Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where
we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five
Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders
and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped
their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in
the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome
to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick, your host.
And today, my special guest is John Long. John
is the driving force behind Think AI. where he
blends his expertise in AI with a passion for
empowering businesses to achieve transformative
growth. With a proven ability to simplify complex
technology, John helps organizations streamline
operations, boost efficiency, and unlock practical
AI solutions tailored to their needs. He's a
sought -after mentor and speaker. And today he's
going to share his insights on AI. And hopefully
he'll inspire today's audience and inspire innovation
and success. Welcome to the show, John. Thank
you. Great to be with you, Sheila. Great to be
with your listeners and super excited about our
discussion today. I am too. So you're known for
your optimism and your problem -solving skills.
And obviously innovation because you have a company
based with AI. So tell me a little bit about
you and how you got to doing what you do today.
Yeah, well, a little background on myself. I'm
a little bit of a hacker. Not a hacker as in
trying to like, you know, hack into people's
private information or anything like that. But
I just figure out how to use tools to achieve
results. A little background on how we ended
up where we are today. My business partner and
I were actually starting a business in a different
space, not an AI business. It was a tech -related
business. We have some background in technology.
And I told him, I said, hey, wouldn't it be great
if we could use this new AI technology to help
us with some of our pre -sales, help qualify
sales? sales leads, schedule them, book calls,
do some of the prospecting, the things that the
sales reps hate doing. And he was like, yeah,
that'd be cool. Let's see if we can find something
that does that. And so we were searching and
searching and searching, trying to find tools.
And we found little bits and pieces. We found
tools that could do emails. We found tools that
could do text messages. We found all these different
bits and pieces, but we couldn't find something
that did it all. And finally, I went to him one
day and I said, I don't think what we're looking
for exists. I think if we want it, we have to
build it. And his background is in product development.
He's been a product developer, software product
developer for years and years. He's like, yeah,
we can build something. Let's do it. So we dove
in and started building this thing. Anyway, we
built this tool. And once it was done, we looked
at each other and we said, this tool is better
than our business. And we were talking to people
about AI, talking to people about what we were
building. And we found that we were having more
conversations about this tool we were building
for our business than we were having about our
business itself. And so we shifted. We had a
big pivot moment and said, hey, AI is coming.
It's here. We should go all in on this. And so
we... kind of a bold move, scrapped everything
we were working on and said, AI is it. Let's
push this AI tool that we've been building. And
that's how we ended up where we are today. So
what exactly is the tool? Let's get into that.
Yeah. So it's an AI employee is probably the
best way to describe it. It's a communications
agent. And so our AI employee can make and receive
phone calls, send and receive texts, emails.
It can hold meetings with people, answering questions
or gathering information. It can schedule meetings,
does all the reminders and things. And there
are some tools out there that do those same sorts
of things. Where we differentiate is we get very
customized in what we do. So we're working with
some... What's a good example? I'll give you
this one. We work with some windshield auto glass
replacement companies. And our AI tool can have
a conversation with someone that calls in and
we can gather the make model year of their car.
It can go in and then look up the types of glass
that are available for that particular model.
It can describe and have a. A little bit of kind
of a sales conversation with them about, well,
here's the different options that are available.
What do you want? Do you want the one with, you
know, with the defrost built into it or no? And
right. It has this conversation. Then it can
price it. It can book the appointment, collect
the money, schedule everything, order the equipment
or the glass and does it all. Does it all right.
