The AI Marketer's Playbook

24 | Productivity Hacks with Google Gemini for Solopreneurs with Nancy Bain

• Audrey Chia, Nancy Bain • Season 1 • Episode 24

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Audrey Chia welcomes Nancy Bain, founder of AI Advantage Consulting, to discuss how solopreneurs can use AI and Google Workspace to enhance productivity. Nancy reflects on her 25-year automation journey, from publishing to AI, and shares practical insights on integrating AI tools like Gemini for email management, content creation, and time-saving workflows. Learn how her 28-day program helps entrepreneurs automate administrative tasks and focus on their strengths. 


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Audrey Chia:

Hello and welcome back to the AI Marketers Playbook where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI and marketing strategies in your business. I'm Audrey Chia, your host, and today I have with me a really, really lovely lady, Nancy Bain. Now, Nancy is a productivity and automation expert who is helping busy solopreneurs leverage the power of AI and Google to streamline their workflows in just 28 days. Now, Nancy, I am super excited to have you on the show.

Nancy Bain:

It's so good to be here, Audrey. in both of our busy, hectic schedules, it's been hard to catch up with you, but I love, following your journey on LinkedIn, every single day. It's how I keep in touch with some of my favorite people. So I'm so glad we were able to carve out this time together, Audrey. Thank you.

Audrey Chia:

Thank you for being here as well Nancy. Now I know the last time we spoke, you told me a really interesting story about how you stepped into the world of AI. For our listeners, could you share a bit more about your background and, you know, how you opened this magical world of AI?

Nancy Bain:

So, I've been automating since before it was cool. So for 25 years, it started actually in a print production. I had, I was publishing, a monthly magazine. It was a 40 page magazine and it was a real estate publication. And so if you picture 80 Little pictures on a page with 80 little write ups times 80 pages, okay? And I knew that there had to be a better way than to be manually placing each of those photos on a page. Page. I was driving across the province. So you have to bear in mind that these were different times, 25 years ago. So things, people hadn't adopted, digital technology. It was just new and becoming a thing. So I was driving across the province and I was picking up big Manila. Envelopes of Polaroid photos that people were real estate agents were snapping out of their car window. Very poor quality. The write ups were written on napkins and whatever they had in their car at the time. And I would come. Back with this massive envelope. And at that time you could only scan one photo at a time. And, so I learned to automate, that entire process, through writing scripts in, in design. And so I, I streamlined that entire process where 80. Page 80 pictures and 80 write ups, would land on a page in minutes. Now, this, Included training each of the individual companies that I was working with to provide their training. Copy to me, camera ready or, or production ready. So, they were at, in the end, there was no more driving around, picking up, Polaroid photos. They were sending me their digital photos. I gave them, guidelines and to. how their text should be prepared. And so a big part of it was training the people that I worked with to provide their data in a method that would work for my systems. So yeah, so it started 25 years ago.

Audrey Chia:

And when was the moment that then, you know, AI came into the picture and you're like, now I have transferable skill sets.

Nancy Bain:

Yeah. So in 2009, I knew print was dying and I knew that it wasn't going to sustain me, I had grown that, 40 page magazine to 164 pages. I had two more 80 page. Magazines. It was a thriving, successful business. I transferred the magazine. It was not only available in print, but online, but I could see that the digital age web 2. 0 was coming in 2009. So I retrained and, I learned about digital technology and I had a fascination with, websites, building websites, and, So I wanted to those clients that I had been working with, for over a decade, I wanted to service those same clients in a new way. So that was when my second company was born, supernova media. And, I went all. And on social media, I was chosen 1 of the top 10 social media companies in Canada. my work was, I, I, I share a lot of content daily on LinkedIn. Dan, at that time the platform was SlideShare, so I shared all of my tutorials on SlideShare. My content there was in the top 1% of the world. my work was, featured by HubSpot. And so I took my, my real estate clients and I developed a social ignition course, and I taught hundreds of people, across, Nova Scotia and beyond to set up and manage, their social media and their social media campaigns with strategy. I love to look. Back on the clients who I taught, you know, back in 2009 and they're rocking social media today. And, so that was the second company and that was just about ready for the last pivot.

