I Found the Perfect First Business for Introverts Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 So, you're 26 years old. What will you make  this month from implementing AI into small businesses? $15,000 this month. Profit.  Profit. Amazing. How much did it cost you to start an AI implementation business in  total? $20. This is the best time you could compete with the enterprises because you have  access to the technology that allows you to do so.

00:18 You have the same access that they've  always had now. Yeah. And theoretically, you have even better tools than them because  they're limited to what they could use based on policies and governance that they have in  those organizations. you move faster than And you're telling me that a shy introvert can make  six figures a year implementing AI in a small business?

00:36 Yes, you could make more for sure. What  on average do you charge for an implementation belt? It could be anywhere between $1,000 to  $20,000. It just depends on the project. No sales experience. Sierra, never gone door  to door. Never like been in a boiler room doing this was the most terrifying stuff I've  ever done. That's encouraging. Tell me about the DASA framework.

00:55 This is the framework  that I use to lead up to any AI project. Is there any hope for shy introverts like me  that don't want to talk to people? Yes. In fact, there's a guy in Ryan, Cincinnati, 24 years old,  very shy introvert. You're about to meet him, who makes $15,000 a month solving problems  using simple tools that he taught himself on. He doesn't know how to code.

01:20 He's never learned  how to sell. and he was working a dead-end job, making $52,000 a year a year and a half ago.  Today, he's making $15,000 a month working for himself. So, I had to ask him today, Ryan, who  are you? How do you do what you do? How do you sell? How do you price this? And what is the  DASA framework, which he claims is the key to his success.

01:39 Let's meet Ryan. So, if you were  to explain to a 5-year-old how you make money, what would you say? I made a lot of friends.  Made a lot of friends in the space and helped them solve their biggest problems. Business  owners. Yes. Okay. So, you make money solving problems for business owners using technology?  Yep. Accurate. That's pretty accurate. What does an average customer look like?

02:01 What type of  person? What type of business owner? What are you charging them for? What? Yeah. The clients  I work with right now are all over the place, but it's currently founders that are very much  in the business and understand the power of AI, yet their teams are not really implementing it the  way that they could be. So, that's my ideal avatar that I typically go after.

02:20 a startup founder.  Startup founder could be young. I've, you know, I've worked with every age group, especially  in Cincinnati. That's not the most techforward place in the world. There's a lot of people that  are kind of getting, you know, dabbling in AI. There's a lot of people that absolutely don't  understand it. Okay. So, I think my my reach is quite large.

02:40 What is the average revenue of one  of your customers? Yeah, it could be anywhere between pre-revenue all the way up to 20 million  is probably the range I've worked with so far, but it it is usually sub 10 million for how I've been  getting started so far. So, you're 24 going on 25. AI happens. You start playing around with it. You  like nerding out over software and technology.

02:59 You feel like that's a skill of yours and something  that you enjoy. Yeah. For whatever reason, you say, "I'm going to make a list of 100 people that  I know." And most 24 year olds don't know a ton of people, right? which it's bodess well for anyone  watching this if they're young or don't have a big network. We're talking about friends and family at  church, neighborhood, teachers, people you went to school with.

03:23 Is that what we're saying? Previous  co-workers, all the above. Yeah, certainly a lot through just the contacts list on my phone. I was  literally going through and seeing who might find interest in getting help with AI. I was hitting up  friends like friends, parents of mine all over the place. And a lot of the start I had was also  through some business mastermind groups that I joined along the way groups that I entered  because online groups.

03:44 Yeah, online groups, in person groups. There's local AI groups I'm a  part of and business groups here in Cincinnati, but also there's some business mastermind groups  that I'm a part of that I met people like myself, other founders in different spaces. And a lot  of people have opposite skill sets as as myself. Yeah. So naturally, I I try to help them in any  way I can.

04:04 Okay. So would you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? Very introverted. Okay.  So is calling 100 people, meeting with 100 people, is that intimidating to you? Yeah, but it's way  easier if you're not trying to sell. I was just trying to get on the phone and provide value in  any way I can. I'm not trying to pitch anything. I wasn't even I wasn't even going after a paid  offer.

04:25 I told myself I would have 100 free calls with people and then look into charging for some  of my services. But up until then, it was very low pressure on me because if you know people  don't want to jump on the phone with me, that's totally fine. I'm just trying to provide value cuz  they say that happiness equals expectations minus reality, right?

04:43 So if you go in there with like,  all right, I'm going to 100 conversations, close 30% of them. My monthly recurring revenue will be  a,000 per $30,000 per month by month three. You're like, I'm literally not trying to sell. That's not  like a wink wink. I have nothing to sell you. Wink wink, right? I I literally want to learn and ask  how I can add value to your life and and or your business.

05:05 And hopefully maybe, no pressure,  I don't even have a sales pitch for I don't even have anything to sell yet if I wanted to.  But maybe hopefully you'll find something about me intelligent or smart or helpful and you'll  say, "Hey, I like that idea. I don't want to do it. Can you do it?" "Yeah, for a fee. How much?"  Is that kind of what you're saying?

05:19 Yeah. And I think the first 10 people or so that hopped on the  phone with me probably could tell I really did not know what I was doing. But I think they would get  little pieces of value along the way. And from the pieces I really felt like I was contributing  to people as well as from their feedback, I was starting to starting to able to get traction  with what can I actually charge for or what sort of education I could kind of provide people.

05:42 Okay.  So of these 100 people, give me a rough breakdown. What percentage church? What percentage extended  family? What percentage friends? What percentage give me just a rough breakdown. I would say 60%  from the business groups I'm loosely associated with. Maybe we could split that half and half  with local versus online groups that I met along the way.

06:06 How many groups are we talking? There are  like four. I'm very involved with two local groups here. Is this there's a business group I'm a  part of, AI group I'm a part of, and then there's two online masterminds that I'm also pretty  heavily engaged with. And I was engaged with them for about a year leading up to this point  because like I said, I had other entrepreneurial ventures leading up to this, which eventually led  me down this path.

06:27 Hey, if you like this episode, please just hit subscribe real quick. Spotify,  Apple, YouTube, wherever you're watching and listening to this. It would mean a ton. How  many people were in each of those four groups, give or take? The local ones are probably about  100 or so people each. And then the online ones are much larger, probably about 500 people each at  the time.

06:46 less engaged because there's more people less engaged like per person. It's less engagement  online. There's less engagement but there's more people. What about the local ones? Are you Yeah.  Yeah. There's a local group called Cincy AI that I love attending. Was it like a meetup group or  how did you find it? Yeah, they meet monthly and I forget how I met Kendra and Helen who are  the ones running it, but now I'm friends with them from attending their meetups and just trying  to talk to them and provide any sort of

07:11 value I could along the way to them which included, you  know, hopping on the phone with them. They're talking about launching an online version of their  group, things like that. Just trying to provide my insights and being engaged with their communities  is very important because they could see that and they can understand that I really enjoyed being  a part of it.

