Building Smarter Businesses with AI: Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur Who's Done It Twice (and ...

Welcome back to another episode of Business Made Easy with AI, brought to you by jamout.ai, where we break down how to actually use AI to grow smarter and more efficient for your business. Today's episode is another good one. I'm Flora and I'm your host, and today I'm sitting down with Glenn, a serial entrepreneur who built, scaled, and successfully exited not just one but two companies and is already deep into building his next. We get into what really takes to start, what really takes to start and grow a business that lasts, from his 3 non-negotiable startup rules to how he's using AI across finance, marketing, and operations today. If you've ever wondered how experienced founders are actually integrating AI, not just talking about it, this conversation is packed with practical insights you can apply immediately. Let's dive in. Here we go. Hey Glenn, how you doing today?

I'm doing great, Flora. Nice to be here.

Nice to have you. Where are you calling from?

So I split my time between Toronto and Orlando. Today, despite the weather, I'm in Toronto. Wish I was in Orlando, but I'm in Toronto, Canada today. So.

Okay. And why, why the two?

I'm originally Canadian. I sold my company in Canada and I decided that I wanted to take another stab at a different— in a different market with a similar kind of business. but I wanted to do it in the US, uh, in a much warmer climate. And so, uh, I got my E-2 visa and I bought a business in Orlando. And, um, you know, and I, you know, I went from a much, much bigger company that I had sold to a smaller company, more like when I had founded the original company. And I'm just doing it all again for fun to see if I can, you know, get one more kick at the can. Yeah.

And, and tell me about— tell us about those companies.

So yeah, so I've had two exits, major exits. One, I started a company in '91 and then the mid-2000s I sold it to a public company. It was about a $35 million company when I sold it and we went, it went to, it basically went public 'cause it was bought by a public company. And then I got a chance a little while later to start a similar kind of business in the telecom space. In Canada called Gap Wireless in 2007. And, and that I ran that for 15 years. And private equity this time bought it, bought me out in 2022, and they hired me on to work for them for a while. Um, and, uh, but as, as that was progressing, I was realizing probably wasn't my long-term, uh, goal to stay working for them. So I, that's where I saw the idea of buying another business and not starting a business, but buying a business. And, um, And so, and I thought, if I'm gonna do it, I'm doing it where it's warmer and where the checks are bigger. And so, because the US market is so much bigger than Canada, so moved to Florida, bought a business in Florida. And this business is now not in the telecom, but it's in the power space. So we sell to the utilities. So the big, every people that generate your electricity and send it to your home, those are our main customers. And Yeah.

So let's go back to Gap Wireless, right?

Sure. Yeah. Okay.

So 8-year-old Glen was probably like not super stoked about, you know, telecom. So tell us a little bit about how you even got there.

When I was 8 years old, like what brought— So when I was— when I— well, when I was 8, the funny thing was, is that my— when I was 8, my parents bought a motel in Niagara Falls and moved me out of a house in Toronto. We moved to Niagara Falls, the honeymoon capital of the world. And I actually lived in a motel, right? And so, and I can't remember the, you know, that movie, the TV show Schitt's Creek. I don't know if you've seen it. I literally lived in that, like a house just like that and attached to the motel for years and years and until I was, you know, late teens. And, and I got a job in working customer-facing at 9, at the age of 9. And so, yeah, I kind of got a taste of like the, you know, my parents becoming, let's call it entrepreneurs or whatever, right? You know, going out on their own, buying a small business. And the— I was customer-facing, I was selling them things and, you know, training them up. And I was literally like, you know, even at 9 years old, I was renting rooms to people that would come in. My parents let me work the office and you know, among other things. And, you know, as that carried on, I got other jobs working in a jewelry store, selling not the high-end jewelry, but low-end jewelry and watches and stuff. And so I'd always kind of been selling and, you know, peddling, as I like to say. And it was kind of in my blood. And I'm Greek by heritage, right? So I had this like burning desire to, I felt like it was programmed in my DNA or something that I needed to business. And so in my later years, you know, I decided that I really wanted that. So at 29 and a half, that was when I started my first company, MMWave, which I ran for 15 years before Gap Wireless. And that's the company that was bought by the public company.

But at 29 years old, how did you know that you were gonna start this company? Just because of your background, like sales and customer facing or?