So, you know, we're getting more and more niche
in different things, but it essentially is allowing
businesses to take. the repetitive, mundane kind
of work -related tasks of their business and
put that on AI and allow their employees to focus
on the things that really matter, right? The
things that the employees love doing, the things
that really make money. I think for most people,
if you look at where we spend our time, and this
is especially true in sales, but it... It has
some validity across the board. If you look at
what you really are spending your time doing
and what you actually get paid to do, what your
job is, we have this imbalance. And it's like
an 80 -20, maybe even more, right? Where 20 %
of your time is spent doing what actually makes
you money and 80 % of your time is spent doing
all the other stuff. And so our goal as a business,
our mission is to help people save billions of
hours by helping them to do better work and less
busy work, focusing on those things that truly
matter in their business, truly matter in their
job and taking that kind of mundane, heavy kind
of stuff off their plate. So before the podcast
began, I had told you I had been going back in
a coding and I had built a tool. And a lot of
people are skeptical when, or perhaps scared,
either AI is coming after my job or I'm not leveraging
AI. They're very doubtful. So since you are known
for your optimism, can you give us your thoughts
about using this AI? and embracing it and the
quality, the output, right? Because to a certain
degree, I think the AI is also more reliable
because it's a repetitive process. So you're
going to be getting, you know, once it's coded
and you have those results, you know, it's going
to be more consistent than a human. Sure. And
I will tell you this, AI is coming for jobs.
And I'm not trying to sugarcoat it. It is. It
is coming for jobs. Now, the beautiful part,
though, is those people that are listening to
your podcast, they've got a heads up, right?
Just like computers came for jobs, just like
cars came for jobs, just like, you know, all
sorts of technology advancements have come for
jobs. And so those that understand it are able
to use it as a tool. Right. There's a famous
saying that AI is not going to take your job.
Someone who knows how to use AI is going to take
your job. Right. We've we've heard that before.
So be the person that knows how to use AI. Right.
And use it as a tool. We like to think of AI
more like the Iron Man suit. Right. Be the Tony
Stark that understands how to use the Iron Man
suit and you become a superhero. You become someone
that is able to do 10 times more than the average
person because you know how to use the tools
that are available to you. And so, you know,
I think that. Those that stick their head in
the sand and say, nope, it's not happening, it's
not happening, they're the ones that will become
victims to AI taking their jobs. And they'll
have to go and figure out how to do something
different or new or retool, right? But those
that learn how to use AI are going to be the
ones leading AI teams, teams of AI agents and
things like that, because they understand it.
Well, so at Think AI. Now that I know what your
tool does, what industries does it serve? I know
you use as an example a windshield. I don't know
if it's a manufacturer or replacement company.
Is this a small business like a mom and pop shop
or is this like a national brand? Yeah, so that
particular example can scale, right? Anybody
that's in the windshield glass replacement business
could certainly use our tool. But we work with
all sorts of companies on all sorts of industries.
We do a lot with the auto. We do a lot with home
services. So like plumbing, heating, air conditioning,
really those that are needing to schedule meetings,
those that are needing to answer questions, qualify
sales opportunities. Those are some of the folks
that are using our tools and getting the biggest
bang for their benefit out of it. We've got another
customer as an example, just to kind of. share
a few thoughts. They are a TV hanging business.
They hang TVs. And you might think about that
and go, well, that's not a very big business.
These guys have hung 30 ,000 TVs in the last
17 years. They've got 16 trucks out on the road.
It's not a large business, but it's not a small
solopreneur business. They had us create an AI
agent to help them with their sales and phone
calls, following up with old dead leads. Leads
that they weren't doing anything with. And they
were like, there may be some opportunity there.
Let's see if AI can do anything. On day number
one, we turned the agent on. On day number one,
it booked four new appointments for them. The
first week, it booked 30 new appointments for
them. It's changing their business. They're having
to hire people to handle the increase in workload.
So that's a beautiful... example of how AI is
actually creating jobs because it's making the
business more efficient. It's making the business
more money. It's allowing them to grow and expand
in the right places, right? They make their money
by hanging TVs on walls. And so the more TVs
that they can hang on the wall, the more money
they make, not the more phone calls they take,
right? And so we handle the 80 % that doesn't
make money and allow them to do the 20 % that
really does. So it's a custom solution, business
by business, you build them their own custom
solution. It's not a website where I go and I
say I'm in this industry, you know, maybe Sheila's
safety services and then say, well, here's what
I need to get done. Yeah. So we'll customize
to Sheila's safety services. Yeah. We sit down
with the business owners or business leaders
and we say, OK, help us understand your processes.
