AI & Business Strategy with Intern Michael Doerffler

Brad: 00:00:00

Welcome to Student of the Game podcast where we help you master the fundamentals, fall in love with practice, and win at the game of life. I'm your host, Brad Noll. Welcome to the classroom. Welcome back to another episode of Student of the Game, Loki. I got a student on this game.

This is, this is fun. Today we're going to be talking about AI. I'm not going to tell you what it stands for.

I got my buddy Michael Doerffler here on the podcast, interning with Noll Team real estate student at University of South Florida, product of Homestead High School, Southwest Fort Wayne. Shout out. Michael, thanks for being on the podcast today.

Michael: 00:00:38

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Brad: 00:00:41

Cool. Cool. We're. One of the things we just talked about on our last episode with Tiffany Ham on our team was our intern program.

And we talked about, you know, we've had interns from Homestead before. We've had interns from Purdue, Fort Wayne. Now it's our first intern from University of South Florida. So super excited. Is it the Bulls?

What's with the mascot?

Michael: 00:00:57

Yep. Go bowls right here.

Brad: 00:00:59

Okay. Go Bulls. Let's go bowls. So we talked all about the intern program that we have. Well, this is a real life example of one of our interns.

And Michael, thanks for coming on the podcast. We're going to talk about AI. Your degree is super fascinating. It's something that's, that's newer. Everybody has heard of AI.

AI is like the biggest buzzword in the world right now. I can't watch a commercial without hearing the word AI.

Like, hey, buy Frosted Flakes and download our AI app to, you know, meet Tony the Tiger or something like that. Like, what is, what is AI? First of all, who are you? And tell us about your major. AI and business analytics.

Michael: 00:01:35

Yeah, so USF just recently started offering this degree. It's actually STEM designated, so it's like a technology degree. And it combines data science, computer science, and business analytics.

So you get a real world application of these programs. So I think this fits me really well. I've had a lot of experience in different industries.

I worked all the regular basic jobs you can think of growing up. But when it comes to what is AI and machine learning, it's defined as, let's see.

So AI is when computers are trained to think and respond just like humans do. So it's almost like giving it a software, a brain.

Brad: 00:02:19

So, okay, so can I, can I have a conversation with AI? Like, can I get into. So first of all, let's, I'm Going to back up for a second. So we're going to talk about AI and machine learning.

I want you to get those definitions. But here's, here's kind of what, what's happening, I believe critical mass. Like we think about the word critical mass. That's when a.

That's when an industry and a brand coexist. Give an example. When somebody says, hand me a Kleenex. Well, Kleenex is a brand. They're saying, hand me the brand. Right? And the industry is a tissue.

A lot of times people say, hey, let's go rollerblading. Or back in the day, they say, hey, let's go rollerblading. But rollerblade is a brand, and inline skating is what it is.

And now AI, it's like, hey, you know, everybody thinks of ChatGPT, right? And it's like, let's, let's get on chat. Well, it's like, hey, let's go Google something. All they mean is, let's go search something.

So we want to make sure we bring you the definition. So AI and machine learning, what do we need to know about those?

Michael: 00:03:17

So AI is the process of giving a software a brain. And machine learning is a part of AI, where computers learn from data that they're given.

So instead of telling a computer exactly what to do every time, it finds patterns in what you do and gets better from the more data you give it. So ChatGPT is a brand of AI, but Netflix also has their own brand.

Brad: 00:03:44

Of AI, and so does Google, and so does all of these other products now. So, all right, so you have this degree, you're going towards this degree of AI and business analytics, and you reached out to us to do an internship.

So at the beginning, what was the goal of your internship as it relates to your major specifically?

Michael: 00:04:05

Well, I've always had an interest in real estate, so that was kind of where I wanted to blend my studies with focus in real estate. So I really didn't have a clear goal. I was like, I want professional experience and I want to see what you guys would want from me.

Like, what value can I provide? Like, if you would have told me to file documents, I probably would have done it. But this has been the best case scenario. I've.

I've loved everything about this internship.

Brad: 00:04:34

That's awesome. A couple things. I'm an analytical guy by nature. Like in my DNA, I'm analytical. I like to analyze things, sometimes too much.

But I believe that there's a combination that is kind of a sweet spot between doing business and thinking about the business. Couple quotes that I came across. When it comes to data and tracking, I'm a big data guy. I love tracking. I think numbers tell a story.

Edwards Deming says, in God we trust, all others must bring data. He also says, without data, you're just another person with an opinion. Peter Drucker says you can't manage what you don't measure.

Great author, great leadership. What gets measured gets improved. Peter Drucker. Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a voice. Data beats emotions.

Analytics is a nervous system of every modern business. I can go on and on. You find data, you know, analytics in sports right now, like this is. This is a business podcast.

But I got my master's degree from the locker room, and right now you can't watch sports without data. Data, science, all that stuff. Michael, I know you're a big sports fan. Tell us how data is showing up in sports.

We didn't prepare for this conversation, but tell us a little bit about how sports and data are intertwined right now.

