Cracking the Code: Tactical AI Strategies

0:00What we found with our Black Friday offer was that infusing the AI into the things that we already had. That was our new offer. And it made a huge difference. And from the sales calls, following up with the salespeople and talking about what moved the needle for them on our thing was that they didn't want, they've seen all of the AI courses and training and all of the stuff that's 100 % AI centric and focused, and it's not helpful to them anymore. What they want is to know how to use it and how to use it in the thing they want to accomplish. And can there be something that ties those two things together?

0:49And so what we did was we tied the AI component into investing in businesses. And we're really leaning heavy into that. And I haven't seen anybody else in the space do that. How much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with insanely successful entrepreneurs who share their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success? Grab your seat at the table because this is Business Lunch with Roland Frazier and Ryan Dice.

1:20Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch. And today's a snackable episode with Roland where he's going to get into some more tactical strategies that you can start using to live a rich and happy life. If this is the first snackable episode you're hearing, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other episodes that Roland has put out. And if you want to get notified every time we release a new episode, go to the new businesslunchpodcast.com website, and we'll send you detailed notes along with every episode. That's businesslunchpodcast.com, www.businesslunchpodcast.com. And you can sign up for the free email newsletter where you'll be able to get all the highlights and resources from the episodes.

1:57Hey, everybody. This is Ryan Dice and Roland Frazier with another episode of Business Lunch. Welcome to the podcast, Ryan. We are sitting here after the weekend, after Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Thanksgiving, all that kind of stuff. How are you doing? I'm great. I don't have family with me anymore, so that's my favorite part. Like all the, you know, relatives that came in from all the places. No, it's just them. No, so it does feel good to be getting back to quote unquote normal. As much as I love Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the revenue that comes from that, it's good to kind of get back into the swing of things and kind of a blitz, you know, between now and the end of the year.

2:44So really happy with the way that everything ended up for the Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales. Um, and, uh, so yeah, feeling good. What about you? What are, um, I'm doing great. What, what are the big takeaways? Would you say that you got from that? Like what, what will you do next year informed by this year? The same, cause it was amazing and different because it didn't work out like you thought. So this, the stuff, I mean, obviously the things that worked, um, we're going to do again, and we had talked about those on the, on the previous, um, episode, but just kind I guess to rehash that a little bit, we ran a contest that essentially entered people.

3:26Yes, we'll definitely do another contest. Something to get people to enter in and raise their hand and say, I want to participate in the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale. I think that is good, even if you're going to go out to your entire list, getting people to acknowledge ahead of time. So that was a big win. What you did with really leveling up the game on the guarantee, you know, having kind of the triple double guarantee that we talked about, we're going to implement that across the board. Because I do think that when people are making quick buying decisions, which invariably happens when you have a sale like that, everybody gets nervous.

4:01Like when you leave for a big trip, you've got this sense that like, oh, I forgot something, you know, and I leave the garage door open, you know, you've got this sense that you forgot something. I think that when people know they're making quick decisions, the tendency to have a little bit of reticence around like, oh, what am I missing? So anything you can do to reduce the risk to reduce the friction. We're definitely going to add, um, add that piece in the, having the widget, the sales widget where, um, cause again, back to the same thing, like people feel this, this, they want to make a decision now, but they've got some questions.

4:31And so giving folks the opportunity to engage with team members right then and there. And I forget what that software was that you used. There were two, the one that we used was not the one that we will ultimately use. We used one that was on part of GoHigh level, but it was very rudimentary, but it did appear on the site and allow us to have conversations. The one that we wanted to do, but because of the sales disenablement department was in force at the SAS was sales bell. And that was the one that we really wanted to use because it allows you to do zooms on the page, like really, really adds a whole lot of functionality, but our service belt, sorry, service belt.

