The Commission Code for Success

AI Whisperer: Automating Your Business

• The Commission Code For Success from Sims Training and Consulting, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Bradford Carlton, known as the "AI whisperer," reveals a transformative shift happening right now in artificial intelligence that most business owners are completely missing. While many still see AI as just a writing tool, Bradford pulls back the curtain on how AI agents are revolutionizing business automation by performing complex tasks across multiple platforms simultaneously.

From his own journey from attorney to business coach to AI specialist, Bradford demonstrates that you don't need technical expertise to leverage these powerful tools. Using visual no-code platforms that work like "connecting Legos," even the most technology-averse entrepreneurs can build sophisticated automation systems that dramatically reduce workload while scaling business operations.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Bradford describes his automated executive assistant that connects 31 different software components to handle everything from note-taking to email drafting to scheduling—all without a single line of code. He shares how a simple automation saved him three hours of work in one shot, allowing him to process 16 times more work than before implementing these systems.

Most compelling is Bradford's challenge to the "I'm too busy" mindset that prevents many business owners from exploring automation. Invoking Abraham Lincoln's wisdom about spending most of your time "sharpening your ax" before cutting down a tree, he reframes automation as an essential investment in working ON your business rather than just IN it. As he provocatively states through his elevator pitch—"I take away people's jobs"—Bradford forces us to confront how AI is reshaping every industry from plumbing to sales.

Ready to stop working harder and start working smarter? Discover Bradford's collection of 40+ free automation tools and training resources at bradfordcarlton.com or on his YouTube channel—and position your business to thrive in the AI revolution before your competitors do.

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Speaker 1:

And it's really been in the past, I'd say, eight months to a year. We're starting to see what we call agents. It's a change in the system. It's no longer just writing something for you, it's now able to do stuff for you. And that is where my eyes really lit up and I'm like, wow, if I can string some information together, pull some data off of a Google sheet, for example, process that information, write 20 emails in one shot and then have those put into my email account and sent on a schedule all automatically. I just saved, you know, one, two, maybe three hours of time just in that one little exercise right there right there.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 2:

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code. For your success.

Speaker 2:

Bradford Carlton is our guest today on the Commission Code and Bradford is the AI whisperer, and I need somebody to whisper in my ear about everything I need to know about AI, because right now, all I know is one particular URL to use to get to one of those things. And I'm telling you what, bradford, I am not very into it, but you are, as an author, coach, business owner and consultant speaker and again, the AI guy. So thanks for being here, man, appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Anytime, Morris. I'll tell you, though I don't generally whisper to people, I whisper to the AI. I seem like I'm yelling all the time to get people to listen to me that they need to be using AI.

Speaker 2:

I love it. That's great. That's great. We need somebody that can whisper to AI, that's for sure. It's just. It is so still, I think, very new to the majority of the world out there, and we don't know what to do with it. We go on and we ask it stupid, simple questions and it comes back with complete answers or at least that's my case and there's just got to be so much more we can do with it. Bradford, when you're coaching a small business owner about AI, where do you begin?

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's a great question, because before I started doing anything with AI myself, I was a business coach, and so when I transitioned into AI, I'm still a business coach. Usually the place I start with is do you even know how to run your own business? Do you really know your processes? Because there is no automation without processes, and so when I go in there and I first meet with somebody, I almost invariably I'll sit down like, okay, so what do you want to automate? They tell me what they automate and I'm like, okay, that sounds great. So what's the process you currently use to do that? Oh well, you know, I got some scratch paper around here and I once told somebody what to do. Well, that's going to make it really difficult to help you.

Speaker 2:

I got a checklist with four things on it, you know, come on. You mentioned something there, though, that I think is critical. You mentioned something there, though, that I think is critical, because folks I don't think consider AI when it comes time to create a system to automate a process. Tell us more about that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so that's actually all I consider. So you know, chat, gpt, that's what everybody thinks about, right.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, I mean, that's the thing, google.

Speaker 1:

Gemini, one of them. You have your personal preference. I mean, that's the thing, google Gemini, one of them. You have your personal preference and so you go there, and when you need to turn a nasty email into something a little kinder, right, you know? Help me rewrite this. And you know, chatgpt came out. What three? Chatgpt 3 came out November 2022, I think it was.