Audrey Chia:

Wow. Tell us more about the final pivot, Nancy.

Nancy Bain:

The final pivot. So early in, 2023, I tried ChatGPT for the first time. And. I fell in love and I knew immediately, that there was an enormous opportunity here and I knew I wanted to get my hands in the back end, you know, I didn't want to be just entering a prompt. I knew that there was so much more than that. I wanted to understand how it worked. And I wanted to build my own solutions. So at 55, I signed up for a data analyst course, and I went all in, for 20 weeks, learning SQL and Python. And I cried twice. I love telling that story because, you know, sometimes when you're up to your neck and, and as a solopreneur and you're feeling overwhelmed, don't take that as a sign that you're not where you're supposed to be. Sometimes that means it's exactly where you're supposed to be. So I graduated top of class. that, data analyst course. And I went to work, building my own, solutions, with the API. And I spent a year, immersed in Chattopadhyay, technologies, and then. Gemini in Google workspace, came along and, and I took a hard pivot. I, I do love to build my own agents. I still work a lot with the API. If you visit my site, you'll see a bot that I've built there and I built, build bot, bots for my clients. But my real passion, and this is where my final company, AI Advantage Consulting was born, is in helping solopreneurs reclaim their time, I think it's important for people to understand that over the course of my career, it's been a very successful career. I burned out twice during that time. And so, and, and a big part of, of the overwhelm. And. I was 100 percent subscribed to Hustle Culture. You know, if I got an email at seven o'clock at night, if I got an email Sunday morning at 10 o'clock, I always, and continue to meet my clients where they are. You know, so a busy solopreneur, you know, they're working all day long and oftentimes they don't have the opportunity to check their email until six or seven o'clock at night or on the weekends. And so I do work to meet them where they are. So when Gemini in Google Workspace came, I've been, Involved in Google Workspace and the product to productivity suite for two decades. I absolutely love Google Workspace as an affordable productivity tool for solopreneurs. And so when Gemini came along, and AI was built. Into the apps that I use every single day and that I've been using for 20 years. It was an absolute game changer. And what that did was helped to free up. My time to stay in my zone of genius and, my zone of genius is working, with, other solopreneurs to help them stay in there. Zone of genius and to, to enjoy their business and to remember why they started it in the first place, because we weren't born for emails and, appointment scheduling and all of those things can be automated and so that we can live a purposeful, driven life and have, and also have more time.

Audrey Chia:

Wow, Nancy. Firstly, thank you for sharing that entire journey with us. I think one thing that really stood out to me and I admire deeply is your ability and willingness to want to learn and willingness to even pivot because it takes a lot of courage to pick up an entirely new skill set and build a business of your own. Of it, while finding, you know, new clients for that market fit, building out an offer. So that is amazing to hear. And I think one other interesting thing that you said was looking at the Google workspace as a place for productivity, right? Could you tell us more about that? Because there are many people talking about a hundred different AI tools, but not many people are talking about how do you actually maximize the Google workspace with it's in your AI.

Nancy Bain:

Well, the beautiful thing about having, Gemini built into Google Workspace is that each of your apps can talk to each other. And that is so brilliant. So when I did some research and the average person spends, the average professional, spends 28 percent of their work week managing email. And, and another 20 percent searching for files and so Gemini solves that, you know, so you can be working in Gmail and responding to a client and, first of all, Gemini can scan all your past conversations. And inform themselves and bring them up to speed where you are in in the conversation process. It can help you draft a smart reply, but more importantly, it will check your files from Gmail. and reference your files and provide contextual, responses. So you're not running over to drive and searching for your files and referencing your files. Gemini manages all of that right in the side panel of, Gmail. And, so that is, Gmail. The far and wide has been the single biggest, time savings for me, with, with Gemini, and the other, is searching, is searching for files that, that, there is no more searching for files. It's like having a digital assistant that you've given. Boxes in boxes of paperwork, too, and some of them are just receipts that are thrown in the box and Gemini could make sense of it all and yeah, so it's absolutely amazing. Yeah.

