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Fail Fast, Grow Faster in the AI Era | The GrowthPro Edge · The GrowthPro Edge

• 0:00
  Welcome to the GrowthPro Edge.
• 0:02
  We're here to help scale your business, build stronger teams,
• 0:06
  and sharpen your leadership skills.
• 0:11
  Hello and welcome to the GrowthPro Edge.
• 0:15
  I'm your host, Denise Killian with the GrowthPro Group and Trainer team.
• 0:19
  Today we're gonna be speaking with John Sullivan, who is someone
• 0:22
  who was on the the front line.
• 0:26
  Of the internet and the.com boom back in the nineties, and what he did to
• 0:32
  transition his business from an ad agency to building internet sites for
• 0:39
  some of the top companies in the world.
• 0:43
  I think it's remarkable.
• 0:45
  This story paralleled with what's happening today with ai.
• 0:51
  John Sullivan, welcome to the GrowthPro Edge.
• 0:55
  Glad to be here.
• 0:56
  Thank you for inviting me.
• 0:58
  I am so excited for this conversation, John, because I think it is, you
• 1:03
  have such a bevy of knowledge that is so important to things that
• 1:07
  are happening today through your experiences, so I wanna jump into that.
• 1:13
  But first.
• 1:15
  Introduce yourself.
• 1:16
  Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
• 1:21
  I'm John Sullivan and I'm retired now, so I have plenty of time to think about
• 1:25
  things and relax and it, I never thought I would be good at being retired.
• 1:30
  Turns out I'm really good at it.
• 1:31
  It's doing nuts and is pretty good sometimes.
• 1:34
  So, but what we're gonna talk about today has a lot to do with the
• 1:39
  business that I ran and changed and then became a digital company.
• 1:44
  Uh, but my background wasn't.
• 1:46
  Anything digital.
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  I mean, I went to college.
• 1:48
  I was an English major, you know, so I didn't know how to program.
• 1:51
  After that, I went into the Marine Corps and I was lieutenant in the Marine Corps.
• 1:56
  Then I joined Proctor and Gamble and was in sales for them.
• 2:01
  So to me that was a good background.
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  Uh, being an English major taught me how to think.
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  Being in the Marines taught me how to lead.
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  And Proctor and Gamble was known for being one of the best marketing
• 2:12
  and sales companies in the country.
• 2:14
  I think they still are for marketing.
• 2:15
  So my father had a advertising agency in South Bend, Indiana that
• 2:20
  he started from scratch when he was.
• 2:23
  You know, probably 35 years old or so, and I decided to go back to the family
• 2:29
  business, uh, and work with my dad on, uh, running an advertising agency.
• 2:36
  So you took on the advertising business.
• 2:40
  Uh, was this about the eighties?
• 2:43
  Well, I went into the advertising business in the late seventies
• 2:47
  and worked with my dad.
• 2:48
  Um, so, and we were a small advertising agency in South Bend, Indiana, but
• 2:54
  we had some big clients, uh, and our biggest name client was Whirlpool.
• 2:58
  They were, their headquarters was about 35 minutes north of us in, uh, St.
• 3:03
  Joe ob Benton Harbor, Michigan.
• 3:05
  And they used local agencies to do a lot of their brochure work, their point of
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  sale material that you would put on a washing machine or whatever, a brochure.
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  All the dishwashers, all the refrigerators, those sorts of things.
• 3:20
  And they had a New York agency that did the branding that said, this is
• 3:23
  what we want our logo to look like.
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  This is the theme that we use.
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  This is who we are, sort of thing.
• 3:29
  And so I was really involved in.
• 3:33
  Particularly working with Whirlpool and small agency.
• 3:37
  So I would go get the business, I'd walk down the hallway looking, find
• 3:41
  a the dishwasher manager in charge of marketing and say, Hey, what do you need?
• 3:45
  And we'd get it and we'd do it.
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  I was a copywriter because the English major, I could do the copy and uh, sales.
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  And so that's what I was doing.
• 3:57
  When I saw the internet came out in about 1990, I think that's when
• 4:01
  it first really hit, uh mm-hmm.
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  Or started to hit.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And I don't know why I was initially so attracted to it, but I got on
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  the internet as fast as I could.
