EP # 199 - Beyond the AI Hype: Real Business Applications for Small Businesses and Service Providers

In this value-packed episode, Maggie shares her practical approach to implementing AI in your service-based business, drawing from her extensive leadership experience in technology adoption and business scaling.

Key Insights:
• Why AI is like training your delegation skills (and how this prepares you for future team growth)
• The "10X output" framework for solopreneurs and small business owners with limited budgets
• How to maintain your authentic voice while leveraging AI tools
• 4 practical areas where AI can amplify your business today

💡 Actionable Frameworks:

1. Marketing & Sales Applications
   • Proposal writing
   • Content repurposing
   • Social media strategy
2. Research & Development
   • Market research automation
   • Content ideation
   • Trend analysis

🛠️ Recommended Tools:
• Sintra - for social media, marketing and sales materials - https://playosinc.pxf.io/7ayEnr
• Descript - for video and podcast content - https://get.descript.com/2sd4jd07z70j
• Chat GPT, Perplexity, Deep Seek - for research and content creation

🎯 Getting Started Tips:
• Start with free tools to build confidence
• Focus on specific, context-rich prompts
• Always fact-check AI-generated research
• Use AI as an amplifier, not a replacement

💥 Special Announcement:
Join Maggie's hands-on AI workshop on May 28th, 2025 (2-4 PM EST) to create:

• 30-day content plan OR
• 2 weeks of ready-to-use posts OR
• Sales email sequence Limited spots available at $47 CAD!

🔑 Key Takeaway: AI isn't about replacing human expertise—it's about amplifying your business capabilities while maintaining your authentic voice and expertise.

Ready to transform your approach to AI? Book your workshop spot at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/solopreneurs-ai-toolkit-create-weeks-of-content-sales-materials-fast-tickets-1321747364949?aff=oddtdtcreator

#BusinessGrowth #AIforBusiness #ServiceProvider #SmallBusinessTips #BusinessAutomation #DiamondEffect

Transcript

Welcome to Diamond Effect Podcast, Episode 199. AI is all the rage lately, probably everywhere you turn, whether it's your social media or talking with the fellow entrepreneurs, you are hearing AI and that it can change the way you run your business. Some people fear it'll take away jobs.

Some people are not sure what it can do. So I decided to record this episode and tell you how it can help you in your business right now, even in a small portion. And here is why I decided to do it. I am definitely not an IT person and not a developer. However, I consider myself tech savvy and over the course of my corporate career, I've dealt with a lot of technology changes using the technology training my people, [00:01:00] or people that directly reported to me or people who are in my department on the usage of new light technology.

I was part of the team that was not only implementing enterprise level technology, but also improving the ones that we had. I was part of the team that was suggesting improvements to the IT and developers based on what we as business users needed. So technology definitely isn't something scary for me, and I like to think of it as a great tool for any business to run better and to serve better their clients.

Because AI is moving so fast, I decided to jump on the wagon, embrace it in my own business, use it, figure it out, how can it be used, even if you're a solo printer or small business, and then help my [00:02:00] clients use it to their advantage as well. And that's why I'm recording this episode today to help you.

So in this episode, I wanna share with you some mindset shifts or things that I've noticed while using ai, but also give you some practical advice. What can you use it for, especially in terms of growing your business and scaling it to achieve the goals you want with it? The very first thing that I've noticed as a people leader and as a user of technology is that actually when you start using ai.

It can help you with your delegation skills. It's a great tool to train yourself on how to delegate things, especially if you've never had employees before, if you never had to delegate. If you think about any AI software out there or tool. It's like this powerful employee who [00:03:00] can do a lot of things more than you can do, or more than any one employee can do, and yet it's still.

Doesn't know details of your business, doesn't understand your clients, doesn't understand how your business operates until you train it. Until you teach it. And then once it does and you give it good prompt, it can create powerful things for you. 

If you don't teach it about your business or your prompts are too generic, even that powerful offering employees will produce support output. Not because it cannot do it, but because it doesn't know enough of what you want and what you need and what, and it cannot analyze what best helps your business because it doesn't know enough about your business.

So it's the [00:04:00] very same thing when you have a brand new employee who might be very capable in whatever skillset you need. So maybe sales, maybe business analytics, maybe service delivery for your clients. But if they don't understand what are your clients used to;

how do you run your business; what are certain processes that you follow and you would like to follow them, and they will assume things. And very often they will assume things that are different from what you expect. And therefore the result of their work. It's not what you want, not because the employee's not capable, but because they don't have foundational information that helps them do the work and create the output in a way you want them to.

So that's the very first thing that I've noticed. As I started using my own AI and started putting in prompts and not getting exactly what I wanted, and then it clicked and dawned on me, oh, okay. I [00:05:00] need to give it enough context first. I need to teach it more about my client, about my business, about my offer, whatever it was, and then work with AI sometimes by putting in multiple prompts to get what I want.

