Short answer: Deliver faster. The one thing customers won't forgive is making them wait. Cut steps your clients don't care about, automate the repeatable ones, and batch similar work together. Then find one thing in your business that takes longer than it should and fix it this week.
Today I tied two stories together. Airline CEOs are begging Congress to end the DHS shutdown, and new research shows customer expectations are speeding up. After 30 years serving the public, I know the one thing people won't forgive is making them wait. I shared how moving fast on two recent proposals got clients' attention. We also ran a live poll on whether you judge people who write with AI. I shared how I train my AI on my own words. The Idea Slam covered whether you're missing out if you don't read business books, and how a single-member LLC can figure out insurance.
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
- List every step in how you deliver your work, and cut the ones your clients don't notice or care about.
- Batch similar tasks, like all your money work, into one block so you move faster with everything already open.
- Turn work around faster than clients expect, because speed builds trust even when nobody says it out loud.
- If you use AI to write, feed it transcripts of you talking so it learns your words, and never copy and paste without editing.
- Don't guess on business insurance; call an agent you trust and ask about liability and errors and omissions coverage.
Questions this episode answers
How can I improve customer experience in my small business?
Speed it up. Customers hate waiting more than almost anything. Look at your process, remove steps clients don't care about, automate the repeatable ones, and batch similar work. Delivering faster than people expect makes the same product feel better.
How do I make AI writing sound like me?
Give it more of your real voice. Pat uploads transcripts of his show and asks the AI to use his words and phrases. If you don't have a show, use voice chat while you walk or drive, then feed those transcripts in. And don't paste AI text without making it yours.
What business books should a small business owner read?
Books named on the show included Atomic Habits, Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell, and Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks came up too. Pat picks books from people he trusts and quits a book when it could have been an email.
What insurance does a single-member LLC need?
Don't try to figure it out alone. Call an insurance agent you trust. Pat mentioned liability insurance if you bring people together, errors and omissions if you sell advice, and an umbrella policy. Anyone can sue you, so this is not the place to guess.
Worth quoting
There are so many ways that you can mess up, but there's one mess up that they will not forgive you for.
Pat Miller on Businessing
The quality of work was solid, but it was the speed that got their attention.
Pat Miller on Businessing
Your clients, they probably won't say to you, boy, Steve, I really appreciated how quickly you got that back to me. But they'll know.
Pat Miller on Businessing
I quit business books when it could have been an email.
Pat Miller on Businessing
On the show
- Idea Slam question: One owner asked if they're missing out by not reading business books, and a single-member LLC owner asked how to know if they have the right insurance.
In this episode
- Fed interest rate decision
- Airline CEOs and the TSA lines
- The one thing Americans hate most
- How to move faster: cut steps and batch work
- Poll: do you judge people who write with AI?
- How to make AI writing sound like you
- Idea Slam: are business books worth it?
- Idea Slam: insurance for a single-member LLC
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)
Full transcript
And good morning. It's Wednesday, March 18th, and we are Businessing. I'm Pat Miller, founder of the. Small business owners community, and the Fridays off guy. And we are gonna have a lot of fun today sponsored by our friends at Gen Head. Lots to do on today's show. Uh, we've got some news we need to talk about the Fed, the Federal Reserve, their meeting today.
What are they gonna do with interest rates? How much is our money gonna cost? Airline CEOs are standing on their desks screaming at the government. Please, please. Please open DHS.
These lines, they're getting a little silly. What else? The AI story of the day. We're gonna have some fun with the AI story of the day 'cause it's a participation kind of thing.
I need you to help me here. We are going to do, where's the button? Right there. We're gonna do an interactive AI story of the day. I need you to vote on today's poll. To help me figure out your opinion on something, because our AI story of the day is something that's kind of sitting on my mind, and I wanna hear what you think.
When you see someone who's clearly using AI to write their stuff, do you look at them negatively? Do you think, oh, come on, bro, that's, that's clearly ai. What are you doing? Do you say that or do you go, well, yeah, kind of. I understand.
I'm, I'm doing it too. It's no big deal. And then the second part of the question is, are you using AI to write your content?
So it's a two part question that I want you to vote on. So scan the QR code, and it's either the QR code up here in the corner or when I flash it here on the screen. Uh, but you got about 10 minutes to vote in today's. Poll. Do you judge people when they use AI for their content? I'll leave that up just for one more second.
Our lead story today gets after the number one thing that I know Americans hate. There's one thing that makes Americans crazier than anything else. One thing. And if you can improve it in your business, you're gonna make more money. And to get to the story, I'm gonna synthesize a few things that are going on and share my perspective.
So if you want your business to run better and make more money, you need to address the one thing Americans hate more than anything. Our idea slam questions today, they're pretty straightforward.
