I Have to Figure This Sh*t Out

Hello everyone. Welcome to the 21 Hats podcast. I'm your host, Lauren [music] Feldman. This week, Liz Picarazzi and Jackie Russo compare notes with Ted Wolf on their very different journeys to integrate generative AI into their businesses. [music] For Liz, it's been frustrating. She resisted AI at first, but while she's ready to go now, her COO, who also happens to be [music] her husband, still isn't there. That's one reason Liz says she feels as though she's [music] been spinning her wheels. Jackie's path couldn't have been more different. She jumped in more than 2 years ago, took every course she could find, and now has custom GPTs talking to custom GPTs talking to custom GPTs. The AI tool she [music] built delivers 10 fresh, fully vetted prospects to her inbox every morning. It will find the person in charge of marketing, she says. It will find their LinkedIn profile. It will find the company website. it will find their competitors and it has already produced two new clients. [music] Plus, as this especially challenging year winds down, Liz, Jackie, and Ted reflect on where their businesses hit expectations and where they fell short. Jackie notes a sales hire that failed. I would have liked to have not spent the money on that person and had this epiphany without the [music] pain, she says. But I think those two things just go hand in hand. Liz cites her $400,000 tariff [music] bill. "It really hurts and it makes me angry," she tells us. "But in terms of revenue, we're doing well, I got to admit. Thank God for New York City rats and trash. Even in good times, owning and running a business can be a lonely pursuit. [music] Our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing [music] challenges. In fact, that's the whole idea behind the 21 Hats community, engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insight only another owner can offer. If you're interested in learning more, [music] you can sign up for the Morning Report newsletter, which offers examples every day of owners confronting challenges and seizing opportunities. Just search the 21 Hats Morning Report to subscribe. Joining me this week on the podcast are Liz Picarazzi, who is CEO of City Bin, which [music] makes trash enclosures and package bins and is based in Brooklyn, New York, Jackie Russo, [music] CEO of Brand Russo, a marketing agency based in Lafayette, Louisiana, and [music] Ted Wolf, who is CEO of Guidewise, which helps businesses implement AI and is based [music] in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The episode is titled and language alert here. I [music] have to figure this out. Welcome Liz, Jackie, and Ted. It's great to have all of you here. I want to start by addressing something. I've gotten some feedback uh lately that I'm spending too much time on artificial intelligence both on the podcast and in the newsletter. And I'm certainly open to that suggestion. Partly because I like to mix things up and talk about different things, keep it interesting. But every time I pull back from AI, something pulls me back in again. Sort of like Michael Corleó and The Godfather 3. [laughter] I [clears throat] believe when we look back on this year, this time period, we're going to have a lot to talk about. There's a lot going on. But when it comes to running a business, I'm not sure there's anything happening right now that's bigger or more important than the changes AI is making possible. Do any of the three of you disagree with that? >> Well, my opinion about your AI content has changed over time. I actually used to think there was too much of it and we were when we were at 21 Hats Live and we were given the option to have an AI session, I always chose something else. But recently, as I've started to get more into AI for the business, trying to learn, I pay a lot more attention to your content. One thing I will say and this has to do with content overall about AI is a lot of it is about the theoretical or the imperative to embrace AI but there are very few people that are talking about some of the brass tax like tactical things that you need to do to get ready for AI. So, for example, um our friend Alan Pence wrote this week, or actually it was on his podcast, that if you've got your content and your data and your pictures in multiple systems in Drive, in Dropbox, Slack, all over the place, that you're going to have a hard time adopting AI because your stuff is not in a consolidated place. And that's where I've been lately. I've been spinning my wheels. And it did occur to me that I could move this along a lot faster if I got my stuff organized. But then, oh, is there time to get myself organized? How do I even want to organize those tens of thousands of photos? And suddenly it turns into an exercise that seems too difficult. Um, but I have moved along a lot. But I have to say that the content that is very theoretical or about the imperative a of AI, I tend to gloss over. Anything that's about corporate AI, I tend not to read, but anything that is really about getting started, how to do this practical is really valuable for me as a small business at this stage. >> What do you mean when you say corporate AI? >> Uh, I mean more like big corporations, how are they implementing AI? how many people they're laying off as a result of it, how much money they're saving on it. I know that's going on, but I'm not going to spend time reading it. >> It's not going to change the way you run your business. >> No, not at all. >> Right. The challenges you just laid out are are really interesting and I suspect [laughter] relevant to a lot of people running businesses. Have you figured anything out? Do you know what you're going to do? >> Yeah. So, um, this imperative to get everything in a consolidated place has partly led