How to use AI to make more profit

Transcript

If you are listening to this podcast, chances are it’s because you want to make more money and specifically more profit in your business. If so, you are going to love today’s episode of the podcast because I am chatting to you about how you can use AI or artificial intelligence to grow that bottom line.

Today we are tackling the exciting topic of artificial intelligence or AI and its immense potential to boost your bottom line in 2024. We’re venturing solo today, so buckle up as we explore the different ways AI can transform your business and unlock new pathways to profitability.

OK, get this. I actually wrote that intro for me. Yep, AI isn’t some futuristic thing that somewhere in the distant future, it is here and now and I am using it regularly in my business already and many business owners are.

In today’s episode, we’re going to chat about how you can use AI in your business, some things to avoid or be aware of, some ways that AI is already being used around you that you might not have even noticed and how specifically AI can help you to make more profit and where you can get started using AI in your business.

What is AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how is it working in our lives already

What exactly is AI or artificial intelligence? Well, basically it is algorithms and it is the computers learning patterns. They are able to replicate them at scale and at a speed which is exceeding human capabilities. If you think about it, even from when I was younger, computers are now an integral part of the way that we work, and the way that we function in the world. And AI is just the next extension of how computers are integrating with the way that we are going to operate into the future. The cool thing about AI is that it’s not just the programme, AI is actually programmed to get more intelligence, to recognise patterns, to do things faster and to learn. And while this can be kind of scary if you start to think about it too much, it can also be pretty exciting when you think about it, because this isn’t just going to output the direct things, it can actually start to think on its own and start to notice patterns and start to look for more patterns, which is pretty cool.

Now I bet there are already multiple ways that AI is integrated into your business and life already. Some examples; if you have a phone and you say, hey Siri, that is a form of AI, and if you’ve been using your Siri for a while, you will know that it gets better and smarter over time at knowing what you’re asking for. The more that you interact with it, the more it starts to understand your accent, your tonality, the way that you ask things, and it spits out the output that you are asking for. You may also have an Alexa or Google Home in your house, which again, the more that you use it, the more it is able to predict what specifically it is that you’re asking for. AI is also commonly used in banking in programmes like platforms like Amazon. So, for example, if you go and buy a book like mine, Amazon might suggest, hey, if you really enjoyed that book, you might really enjoy this book… Intentional Profit by Clare Wood. Programmes platforms are trying to deliver a more premium experience for their clients and therefore what they’re wanting to do is give them more of what they like. Another example of this is algorithms in social media. So AI is trying to predict OK, Clare likes watching a lot of this, let’s give her more of that. It’s really trying to keep you on the platform longer. It’s designed to make clients happy. And so that’s why social media is so addictive, because the algorithm is constantly trying to think what is the next thing that you might want to see? What are you enjoying? What’s going to keep you on this platform for longer? So AI is already all around us.

Using  AI for ideas and rapid content creation and the platforms I use

Let’s talk about some ways that you might be able to use AI in your business. At the moment, the way that I’m using AI is for things like ideas and rapid content creation. For example, when I was preparing this podcast episode, I went and asked it, what are some ways that businesses can use AI to create more profit? You can actually go and ask a programme or platform to write an entire podcast episode or blog post, or even a book. I am going to share a couple of words of warning about this later, but that is how at the moment, I am using AI, mainly getting ideas and inspiration. I am not just saying go and write a podcast episode and coming here and repeating it. I don’t know if you noticed any difference in my intro, maybe it sounded pretty seamless because you weren’t listening for it, but if you go back and have a listen to the intro, the episode, you might notice that it didn’t quite sound 100% like me.

What are some of the AI platforms that I’m using right now?

Well, you may have heard of ChatGPT and another platform that I’ve also recently started using is Gemini, which is Google’s AI platform. It’s funny because I know they are computer programmes, but I’m already noticing a little difference in… I don’t know if this is right, but their personalities… so I kind of find that Gemini, the Google one tends to have a bit of a wittier style, a few more quips and a bit more bit more of an edge to it. Whereas I find ChatGPT is just not as creative or edgy, perhaps. But again, you need to play around with these platforms. And again, the thing that I imagine will happen over time is that the more and more that we use them, the more they will learn the way that we like to word things, our tone of voice etc.