Michael: 00:05:54

So I actually have a story about that. So at my other internship at Three Rivers, I do business intelligence there. I work with someone who did his.

He did his degree at PFW in statistics, and he developed a data. A data model that predicts. I forget what the certain things are, but it's for baseball. And he made a predictor model for that.

And it was so good that the tin caps actually had him come sit in their box and give them predictions and let him make the calls about who's going to go pitch, who's going to go bat, and they won the game.

Brad: 00:06:32

So that's fantastic. That's a. It's a real life example. I mean, I watch it in basketball right now, you know, and, and a lot of NBA people don't like the NBA.

They give it a bad rap. They shoot a lot of threes, but at the end of the day in basketball, it's all about points per possession. You know, points per possession.

If I can shoot 35% from three, that's better than me shooting, you know, 40% from two, you know, and so at the end of the day, if I can make more threes, maybe not at the highest percentage, I can at twos, but close. Now what ends up happening is I'm controlling the outcomes by scoring more points because the points per position matter.

And so it's just a different way to look at things. Here's what we want to do. We don't want to get into the weeds today.

We want to give you some practical tips about how you can use AI, how you can use data analytics for your business, for your small business. We're going to tell you what we're doing.

I think that there's power in analytics, there's power in data, and like the quotes suggested, you know, that helps tell a story, that the data helps tell a story. And how do we use AI without being scared of it, without feeling like it's coming for our jobs?

I heard somebody tell me once that, you know, it's not. AI is not going to replace you. AI is going to replace the person who doesn't use it. AI is going to replace the person who, Who.

Who doesn't want to grow. So in simple terms, Michael just defined what AI, or machine learning is. You put information into a system and it.

And it has pattern recognition and it understands how to think almost not for you. But the prompts that you use, I think. I think that's important to talk about, too. So tell us what a prompt is when it comes to AI.

Michael: 00:08:05

Yeah. So a prompt, when most people think about it, they think about ChatGPT, and that is a language model.

There's a lot of different types of models derived from AI, but ChatGPT takes prompts and analyzes each word you're using, analyzes the process in which they're used, and then it gives you its best possible response based on every other person that's given it prompts, and also the whole worldwide Internet.

Brad: 00:08:34

So I think most of this episode is probably going to be about the prompts, like what you're asking it, what you're telling it to do, do what you're needing from it. But before we go there, talk about what are the tools that you use? Like, Michael, what.

What are some of the tools that you've been using, whether with this internship or a different one that people know. Because right now, like, you know, Chat and Gemini are like the two big ones that people know. Gemini's with Google and ChatGPT.

But what are some of the other ones that you use?

Michael: 00:09:00

Yeah, so my main tool is definitely chatgpt. I use it daily for ideas, problems, and summarizing information.

But outside of that, I've explored tools like perplexity, which shows you what sources it's taking from. There's Deep seq, which is kind of like a free model of the plus version of ChatGPT.

A lot of people like that because there's not as many limitations on the Deep SEQ model. And then there's also, like, resume Analyzers I've used.

And there's this one fun app called Theia, and I use that to analyze my skin and give me a better skincare routine.

Brad: 00:09:37

Really?

Michael: 00:09:37

Yeah.

Brad: 00:09:39

And is that sponsored by somebody, like a manufacturer? Like I would know, but who's building these, these models, these language models?

Michael: 00:09:48

I would have to look into what Thea is using, but I actually took a picture of my face and it analyzed the picture. And then there's a chatbot that I can talk to, basically like I would talk to a dermatologist, really.

Brad: 00:10:02

Okay, so now we're talking about things I haven't even thought about before. So I'm going to get home and I got some gray hairs. I got kids that are, you know, getting old and.

And you know, it's tough being a parent and a business owner, you know, you know that you. That are doing it, you know it. But that is fascinating. I feel like this is a rabbit hole that people can go down.

Do you find yourself, Michael, like getting into this and being like, you know, it's almost like social media. Like an hour later, it's like, where did the time go?

Michael: 00:10:28

Yeah, no, yesterday I was thinking about getting a haircut because I'm a little shaggy and I was looking up, what do I ask for? And then I was like, well, let me take a picture, send it to ChatGPT and say, what would I look like with a undercut mid taper fade? And it showed me.

It generated an image of me with that haircut.

Brad: 00:10:51

Yeah, I did. Speaking of, speaking of photos, I did this with my son. He was sitting on the couch. I think he was eating a bag of Doritos or something. And I just.

He's 13. He's a teenager. He's 13. And I said, what would he look like as a 50 year old man if he keeps eating junk food the rest of his life?

And what would he look like if he decided to become healthy at 50 years old? Give me two images.

And it spit out two images of somebody who just went off the rails, who looked like my son 50 years from now and then somebody who decided to get super lean and probably a crossfitter or something like that. And so I showed him. I'm like, trey, look at this, man. Dude, is this what you want to look like at 50 years old if you just keep eating these chips?

So anyway, that was fun and it was funny. But let's talk about the applications for business.

