Salon Business Revolution: Using AI for Growth and Efficiency with Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson returns to chat with us about the potential of AI in the salon industry and how it can transform your business from overwhelm to liberation. This informative discussion, we explore how salon owners can leverage AI to streamline their operations and enhance client experiences. Phil, with his vast experience as a salon business coach, shares practical insights on utilising AI tools for various tasks, from managing client communications to automating social media posts. We also touch on the common fears and misconceptions surrounding AI, emphasising that it’s not here to replace the human touch but to enhance it. This episode is packed with actionable tips and encouraging ways to work with AI that will inspire salon professionals to embrace technology and elevate their businesses in our competitive marketplace.
Takeaways:
- Phil Jackson emphasises the importance of AI for salon owners, claiming it can streamline operations and enhance client experiences effectively.
- During the episode, we discussed practical uses of AI, like automating social media posts and managing client communications, which can save salon owners precious time.
- Phil suggests starting simple with AI, like utilising Google Sheets & Google Gemini for inventory management, to gradually build confidence with technology.
- Incorporating AI into daily salon operations can help business owners focus more on creativity and client interaction, rather than tedious administrative tasks.
- The conversation highlights that AI, when used properly, can greatly enhance marketing efforts and client engagement strategies for salons.
- Phil's upcoming course, AI DIY, aims to demystify AI for salon professionals, providing step-by-step guidance to integrate AI tools into their businesses.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- ChatGPT
- Google Gemini
- Manus
- PI AI
- SalonPreneur
Transcript
Welcome to Inspiring Salon Professionals, the podcast that allows every therapist, nail tech and stylist to level up, build their career and reach for their dreams.
Speaker A:Each episode we'll be looking at a different area of the industry and along the way I'll be chatting with salon owners, industry leaders and experts who'll be sharing their stories on how they achieved their goals, made their successes, all to inspire you in your business and career.
Speaker A:I'm Sue Davies, your host, award winning salon owner and industry professional.
Speaker A:Welcome to Inspiring Salon Professionals.
Speaker A:Hi there and welcome to another episode of Inspiring Salon Professionals.
Speaker A:Today I'm thrilled to be joined with a returning guest.
Speaker A:We were chatting last week and he's got some really exciting stuff coming up.
Speaker A:We were chatting, I was like, you know what, I'm doing some extra episodes, do you fancy being on one?
Speaker A:So today I'm welcoming back Phil Jackson.
Speaker A:I can't even say his name.
Speaker A:Phil Jackson.
Speaker A:I'm so excited.
Speaker A:I've got the queen of, of memberships coming back.
Speaker A:Anyway, Phil Jackson, the international salon business coach who is on a mission to banish, overwhelm and champion innovation across hair, beauty and aesthetic industries.
Speaker A:His habbies coaching company build your salon for a really long time now.
Speaker A:And he does deliver laser focused and practical strategies that help salon clinic owners and solopreneurs as well future proof their businesses and thrive in our industry, which we know can be a bit of a challenge sometimes.
Speaker A:And Phil's really, really good.
Speaker A:He cuts through everything.
Speaker A:He is one of the most direct people who says things.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:He is just direct.
Speaker A:And I, you know what, and I love that with Phil because there's just no nonsense.
Speaker A:If he doesn't like something, he's going to tell you.
Speaker A:If he thinks you can adjust something, he's going to tell you.
Speaker A:And that's what you want for business coach.
Speaker A:You don't want fancy stuff.
Speaker A:But Phil's kind of been doing some different stuff lately and, and like many of us, has been falling into the AI bit of doom, some of us might call it, where you just go, oh my God.
Speaker A:Now what can I ask?
Speaker A:Now what can I ask?
Speaker A:Now what can it do for me?
Speaker A:Well, Phil's been kind of mastering it and so in today's episode we're going to be cutting around the hype around an artificial intelligence or AI, the dispelling some of the fears and exploring really just how salon owners can harness AI right now to streamline their operations and enhance client experiences and just unlock growth potentials.
Speaker A:So this is something that many of us, maybe that are probably less client facing have been playing around with AI and working out how it can help us as content creators and stuff like that.
Speaker A:But it is now starting to move into a way that you can use it in your businesses and that's what Phil's going to be talking about today.
Speaker A:So I've been working with it probably about last 18 months or so.
Speaker A:I probably, I probably started dabbing around with chat GPT when it first came out but I use it more and more and, and I'm a great advocate for AI.
Speaker A:I think it's the most amazing thing when used well and used properly.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
Speaker A:So yeah, I've been doing that for 18 months or so and as I say, Phil's taken a really super deep dive on this stuff and I know he's prepping some amazing stuff for the industry that's coming up very, very soon and that's why he's to talk about what it is that he's doing and how what he's doing and what he's learning can help you.
Speaker A:So I know from my conversation with Phil the other day that he has got so much.
Speaker A:I, I mean I didn't think I knew everything about AI by any means because it is such a complex subject and it is so far reaching and delves into every single area of everything we do.
Speaker A:But Phil gave me a couple of tips last week but I went off and actioned and I had some more fun with AI.
Speaker A:So today I know I've got my learning hat on and I really hope you've got your learning hat on too because this is going to be a kind of get your notebook out, get your pen out, I'm warning you because I know that he's going to be sharing some fantastic information with you.
Speaker A:So get ready for an eye opening conversation about how technology and human creativity, because that's what we're all about can work hand in hand to take your salon business from good to extraordinary.
Speaker A:I will see you on the other side.
Speaker B:Introducing SalonPreneur, the magazine designed for the modern salon professional.
Speaker B:Whether you're a salon owner, solopro educator or maybe a small product brand owner, Salonpreneur is your go to for business growth, personal development, mindset and well being.
Speaker B:Packed with insights from industry experts, it's here to help you build a business that works for you.
Speaker B:Subscriptions open soon and advertising is now available.
Speaker B:Head to our socials to connect and find out more.
Speaker A:So good morning Mr.
Speaker A:Jackson, how are you feel?
Speaker B:I'm very well my love and it's wonderful to Be back on your podcast again.
Speaker A:Yes, I know.
Speaker A:It's been a while, hasn't it?
Speaker B:It has.
Speaker A:I was thinking this morning actually, when I was getting ready and I was like, goodness, I think I was probably in my old house when we did the party, because I'm sure you were on my first season.
Speaker A:A lot's gone on since then.
Speaker B:A lot.
Speaker B:A lot's happened.
Speaker B:A lot's gone on in both our lives.
Speaker B:But we're both looking fabulous on it.
Speaker A:That's the whole thing, darling.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you've got your own podcast as well now.
Speaker B:I do.
Speaker B:I have the build your salon podcast, which is.
Speaker B:Yeah, but we've got over three listeners.
Speaker A:Some weeks, that's nearly as many as me because I've got about five.
Speaker B:You're in my sight, actually.
Speaker A:Got to get caught up in it.
Speaker A:And I know when I first started, I decided I wasn't gonn.
Speaker A:Because everyone was going.
Speaker A:I was.
Speaker A:I did it on a course with a really wonderful lady called Lindsay Ann Gold who helps people get Podcast died and all these people going, oh, yeah.
Speaker A:And I've.
Speaker A:I'm like, number one or I'm number two in my.
Speaker A:In my.
Speaker A:Whatever.
Speaker A:And I was just like, I don't even, you know, I was up against Adam Chatterley, for goodness sake.
Speaker A:It's like, I'm not gonna.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna knock Adam off the chart in like one easy.
Speaker A:Like one easy move.
Speaker A:So I, I decided to never get bothered by the figures.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker B:I think it's trying to figure out why you want it with all of these things.
Speaker B:It's trying to figure out why it needs to be there.
Speaker B:And for me, it was.
Speaker B:It was kind of the anti social media, because social media is so fleeting and, you know, even your best work disappears in a couple of hours kind of thing.
Speaker B:Whereas the podcast is the only thing where people go back.
Speaker B:And I find, you know, I get emails from listeners who, you know, they stumble across the podcast and they go back to the beginning or they go back three or four episodes.
Speaker B:You don't really get that with anything else.
Speaker B:So it's my.
Speaker B:It's my legacy.
Speaker B:That's what my.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No one's gonna go back over your Facebook newsfeed.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:For the last three years.
Speaker A:And see what you've been talking about.
Speaker B:Not unless you're a massive thirst trap.
Speaker B:There's no way that people are going to go through your content unless you've got your top off.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm not doing that.
Speaker A:I'M too old now.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I would have done it back in the day either, but.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it is.
Speaker A:It's a weird thing, isn't it?
Speaker A:And I think.
Speaker A:And I'm with you on that.
Speaker A:The whole social media thing just drives me insane.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I just think it's such a.
Speaker A:It's such a waste of our time, really, because so much of what we can achieve is.
Speaker A:Is available without being on there, really.
Speaker A:And yet I think.
Speaker B:I think for me, it's making that shift from realizing that you're not a consumer of social media.
Speaker B:If you're a business person, you are a producer of social media, and once you make that switch, I think it's really useful.
