Akua Konadu
Did you know that 60% of independent business owners are already using AI in their business? AI has been the most talked about topic this year, and it is not going anywhere. So today on the podcast, we are joined by Scott whiting give away to as a photographer, podcast host and Community Manager at Imagine AI. And we are just going to continue our understanding, and further the conversation about how AI can truly impact our business. So let’s get into the episode. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Akua konadu. And you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I get to sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve it too. Hey, Scott, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I’m just so looking forward to just continuing our discussion around AI.
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me on it. Cool. I mean, it’s, uh, you know, first of all, lots changing over there, which is, which is really fun and exciting. And it’s nice to see you as sort of, taken over the reins, so to speak of, of the show. It’s, it’s pretty cool.
Akua Konadu
Oh, my gosh, thank you so much. It has been such a joy. So yeah, I am. I’m excited. So this has been this has been a fun journey so far. So let’s just hop on in because they’re, you know, AI is still the bus topic, like of conversation for the year. I mean, it is everywhere you look, it is just the center of attention right now. And so I’m really curious to know, do you think that there is still a fear among business owners like with AI? Because I’ve seen a lot of things across the spectrum. So I would love to know your perspective on that.
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
I definitely think there’s a lot of mixed thoughts on from business owners. And I think it’s, it’s kind of obvious from what’s going on in Hollywood right now. Right. So obviously, that’s big picture. huge corporations, right. But there’s the fear. But there’s also the adoption, right? It’s happening on both sides. I think that people are recognizing, especially smaller businesses are recognizing that AI can truly help and enhance their businesses in many ways. But I also think at the same time, they don’t fully understand the extent of how it can help and at the same time to add on top of that, I don’t think that they truly know how to utilize the tools properly, to make the best of it. So I think it’s, there’s definitely a mixed bag of answers to that question.
Akua Konadu
I agree, though, but I there’s so many things that you just said too, because we did a survey, as well here at HoneyBook trying to get a better understanding of how business owners feel about AI and technology. And 60% of independent business owners are already using AI in their business, which is great, but only 22% are fully knowledgeable about AI and its full capabilities. And so I think it just speaks perfectly to what you just said, I think a lot of us again, it’s the wide range you have these really big things that are happening but then also to like in our everyday lives as business owners, you can really see like we’re naturally already using it no problem but I think our understanding of it is still not there. I mean I’m definitely one of those people I’m using AI I think it’s because I hear anybody else is using it so I’m like well I don’t want to be left behind so I’m gonna hop on this trend I’m guilty that’s
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
a good example of this by the way is for years I would say I don’t remember when Grammarly started but let’s say five six years right Grammarly has been around for quite some time. There’s a lot of business owners that are using a Grammarly or a word tune or any of the that type of software in their business on a day in day out basis that do not realize that’s AI. They’ve been using it for five years or however long it’s been. I have no idea that that’s AI in the back end.
Akua Konadu
You just call me out I ride or die grammerly When AI first came out, I was like I’m not using this and I had a friend sent me like are you using Grammarly? I was like, of course, they were like, That’s AI and it for me that started to change my perspective. Because to your point of like we see in the media and stuff of like all of these really big things happening with AI, like robots or you know, things in health care, you know, business owners, right? You can write scripts, it can, you know, write websites, all of these different things, but also to AI is also extremely subtle, which is what is also changing my misconception, like at HoneyBook. We have a couple of AI features. We have our AI email composer that makes things a lot quicker to send more personalized emails and and I love that feature. And so I think that also leads to a lot of the misconceptions that we may have because we see these bigger things in other areas. But if there’s AI it’s also very subtle where it can truly impact our business in such a positive way.
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Yeah, yeah, I think there’s two there’s two types. I think you just said that. Well, there’s two types of of, of of AI tools out there, there’s the AI tools that you have to seek out to use, for example, what imagined does, right, you have to specifically come to us to use it. And then there’s tools like what have HoneyBook has done, whereas you’ve embedded it so perfectly into your product, that it doesn’t feel like a chore, right? It doesn’t feel like it’s an added thing that you have to work towards, or figure out, it just naturally fits into the workflow that honey book is created. And there’s so many tools out there on both sides of the equation, that business owners can decide what works for them, what doesn’t work for them.
