The Team Member Every Business Needs
Download MP3Hello, and welcome to the Service Based Business Society podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany Ann Bottcher. I left the corporate world to build my own businesses, and along the way, I've learned that scaling isn't all highlight reels. It's messy, it's hard, and it's totally worth it. As a mom of three, the author of the data driven method, and a serial entrepreneur, I know firsthand what it takes to build something bigger than yourself.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:This show is where we get real about entrepreneurship. The good, the bad, the beautiful, and, yes, even the ugly. Each week, I'll pull back the curtain to share stories, lessons, and strategies that help ambitious entrepreneurs scale their success. So let's get started.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Content captions to go with something. I feel like that is if I wanna get some ideas of how I could present something or I have kind of a rough draft of what I the direction I wanna go, I feel like a chat GPT and I can really, like, dock it out of the park. But I it's like having a team member. We go back and forth. I like this part.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I don't like that part. I would never say that. This isn't quite right. I really like this the direction of this part of the paragraph. Let's go.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Let's explore that more. And it really is more of a collaborative process. You know? I I'm definitely not at the point where I'm like, hey. Please give me 40 posts, and it's gonna spit out 40 cat.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's it really is still, it's a tool. And I I think that that's we have to lean into it being a tool that is going to help get to an even better product faster than, you know, we would get there ourselves. But it is still a tool as part of the process. It doesn't it's not replacing things yet.
James Hurst:Yeah. Do you ever do you ever voice chat with it? Do you use that aspect of it? Ever tried that before?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I haven't. I haven't. I do I do a lot of audio recordings and then transcript and put that in and for things like summaries. I do a lot of, like, meeting transcripts, and and I started lots of these Zoom recordings. We all use, you know, almost everyone at this point transcribes and and do that does that kind of thing.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I use super norm as the one that I I like the most in terms of meeting transcripts. I think it comes out with the best actionable list. And then for the longest time, I was like, but what if I'm on the phone and then, you know, I'm like then I I feel like I wish I had that to refer back to. So a lot of times, I'll, you know, mention, hey. I'd like to record the call if if it's on the phone or even in person.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I actually was in a at a corporate setting recently, and and most of the things had been on Zoom, but then we got together in the boardroom. And I I just said, hey. Is everybody okay if I record the meeting? And everyone was kinda like, yeah. We've tried that.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Like, it doesn't really work like it. And I said, no. No. I I I and and they were super impressed with the quality of the notes that came from the meeting. They were like, oh, like, that worked way better than what we had done because, you know, it it gave a great meeting agenda.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so I think there's just so many purposes that, you know, sometimes even if it doesn't work a few months later, it really can.
James Hurst:Yeah. Yeah. For me, if I make a YouTube video, I'll let that I'll let that video process until I get the automated transcripts, and then I'll go grab the transcripts from there, and I'll have that, you know, maybe make my YouTube description. Have that help me with my social posts, maybe write the email. So it's kind of a, I have a video, kind of a video based first, video first based workflow.
James Hurst:And then I wait for that transcript, and then I and I use it to to repurpose.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. Super powerful. It's the the team member that everybody needs that, you know, it's like once you embrace it. But it's interesting. I was at a an event, a conference a few months ago, and the the anti AI group really reminded me of, like, the anti eating animals people.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Like, when you go to the zoo and the people are, like, out front and and we're, like, very anti there was, like, these people. And AI is such a huge topic in so many different ways and so many different, you know, keynote presentations. And so many people were just, you know, why are we talking about this? Why are why are we promoting something that's gonna replace us? This is terrible.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I I really think it's it's a better, stronger place to figure out how you could use it as a tool and and get that much better. I'd I think it's gonna be a while before I mean, certain things certain things that will replace for sure. But I I think for the most part, anything that is requires that kind of, like, opinion, talent, skill piece, I I I think that those things will be here for a while.
