May 27, 2025 • 27 mins
I share my journey exploring AI tools to automate cold calling and appointment setting for business development while maintaining personal connection with clients. The quest to multiply my sales efforts across multiple counties without hiring additional staff has led to testing innovative solutions that could revolutionize how small businesses approach growth.
• The continuing importance of cold calling for business development despite networking efforts
• Testing Callin.io AI appointment setting system that integrates with Google Calendar
• How AI can pre-qualify prospects and automatically schedule appointments
• Technical challenges and programming considerations when implementing AI calling systems
• Potential cost savings of $30 for 3.5 hours of call time versus hiring staff
• The ultimate goal of expanding business reach across s
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, all right, happy Memorial Day everybody, or
post-Memorial Day.
I took the day off yesterdayand did not do my recording.
So here I am on Tuesday heck, abad boy and not doing it proper
.
But you know what?
Oh well, we went camping thisweekend and we got cold man down
to 40 degrees at night andfroze our tails off.
(00:23):
My toddler was fine, however.
He slept like pretty well.
We sacrificed our heat for himand I was gonna.
I didn't know this, but thetents these days they all are
like mesh on top, so you don'tget that condensation, wet
feeling.
When you wake up in the morningthat's dripping up from the
(00:43):
ceiling like they used to have.
You know, back in the day, Ihaven't like tent camped like
that in a while.
And I got this new tent and,sure enough, even with the rain
fly, you know it doesn't matterthe heat just left right out the
top, we had two space heatersrunning.
I don't know how cold it was inthe tent, maybe in the 50s or
60s.
Uh, probably not 60s, probably50s in there.
(01:05):
So it wasn't, like you know,hypothermic, it was just
slightly uncomfortable.
So, but lesson learned we, thattent is for, uh, summer, I
guess, and then the other onethat we have is for when it's
cold spring and fall.
We have we have two and, uh, Iwas actually on the phone on
(01:25):
memorial day on monday to see ifthey had any sales for trailers
.
I was looking to see aboutbuying one because I was like,
well, there goes that.
Because, uh, I had promisedmyself I would never tent camp
again after I got out of themilitary and did all my
deployments and actually lastyear was the first time we went
(01:46):
and I didn't even shower.
I refused to do the publicshowers because I got just
burned out with that from allthe deployments I had, and then
it actually ended up annoying menot showering because it's just
like, you know, you're outsideall day, you go to the pool, you
got chlorine on you, so youknow.
We did one or two trips and Iwas just like, okay, uh, nope,
that didn't work.
(02:07):
I don't like going to bedfeeling like that.
So here we are again, uh,camping.
I showered, I gotta tell youwhat.
We went outdoor adventures andthat was probably one of the
best showers I ever had.
Man, the pressure was awesomeand, uh, they did a great job in
there and the bathrooms areclean and whatever.
So uh, still wear the showershoes, of course, though, but uh
(02:27):
, um, but yeah, no, it wasn'tthat bad.
So, other than the coolness andthe fact that it takes a couple
hours to set up, with a toddlerit's kind of a lot.
But uh, that's why we'relooking at getting a just a
little trailer, basically amobile bathroom with a bed in it
, and I don't even need thekitchen because I like cooking
outside anyways.
But uh, the one we're looking atis that little coleman.
(02:49):
It's like 10 grand, brand new,uh, the 13b, and it's got the
queen bed, bunk beds, a littlebathroom, uh, because the wife
hates the spiders, but she saidshe didn't even see any spiders
this weekend.
So well, it was cold out yettoo, though, of course so, and
then, um, yeah, little, it's gota little one burner induction,
no propane.
(03:09):
It runs off a 30 amp power, soI can get a little I know it's a
little inverter generators, I'msure it'll power it.
And then, uh, or, of course,you plug in everything's 30 amp
at the campground.
So I like that.
Everything's electric, no gas,and you don't have to worry
about filling up propane tanksand running out of propane and
all that stuff.
So at any rate, well, I have togo look at it, except for the
(03:33):
size, but anyway, let's get toit.
This episode brought to you bythe Michigan Renaissance
Festival Check them out thissummer, slash fall.
And, of course, the MetroTrading Association, which is
where I work.
That's what feeds me andenables me to make podcasts, and
the whole reason for making apodcast in the first place was
(03:54):
before Metro Trading Association.
If you're into growing yourbusiness, barter and trade man,
that's where it's at right.
And then, of course, networkingwith kids it's my own little
side gig I did for you ever wantto network and you got kids and
you can't network after hoursbecause you have the kids.
Well, here you go.
If you're in the area, stop by.
Uh, we're at the jungle java inclinton township, off a hall
(04:18):
road there, and we meet firstthursday every month and network
with the kids and bringing thekids let play basketball, run
through the tunnels while theadults watch, talk, chit-chat,
trade business cards, etc.
So far, so good.
It's been about a half dozen toa dozen folk or so showing up
every month.
Every time we meet, it grows bya couple more people.
(04:42):
The kids love it.
Actually, the kids are whatmakes the parents come from what
I've been told.
The kids count down how manydays left, you know, until they
can go to jungle Java again.
So it's been working out allright.
Let's get to it.
Today I wanted to talk a bitabout AI and how to leverage
(05:04):
that for your business.
If you're in the businessthat's me, and I think most
people probably are in thebeginning of their quest or if
you're in sales in general,you're doing this all the time
anyways, and that is the dreadedcold calling.
Yes, you have to cold call todrum up business.
You have to hit the phones, hitthe streets, door knock.
(05:27):
You can't just live off ofnetworking.
At least I can't, because youknow the volume is just not
there.
I still do it, but it's asupplement to cold calling.
