What’s the Difference Between an AI Agent and a Chatbot?

Originally aired Monday, February 2, 2026. Businessing is now a weekly show with a new episode every Monday.

Short answer: A chatbot answers you, and then you still copy, paste and do the work yourself. An AI agent acts more like an employee. It can research, write, and then open your browser or apps and finish the task. For a small business owner, that means the dreaded admin jobs you've put off for months can get done while you do something else.

This was the first episode of Businessing as a daily show, so I explained why it exists. Owners are busy, isolated and trying to keep up with technology that's moving fast. Then I told you what an AI agent did for me over the weekend. I'd put off reorganizing an eight-year-old YouTube channel for ages, and the agent researched, planned and did it in about an hour. In the Idea Slam I took three questions. I've been in business five years and can't take a vacation. A competitor is copying everything I do. My spouse doesn't understand why I work so much. We also covered Groundhog Day, the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics.

Businessing is the weekly show where small business owners figure out what to do next, with a new episode every Monday. Hosted by Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community: owners only, nobody pitching, $19 a month.

Key takeaways

• Pick one task you've put off for months and test whether an AI agent can research and finish it for you.
• If you can't take a vacation, build delegation into the business and check whether your rates are too low to afford help.
• When a competitor copies you, get more specific about who you serve and put your own face and story on the brand.
• If your spouse is upset about your hours, first look honestly at how present you are, then explain what the extra hours pay for.
• Use a one-month check-in on your New Year's goals, and give yourself a restart if nothing has changed.

Questions this episode answers

What is the difference between an AI agent and a chatbot?

A chatbot answers questions and writes things, but you still have to copy, paste and finish the job. An AI agent acts like an employee. It can research, draft, and then use your browser or apps to do the task, like writing a LinkedIn post and publishing it.

Why can't I take a vacation from my small business?

Usually because the business depends on you for everything. That often means you built a job rather than a company. Put delegation in place, and check whether low rates leave you too busy and too broke to hire help. Take a break on purpose before a health crisis forces one.

What should I do if a competitor copies my business?

Take it as a sign you're not different enough yet. Specialize your product and your audience, and become the face of your brand so your story can't be duplicated. Competition also shows there's money in your market, so being copied isn't all bad.

How do I handle a spouse who's upset that I work too much?

Take it seriously, because they probably have a point. Look honestly at how much you're really present at home, then explain what the extra hours are for and what they bring in. Then work on cutting busywork so you can choose when you work.

Worth quoting

An agent is like a superpowered chat bot that acts like an employee.

Pat Miller on Businessing

I hate to break it to you, you didn't build a company, you built a job.

Pat Miller on Businessing

Either you're gonna take a break or a break is going to be taken for you real soon because no one can work nonstop for five years and not take a break.

Pat Miller on Businessing

If everything you're doing is being copied, you are not different enough because if someone can do everything that you're doing and pass it off as theirs, you're a commodity.

Pat Miller on Businessing

On the show

• Idea Slam question: Three listener questions: I've been in business five years and can't take a real vacation; a competitor is copying everything I do; my spouse doesn't understand why I work so much.

In this episode

• Groundhog Day: restart your New Year's goals
• Super Bowl and Winter Olympics news
• Why a daily show for business owners
• AI agent vs chatbot, explained simply
• An AI agent reorganized my YouTube channel
• Idea Slam: I can't take a vacation
• Idea Slam: a competitor is copying me
• Idea Slam: my spouse says I work too much

Watch, listen and join

• Watch this episode on YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Listen anywhere
• Small Business Owners Community
• The Small Business Library (add it to your AI tool)

More on this topic: AI answers from the Small Business Owners Community

Full transcript

Good morning. It's Monday, February 2nd, and we are Businessing. Welcome in. I'm Pat Miller. This is the daily live show for small business owners, and I'm really excited that you're here. We're sponsored this morning by NNG and Gen Head. So on today's show, the AI world is changing and it blew my mind over the weekend.

I have an agentic example like something an AI agent did for me this weekend. Uh, you just have to hear about it. It's changing how we work. It's gonna change how you work, and I can't wait to share all of the details. Also on today's show, we're gonna check the news headlines, and this is the first episode of What Will be a daily live program every day, Monday through Thursday, 11:00 AM Central.

