Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Is that we're moving into a time, especially if you work for a team, is that everyone will have to be proved, will have to prove their value and AI will be able to validate not your value as a human being, but your value in that role.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Run toward the unknown.
When you're riding the big wheel, you're not alone.
Welcome to Riding the Big Wheel. Today's guest is digital sales and marketing executive Sonia Dumas. So Sonia is a successful entrepreneur dedicated to helping businesses succeed and succeed faster. Among her many accomplishments, she is founder and host of Income Inbox, a platform designed to drive revenue through AI driven marketing solutions. I am so, so excited, Sonja, to welcome you here on the podcast. There is so much for us to talk about. I am like, I did all this research about you and I'm trying to figure out, like, where do we start and where do we stop? So welcome and thank you for being with us here today.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: I am excited to be here and we are going to have so much fun diving into all the things I'm, I'm a renaissance woman.
Ask me anything.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: That's awesome. I love that. Well, okay, so I want to start with, let's call it a speed date approach to your, your professional journey without, I like to tell everyone, without reading a resume, but the reality is for you, you wouldn't do that anyway. I think it's going to take people less than five minutes to figure out what an amazing sales and marketing executive that you are. Sonya, I completely enjoy the conversation that we've had and the one that we're going to have today I'm really anticipating will be a great one. So take us through a little bit of your professional journey.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Sure. So my professional journey started in 2025. No, 2025. 2005.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: That's amazing.
You've done a lot this year.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: 2005, my professional journey started in boutique lifestyle hotel development out of la. This is when the hotel industry was starting to actually have a personality. And I, you know, fun fact, I am still two classes away from graduating.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: I know. So let me little side trip. I was in USC's Marshall School of Business and I was in their entrepreneurship program. I've always been an entrepreneur. My first business was selling my brothers their own toys. And it worked really well for about two weeks until the boys figured out that buying their own toys every two weeks was. Was not good.
So it ended. But it was a great business model.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: And so that was recommended.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Recommended. Right. So that started at 9. So in the Marshall School of business. They were bringing in CEOs, and all the CEOs had dropped out by the sophomore year. And they said, when opportunity comes, take, take it. You can always come back and finish your classes. And sure enough, my senior year, the Viceroy Hotel Group, I was in an internship. They love me. They said, can you stay on? I was like, I'm two classes away from graduating. They're like, what's the point of going to college to get a job? What are we offering you a job Done.
So I started, and I was like, oh, I'm going to go back to college over the summer.
Twenty years later, y'all still gonna go back to college over the summer. And I learned about branding, marketing. I learned about especially boutique lifestyle. Like, at the time, W Hotel was the cool brand, but still creating lifestyle was, you know, wasn't really there. And then I ended up working with Brad Kors and interior designer Kelly Werstler. And all of a sudden, between 2005 to 2014, the most incredible hotels started to come to the surface with lifestyle. So I learned every part of boutique hotel openings. I understood lifestyle in that affluent clientele. And so from the very beginning, I understood the power of branding, the power of knowing your market, the power of showing up with the right people, with the right look and feel and experience. Experience. And so I did that for 16 years. Eventually burned me out. And because I. I usually say this hospitality is pretty hospitable to everybody but the people who work there, because we don't turn off, but we love it, so we never leave. It's a bit of an addiction.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: And so, anyway, so that's where I started. And then when.
And then I ended up opening the Fianna Miami beach, an entire district. And I stayed in for operations, and that was incredible, but it was also a burnout. So I made my way to Colorado, and I hid in the woods for about five years and decompressed. And during that time, I started to understand what. What did I love about that part of my career? I love branding, I love sales. I love marketing. And what that really came down to was the guest experience. I loved creating experiences that made such an impact that, yeah, people spending 200, 500, $600,000 for an event, not a big deal because of the experience. And so when I became an entrepreneur and decided to work with small businesses, I was shocked at how structured and rigid and, no, everyone does this in a certain way. And I was like, that's not how we do it in hospitality. We're about creating experiences. And it's only in the last, I would say three years that branding and marketing and the experience has now come to all businesses that I lived for 16 years. And I'm like, finally. Because everything gets easier actually when you show up powerfully and when you have a strong brand that speaks to a specific clientele, everything goes premium. Which I'm like, finally. We're finally there.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: That is so funny. Oh, my gosh. So it's really. I think that that's very interesting because you're focused on a niche business, which is you're working with small businesses, consultants and what other type. Who is it that you serve? Let's talk about that first.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Yes. So consultants and speakers who specifically go after clients that are somewhere between one to $20 billion enterprise clients. So it's not just any consultant, speaker. It's, yeah. Elite level. We want to. We are solving high stakes, painful problems that. That starts at $100,000 to fix. Starting right.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Pretty much. You're talking to me as a consulting business, which is interesting. So what made you target that particular market? How did you make that connection?
