EP 144: How AI and Business Consulting Can Help Companies Win

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How can you use AI in your business Consulting to help your company grow, to help your company win. So many times on the Everyday AI show we we talk to experts who are in very specific fields from all over the place. And today I'm excited to have a general conversation about practical ways that we can use AI to grow our companies and to ultimately help us win. So if you're joining us live, thank you. If you're joining us on the podcast, make sure to check out the show notes as always and go to your everydayai.com Sign up for that free daily newsletter. But welcome to Everyday AI. My name is Jordan. I'm the host and before we get into our live stream and podcast, let's first take a look at what's going on in the world of AI news. Speaking of business consulting, Accenture is going all in on AI. So they just announced today that they're looking to double the headcount for their employees working in and around AI to about 80,000 or more than 10% of its corporate current global workforce. The company, the consulting company announced in July a three billion dollar, that's billion with a b. They announced a three billion dollar investment into generative AI and AI for their clients over the coming three years. So after a very slow start from business consulting companies, Accenture is now really picking up the steam. Next piece of AI News AI well, this piece of AI news is good for your heart. That's because a new study from Oxford shows that AI can predict heart attack risk up to up to 10 years in the future. So they use AI to more accurately analyze CT scans and this tech could potentially save thousands of lives and improve treatment for patients. So the study was funded by the British Heart foundation and they use AI to analyze data from routine cardiac CT scans. And they found that even patients with CD seemingly healthy arteries could be at risk for future heart attacks, which is some very exciting breakthrough news for AI and in the medical field. Last but not least, OpenAI is seeking more funding for super intelligence. So in a recent interviews with the Financial Times, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he is seeking more financial support from Microsoft as his company pushes forward with research into creating super intelligence through artificial intelligence models. That's like the next level of artificial general intelligence. It's when the machines no longer need us. So OpenAI is focused on researching how to make artificial general Intelligence, AGI, safe and beneficial, as well as developing more powerful AI agents. So that may be a little off in the future. But don't worry. If you want to know about how to use AI today and how to use it to grow your business and not AGI, that's what today's show is for. So I'm, I'm very excited to have on the show and please help me welcome, we have Damon Pastolka, who is the co founder of Exit your way. Damon, thank you for joining the everyday AI show.

All right, Jordan, glad to be here.

All right. I'm excited. Well, hey, first give, give everyone a brief overview of a little bit of what you do at Exit your Way.

Yeah, well, we, we help business owners improve their businesses, build value and sell their businesses when they're ready. It's really about generating wealth with your business for whatever you want to do next.

So for all the business owners out there, maybe this shows for you. So, so Damon, a little bit more. So is it only when companies are kind of get at that point where they want to sell their company or are you working with companies over the long term, you know, you know, on a multiple year kind of growth?

We work with them long term, definitely. I mean we've got clients right now that have been with us over five years, but we've been to quintuple plus, you know, values and things like that and revenues with them because we're really about helping owners create the eggs that they want, when they want, you know, and that could be a decade from now. We're really just helping people build very valuable businesses.

Yeah. And I'd say just the world of growing your business has changed, especially I'd say if you're a small business owner, you know, with generative AI, you know, I've experienced it myself. I have a small business and I'm using it in all aspects of my business. I'm curious, Damon, how are you using, you know, different generative AI systems and you know, whether it's your day to day or your week to week, but how are you finding value in using AI right now?

Well, us personally, in our business, we use it extensively for research combining. You know, I mean there's just so many things that it's, it's read almost everything, right. And you're looking at it and I say how can I combine this huge mass of data into something that I can understand that's huge or even things as simple as generating ideas for content. Right. If you're, if you want to look at Content or pain points for your, for your, the people that you want to, you want to talk with. Just understanding those kind of things because we all have these, you know, perspectives, and that really helps us take the blinders off and really understand what we're trying to do and be better at what we're doing.