So I wanna share how the mission ties in with the reason why we're doing the show. So all of that is coming up in today's show, plus three idea slam questions that I'd love your feedback on as well. The first one is. I've been in business five years and I still can't take vacation. That sounds familiar.

You need to hear the answer. Another question today is, a competitor is copying everything that I do. What do I do? And then the third one is, my spouse doesn't get why I am working all the time. Why is that causing? Such a problem and how do I fix it? Well, we will talk about that in the Idea Slam as well.

And make sure as you join, you say Good morning in the chat so we know that you're here. Good morning, Nikki and our friends at Gen Head. Thanks for tuning in. Uh, so tell us your name and what you do. Maybe drop your business, link into the chat, and uh, we will feature you on the air as we have time. So let's check in with the news, shall we?

If you are overwintered like you think, man, winter. I'm ready to move to Florida 'cause I live in Wisconsin and that is not, uh, Florida. Good morning, Stephanie Kern. Great to see you. So I've like had it with winter. I, I actually went down to the basement this weekend and I just got out a golf club and just kind of acted like I just.

Ah, just I did that just to try and get me through the winter blues. So if you're kind of feeling like that, you probably were pretty eager to see what punt Phil had to say this morning. Good morning wife product. Great to see you. So yeah, they troll like trotted out the groundhog. Alright, Groundhog, what did you see?

And this was his 140th prediction. He's an old ground dog. Um, and he saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter. But there's a twist. It turns out that Punc Tony Phil is kind of like the Jim Cramer of meteorological predictions. There's a whole thing that if Jim Cramer, the CNBC guy makes a stock bet, always bet against him because he's always wrong.

Well, punc Tony Phil is only right 30% of the time. So maybe we're gonna have an early spring. Who knows? So. That's one way to look at this story. But here's the second way to look at this story, just to get all like up in your business for a second. When they trott out punks Tony, Phil, they trott out punks, Tony, Phil, on February 2nd, groundhogs Day, and what is the theme of Groundhogs Day?

The famous movie that it's the same thing all over again. Over again is his Groundhogs Day. Like that movie is all about, every day is exactly the same. So we're one month into 2026. Is your business still Groundhogs Day, or did you actually do something about all those promises that you made to yourself one month ago today?

Now I will let you reflect on what those promises are, 'cause I know you all made some sort of intentionality. Maybe not a resolution, but something you wanna do better in 26. Could be a word of the year. In fact, I think Stephanie Kern just shared her word of the year on LinkedIn this morning. Maybe it's a word of the year.

Maybe it's, it's eating differently. Maybe it's hitting the gym more, whatever it might be. But we're now one month in, so how's it going? Or is it Groundhogs Day? If, if, just between you and me, if it is Groundhogs Day. You are still doing the exact same stuff that you were doing a month ago. Like, yeah, I, I wanted to start doing something, but I didn't.

That's okay. That's okay. In fact, I'm gonna give you a free pass. I'm gonna give you a free pass to do something different. What do you think? What, what do you think it just about starting over and letting you, uh, try again? So let's make that the theme of today's Groundhog's Day experience. So if you need to start over, if you need a do over with your New Year's resolution or the intention that you had with your business or personal life, go ahead and hit the restart button.

Okay. Now, Abby says, oof. That's brutal. Is that brutal? Am I being brutal this morning? I calling you out on your bs. We've all got BS and someone needs to call you out on it. That's my job, not only devastatingly handsome BS caller outer. That's my life. Here's a positive news story, okay? According to, uh, a guy I saw on Twitter, which means it's true in the next four weeks, by the end of February, we are gonna have 77 more minutes of daylight.

If one of the reasons why you get exhausted in the winter is it's just dark all the time. By the end of the month, four weeks, we're gonna gain over an hour of more sunlight. So that's awesome. So look forward to that. Get back on new New Year's resolutions and know that Punx, Tony, Phil is always wrong. So that means spring will spring soon.

