Episode 300: Navigating AI Adoption Challenges for Small Businesses
Explore the transformative power of AI in business with expert Gunnar Hood. Discover the impact of AI on sales, marketing, and operations. Uncover key insights from the latest Wsi report on AI adoption. Learn how to bridge the gap between belief and action, ensuring your business stays ahead in the evolving landscape. Dive into practical examples and strategies for leveraging AI to drive meaningful growth. Don’t miss out on staying competitive in the era of AI innovation.
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Intro
Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.
00:00:06.160 –> 00:00:17.670
Bob Woods: My very special guest here at the social sales link virtual studios is Gunner Hood, principal and chief digital officer at WSIi Summit digital marketing services. If you followed the making sales social podcast or SSL, you’ve seen him hanging around the virtual halls here, as he’s a frequent guest on the show as well as an adjunct coach for us in our weekly group coaching sessions.
Since 2012 gunner has helped business owners and leaders develop and implement data driven digital marketing and AI strategies. My God! I said that without stumbling, that’s pretty good to drive meaningful business growth while optimizing operations. And guess what AI can be used in all of that. So that’s why today we’re talking about AI. But specifically, Gunner’s Company has just published a new report called Navigating the AI landscape strategic insights for small and medium sized businesses.
How is AI transforming companies of all sizes, especially those small to medium-sized enterprises all of the insights you could ever want are right here, and that’s a bold claim, I know. So we’re just going to get right into it. Gunner, welcome to Making Sales Social.
Gunnar Hood: Bob, thanks so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here.
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Bob Woods: Very good, very good. So this report is absolutely fascinating. I even printed it.
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Gunnar Hood: Wow!
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Bob Woods: And things, and.
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Gunnar Hood: Took a lot of ink.
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Bob Woods: Yeah, I, yeah, I know. I I did set it to black and white instead of color. But but but yeah, so so, and that’s a quick tip for you all out there, too. Don’t don’t waste color ink when you can print in black and white. So, anyhow, seriously, though it is fascinating. Can you just give us an overview? And what were you all looking to accomplish and discover when you decided to do this survey.
00:02:00.040 –> 00:02:08.013
Gunnar Hood: Yeah, so you know, from an overview perspective, Wsi is a global organization. And so you know, we see from time to time the evolution of digital marketing and AI and other elements occur at different rates around the world. And our interest was, since we work a lot with small-medium businesses is to understand
00:02:23.470 –> 00:02:46.360
Gunnar Hood: one? Do they? Do they even know about AI and 2? How are they adopting it? If they’re adopting it? And 3, what needs do they have related to it. And so we were delighted to get over 500 business leaders responding to the survey from around the world, and that gave us a lot of confidence in the results that we saw come from the questions we asked.
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Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, I guess. Let’s just get right into the day. Because there is data, because there is a lot of data. We’re obviously not going to go through every point or anything like that will actually have at the end of the show the opportunity for for you to go and download it and dive into, or I mean to to view it at least, and just dive into it, and really discover all of
00:03:15.510 –> 00:03:25.850
Bob Woods: what’s going on there. But because we’re we’re mainly we’re we’re a bit more about sales and Ops. We’re probably gonna stick with that, maybe just a little bit more, at least in the beginning here.
00:03:25.900 –> 00:03:36.679
Bob Woods: So as it always seems when it comes to new technologies and even business paradigms. Because let’s face it. AI is is a paradigm as much as it is a technology for business. There’s always a big time split between wanting something and actually knowing how to get it. I mean, just remember, back to when the Internet started, nobody knew what what was going on, but yet everybody wanted to have it. Everybody needed to have it. They didn’t know why. So, for example, 72% of respondents and this is direct from the survey. Believe AI can help meet business goals.
Yet 55% have not had strategic business discussions about AI in the last 12 months. So again, I gotta have it. I don’t know how to get it. I’m not even talking about it. So why do you think there’s this discrepancy between belief and action? And how can businesses bridge this gap.
00:04:22.280 –> 00:04:26.304
Gunnar Hood: It. It was a really interesting insight that we saw, and part of that is really the fact that maybe they’re hearing the news talk about AI, and so that raises the awareness level.
But if they don’t have.
I guess, resources internally that they can turn to that are familiar with it. This is suggesting that they’re not even sure where to go externally to find help for it. And the gap that we see there really suggests that there is a need for awareness and education, and maybe even some consulting help for folks that don’t know where to actually begin. And so I think the data points that you just shared really reinforce that.