[00:07:14] Speaker A: It took a while. Interesting. When I left hospitality, when I called left, I still consulted, literally up until a year ago. So, hey, y really leave.
But I ended up working with the financial industry first because I actually had financial advisors reaching out to me to say, hey, I need some marketing help, I need some branding help. And these were friends at the time. And so I went down the rabbit hole of helping the financial industry. And then that's what introduced me to digital currencies, cryptocurrencies, understanding the beginnings of AI. And so I was in that space for a long time. But I realized, though, realistically, the financial space isn't a creative space. I mean, it can be, but you might get in trouble with the sec. So I had. I'm like, oh, I can't be in this, this zone because I will create something that. That we can't do that, Sonia. Oh, okay.
I'm like, but it's fun. Yeah. No.
So it took me a while to meet, work my way through. And I think that happens with any small business. It's going to take you some years to really dial in who you serve the best and also pay attention to who attracts to you. So like I said, I got into the financial space because that's who was attracting to me. And I was like, yeah, I can help with that. And as I've moved along the years, what's now attracting to me is elite consultants, boutique consultants, who have. They're like, we got. We go after massive clients, and we only need 10 to 12 of these massive clients per year to do very well. We don't need hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers. And so that's what's been attracting to me in the last couple of years. So I was like, oh, and I get to be creative. So, like, okay, so it's a part of. I believe as an entrepreneurs, it's a part of what fuels you. What fuels me is great strategy and great design. Like, love it all day and creativity. It has to be that mix. But it also has to. What's important is working with clients who also value you bringing that. Because there are some clients who don't value. No. Why do we need to look like we're 2025 and not 1990? I don't even know why I have to explain that to you, but, okay, we're not in alignment. You don't value this because you don't understand that we live in a highly visual society. The book is being hyper, judged by the COVID Like, no one's going to say, I don't like how you look because that's not really nice. But you just won't get the business and you won't understand why. And someone who has, you know, I guess you could say a less effective product than you gets it because they look amazing.
Even though their results are going to be disappointing, but they look good.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yep. You know, that's an interesting thing to. To get into a little bit because I was listening to someone talking on another podcast about this. I'm a listener of podcast, too, and. And he was a famous. I think it was a basketball player. I'm not. Not remembering all the detail. But the point was he's like, number one advice, show up and look good. And, you know, it's interesting because people. And we went through this, I think, and the pandemic didn't help when people were working at home. But Sonia, come on. I still see people and they're wearing slippers. Still into Target. When are you going to get over that stuff? Right. But I think there's something about how we show up and people still create those impressions. Right. Like they have that impression. You can be really smart, but it really is important, kind of. It is how you show up. Right?
[00:11:02] Speaker A: It is. And know your market. So it's not necessarily, you know, suit and tie unless your clientele is suit and tie. It's, you know, so there are some who, you know, you're like this cool boutique agency and everyone's wearing Jogger suits, but it's Adidas, Converse, Nike jogger suit.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Then, right. Like with all the appropriate matching accessories and your clients love that and your audience love that. Then that's your audience. And so we're moving into a day that what's professional, it's more about are you resonating with your audience in a way that they like. And there are some audiences that, yeah, you got to show up collared shirt and, but still have your, your, your style to it. Yeah, but you know the days of like looking pretty much blue suit, white shirt and very stoic. Right. Like this isn't Mad Men, 1950s, 1960s. Like you don't have to show up that way, especially if that's not who your audience is. But if it is, yeah, you better show up that way. But have a little edge. You can wear some Adidas and Converse and you can still rock your custom Italian linen suit. And we're good. We're good.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. So I want, I want to talk about, I'd like to get into sales, marketing and AI. And in particular because what I saw happen, you know, having a smaller business, I see things like the Internet started with that social media, how that evolved, it's really leveled the playing field it actually truly has between small and mid sized business. Now you're still going to deal with, you talked about brand recognition, you're still going to deal with well known global brands as a small business. Right. If someone's doing a competitive bid for your services. But that said, I feel like we're at another point in time where AI is also helping to level the playing field from what companies need to invest in their marketing engine and how they reach their audiences. And I would love for you to talk about like what you see and what you recommend, you know, companies are doing today, what might be on the horizon and, and then we'll get into mistakes that they make as well. But I thought it would be just kind of fun to talk about how AI is really changing the game of marketing for everyone, whether you're marketing a business or yourself. Right.