How AI Can Scale Your Business

Dawn Andrews, CEO of Free Range Thinking, is a celebrated business strategist and leadership coach, working with figures like Maria Shriver and leading major projects. Her expertise in strategy, communication, and leadership has propelled clients from diverse fields to global acclaim. Passionate about female empowerment, she hosts the My Good Woman podcast and is the founder of FMxLA, The Female Leadership Accelerator.

SHARE

SHARE

[00:00:00] Dawn Andrews: I was getting fired, laid off, to be clear, not fired uniquely, like a whole wave of us were going to be cut out of an entertainment company, which is something that everybody can relate to these days. Disney has had big layoffs. Mattel has had big layoffs. There are a lot of large entertainment companies that have downsized.

[00:00:17] Dawn Andrews: So that was happening for me. Thankfully, I had a little bit of a heads up. And so I hired a career coach at the time to figure out what’s next.

[00:00:34] Jessy Grossman: Hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Women in Fluencer Marketing Podcast. My name is Jessi. I am your hostess with the mostess. I’m so embarrassing. I also have like a really bad, um, Lipstick application happening right now. And I’m looking at my shelf and very glad that most of our audience listens to us on Apple podcasts and doesn’t watch us on YouTube.

[00:01:05] Jessy Grossman: Normally I’m like tune in on YouTube, except the day that I forgot how to put on lipstick. Today we have a really. Awesome guest for you. I just finished recording with her and I was like, I feel like my mind has been expanded truthfully with, we’re going to talk about AI and business and how you can like practically, like on a very practical level, utilize it.

[00:01:33] Jessy Grossman: Whether it’s for yourself, if you’re an employee, if you’re a business owner, like the sky’s the limit. But also like in your personal life, because I feel like one of the most valuable things in this world is time. And I feel like as 20 40 something year olds, I feel like we are, we’re looking at time so differently than we used to.

[00:01:59] Jessy Grossman: I don’t know, I’ll speak personally. I feel like I am. I feel like I used to be so. I’m used to grinding and work in crazy amounts of hours per day, per week. And I just don’t want to do that anymore. I want to work smarter versus harder. I want to have more freedom to pick and choose what I do in my business, how much of my time is spent.

[00:02:28] Jessy Grossman: In on business versus, you know, having more time to just do what I want in that moment. And that freedom is only achieved when you get time back. And so when we talk about like the countless amount of use cases and ways to utilize AI, that’s probably my number one, which is AI just gives you time back, hands down, period, end of sentence.

[00:02:56] Jessy Grossman: And that is alone one of the main reasons to continue listening to this episode. Our guest today, her name is Dawn Andrews. She is the CEO of a company called Free Range Thinking. Such a good name. She’s a business strategist and a leadership coach. And she’s worked with like celebrities like Maria Shriver and on.

[00:03:20] Jessy Grossman: Other celebrities and on leading major projects, her expertise is in strategy, communication, and leadership, which has propelled her clients from like diverse fields to global acclaim. She’s super passionate about female empowerment. And she also is a podcast host as well. We did a little podcast swap. So I’m going to be on her show, which is called my good woman podcast.

[00:03:45] Jessy Grossman: And she’s also the founder of. FMLA, the female leadership. So we really get into it, guys. We talk about, you know, how she even got into the world of AI, like how AI can bring out great parts of your team, how your team can work with AI better, the best way to utilize AI to take the stress out of scaling your business, like atypical ways to use AI, about AI making decisions in your business.

[00:04:17] Jessy Grossman: And the future of it all. So I really look forward to you checking out this episode as always. Share it out. If there’s others in your personal or professional life that you think would benefit from this topic, please share this episode. If you enjoy it at the ends and like only if you truly enjoy it, don’t even give us like a, don’t just like throw out a good review.

[00:04:40] Jessy Grossman: But if you genuinely enjoy this episode, this podcast, leave us a review. It really helps to. Have us be more discoverable to more people. And what else? We have a couple events coming up, so I want to put those on your radar. We have the best in influencer tech. We have done this, I think, eight other times.

[00:05:01] Jessy Grossman: We’ve done it since 2020, twice a year. The math comes out to about the eighth time. So we hosted this virtual event again, twice a year, and it is an incredible display of like the best tech out there. Whether you’re looking to manage campaigns, source for influencers, grab analytics to pay people. We cover it all.

[00:05:28] Jessy Grossman: My goal for this year in particular, and the event is on June 20th. Is to expose you guys to some new companies that you’ve never maybe even heard of before. A couple of them, of course you have, but I want to introduce you guys to new tech products. I’m such a tech nerd. This is definitely my favorite event of the year.

[00:05:49] Jessy Grossman: And I really want everyone to come and check it out. It’s a totally free event, whether you’re a member or not, just go to I am whim. com slash. Tech. You can see old demos of prior participants because they come and they demo their products for you. You get to see like a true behind the scenes, and they’re always offering really in like incentivizing deals for our community.

[00:06:17] Jessy Grossman: And that’s something that. Definitely gets people to watch because how often can you get a deal on a SaaS product? Very rarely. So again, June 20th, virtual event. You can tune in from anywhere. I am whim. com slash check to get your ticket. totally free and like packed full of value. We are also hosting in person events, taking it offline.

[00:06:43] Jessy Grossman: We’ve got dates set right now for Atlanta. We have New York’s being announced soon. We’ve got LA and we’ve got Philly and we have so many other cities, but if you are Are like wanting a fun girls night out, like it’ll be influencer marketers. So inevitably business will come up, but we just really want to produce these events that are like genuinely a good time.

