Well, hello, everyone.
Welcome to another episode of The
Catalyst.
Today,
we are excited to welcome Susan Frew.
Susan was just here at NICC just a
couple months ago talking to us about AI
and backed by popular demand.
We're bringing her back in October.
Susan is a highly accomplished
entrepreneur, keynote speaker,
and super user of AI.
Her journey began in the fast-paced tech
world of New York City,
where she ascended to the role of general
manager for two countries within a Fortune
XX telecom company.
She later successfully applied her
leadership and business acumen to her own
Inc.
Five Thousand Home Services company.
And now Susan masterfully integrates her
diverse experience to demystify AI,
providing practical real-world strategies
for business leaders and entrepreneurs.
Susan, welcome.
Wow.
Wow.
Those intros says, wow,
you're old because you've done all those
things, basically.
We're so excited to have you back.
And I'm excited to talk to you about
AI today because it was just a couple
of years ago where I was sitting here
going, wow.
This sounds kind of interesting,
this AI thing, I don't really know.
And now I use it every day.
And so for those that might still be
on that little hazy area of they're not
sure how they're going to use it,
how would you talk about AI to those
folks?
Well,
so I've created a name for those folks
and they are called the digital
denialists.
And those are people who are pretending
that this giant wave of technology that's
coming towards us,
no matter what you do or where you
are,
there's really not going to be any way
to avoid it.
It's infiltrated every single part of our
world.
Everything has got AI infused now.
It just keeps getting faster and faster
and faster.
And my thought on it is always like,
why wouldn't you want to learn about it
more than taking that step back?
And that's still what I see, though.
Oh, so true.
And you really have jumped into that AI
pool pretty deep.
What have you learned through your journey
with that?
Well,
what I have learned through my journey is
that you need to pick a lane because
there are so many different AIs out there.
There's actually a website called There's
an AI for That.
And they're an aggregator in a sort
because they capture how many AIs that
they can record that are in use at
any given time.
And when I first started,
it was seven thousand.
And now it's over thirty thousand on some
days.
Wow.
So if you're a business leader or you
just want to ingrain it into your personal
life, pick one.
So if you're going to use ChatGPT,
which is open AI,
you're going to use Gemini,
which is Google, or Meta,
which is Facebook and Microsoft,
pick one and start playing around with it
and do simple, fun things with it.
Can I give you an example of a
really fun thing I figured out the other
day?
So I don't know, you know,
this isn't gonna apply to all of your
listeners, but you know,
I struggle with putting on my own makeup,
like in a really great way,
like where you would hire a makeup artist
and you see all these people on social
media with the contouring.
Drawing all these stripes all over their
faces.
And then, you know,
they look like a movie star.
I'm like,
I want to learn how to do that.
So I started watching a few YouTube
videos.
I'm like, man, I can't get this.
So I took a picture of all of
my makeup and I laid it all out
on the counter,
took a picture of all of it.
And I put it into chat TVT and
I asked it to give me instructions on
how I could apply my makeup.
And I wanted a daily look and then
I wanted one for on stage and using
all of my brushes and it went through
every single color of this big eyeshadow
palette.
It went through every single color and
said, put this one here,
put this one there, blend this one here,
put the, it was amazing.
Oh, wow.
That's what I'm going to try tonight.
Simple, right?
Like, you know,
at a salon or Ulta Beauty or whatever,
you're like,
I'll never be able to do this at
home.
But it did it for me.
And then I kept asking follow up questions
like, you know,
and it didn't make me go out and
buy any more stuff,
which was also pretty cool.
That is way cool.
Yeah,
I've heard people doing that with like the
contents of their refrigerator.
And what can I make tonight based off
of what I have?
So lots of cool things that you can
do.
I was actually reading your newsletter
this morning and you talk about human in
the loop concept.
And I know there's a lot of fear
out there with AI about thinking AI is
going to replace people,
but really it's more about how can it
assist you?
So can you talk about that concept,
human in the loop?
Sure, and I love that phrase,
and I wish that I owned it,
but I don't, unfortunately.
But the theory is right,
because regardless of what AI is coming
into play here,
there still needs to be human
verification, interaction, strategy.
And I always say we're going old school
before we go new school.
And by doing that, by going old school,
what I mean by that is you need
to go and map out all of your
workflow and your processes in your
organization and then figure out where you
want to use AI,
where it can be helpful to you.
So first and foremost,
you want to start getting rid of all
the things that hold you back.
