The AI Sherpa Podcast

Podcast Transcript:

Jack Monson: Social Geek proudly presents the AI Sherpa once again with my good friend Robert Mitchell. Hey Robert, what's going on?

Robert Mitchell: Hey Jack, how you doing?

JM: I am doing well. What is happening these days and how is life at WSI?

RM: We're very busy. We're about to go to our national conference where I'm going to be running a panel of some of our AI adopters, some of our franchise owners, vendors, suppliers, and actually keynote speakers are going to be on my panel, all talking about AI uses in the world of digital marketing, as well as working with clients on the frontline.

RM: So we're excited about that. And then, of course, I'm running a COLA, running a panel on, or a session on training our franchise owners on our new AI adoption framework. So that's what we're doing this week.

JM: So you’re Talking to a lot of people about that stuff, even outside of WSI. I see you on LinkedIn and all of the other social channels all over the place at all of these great marketing and technology events and franchise events.

JM: Talking about AI, tell me about some of the events you're doing. Lately, and what exactly are you talking to all of these people about it? Each one of these.

RM: Yeah. Obviously, I'm catering it to my audience. So the next two speaking engagements I have in the, or in the franchise community. One is the Franchise Success Summit.

RM: It's going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the 24th through 26th. I'm sorry, this week hit on the 8th through the 10th. And what I'm talking in the next one after that is with a group of master franchise owners of a system that will remain nameless. It's like they're going to be a meeting, and they wanted me to come talk about AI because I'm working with one of the master franchise owners on adapting some brilliant solutions within their existing unit, not the mothership.

RM: Because this is baby steps to that happening, right? Cause you can't turn a huge cruise ship without showing some impact and showing some actual. How AI has impacted this particular 200-unit master franchise owner. Anyway, that. But next week or the week after is the Franchise Success Summit.

RM: And these are going to be clients of a law firm that has organized this event. They do it every year, and they wanted me to talk about AI adoption. And there's going to be emerging franchisors. There are also some senior ones, a hundred or more units. And what am I gonna talk about? We don't know the audience.

RM: That's the problem with a lot of time with this particular type of topic is you hear it all the time. 60 Minutes and even Oprah talked about it recently. What is their level of understanding? They hear AI. They think they know what it is. They've watched in movies on it or something. We have to bring them at a level.

RM: So the first thing I do when I talk to people is bring them up to a certain level of understanding. The difference between artificial intelligence that's been around for 60 years and large language models, which is a newer version of the technology. That is why we've leapfrogged into the conversation on today's podcast or any podcast these days.

RM: And then from there, after I've introduced them to the basic terms and some of the basic tools and the capabilities of the models, so they can say, Oh, so this is what everybody's been talking about. Then I want to dive into. How do we transition from knowing about it from how to ask ChatGPT to give me a recipe for cookies to how do I, how do you use it to impact my business?

RM: And that's the biggest leap that people just don't, even the last time I spoke at the FX, FC conference, one of the main questions that came up was what, how do I do it? What do I do now? This is great, but. How do I start?

JM: And this is seen that we've seen that in all kinds of technology throughout the ages, though. For years, there were people doing conferences about the internet and then social media or, and I'm sure before that there was something about broadcasting.

JM: And before that there was probably 200 years ago, something about newspapers. And I think there's a lot of talk, but what I like about all of the keynotes that I've seen you do in the panels that you're on. It's really pushing people to actually get involved and get engaged because you can come out and just release a bunch of stats and show people how fantastic some of the new technology is.

JM: But if you're not actually sharing stories, which I think you do very well, sharing stories of how this is actually impacting someone's business. They're probably not going to take action.

RM: Yes, that's true. And so what I've found is I'll have, it used to be maybe a year ago or even two years ago, we were talking about this, like you better get on the bandwagon or get left behind.

RM: And I'm still saying that even though our last podcast we did, I said, Dude, people are out of business. They just don't know it yet. And so I hate to come on using that rhetoric in that kind of narrative, because that's old hat. It's then fine, Robert, tell me what to do, how to do it.