5:12But we weren't able to get it done in time. So we will be implementing that one instead. Yeah. So those are all the things that work that we will do. When I look back on the areas where I feel like we missed on a couple of our divisions where we really hit a grand slam on other divisions, including Epic and all the work that you did there, we didn't create a truly exclusive, like brand new bundle offering for just Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Yeah. And I think that's important. You know, it used to be that like, oh, as long as you're running a discount, that's enough. And I think that same as retail, like people looking for these doorbuster kind of deals, like this thing where not only is this a great value, but you've never seen it before.

6:06And I think if it's the same thing that everybody's always seen and that's so like on the digital marketer side, for example, like it, because we went back to doing what we did before, it went great. We hit our goals. It was fine. What we didn't have was this is something you've never seen before. And I think the combination of both increased value in the form of, if you're doing any kind of discounting or bundling, but also novelty. I think, I think this is the chance to introduce something new. We didn't do that. You know, the, the businesses where we didn't do that, it either underperformed or came in kind of right at expectation.

6:38It didn't overperform like what we saw on the Epic side where it was, you know, it was not only a great value, not only great bundles, not only in kind of a dropdown in, in different packaging, starting out high, going low, which maybe you want to speak to, but it was all new. Yeah. At least a new, a new offer, new hook. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. So, so I think for what, what, what I learned was that we did not get ready soon enough. We should have started at least 30 days out because we were late. Our Cyber Monday offer went out live late Tuesday afternoon. So just a little late. They're very, very frustrating and lots and lots of texts and stuff flying around.

7:23I love the ability of the team to adapt as we found new things and we were trying new things and we were like, everybody was texting back and forth, you know, we're going to win this. You know, we're going to make it go. But it was too slow getting out. And we didn't start the Black Friday offer on the Monday before or the Sunday before, which is what I had hoped we would do. So we were late getting that out. I think it went out on Wednesday and we were late getting, we completely missed Cyber Monday. But so definitely getting our act together earlier, we've got to calendar that and get the whole team on that next year.

8:05The other thing that was a win, though, because of that, we ran it as effectively Cyber Monday week or Cyber Week instead of Cyber Monday. And we really gave plenty of time for sales. So sales came in really right up until we closed the cart. I think that that also teaches me that really you can go the full week before and the full week after. You've got a two-week nonstop buying window. And I don't, like we didn't see all of the sales go away for the rest of the week because we had sales starting the Wednesday before. So I think people are in buying mode and more people get to see your offer.

8:49You just have to be careful to have different angles and things like that. But as long as you've got that, I think it's a two week window of just massive sales. And so if you're if you're closing out just doing like Black Friday, small business Saturday, the Sunday and Cyber Monday, I think you're missing out on 10 days of sales that that will be above average. Yeah, we did start. So a digital marketer, not at Scalable, not some of the other brands. it did start the Sunday before, like the weekend before Thanksgiving. Yeah, that was so we didn't do that almost a full week before. Yeah. And it's amazing how many sales occurred.

9:32I think it was like 20 or 30 percent of the of the revenue was generated technically before Black Friday. And we actually saw things sort of die out and flatten out Thanksgiving, you know, on Black Friday and start to maybe pick up a little bit on, you know, on Saturday. And I think that's because that's when everybody's doing it. And so you can kind of one, get ahead of the game, but two, it's not quite as noisy because you have a lot of people who don't start doing anything. They'll, they'll, they'll be like, you know, a hush fell over the crowd, you know, waiting for it. And so you could kind of be the one who, when everything's quiet goes, Hey, I'm over here and, and, and benefit from that.

10:08So I agree with you. I think it's at least a two week deal. It is not just a weekend kind of thing like it was back in the day. So one other takeaway that I'd like to lead into kind of our main topic today is that that really hit home for me during the Black Friday thing. And and I it's like, you know, this I think everybody knows this, but we're not necessarily top of mind with it. And then even fewer of us are taking action on it. And that is with everything that's happening with AI, what we found with our Black Friday offer was that infusing the AI into the things that we already had, that was our new offer.

