POWER CEOS (Aired 03-31-25) Power CEOs: Mastering AI, Business Growth and Strategic Exits

[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Welcome to Power CEOs the truth behind the business. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host, entrepreneur, investor and business strategist. Why are we here? Because I believe that iron sharpens iron. And when we bring successful entrepreneurs, investors and executives to share what's working in business and maybe even some of what's not, we're all able to learn and grow. As a result, our businesses grow and the ripple effect impacts many. Not only ourselves, our teams and their families, but also our communities and our world. You are in for a treat today. I have a very special guest here for you. I have fielded so many questions about how do I know when's the right time to exit and what do I do after I exit my business? That I have brought the perfect individual to speak to you about exactly that. Today we're gonna talk about making the decision to exit. Knowing when, how to sell, what to do, what's gonna happen after, and everything in between. I would like to introduce to you Scott Mendel. He is the founder of Red Care Wellness, Red Bear Care Wellness. Welcome to the show, Scott. [00:01:34] Speaker C: Thank you ma'am. How are you today? [00:01:36] Speaker B: Fantastic. Scott, you have been through a couple of exits a couple of times. One time you were forced to exit, you weren't anticipated it, and one time you chose to exit. Talk to me about what that was like, how did you choose to exit? What were the decision making process? And we'll dive into the differences of your two experiences. [00:02:02] Speaker C: So when I was forced to exit was 2001. And if y'all remember, 9 11, we had a customer base of about 6,000 people a week. And 911 happened and we had 100 people the next week and a month later we were at 150. And six months later we were up to a thousand. And I was had blown through half a million dollars and run every credit card I had up to the limit was not my choice to exit. But I could not afford to keep it open. And I kind of faced a decision of do I pour more money into it to reinvigorate it, try and start it over again, or do I not? And I sat there one day in my bedroom just sitting in bed thinking. And I was like, you know, if I take that half a million dollars and use it for anything I want to, what would I do? And the answer was not this. I had been burned. I didn't think that I could at that moment in time recreate a business that had been number one. And so I left. And it was horrible for years and years and Years, I felt like it was a failure. It took probably the better part of over a decade to finally look back and say that was a really, really good business decision, was closing it and walking away. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Well, you know, a lot of times we think if we just throw money at something, the problem will go away. But sometimes doing that, making that decision, making that call, is the best decision. We see it in investing, too. You're in an investment, it's not going well. Sometimes you cut your losses and just. And just say, okay, this is one of the L's in my category. [00:04:00] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. And that's how I looked at it for a long time, is it was a loss. And again, after a few decades, I realized that it wasn't. I had zero control over the situation. It was a catastrophic event that changed the mindset in America, that eliminated, in fact, all my competition at the time, was also out of business within two years. And so now looking back, I can say not moving. In fact, I should have exited sooner. Had I done it on my own and made the choice, I might have felt better about it. [00:04:39] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:04:39] Speaker C: That's hindsight's 20 20. But looking back now, I did. I made a phenomenally smart business decision under extreme pressure. And I think that simple question of, I've got the money or I would have to borrow the money, and what would I do with it if I just had it right? If I just used it for whatever I wanted to do, would I do the same thing? And it took a little while to really justify that decision in my head that day. But I did come to the conclusion that moving forward and going in a different direction was really the smartest thing to do. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Well, you know, in today's business climate, a lot of companies are facing a very similar decision. We've had years of inflation, costs have risen, Mark. Margins have collapsed, and some business models are changing completely with the new technologies that are out. And so what advice do you have to business owners that are struggling? Because a lot of business owners, a lot of founders right now are finding themselves in that hard place. [00:05:43] Speaker C: Yeah, every news, every day in the news, I read, you know, there's another retail chain that closed, another fast food restaurant that closed, another business went down, and they're all being forced by the situation that either is a political climate or a monetary climate. And I guess the best advice is to really try and forward think, look at, is it going to be possible to recover? What is it going to cost you to recover? How long can you ride that wave Is there a. And granted, sometimes it takes a crystal ball, like 9, 11. I certainly didn't see that. It changed the mindset in the the country. And you just have to make your best guess. Like with inflation, how long is it going to last? Inflation is always a constant, but at a higher rate now and a lower rate next year or a higher rate next year, depending on