RM: And so that's where I've shifted my talks. I've said, Okay, now that I've gotten you up to speed, let's talk about integration. Now I'll give you a case in point. So I've been like getting lots of people booking in my calendar because I have a booking appointment on my LinkedIn. So people just book and go, okay, what are we talking about?

RM: I have no idea who this call is for, but it's fine. It's the nature of the beast. But two different franchisors contacted me this week and they weren't like CEOs. They were mid-level roles in different capacities. And what was astonishing to me is they wanted to talk about AI and franchising and their role.

RM: But they lacked a lot of the urgency and enthusiasm about it. And they really lacked any clear understanding of how to get things done. They heard it as a buzzword and they knew they should know about it. But the conversation was like, I was talking to a brick wall. And so the clients that I am working with that are moving forward and getting excited, they have to have two things.

RM: And this is why I tell you the biggest. The biggest challenges to AI adoptions come from not having two groups on board. And that group is, I guess it is often, is the top-down, bottom-up approach. This mid-level person saw it as a need, but they weren't really the true champion of the organization. Not to mention they didn't have buy-in from leadership, pushing them to do something.

RM: And the clients that I have, I've had huge buy-in from leadership that are like yelling at people, go work with Robert, go do this, go figure out. I want you to improve your role. Go. I push. I'll write the check kind of thing. And then the other group is the AI champions who really drive the change.

RM: I think I mentioned this to you the last time, but I got validated from this past week. These people were just, they didn't have either one of those, and they weren't either one of those. They weren't the one that can write the check and change the strategy and the culture of the organization. And they weren't the one that was going to be the champion that was really excited and saw the opportunity.

RM: They were like the middle. It was very awkward.

JM: Yeah. So I love that idea of. It's coming downstream and it's going upstream at the same time. And that part in the middle could really be the real challenge, especially if you don't have the upstream working with you, there's just not going to be a budget or a demand for change.

JM: And if the downstream isn't working with you, then, that's really where the money's made, right? That's really where the business is being transactioned.

RM: And this, be honest, most CEOs, I know this is going to hurt a lot of people's feathers, ruffle them, but they have no idea what their employees are doing.

RM: They don't know how to use HubSpot or how to use, I guarantee they don't, how to use their POS system. But that's not their job. Let's be, I'm not trying to be harsh to them, but the workers, the soldiers in the trenches, those are the ones that we have to get their buy-in as well as leadership. Because they're the ones that are going to drive the change and show them where the holes are in the dam and where they need to be poked, where the bottlenecks are in the organization that need to be fixed.

RM: Having those conversations with the icon, the bottom-up, their soldiers, the aptitude and attitude of those people is crucial. So you have to do them at a pincer move. You have to go both at the same time. Otherwise, it ain't happening. And nothing made me realize that more than this last week.

RM: So that's why my new talks are addressing that point-blank. Get on board or rally the troops if you need one of those groups.

JM: Yeah. And I think the good news is this, and I always see these things from the view of being the eternal optimist, because if I wasn't an optimist, I wouldn't be in franchising.

JM: But I think the actual idea of you being at some of these shows and talking to some of these groups, you're already halfway there, right? The fact that these organizations are actually bringing you or someone like you in to talk about AI, that's a really good sign that they're open to the conversation and they're open to change. Because, man, there's a lot of organizations out there that would say, We don't need that or let's just wait and see.

JM: Let's see how it goes with our competitors and see how they do. And then maybe we'll transform into AI five or 10 years from now, which really just isn't going to cut it. Is it?

RM: It's funny. A year ago, I won't name any names or any, I don't even give you the workshop that was. I was in the audience and somebody actually said this, and it was a marketing.

RM: Panel and technology in marketing, even worse. And they said, and I quote, I'm not going to chase a shiny penny with regards to AI. This was early on, mind you. And then, after ChatGPT came out, but definitely don't have that. Don't be Chicken Little, but also don't be the ostrich who sticks their head in the sand either.

RM: There's a spectrum there, but please be closer to the Chicken Little.

JM: Yeah. You want to be early on things. You might not need to be first in your category but at least be early. Are there any other topics that you're talking to all of these groups about these days that you wanted to share with us on this episode?

