#WINNING
#WINNING
Navigating the Digital Shift with Blue Moose Media's Founder Travis Low
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.
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Winning is your guide to making it in business. Join our award-winning host and entrepreneur, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and special guests in casual conversations that will educate and inspire you on your business journey. Winning will help you learn the hard lessons the easy way, with guidance from celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders. It's fun, it's informative, it's winning!
Mackenzie Kilshaw:elcome to Winning. I am your host, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and today's guest is Travis Low. Hi, Travis.
Travis Low:Hey Mackenzie.
Mackenzie Kilshaw: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 of Blue Moose Media in Saskatoon. It's an award-winning digital marketing and social media agency. They focus on business development and organizational strategy as well. Before Blue Moose, he was the executive director of the Parkinson's Society of Saskatchewan and the founder of the Shaker event, Lows in Motion, which I always loved, such a great event. Blue Moose has actually helped over 1,000 businesses in the province, helping them cultivating engaging online presence that translates aspirations into results. So, Travis, thank you for being on. Do you want to tell the audience a little bit more about who you are?
Travis Low:Sorry if everybody laughed in there. Mackenzie, you froze up in the middle of there, so my apologies, but this is just going to be a fun conversation, so we're all good so yeah, so I guess thanks for the introduction. Yeah, I guess my background was very unconventional. I guess when I came out of university, went to the Edwards School of Business and had my bachelor of commerce in management and came out wanted to be a financial advisor, kind of bounced around a bit In that time period, had started the event, the Lows in Motion Parkinson Shaker and that was really my first entrepreneurial venture and it was such a learning curve, such a cool opportunity to learn about building a brand and trying to attract an audience and how to market and how to work with a committee of people and all of those fun things.
Travis Low:And we ran that event for 10 years and had a ton of fun and success with the event. And that event kind of three, four years into the event had led me into the executive director position, which was ultimately my second organization that I was managing and talk about learning curve, holy responsible for the province of Saskatchewan, for the Parkinson community, and also working on an executive leadership team across Canada working with all the other charities working for Parkinson's and I didn't even know what board governance was at the time and I had a real quick lesson on that working with the board of directors and then ultimately the Federation of all the other charities across the country.
Travis Low:And yeah, but what an amazing four 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 and effort and energies into helping those people out. That ultimately actually kind of led to me having to leave. I was just battling emotionally. It was just so hard to be so close to the subject and to that population and community, even though I loved it so much. I just couldn't continue and so I had to step away and took a year break. Actually, I went traveling for a year after running the charity for those years and went into Europe for seven months and then went down to South America and honestly just was surfing and doing yoga down in South America for four months and it was a dream life.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I was going to say that sounds fantastic.
Travis Low:It was definitely a dream. But I guess this is all kind of segueing up, because my ultimate dream. The whole reason I went to university, the whole reason I wanted to go into business, was to become an entrepreneur. It's literally what I've always known I wanted to do. I don't know exactly why, because neither of my parents are entrepreneurs, but my grandparents were so kind of funny, I guess.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, you saw it, probably growing up with them.
Travis Low:Kind of yeah, my grandpa, one grandpa was a farmer.
Travis Low:My other grandpa did have a couple retail stores actually in Rosetown, Saskatchewan and yeah. So I came home from those travels and was just brainstorming ideas and I probably had a dozen different business ideas and I would just jot them down. Sometimes I'd be out for drinks with friends and would be thinking of the idea and I would just write myself a note and the next day I would just kind of crush like what would this look like and would this even be feasible, build out a financial? And my good friend, mine, that went to university with Ricky Forbes. Him and I were paddle board another one day and we're just catching up. He was kind of just finishing. He's a storm chaser, so he chased tornadoes and had a TV show and had some successes with that and he was kind of at a crossroads at that time and both of us just were chatting and he's like you want to start a? Should we do something together? And I was like what would it look like? He's like well, I have a big social media audience and you've ran some organizations, so why don't we combine forces? And I was like you know what? Let's go for it. Like, why not?