which guru you speak to. So making that decision is very, very difficult. And you have to justify it in your head and then live with it afterwards. And sometimes that's the hardest part. We all love our businesses. We feel very close to them. They're our babies. And sometimes when you have to walk away and abandon that wonderful thing you built, it's traumatic. And you have to be able to live with that decision once you make it. But as I did, it's a chance. You don't know if it's going to be good. And you just cannot look back and say, well, if I had, look at this company now, they're a huge success. But just because somebody else made a success doesn't mean that yours would have been or will be. [00:07:32] Speaker B: And they might have found it after the big turmoil and not had the debt load or any of the other things. So sometimes we just need to know in business when to hold them, when to bold them, and when to walk away. So now let's talk about, let's talk about the other side of it. You chose to exit the second go round. [00:07:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I did. [00:07:49] Speaker B: And so that is still deciding to sell, deciding to exit is still a huge decision. [00:07:54] Speaker C: It is. [00:07:54] Speaker B: How did you know it was the right time to exit? [00:07:57] Speaker C: Oddly enough, it was another catastrophic event. It was the pandemic. And I just kind of looked at what I was doing. I had just grown to really hate the people in my industry and hate the reputation of the industrial and real estate. And the reputation wasn't getting any better. The governing bodies were not acting like they should. And I had a dad to take care of who had gotten very sick, which actually led me to Red Bear Care Wellness. And so for me, it was easy this time to say, okay, you know what? I'm done. I've got money in the bank. I'm not going to run it through the mill like I did last time. I've got a dad I need to take care of. He's got money so that we can actually take care of him. I can quit my job. I can start a company that runs his care and then be there 247 for him. He had a terrible disease. Called progressive supranuclear palsy, which we didn't learn for a couple of years after we started taking care of it. But for me, it was this time it was an easy choice because it was my dad. You know, he couldn't be at home by himself anymore. And so trying to keep him mentally healthy, physically healthy, emotionally healthy was a 247 job. And for you, family caregivers out there, do not try and do it by yourself. I did. I ended up in a nervous breakdown and started my company. And so if I can give you any hints on exiting, sometimes there's a really good reason. There's something that calls you to do something different. And for me, I was absolutely called to do what I'm doing now. It's something JT is not even sure about. So there are a lot of people that think I'm crazy, but Steve Jobs said it's the people that think they're crazy enough to change the world that often do. [00:10:00] Speaker B: You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right, Scott. And so both of your instances, I just want to kind of highlight this for the audience. Sometimes we don't have a choice when we exit. Sometimes we need to have a fire sale, and that's the absolute best thing to do. And other times we might have something that's happening externally to us or within our own family. Maybe it's also that, hey, I've reached the peak of my career. Like with you, Scott, you were seeing the turn of regulatory bodies. You were not liking what was happening in the industry. That's why I left medicine. I was not liking the way medicine was heading. I was not liking someone who was not medical telling me what I could and couldn't do and then seeing reduced care. And so I made a very similar choice because of that. So whatever your reasoning is, the most important thing, the takeaway that I hear from Scott is don't look back. No what ifs. Just make the decision based off of the information you have and what you feel called to do and go forth. But don't look back with regrets because life's too short for that. We do have to take a brief break, but I think we will dive deeper into this topic after these important messages. Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the Business. I am here with Scott Mendel, and before the break, we talked about two very different instances of exiting his companies and. And the different ways that they felt. So, Scott, I'm going to dive right in to what are the things that people watching if they're they're thinking that maybe I'm looking at an exit. What are the most important steps that a business owner needs to be taking in order to prepare their. Their business, but also to prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for that exit? [00:12:28] Speaker C: Yeah. And, and honestly, I think it's funny that, that you left medicine and nursing, right? [00:12:34] Speaker B: Physical therapy. [00:12:34] Speaker C: Physical therapy. Oh, yeah, even better. You left physical therapy to go into real estate. And I'm leaving real estate to go into physical therapy, sort of. So getting prepared is often difficult. Like if you're forced to exit, there is no preparation. You're. You're there and it happens. And your whole job after that is disaster control. How are your employees going to take it? I will never forget the day that I sat down with 35 employees and told them we were done. And the tears that followed were soul crushing. I didn't know that the employees that I had at that moment cared so much about my business. And I think as owners, sometimes we overlook that, that it's our baby, but the people that work for us look at it as