The Critical Difference Between Using AI Frequently and Using It Well

01It's not about ⁓ we're using the the latest model. It's about yes, but have you solved real business problems with that learning and with those tools? Right. Otherwise, those top two are just kind of wasted. That's kind of my thought on it. And I think that's where a lot of places live right now, and they don't have somebody who has that mindset on the team. Right. I've run into one company for sure who has that person. With that mindset. When I was at a company, we hired someone, they were very good at it, they showed a very strong interest in it, and we sucked them into a role whereby they were in charge of AI implementation. There's some people that see that and are doing I feel like that opening line for every one of them is changing everything. We were getting at the point, I think, of the fact that like, you have to be okay with trying things. You have to be okay with learning. And I think we were sitting up late talking about this the other night and just that learning and wanting to learn. is actually, that's a thing.

02And I think this is where I was kind of wrong in my assumption is I was just kind of assuming that by virtue of using it, people were going to be in the mental model of I should be learning this. I should be trying a couple of things. if it doesn't do what I thought it would do, I should try again, you know? And instead, I think a lot of people, they hit some friction and then they go, ⁓ this must be terrible. Like this is... this is what I heard about on the news. This is why we shouldn't use AI or it. And instead of like pushing through a little bit and saying, you know, let's, let's just, let's, let's, give it another shot. Let's, you know, start over. I have a client right now who has asked for time as CEO of a large company. He, ⁓ multi-state they're, they're, they're not, it's not like a sole proprietorship kind of a thing. And, and he is being. very inquisitive and has realized, and I can tell he's inquisitive and that he wants to learn. His questions are never, hey, what should my team be using? Or what's the best tool? How much should I pay for this? Right?

03Like some of those questions that you're used to hearing from a client, right? His questions have been, whose podcast should I listen to? What videos? Is there anything I should be reading right now that will explain to me how this works? and ⁓ I have somebody similar in my life, CEO of a company here in town, very much the same way. I think one thing he's done is he's asked all those questions. He listens to things. I get texts from him randomly saying, Hey, did you listen to this podcast? Did you hear what they said? ⁓ which I appreciate. So he's very much he looks at all I think he just looks at life as one big learning experience. So I I really admire that in him. ⁓ I hope that I'm the same way. But he's gone also and hired someone or he had someone on staff who showed this curiosity. And then he said, Well, why don't you just do it full time? So I think one of the examples and and and then this this young man also sets up time. We set up time each week together. ⁓ I'm I'm happy to do that with him just to ideate. about what he's doing.

04You know, he respects what I'm doing. I respect what he's doing. So that's very mutual. And we're getting lots and lots of ideas on how to accomplish things. That type of mindset, everything we've just talked about. So he's used it, he's started, and then he's, you know, kind of spent time thinking about tools. But really what he spent time thinking about was what do I want to do for the company with all of this? How do I improve the company? What And the outcome you saw out of that yesterday when we did a little bit of a show and tell right exercise with that company. And I think what he's done is I mean, there's so many smart things about it. He's an engineer kind of by trade. Yeah. And so he has a systems mindset. So that gives him a little bit of a leg up. Yeah, I think ⁓ the one of the key kind of like takeaways for me, which I thought was really just kind of cool. And I, I was just like, ⁓ he's like, it's a you get it moment because I think he was looking for ways to introduce AI powered processes into existing workflows, like where the people are, right?

05Not turning it into download, Claude, download chat, GPT. Let me show you how to use this new product. He said, Hey, you live in email. Why? Here's a new email address. so smart. Yeah, it was so smart. Here's a new email. I'm really proud of him. So yeah, I was I'm incredibly proud of him too. I mean, and and honestly, haven't heard that use case often. I haven't seen many people doing that. There's some on YouTube, but it's really kind of like, but in business, like in a business, I haven't seen that. I think like, you know, it's interesting just because it's such a low friction entry point to use a tool. And, and, and, and I think the place that we, I mean, we both have seen it for many years is in accounts payable, right? Right. Email invoices in, tell your vendors, send the email in. It goes to a system that scans it, OCRs it, pushes it into a, into, into a system. Been around for a long time. It has. And that's like the first place I tell CFOs to automate most of the time because it's tried and true and it's it's AI.