And hey, as a reminder, thank you, everyone, for joining us live. Mike Lammer is joining us. Thanks for joining us. Harvey Tuck saying he's happy to be here. Good conversation. What do you want to know about how to use AI to grow your business? Get your questions in. We'll see if, we'll see if we can tackle them here live on the show. So one thing Damon, I'm curious about. So when business owners are coming to you, are they curious about generative AI? Are they asking you, hey, Damon, how can I use AI to grow my business's value? Or are you kind of introducing it? You know, I'm, I'm always curious if people like you and I are a little ahead of the curve or if everyone out there is, is already figuring generative AI out.

For me, it's definitely helping to introduce because oftentimes the businesses we work with, they're, they're focused on what they're doing. Right. They're really good at what they do. And when you think about, well, have you thought about using AI for something like this? They're like, what, what you know, and whether it's a medical application, you know, that was one of the things, the latest things that we've really been helping one of our clients do is they have to take large amounts of medical data and summarize it succinctly and, and accurately. And it's really interesting, the applications we've been able to research and then develop with them to do that or, or something as simple as, you know, just the simple things like making you better. If you've got, say, an accounting or a finance person that doesn't know how to do something in Excel, I mean, just, just the simple stuff that AI can do to help them be an expert in, in a program that's been around forever, like Excel to, to, to do, solve whatever challenges they want or, or data analysis, you know, from that financial perspective, it's just so much it can do right now. But we're introducing it to these clients because they don't realize how it can help them in their daily lives.

Yeah. And, and what's kind of. And walk me through the, maybe the typical first reaction. So, you know, you have these, these business owners and they obviously have clear, clear, clear goals in mind when they're working with you. Right. Like they are. They're trying to create some sort of exit plan, some sort of strategy. So they're trying presumably, either, either grow things toward the end or to set up systems that make something, you know, more sustainable and more scalable. But what does that look like, maybe when a business owner that's been doing some of those things, like you said, Damon, maybe they've been, you know, spending hours and hours in Excel, even if that's maybe not one of their strong suits. What's kind of the reaction been so far from business owners when they're looking to grow, looking to sell, and they see this AI thing working for the first time?

Well, it's, it's amazing, really, their reaction, because they're like, wow, I had no idea that I had tools like this that were simple and available to me, especially with the, with, you know, these latest, the, the latest. Whether you use in any of these, that, you know, the latest iterations of these things have gotten so easy for people to really generate useful, just use, do useful tasks for them every day. That, that's been. Not, not even to mention the, the larger, more complex things that are going on, but just initially these, these fundamental things that it can help with. They're so excited about it. Yeah.

And then already, already a great question here, so let's take this in. So Michael Forgey asking, what are the most popular types of businesses that are bought and sold at least, you know, maybe in the areas that you're working in, Damon?

Well, you know, there's a. When you look at what are the most commonly sold kinds of businesses right now, I think there's a lot of online businesses that get, get transferred. You know, you look at some of the special marketplaces for those. Those things move around a lot. And, you know, but other. You just look, look at the most common kind of businesses they get. You know, the Main street kind of businesses are the ones that, that sell the most. But online businesses, now you can go to the, the online brokerage places and see thousands of them. Everything from an Amazon business. I mean, those product businesses on Amazon change hands a lot, and those kind of things definitely are popular.

So. So. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to better understand this myself and maybe explain it to the audience. So are you saying, you know, kind of like marketplaces that people go to, you know, sell an online business, maybe something like, like an Empire Flippers? Yep, something like that. Where you go and list A. A business, right?

Yeah, yeah, those are the places where you can find the, the popular ones. And then I guess not come to me right now, but there's another one that's just for online businesses. Empire Flippers is, is more for like e commerce kind of businesses and some online, but there's some that are actually just for like I've got a website that's, that's selling this kind of product or I got an Amazon business and it's really pretty good. It's. Those are really pretty good where you can find a lot of different deals there.

Yeah. And I'm curious, I'm curious because in this scenario, maybe when someone's listing, you know, kind of a business they created for sale or you know, kind of like, like what you said, Damon, you know, maybe they created a, know pretty successful Amazon business or something like that and maybe something happened, you know, during the pandemic and supply chains and maybe it's just not as profitable as, as they would like. In these scenarios. Are you able to find maybe areas where generative AI can make such a great difference? Because maybe some of these business owners just didn't know and it could make, you know, their day to day so much easier. Is that something that you're finding now specifically with you know, this shift toward putting things online, maybe the pandemic through a wrench in people's plans over the long term? Is this something you're seeing?

