Welcome, Tools, And A Review

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello friends, this is Kimberly. It's episode 352, and I'm so glad that you are here today. If you have been watching everyone talk about AI, social media and YouTube and your friends and your family and quietly wondering if you're already too far behind or if it's even for someone like you to use, I want you to stay right here today and listen all the way through because today's episode is going to change how you think about that. And I'm going to share with you how to get started with AI if you haven't already. If you're new here, welcome. I'm so glad that you found this podcast. I have no doubt it's going to help you along your business journey, whether you're in the idea stage, starting or going. This podcast exists for you to help you build a business that not only fits into your life, but truly fills your soul. I've been doing this for 26 years, running various businesses. And I can tell you it's been one of the most fulfilling journeys of my entire life. So you'll want to get plugged in right now. You can scroll down in the show notes. I've got some free tools for you. Obviously, you can hit subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And you can also follow me on Instagram. I'm at Start with Kimberly Brock. So you can always message me there. You can DM me and you can contact me there. But I want to let you know some exciting things are coming, some tools that you're going to get to use in your very hands. You know, everything I've been doing has been online, but I'm embarking on a new journey where I'm going to be providing some things that you get to actually physically use. And I cannot wait to share them with you. I'm going to be announcing everything coming up soon. So stay tuned. Again, make sure you subscribe. And if you've been listening a while, thank you so much to all my loyal listeners, all my fans, everyone who has ever left a review. My clients have been absolutely amazing. I want to just read a review really quick. This is Allie Jones from JAML Jams. In fact, she was on this podcast a while back. She's amazing. She said, Kimberly, you truly have the gift of encouragement. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for encouraging me to pursue my dream of a jam business. And Allie was in my programs. She has been absolutely amazing. She's a rock star and awesome. And I want you to know that you can do it too. So thank you all so much for being loyal listeners. If you've never rated this podcast, if you could just hit the five-star rating today, that would mean the world to me. Or if you have 30 seconds to read a review, that would be awesome. Okay, that's it. On to the episode.

Why AI Feels Scary

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Well, hello, friends. How are you? What has been shaken? What has been going down with your business? I'm so excited for all of you. I know some of you listening are just dreaming about starting a business. You're wondering if you could do it. Well, first of all, you can. And if you've been building your business a while, I'm so glad you're here because today's topic is so important and it's about AI. And I know a lot of you feel like you're behind or like it's too late or you're scared of it. A lot of you tell me you are non-techie. Is this you? I don't know. Raise your hand. Do something. Tell me, is this you? I get it. AI can seem scary and overwhelming. I'm actually starting to really get into it here. And I actually am loving it. And I thought today I've got to share how you can begin. If you just feel like you're scared of it, or even if you're not scared of it. If you're like me and you're like, okay, I'm going to go for it. I know I know nothing and I'm just going to start. It's a great feeling. And I just want to share some information with you and then get you going so you can get started today using AI. AI will save you time. It can help make you money. It's going to make your business run smoother. You're going to actually love it. So I don't want you to be scared of it. I'm going to, you know, share with you simple, simple steps for getting started. That's what I do for you. I always make it simple so that this is not overwhelming and so that you can actually move into this new era of you building a successful business. So, first of all, I just want to acknowledge the feeling in the room right now, okay? That you have probably been like, AI sounds overwhelming. It's expensive, it's built for businesses with a team and not for me, uh, someone who's loves numbers and spreadsheets and technology. A lot of you may think that just being a solo entrepreneur or service provider, maybe you own an online store, that maybe it's not really that something that you need to like jump into right this minute. Maybe you think, oh, I'll wait a little while till things get easier. They are getting easier, by the way, but still, uh, this may be what you're feeling, right? And I want you to know that the overwhelm about it is real. Okay. But the cost of waiting and not jumping in now could be huge for you. You could get way behind really quickly. It's like what my kids say about like grandparents using technology and even me now. My kids have called me a boomer, and I'm not a boomer. Okay. I'm Gen X. I mean, are you kidding? I was born in the early 70s. I'm Gen X. I grew up in the 80s, right? We've got thick skin over here, right? But you know how the kids are always making fun of the grandparents because maybe they don't know to use their phone, they don't know the tools. And, you know, it's a weird feeling as you age because you do kind of lose your desire sometimes to learn things, or you're just behind, you're so far behind that to catch up would take a lot of concentration and care, right? And I don't want that to happen to you. Okay. I want you to be able to start learning this now. And I want you to understand, you know, what the data is actually saying about where we are right now. Okay. So let's let's kind of go through this so you understand and you see the importance of

