Jess Pischel Says AI Should Be Boring on Purpose. Here's Why That's the Smartest Thing You'll Hea...

Hi, welcome back to another episode of The Human Side of AI, and I'm your host, Flora. Today's guest is Jess Pichelle, and I really hope I'm saying your last name right, Jess. She is the founder of Human First AI Consulting based in Cleveland, Ohio. Jess came to AI through consulting, a corporate L&D career, and honestly, just being a mom of 3 who needed to work smarter. She now helps small to mid-sized businesses do something that sounds simple but is actually really hard. Figuring out where AI fits before just jumping into it. Her philosophy is people, process, technology, in that order. And she has some of the most concrete client examples I've heard on this show yet, including a funeral home and a general contractor in California who needed a morning report he could actually listen to in the car. This one is practical, grounded, and really human, just like Jess. So let's get into it. There we go. All right, Jess, thanks for joining me today. How are you?

I'm doing well. Happy Friday.

Yay, Friday! Where are you calling from?

I am in Cleveland, Ohio, born and raised. I never left, went to college here, and our families are here. So we're, we're in Cleveland. I'm Cleveland proud.

Cool. I love that. And it's actually, it's kind of rare these days to see someone like in their, in their space for, you know, a while.

Yes. Yep, we're here.

So how did you find Club Jam?

So I found Club Jam through a SCORE webinar, actually. Uh, that was probably about 6 or 7 months ago when I was at my full-time job. I was a director of learning and development for a global biotech company, and I was wanting to figure out how to use AI in my role, you know, practically to save time, to kind of organize my thoughts, to, you know, restructure some, some trainings. And I was kind of thinking about, you know, starting my own consulting business because prior to that role, I was in consulting for about 5 and a half years.

Awesome.

And I loved consulting, but I was traveling— this was pre-COVID, so I was traveling like 2 or 3 days a week, sometimes more, never less. And then I had a few babies, and it was like, I just can't travel that, that way anymore. So I ended up taking the full-time position with a former consulting client of mine that was acquired by a larger company. So that's how I landed in the learning and development arena. And, and then from there I was kind of exploring like, how do I get back into consulting? And I just felt like the right time. My current business that I was, I was working on, they weren't really going in that direction. So it was something that I really, you know, wanted to learn more and explore more. And so I started my own company kind of behind the scenes and started educating myself in the arena. And that's how I landed on JAM with Score and then just kept, um, kept following, you know, her and her messaging and her trainings and just really appreciate the way that she breaks things down very, very simply, which is something that, that my clients can really benefit from.

I love that, and I love seeing people use what they're learning to serve their own clients. Like, yes, no one's keeping here. Um, okay, I have a lot of questions for you, so tell us a little bit more about your current consulting agency and talk to us a little bit about what, who that serves and what it offers and kind of what a day-to-day looks like for that.

Yes. So a lot of my current clients are former consulting clients of mine, you know, just through my network. So that's a good thing because it shows that, you know, they appreciate and trust my, you know, my opinion and my guidance and my consulting. And so when I started my own business, I was kind of reaching out to them and just doing some initial discovery work, like, hey, what are some of the mundane tasks you wish you didn't have to do? Or what are some of those— yeah, and just what are some of those pieces where, you know, you wish were automated so that you can get back to what truly matters, which is serving your customers, going above and beyond for your customers? That was in customer service and employee experience consulting before. So I wanted people to spend their time less in like data and spreadsheets and drafting an email or drafting a marketing campaign and more time actually spending with the people.

Yeah.

So my clients right now are small to mid-sized companies. I, again, I didn't really— I didn't want to travel. Not that consulting these days requires you to be on the road, but I appreciate that level of relationship building that comes with face-to-face interactions. So I wanted to kind of bring that to Cleveland. I saw that there was like a missing gap kind of in between you know, small to mid-sized businesses knowing that they need to use AI, but just not really knowing where to start. They're overwhelmed. They can't afford, you know, the big consulting firms, the McKinseys, the Deloittes, but they know they have to keep up with the times. And so that's the— I guess the gap in which I try to support my, my clients is what are some of the things that we can automate using AI? And then being able to help support them in implementation and change management. So I went through the Prosci Change Management Certification a couple of years ago, and that just really helped in consulting in general. And so I use a lot of those best practices to kind of bring people along in the AI adoption journey.