Speaker B:You don't feel that you need to get bogged down in the feed?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And I have to say I do.
Speaker A:I look at my feed a lot less nowadays.
Speaker A:There was a point where I'd spend like half an hour every morning, like, going through and.
Speaker A:And being a consumer of it.
Speaker A:And I'll try really hard now to.
Speaker A:To limit that.
Speaker A:Can't say I've broken, because I think it's addictive.
Speaker A:And I think because there's that dopamine hit, isn't there, if someone likes something you've done or whatever.
Speaker A:For sure, yeah.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's a weird old thing, social media, and I'm trying very hard to encourage people away from it.
Speaker B:I think there's a really strong argument for that.
Speaker B:I don't think it serves our businesses particularly well, certainly in terms of getting new clients.
Speaker B:I don't think people go from watching funny videos of dogs farting to suddenly going, oh, I need to book a facial.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:That's how business works.
Speaker B:So I think trying to interrupt that with content is really, really tough.
Speaker B:Unless you're super attractive or super entertaining, I think it's tough.
Speaker B:And as I'm neither.
Speaker B:We'll do a podcast.
Speaker A:Is that you and I both, we both like talking and we both believe we have something useful to say and something that's going to help people.
Speaker A:And I think podcast just is the way to do that, isn't it?
Speaker A:Because people can.
Speaker A:I love the fact that, I mean, I know we were talking about the other day.
Speaker A:You do really short episodes.
Speaker A:I do quite long episodes.
Speaker A:Sometimes really long episodes.
Speaker A:But the joy of it is they can either grab five of yours or they can pause and restart on mine.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And they're still going to get a lot of valuable information.
Speaker A:And I love the fact that you can just stop Start, stop, start, come back to it.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it isn't that.
Speaker A:Go back into the archive, because now we've got an archive and a library of.
Speaker A:Of our thoughts and our guests thoughts and.
Speaker B:Absolutely that people.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I love the.
Speaker B:So for me, that's kind of the core of my content strategy.
Speaker B:So I get a lot of bang for my buck from a podcast.
Speaker B:Even if not thousands of people are listening to it.
Speaker B:I still get, you know, good amounts of content.
Speaker B:It still gets turned into a blog.
Speaker B:It still produces a load of social media content for me.
Speaker B:So that 15 minute podcast.
Speaker B:So it's 15 minutes because I've always thought that was a dog walk in the rain, really.
Speaker B:You can put your earpods in and then, you know, quick sprint around the block with the dog and that'll be one episode of the podcast.
Speaker B:And yeah, for that 15 minutes of.
Speaker B:Of podcasting, I do get an awful lot of useful content out of it.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:And it lingers.
Speaker A:Sit.
Speaker A:Whereas mine are more set for people running a half marathon or maybe a 10k or something.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's not.
Speaker A:Yeah, maybe they're doing Tough Mudder or something and they just need to have, like, me in there.
Speaker A:I don't know what it is, but there' I think it.
Speaker A:But it's.
Speaker A:But I think that's a lovely thing with podcasting as well, isn't it?
Speaker A:And I think now especially that we can be on YouTube and on the podcast platforms is that, you know, people can see us, people can hear us.
Speaker A:And I think that that ability for us to transfer that knowledge, whatever they're doing.
Speaker B:I've actually come away from the YouTube thing.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:Yes, the.
Speaker B:The figures told me that that was fine.
Speaker B:So I used to do video and audio podcasts and I looked at how people were actually consuming it.
Speaker B:And so my guest episodes I still do as video, but all of the solo episodes are now just audio.
Speaker A:Well, that's what I've always done.
Speaker A:And now YouTube can just take them and put them on there with a thumb now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And just.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:So now mineco, Mine go up.
Speaker A:Yeah, it might.
Speaker A:So now my.
Speaker A:Because I use the platform I use puts everything on YouTube now.
Speaker A:So even my video ones go up there on an audio as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, I have to go through deleting those so that there's not duplications of them.
Speaker A:But anyway, we're not here to talk about podcasting, though.
Speaker B:No, we're not.
Speaker B:No, we're not, though.
Speaker B:There are more and more people jumping in and there are Lots of salon owners starting podcasts.
Speaker B:And it's lovely, I have to say.
Speaker A:And I think as well, though is that it does kind of segment segue, even not segment segue into what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker A:Because I know with my platform that I use, one of the wondrous things that I use it for is because it has AI attached to it and it literally saves me so much time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you know, there's a full transcript of every episode, which with my episodes can be like reading a whole War and Peace.
Speaker A:But it also.
Speaker A:But it gives me all of my show notes, it gives me breakdowns, it gives me takeaways, it does so much for me, suggest titles that are SEO favorable.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And that is why we are here today is to talk about.
Speaker B:But actually that's a beautiful.
Speaker B:Let's jump straight in.
Speaker B:But it's a beautiful demo of how to use AI because I don't think AI is brilliant if you're asking it to do stuff that you don't understand and you could never do.
Speaker B:Whereas all of those things you could do, you could create your own transcript, get your own show notes, get your own titles together, but it just takes an enormous amount of time.
Speaker B:So it's a process that you understand, it's a process that's necessary.
Speaker B:It's actually got some value to the business and I can do it, you know, in a heartbeat.
Speaker B:And I do exactly the same.
Speaker B:So it creates all sorts of wonderful things and I've trained it on my tone of voice, what I like, what I don't like.
Speaker B:And yeah, we've actually got a really nice flow now.
Speaker B:And then what I really like with AI is then to build on that slightly and do some stuff that I can't do.
Speaker B:So for example, one of the things I do with my podcast is I turn it into a page on my website, which I could do, but it does it in HTML so it looks beautiful and it's all branded in my colors.
Speaker B:I can read HTML, but I can't write in HTML.
Speaker B:So I just ask AI for that and then copy and paste that onto my website.
Speaker B:And I've got a beautiful looking web page which is better than I could do.
Speaker B:So it's not only replacing some of the really quite dull tasks that we've got, but also actually giving you a better result at the end of the.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:And I did, I said in the intro that I've got my learning hat on today and the audience have their learning hat on and a notepad because I feel there could be some value in this episode that they're gonna.
Speaker A:There's gonna be so many takeaways in this episode, I feel.
Speaker A:But that for me, it's.
Speaker A:I've not even thought about doing that.
Speaker A:It's like it hasn't even crossed my mind that I can get like, Chat GPT or another AI, because I'm sure it may be another AI that you're using to do that.
Speaker B:No, no, it's all in ChatGPT.
Speaker B:So I have spent a lot of time playing with different platforms and different LLMs and just having a look and seeing what's out there.
Speaker B:And I've kind of come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter because the competition between, you know, ChatGPT and Claude and Google Gemini, the competition so fierce that even if something pops up on one that you think, oh, that looks really good and mine doesn't do that, it will within, you know, three, four weeks, all of those features are going to be the same across everything.
Speaker B:So, for example, the images that we were creating in chatgpt for a long time were really stinky.
Speaker B:And then along came a couple of better options, including.
Speaker B:Including Google that were slaying it.
Speaker B:And then we just had to be patient.
Speaker B:And now ChatGPT is doing a really good job of that as well.
Speaker B:So my first bit of advice is don't feel that you need to be on all the platforms.
Speaker B:Choose one that you can get to know and can get to know you and just master that one platform rather than trying to do a little bit over here and a little bit over here.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It's really not necessary.
Speaker A:I started using the Microsoft one that.
Speaker A:The name eludes me at the moment.
Speaker A:I can't what it's called anyway.
Speaker A:That one.
Speaker A:The Micro.
Speaker A:Yeah, whatever it was called.
Speaker A:And I started using that.
Speaker A:Loved it.
Speaker A:Pilot.
Speaker A:Co Pilot.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:I really went down the rabbit hole with it and I.
Speaker A:And I found it to be so much better than Chat GPT.
Speaker A:And I started doing an awful lot of stuff on there.
Speaker A:And now I don't know what they've done to their platform, but I can't access anything I ever produced and I can't.
Speaker A:I can't make it work.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:I've only given up with it now.
Speaker A:It's like I've literally.
Speaker A:I've got into it in so many different ways.
Speaker A:I've gone back into my bookmarks that I had where I had it saved, and I'll just get to their welcome page every time, and it's like they've shut me out of it.
Speaker A:Oh, but I've given up now.
Speaker B:What did you ask it for that meant that you got banned?
Speaker A:I wish I did.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I mean, it was only like, you know, this, like stuff I was working on, I have no idea what, what happened.
Speaker A:And I've been saying to so many people, oh my God, this is just.
Speaker A:It takes it to a different level.
Speaker B:It does.
Speaker B:But I, I have to say I've kind of kept my faith with Chat GPT.
Speaker B:I do use Google Gemini, but only because I like the whole Google ecosystem and I played with the others just to keep my hand in, but I keep coming back to ChatGPT and that's where, of course it's a bit like when you buy your Apple phone and then get yourself a MacBook.
Speaker B:Once you've bought into that ecosystem, it's so much easier just to stay there.
