Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guys, welcome to another episode of the Advisory Board podcast,
where we're bringing experts in the franchising community to educate
us and give us practical, actionable insights that will help
us to build memorable brands that will last and thrive.
I've got with me a friend of mine, Josh Yankee,
and I didn't even ask, do I say your last name?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Right?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yankee?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You know what you actually did? So OK, that makes
you about the fourth person and forty years that has
actually got that right. I've heard you know, Honky Yonkey,
donkey all guys of things. Sounds really cool, but it
really just means son of John and German, So it's
basically a Johnson with a different, different twag on it.
How's that happening?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I love that. Actually I was going to ask, but
not on script. That's perfect. So Jo If you guys
haven't met Josh, if you came to the service franchise SOMEMM,
you absolutely met Josh. But he has been working with
business partner Russ Burnett. If you know Russ on some
really crazy cool ai leash dais the company he's the
co found in the chief revenue officer. Deep background in
(01:02):
franchising deep background and services deep. I mean he he
helped lead you know, Thumbtack and the sales group from
zero to one hundred million dollars. Like Josh is, he
knows this world super well, and it's one reason why
I like it. He was also a no nonsense kind
of a guy. So you can ask him something. He's
going to tell you the truth, which is going to
be great today in the session before we jump in Josh.
(01:23):
Things you guys got to know that I think are
fun and unique about Josh. He's he comes from a
military background, spent service, serve time in the US Army.
So thanks thanks for that, Josh, of course, and also
thanks for being an army brat, because that's harder I
think sometimes growing up that way than even serving in
the military. So great sacrifices all around. There, got a family,
loves the outdoors, comes from the East Coast, and Abbott Ohio.
(01:48):
I almost said the wrong one.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Ohio the Ohio State, Ohio state football fan.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I used to in the Army. He was jumping out
of helicopters behind howitzers then you know, shooting stuff like this.
Cool guy all around, but down to earth, very approachable.
So Josh, before I get to pandering here, like, tell
us a little bit more about you, tell us about
leaves Day, and then we'll jump into our topic, which
is how do we how do we leverage effectively in
the sales prospecting follow up process to get massive roy
(02:15):
and we'll.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Definitely be not a lot cooler than than than I
could myself. So maybe we stick with yours. But no,
I mean, you hit the nail on the head. Actually
had just one correction there. My father was in the
Navy to the career Navy day, so we bounced around
and I know, I h my sisters would disagree. I mean,
they're doctors now, so I don't know why they would disagree.
(02:36):
But I loved it. I feel like it shaped my
career and frankly, like I have no issues walking up
to somebody and talking to them about anything at this point.
And frankly, if you have to move every two years
and go to three elementary schools and two different middle
schools and four different high schools, like you need to
learn how to make friends. And frankly, I think it's
probably what what got me into sales and and and
(02:58):
helped see success throughout throughout years. But that said, you know,
it was previously at Thumbtack. I was there for about
seven years with their first sales hire and just absolutely
love that business. I know a lot of folks so
within the franchising space were familiar with that, but I
had this opportunity and I've been friends with Russell as
you'd do a little too for I don't know, thirteen
(03:19):
years at this point. In fact, I a little unknown
fact I actually worked with Russell moved took a job
with him at Online Image many many years ago out
of Philadelphia. I was living in Philadelphia and he recruited
me to come out here to help build out the
franchising a multilocation space and really grew business with you know,
some of the larger brands of state farms the all
(03:40):
states that you know, the companies have got tons of
tons of locations and tons of tons of owners there.
And then went to Thumbtack and we came to back
back together several years and I always I don't think
he likes the explanation, but I always say he quartered
me for about a year and asked me, Hey, what
do you think about this? Hey check this out? What
hey do you think this marketing play would work really well,
and you know, just within our friendship there, you know,
(04:02):
I think he was slowly integrating this this least DAYI thing,
which was essentially a product that he had had with
Online Image, but really frankly just didn't make a ton
of sense for an AI AI and SEO and marketing company.
So we decided to Hear about a year and a
half ago to break it off in its own business,
(04:22):
and we spent about six months building out the infrastructure
operational pieces and went live here at the beginning of
the year and started marketing, going to the conferences. But
essentially circling back to your question, what do we do
for a conversational I company, which which really is a
vig statement to say the very late at least, because
we do so many different things from phone calls for
(04:44):
inbound and outbound for franchise development on the franchise eat
side to help book appointments and jobs for them. We
do web agents that are fully automated AI based webchats
that people can even go as far as to schedule
just through your website talking to your chatbot that's available
twenty four to seven. We do SMS automated SMS and email.