Speaker 1:

So we're almost three years in, and for the first year and a half, that's pretty much all I did with it too, because that's all it really could do.

Speaker 1:

I remember the first few months in. I was seeing people string it together and have it give itself answers in order to write on and on and on, but none of it worked, and it's really been in the past, I'd say, eight months to a year. We're starting to see what we call agents. It's a change in the system. It's no longer just writing something for you, it's now able to do stuff for you. And that is where my eyes really lit up and I'm like, wow, if I can string, you know, some information together, pull some data off of a Google sheet, for example, process that information, write 20 emails in one shot and then have those put into my email account and sent on a schedule all automatically. I just saved, you know, one, two, maybe three hours of time just in that one little exercise right there, and so eight months ago, bradford, it sounds like you, just you just told us we could replace our email marketing system.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you can, absolutely. Just told us we could replace our email marketing system. Yes, you can, absolutely. Yeah, I um, like I said, about eight months ago, I really opened my eyes and I said to myself man, I need to learn this coding stuff because I have to be able to put these systems together. And I'm not a tech guy, not in any way, shape or form. I was an attorney. Um, I became a business coach when my daughter was born. I'm just full in on like entrepreneurship, not tech and so I tried to learn coding and it was not fun. It was Greek to me, which is funny because I'm actually learning Greek with my daughter. We homeschool her and so we're actually learning Greek. I know Greek better than I know coding, but I could not figure this out Bradford.

Speaker 2:

the only coding I know is Fortran and that's from 1970. So what can I say?

Speaker 1:

man Right Punch cards, man, they're making a good job. Oh yeah, stacks of them.

Speaker 2:

Boxes of those dead gum. I was a chemical engineer. I had boxes of those things just to design one distillation. Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. Coding didn't work for me, but I knew I needed to figure this out, because if I could figure out how to systematize and automate what I do, you know it saves me time. Great, I can spend more time with my family, but I can reach out to more leads. I can make more sales. I can do more business, I can make more reports. I can do more of everything Right. And so I learned about what are called no code and low code platforms. They, and specifically the one that I use, is called N8N, so the letter N, the number eight, the letter N, and it's.

Speaker 1:

It's a visual builder which, in essence, it's like using Legos. I put some Legos together, I just string them together and it's now a program. I'm able to do stuff with it and I'm sitting there like I'm giddy as a schoolgirl. I'm like this is the coolest thing. My wife is like you're nuts and I got blessed by one day. My leg just decided it didn't want to stand me up that day and I just dropped like a sack of potatoes right onto my ankle, sprained my ankle. A sack of potatoes right onto my ankle, sprained my ankle. Now I'm trapped in bed with nothing but my laptop and you know, that's it. Okay, I guess now I'm supposed to learn how to do this. So I spent two months while trapped in bed learning how to build with this, this essentially no code platform, and I've just I've just taken it off.

Speaker 1:

Man Like I'm, I have whole email systems built out. I've got um coaching programs. You know, put in four pieces of information, it built out your entire coaching program and those are like the, the fun ones, but the little things like um, I haven't. I built an executive assistant full blown. It's got 31 different pieces of software attached to it that I've all built myself with no coding experience. Again, I don't know how to code and it's able to do everything. It takes my notes for me, it turns those notes into action items. I say, hey, on this action item, go ahead and email Bill and it'll draft the email to Bill. It goes to my Google contacts for me, finds his information, sends it off to him. It's the coolest thing in the world and nobody realizes that you can do this now thing in the world and nobody realizes that you can do this.

Speaker 2:

Now my word. And that's not just a program doing what programs do? Ones and zeros and bits and bytes. That's AI actually making some decisions and taking action.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, in there. So it's mostly just computer program. I think a lot of people are intimidated by AI because they think it's AI, it's Terminator. Right, it's coming for us. But by and large, the way I use AI is to make decisions Should it go into this bucket or that bucket, and if I give it very clear instructions, I give it lots of examples of what should go in bucket B versus bucket A. It 95, 98% of the time puts it into bucket B when it's supposed to Sure. There's some small errors, but I don't deal with them that often and I'm processing something like 16 times more work than I was before.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that is amazing. So yeah, but I think you're absolutely right. We're all afraid Skynet's going to be on us any minute now.

