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How To Future Proof Your Business With AI Tools · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of AI Made Simple.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Steve Brown, your host.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I here?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just to help you look around the corner, understand what's uh going on in our world, how AI is impacting everything that we're doing.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And wouldn't it be cool if you could just have the easy button to understand what's going on with the AI and how to take advantage of it to future proof what's happening?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to talk about um what happened to me during COVID.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you uh if you were like me during COVID, you got caught flat-footed, all of a sudden uh our world changed, didn't see it coming.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: There were things that I uh struggled with.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: My agency lost um half of our customers, more than half of our revenue in just a matter of months, and I was left reeling and um circling the drain is what it felt like.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was really hard.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent I spent uh a couple of years fighting to get back to the way things were before COVID and um being being stubborn, it took me a while, but I realized, hey, things aren't going back.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: My customers have changed, our industry has changed, my employees have changed, and uh so many things have changed.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had to retool everything, and so the reason behind the reason behind this show, AI made simple, is to help you avoid having to struggle to all the things that are going to come because AI is going to disrupt your government, it's gonna disrupt your industry, it's gonna disrupt your your workflow, and in many ways, you can prepare, you can uh learn it, but what we're doing is hey, it's coming, so why not get prepared?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why not learn how to take advantage of um AI and what's existing and be in the driver's seat and not be caught flat footed and not be trying to get back to the day way things were before AI.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so today what I wanted to do is uh kind of share my screen and show you some uh information that um that's going to help you understand um what's going on.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me see if I can do this right this week.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna share this window and where are we?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here we go.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so what we're looking at here are these this is the um I downloaded this uh employment situation May um 2025.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is a report put out by the government and let's see here Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: The high view here is look at this.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: If we zoom in here, now this is the unemployment rate seasonally adjusted from May 23rd, uh May 2023 to May 25.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see as uh jobs growth was happening all through the past couple of years, and then look at this starting in uh November 24 on through, job growth has pretty much started to level out and is trending down.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: But this is in a good economy.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Recent uh reports came out that uh the economy is strong, we're not worried about a recession, and yet look at this.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the past, since November 24, new jobs being created month over month.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't like uh what you would expect in a typical strong economy.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does that mean?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is that uh companies are starting to um find ways to take advantage of software and AI in particular to augment their operations whereby they don't need to hire new people.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, software is cheap, AI is cheap compared to a new employee.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Employees are extremely expensive.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: They you know they're one of the biggest uh numbers on your um on your operation sheets, and so if you can instead a need to hire an new employee, what if you could take an existing employee, free them up to do more high-value things, and uh backfill all the minutiae with software or AI, then that would make sense.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what's happening.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you uh study um the magnificent seven, is what they're called on the stock market.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's Amazon and and um Facebook, Meta, Google, etc.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: These industries are having banner years, but they're letting employees go at a significant rate.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what are they doing?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're implementing AI, they're implementing uh software, and they're not really recruiting um thousands of new employees like they were in the traditional way.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we're gonna do is like let's look at an example here.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Wendy's um restaurant, fast food restaurant, restaurants are high volume, low margin industries, and there's so many ways to get burned being a restaurant manager.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's so many, you have to be like a super manager to run a great restaurant.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard, it's just a hard business, and there's so many areas food costs, labor cost, um, customer service, competition.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things clawing it at your profits, and it makes it hard.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so you'll see more and more.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: We've all seen the um things on social media about how you can go into a McDonald's and there's no employees.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what are they doing?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're implementing AI and technology and removing the expensive cost of hiring, managing, and replacing uh high turnover and custom and uh employees in um the food industry.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So Wendy's is implementing a um drive-thru AI.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: AI is now at a point where it's um it's hard to tell whether it's AI or not now when you talk on the phone.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Probably you're getting phone calls every single day, spam calls from AI uh versions of these robots that are calling and doing cold calls, for example.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so this technology is excellent for a drive-thru situation.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is uh called Fresh AI.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Wendy's has implemented it in over 160 units, and obviously, after they do this test run, they're gonna roll it out to all of their um all of their units worldwide.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see that you can imagine, you know, this is one thing that pulls a good employee away to take the orders to and to handle all the questions.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we've all had seen the funny, uh frustrating aspects of going through a drive-thru and talking, talking to that um microphone.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the AI can handle it and always be in a good mood, always be on point, always have the right answer, and you don't have to worry about your employee having a bad day.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Another area in the restaurant industry is um, you know, in the back of the house, you have to food cost is another significant impact in the uh profitability of a restaurant, and so being able to order the right amount, reduce waste, to uh not run out is really hard.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have a lot of experience to know what to order, and it takes a long time uh for a um a chef or a kitchen manager to learn all the systems, what's going on, you know, the ebbs and flows, a unique aspect of the demand in that particular area for that restaurant.