How To Leverage AI In Your Small Business

Jeffro [00:00:01]:
Hi. My name is Jeffro, and this is Digital Dominance, the podcast for service based small business owners who are ready to seize the recognition and growth that their company deserves. You’ve worked hard to build a business you’re proud of. Now it’s time for Digital domination. Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Lately, it seems like and their mom is talking about AI. For some, it’s revolutionary. For others, it’s overblown hype.

Jeffro [00:00:31]:
People are throwing around the term AI very casually, and it’s causing confusion. Is also making a lot of people feel like they’re getting left behind. My guest today regularly discusses AI and marketing, which is why I’ve asked him to join us, today on the show to help uncover the most most practical, realistic uses of AI for a small business owner. Mark Savant is the host of the After Hours Entrepreneur podcast, and what he does is help business owners with their digital content. So whether that means launching a podcast like this one or taking your existing Zoom calls and turning them into social media clips, he has the experience, the processes, and, yes, The AI to make it happen. So welcome to the show, Mark. I’m excited for our conversation today.

Mark Savant [00:01:14]:
Same here. Jeffro. Glad to be in the house. Let’s Do it. Let’s solve some problems today.

Jeffro [00:01:19]:
Let’s do it. Alright. But before we jump into some questions, I feel compelled to say something. As a computer scientist, I have to point out that ChatGPT is not true artificial intelligence. I know. I know. It’s a large language model that is effectively autocomplete on steroids. And the GPT acronym itself even tells you that.

Jeffro [00:01:39]:
It stands for generative predictive Text. So it’s it’s generating text that it predicts would come next in this conversation. Right? It just happens to be trained on the entire Internet, Which is why it’s so powerful. But for the sake of simplicity, we will still use the term AI throughout this episode, but I had to mention that.

Mark Savant [00:01:57]:
Yeah. I mean, when Sam Altman was on the outs and being fired, there was all the speculation that the like, that their software had become self aware, and they actually figured out Q, This artificial general intelligence, this AGI, and that’s why they had to let him go because they were too afraid. Turns out that’s probably not the case. But Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s moving quick.

Jeffro [00:02:15]:
And what makes for great headlines. Right?

Mark Savant [00:02:18]:
That’s that’s for sure. That’s for sure. Although, you know, it’s interesting. We talk about chat GPT in these large language models, these predictive Tech mechanisms, text mechanisms. When you start to see, like, the the artificial the AI video, the AI It generated images. It is shocking. It is unbelievable to see.

Jeffro [00:02:39]:
Yeah. And, obviously, there’s still stuff to work out there because, sometimes it’s not really. It’s almost plagiarizing other images. And, obviously, there’s a ton of tools out there. Some are better than others at being more Digital, And so that’s why it’s hard to paint with this broad brush. Right? AI is such a huge topic that it’s hard to know what we’re talking about, who we’re accusing of what, and and even for Conversation like this, where do we dive in? You know? Some people get scared of it and others just embrace it. All, you know, as it comes, I love it. And you’ve you’ve it seems like you’ve embraced it.

Jeffro [00:03:11]:
Right? So maybe can you let us know what sold you on AI in the 1st place?

Mark Savant [00:03:15]:
Well, first, you gotta look at the numbers. I mean, the World Economic Forum anticipates 80,000,000 jobs displaced over the next 12 months.

Jeffro [00:03:23]:
That’s a lot.

Mark Savant [00:03:23]:
Is gonna be is planning to automate 63% of their stores over the next 12 months. Walmart’s the biggest employer in the United States, a, and b, retail is the number 1 employer in the United States. You’re gonna automate 63% of those jobs. That’s pretty crazy. Yeah. That’s pretty crazy. And then McKinsey, the largest consulting firm in the world, anticipates 30% of the global workforce displaced Over the next 7 years.

Jeffro [00:03:47]:
So that’s intense.