their home. And so if you're choosing to exit, it's a little bit different strategy. But what I would absolutely do is prepare your employees. I remember talking with my assistant when I left real estate, and she was crushed. She begged me not to. I was like, you're going to be okay. I promise you'll be okay. And as you prepare your employees, you have to prepare yourself mentally too, because you're going to be cutting a tie with something that you love, and it's choosing makes it easier. But that last day that you walk out the door, it hits you. And prepare fiscally, prepare emotionally, prepare even physically, because you will feel some effects. The mental drain really can affect your overall body. You got to make sure you've got a program in place where you're still getting out of the house, moving forward, having another idea to pursue. When I was forced out, I was down for six months and really had no direction at all until a friend of mine called that had a phenomenal business idea. But he was a detective in San Antonio and didn't have any kind of business knowledge. And his wife, who happened to be a tremendous friend of mine, said, you ought to call Scott. And so I met him in San Antonio one day and we were at Zio's and we went over the business right there. And it was, I mean, it had the potential to be a multimillion dollar, if not billion dollar business. And I told that to him. I still remember him looking at the Drawing on the. On the table cover and in shock. And I said, you know, if you've already got all of this in place, all we got to do is find money and we can roll. And that was the impetus that kind of got me back on my feet, got me moving forward again. So if you're exiting without a choice, you've got to know you've got to recover. But if you're exiting with a choice, you. You have to make sure that you've got a plan. J.T. fox, who both of us love death in his book Business is War, says if you stop moving forward, take your foot off the accelerator, you're going to coast to a stop. So if you exit with a choice, you have to move forward. You've got to keep moving forward. If you stop and you rest, you're likely never going to start again. And if you do, it's going to be very, very difficult. So for me, that's kind of what I did with real estate. I moved right into taking care of my dad. And then that spawned the idea of really revolutionizing senior care in America, because that's what my company is set out to do. And I mean, if you've never had a calling, and I doubted it when people said they did for decades, but, boy, when you get one, you know, there's no choice. You've got to step into that void in front of you and take the risk to change the world. [00:16:40] Speaker B: You know, you talk about finding purpose, and for those who are forced to exit, that can be a very hard thing to do. So do you have any words of wisdom? Because you, you chose to exit to take care of your dad and that birth, new purpose that you have for those who are forced to exit, and they're looking at it, do you have any words of wisdom so that they can navigate that recovery time period? Because it is a blow. It's a lot to take in, and you've lived it. So as someone who has lived it, what steps can they take to make sure that they're still fueling their body, their mind, their soul, and getting themselves safe, set for that recovery and that and that rebound, success. [00:17:25] Speaker C: First and most importantly, man, do not isolate yourself. Don't stay at home and wallow in the misery. I made that mistake. If you can stay in touch with your friends, always talk, talk about the pain. Talk about the failure that you're feeling. Find somebody that actually can help you. There's a lot of sources now that there weren't back in, you know, 2001, and get that help go for long walks. Man walks are the best thing you can possibly do. It's not terribly physically taxing, but it creates a mental space that with the oxygen that you gain with the muscle use, your brain just works better. And it's almost like meditation for me especially. I mean, that's kind of my zone, right, Is I can go out and take a walk and think. Today we rarely find ourselves with any kind of solitude at all. We're always connected, we're always on. And when you disconnect completely and I go and I walk the trails at Memorial park. So there's almost no contact with anybody while I'm out there. It's nature. It's hilly. Well, hilly for Houston. [00:18:39] Speaker B: For Houston, I was going to say. What is that, the overpass? [00:18:42] Speaker C: Yeah, that's our biggest hills in Houston is our overpasses. No, it's down there kind of by the bayou. So it gives you a sense of being in nature. The trails are dirt, they're not groomed. So it's kind of fun. And it gets me out of my space. And especially with my terrible adhd, it kind of lets my brain run wild like it wants to for an hour or so. [00:19:09] Speaker B: You know, I really like the getting out of your physical space. One of the things we talk about when you're in business, especially when you hit scale and you're in that kind of overwhelm, there's periods of overwhelm. We talk about changing our physiology to change our psychology. I come from sports medicine. Human performance is my gig. And so what I'm hearing from you is if you're forced to exit or if you're exiting and you're all of a sudden like, what do I do next? Get out of your space, Change your physical space and move your body. Because when we move our body, it helps us to change our psychology and our mindset and to experience a little. And. And so I have a follow up question for you because one of the things that I get asked a lot, I help a lot. I've helped a lot of people to exit their