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September 14, 2025 • 15 mins
Original Air Date: September 14, 2025

Dave Charest work with Constant Contact, giving small businesses guidance to help them thrive
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, Conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I want to introduce you to Dave Sharest. He is
the director of Small Business Success for Constant Contact. Welcome Dave.
First of all, what is Constant Contact.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, Constant Contact is an online marketing solution designed specifically
for small businesses, and so it's a platform that allows
people to do things like email marketing is kind of
the core what we do, send text messages to their customers,
manage their social media accounts, run events, a whole bunch more.
But really it's all about helping small business owners keep

(00:46):
those most important relationships, those relationships with their customers going
and keeping their businesses top of mind.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
And is there a certain rate that they pay or
how does that work?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, it's generally based on the We have a few
different plans. We have three plans, you know, based on
kind of where you are in your business journey, so
to speak, and the different features that you need. But
it's generally based on the number of contacts that you
actually have to send to and so there are different
tiers there based on the plan and the number of

(01:17):
contacts that you have.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's a weird time for a business, but I imagine
it's especially challenging for small businesses. So tell me you
have a recent survey. Now, I don't know if that really,
you know, takes into account what's going on now with
you know, the tariff wars and all that. But where

(01:42):
are we at with small business? What are the challenges
that are being faced right now?

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, Well, so a couple of things that we found.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
And you know, at Constant Contact, we like to do
these reports every so often just to kind of keep
a pulse on what's happening within the small business ecosystem,
and you know, we found some interesting things. I mean,
at the time we did this the study, we found
that business owners were feeling optimistic about twenty twenty five,
but they're also feeling realistic about it as well, like

(02:12):
they know that challenges exist. And I mean, I think
the interesting thing here is that the businesses that we
did speak to during this period were businesses that were
built in the last five years, right, So these are
businesses that were already founded in less than ideal economic conditions,
and there's a bit of a one of the things
that we're noticing is that really adaptability. We know, resiliency

(02:36):
is obviously a key trade of small businesses, but these
in particular, in these this five year mark, really adaptability
is something that we found with them, and so they're
trying to do things that allow them to stay nimble,
you know, switching things up when they need to, and
then also you know, finding new ways to grow you know,
constant contact.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Of course, we're excited to see that.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well I shouldn't say excited, but some of their top
priority is right, are really marketing efficiency and really looking
at customer acquisition, and so you know, when you're you're
thinking about those those things, really it's about you know,
they're open to adapting technology, which is really great, I think,
including AI because I think that's something that comes in

(03:18):
and can help them streamline operations and of course improve
their marketing efforts. And so yeah, interesting time for sure,
and you know, none of us really knows how this
is going to pan out, but I think at the
end of the day, it's good to see that these
businesses are one you know, still, you know, you start
a business, you have to be optimistic to do that
in the first place. And so they're carrying that in,

(03:40):
but then they're also just paying attention to Okay, how
do I need to adapt? How do I need to
change what I'm doing in order to make it through
this thing that's happening now. And you know, frankly, it's
always something right, so there's going to be something else
thrown after this as well, and so it's good to
see that they're coming in with that mentality.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Okay, let's just talk now about how you see how
the tariff war is going to impact small businesses? How
will it?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, so, I mean I'm not an economist or anything
like that, but I will look at it from the
sense of, you know, really communication at the end of
the day, I think is what it boils down to
in thinking about So this may have an impact on
your business and the products and services that you offer,
which will likely need to be transferred to you know,

(04:31):
your customer at the end of the day. And some
businesses are in better states than others and may not
have to do as much of that. But I think
a key factor here is a few things and we've
found through the study too that they're looking to be
more efficient, right, So they're looking at places that they
can cut costs so that hopefully they don't have to
transfer as much of that to the customer, also being

(04:52):
able to get more done, but ultimately communicating with their customers,
because at the end of the day, it really is
about focusing on those customer relationships and the more you
can be transparent about what happened, what's happening. I mean,
the reality is we're all kind of going through this
as well, so it's not like it's a secret. And
I think the more you can do to again continue