So you know, with me being theonly rep in the company, back in
the day I guess they had sevenor ten reps in, like you know, I
(05:49):
think eight brokers orsomething like that they said
back in the 90s.
But nowadays, you know, it's asyou all know it's hard enough
to get people to show up to ajob that people want to do, let
alone, you know, you get thehustle in the sales world and
it's just a high turnover andalways has been.
You know, I've been in sales mywhole life and that's always
been a revolving door.
(06:09):
So with me being well versed intrade, um, being in it for 10
years, you know I'd like to tryand expand myself and and
multiply myself by seven is myideal goal and I want to hit all
the counties in EasternMichigan, here, southeast
Michigan and then Toledo.
(06:31):
Ohio is where we are too.
You know, and I live in MetroDetroit and Metro Detroit is
huge, it's a big area.
So I focus on the north slash,east, maybe northeast corridor
of Metro Detroit and you knowpeople, our members are asking
me to venture out to GeneseeCounty, which is in Flint area,
(06:54):
and that's where I used to live.
Actually, that's how I gotstarted in this job.
The owner, mike, asked it was achamber event and we struck up
a conversation and said, hey, Ican take off the genesee county
chunk for you and run that andget that all spun up, and so
that's what I did.
But now, you know, geneseecounty is like an hour and hour
(07:14):
and 10 minutes hour and 15minutes away from me, so it's a
good hike, to roll up there andeven to call up there.
It's you know to do thatBecause I am pretty well planted
in the area down here inRochester, clinton Township area
, southeast, you know, macombCounty.
So my idea was to multiplymyself into Genesee County,
(07:38):
macomb, oakland County, downRiver, detroit, east side, maybe
west sideon area, toledo, youknow, it's like seven right
there, I think I just named upand uh, and just have ai like a
calling feature, set me someappointments, you know, because
that's all I really need issomeone just to pre-qualify
(08:03):
businesses and see what theirinterest is in joining a group
like ours.
And we used to have aappointment scheduler back when
I was here in 2003, 2004.
His name was Kevin and this guywould just hit the phones all
day, all day, dude.
He would crank them and we'dgive him a pamphlet of numbers
(08:23):
and he would just sit there andhe'd crank them and get it done
and set appointments for us.
So I would like to do thatwithout having to pay somebody,
or have the company do thatwithout having to pay somebody,
because you know they're goingto be a turnover.
There's a little bit of atraining time and what we do,
how it works and all that thingyou know of the nature.
So if I can program a computer,hey, here we are right.
(08:48):
So I bought uh, well, bought, Iguess, leased or bought credits
for it's colinio.
It's called c-a-l-l-i-n-d ordot io, so, and I don't know if
I'll post a link in thedescription, it doesn't really
matter.
So I'll get I'm not exactlysponsored by them anyways, and
(09:09):
actually I thought about tryingto cancel it.
I bought credits and thenrealized that I had this, I
guess the wrong perception in myhead of what this was going to
do for me and I thought it'd bemore of a conversational style,
I guess, smarter like, than aprompt system.
But really what's happening isit's robo-dialing and I don't
(09:32):
know, I haven't got anappointment yet for it.
But I also didn't do more than22 numbers and the 22 numbers
that I had to program, for somereason it didn't call properly.
Oh yeah, that's right.
For some reason it didn't callproperly.
Oh yeah, that's right.
I didn't have a one in thefield for the area code or the
you know the extension, I guessone.
That's what the help featuresaid.
(09:52):
So make sure you do that if youbuy it, make sure you have,
like you know one, two, one,four, two, four, four, zero,
zero, zero, zero, you know.
So I just had the two, four,eight area code only and it
didn't like that.
So I am tweaking it a bit.
There is a knowledge base thatyou can use with this thing to
(10:15):
where I can upload all of mysales literature, the flyers,
the brochures, whatever right soand then it draws from that, it
reads it and then it draws fromthat.
It's really cool.
Actually, the problem is isthat when you do that kind of a
feature, it's very generic andit seems like not intuitive.
(10:37):
So there's another feature onthere where you can program it
and tell it what you want it todo.
So and the example is like youare a ai, you know robot, your
job is to pre or pre-qualifyprospects and get a call back
(11:01):
with the senior agent and youknow set up a time and date.
It's really cool because I setit all up last week and I tested
it and you connect it toanother feature called make I
think it's called make or makeit and when you do that, you tie
your Google Calendar in thereand then when you set an
(11:22):
appointment, it sets it for youautomatically in that
appointment over the phone.
So it'll say, hey, whatever,you know prompt the.
Are you the owner?
Blah, blah.
You can even make us say names,you know.
You say, hey, are you Tom fromwhatever?
Whatever, yep, yep.
And then, okay, well, you knowwe have a senior agent.
(11:43):
He's pretty busy but he'sscheduling appointments.
Would it be okay if he calledyou back about you know trade?
And they'll say either yes orno.
So let's just say they say yesand they say, okay, great, what?
Uh, time and day works for you.
And I'll say, how about?
Uh, wednesday at three?
And then it says, okay, I'llset your scheduled.
Uh, someone will call youwednesday at three.
(12:04):
And then it hangs up, dude, andit does it.
And I got a thing in my googlecalendar uh, appointment,
wednesday at three.
It gives you the phone numberto call and the name.
It's awesome.
Now I just need to get it toshorten it down a little bit,
because you know people don'thave patience for these things,
right?
So I'm trying to get it to say,hey, I know I'm a robot, it's
(12:26):
annoying, but you know, I don'tknow, I can I'm an AI, maybe
something like that and justkind of be forthright with it
and just say you know Stu's theonly only agent in the area
right now can he call you abouttrade, because you know members
are looking for like.
