I Can Help with AI. Do Owners Want Help?
Introduction:
Alan Pentz is convinced a wave of disruption is about to crash into small businesses—and he’s doing everything he can to warn owners before it hits. He’s writing, teaching, consulting, waving the red flag. He’s just not sure anyone is ready to listen. “I don’t know if you’ve seen Don’t Look Up,” he says, “but it’s kind of like that. The asteroid’s coming—and everyone’s still walking around like it’s normal.” In our latest 21 Hats Brainstorm, Alan put his own future on the table. He asked a panel of owners to help him answer a hard question: Do business owners actually want help adopting AI? And if they do, what kind of help will they pay for? Is there a real, scalable business here—or just a lot of interest and polite nodding? And there’s one more twist: Alan already owns a successful consulting firm. So he also has to decide whether this opportunity is worth jumping back into the startup grind to build another service-heavy business from scratch. The Brainstorm is brought to you by New Bridge Studios, which helps companies, creators, and causes connect their stories to the bottom line.
— Loren Feldman
Guests:
Chris Hutchinson of Trebuchet Group, plus Alan Pentz of OwnerRx, Kelly Allan of Kelly Allan Associates, Sean Campbell of Cascade Insights, Amy Collins of The Olea Group, Casey Helmick of New Bridge Studios, Sandy Kapell of Trakehner Leadership, Leisa Peterson of Wealth Clinic, Liz Picarazzi of Citibin, Megan Perona of A.R.E. Manufacturing, and Tabitha Mason of Zingerman’s.
Producer:
Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.
Full Episode Transcript:
Loren Feldman:
All right, let’s get started. Welcome to another 21 Hats Brainstorm led by our master facilitator, Chris Hutchinson. As most of you probably know, our goal here is to have some fun, to learn a little, but most importantly, to try to help an entrepreneur who’s confronting a challenge. That’s Alan Pentz. Chris, before I introduce Alan, why don’t you tell us how this works?
Chris Hutchinson:
Thanks, Loren. I’m really excited to be here with Alan and you and this fine crew of folks that’s going to help us do some good thinking together. Essentially, what we’re going to do is, just in a moment, you’re going to ask some really good investigative reporter-type questions to sort of flesh out the high-level situation that Alan is facing, that he’s bringing forward. And then we’re going to enable the group to ask similar questions. I’ll give a little brief on the best kind of questions. And then Alan will look at those and say, “Here’s what I really want advice on.”
And then we’re going to switch to the part where people love to give a piece of advice or a cautionary step, or maybe a success tip. We’ll vote for the best, essentially, and go through them that way. Then we’ll have them explain one at a time, so Alan hopefully can walk away at the end with a clear picture of some options. Maybe none of these work, but he might pick a couple to say, “I’m going to go do those things.”
Loren Feldman:
Sounds good. So, today’s guest of honor is Alan Pentz. Alan is based in Washington, D.C., where he built a quite successful consulting business that helps other businesses obtain contracts from the federal government. Like a lot of entrepreneurs Alan got—is it fair to say, Alan—a little bored with the day-to-day managing of a successful business, an experience most of us would like to have. And you kind of kicked yourself upstairs and started looking for other things to do, mostly trying to help other business owners better run their businesses, which led you to taking a very deep dive into artificial intelligence.
I don’t know anyone who’s created and written more about promising AI use cases than you, especially use cases for business owners. And that brings us to the challenge we’re here to discuss today. Alan, I think you feel quite confident that you can help business owners harness the power of AI and perhaps survive the disruption that’s coming, but you have some doubts in your mind about whether owners actually want that help. Will they pay for it? And is there a real, scalable business to be built to offer it? Is that a fair characterization?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, and I would say there’s also a bit of ambivalence on my part about starting another company—or, I’ve started it, but trying to scale another company. I would say that’s the other factor.
Loren Feldman:
Got it. So I’m going to start off by asking you a few questions, just to try to set the scene. And then we’re going to open it up. Let me start with this: It sometimes seems like AI is the only thing that anyone’s talking about. Given that that’s the case, what do you think is keeping owners from going all in and really trying to figure it out?
Alan Pentz:
I think there’s multi factors, probably. I would say there’s been a period of time where the tools weren’t really ready for prime time. They’re ready for, as some people said, they’re great for single-player type applications, where you’re doing things for yourself, and not so great for multiplayer, where you’re trying to put it out to your company.
I also think the actual ability to create software agents, those sorts of things, was doable but difficult until about November, when the latest Claude model came out, 4.5 Opus. And my ability to now create software that works the first time, or agents that work the first time, just probably three or four times, in a day or two, when they released that.
So I think that’s one set of issues. And then I think the second set of issues is just diving in and doing it and having the time to do it. So even owners I know—I also help some guys who are rolling up metal-fabrication facilities. I’m an investor in that business up in Boston, and one of the owners is really good with the tech. He gets it. He’s kind of a similar background to me, but he just doesn’t have the time to go deep on it.
