Like many small enterprise homeowners, I spent a whole lot of time in 2023 contemplating how I wished to combine synthetic intelligence into my content material company, iHartContent.

At first, my intuition was to affix “Crew No AI” and to disregard it altogether. As a author, the worry of instruments like ChatGPT is solely comprehensible. In any case, it will probably spit out a whole weblog publish in mere moments. It’s pure to fret about being changed. 

However as I watched this rising expertise proceed to evolve—and started to see the numerous methods founders in different industries had been starting to make use of it—I made a decision to as a substitute take a “maintain your folks shut and your enemies nearer” method. I wished to study all the things I may about AI to assist me perceive if it was actually going to trigger the existential disaster I imagined. 

Over time, I spotted that the reply is not any: AI isn’t a menace to me. Not less than not anytime quickly. For one, the standard of content material creation simply isn’t there but. These instruments require human enter and finesse to get helpful outcomes. Something that persons are doing with AI isn’t a lot AI-created as it’s AI-assisted. 

That’s once I began to completely grasp the chance in AI: Studying to work properly with these instruments might be a boon to my enterprise, and I may even use them to serve my purchasers in a method that allowed me to be a extra priceless accomplice (as a substitute of changing me). 

This method to integrating AI helped my company obtain our first multi-six-figure milestone in 2023. It’s change into so priceless that I’ve launched a brand new line of enterprise to assist others learn to work alongside AI. And none of this may have occurred if I had continued to shun it.

For different enterprise homeowners who’re feeling hesitant about integrating AI, listed here are 3 ways I’ve used it this 12 months to develop my enterprise, and the way I plan to proceed evolving these approaches into 2024. 

I’m utilizing AI to open up time to work on my enterprise as a substitute of in my enterprise

My company, like so many companies, has all the time confronted the “cobbler’s kids don’t have any footwear” drawback: Whereas we’re on high of our purchasers’ advertising, content material, and social media wants, our channels used to get virtually no consideration. 

As soon as we began utilizing AI to clear operational bottlenecks and streamline the content material creation course of, I used to be in a position to ship the identical excessive degree of service for our purchasers whereas additionally having time to spend alone enterprise growth. 

For instance, we began utilizing ChatGPT to batch matter brainstorming, help us in outlining, and do preliminary rounds of content material edits for our purchasers. It’s necessary to notice that we all the time cleared the usage of AI instruments with our purchasers forward of time and didn’t use them for any purchasers who had been towards it. Nonetheless, most individuals had been snug with our considerate use of this expertise, and these new processes had been quickly saving me about eight hours every week, minimal. 

That’s a whole workday freed up for duties like constructing out our personal on-line presence, consumer acquisition, and discovering new methods to develop my enterprise as a substitute of solely serving our present purchasers.

In 2024, we’re going to search for extra methods to streamline processes and to teach our prospects on the right way to do a few of this themselves. That may really feel like precisely what I used to be afraid of—instructing my purchasers to make use of AI so that they don’t want me—however I see it as a method to construct extra worth. As an illustration, if our purchasers can simply write on-brand communications that’s not included of their package deal with us, it makes all of their content material look extra unified and, due to this fact, extra profitable.

Educating them additionally reveals the work that we put into utilizing AI, so that they don’t really feel like they need to have the ability to pay us much less simply because we’re integrating these instruments. It’s nonetheless a really human course of that requires particular experience, and we needs to be paid properly for bringing that to the desk. 

On high of opening up time to work on my enterprise, AI has helped me execute enterprise growth duties.  

Early on, we used it in apparent methods, wish to assist our model copywriting or utilizing it to assist us map out three to 6 month content material calendars for ourselves and our purchasers. 

Because the 12 months went on, nevertheless, we began utilizing it extra for higher-level duties, from monetary planning and projections to technique growth to diving deep into our personal branding and messaging. I believe that is the actual superpower of chat-based AI brokers: Utilizing them as thought companions for enterprise technique. 

As an illustration, once we had been struggling to fulfill our monetary objective for 1 / 4, I outlined what we had been aiming for and all the things we had been doing to attain it in ChatGPT, and requested what extra approaches we may contemplate. 

Over the course of a protracted brainstorming chat, we got here up with some ways that finally helped us not solely hit our objective, however exceed it. A few of the ways included figuring out methods to higher leverage the distinctive strengths and abilities of my present group, methods for altering the pricing construction of our service choices, extra “low-hanging fruit” alternatives for prime worth add-on providers, and even concepts for slicing bills.

There’s limitless potentialities for tactics you should utilize AI to strategize round your online business, and since you should utilize pure language with it, you’ll be able to simply have a dialog such as you may with a group member. It’s gotten to the purpose the place anytime I encounter a problem I don’t know the right way to method, my first response is to go to ChatGPT to assist information my pondering.

I’m utilizing AI to educate me by way of setting our firm imaginative and prescient

Just a few months in the past, I used to be feeling actually caught with the enterprise: Not motivated or fulfilled with the work we had been doing. However I couldn’t actually put a finger on why that was or exactly how I wished to pivot or enhance.

One evening, in desperation, I turned to ChatGPT and gave it the position of a enterprise coach, explaining my scenario and asking it to offer me thought-provoking inquiries to unravel my rut. By way of the course of an hours-long dialog, we received to the purpose the place I recognized that I felt the work we had been doing was not contributing to the world in a constructive method. 

We weren’t inflicting hurt—we had been already very selective about our purchasers—however wished to lift the voices of people that had been actively making the world a greater place. 

With this objective in thoughts, ChatGPT then helped me define a plan for gently offboarding some purchasers who weren’t as aligned and shifting our messaging to draw this new viewers. Because of this work, we’ve taken on 4 new purchasers within the final month alone who our group is so excited to work with and who’ve a message that the world desperately wants to listen to. 

Positive, I may have executed this work with out ChatGPT. However the course of was so fast in comparison with if I’d been muddling by way of it alone. AI can by no means totally change the deeply human perception you may acquire from working with a model coach or enterprise coach, however it will probably assist get you unstuck. Within the span of only a few months, I’ve gone from feeling out of alignment to extraordinarily enthusiastic about the way forward for the corporate. In 2024, I need to proceed searching for alternatives to place AI in that teaching position and let it ask me the deep questions that can make my work extra significant. 

Right here’s what I now consider about AI: It’s not going to interchange you, however the companies which might be utilizing it will change you as a result of they’re going to be transferring a lot sooner. I’m not saying this to create worry however to encourage different enterprise homeowners that now could be the time to step into this house. You don’t should change into an knowledgeable, however it’s best to take a detailed take a look at how it may be leveraged in your online business. I believe you’ll be amazed on the methods it will probably transfer you ahead.