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Hello and welcome to the show. In my earlier recording today, I spoke about how you can use artificial intelligence for business growth and development, particularly if you are at the ideation stage or if you've achieved product market fit or you're at the stage where you're trying to grow the business. So today I want to flesh out another example about how you can use artificial intelligence to grow your business. That is beyond what other business commentators are saying about artificial intelligence and how it's going to have drastic implications for society, people's jobs, things like that.
So while people are out there, you know, naysaying and doomsdaying and being scared, I figure that people in our own situation, what we have to do is be much more proactive in taking advantage of all these advancements in technology. And the first thing that we should try to do is to figure out how we can use it to advance our own agenda. And so that's pretty much the focus of today's episode, how we can use artificial intelligence to grow the business.
And today I'm going to be examining a specific use case scenario about how you can use artificial intelligence. Now, one way that we can use AI in the business and remember, especially for those of you who listen to the previous episode, when I say artificial intelligence, I'm talking specifically of those ones that are large language models. So I'm talking about charge, GBT, Google Gemini, What's that? Microsoft one?
Microsoft something? OK, well, my the Microsoft one basically is just charge GBT under a different cover. Then there's what else? What else? What else? And I'm sure you can tell I only use the free stuff, the only the free stuff. So there's freed option free options, there's paid options. But anyway there's in my own opinion, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with the free. You can take the free, push them as far as possible, and then because of defects you can now move on to something else.
So when it comes to graphic design for my posts, I'm still using the the design functions for Bing. Some people say it has limitations because of this, limitations because of that, and so they use something else. But The thing is, I don't have a design background. So whatever I use Bing to design something that I'm going to promote a post on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, it looks fine to me. And I don't have a professional background.
So maybe if I did I'd be able to say this is lacking, this is lacking. Maybe I should do this instead? Maybe I should do that instead. So that should be the philosophy that you take to these technologies. But summary, I'm talking about the free stuff mostly and the the stuff that is that are large language models. So in other words, you type in a bunch of texts and then you get a result. So that's what I'm talking about.
Now this is the scenario. OK, so for those of you who've been listening to the show for a very long time, you know that I have stopped doing wedding photography, but I still handle photography enquiries for for corporate photography. Sorry, excuse me, my voice as usual, that time of the year or rather another time of the year cause the baby is down with a cold. So yes, passed it to me as usual. OK, yeah, so wedding photography that's off the table.
I have a team that handles that well. I personally enjoy doing the corporate stuff, so I handle the the end of year parties, business seminars, what else, you know, all those sorts of things. I enjoy that kind of photography because it's candid so I can get to do my thing. That's where I really shine. That's the kind of stuff that I love. So someone reached out today for photography and for live streaming services. So they have a conference that is coming up and they want people to be able to attend from all over the world.
And they want not just for photography, but they want people to be able to view in from the UK, Abuja, Lagos, Kano, wherever it is that people might be, that people might be, you know, all the different stakeholders that they have over the world. Now, photography, that's not a problem. Issuing the code is not a problem. Because let me take a step back on the show I on the podcast I talk about how before you deliver a quote, you need to do good discovery and qualification.
Now Discovery conversations and qualification conversations are where you're trying to get a sense of who are you talking to, what problem are they trying to solve, Where are they going to? They're trying to figure out if your product and service can help them get to that promised land. And then it's only then that you've been able to figure out who they are, what they want, and you're sure that your personal service can do that.
It's only after you do that, then, then you now give a proposal or a presentation or a price quote or an invoice or whatever. You have to do the qualification and discovery first. Because if you don't, you run into this situation where a lot of us in the wedding photography game back then somebody calls your wedding this that you just give a quote. You know, you say A400KA400K sounds big to you, you know, sounds cool.
So you say 400 K they say done. Let me have your account details. They pay only for you to show up on that day, and then you realize that that 400K you took is not adequate because you're going to need three more photographers because of the crowd and maybe because of the ideas that they have for the photo shoot. You'll need somebody else to cover the event while the event is going on because the portrait session, that portrait sessions that they've lined up are going to take too long.
