[00:00:00] Kai: We're in a very interesting time. There's a lot of things that are changing. Yes. A lot, a lot of things that are changing quickly. Yes. And that will continue to change really quickly. Fast is gonna speed up.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's going to be become increasingly more challenging to keep up as a founder in particular, you're already wearing a bunch of hats, right. Whether you're a solopreneur or whether you have, you know, 150 employees. You're still in a position where you don't have a whole lot of time to keep up with that sort of stuff.

And so you really just need to make sure that you're being discerning, and that you're, you're having the right types of conversations to get to a level of granularity where you're comfortable with whoever it is that you've hired, whoever it is that you're tasking with using, whether it's AI or not, right?

[00:01:40] Tieron: Hey, Fran. Hey. So, you know, your boy about to be 9. 5 million richer. Oh, really? Yes. Okay, well, good times. Because, uh, based on bricks. Their dollar is going to be worth 55 to the US dollar. So I'm going to be, we're going, I'm going to be up, going to be up for it. So I may not be doing any more podcast episodes.

This is my last episode. I'm announcing that this is my last episode. I'm announcing it now, but no, but no, there's, there's been like a lot of volatility, you know, in the marketplace when it comes down to e commerce. Right. So, uh, even though I was serious about the, about the 9. the investment will be worth overseas.

If you know, they go ahead and take that bricks dollar. So, but at the end of the day, I still want America. I still want the U S dollar to be strong. But there is a lot of volatility. In the marketplace. And I definitely want to get into some of that as a, as it, um, relates to e commerce, right?

So Apple just released a new update. this is like their third update. I guess their second update since, um, 14. 

[00:02:45] Kai: 5. I think they've had, they've had a number of them, but I think this is the one that, they've had a number of updates that have not really impacted Right. Data tracking.

Right, right, 14. 5. Right. Um, but yeah, yeah, 17, 17's on the horizon. What is it? Thursday? September 

[00:03:01] Tieron: 1st? Basically. Yeah. Is when it's gonna go down. I don't want to sound like, you know, the alarmist or anything, but this one seems like it's going to impact email marketing bigger than some of the rest, right?

Because essentially what they're saying is that they're going to automatically delete tracking links that have been added to email. So iPhone user, you open it up, you click on the link that's been sent to you. , Safari is going to remove the tracking links. So you won't know where those sales came from as far as your email marketing is concerned.

[00:03:35] Kai: Yeah, the, the understanding is that it's likely going to impact about 20 to 25%. I've heard varying ranges. Right, I've heard 20%. It's, it's kind of hovered around 20, 25. There have been a few people who are probably more alarmist, I think. Right. Like, yeah, no, there's going to be 

[00:03:53] Tieron: problems. Right, right, right, right, right.

Everybody's put their own little spin on it. You put it in Google, you start to see all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Of course, this is the end. 

[00:04:02] Kai: It's not at all. I mean, I was 14. 5 wasn't the end either. But I think that there's just weren't prepared, right? 

[00:04:10] Tieron: I hear you in the comments. There are a lot of brands.

She crazy. 

[00:04:17] Kai: Listen, like there were a lot of brands that were not prepared. And in fairness, I think it, it It required like from agencies, marketers, freelancers, you know, like everybody needed some time to adjust and figure out, okay, how are we going to, how are we going to navigate this? How do we kind of move around this?

And I think a number of brands have, been really successful in that number of agencies have been successful in that. And many, many, many agencies have not to this day, which is so, I mean, if you're talking about like. Who's a, well, you won't name names, but there's a Facebook insider I had a conversation with.

Right, absolutely. That was like, uh, yeah, so there are like a ton of agencies that are literally like, they didn't even know anything about. So Cathy, 

[00:05:02] Tieron: like if you're listening to this part of the episode, if you listen to this part of the episode, we're going to delete this part to protect all of you agencies that are still running ads.

With the old 

[00:05:12] Kai: pixel, still running ads without having made Jesus, without their clients even knowing. Yeah, we're going to, we're going 

[00:05:20] Tieron: to, we're going to, we're going to click this part out. We're going to, we're going to edit this part out. We're not going 

[00:05:25] Kai: to edit. But I feel like, I feel like ultimately, 

what's happening with respect to I was 17. And honestly, any like this, this is par for the course. It is. You've been in the industry long enough. You've been in e commerce long enough for a business long enough. You know that inevitably changes in platforms occur, you know, changes in in the economy takes place.

There's some circle or some cycle rather of like economic uncertainty or wonky. And you're So if you've been here long enough, you already kind of understand the lay of the land in that regard. And you understand that you have to be agile 

[00:06:04] Tieron: with, I think what's interesting is, right. So I entered into the e commerce world by coming into it from the black hat SEO world.

So black hat SEO, and then I made the transition over into, Amazon first and then on to create my own Shopify store. And what's interesting is when you're in the SEO world, like. Google is dropping these updates like every six months. So it's almost like the perfect battleground for you to now come over here to, e commerce land.

And it's like, Oh, Facebook has removed the interest. Oh, Apple. It's like the gaps in between those don't feel as bad as like, you know, getting 4 30 in the morning. They're going to change the core updates and Google's like, well, I just did. I just made all the changes to the last update, panda, and then now penguin, and then now dolphin, and then now, you know, giraffe and the T Rex release.

So it was like all of these different releases just come back to back to back. But in the SEO world, you're so used to. You know, it's changing, changing, changing, changing, changing, but on the e commerce side, it's kind of devastating because the change is so slow, but they're big. And when you're not ready for that, it's just, especially I see a lot of people, they're not really at the helm of their business, I guess at all of the helms, but they're not truly at the helm of their business.

