AI Saved My Ass

Business Brain, episode 595 for Casual Friday, November 1st. Scented Candle Day 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas, we analyze some ideas, we dissect some ideas in order to better best tune our business brains every single time we get together. Sponsors for this episode include legalzoom.com where you can use promo code bbshow and get yourself 10% off any business formation product. And also notion.com businessbrain. That's where you can go to try out notion for free. We'll talk more in depth about those and why you're going to want to check those out in a little bit. For now, as usual here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And I'm Shannon Jean in Northern California, and I have a quick scented candle story.

Go.

Here's the deal. You never underestimate or overestimate people. We own some vacation rentals and my wife manages that. Those businesses. And we have candles, but not real candles, of course, throughout these properties.

Sure.

And sure enough, every time we go and those little LED candles have a little bulb inside.

Right.

To kind of flicker, make. It looks like it. It's not actually. It's on a regular basis that when we go up to check on the place and you're choking around, you look inside that candle, that someone has spent an extraordinary amount of time to light that light bulb on fire. Oh, yeah. I'm not making up point where now the first thing Renee does when we buy new candles, quote, LED candles in there, is she puts a label on the inside. Do not light.

Wow.

And it works.

Yeah, I believe. Yeah, of course.

Never know.

Yeah.

So you gotta. You gotta be aware of your. Aware of your audience. But anyway. But that's not what we're talking about today.

It could be. It's also National Author's Day, so, you know, here we go. I agree. Those.

Love those residuals. Those are wonderful.

There you go.

Very, very nice. But we have an AI dude story.

Yeah. I need to set this up a little bit so that you understand what was happening. I'm a drummer. I played a gig on Saturday night about three weeks ago. The club tells us, hey, it's our big Halloween party. Plus it's our 15th birthday. We're having another band open for you. Okay, fine. Pay stays the same for us. All those things. Like, sure. Sounds good. I asked our singer, who's also our manager, I'm like, are they going to want us to share a backline meaning sharing amps and drums? Because that sometimes makes changeover easier. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't do that. Like, okay, no problem. Six days before the gig, we get, yeah, you guys are sharing a back line. You got, you got to figure it out. So I'm like, wow, okay. So I'm like, I tell, I text the sound guy who I know and I've worked with before. I said, hey, we're the second band. So generally it would be my drums that would be used for the whole night. That's kind of the thing. Like, there's two issues with this. Number one, I don't know the first drummer. I've never met him and so don't know how I feel about that yet. Yeah, man, TBD on that. But also my drums are set up on what's known as a rack, which makes setup and tear down super easy. It makes adjusting anything on the fly nearly impossible. So if you want to adjust the height of a stand, the angle of a stand, it's just a no go.

But.

But what's beautiful about the rack is everything's in the same spot every time I play it, which is amazing for. Yes, I got you.

So you're not fiddling with this, fiddling with that. It just goes together.

It just goes together and it's done. And it also moves on and off the stage really easily. So I told the guy, I'm like, we. This set can be on stage in less than five minutes. You know, I need two people and I have a band of four. So, you know, we just carry it on and it's done. I have it set up off stage. It's easy, no problem. Like all that. And he was adamant, he's like, no, the only way it's going to work is if you share a drum set. And I'm like, so now I'm starting to get a little agitated because I'm being.

I can't wait to. Yeah, I can't wait to hear how the AI comes into. This is also great.

So I'm being told, and I don't like being told what to do, especially with my own gear. I'm being told you must share a drum set with this person that you don't know. And this is the only way that it will work. And I, I know that A, I don't have to share my crap with anybody and B, I also know there are many other ways for it to work because in addition to being a drumme, I'm also a sound engineer. I've done multiband gigs I know how this goes. I also am getting the feeling, correctly, or not, that the sound engineer is being lazy and wanting to offload this. I may have been misinterpreting that. Don't know. Didn't. I didn't call him out on being lazy. There was no reason for that. So I'm like, well, slow down before this turns into a thing. Let me talk with the other drummer. Maybe we're compatible. Maybe it's all going to work out.