10:55And it made a huge difference. And from the sales calls, if you, you know, like following up with the salespeople and talking about what moved the needle for them on our thing was that they didn't want, they've seen all of the AI courses and training and all of the stuff that's 100 % AI centric and focused, and it's not helpful to them anymore. What they want is to know how to use it and how does it impact, how to use it in the thing they want to accomplish. And can there be something that ties those two things together? And so what we did was we tied the AI component into investing in businesses.

11:40And we're really leaning heavy into that. And I haven't seen anybody else in the space do that. I mentioned to you, I thought it would be good for us to think about with scalable. So maybe we could brainstorm some of that when we're talking. But I think that it's a year old now as of a few days ago in terms of chat GPT.

12:04and everybody's, not everybody, because we're on the front edge of it. So I have to be careful to say that. But there are quite a few people who have heard about AI now in the news. They have decided that they're gonna get left behind if they don't do something about it. They've played with chat GPT, hundreds of millions of people, right? And, but they haven't really done anything other than, you know, make me a dad joke with Elon Musk riding on a pony, you know, and things like that. It's just, it's kind of a, it's kind of a, just a, it's something that's a curiosity for them and they're playing with it.

12:44But what they don't know yet is how do I put this into place? So you look at Adobe's integrating it and all the tech companies have done a good job of it. But what I haven't seen is how are other businesses doing that. And so I think it's, it would be interesting just to chat a little bit about that. And I'd love to get your thoughts on it. Yeah. I mean, I think you said it, it's AI for the vast majority of people was a, it was a novelty. It was a toy for a couple of months last year and early, you know, early 2023, it was a, it was a bit of a toy and a lot of people jumped in and they started playing with it and they thought it was cool, but nobody quite knew what to do with it.

13:26And that's where I agree. I think the biggest opportunity right now is whatever market you serve. And I think this applies, by the way, this isn't purely a B2B thing. That's where it's the most obvious. And it's funny, Digital Marketer did this on the marketing front when we just sold the AI, how to basically do AI in marketing generically. It did really well, you know, earlier this year when it was brand new. Coming back out and doing it again, it's always like, eh, not as much. But when we shifted it to AI-powered copywriting, you know, AI-powered content, now I think what people are looking for is a more specific use case for this technology.

14:07Everybody knows that they need to incorporate it. They know that there's advantages to be had. They know that there's efficiencies to be had. They know that if they don't figure it out, that there's a chance they get left behind. But they don't yet know how to connect it. and what most of the AI stuff that's out there is just generic how to chat GPT. Yeah. I mean, again, it reminds me of the early days of the internet where it's like how to use the internet, how to use a web browser. And it wasn't until people came along and it was how to leverage this technology to do something that you're already doing.

14:40And that's the big advantage. And that's what you kind of, I don't say accidentally figured out because it was strategic, but figuring out the people who are investors right as an investor how can you leverage ai to be a better investor um as somebody who's doing acquisitions how can you leverage ai to better identify acquisition targets and better assess acquisition targets oh now i see the connection now you're giving me something that i already wanted but you're overlaying a new mechanism which makes the thing that i've always wanted more possible, more available, more efficient, more effective.

15:17And I think that's the big opportunity. I think this works for everybody, B2B. And I would argue, especially B2C, because they're going to do it last, because the connections are less obvious. Yeah. And thinking about use cases and implementing this. So for me, it's now not necessarily that people want to learn how to do AI. it's that they want to be able to use AI. And so I think that for the next level of what's going to go on, we're not really saying, hey, look, you can pull up ChatGPT and this is how you can help it do an acquisition. We're building the GPTs, which are the mini apps now that will be on the app store, which allegedly is going to happen now in 2024.

16:08But we're building those little mini apps right now. And so they will go out and do what people need. So I'm basically taking a jobs to be done approach to it. So what are the jobs to be done in this thing that you want to accomplish? My goal is, for example, I want to buy a business. Okay, great. What are the jobs to be done? Well, I've got to find, I've got to negotiate, I've got to look at paperwork and things like that. So can we build apps or GPTs as they're calling them to do this? And so we just did our first one last night. We beta tested and it was great. It's an acquisition criteria creator.