The Adoption Stats You Need

SPEAKER_01 5:59

you getting moving. So I'm gonna read some stats here, okay? So adoption of AI jumped from 23% of people to 47% in just two years, two years from 23% to 47%. It's the fasted, fastest adopted business tech since cloud computing. Okay. Since everything kind of went in the cloud when everyone started getting, you know, all of their started putting all their files and folders in the cloud, how amazing it was to have like Dropbox and and all these different things. I remember getting Dropbox when I was back doing my online boutiques, gosh, 15 to 20 years ago. I can't remember exactly when I adopted it, but it was amazing. Or like Google Docs and everything in Google Drive, right? People took that on really quick. Do y'all realize that people are taking on AI at a faster rate than that? Okay. They're small businesses are now adopting AI faster than large companies. The first time that's happened with any technology. Okay. 76% of small businesses are using or actively exploring it. The hesitant minority, which I hope is not you, is shrinking fast. Okay. So the takeaway is that you're not actually behind. You're at a moment right now where this matters. This matters. If you have not started using AI in your business, today is the day. Okay. Now I'm sure if you're using some kind of software platform, even Shopify, I've I've heard I don't have a Shopify account right this minute, but that AI is totally integrated now and it's so awesome for reporting and all that stuff. And I think all of that is great. And you should be using those tools. Okay. If they already are already in the software that you use, use them. But I'm also going to talk to you today about what you can do outside of what's already integrated in the software, what you can proactively do. Okay. So let's kind of talk about the myths real quick that keep you stuck and keep you sitting there, right?

The Myth Of No Use Cases

SPEAKER_01 7:58

77% of non-adopters say they see no applicable use cases for their businesses. Okay. And researchers call it an education gap, meaning y'all just aren't educated to know that it's not really a limitation, that it's something can actually help you. The smaller the business, the bigger the gap tends to be. So if you are a one person or a two-person operation and you feel like just I don't need AI, um, you're wrong. You actually need it. You actually need this. Okay. AI is not like a technology upgrade, like getting the latest computer or the best camera. It's a day-to-day task level tool. Okay. So the question is not do I understand AI? It's are you ready for this? What do I do every week that eats my time? That eats my time that I don't like doing. Okay. So let's just think about this and let's kind of talk through what it's doing for small business owners. Okay.

Where AI Saves Time And Money

SPEAKER_01 9:06

For others out there, this is what it's doing for them. 91% of small businesses using AI report a revenue boost. So just think about that for a minute. 91% of small businesses using AI report a revenue boost. Social media content is the number one use. And you probably knew that. I mean, I think if I thought about it, that would be the one thing that I would think that it'll help people with social media content. Saves about an average, it says of 175 hours per year. Y'all think about that for a minute. 175 hours per year, it can help you with your social media content. Five to 15 hours saved per week on marketing tasks alone. Five to 15 hours. So that may be what you're paying a VA, an assistant, an intern, someone in your family to do for you, or maybe you've you've gotten someone in your family to do it for free and help you. I know there's a lot of husbands out there that are helping their wives doing all this random stuff. And even some young Gen Zers that are helping their parents with their businesses. Okay. So it helps reduce stress. It says 47% use it to reduce stress and decision fatigue. I definitely think decision fatigue, I use AI every day for general questions. I had blood work come in today. I put that in there. I ask it all sorts of things, y'all, just anything, right? Anything. Now, I know it's not a doctor, by the way, when I say blood work. I was just kind of like looking compared to before, and it can do that. Anyways, long story short, I use it every day. I'm trying to create something for y'all, like I mentioned in the beginning, and I'm like uploading, you know, questions about sizes and like what should I do for this? What's the best selling of this that you see out in the market? Y'all, I use it for personal stuff when we're going traveling, like everything, everything. Okay. My husband used it all the time for fixing stuff, like looks up different tools and what to do. And we can do that on YouTube too, but y'all, you can use AI. Okay. The businesses right now that are winning aren't buying the most tools. You know what they're doing? They're matching one tool to one specific problem and starting there, right? They they've got a problem, they've got something they've got to do, and they're just they're using a tool like AI to help with that one thing. So it's not that you need to have 80 million apps and you need to have all these things because I think that gets very overwhelming. So I just want to want to bust that myth that this is about keeping things simple. So I'm sure you're already convinced that you need AI in your business, right?