Usually, when I call, it's likemembers looking for likes, to
say, a locksmith.
(12:46):
So then I go in a tizzydatabases, which is like a
feature on our library, and itgives you all the databases that
are, you know, networked forfor the.
We call it the database, the ato z, the.
I don't even call it but LLC,that's what it is, my register
(13:07):
for that.
So there's that, and but yeah,so I I have high hopes for it.
I hope it works, and, uh, evenif it can schedule me an extra
appointment a day, you know,just to like, I guess five a
week is good, um, just to haveit.
But the problem is you got toauto, you got to load the
(13:28):
numbers into it, and so it callsthink up to 50 or 52 per pop.
And the amazing thing is,though, is it does that in
seconds.
You know, I think you can setit up, for I did.
12 minutes was the longest Ilet it talk for, and you buy so
many minutes for 30 bucks youget, I think it's, three and a
(13:51):
half hours is what it calculatesout to of talk time, and so
then, yeah, if it rings, theydon't answer, they don't charge
you and it charges by the secondinstead of by the minute.
So it doesn't round upapparently.
And yeah, so far, you know, Ihave high hopes and hope it
works.
(14:11):
But I'm slightly pessimisticabout it because I just don't
think it's gonna be that easy.
But if it is, I'll take it, youknow.
But yeah, the best way that Idrum up business I know people
hate it it's it's cold calling.
It's just you get a bunch ofnumbers and you say, hey, you
know, are you looking to expandsome business?
(14:33):
Do you?
Can you take on some morebusiness?
You want to join our group?
And well, you know we trade,exchange referrals and you know
it's not like it's a hard sale.
I asked for no money up front.
We don't get paid until theyget paid the application fees
400 bucks but I can usually wavethat out to a little bit like
90 days out or year out orsometimes, depending on how bad
(14:54):
they're needed.
If I can get a business rightaway, you know, I can try and
waive that fee.
But uh, it's not.
Even then, if you pay the 400bucks, you can spend that money
right away.
So it's not like you're reallyout.
You can spend that in trade andthen, if I don't get you the
business within the first year,boom, you get your money back,
minus whatever you spent, ofcourse, but it's kind of like a
(15:17):
win-win situation.
So, um, yeah, so, and then theother one was uh, what air?
I think it's called open air orair open or something like that
, and that is another ai featureI was looking at getting.
And if you guys have any ideasor thoughts on this AI thing,
(15:37):
let me know, because I'm in themarket and I had thought about
paying people on Fiverr to makemy cold calls for me.
I did have a Fiverr rep give mea call list, which ended up
being stupid.
I could have just done whateverhe did for free.
I think it was only $5 or $10,though, so it's not like I was
out a whole bunch of money.
But some guy in pakistan and he, uh, I guess, went through
(16:03):
linkedin and then found thenames and numbers and the
business owner's name and thenjust gave them to me.
You know an excel file, so thatwasn't so bad, but I, like I
said I can do that anyways.
It saved me time, but an effort.
Um, honestly, though, I don'tthink I got any new members off
of that call list, so, and, likeI said, it was five bucks and
(16:24):
not a big deal.
I can usually tell by um,certain things if I know that a
number is going to be a goodcall generally, and then just by
how long they've been inbusiness, what they do, how much
business I have for them andthings like that.
So there's that, but yeah, Idon't know, we'll find out.
(16:45):
All this may be in vain,anyways, because today is May
27th and supposedly there'sgoing to be a big event today
that is going to mark, you know,some world thing.
I guess, I don't know.
I guess russia hit ukraine with330 drones and everyone's
ticked off about it, so maybethat was it, I don't know, but,
(17:07):
uh, yesterday it was 300, so Ican't exactly say that was a
huge event.
But whatever, um, I am alwayslooking out for, kind of I like
the fear-mongering thing, Iguess, uh, you know, for the
prepping and camping andtrailers and all that stuff.
I'm, you know, I was in the airforce and I was in survival
(17:29):
school, so, uh, there's a littlepart of me that says I'd like
to kind of try and use thatagain one day.
So anyway, maybe it's with AI,maybe it's not, maybe AI will
make me do that, maybe it's thewhatever.
So you know what I promised Iwould in my review of this
coffee maker that I bought, andI wish I was sponsored by GE.
(17:49):
I really do ge, I really do uh.
But, and when you use a productthat is just stellar in
performance and uh and delivers,you gotta spread the word man.
So I'm gonna go ahead and talkabout this ge profile thing real
quick and just kind of givethem a little bit of credit
where credit is due, becausethey they nailed it with this
thing.
(18:10):
So I had a really cool undercounter or under cabinet mounted
where it's suspended in there,uh, black and decker, uh, from
the 80s or 90s, whatever it was.
I bought on ebay.
It was a new, used or new, new,old, I guess they call it brand
new in the box.
But you know, from somewarehouse probably a new deli, I
(18:31):
don't know and uh, it's sort ofleaking on me.
I mean, the thing is old, it'sprobably what, 30 years old, as
it was sitting in a box.
But, um, you can't buy themlike that.
No more, you can't buy undercabinet mounted coffee makers to
get to give you your counterspace back, right?
So I was like what the heck,I'll try it.
You know, it was like I, whatthe heck, I'll try it.
(18:51):
You know, it was like I don'tknow $100, $135 or something
like that for this thing and Iused it, like I use it every day
, twice a day, you know.
So it owes me nothing, I guess.
So then, after that, it startedleaking.
Then I went to pour over.
