Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Starting with building the system, not the service.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: We do firmly believe that the humanity needs to live on through all of this automation.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Implement a clear client journey map and workflow system. No fancy tech to start with, just intentional flow from inquiry, onboarding and delivery.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: And I think that's a really beautiful place for humanity to be.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: The biggest thing that differentiates us is that we lead with depth and empathy. We lead with the humanness of us. And it's not just what we do, but it's how we think.
[00:00:32] Speaker C: Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Lockbook Podcast. I'm your host Zach Bernard. You can find me on social at Zack B. In each episode I bring on experts from various industries for you to learn about their strategies and insights driving extreme business growth. The Entrepreneurs Logbook podcast is sponsored by Refugee PR where we're dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build their thought, leadership and business by booking their own podcasts and launching their own podcasts. Today we're joined by Ashley Brown and Bri Watson, Co founders and CEOs of Impressions Visionary Solution, a strategic consulting firm that helps service based business scale through AI powered systems and intelligent automation. Ashley herself brings over a decade of experience as a UX creative strategist and brand architect with a deep understanding of how to make business both beautiful but also profitable. And she also runs her own creative consultancy since 2017. And then BRI, on the other hand is a system architect and automation specialist with over 15 years in sales and marketing. Together they've created this unique partnership that blends out the human component with smart technologies to help everyday entrepreneur escape the do it all cycle that a lot of us fall into and build businesses that kind of like clockwork. Ashley Brief, thank you so much for joining us and welcome on the show.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having us.
[00:01:49] Speaker C: Perfect. So one of like the the main questions so we've started doing for this show and I love to like kick things off with is I know you guys are obviously a little bit newer with this specific company. You guys have obviously quite a background like different industries but I'd love to hear if you guys had to rebuild your company from scratch again knowing like everything that you know what would be one of like the one things that you would implement from like that day one that like most of like almost entrepreneurs get wrong.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I'll start.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Go ahead Ashley.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Honestly I'd say starting with building the system, not the service.
I as I started the consulting agency I started as a service based focus and I learned by jumping straight into how can I sell this service without taking the Time to build the container.
It created a lot of fires that I had to put out later on. It created more chaos than there needed to be.
So from day one, I would say implement a clear client journey map and workflow systems.
No fancy tech to start with, just intentional flow from inquiry, onboarding and delivery.
I feel like for me, now that I look back, it would save so much time.
I'm not a fireman. I can't put out all the fires. That is not the industry that I am in.
I feel like it creates more space for creativity and minimizes the chaos.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: And something, I guess I'd be curious, how do you find that balance in trying to prepare for everything before actually starting to deliver on the service as opposed to like just trying to like, just do it like directly, like, as you go. Because I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs, they're going to try to like, build all these fancy websites, all build these all fancy systems, but they don't even have a client yet. They can't fulfill on anything without that first, if that makes sense.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yes. I would say from experience, you're going to. You do just do it. You start and then as you take on a few clients, you start to notice the patterns of your processes and what clients are actually wanting with working with you, and you start to see, like, what their needs are, what you need to do to understand them better. And then from there, as you start to work with more people, you then have a clearer understanding of what is a realistic process that you can work with moving forward. And then from there, refine, refine, refine.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: I love that. So just making sure you have like a baseline for your system and then as you get more people through that pipeline, refine competitive systems overall and just make those consistent improvements.
Yes, I love that. Bri, on your end, anything that you feel would be like your one pointer.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Ashley and I have been in this really deeply together.
So honestly, a lot of the things that she could say, I would honestly say very much the same thing.
This is the first business that we've been growing together as you know, in a partnership and also just really in general altogether. So we've gone through a lot of the struggles and been in the trenches really in a similar way. So everything that Ashley said I would definitely mirror since we've had these conversations day in and day out. Like, how would we have done that better? How should we approach that in the future?
Um, and really just kind of how everything just ended up unfolding. It was, it was very much as she Mentioned.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Yeah. And I guess taking it back with you because obviously you're like, you have like that sales marketing background. You're like a system, like architect. Like, as I was saying, like previously, when you guys, like, start working with a client, could you like, somewhat walk me through that, like, initial process? When someone, like, comes, like, feeling very overwhelmed, like their entire, like, manual tasks or processes that perhaps, like, are all over the place, how do you actually help them identify which of these workflows should be automated first and so on. That do need that human touch, because you cannot automate everything. There's always going to need to be that human touch there.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And we really hit that home with our clients. We like to let them know that we are the human touch within all of these systems that we're building. And we do firmly believe that the humanity needs to live on through all of this automation and AI.
I feel like there's a lot that gets clouded in this industry especially you hear something new with AI every single day. And we want people to know that we're here behind the systems that we're creating with them. And we know that they are people in their positions that need to be heard and they just want to find a better way to streamline things. So when someone comes to us, they're typically overwhelmed and need our help with streamlining.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: So.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: So we don't really start with the tech all the time. We like to start with what their tension is.
