Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Leverage AI to Grow Your Business with Joanne Eriaku

Transcript

How to Leverage AI to Grow Your Business with Joanne Eriaku · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:02
  321.
• 0:06
  Lift off.
• 0:09
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the smallbizchat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the Small Biz Chat podcast?
• 0:37
  Well, it's time.
• 0:38
  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:45
  In just 20 minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel your
• 0:52
  business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Business Chat podcast today.
• 0:59
  My first guest is Joanne Iraku, and she is an AI expert.
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  And she's from SOAR, the school of AI readiness, and she's gonna talk to us about
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  that.
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  She's a wealth of experience in consulting with Global 2,000 Companies from Nairobi to New
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  York.
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  Joanne is known for her ability to break down complexity into practical, actionable steps,
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  and she moves business leaders from the state of vulnerability to preparedness.
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  Her work spans reshaping business functions, unlocking new opportunities, and reimagining
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  entire business models through SOAR.
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  Joette equips you with not what is don't she doesn't want people to be fearful of the
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  future.
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  She prepares you to future proof your business and indeed soar.
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  And for more information, you can go to the school of AI readiness.com.
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  Joanne, welcome to the Small Business Chat podcast.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  I am delighted to be here, Melinda.
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  Well, tell us about you.
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  How did you come to be this, you know, bulletproof AI expert?
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  It's still so nascent and new, but I'm so excited to hear about it that you can help my
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  really understand more about it.
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  Absolutely.
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  So, I have been this really is an extension of the work that I've already been doing.
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  So the work that I've been doing is really a lot of strategy consulting on behalf of, both
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  small and, more larger businesses, and so very comfortable whether I'm in the boardroom or in
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  the project room.
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  And as part of strategy, there is a branch, a niche of strategy called strategic foresight,
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  which is really more about what's coming, what's ahead, you know, whether that's what are
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  the forces come, the market forces, technology forces, regulatory forces.
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  And it really looks at what's ahead, and then it's sort of like back cast and seeing what
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  might that mean for us now and how should we prepare.
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  So as part of my everyday work with strategic foresight, AI has been on the radar, honestly,
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  for quite a number of years.
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  It's just that it has, like, super, super accelerated.
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  So there are a number of other technologies.
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  There's quantum, which is coming.
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  That's another story, another day, another chat.
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  But AI specifically is sort of like it's upon us right now.
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  And so that's why I'm focusing a lot more of my attention on AI right now.
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  So it's really just an extension of what I've been doing.
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  It's just hyperfocus on AI because it's literally upon us right now.
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  Alright.
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  So let's let's start there.
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  There's lots of talk about AI.
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  Right?
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  Oh, AI.
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  This AI Reddit is it feels like a lot of hype.
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  Okay?
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  So so help me understand.
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  How do we break down some of the misconceptions that small business owners?
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  Because, I mean, to hear people tell it, you know, AI is gonna turn all of our business
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  model.
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  We're gonna go to the dinosaur age of business.
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  Right?
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  You know, they're gonna put all of us out of business.
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  So can you explain, you know, some misconceptions and how we can all think about
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  AI, not from a fear perspective, but but, like, okay.
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  What do we have to do to get prepared?
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  Mhmm.
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  Absolutely.
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  So I will start by saying that AI is not new.
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  Okay?
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  AI has been around for quite a while.
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  If you've been using Google Maps or Apple Maps, that's AI.
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  That is a form of artificial intelligence.
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  Siri or Alexa in your houses, that is all AI.
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  So it's been around.
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  It's not a new thing.
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  However, what is new and has, like, suddenly burst upon the scene and made us all sort of,
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  like, wake up is generative AI, which is now the chat GPT that everybody is talking about.
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  That was the main introduction to, woah.
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  AI has come upon us.
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  Now there are different types of AI, and as you can hear, they have different applications.
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  But the truth of the matter is that it's not something which is scary.
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  It is a technology at the end of the day.
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  It cannot think.
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  It cannot take your job because what it really is, it's a program.
