00:05 - Jess White (Host)

So a huge welcome to the Networking Spark podcast. I am absolutely delighted to introduce you to somebody that I've worked with before in the past. In the early days of Spark, actually, when we started building, I had some amazing and wonderful sessions with a coach who really helped me to organise my thoughts and get my goals straight and just to help me with absolutely everything. To be honest, I've since then recommended him to other people who have said the same thing. He's just, he's like a brick. No, is that the right word? No, is that the right word? That's, that's probably the wrong words. Um, what's the word? Um? Like? Uh, really, really great support that you can always rely on. Brick does not sound right, but you know what I mean. Like he's very, very, very reliable. Excuse me, I'm having a moment. Um, I'd love to introduce without further ado the uh wonderful Rob Arnold. Rob, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Would you like to just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you currently are doing in your business?

01:15 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Yeah, sure, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me, Jess. I know it's long overdue that we had a nice chat on here and talked about what I'm up to, and it's been great catching up with you as well what the growth you've had with Spark, which has been fascinating. At the moment, you know my passion is coaching and mentoring. However, I've become very involved in the last 18 months two years in automations and in developing products for small business to basically help them streamline how they operate and to manage their time really effectively and take away some of the mundane jobs and get better results. So that's what I've been working on the last almost two years.

02:00

It's taken me a bit of time to get my head around it all, understand how AI fits into all of this and really take it from what is really quite a complex solution to making something really simple for everybody so everyone can understand it. So that's really what I've been focused on and we've been beta testing for about five months and, as you know, we've launched recently our product and we're now scaling the business. So that's sort of where and it's it's sort of um, it's quite my sticky product, because I I'm still passionate about coaching and mentoring and consulting people on how to grow businesses, but I'm giving them the tools now and they'll be teaching them how to use them to make it so much easier and much more cost efficient. So it's like a core product now. So that's how I relate to it.

02:49 - Jess White (Host)

So tell us what the business is called. What problem do you solve for business owners with this product?

02:56 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Well, as you know, most of my companies start with Simply all the brands that I've owned in the past. So this is Simply Growth Engine SGE Software. Simply Growth Engine the name was really. It was about what it did for businesses. I want to incorporate my core brand of Simply so it helps. It's like an engine that will help you grow your business by sorting out all of your data, all of your automations, all of your marketing. Sorting out all of your data, all of your automations, all of your marketing. So what it solves for small businesses it allows you to operate like big businesses have done for a very long time. They've used a lot of this technology historically to grow their very big brands of users.

03:42

It used to be very, very expensive to be able to obtain the access to this type of software, and what's happened now is, with the advent of advances in technology, with AI, it's now democratised the ability for small businesses to mimic what big businesses have been doing for a long time, and what that means is a small business can use things like keeping in touch with their customers, because one of the things that small businesses are terrible at and I've worked with hundreds and hundreds, so I'm speaking from experience, they're not very good at keeping in touch with customers and nurturing relationships so that they they win business, because most people won't buy straight away. So you get, I think the stat is, if you believe stats, three percent of the opportunities is that wants to buy now, here and now. Today, when they're looking for the solution, the vast majority are interested or maybe even unaware of the problem and they're just kicking around trying to find ideas and solutions. They know they've got some sort of problem and those are the people that might make an inquiry. But it's the follow-up and the systemising that follow-up and keeping in touch and nurturing relationships until they become customers, so that money that's left on the table is now going back into the till. So that's really what it's about. It's about helping small businesses market effectively and use automations and technology to their advantage, which they've not been able to do until quite recently.

05:14

And also, when I work with clients, I also show them other tools that we use with, you know, our day-to-day running, our company to help them speed up. You know, I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. So I use an app called Gammaapp. Gamma creates presentations.

05:35

So if you ever had to do a PowerPoint presentation? I've done hundreds over the years, thousands probably, of PowerPoint presentations or even Adobe documents or pitch decks. Or you want to share sponsorship information with potential sponsors? Well, gamma will create that for you with a small prompt and some information, and it's beautiful. It used to take me hours and hours. I used to pay a designer and do all that sort of stuff. Now I use a bit of software which uses AI and it literally creates it in less than five minutes. So that's a massive time saving and a massive resource saving. So that's the sort of stuff we do.

06:11

We've got our own software, but we also share other softwares with our clients to say, look, you know, use these other tools because it's got to make your life so much easier. It frees you up to spend time on the important stuff, because it's the we. I don't know if you find this, but you get drawn into the like, the minutiae of things that don't make you money and things that don't move the needle on your business, and that's the challenge. So this software allows you to set up a system that takes away those, those tasks, those mundane, those routine things, and helps you market effectively and lets you focus on moving the needle so you can grow your business very long answer sorry no, not at all.