So it's really, yeah, it's, it's really simple. And, and, uh, like the stories are, they just flow one after the other. Like, for school I went for electronics and, um, I got a job as an electronic technician in a government, um, facility, basically Environment Canada, the weather service in Canada. And, uh, they shipped me off to the Arctic for a year. Then I came back and I was at, at the head office for fixing electronic gizmos and stuff. And my boss basically said, kicked me out of the government for working too hard, and said, you're in the wrong business. You, you know, you should be doing something different like sales. And so, um, in 1985, I got my first job in sales. Now, I wasn't my company or anything, but I, um, uh, I applied for a technical sales job and I got it. And, um, you know, and there's lots of So there's lots of funny stories behind all that and what have you. But nonetheless, I ended up with a job working for these 4 guys who ran this sales company. And I realized what a cheat code, you know, sales is in the sense that, you know, you, it's really the only job, one of the only jobs except for maybe entertainment or sports where you can, you can really like step function your income without a requisite degree or, you know, certification that to go along with it that takes you years and years, right? In other words, you could go to school for, you know, engineering engineer, accountant, something like that. Well, you could, you know, and you rise up, you know, an engineer level 1 makes $70K, then an engineer 2 makes $80K, $90K, $100K, $110K. And you know exactly how much you're going to make when you retire 25 years later, right? You, you, by going through the ranks, same with the accountants and the, and the other people in the departments, right? But in sales, you can be making like $60K your first year. And if you knock it out of the park, if you're a good salesperson, you can do $120K the next year and you can be making $250 grand in your third year, right? And, and So I call that the cheat code, right? And I realized that the owners had a double cheat code, right? And because they got paid not only when I sold, but when they sold and when everyone else sold, right? So it was great to be a salesperson and it's a great opportunity, but if you own the company of salespeople, it's even better, right? And so I learned that by 29 and I approached them about starting a business with them and they said no. And so I decided I was gonna quit and, um, and go on.

Do it myself.

Pardon me?

So I'm just gonna go do it myself then.

I did. I did. Yeah.

Yeah.

The next day, literally when they said no, I quit the next day.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

So what would you tell yourself at 29 now?

Um, the, Well, I would say that you need to, you need to take my 3 rules of starting a business and apply them properly when you're 29, knowing what I know now, right? And so there's 3 things you need in order to start a company, in my opinion. And I kind of sort of, I kind of sort of had them, but not really, right? And so you want me to share them with you? And, okay, so the, so the first thing that you need, you know, is a minimum viable product, right? And so you need something to sell in its minimum viable state, meaning it, you don't want to wait till it's perfect. Otherwise, you'll never end up starting your company and be, you know, becoming an entrepreneur or whatever, right? So you got to get something, find something, build something, you know, that is minimally viable and sellable, meaning someone would give you an order for it in its current format. You could improve it later, but it has to be, you know, so in my case, we were selling products from other companies from around the world. So I, I needed vendors to sell, right?

Yeah.

And honestly, I loosely had one vendor and that was it. But I was a starting a distributorship. I needed 10 and I only had one and it was a small one. It was a, it was a, you know, one of your B-lines, you know, it was like the B-side of a, it wasn't an A, A-side song, you know, a tier one vendor that would, you know, that would help carry the company. It was more of a B-line, right? So I started, you know, so that was rule number one and I didn't really have it, but I kind of did with the, this B-track, right? We'll call it. The second, you know, the second thing that you need is either 18 to 24 months of money in the bank to feed yourself and pay your rent or your mortgage, or a loving, caring spouse that's willing to support you for 18 to 24 months, right? And so, and the funny thing was, was that I kind of sort of had that as well. But when I quit the job after, after one day of, you know, like they said no to me, I quit the next day. I actually had gotten married 6 days before that. Bad. And, and I had forgotten to tell the wife that I was quitting. And, um, so I kind of went home on the Friday and said, oh, I quit. And she's like, what? You know, and we just— we were literally the following Saturday before we had just gotten married, right? And I'm like, I don't worry about it, it'll be fine. Now, you know, and again, I kind of sort of had that because she did have a job and we were, you know, we lived modestly and it was, you know, it wasn't, um, it was such that we quite capable of, you know, of feeding ourself and whatever, right? Yeah. And we had bought a house before the wedding actually. And so we were already into a house, but it had a, this was in 1991, right? So the mortgages were a lot easier to manage and, you know, and so, and then the third thing that you need is a customer that you don't deserve, right? And so, That, and what I mean by that is, is that when someone's giving you an, your first order in business, they don't, it doesn't matter how much of a track record you have from with them in your old company. In your new company, you do not have a track record.

