All right. Welcome to this episode of Earn Your Seat. I am Dameon Proctor, CEO of Sierra Kru AI, where we help businesses to reduce costs, streamline operations and drive revenue using artificial intelligence. Today, we're having a wonderful discussion about how artificial intelligence is being implemented in businesses small and medium sized businesses to help them become more efficient and grow.
And today, I am joined by two of Charlotte's most wonderful operating visionaries and leaders in the mid-market and small business operating space. So we have Miss Taja Graham, CEO of Graham Solutions Advisors and founder of Ops IQ. And we also have Mrs. Marcela Shine, and she is the co-founder of Shine Enterprises Consulting. Ladies, thank you so much for being here.
I think we're going to have a wonderful discussion, because you guys are in a wonderful space of leading and operations for large companies and medium sized companies as well. So I'd like to start off this conversation of, let's figure out and help the audience understand who we are, where we've come from, how we earned our seats. So let's start with you, Taja.
How did you earn your seat in the marketplace and with AI?
Well, thank you, Dameon, for having me on the show today. So yeah, I started a consultancy first helping businesses to grow in their operations, efficiencies, working with their team dynamics and ensuring that they have the right infrastructure to support the growth that they were looking for. And I quickly recognized that in order to really build capacity not only for myself but for other businesses in life cycle, that I needed to be able to scale that.
And so I created Ops IQ to help small businesses be able to get to the level of where I was in the capacity of the consultancy. So Ops IQ basically helps those founders that are doing $250,000 a year to about $3 million a year. They're starting to hire some of their first initial hires, and they really are wanting to structure so that they actually have the right foundation and in creating upside.
It was quickly by design with my developers that we knew we were going to have generative AI supporting that automation. And and my joking, I say it was my first hire,
I really needed the AI employees. Exactly. And again, he's got to earn his rights.
But so we quickly did that in the way of supporting our assessment, which is the way that you come into ops IQ in its scoring abilities.
And we also address it with some customization within the platform in supporting those subscribers that come into the platform. So it has helped me tremendously. And then obviously I then become an evangelist to it, to those subscribers and my clients that I work alongside of.
So you're kind of like the scale foundation for businesses at this point. They get to the half million and then you help them get from half million and up.
Yes. Exactly right. Yeah. You're on fire.
We hope so. What? We want to we want to speak into existence. Yes. All right. Marcela. Same for you.
So I'm the co-founder of Shine Enterprises, which is the parent company of Ready Plan Grow Ready Plan Grow focuses on enabling small business owners in creating efficiencies for both their marketing and operations. I believe strongly that they are not disconnected. We started with marketing operations because there is a lack of knowledge in the small business space around what that means.
And every time that comes up, operations is really the core problem. So we are looking to support small business owners in two ways. Small business owners that are under 250 K can join Ready Plan Grow's, membership and access in essence coaching at scale. We have office hours and we teach them the core basics that we believe every single business should understand from an operational standpoint, best practices and marketing best practices.
So that's level one, if you will. Level two is incorporating our frameworks into the companies using our AI frameworks. We believe in building a knowledge base first. So we interview, we bring you in. Our AI grabs your voice DNA if you will, so that we're getting to know the founder and usually the right hand. Depending on the size of the business, we understand how the business is functioning.
Today through that interview, we create a knowledge base for them, and we hand that knowledge base back to them and put the AI on top of it. So everything we build for them is theirs from the get go. The key things that we really solve for are. Not knowing your numbers well. You cannot run a company unless you understand the metrics that run those decisions.
So we really look for data and teaching them data through that operational efficiency. And then we start looking at, okay, do you have the right employees in place, what are your goals, etc.. And we drive them through those frameworks to really position them for the growth they need, or to fix the things that are broken that are preventing growth.
And again, we have our AI workforce.
She has earned her seat. Scarlet is our girl and Scarlet is the
foundation for the AI that we then start to hand over. They get to name their AI and kind of have some fun with it from there. So that's our goal, is to make sure that they're confident that the AI they are going to be using is theirs, and that it's not replacing, it's supporting and driving growth.
Absolutely. So what does Scarlet do? Scarlet. Scarlet. Sorry.
So Scarlet, first of all, is what I'll call the containment unit. So my co-founder Ryan has placed a lot of barriers around her so that we can remove the AI haze that happens when she starts to think on her own. So number one is Scarlet owns the rulebook for our frameworks.
So you have a guardrail around hallucination. And that's that's the nation. But the frameworks themselves. What
does the Know Your Numbers framework do? What is the marketing framework do, etc.. Right. The voice DNA. So we have those framework pieces. Our members can come in and download those and actually use them inside of GPT or Claude Gemini. Again, we're here to teach. We really believe in teaching first and ownership.
I want you to walk away feeling like you've learned something by working with us. So Scarlet owns the frameworks, the rules around each of those, either JSON files or custom GPT, whatever way we're going to work with that client. Number one. Number two, she has the ability to determine which workflows go when. So we're not going to let you start a content strategy unless you have your brand voice, your ICPs.
Right. So she's making sure that at least the frameworks are set up in a way that are logical so that you're not having to redo work over and over again. Once those guardrails are set up, we then create again the knowledge base and the agent base for each of the customers and hand it to them in their chosen AI.
But Scarlet is the owner of it and manages to those agents.
Okay, well that's amazing. And so you you're doing agents, you're implementing agents and deploying those for your customers. And we want to talk about that a little bit later. So yes, you're a powerhouse as well. So this is going to be a really fun discussion. And so for me CEO of Sierra Kru AI and my background, I started off in the defense sector.