06:51 - Jess White (Host)

So, obviously, we've had like a huge rise in AI recently and there's been a lot of kind of concern and worry that it's going to be taking away, um, people's jobs, and that is for sure. Uh, that is going to happen, yes, to an extent. However, I think I believe we need to change our focus on this and just say well, how can we use it to our, you know, to help small businesses grow, and I think it's excellent for small businesses, because when you're starting a business and you're growing it, you don't necessarily have the extra funds to be able to pay staff, and so that's where AI can step in, and it can be like just having extra staff members doing jobs for you, but instead you're using AI and I'm really interested in what you were talking about with the Gamma tool. Does that actually create the slides for you as well, if you're doing a presentation, everything it's fait accompli.

07:45 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Yes, it literally does the whole thing, um, and it does it. You need to give it the text and it will create it from the text you give it, or you give it a prompt and it will then create something that you know. It tries to understand your prompts. The better the prompt, the better the output. I use it. With um, I actually have the information I want to put into the document. I drop that into the text and make a beautiful document for me, and it gives you loads of templates you can pick from. You can do bespoke, customised ones, and then you can decide how much information goes on each slide and then it just does everything for you. And oh, you've just got to try it, Jess, it's like my go-to tool. See what I've done now with that tool.

08:22

You know you work with VAs, I work with VAs, remote VAs, so I've trained my VAs now to use these tools. So not only have I got rid of some of the sort of minutiae, the stuff that has to be done, that task-orientated stuff it needs to be done, but I don't want to get caught up in it and I also want to give them some more complicated tasks. But I'm worried about the outputs and then I have to go in and check everything and is it right? Well, now I've trained them on using these apps. They're actually doing high level work for me and it's costing me eight to ten dollars an hour with the apps. When you try getting that sort of work done at that level, that cost less, you know.

09:00

So it's a. I even use it to recruit. I mean, I've done a YouTube video on how I do it. But I use AI, I use ChatGPT on this to actually recruit my VAs and vet the job description versus the applicants and then do my shortlisting for me. But yeah, I mean there's so many applications, you've got to get into it. You know you've got to research it and find out about these things. As a small business owner 100%.

09:27 - Jess White (Host)

By the way, I've thought of the word that I was trying to think of. It wasn't brick, it was rock. You are a rock rock, not a brick!

09:34 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

A rock, that was the one I was trying to think of, somebody called me a brick house once, but I think that's quite a derogatory term.

09:43 - Jess White (Host)

They were using um as soon as I said break, I knew it was wrong, but yeah, it was rock. I was trying to think of um. It's that time of the day where my brain starts to need um, need a little bit help from ai, maybe. Um, so let's keep talking about ai, because I think this is really really useful to the listeners, because, um, most people that are listening to this podcast are business owners, so that, so we're aiming to share some tips and advice for business owners. Um, so give us a little bit of a summary of your top tools that you use. Which are your favourites? I'm sure there's a lot, but if you can just go into some of them, yeah, wow, I've actually I've just got my notes here just to remind me because there's so many of them now.

10:24 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Wow, I've, actually I've just got my notes here just to remind me because so many of them now that I use. But there are some, uh, some ones that I use every day and then when you get once, you get into them and you start using them, you'll think how did I manage before I had this uh bit of software. So the first one I use nearly every day is one called Veed V-E-E-D dot I-O, Veed I-O. That is brilliant for you know, when you want to put a like, you want to record something like we're recording this now, you want to record your screen and you want to record maybe a slideshow, to make it into an MP4, you know, so you can have it as a video. It does all that for you, but it is the AI built into it.

11:05

So I never look at the camera. You'll notice I'm all over the place. Well, thatAIwill correct that for me and when it'll then adjust it. So I'm always looking at the camera. I'd have to worry about it. I just click a button and it adjusts it and then the end product is I'm always looking, talking to the camera, perfectly, and you can, you know yeah, I know it's, it's nuts it takes away background noise. Uh, you can, you can put overlays, so you can, you can make effects on there really easy. I mean, I'm not an editor, but I've learned editing using Veed and it's like I can create fantastic things. And, again, I've trained the other guys to use it as well. And we share an account because you have multiple people on the account. So if you want to create, you know youtube how to's, or you want to share something with a client, so if you want to, you know people use Loom and stuff. This is so much better.

11:51

It also will translate into any language so you can have. You can then say okay, do that in Mandarin for me please. And then there's me speaking Mandarin, explaining something in Mandarin I mean it's nuts, absolutely so Veed is one uh, it's nuts, absolutely so. Veed is a powerful editing tool. You can put subtitles on it, you can make it light up and all those special effects We'll have to see, Rob, whether we can use that on a podcast.

12:14 - Jess White (Host)

Have you heard of anyone using it on a podcast?

12:17 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

I haven't, but I just love it. I mean, I literally am building some courses at the moment for me and for some other clients and for creating simple videos on how to do something and then dropping them into a course and making it like a course that you charge for. You can, I can build a course in a day. I can. Literally it's all branded, you can have the background, you can drop in logos behind it and you can even have avatars. You don't even need to appear in it. You can have an avatar. You and they will do it for you. They'll appear on the screen.

