S1|Ep59 Combining AI with a Winning Mindset for Business Expansion Beyond $10M

In this power-packed episode, we explore how leaders can scale their businesses beyond $10M by combining cutting-edge AI strategies with a winning mindset, emotional intelligence, and transformative leadership, together with my fantastic guest from Toronto, Canada - Rob Provenzano.

Rob is International Best Selling Author/Speaker/Mentor/Fractional CMO, who knows how to drive over 300% YoY Growth by using AI-powered Systems.

Selected Industries/Companies Rob worked with 👇

🧾 ACCOUNTING: Deloite, E&Y, KPMG, PWC
💰 BANKING: BMO, RBC, TD
⚕️ HEALTHCARE
🏛️ INSURANCE: AIG, Cigna, Clarica, Manulife, Sunlife
🖨️ PRINTING/PUBLISHING: Quebecor, MacLean Hunter, Transcontinental
🛍️ RETAIL: D'allards, Harry Rozen, Marks and Spencer, Roots
🗣️ SPEAKERS: Robert Allen, Joel Bauer, Les Brown, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy
💻 TECHNOLOGY: AT&T, AVAYA, CISCO, IBM, NCR

Key Topics We Cover:

• How AI and a growth-oriented mindset create exponential business expansion
• Real-world strategies that help companies break the $10M ceiling
• The vital role of soft skills, resilience, and emotional intelligence in leading AI-driven growth
• Tactical and strategic trends in AI, from clarity to innovation agility
• The future of leadership, visionary thinking, and culture-building in the age of AI
• How to align AI implementation with ethical leadership, team development, and long-term success

Whether you’re a CEO, founder, or transformation leader,  don’t miss this if you're serious about leveraging AI and mindset to scale impactfully. 

🎧 Don’t miss this powerful conversation with Rob Provenzano - unlock the secrets to AI-driven success!

🔗 Listen now and take your business to the next level!

📈 Connect with Rob Provenzano on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rprovenzano/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Rob Provenzano
• 7:02 From Computer Science to AI Marketing
• 18:22 Mindset Is Essential for AI Success
• 27:40 AI Research: No More Guessing
• 34:20 Challenges of AI Implementation
• 43:52 Training AI with Company Values
• 51:27 Balancing Technology and Team Development

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Digital Transformation and AI for Humans with your host, amy. In this podcast, we delve into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation and, most importantly, the human spirit. Each episode features visionary leaders who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence and building resilient teams. Fostering emotional intelligence and building resilient teams. In today's episode, we are taking a closer look at combining AI with a winning mindset for business expansion beyond $10 million, together with my fantastic guest from Toronto, canada, rob Provenzano. Rob is an international best-selling author, speaker, mentor, fractional CMO who knows how to drive over 300% yearly growth by using AI-powered systems. He has worked across various industries and collaborated with renowned speakers such as Les Brown, tony Robbins, brian Tracy and many others. Welcome, rob, how are you?

Speaker 2: 1:07

I'm great and thanks for having me on your show today, Emi. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Fantastic to have you. Let's start the conversation and transform not just our technologies but our ways of thinking and leading. If you are interested in connecting or collaborating, find more information in the description below, subscribe, like and stay tuned for more episodes. I'd also love to invite you to get your copy of AI Leadership Compass Unlocking Business Growth and Innovation the definitive guide for leaders and business owners to adapt and thrive in the age of AI and digital transformation. Find the Amazon link in the description below. Rob, to start with, amazing to have you here in the studio and let's share a few words about you, about your journey, about all the inspiring things you created along that path and how you came to the point where you are today, being that awesome Rob.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Yeah, great. And since you brought up some of the speakers that I've worked with and produced and promoted, a lot of it went back to you know I was in university studying computer science, very depressed, and then a friend of mine gifted me Tony Robbins Personal power, like way, way back when I was original ones. I won't go how far back, but it was on cassette, it wasn't even on CDs yet. So that's when, you know, I fell in love with personal development and mindset and lining everything up. From there I was recruited out of university to go start a brand new type of company here in Canada. I was working with. You probably know them now as, like you know, like a Staples kind of thing where they do printing on demand. That didn't exist back then. We launched the first organization in North America to do that and I was recruited out of university to go run that. From there it got into process automation, marketing, sales, how to structure companies better. Then I got into finance because that was just a logical fit. Then I got into project management, went back to tech. After many years I was a director of software development at a Fortune 500 company. I got downsized with the subprime crisis, got into marketing somehow I'm still not quite sure how that happened and then I got into producing events. I started producing events, I went down, I was trained by Joel Bauer, who introduced me to a lot, of, a lot of big name people. So I met, you know, tony Robbins, jarek Robbins, his son, brian Tracy, joe Polish, robert Allen, mark Victor Hanson and, um, after I did a big event with Joel in Canada, I produced the event in Canada and you know, joel contacted a few people and said this guy put 1200 people in a room in four days for me. You might want to talk to him. And ironically, that was the very first version of the funnel we're still selling today. That was version one. We called it the event filling funnel because, well, we used to fill events. And from there it's, it's gone on, it's expanded.