So basically you're going to need more hands. And maybe after you collect the 400 K, you now discover that they had two albums in mind. Well, what you had in mind was one album. So these are the sorts of problems that happen when you don't run qualification and discovery before you give a quote. So it's absolutely essential. Now some of you might not realize the importance of this because maybe you run service businesses, service companies.
And so if you over price or rather if you under price, it just means you need to spend an extra hour doing the designs or an extra hour doing this or doing that. So maybe you don't feel it as much. But for people who have businesses where you put in a time component and then you put in deliverables component, so for the wedding photographer, you put in your time and then you don't have to deliver A-frame or an album. You know, these things are kind of costly because it doesn't just take an hour of your time or two hours of your time.
It actually takes 10s of thousands of naira or hundreds of thousands of naira out of your pocket. And that's really painful. So back to what I was saying. Now this lady, they want photography and they want live streaming services. Now, because of my background in photography, giving the quote for photography is not a problem because I know the kind of qualification questions to ask because I've been doing photography for more than a decade and 1/2 so I know exactly the kind of questions to ask.
So I handled that conversation smooth no problem. However, for live streaming services, it's not something that I supply myself, but I have a crew that I subcontract that too. For some reason I've noticed that whenever I want to subcontract services, it's like the lots of guys that I work with. I don't know if it's if it's a Nigerian thing or maybe they're trying not to overstep their boundaries or something, but I'd rather have them handle the whole call.
But they're not really confident doing the whole thing. So I end up having to do the qualification and discovery myself, getting to the bottom of what, getting the whole scope of the of the project. I do that bit myself with a client and then later on and I'll sit down with the crew and then we now hash out what needs to be done before I deliver the quote. So this is for live streaming. We've only done one successfully so far which we did last year at an end of year event.
So it's not the script is something that I haven't internalized yet. There's not something I know of had to ask what I mean I don't know it off head you know what questions to ask so that I don't give a quote that puts us now in trouble. You know. So I don't just take a job and then say OK the bill is 1.5 and then we now show up on that day only to figure out that executing it is going to cost maybe 1.3. And so you know from the beginning we're already in trouble.
So I did what I have been advising you guys to do over here on the podcast, which is I pulled up my trusted friend and his name is Gemini. Google Gemini or her name. OK, her. I think it's her. Gemini sounds more like a female name. So I pulled up my phone. I opened Google Gemini. My good old friend and I decided to to ask her a question. So I gave her the lay of the the lay of the land. So I told her I told her Gemini this was going on.
I'm supposed to give a quote for live streaming services. This is the name of the organization. This is where they're doing it. This is where they're doing it. This These are the kind of attendees, these are the target audience, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Before I issue a quote, what are good discovery questions that I should ask, and what are the kind of issues that I should anticipate going into this conversation with?
And in typical fashion, he came up with a list of stuff. Some things made sense. Some things didn't make sense. But for the things that made sense, it made a lot of sense. Now these are some of the suggestions that Gemini gave me, and this is what I used as an outline for the conversation when I called the the person back because the person sent me an e-mail. Now, this is also an example about how I've been telling you guys over here on the podcast.
Yes, using e-mail and SMS and text, you know it's it's safe because you can't get rejected over face to face or over the phone. Well, you can get rejected face to face over the phone. How do I put it? OK, well, if you're rejected over text, it's a lot easier. So the prospects of making the phone call for most people are frightening. But this is the reason why I advise using the phone. If I wanted to e-mail her these things back, you know, like, OK,
yeah, we're available on that date before I give you a quote. We need an answer to these sorts of questions. And I type out the questions and then she types out the answers. You know what? Typing, typing, typing, typing, typing. Typing I think can take a lot of time. So what I did was I sent her back a message just saying that yeah cool, available on that day. Before I give you a quote I need to ask you a couple of questions.
I noticed that your phone number is in the e-mail signature. Can I buzz you on this number? And she replied. She said cool, said no Allah. So I picked up the phone and I gave her a call and sharp, sharp 15 minutes we were done. I had all the information that I needed. So you can see none of this sending message back and forth because we're doing the back and forth thing with the e-mail thing. Today is a Friday. Before you know it.
We've started this just Thursday this week. And then we'll now conclude Friday next week. Just wasting the whole week. Doing what? Sending emails back and forth. But I picked up the phone. I had a conversation with her sharply 15 minutes after that I sent the invoice. Done. Everything is finished in one day. For those of you who still want to do this whole WhatsApp thing, e-mail thing, you will now ping her. She will now respond.
