Dear ChatGPT: What Are My Blind Spots?

[Music] Hello everyone. Welcome to the 21 Hats podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Feldman. This week, Jennifer Karen, Jackie Russo, and Sarah Seagull talk about how they've been using Chat GPT. Jennifer has deputized the AI chatbot as a key adviser, feeding it all kinds of performance data and soliciting its analysis before making hiring, financial, and strategic decisions. Recently, she asked it to identify her biggest blind spots as a CEO. 5 seconds later, it spat out five answers with detailed explanations and suggestions. And what did Jennifer think of the feedback? It was right on, she tells us. I mean, it was totally absolutely true. We even brought Chat GPT into our conversation in real time, asking it whether Jackie had hired the right business development person, whether Sarah had been fully prepared two years ago to buy back her PR firm, and what's the best podcast for small business owners. Plus, while we were talking, Jackie asked Chat GPT to evaluate the performance of her co-founder and spouse, Michael. Let's just say it does have some concerns. Even in good times, owning and running a business can be a lonely pursuit. Our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges. In fact, that's the whole idea behind the 21 Hats community, engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insights only another owner can offer. If you're interested in learning more, step one is to sign up for a free trial of the morning report, which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners, so you don't have to go looking for it. Step two is to get on our Slack channel where you can ask questions, get vendor recommendations, and tap the wisdom of a very impressive crowd. Just search the 21 Hats Morning Report to subscribe. Joining me this week on the podcast are regulars Jennifer Karen, CEO of SB Expose and Events, an events management business based near Baltimore, Jackie Russo, CEO of Bran Russo, a marketing agency based in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Sarah Seagull, CEO of Seagull Communications, a public relations firm based in San Francisco. The episode is titled Dear Chat GPT, What are my blind spots? Welcome Jennifer, Jackie, and Sarah. It's great to have you here. Jennifer, you recently had a really interesting conversation with ChatGpt. You've shared that conversation with us. You started it by asking, and I quote, "Now that you have learned a lot about me and my company, please think of my top five blind spots as a CEO." Before we talk about the responses you got, could you just tell us a little bit about your relationship with Chat GPT? How did you I like how you call it a relationship. How did you get so close? Yeah, ChatGpt. I feel a little bit like I'm cheating on my husband a little bit, but I'm part of a business group, uh, Vistage, my CEO group, and my chair for the last 18 months has been on us to embrace AI. And so he has made us sort of have a goal that we do it once a day. Very basic. Very basic. So I started off 18 months ago and um instantly bought the $20 a month one and over the past time period I think I probably submit I don't know four or five times a day about problems and then I'll go back. So I'll have an issue on Monday and you can go back to that discussion thread and add more details to it. So, not only am I opening multiple discussion threads to ask for thoughts, advice, comments, whatever, then I can go back to the one like on Friday, go back on Monday and add some more details and it spits out even more information. So, I I'm a heavy heavy user. It sounds like you're not just using it as kind of a search engine, which some people do. You're using it as a sounding board, like Oh, yes. sounding board analysis. I've uploaded spreadsheets and had it give me analysis. I've had it make sample business plans. I've done some imagery. I wrote um a LinkedIn post and created an image from Dolly on it that I used uh that looked amazing. So quite a bit, not beyond the basic level. So you turned to it and asked it uh if it could identify for you what your blind spots are. And I'll just list the five quickly. Uh at least the headline on each of the five. They were number one, overreiance on personal stamina. Two, loyalty to underperforming staff. Three, innovation bottleneck, meaning you're the innovation bottleneck. Four, avoidance of formalized systems. And five, delayed exit strategy planning. What was your reaction? Did you feel seen by that? Um, it was right on. I mean, it was totally absolutely true. I asked a lot of questions about systems over a year and a half ago, but we have fixed that. So the avoidance of formalized systems was due to it seeing me track the first six months of a lot of questions. Then I never went back to it and say, "Oh, we fixed this, right? Oh, we we did this now." So I think that one was true, but it's gotten fixed. But the other ones, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how tones and how you talk to it. Chat GBT wants to make you feel good. It wants to spit out stuff, right? Oh, you're the you're the best CEO in the world, right? So lots of times when you're asking for advice, it comes back to you like, "Oh, you're so great." By forcing it to come back with my negatives. I was like, "Wow, how did they get the over reliance on personal stamina, right? How