Using AI Isn’t the Same as Leading With AI

4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1. Welcome back to the AI Profit Leaders Podcast. My name is Chris Weiser, your host for today. I have with me Tyler Wallace, CEO of CTS Computers based in, let's see, central Indiana or central Illinois and northern Indiana.

Is that right? Yes.

Okay, great. Well, it's great to have you with us today, Tyler. It's good to see you.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about your AI journey. Obviously, you know, we want to talk today about Being an AI leader. Tyler just wrote a book. It's pretty cool here.

So really, you know, I found that, you know, a lot of small businesses need educated on AI, right? They just don't know anything about it. So I thought, you know, the best way to get them educated quickly is to write a book.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And also establish you as an expert, like, right, kind of shows who you are, gets you in the trenches right away with them. You have something you can just hand over to them. It makes you immediately an authority figure. How's that worked so far?

I mean, it's great, right? And I think the goal when I created the book was to get it out there as soon as possible, right? I mean, AI changes day to day. So yeah, I wrote a book, Maximizing AI in Your Business, and, you know, my goal was to educate small businesses, right? I mean, AI is here, it's not going anywhere, and I think businesses right now, they're going to have to adopt it or they're going to go out of business, right? It is the future of all business. It's the foundation of how they're going to grow, operate, compete. And I'm like, how can I get this, you know, information to business owners? I'll write a book.

Do you have any specific verticals that you guys have been focusing on? Is it anything that people in general just want to see? Anything that you specifically focus on?

I mean, a little bit of everything, right? I think a lot of businesses have the same challenge, right? So for example, maybe it's an engineering firm that wants to do quotes faster. Maybe it's a not-for-profit that wants to automate call scheduling, or maybe it's a dentist office that needs to automate follow-ups. I think a lot of businesses have the same challenges, so they might have different ways, you know, different services they deliver, but I think the challenges are usually the same.

You know, it's kind of interesting, obviously own a computer store slash— do you guys do like IT services, right, as a core?

IT, cybersecurity.

So if you start getting into that, I think Most business owners don't see an IT company focusing on time saving and helping their business be more efficient. But what's pretty cool about the AI world is it kind of enables you to do that. You talk a little bit more about that. What's your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, IT in general has been about fixing broken stuff.

Yeah.

Right? And then it kind of migrated, oh, well, let's try to prevent it from being broken. But, you know, I don't want to make my organizations that I do business with, I don't want to make them more profitable through more efficient IT. I wanna make 'em more profitable by making 'em more efficient by automation.

It kind of helps them make, you know, be better at their business too, right? So they can actually not just be better, more efficient, I guess. I mean, that's great. Don't like, don't get me wrong, but if you can actually help them deliver their service better or respond to clients faster or be, you know, just overall be a better business, that's solving a major problem that kind of IT could never really solve before. You know, I think your help desks and all that stuff are great, but it was almost invisible. Visible stuff to the end user, right? This actually hits the bottom line for them.

Yeah. You know, for example, if you can see more patients because you have a better workflow of getting patients called and scheduled and back in the door, right in the seats. That's one of the biggest challenges a lot of healthcare providers have is people come to their appointments. If you can have AI schedule the appointment, remind them to come to the appointment, follow them after the appointment, there's a lot of money to be had there.

Yeah. Well, and I think it's lost revenue. Versus not just making new money. 'Cause it's, I mean, obviously you want to help them make more money, but I think that's an important leadership lesson. I'm really glad you brought this all up because, you know, one of those things that you go into the healthcare industry or the engineering industry that you mentioned before, they don't have a lot of people talking to them about being more efficient and making more money in business. It's usually about marketing and lead gen and all this other stuff. And that stuff's also things you can solve with AI, but you're actually going in and hitting core profit leaks that they've had before, right? Would you agree with that?

And doing it strategically as well, right? I mean, I'll have a company come to me and say, well, I want to try to automate a workflow that takes a lot of time. And I'm like, well, but if we automate that, how much of that business will you close, right? If it's in sales? Oh, 10%. What if we could change the way you go about doing it strategically and you could close 50%?

Yeah. So let's actually, let's talk a little bit more about the strategic thing. Small business strategy, AI, put that all together for me. What does that look like from your standpoint?

So I think a lot of organizations right now are using AI as tools, right? They're chatbots, right? Or they're creating social media posts. They're doing things like that, but they're not truly getting business processes automated. It's not integrating with the ERPs. I find a lot of businesses don't even really know their problems. And I think to strategically implement AI, you gotta know the problems, you gotta understand your processes, But then you also have to really have clean data. You got to track your data.

Yeah.

And my goal is to come in and say, using AI, if we can get these 3 things lined out, we can have AI automate processes, not just be a task rabbit.

