924: Work-Life Balance Thanks to TECHNOLOGY (and support!) w/ Jen McFarland

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and, to kick this week off, I am so excited about the entrepreneur that we're joined by in today's episode.

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She is honestly amazing.

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I love the work that she does.

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I love the energy that she brings we were joking off air before we hit record just about being entrepreneurs and I think that her energy is infectious and, more importantly for all of us, her topic is something that affects every single one of our businesses, because this is our most powerful asset, our most powerful coworker and teammate, and that is technology.

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So let me tell you about today's guest.

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Her name is Jen McFarland.

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Jen has more than 20 years working in an array of IT positions.

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In 2022, she started Merit Digital with the goal of providing support for the many small businesses that lack dedicated technical insights and support.

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She's on the path to a B certification for Merit Digital, as well as an occasional writer covering tech events and stories for the Triangle area up in North Carolina.

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Now I love her business.

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I'm going to tell you a little bit about it, beyond just her bio.

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Merit Digital.

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Some of their services offered are both short-term, project-based improvements, which we're going to talk about One of the most clever offers that I love this way that Jen serves her clients as well as longer-term strategic and holistic developments across web, email and productivity tools, security and best practices.

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Merit Digital also provides training on an array of topics, including AI.

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If you're tuning in here looking how to use AI to your advantage in your business, jen's going to give us some insights there WordPress, seo and analytics and security to help small business owners feel more empowered and confident in the digital positioning.

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So if you are there thinking, what am I doing with the tech stack of my business?

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Or you're just looking for that next advantage, I'm excited about this one.

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I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Jen McFarland.

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All right, jen, I am so very excited that you're with us today.

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First things first.

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Welcome to the show.

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Thank you, that was a great intro.

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Can I pay you to follow me around and do that all the time, because that would help me out a lot.

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Jen, I get that offer all the time.

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Honestly, I've never heard of hype man being a role, but sign me up for it because it's easy for me.

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Eventually, when the tech gets good enough, I'll just walk around with like a little video of you doing my intro for me.

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Yes, sounds good, this is.

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Brian, he can cover it for you.

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I'm here for it, but I'm definitely biased when it comes to your business because I am a bit of a tech junkie myself.

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I always have been.

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So I'm excited for our conversation, but take us beyond the bio.

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Who's Jen?

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How'd you start doing all these cool things?

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Yeah.

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So I started my career in higher ed, which, for those who have worked in higher ed, you might be aware that a lot of times, higher ed is like a startup, because you wind up being in a place where there's never quite enough resources.

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You're always trying something new.

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You're trying to serve a vast array of customers.

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So it's kind of a unique scenario where I think it trained me to be an entrepreneur better than I expected or understood, and so that was a useful way to jump into things and eventually, after going through a couple of different sort of tangents, I decided in 2022 to make the leap into having my own business.

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Decided in 2022 to make the leap into having my own business.

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Upfront, like a big piece of that was that the company I was working for at the time was really high pressure.

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All of my clients were in other time zones.

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It was definitely going to be a struggle when most of the people I was working with were in California.

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Right prime time for them is when I need to pick up my daughter from school.

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So it's one of those scenarios where the work-life balance wasn't working, and starting my own business seemed to be one of the best ways to try to solve that problem and I have to say it's worked out better than I expected.

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It's not for everyone, I know, but I'm certainly out there preaching to a lot more women that starting your own business it might be the solution that you didn't know you were looking for.

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Yes, I love that.

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Right here at the top of the episode, a call to action about entrepreneurship being the path to so many of us, building not just the business that we're looking for.

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But, jen, I love your emphasis on the life that you're looking for.

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That's powerful, because I feel like we catch a lot of heat as entrepreneurs for not having that work-life balance.

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We're always turned on, we're always thinking about business, which is true to an extent, but I love hearing that for you, it's actually helped enhance that and, obviously, the subject matter at hand today, technology can help us do the exact same thing.

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So talk to us about that experience that you brought, because it actually sounds like you have already that mindset that I see in so many amazing entrepreneurs, which is you know that you were being prepared for this before you even realized it.

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Obviously, you had a lot of experience in tech and IT.

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So talk to us about the professional background and how you spun that into.

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Hey, let me just serve clients with these types of solutions.

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Yeah, the role that I had for a long time at the university was one where I kind of ran almost my own shop within the university.

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I was the lead for a group that did a lot of basically an agency almost for websites within the university system, and so it kind of put me in a position where at some point I realized I was kind of running my own agency, but within like the constraints and or support system of the university, and so it had occurred to me earlier on that that maybe I would do my own thing.

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But I will also say that when I started to look into this, I realized pretty early on that I did not.

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Number one, I didn't really want to have an agency.

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And number two, I could do more than just websites and like again where when you're in higher ed, you wind up doing a lot of different things.