did that was absolutely true?" You know what I thought about that? You talked about that a good bit on the podcast and it made me wonder if Chat GPT is listening to the 21 podcast. I don't know. Question for you. So you did you you you got this response immediately after that entry because I did the same thing based on what you you shared and it came back asking me for additional information. So I asked it please tell me my five blind spots and within 5 seconds it brought those instantly. It didn't ask you for additional information. No not at all. Interesting. What you see is exactly what I asked and then instantly it came back. Oh, because mine it asked me for additional details on, you know, my biggest challenges, team structure, um, where I feel like I'm crushing it, you know, it it asked me for additional input. Nope. Nope. This was it. So, with my five blind spots, it then wrote about three to four sentences under it, and then it said, "What to watch out for in three bullet points." So, it formatted it in a very easy to understand, easy to read, and then it at the end of it, it said, "Do you want me to help you come up with ideas to fix this?" basically. But the first my first glance, oh my gosh, it's perfect. This is exactly true. This is something that um I need to these are my blind spots I need to fix. Jackie, you too were inspired by what Jennifer sent us uh to uh to ask the same question immediately. Did you get uh answers and did you uh agree with those answers? I did and I don't, but I do. So, it did not immediately have an answer for me. So, I used the same prompt she did because I wanted to be lined up. I said, "Do you have enough information?" And it said no. And so, it gave me some questions. Yeah, that's what I got. Yeah. And so, it gave me some great questions that really started an excellent conversation. I wanted to know daily and weekly responsibilities, what fills my time, executive team structure, who handles what in the company and am I wearing multiple hats, current revenue goals and blockers, feedback from employees or customers that have recently received good and bad, and then my growth goals. And so I said, I'll answer those. I want to see a first pass and then I'll answer those. So it gave me what I think was probably a pretty sound. delegating versus owning too much, overinvesting in new initiatives without a sunset plan. That is not wrong. Because you know, Lauren, I'm always starting new things, underestimating sales infrastructure, not fully leveraging brand equity I already have, and measuring success through activity, not outcomes. And I was like, well, I feel like fighting, so that must resonate. But so then I gave it a bunch of information. So, I gave it the answers to all of its questions about what fills my time, my executive team structure, my revenue goals. You know, in 2020, we grew 6%, 3%, 43%, 13%, 1%, our goals for this year, which is a big jump because of our new salesperson. And so then it gave me a refined answer that was very accurate. So, it was really good. What was the big differences? Well, it took my actual answers and gave me real insight. And so it talked about scaling execution and making sure I'm not scaling my own bandwidth. You know, the fact that we were overdependent on relationship based sales, but that now we have the salesperson and even says, you know, Robin's hire is a big step. Good job. I'm like, I love when you talk to me like you're my friend. Yes. Right. And even spells Robin's name correctly. You know, it's like, okay, energy dilution across brands and it's not wrong. You know, I am technically running three companies and I don't do it as well as I think other people that try to do it because all of them are still growing and so it's hard to scale three things at the same time. Like it gave an antidote to every challenge it presented. It gave it a solution. So Jennifer, you said that you were surprised by the uh reference to an overreiance on personal stamina and you weren't sure how it came up with that, at least initially. Did did you figure it out? No, I didn't go back to look. I have so many um threads in it. I didn't go back and look. I'm not surprised by that was absolutely 100% true. I I don't know how I got that information. Um and I really don't want to take the time to go figure it out because it's true, right? And and regardless, it doesn't matter how am I going to fix it. So, these are true blind spots. I think the only one that I have think I fixed is the the number four avoidance of formalized systems. But the rest of it and the delayed exit strategy planning boy is that right on. Mhm. And it says your decision making about selling or scaling further seems clouded by exhaustion. Emotional and physical fatigue can distort how you evaluate options for the future from M&A to building new lines of business. It can cause hesitation or wait and see thinking at key decision points. Boy, is that true. I met an entrepreneur once who said, and I think I even I said this on the podcast a long time ago, is that if you start a company, you should figure out how you're going to exit. And when I started this company, it never I had no idea I could exit. Right. Right. And I I'm now at the point where my company is strong. I should think, do I want to stay in this for 10 years and build it up? Do I want to get investors? Do I want to sell? what do I