The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
Utilising AI for Small Business Growth and Innovation
We kick off the year discussing smart automation and AI tools with our special guest, Vit Muller from Standout from the Pack. Discover how small businesses, particularly gyms, barbers, and accountants, can revolutionize their marketing strategies using an all-in-one platform. Vit shares groundbreaking insights into cost-effective campaigns and the magic of database reactivation strategies. We also dive into AI's ability to assess sales calls and craft strategies to triumph over sales objections.
Learn how AI chatbots can dramatically boost your conversion rates by ensuring instant communication and engagement with your potential customers.
This episode is supported by CareSuper.
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber in association with Kia Super. I'm Greg Harford from the Business Chamber and I'm delighted to be joined today by Vit Muller, a smart automation engineer from Standout from the Pack, a small Canberra business specialising in capturing, harnessing and closing more leads using smart AI tools. Witt, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, greg. Appreciate it. Now that sounds very exciting to any small business owner. Most small businesses I talk to are definitely keen on harnessing and closing more leads. Tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we are a smart automations and AI platform offering marketing campaigns at a fraction of the cost of a traditional sort of a custom build-out. So the way we do it is customers pay a subscription for our software, which is an all-in-one sales and marketing platform. I'm not going to bore you with how many features it's got, but think about it as a toolbox. And it's got a lot of tools and we don't sell on the tools, we sell on the outcomes. So you know, most small businesses are really busy running their day-to-day and what's really important to them at the end of the day is to grow their business.
Speaker 2:So we like to focus on strategies that we've tried and has been proven to work. Things like database reactivation right, like one of the first things that we do. If a business has a list of a decent size amount of contacts like a couple hundred at least and they've got a phone number, we can do a simple database reactivation sms campaign with you know, hey, come back. We've got this offer. Like works for gyms, for example. Like hey, come back for a week of treat, free training you've trained with us in the past or you were interested in training with us in the past, and we generally see about five percent of the list will take you up on it and so depend depending how big is your list.
Speaker 2:But if you've got a thousand, ten thousand contacts, you know if you've been around for five, ten years you would have decent size lease you can expect about. You know, from what is it five percent? From a thousand? What is that? A fifty? So you might have five hundred if you got ten thousand on the list and they take you up on it. I mean if you convert, you convert from the 500, I mean that's a lot of business. So we like to focus on quick strategies right away and then we've got lots of other ones.
Speaker 1:All right. And who are your customers? Who is your product for? So?
Speaker 2:predominantly service-based businesses. So we don't really do e-commerce, Although we have different tool sets that we can help, but it's predominantly service-based businesses. Think about like a local gym, local barber, local hairdresser, local accountant. We also do professional-like businesses, so local accountants. We have lawyers that we help with and you know there's different needs and different outcomes that businesses need from using our software. But ultimately what we look at is every business has some sort of acquisition process to acquire a new customer. So that's where we generally start. We look at that and then we look at how we can marry that with our software and how it can be configured for the needs of the business.
Speaker 1:And your software? It it is. It is what exactly? It's a whole a whole. It's a toolbox, you say, but it's a crm and a database yes, so we are strong.
Speaker 2:I mean, really the main core thing that drives it is data, and we're big believers in data. You need to have data that's secure and then you can leverage off for smart automations, because AI and automations are only as good as the data that you have. So it's the fundamentally, it's a CRM that you can have many different data points that are maybe relevant to your business, for qualifying potential business, for qualifying potential customers and whatnot. But then you know what you can then do with the software is you can build sales funnels, you can build custom web pages. You can also power the whole thing with custom automation.
Speaker 2:So, example being, you have a website and you have a chat widget or you have a way to capture leads so they inquire. As soon as that comes true, you want that lead to be, you know, to get acknowledged that they've sent something. So send them an email. You can automate that so that tells them yeah, we got your inquiry, we'll get back in touch shortly. You, as the business owner, can get notified right away as well that you've got an inquiry. But that's, I mean, that's the sort of functionality that's been around. It's nothing, you know, overly complex, but where you take it to. The next level is with things like AI, chatbots and voice AI, but I'll talk about the chatbots if you like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about chatbots and AI. Chatbots sound a little bit scary to anyone who grew up with Terminator and that sort of thing. So how does it work? Anyone who grew up with Terminator and that sort of thing? So how does it work? And you say voice chatbots you've actually got AI interacting with customers.
Speaker 2:Yes. So two separate tools. I'll talk about the chatbot first. The text-based chatbot first, so that one works really well.