me, ironically, to hire an additional person. You would think you'd be subtracting someone. >> I would not think that. I think AI is going to create jobs. Keep going. >> Yeah. So, I really started to dig into this about two months ago and of course thought I could do it all on my own. It hasn't happened. Um, you know, as an entrepreneur, I'm a very creative person. I'm very impatient, super impatient. And when I'm not able to set up something because of connections and passwords, I'm just going to give up. And I did for a while. And so now I've hired someone that's helped me pull together the systems, get the passwords in the right place, give people the right access, and it's really helped things because I was sort of in the way of not only my own AI learning, but that of my employees. We haven't really deployed AI in sort of a dedicated way in the business yet. And I think that this person is really going to help us do that. But the sort of getting past the spinning wheels, I imagine is something that a lot of small businesses are not able to get through. And that's the stage that I was at until literally I hired someone yesterday. >> I want to ask Jackie how she's dealt with those issues. But first, uh, how did you hire the person you hired to help you? What credentials were you looking for? She's a contractor that works for one of my close business friends. And when I went to the Inc. 5000 conference with this friend who was making the list for the first time, we flew together, we traveled, we stayed in a room together. And I was complaining about systems and passwords for like multiple times every day. And she noticed that. And she was like, "You really need to get help with this. it not to be so difficult that um this person that works for her but is not full-time has capacity and she knew for sure that she'd be able to help me with this stuff. So, we had a great meeting last week, went over all of my needs, went over all my systems, I got a proposal, was a very good one, and then we kicked off um some of the projects with her yesterday. So, it was a referral. I think in that situation, you sort of have a choice between trying to make the platforms you're already using work together or kind of starting fresh and building a clean new stack designed specifically for AI. It sounds like you're choosing the first choice, making your current systems work. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Jackie, what have you done? Well, as you know, Lauren, we've been talking AI for two years now, and we've integrated into different pieces of our company. Um, I believe it is going to completely upend my entire industry. I think that the shift that marketing is going to go through from 6 months ago to 18 months from now is going to rival the changes that it went through in all of the 1900s. >> I agree with that totally. Have you had to deal with the situation that uh Liz described of trying to get all your systems talking to each other? >> Yes, that is already something I'm always focused on and you know I feel like I do it better than most but not as great as I would like to. So, I'm still working on it, but I love the technology and I love the systems talking to each other. And I'm not worried about the machines taking over. And so, I want more of this if it's going to help me do my job better and help my clients grow, I'm going to figure out how to be first in line to make that happen. And so, my um job now, or at least has been for the past two years, is getting the people in my company to see it the same way. As you know, Michael and I have very different viewpoints on this topic and all other topics. Michael, your your husband and co-owner. >> Yeah, that's the one that's the baby daddy that I am referring to. Um, [clears throat] and then, you know, we have clients who run the gamut from they're scared of it, they don't want us to use it, they like it, they want to know that we're using it to they're using it, and they want us to take what they've done and make it better. And they send us 74page documents of crap. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> How did you initially deal with the situation that Liz described? Did you handle it yourself? Did you get your systems talking to each other? Did you bring somebody in with more experience and expertise? >> No, I feel like my job is to figure it out and then teach others. And so I have found a number of experts. Our friend Alan Pence being one of them and taken some classes from him. I have been teaching AI for marketing for beginners for about a year now. When I have to teach it, I got to go learn it. And so that's how the main driver is if I'm going to stay ahead, then I have to learn a bunch of stuff. There are a few um organizations that I either subscribe to their stuff or I take their classes. There's a ton of free classes out there that I have found to be very helpful. And then this is the first thing that I can remember where using it is the best I guess maybe cooking. This is probably equivalent to cooking. You can go to the culinary institute, but the most you're going to learn is from actually standing in the kitchen and taste testing recipes. Yep. >> Liz, I got a question for you. What made you actually make the decision to bring in that person to start organizing yourself? >> It was the the feeling of spinning my wheels that knowing that I had made the decision that I wanted to use AI. I wanted to deploy it and I was actually sitting there using Claude and Chat GPT and creating great stuff. But anytime it needed to be pulled in from a system, it would feel like friction and it just it became very obvious. It's not just the systems themselves, but it's the passwords attached to the systems. And in my business, we have like 27 different systems, maybe eight of them