#207: Geoff Woods—How to Use AI as a Strategic Partner to Grow Your Business

Summary

Summary of Podcast Episode #207: Jeff Woods—How to Use AI as a Strategic Partner to Grow Your Business

Podcast Information:

• Title: Why That Worked – Presented by StoryBrand.ai
• Host/Author: StoryBrand.ai
• Episode: #207: Geoff Woods—How to Use AI as a Strategic Partner to Grow Your Business
• Release Date: December 30, 2024

Overview: In this enlightening episode of Why That Worked, hosted by Donald Miller and co-hosted by Kyle Reed, Jeff Woods, author of AI Driven Leader, shares his expertise on leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a strategic partner to propel business growth. The conversation delves into transforming AI from a mere tool into a thought partner, enhancing strategic thinking, and unlocking unprecedented business opportunities.

Sections:

1. Introduction to Jeff Woods and His Journey (00:01 - 05:37)

   • Background: Jeff Woods recounts his early career choices influenced by a pivotal piece of advice during his internship at UC Santa Barbara. Instead of asking what job to pursue, he was guided to seek skills that would remain valuable regardless of industry changes.
   • Career Path: Starting in sales at Xerox, transitioning to medical device sales, and eventually partnering with industry leaders like Jay Papazan and Gary Keller, Jeff honed his strategic and entrepreneurial skills. His tenure as Chief Growth Officer at Jindal Steel saw the company's market cap surge from $750 million to $12 billion.
   • Quote: “60% of the jobs that exist today didn't even exist in 1940.” – Jeff Woods [00:01]

2. The Turning Point: Discovering ChatGPT (05:34 - 08:19)

   • Encounter with AI: In December 2022, Jeff was introduced to ChatGPT. Initially underwhelmed by its capabilities when used for routine tasks like writing emails, he realized the potential of AI as a strategic partner by redefining his approach.
   • Strategic Shift: By focusing AI on high-impact strategic questions rather than low-value tasks, Jeff transformed it into a tool for enhancing decision-making and problem-solving.
   • Quote: “I started thinking of it as a thought partner where I wouldn't ask it questions. I would give it my toughest problems and have it interview me to help clarify my thinking.” – Jeff Woods [07:01]

3. Overcoming Limiting Beliefs About AI (09:44 - 12:08)

   • Common Fears: Jeff addresses prevalent fears that AI will replace jobs, emphasizing that AI is designed to enhance human capabilities rather than substitute them.
   • Paradigm Shift: He advocates for a growth mindset, encouraging leaders to view AI as an enabler that frees them from mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives.
   • Quote: “I think this is the great liberator. I think this is going to give us a chance to return us to what makes us human.” – Jeff Woods [11:17]

4. Framework for Using AI as a Thought Partner (14:05 - 23:48)

   • Communication with AI: Jeff outlines four critical ingredients for effective AI interaction:
     1. Describe the Task: Clearly articulate what you need.
     2. Provide Context: Offer detailed background information to guide AI responses.
     3. Assign a Persona: Designate a role for AI to adopt, enhancing its relevance and expertise.
     4. Ask AI to Interview You: Engage AI in a dialogue that deepens problem understanding and uncovers innovative solutions.
   • Practical Application: Jeff shares a compelling case study where AI helped a manufacturing CEO restructure debt by generating non-obvious strategies tailored to Japanese corporate culture.
   • Quote: “You have to describe the task, give it context, assign a persona, and ask it to interview you.” – Jeff Woods [16:54]

5. Real-World Use Cases and Success Stories (23:48 - 35:03)

   • Debt Restructuring in Japan: AI provided strategic questions that led to actionable solutions, instilling hope in a business on the brink of bankruptcy.
   • Project Management Enhancement: Jeff demonstrates how AI can streamline project tasks, exemplified by creating comprehensive contact charts for podcast outreach seamlessly.
   • Board Meeting Optimization: By simulating board member personalities, AI enabled a CEO to preemptively address concerns, resulting in highly successful meetings and improved board relations.
   • Sales Pitch Refinement: AI served as a tough sales partner, rigorously testing pitches and providing critical feedback that led to successful deal closures.
   • Quote: “If you ask that question once a day, you will create awareness, take action, and continually improve your use of AI.” – Jeff Woods [22:38]

6. Key Takeaways and Actionable Steps (35:03 - 36:54)

   • Adopt the Habit: Jeff encourages listeners to start with a simple action—placing a sticky note on their desk that reads, “How can AI help me do this?” This constant reminder fosters a proactive approach to integrating AI into daily tasks.
   • Continuous Improvement: Emphasizing that AI interaction is a skill, Jeff advises consistent practice to become proficient, ultimately unlocking a plethora of business opportunities.
   • Resources: Listeners are directed to Jeff’s book, AI Driven Leader, and his website, aileadership.com, for further guidance and resources.
   • Quote: “If you focus on good communication ingredients, you will get a good result, and then it will just make you ask the question again.” – Jeff Woods [35:03]

7. Conclusion and Final Thoughts (36:54 - End)

   • Empowerment Through AI: The episode concludes with a strong message of empowerment, urging business leaders to embrace AI as a partner that amplifies their strengths and strategic vision.
   • Future Directions: Jeff hints at upcoming resources, including a newsletter and a new podcast, to continue supporting leaders in their AI-driven journeys.
   • Quote: “All change starts with you as the leader. Start there, then look up, start looking at your people.” – Jeff Woods [36:16]

