The Real Deal about AI - Straight from Small Business Owners

By: Asahi Pompey

Small businesses are embracing AI and using it to propel their organizations.

According to our most recent 10,000 Small Businesses survey, 56% of 10KSB business owners have successfully implemented AI, with 71% leveraging it to create marketing content and 54% using it to enhance productivity.

For those that are still on the sidelines or don’t know where to start, I encourage you to explore it.

Here is some real-world advice from 10KSB entrepreneurs on getting started with AI:

1. When using AI for content and copywriting, context is key. AI is not a mind reader.

- Stephanie (Read) Nivinskus , Owner of SizzleForce Marketing, Long Beach, CA (10,000 Small Businesses 2022)?

Stephanie advises providing ample context when working with AI. Clearly defining your objectives and expectations for AI-generated content can make a world of difference in its quality and relevance. Go ahead and try it on ChatGPT, she says. First try the prompt “Summarize this white paper into bullet points for an Instagram caption [insert white paper].” Then try a prompt that first finishes these three sentences:

• “Our ideal clients are [age, profession, adjectives].”
• “The problem they experience is [X] and they know they should [do this to solve it] but they haven’t because [of this reason].”
• “Our company’s brand tone is [3 adjectives] and we want this post to [achieve this outcome].”

And, then write “Summarize this white paper…” You’ll see the difference!

2. Blend AI with automation to maximize its potential.

- Alane Boyd , Founder of BGBO, Nashville, TN (10,000 Small Businesses 2021)??

Alane suggests looking at tasks you do on a regular basis as a place to integrate AI.?For example, if your team builds a monthly report on social media engagement manually from data in a spreadsheet, she suggests building a workflow using AI integrations in platforms like "Make" to set up automations. The key steps to code are:

• Pull Instagram engagement data from [this spreadsheet].
• Summarize the data to show the best performing content, engagement comparisons month to month, audience growth, and comment sentiment.
• Make recommendations for improving the content to increase likes, comments, and identify hashtags and keywords to use in posts to improve discoverability.

What once took dozens of hours each month now is done in 5 minutes!?However, it is important to understand that you must?know the process to be able to build these workflows – any questions or holes will lead to errors. The AI is only as good as your deep knowledge.

3. Foster a culture of experimentation and inclusivity when using AI.

- Jacqueline Shorter-Beauchamp , Engaged Media Studios, Houston TX (10,000 Small Businesses 2022)

For those in the development space,?Jacqueline emphasizes the need for a diverse perspective as AI often is missing a female and POC point of view. She proposes a few?key steps?developers can take for responsible and ethical AI development:

• Foster diversity within AI development teams, including data scientists, engineers, and designers, to bring a wide range of perspectives to the table. Ensure collaboration from people of various genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds are just a few ways to incorporate different perspectives.
• Regularly assess AI models for bias and implement techniques to mitigate bias during training and inference. Conduct bias audits on your AI systems and promptly address and mitigate any biases identified.
• Conduct user testing with diverse groups to ensure that AI systems work well for all users and make AI systems more transparent and explainable so that users can understand and trust the decisions made by these systems.

Making AI more representative and inclusive benefits users and developers across the board.

4. Embrace AI's understanding of human needs.

- Cory Walton, ChFC?, CLU?, CPFA?, NQPC? , Founder of Pangea Financial Group, Miami, FL (10,000 Small Businesses 2022)

Cory uses AI tools that unpack customers’ personalities and provide insights into sales and service conversations with them. He recommends small businesses:

• Leverage the insights from AI tools that look at sentiment, emotion, language and tone to tailor your communication approach with each customer. For example, if an AI platform detects polished language from a customer, use a more formal tone in response. If a sense of urgency is detected, respond more quickly and directly.
• Set up workflows to automatically pass AI insights to customer service and sales staff before interactions with customers. This allows them to quickly review the profile and adjust their approach.
• Track metrics over time to see if leveraging the AI tools improves customer satisfaction, sales conversion rates, or other key performance indicators.

Personalization matters, and AI can be a conduit for human connection by helping us better tailor our language and actions to resonate with individual customers and partners.

What’s Ahead

AI can be an incredible asset for small business owners, and we’re starting to hear stories of real impact on the bottom line.

For those in the business ecosystem, I know so many of you are offering resources to help with this technology.

Please - post them here, share them widely, and get the word out, so we can help empower our local drivers of economic growth to thrive!

Asahi Pompey is President of the Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs?10,000 Small Businesses is an investment to help small businesses grow and create jobs by providing them with greater access to education, capital, and business support services. To date, more than 13,600?business owners have graduated from the program across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. If you are interested in applying or nominating a small business to participate, please visit www.10ksbapply.com/.

#SmallBusiness #AI #DigitalTransformation #MakeSmallBig #10KSB #GoldmanSachs

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