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: So let's, let's take a step back and really understand like I like to break things down. So we talk about sales and marketing and as if they're two separate silos. And that, that is a mindset that AI has shattered. And I think that, so let's start there that it's not still just sales and marketing. It really comes down to what I call branding. Right. So, and many of us, like what do you look at sales and marketing, it's all branding. Branding supersedes that because not only is it how you're showing up, right with the content that you create, that's promotions, but your promotions is also selling you because for years now I think it's the, I think it was HubSpot. There's all kinds of surveys and reports out there. 70% of your buyers don't want to have a conversation with you. I think it's 99% now that nobody wants to jump on a sales call anymore. And there's no such thing as a marketing call. So. So what? So what are you doing? So, but content. You should buy into our brand, buy into what we create, buy into our transformation. This is where people start to fall in love with you, the individual. Especially when you're a small business and you're dealing with multimillion billion dollar businesses, you're actually speaking CEO or C suite to C suite. And so one of the incredible things that now exists is that as, as leaders one people want to see the founders show up. Isn't it interesting? I find it so fascinating. There are more billionaires showing up. We didn't know who the billionaires were. We only knew Forbes list every so often now billionaires are all over Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn showing up, giving their. I'm like, where are all these billies coming from? Because the billies are showing up. I said billions. That's that. That show billions. I said they were ahead of the game. But, but here's the thing. I and I was asking myself, why are the billies showing up? Because think about it, especially the ones who are in the financial markets, the next generation of big new money is coming through. The old generation is sliding out. We'll just say that because you can slide out in a lot of different ways. They're sliding out, new money's coming in and so they need to show up to say hey, this is why you should allow us to help invest with your billions and millions that you're making on TikTok. So just seeing how so paying attention, like pay attention to recognizing that the as a founder, founder led growth is so important. Important partner led growth is so important showing up as a brand because that's what's doing the selling for you. Your content is selling for you. And then when people are ready. The other thing is sales cycles are actually taking longer than most expect because we all know we have multiple options. We don't have to like, we don't have to click. We don't have to say anything until we're ready. And the person, the company that's been top of mind, they keep showing up saying, hey, here are the problems we solve, here's different nuances to the problems that we've discovered. Hey, have you discovered this yet too? When that time comes and you don't know when that's going to be, this quarter, next quarter, two weeks from now, two days from now. And it's because we don't know that. What can we control?
We can control how we show up, we can control our content. So when the DM comes through, the email comes through that says, can we, can we meet? And I don't know if you've noticed this, but when someone DMs or emails you, they're ready to go. Now it's not, hey, let's talk about this for six months. They're like, we are in pain. How do we get this go? Which I love. But you don't know when it's going to happen. So it kind of messes with your, your sales goals. So using that to say, that's where we start at that. Let's look beyond sales and marketing and really understand that your branding and everything you're showing up with is your sales and marketing. And then saying, okay, using AI, AI is still in the novelty phase. People are still using it to write emails, they're still using it to do reports, they're still using it for ideal client profiles. You know, especially AI in the graphic design. Like, oh, I created my own action figure.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: That's novelty.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: I love it, it's fun. But I go back to what's the business case for this? I get it. If you want to geek out, I do too. I've been up at 2am with mid journey and I was like, why, why am I here?
Why am I here? What am I creating? What's the business case?
But it's fun for us creatives.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: But at the end of the day, I. One of the things I speak about when I talk about AI is AI as a business should be seen at the. I call it advisory intelligence.