12:50 - Jess White (Host)

So check out that one. It's the only thing I'd be worried about with that is, things looking particularly for a podcast. Initially I thought, oh, we could use that for a podcast and it could, you know, cover over me saying silly things like calling you a brick, um.

13:05 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

But um with podcasts.

13:07 - Jess White (Host)

It's real, isn't it? So the only worry I have sometimes with AI is it might look too polished and you might be able to tell that it's ai. What are your thoughts?

13:18 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

yeah, no, I, I agree with that and I've been playing around with the avatar. Thing isn't perfect yet. It's getting there, but it's certainly not. I mean, you can actually you know, I think HeyGen do it as well. I think you've looked at that one where you can actually record yourself and it will then have you. But it's great if you're sitting there and you're just doing some hand gestures like that and then the AI is talking. The lip syncing is quite good now.

13:46 - Jess White (Host)

But great for a company that wants to go global, if you want to go global and you've got courses and you can train videos.

13:49 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Oh my God, training videos is perfect. So, um yeah, so Veed is is my go-to for anything to do with, uh, video creation and editing. I do all on there now, uh, because it's again. I used to use Adobe the Premiere Pro thing. It's very complicated and I like to get lost in it. I'd spend a whole day on it and I'd go. I still haven't got the output I'm looking for, so I've switched, because that just allows lay people that aren't trained editors to create some really, really good work.

14:20 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, I think quite soon we'll be calling things like Adobe and you know we'll start to call things old fashioned. With all of the rise of AI and all of these amazing apps, then what we've been using before will just be a thing of the past, potentially.

14:37 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Yeah, I mean. The thing is. I mean there's thousands of these apps popping up and there's going to be some winners and losers, so I guess it's the ones that get funding and get traction they're going to be there in the future. We'll keep developing and getting better. I think a lot will go by the wayside. I don't think everything will be there in the future, because there's just there's, like you know, 50 companies doing the same, you know, solving the same problem, and I think whoever gets the funding and has the best solution is that to be the winner and most people will use that particular solution. I think there's room in the market for a number of them, but there's just vast. You know there's so many to choose from.

15:12 - Jess White (Host)

And it's knowing what to use and how to use it. But that's why I'm interviewing you, Rob, because you know all about these. So what's your next one that you would recommend that you like?

15:23 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

OK, this is for Anybody that uses YouTube. So there's a thing called TubeSift.com. Now, how about this? For, like, John Lee showed me this, but I didn't know this. So John Lee taught me this. I didn't know about it before. So he said you've got to use TubeSift. I said why? And he said look, you can literally target your competitors with your ads, with your video ads. So TubeSift will go in onto YouTube with your ads, with your video ads. So TubeSift will go in onto YouTube. You type in what it is that you do and it will find all of your competitors that allow video advertising on their channels. It gives you a list and you say like I want 100 or you want 200 or 500, whatever in a list, and then you can drop that into YouTube advertising. You can say put my ad at the start of all of their videos. So there's an example. Well, we'll say you know Neil. So he's obviously an upholsterer, he's got the Academy upholstery course. We can drop his ads in front of all of his competitors.

16:27 - Jess White (Host)

We must give Neil a mention. Facelift Academy, that is.

16:31 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

The Facelift Academy. Yeah, absolutely. What a great guy this is incredible.

16:35 - Jess White (Host)

Keep telling me all about it. Sounds amazing.

16:37 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

So I know we've got another mutual friend that you've introduced me to who is also trying to build the YouTube channel up. So if you want to find your ideal audience, so if you're, you know, for Neil's upholstery, so any DIY diy youtubers, any interior designer youtubers, any other upholsterers that have got a decent following, you can literally plonk your ad at the start of their how-to video on something. So the first thing that the person sees is your brand. You know saying look, come on, we teach you this.

17:10 - Jess White (Host)

You know, depending on the clients, almost like you're sponsoring them.

17:14 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Yeah, okay, you're not obviously it's cheeky ad, but because? But they are if you're monetized. If you've monetized youtube, um, you allow advertising and it can be any. You know you don't skip to say who, who can and can't advertise on your channel, so that so TubeSift just allows you to go and do the research and find out who your competitors are. You can get a great big list and you can just literally tell the ad say, drop my ads on on all of the on those channels in front of their videos when people are watching them. And that's such a laser targeted ad, you know how to place them.

17:46 - Jess White (Host)

Oh, my God.

17:47 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

So um yeah, again kudos to someone else for sharing that with me. I didn't know you could do that until recently, but it's uh. It has a big impact on your results. I can tell you that amazing so yeah, that's another one which is really cool. Um, what was the other one I wanted?