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• “60% of the jobs that exist today didn't even exist in 1940.” – Jeff Woods [00:01]
• “I started thinking of it as a thought partner where I wouldn't ask it questions. I would give it my toughest problems and have it interview me to help clarify my thinking.” – Jeff Woods [07:01]
• “I think this is the great liberator. I think this is going to give us a chance to return us to what makes us human.” – Jeff Woods [11:17]
• “You have to describe the task, give it context, assign a persona, and ask it to interview you.” – Jeff Woods [16:54]
• “If you ask that question once a day, you will create awareness, take action, and continually improve your use of AI.” – Jeff Woods [22:38]
• “If you focus on good communication ingredients, you will get a good result, and then it will just make you ask the question again.” – Jeff Woods [35:03]
• “All change starts with you as the leader. Start there, then look up, start looking at your people.” – Jeff Woods [36:16]

Key Insights:

• AI as a Thought Partner: Transitioning AI from a task-oriented tool to a strategic collaborator can significantly enhance decision-making and problem-solving capabilities.
• Strategic Prompting: Effective use of AI involves clear task descriptions, contextual information, role assignments, and interactive engagement.
• Overcoming Fear: Embracing AI requires shifting from fear of replacement to recognizing its potential to amplify human strengths and free up time for high-value activities.
• Continuous Learning: Regular interaction with AI fosters proficiency, leading to innovative solutions and sustained business growth.

Conclusions: Jeff Woods’ insights underscore the transformative potential of AI in the business landscape. By reimagining AI as a strategic partner, leaders can unlock new avenues for growth, enhance operational efficiency, and foster a culture of innovation. This episode serves as a compelling guide for business owners and executives aspiring to harness AI's full potential, encouraging a proactive and strategic approach to technology integration.

Call to Action:

• Start Today: Place a sticky note on your desk that asks, “How can AI help me do this?” to cultivate a mindset geared towards AI integration.
• Educate Yourself: Read AI Driven Leader by Jeff Woods and visit aileadership.com for additional resources.
• Engage and Experiment: Begin applying the four ingredients—task description, context, persona assignment, and interactive prompting—to your AI interactions to experience transformative results.

Embrace the future of AI-driven leadership and unlock your business's true potential by making AI an integral part of your strategic framework.

Transcript

[Jeff Woods]

60% of the jobs that exist today didn't even exist in 1940.

[Bobby Richards]

Welcome to the Business Made simple podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. I'm Bobby Richards.

[James Sweeting]

And I'm James Sweeting. Do you feel overwhelmed in your business? Maybe revenue's down. Maybe you're just having communication issues with your team. Maybe there's processes that are just dragging operations in your company almost to a halt even, and there's inefficiencies. Whatever it is, you're feeling overwhelmed.

[Bobby Richards]

Absolutely. And today we've got some sound for that in the form of AI. Now, some of you, you might be scared of AI replacing you. You might have tried it and gone. I don't know how this is going to provide for me a solution. I want to challenge you to listen to our conversation with Jeff Woods. Jeff is the author of the AI Driven Leader and has provided a way to think about AI not as a way to replace us, but to think of it as a thought partner, unlocking your ability and superpower to be the thought leader you truly are.

[James Sweeting]

Jeff talks about this idea of how you can use AI to enhance what to actually harness it to help you make faster, smarter decisions. There's an incredible takeaway at the end that you don't want to miss that could literally free up so much time for you.

[Bobby Richards]

So for this final episode of the Business Made simple podcast, I cannot wait for you to dive into this conversation with Jeff woods and see how AI can absolutely enhance everything that you're doing right now.

[James Sweeting]

We all know AI is the future, but if you don't know where to start, this episode is perfect for you.

[Bobby Richards]

You've got all that and more right after this. How do you begin to describe your job as a marketer? Well, you have to generate leads, create content, gather data. You're spread way too thin. But HubSpot has a better way. With the help of Breeze, HubSpot's collection of AI tools and features like Content Remix, you can turn one piece of content into a suite of assets. Then pinpoint the best prospects and level up your campaign's KPIs with a new analytics suite. And most importantly, you're going to have a way easier time describing your job at parties. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more. No joke, there are three books that have been super influential in everything that I'm doing in small business, even in life. And the first one, of course, it's Building a Story Brand. And then Miracle Morning. And then the AI Driven Leader has been one of the most game changing books and frameworks, especially in this world of AI that I've ever read, and immediately started implementing it. And it has opened up and freed up the way that I think critically and work with my team and create and craft and ideate. And so first off, thank you. Second of all, how did you discover this world of AI and come up with all of this? I mean, that's such a loaded question, man. But like, where did it all begin?

[Jeff Woods]

Sure. It actually, we have to go back to my time in college. I went to UC Santa Barbara in my senior year. I'm doing an internship for a tech company and I sit down with the CEO right before graduation and I ask him what job should I get after school. He looks at me and he goes, jeff, you're asking the wrong question. This was the first time in my life that I had been introduced to the power of asking the right questions. And he looks at me, says, you should be asking, what are the skills I can master that are so valuable they'll serve me no matter where I go? Then go find jobs that will help you build those skills. To date, it's the best career advice I ever received and based on my personality. He said, you need to go into sales. Go work for Xerox or IBM. You'll get the best training in the world. I went to work for Xerox, found out nobody likes their copier rep, so shifted to medical device sales because I thought if I could wear scrubs and try to get my wife to call me McDreamy, that would be a good life.

