August 30, 2025 • 38 mins
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Good day, good day, good day.
Business owners, entrepreneurs,thought leaders and
corporations, and welcome to theBlack Business Network.
My name is Grant McGaugh, ceoof Five Star BDM and host of the
award-winning Follow the Brandpodcast and TV series, and I am
your business moderator for thisday on the Black Business
Network.
The Black Business Network is a24-hour business network
(00:33):
showcasing Black businesses,business owners, entrepreneurs
and thought leaders worldwide.
We have speakers from NorthCarolina, london, singapore,
africa, japan and cities allover the United States.
The Black Business Network is aglobal community sharing its
business knowledge to empower,inspire and educate businesses
(00:58):
about business, and today I willbe your speaker.
My name is Grant McGaugh and Iam the CEO of Five Star BDM, and
that stands for BrandDevelopment, masters and also
Business Development andMarketing, and one of the
biggest trends in businessdevelopment and marketing right
now, without question, isartificial intelligence.
(01:20):
Most people are not aware ofall the different technology
stacks that are in artificialintelligence because they are
more than what is popular rightnow, which is ChatGPT, claude
Brock and Gemini, things likethat.
Those are very goodfoundational models, those are
(01:40):
large language models, but youmight be starting to hear about
something that is on the horizon, that is in our face right now,
and this is a tool specifically, I would say, used for business
development, and that is aGentic AI A-G-E-N-T-I-C,
e-g-e-n-t-i-c and GenTik AI, andthere are tools that are
(02:11):
available for entrepreneurs toscale their business and to use
these AI-powered agents withoutwriting any code of your own.
There are certain things thatyou can do by yourself, and you
don't need to be a technologicalwizard.
You don't need to employ an ITexpert to do this for certain
things.
Obviously, there are certainintegrations in your own
(02:31):
technology stack that willrequire some professional help,
but just to get acquainted withthese tools is very, very
important.
So why agentic AI matters.
This is an important point,especially if you're in sales,
and I think every entrepreneurunderstands the importance of
sales, because without sales andmarketing there is no business.
(02:55):
So we have found in our studythat sales teams right now are
spending about 64 percent oftheir time on non-setting tasks.
I mean things like settingappointments, getting in front
of customers, getting throughthe sales cycle that they're
spending more of their time onthings not related to this.
So this is very important,right?
(03:17):
So traditional automation rightnow, some of these tools that
you may have, it does execute,but it doesn't think.
A genetic AI is something thatactually reasons.
It can plan, it can adapt likea digital teammate.
So think of it as an AIassistant that can actually put
(03:38):
together some ideas for you thatyou wouldn't be able to do on
your own.
And now entrepreneurs canaccess these tools without
coding.
This is huge.
It's just pretty big right.
So, when we think about what isa gifted AI, it definitely is an
automation that is enhancedwith reasoning and with the
(04:00):
power of LLMs what we call largelanguage models again, like
your chat, gpt but it's nowembedded in business processes.
That is the key.
So it's not just alwayscustomer facing, it's not just
generating text, not justgenerating email.
It's actually operating in thebusiness, in the background,
(04:21):
helping you to break downcomplex tasks into smaller steps
.
So they are consumable andthese are things that can be
used for doing search, thingsthat can be doing to do your
scheduling.
They can be in your customerrelation management tools like
HubSpot and things like that andcan run your analytics and your
email platform and they reflect.
(04:42):
This is the difference itreflects and learns from
outcomes Right now, your LLMs,the reason why they operate.
They're like an application ontop of a dataset, but they're
already pre-programmed.
When you're using an authenticAI, you are giving it the
programming.
You become the masterprogrammer within your business
(05:05):
to utilize these tools,customize these tools and
personalize these tools for yourbusiness.
That is a huge benefit forentrepreneurs, because it's
going to save you time onresearch, it's going to save you
time on emailing, it's going tosave you time on scheduling and
time is money, as we know.
So you can run theseself-optimizing marketing
(05:27):
campaigns without you having todo them or pay attention to them
on a minute-by-minute basis.
They're actually running in thebackground and they're
delivering increased value foryou, and that is great.
And then they can act almosthuman in certain aspects, right?
You don't always want to useyour tool to say, hey, I want to
(05:50):
trick someone and say this is ahuman involved.
No, it's a tool.
We're used to these types oftools.
Everybody got used to voicemailwhen it first came out.
Just because it is an attemptedAI model doesn't mean that you
need to pass along or try todupe someone to thinking that
it's a human that you'reinteracting with.
(06:10):
That's not the point.
It is a robot, right?
So you want to be able to useit like that and let people know
that you're using it like that,because it's going to signal to
them that you are top of mindand you're going to access a lot
faster growth with fewerresources, and that should ring
true for a lot of entrepreneurs,right?
(06:30):
So, as we segue into no-codetools, you're like okay, what is
Grant talking about?
I think I've set the why around.
You would do this Again.
It's about efficiency, it'sabout saving time and it's about
generating business outcome inthe form of greater revenue,
right?
(06:51):
So what are some of theseno-code tools that you can get
started with?
There's AgentGPT.
I want you to look that up.
Just put it in your Googlesearch Agent GPT.
This is a free model, just toget started.
Now, that's going to build someautonomous agents and it costs
(07:12):
zero to about forty dollars amonth or so, depending on how
much you use it.
Right, so it's load balanced.
There's another tool calledPromptly P-R-O-M-P-T-L-Y.
Promptly.
Look this up, go ahead and putit in your Google search, right?
Promptly, you can drag and dropa lot of AI workflows and it's
(07:35):
going to cost about $20 to $100a month, again, depending on
what you're using it for.
There's a lot of tutorialsthere to get you started, but
this is a great tool foragitative AI.
Another one that's very popularis called Zapier Z-A-P-I-E-R,
another free tool, but, again,as you begin to use it, there is
(07:58):
a paid component for about $20to $100 a month or so that's
going to also automate, it'sgoing to integrate, some
workflows.
If you want your agentic AI tobe able to read your email, to
do your scheduling, you can thenactually place this within your
CRM, like HubSpot, and thenalso automate your emails.
(08:20):
These are the types of toolsthat you can utilize and even
have voice control over it,right?
So there's text-to-speechthings of that nature that are
going to help you.
And there's another one calledAirtable, and that's also Notion
Airtable Notion and that'sgoing to give you simple data
stores for AI.
So it's giving you a databaseabout $10 to $25 a month.
(08:43):
These are no cold tools that youcan utilize to get a better ROI
return on investment, because,think about this, right, if you
hired a sales assistant, that'sgoing to cost you anywhere from
$45,000 to about $55,000 a year.
You can get an AI tool stack.
You got to remember what isthis sales assistant doing for
(09:05):
me, and then you look at whatthis AI tool stack can do for me
.
For about $200 to $400 a month,you can get one of these AI
tools to do this for you, right.
So that's going to be a big,big advantage If you learn how
the API works.
This is at a point where youmight, if you're going to do it
(09:26):
to really replace a human AIassistant.
You want to get someone thatunderstands how to integrate
your API.
This is going to bringeverything into balance with one
another.
Fine tune your integrations andget some secure hosting for you
to deliver the ROI that youneed, especially over time.
So I would say first getstarted with it, right, just so
(09:49):
you're familiar with it, knowwhat these tools can do, what
they can deliver, and then youfine tune it.