like we regularly use. But um if I'm trying to work with a system that I've lost my password on and then it's not in keeper, I was finding that was happening multiple times every day and it just it became overwhelming. >> Mhm. Jackie, I'm curious what made you develop the mindset that you have. You're so open to it and positive. >> Uh I think that's been my mindset since I was probably 15 years old. I don't know. I am I love being a lifelong learner. I love learning new things. [clears throat] >> When um digital ads came on board, we were one of the first agencies to jump on that and figure out how to use them for our clients. Social media, I was teaching social media classes in 2009 to schools. And I developed a threeclass set where I would teach a set to students, a set to the school themselves and the teachers, and a set to the parents because three very different audiences need to learn three very different things. I started a radio show, a local talk station, kind of a regional powerhouse here in the south, had me do a weekly show for them. Uh, it started out as a 60-second and then it became 5 minutes. And it was for 12 years. I would take an a social media platform that had just been launched and explained to the business community how they should or should not use it for their customers. >> In teaching AI, have you run in or even implementing it in your own business? Have you run into any problems, setbacks? >> Uh, no, no setbacks. I I you know, I think I have an a toxic positivity, so I don't really see setbacks, but um well, I'm working on that, but I have found opportunities to do a lot of things better. We're smarter. Uh our signature program at Brand Russo is called Razor Branding, and it's a threemonth strategic brand planning process. And so we've been able to introduce elements of different AI tools throughout that process and the end product is I mean is it a hundred times better than it used to be? Probably so. >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> Ted is in your travels consulting with companies about AI, you must see these kinds of situations all the time. Uh like the one Liz is describing uh businesses trying to figure out how to coordinate their processes. What do you generally recommend? Suggest figuring out ways to get in the different platforms to talk to each other or do you suggest starting from scratch? >> Um, I suggest doing what Liz started with actually getting somebody to come in and help you because you're not going to have time to do it yourself in a small business. So, you got to have someone come in and start taking a look at first thing tying systems together. Um, you know, making sure everything's linked the way it needs to be, but organizing your information. What I think a lot of people where it falls down is when they get into developing bots or even agents um you got to get into the workflow. What's a process step by step? Most people don't have them document it. If you don't have them document it, you don't know where your data is coming from. A lot of data is usually tribal knowledge. How do you get that into a system? So, I think that's the next step you've really got to look at. And I think there is potentially a good reason to listen to what the popular press is saying in big businesses. what they're doing today, Liz, you're going to be doing two years from now. And that that waterfall effect is really important to know because they're not saying we're letting people go. They're saying we're not hiring anybody and readjust our employee full-time equivalents, things like that. But I think the first step is how do I get my house in order? And that is what's your workflow? Document your systems and things like that. because you're going to have to get to a point where you say how many how far can I take the automation and the agents um in running my business and how do I connect with my not just my clients but you know other vendors that I can co-partner with and things like that cuz the changes are going to be really big when it comes to people. That's what I'm seeing and that's what I'm hearing. >> Liz, you have uh a lot of marketing experience and u marketing expertise. I'm guessing that's kind of where you've started using AI, creating content, uh creating marketing assets. Um, have you moved toward actually changing the processes by which you run the business to, uh, to integrate AI? >> So, my intent is to have the core of these marketing campaigns still come from me because I've I've built the product. I know who the customer is. I know the value proposition. I'm not going to let AI do that job, but then the stuff that I write is going to flow down to people that are doing the marketing implementation. So, I feel more comfortable with that if I know that my voice is captured from the beginning because if that's not captured, then the people working for me are going to like copy and paste or port over stuff that isn't really on message. Um, I don't think I'm going to need to be highly involved for a long time, but I know at least for 2026 that I'm going to get my messaging very clear. I have three product lines now. I have my residential, municipal, and bare. And obviously, there's different content for all three of them. And the core marketing structure is the three product lines. But then I don't want people just go in there putting any old messaging in or just developing let's say bear related material. I'm going to want my value proposition to be right in there from the beginning. So the goal is that in 2026 we're going to evolve to I put something in one place and then it kicks off. My creative team can go from there and use the tools that they're probably going to know better than I do. I don't want to have to know how to how everything works. That's part of the