Yeah.

Right? So the very, very first one has to take a leap of faith. It's mathematically impossible for it to be otherwise. Right? And so there's, there's 3 things. Minimum viable product, 18 to 24 months of food and clothing and shelter. Right? Or, you know, money in the bank or a loving spouse, right? And 3, a customer that you don't deserve, everyone else you'll earn, right? And, and, and that, and, and so I would've, I would've told myself that, right?

I love that. I love that. Yeah. So, so you've done, you've done more than start and sell businesses. Tell us a little bit more about, you know, how you've spent your time and what else you've, you know, for this world?

So, well, let me see. So I'm also a charity DJ, right? So, which usually gets a laugh, which is like, what's charity DJ, right? And I'm like, well, use your imagination, right? And so I've been DJing since I was 17. And now I DJ, like this weekend I have a very big event. This is really one of the main reasons I'm back in Canada, in a couple hours north of Toronto. Toronto for a charity and they're having this large event and I'm, um, I'm going in and I'm not only— I'm providing the, the dance, uh, it— I'm providing all sorts of professional recording throughout the day and then I'm hosting a karaoke session and then, and then a dance from, uh, you know, 9 to 1 or whatever. And I'm doing it all for a very affordable fee, uh, not free, but because there's expensive equipment and insurance and transportation and, you know, um, you know, so— but it's very modest and I and, and, um, you know, my costs are covered, but I'm not doing it for, you know, I don't need to charge them a performance fee, so I don't, right? And so I'll love to, love to do that. And I do just enough gigs every year that I feel busy doing it and I feel fulfilled, but not too many that I find it overwhelming, right?

And so how did you kind of get to choose what charities you do it for? Like, yeah, for charities.

Yeah.

And then that you support.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, these are all nonprofit organizations that, you know, but, you know, and they're usually, you know, fairly well known, you know, but there's all sorts of, uh, mental health association, heart association, lung association, you know, I mean, things like that. Right. And trust me, when you're a charity DJ, you don't need to advertise, right? They spread your name around. Right. So I do that. Right. Yeah. And then, uh, the, you know, and the other thing that I'm really passionate about are my French bulldogs and, uh, So I have two Frenchies. They're quiet at the moment. They don't make a lot of noise, but they, they, they, they make a lot. They don't, they don't really affect those senses very much, but they do affect some other senses like your nose. And they're very well known for leaving their scent behind. Yeah.

Yeah.

And, but I'm super passionate about my Frenchies and Jean-Jacques and Pierre. Perfect. And, um, yeah.

Very French.

Um, yeah. And then, um, yeah. And that's the, you know, those are some of the major things about me that, uh, that people are curious about.

Well, tell us a little bit about the story behind Never Sit in the Lobby.

Oh yeah. And I wrote the book, right? Yeah. So I guess I never mentioned that, but so in 1985, I took this job in sales and I started going around on sales calls with these owners and some other salespeople, and I noticed that they would do things and behave in certain ways, and they would repeat the same thing over and over again, and they were getting the same results, right? You know, sort of like insanity, if they— as they call it, right? But these were in a good way, right? And so I started writing down these little rules and tricks and techniques, and I would name them after people, and I would sort of— or I would try to like capture them, you know, in a way that I could, uh, regale people with these stories and in a funny way if possible, or, you know, and people like, oh, you know, that's so funny. Tell me how you did this or that. And then people say, can you come to my sales meeting and tell those stories? And I'm like, okay. And then people are like, oh, you should write a book, right? And of course I was way too lazy to ever do that. And so it wasn't until the pandemic in 2020 that You know, we were locked up in Canada at the time. We couldn't go out for like well over a year. I had literally nothing to do. And so perfect time to write a book. So I Googled, how do you write a book? Yeah. And this was before ChatGPT. So no way. I know how— no help from ChatGPT. And it's— I said, you know, business book. They said you need 75,000 words. So Um, and I said, well, how do you do that? And so I heard this podcast, a guy said, you know, just sit down every day, uh, in the morning, get up and write 500 words until it's done, right? And so the way my workday was, I couldn't really do that. But I said to myself, you know what, on Saturday and Sunday I can do 5 times that. So I'll do 2,500 words on the weekend, right? So every weekend I'll write 2,500 words until the book's written. So I got to 75,000 words. I sent it to the first editor. Um, I can't remember if it's copy or content or content copy. There's multiple editors you have to use when you self-publish. And she sent it back and she said, Glenn, you can't say the F word that many times in a book. And I'm like, okay, your numbers. I said, could we maybe, could we agree on 71,000 words?

