Ep #8 | AI for Maximum Efficiency: How to Automate the 80% and Focus on the Work Only You Can Do

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Roadmap to Business Success series!

If you're only using AI for content creation, you're leaving the biggest gains on the table. In this episode, Kate and Sam dive into the AI tools they actually use in their businesses every day, and discuss how to shift from using AI to do more, to using AI to work less.

"AI should handle the 80% of grunt work while you handle the 20% that requires judgment, relationships, and nuance."

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you shouldn't be loyal to just one AI tool: Different AI platforms have different strengths, and the smartest business owners use multiple tools for different jobs.
• Claude: Why it's Kate's go-to for content creation, critical analysis, data analysis, book writing, and coding tasks, including how she saved $10,000 in website costs by using Claude to write code herself.
• Claude Cowork: Sam's introduction to the agentic side of Claude, how it can organise your entire filing system, build sales pages, and execute complex multi-step tasks on your behalf while you step away.
• Gemini: How Sam uses Google's AI to automate payroll calculations, organise her inbox, add tasks to her calendar, and manage the chaos of a busy brain, all through its deep integration with Google apps.
• Notebook LM: The hosts personal favourite for repurposing content. How to upload a podcast transcript or YouTube link and turn it into blog posts, infographics, slide decks, or even a new podcast episode, in your own voice.
• REVE AI: The free image generation tool Sam uses to create AI-generated images of herself and Kate for podcast thumbnails and social media.
• AI for website SEO: How to enter your URL into an AI and instantly get a plain-English audit of what's missing: H1 tags, meta descriptions, ALT tags and more.
• The tells of AI-generated content: The words, phrases and structural patterns that immediately give away AI-generated copy.
• Automation vs productivity: Why the real opportunity isn't doing more in the same time, it's doing the same in less time.
• How to use AI to figure out what to automate: Why asking AI to review your regular tasks and identify what can be automated is one of the highest-value conversations you can have.

Kate and Sam also discuss the evolution of AI since their first conversation about it in September 2023, why ChatGPT is no longer the only game in town, the rise of agentic AI, and how they've used AI to almost fully automate the production of this very podcast.

Join the Workshop: 

Kate and Sam are hosting Profit Unlocked on Wednesday 20 May, 9–10:30am AWST | 11am–12:30pm AEST.

What is it? A LIVE 90-minute coaching session where you can bring your questions on AI systems, profitability, pricing and more.

🐦 Early bird tickets available until Sunday 10 May for just $49 (live attendance)

🎟️ Attend LIVE: $89

🎧 Replay only: $49

Grab your early bird ticket now!

👉 Register here

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Thriving Business, the podcast for ambitious business owners who want systematic growth without the burnout. Hosted by Kate De Yong and Sam Morris, these business powerhouses bring you proven frameworks and real strategies to help you build a business that actually thrives.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hello, hello, everyone. Sam and I are back in the studio for another episode of the Thriving Business Podcast. Hi, Sam. Hi, Kate. How are you? Good. As always, we're excited because this one is one of our very favorite topics at the moment. It's all about AI, artificial intelligence in small business, which happens to be one of your um your favorite hobbies, has been for several years now, right, Sam?

SPEAKER_02 0:47

It is, Kate. And I love that you call it a hobby because I'd use AI so much for work. But it does feel like a hobby. It really does. Yeah. Which because it's fun. It is fun. It is fun. And you know, my my my my lovely husband, you know, sometimes if I'm on my phone in the evening, my my brain doesn't stop firing. So we'll be watching TV and I'll think of something and I'm on my phone. And he doesn't even ask who I'm talking to anymore. He just didn't, you know, years ago it would be like, are you talking to your best friend or one of our daughters or you know, something like who you're chatting to, yeah. Yeah. Now it's like, oh, you're talking to AI again. And most of the time I'm like, yes, I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah. So and we were just reminiscing before we jumped on this episode, which um this is all going to be all about how to use AI systems for maximum efficiency in your business. And yeah, we um you and I were talking about the evolution of AI just since 2023 when we first started talking about it on this podcast. So we launched this podcast in June 2023. In September, was our very first discussion about AI and how it was helping us to accelerate marketing. At that time, we were talking all about how it was making blog writing so much easier and helping us to get away from blank page syndrome when it comes to writing and things like that. And it was very much about generative um uh word word create content creation. At that stage, image generation wasn't really a thing in September 2023. It was all just about the words. And then we fast-forwarded, I think we did another one in January um 2024, and we were just laughing looking back at the evolution and how how far it's come in such a short time. So, in two and a half years since we first started talking about it, it has evolved at a spectacular rate. Um, where we're now talking about agentic AI, and um, it's and everyone is now harnessing AI in their business for good or for worse, for good or for bad, and we could talk all about that. Yeah, so um yeah, it's been quite an amusing uh process to just look back at the the past conversations we've had and how outdated they already are now after just two and a half years.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Yes, and that look, that that is the first sort of secret to successfully using AI, I think, is to not become so attached to one particular AI that you discard the use of any others. And also feeling like you've got this ridiculous commitment to to one particular artificial intelligence platform when in fact the best use is to have multiples because different AIs have different strengths.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