[Bobby Richards]

Thumbs up. Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

But I'm an entrepreneur at heart. And it came calling and an opportunity created where Jay Papazan, who you guys both know, who co authored the One thing with Gary Keller, who started Keller Williams. They wanted to make the book a company. And Gary's one Thing is Keller Williams. Jay's one thing is writing books. With Gary, an opportunity was created for me to move to Austin to partner with them, where I would start and scale the company and learn how do you think and act like a CEO. And that was a tremendous seven years of my life. I learned to be an entrepreneur. A lot of what I did was going into companies, driving strategic thinking, facilitating off sites, taking certain Fortune 500 companies from a 21 page business plan down to literally one. So I mastered this ability to ask great questions to leaders, to get them to separate all the things they could do and focus on the one thing they should do. In 2022, I sold my interest in the company. Had it to your non compete and got a call from a client called Jindal Steel and power giant Steel company. You're talking 100,000 people global operations. I had been the coach to the chairman of the board and his executive team. So when he found out I left. He called and said, hey, would you come in house? And I said, maybe. What's the job? And he looks at me and goes, you tell me. Which was such a cool opportunity because this was where a time where I got to literally look internally and ask what are my unique strength that if I could harness them, knowing what I know about the business could help them drive growth. And so I stepped in as chief growth officer over all operations over the next several years, took their market cap from 750 million to 12 billion.

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah, that's a little increase there. Oh my gosh.

[Jeff Woods]

I focused on what I call the four drivers of growth. And this is in the AI driven leader, strategy, execution, people and technology. Strategy was about clarifying the competitive advantage every company was going to build in the future. Execution was about making sure they had the right strategic plan that would put them in alignment with the competitive advantage they wanted to occupy. People. You change your strategic plan every year, but you don't change the job descriptions of your people when the purpose of your people is to execute the plan. So how do we realign our workforce with our plan in alignment with our competitive advantage? And then technology, how do we harness technology? Whether it's to make people more productive, operations more efficient, or products and services more valuable? December 2022. My world changed because I saw ChatGPT for the first time.

[Bobby Richards]

I remember.

[Jeff Woods]

I remember that it had literally been out for less than 30 days. And when I saw it, guys, I had that college mentor in my head. What are the skills you can master that are so valuable they'll serve you no matter where you go? There was a part of me that said, I'm so busy, I'll get to this later or I'll delegate this to somebody to figure out. But then there was the side of me that said, this is an opportunity to build a career advantage, let alone an advantage for the organization. And so I dove in. The problem was pretty quickly I was.

[Bobby Richards]

Underwhelmed with that first iteration.

[Jeff Woods]

Well, it wasn't the technology, it was how I was wielding the tool.

[Bobby Richards]

Right, right, right.

[Jeff Woods]

I was using it to write a better email. I was using it to try to help with social media copy or marketing copy. None of which is a priority for me at a C level of a company of this size. And so I asked myself a different question. What are the things that I need to focus on as a chief Growth officer? What are those 20% priorities that'll drive 80% of the growth? And that's when I came back to this idea that your ability to think strategically is the difference between growing your business or going out of business. And so I asked how might this help me think more strategically or make faster, smarter decisions? And what I discovered was I had been using AI like a really smart Google where I was asking IT questions and getting answers or treating it like an assistant to delegate low value tasks. I immediately raised my standards for my relationship with this technology and I started thinking of it as a thought partner where I wouldn't ask it questions. I would give it my toughest problems and have it interview me to help clarify my thinking and help me identify non obvious solutions or challenge biases and assumptions. Assumptions, guys. That was a game changer.

[James Sweeting]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

And so I'm in India every quarter and I'm at the chairman's house and I make the pitch. I go, this is the future. And he goes, I agree. I said we should drive this through the company. He goes, I agree. I said this is so important that you should own this as chairman of the board. And he just looks at me and goes, I disagree.

[Bobby Richards]

That's your, that's gonna be your project, man.

[Jeff Woods]

How about you do it? And this is when I immediately committed, but realized I didn't feel like I had all the information to be successful. And so I partnered with Google and now I'm in their headquarters in Delhi every quarter and they're teaching me what the technology is, how it works, how do you identify use cases, tune models. And eventually after driving that for some time, I saw a bigger opportunity to start my own business, AI Leadership, and write the AI driven leader to help executive teams understand how to start using this and build a competitive advantage.

[James Sweeting]

Jeff, I love that. Oh my gosh, there's so much there.

[Bobby Richards]

I know, it's fantastic.

[James Sweeting]

I'm sure even if, that if we wrapped up the episode right there, the small business owners listening would be like, great, great. I've got, I've got everything I need to already start moving on this. I'm curious about kind of to go back a little bit. I mean, you mentioned that that first time you were using ChatGPT, you're a little underwhelmed and then you kind of, you know, you reframed and you shifted that. What, maybe from a. And you mentioned this in the book. You talk about becoming an AI driven leader. One of those steps is changing your limiting beliefs around AI. What are some other potential limiting beliefs or little things kind of up front that you're seeing people get stuck on and it keeps them out of diving.

[Bobby Richards]

In or even how people just are rooted in how they think about. Yeah. Approach, sure.

[Jeff Woods]

AI twofold. Let's, let's go 10,000ft, then let's go more ground level. Yeah. One, I think people measure backwards instead of forwards. I think they focus on who they have been and they attach their identity to their track record rather than reimagining who they can become. So in the case like this, they look at go, well, this is how I've always done my job. So that's how I'm going to do my job.