[00:07:11] Jessy Grossman: Like our New York event last was bouquet making, and we got a bunch of flowers and everyone made like a custom bouquet. And. And then put a little note on it with our contact info. And then at the end of our really fun event, where there’s like food and drinks and fun, get to know you, like you took home a bouquet that you didn’t design and it had some contact information.

[00:07:33] Jessy Grossman: So then you got like a new friend out of it. It was really sweet. And who doesn’t love taking home flowers? Right? So we’re doing that. Our LA event is like this incredible wellness thing at like a spot. It’s going to be so nice. It’s for mental health awareness month. We’re doing so many fun activities.

[00:07:48] Jessy Grossman: You guys were. Probably talking about having astrologists or numerologists come and we’re really going there. Leaning into the fun. Of course, business will come up, but like we all need to have more fun. Check out our website. You can find all the information on upcoming events or if you’re not a member.

[00:08:09] Jessy Grossman: You can put your email in your local, like your market, whatever market you’re in. And then as soon as we have an event there, we will notify you. But we are coming to New York, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Austin. We’re going to Miami. We’re going to London, Toronto, like lots of cities, you guys all over the place.

[00:08:31] Jessy Grossman: So can’t wait to see you there. I’m going to stop talking. I’m going to wrap it up because I want you to listen to our guest, but it’d be crazy if I didn’t mention it because these events are going to be so good. All right, you guys, without further ado, we have our guest coming up next, Dawn Andrews.

[00:08:51] Jessy Grossman: This show is sponsored by Women in Influencer Marketing, better known as WIM, the best online community for the creator economy. You will meet fellow influencer marketers, you’ll meet brands, you’ll meet talent agencies to talk about. Shop, get hired, and even find a mentor when you become a member. Do not forget to check out all of our incredible resources.

[00:09:14] Jessy Grossman: For example, we have dozens of masterclasses from the top voices, a TikTok, a YouTube, award winning agencies, and women who are paving the way for us all. So if you want the chance to network with a FooSoo and influencer marketing, check out what it takes to become a member, make more money, and have fun doing it.

[00:09:36] Jessy Grossman: Visit I am wim.com/join. That’s I-A-M-W-I im.com/join today. And I so look forward to seeing you more around the community. So first of all, I’m just excited to have you like chatting with us today. Like this is a topic that I’m fascinated by and I was just like, Ooh, we’re gonna talk about good stuff today.

[00:10:00] Jessy Grossman: So . So first and foremost. Welcome 

[00:10:04] Dawn Andrews: and 

[00:10:05] Jessy Grossman: how’s your 

[00:10:05] Dawn Andrews: week so far? It’s been really good. I’ve had the great pleasure with the flexibility of owning my own business and having it be portable to go take care of a very good friend who is in a car accident. So it’s been very good to like, I’ve been having those moments of gratitude.

[00:10:23] Dawn Andrews: That I’ve made these choices and that I have this business and I have that possibility because there are some days when I’m ready to leave it. So it’s nice to, it’s nice to appreciate it today. 

[00:10:35] Jessy Grossman: I’m sorry to hear that your friend got in a car accident. I’m happy to be here that you could be with them though.

[00:10:40] Jessy Grossman: And yes. Like absolutely owning your business. Like, I don’t know, there’s probably a handful of things that I hear repeatedly from people who own their own business, like the positives of it. But like, yeah, love them as the freedom you’re 

[00:10:51] Dawn Andrews: like, 

[00:10:53] Jessy Grossman: you just, you’re in control more, you know, talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago and she’s like, I’m working an insane amount of hours right now.

[00:11:01] Jessy Grossman: She’s like, I might take the rest of the year off though. Yeah. You have total control of how you work when you work. So I’m glad that. That’s what you’re experiencing too. I 

[00:11:13] Dawn Andrews: believe that life is more fun when you bet on yourself. And so it’s nice to know that when you have those sometimes 80 hour weeks or you’re waking up at three in the morning because you’re thinking about stuff or you know, whatever those stressful entrepreneurial moments are, that it does pay off in a big, I think the return on investment is far greater than the stresses of running a business.

[00:11:33] Jessy Grossman: So tell us a little bit about how you even came to like be in your, you know, have your own business. And What sort of like drove you to that decision and what does it been like? 

[00:11:44] Dawn Andrews: I have had, so my company is called free range thinking. I’m a business strategy consultant and an executive leadership coach.

[00:11:51] Dawn Andrews: And we help founders and especially female founders break past blocks in their business blocks and growth and scale and help them get to the next level through refining their strategy, building their systems and streamlining their operations. And do it all with the help of AI, which is an underutilized tool, even with as much as AI has taken the world by storm.

[00:12:16] Dawn Andrews: And this business has gone through so many different iterations. I started it 22 years ago. And originally it was kind of at the beginning of the personal coaching movement. My business was I’ll help anybody, everybody, whoever wants to come. Hey, family members, you want to try this out? And I grew up in an entrepreneurial family.

[00:12:39] Dawn Andrews: So over time, my, I became very business focused and my background is in entertainment. So I became very entertainment, business focused and continued to grow the business from there. And now we serve. Like I said, female founders in service based businesses. We serve the entertainment industry. We serve early stage startup founders and all of it around that conversation of scaling and growth.

[00:13:04] Jessy Grossman: So how did you know that you wanted to get into this business in the first place? And let’s not even like throw in the AI component, but just like coaching component, like how, you know, were you, had you had coaches? Did you know other people who were coaches? 