JM: Absolutely. Whether it's a trade group or whether it's a private company that has hired you to come in. And by the way, I do appreciate the fact that you haven't named those private companies because AI is definitely a sort of secret strategy that a lot of brands are employing right now.

JM: You might not want your competitors to know that we're about to launch into something, and we're bringing this expert in.

RM: That's true. Now. Hasn't been close to the chest, but their proclamations, if you listen to the All-In Podcast, they were talking about this a little bit. Connor's, yeah, we're going to get rid of Salesforce.

RM: We're good. We've figured out a way that AI can replicate the internal. Whoa, that's a big claim. But I will go back to your question.

RM: And the larger companies, I think where I think that why I'm trying to keep it quiet is that they have a strategy. They have an approach that they're trying to make is that when you're part of a large franchise organization and you need the mothership to pivot and you're a franchise owner or one that doesn't have that change, you need to be strategic.

RM: For example, let's say there are two different franchisors that are clients of mine. Both of them have legacy systems. And one of them is owned by the franchisor, and one of them is an outside company. And they can't afford to ruffle the feathers of either one of those, especially a third-party supplier that says, okay, you don't like our software.

RM: Then fine. Flip. And then now all their franchise owners, all 200-plus of them, are now. Oh, crap. How are we going to do business? Our POS system is not, so they have to be strategic on how they roll it out and also not get ahead of themselves, right? Make sure this solution works.

JM: Yeah. And you may have a workforce out there who work for your franchisees. Who might be a little anxious if they hear that the AI expert is coming in and possibly replacing all of our jobs with robots.

RM: Oh, I can't help but think Office Space. What is it you do here? But yeah, I think that's a good point.

RM: When you hear consultant, you hear, people start getting worried. And, of course, we make sure the employees know that we're not coming for their jobs. We're coming to upskill their jobs. But yeah, that's an important element. I was thinking about something else, but I just lost it. But yeah.

JM: Upskilling the job, I think, is a great way to put it. Again, I'm putting on my optimist vision here, but I think most people who think about losing their job to AI. They're not thinking big picture. That I don't want to do that tedious task anymore. I want to be able to do something that's going to allow me to grow in my career.

JM: And while I'm at it, I'm going to grow the company that I'm working for right now. You said something earlier about people in the industry who maybe we should have a list of people who should be on notice right now that your jobs might not be going away tomorrow, but they will be evolving due to AI.

JM: And you had a couple of different categories of jobs that really interested me. Let's first talk about call centers. You say that's something that will be on notice soon.

RM: Yeah. Especially, because inbound call centers, and this is, again, I'm not stealing too much from All-In, but they did give me a, they did put a seed in my brain about this.

RM: And I prefer to talk to a human when I call customer support. I do. I don't like going through a menu tree, but you can't build products on yourself. You got to build products on the consumer base. And there's people that are not only born with a cell phone in their hand. That was old hat. I was like, okay, yeah. The kids these days are born with an iPad in their crib.

RM: It's not just that. Here's another little thing I'll show you, Jack. I was watching this one TikTok, and this guy was talking about it. He was a game developer. Five years ago, he put a game out, they put a console with the hand controller, and they put a PC with the mouse and keyboard, and the kids always picked the computer with the mouse and keyboard.

RM: But here's what kept on happening. Five years ago, they kept on touching the screen.

JM: Okay. Yeah.

RM: And because they weren't used to a game that would be not touchable. Which is something that seems very simple. Now those people are in the workforce. These are people like they were 12, 18 years old. Now they're in their twenties. That was five years ago. So now these people grew up not engaging with technology with a mouse and keyboard. That's just a little example.

RM: But so you shift to the business application. You got to build your products based on what the consumer base is using. And if you think that yours is immune to AI, then you're sorely mistaken. But, going back to your question, which was—ask it again—going back.

JM: People who are on notice definitely include call centers.

RM: Yeah. Call centers, going back to my point. Sorry. Is that people don't want to talk to humans. They want just their answers. They want to just change my flight.

RM: So these agents are so much faster because they have all the information, all the training materials, they're experts, they're perfect answers if they're done right, right? So you don't have a new person that's their first day on the job who just got a week of training and they threw them into the mix. No.