So I’ve learned multiple things about that over even the last few months, actually running trainings for owners. I did one back in the fall, and about to kick off one tomorrow, actually, and that taught me a lot about how to shape a potential business in this space. And I don’t know if we want to go into that now, but I’ve come to the conclusion that owners need some amount of training. But the reality is, they don’t have the time and the patience. So they’re going to have to train people on staff or hire people who can do the AI work. That’s sort of the shift in thinking I’ve had.
Loren Feldman:
Let me ask you about that, because from what I’ve read, you consider this a potential extinction-level event for a lot of business owners. How could they not have time to deal with that?
Alan Pentz:
That’s a good point. I don’t know if we’ve all seen Don’t Look Up, but it’s kind of similar to that movie, right? It’s like, the asteroid’s coming, but you still walk around day to day, like it’s normal. Yeah, I do think it’s going to be extinction-level for a lot of people. I mean, I’m writing a blog [post], I think, for next week or the week after. I see in the near future an ability for someone, when you sign up for marketing, they send in a series of agents that attach to your website, your socials, other dashboards you have, your HubSpot, or whatever, and basically download everything about you, build the strategy, and implement it right there.
And you might have a conversation with somebody a couple of times, but it’s not going to be like a typical marketing engagement anymore. And I just don’t see most owners being able to transition from the current delivery model to that. So it’s probably going to be some 25-year-old with a bunch of agents who comes in. And I think it wipes out the entire business model for most marketing agencies. So, yeah, I think if I could get owners to spend 40 hours a week talking to Claude Code like I do, I think it would really help them.
Loren Feldman:
Is that what you think it would take? 40 hours?
Alan Pentz:
I don’t think that’s what you need to learn AI. I think that’s the way you’re going to work in the future, is talking to Claude Code all day, or some version of that, right? It could be a different model in the future, and it could have a slightly different interface, but you’re basically going to be talking to agents all day long, which is what I do.
Loren Feldman:
So obviously, you’ve talked to a lot of business owners about this, in consulting or informally. Have you done any actual market research?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, well, I’ve been training people, so a form of market research. Actually, this podcast is a form of market research.
Loren Feldman:
Sure.
Alan Pentz:
Again, there’s a time factor here, right? So back when I did my first AI training, the tools were not ready yet for full deployment inside an organization. But again, two things I would note: one, I mentioned that Opus 4.5 model really was a change. The second thing is the development with Microsoft Foundry, which is their AI agent runtime place, and Google Vertex. They’ve now developed places where you can build and run agents inside your existing setup. So you get all your entry ID for Microsoft. You get all the security that comes with those environments and all the provisioning of, like, “I know who Alan is. He’s logged in as this, and now he can use these agents.”
That was a significant issue, I think, using outside, third-party agent systems. And I think that now we’re very close, if not there, with that environment, enabling full agent deployment. I wrote a few weeks ago, I built a completely agentic CRM for my government consulting firm in a couple of days, and everyone’s going to be able to do that, going forward. And that’s all within the Microsoft Foundry system that helps enable that.
Loren Feldman:
I happen to know you’ve also helped one of the regulars on my podcast to set up the kind of agentic system to check out potential leads that you’re talking about. That’s Jaci Russo, who has a marketing agency. If you could do it for her, it seems like you could find a lot of Jacis. What do you need? What’s the critical mass you need to turn this into a business?
Alan Pentz:
So there’s two things there. One is, I think the Jaci example is a great example for some of the ways that this market’s going to shape that have changed my thinking. So, with Jaci, we set that up, we got it working, and then she had a problem with it. And so she had to come back to us. We’re helping—well, I think we’ve helped her fix that. But the reality is, that’s one thing. There was, like, a flaw in it, and custom software has always had that.
But the reality is, I think I wrote something, maybe on LinkedIn, where we could make Jaci’s system 10 times more productive, but we’d have to work with it, and we would have to work with it on an ongoing basis. And that’s what really struck me, is the whole idea that I’m going to build you a solution, give it to you, and it’s going to operate with some O&M or something? That model doesn’t work with agents. You’ve got to see what they do. You’ve got to work with them every day. You’ve got to see their output, and then then tune them and upgrade them as you go.
Loren Feldman:
When you say that model doesn’t work with agents, are you talking about the business model for you as the person helping the business owners create them? Or the model doesn’t work for the business owners who would be actually using them?
Alan Pentz:
For the business owners who would be using them. I mean, I can charge you for something that’s good, but it’s not going to get you to what I’m talking about, where you’re continually working with agents as sort of co-workers, and you’re upgrading and compounding your advantages over time. That’s what the real promise is, and that requires, I think, in the end, internal people—or at least, you have somebody designated who you might be renting from an agency or something like that. But they’ve got to be there all the time working with you. You can’t just bring in a consultant and then have them walk out the door. I think that model is not going to work for this world. So that’s one thing.