Travis Low:I was like at the time I was like not super passionate about, like, let's say, social media or even marketing. And then, once we started and started to work with businesses and start to understand, you know, their challenges and start to come up with solutions for them and learn more about it, it just grew on me and I just, you know, really grew a passion for, you know, working with these small businesses and trying to help them to be able to better achieve what they were trying to. You know the areas that they were trying to grow in, whether that be, you know, recruiting employees or generating more leads or just general brand awareness. And, yeah, it just kind of took off and I, honestly, from my expectations going into it, I thought we were going to last six months. It's so funny I was like I was like we'll just try this out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And yeah, see if it goes.
Travis Low:If it doesn't work, I mean what's the worst that can happen here?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I mean that's actually the best attitude. Yeah, that really is. It's like let's try it, because what 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 great attitude.
Travis Low:So yeah, yeah, and it was like yeah, and we kind of got going with it and it started to get more like within six months it just was really picking up and I was like, okay, like it's not gonna be, we have a business. Yeah, wait a minute, it's been six months, holy and and yeah, at the time, actually we were doing social media management for companies and building websites and doing photography and literally anything that people would pay us money for. We were like, yep, we'll do it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You just keep on taking whatever you can do, because you build your portfolio and you want to have all these people say, oh, they did my photography, oh they did my social media management, oh they did my website right. And then they tell a friend and you get more business.
Travis Low:Exactly, exactly, and so that's how it started. But then we soon realized it's hard to scale a business that way, right, when you're when you're trying to do so many things, I mean, recruiting is a nightmare because you're trying to look for a combination of all these skill sets. It's yeah, it's more difficult to be able to become known for anything because you're doing so many different things. You can't create these like smooths, repeatable processes because you're having to do that for a variety of different types of things. And so it got to this point where at this time sorry, I need to backtrack a little bit we had got asked to do some training and you know, I was pitching actually one of my best childhood friends, Brett, who owns a denture clinic here in town, and and he was like you know what Low, what you guys are doing, I just don't think we can work it into our like, into our budget. Can you just teach us how to do it, like we have some capacity internally to do this, can you just teach us how to do it? And I was like I don't know, let's, let's see if we can. And so I went back to the office. I went back to the office and chat with Ricky and he's like, yeah, sure, let's, let's give it a shot, let's see what kind of curriculum we can put together. And and then that just took off on us.
Travis Low:All of a sudden we recognized that there was a lot of organizations out there that weren't willing to, let's say, outsource to a contractor, that were wanting to be able to empower their existing team to be better marketers. And, yeah, we kind of realized there's a market for this. And so we were kind of simultaneously building two sides of the business. We were doing social media management and then we're doing training.
Travis Low:And then it got to a point where we were like you know what, we need to choose one. And we really loved the training and we knew that it was a bit of a unique thing for us. And so, yeah, we just kind of it was actually a really tough point in in business because we had these clients that were actually committed to us on a long term basis they were loving working with us that we had to say I'm sorry, we're not doing that anymore and had to like or go that cash flow that was coming for us and kind of go in this other direction and say, oh, yeah, like we're committing to this, let's go for it. And so, yeah, that was a big decision in business to kind of niche and focus on that specific service delivery.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So was that scary for you to say like we can't take your money anymore and go in another direction?
Travis Low:Yeah, I mean like and I think any entrepreneur can chat about this at time in business 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're also giving that opportunity up for something else, another opportunity.
Travis Low:Right, you're opening space and capacity and energy towards something else. And so, yeah, I think it was the best decision we ever made, to be honest, and yeah, it really took off from there. That was at that time. We had three courses that we were teaching and, of course, over time, as the platforms have changed, as the way that you market changes, we've just continued to add and evolve that curriculum to make sure that it's current and relevant to. You know, the audience that we're working with we primarily work with small businesses in Saskatchewan is kind of who we work with, and we're so fortunate we've been able to work with well over a thousand businesses in the province. You know, across the province, down in southern Saskatchewan to northern Saskatchewan, to I know you're in Swift Current, we spend some time in Swift Current and, yeah, just love it. It's so cool to be able to work with the variety of different types of businesses.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, you know, I like how you talked about niching and how you had to make that decision to choose a path, because I do think a lot of times small business they try to kind of be everything for everyone and usually that's when you face more problems. Right. Then, when you find what you're good at and for you guys like honestly, I don't even know anyone else that's offering things you guys do for training.
