Vit Muller: 00:00:00

how do you use AI in your business?

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:02

AI's been really good with me as a strategic thinking

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:05

partner and a research assistant,

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:07

Let's just stick with SaaS.

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:09

what are some things that we should be aware of or consider You've got to

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:13

watch those out-of-pocket expenses that are really client related and make sure

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:17

that you're billing for those correctly.

Vit Muller: 00:00:19

What's one thing about AI in, in the professional

Vit Muller: 00:00:21

services space, that you think, the operators get, completely wrong?

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:25

when it comes to professional services of any kind, it's

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:27

the human touch that keeps the client.

Vit Muller: 00:00:30

you've got a practical test for, deciding what to automate with AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:34

If the client's paying for the output, you can automate it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:38

But if the client's paying for that as an input don't automate that.

Vit Muller: 00:00:42

they could have a consultation with an AI accountant as

Vit Muller: 00:00:45

an avatar that they can talk to and it looks very real, it's getting there.

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:50

Now, is it perfect yet?

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:51

No, of course not.

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:52

Will it be better next year?

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:54

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:00:54

how do you build this AI confidence within such a team?

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:57

You start with openness.

Peter McCarroll: 00:00:59

help them try it out, and give them permission

Vit Muller: 00:01:06

Hello, everybody.

Vit Muller: 00:01:06

Welcome to another episode on the High Level Experience Podcast.

Vit Muller: 00:01:10

this is our new studio.

Vit Muller: 00:01:11

we're just getting set up, so this is the first glimpse of it.

Vit Muller: 00:01:14

We're gonna be doing a bunch of new improvements.

Vit Muller: 00:01:17

Some cool lights are going in the background with some neon

Vit Muller: 00:01:20

lights and all that stuff.

Vit Muller: 00:01:21

But enough about me and the new studio.

Vit Muller: 00:01:25

what I'm more excited to introduce is Our new guest today, a chartered accountant

Vit Muller: 00:01:31

from New Zealand and Canada, and the mastermind behind the AI Accountant.

Vit Muller: 00:01:35

He's been on a mission to weave AI into fabric of accounting

Vit Muller: 00:01:40

practices, and he's got some wild stories to share from the trenches.

Vit Muller: 00:01:44

We'll talk about how to figure out what tasks to hand over to AI and what to

Vit Muller: 00:01:49

keep human, and how getting this balance wrong can quietly kill your margins.

Vit Muller: 00:01:55

So please welcome to the show Peter McCarroll

Peter McCarroll: 00:02:04

Thanks, Vit.

Peter McCarroll: 00:02:04

Great to be here

Vit Muller: 00:02:05

Great to have you on the show, Peter.

Vit Muller: 00:02:07

Now, I understand you're not a fellow HighLeveler from the

Vit Muller: 00:02:10

perspective of, running an agency, running a SaaS on HighLevel.

Vit Muller: 00:02:16

You do not use HighLevel.

Vit Muller: 00:02:17

But what I thought would be interesting, and why I thought it would be interesting

Vit Muller: 00:02:21

to have you on as a guest is because, all of us HighLevelers, especially us

Vit Muller: 00:02:26

running SaaS, running agencies, we work with businesses who do have accountants.

Vit Muller: 00:02:31

I mean, I've got an accountant and, you are one of those accountants

Vit Muller: 00:02:35

that are trying to stay cutting edge, and I like to see that because in

Vit Muller: 00:02:39

today's world, AI is such a massive leverage, and I'm surprised, that it's

Vit Muller: 00:02:45

still being frowned upon with some account-- I mean, I'm not surprised.

Vit Muller: 00:02:50

I understand them, but I'm also surprised that they're not taking advantage earlier

Vit Muller: 00:02:55

because it is, such a huge advantage.

Vit Muller: 00:02:57

But can you break it down for us, why do you think this is so

Vit Muller: 00:03:02

relevant to talk this, talk about this, have this discussion today?

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:06

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:06

Well, look, AI is new and a lot of professions are really slow at

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:10

adopting technology, and you'd think accountants are really fast, but

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:14

the reality is actually we're not.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:16

marketers are much faster because you guys have to go where the eyeballs are.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:20

So the internet comes out, you've got to be thinking about internet advertising.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:23

But us accountants, we like stability, we are conservative by

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:27

nature, and we want to just keep doing the things we've always done.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:31

And there, there's this sort of joke within the accounting

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:34

world, we call it SALLY.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:36

It means same as last year.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:38

If everything looks the same as last year, we feel really comfortable,

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:42

and AI is breaking that really quick because there's not- no such

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:46

thing as same as last year anymore

Vit Muller: 00:03:48

Mm-hmm.