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I was in central IT and so I did a lot with communications, I did a lot with training, I did a lot with, you know, the different types of tools that the faculty and staff were using and students, and so I knew that I could offer more than just web, which was kind of my core business to begin with.

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The one thing that I was sure I didn't want to do was marketing, and I will say upfront like I see a lot of marketing agencies out there and that is great.

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Marketing is super important.

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I'm terrible at it.

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I need to hire myself a marketing person, but I am terrible at it.

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I need to hire myself a marketing person, but I am terrible at marketing.

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What I'm here to do is help people with the technology, with the Microsoft 365, the Google Workspace Administration, the email authentication, the security, like all those other aspects.

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I have quite a few clients or partners who are marketing companies who will occasionally come across a more technical issue like adjusting DNS or doing some other more technical setup for the platform for their clients that they're just not comfortable with.

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And that's really where I wanted to slot in was to be more of that technical partner technical guide for smaller businesses who don't have that expertise.

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Yeah, I love that, especially because hearing you talk about the way that it blends in with the marketing mix I mean Google Analytics.

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I know it's one of those things that comes easy to you that confuses most business owners that I get to talk to, but that is an essential part of a marketing mix to understand and measure the effects of marketing.

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But also there are some technical aspects to get the pixel installed on your website and to make sure that.

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I mean.

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Google just updated to GA4 this year, and that was a bit of a messy transition for non-tech folk, and I know that that's a huge gap that you plug.

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I want to ask you about the building blocks of your business, though, because what I'm always fascinated by in talking to awesome entrepreneurs like you and the energy that you bring to it is that you didn't wait for anyone else's permission.

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You saw that gap, but then you actually took action on it and you just said I can serve them.

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So I'm going to start getting clients, and you talk about not being great at marketing, but, jen, the best marketing is being of service to others, so huge kudos to you that you just love doing that, which is why you're able to get clients Talk to us about that though the fact that you didn't wait and you actually just jumped in and started serving people yeah, you know again, like I had, I've I've always done that.

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like there's always been scenarios where people need help outside of uh, in what I was doing for for sort of my full-time, my regular job, so I would occasionally help out with a project here or there.

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Um and uh I probably shouldn't say this on here, but I'm really terrible at charging enough money, so I've always had that problem.

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That was probably like my biggest concern starting my business was hey, let's actually remember to charge people money.

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But yes, helping people is kind of like core.

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There's no greater thrill I get than when somebody like gets it, or when they get excited about realizing something new.

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I mean, this happened with a client yesterday and I was like giddy about it, giddy enough that I recognized that I was like, hey, nerd, like you're too excited about that, but it is a great thrill when you can do that.

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So the figuring out how to deliver these skills to people when I started my business, I did have a few people where I'd already been helping them and it was.

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It was easy not not necessarily easy, but I could transition into that I did.

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I gave my previous job about three months notice because I knew I was going to do this and so I had.

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I'd started to like incorporate.

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I'd started the process.

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I had a few clients.

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I was really stressing myself out by finishing up my job and then starting had a few clients.

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I was really stressing myself out by finishing up my job and then starting to spin up what I was doing for merit digital, so I was able to get a little bit of a runway into things and then it was a matter of you know a few different things.

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I'm not great at marketing, but I have some great friends and colleagues and former co-workers who have really spoken up for me and I'm grateful for all their support.

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So I was able to network to get some clients and from there I've been, I would have to say, really successful at keeping clients, both for long-term ongoing retainers or partnerships.

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But then also I mean I'd have to look at the numbers I should do this, but really a huge percentage of my clients are return clients who I've supported and they've come back or recommended others.

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Yeah, I love that.

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And I want to go a little bit deeper there because I'm sure that when people think about I mean, I'm a visual person.

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So when you talk to me about keeping those clients and serving them on a retainer basis, I think about how cool it must be for them to essentially have a very trusted entire arm of a technology part of their business, which most small businesses don't have.

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Jen, I'm sure that you and I'm sure your clients also recognize that that's a luxury Like that gives them such an unfair advantage in the marketplace as compared to them not having that.

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And I want to go back to you come from the world of academia.

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Academia has departments.

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The enterprise world has departments.

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We know if you have a problem you pick up and call the tech team.

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So many entrepreneurs feel like they're on an island.

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So talk to us about that role that you fulfill for people wondering what does that look like?

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People get to have Jen on their team.

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What's that actually look like and feel like for them?

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Yeah.

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So the word that sticks out when you're talking about that, which I'm sure you've talked about, is fractional right, the fractional position for a small business where they can't necessarily hire a whole tech organization, but if they can have someone who they know they can call if they have a question, if there's an opportunity to invest in something and they're not sure if it's a good idea if the website goes down, if they find out that their email is going to spam, like having that person to call is, I think, really reassuring for any small business owner, and so that's really what I'm aiming to be small business owner, and so that's really what I'm aiming to be.