The second thing is, immediately, when I got into that—this is my ambivalence part—we did that for Jaci, just because she was part of our AI course. So we were kind of doing it on the side for free. And then, if she wants to do more stuff with it—which is great; it’s what she should want to do—and as soon as that starts, I’m like, “Oh man, I don’t want to do this.” [Laughter] I just got out of 18 years of customizing work for clients. I’m like: Why am I getting back into this? I’m back in delivery? Like, what happened here? So I think I very quickly was like, “Oh my God, I don’t want to do this.” So that’s part of—and that’s not Jaci’s fault. She was just being normal. But that’s more me.
Loren Feldman:
Understood. Chris, do you have any questions before we open it up?
Chris Hutchinson:
I have one question: What is the kind of most important exploration you want to have this group sort of help you with, focus on, around questions, exploring for the—I’m assuming for the business, rather than the technology?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, I think I want two things. So for me, there’s a little bit of market research here, right? And just to clarify what I’m thinking about doing going forward: The business I would probably try to start is not a custom consulting firm to build you AI agents. It would be a training firm and a community, most likely, around trying to help. Because this is what I think you can do now, as a regular business analyst—someone who can think through a problem, someone who can manage a project—that kind of person, we can train that person now with Claude Code and the agent places for then Microsoft and Google to basically become your person to do this on a regular basis and help your team become AI native.
And my goal is that we would have the training for owners to help them build their strategy, get to know it a little bit. But I’m not looking at the owner as an implementer. And then we train an implementer on your staff, or we train global talent who you might hire or rent. And then we create a community around that.
Because the other factor in this is, every two weeks, something new comes out. So Claude Cowork came out last week. What is that? How do we do that? So those people need access to ongoing education, so we would create a community around it. So the first question is, really: Is that a model that owners would consider? Are they willing to pay for that? Does it sound like, “Oh, that’s nice to have, but I don’t really care”?
So that’s one. And then the second thing, just for me personally, is I’m not sure I want to run—I think that company is really necessary, and I have all the pieces in place for it. I just don’t know if I want to run it. I’m sort of like: I’ve got two other businesses. Why am I doing this? That’s sort of the question I ask myself. And every couple of weeks, I’m like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to do this because it’s so important.” And then I’m like: Why do I want to do this?
Chris Hutchinson:
Perfect. So let me do a little, teeny instruction. The main thing is, here, we’re trying to understand the situation. So at the end of 10-15 minutes, we’ll have a very clear picture of what Alan has explored in his thinking. And also, we understand for him to be able to say, “This is what I really want some advice around,” even though he’s already centered us a little bit. So, I just want to give that caution or support. So, Casey, go ahead and unmute and give us your question to help explore Alan’s thinking.
Casey Helmick:
My question is: Have you struggled, kind of given people handle bars to this marketplace? Because AI, essentially, the promise is it could kind of do anything and everything. I mean, it’s almost like the invention of the internet here that we’re playing with. Do you find yourself struggling giving people that first use case, that first step, that first way to optimize and use AI? It’s just such a big potential solution. And I think that’s part of my overwhelm as a business owner, is I don’t know where to start, because it could kind of be anything and everything. Is that something you’re facing?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, I mean on that specific struggle, again, to me, that’s where I come back to the business model, because this is a wholesale change in how you do business. So, it’s not very amenable to a time-bound project right now, as far as like, “Hey, can I find”—you know, I think I had this discussion with somebody on the AI part of the 21 Hats community on Slack. They said, like, “All right, what should I do?” And I’m like, “Well, what’s your most important process that’s most important to you and costs the most money? Blah, blah, blah,” that’s what we attack, right?
So I found that part not to be that hard. It’s just you’ve got to figure out what’s important to the person. But I do agree, the open-ended nature of it is sort of like—I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten involved in custom development. You start building something. You’re like, “Oh, can it do this? Can it do that? Can it do this?” And it just goes on and on and on, which is what I think it should do. It’s just not very well set up for a consulting firm, unless you want to pay through the nose forever.
Chris Hutchinson:
So Sandra raised her hand. So Sandra, could you unmute and give your question to explore our thinking?
Sandy Kapell:
Hi, I’m Sandy Kapell. I’ve just recently started my own Trakehner Leadership firm focused on change management.
Alan Pentz:
Congrats.
Sandy Kapell:
Thank you. Because of the open-ended nature, I was wondering if there’s an industry or set of industries that lend itself more easily to AI and building the use cases to start gaining momentum, or if the industry doesn’t matter.
Alan Pentz:
I would say that it’s knowledge work. Think about anything that uses words and symbols. So it’s big, right? I mean, it’s people who use Excel. If you’re using Excel, Word, or something like that in your work, then AI will disrupt them. By the way, I haven’t opened a Word document in six months or an Excel sheet.
