Cybernomics: Where Business Meets Tech

Old Meets New: The Hidden Costs of NOT Adopting AI

• Bruyning Media • Season 3 • Episode 1

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In this episode of Cybernomics, Al Kennickell joins me to discuss the importance of embracing AI in small and medium businesses, addressing common misconceptions and hesitations surrounding its use. We emphasize that many negative opinions about AI stem from a lack of understanding and experience. Our discussion highlights practical applications of AI, its role as a revenue driver, and the necessity for individuals and businesses to adapt to this technology to remain competitive. Al encourage listeners to invest time in learning AI, as it can significantly enhance business strategies, future-proof your business, and drive revenue for generations to come.

Takeaways

  • Many people are hesitant to embrace AI due to misconceptions.
  • Negative opinions about AI often come from a lack of experience.
  • Understanding the right tools and prompts is crucial for effective AI use.
  • AI can provide significant competitive advantages in business.
  • Learning AI is not difficult and can be done through online resources.
  • AI can serve as a powerful business consultant.
  • The rapid development of AI means that what it can do today will evolve quickly.
  • Businesses that do not adopt AI risk falling behind their competitors.
  • AI can help anticipate customer needs and improve engagement.
  • Investing time in learning AI can lead to substantial business growth.

Josh's LinkedIn

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Cybernomics. It's been a while now we're back and I'm here with the president of the Kinnacle Group, al Kinnacle, and Infinity Inc is sponsoring this episode of Cybernomics, which is great, because someone around here needs to know what they are doing and what they've been up to. What they've been up to, infinity Inc helps businesses innovate with confidence. While we just talk about it, check them out at infinityincus.

Speaker 1:

Al is a special guest and near and dear to my heart, because I don't know if you know this, but I just recently moved to Savannah, georgia and I've been connecting with local business owners and executives, and especially in the small and medium business space, and Al runs a local commercial printing operation, and so you know it's really interesting what's going on in the small and medium business space here when it comes to AI and sort of the old meets new. I don't know if you've ever visited Savannah Georgia, but it's a very old town. I think it's correct me if I'm wrong, al, but Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia. Is it the first city in Georgia?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, I think it was 1793, 1733 was founded.

Speaker 1:

All right. So we've got the old town meets new technology. Printing has been around for a long I mean, it's been around forever, right, and so now we're starting to see, even with the printing industry, that technology and AI as we move on to the newer generations, both in printing technology and, as we'll get into here, Al, handing it down to your family and to your kids AI really is becoming so critical as a differentiator, not just for small to medium businesses, but also, specifically when it comes to commercial printing. So, Al, that's how I see your world. How would you describe your world and what has drawn you to AI?

Speaker 2:

Well, I was very fortunate. I'm in an organization called the International Printers Network and we're printers who are affiliated from all over the world. Many of us have different types of businesses, so when we have meetings it's hard to discuss just printing in general because we all do different things. So I'm on the board. So what we did we brought in this was, maybe two or three years ago, a speaker on AI and that was my first introduction to it and I thought, wow, this is something that we're going to need to understand, because even back then, before it got as powerful as it is right now, I could tell that there's going to be winners and losers, and the winners are going to be ones that are adopting AI and the losers are going to be ones that think it's a fad and it's going to go away. So I got my first indoctrination there and then they mentioned that there was going to be a conference in Las Vegas called Imagine AI. So I went to that and that was about 15 months ago and really, you know, got a really tremendous dose of what's going on and how it works. And then they had the second conference was about two months ago.

Speaker 2:

I went back to that and, you know, I clearly understand, especially in a business like mine, where and I'll say this it's not so much that I'm in the printing business, I'm in a commercial business, I'm in a business, I'm in a family business that I have family coming along after me and I want them to be successful and I'm a firm believer if they understand and adopt AI, they're going to have a really good chance to be successful. If they don't, I do not think they have any chance at being successful, and I really mean that. I've always been one that's looking for, you know, different technologies or different management practices, things that are game changers, and this is just absolutely a major game changer.

Speaker 1:

Just before we get into AI as the differentiator and really unpack what you just said, because I think that you've got the kernel there, which is that if you're not using AI, you're going to get left behind, and so that's where I want to spend the bulk of our conversation. But to see how you've gotten to where you are. Your family has been in the printing business and just I like the way you put it you've been in business. Really, it doesn't really matter. You can pick which avatar you wear and which mask you wear, but when you take it off, at the end of the day it's solutions, meeting needs, and that's the crux of it, right? So can you give us a little bit of background on the history of your business and how your family got into it? Especially, I think this is a little bit of a Savannah history as well.