RM: They have people that speak whatever language of the person that's calling in as another problem. That might not be able to understand them if they're a call center from overseas or something. So these elements are like, holy crap, if you don't see the writing on the wall as a call center, then—.

RM: But, let's not talk to the call center companies on their listening to this podcast. Let's talk to the franchisors who use them prolifically in their business. Now you have a potential new solution that's cheaper, higher quality, faster, and 24 hours a day. So all the elements are pointing toward call centers being definitely a new product that you could or a new solution to your problem.

JM: Definitely on notice.

JM: Love that. And the other one that you mentioned that could be on notice soon in the franchise space would be lead qualifiers. Tell me about that.

RM: Yeah, so this is a lot of—I was one of those. I've hired them before. And Fran dev. It's that you want to bring somebody into your franchise sales department.

RM: Cause your bandwidth is full. You can't call the new leads cause you're busy nurturing the existing ones and trying to close deals and discover days and whatnot. So your bandwidth is just so many calls you can make. And so you bring in lead qualifiers to get the warm bodies on the phone.

RM: So you get these leads across the internet. You need this lead qualifier to—did, no, they have a pulse. Ask the three basic questions. Do you have the money? Are you located in this state that we can sell and that's viable? And there's one more question, right? Are they the right fit for the company or the brand?

RM: So those lead qualifiers are pretty effective. All those questions can be answered by an agent. Now I say agent, people think it's a robot on the phone. You would not know the difference, especially if I had that agent call your grandma and ask her to wire transfer you a thousand dollars from your voice. You wouldn't even know it. So be careful with those assumptions.

JM: And one bonus, these new agents work 24 hours a day. They don't work nine to five Eastern time only.

RM: Truly. And that's—A lot of people know this in Fran dev. You can't call during work hours a lot of the time. You need to be available, especially if you're three time zones away to when that lead that inquired is available. And I did this all the time. I would spend my Wednesdays working till nine and call East Coast after hours, those kinds of things.

RM: But again, these agents, going back to my point, is that they're not the robot calling. Okay, that part we established. It's also a very well-informed AI texting and a very well-informed AI emailing or WhatsApping or whatever channel that is deemed that particular person wants to engage on.

RM: So you have multiple mediums to engage this prospect, and it can be done dozens of times. No bandwidth limitations. And something that I think I mentioned before in one of our WSI tests that we did from our database of dead leads, we called 10,000 people and got six solid leads. Cost us $600. You think that's a lot of.

RM: That's a lot of leads to call and only get six leads. Only like 15 percent of them answered the phone. So how long would it take a human to call 10,000 people? And that's just an example of dead lead calling. But a lead qualifier is inbound or just nurturing that first few steps and then passing it on to that salesperson. So there are repercussions for this, as we talked about.

JM: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. But the one other positive thing about that is, with these new agents you're talking about, they're as fresh and bright and engaged on call number one as they are on call number 9,999. And that is unfortunately a limitation with our fellow human beings, is there is fatigue that sets in.

JM: And there are also things like, am I being judged on my results or my activity? So those are some of the pitfalls with lead qualifying that maybe these agents are getting around. But you were about to go the other direction.

RM: Yeah. Before I go into the other direction, I want to mention something that came up in my brain just now. One of the clients that we're working with—.

JM: That happens with you a lot.

RM: Yeah. Yeah. Squirrel. One of the things that came up recently—we have a project we're building for a client, and they want to better understand their salespeople. And I'm not talking about salespeople from Fran dev; I'm talking about across their whole network, all of their franchise owners, every phone that rings in their whole system. They want to know, are you following our policies and procedures?

RM: Are you following the SOPs, the standard operating procedures, for answering a call from a customer? And so what we've done, we have all the recordings, we're setting up an automation that records, transcribes, puts it against the test of the principles of the franchisor, and then gives insights to the FranOps team. This particular owner could stand to use some help in the department of whatever, right?

RM: And so that is an example of upskilling, right? Upskilling our FranOps team, giving them more data and more insights into those calls. Again, that particular element, meaning screening in the calls, could also be placed. So this is sentiment analysis, right? So we could also use that element in this lead qualifier you were just talking about.

