Discover How to Leverage Technology and Stay Ahead in Today s Digital Age of Business
Well, hello there, girlfriend Inga Faye here super excited to be here with you today I am excited I'm just tell y'all I got my homie that I just found out was my homie, like five minutes before we recording this, but I am going to introduce you to Kenndrick. He is a marketing strategist and Sales Guru, and we are going to talk about "How Leverage Technology and Staying Ahead in Today's Digital Age of Business, so we gonna get all into that today and I'm excited to introduce you to him and we will see you on the other side [Music] Kenndrick:How y'all doing how y'all doing thank you for having me Inga this is an amazing opportunity I appreciate it Inga: Yes, and it's amazing opportunity to talk to you as well, but before we get into How to leverage technology in this digital age of business, you got to give us the 4-1-1 man first of all I did not know that you were a homie like I said until like five minutes before we started this and I was like what he is from the VA? What? Kenndrick: Yeah yes ma'am 757 homegrown 757 in the house. Inga: So now we getting in your business okay tell us about you who you are who you serve and how you serve them.
Kenndrick: That's a very good question and a complex question honestly, I'm just a humble kid from Virginia Who's looking to help in other businesses and other organizations really try to take their businesses to the next level Myself I was raised in the Newport News I'm a military brat so I've been moving all up and down east coast as much as you can think of And from that aspect of things I kind of got used to kind of being a lone wolf but through that I've been able to pack my baggage as I've been able to say of just good people good information good resources so I'm just looking to be able to try to bring that to the world so the youngest of youngest of four, I got all sisters so I've been beat up a lot through my sisters that they always bully me but it's also a lot of the reasons why I am who I am today the way I care about people the way I see things differently and how I have an introspective life to towards others it's all based on the women who raised me and big shout out to my mother my aunties and my sisters for definitely making sure I can never slip and never take a step backwards awesome Inga: awesome awesome well I just want to know how long have you been a marketing strategist and Guru and how did you get started in this? Kenndrick: Well so if you know from from the hometown right 757 it's a home of hustlers and my father and my uncle they were already in business when I when I got started so I was seven eight nineteen years old you know on the Virginia beach trip selling flowers Inside the clubs with the little glow sticks and lights But then my father, he was also a Chief Chef so you know Fergus fries, Fish fries, all that stuff on the side of the street so it really started from an early age and I always kind of see myself as a weird individual because I always wanted to know why people were driven to the things that they did right, so I kind of got into the consumer, Consumer Behavior aspect of things So it started out probably I can't even remember probably 12 years old 13 years old Helping people strategize their businesses I would go with my uncle's houses, and they were talking about business plans, and I would kind of be like get right into the middle like you don't know what you're talking about and I'm like nah dude you're not seeing this opportunity they're like wait a minute where is this coming from one of the best investments that anybody's ever given to me was my father gave me the book which that poor dad at a very young age and it was something that was just instilled in me I probably read that book over 70 times at this point now And so I always wanted to understand what was different about people and how people moved So I've been professionally in marketing for over 15 years I have a Bachelor's in Business and Marketing Administration as well as the MBA and market research and analytics. But as most people understand people incorrectly use marketing and sales synonymously and for that reason I kind of had to get started in the sales aspect because where I was trying to go to get internships and marketing opportunities people didn't look like me and so I had to bust down those barriers and try to launch some of these soft skills myself and to the point where I knew where I had a value to bring to others and now here I am today being able to produce multi-million dollar sales producers as well as being able to help generate true growth for different companies and be able to get you where you need to go Inga: I like it. I like it, homie. I like it, okay so look we today we're going to talk about how to leverage technology and and stay ahead in today's digital age of business what would be one of the first steps that you would recommend someone that just kind of just starting out as a solo entrepreneur or, you know maybe they're they've gotten a little bit farther than that they have a small staff, but they're still trying to grow and level up well, I would say the Kenndrick: First thing you really should do is instil a culture inside the business of continuing really the biggest thing you need to do is you got people who are around you who are always bringing something new bringing something new and some new technologies from the innovation to your face, it's kind of hard for you