Speaker B:But I do see lots of people getting very overwhelmed and they're kind of, I use this for this and I use this for this and, and firstly it's not necessary but secondly, you're increasing an awful lot of duplication because what we want is one platform that knows you, knows your business, knows your style really, really well and then we can get results very, very quickly from it.
Speaker B:So I would choose one and master that first.
Speaker A:I know it's funny, I went on there this morning because I do, because I use it now.
Speaker A:I use.
Speaker A:I put in everyone's bios when I'm doing interviews.
Speaker A:I put in everyone's bios and ask it to generate me an intro that I can use as a foundation and to suggest questions and stuff because it's just so much easier.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's, sometimes it's really not great and other times it's.
Speaker A:But it's.
Speaker A:Over the time I've been doing it with it, it's kind of comes out with some really good questions and stuff now as well.
Speaker A:Times I supplement them a little bit.
Speaker A:But, but I found that this morning when I went on there, there's a load of new buttons.
Speaker A:It's like, oh, so yeah, they've got, they, there's.
Speaker A:I can't even remember what they were now but instead of having like two or three icons at the bottom of the comment of the prompt box, it's about five or six now.
Speaker A:And I was like, oh, I need to come back and play with that later.
Speaker A:Another, because I love the fact you can reason with it does reasoning now.
Speaker A:I love that watching it kind of how it's bright I mean it isn't his brain obviously is.
Speaker A:It's just, it's whatever it is.
Speaker B:Yeah, so, so that process in chat GPT is called deep research and there is another platform that does deep research really well which is called Manus, which is M A N U S and perfect use case for it.
Speaker B:Give it your website and ask Manus to do an analysis of your website.
Speaker B:It will find all the broken links, all the pages that don't look the way they're supposed to.
Speaker B:It will tell you about all the stuff that's missing, all your alt tags and really, you know, help you smarten things up.
Speaker B:If you're using, you know, different fonts when they should be in be the same and it will give you a full report on your, on your website.
Speaker B:Doesn't cost anything to use Manus.
Speaker B:I mean there is, there is a paid version but it will give you deep research for nothing, which a lot of them won't.
Speaker A:Wow, that's so good.
Speaker A:So one of the things that I think that, well, I know you've got coming up is going to be helping salon owners kind of understand how AI can help them.
Speaker A:So what kind of thing can people look to be using AI for?
Speaker A:Because I think a lot of people like, I mean obviously you are now becoming sort of like an expert on this in, in as much as, you know, so much more than anybody else.
Speaker A:And, and I've, I'm okay, I kind of dabble and I play and I make it, I can, I can get results that I like.
Speaker A:But I think for some people that are coming into and hearing this stuff everywhere and seeing it everywhere and then there's all of the drama over a server usage and goodness, I mean my daughter's forever like don' use it.
Speaker A:So people might be fearful of it, people are worried about using it, people might just find the whole thing overwhelming.
Speaker A:What kind of things do you think we can use it as Like a sort of for salon business owners?
Speaker A:What are they going to get out of it?
Speaker A:Because I know there's recept like you can use it for like client contact and stuff like that.
Speaker A:So how, what's the best way for them to get into it, do you think?
Speaker B:If I was absolutely starting at the beginning and didn't even know where to start with it, I would choose a task.
Speaker B:So actually the example I use quite a lot is stock control.
Speaker B:So stock control generally on salon software is a bit crap.
Speaker B:It's, it's clunky, it's difficult to use.
Speaker B:It doesn't make it Particularly easy.
Speaker B:So a lot of people, myself included, end up with a clipboard and a sheet that they printed out which, and they do their stock check and then visually kind of come up with their order.
Speaker B:What you could do is if you use something like Google Sheets.
Speaker B:So Google Sheets has Google Gemini built in now, so it has AI built in and it will make all sorts of helpful suggestions as you're trying to work.
Speaker B:Some of them mildly irritating, but some of them are quite useful.
Speaker B:So you could put all of your products in.
Speaker B:And I've tested this, it's one of the use cases I've got for the new course.
Speaker B:So we put all the products in, put the stock count in, we put the desired stock level in, and then you can just type into Google Gemini, what do I need to order to get up to those minimum levels?
Speaker B:Which you kind of think, well, a spreadsheet could do that.
Speaker B:But then because it's built in to the Google framework, we can also then say, and can you draft me the email that I need to send to my rep?
Speaker B:And they will come up with the whole email with the stock order on there.
Speaker B:So then we've taken something which again you were going to do anyway you could do yourself.
Speaker B:We're just speeding that process up and making it so much more accessible.
Speaker B:So if you want to dip a toe in AI without breaking the Internet, I would start with something really simple like that.
Speaker B:What I'm trying to get people to do is spend about 30 minutes a week just using AI in some way.
Speaker B:Just get into the habit of.
Speaker B:And what will happen over time is you start going through your day thinking, actually could I help with that?
Speaker B:Could it help speed this process up and just look at the tasks that you're doing regularly, the monotonous stuff, the stuff that we have to do on our admin day that kind of makes you roll your eyes and stuff, start with those things.
Speaker B:Because there's nearly always a way that AI could help.
Speaker B:The biggest use case for most salons has been on social media.
Speaker B:So they're creating lots and lots of really generic looking content with terrible captions that sound just like everybody else using AI.
Speaker B:But there is a better way of doing that, but you know, in terms of saving time.
Speaker B:So we've already identified that maybe social media isn't an amazing platform platform for salon marketing.
Speaker B:Why not speed that process up?
Speaker B:We have to be there, we have to be producing some content.
Speaker B:Why not speed that up with AI and AI?
Speaker B:You know, if you jump into something like ChatGPT, create yourself a free account on ChatGPT.
Speaker B:It will help you come up with a marketing plan, it will help you come up with a schedule of posting.
Speaker B:And then if we train it properly on your brand and your voice, it can help come up with captions and post ideas as well.
Speaker B:The next step from that would be then to actually create the images that we're using too.
Speaker B:So I've gone from someone who used Canva for everything to do with social media.
Speaker B:I mean, I'm one of those irritating people who can never find anything on Canva because I've got tens of thousands of images created over the years.
Speaker B:Now I have folders, though.
Speaker A:I do have folders, but I haven't reorganized my folders.
Speaker B:I was going to say I have folders.
Speaker B:I can't pretend there's anything in them.
Speaker B:But they were set up in a moment of.
Speaker B:But now I don't even create the images on Canva anymore.
Speaker B:I'll create them on ChatGPT.
Speaker B:I drop them into Canva, literally just to put any text on them and then export it straight away.
Speaker B:It's the only thing that I use Canva for now because the image creation inside Canvas is so good now.
Speaker B:Now, yeah, there is an environmental impact of everything we give AI to do.
Speaker B:These aren't, you know, it's not the same as just using your PC for something.
Speaker B:These are.
Speaker B:These are companies that are run on huge numbers of servers which gobble up enormous amounts of power.
Speaker B:And clean water was the other one that I was reading about yesterday, you know, huge quantities of drinking water just to keep these computers cool.
Speaker B:So if you're concerned about that, then just get a bit smarter with what we're asking.
Speaker B:Don't ask it the silly stuff.
Speaker B:There's no need to send it another message saying thank you at the end.
Speaker B:It's not going to get offended.
Speaker B:You know, we can build that thank you and that politeness into your prompt if that's the way you want to do it.
Speaker B:But yeah, every time we send something unnecessary, I would say that that's a waste of resource.
Speaker B:But if it's making us more efficient as an industry, I would argue that actually maybe some of that environmental impact is balanced out.
Speaker A:But also, though, because I was.
Speaker A:Because my, as I said, my daughter's forever saying to me, mum, you shouldn't use it, don't use it.
Speaker A:And my niece is very similar as well.
Speaker A:And I think it's maybe that they're sort of.
Speaker A:They're millennials and, and that also, like, I think my niece is possibly like gen Z But it's that kind of crossover is there into those generations that are far more mindful and aware.
Speaker A:Perhaps.
Speaker A:But I was wondering, you know, we all sit posting on Instagram, we all sit posted on Facebook Matter.
Speaker A:And Meta's servers must be huge.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, I know that the GPTs are probably because of the way that they're worrying and doing things, maybe they, I don't know, I don't understand it.
Speaker B:It's analyzing.
Speaker B:This is the bit that takes the resource.
Speaker B:Whereas apart from, I mean, the algorithm side of Meta, yes, that's very much into analysis, but most of it's regurgitation of information.
Speaker B:So it's basically storing and so it's taking a post that, that you've given it, storing it and showing it to someone else.
Speaker B:So it's just passing stuff through, it's not analyzing it, it's not changing that post.
Speaker B:So it's the analysis that, that takes the server power.
Speaker B:And what we're asking it to do is much more complicated.
Speaker B:So, you know, beyond a simple search in Facebook, I'm not asking it to do very much.
Speaker B:Whereas, you know, we've already said in ChatGPT, I'm asking it to take a transcript and turn that into a page of code.
Speaker B:That's a lot more work.
Speaker B:So yeah, it's a, it's a bigger beast and a bigger concern for sure.