problem now. I don't. So, I'm thinking if I don't understand this, how am I going to pass this off to someone else? Or if I don't understand how to get my clear message and my positioning in the system, it's going to replicate something I don't want across all the marketing channels. >> Liz, you're a good writer and I know you take pride in your writing ability. You said that you're getting comfortable with making sure that your voice is part of what you're creating and presenting. How did you get comfortable with AI taking over uh to some extent for your voice? >> It was that I could see it was being trained on what was important. So sort of in a hierarchy of messaging from you know the overall product strategy through all of the different customer types and the different messaging. I could see that it was learning, so I became more comfortable with that. It speeds things up a lot. I consider myself a good writer, but I can also be really verbose, especially if I don't have the time to edit things down. So, if I've written something that's a little bit verbose and I throw it into chatbt or claude, it can consolidate it down into, you know, not only something that probably reads better, but probably is also uh better for like LinkedIn, for example. it. I think it knows what LinkedIn likes in articles and it's going to convert what I write to that sort of format. >> Jackie, you mentioned uh the class uh that you've been taking with Allan Pence. Uh Allan's been a guest on this podcast and I quote him fairly frequently on the on the newsletter. >> Uh so his name may be familiar to to listeners. You signed up for a class that I think is like eight or 10 weeks, something like that. >> It was eight weeks. So, you know what I've been teaching is an AI for marketing beginner class and specifically on how to use AI for small business marketing when u they may not be in a position to hire someone like Liz has done. They for sure don't need an agency like I work at. And so, but I still want them to have some skills because that's what helps them get bigger and become a good client for me. >> Yep. And so, um, teaching that class, uh, was great, but I want to stay ahead of my people. And so, taking Allen's courses, we exceeded what I knew after the first lesson, and there were seven more to go. And so, it was awesome. I mean, by the time we were done, we had vibe coded and built a website, an app, a funnel. Um, I had my, uh, robots talking to each other. And so one uh custom GPT would do a task and then tell the next custom GPT to do their task and then tell the next custom GPT to do their task. >> Okay. I think you're getting into the theoretical that Liz was talking about before. Can you tell us what those tasks were? >> Sure. Thanks, Lauren. [laughter] >> These are all just for the sake of of the class, right? So they were pretend tasks. They weren't real things I do every day, right? >> U but what I I loved about the way Allan did it and I think he's going to do another one. So, if y'all are out there and you're even slightly interested in this thing, sign up. This is not a guy reading from a deck and powerpointing you to death. There may have been a deck in the first two lessons, but after that, he would give us assignments and we would just basically program. And I'm not a programmer. I don't think that way. It kind of hurts my head, but I was able to figure out how to do it. And so he gave us this series of assignments around um taco trucks was one of the day's lessons. And so we had to find all the different taco trucks from this um deck of information like a CSV file. And then we ran different programs to analyze the data uh to create a map of where all the trucks were to create a route of how to get geographically from the first truck to the last truck in a place that makes most sense. One day we created fictional businesses and then we built all of the assets around that business. So in a class in one two-hour class we developed a business plan, an approach. We solved a problem. We built a website. We built an app. We built a lead funnel. I mean it was it was impressive. >> And like you were saying, Jackie, you have agents talking to agents talking to agents. That's a whole new realm. Then you got to get what they call orchestrate. And that's just how do I manage these? Because in the future when you hire someone, I honestly think you're going to be saying you're going to be managing two agents and one person or 10 agents and one person. Yes. >> And those levels will keep going up and then all of a sudden a small business person has to understand that stuff so they can get a >> I'm going to say leaprog ahead of their competition who won't because they're going to be left behind. It's just like hiring another employee. I got to do the exact same things. It just works faster and they're so much smarter than what most people are. But that doesn't mean I don't need people. I think that's what people are looking for along with what you said, Liz. Give me some practical applicable things that I can do. >> Well, and that's one of the things I told Allan was I love the theoretical assignments because it allowed me to separate from my business and just learn the tools. I was doing stuff that felt very smart and fancy and it made it easy. So, I I started to realize how easy it's going to be for other people who are way smarter than me to be able to use these tools to accelerate growth, to accelerate product development, to accelerate marketing initiatives. And so, the divide between the people who understand the tools and don't, as it gets bigger, that becomes the divide between the people who are growing their businesses more rapidly and those that are stagnating. Uh, one of the things that was fascinating to me to your point, I read an article and I