to say no to it, so I would say, please trust yourself in your ability to take on and learn new aspects people think it's really hard it is not what I tell people all the time 1950 anymore the YouTube Era is here there's master classes there's so many different avenues to take on and learn new information I find myself almost nightly falling asleep to some new information um so go through what people say YouTube University and just go see what others are out there doing also don't ever think that you know everything always take an aspect that you can learn anything from anybody because one thing that I found myself doing a lot lately is actually trying to get into the younger generation they are so in tune with what's going on they have a pause on what's coming up and what's next and we get so streamlined into what we do, we want efficiency and processes he put in place, but that's not really where Innovation comes from right renovation comes from doing a little bit of r d or some things on the side just seeing what happens and you know jump off that cliff a little bit with the hopism of things that can't come, and I definitely tell you always, always look for where your niche or your segment is continuing to move because it's not going to be the same tomorrow as it is today Inga: Yes I would so agree with that so agree now so I heard you say, you know, get into YouTube University so let's talk a little bit about that because I know there are some people out here, and my girlfriend calls them nibblers and nibblers are standing for basically people that want all they can get for free, and they'll try to piecemeal stuff together for whatever reason because they're not they maybe they don't have the money, or they don't want to spend the money to invest in themselves what are your take what is your take on the free basis compared to what you get when you get paid type of training Kenndrick: Excellent question excellent question so I believe there's a time and a place for all things right so definitely if you have your nebulence those are individuals who I would say on our out of market segments they aren't truly really ready as you say a lot of times people are building their their businesses out of fear so a lot of times they do not feel as though they're ready or up to it so they just want to maybe get a little bit of a like I said I like the way you say nibble a few dribbles of information to see if it's something that they they resonate with but there is nothing and I do say there is nothing like having Hands-On mentorship and coaching I myself also as a self-consultant yourself is an amazing consultant so there is something for people that need actual training there's one thing of having education and there's another thing of being trained in a certain aspect right people learn something as much as you want, but unless you understand how to apply that new knowledge you're really kind of selling yourself short I see so many people think I can do it myself I can do it myself I can do it myself yes you can but the amount of time money and resources you will spend trying to do it yourself, you're really being a disservice to yourself and your future business because getting somebody who's already been there and done that they can help you miss so many of the pitfalls mistakes every day still, but that's something I help and to be able to train people every day and how to be able to generate new growth and new revenue Inga: Right yeah, I totally agree with that totally totally totally agree because I just know in my training that I've that I've actually spent money on and maybe some of the free stuff too well let me let me say it this way the paid training I have definitely seen a reduction of the learning curve I'll say in the free training that I've had in the past I see it as a appetizer of what could really be if I bought the full meal of what they were probably offering me they just give me just a little just a little taste and then as my father would say I am days glazed and Amazed by what they gave me to the point that I just want to have more right so as a business owner I'm just curious when it comes to technology and helping people stay I guess up to date what are some of the some of the things that you offer that help people do that. Kenndrick: Well, that's a great question again so we do a lot of things
that although it may not be new to some it may be difficult to others where what we really do is we take a lot of the headache away from what you're trying to do most people when it comes to getting into the business, they have some type of solution for something that they're passion, they want to serve a certain demographic or a specific niche that does not mean they understand all the other aspects of business and that's something that I feel like they kind of learn in the learning curve right as they're going through, and they're like oh my goodness, I didn't realize there was so many other pieces to it so what we can actually offer is taking that off your plate for you right and Also, if you aren't ready to have and actually take it off. I understand listen business owners are also using control freak so we get it if you want to just understand how to do some of these things so that you can then know where you're getting value and where you're not I see so many people go and try to speak to a marketing consultant or speak to a marketing agency they don't even understand the language that they're speaking how do you know where