10: Using AI for Optimizing Business Processes with Jeff MacPherson

Chris Daigle interviews Jeff McPherson from XAgency.ai which is at the forefront of integrating generative AI into businesses. In this episode, Jeff emphasizes the importance of AI as a co-pilot rather than a replacement for human roles. He also talks about their upcoming AI operating system, which aims to simplify AI adoption for businesses.

From automating tedious tasks in their businesses to helping them enhance efficiencies across the board. Jeff's going to unpack how AI is not just a tool, but a game changer in today's business landscape.


0:01 Jeff MacPherson and XAgency AI
5:45 AI Implementation Strategy for Businesses
10:55 Simplifying the Process
16:20 Tools, Daily Reviews, & Partnerships
21:54 Saving Time and Money in Customer Service
26:40 Streamlining Sales
32:15 Processes & Scalability
37:37 Mastering Marketing & Automation
43:27 Creating Role-Specific Benefits
48:44 Integrating AI into Company Operations
54:17 More About Jeff and XAgency AI


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Jeff MacPherson and XAgency AI

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Today, we're diving into the fascinating world of AMI with a very special guest, Jeff McPherson from XAgency and other exciting ventures. Jeff is at the forefront of integrating generative AM money into businesses, so he's going to be offering a wealth of insight from working with a broad range of clients, from automating tedious tasks in their businesses to helping them enhance efficiencies across the board. Jeff's going to unpack how AI is not just a tool, but a game changer in today's business landscape. So stay tuned as we explore the cutting edge of AI with Jeff McPherson. Welcome to Using AI at Work. I'm your host, Chris Daigle. Each week we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs, and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. Welcome to today's episode of Using AI at Work. We've got Jeff McPherson from XAgency and other endeavors. Jeff's going to share with us how they're using AI in their business, and he's got the unique perspective of working with numerous clients. So he's able to see how other early adopters are implementing generative AI into their business processes and workflows. So, Jeff, why don't you tell everybody about what you're doing with AI?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

We're doing a lot. We look at uh AI as a co-pilot to your business right now. So, X Agency, we're a form of an automation and AI agency, um, working with businesses to help plan, strategize, and actually implement AI into whatever their um their redundancies are, whatever they want to be more productive, where they want to be more efficient. So we really look at a business's um processes and systems, and we look at also the fulfillment and the demand side of your business as well. If we can really help automate using different automations and AI, we can really help scale the demand side because that's where a lot of businesses kind of run into issues, is you have too much you have too much demand for and not able to keep up with the fulfillment. Um, and that's where we really place ourselves in it. A lot of the conversations we have is nobody knows really where to start with AI. Um, and we try and remove that burden from people so they don't have to think about okay, there's new technologies, or there's a new AI tool out there. So we really remove that fear of AI from a business as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

You know, uh I definitely want to talk about getting started with AI, but you mentioned automation and AI. And what I've found is a lot of people they just lump some a lot of times automation. They just, oh, AI is doing it. So do you mind explaining how you guys see the difference between AI and automations?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Um, AI is is more driven on the data that your business your business has, and the automation comes to connecting the dots between the data sources. So whether that would be customer service to content creation. So the customer service would be collecting data from having conversations with your customers, and then the automations would help create content on the other side. Because if a customer is asking a question to your customer service department, well, it's like, well, why don't we create a post for social media or for our ads using the automations in there?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Great idea. Yeah, that's a good distinction. A lot of times people just they they think AI, but sometimes AI isn't the answer. Sometimes it's just the automation. So thank you for that sharing that distinction. So you talked about um when you're getting started with clients. How ready? I I know that the intention and the desire is there for introducing AI, or else they wouldn't be reaching out to your agency. But how ready are you finding clients to start?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah, I would say right now from where we are, it's 50-50. There, there's people who are just gung-ho for it. We need to start yesterday, which I mean they're nice to work with. Um, but there's processes that come with it. Some people who are it's like, I need to put a couple things in place, or I just want to kind of explore what's going on. Um, we may not have we may not be ready. Um, so for us, we've seen it's about 50-50 of where it is. For us, it's just having the conversations is great. We know that, and even yourself, it's like it's a massive educational curve for people right now. Sure. So even the people who um want to start like yesterday, like I was saying, there's still a process. Like you guys need to understand, like, this stuff doesn't happen overnight. So it's like just because you want it yesterday, AI just doesn't up up, I mean, come out of nowhere and just run your business for you. So I mean there's pros to having working with both both people, which is which is great. And that's why it's like when we work with uh a company, we build out um our 90-day implementation plan and we do everything in 90-day sprints for a couple of reasons. One, it's just not trying to think too far ahead and overwhelm the clients that we're working with. Um, and most importantly, it's as much as we can estimate how much things may cost or how long things are gonna take, there could be some some sort of technology that's released tomorrow that none of us know about that we can implement into the business. And that's that's kind of where we've positioned ourselves. It's like they don't have to worry about that. And that's why we build everything in 90-day sprints for for their business specifically.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Well let could do you mind walking everybody through 90 days for some people, it might be an aggressive timeline, depending on how capable they are with using the tools already or thinking and process, right? But for you guys, when you come in, what would a client expect? What should anybody that's looking for a vendor kind of expect that that first cycle to look like?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, um, so we build out the plan first, and it's pretty in-depth plan. Like we build out the technology, so we don't build a lot of the actual tools itself.