Five Steps To Start Using AI

SPEAKER_01 11:44

So here's how to start. Here's what you're gonna do if you're a newbie to this, or maybe you've already been doing it and you feel a little overwhelmed. This is what you do. First of all, I want you to pick a platform. Okay, so you're gonna pick an AI platform to start with. A lot of them have free plans. There's ChatGBT, there's Claude, there's perplexity, there's Grok, there's there's a whole bunch out there. I will tell you that I have used Chat GBT and Claude and I tried perplexity. I actually find that Claude is the best for me. And something about the way that it writes back to me, I don't feel like it gaslights me all the time. Sometimes I felt like ChatGBT would just totally gaslight me, but I have told Claude, please do not gaslight me. Like if I give you an idea, don't say, amazing idea, Kimberly, and then just go on on that idea. Like I want you to actually be analytical in the questions that I ask and make sure that I'm not being a ding-dong and that if this is a bad question or if if this is a bad idea to tell me. Okay. So you can tell your AI model to not gaslight you because I could not stand that. I do not like it when it tells me every idea I have. I'm actually trying to bounce ideas off, right? So number one is to pick a platform. So you could start with Claude right now if you want. Again, I love it. Number two, pick one task that you do in your business. Okay. So I'm gonna list off some that you may be doing. Maybe you need a caption for a social media post and you always have a hard time like writing the captions or even knowing what hashtags, although I've heard the hashtags like for Instagram don't really help anymore. But, anyways, if you want to put a few hashtags, right? Or if you write an email newsletter every week, maybe you're one that does it twice a week and you've like been trying to use your brain all the time, okay? Or maybe you want to repurpose some content, like you have a podcast, you have a YouTube channel, you have a blog, you've already done a whole bunch of things, you've been interviewed, you want to rework those every week, right? Pick a task. I'll tell you what I use it for right now. So when I send y'all emails each week, and by the way, I hope you're on my email list. You can go to Kimberlybrock.com and make sure you sign up there to get on there because I give you information about the podcast every week. And so you can do that. Anyways, so I use it for email newsletter just to clean it up. Like I'll write something and then I have it clean it up. So I literally write it out and then I paste it in Claude and I have a project in Claude. This is key. Projects mean like a folder because otherwise, all your list of things that you ask ChatGBT or Claude will just be in this long running list of hundreds of hundreds of things. And you need to keep it organized just like you do on your computer. So you can create a project in Claude, and that just means a grouping. So I have my she's just getting started podcast episodes in one project. And every week, like I will sit down. So when I'm creating an email for that week's episode, it's in there. So all the past information is in there. It knows my voice, it knows everything, and it'll craft a quick email that I can send out. It'll like clean it up, right? With what I want to say. So I use it for that. I use it for my podcast episodes, right? Sometimes I will ask, you know, what are some common things going on right now in the world for small business owners? But most of the time, I would say probably 90% of the time, I already have an idea of what I want to talk about. So I will kind of tell it what I want to talk about and I say, can you just create me a quick outline? So here's what I want to talk about. Quick outline. Did I miss anything? And it'll create me a quick outline and I speak to an outline. So, like this one, I'm speaking to an outline that I had it just map out, but it was already based on what I wanted to talk about and kind of the angle of like the myths and why you need to use it and the steps for getting started. It just outlined it. So when I'm here, I have an outline to just follow, make sure I'm staying on track because audience members out there, I could talk for hours and hours. So I have to keep myself regulated. I have to have boundaries, right? And so I'm doing that right now. I have it do that for me. I have it do all sorts of things for my podcast. So very helpful for me if I'm looking at wording for my website. Like I will put in, like I was even working on my homepage today at the very top, the hero section. And I had it in there, what I wanted to say, and it tweaked it a tiny bit, and it's much better. So it's the same idea. I'm not having it how do I say this? Create ideas that aren't mine. Like I'm very big on like my idea. I'm open to other angles and ideas. Of course, that's what it's used for to see where we don't see, to capture our blind spots. But I also always want it to be in my voice and feel like it's me. So I'm approving everything. It's just like if I had a VA or someone here who knew me, right? So you today pick a task. Is it social media caption? Is it even an idea for social media posts? Maybe you like to create reels each week, right? So you could put in there, I want to create a reel about XYZ. What could I say? And it may ask you more questions to signify and to understand, like, okay, this is the kind of reel that she's gonna want. And it's gonna make you like a little script or a little outline for that, right? Think of something that you do all the time in your business. Again, social media, creating a podcast. What's something simple? An email newsletter that you could have it do? Could you have it just help you with a blog post title? Like maybe you write a blog and you just need help with the title and you can paste the blog in there. What's one task? Like just think of one task, okay? Then what I want you to do is step three is talk to it like a person. So when you're when you're typing in to Claude, for example, talk to it like it's a real human being, okay? And say, I want this and this. Now I will tell you there is a microphone option. So you can use a microphone so you don't have to type. Okay. And I would talk to it like a person, say, I'm trying to get this, just like you're trying to explain to a VA. Imagine someone is sitting next to you and you're like, okay, I need to create an Instagram caption that really, you know, is my voice. I want it to be about this. I want them to feel like this and explain it very well. You will get better and better about how you explain it, but you've got to explain it, okay? So you're gonna talk to it like a person. So let's kind of review and then we'll finish the five steps. Number one is pick a platform. Number two is pick one task, one thing right now that you could do every day this week and keep perfecting that one task. Three, talk to it like a person. You don't need to use technical jargon. You don't need this high-end vernacular. You don't need to be a techie. Just tech, it's just like you're texting or talking to a friend who knows your industry. Okay. Number four, edit it. Don't just post it. Okay. You better be reviewing it. Like I said, I review everything. This is not like I'm just putting it out there and it's automated, right? I'm still a human and you're a human behind your business. And what do I always talk about? That the human behind the business is why a lot of people keep buying. Something about you is special, the way you help, the way you talk, anything, your perspective. People want to know it's you. They want authenticity. They want trust. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, listen to that next. They have to trust you. Okay. So your voice still has to show up. And number five, do it for a couple weeks before you decide if it's working. Okay. One try doesn't count. I don't want you to do it today and be like, okay, that's stunk. I don't know what I'm doing. It did not give me a good paragraph. It did not give me a good caption. I'm not using that again. AI is stupid. You are not supposed to be doing that. You need to be using it every day. You're going to get better every day. I've had a new role for myself that I'm actually listening to YouTube videos about AI. I'm doing something where I'm training myself every day because I want to be on top of this. I don't want to be behind. And I love the fact that it can save us time and make us money. Okay. It can save us time and make us money. And if we get better at it, it can save us time and make us money. Okay. So here's what I want you to walk away with today.

