Latest / The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business / EP129 - Future-Proofing Your Business: AI Integration Simplified

Transcript

EP129 - Future-Proofing Your Business: AI Integration Simplified · The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business

• 0:01
  Hi there business owner, and welcome to the Three BS Podcast,
• 0:04
  the place where we go beyond the numbers and dive into the
• 0:07
  strategies to help you build a Better Business one step at a
• 0:10
  time. I'm your host, Stephanie, a
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  multi awarding entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in
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  the bookkeeping and currency world.
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  If you're a business owner looking to streamline, grow, and
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  get back the time that you deserve, you're in the right
• 0:21
  place tackling real world problems, answering tough
• 0:24
  questions, and digging deep into business building secrets in
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  just 15 minutes each week. So Are you ready to build a
• 0:31
  Better Business with confidence and clarity?
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  Then let's go. Hello there, and welcome back to
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  another episode of The Three B's Podcast.
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  As always, I'm your host, Stephanie Marshall, and this is
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  episode 129. Now I feel like this episode is
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  going to be quite a popular one because today we're talking
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  about AI, not the terrifying robots taking over the world
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  kind, and not the add 12 more tools to your stack kind either.
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  I'm talking about how real business owners, you know the
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  ones juggling emails, clients, family life and actual sleep,
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  whatever that is, can use AI in a smart, simple, non
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  overwhelming way to future proof their business.
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  If you're not techie, if ChatGPT freaks you out, or if you're
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  just too busy to figure it all out, then this episode is for
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  you. I want to start by clearing
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  something up straight away. Future proofing does not mean
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  being on every trend. It means staying relevant and
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  resilient without burning out. And when it comes to AI, you
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  don't have to become a tech wizard or ditch your values.
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  You just need to understand what's useful and what's just
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  noise in the online space, what trends will come and go, and
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  what will stay and help you with your business in the future.
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  AI isn't replacing humans, despite what the headlines keep
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  telling you. It's replacing inefficiency, and
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  it's not about speed, it's about sustainability.
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  So let's look at how you can use AI without losing what makes
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  your business yours and without falling behind three areas.
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  AI can actually help you right now.
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  Firstly, you don't need 15 more tools.
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  You'll see a new AI tool, new AI, custom GPT, every single
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  scroll of Instagram or TikTok right now.
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  But there's three core areas where AI is genuinely helpful
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  right now for small businesses. Number one is content and
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  communication. ChatGPT for blog outlines,
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  captions, e-mail drafts, even just to brainstorm words and
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  ideas. ChatGPT can be grateful.
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  Descript is a great tool for editing podcast audio or videos.
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  Although we use Riverside Studio, as you can see,
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  Grammarly is great for polishing a word without hiring a
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  proofreader. Like Grammarly is an extension
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  that you can literally have on everything that you type and
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  write. Like you install it onto your
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  computer or your laptop. And when I write an e-mail, it
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  will spell check, grammar check, and offer suggestions to help me
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  reformat or Polish the words that I've written.
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  ChatGPT has been an absolute game changer for me.
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  I've been using ChatGPT for 2/3, must be 3 years now.
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  And over the years it's learnt and over the years it's got
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  better and better and it's only going to keep getting better.
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  ChatGPT is my second brain. It knows what I want now.
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  Sometimes I will misspell something.
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  So if I write here is the transcript of this podcast that
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  I've recorded, please write me a caption.
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  If I spell caption wrong, it knows I mean caption.
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  It's learnt me and learnt my typos and learnt how I speak and
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  gives me things to work with. Now whatever ChatGPT puts out,
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  whatever answer it gives me to any prompt I give it, I don't
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  just copy and paste it. The key with using AI for
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  content and communication is to don't let it write for you.
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  Let it write with you. Start with your own voice, add
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  your own stories. Use AI to help you create some
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  sort of rough draft. It's not a ghostwriter.
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  You don't want it to write for you because you're you and
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  you're you are what makes your business special.
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  And it's important for you to be consistent with your messaging.
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  People are going to buy from you because you're you.
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  People are not going to buy from you because of some ChatGPT
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  written marketing campaign, because then what's going to
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  happen is they're going to sign up for your services.
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  If you're a service provider and they start working with you and
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  you're, they're like, but that's not you.
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  Like you're, you're a very different person from how you
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  come across in your marketing. And I think you lose some of
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  that brand value and some of that know like and trust factor
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  when you aren't the same personality as the content
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  you're putting out there. The second area where AI can
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  really help you right now is admin and operations.
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  Now, what I mean by that is having AI inbox sorting tools
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  can massively reduce overwhelm. Some of them can even draft
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  responses for you now. So they can read the e-mail as
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  it comes in and draft a response based on what you would usually
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  reply to them. And you can just go in and sort
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  of tweak it, especially if it needs to gather data.