And for those who aren't familiar, like me, tell us like high level, a couple of those practices that come to mind, if you don't, if you don't mind.

With change management or my consulting?

Well, let's start with the change management.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think AI is overwhelming for people. They are intimidated by it for various reasons, for privacy concerns, for, you know, trust in the, in the platform or in the program or in the technology. People don't necessarily love change. And I think it's really helpful to bring them along on the journey with you. So, I always like to include, you know, some early adopters that are interested in the topic and really lean into those individuals to help support the messaging that we're going to be delivering. I find that in change management, you have to tell them, tell them again, and then tell them again and again and again, right? Like, their day jobs, for the most part, aren't, aren't in the AI arena. Mine is, theirs isn't. So I just have to always remember that I have to really slow down and bring them along on the journey. And also sharing the what's in it for me, you know, how is this going to help me in my role, is another really important component of that.

How so?

So the, the one example that I'm working on right now is a a funeral home. So death care industry is, is pretty slow to adapt to change. I mean, if you were to walk in a funeral home right now, you could probably picture exactly, you know, what the, the location looks like, like what you feel when you walk in.

Like, like if you've been in one, you've been in a mall.

Sure. Like, okay, you know who works at funeral homes, right? They're mostly like second, third generation owners, you know, and so that's not stereotyping, that's the industry that is. And so they're a little bit slow to adapt to changes. And, but when they have a funeral service for a family, you come in and you meet with the funeral director and you cover everything from the vitals on the death certificate to, What type of casket are we purchasing perhaps? Or, you know, everything, all of the details, right? Even down to like, are we putting lipstick on Grandma? Like, what type of flowers are we ordering? All of those things. And that meeting is done in about 90 minutes, sometimes more, you know, if family's grieving and it takes a little bit longer, but that meeting is all pen and paper. And then the funeral directors have to take their notes and type it into a data, uh, uh, their, their data management tool, their case management tool, which can take, you know, another hour. So I'm like, well, if we automate this, if we can record, transcribe, and put this information into the system that already exists, it will save them hours of manual data entry. So that's the what's in it for them. Um, it's going to make your life easier. It's going to make your job easier. You're not going to, to miss things in the conversation with the family members because it's being recorded. So it's like helping you do your job, reducing errors, making your work faster, automating some things that you probably didn't want to do anyway. I don't really know anyone who loves data entry, and that allows them to have more time to go above and beyond with their families.

And yeah, like I was thinking, I pictured them, okay, they moved to a computer and put this information as they're talking, but now they can put the computer away and they can have this face-to-face human experience which, yeah, like is really needed in that situation.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, it, that, that project particularly is slow to roll out because it's a crawl, walk, run approach. Like, you know, you have to make sure you have the family's blessing before you record them, and you have to make sure that the funeral directors are comfortable delivering that information. And, you know, so we had a, a script that really, helps them speak to the why behind it so the families aren't intimidated by the recording or anything like that. And then just making sure it works, right? We want to make sure that it captured the information correctly, that it really did eliminate some of the time and effort that they would've had to do, but keeping a human in the loop. So they always have the opportunity to edit the material, that AI captured, they're— they have the final set of eyes and edits. So that's important to keeping, you know, the human in control.

Jess, you're helping automate the funeral industry. I mean, that's like— would you have ever thought about that a few years ago?

No. I mean, I didn't picture that to be my niche, but it's definitely really a rewarding cool, you know, a rewarding industry to help serve for sure.

So what other— I mean, like, one of the main reasons I love what I do is because I get to, like, be a small part of so many different businesses, right? And I feel like as a consultant, you're doing exactly that. So what other kind of industries and businesses are you a part of?

So I have another— the thing that I love about AI and the thing that I love about consulting is it's constantly changing. You constantly have to adapt to what your client needs, and that's energizing and exciting for me. And I am a continuous learner, so I love being challenged by that. So it's fun for me to kind of shift gears and work in many different industries because every industry can benefit from AI. But, but another one that I'm working on right now, which is pretty fun, is a general contractor in the construction industry.

So he has another industry that doesn't typically stay up to times of technology.