You ping again, she'll respond, You ping. Maybe she's busy with the children. You won't hear anything again until tomorrow. You now ping a follow up and then she'll be like oh sorry, she will ping again and before you know it, it's Sunday and then she's now in church and then you know, ping, ping, ping, ping, e-mail, e-mail, e-mail, e-mail, you know, just pick up the phone, have the conversation sharply and then move on.
So the the suggestions that Google Gemini made is what I used as the agenda for the call. So First off, how to try and figure out the type of the event that was going on. Was it going to be a webinar? Was it going to be a launch or is it going to be a conference? You know, these sorts of things are important. So the live streaming crew, they need to know before we go in, what are we going to do? You don't ask these kinds of questions and you just give a quote.
You and the boy show up on the day and you now discover that, ah, actually it's this kind of event. We should have brought this kind of equipment. We should have brought that kind of equipment. And then there's problem. People now have to take Uber. You know, you have to run home. You have to lose. You have to do that extra cost that you didn't anticipate. So actually a very good question, you know, call her back and say, hey, what's up,
man? How you doing now? Thank you for reaching out. Yeah. So we're available for that day. And so the questions that I was talking about, what exactly is going on? Is this a launch IB as a conference? You And then you guys talk, you know, she says something. You have your pen and paper on hand. You're making notes because of course, you have to get back to the boys to tell them that this is what it is and that's how you're going to know.
How many cameras are you bringing, How many laptops are you bringing? How many mixers are you bringing? How many microphones are you bringing, you know, blah, blah, blah. So you see you have to ask all these kinds of questions. So if they say, Oh no, it's purely A webinar, you now know that cameras are out of the question. You know, see that affects your material costs. But then conference or launch, we now know that cameras are in the equation.
And then of course you ask questions about the kind of hall. So, you know, it depends. So also asked about the number of attendees, how many people are going to be virtual, How many people are going to be physical, You know, the crew, they need to know these sorts of things. Then another suggestion that Jeremy and I made was that I asked questions about the location of the presenters. And that is actually something I did not think about.
How many people are going to be presenting from Abuja, that we're going to be, that we're going to be filming with the video cameras to pass through the mixers and then throw up on the Internet. How many people are going to be calling in from Lagos or from London or from wherever? So actually it was a pretty good question to ask then. Presentation style, Is this going to be a lecture? This is going to be a panel. Is this going to be Q&A?
That's important because it determines, it determines the number of cameras that we're going to bring and the kind of setup that we're going to do. If it is a lecture, then basically it's one guy on the podium facing everybody else in the crowd. For that one, the two camera setup is going to be OK, so you can budget for that. If it's going to be a panel on the other hand with some Q&A, then it's going to be a table of five guys.
SO2 camera setups not going to work. We're probably thinking in this case more like 3 camera setup, one person left, one person right, somebody centre and then we feed it up, feed into a mixer. So can you guys see how if you don't do qualification and discovery, if you're not asking these questions about the person, the problem that they're trying to solve, the vision that they have, you can see how you can miss Rd. from the beginning.
You now go and give a presentation. Sorry, a quotation for you know, 2M maybe like AH2M. That's good money. Only for you to show up on that day and realize that all more This quote that I gave, you know I've shot us. We we shot ourselves in the foot because you need extra cameras, extra hands, maybe one more mixer or one more projector. So this is how you make sure that you don't go into any trouble. Then another question that Gemini suggested was that we try and figure.
We ask questions about the content sharing thing, How many speakers have slides, who has videos, what formats? From which end are we going to share? You know, that's actually is important because like I pointed out to this lady, I've worked with the organization before. They work purely because they're a British company. They work purely with encrypted tech, encrypted flash drives, encrypted computers, blah blah blah.
So we have been in a situation where something is supposed to move from this end, but then you have it on encrypted tech, and your encrypted tech is not going to work with our own computer, you know, that causes problems. You don't have to start brainstorming. Should we send e-mail or no. The file is too large for e-mail. Who has a flash drive that is going to work that is not not encrypted, you know, blah blah blah. All those issues.
