March 26, 2024 • 45 mins
Embark on an incredible entrepreneurial odyssey with Travis Low, as we hear his transition from leading the Parkinson Society of Saskatchewan to creating digital ripples with Blue Moose Media. Our candid conversation uncovers the emotional rollercoaster of organizing Lows in Motion, the soul-searching that propelled Travis from executive director to digital trailblazer, and how a chance paddleboarding chat sparked the launch of his marketing agency. Hear how Travis's passion for helping businesses enhance their online presence has led to unexpected successes and joys, painting a vivid picture of the entrepreneurial spirit in action.
Peeling back the layers of small business marketing, Travis and I dissect the key marketing strategies that can turn a modest brand into a household name. We stress the importance of honing in on a few impactful marketing efforts, and how a uniquely memorable business name, like Blue Moose, can make all the difference.
Finally, we usher in the future as we discuss the revolutionary role of AI and marketing automation, demystifying how these technologies can reshape the way businesses connect with customers. From CRM systems that align with small business needs, to AI tools that enhance consumer analysis, we explore how embracing these advancements can create new opportunities. Join us for a thought-provoking episode that not only educates but also inspires you to navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape with confidence.
Mackenzie Kilshaw Co. offers comprehensive business coaching, and consulting tailored to your needs.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shauna Foster (00:06):
Winning is your guide to making it in business.
Join our award-winning host andentrepreneur, Mackenzie Kilshaw
, and special guests in casualconversations that will educate
and inspire you on your businessjourney.
Winning will help you learn thehard lessons the easy way, with
guidance from celebratedentrepreneurs and business
(00:26):
leaders.
It's fun, it's informative,it's winning!
Mackenzie Kilshaw (00:31):
elcome to Winning.
I am your host, MackenzieKilshaw, and today's guest is
Travis Low.
Hi, Travis.
Travis Low (00:36):
Hey Mackenzie.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (00:37):
How are you?
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm really good.
I'm enjoying the nice weather.
I'm happy to have you on.
Travis is the CEO and owner ofBlue Moose Media in Saskatoon.
It's an award-winning digitalmarketing and social media
agency.
They focus on businessdevelopment and organizational
strategy as well.
Before Blue Moose, he was theexecutive director of the
(00:59):
Parkinson's Society ofSaskatchewan and the founder of
the Shaker event, Lows in Motion, which I always loved, such a
great event.
Blue Moose has actually helpedover 1,000 businesses in the
province, helping themcultivating engaging online
presence that translatesaspirations into results.
(01:21):
So, Travis, thank you for beingon.
Do you want to tell theaudience a little bit more about
who you are?
Travis Low (01:28):
Sorry if everybody laughed in there.
Mackenzie, you froze up in themiddle of there, so my apologies
, but this is just going to be afun conversation, so we're all
good so yeah, so I guess thanksfor the introduction.
Yeah, I guess my background wasvery unconventional.
(01:48):
I guess when I came out ofuniversity, went to the Edwards
School of Business and had mybachelor of commerce in
management and came out wantedto be a financial advisor, kind
of bounced around a bit In thattime period, had started the
event, the Lows in MotionParkinson Shaker and that was
(02:09):
really my first entrepreneurialventure and it was such a
learning curve, such a coolopportunity to learn about
building a brand and trying toattract an audience and how to
market and how to work with acommittee of people and all of
those fun things.
And we ran that event for 10years and had a ton of fun and
success with the event.
(02:29):
And that event kind of three,four years into the event had
led me into the executivedirector position, which was
ultimately my secondorganization that I was managing
and talk about learning curve,holy responsible for the
province of Saskatchewan, forthe Parkinson community, and
(02:50):
also working on an executiveleadership team across Canada
working with all the othercharities working for
Parkinson's and I didn't evenknow what board governance was
at the time and I had a realquick lesson on that working
with the board of directors andthen ultimately the Federation
of all the other charitiesacross the country.
(03:12):
And yeah, but what an amazingfour years I had to do that and
it was such a dream job.
My dad lives with Parkinson's,so it's near and dear to my
heart to be putting my time andeffort and energies into helping
those people out.
That ultimately actually kindof led to me having to leave.
I was just battling emotionally.
It was just so hard to be soclose to the subject and to that
(03:37):
population and community, eventhough I loved it so much.
I just couldn't continue and soI had to step away and took a
year break.
Actually, I went traveling fora year after running the charity
for those years and went intoEurope for seven months and then
went down to South America andhonestly just was surfing and
doing yoga down in South Americafor four months and it was a
(04:02):
dream life.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (04:03):
I was going to say that sounds fantastic.
Travis Low (04:07):
It was definitely a dream.
But I guess this is all kind ofsegueing up, because my
ultimate dream.
The whole reason I went touniversity, the whole reason I
wanted to go into business, wasto become an entrepreneur.
It's literally what I've alwaysknown I wanted to do.
I don't know exactly why,because neither of my parents
are entrepreneurs, but mygrandparents were so kind of
(04:29):
funny, I guess.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (04:30):
Yeah, you saw it, probably growing up with
them.
Travis Low (04:32):
Kind of yeah, my grandpa, one grandpa was a
farmer.
My other grandpa did have acouple retail stores actually in
Rosetown, Saskatchewan and yeah.
So I came home from thosetravels and was just
brainstorming ideas and Iprobably had a dozen different
(04:57):
business ideas and I would justjot them down.
Sometimes I'd be out for drinkswith friends and would be
thinking of the idea and I wouldjust write myself a note and
the next day I would just kindof crush like what would this
look like and would this even befeasible, build out a financial
?
And my good friend, mine, thatwent to university with Ricky
(05:18):
Forbes.
Him and I were paddle boardanother one day and we're just
catching up.
He was kind of just finishing.
He's a storm chaser, so hechased tornadoes and had a TV
show and had some successes withthat and he was kind of at a
crossroads at that time and bothof us just were chatting and
(05:38):
he's like you want to start a?
Should we do something together?
And I was like what would itlook like?
He's like well, I have a bigsocial media audience and you've
ran some organizations, so whydon't we combine forces?
And I was like you know what?
Let's go for it.
Like, why not?
I was like at the time I waslike not super passionate about,
like, let's say, social mediaor even marketing.
(06:00):
And then, once we started andstarted to work with businesses
and start to understand, youknow, their challenges and start
to come up with solutions forthem and learn more about it, it
just grew on me and I just, youknow, really grew a passion for
, you know, working with thesesmall businesses and trying to
help them to be able to betterachieve what they were trying to
(06:22):
.
You know the areas that theywere trying to grow in, whether
that be, you know, recruitingemployees or generating more
leads or just general brandawareness.
And, yeah, it just kind of tookoff and I, honestly, from my
expectations going into it, Ithought we were going to last
six months.
It's so funny I was like I waslike we'll just try this out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (06:48):
And yeah, see if it goes.
Travis Low (06:50):
If it doesn't work, I mean what's the worst that can
happen here?
Mackenzie Kilshaw (06:52):
I mean that's actually the best attitude.
Yeah, that really is.
It's like let's try it, becausewhat do you have to lose?
Right, it's you and your friend, your paddleboarding, literally
.
Okay, let's give it a shot.
Right, like it's a greatattitude.
Travis Low (07:06):
So yeah, yeah, and it was like yeah, and we kind of
got going with it and itstarted to get more like within
six months it just was reallypicking up and I was like, okay,
like it's not gonna be, we havea business.
Yeah, wait a minute, it's beensix months, holy and and yeah,
at the time, actually we weredoing social media management
(07:27):
for companies and buildingwebsites and doing photography
and literally anything thatpeople would pay us money for.
We were like, yep, we'll do it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (07:35):
You just keep on taking whatever you can do,
because you build your portfolioand you want to have all these
people say, oh, they did myphotography, oh they did my
social media management, oh theydid my website right.
And then they tell a friend andyou get more business.
Travis Low (07:53):
Exactly, exactly, and so that's how it started.
But then we soon realized it'shard to scale a business that
way, right, when you're whenyou're trying to do so many
things, I mean, recruiting is anightmare because you're trying
to look for a combination of allthese skill sets.
It's yeah, it's more difficultto be able to become known for
anything because you're doing somany different things.
(08:14):
You can't create these likesmooths, repeatable processes
because you're having to do thatfor a variety of different
types of things.
And so it got to this pointwhere at this time sorry, I need
to backtrack a little bit wehad got asked to do some
training and you know, I waspitching actually one of my best
(08:36):
childhood friends, Brett, whoowns a denture clinic here in
town, and and he was like youknow what Low, what you guys are
doing, I just don't think wecan work it into our like, into
our budget.
Can you just teach us how to doit, like we have some capacity
internally to do this, can youjust teach us how to do it?
And I was like I don't know,let's, let's see if we can.
(09:00):
And so I went back to theoffice.
I went back to the office andchat with Ricky and he's like,
yeah, sure, let's, let's give ita shot, let's see what kind of
curriculum we can put together.
And and then that just took offon us.