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And again, not like I really only have a handful of retainer clients, but what I do have is a lot of people again who come back when the issues re arise, and so we're, or when something new comes up, or that they've contacted you know their.

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Their colleague has said hey, I have this major problem, do you know anybody who can help me?

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And they're like oh yeah, I know this person Merit Digital down.

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You know anybody who can help me?

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And they're like oh yeah, I know this person Merit Digital down.

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You know, go call them.

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So that's been, I think, the way that that I'm able to help people is by being there.

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Quite a few clients, unfortunately, have become clients when it's an emergency, which is not ideal.

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You'd much rather than become clients when you know they're when they're available.

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But you also use the word luxury and that is very much, I think for some people, especially small businesses, having that kind of fractional, fractional or, you know, that extra level of support can, can very much be a luxury in some cases.

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Yeah, I really love the way that you articulate that and the way that you view yourself as that extended part of their team.

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I want to ask you this because I've always wondered this about your industry, so I'll publicly out myself here that for sure.

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My addiction online is AppSumo.

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I am always crawling AppSumo for the latest software tools and AI tools and all these different tools that work in the entrepreneurial space.

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Saas companies have got it going on these days.

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They are launching cool SaaS companies every single week.

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So, Jen, what percentage of your work or how do you split that focus between supporting the existing infrastructure within a business versus what I see as a tech junkie?

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When I talk to other business owners and they're doing so much stuff by hand, I'm just like holy cow, like Zapier could connect this to this and you can do this and there's a world of possibilities.

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How do you gently and appropriately introduce people into those expanded tech opportunities, not just supporting their existing one?

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Yeah, that's a good question and to me that's almost like a two faceted question.

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One is how do you, uh, how do you support your clients to move into taking advantage of those things?

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But then the other side of it is, how do you stay on top of all of those?

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Because, like you said, you browse all over the web finding out all these new tools, because there's constantly new tools, especially now with AI coming out.

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It's like we've just hit the gas on new tools.

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So, in terms of staying on top of that, obviously I'm staying on top of the big ones, because those are sort of the ones that I'm already using, that I see the most that are coming in.

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One of the services that I offer is a technology audit.

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So when I have a new client, I'm going to go through and I have a pretty exhaustive survey where I'm basically saying tell me about all the tech tools you're using, like, let's figure out what you're paying for, what you're using, where they're integrated, like, and they may not even know what that means, like how much of that.

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They haven't thought about that.

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So pretty early on with the technology audit, I'm able to see, maybe, the things that are or aren't being used and where they could be talking to each other better.

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And then you know.

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The next goal is is figuring out what the right tool is to use, and I'm definitely an advocate for you know, wherever is appropriate, wherever you can make the tool do what you need it to.

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Then have fewer tools, right, like, have fewer subscriptions, have fewer logins, like on a security, on an efficiency.

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There's better ways to do this if you can consolidate your tool stack, your tech stack.

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So that is one of the priorities that I certainly aim to put into place.

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And then, where it's possible, yes, like, let's connect it with Zapier, let's use Make, let's use other tools that are going to make it possible for these things to work together more efficiently for you.

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Yeah, I love that.

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Jenna, I didn't pre-prepare you for this.

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No-transcript businesses service-based businesses need some sort of email list like ActiveCampaign or MailChimp.

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There are a dime a dozen.

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We could substitute any of these tools in for the situation.

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But what does that basic tech stack look like for you, so that listeners who are tuning in are saying, well gosh, that's an instant hole, or that's an instant hole, and I know that you have your tech audit, which we'll definitely talk about more at the end of today's episode, but lay a basic tech stack on us here.

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Yeah, that's a great point.

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You hit the high points there.

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So, email, I would really say productivity tool there's very few people at this point that I know of who aren't essentially in the world of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, which I'm, you know.

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That kind of makes sense for what you're doing because both those solutions deliver the productivity tools that you're also going to need.

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So, web email, I will say there's obviously a lot to web.

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I spend a lot of time in WordPress but I tend to work with clients who need more advanced content management, like true content management systems.

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But there are lots of other tools for the web the productivity, like I said, and then the other ones that I would look at that maybe aren't getting as much attention.

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I would not tell people to jump right into buying a project management tool because that's not for everybody there.

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There's some other solutions that you may want to consider, including the options that come with Google or Microsoft 365.

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But where I would can would emphasize is definitely a password manager.

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A shocking number of people do not have password managers and to me that is like step zero.

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That is core to your security.

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That should be core to your business.

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So a password manager is at the top of that list.

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And then one of the things that I will say is sort of an offshoot is I am using right now I'm using Fireflies.

