House of JerMar

Harnessing AI: A Small Business Owner's Guide

• Jeanne Collins • Season 1 • Episode 39

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Jackie Green, founder of Behind the Design, takes us on a fascinating discussion through the intersection of interior design, entrepreneurship, and the transformative power of AI for small businesses.

Jackie's background uniquely positions her as a guide for creative entrepreneurs – with degrees in both journalism/marketing and interior design, plus experience teaching at design school, she discovered a critical gap in business education for designers. This realization sparked her company's mission: helping design professionals build successful businesses through strategic marketing and now, AI implementation.

What makes Jackie's approach refreshingly practical is her decision-making framework. She evaluates every business opportunity through three lenses: revenue generation, visibility, and client work. This system allows entrepreneurs to filter their constant stream of "brilliant ideas" against established priorities rather than chasing every shiny object.

The heart of our conversation explores how AI is revolutionizing small business operations. Jackie candidly shares her initial "cheater's guilt" when using AI tools, before recognizing them as productivity multipliers. From QuickBooks AI auto-populating invoices to Otter AI handling meeting notes and follow-ups, these tools don't replace human creativity – they enhance it by freeing entrepreneurs from administrative burdens.

We also tackle the vulnerabilities of social media marketing. When Jackie's business got hacked on Facebook, resulting in the complete loss of her company page, group, and personal profile, it highlighted why email marketing remains the true "gold mine" for small businesses. Unlike social platforms, your email list is an asset you actually own.

For interior designers specifically, Jackie offers invaluable insights on creating lead magnets that address client pain points (like surviving a kitchen renovation) without falling into the scarcity mindset trap. As she brilliantly illustrates with the story of a plumber whose tutorial videos actually grew his business: sharing knowledge doesn't diminish your value – it establishes expertise and builds trust.

Learn more about Jackie below.

Jackie's Book Recommendation for Listeners: Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima

Jacqueline Green is the driving force behind Behind the Design, a strategic marketing partner for businesses in the design, construction, and real estate investment sectors. As a seasoned commercial interior designer, former college instructor, and highly experienced marketing expert, Jacqueline and her team deliver strategic marketing solutions that drive substantial growth, bolster brand credibility, and achieve superior business outcomes.

www.behindthedesignco.com

Linked In: jacquelinereed
YouTube: @BehindtheDesignCo
Instagram: behindthedesi

House of JerMar:
Learn more on our website: houseofjermar.com.

Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/houseofjermar/

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@Houseofjermar

Read Jeanne's Book: Two Feet In: Lessons From and All-In Life

WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE!

Speaker 1:

We break it out in is this revenue, is this visibility or client work? And so those are our three priorities. And so when we hold things up to that test, we say, okay, does this fit within those realms? Then that also tells us if we need to work on it and at what priority level. Of course, client work is always going to be over everybody else. But revenue constantly having revenue in our business and constantly finding more revenue coming into our business, finding more clients, including retaining existing clients, is really important. And then the visibility Visibility to me is an easy aspect. It's not always easy to everybody, but it's what I know from my marketing mind, and so I tend to, when I get overwhelmed, to do the visibility things rather than the sales things, Because that's just naturally where my comfort zone is.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the House of Germar podcast where wellness starts within. The House of Germar is a lifestyle brand, empowering women to live all in through interior design and personal wellness. We are a destination for women ready to reimagine what is possible in their homes and lives and then create it. We are honored to have you join us on our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in. I am your host, jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the House of Germa podcast, where wellness starts within. I'm your host, jean Collins, and today's guest is somebody that I don't know and I just met, but I'm so excited to talk to her. Her name is Jackie Green and she is the founder and the driving force behind, behind the design, and I am so excited because she helps interior designers. We're going to talk about not just interior designers, also small businesses and one of my favorite exciting new topics that I don't talk about often on the podcast. We are going to talk about AI guys. So, jackie, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you. Thank you, I am really excited to be here. Oh, thank you. So, before we get into you and how you got to what you do. Let's talk about your business behind the design and what does your agency if agency is the correct word to use for you, but I would kind of put you in the strategic marketing partnership realm is probably what you want to be called. What do you guys do?

Speaker 1:

We originally were born to. In the sense, this idea that came to my mind was to kind of help educate after college. So I was teaching at the design school and thought, okay, how do we help our designers after they get out of college? And, like running a business, nobody teaches you how to run a business. And so it kind of started there in the education realm. Well then it went to I mean, our clients need a lot more than just that education part of it. Let's start offering marketing services. And my background was in marketing before. I was an interior designer and so I decided, okay, we'll start offering that. And then this year we're actually starting to get into the AI which we're going to talk about today. It's really offering AI consulting and helping people really, you know, expand their business and grow their business, grow their revenue using AI solutions. And so it's kind of become this all-encompassing solution to really help small businesses. And it started in interior design, but then we opened up to architects and design builds and construction and it's kind of blossomed from there.

Speaker 2:

I love how things just sort of take on new life. They do, and I've had other guests who have specialized in the arts world and they found, oh, they were providing a service to artists and all of a sudden found out, oh, it's not just artists who need these services, it's all entrepreneurs, and so you will probably find that's going to happen for you as well. It's not just as you're finding, it's not just interior designers, it's all these other touch points within that industry. But then you can very closely and quickly make a leap to other industries as well, which is exciting as a business owner.

Speaker 1:

It really is. It makes it fun, and one of the things I love about being a business owner is that every day is different. Some days are hard, some days are good, but at least I'm never bored.