In other news, it's a great week to be a bad bunny. Bad bunny. Last night won the album of the year at the Grammys, and this weekend he's going to headline Super Bowl 60, 60. I think it's 60 lx, I think it's 60. And it's really only one of the only talkable things about this year's Super Bowl I I will test it.

Let's say you're a casual football fan. Like you cheer for a team, but you're not like a psycho multiple fantasy football league nerd like me, casual football fan name one player on either the Seahawks or the Patriots. Okay, you got one? Name two, eh. That's the entire nation right now. I hope the commercials are good.

Hey, that bad bunny guy's gonna wrap in Spanish? Let's see what that's all about. Like that's this weekend. What are we gonna have for snacks now? That's what's important. So it's going to be a snack and add heavy Super Bowl this weekend. And if you really don't pay attention to the game, just know that the Seahawks are favored in the game and they're probably gonna win.

And the entire nation's cheering against the Patriots because we've been conditioned to cheer against the Patriots because they've won everything for their entire life. So to the Patriots other sporting news. This is exciting. Did you realize the winter Olympics start on Friday? Yes. Yes. Opening and closing ceremonies are one of my favorite things and I really enjoy the Winter Olympics for some reason.

Uh, there's just something about watching ski jumpers and the bobsleds and those skeleton freaks. Have you seen the skeleton? So the skeleton is the bobsled with no bobsled. The skeleton is basically a dude. Like this on like a sled, and they go down the bobsled track and if they don't hit their line, they're, they're launched to Pluto and then the hospital in that order.

Woo. It's awesome. So the Olympics are happening, uh, opening ceremonies are gonna happen February 6th. I think that's what Friday in Milan is where it is this year. And also because it's in Milan. That means that all of the events are gonna happen before we see them. So when we tune in at, you know, seven o'clock or after dinner, or whenever you turn on the Olympics, all of the stuff will already have happened.

So now we have to do this to social media all day to make sure we don't get it ruined for us if you actually care about the outcomes as far as our chances to win. And Carrie, it's lovely to see you this morning. Thanks for tuning in as far as our chances to win. Um, Lindsay Vaughn is back like the greatest skier ever.

Lindsay Vaughn is back, but she had kind of a problem. She crashed big time at a competition and was airlifted this past weekend with an injury defiantly she posted My Olympic dream is not over. So if you're cheering for someone or you're looking for a story to follow, Lindsay Vaughn downhill skier, we can cheer for her because America, right America.

Thank you all for tuning in this morning and for dropping into the chat telling us who you are and what you do. Abby and Carrie and Stephanie and Nikki for saying hello this morning, uh, you're all business Spotlight winners, so make sure you put into the chat the link to your business so we can feature you today.

Let's get to the lead story, shall we? The lead story is Businessing exists. This show is on the air. Ah, I'm so excited. I wanna tell you why we're doing this now. If you don't know why, this is a big deal. I used to be a broadcaster and I love doing shows. I love having a conversation with you where we can find a time to just be together every day.

And my job is to figure out what's going on in the world and tell you exactly what you need to know. Because this show is not a business show, even though it's called Businessing with Pat Miller. It's not a business show. This is a show for people who own a business. That's different. I mean, you gotta do your business, but you also gotta lead a life.

So on a business show, we wouldn't talk about your snacks and bad bunny and my, what is all of this noise? Olympics America. That, well, that's their business show. Go do a boring business show if you want my show. This show, our conversation is a business show for people who run a business. The people, the person you.

Why is that important? That is important because as a small business owner like me, you're busy. We know this all the time. You're busy and you're isolated because you are head down doing the thing so you can make the mortgage and while you are head down doing the thing to make the mortgage, the world is spinning.

Technology is advancing. And how in the hell are you gonna keep up? If you like, pay attention to your Facebook feed and all the crazies over there, like, I don't know what you think is crazy. Like which side of the fence you think is crazy, but holy crazies on Facebook. So you can't really pay attention to Facebook or social media to know what's going on, 'cause you're gonna get this slanted view of the world.

Meanwhile, as you're trying to pay attention to what's going on, you're working so fast. You realize, wait a minute, I haven't talked to any friends for 72 hours. I haven't even left the house. I'm wearing the same sweatpants. Sound familiar? So you're doing what you need to do to pay the mortgage. You're trying to keep up, but you don't have really have time for it.