James Hurst:You know, I don't know. Are you like, imagine, oh, another bill, I'm already paying for Chad Gimi. Am I gonna pay for Claude? And like, is there like, I just I'm thinking like, if you don't have $20 a month to to be up to up to speed on what these things can do, because I think I think you need to have the mindset of I've got $20 a month for this. Right?
James Hurst:Like, because you want I think you wanna be if there's digital divide, it used to be, oh, there's so the the poor neighborhood is there. They don't have a connection to the internet. There's gonna be the digital divide. You could make the argument that there's gonna be the AI divide as well. And so, yeah, I'm, it's like, oh my gosh, I'm here, I'm gonna get paid, I'm gonna pay for another AI subscription, but I wanna be on the side that's not ignorant for, you know Correct.
James Hurst:For for AI. And I'm to the point where I'm just like, man, I don't even know what I did before this. Just, I mean, one of the things I do is I'll just I upload screenshots. Hey, I'm trying to find this. I'm trying to do that.
James Hurst:I'm trying you know, I go from page to page and keep on telling it screenshots and say, how do I do this? Where do I do this? And just one step at a time. I'm really to the point where, man, I just don't know what I did before with this. I use it all the time.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah, it's, it really is that that new at one point, it was the Internet, and then it, you know, it's like there's there's all these things that go through that really change the way that we do life and business and and what and AI is is such a huge huge part of that in today's day and age. And I think that anything that connects with it, you know, it's like you you have another tool. And I in some instances, I think that, like, a lot of software companies have gone to adding AI because it's trendy. I noticed it actually when I was driving this summer on a road trip in The States. So many billboards talking about AI.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's like, you drive down a high it's like, billboard AI. Billboard AI. Billboard I was like, holy moly. I'd and I didn't notice that so much in Canada before. I mean, not as many billboards maybe, but crazy.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I think a lot of companies are, like, trying to stay on the how can we add AI? And so sometimes I think it's you're kinda like bolting it on and it's not really needed in in that use case. It's kinda like trying to be part of the trend. But I think that when it's it's added in a way that adds value, it it is such a powerful extra.
James Hurst:So there is you were saying that with the voice AI that or, like, when we're training these bots, you kinda say, man, I wouldn't say it that way, but you have the same exact thing with with the humans, like, if you're critiquing their calls.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:100%. I in a
James Hurst:small way well, I've heard that some of the drive throughs now are going towards AI receptionist type things. And and it's like, at first, it's like, oh, just give me a you know, at first, just just give just give me a human. Just give me a human. I'm sick of these phone trees and stuff. I remember those days, but it might get to the point where yeah.
James Hurst:Just the we want we want the AI because they're better.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Think about it. And so, I mean, great drive through great analogy. And and so, you know, and and you and I were kinda chatting about how oftentimes, like, if I go back and listen to even our team's call recordings, I there's lots of times where I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have said it like that or, oh, gosh. Like and so, you know, if you think about AI team members, whether it's a human or or, you know, a developing AI or whatever, it's it's still never gonna be a 100% perfect. And I don't think anybody wants a 100% perfect because it feels weird.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Because then it as soon as it is too perfect, people are like, it sounds so robotic. What is going on? Like, it's Yeah. You know, you can't you can't please everyone. But if we think about that drive through analogy and we think, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Like, what if the AI can take the order quickly, efficiently, get it right? You know, that whether when you ask for the iced tea, it makes sure that you get the iced tea and that you don't drive away and take your sip and think, oh, this is not iced tea. This is something else. But, you know, that person, what we what if we now move into the kitchen? What if they move into the the delivery window?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:What if now the whole process just flows that much smoother? What if the food is a little fresher because there's extra people on the line and and all these kinds of things? It's sometimes it's not so much about just replacing someone. It's about, hey. How can we actually use this in the right spots so that the you know, because they've got a certain amount of labor expense.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So it's like, okay. But what if we spend more time prepping the food or serving the customers and making sure the food that goes in the bag is actually what's supposed to be
James Hurst:Yeah. I think about the self driving cars. Right?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Mhmm.