want to do? Um, and I have been putting it off totally. I was thinking about what it must be like to to be reviewed this way. And the only thing I could think to compare it to is like a 360 review where you ask people who you work with who know you really well for their feedback. I've never had that pleasure. But have any of you done that? And is this similar to that? No, it's not similar. I've done it. Your employees are not as smart as J GBC. Your employees tell you things 360 that affect them. They're looking at through the prism of them. Now chat GBT is looking at through the prism of what you input too, but it's more also, I think, based on a standard of other CEOs. My staff has given me good thoughts, but it's everything I do of how it affects them. They don't think about, hey, this company needs to grow. Hey, how do we add systems to increase profitability? they think how does she communicate better about X or Y or so I have not found I still will always do those type of 360s I'm not against them I think it gives a great ability for staff to give perspectives up but I don't think they're um equal did you share this with anybody you work with oh my whole staff sent it out to them immediately so we're in the process of uh um hiring a new director and so I've been using chat GBT to help me go through resumes, help me look at our assessments. We use Gallup Strength Finders to do um checking out uh different skills. We made them go through assessments. It analyzed that. And so then I put this in there and I said, based on the four finalists you've ranked, you feel the top four according to my blind spots, who would be the better fit for the director to balance out my blind spots? And then I sent it to my other leaders and I put their strengthinders in their job descriptions and I said which ones fit better with me, you know, based on my blind. So yeah, I have zero problems showcasing my faults. I I don't care cuz good luck. I'm the owner of the company, right? in the suggestions that it made for dealing with these blind spots. I think one of the suggestions was that you hire someone to be kind of a a number two chief of staff type person. Is is that the position that you were just describing? Yes. Yes. And so I have that person now and they have instituted systems and they are in workflow and stuff. So it's all it's not completely fixed, right? What did you think about the uh the loyalty to underperforming staff? I actually thought that should be number one. I think this is an issue all founders have with the people that helped you create the company. Sure. Is when you get to a certain level, you know, they've been with you and that loyalty stands for a lot. I absolutely have way too much loyalty to them. And it's much more prevalent now that I've gotten high performing staff and I have to say to them, well, yeah, but they were with me and if I called them at Sunday afternoon, they would say, what do you need? The strategy Chad GBT said for me is to create a talent upgrade plan. It says, "Identify key roles where an A player would change the game." And that's what I'm going to start doing is where an A+ player might change everything. Um, which I also think would help with my time off. Well, it also told you that you should step away for a month, a year. Yes. Do you like that idea? Love it. Love it. I took a two week vacation last year and I have not been on vacation since. And I don't think I've had two days off on a weekend since then. And I think that's ridiculous. I think every owner needs to carve out more time. Um it doesn't help to get to this level and I need to take more time off. Absolutely. You know, I do some consulting work for the Edward Low Foundation in Michigan. And one of the things that they do is called an EIR, an entrepreneur in residence. And you can do this on your own, which is why I'm mentioning you don't have to go through the foundation. The EIR is 3 days on their property for a conference retreat with no programming. Upon check-in, you're fed lunch and you're given a guide book that gives you some things to think about about goals and processes and people and you know the stuff that we the deep thinking work we need to do for our companies and then you have a place to stay and for the next 3 days you emerge to eat meals that they prepare for you. There are some fireside chats at night with others if you want to engage but otherwise it's walking through the forest if you want to do that. It's playing pickle barrel golf if you want to do that. It's kayaking and a boat if you want to do that, but it's thinking time away from work. And Michael and I did it together since we run the company together and we did it last year. We had some discussions, some quiet, some louder, um some very different opinions about what the next 5 years look like for us and emerged with some real growth goals. And all of a sudden this year we're achieving those goals. And I credit it to that time we took. Yeah. I think I think setting time away is it's no longer a goal. It has to be um a have to happen kind of thing. And I think that's great that you did that. Um I think that it's it feels like one step back, but really it's helping you rest and recover and think, have your brain think so that you can plan forward. I think that's a great idea. And you could do that in an Airbnb, you know. Yeah. While we're talking about