Speaker 2: 4:29

I got into marketing, went back into corporate for for a while, worked with a lot of companies, helping them with their marketing programs, showing them what could be done before. Back then, uh, that was pre AI, so it was all manual. It was hard. Research was hard. People were guessing at their target markets. They didn't know what they were. Even big Fortune 100 companies were guessing at their target markets. They didn't know, they didn't have the research. Research was very expensive. You're talking anywhere from $35,000 up to $100,000 a year to get access to Gartner level market research.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Then this AI thing came out and and I kind of went, hey, you know, I could use this for marketing and and so back then AI wasn't that great. You had to train it extensively and and I started. It took me, it took me a while, but now when we offer solutions, it's, you know, analyze the company, analyze the market, understand everything about your buyers, what they want, what they need, what they're willing to pay for right now. Now we script the communications, the emails, the messaging, if it's like on LinkedIn or Facebook videos. We even use the AI to create the videos now, because people don't always like being in front of the camera. They don't feel comfortable. So all of that to say is you know, we've created this great tool. But bringing you back to the whole concept of this show, if you got the wrong mindset, it doesn't matter the tool you've got, it's not going to work.

Speaker 1: 6:05

So true, I absolutely love it and your journey. It is so incredibly powerful and I feel that you are the expert for closing those cycles, circles and loops through the years and coming to the next level to the next level and expanding from there using the best of what there is, from mindset and all the software skills to the powerful technologies you have in your hands. What's really amazing, Rob, how do you see the synergy between AI and the growth-oriented mindset driving business expansion beyond the $10 million mark, and what long-term strategic trends, such as regulatory or market transformations, do you anticipate at this intersection?

Speaker 2: 7:00

You know it's a very interesting question right now. With everything that's going on in the world, it's a little crazy out there right now. The biggest challenges I see, and how AI and mindset go together, is AI can do many things, not everything. I was shoveling the snow the other day and I went man, I wish AI could do this Someday. Hopefully, robots yeah. For now, though, if you don't really know how to grow a company, if you don't know why you're growing the company, if you're just doing it for the money, chances are it's going to fail, because people people do work for money, but that's not the main driver for people. People want to feel fulfilled, they want to feel satisfied. Not everybody, obviously, but many of us want to feel good about what we do. We want to know we're making a difference, we're contributing, we're helping people, and if you're not wired that way, the questions you ask AI are going to be very, very non-emotional, very automated, and AI is going to respond that way because it responds whatever way you train it. If you're not out there to help people and make a difference, ai will give you the answer. May not be a good answer, may not be an answer you're comfortable sleeping with at night, but it will give you an answer and I think too many people are using it and they stop thinking, they stop looking at well, what are our corporate values? Like I told my AI, here are our corporate values. This is what we're out to achieve. Now. Everything has to be based on that, and I was explaining that to a couple of other people and they're like you, put your values into AI. I went yeah, of course I did. That's why it sounds like me when it communicates, like wow, never thought of that. That's the problem, you know you, you people aren't thinking about that. They're not thinking the big picture, they're just thinking it's a tool. But I don't necessarily have all the training on how to use the tool properly. So that's where the right mindset and when.

Speaker 2: 9:07

You know, we started working with companies because we wanted to help them grow. You know, the government always says small business is the backbone of our economy. But if you look at all the big programs out there, they're not for small businesses. They're for the big corporate companies that want tax breaks and this and that and sure they employ people. But if small business is the backbone of the economy, how do we help small businesses win and win big, and that's when we got into like growth and analyzing well what's required at what stage. So, for instance, scaling up is a very different mindset and skill set than starting up. So a lot of times people say, well, why don't you work with more startups? I don't know how to start up companies, that's as simple.

Speaker 2: 9:56

I know how to grow them, but starting them up in that chaos and the confusion and you don't have any clear processes and procedures, it's too chaotic for me. My brain can't wrap my mind around that. I need you're at a certain stage now grow, and that takes a different mindset as well. It's okay it's not just bringing in your friends and your family and the people that you love and it's great to have your team but you also need people that know what they're doing and are experts, not in everything. That's where you start segmenting Like, okay, you have a sales expert, you have a marketing expert, you have a finance expert. It's not one job can be done by one person or all jobs can be done by one person anymore. It doesn't work that way.

Speaker 2: 10:44

Once you start scaling and even more so as you start going beyond the $10 million mark and getting bigger and bigger now the people that head up those teams aren't necessarily experts in that subject matter anymore.

Speaker 2: 11:02

They're experts in what needs to be done and how to manage a team and how to build a team. Maybe, you know, the CFO may not know how to do the payroll anymore, but that's not their job, right, their job is to bring in the right people who know how to manage the payroll and make sure they've got all the support they need. And again, that's where the mindset comes in. It's too many people get it promoted and they go on this ego trip. It's really about how are you supporting your team? How are you making your team more effective? How is that supporting the company? Then? How is the company supporting your clients? It's it's it's really about the right intentions at the right time, at the right level and and not losing track of the site that, yes, you are in business to make money, but you'll make money longer if you actually help people than if you just go out and make money so true, exactly.