James Hurst:And I I was fascinated by that coming on. And it's like, wow. I'd never trust a robot to drive me in a car. And still, I haven't really actually been in a car yet. Have you been in a have you been in a driverless car?
James Hurst:No. Yeah. Yeah. And but when you start to think about I mean, if if it's purely statistical, hey, on average, if a million miles are driven by a human, there's there's 40 accidents, and and we're getting to the point now where, you know, the self driving cars are only having four accidents for the same amount of miles. And when you think about like, they don't drink, they don't get tired, they have three sixty degree LIDAR and like, and all kinds of sensors.
James Hurst:And so, I don't know, eventually, like that'll be the preferred way.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I remember many years ago, I was leaving work. I used to work in the restaurant industry when I was going to school, and we got out and it was, like, so much snow, and my car was, like, snowed into the parking lot. And I remember talk you know, talking to someone and they said, hey, just call a cab. We'll dig your car out in the morning. Just get home safe.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Like, don't worry about it. And I was like, okay. So I call the cab. The cab driver picks me up. I get in, and we're we're driving towards this hill.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And he says, I've never seen snow before. And I grew up I I'm like, sorry? And he's like, this is my first time. I I've been in Canada a short time. I've never seen snow before.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I'm thinking, oh, I think it probably would have it probably would have been safer for me to drive. I've driven in snow a million times. I grew up here. You know, I'm like thinking and so, you know, in that case, it would perhaps the self driving car have been a better choice at that point? Most likely.
James Hurst:Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Training costs like you to be any of those things that we are making it better, at least you don't have to do that every time you onboard somebody.
James Hurst:I don't know. I think I am nervous about the impacts that it's gonna make. You would think that going to school for higher education and becoming a software engineer would like kind of be a job security thing, but the AI can code, you know, can submit code and so but I I think that really for those that are well suited for it, it will it will just be like like a superpower in a way. Right? Just get that much more done.
James Hurst:Yes. Someone still needs to have the context and the, you know, to know what to do with it, I guess.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I recently was we I was dealing with something for kids sports, and there was we needed to do this social post. And it was one of those kind of situations where, you know, you had to you had to post, but it was kind of a delicate situation. You don't wanna say too much and it was kinda like, what do we even say? And we need to post, but what do you say? And so, you know, the person says, hey, I ran you know, this is what chat GPT suggested.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I I was like, okay. Yep. And so then I was like, okay. Well, this is what my chat GPT said. And they were like, oh, wow.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Oh, that that's way better. What did you tell what did you ask it? And so it was interesting because, you know, we both were looking for the same thing, but went about it two different ways. And so I you know, as much as I think that there's something to be said for, you know, it's like, yes, code and this kind of thing. But you still have to know what you're asking for.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's like you don't know what you don't know. So if you can't ask the right things, you can't give it the right context, you can't and I think that that's kind of the underestimated part is you have to have enough vision to be able to even know what is possible, to be able to ask it for the the right code in order to go the right direction.
James Hurst:Yeah. Did I tell you about my little image to calendar GPT that I made?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You and I were chatting about it, like, personally, but it's super So let's chat about it here for sure.
James Hurst:Did you ever try it? Do you ever I don't know.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I have tried it. It worked very well.
James Hurst:It worked. Okay. Yes. I think I think, like, that's a great that's a great little example. Okay.
James Hurst:It's like, I know what AI you kind of have to know what AI can do, and you have to have actual problems that it can solve. So it started out with me I as a programmer, anytime you do something multiple times, that's kind of a clue of, okay, maybe this can be automated. How could this be automated? So at first, I was just taking a screenshot. Guess long story short, sometimes you get calendar events, or maybe it's your school soccer schedule or something in the mail.