Speaker 2:

Never bored, never bored. So you talked a little bit about how you got to be a business owner, but let's dig a little bit deeper into that. So what is your background, what's your educational background and what was the path that really got you to deciding I'm going to take that leap and become an entrepreneur, because that is a big leap.

Speaker 1:

Sure, I originally have a bachelor's in journalism with a focus in advertising and marketing. So when I got out of college I went into marketing for a small business but eventually landed where something was, I don't know. I just wasn't satisfied. I guess I just kind of was tired, burned out. So I decided to do marketing consulting and I did that for about seven years and that was fun. But I burned out again and I'll tell you why.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest challenges I had was how do I grow this beyond myself? We can talk about that later. But so I ended up going back to school and I became an interior designer. I worked for three different architecture firms. I was a commercial interior designer. I was invited back to the college I went to for my second degree and taught there for about five years.

Speaker 1:

And that's kind of how Behind the Design was born is it came out of all the challenges I saw within those architecture firms of how in corporate America they do a good job if you ask for it, in the sense of giving you the dollars to expand your skills. They either bring programs in, they send you to conferences, or at least that was my experience when I went into architecture and in the entire design world. There was none of that. There was no support. You're supposed to have so many credit hours to extend your license every year, but continuing ed. But there was. I had no idea, and so there was. I saw a real need in there, and so that's when I decided to go back out on my own and start offering up services to these design firms and architecture firms that needed something outside of what they were currently getting internally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there's a huge need. I say to people all the time just going to interior design school does not teach you at all how to run a business.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't teach you anything, and it's the same. Doesn't teach you anything, nothing.

Speaker 2:

No marketing, no, no, nothing. You have to figure that out.

Speaker 1:

And I love teaching. It was really fun. I love working with the students. But I figured out, like I taught commercial interior design, I had those students for 30 hours in a semester. I don't know anybody who can teach their job at 30 hours and be like, yeah, go ahead, go do this Right, you're ready to start on your own? Go fly. Yeah. And at that point they're just drinking from a fire hose because a lot of my students were taking three to five classes. They're just trying to take it all in and you just physically can't take it all in and we're not really teaching.

Speaker 1:

Whether it be design school or architecture, whether it be you know dentists, lawyers, you know every type of service base. We're not teaching you how to actually run a business. We teach in design school at least the one I did, and it was a class I actually created was around professional practice, kind of giving students an idea of what to expect, how, the behind the scenes kind of thing of how businesses run. But it couldn't go into the detail of but here's how you run your business. And so I started using my expertise and it kind of came out of me actually helping my college age son at the time he was in college and he would come home and ask me questions during his internship and be like, oh, mom, because he got a marketing internship, Well, how do I do this? They want me to do this, and so that was our dinner conversations, and I realized there was a lot of information that I had that I knew that I could share with other people and help them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how do you like being an entrepreneur? Is it scary?

Speaker 1:

It's scary and awesome and scary and I think I'm a little crazy, and I'm pretty sure that every entrepreneur is a little crazy. You have to be crazy to do this and in the other way, it's also so exciting that you get up and I get to do this every day and so even on the days that's really hard and I'm again, I'm pretty sure that I'm a little nutty, but it's fun. I like getting up. I get excited every day of what can I do differently, what can I improve on, how can I help my clients? You know what's an idea?

Speaker 2:

I'm inevitably always waking up thinking of some new little idea, of going oh, we could do this, this would be so much fun, yeah, so how do you reel the ideas in? Because anyone who's listening to this, who's an entrepreneur or thinking of becoming an entrepreneur I personally find that is one of my biggest challenges is I have so many I'm going to put this in air quotes, for people aren't watching brilliant ideas, at least that I think are brilliant and feel brilliant at the time. But yet as an entrepreneur, you can't do everything. So how do you decide what you're going to do? How do you make that decision for?

Speaker 1:

yourself. It's really interesting because what I do is I write it down because you want to write down the idea. Just because now might not be the right time doesn't mean never. It just means right now this may not be our focus. I have a whiteboard in my office that has our priorities. Does this fit within our priorities? And if it doesn't fit, then it's got to go on the back burner. If I can slide it in there and it does fit and it goes along with our goals, then okay, let's explore it.

Speaker 1:

One thing I started doing I didn't realize I could do, speaking of AI, is I started asking chat. Now I subscribe and have the subscription to chat, so I have taught it who I am, what my brand is, what I offer our clients. We have been chatting for a long time now, so I feel like it's a real person and every morning I'm like good morning chat. That's funny. And so I started giving these ideas and started sharing the ideas in chat. I came out this idea chat and here what do you think? Can you please go out and do some research and tell me is this a viable idea? What would I need to do to make this happen? What are some of the negatives of this and I started kind of my research there and kind of looking at it versus starting with oh, let's just dive right in, because it at least gave me at least a starting point of where I needed If this was really an idea I want to go with.

Speaker 1:

It gives me an idea of where to actually start and breaks it down. And so, like a lot of people, I suffer from this big idea. How do I break it down into smaller pieces? And as an entrepreneur, like you know, we have these great ideas but we don't necessarily have the time, the detail to really kind of break it down, to make it into smaller bite pieces and make it work. And so that gets me to the starting point and that's how I kind of rang in those ideas. I still throw them in my little book and my little notebook and, yes, I'm still a paper person or a pen.

Speaker 2:

I love paper pen.