All of a sudden we recognizedthat there was a lot of
organizations out there thatweren't willing to, let's say,
outsource to a contractor, thatwere wanting to be able to
(09:24):
empower their existing team tobe better marketers.
And, yeah, we kind of realizedthere's a market for this.
And so we were kind ofsimultaneously building two
sides of the business.
We were doing social mediamanagement and then we're doing
training.
And then it got to a point wherewe were like you know what, we
need to choose one.
And we really loved thetraining and we knew that it was
(09:45):
a bit of a unique thing for us.
And so, yeah, we just kind ofit was actually a really tough
point in in business because wehad these clients that were
actually committed to us on along term basis they were loving
working with us that we had tosay I'm sorry, we're not doing
that anymore and had to like orgo that cash flow that was
(10:06):
coming for us and kind of go inthis other direction and say, oh
, yeah, like we're committing tothis, let's go for it.
And so, yeah, that was a bigdecision in business to kind of
niche and focus on that specificservice delivery.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (10:20):
So was that scary for you to say like we
can't take your money anymoreand go in another direction?
Travis Low (10:27):
Yeah, I mean like and I think any entrepreneur can
chat about this at time inbusiness when they've had to say
no to business, right, yeah,it's a power, it's a, it's a
great thing to be able to do,but it's also scary to do it
sometimes because you're like,oh, I'm like giving up this
opportunity, but I mean you'realso giving that opportunity up
for something else, anotheropportunity.
(10:50):
Right, you're opening space andcapacity and energy towards
something else.
And so, yeah, I think it wasthe best decision we ever made,
to be honest, and yeah, itreally took off from there.
That was at that time.
We had three courses that wewere teaching and, of course,
(11:10):
over time, as the platforms havechanged, as the way that you
market changes, we've justcontinued to add and evolve that
curriculum to make sure thatit's current and relevant to.
You know, the audience thatwe're working with we primarily
work with small businesses inSaskatchewan is kind of who we
work with, and we're sofortunate we've been able to
(11:32):
work with well over a thousandbusinesses in the province.
You know, across the province,down in southern Saskatchewan to
northern Saskatchewan, to Iknow you're in Swift Current, we
spend some time in SwiftCurrent and, yeah, just love it.
It's so cool to be able to workwith the variety of different
types of businesses.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (11:54):
Yeah, you know, I like how you talked
about niching and how you had tomake that decision to choose a
path, because I do think a lotof times small business they try
to kind of be everything foreveryone and usually that's when
you face more problems.
Right.
Then, when you find what you'regood at and for you guys like
honestly, I don't even knowanyone else that's offering
(12:16):
things you guys do for training.
Travis Low (12:19):
Yeah, I mean there are some people I won't say
their name, but there are people.
But yeah, I mean, when we firststarted doing that, we were
definitely the only ones thatwere doing it.
You know, during the pandemic,when, after the pandemic, there
was a bunch of funding that cameout, and it was at that time
that we saw a lot of peoplesurface and start to offer
(12:39):
similar to what we were doing.
We were very well equipped forthat funding as well, because we
were already that was what wewere doing.
We weren't recreating anything.
It was literally like okay,like there's businesses that
need, let's help them and let'sutilize what we've been building
for the past few years to beable to help people come out of
that tough time of the pandemic.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (13:01):
Yeah, and I took your course November 2020,
I took one of the courses.
I was able to get thegovernment funding as the small
business to take your course andI'm a marketing degree, but the
digital marketing 20 years agohe didn't teach at Edward School
of Business when I was there,yeah, so it helped me a lot, too
(13:23):
, in my business and really whenyou're a small business.
Marketing, I find, is one ofthe hardest things that people
face, because they know theyhave to do something but they're
not really sure what to do.
Travis Low (13:34):
Yeah, no, exactly.
Yeah, so many people have usedthe tools or are familiar with
what the tools, even just whatthey are, but they don't know
how to use it as a businessright.
So that's ultimately what wealways kind of said, like we
really wanted to empower, youknow, these organizations to be
able to access fairly, you know,inexpensive tools to be able to
(13:56):
better, you know, theirbusiness results.
So, and those results could beanything they could be, you know
, it could be ticket sales, itcould be lead lead generation,
it could be brand awareness of aspecific new service or product
offering, it could be trying torecruit and profile your
culture of your organization.
(14:16):
So we just really wanted to beable to help these small
businesses on how to better dothat and how to use these tools
that were ultimately free forthem, but use it in a strategic,
you know, business focused way.
So, yeah, and it's been so muchfun.
You know, I always say too, thatbecause we're a small business,
(14:38):
we very much understand theconstraints that all small
businesses have.
So when we're preaching thebest practices and some of those
things, we're not just sayinglike in an ideal world, here's
what you would do.
It's more like you know,understanding that you have
limited resources.
Here's how we think that youcan operationalize these best
(15:00):
practices.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's like it's not just likeyou know.
Of course, we all wish that wecould do everything, but that's
impossible, and so we got towhat?
When we have limited resources,let's use them in the most
strategic, efficient way that wecan.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (15:16):
So, yeah, yeah, and I feel too like you're
better off to do especially formarketing.
Pick one or two things thatyou're going to do and do them
really good totally.
Then try to just do everythingand just see like throw out
their stuff, right.
Travis Low (15:32):
Exactly.
No, that's exactly it.
We've been talking about thatfor years, just honestly and
from a platform perspective,because, you know, often we'll
find lots of our clients willwant to be on every single
social media platform and wejust have to kind of like bring
them back to reality.
That like do you want your lifejust to be like full of like,
(15:54):
like being spread so thin withall these notifications and all
these different people thatyou're trying to engage with and
you ultimately aren't engagingwith any of them because you're
spread too thin, right?
Mackenzie Kilshaw (16:05):
Yeah well, and it doesn't make sense for
some people like, especially nowwith the rise of like, Tik Tok
and all of these differentplatforms.
So Facebook, Instagram, x, , Imean there's a dozen where I'm
probably not even saying but youcan't.
If you want to be on all ofthose and do them all good, you
(16:25):
literally need to meet a fulltime person.
Just that's their job.
Travis Low (16:28):
Or multiple full time people.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (16:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so true.
Travis Low (16:33):
That's just social media we're talking.
We're not even talking aboutany of your.
You know marketing automation,your email marketing.
You know your advertising.
There's so much to it, right?
Your website of things, landingpage creation, like it just
goes on and on, right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (16:51):
Exactly.
But so yeah, I have a burningquestion that I should have
asked you at the very beginning,and I didn't know, it's all
good.
Where the heck did Blue Moosecome from?
Travis Low (17:02):
Oh my God again.
I should have had this chatwith you before we started, not
to ask me that question.
I think I've actually heard thestory before, but I know people
are listening and saying it'ssuch a bad story like it's
actually a non story like I wishand you know we've talked for
years, we've got to like createsome fake story about this.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (17:24):
We saw a blue moose walking down the road.
Travis Low (17:26):
It's the most common question, like people don't
care about, like what we'reoffering for service.
We'll give this presentationand like filled with just you
know, tips and whatever else.
And then somebody puts up theirhand and they're like, hey, I
got a question for you.
What, where did the name comefrom?
And I'm like, oh man, likethat's all things um and sorry.
(17:49):
So when we anybody who's everstarted a business knows that
that that, that process, you canhave like all your service
delivery figured out, you canhave your you know building
figured out, what you need forstaffing.
But the figure out the name wassuch a hard, hard, and so we had
, like I don't know 20 differentnames and we were looking for
(18:13):
something.
So at the time it was justRicky and I and we were looking
for something that was likereflective of us and we were
thinking we wanted that to be.
You know, we're both.
We're both guys who love theoutdoors, are Canadians, and we
wanted to focus on the tourismindustry.
So, um, and then the color blueis like a trustworthy color in
(18:35):
the psychology of marketing.
So that's the story.
We wanted it to be memorable.
We wanted it to be like if Iwalked into a room and told you
I've worked for a place, thatyou remember it, and I think we
did okay.
I think I think we nailed itand it's funny because we had no
experience doing any of thatwork.
We just did it on our own,didn't hire anybody to help us,
(18:57):
and I think it was good.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (18:58):
You know, what, though it is a
conversation starter and I thinkthat's part of it, because
people are what?
Like?
What is where did it come from?
It starts that conversation andit builds people's interest
right.
They have a peak becausethey're like what the heck is
that?
Is it right?
I think it was actually smartto do that.
That's it's kind of a obscure,but it's also really catching
(19:22):
right.
Yeah, yeah, that was a goodmove.
Travis Low (19:25):
Yeah, you wouldn't want to see that.
I should try to find the oldlist of all the other names we
had, because there was just likesome terrible names and yeah,
it would have been funny.
We should actually go back intothat and create logos for them
and see if anybody would haveever liked those ones.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (19:42):
That would be a good social media campaign.
You can have somebody do thatfor the next week for their
full-time job.
