Why Most AI Investments Don’t Scale Businesses

4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1. Welcome to the AI Leaders Podcast. We are here with a very special guest today, also my friend. I think I would call us friends now. Yeah, like we've been on a boat together, Facebook official friend. It's like we've done dinner together. Uh, yeah, so welcome to the podcast and this conversation, Andrew Brockenbush, uh, based out of Houston. We actually met on a cruise, mastermind entrepreneurial cruise, and we both got to like nerd out around AI and, um, entrepreneurship. And I think even just over the course of the last few weeks of us getting to know each other, it's been really cool to see the development of like all the stuff that we're building. So I'm excited.

I'm excited. Yeah, it's so cool. I love to be a part of your community and be able to share any type of knowledge that I can share.

Yeah. Okay, so tell us a little bit about your current work that you do right now. Like what's, what's your footprint in the marketing world, AI space, given For sure.

Yeah. So we started the agency back in 2013, 2012, 2013. I think it was like official with the state in 2013. But when we first started, it was Andrew Brockenbush Creative Consulting. Like, who was going to remember that? We rebranded to Beefy Marketing and that's like the brand that people know us by today. Full service agency, anything from branding and websites all the way to like, you know, the other nerdy stuff like SEO and all those things. But like where we're really passionate is like more of the creative stuff, whether it's website designs or merchandise, like you've seen our Beefy boxes. Because they're really cool. And then AI is like obviously like a huge, huge deal right now. I mean, that's why we're talking on this podcast, right? And so about 2 or 3 years ago when ChatGPT kind of first dropped, I remember pulling my entire team into my office and was like, this is going to change like the entire like game. And they were like, whatever, you always say that. And I'm like, no, like this is it. Like this is the thing. This is it. Okay. Um, and so once they saw like what I was sharing with them, they were like, Well, you're right, like this is going to, this is going to be game changer. And it was like week after week after week, there was like huge leaps of growth and we're still seeing that, right? And so we started offering like this fractional CMO, fractional AI advisory services in our, in our agency. And I think that's been pretty transformative for us because we're nerds about it anyways. And, you know, being in a marketing space, I think people kind of naturally trust us in that arena. And so we're doing a lot of like AI development apps and things like that. But more importantly, more on like the advisory side, encouraging businesses to like not get left behind. I mean, I think being that we started our agency back in 2012, we saw the businesses that were super like hesitant to get on social media and it's like, look at them now, like trying to still catch up 15 years later. It's like, what? Like you've missed that boat. Like, and I think we're on that next wave where it's like, okay, AI is the new thing. Are you going to get on or not?

Yeah.

And so we're trying to remind businesses like, hey, you need to know what this is about. And how to leverage it in your business.

Gosh, can you believe that there are people that still are like anti-social media?

Yeah.

And they're like, nope, I don't want to do that.

That still don't have websites. Like, right.

Yeah, I don't have a personal website.

Okay, we're gonna get to the bottom of that. Okay.

No, it's crazy. I mean, I've built a lot of really cool stuff and I've never had a true website. So, um, not just— I'm not recommending that, don't recommend, but I focus on sales, I focus on relationships, and I focus on deliverables and like just showing up and all those things. So I think that the same is true for AI though. And it's like what you said of not just building out another thing. It's like the advisory model. So making sure that you are actually thinking about how this ties into my business longevity, how does this tie into my business vision? So there's kind of been these two separate camps of AI. It's like the ones that are totally anti-AI and then the ones that are like, we're going to go full force and we're going to spend all the money and we're going to use a bunch of tools and now we're building out our own software. And it's like, wait a minute.

Oh, slow down.

How does this tie into your actual business plan?

Yeah.

So how are you having that conversation with your marketing clients?