Jennifer, uh Sarah and Jackie, did anything else about this uh strike you? Anything stand out? So, my concern is taking this too literally and because it is turnurning out information based on whatever its inputs are and whatever the standard is. and the standard best practices for running a business. And I don't know that I trust it or would rely on it for alternative solutions. You know, maybe maybe it's giving you a suggestion on, you know, team structure based on, you know, obviously what other companies have worked. I I I feel like there's innovation and new thinking and you know the ways that we did things in the 1950s is much different than what we do now. I would just be a little bit more um hesitant to take this as gospel. Sarah, do you read business books? Yes. Do you take that as gospel? No. Same thing then. Same thing. I mean like chat GBT to me is just another resource to help me be a better CEO. I don't it's not gospel but I was amazed how accurate it is but still it's it gets you thinking you know but I would just I 100% it gets you thinking but like throughout my career I mean you know this Jackie knows this that most business owners are figuring out as they go you know and so to take anything as this is the best way I would take it as okay these are good things to think about maybe going along walk and think about them, but I just think that there needs to be some filtering, for lack of a better word. I think that's a a good point. I think there's a difference between this and reading a book in that this is so much more personal and it's based on, you know, actual conversations with you and I think that gives it an air of authority that is beyond what you would get from a book. You know, I even thought about it when we were talking about the issue of being too loyal to employees. You mentioned that one of the suggestions they made was to create a talent upgrade. They had another one that was implement a three strike feedback system. Uh track performance over three structured conversations. If behavior doesn't change by the third conversation, move to a transition plan. That to me felt like a, you know, a one-sizefits-all solution that to Sarah's point, maybe is appropriate for some people, but not for everybody. You know, we've all heard about like whether or not you're hiring for a match or somebody who fits in your system or somebody who's going to add value um to your business, right? And when Jackie recently was looking to hire somebody to help with new biz, like everything she thought she wanted was not what she ended up hiring. And so I think I I just be cautious about some of the assumptions that it's making based on that. you know, it's only going to give you what you put in. I think that it's a good thing to kind of start thinking on it. I just um like you said, a book is is just somewhere to start, but I don't know that it's the chat GBT output is where to end. It's not I agree it's not where to end, but it gives you much better advice than a book. I think it it it hears what you're writing. it sees the type of questions you're asking and the type of advice. And so it it's like a customized book back to you, a customized advice. I still have a business coach. I still have uh lots of books. I listen to podcast, but it's one more source and it's a bit more customized because of the input I'm putting in there. I had not thought to use chat GPT like this and I am fascinated and I'm going to continue to do it. like give me feedback on how we're going through this hiring process. Have I been asking the right questions, right? Who knows what chatb is going to say, but I've been saying what do you think is the best fit? What do you think based on these criteria? How would how should I rank this? How should I weight this? At the end of this, I'm going to say, do you think I went across this process? Well, it's kind of looking into a mirror and being like, did I get am I giving myself the right feedback? It's not perfect. Of course, it's not. I have no idea what this is. It's a crazy loop of internet somewhere. I don't know. But it's it's it's a good it's another tool in our toolbox for us to use. Jennifer, how does it know enough about your hiring process to say if the process was the right one or not? No idea. But for the last 3 weeks, I've been putting a lot of information in to help me go through this. So, I put in about 50 résumés and the job description and I said, "Go through all these résumés based on the job description. Give me the top 10." And then we had already ranked our top 10. Did it fit? Was there something I missed? Then out of the top 10, I put in our spreadsheet of how we ranked people based on a set criteria. Tell me your thoughts on it. Then I put in the strengthinders. Right? So, I've been feeding it a lot of our process and workflow and our results or our assessments and it's helping me think through it. It's like I asked how would you weight the interview versus the strength, right? How would you do all of that? Well, at the end of this, I might say, how did I do as a CEO walking through this process? And I would not have thought about that until this question came up. Jackie, you had talked a little bit about the recent hiring of your bisdev person. Do you think if you had gone through and leveraged chat GPT in the same manner uh as Jennifer that it would have spit out in a recommendation