AI Implementation Strategy for Businesses

SPEAKER_01 6:36

We partner with a lot of the tools, and again, we just connect through automations and APIs. Um, we've got a whole bunch of our internal technologies that's is our AI operating system that helps, I mean, connect these things a lot quicker. But with it, it's like what people can expect is when we build out the plan originally for your business, we ask for your wish list. Like, what would be a perfect scenario of your business? Um, like, where do you want to be more productive? Like, are you having issues again with customer service or sales or whatever it may be? And then we build out the plan specific to them. And in that plan, it's like we believe we can accomplish all of this, what you gave us within 90 days, and here's how we're gonna do it. And we give them that basically that blueprint for for doing it. Um, which again removes that overwhelming aspect for for somebody when they're visualizing, it's like you told me that you can do all this stuff, but it's like, yeah, we told you we can do it because we got your wish list. We've broken down everything uh with different tools and the different connections that we need. Um, and then we just implement it for you. So again, it's really removing that fear.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah. Are you finding that the clients already have the pain, or are they just like, we just want to put AI into our business?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Bit of both. There's the there's the pain of uh again, the fulfillment side. It's like we've we're we're growing, we need to automate this stuff, we can't we can't keep up with it fast enough, or um, I don't want our business to be obsolete because AI is going to take over our business type um type thought process. So again, it's a it's about 50-50. It's funny how people come in and where they're trying to position themselves using AI.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Either pain or pleasure, avoiding get beat by the competition or exactly excited about the new toy.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

The service, I mean the services side, they're they're really looking to increase their their demand side because I mean you only can take on so many clients with the team that you may have. So if we can help on that side, that's where we're really seeing it. A lot of the, let's say, the info products and um people that are coming through, it's like they want to be the first to market in implementing AI through their whole systems because if they can stay ahead of their competitions, especially in the info product space, whether it's people who are in nutritions or fitness or whatever it may be, they really have a competitive advantage.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Do you guys work with a specific type of company, size or industry?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Typically, the businesses that we've seen, it's anywhere from a million to 25 million per year. Um, there's definitely people who don't make that much, which is completely fine with us. I mean, for us, it doesn't truly matter. The best, the, I mean, the best clients that we can work with in a quickest period of time are the ones with actual data points. So your business may not be making as much money, or just like your profit may not be there. But the amount of data that you're collecting through, again, emails, customer support, whether it's financial data, whatever that may be, we can train AI faster for your business to help it grow to give you those profit margins as well. So it's more of like how much business data you have so we can train your systems faster.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So I don't know what your experience has been, but when I've worked with companies, data, data hygiene and all that has not been a high priority for them typically. It's been it's it's it's in the CRM or it's in the but there's no real intelligent action taking place. And I would imagine that a lot of listeners that might describe their business as well. So do you have any suggestions for somebody who is getting started or wants to get started, but they do want to address that that data contribution, but they're just not there now.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

I mean, it's you've got to get into more of the technical side when you're training AI and your data continuously. Like you could go to Chat GBT and you can use like a sales call, like a recording that we were talking about before. So one thing that we did is like we take our all of our sales calls and we record them, then we take the transcription and the recording and we put it into AI and it builds a proposal for people. So technically that's using your your your data, yeah. But to continue to do that and automate it and can continue for it to learn, you've got to set up the connections through the automations so it can continue to learn. So I mean, like people can go and they can do these things manually, and that's where AI becomes a co-pilot. And we look at it, it's like the 70, 90, 120 rule. When you first start using it, again, like using a recording and putting it into um AI to create a proposal, you need a human to do that. Once we've we've started training it, we can get it to about 90% of a human capacity. And then once we've got all the automations and everything set up and the reinforcement, it'll do 120% of the human capacity automated, which is which is where the scalability is. And that's how we try and break it down for clients as well. It's like demand fulfillment, like I was saying, but then also when we start 70%, as we continue to build, we'll get it to a 90%. And then once we get everything flushed out and really trained, we can get it to 120% of your output. And that's when it's just a well-oiled machine.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

So I know that you've got all different sizes

Simplifying the Process

SPEAKER_00 11:46

of clients, and everybody listening to this has different size businesses, but a process like that, I know you guys spend 90 days, but you're addressing a larger wish list, and um, you're doing maybe you don't know the company, so you're required to do a level of immersion and like deep dive into their business to be able to advise them. But for somebody who it's their own business, maybe they're a solopreneur or a small team, so they're intimately familiar with every aspect of it, for them to identify uh an uh an opportunity and to do to to automate plus AI if I do the 7090 120 on that how how much of a heavy lift is that for the typical new user?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So I mean, and this is where we really want to come in in two aspects. So we're we typically only have two calls a month with our clients because we just because we set everything up and we we train, we train everything so you don't have to do it. So if somebody's a solopreneur, and this is we do believe that there's gonna be people, solopreneurs running hundred million dollar businesses at at some point with these AI and automations, which is super, which is super exciting. So it's like again, we try and really remove that burden because it's we don't we wanted we knew like if we plugged ourselves into um a business, there was gonna be well, I don't have a team member there to be able to manage what you're trying to do. So we took all that as well and built our internal teams. It's like, hey, it's in the wishlist, we've built out the whole spec. This is in your 90-day plan, you've agreed to this plan, we're just gonna build this out, and we're just gonna keep you up to date with it. And that and that's where it is. So you tell again, you tell us what you want, and then we'll build it out. Because what we're doing, and you and I have spoken about this before, is like we're building basically an AI in a box type SaaS platform. So you're not even gonna need us to do this. We're gonna have, and the the biggest thing with the the specs and stuff like that, and what we're building, it's connecting to different CRM systems for for an example. It's like once we've got the the majority of them in the systems, it's like we can make it a lot easier for other people who have no technical background, solopreneurs, all these different size businesses at a SaaS level scalability.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

