The Habit Architect

S03 EP05 with Flor Llosas - The AI Budget Got Approved, Now What?

• Season 3 • Episode 5

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Florencia Llosas, producer of The Habit Architect and founder of A Cheshire Creative, steps into the host chair for this episode while Michael Cupps takes the guest seat. The topic is one they had been circling for months: what does it mean to actually use AI in your business, and how do you know if you are doing it right?

Cupps opens with a framework he calls the three pillars of AI adoption: operational efficiency, customer experience, and industry awareness. The conversation moves through each pillar with real examples, from IVR systems that customers hate but companies keep because they deflect calls, to small businesses that can now engineer customer experiences that enterprise companies cannot match. Flor brings the ground-level view, the agency owner figuring out which tools are worth the subscription and which ones just feel urgent because LinkedIn says so.

The episode is a conversation between two people who work in this world every day. No hype. No "AI is gonna change your life." Just the questions that operators actually have, and some honest answers about where businesses are getting it right and where they are absolutely getting it wrong.

Enterprise Diagnostics, the presenting sponsor of Season 3, is also discussed in context: Cupps explains how their diagnostic assessment maps directly to all three pillars, helping businesses understand where to place their bet before they make the investment.

Topics covered in this episode:

The three pillars every business should evaluate before spending on AI: operations, customer experience, and industry positioning. Why giving your team Claude or Copilot does not make you an AI company. The IVR problem: when cost-cutting disguises itself as customer service. How small and mid-market businesses can move faster than large companies and why that window matters. The difference between experimenting with tools and making a strategic industry bet. Why AI will tell you whatever you want to hear, and what that means for the questions you ask it. How priority management applies to AI decisions the same way it applies to everything else in your business.

The Habit Architect is sponsored by Enterprise Diagnostics and Time Bandit

Check out our Live Show Events here: The Habit Architect Live Show

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Hi, guys. Welcome to The Habit Architects. It's me, Flor, the producer. I'm subbing for Cupps because today I will be hosting and he will be my guest. Unfortunately our guest of the week, Leo, had to step away because of for some personal issues, but he'll be back. He'll be back, so don't worry. Flor:

And for now actually it was something very interesting that Cupps and I have been talking about recently, and that is all the hype around AI. And I know that if you've been on LinkedIn, you've heard oh, AI's slop, whatever, and incorporating, that is the world that I live in. There's a lot of usage of AI. Flor: But I often ask Cupps what do other businesses use AI for, and how do they use it? And then we started investigating on this, and I think that a lot of people don't really know. We check the box, right? You need to use AI. This is the new tool. This is the new thing. But how do you use it? Flor: When do you use it? Where do you use it? I'm not really sure we all know. So I thought, hey,

since Leo is stepping out, maybe we can talk about this. And Cupps said okay. And I thought if we're doing this, he's the expert, so I'm gonna ask him the questions. I just ask you guys to bear with me because I'm doing two jobs at the same time, so just give me a minute while I set everything up. Flor: And always remember subscribe, rate us, all that good stuff. Let me bring Cupps in. Cupps: Nice. Flor: Cupps. Cupps:

Hello. I enjoyed hearing that introduction from a different perspective. I loved it. Flor: Ah. It was like, it was hard, but I did it. Cupps: You did it. You did re- you did great. Yes. Yes. Flor: Thank you. Cupps: Good morning. Flor: Okay. So good morning. So the first thing that I remember that we talked about was that there's three specific things that anyone who's looking to invest into AI should look at before they actually, put down money. Because and I get this, I get these DMs all the time, and I'm not even

mid-level. Flor: I'm like a, an entrepreneur, maybe we're three people on my agency, and I still get messages from people being like, "Use this- Yeah ... AI tool. It's gonna change your life." And I'm like- Cupps: Yeah ... Flor: what? How? Like, how is that even a thing? It's, Oh my God. So like how many executives- Yeah Flor: have you actually talked to that go through this? Cupps:

Yeah, a, a lot. And it's an interesting thing because AI is so accessible that it, from small businesses, like you said, you've got three employees and you're an entrepreneur up to, multimillion-dollar public companies, and the, the challenge is still the same regardless. Cupps: Because what you said is everybody says this AI is gonna change your life. First of all, let's not make it as dramatic as that because, yeah, as a vendor, you shouldn't be saying you're gonna change their lives. What they need to be telling you is, "We know what your business is like, and we've seen other customers do it this way, and it helps them run their business in a different way," something. Cupps: And we'll talk about that in a minute. But I think it gets back to, yeah, I think we... When did we talk to Johann? Was it last week or the week before? We- Flor: Last week.

Cupps: Yeah. We talked about three kind of key areas of... There's, the first one I think is operationally. So what is it, when you look inside your company, whatever, whatever size company it is, where can AI help you do more, save money, make more money, things like that? Cupps:

The second area... So that's an important one too, and that's where a lot of companies are starting, frankly. The second area is how can you deliver a better service or product to your customers, right? And so people might say we don't, we- we're not a software company, so we're not, we don't have AI in our product." Cupps: But that's missing the point a little bit, and I wanna dig into that with you a little bit because the way that your customer experiences your relationship is it can be affected. So that's a- Yeah ... that's the second area. And the third area is really not as much of how you implement it, but understanding your sector. Cupps: So you're in, you're, you run a marketing agency. And so what is, what, where is AI gonna disrupt marketing agencies, and where can you benefit from it, right? And so understanding that gives you that North Star to say, we're gonna go here

because the industry's going here," or you don't agree with that, and you're gonna be, you're gonna be contrary into that, and you're gonna take a different stance. Cupps: But I think those three pillars, if you think about internally, what can we do to save money, make money? And secondly, what is our customer experience that we're delivering, and can we use AI to make it better? And third is what is happening in my industry, and am I staying ahead, falling behind, and, and/or setting... Cupps:

Are you the, are you the innovator in your sector? So those three areas, I think, are the key. Outside of that, what you said, people, Hey I talk to people all the time. They say, "Oh we gave our team Copilot," or, "We gave our team Claude, and so we're AI now." And- If you ask them one layer deeper, "Okay, so what are your employees doing with it?" Cupps: And they go, "Oh I don't... they're using it to help write emails." Or, and it's vague, and it doesn't have a direction. It doesn't have a this is what we're using it for, right? Yeah. It's just kinda generally everybody feels like, "Oh, we gotta get our company doing some AI stuff." Flor: Yeah. And I, and we actually even from last season, from season two, we a- we actually been talking to people about the implementation and everything about

that because I know that you've been looking into AI even before Gemini and Copilot were a thing. I know y- you had it on your sites. And whenever I have a talk with you or we do a show with a guest, there's more and more words that you bring into the conversation that make me have to Google it because I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Flor: Sorry. Cupps: Sorry. Flor:

Because in my world, AI is, as you say oh, I pay for Claude. Yeah. And then I talk to my brother. He he's a programmer. Yeah. And I tell him, "How do you use Claude?" And he's, "No, I use Claude Code and blah, blah, blah and agents." And I'm like, "What the heck?" Yeah. So each industry has their own way to use AI- Yeah Flor: In what, whichever sense. So if we go into the first pillar that we said it was operations and earning certainty. Yep You're not talking about drafting emails faster, so we already established that. So what it actually is it that you can do with

opera- how can AI help your operations? Flor: I don't know- Yeah ... if I'm an accountant, because maybe- Yeah ... we can take this out of the digital world. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah, so if you think about companies, they've been on a journey for years, and I've fortunately or unfortunately been a part of that for 30 years. I've seen companies innovate along the way, and it's now under this kind of general umbrella of automation. Cupps:

So how can we do work faster, better, with higher quality and automate it to help, our humans focus on the real problems? W- so that automation journey is not new. It's been ongoing for some time, and... but the underlying goal there was some sort of efficiency, right? Cupps: So companies- Okay ... make investments and they hire more people, they hire... buy technology, they, you know, get new buildings and things like that. The, the whole effort there is in that expansion, when you spend a dollar, are you getting a dollar back? Are you getting $1.20 back? Are you getting $5 back, or are you losing money, right? Cupps: And so sometimes you make investments based on those kind of criteria, but it's all about that efficiency with your investments, right? And I'm talking about humans, too, right? So if you've got 200 people

or 800 people or 10,000 people, the question that should be in your mind is, "How can I help them be more productive so we get a better outcome of whatever that is?" Cupps: And so when you talk, you mentioned a word there that I really is earning certainty. So what does that mean? So you can figure out if you invest here, does it make your employees more productive? If you invest there, does it help your customers access yourself much easier, et cetera. So there's all these in- these, these areas that you can look at. Cupps:

So let's be tangible here. So operationally, just can we do the work faster and better? I don't think faster is always better. So you have to put that quality measure on there. And so where can AI help us do that? In our go to market, how c- can we use it to go get more customers that don't know about us or that maybe we are launching new products, so how do we get that into the market faster and more efficiently? Cupps: For example, you can... If you've got a bunch of customers, you can sell new products to those customers at a lower cost than you can going out and finding more customers, right? ... Cupps: And so that's the go to market areas that you wanna consider with AI. And then the, the third area is, it's, is pretty obvious is

finance and accounting, right? Cupps: And all the- ... internal areas, you've got 10 accountants, and they're overworked, and they're putting in overtime or whatever it may be. So how can we ke- either have those 10 accountants be more efficient or, what's the mix of adding technology that can take some of those low-burden task off of them so they can focus on the stuff like forecasts and the thought processes versus the making sure that all the invoices are in the system correctly, right? Cupps:

So AI can do that. So let's... So I would look at it in that way. It's go to market. It's it's where do we want to expand or not expand, and then where internally can we, in HR and finance and things like that, can we be more efficient? Flor: And I should have asked this before, but I'm guessing that these AI tools change based on what you need, right? Flor: You- ... for the operations, you wouldn't use the same AI tool as you would for the products and revenue, right? Cupps: Yes. So- I, yeah ... Flor: no I was gonna ask you h- what does that look like? Cupps: Yeah. I think if somebody comes to you and says, "We have the AI for everything in your company,"

they are either misinformed or they're being deceptive, right? Cupps: Because while you could look at something like a Claude or a Gemini or something like that being across all of those areas it may not actually be the tool that's fit for purpose of what that job is. Now, it may be embedded in there, right? So- Ye- yes, a Claude investment, you can use it in a lot of different areas, but you may need some orchestration, some workflow technologies, or you may need s- different types of things that you that AI is embedded in to do the job better. Cupps:

So Claude is not gonna help you process more invoices by itself, right? There has to be, there has to be other things involved. There's usually a human element. There's a, there's an integration to your finance systems. There's all of those things. So it's not one thing and I wouldn't recommend you go out and just buy all the tools, right? Cupps: Because then you're just gonna... How am I managing this? What's... you talked about slop earlier. Yeah. It gets unruly. So you can do it with some thoughtful proc- y- processes, but you should understand that just buying Claude or Gemini is not gonna solve all your problems,

and it doesn't mean you're an AI-enabled company. Cupps: It could actually be you got a bunch of people doing a lot of things that aren't real productive because, they can make images on Gemini, so they're doing that, right? And, and- ... so it's, it- I think a thoughtful approach to it is the best way. And that's why those three pillars, I think, are important. Cupps: If you if we can come in and assess that for you, then you know where to place that bet. Maybe you're having a customer issue, so that second pillar that we're gonna talk about soon- Yeah ... is the most important. So don't worry about your FP&A today, you can get to it next year. You can get to... Cupps:

But let's, if you solve this customer problem that's out there first, you're gonna have more funds to do it anyway, right? And- ... Cupps: I do see a lot of companies thinking about that first. Most people are saying, "How do we get more customers?" And I personally think that's a g- that's a good question to ask, but it's not the only question to ask. Cupps: Because maybe you don't need more customers, right? If your cu- customer acquisition cost is really through the roof, you have to spend more on advertising, you have to do all that stuff, maybe what we ought to do is we take care of our customers better and give them more things to buy from us, right? Cupps: And so it's really that analysis. So I would just recommend looking at the three

pillars holistically and then deciding where the investment goes. Flor: It's like in marketing, you look at the channels and you think- Yes. Yeah ... okay, which one? 'Cause the main difference also between a company like mine, that it's small, and an enterprise like, I don't know, Disney World, is that the money is, is limited. Flor:

Yeah. I really have to think where I'm investing if I want to invest. And maybe this fear of getting left behind, which is, something else we're gonna talk about, I don't want it to dictate my usage of my im- the money I have to invest because that's just bad business. So- Cupps: Absolutely. Cupps: Yeah, I, that, I'm glad you said that. That's that's true. But I also like your comment about that it's- it is specific to the industry, but I would tell you money's tight everywhere, even big companies. Now, sometimes even though they have a lot of cash and they s- you see an earnings and you go, "Oh my gosh, look at them. Cupps: They made another 10 million this, this month." Yeah. But there's still a lot of processes and stuff that go through that s- that actually shut down the bigger companies, I think. I think- Oh ...

I think it's this is a unique time in history because smaller companies can innovate faster than big companies, because big companies just get in their own way. Cupps: And, I've been in the, in working with healthcare clients for years, and you talk about getting in their own way, it just getting agreement on what to do is half the battle, and then when they make a decision, it's how to do it becomes another battle. And- ... nine months down and they still haven't, they still haven't done anything for the customer. Cupps:

And- Yes ... and so smaller companies, yes, you have to be very pr- frugal with your investment. But with a bit of research and understanding you can make the right investment. Like you said, it's a channel choice, right? Like- Yeah ... I love your analogy. That's a perfect analogy. Do you advertise or do you do, cold calls or do you do local events or whatever? Cupps: Those are the decisions that business leaders ought to be making with AI, Flor: not just we've got Claude. Exactly. So going into this I know that the second pillar that you mentioned is the products- ... Flor: And revenue quality And, there's just one thing that I want to point out, that this is something that you said

or you wrote in an email or something, and it really stood out to me, and it says, "AI shouldn't reduce costs. Flor: It must increase the value of what you sell." Cupps: Yeah. Flor: And that is so good because talking about Disney, I was looking into LinkedIn News, and it was like Disney had to lay off I don't know how many people from ESPN. Yeah. And they always saying, "Oh, this is AI's fault." If it is because they are putting AI people, AI bots to do their work, then they're not using AI correctly based on everything that we're talking about, right? Flor:

That's right. If it's not just about adding an AI feature, then what are we asking leaders to look at when we mention- Yeah ... using AI for products? Cupps: Yeah. So just generally, let's say certainly there are people that build products that AI can help them, right? It can help their products be better. Cupps: That, that's one. Software companies, technology companies healthcare companies that can provide a product that helps their, patients react faster. Yeah. Things like that. So that's embedding into the product, and that's a necessary view of you need to take that. If you haven't taken that

view yet, and you haven't, you don't know what you're gonna do in your product strategy, you're probably already falling behind. Cupps: You may already be well behind. But what you just said there about how do, what is the customer experience we can deliver? And what, you just said it. What happens? So somebody, a company says, "Oh, we're gonna... Because of AI, we can lay off 2,000 people. We don't ne- we don't need them anymore." And then what happens in the background? Cupps:

The customer calls and needs help with their product, and they can't find somebody. Or they were waiting on that new thing in the product that doesn't get there because there's less people to do that. And there's this reverb effect that happens that customers get, quite honestly pissed off. Cupps: I do it all the time. I think about the, think about this one innovation, and it's not really AI, but it's... now it's even more, more IVR technology. Voice technology that when you make a phone call and you get- I Flor: was thinking the same thing. Cupps: Yeah. Flor: So think- The banks ... think Cupps: about that whole experience. Cupps: Banks, airlines, hotel companies, all of them did this, and they did it with the wrong motivation. They said, "You know what? We're..." They, they said, "Hey, our customers will enjoy this because they'll get routed faster to somebody that r- works."

But what happens is they, there's a metric behind that Called call deflection. Cupps: Because every call coming in that a human answers costs them $1.60 or whatever, right? Yeah. So if they can deflect some of those calls to a, a bot and what they're loo- we're- what they're telling us is it's better customer experience, what's actually happening is they're ferreting out- Ship them Cupps:

people that... Yeah, exactly. And so w- think about the experience we all have. We hate it. We hate it. Yes. And it's, to me, I don't understand why it's so hard just to s- just to say, "I wa- I wanna check my balance." Okay, cool. "But I want, I need to talk to somebody about this balance because I think there's a problem," and you have to wait and they make it so difficult. Cupps: And so I actually make choices about how bad that customer service is. I changed a bank because I could not get the technology to work the way I need it to work. So they probably thought, there's somebody in a boardroom that said, "Hey, we're saving $2 million because we implemented this system," and meanwhile, I'm taking my business elsewhere, and no telling how many others are. Cupps: And that IVR example I think is e- we've all felt it, we all hate it,

but companies continue to do it because it's sa- saving them money and they think they can convince themselves that it's good for the customer. So back to AI. So now we're at this point where AI may be able to help that problem, maybe IV- IVRs can get better or there's given new channels to, for allowing us to do business with that company. But be thoughtful about it. If your first driver is I'm gonna lay off 400 people at my call center because I can automate this chatbot- That's probably gonna be co- be costly down the road because buyers are getting smarter. Cupps:

And the good thing about AI, you and I can do more research faster than we ever could. Flor: Oh, yeah. So Cupps: we can find a bank that we like better and faster. And even more I cannot just say, "Show me banks in my area," I can say, "Show me banks that support a business person doing this kind of thing." Cupps: And then all of a sudden you're getting real relevant information. So I can take my business elsewhere faster than I ever could. Yeah. And so if you don't focus on that customer experience in this second pillar, certainly if you can make your products better, do that. If you can make the experience better, do that. Cupps: And we need to ask honestly a que-

honest questions, and we can come in and assess that and say, "How are you serving your customers today? And what is that experience from onboarding to everything?" Yeah. Even offboarding. Even offboarding. That bank I left, the offboarding was just as bad as the technology. Cupps:

I got a lot of we do this better." And I'm like, "Yeah, but you didn't." And they're like if you give us another chance." That's not an offboarding. An, an offboarding would be, "Sorry, we didn't live up to your expectations. Here's what we're gonna do to fix it. If you don't have a good experience at your next bank, come back." Flor: That, even Cupps: that little bit of an offboarding focus would at least let me leave with a positive thing in my mind that if something else goes wrong, I can come back later. But the way they did it was just like, it was almost a denial of problems and, you know- And empty promises ... why don't you just give us another try, and it's, it just isn't, that isn't a customer experience. That's a screw up and beg, right? Flor: Yeah. Flor: Yeah. Yeah. And it actually this is my field. Now I can talk confidently about this, but it's crazy how with AI, marketing has become this weird gray area where people are

like, "I can do that." Flor: Yes. Yeah. Of course you can. You can do everything in marketing with AI, but should you? Yeah. Should you do it? Because then it's for example, LinkedIn reach, right? I always tell the people that I work with, you should comment on other people's posts because you get a great engagement, because you network, because people get to know you. Flor:

And then they just put a bot to answer questions, right? Yep. In your comment. Yep. And that gives the worst experience. Yeah. And now these people, if you call them up or you cold DM them- Yeah ... they're gonna be like, "I'm not answering this person. They spammed me with like- Yep ... 50 different comments that made absolutely no sense. Flor: They don't care about me. They don't care about what I'm talking about." Yep. And it's like, why would you do that? It takes you five minutes to just write it down. Yeah. Use the AI for something else, but not for this. Yeah, exactly. Don't use it for what you should use it for because that's the thing- Yeah Flor: that makes the difference, right? The experience of the person that, that is buying from you or that is collaborating with you, partnering with you, whatever it may be. That's what you

bring to the table, you as a human, and then everything else, it could be the same as your competitors. Yeah. But your difference is you. Flor: That's your difference. Exactly. Exactly. So it's like crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Cupps: What- I lo- I love that- So- I love that rant 'cause two things. One, one thing that I just li- I really enjoyed that you s- you said that because I think it's so true. And that, let me go back to the bank since we're, got this thread on my bank. Cupps:

When I did switch banks, I went to Mercury Bank, which is a, a, it's an online bank. You can't walk in a branch, at least in my area- Okay ... you can walk in a branch. And what's amazing about them, they are ... I can tell there's AI in their customer experience, but it's not just this generic bullshit that says, "Hey, push this button if you want to do a deposit. Cupps: Push this button," it's not that. It is, I can actually ask it reasonable questions that say, "Hey, I'm trying to get some money from a bank and move it into here, and then I need to do this because of..." And it goes, "Okay, here..." And it came back with, here's the way we would, we can help you. And here's, you can plug your Stripe into your API and you da da." Cupps: And it was just like, it was useful information. And then it's ended with, "Would

you like to talk to somebody about this?" Or do you- Yeah ... did we provide you enough information or would you like to talk to somebody? And it w- and it, I felt like it was helping my customer experience- As opposed to just getting me off their back, right? Cupps: Does that make sense? I, I- Yes ... the way I felt was much different. Whereas the bank I left, I couldn't hardly even get logged into it, and then when I did, I was like, "What the... When did we build this? Did The Flintstones- ... build this app?" It was crazy. And but I, so I like what you said there and just, so just because Mercury can use AI doesn't mean they should, right? Cupps:

And but they're doing it elegantly in the course of my experience with them. And I think you're right. So it's so many people and I'm guilty of this too, I use Claude a lot to help me build slides that I need to go present to a customer. And at first you're like, "Oh, look at all this stuff it put on there. Cupps: Oh, that's awesome. And look at, oh, yeah, that's important to say, and that's important to say." And then you sit back and you look at it and go, "While I can put all that on the slide, should I?" Because the customer's gonna look at it and go, "Whoa." Flor: What the heck? " Cupps: That's..." Yeah. And so i- it's an interesting challenge because AI can do

just about whatever you want it to do, but should you? Cupps: It's just like you said. And it, and sometimes the simplicity factor has to come into it, and that's where humans have the judgment that we need. And I had a disagreement with Angelene, my daugh- my stepdaughter, and she was saying- I love Angelene ... AI will tell you whatever you wanna hear. Cupps:

And she's right. Oh, yeah. It will. But that means you have to ask smarter questions, right? Yeah. And so be very ca- so what, to your point is let's use AI where it's gonna help us, not just because we can. And so when we're thinking about customer experience, I think that's an important pillar. Cupps: We talked about efficiency on the front end. If you make bad decisions on this customer pillar, then you're gonna actually cause reverb in the first pillar too, because it's gonna cost you more to... You're gonna lose customers, or it's gonna cost you more to support those customers, or all those things. Cupps: So they go hand-in-hand. But I... It's it's such an important opportunity for com- businesses, especially small businesses. I think you can engineer, and maybe engineer is the wrong word, but you can engineer customer experiences that the big companies can't. Yes. So take

advantage of it, right? That, and that's where I, what I love about the mid-market. Cupps: Small businesses right now have a huge opportunity to change the game and that's what get... I'm excited about it. Anytime I talk to a small business or mid-market business that wants to do that, it's really fun because they are gonna... we have the opportunity to shake the ground underneath that big m- m, mega-company that just did, a billion dollars in profit, right? Cupps:

Yeah. And will they catch up? Absolutely, because they have money and resources, but by then you've got a loyal customer base if you do it right. Flor: Yeah, 'cause I was thinking about what you said at the beginning in the first pillar that we talked about operations and, Mid, mid, m- mid-market or like smaller companies as you were saying, have this advantage that is... Flor: It's, it can be an advantage or it can be like a pain. I don't know, like it depends on how you use it. Yeah. But we can act on our decisions like this. We don't have to go to a board and blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah. We don't have to do any of that. If we make the decision and we're sure about it, we can go and implement it

tomorrow. Flor: Yes. Yeah. And that's like enormous. Yes. I remember the first thing that I talked to my dad about when I first started ACC was I had a bad experience with one of the girls that I was collaborating with. And my, my dad was like, "Look, I don't wanna be insensitive, but just tell her that the partnership's over." Flor:

And I was like , "How could I?" And he's like, "Because you can. Because this is your business." Yeah. "Because you get to do that. You get to make-" Yeah ... "that decision and execute it, and you don't have to ask anyone for permission." Yeah. And that blew my mind. Cupps: Yes. Yeah. Flor: Yep. So imagine like- Yeah ... that's literally an AI is giving us all these tools, and we get- Yeah Flor: to say, "Yes, I want to use this." And then tomorrow if it doesn't work, we get to say, "I don't wanna use it anymore"- Yes ... "and use something else." Yes. That's crazy. Yes. That's a level of freedom that I don't think is often talked about or even talked about with AI. Yes. The amount of like tools that there are to say, "Okay, let me try this. Flor: Let me diagnose it. Is it working? Is it not?" And if it's not, boot it.

Yeah. Cupps: Yeah. Flor: Like it's that easy. Yeah. So that's crazy. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. That's interest- that's interesting because I... There's two things that you said in there. First first is, you had a bit of imposter syndrome, right? You, Oh, yeah Cupps: You, it's your business. You can make the decisions. But we're kinda trained to say, "Oh, I need to be I, either I can't make that decision," or, "I don't wanna make that decision," or it's just that we delay those decisions. But if you're running your business, then the, some of the best leaders are the ones that are most decisive. Cupps:

And, a- a, it's okay to experiment, you don't have ... that's the nice thing about how you can consume AI too. You don't have to go all in. You can experiment to a point to get you where you can test results, and then double down on it later. And then second thing is, you mentioned ACC. You always accuse me of using acronyms and stuff, so why don't you tell people what ACC is? Flor: Oh, it's Creative Cheshire, my agency. Cupps: There you go. There you go. Sorry. I get to do that to you. I got to play producer there. Flor: It's true. It's true. You got to be the producer. That's true. And then going in a little bit into this

the risk bit of things- Yeah ... let's go into the third item. Flor: Yeah. And that would be industry risk and adjacent opportunity, right? What is the actual risk if we just say I gave, my executives Copilot. That's it." Yeah. "Goodbye." Cupps: Yeah. So in this pillar I think it's actually critical for you to look outside your company. So what i- what are your competitors doing? Cupps: What is generally happening in the space, right? Cupps:

And let's go back to the banking example. So the banks have had a really interesting journey over the years where they thought every customer walks into their branch and that's how they market to them, right? They get them in their branch and then they can open up savings accounts and they can do all kinds of things, right? Cupps: And then all of a sudden people had options to go elsewhere. So if those banks that didn't do the elsewhere good enough became very obsolete, right? Fast. A- or they got bought up and stuff like that. A- in any business, in every business today, there is something happening in your industry sector that is either a risk or an opportunity to your business. Cupps: And if you

don't take the time to learn that and see that, then you're, are just gonna be a follower and then you have to figure out is being a follower gonna be okay for you, right? And it could be, right? It, absolutely. There's sectors that you can just plod along. But if you don't understand the risk of not acting or you don't understand the opportunity that you're passing by, then you have a big risk, especially now more than ever. Cupps:

The, just now more than ever- ... I think all businesses need to understand what is going on in their industry. And the ones that are looking for new ways to serve those customers could steal your customers in a heartbeat. Flor: The, because- Yeah, I was thinking the biggest risk of being a follower is that. Flor: If someone else does it- Yeah ... before you- Cupps: Yep ... Flor: you're kaput. Cupps: Yeah. And you don't always have to be the first mover 'cause there's always first movers out there that make mistakes. Yeah. So you need to be, you have to have the diligence, the habit if you will, of understanding your market and staying in tune with it. Cupps: What's happening out there? And there's a lot of areas you can get the information. You can use AI, say who's doing this, who's doing what. You can also talk to adjacent industry people like

investment bankers or people in your community that actually know what's happening. Cupps: And when I say community, it's not just in your virtual, I mean it's your virtual community, right? Yes. In your business. What's hap- for you, what's happening in advertising? What's happening on LinkedIn? What's happening on other new channels? And understanding that will drive what your decisions are in the first two pillars if you do it right because now you're Cupps:

and they're, and you can put your hat on and say, I, "What are the best opportunities for my business at this time where I can be different, I can be first, I can be something that I can't be, that I am not today, but I also am watching my competitors to know that, they're not gonna take my customers because they're doing it first," right? Cupps: And so it, it- Flor: Sorry, would you also say that this is the same sort of question but backwards that one could make into not make... do not make rash decisions based on what everyone else is doing? And because we can say the same thing about using Claude. I could, like, when ChatGPT started, remember that they had this transition where it was like, oh,

ChatGPT makes up stuff when it doesn't know what to say- Yeah Flor: because it didn't know how to say, "I don't know." Yeah. So we all jumped onto Claude and- Yeah ... and maybe that wasn't... for me it was great, but maybe it wasn't the right decision for other people. So that- Yeah ... anxiety of being the first one, and implementing, and being in that groove, and not being left- Yeah Flor: behind can also be detrimental, right? Cupps:

Yep. Yeah, I think there's two things. There's two, two sides of this. I think experimental with tools is always a good practice, so I would... you used the word rash. I w- if, as long as it's not a big investment, try various variations of that. Cupps: But in your industry sector I'm actually talking about a bit of a deeper analysis, right? So people w- used to call it market studies. They, in, in product management it's called product market fit and things like that. So in this third pillar, I think it's a bit longer intentions than just the, the tools, right? Cupps: The tools you... I strongly urge you to experiment, if you're using Claude, try Perplexity or whatever the alternatives are, just

to see how they're doing it, and you can do that at very low cost, right? Yeah. But from your strategic direction of your sector, your industry sector, I think that's a pretty, pretty longer term. Cupps: And you're right, you don't wanna just try things, right? The worst thing you can do in that sector is just keep trying things and your customers get whiplash. Because one, one, one week they're, you have 'em working with this, and then the next week it's something else, and the next month it's something else. Cupps:

That's not a good experience. So when you're thinking about your industry sector, there has to be, you have to have the purpose, and then you have to have the structured rollout so you can explain to your customers or your industry, why this is the best approach that you think. Cupps: And then the customers- Yeah ... make a choice at the end. And but if you're just throwing things at your customer all the time, it's difficult. So that, that third pillar is really about your l- it's not just the road you're getting on now, but it's the next three turns you're gonna make to get to your destination. Cupps: And so it, that one's a little more thoughtful. In the, particularly in the first pillar, in your operations, that's where I would do more experiments, like internally, right? Is improving this

workflow gonna actually do something for us? And the rash decision you shouldn't make is I'm gonna let 100 people go and implement this AI a- and it hasn't been implemented yet, and you haven't tested it yet, and all of a sudden you have 100 people that could be doing that work today that you've displaced. Cupps:

And that, we see that, right? We see people- Yes ... hiring employees back. And I think the winning companies are the ones that aren't looking just to cut those costs, right? The, it ju- it, it's a lazy approach to say AI's gonna replace these humans. What what the better question is how can I help the humans I have- Be better, do better- Flor: Yeah Cupps: help our customers more. And the, the companies that are thinking that way are the ones that, that win, right? They just... Now, there's always a, an cost arbitrage kind of thing where somebody's the lowest cost provider, but I think mid-market small business, we don't wanna be the low cost providers, right? We wanna be fair- No Cupps: with our pricing, but we wanna, we want loyalty. Yes. And loyalty isn't always the low cost. Lo- loyalty is the least... low cost is the least

loyalty thing. Now, people sometimes have to do low cost, but as small business leaders or mid-market businesses, you actually don't wanna be the low cost provider. Cupps: You wanna be the one that the customer remembers, "Hey, when I need this, I'm gonna call that person." Flor: Yeah. Cupps: That's what we really want. Flor: And it's associated, low cost is, can be associated with negative adjectives as well. Oh, low cost- Yeah ... is because their work is not as good or blah, blah, blah, blah. Flor:

Yep. You don't want that either. Yep. There's a reason why luxury is luxury and people still buy it, so- Yeah ... yeah, obviously- Yeah ... you still want that. I'm gonna put you- Yeah ... a little bit on the spot, because our sponsor Enterprise Diagnostics, does have some cool tools. I've played around with the one that you plug in what you're doing and it tells you what you should improve and stuff like that. Flor: Are those kind of tools, which pillar would they be in, or are they not in any kind of pillar and they're a one time thing? How does that work? Cupps: It's actually all three. So they're- Oh ... they have an assessment that will assess this for you.

It's a low-cost fix- fixed fee engagement that will just do a quick assessment of all three of those pillars. Cupps: But more importantly then after that it makes recommendations. It's diagnostics to say recommendations in those pillars over what you can make choices on, right? So you get a recommendation back that says, "If you do this it is worth X amount in your EBITDA or your customer sur- survey." Cupps: So the, the EBITDA stuff comment kind of fits mostly, and the exit readiness stuff fits in that first pillar. Flor: Yeah. Cupps:

And the customer churn revenue quality stuff fits in the second pillar. Flor: In the second Cupps: pillar. But it's all grounded in this whole concept of what's happening in your market. So all the benchmarks that are built into the diagnostic are in similar companies of your size and what you sell, what does the industry look like now? Cupps: And what is the- Talking Flor: about the third pillar. Cupps: Yeah, exactly. So it's, so the diagnostic is intended to take into account all those things, and then make recommendations that you can act on. And that's the biggest thing, I think, that AI is missing today is w- what should we do first, right? You can't

automate everything. Cupps: You can't change everything tonight. But you can get started on the right purposeful-driven initiative that you know is gonna bring something back because it's, and it's tested to say the industry supports this approach, and it'll return this type of value back to our customer. Flor: Yeah. Flor:

So that was, like, the last thing that I was gonna ask you before we wrap up. But- It can be, I, again, I'm privileged and because I'm the producer here, I get to play with all the new toys before they're even exposed. And I've played with a bunch of- of the toys Time Bandit created, and then the tools that Enterprise Diagnostics has created. Flor: And sometimes when I play with these tools and they're explained to me, because I'm the guinea pig and I love it sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the answers because there's so many options. And I sit there- Yeah ... and I think, "Okay, but now what?" Yeah. I see all these places where I can be better and more efficient- Yeah Flor: and, but how do I even

begin? 'Cause this is so much. Yeah. Cupps: Yeah. J- if we practice the principles of Time Bandit and the priority matrix, that applies to your business as well. You should always... You shouldn't j- yes, there's all kinds of ideas, and i- ideas are great. And- and when we talk to Leo, he's the, he's a specialist in this ideation ideation to execution kind of approach, Oh, Flor: okay Cupps:

and but the idea, the- the concept is you don't wanna stop ideas, but you need to filter the ideas in some meaningful way to your business. And so you can apply the same priority concepts, like what's the most important and what's the most urgent. In business you might add a dimension of cost versus return as well, right? Cupps: But that goes into your importance, right? So if it's going to help your customers and you're gonna save more customers over time or build more customers over time, then that may be more important, right? And then there's things that are urgent that you, sometimes you have to do that, you, that comes up on your priority matrix that you, you do 'em and you just knock 'em out. Cupps: So it's the same concept. Businesses absolutely have to get into the discipline of not just accepting every

idea, but going through some rationalization on prioritization of ideas. And when they do that, they're- they're more efficient to their employees too, because- ... the worst thing that happens is somebody comes in a, a marketing leader maybe comes in and says, "We're gonna do this and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do this," and then s- staff is like, "Holy shit, how are we gonna do all that?" Cupps: Yeah. They... But if you come in and say, "We're doing this," or w- or, "Team, we have three choices. We can do this, and this. Here are the benefits of them. Here's the, our capabilities to execute those." Flor: Yeah. Cupps:

And then the team can say, "Okay, understand it. We're gonna do number two first, and that's gonna take us this. Cupps: And then the, then we're..." And everybody's now in line with the priorities. And that small exercise, and I can help companies with that, is let's make sure that everybody gets to a agreement in why we're doing it, and then execution becomes m- so much easier than just, "Here, Flor, here's three things I want you to do," and you just go okay." Flor: Yeah. " Cupps: I don't know which one to do first. I don't, I don't even know anything about that third thing, so I'm just gonna push it off." But that might have been the most important and urgent one, right? Because, but because you just, we just threw it at you,

you're like I know I can get these two." Cupps: So- Flor: Yeah ... it's, it's- I want, I'm scared. Cupps: It's a pri- it's a priority management issue, and that applies to- Individuals, teams, companies Flor: Yeah. Yeah. So it would be if we make it into a roadmap, it would be like get diagnosed, use AI in a way that it's gonna help you figure out where the gaps it, are- Yep Flor:

how you can fix them, right? And then because- Yep ... if you're using enterprise diagnostics tools, I know because I used them, and this is the only example I can use. I haven't used any of them, any other than this one. It does tell you this is how much you save or this is how much. Flor: Yep. So I would use it... In the way that I would use it, I would be like, okay, which one is saving me the most either time or money? And then I would rank them, right? Okay, these are my- Yep ... priorities. And then I can go into my... Because I use the time metrics all the time with my team, and then I can put them there and be like, "Okay, guys, these are the most, the three most important. Flor: How are we gonna tackle them?" And then make map that it's clear for everyone. Yeah. And then maybe, yeah, we can ask Claude to help us out too. Cupps: But- Yeah, absolutely.

Ab- absolutely. The first is deciding what you're gonna do. The second is how you do it, right? But if you don't answer the what and why first, then it's just going through the motions. Cupps: It's troubling. And it's hard for us individually, too. If you think about it when you, when we hang up this phone, we can choose to use Claude for any number of things. And we probably should and will, but are we using it for the most important things and the most urgent things first, right? Cupps:

Or are we kinda going down the rabbit hole, right? And it's like, "Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. Oh, look at that company over there doing that. That's interesting." Yeah. But meanwhile, you've got customers that are probably, you could serve better today or you can find new customers today because you do something very well. Cupps: Just because you can, you shouldn't. You should have some priority management skills around it and that applies to AI. And I just... I do applaud companies for getting out and trying things and there was a lot of hype about it and be very careful about this because if you notice the, the big strategy consulting firms are saying, "Oh you're falling behind if you're not using AI." Cupps: And then about six months later They came out and said, "Oh, well 95% of the

projects aren't returning ROI." And I even saw this stat this week. I'm in Houston and I was in an AI event, and I just thought, "What a bullshit slide," right? You've scared everybody into using AI, and now you're telling them you're not using it right. Flor: Yeah. Cupps:

And okay you just perpe- perpetuated a problem for the strategy consultants to sell more consulting, right? Yeah. They said, "You ... They ... Oh, you're using it wrong. You need to hire us to use it better." And I just think that, just get away from the hype, understand your business, and then you can figure out in the operational pillar what can we do and should we do, and then go do it. Cupps: What, in our product and customer experience, what should we do and could we do? And then go do it. And then all that's o- overlied with the third about are we gonna be a leader in our sector? Are we keeping up? And it's okay if the answer is we're keeping up. Maybe you're in a certain situation in your business. Cupps: It doesn't mean you're failing, just keep up, right? Yeah. And that's okay for now. And then you're gonna find your angle to differentiate yourself and be a leader. And it's moving so fast that you don't, you don't really have to ... Don't let the hype get you first.

