How Small Businesses Are Winning Big with AI: A Conversation with Andrea Hill

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level Level, the all in one sales and marketing marketing. Today, we'll be breaking down how small businesses are winning big with AI. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Andrea Hill and EO Fire Studios. Andrea is a powerhouse CEO and strategist behind Hill Management Group, helping small businesses unlock growth through AI-driven systems, smarter branding, and bold leadership, turning complexity into clarity and results. And today, we're talking about how small businesses are actually using AI in the real world to get a competitive edge, the biggest roadblocks that are holding entrepreneurs back from going all in on AI and oh, so much more.

0:41And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Andrea and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, it's time to stop guessing and start winning with a proven playbook. Inside the Freedom Circle, you'll have access to my step-by-step systems for creating offers, building processes, and driving traffic all in just 90 days.

1:22Ready for freedom? Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more. Andrea Hill, thank you for joining me here today. And Fire Nation, we're talking about how small businesses are winning big with AI. And Andrea is here. She's a powerhouse CEO and strategist behind Hill Management Group, helping small businesses unlock growth through AI-driven systems, smarter branding, and bold leadership, turning complexity into clarity and results. And Andrea, I want to kick it off by having you share how small businesses are actually using AI in the real world to gain a competitive edge in their day-to-day operations.

1:59I think the most common application that people are doing right now is in all the content creation, the marketing. And honestly, small business owners spend a lot of time creating marketing that they didn't have to create 20 years ago. So that's a lot of the application. But where we're really seeing impact is when they're using AI to automate back office procedures. So using AI to generate invoices and quotes. Quotations take small businesses so long to produce, especially if they sell a complex product. And a lot of times they don't get revenue because they didn't get the quote out in time. AI can really speed that process up.

2:36Or just automating processes that are more administrative than thoughtful. So that's where we see real value happening. Sure, it can write a blog for you, but wouldn't you rather put something out there that will get you some revenue right away? So that's a big part of it. The other place where we see small businesses that are really using AI well use it is when they're using it in tools that already exist. So they're using Power BI or they're using HubSpot or they're using an ERP tool that's got some AI built into it. And they're using AI as part of the tool set to help them make smarter decisions on the data that they've already got.

3:14So a lot of times we go to our software and we say, you know, how can I do more of this? With AI, we can say, do you see any patterns I'm not thinking to ask you about? Do you see any opportunities that I'm not thinking to look for? AI can actually do such fast pattern recognition that it can give you business insights. And suddenly you're thinking there's an opportunity for a product I never would have thought of or to go after a customer group that it never would have occurred to me. Now you gave two great examples there. That last one, would you have like a real world example of something that maybe you've implemented or you had one of your clients implement over the past couple of months?

3:53You were like, wow, this is a perfect example of putting this to action in real life. So the customer example? Yeah. The market? Yeah, we had a customer who sells a product across the country. But what they noticed through some pattern recognition is where that product does really, really well is in zip codes around universities. Would that be maybe pizza places? No, actually it was a low-end jewelry line. Oh, that is interesting. That's probably even a better example because you would have thought pizzas would do well around college campuses. you probably wouldn't have thought that like low price point.

4:32Yeah, it's like silver jewelry. It's not cheap. Right. It's not gold and platinum. And it does really well in those college towns. Let's talk productivity. So Goldman Sachs says 94 % of small business owners using AI are not actually seeing productivity boosts. What are you seeing on the front lines that makes those numbers actually come alive? So there is a bump in productivity, and it's not magic. But I want you to remember that we also have studies out that say, and it goes to the other piece of that statistic, MIT just released a study that said 95 % of AI implementations are not returning ROI.

5:13Okay? So we're seeing productivity bumps in areas like using AI to summarize meetings. Nobody's the terrible minute taker anymore. You actually know what people agree to do during a meeting. at the end of your meeting. Plus you get to participate in your meeting instead of frantically writing notes that nobody's going to remember to publish. So we're getting productivity boosts in things like meetings, generating content outlines, basic data entry that can be automated, follow-up, summarizing emails. You know that person who has 7 ,000 emails in their inbox and they say, but I know how to find them?

5:48They don't, but AI does. Now, I'd advocate for a better management system for your information, but you can use AI to help you grab. I just did this this morning. I've had a whole series of conversations with a company that we're in negotiations with. And I had five minutes to figure something out. And I said to my email AI, pull every conversation with his email address that I've had in the last four weeks and summarize it for me and tell me what I'm forgetting. Wow. See, to me, that's such a no-brainer way of using AI. And it kind of just honestly reminded me of a situation that I had where I had this investment and they sent me this 62-page contract.