Speaker 1:

My daughter brings it up at least once a day, I bet.

Speaker 2:

I can imagine. I can imagine. That's just. It's amazing. And when they talk about the billions of dollars that are going to be needed to build the infrastructure, to make all this work, it's just. It just blows me away what the possibilities must be, Just the power that's going to be required.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like we don't have near enough power to be able to manage all this stuff yet.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly Exactly, and it's just absolutely amazing Just visualizing a building with several floors that are just filled with one set of computer banks or computer banks, one after the other. I saw a data center for the company I used to work for and this whole floor was nothing more than these stacks of of servers, that's all it was. The whole dadgum server farm was huge, and that was for one financial services company.

Speaker 1:

But the best part is for little guys like I. You know it's my wife and I run our business. We've run. We ran our law practice together. We ran the consulting firm. We're running this AI business together. It's always been me and my wife as business partners. So you know a two-man shop. We hire freelancers when we need them. I can use those server farms. I don't need to build it myself. I can rent space on somebody's server for you know, five $10 a month and I can run as much automation as I possibly want.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's amazing. That is absolutely amazing. And I guess the next thing that crosses my mind and I guess the next thing that crosses my mind Bradford is that's all well and good, but I'm running a car wash and I don't have time to figure out how to do all that stuff. What do I do?

Speaker 1:

Who said it was difficult? First of all, you're making an assumption that this is all hard. Again, no tech background whatsoever over here. Guys, I figured this out and, even better, I've made it my mission to build as many of these what I call bots as I can, and they're really just a workflow. It takes some amount of input, it processes it somehow and it outputs in some way, shape or form, and I've made over 40 of these things and I give them away absolutely free. All you gotta do is go search for me online. You know Bradford Carlton, you know bradfordcarltoncom. Find me on YouTube, go to my free school community.

Speaker 1:

You can download all these things right now. You know, to get it set up maybe half an hour of time, but you can. You know right away, have a system that's pulling off of Google Maps for you that you can then have a lead list All right. Well, if you do your snail mail now, you already have all their addresses. You know who to send it to. If you want to find their emails, you can use a different scraper to go to their website, which we pulled off of Google Maps, get their emails off of their website and then hook it up to your email system, or you can build out your entire email system and integrate it into your entire thing. The possibilities are endless to be able to scale it up and the ability to use it is very granular, because you don't need a huge system to be able to have very big effects, you just need a tool.

Speaker 2:

Boy. I keep using the word incredible because it is. It's blowing me away here. I didn't realize you could do those kind of things. This is just absolutely amazing. And yeah, you know, bradford, I understand it's not that difficult, but it takes time. So I'm thinking, though, if I wanted to do this and I'm already working, you know, seven days a week for some amount of time I need some help. Is that what I come to you for?

Speaker 1:

That's what you come to me for. Yep, I can either do one-on-one consulting I've got the group coaching, I've got all of that but I want to speak to what you just said, because that's a mindset issue that I deal with all of the time with my coaching clients. It is well I'm already so busy I don't have time to do this. It reminds me of an Abraham Lincoln quote. He was asked a long time ago if he was given I think it was like four hours to chop down a tree, what would he do? And he said I would spend three hours and 50 minutes sharpening my ax. So the way you spend your business time reflects the kind of results you're going to get. Are you sharpening your axe? Are you making your systems better? Are you finding ways to be able to do more with less, or are you just doing the same old thing over and over again?

Speaker 2:

so it's a. It's the michael gerber e-myth concept. Dude, you got to spend some time working on your business as well as working in your business yep, I mean it's.

Speaker 1:

The internet came along, most people didn't want to get a website. Well, the people who got their websites first are making a ton more money than everybody else. Social media came along. You know, the people who were advertising on it first made a lot more money than the people who were like, oh, I don't want to deal with that social media. It's the funniness.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and those of us who did choose to build a website paid somebody to do it an exorbitant amount of money. And now there are so many places you can go and build a website with just you know, drag and drop and cut and paste. And all of a sudden, there we go, I got a website.

