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- [00:01]
A
Let me ask you something. When your team needs AI guidance, do they come to you? When leadership asks about AI strategy, is your opinion the one that matters? If you hesitated on either one of these questions, you're not alone. The AI revolution is creating a new hierarchy in marketing. Those who master AI are becoming indispensable. Those who don't are becoming replaceable. AI Business World Business positions you on the right side of this divide. Two focus days in Anaheim, California, April 29th and 30th, designed to transform you from quote, the person learning AI unquote into quote, the AI expert everyone depends on, unquote. Melanie Miller told us the AI teaching was mind blowing. You'll master workflows that deliver measurable roi, learn from practitioners already providing results and and build a network of 1000 AI focused professionals. This is more than just learning new tools. It's about professional security, career advancement, becoming the person your organization can't afford to lose. Learn more@AI businessworld.live. get your tickets at a businessworld.live.
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B
welcome to the AI Explored podcast, helping you put AI to work. And now, here's your host, Michael Stelzner.
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A
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the AI Explored podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner and this is the podcast for marketers, creators and business owners who want to know how to put AI to work. Do you need to be an AI expert to sell AI services? In today's episode of the AI Explored podcast, we'll explore how to actually sell products, profitable AI services. My special guest is an AI strategist who helps mission driven leaders implement responsible AI. She's the founder of. She leads AI which includes an Academy membership and consulting. She's co host of the AI Readiness Project. Ann Murphy, welcome to the show. How you doing?
- [02:13]
B
Great. Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
- [02:16]
A
So how did you get into AI?
- [02:18]
B
Like so many people, I saw this weird thing chatgpt on the news and I had Long Covid and I was launching a company and I didn't have any idea how I was going to launch a company with Long Covid until I hopped onto ChatGPT and realized that this would be my brain, this would be my second brain, and I would be able to launch a company with this thing, who, whatever mystery it was at that point in time as my partner.
- [02:46]
A
So what were you doing before then? And then was it right when ChatGPT came out that you kind of discovered this?
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B
Yeah. So, you know, life being what it is. I finally made the decision after 30 years in my field, which is nonprofit and higher ed fundraising, specifically major gift philanthropy, working with high net worth individuals and their families. So I decided to walk away from this amazing career. Loved everything about it. But I always thought there's gotta be a better way. So I had my going away party, get home, husband loses his job. I'm still launching a company right now. Right. I have long Covid still trying to do all these things. I'd never been an entrepreneur before, so I literally. I didn't know what B2B was. I didn't know what B2C was. I didn't know what an ICP was. I had to learn all of that myself. And it was just me and chatgpt in a room for a year and a half.
- [03:40]
A
When did you start? Was it shortly after ChatGPT had come out or was it a while later?
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B
Yeah, it was like November of 22.
- [03:45]
A
So bring us up to what you're doing now.
- [03:47]
B
Gosh, it feels like a lifetime. And it also feels like nothing at all. I followed some advice really early in the game that we just need to be the fifth grader to the fourth graders when it comes to helping other people get onboarded into AI. And I found that to be true across the board. Wherever you are in your journey, if you are a few steps in front of somebody, you may be their very best teacher. So I took that advice to heart and I just began running workshops and then other people asked me to run workshops for them and then, you know, larger clients and more money and, you know, higher profile stages. And soon I had taught 4,000 people how to use AI responsibly, primarily in the social impact sector. That was my big, you know, unintentional foray into AI services.
- [04:43]
A
And now you are running a show with Kyle, who is also on this show.
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B
Yeah.
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A
What's that show all about?
- [04:48]
B
So we have the AI Readiness Project podcast in which we spend a lot of time with the kind of people I spend time with in my consultancy as well as in she leads AI. Lots of people who are AI curious at least. Right. This curious mind is a theme that I'm sure you and your audience hear from many of your guests. Having a curious mind. And we're really about applied AI. I think the gift that we all can bring each other on shows like this and in communities is just showing case study after case study of how AI is actually being applied in small, medium sized businesses, in my case, and nonprofits. In my case. Those day to day boring in most cases, use cases where we're seeing a big impact in AI adoption. So Kyle and I talk to folks who are somewhere on that journey and then we bring stuff in from our own world. In which case, for me, it's my AI consulting experience.