16:50And so basically it walks people through, asks them a whole bunch of questions. They just get a QR code. They can scan it and then go in. When it's done, they've got specific things that they can go after. Then there's another one that will find them the actual business. So first is what is my acquisition criteria and what are the categories of companies I should go after? Then how can I go out and scrape the web and find a whole bunch of them to go after? Then how can I have a conversation with a seller, but train myself in a simulation so that I can do that? And so we've got 12 GPTs now that are jobs to be done oriented that will help people do this.

17:30And they don't have to learn AI. They don't have to learn how to prompt because I think that's going to be like when you get into advanced prompting, it's quasi coding because there are code like things that you need to do to be able to get everything out of it. And I just don't think people want to learn that. I think people want the result, not the process of building the thing that will get the result. So let's take that out to the consumer world. then to me, it would be, can you get, what are the jobs to be done for a car company, right? A auto sales company, let's say, well, it's going to be, you know, what, what kind of car do I want?

18:12How can I configure what, where can I find the best price? All that kind of stuff. So if you were, if you have a e-commerce site or a product site or a brick and mortar store to me, what are the things that you could create that you can deploy and make available to your audience, your prospects, and your existing customers to help them buy more, to help them have a better customer journey that's more effective and more efficient? How can you help existing customers see based on what they've already got, what they can do, and now maybe tying the GPT into your CRM to find out what tags has the customer got so you know what they bought, now you can create a customized AI experience that'll help them get the most of it.

19:00Or how can they better use the product? How can they use more of the product? How can they use it more often? All of those things. And I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on that. Yeah. I mean, so I think there's a couple approaches that you could take to this. So I think to ask yourself, for my ideal client, I think one of the first questions that you should ask is, what's their existing sunk cost? Like, what have they already invested in that they would like to be able to get more out of? Right. And how could they leverage AI to, in some way, shape or form, optimize investments that they've already made?

19:40Because then you could say, like, great, so this is definitely helping with that. If you want even more help, we got other ways to do that. So that's kind of the first bit that I would think about. So, you know, an example of that, you know, might be if I'm going to, this is more of a B2B example, but perhaps some type of AI around how to evaluate your current team or, you know, how to input your financial statements and have it spit out your reviews to get a sense of that. Like, if you think about how to, right? Not how to, to give them the GPT. Yeah. Correct. And I think in some cases, giving them the GPT is sort of level one.

20:19I'm sorry, level two. I do still think in a lot of markets, there is a place for how just to go in and prompt chat GPT to do it. I agree with what you're saying. It's better if you could just give them the GPT. But I'm thinking out to like most of our listeners and they're probably like, I don't know what the crap you're talking about. Right. That's beyond me. And so I do think that there's room for that. More to the point. Now, here's a limitation that I didn't think about, I guess, because it just didn't occur to me. But so I sent the QR code out for the GPT to several people for the beta. And some of them were like, oh, I haven't set up my account yet.

21:04I didn't. So you have to be logged in, for example. So if I send that QR code, they can't use the GPT. They're not freestanding. They're dependent on you having an account and having access to chat GPT, which is a pretty big weakness in terms of it's not going to work without you being logged in. So I think that's a place to go. But, yeah, I agree with you. I think that – go ahead. So just to keep picking up, I think that, like, what is their sunk cost and how can we leverage this technology for them to be able to get more insights, data, and efficiency out of sunk cost? The second piece that I would look at is envisioning their ideal result, their ideal experience.

21:51Can it be utilized in some way for them to be able to kind of plan that out? That's what you're talking about in terms of, well, acquisition criteria is more the third thing. So what I'm thinking about, we had a client who manufactured surfboards. right and so what if you could create a gpt or again show somebody here's how to leverage this tool to plan the ultimate surf vacation around the world endless summer vacation planner now this is the kind of thing where um is somebody actually going to use that to uh to to go on this trip some will the vast majority won't but as you're getting people to envision their ideal after and you're giving them an opportunity to play in a new way with something that makes that ideal after more real as human beings in general we don't take actions until we first imagine ourselves taking that action just kind of how we work and so to give them a tool a framework to leverage new fund technology to do i think that's another perhaps approach to take and the third thing would be what is an aspect of your process that is necessary but maybe a little bit painful and maybe a little bit arduous that you can splinter out.