Speaker B:But then if you, you know, so ChatGPT has a bit of a stinky reputation as far as the environmental impacts concerned.
Speaker B:But then along came Deepseek, which uses much lower powered processors and is a more environmentally sound option, you know, if there is such a thing in computing.
Speaker B:So there's, there's alternatives, but like I said, just don't, don't waste its time, don't give it the silly stuff.
Speaker B:And I've gone through a whole journey with it.
Speaker B:You know, I had everything on there.
Speaker B:It was helping me figure out what I was going to plant on the allotment next month and all sorts of, of things.
Speaker B:And then you kind of start to think, well, is that the best use of AI or is that actually something that could just be me looking up in a book?
Speaker B:It's, you know, it's not, not supposed to replace everything.
Speaker B:And I do see some people coming up with, with stuff on AI that actually, I think actually a spreadsheet could do that just as well, probably better, and give you the result in a more, you know, pleasing way as well.
Speaker B:You know, you can see where things are going wrong.
Speaker B:For example, on a spreadsheet Whereas it's not always very clear on AI where things are going wrong.
Speaker A:So, yeah, always accurate, is it?
Speaker B:No, no, it will.
Speaker B:It's a.
Speaker B:It's a people pleaser.
Speaker B:You'll get to know this.
Speaker B:If you use ChatGPT for any amount of time, it will give you the answer that it thinks that you want ultimately.
Speaker B:And if it doesn't have the answer, it's called hallucination in AI terms.
Speaker B:But it will sometimes come up with something which sounds very convincing.
Speaker A:It literally did this to me last week and I've sent it off to.
Speaker A:Because I need to do something on my plat, on my.
Speaker A:What's going to be my new website.
Speaker A:I need to do something and have something behind a paywall and I have a platform that I use.
Speaker A:And I was like, I wonder if that'd work.
Speaker A:So I asked Chat GPT, will this system do this, that the other?
Speaker A:And it came back with like.
Speaker A:And it did.
Speaker A:Went off and reasoned and came back and did some deep thinking, came back and said, oh, yeah, it can do.
Speaker A:This is how you need to do it.
Speaker A:So I sent it to the platform owner who does all the support and she's like, yeah, chat's got that a little bit wrong.
Speaker A:So let's just like, we'll work out.
Speaker A:Yes, I can help you, but it is not in the way that ChatGPT has suggested.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it hasn't.
Speaker A:It's clearly decided that I needed.
Speaker A:I was having a bad day and I needed to hear some good news.
Speaker B:Definitely.
Speaker B:I've.
Speaker B:So I've given it access to a spreadsheet before, which had all of my previous podcast episodes on.
Speaker B:So one of the tasks that I ask it for is to give me suggestion.
Speaker B:So at the bottom of my webpage it will say, if you like this episode of the podcast, check out this one.
Speaker B:And they're all arranged by topic.
Speaker B:So it chooses one with the same topic and then puts it at the bottom of the blog post.
Speaker B:And it kept coming up with these suggestions that sounded like a blog post that I'd written.
Speaker B:And it even created a link that looked like a blog post that I'd written, but it didn't exist.
Speaker B:And it took me probably two or three days to get to the bottom of the problem.
Speaker B:And then I had to say to ChatGPT, you can't read this spreadsheet, can you?
Speaker B:And it said, no, I can't.
Speaker B:And that basically just fabricated content from a spreadsheet that it couldn't read for.
Speaker A:Three days, which in itself is really clever.
Speaker B:That's the bit that worries me is when stuff is being presented as fact, when it isn't factual, I think that could be dangerous.
Speaker B:You know, that's some extreme examples of where things could go horribly wrong.
Speaker B:And I know there's been cases that have been thrown out of court because the lawyers have been relying on stuff that AI has decided to come up with and it was referencing case law that didn't exist.
Speaker B:So we've got to be careful.
Speaker B:We've got to be careful.
Speaker A:It's just perceived a caution, isn't it?
Speaker B:And let's just check it.
Speaker B:So, so now if I give it a piece of information, I'll say, can you just summarize the document that I've given you or can you show me what's on row five of that spreadsheet just to make sure that it's got the facts in front of it.
Speaker B:But realistically, you know, is the world going to spin out of orbit?
Speaker B:Is a criminal going to get let off a case because you've over ordered on shampoo?
Speaker B:Probably not.
Speaker B:So, you know, let's, let's not get too scared.
Speaker B:Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water and just avoid it.
Speaker A:Yeah, this is it.
Speaker A:I think it just has so many, so many uses.
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker A:And even, you know, there's things like, you know, like chat bots and stuff that you can introduce, isn't there?
Speaker A:Yeah, websites.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think can be a really, I don't know, I mean, for some people, I think maybe perhaps the older generation don't like a chat bot quite so much as a younger generation.
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker B:Yeah, it could be a generational thing.
Speaker B:I think it's also, I think there's a batch of people, myself included, who would much rather talk to a chat box than waste time being on hold to a call center somewhere.
Speaker B:Definitely.
Speaker B:So the chatbots have been around for a long time.
Speaker B:I've been playing with those on Instagram, Facebook and embedding them into websites for quite a large number of years now.
Speaker B:But what AI has done is meant that if it doesn't have an answer, chatbots always relied on basically people asking the right questions so that it could give a pre saved answer.
Speaker B:What AI has now allowed it to do is just get a little bit creative and kind of go, okay, I don't necessarily have exactly the answer to that question, but perhaps they're asking about this, I'll just clarify and maybe give them this response instead.
Speaker B:So it can fill in the gaps a lot with the chatbot stuff.
Speaker B:And Honestly, I don't think we need to be afraid in our industry at all because it will be a very long time until we're trusting robots to cut our hair and apply our eyelashes.
Speaker B:And you know, thing wasn't there going.
Speaker A:Around and I don't know if it was, if it was AI generated or if it was a real thing of a robot applying eyelashes, which was, I found quite scary to look at.
Speaker B:It's because it's eyes.
Speaker B:I think if it had been, you know, so I do have a friend who's testing out the, the nail art machine.
Speaker B:I think if it had been anywhere apart from eyes, we've probably been a lot happier with it.
Speaker B:But there's something about eyes, isn't there, which is like deeply human.
Speaker B:It will happen, it will come, it will be an option.
Speaker B:Whether people will want to take that option or not, I don't know.
Speaker B:But if I was working in our industry, for example, creating social media content, or if I was front of house, I'd be definitely looking into mastering some of this stuff because AI is coming for bits of our industry, albeit not necessarily the carrying out service bit, but certainly in terms of, you know, marketing, definitely 100%, some of the customer care, some of the customer contact stuff that we all know we should be doing, definitely we could be getting AI on board with some of those things.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, aftercare wise, definitely let's get AI involved in that.
Speaker B:I think that whole appointment setting process I don't think really needs any human intervention anymore.
Speaker B:But also I think it's about, for me, this is like a sort of democratization.
Speaker B:It's giving access to all of us salon owners to a huge number of skills that we just didn't have time for, didn't have the inclination for, didn't have the knowledge for.
Speaker B:It's leveling the playing field in an awful lot of ways because everybody could be doing reasonable, quality marketing now.
Speaker B:Everybody could be getting in contact with their entire mail list, you know, three times a week if they wanted to, whereas we haven't had the time or the resource to do that previously unless we're a bigger business.
Speaker B:So I do think it's leveling the playing field in an awful lot of ways.
Speaker B:What's my fear though is that that isn't going to.
Speaker B:So there are, it's been my opinion, as you know, that there are too many salon businesses out there.
Speaker B:Some of them need to go.
Speaker B:To be honest, previously it wasn't the right ones closing though.
Speaker B:It wasn't the ones that had Lousy standards, didn't invest in training, didn't upskill, didn't keep up to date.
Speaker B:And I fear that it's going to be the case with this as well.
Speaker B:It's not going to be the ones that are doing terrible service, it's going to be the ones that can't get to grips with technology, which is a shame.
Speaker B:But you know, there's an opportunity there.
Speaker B:There's plenty of reasons to get excited.
Speaker A:Terrible thing with, is, with any business, survival is.
Speaker A:It is the survival of the fittest and if you don't move and adapt to the new surroundings, then you aren't going to survive.
Speaker A:You know, you've only got to look at the dinosaurs, haven't you?
Speaker A:At the end of the day, if you don't move and adapt and you can't adjust to the new world, then, then you're going to have a problem.
Speaker A:And so maybe it's time somebody I've worked with a bit over the last few years, lovely lady by the name of Wendy Garcas and she's been on, she was on this season early like earlier in the season and I've quoted her so many times about her wisdom bridge and this whole thing of like, you know, if you are an older generation business owner, then find someone that can do this for you.
Speaker A:It will be worth finding that person that can help you and that they could actually start taking some of this responsibility on for you if you do.
Speaker B:But you don't need someone to do it.
Speaker B:This is, this is the, this is the baffling bit.
Speaker B:You know, if there's one thing that I can say, you know, people that run salons are really good at, it's chatting.
