Branding and messaging expert Shannon Bailey shares her entrepreneurial journey and explains (starting at 11:10) why clear positioning and concise messaging are essential in the AI-driven marketing era.

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business.

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Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• The Consulting Bible by Alan Weiss
• Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller

Other Podcast Episodes:

Artificial Intelligence Episodes

Marketing Episodes

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:15):

This is Henry Lopez. Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. My special guest today is Shannon Bailey. Shannon, welcome to the show.

Shannon Bailey (00:22):

Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Henry Lopez (00:24):

I’m looking forward to this conversation. Shannon is a branding and messaging expert. I’ll tell you a little bit more about her in a moment, but she’s with us today to share her entrepreneurial journey. We’ll talk about that briefly and how she helps businesses with marketing. In particular, we’re going to focus on this conversation on marketing in the new AI era. And so small business marketing doesn’t become necessarily more technical as Shannon will explain in the AI era, but it becomes more strategic. And so as AI reshapes how customers search for and choose businesses like ours, then as Shannon explains clear positioning, strong messaging and earned authority matter far more than SEO tricks or generic content. And so we’re going to explore that today in this conversation. You can find all of the Howa business resources, including the show notes page for this episode, and learn more about my one-on-one and group coaching program@thehowabusiness.com.

Henry Lopez (01:17):

I also invite you to please consider joining our Howa business community on Patreon, and please subscribe wherever you might be listening so you don’t miss any new episodes. Let me tell you a little bit more about Shannon. Shannon Bailey, as I said, is a strategist and branding and messaging expert, and she helps organizations translate their value into clear strategic messaging that drives action and growth. She’s the founder of Make Progress Strategies and Make Progress strategies where she partners with businesses to align brand positioning and messaging with their growth objectives with more than 20 years on the front lines of working directly with clients, Shannon brings a practical execution focused approach, connecting real customer insight to business strategy and equipping the teams with the clients that she works with so that their messaging can actually be useful. It’s been a pleasure as I’ve had the opportunity to serve as her business coach over the last year plus, and so I’m really excited to have her here to share her background and how she’s helping companies today. And this topic of marketing in the era of ai. Shannon lives in the Arlington, Virginia area. So once again, Shannon Bailey, welcome to the show.

Shannon Bailey (02:24):

Hi, thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Henry Lopez (02:26):

Absolutely. So let’s start with briefly how you got to this point of owning your business now for some time. But can you give us briefly the story of your career? I know I saw that at university you studied marketing and other subjects, but what led you to go into the career that you did have?

Shannon Bailey (02:44):

Yeah, so I went to Clemson University and got a of science degree in graphic communications and also the minor in marketing. A lot of people hear graphic communications and they think graphic design, and there’s definitely a visual element to it, but it’s very much printing. You’re learning about a very technical manufacturing process. And as you know, printing was a critical communications channel for a very long time, and I grew up with parents and sales. My mom had her own business. And so there was a pretty, I think, kind of a natural tenacity that I brought coming out of college and kind of an excitement to hit the ground running. And so I got a sales job early on to sell printing. There’s always room for sales reps. Absolutely. That’s where the career started. It was a very boots on the ground, started with a cold network, cold calling, driving around in my car, having to really build something from nothing.

Shannon Bailey (03:41):

But it was a really exciting time. I loved Arlington and being in the DC area, and I did that for about 10 years. Wow. Notably, when I actually started my career, it was the same time that the iPhone entered the marketplace. And so just you hear that printing is dead, it’s a very disrupted industry. I kind of started my career with that. And then layered on top, you have this iPhone that disrupted everything. So those formidable years, I was really, there’s a level of hustle that comes with sales, but then also just this kind of fighting a curve that was happening. And I got very lucky about five years in to move to a business that was super innovative in the space. They were very realistic about the disruption that was happening and decided to diversify. So started to expand from printing into all sorts of different things, creative services, marketing automation, a lot of efficiencies around the use of the tool. And so there was just a lot happening in those early years where I was learning to get to the point quickly, make sure that something was relevant, make sure there was a lot of value and the things that I was selling and representing. And then you kind of fast forward, I’m sorry if you kind of keep going with the layers

Henry Lopez (04:53):

Here, lemme interrupt you. I want to go back a couple of things that you’ve mentioned. So first of all, where did this interest in print come from? What do you think sparked that in you when you were younger? I’m curious.