Sure.

We're supposed to talk on Sunday. The gig is the following Saturday. He blows me up, and things happen. I get it. It turns out he had started a new job and things got haywire for him. Okay, fine, whatever. Thursday night, I start getting texts from the sound guy. Randy's fine using your drum set. Interesting. That wasn't really the concern I had. Okay. And I was like, still haven't talked to Randy. So an hour later, I get a text from Randy. Fine. We finally speak on Friday. The day before the gig. Everything's fine. But I pushed back hard on the sound guy when he told me, randy's fine using your kit.

Yeah, yeah.

That's not the issue, man. And I kept pushing, and I kept pushing, and I. Then I said, hey, you've seen Randy before. How hard of a hitter is he? Like, how does he play? And the answer I got back was, don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. It's like, that's not an answer to my question. I just wanted information, right? Now I see you're trying to manipulate me, and I don't like that either. So I pushed back really hard. And finally the guy was like, whatever. I've said my p. It was clear he was pissed.

Wow.

Okay. And, you know, it's like, same also same like. But he didn't see that he was doing anything wrong, and that's always a problem, right? So I talked to Randy. Everything's fine. We're. He's going to. It's going to work. He's a great guy. We. We talked for about four minutes about him sharing my drums, and then probably spent another 20 minutes nerding out about different drum gear. And it was like, okay, fast friends, this is going to be. No. This guy's been playing forever. He's going to treat my kit right. Most importantly, he's. He knows he can't adjust anything. He knows coming in that. That's the deal. Great. Everything's going to be fine. Okay? And it was like, there were no issues. I've had that conversation And I've had people completely, like, destroy my, my setup. So too, that did not happen. Randy was great all the way through the gig was great. But I'm on my way to the gig and I know that now I have to work with this sound engineer all night, and we need to be productive together. And you know the sound. I had one sound engineer on Giggab, great one. And he told me on the show, he's like, you know, mine is a, would you like fries with that job? Meaning he's in the customer service business. Like, he gets it right. He's like, my job is to make the band sound good and make the band comfortable so that they sound their best. This other guy clearly did not. Was not buying into that, at least in our interactions. Like, okay, I gotta get this guy back on my side because A, we're gonna spend all night together in this club. But B, sure, I want him to make us sound good. Like, you know, okay, yeah, right. So I turned on ChatGPT's voice mode in my 25 minute drive to the club and I told ChatGPT this. And I'm like, I need to solve this problem, but I don't want to just show up and apologize for something that, like, I have nothing to apologize for here, you know, But I got to somehow work this guy. And Chat GPT was like, yes. Ah, I got you. We should use. We should employ non complimentary behavior, meaning responding in a different way from the way the other person's acting. And that's probably a whole topic on its own. Yeah. Yep, we should employ that. And here's the points you want to hit. Does that sound good? And I said, yes, but I'm driving in my car and I need to deliver this now in 19 minutes. When I arrive at the club, can you give me a script? And chatgpt read me a script.

Of course you can. Of course you can.

And I was like, great. And ChatGPT asked me, how do you feel about that? He said, well, Now I have 15 minutes before I get to the club. I need to have this script in my bones, but I'm not reading anything here because I'm driving. So I am going to recite this back to you as best I can and you're going to critique me and we're going to go back and forth until I have it. And we went back and forth three times. The first time, ChatGPT was like, okay, you got a lot of the main points, but look, these two things that you missed that seem minor are Actually major things and are going to be the difference makers in spinning this guy to your side. And I was like, okay, great. So we went three rounds in total of me. And at the end she was like, oh, you've got this. She's like, you're going to be great. Have a great show.

That's amazing.

It was, and it worked like I, I delivered the script and he was phenomenal all night. It was perfect.

Think about it first. That's amazing. Think about you taking that same methodology, that same system and using it like in your customer service department.