That's right. And we'll talk, we'll get into that, won't we?

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah, and I mean most people I'm ready to go, Kate. I'm already into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Let's do it. Most people talk it through the talk, the throwaway line these days. I hear from everyone everywhere, is oh, I asked Chat GPT to do that. And and I just think, wow, try the others. There's you know, there's Notebook LM, there's you know, Claude, there's uh Perplexity, there's um Google Studio generator, there's so many. So we'll get into the different types and what and what they're best used for.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Yeah, I feel like it's like, oh, you're showing your age if you're still on Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yes, it feels so 2024 or something. If someone says that, I think, oh bless, you're still on Chat GPT. And then um with all the sort of political controversial stuff that's happened with OpenAI, which is Chat GPT, over the last several months, that's sort of they've gone out of favor for a lot of people as well, just in terms of their moral stance or lack of moral stance in the um US military spheres. But that's not something we're gonna touch on. We're gonna stick to efficiencies in business. And I really liked this um quote because of course we used AI to come up with some good talking points for this.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

As we do.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

As we do. I mean, you and I use it all day, every day in our business, so there's plenty to talk about. But it is, as we know, um, AI is really helpful for giving you structure around your thoughts. And as we were doing the um the content for this, I loved how it broke down for me. There's three ways you can use it. You can create content, you can use it to think about things, so doing research, analysis, brainstorming, and you can use it to automate. And most people currently are only using AI for create the create part. Lots of people having fun with that. But and I know you know, by default they are using it to think as well, but automation is where you get the really big gains. And I think that's what you're keen to talk about too, Sam.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yes, because I and and I I said this to you earlier, Kate. The problem that we have is that for many people that even adopting AI and agentic AI, we are just increasing our capability and our productivity. We aren't using it, which is you know, we should be using it, but we aren't using it to work less. That's right. That's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

True. Yeah, and my comment was it's like productivity on steroids, isn't it? You can just get so much more done in such less time. Like if you think back to the old days, it used to take us half a day to write a blog.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Oh, yes. I don't I remember years ago, Kate, when I first started, you know, entered the world of coaching. And you know, and you're such an amazing writer, and I remember contacting you and asking you how long it took you to write a blog. Because it was taking me for it, like I it was taking me like a day, a day and a half to write a blog. Wow. Um and I was like, Kate, how are you doing this in half a day? I wish I could write a blog.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

But now it's half an hour or less to get a really good one, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Well, not even that, Kate, and we're gonna get to that too, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, that comes with the the caveat of it has to be infused with your human voice, and it typically always takes me quite a bit of time just to make sure it sounds like me and it's human, but yes, we'll get into that. Um, yeah, and then uh the other great um sort of uh concept that I use, Claude, of course, my favorite, and I think people know by now. Um the human in the loop principle. So AI ideally should be handling the 80% of grunt work while you handle the 20% that requires judgment, relationships, and nuance. So all those things like client communication, sensitive decisions, anything that needs your authentic input and voice, they are all the things you should be spending your human time on. But yeah, ideally the grunt work should be could be done by AI.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So where do we start, Sam?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Oh gosh, where do we let let's talk about first of all, let's talk about broadly the AIs that we ourselves are using. Yeah. Because there are a few. There are, yes. So you've already said that Claude is your favorite. Have you tapped into Claude Co-Work? No, I have not yet.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Okay, come on.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Well, I'm gonna pay. Do you have a paid Claude account? I do, yeah. Well then Claude Co-Work is absolutely available to you. Okay. You need to jump onto YouTube or onto social media because you know, like TikTok and Instagram are full of people with quick tips and and things like that to start using Claude Cowork. So co-work is the agentic side of Claude. It is known as you can set it up to automatically perform tasks and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Okay, right, got it. All right, yes, see, I'm already behind.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