don't think it was in 21 hats, although that is what I read mostly, um, about the radiology industry and 10 years ago, uh, med schools were telling radiology applicants to just pump their brakes because we had a a glut of radiologists in the market and we did not need more of them and they were going to have a hard time finding a job when they finished med school. Fast forward 10 years later, because of AI, people assumed that was going to get even worse. But the inverse has happened. Now we have a shortage of radiologists. Because of AI, we are able to do more X-rays because we can use it for more things because it's so inexpensive now. And because of the AI, we have faster ability to return information. A human still has to sign off on it. So we actually are doing what I think is going to happen in a lot of places where the people who know how to use the tools are in high demand and we need more of them because the tools are producing more opportunities for more work. >> So I I I want to get back to h how we can use this right now. One of the things I love about Allen Pence is that like Ted, he was a business owner first before he set out to immerse himself in AI and help others adopt it. So he speaks the same language as business owners. I'm curious, Jackie, you described uh the somewhat theoretical and classroom versions of what you learned when you left the classroom. What were you most excited to actually implement in your everyday business life? >> Sure. So, one of the things that um I built during class was a new business tool. I've been spending a lot of time completely revamping our new business program here at the agency and I'm able to save I'm gonna say conservatively 30 hours a week now >> of your own time >> of my own of my personal time >> which that's a lot. Um, and so what we have built is a tool that every day and what it ends up doing is delivering to me an incredibly well vetted set of new leads in specific industries with an incredibly detailed assessment. And so it serves >> start from the beginning, Jackie. 30 hours is a lot of time and new leads is something that every business cares about. How does this work? So now I have a tool that automatically in the background works and this is what it does. And I'm going to use business banks as an example. It will go out every day and find for me 10 business banks that completely fit the criteria of what the perfect client is for me. And that criteria is very detailed. It will find the person in charge of marketing. It will find their LinkedIn profile. It will find the company website. It will find their competitors. It will compare them into a Bant score, budget, authority, timing, and need. And then an we added an F for fit, so it's a B score. Um, it will rate them, and it will write a first draft email for me identifying specific things we've done that are aligned to things that they need and throw all that into an email for me at 6 a.m. >> Is that working? >> Oh, yeah. >> Amazing. >> Yeah, perfectly. How is all of that information even publicly available? >> Well, I tied a bunch of tools together, Liz. I'm so glad you asked. Um, so I have some scrappers, as one of my um, classmates called it, a scraper, and uh, about four different AI tools, different platforms, all working together in a daisy chain to deliver that information to me. >> And then you get 10 leads every day. >> Well, I chose that number, Lauren. That's one of the factors. You can just pick whatever number you want. Um, but 10 is a good number for me because I want to be more focused on quality over quantity. >> And what are you doing? >> Well, I'm connecting with them on LinkedIn and I'm starting a relationship. I'm getting to know them. I'm reading what they're writing. There's still some human element, I think, to do a good job. I'm not ready to turn my entire life over to the robots. >> So, you're not just making a cold call to these. >> No, no, that's not my business. Other people, that would make sense to them. Um, but so, no, I will uh get to know them. I'm not just going to slide into their DMs and say what's up you up. I'm not there's no you up messages here. Now the ones that make sense, we do invite them to be a part of our podcast because you're always looking for B2B marketers, but that's not everybody. I I we only release a podcast a week. Like how could I possibly keep up? And so it helps put them into different buckets of they would be a good podcast guest. They have this immediate need right now. They have a long-term thing. send them this um material that you created a while back that would be relevant to where they are right now. It it guides me through that process and gives me steps and then um I have another tool that once the human me says yes, it goes into our CRM and there's a whole bunch of automation that happens after that. >> So Jackie, would you say that that's the equivalent of what your employees would normally be doing or a person would be doing but now the agent technology is doing it? I would tell you yes. And um not only am I doing it, but I have two employees that are also doing it and we're comparing our [clears throat] notes because we all have different sets of leads that come to us and we do different things with them. So we're doing some ABC testing. >> Yeah. >> And then I would also tell you that as this works, which we're two projects in already, so so far so good. >> Um so two new clients have come from this effort in very short amount of time. >> Okay. And so, no, now I'm going to have to start hiring to handle the new work that this tool is creating. >> So, Liz, I'd love to ask you, if you don't mind, if you look at your AI as a human, you're bringing in, teaching, training, getting them on board, and then trying to get them to self-manage. So, free you time