00:05:07.680 –> 00:05:14.776
Bob Woods: Yeah, and it’s and it’s gotta be especially big for for those Smb enterprises because they’re not. Ibm. They’re not. Well, Ibm’s probably not the the the best type company, but but but they’re not those large enterprises that have those internal resources that they could go to that. That have either have already learned about it, or it’s or it’s on their on them task list. Punch lists, or whatever that they need to learn about this. These smb’s.
00:05:38.090 –> 00:05:47.809
Bob Woods: They’ve got other stuff going on. They don’t have people to throw added. So do you think that that you know that that’s just a lot of what’s what’s going on there.
00:05:48.160 –> 00:06:05.249
Gunnar Hood: Yeah, I I think you know, for Smb’s. It oftentimes will either fall on the shoulders of the business owner, or you know, someone at the higher level. And there’s some data points that we’ll talk about later. I think they kind of reaffirm some of that. And so maybe they don’t have a dedicated department or a dedicated chief somebody to take ownership of something like that, even if it’s on the chief it side, or things like that because they’re just resource, constrained. And and to me, that’s also a signal that says. Maybe that’s why SMBs need. This even more is to leverage resources as opposed to be, you know, having to find more.
00:06:27.820 –> 00:06:35.659
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I mean, those those those resources are are coming from consultants like yourself, or where where do you see that coming from?
00:06:39.180 –> 00:07:03.460
Gunnar Hood: I know some of it is self service. There’s plenty of free education out there. I mean it it our State, just. I’m in Oklahoma. Our State just announced that Google is launched like a dozen different AI resources for business to tap into for free. And so you know, some people are inclined to learn it themselves. Others say, you know what. I let me just take the short path and get somebody to help me, and you know either way is great.
00:07:03.960 –> 00:07:09.650
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, I mean, because the because these business owners. You know, they have enough on the plate. It seems like to me. I mean, there are times when it’s like I gotta get help on this because I have no idea what’s going on. And I just looked at my calendar for the next week, and and I still gotta sleep people. So you know that is where I think a trusted resource from. You know, someone like like yourself can definitely come in and and and help them with, you know.
00:07:35.950 –> 00:07:56.330
Bob Woods: with sales and marketing, especially operations. And where does the data come from. And how do you use that? And then training the model and all that stuff? So I mean, and and that gets a little beyond what what we generally talk about here, but when it comes to AI and just business in general, there are, there are so many ways that AI can plug into things, and you know you and I are on here mainly talking about sales and props and things like that, and that’s all great. But that’s just a small part of what AI is for businesses right?
00:08:06.780 –> 00:08:22.625
Gunnar Hood: It is. And I think you know, that’s 1 of the reasons why. Maybe we see a bit of that gap is because whatever they’re hearing, you know, in the news or other places isn’t translating to. How will this impact me and my business.
00:08:22.970 –> 00:08:23.310
Bob Woods: Yes.
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Gunnar Hood: And so until they see until they get that spark, or they see in an instance, where it can apply. Then it’s not priority, you know. It’s just like we’ll get to that.
00:08:34.820 –> 00:08:51.207
Bob Woods: Right? Yeah, I mean, because they’re because they’re hearing about you know, generated images. And now people are talking about the the video that could be generated from it. And and the text everything. And I’m like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever? Because they don’t know about everything else that AI can do for their business.
00:08:51.860 –> 00:08:59.265
Gunnar Hood: Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a great example to share with you since we we heard about a I think it was a regional bank that was looking for ways to decrease operational costs, and they did a time study on their customer service. Representatives say, how long does it take them to answer questions, and their time can set on average is about 2 and a half minutes. And so, you know, could AI help speed that up and therefore reduce their costs. Well, they invested, I think, $14,000 in an AI solution which would assist the reps in locating answers more quickly for the the customer questions. They decreased it to 30 seconds, and the savings for the organization was over $400,000 in the 1st year.
00:09:37.650 –> 00:09:49.120
Gunnar Hood: So that’s a tangible, practical example of it’s not just sales is not just marketing. But here’s a small way that you can toe. Dip into this that can have a very meaningful impact.
00:09:49.900 –> 00:09:59.219
Bob Woods: That’s amazing. That’s that’s a great story. And and you’re right. I think that once business people and and and I think it’s up to people like us to really educate others more about just the potential that AI has to impact and transform an entire business. And and and we are going to be getting to jobs here in a little bit. But I like your example, because that’s a way that AI helped with jobs without replacing someone.