(05:13):
those relationships and stay in contact with those people that
and those those those people that are important to your business,
you're going to stand a better chance of kind of
weathering whatever happens through this period.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Let's talk a little bit about AI. How can AI
be used to help small businesses? What what are some
of the key things that you no longer have to
deal with that you can rely on AI that would help.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, A is really exciting and I'll talk of it,
you know, through the lens of course, some of the
things that we're doing within constant contact and so one
of the things that we know so many small business
owners start and I would say they're business owners first,
and marketers by necessity, most people don't get into it
because they're.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Like, wait to do marketing, right.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
They have a bashion about something and they want to
bring something to their customers and serve them in a
particular way, and marketing is often one of those necessary
evils that they have to have to do. And so
when you take that into account, that causes a lot
of problems. I mean, we found in past studies that
you know, there's a lot of uncertainty in terms of
like what are the things that I'm supposed to do
as a marketer and what am I supposed to say?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
And how do I say it right?

Speaker 3 (06:24):
And so AI can really come in and allow you
to you know, let's say you're having a promotion on
something or you're having a sale on the weekend. You
can say, I'm having a sale on this item. It's
going to be twenty percent off. You can put in
those keywords in the constant contact, hit a button that
then generates a crafted statement for you that they then
can be used in an email or a social post

(06:45):
for example, even a text message if you wanted to
use it there. And so it really helps solve that
blinking cursor problem right in many instances where you're like, okay,
I don't even know how to get started saying this thing.
I think it's also helpful too where you have of
you know, we have customers oftentimes do like a farmer's
market for example, where they're kind of doing the same
thing weekend to weekend, and so AI helps them refresh

(07:09):
it a bit and have like a new way to
say it, right. So it makes things like that a
little bit easier, so you can actually turn things around
a bit quicker, you know. I think one of the
things we recognize to in particular with these these customers
that we talk to, or I should say small business
owners we talked to recently, you know, a lot of
them are starting on social media, uh and a good

(07:30):
like sixty three percent I think, or somewhere in there,
like that's their primary marketing channel.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
And so that's good.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
It's not that you should not be doing that, but
I think it's about thinking through how you have to
use all of these channels together and in particularly eventually
move those social audiences to your something that you own,
so like an email list for example, or an SMS list,
because then you then you have a way to contact
that customer directly and you're not relying on these other
platforms to help you do that, which I think we

(07:58):
most of us know at this run by algorithms and
can change any given day. And you know, we also
have these other scenarios where you know, the TikTok ban
is still kind of looming, and so when you're relying
on just these social channels and not having and owning
that direct connection, you kind of run the risks, and
so you have to use them all together. And so
another way AI comes in here is constant contact. For example,

(08:22):
similar you can let it know what it is that
you're trying to do and what timeframe that you're trying
to do it, hit a button and then this generates
a whole campaign for you that's across multi channel. So
think about email, what that looks like on social, how
many social posts that you should do. Should you have
an event, it will help you create and manage that
event as well. And so it's a great way to

(08:43):
take something where Okay, how am I going to promote
this thing that I have going on? Where you would
sit have to plan this all out. Now you've got
a whole plan that then you can react to and
you can pick and choose, you can make changes where
you need to. But it gives you a leg up
in the sense that you're not spending you know, at
hour of time trying to figure out what to do.
You've got now something to act on in a matter

(09:05):
of minutes that then allows you to get things scheduled,
get things going.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Then you can get back to.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Doing those other things that you want to do. I
think the other area that's I think most exciting to
me is where AI really helps you start to uncover
things with the data that you have. And so when
you start thinking about what are the things that people
are doing, you know, with your emails, what are they
engaging with, what are they clicking on?

