Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Basic Business AI, a podcast dedicated to simple AI strategies for businesses who don't want to get an advanced tech degree or hire some marketing bro. I'm your host, William Downs. We bring regular business owners like you and me to discuss practical strategies, ideas and perspectives about AI without getting too far into the weeds of the tech.
Basic Business AI is sponsored by anabots. Did you know companies that respond to customer inquiries in less than 1 minute have a 400% higher chance of closing the deal? Our AI powered assistants have an average response time of just 5 to 7 seconds, meaning you can close more sales without generating more leads. No tech skills are needed and you can get started in less than five minutes. Go to anabots AI. Go to anabots AI to learn more. That's anabots AI. Today's guest is Katherine Knight, and she is. She is in two particular businesses. I'm going to have her talk about the two things that. That she does. Catherine, welcome.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. William. I. I love AI. I mean, I. At first I was scared of it. I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't do this. People say bad things. No. Oh, my gosh, it is amazing. I've been using it now for about nine months. And in those nine months, first someone said, just put yourself out there, put a little bit of stuff in there and ask it to help you rewrite it. Put your personality in this. And I did. And oh my gosh, it was amazing. I was spending maybe 30 hours a week on copywriting, not liking it, not enjoying it, building my business very slowly. And then I thought, okay, I'll try. Everybody says it's so good. Okay, let's see if it is. And I did. I put it in there. And within literally seconds it gave me a response and it said, do you like this? Do you not like this? And I started talking to AI. I always say please and thank you to AI. I get such a great response from AI. I have my parents dementia journey where I coach caregivers who take care of loved ones with dementia and I foster dogs. I love doing that to give back. But I also write my copy for each animal that I bring in and get to know. I go into AI, I tell it some of the pieces about the dog and I say, write it. And oh my goodness, I get the best ad copy in every dog. When I work with this Milo Foundation I work with here in Northern California, they say, catherine, can you write it for all our dogs? Because you write so good. I don't tell Them using AI. But I love it because I get a great response and I can tell it what level grade I wanted to write at, make it friendly, make it funny. And I just do those little tips as I put in what I wrote on word. I copy it over, I say, write it this way, and boom, it does it. It is for me the most amazing thing I brought into my companies. It's like, wow. And then my assistant was writing a lot of stuff for me and she says, catherine, your writing style has improved so much.
And it has, it has, and I have fun with it. I might even, you know, if I respond to someone or I send an email out, I always check with AI now. I'm an AI junkie now.
And look at me nine months ago, taking me hours and hours and hours to do anything. And now I can just go in and say, give me this. And it gives it to me because it knows me now. It know really well. It writes fantastic copy for me. I change it a little bit to make it a little bit more my own. But I can, I can say, okay, I'm going to write an email to all my customers right now. I can do it in 10 to 15 minutes. I go in, I write what I want. Just throw, just write it. Not well. Just write all my ideas coming off on a piece of paper. Copy it over, please. Write it well for me. Funny, friendly, warm. I put it out there and it's done. It's literally 10 to 15 minutes where it took me hours and hours before somebody proof it and then have somebody say, well, give me suggestions on what to change. I trust AI Now I'm, it's, it's changed my world. Changed my world. So I had time to get my own puppy, you know, I couldn't do it when I was working 30 hours just doing copy and then doing the classes and then doing that. I was working 56 hours a week. And now I have a normal life and I have time because that AI is amazing. So if anybody tells you don't do it, do it. It's saves your life and they have it. You don't have to pay for it. It's free now. I, I went up to a higher level because I use it so much.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: But are using chat, Are you using Chat GPT or do you have a different tool?