So what keeps you from doing the best
work every single day?
And maybe that's email overload.
Or maybe it's creating that newsletter or
writing that safety briefing.
Whatever it is that holds you back and
just is a giant time suck,
figuring out how you can delegate that to
your very,
very smart and very inexpensive work.
Right.
Because for twenty dollars a month,
you get a Ph.D.
level intern to help you.
So take it.
Amazing.
I mean,
it's a brilliant way to get your job
done and have a helper.
Yeah.
I've always wanted a personal assistant.
And, you know, this is very helpful.
Saves a lot of time.
Yeah.
I do want to talk about you.
You do have a book out called Compete
on Awesome, Not on Price.
So tell tell me and tell our listeners
a little bit more about what what exactly
does that mean?
Well,
I wrote that book when my husband and
I had our plumbing company.
And what we really realized is we're in
a bigger city.
We're near Denver.
It's very populated.
There's a lot of plumbing and heating
companies.
And some of them are huge.
They're owned by private equity.
They spend a lot of money on marketing.
So there was really no way for us
to compete against them on pay-per-click
advertising.
We tried for a while.
We just about went broke doing it.
And so we started doing things that were
different and better and maybe didn't cost
any additional money.
like you know sending cookies and sending
brownies and thank you calls and we
sending a sympathy card if we saw someone
lost a loved one so we'd have dog
biscuits on all the trucks so so that's
basically the idea and and i feel that
same way about ai
Because if you're a business owner or
leader,
your competition is going to be using AI.
And if you decide you're not going to
do it, and they are,
it's going to really mess up your cost
structure.
Because if they have a bullpen of five
AI agents working on marketing and you
don't, now...
they're going to blow you out of the
water.
So that is what you need to be
considered.
Yeah, that's a really very,
very good point.
And one that I think a lot of
business leaders and companies really need
to be thinking about is how AI can
elevate their business,
whether it's saving time, saving money,
And I'm sure you've encountered a lot of
different businesses through your work and
conversations.
And can you give us a couple other
examples of what you've seen on how AI
can help those businesses?
So I was working with a manufacturing
organization and I taught them how to use
the visual mode on their phones to be
able to analyze their manufacturing line.
And so they were able to do that
and have a two-way conversation with the
AI while they were looking at the problem.
So then the person who was doing it
was asking questions,
the AI was asking questions back while
they were looking at this.
And certain things came up that they were
able to redefine how they were running the
manufacturing line.
So they had to switch from one product
to another.
and when doing so it cost a lot
of time so the ai was able to
give them a different plan for how to
do that so then they could save save
all that time and money on it and
you know it didn't they didn't lose any
employees they didn't turn anyone off they
just were able to produce more product in
a shorter amount of time and that's what
it's going to be all about oh how
cool like how many of us have things
that we're like oh that's on my to-do
list i'll get to it at some point
if you can accelerate that through use of
ai
That's awesome.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And another thing,
one of my favorite things,
I should work for Google.
Google, if you're listening,
I should be your next hire.
But they have a product called Notebook
LM.
And if you're using a workspace account,
it's free.
And I don't know how longer it's going
to be free.
I mean,
I can't believe that they're letting us
all play with it like we are now.
But something really cool in there,
you can put all of your old training
documents, everything you've got,
your website, any PDFs you have,
an employee manual, what have you,
just load it up,
load it into Notebook LM,
and it will create a podcast for you.
in a hundred languages so imagine that you
can take all of your training break it
up into small bites you can have your
employees download it on their phone in
whatever language they want to hear it in
and bam now we've got a podcast for
free
That is huge.
We hear from employers all the time of
hiring individuals that maybe don't speak
the language and they really,
they're great employees.
They show up all the time,
but we really need to be able to
communicate some of these processes.
What a great tool to help that.
Absolutely.
And I am not wearing them right now
because I just had a two day trip
with them on,
but I have the Meta AI glasses.
So they also have a translate in them.
So you could be speaking to me in
any language and I'll be hearing it in
English.
So the Bluetooth just sits right behind
your ear and you can hear podcasts that
way.
You can take videos, take pictures.
I had a long drive yesterday coming from
a speaking engagement up in the mountains
and I had them on and I just
double clicked and I took a video of
all the leaves changing.
Oh, wow.
So it's so amazing,
and it happens so fast.
Things are changing so quickly.
So we do have you coming back to
NICC on October eighth,
and this workshop is going to be a
little bit different than the last time
you were here.
