HerAIgency: Making AI Human — Empowering Women to Work Smarter, Not Harder

In this empowering episode of From Keywords to Connections, Mary and Winnie sit down with Jenna Nelson, founder of HerAIgency, an AI consultancy dedicated to helping women-led businesses and entrepreneurs work smarter, not harder.

Together, they explore how AI can simplify entrepreneurship without sacrificing authenticity, and how women can use automation to reclaim their time, amplify their message, and strengthen their brand voice. Jenna shares practical ways to make technology feel approachable instead of overwhelming, including real examples of how thoughtful automation and AI tools can transform daily business operations.

From building workflows that save hours to creating content that still sounds human, this conversation breaks down how small business owners can embrace AI as a creative partner, not a replacement.

💡 Key Takeaways:

• How to use AI to streamline your business without losing your personal touch
• Simple automation tools that make your workflow smoother and more intentional
• How to preserve your brand’s authentic voice in an AI-driven world
• Why human connection and creativity will always matter most

If you’ve ever wondered how to make AI work for you instead of overwhelming you, this episode will give you clarity, confidence, and actionable ideas to start today.

🔗 Explore Jenna’s work and resources:

• Visit HerAIgency.com
  for tools, courses, and guidance on integrating AI into your business with intention.
• Read Jenna’s insightful post, Will AI Replace Me?, a must-read for every entrepreneur navigating the balance between automation and authenticity.

🎧 And don’t forget to follow From Keywords to Connections for more conversations that bridge strategy with humanity — helping small business owners grow ethically, sustainably, and with purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:06

Hey there, you're listening to From Keywords to Connections, where we talk about more than just SEO. We explore the real stories, strategies, and moments that help people connect in meaningful ways. We're your hosts, Mary and Winnie, bringing you honest conversations about strategy, growth, and the connections that matter most. We're so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_03: 0:55

And today we're talking about something that so many entrepreneurs are really curious about. I know I'm curious about it. I'm also a little intimidated by it sometimes. It's, you know, how to use AI without losing your mind, your humanity, yourself in the process.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11

That is exactly right. We've both seen how AI tools can be game changers for small business owners, but only if they're used intentionally and correctly to help your business. That's why we're thrilled to welcome today's guest, Jenna Nelson, founder of her AI Agency, an AI consultancy helping female founders and women-led businesses scale with smart automation and authentic connection.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38

So Jenna's background blends strategy, AI-driven marketing, and some business process automation, which I know we could all use in our lives, some organization and some automation. She's passionate about making AI feel accessible instead of overwhelming. And I love that it's especially for women, balancing family, business, life, and everything in between. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? What inspired you to start the agency? Kind of what led you to down this path that you're on right now?

SPEAKER_00: 2:07

Yeah, so I um, you know, my background is in business automation, processes, systems, things of that nature. Um, and I really didn't start out to start a tech company. But, you know, as I was working in my own business, as I was helping clients, you know, adapt and scale, what I was finding was there was kind of this gap, particularly for female founders, for women-led businesses, where, you know, there was kind of a sphere of technology, of AI, where they felt a lot like they were being talked down to or talked over, um, you know, a little bit of a bro culture, Silicon Valley kind of male-led vibe. Um, and so, you know, I kind of just made it my, you know, personal mission to like figure this out for women in general and you know, try to offer some solutions that didn't feel scary, that don't feel overwhelming, um, and that, you know, can be really approachable. You know, I find more often than not, I think women uh tend to put a little bit more of like emotional connection into their business. And so there's that fear, you know, with AI and even tech in general, that if you adopt too much of it, that you're gonna lose that humanity, that emotional connection, um, that client relationship. And so, really, what I try to do is balance those fears with practical solutions that don't, you know, take away from what you're trying to do. I want AI to help you do more with less, not takeover, essentially. That is awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 3:44

And that kind of leads right into what I wanted to talk about next, which is really what you were just saying, like making AI approachable. Because I know it can feel really intimidating, especially for a small business owner, and especially if you're not tech savvy and you don't have any knowledge and you're just kind of going in there and playing with AI and trying to figure out how do I apply this? What do I do? So, how do you start that conversation with someone who feels totally overwhelmed by all the AI talk? Like, what is where do you start that conversation at?