businesses. And then they asked me, well, what should I do next? Once I've. I've exited, do I look at the same kind of business? Do I? How do I approach what's next? Whether it's investing passively or actively pursuing another company, that's. [00:20:16] Speaker C: That's actually pretty easy to answer is. Is reach down in your soul, Find what you truly want to do. If you work at something you want to do, it's not work. It's fun. You're excited to get up every day. That's why, why I quit real estate and got out of it was I was, I hated getting up every morning, going and doing it. I love my clients. I just, I just really did not like the other agents at all. And so I think the best thing to do is take a second to breathe and then go for a walk. And while you're on that walk, think, look at what your opportunities are, look at where you're headed, look at what the next phase might be. Where is something, where is a space that you can create something special? Be it senior care, like I'm in, be it real estate, be it a restaurant or a gym or, you know, something, an art studio, something you're passionate about, then start investigating. Can this work? If I get into this space, if I put my money in this space, is it possible to survive doing this? And by surviving, I don't mean making a million dollars. That's, that's not what feeds most entrepreneurs souls. By surviving, I mean surviving mentally and physically and emotionally. Does it make you happy? Does it pay the bills? Does it, does it, does it feed that, that part of you that, that wants to do, that wants to become? And so that's, that's, I mean, that's really the best advice I can give is just find your passion and chase it. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I think that's sage advice. I really appreciate you sharing with us. We are drawing to the, to close to the commercial. But Scott, if people would like to learn more or reach out to you, if they're more, if they're interested in what you're doing next, how can they, how can they find you? [00:22:15] Speaker C: Redbearcare.com that's our new website, inforedbearcare.com There it is. Inforedbearcare.com will get you in touch with me. That is my phone number up in the right corner. If you call that, that will ring our office and you can get through to me easily. I'm always happy to talk with entrepreneurs. If you've got questions, if you've got ideas, man, if you've got an idea that can help me revolutionize senior care, please call. We are looking to do something spectacular, so reach out. [00:22:47] Speaker B: Thank you so much for your expertise and for your time and for sharing about what it looks like post exit. I know that a lot of people have been moving through this and it's nice to know that you can do this. You don't have to do this alone. Reach out to Scott. Thank you, Scott. So much for your time. [00:23:01] Speaker C: Oh, thank you for having me, Jen. I appreciate it greatly. It's been a lot of fun. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Absolutely. So if you are watching at home, reach out to Scott. He is there. He is a resource for other entrepreneurs. Reach out. Don't do this in isolation. Find the right team behind you. Have a plan if you can. And don't forget to take care of yourself. Go for a walk and give yourself that spaciousness to think and to really reflect on. What is it that I want for this next phase? We do have to take a brief break, but we'll be right back after these messages. [00:23:49] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Welcome Back to power CEOs Truth behind the Business. If you're just tuning in, you're going to want to go to NowMedia TV, click on shows and catch the first half of this epic show. But now for the moment you've all been waiting for, we are going to shift gears because, you know, after, after the break, we always talk a little bit AI and I have an amazing human being here with me who has quite revolutionized a little bit of AI. We're going to talk about the business of humanized AI, automating sales and customer engagement with my friend, entrepreneur, investor and growth strategist David Asarno. Welcome to the studio. [00:24:36] Speaker A: Thanks, Jen, for having me. I'm so excited. We're going to have some fun. We geeked out a little bit beforehand. [00:24:41] Speaker B: We sure did. I can't wait. I mean, David, you've been known for helping businesses to grow through marketing strategy, through funnel optimism, but now you're at the forefront of something really interesting that we happen to talk about a lot AI. But even more fascinating, you've dived into AI with a human touch. Talk to me a little bit about your technology. [00:25:02] Speaker A: So our company is Sababa Global and the whole concept here is if we could have the best human like conversation with company's prospect or their customer on the front end. And we were able to integrate behavioral science, ethical influence and actually have empathy where people would walk away from that conversation feeling good. We've accomplished something and that's really what we set out to do. And I believe we've done a pretty good job with it. [00:25:31] Speaker B: You know, folks, I'm just going to tell you, I had the ability to have a phone call with, with your AI and it was fascinating how it listened better than humans do in many cases. And so talk to me a little bit about what that experience is like for our viewers. [00:25:55] Speaker A: The whole idea, if you think about what do humans want when they're having A conversation they want to be heard. And most people, when they're having a conversation, unfortunately, are. Are listening to respond. And so while someone's talking, they're thinking about what they're going to