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah, and I'm on 4.0 now. And so it's, it's like, oh my gosh, I can go do anything I want to do and it's just amazing.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I totally know, like A lot of times. Sometimes what I'll do is I'll record because I don't like to type. I was telling you before we started recording, I'm not the best reader and I don't love to write either. I like being creative, though. I can come up with stuff. So sometimes I'll record something and I'll have it transcribed and then I'll throw that into Chat GPT and then have it make notes from it just so that I have like some structure to my idea that I had.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing. You can use it for all different ideas. You can go into the dall e part of ChatGPT and ask it to, to create something for you if you're not creative. I don't. I am an accountant by trade and so I'm a numbers person and I, you know, I'm not real creative, but having the system in place that I can go and put my ideas out there and oh my gosh, it comes up with the most amazing things and it's, you know, with my business still in the early stages and we're not, you know, we're not making millions of dollars or anything. We've got to be careful with what we spend our money on. And that has saved time and that has saved dollars. For me, is using any kind of AI ability is great. Like you said, anabots and you know, those are the kind of things you can use that will streamline your business, make it easier so you can spend time doing what you're supposed to be doing in your business. And if you're supposed to be out there working with your customers, if you're spending all your time doing copywriting and, and trying to figure out how to set up automated systems, make it easy on yourself. You don't make it, don't. You don't have to make it hard anymore, you know, comes out there to make it life easy.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And that's something that you and I were talking about just before hitting record too, is doing the thing that you want to do and it's like if this is this part of this thing is what you enjoy, do that part. Like if for me it's the idea phase of something, but it isn't like the writing out a copy or something like that, then do that idea phase. Or if you enjoy the, the actual writing of the copy, then like get some ideas generated. Then, you know, there's like so many different ways to do it. So do you have any? Oh, go ahead.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah, you can spend like five to 10 minutes a day playing with it, working with it, and it'll start building on you. And don't be afraid of it. That's the piece you have to kind of stick your toe in the water, you know, do a little bit, just try something, you know, if you want to send a great email out to your mom, try it that way. You know, just, you know, literally I just tried a little bit and every day I increased my time and now it's my go to, I have my CEO time. First thing in the morning I sit there and I write out my emails and I write out where I'm going to go and you know, and if I'm stump, I have a stumbling block. I can actually now ask AI how to break that stumbling block for myself. And because it knows me, I've been using it so long now that it knows all about parents demented journey. It all knows all about fostering dogs. It calls us our furry friends.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: You know, and that's, that's the thing. You, you don't have to make it tough. Just start one step at a time. Try it and you are going to be amazed. Absolutely amazed. You know, I'm not techie. I am definitely not a techie person. That is, I struggle with technical all the time but AI has been my biggest growth that I've had by using AI.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: So, so tell me a little bit about parents dementia. Journey.com I. My father has dementia and he's, he's actually in a home now because my mom got to the point where she couldn't, she wasn't physically able to help him. And I'm in a different city, they're in Galveston. But I want to hear, I want to hear your story a little bit and like the background behind it and then what the website is for.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So basically what happened was about 7 years ago my mom would call me and say, oh honey, I need help with my finances. I'd rush down here. 17 minutes later I walk in the front door and she'd say, what are you doing here?
Am I crazy? Didn't you tell me to come down here? I don't know. I don't know. So then fast forward. I was working with international students and I was in a meeting about 20 minutes away working with care plans for these students. And I'm coming back and the freeway comes together. Four freeways come together and I'm at a stop. It's 4:30 in the afternoon. It's a beautiful August day. I'm sitting in the car and my Phone rings. And I thought, well, I'm not going anywhere. I'll answer it, okay? So I answer the phone. It's my nephew saying, aunt Catherine, something's wrong with Grandma. I said, what do you mean?
Well, first she talks funny and then she talks, okay? Then she talks funny. I said, give the phone to mom. Give the phone to my mom. Mom, are you okay? And my mom and I couldn't understand. I said, get the phone to Josh now. Now, now, now, now, now. Josh, call 911. Hang up. Call 911. Get the paramedics there right now. I think she's having a stroke. So he gets off the phone. I call my husband and say, mom's being taken to the hospital. I call my son, can't get ahold of my husband, can't get a hold of my son, can't get a hold of my daughter, get ahold of my brother 500 miles away. What good is he going to do? But he's going to come down. And I'm sitting in this traffic and I can't go anywhere. I'm crying, I'm screaming, I'm upset. People thinking, this is crazy lady in that car over there, okay, But I'm trying to get to my mom. We're going inch by inch by inch.
