Meet Alane Boyd

Alane Boyd is the Co-Founder of BGBO Co., an operations and growth strategy agency utilizing AI and automation to improve efficiency for their clients. In 2022, her company launched Arvo, an AI-powered visual documentation software for creating standard operating procedures, training documents, and company knowledge. Alane has been written and featured in Entrepreneur, HuffPost, South by Southwest (SXSW), PBS, FemFounder, and many more.

How do you start positioning yourself as an expert or a credible resource in your industry? 

I really struggled with this for a long time because I was looking at the work we were doing. We are doing such amazing things and our customers love us. I finally realized we weren't telling anybody about it. Even when we would do these big case studies, we weren't sending them out in a bite sized piece.

No one's gonna know that you're an expert unless you're telling them, and you're not gonna be credible just because you say you know how to do something. You have to tell stories and do them short, where people's attention span can still follow along with it.And also very clear. 

You can do that so easily now with social media. And I have found that has really turned a 180 for me. I was just going, Hey, I'm an expert. I'm over here. People are coming to me because they see me as an expert.

I would love to hear more about your AI software. 

We launched that for companies to create internal process stocks, SOPs, training manuals for their team, and it's all digital.

We were looking at it from a perspective of stuff out there, a lot of platforms, they look like glorified text documents. We just thought nobody wants to learn like that.  Everything is meant to suck you in longer and also for short attention span.

So that's why we built Arvo, to be really digitally appealing. And then we added AI earlier this year and we've got a couple of new AI features coming out too. We thought, what a great use of AI to help write processes. If you could have AI write 90% of a process for you, and then you tweak it for your business, that could be saving you hours of work. We've got some things coming down the line that I'm really excited about with AI too.

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[00:00:48] If there's ever anything that I can do to support you, please reach out. LinkedIn is a channel that you can find me on. Just search for Lori Highby. You can simply click the follow button as I post daily information about marketing strategy tips, all podcast episodes and any upcoming events you might find me on. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection request that references Social Capital. I can't wait to hear from you.

[00:01:25] The topic of relationships ties in very closely to marketing. That's why I am bringing on experts in a variety of backgrounds focused on networking, marketing, relationship building for you to learn and grow from.

[00:01:53] In 2022, her company launched Arvo, an AI powered visual documentation software for creating standard operating procedures, training documents and company knowledge. Alane has been written and featured in Entrepreneur, HuffPost, south by Southwest, PBS, Femme Founder, and many more. Welcome to the show.

[00:02:16] Lori Highby: Well, it's a wonderful one that you've got here. Extremely impressive. And I love chatting about AI.

[00:02:23] Lori Highby: Yeah, it's definitely gonna be fun. Let's dive into the relationship side of things a little bit. So you live about an hour and a half outside of Nashville. How do you build meaningful professional relationships?

[00:03:04] And not even having a sales approach to it, but just, Hey, do you wanna connect kind of approach. Then the other one is I went through a Goldman Sachs program called 10,000 Small Businesses, and I was able to connect with other business owners in the state of Tennessee. I was feeling very suffocated until I was there and I was like, oh my God. Now I've got this huge network and I've been able to really pull myself out of what I was kind of falling into a negative head space into such a positive one that I live in an amazing area.

[00:03:41] Lori Highby: I love that. And I think that's how we actually both originally connected was that I was part of the 10 KSB program as well.

[00:03:51] Lori Highby: Oh, well thank you. That's so fun. Yeah, I think that's a fantastic program and I would be an advocate for anyone that is a small business owner. I think you have to have a minimum of three or four FTEs To be. eligible to participate but there's great knowledge sharing. But I'd say from my perspective, that community is so powerful within that organization.

[00:04:18] Lori Highby: Love that. So how do you start positioning yourself as an expert or a credible resource in your industry? This could be anyone that's just getting started, but also someone that's been doing this for 20 years.

[00:04:48] No one's gonna know that you're an expert unless you're telling them, and you're not gonna be credible just because you say you know how to do something. You have to tell stories and do them short, where people's attention span can still follow along with it.

[00:05:15] Lori Highby: Yeah. I always, when I'm giving presentations, I know you do, a handful of speaking as well, when we're talking about marketing, I always reference, if you build it, they will come. Field of Dreams. Build a business and assume your customers are like gonna come to you magically. You gotta be loud and proud and let people know you exist and can help solve certain problems.