Let's get into, you know, it's important that we understand data matters because small hinges swing Big doors, you've probably heard that say before, that saying before, small hinges will swing big doors. We just put a big door on one of our rooms that we remodeled and, you know, we had a couple small hinges and the door is really, really heavy.

And so these little things we want to find these little things that will move the needle. What's one or two examples of real data insights, Michael, that you've uncovered for our team?

Michael: 00:12:08

Yeah, so one example is I used our real satisfied survey data that we send to clients after every transaction has been closed.

Brad: 00:12:17

Okay, listen to this. Michael's going to tell us about this because this is fascinating.

Our team was blown away and Tiffany alluded to this a little bit on the previous podcast. But I want you to hear what Michael. I had a question.

I didn't know how to solve it, and Michael used AI to figure out how to solve and improve our business with these tips. So he's talking about these satisfaction, these satisfaction scores, these surveys that we send.

If you're a business owner and you have testimonials or Google reviews or whatever you have. If you're a business and you have these, here's something you can do right now with AI. Go ahead, Michael.

Michael: 00:12:53

Yeah, so I uploaded hundreds of files of these testimonials and survey data to ChatGPT, and I was able to pull out patterns using prompts.

It was really difficult to prompt it correctly, but we looked for what keywords kept showing up in the positive reviews and where the slight nuances in the maybe negative reviews were. So this helped the team think about where they're constantly delivering and where they could potentially grow.

Brad: 00:13:25

So here's, here's what I heard on that. The prompts matter, right?

So, like, if I got in, I'm not going to do this right now, but if I got into chat and I asked it, you know, hey, give me some, give me, give me some marketing words for this three bed, two bath house. It would give me, it would spit out a result.

But if I went to the so far as to say, hey, this is a three bed, two bath house and it's in this specific zip code and it's in this specific price range, who would be the buyer? What would be their income levels? What would they be interested in based on this side of town, what do I need to know about them?

Now we're getting somewhere, right? Garbage in, garbage out. Well, good prompts in, good results back. So, Michael, you said you tweaked the prompts to get what you wanted.

So what you said, hundreds of surveys. Obviously this is hard work. Like, it's, it's a simple. Kicks out, spits out some information, but it's hard work to get it to that point.

And you had some, some challenges with it. What were some of the challenges you had?

Michael: 00:14:24

Yeah, so the challenges is that ChatGPT didn't know what to do when I just send it the files. So when I send it the finals and I'm like, don't analyze anything yet.

Wait for me to be done uploading all these files so that I can tell you where to go from there. And so it still had trouble listening to me and it would start analyzing things and I'm like, don't analyze if I'm not done yet.

Brad: 00:14:49

So Chad's like a toddler.

Michael: 00:14:50

Yeah.

Brad: 00:14:51

Like, don't touch it, it's hot. Don't, don't. I told you. I told you, don't touch it. It's hot. Exactly.

Michael: 00:14:56

Exactly. So, I mean, even after I said that, it would still not listen.

So I had to program it and program it and prompt it and prompt it until it did exactly what I wanted. And eventually I started analyzing them in bunches. And then I said, from these bunches, combine the bunches together.

Because I couldn't upload 100 files and say, okay, now analyze the 100 files.

Brad: 00:15:20

That's good. So first tip is take your reviews, throw them into chat and be very, very specific. Tell it, tell it.

Wait until I get all of these uploaded and, and then once you get a bunch of them uploaded, if you have more, depending on how many reviews you have or surveys, you can go ahead and ask a specific prompts, things you need to know like what team member has the highest score, what team members. Be specific on which team members need improvement in certain categories. As a team, where are we delivering?

As a team, where are you seeing some gaps? These are questions that you can ask, these are prompts that you can ask. And then the heavy lifting happens, like, okay, how do we go improve these?

Which is what we're working on now. So you did the real satisfied surveys. Anything else on the real satisfied surveys or you want to go to the next thing you did?

Michael: 00:16:05

We can go to the next thing.

Brad: 00:16:07

Let's talk about agent dashboards and scorecards, for example. This is a project we haven't finished yet. We're still working on. It's a big project. But as a business owner, here's the thing that we have.

We have data on every team member with us. What we don't have a great handle on is is an entire dashboard with our entire team as a whole.

And so the task Michael had was, hey, go build us a dashboard using AI, Take the information we have on these spreadsheets and in our CRM, and then go build us something that we can just look at and see where the team is doing. So go ahead, Michael. The agent dashboards and scorecards. Tell us about those.

Michael: 00:16:45

Yeah, so it originally started with just a Google sheet, essentially an Excel file. And you and David were like, we want to optimize this. And so I took that and kind of ran with it.

I know there's a platform called Power Bi, and essentially, I'm not using AI to create the dashboard. I'm using AI to teach me how to use Power Bi so that I can create the most effective dashboard for the team.

And so we're taking data from our Google sheet, connecting it to Power Bi, visualizing it so that it's effective, easy to read, and branded. That's what I really love about it, is that we can brand it to look like this is the nolteam dashboard. And so it's very actionable.

It shows who's being the most efficient with their time, and it opens the door to conversations about strategy, not just effort.