100%.

Right. You've got this crazy email that comes in or whatever because let's face it, not every customer is rational. Right. And you know, we just did about show about credibility a couple days ago and all this kind of stuff and adding value, which is great. But you know, how do you deal with the unreasonable customer who's just pushing your buttons, all this kind of thing. But if you could use an AI intermediary to help your team model that behavior, even feed them the email, especially if it's via email or yes, voicemail, you can do it via the voice. That could be incredible. And the way you use it when you're driving is. I do the same thing.

That was inspired. Not inspired. It was instructed by you. You taught me about that. Yeah.

If you're listening, if you're not using the ChatGPT voice mode, man, you're missing out because you could talk to it on a walk, bike, ride in the car. The example I gave Dave that's kind of relevant in this position is I have this vacation rental, it's on a well. We're having all kinds of problems with the well. Asked me the amount of information I know about the well is like putting a thimble. But on the car ride home I just, I got so frustrated and I heard someone else talking about the voice mode and I turned it on. I just said, hey, here's. I'm going to give you the symptoms of this water problem I'm having with this well. Explain to me like I'm five, how does this work? How could this be happening? And I had a, like a 30 minute dialogue back and forth with the AI and I, I just kept these aha moments like, oh, wow, okay. That's how it works. That's how it works. And then when I got back to my office, all of that conversation is in my history text so I could review it.

Yes.

You know, so using it in your business and your life, man, is, is super powerful. And it's, you know, it's the best 20 bucks a month you'll ever spend in your life, I guarantee it. And, and implementing it with your team and your employees for training or just like there's just so much and you owe it to yourself to research this and see how it can change your life and not be nervous about it or whatever. But you know, the more you learn about it, the more powerful it's going to be for you.

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Let me tell you this article. I saw, I saw the head, this headline. I'm going to read the headline for you because it struck me on many levels. And the headline is a CNBC and it said, she makes $148,000 a year. Her partner makes 29,000. Here's how it affects their relations.

All right, that gets my attention, that's interesting.

Gets my attention on a bunch of different levels. But the comment that hit me was that she says, I tell him all the time, step up your game because I don't want to be carrying your weight. And I was like, so it got me thinking about that. And the guy who's making 29 grand, this is important to the context. He owns a gym and he's building a business. Okay. And I started to come at this as, hey, would this, would, would the comment have the same weight if it was the, the male telling the female this or is that, you know, because that's an interesting discussion right there. But I actually more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know, the real important part is, you know, when I started my first business, I relied on Renee. She had a real job and I had nothing. And it took me a year to even make like 500 bucks a month. And so, you know, I posted without my wife's unwavering support, I wouldn't have started my first business, let alone nine more after that. And it definitely resonated. And in the comments, it was just all these examples of spouses supporting person men and women was great.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so and so I did this my Wife did this. I went bankrupt. You know, my husband stayed by my side. I started a new business or, you know, he worked this for 20 years. Now it's my turn, and I'm building a business, and he's supporting me. So it's all these really different nuances to this comment, but basically, the right spouse is a force multiplier is what it comes down to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What a. This. I. My. My first reaction to this.

Yes.

Was, you know, when you said, he better step up his game, at first it was like, she makes 150k, he makes 30. Okay, fine. Like, whatever. Yeah, it's fine. But I mean, every. The dollar amount that somebody earns for a relationship, like, that is.

Is bad framework.

It. Well, it's only part of the picture. Yeah. Like, it's not necessarily bad. It's just incomplete, you know?

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's it. It's incomplete.

It's incomplete.

I have enough context.

No, not at all. And it was like, okay, I get that this is a headline. Great. Well, her comment about he better step up his game, that my first thought to my head was, they are not life partners. They are business partners.

Yeah.