(05:06):
We've even got some really cool standalone products that work
for marketing. So we just released a couple different products,
one being a social media responder, which works with all
of Meta's products and can respond to all of all
of their messages and DMS that they get. I know
a lot of companies are doing a lot of social
media marketing. This is twenty four seven, its available, it's
(05:28):
on brand, it can schedule, it does all those things,
so there's no more lost or wasted marketing dollars on
your social media. Another one we launched is LSA Responders,
which helped with if you're familiar with it all, Davis,
Google's got the local service at where people can actually
talk and message directly through Google with a business, and
we've created some responders that actually do that. Again on brand,
(05:49):
can schedule and get those taken care of for pretty
low cost. It's substantially cheaper than hiring somebody to sit
there from nine to five and respond to these And
you know, by the way, this doesn't work nine to five,
it works twenty four to seven. So, like you said,
the conversational AIS bank, so I figured I give a
little bit more on some of the services and some
of the products that we offer, but we're constantly coming
(06:12):
out with some new offerings. You know, people bring stuff
to us with, Oh my gosh, that's that's a really
cool idea. Let's let's build that out for you. One
that we just did I won't drop any names, but
just built out a roofing estimator that that actually utilizes
AI and imagery from from Google Maps and things like
that that essentially will be able to quote out roofing
(06:34):
jobs or gutter jobs or or you know different basically
anything that goes on the home that needs to be
quoted that a lot of franchises are spending an hour
hour a manpower to drive out to just to quote.
We could do it right then and there, just from
AI and technology.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So that's well offline up to talk. I've got a
concept that probably needs to talk to you guys about that.
So and they're already on our platforms. That'd be cool. No,
that's good, awesome. So one of the reasons why, I mean,
there's some pretty cool announcements coming I think between our
organizations too. We will tease on that we won't talk
about it yet today in this episode, but you'll see
why I wanted Josh to come, Like obviously a guy
(07:10):
who's involved in that many different things and understands the
sales and the industry so well. Partner with a wizard
like like Russ, Like they're building some really neat stuff,
but their perspective is very deep and broad, and so
I wanted to wanted to frame up a couple of
things I think I know Josh can shed a lot
of light on that will give you some insights as
there are so many pundits out there using AI to
(07:31):
summarize other people's articles to tell you what you should
do with AI, Like they live this day in, day out,
and they've got really practical applications that are driving solid
ROI for clients. So first, if you don't mind, I mean, Josh,
tell us us a little bit about how does somebody
create good AI you were saying before, like it really
depends on a couple of key things, but like anyone
(07:53):
can go out and set up a GPT or a
perplexity or a cloud or something and then have it
like do something hyper basic, like how do you actually
create an AI that's going to be conversational and really
drive performance in a sales environment. What are the key
ingredients there?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, I think I think there's three key factors, right,
And the first is you know, and I think everybody's
heard that the analogy you know, good and good out.
But like it's it's the information that's being utilized, right,
the more information that you made a comment about some
of the products earlier of it being on brand. AI
is not on brand right away, right, It is going
to take time and training. Like it's just the same way,
(08:32):
Like I see this the same way as you hired
a salesperson. You're gonna have to put that person through onboarding,
You're gonna have to put them through trading, You're gonna
have to q a their phone calls and tell them
fix this, fix that. It's the same concept with AI, right, So,
so feeding it good information in the first place, right,
and making sure that you're training it and going back
and saying, hey, no, you should have said that. So again,
(08:53):
the key components are the information it's provided, the training
that it's given, and the person who did that in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So, I think you're hitting the nail on the head.
You've got these pundits, but like it's the same concept
like if I wouldn't hand a brand new salesperson who's
got zero years of experience and AI and say hey,
go make this go sell. They don't know anything about sales.
They don't know anything about cadencing, they don't know anything
about best times to call and get in touch with people.