SPEAKER_00: 4:11

Um, so the the very first place I start is really acknowledging that fear because it's real and it's legitimate. There are 10,000 AI tools out there, there are 10,000 AI gurus out there. Um, and it's hard, you know, even for me, I work in this every day and it's impossible to keep up with what's working, what's not, what tools should I have. So I really start with like, I understand where you're coming from. I understand the fear of it letting, you know, a lot of you know, founders come to me and they're like, I don't want my employees to feel like I'm implementing AI to take their jobs. That's a big fear. So I always acknowledge that too. Like, that's not what we're trying to do here. What I'm trying to do is keep you from having to hire more or put more work in, right? Like, I'm not trying to replace your staff. So I think acknowledging those fears is step one. Um, I don't just want to like glaze over that and be like, oh, everything's fine. AI is great. Don't even worry about it, right? There is bad AI out there, and there absolutely is a way to use it wrong, and you can ruin your business if you use it wrong. I don't want that. Um, so I think I start there, and then my next step is always I I want to find one problem, one easy problem that we can solve with an AI or an automated solution, right? This is not like let me come in and take over your entire business with AI. This is let's start and build from there. Once we've got one working thing in place, let's build up from there. So I, you know, I find I can kind of bridge that fear gap um by finding that one, that one task that they're doing every week that's just taking up too much time, that they're doing at 10 o'clock at night because there's nobody else to do it. Uh let's fix that. Let's take that off your plate. Right. Yeah, we all do. Uh let's take that off your plate. And then when you're like, oh wow, look at that, then you know, I kind of ease them in. So uh that's kind of where I start with everyone.

SPEAKER_02: 6:06

I love that you address that fear first, because that is that's a huge thing that people are kind of facing. And it's definitely that kind of like fear paralysis of going on to the next step, even when it can help you. Um, and I do also love that you make AI feel human and not robotic, because like you said, women, especially, you know, they put emotion and a lot of their heart into their business, and that it being human makes it a lot more, I think, attainable than if it feels very robotic. Um, one of some of the what are some of the most common fears or misconceptions that you hear from entrepreneurs specifically, besides the, you know, taking over, you know, their worker, the fear from their workers of taking over their jobs. What are the other main fears that you hear about?

SPEAKER_00: 6:55

I think the the next biggest one is that it's gonna sound like AI. It's gonna sound robotic, it's not gonna match my brand. Um, I think that's a big one. The second one is it's gonna screw things up, right? Like it's going to make me lose clients because it's gonna say something wrong. Or, you know, we all know that AI can hallucinate and say completely insane things sometimes. Um I think those are those are like the big three right there is like the fear that it's gonna mess up, the fear that it's gonna sound like AI, and then the fear that it's gonna replace them or their business altogether or their employees. I think those are the core three that I hear the most.

SPEAKER_02: 7:35

I can definitely resonate with the sounding AI because there's definitely been like emails and things like that, like that, that I'm like, oh yeah, this is very no tone behind it, just straight AI email and things like that. And we talk a lot about with our team about how important it is for things to sound authentic and true to their tone of voice. So that makes sense that that is one of the major fears. Absolutely. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 8:03

Yeah, and I like you know that you you're talking about, you know, AI brand strategy, but also keeping your own voice at the same time. So you're talking about like scaling your business, using AI to help you accomplish those goals without losing that uniqueness that makes your brand you. And I think that that's something that people don't understand that AI can help you do. Um, so what are your favorite ways to kind of help business owners keep their voice while using AI for content marketing?