But you really want to get into cowork, and it is only available for paid accounts, and it isn't available on, for example, mobile. Yeah. So you need to be on your desktop. Uh but yes, it is absolutely phenomenal what you can get it to set up to do. So there is a whole library out there of little little instructions and little I call them little brains because they're just little areas of expertise. And you can pull those into your Claude co-work and and set it to get out to go and do work.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Okay, brilliant. All right.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

So the smart people and the coders and everything have all already done a lot of legwork for the for the layman. And all you've got to do is, you know, basically go in the back end and tick boxes of which things you want to access.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Marketing in particular.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Is this like a GenTic AI? We've done an episode on six months ago or so ago, but that's probably already outdated now. And at the time we were talking about Cintra, which had all the little had the 12 different AI bots, which had a copywriter, a social media content creator, um, an SEO specialist, a da da da da. So are you saying that co work, Claude Cowork is similar? It's got all the different specialized agent agents, or uh is it more no okay?

SPEAKER_02 10:04

No, it it operates quite differently. It it's still the same in as it the agents will do the word. I hesitate to use the word agents. Claude Court Co-work is this space that has the capability. Um please don't kill me all the AI experts who could probably explain this so much better. Um but yes, we're where I think CINTRA is very much targeted at people who really want the the work siloed, and that's why they've got these specialist agents in there, whereas code work, co-work is just a broad space.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, and it's saying that it takes on complex multitask, sorry, multi-step tasks and executes them on your behalf. So you can describe an outcome you want, step away and come back to finished work, formatted documents, organized files, synthesized research, and more. You can schedule tasks, get it to complete work for you automatically. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yes. So the f the very, you know, I started with step one because you know they give you a couple of things to try and play around with it. So yeah, the first thing I did was like, okay, the first thing it says is organize all the files. And I'm like, yeah. Filing system is a hot mess. So I got it to redo my entire filing system. It recognized duplicate files, it did all of those wonderful things in such a short amount of time. Yes. Which I've kind of I've subsequently, you know, added a whole heap more files, so I need to run it again. But um, yes, little things like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Because it's got direct local file access, it can read and write to your local files without manual uploads or downloads. That's mind-boggling.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yes. Yes. So it it'll ask you what folders you want and how you want it structured, and then it just goes and does it.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

So it can do that with Google Drive?

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Um, I started just with my local drive.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Okay, local, yeah. The next thing would be interesting if you can do one, a SharePoint and and um Google Drive and things like that. Well, funny you should say that.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Because I have been doing this, like, you know, that Claude, one of my favorites, absolutely love Claude. But I also love Gemini.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yes. So let's perhaps back it up a bit and talk about, you know, you and I predominantly use, well, speaking from personal experience, Claude is amazing for um uh content creation in terms of words. And um I'm using it to write two books at the moment to help with with um drafting and writing books, and it's very good at critical analysis of pieces of work that you submit to it. It points out where you're you know, where you're missing things. Um so great for for that. I also use it for data analysis. You can upload spreadsheets, you can upload bank statements and say, tell me how much I'm spending on groceries this month, how much is my son spending on my card? Like um, yeah, it's very good for all the business, small business grants that was using it for analysing profit and loss statements and um yes, if in my world, I use it a lot for um content creation from a words perspective. It's getting better at image generation, but that's not its strengths. And then the whole data analysis and data um organization. So tell us then, Sam, do you use Claude for anything else? And then how is Gemini different and why what what do you go to Gemini for?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah, so Claude is well known to be uh to process things the most human-like, which is why it is so good at at copy. Yeah, it is most in tune with human psychology and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

I agree.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

It's a great counselor. Yes. So I I here is one thing uh Claude is not great for image creation. No, it's not. We all we all know that. And you know, like when I've had it assist me in the past with landing pages and things like that, what it will create as an artifact, uh there's no imagery and it and it just hasn't been good. So here is where you are absolutely going to love co-work. Cowork blows that out of the water.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

So is that because it's connecting you with other apps that have those strengths? Is that what it's doing?

