November 12, 2024 • 20 mins
Can AI tools really transform your small business into a powerhouse of efficiency and innovation? Join us as we talk with our Marketing Director, Jon Portanova, and learn how AI is not just a tech buzzword but a valuable ally for your small business. From video editing to social media strategies, we’ll share real-world examples of how these advanced tools can optimize operations and support your growth journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Small Business Big World, our weekly
podcast prepared by the team atPaper Trails.
Owning and running a smallbusiness is hard.
Each week, we'll dive into thechallenges, headaches, trends,
fun and excitement of running asmall business.
After all, small businesses arethe heartbeat of America and
our team is here to keep thembeating.
Welcome to Small Business BigWorld, our weekly podcast
(00:23):
talking about all of the miseryof running a small business.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's not so bad.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's not so bad.
Most days it's great.
Actually, you know what?
I went home Monday and I saidtoday was a good day.
We had a lot of wins.
We had a new employee start,worked out great, closed a big
deal.
Everyone was firing on allcylinders.
I didn't have any grumpyemployees.
I didn't have grumpy clients.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Monday was a good day calendars.
I didn't have any grumpyemployees.
I didn't have grumpy clients.
Monday was a good day.
And then you got that 9 pmphone call from a client.
No, no, not even, not even.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Good it was great See , so it's not always misery.
Sometimes there's some goodstuff with running a small
business, and that's what we'rehere to talk about today is how
to make your life a littleeasier in small business by
using AI artificial intelligence.
Right, that's today's JohnPortanova happy to be back
marketing director here.
He's coming back for the thirdtime, I think, here with us.
Welcome back.
You know we have we've beenemploying some AI tools here at
(01:11):
Paper Trails.
We figured we'd share thosewith you just to give you an
idea of how small businesses canuse it right and go from there.
But before we get into the meatand potatoes, I have to do my
duty as host.
John will yell at me if I don't.
First, I want to thank everyonefor listening and remember
please like, share, rate, review, follow, subscribe all of those
fun things.
Please help us rank a littlebetter.
Please help us grow the podcastfor more listeners like you who
(01:35):
are enjoying this.
We are everywhere on socialmedia that you would probably
think about finding someone likeus, right?
We're on all the socialplatforms.
We are on all of the podcastplatforms, so check us out, tell
your friends, please.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
You didn't have to read that, you got it memorized.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm getting pretty good at it.
We're 30 something episodes in.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think we're going through it we're doing pretty
good.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So if we talk about something today, you have a
question about it or any of ourepisodes, certainly feel free to
email us podcast atpapertrailscom and we will be
happy to either get you ananswer or get you in the right
direction.
So, ai, john, I think a lot offolks, small businesses in
particular probably maybe alittle scared about using AI.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Right, the rise of the machines Like Terminator,
taking us over in a couple ofyears.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
But the good thing so far is that, with the AI tools
that are out there, you stillhave to have some human
interaction right.
You can't just there's not, setit and forget it.
It's pretty impressive whatthese things can do for us, but
you still have to be controlling.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Right, right, and it's funny that you just real
quick.
It's funny that you said thatpeople are scared of it.
I was at we were at aconference a couple months ago
and there was a presentation onAI and it started off by showing
us a TV and people were scaredwhen the TV came out.
A radio people were scared whenthe radio came out.
The internet when the internetcame out, people, what's this
going to do?
So not that AI might be alittle bit scary in some of
(02:58):
those things, but I think peopleare apprehensive at first when
new technologies like this comeout, until they feel or learn
how they can leverage it to helpthem out.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, one of the fears is that it's going to take
jobs.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Right, which, like you had talked about, right now
we still need a human to kind ofmanipulate it.
So, at least for now, and Ithink going forward, it's not
going to really replace jobsbecause we're going to still
need that human to manipulate it.
I think it's just going to helpmake people's jobs that much
easier and more efficient, right.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I mean, that's how we use it.
Yeah, and you know not onlythat, as things have evolved,
new careers have evolved, withthat right, the requirement of
managing these types of toolshas been there, right, I mean,
christ, we had, you know, tv,but when there was first TV, now
, look at the industry that TVhas created, right, the industry
that radio has created, theindustry that the internet has
(03:47):
created.
Along with that, and there isindustry following into, the AI
tools.
You know, I mean Apple isputting AI on all of our phones.
We've got, you know, all of thesoftware tools that we use our
CRM, our graphic design software, everything is now
incorporating some sort of AI inthere, and you know that's kind
(04:07):
of the times that are comingand you know, not even the
companies that exist today, butthere's so many new companies
coming out every day based onsoftware.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know that is AI run.
I get it.
You know sales emails every daysaying, oh, use this software,
we can help, you know, edit yourvideo, make it sound better, we
can help do your podcast.
So there's again there's newbusinesses coming out, so it's
actually even potentiallycreating some businesses and
some jobs.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, I think you know certainly we've embraced it
.
And again I come down to theefficiency piece of it.