up, does that help you think about AI any differently, or is that the way you've always thought about it? >> No, I think that would help me tremendously. >> Mhm. you know, I'm older and I mean, I know that there's many people that could potentially help. It's just a matter of like how do I find them? And honestly, I was listening to you guys like I've never even set up an agent. >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> A concept that I know is like a next step, but I've got this sort of resistance like I need to figure it out before I do it instead of get in the sandbox and do it. And you know, >> it's interesting to me. You almost sounded embarrassed that you haven't done that yet. At least I am embarrassed. >> Trust me, there are a lot of business owners. >> Well, we'll see. Lauren, have you ever set up an agent? >> Absolutely not. >> So, Liz, let me ask. How would you feel from managing agents like that? I mean, it appears as though you would like to, I'll say, explore and thoroughly understand something before you do it, which is very rational. Correct. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, how do you deal with the emotional side then of [clears throat] managing technology, of managing agents? because that's the real story of AI. >> I guess I could tell you sort of a vivid story and that is that my frustration level with all of the data and the systems and the passwords needed to feel like I had a connected system got so bad that I had a tantrum. like one of my worst tantrums ever a couple of weeks ago where I realized like I needed to get all these systems talking, but worse, I didn't really think that anybody cared about it as much as I did. And I don't know if that's true or not, but that does sort of get to the emotional thing because then it's like, well, not only do I have to figure this out, but I need to try to galvanize my team to embrace it. I'm not going to do that. That's why I have to bring someone else to do it because they can not only know these systems, they can hook them together, but I'm not planning on training my staff on how to use these tools. I'm going to have her do it. >> Mhm. [clears throat] I think that's very smart. I think the people change capacity is low right now. The pace and scope of change is getting faster all the time. Um, you mentioned that you almost went into a I believe you use the word temper tantrum if I remember correctly. Probably would get programmed into an agent. Because the values that you have, you will program into that. And when an agent goes crazy, and they do go crazy, just like an employee, you have to know, okay, here's how I have to go back and handle it because the beliefs and values that you have are going to be evident in that particular agent. And you got to be prepared to deal with that. >> Yeah. Well, it's sort of in my head right now. I mean I I have not tried to push these tools a whole lot on people partly because I don't have a good command of it. But I'll give you another example like we have this master spreadsheet which we use for production planning, pricing, inventory management, you name it. And even tariff tracking. It's in this great sheet. My husband Frank, who's our COO, he created the sheet. It's very sophisticated. He basically is in it all day long. And I told him the other day, "Have you tried loading this into any AI tools?" Oh, no, no, no. I'm not ready for that. I don't think that will work. And I said,"I don't think it will work either immediately, but if you structure in a way where it knows what we want to know from that, like we're placing a big order soon." And he is really good at looking at the sheet to do production planning, but it would be a lot easier if he were to put that sheet in there and look at past sales for every skew and look at historicals as well as orders we have coming in to make that order management. I mean, I would think it would be turnkey, >> but he hasn't even uploaded the thing into anything. And I've also decided that I'm not gonna do that myself. I'm curious to see what it will do, but I have a little bit of a barrier because I want him to have the curiosity to do that and he doesn't have it yet. >> Ted, do you have enough information to say how you would address that that situation? Yeah, I would say I highly recommend that um he does put it into AI. The beauty of what AI is and I'm going to get just a little technical here and that is in data processing looking at systems you have input process output. You put something into the system it does the thinking and the thing for you that's today's technology and then you get an output and it ends there. But with AI you have another step and that's called competency and communication. He would be able to communicate, ask questions. It could ask him questions to make him think deeper about that spreadsheet and it would uncover an awful lot of gaps that perhaps he wouldn't normally see because it's so detailed in what it's doing. So look at that AI with him and say it's going to teach you how to critically think at a deeper level, >> right? >> That's one of the two skills that AI will bring to a company. >> Yeah. Well, and even a question like scenario planning, like there's a big order that we're likely going to get, but we're not sure yet. And so, do we put that in the order or not? Well, if we could ask a question, if we get this order, how should we increase our production order? I think that that's probably a pretty straightforward prompt because you put what the order amount would be and then it's going to compare to historicals and decide. But I can see it really helping with situations like that. >> I do want to move on to another topic in the limited time we have left. But before we leave this, I just have to ask one more question. Half