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

Versus, if I could reset the table, who could I become?

[James Sweeting]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

How might I do my job in the future? In fact, this is a quote I got from Gary Keller, which is what's the business that'll put you out of business and how do you build it? First, it's too many people are attached to the way things used to be. Instead of reimagining who they can become. That's number one. Then you get to more ground level. There's a lot of fear that people think AI will replace them.

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

I'm here to say that I believe AI will enhance you, not replace you. But this is where we have to dig deeper in terms of what is a job. A job is nothing more than skills that you apply and processes you follow. You apply certain skills, you follow certain processes. That is your job. In every major technological disruption in history, from the printing press, steam engine, assembly line, electricity, Internet technology changed the skills that were valued and the processes that we follow. I want to say it's 60% of the jobs that exist today didn't even exist in 1940.

[Bobby Richards]

So yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

If I think about what is stopping people, they're so afraid that this is going to take their job instead of realizing that, hey, actually the majority of my workday is consumed with three things. Checking email, sitting in meetings and doing my to do list. Most of which is filled with 80% of the stuff in your company that only drives 20% of the results. So I go hallelujah. I think this is not the great disruptor. I think this is the great liberator. I think this is going to give us a chance to return us to what makes us human. Our ability to think strategically, to solve problems, to communicate, to collaborate, to create. So I think there's Going to be a huge opportunity for those that are willing to adopt a growth mindset and allow AI to enhance their strengths and free them up from the low value tasks that can be done by machines.

[Bobby Richards]

Yep, you nailed it there. And you nail it in the book. It's that idea, that paradigm shift that we have to take. Anytime there's been a huge disruption, there's fear, and it's warranted, you know, because people see, oh yeah, my job potentially could be replaced.

[Jeff Woods]

Something that really helped me on my own journey because I felt the same thing. I mean, the last decade of my life, I was a coach or advisor to executive teams. I was in the room asking questions and I, for the longest time have thought, why do I have to be the one to ask the questions? How can I get them to do it? I was never able to successfully scale that. And I read a book called 10x is easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan. Yeah, the high level premise is if you want to double your growth, you can keep doing 80% of what you currently do. You only have to change 20%. You can double your growth, but if you want to 10x your growth, you literally have to stop doing 80% of what you do today. Hold on to the core 20% that is most aligned with who you are, your strengths, and the highest value of the organization, and then move the balance 80% to a higher level of capability in the organization. So I literally looked at myself and said, okay, if I want a 10x, I have to stop being the one that asks all the questions. That's how I made all my money for the last 10 years. That's a little scary, but I chose an abundant mindset and said, but if I have the assumption that I'm going to free myself up to acquire new skills that make what I do even more valuable, then I should be able to make 10x the money. And I have literally figured out how to use AI to ask leaders the questions that I used to get paid a lot of money to ask. I've already created an AI model on my site that knows the book and has 10 pages of custom instructions to get it to be me. And I have figured out how to move myself to a completely higher level of capability. So it has been a huge liberator. It has actually enhanced and expanded who I am.

[Bobby Richards]

I want to get into the framework of how you approach prompting AI to work with you as a thought leader instead of as accomplish this task. Write this email. Yeah, sure. Organize this to do list.

[Jeff Woods]

Yeah.

[James Sweeting]

Using it as a strategic Thought partner.

[Bobby Richards]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Jeff Woods]

So first you have to recognize, you have to reshape your relationship. You are the thought leader. AI is your thought partner. This is one of the greatest risks I see happening right now that we're not talking about is people abdicating their responsibility as the thought leader. They're asking AI to write something and they're copying and pasting without any human judgment or editorial oversight. You can see when people are. Things have been ran through AI that is a path to mediocrity. That's not what I suggest. AI can get you to a first draft, but it's then for you as the human to say, is this my voice? Do I agree? How do I know if what it is saying is true? You're in the driver's seat. It's in the passenger seat. When I think about writing a prompt. Either of you guys married?

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah, I am. Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

Okay. Have you ever been in a romantic relationship, ever, James?

[James Sweeting]

Yes.

[Jeff Woods]

Okay, cool. How important is communication in your relationship with another person?

[James Sweeting]

Very important.

[Bobby Richards]

It's very important.

[Jeff Woods]

Your ability to communicate effectively determines the quality of that relationship. It is the same thing when it comes to AI so in the book on page 73, I have this image of what I call the communication ingredient. So there's like a picture of a big pot and you got all these ingredients that you can throw into the pot. This is how you prompt. I'm going to tell you the top four ingredients that I think are most required for engaging AI as a thought partner. You have to describe the task. If it's not working, you have to ask, did I clearly tell it what I wanted it to do? A lot of people will figure out that AI is like a mirror for your communication. It might be clear in your head, but it comes out as clear as mud. Second, you got to give it context. While it has been trained on so much data, it's not you. It doesn't know your business the way that you do and don't expect it to know it. If you. If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. If you put quality in, you're going to get quality out. So feed it lots of context. Then there's assigning a Persona. So just like in the Matrix, Neo didn't know Kung Fu until Morpheus pushed a button, uploaded data to his head, and then he knew Kung Fu. Every single one of you has certain expertise, but that's fairly limited. I'm not a chief legal officer, but if I ask AI to act as a chief legal officer, it suddenly taps into 200 million books worth of data which it can recall 100% of, and immediately shunts it down to the data relevant to your situation and applies that expertise to your use case. That is extraordinarily powerful.