Travis Low:Yeah, I mean there are some people I won't say their name, but there are people. But yeah, I mean, when we first started doing that, we were definitely the only ones that were doing it. You know, during the pandemic, when, after the pandemic, there was a bunch of funding that came out, and it was at that time that we saw a lot of people surface and start to offer similar to what we were doing. We were very well equipped for that funding as well, because we were already that was what we were doing. We weren't recreating anything. It was literally like okay, like there's businesses that need, let's help them and let's utilize what we've been building for the past few years to be able to help people come out of that tough time of the pandemic.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, and I took your course November 2020, I took one of the courses. I was able to get the government funding as the small business to take your course and I'm a marketing degree, but the digital marketing 20 years ago he didn't teach at Edward School of Business when I was there, yeah, so it helped me a lot, too, in my business and really when you're a small business. Marketing, I find, is one of the hardest things that people face, because they know they have to do something but they're not really sure what to do.
Travis Low:Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, so many people have used the tools or are familiar with what the tools, even just what they are, but they don't know how to use it as a business right. So that's ultimately what we always kind of said, like we really wanted to empower, you know, these organizations to be able to access fairly, you know, inexpensive tools to be able to better, you know, their business results. So, and those results could be anything they could be, you know, it could be ticket sales, it could be lead lead generation, it could be brand awareness of a specific new service or product offering, it could be trying to recruit and profile your culture of your organization. So we just really wanted to be able to help these small businesses on how to better do that and how to use these tools that were ultimately free for them, but use it in a strategic, you know, business focused way. So, yeah, and it's been so much fun.
Travis Low:You know, I always say too, that because we're a small business, we very much understand the constraints that all small businesses have. So when we're preaching the best practices and some of those things, we're not just saying like 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 you can operationalize these best practices. Do you know what I mean? So it's like it's not just like you know. Of course, we all wish that we could do everything, but that's impossible, and so we got to what? When we have limited resources, let's use them in the most strategic, efficient way that we can.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So, yeah, yeah, and I feel too like you're better off to do especially for marketing. Pick one or two things that you're going to do and do them really good totally. Then try to just do everything and just see like throw out their stuff, right.
Travis Low:Exactly. No, that's exactly it. We've been talking about that for years, just honestly and from a platform perspective, because, you know, often we'll find lots of our clients will want to be on every single social media platform and we just have to kind of like bring them back to reality. That like do you want your life just to be like full of like, like being spread so thin with all these notifications and all these different people that you're trying to engage with and you ultimately aren't engaging with any of them because you're spread too thin, right?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah well, and it doesn't make sense for some people like, especially now with the rise of like, Tik Tok and all of these different platforms. So Facebook, Instagram, x, , I mean there's a dozen where I'm probably not even saying but you can't. If you want to be on all of those and do them all good, you literally need to meet a full time person. Just that's their job.
Travis Low:Or multiple full time people.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so true.
Travis Low:That's just social media we're talking. We're not even talking about any of your. You know marketing automation, your email marketing. You know your advertising. There's so much to it, right? Your website of things, landing page creation, like it just goes on and on, right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Exactly. But so yeah, I have a burning question that I should have asked you at the very beginning, and I didn't know, it's all good. Where the heck did Blue Moose come from?
Travis Low:Oh my God again. I should have had this chat with you before we started, not to ask me that question. I think I've actually heard the story before, but I know people are listening and saying it's such a bad story like it's actually a non story like I wish and you know we've talked for years, we've got to like create some fake story about this.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:We saw a blue moose walking down the road.
Travis Low:It's the most common question, like people don't care about, like what we're offering for service. We'll give this presentation and like filled with just you know, tips and whatever else. And then somebody puts up their hand and they're like, hey, I got a question for you. What, where did the name come from? And I'm like, oh man, like that's all things um and sorry. So when we anybody who's ever started a business knows that that that, that process, you can have like all your service delivery figured out, you can have your you know building figured out, what you need for staffing.
