#299 - AI isn't killing small businesses - it's creating the most profitable era of them in history

Alrighty guys, I'm going to be honest with you about something. For the past year or so, I've had two very strong feelings about AI running at the exact same time in my head. The first one, total nerdy excitement. This stuff is fun.

Building automations, creating tools, watching things happen that used to take weeks now take minutes. I freaking love it. The second one, quiet nagging dread. Like, is this all actually okay?

Are we all just sprinting towards something that's going to be really, really bad for us? And I've been trying to figure out where I land on it. Because the two camps that seem to exist out there, neither really sit right with me. Camp number one, AI is going to end civilization as we know it.

Camp number two, humans won't have to work anymore and we'll all float around in white linen painting watercolors in a garden somewhere. Neither of those feels right. And neither of those is something I want to sign up for. So when I heard an interview recently that gave me a genuinely brilliant third option, one that left me feeling hopeful for the first time, I had to come and share it with you.

Hey, hey guys, welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host, Kate McKibben, and today we are talking about AI, but not in the way everyone else is talking about AI. We're not going doom and gloom. We're not going everything is fine.

Just build it in chat GPT. We're talking about what I now genuinely hope and believe is the most exciting business opportunity that has ever existed for people like us. Small business owners, that's coaches, course creators, the ones doing the work with a small team, a specific audience, and a really great offer. So let's get into it.

First of all, I want to start by acknowledging something. The fear around AI is not irrational. We are watching big companies publicly brag about laying off 70% of their workforce because AI can now do those jobs We watching entire industries start to shift underneath people feet And if you spent years building a skill a business a reputation around doing something really well the question is AI coming for me next It's not a paranoid one. It's very reasonable.

I've had it myself. I'll be sitting there setting up some cool new automation, having the time of my life and then quietly thinking, but wait, what does this actually mean? Not just for me, for all of us. And I didn't have a good answer for a really long time.

A while back, I was listening to the Diary Over CEO podcast. If you don't already listen to it, it's Stephen Bartlett's podcast, and it's great. On this particular episode, he was interviewing Daniel Priestley, fellow Aussie. If you don't know Daniel, he's the author of Key Person of Influence and Scorecard Marketing, among others.

Really smart thinker when it comes to business, marketing, and where things are heading. And Daniel was, of course, talking about AI. But the angle was completely different to anything I'd heard before. He wasn't catastrophizing.

he wasn't being naively optimistic either. He was painting a picture of what he genuinely believes the economic landscape is going to look like. And when I heard it, something clicked. By the first time, I had a version of the future I could actually get excited about.

And I want to share that with you today. Not the full interview on Listen to That for Yourself, but my take on it. The bit I keep coming back to is the picture that he painted. The big corporations, the companies operating on razor thin profit margins, like 3%, 5%, even 10%.

The ones that need millions of customers paying them a small amount each just to be profitable. The ones that employed thousands of people to do jobs that honestly, a lot of those jobs weren't that exciting or fulfilling in the first place. Those companies, they're going to automate significantly. And yes, that is going to mean job losses and probably more profit for those companies, particularly in certain roles and industries.

This is real and is worth taking seriously. But here where it gets interesting The gap that leaves is going to be filled It doesn have to stay empty and it is going to be filled by small businesses not big businesses trying to go small actually small businesses micro businesses a tight smart team of a handful of people, probably each wearing multiple hats, probably, hopefully, working flexible hours around their lives, families, and the things that are truly important, solving a very specific problem for a very specific and small group of people and doing it exceptionally well.

These are micro businesses solving niche problems. Now, of course, that's not a new idea. What is new is that it's actually financially viable to be truly excellent at it now. Because historically, if you wanted to run a small business serving a niche market, you either had to charge a lot, work yourself into the ground, or both.

The overheads were high, manpower was expensive, profit margins got thin. It just didn't make sense to solve a small problem for a small group of people. The numbers didn't work. But now with the right AI systems in place, with a small well-paid switched on team, with automations and tools that used to be reserved for companies with seven bigger tech budgets, a business that turns over a couple of million dollars a year, relatively small client base, paying its people well, that can be genuinely profitable.

and that is completely achievable right now without needing to be a massive company to get there. So let me bring this back to us because if you're listening to this, you're probably already in or working towards exactly the kind of business I just described. You're a coach, you're a course creator, someone with a specific area of expertise, a specific audience and a small team or no team yet. You are exactly who this future is built for.

While big companies are figuring out how they're going to replace people with AI, you can be using AI to do things that the big companies actually can't. You can move fast stay nimble serve your specific niche in a way that a corporation never could And here the thing about the jobs argument too Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur but everyone is built for it To be fair we all kind of mad and that fine But these small businesses as they become more profitable they can bring on more people.

They can pay them well, give them genuinely interesting work and an environment that isn't a massive solace corporation. That's where the jobs are coming from. And I think that's actually kind of beautiful. So here's the reframe I want to leave you with.

Instead of the story being AI is coming for our jobs and for our businesses. What if the story is AI is the thing that finally makes small businesses the most powerful players in the game? Not because AI is doing everything, but because AI is doing the things that used to require a team of 20. So your team of two or three, or even just you right now, can now compete, can now serve your clients at a level that would have been impossible five years ago, can now build a business that makes consistent money without burning you out and can now go and hire those people who are walking away from those solar's corporate jobs and looking for something better and new.

That's the version of the future that I am excited about. And honestly, based on everything I've seen and heard, I really truly hope it's the one that's actually coming. Okay, let's recap. AI is, yes, going to significantly reshape how the corporate world operates.

It already is. That part is real. But the gap that it creates. Small businesses can fill it.

Microbusinesses, tight teams, specific niches, real problems solved really, really well. And with AI as your leverage, that is now more possible and more profitable than it has ever been. The story isn't AI versus business. It's AI plus small business equals the most exciting era small business owners have ever seen.

That's me on my podium for this week. If this has given you a bit of hope, share it with someone who needs to hear it right now and I'll catch you all next time.