Don't Confuse the Delivery System with what You are Selling

Business Brain Episode 619 For Casual Friday, January 31 National Fun at Work Day 2025 Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas, some from us, some from you. We crunch them, we dissect them, we use them to analyze and tune our business br so that we can each continue living or start living or enhance the living of those charmed lives. Shopify.com BusinessBrain is our sponsor. That's where you go to sign up for a $1 per month trial period of a fantastic service that I use with several of my businesses. We'll talk more about that in a little bit here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton and out here in.

Sunny California where we finally got a little rain. I'm on Shannon Jean, as I know.

Yeah, we even got a little rain down in Anaheim when I was there last week, which I know is. Is good for them down there. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. We just could keep it sliding, keep it from sliding into the ocean now, but at least trying to get the rain is good to get the fires out.

Yes, for sure.

It's kind of scary when you live in a state that has a fire season.

Yeah, man. Yeah. I feel. And obviously being a music conference where so many people were from la, I ran into people that I just had lost their homes. Bob Clearmountain was there. He lost his home and his studio. Yeah, it's. I mean, it sucks.

It does suck.

Sucks.

There's nothing, nothing good about it. And yeah, it's nuts.

But hopefully by the time this episode comes out.

Yeah.

The news will all be better, I hope. I agree.

I'm sure, I'm sure it will be. Things can only get. Things can only get better. Somebody wrote a song about that. But hey, I want to talk about. I mentioned this phrase last week on the show about not confusing the delivery system, them with what it is you're actually selling. And I wanted to kind of break that out. And I've been thinking more and more about it as it relates to my business. And if you, if you search online for that term or ask your AI, there's a bunch of back content about folks that have talked about this in many ways. And a quick, an easy example, like if you're in the HVA H Vac business, well, the H Vac stuff is your delivery. That's your, the delivery system.

Okay.

But what you're really selling is like comfort and security. Right. Because you want people to be warm in the winter and cool in the summertime.

Okay. Yeah.

That's, that's what you should focus on. Not the fact that you bring big, giant boxes into their house and set it up and run pipe. Nobody cares about that.

Right.

They want to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer and they want it to be maybe efficient as possible. But I would argue comfort and is. Is number one.

Yeah, sure.

In like in my business for a while I was confusing. This is why we're talking about it because I was like, wait, I'm doing this. Like, what I really sell is transformation. It's like, hey, I'm going to, I can help you transform the way you think and to create something from nothing. The delivery system that I use is talking about auctions, liquidation.

Oh, I see.

You're, you're entrepreneurship.

Yes, I see what you're saying. Right, right.

And so by understanding that, it's helped me a lot focus on what do people really want? Like, people come to me and they say, I want to learn how to buy Costco liquidation products. Well, they, they do want to learn that, but what they really want is the flexibility. They want to spend more time with their family. They want to go to their kids baseball games in the middle of the week and not have to worry about answering to somebody. They want to include their kids in their business. I have a new client that has a 16 year old daughter that he's like, I want her to see and help us learn this thing.

Yeah.

So there's. So what they want is transformation. Right. The vehicle just happens to be this entrepreneurship or I have a, a customer that's learning about Poshmark and how to sell luxury goods on there and I'm helping her learn that whole market. But what she really wants is to transformation. Transformation. She wants to be able to generate revenue.

So no, this is really interesting when you and what you're saying also articulate this. Articulates this in a way. But when you brought this topic up to me, I, I didn't know where you were going to go with it because we hadn't had the conversation yet. And so what I thought was, well, this is a great. It keeps you out of the weeds of your business. Right. Learning what your business actually does versus how you do it. Right. But when you said that, I thought, oh man, I've been in that scenario before with my own business. Not so that I understand my customers better, so that I understand my business better. And it has led to the flexibility to pivot the business. Right. When, when you realize, wait a minute, we don't do the thing that we.

Thought we did or anymore even if.

We did in the past, that was just sort of the, the, the side effect or the, the net effect of what we were doing then. But what we actually do could be used to do other things and be in a different line of business. Right. And so there's the, you know, we pivot.

Yes, you pivot.

And, and that I think is also a benefit of this, this line of thinking that, that you're talking about here. Right. Because it being able to see your business the way other people see it.