Speaker 1:

I'll do you one better. There's AI tools you use. You take a screenshot of somebody else's website. Give it to the AI. They'll build one just looks just like it out of somebody else's website.

Speaker 2:

Give it to the AI they'll build one just looks just like it.

Speaker 1:

And that is a neat idea. Oh, I love it. I mean, I think too many people think that AI is just chachapiti. It writes your emails for you, it makes lists. There's AIs that are making new drugs every single day. They're developing new proteins every single day just by sequencing it and trying millions and millions and millions of combinations per minute, and then they develop something that seems stable. Then they can go straight to trials right away. The way our conception of AI is so limited, probably just because we haven't had enough exposure to it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think so. I think you're absolutely right and you're doing a great job of creating some of that exposure, which I think is admirable. Number one and number two, important If we're going to, as business owners, continue to grow and move forward, we have to take advantage of every opportunity we've got, because it ain't easy running a business and we need all the help we can get.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I find it funny because when I jumped in with both feet to this AI thing, I was still doing the normal business owner, going to networking event kind of thing. And so I was going to networking events and they would say, oh, what do you do, bradford? And I spent a lot of time thinking what's my elevator pitch now. What is it? And so you know, ready, here it is. I take away people's jobs. Oh, perfect, that's it. That's all I'll say. And then the room will go quiet because everybody's like what does he do?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. And then Bradford, I teach sales and that's a perfect elevator talk. The objective is to get somebody to say what do you mean? Or tell me more, and that does it. I take away people's jobs. Oh, how cool.

Speaker 1:

Right, I always just put the microphone down at that point, pass it along. No, no, no, tell us more. It is what it is.

Speaker 1:

When I started this, I'm a business guy. I think in terms of business, I think in terms of structures, I think in terms of how can I build something that will last. So the first thing I did is I didn't start with the AI. I started with a mind map and I built an org chart. If I was going to build the perfect business, what were the roles that I would need in order to be able to do it? And then I broke each of those roles down into specific tasks.

Speaker 1:

Now, each task, so long as you don't actually need a human body to do it, it can be automated on the computer. All right, cool. All I have to do is ask Chad GPT hey, how do I automate this? What are the steps I should do in order to do it? I go over to my no-code platforms, I start stringing stuff together using basic logic you know if-thens, nots ors that sort of thing and then it builds it for me thing. And then it builds it for me and, yeah, sure, it takes, you know, a couple hours to test it, make sure it's working, but if it saves me five hours every time I run this one program, it was worth it.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, absolutely, Because our time is probably the most, probably it is the most valuable asset we have. So, wow, anything that's going to cause me to save some work along the line. I can't really save time it's going to be what it's going to be, but I can save the amount of time it takes me to do things. Wow, that's so neat.

Speaker 1:

And you, morris, are so lucky because when I started this eight months ago, there was like nobody out here building stuff like this and just giving it away. And I've spent the past what four months just almost every single day giving away a new tool and I mean it's moving the needle for a lot of businesses. I got a lot of people joining my paid community because they want more access to me and they're asking me to build stuff. I mean I don't really do too much outbound marketing because I've been an online influencer for a while. A lot of it's inbound, but whenever I start a new brand, I always start it from scratch to prove that it'll work organically.

Speaker 1:

That's what I did, and so I started this. You know, mid-april, online talking about AI, and you know, every other day, every day, I get somebody in my inbox saying, hey, can you build this for me? Or hey, can you give me a one-on-one time to teach me how to do this? I'm getting big deals out of other countries that I've never thought to do business with, just by putting it out there.

Speaker 2:

If they don't speak Greek, how are you communicating with them?

Speaker 1:

Thankfully, English is the international business language.

Speaker 2:

That's good. That's good. I'm glad to hear that, that's for sure. I'd be in trouble if not.