An hour and a half later, for a 20 minute drive. An hour and a half later, I go rushing into the hospital. I go walking in.
Oh, my gosh. She doesn't know who I am.
My daughter walks in, she doesn't know who she is.
My son walks in, doesn't know who he's in. My husband walks in, he knows who he is. Wait a minute. She doesn't know. She gave birth to me, but she knows my husband. That is not fair. That is not fair. And that started our journey. Then the doctor came in and said, she can no longer live on her own. She has to either live in a home, have somebody live at her house, or live with a family member.
Well, my husband, I thought, well, this is easy. She's just getting older. We can take care of her. Oh, did we learn it was wrong idea.
Constantly, every 15 minutes saying, Got something to eat, you know, or trying to figure out, I want to go home, you know, mom, this is your home. And we over and over again, same thing, is repeating everything. Some days she knew me, some days she didn't know me.
It was totally different. My youngest son graduated high school. He moved out. He said, I'm done, I'm done. He got out of the house.
And we found very Quickly that you're overwhelmed. It's a nightmare. What are you going to do? Oh my gosh, my life is over. How do I take care of them with dignity? What can I do? I was so overwhelmed. And then I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought, what is it I do for a business? I help companies. At that point, I was helping companies figure out what they had to do to survive. I thought, I'm going to figure out what I can do to survive. I started contacting caregivers, getting ideas, making a binder of all these ideas and techniques. And what can I do to make it easier? With my mom, you know, when she asked me 100 times in the day the same question, how do I respond? She won't take a shower. Hygiene is the number one challenge for loved ones with dementia. So I said, okay, going to make this happen. Then I sat down. I had so many notes. I wrote a book, Parents Dementia Journey. Chaos Calm. I wrote the book, it's still selling. And then I started working with people who take care of loved ones with dementia. It was slowly, one by one, starting. It just seemed like it built up on its own because what we find is, as your mother, it was overwhelming. She couldn't do it anymore. And then she felt bad that she had to put them somewhere. Well, no, she shouldn't. She did the best she could with what she had at the time. She owes it to herself to have a life too. And so we work with caregivers. So I created Parents Dementia Journey. Everything's Parents Dementia Journey, the book, the company, everything. And we did that to start making a difference. We're now global. We work with clients all over the world because dementia is growing exponentially across the world. There's a need for this. And our goal is to help at least one caregiver every single day go from overwhelmed to calm and competent. And I'm proud that we can offer that service out there. And that's how it, how it came about. And then two years ago, my mother in law called and said, I left my purse in the Save Mart basket. I, I lost my purse. So we drove two and a half hours up to, to my mother in law's house.
I spent six months cleaning out her house. We took her to our house saying, well, you know, you're forgetting your purse. We don't feel safe with you driving anymore. We're going to bring you to our house. Had her tested. Yeah, she has dementia. Oh, by the way, after I cleaned out her whole house, I looked in the hall closet. And her purse was there, so she didn't leave it in the cart. You know, so the whole time we were getting a new license, new checking account, new credit card, she never once remembered it was in the closet. So, you know, it's just, it's, you know, my husband says if you try to figure out how they're thinking, you're going to go insane yourself.
The mind is a very different mind. One of the pieces we teach in our free workshops is the difference between old age and dementia because it's one step further with the dementia. It's like if you lose your keys, you misplace your cell phone, you can back, you backtrack and you figure out where you left it. Or you call a, you call a friend and tell them, call my cell phone.
With dementia, they aren't even going to remember they lost it. It's going to be one step further. They're going to. They don't even know they have a cell phone. And eventually they can't use a cell phone. My mother in law, we can't use the cell phone because she can't use cell phone because she says that red button when she's talking to someone, she pushes it, it's red.