You bring someone like FiveStar VDM into the mix.
That's my company.
Show you how to.
First, we would assess yourcurrent stack, your technical
stack, what is it you're tryingto accomplish, and then make
those integrations for you, andthen you understand your ongoing
(10:11):
costs that you're going to have.
But over time, especially ifyou don't even have an AI system
today, this is going to help toelevate you right.
A lot of people are using thisfor e-commerce to personalize a
lot of their campaigns, right.
So they're going to see a bigincrease instead of having those
abandoned carts.
They're seeing right now sortof certain records or metrics.
(10:34):
They're seeing about a 27percent uptake.
Also, on SAG, if you're atechnological startup company,
startup company, right, you're aSaaS provider and you want to
cut down on the qualificationtime it takes, you know, to grow
your pipeline, right now we'reseeing that instead of four
hours of work, about 30 minutesCan you just do the comparison
(10:56):
that four hours to do the samething, you can do it now in 30
minutes to grow your pipeline.
So that's about a 3x, 4x, 5x injust 90 days if you deploy it
successfully.
A lot of consulting firms, verysimilar to mine they're doing
automated research.
So they deploy agentic AIagents, automated research
(11:18):
agents to then find qualifiedprospects to fit the profile
that we're looking for.
Your ideal client profile canthen be found using these agent
AIs.
And then I always employ people.
Get to a human-to-humaninteraction as quickly as
possible.
You don't always want to insertthe AI as the component that's
(11:42):
talking directly with the humanfor very long.
You might do it initially andyou depend on what the
information that the human isrequiring.
You want to get out of the wayand bring yourself or someone to
bear to get that human-to-humaninteraction, because that's at
the conversion stage.
So, when it comes to buildingawareness, ai is very good.
(12:04):
An authentic AI is very, verygood.
When it comes to consideration,utilizing an AI agent is very,
very good, but at the point ofconversion, you want to have
that human-to-human interactionto make sure that you do that
reality check around that whenyou're implementing these type
of tools.
I would say that this is a goodquestion we're going to segue
(12:25):
into.
Implementation Is that peopleask well, how long does it take
to learn this kind of thing?
If you immerse yourself intobeing very intentional about
learning agentic AI and how youcan embed it into business
processes, into your technologystack, it's going to take only
about two to three weeks tobecome proficient in most
(12:48):
no-code tools that I talkedabout earlier about two to three
weeks.
So if you double down for aboutat least a month let's give
yourself a month you're going tobe proficient enough to deploy
a lot of these tools yourself,right?
So you want to make sure thatyou've got your website analytic
tools up right.
If you're using MonsterInsights or Google Analytics.
(13:08):
Make sure you have thatavailable and if you have a CRM,
that's going to be even betterto utilize it, bringing those
two things like a HubSpot.
You've got your MailChimp.
Now you want to startintegrating these things
together.
So your Zapier, your HubSpot,your Salesforce connectors they
can reduce a lot of thecomplexity when you're trying to
build these things out.
(13:29):
So you've got to look at yourown tech stack.
Where you're at where you're atnow, where is it housed?
How can you then access it?
And then bringing theseentities to talk to one another,
and then having like avoice-like interface between you
and your AI, your agentic AIassistant that you can talk to
just like you would any otherassistant that you may have to
(13:51):
bring you information andinsight to you directly to your
business, so that you'respending quality time in front
of your clients and not, as Isaid earlier in this discussion,
taking the time that you'redoing a lot of busy work behind
the scenes that's sucking upyour time.
That are not revenue generatingtype applications that you
(14:14):
should be doing in your business, right?
So I want to make sure thatthat's clear.
You're starting to get anunderstanding of the why.
You're starting to get a betterunderstanding of the how.
Now you're getting a betterunderstanding, and I'll start to
break this down when you startlooking at what can go wrong.
What is the risk factor.
You know you got to look atthis thing right.
(14:37):
So there are some limitationsthat you need to be aware of.
Like, agents can't replacehuman strategy and relationships
.
I'm going to say that againAgentic AI cannot replace human
strategy and relationships.
Remember that is not the pointof what you're using the agentic
AI for.
You want it in the background,running a lot of the business
(15:00):
operations that you don't havethe time than what you're not
customer facing.
So when you're getting into ahuman-facing type application,
you want to be in front of thatperson.
Nothing replaces HI, which ishuman intelligence.
Right, you got to remember whatkind of data do you have?
You have to really look at yourdata, because if data is poor,
(15:22):
that's going to be a problem,right?
Because your outputs are goingto be poor and if you have
oversight on that, you're justmultiplying mistakes.
So you have to make sure thatyour data sets that you're
integrating and that you'reutilizing to make decisions on
is accurate, right?
So you got to make sure youhave backup plans behind that,
(15:42):
because if you just let it runand you just don't oversight,
the human in the loop has got tobe able to approve what is
happening, especially if it'scustomer-facing and if there's
some kind of failback a manualfailback that you might have to
go to just in case it starts tohave certain problems.
So you want to avoid these kindsof problems know what you're
(16:04):
doing, understand when you'vegot to bring a third-party tech
provider to help you, becauseyou don't want to pigeonhole
yourself into a problem whereyou've self-automated and then
it's out of control becauseyou're not taking the time and
putting the protections that areneeded to make sure that the
(16:24):
information that you're givingout is going to be accurate,
right, and there are, withinthese stacks, a lot of security
and compliance considerations aswell.
If you're workinginternationally, there's GDPR,
ccpa that's going to ensure thatyour data is correct and you
have deletion right.
So if you've got to go in andchange things, you've got to
(16:45):
make sure is this going to upsetthe integrations that you have.
At some point, as you getdeeper and deeper into this, you
will need someone like myself,who understands technology and
has been able to implement thissolution for you at scale to
help you to mitigate some ofthese problems.
If you get into HIPAA whetherit's in healthcare or FINRA
(17:09):
within finance these are thingsyou need to understand a lot of
if you could get out of it forwhatever reason, right?
So make sure that youunderstand what you're doing.
The other thing anytime youintroduce anything new into a
business, there's always goingto be the buy-in factor, right?
(17:31):
Do the people in theorganization want to do this?
Are they going to adapt thetechnology?
Because if they do not adaptthe technology, the actual
implementation will fail.
There's no doubt about it.
If they do not adopt thetechnology, the actual
implementation will fail.
There's no doubt about it.
Probably over 70% to 80% oftechnology that is implemented,
especially at enterprise levels,they fail because of user
(17:53):
adoption.
They just don't buy into it andthey don't use it.
So you don't get the ROI.
So you want to frame this in theright way, just like in
yourself, if you're asolopreneur, you want to frame
(18:24):
this as an assistant, not areplacement.
It's not there to replace you,it's there to augment what
you're doing.
If I can do something quicker,faster, better, why wouldn't you
do that?
That is the point of doing that.
What can get me in front of myclient faster?
What can get me in front ofrevenue generating activities
faster?
That's what you want to look at.
So it's not replacing youyourself or your employee that
you have.
You want to give them anassistant to assist them.
That's very, very important.
You want to assign a lot ofcheckpoints in this application.
So, again, if it's human tohuman interactions or you want
(18:47):
that human in the loop, you wantto make sure, before it takes
that next critical step towardimplementation, that someone
approves it.
So you're looking at it.
A lot of times when I'm puttingin prompts into AI or chat CPT,
I'm getting some content back.