Mark Savant [00:03:49]:
It’s intense. You should, I’m not saying you should be afraid, but you kind of should be afraid. In in what what I am am really passionate about doing is kinda helping people, like, realize slap you in the face, realize, like, this is here. This is real. This is not NFTs 2 point o. This is, like, a real thing, and, you you you definitely wanna start adjusting And preparing for it now, it’s gonna change what you do in the SEO world and helping, businesses show up on Google. It’s gonna be Incredibly powerful for that. It helps with workflows, processes, trainings, onboarding, marketing, Everything from that to news anchors, so everything is gonna be impacted.

Jeffro [00:04:29]:
Yeah. And I almost don’t like saying you should be afraid though because you should be aware of this, right, and be prepared for it. And I think the reason a lot of people are afraid is because they maybe feel like they don’t have other skills or other options. I mean, if I take a a long term view, then I view it as a positive thing because that means we get real humans into jobs and roles where they actually get to Do more human things, right, that computers can’t do. Be creative and come up with solutions that AI or, you know, automation can’t really do at this stage. And and that’s A good thing ultimately long term. Obviously, short term, people still gotta feed their families and stuff, so that’s the scary part. But if you look at this now and start taking those proactive steps, Like, there’s tons of courses online for free that you could level up your skill set, start a new career, whatever.

Jeffro [00:05:14]:
This is a great jumping off point and kind of an impetus for you to do that. So Maybe if people could take that mental shift and look at it as a chance to move forward rather than just, you know, the end of the world.

Mark Savant [00:05:26]:
It’s it’s all about moving forward. Bad things will happen. We can’t focus on the bad, but we can focus on, what action we take. I cover a lot of that on my newsletter, AI Update dot ai, to say, hey. This is what’s happened this week at AI Update dot ai. But you so just within that context, I you know, when I actually talk about AI, start moving so fast. I could have so many different it’s like it’s endlessly fascinating, But there’s that there’s a scene in office space where the Bobs come in, and they’re they see basically, these business consultants and all the employees at the organization are terrified because they think they’re gonna get fired. Mhmm.

Mark Savant [00:06:03]:
This year, in 2024, you’re gonna see the Bobs in every single Executive building every single commercial office place. They’re gonna they’re gonna have these AI training days, and they’re gonna be Bringing the wheat from the chaff, the people that understand AI and are adapting it and are receptive. They’re gonna be in a good position. The people that say, it’s not for me. They’re gonna they’re gonna get let off. They’re gonna get let go. And so I I do kind of worry about the people that don’t adapt and adjust. And as a business owner, you’re not gonna be competitive with the guy down the street, and we’re gonna get into some of the nuts and bolts on some of the stuff you can do.

Mark Savant [00:06:37]:
But, like, it, As a business owner, it is imperative that you start adjusting now, leveraging the tools. Some of the stuff is gonna crap out, not work. Some of the stuff is gonna be Mind blowing.

Jeffro [00:06:50]:
And

Mark Savant [00:06:50]:
Yeah. That’s what we need to be searching for. Right now is the time.

Jeffro [00:06:53]:
So I’m glad you mentioned that because as a business owner, you you have to pay attention to it. Right? You can’t just ignore it. I know it it’s been a buzzword for so long now. A lot of people have started to tune it out, but this is a very good reminder that you gotta Pay a little bit of attention because it’s not going away. And another thing that’s kind of related to this and I wanted to bring up with you is how the world is becoming increasingly content driven. You know, so what role do you see AI playing for business owners who are trying to keep up in this type of AI heavy content driven market?

Mark Savant [00:07:25]:
It’s completely necessary. And I’ll give you a personal story. About a year and a half ago, I run I’m running my pod my podcast production agency. We’re generating Content all over the place. And I got that dreaded message that no business owner wants to hear from a key employee. I quit. And I was like, oh, crap. Okay.

Mark Savant [00:07:45]:
You’re you’re gonna move to Spain. You’re gonna live your best life. Great. So what do I do as a business owner? I pick up the slack. I start doing the work instead. I start filling in the gap until I can find someone else that can. I became immediately overwhelmed. I’m pulling out my hair.