I used to do French press, nowI'm back to pour over, did pour
(19:18):
over and it just ended up beinga thing where I got impatient
with it and it kept overflowingon me and the beans kept
spilling onto the countertopbecause I overfilled it and I
got these new filters, blah,blah, blah, right.
So I was like, all right, I'mdone with this thing.
So then my wife talked me intowhy don't you just buy a nice
coffee maker?
My god man, you drink coffeeevery day.
You go to bed so you can havecoffee sooner, right?
I literally wake up.
The reason I wake up is forcoffee.
(19:40):
Sometimes it's like my gig man,so she's like you enjoy coffee,
so just buy a nice one.
Like oh man, I don't want tospend, like you know they're, if
you already go to sir lot tableor whatever it's called.
They have three, four thousanddollar coffee makers and I'm
just like see, my, my benefit isI don't like cream, I don't
(20:00):
like the sugar.
Like sugar is okay, but it canbe too much and then I miss the
bitterness.
So I don't like cream, creamer,froth, foam flavorings, I don't
like flavored coffee.
So when I had a keurig, Ididn't use the Keurig for what
its intended purposes was to trya new flavor.
Every morning I bought the samething because it is like black,
(20:21):
pure black coffee.
That's it.
And my favorite, of course, isKona, which is wicked expensive,
but I digress, yeah.
So I Asked perplexity AI and Isaid hey, I, what's a coffee
maker I want to be able to like.
Oh, by the way, the feature ofthe turn on and brew feature, I
(20:43):
don't.
It doesn't work for me becauseI don't sleep.
So having it start everymorning at 6 am, I never
utilized it.
I would do it, but inevitablyI'll be up at 4 o'clock in the
morning, so I would just bypassthe feature and turn it on
anyways, you know.
And then, when it was on, Iforgot about it because,
whatever, it's the weekend andmaybe I got to sleep in or left
(21:06):
the house and went and didchores outside and I forgot
about it.
You know what I mean.
So I just never used it.
So I wanted something I couldturn on with my phone, with an
app, and that way I could wakeup in bed, turn over, hit it,
turn it on, and then I gotcoffee by the time I get
downstairs.
And then I wanted somethingthat can do.
I like the fact that you can doa single brew without having to
(21:27):
use pods.
That's neat.
And then also the reusablebaskets.
But I don't like that because Ithink that makes a huge mess.
So, even though they'rereusable mesh baskets, I end up
using the filters anyways, justto help with the cleanup effort.
And then, what else?
Baskets I end up using thefilters anyways, just to help
with the cleanup effort.
And then, um, what else I forgot?
Oh, and it had to have agrinder built in, like a burr
grinder, right, okay.
(21:48):
And so the ai turned me on to,in two or three different
searches, the same one for thatfit my exact needs, which is the
ge profile man, the profiledude, they it.
It's got this thing.
I never heard of this.
The SCA, the something cup ofassociation, it's a gold
(22:09):
standard coffee group that, Iguess, certifies coffee makers
for their ideal standards, andso it's called gold and the
style of coffee that you drinkthere's like light, gold, medium
, dark and then very dark orsomething like that.
(22:29):
So I was like okay, cool.
So I tried it and this thing isphenomenal, dude, best cup of
coffee ever had.
I'm still playing with it.
Like there's six differentgrinder settings with the burr
grinder and I can't really findthe difference.
What you got to do is line themall up, do all six shots, taste
them and then have yourcomparison all up front.
(22:51):
But over the course of the weekthat I'm trying to adjust the
settings I can't find I forgetabout yesterday, man, I don't
know where to taste it.
I thought about writing it down, but I'm no connoisseur anyway.
Then you can adjust like thegrind time by like negative two
seconds or plus two seconds, andthen you can adjust the bloom
time, which is, I think, zero upto 30 seconds, which is the
(23:15):
bloom time with if you don'tknow if you have fresh ground
beans.
If you, once you squirt orspray a little water on the
beans, they fluff up because thecarbon dioxide is escaping from
the beans.
Then they settle back downagain.
So you can adjust that time,the bloom time, and I think the
gold standard, from what I read,was, uh, 20 seconds.
There's no like.
For some reason you can'tadjust that.
(23:37):
Um, on the gold, it's justeverything's all locked in.
So, but I want to know where Iwas starting with when I want to
play with it, like what do Ilike, you know, with the bloom
time of gold?
I think it's 20 seconds.
And then where do I want toadjust it, you know?
And then, um, god, there'sanother one strength settings,
oh, brew temperature, I think,all the way down to 185 to 203,
(24:00):
I think is the highest thisthing can do, and a gold
standard is 200.
I'm talking a lot about a coffeemaker that, uh, that I'm not
even sponsored by, but I gottatell you, if you're into coffee,
get this profile thing andstart messing with it.
It's fun.
I gotta get off this whole goldthing and start playing more
and the bloom time.
I did once and then, like Isaid, I gotta have it all in
(24:21):
front of me, though.
All and then where do you startwith?
You start with a grind, likesize, I think, first, and then
the brew time, then the bloomtime, then the strength.
I mean it's very overwhelming.
So I just like that.
There's that gold standard thatis supposed to be the best
coffee temperature, time, grind,all of that.
All you know like that that thestandard is.
(24:44):
So, anyway, that's where I'm atwith this whole coffee maker.
I went on for seven minutesabout a coffee maker and I'm
getting paid for it, but, uh, ifyou skip through, you made it
cool, if not.
Now you know all about this geprofile and that you should try
it.
$400, though Be careful, I thinkit was $380.
If you want the stainless steelone, you've got to get it on
(25:05):
Amazon.
It's an Amazon exclusive, butthe one is black, so I got the
Amazon $380.
