Small Business and A.I. Technology

Small Business and A.I. Technology

What is the future with A.I.?

Let me start by sharing that I recently went to an old part of the countryside in the U.K where I used to go fishing as a kid.

This area is just about as stunning as the British countryside gets, with rolling bright green hills, black and blue damsel flies gliding around, and pretty little colorful birds appearing from bushes.

All of this beauty is cocooned in lush vibrant green trees that are gathered together, hiding those that enter into the space.

Upon entering a small lane which led to where I used to go fishing, there is a hidden wooden bridge. That very bridge has stood untouched by the significant change that has occurred in the world.

It is a time capsule.

The thrill of fishing for brown trout back was a sheer dream, and it took me right back to that time gazing into the crystal clear rivers, hoping excitedly for a bite of my hook.

I felt a huge sense of warmth and nostalgia there.

I was returning to the spot with my girlfriend and her mother, as I had not been back for over 35 years, so thought I would show them a huge part of my past.

Back then this place was a sanctuary, but around the early 1980’s many things were also beginning to change in the world.

For one thing, modern technology was in it’s infancy, and I recall the thrill of getting my first computer which was an acorn electron, and playing games with my brother which I also enjoyed – as I was a very sensitive anxious kid that feared just about everything, and I hated school, so loved hiding with my computer.

However I did manage to overcome this fear thankfully, and I began running for a local sports club which was fun.

Here we are in 2023

And now here we are entering into another exciting yet in some ways fearful new world, one which offers astounding possibilities, but at the same time fills us with a sense of dread mixed with curiosity, as we are not entirely aware yet of what this could mean for us all.

I am of course talking about A.I., and it is very clear that this will feature in business at an increasing rate, which can leave many people with feelings of both enthusiasm and a sense of doom, as this fear of the unknown is a common human feeling.

There is no question that whilst we are still in our infancy of what is truly possible with A.I., we cannot fully grasp what the future may hold.

So, we are left wondering what it could all mean for us moving forward in life and business.

Small Business and A.I. Technology

For example:

• What could this mean for jobs, teams and people in general?
• Would we eliminate all roles where we might ‘hire’ a robot and increase efficiency?
• Will we all be replaced with essentially smarter machines?
• Could this mean that eventually the systems and technology we create might outsmart us?
• With increasingly changing and improving tech, are we even risking our own humanity?

You may have heard of A.I. writing for you, creating scripts, books and virtualizing almost anything, and whilst this may improve and enhance life and business in many ways, it surely cannot replace us.

But could A.I. overtake our abilities to control it one day?

We want to feel that we always have a personal choice, and that our privacy is respected, and we desire detachment from the world, so with this advanced movement do we feel okay about A.I. posing future threats to our lives?

Change is the only constant though isn’t it?

There is no denying that the world is changing rapidly, but it always has of course.

The information age began in the mid twentieth century and we saw then huge shifts in traditional ways of working which led to the growth of an economic movement towards information technology.

And it has continued evolving.

We all use technology in some form now, and it’s only going to increase, and whilst the world has always changed, today there is a whole new chapter which is unlike anything we have seen before.

We are now at a time where we are experiencing a kind of crossroads, moving with this revolution in the world of technology, where many traditions in life and business may be shifting and even dying out somewhat.

But as this significant movement occurs, we hope that this equally means improvement in the way we evolve, grow and work.

However, we also know that technology must be used responsibly, and for the better good of business and societies, so change can and should be progressive.

But it isn’t always the case.

NOTE: TOOL I PERSONALLY CAN HIGHLY RECOMMEND FOR YOUR AI TEXT TO SPEECH STRATEGY 

Small Business and A.I. Technology

In our current shift which involves us pushing previously undiscovered technological boundaries, it naturally fills us with excitement, but also a sense of looming intimidating power that we may lose some of this control.

This offers a feeling of intrigue and also a feeling that we may explore grand ideas which improve capabilities beyond anything we thought was possible a few years ago, but it must be used not only to our advantage, but transparently, ethically and responsibly, if we are to develop alongside change.

I am sure you are aware of V.R, Robotics and also Blockchain?  If not then it is worth becoming more familiar with these areas, because we are already using these areas to consistently alter and improve our functions every day.

And we now know that A.I. will naturally become another part of our new way of life and business.

With the aid of such tools and this new tech, the world will unquestionably see huge shifts in performance, effectiveness and productivity.

Not to mention, reduced expenses and greater ways of working.

This will include positive changes to increased revenue where this is managed effectively, and in some cases increased income for individuals involved.

This may potentially lead to greater individual and team satisfaction.

So where is the bad exactly?

Whist this all may sound promising, there is a small caveat

If we are to enjoy higher standards of living through such greater productivity, this must also include human roles and jobs where there is sufficient training, rewards and of course income.