Travis Low:But the figure out the name was such a hard, hard, and so we had, like I don't know 20 different names and we were looking for something. So at the time it was just Ricky and I and we were looking for something that was like reflective of us and we were thinking we wanted that to be. You know, we're both. We're both guys who love the outdoors, are Canadians, and we wanted to focus on the tourism industry. So, um, and then the color blue is like a trustworthy color in the psychology of marketing. So that's the story. We wanted it to be memorable. We wanted it to be like if I walked into a room and told you I've worked for a place, that you remember it, and I think we did okay. I think I think we nailed it and it's funny because we had no experience doing any of that work. We just did it on our own, didn't hire anybody to help us, and I think it was good.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You know, what, though it is a conversation starter and I think that's part of it, because people are what? Like? What is where did it come from? It starts that conversation and it builds people's interest right. They have a peak because they're like what the heck is that? Is it right? I think it was actually smart to do that. That's it's kind of a obscure, but it's also really catching right. Yeah, yeah, that was a good move.
Travis Low:Yeah, you wouldn't want to see that. I should try to find the old list of all the other names we had, because there was just like some terrible names and yeah, it would have been funny. We should actually go back into that and create logos for them and see if anybody would have ever liked those ones.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That would be a good social media campaign. You can have somebody do that for the next week for their full-time job.
Travis Low:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:No, I think, though, this isn't even on our conversation topic, but the name of your business is like you said. It's really hard to name a business, and especially now in 2024. If you want to get a domain name, you might have an idea and you can't even get the name for your website or social media, so it is better to pick something that is kind of obscure or something that maybe means something to you. My store was Two Fifty Two Boutique after my mom's birthday, so it was sentimental to me and that's why I came up with the name, but it's tricky to name your business for sure.
Travis Low:Yeah, I know it is. Yeah, I always say that was the hardest thing, that was the hardest part of it. Nothing to do with marketing, nothing to do with getting clients, it was just the naming process.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Well, we'll move on from that, but I'm glad that you told us. You kind of mentioned marketing automation, which I think is people hear about it a lot but if people aren't familiar with it, do you want to just talk on that a little bit?
Travis Low:Yeah, sure, yeah. It's actually something I love is marketing automation. It's ultimately I always say, break it down into simple terms it's like using a trigger and an action, and so it's a way that we can streamline processes that you might be manually doing historically. So within most CRM tools now there's marketing automation built into them. So the easiest example would be the form on your website. So somebody fills out the form and 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 steps goes next?
Travis Low:So the simplest one would be OK, we need to notify our internal team that somebody's filled out the form, and then we want to communicate to the person who filled out the form. So let's send an email to our internal sales team and let's send a follow-up email giving the information that they filled out the form for to the person who filled out the form. So send them an email. So that's like the simplest version.
Travis Low:You can do all kinds of things in terms of automation, from meeting scheduling automation to a drip campaign where somebody fills out that form or clicks onto a place on your website or looks at, let's say, a PDF that you've sent them and that triggers, let's say, a series of actions to happen, like we can send them that follow-up email and then, if they don't respond to you, maybe two days later we send them another follow-up and then, maybe two days after that, if there's still no response, maybe we set a notification for our sales team to pick up the phone and call them as an example.
Travis Low:So, yeah, so we love I mean, we've done this for years in terms of our own lead generation process for how we attract businesses through digital advertising strategy, where we're trying to drive traffic from, whether social media or Google Search. So through SEO or through Google Ads, driving traffic back to a landing page or to our website get them to hopefully peak their interest with what our offering is and to fill out that form for something in return. And then it starts the conversation as an inbound kind of process where our sales team has warm leads to nurture and follow up with. So, yeah, that's maybe the easiest way to talk about marketing automation.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, it's fantastic because in the olden days, I'll say, which really wasn't that long ago, you literally were probably sending out all of these emails by yourself as the business right, or you're like, oh, I should follow up with that person.
Travis Low:Yeah yeah yeah, exactly now, it's just automatic.