06Old school AI, but it is AI. Yeah. It is, it's old school AI. And so this I thought was just like for a company that really like lives in email, which most companies do. This was a real, ⁓ I think what kind of made me smile because just knowing the kind of business they were in, ⁓ is that it was clever. Like the implementation was clever. wasn't just that, ⁓ you made it low friction. It was clever because it was the tasks that they do rather than telling them, here's how you do it with chat GPT. It's he's intercepting. what would become a prompt by saying, just put it in an email and send it in. Cause then you don't have to, cause we have been coaching people, treat the prompt like a person, right? You know, ask it to do a thing and people, there's some mental block for a lot of people. But when I send you an email, you're a person and I'm sending you a thing. And he named his, he gave his system like his, the email has a name. I'm like, it was very clever. That's really what like caught me.

07You know, it is clever, and I am in no way trying to step in and take credit. But you know, this also speaks to how many people think that way. Because one of the first sessions that I did to train the group was set up by a form that I sent to everybody saying, What are the five things that take the most time or that you repeat every week or month or quarterly that really just kind of Drain your soul. You know, not only do they take time, but like mentally, it's the least favorite part of your job because it's so routine and you put your cover sheet on the DPS report? Did you exactly? It is an office space type of situation. That's a hundred percent it. And so I guess he that what I'm saying is, is there's he was the one guy that goes, ⁓ I mean, he was kind of supposed to be helping them, but he looked at all those things because now he had data ranked by person. These are the things they hate doing. And he set out to make that email bot. Start to tackle all of those things.

08Cause but there was one power user, one person out of this company of let's just say 15 to 20 people. So jumping backwards a little bit. you know, you had asked me earlier, you know, like what struck you as, Hey, you were wrong. And just that, you know, just using it, does that mean that you're driving value? And I'm like, no, you have to be able to learn. And here you have an organization that invited you in was willing to learn, really learn. And Yeah, and yeah, I mean they put resources behind that. Right. And they put the power of their, you know, like organizational or hierarchical authority behind it as well. They had a champion at the executive level. They had a champion and they had you come in and you brought them by virtue of leading this workshop with them and series of workshops. You surveyed them, you got this information so that you found a problems, Kind of jumping back all the way to the beginning of when we started talking today, right? Is where's the value? Well, the value is in solving the problem.

09You know what's funny, the other thing that this is another good, I I should have thought about this earlier. They were using they had several people that were using Chat GPT and they were trying to solve some of these problems. but the use, even though it went up, none of the problems were getting solved. Right. Because they didn't have that one person who was laser focused on using AI to solve it kind of like all the way through down to the root. Everybody else was kind of l using it on a superficial level. Like how do I attack parts of end to end? Right. Instead of And I think what you've been telling them, and I think we, you you've been telling them, you've been telling other clients, like what this young gentleman did was that he solved the problem by doing it as a work, ⁓ as a, as a workflow. He solved it for everybody. If everybody will engage, right. And what you were describing is you, before you got there, they're like, ⁓ yeah, we use chat GPT. Yeah.

10Seven people use chat GPT, maybe to do the same thing seven different ways with seven different degrees of success. And, ⁓ and now they have, but it was the same problem and now somebody has gone and like solved that one problem. It's going to hopefully, and I think it is, he seems very conscientious. It'll, it'll align with their company's ethos and values and it's, it's going to be consistent. Think that's the next real big step on their journey is helping people understand that they're they're already putting governance in place by default, but there needs to be even more. We've been talking a lot about brand voice and and things like that. So how do we all when you know, when a big, big consulting firm or services firm writes a memo, they tend to all sound the same, regardless of where you got it from within the business. And ⁓ That's because they've all learned and kind of rallied around a brand voice. Smaller companies, mid-sized companies have not had the time nor the talent to put those type of things in place a lot of times. Right.