6:34And they said, hey, we're making a couple amendments on the contract because we're having this difficulty and we're going to have to do X, Y, and Z. We need this back within 12 hours. Can you please sign this? and so I would have either three years ago, two years ago, probably even six months ago, had to like send this to my lawyer, 62 pages at like an outrageous like speed fee and like still would have like not probably gotten great feedback from it and then like just had to sign it anyways at the end of the day after thousands and thousands of dollars and felt very frustrated. I just uploaded the PDF into AI and I said, I am the investor in this.

7:10Give me the three things I should be concerned about, give me the three questions I should be asking, and give me like three things that are wrong about this. And it literally came back, and I'm telling you, Amy, in 30 seconds. And I forwarded that response back to the investor team, and they were just like, wow, you have the fastest lawyer in the world. And I'm like, I actually don't. Pretty expensive too, right? And it was like such an aha moment of like, man, I was about to get screwed over in this situation, But now, like, I've essentially put them on the hot seat because they were trying to, like, force me to do something that wasn't really right.

7:44And now I have, like, actual proof as to what I was doing because now I'm empowered. Like, I have power because of that. So I love that. Now, speaking of power, a lot of people are also freaked out, understandably. I mean, you said that AI can enhance human teams, not replace them, which I think gives people a little bit of calmness. So how are small businesses finding that sweet spot between automation and that human touch? The most important thing is the questions we ask, which we know. I mean, some people can find something on Google. Some people can't, right? Some people can get an intern to do something of value.

8:22Some people can't. The questions we ask are really important. And so the answer to that question is, what do we want our humans to be better at? when we're asking that question what do I want these employees to be better at where would they benefit from greater insight so an example of this would be we have a large client who does repair services nationwide and their algorithm caused when you called in you had to speak to a tech who at first may or may not be able to solve your problem but they ask you a whole bunch and a Zoom call. And on that Zoom call, which is 12 hours later or a day later, okay?

9:06So then on the Zoom call, you have to give them access to your phone. That doesn't freak people out. And show them the part, like I'm trying to steal a part or something. And so AI was able to go in and say, no, you've got customers who've been your customer for X years. They've spent Y amount of money, they've asked for Z dollars in repair. Maybe that Z is zero. Those people don't have to go to the tech. Those people you're going to ship apart. Everybody saves. Your customer's happy. I love that example. And to me, I hope business owners are listening to that being like, man, I can implement this right now, cut my service request down by X number, and I'm just able to keep people happy.

9:48And then everybody wins as a result. And you can see the abusers in a hurry too. Don't manage everybody like they're a potential abuser. Manage the abusers by exception. Right. I love that. Now, for those people that are kind of freaked out, can we maybe talk about the reality and maybe you're seeing something different, but AI may not be causing companies to fire individuals right now because there might be situations where, you know, these companies are learning how to have their individuals implement AI to enhance them, to make them more productive. but there seems to be something that's happening which is like silently not hiring more people where these companies are like okay we've got our individuals we typically maybe the next two or three months would have hired 10 50 in some cases 100 people to do these roles now we can just hire our current staff to be so much more productive we're not gonna have to hire any more people and of course you know we had you know jerome powell talking about this today um where you know employment's a little bit of concern for a lot of people.

10:48Are you seeing anything in this area? I am, and I'm seeing some real missteps. And I think we're going to see some of these corporations that have so baldly claimed we're going to use AI to replace chunks of our workforce. They're going to have to backpedal on that. But I'll tell you, I have a concern about that. I have a concern about people thinking AI can replace people, not understanding that the technology is not a people yet. It still needs a human at the wheel. We want to treat AI technology as a teammate rather than technology as an employee. I have a bigger concern, and it looks a lot like the problem we're having in manufacturing now, which is AI can more readily replace an entry-level worker than it can replace a senior-level worker.

11:31Well, what happens 20 years from now when entry-level workers never got any detailed, gritty experience of the work? So everybody thought it was a great idea when we shipped all our manufacturing off to China. And I'm an old girl, okay? So in the 90s, I was stressing over this and fought for my company to not export our manufacturing. All these years later, we don't just have manufacturing happening overseas. We don't have trained manufacturing workers. We gutted our labor force. And if we're not careful with AI, if we make too many missteps right now with entry-level workers, will have a very similar problem 15, 20 years from now.