00:10:19.860 –> 00:10:24.390
Bob Woods: But augmenting what they can do instead. So so I think that was great. So let’s go to the opposite end of things. Now. the survey shows that 34% said that they have no budget for AI adoption and 35% stated AI adoption is not a priority in their business plans. We’ve actually kind of touched on this already. But let’s 0 in on it a little bit more with, how can businesses reconcile these stats with the importance of AI for achieving business goals, and I had recognized originally in the question. Now, it’s like, I’m thinking, people aren’t actually recognizing this. And I think that that’s where the where the problem really lies.
00:11:02.620 –> 00:11:24.840
Gunnar Hood: Yeah. E, and again, I think it goes back to the fact that they aren’t yet translating where it can have an impact, because it’s still very foreign, I mean, flash back to the origin of the Internet. And you know there were early adopters who figured out how to use it. They started creating websites. And you know, you may remember there was a yellow pages of Internet address.
00:11:24.840 –> 00:11:25.290
Bob Woods: Yeah.
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Gunnar Hood: There was a Google. And so you know, that was an evolution process, and some might liken today to the early stages of the Internet in the sense that people are still trying to figure out what to do with it. And so I’ve had many opportunities to get in front of groups of people, and give them those tangible examples of where it might apply to their business, and once they, I think, once they have an opportunity to internalize that.
00:11:54.580 –> 00:12:07.999
Gunnar Hood: Then they start going. Maybe I don’t have to actually fund this, but it could be self funding in the sense that we capture savings that pay for the investment to to get it off the ground. And again, it takes an idea and the willingness of the organization. Say, let’s try one thing and see how that goes versus. I think some may may over complicate it by thinking we have to adopt this universally across the entire organization, and that’s overwhelming.
00:12:29.840 –> 00:12:42.767
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, yeah, without a doubt. So so doing that one little thing, or maybe doing steps. And of course, realizing that it may not work all the time. So I mean, I do think that that’s something else. You know whether that’s poor planning a lot of times it. It’s it’s just because of of a data. And sometimes these these companies don’t really generate enough data for for the AI models to be trained on. So you know, it’s not really garbage and garbage out necessarily, but it’s like incomplete in, and bad info coming out is probably the the best way to put it just because there, there’s just not enough there for them. So so you know, I think companies have to figure out where AI can be a benefit the most for them.
00:13:19.930 –> 00:13:33.049
Bob Woods: and then implement those rather than trying to do what? What an Ibm or what a Microsoft your, you know that size of company does with AI, because let’s base it. Those companies are generating data by the Giga quads or whatever you want to say. That’s probably not even a term but in terms of that I do think that you know that one small piece, or, like, you know, going up baby steps is probably the best way to do it. Don’t you think.
00:13:48.590 –> 00:14:13.390
Gunnar Hood: I agree. And you know, I I think about some of the other things that you’ve invested in your time around really understanding AI and your crisp model for prompting is part of it. Is the data set that you have. But part of it is also, are you asking it to do the right things. And I mean, this translates to just a generalized workforce, too. If you tell somebody generically to go off and do something for you.
00:14:13.390 –> 00:14:36.150
Gunnar Hood: What you get back as an outcome is, gonna be highly variable, based on their interpretation of those instructions. But if you can get very explicit and specific about how to do things, and you’re comfortable that they understand that you’re gonna get a much better outcome. And the same thing is like, you know, treat AI, as if it’s a 2 year old, and you have to instruct it very clearly.
00:14:36.440 –> 00:14:46.169
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t use 2 year old. I say that they’re like a very eager intern that really wants to please, and really wants to do a good job. And they have no idea how to do it.
00:14:48.510 –> 00:14:49.570
Gunnar Hood: Exactly. Yeah. I like your analogy better.
00:14:52.630 –> 00:14:57.138
Bob Woods: Yes, yes, so thank you. I appreciate that. So we are gonna back up a little bit and talk about the discrepancy and AI adoption rates between them and among departments, because your study found that management and marketing lead the change. But there’s lower adoption, and like sales. Slash biz dev it! That one surprises me a little bit.