I need to review that content Alot of times.
(19:09):
I'll use a different LLM, likecloud, and I use them in tandem
and have them look at thecontent back and forth to get it
to a point where it's at alevel that I can make it human
facing, point where it's at alevel that I can make it human
facing.
So the human in the loop is very, very important because you've
(19:30):
got to be accountable and takeyou have to take ownership of
the AI workflow and what itdelivers.
There's no.
Well, I'm going to point thatover there.
That was your problem.
Ultimately, it is on you, justlike when you're driving a
vehicle right, you're driving acar.
You are accountable if thatvehicle then damages someone
else's property or something tothat effect.
You are accountable for your AIworkflow and make sure you have
(19:54):
that human in the loop for anykind of sign-up or approval
checkpoint before it leaves yourorganization and starts
touching someone else.
Very, very important.
And you want to pilot a lot ofthese things before you start
replacing your legacy processthat you've done before to make
sure that it's working properlyand that you have 100%
(20:16):
confidence on what it'sdelivering so important.
And then you want to be able tomeasure this type of framework
and what I call advancedmeasurement framework, with KPIs
key performance indicatorsRight.
You want to be able to look atthese things beyond just what I
(20:38):
call the basics.
You want to see what the salescycle now looks with and without
AI, and is it going to deliverthe result that you need it to
do.
What is your customersatisfaction metrics right?
Your net promoter scores Is itlifting, is it changing?
You want to be able to measurethese things and also your
(20:59):
customer lifetime value.
Your CLV Very, very importantto track all these things from a
baseline of before and thenafter your AI.
Augmented workflows are inproduction.
You will review this weekly,monthly, to make sure that you
see the uptake and that it'sdelivering the value that you
(21:20):
have.
Right?
So very important to do allthese things.
I do all these things through mybrave framework, because if you
have a framework, you know youhave the basics of a process and
the implementation model tomake sure you're not going to be
making major mistakes.
So you want to first identifyyour brand.
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What is it you're trying toachieve?
What is the goal, the end inmind?
What does that look like?
Have you done your research?
Make sure your research is onpoint.
You research these differenttools.
You see what they're deliveringfor other people.
What are the results?
Are they factual?
Can they be applied to yourbusiness?
Then you start looking at yourassets.
(22:01):
Right, what are the assets thatI need to accomplish my goal?
Is it going to be authentic?
Can I use it all the time?
Is it going to be able to be infront of my audience, and I can
be confident about that?
And then can I make it visibleand does it?
Is it, will it deliver valueand does it have volume and
(22:22):
velocity Very important Then.
Can I execute on that plandaily?
Is it ease of use for me?
All these things are very, veryimportant when you're looking
at a framework that you're notgoing to replace what you're
already doing today.
And you're doing this so youcan scale, so you can grow the
business to the next level, soas a day.
(22:42):
And you're doing this so youcan scale, so you can grow the
business to the next level.
So, as a blueprint, I will giveyou this as a 30-day pilot
blueprint, to use a Gentic AI.
So in your first week or two,you want to audit all your
inefficiencies, meaning yourcurrent state.
You want to take a look at that.
You want to make it concrete.
(23:03):
You want to select a use casewithin your business that'll set
a baseline.
What is it that you want to do?
What that will deliver value?
Do you want to automatescheduling?
Do you want to automate anykind of email applications that
then bring it back to yourattention immediately?
How do you augment your thingsthat you're doing for what you
(23:25):
have for email?
Today, you start to identifywhat's important for you that's
going to get you in front ofyour client faster, quicker,
better, right, that'll be in thefirst two weeks.
Just do an assessment of thebusiness that can potentially be
automated at a certain pointthat delivers better business
value.
(23:45):
This could be customerexperience, it could be in
financial metrics, it could bein business operations, sales
and marketing.
All these things you need totake a look at and that, what
can I do to make it moreefficient?
And then, later in that month,in like weeks three and four,
you want to start, I would say,piloting and deploying these
(24:09):
no-code agents with oversight.
You want to monitor the outputsthat you're getting.
First in a pilot, this is whata lot of people do.
First you have to have a testpad, right.
You have a proof of concept, soyou put it in more or less a
lab.
You see how it can work beforeyou put it into production,
(24:30):
right, so you want to take thatnote code that I talked about
earlier, whether it's Zapier,it's Agent, gpt or the like that
you're going to then deploy andthen automate and augment some
of these processes that are inyour business.
And then you're going to startmeasuring all these things.
Track the time saved.
(24:51):
So it's factual for you, right.
Track the time saved, track theconversions that you have, like
, hey, I'm starting to see moreand more opportunities close, or
I'm starting to see mypipelines getting filled quicker
and quicker because I'veautomated some of these
processes within what I'm doing.
It could be as simple as youknow what it takes me to create
(25:15):
a PowerPoint.
Today, a PowerPoint deck takesme anywhere for some people,
four to eight hours or maybeeven more, depending on what
that is.
If I can then take that and dothat now within seconds, minutes
or an hour, that's anincredible win, and you can do
that with tools.
(25:35):
Here's another tool that I'vebeen using a lot.
It's called gamma G-A-M-M-A dotA-P-P.
You can generate a PowerPoint,a professional PowerPoint
presentation, within seconds,basically, professional
PowerPoint presentation withinseconds, basically.
But you have to give it theright information for it to
(25:57):
build it, to spec yourspecification, so it's
delivering the communicationthat you're looking forward to
do, right?
So these are types of thingsthat you can do.
This takes something that takesup a lot of time.
That takes up a lot of time,but it's simple to then automate
by using some of these toolsthat you can deliver at scale.
Very, very important to do thisNow, after you've got it
(26:21):
deployed and you feel thatyou're at a point that you can
move it even further.
That's when you begin to look atall right, how do I scale this
right?
And you better start looking ata what do you call it?
A post-pilot scaling roadmap,something you now deployed it.
Now you want to take a look atit even more.
(26:42):
So this is further down theroad months two through six.
You've got it deployed.
You understand what the problemthat it solved.
You've deployed it.
It is starting to solve thatproblem right Now.
You're looking in two to sixmonths.
What do you want to then take alook at?
You want to expand, potentiallyinto other parts of your
(27:03):
business that you want to scaleright Sales, marketing, customer
service that you want to getmore use cases to deploy this
type of technology.
Within six to 12 months, like ayear, you want to build your
internal AI competency, trainother people how to utilize
these tools.
(27:23):
It is becoming more and moreimperative to people to
understand.
Just like you learn how to useExcel, you learn how to use
Microsoft Word, you learn how touse PowerPoint, these types of
tools you learn the Google SuiteYou're going to have to learn
these AI tools just like that,and that comes from just
(27:45):
utilizing them and understandingthat you're now building a
cross-functional AI playbook,that you've got AI embedded now
in your business processes atscale.
So within six to 12 months youwant to be at this level.
So when you start even looking,projecting out and forecasting
a couple of years out, you startlooking at your strategic AI
(28:08):
integration across youroperations, across your finance,
across your HR and yourcustomer support.
You will be growing.
There is no doubt about it, ifyou follow this type of playbook
and you deploy the rightresources to get you to your
desired state.
And note this when things gowrong and technology always you
(28:31):
will have some type of hiccupsthat are along the way and you
have to mitigate for thesethings.
So don't think you just set itand forget it.