say next. The great thing, if you train an artificial intelligence, you can train it to listen to everything that someone has, ask clarifying questions, repeat back, and acknowledge what the person is saying, and then respond with the answer. And if we could train all of our team members to do that, it would be wonderful. And that's exactly what our intent is with artificial intelligence intelligence. [00:26:36] Speaker B: So you're basically diving into something that's very human and that's communication. Yes. And a lot of times as humans, you're right, we listen to respond. We're not actually listening to understand, to make sure we understand. And validation is something that all humans need. They need to be heard. They need to be validated in whatever their concerns or their questions are. And they want to know that you, you are the one who heard them and you've created that. So talk to me a little bit about how do humans react to this and how do we teach our teams to interact in this space? Because before, before the break, we were talking about how challenging it is for many people, especially our tech teams, to have that communication skill set. So what does that look like? [00:27:16] Speaker A: Well, to answer to your first question is, how do people respond? A lot of times I'll do a custom demo for someone just to show them, hey, imagine if this was answering your phone, what the experience would be like. And I said, just play with it. Here's my phone, play with it. And so many times it's amazing. People sit afterwards, they say, wow, I wish my own people would respond like your technology is. And so when we're, when someone is actually having a kind of experience to us, it's like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. Because they're getting the experience that we want them to get. And when you think about it, artificial intelligence never takes a day off. It doesn't have a bad day, it doesn't oversleep, it doesn't call in sick. And yet when I talk to clients, I'm like, we're not looking to replace your humans. We're looking at people to let your humans do what humans do best. To think, to critically think, to challenge, to be able to add an elevated support and let the AI do the base level foundational work for you. [00:28:19] Speaker B: One of the biggest challenges that I find in businesses is speed to answer leads, speed to call in the sales process, and this is one of the problems you're solving. The other big pain point is I've called customer service and I can't talk to a human and I can't get anybody and takes forever to get back. And it seems like you've solved both of these problems. Talk to me a little bit about how you're working with clients and partnering really in solving some of their greatest issues, which is the answering the sales call and capturing that lead and bringing them into the sales funnel or. And then also on the customer satisfaction side. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Well, when you look at it, it's really the reason that we developed this technology. Having a business growth agency for 15 plus years, clients always say that they want leads, but really what they want is sales. And so when we were driving leads to people and if their team didn't convert the leads, sales always says, well, that's a bad quality lead. Not taking consideration. They're not responding to the phone call for 72 hours. And in sales we say time kills deals. And what, that's how we, that's why we developed this technology. When I first heard artificial intelligence, I was like, how do we solve this? I know this is going to revolutionize things and that's why we created the technology. [00:29:40] Speaker B: So, so now let's talk brass tax. What are the metrics that we as business owners want to be thinking about? Because one of the things we talk about a lot on our AI segment is we need a business use case, which we've defined. Okay, time to lead. Answering the lead, getting, getting that first touch point. But how do we assess whether this is actually enhancing our time to lead and helping with our conversion rate and closing those deals? What do we need to be paying attention before we integrate? And then if we were to utilize a technology such as yours. [00:30:08] Speaker A: You're right. And the funny thing is most companies don't track their metrics. [00:30:13] Speaker B: You're so right. We're trying to fix. [00:30:17] Speaker A: So what should you be looking at right when you're, when you're, when you're looking at it, you need to know, okay, how fast does it take? How many people are put on hold? How many people are dropping off when the phones aren't answered right away? And then look at the number of conversations and booked appointments. So you actually have a baseline metric, because you're never going to know what's improving unless you have a baseline metric. So you need to know whether the AI is booking appointments for you or if it's selling a small ticket item for you, a paid appointment. It can do all of that. And based upon what I've seen, you should be able to experience about a 20% or greater increase. And it's because every call is answered live. Every call is answered, is communicated with, at your highest level, training you possibly can. And that's what I would look for, is about a 20% or higher. Greater efficiency and customer satisfaction is going to increase because people aren't sitting there in a phone tree. The AI can answer the call, have a direct conversation with someone and find out what their needs, what their challenges are, what their desires are, and then create that message, the market match, matching them to your company so they can see before they've even had that next conversation, the