12:11That's such a great point. I really hope that people who can make decisions are listening to this right now because they need to hear it. And I want to talk roadblocks. So what are some of the biggest roadblocks that you are seeing holding entrepreneurs back from going all in on AI? Is it lack of tech skills? Is it tool overload? Or is it something even deeper than that? It's something deeper. And if we're talking to a small business community, but honestly, we're not just talking small business. here. American businesses have a great deal of technology debt. They have kicked the can down the road on upgrading systems.

12:45So I'll go into midsize corporations. They're doing a billion dollars a year in revenue, and they have an ERP system that's a legacy brick that you can't even integrate other tools to. Why haven't they updated it? Because it's so hard, right? All technology changes, cultural change. So it's like you've got to change your culture, you've got to change all your systems. You've got to change a car that's going down the highway at 80 miles per hour, and you've got to change the engine out while it's still running. So there's no doubt it's hard. So we've got technology dead across the road. Across, well, to just mess up that analogy.

13:22Anyway. Wait, you're not perfect AI right now? No, I'm not perfect AI. Not that AI is perfect, by the way. Not at all. It's still making some big mistakes. It hallucinates just like I just did. It does, right? Rocks are protein. Okay. Anyway, with this technology debt, your AI is only as good as your data. I truly believe data is the next frontier of competitiveness. And businesses have been able to get away with not paying down their technology debt up to now. But now everything changes. If you don't get into modern ERP systems, if you don't get into modern CRM systems, if you don't figure out how to integrate your system so you're not managing a bunch of different data pools with conflicting information, all you're going to do is turn on AI and crank out a bunch of crap even faster.

14:11I mean, I already honestly feel like I can smell out AI where I get emails from people that are pitching to be on my show. And I'm like, that is so AI. Now, of course, everything's going to improve and things are going to change and yada, yada, yada. But at the end of the day, it's like we can't lose our own skills. No. How many people don't know how to read a map anymore? or don't even worse don't know how to get anywhere because while your siri or whatever your automobiles you know map voice is doing while they're telling you where to go right you're not paying attention no so it's not just the loss of the map skills it's like i don't know where i am in my own town exactly and i i can remember getting in my car when i was like 16 years old and i lived in the country of maine and it was like a 45 minute drive to my girlfriend's house I had to take like 15 like stops and rights and lefts and flawless.

15:03I just knew every bend in the road because, you know, this is in the 90s. There wasn't anything around. I remember TomTom came out at some point. I was like, that's weird. And in Fire Nation, more TomTom talking more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business. And they are also our featured partner high level. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack. Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM all rolled up into one powerful white label solution.

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17:30So Fire Nation, stop reinventing the wheel. Start following the proven path. Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more. That's freedom-circle.com. Anyways, listen, let's talk frameworks because people love frameworks. There are thousands of AI tools out there that can feel overwhelming. So can you share the framework or a framework for helping small business owners pick the right ones without wasting time or money? So start with the tools you've got. And then again, we go back to the last answer. If your tools aren't modern, deal with that. The tool you have probably has some AI in it. Start experimenting with that.

18:10Most good CRM systems have AI in them. all the ERP systems that are not just niche, you know, systems. They have AI in them. So start with AI that's baked into the tools you've got. Then from there, approach it very strategically. What is the greatest use? One use case. Not, you know, don't try to implement AI all over your business. What's one important thing that AI could help me with in my business? And just implement the answer to that. You'll learn a lot. You might have a couple of false starts, but you're not wasting everybody in the company's time. But be very strategic about it. Figure out what problem you want to solve.

18:50And then ask the question, is this a problem AI is good for solving? Or could AI assist with solving this problem? Because we want a human at the wheel. So I want to ask you a personal question now. I arrived in Washington, D.C. yesterday, and I had the whole data myself. So I went in to chat GPT specifically and I said, hey, I'm standing at the Washington Monument. Can you please create a two hour walking tour for me, encompassing all the most impressive monuments and locations and buildings that I should see, as well as give me a 200 word description of each one of those and why it's interesting and the history of it.

19:27and let me end up back at the JW Marriott, you know, next to the White House after two hours. And by the way, at the one hour point, recommend a great place for me to stop and have some lunch, you know, take a little bit of a break. And I'll tell you, it came back with an amazing, amazing result. And I had an incredible two hours, an incredible lunch in the middle of that. And guess what? I ended up back up at JW Marriott. And I feel like I know Washington, D.C. And I feel like in another world before that, I might have just wandered around D.C., looked at some big buildings, to smile and like gone home or maybe kind of like spent a lot of time like going through google and trying to find like the walking tours from like mamapapabear.com whatever it was and that could have been great and maybe that you know it's kind of sad because that that is kind of dying now those like individual walking tours that person spent a lot of time on google they used to rank for that stuff what's one of your personal favorite uses of ai oh that is a good question um Okay, so all my kids are adults, and I have grandkids that are adults, okay?