Speaker 1:

But then I go back to them and say, okay, is it time for this or not time for this? And then the other part of that too, which I've really explored in the last year, is energy. Is there energy behind this? Is this making me excited inside? I mean every idea. When you get a brilliant idea, because they're all brilliant, you know Of course. Of course we all get excited. But am I really excited about this? Let's sit on this for a moment and just see. And when I mean a moment, I mean let's sit on it for days, weeks and kind of feel how does my energy relate to how this works I am not woo-woo at all, I've got to say that to how this works. I am not woo-woo at all, I got to say that. But working on my energy and understanding that inner energy, that we all are full of energy, has really kind of helped me settle down and really put the energy I have into the right things for the business.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love that. Have you ever done human design and had your chart read?

Speaker 1:

I did, I did my chart a while back. I actually know a woman. I sat on a board with a woman who does human design for people.

Speaker 2:

It's actually very interesting and I found, from a making business decision perspective, it really helped me to understand the best way for me to make business decisions, especially around the new ideas understanding how my body naturally wants to function and the energy and the way that I naturally want to decide, versus like jumping right in the minute I come up with the idea, which is actually where I tend to want to go. But recognizing that, yes, you know just everything is a great idea, but you know, having your pillars, having your, what are your goals, what do you want to stand for? What do you want to accomplish this year?

Speaker 2:

Trying to stick true to your brand I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that and I'm sure that's something that you really help people is to really identify who are you, because that's the other thing they don't teach in school at all anywhere. It's like really trying to identify who's your target audience and who. Who are you, who's your brand, what's your uniqueness? Because a lot of people I know I came out of design school and I was like I'll design for anyone who has money and it's like, and it's so true and it's case in all you want to right and you want in every business.

Speaker 2:

You're like I'm an entrepreneur, I'll take money from anyone, but that's really I don't want to starve.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna just take this job, even though I know this guy's a jerk and he's going to try to undercut me on every single thing, but I'll take it because I need money.

Speaker 2:

It's like, no, we need to back up and that's not a good marketing strategy. Yes, and a lot of us need people like you to help with the parameters, with the guardrails, to help people identify who are you, what is your brand, what do you want to focus on? What are your priorities for this year? And you mentioned priorities and I think, as we're moving into a new year, because we're recording this in January I think it's important to write your priorities and also be okay to reevaluate those priorities six months into the year, because they might change. But you need some sort of litmus test to evaluate your ideas against.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely and we break it out in is this revenue, is this visibility or client work? And so those are our three priorities. And so when we hold things up to that test, we say, okay, does this fit within those realms? Then that also tells us if we need to work on it and at what priority level. Of course, client work is always going to be over everybody else. But revenue constantly having revenue in our business and constantly finding more revenue coming into our business, finding more clients, including retaining the existing clients, is really important. And then the visibility Visibility to me is an easy aspect.

Speaker 1:

It's not always easy to everybody, but it's what I know from my marketing mind, and so I tend to, when I get overwhelmed, to do the visibility things rather than the sales things, because that's just naturally where my comfort zone is. Of course, you always go to what's comfortable first. So when I started breaking it down, going okay, hold on, am I doing a visibility thing, which is the last of the priorities at this point, versus a revenue thing? I need to work on the revenue before I work on the visibility, and that's really hard to do because visibility is more fun. But back to your point on the branding and the strategy.

Speaker 1:

So many business owners, especially ones that are new or just getting started, don't have a real strong strategy. They're just kind of throwing spaghetti at a wall, going, okay, is this going to stick, is this going to work? And when we back up and say, okay, what is our strategy, what is that audience we want to reach, who is that ideal audience? But a lot of times we're afraid to go talk to that audience and actually ask them hey, what do you want, what do you need? And that is one of the biggest mistakes we make as entrepreneurs. Because I saw a stat the other day of we know that the stats show that businesses startups, you know really struggle to stay in business. It is a really high stat, but this statistics and I can't remember if it was like 62% or something of why companies fail is because nobody actually wanted their product.

Speaker 1:

And that's a really important aspect If you aren't talking to your audience or that primary audience, to know if you're what you're selling is important to them. Just because you think your client needs something, it doesn't mean that they want that, and there's a big difference of what they need and what they want. And so it's important to kind of look at that of saying, okay, what is our client, what is our strategy for hitting that client? And you're really staying focused on that. And that is really hard for entrepreneurs, because we do have these great minds that give us these great, brilliant ideas all the time, of course.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, well, and you make such an interesting point because sales comes into the whole sales adage of give them what they want but show them what they need. And normally, especially in interior design, it's like, by the way, you do need this custom coffee table, but you have to give them what they want first, and then you show them what they don't realize that they need in their environment in order to like, really pull the room all together. Artwork is a perfect example in the design world. People will say like I don't really care about the artwork, and it's like, oh, but then when you design a room and you show them this amazing piece of artwork that brings it all together, you're like, no, you actually need the artwork, you really do need the artwork.

Speaker 1:

You really do. But when we look at it that way and think about it okay, you're absolutely right, let's satisfy that need first and then show them the extra stuff, that really helps bring it all together. It does help and it makes selling also easier for us.

Speaker 2:

It does. Yeah, it definitely does. So let's talk about social media, and you and I hadn't talked about this in advance, but I would love to pick your brain about social media. So how do you help your clients navigate the universe of social media and how they can use that for their brands?