They're more so like. And the passenger seat in the agency is driving, especially when it comes down to the advertising and marketing part 

[00:07:33] Kai: of the business. That's a terrifying place to be. Yeah. To be honest. I mean, now I might be a little bit biased because I am very type A. Right. And I like to like, I like to be in the driver's seat.

Right. Not everybody likes to be in that space. Right. But for me, I feel like as an entrepreneur. 

[00:07:48] Tieron: How does that, so not to cut you off, right, but you say you like to be in the driver's seat, right? So when I was, when I was with Blackwater, we did this driving test where the person that's actually driving the car would be shot and killed.

And you're in the passenger seat. So now you have to jump over. Into the driver's seat from the passenger seat while still being in the passenger seat. So your left leg and your

When brands are working with you is it like one of those situations where they're trying to like kind of get over into the passenger seat and drive a little bit or Or are you or 

[00:08:30] Kai: you driving? I've not yet been shot whilst driving, so no. It hurts. 

[00:08:37] Tieron: I can't imagine. I'm willing to bet. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

[00:08:41] Kai: I've never been in that 

[00:08:42] Tieron: position. Um, driving the 

[00:08:44] Kai: driver's seat and all of a sudden I've been incapacitated. Buy some bullshit, that's never gonna happen, that's never 

[00:08:54] Tieron: gonna benefit, um, but, With all the changes in the marketplace, all this channel volatility, you never know, you may just get hit one day.

Listen, not 

[00:09:01] Kai: me, not today, not tomorrow, but, but I feel like there's, um, there's a, I feel like there are brands that have a hard time with, um, Being the driver or being a passenger. I think a lot of people who are, you know, there are plenty of founders who are plenty successful. They have, you know, seven figure brands.

They're doing pretty well. Profitability wise and and revenue wise. Uh, and they've spent so much time in the driver's seat that they have a difficult time, you know, Um, pivoting when new information arises that they don't have a command over, right? So they struggle with like, okay, well, let me maybe hop into the passenger seat and let somebody with expertise kind of hop in here and take the wheel.

Um, I've seen that certainly, but I think that the best. The best brands when I say best, I'm really talking about fastest growing brands, the most successful brands, brands that really have an incredible trajectory, they're in a much stronger position. To succeed because they're agile and in the face of new information, in the face of volatility, in the face of, oh this thing just changed, we thought wasn't going to change.

Or we just, you know, didn't really see this coming and we're not prepared. They're able to, very quickly, adjust like internally. And with externally, like in terms of the teams, the roster, as it were, the lineup in terms of who they're going to be relying on for information, for insights, for action, especially implementation and all that good stuff relatively quickly.

[00:10:43] Tieron: So you were at the helm of your agency and of a lot of brands doing the 14. 5 update, I believe that's like, I think people are still trying to, you know, recover from that update, right? Yes. Right. So what did you see? Like, you know, give, kind of give me some examples of what you saw from like some of the brands that you were working with, like, how were they figuring it out?

Or is it just so happened that they were lucky? Because they were obviously working with you that you and your agency just figured it out. Like, what does that process look like for somebody that's not working with you and they're just trying to figure it out? Like, what, uh, like, how do you figure it out?

So 

[00:11:24] Kai: because founders have so many hats to wear, it is challenging for them to be the person that's fit. They should not be the person that's expected to figure out. Especially something as gargantuan as 14. 5, right? The, the savviest brands, what they're really doing is they've already identified agencies and partners and CMOs and marketing managers or whoever that already have had their ear to the ground for some time.

Not all agencies are plugged in to an industry like that. Like, not all of them are, you know, not all of them have their fingers on the pulse of what's actually happening. And so there were, I think, many waves of agencies, that were getting this information at different times. Right. And taking action at different times.

You know, KRA, we got wind of this relatively early compared to a lot of other agencies. And that allowed us to, you know, That allowed us, I think the time necessary to begin testing and to begin experimentation and like really get a strong sense of what's actually happening, like, because there's a lot of noise, like a lot of rumors and things happen, right?

Like a lot of, you know, when, when that whole thing first dropped 14. 5, there were people over here like, Oh my gosh, this is the end of the world. There were other people who were like, This is nothing like everybody's blowing this out of proportion. There were people who were spreading rumors that weren't even remotely accurate with respect to tracking and data and that kind of stuff.

And everybody was just trying to figure it out ultimately. So I feel like, what was going on was there were brands, brands, agencies, marketers alike who got the word early and started taking action early and started testing, to see, okay, well, how much is this actually going to impact? Right? Like for every single brand, every single account that we've got, what is the percentage of users that are converting or not converting that are Android users versus iOS users?

What could potentially be the impact if, you know, let's assume that there was a 60% adoption scenario? Let's assume there was a 20% adoption 

[00:13:32] Tieron: scenario. Now when you say 60%, 20% adoption, what you're talking about is the adoption of people opting out. People are opting out of tracking. Well, you're 

[00:13:40] Kai: opting in to 

[00:13:41] Tieron: opt out again to opt out of tracking, right?

Okay. So, so essentially what you're saying is, okay, well, 60%, 40% of our, let's just say like, We're making 10, 000 a month. 5, 000 of that comes from apple users, right? So if 50% of them opt out because this is obviously this is broad math, right? But if 50% of them opt out, then now we lose 2500 of our revenue, maybe or 2500 of our revenue.

