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Successful Life Podcast
The Successful Life Podcast, hosted by Corey Berrier, is a globally recognized show that ranks in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide. It offers expert insights tailored for contractors, focusing on business strategies, sales skills development, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the industry.
Successful Life Podcast
Harnessing AI's Power: Michael Venidis on Transforming Business Strategies and Leadership in a Digital World
Michael Venidis makes a triumphant return to the Successful Life Podcast, sharing his journey since the acquisition of RYNO Strategic Solutions and providing fresh insights on the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence in business. Get ready to learn how AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are set to transform the way industries like home services process data and make decisions. We dive into the critical role of quality prompts and the balance between AI and traditional search engines in optimizing business processes for unparalleled efficiency.
Next, we explore the evolving landscape of AI and digital advertising, focusing on how these technologies are reshaping strategies, especially for sectors like HVAC. With kids growing up in a digital-first world, the trust and use of AI are changing rapidly, pushing search engines towards obsolescence. We discuss the potential for ads on platforms like ChatGPT and the need for businesses to craft compelling value propositions that resonate with consumers’ values. Discover how AI can help businesses establish a more robust online presence by accurately representing their services and meeting customer needs.
Finally, our conversation turns to the broader implications of AI on human roles and leadership. As AI takes over certain jobs, it simultaneously opens new avenues for opportunity, pushing us to retain the irreplaceable essence of human interaction. We share personal stories highlighting the importance of passion, empathy, and authenticity in this AI-driven world. Through leadership and digital marketing, I aim to inspire and motivate others to embrace AI innovations, drawing parallels to past technological shifts and underscoring the importance of trust in integrating AI into our lives. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the future of AI and its potential to change the business landscape.
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https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
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Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Michael Vanitas. What's up, brother?
Speaker 2:What's up, man? It's good to be back. When's the last time we did this? It's been a few years.
Speaker 1:I think it's been a couple of years, dude. It's been a couple of years I am super excited about just to talk to you and then I get to come visit you in a couple of days, which I'm excited about as well. Get to come visit you in a couple of days, which I'm excited about as well, bro. So what's been going? On Well really quick for the folks that may not know who you are. You could just give us a quick rundown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right on. Well, one thank you for having me back, man, seriously, genuinely. And for those of you that are not familiar with me, my name is Mike Venitas. I'm the CXO of Rhino Strategic Solutions. It's a digital marketing agency that exists solely for the home services, started in 08. And 13 years later, after we built this thing, I've just been falling in love with leadership and building people, and when you build people, you meet people. And here we are. Here we are.
Speaker 1:Here we are here we are.
Speaker 1:So we were just chatting about you, were giving me a rundown about how your job has shifted a little bit since Rhino was acquired, and my question was that I think a lot of people really just don't know how to use artificial intelligence, and I think a lot of people you mentioned this previously it's only as good as the prompt that you give it, but the possibilities here are endless. You can use this tool to learn about things that you have no idea about, or, in your case well, you could talk about your case. In our case at WhoHire, we use it to basically crunch massive amounts of real data and then match that with performance data psychographic traits and then match it with performance data, which gives us the ability to have a blueprint for contractors to hire by. And so you were telling me. Actually, I'll just let you dive in and talk about how you guys have been using this.
Speaker 2:I mean, we use it in so many different ways. It would take me forever to go through them all. I think it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, right, because I'm a fan of Claude when it comes to creativity and the quality of wording. I go back to chat GBT if it's analytical, if I'm trying to crunch data sets to your point, like and I'll even use perplexity, which is another popular one, right, for Q&A formats. That has a little bit more of, I think, advances in between the realm of AI and search engines, right. But I think we're about to enter a whole new world, similar to how we would go to different directories or websites for different things, right, who here goes to yelp to leave negative reviews and complain about their restaurant dining experience? Like, somehow and somehow, these brands, they develop this presence and people utilize them a certain way, and I think what we are about to do is enter the forefront of an era where you've got AI for so many different things. Right, it's just who is going to brand it correctly and win the consumer.
