Dai Baker

Automating your business processes will save your staff countless hours and improve your client experience.

 

Dai Baker is a marketing and branding strategist, entrepreneur, academic scholar and mother. Seeking a career that allowed Dai to utilize her creativity, she discovered Branding and Marketing. In September 2015, she launched Dai Baker Creative Group LLC. DBCG is a full service creative agency specializing in branding, marketing, public relations, graphic and web design. Through her agency, Dai has been able to launch over 20 brands and serve over 40 clients. Dai currently runs her agency with a help of a small team that consist of all ambitious women. Her agency is reflection of her creative passion.

She has over six years of industry experience. She has held positions with public universities, local nonprofits, small businesses outside of her agency. Dai received her Bachelor’s degree with honors in Public Relations in December 2016 from Eastern Michigan University and will receive her Master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications in December 2019 from West Virginia University . She completed her undergraduate thesis “Online Sex Slaves: The Internet’s Most Powerful Role in Sex Trafficking,” which has been published and presented at numerous conferences.
Dai has been on the executive board of numerous organizations and remains active in nonprofit work as a board member and volunteer.

Where did the idea for Dai Baker Creative Group LLC come from?

The idea to create Dai Baker Creative Group LLC came to fruition during my undergraduate studies. I knew I always wanted to be an entrepreneur but I was not sure of what kind of business I would start. In my childhood, I started a variety of businesses that never made it to adulthood. Studying public relations made it a natural decision to launch my own agency. Around my third year of college I was doing freelance work and decided to become more official thus launching my business.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

There’s no typical day for me at the agency. However, I start each day off by checking my emails, the agency’s Instagram notifications, our internal Slack channels. From there I will make a list of what absolutely have to be accomplished before the end of the day. Next up is checking in on the progress of our various client accounts. After doing my routine daily tasks, I am ready to began my actual work day. I typically switch between working on client accounts and internal task work. This allows me to not become tired or bored. I make sure to stay in communication with my staff in case I have questions on their work, need revisions done or have additional tasks. I try to keep myself at two cups of coffee maximum per work day. I use sticky notes, a planner and our internal Asana task management are the tools that I use to stay productive.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Bringing ideas to life is the reason we are in business. I am the strategist of the agency while Shay is our visual designer. After reviewing what the client is looking for plus my professional recommendation I then will build a strategy. If visual components are needed I will send over the specifications to Shay. I look to Pinterest sometimes for inspiration if I am struggling. I start every new brand using a visual brand board that provides the visual aesthetics I want to achieve.

What’s one trend that excites you?

One trend that is currently exciting to me is podcasting. I am actually currently working on launching my first season of one to be a companion to my agency. Podcasting is really big trend in social world and I am excited to add my voice to the arena.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

One habit of mine that keeps me productive is utilizing a paper planner. I know its an outdated practice but being able to write down all of my important to dos, deadlines and meetings as kept me on task. It’s something about being able to cross things off my list that makes me smile.

What advice would you give your younger self?

The advice I would give my younger self is to slow down there is no reason to rush to the finish line.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

Something that is true to me that no one else seem to agree on is that you cannot mix your professional and personal social media pages if you have a messy personal life. For example, if you like to argue a lot on your Facebook its probably not the best idea to promote your business on the same profile.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

One thing I do as entrepreneur and recommend that everyone does is to read your specific industry related blogs and publications daily. This method allows me to stay up to date on changes and trends occurring. I am able to stay educated on industry matters and pass along the knowledge to my staff.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

One strategy that has allowed my business to grow is by being strategic with my hiring choices. Having additional support allows me to work with more clients at one time without being over whelmed. Since having a team my output has increased significantly.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

One failure I have had as an entrepreneur was failing a client. I delivered work to a client that was not satisfactory. I overcame this by promising myself to never do that again. I also worked on additional training to improve as a professional. This was earlier on in my business but it was an eye opener for me.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

One business idea that may work for someone is starting a concierge service catering busy working moms by proving various assistant style services on a as needed basis.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

The best $100 I spent recently was investing in was in a podcast workshop. The workshop allowed me to connect with local entrepreneurs and professionals. I also spent the day interacting and learning from top women podcasters. As a aspiring podcaster this was a helpful experience.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

The best service that I currently use for my business is Dubsado. Dubsado is a customer relationship management web service that allows me to automate many of process. Because of this tool my onboarding process and information gathering for projects is automated saving my staff countless hours a week.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

One book I recommend the community read is Becoming by Michelle Obama, she shares a lot of career advice and tools on how to position yourself to successfully advance in your field.

What is your favorite quote?

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” – Marilyn Monroe 

I learned to not question everything that occur. Sometimes business deals go wrong so that a better one can occur. Sometimes a dead lead can be a blessing in disguise as it can allow you time to convert a client that’s a better fit. My life mantra is everything happens for reason. There’s a lesson in every in thing.

Key Learnings:

• Be strategic with your hiring choices so that you are building a team that can effectively assist you.
• Being aware of your industry’s trends is important to your business growth. An easy way to stay up to date is through reading related publications and blogs.
• Automating your business processes will save your staff countless hours and improve your client experience.
• Effectively keeping track of your tasks is the key to productivity. This can be done either electronically on paper or a combination of both.

Connect:

web: www.daibaker.com
Web: daibakercreativegroup.com
Instagram: instagram.com/daibakercreativegroup