11And now with a little bit of talent, you do have the time because you it's like a set it and forget it process versus years and years of kind of like war stories and you know, go look at the last 17 memos that we wrote. That's how you write here at XYZ consulting firm. Yeah. I think that's a I I mean, again, all of these tools can help these companies punch above their weight if they if they take the time to to use them. So we talked about if they'll take, you know, if people will put in personal effort, we'll talk a little bit about if they'll take the time to do it, which is an investment. They have to also both take the calendar clock time, but also kind of the mental cycles to say, this is important. It's a something I want to learn, right? I have to ask those questions of what is everybody else doing and really try to synthesize and answer for myself. And kind of go past the obvious. And I think, you know, one thing that both of us have run into, which I think is, you know, I I used the word the other night, right?

12It's a little, it's, it's a little bit of poison, right? What poisons that process is focusing on the wrong things. And, and, and, ⁓ and frankly, it's focusing on cost when cost is not the right, like you're, you're, I was in this meeting. at the marketing team, they're using AI. They had a way to like send information to, ⁓ you know, they had a skill set up. I they were using pieces and they were like, we built this. even built like a workflow. ⁓ And it was to synthesize a report that took in a lot of their marketing ⁓ metrics for their one hour monthly marketing meeting. And I was like, ⁓ that's great. And like, what do you do in that meeting? They could further like, why do you need to spend an hour? Right. It was, was, was the direction I was going. Like that was going to be my very next question before somebody said, well, we're not doing that anymore because running that report was expensive. Um, you know, so we stopped doing it and then I was like, well, what, what, what do you mean it was expensive? Well, it was 30 cents every time.

13And I'm like, for everybody who runs it, you know, it would, it would be another 30 cent. ⁓ how many times were they running it a week? Even if it were 10, right? I was just like, right? I was here for a week. within the eye shot, I could look out the door, there's a platter of bagels and like buckets of cream cheese. How much does a giant platter of bagels cost? Right? And I wasn't trying to be a jerk. wasn't trying to. Doll week. I think that's ⁓ food that's like food for the convenience of employees and if you haven't kept up with the tax situation, that's not tax deductible anymore. So, ⁓ my gosh, so I mean here The thirty the thirty cents was though. the 30s. Well, ⁓ know that's gonna hit the right. It's not. And OK, I mean, you know, so the conversation, though, I mean, we went off just like we did here, kind of derailed off of like you're saving 30 cents. Why? Why was that significant? Why did that even like register as as an issue? And there's just like, well, you know, it could end up costing a lot.

14And I'm like, like, that is like the. you know, and again, not shaming them. think people were trying to do the right thing, but like that's the worst application of like the slippery slope argument that I've heard in a long time. Right. It's like, ⁓ we could. And you and I have talked at length about how much we invest ourselves personally and with our consulting companies and the work that we're doing and at what we spend every month on AI tools. ⁓ right. We've talked about the investments that we made into say, Hey, we want to do this podcast and And we bought mics and fun things like that. But the idea that you're trying to control costs and ⁓ I've worked with a lot of people over the years who really kind of doubled down on, I stay at the cheap hotel. I always go on Expedia and I get a coupon for my rental car when I travel. ⁓ I don't spend my per DM when I'm traveling. And there's this like equation in their head, I think, right?

15Of like, I mean, I think about like the people that are the generation before us that were 30 year lifers at the companies that they worked at thinking, well, you know, the boss man, CEO, he's going to know that I'm the guy who's looking out for the company. And I'm like, you, your savings aren't even close to a rounding error, right? For the problems that that company has. You are not, there's no needle you're moving and there's no cookie. that you're going to get from anybody at the end of the day. Good job. No, not for saving fifty bucks on a hotel. What you will get a pat on the back for is if you drive revenue or come up with some, let's just stay with AI, but some application, some application of AI that adds value by taking a huge process and distilling it down into a ⁓ fifty dollar run of AI. I mean And but fifty dollars is still not that much. But that I think is right. That's where you should be spending your time is on the big rocks. There's a reason we don't I mean, even you know, in finance, there's a reason we don't look at, you know, there's thresholds.