Well, then they hang up on her.
So those are the things to deal with. Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: I was gonna say my mom had to eventually take the phone away from my dad because he was just literally calling her every 15 minutes. And she. And so she. So now he'll call from the office and they know when they can, you know, like, yeah, you can call. And so that's how she handles that. So we can still get a hold of her. But like they're gonna keep her from just calling all day because like you said. Yeah, I was watching that from the outside, seeing how her life was falling apart.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: And I was like, mom, I don't want to see you die because you're not taking care of you.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Or just emotional death.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: We work with them. And I know one of my clients, Kara, she called me and she was crying and she was so upset. Her dad wouldn't take a shower. Her dad wouldn't get clean. Nothing she said worked. And I said, kara, I have an idea. Trust me. She said, oh. And then he, today he said, oh, I want to go on a date. He's 93 years old. I said, kara, tell him. Yeah, tell him you'll take him to the bar. He can meet girls, but first he has to take a shower, get cleaned up, get his nails trimmed, hair Trimmed. He has to get all cleaned up and watch what happened. Yeah, he did it. She called me, Catherine, you're the goddess of dementia it out. And she said, well, dad got so cleaned up, put new clothes on, had his hair trimmed, he let me trim his hair, his nails. And then I said, you ready to go to the bar, dad? And he says, I gotta take a nap.
He uses it every time now because she knows it's going to take so much energy out of him and get cleaned up that he's going to take a nap. So she go to the bar and he's happy and she's happy.
And those are little techniques that we can use to make life a little bit easier to get our caregivers from. And we call them care heroes. And your mom is a care hero. She took care of your dad. Tell her she's a care hero.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Oh, well.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: And so that's the whole thing, that's what we can do is we can help you, guide you through the whole process because boy do we have hands on experience with my mom, my mother in law, and now with clients all over the world. And you know, that I'm proud of, I'm happy with that. And then with the help of AI with my marketing, it's just taken it over the top and that I'm thankful for that. I'm so thankful for that. We have the ability to be able to market it out there to reach more people.
And in reaching more people, we're being able to help more people go from overwhelmed, anxiety ridden, too calm and confident.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's great. I, I, like I said, I. Having that background that I have with my mom and watching that, I know how that is a needed thing. Like just that finding people and connecting is, that's what ultimately she ended up finding, was some people that had spouses with dementia. And then she was able to start relating and starting to realize that, oh, I do have to have a life also and I do have to take care of me and that doesn't make me a bad person and.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And we don't want, you know, each person feels like they're alone and getting the support of other people. Because if you're talking to a lot of people and friends who don't have this issue, eventually they turn you off. But you get into a support group that understands what they're going through. There's a lot. I have a friend, I go out to lunch or breakfast once a month and her mom has Lewy Body dementia. I have my mom and my mother in law, we can laugh and we can talk about funny things that happen. And I need that, I need that laughter so that I can keep going on with what I'm doing. And I'm really good. Like I told you, I just got a puppy. The puppy warms my heart and I got the puppy because it was something for me and I'm good to keep going, to keep me so I don't burn out. Because if I burn out, who's going to take care of them, right? And so that said, we are fortunate that we have this out here. We have, I have a great support system. My husband, my daughter, you know, lots of people I talk to. That for me makes my life better and makes it easier for me to deal with all these different things. And you know, after I get off this podcast, I'm going to be going and changing diapers and feeding meals and doing all that. And I don't mind doing it anymore. It's okay. It's part of my life. I do it three days a week and then I have a caregiver here four days a week. So it gives me a break so I can work. So I have found solutions that made it so that it is manageable for me and I can laugh with my husband now. We can joke, we can go out to dinner once in a while. We can have a life. And that's huge. That's huge to getting back to having a life for yourself so you can heal. And if I have a stressful morning, I go out of the back patio and I read my Kindle and I pet the dogs. I find ways little pieces and we teach that little pieces, five minutes, ten minute snippets of giving something back to yourself, you as a care hero that can calm and soothe you so that you can go back and deal with what you have to deal with.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Man, that's, that's, that's awesome.