SPEAKER_02 14:35

I didn't even connect it with anything because I was playing with it and like I need this sales page. What can you do? Okay, this is the product, I need the sales page, this is the brand. I mean, you know, I have all that built in, it's already got my brand guidelines.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Like I used Claude to nut out the product and the offer and what it was going to look like. And then I'm like, okay, pick that up, pop it into co-work, make the sales page. Oh my god, absolutely phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Right. So, what is it doing different to Claude General then?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

If um in the co-work space, it will but will it just has access to things that Claude doesn't necessarily do.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, so it's that external access to other things that can do the job better because I have noticed.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Sometimes tapping into nano banana for the education and things like that. It's I I don't understand fully why that just isn't a part of court. I think it's why it is a separate thing. But look, it it is absolutely phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Yeah, okay. I have noticed even lately when I ask it to create an image or an artifact. Um, it created a PDF for a brochure, a sales brochure for me yesterday. It wasn't bad, it's getting better, I think. Yeah, I could see it.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Doing co-work of Kate.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, okay. But I could see in the fine print it was saying accessing nano banana, which is the image generation thing, which is not um an anthropic product, is it? So is so I think it's got relationships with other AI providers that it's bringing in.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, yeah. But no, the what it will create in co-work will blow your mind.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Okay, well, challenge accepted.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah, yeah, get in there.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah, okay. So um we probably could share some examples of where we're using it to massively um uh help our productivity. So, for example, we're using all these apps to produce this podcast. Correct. Previously, we had to use a virtual assistant um who would do the the editing, the stitching of the all the files together, the polishing. And there used to be a lot of effort required by an editor, you know, um a sound editor to polish the sound so that it's good quality. That is all AI generated now at the click of a button. You simply upload the file, ask it to polish, and you have a really high quality audio file as an output.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yes. Yes, it is so easy, it's insane.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah. And I feel bad for the virtual assistants that you know used to get paid to do this work, but they're f they're evolving into a different space now where they're helping small business owners actually harness these tools. And and it, yeah, it's a good, it's a good thing. It just means as we said before, we can all get more done in less time.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

So there are people out there that won't want to use the AI themselves, you know, and that's where the VAs come in. But but bear in mind, they they can now highly capable because they have access to the same AI tools that we all do.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, every VA now has to be on the cutting edge of all the AI tools, and they're helping clients figure out what's the best tool to use for the the um the goal that they have.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

But Sam, tell us about how you manage to miraculously just generate um an intro and an outro for our podcast. Plus, you've it generates thumbnails each time with AI images of you and I.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yeah. Oh gosh. I I wanna I I want to say in this conversation, I want to not ever wear the label of expert when it comes to AI.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

No, we're clearly not.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Clearly, no, exactly. Clearly, I'm not. I like to refer to myself as an explorer, not an expert a cutting edge explorer.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

You are always on the edge, Sam, and you're always one put one step ahead of me, as evidenced by this conversation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yes. So look, there there are a number of image generation tools out there, and you know, I I always like to find the free ones and use those simply because most of the people that we work with need the free tools. Um they don't have the budget for for much more than that. Yeah. So I have been using a free version of I I don't even know how you say it. I don't know if it's Reev or Rev, it's REVE. Uh, I use that. It is free, so there are limits to how many images you can create. Yeah. But having said that, if you go in once a day, it's going to give you four or five images.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Like how many that's a um a straight AI image generator, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

It is, yes. And that's how I created the images of you and I together.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, which are uh crazy um good resemblances of you and I.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah, and oh look, trust me, you know, there when I I get about four good images off that app a day, it generates more, but you know, sometimes we've got an extra finger, or yeah, sometimes one eye is a bit round the side of your head a bit too far. So I I do need to try this out in Nano Banana because nano banana is absolutely phenomenal with image creation, but I have tried it within a couple of different places, like I've tried it within, for example, Gemini, and it would not it would only create from scratch, it wouldn't take a photo and and then put me in a different space with different codes.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I found that um a lot of them don't allow you to take a human and do AI images of them, right? Yeah, whereas Reeves does.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Reve AI does. Yeah. If you upload a photo and you say, This person, this is what I want you to do.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

And nano banana does the same.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

I I it could, it could. I haven't played with that only because, like I say, I've tried to get it to do it from inside of Gemini and it and it didn't want to play.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

So those are I didn't go straight to I didn't go straight to nano banana though.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Right, okay. So it could have the potential. For those of you that want to see some, I'm sure you've seen them all over Facebook and you know, social media, people are posting AI image in you know generated images of themselves nowadays, I notice. But um, if you if you haven't you know seen how you can use it on websites, go to our website at thrivingbusiness.com. No, thrivingbusinesspodcast.com. Yes. And that entire site is AI generated. Um, the the layout, the content, right, Sam? You got the that was in Wix, AI using Wix website builder. And I was amazed overnight you had built a website and for our podcast. And it had AI generated imagery, and all I had to go in and do was just tweak the cut the wording places and make it a bit more, you know, our voice. But the speed at which you got that website up was just just blew me away. Because that normally, you know, up until now, create building a website is a three month job, you know. Or in working with a client to get that right. But now the AI web builders, they know if you feed it good information, it can spit out your copy, it can give you brandy. It can give you layouts, uh suggested page structure to sell. Yeah, quite yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