You can set it and forget itfor a while, but just like
sometimes your car has a problem, you have to take it to a
mechanic, these things are goingto happen.
So when things go wrong, youwant to have like a
troubleshooting guide.
(28:52):
What do I do in case somethinggoes wrong?
Right, and these technologicallimits, you know, or issues?
They do come up, but they'redata, sync errors, reset
integrations.
How are you going to checkthese logs?
And then, what is the toolsupport?
That you have the vendor helpdesk.
That you have the vendor helpdesk.
That you have these thingshappen.
(29:13):
Your internet goes out.
You're going to call somebody.
They got to come back, they gotto come out.
They've got to be able to helpyou within a certain standpoint.
But at the same time, what isyour plan B?
What is your plan C?
Did you have a port that youcan deploy as customer facing to
keep things in operation?
People understand that thingshappen.
(29:33):
They're not going to be like,oh, I'm not going to do business
with you anymore because all ofa sudden, your tech is down.
They understand that you'regoing to come back up, that they
don't want to go for hours,days, months.
That's not going to happen.
Or you're consistentlydelivering an experience that's
flawed.
That's going to be a problem.
So you want to make sure whatyour tool support looks like.
You want to identify yourtechnological entities.
(29:56):
You want to create a communityaround what you've got.
If you're utilizing OpenAI,you're utilizing Zapier, you
want to have these forums thatother people are utilizing these
tools that you can then beginto tap into their knowledge base
.
Like, hey, when you deploy this, did you experience this?
I deploy this, I experiencedthat.
(30:18):
Remember, it goes both ways.
If you find something thatworks, share with other people
and vice versa.
So you're creating community.
You're creating tool support,meaning you're creating
community.
You're creating tool support,you're identifying your
technical issues and then youunderstand your decision points.
So, if you have to scale back,if the ROI starts to drop, you
(30:39):
start to deploy the tool.
It sounded great at the time,it looked like it was working,
and this happens a lot.
People are like, oh, this wasnew and they start engaging with
it and then, as they engagewith it, they stop, they start
to slow down on that engagement.
So, if you keep going becauseyou thought you had that initial
bump and then and then itstarts to drop off, you need to
(30:59):
pivot, you need to understand,you need to have business
agility, you have to haveflexibility in what you're doing
and understanding, because thisis still a lot of work in
process and it may have workedfor a little bit of time, but
not, uh, on long term, and it'shard to discern that until you
get deeper into it, you know.
(31:21):
So all of these things you haveto take in consideration.
And then, one of the mostimportant things you want to
look at is your competitivedifferentiation.
How are you competing in themarket with these new tools?
That is gold, and you want tobe able to say is this giving me
a leg up over my competition?
(31:44):
Am I a first mover?
Do I have first mover advantagewhen it comes to capturing
market share over others?
Do I have proprietary data?
Do I have intellectual IP now?
Do I have intellectual assetsthat I can now deploy?
Do I have a built-out customercustom data set that I can
(32:05):
actually sell to other people?
I've created a new revenuestream for myself.
This is very important, becausenow you have a unique IP that
you did not have before.
So you start to look at whatyou can actually do and operate
in all these things.
So what are your next steps?
I'd say identify repetitive andtime-consuming tasks.
(32:29):
Do that first.
Identify repetitive andtime-consuming tasks.
Choose one of these no-codetools that fits your workflow
Agent GPT, agent GPT that Italked about earlier, right,
perplexity.
These things are very, veryimportant.
(32:50):
Zapier, how can you thenintegrate your if you're using
ChatGPT into your businessprocess using integration tools
and then launch a 30-day pilotproject right and then document
everything that you have done soyou can scale across a lot of
your other business processes.
(33:10):
So, so important Once you startgetting into this and you start
to realize you know what.
Maybe this is not my particularskill set.
I need to understand thesethings, but I need somebody to
help me first get started.
This is where you contact 5Star BDM that's 5 Star B for
brand, b for development excuseme, d for development,
(33:30):
infomasterscom and you contactme for your business development
and your marketing needs.
I would do a 30-minuteassessment call with you.
We'll talk about where you'reat, what you potentially could
use to automate your particularbusiness.
We need to first identify whatare potential problems in your
(33:51):
business that are limiting youwhen it comes to revenue
generating type activity.
This is probably the number oneproblem within small businesses
today.
Why do they close their doorswithin those first five years?
Ultimately, it comes down torevenue.
They're not generating the typeof business that they need to
(34:13):
sustain themselves.
So their business and theirrevenue generating activities
are not in sync, they're notaligned and they can't
concentrate on everything.
I can't do sales and marketing,you know 80% of the time and
just run the business 20 formany delivering on the product
(34:34):
or service that you have.
20% of the time it's not goingto work.
You start to understand whatyou can do when you're first
starting out with limitedcapital, limited budget.
What can I do to augment this,to do some automations in my
sales and marketing, to generatebusiness, to generate revenue,
and then I can deliver on thatparticular product or service
(34:54):
that I have at scale.
Then I can do this even myself.
I'm using contract service orI'm going to hire an FTA, which
is a full-time person, into mybusiness.
All these things are important.
I'm giving you this playbookbecause this is the greatest
opportunity for small businessand I'm talking micro businesses
(35:16):
for one person, two to 10person businesses or up to 50
employees to compete at a muchhigher level than they ever
could before.
They are projecting right nowthat we will experience,
probably in the next three tofive years, the first one person
billion dollar business.
Think about that.
(35:37):
Think about that.
You're listening to me.
Right now.
You're one person and as oneperson, you can generate a
billion dollar business, I mean,operate a billion dollar
business utilizing this type ofmethodology, this type of
mindset, this type of tool setand having this kind of skill
set.
You need to acquire theartificial intelligence skill
(36:01):
sets in order to compete in thisnew digital world, so so
important to do that.
Again, I want to thank you thismorning for listening to me on
the Black Business Network andwhat we are doing from a mission
standpoint, to deploy andenable our businesses to compete
(36:24):
at a much higher level, toexpand and rebuild Black Wall
Street so important andunderstand that the Black
Business Expo's mission is toraise funds for high school
seniors going to college or K-12entrepreneurs.
This expo is a fundraiser forstudents and you may go to
wwwblackbusinessexpousacom todonate to the scholarship fund
(36:47):
or use the Cash App that is onthe screen below.
That is dollar sign BBX USA.
Our goal is to give laptops andup to $5,000 to 10 students and
students.
You can register online atwwwblackbusinessexpousacom.
Every dollar counts.
So we want to remind you todonate to the scholarship fund
(37:11):
and we want to thank our BlackBusiness Expo USA sponsors for
August 2025.
And they do include NC100,moody Capital Partners, suede
Soul, lotus, fouché, coachingand Training.
Carolina, virginia MinoritySupplier Development Council.
Step Management, the Hello LLC.
Barbara H Smith LLC.
(37:32):
Margie McLean FoundationIncorporated.
Genius is Common, earthEssentials, melania, shana
Global.
Five Star, bdm Media Banks LLC.
Executive Women's SuccessInstitute.
The Quality Coaching Company.
Superwoman Business Services.
Creative 4 Studios.
Lee Entertainment Artistic AppDesign.
Black Business Expo USA Geniusis Common.
One of business servicescreated for studios lee
entertainment artistic appdesign.
Black business expo usa geniusis common and I will see you on
(37:56):
the other side.