Yeah.

And yeah. And so that's how we got to 71,000 words. And, you know, she says you can have a couple of, you know, goddams and, you know, and maybe a shit here and there or whatever, but that's it.

Right here in sales. People in sales cuss.

They do, they do. And my stories don't tell well without the cuss words, right? And so, uh, but anyways, yeah, the G version, uh, you know, got published. And, um, and, and the funny thing was that literally the day it went live on Amazon was, I think, February 4th, 2022, which is the same day that I signed the paperwork to sell the company. And so Yeah, so it was good and bad. It was like, you know, kind of mixed or whatever they— I can't remember what they call that, but the, you know, I had to pick between am I going to sign the company and sell it for millions of dollars or am I going to like spend my time trying to promote my book, right? And so unfortunately my book kind of had the back burner, you know, and, you know, you know, it wasn't like I had a huge launch day, you know, on social media or whatever, but I did my best to promote it or whatever. But yeah, so, so the book was came out in 2022, and it's basically 57 tips on how to— I like to say how to get, act, and stay in front of your customers and be a pleasure to do business with.

Yeah. So, so you wrote that pre— I don't want to say pre-AI because AI has been around. You, you wrote that without using AI intentionally. And I'm curious, do you think it's still relevant now that we have this tool available to us?

Well, I mean, I would add chapters on how I've learned to use AI in a, in a, um, you know, in a what I feel in a positive way, right? And I'm learning a lot, uh, now that I've, you know, gone from a large company to a small company again, and I'm doing many departmental things on my own, right? You know, where when I bought it, it was like 6, 7 people, we're up to 13 people now, but, um, You know, I use AI in every facet of the business, but it doesn't do it all, right? And, you know, there really is an endpoint where, and every day I learn that, right? You know, like for instance, I can take a contract from a supplier and it's 87 pages, right? And I'm like, I can't get through that and stay awake. I'm not capable of reading it, right? And, you know, in the past what I would do is I would say, okay, well, I'll kind of skim it for important clause, the areas where I think I should look and the rest of it I didn't, you know, now I just drop it in. And I'm like, tell me the points I need to care about. And, you know, and I sometimes coach it for things that I'm looking for or whatever. And it comes back and it finds areas that I never would have thought of, right?

Yeah.

But it won't— but it'll tell me how to negotiate with the vendor on, you know, on my side. You know, it'll give me suggested wording and things like that. But I have to have the conversation with them and I have to, you know, get on a Zoom call with them and say, look, we're not going to be able to You know, AI doesn't like phone my supplier and negotiate the contract, right?

But you're not afraid of the robots taking your job?