07:29 And is the Cincy AI one, was that literally a Meetup group? Like you found them on  meetup.com or how does it find them? I I was on email list but do you know how you found them? No  I I think I was just doing Google searches to see how I could get involved locally. Okay. I think  it w it served what I needed at that time and that getting started with my entrepreneurial journey  and really getting connected with people doing the same thing getting around peers that uplifted  me but I think I get the same amount of

07:53 value from the local AI groups. What about paying customers?  Which groups did you get the most amount of paying customers? the the local groups or the online  groups. Oh, where did I the online groups because that's since I've had those relationships for such  a long period of time. They finally, you know, snowballed effect and into me working with them in  a paid capacity.

08:13 So 100 people, 60% loosely came from these four groups. Mhm. And the other 40%  came from contacts list on my phone, came from LinkedIn, who am I connection with? Who am I? Came  from Yeah. and you know just trying to if I could have a meeting with someone and rekindle that  relationship I also found that to be a privilege as well. Okay. Were you trying to make sure these  100 people were all business owners or no?

08:35 I tried to stick to business owners whenever I could but  there was a lot of people also operating small and medium-sized businesses that I also targeted or  managers or just leaders in organizations. If I could talk to a sales leader about helping them  use AI within their department that was that was something I also went after. Okay. How many  of these 100 conversations did you actually end up having?

08:59 All well of the ones that I got booked  because I booked way more than hundred and I ended up having the 100 conversations. Okay. So, how  many did you try to book? Cuz you knew there'd be a funnel, right? Not everybody say yes to a call.  Some people say yes and they won't show up. I wasn't tracking it and I was going through and if  people weren't replying to me, I might next month go back around and try to get them again.

09:18 But by  the end of three months, I was able to hit 100. Okay. I probably kept going past 100. I probably  got to 150 or so when I lost count after 100 cuz I stopped being meticulous about tracking these  specific free calls. Yeah. But I probably hit up three to four times more than people that hopped  on the call. So the goal was uh not 100 reachouts but 100 real conversations which takes hundreds of  reachouts.

09:40 Yeah. And all let's say it was 300. All of them were people in your sphere in some way.  Nothing cold. Yeah. Okay. People underestimate how many people they actually have in their sphere.  If you open up your contacts on your phone, you have a really long list of people on there,  even from high school, from wherever they might have came from and then I went out of my way to  join these groups, which is not easy for me being introverted and not naturally kind of doing these  things, but I forced myself because I

10:07 understand that's what will get me started. But the desire  for wealth has to be greater than the pain of being an introvert. As an introvert, I feel that  pain. Yeah. Okay. So, of these 100 conversations, how many were in person? How many were virtual?  All were virtual. Really? Yeah. 100% of them. Wow, that's surprising. Of the virtual ones, how many  were phone versus Zoom or I did everything on Google Meet.

10:34 Okay. 100 calls each an hour long  on Google Meet. Wow. Okay. The first call was an hour. First call was an hour. Last call was an  hour. Okay. Do you have any gauge of from those 100 conversations or 150 whatever it was, how many  turned into a second conversation? A lot did, but not necessarily to continue people down the sales  funnel. More so just to keep the relationship going.

10:58 A lot of these turned into third, fourth,  fifth, sixth conversations, which eventually had people working with me. But then after this first  call, I would give people some takeaways like here's my recommendations for you to go implement  today and hopefully you get traction with this this week. And then, you know, maybe a month or  two would go by and they say, "Hey, Ryan, thanks for the advice.

11:16 This has been working out really  well for me. Do you have any ideas about this?" And then maybe we hop on a quick call or maybe  we have a quick meeting to get people rolling with that. And then I never really have a sell for  them until I see or until I started to see a very specific avenue that I could provide value with,  which turned into the offers I have today.

11:32 Okay. So, let me back up. When you did when you did the  reachouts to the hundred people, did your pitch change over time, what did it start with? What did  it end with? Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people in the AI space, they talk about doing a AI audit  for your business and that's the freebie to get people on the call or then they'll start to build  maybe like a vibe coded product or a SAS product or something that could take over a software  platform for that company.

12:00 That's how I started too. I was like, I'm going to do an AI audit with  all these people and then I will try to replace a product for them and try to to tie that ROI back  to the maybe the time savings or the software savings that we're having. I keep using the word  value and I do that intentionally because that is what I'm trying to provide every like every person  that interacts with me.

12:22 That's the experience I'm trying to provide is Ryan provided a ton of  value to us. And the people I was providing the most value to were the people that I was leading  through educating them. And the reason that is is because let's pretend I teach you how to do  everything that I do in my implementation work. You could take that back to your company and you  won't need to rely on me anymore.

12:44 Theoretically, you won't need to rely on anyone else to manage  these platforms for you. You could just naturally grow them on your own. and you could implement  different products because you understand how these fundamentals work. So what that turned into  present day is doing a lot of education offers where I teach you directly and we work together  directly to build these sort of platforms or these sort of tools for your team to eventually be able  to do other projects on your own.

13:09 Okay, so zooming out, you go into this saying like literally  what was your first text or DM to them? Hey, so and so haven't spoken in a few years. Can I do  an AI audit for your business? Or if not, what was it? I never let off with like just copy and paste  text like that. I much I started with reaching out saying just trying to rekindle in general.

13:33 Just  saying, "Hey Chris, hope all is well with you. I want to hear about what is going on in your life  or if I know what's going on in your life. How is this new role going or how is this project going  for you?" And you're doing a little research, going to their Facebook, their LinkedIn. Oh, yeah.  and referring to specific things for sure. Okay?

13:52 Because I I've gotten these texts before and it's  usually someone that joined a pyramid scheme, an Amazon, and they want to sell me to non  juice or something and it's like, "Oh jeez, hey, I started a new business. I'd love to talk about  how we can accomplish our goals together." Yeah. I read that and I roll my eyes, right? I would  too. Give me an example of what you would say.

14:09 It has to be so genuine. It has to be, I am here  just to hear about what's going on your your life. This is what I'm doing right now, and I'm helping  people with AI. If you ever want help with that, let me know. Or if you want to schedule a call  with me, here's my booking link. And then I also maybe give some specific examples. What I love  doing is pitching with demos.

14:24 Having, you know, YouTube links ready to go that you could send  to people to prove, hey, I've been doing this. I don't I'm Yeah, my YouTube links. Doesn't matter  if the video has 30 views or 30,000. Most have 30. Yeah. Good to know. Good to know. Tell me if this  is wrong, but it's like, "Hey, Uncle John. Uh, how's it going? How's life?" "Good. Just moved  to Indianapolis.

14:48 Awesome. I saw on LinkedIn that you just got promoted." Yeah. Yeah. It's just  casual like that. Yeah. And so there might be a half dozen texts exchange before you ever mention  what you're doing. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. So oftent times I would send, you know, a batch of a  hundred texts in the morning or emails or however, you know, LinkedIn DMs, wherever.

15:08 And then I would  start working for the day and I'd get back to my phone and have like 50 replies back and I have to,  you know, frantically reply out to all of them. But making sure that I'm keeping the conversation  genuine and not trying to again be salesy because that's just not my personality. Are you tracking  these in a CRM in a Google sheet?

