Latest / WTF! Women Talk Finance / EP 02: The Role of AI In Business Operations - Part 1

Transcript

EP 02: The Role of AI In Business Operations - Part 1 · WTF! Women Talk Finance

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm Jackie.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm Candace.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: And this is WTF.
0:05
SPEAKER_03: Grab your coffee, wine, water bottle, emotional support snack.
0:09
SPEAKER_03: No judgment.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: And let's get into it.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, so dear audience, uh, today we have Jen Gore on.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: She is a coach, she is a business operator, she is an author, and she's honestly one of the most grounded voices that I think we've ever worked with, um, especially when it comes to getting your life and your business out of chaos and into something that works.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: And she's gonna say a whole lot about that soon.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, Jen is the person you want to go to when you're like, should it feel this hard?
0:42
SPEAKER_01: What am I missing?
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Why is my business stuck?
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Why am I stuck?
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Am I stuck?
0:49
SPEAKER_01: And why am I exhausted, but seemingly nothing is moving?
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and she will lovingly, but directly, she will be very direct, uh, she will tell you what might not be working and what you can do instead.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: So um, on a quick side note, we've been on Jen's show called Power CEOs, uh, which we love.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: And it was like this full full circle moment when our worlds just collided.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: And it was one of our initial conversations, actually.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: And since then, this has evolved into like business together, friendship, really interesting conversations.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, we've been really lucky to have Jen participate.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: A Shark Tank panel we did together that was super fun.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, so all around, we're just huge Django Day fans, and you're gonna get a little bit of fangirling on this show, and then also hopefully some really valuable application.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh, whether you're a founder or just a woman in finance or a woman in general looking to enhance social capital, whatever it is.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, so Jen, with that powerhouse intro in mind, I know people call you Wonder Woman.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, can you give us a little more background?
1:51
SPEAKER_01: The let's not be humble for a second.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: What did that intro miss?
1:55
SPEAKER_01: What else can we know about you?
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: You call me Wonder Woman.
2:03
SPEAKER_03: Actually, Tom calls you Wonder Woman.
2:08
SPEAKER_03: Always introduces you.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest, I I think the I think the biggest thing is uh for those watching, I was in sports medicine and human performance.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm an expert in human performance for 20 years and I've turned that onto business.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: And the reality is, is it doesn't have to be that hard.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: You just need the right team in your corner, the right systems.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: If you're hard on your systems and build the right operations into your business, you can be easy on the people and easier on yourself and really take that back.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: And so um, I think from all of the things that I've done, uh, you know, whether it's investing, whether it's whether it's helping other entrepreneurs, et cetera, it it really boils down to what is most important to you and in your life and why are you doing this?
2:49
SPEAKER_02: And if you can get super crystal clear on that and put the actions in place and the systems in place to get there, it doesn't have to be this hard.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: And the other thing is you don't have to do it alone.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: And I think that can't, Candace and Jackie, that's one of the reasons that we get along so well because you guys share that same, you know, let's not operate in an island.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: You're not alone.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Reach out to the right, reach out to the people who have been there and done that and can help you through the process.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: Because I think, you know, all of my collective experience, all of your collective experience, that's it's a shame not to tap into that and to really see what your potential is.
3:22
SPEAKER_03: I think none of us suffer in silence well.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: It's like we're like, this is a problem, and I'm going to solve this.
3:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to just sit here and endure this pain forever.
3:34
SPEAKER_03: Like there's something here, and we see it in other people too.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: It's something we don't want other people suffering either.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: We're like, let's let's attack this.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, and you have an AI mastermind.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: AI is that AI is so hot right now.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but really it's it's AI in the context of operations within your business, right?
3:54
SPEAKER_01: And we have had a lot of conversations with people looking for private capital, um, investors, people looking to invest.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: And we've said like AI needs to be a part of the conversation.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: If you're not implementing AI, you're probably not optimizing your operations, and therefore probably not positioned to really grow and scale, right?