18:04

to tell you about just have a quick look on my list, so a couple, a couple actually anything to do with voice, um, 11labsio is the one to go. They're by far the leader in terms of voice ai. So if you want to create, if you want to mimic your own voice or they've got, obviously you can mimic. You know, this is where we get into the territory of what you should and shouldn't do with ai. But they can have celebrity style voices as well. But Eleven Labs they've got free part of that where you can do some stuff for free on there. You haven't got to subscribe Very high quality any languages accents really, really the best one out there. If you're looking to sort of either mimic your voice or get really clear voiceovers in in multiple different accents. Even you know, um, culturally you can have, you know it just sounds so much better. So I'd say, look at that one for voice and the other really cool one that uh was shared with me again recently because I couldn't work out how people are doing live streams all the time. Like how, how are you like all over social media all the time on live streaming? Because it's you know, you've got to find time, you've got to have that. You know everything set up in the studio and everything else, and it's like how people doing that all the time. Well, there's an app called Restreamio. I don't know if you know this one, Jess, oh my God, you can literally pre-record your lives so you can go. So this again, this was from john. He said look, I'm on an aircraft. He said and I'm flying somewhere. He said and I'm live. I'm not really live. He said, because it's, I've already filmed it and we've used Restreamio to actually, um, you know, he edits it all in there and it's all in there ready, and then in the studio you can tell it when to go live and it goes live on all your channels. So it's all in there, ready, and then in the studio you can tell it when to go live and it goes live on all your channels. So it's like you doing your thing but you're not really there, and that's how you can get this sort of volume of. That's how these top guys are doing it. They're pre-recording everything and even share stuff. Like he said, like sometimes I have to make sure I've got the same shirt. That's on it, we've got them together because I've changed clothes and they're like how did that happen? People might say, hang on, you weren't really alive. So that's another really really useful app.

20:21

Wistiacom that's more for hosting videos, but the reason I mention Wistia is, if you are, you know, you've been trained or you understand about video sales letters and landing page videos. When you're trying to sell something, one of the things that's really important is do people watch that all the way through? So, using something like Wistia, it actually analyzes the view time and when people drop out of your videos and stop watching you the view time and when people drop out of your videos and stop watching you. So what you can then do is you can run multiple tests on multiple videos and have different. You know beginnings, middles and ends, what's quadrants? I split into four, typically and test those different, and then you can pick the winners and then what you get is you do all that testing within wistia. You can go well, you know video a the start's really popular, but then it drops off. You know so video. Video b everyone's, you know, watches that second segment and you can then stitch all that together and make the best, most engaged video through testing, which again is all people I'm talking to that are smashing, yet are testing the hell out of everything and using the software to do the analysis, to do the data analysis and go, okay, which bits work, which bits don't. So, yeah, that's another really, really useful one to use.

21:42

Yeah, I mean, I've got tons more, but I don't want to bore you with them all. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll share this. I mean, again, I've created this using the camera app. It's a lovely uh document, uh presentation. I'll share that with you and if anybody wants it, they can have it. There's a list of um really really useful um for small business, especially when you're marketing and we all need to market, we all need to sell whatever. Even if you're a service business or a you're selling widgets, you've still got to sell them and you've got to sell your services, so you've got to market and you've got to sell. These things will let you do that really fast and, even if you're not an expert, it will allow you to actually create some fantastic content.

22:24

And the final one, the very final one, which I know I've told you about we've created an AI ads platform which is outperforming most agencies. So it actually so it helps you create the ads with three clicks, you know. It'll even give you images and videos, stock images, or you can drop your own in and that will allow you to you. Literally, it's one button to connect your account to the AI. The AI will then say what do you want to advertise? And you go. You can say I want to advertise, I'm an estate agent in london, in the center of london, and I want to advertise that. It's okay. Then it will create an ad best it's been, it's been coached on all of the best ads in each niche and it comes up with a series of ads.

23:07

It doesn't just do one ad, it'll do 50, 50 versions of it for you and it does it in seconds. And they'll go okay, what's your budget? How much do you want to spend a day? And you go okay, I just want to spend 20 pounds a day. 20 pounds a day. What platform do you want to put this on? Do you want it on Insta? Do you want it on? All done for you, and you can turn it off within the platform. Turn it on and it literally does the whole thing for you. Now you talk about jobs affecting jobs.

23:38 - Jess White (Host)

Well, agencies are using this software, not telling people yeah, or people might have somebody in-house yeah, you've got an in-house person 90 grand plus or who knows what know to be an ads manager. Now, this piece of software is going to put those jobs at risk, for sure, uh. But this is like.

23:59 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

This is a total secret source, isn't it well, look it's, uh, yeah, game-changing stuff because, um, once you get into it you think how did I manage before I was using all this? And also the the cost-wise. You know you're spending maybe hundreds of pounds a month where you would normally spend maybe 10,000. One company I ran, we were spending about £8,000 a month on the agency that were running our ads for us £8,000 a month.

24:23

Well, this does that now and it cost me less than £500 pounds for any amount. So, yeah, it's like. So, yeah, I mean, my advice is um, get involved. You know I'm, I'm, you know, older than most. You know older than you know most people. I've learned this stuff in recent years. Anybody can learn this and apply it, and the reason I learned about it is because I am lazy and I want to find is there an easier way to do this and still make the same amount and still deliver the same quality?