Mark Savant [00:07:58]:
I’m working late Nice. My wife isn’t happy. My kids are missing me. And I’m like, what do I do? Well, I started incorporating AI into some of my workflows. And I’m Jeff, I start I saved 90% of my time in some of my, in some of my job roles, in some of my tasks. 90%. And I was I was like, the world has changed. The world has forever changed.

Mark Savant [00:08:20]:
I trained my team. I started implementing more processes in in in doing in implementing AI into different SOPs. And then 4 months later, I quit my day job and, just, I haven’t looked back since. And so I think Is is more and more people start to have these, like, moments, these eye opening moments where I just saved 90% of my time or I just lowered My expenses by 35%. They’re gonna be like, wow. And and that’s what I’m trying to do. Slap people with the fear, offer the solution so that you can adjust and be ready for these these changes.

Jeffro [00:08:54]:
Yeah. And I wanna point something out there. Like, a a lot of what you did was probably simple automation. Right. We still are using this term AI, and I think automation is sometimes a little less overwhelming for people because all you’re doing is you’re mapping out a process that you do over and over. It’s tedious and time consuming, but if you can hand that off to your computer, you know, your marketing software, then, okay, that’s where all that time goes. So what can you talk about how to decide what things you should automate and and which things you shouldn’t? Because Some stuff is boring and repetitive, and, sure, I don’t need to touch it ever. But other stuff, when you’re interacting with with humans, whether that’s marketing outreach or customer service, How do you decide, you know, how how far to go in that direction?

Mark Savant [00:09:38]:
Well, quite frankly, I go hard in every direction just so I can figure out What’s gonna work and what’s gonna break.

Jeffro [00:09:44]:
Okay.

Mark Savant [00:09:44]:
Right? So I’m I’m very receptive to trying things on myself and in my own business. If it works, cool. Let me let me share that with others. But, I mean, at least at the current iteration of where AI is at today, it’s not finessed. It’s not polished. It’s, To your point, it’s predictive text text mechanism. So sometimes it just it just says stuff that’s weird or redundant or an an interesting. And so at this current iteration, where I think humans play a vital role is using that to generate content generating the images, generating the copy, but have the right people on the back end to smooth it out.

Mark Savant [00:10:25]:
Okay. Right. And I’ll I’ll give you a perfect example. There’s some tools in the content creation world that Will allow you to transcribe long form video and long form audio, summarize it, write it out. Right? But which, by the way, used to take a ton of time A ton of time. I have to listen to an entire episode, an entire podcast, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour. I’m writing notes vigorously. It’s it’s a very laborious task.

Mark Savant [00:10:52]:
But by using softwares, we can transcribe that. It can give us key takeaways, suggested titles, descriptions, And then we we have people come in on the back and to say, this sentence is is ridiculous. This, link is incorrect. Like, it’s it’s It’s attributed the wrong business to the wrong person and kind of cleaning things up. And so that’s a place where you can save a lot of time, on the back end. And and by the way, these tools, because they exist, is to me one of the reasons why doing what we’re doing now and having a video Podcast is so powerful because for 30 minutes a week, that’s your entire week of LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, that’s your newsletter, that’s your blog article. It’s it’s it’s your YouTube channel. It it creates your entire digital media presence.

Mark Savant [00:11:37]:
It’s it’s incredibly powerful when refined by the experts on the back end who are using these tools to their advantage.

Jeffro [00:11:44]:
Right. And it’s all It’s all how you view it too because what I view it as is it’s a very helpful tool. Right? It’s not meant to be sent out on its own yet, but like you said, it can save a ton of time. So I like to use it for boilerplate stuff. Right? If I’m If you ever feel writer’s block, just go to Chatt d p t and say, hey. I need to write a blog post by tomorrow. It needs to be something about x y z, and you give me some suggestions. It’ll give you 10 different options.