Right, we're busy, we have alot of clients, we have a lot of
work to get done, we have a lotof goals to meet, and you know
how do we use these tools.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
What are out?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
there, you know, in marketing, in your role, largely
you know I know you're usingthese tools so that you don't
have to work as hard right, youcan spend more time on the golf
course.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's hard to not work hard when you don't work hard.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
No, I'm kidding, I didn't say that, but you know
what tools are you using and howare you using them for
marketing.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So yeah, I mean we're going to kind of focus a lot
here on marketing.
But AI is used across allfacets of business, but in terms
of marketing, you know, the bigone is just chat GPT.
What I would do is help.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And probably the most well-known.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, 100%, Probably the most well-known, right yeah
100% and you know I would $20 amonth.
Well, there's a free version.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
There's a free version which is a little bit
more outdated, as I understand.
Maybe, not quite assophisticated.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, but even for the $20 a month, it's a pretty
cheap price, I think, for thevalue you get out of it because
it saves so much time.
So if I'm looking to create 100social media posts for all of
our accounts before AI thatwould generally take me hours to
do.
That's going to that would.
Before AI, that would generallytake me hours to do.
You know, I got to create aFacebook post, an Instagram post
(05:49):
, all that kind of thing.
Now with AI, I can just say, hey, create me a hundred Facebook
posts based on payroll, taxes orwhatever the topic is, and
within minutes I have a hundredposts.
Now, yes, I do have to go backinto each post and just quickly
kind of scan it and making surethat it's speaking to our brand
identity, it's speaking to, um,you know, the, the customers
we're looking to attract.
If they put any statistics inthere, then yeah, they're,
(06:11):
they're true statistics.
We want to fact check that, butbut it's just saving me.
You know, like I said, it wouldtake me hours.
Now it only kind of takes meone hour.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So it's so much time, so 100% blog posts, most of our
blog.
You're at least getting anoutline for a blog post to help
you kind of organize yourthoughts, right.
What?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I can do is I can find some information on the
internet.
I can have it summarize thatinformation for me and then I
can say write me an outline forwhatever the article is, and
it'll provide me an outline andthen what I can go in and just
fill in under each of thosesections in the outline.
Just generating ideas is hugeand if you're a hospitality
business out there, I know mybrother's a chef and he'll use
(06:50):
it to help him create some ideasfor his menus.
He says you know, I have steak,I have mushrooms and I have
onions, and create me 10 recipeswith these three ingredients.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Other than chicken marsala, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Or steak marsala, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Those weren't great ingredient examples, but it just
.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Is that what you're having for dinner?
Is that why you came up withthis?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I don't know, but it's past lunchtime so I am
hungry.
It just helps that ideageneration say you know?
Again, it would take him hoursto write 10 menu items,
different menu items, and now ittakes him minutes.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think the other thing with ChatGPT is you have
to put a little more energy intoit, right?
You have to say act as amarketing director for a small
business, use this tone of voice, think about these things,
include these things, don'tinclude these things.
Your quote-unquote prompt iswhat will drive what you get
back, right?
I mean, it's kind of thegarbage in, garbage out theory
right.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
From a marketing standpoint definitely, prompts
are huge.
Act as a marketer for a smallbusiness.
You might want to put in therewhat your customer, your ideal
customer, is, their pain points,how you want to speak to them,
their tone, and then it'll, youknow, generate you what it
generates you.
But then you've got to go backin again and manipulate, take
out this so it's not taking awaythese jobs, at least right now,
(08:07):
because there's someone behindthe computer actually typing in
these prompts.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Right.
So that's ChatGPT.
We use it for a lot, forgenerating job descriptions.
We were updating our jobdescriptions.
I said, hey, this is what kindof company we are, we need a job
description to do this role.
We had to take it.
We had to manipulate it to ourformat and our culture and put
in our benefits, information andso forth.
But I can't say that I did that, john did that last week and I
(08:33):
actually spent three hourswriting half a dozen job
descriptions.
And I spent three minuteswriting a job description and it
was not quite as good this isthe one you asked me to do,
chatgpt, and I did it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
ChatGPT is my new best friend.
Right In five minutes, rightRight.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
No.
So I mean, I think even on theoperations side of things, right
, we've used, you know, theChachi Petit for things I mean
again, job descriptions.
Our HR consultant will use itto help her generate some
policies and procedures andthings like that, for not only
us but also for our clients.
Right, it's a lot easier atleast to build the shell and
then you put the specifics inright.
I need to create a PTO policyfor a company of this size in
(09:09):
this state, with theserequirements and this and that,
and come back and you know it'llgive you at least the framework
for you to go in and customizefrom there 100% yeah, so we use
that.
We use ChatGPT across theorganization.
I mean write me a letter, Imean for the podcast, when I
guest come on.
I said write me a letter tothank my guests for coming on.
I thank you email for coming onto the show and it wrote that
(09:32):
it gave me what I needed and Ihad to make a few tweaks and
personalize a little bit, but Ididn't have to do anything.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Right, and if you're a service business and you can,
you can use those emailworkflows.
You can say create me 10 emails.
That I'm, you know, dripcampaign.
I'm going to be sending off onea week and the good thing is I
get it again and keep saying theidea generation.