SPEAKER_00: 8:31

Yeah, so the first thing I do with every client is we train an AI brand manager for them. Um, trained AI is very different than your out-of-the-box chat GPT. It's honestly like picking somebody up off the street and telling them nothing about your business and saying, write an email newsletter, or taking an employee that you've trained that knows your business and say, write an email newsletter. AI works the same way. Um I always say, you know, we train AI to be like a junior team member. I want it to have the founder's brain. I want it to have all of that information and that tone and that understanding. And what's really interesting too with these AI brand managers is as they scale and as they grow, that brand manager, when it's kept up to date and when it's it's retrained and reinforcement training and stuff like that, it becomes the central source of truth for their business. And then when you hire in a brand new employee, or maybe you're using an offshore VA who knows nothing about your business, um, you can really protect your brand actually with this AI tool now because it has the guardrails built in, it understands your brand tone, it understands what words we use, what words we don't use, and things like that. So training your AI is where we start. And it's like the first thing I will tell anybody I meet on the street who asks about AI is like, you have to train it. You have to train it, you have to go through that process and you train it once and you train it well, um, and then it removes all of that really complicated. I hear people get hung up a lot on like prompt engineering, and I don't know how to prompt it, and they're trying to create the perfect prompt, and they're spending just as long trying to create this like perfect prompt when in fact it's meant to be conversational with you. By by the time I'm done with your AI brand manager, I want you to be able to talk to it just like you would your assistant, right? Like it should be shorthand, it should be very easy. Now, the more context you give it, the more instructions, just like a human, the better output you're gonna get. But you don't need to be worried about like 10-page prompts of you know, making sure it's super granular. And you can save yourself so much time by not having to give it the same details over and over. Um, you know, we train our brand managers to know your pricing structure, your products, who you sell to, all of those things. So you don't have to go in and say, write an email about this product, it sells for this, you know, it's got this in it. It already knows that. And and that speeds everything up so much.

SPEAKER_02: 11:09

That sounds amazing because I know there's been some times where I feel like trying to prompt AI is as much work as just going and doing that task. And it's like, okay, why am I prompting AI to do it and putting all of this like 10 to 100?

SPEAKER_00: 11:23

I could have just done it myself, yeah, in the same amount of time. Yeah. And the thing I say to you is like, I don't want AI to replace your brain or your unique perspective. I want AI to sound like you on your very best day. And the combination of your brain and the trained AI together is what creates that magical, wonderful content or customer service interactions, whatever it might be, that sounds like, hey, this is me performing at my highest level, essentially.

SPEAKER_02: 11:58

That is a great way to think about that. So as you're kind of training that and using it to work with people, what role do you see AI playing in like that creative brainstorming when you're trying to brainstorm, especially things that make connections, not just A do X, Y, Z. When you're trying to brainstorm the connection piece, which is huge for small businesses. Absolutely. What role do you think AI can play in that when working, especially looking at it from a point of view of not replacing someone's brain, but like working with someone's brain?

SPEAKER_00: 12:35

Absolutely. So, you know, for brainstorming, where I like to use it is as a starting point. I like to just say, hey, I'm thinking about this new project or this new product. Help me brainstorm ways to do blank or to market it. Because what you get back is maybe some ideas that never would have crossed your mind, right? Like we are who we are, and we, you know, kind of have our own kind of processes. And, you know, in in my creative world, I tend to do things a certain way. So I want that kind of different opinion. So use it that way. And it's totally fine to be like, nope, that's not what I want. Don't like that direction at all. But honestly, and I think we've all experienced this. You know, sometimes you maybe you're designing something and you're like, ooh, that's not what I want at all. Or you get a design back from a graphic designer and you're like, that's not it. Sometimes using AI that way, being like, that is absolutely the wrong direction, can be just as helpful as that is the right direction, being like, nope, nope, don't like that at all. That's not it. That's not how I I want to go about this. So I like it from a brainstorming perspective. And then I also like to use it to challenge me on things. So, you know, I've got an idea, I think it's great, I'm putting it into AI and saying, what am I missing? What am I not thinking about? What can make this, you know, one of the things I use in my AI is I always want it to go at least 10% further. Wherever we'd stop, 10% further. That's something I bake into my system instructions. And so, and I'll even go back to it again and say, how do I make this better? Like, this is great. I want it better, I want it better. And that's something that, you know, you could use it to be like, this felt like a finished product before, but oh wait, now we've added a set of FAQs, and that's gonna perform really well on search engines. Let's do that, you know? So I like it for just adding those extra touches without exhausting your brain. And I think it's really great for decision fatigue too. A lot of founders struggle with this. I'm one of the worst of it, where I've got 57 million ideas bouncing through my head at any given moment. And sometimes it's hard for me to be like, which one do I go with, which direction? And sometimes I can just kind of take them all, give it to AI and say, what makes the most sense here? What, you know, help me evaluate the risk factors or the reward factors. Um, that risk versus reward, I use that a lot with AI. And that decision fatigue just takes, I bet I've saved weeks and months of not getting a product out to launch because I used to sit and analysis paralysis it to death and think about it for 10 weeks. And now AI is like, nope, do that. And I'm like, you know what? You're right, let's do it. You know, speed to market is really important right now. Everybody is getting things out faster, doing things faster, and you can really overcome a lot of that decision fatigue with AI. And I think that's something else I really encourage people to use it for as well.