They don't know objections and rebuttals and things like that. Right,
that's the things that are to learn, right, and you
(09:21):
know years of experience, So the person implementing it and
the planning that goes into it is pretty critical.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You can't just go, hey, AI, make this work. That's
not how it works. You've got to have the right
person in there that says, hey, AI. You're going to
be an AI that makes seven to ten attempts and
you're going to mix it up. You're going to find
the best times, and you're also going to focus on
you know, when are you getting the best answer rates
and one of the best conversion rates and oh, by
the way, here's going to be your main objections. Here's
your rebuttal. Make sure you utilize this. And then we're
(09:50):
also going to have you hooked up with the system
so that you go back and you put notes into
the corm so that the next person that calls actually
can do that. And I don't know about you, Dave,
I'm see you smileing, but you obviously have salespeople. Salespeople
don't do that or at least well that they might
get you know, one and every one in every five
where they actually put good notes and in a in
the cr in there. So uh and that's no, that's
(10:11):
not a shake on them. I think I probably just
just as guilty on that with with my career in sales.
But you just get busy and you're moving to the
next one and you're trying to trying to focus on that,
and obviously that's not it's not human. It's not going
to do that. It's going to do what it's told,
and it's told to write those notes, set up follow ups,
make sure you're cadencing works, Hey, switch it up if
(10:32):
you left a voicemails and an SMS next time. So
it's again, it's it's only as it goes the person
implementing it and the information that it that is given.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, let me I want to rip on that for
a second, because if we separate into like two parts, right,
at least the training side. There there are a lot
of really brilliant AI tech people right there. They know AI,
they're not they're not to set something up. They know
how to set up a training. But but so that's
that's critical. You gotta have the technical or side of
the AI, so you're training it properly, giving me the
(11:02):
right feedback and iterating fast, right. But then there's the
other side, which is the pragmatic I would say, the
contextualized knowledge of best practices. And if you don't have both,
you know, I could I could spend up an AI. Seriously,
I could spend up a GPT or something in probably
five minutes. They could do a very basic function. But
if I'm an expert in the function i'm training it in,
(11:24):
it'll never get that great. It will always be like
a B min C plus. I think a lot of
people are seeing that. Now there's like all this excitement
and hype about AI. But then people are like, well,
but I had a won't want want moment, like it
didn't work for me, doesn't work exactly. So I think
some people are You're you're seeing that the people running
toward that cliff of AI doesn't work. Oh it does,
(11:45):
it does, But it's got to be set up right.
So yeah, I think, like you said, the cadences, the training,
the context, all those things are critical. But then how
do you how do you apply AI right? So okay,
I trained this thing in my closet, Now how do
I get that to now be like to be working
in a in a living environment outside the d m
Z so it can actually engage with humans and start
(12:06):
doing something useful in anet.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
That's a really good question. I want to touch on
one of the times she had run out there. So
like you know, it's it's it's about expertise, it's about
the contacts and things like that, you know. I mean,
I've got I've got a little rocket scientists in here,
you know. But their answer would be, well, it made
a phone call. Well that's great, good job. We can
we make it. Now make a phone call and then
(12:29):
additional phone calls and have good, good conversations actually set
the appointment, which was the goal in the first place.
So so there's there's I think you hit the nail
on ad with that of yes, so you're having these
folks in here that are smart. You can build these
things and train them and know everything about the the
the computer science side and the AI side there, but
(12:50):
don't necessarily understand sales at all. So that's important as
far as like implementing it, I think is your question.
You can redirect me if if I'm not quite understanding it.
But you know, AI is useless without knowledge basis, right,
So how do we integrate to your CRM? Right? You know,
when you have a salesperson, you want them to go
put those notes in right after they make that phone call,
(13:13):
you know. So having that integration allows not only a
knowledge base for the AI, but also it can go
through a look at the leads, when was the last attempt,
all those things and really you know, and again this
is an information you're going to give the AI the
first place of you need to do this, and having
that context is critical. But once you've got to announce,
you build those integrations, have integrations in your calendar, and
integrations into your phone systems, integrations with a great CRM
(13:37):
partner that already has those things. But you know, and
then once once those are set up, you then just
tell you, hey, here's your job. Your job is to
get ten appointments today all through these lead lists until
you get that and the cool thing is is unlike humans,
they say, I can make twenty phone calls at a
time and hold twenty conversations at a time as well.