James Hurst:And basically an event is composed of a title, a date, and a time, and a location a lot of times. And so I just said, well, if I had an image of that, what if I could, and then I had to have the prior knowledge that I knew that a Google URL, all the URL parameters in a Google query, a Google online query can turn in into that. If I basically embedded in a Google URL, if I have the title, and so having that knowledge, I was able to say, hey, here's this image. I want you to turn this into a Google URL so that I could then click on it, and it would automatically have all this stuff and I could just hit save. So I did that multiple times, and then I turned that into a GPT so that it would already know.
James Hurst:Mhmm. And then I could and from there, I could I could give it more. I could say, hey, if if if I could give it more context of like, if it doesn't have a default time, I could set the default time to be thirty minutes or or an hour. I would give it the instructions, say, I'm gonna give you an image. This is what you're supposed to do.
James Hurst:I I said, maybe add a reminder, maybe add me a fifteen minute reminder, but then it said reminders are not something that you can embed in the URL. So then I said, okay, forget about the reminder. But I said, go ahead and add my wife. Here's her email address. So now I just upload an image and the GPT knows what to do.
James Hurst:It automatically adds my wife, takes all the things, and I just click a thing and add it to my add it to my
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Which is fantastic and can be used, like you said, it can be used for just about anything because Yeah. You know, often you have something that works really well in most situations. You know, it's like, I mean, I'm pretty we run a pretty complex or elaborate calendar system in our house. We have a touch screen. Before the the there's one that came out more recently.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:They sell it at Costco now. It's like the touch screen that goes in your house. I I built my own long before this came out. And so everyone has their own Google Calendar. The kids have their own calendars.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so I've for a long time, we've been very diligent about putting things on the right calendars. But, like, you've got certain things that send you that don't go to the calendar. You know, it's like they don't have a click. It's like my chiropractor. It's like and I've said, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:How come your system doesn't do this? And I'm like I'm like, oh, no. I'm that person that complains about dumb things. But, like, I I go to the chiropractor a lot, and we have three kids. So, like, for me to and it's like, I'm always like, oh, I got the calendar.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so, you know, and and so it's just those kinds of things. Right? So from a business perspective, make it easy for your people. Give them an add to calendar button. But when it doesn't work, you know, it's like the say our our our kids play lacrosse, their schedule, you can subscribe to the calendar, but it won't add it to your calendar.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I'm like, I don't want I don't want another calendar. I want it on my calendar.
James Hurst:Yeah.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. In that situation, that's when I used yours. I was like, oh, and they send me the I can just screenshot it and and it will yeah.
James Hurst:Very cool. Very cool. So you used it. I'm happy to hear you used it.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. I'll I'll drop the link for that. Because that's on your web I I got off the the website. Right? So I'll I'll I'll share the link and and people can check it out.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's very cool.
James Hurst:So I had this custom GPT now for me personally, which is, you know, benefit I have of being the one that made it. I had to then go ahead and make another one. I basically cloned that and said, hey, don't invite my wife to the
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Don't invite your wife.
James Hurst:One that's public. Right? So I I have two of them, one that invites my wife with her email in there, and then one that I made for the public. So kind of fun. And, yeah, I don't know.
James Hurst:I just yeah. I've I've been big on these little yeah. These little GPTs, little and I'm just kinda learning how Claude projects. I'm trying to figure out what when do I use a Claude project? When do I use a custom GPT?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. It's very interesting. So many different things. I find I'm really bad for wanting to try the new things, you know. It's like and then I end up with these subscriptions, and then it's not until something renews and it the, you know, the invoice goes into your inbox that you're like, oh, yeah.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I was totally playing around with that.
