Business Breakthroughs: Strategies and Tools in the Age of AI (Repeat EP 60 March 28, 2023)

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So go ahead, pull up a chair, grab a notepad and let's talk business. Welcome to strategy for creatives business minus the bullshit. I, of course, am your host, sasha, and today I'm throwing it back to something that I have not done in months, and that is a solo show. I know it's been a while since I've recorded solo, but I have found such amazing guests through this platform called pod match and I really wanted to share all of their amazing experience and expertise with you guys, but I am going to start sprinkling in some solo shows again and bring it back to the original purpose of the show, which was, you know, I want to be able to provide strategy tips about business and how to go about really taking action items into your business at the end of every episode, and so today I want to talk about something that is really for the past few months have been taking pretty much every business by storm, and that is AI using artificial intelligence for your business. I have seen so many people in various industries really freaked out about how AI has gotten so good in what seems like so quickly, and how a lot of people are scared that it can take away from what our businesses are like. Is AI going to? Is chat GPT going to take away copywriters, or is the tools that people can use for creating AI art going to stop designers from having work? And so I really thought that this would be a great topic to kind of talk about and really just let people know that you don't have to be as scared about technology. There have been so many technological advances that have happened that have scared people for many, many generations. We are not the first where people thought jobs were going to go away, but really, when technology changes and improves it, actually it does take some jobs away, but it also ends up creating a whole bunch of different jobs. And so today I'm going to talk about how we can use AI and adapt to industry trends and really just use that to stay ahead of the curve in your niche and embrace these technology tools and trends for your business. So, first and foremost, it's important to understand whatever these industry trends are and how to keep up on them, because you do not want to be left behind while a lot of other people in your niche are moving forward using these things, especially when it comes to adaptive technology, especially when it comes to things like AI. So you want to make sure that you're keeping up with the latest trends in advancement and pay attention to what's happening in your industry, what's changing, what new ideas are emerging and whether or not you can actually be on the forefront of those things happening, because sometimes, if you can position yourself as the person who's ahead of the game, it really can give you a leg up on bringing new people into your business and make it seem like your business is not scared of change but really good at adapting to it and embracing changing, using it to better help their clients. You can think about things especially like in the music industry, of course, if you are young like me. Way back in the day there were things like Napster and LimeWire that we used to originally download music, and even then people were worried that it was going to change the music industry and a lot of artists weren't okay with it and there was a whole thing around that. Whereas you get to now and you have streaming services, of course, like Spotify and Apple Music, where artists and record labels have had to adapt to stay relevant to things like that, and those who didn't adapt left behind, you now have artists who aren't even a part of record labels for the most part and will just launch music once platforms like Spotify because it gives them access to other people and they end up building their music careers differently. They're building it in a background way, whereas traditionally you get discovered, you get a record label, then you would sign with the record label. You get your music out there once these platforms were, whereas now people can just put their music out there, gain a following and then they get approached by a record label. So you really want to stay on top of what's happening in your industry that can help push your business forward and make it seem that one you can do your job easier, faster, but also give your clients something different that they may not be expecting. New technologies are constantly emerging. We have seen it. I've seen it in my business. When I started my business, platforms like Dubstado and Honeybook were in their infancy and didn't have nearly the capabilities that they have today to streamline and automate parts of our business that, for now, we take for granted. So think about how these different technologies have transformed the way we work, the way we communicate, the way we socialize. I mean on my podcast network, boundless Audio, we have Slack, which is a communication platform which was unheard of years ago, and, of course, the pandemic made Slack even more relevant. But having platforms now where I can communicate with other show members has revolutionized the way that I'm able to get out information. I'm not relying on just emails and you can have real-time conversations On my podcast network. I've never met any of these women in person and yet I'm able to have conversations with them. I can meet with them on Zoom and we can talk about life and travel and our shows and the things that we wanna do, and it's the same thing with our businesses. I mean, think about, even just in the past two years, how platforms like Zoom which, of course, were more corporate-based, but when the pandemic started, we all had to take our meetings virtual. How many amazing other people have you been able to meet because of a platform like Zoom, which would have been entirely unheard of prior to the pandemic, really forcing people to meet virtually? Before, it was like, oh, we have to meet in person. You know I have to call this person. Now we can. I've met people all over the world because I've embraced platforms like that. You can also think about how many businesses have