Shannon Bailey (05:04):

Well, so I will say, in all honesty, I did not know that that was a degree that was available.

Henry Lopez (05:10):

I would’ve known it either. Yeah.

Shannon Bailey (05:11):

And no, I kind of stumbled into it as it goes. So I started in engineering, which proved to be very technical and hard. Always had the very technical brain good at math, but engineering wasn’t going to stick. So I moved to a business degree and throughout that process I met somebody in the program. And so graphic communications, it’s a bachelor science degree, so it’s this really great blend of technical art business. And I’ll also say just the Clemson program has an incredible hiring process. So there’s internships throughout the process requirements. And at the time I graduated, they had a hundred percent placement rate. So that was a very enticing of

Henry Lopez (05:54):

Course. And then I want to talk about the sales. You did sales initially. I believe more and more, and I’m not alone in this belief, obviously that experience early in a career or early in life can be so critical to setting you up for success later no matter what you do, because you learned early on to deal with rejection.

Shannon Bailey (06:16):

Yes.

Henry Lopez (06:16):

So do you believe that that has helped you then, especially as you move forward to running your own business?

Shannon Bailey (06:22):

Oh, 100%. I have to say, I feel like there’s a level of comfort that I’m able to have now owning my own business because I understand the sales process and not only the processes to build your pipeline and close and convert and all of those processes, but also just kind of the roller coaster that is sales and managing the ebbs and flows and the process feast or famine and a lot in between. So knowing what that feels like and what I need to do to what activities I need to do specifically to start to drive new business activity, I know and can anticipate those things a little bit better with that background.

Henry Lopez (07:01):

Yeah, absolutely. And so going back to your parents, they were in sales and they were business owners as well, is that what you said?

Shannon Bailey (07:07):

Yes. My dad was a lifetime sales rep and my mom opened her own consulting firm doing nonprofit development, and she did that for about 15 years.

Henry Lopez (07:17):

So you had those influences early on. I always find it interesting sometimes, and there’s a lot of research done on this, sometimes children of business owners want nothing to do with business because often all they saw was the headaches, the problems. But what do you think, if you think back, what was the influence on you? Let me ask it this way, did you aspire back then to have your own business or did you want no part of that?

Shannon Bailey (07:39):

I can’t say there was a specific aspiration to have my own business. There wasn’t also a sense of that’s not for me. I think the coming to having my own business now was really an evolution of my career and just where life brought me in the chapter to start that. So it wasn’t really one or the other.

Henry Lopez (07:57):

Okay. Alright. Alright. So let’s move forward to then that decision to shift from having a corporate career very successful to deciding to leave that all behind and start your business. What do you think led to that? What were the major things that drove you to that point?

Shannon Bailey (08:13):

So the company I was with was, there were some shifts in priorities happening. And so there was an acknowledgement on my part that I needed to start to think about my next move. And in that thought process, I did a fair amount of job searching, soul searching, thinking about what I wanted to do. And in the process of starting to think about what the next move would be, I was really having a hard time coming to the conclusion of wanting to work for somebody else.

Shannon Bailey (08:42):

I had given a lot to the other company, to my teams, and really there was a very big sense of fatigue with the idea of going to someone else’s company and navigating all of that, doing it all over again, investing in the teams, all of those things. And so I started to, and I will say coincidentally and serendipitously at that time, I had a client approach me with some ideas of maybe there’s a way for work that was out of scope for the company I was with, for me to maybe help with that. And so that kind of sparked, I think the idea of I can do my own business and I can start this. So it was kind of a confluence of events. A few things happened at the same time and off we go. Kind of wait for it.

Henry Lopez (09:28):

This is Enri Lopez, briefly pausing this episode to invite you to schedule a free coaching consultation with me. I welcome the opportunity to chat with you about your business plans and offer the guidance and accountability that we all need to achieve success. As an experienced small business owner myself, I understand the challenges you’re experiencing and often it’s about helping you ask the right questions to help you make progress towards achieving your goals. Whether it’s getting started with your first business or growing and maybe exiting your existing small business, I can help you get there. To find out more about my business coaching services and to schedule your free coaching consultation, please visit the how of business.com. Take that next step today towards finally realizing your business ownership dreams. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Now, the question I always like to ask people is, do you now think you would’ve liked to have done it sooner or was the timing what it needed to be in your life and in your career?

Shannon Bailey (10:31):

I think for me, the timing was right. It was a good time to do it.