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  It was bulletin boards and, and then I saw in it that, you know,
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  this could change advertising.
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  It's gonna be a completely different world because consumers at home
• 4:25
  on their computers or dealers can get the information on the
• 4:29
  products from their desktop.
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  They don't have to go find a brochure, they don't have to read an ad,
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  they don't have to see a TV spot.
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  So I thought this could be exciting.
• 4:41
  But then it was just a matter of communicating, okay, how does a
• 4:45
  manufacturer communicate with a consumer?
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  And it was just, wow, this is pretty cool.
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  Instead of waiting till they are watching TV and their uh, 32nd
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  spot comes on, when a consumer is interested in a dishwasher, they can
• 5:00
  just go online and find it instantly.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And I was also afraid of what this is gonna do to my business.
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  Um.
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  When we worked as an agency for a company like Whirlpool, most of
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  our billing came from printing.
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  So we would, the, the business model then was we charged 'em for the hours
• 5:23
  for the writing and, uh, the creative.
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  But we marked up the printing because agencies marked up TV spot time.
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  They get 15%.
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  And so we did that just carried over to the print.
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  So we were always looking for.
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  Companies that did a lot of printing because we worked just as hard,
• 5:43
  but we made more money because they would print a hundred thousand
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  brochures instead of 5,000 brochures.
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  So that was it.
• 5:53
  Interesting.
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  And the other part was that the brochures didn't necessarily go to the consumers.
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  They went to the dealers and the dealers used them for their salespeople
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  and would hand 'em out to their best customers that were really interested.
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  So it was kind of a two step process.
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  So I understood the relationship between a big brand manufacturer, the independent
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  dealers or retailers, Sears two.
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  We, uh, was one of their big retailers and we worked with them.
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  And then the consumer.
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  So it all kind of stitched together for me.
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  And then I saw this thing that could take me out of business.
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  Who's gonna need to print anything anymore?
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  They're, they're just gonna go online and get it.
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  So I thought, wow, I better pay attention to this.
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  So that curiosity was peaked not only just because you're curious by nature,
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  which I think is very important for any business owner or any human being, right?
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  We should all be.
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  Curious, but beyond that, recognizing this could be a threat.
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  This could be something that could overhaul my business
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  or take my business out.
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  So instead of being afraid of it, you leaned into it.
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  Exactly.
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  That's exactly what happened.
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  And I needed help though because we didn't know as much.
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  No one knew too much about the internet back then.
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  Okay.
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  We just knew it was coming and it was something big.
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  So.
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  I did my research, but I, but there were no books on it.
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  There were no, nobody knew much about it.
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  So I went out to Notre Dame and I knew a professor out there in, in
• 7:29
  the business school, and he was interested in it because obviously
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  he was working with all these MBA students and they were interested in it.
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  So he was, so we kind of formed a group.
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  He brought in a couple of professors.
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  I got a couple other business people and we would meet occasionally
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  and just kick around ideas.
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  You know, where's this going?
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  What can we do?
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  How's it gonna change our business?
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  And it, it was, that made a big difference.
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  You can't do this all by yourself.
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  You've gotta kind of have some help and have some smart people that
• 8:00
  you can talk to, especially when it's so new and changing so fast.
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  So.
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  That was a big, big help for me, and that gave me more confidence to, to do the
• 8:11
  things that, uh, we went ahead and did.
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  In fact, I ended up guest lecturing in Notre Dame Business School.
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  You know, he would have me come in because the, the students had ideas,
• 8:23
  but at that point I was already executing ideas and I could see
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  the challenges of your great idea.
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  How do we execute it?
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  And then how does it make money?
• 8:33
  How do you make money on this thing because you have to monetize
• 8:36
  this or we're in big trouble.
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  So it was a good experience and I went to Notre Dame, so I, so it was
• 8:43
  perfect for me and it was, you know, great people, great professors, and
• 8:47
  it was, it made a big difference.
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  Well, that was the next challenge then.
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  So, okay, so this is cool.
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  You know, how do we build something, how do we get something going?