15:22 How are you keeping track of these? Back then I didn't. I was  just trying to put as much time into just focusing on setting these as possible. But now that I  got rolling and I have a little more traction and I'm not sending the 100 messages a day, I  do have a, you know, a CRM I use. Well, some people get so hung up, especially when it comes  to intimidating stuff, they get so hung up on how do I track this?

15:44 How should I tag them? Should  I use Pipe Drive Spot? They really just don't want to reach out to people. These are advanced  forms of procrastination that make them feel good that they're move making progress, but they're not  making progress. I've went through this myself and I still do to this day. That's probably my biggest  issue, especially being the tech nerd that's like, "All right, maybe if I have to optimize my I  have to optimize optimize optimize before I press go on these messages."

16:05 There's no reason  to it because you're going to learn along the way and learn more from doing that than I'm  just trying to When you tell me like, "Oh, I was I'm I'm reading that as like, all right,  you're a winner, right?" Like, you shouldn't worry about that stuff. Just send some freaking texts.  Yeah. If you have no money like you're making yet, there's no reason to be tracking like crazy.

16:22 Yeah.  There's a time and place for it. And obviously I do a lot of that work, but you don't have to worry  about it when you're getting started. Quick word about today's sponsor, Beehive. They just launched  something called community, and it does something that I've never seen on any other platform. Every  newsletter and podcast you publish gets added to your feed automatically, sitting right in front  of the people who already love your stuff.

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17:04 And  yes, of course, Beehive doesn't even take a cut of those earnings. A quick community post is easy to  write, and the feed is easy to scroll. So now you can keep your short form and your long form in  the same place instead of renting that space on social media. get more juice from everything you  produce. The links in the description below. Okay, so 100 150 conversations.

17:24 Do they all go an hour?  Do they go 15 minutes? Some, an hour and a half. On average, they went probably an hour. Some went  up to like there was ones that we decided to keep going for a while up to like I think the longest  one probably went 3 hours or so because we were really getting into a platform that we're using.  We were talking about how you could automate within this platform.

17:45 That was much more of an  automation sort of talk instead of AI. But again, you know, when I was getting started, I was just  trying to get rolling with these calls. Other ones went, you know, 5 minutes just to talk about, oh,  you should do this on chatbt or whatever. Yeah. And or you know what, you know, let's, you know,  do this another time or maybe, you know what, Ryan, I just want to like say hi or I'm interested  in talking about this right now.

18:02 They went all over the place. And, you know, it does get to  you after like, oh, you know, these calls today, I had three calls. They all didn't really go  the way that I intended. But then it was like, you know, I have some really good calls along  the way where I got some real aha moments out of people and I was like, how can I mimic  that again? Let's try to, you know, tailor the calls in that direction versus the ones that  are failing.

18:23 Okay. All right. So, 150 people. How many were a second conversation? Probably a third  or a fourth of the Well, no, that it was probably more of like a fourth or a fifth of them now that  I'm thinking thinking about it. But again, the second conversation could come anywhere between  that point to now. And I always am re-engaging people. I'm not just like, let's finish this call  and we never speak again.

18:43 I'm usually reaching out and saying, hey, how is this specific thing going?  Is there anything you want to talk about more? I'm happy to hop on a call in 5 minutes with you or  whatever you're available. Let me know. Because at the time, I'm flexible. Yeah. I, you know,  recently left the job I was working and for the past year or so now I was just trying to do these  calls for the three months I was getting started.

19:08 Speaking of a job, were you working a full-time  job at this point? I was working a full-time job up until July of last year. So, while you  were doing all this reach out, you were Yeah, it the reset reachout started when I knew I was  about to leave the job probably in like May and continued until July or August. Okay. And what  was your job and what were you making there?

19:24 Yeah, I was working in clinical research as a project  manager at a local hospital and I was making about $52,000 a year. Okay. All right. So, let's say  be conservative. We'll say a fifth turned into a second conversation. Now, 30 people max on 150.  How do those conversations go in general? Yeah, it's again uh very similar. We have a very  specific sort of avenue we're trying to go down, but this time I kind of understand what they're  dealing with.

19:52 I understand much more about their company. I do a little more research and maybe  I even build something for them prior to the call. These calls go so much better cuz you have  a backstory. You know how they are. You know what they're starting. You know their business. So I'm  I'm going to try to see the future and know that your third call was much more than a fist, right?

20:10 But we'll get there in a minute. All right. So you're doing research. You're you're prepping  more than you could before. Y Hey, look what I built for you. Hey, show me what you ended up  doing based on my suggestions. Yeah. Okay. how do those calls go? If uh I'm truly providing value  to them, usually a lot of them ended with like, hey, how can we find a way to work together?

20:30 We  don't really know what exactly that looks like. Especially I was getting started, I didn't really  have a offer ready to go. Like, oh, this is what it looks like. It'll be this amount a month or  we'll build this. I didn't have any of that. But what we did have following a lot of these second  or third conversations was let's find a way to work together because we obviously mesh well.

20:46 There's a reason you came back and talked to me. There's obviously value I can provide which is  tied to some sort of tangible ROI. So why not try to make this work? Did you close anyone from that  first call? I don't think I closed a single Well, I didn't try to close people on the first  call, right? But no one was like, dude, I know you're not like, can I just pay you to do  this?

21:04 That didn't happen in the first. I don't think so. That's encouraging to me because you  could have been bummed out and just and stopped, right? But yeah, like no, we're going to play the  long game. Long game. Long game. Long game. Right. All right. So 30 conversations, how many turn  into a third conversations? I would say probably about half or more of those again over whatever  time period you like.

21:26 Yeah. Months are elapsing, weeks, months. It takes time. Yeah. And and a lot  of these people, you know, I'm coming back a year later and people are starting to forget that  first conversation. I try to bring it back up. The moment they start to forget about me, I try to  say, "Hey, here's another little tidbit of value." where sometimes I'm not even trying to just  get on these calls with people.

21:47 Sometimes I'm I made a YouTube video specifically addressing  this audience or maybe this sort of real estate niche and I send them the YouTube video saying,  "Hey, made this. Thought of you when I made this. Let me know if this resonates." You know, I hate  to draw comparisons to multi-level marketing cuz this is absolutely not that. The reason I draw a  comparison to it is because if you were to go to a multi-level marketing seminar, they would say,  "Make a list of a thousand people that you know, that's what they

22:18 do cuz it works, right? They  know what they're doing. Call every single one of them and say, "How was how's life been since  high school? I' I haven't spoken in 20 years." And the reason I So I have a lot of friends that have  done MLMs schemes, right? And some of them burned burned their relationships and some of them and  they but they made a lot of money.

22:36 Some of them burned their relationships and didn't make a  lot of money. Total waste. Some of them made a lot of money and did not burn their relationships.  Right. They're great. They're doing great. And the difference between those two parties is if they  burn their relationships, it's because the price of what they sold did not match the value of what  they were selling.

22:56 Correct. Right. It's it's like if I sold my grandma a lemon car, she's not going  to like me anymore. Yeah. If I sell my grandma a Corolla at fair market value and it works and it  serves her life better, she still loves me. Okay. So over here, whatever MLM they were selling, if  it matched the value that they were expecting, then they did a service to their friend.

