Latest / The Accounting Leads Now Podcast / AI Isn’t the Future of Accounting, It’s Already Killing Off the Old Way - With Daniel Moshe

Transcript

AI Isn’t the Future of Accounting, It’s Already Killing Off the Old Way - With Daniel Moshe · The Accounting Leads Now Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: AI isn't coming.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: It's already here and it's rewriting the playbook for accounting firms.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The ones who master how to blend human expertise with AI will win more clients, deliver more value and run leaner than ever before.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Daniel Moshi, founder and CEO of TechGuru, the managed technology service firm that's helping accounting leaders do exactly that.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: His team builds future-proof tech stacks, integrates AI into daily workflows and locks down cybersecurity so firms can grow with confidence.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Daniel's not just keeping firms running.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: He's turning their technology into a competitive advantage.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: They can market to attract higher paying clients.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Today we're diving into how you can use AI in the right tech stack to stand out more business and scale without burning out.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Daniel, welcome to the show.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you here.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I would love to start off by hearing you know you've built Tech Guru specifically for accounting firms.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Why this niche and what gap did you see in the market?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know what happened, but half of that got cut off.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: By the way, I heard you until you said welcome to the show.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to have you.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And then, Okay, can you hear me now?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it came back just as you finished.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, all good, all right, we'll restart it then.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I don't know what happened.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Daniel, it's so good to have you on the show.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to this one.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I want to dive straight into things.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: You've built TechGuru specifically for accounting firms.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: this niche and what gap did you see in the market?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: James, thank you.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I've been looking forward to this as well and glad to have this conversation with you, and so it was a fun journey deciding to work with accounting firms.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I'll take you kind of the walk down memory lane.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I developed TechGuru as an IT managed service provider, initially started the firm out of my college dorm room and then over the years, found that I just love working with businesses and I really love the finance and accounting aspects of businesses and I love technology.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: So it kind of made perfect sense to start focusing on working with just accounting firms.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: At the time that we made that decision, as a business, we had exactly two accounting firm clients, and so it was a bit of a bold move and we made a detour.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Before deciding to work with accounting firms, we knew we wanted to specialize.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: We knew we wanted to go into niche.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Accounting firms was number two, and before that we decided we were going to work and be IT for dentists of all things.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So that turned out to be a big mistake and wasn't a good fit.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So we quickly pivoted to our second choice.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that we did so.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I like working with accounting firms because I think it multiplies our impact in the world.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: My purpose is to change lives for the better, and then I think that I'm helping give technology to the right to two accounting firms and accounting firm leaders and accounting professionals and finance professionals.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: They're, in turn, helping other entrepreneurs and other people with their finances, helping them live their best lives, and I'm just helping them with great tools to be able to do that and secure and compliant systems to be set up for success.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: So, long story short, that's why we focus on accounting firms.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It sounds like there's a very big ripple effect that's taking place from what you guys offer, who you offer to, and then all the lives that are touched from the clients you work with.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: That's the idea, yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned there.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: You said your mission is to make people's lives a little bit better.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: How does that come through in the way you serve your clients?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So it's woven into our core values, which are woven into how we do all of our hiring.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So it's woven into all of our processes and our service offerings.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: We're actually an EOS company.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: We run on the entrepreneurial operating system and that just shows how much that we care, First starting about with our team, showing a great degree of care and love with our team.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: That resonates out to our clients and really from everything that we do is designed to create the ideal technology experience for accounting firms, and that's another reason that we decided to focus on accounting firms.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: It was too hard to be great at IT for lawyers and IT for realtors and IT for project construction.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: It was just too difficult and we couldn't really give everyone the great experience that I knew they deserved.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And I knew that was an issue because they would ask like, hey, what software should we use for this and what software we can do for that?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And now I can confidently say like, hey, I think it's time to move to Canopy or Carbon or Firm360 and from whatever software you're using right now from your spreadsheets you know, and so that's just one of many ways that, with our 24-7, you know support, with the fact that before we meet, we meet every single quarter with every one of our clients, before we do that, all of our team gets together, we come up with ideas and insights and recommendations to prepare, to present to those clients.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So those are just a couple of ways that we do that, okay perfect.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you sharing that.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And when you talk about reimagining firms as human augmented AI, what does that mean in real world terms?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great, I'm actually also.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, frankly, most businesses are becoming going to become, especially those with, you know, thought, thought, you know knowledge workers are going to become human augmented AI.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: You know it's from marketing to, I mean, our business.