Speaker 2:We all say Google it. Google won trust. They won search engines. And I think, similar, a lot of people want to talk Is ChatGPT going to kill Google and while that's very much a possibility, I still think that OpenAI and ChatGPT is branding themselves more of like efficiency, convenience, simplicity. It's whether or not they continue to push consumers in that direction, to use it like a search engine, that really is going to determine the outcome of that whole game. But that's a whole left turn man. That's a whole different conversation. We use it for a lot and we use it for a number of things, but to your point, I think the prompt and how well you use it really does determine the outcome and the result you're going to gain.
Speaker 1:So when you go to look up something now, do you first go to Google or do you first go to chat?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me personally, obviously I'm a digital marketer Right. So, knowing what I know, I'm still very much using Google, you know, in instances where it's trust oriented, like the quality of the result, in my willingness to trust it, I'm still very much stuck in that mindset Whereas I shift and I use chat, gpt and AI tools for cutting timeframes in half. So I use it more of an efficiency tool. How do I get things faster? How do I cut corners, simplify things, how do I teach it a process, these types of things?
Speaker 2:My mind doesn't look at chat GPT as hey, this is where I'm going to go to get the best plumber, because AI is still so new. So for me and I think some other consumers might agree, like AI is a new world, we're still learning to trust it. It's convenient and we like the simplicity and the outcome. But at what point do you get a result that is very much incorrect. It's inaccurate because it happens. I have analyzed the results of chat GPT and it makes suggestions all the time that are inaccurate and they're bad answers. So still learning how to trust it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's true, and I think that there. So I think two things here. If you're looking for the top 10 plumbers in phoenix, all right, yeah, likely chat may be close, but I don't know if it's all the way there. However, if we took all the data, let's say, from a plumbing company, we took all the data out of service type, we took all the data from internally, right, and we pulled all that into chat. And now this is a bit different perspective and now you're using that plumbing company as an example, just using that internally for processes or for even SOPs, whatever. That it would be completely accurate if that was the case, right, but going out looking for the top 10 plumbers, maybe not quite accurate yet, would you agree?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I think when you have internal data sets, that you feed it and you have it analyze it, I feel a lot better about it. Let me give you an example. I've asked ChatGPT to literally run through a list of 1000 websites and collect simple information for me, and then when I go back and I check what it's collecting, it's not entirely accurate, and I'll even give you the actual example. Like I had it run through a list of websites and tell me how many of them offered electric, electrical plumbing, plumbing and air conditioning all three. And then I wanted it to spit back a list, give me a chart and a format that helped me understand, out of all of these domains and all of these contractors, how many of them did x, y and z, and it had all kinds of errors in it. Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1:Because you're, because, I guess, because you're dependent. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That's different. I'm asking it to crawl sites for me and it's different than when you give it a formalized data set that you know is accurate and then you import it into the tool. See, I know that's what you and I were talking about a little bit before we started going here is, I think a lot of consumers haven't fully mastered the art of how to even use it Like chat GPT alone. Are you using a free version? Are you using a licensed version, a team version, an enterprise version? Because all of these different things give it different abilities.
Speaker 2:When training and teaching the AI, I think, is when you start to enter a different arena, Like a lot of your entry-level consumers that are just becoming used to this are just asking it simple questions and looking for answers. But when you start to train a virtual assistant to be able to think like you, to talk like you, to write like you, it's pretty impressive. I've got friends that are literally building answering services. Yeah, and these voices have emotional intelligence. Man, Like I could say hey, I'm having a bad day and I will literally listen to this AI that is built on these systems change its tone and its pitch just to create an empathetic feel. Mind boggling. I'm like man. Here we are. We're going to be here for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm, yeah, I'm with you. It's interesting I wonder how many people I got into a little bit of that space, training the voice models and answering. And I think, at least from my perspective, our industry it's very clear, our industry is a decade behind most industries with technology, and so I think better helping the industry as a whole better understand the way to use this stuff and the benefits of it, I think it would be huge, and I don't know how many people out there are really focused on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't remember who I was talking to a couple weeks ago, but I took a stern approach that I believed the end result was inevitable. It's very much like if I was doing a presentation in a room full of contractors depending on the demographic, the age you still see hands go up that are using the phone books on the doorstep. I look at it that way. I don't think you're ever going to see the end of Google. As long as we say Google, it has some value, people go there and as a marketer, I have to make sure that my clientele exists in every single potential avenue in which somebody might find a business. So as long as the world says they're Googling it, it matters to me. But I do think that it will be the next cassette tape. Just how long is the question?