But I think after three or fouremails you'd probably run out
of things to write about.
But a chat GPT is going to comein and, you know, use that
human learning that it's.
(09:58):
It's learned in the past andgive you a good idea for the
next email to send in your dripmarketing campaign.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So that's a lot of chat, gpt.
What other tools are we using?
For what are you using?
We have one for the podcastthat we use.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, so the one we use, the podcast, is called Opus
clip.
It helps turn these longpodcasts into short form content
videos.
All I literally have to do isupload the full file Within 15
minutes.
I think I have 30 differentshort form videos and, again,
just like ChatGPT, you have tokind of go in and maybe check
the captions.
(10:36):
They might be 99% accurate.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You got to check but it clips the video, it stacks
them or edits them.
I mean, our videos havemultiple angles things like that
.
It goes and smushes them alltogether, makes it look good.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And sometimes it might take a piece from five
minutes in the podcast and apiece from 20 minutes in and
smush them together, but theymake it flow good and it'll
start the video with a goodopening hook to get better
engagement on the video.
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It knows what people will engage with on social media
.
It says these are the top fiveclips that we think that you
should post.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
It gives you a score and everything that you should
post.
It gives you a score andeverything.
The higher the score, the moreexcited.
You get Right.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
We get hashtags, we get descriptions and again, you
still have to go manipulate someof that stuff, but you have to
go and make sure the captionsare correct, make sure the
hashtags are relevant or thingsthat you want to be tagging into
.
All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So we use that one.
We use Canva a lot for e-booksor posters or flyers, those kind
of things we put together, andthey have an AI tool in there to
help you create images.
All you have to do is put aprompt in.
You know, give me a stressedout small business owner behind
a pile of paperwork behind theirdesk.
Next thing, you know, you havekind of a little cartoony image,
or sometimes you can even get apretty realistic looking image
(11:44):
of that description that you canuse across your website and
your content.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
But even in Canva you uploaded some headshots that we
did that I, you know my, mycrappy headshots that I just
took, you know, here in theoffice it went in and fixed the
lighting and fixed, you know,made sure you didn't have the
background right, the red eyeand all that kind of thing right
, and you didn't.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I mean it was done.
I have to do the little um tabsup and down and all that.
It does it for you in in like30 seconds Makes you look skinny
, that's the Ozempic filter.
Exactly the Kardashians wouldlove that one.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But I mean again, rather than you going into
Photoshop and spending 10minutes truly manipulating a
photo, it did it in five seconds.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Right, and if you don't have an expertise in a
certain area, like I, might notbe the best photo editor out
there, but the AI does a reallygood job and really quick.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Right, what else?
What else do you get going onfor AI?
Those are the big ones, right.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Those are the big ones I think that we use on a
daily basis.
But going back to our CRMHubSpot, I mean they have AI in
their tool and if I need anemail written, I can write you
know.
Hey, chris, how's it goingtoday?
Did you read my article yet?
Have you reviewed my articleyet?
And then I can just clickexpand and AI could make that
two-sentence email 300, 400words if I wanted to.
It can change the tone, make itsound more professional.
(12:58):
So generally my content doesn'tsound professional.
They could make it sound thatway educational, funny, because
I'm not funny, so it can help mewith that, those kind of things
.
It's, it's powerful.
So any software that we usetoday I think across the board
has some ai feature in there andit's more and more and more,
yeah, every day.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean even our, even our payroll software started to
introduce some ai, you know, inthat including.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
You probably have more to say about that, but I
know like they have itintegrated in their predictive
analytics so you can predict outfuture things.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
All ai I was saying that's kind of one of the other
operational things.
We don't do this as much, butyou can give AI tremendous
amounts of data and say this iswhat I'm looking for, right, I'm
looking for this outcome andyou know I'm looking for this
specific decision point.
Right, I want to know theaverage age of every employee
that works for all of my clientsor whatever right or average
(13:50):
rate of pay.
It can take that and what wouldtake a human a long time to
aggregate that data and figure?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
it out.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It'll give you responses very quickly.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And accurate responses.
Right For the most part.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, exactly, Well, that's where I was going next.
Actually so accurate for themost part, but we do.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
In terms of the predicting, like the things you
were saying in our I solvedRight.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So certainly one of the pitfalls I think that people
worry about the most or peoplehave seen the most in AI stuff
is, like they call it,hallucinations, and I would say
when it gets things wrong, itgets things like really bad.
Yeah, it just goes for it, youend up having like an extra
appendage, or you know six toes,or you know if you're doing a
(14:34):
video, a graphic one again.
You may say, show me thisdressed out worker behind the
desk.
For some reason they may havesix fingers, something like that
.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I don't know if it's been updated recently, but I
know, yeah, a month or so ago.
They always had trouble withfingers, hands.
You get an extra hand, an extrafinger somehow.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So if you're doing AI images, make sure you're
checking it for accuracy or it'sgoing to, or come back and you
know, say the red sox.
You know their home stadium is,you know, dodger stadium or
whatever uh it's, it definitelyhas its hiccups.