00:15:19.280 –> 00:15:37.529
Bob Woods: Operations and frontline staff, and you already gave a good example of a frontline staff application. So so I thought that that was really beneficial. So understanding, you know, with everything that we just talked about as well, how can organizations ensure a more balanced adoption of AI across all of those departments, or as many departments that makes sense essentially to have that.
00:15:44.820 –> 00:15:52.630
Gunnar Hood: Yeah, I was having this exact conversation earlier this week with the CEO of an organization, and where it kind of evolved was certain. Departments seem more inclined to embrace it because of maybe the goals or measures that are used for them sales and marketing. It’s about revenue generation, and you know, filling the pipeline things of that sort. And I think that’s where you’ll see a lot of early examples of the use of AI as you work across the organization. It gets a little bit more cloudy for some people. You know it. They’ve got huge concerns about data security and other things. And maybe that’s slowing down their implementation of it.
00:16:29.500 –> 00:16:44.450
Gunnar Hood: Customer service is another area. Hr, you know, what are the opportunities? And they’re thinking, you know, th, it’s this is relationships. And you know we need this in order to do it. But we also know that a lot of resume handling is auto process and so forth. But a great tool, you know, for a small medium business is to leverage AI to help them write that next job description. I know I’ve struggled through hours of coming up with the perfect job description that defines it. And instead, you can unlock your brain and just let it do the 1st draft for you. That’s much easier to edit.
00:17:05.380 –> 00:17:14.480
Gunnar Hood: And next thing you know, you’re done in 30 min with what you feel is 95% good-to-go job description. And you know, and you’re off. And so, you know, does that save you time and effort? Absolutely? You know, we gave the customer service as a example. And I’m thinking, other departments. You know, accounting and finance data analysis is here.
00:17:31.380 –> 00:17:32.020
Bob Woods: Right.
00:17:32.490 –> 00:17:37.440
Gunnar Hood: Yeah, I’ve I’ve heard another example of a bank that started turning their monthly strategy meetings away from PowerPoint. They don’t use them at all. But they have built their own internal Llm. With their own data, and they just show up to the meeting. They ask the AI the questions that they need answers to. So it homes in much more specifically on the things that are important. It helps analyze that data in real time, so that they’re not looking at somebody’s interpretation of it. But the AI is help cranking out the answers form. They found it to be a much more productive instance.
00:18:08.540 –> 00:18:11.389
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s fascinating. That’s fascinating. So so I wanna take that cross pollination thing a little bit when it comes to sales and marketing, and especially what we do here, which is social selling. So what insights do you have from this report for us social sellers? And let’s start off with what social selling means to you. And then maybe we can bridge it more into like a sales and marketing and and potentially, even operations and things like that when it comes to bringing all those together with AI to help social sellers.
00:18:41.480 –> 00:18:46.470
Gunnar Hood: Sure. So when I think about social selling, you know, social means that you’re communicating with people. It’s relationship building oftentimes. And that’s where I found my greatest success is developing rapport and relationships with people. The selling part is a natural outcome of you being able to supply something that they need when they need it. But the social part means that you’re able to stay in front of them long enough to get to that point, because 95% of people don’t need what you sell at that point in time.
But if you’re able to use social selling to share thought leadership to provide value throughout that relationship. Then you’re the natural one that they turn to when they have a need for what you do. And technology can just help you with that, because it’s a you know, when it comes to thought leadership and creating valued content. You know your brain gets stuck and you run out of ideas at times, and it can help give you those ideas. Go. Yeah, I haven’t talked about that, or here’s a great way to approach that. It can help you connect with more people. It can help you, you know I’m an introvert by nature, and oftentimes I’ll see a post on Linkedin. I want to comment on, and I sit there and dwell on it for a minute. Going.
I wanna comment. But I’m not sure what to say. And then AI helps me get to that point, and it comes up with an idea that I can refine. And now I’ve added something that I think is valuable to continue the conversation. And so that’s a really long answer to your question, Bob.
00:20:19.560 –> 00:20:38.410
Bob Woods: Yeah, no, that’s fine. I mean as as especially cause what I’m thinking is you, you know, people hear social selling. And then people hear? AI, and it’s like, Okay, I’m gonna use a computer to help me build relationships with other human beings. How does that even work? Yeah, know what I’m saying. I mean. When you hear AI, I think that a lot of times people still think like. You know, older, older chat bots and things like that where you know that you were talking with the chat Bot. And you’re thinking, okay, Chatbot equals AI AI equals, you know, computer sounding stuff. How is that even going to help me.