Travis Low:Yeah, and there's all kinds of things that you can do with that. You know, and I just won't get into all of them, but you know, from obviously segmenting your audiences to, you know now integrating, you know, text messaging into that as well as email to even you know, I now what's app is built into it. There's, there's all kinds of things that we can do. It's just taking the time to really kind of strategize it for your business in terms of the best communication with your client base. Right, yeah, for sure.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Do you have a favorite CRM that you recommend for small business?
Travis Low:You know, we are actively actually just building out a new one right now. That it's it's something that we're going to be kind of selling as a service, which is exciting. So it's just not quite ready yet, but yeah, it's a it's it's a white label partner that we're working with, that that has this software and and it's high level, but it's it's. 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've dabbled in keep it's called. It used to be called infusion soft, I mean there's the obvious ones like HubSpot and Salesforce but for me those ones are such large, it's like software solutions and very expensive and I don't know. I guess I I'm always thinking from a small business perspective, so I want something that's a little bit more affordable and easier to use.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So yeah, I agree. I think for bigger companies those HubSpot and Salesforce are good, but small business they're probably a little too much. Also they're expensive.
Travis Low:Very expensive, yes.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, yeah, okay, let's talk about the future of marketing and where we're going. AI is a huge buzz right right now and people are talking about it, so let's start with maybe just a little bit AI. What is it? What does it do?
Travis Low: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, or something.
Shauna Foster:Yeah, you know.
Travis Low: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 just been obviously hearing from our clients that they want to learn more. You know, they're not sure what it is, what it can do and ultimately, you know, when we talk about AI or artificial intelligence, really kind of diving into a world where, you know, a machine mimics human intelligence, right? So you know, imagine machines that 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 just process so much data and spot, you know, patterns and make predictions way quicker than what we could. Right, so we could, and so, and if you now bring that into a marketing perspective, it's an absolute game changer.
Travis Low:You know it can dive into consumer behavior. It can look at your historical data and maybe like forecast upcoming trends or learn more about your audience and develop very detailed personas for for that audience, so that you have better Messaging that connects with that audience. You know, to chat bots like that's a really big change that we're gonna see and continue to see evolve Through AI is is the utilization of chat bots. Where you know, I think the biggest thing when people start to get into Chat GPT as their starting point is that they use it and they ask if they prompt it with some kind of question, whether it's writing caption or response to an email or whatever and it comes off just like super artificial and generic.
Travis Low:Yeah and they're like, oh, this is junk, right, yeah, and they just haven't quite learned how to use the tool effectively. Yes, right, and so you know they need to learn how to prompt that. You know and and teach it, to teach the tool about their business and who their audience is and the language that they want to use. And you know the tone, the voice and the tone of their business and you know, maybe, information about their services and some of those things. So it really takes the you know what are you feeding it as the starting point and then ask it the question and then refine from there because, and if it's not exactly you like, keep on. You know, prompting it with further and further refinements, and so you know that's how to effectively use it.
Travis Low:And with chat bots, you know chat bots are going to kind of pull from whatever data source they have access to, right, and so if it's like using, let's say, a similar type of type of Chat GPT.
Travis Low:Then it's going to be pulling from, just like very generic.
Travis Low:You know all of the data that it has available to it.
Travis Low:But what you can actually do, what we're seeing happen more and more now is that you can actually kind of house all of your intellectual property In a specific area. So let's say we like, use something like notion, and we house all of our intellectual property about our business, about all the things that we, you know, offer as a service, whatever that might look like, and we can teach the chat bot to actually speak to that IP, that intellectual property, so that it's only pulling information from there. So so then basically what we can do is we can vet all the information that's in that bank of data so that it's always going to be be pulling accurate information that we've already approved. It is aligned with kind of our values and what we believe and what you know, the facts that we've confirmed, and so that will just continue to evolve as time goes on here and those tools are just going to become more Sophisticated and the people obviously using them will also become more sophisticated in how we use them properly.
Mackenzie Kilshaw: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 person to do the writing or whatever. But really you still need the human to, like you say, prompt it and ask the questions.