This is a good point. You know, one of the things I encourage people when they're getting involved in AI is who not how. Right? Like you, it's it's more important for you as a uh uh an applier of AI, the the listener that's that's listening to this right now, it's more important that you that you understand how to use it than it is that you figure out how to connect Zapier to or Zapier to this or that, or that you become a prompt engineer and that sort of thing. Now, one of the challenges in a who not how environment, which is where a lot of people find themselves, is I can't find resources. If and of course you have an agency and we'll talk about that. But for for somebody that may be, I don't know, and you've probably had to do this with some of your clients, they're not a fit. Where do you send them? Where are people finding talent to help them?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

So, I mean, I'm gonna give them a plug. So Matt Farmer AI, Matt Farmer is my business partner. But if you look at Matt Farmer AI on social media, TikTok predominantly is where his largest following is. He reviews a new tool in technology every single day. So it's like it's it's a good place to learn because everything that he promotes on his page, we also battle test internally. And like once we find good partnerships and good relationships, that's when we plug them into the clients as well. So because that's again, that was that's a big thing. It's like, okay, well, AI is not for me right now, or it's just don't have the budget or wherever it may be. It's like there's aspects that you can learn these tools and learn which ones, and that also gives us our competitive advantage because we're staying ahead as much as possible with these technologies and tools that get released. So I mean, that's where we send people. It's like, I mean, he loves it because I mean, he's got five kids um and he really sticks to it. He, I mean, I always praise him as like the the fact that he keeps up with it every single day is amazing. Um, but what keeps him going is his like his five kids think he's a celebrity because he's got so many followers on on TikTok, which is funny. But what he's doing is is fantastic for people. The the the comments that he gets, the feedback that we get as a business, um, the connections that we make and the partnership to these tools that we we allow our clients to essentially have access to without having to worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

So for those who are gonna go check it out, Matt Matt is looking at these tools through the lens of what role? Business owner, entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Um he's looking at as a consumer mostly. So there's two sides. One is like a tool where I'm gonna use a tool to um generate an image. So he'll go through and he'll show like an update of how these technologies have changed and how it compares to other tools that are out there. So he does that comparison aspect from tool to tool. There's some technologies that he talks about, which is super high technical stuff and some things that I don't even understand what he's talking about sometimes. So there's two aspects, but but a lot of it is I'm going through from the lens of a consumer, and here's the comparison to other tools that are out there.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Very cool. So, through that process, how many tools has he evaluated since he started doing this?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Oh, geez. Um hundreds. He's done it, he's done it every single day for over the last year. Like it's just, and sometimes it's two a day. I want to say, um, and I mean, I don't want to be quoted on it, but I think over 500 tools he's reviewed. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

From that process, I mean, that's

Tools, Daily Reviews, & Partnerships

SPEAKER_00 18:08

a it's a killing two birds with one stone. He's creating content, but he's also educating himself. But he's also saying, hey guys on the team, check this tool out. What are some of the can you name some a few, maybe some tools that because of that process, you guys are like, damn, we're gonna use this?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Um one that we we actually use and we part we've partnered with. Um, we're helping on their development side and behind the scenes is Charlie, Charlie AI. Um, their platform, it's it's speed to lead. So when people come through, like they've got their they're just releasing the voice um side of the business. When a lead comes through, it goes and it'll call them and it'll make sure that they're following through your funnel, which is a I mean, in our business, that's that's the most important thing. It started as like the text platform and stuff like that, which is great. There's a whole bunch of other features in there, but that's definitely the one that's making a huge difference. Um, there's other ones that we've looked at. I mean, voice voice call centers, they're the ones that are taking off. So everybody's probably heard of Air AI. So we work closely with Air AI. Um, they've done an amazing job. People have their pros and cons of it. There's other tools out there that do similar things. Um, but I mean, they're they're definitely one of the first to the to the market. Um, customer service stuff, there's a ton of tools out there. Um, we've developed one internally where it's like uh like a customer service bot on your website. We've also taught it to um sell as well. So when we work with a client, it's like what's the objective you want these customer service agents to push to, whether it's book a call or um, I mean sell a product and stuff like that. And those are the additional nuances you can use with these automations in AI, because typically a customer service agent for a business is only going to do the customer service. But we can do both with AI now.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

That that's an interesting use case. So for those who may not be familiar with what's possible with some of these chat bots, give me kind of like what what that experience is like and what's occurring in that interaction with a client.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

I mean, the the easiest one. So typically how we set up the ladder, it's like you go to a website and there's a widget that pops up in the bottom corner. I mean, these they've been around for a long period of time. It's like you communicate back and forth with them and I'm asking you questions on your business. Like that's that's usually the cool thing with it, it's real-time uh language change. So it's like if somebody comes in and they speak any sort of European or any sort of like let's say Chinese or Japanese, wherever it may be, it can real-time change, which is massive opportunity for businesses to now expose themselves to um different markets that they may not, and that comes on the demand side that we focus on. If for some reason the customer service chat couldn't deal with a question, it gets pushed up and then can push them to a voice AI. And then if the voice AI can't solve it, it'll push it to an actual human. And these are the connections through the automations, and then once the human and once the human answers it once, it gets pushed into your data center, which then it pushes it back down to the it learns it. And that's where the the 70, 90, 120 comes in.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yes, and that's a pretty standard thing that you guys are doing with those chatbots.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah, I mean, like everybody needs, I mean, for me at least, I think everybody's customer service can be better. Like the the bet, like that's some of the biggest feedback that most businesses get. Um, for myself, like I'm a big Apple user. It's like I think they have some of the best customer support that's out there. I mean, they've built that brand for a reason, and that's just kind of how we look at it. And if we can take that small burden off a business and then give them that feedback from their consumers, like, well, your customer support was amazing. I'm gonna continue to come back and buy it because that word-of-mouth marketing is more powerful than just that cold paid paid traffic. So again, it comes back to the fulfillment and the demand side.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