Chris Hutchinson:
Excellent. Excellent question, excellent answer. What’s the next question that we have?
Loren Feldman:
I think Megan had her hand up.
Chris Hutchinson:
Oh, okay, we’ll do Megan, and then we’ll do Leisa. Megan, go ahead.
Megan Perona:
Oh, I did not have my hand up. [Laughter]
Alan Pentz:
Come up with a question, Megan. Come on.
Megan Perona:
Well, I was wondering, so not the AI part, but I guess the part of: Do you actually want to start a business? Does the AI-training community seem more exciting than your existing businesses? Do you find a personal draw to this one over what you currently have going?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, I mean, 100 percent. I’m very drawn to AI, obviously. I’ve been red-pilled for quite a while, and I’m like, walking around, my answer to everything is AI. So yes, I’m super drawn to the whole idea. Like, in my head, over my vacation, I had this realization that all knowledge work, since the beginning of when Peter Drucker started talking about that in the 50s, is just a bunch of people writing symbols in files, right? They’re words or numbers, and as soon as they could, knowledge workers started using computers. And this is like the next extension of that, and it will transform the way knowledge work is done.
And I said that now the distinction between knowledge work and coding has gone away. We are all becoming coders, and so we do need to know some stuff about code to do this. Like, we need to know what Python is and what it does. We don’t need to write it. So that’s the training part, right? But the reality is, it’s getting easier and easier every day.
So I would say that part of it, that idea and that insight, that gives me a lot of energy and passion. The thought of building the business and hiring people and doing it. That’s where I get [Tutting]. Because the reality is, I love my other businesses, but I don’t run them. I love being a part of them. And one of the reasons actually, I left my biggest business was HR. Once we got over 100 people, it was like, it’s all HR. And I was like: I don’t want to do this. I’m not into that. I want to go play with AI and make up fun stuff. So hopefully that answers it.
Chris Hutchinson:
Yeah, good to know where the energy is coming from. You showed the little difference between the two things. Leisa?
Leisa Peterson:
I have a question about what happens to your business model when AI gets significantly better, like over the next 18 months. And one thing I just also want to add in: I coach small businesses in their business, but mostly around how they can build wealth through their business. And I met with one of my clients this morning. And a year ago, I was out on site. And she runs a hair salon and facial and tea shop, and no technology experience whatsoever. She does everything on paper.
And today she said, “Leisa, when you showed me a year ago how to use Claude, now I use it for everything.” And I was like, “What?” And she started telling me all the ways that she’s using it. And I guess she just made me think about the fact that we don’t know about people’s adoption—sometimes all it takes is just seeing one little thing, and then people can become experts, just because they’re so excited about what the potential is.
Chris Hutchinson:
So what happens to your business model when AI gets significantly better?
Alan Pentz:
The models are going to get better and better, but people still need help figuring out how to—even just talking. Talking to the model will get better and better, of course, but it’s never going to get to—well, I’m not going to say never—it will not, in the near term, get to the place where you don’t need to think through things yourself as you’re working with the model. And I think that’s where our training and community would come in.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, cool. Do we have anybody else raising their hand for a question? We’re almost coming to that transition point where we’ll have to pick, like, what do you really want advice on with all this?
Loren Feldman:
I’ll ask a question. Alan, have you thought through—do you know what kind of proof you need, what you need to hear that would convince you that this is something you want to continue to explore?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, that’s a great question, Loren. That kind of stumps me a bit. What would I need to hear? I would know it t when I heard it, right?
Loren Feldman:
Like, pornography.
Alan Pentz:
Right, well, I didn’t say that, but yes. [Laughter] I think I need to hear the owners’ need to figure this out. So, I feel like I hear people talk about AI and the importance of it, and I’m like: Look, I’m 6, 12 months in the future on this stuff from other people. I realize that, and the more I talk to people, the more I realize it, and I feel like people are confused by it. They’re interested in it. They want to use it.
But they don’t have a real need to figure it out now and get this in their business. That urgency I haven’t felt enough. And that’s one of the reasons I’m like: It’s gonna take a while to get people to get it. Like, “Oh, this isn’t just something I buy and put on a shelf. No, this is a new way of working. I have to completely transform what I do.”
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, we have Amy. Go ahead and unmute. Introduce yourself, and your question, please.
Amy Collins:
I’m Amy Collins from The Olea Group. My question for you, Alan, is, do you prefer training large groups of people at once, leading large training sessions for a lot of people? Or do you prefer working one-on-one with people?
Alan Pentz:
Large sessions are much more profitable.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay!
Amy Collins:
Nice.