Speaker 2:Because, think about it, corey, I don't have kids, but I got a lot of friends that do. And when we talk about that, I don't have kids, but I got a lot of friends that do. And when we talk about that, how many of them are sitting in front of screens, phones, ipads and that's a conversation for another day. But the quicker you put these devices in their hands as they grow up with it and they interact with it. It's what they know, it's what they trust, it's what they use. So, regardless of how inaccurate it might be, that's the future. If children grow up with it, that's how you develop this trust and this relationship. And next thing, we're all using AI to do searches and Google over time, becomes the next phone book. It's very much possible. It all depends on how Google plays the game right. They've got Gemini and they are trying to compete and push back, and I think that this year will be an interesting year and we'll start to see how some of it's going to play out.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this If I'm forward thinking, and HVAC company as an example, how do I get ahead of potentially an ad play on chat GPT, which is not the case now, to my knowledge. There's no ads, which is really nice, but it's got to be coming, and so how, as a contractor, how do you start to get ahead of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a fantastic question, Goodness. I think there's a couple of things that I'll say to this is one I can't remember where.
Speaker 2:I was reading it, ceo of OpenAI, I think, hired whatever specialist guru over, and I think it might've been from Meta. Like we knew they were hiring somebody that focused on ads, so right. So the signs indicate that they're going in that direction, but we also know that CEO is not a fan of ads. Now I think that in the beginning it was very much hey, let's do this $20 subscription-based model and we can generate a business going through this direction. But advertising it's way more scalable than a set subscription model. You can spend more, you make more, right? There's, I think, a lot of controlling factors in why I think advertising is inevitable and I agree with that and why I think advertising is inevitable, and I agree with that. And I'd even read somewhere that through their subscription model Now it's the company isn't doing very well, even though it's well-known and it's being utilized Open, open AI. I was reading somewhere online like that the financial model through their subscription platform is is not the best route for them to continue surviving, meaning a lot of their consumers like to just use the free version they're not paying for it, but I will say, to get ahead of it.
Speaker 2:The ads I think it's no different. The ads, I think are the same game. Right, like I think every single search model has always been developed trust and, in some way or form, by contributing value. Right, google's value proposition and trust was when you don't have the answer, I will find you one. So people kept coming back right and then over the years, they added the ads on top to disrupt that Meaning. As I scroll down and I look for trust through the SEO and the organic sections of the search engine, I'm going to disrupt that process by showing them an ad that is compelling and what I call that as a value proposition. What are the things that contribute value? Right? You either save money, you save time. Right, there's convenience, like different consumers value different things in their buying cycle. So to me, there's no difference If you want to be ahead of the game.
Speaker 2:As open AI starts to implement advertising into their platform, I would imagine it's going to be very similar in the sense that the art of advertising is that I need you to see that before you come in for whatever your original value was. So if I'm coming into chat GPT for efficiency hacks and to save time, we know the advertising in some way, shape or form has to be on the top, whether it be. I pray they don't do a banner where I've got to X out. They would just kill themselves, right? There's so many different ways you can do it, but ultimately it's how do I get eyes in front of this advertisement piece before I actually get into the user experience? We know that's going to be the game. So for me, at the end of the day, if you're asking me what I think is the way you prep for that, it's what is the value proposition, which is no different than how it is today.