24:54

Um, and secondly, it fascinates me. You know, I was watching a video. Actually, I'll show what's his name, I mean, Geoffrey Hinton. He's the godfather, apparently, of AI. Watch the video clip of him. What fascinated me, Jess, is that no one knows how it works. Seriously, they've created something that is self-learning but no one really knows how it works. It's a bit like the human brain. So they've created this human brain with synapses and you know, and it's learning everything, but no one knows how. That's the scary bit. It's like we're not going to be the most intelligent thing on the planet soon.

25:36

And I will be, and that's the scary bit for me it's like you know, which is why I won't talk about the things like the safety and the protocols and things that are happening globally, to make sure that the other thing very quickly. So they were saying you know it shouldn't have biases. And it does, because if it's trained on data where the humans that created the data were biassed in some way, that translates into the AI and that's some of the outputs are biassed because that's the data it's been trained on. When you get into habit or you know how they train these things and what goes into them, it's fascinating because it's they have to have all these checks and balances in place and sometimes I actually can't do that because we haven't got enough pure data to to actually give it, to get the outputs we're looking for.

26:19 - Jess White (Host)

But yeah, it's fascinating, absolutely. It's exciting times, isn't it,Rob ? It's really exciting and for a lot of people it's also really scary. So exciting and scary at the same time and great. Just great for entrepreneurs, because most entrepreneurs a fact I learned recently most, I just assumed most entrepreneurs work really, really hard and get up super early, like I do, but apparently not.

26:44

Apparently most entrepreneurs are lazy, I've been told, and you just proved it by saying that you are um, but I know that you're not. I think you're just saying that because I, I 100% know that you're not um, but yeah, I think it just opens up so many doors for growth, um, but you know, it is like the wild west, um, a little bit. Like you know, crypto, uh, has been sort of growing and growing and growing and it's like, well, it's everything and same with ai, it's growing so fast and there's so many sort of growing and growing and growing and it's like, well, it's everything and same with AI, it's growing so fast and there's so many sort of things popping up and it's like, well, where, you know, how are there going to be any kind of anybody, any governments, wanting to control it? Because it's going. You know, it's really growing at a rate of knots and so many things are popping up.

27:37 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Have you got any thoughts on the safety of AI? Yeah, well, look, I was listening to something this morning, actually um on, particularly on that subject, and the us have actually um done an executive order because the military and now soAIis not getting away, because the military are now using ai, which is another scary thing, especially with the us um industrial complex, but the um they've created like checks and balances and actually a whole um department, huge department, that is looking at and they're working with other collectively, other departments and other people globally to actually say, look, you know, we've got to have some safety measures here because there's been some incidents where with the robotics, where they've, you know, lives have been lost because of it, because they're, you know, it's gone, you know rogue. So, yes, that you know. I think the problem is the innovators. It slows down that innovation process when there's these checks and balances and rules and regulations. It doesn't any industry.

28:26

You know I came through financial services now I was in that pre-regulation and you know, literally it was, everything was quick, you could do things on the back of a fact packet, almost, you know, shake hands and you do a deal and then the regulation come out. But it was a brilliant thing he did because it put all these checks and balances in place to make sure that it isn't the wild west and you know even things like stealing people's data. It's like you know because it doesn't only differ. TheAIwas just pulling in data for wherever, especially with web access. Um, the other thing is is it correct, is the data correct that it's actually pulling in? So there's got to be a like, you've got to have a sense. Check sometimes when you're, especially when using ChatGPT is the output actually accurate? Because you can't assume it's accurate because it's we're not quite there yet.

29:08 - Jess White (Host)

So yeah, I mean there's, there's a lot going, I mean there's a lot going on with it.

29:11 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

There's a lot going on with there's sort of a bit of a battle between the innovators and the people that want to make sure that it's safe.

29:19

The innovators want to go oh, let's go, hell for leather, and you know we'll get there quicker. But then they're like, well, you know, if we've all watched Terminator, you know we've got to be a little bit sensible with this. So, um, so it's fun, that balance and the. You know the Americans are leading the way on that and they're the ones saying look, you've all got to rein yourselves in a little bit and and you've got to be accountable. And they've said they've put out a code of practice. So there's actually a working document, a playbook that they all have to well, they're all supposed to utilise when they're developing these applications. So, yeah, there's a lot going on and there's a lot going on with um, trademark um violations and and plagiarism and all sorts, which, again, it's going to what you know. Eventually it'll work itself through, but it is a little bit like the wild west, yes, at the moment still yeah, it is.

30:05 - Jess White (Host)

It is exciting but scary at the same time. But um still really good to talk to people like you in the know who are investigating it and you know and are able to kind of um advise on the best tools, because it can be overwhelming for some uh to know when, with so many tools coming in, like which ones should they use uh. So it's always good to kind of talk to people that are getting good results from them. So, and really exciting that you're kind of building those into the CRM platform now that you're providing businesses with so really exciting. We'll put all of your details in the show notes, by the way, so if anyone wants to get in touch, they can do.