We listen for what their friction is.
Where are they spending energy that really is draining them and their resources.
So that pain point typically comes out pretty quickly. When we're talking to somebody, they know very quickly what the thing is that they're spending a lot of time on that is a pain for them.
They're typically worried about where their customers are falling through the cracks.
And from there, after we get those pain points out of them and we have that first initial discussion, we talk about mapping their process like a story with them.
So we want them to tell that story. Like, how is a customer or whoever they're selling to coming through this process? Like, what is their experience? Like, what do you want it to be like for them and how do you want your story to be told?
So automation should never feel like a shortcut to the client or to the person performing it as well. You want it to feel like just a very big clarity, a sense of clarity for everybody. So not just the shortcut that feels kind of maybe hastily done or like it doesn't have all of everybody in mind.
You Want it to feel clear. So we really focus on streamlining the repetitive, time consuming steps so that our clients can show up more fully and really be present in their roles in the way that they like humans can be. The reason why we are hired as humans to be in these roles is to showcase the nuance and the brilliance that we are and that we have and our specialties. So that's definitely still a human territory and we want to help people find that balance with work and also have some time back to themselves and time to really think about the things that they can contribute to their roles.
[00:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah, and I think you're somewhat spot on when it comes to like AI because you want to be able to, sure, like automate things, you want to streamline things to be more efficient. But there are certain things that might ruin that client experience. Like for example, if you try to automate a customer success, that's probably not going to work too well. That's like the one thing that you should have like that, that like somewhat personal touch. I mean there's a reason account managers exist for a reason that it's because those clients want to feel like a personal connection. They want to feel they're being taken care of. And it's not just a, you know, like those AI, like chat bots, you enter a question, then they respond to you.
So I love that. So somewhat starting from the scratch, understanding where their time is being spent first before trying to like just jump at the tech stack that they're using and then from there build like their entire processes, see where most of like their time is being spent and then adjust from there to make sure.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Streamlining that process, making it flow well for them, for everyone involved.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: I love that. And Ashley, just taking I guess a bit on like your end here, Yun Bri obviously are like helping like businesses implement these like AI systems that we were like touching on. But one of the things that you mentioned, I think it's on like your LinkedIn is that AI can feel like that hesitation or read like the pause when it comes to having that user experience when you're designing workflows and automation for clients. And I guess something I'd be curious about is how do you actually make sure that you're not automating away the human moments that actually matter for customer relation, which we were obviously just touching on here.
Yeah.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: So at impressions we believe that AI should amplify our humanity. And what is our humanity? It's our empathy, it's our ability to connect and build trust. With one another.
While AI can mimic empathy, can it really make a human feel seen and understood?
To a degree. But is it actually going to be a feeling, physiological sense that a human has? No, it's different. It's going to be dry.
So when we create design systems and automations, we're constantly asking, where does the customer need to feel seen? Where does the customer need to feel heard? Because we're human, everyone wants to feel seen and heard, and where do they pause, where do they hesitate?
Where do they start to ask questions like, I'm feeling a little confused right now.
And we want to pay attention to that because human instinct and the ability to be able to read people subtly is something robots cannot do, do yet.
So that is a key gift that we have as humans. And to be able to integrate that into automation, into web design, into design in general, I think is what really makes us. But then also others that are incorporating the human touch into AI special because we don't want to take out humans. We're cool, we're awesome. We want to use AI as a tool to amplify our humanity and amplify our skills of empathy and connection and to streamline. Because there are the, like Bri was saying before, there are tasks that are just repetitive and monotonous that make our brains go, I don't want to do that.
So if we can really harness where AI can be utilized as a tool to support our growth while still highlighting what humans are great at, connection and empathy, then we are marrying the two worlds, which I think that that is where growth happens in all industries.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: Yeah, and that's like a big point that I always have. And a lot of the guests I've been interviewing, there's always going to be the AI component that comes into play. I mean, everyone is talking about it. And one of the things I always like to mention touc on is AI is, is not like that, like that bad guys. That's going to take like all of your jobs. Again, going back to your point, it's going to be the thing that amplifies what we do, makes us better, makes us work faster. It's not going to replace us. It just makes us better, more efficient, faster, as, like, like as human. And overall, I mean, I, I think it's a plus for society and when it comes to just business, having great relationships, streamlining things, I mean, it's a major plus for everyone. Okay. I don't see too many downsides. There's obviously like a few, but more upsides, I would say.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I definitely think there are more upsides. I think we can really embed the human touch into everything and I don't see the downside of that.