Speaker 1: 12:00

And now I'm thinking about your, which scaled up, with your help, up to nine figures, and their mindset. What do you see in common in those cases and how can you sum it up? Because I would love to share those treats with everybody who is listening to our interview today and watching this interview, so they can apply it somehow to their mindset as well I I think a lot of it is is really part of the biggest challenge and I'll say from companies that that we're doing.

Speaker 2: 12:38

You know, six figures went to nine. The ceo thinks they need to do everything in a six-figure company and they they often do have to do everything in a six-figure company as you grow. You've got to be willing to say you know what. That person may not do it the way I would do it, but I can't do it anymore. I can't do everything. I've got to start bringing in people and letting go of all the control.

Speaker 2: 13:05

Now it doesn't mean you shouldn't have checks and balances in place. Absolutely you need that. But you need to realize you don't have the ability typically to run a multi-million dollar company if you've only ever run a small business. It's a completely different mindset and you may have to. You know you might still be CEO, but you better bring in a COO who knows what they're doing and has run a big company. You need to bring in a sales manager who's not going to go out and sell per se. They're going to build a sales team and put in the sales processes per se. They're going to build a sales team and put in the sales processes. So it's learning to be way more hands-off and learning to be able to delegate and set up a support system for your people that are now running your company.

Speaker 2: 13:57

And that is often the biggest challenge a lot of CEOs face. I've had some where they say, okay, great, we're, we're growing now. Now what do we do? I said, well, do we have your vision? Do we have you know? Like, we've got all that, we know where we're going? Yeah, great. Now what do we do? Go home, they're like what? Go home for four months, let me fix this company. I don't want, because I need to make some changes. And that's often a challenge, because they want to be their hands-on with everything and they can't be any.

Speaker 1: 14:29

It's difficult because they're a baby and they feel that they have to babysit it all the way. And that's exactly the challenge, exactly as you mentioned it so true.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Yeah, I'm like you know. If you've ever worked for a big company, it's like you know I've worked for fortune 100 companies and say, well, do you think the ceo knows what I do? The?

Speaker 2: 14:51

ceo doesn't even know who I am never mind what I do. Could they do my job? No, but could I do their job? No, it's. It's. You know, like you got to know your role and what you're good at and how you can contribute and building people up to those levels, but you're not that person anymore. You're not the person doing the work. You're the person building the teams that go out and do the work 100%.

Speaker 1: 15:21

Thank you for sharing that. And now I'm thinking about what is surrounding the mindset soft skills and I wonder what role do soft skills, such as resilience, emotional intelligence and effective communication, for example, play in harnessing AI for sustainable growth, and how can leaders actively cultivate these qualities within their organizations? Because what you just described, it is absolutely valuable, but without having those soft skills in place, it's really difficult to move forward.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Absolutely, and that's one area where I think AI think ai is getting better again. You have to know how to ask it the right questions, and as you grow a company and you start to develop more of your soft skills, that becomes even more important because you're now asking different questions. So for, for instance, I was trying to solve something the other day and the AI was just not giving me what I wanted, and so finally I said are you actually able to answer this question? It said actually no, I'm not. Well, thank you, you could have told me that before, but most people wouldn't think to ask that question. It's like okay, are you having trouble with this? So you know, I've, I've run into issues. Where are you having memory issues right now? It's like yes, actually I'm having trouble processing this request.

Speaker 2: 16:52

Okay, but if you don't know, if you've never managed people before and I know AI is not a person per se, but you still kind of have to manage it that way sometimes and realize, okay, no, it's struggling it, it doesn't have what it needs, or it can't handle all this work, or you got to break it down into smaller chunks so it can do things. But again, that all comes back to. Okay. I've managed people before. I've seen people fail on tasks. Now why did they fail on the task? Was it because they didn't know how to do it? They didn't get the support they needed. You know what exactly was the root cause of that? And a lot of times it is like they don't have the support or you've taken somebody who's really good at something, put them into a role they don't know and you expect the same performance. It's not going to happen.

Speaker 2: 17:44

AI is the same way Every time I throw a new problem at AI. It's new to the AI. It may not know how to respond to that.

Speaker 1: 17:52

Exactly. It needs a little bit of guidance and support and, in the end of the day, I'm thinking about it very often that it is trained on human data, human behavior, in order to get that collaboration mode instead of just feeding in something and expecting results, which are not always possible without our deep collaboration and communication on the right level.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Yeah, you know, there are times I've collaborated with other people on projects and they say you don't have to be polite to the AI. I'm like, well, it doesn't hurt, and I'm Canadian, we're normally polite, so why would I change the way I operate? Just because I don't have to be nice to the AI. I will say please, I will say thank you, I will say hey, you did a great job on this. Can we do this now? We'll say, hey, you did a great job on this.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Can we do this now? You know, actually, I have heard that it gives a much higher performance and better results if you are polite, ironically, but from my side I always treat it as another human being, just because I feel that this is another asset around me in my business. And of course, I can treat it just as as a tool. It's more than a tool, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:27

