Big Talk About Small Business
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Big Talk About Small Business
Ep. 98 - Is AI the New Calculator?
The rise of artificial intelligence presents the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity of our lifetime, if you approach it with the right mindset. Drawing a powerful parallel between AI and calculators, our guests explore how both tools faced initial resistance before becoming indispensable. The key difference? While calculators primarily impacted mathematics, AI is simultaneously transforming every industry on the planet.
Many business owners feel overwhelmed by AI, unsure where to begin or how to implement it effectively. Our conversation clarifies that you don't need to become an AI expert; you need to become skilled at finding and managing AI specialists for your specific needs. The distinction between Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and AI agents proves crucial; while LLMs answer questions, agents perform tasks by connecting to tools and taking actions on your behalf.
The discussion reveals how AI consulting is rapidly specializing, with experts developing deep knowledge in specific industries and functions. This creates unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs who can identify these specialists and deploy them strategically. Perhaps most exciting is AI's ability to mine existing business data, extracting value from decades of unstructured emails, contacts, and documents that contain hidden insights about your customers and operations.
Throughout the conversation, our guests emphasize that your mindset determines your success with AI. Those who view it as a threat will seek information that reinforces that perspective and likely fall behind. Those who see unlimited opportunity will take action, experiment, learn, and ultimately thrive. The choice is yours; will you treat AI as the calculator of the 21st century and leverage it to solve previously impossible problems?
But if you took a math teacher that absolutely would not allow calculators or they're still students that use calculators, they would be doing a disservice to the students.
Speaker 3:Yeah 100% because everyone else in society is using calculators.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if you have a teacher that, like you said, teaches the core fundamentals, then teaches how to use the calculator, the right ways to use a calculator, when to use it now they're learning plus using tools. I think that that is the responsibility and burden of the new teacher is to look at AI as a new calculator. The difference is, though, is that the calculator really only impacted math or engineering and a lot of the math related subjects, Whereas AI is impacting every single subject that's ever existed on planet earth right now.
Speaker 4:I did have a student this last semester and I'm sure AI was used. I had him write a paper about an entrepreneur who had done a turnaround. Okay, that was the assignment and I get this thing back. And you got to have at least three sources of information. I get this thing back. I'm reading about it Now. I don't normally go to the sources, but it's something about it seemed odd to me. I go to the sources First, I Google the guy Can't find him associated with this company. Then I look at the sources. None of the sources existed. Now how do you? I mean, I would bet you any amount of money that that came out of AI.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, 100%. You know that just happened in our government.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, they've seen it with like law cases and stuff where they cite stuff that doesn't even exist. How can I trust this thing? How does a business owner build up trust? Let's say we just had to do the product comparison and it gives me all this data back about pricing and quality and components that go into this or whatever, and it's all bs. How do I know?
Speaker 2:I could talk about this for another hour, but, yeah, I get, I get excited about just. You know, in a perfect world, you know it's a tool Like it might be oversimplified, but it's like a math teacher and a calculator, like you teach the students first the underlying principles and then you teach them how to use a calculator, and then, with a calculator, they're capable of math problems way beyond what they could do on pencil and paper. And I see the same thing with AI tools in writing. But it has to be done the right way.
Speaker 4:So it has to be done by somebody who knows how to write. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I guess that's what you're saying. It needs to be done the right way and follow the right flow, because it's just like in any research paper if you start with what I want to write about and then I'm only going to look for articles that support me. If you do that, ai is going to do that and if it can't find an article to cite, it makes it up, because it was told you must have 15 citations. I only find seven. Here's eight more that sound right Could be, but if you flip it and actually follow the kind of a good research plan is, I'm going to start with the research Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what do you have on this topic, right? So let's go to.
Speaker 2:AI and do a deep research query.
Speaker 4:Very good point yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, okay, I've found all of these articles, Now I might use AI to summarize each one, and then I might use AI to help me workshop an outline. And I'm still following the whole writing process. I'm just using AI to make it faster and more efficient. And then I actually start writing, and then maybe I use AI to act as a professor, professor proofreading and scoring me and grading me, and so I've already had a first line of defense before I go to the professor.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So they're like but that's in a perfect world and that's if. I had utmost control over everything my students would do, which obviously doesn't exist, and people are lazy.