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  And so I just stayed out of Notre Dame and looked for students and they had
• 9:01
  kind of a, a, a network of people who had already graduated but were also
• 9:09
  interested in, in a job in the industry that was just starting up and they
• 9:14
  were good at, so I found one young guy.
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  It's fantastic.
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  He was smart.
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  He knew it all.
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  I mean, he just, he loved it.
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  He was the programmer.
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  He, he could do all of this stuff, but he didn't understand business at all.
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  In fact, that was one of the big problems with the young people.
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  Then.
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  They didn't understand two step distribution.
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  They didn't understand how a dealer worked with the manufacturer,
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  how advertising worked.
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  So I was able to help him and then eventually.
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  When I had the advertising was just in the advertising agency.
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  I could do every job in the place.
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  I could do anything.
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  I mean, I wasn't an artist.
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  I couldn't do the design, but I could do everything else.
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  I could do the copywriting, the sales, I could do the books, I could do everything.
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  The radio spots, I could work to get the television spots on.
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  But I ended up building a company that I couldn't do anything.
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  I didn't know how to program, I still don't know how to program and
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  I don't wanna learn how to program.
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  So it was a good comp.
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  It was a unique issue, and I think you still have that today.
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  I know a lot of people that may be watching this are thinking
• 10:23
  about AI and all that, and it's, it's, you don't have to know how
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  to program AI or how to build it.
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  You just have to know somebody who does.
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  Then use it properly.
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  The fact it's even easier today because they have the products
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  already built that you can just lease or use or subscribe to and go.
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  So in that sense, and, and some other things as well, but
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  this was a little bit unique.
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  This was, nobody knew how to do it.
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  And so you had to learn.
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  So I, I, I, I went to Whirlpool and I said, you guys gotta be on the internet.
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  And they said, why?
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  I said, because it's way cool.
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  And they said, get outta here.
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  It's not way cool.
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  We gotta make money on this thing.
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  How does this help?
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  So then I went to, I had to figure out how to build an internet site because the
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  other thing is I didn't have a customer.
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  I had never done it before.
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  So that was the risk.
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  That's where I think you have a risk in taking time away from the
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  normal day-to-day business and trying to learn something new.
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  That's a risk.
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  But there's a fin, and in a way it's a financial risk.
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  But the financial risk for me was how do I build a site?
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  How do I even find a customer?
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  I mean, Whirlpool wasn't gonna let me do it because I'd never done it before.
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  So at that time in South Bend, we had the College Football Hall of
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  Fame and the chairman of the board of the College Football fame was the
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  editor of the South Bend Tribune.
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  And I knew him, so I went to him and he was.
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  Too.
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  He was thinking, this is cool 'cause he is running a newspaper
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  and how's that gonna affect him?
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  So I said, I'd like to build a website for the College Football Hall of Fame.
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  And I said, I'll give it to you.
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  I'm not gonna charge it for it, we're just gonna build it.
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  And he said, what if I don't like it, John?
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  I said, if you don't like it, we'll take it down.
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  In fact.
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  I'm gonna be the worst judge.
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  I'll take it down.
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  If I don't like it and I'm gonna be tougher on it, then you're gonna be on it.
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  So, because I want to, I didn't tell him this, but I wanna go to Whirlpool
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  with this and I want to show something that's good and it's gonna work so.
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  We built the College Football Hall of Fame website.
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  It was, it worked perfectly.
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  I mean, we had a lot of problems, but my one guy from Notre Dame did it,
• 12:44
  did the whole darn thing, you know?
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  And so it looked good.
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  We got a lot of good data on it.
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  We opened it up to the world.
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  We had a lot of people coming to see it.
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  It was, it was really going well.
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  So I went back to Whirlpool and I said, what?
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  I can do it.
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  Look at what I've done.
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  Here's Scholar Football Hall of Fame.
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  What do you think?
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  They liked it.
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  They said that.
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  He said, but why should we do it though?
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  It's still kind of in the middle of nowhere.
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  And I said, you're gonna save a lot of money on printing.
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  We're not gonna print brochures anymore.
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  We're put this information on the internet and consumers and dealers
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  and and your customers are gonna see it and get the information
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  that we put in these brochures.
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  I reminded, I mean, it was millions of dollars, not just with, not more
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  than with us, I mean with everybody included, that they spent on printing.