Well, I mean. And bad business partners at that. Because I've had. I mean, I've had many businesses, most of which have had partners, and if we. If we drew a line to. Okay. Who brought in more revenue for the business, it's also incomplete. Right? Like, it's like, okay, well, one person. If. Let's say person A is doing sales and person B is building widgets. Right. Well, person A is going to get credit for those sales, but that doesn't mean, like, they. What did they have to sell? Well, the widgets. Did you have those without person B making the widgets? No. Oh, well, then, yeah. You know, like, it's. I. I don't know, man.

Yeah, it's a tough one. Obviously, you know, it's written to catch your attention.

Of course. Yeah.

And you can break it down in different ways, but I. You're right. You have to have that great communication. Very important. And if someone wants to start something and they're fighting and fighting. I get it. You know, maybe there's some kind of. How long is the Runway before you. You know, I can remember, you know, have really struggling with, you know, some early businesses, and my wife, who totally supported me, telling me, hey, you know, you can make a lot of money working for somebody else. And I was like, what? You know.

Yeah.

And she was right. But, you know, I was Able to turn things around and get it producing quick enough. But there's been.

Yeah. At some point, you got to. You got to. It's nice. Like you say, the right spouse is a force multiplier. I agree with that. That doesn't always mean the support you're going to get from them is the support that you would want from them.

Yeah.

Like, sometimes it's.

Right.

It's the tough love or the, you know, the. The stark reality. It's like we're gonna. Let's turn on the light and look in the mirror at the same time and talk about this. Okay. Yeah. Maybe this is the wrong. Definitely.

Yeah. For sure. And, you know.

And that's also a force multiplier. Like, it is a good thing. Yes.

Yeah. I can remember, you know, my wife talking me back from just never being home, you know, when I was younger and traveling all the time, chasing deals, chasing auctions, flying all over the country, doing all this stuff. And I could. I just remember. Well, and. And I'm. And I'll never forget it because I was like, well, if we want to get all, you know, achieve these things and get a bigger house and do that. And her comment was like, I don't need any of that. I need you to be here. Our kids are little, you know, be here at the end of the day, be involved with their activities and, you know, this kind of thing. And it really hit me, and I changed everything.

Same change. I had the same conversation. Yes.

Yeah.

And I'm. And I am. Of all the things that Lisa sort of illuminated for me, she certainly didn't mandate it, but she kind of spelled it out in a way that was like, oh, wait a minute. Of all the things she illuminated for me, that's certainly one of the top five, if not the top one, that I am most thankful for.

Yeah, it makes a big deal. You have to have. Because you get. As an entrepreneur, you know, you get obsessed with this stuff. It's part of my being and who I am and my personality and my ego and all. All that stuff. So I don't know how to separate it. And that's just the way I am. And it's tough. And so it's important to have that partner that supports you, but also can call out, you know, And Renee has always been like, hey, I'm the employee part of the equation, because she was an employee for 10 years or so before she came and worked for, you know, with one of our businesses. And I never worked for anybody after, you know, my last job was in college. So she's always like, you don't understand this part of it because of this, that and the other. And I'm like, oh, that's a good point. You know, so it's important to have a great person and love to hear.

Well, you say the right spouse is a force multiplier. I would, I would add the corollary is that the wrong one is a business crusher or a dream crusher. I mean, just so many like this sounds like a bad path. Now, I also know the picture that we're seeing in this, you know, Twitter post is also incomplete.

It's incomplete.

Yeah, it like, yeah, there's some might.

Not matter in there from people like that. We're like, well, how long has he been messing around with this? Is he. What's the. What's the path? And are they this and are they that? So it, it un. Unusually, it got some great nuance and so I thought, you know, it's really worth talking about.

I'll link to it in the show notes or we will link to it.

In the show notes.

Yeah, yeah.

Perfect. Perfect. And so, yeah, if you, you know, I'd love to hear your stories. Come follow us at Dave Hamilton or at Shannon Jean or Business Brain show and love to Hear from you. FeedbackUsBrain show. Send us an email, tell us what you'd like to have us talk about.

Yeah. Feedbackusinessbrain show. We love hearing from you. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.