30:45 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Yeah, I'm happy to help anybody. And a quick point, Jess. Just one very quick. This is really important, this one, especially if you're new to AI and new to using ChatGPT. If you're using a free version of ChatGPT, your data is not secure. So if you're dropping in commercially sensitive information to chat GPT, it will use it however it sees fit and it can share that out to other people. Just bear that in mind. You've got to have the paid version, which then, you know, puts a fence around your data. So it's a really important one, because what you don't want to be doing is dropping in. You know, doing data analysis, You're dropping in all your sales data and everybody's data protection is. You know you'd have a breach on your hands potentially if you did that. So that's just an important one, for if you didn't know, that's really important and good advice.

31:33 - Jess White (Host)

Um, I didn't know, but I I do use the paid version one personally, but it's really great for everyone else out there to know that, because there are a lot of people that you know are still just kind of experimenting with it, and what I love about ChatGPT is just the fact that it gets to know you and then questions, answers to questions become easier, because it knows what your business is about already and it's really clever, I think.

32:02 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Have you got time to share one more thing, Jess, you've got as much time as you like, yeah, 100% to share something which is quite new, um, and we've got the ability to do this now and it's so new we haven't rolled it out anybody yet, but others have there's, and I know there's some posts on youtube from um, from meta and other people about it. It's a thing called AI agents sounds a little bit ominous, isn't agents? But an AI agent is basically something that's been trained on data to do something and we've got those within the CRM now so we can train that AI agent to say, as an example so you've heard of ManyChat?

32:38 - Jess White (Host)

I'm sure you've heard of ManyChat where it can answer responses so for anyone that doesn't know, ManyChat, it's an Instagram tool, I think, isn't it Whereas you can put a post out and if somebody replies with a word that you tell them to, then ManyChat sends them an instant reply, a direct message with an instant reply. Have I explained that properly, Rob ?

33:02 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Yes, really good explanation, Jess. That's exactly how ManyChat works and you have to program it a little bit and tell it what the words are and what you want it to do. But anAIagent goes it's like that on speed, because it does that but you actually have a conversation for you with, with the individual. If you, especially if you've coached it on brand voice and how you speak and the words, the language that you use, it will actually um, it can reach out, you can give it, tell you what to do. So, look, I want you to. If someone comments on one of my posts, I want you to reach out with these questions and say oh, thanks for commenting on my post. Uh, is there anything you know? What in particular made you want to? You know, make the. You know, whatever the question is, it will actually have a conversation with them and then it will try and get them. You can tell it to have a purpose and say, look, actually I'd like them to follow me or I'd like them to DM me or whatever it is. You can actually train an agent to actually do that. So, rather than have loads of social media people running around as an example, you can have an AI agent and train it, and it's a fixed monthly cost and they never sleep. This is 24-7. And you can give it more than one task.

34:04

An example is there's a pizza restaurant. It does voice as well. So there's a pizza restaurant in America, um, and the guy shared with me what they've done. They've trained the AI. So it answers the phone for the pizza restaurant. He goes hi, how can I help you? This sounds really human. It's a really good voice must be 11 laps, um, and it answers. He said like. He said oh yeah, can you tell me, like, what your special offers are at the moment? Oh yeah, well, what's the best pizza? Oh well, the most popular pizza at the moment is the tandoori chicken pizza. Would you like to order? And it's like oh no, what else have you got? And it chats with the customer voice chat like it's a human, and then it goes okay, would you like to make the order online or can I take the order off you now, sir? Oh, I'd like to order now. Okay, just repeat that. Okay, yeah, that's ordered now. That'll be delivered in about 25 minutes and it does the whole thing.

34:52

This is the thing about the jobs thing. We're there now, we're not there in a year. This is now. This has just been. These are launched now, literally last week. You can do this, so it's like wow.

35:04 - Jess White (Host)

Better to look at it in the way that it can essentially save people money right, and if somebody does lose their job, then there's plenty of other things to do Be trained.

35:17 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Learn about AI.

35:18 - Jess White (Host)

Exactly, exactly. You've just got to have a creative mindset to do that.

35:23

It is a bad mindset mindset to do that, um, I think with, I think with bots, um, I'm I've got a slightly standoffish approach at the moment because I think they they need to come on quite a bit more. That version sounds excellent that you're talking about, but recently I had an experience where I was speaking with a tech company and realised very, very quickly that I was speaking to a bot. And the reason I was wanting to work with this tech company was because we'd had a Zoom call and I found them really friendly. And then, when I got a bot on WhatsApp and it was very confusing actually, first of all I thought I was speaking to the guys and it was answering in really weird ways and didn't make sense whatsoever. So I said you know what, don't worry about it, goodbye. And then one of the guys jumped on and realised so I think sometimes bots cannot replace humans.

36:20 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

I agree, and I think there's also. So give an example of a use case where you don't affect people's jobs. So there's another company that have salespeople and what they've got. They train the bot to reach out to all the people, all the leads, that have gone dead, they've gone cold, they haven't bought anything, they haven't done any business with them. And it trained the bot to re-reach out to those using SMS and using email and actually then voice as well. But what it did do do? He booked the salesman it. So he would say look, you know great, you know brilliant, I'm just an appointment taker. Can I just book that in with you? Know, Dave the sales guy? Uh, and yeah, yeah, and then literally I'll share your link. When they send a link, just click on the link and you can book him with and then it books in the human person to actually do the bit, the really important bit, which is the relationship bit.