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Dive in in that lane.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: That's a really deep lane.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: It's a deep lane, it's a wide one too.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: There's room for a few swimmers here.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: We're going into Mariana Trench.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: Oh, so I would argue at this point in time, AI has been here for a long time.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: It's not new, and it's integrated into all of the big name, big box solutions that you have.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: If you're using enterprise solutions, they've baked it in.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot of founders are afraid of this.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're afraid of optimizing or afraid that things are going to take away.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna just start with never outsource your thinking to artificial intelligence.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: So if you're if you're here and you're thinking about artificial intelligence, um, it's literally a paradigm shift from what we were doing with software.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: It's not just an upgrade to Excel.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: So you have to think about it differently and you have to think about what do I want to have control of as a human, whether it's me or the leadership team I've got in place.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's your strategic decision-making skills because AI does not at this point in time, and I don't foresee it ever having the capability of owning lived experience.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: And as founders, we have a lot of that.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so lived experience helps shape our decisions.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: It's not just, I'm gonna give an example.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: It's not just about the numbers, right?
5:39
SPEAKER_02: If you only look at a deal and you think about it from an investment standpoint and you look at it and the numbers are great, that's wonderful.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: But what if the person's a complete jerk and they don't do what they say they're gonna do?
5:48
SPEAKER_02: And even though everything on paper looks right, um something misfires and then they just lose their ever-living mind later down the stretch, right?
5:56
SPEAKER_02: You lose your money, you lose, you have a horrible experience.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: AI doesn't have that experience to back it up with, it's just looking at the numbers.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: So think about it in that context.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: AI is looking at it from what is programmed into it.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, so when we approach this, we have to look at it like it's gonna optimize everything we feed it, right?
6:13
SPEAKER_02: So if we feed it systems that are not optimized, or maybe um things or procedures that we've been doing and they're kind of archaic and they're not yielding our result, all that does is accelerate that bad result.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: So when we think about AI readiness and AAI, we think about it as operational excellence.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: What do I need to do?
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Am I operating as efficiently in the human part of the process?
6:35
SPEAKER_02: How much is that human process costing me and in time and capital?
6:41
SPEAKER_02: Because that's a very big one.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: And and what will be the result if we don't understand, I run X process a hundred times in a week, right?
6:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it costs me a thousand times every time I run it.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: But if AI can now run that and now it only, you know, now it costs me half the amount.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: Look at the savings that you have, and then that's in in perpetuity.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: So we have to look at it from the time savings and say, okay, well, that frees up half my time now because I'm no longer having to be involved in this process.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: So now what can I turn my human um higher level, higher value contribution to?
7:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's growing the business, scaling the business, training my replacement, hiring my leadership team so that I can exit the business or whatever your goal is, doesn't matter what your goal is, whether you're exiting or you're just hoping to, you know, free some of your time.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: But we have to look at it from that lens because what I'm seeing go wrong with AI is people just going for shiny objects, putting things in, and then it's it's exposing problems.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: It's exposing logic problems, it's exposing uh gaps in systems that you have, and it's exposing that in an epic fashion.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: So instead of little mistakes, we're having very large mistakes.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'd say operational excellence is what's working, where are the gaps now?
7:52
SPEAKER_02: Fix that first and then put an automation to it after the fact.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: But the most important thing is what will we not let it do?
7:59
SPEAKER_02: Because you can't add that after the fact.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: You're seeing that in the news right now with all of these big mistakes happening all over the place.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: It's because they tried to put put guardrails in after the fact.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: We have to know very clearly what we do want it to do and what we absolutely do not, so that we can train it from the beginning in that fashion.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's what you wanted.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: No, that's no, it's fantastic.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: And so, our audience, we want to speak to women, but also like this does apply to everyone.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: And we love, we welcome our male audience members as well.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: But for women in finance, and in particular, the the first thing you said was don't outsource your thinking.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And what I would add to that is you can't outsource your emotional intelligence.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And I know you work with a lot of women founders, a lot of women business owners, um, you coach a lot, and I think that's something that um it deserves to be brought back into the conversation is how do you mix AI with emotional intelligence to like amplify your result?
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of our conversations are just AI this, AI that.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: I want to use this tool.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: How do I use that?
9:02
SPEAKER_01: I have so many, how do I make them work together?