Speaker B:And this is all we're doing.
Speaker B:This is all we're doing.
Speaker B:No one's asking you to learn how to code, no one's asking you to learn how to even read a spreadsheet if you don't want to.
Speaker B:We just want you to have a conversation with something that isn't human.
Speaker B:And God knows we know how to have conversations, surely.
Speaker A:I know you'd like to think so.
Speaker A:I think some people just find the whole thing either just mind blowing and they don't know.
Speaker A:I know it is.
Speaker A:I think it's just an overwhelm, isn't it really, that they don't know, they don't know where to start, they don't know what to say, they don't know what's going to come back at them or necessarily how to use it.
Speaker A:And for me, for me, even just you know, like doing social media, you know, you can ask it to create.
Speaker A:Whenever I'm doing anything for socials, I ask it to create posts that can go across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram.
Speaker A:And I suppose if you do tick tock and stuff, then you can ask it to do that.
Speaker A:Tick tock.
Speaker A:So don't go on there.
Speaker A:But, but that way it does hone it a little bit.
Speaker A:And you.
Speaker A:And the one thing I'd always say as well is you have to, you have to read it, you have to edit it, you have to make it yours, especially while you're working and building your relationship with your chat GPT, got to keep working it and editing it.
Speaker A:And actually, if you can come back in there, Phil, and tell me the, the one tip that you told me last week that I kind of had, I've never really done.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we give it back.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:You will get a reasonable standard of content if you ask ChatGPT to create your post about, I don't know, a client testimonial.
Speaker B:So give it the testimonial and say, I want to turn this into a post that I can put onto Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker B:And like you said, it will tweak the content slightly so you can say, you know, I don't use hashtags on Facebook and all those good things to.
Speaker B:And it will come up with a reasonable job.
Speaker B:And that's been pretty much all we could ask it to do for quite a long time.
Speaker B:But as you've rightly said, it's a starting point.
Speaker B:So we go in, we edit, we make it sound like ourselves.
Speaker B:But then what I would do is copy and post your final version, give it back to ChatGPT and say, these are the changes that I made and here's why.
Speaker B:Because next time it won't make those same mistakes again, or it shouldn't, and it will get a little bit closer to your brand voice each time.
Speaker B:So eventually we get to the stage where we're doing barely any polishing at all.
Speaker B:And I very rarely have to change anything on my post.
Speaker B:Now, it's got the right, it's got the right degree of sass, it's got just a pinch of camp in there.
Speaker B:It knows my sentence structure, it knows that I use colloquialisms.
Speaker B:It's been trained on all of our industry jargon.
Speaker B:It uses the right number of emojis.
Speaker B:For me, the posts are the right length.
Speaker B:You know, there's very, very little that I have to do now apart from tell it what I want is I.
Speaker A:Know one of the things I did and it's something because especially if you create a lot of your own content and you have it on documents, on Word or wherever else you've.
Speaker A:You formulated it.
Speaker A:I, I put up all of my blog, I've, I've given it all my blogs, all the articles I've written, I have given it every piece of written work I've given, I've done so that it can understand who I am and what I do and what I talk about and how I talk about it.
Speaker A:So now, like you're saying now, it gives me back the information much more in my terms, in the language that I use.
Speaker A:I have had to recently tell it to please stop using long dashes.
Speaker B:Oh, that's called the M dash.
Speaker B:Yes, I know, it drives me nuts.
Speaker B:I quite like that it does it though, because it helps you spot AI content.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's got M dash it.
Speaker B:Because I don't know where that is on my keyboard even.
Speaker B:So if I see one of those, I know it's AI content.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:But what I would do though, if you've uploaded a load of content like that is to, is to ask it for a couple of documents that you can then take anywhere.
Speaker B:So ask it to produce a content and tone document so that if you then decide that you want to train a different AI model, you can just give it that document rather than uploading all of those things again.
Speaker B:So I've.
Speaker B:So yeah, ask it to come up with a content and tone document.
Speaker B:So analyze what I've written and then come up with a style guide and a content and tone guide.
Speaker B:And I did that for.
Speaker B:So when I was talking about doing a website analysis, I used that as a use case for one of my customers.
Speaker B:She was looking for a new logo.
Speaker B:She didn't want to change all of her branding, just a new logo.
Speaker B:So I got the website to analyze, got Manus to analyze her website, come up with a style guide that I could then give to ChatGPT and said, here's the style guide, here's what the website's all about.
Speaker B:And it, you know, got a flavor of the business now come up with some logo suggestions for me.
Speaker B:So, yeah, having those documents saved on your Google Drive or your Dropbox somewhere so that you can drop them into other use cases is saves an awful lot of faffing about and re uploading.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:I just, I just love the fact that it's.
Speaker A:Now it has, it's basically got my library and I think that's Just, yeah, it's.
Speaker A:I just find it so helpful because now I can just go to.
Speaker A:Actually, I need to do a new podcast episode.
Speaker A:Can you just go through what I've written, find me a podcast title or give me.
Speaker A:And it will just give me like, yeah, go and talk about that this week.
Speaker B:Or one of my favorite things to do is give it the best examples.
Speaker B:So don't use mine because I don't write the best book.
Speaker B:No, seriously.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:There's a guy who I've been following for donkey's years.
Speaker B:His name's Ryan Dice and he was kind of the king of digital marketing for a very long time.
Speaker B:He's retiring this year actually.
Speaker B:And I've written my emails in the style that he taught me, you know, ages ago.
Speaker B:So I don't give ChatGPT my emails.
Speaker B:I give it the PDF that I got from Ryan Dice and say, you know, following these guidelines, this is how I want you to write emails for me so we can get the best case examples.
Speaker B:And another example I've got in my upcoming course is we can use that in all fields of life.
Speaker B:So I asked Manus to research a group of people that were going to form my personal board of directors.
Speaker B:So I gave it people like Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs and basically people I would never have the opportunity to get in the room with.
Speaker B:I gave it, I think it was eight or nine names and I said, I want you to research their decision making style, their team building capabilities, really lean into their strengths and weaknesses and then give me a document I can give to ChatGPT and we have a chat myself and my board of directors and basically I can give it a topic.
Speaker B:So, for example, deciding not to do a video podcast anymore, said put it to the board of directors.
Speaker B:What do they think?
Speaker B:And I just get a number of perspectives on it.
Speaker B:Now here's the really clever bit.
Speaker B:I then asked Chat GPT, I said, you know, this is my list of names.
Speaker B:Who's missing?
Speaker B:Where's my blind spot?
Speaker B:What am I not seeing?
Speaker B:And it came up with the fact that it was very male heavy.
Speaker B:There weren't many females on the board of directors.
Speaker B:There was nobody looking after the nuts and bolts and the system side of it.
Speaker B:It was all very arty, very creative stuff.
Speaker B:And it also said, you've got an awful lot of people that are on that are leaning to the left.
Speaker B:And it suggested that I put Elon Musk on my board of directors, who I find personally quite abhorrent.
Speaker B:But you know what if you don't want a blind spot, you need a variety of voices on there.
Speaker B:So he joined the board of directors, too.
Speaker B:And any decision that I'm making in the business now, of course, I'm not going to necessarily go blindly with it, but it does give you a sense of perspective.
Speaker B:So because I've got this program coming out in June, May is a quiet month.
Speaker B:There's not much happening in my business, and I was getting a bit angsty and a bit nervy and kind of squirming a little bit, feeling like I ought to be busier.
Speaker B:So I put it to the board of directors.
Speaker B:I said, we've got this launch coming in June, but, you know, things are really quiet in the business.
Speaker B:Do I need to do a mini launch?
Speaker B:Do I need to, you know.
Speaker B:And the board of directors came back and.
Speaker B:And said, no, keep the faith.
Speaker B:We've got the plan.
Speaker B:This is supposed to happen.
Speaker B:Let your audience refresh.
Speaker B:Let's.
Speaker B:Let's hit them hard in June instead.
Speaker B:And it's just a really nice resource in a business of one, which is basically what I am.
Speaker B:With some outsources, it's nice to be able to have somebody that you can turn to and kind of go, you know, am I doing the right thing.
Speaker A:To a different level.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:Sorry, say again?
Speaker A:It takes.
Speaker A:What would Beyonce do to a different level?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:And, yeah, and there will be people that I'm going to sack from the board of directors.
Speaker B:Actually, Oprah Winfrey's not a very good director, a board of directors member, is she not?
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker B:She's always very much like, yeah, it's too much about the connection and not enough about the business for me.
Speaker B:So we're going to sack her and bring somebody else in, I think.
Speaker B:But it was a really fun exercise that ultimately turned into something hugely useful in the business.
Speaker B:And there are people that use AI in a much more of a kind of counseling and therapeutic way.
Speaker B:So it's kind of taking it to that next level.
Speaker B:Personally, I wouldn't use Chat GPT for that.
Speaker B:There is a wonderful platform called PI.
Speaker A:PI AI after our conversation.
Speaker B:PI AI is designed with that in mind.
Speaker B:So it will be your careers counselor if you want it to.