started using things like chat bots and, again, ai technology to improve things like customer service and streamlining operations. Chat bots you've seen them on Instagram, you've seen them on Facebook, where you ask a question and they immediately reply back to you and it's like you know, do you need help with X, y, z question? It's important that you have the right tools that can communicate with your audience and do it in a streamlined way that makes it seem as if you're keeping up. You know People are nervous about things like chat bots because it doesn't seem personal. We want to have that personal connection, but when you get to a certain level in your business, things like that type of technology can really help you just streamline operations. It can give the benefit of really good customer service because people can ask questions that you already have a database of answers to and they just have to plug it in and they feel like they're getting helped more quickly. And so embracing new technologies isn't necessarily bad for your business. It doesn't take out the personal touch of your business. It can help push your business forward and create just a better customer service experience for your business as well. I've talked a lot on the show you guys know this about outsourcing and automations and workflows and keeping up with technology. Technological changes, especially when it comes to AI, has helped me and a lot of other people work more efficiently and effectively because it saves us time, it can reduce our costs, it improves our productivity. I mean project management tools like I mentioned, like Dubsado, like places like Trello or a sauna. They help you stay organized. They keep you on top of deadlines. You have social media tools like Hootsuite or Buffer where allows you to stay active on social media without constantly having to be on your phone. You can auto post without having to worry about I'm going to get sucked into 15 minutes of scrolling on Instagram because I have to make this real and I have to post this real. So things like that give us our time back and allows us to work better in our business and more efficiently in our business, without sacrificing the quality of our business or even how productive we can be in our business. I use Canva has. I don't I don't always use the auto post feature, but can. That has a calendar where you can auto post your Instagram, but I use it as a calendar to set up visually my post for my swirl and sip podcast and the balance audio network Instagram, so that way I can actually visualize where, when things are going to get posted, I can pre write all of my captions and my hashtags and all of that stuff, and it allows me to better organize my business and better state organized. On top of all of the things I have to do, without drowning and feeling like I'm always, you know, behind on something, I have other things that I need to be doing and you know, can you imagine if you had to have a physical calendar of all of your posts and all of your captions written out and you had to do it that way? Like some people do work better that way? But tools and technology make these things easier and Better for us when it comes to working more productively in our business. So, when it comes to all of these changing technologies, we want to stay ahead of the curb. Business is constantly evolving. That landscape is always going to be changing and it's it's important to pivot when necessary in our businesses and being open to change and being willing to take risk in our businesses, right? So, for example, I have a friend who is a. She is a graphic designer and, of course, a lot of the things that are happening in graphic design right now are really big in the Art to making, making art with AI and a lot of artists are worried about that, which is, I understand, a lot of the critique around that, especially because there's no copyright on the art that's created, but a lot of graphic designers and web designers I've seen people who are worried about oh, is my business going to go away if technology can do this for us, and that's. It's not necessarily the case. She's decided. You know what? I'm gonna brace these art tools and I'm gonna use it to showcase my client work in virtual settings where they can See and more visually see, what their logo is gonna look like, what their branding is gonna look like, and it gives them. It gives them more excitement around their new branding and how they can Better utilize their brand, and it just makes them more excited about things like that. So you can use these technologies to in your business in order to create a better client experience and to just give you more options when it comes to presenting things to your clients. I mentioned a couple of tools that you can use, and so I'm just gonna go over a few of them, but I talked about chat bots and chat bots. They're not new. You've seen them everywhere, especially on bigger websites, but chat bots, their AI power tools they can help provide customer service 24-7. We are not available 24-7, and maybe you have FAQs that people are always asking. In your business program a chat bot, so that when someone wants to ask a quick question, they can go to your website. The little chat box comes up and it just provides Common answers to those questions that people are always asking so you're not having to answer those questions Over and over again. There's also things like predictive and analytics which is there again AI power tools. They can help you make data driven decisions and y'all know I'm all about data. Predictive analytics. Look at historical data in your business, so things like sales, things like what your most popular Service might be or what your most popular Product might be, and they can use that data to predict future outcomes. And it can help you with things like marketing. For example, if you know something sells really big based on history in the springtime, you know People really love water bottles because they're exercising again Then you know, every spring, you can come up with a new water bottle or you can promote your existing water bottles and that's going to get you more business because your data is telling you and AI is telling you, hey, every