9:04
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, whoa, there is still such a place for our humans, our women, our emotional intelligence, our our male founders as well, our introverts, our thinkers, our you name it.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: So there's an easy answer to this.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Any point that requires trust is something we don't outsource because it requires that in emotional intelligence and that human decision-making process.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'll give you an example about this, right?
9:37
SPEAKER_02: All of these companies went, they automated their entire customer service to AI, they fired all their employees, and what are they doing now?
9:44
SPEAKER_02: They're hiring them back.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: Why?
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Because it broke trust with the client at some point along the journey.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: So, where AI is applicable in customer service is yes, it can handle a good amount of those things.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: It can make our human customer service representatives much more effective, efficient with the right answer, the right time, pointing to the right direction first.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: But in those touch points, both in the marketing and sales process to get the client in the door to become a client, um, and then in those nurture points throughout your client journey, never outsource that because those human, those human touch points are the points where we know.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna give you an example.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm gonna give you a life coaching example because part of part of what what my background is comes from coaching athletes in life coaching.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: And always around session four, five, or six, we self-sabotage.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: So I will, we will do the identity work, we'll do the deep work and help them through the transformation.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: But I know darn well that by the fourth, fifth, or sixth session, they're going to be self-sabotaging because it's kind of like here's your anchor and here's your rubber band, right?
10:53
SPEAKER_02: And you're growing and you're growing and you're growing, but you still have something anchoring you to who you are.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: And now you've stretched too much.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: And self-sabotage happens when you get too far and it bam, it slams you right back to where you are.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: So what we do is we build into session four when we're working on a uh a consecutive package, we remove that anchor.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: What is that anchor?
11:11
SPEAKER_02: We drive that forward and overcome self-sabotage so that now we may not be as far as we stretched before, but now our baseline is further down the right road.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: And then we know that's gonna happen again, usually.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, statistically, there's a little error between six and eight.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: So if it happened at four, we're we're gonna anticipate we have to re-anchor at session six or seven.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: And so we do that so that our baseline continues to grow.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
11:37
SPEAKER_02: And it's the same thing with trust in a relationship.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: Like we build our relationship, we build our relationship, but then there comes a time when our business grows so much that we can't be that involved anymore.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: So we have to hire teams, but we have to instill the trust in our teams to deliver that.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: If we take that same sort of approach and look at it like, what can we automate that can make our teams more effective, efficient to really escalate those human touch points and those high value points, then we win the AI game.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: And so that's kind of the paradigm shift that I was referring to earlier.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: We have to think about it.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: It's a virtual team that happens to be like robotic employees, if you will.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: However, that looks in your brain.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: Like it, and it has to work synergistically with our human team so that we maintain trust throughout the client journey.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, the client's gonna migrate off to somebody who's not integrated or somebody that aligns differently, or that's actually listening to them and giving them that personal human touch that they require.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Fangirl moment.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: You're so smart.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Candace.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: I know.
12:40
SPEAKER_03: We do we just love you.
12:41
SPEAKER_03: You are so smart.
12:42
SPEAKER_03: We love, I love your perspective on things.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: There were so many triggering thoughts during that.
12:47
SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna try to just like stay single focused on the first one.
12:53
SPEAKER_03: Um one of the things that popped up for me that I actually hadn't really like gotten to yet, and it was it came when you said, you know, protect your thoughts.
13:05
SPEAKER_03: This is why women in business, this is why diversity in business is so important because we need the different thought process.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: And I could see that being the risk as we continue to automate and implement these changes, is that we kind of lose some of that different perspective that truly is like a for most businesses, most people, the really kind of secret sauce to success.
13:32
SPEAKER_03: So, how do you see that?
13:34
SPEAKER_03: Do you think we're gonna hit some in fl it sounds like we kind of have in some businesses where we've hit this point where it's like, ooh, we lost kind of that magic.