And so I, I spent a good chunk of my career running large defense Intel systems. So you can think about a large billion dollar Navy drone system, right. So I would lead to some of the big teams that will make sure that that gets built and flown in the air through software. And more recently, before I went out of my own, I ran a $90 million defense contract that was helping 3 million DoD personnel globally to make sure that they had their health benefits, that they can get into the systems they can get on base.
Right. So and that's where I got my start. And then when I started Sierra Kru, I, much like you two, started helping small businesses. And I started off with defense contractors and government contractors to help them to be ready to scale, to get the operations in place, to know how to hit the market better and secure more contracts and grow.
And so but then AI hit the scene and I figure I said, you know, I could deliver this better through AI, right? And so yes, you get to scale. That's where you get the efficiency. You get the cost reduction. And that is what we're doing. So what we're doing today and mind you, I just started the AI business really literally six months ago.
And it's been a ride. And our business, we're helping two sets of businesses. We're helping law firms to automate intake through voice and other technologies as well as home services. And then we're also helping large or small, larger small businesses that are professional services and market companies to implement AI similar to you, what you to do to implement AI to the business so they can reduce costs, streamline operations and drive revenue.
And so I think with all of us being here today, you know, in your fractional roles, I look at myself as a fractional chief AI officer as well. And so having formerly been a chief operating officer, you to a chief operating officers. So I think we have this tremendous vantage point, right, of operational leaders within enterprises that can really lend itself to this conversation, right, in a way that we don't always hear.
Right. You hear, especially if you look at the social media and a lot of these conversations, if people who are talking about AI from different vantage points, but, you know, but from being inside, inside the bubble, seeing where everything grows, breaks and everything in between. This is a fascinating conversation.
All right. So now that we understand who we are. I want to say yeah. Fire clear. I think I mean, really thank you, thank you.
Ingenious. To actually capture fractional AI because I think that that will be that next level.
Yeah, I think so. Being at the forefront of that trailblazing that is spot on. That's
great. Yeah. Yeah I think I want to introduce that today. Right. To get ahead. Exactly. All right, all right. You ready? Okay, so now that we've gotten to know ourselves and the audience got to know who we are and where we've come from and how we got our seats.
Nets. Now, talk about what we're doing with businesses and how we are, and how you guys are implementing AI within businesses, small mid-market to help them to reduce costs, streamline operations and drive revenue. Now, we already started that conversation in introductions, but let's get a little more deeper into that. So let's start with you. What are you doing with your your clients and your fractional role?
And how is ops IQ helping to drive that as well?
Yeah, I'll actually share it in two examples. So I have a client right now that does a lot in the corporate government contracting space.
One of the things that we wanted to align was someone that could help with what are the proposal writing needs of the of the team dynamic. Right. And so, you know, before, you know, I'm always looking for the efficiencies,
you know,
where are the cost opportunities here. Is this something that, you know is repeatable in so many situations that we could layer in some agents to fulfill that work, right.
And so that is something that we're currently investigating for them. Does that make sense. You
know
to level that in you know, and again putting the guardrail so that the information, you know, can stay protected in a space that is only solely owned and operated through through them because that will be important, especially working in the, as you know, the government space.
So those are always the first ways that I go about it when working with them in a fractional role as the chief operating officer is looking for those spaces where it makes sense. I am not and I want to be clear, I'm not eliminating the human capital. I just want to make sure the human capital is in places where we really can optimize the benefits of having it right.
So where it really requires a intellectual property and skill set matter that can't be automated, in essence, that is where I'm always going to be a leading proponent. So. So that's an example of how I work within the fractional space in justifying agents and the abilities of utilizing AI beyond just the normal day to day of what everyone should be doing.
I mean, my 80 year old mother is using ChatGPT
and so if she can do it at 80, we should all be using an exact level of skill set, right?
Absolutely. But then also within upside
queue, we use it not only for the subscribers, but we also have some licensing partnerships where we are pulling. Like you said, it's data rich if you can allow for it to be.
So we create these spaces of pulling some very data rich information that is only accessible and proprietary to those licensees, so that now they have really a story that they can tell in a very succinct matter as to deliverables, engagement, how things are working, you know, where they're seeing benefits, where they're seeing the bottlenecks amongst their subscribers that they have within the platform.
And that is really become a huge benefit to the point where my team is like, hey, I think we should be selling this more frequently. And I'm like, yes, you know, as as it's needed, right? You know, but within the subscriber base, the ability for them to cut time. I just did a report this week, you know, amongst our current subscriber base, they have saved over 250 hours in the month in just facilitating what we have provided with for them, as well as the customization of what's being done through the agents within the platform.
So, you know, if I can live that testament and say, hey, you know, you add up the dollars to that, I think that that's a huge economic boost.
that that's what I'm going to take. Oh yeah. Absolutely. So you mentioned a couple of things you mentioned for your government contractors kind of automating using AI to do proposals. Right.
And we're starting to see that proliferate a little bit more across the sector. I've done the same thing. So for my for my clients who need proposals done, actually built an app to to put in place all the pieces to, to automate or at least speed up and say automate, but speed up the proposal writing process and also the decision intelligence that goes behind that.
Right. So you should not bid. And so AI is really helping, as you just said, really helping to fast forward and shrink that time. So you can think about if it's a decent size proposal, let's just say $5 million proposal for federal state government that time for all involved. You know, it could be north of 40 hours, right?