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: We have virtual technicians that we are starting to utilize, and so what I think that means in the real world for accounts and also for us at Tech Guru, is identifying software tools that incorporate AI into them, and then the thing that we do, the magic that we create, is by configuring them and setting up the automations to do and provide and create the outcomes that we're trying to create, the experience we're trying to create, and monitoring the output for quality, and then spending more time focused on higher level, more strategic things with our clients.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: This has been something that's, I think, a trend that's been happening for years and years.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Right, if you think about it, it used to be that things were done, you know, very manually in paper, then they were automated with technology, with computers, and now it's like that next level of knowledge work is getting automated, freeing us to have even more higher impact, human connection with those that we serve and care about, and less of the you know like tactic, tactical uh ticky, tacky, uh things that have to have to get done yeah, it's interesting the progression, though.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Like you're talking about going from paper to computers and and now we're going from computers to like supercomputers doing all the things that humans once did.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty wild time.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: How can firms, how can accounting firms and bookkeeping firms and any tax professional position, ai capabilities in their marketing to differentiate from their competitors?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: you know there's a couple different, and so this is me just looking from the outside in.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So my humble you know, probably wrong opinion.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I think, ultimately, their clients don't care whether they're using AR or not.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: It's what is the experience that they're going to be providing and receiving.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: So it's like, hey, we can give you a better understanding of your business, your cash flow, or we can run a thousand different scenarios and get you exactly the right tax optimization strategy for your exact circumstances that no human would ever.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It would not be feasible for us, a particular human, to go and spend the time doing this.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: We're going to find the exact, we're going to better identify fraud, erroneous transactions, and we're going to spend more time putting you in control of your business and your life and your finances by leveraging the best that technology has to offer.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, all of that is, of course, ai-driven, but it's a value that you're creating by harnessing these amazing new tools in achieving that.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: By the way, we're going to make it easier for you to connect with us and exchange files with us, because it's all going to be automated, and we're going to make again dashboards and data visualization like you've never seen before and be able to answer questions that you may have had, but didn't even bother asking because you didn't think it was feasible to get an answer to that question.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: So AI enables and, I think, empowers all of that, and so that's how I think, from a marketing differentiation, it's putting forth that those additional value that you can create in the world by the way that you are uniquely harnessing, configuring and utilizing you know these, you know these, you know all these tools do you think too many businesses, especially when it comes to their marketing, or too many firms and they're looking for the new solution are getting caught up with the ai buzzwords now?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and I don't.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It just seems like every ad that's out there and every firm is interested in ai, but they're because it sounds new and exciting, but not because of the application behind it and, like you said, people don't really care how it's getting done.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Still, they're interested in the outcome.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't know how to answer the question I'm, I'm not, I'm not watching too close.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, okay, for whatever reason on on social media.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: The advertisements that target me for whatever reason are social media.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: The advertisements that target me for whatever reason are like business and accounting services, and I do see those focused again more on kind of ai automation and it's very interesting to see all the different ways that it's being presented and how it seems like there's like a new breed of accounting firm that's like ai and technology first and then it's like human kind of behind new breed of accounting firm that's like AI and technology first and then it's like human kind of behind the scenes and there, if you need us, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, I think for some, you know, maybe very early stage entrepreneurs they may be oh, that's exactly what I want.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to talk to, even to a human.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: I just want it to work, but I think too many different scenarios exist.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: I'm helping with my partner with his accounting.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: He's got an e-commerce business.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: He made a game, a tabletop board game, called the Publisher Parish Game and he's got all these kind of complex accounting issues and I've been helping him get it all set up.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ooh, this would be tough to get, not to have a have a human involved helping get this going yeah, very cool, there's still, yeah, at the end of the day, the human still needs to drive some of the ai to a certain degree, depending on what the application is, but that's where a lot of people, I think, who are not as involved in it, they they're not catching on, like there still needs to be someone prompting the AI to to do the thing that we need to get done.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And like you're only getting what you put out or you only get out what you put in, right.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So like I've been trying to teach my team, I'm like I don't just do one or two line prompts If I'm using, like chat, gpt version five is really sweet, by the way.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: It's been really cool.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: We can talk about that later if you want.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I put in these like one and two paragraph long prompts with a lot of detail about what I'm looking for.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm now the realization I had yesterday.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I was like I need to teach.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I need to stop making ChachiPT output for people and I need to teach them how.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so important touching on that because it is truly what you put into it is what you will get, and we've been in the same boat as well, just teaching team members and clients how to use this tool, because everyone has the same tool, but it's what you put into it that really makes all the magic happen.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Have you seen cases where tech upgrades directly led to winning a high value client?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Hard to say.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: In particular, I can tell you how we have actually helped our clients win bigger accounts because we're helping them be compliant and secure.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Like, for example, we recently achieved our SOC 2.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Like we got audited for SOC 2 and I think we're just we've actually got our final type 2 report and we're just getting a final signatures on it, and through that we've been helping our clients implement good, sound best practices.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Written information security plans then actually like do the things in the written information security plan, and so in that way I've seen a couple of cases where our clients are able to comply with and thus obtain the business of these, these larger accounts.