Good day, good day, good day.
Business owners, entrepreneurs,thought leaders and
corporations, and welcome to theBlack Business Network.
My name is Grant McGaugh, ceoof Five Star BDM and host of the
award-winning Follow the Brandpodcast and TV series, and I am
your business moderator for thisday on the Black Business
Network.
The Black Business Network is a24-hour business network
(00:33):
showcasing Black businesses,business owners, entrepreneurs
and thought leaders worldwide.
We have speakers from NorthCarolina, london, singapore,
africa, japan and cities allover the United States.
The Black Business Network is aglobal community sharing its
business knowledge to empower,inspire and educate businesses
(00:58):
about business, and today I willbe your speaker.
My name is Grant McGaugh and Iam the CEO of Five Star BDM, and
that stands for BrandDevelopment, masters and also
Business Development andMarketing, and one of the
biggest trends in businessdevelopment and marketing right
now, without question, isartificial intelligence.
(01:20):
Most people are not aware ofall the different technology
stacks that are in artificialintelligence because they are
more than what is popular rightnow, which is ChatGPT, claude
Brock and Gemini, things likethat.
Those are very goodfoundational models, those are
(01:40):
large language models, but youmight be starting to hear about
something that is on the horizon, that is in our face right now,
and this is a tool specifically, I would say, used for business
development, and that is aGentic AI A-G-E-N-T-I-C,
e-g-e-n-t-i-c and GenTik AI, andthere are tools that are
(02:11):
available for entrepreneurs toscale their business and to use
these AI-powered agents withoutwriting any code of your own.
There are certain things thatyou can do by yourself, and you
don't need to be a technologicalwizard.
You don't need to employ an ITexpert to do this for certain
things.
Obviously, there are certainintegrations in your own
(02:31):
technology stack that willrequire some professional help,
but just to get acquainted withthese tools is very, very
important.
So why agentic AI matters.
This is an important point,especially if you're in sales,
and I think every entrepreneurunderstands the importance of
sales, because without sales andmarketing there is no business.
(02:55):
So we have found in our studythat sales teams right now are
spending about 64 percent oftheir time on non-setting tasks.
I mean things like settingappointments, getting in front
of customers, getting throughthe sales cycle that they're
spending more of their time onthings not related to this.
So this is very important,right?
(03:17):
So traditional automation rightnow, some of these tools that
you may have, it does execute,but it doesn't think.
A genetic AI is something thatactually reasons.
It can plan, it can adapt likea digital teammate.
So think of it as an AIassistant that can actually put
(03:38):
together some ideas for you thatyou wouldn't be able to do on
your own.
And now entrepreneurs canaccess these tools without
coding.
This is huge.
It's just pretty big right.
So, when we think about what isa gifted AI, it definitely is an
automation that is enhancedwith reasoning and with the
(04:00):
power of LLMs what we call largelanguage models again, like
your chat, gpt but it's nowembedded in business processes.
That is the key.
So it's not just alwayscustomer facing, it's not just
generating text, not justgenerating email.
It's actually operating in thebusiness, in the background,
(04:21):
helping you to break downcomplex tasks into smaller steps
.
So they are consumable andthese are things that can be
used for doing search, thingsthat can be doing to do your
scheduling.
They can be in your customerrelation management tools like
HubSpot and things like that andcan run your analytics and your
email platform and they reflect.
(04:42):
This is the difference itreflects and learns from
outcomes Right now, your LLMs,the reason why they operate.
They're like an application ontop of a dataset, but they're
already pre-programmed.
When you're using an authenticAI, you are giving it the
programming.
You become the masterprogrammer within your business
(05:05):
to utilize these tools,customize these tools and
personalize these tools for yourbusiness.
That is a huge benefit forentrepreneurs, because it's
going to save you time onresearch, it's going to save you
time on emailing, it's going tosave you time on scheduling and
time is money, as we know.
So you can run theseself-optimizing marketing
(05:27):
campaigns without you having todo them or pay attention to them
on a minute-by-minute basis.
They're actually running in thebackground and they're
delivering increased value foryou, and that is great.
And then they can act almosthuman in certain aspects, right?
You don't always want to useyour tool to say, hey, I want to
(05:50):
trick someone and say this is ahuman involved.
No, it's a tool.
We're used to these types oftools.
Everybody got used to voicemailwhen it first came out.
Just because it is an attemptedAI model doesn't mean that you
need to pass along or try todupe someone to thinking that
it's a human that you'reinteracting with.
(06:10):
That's not the point.
It is a robot, right?
So you want to be able to useit like that and let people know
that you're using it like that,because it's going to signal to
them that you are top of mindand you're going to access a lot
faster growth with fewerresources, and that should ring
true for a lot of entrepreneurs,right?
(06:30):
So, as we segue into no-codetools, you're like okay, what is
Grant talking about?
I think I've set the why around.
You would do this Again.
It's about efficiency, it'sabout saving time and it's about
generating business outcome inthe form of greater revenue,
right?
(06:51):
So what are some of theseno-code tools that you can get
started with?
There's AgentGPT.
I want you to look that up.
Just put it in your Googlesearch Agent GPT.
This is a free model, just toget started.
Now, that's going to build someautonomous agents and it costs
(07:12):
zero to about forty dollars amonth or so, depending on how
much you use it.
Right, so it's load balanced.
There's another tool calledPromptly P-R-O-M-P-T-L-Y.
Promptly.
Look this up, go ahead and putit in your Google search, right?
Promptly, you can drag and dropa lot of AI workflows and it's
(07:35):
going to cost about $20 to $100a month, again, depending on
what you're using it for.
There's a lot of tutorialsthere to get you started, but
this is a great tool foragitative AI.
Another one that's very popularis called Zapier Z-A-P-I-E-R,
another free tool, but, again,as you begin to use it, there is
(07:58):
a paid component for about $20to $100 a month or so that's
going to also automate, it'sgoing to integrate, some
workflows.
If you want your agentic AI tobe able to read your email, to
do your scheduling, you can thenactually place this within your
CRM, like HubSpot, and thenalso automate your emails.
(08:20):
These are the types of toolsthat you can utilize and even
have voice control over it,right?
So there's text-to-speechthings of that nature that are
going to help you.
And there's another one calledAirtable, and that's also Notion
Airtable Notion and that'sgoing to give you simple data
stores for AI.
So it's giving you a databaseabout $10 to $25 a month.
(08:43):
These are no cold tools that youcan utilize to get a better ROI
return on investment, because,think about this, right, if you
hired a sales assistant, that'sgoing to cost you anywhere from
$45,000 to about $55,000 a year.
You can get an AI tool stack.
You got to remember what isthis sales assistant doing for
(09:05):
me, and then you look at whatthis AI tool stack can do for me
.
For about $200 to $400 a month,you can get one of these AI
tools to do this for you, right.
So that's going to be a big,big advantage If you learn how
the API works.
This is at a point where youmight, if you're going to do it
(09:26):
to really replace a human AIassistant.
You want to get someone thatunderstands how to integrate
your API.
This is going to bringeverything into balance with one
another.
Fine tune your integrations andget some secure hosting for you
to deliver the ROI that youneed, especially over time.
So I would say first getstarted with it, right, just so
(09:49):
you're familiar with it, knowwhat these tools can do, what
they can deliver, and then youfine tune it.
You bring someone like FiveStar VDM into the mix.