the stories I read about AI on LinkedIn and other places are about one particular issue which is figuring out how AI is changing SEO. um how people are adopting what I guess is being called GEO generative uh engine optimization so that they can be discovered on all of these AI chat bots. Jackie, is that something that came up in your course? Have you figured out the answer to this holy grail question? I am also tracking this story and I have not because it sounds like unlike Google who releases their criteria. The um open AI claw the other platforms have not released their criteria yet. What we have focused on is doing the right things the right way and you'll get the right results and I think that's just a good lesson for life in general. >> That was kind of true of SEO too. Right. >> Correct. And so if you just are try not trying to game a system, not trying to trick it, but if you just do the right things and earn your way into people's consciousness, typically you'll turn out okay. >> Does that make sense to you, Ted? >> Yeah, it does make sense to me. Everything that she said, I I I fully agree. >> So last thing I want to discuss, this has been another in a series of kind of crazy years. A lot has happened this year, and I'm just wondering what impact this has had on each of your businesses. Uh Liz, you're a perfect example. As we know, it's not been an easy year for you with all the tariff insanity. Uh what has that done to the performance of your business? Have you been able to hit the numbers you expected to hit when the year began? >> Yeah, so we um have had a lot of changes in sort of the proportion of our customers. So, we started in residential and then we got into the municipal market like three and a half years ago when New York City really started to focus more on its trash and rat issues. So, my municipal business is only three and a half years old. My residential is now 13 years old. And last year, the split of my municipal versus residential business, it was still 60% residential, 40% municipal. This year, it's 70% municipal, 30% residential. And that's because residential sales have gone down a lot. But because we've really focused and invested on the municipal market, that's helped us because government contracting, they're not as u vulnerable sometimes to changes and pricing. Um for us, you know, the situation in New York with the rat and trash issue, it's also fairly political. So there has been a mandate for a couple of years for commercial districts such as business improvement districts to containerize their trash. Well, that became a funded mandate like 3 months ago, which means the funds for these business districts to pay for the trash containers are there and my business has really benefited from that. So I'm revenue-wise I'm growing. Um we have expanded a lot into public parks and also into other cities. Baltimore is a huge city. We're expanding more into Chicago and then we've got the Grisbane which is a whole another thing for our bear enclosure. But uh that proportion of 7030 being municipal has saved us because if we had just focused on homes and multif family properties and didn't have these public space sales, we would really be in trouble right now. And you know, I never would have known a few years ago when I chased that opportunity with the city that it would help me in the situation, but it is sort of I'm not a religious person, but I do feel like there's some sort of a higher power that these two things are happening at the same time. I'm going to be uh 400,000 in tariff bills this year. I've got another 120,000 to go than I'm expecting in December. And it really hurts. It really hurts. And a source, it makes me really angry. But in terms of our revenue, we're doing well. I got to admit, thank God for New York City rats and trash. >> Have you been able to maintain your margins at all, or are you way off? >> We're off. Um, we did a search charge, so that has helped a lot. >> Jackie, how about you? You've had some uncertainty this year, too, in that you hired your first big-time sales lead with very big expectations. Uh, as you've told us, that hire didn't work out precisely the way you'd hoped. Uh, [laughter] and you've been rethinking things since then. What has this year been like uh in terms of Bran Russo's performance? >> You know, it's shocking. We're not going to end up at the highly uh ambitious goals that I originally projected, but we're still going to end up in a good spot. So, uh, we have, I think, turned this into a year of some disappointments because of that hire being so expensive and so colossally failing and some really great wins, but we've got some incredible clients that have been with us for, you know, 5, 10, 15 years. We've got some great new clients that we're excited about. We've really fine-tuned. after that person fell apart or left us. I I blew up our entire new business process and just started back at basics and it's kind of like remodeling a house. Every time I opened a wall, I would find knob and tube wiring or some place where there was no insulation or the rotten uh floors and subfloors that I have to replace. But we're coming out of this with a completely remodeled house that's now practically brand new. We've integrated AI in all these different places. We've got a real system that anybody can now step in and work and I feel really good about that time and effort. Um I would have liked to have not spent the money on that person that I did and had this epiphany without the pain, but I think those two things just go hand in hand. So are we on track now to have the biggest year of all time next year? You betcha. It sounds based on this conversation as if you basically uh replaced your uh big-time salesperson with a uh big- time commitment to AI. >> We did. And yet, I'm