Audrey Chia:

I think that I'm not fully leveraging, for example, Gemini and the Google workspace because I'm the one spending 20 percent of my time searching for my files. I'm like, where is it? I'm sure it's here somewhere. And I can see why AI can be very handy and useful in that. So I would love to know Nancy also, on your end, perhaps what are like two other ways that you You know, or tips for people who are exploring Gemini and the Google workspace. What are the things that people don't know about, but should try to leverage?

Nancy Bain:

I have two favorite tips and my, I would like to share my screen with you and, just show you, what Gemini looks like in, in the side panel of my, Gmail. And I want to share with you my very first prompt of the day, every single day. And so you just stay tuned. I'm going to share my screen.

Audrey Chia:

Like having your coffee perk me up, but in a prompt form on Gemini.

Nancy Bain:

Yes, exactly, exactly. All right. So here is my, Gmail and before, I started automating and setting up labels and filing systems and filters. This number here, by the way, was over 20, 000. So 2000 might seem like a lot, but it is drastically, drastically reduced. So I, this is how you activate a Gemini and your side panel is, is with this, Their little icon up here, and this will launch the Gemini side panel, and you'll notice that, there are some ready made prompts for you. What can Gemini do show my unread emails? You can check, order details. This is my first prompt of the day. Scan unread emails and lists. Action items by priority. So if you're a solopreneur, you usually have fires to put out. In, your email, if you're anything like me, so here are my action items. They, it lists the sources. It shows where these emails have come from. I can, insert, this. Body, I wouldn't insert this body. This would be the insert tool is used. If you are, if you'd asked it to draft a reply or a smart reply, you would just click this button and insert it right directly into your. into an email for you. but this is my absolute favorite prompt. so you can see more suggestions, show me my unread email, what's my most important email. You can copy, this content in here. You can say, Search, drive, and, let me know, this, and this is how I talk to it. I talk to it like I would talk to assistant, to any assistant, search, drive, and let me know where I'm at with Simon. So you notice I've got, this is a typo, this is a typo, Gemini doesn't care. So just go ahead, and, and talk to it as, as you would talk to any assistant. It absolutely will understand this request. It will search my drive and look for the latest correspondence from Simon. It will provide the sources in here, and then I can ask it to draft me, a reply. So that is my session. single favorite, use case, with Gemini, in Gmail. I also have a, another one, which I absolutely, love. And can you see the screen? maybe you're still on the Gmail. Well, yeah. Okay. So stop sharing that. And I am going to share,

Audrey Chia:

what I also loved about. The first prompt you you showed us right is because I think it's beautiful because it's such a simple prompt but something that is so handy and It just makes sense and it doesn't have to be a complicated prompt for something to work for you, right?

Nancy Bain:

No, definitely not. When you're, when you're, working on strategy, you need a, a more complicated prompt. You should follow a framework. you should have your eyes dotted and your T's crossed. You should be doing some thinking before you make your first prompt and a little bit of planning, but for, ad, admin Tasks with Gemini, absolutely not. it is my single biggest, a lot of people have reservations, the solopreneurs that I speak to, uh, about where do I start? You know, where, where do I start with AI? And I tell, talk to it. Like you would talk to an assistant, okay, and, and this assistant doesn't judge, it's like this so super, super smart, but it doesn't judge you so you can include typos, you can, you know, be very matter of fact, and provide simple, simple prompts, and it's going to get it. I see I got an error message, it won't let me show my Gemini screen, but that's okay. Okay, because I'm going to explain this, I'm just going to try one more time. This, this, because this is, it is my, my, favorite. And it's something that I want to, there we go. So here we are in Gemini. You can see this okay?