That's my company.
Show you how to.
First, we would assess yourcurrent stack, your technical
stack, what is it you're tryingto accomplish, and then make
those integrations for you, andthen you understand your ongoing
(10:11):
costs that you're going to have.
But over time, especially ifyou don't even have an AI system
today, this is going to help toelevate you right.
A lot of people are using thisfor e-commerce to personalize a
lot of their campaigns, right.
So they're going to see a bigincrease instead of having those
abandoned carts.
They're seeing right now sortof certain records or metrics.
(10:34):
They're seeing about a 27percent uptake.
Also, on SAG, if you're atechnological startup company,
startup company, right, you're aSaaS provider and you want to
cut down on the qualificationtime it takes, you know, to grow
your pipeline, right now we'reseeing that instead of four
hours of work, about 30 minutesCan you just do the comparison
(10:56):
that four hours to do the samething, you can do it now in 30
minutes to grow your pipeline.
So that's about a 3x, 4x, 5x injust 90 days if you deploy it
successfully.
A lot of consulting firms, verysimilar to mine they're doing
automated research.
So they deploy agentic AIagents, automated research
(11:18):
agents to then find qualifiedprospects to fit the profile
that we're looking for.
Your ideal client profile canthen be found using these agent
AIs.
And then I always employ people.
Get to a human-to-humaninteraction as quickly as
possible.
You don't always want to insertthe AI as the component that's
(11:42):
talking directly with the humanfor very long.
You might do it initially andyou depend on what the
information that the human isrequiring.
You want to get out of the wayand bring yourself or someone to
bear to get that human-to-humaninteraction, because that's at
the conversion stage.
So, when it comes to buildingawareness, ai is very good.
(12:04):
An authentic AI is very, verygood.
When it comes to consideration,utilizing an AI agent is very,
very good, but at the point ofconversion, you want to have
that human-to-human interactionto make sure that you do that
reality check around that whenyou're implementing these type
of tools.
I would say that this is a goodquestion we're going to segue
(12:25):
into.
Implementation Is that peopleask well, how long does it take
to learn this kind of thing?
If you immerse yourself intobeing very intentional about
learning agentic AI and how youcan embed it into business
processes, into your technologystack, it's going to take only
about two to three weeks tobecome proficient in most
(12:48):
no-code tools that I talkedabout earlier about two to three
weeks.
So if you double down for aboutat least a month let's give
yourself a month you're going tobe proficient enough to deploy
a lot of these tools yourself,right?
So you want to make sure thatyou've got your website analytic
tools up right.
If you're using MonsterInsights or Google Analytics.
(13:08):
Make sure you have thatavailable and if you have a CRM,
that's going to be even betterto utilize it, bringing those
two things like a HubSpot.
You've got your MailChimp.
Now you want to startintegrating these things
together.
So your Zapier, your HubSpot,your Salesforce connectors they
can reduce a lot of thecomplexity when you're trying to
build these things out.
(13:29):
So you've got to look at yourown tech stack.
Where you're at where you're atnow, where is it housed?
How can you then access it?
And then bringing theseentities to talk to one another,
and then having like avoice-like interface between you
and your AI, your agentic AIassistant that you can talk to
just like you would any otherassistant that you may have to
(13:51):
bring you information andinsight to you directly to your
business, so that you'respending quality time in front
of your clients and not, as Isaid earlier in this discussion,
taking the time that you'redoing a lot of busy work behind
the scenes that's sucking upyour time.
That are not revenue generatingtype applications that you
(14:14):
should be doing in your business, right?
So I want to make sure thatthat's clear.
You're starting to get anunderstanding of the why.
You're starting to get a betterunderstanding of the how.
Now you're getting a betterunderstanding, and I'll start to
break this down when you startlooking at what can go wrong.
What is the risk factor.
You know you got to look atthis thing right.
(14:37):
So there are some limitationsthat you need to be aware of.
Like, agents can't replacehuman strategy and relationships
.
I'm going to say that againAgentic AI cannot replace human
strategy and relationships.
Remember that is not the pointof what you're using the agentic
AI for.
You want it in the background,running a lot of the business
(15:00):
operations that you don't havethe time than what you're not
customer facing.
So when you're getting into ahuman-facing type application,
you want to be in front of thatperson.
Nothing replaces HI, which ishuman intelligence.
Right, you got to remember whatkind of data do you have?
You have to really look at yourdata, because if data is poor,
(15:22):
that's going to be a problem,right?
Because your outputs are goingto be poor and if you have
oversight on that, you're justmultiplying mistakes.
So you have to make sure thatyour data sets that you're
integrating and that you'reutilizing to make decisions on
is accurate, right?
So you got to make sure youhave backup plans behind that,
(15:42):
because if you just let it runand you just don't oversight,
the human in the loop has got tobe able to approve what is
happening, especially if it'scustomer-facing and if there's
some kind of failback a manualfailback that you might have to
go to just in case it starts tohave certain problems.
So you want to avoid these kindsof problems know what you're
(16:04):
doing, understand when you'vegot to bring a third-party tech
provider to help you, becauseyou don't want to pigeonhole
yourself into a problem whereyou've self-automated and then
it's out of control becauseyou're not taking the time and
putting the protections that areneeded to make sure that the
(16:24):
information that you're givingout is going to be accurate,
right, and there are, withinthese stacks, a lot of security
and compliance considerations aswell.
If you're workinginternationally, there's GDPR,
ccpa that's going to ensure thatyour data is correct and you
have deletion right.
So if you've got to go in andchange things, you've got to
(16:45):
make sure is this going to upsetthe integrations that you have.
At some point, as you getdeeper and deeper into this, you
will need someone like myself,who understands technology and
has been able to implement thissolution for you at scale to
help you to mitigate some ofthese problems.
If you get into HIPAA whetherit's in healthcare or FINRA
(17:09):
within finance these are thingsyou need to understand a lot of
if you could get out of it forwhatever reason, right?
So make sure that youunderstand what you're doing.
The other thing anytime youintroduce anything new into a
business, there's always goingto be the buy-in factor, right?
(17:31):
Do the people in theorganization want to do this?
Are they going to adapt thetechnology?
Because if they do not adaptthe technology, the actual
implementation will fail.
There's no doubt about it.
If they do not adopt thetechnology, the actual
implementation will fail.
There's no doubt about it.
Probably over 70% to 80% oftechnology that is implemented,
especially at enterprise levels,they fail because of user
(17:53):
adoption.
They just don't buy into it andthey don't use it.
So you don't get the ROI.
So you want to frame this in theright way, just like in
yourself, if you're asolopreneur, you want to frame
(18:24):
this as an assistant, not areplacement.
It's not there to replace you,it's there to augment what
you're doing.
If I can do something quicker,faster, better, why wouldn't you
do that?
That is the point of doing that.
What can get me in front of myclient faster?
What can get me in front ofrevenue generating activities
faster?
That's what you want to look at.
So it's not replacing youyourself or your employee that
you have.
You want to give them anassistant to assist them.
That's very, very important.
You want to assign a lot ofcheckpoints in this application.
So, again, if it's human tohuman interactions or you want
(18:47):
that human in the loop, you wantto make sure, before it takes
that next critical step towardimplementation, that someone
approves it.
So you're looking at it.
A lot of times when I'm puttingin prompts into AI or chat CPT,
I'm getting some content back.