Speaker 1:

Well, one social media is constantly changing and we know, just within the last week and a half of the new year, there have been several announcements out of Facebook of how they're changing different aspects. There have been several announcements out of Facebook of how they're changing different aspects. One thing that was interesting, especially with Facebook, is that and I knew this was coming and I had kind of done a video on it talking about this I feel like I no longer see my family and friends on Facebook. I only see big brands. Well, it turns out that they finally announced this, I think in December. Hey, we're actually going to put your likes before your family and friends, so whatever you like or engage with is actually going to show up in your feed before the family and friends, which, for those of us who have crazy families, that might be a great thing, but we have to understand that from a business standpoint of how we utilize that to the extent.

Speaker 1:

One thing that's really important, whether it be Facebook or Instagram, is that engagement part is they will show people content that is engaging, that other people have engaged with. So I think the number is like 5%. So if you have a thousand people followers and you send out a post, it's only really going to go to 50 people and then if those 50 people engage with that content, then it might show to another 50 people and that's an important aspect. So when we went back and started looking at, okay, why were some things working and why weren't some things working, it comes to that engagement part, knowing those algorithms and the changes that come about. A regular business owner who has the entire business to run does not have the time to know those little odysseys and those little things. It's not what they absorb into and want to. You know, learn about constantly. We've really been looking at organic versus paid and honestly, paid is if you really have eyes and you really have an offer, you're going to have to mix pay in there with your organic. You can't just get by with organic anymore. Unfortunately, it's just not there. It doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money, but it does mean that you have to start using that as part of your strategy. But that is our job, and how we help clients is we know these things. This is our job to make sure we're staying on top of this.

Speaker 1:

Linkedin is one of the biggest opportunities right now, especially if you're selling B2B or you're selling B2C, b2b, being business, business or business consumers. Even if you have a high level consumer, linkedin might still be where you're at. Interior design is a perfect example. Interior design service is not cheap. The products that we sell are not cheap, so we want a client. Most of our clients are professionals. Well, guess where professionals hang out? Linkedin before they hang out necessarily on Facebook or Instagram? Yeah, so knowing that information, and then video and YouTube. Youtube is just one big, huge search engine, that's all it is.

Speaker 1:

And so, when you look at it, instead of saying this is social, no, this is a search engine, I want to be there. And video is the fastest growing area and we need to be out there. And that can be really overwhelming for a lot of people who aren't comfortable with being in front of a camera. Yeah, with sharing their knowledge. I have a client who we were talking about her social media strategy. She had hired us to create that strategy, her entire marketing strategy, and she's like I noticed that my videos that I'm just sitting in front of the camera talking actually get more engagement and likes than the ones that are like high production and I've really put a lot of you know, hired someone to help me and it's like, yeah, that's because you're being authentic and people can feel the difference versus when it's highly produced.

Speaker 1:

You know it's highly produced, Okay, but when I can actually feel who you are and sense who you are and that you're being authentic, that's actually going to engage people, far before the overproduced, perfect looking videos. And it's just an adjustment.

Speaker 2:

And so a lot of those things.

Speaker 1:

this is what we do, and so we look at that and test it and see what's working, what's not working, and try to help our clients through that.

Speaker 2:

Love it. So you give me a great reminder. I have LinkedIn sort of over here talking to me in the background being like you haven't posted, you haven't posted, you haven't posted. I'm like I know. So I post on all the other platforms, but I know I need especially for what I do, I need to be on LinkedIn more often. So thank you for that reminder. Let's talk about AI with social media. So how are you leveraging AI to help your clients come up with even things like content ideas? Because that is what so many people struggle with is what do I talk about, and does anybody actually really care?

Speaker 1:

That is so true. When I first started using AI, I started using chat early in 2023. So not too far after it started becoming a big thing. I felt like I was cheating, so I would plug in there and you and I kind of talked about this before I would. Literally it would tell me here's 10 ideas that you can go with with this idea, and I felt horrible. I felt like I was the biggest cheater on the face of the earth and I love writing and that here it is. It's writing my headline for me and it's better than what I produced.

Speaker 1:

So, it took me a little while to shift my brain and go. Wait a minute, hold on, I have way too much to do, but that's the truth of the matter. I have these ideas. I know where I want to take this company. It is not moving fast enough. I don't know if it ever will move fast enough for my own drive and inner drive that I have.

Speaker 1:

Why am I not using AI to help me with these things? And so that's when I really started digging into it and I ended up getting asked to go to a design build firm and talk to them about how AI could help them. Because I'd written a few articles and somebody an old student of mine had read the article, took it to the owner and said we need to have her in, and I started looking at how the different AI programs could really help in different areas of that company. So Design Build is a company that does both the interior design, architecture design, as well as the construction part of it, and so for each department and there were five, basically I looked at okay, here's AI solutions that can help you with all these I realized that I could help other small businesses with the same thing when we look at AI and, yes, there is a negative annotation about AI that, oh, it's going to take over the world. We're all going to lose our jobs. No, it still needs that humor and interaction. You still have to train it. You still have to use the information.

Speaker 1:

I think, instead, it's going to make us smarter, it's going to make us more productive. I think it's going to also help us more efficient and be able to better serve our clients, and so when we really start looking at it from that standpoint, it's like, okay, well, if I can cheat, where am I going to cheat at? So, whether it be accounting like QuickBooks, I was looking at the QuickBooks AI solution. I've used QuickBooks for years, but now there's a little AI tool that you just put in the invoice that you paid or the receipt that you have, throw it in there, and it auto auto populates. So I don't have to go in and type all of that. Wow, I still have to confirm it, yes, but it's all.