Speaker 2:

My grandfather worked as a typesetter at the Savannah Morning News. Back in sometime between the late 1800s and in 1892, he decided to start a printing and office supply company and he did that. And then later on my father and his twin brother and their sister joined the company and they actually all lived in a little apartment above the printing company in downtown Savannah. In the 30s my dad and his twin brother kind of took over the company and they ran it until I joined the company in 77. And then in 1981, I bought everybody out and then in the last, say, 10, 12 years two of my kids are in the business and you know. So we got the fourth generation here ready for action and you know I'm doing everything I can to make sure they're as prepared as possible in everything from reading financials to understanding AI.

Speaker 1:

Savannah's kind of a really close-knit business community right where everybody knows everybody. They've been doing business together for a long time Now. Knowing what you know about your business and business in general and Savannah, do you think that you could say that business owners here are quick adopters of technology? What are some of the shocks that you've seen throughout the history of this town and do you think that AI is going to really rattle the business community here?

Speaker 2:

You know I would say this, that I do a good bit of traveling around. I've been in a number of peer groups. So I would say the closest people that I've been to in the business world have really not been Savanians. They have been guys from successful companies around the country. And, you know, and I was always looking for knowledge, looking for the next best thing.

Speaker 2:

Now, you know, being here in Savannah, being in the business community for a long time, you know I see new people come into town and they kind of joke about Slovana and my only thought is well, there might be some people here that aren't in a big hurry. But you know, I've always had a tremendous sense of urgency, from the very first day I started working to now. I don't know that. I mean I interact with other companies, but not so much in how they run their businesses. But I will say this being in an organization of a bunch of business owners that meets every Tuesday morning to discuss business we're talking about 90 different business owners I would say that the vast majority of them do not have any desire to learn AI and they hear about it, but they're really not all in. I try to bring up stuff in the meeting every now and then to explain, you know, how this could be beneficial to them and I think they just. You know it's going in one ear and out the other.

Speaker 1:

Why do you think that is? Is it just there's got to be some rationale behind that?

Speaker 2:

I think that if you're an older person let's say you're in your let's say you've been in your job for 20, you've owned your company for 25 years you think you pretty much know how to do everything and you think there's nothing else for you to learn. And I think that they look at AI as here comes one more thing that I'm going to have to throw myself into and learn, and I don't want to put forth that effort. And I tell you, let me share something with you that happened today that I thought was very interesting, considering you and I were going to talk so I don't normally listen to talk radio, but my car is in the shop I'm driving. A loaner Guy called in and he said, yeah, I tried to use AI for asking it a question and it gave me the wrong answer. And, first of all, these guys didn't mention if they were doing you and using a chat, gpt or what. They obviously were just thinking of AI as one thing and one thing only.

Speaker 2:

But what I find is the people that really don't want to have to learn AI are looking for any excuse they can come up with to not do it, to not have to go put forth the effort. So anytime one of these people hears that AI is not that great or it doesn't work all the time, they love that. That just kind of justifies their laziness. It justifies the reasons why it's okay that they haven't spent the time to learn how to use AI. The people that have the most negative to say about it know nothing about it, because if they did know something about it and were using it, they would clearly not have this negative attitude about AI.

Speaker 1:

Here's where I scratch my head, al. If someone came down from heaven and gave you the blueprint to success, said, hey, all you need to do is follow these prompts Nope, no pun intended and you will be successful. And you know, I'm giving you the keys to heaven, so to speak. It'll work 100%. All you need to do is put one foot in front of the other and you're going to get what you want. Most people would say, okay, that's a good deal. I'm going to do that Because, especially in the business world, that's kind of how business people operate. You start out with a vision and you go. What do I have to do to bring that vision to fruition, in your opinion? Do you think that it's that people don't really totally buy that AI is such a game changer that there's some hesitance there because they just don't trust that it'll deliver on what it's promised? Because I really don't understand the hesitancy when you know that this thing can and will improve your business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'll tell you what I think about that and I'll go back to my days of being in a peer group with about 10 other guys in the printing industry. We were from all over the country. There were certain guys in that group that were hungry to learn and if we were talking about a new software or something new like ISO 9000, certification, things like that, some people would be all over it. Others, I could tell them exactly what they should do when they get back to their office to fix the problems they've shared with me. And they can't make themselves do it. They just can't have the drive to go into new territory and learn new things. They like it the way things are right now and they don't want change. And remember, most people don't like change. But the people that are okay with change and are happy to make it happen, they're going to be the ones that are going to be successful. So I really say it goes back to some people.