Audrey Chia:

Yes. Perfect. Yeah.

Nancy Bain:

Yeah. So this is the standalone app. Okay. for Gemini, you visit it at gemini. google. com. app. And I want to share here, extensions. I have extensions turned on in Gemini. So, what this means is that when I talk to Gemini, it can reference all of these words. Apps and all of my tasks, my calendar items, my gmail items, and it can reference them in tandem. Okay. Yeah. So, I think, this is highly underrated. I highly encourage you because the good news is Gemini is built in to Google works. And so that's so wonderful. so it's a free, add on. They did increase the price of the workspace subscription, a little bit. but this is now built in. So you're going to want to go down to settings and enable your extensions. So let's, this is a fun prompt. see the attached and add details to my calendar. Now the beautiful thing here, and I'm typing this in, but the beautiful thing here is that, I speak to Chattopadhyay, or sorry, Gemini, so I wouldn't be typing this in. I would be speaking to it. And so what this is, is a screenshot of an event, okay? and, and it's, it's so neat. so it's just a screenshot that I've taken from the web. so here it is, downtown Dartmouth Ice Festival, from January 31st to February, it includes the street address, and so I've asked, I've asked, Gemini, I've just taken a simple screenshot and said, add this to my calendar and I can click and, there's two instances there because I did this last night for a tutorial video, but, it's, it's automatically and magically, added that to my calendar, so no, no typing, no errors, no setting in the, Address so that you can, you can Google map it on your way to, the, the event. That's another fun, very quick, that I love for Gemini.

Audrey Chia:

Oh, and I love how it's so seamlessly integrated, right? I do know that ChatGPC did try to integrate a little with. Do you know how that compares? Because I haven't personally tested that function. So

Nancy Bain:

I want to talk about ChatGPT, my first love. Okay. And I still use ChatGPT every single day. Okay. Gemini is an admin tool. Okay. Period.

Audrey Chia:

I love that. Period.

Nancy Bain:

And chat GPT, that's I, where I do strategic work, data analysis. I have a lot of, custom GPTs there, but I'm actually trading them in favor of cloud projects. I absolutely love cloud projects in my opinion, far, better than custom GPTs and Gemini Gems. but, so with, the integration with Drive and ChatGPT, it's just as simple as they made it sound like a big deal, but it's really not a big deal. So, you know, when you go to upload a file on ChatGPT, well, you can choose to upload a file or you can choose to upload via your Drive, which is really no different. In my opinion, because you're going to navigate to the file anyway, so, I do not find it time saving or as big a deal, because it can't, it can't see your drive, it only sees the documents that you've navigated to, to upload. To chat GPT and that's the difference with with Gemini is that it can see and scan and read everything Every file that you've ever added to your drive It can see

Audrey Chia:

and I think that is the beautiful part like google is trying to find its advantage And they are leaning in hard on the fact that most people have their work content Already uploaded in their workspace. So it makes sense for them to use the tool to help people to navigate that database and that's an edge that chat GPT doesn't yet have

Nancy Bain:

a hundred percent. And I would, I would make two recommendations. Of course, Gemini is built already into your Google workspace. Now it is a free add on. but in order for, in. If you're going to invite company to your house, you're going to clean it up first. You're gonna make sure it's thick and span. And I did that, with my, my inbox. that's when I went from 20,000 emails down to 2000 emails. I went over. over to my drive and I spent a good part of the day inside of my drive, doing some house planning. It looked a bit like a digital junk drawer when I got there and, but after a few, a few Few hours of concerted effort. it's cleaned up with an excellent, filing structure and hierarchy, and I think that Gemini will work better for you if you do, a bit of house cleaning, before, before you invite it over And

Audrey Chia:

I think it's very interesting that you say that Gemini is a great. Administrative tool, versus like chat GPT, perhaps for strategy or data analysis, and then like cloud for, you know, custom creative. Yeah. So it's really interesting because I think everyone perhaps assumes that chat GPT is the best, all in one tool. But in fact, there are so many specific use cases for the different LLMs, right?