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: And of course, all that comes through sort of tech, tech upgrades and security.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: You know security implementations I've not yet seen it, but I'm excited to see that happen.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: The kind of conversations we're having in our quarterly strategic plannings with each of our accounting firm clients are around a lot of times how new capabilities that they can add to their firm that support a monthly recurring business model which have greater margins and get them out of the selling trading you know time for dollars and how they can, you know, create additional value for their clients to maybe even helping them set up some of this.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: You know continuous close automation.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Or you know automated more automations, more reconciliations, better workflows, better processes and turn that into another.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: You know profit center what's one of the the most common pains that all of your accounting firm clients experience either before working with you, or is there a common theme that comes up even when they're working with you, that that you guys are looking to solve for outside of the AI solutions?
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah Right, I've been having almost a conversation with a client every day about this, which is offshore staffing.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: You know, the fact is there's amazingly talented people all over the world and why limit ourselves to just, you know, working with team members in the US, especially when in the US there's a dramatic shortage of this type of talent and unfortunately, I've seen my clients sell their firms because, frankly, there's work compression, they can't find the staff when they need it and it's just creating tremendous amount of burnout and stress and anxiety, which breaks my heart.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: So we're seeing our clients start to explore and hire their first and then expand their next overseas talent.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: So the question is how do we do that in a secure way?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: And so we're having the conversation around if you work with an agency or if you work with, if you hire direct, and the two different models ensuring that they treat you know, and they go through the hiring process, they vet those team members to exactly the way they would for somebody, you know, in the US background checks and everything.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: We also have a global team, so we're well versed in it, and we found ways to get computer ordered and delivered to somebody in Guatemala and every other country you can imagine, because we still think the best way to know that they're working in a secure environment is still to manage and secure the endpoint, the computer itself.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: So those are a couple conversations that we're having a lot, and the rest of it is just like how do we move?
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: The second one would be moving to a browser-based application stack, so one by one, shifting from windows legacy applications that are, you know, have to be hosted on a windows server, and kind of our hassle to manage and have to log in and it's a separate kind of desktop.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Moving to, you know, things like ProConnect and other tools like that that also open the door to stronger API integrations and AI.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: You know functionality as well.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: So I'd say those are kind of the two of the bigger themes.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And then the third theme is just like, constantly about cybersecurity.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I just did a webinar last week on, you know, three specific case studies of things that we had actually seen ourselves, not to be fear mongering or anything like that, but just to create awareness, stay vigilant and hopefully put those threat actors out of business.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: That's my, that's my other, that's my other.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Like purpose in life is keep clients money in their pockets.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: If, if a firm wants to land more clients in the next 90 days using tech as a lever, what's step one for them?
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I think tech is is the lever when it when it comes to accounting firms.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not a marketing expert.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I'm truly trying to even figure this out for my own, my own world but I think what unlocked our growth because we went from two accounting firm clients to like 60 in just a matter of a couple of years, and a lot of it was through peer groups and networks.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: But if we had not specialized in a niche, I don't think we would have gotten, we would not have experienced that growth.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: We doubled our business in a pretty short period of time and never done that that fast before growth.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: We doubled our business in a pretty short period of time and never done that that fast before.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: So I think the clients that I have that are doing the best and are thriving, have a specialty and a niche focus and I'm sure that we've heard it a million times it is scary I'm speaking from experience to go from being a generalist and kind of taking business from anywhere and anyone to going and specializing in a particular industry or a particular aspect of accounting.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I've got one client that all they do is this particular type of analysis for business, like valuations.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I forget the technical terminology.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: So that would be.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I think step one is, if you haven't already, find your niche and then figure out where those people hang out what platforms do they use, what are they reading, what are they listening to and what conferences are they attending and get in front of them and figure out an offer.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And I will just tell you in the beginning we totally just faked it.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Just faked it.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: We're like we're IT for accounting firms.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Truly, we didn't do anything really different other than we were just focusing our marketing and all of our energy and efforts on working with and focusing on accounting firms.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: We at the time didn't have anything really unique or special, but over the years, all I do all day long is talk to accounting firm leaders.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I know now all the ins and outs.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I've been to all these accounting firm conferences Thompson, I've been to PASBA, I've been to Synergy, I've been to a lot of these conferences.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We've been to a lot and that is where we find we're able to connect with a lot of clients.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Even if it's a little bit old school, it works really well.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: But all of that has been made possible by the fact that we've picked a niche, specialized in it and are just going into and having those conversations with that specialty.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: So anyway, that would be my step.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: One suggestion or recommendation.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, awesome, and what's working really well for you in terms of marketing marketing, I know you mentioned, uh, trade shows, conferences, but is there anything else that you guys have implemented or maybe you've shared with your other accounting clients that that has worked really well and it's kind of like a you guys can knock it out of the water or knock it out of the park every time when it comes to like, all right, we need to bring on a new client uh, good question, not, not?