Right.

And and is, is helpful. Really helpful. It for a lot of reasons.

Yeah, yeah. Right. And it's, it's less transactional, right?

Yes. The trans.

And that's, that's important because you don't, you know, you don't want just to be transactional. You want this long term relationship with your, your customers. Yes. You're, you're, you know, you really want to understand what you're offering them. It also helps to fine tune your marketing. Right? All of it.

Yes.

Yeah. Like, you know, we had Noel from Iris Tattoo on, on a few weeks ago or last month or something like that. Well, yeah, he's in the tattoo and piercing business, but is that really what he sells?

Right? No, no, no way, man. He sells a luxury high end experience.

It's an experience and it's also like, it's a statement and it's my independence and my. Maybe your rebelliousness or your, maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's. I want to be with the in crowd. So there's a whole transformational type of thing going on in the background that is very important to his customers.

Yes.

But they, they're how they get there is they come in and they get a tattoo where they get something pierced.

That's right.

So that's right. Yeah. So it. Just think about it. I also think what I like about it too is that I think just like humans, we all want purpose. Well, if your business has more purpose oriented aspects or outlook to it, it's easier to get your team behind you. So if you focus on what truly are we doing, you know, you're not selling just tattoos and ink on someone's shoulder. It could be life changing. When I was selling luxury handbags, I had no idea how important it was to them, to somebody that was buying it until I started getting.

Yeah, you were just in the business of buying handbags at one price and selling them for another.

I was 100% transactional.

Right.

But I realized, wow, this can be transformational. To someone who's going into a job interview or wants to feel confident and on and on and on. I changed the way I marketed these things, and I took less of the detail. It's just like, why Apple stop talking about megahertz and memory and all those details? Because most people don't care. They're like, what's it going to do for me? How does it make me feel? And what. What problem does it solve for me? Right. So that's the understand what you're really selling part of it, not the delivery system or how you're getting the message to your client.

I like this. Yeah. Don't be transactional.

Yeah.

Be transformational. All right. Have you ever wished that starting a business was as simple as hitting buy now on a really good sale? Well, with our sponsor, Shopify, it practically is. I use Shopify for merch with two of my other businesses, and it's so flawless, I almost forgot what it was like to wrestle with clunky systems and endless setup headaches. Shopify lets you design your online store, manage inventory, handle payments, and ship orders all in one beautifully simple platform. Plus, with tools to connect your social channels, you can sell wherever your customers are scrolling. And did I mention shop Pay? It's like a conversion wizard, turning abandoned carts into cash. Here's the kicker. If Shopify could make tea, I'd never leave my desk again. But since it runs my businesses like a dream, that's close enough. And hey, established in 2025 has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain. All lowercase go to shopify.com businessbrain to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. All right, so, you know, I've had a lot of travel this month. In fact, I counted it. I shouldn't have, but I counted it, Shannon. And I am home less days than I'm on the road in January.

Fertile.

Yeah, it's fine. I mean, I did it to myself. I knew it going in. It's fine. But what that meant was I did not, had not yet had time sitting at my desk to write my end of year or beginning of the year executive summary.

Sure.

Okay. And you taught me the value of this years ago. And so I, I, and, and I found it helpful, but it is not for me. It's not the easiest thing to get started with writing. And so I, you know, I will procrastinate it because it's like, well, I don't need it. I never do that.

I never do that.

Dave okay, so I'm sitting on the plane to Los Angeles and I had it on my to do list to do the executive summary on the plane. Now this is after kicking that can down the road from probably about December 15th on my to do list. Like, ah, I could do it. May not tomorrow, but you know, a couple of days, not today certainly, but you know, whatever. Continuing to kick this can down the road, I'm on the plane. Prior to leaving, I had cleared the backlog of my to do list. Now that doesn't count the things that I had pushed forward like this, but all the things that it backlogs. And I felt pretty good about that. I was, I was jazzed. I'm like, okay, this is amazing. I'm in the middle of this travel mayhem and I was able to get ahead of myself and get caught up and all the things. And I feel good. Everything's great. I'm not leaving on this trip with a big pile of stuff they got to figure out what to do about. And I thought, all right, I'm going to do this. I sat down to do it. I'm on the plane, I'm on JetBlue. That's somewhat relevant to the story because they have free WI fi and fast WI fi.