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  So if it says, oh, what time is that meeting we booked for?
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  The fact that the AI tool can go into your emails and say, OK,
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  well, this is where it's booked in the calendar for and put that
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  into a draft e-mail for you, saves you so much time and makes
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  you so much more efficient. Automated meeting summaries.
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  Again, transcripts for all of these podcasts are done by AI
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  and saves me so much time going in and manually typing out all
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  of the transcriptions for the things that I want to say.
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  Because although I start with a bullet point list, these
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  podcasts are off the cuff. I'm thinking of the words I'm
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  saying them. I don't have a script as such.
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  And that means that the transcripts of them I would have
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  the money right out if we wanted to use them for anything.
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  Also, those transcripts I will then use to give to AI to help
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  me write the descriptions and the show notes.
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  Zapier for AI based automations between apps.
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  Now this is something that I looked at a few years ago, put
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  down, and then came back to when I realized just how powerful it
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  can be. Zapier will link two things
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  together. I've used Zapier recently for my
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  new community. So my community is held on Wix
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  because that's when my website is held.
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  So Wix Spaces holds my actual community.
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  When somebody signs up for that, Zapier takes that information
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  and puts it into Mailer light, which is my e-mail marketing
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  software to start the e-mail automation sequence so that they
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  get all the information they need drip fed to them.
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  Because there's a lot of information.
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  We don't want to overwhelm them. It's all time based delayed as
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  well so that they get their meet, their introductory emails
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  into the community bit by bit and it puts them into a certain
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  group into my e-mail marketing software.
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  I've also introduced A recurring billing option in zero, our
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  accountant software. So now when people sign up
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  through the madly social community, it will also go to
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  zero and create the recurring invoice for them so that they're
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  getting all the information they need to keep their books in
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  order, again without me having to manually do it.
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  Smart calendars that prioritize your week are another great
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  example of admin and operations AI tools that can really help
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  you in your business right now. If you have certain times where
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  you need to block out the diary or you have certain calls booked
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  in, you can set up a tool. If somebody books in a call at
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  10 and you know it's a 3545 minute call that's likely to go
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  over, Then you can make sure that the buffer time, for
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  example, like a 15 minute buffer after your call to make sure
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  that you're not back-to-back and having to dip out one call and
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  start the next one. Because that's not great
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  customer service, that's not great client experience.
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  Now these tools don't have to replace a team.
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  They can just give you an hour back or so.
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  And I think that's so important as business owners, a lot of us
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  are solopreneurs or have very small teams and not having to
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  hire somebody in admin to do that and just giving you the
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  hour back to focus on deliveries or rest.
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  Like if you can take an hour back on a Friday afternoon, not
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  have to sit there and do all the manual admin and get your
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  children early from school or go, you know, go and do the
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  school, run into the appointments after school club,
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  or be able to go for a coffee and just sit and have 10 minutes
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  to yourself before the chaos of Friday pick up or your week is
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  done, then that's really important.
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  And some of these tools, many of these tools can be free.
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  So it's not even a financial cost versus time cost.
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  It is just a time cost to help you be more efficient, help you
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  save time, be more productive with the time that you do have,
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  and help you build your business.
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  And finally #3 finance and forecasting.
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  Now, as you can probably tell, this is my jam.
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  AI tools that can help you are built into a lot of the
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  softwares you already have. So tools that can scan and
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  summarize reports are really helpful, especially if you're
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  dealing with complex financial reports that you don't
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  understand and you don't have a bookkeeper or an accountant like
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  us at ABCSUK that will explain it to you clearly.
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  Having a tool that can scan that profit and loss and tell you
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  what it means, scan those management accounts and tell you
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  what it means in easy to understand terms.
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  They're brilliant. I talk all the time about being
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  prepared and understanding the numbers on this podcast because
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  it's crucial for your business's success and crucial for you as a
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  business owner to know what's going on in your business.
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  Now, not all AI is helpful. Some of it is definitely shiny
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  nonsense. I've definitely purchased many,
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  many AI tools or libraries and things that have just not been
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  useful and are not what they look like on the tin.
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  So speaking from experience, here's what you can skip.
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  AI that takes more time to learn than it saves.
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  Some of the complex coding sides of AI, it takes you 2 days to
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  set it all up and then it actually only saves you like an
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  hour a month. Like there's no benefit to that.
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  Your, your time cost versus financial cost is just not there
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  with that one overpriced tools promising endless passive
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  income. There's so many that's like,
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  give me 20 lbs and I will build you a Shopify store and I'll
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  fill it with stock and I will you'll just make money like
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  that's not going to happen. And then you've got the this
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  tool is going to make sure that you get 100 pre qualified leads
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  every month. It's £1000.