Yeah, for sure. I think it's really kind of solving the actual pains they have in their business first and understanding their biggest needs and challenges and opportunities. I think a lot of times, like even for me as like someone who gets really excited about the new technology and the new software that's dropping every single day and I like can completely nerd out about it, I have to really be mindful about not overwhelming my clients with all of those new tools because I will be the first to try to do that. I'm like, oh, pull back, pull back, right? Like, what are the biggest areas that they're struggling with? And if I can solve a problem for them with technology or with software, with an AI tool, I think that that's good. But it's more about helping them understand how to best leverage AI. Because again, I think there's still a lot of companies that are— this is wild to me— that aren't even using ChatGPT. And I talk about like, oh, you need a custom GPT or custom gems to help you like be more efficient. And they're like, why? What is that? How do we do that? And it's like, Oh wow, like we've got to get back to like the fundamentals, like the basics. And so for me, it's very much like a consultative approach, which isn't much different than anything else we've ever done in our agency, is just like understanding who they are and what their goals are, what their vision is like talking about. And if we can map that out, then we can kind of make the best recommendations versus just throwing a lot of tech at them because that just adds to the overwhelm. Like nobody needs more on their plate to just overwhelm them.

Yeah, it's one more thing for them to have to do. It's like, oh, now I have to build out all this stuff or I have to learn this, or maybe even feeling fearful that they're going to do it wrong. Yeah, well, I'm so far behind, I've already missed the ship. What would you say to that?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's too late. First of all, yeah, I think that it's— I don't remember who I was talking about this with the other day, but I said like, we're still at the infancy stage of this. Like, look what's happened in the last 2 to 3 years with ChatGPT. Like, what will the next 10 years do? So I think it's still like the opportune time to like get on board, understand what you need and how you can leverage AI. At the very least, like become familiar with it and become educated about it. Like, don't avoid the topic altogether because it's scary. I think so many people are so like worried about privacy and security, which I respect and I understand, like, and appreciate, especially like in your space and y'all's line of business. However, like to think that our data is secure nowadays is like, I don't think that's true. You know, that's a, that's a whole nother, like, you know, topic we could get on. But I think that yes, it's important to know like what the security implications are and things like that. But more importantly, don't get left behind because you're not willing to, like, educate yourself on the topic. And especially even if we're just talking about the basics of ChatGPT, like I ask people like, how are you guys using it? And they're like, oh, we help it. Like, it helps us write an email response. And it's like, man, you are missing the mark. That's great. Yeah, cool. Like, yeah, but it's like if you're just using AI to do content creation, you're really missing the mark with what AI has the capability to do in your business.

Yeah, I know. I was just— we just built out literally in the, like, foyer over here in the main space. We built out like a full widget that would pull in data from like 1,000 different data points and like in a matter of like 10 minutes and would analyze like revenue and like, like, like literally in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, like what would have taken months to collect from hundreds of clients. Like we just compiled it into 10 minutes.

Yeah.

And I'm now, my thought process is how do I get this out to my clients as fast as possible?

Exactly. And I mean, imagine how many other companies out there that are watching this podcast that have thought It'd be really cool if we had a tool that could solve this problem. And they'd had that thought for decades, possibly, but they couldn't afford it, right? It wasn't sustainable. It wasn't something that was within reach. It was like, oh yeah, we've gotten a quote to do that and it was $50,000. And it's like, those days are kind of over, right? Like now are the days where you can explore the possibility of solving a real problem you have in your business. Like, I feel like companies will be able to evolve with significant leaps in the next 5 years if they adopt AI as a part of what they're doing, because they will be able to skip all of the steps that they would have, you know, previously had to take. You know, I was talking to a trucking company the other day who their industry is very much still spreadsheets to log their leased, you know, trailers. And it was like, you know, we can literally make a tool that would show you all of your inventory all around the country. The last time it was checked out, the last chemical that it transported. And they were like, that would change our industry. Like literally, like someone's full job is to spend hours a day just trying to figure out who last had the trailer and what chemical was in it. I was like, what? Yeah, seriously? Like, yeah, you don't want to replace jobs. I think that's where a lot of people get nervous with AI too, is like, you know, AI is going to replace people. No, it's going to replace people who don't understand AI, don't use AI, right? I think it's more important for business owners to empower their team members to learn AI and to help them become more familiar with it, whether it's certifications or just, you know, kind of a base knowledge and understanding so that they feel empowered as employees to do more. Yeah, right. The reality is most people are not ultra productive. Like, even at your most productive, you're probably only like working 50, 60% of your day. Yeah, right. So it's like if you can empower them with AI tools, imagine the amount of efficiency you can get out of your team members. That should be a really good thing for most business owners if they look at it in that way.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I think people are a little threatened though, you know, an employee especially, you know, your team. And so there's a lot of shadow use of AI that goes on of like your team members are using it and the shadows and they're not sharing that they're using AI to write the email, or they're not sharing that they're using it to, you know, take notes even in the background and those kind of things. And I think that we have to create a culture of empowerment where it's like, no, like, I want you to use that. Go ask AI before you ask me this. Like, please use, and then let's share our ideas. Let's collaborate on those ideas. And, but what happens is that it threatens the leadership that's in place because the leadership is like, oh crap, if we start using this, it's gonna shed a light on maybe what I haven't done or how I haven't shown up for my team. So. It's truly like a business evolution. Yeah, that has to take place.