Brad: 00:17:40

So one of the things that Michael's helping me is he's helping me come up with where does. Where do the agents individually need coached at? Like, at what level do they need coached at? So we track our connections.

We track our closings, our sales, our. Our average volume, our total volume. All of these things we track. But then there's always gaps to find.

Like, we can find gaps on, okay, who's not making connections, and maybe somebody is making connections, but their sales aren't where they want to be. Like, this is what this dashboard in one setting shows me. So that's been. That's been fun to work through.

And I know there's a lot of other things that we can build off of that, but just having a group of information and to be able to see it in one spot versus I know all you business owners, we have a bunch of technologies we can use, and we have to go pull it from a bunch of different sites. This streamlines it into one space so that.

So we really can look at it and, you know, make an observation of what's happening, talk about the next one. Review our current standard operating procedures for redundancy and efficiencies. Tiffany talked a little bit about that.

The project you're working on is, we want to know how much the cost per Sale is in our team.

Like, you know, as we go through this, this list, and as you start a business and as you hire people, you want to know that are people maximizing their day. You know, we're not, we're not factory workers. Like, we're not working you to the bones here.

Like, we want you to take breaks, we want you to have conversations with your spouse and go take a lunch and do these things right and have, have the, the right work life balance. But we also want to know, are you being efficient with your time and are we doing tasks that we don't need to do?

Like, are these tasks, you know, beneficial or are they a waste of time? So talk about reviewing our current standard operating procedures.

Michael: 00:19:20

Yeah, so we've been looking into Trello, which is where we organize all of our transactions. And I'm kind of looking for ways to eliminate the busy work.

In terms of SOPs, I've been creating documents that help us onboard team members faster or more efficiently. But when it comes to Trello, it's more of, okay, so we move this card to this area every time a transaction gets moved to the next step.

And I've been looking into how do we automate that? How can we put a process in place that moves that card without anyone touching it? And how do we put.

When we get an email about a new form submission, how do we get it? So all of the information from that form that we need gets extracted and put into a Trello card without anyone touching it.

And that's the stuff that takes a lot of time, but people don't really think about it, because how else do you do it?

Brad: 00:20:15

Absolutely.

And one of the things that we've talked about on this podcast before, my friend Donald Miller, you know, has a saying is people want to be valued, People want to be valuable. People want to contribute to success, to society.

And one of the ways that you're a valuable member of an organization is if you can provide three to five times revenue, you know, of what your salary is. So if somebody comes in and says, hey, I want to make, you know, make up a number. I want to make $100,000. Great.

If you can, if, if you can bring 300 to $500,000 worth of value to our organization, we'll pay $100,000, like, no brainer. If you, I mean, same thing. You'll make $50,000. Same. Math works. And so what Michael's doing is he's looking for efficiencies.

He's trying to say, like, hey, how can we Save our people time. How can we, you know, reduce some of our expenses? And then how can we create even more efficiencies so that we can, you know, increase revenues?

And if you're a business owner right now, I mean, this is the time you need to be peeling back the expenses, trying to put your foot on the gas and increasing revenues. And so by looking at our current standard operating procedures, that's exactly what we're trying to do here.

We're trying to keep people efficient, keep people in the lane that they're supposed to be in. You know, the gifts that God's given them, we want, we want them to do more of that. And so we're trying to create an opportunity that removes waste.

So you're doing that as well. Anything to add to that?

Michael: 00:21:29

Yeah. So when people also think about efficiencies, they think about removing jobs.

Like when people, people have been associating AI with, oh no, I'm going to lose my job. But when you ask me like, what are my biggest takeaways about AI's potential for business?

I think AI has two possible paths where there's one that people are scared of, where jobs disappear and everything becomes automated and then the human part of business would fade away. But then there's the version that I believe in, which is AI is going to become a tool that upgrades our jobs instead of replacing them.

It can take away the repetitive, mind numbing parts of work and that frees up time to do what humans are supposed to do, which is critical thinking, strategy, building relationships and connecting deeply with others.

So I think once people stray away from the, oh no, I'm going to lose my job to that mindset is where we can actually start to use it for better things.

Brad: 00:22:29

So let's go over that list again, because on this podcast, one of the things we talk about on Student of the Game is we want to master the fundamentals. And I think what you just said right there was the fundamentals. What's that list again? What do you think we're going to.

Michael: 00:22:38

Be doing more of critical thinking, strategy, building relationships and connecting deeply with other people.

Brad: 00:22:46

I mean, that's a mic drop moment right there. Michael Dorfler, intern at no Team Real Estate, just dropped the mic on the fundamentals of AI right there.

That's if you want to know what AI is going to do for your future. That's it right there. Double, double down on those things.

Invest in relationships, stand out with service and master your skills are something we talk about all the time. Student of the Game is brought to you by Knoll Team Real Estate.

Our mission is to eradicate mediocre real estate transactions on your largest financial purchase. You shouldn't have to deal with average.

We do this by helping you save time, reduce your stress, and helping you keep as much money in your pocket as we can.