- [05:51]
A
So you have a lot of experience obviously on the sales side of things, right? Because what you used to do is help sell people on the idea of funding things that were valuable to their legacy. For example, right now you're helping people sell services to this growing industry, if you will. Right. Of people that are emerging into the AI world. And one of the questions I want to ask you is what is one of the biggest misconceptions or a few of them when it comes to selling? Because there's a lot of people that are listening to this show that either a, this is a side hustle for them, like they've got a full time job and they're learning about AI and they're teaching people about AI and they're wondering whether this could be a career for them or on the other side of it, there's people that listen to this show that are actually already starting consultancies or agencies and maybe might not find it as easy as they thought it was going to be. So what are some of those big misconceptions that are going on out there right now?
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B
The biggest and most persistent one is falling under the misconception that you have to know all of the things in AI and be able to advise on all the things. It's just like how we have all been on our like, AI education journey of our own. It's impossible to learn everything. And so it's distinguishing between where's your zone of genius, where are you really bringing value to the field and where are you better served to partner with somebody else who does have a zone of expertise in something that you don't want to be the sole consultant and deliverer for. So thinking that you're on your own in this age when there's so much celebration of the solo founder, I get that. But being on your own as an AI consultant is really limiting. And you can partner with people who you know and trust so you don't have to know everything because you can't love it.
- [07:55]
A
Okay, so we're going to get into some of the ways that folks can sell their services in a practical, tactical way. But I want to just kind of set the stage. When done well, what are the benefits of selling AI services or the upside when it's done well, even Though we haven't defined what well is yet. What's in it for us?
- [08:16]
B
Oh, what's in it for us? Oh my gosh. Okay. Thank you for asking. That's a wonderful question because I am having like so much fun in this field. So what's in it for us? One thing is that we're in this adventurous time where you can create your own, offer your own pricing. Like there is no benchmarking. So if you like being able to create your own products that you're going to put into the world and not have to have any benchmarking with say like legacy companies or Fortune 500, like everyone's making this stuff up, so there's that. The part of having so much agency over what you put into the world and who you work with, another benefit is like just being able to repot yourself. So for many, many people we've got subject matter expertise, you know, 20, 30 years going down into one field and now were like, what's next for us? This is a whole other juicy career path that you can absolutely excel at that you may not have expected. So there's just the opportunity to make a change. And then financially, what I have found is that not only because we use AI so heavily in our own business, but because we sell AI services, we are able to move forward. The throughput of our client engagements is smoother and faster. And so for us, the main financial benefit that we see is simply in without doing any more work, having more projects come through the business, slightly larger scopes, better quality delivery, re upping that client and things just running more smoothly. So say instead of having, you know, maybe we'll have like an additional client every month. We're not talking about going from zero to 60, we're talking about we have a high functioning company like most of my clients are and now we're doing a little bit more business without changing anything.
- [10:15]
A
I love a couple of things that you said. First of all, I love the fact that you said repotting yourself because so many people listening to this show might be, you know, my age, I'm in my 50s, and has built a successful career in a different niche or industry. And it might be dreading a little bit about the fact that seems like that industry is getting kind of uprooted. But I like the idea that you listening have this wealth of experience and wisdom and knowledge, often understanding how to educate or how to teach or how to direct or how to analyze or how to be creative. These are all kind of skills that when funneled through the lens of the power of AI all of a sudden makes you a lot more powerful than this young, fresh out of college upstart who has something you don't have, which is a lot of time, but you have a lot of knowledge and insights. What's your thoughts on that?