Speaker 2:If you're a tech type of business that doesn't always have time to respond to inquiries through an SMS fast enough and, as we know, in sales, you know speed to lead is one of the most important indicators for likelihood of closing conversion, right? So good example being chat widget on the website. People submit their inquiry through it. They get an sms back to say hey, thank you for inquiry. Um, did you have any other questions that we can help with? Now? If they respond to that, that will kick in an ai chatbot. So it's a basically ai that you fully train around your business so you give it back and information about your products and your services and traditional, you know, frequently asked questions that people ask. You give it the knowledge so it becomes smart around your business so that it can then answer and have a conversation with leads. A good use case. Let's just bring it to something that brings it back home.
Speaker 2:So, martial art clubs most martial art club owners are passionate martial artists and they might be on the mats coaching. Most martial art club owners are passionate martial artists and they might be on the mats coaching. Now, if they got a call and this is what we call a missed call text back they got a call and they missed that call. That could have been a new member. Now what we do is, when that call comes in, if they don't pick up that call, the SMS will go out of the system to the person that called saying hey, jimmy, he just busy on the mats coaching. How can I help? Or how can my assistant can help.
Speaker 2:Now if that person responds to that message saying something like, yeah, look, I'm interested in trying out martial arts, the chatbot will kick in and have a conversation Like hey, what sort of martial arts are you looking at? Have you trained martial arts? Yada, yada, yada. And if it picks up that there is an intent for the person to actually really sort of go ahead and try the gym, it will actually offer that to, to book a book, a visit, a book a meeting with the coach. And because it's direct, like our software can directly contact, connect with your calendar, it will know when you're available. So it'll literally say cool, no worries, yeah, so we got. We got a free sport like this wednesday at three, thursday at nine and friday at two. Which one of those would you like? And then a person responds with the option and I will book it in your calendar. So by the time Jimmy has left the mats from the coaching session, they've got another booking in the calendar.
Speaker 1:And voice AI you mentioned as well. So how is that working? Is AI really good enough to be having an actual conversation like we're having now?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, and it's only getting better. Again, it comes down to how well you train it. So, for voice, oh, we have a voice ai. Currently we have it for inbound only um. Outbound is coming, but there's a few things we need to iron out um, and there's regulations and things like that which might get into. Second, but for inbound it works. Again, if you're that type of business that trades, let's go trades. Good example You're an electrician, you're a plumber, whatever On the job, you might miss a call.
Speaker 2:Well, if you don't pick up within a certain time frame, the voice AI will kick in and will pick up that call and have a conversation. We've got many different voices. You can pick from many different like and you know male, female voices. We got american accent. We got australian accent too, so you can pick which voice over the ai one. You can give the ai its name.
Speaker 2:So, for our own company, if you try and ring up our number on stand up from the back, if you'd like to have a crack at it, you call the number on the website and Sophie will pick up and she will introduce herself.
Speaker 2:Hi, sophie, ai from Stand Up From the Park. You've, you know, obviously, you've called us, you know something along those lines and she'll say how can I help? And then you just have a conversation and because we've given her all the back-end info, there's about 5,000 words that you can put into the prompt for the AI so you can explain what type of tonality, what type of how you want her to talk. You give her back-end information about your products and services FAQ. So it's similar to the chat AI, but you can give it a lot of information. She will draw from that backlog, from that knowledge base, when she's got a conversation with you and if she can answer a certain question, she will. If she can't, she will cleverly say look, that's something I don't know, but why don't we put you in touch with somebody on a team? Would you like that?
Speaker 1:So what's your experience having rolled this out with customers? Are customers keen to talk to AI? Do customers even know that they're talking to an AI bot?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we found that initially we try to like, yeah, let's try and hide, it Might be like. You know, people might not like, if they realize it's AI, they might not talk to it. But then we realized, you know what. We actually found that people are interested in speaking because there's a bit of a novelty and they're like, ooh, actually found that people are interested in speaking to because there's a bit of a novelty and they're like oh, when is ai gonna call me? You know, um? And so, yeah, we, we've programmed the ai now to basically introduce yourself as hey, I'm sophie, I'm an ai assistant, how can I help?
Speaker 2:So, and it works fine, people have conversation and the outcome is very similar. You know it's it's never gonna be. I mean, let's be, let's be frankie, it's never going to be the same as a real human conversation. You can add more, you know color to your voice and things like that. And um, you know, but think about it from the business perspective. What's the outcome you're trying to achieve? Um, you know, sometimes we get too romantic about like too. You know, we're too much of a perfectionist sometimes, and we're like, oh, yeah, that's it, I'm not going to use it. But really, what it comes down to. Is it going to help your business capture more opportunities?