What's your favorite business book? That's the question of the day today. Uh, 'cause our question's talking about, Hey, I'm not writing should I or should I'm not reading, should I be reading? And then the second question is, I'm a single member LLC, and I'm not sure if I have the right or enough insurance.
What should I do? Common question. So we will talk about that in today's idea Slam. So here's what we need you to do. Drop into the comments.
Let me know that you're here. Tell me good morning, link your business as well so we can give you some free publicity. Doris, lovely to see you. Thanks for tuning in this morning.
I appreciate you. So if you're with us this morning, let us know by letting us know in the comments. Let's start with our news today. Uh, the news is kind of government. Is that a word?
Government? E. The Federal Reserve is announcing a rate hike decision today. Uh, adjusting the rates. It's not a hike.
Two o'clock eastern time, one o'clock central.
And the speculation is that rates are certainly, or most likely going to stay put. We're locked in right now at 3.5% to 3.75, and the Iran oil shock, as it's been called, has kind of. Held off any hopes of getting an additional rate cut. And some economists, as of this morning are saying that no rate cuts should be expected until 2027.
And that's a significant difference from where we were. I think the administration at least was thinking we might get a rate cut or two going on in 2026. But the war in Iran and some other uncertainty, uh, is. At least telling the prognosticators that we might not get a rate cut anytime soon. He'll announce it today at one 30 Central.
So keep an eye on it. Now, why do you care? You care because it affects your credit card rates. It affects your business loan rates. It affects anytime you want to take credit out.
It all starts with this percentage that they're going to set today at. One o'clock central, two o'clock eastern. So for your bottom line, you kind of want 'em to cut it, but you also want them to make sure they don't tank the economy.
So it is a, uh, a sticky wicket as they say. Good morning to Barbara. Let's say good morning to some other lovely's that tuned in. Great to see you, Barbara. Lisa, awesome to see you as well. We get Lisa on the show tomorrow. By the way, Lisa's gonna come on the show and drop some revenue brilliance with us.
So look forward to that. Rebecca, awesome to see you and Barbara understands the assignment. Be painted, face painting, check her out, drop your link in, we'll give you some pub. Great to see you all this morning. Thanks for tuning in. The second news story to address is that airline CEOs are begging the government to reopen DHS.
It's really getting bad. 50,000 TSA agents haven't been paid in almost a month because of the DHS shutdown. So the CEOs of Delta, American, United, Southwest, and JetBlue all sent a letter to Congress saying, please, please reopen the DHS. Over 300 TSA workers have already quit 'cause they just can't take it anymore.
And you've seen the news stories about the security lines going all the way out the door. Some airports are over two hours. Some airports are rumored that they may have to close down 'cause they don't have the staff. Then balance against that spring break is coming. And 171 million people are expected to fly this spring.
That's up 4% from this time last year, so the timing could not be any worse. Good morning, Nikki. So that's going on right now. We are seeing this really weird situation where many people are traveling and the lines are getting longer and. Lead story. And before we get to the lead story, I want to invite you to participate in our live poll that we're doing today.
Our AI story of the day is gonna be straight from your feedback because there's one thing that makes Americans crazy. I'm gonna address that now. And then in the AI lead story, I'm gonna ask, do you look at people negatively when you know they're using AI to write their content? Are you using AI to write your content?
It's a live poll. You click it. We'll even see people's votes coming in in real time when I pull it up on the screen. It's really cool. So click the QR code. It's also up here in the corner so you can participate in the AI story of the day. For our lead story, I want to tie together two news stories and offer an opportunity to improve your business.
This opportunity, it's sitting right in front of us and when you hear me say it, you'll go. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So the first news story is the one I just talked about. Airlines are begging the government to reopen TSA, well DHS, to open TSA and support them at least. Is that because they're worried about security?
Probably, but I don't think that's the real reason. The second story is that new research shows our customers expectations are changing, and tying these two stories together unlocks this opportunity to improve our business. The research shows the customer expectations are getting higher. They just want more for their money.
Okay, great. That's not really a breakthrough, but the thing that caught my eye. Is that the real shift is that they're accelerating their expectations. They don't want you to recognize them 10 minutes into the call. They want you to know all about them and everything they like right now. They want you to know their preferences immediately when they've got a problem.
They don't want a letter in the mail 14 days later, they want an answer straight away. How do these two stories tie together and how can we use it to improve our business? I've been talking a lot about being on the radio this week, and I don't know why, but it's just kind of lended itself to our conversation.
And in my time in radio serving the public and also doing the show and serving the small business owners community, I've been doing things for the public for 30 years. Saying that out loud makes me feel like a grandfather, which I'm not yet. Hopefully I will be someday, but I'm not yet. And I will tell you from 30 years of doing stuff for the public, there are so many ways that you can mess up, but there's one mess up that they will not forgive you for.
