Assessing Your Business for AI Integration with Kelley Tenny

Full video transcript

Good morning, everybody, welcome. Good to see all of you, welcome, welcome. We are here today talking about AI and the four reasons why AI won’t work for your business, and we’re going to start off by just talking about where all of you are at with AI and what you’re seeing in terms of AI, what is working, what is not working, because as we know AI is continuously evolving. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Kelley Tenny, I am the Director of Wisdom inside Gen AI University, and we’re going to be looking at all of the changes and things that are happening with AI and really focus today in this workshop on how we can ensure that AI is working for you.

Good to see a lot of you on here, a lot of familiar faces. We are also recording this for those of you that are going to be catching the replay, and I want to start off by seeing where you are at currently with the use of AI. So we’re going to do a quick assessment, number one being “I’ve just heard of AI,” all the way to number five being “I use AI daily, I use a lot of different AI tools and I feel pretty comfortable moving in and out of integrating AI into my business.” So again, where are you at in terms of AI, one being I’m just starting, I’ve heard about it, five being I’m really trying to leverage it and embrace it and use it in my business, one through five in the comments.

We obviously in the world of AI have a lot of different places where we can be, especially as new tools, new integrations, and things like that come out, and this workshop and this conversation is all about how can we ensure that we are leveraging it, and what are some common foundations that we consistently want to be considering as we lean into more integration of AI and lean into adopting more tools within our business. Because in a world full of tools, a lot of times we can find ourselves stuck in that spin cycle of “what tools should I be using” instead of “I’m actually doing something effective and productive.” I say that from complete personal experience, because I find that out a lot - in fact, I was just on a call before this one with a client who was going to actually help him record his course, because he doesn’t have the content yet to record his course, and that was the homework. It made me smile because it is a very common situation that many people find themselves in when it comes to figuring out and learning AI tools.

So today on this workshop: four reasons why AI potentially isn’t working in your business, and how can we shift things, how can we make these our AI guidelines, if you will, to ensure that as we’re building out our businesses… I see in the chat most of you are at level five, meaning I’m integrating AI, I’m using it daily. You’re all here probably because you want to ensure that you continue to use it and probably really step up the optimization of how you are using it and not get stuck in the weeds. Yeah, “I don’t always use it well” - and that’s totally typical, and thank you for saying that, because in a world where AI is changing every day, I would love to question how many people are actually using it well. Because if you thought you were using it well yesterday, there may be something new that happens tomorrow that all of a sudden puts us back at that beginner level of “okay, this is something new,” even with tools like GPT-4 - they’re completely changing, they’re adding new features. I actually just booked a call for a platform that I’ve been using for years who added AI, and that is new, and they just added another level of AI, and now I’m like, I don’t know how to use the platform anymore. I was a master at this platform and now I don’t know how to use it - they’ve changed the way they’re doing things, and that’s a common pain point I think a lot of us have in the world of AI.

So I’m going to share a few things with you and we’re going to really move towards this conversation, and today I want to help everybody hone in on what that is going to look like. What I want to leave you with is four components that will always work no matter how AI is evolving. These components and what we’re going to share today isn’t about how can you use the tool, because we know the tool will change - it’s how can you approach the integration of the tools inside of your business to ensure that they are always working for you.

So reasons why AI won’t work for your business: here is a true fact, one of the statistics that I saw recently is that only one out of five people leveraging AI are actually going to leverage it in the most effective and optimal way possible. Even though we all consider ourselves fives, even though we all consider ourselves regular users of AI, people who are integrating AI, what we really know is that in an ever-evolving space of AI, AI isn’t working for everybody, and many people are using AI less effectively than they actually think.

So what does this mean, like why is this a problem? Well, the problem is that we have a lot of people around us raising their hands saying “yes, I’m using AI,” potentially thinking that they’re using AI in an effective and efficient manner, and many people are probably wrong, and they’re not using it in a way that is going to be optimal for their business. So one, we have to ask ourselves, is this us - could I be doing things that would allow me to use AI more effectively and optimally? And two, are the people that I’m listening to actually using it as effectively and optimally as possible? Because something that has been born since AI has become so mainstream is that it’s birthed a lot of experts on AI, experts who want to talk about AI, experts who are using AI for this, that, and the other thing, and in a world where we’re all trying to learn what everybody else is doing so that we can be more productive and more efficient, are we actually listening to the right people?