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I do have an article about this comparing Fireflies and Otterter and Fireflies are AI tools that will join meetings for you and record the audio and provide a transcript, and you can also program it to do some other things, like you know, sort of pull action items out and things like that.

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So those tools are one of the best examples I've seen of the use of AI, because they're going to save you the effort of having to take notes.

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You're going to be able to be more engaged with the person that you're talking to.

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You're going to be able to get more details, remember more of it and then you can go back through and, where you've forgotten things or you need to verify some information, you have a transcript of your meeting and you're able to confirm details for later.

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Yeah, jen, drop in some specifics and some examples and tools here.

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I know that listeners are going to be loving you right about now.

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There's two things I want to call out from what you just shared with us, because, yeah, it's so weird that we I'm going to not even say this entrepreneurially, just societally we don't talk about password managers more.

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It's probably the biggest quality of life upgrade that I've done in the past five years.

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Isn't it amazing, once you have it set up and you're using it and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't have to like, grab that password or like, and the passwords are so much more secure, like it's a no brainer, yeah it's crazy and the fact that it works on our phones and computers, no matter where we are.

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It's so easy.

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And then, if we extrapolate it into the business realm, when I hire freelancers, I can just share a password with them so that they have access for however long they need it.

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It's so powerful.

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So huge kudos to you for sharing that with our listeners.

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And then I love the fact that you called out the AI meeting tool as an example.

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Like Otter is an example that you used, I recently, as of two months ago, I signed up with readai Holy cow.

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I'm also more present in meetings now because I know that I can just listen and it's taking care of all that stuff for me.

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So I love your emphasis on that, which leads me right into.

00:20:01.344 --> 00:20:05.125
It's a big topic Of course we're meant to talk about it today which is AI.

00:20:05.125 --> 00:20:13.417
I feel like AI, at this point in its maturity cycle, can either be the biggest game changer for people or one of the biggest distractions.

00:20:13.417 --> 00:20:22.008
Jen, what's your perspective on the way that AI is being used, that it should be being used, and how do you think that we should incorporate it into our businesses?

00:20:23.855 --> 00:20:42.328
Yeah, I mean, I think that I'm not even sure that it's a case of how we should incorporate it into our businesses as much as that we should, Because right now, at least with the clients that I'm talking to, it's just not something that they're doing.

00:20:42.328 --> 00:20:52.642
The people that wanted to incorporate AI did it when it was a big deal, like last year, and there was a lot of conversation around it, and maybe they've looked for a few ways to start to use it.

00:20:52.642 --> 00:20:57.303
But I have talked to kind of a shocking number of people.

00:20:57.303 --> 00:21:06.719
All the buzz about AI is not necessarily taking into account, I think, a lot of small business owners who don't necessarily.

00:21:06.719 --> 00:21:17.326
Maybe they've tried it out a little and they see some use for it, but they don't necessarily want to invest the $20 or whatever a month to do it they there.

00:21:17.326 --> 00:21:47.722
Or, if they did, they're not using it every day, they're not incorporating it into their business strategy and, and truly everything that that I see and read says that while you can use a free version and obviously the free version, all the versions are getting better all the time the paid versions are really where it's at for getting the biggest impact, for having the most success, and so I certainly see where there's a lot of small businesses who either are sticking their head in the sand or aren't necessarily.

00:21:47.722 --> 00:21:53.577
They're kind of interested in it, but they're not putting the time into figuring out how to use it better.

00:21:54.981 --> 00:22:08.428
I think where AI adoption is really going to take off for small businesses is going to be where it's incorporated into their, into their SaaS, into their existing tools and to that point, I think we're starting to see that a little bit more.

00:22:08.428 --> 00:22:13.917
We're starting to see that a little bit more.

00:22:13.917 --> 00:22:18.807
I know Google Workspace has it incorporated now, but I'm not really seeing it be as effective in that space as I was hoping.

00:22:18.807 --> 00:22:19.951
I haven't.

00:22:19.951 --> 00:22:26.507
All the use cases for AI that I want to use in Workspace are not available yet.

00:22:26.507 --> 00:22:28.838
So again, the technology is going to continue to grow.

00:22:28.838 --> 00:22:37.440
I think it's going to sort of slowly seep into our tools, but I don't see a lot of companies intentionally pulling it into their processes yet.

00:22:38.104 --> 00:22:40.756
Yeah, it's interesting hearing you say that because I'm obviously biased.

00:22:40.756 --> 00:22:43.363
You and I, we are always using tech in our businesses.

00:22:43.363 --> 00:22:44.846
I'll give a real life example.

00:22:44.846 --> 00:22:59.463
So here at the podcast, a lot of things that we used to have to do manually of coming up with the titles for the episodes and generating LinkedIn posts and blog posts and email posts for each and every episode, as well as all the quotables that our guests have said during the episode.