$402, I mean with tax and allthat stuff.
So $400 and a coffee maker.
But you know what?
I drink half a pot a day, so Ilove it.
Uh, again, check out michiganrenaissance festival.
Uh, I'll be giving away tickets, hopefully soon, and then we
(25:30):
will go from there.
All right, whatever you do, begood or be good at it.
Well, all right, happy Memorial Day everybody, or
post-Memorial Day.
I took the day off yesterdayand did not do my recording.
So here I am on Tuesday heck, abad boy and not doing it proper
.
But you know what?
Oh well, we went camping thisweekend and we got cold man down
to 40 degrees at night andfroze our tails off.
(00:23):
My toddler was fine, however.
He slept like pretty well.
We sacrificed our heat for himand I was gonna.
I didn't know this, but thetents these days they all are
like mesh on top, so you don'tget that condensation, wet
feeling.
When you wake up in the morningthat's dripping up from the
(00:43):
ceiling like they used to have.
You know, back in the day, Ihaven't like tent camped like
that in a while.
And I got this new tent and,sure enough, even with the rain
fly, you know it doesn't matterthe heat just left right out the
top, we had two space heatersrunning.
I don't know how cold it was inthe tent, maybe in the 50s or
60s.
Uh, probably not 60s, probably50s in there.
(01:05):
So it wasn't, like you know,hypothermic, it was just
slightly uncomfortable.
So, but lesson learned we, thattent is for, uh, summer, I
guess, and then the other onethat we have is for when it's
cold spring and fall.
We have we have two and, uh, Iwas actually on the phone on
(01:25):
memorial day on monday to see ifthey had any sales for trailers
.
I was looking to see aboutbuying one because I was like,
well, there goes that.
Because, uh, I had promisedmyself I would never tent camp
again after I got out of themilitary and did all my
deployments and actually lastyear was the first time we went
(01:46):
and I didn't even shower.
I refused to do the publicshowers because I got just
burned out with that from allthe deployments I had, and then
it actually ended up annoying menot showering because it's just
like, you know, you're outsideall day, you go to the pool, you
got chlorine on you, so youknow.
We did one or two trips and Iwas just like, okay, uh, nope,
that didn't work.
(02:07):
I don't like going to bedfeeling like that.
So here we are again, uh,camping.
I showered, I gotta tell youwhat.
We went outdoor adventures andthat was probably one of the
best showers I ever had.
Man, the pressure was awesomeand, uh, they did a great job in
there and the bathrooms areclean and whatever.
So uh, still wear the showershoes, of course, though, but uh
(02:27):
, um, but yeah, no, it wasn'tthat bad.
So, other than the coolness andthe fact that it takes a couple
hours to set up, with a toddlerit's kind of a lot.
But uh, that's why we'relooking at getting a just a
little trailer, basically amobile bathroom with a bed in it
, and I don't even need thekitchen because I like cooking
outside anyways.
But uh, the one we're looking atis that little coleman.
(02:49):
It's like 10 grand, brand new,uh, the 13b, and it's got the
queen bed, bunk beds, a littlebathroom, uh, because the wife
hates the spiders, but she saidshe didn't even see any spiders
this weekend.
So well, it was cold out yettoo, though, of course so, and
then, um, yeah, little, it's gota little one burner induction,
no propane.
(03:09):
It runs off a 30 amp power, soI can get a little I know it's a
little inverter generators, I'msure it'll power it.
And then, uh, or, of course,you plug in everything's 30 amp
at the campground.
So I like that.
Everything's electric, no gas,and you don't have to worry
about filling up propane tanksand running out of propane and
all that stuff.
So at any rate, well, I have togo look at it, except for the
(03:33):
size, but anyway, let's get toit.
This episode brought to you bythe Michigan Renaissance
Festival Check them out thissummer, slash fall.
And, of course, the MetroTrading Association, which is
where I work.
That's what feeds me andenables me to make podcasts, and
the whole reason for making apodcast in the first place was
(03:54):
before Metro Trading Association.
If you're into growing yourbusiness, barter and trade man,
that's where it's at right.
And then, of course, networkingwith kids it's my own little
side gig I did for you ever wantto network and you got kids and
you can't network after hoursbecause you have the kids.
Well, here you go.
If you're in the area, stop by.
Uh, we're at the jungle java inclinton township, off a hall
(04:18):
road there, and we meet firstthursday every month and network
with the kids and bringing thekids let play basketball, run
through the tunnels while theadults watch, talk, chit-chat,
trade business cards, etc.
So far, so good.
It's been about a half dozen toa dozen folk or so showing up
every month.
Every time we meet, it grows bya couple more people.
(04:42):
The kids love it.
Actually, the kids are whatmakes the parents come from what
I've been told.
The kids count down how manydays left, you know, until they
can go to jungle Java again.
So it's been working out allright.
Let's get to it.
Today I wanted to talk a bitabout AI and how to leverage
(05:04):
that for your business.
If you're in the businessthat's me, and I think most
people probably are in thebeginning of their quest or if
you're in sales in general,you're doing this all the time
anyways, and that is the dreadedcold calling.
Yes, you have to cold call todrum up business.
You have to hit the phones, hitthe streets, door knock.
(05:27):
You can't just live off ofnetworking.
At least I can't, because youknow the volume is just not
there.
I still do it, but it's asupplement to cold calling.
So you know, with me being theonly rep in the company, back in
the day I guess they had sevenor ten reps in, like you know, I
(05:49):
think eight brokers orsomething like that they said
back in the 90s.
But nowadays, you know, it's asyou all know it's hard enough
to get people to show up to ajob that people want to do, let
alone, you know, you get thehustle in the sales world and
it's just a high turnover andalways has been.