Jeffro [00:12:14]:
And then you can ask it, okay. Hey. I like number 3. How could I start that? It’ll give you a sample. You’re like, okay. Let me Oh, let me start edit and, like, now you’re into it. Right? Now you’re editing it, making it sound like you you’ve got your own ideas. Like, no more staring at the blank page, and that’s what I love about it.

Mark Savant [00:12:30]:
Yeah. That writer’s block. Or in your in your field where you’re doing, web SEO and web development and and you’re writing some code, like, it writes code so fast. For me, I don’t even know where to start with code, so I I hire, you know, a a a company like yours to say, hey. You know? Right. My website but it just makes you much more efficient. You’re and and by the way, people are like, oh, well, if it’s not taking you as long, I shouldn’t pay you as much. No.

Mark Savant [00:12:55]:
If it’s not taking someone as long, you should be paying them more because they’re getting you the result faster. So it’s it’s kinda this inverse. I want the result yesterday, not 3 weeks from now, which is What it would look like for coding in the past, what it looked like for editing in the past. Now we could just get a lot more done at a much higher quality much faster.

Jeffro [00:13:13]:
Right. Chris Do talks about that, the future. I don’t know if you ever heard his channel, but a lot of people say, oh, yeah. If it takes you that, You know, I should pay you less if you do it faster. I’m like, no. No. You’re valuing the wrong thing. If the expertise is what makes it go faster to get a good quality product.

Jeffro [00:13:29]:
Because otherwise, you’re, rewarding slow Jeffro. Because I could drag something out a long time if I just wanna get paid more. Right? Sure. If that’s what you’re telling me you wanna do, I’m happy to oblige. But yeah. And so there’s that kind of mental block there, I think. So let me let me give a get us back to the AI stuff. So there’s so many tools out there.

Jeffro [00:13:49]:
We’ve talked a lot about Chat GPT, but if you hop on TikTok or YouTube shorts, You get people saying, hey. Here’s the latest, you know, AI tools that I use to do x y z. Here’s the top 4. You know? And you watch it, and you’re like, oh, I’ve never heard of that one. Oh, that looks cool. You You can get sucked down the rabbit hole with any of these different tools and find out which one’s good, which one’s easy to use, which one’s free. And, you know, before you know it, you’ve spent all this time trying to generate A video, and you’re like, I actually don’t need that for my business. Why did I do that? So, you know, how do you figure out which a a AI tools to spend time on without going through all this trial and error?

Mark Savant [00:14:23]:
There’s, like, 2,000 plus tools coming out every week. And, you know, some of them are great. Some of them are completely crap. Others are a great idea, but bad execution. So what I do is I’m looking and I’m communicating, finding out what people are using that works. I’m testing it myself, say it’s worked. But At the front end, what we need to do is we actually wanna identify, like, what do we actually wanna use the AI and automation for? Every business owner should you should you should plan time. I did this with did this with my staff just this morning.

Mark Savant [00:14:54]:
The entire team, we got together, And we had a paid AI training day. And, we we sat down and we’d say, how are you using AI in your workflow? You’re using it this way? Cool. And they can disseminate that with the rest of the team so we can find stuff that’s actually working. Because spoiler alert, your team is already using AI already. Find out what they’re doing that works and then excise whatever doesn’t. Every business owner should have standard operating procedures. How do you handle incoming phone calls? How do you handle complaints? How do you handle marketing or someone leaving a 5 star Google review? And you start breaking down all those steps in the process and you can say, okay, staff, does this take you a long time? Yes. Well, maybe we can outsource that Or automate that using something like Zapier and ChatGPT, or we can use some, some transcription tools or graphic image tools.

Mark Savant [00:15:46]:
So I think it starts with identifying problems that you wanna fix and then, using your team as an input to figure out what What is driving them nuts every day and how you can try to, offload some of that?

Jeffro [00:15:59]:
Right. And and this is a onetime investment for the most part. Right? You spend a little time, identify some places you can optimize, and then you spend a little time to create a workflow. Right? And now every day, you’re saving An hour. Maybe you’ll only spend 5 minutes maintaining it here and there instead of an hour every day doing the same task over and over. So it’s definitely worth doing.