Alan Pentz:
I know I’m being a little sarcastic. But I do like working one-on-one with people on stuff, because you can really get to see what’s going on with them. So I think I prefer that, personally. But it’s just very hard to do that. I don’t want to do that all day long, right? So it’s hard to do that.
Chris Hutchinson:
So you kind of said yes on the question.
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, it’s more interesting to help someone actually transform their business. And the other part of this is people would come to me and be like, “Why are you bothering training people? Why don’t you just figure out the business that already has some stuff that’s valuable to AI, particularly, like proprietary data, and just blow it up and take over the space? Like, why don’t you do that?”
And I’ve thought about it. And again, I get back to: It’s very intriguing. I would actually like to partner with operators who are into that, but I don’t want to run a big business. And for me, the passion is really around learning what the tools can do for people, not necessarily running down the nth degree of how it works in pet shops.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, so did you have any other questions, Loren?
Loren Feldman:
I’ve got one last question.
Chris Hutchinson:
Okay, go for it.
Loren Feldman:
Have you asked Claude what you should do?
Alan Pentz:
Yes, multiple times. I’ve had agent debates. I’ve had all sorts of things. And look, I mean, Claude goes to—this is one thing to learn about: It goes to solutions too quickly, and so I’ve had to push it quite a bit and go back and forth. And really, like the answer is, what do I—Claude will tell me that it’s a good business model and how to make the business model better. But it can’t really tell me whether I want to do it or not. It tries, but it’s not successful at that.
Loren Feldman:
And that’s the more important question than whether you can make the business model work?
Alan Pentz:
Probably. Yeah. I’m pretty convinced I could make the business model work, even if it’s not correct right now.
Chris Hutchinson:
Right, so that’s something we don’t have to offer advice on, if that’s the way Alan feels. So, Alan, are you able to see the questions and the answers that we typed in? I’m wondering what area you would really like us to focus on to help you get your answer that you’re going to need.
Alan Pentz:
I think the personal draw, the excitement, that whole thing about the knowledge work and everyone becoming coders, I think that’s what gets me going. So I’m like: What am I supposed to do with that? It’s like, I can write you a blog [post] about it, newsletters about it. At a certain point, it’s just, like, haranguing people. And so there’s something really important going on here, and I need to figure out some way of sharing it and getting people to do it. But I just don’t know how to do it in a way that’s most effective for me and for the people who would receive it.
Chris Hutchinson:
I think that was a perfect question right there. What would be the most effective ways that Alan could share and connect with this passion for himself and for the people who are being affected by this, i.e., some of us in the room? So I’m going to go ahead and move you over.
Loren Feldman Voiceover:
At this point, Chris moves everyone in the Brainstorm onto a platform where they can enter whatever suggestions they have for Alan: a caution, a next step, a success tip. Once those thoughts are entered, everyone has the opportunity to “like” the ones they favor. The suggestions that get the most likes rise to the top of the list. When everyone is ready, Chris asks the authors of the most-liked recommendations to explain their thinking to Alan. Meanwhile, Alan, Chris, and I continue to talk quietly.
Loren Feldman:
I have a feeling, Alan, that much like Claude, we probably can’t help you decide what you want to do, what your needs are and desires are, but I think we can address the issue of what business owners are thinking and how likely they are to respond to whatever it is you offer.
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, I mean, the other thing I would challenge people is: Look, you know AI’s out there. You know, it’s a big deal. I mean, I don’t know how many of you have bought anything, done anything, signed up for a class, or whatever. Why not? Are you just like, “Oh, it’s BS. I don’t have time.”
Loren Feldman:
I would guess that’s not it. As one of at least two people here who have signed up for a class that begins tomorrow, I think it’s the intimidation factor. I think it’s trying to figure out where you begin and what’s worthwhile and what’s spinning your wheels. And you know, it’s so much easier to go deal with the problems you already have that you know how to solve than to invest time and energy in figuring out how to address this big, new, scary thing.
Alan Pentz:
Yeah. I mean, and then the thing that comes out for me also is finding other people to partner with on this. Because I think there’s a part of me that’s like, “I’m never going to grind for the three to five years it’s necessary to turn this into a real thing. So are there other operators I should be partnering with to make that happen?”
Loren Feldman:
Or can you create an agent that will do it?
Alan Pentz:
That’s right, yeah, exactly. Well, I do have one that I’m working on right now for training. But I do think, what I’ve learned, too, is people just can’t stay focused on something that doesn’t have an appointment like that.
Loren Feldman:
We’re getting a lot of entries here.
Chris Hutchinson:
There’s some fantastic ideas. I’m excited to see. So if you’d like to start going ahead and voting for the ones—you basically give it a thumbs up. Let’s just give a moment of silence here for folks to just go ahead and vote.