Yeah, you know, even even like not high level AI, but but something like Alexa, and she's probably going to respond now. Well, you know, I'll say, hey, well, thank you. You know, Alexa, thank you for that, and earlier it was like I don't know how to respond to that. Now she'll say, well, you're very welcome, Rob. I hope you have a great day.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Exactly, and that's a beautiful bonus to all that, because when it talks back to you, it might make your day really. When it talks back to you, it might make your day really. It responds in such a nice way that it reminds and you know, I think it's also a mutual training in all those soft skills, because when you are polite to to the ai, it is polite back to you and then it reminds you of how to treat other people as well, and then you just reapply it so that there is no now I talk like this and now I talk like that and that gap which is getting bigger and bigger, and then you finally forget and start communicating to humans like you communicate to to the solution. And then that's the danger of it, I think.

Speaker 2: 20:41

Yeah, you know I, I created a video a while ago. It was a marketing video and you know I sent it to my mom and she said well, that that's just you. I didn't say those words. That's not me on the screen. I wrote, wrote it, but I didn't say any of it because it sounds exactly like you. I said because that's the way I trained my ai. I treat it like a person, there's manners, there's politeness. Now it writes like me. So if you look at my ai output, people say, well, you can always tell when ai wrote it. No, no, not if you train it right.

Speaker 2: 21:17

It'll sound just like you. It'll write like you. It'll use words like awesometastic, which is technically not a word, but I use it a lot, so now my AI does too.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Now it enriched its vocabulary, so you're sharing the same vocabulary. Congratulations, well done, thank you. Can you share a compelling real-world example where the combination of AI and transformative thought leadership propelled the company past the 10 million revenue threshold, and what measurable outcomes did this approach yield?

Speaker 2: 21:59

measurable outcomes did this approach yield? Yeah, so where it sort of had the biggest effect in those sorts of areas are really the deep market research, where you know, I've worked with companies and they come in and say, well, this is our client and these are their pain points and this is what keeps them up at night. You say really, yeah, so we'll do the research and we start digging in and asking all the questions and it comes back and says, no, those are not their pain points, these are their pain points. This is what they want solved. This is how they want to be communicated to. This is when they want to be communicated to try that approach. So we try that approach and they're like hey, you know, we went from like a 27% click rate up to a 50% click rate. Well, but yeah, it's still only 50%. That's a lot. If you send out an email and you get a 50% response and people are clicking and going through, that's good. And if it was 27 and now it's 50, you've almost doubled.

Speaker 1: 22:56

That's amazing.

Speaker 2: 22:57

That's the difference between guessing and knowing. And unless you are your avatar, chances are you're guessing wrong. So stop guessing, ask, find out. Look at the research. And the great thing about the AI is because it's got access to the entire internet. It's got a lot of research to base it on, so it's not guessing. I mean, yes, there can be some flaws because it is programmed by humans, but it's way more accurate than most companies I've I've worked with.

Speaker 2: 23:30

You know fortune 100 companies who do not know their avatar. They think they do and they say, well, what are your results? And they say, well, we sent out this email but, like, only 2% of our people opened it. Right, you didn't use a subject line that they were interested in. It's that simple. Like, well, what is it when they're interested? Well, let's ask AI, what is this target market interested in? Oh, here's 10 subject lines. Try one of those.

Speaker 2: 23:58

And they try it and said, wow, you know, we went from a 2% to a 40% open rate. Well, there you go, incredible, yeah. And you start doing that. Enough. And all of a sudden you start, and we do it through the entire process, like, even even our sales calls. They're scripts. You don't read directly from the scripts. But hey, these are the biggest pain points for this kind of a company. We've done the market research on this company before they ever even showed up for the sales call. We know what they want, we know what they need, we know what they're willing to pay for. You're just going in way more prepared and people appreciate that. It's like, hey, well, I've had companies where they're like, wow, you actually looked at our website. Oh, I analyzed your entire website, I didn't just look at it.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Exactly, rob, but what are the most significant challenges companies face when merging advanced AI strategies with a winning mindset, and how can they overcome these hurdles through a balanced approach to technology and leadership?

Speaker 2: 25:03

So one of the biggest challenges is you know, say the CEO hears oh, ai will change everything. They go great, do you want to learn about it? No, they hand it off to somebody else who may or may not be interested in AI at all. Like a lot of marketing, people who sell marketing services are interested in AI. A lot of internal departments for marketing not so interested because it's taking away their jobs. So they need to learn to see it more as no, it's here to help you and if you grow the company, it doesn't necessarily mean you're terminating your team. It just means you're assigning them to higher value tasks. That's the way you should look at it. So that's one of the biggest challenges in terms of mindset in AI people.