You know, I've been in sales mywhole life and that's always
been a revolving door.
(06:09):
So with me being well versed intrade, um, being in it for 10
years, you know I'd like to tryand expand myself and and
multiply myself by seven is myideal goal and I want to hit all
the counties in EasternMichigan, here, southeast
Michigan and then Toledo.
(06:31):
Ohio is where we are too.
You know, and I live in MetroDetroit and Metro Detroit is
huge, it's a big area.
So I focus on the north slash,east, maybe northeast corridor
of Metro Detroit and you knowpeople, our members are asking
me to venture out to GeneseeCounty, which is in Flint area,
(06:54):
and that's where I used to live.
Actually, that's how I gotstarted in this job.
The owner, mike, asked it was achamber event and we struck up
a conversation and said, hey, Ican take off the genesee county
chunk for you and run that andget that all spun up, and so
that's what I did.
But now, you know, geneseecounty is like an hour and hour
(07:14):
and 10 minutes hour and 15minutes away from me, so it's a
good hike, to roll up there andeven to call up there.
It's you know to do thatBecause I am pretty well planted
in the area down here inRochester, clinton Township area
, southeast, you know, macombCounty.
So my idea was to multiplymyself into Genesee County,
(07:38):
macomb, oakland County, downRiver, detroit, east side, maybe
west sideon area, toledo, youknow, it's like seven right
there, I think I just named upand uh, and just have ai like a
calling feature, set me someappointments, you know, because
that's all I really need issomeone just to pre-qualify
(08:03):
businesses and see what theirinterest is in joining a group
like ours.
And we used to have aappointment scheduler back when
I was here in 2003, 2004.
His name was Kevin and this guywould just hit the phones all
day, all day, dude.
He would crank them and we'dgive him a pamphlet of numbers
(08:23):
and he would just sit there andhe'd crank them and get it done
and set appointments for us.
So I would like to do thatwithout having to pay somebody,
or have the company do thatwithout having to pay somebody,
because you know they're goingto be a turnover.
There's a little bit of atraining time and what we do,
how it works and all that thingyou know of the nature.
So if I can program a computer,hey, here we are right.
(08:48):
So I bought uh, well, bought, Iguess, leased or bought credits
for it's colinio.
It's called c-a-l-l-i-n-d ordot io, so, and I don't know if
I'll post a link in thedescription, it doesn't really
matter.
So I'll get I'm not exactlysponsored by them anyways, and
(09:09):
actually I thought about tryingto cancel it.
I bought credits and thenrealized that I had this, I
guess the wrong perception in myhead of what this was going to
do for me and I thought it'd bemore of a conversational style,
I guess, smarter like, than aprompt system.
But really what's happening isit's robo-dialing and I don't
(09:32):
know, I haven't got anappointment yet for it.
But I also didn't do more than22 numbers and the 22 numbers
that I had to program, for somereason it didn't call properly.
Oh yeah, that's right.
For some reason it didn't callproperly.
Oh yeah, that's right.
I didn't have a one in thefield for the area code or the
you know the extension, I guessone.
That's what the help featuresaid.
(09:52):
So make sure you do that if youbuy it, make sure you have,
like you know one, two, one,four, two, four, four, zero,
zero, zero, zero, you know.
So I just had the two, four,eight area code only and it
didn't like that.
So I am tweaking it a bit.
There is a knowledge base thatyou can use with this thing to
(10:15):
where I can upload all of mysales literature, the flyers,
the brochures, whatever right soand then it draws from that, it
reads it and then it draws fromthat.
It's really cool.
Actually, the problem is isthat when you do that kind of a
feature, it's very generic andit seems like not intuitive.
(10:37):
So there's another feature onthere where you can program it
and tell it what you want it todo.
So and the example is like youare a ai, you know robot, your
job is to pre or pre-qualifyprospects and get a call back
(11:01):
with the senior agent and youknow set up a time and date.
It's really cool because I setit all up last week and I tested
it and you connect it toanother feature called make I
think it's called make or makeit and when you do that, you tie
your Google Calendar in thereand then when you set an
(11:22):
appointment, it sets it for youautomatically in that
appointment over the phone.
So it'll say, hey, whatever,you know prompt the.
Are you the owner?
Blah, blah.
You can even make us say names,you know.
You say, hey, are you Tom fromwhatever?
Whatever, yep, yep.
And then, okay, well, you knowwe have a senior agent.
(11:43):
He's pretty busy but he'sscheduling appointments.
Would it be okay if he calledyou back about you know trade?
And they'll say either yes orno.
So let's just say they say yesand they say, okay, great, what?
Uh, time and day works for you.
And I'll say, how about?
Uh, wednesday at three?
And then it says, okay, I'llset your scheduled.
Uh, someone will call youwednesday at three.
(12:04):
And then it hangs up, dude, andit does it.
And I got a thing in my googlecalendar uh, appointment,
wednesday at three.
It gives you the phone numberto call and the name.
It's awesome.
Now I just need to get it toshorten it down a little bit,
because you know people don'thave patience for these things,
right?
So I'm trying to get it to say,hey, I know I'm a robot, it's
(12:26):
annoying, but you know, I don'tknow, I can I'm an AI, maybe
something like that and justkind of be forthright with it
and just say you know Stu's theonly only agent in the area
right now can he call you abouttrade, because you know members
are looking for like.
Usually, when I call, it's likemembers looking for likes, to
say, a locksmith.
(12:46):
So then I go in a tizzydatabases, which is like a
feature on our library, and itgives you all the databases that
are, you know, networked forfor the.
We call it the database, the ato z, the.