Well, yeah, and it's, and it comes primarily in right now in the marketing. Right. Because the generative AI and others, this is so much so robust and it's knowledge about what are really good marketing techniques, what's language we should use, what are the things that we're missing in our current marketing objectives, you know, because it can browse your stuff now, it can compare to others, it can do so many things that a small company can't afford to go out and hire a very expensive cmo. But with, with AI, you can bring them into your company by taking the time to really explain your company and then let it do that work for you. It's, it's amazing what it can do, you know, down to how do I structure my webpage appropriately? You know, because all these things that you would normally go out today and, and experts are really good at this. Right. But if you're a small business and you're trying to bootstrap or you're, you're, you're constrained on the amount of cash you got, you can go a long ways with AI compared to where you're.

At today, you know, and already we have, we have two different people kind of asking about privacy. So, you know, Cecilia, Cecilia here asking on the back end of her question, saying, how are you getting businesses beyond the legal and privacy challenges to start using AI? What are the basic safeguards you are helping them establish to start using AI? So yeah, that's a great question, Damon, because if you are maybe using it more from the high level marketing end, probably not as much that you need to do in terms of privacy if you're just doing, you know, competitive intelligence or competitive research. But you know, what about for those companies that want to go a little deeper and maybe they want to use AI to, you know, help them with their bookkeeping? What are some, you know, some safeguards that companies should, should keep in mind when using AI?

That's a great point. You know, with our clients we're only going to use companies that are, that are developing stuff that, that ensures privacy. Like we've got something we have to use HIPAA compliance with and you just gotta make sure you're working with the right companies to do that. You can't just go out to a, to a, you know, to whatever AI site that you like and start working with them, obviously, because the privacy is not there. You, that's where you really have to go, to the companies that are developing the apps that do and are certified and protect your privacy. Like you need to really, there's, there's limited application for that though I think that more often small business owners don't need to worry about it because your competition already knows, they already know what you're doing. You're not going to be doing anything special. You're probably just going to be doing something that they're not. And they're, I mean, although unless it's some secret IP thing that you know, you know, formulas or something, or like I said, HIPAA compliance, it's really not as big a concern as people make it to be.

You know Damon, in your experience, since, you know, with exit your way and helping companies specifically use AI to, you know, create more business value, what are some of the most common kind of wins that you've seen? Right, because there's no shortage of way to use generative AI to help companies grow, to make them more profitable. But what are some common themes that you've seen from the companies you've worked with that you're like, hey, Most, you know, nine times out of 10 or more often than not, this approach using generative AI is a win. Are you still running in circles trying to figure out how to actually grow your business with AI? Maybe your company has been tinkering with large language models for a year or more but can't really get traction to find ROI on gen AI. Hey, this is Jordan Wilson, host of this very podcast. Companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Nvidia have partnered with us because they trust our expertise in educating the masses around generative AI to get ahead. And some of the most innovative companies in the country hire us to help with their AI strategy and to train hundreds of their employees on how to use Gen AI. So whether you're looking for ChatGPT training for thousands or just need help building your front end AI strategy, you, you can partner with us too. Just like some of the biggest companies in the world do. Go to your everydayai.com partner to get in contact with our team or you can just click on the partner section of our website. We'll help you stop running in those AI circles and help get your team ahead and build a straight path to ROI on gen.

Yeah, it's, it's in the, the two areas mainly or three really. One is in the marketing. Right. Come back to that again because it helps them so much without having to hire a CMO or something like that. It can get their internal marketing people a long ways down the road without spending that money. The second thing is as I talked about too is helping their internal so called experts be better because they've got access to this wide range of knowledge. It doesn't matter if I'm a developer, if I'm a finance person I talked out or, or I'm a medical expert. There's, there are so many different things that it can help us answer questions that might give us that one idea that two, the second idea that really helps to answer our, the question we need answered to help our, that person move forward. And the last thing is data analysis. I can't, you know, AI will put together patterns that we can't see in data or take multiple sources of data and pull, pull some really interesting points from it that we won't be able to come to without significant effort. And that's where really those three areas are really driving our clients to be able to go forward faster.

