The Unsure Entrepreneur

The Unsure Entrepreneur_Emily Baillie

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Entrepreneurship, digital marketing, AI education, business growth, Compass Content Marketing, Canadian SME, marketing strategies, social media optimization, risk mitigation, business challenges, AI tools, content creation, customer service, business adaptation, marketing plan.

SPEAKERS
Roger Pierce, Emily Baillee

Intro 00:00
You're listening to the unsure entrepreneur podcast with Roger Pierce, whether you're scribbling business ideas on a napkin or wrestling with the should I shouldn't I question. Get ready to explore the realities, the risks and the rewards of entrepreneurship as we share the stories, scars and successes of small business owners.

Roger Pierce 00:22
Hi, there and welcome to the unsure entrepreneur Podcast. I'm Roger Pierce. Thanks for joining. So excited to introduce my guest today. Let me tell you a little bit about her. Emily Bailey is a digital marketing strategist, AI educator and speaker with over 15 years of experience helping organizations nationwide to innovate and grow. She specializes in delivering practical training and simplifies complex topics like AI and marketing for entrepreneurs, marketers and nonprofits. Emily works with organizations including REMAX United Way and the Canadian Marketing Association to navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape that is changing real quick. Emily champions AI as a tool to complement and enhance human creativity and talent, not replace it. She's also a part time professor at McMaster University and Humber College, where she teaches courses on AI driven marketing strategies and social media optimization. Welcome Emily.

Emily Baillee 01:20
Thank you so much, Roger. Thanks for having me.

Roger Pierce 01:23
Fantastic to have you. We're going to talk about your business background, some of the lessons you've learned along the way, and if you don't mind, share some of your AI expertise for small business owners, because it's on the mind of every entrepreneur out there, and there's a lot of questions absolutely before we get into all that, let's start with some good news. Compass, content marketing, your company, has been nominated for the best professional services 2024 award by the Canadian SME Small Business Magazine, National Business Awards. That's quite an honor, and a big deal. How does that feel?

Emily Baillee 01:59
It feels great. It's been the culmination of many years of work and growth and navigating my way through entrepreneurship, but it's been a real pleasure to have worked with so many fantastic organizations across Canada and to be able to help empower small businesses large businesses and nonprofits to grow in a way that works for them.

Roger Pierce 02:24
It's a fantastic honor. Congratulations. I'm happy for you, and I hope you'll get it. I'm sure you'll do well. So Emily, let's go back and talk about your inception. You've got this marketing agency. You've been at it for what 15 years now, what inspired you to get into all this?

Emily Baillee 02:41
Great question. So the early phase of my career was spent working in let's call them nine to five jobs, honing my skills, learning my craft, gaining expertise, and observing people above me in the sort of hierarchy and leadership and so on, and sort of readying myself to take that leap into entrepreneurship. So about 10 years ago, I started my own business, compass, content marketing, and things have evolved a lot since then. I think one of the biggest things I've learned about being an entrepreneur is you have to adapt, and you're really sort of learning as you go, in some ways. When I first started my business, I was doing, done for you, marketing, social media, marketing, content creation, consulting and so on. That was a fantastic way to contribute to a lot of small businesses across Canada on a fractional sort of sense or a contract. Now, since then, I've really been moving or leaning into more the training and the workshops and the consulting for bigger businesses and small businesses alike. So it was really an evolution. But at the inception of my business, what I did was I held on to my nine to five. I know some of the folks in your audience are thinking about taking the leap into entrepreneurship. I'm not a huge risk taker. I know that about myself. I didn't have family money to fall back on or husband to support me in the background, what I did was I kept my nine to five job, and then I started taking clients on the side, so evenings, weekends, sometimes even lunch hours I was spending, starting to build my business that way, so that when I took that leap, and I officially started my business, and I no longer had my nine to five, I wasn't starting at Zero. I already had some clients, I already had some contacts, and I had sort of got the ball rolling.