Okay, so, so you do the, the dog fostering as well. Is that a business as well? Is that something like if people are in that area, can they reach out to you for that or is that more just something that you just like to do?
[00:20:53] Speaker B: I work with a company called Milo Foundation. They take dogs that are going to be euthanized and bring them into there because they don't euthanize. They make sure they're taken care of. And I volunteered to start taking in dogs to help the mass for volunteers. I did it and I've helped find homes for 10 dogs so far.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: And I know those are going to be wonderful dogs. Did you were, you were already telling me about this one dog that you're working with now that is already like the perfect puppy.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I just, I sent an email out through AI. I sent an email out recently to people who have, who, who have adopted some of the Great Pyrenees. And I said, we're in great need for that because right now in four counties around us, there's 16 Great Pyrenees that need to be adopted. We want to save their life. So I send it out to them. And this man said, catherine, the briar that you got me, she goes on hikes with me. She doesn't even need a leash. She walks with me. She's perfect.
He got a great dog. And Oslo is with this great family that they absolutely adore this dog. They would give up their life for this dog. So, you know, we try to, I work to match. I meet people and then I talk to them and I see if they're a great fit for the dog. And if they are, they've got this wonderful forever friend and forever home. And that I'm proud of being able to do that is to ice. Specialize in Great Pyrenees because I have my own Great Pyrenees cowboy who's just, he was, I was a foster fail. I, I adopted when I was fostering him and his two brothers. Two brothers. I kept him. And he's wonderful. He's just, he mothers the dogs that come in that get fostered. He, he's 17 months old. He is 150 pounds. He's massive.
But he's a gentle giant. A wonderful gentle giant. And so that's what I do is I work with. I've gotten four Pyrenees out of the ten. That's been four Great Pyrenees. And I found fantastic homes for them. And, you know, that's what I'm doing. My goal is to the 16 that are out in the humane societies in our area. I'm going to find homes for all of them. That's my next goal, is to make they get nice, wonderful, forever homes.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Well, that's, that's cool. Well, well, so that. And then parents dementia, journey.com. please, if you, if you have a family member. I'm talking to the audience. If you have a family member with dementia or, or your, or you're a caregiver or you're somebody that you know is a caregiver, reach out to Catherine. Use that website. I can already tell just from the short conversation that you are a magical person that is helping people. And what you're doing is very Very, very cool. And I will probably be getting my mom in touch with you as well.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Well, sounds perfect. I would love to talk with your mom. No problem. Thank you so much.
Thank you for doing this podcast. It's. You're doing fantastic. I think it's a great podcast to help support people getting to try AI.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So, so let me, so let me wrap this up. Let's see. Hold on a second. There's a wrap up I gotta do here. Hopefully my editor knows to cut that part out.
Okay, well, that's it. We're gonna wrap from here. Thank you, Catherine, for joining us for a practical conversation about AI and its potential for business. You. You talked about some amazing stuff. You're. You're using AI in a practical way. I love it and I love what you're doing that. It's really heartwarming to hear that.
If you want to know more about her, you can go to her Facebook page. It's p. Dementia Journey. Is that the. Did I say that right? You can go to the website parents dementia journey.com. like I said, reach out to her and that's it. Thank you much. And to the guests and listeners, if you run a business of any size or you have some ideas or strategies around the topics of AI, we'd love to have you on a future episode as well. We interview business owners of all levels of experience and exposure to AI so we can represent all voices, especially the 90% of us that are curious about AI but not trying to get into the weeds of the tech. You can apply to be on a future episode of Basic Business AI by simply going to Basic Business AI dot com. And one more time, if you want to install a 24.7ai sales and support team for less than 10% of the cost of a single employee, get yourself an anabot. Learn more at anabots AI. See you next time on Basic Business AI.
