The Local Voice - Are You Frustrated As a Business Owner? (THIS HELPS)

So I'm out for a walk this morning, and as I'm walking, I'm kind of nearing the end of my walk. I'm probably half a mile from my destination, and I hear someone coming up behind me on a little scooter or a motorcycle. And it slows down and look over, and it's somebody I know. And he says, hey, do you want to ride? And all of a sudden, it struck me is like most of us as business owners, we do that. Hey, my name is Jeff Harrison with Swingpoint Media, and I own a company, or excuse me, I own a company called Swingpoint Media, and welcome to the Local Voice. Today, this struck me as something that, hey, I'm guilty of. And I want you to ask yourself, are you guilty of this? A friend of mine, Andrew, he had a saying. He says, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now back to the gentleman who stopped and asked if I wanted to ride. He had a solution to what he thought was my problem. I was walking, so he asked me if he could give me a ride. Well, a lot of times we have a solution. And anytime we see someone who looks like they have the problem we can solve, what do we do? We immediately use the hammer and say, hey, I've got a solution. Get on the back, whatever. Instead of what. What I'll call counseling finding out what their condition is. Maybe they don't want to ride. Maybe I didn't want to ride. I just wanted some water, Right? And so instead of stopping and saying, hey, how you doing? Everything going okay? What do you need? Or what's the biggest challenge you're having? Well, we as business owners, a lot of times will say, hey, I have a plumber. So anytime I see somebody who's a homeowner, I immediately go for a plumbing repair, or if I'm an air conditioner, same thing, or whatever it is. And quite frankly, we do the same thing when it comes to helping people with AI solutions. Right.

Today. And again, I just got back from the walk because it's fresh, you know, it's almost like taking a shower. And when you're in a shower, you have this great idea, and by the time you get out and you get dried off, you forget about what the idea was. I made a commitment. I said, hey, as soon as I get back to my office, I'm going to record a local Voice program on this topic because I think it's important. And here's the thing. I had a beautiful meeting yesterday with a couple gentlemen, dear friends, and we Were talking about, about AI and solutions. And all of us are, at one point or another, we are speakers, trust trainers, educators as well as business owners. And we are, you know, up to our eyeballs in AI. So we see things just like the gentleman who pulled beside me, he saw somebody walking. We see a business owner who may be, I don't want to necessarily say, struggling what appears to be they need help. And we immediately jump in and say, hey, here's a solution. And we wonder why. They say, yeah, I'm not interested. They resist that. Well, when something new comes along for me, and I think statistically from a psychological standpoint, it's true for everyone. When we don't know what it is, our initial response is what resistance. And the reason for that is because, hey, we may be going along pretty well, right? And when somebody comes and says, hey, I can help you with X, Y and Z, you're like, well, I didn't ask for any help. The other part is I don't even know what, I don't know about this. Now there's a thing that's called curse of knowledge and what that basically is. And it's true for all of us, you, me, your brother in law, a friend, whatever, we all have this level of understanding about specific things. And so what we do is we think every, everyone, everyone, because we live in that world, everyone has that already understanding. And so we jump in where we are instead of jumping in where they are. And that's a big difference because what happens is we start talking from a much higher plane and again, doesn't matter. You could be a gardener. And I'm thinking about planting some stuff in my yard and, and you're immediately talking about soil temperature and mixtures. And I'm like, I haven't even figured out where I'm going to put it in my yard yet. In other words, you're way down the road instead of asking, oh yeah, tell me more about that. And then see if something we have as a tool or a process or an operation or a service that we have can fit that need. I see this all the time. And, and as I said when I met with these friends yesterday, we're talking about, hey, how do we get this message out there that we really just want to help local business owners of a certain level to be aware of and see if we can help them start using artificial intelligence. And when I say that's a pretty broad term, okay, it might be, you know, an AI voice agent for their inbound and outbound calls. It may Be, you know, setting up workflows. It may be helping them write, you know, SOPs and you know, managing their. It doesn't matter. There could be a lot of those things, but what they're not aware of is that these tools that could do this for them even exist. And so this is foreign to them. So just like the, the friend who's an expert gardener and I'm just beginning, the first step we might want to consider is let's find out where they are, let's meet them where they are instead of where we are. And as we're talking about this, one of my friends says, yeah, I just gave a presentation to a group not long ago, like last week. And he said everything was so, so basic, but it just wowed them. Well, that's a perfect example of meeting someone where they are and showing them what they can do. I'm also participating in a, in a workshop that was four weeks long. And when we first started it was meeting, it was already, it was already pretty advanced. And we're doing some things in there and as we look around the room, some of the people just aren't getting it. And from week one to week two, or even from morning session to afternoon session, we saw a drop off. And I think it was because they started the program. And this is not a critique, this is awareness. Now, as I think back, they started the program where they were and we had to catch up or be left behind versus let's start where they are now, quite frankly. I signed up for this particular class because I knew we were going to start at an advanced level because again, like I said, I'm up to my eyeballs in it and excuse me, AI. And so this was not totally foreign to me. We. Was it tough? Yeah, but it stretched me to do what I know how to do, but at a little different level. And it's been cool since then. Four weeks later, here it is. You know, I'm doing things now that I didn't think. I'm a different person than four weeks ago. When we meet people where they are and help them right now realize, hey, I didn't want to ride on the back of that motorcycle. I just, maybe I just needed water. Maybe I just need to stop for a second, have a conversation and then move on. It had nothing to do with the ride.

