AI For Your Business | Ep 040

Kacie: What's up everybody? John's not allowed to do the intros anymore because Messed up. He totally jacked up the last one. Maybe we'll let you back soon. I'm just kidding. I'm in punishment. Yeah. We're so glad to have you guys at our, at another podcast, y'all. It's so fun. We're just blown right through 'em.

We've got Christina back again in the house. Hi. So excited to 

Kristiana: have you. I'm our resident expert. I, I'm feeling like you might need to become something on a regular basis. You're on retainer. You didn't know that. Oh. Hello again, everyone. 

Kacie: Yes. Long as you're good. Not getting paid. We'll, we'll do all the ones you want pro bono.

Yeah. Yeah. So we, um, today we're getting into ai. Last week we talked about short video and why you should do it and how you can do it. And so if you haven't checked that out, make sure go back and check that out. But today we're, we're talking about some 

Kristiana: ai I'm glad you gave them a week in between 'cause they're probably still trying to catch their breath from the short form video episode.

Yeah, I know. I 

John: still am. Ah. I mean, I don't think I've caught my breath yet. 

Kristiana: Oh. Still working out. But I'm excited about this topic. Yeah. What ai, so let's 

Kacie: get into it. AI mean ai, ai. What does it mean? Even your definitions.

The Business Project podcast business can be complicated. We break it down to regular people like 

John: us can understand and find success. I'm John Crespo, accountant and consultants. 

Kacie: I'm Casey Bryant, marketer and event planner. If you run a business or want to run a business, 

John: welcome to the show.

Ai. I, I, I'm, I'm think of me as like, uh, you know what, what, what do you say when you have to dumb it down? I need to start at level 

Kristiana: definit zero. Okay. We're talking about artificial intelligence. That's the ai. I love it. So what is ai? Go ahead, Casey. Oh goodness. 

Kacie: iBot ai, you probably know this better than any of us.

You take over the world. A Yeah. AI is artificial intelligence. It's. All over the place. There's lots of different kinds. You might be using AI and have no idea that you've been using AI for a long time. Um, Siri and Alexa 

Kristiana: and I used it today. Did you Google Maps? Google Maps? Mm-hmm. I love saying that People are like, oh, don't say it.

I don't use, I don't use ai. And I'm like, when's the last time you used maps on your phone? Yep. 

John: Within a week I bet. Or, or or when your phone talks back to you. 'cause they don't understand what you're saying. Yeah. I don't understand what you're asking me. Let's say it quietly, 

Kristiana: Alexa. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's phone's gonna be crazy.

Yes. 

Kacie: So you guys might, you probably are using AI and you have no idea. But we are gonna talk today about why should you should use AI in your business. How do you use AI in your business? And just make it super simple if you're not. Time to just get down and dirty with it and just make it happen. Yeah.

John: Let's talk about some, how do we start? Like how would a business even think about starting to use that for, for what 

Kristiana: they do? I think one of the easiest ways to dive into this, small business owners, we talk about this a lot, multiple tasks on their plate, multiple hats in the business. They're doing all the things.

So I encourage people to look at this as a tool. So many times we get in our head about. Ideas to post content on social media, or to write emails or to record videos, podcast episodes, you know, so many times that stops us right there. We don't have the time mm-hmm. To plan it out, to think about it. You know, we don't have that space getting started.

S is the 

Kacie: hardest part. Mm-hmm. I feel like when you're doing any of those, writing a, setting up an email series or creating a video, doing all that mm-hmm. Getting started is the hardest part, and that's what AI 

Kristiana: can help with. So one of the ways that I have introduced this to people is I have found working in digital marketing, So many people struggle with titles, descriptions.

Let's TikTok for example. You get 80 characters in your profile description and I have found AI tools to be a great help there because you can take an about paragraph on your website and you can plug into a software, let's say chat, G P T and I mentioned that 'cause there's a free version that you can start with immediately.

But you can actually put in there, uh, rewrite this about paragraph in an 80 character description for TikTok, and you can be as descriptive. Mm-hmm. And what I mean by that is you can give it as much input as you want. The more input you give it, the better results you get back. It's called Response in chat, G P T.

But that's one of the things that I feel people struggle with is how to describe what they do or how to get it into that character link in places that are so important. Your Instagram profile. Mm-hmm. Linked in. I hear a lot of people really struggle about how to word things there, and I think for some people they don't realize about rewording, not just writing content for you, not just ideas, but helping you dumb things down.

Mm-hmm. You're in your business all day, every day. The words I use with an IT background. That doesn't click with everyone. So I have found those tools very useful in just that wording part. Yeah, yeah, wording 

Kacie: is very, very, very helpful. We've used it recently, redid it. We redid all of our email series, so we've got about 80 emails that are going out.