spring, this is what really sells, so you should push this in your marketing. There's also things that are like they're called sentiment analysis and you can do this a lot with chat, gpt and things like that, but they are tools that analyze customer feedback, reviews, social media, and they can understand customers feelings around areas of improvement that your business might need or how you can provide better customer service. Essentially, it's pulling in all of this data and allows you to really dive deep and look into how you can better improve outcomes for your customers. So if you have a lot of people commenting the same thing on your social media, you have a lot of people giving you reviews and they're always saying something along the lines like oh, you know, it was a fantastic service, but I wish x, y and z. Sentiment analysis pulls all of that in and Can literally pop out like a numbered list of your clients want x, y and z from you and you don't have to scrub through all of that information to make better changes in your business so you are able to Understand what your clients want from you. And it frees up your time from having to look at All of this information and you can just build a better customer experience. You can build a better customer loyalty, attract new clients because you're able to Take in more of that data and have something like AI really just transform the way you look at it. And, of course, the big ones that are out right now chat, gpt and of these AI imaging tools, I use chat GPT for my podcast specifically and for my business at large. But for my podcast it is revolutionized the way that I do my business. I'm able to generate List of podcast topic ideas. I can get scripts for my podcast. I can get Examples that I can use in my podcast. I can get Blog posts written that I just have to kind of edit and put in my voice. It has revolutionized the way that I'm able to write in my business. Now it's not perfect, I still have to go back and edit it, but it changes completely the way that I'm able to do things in my business. You can integrate chat, gpt and things like your website or social media platforms where you can have it at A response to customer like questions, provide product recommendations. It can process orders. I love using it and highly highly recommend it. And, of course, using AI drawing tools, like I mentioned before my graphic design friend, she's able to provide these new and improved images to her clients to give a better visualization of what their branding might be. I also saw a really captivating TikTok by an artist who was encouraging other artists not to be scared of tools like AI imaging software, because, even though they don't have copyrights, you can actually use these computer-generated images as real-life models for art that you might be creating and so you can plug into if you are making custom artwork, for example, if that's your business and you plug into these AI tools the prompts to create a unique and personalized design, granted that what's coming out is not copy-written. But you could use that as inspiration for how to create something that's custom and unique for your client and help your business stand out more. You don't have to worry about trying to copy someone else's artwork that you may find from inspiration or using other copy-written work. You can have these tools kind of generate a unique starting point for your custom artwork drawing and that just utilizes these tools in a way that's going to keep pushing your business forward without being really worried about what AI is going to do or if it's going to take away your business. I also mentioned again if you're a graphic designer. You can use these AI art tools to help with design assistance. They can suggest color palettes or font combinations. They can even help you with layout designs. It can save you as a graphic designer a lot of time and help you make better design decisions, because you can easily see mix and match options without you having to create something first and then refining and tweaking what these platforms are putting out for you, as opposed to spending all that time doing it yourself. Lastly, what I mentioned is similar to what my design friend is doing these augmented reality kind of tools that you can use these imaging softwares for. You can use it to create augmented reality experiences for your clients. For example, she did a spa logo design as a concept. It's a beautiful design, it's one of my favorite designs and she used it to showcase what this spa would look like. It's desert inspired. It's like relaxing picture spa in Arizona. She used these AI imaging tools to show what that spa might look like and how it could be branded. With this new branding that she created for the spa, interior designers can use something similar. You can show how your design is going to look in a home or in a specific space without having to readily design that space first. It can help your clients visualize how they can use your services or how they can picture your designs in places and help them make more informed decisions about whether or not something makes sense for them and just really get them excited about whatever it is that you're designing. Overall, I cannot express enough how much I am a proponent of embracing and utilizing technology to help our businesses. Technology, for me, has really transformed the way that I'm able to work. I you guys all know I have a full-time job, I'm a mom, I'm a wife and I have my business. I don't I not only have Shadie by Sasha, I also have the Balanced Audio Podcast Network that I run. I do several things in my business that takes a lot of time, and the only way that I'm able to do all of these things is to really use technology to my benefit and use it to automate things and use it to pull out pieces that it can do for me instead For I mentioned ChatGPT and how it's completely changed my business, and so utilizing things like that has helped me take time back and things that are repetitive, things that used to take me a long time, things that might not flow as easily if I had to do them myself, I am using technology to do that for me. So that way I'm getting my time back and I don't have to worry about spending so