[00:13:19] Dawn Andrews: Like, Oh girl, I was getting fired. Laid off to be clear, not fired uniquely like a whole wave of us.

[00:13:26] Dawn Andrews: We’re going to be cut out of an entertainment company, which is something that everybody can relate to these days. Disney has had big layoffs. Mattel has had big, there are a lot of large entertainment companies that have downsized. So that was happening for me. Thankfully, I had a little bit of a heads up.

[00:13:42] Dawn Andrews: And so I hired a career coach at the time. To figure out what’s next, what skills do I have? How do I package myself? And I realized in talking to her that I wanted her job and not necessarily the career coaching part of it, but the talking to creative, interesting people, hearing what their strengths and their opportunities were, and being able to help, you know, feed that back to them, direct them, give them opportunities for growth.

[00:14:11] Dawn Andrews: And so, uh, after that happened, I was like, What do I need to do what you do? And then I got a Masters of Organizational Development and here I am. That is so cool. I 

[00:14:22] Jessy Grossman: love that. I, it has to come from somewhere. Like, it’s like, where’s the exposure? Where was the inspiration? So I love that, like, you personally experienced it and was like, not only am I, Experiencing a good coach from like, I don’t want your job.

[00:14:36] Jessy Grossman: I want to do that with my life. I love that. And so, okay. So then at what point did AI like enter your business? Cause I can imagine it wasn’t 22 years ago. 

[00:14:48] Dawn Andrews: Yeah. So it’s been interesting. If you look back at the history of the coaching industry. Most of it started virtually. In fact, some of my earliest clients were just on the phone.

[00:15:00] Dawn Andrews: So it was already departing from a therapy model. People were working on the phone. Then they were working on Skype. Then they were working on zoom. So the adoption of technology, I think, has walked hand in hand with this profession and. I was thinking about when everybody went to zoom during COVID and I was like, Oh man, I’ve already been there for years, like from the earliest launch days.

[00:15:23] Dawn Andrews: So when AI came along, I started using a tool called, it was called Jarvis. Then it was called Jasper. And it was an Early version of what open AI eventually released. It just had like a nice marketing wrapper on the top of it. So I was using that when it first launched. What would be, I guess, three years now, three, three and a half years ago.

[00:15:44] Dawn Andrews: And once I saw even the capabilities of that tool, which was. Minor compared to what we now see and what’s now visible to the average user. I was in. I was all in. It just was like magic to me. So, it’s exciting what AI can do for us as service based business owners, online business owners, people that probably are doing a pretty heavy lift as founders and have to cover a lot of bases.

[00:16:12] Dawn Andrews: AI is just, it’s heaven sent, I think. And 

[00:16:16] Jessy Grossman: so I’m curious, like, Did you first start exploring it just for you as a business owner or were your customers and clients being like, is there more I need to know about this? 

[00:16:26] Dawn Andrews: Like, 

[00:16:27] Jessy Grossman: you know, nobody 

[00:16:28] Dawn Andrews: was asking. Nobody was curious. Nobody was asking. I mean, I think I was probably in the same place that a lot of my business owners were, which was strapped for time and wanting to clone myself.

[00:16:40] Dawn Andrews: And depending upon where I was in my growth path, not having the resources to really fully do that. And so once I saw that opportunity, it was like a rubber 

[00:16:51] Jessy Grossman: stamp, you know, and have it looked back. And now you’re like, yeah, I’ll tell you. All the ways. I think like that’s what I sort of want to dig into more because I feel like when people hear, you know, like how AI can help your business.

[00:17:03] Jessy Grossman: I think they have these very prescribed preconceived notions of like the chat. GBTs of the world. It’s like, well, Chad, she can help me, right? You know, like, and just like very certain things, and like it can absolutely, but I think that what’s so fascinating to me is like that, like the number and countless ways that AI can be integrated into your day to day and can help you.

[00:17:26] Jessy Grossman: And I, I wanna like, I’d love to dig into that a little bit. So I’m curious like what’s the best way to use ai? To even just like take the stress out of scaling your business. Like, let’s start in, in like practical ways. Everyone wants to build. 

[00:17:43] Dawn Andrews: Yeah, okay, so let’s talk about the difference between growing and scaling.

[00:17:47] Dawn Andrews: So growing, I like to say more is more, meaning you have an expansion of your services or you bring on more clients, but it also means you have more work to do. So you add five more clients to your roster, and if you haven’t shifted how you do your work, you just added like five times your work. And probably more because there’s a lot behind the scenes that isn’t just client base scaling is adding those five new clients to your business with less work and A.

[00:18:18] Dawn Andrews: I. To me is the fastest way to get that done. So if I’m a business owner and I’m a Wanting to get, you know, squeeze more juice out of the orange. The first place I’m going to look is where am I spending the majority of my time and what are the applications for AI there? So what I find with a lot of business owners is the marketing component is really challenging.

[00:18:41] Dawn Andrews: And like you said, AI can help you write it 100 percent can, but it can also help you extend the life of everything that you’ve done. So if you’re a content creator, you and your primary source of creation is creating videos or like us, we create podcasts and. The next thing that you do is you edit them, you get a transcript for them.

[00:19:05] Dawn Andrews: Then you need to create posts to go with that. So the people know that it was coming or that it happened. You create elements and assets for your podcast guests to be able to use. Like each one of these things adds more time to your life just to promote the thing that you created to market with. Maybe you have a team, maybe you outsource to the Philippines, maybe, you know, All of those things.