It's even 80 hours to get that that done. When you put AI in there and you do it correctly, you have the right guardrails, you have the right sentences of the data, and you make sure you have the right formulas. And we're just going to output that 40 hours constraint to five. And you're talking about tremendous cost savings and solve for that.
So then your other point you mentioned which was you're not going to replace people right. One of the things I tell clients that or prospective clients, there's there's this concern about, hey, I don't want to get rid of my people. And the one thing I tell them both is all of them you don't have don't think about getting rid of your people, thinking about how you can deploy those people to do the the activities within the business that drive the business.
How do you drive more revenue? How do you make it more efficient? Those are the things that are that are worthy of your skills and your in your mind. Let AI do all the mundane stuff, right? And that's what we're talking about today. And so yeah. So that's awesome.
Yeah, I think it's very important. And even in this scenario, right, when you bring in that $5 million contract, who's going to fulfill the work? Well, it's the person that you were pulling in to help draft the proposal.
Well, now you see how the bottleneck occurs. Well, let's put it in the right place.
Put it in the right place
so that the person who needs to fulfill the work of the $5 million contract doesn't get bombarded with needing to go and fulfill now proposal drafts. It's quite simple. It really is. But, you know, we make it a little more harder than what it really needs to be, you know?
Oh yeah. But it's a mental block, right? It's a it's a hurdle. You know, as technology evolves and we've seen these massive evolutions happen and everyone gets stuck in what the old framework was and the old model, and it takes some time to get to get them to adjust to new model.
Right. So, Marcela, how are you implementing? And you and you and you've talked about your.
Your your core agent that you're deploying, right. This Scarlet that is going scarlet girl that that orchestrates everything else. So so how is how Scarlet helping to reduce cost and bring in more money.
couldn't agree more. It's all about efficiency of human capital.
So
we believe every small business owner has the CEO hat, the CMO hat, the CFO hat Kohat.
Did I say that
one around? You've
got the CSO, you've got. They don't even know. Small business owners tend not to know what all these things are, but we come from enterprise and we know what each of those roles mean. And the supporting actors, if you will, beneath each of those. If a business owner is not thinking through each hat consistently, growth stops.
It's a machine. It's a clock. It has to function that way. So as a CEO, our job is to make sure that clock is functioning. And because we have this experience, we understand the actors underneath it. I agree with you. Not every single actor needs to be a full time actor, but the people that you have, that important human capital must be used efficiently.
So what we do is make sure that those efficiencies are in place. Every business is different, but if we can minimize the amount of time they're worried about the tasks that they hate doing sick their head in the sand to do because they're not the CFO. I don't want to do my
books. I don't want
to sit with my bookkeeper and prepare for tax season.
Right. If we can remove that, if Scarlet, if you were AI can remove that fear or that role of the eye moment. We're already saving you stress and we're saving you bad use of time. So I'm with you. That, to me, is the most important thing that I've seen coming out of this. So what does that mean? That means that when we interview as a fractional COO, we come in with our frameworks.
We ask the questions that we ask everybody. I can very quickly tell human to human where you have fears, where you're sick in your head, in the sand, and we pull those out right away. The beauty of AI is, I don't have to give you the same report as I give another customer. I can name that report differently.
I can deliver that report in the language that you use with parentheses. This is margin. This is cash flow so that the owner becomes confident in the data that they're reviewing. Data is the most critical critical component to any business. And most business owners are not trained to do government work, drones, government contract. That's not what they're there to do.
They want to mow lawns. They want to deliver their architectural designs. They want to deliver. They want to do a great job being general contractors. They don't want to have to remember those things. So the job of AI is to help you manage across those things so that the human capital that you have supporting them learns and is efficient in doing it, and so that you can roll up all of that information into digestible chunks of content that you actually don't hate to look at every two weeks, every month, whatever that time frame is.
So that's the job I think that we can all do for these small business owners. So back to how we do that. I think the most critical example I can give you is the Know Your Numbers framework for these business owners. We uncover bookkeeping issues. We uncover lack of data entry where it should go. Why? Because AI can tell you those things.
In the past, you would have to pay 175 to $300 an hour for a CPA to look at your books, and that's going to cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. You do need a CPA for tax strategy. You do need a CPA for planning purposes. You do not want to pay a CPA to just take a look at your books every month.
Your bookkeeper is cheaper than a CPA, so it's not that you don't need those people, it's what are they telling you and how are they describing it to you? So those functions, those hats and the reporting and the activity underneath them can be automated so that you're making the right growth decisions for the business. And that's what we focus on.
So we audit, we make sure that the reporting and the activity makes sense in the time frames in which the business needs. So if going back to the marketing hat, the CMO hat, if you have a website and you are not updating it at least weekly now, you're not going to show up on search. Do you really want your employees worried about whether or not you're publishing a blog post every week in the right voice, SEO optimized, et cetera, etc.?
You don't have to. You're now spending two hours a month instead of 20 hours a month doing marketing planning, so it changes how you use your time. And what does that employee now get to do? If she's not posting to a blog and worrying about publishing to social X times a week, she gets to use her brain for much cooler things.
You're going to retain your employees, Google and the search engine. You're going to find your business. And the same thinking can be applied across every piece of your operations. So finding those efficiencies is our number one job. And then executing them across each of those small businesses the way they need could only be done because of AI. Now, how many hours would it be spend doing this in consulting?