So with these bots, and I know that you guys do something a lot more sophisticated with your clients, but are there tools out there that somebody can just go and load up a bot in 30 minutes and throw in some customer service transcripts and have first pass?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Um, at the top of my head, I could I can't name one because we I mean we've been focused on R. So we've developed some other tech. We've developed our own stuff in that aspect. So um we've also got um some additional technologies where we can go and we can scrape basically every all the information on your website and upload it into a customer service bot almost instantly and put the widget on your website. So we've got that aspect, and that's kind of just an additional bonus that we give to our clients. It's like we're gonna one improve your customer support. We've got all the information here because it it comes back to we don't have anybody in our team to be able to give you the information or um be able to provide that. So it's like we've created the tools so they don't have to worry about finding that person to get us what we need. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So I I want to talk about this wish list idea because I think that's a great for any business out there. Where do your pain points? What do you want to fix? Right, that's a great place to start. So typically, as you guys are working on these, um working through this wish list for your clients in those 90 days, what types of contribution is it making as far as like time saved or percent, you know, cost less this much less to execute that product?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

The the estimate that we've estimated, and again, it's an approximate approximate. So each co pilot, again, so each automation and AI that we set up for a business, again, just using the customer service aspect of, we believe we can save upwards about fifty thousand dollars per year. Per co-pilot for a business. So quite

Saving Time and Money in Customer Service

SPEAKER_01 23:42

a quite a bit of money because once we get all these departments set up, you don't need to add more people to your business, which is the real the real cost constraint to it. So it's like once we get them set up, sure there's some heavy lifting in the beginning where the cost to get these things set up between, but after that, then it just runs, which is which is great. So you've just got like maintenance fees on your servers or um something goes down, you need to bring in a developer to do this, but we've got all that stuff internal. So again, you don't have to worry about it. So it's like the heavy lifting in the beginning, and then after that, it's super smooth, and then you see the growth of your business while also saving money on the back end. So that's that's typically what we've estimated about $50,000 per year per copilot that we set up.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

And customer service in particular is one of those areas high churn, um critical because it's customer facing and onboarding. All those things in customer service end up being a reason why AI is certainly a place to get started with that. So with this bot in place or this this type of tech in place, I don't have to worry about churn nearly as much unless one of my seniors you know dips out. I don't have to worry about oh, that huge promotion just it was a hit. We're getting overwhelmed in customer service. Beautiful. So as far as um other processes where the the bots might not be included, is there a general pattern or trend that you're seeing in a company's um production cycles increasing? Like, like are there any type of numbers or stats that you might feel comfortable that a small business person could say, is putting this effort worth blank percent increase?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Um yeah, I mean, those numbers are tough because it really it's really subjective to the business. Um, and that's why we try and use like, okay, well, this is what we believe we can save, what that percentage is for your business. Um, but there's little things in behind the scenes that it's it's again, it's hard to justify what that is. So we've got something that will actually grade your leads in your CRM system so it can revive some leads and stack them properly, that you can sell them more products. Some may be dead, some may not be. So it's actually we've created a lead grader. So it's like we want to help on the demand side. You're getting all these leads. Let's structure them and grade them properly using AI, which technically businesses don't really do that if they do it at all. That could increase a huge amount of profit and time into your business. Because you don't necessarily need to call somebody who's just not gonna be there or who's fake, or maybe just a bot or something like that. So there's a time savings, and um uh it's just yeah, it's a very hard subjective number to put a percentage in right now. Um, but I mean there's just little things like that that make a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So for somebody that was gonna DIY, yeah, right, and kind of kind of replicate the the process that you've just explained here, beyond the wish list, what's the what would be the next step that you'd recommend for them?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I mean, working with us, I mean, it's it's up it's up to them. It's like we that's the the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

If it was somebody who, I mean, you guys, for what you do, you deservedly charge a premium. And there's gonna be individuals out there who are like they got the FOMO, right? They want to start using AI, but they're not at a mature enough point in that education cycle to be able to engage with somebody like you. So let's say your neighbor was like, hey, you know, what should I do in my business? I think the wish list is a fantastic idea. But beyond that, what would you tell your neighbor to do if he was interested in putting AI in this business?