James Hurst:I am
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:that terrible for that. But, you know, like you said, you wanna be able to try things out, know what's possible, you know, be able to work through things and whatnot. So very cool. You know, you and I were chatting a little bit about using ChatGPT and GoHighLevel together, which is obviously just a super powerful combination. GoHighLevel as it is very you know, we use it to run our business.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We we add it for lots of clients in in different ways. You obviously work tons with Go HighLevel. So, you know, what would you say the biggest way that you have that that AI has benefited that? You know, taking something that was already super strong, probably one of the the most robust business tools out there, and then leveled it up.
James Hurst:Man, it's just it's incredible what's happened in just like a short a year, year and a half. I felt like I'm a cutting edge with, I had this SMS chatbot. So with the programming background, remember we talked about message. Body. So whenever they reply, you can take that, and then you could do an update contact field.
James Hurst:So I could say, Hey, can I get your first name? You would say it's Tiffany. And then I could take that response and then save it somewhere. And I was doing that back and forth. And to think that now to think that now we can ask all kinds of questions and qualify and and and so what what AI chatbots are doing on their own, booking appointments, conversationally.
James Hurst:I I use ClosedBot for some of that stuff. I don't know exactly where high levels conversational AI is, but it's always it's coming along. It's right there. So So I think that the capabilities then and then obviously in voice AI, I do have some voice AI bots. So basically you call and and the receptionist answers, and I feel like I'm a little bit behind on what the what all that all that can do.
James Hurst:I've got one up and running. And when you a lot of times, I feel like I'm setting stuff up and kind of pretend like, oh, this would be and then but when real people call it and you're like, wow, like they got the answer they were looking for, and I I one had to get paid, and like they got serviced, and I'm just like, woah, maybe I feel like I'm I feel like I maybe missed the boat a little bit because, like, when you see it in action, it's and it's actually working and it's awesome. You you you kinda catch the vision of of what it can be. Totally.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. It's it's I I really I've always said knowledge is power. So Yeah. Knowing what some of these pieces are and and being willing to say like, hey, you know, is it possible? Is it and taking some ideas lots of times, you know, like you said, when you're doing something multiple times, maybe that's the time to automate it.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I was I was talking to a client recently, and and they really thought that they were in the market for, like, a job management system. They were thinking like a jobber or something like that that was going to be for them. And when we really worked through some of the challenges that they were looking for, it was GoHighLevel was actually the tool that they needed. Because the the challenge that they were struggling with was not actually managing the jobs. It was managing the pipeline of getting people to the jobs.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It was like they were sending out quotes, but no follow-up. They they were like, they sent it out, and it kinda went out into the big wide world of abyss. And and, you know, if someone approved it, great. But if if they didn't, maybe it never even made it to that person's inbox, but they never checked in. They never followed up.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You know, people were requesting things, and it was kind of like in a notebook somewhere. And and, you know, sometimes they remembered and sometimes they didn't. And so, you know, moving to go high level was a, hey. We can really bring some structure to this, and they might need a system like Jobber later. Once but it was like, let's fill that pipeline in an organized way and make sure that we have that that first part of the buyer cycle nice and organized.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And then we can worry about, like, the next piece. But we don't necessarily need to organize this when, you know, we don't need to organize with the jobs we don't have approved yet. We need to worry about that first workflow. So, you know, really kind of breaking down what is the actual challenge we're trying to solve, and what is the right tool to do that?
James Hurst:Yeah. I think also with high level so first of all, like, just having the calendars, right? So like a lot of people, you know, Calendly kind of came on the scene, you know, and I think you and me are now to the point where we kind of just live and die by the calendar. If it's in the calendar, look at my calendar, it's I see goes in the calendar. That's how I coordinate with my wife.
James Hurst:I invite her to almost everything and vice versa. And so just becoming like very calendar driven in the first place, that's like step one. And then HighLevel comes along and you can now, thirty minutes before your appointment, you can text them and say, Hey, your appointment's in thirty minutes. Are we still on? Right?