I
I mean, I'm a client. How long is that? I still,
am? Like, oh, I can't believe I just saw imported someone this fast. This even for ourselves as consultants. Onboarding used to take 15 20 hours and you can never bill enough for that. You know you can never bill enough for that. You gave them a fee. And you, because you love what you're doing, you ended up spending 50 hours and you build 20.
right? We all did that. Here we are. So you bring up really great points, right? They each each AI has a role. And so and AI marketplace today they're calling it AI employees. And so as you as you create these employees to to do some of these functions marketing finance creating new books and other workflows and then manual today by people who are trained, the question that becomes, well, who is managing those employees?
Right. Who's who's hiring those employees. Right. Who's creating the job description? Who's making sure they do what they need to do, and so that they don't drift off and started doing things they that's not in their job description. And so as you as you both you think about that, right. We now have the AI workforce. What role comes in to make sure that those employees are doing what they what they need to be doing to bring them the maximum benefit to the operation, and also they continue to produce the results.
Yeah. I think you treat your AI employee like you would human capital employee. They should be assigned KPIs.
You should be able to see their deliverables. You know my example back to my consultancy client. Right. We want a win rate of 60% or higher against those proposals that this AI agent would be drafting. Right. So that that is where, you know, you kind of set that benchmark, and then we're going to monitor it to ensure that that's happening.
And if not, we know that we have something wrong obviously within how we built it out. So we need to go back in and re-engineer that to ensure we can see that happening the way that we design. But yeah, they absolutely should have KPIs.
So is your AI employee going to present at the the monthly meeting on the KPIs?
Yeah, absolutely. We should be able to see that, right? Yeah, exactly.
absolutely a critical part of building out and and ensuring that we're scaling it the right way. So yeah.
absolutely. This is where new opportunities are arising. I think your fractional AI expertise is a perfect example of that. And I believe that within the company I was at before I was laid off, we were starting to put people into roles of AI reviewers.
Right.
You want to make sure that it's
human in the loop, my co-founder Ryan, is that human in the loop for us. I'll see him up at ungodly hours. Am I going, oh, I got a report that Scarlet did this instead of that. So the guardrails have to be put in place. And I, as advanced as everybody thinks, the.
I'm going to call them desktop AI's are the Claude's, the GPT, etc. of the world. We're not at the point where we're just going to let them run rampant. There's still a human in the loop element that is so interesting and such great jobs. We had two interns this summer, and part of their job was to review the reporting that came out of Scarlet to make sure that the guardrails remained.
Errors happen.
Errors happen. Errors happen.
Absolutely. And if you don't have that human brain latched on to those reports, it's the same thing as if you did hire an intern to run your, you know, high level finance reporting, like
so don't don't give it a to employee just yet. Right. I
still think that it's critical to have that human in the loop check for whoever the head of the agents is, and that these are going to be really interesting jobs coming up here.
I mean, I can't wait to see where all of these young adults getting out of college. She's going to jump right in and be able to do it.
it. Absolutely. There's a there's a statistic out of Salesforce that says 91% of the small businesses that actually implement AI into their business, they actually see revenue growth, right. And I think we're saying that, right.
And
want to be clear, there's one thing in what is revenue growth.
There's another thing in what is cash flow. So if they're able to cash flow because of it, now you're into the secret
sauce. Absolutely right. So
that that's where I think AI in early adoption within business dynamics is really going to be beneficial. The human capital side of it,
right, does address
your cash flow, you know. So, you know, it's all in how you look at it.
But I'm always of the opinion cash is king.
Cash is king. Well, you know, the one thing I say, if you don't have revenue, you don't have cash. So that's exactly, exactly the revenue numbers. Absolutely
Right. So and I do want to piggyback on what Marcela said, because even within Ops IQ, although I have these wonderful agents within the platform, there is human capital.
I have a C-suite of advisors that I curated just to ensure that what that founder is seen as a subscriber, they can vet it against. What is the human capital of an Omar Ritter who is a CFO. Right. Like, so that they know that those numbers or the strategy and their thoughts to what they're going to do next is being vetted by someone who has that level of expertise.
Absolutely.
And so I agree with you. You know, that there's still that need of having that touchpoint, for sure. And I also believe I don't want to steal the show, but
go right on ahead cause of
this, those students that are going to be coming out of the academia side of things is forcing them to have to think differently.
Yes.
It no longer can you just adjust to and I'm not falling anyone.
My degree, in essence, probably is this a general studies type mindset. You're going to have to really dig in deep into some very, linear or thought processes in specific specialties. And I think that is what's going to really create the dynamic in even academia.
No. Absolutely agree. Thinking about the customers that we've served. Right. And speaking to cash flow, when you look at let's say your, your small law firm or your service based business and you want to and they're looking at implementing AI to, to save money. Right. And to automate some of their intake, some of their customer interface, all of those things.
The one thing we're seeing is that by doing that, they're they're increasing their revenue by at least 25%, right. Because now you have automations taking over customer intake, client intake and then and not just intake, but also the next step in the client journey. The customer journey. Right. So for an example, if you have a law firm that just has people answering phone during the day and that's it.
Well now you implement AI. Now someone could call at 7 p.m., AI picks up the the call handles that new client. That information gets put into the legal the legal CRM. And then with a matter of seconds, that same new client now gets a retainer agreement in their email and they get an invoice. And now you have a prospective person who needs it, let's say get out of jail, right?
Within seconds they called and now they retain client in a matter of seconds. And so when you look at revenue generation, revenue increase, you know, that's a really crystal clear example of how AI is really helping to advance businesses and is coming to the point where if you don't have AI in your business, you're losing, right? And so yeah, so and and so that's an employee.