So for those who are sort of considering, you know, taking that leap, but not entirely sure I share that so that, you know, there is a way where you can kind of transition and sort of test the waters a little bit. I also told myself, Okay, I'll try. For a year, and I'll see how it goes, and then from there, I'll decide what I want to do. And of course, that first year was overall successful. There's it was not perfect, but I realized, okay, this is, this is something that I can do, and my confidence grew from there. Fast forward to 10 years from then, and you know, I'm speaking on stages. I'm traveling different parts of Ontario and beyond, and working with organizations that I find really exciting, and organizations that kind of align with my values too. So it was sort of a process, you could say, but one that I'm open to sharing and talking about, because I don't think that entrepreneurs should harbor secrets. I think we can all learn from one another and be open about the struggles, but also the path forward from that.

Roger Pierce 05:49
We are a community for sure, so much to unpack there. So if I understood you right, you said you had a nine to five job, and you started your business kind of on the side as a side hustle, and then when the timing and the money was right, I'm assuming you made the leap, that's right. Wow. So what was that like, keeping both fires burning, the business and the job?

Emily Baillee 06:11
It was busy. I mean, at that stage of my life, I had no kids, I was single, I was renting an apartment in Toronto, so my responsibilities, you know, I didn't have any pets, Roger. I didn't have a lot of you know, I had a social life, but that wasn't my primary focus. So, yeah, I did put in a lot of extra hours, that's for sure, but I was willing to do that, and that didn't feel like a sacrifice to me. I think that gave me a bit more of a feeling of security. When I was growing up, my parents had a business, and even they were like, Are you sure you want to work for yourself? Like they weren't saying, Go for it. Go for it. They were like, I don't know. It's not for the faint of heart, like I'm getting messages like this, so I'm I'm cautiously, sort of approaching this prospect and feeling it out a little bit, putting in those extra hours, evenings, weekends, I was okay with that, because that's what worked for me.

Roger Pierce 07:05
That's fascinating and so refreshing to hear, because I talk about that a lot in the podcast and some of my writing, the risk is the biggest concern, as you mentioned, for entrepreneurs, and if you can find a way to mitigate that risk, going into it like you've done, test the waters. Give yourself a one year window to make or break it. I love that a self deadline. You kept the job worked extra hard. That is, to me, the right way to get into your own small business.

Emily Baillee 07:33
I recommend people do that too, because I think there's a perception that comes, perhaps partly from social media, people see entrepreneurs and they think it's like sexy, and they think, Oh, I don't like my job, so I want to go be an entrepreneur. But the truth is, like, you know this, Roger, there's a lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes that doesn't make it onto social media. What you see on social media is a highlight reel of people's lives or people's businesses. So I think just understanding what it feels like and what it's like trying to get clients, not every client is going to be a fantastic client, how to navigate challenges, how to learn about cash flow, how to learn about taxes, like all that stuff you have to learn and and I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs to coach them and consult for them, and they're still learning. It's not like you just learn how to run a business and then you're good to go. You have to adapt. And certainly, COVID forced a lot of people to have to adapt as well. And there's always something new to learn. Now that we have aI on the frontier that's constantly changing things as well and impacting how people run their businesses. The technology is evolving very quickly, and entrepreneurs, I think, are also figuring out, okay, how do I navigate that, and how do I implement that in my business now?

Roger Pierce 08:55
And we'll get to the AI. I'm dying to get to it, but I'm still so so focused on your your startup journey. Forgive me, you mentioned so many great things there, one of which is the multitasking and the hats new entrepreneurs have to wear. And a lot of people aren't aware of that. You know, the whole premise of the show the unsure entrepreneur is to give you the good, the bad and the ugly of entrepreneurship so you can make an informed choice. And a lot of people say, You know what? I'm really good at creating things or graphic design, that's what I'm going to get into, get into doing. And that's fine. You start your business and say graphic design, but they forget that there's bookkeeping, there's sales, there's running out to get printer ink, there's cleaning up the floors at night. There's dealing with the government, there's red tape, there's all these different things that in a job, you know, everyone had a different role, right? In a big company, there was someone down the hall that handled paychecks, that's right. But as an entrepreneur, you're doing it all. It's overwhelming, isn't it?