Speaker 1:

It'll actually read it for me and type that in and put it where it's supposed to be now that is so much more helpful than me sitting there typing this of going, okay, I bought this on one one, I paid with it or with this. This is da, da, da da. Here's why it was what the thing? It's saving time.

Speaker 1:

So something that simple is really can really help your business and help you be more productive, and I really believe, for small to medium businesses, that this is a huge game changer, that you can get more done with the help of AI. You just need to figure out and that's where we started offering this AI consulting service because we wanted to help companies going in there and looking at what systems do you currently have that are really causing you problems. So, whether you've formally written down the systems that you currently run your business, there are still systems there, and so what we do is we help you kind of go through all your systems when are the efficiencies, where are the inefficiencies? Where can AI help you and figure out the right products for you and build that strategy and help train your employees? Because that's really what's important is how can I use this to cheat?

Speaker 2:

And looking at it, it's like you're cheating, but at the same time, you're really just making yourself more efficient, because, no matter how you use AI, every time I've used it it might spit something out for me, but I'm never leaving it as it is. It's sort of like oh wow, I had to write a letter, or oh wow, I had to develop a process and I need sort of like some standardized form, and it's like you know what it did, like 80% of the legwork for me and, to your point, as it starts to get to know you more and more, it can write in a way that sounds more like you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and you can teach it your brand, you can teach it the audience you want to reach, but you're 100%, it still needs that human interaction. Anything that comes out of there, we're still looking at it, going, okay, this isn't quite right. This needs to be changed this way. But a lot of times, what it does come up with is things that I forgot. So often maybe you're putting a proposal together and I've done this before. I'm writing a proposal for a client and I'm writing out everything that I believe should be in that proposal. I have thrown my proposal into chat, gpt and said, hey, what am I missing? You know, these are the things they're wanting. This is the problem I'm having. What am I missing? And then it will come back and say, hey, what about this? I'm like, oh, I should have written that in. That's totally. I should have pointed that out in the proposal, because you want your proposal as thorough as you possibly can. Another proposal because you want your proposal as thorough as you possibly can.

Speaker 1:

Another tool that we use is called Otter AI and it's a tool that basically records your Zoom calls. So if you're meeting with a client, say it's a prospect, otter AI will listen in, will take notes for you and then shoot out and give you. Here were the action items for that meeting. No, it doesn't. It's not perfect. There might be something in there going well that we did discuss that, but that isn't a priority or that's not an action item.

Speaker 1:

But it's a lot better than me sitting down after the meeting, spending a half hour going okay, what were my notes on that? What did they say here? What was I doing here? It works and it's not that expensive. And to me, to make sure that we're getting recapping that customer experience and then sending to the customer that recap, now I'm going to change it. I do change it into my own words. Yes, my own format. But say hey, here's a recap of the meeting. Do you agree with all these to-dos? Are we all set? You are confirming with the client that you are listening to them. They're also getting that feeling of oh wow, somebody's actually listening to me, we're moving in the right direction and we're going there in an efficient way. That's a great use of a tool.

Speaker 2:

What I find is really cool about that tool is you are not focused on having to take notes on the entire conversation, and so it allows you, as a business owner and as an entrepreneur, to really be engaged with your client and listen to them, and listen to what they're saying and have them really listen to you, because they don't have to be taking notes either. And so when you say to them, I'm recording this, it's going to be taking notes, I'm going to send you back a summary, and it's like, oh wow, I don't have to be trying to multitask, I can just be engaged in the conversation, and I find the conversations are then so much more productive as a result. So it's like you have a much more productive conversation with your client and much more productive follow through. That all happens so much faster, and you've cut hours out of that whole dialogue process by using AI.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you really have cut hours out, and I think there are tools or I know there are tools in all different aspects of business that we can. Now I do believe that right now, we're seeing this crazy number of AI solutions coming out. I think the last time I heard, there were over 1600 solutions. There's no way anybody can know all those solutions and kind of evaluate them for your business. Nor should you, and I think we're going to see similar.

Speaker 1:

For those who are old enough to remember the dot-com era, where, when internet really came out and websites are coming out and the dot-com made all these different services and not all of them were really viable and weren't really set up to make money. They weren't sure how to make money yet at that point. And I think AI is going to be the same way. We're going to see some of these programs kind of merge together. We're going to see some improve, we're going to see some go away, and so it really is kind of a test of trial and error. Okay, let's try this app or this software and see, okay, does this help me? How does this fit within my system? Is this going to work? And so I think we have to also be smart about it and what is realistic and what is that going to look like? But I think that we're going to see this huge change and I feel like if small businesses don't get on board, they're really going to lose out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because there's a lot that can help you with your marketing materials, so many different things. And I use Claude a lot. I had someone introduce me to Claude. I was using chat and I had someone introduce me to Claude for a different reason for speech writing and it was really helpful and just it has a little bit different spin. It's not as great.

Speaker 2:

I have found it's not as great if I want, like, hooks for social media you know, chatgpt is like owning the hooks for social media for sure, right, but it's been really helpful in coming up with titles to things, summarizing speeches for me, summarizing things I've written, and so I've used it a lot Like here give me an outline of something I've written, help me understand which points should require a presentation slide and which points should not, and things like that, so you don't have to think quite as much about so much of it. It just gives you a starting point and sometimes it points out things that, to your point, I don't see or I don't think of and I'm like, oh, wow, that's good, I like that. I'm going to twist that a little, but I would have never thought of that. So it's brilliant.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's awesome, and I'm still going to try that out. By the way, yeah, another tool is Perplexity. Perplexity does research for you. Ooh, yes, and I've played with that a lot and it is really helping me find. I want stats so I might write a blog article about, for instance, I wrote one about SMS marketing the other day which text messaging and how we're using text messaging and is that working for people? Because I don't know about you, but we're all getting kind of bombarded now with text messaging from different brands. And so I started looking at the research.

