What Gets Harder, What Gets Easier... With AI?

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories, it's about the grit it takes to get there.

Hey everyone, this is Julie. Welcome back to another episode of Million Dollar Grit. Today I'm answering a private client's question around AI, and she said, Julie, what do you think is going get harder in business and what do you think is going to get easier in business over the next couple years? And as I was thinking about this, I realized kind of a terrible irony is that the very things that are going to make life easier for business owners are the same things that are going to make it harder. So let's dive in here. Okay, let's talk first about the most obvious use case of AI, which is content creation and production, right? So what is going to get easier for business business owners, you can already feel it, you can already see it. Anything from social media posts, blogs, copywriting, brainstorming, everything will take less time. We're also seeing rapid advancements in design and graphics and things like that. So all of this is going to go much, much faster. So that is going to be easier. However, on the flip side, that is also going to make life harder. Why? Because that means your competitors are going to be faster as well. They're going to be churning out content faster as And so I see this sort of snowball that's going to get faster and faster and faster. There's going to be sort of a peak or a pinnacle of speed from idea to production to sale that's going to be so fast. I imagine it's going to be a completely dizzying pace for the customer. And so we risk losing their attention, right? The second thing I think is going to get easier with AI is market and data analysis, right? You're going to have instant insight. You can take audience behavior, you can take customer service emails, and everything's going to get easier. Like, for example, over at Funnel Gorgeous, we have a help desk that is answering— or not answering, but, you know, documenting all our emails. Every single response that is being written by our customer support team is being put into this knowledge base that our AI is learning. So they're going to get smarter and faster, right? So market in data analysis will become nearly instant, and you'll have faster split testing. Amazing, right? Well, yes, and the flip side is so will your competitors, you know. So it's like, great, so everyone else will be smarter, faster, and more, uh, data-backed, you know. The third thing I think that's going to get easier is actually being able to personalize and customize an experience for a customer. You know, I have been telling people that things like worksheets and courses now can become GPTs, and it's almost like I'm sitting there next to them guiding them through the reflection or the journal or the action step that they have to take. So that's going to be easier to give them that personalization. Of course, the flip side is your competitors will be doing the same thing. They will be creating more personalized experiences. This actually leads me down a slight side quest here on this episode about the more hyper-niche businesses probably will continue to stand out because everything is going to become hyper-niche. No one is going to want to settle for generic advice. So if you are in a niche right now that feels small, but you know you absolutely dominate that niche, you're actually set up in a really good position because I think that the consumer's appetite for generic is going to basically evaporate in the next 2 to 3 years. We're going to wonder why the heck we settled for anything general or generic when everything can become hyper-personalized. Another thing that's going to get easier is hiring and automation and routine tasks. And what I mean by hiring is that you're not going to have to hire as much. You're going to be able to, you know, get AI agents to do things like scheduling, invoicing, customer support, answering the phones, all of that sort of stuff. And so that's going to make things easier. It's going to make your profit margin go up. The downside, of course, is that your competitors will be doing the same thing, making it easier for them to have more profit, which maybe they can turn around and invest in advertising. So as you can see, everything that I— like, the 4 things that I've outlined that I think are going to get fundamentally easier: content creation, which we already see, market and data analysis, personalizing your customer experience, and the automation of AI agents and routine tasks, all of those things making your life so much easier is going to also be available to your competitor. So here is the most important sort of takeaway from all of this. If you are not currently thinking about how to leverage your time better by using AI, you are— it's like you are starting the race late. Now the good news is you are early. You are early no matter how much you think everyone is talking about AI. You are early, supremely early. So don't panic if you haven't even thought about AI until this moment in this episode right now, because you have plenty of time. But that's not going to be the case forever because competitors will catch up and the market will catch up. And we have a runway. I think we probably have a runway of another year or two of really getting our feet wet and getting ahead and There is tremendous value in getting ahead, and there's tremendous value in having that runway. And so these are things that you should be thinking about, whether it's content creation, data analysis, personalizing the customer experience, or automating routine tasks. These should be the ways in which you are trying to buy yourself more time through the use of AI, and that time should