You're working outta the house, so you don't actually go out and see other human beings. It's really isolated and on top of all of that, feeling behind feeling alone, you're paying just enough attention to know. How fast technology is moving and how quickly all of this is changing. So now there's like this little bird on your shoulder saying, how are you gonna keep up?

What are you gonna do to keep up? So you feel isolated, you feel behind, you're tired 'cause you're working all the time and you know that everything is changing and you have no chance of keeping up. That's why this show exists. This is a new daily habit, and my job is to keep you connected to the news, connected to other entrepreneurs, and connected to technology.

That's the story of what's happening in the next 12 months. This show is a lifeline. This show is not another obligation. My vision is not to make this a thing on your calendar, you have to do, my vision is to make this a meeting. Where we get a chance to goof around in the chat and say hello to our friends, like Leanne.

Lovely. Good morning, Leanne. You can flip it on in the background while you're doing other stuff. If you miss the live show, go to the YouTube page, download the podcast just to get an idea of what's going on. It's a meeting, it's it's here for you, and I wanna help you build a business so strong you can take Friday off.

That's my point of view. That's what I'm trying to do. So this is a show for people that run a business, not a business show. Speaking of how we are working is actively changing. It's changing right now. In fact, I will make you a bet. I will bet you a container full of Ivy Dog treats. I will bet you this, this is, this is valuable stuff.

If I shake this the right way, the golden retriever comes running, just saying. But I will bet you a container full of dog treats that how you work will look completely different in the next 90 days. Not a little different, completely different in the next 90 days. You will not have the same workflow.

You'll not be doing the same things and your business will change. Why? Because in the next 90 days, every single one of you will be using AI agents and everything looks different. Everything will look different. Oh, pat, whatever. I'll take those dog treats. There's no chance life is gonna change. Well, you're wrong.

Because let's explain what the difference is between an AI agent and an AI chatbot, because everything you've been using up until now has been in the form factor of an AI chatbot and an AI agent. Totally different deal. Now, the folks from Gen Head are here and they can explain it probably better than I can, but let me explain it to you in Cookie Monster Language, 'cause that's about as much as I understand it with a chatbot.

Chat, GPT, Claude Grok, Gemini, whatever you type into the thing or speak into the thing, a question, or you ask it to do something. And at best it will chat back at you and answer. And if it's really good, it'll chat back at you and answer that. You can then copy and paste. Put it someplace. So for example, hey chatbot, I've taught you everything about what I do.

Write three posts for me on LinkedIn and it will go beep boop boop. It doesn't make that noise, but it should. I, I would love it if it did. Beep, boop boop. Here's your three LinkedIn posts. Awesome. But you still have to copy and paste. Go to LinkedIn, click new post, paste it in. You still have to do the thing.

That's not what agents do. An agent is like a superpowered chat bot that acts like an employee. It can help you write stuff. It can help you research stuff, and then it can do things. So I'm using Claude Cowork. If I said to Claude Cowork, uh, I need to update my LinkedIn page, what have I been doing lately that you think would make a great LinkedIn post drafted in my voice that I've trained you on and post it to LinkedIn?

It researches my Google Drive. It finds the script from today's show. It sees one thing that I was talking about, like maybe how crazy the skeleton is in the Winter Olympics. It writes a post. It then opens my browser, it goes to LinkedIn, clicks new post, pasts it in clicks post moves on.com. That's what AI agents do, and that's if it doesn't have direct API Control, I'm sorry, cookie Monster Language.

That is, if it doesn't have the ability to go straight to the website, manipulate it by itself, that's just going to the browser and driving it around. There are some websites like Canva, it can go straight to Canva and make the stuff, and the list of things that it's gonna have direct control to is just growing exponentially.

It's just exploding right now, and I've cast roles inside my business. I've got someone that helps me, someone see what I did there. I have a role that helps me get ready for the show every day. I have a role that helps me distribute the content from the show every day. I have a role that writes my LinkedIn posts after taking exactly what I've said and putting it all in my words.