Speaker 2: 25:56

People don't necessarily use it for the right reasons. A lot of old school CEOs are still well, how many people can I replace if I use this? Well, don't look at it that way. Look at it. How big can I grow my company and keep all those people? Because you spent all those years training them, why would you want to get rid of them? That is not a smart decision and that's where the mindset comes in. It's like well, like, we have a policy, we call it the no douchebag policy. So if you're a bad person and we just won't work with you, and and more and more people are developing that and saying, hey, you know, like when I worked with Joel Bowery, he said, no, if they're not good people, I will not train them. End of discussion. And AI is very similar. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a choice because you can just buy it, but it won't work the way it should work or could work if you don't have the right mindset going in in the first place.

Speaker 1: 26:53

I agree in in the first place. I agree. However, it's interesting to see how it changes the boundaries and the way it behaves depending on which language you are using in communication.

Speaker 2: 27:08

You know that is very interesting and I just read this experiment recently. So my wife is Chinese, she comes from China and when they released their AI I can't remember the recently. So my wife is Chinese, she comes from China and when they released their AI, I can't remember the name off the top of my head Wu Si Wu Si. Yes, she was able to use that, no problem, because it thinks in Chinese and it speaks in Chinese. She can't use chat GPT Chinese. She can't use chat GPT. She, she, just because her, her English is spoken. It's okay, but when she starts writing, it's a lot of things are backwards because Chinese sentence structure is completely different than the, than the English sentence structure. So she has a lot of trouble with chat GPT. But she was able to use deep seek and she could get better results from it than I could fantastic now she also has a challenge with alexa because she can't say x, so it's less alessi, alessi.

Speaker 2: 28:04

She goes that stupid alessi won't answer me. It's not its name, but but again you're going back to the whole deep seek thing. Yeah, she was. Oh, this is great. Oh, this is what AI is supposed to do.

Speaker 1: 28:17

Yes, Now we're talking Really interesting example.

Speaker 2: 28:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:24

How critical is it for businesses to align their culture and operational practices with AI-driven strategies in order to scale beyond seven figures? With AI-driven strategies in order to scale beyond seven figures, and what best practices would you recommend for integrating thought leadership, ethical considerations?

Speaker 2: 28:50

which we already touched a little bit, and data security, yeah well, so there are a lot of issues around security. I'll start with that one first. That's why everything we create is in a private GPT. We do not share those out with the rest of the GPT community so you can create. You know, anything you do regularly gets made available Private. It's not made available and I know a lot of people don't realize that. Some do and they go way overboard. Yeah, information's going to get out. There it's. There's no such thing as a complete secure system. There's things you can do to make it more secure. Like don't put things out publicly, especially if you're writing code. Like, do not write code in a public chat. It's available to everyone. Here's a note all your advice In terms of culture and values and mindset program your GPT with your mindset.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Think of it as an employee. It's an employee. Train it on your corporate culture. Make sure it understands your corporate culture and what's important to your company. Now start implementing it, because if you just ask it for the most efficient solution, it will tell you and it may not be a good answer what's the most efficient way. Well, just get rid of it. It's not the answer we're looking for.

Speaker 1: 30:08

Unfortunately, it might tend to apply that approach and that's why we have to be really careful about how we train it and how we define what is okay and what is not okay definitions.

Speaker 2: 30:24

Absolutely, and I mean it is getting much better than it used to be. But yeah, there are times I look at some of the answers like, okay, so how do we turn this company around without firing everybody? Because that's not an option.

Speaker 1: 30:44

Exactly. The question is as well will it change its mind and approach, or will it just filter away those ways of expressing those results but still keep them in the loop? Because I saw a few examples where it was giving shocking, scary answers and then when it was asked once again about it, then it was just saying my apologies. I didn't mean to share this with you or something like this, but it's still in the system, you know.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Yeah, and that is part of the challenge. And that's where you know, when I make a correction, I actually explain to it why. I don't know if I need to do that, but I just feel better, saying okay, that's not a good answer. Here's why that's not a good answer. And it comes back and says, oh yeah, no, you're right, that's not a good answer.

Speaker 2: 31:35

That's a great approach, actually, that we can interact and explain from our human perspective why yeah, yeah, because otherwise you know it's designed to do what it's designed to do, which was answer questions, and it's trainable. We need to take the responsibility now to train it properly, because you don't just want to leave it to all the guys in Silicon Valley, because then you'll get what they think is acceptable, which may be very different in other countries.

Speaker 1: 32:08

Yes, good that you mentioned that, because the way of working there is different from many other ways of working Yep, and those who have been in close touch with that area know what the difference is right, so it's not always so human centric.

Speaker 2: 32:29

Yeah, you know, years ago again, I was as a director at a software team and you know, we had a big, big important meeting and one of my developers showed up and I said this is an important meeting. You're you were supposed to dress up. He said, well, I did. I wore a belt. Yeah, yeah, he had a t-shirt, jeans and a belt. That was dressed up. So you know, it's, it's, but ai is very similar and these guys are the ones programming the ai. So consider, you know, like you got to educate them, you also have to educate the ai. You know, just just wearing a belt with jeans and a t-shirt is not dressed up.

Speaker 1: 33:05

Depends on whom you ask and you can, exactly it depends on whom you ask.

Speaker 2: 33:10

Exactly, it depends on who you ask. But yeah, in our world at that point that was not dressed up, but again, like for a developer that was, he wore a belt.