So if you sign up for this, these are the emails you get if you sign up for this, whatever. And um, and we didn't copy and paste. We didn't ask it and then take that and put it in our email. We used it as inspiration to Okay. So chat, T b T, what do you, what's a good introductory email for somebody that just signed up for our website and then it would write it.

We take it, we paste it into there. We'd make some edits, we'd make it our own, and it just so mu it saved like hours and hours and hours creating these emails. Canva is another really amazing one that is a huge time saver. We use Canva so much. Do you use Canva, I'm sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, they have lots of tools coming out in Canva.

It's improving all the time. You can literally go in and ask it. Do a painting of a duck on a roof, and it will give you four different options for a painting of a duck on a roof. So if you guys are, you know, do in business and you're wanting to come up with some imagery to put behind some words or come up with a social media post, you just go into Canva and you ask, tell it exactly what you need.

And there you go. You have a picture. 

Kristiana: Yeah. I think some of the things to add into what you're saying is it's really important. I share, not to copy and paste. You want your personality, you want your brand represented the way it should, and I really like how you explained that. And I tell people, take what an AI software gives you.

Copy it, put it in a word, Google Doc, whatever it is you use, and review it. Change out words, change out your lingo and make it yours, but use it as a tool because you will waste so much time. And I, I have an example to share with you all, a client of mine that was, no, not ai, not gonna use ai, not gonna use ai.

Finally was like, you know what? I have worked on an email response for two hours. Over a situation that happened. Nothing that they had did, but something that included them and they really struggled back and forth on, I think my response sounds too stern. I think this may come across questionable. You know how texting can, mm-hmm.

Short and sweet. Guess what? She put that in there and within five minutes she felt a hundred percent certain that that email could be sent and her message be conveyed in a way. And I think that's one of the interesting things to share with you that a lot of people don't realize is you can tell it the tone that you're going for.

Persuasive, friendly, professional. Mm-hmm. And she took her two hours and five minutes where she felt like she had wasted two hours. And that wasn't something that AI did everything for her. And you know, she copied and pasted, but it really helped her convey a message. It was really important with her business.

Yeah. Saved her 

Kacie: time, which is something that we all need as business owners. I was just 

John: about to say that because you mentioned, uh, maybe it, was it last week's podcast or earlier in this one. A small business owner wears 15 hats, right? So what's the most, um, important thing that a small business can, a small business owner can have is time, right?

Because you wanna be able to utilize your time for what matters most, which is getting more clients growing your business. So AI comes in as that utility belt, that Batman utility belt that helps you, um, Save that time or get more time into your day because the business owner, you, you just referenced, wasted, wasted two hours trying to create a, an, an email.

When they put it into chat g p t, it took five minutes to create the kind of, um, feel that they were looking for, and then they just customize it for themselves. So if you wanna get time, That's where AI comes in. Well, and 

Kristiana: what you just mentioned right there, most business owners marketing your business is constantly pushed to the back burner.

Why? You're taking care of client stuff, you're taking care of putting out fires. Mm-hmm. You're taking care of your family, you're in. And as a business owner that constantly gets pushed back. And when you have this ray of sunshine or like a utility belt, like you said, that can. Okay. I only have 15 minutes.

I can do something. Mm-hmm. With this tool, instead of just doing one post or one video, I can now do three. I'm not saying in a day. Yeah. I'm not saying in a week, but you can share more. About your business. Maybe it's on more platforms, you know? And that's the thing too, is as business owners, you wanna be on Pinterest, you wanna use your Google business profile, or you wanna be on LinkedIn, but you've only done Facebook and Instagram and you have this perception that LinkedIn is this very professional like, Everything has to be put out this exact certain way.

A tool like ai, you can tell chat, G p T, Hey, I wanna take this Instagram post, and I want you to write it in a way that's best for LinkedIn in a professional tone. Now you just went from a post just being on Facebook and Instagram to possibly being on LinkedIn. Same thing for Pinterest Pins. People struggle with that description in those categories.

It is something that can help you. And this isn't something that we're gonna say run out and be on all the platforms that are available out there, but I think all three of us want people to realize this is a really powerful tool. Yes, for sure. 

Kacie: Another thing it's great for is just grammar and helping you work out your sentences and making sure your spelling's right.

You know, you just come, just type it super quick. What are you thinking? Blah, blah, blah. And then you plug it in there. And it'll fix all of that for you in like 10 seconds. I mean, Grammarly is, that is a, um, AI 

Kristiana: software too. Yes, it is. Yeah, it is. And a lot of people have been using it for quite a while. The other thing I will share with you, from my experience, a lot of the people I work with, blogging is a big thing for a lot of industries, but because I work with a lot of people in the wedding industry, blogging's a big thing.

And I will share with you if you're going to use an AI software to help you write. Blog content and really any content, make sure that you get that out of that AI software. Put it in Word, Google Doc, whatever. Again, put your own wording, change it up to be yours. But also, um, a strategic trick is, or tip, run it a plagiarism test on it.