Travis Low (19:49):
Yeah, exactly yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (19:50):
No, I think, though, this isn't even on our
conversation topic, but the nameof your business is like you
said.
It's really hard to name abusiness, and especially now in
2024.
If you want to get a domainname, you might have an idea and
you can't even get the name foryour website or social media,
so it is better to picksomething that is kind of
(20:12):
obscure or something that maybemeans something to you.
My store was Two Fifty TwoBoutique after my mom's birthday
, so it was sentimental to meand that's why I came up with
the name, but it's tricky toname your business for sure.
Travis Low (20:26):
Yeah, I know it is.
Yeah, I always say that was thehardest thing, that was the
hardest part of it.
Nothing to do with marketing,nothing to do with getting
clients, it was just the namingprocess.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (20:40):
Well, we'll move on from that, but I'm glad
that you told us.
You kind of mentioned marketingautomation, which I think is
people hear about it a lot butif people aren't familiar with
it, do you want to just talk onthat a little bit?
Travis Low (20:55):
Yeah, sure, yeah.
It's actually something I loveis marketing automation.
It's ultimately I always say,break it down into simple terms
it's like using a trigger and anaction, and so it's a way that
we can streamline processes thatyou might be manually doing
historically.
So within most CRM tools nowthere's marketing automation
(21:18):
built into them.
So the easiest example would bethe form on your website.
So somebody fills out the formand we want two things to happen
out of that form trigger.
So the form fill is a trigger,and then the actions that we
want to happen are what stepsgoes next?
(21:38):
So the simplest one would be OK,we need to notify our internal
team that somebody's filled outthe form, and then we want to
communicate to the person whofilled out the form.
So let's send an email to ourinternal sales team and let's
send a follow-up email givingthe information that they filled
out the form for to the personwho filled out the form.
So send them an email.
(21:58):
So that's like the simplestversion.
You can do all kinds of thingsin terms of automation, from
meeting scheduling automation toa drip campaign where somebody
fills out that form or clicksonto a place on your website or
(22:21):
looks at, let's say, a PDF thatyou've sent them and that
triggers, let's say, a series ofactions to happen, like we can
send them that follow-up emailand then, if they don't respond
to you, maybe two days later wesend them another follow-up and
then, maybe two days after that,if there's still no response,
maybe we set a notification forour sales team to pick up the
(22:41):
phone and call them as anexample.
So, yeah, so we love I mean,we've done this for years in
terms of our own lead generationprocess for how we attract
businesses through digitaladvertising strategy, where
we're trying to drive trafficfrom, whether social media or
(23:02):
Google Search.
So through SEO or throughGoogle Ads, driving traffic back
to a landing page or to ourwebsite get them to hopefully
peak their interest with whatour offering is and to fill out
that form for something inreturn.
And then it starts theconversation as an inbound kind
(23:24):
of process where our sales teamhas warm leads to nurture and
follow up with.
So, yeah, that's maybe theeasiest way to talk about
marketing automation.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (23:39):
Yeah, it's fantastic because in the olden
days, I'll say, which reallywasn't that long ago, you
literally were probably sendingout all of these emails by
yourself as the business right,or you're like, oh, I should
follow up with that person.
Travis Low (23:52):
Yeah yeah yeah, exactly now, it's just automatic
.
Yeah, and there's all kinds ofthings that you can do with that
.
You know, and I just won't getinto all of them, but you know,
from obviously segmenting youraudiences to, you know now
integrating, you know, textmessaging into that as well as
email to even you know, I nowwhat's app is built into it.
(24:15):
There's, there's all kinds ofthings that we can do.
It's just taking the time toreally kind of strategize it for
your business in terms of thebest communication with your
client base.
Right, yeah, for sure.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (24:29):
Do you have a favorite CRM that you recommend
for small business?
Travis Low (24:32):
You know, we are actively actually just building
out a new one right now.
That it's it's something thatwe're going to be kind of
selling as a service, which isexciting.
So it's just not quite readyyet, but yeah, it's a it's it's
a white label partner that we'reworking with, that that has
this software and and it's highlevel, but it's it's.
(24:58):
From a naming side of things,I'm like what, but it's a very
powerful software and, yeah,it's super exciting to kind of
get that rolling.
And so, yeah, that one I'vedabbled in keep it's called.
It used to be called infusionsoft, I mean there's the obvious
ones like HubSpot andSalesforce but for me those ones
(25:24):
are such large, it's likesoftware solutions and very
expensive and I don't know.
I guess I I'm always thinkingfrom a small business
perspective, so I want somethingthat's a little bit more
affordable and easier to use.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (25:40):
So yeah, I agree.
I think for bigger companiesthose HubSpot and Salesforce are
good, but small businessthey're probably a little too
much.
Also they're expensive.
Travis Low (25:53):
Very expensive, yes.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (25:55):
Yeah, yeah, okay, let's talk about the
future of marketing and wherewe're going.
AI is a huge buzz right rightnow and people are talking about
it, so let's start with maybejust a little bit AI.
What is it?
What does it do?
Travis Low (26:15):
Yeah, sure, yeah, I mean first of all.
Just, I mean they say, way,Mackenzie, it's as if we like
talked about this already, orsomething.
Shauna Foster (26:22):
Yeah, you know.
Travis Low (26:25):
But yeah, it's a, we've just started no, not just
started.
We've integrated a lot of,let's say, AI, Chat GPT into our
curriculum, because we've justbeen obviously hearing from our
clients that they want to learnmore.
You know, they're not sure whatit is, what it can do and
ultimately, you know, when wetalk about AI or artificial
(26:47):
intelligence, really kind ofdiving into a world where, you
know, a machine mimics humanintelligence, right?
So you know, imagine machinesthat can think, they can learn,
they can even make decisions,much like we do as humans, but
at a way faster pace.
And so you know it can justprocess so much data and spot,
(27:11):
you know, patterns and makepredictions way quicker than
what we could.
Right, so we could, and so, andif you now bring that into a
marketing perspective, it's anabsolute game changer.
You know it can dive intoconsumer behavior.
It can look at your historicaldata and maybe like forecast
upcoming trends or learn moreabout your audience and develop
(27:36):
very detailed personas for forthat audience, so that you have
better Messaging that connectswith that audience.
You know, to chat bots likethat's a really big change that
we're gonna see and continue tosee evolve Through AI is is the
utilization of chat bots.
Where you know, I think thebiggest thing when people start
(27:58):
to get into Chat GPT as theirstarting point is that they use
it and they ask if they promptit with some kind of question,
whether it's writing caption orresponse to an email or whatever
and it comes off just likesuper artificial and generic.
Yeah and they're like, oh, thisis junk, right, yeah, and they
(28:19):
just haven't quite learned howto use the tool effectively.
Yes, right, and so you knowthey need to learn how to prompt
that.
You know and and teach it, toteach the tool about their
business and who their audienceis and the language that they
want to use.
And you know the tone, thevoice and the tone of their
business and you know, maybe,information about their services
(28:41):
and some of those things.
So it really takes the you knowwhat are you feeding it as the
starting point and then ask itthe question and then refine
from there because, and if it'snot exactly you like, keep on.
You know, prompting it withfurther and further refinements,
and so you know that's how toeffectively use it.
(29:01):
And with chat bots, you knowchat bots are going to kind of
pull from whatever data sourcethey have access to, right, and
so if it's like using, let's say, a similar type of type of Chat
GPT.
Then it's going to be pullingfrom, just like very generic.
You know all of the data that ithas available to it.
(29:22):
But what you can actually do,what we're seeing happen more
and more now is that you canactually kind of house all of
your intellectual property In aspecific area.
So let's say we like, usesomething like notion, and we
house all of our intellectualproperty about our business,
about all the things that we,you know, offer as a service,
(29:46):
whatever that might look like,and we can teach the chat bot to
actually speak to that IP, thatintellectual property, so that
it's only pulling informationfrom there.
So so then basically what wecan do is we can vet all the
information that's in that bankof data so that it's always
going to be be pulling accurateinformation that we've already
(30:09):
approved.
It is aligned with kind of ourvalues and what we believe and
what you know, the facts thatwe've confirmed, and so that
will just continue to evolve astime goes on here and those
tools are just going to becomemore Sophisticated and the
people obviously using them willalso become more sophisticated
in how we use them properly.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (30:32):
Yeah, for sure, and I know I've talked to
people that are concerned like,oh, it's gonna take jobs away
because you don't need a personto do the writing or whatever.
But really you still need thehuman to, like you say, prompt
it and ask the questions.
Travis Low (30:45):
Exactly, I would have to say.
It's like, sure, there could besome functions that maybe get
changed or like obsolete, butlike, in terms of job creation,
it just creates a.
In my mind, it just createsmore jobs in, but just in, maybe
different capacities, right.
So it's like and you know, whenyou think about the education
(31:08):
system and how lots of themmight kind of you know,
ultimately resist the use of AIor Chat GPT within their
operations In my mind, like theyshould be empowering people,
they should be teaching them theeffective ways of using it,
because it's here, it's notgoing anywhere, right.