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Are they what are they reading? What are they spending
time with?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Also, if you start to integrate other things, so maybe
you're like you have an e commerce platform, like you
integrate that information as well, you start to understand and
uncover things that you may not have uncovered before because
the AI is able to process that data pretty quickly
and recognize patterns and make recommendations for you that allow

(09:56):
you to then maybe automate some of those interactions as well, well,
which again at the end of the day, allows you
to keep your business top of mind, speak to people
at the right times in order to hopefully get them
to take a certain action, but then also allow you
to get back to those other things that you want
to do.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
I'm speaking with Dave Sharreest. He's the director of Small
Business Success for Constant Contact. Are you finding that people
in small businesses are receptive to AI or are they
being resistant? What is the reaction you're hearing?

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, you know so.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Interestingly enough, we did a similar we asked about AI
a few years back, and at that point it was
a little bit of an unknown and people were a
little bit resistant to it.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
What we found out this time around, though, is.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
That actually seventy three percent of the people that we
talked to are actually planning on using AI for marketing
and what they're doing, and we had like another thirty
two percent really focused on customer data analysis some of
the things that we've mentioned. And then of course that
thirty one percent in that personalized marketing space and so
particularly these businesses started in the last five years are

(11:05):
really more receptive to ingraining the technology in what it
is that they're doing, which I think is good because
we're at this place where you know, it's not really
going anywhere. It's going to get better and better, and
it's going to what's the saying, right like, this is
the stupidest will ever be is right at this moment,

(11:28):
right now, right like, it's going to continue to get
better and better. And I think it's great to see
that people are embracing it and recognizing it as something
that will allow them to be more efficient, allow them
to figure out areas of improvement that they can make
with their business. And it's just a tool that you know,

(11:50):
really hasn't been available at this scale or at this
level before, and so it'll be interesting to see how
that ends up helping people.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
At the end of the day, Do you have any
way of imparting to the audience, Who should somebody be
to make it to be successful in small business? What
kind of person do you need to be? Is there
like a type of person who does best in small business?

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:20):
You know, I'll say this what we found that I've
been fortunate enough to have a ton of conversations with
small business owners over the year, and I think resiliency
is the number one thing that we see from these folks,
there are always going to be challenges that come your way.
I mean, even if you just think of the act
of starting a business, there are so many people that

(12:40):
won't do that or don't do that, and it takes
a special type of person to even take that step, right,
to put the shingle out there and say, you know what,
I want a little bit more independence over what my
financial capabilities are, right like how far can I get?
And they don't want to be told.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
What to do. They want to figure it out themselves,
to make their own choices.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
And then there's also the it's interesting to say this piece,
but it eventually gets there. That work life balance piece
also is something that's attractive to these people where it
may not seem like that at the beginning, but if
you think about you're putting in all of that work
so you can get to a point where maybe now
I'm taking Fridays off, right, maybe I'm not working in
the crazy hours where you might be doing that when

(13:24):
you're working for someone else, but you never have that
benefit at the end of the day, right, And so
you know they're really looking for those things. The resiliency
that I mentioned, I think the other piece is a
lot of these folks put themselves in positions where this
is not the thing that's going to fail. There isn't

(13:45):
a plan B. When they do the thing right, they
understand what it is, and so it's always like how
do I make this work right? Which causes them again.
That resiliency word comes in that adaptability that we're seeing
here with these newer businesses and that idea of just
what can I use, what do I have available to
me to help me reach whatever that next goal is?

(14:05):
And that goal is always going to change, that finish
line is always moving, but all of these tools and
all of these things happening, embracing those to help you.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Prioritize and move towards that next thing.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
How would people be able to reach you or reach
Constant Contact if they want to explore working with you?

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, of course constant Contact.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Of course you can find we have tons of free
resources on marketing webinars, blogs, guides, those types of things,
and you can find out more about our tools at
constant contact dot com. I think the best place to
find me is on LinkedIn. I'm sharing tips there all
the while, and all the while as well in terms
of marketing tips and things like that. So I'm Dave

(14:50):
shrest On LinkedIn. Feel free to hit me up there.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And that's spelled c h A. Yes, thank you, so yeah,
thank you so much. Dave chareste you've been listening to
Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production of New York's classic
rock Q one O four point three
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