It does. Yeah. And I think at the top, it's going to have to be a top-down situation where like the top-level leadership is going to have to go, yes, it might be scary and yes, it might, you know, disclose a few, you know, weakness, you know, areas and opportunities. But shouldn't that be what we're focused on anyways as leaders is trying to make sure that we're being the most efficient and the most transparent and the most ethical, like, If that's what it's going to do, then we should absolutely be doing that. You know, yes, it's not going to be fun, but I think that's part of like adopting a culture where like that's— I think in the next, you know, 2 to 3 years, it's going to be even more important to disclose that we are using AI. I have a really good friend who's actually rolled out an entire platform that basically allows you to disclose your AI usage on your website. And the idea is like, you know, there's SSL certificates and there's all these compliances for like, oh, is your website secure for taking payments? That will be the next wave of that is showing, hey, we use AI in our marketing. I think more people are okay with saying that was an AI-written blog post or an AI-written sales page as long as they know it. People just don't want to feel like they're being lied to.

Yeah, right.

So you think about voice agents, for example, like AI voice agents. Ours, we literally have it say, I'm an AI assistant for Beefy Marketing. Okay, cool. Like we got that out of the way. You know, you're not talking to a real human. People are going to be more apt to go, okay, if it if that sounded a little weird or if I hit a dead end, like, I understand why. Like, it's technology versus when we hide it and we try to pretend like we're not using it. That's when we kind of lose trust.

It's deceptive, right? Yeah. What's been your— so let's talk about that. Let's talk about like the actual use case scenarios inside of the, inside of the agency. What's been the response to like the AI?

Yeah, great, great question. I'd say majority of our clients love it actually when it comes to like the speed of us being able to be available or to make decisions or provide answers way, way faster. On the flip side, there's been a few bottlenecks where it's like, oh, we hit a dead end with the AI agent and it didn't get it to the right human. And I think that that will only get better in time. I also did have one client who got upset with me one time. He's like, I feel like all you're doing is using AI to help us. I'm like, yeah, that's a— absolutely. Welcome. Nah, you know, like, if any other industry had a new tool to do the job more efficiently or more better, wouldn't you want them to use that tool? Right. It's like, oh, everyone's using a shovel and there's a guy that has a bulldozer. Hello. We have a big hole to dig here, right? Yeah. Why wouldn't I leverage AI? And so I think a part of that is just being like willing to be transparent about that, right? Is like we are using AI and this is why we're using AI because although I've been doing this for 13 years and I have a lot of experience, there is still a lot that I don't know. And I think the difference between a guy who, forgive me, but like claims to be a marketing expert who just started 6 months ago and leveraging AI to be a marketing expert is a lot different than a guy that's been in the marketing world for 13 years who's deeply using AI to just kind of accelerate what it is that I do already. So I think again, it comes down to like building trust and being like vulnerable and transparent with your people. But I'd say for the most part, people are receptive to it. You know, it's been majorly empowering for our internal teams because I think that most companies try to run a lean team, right, to continue to keep profits high. Small business, especially small businesses especially do that. And it's like, well, how do we get more time out of the day without burning out? Burnout is like one of the biggest problems most small businesses face. Their employee, like employee turnover, because they just don't have enough time in the day and they're just feeling like defeated. They can't do anything else. So when we give them AI and we empower them to be more effective at their jobs, then you're going to get more out of that person. And so that's exactly what we've done across our entire team is we've told our team like, You have 100% permission to use AI. I don't care how you use AI. Tell me if you use AI, right? Like, let me know. Sure, there are things that like, I don't want to be 100% like a blog post. I don't want it to just be written by AI and then post it on the website. Like, we want to continue to have our, like, our fingerprint on it and our thought leadership into it. And I think that goes back into like what we're feeding into AI, right? Versus just expecting it to do the job for us. But again, I think that that's the difference between somebody who's just starting with AI versus someone who's really leveraging it in a really thoughtful manner.