37:02

It's never going to replace relationships. It's looking at your business and going look, you know, where can I make improvements? Where does this fit in and enhance my life? Give me back more time, save me more money, because it might allow you to take on other, higher level staff that will actually impact your business and move the needle more for you. So it's just a reorganisation of it's not a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if you live in fear of change, but it's going to happen. It's like saying, well, we were, we had horse and carts and were frightened of the cars. Well, that happened. They were frightened of the cars, but guess what happened?

37:38 - Jess White (Host)

The cars still came a lot of people are used to it. Yeah, exactly, but a lot of people are scared of change. It's the way, sometimes, our brains are wired up. Right, our brains are wired up to be fearful, you know, because of you know, just in case we're going to get eaten by a wild.

37:55 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Soak a tooth.

37:56 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So a lot of people still have that kind of instant reaction and I think we've got a long way to go. Go in terms of um, changing the way our brains work to not be, not be so fearful all the time. Um, but um,Rob . How do you think, or do you think,AIwould affect networking any in any way?

38:22 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

um, great question, Jess, and I think that it will enhance jokes. I'll tell you what's happening right now. This is also a covid thing as well. We get live events now and getting together and human interaction, real connections, are becoming. Everyone wants to do that, more so. So networking has become more and more popular, especially good networking.

38:43

We all know there's like you've got to find one that fits you, haven't you? Because there's different kinds of networking and I've tried most. Yours are fantastic. Um, I'm not a 6 30 in the morning person that you know. You know what I'm saying. So there's some people it suits them. So you've got to find what. What fits you. Ai, I think, frees up time to allow you to build those stronger bonds and connections with networking. So it's a good thing, I think. Use it effectively for the stuff you know. If you're busy, you know updating your spreadsheets and doing whatever you're doing to your day-to-day. If that can be taken away, you go. Actually, I'm going to go and see Jess and a whole bunch of really motivated, enthusiastic business owners who actually will lift my spirits. I'll feel connected. I'll come away mentally feeling better and you never know, there's some opportunity in there as well. How can it be a bad thing?

39:32 - Jess White (Host)

excellent. I tell you what one of the biggest issues that crops up because in spark, as you know, we have a group of members and we meet regularly and we we brainstorm and we mastermind as well as simply networking and passing on clients One of the biggest and most common issues that comes up for entrepreneurs and business owners is time management and productivity and how to fit it all in one day, and many of us, myself included, have said if only I could duplicate myself, if only I had, you know, eight arms, if only there were more hours in a day. Is such a common sort of thing between business owners and entrepreneurs. So it sounds to me like you have the answers here and it's Well, yeah, look, there's.

40:26 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

Look, you just reminded me of something. It hasn't been launched yet, but I do know about it. It's coming out of Silicon Valley and it's called MyMiniMeai and that actually learns to be you. You have to put loads of data into it, but basically you dump your brain into it and then it becomes another you and it will do all the things and it will sound like you and be like you. Basically, you dump your brain into it and then it becomes another you and it will do all the things and it will sound like you would be like you, and it can do all the tasks that you do. Um, again, not exactly, but it's going to free up from all the mundane stuff that you don't want to do, to let you do the things you do want to do.

40:58

You asked me a question, I think, previously, about you know living the perfect sort of business life. Everyone's individual. We all have a have a different. You know understanding of what that perfect business life and balance with personal life is. But I know one thing I've never seen that many unhappy people sat on a beach in Bali enjoying a drink. You know if your business is running smooth and the money's coming in and you can go back to where you want. Those aren't unhappy people, trust me, and it's like anything if you can.

41:28

Some people have like a blockage over money and something go, oh yeah, but I don't. I'm not bothered about the money. Well, you need to be bothered about the money because it's the money that funds everything and you can affect more people's lives. You can do more good by doing it better. So use AI to do it better, and you know, and free up your time and you might want to sit on the beach, you might want to spend more time helping others, whatever it floats your boat, but you know why. You know it's. So. It's actually the definition of madness, isn't it doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome? You know that is madness, so embrace it and learn you know.

42:02 - Jess White (Host)

I think that's a beautiful way of summing it up. Um, it really is, because a lot of us not everybody, but a lot of us and a lot of people I know they're ideal sort of you ask people where would you like to be in like five years time? A lot of people would like to be kind of just you know, just just chillaxed on an island or by a beach or doing something that they love, and so if we're able to use these new tools to be able to be more effective and to earn more money to be able to do the things that we want to do and also help and serve as many people as we can, then I just think that's a really positive way of looking at it and that's what we should do, for sure. So, speaking of which,Rob , so you've been coaching and mentoring for a long time.