(13:57):
So it's it's implementing as a whole. It's just it's
working with partners to set up those those integrations, but
but more importantly also looking at the security and the
compliance side for them as well. Right in the same
way that humans can't go send an SMS to somebody
that hasn't said yes, send me an SMS, neither neither
can I high right, And you know, I think this
(14:19):
is this isn't part of your question, but I think
a critical piece is like finding the right partner that
has looked at those things and considered those things and
isn't going to get you a fifteen hundred dollars fine
for every SMS that you illegally sent, you know. So
it's it's a lot of it's a lot of that,
But again it still comes back to that experience and
that context of who is setting it up right, Because
(14:39):
to your point, I mean, at this point, who can't
go write hey, do this and chat ebt. I think
everybody sort of got that, but it's really who's the
author of that writing it, and the result is going
to be different based on the author.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I know, I hear you, and it feels like there's
so so much potential, right, There's so much potential in
the way we can set these things up. There's so
much potential for scale. And and as you were just
talking at the end, I was like, man, like, yes,
you have to have to You have to have somebody
who understands the context and who can guide it and
who can train it to do the task effectively. Who's
(15:14):
the master of the task, who's the master salesperson? That's
who needs to help and get involved in the training conditions,
that nerd, nerd herd. That's got to build this thing
out properly. Right. But then, and you just mentioned something critical, Dan,
which is, all right, how do we remain compliant as
we're building these suckers out? Because you know SMS compliance
outbound like an AI that's calling someone. It's not like
(15:36):
a normal if Josh picks up the phone and calls
you and you have an opted in for him to
call you, like unless you're in a DNC and he's
a business like he can call you. But there's a
little bit of extra layer now, like that that's developed
around like automated calls, where there has to be a
specific opt in for automated calls and automated texts. And
(15:57):
I'll just tell you right now, we do research on
the industry, and we do lead response assessments with brands
that we work with to see how they're doing before
we meet with them. Only forty five percent of the
of the websites we've checked, we've checked a lot in
the industry are actually compliant on their option statements to
even text people. And yet they're still texting people and
(16:17):
they're still calling people. And if you start plugging in
AI into this ecosystem, right, awesome supercharger sales, but you
also have to make sure you have like the regulatory
compliance things in check.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
At what costs. Right, Hey, it's just working today because
nobody's looking. But the minute I may looks, they're going
to go back several years. And yeah, you made that sale,
Well that SMS that you made the sale from that
made you three hundred dollars, Well that's fifteen hundred dollars fine,
along with the thousand that you sent that didn't actually
make a sale. So yeah, I'm actually surprised it's even
(16:50):
that high day. I mean, like I've seen this over
the years, and you know it's it's it's sort of situational, right,
There's a lot of business is out there. They're sort
of skirting around it. And it's just because I haven't.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Been caught yet, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I mean, you get hit with one of those, you're
out of business. I don't I don't know about you.
I don't have five million dollars sitting around to go
pay a fine for something that I didn't even make
five million dollars from.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, right, yeah, it's all about you know, man, but
you do not want to touch that policies, you never
avoid it, right, Uh yeah, So let's let's shift. So
so we get I think we get that right. Like
there's the training side, there's the compliance side. There there's
the practical Let's talk about the practical application, because most
of what we've talked about so far as like maybe
initially follow up, you know, misappointment, follow up, if somebody
(17:36):
doesn't show up. How do we get back on track
with that? Where are some other areas you're seeing people
really leverage the power of conversationally I text, email, phone
call services or even you know it sounds like d
ms ls as like, you know, these sorts of things.
