Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic in the news and social media these days. Every tech platform seems to be adding an AI feature to their tools. There’s a new movie out about AI taking over. There’s even a new flavor of Coke that AI has created. And in the world of entrepreneurship, business owners are asking the question: how can we put this tool to the best use?
I get asked about AI a lot. More specifically, how is Conquer Your Business using AI? And how can other service professionals and entrepreneurs put AI to use in their businesses?
Realistic Expectations About AI
Before we dive into the dos and don’ts of using AI in your business, let’s set some expectations for what you want to gain from using it. No tool or tactic is inherently good or bad. It all depends on how you use it and if you use it at the right stage of your business. Having unreasonable expectations often messes people up with many things they try.
In June, we discussed the importance of doing the work before going to work. This means having a clear understanding of the client you are trying to attract, having a magnetic message that draws clients to you, and having a clear goal of what you are trying to achieve. Until you have these things in place, no matter what marketing tactic you are trying to use, they probably won’t work, or at least not how you want them to. This holds for AI, too.
Managing your expectations about what is possible from AI is critical. When you have realistic expectations of what AI can do for your business, and your business is ready to use it, you can do the work to make it worthwhile.
DON’T View AI as an Easy Button
Don’t think AI is like pressing an easy button for your business and that it will suddenly and without effort solve whatever problem you’re trying to solve. It’s a tool; it’s not a bag of magic beans.
Do learn how to use AI tools to scale your efforts, simplify processes, and do more of what you are already doing. When you figure out where you can use it to do more of what you are already doing an excellent job of doing, it will save you time to do even more of that work.
DON’T Give Up AI Before You Try It
There are some great ways that AI tools can help you. Like any other tool, you must learn how to use it to make it your own. I encourage you to play with different options, get creative with what is possible, and ask other people what they are doing and how they use it.
However, avoid jumping from tool to tool to tool to be the earliest adopter of everything you hear about. Many AI tools are coming out as stand-alone platforms and additions to technology that you are already using. If you try to use every single one, you can quickly spend your time trying out AI options instead of focusing on your most direct path to finding new clients.
Don’t Think AI Will Replace Humans
I’ve seen people in certain professions worried about AI replacing them, especially in writing and marketing. AI cannot replace humans. It cannot replace what you do for a living if you are in those fields. That’s a scarcity and fear mentality and will not serve you in any way. AI is a tool that can help you – a human – do more. If you remove all of the “humanness” from the things that you are having AI do for you, it will not give you the best results.
If you’re a Marvel nerd like me, you’ve seen that even AI built by a scientific genius like Tony Stark had severe deficiencies in what it could understand. Remember Ultron not understanding the nuances of humanity? The actual real-life tools available to us are also limited. While I don’t foresee ChatGPT trying to make a whole country fly through the air – a reference to Ultron for you non-Marvel nerds – it took humans a hot second to completely tell when someone is sharing AI-generated posts versus human-written content. Popular tools like Chat GPT can perform research much faster than humans, but their databases limit them, as does their lack of critical thinking skills.
Our ability to think critically and solve problems sets us apart as humans. If you remember your most basic computer class, the acronym GIGO, or Garbage In, Garbage Out, still applies. AI works much faster than previous tools but can only regurgitate information. It cannot think like a human, and cannot create tactical content that takes information and applies it to the problem that you solve. Your interpretation of information sets you apart as a thought leader and an expert. That is a human trait that AI cannot replicate; it cannot replace the genius that is you.
How are we using AI at Conquer Your Business?
Before we dive into how we use AI at Conquer Your Business, let me give a disclaimer: I am not the most techy person in the world. I am not an early adopter of any platform. My team enjoys learning new technologies, and some of these uses of AI are their ideas, and some are mine.
While I know there are many more ways to use AI in your business, this is what we are using as a human-based business that solves human problems so that we can spend less time on behind-the-scenes tasks and more time creating positive outcomes for the clients we serve.
Using AI for Podcast Transcripts
We have long used an AI tool to do the transcripts of our podcasts. We add the transcripts to our website for SEO purposes and ensure all audiences can access our content. Our AI tool cleans them enough to make them readable, but it often gets names and certain words wrong. A team member reviews them before posting and makes corrections that AI missed.
We would never in a million years be able to generate transcripts without AI tools. The manual transcription process would have taken us hours for each episode. With AI, we can spend less than an hour to add content to our website that is already creative and organic to our brand.
Creating Video Highlights with AI
Using AI to create video highlights of podcasts was an incredible win for us. I do all of my podcasts on video, and we now have a tool that makes it easy to create highlight clips from each podcast. What used to take hours to do manually is now accomplished in mere minutes.
We use these video highlights to promote each episode and share them as reels on Facebook and Instagram and as YouTube shorts. They have been instrumental in helping us get in front of our audience, and we saw a significant increase in podcast downloads after we began to share them this way.
Writing More Efficiently with AI
My favorite way to use AI is to break through writer’s block. When I have some ideas percolating and have a problem starting my writing, I will throw a prompt into ChatGPT and ask it a question. It will give me 10-15 answers, which will get my thoughts going and help me focus. I review the list, pick the ideas that resonate with me, and then expand on what it says. I may or may not include the actual content, but it helps me generate specific thoughts when I have a larger thought.
We also use AI to review and edit our original content. For example, we will take a transcript of my podcast or a blog I have written and use an AI tool to clean up the first draft. It makes the editing process much faster. We also use AI to help write our podcast titles and descriptions. We can upload the transcript and ask AI to pick out the main points, which we then go back and edit in our style.
Using AI to Free Up Your Time to Focus on What You Do Best
Overall, AI can be a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes. AI can help businesses free up their time and resources to focus on more important things, such as growing their business and serving their customers.
Ultimately, no AI tool will solve business problems. When it’s a business problem, only a human can solve it with their intelligence. But by using AI wisely, you can free up your time to focus on what you do best: serving your customers.
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