The second thing I wanted to address and talk about today was, is fear. It's normal. If right now you're scared of ai, it's something new that we've never experienced in human. It's something new that's as humanity we never experienced before, so we don't have a reference. We can learn from. 

It also naturally, when we don't understand something, when our brain cannot comprehend it, the natural reaction is fear. However, what I wanna say, that as human beings, we've been [00:06:00] through. Many transformations, whether it was industrial revolution, going from horses, pulling the wagons to actually having a mechanical motor power in terms of.

Cars, right? Or going from regular phones to cell phones or internet. We've been already through technology changes that we've never experienced before and we've adopted and started using it to our benefit. 

Also, in a way, you don't need to be an expert and understand in detail a hundred percent how something works in order to use it. If you think about it. I'm not a car mechanic. I don't know exactly how my car works yet. I still use it to get from point A to point B. I'm also not an IT person. I don't really understand how internet works.

Same with a plane or any [00:07:00] other appliance in my house or technology tool that I use; where I understand the general concept, but I can't repair it. I don't fully understand how it works, and yet I use it to my benefit.

Same with AI. We don't really need to fully understand how it's working and so on to use it to our benefit. How I like to think about AI in a way that works for me and allows me to use it without being too scared or anxious about it is this is a team of my assistants that helps me do more work or amplifies me and my business.

When you think about head of your country, a president of United States or Prime Minister of Canada or whoever is a head of your state, they don't do everything themselves because they have such an important job and they need to do so many things that they have a [00:08:00] team of aide who help them write their speeches, who manage their calendar, who respond to certain emails, at least in the beginning. Who see through what's coming to the president or head of state so they can just focus on the most important things for their country. 

You can use AI the same way it is or could be almost like a powerful team of yours that can help you amplify things or. Help you do certain less important things so you can focus on the most important things that drive your business forward. And it's still won't fully replace actual human beings because there will be a lot of manual work in your business that has to happen, and you'll need to either do it yourself or delegate it to contractors and your team members.

That's how I like to think about AI [00:09:00] in my own business. I'm the CEO, the president with a lot of things going on and AI are like my assistants who help me get those things done much faster, much more effective and very often better if I had to do it all by myself, because I'm probably not resourced enough to hire even all the people that I would like to in terms of subcontractors and employees, I wouldn't be able to do it. 

I can move my business forward faster, get more resource, and then hire the specialist that AI cannot help me with. Like for example, if you are a service provider and you need another massage therapist or a therapist or another photographer in your business, AI cannot do it for you right now.

You need a human being so you can allocate those resources there and use AI for other things. I think of AI as it can [00:10:00] 10 x my output even if I have a limited budget. Which is very powerful when you are a solopreneur or a small business owner. So how do I use AI in my business right now?

I do it in four different areas. The first one is marketing and sales. So in terms of social media sales and marketing materials, it helps me a lot. 

I use AI tools to help me write proposals, cold, reach out, emails, blogs, certain scripts for online content, and so on. Now, how do I use it in a way where I don't sound like a robot or where ideas are mine and the concept of coaching concepts that I develop with my expertise and intellectual property, it's still mine.

Well, that's the power of [00:11:00] generating proper prompts and feeding AI the information that it needs to keep everything aligned with your authentic brand, with your, with who you are also as a business owner. For example, to prepare for this podcast, I actually sat down. And thought with my own brain, what do I wanna talk about?

And I jotted the notes. And now based on those notes, I'm recording this podcast from my own intellectual property, my own experience, what I've learned, what I know about, delegation, people,, leadership also change. Since I'm a certified change management expert, I also know how people go through change and why we're scared of certain things, why it's difficult for us to adopt even new technology, right? I have all that experience, so I used it to record this podcast. 

But what am I going go to do next is with [00:12:00] help of AI. I'm going to take this transcript of the podcast and from that, create other content to help me repurpose it. Whether it is a caption for a social media post that will promote this episode, whether it's an email to my list or even a blog. All of this I will do with the help of AI that I've already trained to use my voice, to use the style that I want, and so on.

I will just have specific prompts after I set the transcript of my own work. Another example is if I'm creating a proposal for a client or even a post, I talk to ai, I tell my tool, which is very often what I use is Citra and I will tell you about it in a second. What. I want in the proposal what [00:13:00] strategy to apply, what angle goal to apply, or I will tell any AI what I want a specific post to be, what to include, the information, the tips, and then.

Just like an assistant would do, AI will put it for me quickly in words, in a format that will be very good, probably better to what I could have done given that I'm an immigrant in English is not my mother tongue. And even if I could do it as good, then it will take me so much longer to create that written content, whether AI, it's a matter of seconds.