Uh, it's not perfect, right?
So no matter what you areproducing, if you're putting
that out there the humaninteraction still needs to be
the fact check.
Still, you said if it's sayingyou know 97 marketing directors
(15:16):
are lazy, make sure youfact-check that right.
Put your bibliography in there.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I'm in the 97%.
No, definitely fact-check it.
I think it still owes me $1,000on the 49ers winning the Super
Bowl last year and that didn'thappen, so it's not 100% right,
but it does a really good job,just as long as you spend a few
minutes to fact check it andmanipulate it the way you want
it to sound for your business.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
You know the other thing that you know we use the
things that we use ChatGPT forare generally not proprietary or
private information.
But there are a lot of ethicalconcerns about the data security
of things that are going intothese products, so we are not
putting you know any clientinformation in there, and even
client names.
You know, forget any of thatkind of stuff.
The things that we're using itfor really are the things that
(16:02):
are public-facing anyway, it'sinformation.
Our marketing are things thataren't proprietary, aren't going
to be out there.
If someone gets a hold of them,it's not the end of the world,
right.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
And it's information that's already out there.
We're just asking it tosummarize it and provide it to
us in a much faster time than wewould go out there and find it
Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Nothing personal, nothing like that Right, no
socials, no bank accounts.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
We're probably not asking for any legal advice
either.
You know things like that,right.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Same thing and actually, you know, I was
talking to our attorney and Isaid well, gosh, your job just
got really easy.
It from this bank for this forthat.
And he's like well, that'sstill not that easy.
Right, it's not good it might besomeday, but you know,
paralegals jobs might be at risk, but who knows?
But you know, those are typesof real concerns as well, as is
(16:49):
the the sensitivity of data thatyou're pushing through there,
Especially if it's not your ownproprietary AI technology.
If you're using one of theseopen source tools or something
like that, you want to make sureyou're not using that.
If you're using one of theseopen source tools or something
like that, you want to make sureyou're not using that.
And then it's the ethical piece.
I think there's a lot ofethical questions and concerns
about using these tools, whetherit's job replacement or even
the machine learning, and how dowe handle that and manage that
and make sure that it isn'tTerminator 2.0 or Terminator in
(17:12):
real life?
I think that's definitely a bigconcern that a lot of people
have too.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think, as say, a consumer,
just be kind of aware that ananswer or something that you
could be reading might beAI-generated too, so it wouldn't
be necessarily 100%.
You've got to trust it.
You might still have to gofact-check that yourself, even
if someone's sending you thisinformation or you're reading an
article and we fact-check ours.
So I want to say most of theAI-generated stuff out there is
accurate from what we put outthere, but someone might not
fact-check their AI and justcopy and paste it right on their
(17:47):
website, so it might not beaccurate.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Well, and there's the weaponization of AI right.
I mean, we know that there aretools for voice recognition and
using that and creating gosh.
The election's coming up.
Everyone's worried aboutelection fraud using AI right,
because the AI tools are reallygood.
And gosh, there's going to besome inflammatory comment that
Joe Biden makes or that DonaldTrump makes that could be or
(18:09):
they really didn't make that,they really didn't make right
that was literally created byRussia and thrown on Facebook
and becomes.
We know that these things go byreal fast.
So those are some of theethical concerns, right?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Using it for bad things, yeah, and this isn't
really our realm.
But I think eventually thereneeds to be some kind of you
know governmental oversight onit and some policies and
procedures put in place to kindof make sure it's being used in
an ethical way, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, good.
Well, that was a good quicklittle overview of AI stuff.
That's how we use things andcertainly you know not that
we're the model for anything,but I think it's nice to share
how we use it in our smallbusiness and maybe potentially
for other small businesses.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I definitely think all small businesses should use
it in one way or another,whether they use it a lot or a
little.
They use it a lot or a little,they use it just for idea
generation or to save time.
Definitely, just jump in andtry it out and I don't think it
could do any harm if you'reusing it appropriately and still
putting that human touch on it.
For sure, and I do think we'll,down the line, probably get
into it a little bit more detailin other episodes, but that's
(19:10):
just kind of a quick overview ofhow we use it in our small
business.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Absolutely so.
If people have questions aboutAI or how we're using it, how do
they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yep.
So john at papertrailscom.
That's J-O-N at papertrailscom.
Visit our website, Papertrails,our social media.
You can send us a message thereand then we have the email
podcast at papertrailscom.
If you have any questions orthoughts or other comments about
AI.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And you just did my outro for me.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, I didn't do the social part Like.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
follow share rate review subscribe.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There it is, there it is Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Thanks, everybody.
See you next week.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to thisweek's episode of Small Business
, big World.
This podcast is a production ofPaper Trails.
We are a payroll and HR companybased in Kennebunk, maine, and
we serve small and mid-sizedbusinesses.
Don't forget to follow us at atpaper trails payroll across all
social media platforms andcheck us out at paper trailscom
for more information.
As a reminder, the views,opinions and thoughts expressed
(20:01):
by the hosts and guests alone.