SPEAKER_03: 15:34

I like that you mentioned that because I was just doing that this morning. I was using, I was brainstorming some stuff, and I I have trained my my chat GPT to know what I like and about the business and all of the ins and outs of what we do. And and so I was just having a conversation with it, brainstorming some things, but I was asking it to give me that different perspective, and it was giving me ideas that I never would have thought about on my own. So I I love that because it is like bouncing ideas off of somebody, and you get that feedback, and it's like light bulb moments. You're like, oh, I never thought about it from that perspective because I'm stuck in my little box and the way I think about things. So it gives you a whole new perspective. I absolutely love that aspect of having a conver a conversation with uh AI. Yeah. Another question I had was a lot of our practices that we work with are like solo practitioners or really small teams. And a lot of people might think, uh, what is the point of AI for me? Can AI even help me? I'm only a solo practitioner. Is there really anything that I need to automate? You know, you know, is it worth the time, effort, and energy to put into it? Because it's just me. It's not like I have a group practice. So, what do you have to say to someone who's just a solo entrepreneur, a small team? How do they identify like what should be automated versus what still needs a personal touch, or if it's even worth the time, effort, and energy to invest in?

SPEAKER_00: 16:52

I honestly think those are probably some of the best use cases for it right there. Like you are already trying to do everything. Let's not do everything. For instance, if you're a solo practitioner, where I want you is building those relationships with your clients. I want you doing the actual work that matters there and you know making those emotional connections, not necessarily, you know, writing social media posts all day long or, you know, summarizing, you know, transcripts from, you know, maybe a session that you had. Maybe you need to summarize, you know, some bullet point notes. Like AI can do that kind of stuff without you taking away from the core of your business. And so the place I always start is like, what is something that is bogging you down that has no direct impact on your clients or your customers? What is that that's not how you talk to them, when you talk to them? What is something that is a background task that you're doing? Maybe it's your billing, maybe it's you know, something that we can speed up that process with AI and let's start there. And and then as and you know, the thing about AI is the more you use it, the smarter it gets. And the more you train it, the better it gets. So if you start small and build on it, then by the time you're ready to start, you know, letting it maybe draft your emails and things like that, you've come a long way already in that training and reinforcement learning process to where you're not losing, you know, that personal kind of touch. So I think, you know, solo business owners, I think this is like this is how you actually can do it all without the burnout, which is what I'm always trying to avoid for people. Is you know, when you start burning out, your clients suffer, you know, your business suffers, you suffer. Like, let's use AI in a way to avoid that as long as we can.

SPEAKER_02: 18:50

I'm all for anything that helps with burnout. Um, earlier you mentioned about helping with imposter syndrome and not imposter syndrome, um, decision fatigue. That's the word. Yep, yeah. Yeah. And all I'm thinking is that would be so great if I had less decision fatigue and had help with that at work. Like even my personal life would benefit from that because I'm gonna be honest, at the end of the day, my husband would be like, oh, dinner. And I'm like, I need I need to not make that decision. That is not I I'm done. I'm done with making decisions, figure that out. So that could even benefit not only your business, but at home as well, which is one 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 19:31

Real world example. Um, over the summer, I did like a six-hour road trip. I've got seven-year-old twins. I did a six-hour road trip with them, and I put into Chat GPT like where we were starting, where we were finishing, and like find me a kid-friendly, they can get out, run around type of restaurant in between point A and point B. List of options, right? Like this one's three hours down your route, this one's two hours down your route, this has got a playground. This, and like I could have spent a ton of time on Google, like looking at maps and trying to figure out, like, okay, three hours in, they're gonna be hungry here. And it just removed all of that for me. I literally did it at a stoplight while we were getting on the road. Um, and it was like done for me. So there are such easy ways like that where like I didn't have to take time away or you know, spend more time doing that. It was just kind of handed to me and it was great.