- [11:11]
B
It's not only that we're at this point in time where a lot of people need to be thinking about what they want to be when they grow up in a much different way, but this notion of repotting because you're root bound is where so many of the people that I get to spend time with, that's where they are. It's like we're in our 50s. I work with a lot of Gen X women, elder millennial, Gen X women in particular. And we're crushing it with AI because we're bringing like all this wisdom to it, right? We are, many of us are generalists. We, some of us have liberal arts degrees, right? So we have this strategic advantage in working with generative AI and now we're able to do something new and cool and relevant and revolutionary. And for many of the women who I hang around with, part of the reason why we want to be in the AI consulting world is because it is part of our legacy. This is an absolutely critical moment in our world history. And we know that if there is one area where we can pour our leadership into its generative AI and we can help shape what the future looks like, and not in a cheesy, pat way, but in a. We actually can change the way things are rolled out to the public. We can change the way grandparents understand how to use AI with their grandkids, right? We can change people's businesses, we can change people's lives. And that mission driven part of it is what brings most people who I hang around with to the generative AI table. It's why they want to be in it. They want to make a difference, Love it.
- [12:51]
A
And for everyone who's listening, whether you're 20 or 70 years old, you're going to find a lot of value and we're going to talk about today because many of us might not have a background in selling services. We may not even feel comfortable selling ourselves. But this is what we're going to talk about today. So where do we begin? Let's say that, okay, we want to sell some of the insights that we have gained specifically as a service, an AI focused service. Where do we need to begin?
- [13:17]
B
The very, very best lead magnet and the way to get you really quickly through the Know like and trust Continuum would be be to offer AI education services. You can absolutely do 101. Like go on Eventbrite right now, put your offer out there, design a workshop, right? An AI101AI made easy AI for grandparents, AI whatever. Put it out there and start inviting people and doing marketing and getting people even if it's a few people on your screen and start getting reps. Don't wait until it's perfect. Don't wait until you have these epic slides. It doesn't matter. Be the 5th grader to the 4th graders. I would start with AI education.
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A
I love that. Let's elaborate a little bit more because so far what I've heard you say is hey, do a meetup in your local area with Eventbrite and people that haven't done meetups. Like I go to a meetup here where I live and you'd be surprised. Eventbrite does a really good job of letting people know about that and it kind of does all the marketing for you. And if it's a free event it costs you literally nothing. Did you do this or do you know anybody who can you share any stories just to help people wrap their head around what something like this might look like?
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B
Yes, I'll share a couple of things. One is and you and I are doing it right now if you are willing to learn how to manipulate some of the streaming services and for example LinkedIn getting them connected so that you can do LinkedIn lives. Get a couple of your other AI nerd friends just Chitty McChachet. This does not need to be a formal thing but start building your digital footprint around your AI leadership. So schedule yourself for one 30 minute LinkedIn Live or a TikTok Live or a if you must. You sit by yourself on your zoom and you make a video and you post it. You know a longer form video. Start putting your educational content out into the world. And again it does not need to be you standing up there alone delivering 30 minutes of content. It can be conversational. So start doing something that you create yourself a media property. You're not waiting for someone to ask you to give a keynote. You're putting your own self out there on your own steam. Then something like an Eventbrite. You know we online software. You don't need to figure out how to do all your own RSVPs and stuff. Just use existing third party platforms. Do set up, you know, make your workshop, do some nice marketing around it. It doesn't have to be the end all be all but don't publish AI slop, but just don't get too caught up in it because what you need to do is get your offer out there and see who signs up to come learn from you. Those are the two ways that I would do it without a lot of overhead. Michael, just get yourself out there on a live of some kind. It doesn't matter if you're bad at it. You're supposed to be bad at it. You weren't born knowing how to do this kind of stuff. We shouldn't be. And then put up your own workshops on Eventbrite. Those would be my two recommendations.
- [16:12]
A
So, first of all, a couple critical things that you said here, which I want to double down on. Number one is you need to have something on your socials that kind of signals that you are doing this kind of service. Right. Because if someone sees you creating content on the social platforms and you pique their curiosity, they might actually want to check you out and discern in their own mind, is this person an expert that I could hire. And if they look and they don't see anything about AI and they just see all your past history, they're going to be like, oh, I don't need someone who specializes in what Ann Murphy does because she helps philanthropy stuff. And I'm not looking for philanthropy stuff. So you had to redo all that stuff, didn't you, Anne?
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B
I did. And here's what I have found because we're right in the middle of this in one of our cohorts. First of all, I created a tool and it'll be on the she Leadsai AI website. It will help folks re index their previous experience and their lived experience and see themselves. What would it look like if I applied this into AI Driven Economy?