The material presented in thispodcast is for general
information purposes only andshould not be considered legal
or financial advice.
By inviting this guest to ourpodcast, paper Trails does not
imply endorsement of oropposition to any specific
individual, organization,product or service.
This is Small Business Big World, our weekly
podcast prepared by the team atPaper Trails.
Owning and running a smallbusiness is hard.
Each week, we'll dive into thechallenges, headaches, trends,
fun and excitement of running asmall business.
After all, small businesses arethe heartbeat of America and
our team is here to keep thembeating.
Welcome to Small Business BigWorld, our weekly podcast
(00:23):
talking about all of the miseryof running a small business.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's not so bad.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's not so bad.
Most days it's great.
Actually, you know what?
I went home Monday and I saidtoday was a good day.
We had a lot of wins.
We had a new employee start,worked out great, closed a big
deal.
Everyone was firing on allcylinders.
I didn't have any grumpyemployees.
I didn't have grumpy clients.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Monday was a good day calendars.
I didn't have any grumpyemployees.
I didn't have grumpy clients.
Monday was a good day.
And then you got that 9 pmphone call from a client.
No, no, not even, not even.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Good it was great See , so it's not always misery.
Sometimes there's some goodstuff with running a small
business, and that's what we'rehere to talk about today is how
to make your life a littleeasier in small business by
using AI artificial intelligence.
Right, that's today's JohnPortanova happy to be back
marketing director here.
He's coming back for the thirdtime, I think, here with us.
Welcome back.
You know we have we've beenemploying some AI tools here at
(01:11):
Paper Trails.
We figured we'd share thosewith you just to give you an
idea of how small businesses canuse it right and go from there.
But before we get into the meatand potatoes, I have to do my
duty as host.
John will yell at me if I don't.
First, I want to thank everyonefor listening and remember
please like, share, rate, review, follow, subscribe all of those
fun things.
Please help us rank a littlebetter.
Please help us grow the podcastfor more listeners like you who
(01:35):
are enjoying this.
We are everywhere on socialmedia that you would probably
think about finding someone likeus, right?
We're on all the socialplatforms.
We are on all of the podcastplatforms, so check us out, tell
your friends, please.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
You didn't have to read that, you got it memorized.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm getting pretty good at it.
We're 30 something episodes in.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think we're going through it we're doing pretty
good.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So if we talk about something today, you have a
question about it or any of ourepisodes, certainly feel free to
email us podcast atpapertrailscom and we will be
happy to either get you ananswer or get you in the right
direction.
So, ai, john, I think a lot offolks, small businesses in
particular probably maybe alittle scared about using AI.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Right, the rise of the machines Like Terminator,
taking us over in a couple ofyears.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
But the good thing so far is that, with the AI tools
that are out there, you stillhave to have some human
interaction right.
You can't just there's not, setit and forget it.
It's pretty impressive whatthese things can do for us, but
you still have to be controlling.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Right, right, and it's funny that you just real
quick.
It's funny that you said thatpeople are scared of it.
I was at we were at aconference a couple months ago
and there was a presentation onAI and it started off by showing
us a TV and people were scaredwhen the TV came out.
A radio people were scared whenthe radio came out.
The internet when the internetcame out, people, what's this
going to do?
So not that AI might be alittle bit scary in some of
(02:58):
those things, but I think peopleare apprehensive at first when
new technologies like this comeout, until they feel or learn
how they can leverage it to helpthem out.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, one of the fears is that it's going to take
jobs.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Right, which, like you had talked about, right now
we still need a human to kind ofmanipulate it.
So, at least for now, and Ithink going forward, it's not
going to really replace jobsbecause we're going to still
need that human to manipulate it.
I think it's just going to helpmake people's jobs that much
easier and more efficient, right.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I mean, that's how we use it.
Yeah, and you know not onlythat, as things have evolved,
new careers have evolved, withthat right, the requirement of
managing these types of toolshas been there, right, I mean,
christ, we had, you know, tv,but when there was first TV, now
, look at the industry that TVhas created, right, the industry
that radio has created, theindustry that the internet has
(03:47):
created.
Along with that, and there isindustry following into, the AI
tools.
You know, I mean Apple isputting AI on all of our phones.
We've got, you know, all of thesoftware tools that we use our
CRM, our graphic design software, everything is now
incorporating some sort of AI inthere, and you know that's kind
(04:07):
of the times that are comingand you know, not even the
companies that exist today, butthere's so many new companies
coming out every day based onsoftware.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know that is AI run.
I get it.
You know sales emails every daysaying, oh, use this software,
we can help, you know, edit yourvideo, make it sound better, we
can help do your podcast.
So there's again there's newbusinesses coming out, so it's
actually even potentiallycreating some businesses and
some jobs.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, I think you know certainly we've embraced it
.
And again I come down to theefficiency piece of it.
Right, we're busy, we have alot of clients, we have a lot of
work to get done, we have a lotof goals to meet, and you know
how do we use these tools.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
What are out?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
there, you know, in marketing, in your role, largely
you know I know you're usingthese tools so that you don't
have to work as hard right, youcan spend more time on the golf
course.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's hard to not work hard when you don't work hard.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
No, I'm kidding, I didn't say that, but you know
what tools are you using and howare you using them for
marketing.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So yeah, I mean we're going to kind of focus a lot
here on marketing.