13:43
SPEAKER_03: We have to dial back a little bit.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and I'm gonna start, I'm gonna preface this by we're not at kind of 50% adoption on AI in different iterations.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: And what that means is different for different companies.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: And it is a process.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of companies go in and they're like, great, this is great.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna roll it out.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: No, start small, pilot it and see with a with a curated group of customers who will give you real feedback.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: We all have those customers who are our brand ambassadors.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: Like, no matter what, they're always sending people our way.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: They love us, they give us real feedback.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: If something's not working or if there's something that they really need, they come and they go, hey, I really wish you did this because this is missing, right?
14:23
SPEAKER_02: So if we take that thought and that feedback loop approach when we do AI and we think about what's gonna give us the most value, I'm a big fan of internal AI first before we externally face it to clients.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: Why?
14:37
SPEAKER_02: Because if our teams don't buy in, then there's gonna be animosity and energetic feeling.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: And now here's the woo part.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: I generally don't talk too much about the woo, but it it is legitimately a thing.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: If you're energetically not buying in as an employee and maybe on the sales team, um, I'm not gonna use the technology and that's gonna come through to the person I'm trying to sell to, right?
14:58
SPEAKER_02: So we want it internally, and I call it find your internal cheerleaders, ladies, gentlemen, it's your internal ambassadors who are really excited about the technology and let them be that internal pilot because they will show, they will integrate, they will use it, they will give you real feedback, and then their results will get their other team members going, wait a minute, how come they're able to do 20% more volume than me?
15:24
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't make any sense.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: So it starts to show up.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: And so then the next level who were a little apprehensive will start to question and get a little more buy-in.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's kind of like a buy-in process internally, but you always start small in a sandbox pilot scenario to make sure it's actually giving you what you want.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: So that's why we needed to know the metrics on the front end for the back end, but it's about the buy-in on the human and then the the questions that often get missed when I come in at it's because they didn't adopt, um because the team was afraid that it was gonna take their jobs away.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: So I'm a fan of very radically transparent conversations.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: We as an executive team are going to integrate this, it is not gonna replace you.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: We're looking to take the things off your plate that are repetitive and help you do more of the things that you love.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Like it's really about what's in it for our employees to get buy-in.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: And then once we internally understand that and we have the employee buying, then we think about what is that external facing application that the clients are gonna interact with.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: And we have to always put ourselves in that perspective.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: So, Candace, you said something along the lines of closed perspective.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna flip the script.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: I leverage um my personal uh, I'm in a partnership for one product right now, and I leveraged it to put the other person's bias into my conversation because I am a Caucasian female.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: I have a set lived experience.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: I sell to men, women, all ethnicities, all different size businesses.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: And so I will literally have a conversation that broadens my perspective with my board of advisors.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: And I say, okay, now here is the client.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Interject all of their biases because bias has a bad rap.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes, there's bias in the internet, and and we don't want to be biased.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: However, when we're doing sales, for example, we absolutely need to know what it what the person we're selling to cares about.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: And what Candace cares about is different than what Jackie can cares about, is different than what Jen cares about.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: When we're exiting a company and we're selling a company, founders tend to think about how I sell to my customers instead of thinking about the person I'm selling to is now my customer.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: It's a completely different experience.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: I have to sell in a different way and understand what their biases are and what they're looking for.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: So leveraging the tool to say, what are my whole, where are the holes?
17:49
SPEAKER_02: What am I not thinking?
17:50
SPEAKER_02: This is my idea, this is what I'm thinking about.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: And um, I am not, you know, but the person I'm selling to is a 61-year-old uh male who has these characteristics and he cares about this, and this is his business.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: Like, what am I not seeing?
18:04
SPEAKER_02: And so it helps to broaden my perspective and my thinking so I have a more informed decision.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: So I just wanted to challenge that one thing.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh amazing.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: That is brilliant.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: And this is also, you know, Candace and I are very woo.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: We love the woo.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: We love the energy discussion.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: We love merging into energy.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I also I love this.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: I think about like people talk about reality.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, there are 8 billion humans with different layers, like your genetics, your education, your experience, your lived experience, your inherited experience, all these layers, you can call several of them are biases because they're inherent wirings, right?
18:40
SPEAKER_01: So, because of that, it creates like all these filters that facts or experience go through before they land with the person.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: And then, yeah, there's an energy of that.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: And to create alignment, like you have to understand not every we, yes, we have shared reality, right?