23:18 Yes, they  sold to them, but they needed that thing in their life, or at least they think they did, which is  what's important. So, you could have burned your audience. You could have burned your relationships  if your service sucked and it wasn't worth the price. I'm guessing it wasn't. We haven't gotten  there yet. Yeah. But okay, 30 conversations, 30 second conversations, and then give or take  15 third conversations.

23:38 Did you close any on the second conversation? Yeah, I probably did close  one or two on some very low-end projects just to get get the ball rolling. I was charging probably  between, you know, $500 and $1,000 for those sort of projects. But I was just trying to get foot in  the door one time sort of thing. Yeah. And with the vision of having something to follow after  with that.

24:00 But correct it was just to get in the door. So let's say give or take 150 conversations,  150 hours on average, not including all the time texting. Let's say 300 hours at work. Yeah. Okay.  For all the reach out. Then you get you add, you know, you got to do some follow-ups few hours.  30. Did the did the second conversations last about an hour as well?

24:24 Yeah. Okay. So we're  at like 350 hours. We're being conservative. Probably wasn't that much cuz it doesn't take  that much. Like you could text 20 people in 15 minutes. Yeah. I got pretty fast at text. I'm  sure we're being really conservative. 350 hours to get your first call it 1500 in revenue. Let's say  two people at 750 each. Accurate. Yeah. Okay.

24:38 So, your hourly rate is terrible at this point.  You're looking at two bucks an hour for sure. Okay. But you're building something for yourself  and that's the whole point. And you're willing to play the long game. Yep. Okay. So, so of the  30 conversations, you close two people. Then you have 15 more conversations on round three.  How do those go? I probably close the majority of them really this time and not on the phone  call.

25:03 Um, again, at this point, I'm like scared to close on the phone. I'm like, "Oh, I don't  want to like give you a price right here and now. That's terrifying." But we did come up with some  sort of arrangement where we would move forward or work together in an educational sense or build  a certain project together. A lot of those third conversations ended up being successful for me.

25:22 Are you still doing 100% of these on Google Meet? Yeah. Okay. And see that's I I'm assuming that  a lot of these you could have done in person, right? You've got you're in the Cincy AI group.  Some of these people are within an hour, right? And I did I did have some like coffee chats with  people along the way, but I would say, you know, above 90% of my are just Google meets.

25:42 Is that  a personal preference? I love just being able to share my screen and like you share your screen.  I'm gonna do the laser pointer on your screen about what we should do and we could, you know,  share tabs and do a lot of that. That I think it was just the fact that I was a probably nervous  to get in person to be completely frank and I was used to working in this online environment.

26:04 Um, so  these days there are way more inerson interactions especially over this last couple of months  or so. Yeah. But when I was getting started, I think it was just let's just do what's working  for me right now. Let's just get all out on these Google meets. Now, I know that probably most of  these people were not within an hour of you, but in a in a perfect world, if all 150 were in person  and you you had a 20% follow-up rate or whatever, I bet you anything it's closer to a 40% follow-up  rate if they're in person.

26:31 Yeah. Just because the date on this is very very clear and you know  that and I know that, but you're like me and I want I don't want to go anywhere. A B I don't  like meeting people in person. So, I would have done what you did. But just for those watching or  listening, if you're willing to do in person, your close rate will absolutely be higher.

26:49 Yeah. Like  maybe twice as high. And I was gonna say, this is probably my largest piece of advice for anyone  getting started is go all out on in person when you can because like you said, it makes a whole  lot of difference about how a you connect with people, but b if people will work with you in the  future, you got that inerson relationship finally, and it just makes it a much more friendly, much  more engaging conversation whenever you have them.

27:14 So, as the value of AI continues to do this,  which will this will happen for a while, the value of inerson continues to do this.  Yeah. And the value of a Google meet contin third conversations. You closed literally all of  them. Almost all of them. A good amount of them. I would say maybe 10. 10. And you had already  closed two from the second conversation.

27:34 Yeah. So, you've got 12 paying customers. Some recurring. We  haven't gotten there yet. some one time from 150 reachouts. So, eight nine% close rate. Yeah. Which  if you did a cold email campaign to 150 people, you're going to have probably a 0% close rate  legitimately because oh my gosh, yeah, the numbers aren't big enough. You might need to email  1 to 5,000 people to get one close, right?

27:58 And so people watch this like 8% close, right? From all  those hours, 8% is amazing. And let me guess, no sales experience. Zero. You didn't serve a mission  for your church like I did for 2 years. Never gone door to door. Never like been in a boiler room  doing this is the most terrifying stuff I've ever done. That's encouraging. Yeah. Uh introvert.

28:22 No  sales experience. No formal tech experience other than playing around with tools and stuff. You're  not a software engineer. I'm I'm an ops guy at the end of the day. I'm not a I did not come from an  engineering background. Okay. 12 closes. Tell me. You said 10 out of the 15 you closed, right? And  plus the other two. Yeah. Give or take. Give or take.

28:43 What did you charge those 10? Like what did  the pricing structures look like? Give or take. Yeah. So eventually this is what my offer turned  into starting at the top of funnel. Obviously we have everywhere that I'm potentially meeting  people along the way. We had business masterminds, local meetups, social media, and previous  relationships. That's literally everyone that I reached out to.

29:01 Again, I did attempt to do the,  you know, mass email outreach. Nothing happened with it. Zero. That's the introvert's dream if  that works. Yeah. And again, a lot of times I talk to people that make a lot of money from  their network and they're a pastor, they're an extrovert, they're a super connector. You're none  of those things. You're 24 at the time.

29:17 Yeah. That eventually moves to being in the middle of the  sales funnel here with free resources and guides, long form content workshops, and essentially all  of these being lead magnets. And by lead magnet, it means what is a, you know, freebie that does  provide value that gets people in the door to want to work with me in a longer extent. It's almost  like a teaser for um what a full offer would be.

29:44 And it's a trust builder and an expertise shower.  And tell me how many YouTube subscribers you have today. Not many. I probably have 100 or so on  YouTube. I think I have 100, not 100 thousand, right? 100. One zero zero. Okay. Yeah. And  how many did you have when you first started? Make zero, right? Zero. Yeah. I started this  channel probably a year ago.

30:02 And the intent of this content is to show your expertise. You're not  trying to go viral, but you want people to see I publish stuff on the internet. Yeah. Period. It's  immediate credibility. Well, you're making content for these people anyway, right? Why not upload  it? Yeah. What's the downside? If I have to do a demo twice, I just report it. Yeah.

30:23 Yeah. Okay.  free resources is long form content, workshops, lead magnet, and I'm guessing your content is  not highly edited. It's screen recording. It's you talking, it's one go. I don't try to put  in, you know, two highle um editing into it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of these resources and  guides, for instance, are like prompt frameworks, their SEO guides, their how to use clawed code.