Speaker 1:I love this calculator example. All this stuff that's happening. It's not anything we haven't been through before in humanity. But if you took a math teacher that absolutely would not allow calculators, or there's still students that use calculators, they would be doing a disservice to the students.
Speaker 3:Yeah 100%, because everyone else in society is using calculators?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:But if you have a teacher that, like you said, teaches the core fundamentals, then teaches how to use the calculator, the right ways to use a calculator, when to use it now they're learning plus using tools. I think that that is the responsibility and burden of the new teacher is to look at AI as a new calculator, yeah. The difference is, though, is that the calculator really only impacted math or engineering and a lot of the math-related subjects, whereas AI is impacting every single subject that's ever existed on planet Earth right now.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yes.
Speaker 1:Now every teacher has to learn how to use a type of calculator within their teaching credential.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think, or every business owner has to understand the process that underlies all this. That's right thing. Whatever they're trying to do, that's right. Right they have to.
Speaker 1:They absolutely have to, and so, like I think the challenge to you, mark, right, as a professor, is how do you start like? And there's going to be trendsetters, right, like there were when the calculator came out. There's a lot of people that resisted that probably the majority of them but there's ones that started using the thing and helping their students graduate. That's proper, right. It's like my daughter, 17, my youngest daughter. They don't let her use AI in school, but I'm thinking that's not good. She's going to yeah, that's what, exactly where I was going.
Speaker 4:It's not good yeah, you're not teaching her to use a tool that's available to her. That could.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that's making all the difference in the world. But I got her on perplexity. You know I love perplexity. I'm a big perplexity fan.
Speaker 2:I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 1:It's an awesome tool, right AI search. Ai search, it's basically bringing together the internet search with AI, whereas the other ones don't do that. I think you would be… Google on steroids. Well, yeah, I think the big difference would be back to the sourcing example.
Speaker 1:Perplexity would not give you fake resources because it cannot, because it has to get resources from the web but anyway, it was amazing to see her starting to use that and prompting that, but I feel like that just empowered her now to be even more—. Dr Darrell Bock, do a better job, dr Darrell Bock. To do even a better job, dr Darrell.
Speaker 4:Bock, yeah, I got it. We don't all have a Josiah, though, dr Darrell.
Speaker 3:Bock no, we don't. We don't. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:I don't think we need to, or a Connor that understands this stuff and the misinformation scares the heck out of me.
Speaker 2:The times I've talked with teachers. I did a few workshops in Springdale, at Haas Hall in Fayetteville. You know teachers are rightly so very concerned about cheating and stuff like that and so one plan is just like okay, not, not use it at all, you're not allowed that. Yeah, I just think that's such a disservice.
Speaker 1:I have to really rethink that teachers have to learn to teach using AI tools. That's a but. Back to the point of the marketing thing. I was a marketer for 20 something years, but it's forcing me to become a different type of marketer.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing that's happened with educators. It's not unfortunate. Actually, it is the natural growth of society and everything that's happening. Change is the only thing that's constant. The hard part is that I really believe that over the last few decades we've been living in a very we don't have to change much.
Speaker 1:And so we became pretty complacent with that. I'm talking about myself. I knew the internet. I grew up with the internet, learning e-com, but that's kind of actually a traditional thing now. Now it is ai driven product right discoverability, which is a whole new thing. I don't necessarily personally. I'm excited to learn that my negative side of myself, but my enthusiastic entrepreneurial side of myself, like I'm gonna go learn this and win sure.
Speaker 1:So it's really about mentality. Same thing about teaching. It's the same thing about engineering same, it's the same thing about engineering. It's the same thing about architecture right, who's embracing the new tools? That's the opportunity. That's where you can have a group of 10 people all doing the same trade, same businesses, but one of the 10 says I'm going to embrace this and I'm going to start using it. That's where the change happens. Now you've got the one that's, all of a sudden, is winning, right, is winning, and that's the unfortunate part is the other nine decide not to do it. Now I do see that there's those fast followers, right, y'all know that paradigm. I think y'all actually showed me that you have people that are early adopters, fast followers, that thing. They don't always win, the early adopters, no, they don't. The fast followers win a lot of times. I mean, mass Fast followers is where the action is usually. So it'll be interesting, I think, to see over the next couple of years the mass fast followers that come in.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you what I've come my way with this discussion. I mean, I think it's really pivotal, though, the whole idea of how you break down the components or the pieces of the problem you're trying to solve, as opposed to just saying solve the problem, that's right. That's a very useful construct to me. Okay, well, that completely changes, yeah. It really does. But the second conclusion I've come to is I need to start an AI consulting firm.