Because AI, if you go back, like just go to YouTube and look at videos, AI in gaming, AI in military. If you think about the highest use of AI, it's how do we win? Because it started it learned on gaming, a lot of it was learned on gaming. How do we win at all costs, any cost within these certain rules. And when you understand that at the military gaming level, then you start to see as a business, AI can advise me on how to have that true competitive edge. So what you're not. So the general public AI is nowhere near the private. Whether it's government or billion dollar companies are creating their own AI for hyper market intelligence. So any little shift in the market can give them intelligence to say shift. It's time to shift now. Even though the actual impact won't happen 10 months from now, 18 months from now, they have shifted. And I always think about Southwest Airlines back during the gas spike when they were buying gas and doing all that hedging and people thought they were insane. And five years later, American Airlines and then were paying retail prices for gas and Southwest was good and they took off whatever intelligence they had at that point. And that was kind of pre AI. But whatever they had, they made smart moves years in advance that people were laughing at. And then they got the last laugh. And so here we are. AI is level the playing field that we all have the ability. There are companies now and I'm actually working with a company that is creating what I call, you know, AI for client intelligence, market intelligence. It's more than just chat. Create a report for me. No, it's. I want to go to a dashboard. Understand not only what's going on with my clients, because think about it, you have to go deeper now. Most businesses only look at themselves and their clients. We need to start looking at our client's client because if our client's client doesn't pay our client, we don't get paid either or the budgets get cut. There's a ripple effect. And that ripple effect has always existed. But we're not, we don't have the money for the Boston consulting group in McKinsey for them to give that report about what's happening with our clients. Clients in our clients. Clients. Client. But AI has now allowed us to be able to say I want to go into any market and who do my clients serve? What's going on with the clients that they're serving? Because if something's happening negatively, that's going to impact their ability to win clients, that's going to impact budgets, which could impact me. And now we can be proactive and in fact, you can start advising your clients about their clients. And that's called extra fees. And all because of AI that's now approachable. Whereas before, you know, to get that kind of data, you're looking at $500,000 starting.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Oh yeah, starting.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: And that's the basic.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yep. So that's what I mean by level the playing field. And I think it's super exciting. And how do you. I know that you consult with companies on how they get started and what they can do. Right. I know that that's part of what you do. If you were to talk to someone, a company that, let's say they're not really leveraging AI yet small business, let's say they fit within your criteria. Like, how do you recommend people to get started? I'll tell you what we did.
I basically made a decision to get educated at the partner level. Right. So I did, and I learned all about it. I actually took class at mit. I'm taking more courses, but I met other women that are in AI and other people. I shouldn't just say women, but I really started to look at. Okay, let's take a step back. And what is the end game? What should our strategy look like right before we do anything? And then kind of came up with a plan around that, which I can get into that later. But what is it that you recommend people do, Sonia? To just start the journey. Because I do think it does offer a unique opportunity right now for small businesses to really understand their clients.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So I look at it as, first of all, you have to look at the business as a whole to say, where are you today? Because if you're still disconnected on who your audience is, if you're still disconnected on messaging, if you're still disconnected on how you're serving these clients, then AI doesn't really help much because you're. You're still spinning in circles. So it's. Are you clear about your audience? If you're not, let's get that fixed now. Right? Are you clear about your message? If not, let's get that fixed.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Now that we have clear messaging, clear target audience. Okay, now let's look at having AI tell us more about this audience. Right. So then let's start doing ideal client profiles. And so that's one of the things I do. Let's dive in. What's the ideal client profile? Let AI give us some ideas about what would be interesting to them. What's. What's going on with them? What's their pains? What's their problems? And then from there, then, you know, I would say AI turns off a little bit because we go back to the human. How's the human interacting? What does the human want? Like, you can't ever just think, well, there's some of you who are just saying, oh, well, AI saying this, but what's the human being doing? Like, you know, they talk about the algorithm, the Algorithm is just human beings clicking the algorithm is a post effect, like it already happened. What's the pre effect? What was that person thinking before they clicked? What was that person thinking going through before they took that next step? You know, Google talked about this, I want to say a year or two, they called it micro moments. What are all the micro moments that lead up to the click to whatever.
And so I love this time because it's a balance between, yes, let's look at the data, let's have AI give us some advisory intelligence and some feedback, but also let's pay attention to what's going on with human beings. And maybe, you know, like you look at it as there may be middle managers and directors who are, who are going to be replaced by AI or at least a lot of their job functions and responsibilities are. And so being able to understand the ideal audience that you're going after, who should you be talking to? And I'm all about go higher. My biggest message is you need to be speaking strategically to the C suite as fast as possible because everyone below the C suite. So I'll give you an example. There's a company that has an AI app that's incredible. It will tell you exactly what everyone is doing across the company. Who are the top performers, the actual actions they're taking that's making them top performers.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: And so on one end, great, now we have that data that we can train everybody else on. But it also, we're moving into a time. And this is to me a part of the, the scary nervousness part is that we're moving into a time, especially if you work for a team, is that everyone will have to be proved, will have to prove their value. And I will be able to validate not your value as a human being, but your value in that role. And you can't wing it and smooth talk your way anymore. Everyone will be able to, anyone will be able to look into the dashboard, especially the C suite and say, here is what the top 10, 20% are doing. Here's what the middle is doing. Here's what the part that we're probably going to lay off, let go, remove are doing. And AI will be able to validate that and say, this is the data. You're only making five phone calls when the top one is in 20 meetings, right. Or not phone calls, but you know, meetings, right? Yeah, Nobody's doing phone calls.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Established that.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Yeah, right, we've established.