Vit Muller: 00:03:50

So how do you use AI in your business?

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:53

well, in a number of areas.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:54

a lot of the tools that we're using are now building AI into the tools.

Peter McCarroll: 00:03:58

So we use Xero and QuickBooks, and they have differing levels, some working well,

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:03

some not so well yet, of implementing AI within the accounting, platform.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:09

And this is one of the challenges for accountants and probably for you

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:11

guys a little bit as well, is that we are constrained to some extent by

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:16

the AI in the tools we use the most.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:19

And we can't do an awful lot to change the way the AI works in those tools.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:24

But then there's this whole layer around the tools.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:26

I call it AI in the gaps.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:28

It's AI that happens in the real world outside of the major tools that

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:32

we use, in the gaps between them.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:34

So we're using AI to help convert data, to help, integrate one system into another,

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:40

and the whole model context protocol side of things is really helping here.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:44

We can connect them to one system, pull down data, push it into another

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:47

system, or render it in a way that we can just copy and paste it really quick.

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:51

So that's one of the main areas that my team are using AI, is

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:55

being able to convert data, do calculations that would've taken

Peter McCarroll: 00:04:58

an hour or two on a spreadsheet.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:00

Now we can run them in a few minutes, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:02

Really just speeding up the process.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:05

I'm using it a lot as a strategic thinking partner.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:09

So I'm using AI personally to write content, do research, come

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:14

up with ideas, brainstorm pros and cons of different things.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:18

And AI always gives me a perspective that I wouldn't have thought of by

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:23

myself, and it gives me the ability to try something that I might abandon.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:29

Whereas previously, the time it would take to get to a certain point where you could

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:34

make a decision may have just been too long for me to take the chance of thinking

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:39

through an idea at that level, because I haven't got that many hours in the day.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:44

Now I can start a prompt running and let it do an analysis that might take

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:47

15, 20, 30 minutes in the background, and I can go through and I can read that

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:51

in three or four minutes and go, "No, I don't think we want to pursue that."

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:56

And that's it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:56

It's done.

Peter McCarroll: 00:05:57

I didn't have to spend four hours getting to the same point

Peter McCarroll: 00:06:00

myself, only to abandon it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:06:03

So AI's been really good with me as a strategic thinking partner and a research

Peter McCarroll: 00:06:08

assistant, letting me, especially in the AI Accountant brand, look… letting me

Peter McCarroll: 00:06:12

think through where do we take the product

Vit Muller: 00:06:15

Now, when it comes to accountancy, I've had, I don't know, maybe

Vit Muller: 00:06:18

five accountants over the course of my, my business journey, for numerous reason.

Vit Muller: 00:06:23

but there are accountants who are heavily, compliance-based, and

Vit Muller: 00:06:28

that's the only thing they focus on.

Vit Muller: 00:06:30

It's, advising the customers on how to keep the ducks in a

Vit Muller: 00:06:33

row and how to stay compliant.

Vit Muller: 00:06:36

And, me personally, that's boring.

Vit Muller: 00:06:38

I run a business.

Vit Muller: 00:06:39

Tell me about how-- tell me strategically the interesting stuff.

Vit Muller: 00:06:43

Like, where am I-- What am I missing?

Vit Muller: 00:06:45

Where is my, profit leaking?

Vit Muller: 00:06:46

H- what I can improve there, not just the compliance.

Vit Muller: 00:06:50

But I understand it.

Vit Muller: 00:06:51

now, speaking of how AI is helping you, I also assume that, because

Vit Muller: 00:06:56

it's so detailed, like the numbers and all that, y- it's-- Do I assume

Vit Muller: 00:06:59

correctly, it'd be easy to get, lost in the weeds and that's how-- that's why

Vit Muller: 00:07:04

the AI is kind of helping with that.

Vit Muller: 00:07:07

That way you don't have to get lost in the weeds and you can be more strategic?

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:11

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:11

So one of the great things that we can do with AI is we can do

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:14

very quick financial analysis.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:17

forecasting i- is okay with AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:20

it's sometimes a bit hit or miss.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:21

You've gotta be a little careful.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:23

but just that first level of financial analysis, it can do s-

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:26

really good stuff really well.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:28

I was experimenting with something the other day and I asked it to pull down a…

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:32

some data from a QuickBooks file, or it was a Xero file actually, and presented

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:36

a dashboard, and it highlighted three major critical areas for that client,

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:41

in literally two minutes, and presented a dashboard with all the numbers on it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:46

Now, I knew all those issues, so it's not like it did something I couldn't

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:49

have done, but the speed at which it pulled that information out and gave

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:53

me those numbers was just incredible.