But AI is used across allfacets of business, but in terms
of marketing, you know, the bigone is just chat GPT.
What I would do is help.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And probably the most well-known.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, 100%, Probably the most well-known, right yeah
100% and you know I would $20 amonth.
Well, there's a free version.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
There's a free version which is a little bit
more outdated, as I understand.
Maybe, not quite assophisticated.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, but even for the $20 a month, it's a pretty
cheap price, I think, for thevalue you get out of it because
it saves so much time.
So if I'm looking to create 100social media posts for all of
our accounts before AI thatwould generally take me hours to
do.
That's going to that would.
Before AI, that would generallytake me hours to do.
You know, I got to create aFacebook post, an Instagram post
(05:49):
, all that kind of thing.
Now with AI, I can just say, hey, create me a hundred Facebook
posts based on payroll, taxes orwhatever the topic is, and
within minutes I have a hundredposts.
Now, yes, I do have to go backinto each post and just quickly
kind of scan it and making surethat it's speaking to our brand
identity, it's speaking to, um,you know, the, the customers
we're looking to attract.
If they put any statistics inthere, then yeah, they're,
(06:11):
they're true statistics.
We want to fact check that, butbut it's just saving me.
You know, like I said, it wouldtake me hours.
Now it only kind of takes meone hour.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So it's so much time, so 100% blog posts, most of our
blog.
You're at least getting anoutline for a blog post to help
you kind of organize yourthoughts, right.
What?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I can do is I can find some information on the
internet.
I can have it summarize thatinformation for me and then I
can say write me an outline forwhatever the article is, and
it'll provide me an outline andthen what I can go in and just
fill in under each of thosesections in the outline.
Just generating ideas is hugeand if you're a hospitality
business out there, I know mybrother's a chef and he'll use
(06:50):
it to help him create some ideasfor his menus.
He says you know, I have steak,I have mushrooms and I have
onions, and create me 10 recipeswith these three ingredients.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Other than chicken marsala, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Or steak marsala, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Those weren't great ingredient examples, but it just
.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Is that what you're having for dinner?
Is that why you came up withthis?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I don't know, but it's past lunchtime so I am
hungry.
It just helps that ideageneration say you know?
Again, it would take him hoursto write 10 menu items,
different menu items, and now ittakes him minutes.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think the other thing with ChatGPT is you have
to put a little more energy intoit, right?
You have to say act as amarketing director for a small
business, use this tone of voice, think about these things,
include these things, don'tinclude these things.
Your quote-unquote prompt iswhat will drive what you get
back, right?
I mean, it's kind of thegarbage in, garbage out theory
right.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
From a marketing standpoint definitely, prompts
are huge.
Act as a marketer for a smallbusiness.
You might want to put in therewhat your customer, your ideal
customer, is, their pain points,how you want to speak to them,
their tone, and then it'll, youknow, generate you what it
generates you.
But then you've got to go backin again and manipulate, take
out this so it's not taking awaythese jobs, at least right now,
(08:07):
because there's someone behindthe computer actually typing in
these prompts.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Right.
So that's ChatGPT.
We use it for a lot, forgenerating job descriptions.
We were updating our jobdescriptions.
I said, hey, this is what kindof company we are, we need a job
description to do this role.
We had to take it.
We had to manipulate it to ourformat and our culture and put
in our benefits, information andso forth.
But I can't say that I did that, john did that last week and I
(08:33):
actually spent three hourswriting half a dozen job
descriptions.
And I spent three minuteswriting a job description and it
was not quite as good this isthe one you asked me to do,
chatgpt, and I did it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
ChatGPT is my new best friend.
Right In five minutes, rightRight.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
No.
So I mean, I think even on theoperations side of things, right
, we've used, you know, theChachi Petit for things I mean
again, job descriptions.
Our HR consultant will use itto help her generate some
policies and procedures andthings like that, for not only
us but also for our clients.
Right, it's a lot easier atleast to build the shell and
then you put the specifics inright.
I need to create a PTO policyfor a company of this size in
(09:09):
this state, with theserequirements and this and that,
and come back and you know it'llgive you at least the framework
for you to go in and customizefrom there 100% yeah, so we use
that.
We use ChatGPT across theorganization.
I mean write me a letter, Imean for the podcast, when I
guest come on.
I said write me a letter tothank my guests for coming on.
I thank you email for coming onto the show and it wrote that
(09:32):
it gave me what I needed and Ihad to make a few tweaks and
personalize a little bit, but Ididn't have to do anything.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Right, and if you're a service business and you can,
you can use those emailworkflows.
You can say create me 10 emails.
That I'm, you know, dripcampaign.
I'm going to be sending off onea week and the good thing is I
get it again and keep saying theidea generation.
But I think after three or fouremails you'd probably run out
of things to write about.
But a chat GPT is going to comein and, you know, use that
human learning that it's.