Right. So we're talking about AI employees. This is your from a law firm perspective. That's your law firm intake specialist right. It gets from call to client just like that. And so so that kind of stuff gets me excited. You know we worked with a what's a mining company in the Middle East a while back. And their issue was again, this is about time they were really concerned that the engineers were spending tons of time reviewing engineering documents and specifications, trying to make sure that they matched up to the standards.
And so these are people with master's degrees, PhDs in engineering, and they're reading these 40 page engineering documents trying to make sure that they meet spec. Right. And so they say, okay, you know, this this PhD is spending five hours plus reading these documents and just making sure that it meets backward identifying where they don't. We want to get rid of that.
So what happens? Implement AI solution. Right. So now that that five hours becomes one
I want to jump in and call out employee development in that cycle. Because one of my examples, similar to yours is one of our customers has a they do architectural support design work. And I was in the office watching them red pen spreadsheets they printed out and my heart immediately like, what
on.
And one of the other things that we had spoken about was whether or not the employees were using their time efficiently. Some of them had complaints about not being able to do A, B, or C within the time frame of their job. So by moving that review digitally and knowing that AI can now capture those change management notes, we were able to see that it was a specific error that kept happening over and over again.
It was not a system wide error. It was a person who didn't realize he or she was making that particular mistake, because somebody was just redlining and moving fast because it's a small business, right? We don't have time to think too much. Or now we paused. We fixed the issue by developing that person, training them
out as hours a week, stress gone and they were able to now look at how else we can improve that workflow because it's being documented digitally.
Listen, we probably could have taken pictures of three months of data rather than waited a month, but we went ahead and did it electronically. But I said, listen, if you guys have old ones, let's take pictures and I'm sure I can still digest it and mark those changes. But the point is those efficiencies are going to drive employee retention.
It's going to improve your customer satisfaction because things are moving faster and you're delivering better documents right off the bat.
So and I mentioned that the employee retention because now you're training them for those higher level thinking activities, right.
Things act actually contribute to the growth of the company, not just the mundane things. So you're training them on how to use AI to do their job right and to do it better and more efficient and to drive drive output for the company. Right. So yeah, that's yeah. Yeah. I would
challenge to those small businesses as they're seeing the efficiencies as they're seeing the revenue growth. Where does innovation now take you. Because this is your opportunity to really now set yourself apart from what is your competition.
It's because you're able to leverage that. So where does that innovation come
What I love the most about the job we do is watching their brains turn on when they realize how much data can help them, as soon as they can see that because they understood this data, point it, oh, well, what about this one? And what about that one? And we tell them, if you're doing the same thing more than five times, we should look at it.
And the companies that are doing the best today are those that already have standard operating procedures. And
the ones that absolutely the most
efficiencies are those that we create SOPs for. And it is the Dawkins. But the funnest moment
moment when I see them coming to.
Yes, we want
to become a data point.
And it might it was insignia. It didn't exist before. But now with the support of AI,
they're not
afraid to look at it that way. And it's my favorite moment,
You know, you just you have to have those processes so that you can improve. Yeah. You just you just touched on something, right?
When you work with clients and you move them from one place to before AI and then after AI, and then the transformation that happens in the high moments to happen had a client, you know, head of a small consultancy, and it was a real estate development and community development consultancy. And so they would take on these engagements to help cities and private organizations figure out how to maximize real estate use and all of the things around it.
But what was happening was it would take them weeks to gather all of the data, right? So it would have like 15 data sources. They would have to comb and pull and then collect and synthesize before they could come up with any kind of insights around what their client should be doing next. Well, of course, what we did was we built out some AI workflows.
And, you know, between ChatGPT, NotebookLM and Claude, next thing you know that that multi-week process was shrunk down to two hours.
And the mines were blown. And then they started to think about, well, okay, now they have all this extra time. What else could we do? Right, to move this, this client engagement forward to help them maximize this realistic opportunity? Yeah. So it's it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Yeah. So we started talking about this agents, AI agents. Right. So the AI agents are like taking over right there.
They're running out companies and they're going rogue, right? But they're also making people a lot of money. And so let's let's talk about the agents and, you know, and all of us are employing agents with our clients and our own businesses and talk to you and your ops IQ, you have agents in the background that are helping your subscribers.
So, you know, talk about how agents are helping to increase knowledge, to speed things up and produce great outcomes. And, you know, Ops IQ or in the clients that you're serving as CEO.
Yeah, definitely within Ops IQ where it's already early, early on adapted. Just being able to have better clarity in customization of those SOPs of the the different abilities to see forecasting and things of that nature have really been at the critical point of of our ability to deliver to the subscribers.
You know, I shared with you. Last week, I think that, you know, we've got right now for 3 or 4 into platform, and I'm hoping to have another 3 or 4 more before the end of this year because I see areas where I'm like, oh, okay, this could help in this scenario or in that scenario. And so, you know, again, I'm not trying to discredit the need for the human capital because I do see still very much so the value in having that curated C-suite to vet the things that we're getting out of the agents.
But I also see where it can definitely continue to support and enhance the deliverables and the experience for our subscribers. And so that that is something that I'm excited about and look forward to as we move forward. As for as for my clients, although they see me doing it and using it, you know, there's still a lot to it is an investment up front.
Let's be clear.
Absolutely. You know, it's not your $20 a month. I got a
ChatGPT, you know, no, it costs a little bit of money because you have got to train it. It has to start to identify with with what is that workflow. What is the materials that it's sourcing. So there is some effort upfront. There is that investment upfront.