Peter McCarroll: 00:07:56

And so this is where, as I'm working with my clients, I will run stuff

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:00

through AI maybe before a phone call and, it'll just give me that

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:04

very quick either confirmation of this is what my gut was saying.

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:08

I mean, there's still a lot of professional judgment and learned

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:11

experience that you apply as a professional, and that's still valid.

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:15

but what it's doing for me is helping me say, "Yeah, you're on track with

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:18

this," or, "Hey, here's something you might not have thought about." And one

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:22

of the things I've told my, my AI to do is to always challenge my assumptions.

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:27

And so it's constantly asking me, "Well, have you thought

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:29

about this issue or that issue?"

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:31

And it gives me different insights than maybe the ones that

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:35

I'm tunnel vision focused on.

Vit Muller: 00:08:37

Now you also

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:37

very helpful in that kind of space

Vit Muller: 00:08:39

Yeah, absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:08:40

and you have a unique, perspective because you are from New Zealand, so

Vit Muller: 00:08:47

you know the New Zealand tax law, and then you operate in Canada as well.

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:51

That's right, yes

Vit Muller: 00:08:52

is there a big difference between those two countries from…

Vit Muller: 00:08:55

I'm just personally curious to know

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:57

The tax laws are quite different.

Peter McCarroll: 00:08:58

New Zealand's tax laws are incredibly simple.

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:01

they, they redesigned the tax system, several decades ago,

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:05

with a goal of simplification.

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:07

Now, you know what government… simplification by government always

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:10

still means it's complicated.

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:12

But when I compare the two, New Zealand versus Canada, Canada

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:15

is so much more complicated.

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:17

And when I compare Canada versus the US, US is even more complicated again.

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:22

So, yeah, it's so e- it's relatively easy on the New Zealand side because

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:26

things are so straightforward and simple.

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:28

The average person in New Zealand does not file a tax return.

Vit Muller: 00:09:31

Now let's--

Peter McCarroll: 00:09:31

at source

Vit Muller: 00:09:32

Yeah, sovereign country's got its own u-uni-unique

Vit Muller: 00:09:35

systems and the reasons for it.

Vit Muller: 00:09:37

Now, I wanna make sure that we-- for the guys listening, they might

Vit Muller: 00:09:40

be like, "What the heck, Vit?

Vit Muller: 00:09:41

W-what's going on here?

Vit Muller: 00:09:42

I thought we were gonna be talking about HighLevel and all that." Guys, just--

Vit Muller: 00:09:46

I thought it'd be s-really good because we can think outside the box a little

Vit Muller: 00:09:48

bit, and accountancy is not something that we've talked about on this podcast,

Vit Muller: 00:09:53

and I think it's really important.

Vit Muller: 00:09:54

I was gonna pick your brain on it.

Vit Muller: 00:09:56

and by all means, not a professional advice, guys.

Vit Muller: 00:09:59

This is just having a conversation.

Vit Muller: 00:10:01

You need to talk to your own accountant and all that stuff, right?

Vit Muller: 00:10:04

But, what are some things that us HighLevelers who are--

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:08

Let's just stick with SaaS.

Vit Muller: 00:10:10

Us, HighLevelers who are white labeling the platform

Vit Muller: 00:10:14

and reselling the software,

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:16

what are some things that we should be aware of or consider

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:20

when it comes to running that type of business from an accountancy perspective?

Vit Muller: 00:10:24

Again, we're talking global, right?

Vit Muller: 00:10:26

So this is very more general, not specific to country, right?

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:31

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:32

So you're talking about just re-reselling, the GoHighLevel platform

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:36

and adding a layer of service on top

Vit Muller: 00:10:38

Yeah, and perhaps even, also adding a markup on the rebilling

Vit Muller: 00:10:42

side of things and that sort of stuff

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:44

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:45

Okay.

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:45

Well, we do a little bit of that because we often pay for

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:47

our clients', general ledger subscriptions like Xero or QuickBooks.

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:50

So I'm sort of familiar with that idea of on-selling a software product.