• 13:37
  And I said, and I would've never said this before that I said, you know,
• 13:40
  every brochure we've ever printed for you, by the time it gets off
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  the press, it's outta date because the dishwasher guy changed a spec.
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  I mean, it just happens.
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  And you only printed them once a year.
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  I told him, I said, listen, one of these days when you change a spec, I'm
• 13:59
  gonna sit here with you and I'm gonna change it on my computer, and it's
• 14:03
  gonna be on the internet instantly.
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  That's how fast, that's business at the speed of thought, and we're gonna do that.
• 14:10
  So they said, okay, John, let's go do it.
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  So they had a off-brand called Roper.
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  I mean, it was a builder brand and they, and I worked real well
• 14:20
  with that marketing guy who was in charge of, of the Roper brand.
• 14:24
  And he pushed for it because he wanted to try it.
• 14:27
  And so we built the, the Roper brand band first.
• 14:31
  But another part of changing the business model.
• 14:34
  I went back to the office that day and they knew I'd been trying
• 14:36
  to sell Whirlpool on this idea.
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  And I said, great news guys.
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  We got it.
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  We're gonna build a Roper site.
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  They'll be the first consumer brand that they've ever done on the
• 14:47
  internet, and we're gonna do it.
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  And one of the account executives raised his hand and he said, John,
• 14:52
  how did you talk him into this?
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  And I said, well, I just talked about printing and how we're gonna change
• 14:58
  printing and save them a lot of money.
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  I mean, this is, it's just perfect for them.
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  And he says to me, but wait a minute.
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  That's how we make money.
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  You know, you're, you're ruining our business for it.
• 15:10
  I said, shut up.
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  Right?
• 15:12
  Shut up kid.
• 15:12
  Don't worry about it.
• 15:14
  We're gonna, we're gonna figure that out later, but this is a challenge.
• 15:17
  We're not good at this.
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  Somebody else is gonna be good at this and kind of take us out of it.
• 15:21
  So that was the.
• 15:24
  The, the ch the challenge or the risk was twofold.
• 15:28
  One, I had to spend some money to do it.
• 15:30
  I had to spend time to learn about it, but then I had to risk the business on it.
• 15:35
  I mean, it was, okay, so I'm gonna spend more time on this internet thing that it's
• 15:42
  gonna diminish our, where we get a good bit of our income from, from printing.
• 15:47
  And so, but it, I just knew it was too strong.
• 15:50
  It wa it was gonna happen.
• 15:52
  Right.
• 15:53
  And you know, the thought of having the foresight to say the importance
• 15:59
  of having information immediately accessible and avail available that
• 16:03
  you can update instantly, all of those things was so novel then.
• 16:08
  Uh, and it, it, it's something that we now expect in every aspect
• 16:12
  of our lives, unfortunately.
• 16:13
  But.
• 16:14
  Then that was such forward thinking and such a, a novel idea and notion
• 16:21
  that other companies were like, how is that actually gonna work?
• 16:25
  What does that look like?
• 16:26
  And for you to have that foresight and create a plan
• 16:29
  around it is, is quite remarkable.
• 16:34
  And then it just took off.
• 16:35
  I mean, we did the Roper brand and the Whirlpool guy in Charge World said,
• 16:39
  let's do Whirlpool Brand, let's do that.
• 16:43
  Another brand called a Steak Brand, let's do that one.
• 16:45
  And then the KitchenAid, let's do KitchenAid.
• 16:48
  So I mean, we just rolled into the appliance industry
• 16:51
  one right after the other.
• 16:53
  After the other, with a different marketing theme to each one of 'em.
• 16:56
  Just like you would do our, the, the brochures.
• 16:58
  And then, so we were.
• 17:00
  We were out there running fast and the theme was business at the speed of
• 17:06
  thought, and the other one was Fail Fast.
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  Put your website out there.
• 17:13
  Be ready to change it, but don't sit around and overthink it.
• 17:17
  Get it out there.
• 17:18
  Find the mistakes, find the improvements.
• 17:20
  And we made a huge amount of improvements in the first six months to a year
• 17:25
  because we just learned so much.
