AI Update + Explain Your Business

Business brain, episode 586 for Casual Friday morning show Host day. Could that be podcast Host Day 20? Friday, September 27, 2024 welcome to Business Brain, everybody. Welcome back to Business Brain. I got all screwed up on the intro. I got confused because of the episode number and the 586 versus the 27th. Did I get it right? We here at Business Brain are the show that takes a few ideas every episode. We dissect them, we crunch them, we use them to help tune our business brains. All of our business brains. Yours, mine, his, everybody's business brains, every single time we get together. Our sponsor for this episode is shopify.com businessbrain. That's where you can go to sign up for your $1 per month trial. This is for anyone to sell anywhere and we'll talk more about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm doing well. I'm rocking along, trying to be efficient, you know, getting my stuff done. Yeah, man.

I wanted to, I start just another regular segment that we could do on the show talking about AI. Not that this is a show about AI, but I think the AI impact of AI on small business and entrepreneurs and side hustlers and everybody is, Is dramatic. And the, one of the reasons I brought it up is I, I was at a party this weekend and I was talking to someone and it was first person in a while that I spoke to that just had no concept of.

Yeah.

How we were, the, the ways it could help us and doing different things. So. And I find myself using, you know, the big G search engine less and less and I'm relying on, you know, chat. GPT is my go to and one of the ways I use it is in the car now. So I have it on my phone and I have the voice thing turned on and I just start asking questions because I'm curious and I need help. And I, I thought, you know, why not? So I started, I ask a question and the beauty of it, it responds back and forth. And I ask again, clarify this, give me some resources for this. But when I get back to my desk, all that data that it just gave me is waiting for me in the browser. So I get those URLs that it gives me, it gets information. So you should try having a conversation with this thing. It's pretty wild.

Do you have CarPlay in your vehicle? I. I do and does chat GBT work with CarPlay or not. You have to sort of invoke it separately.

Yeah, I just turn it on and it sits there and you just go. And I just go. And it stays the whole time. So, yeah, my phone's sitting there and I, you know, I, I needed to learn about. I was having a problem with the well, a water well up on a piece of property we have. And I didn't, I just frustrated. I didn't know. So I was like, okay, I'm driving home. I have like 90 minutes. I'm going to get a full tutorial on how these wells work.

Yes.

How, how the iron could be building up. What are the problems that I need to know? And so it gave me all this great data and then I could say, wait, wait, you say, stop, clarify what you just said or make sure you include a link to that. And so then when I got home, I flip open my, my MacBook and the, the whole history's right there and every resource that it mentioned, there's a link to it. It's. It's just a game changer, man.

I, It's a game changer. I agree.

It's amazing. And so, you know, I use it, I create every image pretty much.

Oh, I. Slow down, slow down, slow down.

Because we're going to go back and.

Forth on this, man, because otherwise, otherwise it's just going to be one soliloquy after another. And that's, that's no fun. We'll have an interactive conversation that's better for the listener, I think. Feedback at BusinessBrain show you let us know. I have been using Apple Intelligence, the very limited portion that's available in beta software currently.

Okay.

It doesn't have the ChatGPT integration yet. It doesn't have. There's basically three layers to Apple Intelligence. One is the stuff that can all be done on the iPhone or on the device. Then there's this, and that's all private because it never leaves your device, the request, everything. Then there's the second layer, which again only uses like your data and a stock LLM that Apple has built, but that basically spins up a private server in the cloud for you to do things with, but it's not exposing your request beyond that. And this server in the cloud, it's, you know, they, they're all like open sourced in a way that people can confirm that there's no data stored, there's no logs kept on these things. It's basically an extra brain for your phone. When your phone, when you have a request that's more than your Phone can do. Right? Which is great. Smart. That doesn't exist yet. And then the third layer is integration with ChatGPT, which also doesn't exist. So I'm only using the thing that happens on the phone, which is fairly limited, but I'm still not even using all of it. Every day there's new things that I'm like, okay, right? And this is just so everybody knows this is in the beta software for iOS 18.1. It's not in the release of 18.0. One of my favorite things is what it automatically does because I don't have to learn and figure out what I can do with it. But one of my favorite things is notification summaries. So, and this works with every app and every notification. If you get multiple notifications from the same app, it summarizes. So, for example, and I know this is an Apple app, but it works with all apps. It works with Slack the same way I'm about to describe that it works with messages. In fact, the same thing happens. You get messages, notifications, you know, when you're in like a group or you get one person that's super chatty and send you 15 messages while you're busy, whatever, Then you go and you have to read through the whole thing and you see that there's this explosion of messages. This gives me a like two to four line summary of all of the notifications. And it's like, oh, yeah, like with the bands. I mean, it happens all the time. You know, sometimes it's, you know, hey, we should be playing a new song this weekend. And other times it's, let's find creative uses for the eggplant emoji.