Sure. Yeah. And so he reached out and just wanted a simple way to gather basically a morning, morning report. You know, he is in the state of California, California traffic, driving from job to job. He may have 5 to 10 different job sites that he has to be on that day. So he spends a lot of time commuting in his car and doesn't have time, and it's not safe to be, you know, on your phone checking the status of these jobs. You know, how close are they to meeting, you know, to hitting the deadline, or where are they at on budget, or, you know, how many team members showed up to work that day, or whatever the case may be. He needed like a report to answer all of those questions. And so what we did was create a tool for him that basically scrapes all of the platforms that he currently uses and synthesizes that and summarizes that into one report. So he just has one, one place to look as his source of truth. And so the next phase of that is now making sure that he can call that AI agent, you know, in between jobs and ask more specific questions. So that's kind of the phase 2.

Oh yeah.

So you can get kind of more details on some of the projects. And so again, AI can be implemented in really any business, in any industry, and it, and it really should be. So that, that makes it fun too. So. Well, and I, I mean, I love this.

You're touching on these like very human-centered experiences. So So one of the questions I sent over was, you know, and sometimes I send questions over and we don't even cover them, but I want to, I want to cover this one. What does human-centered mean to you when it comes to AI? And, and, and, and where do you see a lot of businesses getting it wrong right now?

So human-centered to me really means that the technology works for the people and not the other way around. So many times, you know, you see a company being sold a product or a tool, but it's not actually solving the true problem that exists in the first place. So when you think about— yeah, when you think about like people, process, technology, it has to be in that order. Most businesses tend to get lost along the way and mix those up. So I think that that's really important to always keep a human in the loop and just make sure that they're part of the journey, you know, starting with, and this, a lot of my clients think they need AI and maybe they do eventually, but a lot of them just don't have the right business processes in place or they're clumsy in those processes or they weren't standardized or things changed along the way and we never updated those policies. So just identifying and streamlining the workflows first and then implementing AI of how it can automate. So a lot of my, a lot of my clients right now start as almost like business management consulting. Like where are the areas of opportunity? What goes wrong? What could we fix? Because as you know, in AI, it's garbage in, garbage out. You can't have messy processes and expect AI to fix them and deliver. So taking a step back, which some people don't really want to hear, and that's okay because then they're probably not the best client for me anyway. But, you know, if, you know, if your team believes AI is coming for their job, they're not going to help you implement it. That's going to be a part of their resistance. So, you know, there has to be someone in leadership that says, hey, come on along, we're on this journey together, and making sure that the human is helping build and support those processes. And then AI could be the answer, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's not right now, but just helping leading them on their journey.

You just said two really powerful things that I don't want to just pass over. You said, you know, people, process, technology, in that order.

Yeah.

And then, okay, I don't want to butcher this. You also said just making the technology work for the people, right? Did I say that right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, that's such an obvious statement, but like, I think something that we all kind of get lost in. Absolutely.

And I think being human-centered means that your team feels like AI made their work better, it made their lives easier, not that AI made them feel replaceable.

And yeah, I think, right?

Yeah, and I think, you know, everyone is, is AI going to take my job? Is AI going to replace some of the entry-level positions? Yes, I think that is in the future. I don't know how close that future is, but those people are either going to have opportunities to have a more creative position that I can't necessarily do, and there's always going to have to be someone managing the AI tool or process as well. So I think it's just going to evolve the way that, you know, we look at job descriptions and roles and responsibilities.

I love that. And I love, I love listening to people tell their story and, and kind of finding that like aha moment on why their journey makes perfect sense just for them, right? And I— and, and, you know, you touched on your, your background in consulting, and you touched on your background and just like, you know, being very local to your community and this like face-to-face, um, and then I, I was kind of surprised to hear you mention, you know, your client in California. So how much right now are you doing face-to-face, virtual, and like what does that look like for you?