Oh great, great breakdown there. So marketing helping number one, marketing number two, helping internal experts become better at their job. Number three, data. Data analysis. That's a, that's a huge one Damon. And, and hey if, if you are just joining us now. Thank you for joining us. We have Damon Pistolka the co founder of Exit your way and we're going over different ways how AI can help businesses just win. Right. I love number three that you just mentioned, Damon. It's, it's one of, it's one of my favorites actually. So when we're talking about data analysis, I'm someone personally, I love spreadsheets, I love data, I love Google sheets, I love creating formulas.

Right.

However, AI is better, right. Like I can go into Chat GPT, you know, use the, the mode that's advanced data analysis is the mode inside of chat GPT that does that and it just goes non stop and it goes faster.

Right.

And it's almost always better than me or any other, you know, person who's working in data. What's, what's a piece of advice that you can give to people that are maybe like ah, you know, my numbers are important. I'm not sure if I want to leave that up to a tool like, like chatgpt, but maybe what's a piece of advice that you can give to people Damon, on actually using it for data?

Well, I think for, in the big complex data sets, I mean it can pull out things that you don't understand, you know, or you're not going to see. Now that's one thing. The other thing that we see a lot of people and really helps us help others is what should be. We, we be talking about what should be. What are some of the things that we're not thinking about in this data that we should be and that, that's where it really looks at things differently like we, we can't easily do. And then you begin to go, okay, here is something that we should be looking at that we're not now that will make a big difference for us. That's, it's just, and I see someone's talking about advanced data analysis for Google Ads. I mean that's, that's a really good use of AI is like pulling all the sources of leads and things together in your marketing and going okay, what are the commonalities across these? Because it'll find things that you just don't understand and we can't easily determine. But that key piece of information that it pulls out could be huge for you going further in, in your, you know, getting better return on your spend and, and things like that or even in your business to really understand how to shape the operations of your business to better meet customer needs.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and that's a great point Damon, that, that you bring up and I think it's important for people to understand about generative AI. And I think, you know, for the most part here it seems that our conversation is kind of going around Chat GPT, but you know, Damon just said, you know, talk, ask questions. Right. Of generative AI, you don't have to know everything. You don't even have to know what the data is. You can upload a spreadsheet with tens of thousands of data points and you're scratching your head and you can say, hey, tell me what this is all about and tell me how it relates to my business. And you know, chat GPT or most other generative AI systems will tell you that. And maybe, you know, had a question, had a question here as well. Let's bring it up here. So, David, David, thanks for joining us. David said, on the data analysis side, what are some, some AI tools that best align with that? So, you know, Damon, we were kind of talking about ChatGPT and advanced data analysis, but is there any other kind of data tool in the AI space you might recommend?

I really wouldn't recommend any specific ones. I would say go out. You know, the thing about it is the, the AI tools are evolving so quickly. What I can be talking about today, it could be gone tomorrow or surpassed by someone else. So I think you really need to look at it. You know, the ones that we have been looking at specific, industry specific are in healthcare, which are so interesting to be able to take. Like say you've got a patient that's been in the doctor a lot about a certain thing, they got a serious injury and I've seen 17 different doctors and what are the way that it can summarize that kind of data to pull out relevant points is really incredible. Really incredible and make it easy to understand.

Yeah, Damon brings up a great point. I actually had a, an episode like two weeks ago saying, hey, be careful of what AI tool that you use because a big Update from an OpenAI or a Google or a meta could, could wipe out that tool. So it's, it's great advice and, and even personally I say probably stick to the bigger systems for that very reason. You know, some of these small ones, they're not great at really developing, you know, a unique selling proposition. So they could be gone pretty quickly. Great. Another great. We have great questions today. I'm excited for this one. Damon. We'll get to this one. So Arts are asking, can we double down on some learnings and examples of success and setbacks. So I think we've talked a little bit of on the success unless you have Damon, you know, one kind of a good success story you'd want to talk about otherwise, maybe what are some setbacks, you know, by using generative AI to help grow your business value?