[Bobby Richards]

Yep.

[Jeff Woods]

So you describe the task, you give it context, you assign a Persona or a role, and then this is the fourth ingredient that most people have not thought of. It's asking AI to interview you. So now let me take these ingredients and put this into a recipe for you that'll earn you a Michelin star. Context, role, interview, task. Give it context. Assign it a role or a Persona. Ask it to interview you so it can accomplish a task. Let me give you a real use case. I presented to a group of CEOs, and I asked them, what are the biggest problems you're facing in your business that if we could solve them, would unlock a new level of growth? One guy looks at me and he says, okay, I got one. I run a manufacturing company. I leased all this equipment from a company in Japan. But things have shifted in the market and the debt structure is now killing us. We're going to go bankrupt if it doesn't get restructured. And I look at him and I go, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. What have you done? And he goes, we tried everything. And he literally lists off five different things that they have tried and says none of it has worked because this is a publicly traded company in Japan and it's gone all the way to the board and they are refusing to restructure the debt because they think it will make them lose face in Japanese society. He looks at me and goes, I have no next step. We're going out of business. Can AI help? That was the right question.

[James Sweeting]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

Can it? Don't know. But I approach every use case with genuine curiosity. So in this case, I pulled up ChatGPT and I followed that recipe of context. Role, interview, task, context. I'm a manufacturing CEO. I leased all this equipment from a company in Japan. Things have shifted in the market and the debt structure is now killing us. These are are all the things that we have tried to get the debt restructured. And I listed every single one of them. None of it has worked because this is a publicly traded company in Japan. It's gone all the way to the board, and they're refusing to restructure the debt because they think they'll lose face in Japanese society. Now, for those of you who are listening this, some of you just went, holy smokes, you can put all that in there? Yes, folks, this is not Google. Yeah, so that was the first part. And then I said, your role is to act as an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt. I'm not that person. The CEO isn't that person. Doesn't matter. AI has that data that it can access. Interview me by asking one question at a time, up to three questions, and then complete the task of generating five non obvious strategies I could deploy to get the board to restructure the debt. That was one prompt I sent it. AI immediately asked, do you have any relationships with any influential executives in Japan that this board would respect? I look at the CEO and he goes, oh, my gosh, I would have never asked that. I do.

[Bobby Richards]

Incredible.

[Jeff Woods]

And I'm thinking, of course you wouldn't have. You don't have 2,000 years of Japanese culture in your head. But AI does.

[Bobby Richards]

Right?

[Jeff Woods]

Then it asked two more questions about how he had specifically navigated Japanese society in the past. And it came back and goes, okay, here's your five non obvious strategies. Number one, it called the Saving Face Consortium. It said, you have enough relationships with the right people in Japan. Approach them to acquire the debt, give them really favorable terms, your debt will get restructured, your board will save face. I look at him, his whole body language has shifted.

[James Sweeting]

Wow.

[Jeff Woods]

And I can tell he's literally holding back tears. And he looks at the people in the room and goes, I have not slept in 90 days. I have literally been making peace with the fact that we're going out of business. And in less than 10 minutes, I got hope. We texted a few months later and he said, the ball's moving and I actually think this is gonna get done.

[Bobby Richards]

The Creators Are Brands Podcast, hosted by Tom Boyd, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Creators are Brand Brands explores how storytellers are building brands online, from the mindsets to the tactics, all the way to the business side. The show breaks down what's working so you can apply that to your own mission. In a recent episode titled 3K to 45K on Instagram in one year, selling digital products and quitting his job, Tom talks to Gannon Meyer about his incredible journey to social media success. They unpack actionable strategies for building a loyal audience, how you can monetize digital products, and how to create meaningful brand partnerships. So whether you're looking to grow your presence online or turn your content into a profitable business, this episode and this show offers practical takeaways you can start applying right away. Listen to creators Are brands wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to the show.

[Jeff Woods]

You are the thought leader. AI reflects the quality of your communication. If you do not say one question at a time, it'll ask you a bunch of questions at once. That's not a conversation. So when you say one question at a time, you provide a limit or a constraint that gets it to talk to you like a thought partner and then it reflects back what you give it. So I was doing a session for an investment committee for a commercial real estate company. Had 40 people in the room and the guy executed the prompts. I go, how was it? And he goes, eh, I already thought about all these things. None of it was outside the box. And I looked at him and asked, did you explicitly ask it to generate outside the box or non obvious solutions? And he goes, no, I said, put it in right now. Say, I already know all this. Give me outside the box solutions. And we waited and he sent it and he went, holy crap.

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Sweeting]

Right?

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah. Just yeah. Like you said, you don't put the ingredients in. You taste the soup and you're like, oh gosh, what's off? Well, you didn't put all the.

[Jeff Woods]

Let me, let me really drive home. This is business made simple. Let me make AI made simple for you. Here's why this works. Think about how many books you've read over your lifetime. One hundred, five hundred? A thousand? What percent of that collective knowledge do you think you can recall and apply right now?

[Bobby Richards]

I didn't know this was going to be a.000. Right.

[Jeff Woods]

If you're like most people, it's less than 1%. And look at how successful you've been on your ability to frankly recall the minority of what you learned. But now if you just realize that you don't have to be shackled to your ability to only access a limit of the information you've learned, which is insignificant compared to the data of the world. You have a thought partner. It has been trained literally on 200 million books worth of data.