be spent Building trust. Unbelievably important. Use that time to build trust because what is going to definitely get harder, and I don't have like an easier flip side here, what is definitely going to get harder is trust. Trust and authenticity and being sure that you are who you say you are, that you are capable, that you are qualified, especially when AI can churn out things that are almost as good as an expert. And so trust is a very, very important thing. And so you need as much time as possible to build that trust with your audience. So if you don't have an audience, you should be building one. And if that audience doesn't know you so well, you should be getting out from behind your computer and getting in front of them because that is the most important currency that you have. And I think that that is just squarely in the bucket of getting harder. And so that little side quest I went on before about being hyper-niche, it's actually easier to build trust on a smaller scale than it is to build trust on a larger scale, right? And so if you go to a specialist at the, at the doctor's office and they are a specialist in, let's say the kidneys, and they're like, I know everything there is to know about kidney health and function, you're going to trust them about kidneys far more than you're gonna trust a general physician, right? Because they have to know everything. And so you are incentivized, I think, in this future market being hyper, hyper niche. So that is something that I think you should spend your time on. Now I wanted to just think a little bit about courses and coaching, and specifically around those two types of containers since most of my audience does one or both. I think the things that are going to get easier are the same things that I just said about general business, right? Course creation is getting easier, you know, personalizing those learning experiences, getting that data from the customers, being able to improve student support, targeting the right consumers. All of that is going to get tremendously easy, but the flip side is it will get easy for your competitors as well. And so because of that, as you can see, that all the things that are super easy have kind of a super hard yin and yang. And so the only thing that you can control are those things in the middle, right? Growing your audience, building trust, hyper-niching down, and also making sure that you're getting in the race. And I think what's going to happen is as things move on now, I don't know that I believe the sort of rosy, positive pollys about AI making it so that we're all going to have, you know, universal basic income. We're not going to have to work. We're just going to pursue creative endeavors. Like, I really don't think that's going to happen. I think that human nature is going to get real involved in that utopia vision. But it is possible that we will have more time on our hands because things will get more automated. And if you think about, you know, back during, you know, the 1800s before the Industrial Revolution. Laundry took 6 hours or 3 days, you know, they had to spend a lot of their time, you know, harvesting food and preparing food and preparing for the winter. And then as the modern conveniences started to take those jobs away and time became more ample, we started to see the development of other fields. We saw human creativity and science. So there is a very distinct possibility that we're all going to find ourselves having more time on our hands. And so if you are a business owner that has a special skill, a special skill that's in danger of being lost, I think you have a prime opportunity here in the future because people are going to be looking for those creative endeavors if we do in fact buy our time back. And so if you're a business owner and you have hyper-niched down, you have been working on AI, you have been building your audience, you have been working on trust and authenticity, you are doing it right. And as more of your time gets freed up, start to think about creative endeavors. Start to think about hobbies and skills that maybe are unique to you that other people don't have. Think about something that you want to learn that you couldn't learn before. Curate good questions, like ask AI deep questions. So I'm going to just be really, really tangible about this. So in my business, I have two, but I am doing all of these things, right? I am working to leverage AI to buy more time back. I am actively building my audience. I am working on trust and I am trying to be hyper-niche, although I think I probably fail at that one the most. And with this extra time, what am I doing? Well, there's some fun hobbies that I'm definitely not an expert at, like hatching chickens, uh, if you guys follow me on Instagram. But there is one particular thing that I used to be really good at. I actually went to college for a year I was a Biblical Studies major, and so I've decided with some of my free time that I'm going to go back to Biblical Studies. I think it's a fascinating field of study, and I think that I have a new interest in it— not a new interest, but a returning or re-emerging interest. And because I am a good teacher, I think this is an opportunity for me to possibly have, you know, a side quest as time goes on. And so that's what I mean. And I think if you can do all of those things, you are going to be okay. And I know there's a lot of worry and a lot of fear, but don't be afraid and don't worry. Focus on the things that you can control and tap into the parts of you that make you human, which are connection and creativity, and be on your way knowing that it is all gonna be okay. I promise. Talk soon.

And there you have it, folks, another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.