S1. Ep 1 Intro Episode

Katie: Welcome to the AI Automations for Business Podcasts. We're your host, Katie and Noel, and we'll be discussing how you can use AI for your business, along with the latest news, updates and automations to help you stay ahead of the curve. Make them running your business more effective and enjoyable. Please be sure to subscribe and

Noel: I really hope you enjoy this episode.

Katie: Hello and welcome to our first episode of AI Automations for Business. I'm really excited that you are here listening to this episode and we thought we would just introduce ourselves and tell you a little bit about what you're going to be able to get from this podcast. Let Noel introduce himself first. So over to you, Noel. So hello,

Noel: I'm Noel and I've been working with AI now for four years And I've been really digging into AI automations in the last 12 months and making my businesses more efficient and working better. And what we're aiming here to do is for me to impart some knowledge and give you some insights and hopefully help you get your businesses into AI and automations. So yeah, that's kind of why I'm here. I've been doing it for quite a while now. So I'll let you introduce yourself, Katie, and let everyone know what the businesses that you've done and what you're here to do.

Katie: So as Noel said, yes, I'm Katie. And if you didn't realize yet, me and Noel are husband and wife. Me and Noel actually used to work together. That's where we met, how we met, I should say. That was in the Royal Navy quite some time ago. So when I left the Navy, I kind of accidentally started my first business. That was 13 years ago. It was a local service-based business, dog walking and home boarding. And I was able to grow and scale that really quickly using the power of social media. And I absolutely am obsessed with social media and learning as much as I possibly can about it. Then a few years after I was also coaching other service-based business owners on how to use social media. Mostly in the pet industry, pet professionals. And I built a worldwide community on Twitter. with my own Twitter chat hour. And then in 2018, I decided to move away from the pet industry because I wanted to be able to help all service-based business owners. So that's when I started my own business, Business Wonderland, just coaching and consulting for service-based business owners. And I am still very much obsessed with content marketing, strategy, social media. So that's me.

Noel: I think, yeah, the wealth of knowledge.

Katie: Hopefully, hopefully. Well, we'll see maybe when, you know, you're throwing questions at me. Yeah,

Noel: absolutely.

Katie: So, Noel, what can people expect from this podcast that we are doing together? Because obviously, we're bringing our knowledge together to help business owners with AI.

Noel: Yeah, I think the main thing you'll get from this podcast is insights and information on how AI and automations can, you know, take your business to the next level. So if you're like running, you're a solar entrepreneur, you don't have the time to create loads of different teams or hire loads of people to help you out. But you can easily start to automate your business processes in a way that means that you can expand your team and for the fraction of a price. So that's really where we're going to aim for this and we're going to give you all the latest insights because with AI, it changes every single day.

Katie: Oh, my goodness. Don't I know about it. like sometimes like I've just got my head around something and then you're like oh have you seen this update and I'm like no hang on wait yeah

Noel: there's a new model every week

Katie: yeah it's very fast-paced so hopefully we'll be able to take like all the current news and be able to kind of like break it down for you what you need to know you know and then skipping the parts that maybe you know aren't quite so important

Noel: absolutely yeah yeah there's a lot of noise

Katie: there is and And what would you say, like, are a lot of the, like, misconceptions that a lot of people or business owners have around AI, AI automation?

Noel: So I think a lot of people think that you need to be some sort of technical wizard to be able to do this sort of stuff. And really, you don't need to be. So I was watching YouTube one day and I had it on the background. And then this guy came on and he said, I'm going to build this social media automation zero code using AI and I was like how how is he doing this yeah and that's really what got me into the automation side of things so everything that I do is no code I've got zero coding experience myself and if I ever do need code I've got AI to do that they'll sort it out for me yeah so yeah I guess the biggest misconception is you need to be like a technical wizard you really don't need to be as long as all you need to really understand is the data that you're putting in and then your expected end goal. And if you know those two things, then all you've got to do is just connect the bits together. And that's it. It's all done. And it will continue working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Katie: I'd just like to kind of clarify as well, you really don't need to be like any tech wizard because I'm far from being a tech wizard. Like I'll go as far as saying like unless it's really simple like tech confuses the hell out of me but i've been able to use AI automations in my business that i've been able to set up myself and i just feel like if i can do it then absolutely honestly anyone can do it

Noel: absolutely yeah yeah it's it's so simple once you work it out and you start practicing uh and things i would say like practice once you get started is is the main thing and repetitive and then just building different things but yeah As soon as you get that done, you're off.

Katie: Yeah, because there are some things as well, aren't there, like that you can automate in your business that are a lot easier than something. So, for example, like, you know, in the past, I've automated invoices, client contracts. And I think, you know, a lot of us will be familiar with things like, you know, where you comment a keyword and then you get like a DM sent to you that is an AI automation. So there are lots of really, like, simple tasks and tech that you can use. It's not all, like, really complicated and, like, there's, like, 20 steps towards it.

Noel: Yeah, exactly. You'll probably, if you ever look at AI automations, you'll probably find people, especially on, like, LinkedIn. There seems to be a thing on LinkedIn where they just show off, like, the most complicated looking workflow that they can find. Really, they're really inefficient. And you could probably cut that down to, like, five. or six steps within the workflow, and it would do exactly the same thing and work far better. So, yeah, it doesn't have to be complicated.

Katie: So would you say that is like a common mistake people are making, like they're trying to make it more complicated that net actually needs to be in? Actually, they can just simplify it.

Noel: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So when I first started, I was building things out and then adding loads of different bits in there and making it all complicated. And then once I started to learn the tools a bit better. I could then look at them again and then go, oh, actually, I could combine these five steps into one step kind of thing and then, you know, condense it all down and make it a lot more efficient. So like I said, that all comes with practice. But, yeah, it's good to build it out, make it complicated, make it work. That's a great sense of achievement. But at the end of the day, we need to draw it in and make it more efficient and work a lot Amazing.

Katie: And we have briefly mentioned, like, AI is evolving, like, fast, super fast. I mean, I was going to ask you, like, is there one trend that business owners should keep an eye on? But, I mean, that could change by then the time that we've recorded the next podcast episode. So maybe instead of asking you that question, I should say, make sure that you are subscribed to our podcast. So you can stay up to date with all of the latest AI news, trends and automations.

Noel: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, Sam Altman hasn't really woken up yet, so I don't know what he's cooking today. So he's the CEO of Open AI, if you don't know. So yeah, he's probably going to change it all by the time this goes out.

Katie: Okay, all right. Fabulous. Thank you so much for listening. And be sure to catch our next episode. We are going to be really really. some new episodes on a weekly basis. So please do subscribe. And if you feel called to like or leave us a review and we will catch you next time.