The one thing that makes them crazier than almost anything else. It's inside those two news stories that I shared. It's making them wait. In our daily life, the American public has eliminated almost every possible wait time. Instead of being on hold for a resolution, we can talk with the chat bot instead of going to the store to rent a movie.
We can turn on our tv, click a button, and watch it. Our internet at home has gotten so fast. You can download the entire Lord of the Rings movie in standard definition in 30 seconds. In my past, I've had concert performances that ran an hour late, and I've never seen an audience. Angrier. I've had events where it was supposed to start at seven and we didn't start till eight.
People would walk out, they, they cannot tolerate it, and it's just gotten worse as things have moved forward and we've made our life more and more convenient, it's just the one thing that Americans can't take. We just can't take waiting for things. So when you see the TSA wait time, go to two hours or three hours in some of these crisis situations, it's just a special thing I, it's just like a button that you push that just makes us particularly crazy.
With that in mind, I want you to bring it into your business and I think without improving your product at all. You could make your product experience so much better by just doing it faster. We've talked how many times on this show, geez. We do an AI segment every day. Yes, we're gonna use AI to help us move faster.
Of course, that's a place where we can really excel. Because it'll help us automate, of course, it'll help us crunch more data and we can find a ton of other comparisons, like multi-page research in just a moment, solving problems nearly industry or instantly, rather, that you are building software and media for people at a blink of an eye and turning thing.
These things around to your clients way faster, and this is the important part, way faster than they currently think is possible. This is the opportunity we have right now. If the one thing they hate is waiting, they also have an expectation of how long things take to get done. We have an opportunity right now to move faster than their expectations because yes, they're expecting things faster, but they still don't have an idea on the whole.
Just how fast we can move, especially if you are a solopreneur or a lean team and you're using ai. I have two examples of this in the last month, two separate clients that I'm trying to become sponsors, partners with the SBOC in this show, and after doing the needs analysis with them. Talking about this significant project that in the olden days, like, you know, 18 months ago in the olden days, would've taken me, you know, three weeks and a team of developers and a big budget.
And it didn't take me three weeks to get them a draft of what we talked about in the needs analysis meeting. We went from, well, what might we be able to do to working prototype? One of them was turned around in 48 hours, and the only reason why it was 48 hours is I waited till Monday morning at 8:00 AM to send it to them.
Both instances. The client was surprised at how fast I was moving. The quality of work was solid, but it was the speed that got their attention. It says something to them that I can move so quickly. And I think it says something about you if you can do the same thing. And I think, I think it's gonna give me a running start to get both of those deals.
Knock on desk, knock on wood. This is wood. Knock on wood. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. So while we're thinking about our standing O standard operating procedures. I want you to think about how long it takes for you to go from step one to step two to step three inside your SOPs, and I wanna challenge you, how can you move faster?
This isn't just an AI story, I'm not talking just about that. I'm saying look at what you do for people and think, okay, which of these steps are unnecessary? Which of these steps are there because I think they're valuable, but the client doesn't care about 'em at all. Which of these steps do you do?
Because that's the way it's always been done, but it doesn't need to be done anymore like that. Extra reports, extra meetings, extra double checks, extra whatever you've got. You're a restaurant. Invest in the checkout. Uh. Kiosks that you can take to someone instead of taking their credit card and going and running the machine, just come to the checkout straight there.
Those things are the greatest. Oh my God, those things are the greatest. I love those things, but think like that. How can we cut down the number of steps so we can move faster? Then of course we need to automate the things that are repeatable, and AI will definitely help you with that.
But one more thing you can do to move faster is batch your work.Julie Miller Davis taught me this and it's absolutely brilliant. Batch your work instead of going from one task to one task and then back to this other task, and then to three other tasks, then back to this other task. Stack up similar work with one another. So if I need to do, financial is always good for me.
If I need to do financial stuff, I'll batch all of my financial responsibilities to one day in time. I have all the apps open and I've got all of my software running, and I've got all of my receipts in front of me, and I just do it all at once. And you move so much faster. It's another way to get after it.
And then the biggest picture of all of this, I think we need to change our expectations. Our expectations, especially if you are selling your thought. You're a coach, you're a consultant, you're an author, you're a graphic designer, you are. Something like that, because I think for a long time there's been this unspoken pride in how long it takes for you to get something from me.
Oh, well, Rome wasn't built in a day, so I'll get it back to you as soon as I can. And the longer they wait, the more valuable the deliverable feels. You've heard that you've Have you felt that before? You felt that before, right? Well, yeah. It only took me two hours, but I gotta make 'em wait a couple of days so they know that I'm worth the high price that I charge.
Right, right. Eh, I think that might be changing.