How else are you see people apply it and creative
ways that are creating real leverage for their sales departments
to create scale.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, I think you know? And this is this sorry
your question, like this is sort of an odd statement
from a career salesperson, But really my favorite part is
the customer experience side, right, And maybe I'm I'm you know,
focused on it specifically because I really feel like customer
service has gone out of the window in the last
ten years, and customer experience isn't great. I mean, I'm
(18:18):
I can count on one hand just in the last
month of bad customer experiences I've had with with one
company or another. And you know, that's probably what I
think is really exciting is like, you know, I guess
I can sum it up into an easy statement. Would
you like to talk to AI that you know is
AI and get an immediate response when you call onto
(18:38):
your problem and have your problem solved? Or do you
want to wait on hold for forty five minutes to
get with somebody that you likely we'll only understand half
of what they're saying. You know, And I think you
sum it up that way, it's a pretty easy answer.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I'm really excited about the customer experience side, and and
you know, I'm I'm a and again I think I
think I'm hype focused on because I've had so many
bad customer experiences in the last couple of years. It's
just like, oh my gosh, this is terrible, Like, how
do I fix this for people that don't have to
go through this same experience that I just went through,
of wasting two hours and sometimes more of my life
(19:16):
to not even get the answer I wanted in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So anyone who's ever had to rebook a flight knows
exactly what you're talking about, right absolutely. I can't wait
till the airlines get this figured out and start deploying
it properly, because I sure would love to get that
problem solved.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, a lot of that stuff on there right now
is just actually glorified chatbots. If you have to push
one for anything, you're not really talking to a full
full fledged AI.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I mean, here a couple of thoughts that come to
my mind too, like if you're looking at ways to
apply AI and help me with this list, Josh, because
you're the King here on this topic, I've seen a
lot of people who are who want after hours you
twenty four seven support, especially home services, like anyone who's
got emergency service related plumbers, bag et cetera. I talked
to a guy earlier today and he was saying that
(20:05):
in in his with his client base, he sees that
the majority of appointments that are being booked are booked
after the operation. Well, put put yourself in the shoes
of anyone who's got to go to work, who doesn't
work from home, and maybe both both spouse you know,
spouses are working or single parents, they work all day
away from the home. They show up at the house
(20:26):
at six thirty at night and it's eighty five.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Degrees ac is out, Oh what do I do right?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Right? So? Or or let's say you're in franchise development
and when did the high networks people that are busy
during the day have time to follow up and look
at the craft that you sent them for the franchise
sending in quoreer for oh, six or seven o'clock at night?
So how did like so the after hour support when
people actually have time to talk like we need to.
We need to have a better solution there than we do.
(20:52):
And a lot of people have leaned into like call
centers after hour services. Those are fine too, but when
your costs, Yeah, the cost of that is is completely
different than the AI cost.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
No, it's it's uh. I mean in some cases, you know,
anywhere from ten to thirty x the addistrial cost of
what ay I could do it now. I think I
think you hit the nail I head like. There's there's
a ton of different use cases there and in fact,
some of the products we've built are actually just based
on those use cases, right. I The after hours one,
I think is critical. You've you've you've hit that one
(21:23):
and really explained it perfectly. But there's I don't know
that There's a whole lot more I can add to that.
It's a lot of businesses taking place when businesses are closed, uh,
you know, and being able to have someone that that
again is it is an arm of your your business
is on brand, can answer questions and then schedule it
for you for the next day when you're in and
available and not busy with your family having dinner is critical,
(21:46):
right And and to your point, you know over the
years that they paid for you know, calling or answering services, BPOs,
you know, pay doing, you know, different different schedules. You've
got your morning and your evening people, and this this
really solves that and still more importantly provides the customer
touch and customer experience that that's critical, right. I mean,
(22:10):
I don't know that having somebody talk to a robot
at seven o'clock when when especially on a dev side,
when we're talking to some of that's gonna drop a
couple hundred thousand dollars. They're not going to want to
talk to a robot, right, They wouldn't want to talk
to somebody can answer their basic questions and then get
them scheduled to talk to talk to the human that
is the expert in it the next day. So but
but yeah, there's you know, I'm sure I don't know
(22:32):
how much time you have. There's a laundry list of
use cases here. I mean, we built this the Social
Responder because we had a big client that went I
just dropped a half a million dollars and had one
person that was supposed to be responding to these she
got too many, couldn't respond to them in a timely manner.
And you know, by the way, most of them actually
came in after hours, after the hours that she was done.
They just wasted you know, I won't say wasted, but
(22:54):
they spent yea wasted approach for one, for they wasted
five hundred thousand dollars when they could have just used
AI to respond all these and get all these times.
So that was the use case to build that one out.
Now we've got that for that client now and they
won't run into that again.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's a similar with with the LSA responders. Is that
twenty four to seven availability right? And again you know
twenty four to seven availability is great, but you have
to have something that's on brand that sounds like it's
an arm or your business that is is there to
take care of the customer, answer their questions and get
them scheduled.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
To talk to the expert the next day. Yeah. I
think there are probably countless ways that you could think
through this, especially top of funnel stuff, things coming in inquiries,
et cetera. Boy Like there, I really see the applications
is universal in that bar getting deeper into the sales funnel.