We can't track. Yeah, it's 

[00:14:13] Kai: just like it was. It was essentially scenario analysis, right? So we're playing with all these various scenarios in a sense for okay, well, if if this is the adoption rate, this Is what could potentially happen, right? And this is how it could potentially affect conversions. Right.

And we were doing that work from brand to brand to brand to brand. That's deep. And then we were also, you know, doing a great deal of research and creating white papers and whatnot for our clients to say, Hey, I know you've probably heard about this, but maybe you haven't. But here's the lay of the land.

Here's what we're getting, the insights that we're getting from people at these actual companies. From the people at Facebook. Not Meta. You know what I mean? 

[00:14:54] Tieron: Wait, so you had contacts directly at Meta? Yeah. 

[00:14:57] Kai: I mean, that's how we knew early. 

[00:15:00] Tieron: Because they were already tripping about it. But for those that don't have the contact...

[00:15:06] Kai: Listen, like Google, but but here's an it's an unfortunate reality, I think in all business, particularly economy. I got a point to make 

[00:15:15] Tieron: about this. Go ahead. But 

[00:15:16] Kai: it is. It's an unfortunate reality that there is a massive disparity, I think, in terms of access to knowledge and information and data that exists.

Absolutely. And brands that can afford, you know, retainers with agencies that are really in the know, you know, are going to get that information first, right? And they're probably going to be blocked. better position to be more agile, right? But you know, founders that don't, that's like the scary thing, right?

They're just kind of, especially founders, you know, solopreneurs running on traffic, right? Like now they're relying on Google, right? You've been, you know, whatever course. That is bombarded their, you know, newsfeed or whatever from insert guru here, and which may or may not be accurate. So, you know, it, it's unfortunate, but it's, you know, I think brands that can be, that can best position themselves just overall to be more agile, regardless of whether it's an Apple update or whether it's, you know, some volatility on a particular channel that's taking place or whether it's, we're talking about economic uncertainty.

Right. You want to have people and agencies and companies, you know, partners in your corner who have their ear to the ground and are in a position to be like, Hey, here's a heads up. You might not know about this, but we know about this. Correct. This is what's coming on the horizon. Here's how you need to be prepared.

Let me tell you 

[00:16:39] Tieron: how critical that is. The United States. People think that the United States is a superpower because of our military might. That's not true. The United States is a superpower because of our intelligence. community. 

[00:16:52] Kai: Super robust. I hear. I mean, I probably don't even know that. I mean, you know, 

[00:16:55] Tieron: right.

So that's the reason why, you know, we've been at the forefront for so long. That's also the reason why cyber security and cyber warfare has, you know, been on the rise, you know, a crazy rise because of people are trying to grab hold of that information, right? Because they know that that's what's allowing countries to be at the forefront of what's happening, right?

So for countries that don't have access to that information, you know, They fall behind. So essentially, it's the same parallel with e commerce brands that are at the forefront of getting this information and staying at the forefront of getting this information. They're going to they're going to exceed and they're going to keep growing and they're going to be able to be agile.

I mean, when you're connected with partners such as yourself or your agency or agency like yours. Then you can be agile. But if you don't know, you're just taking those hits and just taking those hits, right? And they just and they just keep coming in this space because we are in the space of technology, right?

We want to talk. I know we're going to talk about AI, but the technology is constantly changing. Just like on the SEO side with these Google updates. Google wasn't, you know, people, some people, you would see people in the forum saying, man, Google is trying to destroy my business. So Google, Google don't care about you.

Google don't care about you and your business. They care about their end user. So they're making these updates to make the experience for the end users better. Same thing with Apple. Apple isn't trying to, people say, you know, Apple is waging war on e commerce. Apple isn't waging war on e commerce. Apple is trying to protect their business.

Just so happens you're making money off of the back of their business, but they're trying to protect their users.

They're probably also coming is totally 

[00:18:32] Kai: different. I agree. I'm just saying they are coming. For somebody, it's just not e commerce founders. 

[00:18:38] Tieron: Exactly, exactly. They go open the door 

[00:18:41] Kai: about that because after iOS 14. 5 or even in the midst, like in that era, Apple was definitely poaching Facebook executives and Facebook employees or whatever that had been, you know, an important part of the building of the Facebook ads platform.

So, you 

[00:19:01] Tieron: know, they. There was a shot. They were just Apple was just trying to optimize its as that it was running on Facebook. The scale. I mean, what else could it be? What else? Indeed? What else? 

[00:19:13] Kai: Listen, 

[00:19:14] Tieron: you know, and if y'all not catching that, essentially, it sound like Apple trying to build his own platform to advertise on.

So they try to get all of the dollars. People are smart. 

[00:19:24] Kai: Yeah. But yeah, I think that There's an opportunity for brands that perhaps if they've experienced, situations where they have been caught off guard or blindsided by whether it's, you know, updates like Apple and I was 14, 17, what have you, or whether it's other just elements of mark.

Cause I mean, you know, Facebook, even on like meta, right? Like platforms glitch all the time. Platforms have issues. And, and there was like, I think in April was it, I think it was either in April or May, Facebook had a pretty major kind of I don't wanna say meltdown, but I mean, there was a lot of like, just 

[00:20:04] Tieron: people was on other platforms and Facebook is down.

Instagram is down. I can't get on Instagram. 

[00:20:12] Kai: So things like this happen all the time. It's part of the course, right? And sometimes they're expected and anticipated, and sometimes they come out of the blue. And I think that brands that are, best prepared are brands that are having agencies and people on their teams and on their, on their side that are looking out for them when the founders are busy being founders.