So then in that time, I can focus on other things and reach out to another client or coach somebody, and this way, move my business forward so much faster. 

Another way I use AI is for research. So instead of scrolling through Google Pages, looking for [00:14:00] something. I use tools to do that research for me much faster.

Again, it's all in the prompt. I know where to direct the tools to research. I know exactly what I want to research, but it saves me so much time. Then one last thing is also having fun and being creative, right? So testing certain ideas and thinking or using AI brain to also help you, brainstorm ideas. I find it very useful, and I'm sure you've seen even some trending posts where people are posting, oh, how would I look like if I was a Barbie or a mascot?

Or how, in terms of messaging, how would your drunk friend describe my business and what do I do? So people also get very creative with testing certain ideas, testing, messaging, testing, ideas for services and so on.

Now let me give you some tools, either free or very [00:15:00] low cost, that are out there that I've tried or I'm using on a regular basis that I also had. My clients are using, and I'll leave the links in the show notes just for you to try. So in terms of social media, virtual assistant, or sales, I use a tool called Sintra.

It's a paid tool, but very low cost. And it's like a team of employees that are learning about your business, and it creates that ecosystem that it really knows your business really the more you teach it. And it can help you with marketing materials, sales materials, proposals, all those things, even social media.

So that's one. If you are doing video, I use tool called Descript that allows me to take even this podcast and not only create promotional reels, but also chunk it up and chop it into smaller reels where then I can use on social media as [00:16:00] individual. Reels. You can also create your own videos.

It's evolving constantly. I've seen some new features coming up that I even haven't tested yet. So for video I use Descript. For research: Chat GBT, Perplexity, Deep Seek. Those are the tools that are very powerful and you can do a lot even with the free. Version, and you can also use them for the other usages I've mentioned that I use Sitra for.

Perplexity or especially Chat GBT can be used for the same thing.

You might be asking now yourself, okay, maybe that's great, but what do I do? Where do I even start? I would say if you are one of those people who haven't even touched AI yet, because you are too scared, I would say set up. A free account for yourself. Either Chat GBT, or deep seek. Allow for it and [00:17:00] test it.

Start playing with it. The only way you'll overcome your fear if you're actually trying. Be specific. You have to provide the context of whatever you are working on and then be specific. In your prompt. Now be willing to refine your prompt.

If you ask Chat GBT, let's say to create a post for you, and it comes out very unnatural, very robot, and one, don't get upset, don't drop it saying, oh, Chat GBT doesn't work, or refine it. Tell Chat GBT okay, I needed more to sound like this, or I need less of that. I need more of this. Grow your delegation skills that I promise you will help you when you start hiring employees because no matter what anybody says, AI is not going to replace human beings just yet.

So you'll even, as your business grows, you will need to hire actual human beings. You'll at least [00:18:00] develop some basic delegation skills.

Then as you do that, and depending on what you use AI for, make sure that if your AI is doing research for you, or you're basing certain outcomes on the information provided by AI not coming from you, that you fact. I found that sometimes say, yeah, it makes up stuff on its own. Like just really makes up stuff.

So just make sure that fact check that you're not putting anything out there that's made out, made up by the machine. And then have fun, like you just experiment. Don't treat it too seriously. Start it very small and then you can start exploring how it can help your business more and more.

Now if you are listening to this episode before May 28th, 2025, and you're thinking, I wish somebody actually showed me, I'm such a visual person and showed me how I can use it. I am [00:19:00] organizing a workshop for my clients, but I'm also opening a limited number of spots for people outside for two hours workshop, where I would teach you exactly how you can use AI mostly for social media and sales. 

And out of this workshop, it's gonna be a working workshop. So not just me teaching, but you actually doing something for your business. You'll get to choose, to create between three options. You can either create a 30 day content plan for your social media. Or you'll actually be able to create a couple of weeks worth of posts, ideas, captions, and so on.

Or I can help you create an email. Sequence, a sales email sequence that will nurture your clients or some marketing or sales material. So you get to choose what you're gonna create during this workshop, and I'll walk you through By practicing, you'll learn how to use AI while still coming out of something [00:20:00] tangible that you'll be able to use in your business and move it forward.

So the workshop is happening on May 28th 2-4 pm Eastern standard time. It is a paid workshop. It's just $47 CAD. Not a lot, but I just wanted to make sure that people who join are committed and they're gonna be there. We were gonna keep the group small because I'll be teaching you, giving you feedback on your materials and we wanna make sure that only serious people show up.

I will. Share the signup links in the show notes. So if you're interested, we would be happy to have you. It's gonna be a lot of fun. That can be your start to entering AI world and allowing it to help your business, amplify your business and grow it and not be stuck being scared of it.

Have a fantastic week