And even, you know, what on the topic of websites, even as far as entering your URL into an AI and asking it to review your site for SEO. And on talking basic SEO, like it'll tell you, you know, you you don't have a H1 on this page, but you've got three H1s on that page. You don't have meta descriptions, you don't have alt descriptions on your images and alt tags and all of those basic things that anybody can do if they've got access to the back end of their website. And I can tell you to do all that.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

And so much more. You know, there's particular people I follow on social media that give the most amazing tips on how to do all of this stuff. Yeah. I love that none of us have to be experts, actually. Just have to be willing to try things out.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So um website builders, definitely one area where um it's quite amazing how quick you can get a website. Again, you need to have foundational marketing knowledge to do it well. Um, you know, as as always. But so going back to Gemini then, Sam.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

How do you use? Because I do have a colleague that that's his go-to for everything. And how what do you see its strengths over Claude?

SPEAKER_02 23:26

What I find really fun in Gemini is um you have the ability to create gems. And gems is for anything that you do on repeat. So for example, every week I need to process payroll.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

So I need to go through timesheets and calculate things and you know work out breaks and and how many hours people worked and all that sort of stuff. And I used to do all of that in an Excel spreadsheet with you know formulas and all that sort of stuff. And it was me doing data entry, all of that sort of, you know, the old-fashioned way. I started using AI to perform the calculations. And then when I jumped on Gemini, I was like, I can create a gem. So I literally just wrote out the instructions based on the award. You know, this is how many hours a day someone can work before they hit overtime, and these are the rates and all that sort of stuff. All I do now is upload, I click on my gem, upload this week's timesheet, and then AI within seconds has told me what everybody's done. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

So this is an example of automation that does the 80% grunt work that we talked about at the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yes. And I could take it a step further and automate the timesheet automatically sending over. You know, I could set up maybe or something like that. I haven't done that just yet. But yeah, little things like like I say, it just it's just a specific set of instructions instead of doing that every single week. And you know, like you could do it in the same chat, but the chats get very long. And you know, like for example, in Claude, the longer your chat, the more credits it chews up.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah, it has to compact the conversation and yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

So having this gem with this very clear set of instructions that are that don't change.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

So that was going to be my question. Uh how uh um doesn't co-work now serve the same problem in Claude?

SPEAKER_02 25:28

You can Yeah, but it's just a matter of where do you want to work?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yeah. But and now that Claude has introduced co-work, you could technically do that same process you just mentioned in co-work. Yes, she could. Yeah, it just it's a preference thing, personal preference.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Well, yes, it is. I think I I do like to go to Claude for the more human conversations I need to have. Yeah, okay. Um but functionality, I'm just going to Gemini and also talking before about you know, like co-work can organize all the files on your computer. Uh today in Gemini, I was like, my inbox is turning into a hot mess. So Gemini is connected to, you know, Gemini is connected to all of my Google apps. So I'm like, oh, I need to I need to be organized. Like I've got things in so many different spaces, I just want to be organized. So Gemini then went and went through my inbox and sorted out and said, Oh, you did you know you've got this email here? And you know, emails get lost. I don't know, they just don't always go to the inbox. So it sorted out my emails for me, and I was like, I've got to get this done, I've got to get that done. So it started adding things to Google Tasks for me, and I'm like, make sure it's gonna send me reminders. And but what's good about it is that as I think it, I just have Gemini open as I think. Oh, that's right, I've got to remember this. I throw it straight in, and then it's sending things to my calendar, sending things to uh my task list, doing all of that work for me.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Yeah, okay. So I guess um it does depend on which system you use as your main architecture, doesn't it? I know there's a lot of businesses that use um Micropilot. Copilot, yeah. Same deal, I imagine, with them nowadays, that all this functionality we're talking about, copilot, can serve the same purpose.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Um, and I think it's like, you know, it's a it's an Apple versus Android thing. Because I do have yeah, exactly, because I do have uh Microsoft, like I do have Office 365 or whatever latest iteration of that is called, and I do have Outlook, and I don't like Microsoft.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

I just don't.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

It is user preference.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

It is, yeah. I mean, I I'm like you, I use um Office 365, but um I really miss my Google Calendar.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yeah, and so and and look, PSM has been using uh Microsoft since the day dot.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, because that's what it that's the corporate system back in the day, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah, and every year when the renewal comes up, I have this you know standoff with the IT guy because I'm like everything is over in Google. You realize that all that you know, all of this storage and everything in Microsoft is not being used because I'm a Google girl.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah, what can I say?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