Make sure, because we gotta remember, if you're using chat g p t, that is an open source. Mm-hmm. It's still technically in beta and it's pulling from all different places. So to protect yourself and your business, this isn't to scare you. This is to protect you. Take that step. Mm-hmm. Because AI tools are great for helping you do blog post.

Yep. 

John: Yeah, but like you, but like you said before, you don't wanna just. Copy and paste what it puts on there, because you want your personality to come out in there, so you're gonna have to change it up. You're gonna have to change some words. You're gonna have to change some things out so that your personal personality, I can't talk today for some reason, I'll keep fumbling over my words, but your personality has to come out because people wanna relate to you.

Yeah, right. Everybody wants to relate to someone or something. So making sure that it's yours is very important, but utilizing it as like the template. To help you create that template, um, for what you want to relay. And then adding your flavor to it, 

Kacie: it can help you too. Not necessarily with just content that you're putting on your social media or your website or whatever, but it can help you create checklists for yourself.

So, you know, I need to do, I'm a small business owner and I need to do taxes. Uh, what should I be doing for taxes as a small business owner throughout the year? And bam, there you go. There's a checklist. Yeah, it's, it's a great search tool as well. It comes up with, you know, some things like that if you need to create.

Some policies and procedures for your team. You hired a new employee. Obviously it's, you need to have it looked over by a professional and you know, do all the things you need to do. But it is a great starting point to get you started for all that. Or, Hey, I'm hiring an employee, my first employee, what do I need to do?

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. 

Kristiana: I'm so glad you mentioned website, because I think small business owners really struggle about updating their websites and it's not 'cause they don't want to or they. Understand the importance of it, but. It's hard to write about yourself or about the services you offer, and I think that's one of the great things that you can use AI software for is you're about, maybe it needs to be rewritten.

Maybe you've changed things over the years or your services. You may understand it the way it's written, but is it easy for visitors who know nothing about you coming to your website for them to understand? And these small things that we're mentioning can really make a difference. And your leads and again, growing your business.

John: Yeah. I think one thing that, um, I'm getting from this as well is that, um, know, be specific about what you want, the AI tool. To, to give back. Right. So make your question specific. There's something called content engineering, which is like a whole new field that came out because of ai and it's about, and what they do is they structure the question or structure the query so that it gives you the specific result back.

So really, Kind of like do be, be thoughtful about what you're asking so that it get, it gets you the result you want back. 

Kristiana: So one of the things, if you're gonna go out and you've never used AI before and you're gonna go out and do chat, g p T, great. Do it. And what John is referring to is what you put in where that little box is blinking at you, that's called a prompt.

Mm-hmm. So if you start to look up like how to get started using chat, G P T, or what prompts can I use in my business? Like that's one of the best things that you can put in is what prompts should I be using in blank as a photographer, as a. Tax professional and see what it gives you back and, but what it gives you back, that's called the response.

So when you start to hear things, the other little tip I'll give you is over on the side in chat G P T. When you start to get your responses, there's a thumbs up. Icon, there's a thumbs down icon. Why would those be Be beneficial? Because it is a learning system. Mm-hmm. So it is learning based on the questions you put in and what the response it gives you, and if you give it feedback.

I don't like this. I'm not gonna use it or this is good, you're helping that learn. Um, one of the, we use chat G P t I use three or four different ones on a regular basis, um, for ourselves and clients. And I'll tell you one of the things I do pay for the version of chat G P T at the time, it's $20 a month.

Mm-hmm. Very reasonable. And one of the things I really like is the new chat and because. When you do different topics, if you keep your information together, it's learning based on what you've putting in. So the reason I share that with you is when you go back, I, if you've been putting in questions or prompts, you can actually store your information there.

Now, I'll give you a disclaimer that I give everybody I talk to about this. There are some times when you go in chat G p t and those items are not s saved, they don't pop up. What I mean by not saved, they're not loading. Mm-hmm. So that's why I always suggest people copy it out. Yeah. And put it into something else.

But, um, it'll be interesting to see. Where are all of this ai? We are just, it's been around for so long, there's just been a light shined on it and what an amazing tool, especially for small businesses. 

Kacie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is great. And y'all, it's not going anywhere. Mm-hmm. So you might as well get comfortable with it.

Strap on your big boy boots and just dig in and, and give it a shot. Thank you so much. You guys. We're at our minutes, our short summer series. Christina, thank you so much for joining us. We're gonna link her information in the description, so if you guys wanna learn more about Christina, find her online.

She's got some great stuff. Make sure I check that out. We'll be back next week with another one of our short series videos, our summer series. We'll see y'all next week. 

Kristiana: Ya. 

John: Oh, look at that. We so synced.