In short, we could create efficiency, reduce costs and improve products and services ‘all’ because of this technological progress.

But how does this all relate to the humble small business owner?

Glad you asked.

If the Small business owner operator leaves behind or ignores ‘how this movement will impact on their business and on the customer, and also how the future of revenue can become greater, then the owner operator may become irrelevant and even fall out of business very quickly.

Thus, many Small business owners need to think about how to reshape how they may operate and understand how they may grow their A.I. strategy through implementing certain drivers.

Just as business owners should always be open to new markets and better strategies for improvement, this becomes another part of that overall process.

Small Business and A.I. Technology

I can highly recommend you take a look at Dataiku’s free guide on how to maximize your efforts to create the greatest value from A.I. moving forward in your business if you do nothing else towards this today.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FREE GUIDE FROM DATAIKU   

Study this guide and take action on implementing what is required to take your A.I. to the next level.

This is going to not only help you to stay relevant, up-to-date and ahead of the curve, but ensure you market your goods or services in the most effective ways using the right solutions, strategies and even improve ROI.

Thinking about how data is gathered and used now, it means you will be able to leverage your business value by improving overall quality of how this data is managed and used.

This will enable you to boost growth, harness more powerful solutions, and improve your whole organization at scale.

Just as great strategic content can make an impact through focused high standards and quality, you can ensure you you adopt the right strategy through areas such as automation and marketing.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE IMPACT OF A.I. IN MAREKTING BY ADVERITY

By managing insights and getting on top of your data and analytics you will be able to leverage a maximum competitive edge and have an advantage through incorporating and using the right A.I. tools with your business priorities.

After all – in an uncertain business climate it is far wiser to become more resilient in the face of such uncertainty.

Further Valuable Tech Resources:

PLURALSIGHT.COM WHITE PAPER DOWNLOAD 10 TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL TRANSFORM THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

10WEBBLOG.COM 19 WAYS TO SCALE UP USING ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE

What else can you do right away?  23 solid tips!

Here’s A Quick Checklist For You:

1. Ensure that your brand and digital marketing strategy, CRM and core message is personal and focused and engaging in an increasingly generalized business world.
2. Ensure you are tracking all of your data, or sophisticated A.I. tools can be a waste of time and effort.
3. Ensure that you are not letting potential customers to leave when you could re-connect with them and prevent loss in shopping carts, stores and in any connection where you could offer a solution.
4. Ensure the customer experience is fully understood and tweaked where necessary to create optimum shopping joy and ease that can outperform your nearest competitors.
5. Understand all data including Web and mobile visits and interaction, CRM, Demographic awareness, feedback channels.
6. Ensure all automation tools are fully effective and in working order and create custom email campaigns to personalize.
7. Use the right tools.  Two recommend tools I can recommend are; Algolia an A.I. search and discovery tool and Contentful for managing content.
8. For your digital marketing strategy ensure you use ad retargeting, and track potential customers behavior and use follow up on e-mails that have lost contact using personal campaigns.
9. Personalize all areas of capture to increase conversions.  For example, you can use location software to identify area of customer and create specific and appropriate messaging relating to a particular customer and what they showed interest in.
10.  If you have a shop front then ensure you have captured all pasts customers details to contact them for repeat custom and offer value and discounts such as sales to draw them back.  Those have not shopped in your store but have bought online may need further messages to tempt them into the store location.
11. Hire experts if required to manage your data, strategy and tech to ensure your business is marketing effectively.
12. Take relevant courses and master what is required, and attend any events that can help you and your team progress and dominate your market sector.
13. Last but not least, never forget that all business is about relationships, communication, collaboration, care and providing immense value.  At the core of this is the human being.  No matter how advanced we become, we need to remember that people want to buy from people, so never negate listening to your team and colleagues.
14. Never ever forget that you must stay ahead of the curve and notice trends and changes that are going on.  Keep an eye on your competition and take note of what tools they are doing, using and testing.  This way you will remain strong and relevant and stand out as a solid option amongst others.  The last thing you want is for your loyal customers or consumers going elsewhere as you live in the past and refuse to ever consider moving with the times.
15. Always manage your money.  Use the right tools to manage payments and balance sheets.  Understand that no matter how advanced you choose to become, you must always keep a hold on cash flow, or you will not function and sadly it could end your business through neglect.
16. Never stop educating yourself through courses, training and events. Never assume that you know it all, as that is a sure way to become blinded by the ever changing business technology landscape.  Ignorance isn’t bliss in business.
17. Master the art of customer engagement through technology.  Use the key tools and resources that optimize the relationship and continue to test how to improve your strategy.  Understanding the customer experience and interaction is the vital element in creating your continued success.
18. Data capture, data driven action and maximizing the way in which data is used through the correct technology is a factor which will determine the future success of the majority of businesses, so don’t get left behind.
19.  Driving business growth and having an advantage over competition means implementing the right tech strategies, specific actions and priorities around the interactions of your customers to ensure you allow their journey to feel human, natural and simple, and this means A/B testing in all areas including, SEO, web pages, email, social media, adverts and so on to maximize visibility, ranking and brand exposure.
20.   Always measure your growth with the right KPI’s, ensure there is management of the plan across the year and into the next five to ten years, and have clarity around the daily tasks, and hire the best for your team, but also ensure that each team member has the clarity and focus of the core message and mission. Here are some metrics you should focus on now:  Increasing customers – Master acquisition costs and use the right tools to help manage this and ensure that retention is a part of the strategy.  Increasing sales – Monitor why and how you may increase sales but also manage how this may be challenged through varying factors such as seasons, discounts, offers and so on.   Revenue – Study what is coming in and study profits, and why this is the case, and look at how to increase numbers through management of customers through your digital and AI strategies.     
21. Use AI technology to help shape your digital and SEO strategies to improve efficiency and increase the benefits of the use of your data, mastery of your content creation processes, and to gain insights into how to best use these tools and algorithms.  AI tools can analyze huge amounts of data which will give you the information required to understand market shifts, customer behaviors and trends in searches.   Through this action you can improve decision-making and focus resources around the right opportunities.
22. AI can reduce real time work and allow you and your team to focus on scale, strategy and delivery of greater value to customers.  This includes supporting improved customer experiences to deliver more personal results, laser targeted content creation, greater connection and engagement, optimization of processes, all through leveraging tools that can support engagement.  As an example The Murf Voice generation tool text to speech allows you to craft personalized voices for marketing, Murf simplifies the process of turning your scripts into engaging audio experiences. With multiple AI-generated voices across languages, accents  GET MURF HERE.   Then there is   ChatGPT is a useful tool that can aid in engagement amongst others.  ChatGPT can be used to generate copywriter-level content scripts for sales and promotion.  As an example, it could be for Video sales, Social media videos, Presentations, Informational videos, Webinars, and upselling.  So this app alone can increase sales for you and help you become more effective, and you can create unlimited content.  Including digital and physical products and services, there is no limit to the content that can be created. Think of freelancers, consultants (like me), and all other content creators, as well as other various sized businesses.  Join ChatGPT Here
23. AI can provide suggestions and recommendations for your content and topics, thus improving results through streamlining your infrastructure with trusted and tested data, enabling optimization, and positioning your brand as a reliable and credible trusted product, service or resource.
24. Check out MURF a AI powered text-to-speech voice generator which uses actual voices to generate high end voice overs quickly. Regardless of your business type or market this can be highly valuable, so whether you are a solo business operator, a small, medium or large organization, and in any sector you can maximize your efforts through adjusting the right voice or video for your brand.   You may have seen the videos on YouTube that have a voice over for a duration of a video length, and MURF can also transcribe your text for your needs that can be edited.  MURF can even create high quality studio recording from a home recording.  Pretty cool huh!  Get ahead of the game and get MURF HERE now.

This is just scratching the surface of what the future of AI looks like.  So I recommend that you go deeper into what your next moves could be, and ensure you apply the correct future strategies to give you the best chance of continued growth and success to be AI ready.  After all, in a highly digital and data driven world now it will pay you to be ahead of the game.

2 Tools you will need to become familiar with now if you are not already:

CHAT GPT

MURF VOICE TO TEXT 

This may help your overall AI growth strategy:

TO HELP YOUR AUDIENCE AND MARKETING STRATEGY HERE IS THE U.KS LARGEST BLOGGER DATABASE BY VUELIO

5 AI tools for learning and research:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/5-ai-tools-for-learning-and-research

I hope this has been of use.  Oh, and I will plan to go fishing again soon as it’s a great source of calm and recharging, and we all need an escape from technology from time to time right?

Feel free to share and download below.

Best

Greg

P.S. Great business requires great leadership. But you knew that right?  You may find this post below useful if you are a modern leader that wishes to gain the edge over competition with your team, whilst working with an infectious passion for your team culture and dynamic products. Click here to read MODERN LEADERSHIP AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE  

Small Business and A.I. Technology

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GregDeTisi

Author and Small Business Blogger at Greg De Tisi Writing and Small Business Blogging

Author, course creator and business blogger - Greg has been supporting Small Business clients from all backgrounds all over the globe for over 15 years in developing ideas and passions into sustainable Small Business Models. Greg now has more of a focus on supporting his local business community in Bristol UK.