00:22:59.845 --> 00:23:07.939
Now, once we finish hitting record here today, jen, I just take this MP3 file, upload it into a tool called Cast Magic which is layered on top of ChatGPT.

00:23:07.939 --> 00:23:12.008
It outputs all of those things, 10 variations of each of them.

00:23:12.008 --> 00:23:23.186
In all these regards, it gives us recommendations for YouTube chapters so that if someone wants to skip ahead to the part where we talked about AI, it's all baked in to the chapters for them.

00:23:23.186 --> 00:23:30.564
So it's really powerful and it's a tool that again on AppSumo because I just monitor these I think we paid $89 for a lifetime license for it.

00:23:30.564 --> 00:23:34.707
So really cool things are launching all the time.

00:23:34.707 --> 00:23:41.247
And it's interesting hearing you say that businesses haven't jumped on here and I would argue partially is that probably some of them don't know.

00:23:41.247 --> 00:23:46.699
They hear the hype about it, but they don't know where to plug it in, whether it's for social media content, calendar.

00:23:46.699 --> 00:23:49.145
What are some of those use cases that you see?

00:23:52.795 --> 00:24:01.106
Yeah, I mean the biggest one that I kind of start with for a lot of my clients, like I said, was the note taking, and that's because it's easy, right, you do that subscription.

00:24:01.106 --> 00:24:11.498
It's not terribly expensive as long as your business is you know, one that you don't have any qualms about recording, like, for example, if you're in law or finance or something.

00:24:11.498 --> 00:24:25.762
There may be some concerns about that, but as long as your business you know one that you don't have any qualms about recording like, for example, if you're in in law or finance or something, there may be some concerns about that, but as long as your business doesn't have any of those issues, that's one that is very easy to integrate into your existing processes and and kind of shows its value right away.

00:24:25.762 --> 00:24:30.320
And to me that's kind of like the gateway drug to other AI.

00:24:30.320 --> 00:24:41.681
And again, like you said, with your tool, that is a software as a service and there's more of those that I think people can use once they figure out that they're there.

00:24:41.681 --> 00:24:43.161
And it obviously depends on your industry.

00:24:43.615 --> 00:24:54.201
You're in an industry where there's some great tools for AI, like you talked about, that instantly goes through and recommends titles and generate some content for you.

00:24:54.201 --> 00:25:13.636
Those are outstanding and probably where I've seen the most willingness to move into AI is from a few different clients who have essentially hired me to use AI to start to draft content for them and I'm not a content creator, but I'm on that tech side of like.

00:25:13.636 --> 00:25:15.661
Here's how we would use AI.

00:25:15.661 --> 00:25:22.019
Here's how we implement it for you in this context right, which is that we're going to create some content.

00:25:22.019 --> 00:25:23.084
We're not going to leave it there.

00:25:23.084 --> 00:25:24.096
We have to finesse it.

00:25:24.096 --> 00:25:29.088
There's a lot more to it, but that's another sort of relatively easy way to get into it.

00:25:29.810 --> 00:25:40.263
And then the next step is, if they're a client and they're in an industry where there are some AI tools, ai SaaS tools that we can start to take advantage of and again, like, incorporate into their tech stack.

00:25:40.263 --> 00:25:44.983
That's places where we want to try and take advantage of that if they're worthwhile.

00:25:44.983 --> 00:25:55.255
There's a lot of conversation right now about the value of AI and that's certainly a piece that um that that I'm still looking at and considering.

00:25:55.255 --> 00:26:25.553
There's a lot of places where, um, you know, you know, ai can sometimes be expensive and because it does often require a transition in processes to like bring it into the flow, to bring it into your experiences If people don't use it there's there's a potential for a lot of loss there or an expense, but I think, where we can try to again integrate it into the flow as naturally as possible, the value is certainly pretty impressive.

00:26:26.194 --> 00:26:33.148
Yeah, really well said, especially because, obviously, cost is a consideration for all of us and all the things that we're doing as we grow our businesses.

00:26:33.148 --> 00:26:37.623
And, jen, you've already called out a lot of premium AI models start around $20 a month.

00:26:37.623 --> 00:26:46.960
That's kind of the introduction price to start using some really high quality AI models AI models, chat, gpt included, of course, google's doing a lot of stuff there.

00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:48.664
Perplexity is an amazing tool.

00:26:48.664 --> 00:26:50.578
There's a lot of cool options there.

00:26:50.578 --> 00:26:59.857
But I'm going to extrapolate this out because listeners know that towards the end of these conversations, I always love talking to our guests, not just as subject matter experts but as fellow entrepreneurs.

00:27:00.157 --> 00:27:09.761
And this next question is going to kind of weave the two of all the things we've been talking about, but also something I think you are so brilliant at in your own business, and that is the way that you serve people.