You can help us out by introducing us to your friends or family who want to make confident real estate decisions, whether buying, selling, building or investing. At Noel Team Real Estate, we are connected to a group of Realtors who sell one in every eight homes in North America.

If you know someone moving out of your area, there's a great chance we can connect them to somebody we know like and trust. Remember, relationships win. Now back to the show. Awesome. That's great.

I want to ask you on the other side of things, what are you surprised most about AI's capabilities?

Michael: 00:24:02

Yes, that was one of my favorite questions that you were putting in my outline here. So I think the memory and creativity aspects of AI is what has surprised me the most.

You can give it your entire thought process and it's not just going to spit back answers. It's not going to mirror what you said. It's. It helps you see what you're missing.

So it's like an outside brain that's challenging your assumptions, organizing your messy ideas, and it gives structure to your thinking. So over time, AI can actually start to learn who you are based on what you've shared with it.

It can recognize your goals, patterns, and how you think where you're at in life and tailor its responses around that. Granted, I am referencing mostly just chatgpt right now, but one thing I've used that's really crazy is I've used it to reflect on myself.

Like, based on how much I've used it in the past, I can ask it deep personal questions and it'll generate insights based on everything I've told it. Obviously, it only knows what I've fed it, but because I've shared so much, it can give me accurate reflections about my inner psyche.

It's like having a guide that can help me unpack my values or my motivations or my struggles.

Brad: 00:25:20

That's crazy. That's. I mean, it's. Give me an example of a prompt. Like, what's something that you would. You would prompt it while you're looking for that?

I've seen some funny ones. Like my wife and I like, hey, chat, roast me. Yeah, you know, there's some really funny ones. What are some of the prompts that, that you've used?

Michael: 00:25:39

Yeah. So, like, these are really simple, but, like, based on everything I've told you, like, think about all of our past conversations.

What do you think I value? What are my biggest fears? What am I missing in my life that I need to focus on? Where do you see contradictions in my behavior?

And then that starts a whole rabbit hole where you're like, okay, tell me more. Like, let me hear more. If you know everything about me, like.

Brad: 00:26:05

What do you think I'm going to say? Something that I think I've said one time on this podcast, but my mentor told me that he referenced salt. Okay, Salt.

Salt was one and is one of the most precious minerals in the world. And it's made up of two parts. And those parts by themselves will kill you, but when you put them together, it creates salt. Sodium chloride.

Is that right?

Michael: 00:26:33

Yeah.

Brad: 00:26:33

I'm not a scientist, but I think I got that right. Didn't even use chat. And so sodium chloride by themselves will kill you, but you put them together, it's the most precious mineral in the world.

I believe that. That is thinking and doing. If you just sit there and think, nothing will ever get done.

And if your life is just made up of action because you grind and sleep is for suckers and grind, grind, grind. And, you know, you just work and you don't take any thought to the work that you do, that'll kill you, too.

But when you put thinking and you put action together, that's where that salt comes together. And I believe AI, if you don't hear anything else, hear this. AI as a tool won't get you anywhere.

It does a lot of thinking for you when you give it the right prompts. But if you don't do anything about it, like Michael, you just said you learned a lot about yourself.

Now the key is, what are you going to go do with that? I'll give you another prompt. Here's a prompt that I did this weekend. You know, there's all these people now putting prompts on. On socials.

You can see them on Twitter or X, you can see it on Facebook and Instagram. Whatever this is, this is what I put in the chat.

Based on everything that you know about me and based on everything you know about human behavior and the users across ChatGPT, what would you say is the most likely outcome for the next 12 months of my life and career?

Please use pattern recognition and not just leverage the patterns inside of me, but also the patterns within other people provide not just the outcome, but also the odds and your rationale behind it. And I gotta tell you, like, it's super crazy how it learned everything that I'm working on right now. It learned everything that's important to me.

And like you said, Michael, like, it started to understand, you know, the predictive analytics of. Here's what I think, you know, is. Is probably going to happen. So the reality is, now what do I do with that? Right, Right. What do.

What do I do with that? And I think that's, that's the key part. That's why I brought up Salt. So it's not just about putting these prompts in.

It's about, you got to go do something. And that's, that's the hard work as well.

Michael: 00:28:34

Yeah.

Brad: 00:28:35

All right, moving on now. I. I was a huge tangent. Sorry about that. What else you got? Anything else? Anything else that surprising you?

Michael: 00:28:41

I mean, that's, that's the craziest things. I think that surprised me, but it continues to surprise me every day. I mean, you can tell.

Chat, Surprise me, tell me something I can do with you or with it, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, that I didn't know.

Brad: 00:28:58

So give, Give some tips for some small business owners or even interns on how to start simple with AI.

Michael: 00:29:06

I'd say biggest thing is to start small. Don't try to use AI for everything all at once.

Pick one task you do often, like writing emails or brainstorming or summarizing a process, and just go from there. The key is to treat it like a collaborator. The more concept, the more context you give it is, the more helpful it becomes.

So don't worry about sounding perfect. You just have to be real with it and it'll meet you where you're at.