Yep.

And I just sitting there like, how am I going to get started? And I'm like, wait, I know how to. I know the answer to that question. Whenever I ask myself, how am I going to get started? The answer is chat GPT. Like, okay, great. So I go into chatgpt and I type and I said something along the lines, it was a one paragraph thing. I should have brought it up because it would have been good to actually read.

But I.

What I said, but I said I want to write my year end executive summary for my three businesses talking about all the things that we have accomplished this year, the things we missed, the, and the things that we have to look forward to doing here in 2025.

Nice.

I would, I want you to write it and then I will make edits to it and we can collaborate on it. And that last part's important because I didn't know what I was doing when I did that, but boy howdy, am I going to do that in the future. Because what happened was, first of all, it wrote this executive summary and it was missing a few details, of course, but I never told it what businesses to write it for. It got it correct for all of them, including the business I never talk about. Wow. Yep.

Nice.

It identified things that we had done in the business that I had not written any press releases about.

Or was it. Is it looking in your previous conversations?

It was absolutely learning from our previous conversations.

Love, love it.

And also from the web right now. Both. Yeah, both of these things. So got it. But. And that alone was amazing. It was like, oh, thank goodness. Now I have a start that I.

Can edit, but that's a big deal.

But here's the thing, Shannon. It said to me, I'm going to use Canvas for this. Do you know about ChatGPT Canvas? Yes.

Yes.

I did not. I missed the announcement.

In a sidebar, thing pops up.

Yes, right. So a sidebar pops up. So it's a two paned window, but. But the rightmost pane is wider. The leftmost pane is just a single column. The leftmost pane is where you're interacting with Chat GPT. The bulk of the window is where you are collaborating on editing whatever the document is. And I can edit it and so can ChatGPT. And it sees what I'm doing. And I sat there on the plane and I went through everything and I'm like, oh, I'm going to change this. It's like, okay, I see that you change that. Great, no problem. And we got to the end of all of that. And then I. The second thing that I had been kicking down the road on my to do list, Shannon, was defining two KPIs per business, key performance indicators. And so I was like, well, can I kill two birds here? And I asked after spending whatever it was, 30 minutes maybe getting this executive summary together. And it wasn't much.

Awesome, dude.

Now I realized after the fact there was one big thing that it and I missed in the process. Okay, that's fine. I go back and edit it. That's the point. But I said, all right, now pull up now create two KPIs per business and put them in the future plan sections of each business. And in five seconds it did this. And I looked at him and Shannon. None of these KPIs would have been set the way I would set them. But that's because I'm the person responsible for getting them done. ChatGPT, a, not a person, and B, completely objective about all of this stuff and its KPIs, as I read through it was like, I would like to change that from, you know, 15% to 8%. But what it said is doable. Like it, it might Take a little more effort or a little more focus or any of those variety of things that it takes to, like, actually improve. But I was like, oh, yeah, no, it's not. It's not. Dang it. It's not wrong about this. And I had that feeling about every one of them, dude, this canvas thing and what I haven't used it with yet, but I cannot wait to. So is coding, right?

Oh, yeah. Because coding is.

That's probably where this shines even better.

Yes, yes.

But it. And now I know that I can tell it, hey, use canvas for this, and it will do it in canvas. It just so happens that I said something about and I want to collaborate with you on this, that it was like, let's use canvas, Dave. And I was like, holy crap. I may have, like, gasped out loud and probably scared people around me on the plane, because that's a bad thing to do. It turns out when you're flying to gasp.

Oh, I just did it. It just did it. I just. As you've been talking, I've been typing.

Right.

Hey, how to do it? And then I said, it's doing this Executive summary. And I was like, oh, that's. That's right. I did that. Oh, my God, that's amazing. And then I said, let's collaborate and adjust this. And it said, okay. And it went blink and split and.

Yep.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you can do it. Yeah, you don't have to do it in the first query of your prompt. You can. You can do it at any point. I know, dude.

Amazing.

It is. Is. Talk about transformational things, dude.

Like, I love it.

Yeah, I.