So yeah, useful reminder there from Gemini because it's something that quite frankly, I would have forgotten to ask, you know would have gotten there on that day and I would have now remembered that I have a Madam I forgot slides and call videos, PowerPoint. You know, how good one now is it from here? Is it from there? Who has what? You know. So char GPT. Sorry, not char BT Gemini, she prompted and I asked the questions then, OK, yes.
This is also another area where Gemini became was really helpful. Gemini prompted that. I could ask if they need a recording of the whole event and then we could even upsell them on that. And that's a good conversation to have. OK, Madam, I understand. OK, this is the hall, This is the space. From what you're saying, this is my plan. This 2 camera that you are thinking is not going to work with, but now we need 5 cameras.
We're going to need pan left, pan right, somebody in the centre, one other person for audience reactions and two mixers. We can run it two mixers. So we're looking at 5 cameras and we're looking at one mixer and so that will be 5 boys on camera and then one engineer to man the mixer. So we're now looking at the crew of six boys, 4 cameras, one mixer and then I'll now be able to give a quote accordingly. So from what Gemini recommended,
after we have that conversation and we're good on that, can now say, hey sister, you know it'll be sweet if we record this thing so that people can have playback for those unable to attend the event. You know I'll be how you see him and she might say we don't have a budget for that and they let you go or she might say what you're saying actually makes sense. So because last year we did this kind of thing, members of the board, they were angry that they couldn't watch back because we're not available to see the whole thing.
How much is it going to be if apart from live streaming, we also, we also record this thing and then put it online. You know, how much will it cost us. Now you now start having an organization there and that was a brilliant suggestion by Gemini about something that we can upsell. Then of course, there were the usual questions. What platform are they using? Zoom, YouTube, Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn Live, Instagram, blah blah, blah.
Duration of the program. Internet. Who is providing Internet, who they provide? Are we going to provide, will the venue provide, you know, all those sorts of things. So those are the wonderful promptings that came from Gemini. So now you can see how just using your phone, you don't have to install nothing. These things are there and they are free. You see how you can get good qualification questions and good discovery questions before you head in for the meeting.
Before you pick up that phone call, you have an agenda, a sheet of paper 12345. Then you call up the person. You follow the agenda. You have all the information that you need. You now discuss with your boys or your girls and say, OK, this is the job. Oh, from what I've asked, this is what and what and what and what we need. How much do you think we should quote these people? And you guys can give a quote comfortably knowing that you've covered all the avenues.
So this is 1 brilliant way that you can use Google Gemini ChatGPT, Googlebot or whatever. Now, you don't have to do this all the time because after a while, I mean you're the professional. Now, if you do this thing as a business, after a while all these things become internal, so you're not going to need them on a sheet of paper, just like I did on the beginning. It's not a bad idea to pick up your assistant Gemini or your assistant charge GBT and ask your assistant or your assistant.
I'm going in for a meeting, or this and this and this and this. This is the client, blah blah blah. What do you think are good qualification questions to ask? What do you think are good discovery questions to ask? What do you think the agenda of the meeting should be? What kind of things do I need to find out from the client to make this thing work and you'll come up with a bunch of useful suggestions. Some things will be good, some things will be rubbish.
But I can assure you from the things that are going to be good, there'll be good stuff like this upsell on the recording. To be honest, I didn't even think it. I didn't think it at all, at all, at all. So that was a good one. So yeah, I'll say that's it pretty much for today. Another example about how you can use artificial intelligence to promote your business. Oh, yes, one more thing, the question of price. Now I've been suggesting over here on the podcast that there's a way you can do a trial close to make sure that you guys have the same understanding when it comes to budget.
Now in this case, luckily the the lady I was talking to was a referral from a good friend of mine in another organization, a sister organization. So this is how I had the money conversation. So I told her OK, cool. From what you we discussed so far, I think this and this and this is what we need and we can make it happen. And then I told her you know what? The ones that handled this project, the blah blah blah project, the XYZ project,
December 2023. So, so, so so did you know I'll be. And she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A Motorola told me, but I wasn't there at that event. But she told me that's why she even gave me a number. I was like, OK, good, correct. No problem. I hope you know that for that one, when we did it, we did that 700K and she said 700K. If I can approve the budget now, it's not a problem. And I told her, OK, no other. You also know that since your boy came into power, you see how the economy has been going.