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:55

I'll tell you the biggest trap I have, and I don't think this

Peter McCarroll: 00:10:57

applies to you, but I'll mention it really briefly, and that's bleed.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:01

you start up a ledger for a client, maybe the client never fully engages,

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:04

maybe after a while they, they close their business or they leave to go

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:08

to another accountant, but you're still carrying that subscription cost.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:13

And we once, we found one recently, it had been over 12 months, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:16

we were still paying for it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:17

We hadn't switched it off or transferred it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:19

Very embarrassing.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:20

I know with GoHighLevel, the pricing model can be a little different.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:23

You've got the whole agency option going, so it's not quite so critical.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:27

But, just from a general financial management perspective, you've

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:30

got to watch those disbursements.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:32

That's what we call them in the accounting world.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:33

You've got to watch those out-of-pocket expenses that are really client

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:36

related and make sure that you're billing for those correctly.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:40

And if a client changes their subscription model, let's say they're engaging with

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:45

you for, the software plus a higher value management role, and then they

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:50

decide they're going to downgrade and they just want to pay for the base stuff.

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:53

It's so easy to stop the billing for the higher level stuff and forget to change

Peter McCarroll: 00:11:57

it to go down to the subscription-only billing, and that's of course how

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:01

we ended up, not getting paid for the software because we need the

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:04

software to stick around, but we don't want to be paying for it ourselves.

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:08

So, that's a s- a general financial principle.

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:10

when a subscription level changes, are your SOPs making sure that you're

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:14

now billing for the new service you're providing, which is maybe still

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:19

the software, or are you canceling the subscription once they've

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:23

fully terminated their engagement?

Vit Muller: 00:12:25

yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:12:25

So luckily on the HighLevel side, we have this amazing plan called

Vit Muller: 00:12:30

the four ninety-seven, SaaS plan.

Vit Muller: 00:12:32

that's the plan that I pay, which allows

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:34

most developers are on that plan.

Peter McCarroll: 00:12:36

Yeah

Vit Muller: 00:12:36

It's brilliant, yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:12:37

So, for those of you guys listening, if you are on HighLevel, maybe you

Vit Muller: 00:12:40

are on $97 plan or $297 plan, those are great starting point plans.

Vit Muller: 00:12:46

but the beauty of the SaaS, SaaS plans that you can set up on the

Vit Muller: 00:12:49

$497, subscription of HighLevel is it's automated all the way down to,

Vit Muller: 00:12:56

a downgrading, workflow for clients.

Vit Muller: 00:12:59

So my clients, they pay a plan.

Vit Muller: 00:13:01

I've got three plans, three different tiers.

Vit Muller: 00:13:04

and you can divvy them up by the feature sets or by number of

Vit Muller: 00:13:08

users that you allow per plan, or number of contacts they can have.

Vit Muller: 00:13:12

that's basically it.

Vit Muller: 00:13:14

plus you can s- add your own additional benefits and bonuses or services into it.

Vit Muller: 00:13:18

But as far as the software goes, that's how you configure it in this

Vit Muller: 00:13:21

thing called SaaS Configurator.

Vit Muller: 00:13:23

And what you do is you tie it in with your Stripe account, and then let's

Vit Muller: 00:13:28

say customer signs up on a middle tier, the traditional SaaS thing, right?

Vit Muller: 00:13:32

Plan one, two, or three, the middle plan, the top plan, the bottom plan, right?

Vit Muller: 00:13:36

So let's say they sign up for the top plan, and then for whatever reason,

Vit Muller: 00:13:40

it's not suitable for them, it's too expensive, whatever, they want to cancel.

Vit Muller: 00:13:44

Now, what's really cool is the system will actually-- And you just have to

Vit Muller: 00:13:47

configure it on the-- it's a matter of, I think about four or five months ago when

Vit Muller: 00:13:53

it was released, a- about November last year, 2020-- 2025 last year, however,

Vit Muller: 00:13:58

introduced this amazing thing where you can actually configure, a downgrade offer.

Vit Muller: 00:14:03

So rather than client completely canceling and just clicking cancel,

Vit Muller: 00:14:08

confirming that's it, what it does now is it actually tells them, "Hey, here's

Vit Muller: 00:14:14

all those things that you are going to be losing when you cancel." Right?

Vit Muller: 00:14:17

this is kind of going away from that accountancy thing, but it's

Vit Muller: 00:14:21

important to highlight that because, d- cancellation doesn't just mean

Vit Muller: 00:14:25

somebody cancels and then that's done.