30:44 It's a lot of the things people are typically asking of me, and I want to have them ready to  go for whenever it comes up in conversation. So hopefully from a call that I were to have with  you for instance, I wouldn't just be giving, you know, some advice or feedback on the call.  I'll be giving you lead magnet number one, maybe two and three depending on what you're  looking for.

31:03 Gotcha. Eventually, it's not as much of a funnel as much as much as a loop because I'm  consistently building relationships and I'm also consistently providing education to people. people  kind of stay in that top and middle funnel over and over again until at some point I'm getting on  a call and we have some sort of mutual agreement to move forward and often I've eventually found  what that looks like for me at the bottom here.

31:30 We could talk about that more. Okay. I don't need  more cowbell. I need more founders to come on this podcast. I'm running out of people. So, if you or  someone you know has started a business or a side hustle or growth hacker, anything. If you've made  thousands of dollars in a short period of time, go to tkos.com, fill out the form, and I will give  you free publicity as a guest on this podcast.

31:50 If it's your friend and not you, I'll give you  a,000 bucks for sending them my way. Send them to tkos.com. So, what we just described is kind  of this. We kind of skipped over the middle part. In between steps one, two, and three, you're  sending them stuff. Yeah. Right. based on what you had learned about them on the call. Correct.  Okay. So, tell me about your offers and how did you land on those?

32:10 Yeah, this came from what  I learned on the free calls with people. So, I figured out that what I'm really good at doing  on these calls. I'm good at building tools. I'm good at helping with business operations  and systems, but a lot of people found a lot of value in what I was teaching them and sort of  having that framework mindset saying this is how I would go about it in your shoes, which eventually  led me to realize, why don't I just try to turn these into some sort of educationalbased offer.

32:37 So  on the far left, you'll see the private coaching offer and then I have cohort groups. Those are the  two main offers, but obviously I also, you know, do implementation builds or just, you know, AI  builds, website builds, things like that as time goes on. But I try to keep people start gets  people started by doing the private coaching in the cohort groups.

32:58 Okay. What the private  coaching looks like, usually it's a 3month sort of deep dive into your business. I work directly  with the founders of a leadership team to be able to implement AI and tech and tools long term.  Mhm. Really focusing on employee engagement with those tools. Really focusing on adoption. Yeah.  Adoption is the is the best word to describe it.

33:22 But obviously not everyone could afford that.  That's my high ticket offer. The one that I am most ingrained into your business. I'm essentially  becoming a thought leader in your business. Uh you know people say this AI officer functional C AIO  or right whatever you know terminology you want to use for it. Yeah. So that's you know the high  ticket one.

33:37 But obviously most people especially in my immediate network they don't they can't  afford it. What is what does this cost give or take? Yeah. Give or take it's 5 to 10 grand a  month. Yeah. Okay. And that's like your ideal that that's like I am not you know most people I'm not  even trying to pitch them. That is here. You know they can't afford it.

33:58 Yeah. And also you know I  can't afford to take on infinite clients of that. I I want to take on one or two of those people  max. Yeah. How many hours per week does this take? Give or take. Yeah. Right now I'm per client I  have one client doing that with me in the current you know 3 month sprint. Mhm. Probably takes 10  hours or so a week for me to focus on that.

34:14 Okay. Okay. All right. And then cohort groups. Yeah.  And this is what I really love to do. The cohort groups are essentially month-long sprints with me  where I get groups of the one I'm doing right now, 10 people to build alongside each other a common  goal. So for the one I'm doing right now, we're all building websites using Claude that optimizes  SEO and their lead funnel.

34:38 Okay? And we're all working on it together. People are coming from  different backgrounds. One person, you know, comes from an accounting background, real estate  background. So you're not matching together blue collar business owners, white collar. You're  just like, whoever I got for this 10 weeks, if they qualify and or four weeks, if they need it,  if they can pay, you're in this cohort.

34:57 September cohort October. And I have done focus related ones  as well. Like I've done real estate specific ones in the past. I did one for acquiring businesses.  Mhm. To make essentially acquisitions agents to help with writing letters of intent, working with  brokers, underwriting deals. We had, you know, AI specific boot camps or cohorts for that.

35:21 And  now I'm doing this one that's much more general, but um this has been the largest one yet I've  been doing this month. Okay. What do you charge for this? This is just $1,000. That's awesome. So,  10 grand for one month's worth of work. Uh, and it's I mean, it might even be less work than the  private coaching, right? Yeah. How many hours per week?

35:43 It's a lot of hours. So, the way they work  is every week, Monday leads off with like a lesson plan. The end of week, we have a call because  both of these are with the whole group. Monday, full group lesson plan. Thursday or Friday full  group kind of breakdown, talk about how things are going for people, discuss what problems  they came up that they came through.

35:59 Obviously, most people are probably reaching the same sort of  questions and problems by the end of the week. So, it's a great time to interact and get those  out of the way. And in the middle of the week, I'm having 30-minute one-on- ones with people.  So, with the 10 people I have going right now, you know, it it certainly adds up. But not  everyone books a one-on-one every week.

36:16 Correct. How many hours per week would you say it shakes  out at? Yeah. So, let's say 2 hours on Monday, 2 hours on Thursday, and then 5 hours in between.  So, another 10. About 10. Okay. 250 bucks an hour. Really? I mean, call it 40 hours for a month,  $10,000. And how big could this be? How big are you comfortable letting it get? Probably double  that size.

36:40 20 people. Yeah. Yeah. I think the first one I did was literally just me working with  a friend. I called it a I called it a cohort group cuz I tried to get more people to join. I had  one person join. Great. Let's work together is much more one-on-one. That was to get the, you  know, trial period out of the way. And you're making content out of it.

36:58 Imagine. Yeah. I'm  repurposing a lot of this. The second one I did, three people still $3,000 a month. Yeah. Like it  was great. It was awesome. It was It felt really good to have people, you know, people that weren't  previously buying into work with working with me, being able to afford something and also me  provide something that will theoretically last them for the rest of their business days.

37:16 Yeah. All right. Implementation builds. Yeah. This is something you could be getting this from  these guys too, right? Correct. It doesn't have to be one or the other. I've had multiple people  that go through the cohorts work with me to build something post cohort and all of that is oneoff  things and I usually calculate that based on using and how hourly rate I came up with for myself and  also understanding how much time I think it will take because I'd worked on a lot of these projects  over the years.

37:40 What hourly rate? It's $200. Okay. I know these are all over the map. Yeah. What on  average do you charge for an implementation build? It could be anywhere between $1,000 and I  can imagine charging like 15 to $20,000. It just depends on the project. Yeah. What are  some examples of charges that you've given out for this? Yeah. So, a lot of I don't know how  obsessed I am with the AI agent terminology, but building AI tools that are scheduled and fit  directly into your business.

38:08 I do a lot of that. That's kind of the the the theme including like  you know marketing specific tools. For instance, the most recent one I did was working with the  realer to repurpose content and just produce a lot large amount amounts of content for them. Sales  builds to help with the outreach funnels and then newsletters and the things like that.

38:33 They're all  over the place. They widely vary. Okay. Would you say 2,000 average? Yeah. Okay. So, of the 12 f  and I know you've gotten customers since then, but of these first 12 people, how much revenue  have you generated lifetime from them? Oh, jeez, that's a good question. Probably I would say  the average person joins a cohort group of mine and then probably works on a project with me.