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Doing the the plug for my business partner, go and like truthfully, go and watch Matt Farmer AI. And then even the people yeah, tool awareness is is the big thing. Um, a handful of the people that he's following as well is some of the some of the top other influencers in the space as well. Um, for us, it's just like if you're not willing, if you're not at the point to work with somebody like us or another business service business that's out there, just starting and using something is most important. One of the best things that we did in the early days is if you're doing sales calls or even your internal training or uh internal meetings, fathom.video is the name of the tool and it records your team calls. There's other tools out there, but using those and then taking the transcriptions and putting it into AI, whether it's like let's just call it ChatGPT, and creating a proposal, creating an internal SOP training, something like that, it's getting your your hands wet into the uh into the industry with great basically

Streamlining Sales

SPEAKER_01 28:28

little to no cost.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah. And it's something you're gonna be doing anyway.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

It's not like you have to think up a use case for yeah, because like if you need to train more people, like you don't want to completely automate your business over time, fine. But if you're using these recordings with your team, you can take this information and train people faster based on previous calls that you had, and AI can help break that down for you.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

So I want to shift gears a little bit because this is about using AI at work, and there's no question that you use AI at work. Define your role and title with your company. Let's start there.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

So I deal with a lot of the partnerships, the sales, the project management. Um, Matt's more on the integration and the plan building side because he's in the technologies. And then we've got another guy who works with the development team on the implementation. But that's kind of how our uh our core team kind of works through the uh our own funnel. But no, I deal with most of that front-end partnership, the legal, all that, all that uh sort of aspect.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Okay. I think a lot of those uh hats are being worn by entrepreneurs who are listening to this or people that are in a role in a company.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

The funny thing as well is like Matt's very technical. And um, so we joke around on calls, is like I also become his translator because I can take it and I can take his brain and come up with some sort of analogy or breakdown. It's like, okay, this person now understands it.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

So for somebody in your role who's dealing with partnerships and the marketing and the sales and that sort of thing, what are some ways that you're finding yourselves regularly using AI, generative AI at least, and getting more out of less effort?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Well, the one is um building proposals for businesses, taking recordings. Great idea. Um helping build out our plans and stuff like that. So we record the calls because you can forget what's on a call, so we can go back and we can look at it, and then we can put it into AI. It's like we've also created like our own directory of tools. So it's like we go through, it's like, okay, this company needs this, this, and this. AI goes into our directory, finds the relative information, and then helps plan it based on their business, and then we give it to the development team to spec out the technologies. It's like so there's that aspect in the internal and behind the scenes, and taking it from sales to implementation as quick as possible, like we were saying, speed to lead. Um, yeah, that's probably the biggest one. Um, we're like we we're marketers first, which I mean, what we're doing. So, what we're actually in the process of doing, and this one's really exciting. So, Matt was one of the best media buyers that I've ever met my entire life. So, over the next year, we're gonna be training his brain to be able to become a media buyer for your business. So, you don't so you don't necessarily need to hire the high-ticket agency. Yeah, and the thing is with these AI media buyers, it runs 24-7, 365, and it will understand trends, nuances, and stuff like that that a human may not ever understand. So we're gonna take his brain, yeah. And those are just tools in behind the scenes that we're just continuing to train so we can give them to our um into that AI in a box platform that we're building.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

You know, you've mentioned uh a couple of times the proposal example. Yeah. And for anybody who's generating proposals, I mean, I know that there's software out there, not necessarily AI-powered software, but there's tools to help you do it the old way. So in a granular level, kind of walk me through what the new way looks like. Ring ring. Hi, Jeff, I'm interested in your services. You have the call, then what happens?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Um, take the recording. I mean, you download the recording, and then you put it into AI. It's like, okay, here we've just sent you the proposal.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

This is what you don't even bother with with the transcript. You just take the audio file into the it put it into AI.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

So you take the transcript. No, so the the the fathom dot video transcribes the whole video, but it would be like Matt spoke at this point, Chris spoke at this point, Jeff spoke at this point. So again, it can pick those things up uh in the transcription, and then from there, it's like it's now you got to prompt the AI properly. So uh just a very quick example is take this recording and break down the wish list of the clients to the tools that we have, and then close it out essentially. It'll spit out the whole thing, you review it, make maybe make some edits, and then you send it off to the client. So you can do that within 15 minutes, if even if that after a call, because now they're excited and confused or the fear, whatever it may be at that point, yeah, to kind of get them across, get them across the line. Because we because we have the development team as well. It's like sending Stripe invoices or QuickBooks or whatever tool you may use to collect payments. We also just created a website with a customized link. So depending on the business, the prices could vary. So it's like we just go back in in our own CRM system, we type in the user's name, we put in their proposal, it has a price point to it, and then it's a basically a custom link for them that they can check out on. And then it puts them into our whole system. It puts us into their CRMs, it puts us into their project management, and then it starts building their customer profile so we can now continue to build this using AI.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

So you started with call, and by the time the AI and automation

Processes & Scalability

SPEAKER_00 34:03

process is done, you've now started to build a profile in the CRM, the proposal. So I and I know that you're doing these regularly. So does that mean that you have a specific prompt that you've calibrated for taking that transcript and giving you the output the way you want it?

SPEAKER_01 34:20

I mean, we're we're always we're always testing it. It's like it's good for the copy and paste prompt. Um, it's getting to the point where we don't even need the prompt like to create those proposals anymore because the the conversations that we're having are just like more direct to the business. It's like then because we were doing that in the beginning, as like now it's like if people come to our website, they fill out a form, so it's qualifying them. Then now what we're doing is we're taking that form and pre-building a qualification um profile in the CRM and then learning about them using AI before we get on the sales call, so then we can close quicker, and then we can set up that link to close them just right on the call.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