Help us understand your way of doing business.
And we'll build an agent that supports you in
that way. I love that. So what is your next milestone?
Our next milestone is this. We are getting more
niche in certain industries where we will be
able to help at scale. Right. It's tricky to
do custom and scale. Right. And so we've we've
mastered the art of custom building agents. And
we do that every day for people where we allow
them to tell us what they're wanting. And it
is so fun to see the eyes light up when they
go, oh, my gosh, that's my agent. Wow. And that's
like. this pride, right? They're like, oh, I
have a new baby, right? And that's really fun.
But our next goal is to be able to help at scale.
So we're going deep in certain industries and
really, truly digging into those industries,
how they work, how to make them the most efficient,
and then going very wide, very quickly in those
industries. So do you have a certain number,
something that you're going to hold yourself
accountable? This is what I'm aiming for. A thousand
businesses. Yeah, so we'll be at a thousand customers
by the end of this year. That's our next big
milestone. Okay, I love it. You've said it out
loud. You're one step closer to getting there.
Perhaps maybe even build an agent that can make
your other agents, right? I don't know much about
machine learning. did program this with the AI
and it just, they gave me superpowers because
it was like a whole infrastructure that perhaps
I couldn't have built 10 years ago. So anyway,
and at the rate that, you know, it keeps changing,
I'm sure the whole panorama will be way different
next year, but maybe an agent that programs the
custom agents for you. Yeah, we do use agents
already. We use agents to build our agents. We
use automation to build our agents. And yeah,
it's amazing to see the way technology is able
to stack. And we are our first customer. So we
make sure that if we are going to offer anything
to a business, it's something that we have used,
we've tested, we've proven it. We know that it
works because it's worked for us. And then we
help others to employ that same technology. So
if you want to leave our audience with... One
key piece of advice regarding AI technology innovation,
what would that be? I would say this. Don't be
scared of it. Don't be scared of it. You know,
25 years ago, people were scared of the Internet.
15 years ago, people were scared of smartphones.
You know, there have been technology innovations
that have come out for, you know, years and years
and years and years that initially we are scared
of. And fairly quickly, they become indispensable.
I think most of us, if we left our cell phone
at home, our smartphone at home that day, we
would feel like we were naked. We were like,
oh my gosh, what am I going to do? I don't have
my cell phone with me, right? Where that technology
has become indispensable. Same with the Internet.
When the Internet, you know, the Wi -Fi shuts
down. I don't know about your house, but my house,
everyone's like, we can't do anything. And I'm
like, it's just the Wi -Fi that's down, you guys.
And they're like, yeah, but we can't. And the
list goes on and on and on of all the things
they can't do. Right. It's become indispensable.
That is where AI is going. And it's going there
very, very quickly. And so the idea of of shying
away from it is a foolish idea. Dive in, learn
it, understand it, allow it to become part of
your life because it's going to be here with
us for as long as we are around. So for anyone
that wants to get a hold or learn more about
Think AI, it's spelled T -H -Y -N -K dot A -I.
Do you want to leave any other contact information?
I'll also leave it in the comments. Yeah, you're
welcome to visit our website. On our website,
you can click on a button to actually interact
with one of our agents so you can talk to them,
text them, email them. So feel free to do that.
You're also always welcome to hit me up on LinkedIn.
I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and would love
to connect with everybody that's out there. And
if there's a way for us to help you, we'd love
to do it. Well, I may go in and try out the bot.
Just say hi. She was safety services. Well, thank
you so much for your time today. Yeah. Thank
you, Sheila. Sure. Appreciate it. And looking
forward to communicating and connecting with
some of your listeners too. So thank you. And
thank you all for tuning in to another episode
of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership.
Until next time.