(09:58):
It's learned in the past andgive you a good idea for the
next email to send in your dripmarketing campaign.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So that's a lot of chat, gpt.
What other tools are we using?
For what are you using?
We have one for the podcastthat we use.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, so the one we use, the podcast, is called Opus
clip.
It helps turn these longpodcasts into short form content
videos.
All I literally have to do isupload the full file Within 15
minutes.
I think I have 30 differentshort form videos and, again,
just like ChatGPT, you have tokind of go in and maybe check
the captions.
(10:36):
They might be 99% accurate.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You got to check but it clips the video, it stacks
them or edits them.
I mean, our videos havemultiple angles things like that
.
It goes and smushes them alltogether, makes it look good.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And sometimes it might take a piece from five
minutes in the podcast and apiece from 20 minutes in and
smush them together, but theymake it flow good and it'll
start the video with a goodopening hook to get better
engagement on the video.
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It knows what people will engage with on social media
.
It says these are the top fiveclips that we think that you
should post.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
It gives you a score and everything that you should
post.
It gives you a score andeverything.
The higher the score, the moreexcited.
You get Right.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
We get hashtags, we get descriptions and again, you
still have to go manipulate someof that stuff, but you have to
go and make sure the captionsare correct, make sure the
hashtags are relevant or thingsthat you want to be tagging into
.
All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So we use that one.
We use Canva a lot for e-booksor posters or flyers, those kind
of things we put together, andthey have an AI tool in there to
help you create images.
All you have to do is put aprompt in.
You know, give me a stressedout small business owner behind
a pile of paperwork behind theirdesk.
Next thing, you know, you havekind of a little cartoony image,
or sometimes you can even get apretty realistic looking image
(11:44):
of that description that you canuse across your website and
your content.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
But even in Canva you uploaded some headshots that we
did that I, you know my, mycrappy headshots that I just
took, you know, here in theoffice it went in and fixed the
lighting and fixed, you know,made sure you didn't have the
background right, the red eyeand all that kind of thing right
, and you didn't.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I mean it was done.
I have to do the little um tabsup and down and all that.
It does it for you in in like30 seconds Makes you look skinny
, that's the Ozempic filter.
Exactly the Kardashians wouldlove that one.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But I mean again, rather than you going into
Photoshop and spending 10minutes truly manipulating a
photo, it did it in five seconds.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Right, and if you don't have an expertise in a
certain area, like I, might notbe the best photo editor out
there, but the AI does a reallygood job and really quick.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Right, what else?
What else do you get going onfor AI?
Those are the big ones, right.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Those are the big ones I think that we use on a
daily basis.
But going back to our CRMHubSpot, I mean they have AI in
their tool and if I need anemail written, I can write you
know.
Hey, chris, how's it goingtoday?
Did you read my article yet?
Have you reviewed my articleyet?
And then I can just clickexpand and AI could make that
two-sentence email 300, 400words if I wanted to.
It can change the tone, make itsound more professional.
(12:58):
So generally my content doesn'tsound professional.
They could make it sound thatway educational, funny, because
I'm not funny, so it can help mewith that, those kind of things
.
It's, it's powerful.
So any software that we usetoday I think across the board
has some ai feature in there andit's more and more and more,
yeah, every day.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean even our, even our payroll software started to
introduce some ai, you know, inthat including.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
You probably have more to say about that, but I
know like they have itintegrated in their predictive
analytics so you can predict outfuture things.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
All ai I was saying that's kind of one of the other
operational things.
We don't do this as much, butyou can give AI tremendous
amounts of data and say this iswhat I'm looking for, right, I'm
looking for this outcome andyou know I'm looking for this
specific decision point.
Right, I want to know theaverage age of every employee
that works for all of my clientsor whatever right or average
(13:50):
rate of pay.
It can take that and what wouldtake a human a long time to
aggregate that data and figure?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
it out.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It'll give you responses very quickly.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And accurate responses.
Right For the most part.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, exactly, Well, that's where I was going next.
Actually so accurate for themost part, but we do.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
In terms of the predicting, like the things you
were saying in our I solvedRight.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So certainly one of the pitfalls I think that people
worry about the most or peoplehave seen the most in AI stuff
is, like they call it,hallucinations, and I would say
when it gets things wrong, itgets things like really bad.
Yeah, it just goes for it, youend up having like an extra
appendage, or you know six toes,or you know if you're doing a
(14:34):
video, a graphic one again.
You may say, show me thisdressed out worker behind the
desk.
For some reason they may havesix fingers, something like that
.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I don't know if it's been updated recently, but I
know, yeah, a month or so ago.
They always had trouble withfingers, hands.
You get an extra hand, an extrafinger somehow.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So if you're doing AI images, make sure you're
checking it for accuracy or it'sgoing to, or come back and you
know, say the red sox.
You know their home stadium is,you know, dodger stadium or
whatever uh it's, it definitelyhas its hiccups.
Uh, it's not perfect, right?
So no matter what you areproducing, if you're putting
that out there the humaninteraction still needs to be
the fact check.