Speaker 2:Like any single contractor that watches this webinar, I beg you, if you're going to play advertising in any way, shape or form on digital, what is the value prop? Is it same day service? Can you guarantee that? Is it a discount? Is it a coupon? And for the love of God, don't tell me it's $20 off if I don't know what the actual value of the service is. $20 means nothing to me if I don't realize that it's 25% of the value. How you word it is essential. Sure, $20 off of $100 value is different than just telling me $20 off in a coupon ad. These are the types of things that we look for. Are you actually going to be there at 11pm. When you say emergency service, what is the value proposition? I believe that's the bigger game. How do you compete with your competition? How it advertises? I think is it won't be different.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's move away from the advertising portion. So you've used it enough and you've put enough information about yourself in chat that if I go into chat and I look up your name, it's likely going to give me a pretty good description of you because you've used it, you've put your information in it. So I was thinking more along the lines of should a business do that in preparation for this coming for people using chat for search even though there's not paid advertising? Is that possible?
Speaker 2:yeah. So large language models don't necessarily work like that. Like I can put in information on my end, it doesn't mean it's going to mirror or reflect on what on your end. I could have 10 people in 10 different states ask chat gpt who who is Mike Finitas? And the answer is going to vary dramatically. The one commonality it's using right is an index.
Speaker 2:You see a large language model like OpenAI, cloud, all of these tools, the answers they're pulling they're pulling from an index, and an index is what Bing and Google and these tools use, meaning these large language models and AI. They still use search engines to feed it and make it smarter, right? So, in theory, me building a website about me putting that out into the internet for search engines to find. That's how I'm going to influence commonality across all of these different searches through artificial intelligence. It's not what I type into the AI. It doesn't necessarily always remember because you have so many different platforms. Like I said, you got paid, you got free, and what it retains and remembers varies based upon how you have it set up. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah it does.
Speaker 1:It does so, all right. So you're saying that just because I've put in information about myself or whatever, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to reflect for somebody else.
Speaker 2:Correct. However, if I was building a website, I gotta give you the perfect example. We do this podcast. You put it on your website where search engines can find it and it's indexed.
Speaker 2:There's very much a chance that when I ask the artificial intelligence the question, then it may start to see enough information about me over and over that it might start to have an opinion right. So the more popular, the more brand equity, the more awareness that is created out in the worldwide web, the more you're going to start to see, I think, consistency in some of the trends of what the large language model says. But the AI doesn't just look at an index. It looks at a lot more than that, right, it might be looking at how you've communicated with it personally, historically, and then modify what it finds on the index based upon previous historical searches that just you privately have engaged with, searches that just you privately have engaged with. And all of that again still varies based upon whether or not you're using a paid version and it's retaining everything that you pour into it, because you only have so many GPTs as well, like you, can hit a limit and it only remembers so much, depending on certain settings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't really think about there being a limit, because I don't, I guess I don't, I guess I've never really, I guess, when you say limit, maybe, dive into that Questions and conversations.
Speaker 2:You go back and forth with it. The best example I can give you right is write a list of 100 questions and just start pasting each question in After you go back and forth with it enough times, you'll start to see the differences that occur, but not a limit, like you can't continue on.
Speaker 2:I think it gives you like a notification. It'll never tell you that it can't continue on. I think it gives you like a notification. It'll never tell you that it can't continue. But there's and I can't remember what it says word for word, but I've managed to get it to populate a trigger and a notification about a limitation. And I should also preface this with this, corey, because in market intelligence, like I'm feeding this thing Excel spreadsheets oh yeah over 200 000 data sets, like I'm truly testing this thing's capability.