Correct. And I think in terms of how to actually identify Those agencies and partners. I think one key element is really getting to the heart of, like, what types of information. Do the agencies actually provide their clients? Is it just, for example, if you're talking about paid social or ads management, is it just the ads management as a service?

Or is there like, you know, monthly, quarterly, what have you, updates, newsletters, insights, intel, that the agency is voluntarily sharing with their clients? To say, here's what the market shifts have been. Here's what market updates look like. Here's a white paper on this particular topic.

Here's, you know, something on that. Like how much information outside of the monthly report or that you're getting or the biweekly report that you're getting, pertaining to your own ads performance, how much information are you getting outside of that? I'm going to take it one step. I think that then really indicates like how.

How in the know that agency is and how hungry for information that agency is, and therefore how quickly there are to actually then act on information that they receive on the behalf of their clients. 

[00:21:48] Tieron: I'm gonna take it one step further. So. Going back to the, I keep going back to SEO just because SEO is a very volatile channel in and of itself.

Right. And now we're starting to see more volatility over here on these marketing channels in, in e commerce, right? So you're not only are you constantly searching for information, but you're also constantly searching for. The next greatest guru as well, right? So I think I spent maybe like 000 to get into some of these rooms to sit in front of this SEO guru.

But the question that I will always ask them, and I'm bringing this up so that way you can access of the agency that you may be considering working with in the future is where do you get your information from? Are you just getting your information from people nationally here in the United States, or are you also getting your information from people internationally?

And the reason why that's key is because when I was in Japan, not necessarily much, I wasn't in China that long, but when I was in Japan and in Korea, I saw consumer technology that I hadn't seen in the United States at a, you know, Best Buy and all of these other different places.

I wasn't, I didn't see that tech there, but then five years later, I then saw the tech in the United States. So that's always stayed with me when it comes down to doing anything online. It's like, well, the consumer technology. It's five years ahead of the United States, and the United States is a superpower, then they probably know some other things that we don't know.

[00:23:12] Kai: Yeah, I think that's a good point, in terms of making sure that you are partnered with people who are branching out internationally for insight and intel. Absolutely. Especially, when you, when you mentioned this, what came to mind for me was like, like, folks in, uh, Ukraine. Listen, when it comes to... 

[00:23:32] Tieron: I'm about to walk off the show.

Cut the cord. 

[00:23:35] Kai: Like, like, there are certain, I think they're just like these amazing pockets of like massive talent with respect to like a whole bunch of different disciplines and like, so I'm sure there's, there's many to speak on. Hold on, I got a story. Can I, let me, let me just get this out. Okay. So I'm sure there are many to speak on, right?

Okay. But like folks in Ukraine, when it comes to just certain like affiliate marketing, traffic, Russia too, like they don't play, they do not play 

[00:24:05] Tieron: games. Я 

[00:24:07] Kai: знаю русский. Like don't play and, and you can find like these various pockets. I mean, I think there's some pockets in like New Zealand that are really great with like organic social, for example.

So if you're in the know, you know, that there are just certain pockets in certain countries where like, I don't know what they got going on. There are some kind of like just mega mastermind incubate. I don't know what's happening over there, but they are crushing it with. In these particular disciplines, and so, you know, it behooves people, I think, to be having conversations with people who are plugged in.

Yes, that makes sense to me. Yeah, 

[00:24:44] Tieron: I was in a country called Ashgabat Turkmenistan and the guy was cutting the grass. Right. And I've heard I've heard different people always say, like, treat everybody nice because you never know who someone is and so on and so forth. It's like happened to me twice. But the guy is cutting the grass.

And me and him started talking and I was asking, I was like, you know, like if you wasn't cutting grass, like what else would you be doing? And so on and so forth. He was like, well, you know, he was like, well, I have a degree in, astrophysics and I was like, what? He was like, yeah, he's like, I'm a rocket scientist.

And I was like, what? And the guy was cutting, I mean, he was cutting the grass at the, at the embassy, making good money. But because of the, because of how the money is structured and the country that we were in, It was better for him to cut grass at the embassy than it was for him to be a rocket scientist in his country, which sounds crazy.

But these are the types of minds that you have in some of these countries. And then the Internet opens up and then now they're able to take this mind and now start to. I think you even said one time that, you know, one of your. You scale Facebook ads by using calculus or by using derivatives or something like that, right?

And this, so, so I can only imagine that these guys may be doing some of that too and have been for a long time. And, and also on top of that too, because they, their rules, they're not in the same cultural box that we're in here in the United States. Because they, because they are in these countries and they're seeing certain types of corruption and everything else, their mind is, you know, they're willing to do certain things and get access to certain things that we probably would never get access to.

And because they're getting access to that information, the way that they're going about doing the same thing that we're doing, whether it's e commerce, whether it's running Facebook ads, whether it's SEO or whatever, they're doing it from a different place. So it behooves you to be tapped in with those people, which it seems like you are.

I mean, you just mentioned the Ukraine. You know, I'll try a few things. I ain't gonna, I ain't gonna, I ain't gonna pull There, there are, you know, I'm sure there are plenty of other people 

[00:26:48] Kai: who know more than I do. Don't pull your curtain back. But, um, but yeah, you know. But, but it is, it is I think really I feel like all too often people, especially internet marketers, which is probably another podcast episode, but, um, but I feel like all too often people are kind of living and working in this bubble and they think that that's all there is to the bubble.

And so that's where you start hearing things like, Oh no, it's not possible to regain tracking. That, you know, that was lost due to iOS 14. 5. You can't track an 

[00:27:22] Tieron: iPhone once they opt out. 