Who are you asking do they need a ride? When really all they want is they want to understand, hey, I'm at level one when it comes to gardening. I'm at level one when it comes to whatever and are you meeting your customers where they are or where you are? And then getting. Here's an honest moment. Getting frustrated because they just don't get it. I'll wrap up with this.

A family member asked me about putting together an artificial or, excuse me, an AI voice agent for them. And my first questions were like, well, how are you going to use it? And when they described it, I said, I don't think an AI voice agent is exactly what you want, because this is for somebody who maybe has some sales or some call volume and also a need for outbound phone calling. And I said, it sounds like based on what you need, you're better off potentially. As she described leveraging her email database, she has a beautiful database, about 3,500 people. And quite frankly, with a database of 3,500 people, you can generate some serious business from that process. I. I mean, we have a client right now that consistently does, you know, six figures or more every year. And all we do. All they do is email. So in that situation, you know, I looked at. I met her where she was. She thought she. She had heard, because we talked about it in passing before, about AI voice agents. And I sent her my phone number for Tony, who's my AI voice agent. And she thought that was pretty cool and thought, okay, this is something in my business. But that wasn't the case. So here's. Here's my. Here's my leave today in your business, before you lean in and give them your best shot, your motorcycle, if you will, a ride. Find out if that's really what they want. You might find out that, you know, what. What I have, they don't need. But I know someone who can help them, and I can refer them to that person. I've done that many times. People do that all the time. I'm right now looking at a referral that I was given from somebody that I don't think is a perfect fit for me that I'll probably pass along to someone else. Why? Because it's not a perfect fit for me, but I want to take care of that person who's struggling with whatever they're dealing with, and take care of the person who sent the referral. I think that's important. So wrapping it up. Don't be a hammer where everything looks like a nail. Be that person who says, oh, I hear what you're saying. Meet them where they are, not where you are.

In the meantime, have a great week. My name is Jeff Harrison with Swing Point Media. The show is called the Local Voice and my goal is just to share some ideas with you and get some aha moments and say, oh gosh, you know what? I was insisting people meet me where I am, not where they are, even though we know if we could get them where we are right now it would make a tremendous difference. But the point is this may be their first day at the gym and they're not in the shape to do a one and a half hour workout and max out every muscle in their body. They may do it once but they'll never come back. Just like I said, some of these people came to the gym, came to the workshop and at lunch they left. At the end of the four weeks our class size was down. Well, it was probably 50% of what it started out at. And it's a paid class so if you want more people to hang around, meet them where they are. All right, have a great day. Thanks.