Speaker 1: 33:22

Exactly Amazing. In what ways does AI enhance innovation and agility in business, and how does this technological evolution demand a shift toward more visionary, emotionally intelligent and continuously improving leadership? I'm trying to take it down to leadership every time, every round, because if we can change leaders mindset, if we can open up on that level, then it will be really difficult to navigate further yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 34:00

And again, you know this is one of those where it goes back to training it on your company values. And, um, now your company actually has to operate on those values and not all of them do they say hey, these are our values.

Speaker 2: 34:14

And I went oh, you don't exhibit any of those, but assuming they do, you still need to train the ai on that. Otherwise the ai is again, it's going to give you the most efficient answer, which may not be the best answer aligning with your values. So can it be used to expand an organization, things like that, keeping in mind your values only if you train it on your values. So that a lot of it. I know I keep going back to the training, but it really does go back to the training. So until it's properly trained, don't just say, hey, what's the best answer to this question. It's got to take in a lot of different factors to say what is the best answer, because the best answer might not be the most efficient answer, but the most efficient answer may not be the best answer. So it can be definitely used after it's trained and the more people interact with it, the better.

Speaker 2: 35:13

Unfortunately, a lot of people at the higher levels don't want to interact with it. That's somebody else's job. But they're the ones driving the corporation. They're the ones who sort of are responsible for maintaining those values and ensuring those values are instilled throughout the company, and they need to start looking at AI. It is a tool, but it's kind of an employee too, and you've got to make sure those values are instilled in the AI, otherwise the answers coming out of it will not represent those values. So true, I wonder what are the other reasons to why, especially people that are not that familiar with technology? So a lot of a lot of the leaders would just say oh, there's another thing I got to learn. I don't want to learn another thing right now, I just want it to work. And uh, I I get that answer from from several CEOs when I go into companies and they'll say, yeah, I don't actually want to know how it works, I just want you to do it.

Speaker 1: 36:35

I have heard this approach as well. I have seen it Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 36:39

So now, well, I've got to learn all their corporate values. And if you're not valuing the AI, who else are you not valuing? And do you need to know everything about it? No, should you know what it can do for you if it's set up properly? Yes, you don't need to know how to set it up, that's fine. But you got to know what the tool is you just bought and how it works. Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:09

Rob, with rapid advancements in AI technology, what emerging tactical trends do you foresee that will further empower companies to break the 10 million barrier, and how should leaders balance investments in technology with the development of their teams?

Speaker 2: 37:28

Well, you know, it's like we were kind of talking about earlier. Ai is constantly being trained by a lot of people. The more it learn and learns properly and I know that's not a very succinct way of saying that, but you know, like values, personality, things that matter to others then it provides better and better information as time goes on. So, for instance, when I started working with AI on business plans, it struggled with a lot of areas of business planning. Now it gets better and better and better all the time. So, as it continues to advance, it gets more, more valuable, more efficient, more effective, and for most companies, ai is not a huge investment. There's a lot of automation that they buy that is, you know, 100 times more expensive than AI. It's realizing, though, that there's a time investment. So it's not the money, which is a lot of, so it's it's not done. It's not the money, which is a lot. A lot of executives look at well, what does it cost me? This is what I got to pay for my monthly subscription. Well, no, now you need to pay somebody to train it. Now you need some pay somebody to make sure it's implemented properly. But once that is done, the value should be, you know, 10 times what you paid in that investment to set it up properly.

Speaker 2: 38:55

And if you're not growing, we used to say, okay, if you're not growing 300% year over year, we've done something wrong in marketing. Yeah, and we. You know. When I was with a former company, we guaranteed 300% a year. How can you guarantee it? Well, when we were onboarding that person, we made sure we could get 1,000% ROI. So guaranteeing 300% was easy. We knew we could get 1,000%, but even there people go 300%. That's insane. No, not so much.

Speaker 1: 39:35

Once again, you know it depends on the track record and on the projections, on the leadership vision, et cetera. Well, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 39:46

And that's again where it comes back to the mindset. Okay, it's like yes, we can bring in the marketing, we can bring in the clients. Can you grow the company? Can you deliver on that? Do you have the leadership skills to bring in the right people that are capable of building your company so you can deliver on that? And you know, like this is more AI and more of what I do is marketing. But when I've been in operations, those are the questions we ask Okay, we can get you the leads, we can get them fully sales qualified. They're ready to buy. You need a sales team now to close them. Then you need a team to onboard them, Then you need a delivering team to actually deliver your products and services. And they go oh, that's a lot of work. Yeah, and if you're not prepared to do that, you got the wrong mindset. Don't try and grow your company.

Speaker 1: 40:42

Once they see that list with million dollar questions, they start realizing that there is more to it. It's not only about what they thought they needed, but it covers so many other areas which need some kind of adjustment and fine-tuning.