Speaker 1:yes, it will so I'm fascinated by the voice side of this, and you mentioned that there's different voices. You can you can roll out american, australian, presumably a whole whole range, but do they vary? Is there a risk that suddenly all the tradies in Canberra are going to be having the same voice?
Speaker 2:answer that is a good question.
Speaker 1:I mean that could happen. Yeah, so can you customize the voice beyond kind of the standard off-the-shelf one? Can I record content to put on the Chamber's AI call, for example?
Speaker 2:You can. So we have I mean, on a backlog we've got about 50 different voice avatars, so you pick one and that's the one that's going to be. You can't really modify it further. But as we continue to innovate, there is definitely I could definitely see for the down track an ability to have a voice that's in your own voice. It comes with certain.
Speaker 1:The future is both exciting and terrifying all at once. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, on that, what I would say is yes, but think of it this way. It's giving a massive point of leverage and whether you decide to start implementing AI or not, somebody else will, and more likely that more businesses will than not. So it's kind of like there's no real way. I don't think there's other way to go against it. It's really just to embrace it and try and like make the most of it for your business, while you can, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a tool, ultimately, that will help drive productivity and better business outcomes. And look, many firms I'm aware of are already using AI in some form, so it's definitely there and growing. What's your take on the privacy issues and the data security issues around AI? Because obviously, if you're talking to an AI bot or you're chatting to an AI bot in a text form, all that information is going somewhere. What happens to it?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it'll be stored on servers. We have our servers in US on a reliable Google servers, our servers in US on a reliable Google servers. But ultimately it's about providing, like being transparent with the callers, with potential leads calling in. So we have AI. At the beginning of the call it will say, hey, this call is recorded, so if the person doesn't like that, they can hang up. So the transparency is there, the opt-in is there, and then the AI will introduce itself as an AI assistant. So that's as far as I guess you can go. I mean, aside from that, obviously, protecting your data, protecting access to your account, is paramount. We do on our end, we do everything we can at our best ability to make sure that your data is protected. But, yeah, I think that's as far as you can go In terms of where, on the flip side, how that is very useful.
Speaker 2:For example, the voice recording is like for sales reps. So if you're doing sales over call and you have a team of sales reps and they don't always close, it gives you tremendous power. You can now look at transcript. We can re-listen the conversation where the lead and the sales rep had a conversation about a particular objection that the lead had and they didn't quite overcome it and they lost that sale. Well, now you can actually take that transcript. You can take a sample of that one and maybe a couple of other of your sales reps that didn't do so well, pass it on to perhaps even AI and say, hey, look at these conversations. Can you analyze it and suggest what would be a better way of overcoming these particular objections? Bring it back to the sales team, train them up on it and you should see an improvement in conversion.
Speaker 1:Which is really exciting for any small business person who's looking to grow their business. So conversion is ultimately what it's what it's all about, right? Um, so so ai tools are part of your offering, but, but, um, you've got other other automations that you you build in as well. Is that right?
Speaker 2:absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, because that software is so robust and it's got so many tools. Uh, we do find that some business owners, they just get either overwhelmed or or they don't have time to properly utilize it, like you know, because it's just a set of tools and like you got to still like configure the automations, build your own funnels with it, things like that. So we found not everybody has time for that. So some customers are like, hey, can you build it for us?
Speaker 2:And so we then, um, what we've done is long, long story short is we build a thing we call the Profit Roadmap Profit Roadmap System, which is a combination of 10 unique modules that fall like Lego pieces into another, one into another. They are ordered individually, they are set up in a particular order and ultimately, each module is installed into a customer's account. We configure the module for them and with each module, the ideas they get more profitable. So just to give more explanation to it, the first module is called the Essential Business Marketing System and that's one we installed into all our customers' accounts because we found, at the end of the day, when it comes to sales and marketing, what is the most important thing is your list. So the essential business model does that. It helps you build lists, newsletter signups and different mechanisms, but also keeps your list clean. So if somebody opt-outs, they can easily opt-out. If somebody's email address is no longer functioning, it bounces, it'll automatically disable them from being able to receive more emails. So when you, as a business owner, want to run your monthly newsletters, you can be rest assured that your newsletter is going to the right inboxes and not the bad ones.