(31:28):
So it's like, um, empower thosepeople so they're better able
to use it and more, and usetheir time in a more strategic
way.
That ultimately will help thebusiness to grow even faster,
right.
So it's like, yeah, let's, let'sget behind this and just know
that it's not going anywhere.
Right, it's like it's probablythe exact same way that people
(31:50):
probably resisted.
You know computers and you knowthe internet and all these
other things.
As you know, history has goneon.
There's always been a bit of aresistance every single time,
right?
So it's here.
Oh, let's, let's, let's embraceit and move on with it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (32:07):
I agree, and it's no different than
automating the marketingprocesses that we just talked
about.
Right, it's like it's.
It's just to help you in yourbusiness be more successful, do
something faster or with I don'twant to say less effort,
because it's still effort, but Imaybe don't have to write every
single word, but I still haveto have some input Into the
(32:31):
information that's going inthere.
Travis Low (32:32):
Totally yeah um.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (32:35):
Is there any downfalls to think to using AI?
Travis Low (32:39):
Yeah, I mean, of course.
I mean, first of all, I mean oneof the biggest conversations
would be like how easy it is tojust become reliant on it, right
, true, and because it'stempting, right, like you know
it's so easy and so, but thenyou risk losing that human touch
if you're just, you know, let'ssay, caught me pacing straight
(33:01):
from those prompts and not evenlooking at what it's providing
you and we're just talking ChatGPT at this point.
But yeah, I mean also like theytalk about like bias, right,
because it's like it's only asgood as the information that
somebody's provided it to learnfrom.
So if there's bias and thatinformation that's being
provided to it, then the resultsthat it's going to create is
(33:23):
obviously going to be biased aswell.
So there's that, yeah, and Ithink it's like obviously the
barrier to entry for a lot oflike businesses on how to use it
would be also part of that,where it's like, you know, the
cost to create your ownartificial intelligence is just
(33:47):
quite a bit.
So, you know, definitely adownfall there.
But yeah, I think, honestly,it's just like being still
having a lens through a humaneye, making sure that you're not
just accepting the informationthat's providing you.
You know at exactly what it'sgiving you, but make sure you've
looked it over and using it ina strategic way.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (34:09):
So yeah, I totally agree.
And what do you think are thebiggest pros, like, why should
people use it?
Travis Low (34:18):
Oh, I honestly think it's such an amazing tool, you
know, from a business standpoint.
I think you can use it in everyaspect of business, you know,
whether that's creating agendasin your for your meetings and or
building frameworks for yourstrategies to, you know, asking
(34:41):
it to educate you on specifictopics to write, helping you to
write content for whatever youmight be doing, whether it's
your blog or your social mediaposts, or coming up with content
, ideas like kind of a list of.
Goes on and on, and that's justagain.
I'm just talking chat.
I'm not even getting into theAI tools.
Like, there's tools out thereright now that you know.
(35:02):
One of the coolest ones I saw ata conference recently was I
record myself talking for twominutes just so that it can
learn about my mannerisms and myfacial features and whatever my
hand movements and all of that.
And then what I can do is I canfeed a transcript and I can
(35:24):
have it.
Basically use what it's learnedfrom me in here and just create
, you know, talking videos usingthe script that I've given it
and I can change you of metalking.
Actually, Mackenzie, this ismind blowing.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (35:47):
This is the bot Travis, not the real life
Travis.
Travis Low (35:51):
I'm behind here just typing away, but no, it's
powerful because you can evenchange languages as well.
And you know, I've seen a buddywho can't speak one word of
Spanish be able to create a fiveminute video of him speaking
Spanish by just saying that tooland it looks so natural you'd
(36:13):
never be able to tell.
So, you know.
And the list goes on.
Like if you start to researchall the tools out there, you
know, from helping you, you know, optimize your schedule, to
writing content, to creatingcreative content, you know, of
imagery, to these video creationtools, to course creators,
(36:35):
literally, the list goes on.
So if you are in any field ofbusiness, be doing your research
, be prepared to be overwhelmedby the number of tools that are
out there and that's only goingto expand as time goes on here.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (36:48):
So yeah, it's , I agree, and I feel like in
the next couple of years it'sjust going to be like
exponential the way it goes.
Travis Low (36:54):
Yeah, but it can be, you know it can help to be able
to, you know, give quickerresponses, personalized, you
know, communication, reduce work, you know, workflows of your
operations.
It can, you know, make peoplemore strategic in their job
function.
I don't know.
I think there's lots ofbenefits to it.
(37:15):
You know I talked about some ofthose.
You know potential downfalls,but I think there's, you know,
many more benefits that can be,you know, used and kind of
focused on as to why you shouldbe using it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (37:29):
Yeah, I totally agree, Travis.
Looking back on yourentrepreneurial life and you're
having your own business andwhatnot Is there a most
important lesson that you'velearned along the way?
Travis Low (37:44):
Oh, wow, yeah, you know what I mean.
That's a good question.
I have to think real quickly.
I probably have to say like itcan consume you and you have to
(38:05):
find a balance in life.
That doesn't say It's not, yes, it's your, it's your world,
but it doesn't need to be yourwhole world, right, like you
still need to find time foryourself or your family, for
your friends, your loved ones.
You need to learn how to bemindful when you have so many
(38:28):
pressures coming at you andnotifications, and you know all
these stimulate this crazyamount of stimulation coming at
you all the time, right?
So how can you, you know, calmyour nervous system to the point
where you're not just consumedin and kind of bouncing around
from thing to thing to thing?
And I know I learned that earlyon in my career and you know
(38:52):
I've tried my best.
It's an ongoing battle.
It's like I'm not perfect.
None of us are perfect.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (38:56):
No, it's hard for everyone really.
Travis Low (38:59):
And then, as you might think you got it figured
out and then all of a sudden yourealize you don't.
And so, yeah, that's definitelyone thing is try to find that
balance and be disciplined tonot work.
You know, all hours of the day,every day.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (39:16):
So, yeah, I love that advice and it's so
important to take care ofyourself and make sure that
you're not consumed by it,because you will face burnout
then.
Right For sure, yeah, is thereanything you wish you'd known or
anything?
Maybe this is what you wouldtell your younger self, or is
there something else that you'relike?
Oh geez, I wish I would haveknown that 10 years ago.
Travis Low (39:36):
You know, the biggest mistake that I say I
probably made in early inbusiness was not understanding
the value of debt.
Actually, oh yeah, I, we builtthe business on cash and really
sacrificed the first two yearsof our life by doing so, you
know, by not thinking I don'tknow, we just like wanted to
(39:59):
bootstrap the whole business andnot, you know, take any debt.
But I wish we would have, justfor a better quality of life
during that time period.
So yeah, I think that's amistake that I would say
definitely made early inbusiness was not taking care of
myself financially over the overthe business.
(40:19):
And it's kind of goes toanother point about you know the
getting consumed by business,because I definitely was in
those first two years.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (40:27):
So I actually love that because I think it's
a point that a lot of peopledon't think about.
They think like oh, if we don'thave a loan to pay or we don't
have, you know, somethingfinancially that is reoccurring
will be better off.
But I think you're right In theend you might actually be
farther ahead if you get alittle kind of bit of cash to
get you started for sure.
Travis Low (40:49):
Well, yeah, do you know what it's like to go on a
date and not know if your creditcard's going to bounce?
Or even just a coffee?
That's really fun.
Let me tell you.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (40:58):
Travis.
I've been an entrepreneur forover 10 years.
I know exactly what that feelslike.
You know what I think.
It's so funny too, becausethere's also this kind of weird
stereotype or stigma I don'tknow what it is where people are
like oh, you own a business,you're rich and it's oh well,
especially not when you start.
No, you might get there, but no, definitely not.
(41:19):
You oftentimes are paying outof your own pocket for things,
right?
Travis Low (41:22):
Yeah, and it's like even after your business has
matured.
It's like do you know what it'slike to live a life where,
every single month, I'mwondering how am I going to do
it next month?
Am I going to survive this?
And it's this ongoing fear thatI don't know if it's like a
doomsday thing, but it's like Ijust always fear what if this
(41:43):
doesn't work?
And it's like it always seemsto work out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (41:46):
I was going to say and here you are.
You have a great business.
You are still here.
I'm still here for most of us.
You work hard to make it workright, for sure, and I
appreciate that.
Travis, thank you so much forbeing on.
I know that people are going towant to know more about you and
know more about Blue Mouse, sowhere's the best way for them to
(42:08):
find you?
Travis Low (42:10):
Definitely.
Just our website at www.
bluemousemedia.
com and reach out, have a chatwith us there's never any
pressure, I promise you, andalways love to have some chats
with local businesses and findout what they're working on or
what they're trying to work onor what they're challenged with
and see if we can help.
So yeah, I think that's it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (42:31):
I appreciate that and, as someone that's used
your services before, I cantell you that it's definitely
worth it.
So check out Blue Mouse.