I think that might be changing, and I think that's something we should really start thinking about. These two stories point out the thing that I know from experience Americans hate more than anything, which is waiting. And usually when we talk about improving our product and competitive advantages, it's about doing new things in a new way and coming up with new products and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Today I'm just talking about how about we just, you know, put it in italics. How about we just speed up? How about we meet the market for what they're clearly telling us, clearly telling us. So my challenge to you today is find one thing in your business, one thing, an extra step. You are not batching. Name it something in your business that takes longer than it should in 2026 and fix it.
Either automate it, remove it something, but find something in the business and make it go faster. Because your clients, they probably won't say to you, uh, boy, Steve, I really appreciated how quickly you got that back to me. But they'll know. Steve's a guy that gets stuff done quickly. It's just one of those things that helps build the relationship, just deliver faster.
I think you'll build stronger relationships and you'll make more money, and that's what we're trying to do around here. We got some hellos to catch up on. Let's see. Oh, Abby Miller's in the house. Good morning, wife.
Great to see you. Theresa's here. Hey, Theresa. I love being able to pay the bill at the table with the little computer thingy too.
Isn't that great? There's something about that. It makes it feel like you're sneaking out on the check. Do you know what I mean? They bring you the thing and you, boop, boop, boop. Okay, we can just go, come on, let's go. It, it like changed how you leave a restaurant and you paid the gal, you know, you, you've tipped her, you did the whole thing, but it just feels like, Ooh, ooh, come on.
Hurry. Kids run. Always fun. And I said hello to, uh, Steve Glenn, who's tuned in. We'll say hello to him in a second.
Let's see, uh, Lynn Car's here. Good morning. Great to see you, Lynn. My daughter waited on hold for two and a half hours trying to rebook her Southwest flight on Monday. That is pain.
And yes, Steve Glynn.
Great to see you sir. Thanks for tuning in and check out his substack. The dude is dropping bombs, uh, right there. Experience milwaukee substack.com. Thank you dude, I appreciate it. Now I wanna make sure that you have voted into today's live poll because we are going to do our AI story of the day and it is interactive.
So I'm gonna leave this up for a minute. Just to draw your attention to it, but know that the same QR code is right here. Okay? So if you've not voted in the AI story of the day, do it right now. I'll share the results here and we're gonna talk all about it, but I want you to vote in our interactive poll because this is gonna be fun.
Alright, so the QR code is still up here, so if you're tuning in and you haven't voted, you can do it right now. Okay. I am developing a case of writing paranoia because writing with AI is really great. I mean, again, speed. I am moving so fast and it is getting everything done. But for many of us, AI writing kind of has some telltale patterns, doesn't it?
And now I'm starting to get some paranoia around using it. So I, I just gotta know, I, I gotta ask you, this is kind of just for my education, but I'll be curious about what you say. I'm wondering if you feel the same way that I do. So there's a little piece of me. That's paying attention to how close AI is, uh, writing the same and how noticeable that it is.
And you, like, if we could talk with one another, if we were in the same room, we were brainstorming like, Hey, what are the things that AI says all the time? Uh, 99% of business owners don't understand this one thing. This one course will teach you more than an MBA. It'll write in really short, choppy sentences.
The thing that it does that makes me crazy and I can't get it to stop, is that it will negate things. It's not this, it's that, oh my Lord, please stop. It's not this, it's that. I'm just so fatigued of that. So you can kind of tell when AI is writing stuff, and now that I'm using it to write stuff, this writing paranoia has manifested inside of me.
I was thinking, has this kind of thing ever happened to me before? And it has, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but AI paranoia to me is, is kinda like a toupee. It's kind of like a toupee now, in case you can't tell. I'm bald. I mean, I'm still devastatingly handsome. We know this, but I'm bald and I don't like it.
And through the years I thought, you know, maybe, especially when it wasn't all gone, I'm like, you know what, maybe, maybe I, you know, maybe I'd do that or maybe I'd get my hair fixed. 'cause that's another thing that can be done. You can get your hair fixed. I always stopped thinking, you know, while I might feel a little bit better about it, everybody would know what I'm doing.
It would look as ridiculous as this napkin on my head, right? I'd walk into a room, feel it all like, hi, I'm Pat Miller, and you'd look at me and go, dude, you've got a napkin on your head. Right? It's kind of obvious. So that's kind of how I feel.
Oh, Nikki, thank you. That's a good look. Should I just do that instead of being bold?
So are we at a two pay moment where people are using ai, thinking they're getting away with it, but everybody knows. So if you haven't voted yet, here's the QR code and we will see the votes change in real time while we're doing it. Here's where they stand. Now I asked a two part question. In today's poll, do you view people negatively when you know their social media is written by ai and are you using it to write your social media posts?
So I wanted you to answer both questions and clearly three outta four people are using AI to write. Okay, so is that safe to say queso? Is that okay to say we're all doing it? 75% enough to say we're all doing it. So we're all using AI to write for us. But then, yes, I view people negatively when they use it.