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A
I like that.
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B
So that people can kind of get past that imposter syndrome moment of what are my friends gonna think when all of a sudden I start talking about AI? It's a Gemini gem. It's just an on ramp into that thought process of what you might look like when you repot yourself. And yes, you can do a little bit of rebranding at a time. You can do it wholesale. I've sat with people from right before they do that AI rebranding till afterward. And everyone thinks it's gonna be a big deal. It's just not. Rebrand yourself lightly so that your credibility is there. But don't worry about perfection.
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A
Yeah, and we're going to get into like how to charge for services in just a second here, because I know we're going to have. There's a lot to talk about there. But folks, you don't need to promote when you're doing these live videos and when you're doing these meetups because all you got to do is teach, right? I mean, do you want to talk about that a little bit? Why it's so important to provide value just before we get into the services side of things on charging.
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B
Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, there's so much value to be given. You may have people show up on your screen. One of my first people who came, they had a workbook, Google Drive for Dummies. That's how far away they were from being ready to get into AI. And then you may have people showing up who are super users and you're wondering, how am I going to possibly give them anything of value? Either way, we can take it from very high level AI 101 to everyone's going to open up their screen and we're going to do tasks side by side. I always go for a couple of things. One is that like oh wow moment, right, where people get some kind of a dopamine hit because they realize that AI can do stuff that they couldn't possibly have imagined. So we try to get that little dopamine hit that keeps them coming back for more. And sometimes we do what we call parlor tricks in order to rope them in. So something really cute and neat. With AI, I always try to use actual case studies or use cases from the people who are attending. So I'll do in the beginning I'll ask people to let me know what they do in their jobs. So try to bring some use cases into it that are very relatable to the people on your screen or in your audience. And I think that in order for people to feel like they can keep going after this, what I have found is being helpful that in my follow up to whether it's consulting or whether it's education, I always provide a playbook. So here's what we talked about. But also for those things that you might not have caught that we did on screen because everyone learns so differently. I have a playbook. Everybody gets a step by step by step after our engagement. So I recommend that as well.
- [20:08]
A
Every year the gap widens. The marketers who understand AI are pulling ahead, creating better content faster, automating strategic work and delivering results their competitors Simply can't match. 2026 could be your best year ever because you finally embraced AI. Now you're listening to this podcast, but why not join us for two days of systematic mastery at AI Business World, April 29th and 30th in Anaheim, California. Here's what Melanie Miller told us. Quote, the AI teaching was mind blowing. I'm so far ahead of so many people that claim to do what I do because Michael Stelzner only brings the best to teach, unquote. Here's what sets apart this from random tutorials and scattered learning, which I know we all use. You're going to get complete workflows, not isolated tips, strategic frameworks that connect everything, implementation plans you can execute immediately and 20 sessions dedicated to build comprehensive AI mastery. These are the best of the best that I have recruited. By the end of the event, you'll have all the AI skills that took others years of random implementation to figure out literally at your fingertips. The gap is widening. Which side are you going to be on? Learn more at AIbusinessworld live. Grab your tickets today at AIbusinessworld.live. how do you actually turn them into customers? You just say, hey, if you all like this, I have got a couple slots available, come talk to me afterwards. Is that generally how you do it or do you charge for everything? Because we're getting into this, right? Like, because a lot of people understand the idea of providing value. Like I provide value with all my guests and I don't actively sell, except I do have little ads that are injected in here. But some people might be like, all right, I get the idea of providing a live on the socials or a little meetup, but how do I actually like get them to want to work with me? Do I actually, you know that closing of the sale, for lack of better
- [21:59]
B
words, the closing of the sale with AI education oftentimes does involve negotiating for non cash compensation. So I encourage people to pick and choose, you know, wisely. The gigs that you do for free, there are some that you're going to want to do pro bono, either because it's good for your heart and soul or it's good for business development.
- [22:26]
A
Oh, I like that. So the idea there is you are growing a portfolio of stories that you could share that are clients, right?