Travis, thank you so much forbeing on and for everybody else.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Thanks for listening to Winning.
Be sure to subscribe to get allof our new episodes.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
(42:53):
media and leave a rating andreview wherever you listen to
Winning.
To catch all of the latest fromus, you can follow Winning
Podcast on Instagram @Winning_podcast, Facebook at Winning
Podcast and on Twitter @winningpod.
Winning was created and isproduced by me, Mackenzie
(43:13):
Kilshaw, music created by SummerFirby, editing by Seth
Armstrong.
Special thanks to Shauna Fosterfor voicing our opening and, of
course, a huge thank you tothis episode's guest.
Thanks again for listening andI'll see you on the next episode
.
Winning is your guide to making it in business.
Join our award-winning host andentrepreneur, Mackenzie Kilshaw
, and special guests in casualconversations that will educate
and inspire you on your businessjourney.
Winning will help you learn thehard lessons the easy way, with
guidance from celebratedentrepreneurs and business
(00:26):
leaders.
It's fun, it's informative,it's winning!
Mackenzie Kilshaw (00:31):
elcome to Winning.
I am your host, MackenzieKilshaw, and today's guest is
Travis Low.
Hi, Travis.
Travis Low (00:36):
Hey Mackenzie.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (00:37):
How are you?
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm really good.
I'm enjoying the nice weather.
I'm happy to have you on.
Travis is the CEO and owner ofBlue Moose Media in Saskatoon.
It's an award-winning digitalmarketing and social media
agency.
They focus on businessdevelopment and organizational
strategy as well.
Before Blue Moose, he was theexecutive director of the
(00:59):
Parkinson's Society ofSaskatchewan and the founder of
the Shaker event, Lows in Motion, which I always loved, such a
great event.
Blue Moose has actually helpedover 1,000 businesses in the
province, helping themcultivating engaging online
presence that translatesaspirations into results.
(01:21):
So, Travis, thank you for beingon.
Do you want to tell theaudience a little bit more about
who you are?
Travis Low (01:28):
Sorry if everybody laughed in there.
Mackenzie, you froze up in themiddle of there, so my apologies
, but this is just going to be afun conversation, so we're all
good so yeah, so I guess thanksfor the introduction.
Yeah, I guess my background wasvery unconventional.
(01:48):
I guess when I came out ofuniversity, went to the Edwards
School of Business and had mybachelor of commerce in
management and came out wantedto be a financial advisor, kind
of bounced around a bit In thattime period, had started the
event, the Lows in MotionParkinson Shaker and that was
(02:09):
really my first entrepreneurialventure and it was such a
learning curve, such a coolopportunity to learn about
building a brand and trying toattract an audience and how to
market and how to work with acommittee of people and all of
those fun things.
And we ran that event for 10years and had a ton of fun and
success with the event.
(02:29):
And that event kind of three,four years into the event had
led me into the executivedirector position, which was
ultimately my secondorganization that I was managing
and talk about learning curve,holy responsible for the
province of Saskatchewan, forthe Parkinson community, and
(02:50):
also working on an executiveleadership team across Canada
working with all the othercharities working for
Parkinson's and I didn't evenknow what board governance was
at the time and I had a realquick lesson on that working
with the board of directors andthen ultimately the Federation
of all the other charitiesacross the country.
(03:12):
And yeah, but what an amazingfour years I had to do that and
it was such a dream job.
My dad lives with Parkinson's,so it's near and dear to my
heart to be putting my time andeffort and energies into helping
those people out.
That ultimately actually kindof led to me having to leave.
I was just battling emotionally.
It was just so hard to be soclose to the subject and to that
(03:37):
population and community, eventhough I loved it so much.
I just couldn't continue and soI had to step away and took a
year break.
Actually, I went traveling fora year after running the charity
for those years and went intoEurope for seven months and then
went down to South America andhonestly just was surfing and
doing yoga down in South Americafor four months and it was a
(04:02):
dream life.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (04:03):
I was going to say that sounds fantastic.
Travis Low (04:07):
It was definitely a dream.
But I guess this is all kind ofsegueing up, because my
ultimate dream.
The whole reason I went touniversity, the whole reason I
wanted to go into business, wasto become an entrepreneur.
It's literally what I've alwaysknown I wanted to do.
I don't know exactly why,because neither of my parents
are entrepreneurs, but mygrandparents were so kind of
(04:29):
funny, I guess.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (04:30):
Yeah, you saw it, probably growing up with
them.
Travis Low (04:32):
Kind of yeah, my grandpa, one grandpa was a
farmer.
My other grandpa did have acouple retail stores actually in
Rosetown, Saskatchewan and yeah.
So I came home from thosetravels and was just
brainstorming ideas and Iprobably had a dozen different
(04:57):
business ideas and I would justjot them down.
Sometimes I'd be out for drinkswith friends and would be
thinking of the idea and I wouldjust write myself a note and
the next day I would just kindof crush like what would this
look like and would this even befeasible, build out a financial
?
And my good friend, mine, thatwent to university with Ricky
(05:18):
Forbes.
Him and I were paddle boardanother one day and we're just
catching up.
He was kind of just finishing.
He's a storm chaser, so hechased tornadoes and had a TV
show and had some successes withthat and he was kind of at a
crossroads at that time and bothof us just were chatting and
(05:38):
he's like you want to start a?
Should we do something together?
And I was like what would itlook like?
He's like well, I have a bigsocial media audience and you've
ran some organizations, so whydon't we combine forces?
And I was like you know what?
Let's go for it.
Like, why not?
I was like at the time I waslike not super passionate about,
like, let's say, social mediaor even marketing.
(06:00):
And then, once we started andstarted to work with businesses
and start to understand, youknow, their challenges and start
to come up with solutions forthem and learn more about it, it
just grew on me and I just, youknow, really grew a passion for
, you know, working with thesesmall businesses and trying to
help them to be able to betterachieve what they were trying to
(06:22):
.
You know the areas that theywere trying to grow in, whether
that be, you know, recruitingemployees or generating more
leads or just general brandawareness.
And, yeah, it just kind of tookoff and I, honestly, from my
expectations going into it, Ithought we were going to last
six months.
It's so funny I was like I waslike we'll just try this out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (06:48):
And yeah, see if it goes.
Travis Low (06:50):
If it doesn't work, I mean what's the worst that can
happen here?
Mackenzie Kilshaw (06:52):
I mean that's actually the best attitude.
Yeah, that really is.
It's like let's try it, becausewhat do you have to lose?
Right, it's you and your friend, your paddleboarding, literally
.
Okay, let's give it a shot.
Right, like it's a greatattitude.
Travis Low (07:06):
So yeah, yeah, and it was like yeah, and we kind of
got going with it and itstarted to get more like within
six months it just was reallypicking up and I was like, okay,
like it's not gonna be, we havea business.
Yeah, wait a minute, it's beensix months, holy and and yeah,
at the time, actually we weredoing social media management
(07:27):
for companies and buildingwebsites and doing photography
and literally anything thatpeople would pay us money for.
We were like, yep, we'll do it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (07:35):
You just keep on taking whatever you can do,
because you build your portfolioand you want to have all these
people say, oh, they did myphotography, oh they did my
social media management, oh theydid my website right.
And then they tell a friend andyou get more business.
Travis Low (07:53):
Exactly, exactly, and so that's how it started.
But then we soon realized it'shard to scale a business that
way, right, when you're whenyou're trying to do so many
things, I mean, recruiting is anightmare because you're trying
to look for a combination of allthese skill sets.
It's yeah, it's more difficultto be able to become known for
anything because you're doing somany different things.
(08:14):
You can't create these likesmooths, repeatable processes
because you're having to do thatfor a variety of different
types of things.
And so it got to this pointwhere at this time sorry, I need
to backtrack a little bit wehad got asked to do some
training and you know, I waspitching actually one of my best
(08:36):
childhood friends, Brett, whoowns a denture clinic here in
town, and and he was like youknow what Low, what you guys are
doing, I just don't think wecan work it into our like, into
our budget.
Can you just teach us how to doit, like we have some capacity
internally to do this, can youjust teach us how to do it?
And I was like I don't know,let's, let's see if we can.
(09:00):
And so I went back to theoffice.
I went back to the office andchat with Ricky and he's like,
yeah, sure, let's, let's give ita shot, let's see what kind of
curriculum we can put together.
And and then that just took offon us.
All of a sudden we recognizedthat there was a lot of
organizations out there thatweren't willing to, let's say,
outsource to a contractor, thatwere wanting to be able to
(09:24):
empower their existing team tobe better marketers.
And, yeah, we kind of realizedthere's a market for this.
And so we were kind ofsimultaneously building two
sides of the business.
We were doing social mediamanagement and then we're doing
training.
And then it got to a point wherewe were like you know what, we
need to choose one.
And we really loved thetraining and we knew that it was
(09:45):
a bit of a unique thing for us.