Speaker 1:

While I went into perplexity and said, hey, I want to research this, this is what I'm looking for, and it started giving me it would go out there and search and look for those stats, and that's what I really needed Now. At first it came out with some stats that I was like that doesn't sound quite right, that seems awfully low, or that you know. So I went back to it and it's like, okay, let me dig further. And it came up some more things. And so, just from a research standpoint, I remember when it was such a big deal, when Google actually was kind of new and you can go out there and read different. You know articles and research to help you improve your marketing. Well, now I can actually have this perplexity, go out and do it for me, and then I take that information, use it within my own writing, within my own speeches, whatever that is, and that really has saved me a lot of time, saves so much time.

Speaker 2:

I just wrote that down. I was like, oh, I have to look into that one, because I've used chat to do that and I've tried using cloud to do that as well Not as effectively. Cloud's not good at that. But I've also felt like you can't just Google that anymore. It doesn't work, like what you might want might be on page 12 and we're never going to page 12.

Speaker 1:

You're going to get bored before then and I think that AI is taking over. I was talking to. I have a marketing manager, it works for me and we were kind of discussing this whole idea of how it's taking over search and how search is going to have to change. So many people are now going to chat or going to some of these other AIs and saying co-pilots another one and asking the question there before they go to actual Google search and so how we adjust and how we ask those questions are going to change.

Speaker 1:

I have a great example of that. We were in San Diego last year for an event, for a conference, and I wanted restaurants in walking distance of the convention center for lunch that were a medium price range, medium to low price range. It was lunch and I put my little criteria into Google and I got Fleming's Del Frisco's I mean all these Morton's, all these big and they weren't even open for lunch and I'm like why don't you work like chat, where I can put all my criteria and you give me the right answer? And I think that's where we're going to see that shift. We're going to see people make it's just going to happen. And I know it's scary. Everything is always scary when you're at the forefront of it. But it's going to happen and it can improve our lives if we go after this with an ethical eye.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, and AI in the design world. I think there's just so many cool things that can be happening from a rendering perspective, from a 3D perspective, from a helping consumers experience. Like some of the technology, I personally haven't been using it, but I've seen it that other designers at larger firms have been using and it is really cool. And it's like what if I just you know what, if, instead of making the sofa red, we want to make it blue, and I want to make it different, and I don't want it to be that style and I want the arms to be like this, and all of a sudden you put that in and it's like bing bang, boom, it's changed your room right there. That's amazing.

Speaker 1:

So cool. It's so cool and when you're sitting in front of a client or residential and you're talking to them and you're just trying to figure out what style they like, because, remember your clients, as an interior designer, they don't always know the different styles like you do. That's why they're hiring you.

Speaker 1:

But if you could take a picture of their room and apply different styles, just to kind of give an idea and say, hey, is this something you might like? Or what do you like about this, what do you not like about this? And start changing it and at least do the schematic design part, just kind of getting those ideas before you really get into design development, before you even leave their house. How amazing is that you have saved yourself so many hours of going back and forth with your client and go. Well, I don't really like blues. Well, they never told you that in the first place? It's like, why didn't you tell me that three meetings ago? I don't know, I forgot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so you really start. You can. It can really save you some time. Now that doesn't take away from what you bring to the table, that you were an amazing designer and you're going to put all the pieces together Correct. At least get you quicker to that point where you're actually doing the design development.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it gets some of the grunt work done. That can take hours, quite honestly hours and a Pinterest board and walking them through and listening to their feedback and trying to understand their style.

Speaker 1:

It's all very time consuming it really is, and I think those details that you might be able to kind of get out of them more quickly is really going to help you, because interior design people forget this is a very, very detailed profession. You have to know all the little things and I think there's a place there for AI to really help in that area. I agree, I agree.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk quickly about email marketing. If you would Sure, how are you leveraging email marketing for your clients? Because I see a lot online about people saying, because of the unpredictability of social media, everyone who thinks they have a marketing strategy in every small business needs to really invest in email marketing. So I would love your point of view of that.

Speaker 1:

Sure, and I totally agree with that. Social media is unpredictable. It really is, and it is constantly changing and has been constantly changing. You cannot rely on it. The other thing you have to know about social media is that you don't own your followers. That algorithm changes. Your followers are gone. We actually got hacked on Facebook in October and we're still being punished. We still can't get it back on Facebook. We lost our group, we lost our company page, I lost my personal page. Just done. That entire platform is gone for us and it will be gone for some time, because whoever hacked it ended up putting content out there, and so, even though I have physically talked to them about hey, this wasn't us, you can clearly see that it wasn't us. We reported the hacking Too bad, nothing we can do about it. And so, all of a sudden, an entire channel for us blew up, and so we really had to look at that and go, okay, well, what's what?

Speaker 2:

It's a small business, that's painful. You're like those are my followers, that's like my potential future revenue. Yeah it just disappeared.