00:20:56.960 –> 00:21:06.373
Gunnar Hood: Yeah. And you know, we we think about it, too, in our business, and we test a lot of different things. And you know, the voice technology is getting pretty amazing these days.
00:21:06.650 –> 00:21:07.219
Bob Woods: It is.
00:21:07.220 –> 00:21:15.224
Gunnar Hood: And you know our our corporate headquarters used a test to look at. You know we had a number of people that had aged in the pipeline of things. You know, whether they were looking at buying a franchise or something else, and so they leveraged AI to do a follow up outreach with them, and this was entirely synthetic in terms of the voice that sounded real. There was no lag time to speak of in there, and the conversation was natural, and in some cases it meant that the next step was a human followed up because they answered the questions, or they asked for more information that led to it, but it allowed for a very efficient way to reach out to a a fairly decent size database of age contacts to re-engage them.
00:21:54.680 –> 00:21:55.570
Bob Woods: Nice really nice. And did people know it was AI ahead of time?
00:21:59.650 –> 00:22:01.859
Gunnar Hood: From what we can tell most, did not.
00:22:02.090 –> 00:22:03.100
Bob Woods: Wow. Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. So so survey taking.
00:22:11.720 –> 00:22:12.410
Gunnar Hood: Yeah.
00:22:12.640 –> 00:22:15.419
Bob Woods: Really interesting, really interesting.
00:22:15.420 –> 00:22:26.310
Gunnar Hood: Yeah, the the speed of AI evolution is getting better and better. You may be familiar with a company called Synthesia. That does AI kinda avatars. A year ago it was very apparent that that was AI generated today. They’ve been just couple of weeks ago, they added, in the ability for it to interpret words like sad or happy or enthusiastic, and that then translates to the avatar itself, making it much more realistic.
00:22:45.330 –> 00:22:52.050
Bob Woods: That’s just amazing. That’s just amazing. So I think all this really speaks to no matter where you think you are at with AI. Nowadays it’s gonna become more and more important in the future, and like it or not, it’s very likely gonna become more and more a part of your daily routine helping you with all different types of things. So, Gunner, you and I were recently discussing Chat Gpts, what I’m gonna call the great outage. And yes, I did use air quotes for that. If you’re listening to us on audio only, and you know it would. That was a big PE big deal rather for people like you and me.
00:23:27.520 –> 00:23:46.772
Bob Woods: But most people out there they either like kind of vaguely hurt. Remember it, or heard about it, or more than likely they didn’t even hear about it. So what I’m wondering is, how do you think such outages impact the broader adoption of AI technologies among businesses, especially those Smb’s.
00:23:48.170 –> 00:23:56.229
Gunnar Hood: You know, I I think, like anything in the world, whether it’s your Internet service, your cell phone service, because even at T had an outage again this week. In certain parts.
00:23:56.230 –> 00:23:58.630
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I saw that.
00:23:58.630 –> 00:24:00.830
Gunnar Hood: You know, I think it’s just something that we have become accustomed to going. You know, if we can recognize the technology will be available 90% of the time or more. That’s a good thing. But also, you know, do you have backup plans for what happens when it doesn’t work. I mean, I’ve got my main Internet provider. But when something isn’t working with that, I’ve got Starlink as a backup that’s not practical for everybody. But from what I do, it’s important for me to have continuous Internet and you know, do you have those backup systems or just backup plans going, hey? You know, if if somehow this isn’t working.
It doesn’t stop business, we can still move and do something elsewhere, and then come back to this when it’s available and the early days of the Internet and everything else. We’re not perfect. And I think we’re seeing the same thing here. There’s huge dependencies on technology and chipsets and communication tools. And there’s always a weak link somewhere in the process. And you know, once it’s discovered, it gets resolved and hopefully improved. But it’s gonna happen. And I don’t think that that’s gonna hold people back.
You know, of adopting it. And I wanna reference something you said just before this, too, and that is, you know. Yes, there are people that are waiting. And so what’s the risk to them? The risk is that if you have a business, and you have competition. What if your competition embraces this and gains a competitive advantage over you?
And yeah, you lost that because you were slow to adopt. Now flip that around, but if you do it, and your competition doesn’t then what’s the advantage that you gain.