[00:14:08] Speaker C: No, me neither.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: And then think about all the people that aren't currently able to use their full potential at their position because of the time that they're spending doing these monotonous tasks. I mean, these people might have amazing ideas that they could be implementing but don't find the time in the day. So I think people are going to find that they actually have more time to collaborate with the teams that they're on and more time to have ideas flow that are just waiting to come to light. And I think that's a really beautiful place for humanity to be. I mean, yeah, just automate those, automate those spreadsheets, please.
[00:14:45] Speaker C: No, I mean, I agree with you because it's like my entire like family, like my dad and mom started learning about like what AI is just being able to like use it. It's like, wow, like they always have it on their phone, they're using it for like any specific questions, health related or anything like that. And it's like, okay. I mean this changes a lot. And that's just like the consumer perspective. When you look at it from a business perspective, there's even more impact that comes into play here. And I know we're obviously talking about like tools, AI and everything like that. And one of the things that I'd love to touch on, Bri, because I love your philosophy that a lot of business owners, they don't need more tools, they just need like the right ones actually, like working synchronously, like working together.
What are some of, like, some of the common like tech stack mistake that you see, like a lot of these entrepreneurs make. And is there a strategy that you take to somewhat help them clean up that chaos in a way?
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. So I think maybe a lot of people are feeling this right now, but the biggest thing that we see is platform overload. There are literally maybe hundreds, if not, I don't know, I dare say thousands of platforms coming out. It feels like daily that they're a tool and it's in your face and it's like, you know, it can do this and it's all cool. It really is. Ashley and I are like, we read up on stuff all the time. We're like, oh my gosh, that is amazing. Oh, wow, now that's amazing. Can we use that? But you have to reel yourself in and what works and you really don't need a million Things to make your processes work. You need the things that work for you.
So a lot of entrepreneurs do get stuck trying to stitch together all of these tools and they were never really meant to speak to each other. So that's kind of the other problem.
So they might have all of these tools that they've maybe invested in and they're adapt, sorry, investing in tools that maybe are based on trends and not really their needs. So that's the other thing that I was kind of mentioning earlier. So you might hear like, this is really exciting. It can do this. And they just kind of shove it into their workflow and it's not working. And they might have even invested in this tool and invested a lot of. And then you start to see and have that conversation like, this is maybe not the right tool.
It's not really going to work for you guys. And maybe it's because of their system that they currently have.
Maybe it's a year's old system that needs to be completely updated.
Maybe it's just that one thing that is just kind of making everything else trip up and you just have to be able to have those conversations and take a step back, evaluate what is working, what's feeling clunky, what's costing time and energy and what is the thing. Even if it's like everybody was on board, it's their little baby that they wanted to work. Like, you have to be able to kind of shift and move past those. Those things. Yeah. Because it is all exciting and it is all amazing and it doesn't mean that it all works and it doesn't all work together. So we try to have those conversations and we make sure that what we're using is actually streamlined and works together so that they're getting the result that they want.
Creating one ecosystem that actually supports the business and doesn't just add to the noise, it doesn't add to the chaos that they were already feeling, that they brought in these things to solve, because that's actually what is happening a lot.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: Do you guys find yourself addressing these biases in a way where some founders, business owners, they're convinced we need to be on this new tool and it's like, hey, this new tool isn't so much different from like what you're currently using. You're going to spend all this time trying to like, adapt to it when you have a system that's working completely fine and it's just going to be like a waste of time. Like, do you guys find yourself educating Klutz on that?
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yes, Definitely the education piece is there. And again it's sometimes a hard pill to swallow for some, especially when teams are just really trying to figure out how to talk to each other internally about these things. So you know, maybe somebody higher up in the C suite had signed off on something but then it's not really working out down, down the line. So.
Or maybe the other way around, maybe the team was excited and then you know, somebody else knows something better. It's just the teams are learning how to talk to each other and everybody is having a different experience with how these automations are working and every department is really different. So we actually do that. We do an audit by department.
You, we address the workflows that each department needs and specify it for that. Because there's not one tech stack that works for the entire company. Most times, you know, a sales department needs a totally different automation stack than maybe the marketing or any other department admin.