Speaker 2:And there's a thing called ascending domain reputation, really really important. A lot of people don't know about about this. But if you spend, you know, like, put it this way, like if you spend all this money on generating leads, paid ads and whatnot, you're generating contacts and then you need to nurture them through email. But if you have got really bad setup, um, then you could be, you know, you could be really wasting money away on that. So that's what? So that's the first module. And then we go like in the item modules such as reputation management module, which helps to automate way of feedback from current customers, the whole, the whole thing. By the way, like you, if you look at it, you would see more.
Speaker 2:Your number 10 is called arts optimizing module, which is optimizing your paid ads and we had a questions like hey, why, why wouldn't you like, have you know paid ads at the beginning, when it's like effective and really quick?
Speaker 2:Well, the argument to that is, yes, you can give money to Facebook and they'll help you generate leads, but if you don't have the underlying mechanisms to convert the leads, you don't have the lead nurture systems in place, and all that and it's the only way you could do it is if you call people.
Speaker 2:Great, but we found that not a lot of business owners are that organized and that like on point to be able to call every single day within five minutes. So the profit room up module the profit room up system is is done in a way where we focus on the back end first, such as reputation, be able to generate referrals for business, be able to increase customer lifetime value, things like that you can do right away with the list that you have, and those are things that are not costing you an extra money. But once you got that dialed in, once you do have, like, proper lead nurture system in place and all those you know, reactivation campaigns, all those type of things then when you spend dollar on an advertising, you know that that lead comes through into the software. Those automations will kick in. The lead will be nurtured through, you know, initial campaigns. Your sales reps will be notified right away to call them all those things and your conversion is going to go up so, but how long's the business been going for?
Speaker 2:so we had this business for four years on the software side, but before that we've been doing agency services since, like 2013, doing websites.
Speaker 1:Wordpress websites is where we started and how so you launched four years ago. How's it going? Are you happy with progress?
Speaker 2:I'm very happy with progress. Yeah, it did took a interesting side turn, uh, over the last 18 months, where we actually started to work with US agencies that needed help as well. So we never intended to be our target market, but you know where the money flows.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't say no to that, so you know we do that as well, yeah, so you're actually exporting services from Cambridge to the States, fantastic, fantastic. And is there anything in particular that you would? What have you learned from that kind of services exporting? Have there been particular challenges along the way?
Speaker 2:Not really. It's been pretty smooth. The only thing obviously a time zone. So when you have like on a morning meetings, you've got to line up the times. But it's not too difficult. You're just going to wake up a little earlier, yeah excellent.
Speaker 1:And and how did you come to be in Australia? You're from the Czech Republic originally. Yes, yes, correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so originally 2010, as I came to Australia and I was after living in Scotland for three years and you know I was back in my 20s. I was just partying and you know, doing stuff that you do when you become like an independent individual. You know longer living with your parents, so initially it's fun, but after three years of doing that I was like, yeah, I probably should do something more serious. I was working in like construction jobs and things like that and partying on the weekends and, yeah, I got to do something more serious and around that time one of my mates was leaving to Australia and so that sort of sparked the idea for me as well to do the same. So 2010 is when I moved over to Australia on a student visa and I studied fitness and became a personal trainer and did massage therapy and got into gym management.
Speaker 2:I was very much into the whole fitness industry, gym management.
Speaker 2:I was very much into the whole fitness industry and that's where my passion started for sales and marketing as well, because I ran a business where it was a bit more unorthodox in a way, where, as a personal trainer, I decided, rather than paying a rent for like big box gym, like fitness first, but you have to pay like I don't know four grand franchise fee and then three $400 a week rent, but you still have to wear their t-shirts. I didn't quite like that idea. I wanted to sort of build my own brand. So I started training people out in a park and doing boot camps and stuff like that. But obviously the downside of that is you don't get access to like a gym reception that they can pass on leads, new members. So I realized very quickly I need to generate my own lead. So I built my own website and then spoke to a mate of mine who was working for some agents. He gave me a few tips and managed to get my website up on the first page in google for search term personal trainer in Sydney.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's an awesome result, right yeah, and that gave me like confidence and and understanding that this online thing works if you do it well. So that's why I've become really passionate. I'm a bit of a nerd as well. I like to build stuff and tinker with software and things like that. So, yeah, it's been fun. It's been a fun journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you've morphed from there into selling essentially an online sales toolkit, which is really exciting.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Vip Muller. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford from the Canberra Business Chamber. I've been talking to Vit Muller from Standout from the Pack, a smart automation business specialising in capturing and harnessing and closing more leads using smart AI tools. Now this podcast has been brought to you by the Business Chamber with the support of CareSuper, an industry super fund with competitive fees and returns, exceptional service and a focus on real care. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform for more episodes and we'll catch you next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Greg.