Speaker 3:I need a couple of these dudes that are smart.
Speaker 4:I'll go out there and hawk their time at ridiculous billing rates and go baby, that is the opportunity that is, it really is legitimately is and yeah, because there's so many problems you can solve. I mean, it's just like you'll never run out of stuff that work on here's what I love.
Speaker 1:This mark is known, yeah, internationally as a aep consultant expert. You could start, you could, you could invest in ai people that are that are prompt and take that business, that consultancy, to another level.
Speaker 4:Zwei Group already does it. They've got people that are focused on this industry.
Speaker 1:That's a good thing, and they're building that capability.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, they do need it.
Speaker 1:I mean it's clear and you can keep getting deeper and deeper with it and all these different find those niches. I mean it's beautiful.
Speaker 4:It really is. I mean, it just seems like the land of opportunity we live in today.
Speaker 1:It really is. Doesn't it, it really is.
Speaker 4:It's so fertile.
Speaker 1:It's like denying an assembly line because that's just not the right way to do it, but that changes the entire world.
Speaker 2:And if you want a quick glance of just how fertile it is, look at the total packages Meta is paying to get their ai engineers from open ai and google the amount that zuckerberg is willing to pay to have the best talent shows you right there 100 million dollar bonuses, yeah, to get an ai engineer absolutely absurd.
Speaker 1:Excellent, ai engineer, right, like I mean, it's like pro sports it is. It's when you, it's when you see a lot of these entrepreneurs. I think we all respect for their entrepreneurial efforts, doesn't? You know all kinds of different other things, not to maybe personal opinions, but the amount of money that they are investing as entrepreneurs into this space is absolutely has not ever been seen before in the economy period.
Speaker 2:It's so much money it's like you're betting that money won't really be important in the future.
Speaker 1:They are betting that it is true.
Speaker 4:But as a business owner over the years who's hired, let's say, people to develop software, for me it's a black hole, like we never know as much as they know. Okay, my brother you know, john was the WPP. There was $17 billion, like these freaking, you know consultants. They tell you it's going to be six months and then it's going to be another six months and it's just a black hole. I guess I feel like it could be the same way with AI except the difference is that AI is going to give you a product real fast.
Speaker 3:It just may not be a good one, right? You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:So it's a little bit, I guess. It seems like it's also an opportunity to just spend a tremendous amount of money and get nothing for it. I don't know, maybe these investments, you know, as you say, these guys.
Speaker 1:But I think, if it comes, pouring their money into it.
Speaker 4:The real entrepreneurs know what they're doing so.
Speaker 1:I'm going to talk about something real quick. I'd like to make sure folks are really clear there is a difference between large language model companies versus practicalities in small business. There's an ocean gap between it. It took me a while to kind of see this right.
Speaker 1:You might use chat GPT as an LLM to ask questions, but that doesn't mean that's how you apply it to your business. There's much more granular things that go on with that, and there's also, I've heard fears of like the LLMs take care of everything and it's all this agentic business and you can't even compete anymore. I don't believe in that at all, because these LLMs are at such a high level.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like saying the President of the.
Speaker 1:United States is going to come in and run every municipality across the country and there's no need for municipality, you know city government.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no need for municipal government anymore. It's just not reality, it can't necessarily be done. So I mean, can you explain a little bit about, like, a small business owner that can understand that difference a little bit In 90 seconds? Because we're running out of time, yeah, I think we're just going to have to make this a two-episode. I mean, I think it's got enough content. Yeah, let's keep going, we're going to run.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a lot.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead, though. I mean, I'm trying to understand the question. So, like the difference between LLM and like individual, like agents within a small business that are performing tasks, there you go, yeah, so could you please say at what llm is again for our listeners?