I have a role that helps me, uh, with the Fridays off. How can I point at this right there? Friday's off newsletter, totally free. Get it@fridaysoffnewsletter.com. It's interesting because it's not writing the stuff, it's taking the stuff that I'm saying. Writing it, filtering it, posting it, synthesizing it, and then doing all the work.

So this stuff sounds like, oh no, that's futuristic stuff. It's not, it's here. Right. Damn. Now it, every, every AI platform is gonna have this for you in, in just a moment. In just a moment. There's two that I know of right now. Claude Cowork, which I'm using, and then also there's a new one called Twin, so, which I haven't played with yet, but Claude Cowork is only available to Mac top MacBook desktop users.

So if you're a MacBook person on desktop, Claude Cowork is there. But I wanna give you a real world example of something that my chat bot, my agent did over the weekend. Think of a task. That you've been putting off like a, just a real monster of a task. Just something that you know, oh gosh, if I start that thing, it's gonna take hours.

Hours. My example was my YouTube channel, so I've had a YouTube channel, small business owners community, YouTube channel, forever, ever, eight years. Except along that time it used to be called the Idea Collective. And along that time I used to host the Pat Miller Show on broadcast Radio and Small Business Mornings, which was a daily show that I did for a while, and a bunch of pieces of educational video and a bunch of stuff that still matters and a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't anymore.

And the thought of logging into YouTube, seeing what was there and organizing it all just sounded like. Torture, like, ugh, we've all got those kinds of tasks. So I go to the cowork, I say, Hey, and I haven't given it a name yet. I should, Hey, Claude. I guess we'll call it Claude. That's its name. I need to reorganize my YouTube channel.

Go to my YouTube channel. No, actually I didn't say that. I said, go online and research how a YouTube channel should be organized. Then go to my YouTube channel, see what you find and suggest an organization path. What should it look like? Beep, boop, boop. Went out, did the research, went to my YouTube channel, analyzed everything that was there.

Came back to me and said, well, best practices is this, and here's your situation. And I would recommend we take these actions. Would you like me to do it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Where's the yes button? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then I watched it do it. It controlled the browser. It took all the videos off that I didn't want there anymore.

It reorganized things. It made playlists, it hid other playlists. And in the matter of, I don't know, maybe an hour, this task was done. Done. And during that hour, I went and walked on the treadmill 'cause that was something else I needed to do today. This was actually yesterday, but on that day, I needed to do that.

So it went and found best practices. It then logged into my YouTube. It then reorganized everything, and then I said, okay, how can we take this to the next level? How do I, how do I make the YouTube channel easier to find? Can you make it? SEO perfected? What keywords should I have on there? Beep, boop, boop.

Did the research, did the thing. Now it's all updated. As of today, as of right now, we're broadcasting live on the Fridays off, or Pat Miller, the Fridays off Guy YouTube channel. Hi, YouTube, print. Great to see you. That's the power of an AI agent. Think about a chatbot. What it would've done, it would've done the research and it would've said, here's your homework.

Have a nice life. You would've thought, oh, well, I know what to do, but God, I don't want to do it. And then you've got all these hours. You need to go click save, click. Save click, shoot me, click jumping off a building like for hours, and it did it all. This is like one tiny little speck of stuff that it has already done for me.

It's gonna be the ultimate blend of lifestyle and productivity and automation. It's absolutely bananas. Multiple things all at the same time. I'm using Claude Cowork on Mac Desktop. You can do. Whatever you want with Twin. So, or get ready for all of this change that's coming. So if we tie all of this together, why does the Businessing show exist?

Why is Fridays off so important? It is all tied together. If you think about why your here, did you start a business? 'cause you liked doing all the business junk? No. You do what you do because you have a passion for the product or the service that you provide to your clients. And fortunate for you that passion generates income.

But to prop all of that stuff up, you have to run a business that supports it. You gotta invoice, you gotta promote, you gotta sell, you gotta organize files, you gotta have websites, you gotta do social media, all that stuff. Just so you can do what you love for a living, and when you get bogged down and all that other stuff, it gets heavy and it gets tired, and it gets hard and no one wants to help you and you don't know where to go.