Akua Konadu
And I think, how do how do business owners have that discernment? Because there are a lot of products out there with AI. And, again, sometimes we can get caught up with like, Well, I’m gonna use this because it benefits this person, but it may not benefit myself. And so how do we how do we navigate with everything that’s out there all the information with AI? How do we really navigate to figure out what tools will really benefit our business?
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
That’s a great question, I think it’s a matter of seeing areas where you might need help, right? So for example, AI writing tool that’s built into HoneyBook, right, the creating, creating the emails that you’re already putting into the workflow, if you know that you are you are horrible at writing emails, then you know, you’ve got a gap to fill, whether it’s a human for to actually do the writing for you, or it’s a mixture of you editing, and improving what AI is created. Right? So you need to figure out what where your gap is of where you’re not performing the best, or the gap of where you might want to outsource to, right. So that’s where like imagined might fit in. So if you’re a photographer, for example, we know there’s a lot of HoneyBook customers that are also photographers, right. So if in that situation, if you know that I, I know that my most time consuming part is the editing and calling process of my photos, find the find the company to help with, you know, outsource, again, whether it’s human or AI, either way that can help, right? So find your gaps, and then do your research to see what software what tools are out there to fill in those gaps. And is it something that I can just pay extra to the service I’m already using? And have it beautifully integrated? And embedded? Or do I need to find something external? You can find your answer there that way.
Akua Konadu
I like that. Yeah, I think that’s a really good reminder is to look at the gaps of areas that may not be your strong suit, and find different ways to really fulfill those areas. I think that’s such so beneficial, and really will help business owners decide, like decipher of what’s going to work well for their business and what isn’t. I really liked that as well. And so another question I have is like, what do you think the future trajectory of AI is in the creative industry? Because imagine AI what you guys do is already phenomenal. I mean, as I’m not a photographer, but when I saw what you guys are being able to edit easily just edit people’s photos, no problem and save photographers. So like a large amount of time. What do you think then as AI continues to advance, like, what does that look like in the creative industry?
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Oh, man, I think we’re already seeing a big shift with what Photoshop has done as well. Right. So Photoshop, Adobe has been getting into a lot of AI but it’s not personalized AI like what imagined does, okay, it’s more, you know, the generative fill, looking at a photo figuring out what what is missing and, and filling in the gap or, or expand the photo and do it or add in a boat when there’s no boat, it’s more generative AI versus personalized AI. So I think we’re gonna see a lot more of both ends, like imagines already moving towards even more personalized features, we’re ready adding in other additional features, like we announced. I know that I’m gonna be dating myself, but we announced this yesterday at our at our virtual event about what we’re calling smooth skin. So we’re adding features that a lot of that a lot of photographers want. But when it comes to creative overall, we’re seeing Canva doing some cool stuff using AI where you know, similar things to what Photoshop is doing. But in Canvas editor, so I think we’re gonna see more of that, I think we will see areas where AI will start to be able to communicate with each other. So for example, what Google is already doing with Bard. Are you familiar with Google bar at this point? Not
Akua Konadu
now. Okay,
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
so you know what chat GPT is? Yes. Okay, so Google has created a competitor to chat GPT. It’s called Google bark ba rd, and they announced it ready, ready had things that chatty Petey could not do? That chatty putty is now catching up. They both have their pros and cons. They both have their their strengths and weaknesses. But what Google has been able to do in a very short period of time is they took advantage of their ecosystem they already have and as of the think this week that we’re recording this. There’s now the capability of cross communication and features between Bard and Google Docs and Google Sheets and Google Slides and so on. So it’s all being able to I can go to Google Bard and say, create me this blah, blah, blah, okay, now making a Google slide and my slide deck is done in seconds. So that’s where we’re going with things where you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently build a mind map and then turn that into a bunch of documents, or whatever, or take the spreadsheet. And, you know, I know over there and honey book, you guys are big data nerds. So being able to say, analyze this Google Sheet and tell me all the data points in whatever it might be, right, so and give me the charts inside of another tab inside of the Google Sheet. Right? So like, all these things, you’re gonna be with a do with AI, in soon, really, really soon, all this is gonna be possible. My mind
Akua Konadu
is blown already with, I didn’t even know that about Google. But right, it’s, again, just to the point of how everything is constantly changing. And low key, I’m gonna be typing in Google bar. Because if I can do all of that, I mean, like, you know, make me slides, Google Docs, like, analyze all this data, and save me all that time, by chat GBC. That will be
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
they, they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I would, I would say that. So Google Bard has internet access, right? It can, you can type in a URL and to analyze this URL, and then do whatever with it. chatty, butene needs third party plugins in order to make that work. So their strengths or weaknesses, you got to know when to use which and it’s just a matter of playing around.