I don't even call it but LLC,that's what it is, my register
(13:07):
for that.
So there's that, and but yeah,so I I have high hopes for it.
I hope it works, and, uh, evenif it can schedule me an extra
appointment a day, you know,just to like, I guess five a
week is good, um, just to haveit.
But the problem is you got toauto, you got to load the
(13:28):
numbers into it, and so it callsthink up to 50 or 52 per pop.
And the amazing thing is,though, is it does that in
seconds.
You know, I think you can setit up, for I did.
12 minutes was the longest Ilet it talk for, and you buy so
many minutes for 30 bucks youget, I think it's, three and a
(13:51):
half hours is what it calculatesout to of talk time, and so
then, yeah, if it rings, theydon't answer, they don't charge
you and it charges by the secondinstead of by the minute.
So it doesn't round upapparently.
And yeah, so far, you know, Ihave high hopes and hope it
works.
(14:11):
But I'm slightly pessimisticabout it because I just don't
think it's gonna be that easy.
But if it is, I'll take it, youknow.
But yeah, the best way that Idrum up business I know people
hate it it's it's cold calling.
It's just you get a bunch ofnumbers and you say, hey, you
know, are you looking to expandsome business?
(14:33):
Do you?
Can you take on some morebusiness?
You want to join our group?
And well, you know we trade,exchange referrals and you know
it's not like it's a hard sale.
I asked for no money up front.
We don't get paid until theyget paid the application fees
400 bucks but I can usually wavethat out to a little bit like
90 days out or year out orsometimes, depending on how bad
(14:54):
they're needed.
If I can get a business rightaway, you know, I can try and
waive that fee.
But uh, it's not.
Even then, if you pay the 400bucks, you can spend that money
right away.
So it's not like you're reallyout.
You can spend that in trade andthen, if I don't get you the
business within the first year,boom, you get your money back,
minus whatever you spent, ofcourse, but it's kind of like a
(15:17):
win-win situation.
So, um, yeah, so, and then theother one was uh, what air?
I think it's called open air orair open or something like that
, and that is another ai featureI was looking at getting.
And if you guys have any ideasor thoughts on this AI thing,
(15:37):
let me know, because I'm in themarket and I had thought about
paying people on Fiverr to makemy cold calls for me.
I did have a Fiverr rep give mea call list, which ended up
being stupid.
I could have just done whateverhe did for free.
I think it was only $5 or $10,though, so it's not like I was
out a whole bunch of money.
But some guy in pakistan and he, uh, I guess, went through
(16:03):
linkedin and then found thenames and numbers and the
business owner's name and thenjust gave them to me.
You know an excel file, so thatwasn't so bad, but I, like I
said I can do that anyways.
It saved me time, but an effort.
Um, honestly, though, I don'tthink I got any new members off
of that call list, so, and, likeI said, it was five bucks and
(16:24):
not a big deal.
I can usually tell by um,certain things if I know that a
number is going to be a goodcall generally, and then just by
how long they've been inbusiness, what they do, how much
business I have for them andthings like that.
So there's that, but yeah, Idon't know, we'll find out.
(16:45):
All this may be in vain,anyways, because today is May
27th and supposedly there'sgoing to be a big event today
that is going to mark, you know,some world thing.
I guess, I don't know.
I guess russia hit ukraine with330 drones and everyone's
ticked off about it, so maybethat was it, I don't know, but,
(17:07):
uh, yesterday it was 300, so Ican't exactly say that was a
huge event.
But whatever, um, I am alwayslooking out for, kind of I like
the fear-mongering thing, Iguess, uh, you know, for the
prepping and camping andtrailers and all that stuff.
I'm, you know, I was in the airforce and I was in survival
(17:29):
school, so, uh, there's a littlepart of me that says I'd like
to kind of try and use thatagain one day.
So anyway, maybe it's with AI,maybe it's not, maybe AI will
make me do that, maybe it's thewhatever.
So you know what I promised Iwould in my review of this
coffee maker that I bought, andI wish I was sponsored by GE.
(17:49):
I really do ge, I really do uh.
But, and when you use a productthat is just stellar in
performance and uh and delivers,you gotta spread the word man.
So I'm gonna go ahead and talkabout this ge profile thing real
quick and just kind of givethem a little bit of credit
where credit is due, becausethey they nailed it with this
thing.
(18:10):
So I had a really cool undercounter or under cabinet mounted
where it's suspended in there,uh, black and decker, uh, from
the 80s or 90s, whatever it was.
I bought on ebay.
It was a new, used or new, new,old, I guess they call it brand
new in the box.
But you know, from somewarehouse probably a new deli, I
(18:31):
don't know and uh, it's sort ofleaking on me.
I mean, the thing is old, it'sprobably what, 30 years old, as
it was sitting in a box.
But, um, you can't buy themlike that.
No more, you can't buy undercabinet mounted coffee makers to
get to give you your counterspace back, right?
So I was like what the heck,I'll try it.
You know, it was like I, whatthe heck, I'll try it.
(18:51):
You know, it was like I don'tknow $100, $135 or something
like that for this thing and Iused it, like I use it every day
, twice a day, you know.
So it owes me nothing, I guess.
So then, after that, it startedleaking.
Then I went to pour over.
I used to do French press, nowI'm back to pour over, did pour
(19:18):
over and it just ended up beinga thing where I got impatient
with it and it kept overflowingon me and the beans kept
spilling onto the countertopbecause I overfilled it and I
got these new filters, blah,blah, blah, right.
So I was like, all right, I'mdone with this thing.
So then my wife talked me intowhy don't you just buy a nice
coffee maker?