38%? No, I don't view people negatively when they use it. 38%. And then there's 8% of you that aren't using AI to write for me. Interesting.
I'd love to know why I'm not doubting you. I'm not even being critical. I'm curious, why haven't you started using AI to write for you? Drop into the chat and let me know now how do you react to this poll?
And if you haven't voted yet, you can vote now on the QR code that's on the screen. It's over there so you can use that QR code and vote. Three outta four people are doing it, but only half of us. Will view people negatively. That surprises me. That surprises me. I thought more of us would be like, bro, really?
Come on. Really? You're using ai. I can tell. We even played around with what we called ai DR, you know, TLDR too long didn't read Ai DR. This was written by AI and I didn't read it.
I thought this hot number would be higher, and I wonder if the number is so low because we're all kind of doing it. We're all kind of in on the joke. We're all walking around like this hoping nobody notices and, and maybe, maybe it's okay to use, but I've, I've kind of surprised by it. Now, Abby, she's, she's a writer.She says that the numbers are so low because there's a difference between using AI to write and using it to write well. Excellent point, Abby. And then Nikki says, I think we all know we are using it, but we hate when we can tell that someone used AI because it means that it's obvious what was written was not in their voice.
Okay. You're both getting after the critical thing. So it's not that we're using ai, it's that we're using AI and it's not being used well, so how can you use it better? Because I'm gonna still use it. I'm walking around with a big old toupee. And by the way, if I had hair, honestly, if I had hair, anyway, I'm gonna keep on walking around with the toupee.
So how do you make it right, better? Here's how I do it. Really, a lot of it is this show, when I do this show. I'm on the air four hours a week talking with you. Every minute of the show is transcribed. Every minute of the transcription is uploaded into my AI tool, which is clawed, and every time it writes, I ask it to go through my transcript so it can use more of my words and my phrases, and my silliness, and my playfulness and everything that I do.
It's one of the reasons why I'm doing the show. 'cause this is helping me express myself. It's helping me just work out all the different thoughts and feelings and ideas that I have, so I can cram all of that in to my AI partner so the writing can get better and better. So one of the things I would suggest for you if you don't do a podcast is that you use the voice chat function with your tool.
Claude has it. Chat. GPT has it where you can do voice chat, not type chat, voice chat. And I use it when I'm on the treadmill, when I'm out walking the dog, when I'm driving someplace. Because when you use voice chat, you say things way differently than tippy tapping. Things come out, your expressions come out, your humor and frustration can come out, and all of that stuff gets captured inside the transcript.
I highly encourage you to do that and then take those transcripts and upload them into your AI partner and tell it. I want you to use as many of my words as you can, and I want you to continually educate yourself on how I express myself. So my writing sounds more like me, and as I've been doing that, uh, it's gotten better.
I still, for the love of God. I've got a bounty. I'm gonna give someone the dog treats, the coveted dog treats. If they can figure out how to get my AI to stop using m dashes,
I hope someday to find something I love as much as Claude loves M dashes, it's addicted to M dashes. It is the AI meth. AI cannot shake M dashes no matter what. It's got. No, you're getting an m no.
Shut the hell up. You are getting an M dash. You will like the M dash every single freaking time. M dash.
It's just, and I picture in my head that when Claude sticks an M dash in there, it's just like, here's, here's your, oh, you want me to write all of your LinkedIn posts for a month? Is your M dash right there? And I haven't made that gesture in since I seventh grade. I've not made that gesture. Do you see what AI is doing to me?
It's warping my two page brain. Yes, the coveted ivy dog treats as a bounty. Oh, I just shook them. She's gonna come running. The coveted Ivy dog treats are gonna go to you. If you can solve that problem, let's catch up on the chat, 'cause some goodness is happening in the chat. And thank you for voting today.
I hope that was fun. Lisa Raebel, our guest tomorrow on Businessing with Pat Piller. I'm a hundred percent okay using ai. Just don't copy and paste. Make it sound like you. It bugs me when you see someone took no effort to customize the content and it doesn't make sense for their business. A hundred percent.
And look at not even a hundred percent. 1000%. Nikki says, Lynn has his strategy. I write everything first. Then I use AI to tighten, clarify, and fill in gaps.
I've asked it to identify. Abby says, the worst is the LinkedIn comments, comments that are clearly written by ai. Thumbs down. That is so true. You know what I'm getting now, now that I have a podcast, I'm starting to get podcast pitches, and what they do is they read the transcript of the show.
They don't watch the show, and they'll say, Hey Pat, I really loved your last episode where you talked about AI writing styles. I've got someone to be on your show. They listened to my show. You didn't listen to my show? Get outta here. Barbara wants to know what I have against M Dashes. Here's what I have, again, against M dashes.