23:00The example that you gave, which I thought was great, was in doing investments, you need to come up with your acquisition criteria. Well, we know in working with a lot of people, nobody really wants to do that. It's kind of sitting there thinking about stuff. It's heavy on the research side. And so if you can walk them through a process or even better, give them a turnkey GPT, a turnkey tool that just does it, not only now are we identifying people who are ideal client, but now we're increasing the level of belief because a previous blocker you've now overcome. And I think an example of that, like in the consumer space is if I'm in fitness, I'm in health, I'm a personal trainer or something like that, I would absolutely have a GPT or have some type of tutorial on how to leverage this tool to do meal planning, right?

23:51As opposed to giving somebody a meal plan, say, use this to come up with your ideal meal plan based on your favorite foods, the foods that you hate, allergies, all these other things, let it create your own because that is an arduous pain in the butt task. That isn't a lot of fun. It doesn't necessarily cause me to lose weight right away. Um, but if you show me how to do that, now the next thing is, okay, great. Now that you got the meal plan, let's get some accountability on following it and let's get you an exercise plan as well. So I think if you think about it in those three ways, right? Um, like what's their sunk cost and how can they leverage this technology to get more out of it?

24:25What's their ideal after and how can they leverage this technology to envision that or better plan for that? And then what is a piece of the process that might be, you know, an arduous block or a common bottleneck that you can leverage to streamline that, that might be opened up some ideas for people. Yeah. I like that. And, and the jobs to be done. What are, what are each of the steps in the process of getting along that, that customer journey from where they are to where they ultimately want to be? Um, how do you want to, uh, We can stop here or we could brainstorm a little bit on how we might do that in scalable.

24:57What do you think? Yeah, I love it. Let's do it. Okay. Okay. So based on that, knowing what would you say, what's the customer journey in scalable? In terms of from... For DM, by the way, an AI CVJ, an AI customer value journey lead magnet could be kind of interesting, right? Something that would help somebody build the customer value journey as they go, but using AI would be kind of a cool lead magnet. Yeah, I agree. My thinking was just, so let's say, what's the primary thing that somebody at Scalable is getting from Scalable? Is it the operating system? Yep. Yep. So the scalable's ideal client is somebody who sales and marketing are generally fine.

25:50They could always be better, but they're generally good. They're running up against kind of capacity constraints, founder, CEO burnout. Just in general, the sales and the opportunity is there. They don't have the ability to, they're not scalable. Okay. Yeah. And so, and then the solution that's given is the scalable OS? Yeah, the operating system is kind of the foundational piece of it. And then there's all kinds of other tactical things in and around, you know, hiring and firing in and around communication and pieces that kind of extend a little bit beyond the operating system. But yeah. Okay.

26:28So then in terms of the front end of that, if you're thinking about all the things that are the issues there, if it's hiring and firing, what's the ideal set? So it could be the team builder, AI team builder, so that basically it'll analyze what your current org structure is. You could upload your org chart if you have one. If not, it'll ask you step by step how many people are there, what are the primary roles, what roles are you occupying, that kind of stuff. and then give them a ideal org chart for their company with these are the job titles and descriptions of the people that you need to hire.

27:15So it could be actually maybe a hiring plan creator or something like that. Yeah, hiring plan builder. And especially if you typed in things like, you know, this is our revenue, this is our, you know, current profit margin, this is how much is going so it could look at, you know, you're, you know, you're currently spending, you know, you're there, there's too much going to people right now. So you need to reallocate. So you got 40 % of 40 % is going 40 % of revenue is going to labor in your industry. It shouldn't be 20%. And chat GPT could go find that and fill those things in for you and give them a pretty cool report.