Akua Konadu
Absolutely. But I like that though playing around, I think I want to just highlight that for a second. Because when we see all these things, we see all these changes to fear takes us but it’s like, let’s come from a place of curiosity, let’s come from a place here, nothing is permanent. So if you are a business owner, that is really still overwhelmed by AI, and you are possibly using a certain aspects of AI, but you’re like, Okay, I want to take this further. But you’re feeling overwhelmed, or you’re feeling like feeling fearful, this is a great time to really just explore and enjoy the process of like, what figuring out what truly works for you, and what doesn’t it like come from a place of play. And so I really, really liked that that piece as well. But like you said, I just learned about this with Google Bard. And I’m sure some, like, if you’re listening, you probably just didn’t do so then it’s like, Okay, here’s another new thing that I don’t know anything about. And I gotta, you know, it’s like keeping up with the Joneses. Right? How can we adapt, I guess, to in a healthy way, because I know, there’s been conversations that like I’ve seen, too, where like, AI is just developing way too quickly than we can keep up with. And so it’s like, how do we as business owners kind of adapt and evolve in a healthy way?
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Yeah, I think you need to set aside a time to not look at it from a business. i This may not be the answer that people want to hear. But I think you need to look to set aside a time 30 minutes, let’s say a week, just to look at it from a non business standpoint, and just communicate with these chats with these chat tools, and see what it’s capable of, I think that will, you know, throwing at it and saying, Hey, write me. My, my child’s name is, is John. He’s nine years old, and he loves dinosaurs write me a book for him, like, see what it can do? And then respond, you know, see what its output is and then respond to it and say, well, he doesn’t like Toronto source Rex. I mean, I don’t know what kid doesn’t look boy doesn’t but you know, he would prefer a pterodactyl. Write the book about pterodactyl. Instead, see how it responds. I don’t like how serious it is, can you make it more playful? It’ll rewrite it again, like just play, do it, where it’s not your business where it’s just for fun. And I feel like when you take the business out of it, you’ll have a, you’ll be able to put your mind in a mindset where your creativity will will arise more, right? And at this point, you’re really gonna understand it even better than if you were focused on 100%. How can I use this for my business? Once you’re understanding creative wise, what it can do? You can then think creative wise to use it in your business.
Akua Konadu
Yeah, I love that that definitely makes the process much more enjoyable. I’m like, oh, yeah, like that is a good idea. Like write me something that I’m really passionate about. It does not have to be business related. But it’s a way number one just to fully understand the capabilities of the platform because again, like we are, we don’t fully know what we’re using. And I think knowledge is power. And it’s so important for us to really be able to just understand Understand the products that we’re using and helping that grow our business. And so I would kind of have to bring it back to a little bit earlier where you said like to a lot of people are just like we’re under utilizing it like we’re not fully we’re like a lot of us are scratching the surface, not fully understanding. So what are some other tips as well for those who are already using AI but are under utilizing it like how can we continue to advance our knowledge on it?
