[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, Ana Gonzalez, and you can find me on social media. At Anabotprime, we bring in 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 BB. AI is sponsored by Anabots. We build AI with heart. Our trained AI sales and support systems work twenty four seven to increase sales, reduce costs, and free up your time so you can focus on growing your business. If you want to install a 24/7 near human sales and supports team in your business, go to Anabots AI to learn more. We have 100% free options and low cost options to fit any budget. What's more, that's Anabots Aihdenhe. Today's guest is Josh Perry, logistics tech founder, music industry professional, Metaverse standards forum member, serial entrepreneur, and business broker. Josh Perry is charging on the front lines of where advanced tech like AI, blockchain, and third, imaging meet the business world.
So, Josh, welcome to basic business AI.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Anna, great to have you.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: So, from your perspective, how is AI reshaping the future of your business?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Well, in the M and a side, M and AI is actually doing a lot of different things where buying and selling a business is a complicated, huge undertaking. It's not just like buying a pack of gum at the corner store, right? There's a lot of paperwork that comes into play. There's a lot of due diligence. There's a lot of different things that have to be addressed in a very technical way. And I think AI is filling a lot of those gaps in both the financial portion of that, as well as the paperwork portion, and actually looking through contracts and reading contracts. And I've had several talks with different companies that are even just starting up, because this is a very, very new technology and particularly new to the merger and acquisition space.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: That is so interesting. So, tell me some general ideas to address, like, what are some concerns that or misunderstandings that people can have in that particular area?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: So, a lot of times, there's a lot of time spent on reading contracts on both sides and contract negotiation type of stuff.
And I think there's a couple different companies that I've seen so far that are doing an AI analytic of a contract and making sure that that language is actually, first of all, legal. Right.
Second of all, you know, double checking for the errors and the possible gaps that may have been less like, things like indemnification or expiration periods and certain items in the contract, those all have to be surveyed on both sides to come to an agreement for a purchaser or a seller. Right.
And I think AI makes that a lot more nimble than it does.
It has been. Traditionally, some of these sales can go on for six, eight months, even longer and bigger deals.
And being able to convert a 30 or 60 day one sided contract review process to a 30 minutes process is very, very disruptive in that space.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: That is impressive. To turn six months into 30 minutes, it's impressive. Like, I can imagine our grandparents saying that and being like, whoa.
So, okay, so this is one of the practical applications for what you were talking. Tell me one more practical application that you use in your business.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So my role is the business development leader here. And so a lot of what I do is outreach and trying to get a business owner, particularly on the seller side, to understand that acquisition doesn't necessarily mean that you. You're selling your whole life's work and you're not going to be involved in that business anymore. Like, a lot. It can be just an equity position. It can be somebody bringing capital in that's a silent partner, and just bringing money to your business, essentially.
And getting people to understand that from an emotional standpoint is kind of some of the biggest hurdles that I have day to day, because we get into business to eventually exit at some point, but then we get so attached to the work that we're doing every day that we're really tied to that in our heart more than we are anything else.
And so getting a business owner to understand that their heart doesn't have to be, you know, completely stomped on to take advantage of an acquisition or private equity firm or additional capital. And so some of the ways that I do that and utilize AI to do that is social media. Right? And I'm creating messaging with AI that kind of softens that hard shell that we sometimes build up as an entrepreneur to say, well, I'm not selling. This is a 30 year family owned business or whatever, and explain to them that, hey, this is. You're going to still be doing the same stuff you're doing every day. You are still a big owner in this business, and you're the one who built the thing. But it's good to have a cookie jar full of a couple million dollars that you can pull from and make this easier for you. In particular, I have a friend who, as a window dealer company, and he took out a million dollars of his own money to invest in a manufacturing portion for his business, when really he didn't have to do that. He could have had an equity partner that would have made it a lot easier on him and set him up better for an exit plan.
But he just didn't have that knowledge right. And he didn't have that set in place in that plan to be able to wrap his head around that because he's a guy who just started his business with $50,000.10 years ago, and now he's worth $14 million. And so again, education and softening that emotional hard shell that we build up sometimes is what I do day to day. I literally, right before I got on this call, sent a couple different messages across my social media talking about exit planning strategy and stuff that were all created with Aihdeme with very small edits from me personally.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: So that's awesome. And I love this story about, well, our businesses are our babies. And I love this how the analogy that you made and the story about your friend. So, Josh, tell us about who you serve and how can people reach out to you.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah, so we serve the lower to middle market business owners who are looking for consulting or exit planning strategy or looking to acquire an additional business.
We do that in a lot of different ways, whether it be consulting or actually taking a role in the deal.
Blackdiamondma.com is our website. If you want to reach out to myself or one of our team there, or you can also send me an email
[email protected]. i'm also on all major social media platforms, LinkedIn probably being the most prominent. And I'm super easy to find on LinkedIn because I'm pretty active there. So I'd love to help any of your entrepreneurs, you know, craft a plan for their legacy ultimately, because that's what we're passionate about doing.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Fantastic. So we're going to wrap from here. Thanks to our guest Josh Perry, for joining us for a practical conversation about AI and its potential for business. You can learn more about what he does by visiting blackdiamondma.com or just sending an email to joshlackdiamondma.com. is that correct?
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much, Anna.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. So 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 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 AIH but not trying to be tech geniuses. Apply for a future episode by going to Basicnessesai.com. and one more time, if you want to install a sales and supports team that actually has a heart 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. Oh, and by the way, if you liked this episode, tell your friends. See you later.