00:27:09.781 --> 00:27:19.520
You've already talked about how you serve them on a short-term basis, as needed, or on projects, as well as long-term basis, maybe retainer based or just as an extension, a fractional part of their team.

00:27:19.520 --> 00:27:28.935
But I want to talk about your power hours, jen, because I think that is so cool when I came across your business, is that listeners as someone who's looked into the way that Jen operates.

00:27:28.935 --> 00:27:31.442
She has these power hours that you can sign up for.

00:27:31.442 --> 00:27:48.925
So even if a lot of this stuff isn't cost accessible to you, you can, at a really low cost, have an expert like Jen look at your business one-on-one attention with you for 60 minutes to talk about Google Analytics, newsletter signup forms, password manager basics, ai, use cases and habits.

00:27:48.925 --> 00:27:52.685
And that's only the tip of the iceberg in what I imagine these Power Hours cover.

00:27:52.685 --> 00:27:54.954
So, jen, talk to us about these Power Hours.

00:27:54.954 --> 00:27:57.000
I think it's such a brilliant way to serve people.

00:27:58.305 --> 00:28:00.136
Sure, yeah, they evolved from.

00:28:00.136 --> 00:28:07.446
Originally, I had a service that I called Get it Done, which was basically because I hear a lot from people.

00:28:07.446 --> 00:28:15.506
You know, tech is intimidating and if you're not comfortable with it, it's for a lot of potential clients.

00:28:15.506 --> 00:28:17.009
You know it's.

00:28:17.009 --> 00:28:31.019
It's like this, this giant black cloud on the horizon, where they're like I know I have to go in and fix this DNS issue or recalibrate you know some sort of configuration for my email, and I just don't want to.

00:28:31.019 --> 00:28:34.441
I just don't Because, like, I'm going to have to pull it up, I'm going to look at stuff.

00:28:34.441 --> 00:28:35.701
It's not going to mean anything to me.

00:28:35.701 --> 00:28:40.460
I'm going to be like, you know, clicking things, I'm going to break stuff, right, I'm going to break stuff right.

00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:52.625
So the get it done was meant to be a solution for, you know, helping people out, and that was something that the get it done was either in three hour or seven hour chunks.

00:28:52.625 --> 00:28:54.355
So it was like, basically, like, let's take half a day and work through your problems.

00:28:54.355 --> 00:29:02.657
But eventually, over time, I had more people get in touch and, you know, ask smaller, shorter term questions.

00:29:02.657 --> 00:29:17.638
I also often offer open office hours at some local co-working spaces, and so I would see there too, where people would come up to me and ask you know, not necessarily like full sit down, let's go through the whole scenario thing, just more of like.

00:29:17.638 --> 00:29:20.705
So I'm doing this, like what am I doing wrong?

00:29:20.705 --> 00:29:22.278
Why am I not seeing this information?

00:29:22.278 --> 00:29:24.005
How do I get this out?

00:29:24.005 --> 00:29:35.768
And so that that was where the power hours kind of came from was like a shortening of the get it done solution, to see if that kind of filled the niche a little bit more for more users.

00:29:36.515 --> 00:29:38.744
Yeah, gosh, I honestly love that so much.

00:29:38.744 --> 00:29:49.096
The get it done sessions, I think, are so brilliant because I think at least once a month, everybody kind of feels that way.

00:29:49.096 --> 00:29:51.843
For me recently it was DNS records, as I was switching around some domains and it's just a pain in the butt and can I work on it?

00:29:51.843 --> 00:29:52.945
Yes, a lot of people.

00:29:52.945 --> 00:29:58.955
That is a totally foreign domain and it's so much easier to just Jen, get it done, please Literally the name of that.

00:29:58.955 --> 00:29:59.738
So I love that.

00:30:00.097 --> 00:30:07.217
I want to ask you this, sticking to the theme of talking entrepreneur to entrepreneur, because I know that a lot of listeners can learn so much from you in that domain as well.

00:30:07.217 --> 00:30:11.935
Jen, it just seems to me like you do things a little bit differently in your business.

00:30:11.935 --> 00:30:17.277
To even shout out every new project that you work on, your company donates five trees.

00:30:17.277 --> 00:30:19.461
You plant five trees for urban forestry.

00:30:19.461 --> 00:30:23.749
I think these types of cool things really contribute in your office hours.

00:30:23.855 --> 00:30:32.722
Another great example where you're just thinking of ways to make your environment not just talking about earth as an environment, but your environment better.

00:30:32.722 --> 00:30:42.685
I think that, the way that you operate, it's no surprise to me that you keep clients for a really long time and they love working with you, not just because your energy is amazing, jen, but you do do these things a little bit differently.

00:30:42.685 --> 00:30:48.599
Talk to us about that evolution of figuring it out, because we don't all have these ideas.