Right?

One of those is more important than the other, obviously. It's the eggplant emoji, of course, but, like, it's really handy. My family group chat that, like, that kind of thing that in and of itself makes the AI features super. And it's like it's barely scratching the surface. I can have it do summaries for me, like replying to emails. I'm barely even doing that. And that all happens on device too. But yeah, the Apple Intelligence, that's awesome. It's cool. Yeah. And when they have the ChatGPT integration, I'll be able to do the thing with CarPlay that you are doing without, you know, without it. So what's the next one on your list?

Well, I would just say, you know, it's very obvious, but I create every image that we use for this show we create in ChatGPT now in the image generator and it's gotten much, much better. It allows you to edit certain parts. It's still not the best at spelling, but it's, it's getting better and better. And, and that's a. I use it over and over and every single day and it creates, it's, it's just amazing to me that how easy it is to use and how we used to pay a lot of money for stock photos and now it, you know, it just creates the stuff. So it's huge.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I have, I have a tip or a hint on that. I. When I'm creating images with ChatGPT, I tell it, no words, please don't add any words. I will add those later with my templates. And it doesn't keep it from adding words. Like it will still add some words, but it doesn't add nearly as many. It doesn't try, like if I'm doing it for the podcast or whatever, it doesn't try to add the name of the show, which it'll misspell or whatever.

So I like it. I like that. Yeah, I've, I've created, you know, we did a show, I think I did an intro topic about having a model release form for people in your YouTube videos and stuff. Yeah, I created that form up in Chat GPT. I just said, hey, I need, I want a forum that I can share with people and I use that. You know, it's just on and on and on.

I have one last thing that I use, Chat GPT and that is programming. I am a programmer. I know how to program. I also don't have the time that I would need to code up the ideas that I have in my head. And so I will describe to ChatGPT what I want written or like with that. That podcast pixel, the private pixel thing, I coded that up in one engine and then realized it would be way better as a Cloudflare worker. But. And so I was like, crap. This was like 5:30 in the morning at this point. And I'm like, I don't want to write JavaScript right now. So I fed it the thing I created and said, follow the work. The logic on this. Here's what I'm doing. I gave it like a one paragraph description of what I wanted. Rewrite this as a Cloudflare worker. And it was like, okay, great. Also, you know, Cloudflare workers can do other things that you're trying to do here. I can do this. And I took that and put it in and out of the gate. It worked. Now I have tweaked it immensely since then, sure, but like, that was huge. What a great starting point. Just like with any kind of writing code prose, it gives you a starting point that you can then edit from. And that is where things get super, super valuable. All right, folks, you know that success in business isn't just about having a great product, right? It's about the business behind the business. Making sales as easy as a walk in the park for your customers. Take companies like feastables by Mr. Beast or even Mattel. Sure, they've got demand killer branding and influence driven marketing. But the real secret behind their success, our sponsor, Shopify. That's right, Shopify is the home of the number one checkout on the planet. And they're not so secret Weapon Shop Pay, which boosts conversions by up to 50%. Less abandoned carts, more cha ching moments. I've used Shopify with one of my other businesses and soon I'm setting it up for my giggab podcast Merch Store. It's ridiculously simple to use. And no matter where your customers are online, in store, or lost in their social media scroll, Shopify is ready to sell for you. So if you're serious about growing your business, the secrets out businesses that want to grow, grow with Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout as Mr. Beast uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase. Go to shopify.com businessbrain to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, I know we only have a few minutes left here, but I am curious. You, for the better part of a year, and certainly most of this year, 2024, have been talking about how you started first on the X platform and started learning that more and then you joined a group. But it's clear, certainly looking backwards, that you have started a new business this year and we've heard the evolution of it on this show and it's great. Like you're doing some consulting and other things right now. You have your newsletter and you've got other things on the horizon with this. As you look at that business today, what is your new business? What do you. What does it do?

That's a good question. That's a great question. And you know, up until I've really been focused on this for like nine months. Okay. After the first year, I really got into it. Yeah.

Yeah.

So up until about you know, I mean, the first three months I didn't, I really had no idea. Just I knew something was happening. I was getting some really good energy back and I was meeting lots of great people. And then, you know, the last three months have really been crazy and grown a lot of growth and everything. And really I had a, one of the people in my peer group that I work with, you know, they had said a while back, like, well, what you're building is a media company. And I agree. And the focus is on me me Dia, me dia company. So I have wanted to productize my knowledge from forever, but I just didn't know how to do it. And I've written, you know, I've written a couple books. So I guess I did it that way a bit. Sure.