More time and better service also feed the mix. AI takes too much time to learn - a lot of people feel there’s a huge learning curve when it comes to using AI. I had a company who brought me in as a consultant, and they were trying to learn an AI platform, and they said, “we need your help, we’ve been trying to learn this,” and I said, why - you actually don’t need that AI platform, you have people that you’re already paying in your company that can do that, now you’re paying for the platform to do it and you’re paying the people to sit there when you actually could just tell the people to leverage tools like GPT or Claude or something like that, you could get rid of this whole platform. They were just spinning their wheels trying to use the platform - it’s an amazing platform, but it’s very extensive, it’s nothing where you sign up and you’re using it tomorrow. So we really have to be smarter about the tools we’re picking and ask ourselves: do we need to learn this, is this something that’s going to solve a problem right now in my business? AI changes very quickly, and a lot of people feel like AI doesn’t foster real connections - what I love to say is if I’m using AI, I actually have more time to foster real connections in my business, because I have that time back where I’m not getting stuck in the weeds in different areas of my business.

So what are the four things we can do to make sure AI is going to work for us? When I said earlier that AI doesn’t work for most businesses, it’s because they are missing these four things. It doesn’t matter what tool we’re looking at, it doesn’t matter how AI has changed, it doesn’t matter how GPT-4 is going to be something else in the near future - none of it matters because these are foundational components regardless of the AI we are using. And when we have a good handle on these components, we can make sure that whatever AI tool we’re using, whatever change happens, whatever evolution comes to play with AI, if we’re solid in these four keys, we’re going to be able to use AI as effectively and as efficiently as possible.

Key one: assess your business. Are you clear on your mission and values? Do you have a standard of procedures? What is your business’s organizational structure, and are you clear on your business goals? I have seen a couple people ask me about whether I’ve used AI to leverage writing a book, and I have not - I have a book sitting right here waiting to be finalized and produced, and I did not use AI to write that book. Does that mean I’m completely against people using AI to write their book? As long as they’re being transparent, running it through Grammarly, putting their own voice in it, making sure it’s in alignment with their mission and values, they’re going to do what they’re going to do. But here’s what I often ask: why are you writing a book - are you writing it because everyone else is using AI to write a book, or because it’s in alignment with your business goals and mission? We’re in a world right now where people are getting caught up with all the things they can do with AI, when in reality they need a really clear picture of what their business needs.

The second piece is standards of procedures. I have a lot of people who say, “I try to use AI to create my content, but the content just isn’t good, I might as well do it myself.” And I ask, how do you approach writing content in your own business? They’ll describe their process, and I’ll ask, did you tell that to AI, or did you just tell AI to write a blog? Because if you think about your ideal avatar, do some research, consider your main theme, look at other blogs written in the same way - that’s how you come across and create content. But if you skip all of that and just tell AI to write your blog, it’s not going to have the same foundations as you, because it’s not using the same process or procedure. The more you can solidify your processes and give AI your framework, your blueprint, the better AI is going to work for you.

Secondly, AI tool analysis - finding out what the right tool is for your business and your business goals. If you don’t have a place in your business where you need to use Synthesia to create a talking AI avatar of yourself, don’t bother trying to use that tool. In my own business at this moment, I don’t ever see myself using a Kelley AI avatar - the educator in me loves the interaction, I love to show up on video, I love the human-to-human interaction. That being said, I’m not going to spend time learning tools that would replace that. Now when it comes to creating graphics, that’s not my strong suit, so maybe I know more graphics tools when it comes to AI, but many of you might say, are you kidding, Kelley, I love to create graphics, I’m an artist, it allows me to be creative - at which point you don’t need Adobe Firefly, you don’t need to learn Canva. So really think about what are the right AI tools for you in your business, because there are hundreds and hundreds of AI tools out there, and every day on LinkedIn there’s another post about the top 100 AI tools, and they’re always changing.

