Where Do I Begin? Dipping Your Toes in AI for Your Business

Speaker A: This is Dave Learns AI, a tactico solutions podcast. I'm Dave Clapper, diving into the real world. Ways AI is changing business creativity and how we work. No fluff, no jargon, just practical insights and experiments you can learn from right alongside me.

Speaker B: Okay, so that's all that I said. Why am I wearing cowboy boots? And where did Grandma go?

Speaker A: I love how we start podcasts, man. Every time. Every time.

Speaker C: Uh, there we are.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker A: Dave Learning AI here. Dave Learns ar. I can't even talk.

Speaker C: Look at that.

Speaker A: Um, hey, guys, uh, we are here. Wanna real quickly let everybody know, here's what we're gonna cover today. I got a DM from somebody the other day, old friend of mine who owns a small business, and he was like, hey, man, I know I have to use AI, but, dude, I really have nowhere. I don't know where to start. You know, I just don't know where to start. And that is the probably number one question we get, or the number one concern we get in being in this AI world. Not only aren't you afraid it's going to take your job, uh, but, like, all right, I know I need to do it, um, but I don't know where to start. And that's what we're going to talk about today in today's episode is where do I begin? Kind, uh, of going really back to the basics. You know, one of the things that we have, we've learned so much in such a small amount of time. And we've been doing this now almost a year. We've been doing the podcast for about nine months. And, you know, we've learned so much. And I find that oftentimes we start talking in. In on levels that are not for the faint of heart, you know, or where we start talking about coding and we start talking about agents, and we start talking about, you know, things that. To people, the novices, the ones who are. The ones that are overwhelmed going, I know I have to do this, but I don't know where to start. Where we're just losing them, uh, on some of the conversation. So we're kind of going back to the basics. We all have friends that have small businesses. I was talking to the guy, uh, who cuts my, uh. Why are you laughing?

Speaker B: We all have friends that have small businesses. I think. I don't know why. I just didn't think.

Speaker C: I almost got offended right there. I was almost.

Speaker B: I was almost mad at you, Dave, calling me out right here in public.

Speaker A: No offense, Tribble, um, but I was talking to the guy, um, who cut my grass yesterday. Um, and he owns a landscaping company, and I was just talking to him about it.

Speaker B: And you.

Speaker A: The same. The same thing. Like, I don't.

Speaker B: I don't even know what it'll do.

Speaker A: I don't even know how it will help.

Speaker B: And.

Speaker A: And that's ultimately where we're at right now. So, um, you know, there's so many different kind of directions on where to go. But we do know that everybody starts light and they start with ChatGPT, because that's kind of. That's the gateway drug. And we've talked about it on the show a bunch, and I would say nine out of 10 people that I talk to that say they are engaging with AI are utilizing ChatGPT in one way or another. And ChatGPT has come a long way. Um, and, you know, the models that are out there for ChatGPT are so much better than they were three or four months ago. Um, so it's a.

Speaker C: It's a.

Speaker A: It's a decent place to start. Right?

Speaker B: I was just letting you go, man. I mean, well, I mean, I want.

Speaker A: You know, I want some other people to join me here. I'm doing all the talking, but, uh, I know.

Speaker B: I was just like, wow, do I need to be. Can I take a nap? Can I go shave this tuft of beard hair? Because it. I missed it.

Speaker A: Yeah, you missed a couple.

Speaker C: You can't unsee it.

Speaker B: It's there now. Son of a bitch.

Speaker A: So. So why.

Speaker B: You know, he's great.

Speaker A: Do what? Chachi's great.

Speaker D: Although I have. I.

Speaker A: Although I have been seeing in the news lately, like, there's a, um. There's this movement to. To dethrone Sam Altman, and, uh, he's

Speaker B: been dethroned and discredit him. Well, he's kind of an evil dude if you look at things, um, holistically.

Speaker A: What makes you say that?

Speaker B: Evil dude. He's in it for. He's in it for money. He is financially driven. I would say that.