SPEAKER_02: 20:23

That is such an awesome example and idea.

SPEAKER_03: 20:26

That is actually. Uh, I'm planning a trip in April. I've been using AI to come up with an itinerary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:33

So one of one of my favorite things about your business is that you do focus on women because I think that, like you said, in the tech world, in the small business realm, it is it is still kind of a men's men's club, you know, there's still not a lot of support for female business owners, you know. We kind of we get that feeling of just being brushed aside a little bit or not being as relevant because we're girls, you know. Um, so I love that your work centers on empowering female founders. But do you think that women approach automation differently, like more relationally or creatively than men do? Like, do men use it like to think of it more like as a as a tool, like for coding and and tasks? And women think of it more as that conversational piece. Is that that trend that you see?

SPEAKER_00: 21:18

I think so. And I think that that's where the adoption of it sometimes gets lost, is that for men, it's a lot easier to adopt it for data analysis, for you know, those kind of task type things. But when women think about it, we're thinking about it on, you know, content creation. We're thinking about it in creative aspects, and that's there's a bigger fear there, right? Of how do you get it to be like I understand how it can analyze a spreadsheet and come up with a math equation, but I don't necessarily understand how it can write in my tone. Right. Um, so I think the fear of adoption is different for women as well. Um, and so that's that's really what I focus on is it can do all of those things. You just have to, you have to train it right and then apply it in the right scenarios, essentially.

SPEAKER_02: 22:12

I love that. Absolutely. Um, with that and the way that women look at it differently, it is not that uncommon that women can not feel very confident in the technology field because it is male kind of dominated a lot of times.

SPEAKER_03: 22:29

We're not hating we're not hating on males. We're not hating on no means hating on monies.

SPEAKER_02: 22:35

No, absolutely not. Just throw that out there so nobody listens against God. These guys are women. No, we're not. Absolutely not. I just know that kind of we've been talking a lot, and I accidentally mentioned it earlier, imposter syndrome. Yeah. And I, I mean, I can personally relate with imposter syndrome around using AI. Like, am I doing well enough with it? Am I using it how I should be? Does this content really reflect well? Am I, you know, doing things to the best of the ability and gaining that kind of confidence with technology? Is there any like tip or thing that you would tell, you know, women who are listening of how they can kind of gain that confidence in their use of technology and AI and kind of be able to feel more confident and integrating it into their lives, both in personal for planning trips and business into automating processes.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

Yeah, you know, I think I think there's two distinct answers there. And the first one is anything that is going to improve your processes is worth doing. Um, even if it's not absolutely perfect, even if it maybe gets just a little off tone, but it enables you to get to a lead within five minutes versus five days. I still think that's worth it, right? So really evaluate risk versus reward here. And more often than not, I think there's more in the reward category there. Like look at where you're slipping, look at where you know there are known problems in your business operations and see if we can plug those holes. And again, it doesn't, I think we also, you know, as women struggle with perfectionism and wanting it to be a thousand percent all the time. Um, but sometimes done is better than perfect. And sometimes getting something to the lead or the inquiry within five minutes is better than getting a 10-page email, thorough email from you. Just like, hey, this is I've got this, I'll get back to you, set an expectation, something like that. I think that's really valuable. Uh, the other thing I always say too is A B test it, just like you would anything else, right? So do a set of emails, write them yourself, don't use AI, put it out there, do the same thing with your trained AI, do the same thing, send them both and see. Like if you see a significant drop off between one or the other, then you know your answer. Um, if you don't, then maybe it it's working the way we want it to. So I do that, I do that all of the time with clients. Um, and I think that A B kind of testing gives you a little bit of confidence because I rarely see, rarely see the AI content misperform or perform any worse than something. In fact, more often than not, I see it perform better because again, I want it to be like you on your very best day. So I always think it when it's fine-tuned and we've done it right, it's better. But you know, try those things. And if that gives you that little bit of confidence that, oh, there wasn't a conversion rate difference. My client didn't bail out when they got, you know, an AI generated response. I think that that is a great way to help build your confidence there.

SPEAKER_02: 26:09

That is such a great idea and a great way to gain confidence with AI.