[00:19:29] Dawn Andrews: But the challenge is adapting each of those pieces and still keeping the consistency of your brand voice and tone and spirit and intention. And AI can help you do that and you can set it up and automate it to create all of those assets for you. And then you can spend your time just running through and revising them to make sure that they actually.

[00:19:55] Dawn Andrews: Reflect who you are. 

[00:19:57] Jessy Grossman: So I feel, feel like good. I feel like good AI gives you like a head start, you know, like it, it’ll do like the first like 20%, you know, really well. But I think like my, my, and I am, I’ve talked on this podcast before, like countless times about how much I love and I’m obsessed with automation.

[00:20:16] Jessy Grossman: Yes. And so, like, AI is sort of in like the same realm in my experience, you know, in my eyes. But I, yeah. I’m excited to see the progress of the, like, how accurate the accuracy of AI, that’s the part that I struggle with. And I’m curious from your perspective, how do you see the accuracy in terms of like, You know, having a podcast like this, like, you know, with AI clipping, you know, certain segments of it, like, do you feel like, like, what percentage of the time do you feel like it nails it and where do you see as the opportunities for AI to do, to be better?

[00:20:56] Dawn Andrews: Okay. So AI is only as good as its user. It is a robot that can help you do things better. And I totally appreciate that. You can see the 20%. I think that you can get. 50 to 60 percent in terms of how, if you are using your AI, you’ve heard of people talking about seasoning their AI. Yes. Do you know that term?

[00:21:17] Dawn Andrews: Yeah. So, so seasoning is essential, but there are even deeper layers to teach, to teaching and training. your AI assistant, if you will, to do the work better. So for instance, we have several personalized GPTs that we use here depending upon the outcomes that we’re looking for. And what I think most people are still experiencing, and maybe we’ve gotten past this point because things are moving so quickly, but I think most people are opening up chat GPT.

[00:21:48] Dawn Andrews: They see an empty chat box and they type a sentence in there. And say, I’ve got a podcast I need to write four posts to help promote it. Great start, but there’s no context. There’s no context for the episode itself. There’s no context for the person that created the episode or the guest that’s there or the audience that you’re speaking to.

[00:22:12] Dawn Andrews: So when you start using AI and you really want to get more out of it and clone yourself, just like you would train a personal assistant, you need to train your robot. 

[00:22:20] Jessy Grossman: And does that continue? Does that end ever? Do you feel like you’re like, Oh, cool. I made the amount of time investment that I needed to like, get this to where I needed it to be.

[00:22:29] Jessy Grossman: Or is that, is there a maintenance to that? 

[00:22:32] Dawn Andrews: There is maintenance, just like there’s maintenance with your brand, right? So if you think about your brand colors, you’re looking to feel the, the specific messages that you’re really, you’re really sharing at the moment. Things may change in the world. Things may change with who your target audience is, or you might get even more refinement, like you’ll niche down even further.

[00:22:51] Dawn Andrews: So then yes, you’ll need to update. Like, just like you would tell a team member, this is what we’re about now. You need to tell the robot that too. So. In getting it set up, I do feel like there is a pretty, there’s an investment of time, but like I’m talking an hour, like I’m not talking days and weeks, I’m talking an hour.

[00:23:10] Dawn Andrews: And the great thing about AI is that you can continue to iterate with it. And I think what I encounter with my female founders is that everybody wants to have it right, perfect and done the first time. It’s like, it’s a female thing. I struggle with it too, but the beautiful thing about working with your robot is that you can continue to, you can spit it all out, get it started, and if it’s not performing the way that you want it to, then just give it feedback and it’ll work better.

[00:23:38] Jessy Grossman: So interesting. Okay. So we’re talking about like, you’re talking about not having it be essentially like another member of your team. And I love that conceptualize like how to best utilize it. But I’m curious, like, do you also think that AI can help bring out You know, better qualities or better work products from your human team.

[00:24:00] Dawn Andrews: Yes. So back to this idea of like, we’re spending a lot of time in our conversation talking about content creation, just because I feel like that’s a high volume of work with a low amount of return. Like, it takes a lot to create it, and it’s necessary, like, you gotta be on socials, you gotta be sharing with people so that they see you and know when to call on you, but it’s not like a one to one where you invest the time and then somebody you buys your stuff right back.

[00:24:29] Dawn Andrews: Right. So like, do you, cause 

[00:24:31] Jessy Grossman: I just, I also think that like people, I don’t know, I’ve heard these like stories about how like a company would bring in, you know, an AI and people are like, are you trying to like get me out of here and try to replace me? Like there’s definitely this like unknown, like intimidation factor, all sorts of like uneasiness.

[00:24:53] Jessy Grossman: But I’m curious, like, If you can get buy in from your team, can AI actually bring out the best in your team? 

[00:25:01] Dawn Andrews: AI 100 percent can, and it’s a combination of elements. One is going back to the training of the robot and the training of the person. Like, just like you want your person to be fully in on your vision, mission, values, perspectives, products, etc.

[00:25:19] Dawn Andrews: You’re training the robot to do the same thing. And What’s great about the tool is that and I really want to stress that it’s a tool is that it can actually help your team improve. So let’s say you have a copywriter that you have hired and there’s meant to be working on your content creation. You can have them either create with the help of AI or create uniquely on their own.

[00:25:45] Dawn Andrews: LinkedIn newsletter article, for instance, you can run that through AI seasoned with the intention of your brand and say, am I on point here? What would improve this article? What would make this stronger where, you know, and it will suggest back to you, you need to double check these stats. This paragraph is too long.