Speaker A: I mean, so is 75% of the world, right? Or 80% of the world?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I know I am. I. I can't do only fans anymore. I'm getting too fat.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, even your toes, because aren't you, like, a shoe model or something like that on only, uh, fans?

Speaker B: Well, I was a shoe model only. No, it's feet model. Shoe models are strippers, Dave.

Speaker C: Okay? His specialty is the bottom of the foot. It's not the top. It's just the bottom of the foot that people are just like, Check out

Speaker B: my plantar fasciitis baby.

Speaker A: I wonder, though, because we're so close to this business and we're reading about, you know, this, this witch hunt for Sam Altman and we're, you know, we're like, oh, he's the evil guy now, you know, and so we're, we're, we're closer to the storylines. The average person probably has no clue what we're talking about when it comes to Sam Altman. Uh, a lot of people probably don't even know he's the CEO and where he came from and his, you know, his practices. But what's come out in the news is that like, he, he can't tell the truth about anything. He's, he's backdooring, um, you know, uh, deals. He's, he's, he, like you, like you said, he's kind of got this evil, this evil control thing going on now that he's a part of, like the largest, uh, AI tool that's out there at this particular point. Um, or at least the most recognizable.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, actually, um, Dario made. Do you all know that name?

Speaker C: Anthropic.

Speaker B: Anthropic. CEO and anthropic. So anthropic is taking over ChatGPT because people that, that pay attention, um, saw that Anthropic basically wouldn't allow the Pentagon to use their AI in war to kill people, which completely fine OpenAI. Sam Altman was like, we will. Here you go.

Speaker C: We'll take that government contract. Yep, yep, yep. We'll sign. Where do we sign?

Speaker B: Absolutely. Um, someone's going to. But, um, so a lot of people left for that, but OpenAI started as open Source Business, a nonprofit, and Elon Musk was a co founder and he co founded it to, to democratize technology. You know, Elon's rich enough, he doesn't care about money at this point. Um, it's, it's a, a number that's unfathomable how much he has.

Speaker A: So I did see this, I did see part of that witch hunt. Uh, is Elon Musk suing Sam Altman. Um, and then he is pretty sure that he's going to win this thing and everything from it. He's already said he's going to, he's going to donate to a charity. I don't remember what charity.

Speaker B: Yeah, what does he care? Yeah, like, you know, he can give away a trillion dollars and still have a trillion dollars. So, um. But yeah, so it really depends, you know, everything, everything gets bent. And like, you're calling it a Witch hunt. So you probably heard that on some, I don't know where, where you heard that term. It's just an investigation. Um, like it's not a witch hunt really. That's lambastic, uh, adjective for an investigation. Um, Elon Musk is also being investigated. So it's like they're going back and forth. So.

Speaker A: Yeah. Is it being investigated or is it a witch hunt?

Speaker B: That's the question, Elon. Probably being investigated.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: I feel like once you reach like $20 billion in network net worth, you're just automatically investigated at all times. Like it's just like, uh, oh, yep, he's under investigation, like for the rest of your life.

Speaker B: Off topic, but I've got a friend that is a high net worth individual and he would get investigations put on him all the time. And a lot of times, you know, he was like, it's typically the government that's saying, hey, you should investigate them because. And I don't know if this is correct or not, so this is all hearsay. But he said all, uh, anonymous tips could be called into like the local FBI office or wherever or the SEC and say, hey, there's some stuff you guys should look at for this business. And then they're under investigation. So then they have to have their lawyers and they spend all this money on lawyers. And it's typically unfounded, but the government doesn't care. And they'll keep you in court for years, wasting your time and energy and brain space and happiness just for whatever reason. Um, sometimes they find stuff. Sometimes they find stuff and don't do anything about it.

Speaker A: This is what you call a tangent. Um, so ultimately we're gonna go back to small businesses and, uh, how to utilize or at least where to start when, um, it comes to AI. Listen, there are three reasons why people stall when it comes to like implementing AI in their business. I mean, tool overload, because they don't know which tool to use. Um, and that's why a lot of

Speaker B: people, the first name of Dave learns AI, we're gonna call this tool overload.