James Hurst:And so like that alone was a big step up in decreasing no show rates and just like helping everyone, you know, making sure that they're gonna be on time to the appointment. Well, kind of where I'm seeing things going with AI, and I kind of showed you some of this, is what if AI could handle that response, right? What if they said, Hey, you know, I forgot about my appointment, or Yes, we're still on. There's a lot of different things that they could say, and AI can, we can feed that into it, and then it can respond appropriately. And that's just one little use.
James Hurst:But yeah, there's so many. I think for high level AI, AI voice, AI chat, they do have AI image generation. I haven't really played with that much. I will say, I will say one cool thing. I don't know if you've considered this, but I just did this the other day is, are you familiar with, like, all the merge fields?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Mhmm.
James Hurst:Yes. In HighLevel. So whether it's a custom GPT or like a Claude project, right, in the instructions so if I'm saying, hey, I want you to write an email about this, maybe returns or refunds or onboarding or whatever the email might be, it it will sometimes say it will say, dear first name. It will kind of put a variable in there. Right?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yep.
James Hurst:And so, but what I did was recently is I I basically copied the high level page and said, hey, this is the syntax, which is basically, this is the format of high levels merge fields. And so if you if you basically, for context, if you give the the Cloud project or the custom GPT those merge fields, then when it makes those things, it's gonna literally use the bracket bracket contact first dot under first that will then you can copy and paste that into HighLevel.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Right. So but, I mean, that is so much like training an employee. So it's like so you you bring someone on, you know, think about instead of calling it ChatGPT or Claude, let let's call it Sam. You know? Sam starts Sam you know, you've tasked Sam with writing some some new customer emails.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You know, you're working on your refund policy. Sam's doing that. You say, oh, Sam, really like these emails. This is great. But for Sam writes them, you're actually going in and you're changing the, you know, these form fields so that they go into your system better.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So first, know, Sam, great email. Love it. Thanks. But I'm still having to do this piece. Now we're saying, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Actually, now I'm gonna train Sam. And I'm gonna say, hey, Sam. If you could just use these fields instead of those ones when you're doing this, that would save me so much time. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so, I mean, when you think about that as a person, you think, well, that's great. You've got your person. First, they start with one task, then you kinda build on it. They're growing. They're learning.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:This is great. They become more useful. And and it's like when I start with a team member, I always say, it's gonna take at least weeks for us to feel real reprieve and impact. Because by the time you train and onboard and bring all these things in, six weeks
James Hurst:Yeah.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Until they're really making a difference. So now if you think in a GPT, well, okay. Well, you're like, hey. First, we need this. It would be great if you added that.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Don't forget to do these things. You know, we always use this verbiage. All my marketing emails, I sign off the same way. So this is things that, you know, I I have said, like, hey. We always say it this way.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Don't say warm regards. I don't say it. I don't say I'm not a warm regards kinda gal. So let's not go with that. And so, you know, and those are the kinds that it's it's so impactful when you really start to think how can I level this up?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And then give it that information. Say, hey. Pretty good, but let's try this. Let's do that. Very cool.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So Well, James, where can people learn more about these types of things? Obviously, you know, I've I started following you on the YouTube channel. So much great content there. That's where I got to kinda know you a little bit to start with. So where else?
James Hurst:K. So on YouTube, it's called The Marketing Show. And you can also go to the associated website, themarketingshow.com. I'm very active on on Facebook. So my Facebook URL is facebook.com/0jhirst.