Brad: 00:29:32

If you can wrap your head around this, I love what you said. If you could wrap your head around this, AI is your new personal assistant. Like you. You just gotta, like, go be more efficient today.

Go be more effective today. Go build more relationships because you're leveraging AI.

Craziest thing I've done with AI so far as far as purchasing a consumer product, Michael, have you bought anything using AI? Like, have you. Have you had it help you make a decision on buying anything?

Michael: 00:29:58

Yeah, I've had it. Helped me decide how I'm going to pay off my student debt.

Brad: 00:30:02

There you go. If there's something that's fantastic.

Well, first, first thing you're going to do is we're going to share this episode with a bunch of people and they're going to pay you a whole lot of money to come work for them. Because you're really smart at which. And you're really good at what you do.

So that's the first thing you're going to do, is you're going to go get a really good job because of this podcast. Not because of the podcast, because of you. I bought an electric toothbrush. Oh, I went to the dentist. Get this. I went to the dentist.

This is a crazy thing. I brush my teeth twice a day, sometimes three. Whatever. But I'm super aggressive. Like, I just. I just brush and I just get after it.

And I have to get a new toothbrush all the time. That's a little personal. Whatever. So I go to chat. First of all, I go to the dentist. This is like a month ago.

I go to the dentist, and they're like, oh, my gosh, you've got a lot of plaque buildup. The way you brush your teeth isn't good.

Like, so she was teaching me how to brush my teeth, and I'm like, I just feel like an unclean human right now. Like, I'm. I'm 45 and I'm learning how to brush my teeth. So I go to chat. This is literally an hour after my. My dentist appointment.

I said, well, what do I do?

And she goes, well, the next time you come in, you're going to have to have, like, an invasive cleaning, and that's going to take a long time and it's going to hurt. And I've never done that. If you've had this before, you know what I'm talking about. So I said, I don't want that. So I said, what do I do?

And she goes, well, you either need to learn how to brush or you need to get an electric toothbrush. So I'm like, done. Electric toothbrush. Here we go. So I went into chat, and I'm like, chat. I went to the dentist. I need to buy an electric toothbrush.

Give me my options. Here's what they said about me. Here's, here's. Here's my criteria. Two days later, shows up at the front door.

The exact toothbrush that it recommended, and it had the link on there, and I bought it.

So I bought electric toothbrush from using chat GPT because the dentist said I'm an unclean, unfit human to be walking around with this gangly, gangly teeth, I guess.

Michael: 00:31:42

So there you go.

Brad: 00:31:44

There's. There's my story on that. I don't know why I brought that up, but there's some crazy things. It's a rabbit hole.

You get into Any other tips for small Business owners.

Michael: 00:31:52

I think you covered it. I mean using it as your personal assistant, it can be the best thing you can do to optimize your daily, your daily life.

Whether you're a business owner, whether you're a data data analyst or whether you're a realtor, it doesn't matter what profession. Just using it to streamline your processes and help you identify where you're missing things is really important.

Brad: 00:32:16

We're going to skip down a little bit, a little short on time, but I want to make sure we're giving some, some good context and good content to other business owners listening.

Something fun that you've done is you're sending out now like a weekly update to our agents on our team about how to use AI, how to use chat, how to use AI in their daily, in their daily walk, in their daily work. What are some of those daily things, some of those ideas that you've shared with the group?

Michael: 00:32:44

Yeah, so I've shared things like writing lead follow up messages that sound personal. You're not just sounding like a robot. But it still saves time.

You can create listing descriptions that actually match a client's personality or lifestyle. It can help you with pricing strategy by generating pros or cons based on market comps.

You can boost your productivity with AI generated checklists or even creating branding ideas like Instagram captions or client appreciation notes. So it really can go any direction you want, even if it's. You're not just a realtor. Everyone needs personalization with their personal job.

I've seen everyone use it over at Three Rivers, which is the credit union I work at, and there's a lady that sends out a PDF that basically does the same thing I do is like use AI in your daily life or else everyone else is going to run five times faster than you.

Brad: 00:33:45

Yeah, one of the things that, that I bring to my team a lot, and this is maybe for you out there, is if you're fearful that AI is going to take your job or you're fearful that your clients have, you know, something in their hands that, that you don't. Michael, one of the examples you said is like a market analysis or just studying some data or noticing some trends or patterns.

You know, here's the thing, I'm not fearful in the real estate market here locally, and here's why. A great example is my cousin out in Oakland, California in the San Francisco area, in the Bay Area. He's a pediatric nephrologist.

So he studies kids, kidneys and he's trying to create an artificial kidney for kids who need them. And it's an awesome profession. But he had a patient one time in his office, he was doing some office hours and something came up.

There's a question, and he was so funny. He told the patients, he goes, I don't know. Let's Google that. And he's the doctor, and he's telling the patients, I don't know the answer to that.

Let's Google that. And this is the magic behind it. He had his patients Google the question that they had, and he Googled it at the same time.

And he goes, now I'm going to say something that you need to remember. There's a big difference between you researching something or Googling it or throwing it into chat versus me.