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B
So you're growing your case studies. But what I negotiate when I'm going to do something for no cash, what goes on the list. And we do a scope of work even for a friendly agreement, even for the freebies, we ask for a testimonial right after the event. We ask for promotion on social media. You can't always get all the things. It depends. Let's say there's A photographer there or videographer, we'll ask for that kind of stuff.
- [22:58]
A
What do you do with that stuff, though? That's the real question.
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B
Ooh, what do I do with it? We have a whole testimonial system where we use these testimonials that we get from our speaking engagements and we use them in our marketing. So on our website, I could imagine if you were kind of person who did like quote cards on Instagram. I use them in my personal proposals like crazy. So getting those testimonials, even from the free gigs, the pro bono, and if I'm ever on the fence, what I will say is I do one pro bono per quarter or per year or per whatever. And I do ask in our conversations and in our friendly Agreement, I charge $2,500 for this training. My agreement is that I'm providing it just like I would if you were paying me 2,500. And our expectation is in return that it's treated like that investment was that paid. And it sounds like I'm really strict. But the thing is that this is what allows us to continue doing pro bono work is by getting some of that other kinds of compensation that allows us to grow our business.
- [23:58]
A
And I would imagine once you get a couple of these under your belt, then it gets a lot easier to close a deal because you can say my clients, blah, blah, blah. Because they are clients. Even though they didn't pay, they behaved like a client. They've provided you the testimonials. Love that.
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B
Yes.
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A
So let's. Let's get into the actual charging of services because there's a lot to talk about here. Go ahead and just spill your insights.
- [24:20]
B
Spill the tea. Well, let me say first, like I said in the beginning, it is the Wild West. We are all making it up as we go. So nothing I say is the right way. These are what I have arrived at through my own experiences. So your mileage may vary, I'll say that. But what we started doing after teaching so many people, we realized, oh dear, we're putting all these people back out into their organizations and they don't have any governance and they don't have any policy. They don't have an AI council. They don't know squadoosh about AI. But now I've got these secret cyborgs I'm putting back into their organization and they're really good at AI and they're doing all this stuff and they don't have any policies. So that led to understanding that we needed to do assessments at the Beginning of all of our engagements. So our goal is to first sell an assessment that helps us figure out do we want to work with them, can we bring them a transformation that indicates their readiness for AI adoption, which to be honest, most of it is mindset and culture related and also the risks of their use of AI. So we provide them with that assessment. We interview people like human beings. We do not send a form, we do not send a chatbot. I mean this is one on one conversation that we have with a smattering of people from the organization. So that's the assessment. We again keep in mind we're small, medium sized business and nonprofits. The assessment is 2000. We finish the assessment, then we do a readout of course, and then we move into where do we want to go from here. And typically we offer a five workshop series in an AI academy. The way that we price, that is X amount per person and typically it's 2,000 per person. And then when I hit a threshold that works for my business and for it to pencil out for everyone involved, it might be 2,000 per person for the first 20 and then 500 after that. Right. So something more the merrier doesn't make a difference to us. So that AI academy, those five workshops typically start pretty basic. And what we've had to do, you know, where we start with a tour of what are all the things in ChatGPT or Copilot or whatever they're using, which it's usually one of those two.
- [26:43]
A
Wait real quick before you go too much further, I want to ask some clarifying questions. So there are some people that like before they actually get to the point where they decide what services they want to sell, they have to come up with what their value is that they're going to, you know, charge. Right. And you know how when we were prepping for this, you have all sorts of insights on how to determine what you should charge for whatever services. So I would love you to kind of dig in on that a little bit.
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B
Okay. I'm going to try as hard as I can not to give a non answer. Here's the closest I can get to, you know, I'll kind of paint the picture of how pricing has worked for me. I have the same talk that I have been paid $0 for several times and that I have been paid $12,000 for. Same hour of my life, same deliverable. You know, I mean, obviously it's a little bit higher stakes when it's, you know, real. That's just to say that the perceived Value is what we're always trying to figure out when we're working with our clients. And for me to understand whether somebody is a $0 client or a $12,000 client, the only way for me to determine that is in conversation with them. And so we begin. Typically, we get a lot of inbound leads because of the education that we do. So somebody will be like, my boss said we needed a speaker for the all Hands meeting in March. Your name came up. Okay, so then we'll ask a few questions. We may send them a questionnaire, and then we get on a discovery call with them. And that we run very similar to any other sales conversation. The tricky part is that we're trying to ascertain what their perceived value is. And this is the biggest rub, what value they perceive in an environment where the person you're talking to and their bosses have very little knowledge about the impact of AI in their operations.