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: um, no silver bullets, no magic pills here.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I think our number one marketing is the day-to-day doing a great job for our clients and creating a product and a service experience that they love and can't help themselves.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: But talk about got one client recently that referred three other of his friends from a peer group.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Uh, and they are, by the time they talk to us, they're already like ready to work with us.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It's like is that?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It's like it's not a sales process, just a sign-up process, and the because we're we specialize, we're getting more of what are the same clients.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So they they're like hey, just do for us what you did for them.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I'm like okay, you got it.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Um, anyway, so that'd be the first thing I could tell you we just have given up on cold calling.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It just seemed like it just isn't working.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Um, the number of outright outreaches to actual like results was so low it just didn't make any sense to keep doing it and I was just worried we were annoying people.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: So, honestly, the best source of leads continues to be showing up in the community and the form of conferences and events and and what's great is, my favorite thing actually is when you know a client comes by, says hi, and there's another person that's thinking about talking.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: You know working with us and and I'm just like hey, you talk to them and uh, that's magic um, and then we're.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: You know everything else.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: We're here.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Uh is just we.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: You know we have some um community.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: You knowASPA is a good one, where we've been involved with that organization for several years.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I think it does just take persistence and continuity to show that you're not just a fly-by-night organization.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: We're here for the long run and we care and we do truly have a special way that we approach, working with approach, working with you and going to create some, some real value.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: So those are the couple things that I would that's been working for for us and well, I guess also what hasn't been working.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's just a lot of noise out there.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: We're going to start playing with some top of the funnel marketing tools, like some social media advertising, and we've also done a couple of webinars.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Those have been well attended and I think they're not what I would call like you know, people like fall over themselves at the end of the webinar to sign up, but it's usually half clients that show up and then half people that are potentially like looking to work with us, and so it just showcases our thought leadership and positions us in a different, not just as a vendor, but as a you know, a potential strategic resource.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: So those are just a couple of things that we've been working on right now.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Nice, that's cool.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Daniel, what's your boldest prediction for how AI will change client acquisition for firms in the next three to five years?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Boldest prediction for how AI will help client acquisition over the next three to five?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think all the traditional ways that that people find you know great, great partners, uh, is probably going to be through the human connection and through um.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest change that we'll see is, you know, like, frankly, me, I've been looking, I've been doing a getting a home turned over and turned into like an Airbnb, um, and I, like you know what, I'm going to just general contract this thing myself.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: And so I'm working with Chachapiti and managing the whole project and I'm like you know what, I'm going to just general contract this thing myself.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: And so I'm working with ChatGPT and managing the whole project and I'm like, okay, recommend five vendors who should I work with?
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And I actually called those people and then they asked me how did I find them?
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, chatgpt.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I'm like what they know what it is.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: But they're like surprised that that's how I, yeah, or I like chat gpt taught, taught me how to, or I learned how to like pull like a list of contract um, license electricians, and then I had it process that data and recommend five that I should go from that list, you know, to try to find contractors that are, you know, uh, more independent.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So there's just a couple of examples.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: So, but I got to tell you it's like I think, as the noise increases because it's, the barriers to creating content is so low nowadays I think it's just going to become more and more noise.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I think video and real human connection is going to be that much more valuable and more important, and things like peer groups and industry organizations are going to.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Frankly, in my humble opinion, my prediction will be even more important.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I love your opinion on that too.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Frankly.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I think you'll almost see.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Everything goes in cycles.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I think there's so much cold outreach now from ai.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: There's now voice agents answering phone calls, making outbound calls, which I find is super annoying.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I keep getting super annoying the same voice agents all the time from something I never opted in from and it's like just stop.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people are using that and I think what will work really well will be more or less the old school touch points and the in-person, like you said, the in-person events and getting around whatever looks like it's AI and just being more authentic with the messages and having a real.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Even if you're sending a video to someone, it's not ai with replacements, and it's actually you sending a personalized video to the prospect you're looking to speak to, or sending a very personalized email, not the blasting of 2000 with you know a name replacement yeah, you're right, it's just, it is so obvious.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I I was like, oh, when I got that first call that I knew was ai phone, like voice, I was, wow, it's finally, it's finally started.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I just don't, I just don't know, like, are you going to go hire some service because some AI cold called you?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: No, I don't know, I'm not.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we, we tested it for some clients and it just didn't.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It just didn't work that well, like pretty quickly and the voice sounded really good.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: It was hard to tell it was AI, but it would get hung up on certain questions, just like you're speaking about earlier in another example, and then quickly the recipients on the other end of the phone either sound like it was AI or the bot.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Couldn't, you know, go through the thought path to get to where it needed to go and the call just didn't work.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: So we have our team answering the calls on behalf of all of our firms we work with and that just works way better.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Just the human element, I think, is going to be hard to beat yeah regardless how good ai gets.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: They're just.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: They're going to be in two different areas, all right.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Now I think sales okay, plus on everything you just said, I think sales enablement tools are going to be much stronger, like, for example, like using AI analytics to say like, hey, this person you know clicked on this, open this da-da-da-da, go call this person right now.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: You know this person is engaged.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: That, I think, is gonna be powerful and so I think it is a human augmented future.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: But, like it's still like humans want to want to talk to humans and engage with now, with a robot, now, once in a while, that support, you know, ai driven, like support chat, built into some of the apps that I use, like rippling or whatever.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Like that that's actually pretty good and it saves me time and I'd rather do that than sometimes the human is actually not as good.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So I don't know.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I also like challenge myself to say you know what?
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I think that these things are getting better so fast that eventually it will be better than a human on the, on the phone as well.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So we'll see.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: We're testing a lot of stuff as well.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: We're going to roll our AI support agent chatbot also in due time, probably in the next couple months, so we'll see how people like it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: That's exciting.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: So two more questions for you, then.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: What's one tech tool that you, personally, can't live without?
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of funny that it's a tech tool because it's actually pretty kind of low tech, but it's my Remarkable.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I have a tablet, remarkable tablet.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: It's a kind of a passive display.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have any email or internet connection.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I mean it can back it up over Wi-Fi, but that's it, no notifications, and I use that for thinking and reflecting and planning and journaling, note taking and meetings, and I don't know why I like, I find that I love handwriting and drawing and it's better than having a piece of paper or something like that ends up getting lost.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: And so, anyway, that's my favorite uh tech, tech gadget right now?
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: awesome.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And if you weren't running tech guru, what would you be doing instead?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I really uh, I'm a pilot and I really love uh flying, so my other thing would be um, I want to be island hopping, uh flights, uh people taking people from tropical island to tropical island.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Um, that that's if my kids are already gone to high school.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I have two kids at 12 and 14, and otherwise it's uh working with them and our go-kart, go-kart racing team.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: So that's uh, those are the two things I'm doing when I'm not flying and go-kart racing.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Well, if you're needing to fill a plane with passengers, please keep me in mind.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: I will.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Jumping between islands in the Caribbean sounds right up my alley.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I guess I lied.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I said two last questions.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: This is the last one for you, daniel.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just my dad.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: At a very early age, you know, he said if you want something, you got to just go and get it.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And to me that means be persistent and be bold and not wait for you know, not wait for somebody else and essentially, live your best life.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: So take ownership for doing that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: So that'd be something I live by and try to pass on to my kids and to others that I work with as well.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the show, daniel.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate all the insights.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: You shared the knowledge.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: It's awesome what you guys are doing with AI and I'm sure your partners appreciate all of it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: How can people get in touch with you if they want to continue the conversation?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sure your partners appreciate all of it.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: How can people get in touch with you if they want to continue the conversation?
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely check me up on LinkedIn and connect with me there.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: That's probably the easiest way to find me, or I'm sure you'll put in the show notes contact information as well.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about us at techguruitcom.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, daniel Maché from Tech Guru.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks, james, appreciate it.
• 32:45
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• 32:49
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• 32:52
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• 33:37
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