[James Sweeting]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

It can recall 100% of it in under a second. So with your thought leadership, with AI's thought partnership, you can unleash a powerful synergy that you can use for a career advantage, for a competitive advantage.

[James Sweeting]

Jeff, I love this. This is just fantastic. I know our listeners are like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. I gotta start using this right now. I want to go back to call out something that in that example of the business that was maybe they were maybe gonna go bankrupt. They were Gonna go out of business. I wanna go back to this moment where one, you know, the business owners feeling like they're completely out of solutions, completely stuck. There is nothing else we can do. That's a relatable feeling for sure. And I love what you did in that moment. And this is something you call out in the book. This question. This has been the. The most impactful takeaway from the book for me that I've been using personally and with my team. Here is instead of asking, how can I solve this problem, Asking, how can AI help me solve this problem? And that's exactly what you did in that moment.

[Jeff Woods]

Yes. So I literally keep a sticky note on my desk. I'm holding it up to the camera that just says, how can AI help me do this? Yes. So literally after this episode, if you can only do one thing, I want you to get a sticky note and a Sharpie and I want you to write, how can AI help me do this? Like, literally, you're listening to the podcast right now. Pause it, go on your calendar and like, schedule the time, make sticky note that asks, how can AI help me do this? Question mark and put it on my desk or my computer. Dead serious.

[Bobby Richards]

Yep.

[Jeff Woods]

Because it's all about the questions you ask yourself.

[James Sweeting]

Yes.

[Jeff Woods]

If you. And this is a flywheel. It's an image that I have in the back of the book that if you just ask that question once a day, you will create awareness, which is the next stage in the flywheel of a use case. You will then take action by writing the prompt. And if you focus on good communication ingredients, where I have that image on page 73 of the book of all the different ingredients you can use, you will get a result which just makes you ask the question again. It is literally that simple. So let me give you another real use case. I was texting with a guy, and next month we are holding an off site for our executive AI network called the Collective. So we have all these leaders who are driving this in their companies. We get off site to actually collaborate on how we're doing this so that we crush the competition. And the guy goes, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make it. I have to cut $2 million out of operations. And I text them and said, have you asked, how can AI help me do this? And he literally goes, no. What would that look like? Context, role interview, task context. Feed it your historical financial statements as well as your financial projections for next year. And how do you do that? You literally click the document and Drag it and drop it. That's how you do it. And give it context on the business and what's going on that's causing you to realize that you need to cut $2 million from operations.

[James Sweeting]

Roll.

[Jeff Woods]

You are a strategic CFO adept at cutting $2 million from operations without slowing growth. Interview me by asking me one question at a time, up to five questions, to gain deeper context, and then complete the task of outlining my roadmap for how I will cut the $2 million from operations without slowing growth within the next six months. He texted me five minutes later and went, holy crap. He was going to take 45 days.

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah.

[James Sweeting]

Wow.

[Jeff Woods]

To focus on this.

[James Sweeting]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

We did it in five minutes.

[Bobby Richards]

It's insane. It really is. And even just a tiny little use case that I was telling James about before we hopped on with you, Jeff was our project manager. Sam Bucholes was tasked with creating a spreadsheet for Don to be on external podcast to talk about our upcoming Building a story brand 2.0 book. And we needed all these different categories and stuff like that. And I had just listened to AI Driven Leader and I went, hold on, let me just try this out. So I created a table that broke down podcast contact info, the one liner for the. For these shows, all this stuff. Where are they? So if Don's traveling, he can go in person, we can contact him. And did it for 25 of the top shows in all these different categories. I then came in and I asked Sam, I said, hey, I know you have time set up to work on it. I didn't tell him that I did any of this. And I said, hey, how are you going to go about that? I said, I'm not trying to test you, by the way. But he goes, well, I've got about three hours today. I'm going to jump into Apple podcast charts. I'm going to look at that, I'm going to cross reference it with this, all this stuff. And I go, well, what do you think about this? And I showed him the chart and he goes, oh my gosh. And I said, let me show you how I did this. And that has changed the game for how he's project managing for you.

[Jeff Woods]

You said something there that I think is worth double clicking on, asking it to adopt certain Personas or avatars.

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah.

[Jeff Woods]

Yep. A company that we have been working with, we're working toward an exit in the next 24 months. Their number one barrier is a hostile board. Every quarter is a bloodbath. And the CEO gets a call one day from the chairman saying, you got six months to turn this around or you're all gone. And he and I are having a conversation. He goes, I don't even know what to do. I said, I've got an idea. So I sat the executive team down, had, in this case, I was using just ChatGPT, and I said, I turned it into an HR professional with deep expertise in creating personality profiles and had it interview the executive team about one board member named Susan. And it needed to ask as many questions as it wanted until it understood her on a deep level so it could create a personality profile for her. And it did it. And the team looked at it and they said, that's about 80% right. They made some changes, they saved it. We redid that for every board member. I then created a custom AI model on the spot, fed it the personality profiles of every board member and said, your job is to be our AI board. You will help us prepare for our board meetings. We will feed you the deck and as every board member, you will review every slide and spot the landmines that are going to blow up in our face in the meeting that's causing all the bloodshed.

[Bobby Richards]

Wow.