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Hmm, Yeah, I would say, so I am, I am a very much a, I like the technical stuff. I like learning about all the technical stuff. And I’m the person that everybody comes to when they have like a question. You know, I’m like that on official tech support. And so I try to find the tools that I know will truly impact my life beyond just business. So I am just to give you a little backstory, I am dyslexic. And I have been writing for a living, right. And I’ve been in marketing for a living, and I am also colorblind, but I’m a photographer. So I am always trying to find the tools to work past and work through the struggles that I’ve been living with my entire life. And so when it comes to AI, I try to find things that I know will will will have a huge impact. And one thing that people don’t realize is that chat GPT while you can go to chat GPT itself, there are additional software that like what HoneyBook has done like integrating AI into it, that have companies that have built software on top of chat GPT or something else that are very specific. So I host and produce an edit a podcast for imagine called workflows. It is for photographers all about every aspect of their photography workflows. And I because I am basically the sole content creator on our team for the podcast, I do have some some help for social and stuff like that. But I need to come up with the show notes and stuff like that, that then our copyrighted will, we’ll work through and stuff like that, but I need a starting point. And so what I do is I found a tool specifically for helping to create content text based content based on podcast episodes. So there’s multiple out there, I found the one that I love. And doing that has helped to fully enhance that part of the business because it’s yes, it’s just me using chat GPT, but I’m using it through a tool designed specifically for this task. So what’s cool is I create what they call favorite prompts. And I have a list of probably 30 or 40 prompts. And all I have to do is drop in a new episode, and I’ve got all the outputs of every for the entire episode, in all these different answers to these prompts. Now I do it once. And if I add a new prompt, it it doesn’t retro actively goes back to all the previous episodes and adds that answer to every previous episode. So I always have potentially new content to work with, to, to come up with new ideas and and to play around with so I don’t know if that answered the question. But
Akua Konadu
that’s it, I just love that I think it really speaks to a number one understanding just how powerful again that AI truly is, and how it can really impact your business. And it also speaks the fact that AI means it can really impact people so differently. I mean with you speaking with like being dyslexic, and then also to colorblind, but like how impactful AI has been for you in some life altering ways, so that you can be able to still serve the people that you love to serve and still build your business. And I think that that to me, that’s powerful because there’s somebody out there business owners wherever where you feel like you have something that’s holding you back and AI can easily solve that problem for you. And then some
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
with the color blind thing. It was really interesting because before imagined existed, okay, I’ve been a photographer for nearly 20 years. Actually, this is 2024 will probably be my 20th year of being a professional photographer. And when I was in college, still darkroom time, this is right when the transition to digital was happening. And out of the dark room, I had to have my professor and he knew I was colorblind. So he gave me the help that I needed and he like said okay, your blues are need to be shifted or whatever. Same thing happened once we started learning Photoshop, same thing, start you know, professor would help that. Once I was on my own out of college, I had to rely on three things to do to ensure accurate color, I had to rely on what’s called a Color Checker Passport, it’s like this color chart that I would my subject would hold I photograph it and then back in in Lightroom or in Photoshop or wherever I could actually match up the colors and it gets the skin tones really accurate. The other would be calibrated my monitors is something that photographers and videographers are doing daily weekly or monthly. I used to do it monthly and then the third of course would be my wife who was like really good at color. She’s got this like crazy ability to see like what color coat you’re wearing today and then two months later, so remember the exact color and show you how to match it in a paint swatch. It’s really insane that you can do that. So I had three tools right one was my wife to ensure accurate color for my client But then AI came out, and I don’t need any of it. Now, AI is ensuring accurate color 100% of the time, I don’t have to worry about it. That’s three steps gone down to one
Akua Konadu
down of one. I know, I always think in my mind, I’m like, what’s going to help me sleep better at night. And currently AI is doing that for me. But I think that’s just so powerful. I think that is amazing. And I love that example. Because again, it just really highlights, again, when you do the research set that time aside to really just play and enjoy the process. You AI can really be very life changing for you and your business and more ways than you can ever imagine. I think again, it just speaks of like, we truly still don’t know enough it just beyond what we know right now, about AI. Yeah,
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
you just said that AI helps you sleep at night. You know, for some people, and this is where a lot of small business owners could could really think about is it could literally help you sleep better. And I buy an Apple watch or an aura ring, or whatever the device might be. It’s using machine learning, right? So it’s aI that’s built into the devices, or the software that is analyzing how many steps you took and how active you were, and what time do you need to wake up the next day. And I’ll tell you exactly when to go to sleep. So you have a good night’s sleep, you know, so AI can quite literally help you sleep better at night, which of course, as a business owner, would be nice to be nice to do. Right. So yeah, that’s, you know, thinking more like, outside of the software rail realm, just hardware in general could make a big, big impact on your life.