Well, you know, the, the setbacks can be if you're, if you're trying to get it to do something, it's just not going to do right. You know, you get, you get so far into looking at something and if it's not going anywhere, you just need to go, okay, maybe it's not ready. Right? There were some things in the beginning where we were trying to, to do some like the medical stuff we were trying out a year plus ago. And, and it was just like, it just, you know, wasn't ready. Things weren't ready and able to go like we wanted to do. And you look at the, the setbacks is just really wasting time trying to get it to do something it's really not meant to do at this point. And, and something in where you need ultimate accuracy or, or just things like that that you, you gotta, it's just not good at some things yet.

That's, that's a good point. Yeah. And, and I think maybe Damon, it's, it's worth pointing out because we talked about, you know, data analysis and I also wouldn't trust Chat GPT to math, right? Chat GPT by itself is not good at math. If you are using advanced data analysis, it is great at advanced computation. So that's a great call out is you do have to really know what you're doing and make sure that you're using kind of the right feature or function for the right reason as well. Damon, maybe I'm curious because I'm sure you're working with a lot of different clients and it sounds like Chat GPT and other gen AI tools have become a great resource for you and your clients looking to increase a business value. So we talked about those three earlier. You know, the, the marketing, helping internal people become better experts. Data analysis. Is there one of those areas that even for you know, you on a day to day basis that you keep going back to because the value that it creates is, is, is so, is so great. You know, is there any one area that you keep using generative AI and, and you're like wow, how did I do this? You know, or how did my companies do this before generative AI?

It's, it's really about making experts smarter. I mean for us it's, it is because if you go into, we're, we're generalists in some ways in what we do. Because when you talk about building business value, it hits different spots. You know, it could be an operational, it could be a financial. It could be. There's things. And for us to be able to go in and, and really understand.

How.

To use like a chat GPT plus and, and then to understand how to feed it the right prompts to be able to get the information. The information's in there. It's just really getting the right information out by asking the right questions, giving it the right information. But to make you smarter every single day to help your clients better, that's what we, we come back to it all the time for that. It's like, because I don't know what I don't know and maybe it can help me know more of what I don't know that I need to know for my clients.

Yeah, that's, that's such a good use case. And I think especially, you know, when we talk small business owners, right. You know, we, we said, hey, whether you have an online, you know, an online company or, you know, a Main street company, I'd say in those scenarios, Damon, it's, it's not like these companies always, I mean, sometimes they do, but it's not like they always have the budget to go hire more people to maybe hire someone in admin to hire a consultant to help them grow. Right.

Maybe.

Can we talk a little bit about. Because I love your example of helping, you know, experts become even better in their role, but I like to always encourage people to look at, you know, chat GPT or generative AI as the employee they can't afford right now or the help that they necessarily don't have on their team. Maybe what are some ways that that company is trying to increase their value and to get some, get some good wins. What are some ways that they can do that? And Maybe look at ChatGPT or generative AI almost as like the person that they don't have right now on their team.

Yeah, well, it will help them understand again what you don't know. I mean, everything from. We've used it, we've used it to help build processes and businesses we've helped it to, to help. And I mean, not just like, hey, I want to, you know, do this, whatever simple process in detailed processes in pretty technical businesses. Like, okay, how do I. What is my proposal process? What is the process for completing this type of work? And really, like you said, being able to do things that we don't have someone to do that we don't necessarily know how to do, but it'll spit out what I want and I can go, okay, I'm 80% of the way there on something and finalize it and go. Because it's just there's so much that you can have it help you with.

Yeah, I love that. Processes and procedures. Because if you are a small business trying to grow, it can be some of those more mundane tasks.

Yeah.

That can really weigh a small business owner down or a solopreneur down or a small team down. Damon, what. What are some practical, you know, tips that maybe you have for people specifically around how they can use maybe chat GPT to help develop those processes and, and procedures? Because sometimes if you've never had them, you don't necessarily know how. So what's some advice that maybe you have?