00:25:43.580 –> 00:26:00.617
Bob Woods: Yeah, this is probably one of those times when, when, when when when 1st mover advantage really really helps. You know, there have been some cases where, where being a 1st mover hasn’t necessarily been a good thing, but especially with the way that AI has has improved, and and just with the amount of improvement coming so quick. And it seems like literally almost every day. There is a big AI announcement. And it’s like, When is it? Gonna stop? Well, guess what it ain’t. Gonna stop anytime soon there’s gonna be more and more and more and more coming all all the time. So you’ve gotta get on that train. Otherwise you’re not gonna be just left behind. You’re gonna be sitting at home wondering what the hell just happened to my business.
00:26:27.250 –> 00:26:31.150
Gunnar Hood: Yeah. And that’s what we hope to help people avoid.
00:26:31.150 –> 00:26:42.332
Bob Woods: Exactly. Ex exactly. I mean, that’s why we spent what half an hour talking already to really help people out. I mean, because be because that’s what W. What we wanna do. So let’s get back to talking about the the human element and human oversight. And just you know us, basically because there’s still that perception that AI is going to become the overlord and yadda yadda, yadda. And that’s not I. I’m convinced that that’s not gonna happen.
So. The Wsi report does indicate a significant me need for more education and training with 62% saying they’re not familiar with AI and 69, not even haven’t taken any AI training, which means people don’t have a clue, not only about just AI in general, but how it can be used in business. So how can all that be mitigated and ensure that employees are equipped to adapt to
this changing landscape of of employment where there’s gonna be more and more demand for AI, even if it’s just as a user, I mean, cause AI is definitely gonna improve that experience, too. But there’s still gonna be additional skills that people are gonna need to have that they don’t have already. And before you answer, there’s just one more quick. Stat, I wanna drop in here.
00:27:52.730 –> 00:27:57.629
Bob Woods: 32% believe AI will not replace human jobs in the next 12 months. Flipside 47% believe it will replace jobs. So let’s put that into the ninja creamy of blending and see what we come up with.
00:28:11.110 –> 00:28:22.809
Gunnar Hood: Yeah. And you know, in some ways they’re both kind of right in the sense, because you know, as you think about business in general, and people that you hire, you hire for skill sets. So if you’ve got in the future 2 candidates, one of which has trained themselves or learned AI skill sets and one that doesn’t, and everything else is equal, which one of those 2 candidates is more valuable to you. It’s gonna be the one that has greater or broader skill sets, you know, no difference than you know. When I 1st started in business and 2 86 computers were coming out. I was diving in to figure out how to you. Use those things, and, you know, make that useful to the workplace.
That added value that helped me, you know, accelerate my career over time with technology, and I don’t think that this is really any different, and so will some people lose their jobs. I think the way to look at that is tasks will be eliminated as AI takes root, and then there’s a consolidation of things that happen to where maybe at some point you no longer have enough tasks to support 3 employees, but it supports 2.
The business owner then, has a decision to make, says, how do we? You know what’s the right seat for this 3rd person? If it wasn’t those tasks, can they now go off and do something different or add more value to the organization? Or is it just redundancy? And if that person’s not expanding their knowledge base and doing things to add other value.
Then maybe they are redundant and they lose their job as a result of that. But you know, what can people do? And why is the human in the loop. The way that we refer to it as important is because AI is still learning. It’s still not perfect. You know your business really well, and AI doesn’t yet. And so, as you use it, you need to be the supervisor in the equation to fact, check the things that it’s putting out. If you trust it blindly, you’re going to run into a problem. But you know, having supervisors throughout the chain of the equation, and AI is going to be an into, I I think, an important part of adopting it, so that you have confidence in what it does, and then that employees adding more value because they understand how AI works, how they can get the most out of it based on their knowledge of the organization and what you do.
00:30:43.850 –> 00:30:45.100
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I do think that. You know. I think that. Yeah, I always go back to like the buggy, whip industry, example when cars came out. Everybody says you know, the buggy whip industry went aside. But yet those people who were making buggy whips. However, that worked I have no idea but you know, those people probably did end up being re-educated in into the auto industry, or maybe even other jobs outside of the auto, A and industry, and they end up being okay. And I do think that you’re gonna see the same type of thing with AI. Just people have to be willing to learn, and they have to be willing to go out and find the resources that are available for them to learn. And the good thing is nowadays with the Internet. And guess what with AI as well, you can ask AI to train you on AI.