Speaker 1:

And so, when we look at it that way, it really came to light. Yeah, I was preaching this and saying, hey, you need to bring them on to your own email list and we have been doing that, luckily. But it really made a lot of sense Poof gone, done nothing there, Can't advertise, can't do anything on there, and we're still. I just checked before I got on here because I wanted to see if that was still the case. And we're still being punished. So, when we look at that, your email list is literally your gold mine because there are people on there and, yeah, it's really easy to go. Well, I sent out these emails and like my open rates really like 5% or 10%, whatever it is, yeah, but that might be the 5% or 10% that you can bring in right now that need your product at this very moment. It gives you an opportunity to constantly be serving your clients. It gives you an opportunity or prospects. It gives you an opportunity and this is a perfect example in the interior design world, because I have so many designers that don't realize the magnitude of having a lead magnet and building that email list.

Speaker 1:

What happens is somebody comes to your site. They see your picture in a magazine or see something about you on one of the social and they go to your website. And the website is still your foundation. We still need to be creating that website. They look at you and they're like, oh man, I really want to hire her. She's beautiful or he has this great style I love. But then they forget.

Speaker 1:

Life goes on, and so when you have a lead magnet and you give them something of education maybe it's 10 tips for decorating during the holidays or 10 tips on decluttering, whatever it is they get on your email list because they want that free educational piece. You're sharing just a little bit of your process. You have them in the hopper so that when you start talking to them and continuously giving them more and more content, then of course you're staying on top of mind with them. Even if they're not opening it, even if they're not ready, they're seeing it in their inbox and it's still triggering. When I'm ready for that project, I know I'm going to hire her or I'm going to hire him, and so it's really a huge avenue that we really need to focus on. And how you use your email list is so important and you can do A-B testing. A-b testing is where maybe you test a different headline on a landing page or on an email. We test one thing at a time but give my little disclaimers.

Speaker 1:

But there's so much we can do. We can segment the market, you can identify. Well, okay, if these people asked for this lead magnet, then I know they might be interested in this new service that we're offering. Let's start marketing to them. There is so much that you can do and you own that. It's not like social, where it'll go away in an instant or it changes and you're not being seen. You actually want to bring them into your own world.

Speaker 2:

Well and one thing I would think you could really help your clients with is we all feel like, okay, a lead magnet. I read about this all the time and I'm terrible at this. I do now give stuff away, but it took a long time, and I don't even necessarily give away the right stuff either, because one of the things I think we struggle with as entrepreneurs is like our brain only has the capacity to think of so many things, and so I hear all the time you have to have a lead magnet and I'm like, okay, but what is my lead magnet? What are my subjects, what would be interesting? And as I'm talking to you, I'm sort of like, huh, once again, maybe that's an interesting place to go to AI and to go to an agency like you to be like, hey, help me develop an email marketing strategy so that I am creating content in a lead magnet that will actually stick, that people actually care about.

Speaker 1:

And that's exactly what I was going to say Just ask AI. It's not just ask AI. You can ask your customers hey, what can I help you with this? You can do one of the things that as much as I as an interior designer. A few years back it's been quite a few years, but we redid our kitchen, yeah, and the construction experience was so hard on us.

Speaker 2:

It's so terrible. Oh it's terrible.

Speaker 1:

It's terrible.

Speaker 2:

Terrible. People have no idea until they do it, and I knew this.

Speaker 1:

It's real easy. When you're going to a job site in somebody else's home, it's a totally different thing. When you're cooking on a hot plate upstairs, outside your bedroom, and you're cleaning dishes in your bathroom, it is a totally different experience. It is a totally different experience. So if that's a pain point for your clients while they're working with you, that might be. Hey, here are tips on how to overcome the challenges of construction, or it might be. This is what to expect while you're in construction. Eating out all the time was horrible.

Speaker 1:

I eventually got so tired of eating out and missed my home cooked food and we don't think about that and as designers, we're just like yeah, your house can be torn up for a month. Well, a month is always at least six weeks, if not two months, if not two months, exactly, yep, yeah, I was one of those people. I had everything ordered, everything was in the garage. We were ready just to install blah, blah, blah. Of course, everything's broken. There was this, this was forgotten, or this didn't get ordered, or whatever. There was always something.

Speaker 2:

There's always something and it's all a process. There are steps. It's like I can't give you water back until everything is finished and they can install the counters, and that is like really, at the end, it really is. It really is at the end, and so it's like you cannot get water, even though your dishwasher's there. You cannot get water to use that until your countersend.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know it's looking at the pain points of what your audience is experiencing. That's where your lead magnet comes out of what can you help your clients with that is going to eventually have them help their lives. But also remember you when it's time they want to hire somebody and I know a lot of designers tend to be this way a lot where I don't want to share my secrets. First of all, it's not a good mindset, it's a scarcity mindset and we want to approach things. It goes back to that whole energy. If there is plenty to go around and there's plenty of opportunities, right, and so we want to kind of get out of that scarcity.

Speaker 1:

When we share our knowledge, it comes back twofold. When we help other people, it will come back. So whether you're giving this tool or this knowledge to somebody, it could be them, it could be their sister, their sister-in-law, their brother, a friend, somebody else they're referring to. You might get five clients just as a result of helping that one person that you didn't necessarily charge. But it comes back to you. There are opportunities there, and so to be afraid to share that? No, you're just kind of bringing them into your world and I guarantee for the people, especially in design the people that are hiring you are hiring you for you and for what you have to offer them.

Speaker 1:

It's not anything else. It's just going to be something that they want you and they want your design style. They want to work with you, and so just because you shared some knowledge with them early in the process doesn't mean they're not going to hire you anyway, because the people that are hiring designers aren't capable or wanting to do it on their own.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Perfect point. Yes, because we are a luxury service.