That was December. Now we're in March. And then she laughed and she's saying, no problem, just send the invoice. That's OK no Allah. So I'll send the invoice today and she's OK. Cool. I'll wait to hear from you. We ended the conversation. You can see that. That is how you get a sense of whether you guys are on the same page. If I said sure you know at the XYZ event in December 1 or what Allah told you about, We're the ones that did that one.
Sure you know that what we charged was 700 per day. If she shout and she says 700, what? I now know that we don't have realistic expectations when it comes to price. And I know that this is a prospect that the thing might not click as per she hasn't done research. She doesn't know what is realistic, things like that. Now when I'm dealing with those sorts of people, I typically tell them that I typically ask a question like, OK, it's obvious I'm the first person you've called Abby.
And the person usually replies, like, yes, you're the first person I call and I say, you know what, Why don't you just go and talk to some other people, you think as if, you know, I'm trying to wind you like I'm trying to squeeze money out of you, but no problem. Just call a bunch of guys first and get a sense of what you think market value is for this sort of thing. So just take two or three days, call a bunch of folks, and then let's talk again.
And the result is always the same. They take their time, they call some people, We have the conversation again, even if we don't end up doing business together because they still think we're too expensive. At least now they have a realistic expectation because there's some people who you go and sit down with them and you tell them, Madam, this thing is 500 K and they shall do say 500K. How I'm not going to pay more than 150 if you handed like I
told them to. They go, they call a bunch of people and the cheapest person that they get is maybe 350 K At least now they know that OK, a realistic price is somewhere between 350 and 500 K, depending on the level of professional professionalization, you know and stuff like that. Then you can have a much more realistic conversation. But here this is how you can test to be sure that you guys are having realistic money conversations or that your money expectations are close, close enough for you guys to start that whole haggling thing of saying 750 OK, no 725, OK, no 73740.
You know, you need to make sure that you're starting from a realistic anchor in the 1st place. So like I say, it doesn't have to be formulaic, just keep it conversational. And in this case, this is how I did it. So the XY event that we handled for Omotola, you know you are there. But Oh no, I wasn't there. I couldn't make it. OK, cool. No, Allah Boucher. You know that for Omotola's event, what we took was 700 per day.
And she said, well, if I can approve it, why not? She didn't shout. So it means that it doesn't mean that this is a done deal. It doesn't means that the expectations are close enough. She didn't sound like it's unrealistic. And then I also let her know. Now look, when I said your boy, what I meant cause the lady I'm talking to, she's Yoruba. The president is currently Yoruba. So it's a thing. I've been bashing Yoruba people back and forth like you guys directed, elected the wrong guy.
So now all of us are suffering. So anyway that was what, you know, the whole thing was about like, look, since your boy came into power, you know how things have been. Oh, that was December now and March it can't be 700 again, you know. So yeah, that's it pretty much. OK, yeah, close to 30 minutes. So let me just bring it to a close here. This is how you can use ChatGPT. Use it. Come up with agendas. Try and figure out questions that you need to ask potential customers and clients when you're going in for a meeting the kind of information that you need before you issue a quote.
Because if you're in the kind of business that is part service and part product, like in this case, it's live streaming. You will pay boys, you will get cables, you will get microphone, you will get light, you will get mixers, you will get projector, you will get screen, you will get what else. So if you get the wrong quote, as in if you build enough for five boys, one mixer, 5 cameras, one engineer, but then you show up on that day and you actually need 10 boys, 3 mixers, 15
cameras and six engineers, you know, you really see that, you know we're hala day because it'll be hard to you guys have agreed, you've now showed up, will be hard to go and start jacking people on the event day to say no, pay me this, pay me this, pay me that. I mean, you'll resolve the quarrel, but you won't be as smooth as you thought. So that's it. Please connect with me on WhatsApp. My name is Tavishima Agyedi. I'm the host of the show.
You can confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address from the link, the link from the link that you're listening to this episode. Then also connect with me on WhatsApp. I love hearing from you guys. The phone number is 08064662140, country code +234 in case you're hitting me up from Zimbabwe or India. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.