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Like we can agree, like we have a word for this, cell phone.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: But but there are so many different versions of reality, and it is so astute of you to bring that perspective in and even stop and think, like, oh, how might someone else think about this?
19:11
SPEAKER_01: And the energy behind that PS is so loving, it's so human.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Really enjoy that.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking of it even like as a personal layer of like there's friction in communication, especially written communication, because we are putting our own bias into what we're reading, and then however the person sent it may have had a completely different intention.
19:35
SPEAKER_03: My husband and I, after 20 years, still have this issue because the way he speaks and how he writes, he is very like literal, and it's so I'll read things, and I'm like, oh my god, how dare you! And it'd be great if I had a bot in there that's just like, okay, sis, tone it down, take it, take a seat, read it from his perspective.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: He's literally saying, okay, as in it's fine.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're I think that's funny because the like if I don't know if you saw the use case, um, like the percentage of users that are using, for example, I'm gonna use like ChatGPT, for example.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: The percentage of users who are using it for personal as opposed to for business, it's kind of interesting that the bulk of their users are using it for personal uses.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: Most people are still using AI as a as a search tool.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, y'all are using it like that.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: That that's a terrible level of 2022.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: We're evolving, we're evolving, we're evolving.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: And then the next evolution is I'm using it to write copy in business.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now you're in 2023, folks.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, let's get with the program, let's use it to evolve our thinking, to, to close, to expose the gaps that we have.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: And and I'm gonna put this caveat: we can do this with AI and do this, but it does not replace having the right advisors because AIs, I don't care what AI you're using, I don't care if you're using mine.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: It's trained in our brains, our brain algorithms, the way we think, it's trained on the knowledge base that it was given.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: And if you're using any of those that scrape the internet, you're getting a bunch of bunk, right?
21:15
SPEAKER_02: So you always need to fact check if you're using the bigs.
21:19
SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, I'll use this example.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: I was in medicine.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: So the funniest thing to me is um engineers would come in, they would have a shoulder pain, and they would come with Dr.
21:29
SPEAKER_02: Google's book of what was wrong with them, and they'd already diagnosed it, and I'm the professional.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
21:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, they move their head and oh, it causes a shoulder pain.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't coming from the shoulder at all.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: But Google says everything from it's cancer to it's harmless to it's a rotator.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: Like it has all of these ridiculous span, and none of them were the right diagnosis because Google didn't think to say, well, turn your neck.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Does it hurt?
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it must be if if it if it causes this particular symptom, it's it's coming from cervical ridiculopathy or whatever, you know, the diagnosis would be.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: So you still need a human advisory board.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: But what it does when we are using the technology to add the different gaps, it makes us more informed.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: And so when we get with our advisors, we have a better, higher level conversation because we already have kind of scenario played, or maybe we've done crisis scenario planning with artificial intelligence from a bunch of different perspectives, and we've explored a lot of different potential outcomes.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: So when we meet with our advisors, we're more prepared.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: And we can say, okay, so I thought through this, and here are the potential scenarios.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: These are the things, the outcomes that what am I missing?
22:40
SPEAKER_02: And then your advisors then know that you've done your homework, that you're thinking about this, you're already mentally prepared to kind of have that next level evolution of thinking and really get to the solution that's going to give you the biggest outcome.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: You can have a board, investors, advisors, and still have nobody you can actually talk to about what is really going on.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: That is not unusual.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That is the founder reality.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And we step in right there.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm Tom Powell.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: And at the founder's office, we're proud to sponsor Women Talk Finance.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: How I'm so curious.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: You diligence a lot of deals.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: You get pitched a lot.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: So does Candace.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, I do a little bit, not to the extent that either of you hear pitches.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, what are some immediate green flags and what are some immediate red flags when you're hearing a pitch?
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Go there.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: The biggest red flag is there's no competition in space.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, but it's true.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: There's no one doing what I'm saying.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: Research.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: You didn't do any research.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: And just because it's not already out there doesn't mean 30 other people haven't pitched me that same idea in the last six weeks.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: And where are you?
23:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna use AI because this is something that I think every entrepreneur needs to know.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a lot of shiny objects out there, and I don't know um if if you've if you've trained on Sora and we're using Sora and now like it's no longer a thing, right?
24:10
SPEAKER_02: So you feel like maybe you wasted some time, but it's it's a scenario where a lot of people sell based off of a really great PowerPoint or pitch deck or they're really great salespeople.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: But if they can't demonstrate, at least in like a proof of concept to me, I'm not giving you money because you haven't demonstrated that it could be engineered, even if it's just a proof of concept or like a very minimal viable product.
24:36
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm not interested because ideas are cheap.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: They're a million a dozen.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: But if you haven't prototyped that and proven your concept, then I don't know.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: Like, what do I have to go on and due diligence?
24:49
SPEAKER_02: I I've got nothing.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: I've got a napkin that says this is an idea that might happen.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: But if if you've got something that's demonstrable, even if it's rough demonstration that proves the concept, um, that moves you through to the next level for me.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Um a dollar of revenue is helpful.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a dollar of revenue.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, well, well, and I'll be real because I I invest pre-revenue.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, and but but they always have to have uh they always have to have a working demonstration because I'm smart, but I'm but here again, I've been in it for long enough to be smart enough to know if there's a market or not.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, if you don't have something that's demonstrable and you're just giving me like a pitch deck that slides, uh I'm I'm passing.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, the other things are um lack of coachability.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh that's it.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: That really bothers me.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think I might have said this, I don't know.
25:44
SPEAKER_02: I I we've had so many conversations.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: So um, but if someone's not coachable, someone hasn't been through fires before and isn't willing to talk about their failures and their learnings, that's a huge red flag for me because it tells me either A, they're inexperienced and have no idea what they're doing, um, or B, they're unwilling to be honest.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, like, let's let's let's be real.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: This is this is the dating phase, and um, I'm not going to second date if I don't trust you.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: And I'm human, and every single human in here is human, and we've all had failures.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: So if your poop don't stink and you've never had a problem and you've only ever had wins, then I immediately go to either you're full of it or um you have no experience.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's even worse to me if you've not had any adversity, and I don't mean in business, you it could be your first business, but if you don't have an example of real adversity and how you handled that for me, I'm not going into business with you.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm not investing in you because what happens when your back is against the wall?
26:48
SPEAKER_03: Dan, I've been in those meetings with somebody who literally only failed up, and it was it resulted in a 45-year-old man crying in front of me, like literally not knowing what to do.
27:01
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Oh, sweet baby, you've never had anything go wrong before.
27:07
SPEAKER_03: That is crazy.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: It was it was wild, and I that's now I don't ask people what their weaknesses are in interviews and things like that.
27:16
SPEAKER_03: I say, when did you absolutely dumpster fire fail?
27:23
SPEAKER_03: Like it was ugly and gross.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: And you could have made a total big mistake.
27:29
SPEAKER_03: It's not gonna be a knock for me.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: I want to see that you were able to walk through the fire and get through it because the resilience is what's super important.
27:38
SPEAKER_03: So I think that's yeah, you and I so align on that.
27:41
SPEAKER_03: We just like to hear people.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: Let me like it to athletes because I think everybody can understand this.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's seen professional athletes, and there's two types of athletes when they get injured.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Like same ACL tier.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: Let's just use ACL tier to ACL tier.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Two different quarterbacks can have an ACL tier, one will never ever come back competitively, and the other is going to fight tooth and nail, and they're gonna come back, and sometimes they come back stronger.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: The one who comes back stronger is the one that was not the star talent, but the one who had to work every step of the way and had to fight and claw.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: And they weren't in the first, uh, in the first round of the draft.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: They maybe were even an undrafted pick, but they're the ones who really excel and they're the ones who come back because they have the resilience of of building and having to really work for every aspect, as opposed to the pure talent.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Like, um, you know, I was in sports medicine for 20 years.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: So pure talent, it used to be what got you that that position, but now coaches as a but have become a lot more, you know, savvy and they're they want to know when, like, what did they have to work for?
28:45
SPEAKER_02: Because the pure talent becomes the locker room problem.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: And then the first sense of adversity, the first injury, they don't come back.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: And so that's a waste of money.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: And so the same applies in business, right?