But I would tell you it is better for me to have done that, to spend $50,000 on an employee, train them up, have to pay, you know, what are premiums and insurance. You know, all of the benefits on top of that for them to leave me within six months. And that's a reality check.
You know, the you know, the the thing they say about AI, they say AI doesn't get an attitude.
It doesn't sleep.
Well. Yes, uncle Claude absolutely needs to stop trying to be human. Yes. That's right. Yeah. So I don't know about that.
But they do work around the
clock. You don't have to
feel bad about it.
And don't call in sick, right?
That's for sure. Sometimes. Sometimes that can happen to you, right?
it isn't a perfect science yet. And I think that's why having companies like ours be the checkpoint is important because it's what we're doing. So thinking that it's a set it and forget it is the biggest mistake you'll make. And if you don't know how to put those guardrails around it, you're going to wake up with a bad email having gone out to your customers
so it's not set it and forget it.
There is a human cost to us so that we can develop these things right for each customer. Even if we have that core Scarlet or that corps base that we've built from our own frameworks, and I'll say 30 plus years of experience, that's what we've put into our businesses, is all of that knowledge and just inherently baked in.
But the muffins that come out of that, or those trays that come out for your for each specific small business that takes maintenance. And so it's important to make sure that if you are doing it yourself, you do not think this is a set it and forget it situation.
Absolutely. So if your company is making muffins, I'm coming there. I'm going to work for your business. So we figure that out. I'll just sit in my house and say, right. So the thing you you're talking about, Marcela, is governance, right? And so you have to govern AI in total. Just stop to make sure it doesn't drift.
Make sure that they don't hallucinate when a hallucination and drift is for those who are not AI literate just yet. But you know, the AI doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Sometimes it makes up things, the site sources that don't exist, right? It will not follow the rules and the structures you gave it. Right. And so you need it would change something.
Exactly. And so you need and this is the human piece, right. The human in the loop is necessary to make sure that it doesn't do those things. So when it starts to do those things you put it back on track, right? Yeah. Exactly. And so.
Example law firms, for example, is one of our key clients. What we're seeing is where we're being asked to help with governance, even cybersecurity for example. Because now you get agents running, running around, they start to go rogue. And now you need something to to control all of that. But let's say law firms, for example, say a decent sized law firm, 25 plus attorneys, they all have different clients.
And so they're working in their systems, Harvey, whatever it is. And they're creating client files. Right. And they're using legal research and all of these things to create client files. But guess what. All of that been done in AI, right. Using AI to help produce that. So now what you have to worry about when the attorneys have to worry about is the same research and data that's being used in one client files is now bleeding over into the other attorneys client file, and you don't even know it.
Right. And so governance is critically important because guess what. Law firms are controlled by the bar right. So you know you can't you can't go into court right. With with bad data, which was happening. And so as AI begins, his proliferating is becoming more and more a part of our, our society and how businesses operate. You know, we we're hearing the concern about people being let go, but now we're saying that, no, the people can't be let go.
People need to actually to manage to provide the governance. Exactly.
We have an insurance agent that came to us for what? Fix my website. And when we analyzed the information on it, we found that the vendor they were using had in essence, copied and used the same content across multiple insurance sites. Doesn't sound so bad, but if you're trying to be a thought leader in your space and you want to then use that information for LinkedIn or the distribution of your brand so that you can drive more customers you're going to end up with on your face eventually.
This information does leak out, and so making sure that you have your voice baked into what you're doing, and the governance is making sure that the information that we're creating on your behalf is unique, that it does sound like you, and that when you are providing a similar service to an insurance agent in another region, because we don't compete within the same space for our customers, that they are unique in their voice.
It makes them think, everybody's saying this. We have to push to think differently so that you yourself are differentiated as leader. So I agree with what you said earlier. It's pushing people to be more mindful. It's pushing you to think differently and your niche matters. Being a generalist is not going to drive that differentiation. And that's the beauty of all of this.
You can go really deep now because perplexity brought you all of this research. But you, the leader of this company, need to decide what you want to use and how you want to sound. So while we don't do deeply compliance, compliance driven companies like legal, the pieces that we're working on or the content that we're working on, we make sure is heavily guarded.
We make sure all the disclaimers are there. We've spoken to attorneys to make sure that we're being. Those disclaimers are now covering the AI challenge, if you will. And for small business owners that are using AI, you have to make sure that your insurance is covering you, because even the insurance game, which I have now learned has changed since the advent of AI.
So it's no longer just a generalist policy that you may need, depending on the work product that you're creating. And that's really important to.
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and
to your point, for those small businesses that have clients that require compliance. So if you're working with someone in finance, if you're working with someone in the medical system, you are required to come to the table with the insurance coverage, with the compliance and disclosures, in order to even be able to work with them, knowing that you have the AI technology in the background so you know it is, the smarter you can become.
And understanding that and not just, oh, let me go and get an agent, and I'm going to put it in there and know there's a lot more that you have to think about than just the creative tool itself, if you will.
really good point. Right. We're expanding the conversation a little bit more beyond AI, but for AI. So this conversation about insurance, right. Having AI coverage. So I'm thinking about someone I know that's a tax strategist and they're adding bookkeeping to their offerings.
And so and this this person decided to use Claude say hey okay you know what? Instead of me going out hiring bookkeepers that Claude does really good with, with numbers. And she she runs things through. Claude goes through and cleans the books up. Right. So now so does that person. Does this bookkeeper does tax person needs to have AI coverage for their business 100%.