Speaker 2:yeah, so llm is a large language model. Okay, so these are chat, gpt, gemini, clod got it and these are those they call them foundational models that are trained to use natural language and it's question and response right, and that's what an LLM is, and I think the easiest way to describe like the difference between an LLM and when you throw around an AI agent is just like a travel agent versus a Google search. So an LLM I could ask where, could ask what's a good travel destination this summer? It's a question and it gives me a list of it gives me a response, a list of destinations. An agent has access to tools which are actually able to perform actions like a travel agent.
Speaker 4:So it would actually book my travel or whatever.
Speaker 2:maybe it would determine it would receive my query, it would determine what it needs to do in order to perform what I want, and then it would go out and do it. So it's like okay, they want to travel this summer, they want to. It might respond and be like, well, do you want somewhere warm or cold? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 4:It might prompt more, because it needs more information.
Speaker 2:You want it in the US, or do you want somewhere warm or cold? Yeah, sure it might prompt more because it needs more information. And then you want it in the us, or do you want to go out?
Speaker 4:right. Are you willing to go gathers?
Speaker 2:information and then it goes. It's connected to a tool that can book your airbnb. It can book your flight, it can book your rental car. It can then do some deep research onto restaurants and then give you a list of um, you know good Yelp review places, and so it's like actually able to perform and output a task for you, and so that's where the AI agents gain so much value.
Speaker 4:Okay. Well, look again. I'm the small business owner. I know about chat, gpt or whatever. I've experimented with it. I've learned that I've got to ask the right questions to get anything out of it. That means anything. Where the heck do I find these agents? I don't know what these are. I don't know what these programs are or where they are.
Speaker 1:That's where I think you enter in the same thing as the development, website development.
Speaker 3:You enter into the programming side.
Speaker 1:It's like anybody can go to a website and look at the content and see the experience and whatever. They click around and get information. That's your LLM. But to build your actual website you have to have somebody that programs it. That's where I think you're going to enter in these that's the consultant. That's it, yeah.
Speaker 4:And so I don't.
Speaker 1:that's the thing. That's a big mystery block, because I think that that's where a big sticking point is, the reason that there's you don't know how to apply it or get engaged in it is because the market of consultants or companies that can create these agents is not very widely known or does not have much existence even locally, but that's what's going to be happening is in every nook and cranny, across every little town in the world, you're going to have these people that are able to build these flows and these agents.
Speaker 2:I mean it's already popping up on like Fiverr and websites like that Right, where you could go like you would if you needed a quick design built up. You don't need to hire someone, you can go to Fiverr, spend some money. They send you back something. It's the same thing for a workflow.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For AI.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing for a workflow for AI. Which, to me, I think is a really big message for the small business person is that you're not necessarily responsible to personally build this and you don't have to learn every prompt, every tool, because that's a whole other thing. We're not going to jump on that in a second, but all the information, all the news that's coming out with AI. You don't necessarily need to be the person that has to know that, but you do need to start looking for resources to help you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:To engineer parts of your business that are taking up time or that you're hitting bottlenecks on, like, basically, what are the problems in your business that you need to overcome, just as a business owner, and you should start thinking is this something I can automate? And, if so, go to Fiverr, go to Place and start researching and finding people to help you with that deal, because it's just like a web. I love the web programming thing because it's the same scenario. When websites first came out, it was a certain level of code, but over the years we became and it was expensive.
Speaker 4:It was expensive, for sure.
Speaker 1:But the acceleration and the evolution of web and experiences. It was crazy as far as the speed at which it happened. And so it would just stack and stack and stack, and so to be somebody that learns that and stays with those times like that's a trade, you know that is something you have to be really ingrained in and learn and involved with it. But me, as a business owner, like I'm either going to be a web programmer or a business owner- no, I can't be both Right.
Speaker 1:So that means I need to hire a web programmer that is staying with those times I'm here to say is living through that and then living through this. Ai is. Ai is a hundred X on the evolution that web was, and it is virtually impossible to run a business and understand all the new things that are happening with AI because literally every single day there's hundreds of new stories, new innovations coming out.
Speaker 4:Well, it can improve itself is the reason why I guess its potential is virtually unlimited. It doesn't take a human to refine it, it can refine itself.