[00:27:23] Kai: You can't do this, you can't do that. Oh, this is, this is the reality. And this is, you know what I mean? 

[00:27:28] Tieron: It's, all of the inches have been taken away.

That's, you can only target what's, you can only target what Facebook is presenting you with. Yeah, it's just like 

[00:27:35] Kai: things like this that people don't, you know. They're thinking in this bubble, in this paradigm. 

[00:27:41] Tieron: Vlad don't, Vlad 

[00:27:43] Kai: they're surrounded by. Because there isn't enough expansion. Right. Diving down the rabbit hole and like living and working as a student.

Right, right, that part. And crossing borders for crying out loud. Yes. In a very powerful way, not just in a, Oh, I just hired a BA from the Philippines. Right, no. Like in a, 

[00:28:02] Tieron: There's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. Super intelligent people in the Philippines.

Super, 

[00:28:07] Kai: no, they're like, honestly, that's, If you talk about, You know, where really great VAs are like for particular roles, you know, talking about like country specialties, Philippines really good for that. Right. So, but I think that there's, there's just a There are levels to these levels, as I always say.

And I think when it comes down to, achieving very real agility, it's going to require you to, to cross those borders and to have more conversations, deeper level conversations with people that are way outside your bubble. I 

[00:28:37] Tieron: agree. I'm listening to, some people in the AI space, right? So they're talking about large language models.

They're talking about, you know, different, different modalities, different templates, different structures, not just your out of the box prompts, if you will. And some of the things that they've shown me have blown me away. For instance, going back to facebook ads like they would take 10 successful Facebook ads in a certain niche.

Let's just, let's just call it hair care or something like that. And then from there they would say, okay, well, all 10 of these are phenomenal. I want you to create another variant based on these 10. So then now they're taking that. So then not only are they, they will print out each one of the ads plus have all of the data next to it, showing the engagement and everything else.

And then have chat GPT analyze that data and then say, Oh, well, now I'm going to spit out, here's the ad that I'm going to spit out. And based on this data, this is what the results should be. And then they will put, then they will plot that, run the tests and then come back and maybe, you know, 30 days or whatever.

Let's just say they're doing in 30 day increments. And then they will plot the result of that. And, and they're seeing a constant trend up. That's crazy. And I'm not hearing people talk about that. So it seems like ai, when, when you're not just talking to some, I don't know, some rando when it comes down to ai, it seems AI people are asking like, is AI for us or is AI against us?

It seems like if you know how to use a tool, the tool can be for you. If you don't use it, then maybe it feels like it's working against you. 

[00:30:14] Kai: Yeah, I mean, I would, I would say that's fair. In terms of. Do you, do you think when it comes to agility that AI is making people more or less agile? 

[00:30:23] Tieron: I think it's making people far more agile.

And I think, I think the speed at which people, people that are using it, people that know how to, people that know how to use it. There's a chart that I saw. And it's a, it's like the chart is like shooting up here. And it's like. People that know how to use people that don't want to use a I and don't know how to use it are here.

People that know how to use it and plan to use it are here. People that know how to use it and are adapting it into their processes and systems their way up here. Yeah, I 

[00:30:56] Kai: think

that there's exponential. The trick is how do you know when you know how to use it? And this is the, this is the trick in anything, 

[00:31:09] Tieron: honestly. It's like I'm sliding down a rabbit hole right now. Like, 

[00:31:12] Kai: how do you know that you know how to do the thing? Because, because here's, and here's why I'm asking in the, in the, context of AI.

Is because when it comes to prompts, right? Like, like AI is really about inputs. Facts. Facts. For the most part. No, that's true. Especially like, I think that the chat GPTs and whatnot. Right. It's about inputs. 

[00:31:33] Tieron: So, so you don't get an AI without, without the input, right. So the 

[00:31:37] Kai: quality of input matters.

Correct. You know, you put trash in and you get trash. Trash out. You trash out out. Right. But if you don't know that you've put trash in. Then you don't know that you got trashed out. Right? And so then it's like, how agile are you? Really? Because what's happening, I've, I've seen this, not inside the agency per se, because we, we actually had, um, we set up a whole white paper, white papers, um, for our clients around, around, Really using AI effectively, um, and maybe I'll like throw that up on our blog or something for people to check out too.

Hopefully our clients won't be too irritated. Cause they need to pay for these things. But, um, but I think that there are brands that are struggling a bit through implementation. So like, yay AI! And then they implement. Some sort of AI tool or series of AI tools, right? And things go awry, correct? Like people have gotten like people lost jobs running around messing with AI wrong.

Like where they put in these inputs, get these outputs. And now they're like, Oh, here's my work. And then people are like, yeah, no, you're fired. Right. This is created. You know what I mean? Cause cause it's a 

[00:32:52] Tieron: lawyer lost his license over piling some AI paperwork. 

[00:32:56] Kai: It's not always. Right. And if you don't know, then you're just out here, you know what I mean?

Right. Making decisions based off of a thing that an AI is telling you because that, you know, Like some of these AI tools are really, really good at convincing you that they're right. 

[00:33:17] Tieron: Absolutely. I love that about it. Scientific 

[00:33:19] Kai: citations. I love that about the citations are wrong, 

[00:33:22] Tieron: too. I love that. I love that.

I'm reading that. Like, wow, this is amazing. 

[00:33:28] Kai: It's wild. You have to be super careful. And I think that I think when you're not careful when you're not already kind of in the know, right? And you don't already have a, , command from a knowledge perspective of the topics and of the things that you're putting into the AI to get output on?