Speaker B:It will be your, you know, I've given it parenting questions, and again, you wouldn't blindly follow its advice, but just for a different way of thinking about stuff.
Speaker B:It's hugely, hugely useful and what an amazing resource to have in people's hands for free.
Speaker A:After our conversation last week, I went off and had A bit of a play with that one.
Speaker A:And it took me ages just to work out the voice I wanted to hear.
Speaker B:Because obviously that's the important bit.
Speaker A:Well, no, because some of them especially, I think, especially for us in the uk, having American voices all the time, you know, not that I don't like, you know, many of my American friends, but sometimes you just want to hear a voice that sounds like home, don't you?
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:And so many of the voices were like, gee, I'm American.
Speaker A:Oh, I do American accents.
Speaker A:I'm rubbish.
Speaker A:But it was just.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:I don't want to have some bouncy American woman chatting at me, trying, you know, when I'm.
Speaker A:When I.
Speaker A:I might want someone to be a bit calmer and a bit nicer.
Speaker B:It is very much a contextual thing, though, because I.
Speaker B:I have a bouncy American for Chat GPT.
Speaker B:He's like.
Speaker B:He's a proper Californian.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I love that in that context for PI AI.
Speaker B:I actually, he is American, but I would say he's almost definitely African American.
Speaker B:Much deeper, more soothing voice, which is really lovely.
Speaker B:But when I'm using my phone, my.
Speaker B:I can't say her name, but S I R I has a lovely Irish accent.
Speaker B:Because when I'm getting directions, getting stressed behind the wheel, I need something a bit more soothing and a bit more.
Speaker A:Goes mad because I've.
Speaker A:I've.
Speaker A:Gotten.
Speaker A:I've forgotten how to change it.
Speaker A:And I've got.
Speaker A:I don't know what his name is.
Speaker A:Bruce.
Speaker A:I've got Bruce the Australian.
Speaker A:Okay, who does my satnav.
Speaker A:I love.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And his, his pronunciation of some, especially in Norfolk, some of the words that he comes up with for our local towns and villages.
Speaker B:Oh, definitely, yeah.
Speaker B:I've got.
Speaker B:I've got my nice Irish lady, but when I'm driving in Spain over to our house at some of the directions, I mean, my Spanish isn't great, but I even.
Speaker B:I can tell you wouldn't say it that way.
Speaker B:But, yeah, it's very much.
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, if it makes it more accessible to have a voice that you like.
Speaker B:And, and that's the wonderful thing with Chat GPT now is the voice capability on it is absolutely superb.
Speaker B:So if you don't want to type a conversation.
Speaker B:And I had a whole careers coaching session with ChatGPT on the walk back from my allotments, which is about 20 minutes, we basically redefined what my business is about.
Speaker B:And part of me leaning into AI came out of that conversation, it was superb.
Speaker B:Just me talking backwards and forwards for 20 minutes.
Speaker B:And yeah, it came up some really, really useful ideas.
Speaker A:I'm only just getting into the talking to, to it I think probably because I like in my past life before industry, I was a PA and I used to type at about 95 words a minute.
Speaker A:So I find it much easier just to sit and type because.
Speaker A:Keeps my typing speed up, nothing else.
Speaker A:But I like to, I like to be able to just sit and type because it's the way my brain flows.
Speaker A:And although I do do a lot of talking as we know Phil, I do, I find it a bit weird talking into, talking into my Mac.
Speaker A:It's like, okay, this a bit weird and then having some AI voice talking back to me.
Speaker A:But I'm trying to get used to it.
Speaker A:So I'm going to use like the pie thing a little bit more definitely.
Speaker B:And, and what I find that, what I find useful about talking to it is I, I get that, you know, it's quicker for you to type and you've always worked that way, but this isn't about doing stuff the way you've always done it.
Speaker B:This is about, is about trying to come up with a different slant on things and try and use things in a different way.
Speaker B:So actually maybe that shift from typing into talking is all it takes.
Speaker B:But what I also find is that it, it starts to get the gist of how I talk and my pace and my tone and the words that I would use and the words that I wouldn't.
Speaker B:It went through a whole phase where it was creating content for me and it was putting words in there that I would never use.
Speaker B:You know, even though my, my written communication is actually quite casual and I do use a lot of, you know, a little sprinkling of camp.
Speaker B:You know, there was, it was coming up with words that I just wouldn't use.
Speaker B:You know, it was calling everybody sweetie.
Speaker B:I don't call anybody sweetie.
Speaker B:So I had to kind of train it that actually I don't do that.
Speaker B:And actually I think having those conversations with gets closer and closer to my voice all the time.
Speaker B:And I also find that I can just cover a lot more ground.
Speaker B:You know, like I said that 20, I wasn't going to be on my phone typing for 20 minutes, but a 20 minute stroll from the, from the village up to my house.
Speaker B:Perfect.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think as well, probably because the fact that I was a PA and secretary for so many years is it's just like my natural thing, if I'm sat In front of a computer, my natural go to is to type.
Speaker A:However, I do voice note huge amounts.
Speaker A:It's just that.
Speaker A:And I know from, you know, when I used to do dictation and stuff many, many years ago that, you know, most people talk at about 160 to 180 words a minute and I type at 95.
Speaker A:Well, we don't type at 95 words a minute.
Speaker A:I probably type about 80 now.
Speaker A:So I can.
Speaker A:I'm slowed down by the fact that I'm typing and also because when I'm typing, I'm in a more corporate brain mode.
Speaker A:I probably don't talk.
Speaker A:Well, I know I don't.
Speaker A:I don't type how I talk.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker B:And if we want stuff that sounds more social and a bit more natural, then, yeah, that's what we want is that slightly more casual tone.
Speaker B:But no, I'm a big fan of the voice stuff.
Speaker B:I think it makes it more accessible.
Speaker B:I think it makes it less spooky.
Speaker B:I think the only downside with it is, of course it doesn't take a beat.
Speaker B:It's good to go.
Speaker B:So it's giving you the answer straight away.
Speaker B:And I find sometimes that I have to kind of go, okay, we're going to stop now because I need to process this.
Speaker B:I need to think this through.
Speaker B:You're ready to go for the next step and the next step and the next step.
Speaker B:Because that's what it's trained to do, is give you results as quickly as possible.
Speaker B:But quite often I just need to kind of go, okay, we're going to stop now and I'll come back to you tomorrow when I've had time to digest and, you know, time to process.
Speaker B:But yeah, big fan of the voice stuff if it makes it more accessible.
Speaker A:I do, I mean, I do love a voice note because I think as well as I find I do a lot of thinking.
Speaker A:Like you walking back from your allotment.
Speaker A:I do a lot of wandering the forest with the dogs in the afternoons.
Speaker A:So quite often I'll just like voice note people when I should be out being mindful really.
Speaker A:But I find it's like the brain starts going, oh, and this and that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I'll just voice note people because it's hard to walk and type at the same time without tree roots.
Speaker A:So I do use that quite a lot and I think as well like for, for salon owners and so like the solos and stuff, you know, if you're in between clients having that moment to sort of just spend, you know, grab your phone and have a quick chat with cheap with chat GPT go ask it to set up all of your market, you know, your social media marketing for the next two weeks.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it can do, you know, it will be done before you even open the door to the next client.
Speaker B:Or get it to interview you is a really good way if you need to.
Speaker B:Like we should all be putting blog posts on our websites nice and frequently and we know that Google likes nice fresh content on our websites.
Speaker A:Well, not everybody does, Phil.
Speaker A:Not everybody does know that.
Speaker B:Okay, well we should.
Speaker B:Google likes fresh, relevant content and blogging is a really good way of firstly making sure that your website's up to date.
Speaker B:But secondly, it, you know, we can repurpose a blog.
Speaker B:We can chop bits out of it and turn it into quote posts and images for social media.
Speaker B:Gives you something to talk about in your email marketing as well.
Speaker B:So blogging is a really nice, what I call cornerstone piece.
Speaker B:So a nice piece of content that we can repurpose in lots of ways.
Speaker B:If you've got an idea for a blog post, why not ask chat GPT, you know, say ask me 15 questions about this topic and then turn my answers into a 600 word blog post for me it can be done by the time you finish walking the dog.
Speaker A:Absolutely is.
Speaker A:I think I, I'm, I'm moving my website because I had a new website I built last year and I didn't realize sadly when I took it on it doesn't have a blog facility and I've argued with them consistently ever since that that is, that's misleading because you're selling website and it has no blog and it's driven me insane because I can't, because I can't.
Speaker A:I can't do that very thing.
Speaker A:And yes, I just, yes, I'm just coming to the end of my contract so everything is now going to be moving so that I can have a blog again.
Speaker A:Because I don't think people don't always realize the stuff that you and I take for granted.
Speaker A:And know many people don't realize the benefits of blogging.
Speaker A:They don't realize the benefits of having a website.
Speaker B:I mean, to be fair, it did become quite irrelevant for quite a long time though.
Speaker B:There were, you know, there were very few people that kept the faith throughout all the years and kept blogging because it was quite the thing and then it did fall out of fashion quite dramatically.