to hire the kind of person you ended up hiring? I don't know. I'm going to ask it right now. Let's find out. Real world test. Well, the reason why is so so um my background I I was I was a reporter, right? and I wanted to move into PR and I got rejected job after job after job because I was not apples to apples on the experience until somebody was like oh well she can tell a story she can find a hook and she can write quickly because of deadlines etc and saw a connection that I don't know that a computerized system would find right I actually think it would chatpt would do a better job. If you tell it to look at a resume and say who's a best fit, they don't look they it doesn't look at just experience, right? It will say based on this person working in they worked there 8 years, they probably have good skills on X and you need those soft skills. It does more than you think about uh reading between the lines, thinking of soft skills, especially if you tell it. I'm a PR a small PR agency with a niche here based in San Francisco and and you say uh the ideal person will be good at storytelling, be able to hire client management and like working for a small company, not a big bureaucratic agency, I bet you it will give you more information than you think than just looking at a resume for experience. Well, you want to know what it did? I do. Yes, please. Let's do it. So, first of all, I asked it for key characteristics, and I would tell you that it described Robin to a T. Oh, not things I would have thought for. So, connector-minded, strategic communicator, curious and consultative, self-directed, and resultsoriented. And I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Those weren't things on my checklist. So then I said, "Well, actually, I was thinking I need and I just rattled off my checklist and it just told me the reasons why I was wrong and how this is a better persona." Jackie, did you have somebody who didn't work out in the position? Oh gosh. Yes. So, I had someone last year who didn't work out and I said, "Here was the job description. Here's the resume. They worked for me for two years. It didn't work out. Please tell me some reasons why you think they didn't work out." And boy was it right. It reads between lines way more than you think it does, Sarah. Mhm. Jackie, what did it uh tell you you were wrong about? Well, my checklist. It said your instinct and it reiterated basically what I said. And then it said why this would make sense. But then it said, but in short, you're looking for you're actually looking for. And then it walked through what I really need. Um, and it's and it said, you know, based on the description you gave us, is that the only best fit? Not necessarily. Let's consider these. I mean, it's nicely telling me I was wrong. And then going back to telling me the right answer, which it told me in the first place, which perfectly describes the person I accidentally hired that ended up being perfect. Do you ever have concerns of telling you the things that you want to hear as opposed to things I mean, because it's supposedly giving you nice feedback, but like I did the other day. I I typed in I said what are the top lifestyle consumer lifestyle agencies in the San Francisco Bay area and of course we came up number one like like and it it was like let me cut you off. I asked it the best branding strategists that I should be paying attention to in marketing and it did not include me and I asked it why and I said, "Oh, you know what? You're right. We probably should have." And then it reiterated the list. But don't assume it automatically did that just because you asked it to cuz it would have done it for me cuz it knows I have an ego. It makes mistakes too, right? We've all heard of the word hallucinations. Sure. Um I asked it for We have a management book club and we're nearing the end. We read a book once a year. We're nearing the end of ours. So I said, "Give me, you know, top 10 books that you think would be good for young managers or inexperienced managers." And it gave me and around 8, 9, and 10, I looked them up on Amazon. There was no such thing. And so I went back and I said, "So I can't find book eight, book nine, and book 10. Oh, you are correct. These books don't exist." Wait, what? And it had titles. It had descriptions. It had authors. And I'm like, "Did you just make these up? We apolog. It didn't say we. It said apologies. This was a mistaken. So Sarah, to your point, this is not the gospel, right? This is not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is ideas to think of. Can it make mistakes? Absolutely. But can it surprise you? It sounds like it just surprised you, Jackie. Right. Okay. Wait. Can I jump in here? So, I just typed in, "What are the best podcasts for small business owners to listen to?" Oh, okay. with a big little fiery flame icon. Best overall for small business inspiration and strategy. The top one is the 21 Plats podcast. Second under that is How I Built This with Guy Razoo and then Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn. Um but like I don't know, part of me is like it's going to tell me what I want to hear. It may know that you're on the podcast, Sarah, to your point. Yeah, that's why I'm like, "Okay, Sarah, I have a great question for say I was part of a large PR company and I decided to go off on my own two years ago. What are the top five things that I should have been prepared for when I left?" Ask that, right? Isn't that your story? Um, well, no. I mean, it's a very I I was bought and bought myself back two years ago. Okay. Okay. So, um, but yeah, I could put in that whole kind of back. See if it gives you what you want to hear or see if it actually gives you insight. That's where I'm going with. If it just comes back and says, "I'm so awesome and I should deserve to be my my own." But see if it gives you actual insight that you're like, "Wow." Okay. Okay. While Sarah does that, Jackie, I wanted to ask you. You said that you were impressed with the second round of uh suggestions that you got after you answered the the questions that Chat GPT had for you. Yes. Do you think you'll take action based on any of that? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that it it gave me some good feedback. There's some things I really need to consider. I disagreed with it on some assessments. It told me why it was right. It was right. Well, g give us an example. What are you gonna do as a result? Okay. Well, so hold on. Um, it gave me one of the things that I really appreciated was this um 90day scalability audit framework and directions on how to use it, decision accelerator questions. It was kind of like it made me think about my business differently than the way I normally think about it. And then I was like, well, hold on though. you're giving me suggestions on sales and account service. I'm not directly involved in either one of those things and I haven't been involved in account service in years. My team is so rock solid. And so then it said, you know, your your attention's being pulled by the downtown workspace. I said, well, update. The downtown workspace is completely booked on a wait list for the next 3 months. So I got nothing to do there except cash the check. Then it said, you spend a lot of time on Trainard Advisors. I was like, "Well, I did a year ago, but I've depprioritized it because it's humming along nicely, you know." So, I gave it great feedback. So, then it came back with the growth lever. I need to pull a score from 1 to five on how I'm spending my time on each company, Brand Rouso, Brand Stu, Trainyard Advisors, and the downtown workspace. It incorporated my answers, gave me a ranking of 28 out of 30, 26 out of 30, 12 out of 30, and 21 out of 30 on how I spend my time, insights from the audit, and recommended next moves, and I'm going to follow each one of them and see what happens. See, isn't that extraordinary, Jackie? I'm so excited. I have a 90 gang action plan roadmap. If it made you think about it in a different way, it's been an amazing help for you as a CEO, right? All right, Sarah, what did it tell you? What was your specific um question that you had asked, but I just want to make sure I wrote it in correctly. You went back on your own two years ago. Is that right? Yeah. Beginning of 2020. Just maybe five things that you probably should have thought about before you did like hindsight's 2020, but was there anything that it says, man, you really should have considered this as you went off on your own? You're like, yeah, I should have. Or no, that's not true. I did consider that. Okay. So, I asked it um were there any challenges or opportunities that I should have considered when restarting my PR agency. Okay. And it said opportunities that I reclaimed my creative freedom. Um I reconnected with core clients. Um building a team with shared value. Blah blah blah. This is all boring. Reestablishing brand recognition. I don't know. It's kind of generic. Now it's asking me questions about why did I take it back and why did I want to reclaim my agency. So it is it's asking me for more detail in it, but I I wouldn't say that this is it's not actionable support is what I'm hearing, right? It's not giving you it's not it's all about the prompts on TikTok. You always see that you got to put the right prompt in. So I think that there's room for growth in terms of my ability to put in correct prompts. I also think if Jackie and I put in the same exact prompt, we would get totally different answers. Right. You guys should put in what are the the same question I did about um the top podcast. I did and I got different answers. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what the funny thing is? 21 Hats was still first. It was. Yep. Well, that's what matters. But none of the rest of them were the same. I got completely different podcast after that one. And it even made recommendation of specific 21 Hats episodes. But then it told me the game by Alex Ramazi, My First Million by Sam Parr, Startups for the Rest of Us by Rob Walling, Build with Rob by, you know, it went through different ones, but yeah, it was different. So mine, the top one is not um it's not 21 hats. You're out. Yeah. So look, this isn't the biggest brain out there. This is just another support, but I think you can use Chat GPT in ways that you did not imagine. It can be your own personal business coach and you can start asking it questions like that besides um I I just every day we're learning more and more different ways to use it. Well, and just to throw this in there, a um a client of mine who is a very well- reggarded therapist says she uses it as her therapist. And I was like, um hello. She said, "No, it's not going to replace the human that I see on a weekly or