I would say mostly all of my work is virtual, but that's mostly because most of my clients had already worked with me before. So you don't— I don't really need that in-person discovery strategy session because I know their businesses so well. I do appreciate doing that level of engagement in person for new clients because I just think it helps really build and establish a strong relationship and mutual partnership. And you asked the question about, you know, being local. One of the, one of the, I guess, revenue streams that I have was kind of— I fell into that accidentally with the funeral home example. They're local and I knew that was going to take you know, a decent amount of time to get them on board with the introduction of the tool. And so I created a course for them that just gave them the basics, like, this is the fundamentals that you need, this is the way that it gets implemented in culture. Kept it very high level, very simple, very easy to follow, a lot of microlearnings, a lot of one-pagers, because I knew that I wasn't just going to be able to launch this tool and it be accepted. So I'm like, let's just like slowly start introducing what exactly it is. And again, what's in it for you? And how do we implement this as part of our culture, like part of who we are as a, as an organization? And so that course that I created is generic enough that anyone can benefit from it regardless of the industry that you're in. If you need like an AI if you need like an AI Basics 101. But that course was approved by the state of Ohio, and the state of Ohio has this program called Ohio TechCred. And that means that anyone in the state of Ohio that has a non-residential business address and W-2 employees can take this course of mine and get reimbursed 100% by the government.

Cool.

I know it sounds too good to be true, but it's really a good way for the state of Ohio to help people invest in their people and upskilling them in this arena on their dime. So beautiful. Yeah. So it's, it's worked out really nicely because when I'm working with a company, I can point them to this course that they can take to upskill themselves. So we're all starting with a strong foundation of language and terminology. And I'm not talking above them or below them, like we're all starting from the same platform. So that helps bring people up to speed. And that program is only available in the state of Ohio. Like I said, you have to have a non-residential business address in Ohio, but it's a really great program that the state funds that, that people can take advantage of. And, you know, you already have to train your employees. You might as well get it paid for. By the government. Yeah.

And what a— I love a win-win-win-win. Like, I love it. It is. Yeah. It's great for the state. It's great for the, you know, the company owners. It's great for you. Like, I love, I love this. And also what a wonderful, like, top of funnel offering that you're able to, you know, put out and then bring. So when you do work with— I know you said a lot of your clients are existing clients. When you do work with a new client, what does it look like? Like, kind of what does that, like, intake process look like for you?

So, I have a discovery kind of pre-work strategy session where we just talk through, and really it's me asking a lot, a lot of questions to understand what the root cause of the problems are or where the areas of opportunity for process improvement lie. So, that call can be anywhere from, you know, 30 to 60 minutes, but we go through, you know, it on a detailed level. I, I break it down into a couple different areas. I, I break it down into like sales, marketing, operations, and admin, and then I look at each of those 4 categories and say, I don't ask these questions directly, but what I'm thinking about on my end is how do we either make money, save money, save time in any of those areas. So I kind of segment it for them, and those are my goals in each of those pieces. And then we work backwards to, you know, how we going— how are we going to get there.

Super cool, super cool. So, so where do you see the biggest opportunity for entrepreneurs right now when it comes to strategy?

I think the biggest opportunity is just to start simple, start boring. You know, it should be boring almost on purpose by default. I know that's not really what anyone wants to hear, but everyone comes in wanting to build the AI chatbot or to launch the agent. And while those things can work and they do work for a lot of organizations, that's not typically where it where it starts. So I think finding some of those repetitive, low-stakes areas of opportunity that are genuinely painful for the person doing it, you know, like both examples that I shared a few moments ago, and then figuring out from there, how do we solve for those? And what, what tools, or what's the workflow that's going to solve for those? So we have to touch it less and we can just be, you know, the oversight. So I think just, you know, you're not trying— like, don't try to convince your team that AI is like this magic wand or, you know, magic tool, but really make it easy and tangible and simple. And AI, another thing is AI needs to be part of the conversation all the time. It needs to be and have you know, a seat at the table. It needs to be on the agenda. And for small to mid-sized businesses, I think it's a really, really good idea to have almost like some internal roundtables. I know it sounds like, ugh, another meeting, but sharing best practices of what you tried and what's worked and what didn't work and talking through those together as a team and like learning and growing. But it has to explicitly have a space. Otherwise, you know, it gets lost like any other initiative. And this is one that just isn't going away. So it has to be part of the conversation all the time. And it's not up to just one person. It's not up to, you know, just the operations manager or just the IT department. It's up to everyone to figure out how they can use it in their role, in their job description, in their department. And so I just think opening up that conversation is really, really important.