One of the challenges is that I think there could be is the pain of lost potential. I think it’d be more powerful than the pain of: You don’t want to miss out. I can’t tell you what it is, but if you don’t get on board, you’re going to lose. That, to me, is very disempowering and not helpful, that I’ve heard from other folks—not from you—around AI. It’s like, “Well, yeah, you got to do it. And if you don’t, you’re stupid.” And I’m like, “Hmmm, I don’t know.”
Alan Pentz:
Although I do think that the reality—I mean, I have to be honest with people. Like, this is coming, and it’s gonna swamp people. And I don’t think I can not tell people that at some point. But I get it. People don’t like fear, but there’s some reason to be afraid.
Chris Hutchinson:
Well, let’s go ahead and see. Who was that person who said, “I’m turned off.” Who asked, “How can you motivate people based on hope?” Unmute, and let us hear your thoughts there. What would you provide to Alan?
Amy Collins:
That was me. This is Amy Collins from The Olea Group. I feel I’ve kind of gotten your answer already, but anytime I hear someone say, “You’ve got to do this or else,” and they’re charging me money, I’m like, “Okay.” So to me, that would push me away from taking a course or working with you. I think the more compelling thing is: How can this earn us more revenue? How can we do more with what we’ve got? How can we use it to help our employees make this a better place to work for them, to achieve more for our clients, etc.? I guess that’s all I have to say.
Alan Pentz:
Can I ask a follow-up to that?
Amy Collins:
Yeah.
Alan Pentz:
So I totally get that. I appreciate the thought. But what if it was like: All right, you’re gonna have to fire half your people. That’s the reality. I’m not saying it is, but I’m just saying, like, sometimes things are the way they are, and they’re not great.
Amy Collins:
That might be the case, but—
Loren Feldman:
Amy, why don’t you tell Alan exactly what your business does so he has a sense of the threat level?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, sure.
Amy Collins:
I don’t want to. [Laughter]
Alan Pentz:
No, I won’t use any fear.
Amy Collins:
We underwrite small business loans for community development at financial institutions. So a lot of what we do is data entry, and we’re already using AI in some ways, and we’re already working on how we use it more. And I think if you tell me, “You’re going to have to lay off half your people,” in some sense, that’s terrible. But in the other sense, like I have great people and a business that can support them. And so I would look for a way to get them doing something else, like make them more efficient. Instead of laying off half, why don’t we double our output?
Chris Hutchinson:
There you go.
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, I mean, that would be my answer, but I think, unfortunately—so, first of all, where you are, clearly, a lot of the underwriting is going to get done by AI algorithms. But you’re in a regulated sector, so that’s going to happen a lot later than it is anywhere else. And two, I sort of agree with you, and sort of don’t agree with you about the people.
So on one hand, I had a LinkedIn exchange with somebody who’s like, “So, I’m either going to get fired for not using AI, or I’m going to get laid off because I automated my job.” That was sort of the very common attitude among people, and I’m not having any of that. I think that’s a ridiculous way to think about the world.
And so my take is, automation is a terrible term, I think, because what we’re talking about here really isn’t automation. I mean, there are parts of it that get automated, but I’m talking about working with AI all day long as a co-worker. So that’s not automation. That’s an enhancement. And so the people who can do that, they become 10 times more productive. Well, I don’t fire employees who are 10 times more productive. I worry about them getting hired away from me. But there are employees who are like, “I don’t really want to learn it. I’m not going to.” And it’s possible that certain people can’t work with it for various reasons. I don’t know that. I do think those people are going to become redundant. So that’s how I see it playing out.
I don’t think we’ll have less employment, but I do think there are going to be a lot of shifts in companies where we’ve had people for a long time. And they’re not able to make the transition, and I just don’t see them getting retrained. And it’s like running a textile mill in 1988. I don’t know what you’re gonna do, right? You’re gonna go down with the ship if you don’t correct that. So that’s sort of how I like to think about it, but it isn’t automation. I think people are just thinking about it incorrectly, that way, but it might mean different people.
Amy Collins:
I think the other piece of the fear conversation—you know, motivating based on fear—to me, is like, we’ve always faced challenges as a society, and we always find a way through them. And the internet was incredibly disruptive. Technology will continue to be disruptive. How is this different?
Alan Pentz:
Well, I think the printing press and the Internet slash social AI are very similar. They’re disruptive technologies. I’m not predicting the Thirty Years’ War or anything, but I do think that there’s going to be parts of it that are not fun, and I think we have to be honest about that.
And there are amazing things that we’re able to do as a result, like we will cure most kinds of cancer. We will find new materials that will make basic abundance for everyone available. That will happen. But at the same time, we will have massive disruption in society. And so, I go back and forth with those. And I think I take the message about fear-based, and I appreciate that message, and then I think, “Well, I’ve got to be honest with people here. Like, this is a pretty big disruption, and so we should be somewhat afraid.”
Chris Hutchinson:
Yeah, so we’ve got massive disruption, lots of potential. What does Alan do tomorrow? Let me go back to the next question was the idea of training one employee. Who shared that? And just unmute, and then talk to us just briefly about it, so Alan can get your advice there.
Megan Perona:
This is Megan Perona from A.R.E. Manufacturing. So I was the one who wrote that down. We’re a small business, we have about 40 employees, and we’re a manufacturer. So I think we have about six office employees, and then the rest are production. And so, being smaller, as far as training goes, we don’t always have the budget or the manpower to actually train all 40 people on how to do something, but we can normally train one, two, maybe three people on how to do something, and then they can be responsible for that.
So for a company like us, and I think I also mentioned it below, we use a lot of Incumbent Worker grant funds for doing training. That way, we can actually afford getting really specialized training for what we’re doing. So I could totally see us hiring a company, like you’re talking about creating, to train one person who then you can go to them and say, “Hey, I need a thing that does this. Can you make that with that AI thing?”
Alan Pentz:
That’s great. I appreciate that. Yeah, and that would be the idea, I think: How do you make it affordable for people to get the expertise? Because I do worry smaller companies like yours are just going to struggle, and if the owner isn’t able to learn it to that level, you’re going to have new entrants.
And I think manufacturing is a little different. Obviously, you have machinery, things like that—and that’ll happen later—but you’ll have new entrants that are the owners who know how to do that. And they won’t need to train a bunch of people and hire a bunch of people to do it, and they’ll outcompete. That’s sort of what I’m afraid of right now and why I think it’s so urgent.
So I think, yeah, if we can train one person on the staff, and they can spread it and help—and the other aspect here is there is a mindset shift that needs to happen. And if they can spread that mindset shift: “We do work with agents. We don’t do work anymore.” That’s going to be the key. You work with agents to do work. You don’t do work. That’s what the transition is going to be.
Chris Hutchinson:
Yeah, that’s great. Thanks. Okay, we have one other question here that got three likes, and this is about the direct marketing education firm. So, who said that? And open it up and let’s hear more.
Leisa Peterson:
Hi, it’s Leisa Peterson. I’ve just seen how difficult it is to get people to attend workshops and education training. I’m not alone. It’s kind of just known out there that it’s become a lot more expensive and a lot more time-consuming. I just launched a workshop, and keep in mind, I’ve been in my business for 12 years. People come to me for this information, and it took like six weeks of promoting to over 10,000 people to get 55 people signed up in a workshop that’s very low-cost.
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, and have you seen people starting to build better distribution and ways they’ve done it?
Leisa Peterson:
You know, in the work that I do, it’s relationship-oriented. So it’s more, people want to know who’s the teacher, and what that is going to entail. So it’s different than what you’d be doing here. I think I also put another note down below. I’m starting a new tech company, and I realized the other day that I have to be very careful not to go invest money in something that could be developed with developers that could be developed with AI, because I could be wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Fear is very dangerous right now. People are already so stressed. I filled this workshop because it’s a totally different approach than what I’ve used in the past. I used to use fear, but money, on the other hand—saving money or being able to make more money because you’re using AI—is super powerful. And you mentioned, like: Who do I team up with? And I do agree that that’s a great strategy, but over the years, I will say, many times when I’ve tried to team up with other people or organizations, they fall through. So at the end of the day, I still am the one who’s finding the people to join my workshops, through the relationships and through my writing and through my speaking and all of that. So it’s hard to work with partners.
Alan Pentz:
That’s helpful. Yeah, I’ve found that as well. I used to have a partner in my business too. That didn’t last. So I get that: difficult partnerships. And I really appreciate your thoughts on that. I think you’re right on. And I would say, be very cautious about developing software products now. The biggest thing that I’ve taken away—I had developers working on some stuff too—the developers are some of the most resistant people. I met two of them over my break, very young guys, super smart, CS majors from good schools, both running startups. And I’m like, “Hey, have you used Microsoft Foundry or Google Vertex with Claude Code?” And they hadn’t even heard of Google Vertex or Microsoft Foundry.
And then they’re like, “Oh yeah, I used Claude Code a couple of times.” It’s like, well, now Anthropic, who makes Claude, 95 to 100 percent of all their code is built with Claude Code. And that’s happening more and more and more where coders aren’t even coding anymore. And so if you go out and hire these guys, they’re not going to tell you the latest stuff. First of all, they probably don’t even know it. Second of all, it threatens their complete business model. So I’d be very cautious. And if you want to follow up offline, I’m happy to talk to you about that.
Leisa Peterson:
Oh, thanks so much.
Chris Hutchinson:
So let me check with Loren to see. Loren, we’ve got four questions that have one vote. I was thinking maybe Alan could pick one, but perhaps you want to wrap it up now?
Loren Feldman:
No, let’s keep going. Liz Picarazzi has a question. She came in a little bit late because of a Zoom problem, but Liz is really interested in this stuff, and I’m eager to hear her question.