38:56 So,  about $2,000 maybe on average. On average. Okay. So, 25,000. Wow. From the first 12. Yeah. Yeah.  So let's just say that almost for your first like batch of customers for all the time spent I guess  it doesn't include some of the implementation time. Y you got paid $50 to $100 an hour to start  a business. Correct. Right. To generate content to generate testimonials to get a a uh like a  foundation of customers that could start referring people to you because that doesn't include all the  referrals.

39:27 Right. Right. What about customers that you've acquired since those first 12 people?  Yeah. The majority has come actually late this summer. I'm going to have the best month of my  life, which is about to be making about 15 grand this time projected. Amazing. You know, if you  would have asked me a couple months ago, there was months I was like, I don't know if I'm going  to make any money this.

39:46 It was very up and down, especially with I had a lot of travels over the  summer. I tried to finish up a lot of projects going into that. And then the introvert in  me stopped my sales funnel and you know, it it spirals really fast. But I got to the point  that this is going to be my last month. Yeah. The 15K. So, in a year and a half, you went from  making $4,000 a month at your 9 to5 and you had a bunch of conversations.

40:09 Didn't really spend any  money other than a little, you know, tech tool, software tools, 20 bucks a month maybe when I was  getting started. Yeah. Like the Yeah. So, $4,000 a month working for the man pre-tax. Mhm. To 10  to $15,000 a month working for yourself. That's right. And you're not professionally trained.  You don't have sales abilities. You just like tinkering with software tools and AI tools and you  provide value to people and then they ask how they can pay you for it.

40:35 Yeah. And I think the proof  behind it is I put in the time and they see the content going out and they see the demos and they  see everything that I've made for others because I've been recording it along the way. So it I  don't need a degree to prove that I could do these things. I have all the proof in the world that I  can ride people. What percentage of your revenue today is coming from those first 12 verse people  after that?

40:53 Yeah, the month I'm having right now, I probably about have 50% of the people being  first engagement clients and then the other half being clients that I've been working with. Wow. I  mean, so you were able to more than replace your income solely from your personal network. Yes.  Right. And then everything above that is coming from either referrals from that personal network  or people that you found since then.

41:18 And really the people you found since then are still kind of  in your personal network. you're just expanding your network by joining these networking groups  and actually reaching out. Y what tools do you use to do all these like what are your favorite  tools? Yeah, it's I'd a make it whatever tools the businesses are currently using. So I make it my  business to understand but if you know you're not using any AI tools or any platforms right now as  of August of 2026 I would just say jump into cloud and learn

41:50 everything you can about claude. Don't  get distracted by all the other shiny objects out there based on what we know right now and what's  working with people. I would just do cloud. Okay. What like non AAI tools or other AI tools like  CRM? Yeah. Marketing. I've done a lot within go high level. They have a lot of that's the CRM  platforms I use a lot and I've done it you know a lot with like naturally Salesforce and HubSpot and  all these other large CRM systems.

42:10 And then from the automation side I use a lot of NAN which  is just strictly automation built for people. If this step happens in a business workflow, then  these steps of actions happen autonomously. Okay, I want you to do something right now. Open  your bank statement and add up every single software subscription that you're paying  for. Your CRM, your email marketing tool, text message platform, calendar booking  app, funnel builder, review management, even a separate form builder or automation tool.

42:39 I've talked to business owners paying $500 to $3,000 a month across eight or 10 different tools,  and half of them don't even talk to each other. So then they go pay for Zapier on top of that just  to make things connect. High level replaces all of it. CRM, email, SMS, funnels, websites, calendars,  automations, reputation management, invoicing, one login, one dashboard, one bill starting at 97  bucks a month.

43:00 A guy in my community was paying 3.47 just for Clickfunnels, 99 for Mailchimp, 25  for Kalan, 79 for a review tool, and 49 bucks for Zapier just to glue it all together. That's 600 a  month if you're not counting. He moved everything to high level and cut his software cost by  over 80%. But the best part isn't even the savings. It's that everything just works together  natively.

43:23 A lead fills out a form on your funnel that creates a contact in your CRM which triggers  a text and email sequence, books an appointment on your calendar, and then asks for review when  the job's done. One workflow, zero duct tape, and then you can white label the whole platform  to resell it to other businesses as your own software. Charge them 2 to 500 bucks a month.

43:40 Check out gohighlevel.com/tkopod. They'll give you a 30-day free trial to see what I mean. And  how are you finding new customers today? Would you take the time to do so? I reach out to 10 people  every day doing the same thing I've been doing for the past year. I go into my contacts and I see  what sort of value can I provide. Maybe I think I want to run a education group based around this  information or this deliverable.

44:00 Who can I prevent uh potentially provide that to in my network? I  go in and I, you know, text 10 people or I call 10 people who I consider my friends. Now, I've  been doing this for a year now. Hey, you know, I'm going to be building this alongside other  business owners. Are you interested in joining us? It's a much easier. So, yeah. And, you know, I  don't feel any guilt at all in doing that because I feel like I'm giving them so much value in  these offers that it outweighs any sort of like, you know, salesy

44:33 feeling that I've had. So, if  you generate 25,000 in the first 150 um customers, and that 25,000 is growing, right? Just imagine  if you had those same 150 conversations today and instead of your positioning as I think these  are tools are cool. I just want to know how I can help you. You know, instead of that, it's yeah,  I make $15,000 a month solving problems with AI for business owners.

44:56 That's right. And I can do  that for you. Yeah. Like your close rate will be orders of magnitude higher. Yeah. Especially  if you understand the problems they have and that's just through genuine conversation.  Yeah. How important are networking groups, in-person stuff especially? It's everything.  It's everything, man. It's I would not be where I am without it because I mean, let's be honest,  there's a lot of AI dudes out there, right?

45:14 The guys that were drop shipping dudes became crypto  dudes became Shopify dudes, became uh, you know, and I've been that guy. I'm utterly guilty, too,  dude. I'm not I love those guys. I'd rather have that guy in my corner than the guy who's been  an account executive for 14 years, right? Cuz they're they're out there. They're trying stuff.  So, I'm not dogging on those guys, but there's a lot of those guys.

45:38 I was flipping real estate  two years ago. Yeah. Amazing. Oh, yeah. Real. I did forgot that. I've done that, too. But like,  when you're in person, then you're in the 1%. Because the other guys are in the 90. They're  online. Yeah. They don't want to. Uh they could, but they don't want to. I mean, Cincinnati is not  a huge area. Um, what other tips or tricks do you have for people to be successful at this?

46:00 Yeah, I  think trying to establish mentorship wherever you can. Get in the rooms with the people that are the  step ahead of you or even two steps ahead of you and understanding how they got there. And a lot of  it is through this genuine relationship building that you'll quickly find out. And obviously  there's just been strategies of doing so. The two strategies that I kind of split equally is seek  to serve and pay to play.