[00:26:04] Dawn Andrews: You’re taking too long to get to the meat of the article. It will treat your material as if it was a high level editor, and if the back and forth is going that way with your copywriter, with each successive article that they’re working on, they’re improving their skills because they’re using the robot as a teacher as well as a tool.

[00:26:22] Jessy Grossman: What about tone? Because we’ve talked a lot about writing, and I think that is probably the most common use case for how people are comfortable and familiar with utilizing AI these days. Yeah. But I find, like Tone can be really tricky. And we’re talking about like content creation a lot. And like, I think the best way to get engagement in content creation is to have like a really distinctive tone or really like clear brand messaging.

[00:26:49] Jessy Grossman: And people work tirelessly to come up with a really great. Tone for their brand or their personal brand, you know, business brand, what have you. So like how, like, how do you find that AI in your experience does with tone? And if it’s not getting it, how do you improve it? So it is 

[00:27:09] Dawn Andrews: going to be super robot y to start out with.

[00:27:11] Dawn Andrews: But as you become more familiar with, for instance, creating your own GPTs, So you can use, you can open chat GPT, you can use the box or you can create your own robot that is for your business in the ways that you want to use it. And one of the ways that I help people do that is we look back at what writing or what recordings or what videos do you feel best represent your tone.

[00:27:36] Dawn Andrews: So if you said this is quintessential me. This was the day that, like, I was on my game, I was being a little goofy, or, you know, really insightful, or whatever it is that is you, the you of you, you can share that and load that into the game. Chat GPT to season it so that it has an idea of how you respond to questions when people ask you questions.

[00:27:58] Dawn Andrews: Like I can load this interview in when I’m done and it’ll see, Oh, she likes to stumble and go back over her words, or she needs to ask the question again, or she throws in a girl every now and then, like it’s never going to replicate you 100 percent and we don’t want it to, but it can find those nuances.

[00:28:17] Dawn Andrews: In your speech cadence, in the way, like the kinds of expressions that you use frequently and come pretty darn close. I love that. Quick question for you guys. 

[00:28:28] Jessy Grossman: How much do you love redlining agreements? Yeah, me too. Let me tell you about our latest.

[00:28:48] Jessy Grossman: It’ll hugely improve the way that you review partnership agreements, but it’s also a great So if you’re a media company or an entertainment company or a management firm, it’s a must have tool. Look, sometimes you do need to hire a lawyer, an expensive lawyer, nonetheless, to work on an agreement because it’s over a certain threshold and a good lawyer can be invaluable.

[00:29:10] Jessy Grossman: But what about all those other partnerships, those other contracts that are for 5, 000 or even like 1, 000. That’s where Kavya comes in to support you and your business.

[00:29:33] Jessy Grossman: It’s a game changing tech and it’s founded by three brilliant women. So you know why I’m out here supporting it. Get time back in your day because caveat will help you with the part of your business that may be your least favorite. So head to our website. It’s I am whim. com. I hope you guys love it as much as I do.

[00:30:00] Jessy Grossman: So okay. So we’ve done a lot of talking about writing. Yes. I mean, I’ve personally in my business, like I’ve seen, you know, I use Canva a lot, for example, and I’ve seen. Visual AI in Canva that they’re adding more and more of, like, what are other, like, what are other use cases for AI generally in business?

[00:30:22] Jessy Grossman: Maybe marketing would be great for this audience, but what, what, like, what tools do you think should be on more people’s radars? 

[00:30:30] Dawn Andrews: Okay, so. Like, strap in, y’all, because the myriad of tools available is ridiculous. I mean, every tool now, every major tool has integrated AI in some way. Grammarly has. Canva has.

[00:30:42] Dawn Andrews: Like, if there’s a tool that is on your desktop, there is some sort of AI component to it now. Even, like, there are tools over the top of social platforms that will help you respond to a post and engage. There are so many. So here are the ones that that I think as a small business owner or somebody that is looking to scale and wants to replicate themselves.

[00:31:04] Dawn Andrews: These are the things that I think you should be using from an A. I perspective. Chat GPT 100%. I think that getting familiar with Dolly or mid journey. Can be really helpful for concepting something visual, whatever that is. You could say you’re getting ready to launch a new program and you want to come up with a logo for it.

[00:31:24] Dawn Andrews: It’s not to say that it’s going to give you the finished product, but then you can take that to a designer and you have something useful to push off of. It can shorten the amount of time that you’re spending and the money that you’re spending working with a designer, not getting what you want. So definitely Dolly mid journey.

[00:31:41] Dawn Andrews: I think that if you’re not familiar with Claude yet. That’s another great AI tool to use because it’s really good at crunching data. You can give it large data sets, like you can look at every Facebook post that you have posted over some period of time. It will pull out what is unique, interesting in the most popular posts so that you can replicate that data set.

[00:32:02] Dawn Andrews: In your future post to up your engagement level and up your income potentially a lot of 

[00:32:08] Jessy Grossman: people’s ears perked up about that one. So that’s a great one. So yeah, it’s just 

[00:32:12] Dawn Andrews: like claw dot com. Like how do you know it’s seal a U D. E. It’s a French boyfriend, 

[00:32:20] Jessy Grossman: Claude 

[00:32:21] Dawn Andrews: dot A. I. 

[00:32:22] Jessy Grossman: Claude dot A. I. Makes total sense.