00:31:46.540 –> 00:31:47.240
Gunnar Hood: Yeah. And you know, and that’s a notion that some people still don’t understand, too, because appreciate it. But you know, you’d also ask the question about kind of the chasm between leadership and frontline employees, or you know, individual contributors, and that the hesitancy, you know. Maybe there is some. I guess hesitation among frontline workers to adopt it because they are afraid that it’s going to impact their job or their skills.
00:32:16.580 –> 00:32:34.120
Gunnar Hood: I mean change management at any level is always a challenge. It doesn’t matter what organization it is or what the toolset is. There has to be kind of a leadership vision that drives what’s happening. And then we’ve always found the greatest success to find champions at every level in the organization that can act as a pure advisory of sorts to help move things forward. And but if you don’t have the leadership vision to start with it, the change management fails because people don’t see. Why are we even doing this? This just seems like work, and you know, but there’s a great quote that I I heard, too, that can apply at any level of in an organization is that the lazy person will use AI to replace themselves. The successful person will use it to multiply themselves.
00:33:11.920 –> 00:33:15.679
Bob Woods: Truer words cannot be spoken there. Absolutely not. And I did have a question about the future of AI. I think we pretty much nailed that one to death, except you brought up something that that I picked up on, because I’m an old guy and you had said that something about 2, 86 computers and things like that. So if you don’t know, once upon a time, processors were like 286-38-6486, and then pentium, and it kind of went up from there. So I’m wondering
when it comes to AI, and it’s evolution. Where do you think we’re at right now? Are we? At 2, 86, 3, 6, 46. Pentium.
00:33:57.640 –> 00:34:04.947
Gunnar Hood: You know, I think it’s advanced in a much faster rate than what we saw with. You know, early computer technology. So I would say, we’re probably more at like a 5 86 level right now, if we were to make that comparison, and that’s just really in 2 years since Chat Gpt. Well, it’s not even 2 years yet since it became available. You know.
00:34:19.980 –> 00:34:20.570
Bob Woods: Right.
00:34:20.570 –> 00:34:21.250
Gunnar Hood: Sees. You know, AI as always, existed in the background at an enterprise and machine language level. But you know, when Chat Gpt became available in November 2021. I think it was.
00:34:33.159 –> 00:34:34.570
Gunnar Hood: It was a 22.
00:34:34.570 –> 00:34:36.139
Bob Woods: 22, yeah, 22.
00:34:36.429 –> 00:34:54.599
Gunnar Hood: That, you know suddenly it’s been disintermediated, and you know it. It’s ubiquitous, and it’s offering. So that means that there’s mass adoption. And you know, we saw a hundred 1 million users adopt it within 2 months time, which was fastest rate of adoption. And you know the funny thing is there. There was a survey done by Mckenzie, I think, in June of the following year, of which only 14% of adults had even heard of Chat Gpt. So how do you? How do you equate a hundred 1 million users with 14% of adults? I guess when you have 8 billion people around the world, the numbers work out somehow, but.
00:35:11.950 –> 00:35:12.620
Bob Woods: Yeah.
00:35:13.230 –> 00:35:27.142
Gunnar Hood: But yeah, I think that you know it’s going to continue to advance at a rapid way, right? And the current conversation is around safety. And you know, do we release something before we’re certain that it’s safe? And you know there’s a lot of debate going on with that, because you know what happens if China releases a version of you know? AI, that is much more advanced than what we have. But we’re holding back because we’re taking iterative approach to it to ensure that there’s safety. Now, do we have to play? Catch up? Yeah, hmm. I don’t have the answers to those things. Those are much higher levels. I stick to localized or low-level implementation.
00:35:52.340 –> 00:35:53.420
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah. I hear that. And then, yeah, hear about some of the stuff going on. But behind the scenes potentially depending on who you believe at Openai when it comes to safety, and things like that, and people leaving because they didn’t think that they were safe enough and open. AI saying, Yeah, we’re being safe. And whatever I mean, I just think that
you really have to keep an eye on things when it comes to safety and just be informed about what’s going on more than anything else. Because, you know, people like Gunner and I, we don’t know how to program. AI, but we can at least say, you know, hey, either watch out for this or Hey, this is great, or this is what people are talking about, at least, just so that you know
what’s happening. And just to be informed about AI. But more and more people, I think, are finally starting to at least AI is starting to at least ping on their radars somewhat, and I’m thinking that as more and more people talk about it, and as you start to see more and more AI generated photos and videos and and and things like that, more and more people are gonna start going. Hmm.