And I'm running the ship, so as far as that side of things goes, so I'm like, no. You know, and he always argues his side because he's a he's a Microsoft man.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, yeah. So I guess for everyone it comes does come down to individual preference, and then within that system architecture, whether it's Google or Microsoft or Anthropic or you know, um, and some of them can now all interface. Um you know, it's about finding the tools that work for you within that preference that you have, yeah. Because um yeah, getting getting my colleague who's a massive like you, he's a Gemini fan. Google, he's a Google fan, getting him to move away from that is um he's not going to because he just loves it so much and he's found his way with it, you know. And and that's the thing, it's find your way with one type of system, try the try the different ones, whichever ones you have access to by default, and try it out. And then if you can't get what you need, go to go external. But if we go back to Sam, some of the ways we were talking about how we've completely pretty much um gotten the production of this podcast down to a fine art in the last few weeks, months using AI. Um, we can do that quite like pretty efficiently now. Um we could even set up SOP standard operating procedures in co-work or in um Google um Gemini, right? And uh there's possibly more layers of that that you and I could do to automate the production.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Yes, funnily enough, Kate, that was a conversation I was having with Gemini this morning. Right. It was and and and my conversation with Gemini was that I my work is chaotic, and that that's the fault of the way my brain works, but I have things everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

But you've got ADHD, isn't it, Sam? Is that or not? I'm not diagnosed, Kate. Yeah, but I've remembered.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

All my kids, all my kids, well, most of my kids have got it.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah, where did it come from?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Either I've got it or I'm attracted to men with ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah, and you true. It's the husband's fault. But anyway, so you're not ADHD, but you have this brain full of things at any time.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

My ADHD friends, you know, when I catch up, they're like, and they they joke around with me and they're like, Have you gonna got your diagnosis yet?

unknown 30:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Anyway, you were saying you always have a gazillion things going on in your brain at any time.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Yeah. And because I just love, you know, the shiny new toy in the AI world. So I'm constantly testing different things that I see pop up. So my conversation with Gemini this morning was about how to calm that chaos. Right. And I'm like, I use this app here and that app there, and how can I automate and streamline this? And this is where it's like people need to use AI in this way. Because instead of me having to figure out how to do it, ask AI to what figure out. I said, Gemini, what can we do here? These are all the things that I'm using. Which parts of this process can I automate? How can I set this up? And so it has given me step-by-step instructions to go into make and part of you know, there are certain parts of our podcast production that can 100% be automated using the tools that we currently use.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

So that's an ongoing work in progress for us because we've we've done all the experimenting to find the tools that we need. Now it's about automating that process.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

And then just, you know, sitting down for half an hour and following the instructions that I've been given and actually setting up the automation in make.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yeah. Right. So I think that's the gold for most small businesses. We all can do the content creation. We know um that you can help us with copywriting and all of that sort of thing. It's the automation that I think is going to be the real um freedom creator. Um, it's just as you said, Sam, then it's about actually working less rather than just piling more into the day because we can do more. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

But do you think even having, you know, I was talking about how I was getting Gemini to add things to my tasks so I didn't, my my Google tasks so I didn't forget them. I'm like, I have to do this every week. And every week I'm like, oh, I was supposed to do that today because it's Monday. So even in as far as getting Gemini to review my regular tasks and tell me which of these am I enjoying that could be automated? And if they can be automated, tell me how.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah. So that is a really good point in this whole thing, is I think that's the beauty of AI and why I find it so much fun. It is like having that private coach in your pocket that's like, hey, I've got this challenge. How do I do this? Um, and and I I did a whole, you know, workover of my own website last week, and I just got it, as you said, critique. Where is this working? Where am I losing? Where's the conversion going down? And it it, you know, it's like your personal assistant. The amazing thing, it also does, it can write code for you.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Yes, yes, it can.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

And that is a game changer. And people think, oh, that's scary, but it really is. If you have a WordPress website and you need to do something, what I was trying to do was a logo slider of all the businesses I've helped. Um and just for the credibility piece, and um I there was no free plugin that did that easily. I tried a few different plugins and I went to Claude and I said, I want to do this logo slider. Oh, great, how big do you want it? And um, it wrote the whole code for me. I went into WordPress, inserted a code module, copied and pasted the code from Claude, and now I have a fancy logo slider that's just That's amazing! I know. So things like that, it's like, oh my gosh, I've got all this potential at my fingertips now. Yeah, and there is going to be an adjustment because I'd been quoted$10,000 to do all the updated updates to my website that I needed to do, and I ended up doing it myself with Claude, and um, it took me a day, so there is that, but still, if you're just a little bit tech savvy, you can come get so far with AI tools these days. Yes, you can.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