And you know the nuances of it, so you understand that whenever it puts something out that you still have to go through it and you have to make sure that it says Beefy. Yes, you have to make sure that it says Lindsay, or you know, it has your brand and your voice. And that's where the custom GPTs come in, which are such an easy— not easy, but it's so straightforward that when you know the nuance and when you know how to build it out, or you partner with someone that can help you do that as a small business owner, it's just such a game changer because what would've taken a content creator, what would've taken maybe a copywriter days. Like, I feel so, I'm like a, like such a veteran when I say this. Like, I remember the days when I had to write copy for landing pages from scratch and they're, yeah. It's like those are days where, what? I mean, now I like, I have these beautiful custom GPTs that write like me, like even depending on like what I'm writing for, like which voice I want to take, like. It's incredible. And then I still go through and I can make it, you know, more me or whatever the brand is that I'm writing for. But it's like, oh, if I understand that, or if I had the resources or the people on my team that I can lean into, they, they know how to do that. Gosh, we can do so much more. We can carry on our mission so much more. Yeah. And that's why, that's why we're all in business. Yeah. Carry out our mission.

I think what's really cool too is there's this like whole world of people that I think that are historically would have been considered talent that you wouldn't have brought into these higher-end companies because you're like, oh, that person is really great for fast food, but they might not be great for a company that's like got a high-profile clientele or whatever else. But it's like, well, wait a second, those people depend on jobs, right?

Yeah.

You can pay them a little bit lower wages, right? $12, $15 an hour, whatever the case may be. And if you leverage AI and you give it a lot of knowledge, that person could be really effective at that job. And that was a job that you probably paid $25, $30 an hour for. Like, we should be using this as companies to scale and grow. Like, this year I added 4 or 5 people because AI allowed me to, right? Like, historically I would have been like, oh, that's a $30 an hour employee. I can't afford to hire that person yet. I don't have to do that yet. I've taken 10 years of experience that we have and I've put it into AI, whether it's a custom ChatGPT, custom Gem from Google Gemini. And I've said, here's all of the knowledge. If my team asks a question about anything related to support, You know what we've said for the last 10 years. You know how to respond to that. So now that person feels like they've got all of the answers, which means they're not bugging me, which like, I don't mind if they approach me, but they feel more empowered to do their job. And that's really cool.

And you're creating a culture of ownership. That's right. Here, you own doing the research and then carrying it out and doing what you need to do. And I empower that.

Yeah. Which is so important because I feel like so many companies, especially like business owners, still find themselves doing like doing menial tasks that like they should not be doing. Like they're in the weeds and I'm like, what? Why are you doing that? Like, why are you focusing your energy on that? That is something you should absolutely be delegating so that you can be a thought leader, so you can be an innovator, so that you can do what a CEO should be doing as a CEO and carrying vision out in the organization. But they find themselves taking support calls and, you know, running like, like all this nonsense. You're just like, what? Like, why are you spending your time on that? Like, I'm so grateful that I have a team back in Houston that's doing what they do best, and I get to be here with you guys in Austin doing this podcast. That would have not been as possible 4 or 5 years ago. I would have felt like freaked out that they wouldn't have been able to get it done, but now I have no, no concern at all that they're gonna be effective.