Nancy Bain:

100%. And I have subscriptions. Well, I'm saving now 300 annually because they've included Gemini inside of Google Workspace. So I was Paying extra for that. But as of this month, as of February 1st, I'll be, I'll be saving that money, but there, I, I can't live without my Chattopadhyay subscription and I can't live without my Claude, subscription. And, and again, I, I completely think that they're different. They have their strengths, for different purposes.

Audrey Chia:

Yes, definitely. And I think Nancy, one interesting thing that perhaps, you know, since you're working a lot with solopreneurs, right, I guess a huge part of what they need to do is to, like yourself, put themselves out there and start creating content, right? So in what ways do, you know, solopreneurs, you know, what, what are ways that they can leverage AI to then create more content and create, you know, that personal brand for themselves?

Nancy Bain:

I offer my signature course is a 28 day program. It is four weeks and it is we meet once a week. It is a collaborative program where we work side by side and I don't come in and we Implement the strategies. We implement the strategies together so that they're, able to scale and manage and confidently use the systems, that, that we put in place. in, the second week of that program, we tackle content creation. And, of course, content creation is something that I have been doing. Avidly since 2009, and I've built some incredible systems, to streamline that process. And, so we tackled that in, week two. my clients, have, are all housed. within a client portal and within and each of the resources and frameworks and systems are housed, within that portal and, specific to week 2, we, cover, brand messaging exercises, we develop, the. ICP personas, content pillars, and my favorite part is the content os. And so this is where we work, and, and, and where all of our content lives and is scheduled. and there's also, engagement dash, dashboards. So all of the apps, and social profiles that. And, and each client is unique. So some clients use Instagram while other clients are using LinkedIn. Some use them all. And so we bring all of those tools within the content, o os, and and we teach, batch tasking. so I can't. I can't, encourage those who, especially a solopreneur like myself, who are wearing all the hats for, you know, the bookkeeping, the administration, and content creation. I can't encourage enough batch tasking. So, I set aside Friday afternoon, for content creation. And I block that off in my calendar, and I do not accept appointments. And it is my most favorite day of the week, so I got my sweatpants on and my cat is beside me and I've got a cup of tea and I batch create and that first piece of content might take half an hour. The next one takes 25 minutes. The next one is 20 minutes. You achieve flow state, you know, as you're, as you're batch creating. And so we teach those tech, techniques as well in week two.

Audrey Chia:

I think like the, the idea of, A, not just thinking of AI for AI's sake, but you know, leveraging AI, but also thinking about systems and processes is something that you seem to be covering in that beautiful course that you've created.

Nancy Bain:

Yes, a hundred percent. I read a quote, the other day, and I wish I could remember it. It's just absolutely left me, but it was about systems and it's, it's about built, you know, the systems that you build today will determine the success Of your business tomorrow. And, so I think so. And so, and we're not all meant to build systems, you know, and that's why it's great to hire someone like me who has the experience and has built those systems, and I can then then help you implement them, implement. And maintain them. You know, I, I've talked about this a lot that my, my, my work with my clients is very collaborative because the last thing that I want is for someone to walk away and question their investment. And so I offer, I have to. Offer aftercare for all of my clients because I, and I check in, depending on, if they take the four week program, I generally give them four weeks of aftercare and I check in once a week. Are you using your content? Oh, S are you implementing what? You have learned, are your automation saving to your Google sheets? And so, by, by the end, they're confident they're, they're 100 percent confident in their systems and they're able to scale those, those systems.