20:31And we've always done this race, or somebody will say, like, I wonder. It's like, gee, you might have a device you could find that on. So we started racing each other for answers on Google years ago. Well, it's gotten ridiculous in my family since AI, because we get these novels of answers. So it could be any ridiculous thing. I have quirky children. They ask quirky questions. And so I think it's the family research competition. Well, I want to talk about the future now, Amy, because listen, five years from now, what do you believe will separate the small businesses who are thriving with AI to those that are getting left behind?

21:13It's going to be data, and then data, and then data. And then from there, it's going to be people who've incorporated AI as part of the infrastructure of their business rather than as a novelty. If you think about when graphical websites became a thing in the early 2000s, there were some people that quickly recognized that a website could actually be a tool for their business. And there were people who were still just using it as a digital billboard in 2016. Okay, there's still some that are now. Okay, but that's going to be the difference is the people who recognize AI can be a facilitator. And the other thing will be a lot of small businesses avoid using business intelligence tools.

21:51And it's because they don't feel comfortable with the math of it all. Or I can't tell you how often I'll hear a business owner tell me, sorry, I don't math. Right. Right? No, you need to math. You have to math. You need to math. Must math. But as a society, we're not particularly numerate. And all the answers to our business, if our data is good, are in our data. And so the other thing that will really set businesses apart is that small business owner who says, you know what, maybe I don't need to math, but I can actually now start implementing a tool like a Power BI or a Click. Because the AI tool in it is going to visualize data for me in a way that I don't have to math, I can analyze.

22:34And I think that will be a big differentiator. I mean, one of my biggest takeaways from this conversation, Amy, is like you're really keyed up and I'm in the same boat now, thanks to you, is that we can't use AI as a way that's going to have us lose skills that we need to live life as human beings. Like I'm a big historian. Like that's why I love this walking tour through Washington, D.C. And it always fascinated me that I would read these novels of like when Great Britain, specifically England, was like the naval superpower. but nobody that was on their ship none of the sailors could swim that always like be fun I'm like how could you not learn how to swim before like going on a wooden rickety boats you're getting shot at with these cannonballs I don't get it because if it went down swimming doesn't know where that's a point for sure but how many people maybe drowns you know 100 yards from shore or maybe a mile from shore I could swim a mile right now so it's just one of those interesting things to me.

23:33And it's just crazy to think that like, we might be living in this world that you're talking about where, you know, when you and I were a lot younger, we were seeing manufacturing leave America. And we saw what that is now resulted in. And now are we going to see certain brain, you know, skills that we should be acquiring? We're not now like my, I have a two year old son. Is he now not going to acquire like some of the most basic skills that just everybody that I know has because of AI, because he's relying on it, just like so many people are learning they don't know their own town when they're driving around well and do we become a culture of assumed knowledge rather than earned knowledge assume knowledge that's interesting and we're already on that trend because it was so easy back to my family's goofy research wars you can look up the answer to anything just because you can parrot the answer doesn't mean you know it earned knowledge comes from doing things it comes from doing some grunt work it comes from digging in and assembling some data.

24:29And so if we become a society of assumed knowledge rather than earned knowledge, we will be a much weaker civilization. Well, listen, I have a lot of takeaways from our conversation today, but that honestly is the biggest one is earned knowledge trumps assumed knowledge. And we must remember that. We must. But Amy, of everything we talked about today, as we bring this home, what would be the one thing that you would want the listeners to really walk away with?

24:59That it's not negotiable. It's really not negotiable. Whether you like or don't like AI, it's irrelevant. And so rather than, change is not negotiable. But this is one of the bigger changes that's scaring people right now. So it's not about whether we like it or don't like it or believe in it or don't believe in it. It's here. Andrea, You have been such a pleasure today. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on AI. I feel like I am now more armed and prepared to enter this universe. And I think because of you, my son is going to be more prepared as he comes in this very formative stage. And if there's some listeners that maybe want to connect with you, want to learn more from you, what is your call to action for our listeners today?

25:45Connect with me on LinkedIn. Let's start a conversation. All right. And that's just Andrea Hill. Yep. Or you can go to works, W-E-R-X dot me slash LinkedIn. I love it. Well, thank you for everything that you do and we will catch you on the flip side. Sounds good. Fire Nation, a huge thank you to Andrea and our sponsors for sponsoring today's episode. And if you want to master productivity, discipline and focus, there's one place to go, themasteryjournal.com. Check it out. I'll catch you there or on the flip side.

26:20Thank you.