Henry Lopez (10:34):

Yeah,

Shannon Bailey (10:35):

That’s

Henry Lopez (10:36):

Fair. Alright, great. Thanks for sharing that background. We can talk a lot more about that, but thanks for sharing that journey and that inspiration that serves all of us. Again, as I’ve shared with you, having transitioned from the corporate world, it’s always scary to let go of that and let go of that investment that you’ve made in building that career. It’s scary to let that go, right? But as you articulate very well, what usually happens has happened for me, there’s usually an event that happens, either we’re transitioning from company to company or we get laid off like I was, or something happens and then you’re at that point it’s like, you know what, let’s go ahead and take this leap. It’s very common. Yeah. Alright, let’s get into this topic that you’ve given a lot of thought to and that you help companies with beyond marketing is marketing, especially from a small business owner perspective in the era of ai. So let’s frame the topic here. What are some of these challenges that you’re seeing and observing and helping people with marketing in the AI era?

Shannon Bailey (11:32):

Well, I think the fundamental thing that we all need to think about and really understand when it comes to AI is that it is a new mechanism for people to search and find information. So whether they are doing a search for a specific product or service or even doing travel research or researching for TVs, people are changing how they are finding information. And with AI specifically, the results are very different from things that you would expect from a Google search. So instead of that prompt, that’s then leading to a list of businesses or sponsored or paid opportunities for people to get to the top of the list. AI is coming in and acting as a filter and it’s synthesizing and it’s not just giving a list of ideas, it’s recommending people and companies and products. So it’s the user experience coupled with the results that come through a tool like ai

Henry Lopez (12:33):

And what you talk about and you have found different components here then to be successful is my messaging and positioning needs to be as clear as ever or certainly very clear in this new arena. Correct. Explain that and why that’s so much more important now.

Shannon Bailey (12:52):

Yeah, that’s exactly right. So when we think about the clear message and positioning, because AI is filtering and synthesizing things, there’s an element of thought process and kind of pulling of different information sources. So before we think about SEO and you were looking at the search and keywords and how the Google algorithms were finding and seeking specific things, those kind of spiders or algorithms or calculus that we were able to rely on that really drove a lot of marketing and content generation activity is no longer driving the search results. So AI needs a quick answer as to understand what you do and who you serve, what problem you solve, and the gobbly gook that can come out of elongated or fluffy marketing jargon, it can get messy. And it confuses ai, it confuses your customer, and hence it confuses ai. So that clarity and conciseness is really important.

Henry Lopez (13:53):

Yeah, no, it’s interesting. I did an episode recently on this topic with an SEO expert, and we talked about how SEO really in the world of AI remains the same. But the point is that you’re clarifying is that what’s getting more exposed, tell me if I’m interpreting it correctly, Shannon, is if your marketing message is fuzzy or unclear or full of jargon, that gets amplified not in a good way in the AI era. Is that fair?

Shannon Bailey (14:22):

That’s fair, yes.

Henry Lopez (14:24):

So it requires us to be that much more on target and in alignment on our messaging and that messaging is clear and that it drives action. Is that fair?

Shannon Bailey (14:34):

That’s right. And I think the other thing to think about is we’re not just talking about your website. The website is the obvious place where a lot of our brands show up and where a lot of information is shared about the company. There’s also your LinkedIn page or any other social, any places where you’re showing up as a business. If you are part of industry groups and your business is listed and there’s a description, AI is able to scan all of these different places instantaneously. And so it really is looking at the collective snapshot of your company or your personal brand, and it’s pulling all those things together. So not only is it the website, but it’s also thinking about that clear, consistent messaging across all of your channels

Henry Lopez (15:20):

And your reviews and all of that. So to that point, I think that we don’t no longer as easily control the narrative necessarily in the traditional way. That is just what’s on my website. No, no, it’s what other people are saying about you, it’s what you’re sharing on other platforms. It’s all of that that AI is aggregating. You mentioned the tv and I just so happened to have to buy a new TV earlier or late last year, and that’s how I went about it. Now, typically, I would’ve done a Google search or search for best TVs of 2025 or gone to Consumer Reports. And not that those aren’t great sources, but instead I started in chat GPT and said, here’s what I’m looking for. Here are my needs. Ask me questions to help me determine what’s the best TV for me. It is in the living room, there’s lots of light, there’s not lots of light. I wanted this size and it helped me through that thought process, and then I could see what it was doing. It was aggregating all of this content that exists out there to help me arrive at the tv. And so one of the ways which it dramatically is changing the websites is by the time I went to the Samsung site or the place where I bought this Samsung tv, I had already made my decision that that’s where I was going. Right?