Speaker B:But people are seeing the value in it now and it's a really useful again, it's that legacy content.
Speaker B:It's stuff that lingers.
Speaker B:It's stuff that you can keep reusing and I'm a big fan of reusing content and that's, you know, even my social media stuff.
Speaker B:If you look at my social media feed this week, I can guarantee you at least half the posts you'll see again in three months time.
Speaker B:Guarantee it because we've got different audience by then different people have started to follow you.
Speaker B:The chances of the same people seeing that post again are very, very slim.
Speaker B:And then what's the harm if they do anyway?
Speaker B:If it's really useful content, why not get reminded that you still need SPF three months later?
Speaker B:So let's, you know, reuse stuff all the time.
Speaker B:All the time.
Speaker A:Now have you got.
Speaker A:Because I would love to have something where you can like and you may have the magic answer for this bill.
Speaker A:You're posting on your socials and you've got a post that you want to repeat in a month's time.
Speaker A:You want to repeat it every month.
Speaker A:But I haven't, I don't know, maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.
Speaker A:But if I'm posting image and text across Facebook and Instagram Sound Meta suite discovered a way yet that can make that repeat?
Speaker B:There are platforms that can do it and I was using one.
Speaker B:So all of my websites are built on a platform called High Level Level and High Level, you can schedule posts and you can set up recurring posts and you give it an end date.
Speaker B:So you say I want to repeat it every mine's 13 weeks.
Speaker B:So you'll see the same stuff four times.
Speaker B:And I say I want it repeated every 13 weeks for the next year say and I'll revisit it after a year, take down the stuff that's not working, swap out some content and so on.
Speaker B:The problem that I had with that is I'm launching products at different parts of the year so sometimes I need nothing else to go out that week.
Speaker B:But this stuff had already been scheduled and scheduled and scheduled.
Speaker B:So I actually don't do the recurring stuff anymore.
Speaker B:What I have instead is seven day campaigns.
Speaker B:Gosh, we're getting deep on the content stuff.
Speaker B:Okay, so I'll have a seven day campaign for let's say a lead magnet.
Speaker B:So let's say I'm going to have an opt in where people can get a, a free guide to salon membership, say for argument's sake.
Speaker B:So I'll have the lead magnet in a Google Drive, a Google Drive directory.
Speaker B:Also in there will be all of the images that I'm going to Post on social.
Speaker B:And also in there will be a spreadsheet and I use a scheduler called Publer P U B L E R.
Speaker B:And with Publer I can upload that spreadsheet.
Speaker B:And on the spreadsheet it has the date and the time, it has the link to the image and it has the caption and it will have first comment if you wanted your hashtags in there as well.
Speaker B:And I can upload that.
Speaker B:Now.
Speaker B:What I like with Publer is you can use natural language so you don't have to put that.
Speaker B:You want it to go out on the 26th of May at 3 in the morning.
Speaker B:You can say, I want this to go on Tuesday, I want this to go on Thursday and it will choose the next Tuesday or the next Thursday.
Speaker B:So I can upload that spreadsheet, get a week of content scheduled.
Speaker B:It still needs confirming.
Speaker B:It sort of come up with all the draft posts and you go, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker B:And then you watch the calendar fill up with your recurring content.
Speaker B:So that works better for me because then when I'm looking at my month, I might go, actually, I don't want any lead magnets going out that week because that's when the next program is being launched.
Speaker B:And that works really nicely.
Speaker B:The other nice thing with Publer is that you can mark it as a story and it will schedule your stories for you as well.
Speaker A:You're so good at this stuff.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker B:No, I just tell myself it.
Speaker B:It's one of my mantras in the morning.
Speaker A:Feel your wonderful organization.
Speaker B:Do you know, I think honestly it comes from being naturally a slightly lazy person.
Speaker B:So if there's a shortcut, I will find it.
Speaker B:If there's an easier way of doing it, I will find it.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:And that's what AI is all about as well.
Speaker B:So the two of us working together, we're pretty unstoppable.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Oh, dear.
Speaker A:There's just.
Speaker A:The thing is, I think there's so much that AI can do for us.
Speaker A:So what would be, do you think, the one thing, or maybe not even the one thing, but what are people going to get?
Speaker A:Because you've got your course coming.
Speaker B:Diy Aidi.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:We had a conversation, so I'm going to stop that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:Stop that thought.
Speaker A:So, aidiy, and what are people going to be able to experience from taking that course with you?
Speaker A:Because I think it's going to be a really useful thing for people.
Speaker B:It's going to get.
Speaker B:It's going to be really useful from the start, it's going to get more useful over time as well.
Speaker B:So initially when you sign up for aidiy, you're going to get a set of modules that will get you started.
Speaker B:So it will show you how to open an account with Chat GPT and get some quick wins, some stuff that we can establish really quickly.
Speaker B:And then each month I'm going to release a piece of content in one of three tracks.
Speaker B:So one is going to be around mindset and goal setting, one is going to be money and the other one's going to be marketing.
Speaker B:And I will have a walkthrough of how you could use AI to help with something on that track.
Speaker B:And each month one of those things is going to be pretty basic, one of them is going to be intermediate and one of them is going to be a slightly deeper dive and we'll cycle through.
Speaker B:So you're not always going to have the advanced stuff being on Money, for example.
Speaker B:So over time, what you're going to have is a whole library of resource which is going to help you really master some of this stuff in a very, a very easy way.
Speaker B:And it's not a.
Speaker B:It's certainly not an expensive program.
Speaker B:There's no huge time commitment.
Speaker B:In fact, there's no commitment to it at all.
Speaker B:You can drop out at any stage if you particularly wanted to.
Speaker B:But what I'm hoping is that people are going to start sharing their wins.
Speaker B:We're going to put a little Facebook group together.
Speaker B:I don't want another WhatsApp chat, thank you very much.
Speaker B:But we're going to have a little Facebook group where, you know, if you've stumbled across something that's been really useful in your business, you can drop that in and learn from other people too.
Speaker A:Be amazing and because I do think we just so many people that have been like, you know, heads down doing clients through the whole time that like we.
Speaker A:I've been learning a little bit and you've been learning a lot about AI, need to there and catch up a little bit, aren't they now?
Speaker A:And there's ways that they make that work for them.
Speaker B:Actually, I think it's probably better now.
Speaker B:I think if you jumped in at the start, I think there's a real danger that you'd be overwhelmed right now because things have moved so quickly in so many different directions and there's so much possibility and some of it wasn't very intuitive.
Speaker B:But what's happened over the last probably 12 months is things have actually got a lot simpler to operate from our side of Things, it's got much more complicated in the background, I'm sure, but from our side of things, it's got much, much simpler.
Speaker B:So it's actually a really good time to get into AI, I think.
Speaker B:But I think there's, like I said, it's that leveling of the playing field.
Speaker B:It's meaning now that everybody can get decent social media content out frequently.
Speaker B:Everyone can be emailing their clients, everyone can, you know, and even some really simple stuff like dealing with customer complaints, for example.
Speaker B:It's horrible when you get a complaint and responding to that complaint is always really tough.
Speaker B:Give it the facts, ask it to write an email, and it will do a beautiful job of making sure that you come across as empathetic, concerned, not angry, not defensive.
Speaker B:And I've used that with some of my clients, you know, several times.
Speaker B:And actually we've managed to take the sting out of situations and even some, some staff stuff.
Speaker B:You know, obviously we've got to make sure that we're compliant and always check with HR first.
Speaker B:But sometimes, you know, if you're just responding to someone saying, actually, no, you can't have that Saturday off because we discussed this months ago, it takes the emotion away from you.
Speaker B:And actually AI is a really good use case for that sort of thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, I know recently I was in a, I was on a webinar that I was running and someone was asking about, oh, but you know that we were talking about Google business profiles and they would say, oh, but I've got this terrible review on mine.
Speaker A:I don't really want to, I don't really want to publicize my Google business profile.
Speaker A:And it's like, but a bad, like a bad review is an opportunity to kind of show people who you are.
Speaker A:Oh, definitely, that you are the, you know, you know, a real professional who values your business and values them as a client.
Speaker A:And it gives you so many opportunities to highlight how amazing you are.
Speaker A:And, and it isn't like, you know, to use chat to gets like a even better response for that.
Speaker A:That is gonna, is gonna warm the cockles of the person reading that one star review and go, oh, no, I'll give them a chance.
Speaker A:Because clearly, you know, there's a reason that that happened and they've done everything they can to resolve it.
Speaker B:And I think, absolutely.
Speaker B:And it's, it's never, you know, a bad incident won't kill a business.
Speaker B:It's the response to the incident, it's the response to the complaint.
Speaker B:Not responding isn't an option.
Speaker B:We know that.
Speaker B:But if you think about, you know, I'm very lucky and I get to do a fair bit of travel with my work and I do look at hotel reviews and realistically, do you expect a hotel to have, you know, 5,000 five star reviews and nothing else?
Speaker B:Of course not.
Speaker B:And which are the ones that I read?