And then you're in your pants for the same three days and you look up and no one gives a damn. And that's why I am here. That's why this show exists. I'm here, so you know, you. Are not alone. And I see what you're going through and I feel this transformation that we're in right now. And I want you to show up so you can talk to the folks in the chat.

And so you can ask a question in the Idea Slam and so you can stay up on the news and the technology and the stuff you need to know because as I've said a thousand times. Running a small business is lonely and hard. Don't grow it alone. That's why this show is here. That's what we're gonna do together.

That's why I'm doing it every day at 11:00 AM Central. So make it your new daily habit. Would you? Thanks. The idea slam is coming up. We're gonna get all brainstorming up in here. Rapid fire questions that I've been receiving on today's idea slam docket. Question number one, I've been, I've been in business for five years and I still can't take a real vacation help.

Second question, a competitor is copying everything I do. What should I do? The third one is, my spouse doesn't understand why I'm working so much and it's kind of causing some problems. What should I do? All relatable questions. You understand those, right? All of that is coming up in the idea slam segment in just a little bit.

But first a word from our sponsor, gen head, gen Head scale systems, not chaos. And if you like the conversation we were having about AI agents, hello. Imagine having an AI agent built right into your CRM. That's what Gen Head has working. It's built for early stage businesses, and gen head systems are designed for solopreneurs and founders and lean teams who want momentum, not complex tools that require a full-time operator.

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And those AI agents, you can get 'em right now@genhead.com. That's gen head.com. Thank you to Nikki and Pat and the team for being a part of the show. Okay, let's do the idea Slam Now. The idea Slam is very soon going to be you on the air with me, which means you are gonna come on and say, Hey Pat, here's my challenger opportunity.

Here's the big project that I'm working on, and we'll get a chance to brainstorm together to make it great. It's free, it's fun, and the entire show's audience will be brainstorming on your behalf. So if you've got a big project you'd like to tell people about, and then we can work together to make it even bigger and better.

Let's do it. Click the link that's on the air or in the chat, and we'd love to welcome you on the show. And if it's okay with you, I'll leave that link up here just for a minute while you snap it, and then we will get on with our first question, which is, I've been in business for five years and I still can't take a real vacation.

How do other owners actually step away? Does that sound familiar? Okay. If that's where you find yourself. You've got a problem, you don't have a business problem, you've got a problem because that tells me that you don't have enough support underneath you and the business because if you can't take a vacation, you don't have an ability to delegate.

The important stuff, and I hate to break it to you, you didn't build a company, you built a job. Think about that. You think you have a company, but you actually have a job. You don't need to ask anyone's permission to take Fridays off. You don't need to take any, ask anyone's permission for like a waiver to go on vacation.

You just need to build a business that works well enough that you can do it. So first of all, you probably don't have the delegation in place, and that's something that needs to get fixed right away. The second thing is, if I looked, I would bet you're probably not charging enough. If your rates are low, you're gonna be busy.

Good for you, bad for you. You got a lot of clients, you've got no money coming in, so you'll have all of your available time taken and you'll have no resources left over to get some of the help that I just mentioned. If I talked to you and said, you said you're busy all the time, I'll go hire a va. I don't have money for that.

You've got a rates problem. So if you charge more, you'll have more resources, you can get some help. And the other thing that charging More will do, it'll help regulate your demand a little bit. If you're a $2 service, you're gonna have a bunch of clients. If you're a $200 service, you'll have fewer clients, but you'll have more money and it will help regulate demand.

'cause not everybody can afford a $200 service. Fine, fine. You're not for everybody. You're for your best clients. Then the third thing I would ask you if you said, I haven't taken a vacation in five years, I would ask you what would happen if you got a serious illness? What would happen if you got COVID?

What would happen if you had to go to the West Coast for five days to care for a family member? What would happen? Would your business close? No. Would your clients understand? Yes. Well, that tells me that you're working all of this by choice. Either you're gonna take a break or a break is going to be taken for you real soon because no one can work nonstop for five years and not take a break.

It's not healthy. It's not healthy. I'm telling you, as someone that cares about you, take a break now before a break is thrust upon you and it gets really messy. So if you haven't taken a vacation in five years, look into the help charge more and get proactive about taking some time off because you're gonna have time off soon.