still going to end up having to hire probably two people next year to run the system once we finish a few more tweaks over the next few months because my job is not to do the jobs of this agency. My job is to provide opportunities for us to hire really talented people to do those jobs. So, I'm in it right now to get it right and then I have to get out of it so that it can grow. >> So, did your revenue grow this year? >> It ends up being flat instead of growing. We originally projected a 15% up and we're going to end up 1% up. >> How about you, Ted? You're more of a startup. Uh what were your expectations for this year and have you met them? >> I think the expectation was surprise and that's actually what happened. um my son um and I co-founded a business I'll say 3 four years we worked on developing and trying to figure out a solution to that that 72% change initiative failure that's in companies and that's documented by McKenzie and Boston Consulting Group we looked at that and said okay that's a huge solution if we can put that in place and that means people can't implement because people's resistance to change so we sat down designed a system um had it coded and and and started using it along with education on how do you get people to change and uh we focused it all around goals and how do you get it plugged in to the company along comes AI and all of a sudden it's like we have two sides of the AI solution there we need the technology which we have through the IBM partner plus program but then we have our people resistance module if you will where we go in and help organizations get greater adoption of the technology and I would tell you that um we'll probably triple good good possibility of tripling tripling our revenue for next year because this is a message and people see that we need it and and uh it's changing businesses. So for me I'm very excited about what happened this year. I'm actually more excited about next year. And Liz, after hearing what you are paying in potential tariff fees and things like that, I would suggest um I'm not a friend cuz I don't know you well, but if I was a friend, I'd say you have to start looking at AI as a way to um offload those costs or at least increase productivity to uh make their effect less. >> Yep. >> And that's as much psychology as it is technology. >> How would you offload those costs, Ted? What are you referring to? Uh, exactly what Jackie was saying. Figure out how to automate some of the things you're doing right now and making AI very intelligent so it can write at the same caliber of what you write, Liz, but it can also do all of the processing, inventory, operating side of the business just as well as your husband. And then go from there with other agents. Take it slow. Make sure you're protected. Low risk, low cost to get started. You have to do that. And and the people side, your mindset is key in that whole thing. >> Well, your mindset, Liz, as well as your husband, how are you going to How are you going to convince Frank to uh take the leap? >> I'm probably going to bring someone else to do that. Or I'll just get over me being stubborn and upload that file I told you about and play with it myself and see how magical it is and then tell him um and just have like the true evidence for it. It It's I don't know what it is. It's he also really likes being close to the data and he's very proud of that those spreadsheets and models that he's built. So that's reluctance. I mean it's the same reason why we don't have scanners in the warehouse for boxes because he likes using a clipboard. >> Wow. >> Liz, if I can just mention to you, I mentioned the 72% people resistance to change. With all respect, that's an example of it where they get we all we all get stuck in our comfort zones and we do the same thing. So, I would suggest downloading or uploading the file. You may get some unbelievable insights and it could be a big uh mental hit if you will in your own mind. So, you get excited about it. >> Yeah. Do you know what? Maybe I can help give him a moment of addiction. >> Yeah. You know that moment when you're like, "Oh my god, >> dopamine head. >> I can't live without this." >> Yeah. >> And you have that realization. >> Yeah. >> Well, in in Frank's defense, I feel compelled to point out as as you've discussed here many times, Liz, you guys come with different sensibilities and you're more entrepreneurial in nature. He's more conservative and cautious in nature. And the mix, I think, has probably been pretty good for you over the years. Yeah, it definitely has been. And you know, we've learned how to deal with a lot of the conflicts. Um, but the conflict in this area over my frustration with systems, lack of integration, it sort of needed me to tantrum to get it done. Like me tantruming is part of the reason we hired someone to help us. >> And that's a normal part of change management. >> Tantrums. >> Yeah. You have to hit that point where you say, "I can't do this anymore. I'm done. I'm done. I'm ready to change now. You've got to get somebody to the point where they're saying that or they will continue doing what they've always done. >> Yep. >> Will Frank be listening to this episode, Liz? >> He definitely will be. Hopefully, he won't tell anybody how bad the tantrum was. [laughter] >> You know, we talk about it over here, Liz, because I'm the go- go and Michael's the no. And so, you know, you need the gas and the brake to make the car go properly. >> Y Bicks. We really are. I'm very so fortunate for that. >> Well, if Frank or Michael decide they need equal time, they know how to reach me. [laughter] Uh, please remind them of that. Uh, but for now, my thanks to Liz Picarazzi, Jackie Russo, and Ted Wolf. Uh, thank you all for sharing. 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