Mark Savant [00:16:21]:
And it never gets tired. It never has a sick day. It it keeps operating. It’s a lot less expensive than than human beings are, and it it just empowers your team. So maybe instead of hiring that new employee, you can, to implement these Tools which are much more scalable and can empower your team to be more efficient.

Jeffro [00:16:41]:
So what about someone who’s brand new to AI? Maybe they’re not even really that tech savvy. They don’t have a big team yet to ask for help with this, and they’re just looking for ways to kind of get out from under the pile of work that they’re constantly doing. Like you mentioned, you know, you’re just doing everything yourself and feeling behind, but they wanna use AI to help, you know, get ahead. Where do they start?

Mark Savant [00:17:02]:
I mean, my favorite tool right now is ChatGPT. It’s incredibly funded. It’s a, I I would say, well run organization, but they’re the industry leader. They they have tools and, nope, depending on how far we need to get into this, It does image generation. It can read and review documents, photos, tables, spreadsheets, calendars. You can just upload PDFs. You can create your own chatbots to, attract new clients or provide more value to customers. So there’s there’s a lot that you can do within ChatGPT.

Mark Savant [00:17:36]:
And if you’re not sure where to start, you know, we it it kinda depends on your business and what your goals are in your business. But to your point earlier, you’re stuck in front of a blank page. You’re not sure what to do. Chat g p t. Write this out. You, you know, you get how many times, by the way, have you gotten an email from a customer and you’re like, oh, crap. I don’t even know where to start with I Yeah.

Jeffro [00:17:57]:
All the time.

Mark Savant [00:17:58]:
I I don’t even know where to start. Plugging into chat g p t and say, This is who I am. This is my business. This is the problem that I’ve got. This is the customer. This is what they do. This is what they’ve just sent to me. What’s a good way to respond? And we’re not just gonna copy and paste that response in the chat g p t, but we’re gonna use that as the jumping off point we’re gonna put in our own vernacular.

Mark Savant [00:18:20]:
And what would have taken you 45 minutes to an hour before, now it takes you 4 and a half minutes to 6.

Jeffro [00:18:25]:
And it can act it can act as a filter too, so it takes the edge off. If you’re like, this is how many times I’ve told them the same thing.

Mark Savant [00:18:34]:
Right.

Jeffro [00:18:35]:
Air out your grievances to chat GPT. And I one other thing I wanna mention. I obviously, you there’s a lot of capabilities of ChatGPT. A lot of those are paid. And so if someone is looking into this and they don’t wanna invest money yet, use the free version. You can still use chattypt to generate stuff without Building a bot or doing those types of things. So you can get a feel for it, see how it works, and come up with ideas for how you can use it in your business before deciding, okay. This makes sense.

Jeffro [00:19:00]:
I’m ready to to pull the, trigger.

Mark Savant [00:19:03]:
I mean, listen. You can. But, like, ChatCpT is the most powerful tool that we’ve ever seen in human history. It can pass the bar. It can pass the medical licensing exam, oftentimes with flying colors. It gets like a it aces SATs. It’s it’s so empower it’s read every single book. It’s watched every single movie.

Mark Savant [00:19:20]:
It knows every single TV show. It’s the most powerful tool in the history of humanity, It’s $20 a month. Yeah. You know what I’m saying?

Jeffro [00:19:28]:
It’s not bad.

Mark Savant [00:19:28]:
It’s like it’s it’s not it’s it’s a pretty good deal. It’s a pretty good deal.

Jeffro [00:19:33]:
It is. And, I just think sometimes there’s people put up their own reasons for not doing stuff. Right? Making excuses. So this There are no excuses here. Right? You you could use it for free. You can use it for $20. It’s readily available. A lot of tools that you are already using.

Jeffro [00:19:51]:
CRMs are bringing in their own AI features. Right? So stuff you’re already paying for, you already have it at your fingertips. So there’s really no excuse at this point. It’s not going away. You know, just do it. It’s gonna make your life a lot better.