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  It's a program.
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  It's programmed to predict, you know, the next sentence or the next word or the next slide.
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  That's really what artificial intelligence is, you know, at the end of the day.
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  And it is a very helpful tool.
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  And when you think about it, the the tool has now sort of, like, burst on the mainstream, and
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  we have an option of putting our head in the sand, or we have an option of sort of, like,
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  waking up to it and seeing, how might I be able to sort of, like, take advantage, of the
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  opportunities that this has to offer.
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  And so just if I'm to pick 1 myth, one big myth really about AI specific to small businesses is
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  that, you don't need it.
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  You know, you'll be fine just rolling the way you've been rolling for all the days that
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  you've been rolling.
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  That's that's a myth.
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  To be very honest, everybody is going to be affected in one way or another by artificial
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  intelligence.
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  It's kind of like how electricity is helpful to everyone.
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  Yes.
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  We have to be careful on how we channel that electricity.
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  But at the end of the day, it's a tool and it affects everyone.
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  So is AI.
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  AI is here to stay.
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  It is a natural advancement of technologies that folks have been working on for decades.
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  You know?
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  And so the big myth really is someone thinking that it's more of a vitamin and they don't
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  really need it.
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  You know, they can wait.
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  No.
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  Reality, you you cannot wait.
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  It actually is here, and it is prudent.
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  It is really prudent of especially you, my small business friends, because big businesses
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  are usually jumping on this faster because, you know, they hire all these large teams which see
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  the future.
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  And so this is like clarion call to my my smaller businesses, my I'm a small business
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  myself to really sort of, like, sit up, pay attention, and don't be a victim, be a victor
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  in this.
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  Alright.
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  So give me some examples of how I could be a victor with AI.
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  Right?
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  I mean, I think the most basic use of AI, people using it to do content.
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  Right?
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  Emails, you know, newsletters, that kind of stuff.
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  But tell me about some other more ways that we could be using AI that we're not even thinking
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  of yet.
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  Oh, a 100%.
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  Absolutely.
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  I'll give you a a baseline, first of all.
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  At a foundational level, there are three things that AI and for that matter, any technology on
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  the planet does.
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  Only 3 things.
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  Like, let's keep it simple.
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  Specifically AI, it helps you to automate or make operations more efficient.
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  Okay?
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  So that's 1.
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  So operational efficiencies.
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  Instead of doing everything manually, you're able to automate.
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  So that is the first one.
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  The second one is that it enhances experiences.
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  Okay?
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  It enhances customer experiences, employee experiences, your own experience.
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  It's an experience enhancer.
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  That's the second big thing.
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  And then third is it informs decision making better.
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  Like, you're able to see predictively, analytically so much more clearer clearer, and
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  you're able to go like, ah, that's what I should do.
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  So at a baseline, that is everything that AI will do for you.
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  Okay?
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  It'll either help you operationalize something better.
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  It'll help you enhance an experience by personalization, for example, or it'll help you
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  make decisions better.
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  Those are the main things it'll do.
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  Now if we're to get really hyper specific, small businesses, what really can add before
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  you've already mentioned some of them.
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  The by far, marketing is the most, the biggest opportunity where AI use cases are being seen
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  right now.
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  In fact, about 80% of AI especially generative AI use cases are in the marketing function.
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  And I mean end to end, The entire marketing function can be automated by AI.
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  I'll give you an example.
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  Here we are.
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  We're on a webinar right now, Minh.
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  And, if if if we want, we can have AI not just record this, but then thereafter,
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  automatically, it schedules whatever clips that can come out of it, whatever transcripts,
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  whatever social media posts, all automatically able to hit send the minute this is over.
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  That is something which is so manual for us right now, but AI can do that.
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  You know?
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  So I'm just giving you one tiny example of what AI can do, but then it's not just about
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  marketing.
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  It's also you, your internal operations.
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  Like, what is possible for you internally, especially as small businesses?
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  We are so busy.
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  We are so burdened.