28:55
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be you've been in business, it just has to be you have had to work for something.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: Show me the work that you've done, show me the blood, sweat, and tears.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't have that, then I don't trust that moving forward, especially in a startup.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Or if you've never done an MA and you're about to start adding, you know, acquisitions to your growth plan, I don't trust that you're gonna be able to drive it across the border.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: And let's not even talk about exit prep.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: Like the minute that due diligence gets tough.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: That's a whole other episode.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: That's a whole nother episode.
29:28
SPEAKER_03: What everything you just said, guess what?
29:32
SPEAKER_03: AI cannot replace and give us the opportunities to build resilience.
29:38
SPEAKER_03: That's still that human development piece that we have to do the hard work ourselves.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: Um, but for those interested in upping their AI game and keeping true to their human self, what would your next, like, what would your recommendation be for their next step if somebody's like, um, I'm still using AI in the preschool kindergarten range.
30:05
SPEAKER_03: Get me to Jen, get me to 2026.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: Maybe, maybe get me to 2025, somewhere in there.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so first off, there is no expert in the space.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: Anybody who tells you they're an expert in the space is lying because I've been deep in this for years and it changes so regularly.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: So I would avoid the flashy marketing.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: You don't need another course, you don't need a flashy seminar or workshop.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: What you really need to do is dig in and start exploring with it.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: And so I would say your next step is like we talked about earlier, try to think through a different person's perspective.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Try it on for size and and just play with it because the reality with AI is tech keeps advancing.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, however, if we don't push the envelope a little bit, we don't grow with it.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: And so I would say that would be the natural next step is stop typing, just use that little microphone because all of them have the microphone and have a conversation with it and ask it to challenge what you're saying from different perspectives so that you can start to think differently.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: And caveat, once again, it's scraping from the internet, it's syncophanic.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: If you're using chat or cloth, it's gonna, it's gonna tell you you're great at some point in time.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: But just the exercise of what are the holes, and then when it goes and is your biggest cheerleader, say, stop telling me what I want to hear.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: It's trained to do that.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Tell me, tell me like all the holes in in the thinking and be very specific with it because that way it'll help you to challenge the way that you're interacting with it.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: Because that's the first next step.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: If we're just using it to write copy or we're just like dictating and doing baby steps or using it as Google search, it's how do we think and interact differently?
32:01
SPEAKER_02: Because when we think about the operational side, you have to understand the layer of how it thinks and how it operates first.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: And you can only do that if you take it to that level.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: And intelligence, and for yeah, and like the the theme here is operational excellence, right?
32:14
SPEAKER_01: And that looks and feels very different.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: AI can be a component of operational excellence.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Don't form out your thinking.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: EQ is still so very, very important.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: And trust, a critical factor.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: If there's a question about trust, that's not the space for AI to fill.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, so using it, you using it as a tool in the right situations can add huge productivity and benefit and huge pros with it, but know when and how to use it.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: And start small.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Gen Goode, our Wonder Woman.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: How can people find you, Jen?
32:53
SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh LinkedIn is the best way to get what get get me.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm on LinkedIn, Gen Goode, G-A-U-D-E-T, just like it's it says.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: There's a picture of me and Dr.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: Phil on that profile.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: I am very responsive on LinkedIn.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I've got a bunch of websites and things, but check out Power CEO is the television show because I I've literally interviewed experts in every space, lots on AI.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: So if you're particularly interested in AI, you can get a lot of free content in that way.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: And I do consulting in the AI space.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: I have AI products for entrepreneurs to actually like an advisory board in your pocket that's closed source.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: So, like, that's a really I have some things that I can can talk you through and walk you through.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: I do workshops regularly for free um on exactly that how to how to up level your um your AI integrations and your business.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that was today's episode of WTF.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: If you laughed, learned something, or felt a little less alone, make sure you hit follow.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And send this episode to a friend who might need it.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Women don't gatekeep, especially not the good stuff.
33:59
SPEAKER_03: We'll be back next week with more real talk, more stories, and probably more over sharing.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: See you next time on WTF.