Shannon Bailey (16:27):

Yes. Which is common. I mean, it’s not new in this day and age that people have done their research before they come to

Henry Lopez (16:34):

You. That’s right. That’s right.

Shannon Bailey (16:35):

And so I think a big difference for AI is that it actually makes it a little bit easier for some of us, especially small business owners and small businesses where sometimes prior there might have been this perception of it being a losing battle, just the level of content you need to produce, pay to play, losing traction to the big guys because you’re the little guy. And that becomes, there was a real obstacle and kind of a limiting variable there, time and money. But I would say now in this era of ai, there’s actually a sense of authenticity and that more of us can be found. But again, it’s kind of critical to make sure that people understand who you are very quickly and what problems you solve. I think it also goes to this sense of, I mentioned marketing jargon and fluffy language, talking in a very human conversational voice. When you think about the prompts, everybody talks about the AI prompts. They’re not putting technical things in the prompts. It’s simple, clear language, and those are things that as small business owners, we can do. We can make our websites clear, we can make them concise, we can use AI to help us with that, put in the big long descriptions, and then make them shorter and shorter and shorter. And so there’s a level of accessibility that AI can bring with us as small business owners to be found by our prospective clients and customers.

Henry Lopez (17:58):

Agreed. Agreed. Alright. Do you also talk about earned authority? Can you explain what that means here in this context? What do you mean by earned authority?

Shannon Bailey (18:06):

Yeah, so I think it’s the idea of elevating your expertise and making sure that you’re able to be found in different places in areas where in your industry it’s generating content on your blog, it’s generating LinkedIn posts, it’s coming onto podcasts. And so the idea of earned authority is again, that sense of it’s not always pay to play. I think that the whole idea of PR is coming back a little bit in the sense of people want to hear from people who have the information and are the experts. And so it’s important to make sure that you are able to get your voice into places that broadcast that.

Henry Lopez (18:50):

Yeah. An example for me, and it’s part of my focus now in 26, so I’ve got my podcast, I’ve got my website, I’ve got my LinkedIn page, but I’m not on any of the other social media channels and separate conversation necessarily. But Reddit is a place where I’m finding more and more or what I share, which is I’m positioning myself as an authority on small business. I need to appear there more. So that’s now becoming part of my focus as to where do I expand my reach? Where do I appear to, again, to your point, I think if I’m following, I’m continuing to build that earned authority. Is that what we’re talking about there?

Shannon Bailey (19:32):

That’s right. And I think it’s thinking about the expertise that you have and where people would validate that. So

Speaker 4 (19:39):

It’s

Shannon Bailey (19:40):

Working in industry groups, participating in networking events, panel discussions. So it’s important to have a presence in the space that you’re in as far as it can be by industry, it can be by subject matter expertise, but you want to have your voice and your brand show up in those places to validate and reinforce what you’re doing and the work that you’re doing.

Henry Lopez (20:05):

So one of the challenges that I have encountered with clients and people that I talked to, and you’re seeing the same thing because I know you spoke to this and wanted to talk about this, is that some we’re finding is with some business owners, especially small business owners, is they’re either afraid of this AI or they don’t understand it and they’re just going to not worry about it. For now, we don’t have the luxury of doing that, do we?

Shannon Bailey (20:27):

No. I mean, no, it’s here. It’s going to stay. I do think that there’s, there’s certainly a lot of fear and uncertainty with the platform. I do get the sense that things are mellowing out just a little bit, and there’s just always a transition period whenever there’s a new technology that comes in and there’s an element of disruption, there’s a lag time for adoption. I think that whole mentality of it’s never too late is a good one to consider. And really when we’re talking about AI and marketing, I mean, technically you don’t have to do anything. I think it’s just really important to acknowledge that what you are doing to whatever limited amount that is, the way people are going to interact with it is going to change. And if you can’t do a lot, and again, we’re small businesses, we don’t necessarily have marketing teams or if they’re small teams, party of one, party of two, being really focused and not letting yourself get overwhelmed by it, keep it simple. Don’t overwhelm the process for trying to be more than you need to be.