And so, yeah, we just kind ofit was actually a really tough
point in in business because wehad these clients that were
actually committed to us on along term basis they were loving
working with us that we had tosay I'm sorry, we're not doing
that anymore and had to like orgo that cash flow that was
(10:06):
coming for us and kind of go inthis other direction and say, oh
, yeah, like we're committing tothis, let's go for it.
And so, yeah, that was a bigdecision in business to kind of
niche and focus on that specificservice delivery.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (10:20):
So was that scary for you to say like we
can't take your money anymoreand go in another direction?
Travis Low (10:27):
Yeah, I mean like and I think any entrepreneur can
chat about this at time inbusiness when they've had to say
no to business, right, yeah,it's a power, it's a, it's a
great thing to be able to do,but it's also scary to do it
sometimes because you're like,oh, I'm like giving up this
opportunity, but I mean you'realso giving that opportunity up
for something else, anotheropportunity.
(10:50):
Right, you're opening space andcapacity and energy towards
something else.
And so, yeah, I think it wasthe best decision we ever made,
to be honest, and yeah, itreally took off from there.
That was at that time.
We had three courses that wewere teaching and, of course,
(11:10):
over time, as the platforms havechanged, as the way that you
market changes, we've justcontinued to add and evolve that
curriculum to make sure thatit's current and relevant to.
You know, the audience thatwe're working with we primarily
work with small businesses inSaskatchewan is kind of who we
work with, and we're sofortunate we've been able to
(11:32):
work with well over a thousandbusinesses in the province.
You know, across the province,down in southern Saskatchewan to
northern Saskatchewan, to Iknow you're in Swift Current, we
spend some time in SwiftCurrent and, yeah, just love it.
It's so cool to be able to workwith the variety of different
types of businesses.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (11:54):
Yeah, you know, I like how you talked
about niching and how you had tomake that decision to choose a
path, because I do think a lotof times small business they try
to kind of be everything foreveryone and usually that's when
you face more problems.
Right.
Then, when you find what you'regood at and for you guys like
honestly, I don't even knowanyone else that's offering
(12:16):
things you guys do for training.
Travis Low (12:19):
Yeah, I mean there are some people I won't say
their name, but there are people.
But yeah, I mean, when we firststarted doing that, we were
definitely the only ones thatwere doing it.
You know, during the pandemic,when, after the pandemic, there
was a bunch of funding that cameout, and it was at that time
that we saw a lot of peoplesurface and start to offer
(12:39):
similar to what we were doing.
We were very well equipped forthat funding as well, because we
were already that was what wewere doing.
We weren't recreating anything.
It was literally like okay,like there's businesses that
need, let's help them and let'sutilize what we've been building
for the past few years to beable to help people come out of
that tough time of the pandemic.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (13:01):
Yeah, and I took your course November 2020,
I took one of the courses.
I was able to get thegovernment funding as the small
business to take your course andI'm a marketing degree, but the
digital marketing 20 years agohe didn't teach at Edward School
of Business when I was there,yeah, so it helped me a lot, too
(13:23):
, in my business and really whenyou're a small business.
Marketing, I find, is one ofthe hardest things that people
face, because they know theyhave to do something but they're
not really sure what to do.
Travis Low (13:34):
Yeah, no, exactly.
Yeah, so many people have usedthe tools or are familiar with
what the tools, even just whatthey are, but they don't know
how to use it as a businessright.
So that's ultimately what wealways kind of said, like we
really wanted to empower, youknow, these organizations to be
able to access fairly, you know,inexpensive tools to be able to
(13:56):
better, you know, theirbusiness results.
So, and those results could beanything they could be, you know
, it could be ticket sales, itcould be lead lead generation,
it could be brand awareness of aspecific new service or product
offering, it could be trying torecruit and profile your
culture of your organization.
(14:16):
So we just really wanted to beable to help these small
businesses on how to better dothat and how to use these tools
that were ultimately free forthem, but use it in a strategic,
you know, business focused way.
So, yeah, and it's been so muchfun.
You know, I always say too, thatbecause we're a small business,
(14:38):
we very much understand theconstraints that all small
businesses have.
So when we're preaching thebest practices and some of those
things, we're not just sayinglike in an ideal world, here's
what you would do.
It's more like you know,understanding that you have
limited resources.
Here's how we think that youcan operationalize these best
(15:00):
practices.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's like it's not just likeyou know.
Of course, we all wish that wecould do everything, but that's
impossible, and so we got towhat?
When we have limited resources,let's use them in the most
strategic, efficient way that wecan.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (15:16):
So, yeah, yeah, and I feel too like you're
better off to do especially formarketing.
Pick one or two things thatyou're going to do and do them
really good totally.
Then try to just do everythingand just see like throw out
their stuff, right.
Travis Low (15:32):
Exactly.
No, that's exactly it.
We've been talking about thatfor years, just honestly and
from a platform perspective,because, you know, often we'll
find lots of our clients willwant to be on every single
social media platform and wejust have to kind of like bring
them back to reality.
That like do you want your lifejust to be like full of like,
(15:54):
like being spread so thin withall these notifications and all
these different people thatyou're trying to engage with and
you ultimately aren't engagingwith any of them because you're
spread too thin, right?
Mackenzie Kilshaw (16:05):
Yeah well, and it doesn't make sense for
some people like, especially nowwith the rise of like, Tik Tok
and all of these differentplatforms.
So Facebook, Instagram, x, , Imean there's a dozen where I'm
probably not even saying but youcan't.
If you want to be on all ofthose and do them all good, you
(16:25):
literally need to meet a fulltime person.
Just that's their job.
Travis Low (16:28):
Or multiple full time people.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (16:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so true.
Travis Low (16:33):
That's just social media we're talking.
We're not even talking aboutany of your.
You know marketing automation,your email marketing.
You know your advertising.
There's so much to it, right?
Your website of things, landingpage creation, like it just
goes on and on, right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (16:51):
Exactly.
But so yeah, I have a burningquestion that I should have
asked you at the very beginning,and I didn't know, it's all
good.
Where the heck did Blue Moosecome from?
Travis Low (17:02):
Oh my God again.
I should have had this chatwith you before we started, not
to ask me that question.
I think I've actually heard thestory before, but I know people
are listening and saying it'ssuch a bad story like it's
actually a non story like I wishand you know we've talked for
years, we've got to like createsome fake story about this.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (17:24):
We saw a blue moose walking down the road.
Travis Low (17:26):
It's the most common question, like people don't
care about, like what we'reoffering for service.
We'll give this presentationand like filled with just you
know, tips and whatever else.
And then somebody puts up theirhand and they're like, hey, I
got a question for you.
What, where did the name comefrom?
And I'm like, oh man, likethat's all things um and sorry.
(17:49):
So when we anybody who's everstarted a business knows that
that that, that process, you canhave like all your service
delivery figured out, you canhave your you know building
figured out, what you need forstaffing.
But the figure out the name wassuch a hard, hard, and so we had
, like I don't know 20 differentnames and we were looking for
(18:13):
something.
So at the time it was justRicky and I and we were looking
for something that was likereflective of us and we were
thinking we wanted that to be.
You know, we're both.
We're both guys who love theoutdoors, are Canadians, and we
wanted to focus on the tourismindustry.
So, um, and then the color blueis like a trustworthy color in
(18:35):
the psychology of marketing.
So that's the story.
We wanted it to be memorable.
We wanted it to be like if Iwalked into a room and told you
I've worked for a place, thatyou remember it, and I think we
did okay.
I think I think we nailed itand it's funny because we had no
experience doing any of thatwork.
We just did it on our own,didn't hire anybody to help us,
(18:57):
and I think it was good.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (18:58):
You know, what, though it is a
conversation starter and I thinkthat's part of it, because
people are what?
Like?
What is where did it come from?
It starts that conversation andit builds people's interest
right.
They have a peak becausethey're like what the heck is
that?
Is it right?
I think it was actually smartto do that.
That's it's kind of a obscure,but it's also really catching
(19:22):
right.
Yeah, yeah, that was a goodmove.
Travis Low (19:25):
Yeah, you wouldn't want to see that.
I should try to find the oldlist of all the other names we
had, because there was just likesome terrible names and yeah,
it would have been funny.
We should actually go back intothat and create logos for them
and see if anybody would haveever liked those ones.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (19:42):
That would be a good social media campaign.
You can have somebody do thatfor the next week for their
full-time job.
Travis Low (19:49):
Yeah, exactly yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (19:50):
No, I think, though, this isn't even on our
conversation topic, but the nameof your business is like you
said.
It's really hard to name abusiness, and especially now in
2024.
If you want to get a domainname, you might have an idea and
you can't even get the name foryour website or social media,
so it is better to picksomething that is kind of
(20:12):
obscure or something that maybemeans something to you.
My store was Two Fifty TwoBoutique after my mom's birthday
, so it was sentimental to meand that's why I came up with
the name, but it's tricky toname your business for sure.
Travis Low (20:26):
Yeah, I know it is.
Yeah, I always say that was thehardest thing, that was the
hardest part of it.