Well, I think the thing that really changed it for us is when we took the time to explain in detailed terms who we are, what we do and how we help people. And because if you give background you, your business, what you're trying to accomplish, even personal things about you, that that will help the AI to understand more about how it should act, how it should think, then it can give you better solutions. You know, if I'm an engineering firm and I'm trying to develop something, a process for something, if it knows we're an engineering firm like this, we're this size, we do these things. This is how, how we work. These are internal systems. I mean, if you take it and you develop 5, 10 pages, whatever of details and keep. Ask the AI to say, what do you need to really do this? Ask me a hundred questions, ask me a thousand questions and you answer them. It can give you so much higher quality information back. I just. That is the first thing I would say if anybody wants to get in it, have the AI ask you everything it knows to be a good X for you.

Y'. All. Do you, do you. Do you have your everyday AI notebook in front of you? Because Damon just dropped one of the things I always teach people. Right. So we have our free prime prompt polish course we do twice a week. And one of the things that we always, always teach people is ask the AI questions.

Right.

You don't have to come off as an expert. When you're working with a generative AI system, it's oftentimes better just to ask questions. All right, I think we have time for one more question as we wrap things up and this is an interesting one. So Georgia sun said we recently saw the appointment of the AI powered CEO called Mika at Dictor, a Polish beverage company. What's your opinion on that? I'll leave it up. I'll, I'll let you take this first statement because I have some thoughts on this. But yes, a, this is real. We covered this on the show a couple of weeks ago. But a Polish beverage company, I don't know if it was more for press, but they did appoint a human like robot with AI to be their CEO and to make all their decisions. What's your thoughts on that one, David?

Well, I think that, you know, I'm mixed, right, because from, from a certain standpoint, it's nice because it could, could work really well. But then in others, I just don't know how creative and flexible that AI can really be at this point. I mean, we, we can operate in, in weird and, and awesome ways in our minds and I just don't know. I know we're not there yet. With AI, that's the only thing. I mean, in, in situations, it's not going to make the, and it doesn't make the right decisions. That's. Yeah, that's the only thing.

Yeah. 100. Yeah. I think this was more of a publicity stunt.

Yeah.

But I love, I love the concept though, of, hey, maybe you don't like running the day to day. Maybe you love marketing or you love, you know, accounting, but, but you're a business owner. You know, I think it's okay to kind of train a chat. GPT chat to help you run the business. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I don't know about the, the actual AI robot walking around and telling you what to do. All right, we've, we've covered so much here, Damon. We've, we've. You kind of had your three points, you know, different ways that you can use generative AI. I love the concept of asking questions, but maybe if there's one takeaway that you really want people to kind of glean from this conversation on how they can use AI and consulting to help their companies win, what is that one major point that you want people to leave with?

Well, if you're, if you're not at least reading about how AI can apply to your business and you're not looking at AI as if you're in business and not experimenting with AI right now, you're screwed. Really. I mean, I'm sorry, but you're, you're in trouble because there are others that are, there are others that are using for the things that we talked about today and you've talked about in other other shows. I'm sure that they are going to pull ahead farther because of it. So I don't want to be doomsday about it, but really there are things that it's going to continue to evolve and do that. If you're not using it in your business or at least understanding what it's being used for in your kind of business, you're missing out.

Oh, absolutely. I'd say there's nothing doomsday about that. I couldn't co sign on that one quick enough. Damon. Such such good advice. All right. We covered so much. Don't worry. There's always, always more in the newsletter. But Damon, I have to thank you so much for coming on the Everyday AI show to talk about how AI and business consulting can help companies win. We appreciate your time.

Thank you for having me.

All right. And hey, as a reminder, a lot of good information from Damon, so make sure you go to your everyday AI.com Sign up for the free daily newsletter Every single day we break down the conversation in much more detail, share additional resources, and lay out a practical and tactical way that you can apply all of this to grow your company, grow your career. That's it for today. We're going to be back tomorrow. We actually have the marketing director at Nvidia. I'm excited about that one, so hope to see you back for that one and more at Everyday AI. Thanks y'.

All.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going for a little more AI magic. Visit your everydayai.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.