Uh, well, a lot of my jobs I'm pretty scared of it. Yeah. Um, yeah, the— but you know, when it comes to things like selling or whatever, like, I'm not sure where we're all going to land with AI, you know, like theoretically, we'll hopefully we'll find something meaningful to do within the world and society, but you Imagine you have all this free time. Well, then you're going to be doing things like, for instance, maybe you'll have more time to drive around, right? Well, you know, you got to drive the car, right? Like, hey, I can drive the car, but you're going to want to be in the car, or what? Like, you're going to have to participate, right? And so there'll be stuff for you to do. You just might not have to have your hands on the steering wheel, right? And, um, and, you know, you know, I can present you the car, but it's going to be a while, I think, before, you know, I don't, you know, you don't need salespeople and stuff like that, right? You don't, you know, you could replace them, I guess, probably even today with, with, with, with AI. But, you know, if you're buying, if you had $50 million and you're buying a private jet, you pretty much want the captain and the, and the flight attendants and everyone to give you the full tour. You don't want to be being served by robots, right? And so, but the thing is with AI is that like I use it in every department. In finance, it helps me look at the monthly numbers and the cash flow. And I really struggle to do cash flow and things like that. And it does it like on the back of its, like, you know, like easy peasy, right? And it tells you like, you know, you've got these vendors that need to be paid here and you've got those collections that are coming then. You need to try to pull in this payable and, and, or receivable and push out that payable. And, and it summarizes it all so easily, right? Whereas I would look at it and it was all like It's just the numbers would just start getting blurry. But in the end, I have to make the financial decision to, or I have to call the customer and say, hey, can you pay early? And the vendor said, can I pay late? You know, and then in the marketing, it comes up with all sorts of ways. Like I've looked at, you know, many of your competitors on the internet and I've decided, you know, the way they're making money, you could reposition this department or that product line or this and go at it that way. But But in the end, you have to, you have to always take, carry the ball across the finish line. It never doesn't, um, it doesn't, won't get you all the way there, right? It gets you like 70 to 85% of the way most of the time, and, uh, and in a very positive way. And, um, you know, and I mean, that allows you to do, get a lot more done, right? Like, I could say, I could say to my marketing person, I'd like to come up with some ideas for, you know, social media postings for the next 30 days, right? And I'd say, okay, give me 30 ideas, one per day, right? Like, how long is it gonna take you to come up with 30 ideas?

Well, I mean, I would use AI, so—

Of course you would. Of course you'd want, right? So would I, right? But then you have to make sure they're humanized and that there's this, you know, and it would even give you like 80, 90% of the posts and it would create them for you, but you then you have to go in and humanize them, right? But I could come up with all 30. It would just take me all month, right?

Yeah.

The, the month would be gone and I still would be thinking, right?

What are ways that you're using AI now that like kind of surprise you?

So the, well, I was always, you know, more thinking of it more in the sales department, you know, which was so finding customers, finding, you know, names and addresses and phone numbers and titles and, you know, and then sort of the marketing and the scripts and the things like that, right? Which came more into kind of naturally to me or whatever. And, But now that, you know, I'm in this sort of small business environment, it was the help I've been getting on a lot of the legal things and, and the financial things where I might not even have done them before in the past, you know what I mean? I might have like just, you know, prayed that it was everything was good. And the accountant, you know, 3 months later would tell me, you should have done that right, you know, or whatever. Right. And so it's That's, that's where I'm surprised the most are in some of these areas that are not my core competency, how much it can, how much it can help, right? And, but I literally use it for everything. Like everything goes through ChatGPT, everything.

So what's next for you in, in, in, in business for you?

So I'd like to try to grow this company to a reasonable, not huge size, like just a reasonable size, you know, and And I'm 63, going to be 64 in a few weeks. And then, you know, hopefully in the next 2 or 3 years, you know, exit. And I seriously doubt I will do it again. Right. And now, never say never, but—

No. Yeah. I didn't hear that as a no.

And because I don't, I'm not really sure what relaxation looks like or, you know, I'm not really leisure driven. Right. So I'm not really too sure what, you know, like, because I sold the last business, I could have retired, right? And I didn't. And so, and now I'm in the thick of it deeper than I ever was, right? In terms of, you know, because I'm, you know, chief cook and bottle washer, right? And so, yeah. So I'd like to try to exit from the business in a few years, grow it. I was able to do a small little acquisition, bought a small company in my segment in the US and I'd never really bought a business. I'd only sold my businesses. And so that was fun and learning how that works. And how's that going?

How's it going with that?

Well, they've been on board for, I mean, a little over a month or whatever, but they're contributing revenue and the culture is a good fit. Yeah. Yeah. So no, no, it's new. Yeah. And And I can see how we could acquire a few more to get bigger a little quicker. And yeah, and I like kind of being the general manager. I don't like being the manager of any one department. And, you know, it's like I can't get a job because I'm not good at anything. You know what I mean? Like, and it's true actually, right? And like, if I just got the job as just the sales manager, I'd probably get fired, right? And, um, you know, and so I— can I do it? Yes. Can I do it for a little bit of time? Yes. Do I know all the principles? I absolutely— and, you know, and more so than anything, but I'm not really good at it. I don't like sitting one-on-one with the sales guys and keeping them accountable every week. Like, there are other people that are better— they're better at than me because it's just not in my nature, right? And so, but I'm really good working with like the heads of the department, like the sales manager, the finance manager, the ops manager. Like, that work I love doing.