[00:06:27] Lori Highby: A hundred percent. And there's, this like smoke and mirrors of like, oh, this Instagram magically showed up and they're worth, all this money. And they were just acquired by Facebook. Good job for him. That took time and tweaking and it wasn't perfect the first time, the first launch. And there's lots of evolutions, and it's a hard initiative to have a successful business that you get found and you're attracting the right type of clients to find you.

[00:07:00] Lori Highby: So I've noticed on your LinkedIn posts, you tend to just keep putting yourself out there. Can you talk more about that and your thinking behind it?

[00:08:19] And, you know, we're so excited. We think this is the end of the road. Like, man, he, he just got published in this kid's newspaper and a couple weeks later NPR contacts the editor of that newspaper and he's like, my name's Annie. I'm with NPR and I'd like to interview Fletcher on a upcoming podcast. Could you put me in touch with his parents? They had to write Fletcher an email and be like, Hey, can we get in touch with your parents? I was like, Hey Chris, this is Alane, Fletcher's mom. I help him with his emails and they put me in touch.

[00:09:33] And I do that a lot because we all get so scared. What are people gonna think of me? Am I gonna get hurt? And I'm like, no, I'm gonna be Fletcher Lee Johnson and I am gonna put myself out there and I'm gonna keep doing it. 'cause you don't know what's gonna happen.

[00:10:01] Lori Highby: I love that. I love that and I'm definitely a big fan and advocate of that thinking of the philosophy is, you gotta put it out into the universe, 'cause otherwise the universe doesn't know that this is what you're seeking. And definitely a big fan of that, and I've spoken, on a similar topic to other, entrepreneurs and professionals in the past and have had great experiences. Sometimes you just put it out there without expectations, but as long as it's out there it doesn't happen magically, overnight. But, like we talked about, you just keep putting it out there and consistency and then something's gonna happen. It's gonna be great.

[00:10:43] So it's all these connections and they keep snowballing on top of each other. If you just start one day, maybe not everything's gonna happen in line with that, but you keep doing it and you're gonna get that snowball effect and you're gonna one day meet the right person that's gonna make you explode.

[00:11:06] Alane Boyd: Sometimes I think my greatest idea no one else cares about, so I have to just go with it. This wasn't the home run that I thought it was gonna be. One day, maybe it will be, but I'm gonna keep putting myself out there.

[00:11:23] Alane Boyd: Oh, yeah. So we launched that for companies to create internal process stocks, SOPs, training manuals for their team, and it's all digital.

[00:11:48] So that's why we built Arvo, to be really digitally appealing. And then we added AI earlier this year and we've got a couple of new AI features coming out too. We thought, what a great use of AI to help write processes. If you could have AI write 90% of a process for you, and then you tweak it for your business, that could be saving you hours of work. We've got some things coming down the line that I'm really excited about with AI too.

[00:12:34] Let's change it up to something fun now. If you could go back to your twenty-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of, less of or differently with regards to your professional career?

[00:12:48] I think I was on the perfect path to figure things out. I think more of my changes would be around health and healthy eating. I was always Overweight growing up and didn't really learn how to eat right. And when I went to college, I ate a lot of Easy Mac.

[00:13:19] So I think those are the main things I would've told my twenty-year-old self is like, Hey, get yourself together. Learn how to cook healthy foods, get a good night's sleep so you're prepared and not stress the next day.

[00:13:30] Lori Highby: I love all of that. those are critical things that I wish my twenty-year-old self was paying attention to. So hopefully someone listening can act on that.

[00:13:42] Lori Highby: A hundred percent. So I'm gonna give you the opportunity to interview me. What's something you'd like to ask me?

[00:13:53] Lori Highby: Oh boy. That's a good one. I think one of the things that I would look at when I was in, college I would've paid more attention to creating relationships with the various professors and the students that were in the class. And anyone that I met on a professional level from a mentoring relationship opportunity, a networking opportunity, to build a strong, positive network. I think that would've been really important. And then, pay closer attention to the things I was doing to take care of me first instead of focusing so much on what everyone else was doing.

[00:14:34] Lori Highby: Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much. If anyone is interested in getting in contact with you, what's the best way that they could reach you?

[00:14:44] Lori Highby: Cool. We'll include, that information in the show notes. Any final words of wisdom you'd like to share with our listeners?

[00:15:01] Lori Highby: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Alane, for being on the show today.

[00:15:07] Lori Highby: Yeah, super fun.

[00:15:13] If you have a burning marketing or relationship question, just reach out. I'd love to answer it on the show. And as mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn. Connect with me, connect with Alane. We'd love to connect and hear from you. I hope you enjoy today's show, and I encourage you to go out there and get noticed.