Speaker 2:

Just, I'm just going to go back and say lazy, because it's not hard to learn how to use AI. I mean, I think I mentioned to you before what I did is whenever I had a half an hour of free time, I went to YouTube and I just typed in AI videos and then I just started watching them and I probably watched 50 of them. I would always watch the ones that were like less than 50. And I just learned how to do it and then I just played with it a lot and it just became like the lights came on for me and I realized that if I had competitors using AI and I wasn't using AI, then I'm going to lose this battle. And I am very competitive. I always want to win and I look at AI as that's how you win.

Speaker 1:

Do you see that the pain is present or do you think that there's a future pain that you're trying to avoid?

Speaker 2:

No, I think it's here right now. I'll give you an example of a use of AI that just happened today. Okay, all right. There is an AI tool I have called Crystal Knows C-R-Y-S-T-A-L, second word, k-n-o-w-s. It's in Crystal Ball Knows, all right, and what Crystal Knows does is I can use it in conjunction with somebody's profile on LinkedIn. It looks at everything they've written on LinkedIn. It looks at everything they've written on LinkedIn. It looks at everything they've written on the internet. It does this in a split second and it gives me a total breakdown of their personality, including how I should talk to them. All right.

Speaker 2:

So today, one of our salespeople came in and said I just got an unbelievable opportunity with and it's a very large company. They're in Atlanta and you know we're going to have a call. I said who are the people on the call? He gave me their names. I ran them through Crystal Nose and it clearly showed us, when we get them on the phone, the tone we should use, the approach we should use, and it really gave us the blueprint for being successful in having this one phone call turn into a relationship a relationship.

Speaker 2:

Now, you know we could have got lucky and pulled that off, but there were specific things that it mentioned about these people that we will absolutely put into our call and somebody there's a printing company that's handling this company right now. This has a good chance of losing this business to me, because I used AI to give myself a better chance at taking their business than I would if I didn't have it. And, once again, if you have the tools, use the tools and use them to win, and this is a real world example of that today, and that's just one of the many, many different ways to use AI, but it's a great way.

Speaker 1:

That's a really good example of present pain. If you're asking me in some way to kind of press me on this, say Josh, what is that going to do for my business today? I love that example. That is revenue important to you and how important is sales to you and how important is your customer to you and the way that you deliver your services? Well, super duper important. Can we summarize that by saying that it's not just a competitive advantage, but really what you just laid out is AI is a revenue driver.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Hey, I tell you what I would recommend to people that haven't really done anything with AI yet. You know they can go to. You know ChatGPT, which they can go to the free version. After a while they'll learn that they want to use the paid version, which is only $20 a month.

Speaker 2:

But the first question I asked ChatGPT was can you tell me what information you need to know about me and my company in order for you to help me grow my business? And it came back with like 20 questions and what I did is I just started answering the questions and I went into great detail about everything about our business. It even mentions the names of my kids when it's talking about you know, casey would really appreciate this. This would really work well for her. And then I took it to a next step. I got in. I'm using a service called bootleboxai and with that it's sort of a website that has all the other AIs just right there at my fingertips, but it has a knowledge bank. So I go to that and I actually did a Word document explaining everything about the business. I dropped that in there. I put in there PDFs of different case studies and pretty much everything I could load in there.

Speaker 2:

And now, if I'm using Perplexity or if I'm using ChatGPT or if I'm using you name it Claude, if I'm on PoodleBox, every one of those bots has all the same information about me. So when we're discussing, when I'm asking it business questions and byodle bots, every one of those bots has all the same information about me. So when we're discussing, when I'm asking it business questions and, by the way, I use AI as a consultant a great deal it's somebody for me to talk to. If you can have the smartest person in the world sitting right next to you, you can bounce questions off of them. I mean, how could you say no to that off of them? I mean, how could you say no to that?