appointment, I'm in the right place and that's what we do. [00:31:38] Speaker B: And I think that's really, really fabulous. And I'm going to ask the next question because this is something that we talk about a lot. We want to have a business use case. We want to know what we're looking at and what our goal target is. So in this case, maybe a 20% increase in efficiency, just, just for the sake of easy numbers. Yes. As we're thinking about this, what do we need to know to train it? Because I see this all the time. If you can't train a person, you can't expect an AI to be trained either. So what do people need to be thinking about in order to integrate something such as this? [00:32:12] Speaker A: And I'm like, I'm laughing there because it's like you're in my mind when we're launching off a client and we say, can we have your sales training documents that you use for the team for the position that this is going to replace? And I can count on less than one half the times that people have been able to give that to us. And they're like, well, can't you just do it? I said, let me ask you a question. How do you expect your humans to do it? Well, we give them call recordings. Well, just giving them call recordings, a successful call doesn't help them think critically. And saying, if someone comes with this pain challenge problem, this is how I address it. So it takes more time. And so if you're doing this right now and you're thinking, how do I do it? What do I need to do? How would you train your best employee? How would they show up every single day and communicate how you want them to communicate, what questions would you want them to ask? And if someone had a, a frequently asked question, how would they respond to differentiate you from the other companies out There. And so start thinking through that. One way to do it is take some of your best calls and listen to them and seeing how your best people are responding. Then take things that didn't work so well. Why didn't they work well? What, where was it? What questions were they, did they have that weren't answered properly and make sure that those are answered and creating that. Now how are we doing it? We're interviewing clients because many times we don't get that. We'll take the phone calls, we'll get them transcribed, we'll have common frequently asked questions put together. What AI looks at is the best responses to that. Then we'll create that document and as we call the knowledge base and we'll have the client then, oh, well, that's not really what it should say. Great. So the onboarding process is really creating the best training manual for a human or artificial intelligence. Because the quality of your artificial intelligence, just like the quality of your business, is based upon the quality of your communication. [00:34:12] Speaker B: That. That's exactly right. I couldn't agree more. We do have to take a brief break, but folks, I want you to pay attention to what he said because it doesn't matter whether you're onboarding a person or you're onboarding an AI employee, if you will, because that's really what they are. They're AI employees. You have to have that knowledge base to train. You need to understand what is the actual process, what is the successful outcome and how that is happening, whether you're training a human or an AI model. And then you can actually work with people such as David and, and get that implemented into your system. So, David, how can people reach out to you if they'd like to learn more? [00:34:48] Speaker A: Sababa Global S A B A B A Global. If they want to connect with me on Instagram, it's Dave Asano and I think the spelling's on the screen or on LinkedIn or on X. It's David Osarno. [00:35:05] Speaker B: Perfect, thank you. We'll be right back after these brief messages. [00:35:22] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:35:39] Speaker B: Welcome Back to power CEOs Truth behind the Business. If you're just joining in, we are talking all things artificial intelligence. And before the break, we were talking with David about, you know, communication being key and how do we get that knowledge base to train our models and a little bit of the semantics, the metrics behind what we want to think about. But I want to ask you a question that I always like to ask myself. And, and that's what are the things that CEOs and entrepreneurs are not thinking about what are the mistakes that they make that you wish that they would ask the question up front or avoid the mistakes. [00:36:18] Speaker A: Sure. Great question, Jen. When you look at artificial intelligence, as we said earlier in the last segment, you know the quality of your AI is based upon the quality of your communication. Most people when they're using artificial intelligence, they're using the 20%, not using the 20% of the power that will get you 80% of the results they're focusing on. Write me an email, write me a landing page. When you look at the power of artificial intelligence, you can have probably one of your greatest growth partners. You have a strategist built in and asking it really powerful questions. You know, based upon this, I want you to interview me and ask me three questions, one question at a time and help me solve this. I want you to act as a growth consultant and looking at my business, here's what I've done, here's the challenges that I've had, here's what's worked for me, here's what has not worked for me, here's some of the ideas I have. I want you to think outside of the box and bring me non traditional answers and help me look at my business from a different viewpoint. I want you to coach me, mentor me, guide me, and it will ask you the right questions and you're going to be so surprised the kind of