The doctor who's trained at Johns Hopkins, who has 20 years experience, who's developing artificial kidneys. There's a big difference between me Googling something and you Googling something.

Because his experience gives him the knowledge and the wisdom to know what the next steps are.

Michael: 00:35:25

Right?

Brad: 00:35:26

He can discern how he can lead his patient. Just like you as the business owner, you can discern better than the end user more than what the end user can discern.

They still have the information. That's great. Don't hold onto this information like, you know, I'm the only one with chat or nobody else knows how to use AI.

No, you have to know right now, when you're meeting a client, they're using AI along with you, and you're using it together to go through a process, to go through a sales process. You just got to be better at it and more proficient in your line of work.

And your experience needs to show when it comes to the results and taking action after using the tool. Anything to add to that, Michael?

Michael: 00:36:08

Nope. You got it.

Brad: 00:36:10

Perfectly cool. All right, last one. We're going to talk about your takeaways as an intern and AI's future role.

What have you learned about how small businesses operate?

Michael: 00:36:21

So one thing I've learned is that they operate with more structure than people might think.

I mean, some people think small business and think it's just like a food fight in a cafeteria, but they're actually a lot more grounded in vision and value.

And that's what I love about it here, is that even just talking to you, Brad, you bring up your values or your vision at least once a conversation, and I love that. But at the same time, it's a lot more flexible being in a small business versus a tenured business.

There's more room for Trying new things or making decisions on the fly and actually implementing them. So it's a great environment for a creative brain. If you're someone who takes initiative and is proactive, which I like to think that I am.

Brad: 00:37:12

What are some of your biggest takeaways about AI's potential in the real estate business? Some things that you're working on, I.

Michael: 00:37:18

Mean, yeah, I mentioned that earlier. That's more of like the two roads. Whether everything becomes automated and we have a very bot like structure.

There is going to be businesses like that that we want to go that route because it's cost efficient. But there's also the other route where businesses like you are going to go where you're very relationship based and you're very human based.

And that's going to be just, I think, beautiful in the long run for streamlining processes but still maintaining human connection and nourishing those relationships.

Brad: 00:37:53

Where do you see analytics and AI playing a role in your career?

I know you're studying it, but you know, when, when the rubber meets the road and you know you're out of school and you're going to get a job, like where do you, where do you see kind of the crosshairs of analytics and AI and what do you want to do with it?

Michael: 00:38:10

Yeah, so I believe that we're still really early in this whole shift, this revolution that some people would call it, and the people who are learning it and adapting to it now are going to have a very long term advantage.

And I want to be someone who helps businesses not just adopt AI tools, but actually use them really well and to move smarter and be more human and create fulfilling jobs for everyone that works for that company. I would love that to be my future. But until then, I think data analytics and business analytics is where I'm going to grow into.

Brad: 00:38:51

I think one of the things that, you know, I found is that have you seen Moneyball?

Michael: 00:38:58

I haven't. I keep hearing references to it though.

Brad: 00:39:01

I would encourage you to watch Moneyball because if you like sports and you like data, it's like the perfect movie. I actually showed my daughter, I have a 15 year old daughter who's, who plays basketball and we watched Moneyball. She watched it, I didn't.

She watched it in the backseat of the car on the way to one of her tournaments.

And I just told her, I said, listen, there's a reason they keep stats, there's a reason there's a scoreboard, because winning and losing is a real thing. And in the game of life you get to compete you have to compete against other people. And everybody has a baseball card. Everybody has stats.

Everybody is competing for jobs every single day. And at the end of the day, I want to compete. I want to earn the business of those that I serve.

And so Moneyball is a great example of what they were trying to do. They were trying to buy runs, not buy players.

Every other team was trying to buy players, and so they would overpay where the Oakland A's they bought runs, and they had to, you know, peel back the layers to find out exactly how to extrapolate the data so that they could go buy more runs. And they put a baseball team on the field. Baseball team of misfits. Nobody wanted them. And they ended up making it a really long way.

Didn't win the World Series, but very, very close. And is a great movie about data and. And that's coming into our workplace too. So I appreciate you sharing, Michael. I think this is awesome.

What's your favorite tool besides ChatGPT, I gotta say.

Michael: 00:40:15

The skin analyzer. I gotta say, it actually.

Brad: 00:40:18

That's a game changer.

Michael: 00:40:19

It really helped me, and I've struggled with skin problems for years, so I love it.

Brad: 00:40:24

That's awesome. And there's probably gonna be more and more products like that that continue to pair with other businesses.

I know Lindsey's working on some in of terms design, you know, platforms with AI, you know, how. How you can serve more people better that, you know, move into a home and they don't want to live in somebody else's stuff and they want to redo it.

So we're working through that. But what's the most surprising thing you've learned in this internship so far?

Michael: 00:40:50

I've. I've just been surprised at how much impact I felt I've been able to make.

I came in thinking that maybe I need to have all the answers or I need to know exactly what needs to be done, or I need to know all these specific technical skills.

But a lot of what made the difference for me is just being curious and spotting what I see and talking to you and David about that and suggesting different ways to do things. So I've just seen how one small insight or system change can create a ripple effect like the real satisfied project.