And so just knowing that, and to me that's a bit scary that for the first Time like pretty much most of the company and the stress level. I can't imagine what the mental health situation is going to be like when everybody knows that there is literally on your within the systems tracking your value. That will be measured daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. And I think we're going to see tighter timeframes on. You need to step it up. And this whole we're going to give you 90 days because AI is going to be able to say if you give this person training, the average gets better in 45 days. Like wow, who, like who's to say what that information is going to be? And so this is where so the C suite is safe for a minute. But then I could also see some board of directors saying we're going to also have AI track with the C suites doing yeah like proving value. So as small businesses, one of the best places we could be is in the space of strategy. Strategy at the corporate level, but also strategy at the individual level. I can see a rise in consultants who I almost call them like you know more than you know how they have the professional career consultant. I think this is. That is an in a niche of consultant that's going to come at a premium because you're going to have executives saying I'm about to be measured on a level I've never been measured before. How do I strategically position myself? And that's as an individual and a company.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: You know that I think that's really fascinating. So you. I had a quote that I've got several here. But you talked about AI isn't here to replace you. It's here to amplify your brilliance. Now I want to get into that, but you brought up a really good point that I happen to agree with where people are. You know, there's a school of thought out there that says that AI is going to help your low performers. You know, it's going to make low performers better.
Personally, I think it's going to separate the good from the bad. Honestly, I think people that are intrinsically poor performers or they said it'll make lazy people lazier. I don't believe that. I believe they'll stand out more because people that are curious or the mighty middle. Right. The people that are those good solid performers. But maybe not the most brilliant. Right. Like the most brilliant 90th percentile performer. But they're good. I think they have an opportunity of augmenting their performance. But I think it's going to separate low from high performance.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Absolutely.
There was article that came out a couple weeks Ago, I think where Zuck laid off a lot of people. Right. They always.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that's right.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: And he said our data showed that these were the low performers like and I don't know what pip, you know, performance improvement plan that they had or not. And you know, and the thing is, you know, AI is also not just looking at what you're doing today. If all the data is put in, it could see what you've done for the life of you being at the company.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Well, that is true.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: It can retro. So you can say you've been through multiple trainings you've been through. So you're not going to get a PIP because the history shows you don't get better, period.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Maybe this isn't a good fit. You should be a chef, you should not be a sales executive selling tires to freight companies. This isn't your space.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: That's pretty funny. So how far away do you think that we are from that level of performance tracking management? I mean the technology is kind of here.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I already know. Deploying that right now.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Really?
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah, by. By next year it becomes. I say right, this year is more of the testing year, next year more adoption. But so 2026. I say by 2027, it's standard.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Wow, 2027. Okay. So if you were going to give like a small business, you know, and we're talking, let's say they've got 30 to 50 employees. I'm making that up right now. But you know, a small business, some advice right now on what they could do and what they should be looking at as we think about the evolution of sales, marketing, AI, impact on sales professionals and impact on the buyer's journey, quite frankly. Like what would you. Just a couple of key takeaways that you would want them to remember from this part of our conversation.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: You know, it starts with. It really does start with your audience and your ideal clients. And you work backwards. Yeah, because up leveling your team for. Because a lot of times when people up level their. When I see companies up level their team, it they're still stuck in where their clients are today. Y in the market today. And it's like, no, no, you have to first understand where are your clients going to be? Where is their market taking them? And then look at then your expertise and say how is that now impacting us? And then what do we need to do to up level. And then you go and say okay, now let's look at our team, our services. This is really a. What we're going through is a Massive business model overhaul.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:14] Speaker A: Like, if we get down to the core, everybody's business model is being thrown upside down because there are some parts are going to be eliminated that we've all been used to. There are some parts are going to be created that we've never seen before. And we, and every business is so unique, which is what I love, because at the end of this, we're. I see a rise in hyper niche boutique consulting. We solve X problem that I call it.
You create results that can't be copied. And we have, most of us have been in a business space that most results can. Oh yeah, I can get you a 30% ROI. Oh, I do a 30%. I do a 31.2% ROI. Okay. Like, we've all been living in that space where everybody can say they can copy everyone else's results, but with AI, the companies who use AI smartly, who right size their team, who have a very specific client, they're like, no, no, we have a process, we have people, we have technology, and ultimately we create a result that can't be copied because you can technically copy. Like, look, someone can come in and buy out your team for more money. Right? So team gone. They could technically find out what your technology is. Technology gone, you know, your methodology. Maybe they can reverse engineer that. But can they copy your results?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: That's very interesting. Hey, it's Michelle. Thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoy our podcast and know someone who you believe would make a great guest, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and let's talk. I'd love to hear your feedback and as always, may it inspire you in your own personal and professional journey of life.