Can you talk a little bit about what
people can expect when they're here?
Yes,
we are going to actually map out your
processes.
What I spoke about earlier,
going old school before you go new school.
We're gonna really dive in
laptops open roll up your sleeves and we
are going to map the processes in your
business and we're going to identify areas
where you could use a little bit of
assistance and is that a good spot for
ai and if so what ai and then
they will walk away with a map of
exactly what to implement for their next
year and and please i for those listening
like don't feel overwhelmed by this
I'm going to ask you to pick one
or two small things to do in the
next, say, ninety days.
And then once you have that down and
it's working,
then you move on to the next.
And we'll also be talking about
communication plan with your employees.
How do you roll this out?
What does the training look like?
Because that's what I'm also finding is.
Companies who are not being successful at
rolling out AI in their organizations are
doing these two things wrong.
One,
they are not communicating to their
employees and sharing their vision for AI.
So then the employees are just getting
really nervous and overwhelmed because no
one has said anything.
Secondly,
people who do not have an AI policy.
So your policy needs to say what an
employee can and cannot use.
If you are providing them with Copilot or
ChatGPT,
I really suggest you have the paid version
because otherwise your data is not safe.
On the free version,
you are sharing it with the world.
So that's some of the things that we'll
be going over.
Interesting.
Yeah, well,
that sounds really cool because they'll be
able to just come in and really –
bring something tangible that they can
just get started with right away and see
the value of it right away.
That sounds pretty exciting.
And you talked a little bit.
Oh, go ahead.
I wanted to tone in a little bit
on the communication piece and how
important that piece of it is.
And I've just been exploring recently some
of the avatar pieces with AI and how
that can be used in getting the message
out and still have that personal
connection.
I know you've played around with that a
little bit.
What's your experience been?
Well,
I play with avatars all the time and
they're getting better and better and
better, which is really quite scary.
And you can make your own avatar speak
in one hundred and twenty nine languages
now and dialects.
So, you know,
Spanish has like thirty different dialects
in there now, which is amazing.
They don't have any of the American
English dialects, though,
so that they don't have Jersey.
They don't have Southern.
They don't.
Not yet.
Yeah.
But that communication piece,
that is so critical.
So I'll give you an example.
I have been doing some training for some
organizations,
some bigger organizations where I'm
working with different departments.
So we'll do different training in
different departments.
And I was wondering why in some of
the training,
there were certain groups or certain
individuals that were not doing their
homework.
They were not turning on their cameras.
They were like totally disengaged.
during the training.
And at first,
I just couldn't figure it out.
Like, why are they doing that?
And what I realized is that they were
concerned about losing their jobs.
And they felt that if they learned all
this and the company started moving in
this direction,
that it would make them
you know, safer by not participating.
But in reality, it's the opposite, right?
Because if your company is not getting on
board and now they're trying to compete
with other companies who are on board,
your cost structure is going to be
upside down so once i realized what was
happening i went back to the ceo and
i said look you need to have an
all-hands meeting and you need to explain
to these folks exactly what this plan is
about what you what you envision how they
fit into it what do you see their
role in the future like all of the
things because you're creating this very
unsafe environment for your organization
and they're not going to flourish but
they're actually,
it's going to go the other direction.
We thought quiet quitting was a problem.
This is a whole new epidemic and it's
all across the board.
Right.
And I wish I remember who said it,
but I remember hearing at one point in
the last year about how AI isn't going
to replace jobs.
People who don't know how to use AI
are unwilling to utilize AI might be
replaced.
So it's so important for them to jump
in.
I see that.
But, you know,
and then but I run into people still
to this day that I'm not really a
computer person.
OK, well, the cool thing is,
even if you're not a computer person,
you all you need is a microphone and
a subscription and you could get anything
done.
It doesn't matter.
Our computer skills are not.
In fact,
a lot of data scientists believe that the
keyboard is going out of style.
Like I use this very infrequently.
I use this all the time.
I have it right here.
I speak when I want.
You get better results and you're a lot
faster that way.
Yeah.
My seventh grade typing teacher wouldn't
want to hear that,
but I think it's true.
I am.
Yeah,
I think I'm thinking about AI kind of
the same way I think about what it
was like in two thousand eight,
two thousand ten with social media,
where it was, oh,
we might need that at some time in
the future if you're a business.
But now it's like you don't have a
choice.