Vit Muller: 00:14:28

You have the responsibility, and that's me talking to you guys if you

Vit Muller: 00:14:31

are considering to start reselling it, being on the $497 plan, you're

Vit Muller: 00:14:35

actually-- Well, in my view, I think you have responsibility to actually

Vit Muller: 00:14:39

really educate your customers what it really means, because it's not just a

Vit Muller: 00:14:45

subscription on the software, right?

Vit Muller: 00:14:46

They had to set up the account.

Vit Muller: 00:14:48

They had to set up the phone system.

Vit Muller: 00:14:50

Y- Maybe you've helped them with it.

Vit Muller: 00:14:52

Now they've got a dedicated phone number configured in there.

Vit Muller: 00:14:55

they've got, their domain, maybe their website, and all those things.

Vit Muller: 00:15:00

Once they cancel and you go ahead and you delete the account or system will actually

Vit Muller: 00:15:04

delete the account in a couple of days,

Peter McCarroll: 00:15:06

Mm-hmm.

Vit Muller: 00:15:07

they lose all that, and they might not be aware.

Vit Muller: 00:15:09

So- You could be like, "Yeah, that's their problem. They should've known." Well,

Vit Muller: 00:15:12

well, you should've known that too, right?

Vit Muller: 00:15:14

And so I think it's just, it just-- And again, my background is I used

Vit Muller: 00:15:18

to be working in hospitality, so it's all about… Hospitality is all about

Vit Muller: 00:15:23

looking after your customers, right?

Vit Muller: 00:15:25

and providing a great service.

Vit Muller: 00:15:26

And I think by providing a great service, even to those customers who are canceling,

Vit Muller: 00:15:31

just going the extra mile, contacting them, giving them a call, highlighting,

Vit Muller: 00:15:35

"Hey, look, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, look, you're gonna be losing all these things.

Vit Muller: 00:15:38

I just really wanna make sure that you understand what this means.

Vit Muller: 00:15:42

Not that I'm trying to like, hold you ransom or anything, but you

Vit Muller: 00:15:44

need to understand that you're gonna be losing this and that.

Vit Muller: 00:15:46

do you really wanna do that?

Vit Muller: 00:15:47

Because it'll have an impact on your business." And that's gonna

Vit Muller: 00:15:50

bring in us back to the financial side of things, 'cause impact,

Vit Muller: 00:15:54

accounting, goes hand in hand.

Vit Muller: 00:15:56

Now, yeah, so that's a great feature, And you can actually configure, a discount

Vit Muller: 00:16:00

even, where somebody wants to cancel, and you can say, "Well, I'm gonna give them a

Vit Muller: 00:16:05

thirty percent discount for the next three months if they stay on this plan." or

Vit Muller: 00:16:09

they get an option to downgrade to a lower plan rather than losing them altogether.

Vit Muller: 00:16:12

So that's, that's the great thing about HighLevel and the four ninety-seven dollar

Vit Muller: 00:16:16

plan, that it is automated, as opposed to maybe the other subscriptions or what

Vit Muller: 00:16:20

you mentioned, like making sure that you do, you, you do keep an eye on it.

Vit Muller: 00:16:25

Now, a lot of us HighLevelers, we also, help small businesses, not just with

Vit Muller: 00:16:30

giving them an account and setting it up, but also configuring it to actually

Vit Muller: 00:16:34

do something, to actually help them, whether it's improving lead nurture,

Vit Muller: 00:16:39

helping them convert more leads.

Vit Muller: 00:16:41

but for those guys out there who are listening and they are maybe, targeting

Vit Muller: 00:16:47

professional services businesses as customers, what's one thing about, And

Vit Muller: 00:16:52

again, talking back to A- about AI, what's one thing about AI in, in the professional

Vit Muller: 00:16:56

services space, that you think, uh, the operators get, get completely wrong?

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:01

Those that are really advanced, I mean, I love,

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:04

one of the things I love about HighLevel is how automated things get.

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:07

But the more you automate, the more you can lose the human touch.

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:11

And when it comes to professional services of any kind, whether it be

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:13

accounting or business coaching or marketing, management and advice, it's

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:18

the human touch that keeps the client.

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:21

So obviously results in your case and the human touch, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:25

so one of the mistakes that I see a lot of people make when they're getting

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:29

into automation, sort of in the old automation days and now with AI, is

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:33

that they over-engineer their processes And what that can do to a client is it

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:38

can make them feel like they're talking to a robot, which actually they are.