Speaker 1:Well, it can. But even like the new ideas, the new inventions of using AI is just insane. It's like, I mean, it's like you think that you're on to something and then you turn around the next day and somebody's beating it out. Even the LLMs are in that. Yeah, sure, right, I mean it's just new tools popping up everywhere. Llms are in that. Yeah, sure, right, I mean, it's just new tools popping up everywhere. So I think it just drives back more emphasis that you rely on the tradespeople that are engaged with the workflows, building out agents, and then you're going to have these niches of. I need an agent built for my marketing company in the space of video, in the space of video editing in the space of video in the space of video editing. In the space of video editing for social media, in the space of video editing for social media for, specifically, tiktok.
Speaker 4:So they're going to get super, super specialized. There you go.
Speaker 1:That's what you're saying, that's what has to happen. And you, as a business owner, need to know how to go find and recruit and contract appropriately. And then same principles come back to the web programming. How do you manage that person? So just because I contract Connor to build a website for me doesn't mean it's going to turn around on time within scope. Not deliverable, no, that's right, he's going to have. Well, I mean, maybe you, connor. Thank you, yeah, you're welcome, but I need to hire you and then I need to understand your project plan. What are all the capabilities? We write a scope, we write a contract and then I need to make sure you're hitting those timelines on that budget and that we're still pointing in the right direction. I need to spend time with you in meetings to see where you're at, make sure you're going the right direction, because it's the same thing. It's like the grains of sand that it's impacting. It's not just the beach anymore, it's every little particle of sand on that that have a potential to be automated. That's the challenge, do you?
Speaker 2:agree, yeah, I concur.
Speaker 4:Look, it's like any kind of consulting, though. I mean, it's just, you know, if you started out like when there were the first environmental consultants, that's what they were. But then over time it's like we've got air problems, we've got water quality problems, we've got lead gain problems, we've got asbestos problems. Now we've got a certain type of asbestos problem in a certain type of facility. It's the same thing, right? You start out with generalists and then it narrows down.
Speaker 1:But what would you do as the business owner when those things sort of I mean like you had a decision at some point, right?
Speaker 4:You either have to narrow what you do as the are you saying as the buyer of the?
Speaker 1:services. Yeah, as the buyer of it, I have to seek out the experts.
Speaker 4:There you go, but even that it's never easy, right? It's like, let's say, you had a business. You've got a business that makes bottles and you want to go and you've been doing it for a long time. It does $40 million a year. It makes glass bottles and you want to go, and you've been doing it for a long time. It does $40 million a year. It makes glass bottles. I want to sell that company and I got to find a investment banking firm that specializes in manufacturing companies that do glass products. It's hard, I can't always find those. Or I want to find a PE firm that buys manufacturing companies that make glass products or products used in beverage industry. It's hard to find.
Speaker 4:Hard to find and it's much harder than you think. So it's like again, I keep coming back as the business owner, I want to automate my freaking call center prospecting. Where do I go? I can Google it, I guess. I don't know if these guys are any good or whether they really know that or not. At this stage I'm saying yeah.
Speaker 1:Development Over time. Sure, I'll find them, and that's the thing is. Once you find them, then you have another problem. You hire them Right, are they hire them?
Speaker 4:right. Are they good or bad? It's always devastating to but you we've been through that as business.
Speaker 1:We have been through a million times, a million million problems and it's counting system implementation. Oh my god oh my god painful yeah, I mean painful.
Speaker 4:It's like 80%, yeah, yeah oh, and then?
Speaker 1:you got chain? Oh, I don't. You know shouldn't use Salesforce, you should use HubSpot, it's like oh my God, here we go.
Speaker 2:And it's so painful, but you've got to do it. Soho, soho, soho.
Speaker 1:Pivot or pivotal? Yeah, pivotal solutions, pivotal solutions. But I mean it's the same thing over and again. Right, it is, but as an entrepreneur, the damage, the real mistake is saying Not jumping in. It's not jumping in and it's not understanding that this industry is rising up. That is a whole new thing, but you can do things through AI that you weren't able to do before. It's just like it's not a replacement. I don't think that people are going to be so off put like what we're talking about, right it's an enhancement, it is an addition.
Speaker 4:Is what you're saying?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it's an addition and things will fall and fit in place, and and there'll be, but, you know, that's why, like a lot of times, I see some of the big LLM leaders talk about this. They go back and forth. There will be job changes, significant changes, and that's the reason why, though, is that if you don't adopt, you will be surpassed right by the AI-infused enabled processes. Yeah, sure Right.