That's so— I know, I was just like, that was a moment of reflection right now of just thinking that like my team is handling that, you know, and like AI, yes, but also just having a culture of ownership, having like, no, you got this, like, and having the training and all those things. And it's just such like, we have such opportunity to truly come back to why we went into business as business, as business leaders. It's like it's freedom. I came here for freedom, financial freedom, time freedom, expressive freedom. That's why I do this. That's right. And AI only, it only allows you to amplify that.

Yeah, I mean, I shared that with you guys earlier today, kind of as we were masterminding, was, you know, I think a lot of business owners get into business for freedom and then all of a sudden they find that they've built themselves either into a job or into a prison. Like literally a prison where they're like, I don't have time for my family, I don't have time for my kids. They're going through, you know, family issues because they're never home, because they're always just trying to put out fires. And it's like, you don't have to do that, right? And part of that for me was like reading other books, surrounding myself with, you know, thought leaders like yourself and Chris, people who kind of fed into me mentorship. It was interesting. I hired my first business coach only 2 years ago. I've been in business like 13 years or whatever., and it was like something I was not ready to do. Like my salesperson was like, bro, we should really do this. Like you should pay for it. And I'm like, yeah, it's a lot of money. Like I don't want to do that. And so he just said, you've got to do it. I was like, all right, let's, let's go for it. Right. And immediately within the first 6 months, I got the value out of it. And now I've hired like 5 or 6 coaches since because it's like, why didn't I do this sooner? Um, so I think a part of that too, it goes back to like what I was kind of saying at the beginning is like not only empowering your team, but like, how are you growing as a leader? Right, so that you can empower your team to do things, so that you can be doing the thing like getting the freedom out of the business that you kind of got into it for the first place for, right? It's not just about AI, right? AI is just a mechanism that's going to allow us to do everything like at rocket speed. Yeah, it's everything else that's really kind of the most important aspect of this.

It is. I am obsessed with mentorship and us doing business together. Yeah, it is like it is truly to me. It's like AI catalytic. It's a catalyst. To us being able to get our genius to more people. You know, we're all in, in the industry of leader, of thought leadership, of selling your IP, of selling your ideas. Like, these are the words that are coming from, from my being, and I can spread it to someone else, and then that can go transform the way that they do life. And I think the AI is only allowing us to do that better because it's taking what's yours and it can get it out at a faster rate. It's taking what's yours and it can, you know, metabolize it to where, you know, someone who maybe wouldn't have been able to get that information as fast. Now they can get it faster. Now they can get it in a way that makes sense to them, communication-wise. So I just, I am such a huge fan of sharing knowledge. That's why I'm a huge fan of masterminds. We have multiple masterminds. We've got AI Profit Machine is basically, it is a collective. It is, it is geniuses pulling together their superpowers and moving faster, you know. And I just, I'm obsessed with that.

Cool. Like why I love like being with you guys, like why podcasts are so special too. It's like being able to have these exchanging of ideas is such a a huge blessing, you know.

Yes. And I think about same with you, like my life before business mentorship, um, and I was the opposite. So I was a first grade teacher in a previous life, and I invested into a business mentor. It was like a 6-week course technically before I even knew what the business was, like before I even had an LLC, like before I even knew anything about anything. Like I didn't even know what I didn't know what I didn't know. Yeah. And you know, so I was kind of the opposite of that. So my My being has always been around mentorship. Like, it's always been around learning from other people at a faster pace. But, uh, I think on the flip side of that, it's like, okay, you have to execute, you have to take action. And then instead of investing up, you also invest down into your team. You invest in, you know, those team members. Okay, can you go get a, a college intern that can help you with some of these prompts, or they can build out those custom GPTs? Um, I have one more question for you, and then we'll kind of round it out, because I think that we could, we could nerd out about this all day. Um, On your team, I have like a logistical question. So on your team and as you're deploying this stuff for clients, because you guys work with dozens of clients, like you have tons of clients. And I am curious, when you're rolling out like these custom builds or you're, you know, maybe putting something out to the team, like how far up does that come to you? Or do you have like an AI team or department? Like, or is it all dependent on what it's for? Like, what does that look like?