Travis Low:Exactly, I would have to say. It's like, sure, there could be some functions that maybe get changed or like obsolete, but like, in terms of job creation, it just creates a. In my mind, it just creates more jobs in, but just in, maybe different capacities, right. So it's like and you know, when you think about the education system and how lots of them might kind of you know, ultimately resist the use of AI or Chat GPT within their operations In my mind, like they should be empowering people, they should be teaching them the effective ways of using it, because it's here, it's not going anywhere, right. So it's like, um, empower those people so they're better able to use it and more, and use their time in a more strategic way. That ultimately will help the business to grow even faster, right.
Travis Low:So it's like, yeah, let's, let's get behind this and just know that it's not going anywhere. Right, it's like it's probably the exact same way that people probably resisted. You know computers and you know the internet and all these other things. As you know, history has gone on. There's always been a bit of a resistance every single time, right? So it's here. Oh, let's, let's, let's embrace it and move on with it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I agree, and it's no different than automating the marketing processes that we just talked about. Right, it's like it's. It's just to help you in your business be more successful, do something faster or with I don't want to say less effort, because it's still effort, but I maybe don't have to write every single word, but I still have to have some input Into the information that's going in there.
Travis Low:Totally yeah um.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Is there any downfalls to think to using AI?
Travis Low:Yeah, I mean, of course.
Travis Low:I mean, first of all, I mean one of the biggest conversations would be like how easy it is to just become reliant on it, right, true, and because it's tempting, right, like you know it's so easy and so, but then you risk losing that human touch if you're just, you know, let's say, caught me pacing straight from those prompts and not even looking at what it's providing you and we're just talking Chat GPT at this point.
Travis Low:But yeah, I mean also like they talk about like bias, right, because it's like it's only as good as the information that somebody's provided it to learn from. So if there's bias and that information that's being provided to it, then the results that it's going to create is obviously going to be biased as well. So there's that, yeah, and I think it's like obviously the barrier to entry for a lot of like businesses on how to use it would be also part of that, where it's like, you know, the cost to create your own artificial intelligence is just quite a bit. So, you know, definitely a downfall there. But yeah, I think, honestly, it's just like being still having a lens through a human eye, making sure that you're not just accepting the information that's providing you. You know at exactly what it's giving you, but make sure you've looked it over and using it in a strategic way.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So yeah, I totally agree. And what do you think are the biggest pros, like, why should people use it?
Travis Low:Oh, I honestly think it's such an amazing tool, you know, from a business standpoint. I think you can use it in every aspect of business, you know, whether that's creating agendas in your for your meetings and or building frameworks for your strategies to, you know, asking it to educate you on specific topics to write, helping you to write content for whatever you might be doing, whether it's your blog or your social media posts, or coming up with content, ideas like kind of a list of. Goes on and on, and that's just again. I'm just talking chat. I'm not even getting into the AI tools. Like, there's tools out there right now that you know.
Travis Low:One of the coolest ones I saw at a conference recently was I record myself talking for two minutes just so that it can learn about my mannerisms and my facial features and whatever my hand movements and all of that. And then what I can do is I can feed a transcript and I can have it. Basically use what it's learned from me in here and just create, you know, talking videos using the script that I've given it and I can change you of me talking. Actually, Mackenzie, this is mind blowing.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:This is the bot Travis, not the real life Travis.
Travis Low:I'm behind here just typing away, but no, it's powerful because you can even change languages as well. And you know, I've seen a buddy who can't speak one word of Spanish be able to create a five minute video of him speaking Spanish by just saying that tool and it looks so natural you'd never be able to tell. So, you know. And the list goes on. Like if you start to research all the tools out there, you know, from helping you, you know, optimize your schedule, to writing content, to creating creative content, you know, of imagery, to these video creation tools, to course creators, literally, the list goes on. So if you are in any field of business, be doing your research, be prepared to be overwhelmed by the number of tools that are out there and that's only going to expand as time goes on here.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So yeah, it's, I agree, and I feel like in the next couple of years it's just going to be like exponential the way it goes.