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:42

but it, what the consequence of that, it makes them feel like they're

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:45

just a number, that they don't have a relationship with somebody.

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:49

And building that relationship is the single most valuable key to any

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:53

longevity in professional services.

Peter McCarroll: 00:17:56

Accountants, lawyers, marketers, bankers, insurance salesmen, the whole

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:01

process is all about relationship.

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:03

And so, before you think about automation, you should ask one question,

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:09

and the question is this: Is the client paying for this as an output?

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:14

If it's just a report or something like that, then go ahead and automate it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:18

But if it's not just the output, if you're accountable for something

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:23

or it's about the relationship, then don't automate that.

Vit Muller: 00:18:28

嗯。

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:28

You wanna keep that human.

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:30

You wanna keep the accountability and the personal connection, that face-to-face

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:35

connection, even if that's just by email.

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:38

You want that to be something that the customer says, "I'm talking

Peter McCarroll: 00:18:41

to a real person, not a robot."

Vit Muller: 00:18:43

I've just moved from Australia.

Vit Muller: 00:18:45

I was living in Canberra, and unlike biggest cities like Sydney, I've

Vit Muller: 00:18:52

noticed an interesting difference.

Vit Muller: 00:18:55

In Sydney, it's very transient, very, transactional, very, you know-- It's not--

Vit Muller: 00:19:00

It doesn't have that small town feel.

Vit Muller: 00:19:02

Canberra does.

Vit Muller: 00:19:04

And in Canberra, when you're trying to crack through the market, especially

Vit Muller: 00:19:07

if you're, like, new just to the Canberra, everything is word of

Vit Muller: 00:19:11

mouth, and it's all about who knows who and the reputation in that town.

Vit Muller: 00:19:17

And so what you are saying, this just makes perfect sense because

Vit Muller: 00:19:24

it's not just giving the extra time and not automate everything, really

Vit Muller: 00:19:29

focusing on that human aspect.

Vit Muller: 00:19:30

Building that relationship is also going to help you, with the reputation

Vit Muller: 00:19:36

and the word of mouth in the local market and how other people will talk

Vit Muller: 00:19:38

about you and how they'll refer you.

Vit Muller: 00:19:40

So yeah, that's-- I'm absolutely with you on that.

Vit Muller: 00:19:43

Now, you've got a… Sorry.

Vit Muller: 00:19:45

Yep, go ahead

Peter McCarroll: 00:19:46

The other thing that we're seeing, and this

Peter McCarroll: 00:19:47

particularly is impacting us as accountants, I'm sure it's impacting

Peter McCarroll: 00:19:50

marketers as well, is compression.

Peter McCarroll: 00:19:53

And, one of the challenges is that every John Henry with a Claude subscription

Peter McCarroll: 00:19:57

thinks he's an accountant now, or thinks he's a marketing expert,

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:00

or thinks he's a business advisor.

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:02

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:03

And to a certain extent, there is some truth to that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:06

But the challenge for us as professionals is we have to go, we have to be able

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:09

to show the value that we create over and above the automation.

Vit Muller: 00:20:15

嗯。

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:15

and set up your own GoHighLevel account.

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:16

You can go and set up your own marketing campaigns.

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:19

You can go and, have Google switch on its AI and spend

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:21

$1,000 for you in a heartbeat.

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:24

And i- and almost anyone can do that if they have the time and the

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:27

patience and a little bit of nous, to be able to work that out, right?

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:31

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:32

Just like anyone can use QuickBooks, anyone can use Xero and Intuit d- does a

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:36

great job of telling everybody that you don't need an accountant or a bookkeeper

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:40

anymore, which, which is so frustrating because, what people need is they need to

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:45

know they're doing the right things and getting the best results, and QuickBooks

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:50

won't tell them that And normally, I mean, the AI will do a little better,

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:53

but, it's, again, it comes back to that relationship, that personal connection,

Peter McCarroll: 00:20:57

being able to look someone in the eye and say, "Is this what you recommend?

Peter McCarroll: 00:21:02

Is this the best way I should be doing things?" And you can't… You don't

Peter McCarroll: 00:21:06

wanna replace that with an automation

Vit Muller: 00:21:07

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:21:08

And it's interesting 'cause I've used QuickBooks.

Vit Muller: 00:21:11

Now I use Xero.

Vit Muller: 00:21:12

I've been using Xero for the last five years, but before that, I had QuickBooks.