I need to review that content Alot of times.
(19:09):
I'll use a different LLM, likecloud, and I use them in tandem
and have them look at thecontent back and forth to get it
to a point where it's at alevel that I can make it human
facing, point where it's at alevel that I can make it human
facing.
So the human in the loop is very, very important because you've
(19:30):
got to be accountable and takeyou have to take ownership of
the AI workflow and what itdelivers.
There's no.
Well, I'm going to point thatover there.
That was your problem.
Ultimately, it is on you, justlike when you're driving a
vehicle right, you're driving acar.
You are accountable if thatvehicle then damages someone
else's property or something tothat effect.
You are accountable for your AIworkflow and make sure you have
(19:54):
that human in the loop for anykind of sign-up or approval
checkpoint before it leaves yourorganization and starts
touching someone else.
Very, very important.
And you want to pilot a lot ofthese things before you start
replacing your legacy processthat you've done before to make
sure that it's working properlyand that you have 100%
(20:16):
confidence on what it'sdelivering so important.
And then you want to be able tomeasure this type of framework
and what I call advancedmeasurement framework, with KPIs
key performance indicatorsRight.
You want to be able to look atthese things beyond just what I
(20:38):
call the basics.
You want to see what the salescycle now looks with and without
AI, and is it going to deliverthe result that you need it to
do.
What is your customersatisfaction metrics right?
Your net promoter scores Is itlifting, is it changing?
You want to be able to measurethese things and also your
(20:59):
customer lifetime value.
Your CLV Very, very importantto track all these things from a
baseline of before and thenafter your AI.
Augmented workflows are inproduction.
You will review this weekly,monthly, to make sure that you
see the uptake and that it'sdelivering the value that you
(21:20):
have.
Right?
So very important to do allthese things.
I do all these things through mybrave framework, because if you
have a framework, you know youhave the basics of a process and
the implementation model tomake sure you're not going to be
making major mistakes.
So you want to first identifyyour brand.
(21:41):
What is it you're trying toachieve?
What is the goal, the end inmind?
What does that look like?
Have you done your research?
Make sure your research is onpoint.
You research these differenttools.
You see what they're deliveringfor other people.
What are the results?
Are they factual?
Can they be applied to yourbusiness?
Then you start looking at yourassets.
(22:01):
Right, what are the assets thatI need to accomplish my goal?
Is it going to be authentic?
Can I use it all the time?
Is it going to be able to be infront of my audience, and I can
be confident about that?
And then can I make it visibleand does it?
Is it, will it deliver valueand does it have volume and
(22:22):
velocity Very important Then.
Can I execute on that plandaily?
Is it ease of use for me?
All these things are very, veryimportant when you're looking
at a framework that you're notgoing to replace what you're
already doing today.
And you're doing this so youcan scale, so you can grow the
business to the next level, soas a day.
(22:42):
And you're doing this so youcan scale, so you can grow the
business to the next level.
So, as a blueprint, I will giveyou this as a 30-day pilot
blueprint, to use a Gentic AI.
So in your first week or two,you want to audit all your
inefficiencies, meaning yourcurrent state.
You want to take a look at that.
You want to make it concrete.
(23:03):
You want to select a use casewithin your business that'll set
a baseline.
What is it that you want to do?
What that will deliver value?
Do you want to automatescheduling?
Do you want to automate anykind of email applications that
then bring it back to yourattention immediately?
How do you augment your thingsthat you're doing for what you
(23:25):
have for email?
Today, you start to identifywhat's important for you that's
going to get you in front ofyour client faster, quicker,
better, right, that'll be in thefirst two weeks.
Just do an assessment of thebusiness that can potentially be
automated at a certain pointthat delivers better business
value.
(23:45):
This could be customerexperience, it could be in
financial metrics, it could bein business operations, sales
and marketing.
All these things you need totake a look at and that, what
can I do to make it moreefficient?
And then, later in that month,in like weeks three and four,
you want to start, I would say,piloting and deploying these
(24:09):
no-code agents with oversight.
You want to monitor the outputsthat you're getting.
First in a pilot, this is whata lot of people do.
First you have to have a testpad, right.
You have a proof of concept, soyou put it in more or less a
lab.
You see how it can work beforeyou put it into production,
(24:30):
right, so you want to take thatnote code that I talked about
earlier, whether it's Zapier,it's Agent, gpt or the like that
you're going to then deploy andthen automate and augment some
of these processes that are inyour business.
And then you're going to startmeasuring all these things.
Track the time saved.
(24:51):
So it's factual for you, right.
Track the time saved, track theconversions that you have, like
, hey, I'm starting to see moreand more opportunities close, or
I'm starting to see mypipelines getting filled quicker
and quicker because I'veautomated some of these
processes within what I'm doing.
It could be as simple as youknow what it takes me to create
(25:15):
a PowerPoint.
Today, a PowerPoint deck takesme anywhere for some people,
four to eight hours or maybeeven more, depending on what
that is.
If I can then take that and dothat now within seconds, minutes
or an hour, that's anincredible win, and you can do
that with tools.
(25:35):
Here's another tool that I'vebeen using a lot.
It's called gamma G-A-M-M-A dotA-P-P.
You can generate a PowerPoint,a professional PowerPoint
presentation, within seconds,basically, professional
PowerPoint presentation withinseconds, basically.
But you have to give it theright information for it to
(25:57):
build it, to spec yourspecification, so it's
delivering the communicationthat you're looking forward to
do, right?
So these are types of thingsthat you can do.
This takes something that takesup a lot of time.
That takes up a lot of time,but it's simple to then automate
by using some of these toolsthat you can deliver at scale.
Very, very important to do thisNow, after you've got it
(26:21):
deployed and you feel thatyou're at a point that you can
move it even further.
That's when you begin to look atall right, how do I scale this
right?
And you better start looking ata what do you call it?
A post-pilot scaling roadmap,something you now deployed it.
Now you want to take a look atit even more.
(26:42):
So this is further down theroad months two through six.
You've got it deployed.
You understand what the problemthat it solved.
You've deployed it.
It is starting to solve thatproblem right Now.
You're looking in two to sixmonths.
What do you want to then take alook at?
You want to expand, potentiallyinto other parts of your
(27:03):
business that you want to scaleright Sales, marketing, customer
service that you want to getmore use cases to deploy this
type of technology.
Within six to 12 months, like ayear, you want to build your
internal AI competency, trainother people how to utilize
these tools.
(27:23):
It is becoming more and moreimperative to people to
understand.
Just like you learn how to useExcel, you learn how to use
Microsoft Word, you learn how touse PowerPoint, these types of
tools you learn the Google SuiteYou're going to have to learn
these AI tools just like that,and that comes from just
(27:45):
utilizing them and understandingthat you're now building a
cross-functional AI playbook,that you've got AI embedded now
in your business processes atscale.
So within six to 12 months youwant to be at this level.
So when you start even looking,projecting out and forecasting
a couple of years out, you startlooking at your strategic AI
(28:08):
integration across youroperations, across your finance,
across your HR and yourcustomer support.
You will be growing.
There is no doubt about it, ifyou follow this type of playbook
and you deploy the rightresources to get you to your
desired state.
And note this when things gowrong and technology always you
(28:31):
will have some type of hiccupsthat are along the way and you
have to mitigate for thesethings.
So don't think you just set itand forget it.