This is literally what these platforms are designed to do. So at the moment I am primarily using them for ideas. Inspire hey, give me a suggestion of how I could reword my Instagram bio for example.

How NOT to use AI

Off the back of that, let me share how NOT to be using AI.

As I mentioned before, I would not be just grabbing content that’s created off one of these platforms and sticking it out there. And what’s the reason for that? Because it’s generated by a computer. It is going to lack your personality, your thought leadership? The very reason that people come to you or your brand is because of the uniqueness that is represented through all of your history, your stories, your thought leadership. While it’s great to get some inspo, I personally would not be recommending that you just pick up and blindly post the stuff that it gets spit out of your AI tools.

Now that leads me into a couple of warnings about using AI before we will get into the profit side. I have seen some platforms that have asked me to go and upload all of my blog posts, all of my IP. And at this stage I’m very reluctant to do that, even though I know that it would vastly improve the AI platforms capability of reproducing my tone of voice. I’m still hesitant to put all of my intellectual property into a platform, that I don’t know where they’re going to store it, how they’re going to use it and so it’s just something to be kind of mindful of when you are wanting to protect your intellectual property, your own assets inside your business. Just be careful about uploading it onto a free platform, because at this stage we don’t know how this is all going to be used.

Another thing to bear in mind, AI can still make mistakes. So don’t blindly grab information and go and share it out there with the world without doing some fact or sense checking first.

Something else to bear in mind. The way that the computer programmes work, they are looking for patterns. They may have a tendency to be trained or biassed based on the data that they are being fed. Just like humans. So let’s take the example of the Instagram algorithm. I go through phases, I’m going to be honest, where I’m searching a bunch of celebrity crap and I can end up down at rabbit warrens trying to figure out who Sydney Sweeney is dating at the moment and so because I’m looking at all of this celebrity nonsense the algorithm’s like, hey, she’s enjoying that, so it will feed me more of that kind of information. What this means is that you are not getting a balanced view.

The same thing will happen with your algorithm if you are Googling or searching certain things again and again, what will happen is that the algorithm will start to go, hey they really enjoy when I give them, for example, the negative perspective on that, so let’s feed them more of that. Does that make sense? So just be mindful that the platforms, the computer programmes are looking for patterns and if they are sensing that you have a leniency towards a particular type of content or particular way that it’s presented, you’re going to get more of that.

And this is again why things like social media can be so scary. Because the power they have to influence our minds, the power it has to say, hey, you’re going down this rabbit hole and I’ll give you more of that kind of content. So as you’re using AI as a tool, as a platform for information in your own business, be aware of that potential bias in the content that might be getting produced out of the platform.

The directions you give are key to the success of using AI

The next thing I don’t know if this is a word of warning, it’s just. Something to be mindful of. Something you will learn when you start using AI regularly is how bad you are at giving directions, so you need to ask good questions to get good answers, and it’s been a really interesting experience for me as a manager and a leader. I’m someone I’m quite a high level person. I’m not really much of a micro manager, so one of the things that I might come to ChatGPT or Gemini for is say write me a social media caption around why you need finances. Yeah, that’s quite vague and so what it would spit back is a sentence or post, which if you follow me on social media, you will know, I’m a huge fan of long form captions. So a sentence post just isn’t going to fly for me. It might be like why you need to be across your personal finances, not your business finances, which is not my jam or my niche. And the more that you use it, the more you realise how vague you might give instructions, and it’s actually really cool to start to really be able to be a master and give a lot clearer directions. Can you please produce 20 bullet points around this particular topic and getting really specific about the way that you were asking it?

The final word of warning and I kind of alluded to this before, but bear in mind that if you are just picking up what gets spit out of an artificial intelligence programme, it is going to lack originality. You do not want to end up sounding like everyone else out there, or you will no longer stand out from the crowd.

I truly believe that while it has its place, it really cannot replace the human experience. Already I’ve gone on and had a bit of a rant about a few different topics in the area of AI, but let me specifically talk about ways that AI can help you to make more profit in your business.