SPEAKER_03: 26:13

I love that. And I and I I just this thought just came to me and it's kind of off topic. But I think one of the things I notice with women as well is that that perfectionism that you talked about, because I'm a perfectionist, I want it to be perfect, and I'm like, AI is do I trust AI to do it perfect? Right. And then I get into that mindset also of we have it's like we're ingrained with this concept that we have to do everything, we have to keep all the balls in the air, we have to be responsible for everything, we have to be doing everything. So then I use AI and I feel guilty because I've used AI to simplify a task that I feel like I should have been sweating away on my keyboard doing myself. So I feel guilty because I'm streamlining my life and not doing or keeping all the balls in the air myself. Like it's like asking for help is almost uh a guilty pleasure, you know, or like something that to that we as women feel guilty about a lot because we feel like we should be doing all of those things on our own. So I think that it's that something that kind of relates to the AI about not about not wanting to implement that feeling of guilt or feeling like you're giving up, you know, you're not doing all the things yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 27:25

Absolutely. And I think you know, we feel that too, even when you start to hire real humans to do things. You know, it's like that offloading of, oh, but they're not. I think that fear is real. Um, and what I say on both ends of the spectrum, both with you know, hiring human help or using, you know, service or something like that, or using AI is focus on your high value tasks. You know, the five dollar an hour tasks are not worth your time as a business owner. I would rather you be picking up the phone and talking to your customers, you know, building that relationship with your clients, giving yourself a little bit of brain space to be better at what you do, right? Those breaks are important. They're hard to take. I know I struggle with that all the time, right? Like if I'm not being productive, I feel like everything is falling apart. Yeah, right. Like that is that is important to me. Um, but I also know when I do take a break and I do step away, ultimately I come back better. You know, my creativity is kind of regenerated and I I feel, you know, ready to tackle stuff again. So, you know, I you know if you can offload work that is not mission critical to your business or extremely impactful to your clients or customers, do that and save yourself, your brain, your budget for the things that cannot be replaced with someone else or AI or a tool. Because there are those things, right? There are things that we just can't ask AI to do or expect it to do perfectly. But let's find the things that it can and then free ourselves up for the things that can't. That's a great point.

SPEAKER_02: 29:08

I know it might seem silly, but I think I I just had this realization that sometimes when I use AI to help me, I have the same feeling as if like when people offer to help and I don't want to offload to them because I'm like, I know you're already busy. I know you have these things, I don't want to add more to your plate. And like I'm just realizing that when I use AI for bigger stuff like that, I'm having that same feeling of like, oh, but like also AI doesn't have a full plate. I don't have to worry about it getting burnt out by having too large of a caseload or things like that. Exactly. And I it's it's silly to have that feeling about AI, but like it's so ingrained in that like no, like I I I don't want to make things harder for you, so I'm gonna just power through and do the things. And absolutely definitely have to work on letting that feeling go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:00

Absolutely. Yeah. This is your team member that never needs a break, that doesn't need to go on vacation, that doesn't have sick kids, that, you know, can manage a huge workload and use it that way. Like that's what's great about it. And then take that work off of your real human teammates and your real employees, right? Like it's I, you know, I say that a lot too to um to founders that are worried about, you know, their employees feeling like they're being replaced or their jobs are being taken. Like, reframe it. Hey, I'm taking these things off your plate because I want you to be able to focus on blank so that you can grow with this company, or I want you to be able to take a weekend off. So this is why we're putting this tool in place. Absolutely. I want you to stop responding to my emails at 10 p.m. Here's what we're doing about that. Reframe it to them as this is to empower you as an employee, not to replace you. And I think that uh tends to remove some fear and stigma as well.

SPEAKER_02: 30:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 30:59

So one question I have, and this is just like a just a genie in a bottle question. Yeah. So, you know, we we are talking about the narrative that that does exist. It does exist, you know, with women in tech and keeping up and doing all the things. So, how can we as women support each other in business and kind of change that narrative? How how does your business help support other women do that to change that narrative? So it's not about keeping up, but it's about working smarter. I think we kind of touched on that. But, you know, what would be your like genie in a bottle moment or comment there about how to support women and change that narrative for not only women, but for men so they understand, you know, the perspective that we have about the AI and having to do all the things all the time.