So we have to go through piece by piece and maybe the tools that they have will work for some parts of their business and maybe they need to adapt to some other tools that they can bring in that might help streamline the processes. But a lot of times fewer is better and a lot of the times a lot of these platforms are building in so much to their own, to their singular platform. But that is really a tool that can really expand and go across multiple fields.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Yeah but, but again like I feel that so many companies, they try to like it's like a shiny object syndrome in a way or they see like this new platform, it's like oh this looks amazing. But what they have literally works already. So you have to somewhat convince them like hey, what you're doing is working perfectly fine. Try to change everything, you're just going to waste capital, you're going to waste time and everything like that. So I feel that that's a little belief that you probably have to address and change quite a few times here. But no, I love that. And part of like this show, like what I always like to ask is because it's obviously about like the lessons like growing businesses being in like the industries. And one thing I definitely would be curious about because a lot of like these business owners like everyone is coming out with like this new AI tool, AI like system. You there's a, or like an AI agency and like everyone somewhat has this angle but like obviously you've breathed like you've been around the block 10 like 15 years, sales and marketing. So I'd love to hear how do you guys go about Somewhat differentiating yourself and marketing yourself when it comes to someone explaining like your message, educating people around like what you do, how it can be beneficial. Because again when we go back to that noise, there's like a lot of noise around like AI where there's a lot of people that are not exactly sure what they need. And that could very be be like a tool or like a company like you guys.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Yeah. Ashley, do you want to take it or I can. Yeah.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: I would say the biggest thing that differentiates us is that we lead with depth and empathy. We lead with the humanness of us.
And it's not just what we do, but it's how we think. It's what our ideas are, our creativity. And we found that the more that we show up as our full selves, strategy plus soul and personality, structure plus story, the more we attract the right people. We try not to sound like everybody else.
We try to bring more of ourselves, like I said, and personality into it.
And we speak directly, we educate freely and we make sure our content reflects what we'd want to receive.
Clarity, resonance and value.
And I think it's more, it's less about hype and it's more about alignment. Because there have been so many times where we've like for me specifically in consulting, there have been clients that come to me, but we're just actually not aligned to work together. There's a better fit and I found that when we are authentic then we're more likely to attract clients and partnerships that really align with our values better than when we're just. This is what we offer.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: Yeah. Internally Excel to everyone. But, but I think it's interesting because you guys have so much taking the opposite route where even if you do like AI systems, you're not trying to lead with that specifically around all of these AI cool little systems. But it's more about finding that alignment, starting more with the human touch because you really are able to understand really what they need. Not to just automate everything away and have the business owner and work with the four hour work week. As a lot of people have definitely read the book, but more so that you have a system that works, but you still have that human touch to it. And I feel that's something that's going to start to become very more important.
I'm not sure if you guys have seen recently, it's probably been a few months, but there's like these AI tools now where you answer the phone and it's like someone's speaking to you or they're like calling you and it's like I'm speaking to a robot right now. That's definitely not a human. Like I know myself. Like I called someone and she's like, oh, it's Julie. I was like, that's not a robot, that's a robot. And like I asked her friend, I was like, is that a robot? She was like, yeah, I'm a robot. She's like, oh, interesting. Can I speak to someone? So like I feel there is definitely like that human touch mean it feels like that's what you guys are doing. And I love that you're not strictly focusing just on like the AI component. You're still trying to like promote the human component within the business.
And I feel that's going to be a big advantage for you guys to push that a bit more heavily.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: We do too. I mean I honestly I was, I had this conversation with Ashley just a couple weeks ago with the sea of, you know, it seems like there's just businesses popping up left and right and a lot of them are, are like big industry business helping, you know, big executive, big corporations.
We're really focused on small to mid sized businesses because those are going to be the ones that are going to be affected very much and they need the most help. And I honestly feel like the human touch is going to be the new currency in that way. That's what I ended up having that conversation with Ashley and just saying, how do we stand out with this? But then we talked and it's just like by being really, I know we've said it so many times, but really just being human, because it's going to sound like AI is talking on the, on the main stage most of the time. And if we can just say, hey, we're the humans in the room, we're here to help and we're here to help small to midsize businesses really like flourish and make sure that they're up to par with where they need to be so that they can scale in this new landscape.
I think that's where we're going to shine.
[00:25:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's somewhat like going back to the basics when we didn't have like all this AI and it was like really relationship driven. Like we're going back to like the old days in a way where it's really more relationship driven, which I think is really interesting and I think it's going to be definitely an interesting few years coming up here. But yeah, guys really appreciate you taking the time to jump on like the show here and for anyone that wants to get in touch with you if they want to connect with you. I know Ashley will be connected on like LinkedIn. We have like your website, but anywhere else that people should have a peek at or.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah, so I know you mentioned the website, but we do have impressions vs.com as in visionary solutions. So that's where we share our process, our offers, our perspective. That's where you can get the most info and where we're the most active. Currently, we're always expanding out so you can stay tuned for that. But if we said anything that resonated with you guys today, we would absolutely love to connect. We will have a zoom call with us in person.
So we'd be happy to talk to you.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Perfect. So we're going to put that website in the bio so everyone you've heard impressions versus.com if you want to learn more. And we'll put both of your LinkedIn as well because I know actually you seem to be pretty active on there as well. But yeah, to your listeners, if you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. You can also find more insights that wefuture.com where we're dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build their thought, leadership and business by booking them on podcasts. Until then, keep pushing and we'll see you on the next one.