16Like it's under seventy-five dollars. The IRS doesn't even want to receive. Right. And if they think that saving that $50 is meaningful when you are a $200 million top line company, you are doing a poor job of leadership. And we're not saying spend all the money in the world. And I'm actually trying to advise my clients that this is next year's problem. Next year, things will be changing even further. Next year, hopefully you will have adopted things. Next year, you can try to optimize what you're doing. But if you are trying to save money without doing anything to optimize and drive value and revenue, and therefore you think that you did something good because you saved some money, I think, you you drove this in the wrong direction. Yeah. I saving money doesn't typically help the employee experience or the customer experience, unless you're gonna pass some of those savings through to the customer. It doesn't typically and what companies typically do that. What is inflation right now? I don't know that that I think they're passing on cost to the customer.

17I don't think they're getting savings and passing those on to the customer. ⁓ it's not about just talking the talk. So learning and being able to say, I use it. It's not about, ⁓ we're using the the latest model. It's about, ⁓ yes, but have you solved real business problems with that learning and with those tools? Right. Otherwise, it's just kind of those those top two are just kind of wasted. ⁓ that's my that's kind of my thought on it. And I think that's where a lot of places live right now. And they Don't have somebody who has learned who has that mindset on the team. Right. I've run into one company for sure who has that person with that mindset. When I was at a company, I actually hired we hired someone. They were very good at it. They showed a very strong interest in it. And we sucked them into a role whereby they were in charge of AI implementation. There's some people that see that and are doing it. So I think so. And again, as a leader, you're encouraging that, right?

18And I think, I mean, and I'm speaking to like guys and men and women who are leading this next generation of folks that are coming up that like, be careful how you are encouraging these folks to do their work. Because if you, if they, if you give them artificial guidelines or guardrails, you know, if you, if you get them wasting mental cycles on saving $50. or focusing on the wrong things rather than staying focused on driving revenue, growing customer base. And yes, you want them to be efficient. Yes, you want them to be conscientious and good stewards of what they have. But we've really got to be pushing these folks with good ideas, encouraging them and giving them some latitude, giving folks room to fail. And then when they fail, making sure that everybody acknowledges that it was a learning experience. Not a failure. Right. So bottom line, what have you done with it? That I think that's the biggest thing. You have to learn, you have to have good tools, but that's not the end of the story.

19I think that's where people feel comfortable speaking right now because they the people that want to talk about the tools and how much they use it and this and that and the other, I think a lot of times they're just covering up the fact that they haven't done a whole lot meaningful with it. feel like I'm gonna get in trouble for saying that. But that's that's kind of my that's what I see. That's kind of like the truth that I see out there. As we go forward with functional executives, we're going to try to have some folks, different walks of life, either implementers or curious minds, people who are interfacing with different industries, and we're going to be asking them these questions. Yeah, we're gonna ask them these type of questions. And I know for sure that there's a few folks that will join us that are implementing and have solved real business problems. And they're not anthropic. Google, pick another big company that you're thinking about. It doesn't matter. It this is actually happening in the mid-market and in smaller businesses.

20People are finding ways to use it. And those are the stories that I think we need to. hear even more about. Yeah, I think we're going to be hearing about how those are being built, what those problems are, who the types of people are that are solving them, and what hopefully that will encourage folks who are listening to seek and find similar cases to dig in and actually do something, right? Rather than just talk about doing something. Yeah, I love that. Veer thank you so much again for coming out. This has been so much fun. Yeah, and you know, I think it's also cool that there's a you know, a thirteen year old kind of producing our show right now. So big shout out to my son for doing that. Right? Thank you for opening up your home. right? He was awesome. did, you know, made sure that my microphone would actually like end up mounted today. That was fantastic. Like ⁓ he came in and saved the day on that one. Yeah.

21So, I mean, it was fun to have the whole crew here and and doing this and ⁓ yeah, really excited for season two of the show and where this is headed. ⁓ having a lot of fun in these conversations out in the world. So thanks again, man. All right. Alright, well this has been Jim and Veer doing function- Alright.