RM: We could say, that person doesn't get pissed off, that person doesn't get annoyed, that person's not going to have issues with personalities.

JM: That person's not going to have a bad day on a Monday.

RM: No. And I'll tell you, I've said this for years in sales. I've been in sales my whole life, and I've been with other salespeople next to me. John can sell people I could never sell. Or Susie can handle those people better than I can. And that's true. That is—there's just a way about certain salespeople that does other people are gravitated toward.

RM: That is not going to happen with AI. They're middle of the road.

JM: Yeah. Yeah. They're always going to be—. They're always going to be bright and fresh, regardless of what day it is.

RM: Yep. True. So where I was going on the other direction is, unfortunately, the negatives of this. Having a call agent—I'm sorry, having a lead qualifier be an AI element—we lose the, what's it called? The entry point for this industry. We lose people that are out of college.

JM: Where does someone start on a career path? With an entry-level sales job. That's a concern.

RM: That's where I used to groom my franchise salespeople—making them a qualifier and then they have their own, and then they move into my role. That would be the pathway. That's how I started. Sure. So if we have AI, then this is what we talked about before we launched. What do we do with those? What are those people going to do now?

RM: And so my brain goes to, they're going to be more aligned with AI than we even think they are. They're going to come out of college knowing that they have—they're going to be able to hopefully have developed those skills in college and use the AI to make them actually better than they would have been coming out of college.

RM: And they might be more useful to our organization. That remains to be seen, but that's a whole other podcast.

JM: But it's always been that way with technology. I think 20 years ago, the entry-level sales job was doing cold calls for yellow page ads or radio station ads or anything in the media industry. It was always that sort of cold call for the mass audiences.

JM: And those jobs haven't existed in 15 or 20 years now. Those went away a long time ago. And there are still good salespeople in the industry. So they found a path to sales leadership somehow without having those entry-level jobs that people had 30 years ago. So I think there will be a path, like you said.

JM: Maybe it's through technology and AI, getting good at understanding that. And you don't have to be a telephone expert to be a good salesperson, right? Maybe doing something else with technology and doing something to find the right people in the most qualified leads first. And that could actually jump your sales career ahead. I'm just again—.

RM: I think you make a great parallel because you went from—there's a salesperson in the yellow pages days, there's a salesperson before telephones, right? There's always been people selling products and services, right?

RM: So just because we've changed the game a little bit with AI, there's still going to be a need for that role. And there's still going to be a need for somebody to program that AI role so that it knows. And there's always going to be human in the loop. I shouldn't say always—there's, for a time period, there's going to be a human in the loop that's going to be required to maintain or create or adapt or whatever.

RM: I'll give it to you this way too. From the movie Willy Wonka, not the most recent one, but the one a couple of years ago, there was a scene where the father loses his job at the toothpaste factory, right? He used to put the screws in the toothpaste. That's all he did. Assembly line. It was funny. You just watched him screw it on. And then a robot came in and took his job. It was so sad, right?

RM: But then he got his job back fixing the robot. So it was a really funny way that technology booted him, but then brought him back for a different role. So here's—put on notice—upskill yourself. Because those new positions are coming faster. This is the fastest integration of technology in the history of the planet. So you better move fast.

JM: Upskilling is the new phrase of the year.

JM: My friend, Robert, if anyone would like to contact you with some questions specifically about AI or anything else going on at WSI, where can we send them?

RM: I definitely try to check them out. My podcast, it's called The AI Sherpa Podcast. Oh, wait, you're already on here. Never mind.

JM: We're on here now.

RM: Yeah. LinkedIn is the best place. RM, TN—TN for Tennessee, because I used to live there. Email me at rmitchell@wsicorporate.com. And as I said this last time, I want to say it again. Let's get some questions from the franchise community, because I know there are some people out there who are like, Yeah, let's—this is all. What concerns do you have? What questions do you have? Because we'd love the next episode to talk more about that.

JM: That's a great idea. Okay. Get your questions ready. And next month on The AI Sherpa, Robert will answer your questions. Thanks so much, Robert. We will talk to you again soon.

RM: All right. Cheers.