- [28:45]
A
Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about how we can position this so they can see the value. Right. Because there's ways to do that. So how do you go about doing that?
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B
Well, a couple of the ways that you can do it is you can just go dollars and cents and you're still going to really, really well. Right. If you were to calculate the cost savings or the new revenue potential for the AI interventions that are under discussion, you've got hard facts. You know, you could say, I take a percentage of the new money that you're making or of the money that you're saving. You could do something like that. You could also try to look at competitors. I don't know who you would decide is a competitor in this environment, but you can ask them, what have you paid for things like this in the past? You can ask around, try to, you know, in your research on yourself, you will have figured out who your competitors might be. Most of us don't have one. But really, at the end of the day, what it is is educating them on the benefits of AI. Not just new money, not just saved money, but also on the quality of the work that they can do and the lack of friction that they could experience in their work lives. And that's the one that gets people. I know it's not supposed to be like this. Maybe I work with really sensitive people. But the friction, the pain points, the things they don't like about their jobs, specifically around collaboration, those are the things that get people to buy.
- [30:17]
A
Elaborate a little bit more.
- [30:18]
B
Well, typically, the people who are running through a wall to work with me, which is My unofficial metric is if they really, really, really want to me, I'm down to work with them. Like, it's really hard to twist anyone's arm with AI services because it's too much of a pain in the butt. They're going to default. They won't do the things that you teach them to do.
- [30:37]
A
I think what you were saying is that people that typically want to work with you.
- [30:42]
B
Yeah. It's about friction at work.
- [30:44]
A
Yeah.
- [30:44]
B
Yes. There'll be some system or some process that is repeatedly, like, cannot be fixed. They've tried multiple ways to fix it. They've tried changing job descriptions. They've tried buying discounts, platform. And they're like, there's just got to be a better way. Right. It's something that is. Is either maybe they have to have a whole additional person to manage some legacy project or platform. Maybe it's an area where they never had sufficient staffing to begin with. Maybe it's an area where they're collaborating with another organization and it's sketchy. There are so many ways that people are getting on each other's nerves, for lack of a better way to put it, that when they come and sit down with me, the things that come up first when I do interviews for my assessment are the interpersonal things. It's the, you know, the consultants keep sending me their proposals at the last second, and I'm supposed to design them all. And I only have 24 hours. It's that kind of a thing of the workflows that people are forced into together just not working anymore.
- [31:47]
A
Next question, which is related to this is the hourly billing question. So many people like us, when we analyze other people, we look at what they charge, right? Like a plumber charges a lot because they're solving a problem, right? Which is, you got no water, but the guy that does your lawn doesn't charge as much, you know what I mean? Because he's just showing up every week and you don't care if the grass gets mown or not. So like a lot of us adults, when we look at someone who's providing a service, we ask the natural question, how many hours is this going to take? And we try to figure out an hourly rate. Is there wisdom or. Or is there, like, other wisdom to not go that route? What's your thoughts on that?
- [32:26]
B
I have never charged hourly. I've never let an hourly rate come out of my mouth.
- [32:32]
A
Why?
- [32:33]
B
Why?
- [32:34]
A
Yeah. Is that a good thing? I mean, I think that's a good thing, but explain why that's A good thing.
- [32:38]
B
I have a couple different kind of experience with it. One is that that really drills into selling my time for money. And I don't have enough time on this planet to sell it for money. So what I'm really interested in doing is selling a transformation. And I don't care how long that takes and I don't care how little time it takes. Either I'm selling to them the relief or the, the new money, the cost savings. I'm selling their future selves to them. And what is that worth? Not how long it takes me. I think people tiny editorializing is that I think particularly with AI, it's very easy to get caught up in the how and like telling your clients how. I don't find that they care about how. Pretty soon I don't think we're going to be rolling in saying I'm an AI consultant. AI is oxygen, it's breath, it's everything in our world right now. They don't care how, it's what are you doing and why are you doing it and probably how much time they have to invest in it. That's the main thing.