[Jeff Woods]

To test it, we took a deck from a past meeting. We already know what happened in that meeting. We gave it to AI and said, give us your feedback. It literally said on page eight, Susan's going to get distracted by the granularity of the details on the slide, which is going to lead to a 30 minute detour. This is going to derail your whole agenda. Instead of all the details, say these three things because it's what she cares about most. I look at the CEO and he goes, that's exactly what happened. So now we give it the deck for the upcoming meeting. It gives us feedback. The team sweeps the mines. They go have the meeting. Here's where it gets interesting. There's always a director who's virtual. So they're on zoom. With the board's permission, they have an AI note taker taking notes, meaning every word is transcribed. We take the transcript and feed it back to the AI board and say, compare what you simulated would happen versus what actually happened and enhance the personality profiles so you could have simulated reality. It only took two board meetings. Literally. I get the phone call on the day of the second boarding. This is the six month mark, the do or die. I answer the call and I go, what's the verdict? And the CEO says, the board said it was the best meeting they've ever had and the best deck they've Ever seen.

[Bobby Richards]

Oh, my gosh, that's crazy.

[Jeff Woods]

You want to talk about a sales use case, Please. So I did a. I had a pitch coming up for a scope of work for a pretty big company. And an hour before the meeting, I'm preparing, and I literally look down on my desk and I see the sticky note I'm staring at right now that says, how can AI help me do this? And I went, of course, Jeff. So I literally took the PDF of the proposal that I was going to present, pulled it into ChatGPT and said, I'm preparing for a pitch. This is the deck I'm going to be presenting to two people, the executive and their chief of staff. Here's what you need to know about each person. And I described each person in vivid detail and said, your task, I'm going to flip to audio mode and I'm going to actually give you the pitch. Your task is to role play with me and to simulate how the objections you think they might throw. But I don't want you to be nice. I want you to be a 10 out of 10 tough, still be professional. But I want you to make this really hard on me so that if I can have answers to your questions, I'm going to crush the real deal. And when you hear me say the words all done, I want you know that the simulation is over. And then I want you to complete the task of telling me what you liked about my pitch, what you didn't like about my pitch, and the top changes I need to make to my pitch to get the deal done. Confirm if you understand my instructions. And it said confirmed, awaiting for you to start. And from my desktop, I grabbed my phone, open chatgpt, went to the same thread and hit the little black circle to switch it into audio mode and just started going, all right, everybody, thanks so much for your time today. Here's what we're going to be covering. And I literally started going through the presentation and it literally started interrupting me and throwing challenges and objections at me. And I'm handling them. And, you know, we go for 15 to 20 minutes.

[James Sweeting]

Wow.

[Jeff Woods]

And I say, all done. And it goes, great. Here's my feedback on what I liked, didn't like in the top changes you would need to make to your presentation to get the deal done. I stopped, pressed the stop button on voice mode, went back to my computer, refreshed the screen, and all of it was there in text. One of the things that it called out was that there was no return on investment outlined. And guys, I literally went oh, my gosh, how did I miss that? And then I remembered, it's tough to read the label when you're inside the box. Yeah, every one of us is in our own box. Our perspective. There's so many blind spots and assumptions we're making that if we don't challenge, we can run in the wrong direction. Then I went, oh, I don't know what the ROI is. And in that moment, I looked down at my desk and saw the sticky note. How can AI help me do this? And so I said, I don't know what the ROI is. Help me. And it literally said, well, how about if the conversation's going well, how about you turn the tables on the executive and make them defend the investment? I went, that's brilliant. So I literally created a slide and all it said was, defend the investment. And when we got to that stage, he was super excited. And I said, all right, can I coach you here? And he goes, yeah, who are you going to have to sell this to? And he said, the cfo. I said, great, I'm going to role play as though I'm the CFO and know that you just pitched me this. And I say, no, so now you have to really sell me on the ROI for the company. Go. And he literally started going. The whole time, my AI note taker, with his permission, is taking notes and transcribing every word. Once he was done, he gave a compelling argument. I said, all right, I got this. Let me check the notes, I'll update the deck. I'll have a slide that outlines an ROI for the cfo. So you're just ready to rock and roll. And he goes, awesome, thanks so much. I downloaded the transcript, fed it to the exact same thread, and said, go to the section of the transcript where he defended the investment. And based on that content, create a tight content for a tight one page slide that will go to a budget conscious CFO that will get the CFO to approve the funds. And it literally, within two seconds, had read an hour long conversation, found the exact portion and was generating the content. And I looked at it, it was like 80% there. I made some changes because I'm the thought leader, is my thought partner. Stuck that into the deck, sent deal, got done.

[Bobby Richards]

Jeff, you're a superhero, man. I mean, it's like, it really is. I know. I feel like I'm overusing this, but it's absolutely true. It's. This is a game changer the way that you think about this. AI's out there. This is the next revolution. This is the thing. It's not going anywhere. And we can sit here scared and frightened, which, again, there's no shame in that. It's just going, yeah, change is scary. But like you've been saying and like you say in the book, how can we have that paradigm shift where we're looking at, how does it enhance me? How can it enhance you? And everything that you've broken down today has been gold, man. What a way to end the year. What a way to end the freaking show. I mean, this has been so great. At the end of every episode, Jeff, we do a plan of action where we pull out a main takeaway from the conversation that we can give our small business owner on the other side of the podcast listening in, just that, that little nugget that they can immediately jump in on. And I know that we talked about first put that sticky note that says, how can AI help me with this? What would be that next step that they can immediately start to do?

[Jeff Woods]

Why do you need another thing?