I honestly didn't think that it would be that useful to you guys. I thought I was just, like, spitting out random words and hearing that. All of you thought it was really valuable and really cool to see.

It was really rewarding for me.

Brad: 00:41:41

Yeah.

So you take that an intern uploads PDFs into chat, has to work on the prompts multiple times, has to do the project multiple times because it didn't take the files originally.

And then all of a sudden, you're now seeing, after being here for a summer, that Brad, as the CEO, is going to be meeting with agents and going over the results of these to improve our performance, to impact their coaching, to impact their businesses, all from a small project you thought wasn't going to matter.

So in the short period of time, you've done real satisfied surveys, you've done our agent dashboards and our scorecards, we've reviewed our standard operating procedures for redundancy and efficiencies. The next project we're working on is an Investor analysis. About 25% of our business is investment real estate.

So if you're thinking about investing in real estate, we do that as well. And Michael's getting ready to put together some stuff that helps you analyze investment properties even better than what we are currently doing.

So, out of all of these projects with more on the docket, what's the downside to AI? We've talked about how positive it is right now. Like, what's the downside?

Michael: 00:42:46

Yeah, the downside is that if you're not careful, you're gonna limit your own critical thinking, you're going to limit your own problem solving skills if you just let AI do all the work for you and you just blah, blah, blah and take exactly what it says.

Brad: 00:43:01

Yeah.

Michael: 00:43:02

So it's an easy trap to fall into if you're just asking it and not thinking. But as long as you're aware of that, you can use it as a tool to support your thinking, to grow it into the opposite direction.

And I feel like that's what I've done. I mean, a lot of people are like, you're mind numbing yourself. You're about to become a smooth brain, like.

But I think I'm actually going the opposite direction and teaching myself how to think more outside the box of my own brain. And as long as you're doing the work mentally, you'll be fine.

Brad: 00:43:39

I totally agree. I think it's fantastic what you're doing. You know, the team's really enjoyed having you.

Michael, I appreciate you reaching out to me and, you know, applying for the summer internship program. It's been great and we're excited for more work here this fall that you're going to do with us.

But as you know, this is a small business podcast that we just want to remind you. And if we don't remind you, we want to convince you that in the game of life, relationships win. We talked about mastering the fundamentals.

We talked about falling in love with all of these tools and the process and, you know, going through and making sure that, you know, you just keep continually asking for better prompts, more prompts, and get comfortable with these tools and falling in love with, you know, how challenging that this is in the new landscape. And then you got to win at the game of life. And you do that through relationships. And so kids these days say, give this man his flowers, Michael.

They say, you know, shower him with accolades and appreciation.

So as it relates to relationships, who's someone you ascend some version virtual flowers to who's somebody you want to thank for getting you to where you are today?

Michael: 00:44:40

Yeah, I'm definitely sending flowers to my mom. She packed my lunch this morning, and I told her today's my big break. I'm on a podcast today.

And she was so excited for me, and she's excited to listen to it. And she's actually the one that got me into this internship.

I mean, she reached out to you and connected me with you, and that's where we got on our first phone call. So she's always thinking about ways to make my life better, and I wouldn't be where I am without her.

Brad: 00:45:09

So flowers to her, flowers to Kelly. Shout out, in the game of life, relationships win. We can't get anywhere without relationships.

And I don't care if AI is coming and it's getting bigger, because guess what? It is. AI is everywhere. But use it to improve your relationships. Michael, I know my relationship with you is getting better.

I know my relationship with my clients is getting better. One last tip. So something that we did here recently, we have questionnaires.

When people fill out questionnaires, when people want to move, they reach out to us, say, hey, I want to buy a home. I want to sell a home. They fill out a questionnaire.

Recently, I've been able to put those questionnaires into chat and just ask it, hey, I'm getting ready to meet with this person. Here's their age. Here's what. Here's their price range. Here's what they want to buy.

Tell me a little bit more about, you know, how I can make this meeting, you know, beneficial, and then give me maybe five questions that they're probably asking themselves prior to meeting. And so it's just another. Another way to think on how to use this. You know, how to use these tools.

So hopefully today's been helpful, and it's not just random Michael and I having a conversation. But if it is, I've enjoyed the 45 minutes. Michael, thanks for being on the guest. Thanks for being a guest today on the show.

Michael: 00:46:13

Yeah, of course. I really appreciate you having me. I think this conversation has been great and I hope everyone can pull something from it.

Brad: 00:46:20

Well, I'll tell you this, if you don't hire Michael first, we will. So Michael, thanks. Thanks for all you're doing on this internship. Hopefully this has been helpful for you.

One of our core values is win together and so we love it when we can create win win scenarios for people. So that's the show. Michael, thanks for being a guest today.

Michael: 00:46:37

Of course. Thanks for being a host today.

Brad: 00:46:39

All right, be great everyone. See you on the next show.

Michael: 00:46:42

See you.

Brad: 00:46:45

Thanks for listening to Student of the Game podcast. Whatever game you are playing, I'm cheering for you. See you in the next class.