Correct. To action on later? You're, you're shooting yourself in the foot, and what winds up happening is you wind up becoming less agile, not more. Right, that's true. You take, you know, one step forward, and then you wind up taking 15 steps back. Right. Because you just built out a whole, who's a what's it? 

[00:34:04] Tieron: A whole, like, a 

[00:34:05] Kai: whole system, that's based off of, like, faulty premises.

Ooh, 

[00:34:09] Tieron: that's painful. That sounds painful. That's a lot of time and energy for something... To not get the output that you want. Absolutely. Literally. Absolutely. 

[00:34:17] Kai: 110%. It actually reminds me, this is like a bit tangential, but it reminds me of, um, back in the days when I was, a researcher in astrophysics laboratory.

This is undergrad. 

[00:34:28] Tieron: And... Hold up. Were you like, uh, the sisters in the movie? Well, you had the, uh, was you doing everything on with the chalk with the, with the, with the ladder? And then right. I'll just check it. I'll just check it. I'll just check it. In the comments, tell me what the name of that movie is.

[00:34:47] Kai: That was so impressive. It was ridiculous. But, uh, no. Lucky for me, I lived in the era. 

[00:34:53] Tieron: Your professor was sliding you papers and everything was redacted and you had to figure out what it was in order to study for the test on Friday. 

[00:35:01] Kai: But like I said, I was, you know, I was a researcher and, um, how old was I?

Gosh, 19, maybe 19, 18. I don't know. I think it was 19. I was on a research team. You 22 

[00:35:14] Tieron: now. So it was 19, 20, 21. It was three years ago. Three years ago. Hard to recall them three years ago. Listen, it 

[00:35:22] Kai: feels like a lifetime ago. Um, Um, but I, uh, I was on research team that was studying the hydrodynamic instability of 

[00:35:30] Tieron: supernova.

Supernova. I got it. Just super, just, just, 

[00:35:36] Kai: we were simulating a supernova explosions in the laboratory using 

[00:35:40] Tieron: lasers. Like the stuff, like the stuff they're doing at 

[00:35:41] Kai: CERN? Uh, no, not quite, sort of, but not, a different element. Oh, I 

[00:35:49] Tieron: was about to say. Different 

[00:35:49] Kai: element. Okay. Um, but. But long story short, I had been spending, um, so I think I was, this is like summer after freshman year, uh, and I, I got this research gig and I'd been spending a really long time, putting these calculations together.

I'm going to put it in layman's terms so that everybody understands. Um, so super long time, with, uh, diving into some of these calculations and it turned out that, this calculation that had, I've been working on and that they'd been working on years before me, there was some element of the calculation that was faulty.

The premise of the calculation was, was a bit faulty. So, which resulted in me having to throw out and literally I'd spent, I don't know, months, months and months, months working on this thing and we had to throw all of it out. And that was the day I found out about that was the day that I decided I was not going to major in astrophysics, uh, and, and that I was going to do something a little bit more results oriented and driven.

[00:36:54] Tieron: So the day, so the day people found out that their prompts aren't working the way that they wanted to work, they're going to kill their subscription to chat GVT plus, I don't think 

[00:37:01] Kai: they should. I'm not recommending to do what I did, but I am saying that. It, it can be immensely like disheartening, immensely frustrating.

So I, I get it and I, I feel their pain. I think that when it comes down to it, again, this comes down to agility. And when you're attempting to use tools, in the AI space, you're going to want to make sure that. You have the people again. It comes down to people, right? And it comes down to as a founder I don't think people need to know everything you need to be surrounding yourself with people who are in the know right and with The you know, AI is constantly changing.

It's moving super quickly But you know, it's one of those things where you really do have to have people surrounding you who are specialized in that Absolutely, and who can give you the lay of the land in terms of exactly how you should be Um, using it and how you should not be using it, right? What, what it's ready for and what it's not ready for, right?

and then go from there and that will allow you to be a lot more agile to 

[00:38:00] Tieron: consult with some of them people. It's like 5, 000

an hour. Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a real, that's a real, that's, that's real. That's for 

[00:38:10] Kai: like, 

[00:38:11] Tieron: so to consult with the real, No, I mean, we just know because, no, this is, this is scaling uncensored. This is, no, this is, this is scaling uncensored. This is not scaling and trying to, and trying to... 

[00:38:23] Kai: Of course a 5k, yes.

5k an hour, correct. Right. Um, does that mean everybody who's worth talking to is going to be 5k an hour? No. And 

[00:38:30] Tieron: hopefully the fake ones don't increase their prices to 5k an hour. Then you really won't be able to... 

[00:38:35] Kai: I'm, I'm sure people are 

[00:38:36] Tieron: changing their prices. Right, but I think this is, but I think this is key.

It kind of goes back to the question that I suggest that people ask earlier, right? Who are you getting your information from? Are you getting your information from people just in the United States? Are you getting your information people overseas as well and understanding who the real thought leaders are asking questions like, well, how long have you been using whoever this particular person is?

How long have you been using AI and what are your results outside of just writing a book outside of just writing a social media post? Like, how are you really using the artificial intelligence to create real change in different areas of business? Find out what specific areas that you need change in in your business and then ask them with proof?

How have you used a I to make changes like this? You know, for another business similar to mine. I think if you could do that and you'd be far better off than just I don't know, spending your money or wherever you're spending your money or listening to who you're listening to. They're real leaders in the space and you need to find those leaders and then find people that are maybe offshoots of those people to see if maybe you can consult with them.