What areas are you leveraging AI with - content creation, graphics, PowerPoints? I do a lot of trainings where I need slide decks, and slide decks bog me down - I’m the person who tries 500 different images before picking the one that goes in my slide deck. Leveraging an AI tool that helps me with slide decks is right up my alley, but maybe I’m not leaning into video production. Email and content creation, supporting materials, data analysis - I just found an amazing data analyzer, an AI tool, and what it’s able to do with data and predictions and reading spreadsheets is mind-blowing, and it’s not GPT, it’s a specific data tool that’s allowed me to run a lot of things, and the predictions it can do are completely time-saving, because quite frankly I’m not an expert when it comes to data analysis. How many of you recognize you have data in some area of your business you’re not even analyzing - our email platforms give us data, our social media gives us data, but many people just don’t have time to analyze that data or say what do I actually do with it.

There’s a lot of things we do well in our business, and I’m a believer that we can’t do all things well - when you try to do all things, you typically don’t do all things well. It’s really about, going back to why AI isn’t working, potentially it’s because people are not leveraging the right tools, and they might not even know how to determine what the right tools are. Do I need a tool that does 500 things, or maybe I just need a tool that does two? We don’t know that if we’re not clear on our business, our organization, what we currently have in place. A lot of people don’t have things in place, and if you don’t have things in place, it’s almost impossible to say which of my workflows is getting bogged down and can AI leverage that.

From there we want to customize and train our AI - that was one of the pain points, “it doesn’t sound like us, it sounds too computerized, it doesn’t sound authentically like me.” When it comes to training your AI, of course you need to find the experts, but not the self-proclaimed expert - it’s really about learning from reliable AI experts. People harnessing these four keys are clear on how they customize and train their AI, and they’re surrounded by like-minded experts. On the customize-and-train-AI component, what are you doing to customize and train your AI? Everyone in the workshop described a different process for this - one participant takes notes and takes a picture to upload them, another turns on a microphone and reads notes aloud for transcription. There isn’t one right way; the point is capturing your own process rather than skipping straight to a generic prompt.

That leads to the final key: finding the right experts. We’re in a world right now where many experts are talking about cookie-cutter solutions, and one of the things that sets Gen AI University apart is recognizing that AI isn’t cookie-cutter. A “watch my content, follow this 90-day workflow” approach that works for one expert in their business might not work for someone else, because everyone runs their business a little differently, and that’s how you stay authentic - using what you already have in place in your business. That’s how you get AI to work for you - not by borrowing somebody else’s idea of what they do, but by saying this is how it’s going to work inside my business because this is what I’m already doing. That’s what differentiates the AI followers from the innovators - you don’t have to know all the tools, innovation comes from what you’re doing inside your business: one, have you assessed your own business; two, what tools are you using (just because a seven-figure earner uses a tool doesn’t mean it will bring your business the same result); and three, how are you customizing it.

One of Kelley’s best friends, who has a very successful business, told her she’d actually lost revenue because she was chasing every new AI tool instead of doing what she’s good at - a light-bulb moment about getting away from that FOMO. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that everyone else is an innovator, but building AI into your own business, on your own terms, is what makes you one too.

Wrapping up, the four keys again: making sure you have a good assessment of your business, making sure you do a good analysis of what AI tool is right for you (every time a new tool appears with a free trial, ask if it’s in alignment with what you’re trying to achieve right now), customize and train your AI using the systems you already have in place, and surround yourself with experts and like-minded people who aren’t chasing the latest and greatest tool but are genuinely leveraging AI inside their own business.

Kelley closed by inviting attendees who weren’t yet members to join Gen AI University, noting the community’s monthly and annual membership options and the value of masterminding with other members on workflows and tools, since AI integration isn’t one-size-fits-all. She reiterated that the goal is finding tools that remove tasks you don’t love doing off your plate while continuing to do the parts of your business you genuinely enjoy - whether that’s writing blogs, doing live video, or something else entirely - and thanked attendees and community experts for the conversation before closing the session.