Speaker 2:It got to a point where I fed it mass amounts of data but 10 pm the night before it was still populating the data the next morning and I would ask it, how is that project coming along? And it would respond and say I'm still working on it. Would you like me to give you what I've got now, or would you like me to continue and then respond when I'm done? And we got the system to trip up. It was so big that eventually it glitched, broke and it never finished the project. So there's for sure limitations in what it's capable of, depending on the size of what you put into it.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Yeah, well, I could see that with 200,000 different whatever you said, yeah, okay, but for the average person they're not going to get to the limit typically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends how they use it right. If it's the average person and you're just doing simple Q and a, I don't think they're really going to have any concerns about a limit of any sort. But I think it's businesses that are really feeding it mass amounts of data and if they're using it to your point with very complex and thoughtful prompts to get quality out of it like I think there is a point in which you start to run into speed bumps a little bit- have you found that you've been able to teach?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you, at least for myself. I've found that if I don't know about something and I want to know let's say, for example, I wanted to know the top 10 questions that an HVAC service technician struggles with I could find that out really quickly and then speak on it pretty fluently because the answers are pretty accurate, right. So my point is I often wonder and I know there's not enough trust in the platform yet but customers eventually are going to be able to answer their own questions without calling up somebody, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's going to be perceived that way for sure. So basically, what happens is you have chat GPT, which is what really has the crowd right, that's what everybody's using, and you'll notice the new little globe icon at the bottom, which is search GPT. It's just a form of chat GPT and they work differently. I can't remember, Don't quote me. I think chat GPT looks at just the index of Bing, whereas search GPT, I think, expands beyond it. I know that OpenAI has deals going. They had written deals with Reddit. They had written deals, I want to say, with Google as well, Apple. They're having all these connections because really what they want is access to the data sets, because the language model pulls all of it from their data sets and then formulates a response.
Speaker 2:But the point that we get at right is in Search GPT. You can see it. It assesses seven to eight different domains, cross-references all of its choices and then formats an answer choices and then formats and answer. But let me ask you this, Corey could I go on the internet right now, build, write a blog, article that I know everything and anything there is about chat GPT, get an inexperienced person who sold right, Listen to this podcast and then I'm wrong. It's possible right Like I have the access to go to the internet and write what I want to write and be wrong. Sure, you have to understand. Like it's just looking at the internet and it's assessing that and if it wants to take a risk and believe I'm right now it's preaching wrong information to the general society. It doesn't necessarily understand what's right and wrong unless there's enough information out there for it to generate its own assessment right and back to how we started, like it's only as good as the prompt you give it 100.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's scary stuff, man. I'm having a lot of fun with it. Yeah, I love it. We have an innovation team over here. I know we're very intentional about being on the forefront of this and making sure the contractors are protected. So we have different groups that are running all kinds of proactive A-B tests on Gemini. We have teams running proactive tests on OpenAI. They track what they type in, they look at the results that come back, they see the inconsistency and then they see the consistency.
Speaker 2:It all depends on what our hypothesis is like, what we're testing. But that's the beauty of innovation. Right, it's not so much that the data is right, it's almost having a track record of when. It's not so much that the data is right, it's almost having a track record of when it's wrong, so that you have data that supports some of the theories you know that we believe in and you have to understand like ai is a it's new world. It is even what I say here. I say it with confidence, but we're still learning. There are definitely some things here that you you might have me on the record right now and next year when we get together again. I say I was wrong about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and it's happened so fast that likely you are wrong, right, because it's evolving to the point of really it's the fastest evolving thing that I think we've ever seen. It's hard to even comprehend how fast it's moving.
Speaker 2:It really is, man, it really is. But what I've learned in my journey is that it's better to have a stance and be wrong than to never make a decision and have a stance. I learned this many years ago 13 years at Rhino, I think I was maybe four or five in and I went to an event called SMX and I think the biggest takeaway I ever got. I quoted a man named David Meem when he made a prediction. It was his prediction, but I believed in it. I was like I could see this happening. And what he talked about is Google's dream to stop sending consumers to contractor websites. And then I watched it all unfold. Right, like Maps has become more and more popular from an SEO perspective on Google. Right, especially in our world. Right, because we're location-based. And then we watched LSA come out and a whole new form of advertising revenue coming in on top of pay-per-click and every single one of these things they roll out. Like even in pay-per-click, they have call extensions, which is just click to call rather than ever sending you to the landing page. And what it made me realize is David is right, like Google is evolving to the point where it really only wants your website to gather information. It doesn't ever want to send the consumer to the website because it creates the revenue streams within Google Right.
