I recently built our company’s CRM, the system that ties our websites, phones, text messages and marketing together in one place. Every CRM we tried over the years never really fit the way our company works, so I finally built one. I never could have done that before, because I wasn’t great at coding. AI made it possible.
I’m not telling you that because the software is the point. It isn’t. What I noticed was what actually made it work. AI wrote a lot of code, but it didn’t know our company. It didn’t know which problems mattered, where the work tends to break down, or what a good answer looks like in our business. I knew those things because I’ve spent years living with them. The tool supplied the technical ability I didn’t have, and my experience supplied everything else.
Experience plus AI
That’s what I think a lot of experienced owners are missing. We’re in a period where your experience plus AI can greatly increase both your profits and your abilities. The knowledge you’ve built up running a company, the kind that used to stay in your head because you didn’t have the skills or the money to turn it into something, can now become a working tool. Of course that makes experience more valuable, not less.
Most of the time, honestly, my reaction to AI is relief. It makes my life easier. But I’ve also had to learn what it’s good at and what it isn’t, where it causes problems, and how to use it so it actually gives me more of my own time back and makes the time I do work more productive. That learning came from using it, and I don’t know another way to get it.
Why owners don’t see it
I don’t think a lot of business owners understand what AI can do right now, and usually it’s because they’re too involved in the day-to-day operations of their company to look up. Ask a plumber what AI can do for him and he’ll ask what it’s going to do to fix a septic system or a drain. That’s a fair question, and it’s the wrong one. AI isn’t going to fix the drain.
I’ll also be fair about this. Not everybody needs it. A small-town plumber doesn’t necessarily need AI. It would make his life easier, for sure, but it isn’t a deal breaker for him, and I’m not trying to sell anybody on it.
The pace is the real issue
What I think owners underestimate most is the speed at which things are changing. If you aren’t at least aware of what is going on and how fast it’s moving, you can very easily end up behind the eight ball. That doesn’t mean you have to rebuild your company around it this year. It means you should know enough to make that decision on purpose instead of having it made for you.
I don’t want to overstate the opportunity, either. How long the advantage of experience plus AI lasts depends on how long it takes AI to get to the next level, and nobody knows that. So the point isn’t that you’ve found a permanent edge. The point is that right now the thing you already have, years of knowing your business, is worth more than it used to be, and it would be a shame to leave it sitting in your head.