James Hurst:And then if anyone wants to, if they like really wanna go deeper and get a lot more one on one contact and get questions answered, I do have a school group that you can put a group, link in the description below. And that's that's a paid mastermind. So would love to have
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:you One of the things I I talk about often, people have heard me say on the podcast a lot of times is, you know, what delays sick success? And as someone myself, I love fiddling with things on the computer. Some people don't. That's you know, and I and so I definitely lean on the side of trying to figure things out. But I also am at the point in my business, I had this conversation recently with someone where I said, hey, like, I I could try.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You know, I I say business owners are very resourceful people. You can get on YouTube. You can learn lots of things. But here's the thing, doing so is at the cost of you doing something else. So if you're gonna spend time you know, sometimes hiring that professional, someone like yourself to say, hey, let's go through.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Let's I have this idea. Is this possible? Could we build it? What does that look like? What does that cost?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And you might say, hey. It costs x number of dollars, and they might say, you know what? I'm not that big yet. I'm gonna do this manually for a little bit longer, but I'm, like, such a big advocate for, like, know what that next step costs. Know when so that you when you're ready, that you're like, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I I know what I want. I know who I'm gonna deal with. I know this is and and then you can get that impact right away. You know? That that six weeks of hiring someone, well, if when you implement tech, you could also say in six weeks, I want this to be, like, automated, tested, running, you know, this to to deal with these things.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Because so often we're like, hey. We pay for the subscription for, like, two years, and it never quite gets to where they want. And then and then you cancel it, you're like, that never really went anywhere. But if instead we said, hey. Let's get that impact right away.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Let's build it. Let's make sure it's working really well, and then think of all the things that we can do with the benefit of it.
James Hurst:Yeah. Mean, it's just we're a very specialized society. Right? Like
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Mhmm.
James Hurst:You're you're like, you're maybe you're in QuickBooks every day. You know it like the back of your hand. I've been doing this, I've been making websites since for twenty years now kind of thing. And I have, I mean, I was a software engineer previous to being the AI automation person, you know? And there's just there is no substitute for for that, for just years of troubleshooting and experience and just that.
James Hurst:Yeah. It's hard won. It's it's hard won experience.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Well, because you don't know what you don't know. You don't even you don't know what's possible. You don't know what the potential issues are. You don't know. And so, some you know, bringing that person in who has seen it, experienced it, been educated in, is just such a different experience.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And whether that is your bookkeeping, whether that's, you know, building your website. So often people spend so much time building a website that might look pretty, but functionally doesn't work very well. And and so you look and it's like, hey, the website doesn't load from all and so bringing in those people in the right spots, making sure that you're leaning into educated people. Because if you stick in your own lane, I always say like, hey, what could you be doing with that time? Someone says, hey, I I spent forty hours building my website.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's like, well, you coulda hired someone and and taken those forty hours and delivered to your customers, sold what you do, done something that you enjoy and are passionate about.
James Hurst:What I would like to do is pay someone to clean my house while I could go do, you know, more automations. That's but Yes.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Well, I mean, everybody's got their thing. And some people will be like, no. No. I that's my outlet. I love to you know, some people love to everybody's different, and that's the best part of of life.
James Hurst:Do you do your thing well, and and and let us do our thing well, and and we'll all benefit.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Well, James, I really appreciate you being here today and and kinda sharing that, you know, tech side of the business. And and sometimes just talking about these different things gets, you know, the wheels turning to be like, hey. Well, if, you know sometimes it's well, if that's possible with the calendar, I wonder if you could, you know, and down a rabbit hole. So learning about different things and what's possible is really the start of so much, you know, different growth and amazing.
James Hurst:Yeah. Thanks for having me. Drop drop comments below, and let's see if we need to recover some foundational knowledge. We can try to get you up to speed. I hate to talk over what anyone, but but, yeah, happy to help.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. Absolutely. If if you have so many videos on so many different topics, so I'm sure if there's there's some questions, we can some links, some other resources, and offer some even bigger impact there.
James Hurst:Watch, guys.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:That's all the time we have for today. But the conversation doesn't stop here. Be sure to subscribe to the Service Based Business Society podcast on all of your favorite apps. And if you're hanging out over on YouTube, search for Tiffany and Bottcher. Your likes, comments, and shares don't just help the show, they help more entrepreneurs find the real stories and strategies that they need to scale.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Until next time, keep pushing, keep building,
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:and I'll catch you in the next episode.
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