Emily Baillee 09:49
And speaking of paychecks, I'll be honest, there is an advantage to knowing you're going to get paid X amount every other week, and that's your earning for the year. Whereas with entrepreneur. Ownership. There can be highs, there can be lows. I'm a consultant, educator, speaker, etc. I don't have same amount of money going into my bank account. Every other week. I get paid in like, lump sums sometimes, and the money is is working well for me now, but it did take some time to get there. So I think if you want that reliability, like the cost of living can be quite high. My partner has a nine to five job, which is beneficial, I think, for us. But yeah, it's there's a lot of things to consider, and it's good to talk about these things, because the reality behind it is not always as glam or as sexy as some people think, but at the same time, I do think it's a wonderful way to live your life, if you're inclined for it, and you're the type of person that can thrive and learn new things on a consistent basis, and you're up for a bit of an adventure.

Roger Pierce 10:54
It's not like it appears on TV, is it exactly, exactly or in the movies? Yes, yes. And that's one of my beefs with the media. Then to gloss over the struggles of everyday entrepreneurs, I've got a stat. The average Canadian self employed person makes $38,000 a year, yeah, far less than you would make with a post secondary degree in any job. Yes, right? Yeah. So this is what the media doesn't really cover and talk about, you know, the overnight billionaires with their apps and their capital investments. And isn't that great, but most small business owners, and 99% of Canadian small businesses, or businesses in Canada are small businesses are struggling and don't make a lot of money, especially in the first couple years. So yeah, you're saying about cash flow and paychecks, save up your money, create some sort of nest egg that's right, underestimate your revenues and overestimate your expenses, and create that cushion to help mitigate the risk, as I'm sure you did.

Emily Baillee 11:51
Absolutely and have a good marketing plan, because in this economy or in the digital space like it's very crowded, so people aren't just going to automatically find you. You have to get your brand or business in front of people, and you have to do that over and over and over again. It's not like you just put your offer out there sometimes and you get a whole new roster of clients. I mean, maybe if you're lucky, but most businesses have to keep a steady foot on the gas when it comes to marketing and sales, so that they can keep filling up that pipeline and keep converting new customers.

Roger Pierce 12:30
And that's the biggest shocker to most new entrepreneurs, is that they have to spend 80% of their time on marketing and selling.

Emily Baillee 12:37
It's hard for some people, if you don't have a marketing background, a lot of my clients that I work with they don't come from a marketing background. It's not their passion. It's not where they love to spend their time, and that's where I come in through a one to one coaching or strategy session is helping them figure out a plan for their marketing that is going to carry their business forward and not have them spending too much time. You can get a lot of time spent, or you can waste a lot of time on social media, for example, it is a business tool. It's a platform where perhaps you can attract more customers if it's done correctly. It's not for everyone, but looking at ways that fit with their resourcing, their skills, their particular budget and their particular goals, there's no one size fits all when it comes to marketing for any type of business.

Roger Pierce 13:33
You speak about social media (shout out to our mutual friend Andrew Jenkins at Volterra digital for all of your social media management needs). It's a complex platform and strategy, and certainly should be left to the experts. So I've been meaning to get you on the podcast for a while to pick your brain about artificial intelligence. So here we go. You have a unique take, Emily on AI, I know, and you recently said on the social post something that caught my eye. You said, I believe technology, especially AI, shouldn't feel out of reach. It has the power to transform businesses, careers and industries, but only if we make it accessible and create welcoming spaces to learn. Can you expand on that?