I love that. And, and Jess, I know, I know we're over and I apologize that we got to kind of dig into some, some human stuff, uh, before we started, pushed record. But, um, I just have two more questions for you if that's okay.

Yeah.

Okay, great. Um, something that I find very interesting is this, this double-edged sword of offering your services and then also running your business. And they're kind of two different worlds often, you know, you have, you're doing this service, you're offering this service or this product, and then you're also running your business, right? So, so you've shared a good amount today on, on what it's like to, you know, work with your clients and, and to offer that. What is it like using AI to run your business?

So I use Claude for you know, almost everything I do. I use it. I'm a one-man show right now. I have some partners that I work with and outsource some work to, but essentially it's me. And so it's really my thought partner. You know, if I have an idea or a challenge, I'll often use Claude to, to help me come to a solution or, you know, at least help me think creatively about a recommendation. So I use it as a, as a thought partner. And I'm starting to use it to automate more of my tasks, scan my inbox, tell me what's a priority, respond to emails. So I'm using it in that way. I think easy, low-hanging fruit way that everyone can use it is to, you know, use it from a lens of marketing. You know, it used to take, I don't know, half hour, hour to write an article to post on LinkedIn, and now I can just kind of give Claude my bonus, my, my takeaways and help it in my voice draft something. And it's never perfect. I always have to adjust it slightly, but I think that's just one way that, that you can use it. And now I use Claude for that, but then I take it back to ChatGPT and I use that for like the infographic that I post with my, you know, um, my, my post. So I think those are a couple, a couple ways that I, I use it, but, um, I'm always looking for other opportunities to implement it in my daily work. And I think that's why Jam's community is, is so cool because everyone is sharing what works for them and, and it's just an awesome way. Everyone in that community wants everyone else to succeed. So that's a really fun group to be a part of.

Yay! I love that. Okay. And this actually brings me to my last question. So you mentioned your LinkedIn. Is that the best way to— for people to reach out to you? Like, you know, if someone's listening to this and they're really resonating with your style and your methodology, what what, you know, what are questions that they, they could ask themselves to make sure that this is a right fit to reach out to you and what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Yeah, so I, I have a website, I'm on LinkedIn, but if you go to my website, there's a page for resources. And if you scroll all the way to the bottom of that page, maybe it should be on the top, but there's a human-first AI agent basically that's going to ask you a series of questions and give you some low-hanging fruit, best practices, quick wins, and then it'll prompt you eventually to book a call with me and we can explore more. So, I think if you're, you know, you don't really know where to start, you know, you gotta get there though. That's a good way to do is to use my AI advisor, which is on my website. So, humanfirstaiconsulting.com. Yeah,.com. And then just go to the resources page and there's some quick microlearning videos that are also available via my Tech Cred course. But, but but those are some, some areas where it's just quick wins in AI or how to get started and, um, with some one-pagers as well. So I always recommend people start there, and if then, if that feels right and, you know, we wanna, you wanna open up the conversation to tangible implementation, then we can have a call and talk through that.

I love that. I love that. And I just keep thinking, you know, like as a, you're a mom of 3 and a business owner and like How would it even be possible to do all of this and still have your sanity without AI? You know, it's cool.

I know. I mean, when I was starting my business and, you know, applying for my LLC and, you know, doing all of the paperwork, I mean, that without AI would have in alone taken me significantly longer than it did, you know, just having that tool to be able to guide you isn't something that people had years ago when they were starting their own business. So, oh my gosh, I mean, I give anyone who started their business 5 to 10 years ago like so much credit because they didn't have this tool to help them through it. But, but yeah, it certainly, you know, moved the needle faster for me, definitely.

Awesome. Jess, thank you so much for chatting with me and, you know, sharing, sharing so much about, you know, who you are as a business owner and as a human. And I'm really glad to, you know, be a part of this community with you and get to see, you know, your journey throughout this. So just thank you so much for your time today.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Love this community.

Happy to be here and love the connections that I've made in this environment that JAMM has created. So it's been awesome.

Very cool. And for those who aren't watching this, they're just listening, Jess is wearing a sweatshirt that says grateful. And I just feel like that sums up a lot of this conversation. So very grateful to have you here and grateful to, you know, hear the work you're doing. So thank you again, Jess. Happy Friday, and we'll talk very soon.

Thanks.

Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.