366)

Yeah, well, we are seeing a big shift in perception of AI now. I think a lot of people felt for a long time that it wasn't for them. But now it's so embedded in everything we do. If you use Google, you use AI. It's everywhere. Even people that were resistant initially to use chat GPT are coming on board. And the key thing for small businesses and what we do to help is it's fully embedded.

Adam (16:17.847)

Mm-hmm.

Erika (16:42.712)

So you don't even need to think about it. You don't need to think, how can I use AI to help my business or how do I incorporate AI and make my life easier? It's fully embedded. So you barely notice that you're using it. It's just a case of how can I build a new marketing campaign or how can I grow my customer base or how can I just get more customers coming through the door?

And that could be the prompt, that could be the trigger, and then you use AI to help you without even knowing you are.

Adam (17:15.723)

Great, and I know I was having a conversation with the CEO of Artscopy a few weeks ago and she was talking about how the technology platform that they run at Artscopy is very much focusing on consulting elements as well as the tech. And so I wondered, is that something that you focus on or is it purely tech? And I asked that from the perspective of what we were saying before about you're a small local.

sort of arm of a larger corporate without necessarily the consulting support to help all the small businesses in the UK. So how do you balance that sort of tech with human interaction?

Erika (17:56.718)

Well, we are market leading in terms of the support we offer, which is great. We're the only digital marketing platform of its kind that has unlimited telephone support that's available in UK hours now, as well as US hours. So that's something that we do pride ourselves on. And that support that we offer is not just technical support. If someone's having technical problems, we find that 80 % of the calls coming in are

small businesses that just want some help with their marketing. They want some help. don't know where to start. They don't know how to create a marketing campaign. So we offer that support and guidance as well. And that's available across all our product ranges. So that's very rare actually. Normally that's a reserve for the customers that are paying a premium or buying the most expensive product. We offer it across the range. that really...

We find small businesses really value that, even if they're not calling in, just for them to know that they've got that support there at the end of the phone if they need it is, yeah, it's really valuable to them.

Adam (19:05.959)

I'm sure a peace of mind, a reassurance that it's there. Absolutely. And I'd like to take it back a step just to AI and we're talking about that earlier in the campaign builder that you've got. But I'd like to broaden it out just about AI more broadly within marketing and your view of how you see AI shaping the future.

of marketing, particularly with a small business hat on. A lot of the audience of this podcast are small business owners. They all have used ChatGPT a bit. They might have used the tools that Constant Contact or similar tools offer. How do you see the future? And that's a very difficult question because AI is changing all the time, but I'd love your view on that.

Erika (19:47.618)

I think if any small business is not using AI, they're going to be left behind. think it's the key. We've got tools like chat GPT that lots of people are using now. think using tools that have AI embedded is the next step and actually really, really important for small businesses to use the tools that are out there. It really is.

such a time saver and it's supercharging their business. It's basically creating a more supercharged version of themselves. and there's already data and statistics to back this up. I can't remember exactly where I saw this data point, but of the most successful businesses, are twice as likely to be using AI as the ones that aren't. So,

It really is a game changer and it's levelling the playing field. It's opening up opportunities for small businesses that were previously only available to very large businesses. So just jump on the bandwagon and don't get left behind is my advice.

Adam (20:59.329)

That's great advice. And I think it's great advice, but it's also still a daunting environment because as you say, there are tools now embedded with AI and like you say, Google uses AI, but it can still feel a little bit disassociated from the reality of running a day-to-day small business. How would you best advise small businesses to start experimenting with AI when they haven't got huge amounts of time, resources, budget?

Yeah, what would be a couple of sort quick tips from your experience that you'd recommend?

Erika (21:35.886)

I guess I would focus on the areas that you need the most help with. So if you're a small business that doesn't have much marketing expertise, then focus on getting AI to help you there with tools like constant contact. If you don't have finance expertise, then use finance tools with AI incorporated. So use it to expand your skill set where you don't have the skills.

But also, AI isn't going to get you all the way there either. So it's not 100%. Maybe in a year's time, we'll be having a different conversation, and it will be. But now it can get you 80 to 90 % of the way there. So it still needs that personal touch. So it's not replacing you. It's not going to take away your job or the need for you. But just use it to save you time and to give you that extra helping hand where you

need it in particular.

Adam (22:37.143)

Okay, great, great advice. And sort of final question on AI and a bit more of a philosophical one, but it is something that I wrestle with, which are the ethical.

considerations around using AI tools? Are there any considerations that small businesses should keep in mind? Maybe broaden that out, maybe not just ethical, but what are the sort of philosophical considerations that small businesses should bear in mind when using AI to sort of ensure they're not doing anything terribly wrong?

Erika (23:11.084)

Yeah, well, I think one of the things people worry about with AI is that it's taking jobs away from other people. I don't think there's any evidence of that currently. I think it's just increasing the output. It's creating, it's giving tools to people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the resources. yeah, I mean,

I'm not an expert on the ethics really at all, but I think it's something we've got to be mindful of. I think it needs to be regulated. I think as I've got two children myself, wondering what life's going to be like for them and what kind of world they're going to grow up into is a challenge every day. It feels like so much that they learn at school is just...

irrelevant now. So it's going to be an interesting and exciting time for sure. So I do think we need to be careful, we need to make sure that we are regulating and learning as we go along. But I also think it's a huge opportunity for us to grow our output.

hugely expand but also solve some of the biggest world problems as well if we if we use it right.

Adam (24:32.117)

Yeah, very good, very good. You say about your kids at school and the relevance or irrelevance. I was having this conversation with my son today, he's doing his GCSE mocks at the moment and the questions haven't changed and the format of his education has hardly changed since I was at school, which can't be right. So I think it will change everything, as you say, and probably not before time.