00:30:48.599 --> 00:30:51.626
On day one of being entrepreneurs, I want to get into the entrepreneurial mind of you.

00:30:51.626 --> 00:30:53.839
How the heck have you navigated these waters, jen?

00:30:55.143 --> 00:30:56.506
Yeah, that's a fine question too.

00:30:56.506 --> 00:30:56.826
It's.

00:30:56.826 --> 00:30:59.018
Thank you for that prompt.

00:30:59.018 --> 00:31:07.721
Yeah, I'm two years in and it took me a while to sort of figure out the things that were important.

00:31:07.721 --> 00:31:11.788
Actually that's, that's not entirely true.

00:31:11.788 --> 00:31:16.819
Early on I knew the things that were important, but I guess I didn't necessarily realize how much I wanted to focus on them.

00:31:16.819 --> 00:31:20.640
So over time I started to do these, these little things.

00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:24.221
The going to do office hours started pretty early.

00:31:24.221 --> 00:31:30.022
I'd had office hours previously when I was in higher ed, which was really useful, especially in a small, consolidated community.

00:31:30.798 --> 00:31:47.378
I did assume when I started Merit Digital that I would work more broadly, nationally, potentially internationally, with other clients, and I have had clients in other states, but I haven't gone as far as, like my other corporate job, where I was working with people you know, like on the West coast a lot more.

00:31:47.378 --> 00:31:50.086
So I I am somewhat.

00:31:50.086 --> 00:32:57.580
I'm not local all the time, but there is an element of community I think I would say to you know, to sort of supporting this ecosystem of small businesses and groups and that, along with sort of the mission and values that I established early on as I went through the last couple of years and I added extra bonuses on, like the planting trees, like there were certain things that were important to me, like supporting the community, supporting like other environmental aspects, and I realized at some point that it was those things are really important to me and they kind of naturally aligned with the B Corp movement, which I'm not sure if your listeners are familiar with that, but B Corps are or businesses that are committed to supporting economic, social, environmental and basically world improvements, sustainable improvements for the world, across various different scenarios and solutions.

00:32:57.580 --> 00:33:10.603
And so those were places where I wanted to contribute more and so I wound up going through the process of becoming a B Corp and I'm currently in the queue for verification, so hopefully that will finish up before the end of the year.

00:33:11.375 --> 00:33:29.111
But I realized that that was really naturally something that was important to me and I wanted to sort of lean into it and I've also been working on sort of not a pivot but kind of an expansion of services to look at more broadly, focusing on sustainable tech.

00:33:29.111 --> 00:33:35.468
So now when I am researching a technology, I'm not just looking at where it's going to fit into the tech stack.

00:33:35.468 --> 00:33:45.105
I kind of have this underlying effort all the time to be thinking about well, what is the environmental impact of what this technology or service does Right Like?

00:33:45.105 --> 00:33:47.829
Is this business a good business?

00:33:47.829 --> 00:33:49.271
Do they support their employees?

00:33:49.271 --> 00:33:51.680
Are they environmentally conscious?

00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:53.884
Is their website, you know, sustainable?

00:33:54.707 --> 00:34:06.498
And those are things that I'm starting to kind of build into and I have been for a while build into sort of my processes and my communications and my communications and my consultation, my advice for clients.

00:34:06.498 --> 00:34:10.271
So that's not something that's really on my website yet.

00:34:10.271 --> 00:34:12.077
It's continuing to evolve.

00:34:12.077 --> 00:34:18.378
Hopefully it will be something that I can speak about more, because it is also something that I realized that I'm really passionate about.

00:34:18.378 --> 00:34:22.496
So we'll see how that rolls out over the next couple months.

00:34:22.858 --> 00:34:24.083
Yes, love that, jen.

00:34:24.083 --> 00:34:25.938
Honestly, I so appreciate those insights.

00:34:25.938 --> 00:34:49.498
These are the real conversations that we're so grateful to have here on this show that listeners really appreciate, because this is the way you think, this is the vision that you have, not only for yourself and your business, but for the future, which I think I can very confidently say here, in having had the chance to interact with you today, that you are a real life example of how business and technology can be positive forces of good in the world, far beyond our reach, as far as the clients that we serve.

00:34:49.498 --> 00:34:53.577
There's so many opportunities for us to make the world a better place, so huge kudos to you, jen.

00:34:53.577 --> 00:34:56.063
I have no idea how you're going to answer this last question.

00:34:56.063 --> 00:35:00.900
We always ask it of guests, and that is the one takeaway, because I know that listeners are going to be inspired.

00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:06.228
I can't even imagine the number of ways, but probably in a tech way, probably in an entrepreneurial way.

00:35:06.228 --> 00:35:11.201
But, jen, what's the one piece of advice that you want to leave them with after today's episode?