Speaker B:I want to read the one star.
Speaker B:I want to know what I might expect if things go wrong.
Speaker B:If it's been responded to professionally in and promptly.
Speaker B:More importantly, and it's been handled properly.
Speaker B:That one star review is not going to stop me booking, you know, an ignored review that might or a badly handled review that might.
Speaker B:And we've got this tool here which can take all of the emotion away from you.
Speaker B:And actually when we're caught up in that moment and we're in that flight or fight and we're feeling defensive, that's not the time to give a considered response.
Speaker B:But we know we need to do it quickly.
Speaker B:So why not get ChatGPT to help with that?
Speaker A:And it will.
Speaker A:And it won't go.
Speaker A:It won't.
Speaker A:It won't.
Speaker A:So with that kind of thing, it isn't going to give you a wrong answer really, is it?
Speaker A:Because anything it's going to give you is something that is considered, is professional and does give the right tone and you might need to spread it and take out those M dashes.
Speaker A:However it is going to be, it's going to be the crux of what you need to go back with.
Speaker A:That's gonna.
Speaker B:The worst it will be is a little bit bland, to be honest, but that's fine in that situation.
Speaker A:I think that's what you need.
Speaker A:And I think as an industry we do get way too defensive and way too emotional.
Speaker A:I think a lot of it's because we're so female dominated and as females we do tend to, you know, lead with our hearts more than our heads sometimes.
Speaker B:I don't, I don't think it's a female thing.
Speaker B:I think it's a response to the market thing.
Speaker B:I think we are successful because we've pleased people and if we are successful through people pleasing when they're not pleased, that that hurts.
Speaker B:I also think it's part partly a really positive thing because I think it hurts because we're actually really good and we get so much right.
Speaker B:So when we do get a complaint, it's actually a rarity.
Speaker B:We're not used to handling complaints if we were getting complaint.
Speaker B:And I can remember this, you know, when I first qualified as a hairdresser, I was crap.
Speaker B:I was A really poor hairdresser and I was cutting my teeth and I was getting stuff wrong.
Speaker B:And remember the first complaint I got, I think I cried for a day.
Speaker B:The second one I got, I cried for half a day.
Speaker B:By the time I was on to complaint number 20, you know, I wasn't even crying.
Speaker B:I was barely breaking a sweat.
Speaker B:And onto the next one.
Speaker B:You get used to handling complaints, then you get good at what you're doing so the complaints dry up.
Speaker B:So then when one comes along, actually it does really hurt.
Speaker B:And it should hurt because it shows.
Speaker A:That you care, because it does feel personal, doesn't it?
Speaker A:And whether it's about something you've done yourself or whether it's about something that has happened within your business with another staff member or whatever it is that's happened, it always feels like it's kind of targeted, doesn't it?
Speaker A:And it does seem to kind of hit home that you must have done something wrong.
Speaker A:And quite often no one's actually even done anything wrong.
Speaker A:You know, we, we know that many people complain for no particular reason other than just to complain.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that's 99 times out 100.
Speaker B:I think if we've done anything wrong, it's been in the consultation.
Speaker B:It's very rarely your skills that are the problem.
Speaker B:It's an unmet expectation and that's a consultation problem.
Speaker A:And I can probably even help with that with consultations.
Speaker B:You can certainly, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I deal with a lot of salons that are doing a lot of lead generation advertising and, you know, they're handling lots and lots of customer inquiries and most of them will be tire kickers and a waste of time.
Speaker B:And AI can definitely be helping with that process.
Speaker B:You know, just weeding out the people that aren't really serious and getting the serious ones in front of us.
Speaker B:Why not?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Well, should we leave it there?
Speaker A:How can people find it?
Speaker A:I'll take it.
Speaker A:If they, if they follow you on your socials and join your email list, then they will be able to find out everything about AI DIY.
Speaker B:They definitely will.
Speaker B:There's a website which is PhilJackson Co Coach.
Speaker B:And the reason it's not on my normal website is that this is for all small businesses.
Speaker B:So we're starting with salons, but may well be that we get some other people joining along the way, which would be great too.
Speaker B:So PhilJackson coach has got all the details and you can sign up straight away.
Speaker A:Wonderful.
Speaker A:And also just more exciting news as well, Phil, because as we know, Salon Preneur is Going to be launching in June and you'll be coming back on board, won't you, as one of my lovely on board.
Speaker B:In fact, I'm going to make my first article all about what we've been talking about today as well.
Speaker B:So that'll be in there too.
Speaker A:And you're also going to be coming to Solar Business Connect later in the year too.
Speaker B:Business Connect.
Speaker B:A little jaunt up to Coventry.
Speaker B:Why not?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:So it's been an absolute joy as always talking to you, Phil.
Speaker A:I've got, I've got.
Speaker A:We booked this, actually knowing that I was going out so that we keep it relatively concise today.
Speaker A:So, yeah, thank you so much for coming on and talking about it and I really hope that we've or you have inspired some people to get on board with AI, if they haven't already.
Speaker A:Because there's just, there's so much to it that can help people run their business.
Speaker B:It's my pleasure, as always, darling.
Speaker B:It's good to talk to you.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:So thanks very much, Phil.
Speaker A:And yeah, I will catch up with all the audience on the other side.
Speaker A:What an episode.
Speaker A:I don't know about you.
Speaker A:I've taken notes.
Speaker A:I knew I would.
Speaker A:I forgot to put the pen in front of me though, as you will have noticed if you were watching.
Speaker A:And I really hope that you get a feel for where Phil's going with this because AI and in fact, just as we were finishing, we were saying, you know, that the online space and whether you only use the online space to market your business or whether you use the online space for an awful lot more and try new avenues of business or whatever it is that is how you use search engines, is how you use social media, is how you use YouTube, whatever, whatever it is that you use in the online space.
Speaker A:We have all spent so long doing that and learning how to do it and it's taken up hours and hours of our time every week.
Speaker A:And I know that some of the stuff that I use AI for now, stuff that I can remember about 18 months ago, two years ago, probably about two years ago, I sat.
Speaker A:I've been on a.
Speaker A:On a sales page writing course and I sat and it probably took me best part of a day and a half to write this sales page for something I was doing and it was painful and I had to sit rewriting this bit and rewriting that bit and have I got this right and have I followed the formula in the right way and is this going to be the thing that makes people buy and now I can give it a core piece of information to chat GPT and say, please write me a sales page that's going to attract this person that's my ideal client.
Speaker A:And within 30 seconds, it's back on my, on my desk effectively, and I've saved a day and a half of my time.
Speaker A:So do consider, if you have never used AI, do consider it as a tool.
Speaker A:And I, I cannot recommend enough getting onto Phil's AI aidiy, because it's going to be a game changer.
Speaker A:And as far as I'm aware, I mean, I know Steph Stevenson, who is a massive AI advocate.
Speaker A:She's got a lot of stuff that she's doing.
Speaker A:Phil's got stuff he's doing.
Speaker A:I'm, I'm not an AI expert.
Speaker A:I'm still, I'm still learning every day.
Speaker A:And I think he, you know, Phil would say he's doing the same.
Speaker A:Well, we're learning every day.
Speaker A:But you need to be on board with AI because it isn't going away and without it, you're going to end up being like the dinosaurs and you don't want to be in that place.
Speaker A:There are ways that you can utilize AI in your business to free up more of your time.
Speaker A:So we were just saying, you know, what we're going to do with all this free time it's given us, you know, that's the concern really, is what happens to humanity with all that free time.
Speaker A:But to me, you know, we're just saying it's like, I've got time to read a book, you know, got time to, you know, start.
Speaker A:I started doing pottery recently.
Speaker A:I'll have time to, like, throw pots.
Speaker A:Phil have time to go to his allotment.
Speaker A:You might have time to take your grandkids out.
Speaker A:You might have time to go to the beach.
Speaker A:All that time when you'd normally be sat at a laptop tapping away.
Speaker A:Writing your social media posts is a game changer.
Speaker A:So do watch out for Phil's stuff.
Speaker A:All the links will be in the show notes, but just search Phil Jackson.
Speaker A:Build your salon online and you'll find Phil.
Speaker A:And yeah, just Google him.
Speaker A:He's an amazing business mind in this industry and his history and his background lead lead into that.
Speaker A:So do check him out.
Speaker A:And that's it.
Speaker A:I'm off to go and sit playing with ChatGPT.
Speaker A:I will speak to you next time.
Speaker A:Bye for now.
Speaker C:Is your salon delivering the exceptional client journey you've always envisioned?
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Speaker C:The Salon Inspector's Client Experience Audit offers a digital mystery shop of your business, featuring a thorough review of your brand inconsistency, online presence and client communication.
Speaker C:Sue assesses the touch points you've created to ensure a seamless and memorable experience that keeps clients coming back again and again ready to transform your salon's client journey.
Speaker C:Visit sue-davies.com to schedule your audit today.
Speaker C:The Salon Inspector Turning Good Experiences into Great ones.
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Speaker A:The links for that you can find in the Show Notes.
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Speaker B:SA.