- [33:44]
A
So what I'm hearing you say is generally speaking it's a flat rate or it's a monthly retainer for the kinds of services that you have.
- [33:50]
B
Yeah, flat rate, which is value based. Kind of a dance between them and us coming up with that number. And then so that's the value based. It's where I predominantly work. And then there's a fractional, you could do a fractional chief AI officer gig. And I just sent in a proposal for that yesterday actually for a company that I'd be interested in working with, which I think is a lovely way to transfer your AI expertise out into the world and be well compensated for it is to be a fractional chief AI officer in an organization.
- [34:25]
A
So we are recording this in mid to late February of 2026. For folks that are listening in the future, I'm just going to say something that I believe is true. We are just three years and a couple of months into this ChatGPT moment and it's very early. And because it's very early, there are not a lot of people, although that number is growing, that are offering services. So today you are not a commodity, tomorrow you will be a commodity. So those that get started now have less competition, therefore can charge more and can also obviously as time goes on and AI allows you to offer these services more more economically, you could reduce your charges and go for a volume play if you Want to. It depends on what your objective is, right?
- [35:14]
B
Absolutely. And I think the other layer that's going to come into this and why it makes sense to skate where the puck is going, Right. We want to be there when our people in our industry or who we serve in our community, when they are ready to start doing this AI stuff, we want to be the ones who are there because we understand what they do, we understand what life is like. We're not necessarily working for a vendor. Right. We're coming in as an objective third party, and we will likely be with these clients for a long time. So getting there now means you're getting great clients, right? Your pick of the litter. And these are people who you may be able to work with over years and years and years. So I recommend not waiting. There's no reason to wait. Whether you think it's a side hustle or your main income, if you're the fifth grader to the fourth graders, you can do this.
- [36:13]
A
You said earlier that you ask questions of your prospects, the people that you know want to become customers. Do you have any, like, special questions that you ask that might help signal whether someone is a good candidate or not for a service? Like, is there a series of questions that you tend to ask that will help people kind of whether this is going to work out or not?
- [36:34]
B
Well, I'll be honest. At the end of the day, the number one and two thing I'm interested in in that conversation is do they have capacity and how do they make their decisions?
- [36:44]
A
Capacity for what?
- [36:46]
B
Do they have budget? Do they have budget and how do they make decisions? So at the end of the day, those are my two objectives. But in addition to that, those are necessary but not sufficient. So I want to learn about what have you tried so far? Because chances are by the time they come to us, they've tried a couple of things. Right. I'm also learning where the pressure is coming from. Is it coming from their boss? Is it coming from their board? Is it coming from their team? Where is the pressure? However you define that, where is that coming from? That's important for me to know. I'm always trying to figure out if I'm talking to the right person. And right now, some of those people who are reaching out to us are not decision makers. They are gathering intel. So one of the things to keep in mind is that that person you're talking to, they are going to be talking on your behalf. So it's helpful to find out who else is part of this conversation, because it's Doubtful that the person you're talking to in that sales conversation will be able to explain what you do to the person with the purse strings. So you want to get in that conversation with the purse strings person first, if you can.
- [37:58]
A
Or give the person you're talking to some really valuable information that they could
- [38:02]
B
give to the person that you have put together. You know, so they're not going on and doing weird searches on stuff. Yeah. You want to provide them with what they need in order to sell on your behalf or get that decision maker into the meeting with you.
- [38:16]
A
Okay, so so far we've talked about different kinds of services you could sell. We started with education, which could be like a workshop or could even be one on one training, I would imagine. Right.
- [38:27]
B
One on one. We do lots with execs who need to get their arms around this before decision making, around training or tools or anything. Education.
- [38:35]
A
Even now, selling an assessment is intriguing. Some people, depending on your background, are used to giving the assessment away for free because it sells a bigger set of services. What's your thoughts on that?
- [38:46]
B
2k is my loss leader and it's also a litmus test for me. If we can't part with 2K, there's not enough there. There's.