much time doing things I would otherwise have to do if I didn't have these technological tools. So, when it comes to adapting to these industry trends, especially when you're focusing on AI, it is crucial you want to stay ahead of the curve. You want to make sure that you're staying informed about these new trends, about these new technologies, utilizing these tools for efficiency, adapting to the times and whatever is coming down the pike. You want to make sure that you're staying ahead of all that, because it can be overwhelming to keep up with everything. As business owners, we all know that it can be overwhelming to not only do our business but stay on top of all the things that are changing. But you can take it one step at a time. Start by reading up on the trends or advancements in your niche or in your industry and then look for ways you can incorporate these technologies into your operations and how they can help you revolutionize the way that you're doing business and how it can help you do business smarter and faster and not spend so much time and energy that you might otherwise use to do things in your business. So, when it comes to action items today, the first thing I want you to do is research these different technological AI tools that are relevant to your business. So think about tools, for example, chat, gpt, these imaging off, you know imaging softwares, these chat bots, things like that. Think about tools that are relevant to your business and look at how they can help you automate tasks or improve customer experiences or make data-driven decisions. You can find these tools and help you stay ahead of the curve in your niche and provide better customer service to your clients and customers by starting to incorporate these tools in your business. You should also identify one area of your business where, specifically, things like AI can be integrated. So I have talked again how I use chat GPT, but identify one area of your business where you might be able to use something like that. So if you're a social media marketer, right, you can use chat GPT or these social media scheduling tools to auto post for you or to auto, you know, caption for you, or to research hashtags. Chat GPT will write hashtags and they include emojis and they have different voices. If you say you want to Instagram caption or if you want to LinkedIn caption, think about how you can identify one area of your business that these tools can be integrated and help you improve with your business, and you can experiment. You can try one tool and think that it might not work for you or you can try something else. If you are interested in learning more about how I use chat GPT for my business, I'm actually having a workshop on April 12th. The tickets are on Eventbrite. It's for my podcast group, so it's specifically for my podcast group, and so we'll be related more to podcasting. But if you are interested in learning about how it can revolutionize podcasts and the process for that, I will put the link to that in the show notes and I encourage you to check that out if you're interested. Also, if you are part of the strategy for creatives Facebook group, I'm also doing a workshop on April 5th about chat GPT in general and how it can help businesses, and so I encourage you to look for that join the group if you want to learn more about that. Hopefully, you are encouraged to start embracing technology and the things that are coming and not be worried that these things are going to take away from what we do in our business. Business will always be changing. Business is always going to Look different than what we expect to it to look like. If anybody told me that my business in 2023 will look the way it does today, way back in March 2020, I would not have believed them because we could not have foreseen all of the changes that technology would have brought to our businesses. And so if you stay on top of Everything that's coming and if you adapt more importantly, you adapt to those things that are coming and figure out how you can be ahead of the curve or utilizing in your business in different ways and you see other people doing or show that you are embracing these Technologies, it really will put your business on a different level and, if anything else, it will give you time back. It'll give you peace of mind. While things run automatically, you can step away from your computer and your business and let things like AI Technologies and all of these other things Push your business forward and give you the time back to spend on your business and do the things that you love and Let your business keep running in the background. So I highly encourage you to really look into how these things can change your business and so hopefully, you're not as scared and you're willing to embrace what technology is bringing to our businesses in the future. Happening next week on the strategy for creatives podcast, I'm talking to founder of northern michigan's first kombucha tea brewery, courtney Lorenz, and we're gonna be discussing how to build a business that matches your mindset, so make sure you tune in next Tuesday for the episode. Thanks for tuning in to the latest episode of the strategy for creatives podcast. I hope you enjoyed the insightful discussion and hopefully found valuable tips that you can put in your business today. If you found the podcast helpful, I'd love it if you take a moment to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps me make a better show and reach more listeners like you, and don't forget to share the podcast with your favorite Business owner, who could benefit from the strategies and insights I share on the show. New episodes come out every Tuesday, so make sure to subscribe and stay up to date with the latest trends and techniques for growing your creative business. If you want more, don't forget to join the strategy for creatives Facebook group or you can follow me on Instagram at strategy by Sasha. Have a topic suggestion or a question you want to hear answered? Email me at hello at shahji by Sasha comm. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week with another episode of the strategy for creatives business minus the bullshit podcast, part of the ballast audio podcast network.