Speaker 2:When I called that then I called maps. I called how big it was going to get. Rhino was very ahead of the competition in the importance of reputation management, generating reviews, maps. To me, this is no different than that right. My stance is I believe this is how these models work and because I have that belief, I'm able to instruct the team to begin testing. And what I love about it is because we have an opinion. We could fail fast, learn that we're wrong and the data indicates that our assessments are incorrect, or it indicates enough for us to say we've got something here, this is our strategy. But that's the game. That's how you got to develop a strategy. When you've got people's life's work in your hands, these are their dreams, their businesses, and we're responsible for growing them. So you have to have those data sets to support any decision you're going to make, because you can't play around with that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what happens to I don't know what percentage of people in our industry that have barely even cracked open chat? I would even be willing to bet there's a vast majority that's never even looked at it, because they watch the news, maybe, and they hear something bad and they just say that's not for me, that's not how I've always done it. It's like when the internet came about, right, a lot of people didn't want to get a website. Well, now everybody has a website. So what happens to those guys that are not open-minded enough to even crack the door on this? Do they stay in business? I don't know how they do. I don't know how they stay in business, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's too soon to really answer that question confidently. I think that there's, for sure, a small percentage of people that have still yet to be exposed, because they don't work in or live in environments in which they had to really leverage it it. But these days I feel like I rarely ever meet somebody that has not heard of this or has not experimented with it. So I think it'll be interesting, because I do believe that there are three main ways to make a business thrive right. Two of them are really obvious it's drive sales and retain customers. But that third man is optimizing your business right, and sometimes that's just cutting cost of your tools and your point. And when it becomes a normal way of life, profit margins are obviously impacted by the amount of time you spend on certain standard operating procedures, and this is going to impact that dramatically. So I definitely think you've got a point there, man. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just feel like I don't know how much of the the larger PE groups I don't know how much they did dove into this. My guess would be that they are, I would think, fully invested in it. I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just think that if you've been working with this for as long as probably I have for sure, which has been since it came out there's just a level of knowledge that would be really hard to catch up with. It would be really hard for somebody to start today and ever catch up with the amount of knowledge that I have, or that you have, on using this technology.
Speaker 2:For sure. Just having a general awareness of it, I think, is essential. I think a lot about buyer psychology, something I'm passionate about, and at least in our industry and home services. If you don't know somebody, you go to Google, you Google it, and if this is the thing that is potentially going to interrupt, disrupt that entire buying cycle, that process, you have to have at least a general awareness and understanding of it. You have to be mindful and think like how would I use this? Well, how could somebody else use this?
Speaker 2:I always tell everybody at Rhino the greatest marketers are the ones that are most open-minded. You can't be set in your ways just because you use this tool. The way that you use it doesn't mean that's how everybody else does, and that means who's got chat GPT on their app, like, I've got Apple intelligence installed and set up so I could use it through Siri. I've got Apple intelligence installed and set up so I could use it through Siri. And I think that these are all things that you do have to get to know. So, to your point, if you're not getting educated or experimenting, or if you're closed-minded, I'm urging you to reconsider, because it's coming and it's not going to stop, whether you like it or not, you might as well adapt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not going to stop whether you like it or not, you might as well adapt. Yeah, it's not a fad, like I think a lot of people thought at the beginning.
Speaker 2:this is just a fly-by-night thing Not going anywhere, it's for sure. It's only going to get more wild.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So even into what you mentioned earlier about the voice the voice when you interact and have a conversation, just like you and I are having a conversation, it would feel pretty daggone normal.