SPEAKER_00: 31:49

Yeah, I think you know, the biggest thing is like support other women, support those businesses. You know, to to date, women-led businesses get like five percent of funding. Um, and that's it, right? Most of that funding goes to male-led businesses. That's crazy. It is, and you know, and particularly any kind of tech funding, it's very, very difficult. So I'm all about, you know, supporting other women-led businesses, and that's not to take away from male-led businesses, it's not to take away from you know what they do. It's it's important as well. It's just that we have a different set of parameters. Um, we often are, you know, taking care of children and our homes and families and things of that nature. And there's a statistic too about like the amount of hours per week that men work versus women. And women are it's like five hours less a week that women have to work because of other responsibilities. So I think acknowledging that and understanding that are it's just different. Um it unfortunately, I wish it was apples to apples, men versus women-led businesses, but it's not. But it's just not. And maybe with AI, this is something I tell you know, women-led businesses a lot too, is you know, for years, the question for women has been, how do we do it all? Like, how do we raise our children and work and run a business and all of those things that it's been like, well, you can't. Something's gonna probably have to suffer, right? You're gonna have to outsource your laundry or send your kids to daycare or whatever it is to do it all. And I think that maybe AI actually finally is going to level that playing field just a little bit. If we start adopting it and using it, um, maybe this is where we actually can do it all without, you know, the burnout or not seeing our kids at night or, you know, whatever it may be. So I I really like that this might be a little bit of the tipping point for that, where we can really use it to our advantage, you know, to answer your question. I think support those other women-led businesses, understand the impact that your business has on other women-led businesses. And and that's true for men too. Um, you know, it we're not trying to take away from what they do, but we are trying to support, you know, what we are trying to grow. And I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_02: 34:15

We're talking a lot about how the AI can enhance, you know, the human side and the humanity part of it, all of that, instead of replacing it, which is exactly the direction that makes AI make sense in my brain, at least. So, what does that look like in your day? Do you have an example of how that looks in your day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_00: 34:35

And like what piece of the AI automation has them made the biggest change, whether in your personal life or even I think the most impactful thing that I always tell people to maybe start with is your lead intake and filtering for businesses. Getting back to people fast is how we're losing the lead, it's how we're losing the sale. So even if it's an automatic, you know, response after they fill out a form that just says, thank you so much. Here's, you know, maybe a little bit of an FAQ, drop like, you know, five of your most commonly asked questions, something that you might always get asked when you get on the phone with a potential client. Uh, just something to get something in their hands, or maybe your sales packet, or a blog race, something. I think that's a great place to start. It gives a good brand impression. The speed builds trust that, you know, there's a real business here, there's somebody that's going to get back to me. And it buys you a little bit of time to work the lead, then however you might want to work it. And whether that's, you know, when you have time to pick up the phone and call them directly, whether it's reaching out personally. Um, I think putting those intake automations in place are a place I would recommend almost anyone start. Um, it's just a good brand impression. If you are running ads on any kind of platform, they look at those signals that come back into how you react or interact with a lead. So if yeah, so if you don't get to a lead with something and your Metapixel or your G tag is tracking that, it it can impact the result of your ad. So just that like immediate, you know, email, text message, something in their hands, I think is super helpful. You know, on my end, that's you know, I get an email back to someone, it's got a couple of resources, I filter it by, you know, what they've asked for. So it's like, hey, I saw you're inquiring about ads management. Here's a couple, here's my you know, readiness advisor bot that can answer some questions about you know what you might be ready for or not ready for. Here's a blog I did a, you know, just some resources. Um, and then here's my calendar link if you'd like to go ahead and schedule. And then, you know, when I can, when I can get a personal email out to them, then I do. But just getting that kind of out, I think, is really important. So that's where I would always recommend anybody start is make sure we're we're kind of closing that gap with lead uh follow-up.

SPEAKER_03: 37:21

That is a great suggestion because I feel like I know with me personally, I'm obsessive about answering emails, so I feel like I'm tied to my inbox all the time. So they don't have to be staring at my inbox, waiting for that number to pop up so I can immediately answer so the client feels like they're being seen. And so I to get away from that would be extremely refreshing.

SPEAKER_02: 37:42

And I'm the opposite inbox anxiety, email anxiety, and I hate looking at my inbox and I'll like psych myself up to it, get in there and be like, okay, I have to answer as many as I can without paying attention to what's all in there.