• 17:26
  We had some bad ideas about what the internet was when we first
• 17:30
  launched, but we were on the front lines trying to figure it out.
• 17:33
  And it was the best way.
• 17:36
  It was the best way to do it.
• 17:38
  You know, it's, it's so fascinating because.
• 17:41
  Uh, there are two things that you said there that I wanna
• 17:43
  kinda dig into a little bit.
• 17:45
  So many times my leaders of companies feel like it has to be perfect.
• 17:51
  We can't roll it out until it's perfect, and that paralyzes their growth,
• 17:57
  paralyzes their opportunity, and at the end of the day, ain't nothing perfect.
• 18:02
  Right?
• 18:02
  And compare, and I would compare it to your print brochure.
• 18:05
  You have to wait a year to fix it.
• 18:07
  Who cares if, if we get a spec or not even a spec?
• 18:11
  We don't want a spec.
• 18:11
  It wasn't really wrong.
• 18:12
  It just changed since we printed this brochure.
• 18:15
  Now if it changes, now we can get the word out there even faster.
• 18:20
  So fix it fast, fail fast, fix it fast.
• 18:24
  Just keep on moving.
• 18:25
  It was all about speed.
• 18:27
  Yeah, and the other thing we did, because the internet eventually crashed.
• 18:34
  And around the year 2000, they call it the.com bubble.
• 18:37
  the.com bubble burst.
• 18:38
  That's right.
• 18:39
  And because it grew so fast and there was so much vc, it's so
• 18:42
  much like ai, so much VC money in there, so much investment in there.
• 18:47
  It, it had to, it had to break and.
• 18:51
  We had to open a Chicago office to get the kind of talent that
• 18:55
  we needed to do all the things.
• 18:56
  We ended up with like 70 people programming in our Chicago office
• 19:00
  because, and we, south Bend didn't sup, couldn't support that.
• 19:04
  So we kept our ourself in office.
• 19:06
  We moved to Chicago.
• 19:07
  Chicago and all of these companies sprang up all over the place around us.
• 19:11
  We can look in the windows and see these other.com companies, but we
• 19:15
  survived the crash in the bubble because what we did is we just put.
• 19:20
  The way we looked at it, here is the business model.
• 19:24
  Let's put the internet on top of it, make it cheaper,
• 19:27
  better, faster, and improve it.
• 19:29
  We didn't try to go out and invent something brand new, fail fast.
• 19:33
  Fix fast, and if it works, awesome.
• 19:36
  If it doesn't fix it, but I call it the grace of failure because right.
• 19:41
  We learn so much from those fail, you know, from a failure.
• 19:45
  But if we are afraid to fail, we're not gonna do anything.
• 19:52
  And, and we failed.
• 19:53
  We in a lot of ways, we, I call it we adjusted, you know, or military,
• 20:00
  we attacked in a different direction.
• 20:02
  You, you, um, the IT departments that these Fortune 500 companies that we were
• 20:08
  doing business with didn't get involved with the internet at the beginning, but
• 20:14
  they eventually got involved with it.
• 20:17
  And they said, who's this little guy in South Bend, Indiana doing your internet
• 20:21
  site when we're a Fortune 500 company?
• 20:23
  We got a staff of all these it.
• 20:25
  So they over the time, took over and there was nothing we could do.
• 20:30
  We, we couldn't, we couldn't stop it.
• 20:32
  So we had to adjust.
• 20:34
  So we kind of stayed with the printing model and we started to build internet
• 20:39
  sites for their dealers so that they had the product information on their internet
• 20:44
  site that was up to date and they could.
• 20:47
  Have a checklist.
• 20:48
  They would go, these are the products I want on my internet site.
• 20:50
  And just do a checklist.
• 20:52
  And they were forced in to do some and then we, we did it, we, here's your
• 20:55
  internet site or the suction of your internet site that covers Whirlpool.
• 20:59
  And one gentleman from Whirlpool said, well, John, why don't
• 21:02
  you build a brochure that way?
• 21:05
  So the IT department wasn't interested in this.
• 21:07
  Now, now we're really back to being a advertising agency in the digital age.
