What Should You Automate With AI, and What Should Stay Human?

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Overview

AI gives small business owners plenty of ways to save time. In this episode, John Jantsch talks with Ryan Levesque about where that time savings fits best and where a personal touch earns a premium.

Levesque uses AI daily in his own company. He shares how he decides what to automate, starting with the back office, and what he keeps in his own hands. He and Jantsch also dig into why the things that don’t scale can become a competitive edge, how showing your process helps you charge more, and a 30-second morning habit that sets the tone for the day.

If you run a consulting practice, an agency, or a growing business, you’ll leave with ideas you can try this week.

Guest Bio

Levesque is a 7-time Inc. 5000 CEO who has built and exited 2 companies worth more than $100 million combined. He is the No. 1 national bestselling author of Ask, named Inc.’s marketing book of the year, and the founder of the ASK Method. His new book, Return to Real: The Last Human Advantage in an Age of Artificial Everything, argues that what your body and spirit are starving for is what your market will pay a premium for.

Key Takeaways

• Use AI for the back office, the parts of your business furthest from the customer. Keep it away from the email sequences and social posts that serve as your first point of contact.
• Pick a few moments that don’t scale and do them yourself. A personal voice memo for each new customer or a handwritten welcome note for each new client shows a level of care that software can’t copy.
• Build in public. Document your process and show how your work is made and who makes it, because customers pay a premium for the story behind it.
• Create before you consume. Use the first minutes of the morning, while your mind is clear, to write or build instead of opening email and social media.
• Write your own thought leadership on a steady schedule. Levesque has sent a weekly email, often 2,000 to 4,000 words, for nearly 2.5 years, and says it has brought him more opportunity than anything else in his business over the last 20 years.

Great Moments

• [04:19] – Levesque recalls when having a website was a competitive advantage. Today, getting a live person on a customer service call is the surprise.
• [05:27] – He describes two photos of his sons taken 7 years apart, the $70 million offer that collapsed at the last minute, and the summer he spent living in a tent on a Vermont farm.
• [09:45] – He walks through his “touch earth before touching a screen” routine: step outside barefoot, touch bare ground, and take one deep breath.
• [12:57] – Levesque describes the morning he read an email sent under his name, was disgusted by it, and slammed his laptop shut. He then wrote “The Embarrassing Confession” and compared the alternative to freshly squeezed orange juice versus the canned kind.
• [16:39] – He tells the story of a painting bought for about $10,000 that sold for $450 million after it was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. He connects it to Steinway’s documentary and to the time-lapse video he made of hand-illustrating his book.

Memorable Quotes

• “What the world is craving is what I describe as the freshly squeezed version of orange juice that you get at Sunday brunch in a world where everybody else is serving the watered-down stuff that comes in a can.” – Ryan Levesque
• “When you combine those two simple practices, touch earth before you touch screen, and create before you consume, it’ll shift your day, which will shift your week, which will shift your month, which will shift your year.” – Ryan Levesque
• “What doesn’t scale for you also will not scale for your competitor. And therein lies the competitive advantage. Doing the things that your competitor will not be willing to do.” – Ryan Levesque
• “It’s not about being anti AI or being pro AI, it’s about finding the right places to put AI into your business.” – Ryan Levesque
• “For those of us who are knowledge workers, for those of us who spend time in front of a computer, we have to find an outlet that reconnects us to our body, that reconnects us to the analog, that reconnects us to the physical world.” – Ryan Levesque

Resources

AI automation, ASK Method, Authenticity, back office, build in public, Content Marketing, customer experience, Duct Tape Marketing, Entrepreneurship, human touch, John Jantsch, marketing automation, personal branding, Return to Real, Ryan Levesque, scaling a business, Small Business, Thought leadership