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  We are doing so much.
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  And, normally, our issue is time.
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  We are time poor, and we you know, we are the you're the manager.
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  You're the secretary.
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  You're the administrator.
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  You're the you're the financial, the everything.
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  Now AI can actually take some of those hats for you, own them for you, and become your
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  employee, so to speak.
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  Like, you can employ AI to do, you know, some of these tasks for you.
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  That way, you can save yourself a day or 2 a week.
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  You know?
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  AI can do some of those tasks.
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  But the one which I really want folks to really hone in on is AI is not just a tool.
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  You can make money using AI.
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  That is that is super exciting for me.
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  Like, at the end of the day, it's not just a tool that you utilize for your operations.
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  You can use it to make money off.
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  There are revenue streams you can generate just with what you already know from your already
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  existing expertise.
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  Whoo.
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  You got you had me at hello.
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  When you said you can make money with AI, I was like, girl, wait a minute.
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  How can we you know, I I wanna know more about this, and I'm really excited because I'll just
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  let the cat out of the bag.
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  So you're actually gonna do a master class for me, for my audience in September.
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  Right?
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  We're gonna do it September 23rd to no.
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  September 26th.
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  26th.
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  We're gonna do a 3 hour master class on how to make money with AI.
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  So, hey, guys.
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  Listen to me carefully.
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  Check out my website.
• 12:05
  Check out my newsletter.
• 12:06
  We're gonna have the links to come out for you to register for the AI boot camp master class.
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  We're gonna break it down how to make, AI thing great.
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  So that is, like, so so so so awesome.
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  Alright.
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  So I wanna circle back to this for a second.
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  So what do you feel like the first steps a small business owner should take if they wanna
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  use AI?
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  Like, what what are the first things I need to, like, be thinking about or understand,
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  especially when it comes to automating things?
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  Because there's one thing to go in and ask chat.
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  Hey.
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  Can you develop, you know, some copy for today's newsletter?
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  But but when you talk about AI automations, like, what do I what do I need to know to,
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  like, make
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  sure Absolutely.
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  So here's the thing.
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  For all those whom I am serving, we usually start from a place of you need to see some
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  examples.
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  You need to be inspired a bit and understand.
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  You know?
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  Don't, like, don't even go and read about it.
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  Like, first, let's see some examples.
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  Let's see who's doing what with it.
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  What are some examples about it?
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  What are some cautionary tales?
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  Like, just to inform your brain so you do not have to start from 0.
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  Then once you've, you know, fairly inspired, you then get to understand that, think I need
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  to educate myself a little bit more.
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  So AI literacy is key.
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  Like, I wouldn't want you to go and actually start developing anything AI until you have
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  some form of literacy, understanding what it is which you're dealing with.
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  And good news, we're gonna be covering that in the in the master class where we we start from
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  the foundations.
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  We don't take you straight to how to make the money.
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  We actually are gonna spend some time and take you behind the scenes, pull up the covers so
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  you get to understand exactly how does this AI animal work.
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  Okay?
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  So AI literacy is key.
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  And as part of AI literacy, in comes AI safety.
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  You know, just understand because you're dealing with this as surely as you deal with
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  electricity and gas, and you have to know the safety measures, but you still cope with it.
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  Same with AI.
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  You need to know both sides of the equation.
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  You know?
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  And once you have some literacy, once you've had some inspiration, something which is key is
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  data.
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  So here's the thing, Melinda.
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  There's no AI without data.
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  You need a you need data to feed AI.
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  Like, that's what it feeds upon because it's not a it's not a living thing.
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  It's it's a computer program.
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  It needs data in in order to get data out.
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  Okay?
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  And so it really helps, especially us smaller businesses, to really start thinking about the
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  quality of our data, the, type of data that we have, and how to really clean it up, make it
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  quality, make it accessible, usable because AI needs to eat good data in order to bring good
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  outcomes.
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  So those are sort of, like, some of the three main things, which one should be doing when
• 15:03
  they even want to start.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  You have made me so excited to wanna learn more about this.