I had never in my life. I went to high school, I went to college. I got a master's degree ever, ever. I don't even know how to make an M dash on my keyboard. I've never used an M dash in my life.
Until AI started writing. M dashes were just the forgotten punctuation of the planet. But now they're everywhere and they could be grammatically correct.
God bless you, grammar nerds. Cool. I love it. I've never used an M dash ever and I've so tried to get people, my, my, my clawed and others to stop using it, but it is just impossible. Okay, now look.
Rebecca's mad at me too. What's the deal with M dashes? I naturally write with m dashes. Well, that's easy, Rebecca.
'cause you have a higher iq. You're smart. Of course. You write with M dashes. I don't write with M dashes, I write with ellipses.
I write with spelling errors. I write with crayon most of the time. Yes, Rebecca, that's, that's why you do it. Okay? And this is how you do it.
Okay, Barbara? I learned something. Alt 0 1 5, 0.
I will never do that, but thank you. I appreciate that. And Abby says, I used to use M dashes and now I can't. Uh oh. Too bad.
There aren't a thousand other ways to punctuate things. Alright, we could keep going, but I love the comments and I love the voting on the poll, and I hate M dashes. Thanks for being a part of our conversation.
We've got something really cool with the idea Slam. Do you wanna see something really cool? This is really cool. We are asking you to come on and be a part of the Idea Slam. Now, when you give us your biggest challenge or opportunity, we could either have you on as a guest or we can just answer your question live in real time.
But I want you to see what the team at Gen Head did. They have made us the most beautiful idea, slam form, and I know it's so dorky to be excited about a form, but damnit, I'm excited about this form because. It's pretty amazing and hopefully it will entice you to give us a challenge or an opportunity in your business because this is an interactive problem solving opportunity for you and your business.
Because when you run into a problem in your business, if you decide to solve it by yourself, that's a choice. This show is on every day. We have an idea slam later this afternoon inside the small business owners community as well. So if you choose to struggle, it is a choice, but I'm so excited about this new page.
So thank you to the team at Gen Head for making us the page. Uh, I'll leave it up here in the corner so you can check it out when you get a moment, if you're kind of doing the dishes or walking the dog or whatever it is you're doing, but you definitely need to check that out. How about we talk about Gen Head and then we will get to today's idea?
Slam Gen Head is our partner for the show. They produce the show. They're also my incredible CRM, and they make my life easy. They help us scale systems, not chaos. It's built for solopreneurs like me, and also small and lean teams who need real answers, not complex tools that require a full-time operator.
It's all streamlined. It's easy to use and you can act on it right now. The cool thing about Gen Head is that it replaces 10 different systems. So instead of having your CRMs here and your texting tool there, and your email over here and your funnels and website over there, it's all in the same place, and it all talks to one another.
It just makes your life simpler, less chaos, clearer data, better execution, and some pretty cool landing pages. I gotta admit. Check out gen head.com. They are our partner and the producer of the show, gen head.com. So thank you Gen Head for doing what you're doing to help us get out there and meet some people.
Uh, we really appreciate it. I think the page isn't loaded. Oh no. Oh no. I talked about it so much and now we've gotta do it.
Oh no, I did load the page. Hang on, please hold. I really want you to see this. Okay. I'm dropping the page in the chat
there. It's okay. Let's get on with the idea Slam, shall we? The idea slam, as we talked about, is your chance to solve a problem or capture an opportunity. And myself and the folks in the chat, we are all going to be working together. To make your business work better, and the link is there inside the chat if you wanna check it out, and you can be a part of this problem solving opportunity for the business.
Here's our first question today. I'm not a business book reader. I start 'em, but I don't finish. Am I missing out? Okay.
Business book readers, what do you think Is this person missing out? On not reading business books. I am torn on this one, and I'm torn because some of the biggest advances in my career being a small business owner have come from reading things, really getting your arms around something and someone changes the way that you think.
So reading has value. I'll say this, just gingerly. There are a lot of bad business books out there, and sometimes you never really know unless someone refers you to a business book or you start a business book and it's not what you think it is. So I'm curious, what is your favorite business book? What's a book that you've read that made you go, oh, yes.Now I get it.
And I'm not a big book quitter. Some people will never quit a business or a book, but I will quit business books. And here's how I know to quit a business book. I quit business books when it could have been an email. Someone has a provocative point, and it could be a 20 page book, but instead it's 120 pages with story after story after story, and the same concept.
Okay, I get it. I don't need the ninth example of the one concept that you made a book out of. Those are the business books I don't like, but some business books can absolutely reframe the way that you run your business. So let's have it. What is your favorite business book? What's something you've read that made you go, yep, that changed things?
And this is, if this was the family feud. Atomic habits. Ding number one answer on the board. Like, I think that would be the most common answer from everyone. So Abby, you win a prize.