How AI can help you make more profit

Well, firstly, AI can help you with decision making. When you think about it a computer can rapidly analyse vast amounts of data, for example pricing consumer trends. It can go out there and process information at a speed far greater than our human brains can. So if you’re looking to make a decision, you can use the power of computer programmes, of AI, to help you to make better decisions and better decisions means more profit. You can also use chat bots, which again are an AI platform. So one of the ways that I’m using a form of Chat bot, is ManyChat. On Instagram you might have seen, maybe you didn’t even know that this was, an AI tool, but inside Instagram. I might say comment PROFIT on this post and I’ll send you a link to join my latest training. And then what happens is the bot looks for the word or a variation of the word, and it will then automatically send a DM with a link to go and join.

And some other business owners I’ve seen, I’m not quite as sophisticated yet, but they have whole funnels where they then asked further questions. So then might send a follow up saying, hey, I sent you the link did you go and join. It can actually start to get smarter and interact so that people are having a more personalised experience with your brand, which of course is firstly saving you time. And potentially saving your team costs and things like that, which is more profit and also by boosting your sales conversions. If you are able to get more eyeballs on your brand, if you are able to get more people into your email list to your training, that is going to help you to grow your sales and similarly boosting the actual conversion rate by producing a more personalised experience for your potential clients.

Another way that I can help you to boost your profit is that you can have a computer going back to potential clients, thereby producing 24/7 customer support. See, you might have only have so many hours a day, and similarly with your team, depending on the size of your team, you might not have been able to provide around-the-clock support. Whereas if you’ve got a chat, what they can do is go back to clients at any time of the day or night, which obviously helps with globalisation and reaching more clients across the world which can lead to reduced staff costs.

An example of how I’m using this in my business is that AI now transcribes my zoom meetings. It is actually, as I speak, automatically transcribing this recording. So my assistant Sally used to transcribe all of my podcast episodes. And now she obviously needs to look over what the platform is producing, but there is a good chunk of the transcription provided by AI. Which we see is one example of how using a tool like this can help reduce your staff costs.

I know that this is a bit of a left field idea, but another way that AI can help you to make more money is that you can make money by teaching other businesses how they can use AI and incorporate it into their own processes. There is a whole new industry in and of itself, teaching other people about AI and creating automated tools within artificial.

Some more ways it’s helping, is it is increasing the speed with which you can produce content. I shared before I come to AI and say hey, give me some ideas about blah blah blah. It can also free up your time by automating some of the ways that you do things.

Now, if you regularly use the same computer, you might notice that when you go into certain fields in online forms, it will automatically populate fields that it knows how you’re going to populate. So for example, when I’m filling in forms, I am regularly writing in the first name field Clare and the last name field, Wood. And when I go into forms, a lot of the time those fields are prepopulated for me.

Some more ways that you might be able to make more profit through using artificial intelligence and this one is a biggie, but being able to analyse data, recognise patterns and this can help you to create more profit by predicting future costs. By saying to you, I mean my bank already does this… I get notification saying hey, your rate is due soon. Inside your business finances, your AI tools might be able to help you to predict future upcoming costs, patterns that are happening inside your business. You may also be able to reduce fraud and reduce theft by again pattern recognition. By programmes looking and saying hey, that’s a little bit unusual, that’s not the usual way that you might earn an income or spend money, is this right? And again, I already know that my banks do this because often I’ll get notifications… I was just recently in LA, and I did get a notification saying, hey, is this a legitimate transaction? Because that’s quite unusual for you. So again, avoiding theft, avoiding fraud is another really amazing potential benefit of AI.

Look, these are just a couple of examples and you know realistically I am pretty new to this world myself. But I am already getting super excited and inspired about the potential that exists for us as business owners, both in creating ease and flow, but particularly in adding more profit into your business. So if you’re liking the sound of all of this, and you’re wondering, how do I get started? My tip would be this….

• Play around with it.
• Start small.
• Make some
• Learn it’s limitations
• Beware of the potential dangers or risks of using AI

We’ve covered a lot of ground today, but there was a lot that I wanted to share on this topic and I hope that you have found it helpful and it’s giving you some food for thought in terms of how you can use AI to grow your business profit.

Thanks for joining me today and I’ll chat to you again next week.