Speaker A: Um, and that's why a lot of people have stuck with ChatGPT is because, you know, it's low hanging fruit. They grab it and they're like, oh, okay, I could see what it does. But you know, tool overload, especially when you're talking about a small business going, okay, I know it can do all this stuff, but I don't know how to make this system, talk to this system. I don't really know what my return on investment is. Here, what am I looking for when it comes to an roi, when it comes to utilizing uh, AI. And then the other thing is fear of doing it wrong. Uh, you know, I mean part of the issue is, you know the media has talked about, well, if you're relying on AI to answer your questions or run your business, you're, you're giving the keys to somebody that can't really see the road while they're driving. Maybe you shouldn't do that. So there's that fear of okay, if I put too much into it, is it going to give me information that is wrong, that's not going to help me in the way that it should. So those are typically three big reasons why people get stuck and don't get started uh, on utilizing AI.

Speaker B: I guess you don't need us here then.

Speaker C: Yeah, but you're think about how we all started with our uh, foray into. Before you started the business, before you came on Dave, me chatgpt was this thing you heard about and we all dipped our toe in with using it. Like hey, you know, like let's see what it can do for me and you. Just the way I liken it too is it was just a super powered Google because Google you get lost in pages, you get lost in is this correct? Sponsored ads, all that stuff which is probably coming to um, LLMs. But in the first instance of researching you're like wow, this is super powerful and it's giving me exactly what it, what I want for the most part. And I think Dave, to your point, I just tell people, just start like I don't care what the LLM is, I don't know if you heard it from here, like download it, put it on your phone, engage with it and that. And once people break the seal then at least they have the chance to where they're, they're going to go deeper and they can experience the power of it.

Speaker A: So you know I was doing a little bit of research for this, uh, this episode and um, you know, just to be able to talk a little bit specifically about small businesses and you know what they're running into and trying to figure out. Okay, how do we as professionals, how do we coach somebody through this? Now obviously we with Tactico Solutions and Taptico AI, we want to be your solution. We want to be able to implement this stuff for you, teach you how to use it or like we say we learned AI so you don't have to. So uh, you know, if, if the big rub is I just don't want to Deal with it. Don't worry. You don't have to. We can do it. Uh, but, you know, three of the main starting points I think are the most important is, is for a small business person, an owner, a CEO, a marketing person, whatever, is to audit your pain. Like, what's eating your time or costing you deals right now. Like, what is in the way of success. And understanding that for any small business is important for growth. And so it's 10 times more important for growth when it comes to AI because if your competition is competent with. With AI, they're going to ask the same questions and they're going to use the tools to be able to help answer those questions. Right. Um, I think step tool or step. Step two is one tool, one problem. Don't build a whole stack. Solve one thing at a. At a time. Right.

Speaker B: Are questions going to be involved in this? Because I feel like you're just kind of.

Speaker A: I'm not. I'm not interviewing. Uh, this is a, uh, this is where we talk about things, guys. And what I've noticed so far as we've gotten into this episode is nobody's really come with anything to say. I keep talking then. Uh, so.

Speaker B: So we do do prep on this. And prep was one was Dave was supposed to say, hey, Nick, what. How do you recommend people start? And I was supposed to say, hey, start small. Start with one tool. But Dave's just reading the entire document top to bottom. So we actually do work on these for about three minutes because we have producer Paul, who's an AI agent.

Speaker A: We do have a producer that helps us with this.

Speaker B: Yeah. So Dave is reading producer Paul's notes to you guys. So, um, I'm going to be working over here. Let me know when I need to do a disco. Dave.

Speaker A: Nick, let me ask you this, though, really, uh, in all honesty, because, um, you know, as we're talking about this and not only telling people or showing people a little bit behind our curtain on how we utilize it. Like, look at step three. When it comes to step three of starting your framework, you know, we talk about one tool, one problem. We talk about audit your pain. And what's the. What's the third?

Speaker B: Are you asking me that question?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, let's see here. Segment three, the live segment two. What's the third? Oh, no. Clear roi. Oh, that wasn't even it.

Speaker A: Dude, you're not even following. Steal before you build is the third one. Okay, so, uh, so you use what. You use what already exists. And, um. And I think one of the reasons why we wanted to talk about that is because, you, uh, know, @tactico.com we have some tools and we have access to tools, um, that can help you come up with a game plan. I think that's ultimately, you know, where that concept comes, um, you know, comes, comes into fruition.

Speaker B: So. Yeah. So one tool at a time. Once you start learning one tool, you master that tool, you move on. We, um. I can't even learn all the tools. I haven't really dove doven diven delved.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: I haven't really looked at, uh, Claude cowork too much. I played around on it. I know it's fantastic. I just don't have enough time because I'm building out our other stuff on proprietary stuff. So we're building from scratch. But the easiest thing that you can do, uh, as a newbie to AI, is just pick one tool and get good at it. They all going to be very similar. So if you get good and comfortable in one tool, um, the skills you acquire using that tool are going to transfer over to the other tools.

Speaker C: Well, let's call one out.

Speaker B: OpenAI, you talk to ChatGPT, all that.

Speaker C: Yeah. What would you recommend? Let's just say a basic small business owner, like a wellness, wellness spot. They've heard of AI. Where would you recommend that they start?

Speaker B: Um, for them, I would recommend, uh, getting a good sense of where your business sits, um, competitive analysis, all that stuff. We talked about this.

Speaker C: Auditing your pain.

Speaker B: Yep, auditing your pain. So for me, it's on the marketing side. You have to know who you're up against. So perplexity is where I would start. Perplexity is a really good job of research. It gets you the data that you need. It literally in real time can figure out, like, who your competitors are in your market. If you're a business owner, that does, I don't know, um, give me, give me a business bike. Bicycles, right. How many bike shops are within five miles of me? How much do they spend on media? How much do they spend on advertising? Perplexity can find all that stuff for you and put together, hey, this is what they're doing. They're not spending any money. Their Google business profile is terrible. You should, you know, uh, you should build out your gpp, gbp, um, to make it good, you can get to the top of the search engine page. Um, here's what you should do for aeo, you know, so Perplexity is what I would say is the one you would start with. Now, as the tools mature, they're going to get more and more easy to deal with and work with. Um, that's just because they need mass adoption to make money right now. They're all.

Speaker A: Yeah, Nick, I got a couple questions for you. Or even Tribble. Uh, we'll ask Tribble this question since, Nick, you were just talking, but Tribble, you owned a cryo, um, what do you call that? A, uh, cryotherapy.

Speaker C: Cryotherapy. Wellness. Wellness. Well, Wellness studio. Yep.

Speaker A: Okay, so you owned it for a little while and now you owned it kind of pre AI if you were to go back and start that business again, like as the business owner, as a small business owner and now having the knowledge that you have in regards to AI and the tools that are out there, what. What do you think would be your first, your. Your first, um, your first target within, um, with. Within AI and how to utilize it in order to establish your business.

Speaker C: Like Nick said, you gotta know who you are and then who your competition is, because you got to know where, where your dark spots are or your pain. So if we're talking about. If I didn't really have that knowledge that I have now, um, and I was just kind of dipping my toe in, I would start with where I could save time. You know, the part of my problem with that business was I needed people that could run the business and so that I could be out working on. On the business and not in the business. And so a lot of times marketing would be something that would come up content, like basic content stuff. And it was hard to find help to do that. So instead of searching for ideas or spending so much time on figuring out what to do, I would. AI would bridge that gap to pretty much tell me what to do. So it really cut off 70% of that work of having to do m. What do I do with AI? It tells you what to do with pretty good accuracy. And then you go execute on that. And what we've discovered is the next level of agents that do it for you. So, I mean, that's a whole nother story. But yeah, I would, I would, I would lean on AI to tell me what to do through research, through questioning it, through props, um, and save a lot of time on, you know, being able to actually execute.

Speaker A: Nick, I know one of your, um, mantras is show, don't tell. Um, you know, that's an important thing is not telling somebody that you can do it, instead showing that you can do it. Then Tribble, I can see it.

Speaker B: Tribble just flexed in the camera, everybody.

Speaker C: For our listeners don't tell.

Speaker A: He just showed. So, uh, Nick, um, tell us a little bit about some of the tools that you could show that would be beneficial for a small business who's trying to figure out where to start and the things that you've built.

Speaker B: So the first one, and I won't focus on this one because it's my favorite. So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to Disco Dave.

Speaker C: Hey,

Speaker A: that is me. And by the way, I am dressed that way.

Speaker B: This is Disco Dave. We don't need any explanation.

Speaker C: It is not. AI, I need to explain.

Speaker A: I, uh, need to explain. Actually, hold on a second.

Speaker B: That's right. He is wearing eyeliner, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker C: Yep. And he's wasted in the photo. Look at that.

Speaker B: No, he's not. He's actually with his family.

Speaker A: That is part of the whole family photo on a Disney cruise right there. So I was dressed. Look at my kids. Like, all right. Yeah, yeah. There I am. So, in my defense, ah, it was just me being a cool dad.

Speaker B: But why do you have a picture of Disco Dave in your house? So this is really cool, right? So we're still putting the. This should be working by the time this episode comes out. We're still putting the back end touches on this. But this is a voice agent that literally, you call this phone number and you talk to Disco Dave. We've captured Dave's silky voice and put it into a voice agent that interviews you to figure out how to, AI, uh, can help your business. So I'm gonna play along. And I've been testing this, and it knows me now. So now if I say Nick, and then I give my email, I'll be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This must be a test because, Nick, I know you built me. Like, what's going on here? Are you testing the back end before

Speaker A: we get into more on Disco Dave?

Speaker D: Moron.

Speaker A: Disco Dave. Well, there is a tool that's on our website right now that I think it's pretty cool for, uh, for everybody to see. And that is, um, our Smart Start. So Smart Start is a tool that we've created that is available on our website. And Disco, uh, Dave is kind of the same thing, but a voice opportunity, um, to communicate with somebody in the sense of actually being able to have a conversation. Uh, so ultimately, what I want to do is I'll go to our website, and for those who are just listening, uh, you go to the YouTube version and you can see what we're going through. But so anyway, this is our website. Um, a lot of, uh, Great, uh, resources on here. And one of those things happens to be, um, the uh, Smart Start. So what we're going to do is go down here and you can see the free startup guide, um, actually free tools. Here we go. Smart Start. Can you see my screen there, Tribble?

Speaker C: Yep, yep.

Speaker A: So, uh, the Smart Start is simple. Uh, you start a free chat, um, and it just allows you to go through, answer questions. I think it went to a different screen. So let me share something else here.

Speaker B: Here we go.

Speaker A: So ultimately what it's doing is it's prompting to ask you some questions about your business. And the reason why we're bringing up these tools is because the question remains, you know, if I'm a small business and I don't know where to start, we're going to give you a free opportunity to learn where you can start. And this doesn't mean there's any obligation to utilize our services at all.

Speaker C: Yeah, what I like about that, Dave, is you don't like prompting is so important because you need to know how to talk to them. With Smart Start, you just talk to it like it's a regular person, like it's an advanced chat bot. Uh, and you don't need to know. It'll ask you the questions to get the information that it needs.

Speaker A: And ultimately it will not only. I mean, yes, I mean it's a lead gen for us in the sense of, hey, you're a small business and you need some questions, uh, answered and we'll answer those questions or we can do it for you. But it is also just a great jumping off point for a small business to just go in and go, I don't know where to begin and give them the opportunity to actually, um, show where to begin. So one of the tools.

Speaker B: So I asked Beau, who is our orchestration agent that leads all of our agents, which is all these guys. And I say, hey, why isn't Disco Dave working? And I said, okay, we need to not reference Taptica OS or bring CRA agency. Um, Disco Dave is not permitted to make assumptions in the first 90 seconds of a call. Change the script immediately. So I dumped this in our discord right now as we, as we're talking sitting here, they're going to make the changes in another tool called 11 Labs that houses Dave's voice and that voice agent. Um, we train the tool in 11 labs, but our AI tool ecosystem has access to it. So it goes over there and it literally fixes it for us while we wait. This is Nate is our N8N agent N8N is an automation tool. And I was trying to figure out why Disco Dave wasn't plugging in the back end. They literally diagnosed why. This is why we need to deploy this server. Easy fix, it's 30 second fix. But instead of me spending 20 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong, I just asked them, hey, what's wrong with this? And it tells me that's the kind of stuff that AI can do.

Speaker A: It's amazing. What's the one thing, uh, that made AI click for you?

Speaker D: Tribble?

Speaker A: Not the concept, but the moment it actually became useful in your day. And then we're going to go back to Nick to present Disco Dave again and, uh, have him really talk to us.

Speaker C: Moment. That AI I knew it was real for me was when I started using it more than Google, when I went to it for my main information source because of how efficient it is and how it delivers the information from questions that I have or information that I need to get. When I started naturally wanting to use and mine was Chat GPT just like most people, when I started going to Chat GPT more than I went to Google to look for answers, that's when I, that's when I knew it, uh, clicked. That's when the penny dropped the first time around. The second paradigm shift for me, and maybe we're not, we're not talking about this during this episode was when agents came on board and we saw that not only was it providing me information, but it was going and saying, hey, I just did this for you. You wanted this. It's done.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Nick, are we ready to rock and roll with Disco Dave?

Speaker B: Um, it's still updating. Here's another thing I want to start coining. I want to coin this term.

Speaker A: Please do. I like when you coin new terms.

Speaker C: Penny's dropping.

Speaker B: Entitlement.

Speaker A: AI entitlement.

Speaker B: AI entitlement. So once you guys start using these tools, you're going to get spoiled. I'm just calling it now. You're going to get spoiled just like we all have. David Clapper here spent the better part of seven months building a beautiful custom piece of software for one of our clients. Due to technical reasons, we had to migrate that off of where we built it onto something else. Something we built from scratch. David's seven months of work had to be lifted. Their code had to be lifted and extracted from this massive company's grasps and put into our little code base. And it had to go smoothly rebuild look exactly the same. He had literally wired it up. It looked like, uh, a NASA space shuttle with all the wires, all the buttons. I mean, very, very complex on the back end. On the user side, uh, very simple. We're making AI simple AI entitlement. Dave put seven months of hours, rigorous frustration work. Scroll down on our Instagram feed. You'll see Dave building this thing out. There's a. I think I did this. Yeah. Uh, that's him trying to figure out how to build this thing right now. He's got the skill, so now it's second nature. You can do it. 30 seconds. AI entitlement. We. I was using our tools that we built from scratch to completely rebuild this website from scratch to look exactly the same with everything. And it took like four or five hours going back and forth. Dave is like, why isn't this done yet? That's AI, uh, entitlement. Because you get so used to things getting done instantly that something that used to take a year and a half, no exaggeration, to get done, or seven months of Dave spending hours and hours and hours. It took four hours. And it was only, like, DNS and technical glitches. It wasn't the website design or anything. It was security protocol stuff that was holding us up. So the fact that, like, that's why AI entitlement is my new coin term. Because I just sent off one prompt to our tool, and in real time, Dave's like, is it done yet? Is it updated? And I haven't listened to Finger, but to answer your question, I believe that it is. Let me.

Speaker A: Okay, let's check it out.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker C: Come on, Disco Dave, let's go.

Speaker A: Let's see that picture of him again.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker D: Hey, Disco Dave here. AI assistant for Taptico. And yes, I am an AI, but the good kind. I wanted to grab a few minutes to learn about your situation. Who am I talking to?

Speaker B: My name is Hal.

Speaker C: I'm all ears.

Speaker D: What's your name?

Speaker B: Hal. H A, L. Hal.

Speaker D: Got it. Hal. Nice to meet you. So tell me, what kind of business are you running?

Speaker B: How's hot dog stand?

Speaker D: Oh, man, that's awesome. So you're running a hot dog stand? Is this a brick and mortar spot? Food truck catering or something else? How long have you been at it?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a food truck right now, but we set up, you know, summertime. We set up around a hot spot in New Jersey right there on the, uh, on the. What do you. What do you call it? The turnpike? No, it's where they all walk. The boardwalk Turnpike. Unbelievable. Um, yeah, we set it Right on the side of the highway.

Speaker A: Classic flip setup.

Speaker D: Summer season.

Speaker B: Sorry, sorry, Disco Dave.

Speaker D: Yeah, so when you're out, no worries at all. So when you're running the truck during summer season on the boardwalk, what's giving you the most headache right now? Like what part of the operation is eating up your time or keeping you up at night?

Speaker B: I'll tell you. We run out of, we run out of hot dogs too quick. And our truck is small. So we need to figure out inventory and how to keep the hot dogs fresh because they're never frozen. That's how hot dogs promise. Um, we're legendary hot dogs on the boardwalk. And why did help one? Like letting tourists know that we exist. All the locals love us, but we're kind of in a tucked away spot. But the second thing is like, how do I get fresh hot dogs and like quickly so that we don't run out and we don't have to break people's hearts when they come to get a house hot dog, especially the um, 12 incher.

Speaker D: Okay, M. I hear you. So you've got two things happening. One is getting the word out to tourists so they actually find you. And the other is the supply chain piece keeping fresh inventory flowing so you're never caught short. That's real. When you say you run out too quick, are we talking you're selling out by mid afternoon or is it more that you can't restock fast enough during the day? And when you do need to restock, how are you getting fresh hot dogs to the truck right now?

Speaker B: Yeah, right now. We need to work on your intonation there, Disco Dave. But I would say that, um, we just sell out too quick. You know, we can't keep, keep them stocked because our truck is only so big. So we can only stock 500 at a time. And then we have, you know, the fryers and the boilers and the, the bread toasters and the buns and all of the other accoutrement that go along with the Howes hot dog famous 12 incher. Um, so we need to figure out ways to like right now, if we run out, we just have to close our shop down and we are losing a ton of business because we just don't have the way to get fresh hot dogs from our factory where we make them in Hoboken, to our, um, boardwalk store. Can you help? Does AI do that? Huh? Uh, got it.

Speaker D: So you're making them fresh in Hoboken, which is amazing for quality, but the logistics of getting them to the truck before you run out is the real problem. You hit capacity, can't restock fast enough, then you have to shut down and leave money on the table. So here's what I'm curious about. When you do run out during the day, how often is that happening? Like, are we talking every single day in peak season?

Speaker B: Yes. Yes, Disco Dave. Yes. No Disco Dave. Every day, every mid afternoon. By 3 o', clock, we're out. And then we get that mid, you know, the post lunch, free dinner, snack crowd. We can't serve them. Disco Dave and Disco Dave, I need AI to tell me how to do it.

Speaker D: All right, Hal, I hear the urgency and I get it. Seriously, at the table every single day at the exact moment when people want to buy. Here's the thing though. Before I start throwing ideas at you, I need to understand your world a bit better. Do you have a budget set aside this year for tools or services that could help solve this? And are you looking to move on something like this pretty soon, or are you still in the research phase?

Speaker B: Disco Dave, I need help now. And I will pay whatever. So each, we sell every hot dog for seven bucks. Um, that is a gross margin of, of 60%. So I'm willing to cut into my margins at least 10%. So you can do the math on this. We sell 5,000 hot dogs a day. And um, that's by 3 o' clock. We could sell another 2,000 hot dogs a day if we had some sort of AI system that could get our orders done quicker and deliveries done faster. Because, right, we have to call, you know, Johnny, my, my nephew, um, that holds down the fort in Hoboken to drive out and he's got to shut, shut down the factory. And it's just a, it's a hassle. It's a hassle for Hal's hot dogs. So Disco Dave, how can AI, uh, help me?

Speaker D: Okay, Hal, I'm doing the math and this is real money we're talking about. 5,000 a day at 7 bucks is 35,000 a day in revenue. And you're saying you could add another 14,000 if the supply chain wasn't broken? That's serious. Here's what I need to know before we go further though.

Speaker A: Who else at Howell's hot dog stand

Speaker D: is involved in decisions like this? Is it just you and Johnny?

Speaker B: Just me, Disco Dave. Just me.

Speaker A: Uh, you know what I have to say. As much as I want to hear what his, uh, solution is, here's what I hear what. As much as I want to hear what, hear what his solution is. Um, the intuitiveness of the conversation is pretty cool. You know, that's somebody who's actually listening. You know, I get stuck in phone trees all the time, especially AT&T. I was in a phone tree.

Speaker B: Sorry, Jessica. Dave. Real human Dave interrupted.

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, I'm taking over. Um, but you know, that conversation that you typically have in those settings with those chat bots that are out there are like, all right, they're painful. Just give me an operator. Just give me an operator. You're not answering any of my questions. Just give me an operator. So it's pretty cool. That's one of the tools that you built, Nick. And, uh, you know, that's Dave.

Speaker B: Let me stop you there, because what Dave is doing is identifying real, actual use cases. So what Disco Dave would then do, had you not interrupted, would be to put together very customized solutions that are absolutely free and say, here are some tools that you could use or some options that you could have to implement your business. Hot dog hal.

Speaker A: Uh, does that. Does that come in an email? Does that go directly to the caller,

Speaker B: then go through a text, an email, however you wish it to come to you?

Speaker A: It's amazing.

Speaker B: All these things would have been shown had we not interrupted. But, um, all of that stuff is completely, literally just kind of dipping your

Speaker A: toe in the water.

Speaker B: Give Disco Dave a call, answer the questions. A human would ask the same questions if they're doing a good job. Because we're here to diagnose problems, right? So you have to tell us what hurts, and then we'll build the solution around it. So that's what Disco Dave was doing. Probably not didn't make for good, good content, but, um, building massive hot dog empires is always a win.

Speaker A: I mean, to think about $35,000 worth of hot dogs before he runs out, I mean, that's. That's a darn good business plan. Hey, listen, for somebody who's watching this right now, who still hasn't started using AI, give them one sentence that gets them to open up their browser tab after this epis to give it a shot. One sentence.

Speaker B: Tactico.com.

Speaker A: well, you can find a lot of answers there. Taptico.com we are Taptico Solutions. Dave learns AI uh, Nick and Tribble have a bunch of solutions for you, and I just, um. I'm apparently just the voiceover for Disco Dave. But, uh, you know, follow us on our social medias. We got a new hire that we're excited about. We'll probably introduce maybe next week on the call.

Speaker B: Um, hold on, I gotta get the. The thumbnail for.

Speaker A: Hold on.

Speaker B: This is the YouTube thumbnail, right?

Speaker A: I'm gonna try and get that. Uh, all right, guys, thank, uh, you for taking the time. It looks like Tribble's got to get out of the box. He's in there. Somebody's, like, waiting for their turn or something. Nervous or he has to poo. I don't know what's happening.

Speaker C: My butt's hurting. It's my God.

Speaker B: All right, fellas, we'll keep times. I love you both.

Speaker A: All right, boys, till next time.

Speaker B: See you.

Speaker A: Bye. This is Dave Learns AI, a tactico solutions podcast. I'm Dave Clapper, diving into the real world ways AI is changing business creativity and how we work. No fluff, no jargon, just practical insight insights and experiments you can learn from right alongside me.