[00:32:24] Jessy Grossman: Claude. That’s a great one. Chachi B. T. Is the unpaid one good enough or should people be paying for ChatGPT? 

[00:32:33] Dawn Andrews: If you really want to make a difference, pay for it. Okay. It’s 20 bucks a month and I get that, you know, depending upon where you are and the other tools you’re paying for, you might be like, oh my God, not another, like I’m nickel and dimed by all my tools, right?

[00:32:46] Dawn Andrews: But it is 100 percent worth it for everything that it can do for you. It can, Analyze where you’re spending your time and energy in your business and suggest your best growth path. Not like it’s perfect, but again, what we’re looking to do is use this tool to fill in some gaps and information so that you can then turn to a professional in those areas and be further along the path.

[00:33:10] Dawn Andrews: So how would you 

[00:33:10] Jessy Grossman: do that though? So chat GPT can analyze. Okay. So like walk us through like step one that like, how would it even analyze that? How do you do that? That’s awesome. 

[00:33:20] Dawn Andrews: Yeah. So for instance, in the tool that I’m giving away free to your audience, it’s got that information in it. So what we do with my clients is we load into chat GPT, the list of services, how much they made.

[00:33:37] Dawn Andrews: How much time it takes in general to deliver that service and how many people, et cetera, you know, the cost of goods or cost of service. And we put that into chat GPT and we say, we have this much time, this much energy. This is what the founder wants to be doing. What do you see are the best options for where that person should be spending their time?

[00:34:01] Dawn Andrews: And if we imagine this business three years out with a 30 percent growth rate, What would we need to pivot or do to have the best potential to get there? 

[00:34:11] Jessy Grossman: And so it spits out a result and it like, how often are you like, that’s good? Or how often are you like next result, please? 

[00:34:19] Dawn Andrews: Yeah, well, so this is where using the tool you.

[00:34:23] Dawn Andrews: Plus the tool, plus the professional comes into play because as a business strategy consultant, I can tell whether what it’s suggesting is ridiculous or whether it’s on point. And again, the more you share with it about your business and the shape of it and how you make money and. What you offer, the more accurate it’s going to be.

[00:34:44] Dawn Andrews: And then that’s something that you can take to a coach. You can take to a business analyst, you can take to your CFO, et cetera, as a higher level, more, you know, more advanced starting place for the conversation. 

[00:34:59] Jessy Grossman: Okay, so Chachi, BT, Claude, what are some other, are there a few others that you can rattle off that you’re like, I recommend these all the time.

[00:35:07] Jessy Grossman: This should definitely be on your radar at the very least. 

[00:35:09] Dawn Andrews: Yeah. Well, so if you have a calendaring system, chances are it probably has some messenger bots and if you are frequently talking or holding conversations with a large body of people like you’re running a community and when you think about the one of you versus the many of your community.

[00:35:28] Dawn Andrews: There probably are frequently asked questions both before people join the community and once they get in there probably is a like an onboarding process so that people feel like they’re part of the community and they’ve been welcomed in. So messenger bots are another great AI tool that. You can use to help cultivate and grow and build your community or to reduce the amount of time that you’re spending in the early stages of a sales process.

[00:35:53] Dawn Andrews: So love those. Many chat is another tool that has an AI component to it. It works great with Instagram. What else do I use? I mean, Zapier is also great. So all of these tools, they have a computer component, you know, a, uh, Tech component of them, but there also is a I supporting it. 

[00:36:12] Jessy Grossman: Love that. Okay. Those are such good, like, great suggestions.

[00:36:15] Jessy Grossman: So thank you for those. 

[00:36:17] Dawn Andrews: I’m 

[00:36:17] Jessy Grossman: curious, like people. So, you know, you put in a bit of work. You train your AI. You provide feedback. You’re seasoning it. Like you say. Yeah. So, ultimately, it’s the best AI you can grow, right? The best you can create, yes. The best you can create, and you’re getting solid advice and solid feedback.

[00:36:40] Jessy Grossman: Should AI be making decisions in your business, or should it always just be guiding you? 

[00:36:46] Dawn Andrews: I, so, I’ll be honest, it has been kind of a mixed bag for me. In how I’ve used it both with the decisions and with the guidance. Like sometimes you’re like, no, absolutely not. It’s, it is not this, that didn’t make sense.

[00:37:01] Dawn Andrews: That’s not for me or that content that you created wasn’t great. Whatever it is. However, one of the things that founders of. Small businesses struggle with is decision fatigue. So if you can use it to help, like, think about it like this. If somebody presents you with three different logo designs, usually one of them is meant to be thrown out.

[00:37:27] Dawn Andrews: It’s a straw dog. Like they put it in there as the elephant in the room so that everybody just says, no, not that. And then you have the other two to consider. Then you can see like what feels right, what aligns. And the same can be true with decision making. Development processes with AI. It can give you something to push off of to see what resonates with you or see if it induces fear and fear in a good way.

[00:37:50] Dawn Andrews: Like, Oh, man, that’s like, that’s a big swing. I didn’t even think that would be possible because if you consider that if you’re asking The right kinds of questions of it. It is scraping the collective wisdom of experts all across the internet. So we know there’s a lot of garbage out there, but we also know that there are extraordinary white papers published by the brightest minds in every single industry, and it is pulling from that information.

[00:38:18] Jessy Grossman: Yeah. And how valuable that is to like, essentially have at your fingertips. But I, you know, so what, what are like, cause I feel I can hear some people listening to this right now being like, but this, but that, you know, but what if you like a lot of fear based thinking around AI uncertainty? What, what do you think are some common misconceptions around AI that you would love to correct?