value is and how do you know someone's actually you know just pulling a wall over your eyes or if they actually understand to drive revenue or drive value for you another aspect to that would be what we specifically do is digital marketing, so all things digital marketing from A to Z does not matter where you are in your entrepreneurship journey if it's you you need you know more leads we can pay for leads we want more taxes to your website we can get more traffic if you need video editing we can do that for you as well if you need full-on strategies to be able to understand how to grow your digital footprint we can help you there as well but I'm truly truly excited about is on the other side of that is once you get those leads you kind of get that nest egg I would say of individual potential prospects what are you doing with those, right there's so many people that are lacking the actual sales process understanding that it's a science to a lot of this it's not just an art form although it does have a percentage of that aspect to it there's multiple ways that you can go about things and Concepts you can use to identify with the right individuals that you're trying to touch bases with Inga: Yes I would totally agree so I know all the rave right now is AI I mean even when we were getting ready for this interview I was using AI to come up with the headline that's going to cause people say well what's that all about so right how do you what are some other ways that you've seen people be able to use AI in their business when it comes to them staying ahead of this digital age Kenndrick: One of the things that I really see is a lot of business owners specifically solopreneurs or maybe those who just start up with a small team they try to do everything themselves and now that's not how business is going forward anymore if you're trying to put in 16, 18 hours to do what someone else is doing in 5, 10, 15 minutes because they have itemizations put up for you they have different systems that's put up for them already right, listen a lot of people busy themselves out of work all right I'll say that again a lot of people are busy themselves out of work they feel as though that they're doing all those things but they're not really prioritizing what systems are what things they need to be doing to help them grow I tell people all the time working inside your business it's not the same thing as working on your business so for individuals who you truly understand that take it up see what it can do for you if you're not using automation at this point you're probably lagging behind if you're not using something like copy.ai or some of these text generations you're probably following behind if you believe that your memory that is in the computer, you're feeling yourself there's so many things out here like Fathom and different Chat boxes and things that can help you with take note before you keep up with yourself literally it probably was a deep dive for myself about six months ago into this all everything accomplishing AI everything because what I noticed was my industry was shifting right underneath my feet right it was once about customer service whoever can you know present the best campaigns do the best budgeting make sure they under or exactly at budget for what this group of work was but now so many young kids out here who are doing things that are amazing setting up systems to actually generate revenue from individuals from being able to put processes in place this is the difference do not feel as though you're gonna outwork these compute you you're not I'm just gonna be real with you a lot of people feel like oh I'm out that is a mindset that I've had to get over myself as well please try some of these things out there are so many different things for video editing from Artwork and Graphics, digital artwork, it just goes on and on and on I am amazed by the power that AI can have and so I would tell anybody if you're having a struggle with something see if there's a resource out there to help you out because what you're doing is bumping your head every day trying to figure it out when someone out there already has the answer Inga: Yes, well said, man well said I would totally agree with that totally, totally, totally, so what are some other you talked about I was thinking some other technologies that that we could do you had mentioned Fathom you had mentioned automation I know automation have really been my savior especially Zapier being able to be the middleman for me take something from one app and put it in another that has absolutely saved me tons of time tell us a little bit about Fathom because I haven't used that yet so what does that do Kenndrick: So Fathom, is if you're doing a lot of networking, as me, you and I go through we're meeting new people every day it's hard to keep up with the names the businesses but the service who they value right and so what it is basically an AI bot that pretty much takes notes for you it does a summarization of everything that you guys discussed and then prints in a nice little order for you then to be able to say oh I forgot we even talked about that piece, or I completely went over my head. I didn't even understand it and then it's a full write-up for you where instead of you trying to remember everything I was in sales for a number of years and the number one thing I was I would see from Consultants were by the end of the week if you try to put up your notes in at one time you remember probably 10 to 