Speaker 2:It's pretty close no-transcript, typically contracted third party. Like the reps that answer, they don't have an emotional connection to the job. They're in the worst situation to be, I think, stoic, supportive, generous, passionate, like they lack all of these things. So you're telling me that there's a way you can teach artificial intelligence to portray passion right To empathy, like these things that it's hard to motivate and inspire, and people like that's a whole nother world that you could talk about. It's scary man, because there are jobs out there. I think authenticity, the value of authenticity being genuine, is going to 10x because you can train an AI to display it, but there's still going to be an element of the fact that it is AI and you could feel that in a room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, yeah, for sure, and you're right. I think a lot of people think that AI is going to replace a bunch of jobs, and it is going to replace jobs. So the way you get ahead of that is to learn about it and not to be able to be somebody that you think that others can go to, that understand how this works. And yeah, I think it's also going to open up more possibilities for people opposed to just replacing jobs. I think it's going to open possibilities up for those people to maybe have better jobs.
Speaker 2:I hope yeah, I agree, I do think it will replace jobs, and my response to that would be it's always about how you peel back the next layer. So for me, saying some, there's somebody out there that could replace me before, right here in this seat. It's no, no different. Whether it's AI, whether it's another person, the game is still the same. If you want to remain in the chair, you've got to continue to grow, you've got to continue to be uncomfortable, whether you're competing with AI or another human being. To me, if you're ambitious and you're determined, you will understand and find a way how to compete, no matter what. It is right.
Speaker 2:Okay, if AI can replace me. What if I understood AI so good that I knew more than AI? What if I taught and trained AI Rather? Okay, now I'm more valuable. I'm actually teaching and building and training these things so I can create a bunch of it rather than just be replaced by it. It's just one example, right, but that's how the mind works. How do we create an environment in which we can contribute and provide more value than the AI does? And I think it's essential, right, because I can tell you right now leading people isn't easy. Ai isn't going to give me a hard time and it's much less work to manage that, but I do think that there's some positions, too, corey, like that AI is going to really struggle to replace, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the service technician in the field, right, the likeliness of us having a robot go out and fix people's HVAC system or plumbing is probably not going to happen for a while. It could happen, certainly, but I think empowering those technicians with this tool makes them invaluable, and I just don't see that a lot. I don't see that at all, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if I was to simplify the entire conversation and say what determines when AI can fully take over, you know, a human role, to me it still always just comes down to trust. It's all trust. Like, even if I did have a robot that can come fix my air conditioning unit, right, there's still an element of do I trust that in my home? Like what if something goes wrong? Like who protects me from that? What do I do?
Speaker 2:Like it's trust and feeling and you can't have a, you can teach it to, to display it, but there's. It's the beauty of authenticity, man. There's a feeling, an aura that sits in a room. You know when there's another heart in the room versus a machine, and I do think that has a little bit of an impact on trust how comfortable and how quick you are to trust something. So I think, as we evolve as a race and start to implement AI more and more into our society, I think that trust is going to be the key factor that determines what we are willing to let go of and what is safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, yeah, I agree, yeah, I agree. And there's something about the human connection that obviously you're never going to be able to get from a machine or a robot. And we human connection, we thrive on human connection. Without it, you're pretty lonely person.
Speaker 2:For sure yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're just not going to be able to get that from a robot Ever World for sure, man. Yeah, we're here for it and I'm a big fan of change and embracing it. So we focus on the things we can control and I tell people as they end up in my office, like, at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, the only thing we ever truly owned was our choices. It was the ability to have a choice when the time comes like your possessions are all left behind, man. So it'll be interesting to see the choices that we make as we go into this next wave of intelligence, this next decade, and see what stems from it. I think human choice is going to be more essential than ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. I guess I look at this kind of like. When there were cassette tapes and the CDs started to come out, it was really hard to imagine anybody ever using this foreign looking disc to play music. And now we've even bypassed that. But so it's just evolution, and I think that's what we're. We're just, that's what we're working with here.
Speaker 2:It's just a different evolution right man, I still try to figure out where the cloud is. I've been looking for the cloud for a while. Somebody's got all my stuff everywhere I need it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a mystery, right, that's just a massive mystery.
Speaker 2:That was a concept I don't think any of us could wrap our heads around. I still can't Complaining about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I still can't wrap my head around it. I have no idea where this stuff is, no clue.