Speaker 2:

So I've got all these AI bots that are intimately familiar with every aspect of my operation. They know what kind of equipment I have and it's just. It's a tremendous tool. I will sometimes have a conversation with AI and I'll switch between chat, gpt, to Claude, to Perplexity, all in the same long conversation, and you don't have to reintroduce anything to either one of them. They already understand and they're already listening in on the conversation. I can say to Claude what do you think about the answer I just got from ChatGPT and it might have a slightly different answer, you know. So there's. I think people need to understand. You just hired the smartest consultant in the world for nothing or $20 a month, so it's just a shame if people don't get it.

Speaker 1:

Before we get into the future state of AI and how your kids are going to be using this and what does this mean for the future of your business? Let me ask you this, al You've made the business case for AI and there's someone listening to this right now who is still not convinced, but you know that the future, pain is coming, the storm is coming, winter is coming. What do you say to that person?

Speaker 2:

You know I would. First of all, here's what I tell anybody. That's even some of my older friends. I say if you're planning to work, if you're not retired and you're going to work for one or two more years, then you better get on board with AI, or you may not be working for one or two more years. Then you better get on board with AI, or you may not be working for one or two more years. I would just simply say that if somebody out there is not using AI and thinks it's going to go away, first of all, let me be just as clear as I can. One business owner to another or one business person to another. You know I like to see people be successful. I help people out. People help me out.

Speaker 2:

In my career, you know, I've always looked for people that maybe knew more than me and they shared information with me in it and it benefited me greatly. I'm going to say to any skeptic out there please understand, you're wrong if you think you can ignore AI. It's not going to go away and what AI can do today is nothing compared to what it can do a month from today. And if somebody says I tried that and it didn't work. I say, when did, when did you try that? Oh, about a year or so ago. Well, a year in AI is like, I mean, that's like a thousand years in mankind, because it's developing so fast, so and it's not hard to learn. I mean, let me be honest with you. You know I don't like to brag. I don't like to not brag. Confess how old I am, but I'm 70. And I started using AI when I was probably 67. That's when I first got into it.

Speaker 2:

And it doesn't matter how old you are or where you are in your career. If you work at being successful and you want to win, or you want your family to win, why would you not use the best tools available? Why would you be digging with a shovel if you could be digging with a backhoe? I mean, it's just, the tools are there and if you don't take advantage of it, I hate to say it, but shame on you. But it's not hard to learn.

Speaker 2:

Start out with YouTube videos and then just start asking. Just go to an AI app and start asking questions. All you got to do is go to, you know, openai. Just search on OpenAI. That's the company that has ChatGPT and you can start out right there and it's not hard to do. And I promise you, I promise anyone out there, that if you make the effort to start using AI and you put forth, let's say, a half an hour a day, or come in on a Saturday and play around with it for three or four hours, you are going to realize what you've been missing and you're going to realize you cannot be without this tool, this tool, and I mean I'll just say, try it and get put forth the effort, spend a few hours and then you'll be, you'll realize you've been missing out and you will now be a believer.

Speaker 1:

What I hear is a concerned friend. I hear a concerned father Like this is something that you're saying this with the urgency that my dad would be advising me or giving me almost a warning kind of a voice in the wilderness sort of vibe, and I could hear the urgency in your voice. Not only do you see the opportunities here, but some people would kind of try to hold it to themselves and use it as a competitive advantage, and the less their competition knows, the better. But that's not you. You are saying look, everybody, let's get on this bandwagon. I'm on it already. This ship is sailing away and if you're not on it you're going to get left behind.

Speaker 1:

And I just want to point out something that you mentioned earlier. Some people they're looking at this, and maybe the older folks in the area in the world really are looking at AI and saying, well, you know, I'm not going to be in business for that much longer, at least personally. You know either I'm going to sell or I'm just going to hand it over, so it's not really my problem. For those people, I don't really know what the answer is. But for your kids you in particular, al, who will be running your business in the generations to come? Do you think that they will be adopting AI and are you seeing them embrace AI in a way that is encouraging to you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I do. I see them use it all the time. I don't know if I will say that they use it fairly often to save time to do tasks. What I don't think they're doing yet and I'm going to take them down this road is they're not. I don't think they're using AI as a business consultant, and that's where you really need to do it.