42:51

You've been a successful business person yourself. You've had many, many businesses really, really successful throughout your time. I know your story. Feel free to go into it as much as you like, but I'd like this to lead to what sort of legacy you would like to leave on the world yeah, that's a, that's a really um, it's a big question.

43:14 - Rob Arnold (Guest)

I think it actually impacts you more as you age, because as you get older, you actually realise the finite. You know time is finite and you don't know how long you've got to be on the planet, and I guess it's. You know how do you? You know what do you leave behind? And because when you, when I was younger, I was very focused on personal and I measured personal success by, you know, having a big house, having nice things, going on holidays, my kids having everything they wanted. That's how I measured the success and actually what I thought. You thought, you think you'll get to a certain point and you go. You know what I feel really happy because I'm successful, and the two don't go hand in hand at all. I was actually miserable, you know. I said no, you got the perfect. I hadn't. I was really, really unhappy. I was working like a dog, I was flying all over the world and you know, quite honestly, and you know know, I've lost my marriage in the end. But you know, you think you know what you want and then, as time goes by I know we've had this conversation before, Jess, but it's about how you can impact others and how you can help. So that's why I got into I fell into coaching and mentoring because I actually was more interested in being an entrepreneur and running my own businesses. But then other people kept asking me oh done, how do you do this? And I go, oh, you don't just need to do that and you know that'll work and that's fine. Now I've done that before, that's, you know that, just just do that, it'll be great. And then they said, oh, do you coach? And I'm like, yeah, okay, and I'm just, you charge them I don't know. Um, so that's how I ended up being becoming okay. It wasn't through. And then I've obviously I've trained a little bit now and I've done some qualifications and stuff as well, just to help me to feel more professional in what I do.

44:48

But the point being, I learned through bitter experience, through failure, through things not working, through taking stupid decisions, and I learned more during those times and when things went well, because sometimes things are well. I didn't know why they went well. I think that we really worked well, but I don't know what I did. We just got a good result, and I think it's the times when you know you're successful in business when you can replicate something more than once. So you've got a system where you can do something and then you can close that and then you can do it again with maybe another niche or whatever. That, to me, is a definition of someone that's got it together. They know what they're doing. Having a one-off success isn't a success to me, and also is how you.

45:29

Measurement is very personal and it changes, so in terms of impact, I'd like to help as many, because I know it's like it's also, um, really tough. There's never enough time in the day. Um, it really affects everything in your life. You end up working, sometimes like for two pound hour, because you're doing so many hours and you think, because you don't, what should you get strategized? You don't think, actually, I should just borrow some money, hire the good people and let them do the work and then build the business, because then I can work on strategy. You think I want to do everything. I'm gonna wear this hat, that hat, this and I'm gonna oh, my God, I learn about CRM now.

46:01

It's like, oh, and that you know a lot of people get stuck there and what I like to do is go look guys, um, I can see how you're operating right now. Um, would you like me to help with that and show you a different way? And then we can get into the strategy and the mindset and the you know? Um, changing up. You know, before we even get into building out like systems and systemizing things and building the you know like an irresistible offer for your clients and all that sort of cool stuff we do, you've got to have a mindset change and changing your mindset from being a solopreneur or maybe having one or two people to get up to say 20, 25 people, 50 people.

46:35

It's a massive journey, it's a transformation and when you get to like 50 million turnover, that you know that's a whole. You become corporate. It's a completely different entity. So what excites me is helping startups grow to a certain level. My sweet spot is going from sort of zero to maybe 5 million turnover. I love that journey and I love helping people with it. So my impact would be I would help as many people as I can. And the other thing that's come up recently is the fact that kids don't learn this stuff. You know, at school they don't teach you how to be an entrepreneur. So for me it's like, you know, can we help kids learn. So I'm trying to work on something right now. I'm sharing this I don't know if you're sharing what I'm doing, really I guess but I'm working on some entrepreneurial coaching for children and I'd like to get that out for free.

47:25 - Jess White (Host)

You know entrepreneurial coaching for children and I'd like to get that out for free, you know. So that's the thing, yeah, yeah, great. Because, you know, I think I think more and more, um, young adults or young or kids, that are potentially making the decision of not going to university, not going and getting into heaps of debt, uh, because it's easier than ever these days to start a business, and so, you know, the more advice and help out there, the better. And certainly for you know, financial advice for children as well, is excellent. So I look forward to seeing those,Rob , and I think I'd love to invite you onto the podcast again, because you're a fountain of knowledge and we can just, um, you know, have a different topic next time, um, so if you're willing, um, that would be wonderful.

48:13

Um, I'm gonna wrap up now just to kind of keep to time, um, but thank you so, so much for coming on. There was bundles of tips there and, um, you know, real insight into the exciting world of ai. So thank you so much for your time, and all the notes show notes will be there. So if anyone wants to get in touch withRob , um, you'll be able to. Um and um. Yeah,Rob , it's been a pleasure knowing you. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast and looking forward to continuing working with you in the future yes, thank you so much, really appreciate it, and have a great rest of the day thank you.

48:53

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