So, do we um talk about the good and bad as well? Um, for me, there are some key tells now um when something is AI generated, and it can be a big turn off. Um I had to do a deep dive into how to pick up how to pick AI when I did a workshop for uh a not-for-profit up in Northern Territory, and and you know, it was about learning to see where people are giving themselves away in terms of we can tell you've AI generated this. And there's a few of them. So obviously the M-dash is a is a big one, you know, the long horizontal stripe that everyone uses everywhere. Uh, we've talked about that before as a key giveaway of AI.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yeah, there are certain words that all of them, it seems, and and Claude does it as well. There are certain words that it uses in marketing copy that I I it just won't shake.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah, even if you ask it not to use it.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yes, and and when you see it, I honestly I do cringe, and that's coming from someone who uses AI to as a as a starting point for all my copy. Yeah. Please, please. I the the easy thing to do, Kate. This is what I do, this is where my time is contributing to copywriting, is that I read it out loud and I'm like, if I wouldn't talk like that, I'm not writing like that.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

That's a great test. Read it out loud. Do you talk like that? No, don't write like that. That's true. Yeah, I don't say fluff.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah. And all the AIs in the marketing is like, no fluff, no fluff. I never say that. Who's I don't think I even know anybody that ever says that.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

What are some of the other words that you find are key giveaways?

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Oh, another one that I hate is you're not XXX, you're just XXX.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

That is so classic AI stuff. Classic AI is it's not this, it's that. Yeah. And I see everyone doing that everywhere, and they don't realize that we can tell that's AI generated.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah, yeah. So that's classic AI, it's not this, it's that, or it's not that you're this, you're that. That's classic, and then it does um things in threes as well. Um, so it will be it'll say, um, I'm trying to think of an example, you know, um take the stress out of your out of your bookkeeping um bills paid on time, um, accounts reconciled immediately, and a third one. It always does.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Yeah, and look, it is it is tapping into very specific copywriting rules. Yes. And you know, that's an example of it tapping into the rule of three, which are very well-known concept. And it does work, it works, yeah. Yes, but but they are on overkill when it wrongs.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah, when you see that too often, and then and it'll be or a five or a seven, it'll it's always in and that it's in odd um multiples, and that is a standard copywriting rule that you and I know from way back. And it does work psychologically. If you put four bullet points, it's just not this our brain doesn't react the same to it, right? It's it likes threes.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

But it but it's the strategic use of those rules that I think AI can struggle with, and that's where like you know, we can see it jumping out at us on social media and on websites. Yeah. When the rules are just overused and and and copy is overstructured based on those rules.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So um just be wary, I guess, when you're using AI, of these patterns that it tends to follow and of of it being too obvious that you know it's great to use it as a tool, but I think that's a great test. Do you talk like that? Would you talk like that? And if so, don't write like that. No, no.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

And this is I think this is a great segue into Notebook LMK. Okay, let's do it. Because I'm like Notebook LM's number one fan. I love it so much. The thing that I love about it is that whatever you upload into Notebook LM, that is what it is using to create. And it doesn't get artistic with the usage of words or the framing of words because it is drawing directly from what you've uploaded. So if you've recorded a video, you throw your YouTube link in there. Oh bless you. Uh, if you if you have written something or you've got a transcript, you upload it and then and then it'll write for you, but it's using your language.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

And this is where I'm I I love it for that point of difference.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

So give us an example of where you would use it, what you would use it for.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

So, for example, this podcast, yeah. So, what I do is I take the transcript that Buzz Sprout give us gives us, yeah, and I put that as well as the link to the episode, the the audio link from Buzz Sprout. I put, I don't know why I put both. I just find that I don't know, notebook LM likes more than one point of reference. Okay. Um but I upload them and then you know, let Notebook LM do its thing. And what I love about this, and I haven't got around to uploading onto our site yet, but it it is the different there is a a part of Notebook LM called the studio, and inside the studio you can create a variety of things. It'll even create a podcast episode from our podcast episode, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Oh, yeah, with AI-generated voices.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Voices, yes. And it will write blog posts for you and create infographics and do all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

