Welcome to Small Business Mornings! I'm your host, Pat Miller, the founder of the Small Business Owners Community. Today, we're diving into the latest study suggesting that some small business owners need to act fast to stay ahead of the digital competition. We’ll be talking marketing with Lisa Raebel from Rebel Girl Marketing, sharing three big changes to the Small Business Owners Community, and presenting our Meme of the Week. Happy Monday! Let’s kick off the week with some positivity and motivation.

Our lead story highlights the impact of AI on the labor market, with a significant decrease in demand for digital freelancers in writing, coding, and social media post-production. The study indicates a 21% drop since the launch of ChatGPT, and I expect these numbers to rise. To stay competitive, move your business upstream and harness AI to boost productivity and client lists. Also, don’t miss our 4th annual SBOC conference featuring Lisa Raebel, where she’ll discuss making marketing easier. Thanks for joining us on Small Business Mornings. Talk to you next week!

Mentioned in this episode:

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AI is coming for your small business.

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And there's a study out this morning

that says it's already eating into the

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opportunities for freelancers, which I'm

translating to small business owners,

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because many of us are freelancers.

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We work with a bunch of different people.

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We don't have just one employer.

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And if you're a small business owner,

especially a certain class that I'll

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talk about in a minute, we need to

be on red alert about this because

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to me, I feel like Paul Revere, when

it comes to AI in small business.

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I'm riding through the

village with the lantern.

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AI is coming.

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AI is coming.

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Like, I feel like I'm trying to sound

the alarms for you to get with this

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program because it's getting serious.

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A new study that was released yesterday,

or at least I found yesterday, said

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the demand for digital freelancers

in writing and coding is down 21%.

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Since the launch, launch of ChatGPT,

just, just writing and coding freelancers

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down 21 percent in the last two years.

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In addition, data entry, and

this one's scary for some of you,

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social media post production.

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So helping you write your social

media posts, that category down 13%.

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But wait, it gets scarier.

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This time period that they analyzed.

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Was a two year time period.

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It goes back from like 2021 to 2023.

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So this is old data.

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The old data shows 21 percent fewer

opportunities for freelancers.

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And that's old.

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What do you think it is now?

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Way higher than that.

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And in the next 12 months, it's

going to be way higher than that.

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And why do we say that?

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And listen, I'm going to talk about

how bad this is, but then I'm going

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to give you two ideas on how you can

fight and win still as a freelancer.

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Okay.

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So I'm not going to just say

everything sucks too bad.

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I'm going to say everything

sucks, but Hey, here's some

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things you can do about it.

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Okay.

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I know that this is going to get worse

before it gets better because Right

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now, today, at my computer, I'm tippy

tapping, trying to do business stuff,

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and what does my computer say to me?

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My computer says to me, hey,

would you like help writing this?

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What about designing it?

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What about making a spreadsheet?

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What about explaining what

this spreadsheet does?

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What about creating the art for that

post, or editing, or summarizing,

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or planning, or drafting?

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All of those things are not

only available with Generative

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AI, I'm now being prompted.

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I'm on the Google platform, right?

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And now I've got Gemini pop ups.

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Whenever I need to do anything,

Gemini will literally pop up and say,

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Would you like me to do that for you?

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That's different than sitting in

your basement, Thinking about,

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I wonder if there is an AI tool

that can help me with this.

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No, no, now it's, hello, hi, do

you want me to do that for you?

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I can do that for you.

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It's changing fast.

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And if you're a copywriter, if you

do social media posts for people,

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if you help people understand

spreadsheets, this is red alert time.

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Because as I sit here to do those

tasks, it's now good enough that

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I don't need to outsource it.

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Now the subject matter experts

that are the outsource people,

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We'll say, yeah, but the AI work

isn't as good as what I can do.

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You're right.

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It's not.

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However, if I have to make 10 posts

about the conference and I tell Gemini

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to do it and it creates 10 drafts

that I go in and tweak, suddenly it's

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good enough and I don't need to hire

an outsourcer because time and money

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and your level of acceptance Is where

it's at right now and it's only going

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to get better So if you create content

for other people, you're a freelancer.

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You're a small business owner You're

an agency and you're in the business of

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making stuff for other people Telling

you you got to get busy not yesterday.

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Not tomorrow Right damn now and

I have two ideas of things you

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can do to try and avoid Basically

being driven out of business.

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Is that dramatic?

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No No, it's not.

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No It's not This is an existential

threat for you if you're a copywriter.

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Not, again, I'm going to say it again.

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Not because AI can write

as good as you can.

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I'm not being critical

of you and your writing.

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Because you're better than AI.

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I know that.

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You know that.

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But your clients that have 80 percent

of the work done, and then they

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can massage it, is it good enough?

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That hurts.

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Probably makes you mad.

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And it should.

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But that's the decision making process

your clients are going through.

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Is that good enough?