Yeah, for sure. So we have like our own in-house development team who's really good at like most projects. And I'm kind of carrying out like creative direction and vision and helping the business owner understand like what it is that they need. And then I'm kind of handing it off and letting our team execute. Occasionally if the project is like really big and I'm like, yeah, like we're not a good fit, I would rather tell somebody like, I'm not the best person for this, right? And I've got several other developers who I know are like really, really good. And I'll just say like, and it's not even about me trying to resell their services. It's like, let me just make an introduction. Like, I don't want to be in the way. I'm going to be a bottleneck. So it's about connecting with them, the right person for the job., but internally, like, most of it is just saying, like, oh, we have this really great idea for this client. This is what I think we need to get done. And then I hand it off to the right person on the team. One of the things I did actually was build a really cool ChatGPT, like, agent that will handle all of the prompting for these apps. So, like, if you have an idea for an app, you put, like, the real basic version of what you're wanting inside of this GPT. I've trained it on all of Lovable's programming, all of Replit's programming, like, all of the language that they want you to write it in. And so when you prompt your idea, it feeds back the actual prompt that one of these tools really wants to see. And the MVP you get from that is so much better than just like the two-sentence prompt you go straight in there with. So I think that that helps us get really close to like a solid MVP that a client's like, oh, this is really close to what we want from an app perspective. And then we're just kind of doing like backend APIs and connecting like the right data points and things like that. And that's when it gets like too smart for me. Like I'm a smart guy, but like, yeah, I tap out about right there. This is fun. Take over. Like I've definitely stayed up till 3 or 4 in the morning doing some of those where I'm like, this is bad use of my time. Like I am enjoying this, but I'm definitely wasting my time. And that's where you just have to remind yourself. And I think that that's like the lesson for business owners too, right? Is like you could easily play with 1,000 different tools that exist out there and you're going to find that in most cases it's just a rabbit hole that you're going to go down and realize like you're never going to get that time back. And as a CEO, for most people, that's not the best use of your time. Like the book Who Not How is like such a pivotal book for me. I mean, it's like not how can we get this thing done, but who can help us execute on it? And I think that that's like something that, you know, a lot of the advisors that you work with are able to help business owners with as well as, you know, your you guys yourself, right? Like, are being able to execute these things for people. So I think the question you have to ask yourself is like, is this the best use of my time? Is this something that I really should be doing, or is this something that's going to make a big enough, I guess, impact on our overall business and where we're headed that we should invest in having somebody help us?

Right? Yeah. So, yeah, it's almost like trading baseball cards. It's like, oh, let me see the custom build that you have. You see your TV, your gym? Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so cool though. Okay, well, thank you so much, Andrew. Tell us, okay, if someone's like, I want to talk to you about Beefy Marketing or I want a website or I want to talk to you about AI, tell us where can they connect with you?

What's the best place to plug in? Yeah, for sure. So if you were interested in working with us, you can head over to beefymarketing.com. And I also have a personal website, andrewbrockenbush.com. It's so basic. It's just like what I do and it links back to all of the main websites. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on the show. I hope I get to come back and we can nerd out some more, but I appreciate the opportunity.

Yeah, we'll totally be back. And Andrew, word on the street is that you are you're hosting a little something coming up in April.

So I think that pretty soon we'll have all the details rolling out about our first ever cruise conference. It's called Disconnect Conference, and it will all be about disconnecting from your business, stepping back, surrounding yourself with mentors like we've talked about in this episode today, and reminding yourself, okay, there's a reason why I got into business, and it likely wasn't to create yourself another job, and, uh, get that freedom back. So I'm very excited about Disconnect Conference. Awesome.

Me too.

I'm excited too.

It'll be fun. All right, awesome. Thank you so much, Andrew, and thank you guys for tuning in to the AI Profit Leaders Podcast.