My god man, you drink coffeeevery day.
You go to bed so you can havecoffee sooner, right?
I literally wake up.
The reason I wake up is forcoffee.
(19:40):
Sometimes it's like my gig man,so she's like you enjoy coffee,
so just buy a nice one.
Like oh man, I don't want tospend, like you know they're, if
you already go to sir lot tableor whatever it's called.
They have three, four thousanddollar coffee makers and I'm
just like see, my, my benefit isI don't like cream, I don't
(20:00):
like the sugar.
Like sugar is okay, but it canbe too much and then I miss the
bitterness.
So I don't like cream, creamer,froth, foam flavorings, I don't
like flavored coffee.
So when I had a keurig, Ididn't use the Keurig for what
its intended purposes was to trya new flavor.
Every morning I bought the samething because it is like black,
(20:21):
pure black coffee.
That's it.
And my favorite, of course, isKona, which is wicked expensive,
but I digress, yeah.
So I Asked perplexity AI and Isaid hey, I, what's a coffee
maker I want to be able to like.
Oh, by the way, the feature ofthe turn on and brew feature, I
(20:43):
don't.
It doesn't work for me becauseI don't sleep.
So having it start everymorning at 6 am, I never
utilized it.
I would do it, but inevitablyI'll be up at 4 o'clock in the
morning, so I would just bypassthe feature and turn it on
anyways, you know.
And then, when it was on, Iforgot about it because,
whatever, it's the weekend andmaybe I got to sleep in or left
(21:06):
the house and went and didchores outside and I forgot
about it.
You know what I mean.
So I just never used it.
So I wanted something I couldturn on with my phone, with an
app, and that way I could wakeup in bed, turn over, hit it,
turn it on, and then I gotcoffee by the time I get
downstairs.
And then I wanted somethingthat can do.
I like the fact that you can doa single brew without having to
(21:27):
use pods.
That's neat.
And then also the reusablebaskets.
But I don't like that because Ithink that makes a huge mess.
So, even though they'rereusable mesh baskets, I end up
using the filters anyways, justto help with the cleanup effort.
And then, what else?
Baskets I end up using thefilters anyways, just to help
with the cleanup effort.
And then, um, what else I forgot?
Oh, and it had to have agrinder built in, like a burr
grinder, right, okay.
(21:48):
And so the ai turned me on to,in two or three different
searches, the same one for thatfit my exact needs, which is the
ge profile man, the profiledude, they it.
It's got this thing.
I never heard of this.
The SCA, the something cup ofassociation, it's a gold
(22:09):
standard coffee group that, Iguess, certifies coffee makers
for their ideal standards, andso it's called gold and the
style of coffee that you drinkthere's like light, gold, medium
, dark and then very dark orsomething like that.
(22:29):
So I was like okay, cool.
So I tried it and this thing isphenomenal, dude, best cup of
coffee ever had.
I'm still playing with it.
Like there's six differentgrinder settings with the burr
grinder and I can't really findthe difference.
What you got to do is line themall up, do all six shots, taste
them and then have yourcomparison all up front.
(22:51):
But over the course of the weekthat I'm trying to adjust the
settings I can't find I forgetabout yesterday, man, I don't
know where to taste it.
I thought about writing it down, but I'm no connoisseur anyway.
Then you can adjust like thegrind time by like negative two
seconds or plus two seconds, andthen you can adjust the bloom
time, which is, I think, zero upto 30 seconds, which is the
(23:15):
bloom time with if you don'tknow if you have fresh ground
beans.
If you, once you squirt orspray a little water on the
beans, they fluff up because thecarbon dioxide is escaping from
the beans.
Then they settle back downagain.
So you can adjust that time,the bloom time, and I think the
gold standard, from what I read,was, uh, 20 seconds.
There's no like.
For some reason you can'tadjust that.
(23:37):
Um, on the gold, it's justeverything's all locked in.
So, but I want to know where Iwas starting with when I want to
play with it, like what do Ilike, you know, with the bloom
time of gold?
I think it's 20 seconds.
And then where do I want toadjust it, you know?
And then, um, god, there'sanother one strength settings,
oh, brew temperature, I think,all the way down to 185 to 203,
(24:00):
I think is the highest thisthing can do, and a gold
standard is 200.
I'm talking a lot about a coffeemaker that, uh, that I'm not
even sponsored by, but I gottatell you, if you're into coffee,
get this profile thing andstart messing with it.
It's fun.
I gotta get off this whole goldthing and start playing more
and the bloom time.
I did once and then, like Isaid, I gotta have it all in
(24:21):
front of me, though.
All and then where do you startwith?
You start with a grind, likesize, I think, first, and then
the brew time, then the bloomtime, then the strength.
I mean it's very overwhelming.
So I just like that.
There's that gold standard thatis supposed to be the best
coffee temperature, time, grind,all of that.
All you know like that that thestandard is.
(24:44):
So, anyway, that's where I'm atwith this whole coffee maker.
I went on for seven minutesabout a coffee maker and I'm
getting paid for it, but, uh, ifyou skip through, you made it
cool, if not.
Now you know all about this geprofile and that you should try
it.
$400, though Be careful, I thinkit was $380.
If you want the stainless steelone, you've got to get it on
(25:05):
Amazon.
It's an Amazon exclusive, butthe one is black, so I got the
Amazon $380.
$402, I mean with tax and allthat stuff.
So $400 and a coffee maker.
But you know what?
I drink half a pot a day, so Ilove it.
Uh, again, check out michiganrenaissance festival.
Uh, I'll be giving away tickets, hopefully soon, and then we
(25:30):
will go from there.
All right, whatever you do, begood or be good at it.
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