• 21:13
  So we, it was the same idea, same software, more or less, and we
• 21:17
  developed, a dealer could just sit there, add a customer in front
• 21:20
  of him, they wanted to leave.
• 21:21
  He could build a brochure for him right there and then hand it to 'em.
• 21:26
  And they walked, you know, they printed it just off their local printer and, and
• 21:29
  had something memorable that they could take home and they didn't have to give 'em
• 21:33
  the $3 and 50 cent, uh, color brochure.
• 21:36
  So, and it was up to date and was, had their name on it.
• 21:39
  It was perfectly customized.
• 21:40
  So that worked out real well.
• 21:43
  So that.
• 21:44
  Reinvention, right?
• 21:46
  Of here's a problem, here's an issue, or here's something that customers
• 21:51
  are telling me that they're needing or something that I see that that is needed.
• 21:58
  Going out and finding people that know how to do that thing.
• 22:02
  'cause it can't be just the one person, right?
• 22:04
  You don't need to be the internet expert.
• 22:06
  You don't need to be a programmer.
• 22:08
  You don't need to be, uh, somebody who is, understands and works with ai.
• 22:14
  You find the people that do bring them on, give them the empowerment
• 22:20
  to figure things out, have the grace of failure, and then, oh, by the way,
• 22:24
  you're gonna have to keep adjusting.
• 22:26
  Right?
• 22:27
  And that is kind of the lesson that I lucked out and learn in this whole thing.
• 22:35
  Was, it's the way your business is.
• 22:37
  So it was my dad and myself.
• 22:38
  Okay.
• 22:39
  So, and I think a lot of people may be watching this podcast are from family
• 22:43
  businesses and the transition to go through and I, the timing was just right.
• 22:49
  When I came into the business, I learned advertising, but I didn't
• 22:53
  really grow yet into the, the accounting and the business aspects of it.
• 22:58
  You know, who's gonna mow the lawn, who's gonna fix the refrigerator?
• 23:01
  That broke.
• 23:01
  I was just concentrating on the business, and then when the internet
• 23:05
  came, my dad said, yeah, go for it.
• 23:08
  I'll take care of all this other stuff.
• 23:10
  You don't worry about all this other stuff.
• 23:12
  You focus on this.
• 23:15
  We'll get other people to handle all this other stuff around you.
• 23:18
  And I think that's true today in any business where you can get hung up
• 23:23
  on the day-to-day stuff, so buried in who's mowing the lawn or whatever, but
• 23:30
  just too much or solving the little problems, and you don't give yourself
• 23:34
  enough time to look at the big picture.
• 23:38
  Look, look towards the future to spend a, an afternoon with a bunch
• 23:43
  of other businessmen trying to figure out what to do with this or how this
• 23:47
  works, and to do the research on it.
• 23:49
  Then to, not that you have to learn how to do the new stuff, but find people who do.
• 23:55
  So if you can do anything, outsource the day-to-day stuff as much as
• 24:00
  you possibly can, and then you go ahead and look at the big picture.
• 24:05
  And that's hard to do because you.
• 24:07
  Get used to doing the day-to-day stuff and you're good at it.
• 24:10
  But we also used to tell even our clients, if you're doing business
• 24:14
  the same way you did it last year, you're going out of business.
• 24:18
  And I think that's even more so today.
• 24:21
  If you are, if you're still thinking next year, just.
• 24:26
  Add inflation into the budget and then we're gonna go and we're
• 24:28
  gonna keep running with this stuff.
• 24:30
  It isn't gonna happen 'cause it changes so, so fast.
• 24:33
  So somebody's gotta be minding the store as it were.
• 24:37
  Uh, but.
• 24:38
  You can't mind the store and look to the future and see the bigger picture and
• 24:42
  plan out where are we gonna be in the next six months or you know, six years.
• 24:47
  Right?
• 24:47
  And it is noise, but it's also comfort 'cause you feel
• 24:50
  comfortable solving those problems.
• 24:52
  Okay.
• 24:53
  And you get kind of a addicted to being the smartest guy in
• 24:56
  a room solving these problems.
• 24:59
  It's hard to jump out of that, jump into a room where you aren't the smartest
• 25:04
  guy in a room and you don't know exactly what's going on, but you, you have a
• 25:07
  niche where you can build it together.