46:20 seek to serve meaning I am going to try to provide value to this mentor  in any way I can hopefully to receive guidance in return. Pay to play being I am going to pay to be  in these rooms with these people or pay for these coaches or these consultants to tell me out along  the way. Yeah. Now, what what about the theory that gez I don't want to show this guy how to vibe  code cuz then he's going to make his own website.

46:48 Has your thinking on that evolved over time or is  that a genuine concern that people should have? Because some people say um give away the secrets,  sell sell the implementation. Do you agree with that or not? I give every old thing away. I just  I will give away if I you know I give all my trade secrets away. I follow the exact format I use to  teach the cohort groups.

47:05 I will tell you exactly what I do. But I think people still are looking  for the partners like me who have this sort of build their mindset, have the sort of operational  brain to work alongside you and to be a thought leader and to be on top of the AI spin and  everything that's happening these days with AI. They want to have these genuine connections  with me moving forward.

47:28 So in these cohort groups, I tell people exactly what I'm doing to build.  I don't leave any secrets. So theoretically, you could go off and do all these things on  your own. You'll never need me again. Mhm. But I find over and over again that by providing all  this value, people would rather continue to work with him because they said, "Wow, look what Ryan  did with 1,000 of my $1,000 that I made and look what he created for me.

47:53 So, let's continue this  relationship." Well, it's like I don't want to show this guy how to fish because I'm catching all  his fish. If I show him how to fish, he doesn't need to buy from me anymore. But what happens when  you show him how to fish is that then he learns how to fish. Then he comes to you like, "Hey,  how do I catch bass?" Oh, well that's a whole other thing.

48:08 How do I catch trout? Well, that's  cold water. That's right. Well, can you show I want to catch bass? I'm sick of eating catfish  all day. It's like it just gives them more and more opportunities to pay you money. For sure. So,  instead of selling fish, you're selling coaching, you're selling consulting, you're selling a  subscription service of lures.

48:23 You know what I'm saying? Like, you just got to have faith that  it will work out better if you believe in the law of abundance, as woo woo as it sounds, and just  give it all away. Absolutely. And it'll come back 10fold. Tell me about the DASA framework. I use a  bunch of frameworks in my work. I like to follow the Alex Formosies in the world who use frameworks  to describe any sort of business uh solutions they have.

48:47 But this is the framework that I use to lead  up to any AI project. So whether it's in sales, marketing, this is the path I follow and it  starts with the D which is diagnose which essentially means finding the problem that you're  looking to solve. A lot of people are trying to solve non-existent problems using AI and that's  a waste of time. You want to actually be getting some sort of outcome from what we're trying to  build.

49:07 So that's the D. A stands for articulate. So saying what the dream solution would look like  for your business if we built something like this. For instance, my team wouldn't have to work, you  know, the full 40 hours a week on this. Because a lot of this is taken off their plates. It could be  more time uh saved or more money made, whatever, you know, whatever sort of spin you want to put  on it.

49:31 The S stands for systemize which means try to bring all of the ideas together from your  team. Try to bring in SOPs or you know standard operating procedures about what is currently  working. Who are people in the space that are doing this properly? Let's study them. Try to make  a system that would work that we could plug AI into because if you have a working system already  with a lot of manpower and a lot of manual work, then AI will make that so much easier for you.

49:57 So I think like the slogan I I love to use is if you're automating chaos, you're scaling chaos.  That's what I'm trying to prevent with using this sort of framework with everything I build.  So then finally AI can be implemented into a project. I like if you're automating chaos,  you're scaling chaos. It's kind of like a business. It's Do you you watch The Office?

50:16 Yeah.  In the episode where he he starts Michael Scott Paper Company and his accountant's like, "You're  out of business. Like the more paper you sell, the more money you lose cuz you're selling paper  at a loss." And he's like, "Crunch the numbers again." He's like, "Crunch. Did anything change?"  No. Yeah. It's like that's what happens when you sell something at a loss.

50:33 You don't want to  sell more of it, right? You automate chaos, you're scaling chaos. Yeah. And then it, you know,  puts a bad flavor in your mouth about all the tech that we're implementing. Oh, chatbt doesn't work  or, you know, these automations don't work. You just had a really bad system to start with. AI  is using the data that you feed it. Give it the, you know, proper information.

50:50 It'll work. I like  to call a of the dosa framework articulate. That's like the aha moment. You articulate the problem  to them that they're experiencing but they don't have a structure around. Right? You're like,  "Oh, so you're telling me that blah blah blah blah blah." And they're like, "Yes." Right.  They get it and then it's like buy in. Some of this is happening on the calls that I'm doing with  people.

51:07 It's like we we're always well a you know, the hard part is trying to get the problem out  of their mouth. But then what you know I could give them that our aha moment on the call and then  once we start to work together in a paid fashion, we could take over with the systemize and  AI implementation steps together. Now, if you it sounds like you're you're it's taking  three calls for you to close your average deal, right?

51:28 Where would you place call number one, two,  and three along this framework? One is, you know, the D and the A step. Both of them. Yeah. Because  the a lot of people kind of know the problems they're currently having in their business. Yeah.  Sometimes you have to get it out of them, right? Sometimes we're like, well, how is your, you  know, this revenue track and how is this different offering going?

51:48 It does sometimes, you know, first  call oftentimes could be just the diagnose step, but I try to get through the first two steps on  the first call and then the articulate step kind of snowballs into the second and third call of  people typically. Okay. And then the rest of it is post close. Correct. I've talked to a lot of  people that do AI implementation and some of them struggle to ask a question good enough to elicit  a good enough answer about what they're struggling with in their business.

52:14 M because if you're a  business owner and I'm trying to solve problems with AI for you and I if I ask you something  generic like what problems are you struggling with in your business right now? They have all kinds  but they don't know how to match their actual problems with the answer to that question. So are  there any like creative workarounds to to bubbling that out of them?

52:33 Uh it's still one of the most  challenging things I face. But I love asking like what is keeping you up at night? Like what is the  thing that is haunting you because you're going to have to go deal with it the next day. There's  often times I have a lot of solutions that could fix the problems that are really like haunting  people like oh you know I'm not making enough money to pay my staff like well let's dive into  that more or you know this one project is going wrong in all these different ways let's let's

52:56 dive  deep into these this is like you know I want to help you solve these problems with my specific  expertise. Yeah. By the way obviously this whole episode is about AI implementation. I have a  community playmakakerai.com where that's all we do. There's almost 300 of us and dozens of us  have gotten our first paid customers exclusively from what we learned in my group.

53:18 We will teach  you how to learn AI, how to implement AI, how to vibe code with AI, how to sell AI services, how  to price it. There's a whole community of people and they're only doing that AI implementation for  small businesses because I firmly believe this is the best business opportunity in the world right  now. There are 400 million small business owners in the world, 33 million in the US, and all of  them need AI, and you can solve that problem for them.

53:42 So check us out at playmakersai.com.  You've heard the phrase with regards to like prompting AI. Garbage in, garbage out. Garbage  prompt, garbage output, right? Yes. You could also say the quality of your question equals the  quality of your answers. For sure. So generically, if we go to church or hang out with people, how  you doing? Good. How you doing?