Vit Muller: 00:21:16

And it's only now in the last two years where I've seen-- I don't know about

Vit Muller: 00:21:20

QuickBooks, I'm sure they're too, but in Xero now you've got the, Jax or

Vit Muller: 00:21:25

Dax now, where it helps you use AI to, reconcile and do the bookkeeping for you.

Vit Muller: 00:21:33

there's some other new announcements with cash flow forecasting and all

Vit Muller: 00:21:37

that, and those are amazing tools.

Vit Muller: 00:21:39

But, I look at it and, I'm not much of a numbers guy, I'll admit.

Vit Muller: 00:21:44

And when I look at it, it's "Okay, great. that's cool." But it's not the same

Vit Muller: 00:21:48

as if I can have a consultation with my accountant to touch base on things,

Vit Muller: 00:21:53

and they can explain it to me in more like layman terms, in the language that

Vit Muller: 00:21:57

I understand, and also there's things between the lines that I do not see.

Vit Muller: 00:22:03

I mean, put simply, there-- I'm sure there's a reason why you guys study, four

Vit Muller: 00:22:08

years or however long to get your degrees.

Vit Muller: 00:22:11

I bet it's more-- right?

Vit Muller: 00:22:12

I bet it's more than just understanding the basics that I understand.

Vit Muller: 00:22:16

So yeah, I value it.

Vit Muller: 00:22:19

Now, you've got a, you've got a practical test for, deciding

Vit Muller: 00:22:22

what to automate with AI.

Vit Muller: 00:22:24

And I guess, because with what you do, your business, the AI accountant,

Vit Muller: 00:22:29

you work with a lot of accountants and you help them, but I assume you, you--

Vit Muller: 00:22:33

it has a general sense to it as well.

Vit Muller: 00:22:34

can you walk us through it and maybe share a real world example from

Vit Muller: 00:22:38

your firm on how you use that test?

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:39

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:40

So actually, I just gave you the nugget of it just a second ago.

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:43

is the client paying for this output?

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:44

that is the practical test.

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:46

If the client's paying for the output, you can automate it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:50

But if the client's paying for that as an input to a better, a

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:54

more deeper process or a deeper discussion, don't automate that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:22:58

Keep that relational.

Vit Muller: 00:23:00

Mm-hmm.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:01

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:01

So in a marketing sense, you've got a lot of things that happen mechanically, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:05

again, this is why GoHighLevel is so good.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:07

You want to automate all the mechanics, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:10

But what you don't want to automate is that monthly client consultation, that

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:15

discussion with the client over their objectives and where they're going,

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:19

and are these leads they're getting the right leads or are they the wrong leads?

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:22

Okay.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:22

Once you've had that consultation, you can go back to automation.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:25

You're gonna run a process in the background, you're gonna use AI,

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:28

you're gonna use HighLevel automation, you're gonna adjust the system

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:32

and report back on the numbers.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:34

And yeah, the reporting is all gonna be automated, but the analysis and the

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:38

interpretation and the presentation of that back to the customer should

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:42

always be human, always be face-to-face.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:45

in our firm, we, we generate reports automatically out of Xero and QuickBooks.

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:50

we have a few AI scripts that will do some analysis for those, but

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:54

the discussion and presentation of those numbers is always human.

Vit Muller: 00:23:58

Mhm

Peter McCarroll: 00:23:58

I don't send, at least not yet anyway, I'm

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:01

not quite ready for that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:02

I don't send the AI-generated summaries to my clients because they-- the

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:08

AI-generated summary doesn't know all the uniqueness about the client.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:12

It doesn't know that this was seasonal and we expected it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:16

Let's say there's a revenue drop, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:18

And we knew this revenue drop was coming.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:19

We knew that there was going to be… There's always a slowdown

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:22

in June because it's right before the conference season starts, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:26

everything picks up in July, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:28

Or whatever the particular nuance for that client is.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:31

So I don't send those summaries yet to the client because I just don't

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:35

have the confidence that the summary gets the client nuance correct.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:40

we call it cl- we call it context in the AI space.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:43

It doesn't quite have enough context to understand those parameters, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:48

I do.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:49

It's in here.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:50

Now, obviously, what I want in time is I want to get that context out of here

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:54

and into the AI, so the AI now knows what I know and can give better advice.

Peter McCarroll: 00:24:59

But until then, I'm the pr- I'm the one that reads and presents.

Peter McCarroll: 00:25:04

I don't just send

Vit Muller: 00:25:06

Future will be interesting because when I think about it, in my

Vit Muller: 00:25:10

view, that's when we build voice AI agents or conversational bots, the way

Vit Muller: 00:25:15

we make them understand the business is they think all the knowledge base, right?