Still, you said if it's sayingyou know 97 marketing directors
(15:16):
are lazy, make sure youfact-check that right.
Put your bibliography in there.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I'm in the 97%.
No, definitely fact-check it.
I think it still owes me $1,000on the 49ers winning the Super
Bowl last year and that didn'thappen, so it's not 100% right,
but it does a really good job,just as long as you spend a few
minutes to fact check it andmanipulate it the way you want
it to sound for your business.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
You know the other thing that you know we use the
things that we use ChatGPT forare generally not proprietary or
private information.
But there are a lot of ethicalconcerns about the data security
of things that are going intothese products, so we are not
putting you know any clientinformation in there, and even
client names.
You know, forget any of thatkind of stuff.
The things that we're using itfor really are the things that
(16:02):
are public-facing anyway, it'sinformation.
Our marketing are things thataren't proprietary, aren't going
to be out there.
If someone gets a hold of them,it's not the end of the world,
right.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
And it's information that's already out there.
We're just asking it tosummarize it and provide it to
us in a much faster time than wewould go out there and find it
Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Nothing personal, nothing like that Right, no
socials, no bank accounts.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
We're probably not asking for any legal advice
either.
You know things like that,right.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Same thing and actually, you know, I was
talking to our attorney and Isaid well, gosh, your job just
got really easy.
It from this bank for this forthat.
And he's like well, that'sstill not that easy.
Right, it's not good it might besomeday, but you know,
paralegals jobs might be at risk, but who knows?
But you know, those are typesof real concerns as well, as is
(16:49):
the the sensitivity of data thatyou're pushing through there,
Especially if it's not your ownproprietary AI technology.
If you're using one of theseopen source tools or something
like that, you want to make sureyou're not using that.
If you're using one of theseopen source tools or something
like that, you want to make sureyou're not using that.
And then it's the ethical piece.
I think there's a lot ofethical questions and concerns
about using these tools, whetherit's job replacement or even
the machine learning, and how dowe handle that and manage that
and make sure that it isn'tTerminator 2.0 or Terminator in
(17:12):
real life?
I think that's definitely a bigconcern that a lot of people
have too.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think, as say, a consumer,
just be kind of aware that ananswer or something that you
could be reading might beAI-generated too, so it wouldn't
be necessarily 100%.
You've got to trust it.
You might still have to gofact-check that yourself, even
if someone's sending you thisinformation or you're reading an
article and we fact-check ours.
So I want to say most of theAI-generated stuff out there is
accurate from what we put outthere, but someone might not
fact-check their AI and justcopy and paste it right on their
(17:47):
website, so it might not beaccurate.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Well, and there's the weaponization of AI right.
I mean, we know that there aretools for voice recognition and
using that and creating gosh.
The election's coming up.
Everyone's worried aboutelection fraud using AI right,
because the AI tools are reallygood.
And gosh, there's going to besome inflammatory comment that
Joe Biden makes or that DonaldTrump makes that could be or
(18:09):
they really didn't make that,they really didn't make right
that was literally created byRussia and thrown on Facebook
and becomes.
We know that these things go byreal fast.
So those are some of theethical concerns, right?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Using it for bad things, yeah, and this isn't
really our realm.
But I think eventually thereneeds to be some kind of you
know governmental oversight onit and some policies and
procedures put in place to kindof make sure it's being used in
an ethical way, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, good.
Well, that was a good quicklittle overview of AI stuff.
That's how we use things andcertainly you know not that
we're the model for anything,but I think it's nice to share
how we use it in our smallbusiness and maybe potentially
for other small businesses.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I definitely think all small businesses should use
it in one way or another,whether they use it a lot or a
little.
They use it a lot or a little,they use it just for idea
generation or to save time.
Definitely, just jump in andtry it out and I don't think it
could do any harm if you'reusing it appropriately and still
putting that human touch on it.
For sure, and I do think we'll,down the line, probably get
into it a little bit more detailin other episodes, but that's
(19:10):
just kind of a quick overview ofhow we use it in our small
business.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Absolutely so.
If people have questions aboutAI or how we're using it, how do
they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yep.
So john at papertrailscom.
That's J-O-N at papertrailscom.
Visit our website, Papertrails,our social media.
You can send us a message thereand then we have the email
podcast at papertrailscom.
If you have any questions orthoughts or other comments about
AI.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And you just did my outro for me.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, I didn't do the social part Like.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
follow share rate review subscribe.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There it is, there it is Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Thanks, everybody.
See you next week.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to thisweek's episode of Small Business
, big World.
This podcast is a production ofPaper Trails.
We are a payroll and HR companybased in Kennebunk, maine, and
we serve small and mid-sizedbusinesses.
Don't forget to follow us at atpaper trails payroll across all
social media platforms andcheck us out at paper trailscom
for more information.
As a reminder, the views,opinions and thoughts expressed
(20:01):
by the hosts and guests alone.
The material presented in thispodcast is for general
information purposes only andshould not be considered legal
or financial advice.
By inviting this guest to ourpodcast, paper Trails does not
imply endorsement of oropposition to any specific
individual, organization,product or service.
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