Audrey Chia:

Definitely. I think what you also mentioned is that after care part, it's almost like. setting a plan, right, or roadmap, but then making sure you action on it because a lot of the times when people take a course, they learn a new skill. It's just theory, theory, theory, but the magic comes when you put in the work and you start using AI and then you see like, Oh, I'm saving so much time and it becomes real for that person.

Nancy Bain:

A hundred percent. And I pre qualify my clients, and I make sure that the language on my site is, is very clear because working with me involves a three to four hour per week investment of your time. And so we meet, for an hour online or an hour and a half online, but then there's, there's homework. And so the solopreneur has to get real honest with themselves and, and say, do I have the time? Will I make this a priority? Will I, complete my homework? Can I qualify all of that? with a Google form, in advance to, to make sure that, that we're a good fit. I want to feel good about that invoice that I sent. And I

Audrey Chia:

think it also shows like your passion and care in the work, right? Because, because you take your work seriously, you expect your clients to take the work seriously and that's how you achieve serious results.

Nancy Bain:

So, thank you. That's exactly it, Audrey. Thank you.

Audrey Chia:

So, Nancy, would love to know, before we wrap things up, what are some of your, you know, top tips for anyone who's trying to build a business and trying to leverage AI, especially if they are a solopreneur? What advice would you give them?

Nancy Bain:

I think that, first of all, Google Workspace, you need a productivity tool, okay? You have got to have a productivity tool, and a subscription, to Google Workspace is, under 20 a month. and that gives you access to your Gmail, which you can brand to your company name. It gives you access to docs and sheets and, and so much more. and so you definitely need to have a productivity tool. And, I think when you're first starting, you really You know, it's specific to AI, and there's a bunch of tools that I can't live without. Okay, so I can't live without Calendly. I have to have Calendly so that my clients have a seamless and professional experience, when they reach out to me. And that process is all automated and an entirely different conversation. But I can't live without Google Works. Face, I can't live without, Calendly. And I think you can get away for most solopreneurs. They can get away with the free version of Calendly. They can get away with the free version of Canva. That's another tool that I can't live without. And I think for a good chunk of time, until they become comfortable with an LLM like Chat GPT, that they can wait on purchasing the subscription. For chat GPT as well. And so I really do, encourage, to source those free productivity tools and, before you make a commitment and invest, make sure you're going to use them, make sure you're comfortable with the interface. And, I go on LinkedIn every day to learn, as well, you know, so many experts on there. And if you can find, a mentor or someone that you admire, and, in a similar business, see if they have a community built and, you know, become a member of, of their community. There's, people like yourself, Audrey, are giving, are giving away, you know, tips and amazing resources every single day. And so they're out there, you know, so find a mentor. Don't live without Google Workspace. You need a calendar app and you can get away with a free one. And before you invest to make sure you're going to use the tools.

Audrey Chia:

Beautiful. And if you're not already following Nancy, she drops amazing content about Gemini and so many other AI tips. I have so many of your Carousel saved so that I can study them and be like, okay, how do I best maximize this too? So yes, Nancy, how can people find you and who should be reaching out to you?

Nancy Bain:

So, yes, I'm on LinkedIn, most days and I love my community there. It is my favorite place to, go and learn and I highly encourage, any solopreneur. First of all, I talked earlier about burning out. I would encourage, don't try to be in all the places, you know, choose a platform that resonates with you or two platforms that resonate with you and do it well, you know, and so that's what LinkedIn is for me. It is my one platform that I do well. And so you can find me on LinkedIn, Nancy Bain, and you, I'd love for you to visit my new site, because I'd love to have feedback. so it's. Theaiadvantage. ca, you can find me there and, I love working with solopreneurs, and, so if you're, if you have a solopreneur business and you're ready to scale, I'm your girl, reach out. Lindsay is the one for you.

Audrey Chia:

And with that, thank you so much for your time, Lindsay. Thank you for your insights. It was a pleasure having you on the show and thank you guys for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to the AI Marketer's Playbook and hit the bell for more actionable marketing insights. We'll see you next week.