Speaker 4:But you still have aused enabled processes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, right, but you still have a place in all this, right?
Speaker 4:Yet this has really come in clear to me now, and I hope so for our listeners. Well, here's what you're saying though yeah, okay, we can go to AI and we can give it a query and have it solve our problem. Right, May do a crap job of it. We're probably going to do better if we map out the process we want it to follow when we go through the steps as Josiah laid out, right, okay, so that takes some thinking right here, and that even asking it how we want it to complete those steps takes some thinking in the querying. So we're not going to. We are still needed. I guess this is my point.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are still needed.
Speaker 4:We still need the intelligent human to go through that part of the process because we can't trust it to make good decisions. No, right At all for us, right as we were talking about.
Speaker 2:As we were talking about.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but if we break it down in these steps, it builds up our confidence because we can do a quality check basically at any step along the way and we understand what went into it, just like the math problem. Instead of I'm going to do a regression analysis, I punch the numbers in on my computer and it spits out the correlation coefficient or whatever. It helps to understand what goes into that, because then we know whether it makes any sense or not.
Speaker 1:And then, I think, the second part. Just like in normal circumstances, you got to manage this thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Once you've built it, is it outputting? By the way, is there something better? Is there a better tool now that's even more refined and more detailed and more-?
Speaker 4:Should we use it for another problem? Is this not the right problem to solve with it? That's right, yeah, I mean, there's all those. It makes total sense, dr.
Speaker 1:And then you got to be able to fire one and hire a different one, talking about tools or consultants or whatever.
Speaker 4:You got to move it right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Dr. And then, or is there somebody that is an asbestos very specific black mold person? That's the best in the world, because you got to fix that problem once and for all. Yeah, dr Got to fix that problem once and for all, and it's building teams of people that can do these specialized things. And then you've got to make the mothership all talk together and come together.
Speaker 4:I'm overwhelmed. No, I'm really getting overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:Like QuickBooks has been the accounting software, but imagine a land where there's a new, potentially better QuickBooks. It is business entrepreneurship at its greatest core of competitiveness.
Speaker 4:Oh, I can see this, it is absolute.
Speaker 1:The competitive arena on AI is at a proportion that's never been experienced before, because they just continuously compete and it's not just the small like we used to have, where you had really small businesses competing really hard. You had your mid-layers competing pretty well, but your big guys would just own a market right Like your Microsoft.
Speaker 4:Not the case now. Well, there's no capital requirements to get into it theoretically.
Speaker 1:Well, theoretically.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you're an individual, I guess.
Speaker 1:Well, but then you do have the VC firms that are just like punching money at you.
Speaker 4:Sure, because it's just they want to hire the best talent and all that takes money. And to market it to get the word out that you're there.
Speaker 1:And then there's new ideas like is really an LLM, a chat GPT, really great? For me, if I'm a photographer, probably not. But this one that so-and-so came out with that built together some money and they built a product that specialized for photography.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it seems sort of like what I'm hearing. You guys say You've got the vertical industry market. That's one thing, but then you have sort of the discipline within it. Like you said, photography, document search, yada, yada, yada. They're like that's a matrix Document search for a law firm Connection the best in the world, yeah, that's my opportunity spot. It's fascinating, and then you can go even deeper, like let's take it a little.
Speaker 1:Maybe I found the best document AI tool that's on the market. But to Josiah's point, then I take that I find a document, that same document tool specialist consulting agent builder on Fiverr, I bring them in. I'm like, hey, I want you to use this tool, I want you to build me a flow, but using my data that I have in my firm for my clientele. Cause nobody else has that I'm going to keep it in my black box.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, okay. Well, now you're really at the peak of opportunity.
Speaker 3:Ready to level up your show? At podcastvideoscom, we offer industry leading recording and expert marketing to help your show reach more listeners, from creation to distribution. We've got you. That's what's happening, morris Sure.
Speaker 1:That's what's going on, yeah, and I think that the best here's the thing is like. The reality in my perspective is that there's been no greater opportunity in the world for an entrepreneur than is going on right now Ever yeah.
Speaker 4:I hear you. I mean, I can see it's virtually unlimited. It's unlimited, yeah, I think. The problem, though, if you go back to small firms and entrepreneurial ventures and all is their data is not that well organized.