You'll just get to choose what kind of time off it is if you do it proactively. Now you see how this goes. If you were on the air, you could have asked the question that is burning in your mind. The QR code is still on the screen, right? I can't do this right there. So snap it and bring on your biggest question, bring on your toughest challenge, and I will, uh, riff along with you and the folks in the chat to help you solve your biggest challenge or opportunity.

Second question. Hey, pat, A competitor is copying everything I do. My offers, my language, even my social media posts. What do I do? And I don't mean to be repetitive, but the answer's a little bit like the last one. If everything you're doing is being copied, you are not different enough because if someone can do everything that you're doing and pass it off as theirs, you're a commodity.

You're the can on the grocery shelf that says soup, or my favorite one. You're the six pack on the shelf that says beer. There's no differentiator if your words, if your product, if your language, if your passion can be duplicated by somebody else, you gotta specialize your product. You need to specialize your audience, and best yet, you need to become the face of the brand and run for office if you're standing behind this beautiful logo and hoping that people just know it's you. That's not how the world works right now. And it's not who people wanna do business with, especially in the small business space. So if you're getting copied by everybody else, you're not one of one. You're not unique and you need to be unique and you need to go out and tell your own story. Then there's one other counterintuitive thing I wanted to add here.

If you are doing stuff and nobody's copying it, that means it's probably bad, bad. Because if you're doing stuff and nobody's copying, it's either not unique and creative and someone else wants to apply it, or you're building a product that no one wants to sell. So people say, oh, my space is so crowded good.

That means there's a lot of money going into that space. If your space is a blue ocean and no one else does what you do, there's a reason why you're struggling. 'cause no one wants to buy that thing. So competition is good. Just make sure that you are unique enough to stand out. So even if they copy your stuff, it just won't sound right.

I'm the Fridays off guy. I'm not just some random business coach. What's your thing? Go. Go be your thing with confidence and pride and be different. Nobody will copy you. Then third one today for the idea slam. Okay. My spouse doesn't understand why I work so much. It's causing problems at home. How do I balance this now?

I have a spouse. She's lovely. I have children. I have a, I have a dog, Ivy golden retriever. Naughty way too much, but a good dog. I know what it's like to balance how hard you're working and how much time you're spending at home. So before we talk about fixing it, let's just have a grownup conversation. How much time are you spending at home?

Really home. Not this like how much time are you really there? How intentional are you for your family? If you're working an unreasonable amount, I hate to say it, but your spouse probably has a point and let's talk about their frame of reference, especially if they're not a small business owner, if they're in corporate, which is where I was before I started my business.

And they're leaving the office when everybody leaves and there's someone that just stays there late every night. That doesn't compute with a lot of people that work at corporate. I mean, they understand working hard and getting ahead. I'm not being critical of them, but I re, I remember being in that situation thinking that person doesn't have a life.

Like, go live your life, dude. Like, what are you doing here? We all get the same salary. You're not getting overtime, you're on salary. What are you doing? Like, it doesn't compute to the corporate mind as clearly as it does an entrepreneur's mind because you know that if you work a little bit longer, you can take on an extra client, which is more work equals more money.

Whereas in corporate, more work does not equal more money. Most times might get you a promotion, but just go with me on this. Okay? So if they understand in corporate, if they work in corporate rather, they, they don't understand. Why you're working so hard. And that's not a them problem, that's a you problem.

So how should you address it? Well, you need to review how are you actually behaving and how much are you actually present at home. And then if they are in corporate and they're not a small business owner, I would explain what you're doing. You would explain to them, I, I'm working late on Wednesday nights because I have this meeting with this client, and this client brings in an extra $500 a week, and that helps me do X, Y, and Z.

Okay, then at least they have a point of view. You're not just missing dinner because you don't wanna be with them at dinner, or you're a workaholic. Then the other thing you can do is hate to say it, kind of get on board with this work optimization stuff, these AI agents, building a Fridays off schedule, understanding that we get to choose when we work and when we don't work.