Emily Baillee 14:13
For me, absolutely. So I think there's a perception out there among some entrepreneurs, some folks from all walks of life in Canada and beyond that, this type of technology, artificial intelligence, we're talking about now, chat, GPT, there's many other AI platforms as well. It's for techie people. It's for, you know, big CEOs. It's for people with a computer science background. It's for people that are working at big companies. It's for men, white men, even perhaps, I'm not saying all of these perceptions are accurate, but I think some people are feeling excluded from the conversation. They're feeling excluded from the implementation side of things. They don't necessarily know where to start. They've been hearing about AI. Certainly, it's in the news a lot Roger, and there's a lot of hype around AI. There's also a lot of fear surrounding AI as well. Are the robots coming for our jobs? Et cetera, et cetera. And people just don't necessarily feel like it's a conversation that they're being included in if you're not working downtown Toronto in big company like, where do you start? Some folks I meet in my workshops and training sessions have done a fantastic job of educating themselves about artificial intelligence. I just love meeting folks like this, because they've taken the initiative on their own to explore AI. They've poked around on the internet. They're reading on about it, and they're also experimenting with the tools themselves that truly can be the best way to learn. But other folks are, I think, feeling like it's not for them, or they just, they just don't know where to go to get some assistance. And I think my workshops and training sessions do well at is breaking down some of these complex concepts and terminology and translating it into plain language, eliminating the hype, eliminating the fear, and showing people rather than telling people how exactly they could start using it for their business. So I'll give you an example. In a lot of my workshops, I will encourage folks to take some time, pull out their laptop, pull out their phone, and I'll give them a prompt. A prompt is a sentence or two, sort of like a command that you would put into an AI tool. It could be chat, GPT, it could be Microsoft co pilot, it could be something else. And I'll have them copy and paste that prompt, maybe tailor it a little bit to their type of business or their industry, and then put it into chatgpt and see what they get back. So taking that sort of Fear Factor out of it, giving them the tools, the step by step, and then talking it over with them, walking around the room, answering questions and so on, not everyone is comfortable raising their hand in a big room and asking a question. I always say there are no silly questions. We're all learning AI as it develops, even if you call yourself an AI expert, guess what? You're still learning something new every day. So I think what my sessions have been able to do is sort of bridge that gap between the tech Bros and the Canadian entrepreneurship community, which, as you know, Roger is not all made up of wealthy, middle aged white men, there's women, there's indigenous people, there's people of all age groups, people of all education levels, and they need to be included in this as well, because they need to first adapt to sort of stay current, but also they can find more growth, I think, in their business using this technology in the right way.

Roger Pierce 18:14
I know you do workshops for this training. Do you also do one to ones?

Emily Baillee 18:18
I do yes, a lot of clients will Book One to One sessions with me. They can do them from anywhere, because they are typically virtual, and we can cover a lot of ground, because then we're getting down to the nitty gritty of what is it that their business does, what's their workflow look like? And then how can we add in, perhaps some AI tools that I could recommend that would help to kind of supercharge some of that work that they're already doing. Not to take away anyone's jobs, if you're looking to fire your staff and replace them with robots, Roger, I'm not your gal, but if you want to take a look at okay, how can we maybe shave a bit of time out of your day. Instead of spending eight hours, as you know, sat at your desk, maybe you're spending six or seven hours sat at your desk and and getting AI to help you do some of the work that you are already doing just a little bit faster.

Roger Pierce 19:15
Absolutely, and I'm living proof of proof of that. Preparing for the interview today, I was using AI, of course, to come up with some questions. And you know, it produced a couple stats. Here's one, most people are using it for content creation. 69% other people, 46% of business owners are using it to automate work without job cuts. To one of your other points, it's not going to replace us, it's going to augment us, isn't it?

Emily Baillee 19:40
Yeah, and I think we're entering an era where entrepreneurs and marketing professionals and really people from all different industries will be working alongside artificial intelligence tools. We're not necessarily going to use them to replace us. There will be some. Some job displacement in our economy, for sure, but I think the most successful workers in the future will be the ones who can work with AI and get good results from artificial intelligence tools like chat, GPT and many others, even folks in the medical community, doctors, nurses, researchers, they are using artificial intelligence too to help them to do their work. So there's applications across all different types of industries. Today we're talking about small businesses, but Canada's small business community is diverse. There's folks in all different industries, and I'm pretty confident when I say that there's probably a use for AI in almost any type of business at this stage, what I see as a quick win, or, let's call it, low hanging fruit, to use a bit of a cliche, is with your marketing so using AI like you said, to come up with, Say, interview questions for a podcast or email marketing concepts or using it to brainstorm some new ideas for your marketing strategy for your business, help you respond to customer service, questions, complaints, correspondence, things like that. I'm not saying get chat GPT to do all of these things for you, but rather help you in that process and help you to co create and speed up the volume of work that you're already doing, even sales calls.

Roger Pierce 21:29
You know, hey, chat GPT give me a paragraph on company, x, y, z, I'm interviewing tomorrow for a possible customer, and it'll spit out a nice summary. You got to check your facts, of course, yes, but it'll spit out a nice summary of what the company does. Who's there, if you want it to who their customers are. It's helping you do all this legwork.