Speaker 2:

Let me give you a good example, because I'm on Boodlebox for my AI platform. If I put anything into chat, gpt or whatever, it does not get out, it is safe. Nobody else is going to see it. So I took my financial statements for the month of June and I put it into AI and I asked for it to give me some. I asked specific questions, I wanted specific analysis. It came back with remarkable analysis and I will tell you that if I had asked my CPA to do what AI did for me in a few seconds, I would have spent thousands of dollars. And it's just. I mean, in fact, I've been looking at P&Ls for so long. I thought there's no way that I'm going to. It's going to show me something I don't already know and it was subtle, but there was a couple things. I went wow, I never noticed that. Wow, kids do it.

Speaker 2:

Let me just give you one other example. There's a company a guy was speaking at the Las Vegas AI conference and here's what he said. He was the CEO of this company and, yes, they're a tech company, but they're a pretty big company. He said in my company, if you don't use AI, you're fired, because I'm not going to pay people to be less than what they could be if they were using AI.

Speaker 2:

And the question was well, how do you know if they're using AI or not? He said well, all I got to do is sit down and have a conversation with somebody and ask them a few questions and it's quick. You can tell who's using it and who's not. But the moral of the story is this they're on his payroll, he expects them to be the best they can possibly be. He knows that those people using AI are better than those same people not using AI and he insists that they use it. So you know, I mean that's just another example of you know, if you're not taking advantage of it, you're not getting the most out of yourself and your business.

Speaker 1:

That's the long and short of it, and I'm encouraged that Savanians are or at least Savanians like you are using AI and it's going to be the most important technology. It is the most important technology of our generation and it will drive technology, or it will drive business, for generations and generations to come, All right. So let's end with that, Al, Any last words. I know we've said everything that we could say to you, know as much as we could to encourage people to start using AI, but let us is there anything else that you think any last ditch effort to get people on board, you know here's what I'll tell you, because I do sincerely.

Speaker 2:

I'm a business person who's been in doing this for a long time. I've been through recessions, the Great Recession, ups and downs, and when business is good it's fantastic. When business is bad, you know, your life can't be any worse. It just seems that's how it works. Your life can't be any worse. It just seems that's how it works. If there's somebody in Savannah that are whoever's listening to this, you know you can find me pretty easily. If you go to chemicalcom, if somebody wanted to have a five or 10 minute conversation, I'd be happy to have that conversation with them, because it's hard enough being a business person as it is. You don't need to make any harder on yourself and I like to see people be successful and once again, people have helped me in my career. I'm happy to help others as well.

Speaker 1:

Final question. I know I said real close on that, but this has been burning for like the last 30 minutes or so. How do you fit 90 people into a room every Tuesday?

Speaker 2:

It's at the Savannah Golf Club, so you could actually probably fit more than that. And what it is? Everybody. They pass a microphone around and everybody gives leads or says something of interest, so you're speaking into a microphone and it lasts for about uh 45 minutes every tuesday morning wow, to be a fly on that wall it's called the savannah executive association and it's one of those deals where there can only be one printer in there, only one electrician, only one it company.

Speaker 2:

Uh, so, but, but it's good. I mean, but I will say this, most of the people in there, they're all business owners, I'm going to tell you, most of them have their head in the sand when it comes to AI. So it's, the adoption is not as fast as it should be and I feel sorry for some of those folks.

Speaker 1:

Is there room for one podcaster?

Speaker 2:

You know what it probably is. In fact, I'll be happy to bring that up at the next meeting next Tuesday morning.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, media is huge and I'm trying to do my part to get people on board with AI and to be a resource, because, yeah, I would hate for people to get left behind. So anything I can do to help, I'm happy to help. Al, it was great having you on Cybernomics. Are you on LinkedIn? Did you mention?

Speaker 2:

that I am. I am on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right, and if people want to reach you, what is the absolute best way to reach you?

Speaker 2:

I would say you could probably. Just you could go to LinkedIn and send me a message, or I'll be. I'll just give you my email address because I don't. I don't think there'll be thousands of people reaching out, but my email address is alk at k-e-n-n-i-c-k-e-l-lcom.

Speaker 1:

All right, great, and you can reach me on LinkedIn as well. That's the best way to reach me, really, and if you want to learn more about Bruning Media and what we do, reach out to us via our website, bruningcom. That's B-R-U-Y-N-I-N-G dot com, and thanks for listening to this episode of Cybernomics. See you on the next one. Bye.