Well, and there's such a perk to doing work that you're good at because, I mean, it seems so obvious, right? No, in fact, when I, I have two nonprofits, so I understand that the charity DJ, um, and I'll never forget one time I, this, this woman, and now she's a dear friend of course because that's how this works often and she, she, she kept reaching out and saying, hey, I really want to work for you. I really want to work for you. I really want to work for you. But I was just kind of like in the thick of it and I was like, I didn't really have the space to figure out how to create a new role for someone that I didn't have like an immediate need for. It was a lot of just like filling fires, right? And so I'm like, okay, come in. Like, just come in, come talk to me. And I said, hey, look, write down all of the things that you're really good at. And the things that you really like doing, and I'll come back and we'll turn that into a job description. And, but I've, I've thought about that so often 'cause it's like, as silly as it sounds, it's like people, and I try not to use the word should too often, but you know, if you can do something that you're good at, that's a win for everyone. Like, yeah, it doesn't help if you're doing something you're not good at. Yeah.

So I hate to come back to you with a controversial response, but that Arnold just said there, I, I've done that several times. Times, right, where Jack or Jill or whatever has come across, and I know how good they are, right? And do I have a role for them? No. And I'm thinking, but you know what, you're so good that it'll be good. Like, the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts, right? So I'm going to hire you and I'm going to figure it out later, right? And it's been a colossal failure every time, and I would never do it again. I would never do that again. I don't know, but I learned us after— you know, you have all these inflection points in your companies and in your careers where things go bad and then you get them good again and they go bad and good and whatever, right? And when they— things went bad for us in 2019 and we, we shifted. Many things changed and— but we also implemented a new system, EOS. And that's where I learned the concept of, of structure first, people second, right? Okay. Not the other way around. And then so when you get structure first people second, right person, right seat. Okay. And so the thing is, is like the hypothetical is like, you know, are you at the point now where you need more than a bookkeeper, right? Like, and you need like a director of finance, right? Someone above the person that's just doing the QuickBooks kind of thing. Right. And when you get— and you don't want to just get a finance whiz come along, give them a job before you need them. But when you need I need a finance— you create the role director of finance, and then you look in your company, you say, do we have someone that can be risen into that role? No. Then we're going to hire them. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, and I need, and I need someone, you know, I've got 2 warehouse locations now. I need a director of warehousing to manage the, you know, the ins and the outs of the 2 warehouses. You know, can one of the 2 warehouse managers rise for the job? No, neither one of them I think is capable I'm gonna hire someone. And so, or yeah. And that's where you get the right person in the right seat.

I feel like a lot of the roles that I've had in my life have been because like I had a relationship with this person and looking back at it, it's like, yeah, if there had been more structure, like that could have worked better. Yeah.

That's right. Right person, wrong seat. That's what we call that.

Interesting.

Okay. Yeah.

So, so if someone listening wants to start using AI in their business but is feeling a little overwhelmed, what's one simple thing you'd recommend them experiment— experimenting with this week?