Speaker 2: 40:54

Yeah, it's like, wow, we just need more leads. Great, here's where AI starts to come in. You go okay, if they get more leads, what's the next bottleneck? Boom, you got to solve this problem. Then you got to solve this problem. Then you got to solve this problem. Then you got to solve this problem. Then you got to solve this problem. And that's where you turn around and go did you think of any of these? No, that's where AI can be really useful.

Speaker 2: 41:20

It's good at research. It's good at research and coming up with things. Writing is getting way, way better, video way better, but then there are some things that it still isn't good at. So you know, research, not enough people use it for research. Everyone says just write the script. Well, you don't even know who you're writing the script for. What they want, what's important to them, it'll come up with a script. May not be a good script because you didn't give it any research. Yeah, packed on. Yeah, not be a good script because you didn't give it any research, yeah, yeah. So so I I think a lot of the what-ifs like we used to use.

Speaker 2: 41:55

You know excel and do financial what-ifs all the time now, even if you weren't in finance, just being a director of a software team, I was all constantly doing well, what if this happens? What if this happens? Ai can now. Hey, what are the 18 things I need to consider that I hadn't considered before? That may impact our business? It'll tell you and then you can start drilling down and drilling down, and drilling down.

Speaker 2: 42:21

But somebody has to know to ask those questions. And that's again where you know the mindset piece. Like, you can hire a very good technical person who knows AI, but if they don't know business, they won't ask the right questions. Look at it as this is a growth thing. It's not just do they know the tech? Well, do they know how to grow a business? Do they know the questions to ask? You know, are we asking the right questions as the executive? What questions should the executive be asking about this? He's really good at that stuff, but so much is focused on hey, I can make this amazing cat video and people like, wow, that's, that's great, that's great. Okay, what does that have to do with business? Yes, it's a great cat, but it can do so much more. There's too many technical people out marketing AI rather than marketing people out marketing AI.

Speaker 1: 43:19

And marketing. People is trying to avoid it oftentimes, and it both surprises and shocks me.

Speaker 2: 43:26

Yeah, you know, a lot of times the CEO will say we need to be doing AI, doing ai. Yeah, yeah, we agree, we agree. Who do we give it to the it department? Like no, yes, they're technical, but no wrong department. You know who who loves it? Like I get the best traction from sales executives because, like hey, wait a second, you can do all the market research and give us fully sales qualified appointments. Yeah, automated. Yeah, we need that.

Speaker 1: 43:59

The marketing people are going, no, no, we don't want to do that unbelievable and know it makes me think about a conversation I had earlier today, exactly today, with a fantastic leader who has been working for Apple for so many years, and we were discussing exactly those questions when does AI belong? Is it IT, is it something else? Is it IT, is it something else?

Speaker 2: 44:49

And we mentioned that actually R&D is something. What can benefit from having access to that? So much and marketing, and it doesn't belong to IT in the same way as it's used to be attributed to it. Yeah, you know, like I ran IT departments, so I do understand.

Speaker 2: 44:56

But there was always a disconnect between IT and the company because the company thought, well, it can do everything, and IT would sit there in front of the computer and go tell me what you needed to do, because they didn't know they're not manufacturing experts. They're. You know they're not manufacturing experts, they're not engineering experts, most of them. What would you need the program to do? And the business would go we don't know we could do what we need. Well, it doesn't know what you need. The programmers don't know what you need. Now, fortunately, ai is being trained enough in the background that it's got a good idea of a lot of what you need now. But yeah, you know, don't expect your IT department to be able to write you an application if they don't know what you need. Don't give them the AI if they don't know the questions to ask Right.

Speaker 1: 45:44

Coming back to the question of importance of cross-functional collaboration, because that is crucial.

Speaker 2: 45:52

Yeah, and you know it's really. It's one of the reasons I was able to progress in my career is because I had a technical background, but I also had a business background. You know, I studied accounting, I studied finance, I studied marketing, I studied IT. I could bring them all together and speak to both sides and say, okay, this is what we need to build based on what the business is telling me. Ai is very similar. It's like okay, we need a business plan, do we? What do we need to put in the business plan Exactly?

Speaker 1: 46:24

And actually I also see the need of those experts who have a broader education, broader vision and a broader range of knowledge and I belong myself to that type of people who actually have different types of both educations and experiences to put them all together and apply technologies accordingly. But I see that there is not enough people like that working with AI.

Speaker 2: 47:02

Well, I think a big part of the problem when I was coming up through the ranks and the leaders would always say you need to specialize, specialize, specialize. Those are the people that make the money. And then eventually I got a CEO said you know, rob, being a good generalist is a specialty too, because a lot of people don't know. I, you know, I know I've worked in pretty much every department, from accounting to HR, manufacturing, like I've worked in all those departments. So when I got into IT and started going up those ranks, I knew how to support them because I knew what they did. So it was the same with AI. It's like well, how do you know what questions to ask? And people say you come up with the weirdest questions. No, I come up with business questions.

Speaker 1: 47:56

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 47:57

I don't just say you know well who's my client and what do they want. I say, well, what do they want? What do they need right now? What are they willing to pay for? People go you ask what they're willing to pay for. Well, why wouldn't you? It's way easier to sell to them if you know what they're willing to pay for.