Henry Lopez (21:30):

Right. And then I think it comes back to, which I want to understand a little bit more, is this clarity of positioning as you put it. So as a small business owner, are there some clues that when you start working with someone, or when you look at somebody’s website, what are some of the things that you see that tell you that maybe that positioning isn’t quite clear enough? Especially again here in this context of the AI driven world, what are some of the things that you see, some of those common mistakes that you’re seeing people with their messaging, with their marketing?

Shannon Bailey (21:59):

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think one of the first things that we can consider is the tendency to be too generic. So specificity is really important, and that helps with the element of clarifying what you do. But we provide solutions to all or these just generic sweeping,

Henry Lopez (22:20):

We deliver the best customer service or all of those kinds of things that everybody else can say as well.

Shannon Bailey (22:25):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think being generic, I think you and I have talked about it in some of the coaching conversations, service as your key differentiator is not necessarily going to get you anywhere. I would say a way to think about this is really to actually go to your clients and your audiences, go to those reviews, talk to clients and hear what your clients are saying about you. Why do they come to you? Why do they trust you? Why do they return? And then just really echoing that back in your messaging.

Henry Lopez (22:57):

That’s one of the key things you do with make progress, isn’t it? When you get a new engagement, is you help them gather that because it’s often hard for us as the owner, I know it doesn’t seem realistic, but it’s hard for us to hear that sometimes because we have such a filter about how we want to hear it that we don’t really hear what they’re trying to tell us. Is that fair?

Shannon Bailey (23:16):

That’s right. And I think it’s scary to think about narrowing your market.

Henry Lopez (23:20):

Yeah, I see.

Shannon Bailey (23:21):

It’s scary to think about boxing somebody out or saying something that’s going to maybe think somebody is not good for your services, but things that we kind of go back to. Sales 1 0 1 a no is as good as a yes. Qualifying your audience is really, really important and you want people, again, that kind of buying journey, people are going to come well-informed more often than not about who you are and why they want to work with you. So communicating the why and why people work with you is going to help somebody get closer to the Yes.

Henry Lopez (23:58):

Shannon, I think this is such a huge point that I want to explore it a little bit further because this is so critical. This is one of the biggest challenges I see as I work with my coaching clients is that resistance to want to niche down and that to comply in many different ways. And what I always say, one of the analogies I make, whether it’s great or not, is you’re, it’s hard for us as small business owners with our limited resources to be Walmart, to be everything to everybody. You’re going to fail at that. But I think that that makes sense now as to why we have that tendency to make our messaging on our website or whatever, very broad and fluffy because we think we dread or we fear, to your point, somehow qualifying somebody out. But what if that demographic comes from here? What if that type of business, but you’re missing the point because of that your messaging is not resonating as effectively as it could with that target niche client or segment that you can serve best right now. Right?

Shannon Bailey (24:56):

Yeah, I think that’s right. And it’s very counterintuitive, but oftentimes when you narrow, you’re often at the same time expanding your reach because

Henry Lopez (25:05):

Okay, why do you say that? Explain that because that’s such a great point.

Shannon Bailey (25:08):

Yeah. Well, when you get more specific, then the people who are in the space will understand it.

Henry Lopez (25:15):

That’s right.

Shannon Bailey (25:15):

And so you can talk about this from the lens of industry or size of businesses that you work with. We work with small businesses with revenue less than a million dollars or businesses that have revenue between five and 10 million. That in and of itself is a qualifier. And if you think about the markets there, there’s still massive markets. That’s right. There’s still a lot of people in the space. So even though you might be theoretically telling somebody who’s outside of the space that you’re not a good fit, ultimately they can make the decision otherwise. But you can also focus on industries or topics of expertise because what happens then when you speak to those audiences, now focus on the bullseye, right? What’s your best client? Who’s the most profitable? Which company or client or customer would you want to repeat? Speak to that person. Think about it as an individual. And the more you can hone in on that, the better people will understand you and the better they will understand what your services are, what value you provide, what solution you’re going to offer. And that all needs to come through in the content and the output. As you look at people trying to solve a pain point through their AI prompts,

Henry Lopez (26:27):

Well said, well, could have said it better. That’s exactly what I’m seeing. So thanks for encapsulating it that way, because that really now makes sense to me as to that challenge that we have and how now, while that has been a marketing goal and need forever, AI has emphasized the need for that clarity and focus. Yes,

Shannon Bailey (26:48):

Absolutely.