But you're not just, you can't, you can't go from selling, I don't know, selling drop shipping courses yesterday. And then now today you're talking about you're an AI expert and here's my 2000 prompts on ai. That's, but that's 

[00:39:54] Kai: like, that's the most of 

[00:39:55] Tieron: the market. Right. And then now you're gonna charge me $5,000 for a consultant fee to talk to you.

Right. And I'm gonna get some, I'm gonna get 3, 4, 5 super prompts from you. That's not 

[00:40:04] Kai: to say that they can't be useful or valuable. Right. Like, 

[00:40:08] Tieron: it's not to say it's not valuable at all, but at the, the, to the second grader 

[00:40:11] Kai: AP to the second grader, sixth graders, God. Right, right, right. So, you know, It's not to say they can't be valuable.

But you, I think the key is like, I think you're, you're correct in, in what you're saying. I also think the key is really just making sure that you are using AI for the things that someone on your team already has in depth level of knowledge on, so that you can catch when AI is telling you to do something or AI is asserting this as fact when it is not.

Absolutely. So that you can be able to most importantly, so you can be able to shape the right inputs in order to get the output that you really need. That's actually going to move the needle in your 

[00:40:53] Tieron: business. Absolutely. It takes a lot of upfront work for you to even use AI. So if it's just, if the instructions is open up chat, GPT, or open up barred or open up.

Whatever tool clawed and just pop this prompt in and then now whatever spits you back out, you know, have at it like that. That process is already flawed in and of itself. So you need to know that. So that's like one that's like one red flag on the play right then and there. but I definitely think that A.

I. is going to. I definitely think that for the people that are using A. I. the right way is definitely going to propel themselves. Forward faster, especially with all of the changes that's happening, in our economy. I think people are going to need, they're going, they're definitely going to need to, upgrade their A.

I. Their A. I. Skills if they plan on selling any type of service. I don't think people, you know, right now people are saying that A. I. S. I mean, it has taken a lot of jobs already and yes, it will replace some people. It's not gonna replace everybody. But I think the biggest thing that service providers, I'm just calling them out specifically.

But I think the biggest thing that service providers are gonna have to deal with when it comes down to A. I. Is the speed in which people are going to look for these things Um, look for these deliverables from you. People are gonna expect things faster because they're hoping that you are using ai. Not that they want AI to replace you, but they're like, Hey, are you using AI to do this?

I was talking to someone that was creating content I was like, how many pieces of content can you get me? I was like, 'cause I need like 2000 articles. And they were like, oh, well if it's for 2000 articles, it'll take me three months to get you that content back. And I was like, well, are you using a I?

And it was like, no, I was like, you should, because you could give me that you could give him back 35, pieces of content in a week if you're using a I. So, so it's I think that's what's the appetite that we have now. We're not going to. We're not going to expect you to have this longer turnaround. We're going to expect you to turn things around faster, and that's something that people need to adapt to.

[00:42:49] Kai: But I think people are going to expect things to be turnaround faster, but they're still going to need to be right. 

[00:42:56] Tieron: I'm not saying turn something around fast and wrong. I'm just, I 

[00:43:00] Kai: want to be clear to, to the listeners. Like, it's because what I've been seeing quite a bit in the market, um, in terms of like these, these AI gurus that have magically popped up talking about, you know, making your companies more agile and, you know, evolving your companies with AI and what have you.

Right. Um, like you can't achieve evolution with trash data and trash insights, uh, and so, you know, to me, like that's still paramount, like, um, I would rather, you know, as, as a business, as a serial entrepreneur at this point, I would rather have a team that is going to take a little bit longer. To get, even if they're using AI, that they're still going to take a little bit longer to make sure that what's actually being put out, that the inputs are right and the outputs are right.

Right. And, and that the way in which the outputs are being used for implementation is right. Right. And so those three levels still need to be on point. So I'd rather, you know, teams take much longer to get that done. Then to not, I feel like there are lots of, especially lower, like people on the lower end of the market who are employing AI or selling AI tools or asserting or positioning themselves as AI gurus, the outputs that I've seen have been atrocious, like in, in their demos, in their webinars, in their whatever social, like whatever they're using, whatever mediums they're using to sell and get clients and get people on board.

You can see like their outputs are not that great. That's true. So and it's 

[00:44:42] Tieron: because the input was not that great either. And the discernment 

[00:44:46] Kai: was not that great. That 

[00:44:47] Tieron: part. Quality control was that great?

What do you want to 

[00:44:53] Kai: leave people with? Oh, I think . I think in a nutshell, for me it's really just all about, you know, we're in a very interesting time. There's a lot of things that are changing. Yes. A lot, a lot of things that are changing quickly. Yes. And that will continue to change really quickly. Fast is gonna speed up.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's going to be become increasingly more challenging to keep up as a founder in particular, you're already wearing a bunch of hats, right. Whether you're a solopreneur or whether you have, you know, 150 employees. You're still in a position where you don't have a whole lot of time to keep up with that sort of stuff.

And so you really just need to make sure that you're being discerning, and that you're, you're having the right types of conversations to get to a level of granularity where you're comfortable with whoever it is that you've hired, whoever it is that you're tasking with using, whether it's AI or not, right?

Whether it's AI or just core strategy or non AI software, whatever it is. You are making sure that these people are, very well positioned to use it the way that it's supposed to be used. And to really make sure that you are in fact using these tools to... Move along and progress, along the level of agility instead of getting set back, uh, and kind of devolving into chaos.

Because I have seen that happen with brands, especially the brands that are putting, um, like they're just, they're layering. Like it's just like AI tool after AI tool. They're creating massive tech stacks of like, where it's like 60% AI, 70% AI. And what's coming out is not great. 