Speaker 1:

No, but on that point you got a phone. Oh yeah, okay, you can get ChatGPT on your phone. You open the app. You say, hey, chatgpt, I need to translate this into, say Mandarin. You tell it what you want to say. It will then speak it for you. You don't have to worry about it anymore.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my word, that's just. I want to use my limited vocabulary here, but I try not to do that on a podcast. The fact is, the one time that we as a family went overseas to Italy, we happened to travel with our next-door neighbor, who was a first-generation Italian, so she was brought up spending summers in Italy with the family. So we got over there and she was able to communicate. Now, granted, as you say, english is still pretty much a foundational kind of a thing, but we got over there and there were servers at restaurants and other sundry folks that didn't speak a whole lot of English, and it was wonderful having her there. Wow, I could have just carried my phone today. That's great.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Of course it was fun, cause when we were uh browsing some some you know Chachki salespeople, at one point in time she was kind of negotiating with them and all in Italian the guy says stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, americans, yada, yada, yada. And she turned around and spoke to him in Italian and basically said you can keep everything you've got and you know here's where you can put it. And he looked so damn surprised. It was like I didn't know you would. Oh golly, gee, that's amazing, though my phone will do that for me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, cool Both ways. Even there's something like 40 languages they have available just on ChatGPT and there's more specialized platforms for just voice Back in 23,. So ChatGPT was still new. Okay, internet AI was still new back then. But I had heard of this service called 11 Labs and it's a voice service, so they take your voice and they can clone it and it'll sound like you, and so I knew about this. I had tested it a little bit, but I was going to a networking event and I had lost my voice the night before, like completely. Oh, no.

Speaker 1:

Making a lot of content. I'm loud, I'm boisterous, I blew my voice out, but I needed to go to this event because there were some people expecting me there. So I just loaded up the software 11 Labs and I have hours and hours of my own video footage. I just uploaded it into the system, created a voice clone of myself, went to the event, typed out on my phone what I wanted to say, hit enter and then it would return my spoken voice and everybody around me is like that's Bradford, this is witchcraft.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing, so you don't have to record anything else yourself anymore.

Speaker 1:

This is something that you might wanna consider as well. There's tools out there AI tools that you just load up some hours of your footage and it will make an avatar of yourself that looks like you. It has your same mannerisms and it'll move your hands the same way. Make your content that way.

Speaker 2:

I'm not doing that.

Speaker 1:

yet myself, I'm waiting for it to get just a little bit better.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and still, the boundaries today are limitless. It sounds like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's only getting better. Today are limitless. It sounds like, yeah, and it's only getting better. People who do not have tech skills are able to go out and build things for their selves and their businesses and as the tools get better, we can just keep integrating, keep building and building and building. I'm actually a little scared to see what's going to happen in the next six months to a year, because I just don't know. Are plumbers safe? You'd think plumbers might be safe, right, but Elon Musk is building a ton of robots right now and teaching them how to do plumbing. So are plumbers safe? Are business coaches safe? Are salespeople safe? Do I need a salesperson when I can load up my entire script into my voice and have it be able to handle every objection, because every objection gets logged into a spreadsheet somewhere that's fed into a data bank for my sales agent.

Speaker 2:

Now wait a minute, Bradford, you just hit too close to home. I teach sales now. I don't want to see that go away. All right, I mean that's important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like I said, I may be whispering to the AI, but I'm yelling for everybody else.

Speaker 2:

That is amazing, absolutely amazing. So, bradford, tell us your website again, my friend, what's that URL? Because I'm going to go there as soon as we finish this recording.

Speaker 1:

You can just find some general information about me on my website. It's bradfordcarltoncom. All my content goes on to YouTube and my community is a schoolcom website and so you can find that under my business name, which is Automate Business AI, and so probably the fastest way to get there is either my main website, bradfordcarltoncom, or through YouTube. Like I said, I have over 40 different automations already there, tons of training materials, because I was on a journey myself and I figure everybody else will be stumbling right along with me. I might as well help teach.

Speaker 2:

Man, that is fantastic, Absolutely fantastic. So, hey, folks, let me tell you it has taken me a while, but the last few shows I've done with folks that are involved with AI, it's convinced me that if we're not looking at it, if we're not going out there and checking it out, if we're not giving it a try, then, my George, we're going to be lost, we're going to be left behind. So, check out Skynet. I mean AI. It's going to make all the difference in the world to all of us. Bradford, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today on the Commission Code. Join us today on the Commission Code. Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisSimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time, right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes. I'm Morris Sims, you.