So, Jeff, I would imagine, and you've been sending proposals for years, probably, right? Yeah. What what what was the turnaround time prior to you getting adept with the tools for a proposal?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Um, I mean, a lot of the time, at least what we were doing it continue continuously, is like I'll get it to you by end of day. So I mean, that that's typically where we were. Um, some people could take longer, some people have like their own processes, like, well, we'll send it to you in three days if you'll so it looks like our our pipeline's really full and we're busy, like whatever the tactic, whatever the tactic may be, but call it end of day, and now it's just like get it off your plate as quick as possible before that next call, then you don't have to worry about it. And you can do it within that five, five, ten minutes, really, once once it cut becomes fluid.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Oh my gosh. How much more business do you think? I mean, you can obviously handle more input now. How much more business do you think that that's gonna yield you guys because you've you're able to process more, turn around more? Because I look, I've I've created proposals before, they're not my favorite activity. They're a payment. It wasn't a 15-minute endeavor, right? It was like uh it was gonna take till the end of the day because that's how long it was gonna take me to put everything together. So obviously, this is saving you hours for each proposal now.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah, I mean the the proposals is one thing, but it's it's pushing it right through our systems, building profiles to get right to the development team on the implementation side. So there's a whole bunch of little things in behind the scenes because we're building this to replace ourselves because if we do that, we're no longer a service and we have a scalable business. And like a lot of businesses or let's just say agencies, they're good at running traffic for other businesses, but they can't grow their own. Or it's like you don't have enough time to build your own because you're spending it on the clients. So it's like we kind of reversed it where it's like it's gonna be extremely hard for us in the beginning, setting up all these processes, building all these technologies, connecting all these automations, but like once we get it set, we're not even gonna be really needed to run the highest quality um automations and AI for your business. And it's like, because if we can do that for ourselves, the scalability of reselling that is I mean, I mean, there's really no limits to it.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Infinite. So outside of the proposals, what are some other areas that you're commonly finding yourselves compressing time using the tools?

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Um, building out the plans is a is another one. It's it's a lot of content stuff right now, um, because we're so close to our and we want to stay super close to our clients as much as possible. Um, building out the technologies, just making things work properly. It's a lot of content distribution aspect of it. Um, some of the stuff. So we also like X Agency is the mother company, but we own X creative, X Development. And then once we continue to build out down the line, we also own X Marketing. So the creative side, so creating, taking um long-form content, say something like this this um this recording here is using there's a um a tool called Opus Opus Clip, I believe, where it will create shorts with it. So it's like you can use AI to create the shorts, but then you should send it to a developer or not a developer, an editor, just to kind of like make sure everything's correct, like that quality assurance side. So that's another aspect that we're using. Um, and then the video translation. So one thing that we're doing with a lot of businesses is doing um multi-language video translations for their content, which is which is just massive.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah, that I mean, I it's it's an obvious low-hanging fruit, right? Especially with the tools, because they can knock it out. I mean, in the snap of a finger, you've got a Spanish version, a Chinese verinch. For your clients that are doing that, have you gotten any data points as far as like has that how much that has increased their business or opened up new markets for them?

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Open up new markets, yes. The for how long we've done it for to give a relevant number for it. Um, because they're learning it's like, okay, we want to be in the Chinese market. It's like, okay, now you've got to, we've got to also set up the rest of the business in behind the scenes to be able to support the Chinese market. So yes, it can it can support other languages, but people just got to be careful. It's like you've also got to set up the fulfillment in those other languages as well. Um, but it's just

Mastering Marketing & Automation

SPEAKER_01 39:25

the the opportunity for people to know that it's there is where the excitement working with clients is like we've we've just capped a North American market, we believe. It's like, okay, well let's let's let's go overseas.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Yeah. Yeah, let's try Spanish.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

See what happens. So that's one of the things that we're we're working on with not working on, but we've certainly it's on the list of things to do for our course. And I was curious if because it's such a simple thing. I mean, this makes the the solopreneur or whatever, like all of a sudden, they've now got international distribution as a possibility that they could handle, you know, on Saturday afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Because we go to like we look where for experts in their field, again, whether it's sales or like customer support or like content creation, and we take them and we look at them as the prompt engineers. So we figure out relationships with these people, connect them to the tools, because a lot of the time these tools out there as well, they may not be experts in the field, they're engineers. They know they've seen a product market fit, but they've haven't trained their own technology to deliver the best output from experts in their in their industries. And that's why that uh prompt engineers are getting paid so much money. So we try and connect those dots in behind the scenes. So when a customer or client comes through, they're getting the smartest minds on delivering content creation with the best technologies without having to speak to either.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

You know, man, you you mentioned a word uh that might be intimidating to people. Anytime engineer is involved in a title, people like me are thinking, you know, no, I'm not a math guy or whatever. So but you also were stating earlier that with those proposals, you don't need some masterful prompt. Are the models able to take that kind of like conversational input and give you close to the output you're looking for?

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yeah, I mean, and this is where trying like going and buying prompts from these gurus. I mean, like it's we believe it's a complete waste of time because it just doesn't necessarily work specific for your business. So using the proposal aspects, it's like you take the transcription and just ask it a simple question. Take this transcription and yeah, it's very simple. And if it's not right to your your perfection, just ask it another question or ask it something slightly different and just continue that process until what it gives you is what you want. And it can be very, very simple.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah, it's an important point because new users we don't encounter as many as we used to because adoption is high, but new users would be like, Well, I tried it. And when you when you kind of dig in, you'd say, Well, tell me about you tried it. They tried to use it like Google, right? Like they would ask it, ask it a question or something, but they weren't giving it a command.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

And what you're doing is you're taking that input of the transcript, but you're giving it commands, and that's it's it's good to know that you don't need to be an engineer to command the models to get you close enough.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

No, you don't need to get into the engineering stuff until you really start training your data specifically, but taking information from past content or like recordings and taking because they've given you that information and putting it into something like Chat GPT. I mean, you don't you don't need to have an engineering background to be able to start benefiting yourself using AI.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Great point. No excuses, folks.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

No excuses.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

A lot of times, just for personal interests, I like to I like to ask a question, and that is where do you find out about news or things that are happening in the marketplace? But in your case, with a business partner who's cycling through 500 tests of tools per year, um that's kind of an unfair advantage. Are you guys finding we we have uh uh some basic software that that we include with our training? Um and what we've what we're seeing is that as we're out there in the marketplace, like we have this vision of what our product is, right? But as we're out there in the marketplace, we're like they're not an exact copy or they're not an exact copy, but ooh, I like that piece of functionality. Ooh, I like that piece of functionality. Has that broad spectrum of visibility you've had on tools, has that informed the software development on your side or the functionality development?