Erika (24:54.934)

Yeah, no, my children are bit younger, so what happens now when they have access to chat GPT and they can just have their essays written for them? Like, how do they control that? I have no idea.

Adam (25:05.751)

Well, they have the chat GPT checkers, which are famously inaccurate and choose to identify things as written by chat GPT, which weren't and vice versa. So yeah, I think the tool was keeping up with what is available from an education point of view. Yeah, fascinating how they're to deal with that.

Erika (25:22.958)

Mm.

Adam (25:24.555)

I'd like to just take it back, sort of the next section to looking at your career and your sort of career pivot. And you you've navigated both the corporate and the entrepreneur sort of environment. What advice would you give to others looking to do the same? We have a lot of people who listen to this podcast who are kind of on their second career and changing direction. Any advice that you would give to others about the right time to make that

jump or decisions that they need to take beforehand.

Erika (25:59.66)

Yeah, sure. Well, firstly, I think we are really lucky nowadays that we can change career multiple times. think, you know, go back a generation or two and people had a job for life and, doesn't that sound boring nowadays? I think it's great that we can have such a varied career. So let's embrace that and make the most of it and not feel pigeonholed into one thing. Secondly, I'd say

it's, it will never feel like the right time but the more established you are the harder it becomes. The more you have to lose the harder it becomes to make that jump. I always knew I would set up my own business at some point but actually waiting until I was in my 30s wasn't necessarily the right approach because then you have kids, you have a mortgage, it's scarier to make that leap than when you're

early 20s and you have nothing to lose. And I think I always thought I needed to build up a certain level of skills and expertise first, which definitely helped me for sure. But like I say, as well, I ended up setting up a business that I really knew nothing about. So I could have done that in my early 20s. I'm sure it would have been a very different business. I would not have wanted to set up a children's play center, but I always had lots of business ideas and never followed them through.

Adam (27:29.267)

Okay, great. And one thing you mentioned earlier was about the fact that setting up a business as a finance professional meant that you had lots of planning tools and models and did lots of scenario plans, I'm sure. Did you need...

a mindset shift from that perspective? Because obviously as a small business owner, even as a general manager of, you know, so you're a more generalist rather than a more finance professional, the amount of analysis time you've got to plan, yeah, that can be detrimental potentially if you spend too long doing that. So has there been any mindset shifts that you've had to take through these career pivots that have helped you out?

Erika (28:14.114)

There has actually, and the biggest challenge for me is just to give something a go, try it and see if it works rather than analyzing everything to death. that was something I struggled with to start with, but I have embraced now because I, yeah, I've still got my gut instincts. I'm sure my finance background definitely helps me there, but you never, as much as you...

forecast and analyze, you never really know what's going to happen until you try it. so keeping agile, keeping flexible, trying something out, but quickly analyzing and learning from the results and then pivoting or tweaking just to get it right. And that's, you know, I talk about a small business superpower and that agility is really important.

And it's something that big corporates can't do because they have, you know, whole teams of people creating business cases and analyzing and minimizing the risk for you. there is definitely small businesses need to be agile, be flexible, keep trying new things. Don't be scared of failure because that's always a lesson. yeah, and keep, keep tweaking until you get it right.

Adam (29:36.959)

Awesome, great stuff there. And small business superpower, I'm gonna remember that one, that's very good. So final question in this before we move on to our business book section. Are there any personal habits or routines that have helped you, I guess both from a corporate perspective and in your entrepreneurial career, anything that you could pass on as tips to the audience?

Erika (30:02.968)

Personal habits and routines, think make time for yourself. Get a balance right is one. think as a small business owner and with a corporate career and with two children, I've always struggled with time. But I need that time to go for a run at least a couple of times a week.

I'm learning, I'm having ice skating lessons at the moment. So things like that where you get a chance to completely switch off from all of the different jobs and roles and hats that you wear, I think is really important.

Adam (30:46.031)

Great advice. Two kids will certainly make you switch off as we're ice skating, I guess. Not that I've done that, but excellent. OK, great. so moving on to what I call our business book bonus section, which is where our guest offers a business book or a piece of business content that's really helped them through their career. So, Erica, is there a book or a piece of content that's been particularly helpful or influential in your career that you'd like to recommend for the audience?

Erika (31:15.636)

Yeah, I wasn't sure which book I was going to go for because you told me you have this question at the end. And I have a stack on my desk, which are the ones that I refer to most, like my go to business books. But based on our conversation, I think the one I'm going to pick is called The Lean Startup by Eric Reeves, because I think I feel like that's it. You we covered a lot of that in our conversation. And it's something that

like I say, wasn't natural to me to move quickly. It's all about starting small and just trying and learning from mistakes and not being afraid to fail and not having everything completely buttoned up and perfect before you launch something. So it's a great book and I highly recommend it. And it was a, it's definitely helped me both in terms of corporate world and thinking more

more as an entrepreneur within the corporate world, but also as a small business owner as well.

Adam (32:18.377)

Excellent, okay great great recommendation the lean startup Eric Reese will put a link to that in the in the show notes and So well, that's pretty much it. So before we wrap up, know Is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to add or where can people find you if not?

Erika (32:35.072)

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. It's Erica Robinson. And also, the company I work for is ConstantContact.com. And as we say, we offer digital marketing solutions for small business. We also offer an affiliate program for those advisors to small businesses. So check us out, because we love to help the advisors help the small business as well.

Adam (33:04.019)

Excellent, excellent. Well, thank you very much for that. And thank you very much for joining me today on the Fractional CFO show. I've really enjoyed hearing about your journey and the great work you're doing at Constant Contact. Thank you very much.

Erika (33:15.672)

Great, thanks so much Adam, it's been a pleasure.