Emily Baillee 21:52
Yeah, right, yes. And now there's something called Search GPT, which I want to mention, because AI can now be used as a search engine. Folks who have chatgpt, there's also a tool called perplexity that has a similar function. You can use this as an alternative to Google or Bing. So if you're interested, you can just hop on and check it out. It doesn't cost anything to sign up. You could start with perplexity, if you wish, but this is the new frontier of search as well. So businesses who are tracking where their web traffic is coming from, keep an eye out for chat GPT, because you might start getting some web traffic from chat G, P, T, pointing people to your business, to your website. So it really is changing the way we operate as marketers and business owners, and there's more changes on the horizon.

Roger Pierce 22:45
One of the things I'm using, more and more to your point is I use Chrome as my main browser, and Gemini, it spits up AI overview above the search results right, which I find very helpful.

Emily Baillee 22:57
That summary, absolutely, it will analyze the information for you. So where Google gives you a list of links with a little description, AI will go a step further and analyze the content of those entries on the web and create lists for you. For example, create summaries for you. Et cetera, et cetera. So you do have to fact check. I don't want to underestimate the importance of that fact check everything, particularly when you're using it for business. You want to make sure that the quality of information that you put out for your business is of the highest quality. Don't put out what's called AI slop, which is just AI generated low quality information. People can spot that and they don't like it, but at the same time, you can work with AI tools to finesse that information. Put your own touch on it. Make sure you proofread, edit, make sure it sounds like you don't. Make it sound like a robot and use that to build it and to grow.

Roger Pierce 24:00
And if you haven't yet dipped your toe into the waters of AI, you're not alone. I've got a nice stat here from our friends at the Business Data Lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, they published a report last fall that says almost three quarters, 73% of Canadian businesses have not even considered using Gen AI yet. So there's a lot of people out there still very hesitant, aren't they?

Emily Baillee 24:25
There is a lot of hesitation, and I think it's for a number of reasons.
They may not see the direct value of AI in their business. They may go, Well, we're doing just fine as it is. Why do we need to implement something new? It could also be a bit of the fear factor. There's some security concerns with AI for sure, privacy, et cetera, et cetera. There's bias in the systems. There's a lot of things that our society and our technology leaders have not quite worked out. Very little regulation at this stage, very little governance. I do understand some of the concerns or. Hesitation of people not wanting to dip their toe in the water, but to those folks, I would say, just give it a try and do something that is low stakes, do something perhaps that doesn't even relate that closely to your business. Just to experiment and start getting more comfortable with tools like chatgpt, you can go to www.chatgpt.com now you don't even have to have a login or a subscription or anything like that. You can just test it out. For fun, I have asked Chatgpt to come up with recipes that I can cook, and you can have some fun with that. I'll give you an example. One time, I had a lot of leftover eggplant and onions, just two random ingredients. I did not know what to do with them, but I don't like wasting food. I asked chatgpt to give me some recipe suggestions using those two ingredients, and it gave me some really great ideas. So you can have some fun with it, and you can ask it to make a fitness plan for you, or a meal plan, or something that has nothing to do with your business, and get a feel for how it works, how you go back and forth with the chat bot. And I think that can be a good place for folks to start if they've never used AI tools. I offer free AI and marketing tips emailed to folks on my mailing list each week. If you'd like to sign up, I'd be happy to have you in my online community. Then you're going to get plain language tips, advice, insights on the changing role of AI in marketing, it's geared towards small business owners and non profit professionals. So I'll give a link to that, and that might help also to decode some of what's going on out there.

Roger Pierce 26:50
Well, I appreciate the offer. I'll put the link in the show notes so everyone can access it when this podcast is released. And for those entrepreneurs who worry, you know are suspicious of the return on investment. Microsoft tells us that companies using AI receive $3.50 cent return on their $1 investment. So for every dollar invested, you can expect three and a half times back, according to research by Microsoft. So there is a profit motivation to using AI, in my opinion, too,