Keep Your Voice While Using AI

SPEAKER_01 19:58

AI is not going to replace what makes your business yours. Okay. It will not. And I don't want it to. I want you to be you. This is still a business that's built by you. It's founded on you. It's started by you with your view of the world, your experience that only you can offer. Okay. It's not going to replace your creativity, your relationships, or the reason that your customers have chosen you, right? What it can do is give you your time back so you can do more of the things that you love, right? You don't have to understand how this whole thing works. And you don't need to be an expert or techie right now to start. You can just open it up and be like, okay, I'm going to be bad at this for a minute, but this is going to be so much fun. This whole world, this whole vortex is going to open up for you. Okay. You just have to start. So pick one task, just one. Start with Claude or Chad GBT or whatever you want to use and hand it to AI. That's the whole assignment. I can't wait to hear what happened next week. I'm going to check up on you. I'm going to ask you how that went. I want to know. I think you're going to be surprised about how much it can help you. It's such a reliever. So I'm so excited for you. I'm so happy for you. I'm glad that you are jumping onto this train if you haven't already. Because it's the way of the world, it's where we're going. And it's amazing and awesome. And we are embarking here on something so special and just a whole change. Our whole world and how we function, how productive we are. So that's it. Y'all have a great day. Until next time. Bye.

Closing And Where To Go Next

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Now, this episode may be over, but our relationship does not have to end here. Head on over to Kimberlybrock.com. And yes, you can get more valuable information for your journey. And you know what? You don't need to go through this alone. I would love to help. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.