You can set it and forget itfor a while, but just like
sometimes your car has a problem, you have to take it to a
mechanic, these things are goingto happen.
So when things go wrong, youwant to have like a
troubleshooting guide.
(28:52):
What do I do in case somethinggoes wrong?
Right, and these technologicallimits, you know, or issues?
They do come up, but they'redata, sync errors, reset
integrations.
How are you going to checkthese logs?
And then, what is the toolsupport?
That you have the vendor helpdesk.
That you have the vendor helpdesk.
That you have these thingshappen.
(29:13):
Your internet goes out.
You're going to call somebody.
They got to come back, they gotto come out.
They've got to be able to helpyou within a certain standpoint.
But at the same time, what isyour plan B?
What is your plan C?
Did you have a port that youcan deploy as customer facing to
keep things in operation?
People understand that thingshappen.
(29:33):
They're not going to be like,oh, I'm not going to do business
with you anymore because all ofa sudden, your tech is down.
They understand that you'regoing to come back up, that they
don't want to go for hours,days, months.
That's not going to happen.
Or you're consistentlydelivering an experience that's
flawed.
That's going to be a problem.
So you want to make sure whatyour tool support looks like.
You want to identify yourtechnological entities.
(29:56):
You want to create a communityaround what you've got.
If you're utilizing OpenAI,you're utilizing Zapier, you
want to have these forums thatother people are utilizing these
tools that you can then beginto tap into their knowledge base
.
Like, hey, when you deploy this, did you experience this?
I deploy this, I experiencedthat.
(30:18):
Remember, it goes both ways.
If you find something thatworks, share with other people
and vice versa.
So you're creating community.
You're creating tool support,meaning you're creating
community.
You're creating tool support,you're identifying your
technical issues and then youunderstand your decision points.
So, if you have to scale back,if the ROI starts to drop, you
(30:39):
start to deploy the tool.
It sounded great at the time,it looked like it was working,
and this happens a lot.
People are like, oh, this wasnew and they start engaging with
it and then, as they engagewith it, they stop, they start
to slow down on that engagement.
So, if you keep going becauseyou thought you had that initial
bump and then and then itstarts to drop off, you need to
(30:59):
pivot, you need to understand,you need to have business
agility, you have to haveflexibility in what you're doing
and understanding, because thisis still a lot of work in
process and it may have workedfor a little bit of time, but
not, uh, on long term, and it'shard to discern that until you
get deeper into it, you know.
(31:21):
So all of these things you haveto take in consideration.
And then, one of the mostimportant things you want to
look at is your competitivedifferentiation.
How are you competing in themarket with these new tools?
That is gold, and you want tobe able to say is this giving me
a leg up over my competition?
(31:44):
Am I a first mover?
Do I have first mover advantagewhen it comes to capturing
market share over others?
Do I have proprietary data?
Do I have intellectual IP now?
Do I have intellectual assetsthat I can now deploy?
Do I have a built-out customercustom data set that I can
(32:05):
actually sell to other people?
I've created a new revenuestream for myself.
This is very important, becausenow you have a unique IP that
you did not have before.
So you start to look at whatyou can actually do and operate
in all these things.
So what are your next steps?
I'd say identify repetitive andtime-consuming tasks.
(32:29):
Do that first.
Identify repetitive andtime-consuming tasks.
Choose one of these no-codetools that fits your workflow
Agent GPT, agent GPT that Italked about earlier, right,
perplexity.
These things are very, veryimportant.
(32:50):
Zapier, how can you thenintegrate your if you're using
ChatGPT into your businessprocess using integration tools
and then launch a 30-day pilotproject right and then document
everything that you have done soyou can scale across a lot of
your other business processes.
(33:10):
So, so important Once you startgetting into this and you start
to realize you know what.
Maybe this is not my particularskill set.
I need to understand thesethings, but I need somebody to
help me first get started.
This is where you contact 5Star BDM that's 5 Star B for
brand, b for development excuseme, d for development,
(33:30):
infomasterscom and you contactme for your business development
and your marketing needs.
I would do a 30-minuteassessment call with you.
We'll talk about where you'reat, what you potentially could
use to automate your particularbusiness.
We need to first identify whatare potential problems in your
(33:51):
business that are limiting youwhen it comes to revenue
generating type activity.
This is probably the number oneproblem within small businesses
today.
Why do they close their doorswithin those first five years?
Ultimately, it comes down torevenue.
They're not generating the typeof business that they need to
(34:13):
sustain themselves.
So their business and theirrevenue generating activities
are not in sync, they're notaligned and they can't
concentrate on everything.
I can't do sales and marketing,you know 80% of the time and
just run the business 20 formany delivering on the product
(34:34):
or service that you have.
20% of the time it's not goingto work.
You start to understand whatyou can do when you're first
starting out with limitedcapital, limited budget.
What can I do to augment this,to do some automations in my
sales and marketing, to generatebusiness, to generate revenue,
and then I can deliver on thatparticular product or service
(34:54):
that I have at scale.
Then I can do this even myself.
I'm using contract service orI'm going to hire an FTA, which
is a full-time person, into mybusiness.
All these things are important.
I'm giving you this playbookbecause this is the greatest
opportunity for small businessand I'm talking micro businesses
(35:16):
for one person, two to 10person businesses or up to 50
employees to compete at a muchhigher level than they ever
could before.
They are projecting right nowthat we will experience,
probably in the next three tofive years, the first one person
billion dollar business.
Think about that.
(35:37):
Think about that.
You're listening to me.
Right now.
You're one person and as oneperson, you can generate a
billion dollar business, I mean,operate a billion dollar
business utilizing this type ofmethodology, this type of
mindset, this type of tool setand having this kind of skill
set.
You need to acquire theartificial intelligence skill
(36:01):
sets in order to compete in thisnew digital world, so so
important to do that.
Again, I want to thank you thismorning for listening to me on
the Black Business Network andwhat we are doing from a mission
standpoint, to deploy andenable our businesses to compete
(36:24):
at a much higher level, toexpand and rebuild Black Wall
Street so important andunderstand that the Black
Business Expo's mission is toraise funds for high school
seniors going to college or K-12entrepreneurs.
This expo is a fundraiser forstudents and you may go to
wwwblackbusinessexpousacom todonate to the scholarship fund
(36:47):
or use the Cash App that is onthe screen below.
That is dollar sign BBX USA.
Our goal is to give laptops andup to $5,000 to 10 students and
students.
You can register online atwwwblackbusinessexpousacom.
Every dollar counts.
So we want to remind you todonate to the scholarship fund
(37:11):
and we want to thank our BlackBusiness Expo USA sponsors for
August 2025.
And they do include NC100,moody Capital Partners, suede
Soul, lotus, fouché, coachingand Training.
Carolina, virginia MinoritySupplier Development Council.
Step Management, the Hello LLC.
Barbara H Smith LLC.
(37:32):
Margie McLean FoundationIncorporated.
Genius is Common, earthEssentials, melania, shana
Global.
Five Star, bdm Media Banks LLC.
Executive Women's SuccessInstitute.
The Quality Coaching Company.
Superwoman Business Services.
Creative 4 Studios.
Lee Entertainment Artistic AppDesign.
Black Business Expo USA Geniusis Common.
One of business servicescreated for studios lee
entertainment artistic appdesign.
Black business expo usa geniusis common and I will see you on
(37:56):
the other side.
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