- [38:55]
A
So what do you do with an assessment? How do you lead that into more programs? You know what I mean? Like if you, if for $2,000, like you go in and you analyze the whole situation, you put some sort of report together, presumably. Right. Help people understand how a paid assessment might lead to other services you could sell.
- [39:10]
B
Okay. Yes. It's a beautiful thing because it all has the advantage of being completely true and coming from the client. So I have a series of questions that I ask each of the people I interview. Somewhere between seven and 10 people usually gives me enough of a perspective on the organization to understand where some of the pain points are and the risks of using AI. And then you know what some of the benefits will be. I haven't had anyone balk at the assessment in part because they are really curious about. They're like, I've heard about this AI stuff, you know, my boss or my colleagues or somebody. I went to a conference and everyone was talking about it. I don't know how it could benefit us or what I should be afraid of, but I'm pretty sure in both of those cases I need to know more. And so they're happy to invest in the assessment. I don't do it as a magnet. It's more as just the beginning of our engagement together.
- [40:05]
A
Well, and what kind of other services could you do or anyone do after they do an assessment? What could that sprout?
- [40:11]
B
You could be like, okay, I'm the person who's going to train the whole board, or I'm the person who's going to train the marketing team, or I'm the person who's going to train the team that has the biggest issues or the biggest opportunities. So you may go from that assessment to find out, oh, there's a group that's really, really ready for it. Let's have them be our champions. Let's have them be our success story. So you may do like role specific education. You may do all hands education. You may offer to do a, like a workflow, helping fix some very specific workflow. You may be teaching them to make tools. You may be working with somebody else, you know, who has a platform, who it might be appropriate for client. What I have found is that by being in this space, so many opportunities to make money come my way. The work in front of me, especially as like, I'm the visionary type and I have ADHD and I'm creative and. And because of that, with work in front of me is to focus on only a few income streams in my AI world because there's so many options.
- [41:21]
A
Do you have an example? I believe you have an example of one of your CL or students that has gone through your process and has sold some stuff. Can you share a little bit about that?
- [41:30]
B
I'll give the example that I shared with you. So through. She leads AI, we have a certified AI educator program and one of our graduates, when she first came to, she leads AI, she's a founding member. She was doing that thing that many of us were doing where we were employees and we're using AI, but you know, we're not shouting it for a mountaintop. We're not entirely sure what our company thinks about AI. So she went and she learned it all herself and started doing workshops and stuff, went through our program, received her certified AI educator certification. And her company that she was kind of, you know, cheating on doing AI stuff with has asked her to be in charge of their AI education rollout for their whole. It's a very, very large company, so. So you see how putting yourself kind of in the arena lends itself to these opportunities.
- [42:29]
A
Well, Ann, we have just scratched the surface of the wisdom in that mind of yours. And I know that there are going to be some people listening right now that would love to connect with you on the socials or check out the various services that you have to offer. So where do you want to send them?
- [42:42]
B
Two places. One is do go to she leadsai AI. We've got lots of resources there for you, ways to get involved. We have a beautiful gathering we do every Saturday for free for women in AI. So check that out. And she leadsai AI and then I'm stuck on LinkedIn. I'm there all the time. Send me a DM, send me a connection request. If you put Ann Murphy She Leads AI in there, it'll be me. And I would love to connect with people. We're always doing something. And she leads leads AI to help educate people, whether they're brand new or whether they're like elite AI users now.
- [43:20]
A
Ann Murphy, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today.
- [43:22]
B
Thank you, Michael. Thanks to the audience.
- [43:26]
A
Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com a97. By the way, Ann told me after the interview she will be at AI Business World. So if you want to come and get a chance to hang out and talk to Ann, that would be a great opportunity. Be sure to follow this show on your favorite podcasting app. And if you've been a longtime listener, would you give us a review on your platform of choice? You can share this with your friends also. And do check out my other show, the Social Media Marketing Podcast. This brings us to the end of the AI Explored podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may AI help you become more successful.
- [44:03]
B
The AI Explorer Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.
- [44:11]
A
What if you could get year round AI training? That's exactly what's waiting for you with our AI Business Society. To learn more, visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI.