S2. Ep24 - How to Keep Your Business Running While You Take the Summer Off

Speaker A: Welcome to the AI Automations for Business podcast. We're your hosts Katie and Noel and we'll be discussing how you can use AI for your business along with the latest news, updates and automations to help you stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to grow and scale your business more efficiently. Please be sure to subscribe and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome back to another episode. Hi. Hello, I'm Katie and as always I've got Noel here with me. Hi Noel, how you doing?

Speaker B: Yeah, doing really good, thank you. Yeah, just a little bit warm this week.

Speaker A: Yeah. We've currently got a heat wave here in the south of England, so.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And as uh, any Brit would know, listening, um, our spirits don't do well in the heat mainly because we don't have aircon in our. And we have like 80% humidity.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think our listeners in the US and Australia would laugh at us. Really?

Speaker A: Yeah. No. Are there any AI or automation updates, uh, before we, if you're, if you're new, um, listening to this podcast, uh, before we get into the main part of the podcast, we, we always talk about if there's any new updates, whether that's in the AI world or in the automations world. And Noel usually, um, runs through them, uh, quite quickly. But any updates that we need to be aware of.

Speaker B: So, yeah, there's a couple. So there's been a bit more information with the Fable and Mythos. Models from Anthropic came and then they went. Yeah, the US government shut it down. Yeah, yeah, spoil sports. Um, so it's been two weeks now and they're still not back, so but they're looking well. I think there's some sort of regulatory compliance that Anthropic and other platforms have got to do soon. So on the 8th of July they're going to start bringing in ID checks and things like when people create accounts, um, and things like that. So that's potentially going to be an opening to allow people with verified ID to access Fables so they can, they can keep track of you. So if you do something naughty, they know where to find you, I guess. Uh, but the reason why it really got shut down is there's been some circulating reports that uh, the Mythos model found workarounds in the NSAs in the U.S. uh, the NSA, uh, security networks and stuff like that. So yeah, they weren't particularly pleased about that. Yeah, but lots of cybersecurity people are actually saying, well, we want this model back because it's helping us out a hell of A lot to combat security issues. So we have it back, please. But anyway, as of yet, no sign of it coming back, which is really annoying.

Speaker A: I mean the uh, very few hours that uh, I used it, I thought it was great.

Speaker B: Yeah, I loved it. Loved every minute I used it. Lots of uh. So the next bit of update is there's a new model from Ah Zai from China, uh, called GLM 5.2 and this is a completely open source model. I think it comes in about 70% cheaper than uh, Opus 4.8, but it has Opus 4.8 kind of power. So yeah, it's pretty awesome model uh, for anyone that's looking to do stuff in bulk, have some intelligence and not pay all the money. So yeah, you can also host that locally as well, which is something we talked about uh, last week. It's uh, quite a beefy model, but yeah, it could be done. Yeah. And there's something that's slightly, a little bit off topic, but also quite interesting is Mid, uh, Journey. So for those that have probably. I don't know if you're new to the AI space, you may not have heard really much of Mid Journey, but they were.

Speaker A: I feel like we haven't mentioned Mid Journey for a long time.

Speaker B: I know, months and months. Yeah, because they were like the leading image model, uh, for ages and ages. But I mean looking back at it now, they were pretty terrible, but compared to the image models we have today. But they've, they've kind of done a different tackle and basically they're going to be creating like Mid Journey spas. So there's going to be one in San Francisco uh, in a couple of years. Uh, but basically they're replacing MRI technology that you would have at a hospital. So they've basically worked out a way to use sound and images to basically create like an MRI type scan of your body without the radiation. So it was still images, still AI. But yeah, it was really interesting.

Speaker A: I think that's so interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Especially without the radiation. So like, I guess like people that are pregnant and things that obviously they. That that's. Yeah. It's a bit of a concern, isn't it, having an mri. But yeah, yeah, yeah, really interesting. I would hate to see what price it would be. Yeah, I don't think it would be cheap.

Speaker A: Well, to start with, like most things is like, you know, when MRI first came out, you know, it was horrendously expensive. You know, all the hospitals.

Speaker B: But um.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah. Something different from the. Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay, so let's go into our uh, topic for this week's podcast and it's all about how to keep your business running over the summer. Maybe you want to reduce your hours for work, work for your business. Maybe you actually just want to take some time off over the summer, you know, for whatever reason, spend time with your loved ones, enjoy the weather, you know, go, go away, whatever you want to do. It tends to be that um, people just want to work less over the summer. So this is for our northern hemisphere people. Sorry if you're living um, currently in the southern um, hemisphere where you're in mid winter. But maybe take some notes for the next summer and yeah, maybe you can um, implement them um, when summer does come around for you guys. So yeah, so we want to talk about so as well it doesn't have to be, I guess summer. It could be if you want to just take a break from your business at any time and you don't want to drop the ball because for a lot of people if you don't work, you don't get paid or if there's not someone answering the emails, then you know, things really, really slow down and sometimes that's fine, but sometimes you don't want to take your foot off the pedal. So we thought we would just talk about like how to keep your business running when you want to take a break, whether that is the summer, whether it is going on hol, um, or whether it is juggling um, you know, having children off of school. So Noel, do you want to start us off with the, one of the first things that we can do to keep our business running whilst we want to take that break?

Speaker B: Yeah, I guess the first thing while people are taking time off, like I used to work uh, with a guy and he would go on holiday for like two weeks and he'd come back and he'd have like 200 emails in his inbo. So the first thing we want to do is to talk about maybe how to automate and uh, maybe even customize out of office responses in your inbox. So, you know, yeah, it's great. You can have that out of office and just go, hey, you know, just, I'm not here, talk to this person, maybe look at this link. But you know, there's probably going to be some edge cases which AI and automations can help you out with on that as well. So you know, they could be asking a question about a particular service. So then you could then customize the response with AI to say, oh well you know, this service, that's the link uh, for it, you know we'll be, we'll get back to you in a couple of weeks but you can find information here and things like. So you know, for your customers they're not just getting that plain old, I'm not, I'm not around, I'll be back in two weeks. Yeah, see you then. Kind of out of office responses. So yeah, it kind of gives that bit of you know, um, I guess it kind of gives a bit more of a better experience as well for uh, anyone that's emailing uh, into your, your business account, things like that. So yeah that's really kind of easy to set up in things like make.com or Nan Zapier, those sort of things. So yeah really straightforward to do. Obviously they connect to all the main uh, email accounts so Gmail and Outlook. Uh so yeah they can get all of that information and things like. So they, these sort of things go out straight away. Uh, so yeah but obviously you can also use AI to maybe categorize these emails as well. So you don't really want to be, you know, someone sends you in like a cold email. Like you don't want to be sending a customized out of office for that. So you could have AI in there as well to categorize it and say well look, don't bother with this one. Uh, just send the generic response back and things like that. So yeah, really, really awesome little addition that will keep uh, things ticking.

Speaker A: Yeah. And kind of prevent that overwhelm when you do back to work and you know, drawing in something else.

Speaker B: Exactly. You could come in on the Monday and then you would then have to be responding to all of these emails and go oh no, here's the links. That's already been done. You've just got to get back in touch and go oh hey, I'm back. How was that information, Things like that. So yeah, really awesome little automation.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. So what else might we be able to do to keep our businesses running whilst taking a break?

Speaker B: So I don't think so for anyone that has like uh, they sell like specific services that need support and things like that whilst uh, you're not there. And you know the people might be creating tickets, there might be community members that are you know, raising support queries and uh, for whatever services you provide. So what we could do is to uh, have an AI agent which can go through, uh, it can have access to your knowledge base, it can have access to you know, all kinds of information about the services you provide and basically go through and start Classifying and responding to all of your support requests. Uh, so you know, you're not again, you're not coming back off holiday to 200 requests and you know, you've got to go through manually and figure them out yourself and stuff like that. So at least with an AI agent it can then go off and figure, figure all this out for you and give those clients uh, the support they need.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's really great um, being able to still have that customer support whilst you're not here and you don't have to be worried about it because I feel like that is quite a, a stressor isn't it? And like almost you can't quite switch off knowing that actually people are going to be contacting uh, that customer support. And I feel like, yeah, if you've got um, you know, something that can, you know, help people with the, even if it's the frequently asked questions, many, whether it's logging in it's payments, it's cancelling memberships, things like that, um, yeah, I feel like that would take quite a lot of stress away and allow you to actually enjoy the break that you want to take.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Enjoying that cool cocktail on a beach somewhere. Yeah, yeah. Because the last thing you need is to be seeing these emails and you think, oh, uh, I, I've got to get back to that person to. Yeah, to help them out. Yeah, yeah, those situations with those sort of emails and stuff like oh yeah, yeah, I just want to turn off and forget about it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah too right. And what else can we do now?

Speaker B: Uh, I guess one thing is, uh, you could have. It doesn't have to be while you're on holiday, uh, or on vacation or whatever. You know, this could be something you could put in your business now and that is to automatically chase invoices m that are overdue. So a lot of online accounting software these days have API access. So we can use tools, you know, like your automation tools like make.com and things like to uh, basically every day have a look. Do you have any overdue invoices? Yes or no? If yes, then you can then send it through a pipeline. So you say, well this is now one day of June, maybe I'll send them an email just to chase them up and see when it's due. Uh, and things that I've been on a beach chasing invoices before, it's not particularly pleasant, I'd rather just not worry about it. So at least with this sort of automation you can just let it go off and do Its thing uh, you could also uh link in your uh email account as well. So if they do respond, so let's say it's not paid and it's like seven days later. You could have your automation then go and check your inbox and go well did that person actually respond to the email? They said uh oh really sorry but you'll get it in 10 days. Then you could then have an automation leg that says well then don't do anything, let's wait until they've done 10 days. Yeah see if it's been paid and things like that. So you know you're not chasing something that's you know twice whether like we've already told you when you're going to get it so leave me alone.

Speaker A: And realistically how easy would that be to set up

Speaker B: within within make it could be, I mean I hate to put a number of modules to it but probably like 5 or 6 uh to do something basic. So it would go and get the information from your accounting software. Uh you would then go through AI to then create like an email. They go through an email module to then send it uh and things like that. But then there could also be like I say like little routes just to triple check so if you have chased them, you know that sort of route uh to see if you do need to chase them again. Um, things like. So yeah it doesn't have to be super complicated but you know it depends, depends on what you want to do I guess.

Speaker A: Yeah. And do you think someone who is a beginner would be able to set something up like this or do you think it's someone who has a bit more knowledge? Uh with AI and automations I would

Speaker B: say for this one maybe, I don't know it's in the middle of beginner and intermediate I would say uh okay so for like in like make.com or said there's zero code you need to worry about. You just basically linking data from one module to another module. That's all you've got to worry about. You don't need to understand the technicals on you know the API calls that's going on. Like you don't care about that. You're just saying I need to find this invoice and once uh I have that information where am I going to send it? So I'm going to link that into like an AI module, give uh, it that data. I guess with like the AI module the you do need like uh, maybe a little bit of experience with prompt engineering but chatgpt Claude uh And if. And that can help you with system prompts and all that sort of stuff. And they're really good at that these days. They used to be terrible, uh, but actually now they're pretty good at that. So, yeah, I would say, yeah, a bit higher than beginner. But I say with anything with make.com, like just give it a go. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Uh, they always make it really clear where there's errors and where things have gone wrong. So, you know, it does make it a lot easier. Um, and I'm not sure when they're going to release it. I mean we can't be that far off. The release of Maya.

Speaker A: Yeah, I was just like, say they can't be far off. No, I think August. Did they say around August?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say July. August. Yeah. Because that's kind of when most of the big stuff comes out.

Speaker A: So pretty soon.

Speaker B: Yeah. But essentially what that does is it's a chatbot, which you can describe your automation to, uh, within the platform and it will go off and build it for you. So if you've never connected these tools together, you've never connected anything into Make. So you could have a fresh account as an example. You know, it would say, right, well, these are the steps we need to do to connect, uh, I don't know, like Xero into your make account. And it will take you through all that step by step and then it will link all the data and then once it's done, it should be up and running and working first time. Fingers crossed. So. Yeah, yeah, but that, that, that's kind of, um, I guess kind of a cheap way around it. But uh, obviously to learn it, I would go in and pick it apart and then see what's happened, see what's done. So you can learn how to do that in the future.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean some people will want to know how it works and other people won't be, uh, like won't care how it works as long as it does work.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're probably in that camp, aren't you?

Speaker A: Yeah, like, uh, for me it's just like if it works, it works great. I don't need to know exactly how it works and why it works. I just. Yeah, yeah, it's like, as long as it works great. And if it doesn't work, I just want to know exactly why it's not working, which tell you it does.

Speaker B: Yeah. And with, with Maya as well, it'll also help you with those errors as well. So if you do get any. We'll help you out with. Yeah, yeah. So that's really, really cool thing that's coming. There is one other automation which would be really awesome while you're away on holiday. And this is something we covered in last, uh, season of the podcast. I believe it was episode 19 with Corky Ballas and he has a dance studio business and he was talking to us about a AI voice agent that he has and it's a sex, essentially his receptionist. So people phone up for his dance studio and you know, they could be inquiring about, uh, when to book in or maybe their new customers and things like that. So it can help and guide them down that sort of process. It can answer those questions, it can maybe put them in. Um, but he also has a really awesome feature where uh, some people aren't comfortable talking to AI agents. Not everyone likes it. So you also had the option in where it's like we can just press 2 and then just leave me a voice message and we'll get back to you whatever you like. But I thought that was kind of a really cool little uh, automation. So if you do have like a phone system with your business, uh, and you don't want people calling you when you're on holiday, you could set something like that up. Uh, and yeah, get those questions answered when people call. But yeah, but probably not so beginner friendly, but there's loads of uh, information online and things and how to set those sort of things up.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, I really liked that episode with Corky. I feel like it was really informative about like actually what you could do. Um, we'll leave the link to that episode below. So if anyone wants to go and check that out from our season one, uh, podcast. But yeah, Corky was uh, a brilliant grat, I guess. Very lively, very entertaining as you would expect for a dancer, for a performer, a TV personality. So yeah, really, really great. Love them.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so we would love to know how are you planning on automating your business while you take a break? Whether that's over the solar summer, whether it's just because you're going on holiday vacation or you know, because you just want to take a break from your business. No excuse needed. We would love for you to let us know. Either come and let us know by email. HelloakeAutomations, AI or over in our free LinkedIn group which is called AI Automations to Business. Anyone is welcome to join that group. It's completely free. Um, we don't pitch to you in it. It's just, um, a really lovely community of people who are interested in AI and automations for their business. So thank you so, so much for listening to this week's podcast episode. We hope you've enjoyed it. We hope it has maybe sparked some, um, little, um, ideals for you in your brain about, oh, I could do this or I could do that whilst, uh, I take a break in my business. And we will catch you next time for another episode very soon.