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  That's not going to again, financial cost alone.
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  Like we don't even need to think about the time cost here.
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  This the financial cost of that. Unless you're selling hugely
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  high ticket and you're provenly getting those 100 qualified
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  leads. Is it really worth it?
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  And generic content generators that make everything sound like
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  it was written either in a boardroom or by a robot.
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  Words like Foster and deep dive. Now I do use deep dive and
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  that's the thing with AI sometimes some of the words have
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  become so annoying and ChatGPT orientated that when you use
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  them in your everyday language, people accuse you of using AI
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  when you are not Foster's one I hate thrilled is a word I really
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  don't like. Not necessarily AI, but it's
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  just a word. I just, I'm just thrilled.
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  I don't think I'm ever thrilled about anything.
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  There's many better adjectives for that one than than thrilled,
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  but also generic, even ones that say they're specific to your
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  niche. If you're a fitness person and
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  someone's offering you 100 done for you content generator ideas,
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  they're going to be what everybody else is getting to.
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  AI should be used to help you in your unique business and being
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  able to tweak the tools to suit you will be more beneficial than
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  paying for a generic content generator that everybody else is
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  using and doesn't sound like you.
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  We go back to the beginning piece of if it doesn't sound
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  like you, people are going to get confused between the
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  marketing that they're absorbing and enjoying, which is making
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  them sign up for your thing. But your thing is nothing like
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  the content. If it doesn't save you time,
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  doesn't help your clients, doesn't make your life easier,
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  just ditch it. Technology should serve your
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  business and not the other way around.
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  And finally, let's talk values. So one of the biggest concerns I
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  hear, but it's inauthentic. Have you got an AI policy?
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  Oh, I'm not using you if you use AI.
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  There's a negative connotation around using AI at the moment,
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  and it's only a concern if you let it make you inauthentic.
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  You still need boundaries, you still need strategy, and you
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  still need a human touch. And no, you don't have to tell
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  your clients that you use AI to draft your caption, but you also
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  don't need to pretend that you didn't.
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  Using AI shouldn't be taboo. Like, I'm open.
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  I use AI to help them with my descriptions for the podcast.
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  Because actually, I'm not an SEO expert.
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  I'm not great with keywords. I'm great with finances, but
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  because I'm not great with that side of technology, that's not
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  my area of strength. My end goal is to get this
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  podcast out to as many business owners as I can.
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  I want to help as many business owners as possible to build
• 13:04
  their business their way and to build better businesses and to
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  not make the mistakes that I've made or I've seen my clients
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  make. So actually by using AI, this
• 13:13
  can reach more business owners because the keywords will hit
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  higher in the searches. And my goal is met and I get to
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  help more people. Be human, be honest, use tools
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  that help you do more of what matters and not just increase
• 13:27
  your To Do List. If you want help figuring out
• 13:29
  which systems are right for your business or how to balance
• 13:32
  automation with authenticity, go to abcsuk.com and book a power
• 13:36
  hour with me. That will give you a whole list.
• 13:38
  You get an hour of my time and we will go through your tasks,
• 13:42
  your challenges, what you want support with, and give you a
• 13:45
  full report and lots of things to take away with to help you
• 13:48
  implement it into your business. Because learning about this is
• 13:51
  one thing, listening to your watching this podcast is amazing
• 13:54
  that you're making that step. But actually implementing what
• 13:56
  you've learned, that's the key to building a Better Business.
• 13:59
  And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Three BS
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  Podcast. I hope you found it useful.
• 14:04
  Do send it to a fellow business owner or somebody you know
• 14:07
  that's struggling to understand why AI could be useful in their
• 14:10
  business because we don't want them to fall behind either.
• 14:13
  Like rate and review whatever you're listening to it because
• 14:15
  it really does help me send this podcast out to more business
• 14:18
  owners. And we're just about to hit, I
• 14:20
  think 2 1/2 thousand downloads. So I'd be really grateful if you
• 14:24
  could send it across. Follow us on Spotify, hit the
• 14:27
  subscribe button and the notification bell on YouTube.
• 14:30
  Again, that helps more people see this content.
• 14:33
  And I will see you next week for the next one.
• 14:35
  Bye. And that brings us to the end of
• 14:38
  another episode of the Three Bees podcast.
• 14:40
  I hope you found it useful and that you're walking away with
• 14:42
  some motivation, inspiration or education to help you build a
• 14:46
  Better Business. Don't forget to subscribe, leave
• 14:49
  a review and of course, connect with us on social media for more
• 14:52
  insights, tips and behind the scenes content.
• 14:54
  Your next step in building a Better Business is just a click
• 14:57
  away. I can't wait to connect with you
• 14:58
  and I'll see you on the next episode.
• 15:00
  Bye.