Speaker 2:It is yeah.
Speaker 4:And maybe AI can harvest it and organize it. But you know, there's like all this data. I mean, you know like Zwei Group. I mean, it's a 37-year-old company on July 13th. They've got so much information it would blow your freaking mind, but there have been changes in ownership, there have been changes in applications. There have been all these things over the years where the data is not as Some of it's useful. Yeah, some of the stuff is highly organized and very useful, like they do research on the industry.
Speaker 1:But it's like opening up a treasure chest and you've got a bunch of crap in there, but there are some really good diamonds in there, yeah like buying storage units out of a treasure chest.
Speaker 5:Yeah that's exactly it Like rummaging through plastic toys.
Speaker 4:I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, rare coin collection.
Speaker 1:Is there a tool that out there that can help mine that relevant? I mean like do you see tools like that For?
Speaker 2:like data cleanup and organization and structure. Yeah, I mean that's huge, because what you know typical programming like is what I would teach my GT students when we were coding and doing robotics is computers are stupid, right, they can only read the code. They can't make inferences, they can't, you know, make judgments, but all of a sudden AI can. And AI is looking at semantics. They're not just looking at this. That's why we need him Right.
Speaker 2:It's not just looking at a string and so you could have a bundle of data that is structured and organized differently, that has different labels and the metadata doesn't match up. But if you have a structured response that you or a structured response that you or a structured output that you want to all of your data to look like this, then AI can start to funnel and begin.
Speaker 4:Yeah, now I'm back to your approach. Find the company associated with each one of these names in my database, yeah, okay, okay, now I got that out of the way. Now find the location of the people in that company for each of the names in my database, and I'm building this funnel. You know what I'm saying Company location, person. Remember how Pivotal Solutions was?
Speaker 3:organized.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dude, now I can look at the relationship I have with the entire company instead of just with Joe Blow.
Speaker 1:And with the company with 37 years, all those emails like, get into the emails of the old inboxes that were blah, blah, blah and start tying together.
Speaker 4:This is just fascinating.
Speaker 1:Are there consultants and companies out there that could probably specialize in internal data?
Speaker 2:mining.
Speaker 1:That's a whole industry right there Well.
Speaker 4:I've always said like Outlook, let's just go mine everybody's Outlook contacts. I don't know how to do that, but I do know that there's a lot of valuable information in those where they weren't put in a CRM, because it's a hell of a lot easier. Here. Somebody calls me Bob Johnson, boom, I'm done. I don't need to go back and log into Zoho and freaking figure out any of that. I'm not even on my desktop ever, or on my phone application at Zoho. Yeah so that's such a great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ai could do that for me?
Speaker 4:I would assume yes, yeah, would you guys do that?
Speaker 2:Yes, right now. Right now.
Speaker 1:They can do it in five minutes.
Speaker 4:Now listen this is a really great use of AI that anybody could use. Go build yourself a really good customer and prospect list harvesting your names out of your email. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1:That could be a really great first step it is, and go find that person that can help you do that. Like I wouldn't try to here's. I think this is where the rubber meets the road. If you're listening to this, I would not recommend you as a business owner trying to go find the right tool, the right product, and then you start doing it and now you're in tech land trying to figure out the best way and then how to output it correctly and all this stuff. But you can go and research and find the job, the description, the responsibilities you want. Find that consultant that can do this for you. Talk to that person, interview multiple of them. Who's the best one? Who's got the right cybersecurity protocol, all the legalities and the things that you've got to be cautious of.
Speaker 4:Yeah, our data is very valuable. We don't want to be stealing.
Speaker 1:that I certainly don't want to be put in chat. Gpd yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm going to think about sending it to some dude in freaking Pakistan. That's right, I found out on whatever too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you don't want to. Particularly, those are business thinking strategies. It's just like every other business decision. You make All these different parameters, the legalities, the ethical standards, the brand that you're trying to promote, your target audience, all these things and then you find that person, you interview them, then you hire them to do the specific task.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Wow, my head's exploded, although I do feel like I have a much, much better understanding of this Good yeah Today. Thank you, because I think I'm typical of a lot of people that are listening. In that regard, I agree, meaning we're largely ignorant. Maybe we've had our chat GPT experiments for the fun of it, but you know we're not.