Yeah. Well, I think you mentioned a couple core things there, namely going in and looking at it from a strategy standpoint before, because they're coming to you saying, oh, I want to put this tool in. Is that kind of what you're saying? Right. Yeah. I want to put this tool in and they're not necessarily saying, okay, let's back up and Why did we think of this tool or what? Maybe, maybe let's do an analysis or an assessment on your business and let's kind of go downhill and see what tool you actually should make. Maybe that's the right tool, but you were kind of throwing a tool at a system. How about we go figure out what's actually wrong? Then let's solve it with maybe that tool, but maybe something else too.

Yeah. And you know, and if an organization doesn't implement AI strategically, here's a good example, right? So let's say you're a development company. You say, well, I'm going to, I'm going to get rid of all my entry-level developers and I'm just going to have AI write all my code. So you do that and then you realize, oh wait, it's actually taking my senior developers more time to audit the code and now I'm actually losing money.

Yeah.

So because it wasn't implemented strategically, it's, oh, well, we'll just throw AI in the mix and it doesn't really have the desired outcome.

Yeah, I think that's actually a really, really good example. So let's, let's go back again to it's like you have to put the right plan in place before you can just throw AI at something and You know, you think about how many, you know, from your standpoint, how many, how many business owners are trying to jam AI in because it's a fad or it's because, you know, and we, we both know it's not a fad, but they may, they kind of don't know better. So they're doing AI to do AI.

Well, I mean, it's making the assumption they're even using AI.

Yeah.

Right. I think the problem I'm running into is they're not even using it. Right. Or they're using ChatGPT. Right.

I mean, I think a lot of them, they kind of see that as, okay, I'm using it. That's almost exactly what I meant. Like, oh, we're using AI, but it's like, what? Why? Well, cause it's ChatGPT. GPT, I saw a commercial or, you know, whatever, right? How do we, how do we get them to actually believe and really care about the strategic side? Because I think, you know, they're using a tool to use a tool, but how do we go back to the business owner that says, okay, I know I want AI, and then you're like, okay, for what? And they're like, I don't know, but I want it. I know I got to have it. What, how do we get them to think strategically?

Well, I think it comes down to education. But also getting an assessment done, right? Going in and showing them, hey, do you understand your business processes? Do you know that this process that you have right here is taking a lot of manual automation? It's causing a lot of problems in your business, or I'm sorry, manual intervention, a lot of problems in the business. We could have AI fix that, right? But then also they got to know what that's costing them now so we can go in and show, okay, well, here's the ROI if you were to do it. Yeah, right. Because I think if you don't know your— this is where clean data, knowing your data comes in. If you don't know how much time or money it takes for a process to be done now, how are you going to know if you save money at the end of the day when you automate it?

Yeah, and I think, you know, the assessment piece is a massive one. So actually, you know, and it's very, you know, similar to any professional industry, like you actually have to assess before you can diagnose, right? I gotta look at what it is. So how do we get a business owner that has just like No, I don't want to do that. I just want AI. How do we get them to step back and say, yes, I'd like to do an assessment, or I need to review what I'm doing? How do we have that conversation?

Buy my book. I like that. Yeah, you know, buy my book. You know, so I think it starts with, you know, trying to get them to understand that AI today, like the internet was back in the '90s, it's like social media was, you know, in 2000s, right? I mean, it's changing quickly and it's going to be required for them to stay in business. Imagine a business today that did not embrace the internet.

I mean, it's, there's still some out there, but they're literally are forced to be on paper. And it's like a mom and pop shop that can't, they're never going to make millions of dollars. Right. You can't even think about that.

Yeah. And you think about social media and marketing. I cannot remember the last time that I actually just searched for a product. Right. I find it in social media. Right. I'm scrolling through, I see a product. I'm like, oh, I got to have it, right?

Or it's like I'm on Amazon or I'm on TikTok Shop or, you know, whatever you're on, but it's almost being pushed to you versus you going and looking for it.

And that's the trend. I mean, now we're talking about internet to social media, right? So the internet was like, oh, I'm going to go search for a product, right? Then that's now has transitioned to social media. A lot of marketing is done through social media. Like when I did my Christmas shopping, a lot of my ideas came from social media. Agreed.

Yeah, right. My grandma would love that. And, you know, sponsors or ads that you see or anything like that, right? Yeah. Yeah, most of them. In fact, very, very valid point. All of my Christmas shopping has come from either Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok for me.

Yeah.

And I'm a 48-year-old guy.

Yeah. You know, in a stat I just read yesterday was that I'm trying to remember what it was. 800% increase, 805% increase in product sales driven from AI searches. Wow. This year on Black Friday.

So what that means is people are no longer using Google. They're now searching for give me an idea for this problem in their AI solution.

Yeah. Oh, and compare it to other products on the market. Why would I want this product? So you're no longer looking at Google reviews. You're just saying, hey, AI, like, what product should I pick for my grandma?

You know, you talk about an AI strategy, actually having an AI search plan for your business. Is a really important one.

Yeah, what's the best dentist in my area, right? Is your, is your brand, your company, uh, optimized for AI searching?