And again, everyone, if you are listening and you walk away with one tip, it's
call your business insurance agent and
make sure that the coverage you had for digital product creation, anything like that, is still applicable to AI because it's changing.
It's going to be more expensive, but it's changing. So please make sure that you've checked in on that, because you do not want to find that you're not covered. If a mistake is made. Humans can make mistakes too. That's okay, but you want to be covered.
And then I would call your legal advice. Amen. Amen. God got exactly as another
form of coverage. You know, it's interesting. I had a wealth management advisor call on me recently and she was like, hey, I'm taking notes through my AI. I was like, that's fine. I'm used to that. And then I would love to recap this, you know, for you. And you know, she's trying to get my business right.
She wants my business. My name was misspelled throughout the whole recap. And I simply I went back to our said, even in the fact of having the efficiencies, a simple overview would have given you an opportunity at new money. My name being misspelled leads me to believe you are not very careful with how you are handling your AI, even in the simplest of
that that's where I think we are just mishandling.
How to appropriately
So AI is not a license to be lazy.
correct.
Amen. Yes. And so as we move into our last phase of this conversation, you know, we're starting to talk to conversations for the small business owner, right.
So we have business owners or budding or aspiring entrepreneurs who are looking at AI and seeing people make a lot of money, right. And so and they're trying to figure out how can they make money as well in AI. What would you say are the top 1 or 2 things they should do first when figuring that out, and what the next step should be to make money in AI.
So my new best friend. Right. So if it's something you're repeating
multiple times, that's the ideal place to think about.
Is the automation and use of AI make sense in this space? Now let me share how then you convert on that okay, so now I've taken the talent that was doing said task from doing that task. And I'm going to put them now in a space where I should be able to generate a multiple on their expertise, because I've put them in the right alignment.
Right. So it don't look at AI as being the single source of revenue increase. It's how you then realign your resources within your business, or how you then are going to implement efficiencies that will give you the additional increase in revenue. It's not just on the technology itself, that's my view.
Agree? I agree, B.F.,
You asked about starting a business,
and
the one thing that's driving me insane right now, and I think the imposter syndrome in me starts to kick in, is everybody's out there yapping about how much money they're making with
or they I.
God, listen, I hope it's true. Yeah. Good for them. The reality is,
if you are starting a business and you don't have an expertise, AI is not going to give that to you. So my recommendation is if you are thinking about starting a business, understand use AI to understand what you're passionate about, what your expertise is, and then find gaps within your potential customers and where you can provide that expertise.
AI itself is not the magic bullet I'm going to say yet I don't you know, I think I was going to say five years. I don't know what a year from now, three years from now it's going to bring. But you have to really find a niche. Do not think that being a generalist, I am an expert is going to drive that success.
It's not the magic bullet. So that's my one is really figure out and have a good chat. Listen, I talk to you in the shower constantly
because that's when my brain is that restaurant and I'm like, oh,
this, that. And the other thing. Great. Figure out what that specialty is and then go find gaps where you can use AI to drive that efficiency within general contracting bakeries.
Wherever your passion sits, go do it. So that's the key thing for me. That's the magic bullet is what is your passion and your expertise
and work backwards from that? Yes.
The other thing that I think we're all in agreement on is you have to understand your processes in order to become more efficient so that you can grow faster with AI.
It's not going to figure them out for you because it's not a robot yet that's walking around. And I think that's the beauty of being a chief operating officer. That role, that hat is the hat that gets to walk through every single, let's call it office in your space, whether it's remote offices or real offices, we get the benefit of seeing how it works across the room and glue it together.
And I think that glue is AI. But you have to understand how your business works to drive the revenue to drive the growth. Without that, you're just wasting more time. Because how many? I mean, come on, we've all spent a lot of extra
time out. Yes,
but to me, those are the two big things that I think are important to take away from this.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that figuring out. Well one learn AI right. Learn the main tools. Learn ChatGPT Claude to even just to start and understand how to create projects and how to create skills. Those are, to me, the foundations of being able to provide any kind of AI service. And sorry to interrupt, but Claude has incredible self-serve videos to start with.
Yes, they have a certification, as a matter of fact. Yeah, yeah. So I just want to
inject that in because I see a lot of people trying to charge for Claude training. And please at least start with the free tools that are available to you and then pay up for the expertise you need.
need. Sorry. Yeah. No. That's good.
I actually forget there's a, there's a course that Claude has like a Claude skill certification. Something like that. Right. And it's like 25 bucks. Something really nominal. And so that's what. So that's why I say started learning the foundations of the AI tools, the ones that that drive real output and productivity. And then to your point is figure out what your passion is.
Then you got to figure out what the market. Who. Who are you going to serve. Right. And so when you line all those things up now you have a way to actually generate revenue because you're serving someone who needs who needs that service that you're providing via AI. And the whole point of AI is to help them make more money, save time and save money.
Right. So you can do those three things. Then, you know, you know, you cook with grease, you get cash, cash flow and the ability to innovate. Yeah. And ability to innovate. Because biggie said cash, cash rules everything around me, right? That's it. That's it. All right, so we have had a robust and, you know, thoughtful conversation. Let's hit what we call it the lightning round.
All right. So and you both answered the question each. So what's the one agent or workflow that every business should have working. The one AI agent or workflow.
Look, I think customer client acquisition could absolutely be one of the easiest workflows to implement.
Perfect. But out the customer. You don't have a business. Absolutely. Marcela
the number checker.
Which tool?