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Because when they're sitting

there doing their work, and

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they have to start from zero?

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Oh gosh, just have somebody else do it.

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But when you start from zero

and AI will take you to 80%?

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Suddenly, I don't need to hire

someone else, I'll just massage

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it so it looks good enough.

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That's what's happening right now.

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So don't get hung up on

the, I'm better than AI.

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You are, granted, but if I don't

have to hire someone to do it,

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it's pretty compelling case.

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So what can you do about it?

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Good morning, Susie.

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Good morning, Patty.

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What can you do about it?

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Two ideas.

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The first one, take your business to

Think about what you do for people

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and see if you can move one click

upstream from the work you're doing now.

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You're a writer.

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Perhaps you help people write the book.

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You don't actually write the chapters.

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Like, help them draw out

what they want to say.

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Help them establish their concepts.

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Help them package all of their

ideas into a focused 12 chapters.

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Rather than being the person

that writes the 12 chapters.

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Instead of being the person that

writes everyone's weekly LinkedIn

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posts, you're also helping them

strategize their overall message into

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a point of view that makes sense.

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You're helping them analyze

what's working and what's not.

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You're not just doing their QuickBooks,

you're also thinking about where they can

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cut costs, or whether they could invest

their money, or how they could raise

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their prices to capture more profit.

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You're putting more of your

humanity, thought, strategy,

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expertise into what you do.

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You're moving upstream, you're,

you're getting more important,

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more valuable to the client.

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By injecting your humanity

in your experience.

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This is critical stuff right now.

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And if you think, ah, this isn't affecting

my industry yet, yet, the more human you

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can be, the better you're protected and

AI is getting more human every single day.

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Now you're looking at me

thinking, damn, he's handsome.

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I get it.

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I know, but you're also looking at me

and you're thinking, He's overreacting.

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Am I, am I, if you go back on this show

and the other content I've put out 12

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months ago, I said this exact same thing.

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What are you doing to

protect your business?

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And 12 months from now, When this is

at 40 and 50 percent of the gigs are

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gone for copywriters, you'll say, boy,

I wish someone would have warned me,

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read a light red alert, lights flashing

right now, telling you, telling

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you, and it's not just copywriters,

no matter what it is that you do,

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what are you doing to be more human?

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What are you doing to

bring people together?

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And even if you think my

industry is immune, that's when

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I really want you to double down.

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and think about how you might be at risk.

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So I mentioned two strategies

that you could use to protect

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yourself in this environment.

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The first one is to move upstream

and think about how you can be more

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thoughtful and more human in what you do.

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The second one, use AI yourself.

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The quote I've used a million times

and I wish I could accredit the right

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person is AI won't take your job.

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Someone using AI will take your job.

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I think that's where we are right now.

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So doing what you do, how can you

harness the power to explode your

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productivity as a subject matter expert,

and maybe explode the number of clients

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you can support to stay relevant.

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So if today, just for example's

sake, you can carry four copywriting

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clients at a thousand dollars a month.

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But using AI, now you can take 8

copywriting clients at 750 a month.

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More clients, more revenue, more

workload done in the same amount of

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time because you are AI assisted.

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I know the artist in you is sitting

there right now saying, but AI

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sucks, I don't want to use it.

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I don't care.

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I don't care.

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I don't care.

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And I've seen this movie before.

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I'll tell you the place

that I saw this movie.

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I am not young.

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I know, I look it, but I'm not young.

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And I was a part of the last generation

of over the air radio broadcasters that

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when I started, there were people on

the air 24 hours a day, seven days a

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week in every radio market in America.

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And my generation of broadcasters oversaw

the automation of the radio industry.

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And every time a shift or a DJ was let

go and a pre recorded shift came in, the

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old timers would say, this will never

work, they're ruining the industry.

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And the listeners really didn't ever care.

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Because all it meant was better

broadcasters were on more often.

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Because you could let go of the

people that weren't good, and you

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could let go of the hours that no one

listened, and you can have really good

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broadcasters do more with technology.

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Now, me and my radio friends, who are

all over the age of 90 like me, could

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go off to a bar and argue about how

the industry's been devastated, but

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in general, people didn't care much.

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And that's kind of where we're at today.

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People really don't care.

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Take your expertise, supercharge

it with AI, get more productive,

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and be ready for what's coming.

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This is a critical issue.

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This is something we

need to be talking about.

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And you need to double check

your own ego and pride here.

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Because you might be like

these old time broadcasters.

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If you're feeling that way, that's fine.

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But the market will move around you.

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You're not that special.

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I'm not that special.

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And I'm telling this

to you as your friend.

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Because I'm trying to protect you,

and your business, and your family.

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Either move upstream with

your content and thought.

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Yeah.

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Harness the power of what's there and

be more productive and more valuable to

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the people that you choose to work with.

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Those are your two options.

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Pick one and get on with it.