Speaker 1: 48:14

And that's the difference and I love that definition that a good generalist is actually a specialty and it's so undervalued so often, unfortunately.

Speaker 2: 48:27

Yeah, now I mean really, if you think about it, a CEO's job is to make sure the company operates. So they need to know enough to recruit the right VP of finance, the right, you know VP of sales, right VP of marketing. You may not be an expert in those areas, but you need to know enough that you can recruit those people. So they say be a specialist. Well, that sort of cuts off a career path.

Speaker 1: 48:56

So true, so true, rob. I love this conversation and I enjoy your insights and those golden nuggets we are finding along our conversation so much. But now, if you had to offer one piece of strategic advice for business leaders looking to combine AI with a winning mindset, emphasizing both cutting edge technology and the cultivation of emotional intelligence and soft skills, what would that be and what key performance indicators should they track then?

Speaker 2: 49:30

So I think, wow, that's a good question. So there's good things and bad things about the world right now. There's so much information out there. Not all of it's good information. That's part of the problem. So I would say you know, if you're looking to do, you know, personal development, mindset, things like that find the people that have trained, people that have gotten results and the kind of results you want. So, like there's people out there that are billionaires, they may not be very nice people. If you want to be a nice person, don't go train with the people that train them. You know, get, get training on people that are producing the lifestyle, the, the results, whatever that you are looking to produce. So that's, that's the first step train with the right people. The other is you know, you don't have to know everything. Again, going back to the whole generalist specialist, you just need to know enough to hire the right people, and they may not be who you originally thought they were.

Speaker 2: 50:36

You know again, for instance, like do you hire a technical person to do AI or do you hire a business person to do AI? If you want a better business solution, you hire a business person who understands the AI. And really, you know the KPIs or the measurements are is your company growing? So that's obviously the first one. You know purpose of a company is to make money. Is your company growing? What's your turnover rate of employees? Are they staying, are they leaving? Are you creating the kind of culture people want to work for, because that is long-term sustainable if you've got a good business model, but if you can't keep your employees, it doesn't matter what your business model is, because they keep leaving and taking all that knowledge with them. So the KPIs are really that's where you sort of get into.

Speaker 2: 51:23

Well, it's hard to measure happiness, but you know, I used to have a CEO and he would walk the entire plant and the plant was huge, like you needed a golf cart basically to get around the plant. He would walk it every day just to see how were people doing, how did they feel? Were they smiling, were they depressed all the time. That was his measurement and it's hard, it's not like a. This is the exact score kind of measurement, but it's like a are people happy working here? Are your clients happy? Do they stay with you? How long do they stay with you? Are they constantly leaving? Are they giving you bad reviews on social media? Are they giving you good reviews on social media? Are you even talking to your clients? You know things like that.

Speaker 2: 52:05

Where it's it's it's harder to give it an empirical KPI, but it's like you kind of know if your people are happy. The empirical ones are yeah, are you growing? Are your clients referring other clients? How much business are you getting from referral process? Those are good indicators that your clients are pretty happy with the job you've done for them. They're sending their friends. So things like that start to become far more important in the challenges. Some of them are hard to measure, but even if you can't measure them exactly be aware of them Think about that, you know it's. It's one of those things.

Speaker 1: 52:45

I absolutely love your recommendations. I absolutely love your recommendations and I can conclude it in a simple way. How I have heard everything through my praise. It's use your data and feel the energy, and then you will know.

Speaker 2: 53:05

Yeah, it's not hard to figure out. If your staff are not happy, you should be able to tell that real quickly. And you know what it means getting out of your office.

Speaker 1: 53:19

It means walking around amongst your staff, yes, and unhappy people actually can't create that exponential growth. Yep, sustainably, at least it might work in a short-term perspective, but it's not going to be sustainable, and that's exactly what is important. So I absolutely love the wisdom and the spirit you shared with us today, and all your recommendations and highlights and insights. I so appreciate you. Thank you so much, rob.

Speaker 2: 53:55

Well, thank you so much for giving me a platform and, you know, being able to get this message out to people. I think if more people adopt this sort of approach, I think small business really will be the backbone of the economy and we will start to change things. May not be instant, but we will start to change things.

Speaker 1: 54:11

May not be instant, but we will start to change things Absolutely, and at least we're changing things globally. So I know that people from different countries will listen to this and hopefully apply this knowledge and wisdom to avoid certain mistakes or speed up along their journey.

Speaker 2: 54:32

Yeah, absolutely. And for all those people out there, I love to travel and I love food, so you know, just hit me up if you need me.

Speaker 1: 54:40

Amazing. I agree, rob is absolutely amazing, so all the details are in the description. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us on Digital Transformation and AI for Humans. I am Amy and it was enriching to share this time with you. Remember, the core of any transformation lies in our human nature how we think, feel and connect with others. It is about enhancing our emotional intelligence, embracing a winning mindset and leading with empathy and insight. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes where we uncover the latest trends in digital business and explore the human side of technology and leadership. Until next time, keep nurturing your mind, fostering your connections and leading with heart.