Yeah, yeah, I think, uh, you heard it from Tyler on that one, that's for sure, right? Okay, so, you know, kind of thinking about all that stuff, maybe putting a little bit of a, of a, of a cap on it, what's, what's the best, you know, let's, let's take a couple different business types here, what's the best strategy for the small business owner thinking of AI from, from Tyler Wallace? What, what's your biggest number one advice that you'd give the small business owner in 2026 related to their business and AI?

Well, embrace it, right? Don't worry about it replacing people. Worry about— or I'm sorry, don't worry about it replacing people. It's going to supplement people. Right. So I think a lot of small businesses are like, oh my gosh, you know, I don't want to lay anyone off or, you know, or even the employees are maybe worried about the employees and the employees are using it already. Right. They're already using it. You might as well like take ownership of it at the leadership level, adopt it, create privacy around it. Right. So it's used the way it should be. Yeah. And then trickle it down to the team.

That's funny. How many of you even realize what he's talking about related to privacy using it the right way. Because I bet you most people are just like, what do you mean? I'm just using ChatGPT. Or, you know, that's— they don't even know.

Yeah, I mean, I was talking to an organization the other day where the employees were using AI, uh, and of course the leadership didn't know, and they were actually putting patient data into the AI platform because they had no— I mean, they had no idea. There's no education.

Mean bad, right?

Yeah, yeah, they just were trying to help generate reports. Yeah. Um, not realizing, you know, the privacy, the data leakage. So I think it starts with leadership adopting it, understanding it, creating policies around it, and then trickling it down and starting with the people that aren't going to be the negative Nancys, right? Start with the people that will adopt, right? The people, oh, I want to try that.

Yeah, because you're always going to have like your staples, you know, you maybe your legacy employees or maybe the people paranoid about I'm going to get replaced so we can't use AI. So find a couple of people that are behind your strategic mission as an owner.

Yeah. And then they're going to be the advocate for the rest of the culture in the office, right? Once you get a few people like adopting it, like, wow, this is the greatest thing, then it just— it takes off like fire, right? Yeah, like wildfire.

Okay, so that's kind of the SMB side. That's usually your small owner or your solo owner or maybe a couple of owners. But let's get up into the mid-market. You're, you know, bigger companies, maybe like 100 employees. Et cetera. What's your suggestion for that leadership team or that board of directors? How do they put in AI to actually really have a strategy?

I mean, I think it kind of starts the same way, right? It's adopted through the leadership, right? It's always got to be because the employees are probably doing it already, right?

So somebody's got to have kind of a— maybe your CEO leads the charge, goes to the board and says, hey, we got to have a plan around AI. Maybe the board doesn't have any influence, but a lot of the bigger companies, they have a lot of ownership and the CEO kind of answers to them. Put that in play.

Yeah. And I think you have to be an AI-driven organization, right? So I think you have some small businesses, you're going to put AI in place, it's going to create a lot of processes. Um, I think, you know, once you go up in size— I guess it is for small business too— um, you want to be an AI-driven company, right? Just like, you know, right now I want to be a marketing company that provides IT services. You should be an AI company that provides dentistry, right? Or an AI company that provides engineering. I think that becomes the forefront of what you do. And I think one of the things that might be more challenging for larger companies is you got to move fast with AI.

Yeah, right. And the bigger companies, you know, the nice thing about the small companies is they're quick and they're agile. The big companies are usually slow and kind of hard to— more turtle-like, right?

So I agree, big ships turn slow.

Absolutely, absolutely. So, okay, really good advice from Tyler. Uh, I would say, you know, so what you're just telling me, I don't care if you're a one-person shop or a 500-person small to medium enterprise, you need to be AI first.

AI first. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And AI strategy should lead the way, not letting tools dominate the conversation.

If you don't have the strategy, I think sometimes you're trying to pound a square peg through a round hole.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, you might get it to fit and go through, but you know, how damaged is everything around it, right?

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Okay. All right. Any, any final parting words from you, Tyler? I mean, great advice, just really good conversation. I really appreciate your viewpoints, and congrats on the book. It's— yeah, you got the bestseller sticker on it.

Yeah, I think 7 different categories.

Yeah, that's great to see. It's good to see. So any, any final parting words? Any words of advice for our listeners?

Um, you know, I just AI is here, right? You got to embrace it. I talk to organizations all the time. They're like, are you planning on implementing AI? Like 100% say yes. Have you started? 100% say no. So I think you got to start.

Yeah.

Right.

But start with the strategy, like you said, not just find a tool and put that in place. Start with a plan.

Right. Because it's easy to say, yeah, I'm going to implement AI in my business. Well, when are you going to do that? Oh, I don't know.

But what does that even mean? Right?

Yeah. What's it mean? Like, when are you going to do? Oh, I just plan on doing it sometime. Well, guess what? The companies that are executing on AI, they're just leapfrogging.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, great advice, man. If you guys are watching, feel free to call Tyler Wallace at CTS Computers. Really great job on the book. Congratulations. Super pumped to have you here. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here.

Bye-bye. Thanks.