SPEAKER_01 43:53

It it has because like Matt reviewing the tools, it's like he because I mean he does promos for them, so people do pay him for some of these promos for sure, but there's a lot of tools that he reviews just because he likes the tools. Um, but we've created like partnerships with them. So it's like now we work with these people. It's like, okay, so content creation, this is the tool that we use. So it's like it's in our ecosystem now, which again gives us that competitive advantage, even for our clients. And we don't see um anybody who's doing it as in-depth as us, like there's other automation agencies out there, but yeah, we're mark we've been marketers. I developed the first chat bot on Instagram five years ago, um which I mean put me into this conversational marketing industry, I mean, a long time ago. Um, we built out a development team over the years, so it's like we're marketers, we built out the development team, and then Matt having that competitive advantage reviewing these tools. It's like some people may have one or two, but we've got all three. So we can help businesses again on the fulfillment and the demand side with complete knowledge in every industry.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

You know, this is a great tip for any business out there. Look, certainly go to Matt's and do the shortcut, you know, who not how. You don't have to go through 500 tools, but somebody on your team should be regularly, even if it's like five

Creating Role-Specific Benefits

SPEAKER_00 45:15

minutes, 10 minutes on a coffee break, should go and start testing these tools and with the filter of how do I use this in my business, how do I use this in my role, how does somebody else on my team use this in their function? So I'd never consider the strategic advantage of massive tool evaluation.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

It i I mean, it is. And like even for him, like he can't keep up, it moves, it moves so fast. But Yeah. Um, with with it is like not necessarily just test tools out. It's like if you're in a specific department, find a tool that can help you in your specific role. Because then you're you're more obligated to stick with it. So it's like, again, I'm in customer support. It's like work or I'm in sales. It's like find some tools, like I was just saying, that help you with that, and then start expanding it through the actual team itself and have your other team members do similar things. It's just find tools specifically for your role that help you in that aspect and then give it to everybody else once you've figured it out.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

You know, in my personal experience, I look at a lot of tools as well. I find that the learning curve for getting extracting value from those tools is almost instant. So none of these have major like software has changed, let's put it that way. It's not nearly as challenging.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

It really it's not as challenging. It does not cost as much anymore because with AI and automations, like you can build out some really powerful um infrastructures for your business specifically. Um, and we do it, we do it all the time for clients. I mean, like we've we've had the experience we can do things a little bit quicker, but also and what I really like it's the collaboration aspect of a lot of these tools and uh technologies is massive. Like because I like a tool may be building voice, AI, but there's a whole bunch of technologies that we may be building that we can leverage each other's technologies to grow together. With like back in the day, it's like if I'm a marketer, I'm selling this tool, I'm selling this business. You try and keep everything hush hush because yeah, I mean somebody's just gonna come in and steal it from you. So the collaboration what we've seen right now with AI has been has been amazing. And it's just it's really nice to work with a um a lot of different teams that just have the same interest in mind.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

You know, one of the things that comes up a lot going back to your clients, um there's the whole AI is gonna take my job. Yeah, I don't know if the sentiment is as strong as it was earlier in the year, or it may be stronger. I don't have data on that, but it is for somebody who me, me and you, we're in it, right? Like it's it's not it's not scary anymore. But for uh a business owner that maybe they're not a mark like an online marketing agency that's that's familiar with using new tech and all that kind of stuff. Are you finding that when you go to talk to your clients that that there are people within the organizations who are fearful of what's happening with your coming on board and doing your 90-day plan?

SPEAKER_01 48:18

So we always tell people AI is not fully autonomous, not right now. It's a co-pilot. So we can help your business get connected to AI. We still need those humans there to do the quality assurance behind it. So it's like we're not here to replace you, we're here to enhance your specific role using AI. So it's like instantly, it's like, and that's what we're trying to do because AI is not here to do that yet. It's just not gonna happen. Um, so I mean, we've got with it's just I mean, removing that fear from people and just being honest about it. I think that's the the biggest thing with it. It's like people are trying to do the the fear of God selling. It's like if you don't, if you don't use AI, you're gonna be replaced. It's like it's I mean, it's a load of crap, I think, right now. Yeah. Um, but I mean, I get the selling tactic for some, um, but it's a stigma that's in in the industry for sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

So a business owner shouldn't necessarily be concerned about the the change management responsible, especially if they got a small team, if they can come in there and position the narrative that hey, this is gonna start doing the stuff you don't like doing anyway.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

That's that's exactly it. Um and what what AI can do is if like Chris, you're in you're in sales, and like it can tell us, well, Chris, you suck at sales, but you you think you could be really good at content creation. So it's gonna start having those, it's gonna start having those um those conversations for not only yourself, but for the executives or the management on the team. It's just like because it's emotionless. It's just like Chris, you suck. You need to be on content creation. Meanwhile, it's like you're here. Yeah, it's like it, but and you know in the back of your head content creation is where you want to be, but you're you've always been worried about telling your executive team. So I'm just gonna do that for you. And it just moved it, it'll just move team members around within their organism. I think the only people who are gonna get replaced are the people who don't adopt.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

No question. Yeah, there's a quote from Diamandis. I think we might have talked about this, but in one of his interviews, he said at the end of the decade, there'll be two types of companies those that are AI enabled and those that are extinct.

unknown 50:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

So so internally with your organization, obviously,

Integrating AI into Company Operations

SPEAKER_00 50:32

not everybody is an engineer or a marketing expert or a sales expert. So as far as like your operational team and your administrative team, are they engaged using the model in their jobs?