questions it's going to ask you and then you'll be even more surprised by the results that you get. And to me, the thing that I love about AI and artificial intelligence, and especially how it's grown up over the past couple years, it's gotten really powerful. And if you've been using it for six months, if you've been using it for three months, have been using it longer, it can actually give you a 360 degree evaluation of you, who you are, what your thoughts are, what your processes are, the kind of questions you ask, and it can tell you your blind spots because it sees what you're doing and it also sees what you're not doing. So that's to me, I've never been more excited about anything in business because it's is freeing us up to do what we do best as humans and also we can pitch and catch with it. It could be really an amazing strategy. [00:38:18] Speaker B: You know, it truly is. And a lot of people complain about the bias in some of the open source GPTs and such, but it's really good to hear those other perspectives because we may not share them and I leverage the technology the same way I like to ask it, but I'm a coach and a consultant, and so are you. And so that's our roots. And. And so I want to ask you about that because I also started as a coach and a consultant and a strategist, and I ventured into AI. And I have my reasons, but I really am intrigued by. What was it for you, switching from the growth strategy consulting world into AI? What was that impetus? We. [00:38:57] Speaker A: I still have my agency. It's business nitrogen, and we do growth strategy. I started using it to look at when I would come up with an idea for a client I want. I used it to challenge myself. I wanted to say, okay, here's the challenge the client has. Here's what we've done, here's what's worked, here's what hasn't worked. And I want. How else can I look at this? I wanted. I used it originally to challenge me. Something happened. Something happened. I heard conversational AI for the first time a couple years ago, and I said, one day, this is going to change everything. And I said, when I heard, I'm like, oh, my gosh, imagine if I could put, you know, behavioral science into it. Imagine if we could put empathy into it. What if we could use our best sales practices or customer service practices to operate every time? And I started looking at the different technologies that were out there. And originally I was looking at white labeling something. And then once I looked at the white label agreements, I said, I can't put my customers, their success into something I don't have control over. So I used the process by the book, who, not how. And I found the who that could help me create the vision that I. That I wanted. And then I got together with a partner of mine, and we made it even bigger. [00:40:23] Speaker B: Well, and great minds, when we. When we match those minds together, the sum is always greater than. Than the two component parts. So talk to me a little bit more about the unique perspective that you have. You know, you and I, we talked before the show about being involved in this as soon as we learned about it. I mean, years ago. We've been playing with this for years, so we're a little bit ahead of the curve. But let's be real. No one's an expert. Anybody who says they're an expert, folks, they're wrong, because it's happening and it's evolving so rapidly that we just know, like, a little bit we just need to stay on that wave and be surfing that wave instead of crushed by it. So what you've seen in the last couple years and the evolution and what you've done with your, your AI application. Talk about what's happened to now and then where do you see us and what should CEOs and executives be thinking about two to five years from now? What's coming down the pipes? Because we've both been on this ride and we've seen it escalate. So what are your thoughts in that area? [00:41:24] Speaker A: Well, I'm going to answer it this way. The same thing I told my team once I started playing with OpenAI and ChatGPT. The day that it came out, I had a team meeting and I said, either we're going to be part of this and it's going to help make us better, or we won't exist a few years from now. And that statement is truer today than it ever has been. And companies that are entrepreneurs and CEOs, unfortunately, many of them are saying, you go learn this. They're handing it off to their team members instead of playing with it themselves. I implore the entrepreneurs, the executives, to play with it, to be your best use case, to understand the power of it. Because when you play with it and understand the power of it, you're going to be able to know, to be able to direct your team. You're going to be able to give them feedback and encourage them to help make your company better, to help your vision come to reality. And through that, you're going to see that it's not necessarily that AI is just going to do all the tasks. It's going to help you become more efficient, to be able to create more throughput. And eventually, yes, some jobs and some roles may become make me disappear. However, the people, through learning this, are going to find ways that they can contribute differently. And I do believe that that's what is going to happen over the next several years, is we're not necessarily going. People may be replacing certain jobs, but because they are learning how to use it, they're going to be able to contribute at a higher level and create more throughput and be more efficient. [00:42:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And I want to highlight something that you said for the audience, because I thought it was really, really important. And you said CEOs are passing this off and saying, you go