[Bobby Richards]

Ooh.

[Jeff Woods]

This is what I learned from building the company behind the one thing. What's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

[Bobby Richards]

Yep.

[Jeff Woods]

I promise you, if you get a sticky note and a Sharpie and you write, how can AI help me do this? And you put it a place that you know you're going to see it every day. When you're working, literally on your computer, literally on your desk, I have multiple that will automatically prompt you to ask the question once a day. If you ask that question, you'll write the prompt. If you focus on good communication ingredients, you will get a good result, and then it will just make you ask the question again once a day, every day for the next 30 days, you will be very, very, very proficient in using this. It starts with a sticky note, starts.

[Bobby Richards]

With a sticky start.

[Jeff Woods]

Can I give a little more context? Everything we're talking about so far and that's in the book is about helping you become an AI driven leader, where you are using AI to enhance you as a. It's you being the thought leader, AI being the thought partner. What happens next is you are naturally going to say, now, how do I drive this into the company? How do I get my leadership team to start doing this? How do I drive it through all of my employees? How do we start to look at our operations? Or is there a way for us to create more valuable products and services? All change starts with you as the leader. Start there, then look up, start looking at your people. Then start looking at what are the operational use cases. You will have a new vision for what's possible. Once you have a level of proficiency with this, you will start to see opportunity everywhere where you're going. Why are we doing it that technology changes the skills and the processes. Why are we doing this process? This way it could be so much easier if we did this and you can start to create things, but know that big change happens over time. So start with. You start with the sticky note. Can I point to a few resources that will help them along the way?

[Bobby Richards]

Yeah, please.

[Jeff Woods]

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So the first, get the book the AI Driven Leader. It will help you. It's on everywhere. The website is aileadership.com I don't read email and I serve really mostly CEOs who don't read email. Our newsletter is world class and I wanted to create something that on a weekly basis could expand your mind in terms of what's possible. So sharing the types of use cases that we have here and the actual prompts we used to deliver it so that we can help you become more proficient and accelerate your journey. I strongly suggest that you check that [e-mail] and we are launching a podcast, the AI Driven Leader podcast, where we can actually record these conversations. There's a trailer episode up right now, so if you just follow the show, you'll get more automatically when we formally launch it this coming year.

[Bobby Richards]

Amazing, amazing, amazing. Jeff woods, you're a brilliant human and you're changing things. You're helping people shift their thought process and how they work with AI and not just opening up possibilities and opportunities for people, but really like you said with that case study in Japan, you're easing the anxiety and the fear, which I think is the first thing that we all need to do. And then we can jump in and we're so appreciative of you.

[Jeff Woods]

Thank you. It's a, it's an honor and a privilege.

[Bobby Richards]

James. I feel like I say this on every episode. Not that I don't mean it, but I'll say it again here. So good.

[James Sweeting]

What an incredible conversation.

[Bobby Richards]

So good.

[James Sweeting]

Oh my gosh. And I just love, I love even how he unpacked that idea of like those four things. You know, give it that context, the role, ask it to interview you, and then what's that task? Give me these non obvious solutions, but just so helpful ultimately that how can AI help me do this? I love that he showed the on video, showed the sticky note. I actually have a sticky note at home on my Desk as well that says that same thing.

[Bobby Richards]

Do you?

[James Sweeting]

Yeah, I do.

[Bobby Richards]

That's the one thing I don't have. I feel like I was following all the rules and I didn't follow the first.

[James Sweeting]

That's the one you need.

[Bobby Richards]

And that was the plan of action.

[James Sweeting]

But it does. It reminds me there will be times when I'm working on something and I get stuck in this way that I used to do something, and then I see that and I'm like, oh, that's a great question. How could AI help me do this? And new solutions come forth. So maybe as you're listening, you're putting that plan together for an incredible 20, 25. You're getting ready to hit that quarter one, you know, hit the ground running. As you roll out that new strategic plan to the team, as you take these new initiatives to drive new revenue, new profit for your company, ask yourself that simple question. How can AI help me do this?

[Bobby Richards]

James, this is the last episode, man.

[James Sweeting]

Wow, Bobby, it's been fun to be on with you.

[Bobby Richards]

It's been an honor, man, and it really has. It's been an honor to be on with everybody out there and to help deliver just content, introduce you to some amazing thought leaders that we've had on. And I only hope that when you guys have tuned in and have listened to each episode that you've been able to pull out and implement those valuable nuggets, those plans of action, those aha moments that have helped you take things to the next level, have soothed some of your anxiety, have helped you understand yourself better, and ultimately have helped you become a better business owner. And with all that, too, very excited for the next evolution of the show with Don coming back into the host seat.

[James Sweeting]

The why that Worked podcast.

[Bobby Richards]

The why that Worked podcast. I've been in the room. I'm still producing that show, you know, and so I'm in there with Don and our new co host, Kyle Reed, and they're having an absolute blast and are really going to be delivering some killer episodes that I think everybody out there will really, really dig. And also get some solid value out of, too. And make sure to listen in this feed, the current Business Made simple podcast feed. New episodes of why that Worked will be dropping here starting January 6th.

[James Sweeting]

So thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for joining us each week. Thanks for making that investment in yourself and in your business and in that commitment to become a better business owner and grow your business. It's been an honor to be here with you today and we look forward to seeing you when we see you when we see you.

[Bobby Richards]

We'll see you when we see you. You're the best out there. You're all the.