Emily Baillee 27:22
I think so. And also, you don't necessarily have to make any big purchases when you're just starting out with AI. Do be aware that a lot of AI systems will have a free trial period, or there may be a free version of the tool that you can test out so you can get familiar with it. There's a lot of choice out there in the marketplace right now in terms of large language models and also generative AI tools, data analysis tools. So you want to find the one that's right for you, and that can take a bit of trial and error. So I would encourage folks to spend a bit of time in their schedule. You might need to carve out a bit of time. I know folks are busy, but if you want to play around with the tools first and see what makes sense to invest in, you're not necessarily spending a lot of money up front. It's going to cost you a bit of your time, I would say. But if you test the waters first, that can be a good approach. And you know, in my one to one sessions, I'm always happy to make more specific recommendations to folks based on what their goals are, how their workflow operates, what type of business are they? Because there are certainly some tools I think that can be more advantageous than others, and you want to have some AI tools that fit in with the tech tools that you're already using.

Roger Pierce 28:42
Great advice. So I'm hearing, you know, start small. Don't be afraid, and get in touch with Emily.

Emily Baillee 28:47
Absolutely. I'm always happy to help answer any questions folks may have and customize something that's a little bit more unique to that person's particular organization.

Roger Pierce 28:58
At the end of the day, people are going to realize that it frees us up from menial labor, intensive tasks, right? Like I'm writer, I write. I gotta say I'm not relying on AI or Chat GPT to write original content, but to get me started, to frame it, to do an outline, to break that writer's block who it's a huge time saver. And when I'm freed up from doing some of that kind of work, I can focus more on bigger picture stuff, strategies, maybe get out and do some sales, right? All things that are important for a small business owner. And that's where we need to look at AI. It really is going to liberate us in a lot of ways. I

Emily Baillee 29:36
hope so. I mean, that is the sort of promise of AI. I believe it can be used very effectively in businesses, especially for folks that are feeling like they're doing it all themselves, or they have a lot on their plate, which, let's face it, is a lot of people right now. I don't think that the technology is like a silver bullet, like some people do. I think we also have to consider what happens to the people left behind. You know, as a society, how is this going to affect our children? There's a lot of sort of ethical questions that I'm watching and thinking about too. But you're right. The promise for a business owner at this stage is that some of those more menial, automated tasks, or more menial tasks, can be automated and freeing up the time spent to focus on those bigger picture things.

Roger Pierce 30:29
Fantastic. And I'm going to share Emily's contact information, the websites, the newsletter, sign up, all that good stuff in the show notes. We're going to head toward the wrap up, Emily, but I want to ask you. You know, for a piece of advice could be aI related, or it can be relating to your business, startup career. What's one piece of advice you would give someone who's at the very early stages of this journey, looking to get into a business, wondering if they should go forward or not.

Emily Baillee 30:54
Talk to people who have already walked that road and talk to them in a private forum, like a zoom call, if you can get it, take them out for coffee, if they're willing. That's when people will tell you the real deal. And don't go by what you see on social media. That is a highlight reel. I don't care if it's LinkedIn or Instagram or something else, once you have those real conversations with people, you can get a bit more honest and authentic. That's what you're gonna find out if that is the path that you truly want to walk. So I teach at McMaster University and Humber College, as you know, and I do have students who aspire to be an entrepreneur, but sometimes it's because they see like a fancy car, and they want a fancy car too. You know, it's not like that. I do think that's the biggest piece. Is like, do your research, test the waters a little bit with maybe a side project, like I did, and start building your network of people, because you're going to need that in the long run.

Roger Pierce 31:49
Great advice. I'm glad to hear some of your students are aspiring entrepreneurs. Canada needs more entrepreneurs. That's my rally cry. Agree. Well, listen, that's all the time we have today, but I want to thank you very much Emily for being here. I really enjoyed our conversation. So did I. Thank you so much. But before we go, if a listener wants to get in touch, and I'll put this in the show notes, what's the best way to connect with you?

Emily Baillee 32:14
They can find me on LinkedIn, at Emily Baillie. They can also find me on my website, at Compasscontent.ca.

Roger Pierce 32:22
Perfect. And again, I'll share that in the show notes. Thank you so much again, Emily and to our listeners, thank you for being here, and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from the unsure entrepreneur. Bye for now.

Outro 32:35
That's it for this episode of The unsure entrepreneur podcast. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss other candid conversations with small business owners and be sure to check us out at Unsureentrepreneur.com.