Claude and we use Manus
SOC 2. So the key there is talk to compliance. You have to make sure that anything you're using with your numbers has it SOC 2 compliance.
Yeah I think I'm saying that right.
right. SOCs.
So that you're not leaking. Again there's always a risk but that you're not leaking information and appropriately so Claude and Manus for that reason.
But to me the number checker is really important. You have experts that do their job, the bookkeepers, etc., but let's make sure that they're doing it right and that you know how to read those numbers.
All right. That's perfect. What's the one thing that's getting hyped up too much in AI? That won't matter in 18
My opinion would be some of these certifications that we
talked about. Yeah. Yes, yes. There's
too many and no one who's really identifying them who really is requiring them.
Who's behind them? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Prompting
think prompting or the perfect prompt will go away.
I think
with voice and talking to AI, you're able to get to a place where they're smart enough to then give you the prompt back.
I test it all the time, and using voice to speak in and getting the prompt out is always better than anything I can come up with myself, so I think prompting will be a thing of the past,
you know? Good point. I actually have started to come to the place where prompts again replaced by agents. Right? So before, you know, just just a few months ago, everything is about to prompt the prompt and make sure you had people send them prompt packs, right, instead of prompt kits and all of that.
And now those things are free. And now people are sending agents, right? So no, I totally agree. I think that was being overhyped right now. We actually touched on it is how much money are you going to make? Yeah, right. Because it comes down to the core core business idea and understanding is you have to have a product that somebody wants.
It's a solid problem. That's the reason why they want it. And you've got to know who you're selling it to. And guess what? You got to. You got to know how to sell it. And you're the marketing guru right? So became market trust. It has to be trust people that are selling it to you.
And that's why I hate that hype, this hype culture that we're in with AI right now because we look at we get inbounds every day for the sales side.
That's definitely where we need the most help. And the folks that pitch us or send us information we can deeply analyze. I'm like, who are you?
Where did you come from? Where did you come from?
Right? Or worse yet?
Why are you hiding? Why can
I not find you on LinkedIn? So trust has to become top of the heap because anybody can literally start a business today.
But to your point about even the certifications, who's behind it? That's key.
All right, so last one. What specific action would you tell someone to take today regarding AI?
I think it's just a matter of simple usage. Just start adapting it into your own lifestyle. Spend time with it in the shower if you haven't already
done that.
You know I'm going to get a ticket because I'm always talking to my when I'm driving. So
just simple adaptation of it in your everyday use. I think it's the first starting point.
Agreed. Once you get their quality assurance,
quality assurance. What's the biggest question mark you have about your website? What's the biggest question mark you have about a spreadsheet? Quality assurance. If there's one task that this does a wonderful job with, it's not difficult is please show blank for me.
It has saved me hundreds of hours queuing a website, hundreds of hours understanding whether there's metadata on a website.
Little
tasks will drive marketing right wheel drive trust because you don't have misspellings on your website. Simple things that will help you clean up and look more professional. That's my tip. What are those clean up things? Start there.
I love it, I love it.
Yeah, I would just add my one little cent on that is have AI check AI. So the first output that comes out don't just take it. One thing I like to do is say validate your answers with data in research. And they go back and they will check everything they told me and say, oh yeah, we actually got that wrong.
Right? Yeah. So it's back to your quality assurance. But you know, a specific way to do it or use another AI to show that. Yes, yes. Said this. Yes. And I said that the
comes back with a wonderful
additional set of feedback for you, because you've already told it very honestly. Hey, your competitor over here did this, and this one said that, and you just get richer data for it.
So you just named for suspicions.
That's that's 80 bucks right there. You just.
But that's that's what we're not talking. Right. But you just named that you made. Yeah. So yeah. But I think we just had a wonderful discussion. So we've talked about all the ways to install AI employees into a business and manage their employees and, and set up workflows, and so we can run the businesses more efficient. We have talked about how small businesses can use AI and implement agents.
And to make sure that you set up your company such that you don't replace the people. Right. And that we're using the people for higher value activities within the business. And the AI take over the mundane. And we've now told budding entrepreneurs how they can become, you know, they can generate revenue in AI. So yeah, I think this is this is excellent.
It's a wonderful contribution to the space. So before we close out, it's like to ask you all a question. Marcela, how can people follow up with you and understand what you do in your services? Great.
You can find us at Ready Plan Grow LinkedIn, Marcela shine. We are the real humans behind anybody that sends us messages there or at ready plan.
We have plenty of contact forms and all the good stuff there, so definitely join us for small businesses that want to learn this but cannot afford the fractional CEOs, CMOs, etc. as yet we do have a membership and our goal is to just arm you with knowledge so that you're in essence, not being taken advantage of when you are buying other services, when you are trying to plan for growth.
So that's how you can find me.
Excellent. All right.
Yeah. So you can find me, obviously LinkedIn Taja Graham is my handle there. Ops IQ has a LinkedIn profile there as well as is our website, TMG Solutions Advisors for the consultancy. So we're all three are on LinkedIn as well and have their own website pages.
Oh that's excellent.
And Sierra Kru can be found at Sierra Kru. And we actually have an AI readiness assessment on the site such that any company that wants to figure out the next step in the AI journey with the business can get a free score and figure out a way to start. We're on LinkedIn, we're on IG, we're on TikTok, and we're on Facebook with Sierra Kru.
So all right, well, I really appreciate the powerhouse ladies here, the the operational executives contributing to this conversation. And I think we've done something great today for the for the community around AI and and learning how to use it to move society and our own businesses forward. Thank you,
thank you, thank you.