Very good atomic habits. Absolutely. The number one, uh, one of the things that I read that made me go, yeah, okay. I have more control over getting stuff done than I thought.
Another book that really changed the way that I think, and you hear me quoted all the time, buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel. If you've not read, buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel and you are a solo operator. You need to right now 'cause it will help you think about how you spend your time, where you invest money, and how you end up growing the business by giving you more time to do what only you can do.
Absolute killer, Dan Martel's. Buy back your time. Okay, Nikki, then, yeah, then we brought him to the conference and Nikki enjoyed it, that we brought Dan Martello to the conference. He was great. Okay. Doris says It's very hard for me to choose a favorite book, but I will go with Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy.
Another amazing book in line with Buyback Your Time. Write on reframing how we think about getting stuff done. Awesome point, Doris. Who not how Absolute killer. Another book that really, uh, changed the way that I run my Finances is Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. Another problem solver. If you're running a small business and you get money from a client, what do you do with it and how do you manage that money to make sure?
Your family gets some, your taxes are paid, you've got operating expense, you've got money to invest. How? How do you do that? And Profit First was a really simple explanation on how to handle money as a small business owner. And Doris has just started reading Atomic Habits. It's eyeopening. Yeah, it is.
Definitely eyeopening. You're gonna love it. The last book I would mention, and if you've got one, put it in the chat 'cause people will be able to see this after the show, but, uh, and I'll, I'll share it if you get it up here in time. The other book that I absolutely love is The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks and it's about pushing your boundaries and doing amazing things and not holding back.
Fantastic read. So if you've not read The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix, I've read it multiple times. It's one of those absolutely tremendous. So to answer your question, are you missing anything by not reading business books? And I hate to say sometimes yes and sometimes no, but sometimes yes, and sometimes no.
I always look for recommendations like let someone else figure out if that book is good. Oh, hey, you're a smart person. You suggested that to me. Okay, I'll go read it. It's kinda like a filtering mechanism for me. Second question, this one's really straightforward. I'm a single member LLC, and I have no idea if I have the right insurance or enough of it.
Where do I even start figuring out if I have the coverage that I need? Okay, this one's easy. Don't try and figure it out. Don't insurance. To me as a small business owner, insurance is very similar to plumbing and electrical at the house. If there's a plumbing issue, if there's an electrical issue, I could learn how to do it.
It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper if I learned how to do it. But there's a problem if I don't do it right. The basement floods. If I don't do it right, I could electrocute myself. Those are risks I'm not willing to take. So you know what I call a number and a guy in a truck comes and boop, it's done because the risk is way too big to me.
Insurance in your small business is just like that. If you have an event and someone slips and falls and cracks their head open and they sue you for a million dollars, which can actually happen to you. You are outta business. You're electrocuted. Ah, pat, that won't happen to me. Baloney. Baloney has a first name.
Yes, that can happen to you. So get insured. Uh, errors and omission. Insurance is something you should have if you're selling your thought. You definitely need liability insurance if you're bringing anyone together. You can even get an umbrella policy that just says, Hey, I've got some insurance, just in case stuff happens.
So to go back to the question, how do I know what I need, call somebody, call the insurance agent and just bite the bullet and buy the insurance. If you need a referral for an insurance agent, I've got a couple that I trust, couple that I use, happy to refer you. Just send me a message and I'll do it. Don't mess around with insurance because yes, you can get sued.
And one of my favorite things that happened when I was talking with my insurance agent and I said, do I have enough coverage? What if I get sued? Is there more insurance that I like? Different kinds of insurance? And she said, people can sue you for anything. Just they can wake up one day and decide to sue you.
And your defense against the lawsuit is how much money do you have to pay a lawyer to defend you? That's kind of how it works sometimes. So don't guess when it comes to insurance. That's my advice. Call an insurance person that you trust. Get a referral from another entrepreneur, maybe in the small business owner's community, and you can get it hooked up the right way.
One more story before we get outta here today. We've got some weird science scientists in China are using gene splicing technology for something that didn't need to be gene spliced and what they did with it is weird. I'll share in a minute. But before we do that, we gotta talk about the new AI installation group.
Okay. This Mastermind is coming together one week from today. The AI Mastermind AI installation group kicks off, as you hear me talk about on the show every single day. AI is the biggest change that we're gonna have in our business in a long, long, long, long time. And we're at a moment right now where the smart A players know that something has to be done.
They know they need to get this technology installed in their business. They know they need to move faster and build better solutions for their clients, but they don't know where to start. They don't know what tools to use, and they need help. That's what the Mastermind is for. I'm gonna bring people together and we're gonna have two meetings a month.
One meeting is a mastermind where I'm gonna teach what's going on and help you install some of the automations and scheduled tasks that you need so you can move faster. And the other meeting is gonna be a private AI idea slam where all of the Mastermind participants come together and we just talk about what's working.