[00:46:24] Tieron: Wow. Wow, so that when you, we spoke about that earlier, you was coming from a real life example.

I didn't know that. 

[00:46:31] Kai: Oh yeah, I mean like, you know, we have people who come to us, as consulting clients and we're like, you know, Hey, I'm really struggling with XYZ or, you know, we're doing really well, but we'd like to be doing even better and hey, look, we just built this This is this thing. I'm a jig, right?

And you know, this is what it's doing. And this is, but our performance is taking and I don't know why you 

[00:46:52] Tieron: do know why that's the right. That's what that's what's driving the 

[00:46:56] Kai: ship. You have to in the current day and age when it comes to AI, you've got to have people. You have to have people that are really knowledgeable and that can catch and correct.

And so that's, that's what I want to leave people with. 

[00:47:09] Tieron: What I want to leave folks with is you need to try as much as you can to try to get to the source of the information. Because a lot of times, even people with the best intentions, maybe they may misquote something or maybe they may forget something or whatever the case may be.

But the closer you can get to the source, the closer you can get to the pulse of somebody that actually has their finger on the pulse of whatever this, whatever the particular topic is or whatever the particular specialty is, you're going to be much better off than just. Now linking up with somebody who just stumbled upon this thing, and now they're telling you that a, you know, I'm the, you know, I'm the guru.

I'm the master of XYZ. Meanwhile, this thing has been around for 15 years, and they just started using it, you know, this year, right? So I think looking, you know, looking deeply is going to help you in the long run, because as things continue to change, somebody who's 15 years, they've already seen the ups and downs.

Maybe it's not 15 years, but AI has been around for, for a very long time. I, I did a post on this on Facebook breaking down how long AI's been around and it's been around since before. I was like, I think Google's um, I think Google's deep think program has like, been around for a very long time. So, and, and chat.

G P T and the c e o of chat. G p t was born out, was born out of that. So I think you should definitely try to get to the heart and find out who the real gurus are. I think that's, and I hear people say that all the time. Like it's hard for you to find out who the real people are. You, it's hard because you have to spend, you have to, you do have to invest money to get into certain rooms.

And then when you do get in those rooms, don't be scared to ask the number one guy in the room. Who he's going to, to get his information. Who's the gurus gurus guru. That is a, there's nothing wrong with asking that question. Even if they just kind of put you in, even if they just kind of put you in the country of where the person is coming from.

And now just, and now it just makes you think, okay, well, cool. Well, I need to start looking for people. Even if you're, even if you're using the Upworks of the world and some of these other different, um, outsourcing places. Now you can start looking in that part of the world for X, Y, Z type of person. And then, and then do what you know you're supposed to do test what they tell you to see if you're actually going to get the type of output that you 

[00:49:25] Kai: want.

Absolutely. I think, to me, you know, and I'm sure there's probably exceptions to the rule for people come for me in the comments. Like, obviously, there's going to be some exception to the rule out there in the world somewhere. Right. But as a general rule of thumb, this is what I impart to people when it comes to AI.

If you've seen an ad in your newsfeed, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, what have you, YouTube from somebody claiming to be an AI expert, they're probably not an AI expert. Right. And I say this because A true expert. I say this because, and this isn't anything, the true experts are usually not, like people who are sincerely at the top of the game.

They're not running funnels. Not those type of funnels. Or any other funnel for that matter. Um, that, that is trying to entice. It's random people. 

[00:50:25] Tieron: This episode is not sponsored by ClickFunnels. 

[00:50:29] Kai: That's just not what they're doing. They're in the weeds of it. They're speaking at conferences, at academic conferences.

They're diving into scientific research. They are busy doing things and yes, they can probably direct you to, if they can't give you some insights, they can direct you to people that are working at these companies developing these tools that can provide you with some information. Way cheaper, by the way.

Right. Way cheaper than, um, some of these alleged AI gurus, that are, running funnels and running traffic. That's true. , and that's, find 'em on LinkedIn too. That's the truth of it. I think that, you know, I think the, a lot of the ads and things that are out there right now around ai, the ones that are good, and that, that are like, uh, creating products that are, you know, you can probably rely on.

Are probably not going to be the ones that are like very prompt oriented, but they're going to be the ones that are like, Hey, here are the tools that are out there in the world, right? You should check these out, right? These various things that are safe, right? And then obviously you do your own due diligence to figure out which tools you want to pay for and all that good stuff.

But, but I think the people that are like really claiming to be like the AI experts in the field, Usually they're not if they're if they're running traffic, telling people that they're AI experts 

[00:51:49] Tieron: in the field. And then just see if there's a PhD after the name. I mean, 

[00:51:53] Kai: that doesn't hurt. It doesn't.

I feel like it's very rare, but, but yeah. 

[00:51:59] Tieron: I think it's good. Oh, like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. No, 

[00:52:04] Kai: I think, I think it's, yeah, definitely like, you know, I feel like a lot of the people that have been linking up with us. And listening to our podcast, you know, we get, we get stopped, now and then, and, and they really loving what, uh, what we put out.

And if you guys also love what we put out, uh, you know, tell your friends, um, and that would be awesome. And also let us know, like, you know, feel free to give us feedback and comments and all that good stuff. Hit that notification bill. Yeah, absolutely. Hit the notification bell. Um, and you'll, you'll be able to be one of the first to, to know when the next ones drop out.

But yeah, we appreciate you. 

[00:52:39] Tieron: All right, yall. Peace. Yeah.