So no program is really good for taking um um sources of content that you feed it and turning it into different things. So it's great for repurposing. Is that right? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Now, if we think outside of the realms of just, you know, its ability to generate more content from one p one source content, which is great for business, but it is also great for for our own learning because you know there are different kinds of learners, and particularly as adults, we're not in school anymore. But if we want to learn how to do something, we can upload the well-known sources into Notebook LM and it will break it all down for us.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

So you can say, here's a here's a YouTube video, it's two hours long and it's teaching me how to do this task. Can you break it down for me into five simple steps? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Yes. Right. Yeah. Or, you know, like if you're a visual learner, here's the source. I need an infographic so that I can understand this, you know, in my brain work.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

So it would take an academic paper, for example, and turn it into an infographic so you can understand it.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Or a podcast made just for you.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah. Ah, so you can listen to it if you're an audio learner. You can listen to it as you're driving. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

Yeah. It'll create a slide deck for you.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

So this is great for those if you know what your favorite learning favored learning style is. So if it's if it's visual, if it's audio, um, what they're the only two, aren't they? Um visual, audio. Um yeah, the two, they're the two main ones, aren't they? But whatever you want to do.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Well, the people that learn by doing aren't going to be helped by Notebook LM.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Yeah, yeah, got it. Yeah, yeah. The tactile people. I thought I I knew I was missing one. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah, so if, and I know a lot of people say I haven't read your book because you haven't got an audio version yet. Because they they don't read, they they want to hear the audio. So if you're an audio person, you could, yeah, get feeded all this stuff and say, can you I now really want to do that, Kate.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

We should do that, and we'll put the link, we'll do a podcast version of your book and we'll put the link on the website for people.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Oh, that's such a good idea. That's such a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

How fun would that be? It's not gonna be the entire book, it's just gonna summarize it in a short, like four to five. The long version is only about four to five minutes, I think.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

It's actually insane. I've only just thought of the fact that you can turn a book now into an audio and it could probably simulate your voice, can it?

SPEAKER_02 43:29

If you give it some really, but still it's that had look, that is probably coming. At the moment, you can't it it struggles, even if you give it brand guidelines, you know, for slide decks and things like that, it's still really I I haven't had a lot of success with getting it to follow those. But look, the way things are going Well, that's probably gonna be a thing. Yeah. It's Google, you know, they love doing all that sort of stuff. stuff.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah, yeah. So oh yeah, I'm just blown away suddenly thinking this book that we um are writing, um, these two books we're writing, we can turn them into audiobooks super easy with Notebook LM.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Yes. And look, take you you could even you could even just upload one chapter at a time and get that podcast recording per chapter. Rather than, you know, four minutes to cover the whole book. Wow. Break it down.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

The mind boggles. Well we have to cut wrap this episode up and we haven't even scratched the surface I feel like but what are the key messages we want people to take away from today on AI and efficiency in business?

SPEAKER_02 44:40

If we can just get people to stop moving for to start moving from a place of asking can you rewrite this asking can you do this to treating it much more like your assistant. Go and do this for me, go and do that for me. And and stretch yourself and try some different AIs outside of GT.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

And maybe even before that help you figure out which tasks you can do like you said you had that conversation with around find the repetitive tasks I'm doing how can I make my work life easier what what do you propose I do? Which systems should I use using it to do that thinking work.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Because people get so much decision fatigue or overwhelm in trying to figure out which systems to use and we probably haven't helped them today because we've given them so many. But no but that's why they're going to come to the workshop Kate. Oh yes thank you for reminding us 20th of May we have a web a workshop coming up where you can come with all your questions about AI, profit first, um pricing structure all the things related to profitability in this um podcast series. So that will be your chance to yeah come along and ask your questions get our um experience to help you find the answers and by then that's a month and that's six weeks away um things will have evolved again but be assured that rest assured that Sam will be doing the research and figuring it out so yeah between maybe an I'll send an AI version of me to the workshop now. That's a little bit too advanced for me but but that is what a lot of coaches are doing aren't they and making a lot of money off it they're creating bots coach bots from their own so they're taking something like notebook LM feeding it their whole course curriculum or all their coaching modules all their stuff and turning it into live chat bots that people can interact with based on your knowledge. So that's another whole realm that I see a lot of people doing. Yeah so um hope that was helpful. As we said please do come along to the workshop if you need help deciphering exactly what's going to work for your business but um in the meantime have fun experimenting. Yeah please do thanks so much everyone see you in again very soon. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Bye bye you've got the strategies now let's build the systems whether you're joining our workshops or transforming at our Bali Business retreat we're here to help you scale without the burnout visit thrivingbusinesspodcast.com to join our community. Until next time keep building a business that thrives