Yeah. It's really just be thoughtful about it, and just with a small bit of due diligence you can make the decisions that's right for you as opposed to what everybody's telling you to do. Cupps: I, you know the thing that happened on LinkedIn that just drives me crazy. How many ... Today if you go scroll LinkedIn, how many people are gonna say, "If you comment, click-" Flor: Oh, my God. "... then Cupps: you will, you can download our Claude guide." And I've done 'em. Oh, my God. I've done ... I do 'em and I still do 'em because I'm curious about what they're delivering more so than the, the outcome. Cupps:

I don't think I've- Flor: Are they good? Cupps: No. Well- Oh ... yes and no. No, I shouldn't say. Yes, but for me what they are good about is giving me a thought process around solving that problem. But- Oh ... they're very, it's just clickbait to get more engagement- Yeah ... on their LinkedIn, or you will get a sales pitch right after you download it, right? Cupps: Either one. And that's okay. I'm not begrudging anybody for trying to grow their business, but there's so many of 'em, yes. Claude can do ... Yeah I saw a couple yesterday. Claude is, "All you need, you don't need McKinsey, you just need Claude." And I'm like, "Okay,

that's not true." But they're somewhere in between, right? Cupps: And- Yeah ... and if you download their kit, you'll do all right. So I just, I think the hype is interesting. I, what I try to do, the discipline I try to put into it I try to dig under the hype and say, "What does that really mean?" And not just download a guide and do it blindly. Just say, "What does that mean, and does it matter to me?" Cupps: And that's that, if I can answer those two things, then I prioritize accordingly, Flor:

I think that the age of AI, ironically enough I guess, is the age of- intelligence in the sense of you have to be smart to swim it. Yeah. If you use AI without using your own intelligence along with it, it's not gonna work. Flor: Yeah. You're gonna be the slave to the decisions that this AI is giving you. Yeah. And they're just mimicking you and your insecurities. Yeah. Because if you tell it something, it's gonna mirror you, as Angeline was saying, and give you the answer that you want. And if you're giving it into this

fear or this hype, it's gonna give you answers that are based on this fear and this hype. Flor: Yeah. So you need to be intelligent when you use AI- Yeah ... in order to get answers that are actually something that are gonna be worth your money and your time. Yeah. Because we don't talk about the time, but- Yeah ... and we didn't talk about it today, and we don't have any more time, but that's also something very important. Flor:

If there's something that is being the time bandit in this age, it's AI. Yeah. I spent so many hours on Claude that where I could have done it in a second without Claude. Yeah. But sometimes you go in there- Yeah ... and you get lost. Yeah. So 100%, 100% of what you said. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, and I think I, I was trying to think of a good analogy, and maybe we can use a car here. Cupps: So if you just think about using your own intelligence, things get put into cars all the time that help us drive and have a better experience or help us see things we didn't see before, cameras and stuff like that. But we still have to use our intelligence to say, "I can park in that spot," "I can make this work, and I can walk and still open my door when I'm in that

spot." Cupps: So it's that, it's kind of that co-intelligence factor. Yeah, y- Flor: Yeah ... Cupps: you can use all this stuff to make a better ride, a more comfortable ride, a smarter ride, a safer ride, but you still have to make decisions on where that car goes- Yes ... and things like that. So it's- Flor: Yes, Cupps: yes ... I think that's a, that, that's a good observation by you about that kind of co-intelligence kind of thing. Flor:

Yeah. Okay. Well- Yeah ... we've been gone over as per usual whenever we talk because we're Chatty Cathys. Yeah. But I want to say that this has been so much fun. I've never hosted before. I was definitely nervous. So rate me. Cupps: Were you? Didn't notice it. Flor: Yeah. I was like, "How do I do everything at the same time?" Flor: This is much harder than it looks, Cupps. I know. You wouldn't get it because- I know ... you don't host every week like I do. Just kidding. I just want to say that Leo's gonna come back. Yep. We haven't scheduled him yet but he's gonna be back, and next week we have, Cupps: Timothy. Hughes. Ti- Tim, right? Cupps: Is it? Flor: No. Cupps: Tim Hughes. Flor: Tim Hughes. Thank you. Yeah. I couldn't remember his first name. Cupps: Yeah, and th- Tim Hughes, And you talk about a s-

con- conversation about what should you do, could you do. He, he's built... He wrote the first book on social selling, and now he's talk- and now he's talking about, what should you use with your brand about with AI. Cupps: I think he's launched- So- ... a tool, but I'm not sure. But he's an expert in this, this world. Flor: It's gonna be a great... I think it's gonna be a really good follow-up. So I'm, m- yeah, I've been stalking him, so I'm excited about that. And he seems a- Yeah ... we've been messaging and he seems like a great guy, too, so that's- Yeah Flor:

that's always good. Yes. When experts are people as well. They're friendly, yeah. We always like that. Exactly ... and then to close, I'm gonna do what I always tell Cupps to do, and he's been really good about it. But subscribe, rate us. And if you have any questions that we didn't answer, just you can comment it. Flor: I highly encourage anyone who wants to be on the show to DM us or email us. We've had some great show, some great guests that way, and you get to have Cupps actually ask you questions, and not me, because he's much better. Cupps: I don't know. Be c- ... be careful. I might hand the job over

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