learn this. However, CEOs, we drive vision, we drive strategy. It's our job to understand the technology and to think about, okay, what's the next level of this? Because if the other folks that we're putting this off to knew how to do that, they would have our job. And so I'm going to just reiterate. If you are an entrepreneur, if you are a CEO and you're not playing with this, you're probably tied to the tracks and AI is coming your way. That train is almost at your door. It's time today to play with it. I don't care how. Do it in a sandbox safe environment and start learning about it and understand and ask yourself, what is this going to do for me and how is this going to help me with my vision and my strategic goals in the future? Because I think that inherently is our role as we drive these companies. So, David, there's. We've talked about a lot. We've talked about everything. [00:43:52] Speaker C: It is. [00:43:53] Speaker B: And I concur. I think that if people are not leveraging technology this year and at least getting that plan in place and starting the process next year, they won't have an opportunity to do so, because it's really happening. What do you want to encourage everyone who's watching today to do today, no matter where they are? Like, maybe they're afraid because a lot of these CEOs have their heads in the sand and they're afraid of this. Let's just be real. It's disruptive. What is your advice to those people? [00:44:19] Speaker A: There's two things. One number one, if you already have an account, a ChatGPT account, even if it's a paid version, it's actually listening to everything that you're doing. Ask it. Say, I want you to give me an unbiased, truthful insight to who I am, my behaviors and my blind spots. I want you to be brutally honest. Don't hold anything back and share it with me. You'll be surprised how accurate it is if you've been using it. If you haven't, take the first step. Start asking. Say, hey, give a challenge that you haven't been able to solve or something that you solve, and ask for a different perspective. It's all based upon the amount of information. Be as thorough as you would if you were giving it to your business growth consultant, your strategist. Say, here's what we've done, here's what we haven't done, here's what's worked, here's what hasn't worked. I'd love act as. Act as a growth consultant and ask me three questions. Ask me five questions, ask me questions, one at a time. I'll answer those. And then I want you to give me a different perspective or how I could look at it differently. Once you see that I Believe that they're going to have that light bulb aha moment and go, oh my gosh, this is cool. And then you'll be hooked like we are. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Well, I hope so. I think that's fantastic. You know, strategy fuels impactful AI utilization and vice versa. And we're seeing that as we move forward. Vision, adaptability are super key as we are moving forward in businesses. Thank you so much. For the executives, the CEOs who are watching this and want to innovate in their business and may be interested in learning more about your experience. How can they reach out to you? [00:45:56] Speaker A: Go to Sababa Global. Sababa Global personally, on Instagram, Dave Asarno on LinkedIn or on X. David Asano. [00:46:09] Speaker B: David, it's been absolutely fabulous having you here. We have just a brief moment and AI aside, you're a growth consultant. You've been doing this for a long time. We've talked a lot. We. Yes, I know, I know you'll be able to hit this out of the park. But for anybody who's watching AI or otherwise that may feel stuck in their business or maybe they're, they're in a mindset that they have fear around something. How, how would you, what would you recommend they do if they have fear around a change or an adaptation and we're facing the AI wave? [00:46:38] Speaker A: Sure. What I often suggest is just close your eyes. I literally, like, you got to take yourself out of yourself and say, if I could just wave a magic wand and I could create my business into anything that I want a year, two years, three years from now, what would it be? What would I do differently? What would my business look like? How am I operating in my business? And get really clear on that vision and then just say, ask one other question. If I don't take it, what do I need to do to do it? If I'm not willing to take those steps, what will my life, my business be like two, three years from now? And say, you gotta sometimes, you know, fear. One of my friends, he quotes, fear, forget everything and run. Right. And so instead of forgetting everything and running, you know, it's stepping and acting in spite of the fears, in spite of the things that hold us back. And that's when magic happens. When we step through that fog of uncertainty that all of a sudden we see the clarity in the other side of that. [00:47:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you for expertise and for being here with us today. [00:47:49] Speaker A: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. [00:47:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. And you. Yes, you. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, including this show. But you've got excellent action steps to take right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today, so that you can move forward through your fear. Move forward, take action and create that positive impetus and grow your business. We will be back, same time, same station, next week. Until then, win today, win this week, and I'll see you next time. [00:48:17] Speaker C: This has been a NOW Media Networks feature presentation. [00:48:21] Speaker A: All rights reserved.