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now um there's a lot of AI being implemented on taking out the guesswork of ordering efficiently products and supplies.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're reducing spoilage, you're reducing um buying items that you didn't need, you're it predicts demands, and so it's uh keeping you where you're not running out.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there's many impacts here where you're delivering good customer service, you're helping your kitchen run efficiently, and so you're able to stay profitable, keep charging for the items that are profitable, and not run out.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this is just hard, this is a hard thing to guess, and you have to have a knack for it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the ways that AI is replacing um these items that these uh areas that make it hard to be a good business manager.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, how cool would it be to have something that helps you just take the stress off of these uh gut guesses that a business, a restaurant manager, a restaurant owner has to um make every day?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing is um easy scheduling for peak performance, and so having someone that's answering the phone and um scheduling scheduling the right staff at the right time.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, how many times does a restaurant um owner have to come in to work when someone didn't show up?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so usually it's left up to the employees to trade out.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I can't keep my ship, can you cover for me?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: This starts to help you reduce all of the oh, just the hassle and the stress, and then it's invisible tax of running an efficient organization.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So labor cost again, it's high, and so being able to manage it effectively is huge.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you think about all right, I have a restaurant, there's so many restaurants in this, um, in our you know, in our country, and there are many of them are family ran.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so what what are some easy wins for you to implement?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So today I thought, you know, I will make a custom GPT, and uh you this will be um a custom GPT that you have access to.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say that some of the folks that are watching this are are actually in the restaurant business.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then um I set up what's called a profit prep GPT, and basically it's to help you strategize on how to start implementing AI in your restaurant.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, all right, I'm sold.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to I want to implement AI.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm but where do I start?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is is a restaurant a good place for AI implementation?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is absolutely.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it may, you know, what's unique?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you go search?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think through it?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you strategize?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I designed you a custom-made GPT that you'll uh you can get for free right here.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, um, in what ways can it help you?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's basically to help you get some quick wins um on how to start implementing AI in your restaurant and just do baby steps into it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I designed this to where you can start to ask it questions about all right, I'm what I'm interested, I want to start doing this, and so it's set up to go, all right, tell me about your concept or service model.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so you would start to answer these questions.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, your throughput, how many guests do you have served?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's your current tech stack?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is real important.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be uh cool to understand what technology you're using, and then start to have a strategist that helps you start considering these uh tools like the um like the Wendy's uh fresh, what do they call it?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Fresh AI.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, being a running a restaurant and then having to sit down and strategize, you know, and do research in the evenings or mornings or whenever it's kind of hard to carve out that time.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So to have a strategy partner that can help you do that research and to think about those things, that'd be cool to have.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is cool to have, and you can have it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd be able to come in and answer these questions.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can ask it to go off and do research as well.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you have a certain type of uh restaurant.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be cool to go?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so go out and now that I've answered these questions, go tell me what are the most frequently adopted uh entry-level AI tools for my particular style of restaurant.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you're probably getting a lot of emails, a lot of calls all the time, you don't know which one to trust.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here you go.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can use this to start evaluating these items.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So for those who aren't in the restaurant industry, and you want a custom GPT like this, I can help you uh design a tool that is going to help you see around the corner.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're wanting.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're wanting to we're wanting to see around the corner because it's not that it's not that we're prepared, not capable of the transition, but sometimes we're just unprepared.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to um uh know where the winds are blowing things, this tool can help you see you know, ahead five, six months, twelve months.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It can help give you data on what what folks leaders in your industry are doing and how they're thinking about AI.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is just a great research tool to do that.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want access to this, we've got uh you can go to roionline.com forward slash link tree, and I've got a list of free Chat GPT tools to simplify your business.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And right down here, you see we got Profit Prep GPT.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You just click on it, it'll take you there, it's free of charge.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You will need a subscription to Chat GPT, and you can begin to start to figure out what it is.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't see a custom GPT here that you'd love to have, let me know, and I'll design a uh one of these uh classes on how to uh uh address whatever the issue is that you're feeling that you're needing a little help with.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, what did we learn today?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Today we learned that um being caught flat footed is not fun, it's costly.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Change is on its way.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: We know this, so let's don't put our head in the sand.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's be smart about this, and let's start thinking about how we can take advantage of this AI and start to adjust the way that we're doing business right now and ride this wave instead of get crushed by this wave.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my name's Steve R.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: O.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I Brown.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is AI Made Simple, helping you uh step in artificial intelligence to make it easy, less clumsy.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Reach out, let me know what topic you'd like to cover.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next week on the next episode of AI Made Simple.