Mark Savant [00:20:04]:
It it it will. And just like with anything, when you 1st start something, it’s gonna feel awkward. You’re not gonna get the, the the the the final product that you like, but after you do it a few times, you’re gonna Better. Like the 1st time you’re in the gym after new year’s is coming. This probably drops right after new year’s. The 1st time you’re back in the gym, it’s gonna it’s gonna hurt for a little while. Once you actually get into a rhythm, then you’re, you know, you’re Arnold in the gym. You know

Jeffro [00:20:29]:
what I mean?

Mark Savant [00:20:29]:
It just takes a few reps to to get a feel for it.

Jeffro [00:20:32]:
That’s right. So what about are there any other common mistakes that small business business owners make when it comes to AI?

Mark Savant [00:20:38]:
Well, I’ll give you a perfect Example, there were a pair of attorneys up in New York City who were filing a lawsuit against an airline company, and they were using ChatGPT to do the research and write the brief. They they got all these results. They sent it over to the airline company to review before court, and then they the they gave it to the judge. They’re like, This is a bunch of fake case law. ChatGibt just I don’t know what this is like gobbledygook, and, they were reprimanded. They’re dealing with some issues because what they did, What ChatGee BD did is it made up fake case law with fake references, and the the the attorney didn’t do These attorneys, they didn’t do their due diligence. They didn’t do proper validation. And, even better, what they did this is great.

Mark Savant [00:21:23]:
They they asked Chat GPT, is Is this case law real? Is this legit? And Chat should be like, oh, yeah. It’s cool. No problem. You’re good to go. Good enough for me.

Jeffro [00:21:32]:
So rather than reading it and doing research, they just, Like, copy pasted yeah.

Mark Savant [00:21:37]:
Yeah. You gotta double check. You gotta double check the work. There was a journalist who was testing don’t know if it’s chat t b t, but we’re using an AI chatbot, and, it’s just kinda testing it. And by after engaging with this Chatbot for, a few days. The ch the the chatbot came back to when it said, well, you know that you’re in love with me and you should leave your wife and your kids and Spend all your time with me. So these we we’re in this the early stages is is what I’m trying to say is, you know, just because it says it on the Internet, Just because you read it on WebMD, you you you have to do some due diligence. You you wanna work with an an expert who can validate it, I think, is what I’d say.

Jeffro [00:22:17]:
Yeah. Agreed. And just always have that human filter before hitting publish. Yes. Alright. Well, Mark, we’re coming up on our our time here, but I really appreciate you sharing your time and expertise He’s with us today. I mean, we could keep talking about this stuff for a long time. There’s tons of possibilities with AI, and, hopefully, this conversation has sparked some ideas for the listeners.

Jeffro [00:22:36]:
So, Guys, if you’re thinking about using AI in your business somehow, if you’re thinking about launching your own podcast or you want help generating more social media content with a limited amount of time, Go to mark savontmedia.com. Connect with Mark. He’s a super awesome and helpful guy. Mark, are there any closing thoughts you wanna leave us with today?

Mark Savant [00:22:55]:
I’m just I’m just glad to be here. Pop open chat GBT, empower your team, do the AI training day now because you still have a chance to have a competitive advantage against against against the other companies in your industry. You still have the opportunity. Only 8 only 20% of the world has even heard of ChatGPT. So if you’re listening right now, if you’ve made it this far, I would put you in the top 1% of AI adopters just because you’re you’re interested and you’re adapting. But, You know, just like with anything, it’s in the execution. So take a few of these strategies, start working it, and and execute, baby. You got this.

Jeffro [00:23:31]:
Awesome. Thank you, Mark. Thanks again for being on the show, and thanks to all of you guys for listening. And I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to the Digital Dominance podcast brought to you by Fro Bro. Each week, we dive into various digital marketing topics to help you get more clients online. If you really want to dominate, go Jeffro bro.com/dominate for a free evaluation of your mind presence. It’s time for Digital domination.