Speaker 2:But it's only about how it impacts us. That's, at the end of the day. I think that's what people really care about is how does this impact me in my life, which is still comes straight back to value, and I think that's what's going to be the most interesting play over the next you know few years is how are you going to brand this product Like chat GPT, I think, has generated a reputation for making life easier. See, that's different than trust. Yeah, agreed, so they got to. We got to see what direction they go and what do they want to be known for? They're still unfolding. Do they want to be known for? They're still unfolding. Do they want to go after search engines? Do they want to play that game where people are doing a Q&A model and finding businesses, or is it simply just data analysis and simplicity and efficiency? There's so many different directions they could go, and that's what I'm keeping my eye on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. So just curious. I know we're getting close to time where you obviously speak at several different places what do you have coming up?
Speaker 2:So many things, man. Well, on the topic of AI, I'm super excited to be at the Rilla Masters conference at the end of February in Las Vegas. That will be my first time breaking out a topic on Google versus AI, so I look forward to that because I'm still very much getting educated and, like I said, having opinions regardless of what is right, right and wrong, because it's still so early to know. But my plan is to come to that event with data sets that support my theories and try to educate and teach the contractors, like what is going on, and teach it in a way that's comprehensible. And that's my big thing.
Speaker 2:Man, if you're ever going to sit in and sit in one of my conferences or breakouts like it has to be fun and it has to be energy, I can't just talk at you for 30 minutes. It just kills me. Well, you definitely bring the energy for sure. Thanks, man. I appreciate that very much. Yeah, life's too short not to have fun and feel alive. I feel that when we have energy and we're alive, we retain it. There's an art to learning and I've said this on other places podcasts, breakouts but it's like people they say oh, that person's dumb and it drives me nuts when they say that, because I'm like, if that person has the ability to learn something else, because everybody's amazing at something, yeah, what that tells me is they're not dumb. They're just not interested in what you're teaching, and that could be because of the way you taught it, it could be the topic that you're teaching. But I think any good teacher leader understands that concept and they find ways to make things exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not. You're not going to help everybody in the crowd learn. Like it's crazy to think that you're going to, that everybody's going to understand the message, Because they're not. Right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well said, I think I'll be at a couple other events too. We got some stuff going on. I think there's a Lenox Live is in there. Storm Restoration, contractor Summit, april Hall. That'll be a good one. I love going to Texas, man, because they got the Capital One Lounge.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? Well, my wife and I we always have these wars about the airport lounges. We travel a lot and she's got got the american airlines card so she's always taking me into the admiral round and stuff and I'm like you've never been into the capital one lounge. This is as good as it gets, but they only have so many of them and there's four, because I'm a venture x card guy and so I keep trying to get her. I'm like, hey, I gotta take you to this lounge in dallas. Dallas airport has a capital oneounge and I could spend the day in there because it's so much fun. It's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to be at Rilla X as well, so I look forward to seeing you there. Where can people find you if they want to reach out?
Speaker 2:Well, one. I hope you do reach out. For those of you that follow me, I appreciate it. For those of you who don't, please do, but you're going to find that when you do, I post every single day, and what it is? It's inspirational, motivational, leadership development content. I love digital marketing, I love AI. I love growing businesses. These are the things that I do.
Speaker 2:If this is about getting connected on social leadership, developing people like my heart, it's truly what I exist to do. I'm big on Facebook, so please follow me there, connect with me, send me an invite, but I'm on all social platforms. Just type in Mike Vanitas. There's only one, vanitas. You'll find me real quick, but I'm very active on social media. I use it like it's a tool and for those of you trying to grow your business, rhino is where it's at. I'm telling you we're passionate about what we do and there's nothing more rewarding than taking someone's life to the next level and helping them get those goals, especially contracting. It's the backbone of America, like I genuinely believe that the country crumbles without the contractors. So it's very rewarding to be in the seat for this agency with this job, and I appreciate you having me man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, it was been great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2:It's always a pleasure, dude. I love doing this stuff especially with you Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you, my friend.
Speaker 2:I'll see you soon.
Speaker 1:All right.