[00:38:45] Dawn Andrews: That it’s going to Deal your personality, your body and soul and take over the world and launch nuclear weapons. Like, yes, the smartest minds in AI definitely have those concerns, but it’s more the concern about who is programming it and who is policing the ethics of it than the robot itself, which goes back to you.

[00:39:04] Dawn Andrews: Like, who are you being? in relationship to this tool. It’s a tool. It’s a very smart tool, and you can make it smarter and more refined, but it’s a tool. And you can choose not to use it, and that’s okay too. However, I will tell you that it is here to stay, and the sooner that you can play with it a little bit, test drive it, become more familiar with it, And see where you want to apply it, then great.

[00:39:31] Dawn Andrews: I mean, let’s just talk about it. Like I’m going to put it in makeup terms. You guys, okay. There during COVID and even beyond, there was like the contour wave. Everybody was like, it’s all about contour. We’re going to like, we’re highlighting, we’re contouring. We’re adding a little blush here. Which products are you using?

[00:39:47] Dawn Andrews: Et cetera. For some people it is magic. And for other people, you’re like, I don’t want to put another layer of stuff on my face. It is not for me. Right? However, it is here to stay. Like, Contour is never going away. It never went away. It’s just now more publicly talked about, available, and used. Same, like, I can’t believe I’m comparing AI to Contour, but there you go.

[00:40:13] Dawn Andrews: So first 

[00:40:14] Jessy Grossman: for everything. Yes. First for everything. No, I appreciate that. I like, I just, I sense that a lot of people, more and more people are intrigued. More and more people are seeing the value. But even in the, even in a lot of those folks, like they’re still worried about like privacy concerns about, you know, I don’t know, just a lot of, and they’re like very legitimate concerns.

[00:40:35] Jessy Grossman: You know, I don’t think you should dive into anything without knowing, you know, the rewards, but also the risks involved. So are there any like best practices that you think of for sort of like keeping your business safe, keeping proprietary information out of there? Like, yeah, they’re probably obvious, but is there anything, you know, best practices that you always like to inform people of?

[00:40:56] Dawn Andrews: Yeah. Keep just keeping an eye, like set a Google news alert. For AI ethics on your computer. Cause then you’ll see when the next new article comes out, the next new conversation topic has started because even that has iterated a ridiculous amount of time since open AI was released in November of 22 or whatever it was.

[00:41:17] Dawn Andrews: So just setting that Google alert, especially if you’re a nervous Nelly about privacy concerns and you know, how is my information or what I choose to type in here going to be used? That’s a good start. The next thing is. I kind of think of it like the stranger on an airplane. So sometimes you have really open conversations with the person sitting next to you because you’re going to walk away and not see them again.

[00:41:40] Dawn Andrews: And sometimes when you’re having those open conversations, you also like put guardrails up for yourself about how much you share or the same with how much you share online. You know what I mean? If you’re open about your life and who you are and what you’re up to online, then I think that’s fair game.

[00:41:59] Dawn Andrews: Should you choose it to share with a I. But if you’re in a larger corporation, let’s say you’re in a role where you’re inside of a larger company using a I. Most companies now are starting to build their own version of the tool or a wrapper over the tool inside the company that sets up firewalls for certain company information.

[00:42:21] Dawn Andrews: So if there’s something that you don’t want out there, then Don’t put it in there 

[00:42:27] Jessy Grossman: makes sense, right? Sometimes the answer is the simplest thing, but that is interesting that people are sort of setting up like parameters around it, like for internal purposes and protections and stuff. So that makes a lot of sense.

[00:42:39] Jessy Grossman: You know, we talked about like, You know, the AI is not going anywhere, but I’m sure it’s going to continue to evolve a ton. Even in terms of like use cases and applications of it where, you know, I have such a broad question. So take it wherever you are. But like, where do you see the future of AI? 

[00:42:58] Dawn Andrews: I think it will be.

[00:43:00] Dawn Andrews: Everywhere in every instance of our lives and to be able to use it well to kind of one of my mentors in the AI space says dance with it, like to be able to understand what is this? How does it work? How do I make it my friend and make it a useful contribution to my life and my tools? The sooner you start to develop those skills, the the better because it’s not going anywhere.

[00:43:28] Dawn Andrews: And in terms of its growth and possibility, like I can’t, I honestly can’t even wrap my mind around the possibilities for it. I really can’t. I don’t think it’s ever going to replace people that are skilled people and it will never replace skilled people who know how to work with it. Like if you can’t beat them, join them.

[00:43:46] Dawn Andrews: You know, I work in and everybody’s very concerned about being able to Like, replicate a screenwriter’s voice, or replicate an actor’s face. It is 100 percent possible to do that at a certain level. But in terms of the humanity that it takes to deliver a performance, or the humanity that it takes to write a moving piece of material, That it’s irreplaceable.

[00:44:11] Dawn Andrews: So will we see like big action movies with faces that all look the same, you know, in the stands of a football stadium, for example, we already see that was already happening. That’s not a new thing in terms of, you know, will we get a lot of Pretty simplified rom coms on Netflix? Yeah, I think you can count on it.

[00:44:34] Dawn Andrews: And I think AI will have something to do with that. But there is always a human that is connected to that said yes to that. So use your time now in these early stages of the development of AI to make friends with it and decide who you want to be to the tool, its development and its applications across your business, your industry.

[00:44:55] Dawn Andrews: And the world in general. 