It's. What's interesting to me is it. It calls out because I use it for so many different things. I use it, like, to help my clients and I'm developing things. Yes, it's. I need to segment more of my work and tell it to look in this directory to create this, because it's like crediting me, which is great. I always love more credit. Of course, for like, oh, you develop knowledge of this and this and this, and you created this and this and this.

And I'm like, well, yeah, maybe not, but.

But this is great. Yeah.

But it's really.

I mean, it nailed it. Wow.

I know.

Yeah. I said in 20. It says introduction. In 2024, I focused on scaling my business at advisory and life coaching practice, expanding my expertise across multiple industries. This year was marked by innovation and coaching methodologies, high impact marketing strategies, and the launch of new educational and business development initiatives.

I. I know, dude. I love it.

I love it.

It's crazy.

My. My, My work span span. Entrepreneurship coaching, online course development, social media growth, political campaign marketing. And because I helped some candidates.

You have that local campaign.

Yep, yep, yep. And business credibility consulting. Wow.

Amazing.

That's. I love it.

What that tells me is you don't do enough in chat GPT prepping for this podcast. Because it doesn't.

I don't do any.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, you're right. All I do with Chat GPT is create the graphics for this show.

Yes, that's it.

That's.

Yeah. But you probably don't tell it that you're doing it for this podcast. No, I recommend that.

Interesting.

As someone who creates graphics for Tupac, I don't create them for this one. You do. Yeah, but I create them for MacGeek, Gab, and Giggab. And I have found it immensely helpful to say, please create a graphic for my Gig Gab podcast for working musicians that highlights X, Y or Z, blah, blah, blah. You know, whatever.

I'm going to do it, but I'm going to start just this week.

It really helps kind of focus it down. And then, of course, it'll train Chat GBT that you're part of the Business Brain podcast.

Well, I'm going to ask it. I also.

I also create all the ad scripts in Chat GPT for the separate podcast. So it sees routinely me doing things. What's weird about that, that I noticed, Shannon, is I've been doing that for a while, and it would. For the first eight months of last year, it would start the. The. The ad scripts with like, hey, Mac, Geek gabbers or, hey, Gig Gabbers and things like that. Things that I never would say and I wouldn't say them. I wouldn't edit it in the thing. I just knew to say it my way, like, all right, or hey, you know, that kind of thing. But I start most of the ads with all right. So right now that's how it starts my ad scripts. So I think it's been learning from the audio that it scrapes and because it. I never told it any of this, and yet all of my scripts now start with all right.

That's pretty amazing.

It's pretty good. It's pretty good. It's super creepy. But I. I'm embracing it for what it is.

Of course. Of course.

It's like I've always wanted Jane from Ender's game, the. The ubiquitous voice assistant that he had that, you know, and. But it knew everything about him and his life. So it could coach him or guide him or provide him information, whatever. And that's where ChatGPT is getting to. So, you know, for better or better.

I love it. I'm doing it right now. That is great. I love, love, love it. I love it. Yeah. You have to take advantage and learn this stuff.

I said it many times at both CES and namm. If you are a small business owner and you are choosing not to use chat, GPT or some form of LLM to AI thing. Whatever, use whatever term you want. If you're not using it, you are actively giving your competition.

Yes.

A leg up on you. And I choosing to do that.

Right. And I think if you. It's a tremendous opportunity to go market to small businesses and entrepreneurs that don't understand it, that you can come in and show them how it can dramatically streamline and systemize their businesses. It's a huge opportunity.

It is. It's either an opportunity or a weakness if you're using it or not using it. Like I get. And I, of course, certainly in the musician circles and even not, there are plenty of people that understandably and legitimately have a philosophical issue with these LLMs because of what I just said. They scrape all of our content without our permission. And, but here's the thing. No one's gonna close that Pandora's box.

Yeah. It's done. You're, you're, yeah, it's over.

So I, I, I agree that that was not cool for them to just do that.

Sure, sure. How?

However, now I get to take advantage of that for pennies on the dollar. So it's okay.

Absolutely. Yep.

That's how I sleep at night.

Gotta ride the wave, man.

Ride the wave. Feedback at BusinessBrain Show. Let us know how you are using ChatGPT or other AIs. And yeah, keep living that charm life. We'll see you next week.