• 25:09
  That's the, that's the hardest for, I think, a family business to be
• 25:13
  able to jump to the new stuff and the somewhat conflict between the older
• 25:19
  generation and the younger generation.
• 25:21
  My dad was smart enough to let me do the new generation
• 25:26
  thing, and that was a blessing.
• 25:28
  And that's, uh, doesn't always happen.
• 25:30
  So, but that was good.
• 25:31
  Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's so extraordinary.
• 25:34
  And, you know, we've talked about this, the parallels of, of your experience and
• 25:40
  how you were able to be on the forefront and see it coming of the internet.
• 25:45
  And of course, the.com boom that happened throughout the.
• 25:48
  Uh, nineties and, and, uh, all the way up, uh, until the, the bubble burst 2001.
• 25:55
  Right, right.
• 25:56
  And, and listen, AI's going burst too, right?
• 25:58
  Like everything does.
• 26:00
  That's the whole notion of it expands and then it, it comes back
• 26:04
  down, uh, just as the internet did.
• 26:06
  But it's not just like the internet.
• 26:08
  It's not going away.
• 26:10
  Right.
• 26:10
  So the newer technologies.
• 26:13
  Aren't going away.
• 26:14
  Right.
• 26:15
  So embrace it and lean into it.
• 26:19
  Right?
• 26:19
  Yeah.
• 26:21
  And it's hard to do, but that's, that's basically my story.
• 26:26
  I think it's an amazing story.
• 26:27
  And, you know, I was earlier this week having a conversation with someone and he
• 26:32
  was stressing and stressing about, well, which AI is the right one for my business?
• 26:37
  And, and I just looked at him, I said, whichever one you pick.
• 26:41
  Right.
• 26:41
  That's the right one.
• 26:43
  Right.
• 26:43
  That's they just do it.
• 26:46
  Fail fast, find out quick.
• 26:48
  Let's go find out.
• 26:50
  Right.
• 26:50
  And then you're gonna learn a lot.
• 26:52
  Yeah.
• 26:52
  So, and, and of course AI is moving so fast.
• 26:55
  By the end of this conversation it will have changed significantly.
• 27:00
  Right.
• 27:00
  So, right.
• 27:01
  Just get in.
• 27:02
  Just get in and, and, but again, like the risk is a little bit monetary, a
• 27:06
  little bit of your time and effort and energy, but the reward is huge and, and
• 27:11
  you don't know even what it's gonna be.
• 27:12
  Amazon didn't know what they were gonna grow into when they
• 27:15
  started selling books on online.
• 27:17
  So many parallels to what's happening today and such.
• 27:21
  Great.
• 27:22
  That, that you're giving.
• 27:23
  So thank you for your time, John.
• 27:26
  If people have questions and wanna reach out to you and for some
• 27:30
  advice or for to hear more about your story, how can they do that?
• 27:34
  How can people get ahold of you?
• 27:36
  Well, you can use my email at john@johnsullivan.com.
• 27:41
  Perfect.
• 27:43
  I got on the internet so early I could buy my own name.
• 27:46
  I was gonna point that out.
• 27:47
  I love it.
• 27:48
  Right.
• 27:49
  I absolutely love it.
• 27:51
  John, what a remarkable story.
• 27:53
  Thank you so much for sharing it with us and sharing your takeaways and insights
• 27:59
  and, and, you know, continue to have that curiosity mindset and to seek learning.
• 28:07
  Uh, continue doing that.
• 28:09
  That's fantastic.
• 28:09
  Thank you, sir. You're the be you're the best, Denise, thank you very much.
• 28:13
  Thank you, John.
• 28:15
  If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review
• 28:19
  us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• 28:22
  And if you're ready to grow, you can reach us@thegrowthpro.com and set up a
• 28:26
  free growth call with one of our coaches.
• 28:30
  And once again, would like to thank our sponsors for today, A&A
• 28:33
  Global, Betson, Embed, Party Center Software, Semnox, Shafer, and Roller.
• 28:40
  Until next time.
• 28:42
  I'm Denise Killian for the GrowthPro Group.
• 28:44
  Keep learning, keep growing, and keep striving for the extraordinary.