[00:44:56] Jessy Grossman: I’ve just seen it as like, Prizingly helpful, you know, like, and I feel like the more you are open to it, you know, it certainly becomes less scary because it actually becomes such a good tool for you. Yeah. As a business person, as an employee, like as you know, whatever you’re looking to do.

[00:45:14] Jessy Grossman: So I think that like, my hope at least is like, the use cases continue to grow. I think like people are, You know, they know the handful of use cases that are the most common, but there’s so many more interesting dynamic of utilizing it and for work, but also even like just in your everyday life. Like, Oh girl, I 

[00:45:34] Dawn Andrews: hired it to be a professional organizer for me this morning.

[00:45:38] Jessy Grossman: I love that. Wait, tell us more about that. How, what is it supposed to do? 

[00:45:43] Dawn Andrews: I will be honest with you, like, I am a mom of two, we are all very tall people, and we live in a little cottage in Los Angeles. There is a lot of stuff in my house, I am a time starved business owner, and I just want somebody to tell me what to do.

[00:45:58] Dawn Andrews: I want some like decision fatigue. I want somebody to tell me what to do. And I’m good. You know, do you want me to read you literally what it told me to do? I would love that. Yes, please. It’s hilarious. So I said, act as a professional organizer. We have a living room kitchen, two bathrooms and three bedrooms in 920 square feet.

[00:46:17] Dawn Andrews: There is clutter on every inch. Where should I specifically start to declutter so that I don’t get frustrated and overwhelmed? and pissed off. It’s like my AI therapist. I know. Seriously. So it said as a professional organizer in a small cluttered space, I would start with prioritizing areas based on their daily impact on daily life and which can be easily tackled.

[00:46:42] Dawn Andrews: And then it broke it down and said in the living room, do this first. Sort and decide this, get these things figured out in the kitchen, do this. And sometimes it’s really generic at first. And I’m like, no, I literally want you to tell me the very first thing. Like I’m going to leave this chat and go do the thing.

[00:47:00] Dawn Andrews: Give me that instruction. And so now I know how to declutter my house and not in like a better homes and gardens, real simple magazine, apartment therapy kind of way. But in a like, Here’s what’s right for me with my house and my people and my stuff. 

[00:47:16] Jessy Grossman: And it’s such a good example because I feel like people are listening to like, like it could do that.

[00:47:24] Jessy Grossman: You know, it’s such a good example of just sharing the like. really practical ways that it can help you and just knowing that’s possible will spawn new ways of people conceptualizing ways to utilize it. So I’m just excited for hopefully our community, our listeners to just dive into it, whether again, whether they’re employees or business owners, like You know, content creators or influencer marketers, like there’s so many applications and yes, really customized and personalized to what you need, both from a work standpoint, but also from a personal standpoint, which influences our work anyway.

[00:48:06] Jessy Grossman: So absolutely utilize it. I have a feeling that our audience is going to want to connect with you and learn more about like all your things. Theories on AI and like your best tips and practices. So I know you said you had something to offer our audience, which is exciting. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how they can reach you?

[00:48:29] Dawn Andrews: Yes. So if your business growth is giving you challenges or if it’s stalled, if you feel like you don’t really have time to think ahead and plan or know what you would put in that plan, and you feel like you’re kind of maxed out. running your business instead of scaling it and enjoying the fruits of your labors, then I, the tool that I’m sharing with you today is called the boost AI strategy framework, five simple steps to be able to leverage AI to make all of those things possible.

[00:49:03] Dawn Andrews: And you can find that download at donandrews. com forward slash AI strategy framework. And I’ll share that with Jessie so she can put it in the show notes. And then if you want to like get into the AI stuff and break it down even further and look at where that could make a difference for you and how you’re running your business, you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram at free range thinking.

[00:49:28] Jessy Grossman: I love that. And we will, of course, share links and all that in the show notes for sure. So you guys can reach out and connect. I’m happy that we were connected. I mean, it’s been so nice getting to know you and like fascinating to learn about all the work that you’re doing. Like, I think you’re so well positioned.

[00:49:46] Jessy Grossman: I just feel like people are like eating this stuff up because it’s like foreign enough that they’re like help guide me, but it’s intriguing enough because they see what it can do. So I just think you’re like so awesomely positioned and I appreciate you chatting with me today. So thanks for taking the time.

[00:50:05] Jessy Grossman: Thank you for coming on today. I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. Definitely reach out to Dawn. Check the show notes on how to do it. Check that download because that’s an awesome resource and thank you for offering that. Of course. And if you guys want more conversations about AI, if this intrigued you, leave a comment below.

[00:50:25] Jessy Grossman: Let us know if we should do, have Dawn on again and talk more about AI. I appreciate you guys tuning in and we will see you next time. Bye guys. If you enjoyed this episode, we gotta have you back. Check out our website for more ways to get involved, including all the information you need about joining our collective.

[00:50:46] Jessy Grossman: You can check out all the information at iamwim. com. Leave us a review, a rating, but the most important thing that we ask you to do is to share this podcast. Thanks for listening. Tune in next week.

Dawn Andrews

CEO, FREE RANGE THINKING

Dawn Andrews, CEO of Free Range Thinking, is a celebrated business strategist and leadership coach, working with figures like Maria Shriver and leading major projects. Her expertise in strategy, communication, and leadership has propelled clients from diverse fields to global acclaim. Passionate about female empowerment, she hosts the My Good Woman podcast and is the founder of FMxLA, The Female Leadership Accelerator.

Book Your Session