Yeah.

But the way that the, the tools at our disposal, we were just having that AI conversation. Yeah, the tools at our disposal. Like rather than. Or I'm taking a book that I wrote, you know, three, four years ago and breaking it out like an exploded view that includes, you know, the text of the book, but videos and case studies and more interactive features and creating a much more in depth experience for someone that's interested in replicating what I did. And it. The. My biggest growth has been in liquidation products and, and overstock over the years.

Not, not this year, but in the past.

Yeah, but in the past that every business I've had, there's been some.

That's been your thing. Part of it.

That's my thing that has gotten me the most growth on X. Oh, I see.

Okay. So really productizing the knowledge that you, that you had prior to this year. Right? Correct. Correct.

Sharing. Like we always say. You sound much smarter because you get to tell your. Your story in reverse.

In reverse.

So that's kind of basically what I'm doing. And we're building and I have people helping me now we're building an, kind of this system or an ecosystem of all these things that I've done. And the way that I've attracted clients has been to build my credibility on X.

Got it. Okay.

They follow along and then I don't push anything. People ask me, hey, Shannon, do you do any coaching? Well, in the beginning I was like, no, yeah, I don't. But it became apparent pretty quick. It's like, hey, I would like you to coach me. So the way I did it in the beginning because I did not know how to coach another business owner per se, other than just talking to you and I is I did it for free.

It turns out you did know how to do this, but.

Yeah, but.

Correct. I could have told you that, but. But you hadn't done it in a way. Correct. Before you start charging people, you want to feel confident in the offering.

Yes. So I, when I, before I started charging, I found a few people that I had interacted with. I said, hey, how would you like a month of free coaching? And I'm going to build this, I'm going to do this and build these tools for you. And it's been great. The same with now I'm, I'm, we're going to build a, we're in the process of building a community for people that want to learn about this stuff.

And a mastermind kind of group sort of thing.

Kind of a mastermind, yeah, but I didn't know how to do a mastermind. So on X I sell a $5 a month subscription, right? Sure. If you pay five bucks a month to my feed, you get exclusive offers.

Yes.

And so, and I didn't know what to do with those but what I do now is I have a subscriber group that's just for subscribers on x in the DMs and I do a monthly call just with the subscribers. Okay. So I've got I think 50, 55 subscribers now. They only pay five bucks a month. So this is just a proof of concept thing but I've learned how to interact with a group of 50 plus people in a forum type scenario. So that's helping me. And I've learned how to do kind of basically like a webinar with 20 or 30 business owners that have joined at any one time firing off questions and, and learned how to moderate, learn how to talk when nobody's there. All these things I'm learning how to do that are helping me create the next level of this, of this business. And I have a great content manager and she's manages my content on LinkedIn. She takes my stuff on X and pushes up there, has to modify it a little bit. And our. Once we're building out a couple of new websites, we've got a lot of stuff going on, you know.

Yeah, no, I just. You. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wasn't. So the nitty gritty is, is actually helpful to, to, to flesh out what a media company means. But now I, Yeah, so I mean you're, you're building, you are building a coaching practice. I think, I think what you're offering is pretty typical of not all, but many successful coaching practices where you have your coaching. But really it's so many things around that. The courses and the, you know, the books and the mastermind group and access.

Correct.

So you. I. I think you're building a robust coaching business is really.

Yeah.

If I was to look for other people doing something similar, sure. That's where I would find them. Yeah. That makes sense, man. Yeah.

Yeah. And I would say what's interesting is that I've learned is probably the one on one coaching is. I'm not sure I will continue to do that.

No. Most. It's most people in the coaching time consuming. Most successful people in the coaching business evolve out of the actual coaching. That's right.

Yeah. I can coach, you know, 10 people in a call or in person much more and have a much bigger impact than just one on one.

That's fair.

So. But anyway, I'm having a great time. I'm learning, you know, if you don't follow me at Shannon Jean, come come up there and we talk about lots of crazy stuff and it's. It's fun. A lot of energy.

Yeah, I bet it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean I see a lot of the stuff you post. I haven't been paying you five bucks a month. Maybe I should so I can.

Come on.

I can learn the rest of it. That's right. I am a slacker.

That's right.

Go pay Shannon five bucks a month. He. He will appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for hanging out with us everybody. Thanks for supporting our sponsors. Shopify.com businessbrain keep living that charmed life. Send us a note feedbackusbrain show. Have a great weekend, folks. Later.

Thank you.

Bye.