Nothing to do with marketing,nothing to do with getting
clients, it was just the namingprocess.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (20:40):
Well, we'll move on from that, but I'm glad
that you told us.
You kind of mentioned marketingautomation, which I think is
people hear about it a lot butif people aren't familiar with
it, do you want to just talk onthat a little bit?
Travis Low (20:55):
Yeah, sure, yeah.
It's actually something I loveis marketing automation.
It's ultimately I always say,break it down into simple terms
it's like using a trigger and anaction, and so it's a way that
we can streamline processes thatyou might be manually doing
historically.
So within most CRM tools nowthere's marketing automation
(21:18):
built into them.
So the easiest example would bethe form on your website.
So somebody fills out the formand we want two things to happen
out of that form trigger.
So the form fill is a trigger,and then the actions that we
want to happen are what stepsgoes next?
(21:38):
So the simplest one would be OK,we need to notify our internal
team that somebody's filled outthe form, and then we want to
communicate to the person whofilled out the form.
So let's send an email to ourinternal sales team and let's
send a follow-up email givingthe information that they filled
out the form for to the personwho filled out the form.
So send them an email.
(21:58):
So that's like the simplestversion.
You can do all kinds of thingsin terms of automation, from
meeting scheduling automation toa drip campaign where somebody
fills out that form or clicksonto a place on your website or
(22:21):
looks at, let's say, a PDF thatyou've sent them and that
triggers, let's say, a series ofactions to happen, like we can
send them that follow-up emailand then, if they don't respond
to you, maybe two days later wesend them another follow-up and
then, maybe two days after that,if there's still no response,
maybe we set a notification forour sales team to pick up the
(22:41):
phone and call them as anexample.
So, yeah, so we love I mean,we've done this for years in
terms of our own lead generationprocess for how we attract
businesses through digitaladvertising strategy, where
we're trying to drive trafficfrom, whether social media or
(23:02):
Google Search.
So through SEO or throughGoogle Ads, driving traffic back
to a landing page or to ourwebsite get them to hopefully
peak their interest with whatour offering is and to fill out
that form for something inreturn.
And then it starts theconversation as an inbound kind
(23:24):
of process where our sales teamhas warm leads to nurture and
follow up with.
So, yeah, that's maybe theeasiest way to talk about
marketing automation.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (23:39):
Yeah, it's fantastic because in the olden
days, I'll say, which reallywasn't that long ago, you
literally were probably sendingout all of these emails by
yourself as the business right,or you're like, oh, I should
follow up with that person.
Travis Low (23:52):
Yeah yeah yeah, exactly now, it's just automatic
.
Yeah, and there's all kinds ofthings that you can do with that
.
You know, and I just won't getinto all of them, but you know,
from obviously segmenting youraudiences to, you know now
integrating, you know, textmessaging into that as well as
email to even you know, I nowwhat's app is built into it.
(24:15):
There's, there's all kinds ofthings that we can do.
It's just taking the time toreally kind of strategize it for
your business in terms of thebest communication with your
client base.
Right, yeah, for sure.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (24:29):
Do you have a favorite CRM that you recommend
for small business?
Travis Low (24:32):
You know, we are actively actually just building
out a new one right now.
That it's it's something thatwe're going to be kind of
selling as a service, which isexciting.
So it's just not quite readyyet, but yeah, it's a it's it's
a white label partner that we'reworking with, that that has
this software and and it's highlevel, but it's it's.
(24:58):
From a naming side of things,I'm like what, but it's a very
powerful software and, yeah,it's super exciting to kind of
get that rolling.
And so, yeah, that one I'vedabbled in keep it's called.
It used to be called infusionsoft, I mean there's the obvious
ones like HubSpot andSalesforce but for me those ones
(25:24):
are such large, it's likesoftware solutions and very
expensive and I don't know.
I guess I I'm always thinkingfrom a small business
perspective, so I want somethingthat's a little bit more
affordable and easier to use.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (25:40):
So yeah, I agree.
I think for bigger companiesthose HubSpot and Salesforce are
good, but small businessthey're probably a little too
much.
Also they're expensive.
Travis Low (25:53):
Very expensive, yes.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (25:55):
Yeah, yeah, okay, let's talk about the
future of marketing and wherewe're going.
AI is a huge buzz right rightnow and people are talking about
it, so let's start with maybejust a little bit AI.
What is it?
What does it do?
Travis Low (26:15):
Yeah, sure, yeah, I mean first of all.
Just, I mean they say, way,Mackenzie, it's as if we like
talked about this already, orsomething.
Shauna Foster (26:22):
Yeah, you know.
Travis Low (26:25):
But yeah, it's a, we've just started no, not just
started.
We've integrated a lot of,let's say, AI, Chat GPT into our
curriculum, because we've justbeen obviously hearing from our
clients that they want to learnmore.
You know, they're not sure whatit is, what it can do and
ultimately, you know, when wetalk about AI or artificial
(26:47):
intelligence, really kind ofdiving into a world where, you
know, a machine mimics humanintelligence, right?
So you know, imagine machinesthat can think, they can learn,
they can even make decisions,much like we do as humans, but
at a way faster pace.
And so you know it can justprocess so much data and spot,
(27:11):
you know, patterns and makepredictions way quicker than
what we could.
Right, so we could, and so, andif you now bring that into a
marketing perspective, it's anabsolute game changer.
You know it can dive intoconsumer behavior.
It can look at your historicaldata and maybe like forecast
upcoming trends or learn moreabout your audience and develop
(27:36):
very detailed personas for forthat audience, so that you have
better Messaging that connectswith that audience.
You know, to chat bots likethat's a really big change that
we're gonna see and continue tosee evolve Through AI is is the
utilization of chat bots.
Where you know, I think thebiggest thing when people start
(27:58):
to get into Chat GPT as theirstarting point is that they use
it and they ask if they promptit with some kind of question,
whether it's writing caption orresponse to an email or whatever
and it comes off just likesuper artificial and generic.
Yeah and they're like, oh, thisis junk, right, yeah, and they
(28:19):
just haven't quite learned howto use the tool effectively.
Yes, right, and so you knowthey need to learn how to prompt
that.
You know and and teach it, toteach the tool about their
business and who their audienceis and the language that they
want to use.
And you know the tone, thevoice and the tone of their
business and you know, maybe,information about their services
(28:41):
and some of those things.
So it really takes the you knowwhat are you feeding it as the
starting point and then ask itthe question and then refine
from there because, and if it'snot exactly you like, keep on.
You know, prompting it withfurther and further refinements,
and so you know that's how toeffectively use it.
(29:01):
And with chat bots, you knowchat bots are going to kind of
pull from whatever data sourcethey have access to, right, and
so if it's like using, let's say, a similar type of type of Chat
GPT.
Then it's going to be pullingfrom, just like very generic.
You know all of the data that ithas available to it.
(29:22):
But what you can actually do,what we're seeing happen more
and more now is that you canactually kind of house all of
your intellectual property In aspecific area.
So let's say we like, usesomething like notion, and we
house all of our intellectualproperty about our business,
about all the things that we,you know, offer as a service,
(29:46):
whatever that might look like,and we can teach the chat bot to
actually speak to that IP, thatintellectual property, so that
it's only pulling informationfrom there.
So so then basically what wecan do is we can vet all the
information that's in that bankof data so that it's always
going to be be pulling accurateinformation that we've already
(30:09):
approved.
It is aligned with kind of ourvalues and what we believe and
what you know, the facts thatwe've confirmed, and so that
will just continue to evolve astime goes on here and those
tools are just going to becomemore Sophisticated and the
people obviously using them willalso become more sophisticated
in how we use them properly.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (30:32):
Yeah, for sure, and I know I've talked to
people that are concerned like,oh, it's gonna take jobs away
because you don't need a personto do the writing or whatever.
But really you still need thehuman to, like you say, prompt
it and ask the questions.
Travis Low (30:45):
Exactly, I would have to say.
It's like, sure, there could besome functions that maybe get
changed or like obsolete, butlike, in terms of job creation,
it just creates a.
In my mind, it just createsmore jobs in, but just in, maybe
different capacities, right.
So it's like and you know, whenyou think about the education
(31:08):
system and how lots of themmight kind of you know,
ultimately resist the use of AIor Chat GPT within their
operations In my mind, like theyshould be empowering people,
they should be teaching them theeffective ways of using it,
because it's here, it's notgoing anywhere, right.
(31:28):
So it's like, um, empower thosepeople so they're better able
to use it and more, and usetheir time in a more strategic
way.
That ultimately will help thebusiness to grow even faster,
right.
So it's like, yeah, let's, let'sget behind this and just know
that it's not going anywhere.
Right, it's like it's probablythe exact same way that people
(31:50):
probably resisted.
You know computers and you knowthe internet and all these
other things.
As you know, history has goneon.
There's always been a bit of aresistance every single time,
right?
So it's here.
Oh, let's, let's, let's embraceit and move on with it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (32:07):
I agree, and it's no different than
automating the marketingprocesses that we just talked
about.