15 percent of what your discussion was about whereas if I have something that's literally remembering every piece of it, there may be that one thing that can be leveraged upon your next conversation that can make all the difference between your conversation and then now there's also some things that actually build demographics out and build profiles I believe there's actually one that's connected to the profile that you guys have that actually sends you guys the lunch every single day with leads generated and it tells you not only what about them what segments they are and how they're fitting to your demographic but a profile of how to communicate with them and then also it has uh automatic alerts and automated texts and email campaigns for you these are things that would take normal people months to get finished right so instead of taking your work day and making it awkward because everything I can shift that down to how can I be as productive as possible into these areas yes Inga: Yes, yes, I would totally agree, and I'm using that program you're talking about it's called nowsite you can it leads while you sleep it's nothing like it and then it says it sends messages out to the folks and you can connect with them so yeah if y'all don't have that I will put that link in there so you can check it out but yes but I wanted to ask you how is fathom different than maybe like a Zoom transcript because if you have a zoom account that you've paid for that you have the transcription isn't that kind of the same thing Kenndrcik: Sort of, kind of, but it doesn't really put it into the same order, there's also another one I wish I could remember the name of it at this exact moment that's out by Microsoft it's actually built into a lot of your platforms as well so where Fathom is standalone. This new one that comes out on Microsoft is amazing; it literally is completed with all your other aspects of your pro of your platform so Excel PowerPoint so say you have a team that you're working with and they're saying hey we need this done it automatically starts to process before you even start clicking buttons it understands in an intuitive manner with the discussions about what's being asked of you and then starts to work on that project there are things that oh wow I I'm completely in awe with some of the things that are out here nowadays and I'm just looking to be better in encompassing how to use all aspects of it because it is changing the game and someone asked me a question "Do you believe that AI will take your job or remove the need for someone like you?" I said absolutely not there's always going to be a personal aspect to it there's always going to be a customer service part that I bought this can't do, although they may try it's not the same field if you can get a real warm handle off a real welcoming introduction or interacting with someone but what will happen is someone who understands the full capabilities of AI, that person will take your job. Inga: Yeah, for sure, because when it comes to customer
service, I'm really old school. I like to talk to somebody absolutely, but absolutely, the thing about it is I see that so learn even they have now if you do a quick video or screenshot of what you're trying to ask and I feel like and I've said this many times that video is Queen that it will really help understand with the person that you're sending to understand what you're truly asking because I think a lot of the times you can lose some of the context of what the person is asking you to do if they haven't like fully explained to you what's going on what are your thoughts on that Kenndrick: You're absolutely right you're absolutely right it's just kind of a think of it almost as a text chain right if someone is. You're going back and forth with somebody via text communication, you don't understand the tone, you don't understand what they're trying to say exactly you're trying to infer all right and a lot of things can get missed in this communication so where AI is awesome it's amazing it's going to continue to get more and more powerful it's never going to take the humanistic aspect of dealing with human to human Because businesses in any day it is not going to be even if it's, you know, 2500 right it's not going to be box to box that's communicating full business right because there has to be someone on the other side of that and one thing that also people misunderstand about it is every box that you see that you're out here playing with toying with they were created by a human so there's always human aspects towards what that end goal or the end result will be Inga: Yes, drop some knowledge today Kenndrick: I'm trying I gotta keep up with the famous anger Faith come on Inga: Okay, so look to close us out what would be one thing that you would want to share with us that is like a must-do for business owners to stay within this digital age Kenndrick: One thing I would say is a must-do I would say one thing that you must do is understand where you're going right so none of this AI makes sense if you don't have a vision for it it's just an algorithm out there that's just doing stuff right, and there's so many other businesses that are currently right now who aren't even in this digital age aren't moving towards the digital age and they are solely going to be forgotten I was actually just speaking with one of my clients we were talking about the difference between what's truly around us in our community versus what our digital analysis are