Travis Low:Yeah, but it can be, you know it can help to be able to, you know, give quicker responses, personalized, you know, communication, reduce work, you know, workflows of your operations. It can, you know, make people more strategic in their job function. I don't know. I think there's lots of benefits to it. You know I talked about some of those. 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 should be using it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Yeah, I totally agree, Travis. Looking back on your entrepreneurial life and you're having your own business and whatnot Is there a most important lesson that you've learned along the way?
Travis Low: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 it can consume you and you have to 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 your whole world, right, like you still need to find time for yourself or your family, for your friends, your loved ones. You need to learn how to be mindful when you have so many pressures coming at you and notifications, and you know all these stimulate this crazy amount of stimulation coming at you all the time, right? So how can you, you know, calm your nervous system to the point where you're not just consumed in and kind of bouncing around from thing to thing to thing? And I know I learned that early on in my career and you know I've tried my best. It's an ongoing battle. It's like I'm not perfect. None of us are perfect.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:No, it's hard for everyone really.
Travis Low:And then, as you might think you got it figured out and then all of a sudden you realize you don't. And so, yeah, that's definitely one thing is try to find that balance and be disciplined to not work. You know, all hours of the day, every day.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So, yeah, I love that advice and it's so important to take care of yourself and make sure that you're not consumed by it, because you will face burnout then. Right For sure, yeah, is there anything you wish you'd known or anything? Maybe this is what you would tell your younger self, or is there something else that you're like? Oh geez, I wish I would have known that 10 years ago.
Travis Low:You know, the biggest mistake that I say I probably made in early in business was not understanding the value of debt. Actually, oh yeah, I, we built the business on cash and really sacrificed the first two years of our life by doing so, you know, by not thinking I don't know, we just like wanted to bootstrap the whole business and not, you know, take any debt. But I wish we would have, just for a better quality of life during that time period.
Travis Low:So yeah, I think that's a mistake that I would say definitely made early in business was not taking care of myself financially over the over the business. And it's kind of goes to another point about you know the getting consumed by business, because I definitely was in those first two years.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:So I actually love that because I think it's a point that a lot of people don't think about. They think like oh, if we don't have a loan to pay or we don't have, you know, something financially that is reoccurring will be better off. But I think you're right In the end you might actually be farther ahead if you get a little kind of bit of cash to get you started for sure.
Travis Low:Well, yeah, do you know what it's like to go on a date and not know if your credit card's going to bounce? Or even just a coffee? That's really fun. Let me tell you.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Travis. I've been an entrepreneur for over 10 years. I know exactly what that feels like. You know what I think. It's so funny too, because there's also this kind of weird stereotype or stigma I don't know 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. You oftentimes are paying out of your own pocket for things, right?
Travis Low:Yeah, and it's like even after your business has matured. It's like do you know what it's like to live a life where, every single month, I'm wondering how am I going to do it next month? Am I going to survive this? And it's this ongoing fear that I don't know if it's like a doomsday thing, but it's like I just always fear what if this doesn't work? And it's like it always seems to work out.
Mackenzie Kilshaw: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 work right, for sure, and I appreciate that. Travis, thank you so much for being on. I know that people are going to want to know more about you and know more about Blue Mouse, so where's the best way for them to find you?
Travis Low:Definitely. Just our website at www. bluemousemedia. com and reach out, have a chat with us there's never any pressure, I promise you, and always love to have some chats with local businesses and find out what they're working on or what they're trying to work on or what they're challenged with and see if we can help. So yeah, I think that's it.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I appreciate that and, as someone that's used your services before, I can tell you that it's definitely worth it. So check out Blue Mouse. Travis, thank you so much for being on and for everybody else. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to Winning. Be sure to subscribe to get all of our new episodes. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to Winning. To catch all of the latest from us, you can follow Winning Podcast on Instagram @Winning_ podcast, Facebook at Winning Podcast and on Twitter @winning pod. Winning was created and is produced by me, Mackenzie Kilshaw, music created by Summer Firby, editing by Seth Armstrong. Special thanks to Shauna Foster for voicing our opening and, of course, a huge thank you to this episode's guest. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.