Okay. So one, if it's free, don't use it. So that's the first thing. You have to pay for it. Pick one. Claude. Grok, ChatGPT. I'm not gonna say they're all the same or different, and I can't even tell you the differences 'cause I don't, I don't really know. But I mean, I just, I started with ChatGPT early on, and I, I don't change quickly, right? So, you know, but, but I, I buy, I have an expensive license for it. It's worth every penny. And you want the, you want the latest models and whatever. And when the free thing, you get what you pay for, right? So one, the first thing I would tell 'em to do is buy a license, you know, maybe the $20 a month, or maybe there's a $50 a month one. If you're running a business that's team nuts, right? And, um, and you can cancel it at any time. So it's, you know, and to get a paid license and then put everything in their life through ChatGPT, right? So you get it. Yes, exactly. And there's a setting in there where you can say don't share my stuff, right? So you're not sharing, like, maybe, uh, especially if you're in kind of like medical or whatever, there's all sorts of special things you need to do. But I mean, if just a general business person or whatever, like, you know, you get an email from a customer or whatever saying, how should I respond? Right? And like, what should I think about this? Right? Should I be upset by that? Or, and, you know, and over and over it learns your voice and whatever. And, you know, you know, and then the customer says, oh, you know, I can't, I can't get that meeting next week. My aunt died. Or whatever, right? So, okay, well, like, what do you do when the guy's aunt died? Like, it's not like his wife or his mom, right? Ask ChatGPT, right? And do what it says, right? And run everything through. Every document you get, drop it in. Help me understand this, right? And I put everything into it and just start training it on what you do. And, you know, and how to prepare responses and stuff, right? I don't use the auto, like, AI things inside your emails and stuff like that. I do it manually offline and I cut and paste, right? Because I'm not paying for any proper level of, like, I'm not using Copilot, any kind of paid Copilot license or anything where maybe the answers would be better, but I don't know. That would be my suggestion. And, you know, The funny story, I don't know if we're running out of time, but a funny story about, I was in a, like a cohort thing where you were like a bunch of executives and you go to this retreat, right? And they brought in this lady and I can't even remember what her topic was, right? But she would give you like this quiz and then, you know, someone would get a prize, right? And so like the first quiz, I mean, I was like putting it in ChatGPT and getting the answer and I got perfect and I won, right? I won the prize, right?

right?

And then I told her that it was ChatGPT, right? She's like, okay. And so then the next one was she asked these questions and I did it and I won and I got the prize, right? And then she's like, well, did you use ChatGPT? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I did the last time. Yeah, I just told you I was using ChatGPT. She's like, okay. So then she does the next one, she goes, okay, don't use ChatGPT, right? And so I, I had my phone, right? And so I just had my phone here and I just snapped a picture of of her thing, right? And I have ChatGPT on the, the only icon I have on my desktop of my phone is ChatGPT, right? And so I took a snap of the PowerPoint slides and all I did was took the snap. I didn't even ask it a question. I just pasted the picture into ChatGPT and it knew what I wanted. It gave me the answers and I put 'em in and I answered the questions and I won, right? And I did that twice more. There were like 4 of them, right?

Wait, so then she said not to use it?

Well, she didn't see me with my phone taking the photos. A lot of times I was typing it in, right? Right. And so, and so she was there for like 2 days or whatever. So I didn't say anything the first day. The next day or whatever, I said, you know, I used ChatGPT for all of it, right? And she was like mad. She was like inconsolably mad at me, right?

Oh my gosh.

And I'm like, well, why wouldn't I? Like, why wouldn't I use it? Right? Because, because you know what? There isn't a wor— there isn't a situation where I'm not gonna use it tomorrow for these things. Right? And, you know, and I mean, these were, and it wasn't like I was doing a Myers-Briggs and, you know, when I was doing my ENTJ thing or whatever, obviously that those you have to kind of answer, you know, in order to get your personality profile. It wasn't like that. It was, it was something else where You know, I think, you know, there were statistics and other things. I'm just not, not gonna use it, right? Because that would be dumb. That'd be like saying, go build me a deck, you know, a 10 by 20 deck, but screw every screw in by hand.

Yeah.

Not happening. Power drill, right? And yeah, so anyways.

So use the tools.

Use the tools that you're given. And, but yeah, but be honest about it and don't, don't be open about it, but be honest about it. And And make sure you curate everything at the end. Make sure you read everything and you, um, because oftentimes it won't sound human and, uh, or it'll sound too, you know, and people, people will realize that, you know, you wrote their birthday card in ChatGPT, right? And, uh, they might be offended.

Or you accidentally leave the part, the bottom part.

Oh yeah, I can, if you'd like, I can now give it to you in something a little bit more informal for them. Yeah. You clearly use it too.

Glenn, thank you so much for connecting with me and for sharing your story. And I think your life adventures are fun, your back and forth and your two pups and your Schitt's Creek parallels. And I like am known for not watching TV. And so the fact that I knew that reference, I just like can't wait to tell all my loved ones.

Reference.

Yeah, I knew a TV reference. Anyway, um, have so much fun at the event.

Thank you.

And, um, if anything comes up, please, um, let me know and I'll add it to the resource page. Say, hey, you know, they can visit this website or whatever that might be. Um, feel free to follow up. And otherwise, thank you so much for your time.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Have a great day. Take care. Bye now.