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  But, unfortunately, we have to take a break, and we're gonna come back more with talking
• 15:15
  with the chief at AI officer at the School of AI Readiness.
• 15:20
  You're watching the Small Biz Tap podcast, and we will be right back.
• 15:25
  Hi.
• 15:25
  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and I wanna welcome you to smallbizladyacademy.com,
• 15:32
  your go to resource for women entrepreneurs.
• 15:35
  Whether you're just starting out or ready to grow, we've got everything you need to succeed
• 15:41
  from expert interviews to live coaching session.
• 15:44
  Our platform offers practical tools and strategy to help you build a profitable small
• 15:51
  business.
• 15:52
  Join our vibrant community of like minded entrepreneurs today and take your business to
• 15:57
  new heights.
• 15:58
  Visit smallbizladyacademy.com and start your journey.
• 16:03
  Hi there.
• 16:03
  Welcome back to the Small Biz Chat podcast.
• 16:05
  I'm Melinda Emerson, your host, and we're talking with Joanne Iracu, and we're talking
• 16:11
  about how to use AI to make dough, to make cash.
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  I'm so excited about this.
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  Small businesses are not being left out.
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  AI has leveled the playing field.
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  Alright, Joanne.
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  Talk to me about some of the challenges with small businesses using AI.
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  I know you talked about you gotta have clean data, but what else do you gotta be thinking
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  about before you just go, you know, sort of, like, unleashing all your, you know,
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  proprietary customer information
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  in Oh, gosh.
• 16:42
  Oh.
• 16:42
  Like, make you make money, but, you know, you gotta you gotta share your secrets in order to
• 16:46
  get some good stuff.
• 16:47
  So how do you do that without potentially risking, like, your intellectual property
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  being, you know Mhmm.
• 16:53
  Given to you freely by, you know, by utilizing an AI platform?
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  Absolutely.
• 16:58
  And you're you're hitting the nail right in the head.
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  There is a list of potential risk for sure, but I will hone in specifically on the one that you
• 17:08
  started touching right there.
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  So here's the thing.
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  Every time you're prompting, any of the, let's say, chat GPT in this case or any of the,
• 17:20
  generative AI models, you're giving it your data.
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  Okay?
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  You literally are giving it your data.
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  I'll give you a funny story.
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  Amazon, had to request that its employees stop prompting certain models because some sensitive
• 17:38
  company information was showing up on, you know, the chatbot results.
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  So you're actually giving it your data.
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  Now there are ways you need to get into the settings and you need to change some of those
• 17:51
  settings behind the scenes.
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  But chances are, if you're going to do that today, AI has already probably scraped your
• 18:01
  data.
• 18:01
  It already probably has it because it's been doing this for years, you know.
• 18:07
  So one is, yes, it's you need to watch the data that you're prompting it, that you're sharing.
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  You can ask it to prompt, but remove the client sensitive data or the identifying information
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  because it can show up, you know, somewhere on somebody's, search.
• 18:24
  So that's one thing.
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  But on the flip side, while you're getting, for example, Chargept or generative AI to create
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  for you content, some of that content is plagiarism, and you can find yourself in deep,
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  deep trouble.
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  Okay?
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  So you really have to learn how to end.
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  We're going to go through some of this when we go to the master class.
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  You really have to learn to make sure that you are setting the expectations.
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  It's called context engineering.
• 18:52
  There's prompt engineering, but there's context engineering where you're telling the chatbot
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  that, hey.
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  I need you to produce me a response like this, but I need to make sure that it is explainable
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  or site sources and that sort of thing.
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  So these are some of the sort of, like, very, very high level things that one really needs to
• 19:12
  look out for.
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  There's a whole laundry list.
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  I know we do not have time to go through all of them.
• 19:16
  Just come to the master class.
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  It's a start.
• 19:18
  It's a start.
• 19:19
  Absolutely.
• 19:20
  Absolutely.
• 19:21
  We're definitely gonna be teaching this.