monthly basis or whatever it is." She said, "But when I need an answer right now, I need clarity on a situation. I'm not looking at it logically or professionally. I'm just in it. It is really great at giving me things to think about, questions to consider, a different look. It's helpful. I actually think it's going to replace a lot of counseling. I think there's a significant lack of good mental health counselors out there. And I think um I think there'll be some sort of customized one that some organization does and maybe it's occasionally monitored by it. But I I absolutely think this might take over. So speaking of that, how are the two of you or the three of you planning and preparing to AI proof your businesses? I think that there is just like with being able to look up resources on YouTube, Googling how to create a marketing plan, reading business books. I think the chat GBT is another resource in that list of how to get the information. But the chat GBT resource is personalized, customized, and way better. But implementation still takes talent. And so I think that our work as a strategist who implements the plans that we research and create, we there's still a place for us. Good answer. Thank you. I don't know. I haven't thought that far. Jennifer, when you gave this out to your employees, did you get any push back of any kind? words. Anybody freaked out? I mean, even something like seeing in black and white that you were told that you're too loyal to your employees. Did anything cause give someone pause that they came to you and expressed? No. Um, if they had any concerns, they didn't express them to me. I think they're all um we use tech a lot. Um, all different types of platforms. And I've been talking about AI. We've done innovation afternoons where we've had different types of AI. So I don't think any of them are fearful right now of it that might change in a year. Are they surprised that I put in these type of questions? No. Do you think any of your employees use it as a sounding board the way you do? Yes, absolutely. Is that because you've encouraged them to do it? Do you think? Uh, I think it's a combination of some of my rock stars have I know put in things into their chat about, you know, I would like eventually to be X, whatever that is. Help me figure out a plan for my career development to get there. I know several of them have done that. Sarah, have you done anything to try to AI proof your business? Right now, we're we're we're working on embracing AI because I am a small agency. there is a a lot more focus. I I I love technology. I always have and I'm always trying to find new systems and ways to do things better, smarter, faster. And it makes it so like one person on my team is delivering what maybe two or three people I mean like they can they can deliver beyond what what a a singular person used to be able to deliver. And so right now it's like, okay, um, a project that used to take 8 hours should really only take two or three hours now that we're implementing it. So it's really trying to help my my agency grow without necessarily adding additional headcount because we're putting in systems that are going to help us deliver um, beyond what we normally did. So, I don't think that we're protecting ourselves from AI, but we're more like, okay, how can we use this to continue to grow the agency? At some point, there might be like challenges to can can AI do what we do, but there's a lot of stuff that we do in person where we're physically at events, we're physically doing things that AI can will never be able to replace. Obviously, I did ask AI how to futureproof against AI. Um, and it showed me some really good things. It said, you know, it's not about AI replacing your agency's creative brilliance. I like that it thinks we're smart. It's about embedding AI into your processes, offerings, and mindset so you become more indispensable to your clients, not less. And then it's like, here's a strategic breakdown of how to do it. Tattotality across all three of us um is that we have built businesses that are relying on good relationships. Correct. And Chat GP is never going to be able to replace that no matter. Except Sarah, what if what if those relationships turn into AI? What if there are no more newspaper reporters or media and there's just AI? I don't think that that's actually possible. Okay, look, I am not prepared for it at all. I'm using it as a tool, but I I I am not prepared for if AI took over this business. I I don't really even know how to think about it. The only job I thought of maybe is like a surgeon, but honestly, they have robots now doing surgery. So, I my brain is not large enough to think about how to futureproof my company against AI. It's just not. So I I take back when I that I said it's not possible because theoretically um if there are integrations with AI, it could create news content based on um you know firsthand accounts, right? So when people see a plane crash, they're sharing that stuff on social and via text and on on all that kind of stuff. So we could use those details and create a story out of that publicly shared information. So, it's crowdsourcing the news, but it's not people's first accounts are going to be very um uh subject to their perspectives. You can't validate it necessarily. So, there there's there's a way to like crowdsource news, I guess, but like I just don't know how you make sure that it's true like without having somebody there on the ground. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's not true now that's in the news, right? But I think you have a great thought that could crowdsource. I can't think that big. All I can think is how I can use it today and next week. What I'm really waiting for is when are we going to see ads on chat GBT? Oh my god, I hope not. Oh, we're definitely seeing ads, but when when is this going to turn into a monetization vehicle? Cuz that's what I want to get involved in. I want to start selling ads. But if you're subscribing to it, right? Yeah, but that doesn't pay enough. That's $20 just so you have a little skin in the game. that probably pays nothing, right? I want to know when all of this money dries up, how are they going to monetize this? It's got to be through personalized, right? The same way social media does. I don't know. I'm fascinated by that. It'll be just like Google and it'll destroy the the product. Probably. Probably. Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, my my Instagram feed now is just filled with people selling me like business um products. Yeah. No, there's 10 million paying customers um to the tune of 2.7 billion per year. It'll be 4 billion by the end of 25. Wow. So, I don't think they need ad revenue. Yeah, cuz we're we're we're all paying the $20 a month version. There's a $200 a month version now, right? Um with the video generation and all that kind of good stuff. Are you sharing it um uh with your teams at all? Cuz there's a team plan. Yes, we are on the team plan. Everybody in my company has an account that they use as part of our team. Wow. I'm not on that. And you can you share can you like can you create custom chat custom GPTs that you share with your team members so everybody's adding stuff to that? Like can you see what each other? Maybe that may be a possibility. We're not doing or I'm not doing that. They don't see what I do. I don't see what they do. Okay. But we have a shared account. So when Michael puts in messaging or some sort of tool, my answers know that information and respond accordingly. It's like we're all in the same dashboard, but I can't It's like we're all using Outlook, but I can't see everybody's emails, but it's pulling information from all those. Yes, it's shared. It's shared knowledge base. Have you tried asking it how did Michael handle this particular situation? If you asked it the question Jennifer asked about herself, but you asked, "How do you think Michael is doing in terms Oh, good one. Let's find out." Good one. What are Michael's top five blind spots? I just did something interesting. I asked it whether or not I should be friends with Jackie Russo. A I'm it, you know, shared professional background, um, commitment to education and mentorship, like all these great things. And then if you're interested in connecting with Jackie, consider reaching out through her professional channels. Gave me your email, your LinkedIn, and your Instagram handle. Wow. Wow. Oh, I'm so using this for new biz. We do. We use it for new biz for like searching people's email addresses. I have used it for searching information about them and connecting with them. It doesn't always give the email address. You know, as always, you have to worry about the hallucinations, but it also gives other content in terms of like things to talk to them about that they would be interested in. It's a connector. All right, last question before we go. How's Michael doing? Michael um is doing okay, but according to Chad GPT, he is underutilizing AI as a creative collaborator. He's only using it as a shortcut tool. He distrusts AI's ability to capture tone and emotion. He likely he still believes correctly that voice is sacred and that AI can sound robotic or off-brand, but if he uses better commands, he'll get better answers. He's not embedding AI into the creative workflow across the team yet. He's treating AI as a threat to originality instead of a catalyst to iteration. So then I said, "Help me, help him." And it gave me an AI toolkit with 30 days of things that Michael needs to do once a day, one thing a day to help him better utilize the tools. Are you going to share that with Michael? I already sent it to him. All right. My thanks to Jennifer Karen, Jackie Russo, and Sarah Seagull. One thing before you go. Everything we do at 21 Hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together. If you get something out of listening to these podcast episodes, consider joining the conversation. You can do that by joining the 21 Hats sounding board, a Slack channel where you can tap the wisdom of a very smart crowd or by becoming a founding member and joining our monthly Zoom forum where you can be part of conversations much like the ones we have on the podcast. You can sign up for both by subscribing to the Morning Report. If you have any questions, you can email me at lauren21hats.com. And if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report, please tell a friend, tell an enemy, tell every business owner you know. Your word of mouth owner to owner will always be the most effective way to build this community for all of us. Thank you. It means a lot. This episode was produced by another entrepreneur, Jess Stubberon, founder of Blank Word Productions. Thanks for listening, everyone. [Music]