SPEAKER_00: 37:56

Yeah, I think it gives you that freedom too, to like, you know, personally, like I've put in a place where I'm only checking email, you know, once in the morning and once in the afternoon because I was getting lost in productivity going back and forth with emails. But now that I know that they're getting, you know, that immediate brand impression from me, um, you know, I I can walk away from that for a little bit and know that, you know, because I'm working on a three-hour project and coming back to my email inbox that everything hasn't fallen apart. And I think those automations are really, really important.

SPEAKER_03: 38:29

So I think this has been a really great conversation. Um, I think that you the way you talk about AI really makes it feel less intimidating more. And I love how you say it's like you showing up as you on your best day. I love that because it doesn't have the emotional outside external things going on. So it can always be on its best game for you. So I really love the way you explain that. I think that is really empowering for women who wear so many hats in today's, you know, business world. So I love that you shared that. Um, and I love that you make it feel human, like you still have that human connection. It's not about giving up your humanity, letting the computer do all the work for you. It's really about finding ways to utilize the technology to still connect with the human, you know, do the human things that you need to do, and it gives you the time to accomplish that. So that's that's perfect. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 39:22

Yes, and I love that how easily you can express the importance and that AI is not just there to take away your voice, that it can actually like strengthen your voice, strengthen your messaging, and just made it really relatable, not just only to businesses, but also to personal life, you know, hot topics of you know, burnout, decision fatigue, and how that can even help with those things, um, which are things that we talk about a lot. Um, I think that's a really powerful way to make it.

SPEAKER_03: 39:58

I know, because it's it's like it's helping you, it's actually helping you show up more authentically. That's what it's a that's what it's allowing you to do. And that I don't think people make that connection when they think about AI, but it, you know, that's what it's freeing you up to make those authentic connections. So I think that's great. Um, the great way to look at it for, especially for women who want that emotional connection and that emotional um feedback that you get. So um, do you have any closing thoughts or anything that off the top of your head that you'd like to share with us?

SPEAKER_00: 40:28

No, I think truly, you know, my my biggest takeaway is always like, don't fear it. Honestly, the biggest fear I want you to have is that if you don't start implementing it in your business, you're gonna lose out to the competitors that are going to implement it because you're gonna burn out or you're not gonna get back to leads fast enough. It and also, you know, with hiring new employees, you know, everybody coming out of college now is expecting to use AI tools, right? In the same way that we used calculators, this is an expectation. So, like you, if you're gonna hire, you know, staff coming, you know, up-and-coming staff, they're gonna want to use these tools, they're gonna expect to use these tools. Yeah, not going to know how to do it without these tools. Yeah. Um so you've got to you have to start embracing AI, even if it feels a little scary, even if it's like, you know, you're like, I'm not techie, I don't want that. I get it, I hear you, but I am begging you to just start small, start slow, because AI is coming for your business, whether you like it or not, and it is kind of changing the way things work. Um and really the biggest fear is if you don't adapt to it, you are gonna get left behind. So that's that's kind of my closing thought is um try to try to start working it in, even if it's slow, take that first step and um get get up to speed because those that do and get ahead of it now, we're in like the the AI gold rush right now, truly. Like it is, it is still, even though it feels big and it feels like it's everywhere right now. Brand new, really. We're nowhere near it, right? So now's the time to kind of get your feet wet. You may feel okay right now, today, not having AI in your business. You will not feel that way in two years, I promise. Yeah, and so now's the time.

SPEAKER_03: 42:22

Absolutely. Well, thank you for joining us, Jenna. It was great to meet you. It's great to talk to another woman who has a different perspective about technology. I love that. We're gonna share links to her AI agency and resources and our notes. And uh, just encourage our listeners to just remember that you know, technology is not always have to be, it doesn't always have to be scary, it can be helpful and it can give you time back for what really is important to you and your life. So just keep that in mind, take baby steps. Don't you don't have to dive into the 12 foot deep side of the pool yet. Just kind of wade in a little bit at a time. And I think that if people take the time to do that and um follow some of the guidelines and steps you've given us, I think that AI can be really uh a really productive tool, especially for women entrepreneurs. So thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. No problem.

SPEAKER_02: 43:18

Thank you all for listening. Let us know if you have any thoughts or comments, and we'll talk to you next time.

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