Akua Konadu
1,000%. And I think again, it just speaks to the fact that we have been using AI for so long, and we have just never realized it how much it’s so woven into our everyday life. And now that there are it’s just more out in the open. And there’s more capabilities on like about what it can do that so many of us have been caught off guard. But really, if you think about it with AI, how it’s just everywhere, we have been conditioned, we were prepped, kind of in a sense for, for all of these amazing new tools out there for us to be able to utilize, we didn’t realize it because change is hard. And adapting is hard and evolving is hard, especially when you’re so accustomed to doing things a certain way. And unknown can be scary, but I think AI can be can be extremely, extremely powerful. Yeah, definitely. Final question I want to ask, I wanted to keep this tradition going as the independent business podcast. And so what do you believe the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail?
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
I think from personal experience, it’s experimenting, testing, trying whatever word you want to use, okay? They all mean the same thing at the at the end of the day. But I think it’s trying something new. I can’t tell you how many over the past 20 years, how many ideas I had for a business that some did well, for some period of time, some flopped immediately. But if you don’t try, you don’t know what’s going to work. I mean, a good example of this is my brother, my older brother has a business here in New Jersey, that is literally called New Jersey craft beer. And it is a beer membership where you’re not getting beer, it’s illegal to just get beer from a membership. But it is New Jersey’s got very strict alcohol laws. And but the membership is if you have this card, which costs $25 a year, you get a discount at breweries, you get a discount at certain restaurants, you get a discount at certain liquor stores on certain items. And it’s a really nice thing. And it’s been very successful. Over the past. I don’t know how 10 years, or plus he has been in business. I was like, You know what, I love small businesses. I love cameras. I used to work for six years at a local camera store that still exists. Family owned one of the oldest in the country. And I was like, I could do this membership around the entire country. And just do it as a photography camera membership club. And if you’re if you’re a member, you get discount whatever it might be for each of those commerce stores. I got like 30 different stores that were like, hell yeah, let’s do it. And they gave me a discount for it. I built the software in the back end had it all working, had some customers come on. And then it just stopped and I was like, is the interest really not there? Are people really gonna keep going to big box stores? Because they could just get even cheaper than they can with the discount offered through the membership because these family owned camera stores they have no choice but to charge more in general, their markups aren’t there? And so it didn’t work. But the idea was amazing. And I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t try right so I had to try so I think whether it’s starting something new or just trying something in your business, that’s the answer, try experiment. See what works, see what doesn’t. That’s it.
Akua Konadu
I love that. And I think it’s such a really important foundational thing as business owners to continuously keep at the forefront because our businesses evolve, things change consistently, what worked for you one day, certainly will not work for you tomorrow. And in order to build a sustainable business, you have to really step out of what makes you comfortable and try new and different things. Because you are correct. That is an absolutely brilliant idea. But I love that I do. But you know what it led to your next step in your story, which I love that so much. And it’s such a great reminder. And Scott, I have loved this, I think this conversation is just so important. And like I said, AI is not going anywhere. We’re gonna be consistently talking about this because it is consistently changing. And like, again, love the work that you guys are doing at imagined AI to really keep the conversation at the forefront. So if people would like to continue to connect with you, where can we find you?
Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
There’s two places one would be my website, which is Scott widened.com. And at Imagine you just go to imagine hyphen ai.com. Even if you leave out the hyphen, you’ll still go to the right place. And you’ll be able to find me on my site and imagine overall there and you can find our podcast as well, which is, you know, you’re listening to a podcast watching a podcast, check up check out ours.
Akua Konadu
Oh my gosh, I loved it. Thank you so much, Scott. Thank you for this conversation. And until next time, everybody. That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything we’ve discussed today can be found at honeybook.com. Head to our website to access for shownotes relevant links and all the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social and thank you again for listening.