00:36:54.970 –> 00:36:58.919
Bob Woods: yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. I think I’m gonna learn a little more about it.
00:36:58.920 –> 00:37:14.440
Gunnar Hood: And it’s getting built into more and more tools, you know whether it’s Microsoft products as co-pilot, or if you’re, you know, a fan of the Adobe Creative Suite. You’re seeing more interesting things there. Canada just had a big announcement about it.
00:37:14.660 –> 00:37:15.099
Bob Woods: You know.
00:37:15.100 –> 00:37:26.069
Gunnar Hood: New tool sets. And so we’re seeing it integrated more and more every day, and that leads to confusion in the marketplace around. Well, which tool do I choose, and will it be obsolete tomorrow?
00:37:27.120 –> 00:37:28.642
Bob Woods: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I love what those you know. One thing you can do right now, is takeaways, and types of things. So Gunner Hood with everything we know. Now, as a result of this report. What is one actionable tips? Smb’s can do right now to get ahead with AI, and you know, let’s toss in getting access to the report as well, because I’m sure that a lot of people are are gonna want to actually say it. Now.
00:37:53.900 –> 00:38:07.049
Gunnar Hood: Yeah. So if you’re seeing us on, you know, visually on screen, the QR code behind me will get you not only to the report, but to a host of other resources. If you can’t see it, then go to Gunnerhood.com
00:38:07.110 –> 00:38:22.139
Gunnar Hood: GUNN a rhod.com, and you will get to our AI resources page. You’ll find the access to this report. You will also find a hundred 6 page, ebook or guide, if you will.
To understanding, chat, gpt prompts that you can use the chat, gpt, and tools that are available out there that can help you with that. And you know that’s a great 1st step is just develop a level of awareness and try one thing, you may go. Hey? This is a really cool, prompt. Let me try that and see how that works in my world, and then repeat it and see you know what a different result looks like, and if you do that suddenly your eyes or your mind starts opening up to possibilities, and those possibilities lead to more curiosity and questions, and you reach a point where you go. Okay. Now, I’ve seen what is possible here, and either I can continue doing this myself, or I need help.
00:39:09.780 –> 00:39:33.829
Gunnar Hood: And you know, there’s people like myself and others out there that are able to help. With that we also have an AI readiness survey that you can take for your organization that’ll map out, you know. Where are you on? Kind of the spectrum of things for AI. What do you need to think about? All those tools are free, so help yourself, and you know, get educated. And then, if you need to have a conversation, my contact info is there too.
00:39:34.100 –> 00:39:49.269
Bob Woods: No mention that no cool, no, in all seriousness, that’s great. I think that the report, and especially that survey that that that you just mentioned you the tool that you just mentioned, I mean for a business to really know where they’re at right now, and and and what they need to do if they want to go down this road, and it shouldn’t be with if it should be when. But still, you know the really start getting an idea, I think, of of what they need to do and where they need to be, I think, is just is hugely important.
00:40:07.080 –> 00:40:16.850
Gunnar Hood: And you know some companies have asked us to help them, you know, with workshops to educate their staff, to educate their leaders. Or it may start with the leaders and then work its way through.
00:40:16.850 –> 00:40:17.510
Bob Woods: That’s right.
00:40:17.510 –> 00:40:22.340
Gunnar Hood: Station so that they can identify. Here’s where we wanna focus. Now, let’s let’s help train the people. And so we do run public workshops from time to time, too, and there’s a signup form for anybody who wants to know about the next time we offer that.
00:40:32.030 –> 00:40:59.039
Bob Woods: Yeah. Great. Okay? Very good. Well, Gunner, Hood, digital marketer and AI expert extraordinaire. And I feel confident in saying that after this episode, Po A A after the episode of this podcast it is always great to speak with you. We talk most every week, anyhow. But I mean just being able to get together and really go in-depth on. This type of thing, I think, is important, not only just for us, but for everyone who’s listening to.
00:41:00.130 –> 00:41:08.700
Gunnar Hood: Bobby, it was very great of you to invite me on. I you know it’s a topic I love to talk about, and it’s fun to spend dedicated time talking with you about it. So thank you.
00:41:08.950 –> 00:41:21.840
Bob Woods: Well, thank you. I appreciate hearing that, and thank you for joining us today on making sales social. So remember when you are out, and about this week, any week, every week, anytime. Make sure that your sales social.
Outro:
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