00:35:13.965 --> 00:35:28.690
I think there's a lot of things that I would look to right now, but I think the one key takeaway is don't wait to fix your tech or to improve your tech until it's a problem.

00:35:28.690 --> 00:35:30.181
Don't wait until you get hacked.

00:35:30.181 --> 00:35:33.755
Don't wait until your email is going to spam, you know.

00:35:33.755 --> 00:35:36.103
Try to be a little bit more proactive about that.

00:35:36.103 --> 00:35:37.320
Take a look at those things.

00:35:37.320 --> 00:35:43.724
The stuff that's keeping you up at night is probably keeping you up for a reason, even if it's just like an underlying concern.

00:35:43.724 --> 00:35:51.244
Get in touch, even if it's just for an hour, we can go through things and you know, say you know what this looks, okay, or you know what.

00:35:51.244 --> 00:35:55.489
This is something that you should look at long term, but it's it's not urgent right now.

00:35:55.489 --> 00:35:57.635
Or, hey, this is a problem and you're going to see.

00:35:57.635 --> 00:36:07.831
Issues like those are the kinds of things that I think, as a small business owner, will make you feel a lot more confident and able to focus on the key parts of your business.

00:36:08.474 --> 00:36:12.594
Yes, I love the way you summed all of that up with that answer, jen.

00:36:12.594 --> 00:36:21.269
I also know that listeners are going to be super eager and excited to go deeper into the work that you do your power hours, your get it done sessions, how they can work with you.

00:36:21.269 --> 00:36:22.942
So drop those links on us.

00:36:22.942 --> 00:36:24.538
Where should listeners go from here?

00:36:25.659 --> 00:36:33.057
Yeah, sure, so my website for my business is meritdigitalcom or meritdigital Both of those will work.

00:36:33.057 --> 00:36:40.581
I work with a former colleague and friend of mine, sarah Egan Warren, and we do an AI cafe once a month.

00:36:40.581 --> 00:36:43.641
We're actually taking a hiatus for July because it's summertime and everybody's busy, but we typically meet once a month.

00:36:43.641 --> 00:36:50.719
We're actually taking a hiatus for July because it's summertime and everybody's busy, but we typically meet once a month and talk about the latest and greatest news or weirdness in AI.

00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:52.539
So you can join us.

00:36:53.074 --> 00:37:00.224
We have a group on LinkedIn that you can hop into, and then there's, if you happen to be in the North Carolina area.

00:37:00.224 --> 00:37:04.434
I do open office hours in person at a couple of different co-working locations.

00:37:04.434 --> 00:37:21.135
You can find information about that on my website and I have a Merit Plus service which is kind of like a I would say like a cheap fractional support option, so you can kind of try it out on a monthly basis and see if it works for you and makes me available to you for resources.

00:37:21.135 --> 00:37:26.202
So if you want to sort of start small, the Power Hours or Merit Plus are maybe a good way to try things out.

00:37:26.764 --> 00:37:30.168
Yes, I love the way you laid all of that out for us and listeners.

00:37:30.168 --> 00:37:31.030
You already know the drill.

00:37:31.030 --> 00:37:43.192
We are making it as easy as possible for you to find all of those links down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode, You'll find a link to Jen's business website, which is meritdigitalcom.

00:37:43.192 --> 00:37:44.514
That's merit M-A-R-I-T digitalcom.

00:37:44.514 --> 00:37:45.717
You'll find that link down below.

00:37:45.717 --> 00:37:52.425
You can click right on through, as well as links to the group that Jen talked about on LinkedIn, as well as her newsletter, as well as her YouTube channel.

00:37:52.425 --> 00:37:53.958
So much good stuff.

00:37:53.958 --> 00:37:55.903
Definitely check out the links in the show notes.

00:37:55.903 --> 00:38:01.661
Otherwise, Jen, on behalf of myself and all of our listeners worldwide, thanks so much for joining us on the show today.

00:38:02.682 --> 00:38:03.864
Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

00:38:03.864 --> 00:38:04.726
It was a lovely chat.

00:38:05.646 --> 00:38:11.202
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

00:38:11.202 --> 00:38:15.179
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:38:15.179 --> 00:38:24.396
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at the entrepreneur showcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:38:24.396 --> 00:38:33.184
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:38:33.246 --> 00:38:35.237
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:38:35.237 --> 00:38:36.842
These are not infomercials.

00:38:36.842 --> 00:38:40.317
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:38:40.317 --> 00:38:51.282
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:38:51.282 --> 00:38:59.775
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:38:59.775 --> 00:39:01.117
We also have live chat.

00:39:01.117 --> 00:39:05.746
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:39:05.746 --> 00:39:07.150
Initiate a live chat.

00:39:07.150 --> 00:39:16.559
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.