There are ways, right, like you know, trying to keep
people in channel when they're in like franchise development discussions
(23:50):
so they don't think they've got to go outside. Or
you send somebody an FDD and you can you can
engage them with an agent that a conversational text thread,
say what question as have you got? Have you taken
a look at the item seventy, take a look at
the item nineteen like you can actually have. You could
train people or ais that are deeper into the funnels.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Middle funnel for follow ups and you know, I mean,
here's your reality. Like we're humans, we make mistakes. I
guarantee I could probably walk over to any salesperson in
the US and find ten people that they were supposed
to follow up that they forgot about, right. Yeah, it's
not going to forget about it, right. And if we
could set up those middle of the funnel campaigns that
are I mean for multiple different use cases. I mean,
(24:31):
what's it a fifty percent show rate for for appointments
at this point on average? Great, we'll take that other
fifty percent. Let's get them back on the calendar. They're
the ones that didn't show up for an appointment. Okay, Great.
The people that we know that are you know, middle
of the funnel, they're maybe at final details or whatever
the specific marker or nomglature is for the CRM or
that the customers use it. But you know, okay, we'll
(24:52):
call through all that, make one touch to everything that's
in final details right now and say do you have
any more questions? When can we What are next steps
for you? What additionally do you need for me?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
You know?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
And I mean just think of like how much stronger, faster,
better your sales reps would be if all of that
that I I don't want to say minute, because it's not.
Those are critical pieces of the sales process, but I
guess repetitive and easily forgotten. And I can't think of
the word I'm trying to come up with here. But
(25:24):
point being is like this puts your salespeople on steroids.
There's now they don't miss anything. Now they follow up
with everybody. Now they get back with customers in a
timely manner, you know, and a lot of the questions
that you know that are holding somebody up from finally
signing the deal that could have just really been the
most basic question that salesperson just didn't know to answer.
(25:45):
Hey I, Hey, I is there to do that for them?
So it's converting more deals. It's helping people be better
at their roles. You know, I hear all the time
of this system part of the question of how AI
is replacing roles, And frankly, I mean, I'm I think
right now a lot of that is just news and media,
because I would say that there's probably five percent of
the companies in the US that actually have implemented AI
(26:08):
and in a in a full scale way at most.
But but but a lot of that is really about,
you know, how do we find employees that now we
make better with AI and work in handem with AI,
not not replaced by AI. You know, I think the
reality is we're all business owners. We know that we've
got plenty of people that probably need to be replaced anyway,
(26:31):
maybe with another human, but maybe with AI as well.
But your strong performers, how do we make them better
and why do we take them from strong to excellent?
And they can do that with AI to fill in
those gaps.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah. Well, you know, interesting note on that it's football
season right now as we're recording this, and both of
us have teams that we support that are doing pretty
well this season. You're better than mine, But that's Okay.
You know there's I think of AI is like there's
all the minutia in a play. In a football play
good a good offensive play, there's all the minutia that
sets up the right environment for the ball to move forward.
(27:04):
And and uh, you know, the blocking has to be great.
That the lead the lead. If you're gonna run the ball,
you gotta have like your your lead blockers got to
slide across, cut through the whole first, make some extra room,
get some down for a block. And so you're running
back runs the ball, or you got to get your
front five have got to do a great job with
past blocking and maybe have your tight ends and the
and and uh somebody else you know, like a running
back come out and like contain the pockets. Your quarterbacks
(27:26):
got time to throw. But sometimes the salespeople have got
to hike the ball to themselves block somebody. Like they've
got so many things they're trying to do. Yeah, humans
aren't good at minutia. They're not. And uh, and that's
one of the things. I mean, you know what we
do right, clients are like that. We've been preaching that
for everybody. Let's get the nucha out of the way.
So you can you can do what salespeople are good,
(27:47):
and that's having real conversations with people and moving the ball.