53:57 Good. Stupid question, stupid answer. Yeah. I was in a on  a podcast once where the first question was, "What was the last thing you cried about?" Yeah.  I'm like, I just had I'm like, first of all, I'm a little embarrassed to admit. Second of all,  I I need like 3 minutes to think about that. Yeah. You know, it's a great question and it almost  always gets a great answer.

54:16 So that question in this business in this industry is so critically  important because if you cannot diagnose the D of the DOSsa framework aka show them that there is  a disease that needs curing right then there's no disease that needs curing but we all have problems  even a perfectly ran business has problems that could be better optimized right any other creative  ways of getting that answer other than what keeps you up at night which is a great one that comes  to mind I like what your your friend said on the

54:48 podcast you jumped on like trying to get elicit  some sort of response that they weren't expecting from you. That's the sort of main goto. But I love  asking like why questions when people are talking about their business. They might act like, oh, all  of this is going fine. Like I don't want to, hey, I don't want to be vulnerable with this guy that  I haven't talked to in years, so I'm just going to talk about, you know, yeah, the marketing portion  of our business is going fine.

55:07 Operations are going okay. And I, you know, trying to pinpoint  maybe very specific things about them, like, well, what about this particular offering? been have you  been able to get that off the ground? Yeah. A lot of these, you know, the questions I ask go into  the studying leading up to these calls. Okay. So, you're 26 years old. What will you make this  month from implementing AI into small businesses?

55:32 $15,000 this month. Profit. Profit. Amazing.  Everyone is saying that AI will kill small businesses. You say the opposite. Why? This is the  best time you could compete with the enterprises because you have access to the technology that  allows you to do so. you have the same access that they've always had now. Yeah. And theoretically,  you have even better tools than them because they're limited to what they could use based on  policies and governance that they have in those organizations.

55:58 You can you move much faster than  Well, do you know how many organizations can't implement chat GPT because they don't think it's  secure enough or it's not secure enough? Yeah. The hospital system I was looking at, they, you  know, they're trying to move forward with their AI implementation, but it's a hard, you know,  it's hard to get it going for them.

56:11 Yeah. What is the most a small business has ever paid you to  help them with AI? Yeah, I've been working with the same business for the past year or so now.  So, I've made about 15 grand working directly with them. And what have you done for them? It's  been the advising. It's been business advisory, how we're implementing AI and the software tools  into their company, making sure that they're on track to reaching their goals.

56:37 What industry and  what size of a business is this? It's a small startup. It's a really a tech startup. Are they  funded? Nope. Wow. Pre-unding. How much did it cost you to start an AI implementation business in  total? $20. Cloud Pro or Claw? I think at the time it was Chad GBT, but yes, back when Chad GBT was  cool back when Yeah. That that was the that was the craze.

56:59 Yeah. What is an AI tool that everyone  is hyped about that you find to be useless for business? I'm not a fan of Open Claw to be  completely honest with you. Where did it go? Yeah, there's been a lot going on in the background  of them working Google trends right now and it's going to look like this. I don't even need to. I  think it's perfectly fine for AI users like myself who understand how to use the tools to be using  OpenClaw, but I don't like the fact that people are trying to implement them into into

57:24 their  business as fast as possible because of the access you're giving it. People just don't understand  how big of a risk it is. Yeah. Why are you doing AI implementation for small businesses here in  Cincinnati? Why not move to Austin, New York, San Francisco? Yeah, I mean this is where I  was born and raised and people really need it here. I love serving the people that, you know, I  grew up around, the people that, you know, have, I don't know, have served me to this point.

57:47 A lot of people in, you know, the Austin, Texases of the world or the San Francisco, they  have in-house people doing this or they, you know, their neighbors are AI experts or AI influencers  already. Yeah. There's much less of us in, you know, the Midwest and particularly in Ohio.  So, I love being the person that people could rely on locally. And you're telling me that a shy  introvert can make six figures a year implementing AI in a small business?

58:15 Yes. You could make more  for sure. Have you ever automated someone's job away? Nope. Cuz I mean, we're we're growing  the pie here. Yeah. At the end of the day, no jobs have been automated away. I've just  tried to make them more efficient. I think I'm all about efficiency and how you could  spend the majority of your time doing what actually matters versus taking, you know, the  email management stuff out of off of my hands, things like that.

58:39 Okay, let's say that you get  a call tomorrow from a plumber with five crews. What is the first thing that you automate for  him? There's a lot of logistics that go into the home service space in general. A lot of people  really struggle with how can we optimize routes? I've been working on solutions related to that  recently with home service businesses.

58:54 Likewise, a lot of people in the space you aren't usually  the most techsavvy individuals. So potentially they need tools that fit their lifestyle. And  by that mean I mean let's try to find the right tooling or CRM system that their teams will  actually use. understanding why they might not use certain tools out there, what confuses them  about it, and trying to get to the root cause of those problems so they could grow and scale to  the point they want because of the tools that they brought into their business.

59:25 Beautiful. If  a 20-year-old wants to do exactly what you do, what should they do? They should do the exact  same thing I've been doing, which is trying to get in person. Don't make the mistake I bet I made  a year ago and just trying to go all out online, but meet as many people as they can in person.  try to find mentors, build solutions that they see problems for in their own world.

59:45 You know, for  instance, if you're currently in university, how can you make solutions for people in your classes  or your professors? Try to take the problems that you see around you and and find solutions for  it. And likewise, if you've never used AI before, I love starting by making a video game because  it takes all the pressure off of you and it and it puts your effort into something that's a  lot of fun and engaging for you.

01:00:07 And that's how I actually that was my first ever project I ever  did is I made a video game. What video game? It's called Lift Line. It's a ski resort trivia game  cuz I'm a big big into skiing and snowboarding. So, um I took something I love and I kind of made  a Wordle style game. Yeah. Found it. That's cool. See, I'm a small business owner and I get 20  emails a day from 26-year-old AI bros.

01:00:25 Yeah. Why should I or other small business owners hire you?  Because I'm a true go-giver. If you haven't read Bob Berg's The Go-Giver, I highly recommend you  doing so. I try to just provide as much value as I possibly can with no real expectation in return  constantly. If you need some sort of solution, I got you. I will try to make it as affordable  for you as possible.

01:00:48 And through doing so, I think people just naturally gravitate towards  me. If people want to get a hold of you or hire you or learn more, how can we find you? Yeah, I am  constantly posting on social media under my name, Ryan Shooter. That's spelled s c h u e t t t t  t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t e r. We'll link to that.

01:01:06 I'm always on YouTube. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn. That's where you'll  find me the most often. But I'm also starting a newsletter on Substack called Freedom Based  Founder. Okay, Ryan. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much, Chris. If you or someone you know has  ever asked AI, hey, will you make me money? And it actually did. It delivered.

01:01:23 I need to hear your  story. I want you on the podcast. Go to tko.com, fill out the form, and we'll have you on. If  your friend did that, if they made money with AI, send them to tkos.com and I'll give you $1,000  for the referral. If you like this content, please share with a friend, hit a like or a comment  below, and we'll see you next time on the Kerner