Speaker 1:

You are a luxury service and it is always scary.

Speaker 2:

I will say, as an entrepreneur and I have many friends who are entrepreneurs it's like how much do you give away for free on Instagram? How much do you give away for free when people reach out? Where is the line? Because you want your service to be valuable. But I think it has become so commonplace that people are giving a lot of their knowledge for free. They're not necessarily connecting the dots. So there's a way to give the knowledge without connecting the dots, of the entire process or everything that you need. You know you're not giving away every vendor you would use and every design tip you have, but there's a way to give tips about the process without giving away the process that are viewed as helpful 100%.

Speaker 1:

I've seen a couple of situations where plumbers have put videos out there.

Speaker 1:

I was in a conference last year and you know, in most big conferences and this was one of the best conferences I'd ever been to. But in the front row, of course, is the VIP, and the main guy putting the conference on kept calling out this one plumber. Well, this plumber was doing these really funny videos and talking about here's how you fix this and here's how you fix that, and he had built a huge business around these videos because in the day, even though he was helping people with how to fix a clogged drain, most people don't want to take the time to do it themselves because there is still some magic in everything a plumber does, yeah, and to know, okay, yeah, make sure you do this, this and this. He's not saying the little tidbits that he knows from knowledge that he has picked up along the way, but he is giving a lot of knowledge and it was a huge social media opportunity for him and it was working. How do you make plumbing exciting? This guy was doing it.

Speaker 1:

And I was like okay if the plumber can do it, a designer can definitely do it.

Speaker 2:

We can all do it Exactly. Yes, yes, oh, that's a great story, a great example too. All right, so before we run out of time, I always like to ask my guests if they have a book that they would recommend, that they've read, either personally or professionally, that they felt impacted their life, that they think our audience should read and I know you read a lot. We talked about this earlier. We're both big into continual learning, so what would you like to recommend?

Speaker 1:

to show. I want to recommend Worthy. So Jamie Kern Lima and if you're familiar with her, she started IT Cosmetics and she wrote one book. But this book actually is about self-confidence versus self-worth and it really dives in and I didn't realize before I read it that there was a difference. Oftentimes, when we don't go tackling something like a big project or an idea, we have a lot of times there's something holding us back because it's driven by self-confidence. But she actually talks about it being no, it's not the self-confidence. Self-confidence goes up and down. It's actually your self-worth. It's thinking I am worthy of this accomplishment, I am worthy of this path, I'm worthy of myself and I'm worthy to be loved. And it is a really eye-opening book and really good and you can tell I totally like it because I have stickies.

Speaker 2:

I saw that. I saw that, I saw that I'm a sticky person, I highlight. Me too. I highlight, I fold pages down, I write notes on the side. I do all of that stuff too.

Speaker 1:

Bought this book for Christmas for my stepdaughter and ended up starting to look at it before I mailed it out to her and I was like I want to read this. So my husband came in he's like that was from McKenna and I was like, yeah, I bought her her own copy. I'm like I had to read it too, and I'm glad I did, because it was a very good book and it really, you know, talks about um posture syndrome. It talks about different things that we and especially it talks to men and women, but mostly women, you know just the things that we do and think of and I was like, oh, I could totally relate to all that and it really it was inspiring yeah, it's, and she has a great story.

Speaker 2:

I mean, her story is amazing. Her story is unbelievable, her story is like should get everyone and everyone hope and also just a reminder, like you have to believe in what you're doing and you need to believe in it more than anyone else, because you will get no's and you will get people who think you're crazy and who don't believe in your business idea and you really have to like, own it and feel it and live it and walk it. And her story is truly incredible 100%.

Speaker 1:

And that resiliency of being told no, no, no, no and still getting up and doing it again and over and over because she believed in our products so much, it's amazing. I actually love our products, I use a lot of our products, but it was just. The story is amazing because somebody tells me no that many times I think I might cry.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, oh, I would too. I you know her story. I'm like I don't know that I would have that level of resilience about it. But then again, maybe if I had that product that is so good, maybe I would. I don't know, it's hard to say, but, um, oh, jackie, thank you. How can our listeners find you if they want more help with their businesses? How do they find you?

Speaker 1:

So I'm at BehindTheDesignCocom Okay, I'm all over and I'm like that most on YouTube. We're on YouTube, we're on LinkedIn and we're still on Instagram and Pinterest, of course, so you can find me in any of those, and it's usually BehindTheDesign or BehindTheDesignCo as our work, and that's how you can find me in any of those, and it's usually behind the design or behind the design code as our work, and that's how you can reach me.

Speaker 2:

Wonderful, and I will put all of that in the show notes and I will link it all so that everybody can find you. Thank you so much. It was great to meet you and to talk to you, and thank you for such an incredible education for myself personally and also for all of my listeners that are entrepreneurs, because there are a lot of them. So, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, I loved it. Oh, thank you. I hope you have a beautiful day.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, thank you for joining us for another episode of the House of Jermar podcast, where wellness starts within. We appreciate you being a part of our community and hope you felt inspired and motivated by our guest. If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review and share it with friends. Building our reach on YouTube and Apple Podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in. You can also follow us on Instagram at House of Jermar and sign up to be a part of our monthly inspiration newsletter through our website, houseofjermarcom. If you or someone you know would be a good guest on the show, please reach out to us at podcast at houseofgermarcom. This has been a House of Germar production with your host, jean Collins. Thank you for joining our house.