And so I mean we see this as an opportunity,
I mean obvious why I wonders I wanted you on here,
like this is a great partner of ours, guys, Like
we're we've got some really cool things we're about to
announce with leached AI. And and it's because even as
good as our automations are, and they're good, like, there
are still opportunities to add and augment and plug in
(28:09):
more holes and streamline even more. And so you guys
have to be considering ways in which you can plug
more and more of the holes in your sales flow,
get your salespeople focused more and more on what they're
the best in the world at. And it should be
having conversations, getting people to commit, moving them forward anything
that's not that. You need to find ways to wrap
(28:29):
AI and automation around that so they can spend all
their time doing with the best in the world at.
We don't want. We don't want Tom Brady when he
was playing to be picking up the defensive end in
a block, right, That's not his job.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Even though you might take the greatest players.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, anyway, this is this has been awesome. So last
thoughts from you. I know you got to run. What
do you see us next? Right? So AI and sales
there there's so many different ways that we can apply that.
I think we talked about a lot of those. Are
there any other creative ways that you see people thinking
about AI that they're or people should be thinking about
AI but they're not right now outside of just the
sales funnel?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Oh gosh, you really put me on put me on
the spot there. No. I think I think it's a
it's situational, right. I mean, there's there's always going to
be the next great thing. There's always gonna be something cool.
AI's moving so fast. You and I were talking about
this and it's like, you know, nine months in AI
several years and you know, it's just moving so quick.
But I think it's really just identifying. You know, what
(29:26):
businesses need to do is identify them a notion. Where
are the areas that we can help our people get better?
And I think that's the next great thing in AI,
not necessarily the next product or the next feature or
anything like that. It's the adoption. It's identifying its adoption
and it's execution. I think that's that's really That last
piece from what I've seen within the industry is is
(29:49):
it's really funny. I have this picture in my head
of a bunch of kids standing ready to jump to
the leg from twenty feet above, sitting on the cliff,
and they're each one of them are looking at each other,
which one of you gonna when are you going to
jump first? And and they're all just staring at each other
way and for somebody to jump at this point. And
I think, I think the next great thing for AI
(30:09):
is again the the the planning, getting the minutia and
the execution from a lot of the brands on what
is going to be best and and and a B
testing those things, and then I think that's when we
will figure out what the next great thing is. But again,
his products and features that are coming out every single day,
but there's got to be consumers and businesses to use
(30:31):
those and take the leap to put them into their business.
So I think that's when we'll find out what the
next great thing is.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah. Well, there there's Kevin Harrington, the original shark gun,
Shark Tank. He was at a conference. I was right
after him. He presented before me, and he said this
right at the end. It's always stuck with me. He said,
Look like, and the guy's worth he's a lot many zeros,
a couple of bucks, and he's but he's pretty humble still,
but he grows business. He's like, look, I'm better than
other people of business, not because I'm smarter, and he's punny.
(30:59):
Smart is because I'm not afraid to fail. So I
iterate faster than everybody else. And I think that's this
is what AI is. AI iterates naturally faster than humans
could even possibly iterate. So it's going to learn and
change and learn and change and learn and change. And
that that superpower. You apply that into your operations deck,
you apply it into your finance, You apply it into
(31:19):
into any aspect of your business, sales, marketing. If we
can leverage the power of iteration of AI, I think
we've got ourselves in a really powerful situation in any
aspect of a business. So, man, Josh, if people want
to get in touch with you, because like, okay, I
like we've got to say clearly knows what he's talking about.
I need to get somebody I can talk to about AI.
What's the best way for someone to reach out to you?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Uh, to me directly? I mean, I mean folks are
allowed to call me directly on my phone. I can't
promise I always answer, but it's three eight five eight
eight eight six four five seven. But get in touch
with the business as We'll just come to LEASDAI dot com.
It's got our phone number on it. We've got contact
forums on there, so I'm always I'm always available on
(32:03):
my cell phone. But I've also got a whole great
team here as well that folks can get in touch
with as well. And that's just at least DAI dot
com awesome.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
And if somebody calls that NUMBERY just gave him, is
it going to be an AI? The answers? Are you
going to answer that one?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
That'll be me. If you call my mainline, you'll get
my AI. But I promise they'll schedule you with me.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You proably get an A I pluged into that, man,
that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
That's a good idea. Maybe talk to my wife when
she's called me during the workday.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Never mind, Actually wives don't want to talk to AIS
when they're calling, that's for sure. Take note, John Thanks
for your time today. I appreciate it, love the partnership
at least day, and look forward to getting some some
cool announcements out in front of everybody real soon about
that awesome thanks Dave,