You really need to dip your toe in,
jump into the water and figure out how
AI fits within your business.
But if you do it the opposite way,
if you spend all this money and you
bring in this AI program and you're trying
to shove it in the corners of your
company, it's not going to work.
You have to map it out.
You have to say,
where's the best use here?
And then keeping that human in the loop.
So...
Even something complicated,
if you're doing something with coding,
say,
you still need a human coder to be
supervising that project.
Do not become Klarna.
So I don't know if you've heard that
story about Klarna.
No, I haven't.
So Klarna is a massive organization.
I actually believe they own Spotify.
But they created all these news briefs
earlier this year about how they laid off
all of these employees because they were
going to become so efficient with AI,
yada, yada.
Guess what?
Their customers hated it.
They could never get to a person.
It was failing miserably.
And then they had to sort of unwind
and hire back a whole bunch of people,
you know, if they hadn't already moved on.
But I've seen a lot of CEOs doing
that.
That's not the way to do it.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
how your company can be more efficient and
get better organization by leveraging the
technology with your current structure.
Absolutely.
Because AI still makes mistakes too.
Yeah.
And so as a person,
you have to go in there and figure
that out too.
And it's very convincing when it makes
mistakes, too,
because it will argue back with you and
say, I know this is right.
And that's why I use a program a
lot called chat hub dot gg.
And make sure, folks,
you say gg because I think dot com
is a porn site.
I was that happened.
You know,
I was using it one time and I
was informed of that.
But chat hub dot gg allows you to
see all of the AIs working at the
same time.
Oh, wow.
And it's very inexpensive to use.
And you can see how it like.
So if you're concerned that something is
hallucinating,
you can put it in there and see,
you know,
what Google says and what Microsoft says
and so on and so forth.
So then you're not just taking the word
of chat GPT.
Yeah, that's so, so important.
I remember watching a video at one point
and somebody, I think it was chat GPT,
asked him how many R's are in the
letter strawberry.
And it kept arguing with them that there's
only two R's.
Yeah, that is a big thing.
None of us can figure out why it
can't spell strawberry.
And up until very recently,
it couldn't count words either.
So if you were trying to write your
newsletter and you have the average length
for a newsletter slash blog should be
around a thousand words.
No way.
It would give you like four hundred,
eighteen hundred.
It wouldn't even come anywhere close.
Wow.
Wow.
Well,
if somebody is listening that owns a
business or a business leader,
what would be one key insight or challenge
that you think they need to be thinking
about when it comes to AI?
Yeah.
Well, sort of low hanging fruit in AI,
if you're a business leader,
a business owner,
is start having a conversation with it
about your twenty twenty six goals.
So you could be speaking just in
generalities like I own this kind of shop.
Last year, we had this many employees.
We created this much revenue.
We do our marketing.
Tell it all of these great things about
you.
You should also always go into your chat
GPT and customize it so it sounds like
you.
But it's a really great time to have
a two-way conversation with the AI about
your strategy for next year.
What plans do you want?
And speak to it in plain English.
And that's why they're called large
language models because they interpret our
voices and our thoughts and have it help
you map out your strategic plan for
be prepared to have your mind blown.
You can even put in your website and
say, you know,
how can I create a better presence with
my website?
How can I do my marketing better?
Like you can ask it all the things
that, you know,
you would be struggling with going into
next year,
especially if you're shorthanded or,
and money's always an issue in small
businesses,
like always trying to figure it out.
This is a great tool to help.
So amazing.
So many things that you can do with
AI.
And, you know, we're out of time already,
Susan.
It goes so fast.
I could talk about this for a long
time.
But I want to thank you for joining
us and spending a little time with us
and sharing all of your insights on AI
and what it means to folks,
both as individuals and as business
leaders and owners of businesses.
So thank you so much for joining us.
And I'll see everyone soon.
So excited.
Yes.
Yes.
We're excited too.
Yeah.
The good news is she's,
the conversation on AI is probably never
going to be over,
but definitely not over with us and with
Susan.
She'll be back with us on October eighth
at the NICC Piazza campus.
We're putting up a QR code for anybody
watching.
If you're just listening to us,
you want to go to nicc.edu slash business
dash summit.
And you'll find all the details there and
can get registered.
And we would love to have you out.
And we can have a great conversation.
I'll leave with something tangible with
Susan on October eighth.
Absolutely.
Great.
Thank you so much, Susan.
We'll see you soon.
Thanks, Amy.