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Yeah, everything, everything that we do with our team, it's like we're we're implementing AI in again, operations, admin, sales, stuff like that. We're we're plugging it in because we're truthfully trying to replace ourselves to an extent because the quicker we can do that for ourselves, the easier we can resell that system to um other businesses and then give that time back to the businesses as well. Because there's a lot of there's every business has like similar overlaps. Like there's there's sales, admin, like operate, like there's there's the similar there, there's a ton of similarities with okay, well, this person uses this CRM system and this project board, whatever it may be. So it's like that's kind of where the um we're figuring it out right now, just working closely with the clients.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

For the non-tech people in your company, did you mandate, hey, you guys got to start using this, or did they see others getting wins and start to use it themselves? What was that adoption like?

SPEAKER_01 51:42

A little bit of both. I mean, I do believe we've got a very high technical team. It's like we it's I'm trying to even think. Like yeah, I'm gonna say like we've got a pretty high technical team. So getting them integrated into some sort of AI, it's like we're also the team members, like we don't want to micromanage, so but we need our team members, so even on the creative side, like on the ex creative um department, it's like we get that you guys are editors and you used to make all this money doing hourly work, but you need to use AI because we can bring you more clients. It's like then you just do smaller things, so it's more of you need to use AI because we need the cost to be around here, so then we can sell it. So it's kind of like a forceful without micromanaging type aspect as well. And then they come back to us, it's like, okay, we've we've done it, we figured it out.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Nice. So what's next for you guys? I know the software's in development, and is there an ETA? I know it's tough to depending on how close you are to launch, but is is there an ETA where people would be able to get access to it? Because it sounds like it might be the who, not how, for people to be able to get access to this.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

There, I mean, the thing is like it could for I'm exaggerating, but it can happen overnight with technologies being released. Because again, we're not developing a ton of um additional proprietary like tools where it's just like the content creation. Like we're we're building the in behind the scenes, the stacking, stacking it, but the technologies we're building is gonna make it so simple for businesses to fulfill and demand on the business like we're talking about. Um, getting that built out. I mean, there's no approximate um ETA because it's we're we do our 90s 90 day sprints as well. Like we we build our own plans, we go through the same cycle that we go with our clients. So we're hoping to have some sort of aspect of it within the next 90 days, but it could come sooner. But it doesn't mean that people can't get access to it, it's just they're working a little bit closer with us at more of that enterprise service right now. So, like because all of our clients are using our AI operating system. And for us to um give that example, and my analogy aspect is like if you've got an iPhone or you've got a Samsung, it runs on an operating system. It's like then you download the apps, which are the additional tools, but everything runs seamlessly on your Apple um operating system in that aspect. So when you come to our platform, you're gonna run on X agency's operating system, but we're gonna make it super easy for you to use these tools, and then it's gonna run your data for you.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

So the intention is that this becomes a self-serve, like I could go sign up at when it's ready, go to X agency, download the tool, and start my own configuration, but powered by your AIOS.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Very cool. Well, I can't wait till that comes out, man.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Yeah, we're I mean, we're super excited for it.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Any tease could be any day, you said.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Yeah, I mean, like realistically within the next 90 days isn't realistic because like we do like working with our clients right now and we're really building that enterprise value. Um, and it's gonna make like every tech company that we've built and I've built in the past, it's been bootstrapped based on the customer service aspect and creating that feedback loop. Because I do believe a lot of people start developing tools and technologies thinking they know what consumers want, but they have no idea. They spend so much money in different in different feature sets. It's like, well, don't do that, don't develop that. So it's it it's kind of taking your time, but also not too much time because AI moves too quick.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Yeah. I'm I'm guilty of I know what they want. We talked about this on our first call, actually. So well, cool, man. I know that you're in Vegas, uh, it's business. And I know that you also have uh lots of things to do to run this busy company. So for the people that want to find out more about and just pay attention to what you guys are doing and the thought leadership that you're just displaying in the the marketplace, we've talked about Matt's uh TikTok and Twitter channels. Um, is there any other place where people can find out about Xagency or what you guys are doing?

SPEAKER_01 55:55

I mean, the the lowest hanging fruit is just to the website. It's just xagency.ai. Uh pretty straightforward that aspect. We've got a whole bunch of information on there. It actually talks about Matt's

More About Jeff and XAgency AI

SPEAKER_01 56:06

education side. It kind of speaks about the plans and everything that we do. Um, if I mean if you've people got questions, I mean you can reach out to me. Instagram is probably the best bot, just Jeff.mcpherson. And if you want to look at some content and really start uh getting your feet wet with the educational side, Matt Farmer AI. Just one word, no, no dots or anything in between across all socials.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

Nice. Yeah, I I subscribed to his uh Twitter feed after you told me that he was doing tool reviews. I love it. Matt's a great guy. Jeff, thanks so much for being on the uh podcast today, and I look forward to doing a lot of exciting things with you in the future.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Yeah, thanks for having me on, Chris. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

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