Henry Lopez (26:49):

Yeah. I

Shannon Bailey (26:49):

Think for younger companies or companies that maybe have had a, don’t have a depth of presence online,

Shannon Bailey (26:59):

It’s easy to really focus and hone in on those things. For companies that have a much longer track record of content and years and years and blogs, it is a matter of going through and revisiting how you’re positioning yourself and the deeper your website or the deeper the breadth of where you live online, there is going to be a little bit more work for those places. And as small business owners, that’s probably less of us. So yeah, there’s a little bit of work to be done if you want to clean those things up, but very doable.

Henry Lopez (27:31):

Absolutely. Alright, last question and then we’ll move on to the next subject here. But if I’m a small business owner and I’m hearing all of this, where do you recommend I start with getting this focus of marketing better in the AI RF? Where do you suggest I start?

Shannon Bailey (27:49):

So what I would recommend is going into your AI platform of choice, Chacha, BT or a Claude Perplexity, and try to search for the services that you provide. If you already have a paid instance of these things, I would log out to go to an unpaid instance. They’ll be able to track you, but hop into Chachi, BT and just search for what it is that you do and see what happens. And that will give you a lot of clarity as to who’s showing up, who your competition is. And that’s a really great starting point to just acknowledge what the status quo is.

Henry Lopez (28:28):

Excellent, excellent. Great advice. Alright, perfect segue then into talking a little bit more about what you do and how you help and who you help with make progress strategies. But I want to make sure now here as we discuss that, how you help organizations take that first step, but tell us more about make progress strategies, who it is who you serve.

Shannon Bailey (28:47):

So I really work with, I would say small businesses and nonprofits to really hone the value proposition and understand who it is that they serve and why they’re valuable. So with that foundational understanding, we build marketing strategies and growth strategies to accomplish your business goals. So a lot of times with marketing in particular, but also sales, there’s just this kind of autopilot element to it. We want to grow X percent or we’re marketing because we send emails because we send emails. But I kind of flip things to say, where are we trying to go? Who is it that you’re trying to reach? And then how do we get there?

Henry Lopez (29:28):

And so at a high level, walk me through how do you deliver this service? What are the major stages, if you will, for that typical client that you guide them through?

Shannon Bailey (29:41):

Yeah, the first step’s always a discovery process. So there’s usually a two or three month discovery and onboarding process. And this really just, we’re just unpacking everything that’s going on with the business. And a lot of it’s, there’s an internal and external variable to it. Where do you want to take the business? What are the operational, what’s the current marketing infrastructure? What’s the current growth in sales support? What are your products and services? And then there’s that external variable. What’s the market that you serve? What’s the landscape and how are you showing up in those spaces? And so we’re really trying to unpack where the business is now and where you want to go and understanding that as a baseline. Then we start to figure out how to pave a path towards the strategies and tactics and actions that need to get us from point A to point B.

Henry Lopez (30:32):

So tell me a little bit more about the ideal business. What size businesses that are ideal for you as we just talked about. Where’s your focus right now?

Shannon Bailey (30:41):

Yeah, so right now, I would say largely in the small business space, it’s organizations and businesses that have B2B service-based businesses. So I work a lot in the creative space and in play with businesses that have accounts and clients that they need to grow. So there’s a lot of existing business that needs to be maintained. And then there’s also a sense of growth that needs to come in addition to that. So account-based marketing strategies, showing up in congested markets, places where your product or service might have a tendency to be commoditized. Make sure that we can help figure out how to solidify your market positioning and make sure that you have the brand messaging and the tools to differentiate.

Henry Lopez (31:31):

Where do I go to learn more about you and make progress strategies?

Shannon Bailey (31:35):

So you can find me on LinkedIn as Shannon Swan Bailey. And then also my website is Make Progress strategies. And you can check me out there and keep an eye on my blog for upcoming content

Henry Lopez (31:48):

And I’ll have a link to her site on the show notes page for this episode at the how of business.com, if you’re not where you can make a note of that. Alright, we’ll start to wrap it up. I’m always looking for a book recommendation. Is there a book that comes to mind that you would recommend?

Shannon Bailey (32:01):

It’s so dry and kind of typical, but honestly as a consulting business and the somewhat newer one at that, I would say the Consulting Bible is one that I have found to be a useful tool.

Henry Lopez (32:12):

That one’s been around for a long time,

Shannon Bailey (32:14):

It’s been around for a long time. Alan Weiss, he has a lot of practical tools and tips, but as somebody who can spin and spin on my own value proposition and writing proposals and pricing strategy and how to structure these things, there’s a lot of just very practical takeaways from that book. And the other one I would say is Don. So that’s a great tool. It’s a different way of thinking about how you position yourself and some of the

Henry Lopez (32:44):

Process there.