Right, it's like it's.
It's just to help you in yourbusiness be more successful, do
something faster or with I don'twant to say less effort,
because it's still effort, but Imaybe don't have to write every
single word, but I still haveto have some input Into the
(32:31):
information that's going inthere.
Travis Low (32:32):
Totally yeah um.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (32:35):
Is there any downfalls to think to using AI?
Travis Low (32:39):
Yeah, I mean, of course.
I mean, first of all, I mean oneof the biggest conversations
would be like how easy it is tojust become reliant on it, right
, true, and because it'stempting, right, like you know
it's so easy and so, but thenyou risk losing that human touch
if you're just, you know, let'ssay, caught me pacing straight
(33:01):
from those prompts and not evenlooking at what it's providing
you and we're just talking ChatGPT at this point.
But yeah, I mean also like theytalk about like bias, right,
because it's like it's only asgood as the information that
somebody's provided it to learnfrom.
So if there's bias and thatinformation that's being
provided to it, then the resultsthat it's going to create is
(33:23):
obviously going to be biased aswell.
So there's that, yeah, and Ithink it's like obviously the
barrier to entry for a lot oflike businesses on how to use it
would be also part of that,where it's like, you know, the
cost to create your ownartificial intelligence is just
(33:47):
quite a bit.
So, you know, definitely adownfall there.
But yeah, I think, honestly,it's just like being still
having a lens through a humaneye, making sure that you're not
just accepting the informationthat's providing you.
You know at exactly what it'sgiving you, but make sure you've
looked it over and using it ina strategic way.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (34:09):
So yeah, I totally agree.
And what do you think are thebiggest pros, like, why should
people use it?
Travis Low (34:18):
Oh, I honestly think it's such an amazing tool, you
know, from a business standpoint.
I think you can use it in everyaspect of business, you know,
whether that's creating agendasin your for your meetings and or
building frameworks for yourstrategies to, you know, asking
(34:41):
it to educate you on specifictopics to write, helping you to
write content for whatever youmight be doing, whether it's
your blog or your social mediaposts, or coming up with content
, ideas like kind of a list of.
Goes on and on, and that's justagain.
I'm just talking chat.
I'm not even getting into theAI tools.
Like, there's tools out thereright now that you know.
(35:02):
One of the coolest ones I saw ata conference recently was I
record myself talking for twominutes just so that it can
learn about my mannerisms and myfacial features and whatever my
hand movements and all of that.
And then what I can do is I canfeed a transcript and I can
(35:24):
have it.
Basically use what it's learnedfrom me in here and just create
, you know, talking videos usingthe script that I've given it
and I can change you of metalking.
Actually, Mackenzie, this ismind blowing.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (35:47):
This is the bot Travis, not the real life
Travis.
Travis Low (35:51):
I'm behind here just typing away, but no, it's
powerful because you can evenchange languages as well.
And you know, I've seen a buddywho can't speak one word of
Spanish be able to create a fiveminute video of him speaking
Spanish by just saying that tooland it looks so natural you'd
(36:13):
never be able to tell.
So, you know.
And the list goes on.
Like if you start to researchall the tools out there, you
know, from helping you, you know, optimize your schedule, to
writing content, to creatingcreative content, you know, of
imagery, to these video creationtools, to course creators,
(36:35):
literally, the list goes on.
So if you are in any field ofbusiness, be doing your research
, be prepared to be overwhelmedby the number of tools that are
out there and that's only goingto expand as time goes on here.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (36:48):
So yeah, it's , I agree, and I feel like in
the next couple of years it'sjust going to be like
exponential the way it goes.
Travis Low (36:54):
Yeah, but it can be, you know it can help to be able
to, you know, give quickerresponses, personalized, you
know, communication, reduce work, you know, workflows of your
operations.
It can, you know, make peoplemore strategic in their job
function.
I don't know.
I think there's lots ofbenefits to it.
(37:15):
You know I talked about some ofthose.
You know potential downfalls,but I think there's, you know,
many more benefits that can be,you know, used and kind of
focused on as to why you shouldbe using it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (37:29):
Yeah, I totally agree, Travis.
Looking back on yourentrepreneurial life and you're
having your own business andwhatnot Is there a most
important lesson that you'velearned along the way?
Travis Low (37:44):
Oh, wow, yeah, you know what I mean.
That's a good question.
I have to think real quickly.
I probably have to say like itcan consume you and you have to
(38:05):
find a balance in life.
That doesn't say It's not, yes, it's your, it's your world,
but it doesn't need to be yourwhole world, right, like you
still need to find time foryourself or your family, for
your friends, your loved ones.
You need to learn how to bemindful when you have so many
(38:28):
pressures coming at you andnotifications, and you know all
these stimulate this crazyamount of stimulation coming at
you all the time, right?
So how can you, you know, calmyour nervous system to the point
where you're not just consumedin and kind of bouncing around
from thing to thing to thing?
And I know I learned that earlyon in my career and you know
(38:52):
I've tried my best.
It's an ongoing battle.
It's like I'm not perfect.
None of us are perfect.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (38:56):
No, it's hard for everyone really.
Travis Low (38:59):
And then, as you might think you got it figured
out and then all of a sudden yourealize you don't.
And so, yeah, that's definitelyone thing is try to find that
balance and be disciplined tonot work.
You know, all hours of the day,every day.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (39:16):
So, yeah, I love that advice and it's so
important to take care ofyourself and make sure that
you're not consumed by it,because you will face burnout
then.
Right For sure, yeah, is thereanything you wish you'd known or
anything?
Maybe this is what you wouldtell your younger self, or is
there something else that you'relike?
Oh geez, I wish I would haveknown that 10 years ago.
Travis Low (39:36):
You know, the biggest mistake that I say I
probably made in early inbusiness was not understanding
the value of debt.
Actually, oh yeah, I, we builtthe business on cash and really
sacrificed the first two yearsof our life by doing so, you
know, by not thinking I don'tknow, we just like wanted to
(39:59):
bootstrap the whole business andnot, you know, take any debt.
But I wish we would have, justfor a better quality of life
during that time period.
So yeah, I think that's amistake that I would say
definitely made early inbusiness was not taking care of
myself financially over the overthe business.
(40:19):
And it's kind of goes toanother point about you know the
getting consumed by business,because I definitely was in
those first two years.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (40:27):
So I actually love that because I think it's
a point that a lot of peopledon't think about.
They think like oh, if we don'thave a loan to pay or we don't
have, you know, somethingfinancially that is reoccurring
will be better off.
But I think you're right In theend you might actually be
farther ahead if you get alittle kind of bit of cash to
get you started for sure.
Travis Low (40:49):
Well, yeah, do you know what it's like to go on a
date and not know if your creditcard's going to bounce?
Or even just a coffee?
That's really fun.
Let me tell you.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (40:58):
Travis.
I've been an entrepreneur forover 10 years.
I know exactly what that feelslike.
You know what I think.
It's so funny too, becausethere's also this kind of weird
stereotype or stigma I don'tknow what it is where people are
like oh, you own a business,you're rich and it's oh well,
especially not when you start.
No, you might get there, but no, definitely not.
(41:19):
You oftentimes are paying outof your own pocket for things,
right?
Travis Low (41:22):
Yeah, and it's like even after your business has
matured.
It's like do you know what it'slike to live a life where,
every single month, I'mwondering how am I going to do
it next month?
Am I going to survive this?
And it's this ongoing fear thatI don't know if it's like a
doomsday thing, but it's like Ijust always fear what if this
(41:43):
doesn't work?
And it's like it always seemsto work out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (41:46):
I was going to say and here you are.
You have a great business.
You are still here.
I'm still here for most of us.
You work hard to make it workright, for sure, and I
appreciate that.
Travis, thank you so much forbeing on.
I know that people are going towant to know more about you and
know more about Blue Mouse, sowhere's the best way for them to
(42:08):
find you?
Travis Low (42:10):
Definitely.
Just our website at www.
bluemousemedia.
com and reach out, have a chatwith us there's never any
pressure, I promise you, andalways love to have some chats
with local businesses and findout what they're working on or
what they're trying to work onor what they're challenged with
and see if we can help.
So yeah, I think that's it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw (42:31):
I appreciate that and, as someone that's used
your services before, I cantell you that it's definitely
worth it.
So check out Blue Mouse.
Travis, thank you so much forbeing on and for everybody else.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Thanks for listening to Winning.
Be sure to subscribe to get allof our new episodes.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
(42:53):
media and leave a rating andreview wherever you listen to
Winning.
To catch all of the latest fromus, you can follow Winning
Podcast on Instagram @Winning_podcast, Facebook at Winning
Podcast and on Twitter @winningpod.
Winning was created and isproduced by me, Mackenzie
(43:13):
Kilshaw, music created by SummerFirby, editing by Seth
Armstrong.
Special thanks to Shauna Fosterfor voicing our opening and, of
course, a huge thank you tothis episode's guest.
Thanks again for listening andI'll see you on the next episode
.
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