Liz Picarazzi:
So if you’re trying to look at what the business model is, and I’m imagining you want something that could be recurring revenue, you know, such as a WorkBetterNow or Belay, or any of these, would you consider having a version of one of those that has a strong AI component In the talent? Because right now, I know that I’m going to go out to some of these companies, and I’m going to try to get a new VA. And I’m going to tell them: I really want them to be strong in AI.
I don’t know what I’m going to get back, but I do know that if there was an agency that prominently said, “This is a great area of expertise for us,” it would make my decision much easier and faster to go with a company that, essentially, had an AI version of a VA. That business model is very well-known. I’ve had VAs that I pay subscriptions on for years now, but trying to find one that has that as an absolute necessity in the job description, I would think that could be something that there would be a huge market size for you with. And have you thought about that?
Alan Pentz:
Yeah, that’s awesome, Liz. Thanks for that. I mean, I think it’s basically like reproducing Pedros right? Pedro is a guy who works for me. He’s fantastic. And I actually think that might be the model, to some extent, at least for smaller companies. And then maybe when you’re a 50-, 100-, 200-person company, maybe it’s more like, “Hey, I need to train people internally.” But I think it’s really good idea to look at the global talent side and say, “Hey, this is how we can make it affordable.” So yeah, I think that’s definitely something I’m considering, and I think it’s a great suggestion.
Liz Picarazzi:
Well, if you want to bring on an early client who will pay you monthly to do that, I am it. [Laughter]
Alan Pentz:
So, Liz, how much would you pay for that?
Liz Picarazzi:
Well, so that’s a very good question. So I know right now, if I were to get a VA from one of the companies I’ve worked with before, it would be about $2,800 a month. So it would be a minimum of $2,800 a month. But then if it’s a step beyond that, you’d have to decide how much that’s worth. For me, part of the reason this is so present for me is I lost my VA this week, and part of it is because of AI and the AI work that I was trying to put on him and I wanted him to adopt.
And we worked at it for a while, and ultimately, although it wasn’t flat-out spoken, that was something that caused a lot of tension. And so, now I’m out there looking. I’m going to start looking tomorrow, and I have a feeling there’s so many business owners—I mean, you and I are in EO. Think about all the people we know in EO who probably would be willing to have, or already have VAs, but they want a certain flavor of a VA. And it’s like a Pedro.
Loren Feldman:
Wait, is Pedro a VA?
Alan Pentz:
He’s not really a virtual assistant. He’s a little more advanced. But he knows Claude Code. He knows how to code. He’ll be in the course. So you’ll meet him. He’s great. He’s fantastic. So I think you’re right, Liz. So I mean, one thing we could do to start off is like, if people had VAs, we could start training there. But then I think it’s right to just go find the people, pre-train them, and then rent them out.
Liz Picarazzi:
Right. Trying to train the VA who is very likely to be either threatened or just find it unpleasant is hard, and that’s what I encountered. And it’s actually a huge loss to the business, because he’s been with me for four years.
Alan Pentz:
Wow. And you feel like he left because he was threatened that you were, like, automating his job or something?
Liz Picarazzi:
That was a big part of it, because a big part of his job in the last six months has been trying to find automation vendors, people who help us automate for various things. And, quite frankly, it’s stuff that he was doing manually. So a lot of prospecting, a lot of list creation.
Chris Hutchinson:
So great conversation. Let me see if I can pull it back into the things that we had here. So you’ve gotten, “Hey, open a VA education firm.” You’ve got these other things here. What do you want to do from this conversation on? What does this make you want to do next?
Alan Pentz:
So I think there are probably three takeaways here. One is to try the non-fear based approach a little bit. I won’t commit to it full-time, but I will mix in some other stuff.
Loren Feldman:
You just lost Amy. [Laughter]
Alan Pentz:
Well, she can read the stuff that’s helpful, right? I’ll do that like every other post. And then, the distribution issue is one I’ve been thinking a lot about. So I really appreciated Leisa’s point about that. And then, yeah, like, obviously I respond to the business model that Liz—I think for small business owners, it’s a very effective model to have. You know, you can afford that. The question is going to be: How many people can get to Pedro if we train them? Like, I don’t know what the percentage is that we can do that with, but it’ll be interesting to see. So those are three takeaways that were great.
Chris Hutchinson:
What a great conversation. I mean, thank you to all those people who showed up. And I’m going to hand it right over to Loren to close us out. I appreciate the opportunity to help run a little bit of process to get some great results.
Loren Feldman:
I just want to thank everyone. Chris, thank you for facilitating, as always. Thank you, for all of you who took the time to come and participate in this conversation—and especially you, Alan. Thank you for sharing this challenge that you’re confronting and walking through it with us.
Alan Pentz:
It was great, Loren. Thanks so much.