in our community it's a complete difference, right how many businesses do you think are in the digital world right now you would almost think all of them yeah they've just did a simple Google search of yourself in your business area for what you do or maybe some of your competitors you would see there are so many others who are still in a dark age right that was one of the big things for myself coming out of college that I was actually able to kind of put a leg up was like, why are we still faxing stuff who, why are we still hand-delivering like what are we doing here like the efficiency is terrible and that was one of the things that I realize that even still to this day there was a huge percentage of businesses who are just fine being just fine they don't want to grow, right I hear that all the time I want to grow I want to get to it but if you're not willing to adapt and change for the things that you're looking for you're not really going to grow you're not ready for that you what you are as comfortable and complacent in what your manner is and I look I have no problem with you, but those aren't the individuals I'm trying to carry myself around look around just do a Google Search and then go drive around and see the difference from the businesses that are actually, out there it's a stark difference and so if you believe that what's digital is everything you're still missing half the game but what I will say is those who are are those who are willing to adapt or at least willing to try something and fill it a few times I am completely a person of that perpetuates please fail I love failure, failure Is not a bad thing, failure is an opportunity but remember to fail forward Inga: Yes well said man it ain't even pay him to say that yes failure is feedback for all of those out there and I and that took me a long time to grasp that because I you know back in the day I felt like failing was bad, but the only way that we can get to success is to fail because success is not just going to instantaneously happen success is really for our ego, that's what it's for because you ain't learning none you're just happy that you all those all those other failures that you made you finally got it okay so now what's up Kenndrick: Any success you're looking for stop looking at the success look at your failures and crack those open see where it's at because your wins your successes are within those failures and that was something that took me a very long time to learn I could tell I was probably about 25 if you would have asked me what's your biggest fear it was a figure it was a fear of failure, and I realized later on in like that, oh my goodness, no what I should have been doing was feeling as fast as possible and as many things as possible yes and then I can start to kind of get that feedback start to get some of that information so I can see and pivot what I need to be able to do now, my biggest fear is someone or the lack of reaching your optimal potential that's my biggest fear now as fear of failure is completely dismissed at this point, I want to fail because I want to learn 10 times as much through my failure as I will my success, like you said, when you succeed you're a big fat cat you sit in bag you're like yeah got another 10 banks right it's all these other things it's the Eagle Drive but if you continue to see and focus on the process focus on being uncomfortable they're gonna be way way way ahead of the game Inga: Yes, yes yes yes yes well said bro well said so now I'm going to show your website so tell us about the goodies you got for us today so yes we have an ebook we're actually doing eBooks on every quarter to basically give you some of the ins and outs some of the little tips and tricks of different platforms, you should be utilizing most people feel as though they're so afraid to get into the digital spacefaring of social media they don't like their face they don't like that voice all these other excuses that they may make for themselves with the AI, you don't have to worry about that anymore, so instead of you having to bump your head and figure out what failures we're actually going to tell you everything that's inside what you need to be doing where you need to be at leveraging and allocating your resources in time as well as what's some of the best ways for you to make an impact immediately without having to then say Inga: Right all right y'all so if you want that ebook this is his website here on the screen it will also be down in the description so don't worry about writing it down you'll just see it in the description just click it and it'll take you to his website, and for all of you those that are watching thanks for watching Kendrick homie, it was great kicking it with you Kenndrick: Thank you so much for this opportunity and I actually got another special guest just for you guys if you are a part of the Ingafay family I also am doing branding audit so if you have a business a website something that you're working on and you feel like I'm not so proud of it or I'm not quite sure if it's generating the type of response that I'm looking for we're doing that completely complimentary thank you to Ingafay and we're going to make sure that you guys learn what you need to learn into and avoid the pitfalls that so many others fall into Inga: Awesome, he giving y'all all this kind of love yes yes yes so make sure you go to the website kick it with my homie and as always thanks for watching and bye for now [Music] [Music]
2023-08-11