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, Josh Thomas. You can find me on all social media.
We bring on regular business owners, like you, like me, like Rosala, to discuss practical strategies, ideas and perspectives about AI without getting too far into the weeds of the tech Bb. AI is sponsored by Anabots. Did you know companies that respond to customer inquiries in less than a minute have a 400% higher chance of closing the deal? Well, our AI powered assistants have an average response time of just 9 seconds, meaning you can close more sales without generating more leads. No tech skills are needed, and you can get started. And than ten minutes, you can go to Anabots AI to learn more. Once again, that's Anabots AI. Today's guest only needs one name, and it's Orzala. Orzala is a social media agency owner turned social media coach and trainer. She helps small business owners show up consistently online. Orzala, welcome to Basic Business AI. From your perspective, how is AIH reshaping the future of your industry?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much, first of all, for having me today, and I am excited to be here, Josh. So it's interesting because for basically in my industry, I see two components to it. There's other social media marketers and managers that are basically having this huge fear and a mindset blog about how AI could potentially take their job. I'm part of a lot of marketing groups, copywriting, where a lot of people, freelancers in that industry, are basically looking at AI as something that can overtake their jobs. And also there's two components to it. So from a client aspect, as in other small business owners, I also see that they are struggling from a mindset of not how to basically utilize it, but in general, they just feel like it's there to take other people's jobs as well. So right now, currently, there's a lot of mindset shift that needs to happen to embrace the AI side of things in order for us to kind of go to the next level. Where I feel like AI is not going anywhere, it's the future. So it's just a matter of a lot of us basically going to look at how we can integrate it into what we already do.
Recently, it was back in May, I attended a AI conference here in Toronto specifically for marketers.
So the whole purpose of the conference, based on my understanding of it, which we had people from LinkedIn, Meta, as well as Google, where they all talked about how obviously they're going to inject more of the AI into their platforms as well was to basically assure marketers. So graphic designers, website designers, copyright anybody in the industry to say that AI can actually make our jobs easier and save a lot of time and it's not going to take basically over the job. So the whole point was to give them the reassurance. But it just makes it, it makes our life as people in the, in this industry a lot easier and that's how I see it. So the goal of that was to basically encourage people in the industry to basically embrace it.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's a double edged sword sometimes. So 1st first of all, your first comment about hey, we need to adjust our mindset around AI, it's not going away, it's not a fad that's going to pass like the Internet in 2000 or something.
And I always say that because we did some research on this and a lot of people are saying the same things now that they said about the Internet 25 years ago, like ah, who's ever going to use that?
You know, they said the same thing about cars, the light bulb, any kind of modern advancement in technology, people are skeptical for a while. But you just said something that's really important. I want you to expand on this. Hey, we're putting AI in. You guys are probably safe. You should just embrace it. Like do we really want to trust that though, or should we, like how.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Do we handle that from, so for me it's based on, it's not like so from a social aspect, when I work with clients or what I see happens with a lot of other even agencies where let's say they're using AI to come up with copy and then they basically just like with their copies or captions, copy and paste the entire thing and just post it on their social media platforms. I can see copy written by AI from really far away.
So to me it's not let's just trust it and embrace it. It's how can we utilize it to basically make our lives better. So for me, and when I work with clients who are basically have this whole stigma attached with AI, it's like to me social media is AI, the entire algorithm is run by AI. So it's like if you could use social media, you're using already AI, you're using social media, which is the algorithm is entirely run by AI.
There's that component. So you already have that in your life. You're using it especially for business where we're heavily relying on it from a marketing aspect.
So to me, we're trusting meta with our credit cards and everything, people that are running ads and everything. So to me it's not like let's just jump on every AI tool that's available without doing our market research and giving all our information. It's more being very specific, doing your research, basically looking for experts that's already there and what they're recommending in terms of the tools and then utilizing those tools in your advantage. From a business aspect, I work with a lot of clients. When I coach them, they are their mindset, it's completely against social media.
So let's say like Facebook or Instagram, from the political aspect of it and all that, it's shifting their mindset to say, well, the purpose I'm here is I'm utilizing it to grow my business. So looking at the different AI tools, which there's tons of tools now out there, it's hard to trust all of them. It's like looking at people that are actually in the industry that they can recommend a certain tools and then utilizing it and doing it more responsibly. Just like the way we utilize social media platforms as well, where again, we don't have to be on all social media platforms, we don't have to use all the AI tools that's available there. But we need to look at what are some things and how it can actually, from a business perspective, I look at it, how come it can bring more money into the business of growth.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: AI is a world, an entire planet of shiny objects, and one right after the other, right after the other. You know, take notes with AI, clean your house with AI, you know, solve your marriage problems with AI, and it all comes down to the same thing. It's all speaking to the same machine and spitting out the same results. Your inputs determine your outputs. But I want to go back to something you said earlier where there's this fear that people are going to be replaced by AI. And I wonder if you could speak to that, especially creatives, designers.
AI is not quite there yet. They haven't quite figured out fingers, but eventually they're going to figure that out.
How does a creator compete? Or should they even compete with AI, or how should they really be thinking about it?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: To me, from my aspect, I feel like they still need the experts to basically utilize the AI. And I'm going to give example of myself.
Basically, I have done some chat GPT training, specifically how to utilize it for social media. In the past for small business owners, I've run workshops here locally, the challenge that I see that a lot of people have, especially in the business world, where that's still kind of the place that I can speak about, is they still need the expert to help them understand. So, for example, when I work with the clients, when it comes to prompting, if they don't understand their target market, if they don't understand basically having a strategy in place with their social media, it's very hard for them to basically prompt, properly give all that information to an AI so that they have the output that they really need. So they will still like, if they don't understand their branding, which a lot of the people, a lot of the business owners that I help with, they have all those challenges, which they need someone like myself to basically help them with those challenges. So now they can basically be able to prompt, let's say, properly that will actually give them the results that they're looking for.
So I basically see still a role of the creatives, I still see a role of someone like myself in there where we can utilize AI and embrace it into my business, which I have done that where I have, yes, I've made money from teaching people how to utilize chat GPT to create social media calendars.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: And speaking of, tell us a little bit more about what you do, who's a good fit for you and how can we connect.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Sure. So what I do is, like you mentioned earlier, I had my own social media agency for almost ten years, and then I've decided to get into the coaching and training specifically for small business owners. That's who I'm looking to connect in the US or Canada as well. I actually have a free webinar coming up that is called AI and social media mastery. So talking about some AI tools that we can combine it with social media, that's happening on August 29. And then for any, anybody that is looking to connect, they can connect with me through my Instagram at make it happen services.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Excellent. So we're going to wrap up from here. Thanks so much to our guest orzala for coming on and sharing a little bit of a practical conversation about AI and especially digging into the insights of a creator and overcoming some of the fear and misconceptions about what it actually is. So for those of you who want to connect with her directly, it's.
What's the website?
[00:10:56] Speaker B: One more time, it's my Instagram link is akeith happen services. That's the name of my business, my.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Handle, Instagram handle make it happen services. So we're going to, hey, we're going to wrap up. If you run a business of any size and you have some ideas or strategies around the topic of AI, we'd love to have you on a future episode as well. We do interview business owners of all levels of experience and exposure to AI, so we can represent all voices, especially the 80% to 90% of us who are curious about how AI works, but they're not trying to be tech geniuses. So you can apply for a future episode by going to basicbusinessai.com. and one more time, if you want to install a sales and support team for less than 10% of the cost of a single employee, get yourself an anabot. You can learn more at anabots AI. We'll see you next time on basic Business AI. And by the way, if you liked this episode, be sure to tell your friends. See you later.