And that performative busyness is a crisis in the small business space that you get to work on the stuff that makes you money and you can kind of delegate everything else. That's the revolution that's coming with ai, and that's the revolution that's coming with people that control their work week and take Fridays off.

So all of that is important, and I encourage you to take it seriously because if they're saying that I don't think it's fair just to tell them they're wrong. They're not wrong. They love you. Where are you? How come I never see you? How come you're never here for dinner? Why are you working so hard? It's not computing.

So take it seriously, and I would encourage you to get around other small business owners that are on this path because they're sharing this same experience. So that's why the small business owners community is so important, because then you'd be surrounded by your peers who are going through the thing as well.

That's just a blatant plug. So there you go. Link on the screen if you wanna come on the show so we can tackle your biggest challenge or opportunity. It's my favorite thing to do. The idea slam and you can book your time so we can get after your biggest opportunity real soon. Okay? There's a group of you that are kind of weird, I love you, but kind of weird.

And you have this thing for like symmetry. There's a Reddit subreddit called Oddly Satisfying, like things that just fit like ah, like, ooh. That's just how it's supposed to be. If you're someone like that. The month of February is gonna be perfect for you. This is blowing up on social media. I'll tell you about it in a second.

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So if you love that feeling of everything just fitting and everything being symmetrical, and it's just the way it should be. If that's you, February is your month. Why? It starts in a Sunday and it ends on a Saturday. Here. Check this out. Visual aid. So Sunday, February 1st is in the top left corner.

Saturday, February 28th is down in the bottom right corner. So you have this beautiful month, this this perfect month of four exact weeks. That is oddly satisfying. And here's what's great about social media. You go to social media and you see a post. This hasn't happened since 1624. It happened in like 1995.

It's gonna happen again in, uh, 2030 something or whatever. It happens every 10 or 15 years. But the point is, it's happening right now. So if you're habit tracking, this is like the best week ever. 'cause it's seven days, seven days, seven days, Monday through Saturday. This is how every month should be. But that's a different campaign for a different topic.

Uh, but it's oddly unique. The other thing about social media, that's so much fun. I'm old. I might not look it, but I'm old enough to be around before social media. This is the type of discovery that you would make in your dorm room or in high school before social media. Oh, hey, look at that. And you'd have no one to tell, like you'd have no place to put it.

It would just be something that makes you weird for noticing. And as someone that lived through the internet becoming the internet. If you think back to the early days of the internet, that kind of weirdness, that's what made it great. The internet was fun and quirky and weird, and people were doing odd things and now it's just like strident and political and tribal and just, I think we should make the internet weird again.

That's what I think we should do. 'cause that's when the internet was most fun for sure. All right. Time to get outta here on the first daily episode of Businessing with Pat Miller, the Fridays off guy. I'm encouraging you to be more of this conversation tomorrow at 11:00 AM Central, we'll be on the air, and if you wanna be more in the world of small business owners working together, join the owners only community that's happening inside the small business owners' community.

You can take for granted the feeling of having others that understand, but if you don't have it in your life. You're definitely missing something because we're doing idea slams inside the community. We do co-working events inside the community. We offer a legal hotline, a tech support hotline, an accounting hotline.

It's the right room to be in, to be surrounded by your small business owners, peers, and. It's nationwide 'cause it's a digital community. We've got members from all over the place. So if you wanna grow your small business, become an entrepreneur in the owner's only community, the small business owners community.

And I hate to rake you over the coals, but it is $19 a month. I mean, come on. $19 a month, small business community.com. That's where you find the link. And register, thanks to our sponsors today, gen Head and Enji. And don't forget to like and subscribe this show. And if you share the show with your network, I consider that a referral.

So I started a thing that I'm calling share mail. Share it with your network. Tell 'em they should tune in too. Businessing with Pat Miller and I'll send you a gift in the mail. I got Stephanie Kern and Wendy Babcock on the list so far. If you've shared it and I've missed you, let me know. But, uh, do it today and I would love to include you in our next share Mail drop.

This is the new Daily Habit for small business owners. It's Businessing with Pat Miller, the Fridays off guy. We will be back here tomorrow. Yes, we're daily. 11:00 AM Central. I will see you there. Thanks for tuning in. Take care.