Speaker 1:But it's hard to apply that chat GPT experience to. Okay, I'm a business owner. I keep hearing if I don't adopt AI I'm going to be screwed. What the hell does it mean? So I turn a cheat because I'm too damn busy to be researching AI. And the good news out of this podcast and this discussion is I don't think you necessarily have to be researching AI. And the good news out of this podcast and this discussion is.
Speaker 1:I don't think you necessarily have to be good at that. You just need to understand that there are people that are really good at it and it's just like any other job, position or contract that you need to go. You need to go find those people that are doing that and understand how this applies to your business.
Speaker 4:My God, I want an AI consulting business. Yeah, it's so unlimited what you could do.
Speaker 1:But there's so much that you could do a lot of great businesses by your experience in life, Mark.
Speaker 4:This is fantastic.
Speaker 1:Like a marriage AI.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks, okay.
Speaker 2:You have a lot of experience in that.
Speaker 4:I do yeah.
Speaker 1:In the short time Connor's gotten to know you, he knows that your experience in marriage is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know it's like what I think. I've been married 37 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, three times.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but anyway, that's experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something that Connor would love to subscribe to your e-newsletter about that, like what not to do? Yeah, red flags, we both learned a lot, yeah. Oh, wait a minute, I'm not part of this, okay, anyway no.
Speaker 4:So this has been a really great conversation and I think it's very useful to our listeners. I appreciate you guys allowing us to bring you in the lobby today and be our victim, subject yourself to this. Yeah, eric, I come in. You got two smart guys and AI fury, so it's great.
Speaker 1:Eric Leach. Yeah, it's exciting it's really cool. It's a cool environment. I mean, it's really it. It's definitely energizing on a daily basis.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you want to keep yourself feeling like there's unlimited opportunities in your business, start looking at some of this stuff. Yeah, that's all I can say. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I'll end it with this. As a business owner and an entrepreneur as a human being period Period, it with this, as a business owner and entrepreneur as a human being period period, you have the full power, control and ability to have your perspective and your thoughts. You have control over your thoughts and your time, two of the things you can control. Sure, you can look at this whole thing. You can still make the time, you can pause it, you can postpone it or you can jump in immediately. That's taking actions and you have control over that. And then you have the ability to see this as decimating or absolutely opportunistic and invigorating. It's your choice.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, you and I are never gonna see it as decimating Right? No, we won't. That's our I mean if our true entrepreneurs never, gonna this, it's like oh, it's a threat. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I mean that never even occurs to me, True? But I think that you know you.
Speaker 4:But you're right, an individual does make that choice.
Speaker 1:And you have to make that choice. And I think that you have to make that choice on a regular basis because, like, you can read the news, you can read the negativity, you can watch the social, you can feel this intimidation, this fear factor. Let that overwhelm you, or you choose to see the good out of it, the cups overflowing, you know, and I'm taking action today and not wait, not procrastinating, wait until tomorrow.
Speaker 4:I don't know when he became so philosophical.
Speaker 3:You know, I never should have let you out of my clutches.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, I really am. I am sorry.
Speaker 1:I wish you would have never let me out of your clutches either.
Speaker 4:You are so philosophical, yeah, but you're absolutely right. I think that's a good point for our listeners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go big, yeah, but you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4:I think that's a good point for our listeners. Yeah, yeah, go big. Yeah, you see the opportunity. Is it glass half full or is the glass half empty? Again, when it relates to AI, is this a big threat to you or is this like your gateway to virtually unlimited success and possibility? It is.
Speaker 1:And when you're in the negative realm, it sucks you down. You'll reinforce it. As you said Exactly, it just sucks you into it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you will seek out all information that reinforces your position.
Speaker 1:Light versus dark, good versus evil. It's the same principle Suck in or blow out. I'm going toward the light.
Speaker 5:That's it.
Speaker 1:Go into the light. It's your choice and you have power over it. All right, good show, thank you, hey you guys got to end it with this. Okay, this has been another. What was it? Were you going to say something?
Speaker 2:No, I said yeah, help us.
Speaker 1:Okay, this has been another episode of Big.
Speaker 5:Talk about Small.
Speaker 2:Business.
Speaker 5:Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk About Small Business. If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.