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  We got 3 hours with you that day, so I'm so, so, so excited, to help people learn more.
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  And and tell me this, how do you see AI shaping the future for small businesses over the next 5
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  to 10 years?
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  Oh, I'm not gonna go to 10 because that is very difficult to predict right now.
• 19:44
  The pace at which the technology is moving, I'm gonna give you more of, like, a 2 to 5, because
• 19:49
  it is it is really seriously changing quickly.
• 19:52
  I'll say this.
• 19:53
  We human beings are notoriously well known for thinking linearly.
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  Like, we think in terms of incremental, additions of the same.
• 20:04
  AI, if you want to think AI, you need to think exponentially.
• 20:09
  You need to be thinking completely out of the box.
• 20:13
  And so while we did discuss that AI is great for automation and your operations and
• 20:20
  personalization, and we did talk about, yes, it can make you money, and we did talk about
• 20:26
  decisions, that it'll help you make.
• 20:29
  Just if we step out a little bit and think a little bit more exponentially.
• 20:33
  The thing where I see this really being most helpful for small businesses is small teams are
• 20:40
  going to be able to accomplish exactly what large organizations are able to accomplish
• 20:47
  because they're going to have the technology to help them accomplish that.
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  So small teams are gonna get really large impact just because of the resources that they
• 20:58
  have at their disposal.
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  So my small business friends, here's the thing.
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  AI is like your employee, 10 x.
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  It don't need no bonus.
• 21:07
  It don't need no medical insurance and that sort of thing.
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  It is there, and it's working 247 if you set it up too.
• 21:15
  It frees you up.
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  All those things you've been wishing in your head and whatnot, it frees you up to do that,
• 21:22
  to do that higher level thinking.
• 21:24
  So the skills are going to shift for small businesses, for everyone, but I'm speaking to
• 21:29
  small businesses.
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  It's going to be less about what you know and what you know to do, in terms of a function or
• 21:37
  a topic, and it's going to be more about how you harness the resources at your disposal to
• 21:44
  get you what you want.
• 21:46
  So, Sam Altman in an interview, with, Alex Ohanian, of Reddit.
• 21:54
  Sam Altman, is the cofounder of, OpenAI, the makers of ChartGPT, said something really
• 22:02
  profound.
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  He said, a time is coming when a $1,000,000,000 one person enterprise is going to be possible.
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  I'm paraphrasing.
• 22:11
  Okay?
• 22:12
  Something within those lines.
• 22:14
  The queue is right there.
• 22:16
  The thing is, it's not going to be so much about how many people can I hire, but how well
• 22:23
  can I harness, orchestrate their bots, the resources that I have?
• 22:30
  And it is absolutely gonna be possible to have a $1,000,000,000 enterprise as a singular
• 22:35
  person if we keep going the way that we are going.
• 22:40
  Well, lord, I wanna be that person.
• 22:42
  Okay.
• 22:43
  Anyway, Joanne, thank you so much.
• 22:46
  You have been so insightful.
• 22:48
  I cannot wait until, you know, September 26th for our masterclass.
• 22:54
  It's gonna be 3 hours.
• 22:56
  You're gonna be dropping so much knowledge.
• 22:58
  I am just so excited that we're gonna be partnering with you on that.
• 23:02
  So I wanna invite everybody to head over to smallbizladyuniversity.com to sign up for the
• 23:07
  master class.
• 23:08
  It's going to be amazing, and we have an assessment tool there too.
• 23:12
  You could find out what your AI readiness is even before this master class.
• 23:16
  So head over there and check it out.
• 23:18
  Alright.
• 23:18
  When we come back, we're gonna be talking about how you can increase your sales 300%.
• 23:24
  Who doesn't wanna know about that?
• 23:26
  Alright.
• 23:26
  You're watching the Small Biz Chat podcast.
• 23:34
  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 23:39
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 23:44
  more fantastic information and interviews.
• 23:47
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 23:52
  website, succeed as your own boss.com.
• 23:55
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.