Talk about what's not working. We do show and tell on the things we figured out and the things that we haven't figured out yet, so we can stop guessing. We need to unlock this productivity and we need it right away. And growing together, as you know, is my jam. Don't grow it alone. On top of the two meetings a month, I'm gonna write a new AI trends letter where I scour the web for all of the AI news.
And I sort it by important and not important because there's gonna be a ton of AI news you don't need to pay attention to. But every once in a while there will be a story where I'm going, Hey, this thing you need to know about this thing, so I will help sort. All of the information that you need. And then of course, private in, uh, private connection when you need it.
Uh, email, text, whatever you need. When you get stuck, let me know and I'll get back to you. This is not a forever program. This is a six month program, and it starts on Wednesday and it's happening right now because the transformation's happening right now. And if you say, pat, I, I can't start on Wednesday, but I could start in April.
That's fine. We'll work together for six months. It's not next Wednesday or nothing. I'm gonna continue doing the AI Mastermind 'cause I know how important it is. So if you wanna learn more, click the QR code and you can check out the new AI installation Mastermind that is going on one week from today, which I can't believe it's one week from today.
Boy, I'm excited for that. Okay. Scientists in China are doing weird things. They just just. They're solving a problem that I didn't think needed to be solved.
So they're doing some gene editing on tomatoes. Okay, cancer's a thing. How about we like get a no, no, no, no. Not cancer. Tomatoes.
Okay, so you're gonna edit tomatoes to come up with some lifesaving medicine.
It's gonna help people, right? Oh, no, no, no, no. Why? Why would we do that? No, we're gonna edit tomatoes because when we ship tomatoes, they lose their smell.
Really, bro? Really? Scientists. It gets worse. You think that's bad that they're using this CRISPR gene editing technology to make?
Tomatoes smell more. That's not why this story is bonus. Weird. They're editing tomatoes to smell more. And while they were in there, whatever in there is in CRISPR gene editing, they thought, you know what would be fun?
Let's make the tomatoes smell like movie popcorn. And they did. And they did.
What? Forget all those world changing lifesaving things. Let's play with tomatoes and make them smell like movie popcorn. And there's only one way that that happened, right? I mean, you know.
All right, so. What if we made 'em smell like movie popcorn, bro? Like that's what happened. However you say that in Chinese, that's what they were doing.
I'm guar, that's what it was. The stoners have the crispr. That's what's going on. Tomatoes now smell like movie popcorn. Seems like a bad allocation of resources, but hey bro, you do.
You all right? We gotta get outta here. But we had something really fun happen. Here, we'll share this one. We had something really fun happen right before we went on the air.
Right before we went on the air, we got a new member of the small business owners community. Peter Klein joined like 10:59 AM I got the message. Hey, Peter, joined the community. Awesome. Carrie's already a member. Peter's now a member as well. Uh, carrie's Peter's husband or wife, you know what I meant?
They're married. Anyway, Peter joined this morning. So Peter, welcome to the group. Now, if you're thinking, you know the stuff on this show and the things you talk about, I wish I had more of this in my life. Well, you could if you were a member of the small business owners community, and the way that we're expressing what the value of the group is now is this, how much is it costing you to run your business on your own?
This is like a three question quiz that'll show you what's the return out of investment if you get people around you to help you make better decisions. Because today you gotta make a better decision. You need to find an insurance agent, or you need to price your product, or you need to handle an angry client or buy a CRM or whatever it is.
What if you had a group of people standing by ready to help you make the decision based on their experience and what they've already done? Find out the ROI on the SBOC and join just like our friend Peter. It's $19 a month. So check it out when you can. We would love to have you join our group of entrepreneurs.
I'm Pat Miller, founder of the SBOC. I'm also the Fridays off guy. So proud to be partnered with Gen Head, high five Gen Head for being awesome. Thank you for being our sponsor of the show, and don't forget to like, subscribe and share. Show when you like the show, that makes me feel good. When you subscribe, that means you won't miss tomorrow's episode at 11:00 AM Central.
When you share the show, it's like you're referring it to another entrepreneur. Hey, I watched this show and it did completely suck. You should check it out. Maybe you'd say something nicer than that, but you know what I mean. It's not, it's not total crap. So here, maybe we'll use AI to write a better referral.
It's not a hundred percent embarrassing. I mean, he did put a napkin on his head. Otherwise it's, it's here, friend. It's not horrible. But if you do that, that will help us grow the show, which I would really appreciate it. We're the new daily habit for small business owners. I'll talk to you tomorrow at noon Eastern 11:00 AM Central.
I'm Pat Miller, founder of the SBOC. Thanks for playing along with us today. We'll see you right here tomorrow. Take care.