Shannon Bailey (32:45):

Yeah,

Henry Lopez (32:45):

It’s become very popular. I have it on my desk here. I was talking about it with someone yesterday, not any new discovery. It’s just a different way of framing and looking at it. And my key takeaway from it is that what has always been the focus, but I think it plays well into your point here about continuing to make sure that we are focused and aligning clear. And that is the key takeaway in my opinion from that book, is making the prospective customer or client the hero of our story, right, of our messaging.

Shannon Bailey (33:15):

I think that’s huge and we didn’t touch on it so much, but really, I mean talking really kind of trying to embody your client or your customer from the sense of what are their pain points? How are they asking or seeking your services and really trying to speak to them in those moments.

Henry Lopez (33:34):

Exactly.

Shannon Bailey (33:34):

And so that’s really kind of the idea with StoryBrand.

Henry Lopez (33:37):

And what I meant by that forever, when I was going through sales training back in the early nineties, it was always, don’t tell me about your features, tell me about the benefits. Or if we go even before that, people don’t buy a drill, they buy the hole that the drill makes. So that’s always been at the heart of effective marketing, but it’s just a great reframing. And his background, if I remember correctly, is in movie making. So he brings that kind of approach to the hero of the story as the customer. Great, thank you for those two book recommendations. I’ll have links to those on the show notes page as well. Alright, let’s wrap it up. Shannon, what’s one thing that comes to mind here from this conversation that we’ve had about thinking about marketing in the AI era for small businesses? What’s one thing you want me to take away from this conversation?

Shannon Bailey (34:17):

I think the biggest thing is to not let just this whole AI disruption overwhelm you and to really focus on the basics of marketing and branding. Keep it simple, focus on clarity, clear messaging, and I think that’s the biggest thing. Getting in the head of your client or your consumer testimonials are huge. We haven’t touched on that, but having other people talk about your brand is a really great way to promote your brand.

Henry Lopez (34:48):

Well said. I think as we have discussed already here in this conversation, ai, I don’t think, and I think if I’m understanding correctly, what you’re sharing, it’s not that it makes us market in any kind of fascinating new way, it’s just, it’s forcing us to be that much more clear with our messaging. Getting away with Fluffy as you used or jargon or generic or trying to appeal to everybody, that now becomes even less effective. Not that it ever was effective, but it really gets exposed here in the AI era. Does that make sense?

Shannon Bailey (35:22):

That definitely makes sense. And not to get prescriptive, but if you think about your LinkedIn posts and pages, if the content’s kind of all over the place, then that can create some confusion. So thinking about the consistency in the content that you’re producing, as well as that top line headline copy that you’re going to have on your website. So it really is full picture. But yeah, that’s all. Absolutely right.

Henry Lopez (35:46):

Yeah, thank you. Alright, tell us again where you want us to go online to learn more about you and make progress strategies.

Shannon Bailey (35:52):

Yeah, so definitely follow, connect with me on LinkedIn and if you have any direct questions or want to follow up with this, I’d welcome you to email me. My email isShannon@makeprogressstrategies.com.

Henry Lopez (36:04):

Excellent. And I’ll have again, links to that on the show notes page.

Shannon Bailey (36:07):

I realize it’s a heady domain. Lots of s’s right in the middle. Yeah, it’s three make sense.

Henry Lopez (36:12):

Make progress. Strategies.

Shannon Bailey (36:14):

Strategies, yeah, exactly.

Henry Lopez (36:15):

Strategies, plural, right?

Shannon Bailey (36:17):

Yeah, strategies plural.

Henry Lopez (36:18):

Excellent. Excellent. Shannon, great conversation. Thanks for the insights from this perspective. I had not explored yet AI from this particular lens, so thanks for sharing your thoughts, your ideas, and your experiences on this topic and your journey, because I think that’s inspirational as well. Thanks for being with me today.

Shannon Bailey (36:37):

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks, Henry.

Henry Lopez (36:38):

This is Henry Lopez. Thanks for joining us on this episode of The How of Business. My guest, again, Shannon Bailey, I release new episodes every Monday morning. You can find a show anywhere you listen to podcasts, including the How of Business, YouTube channel, and of course at my website, the how of business.com. Thanks again for listening.