Vit Muller: 00:25:19

So we upload as much information in a structured way, whether that's

Vit Muller: 00:25:24

a table format doc or FAQ, so that it knows everything it needs

Vit Muller: 00:25:29

to, so it does have that context.

Vit Muller: 00:25:32

And so what you just said, it's interesting and, and I wonder, like

Vit Muller: 00:25:35

what the future will look like because if you could have an intake form or

Vit Muller: 00:25:40

a process for a new accounting client where they could provide that and have

Vit Muller: 00:25:45

a consultation with an AI accountant as an avatar that they can talk to and

Vit Muller: 00:25:49

it looks very real, it's getting there.

Vit Muller: 00:25:52

I know five years ago when I used the HeyGen, it was, ugh, terrible.

Vit Muller: 00:25:56

Now it's getting pretty close, and then I reckon give it another two years,

Vit Muller: 00:25:59

then you won't know the difference.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:02

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:03

Yeah, and this is the challenge is we don't quite know how fast things are

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:06

gonna go and how good things will get.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:09

My gut reaction says it's going to go faster than we think it will, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:13

it'll get better than we think it will.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:14

That's a huge challenge to anyone like you or me or any of our listeners

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:19

that are offering a professional service that can be automated.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:23

Because I think it will go faster than we think it will, and it will

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:28

be better than we think it will.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:29

And I post a lot of stuff about accountants and AI, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:33

it's predictable, the results.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:34

E- yeah, so many people just come back and say, "Oh, AI will

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:37

never replace a good bookkeeper.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:39

AI will never replace a good accountant.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:41

AI will never be able to give a tax plan." And I'm looking at the person

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:45

next to them, other people I know, and it's "Oh, yeah, it's generating

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:47

tax plans for me." And AI is doing, in some cases, 95% of the work.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:52

Now, is it perfect yet?

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:53

No, of course not.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:55

Will it be better next year?

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:56

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:26:57

And so I think there's a lot of, I don't like to be, the bearer

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:00

of bad news in that sense.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:02

I'm not trying to scare people, but this is the reality we live

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:05

in, and the businesses that survive have to think differently.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:10

It's not just about automation.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:13

And so there's a dilemma, and there was some research that was done just recently.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:16

most businesses right now are in, the mode where they are just trying to get

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:22

better efficiency using automation and AI.

Vit Muller: 00:27:26

Mm-hmm.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:27

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:27

That's l- I talk about three levers in business with AI, and that's level one.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:31

Level one is do more with less.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:34

Be faster, be cheaper.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:35

Now, the problem with that is the world is compressing pricing, and if you j- can

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:40

be faster and cheaper, that might get you a competitive edge today, but it's not a

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:45

competitive edge tomorrow because everyone else is gonna be faster and cheaper, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:49

eventually it's a race to the bottom.

Vit Muller: 00:27:51

It only works before it becomes mainstream

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:53

Exactly.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:54

That's right, and eventually you're competing with Claude at $20 a

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:56

month, and you can't win that game.

Peter McCarroll: 00:27:59

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:00

The second lever is strategic thinking.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:03

How do I make better decisions with AI?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:06

This is where some businesses are thinking along these lines.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:10

How do I analyze my market?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:12

How do I evaluate my pricing?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:14

How do I think about what's coming next?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:15

How do I position myself to weather this change rather

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:19

than reacting to this change?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:21

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:21

But the third lever… Now, I think marketers are actually further advanced

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:25

on this than most other people, and certainly most accountants.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:30

The third lever is how does AI create new services for me?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:35

Okay.

Vit Muller: 00:28:36

based on the market needs

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:37

That's right.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:38

First lever is about reduction.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:41

third lever is about expansion.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:44

Different mindset, different approach.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:46

Rather than saying, "How do I do more with less? How do I cut my headcount? How do

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:50

I have more clients but not have to hire more staff?" That's still reduction, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:56

Reduction of effort, reduction of cost.

Peter McCarroll: 00:28:58

That's just compressing.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:00

Every month that's compressing further and further, and it

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:02

will become normal, as you say.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:04

But if I start thinking about, how do I use AI to create new products, new

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:10

service lines, not just do my current service lines better, which is the natural

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:14

temptation, and there's nothing wrong with that by itself, but that will compress.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:19

But if I can think about, how do I offer better services, new services,

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:23

different ways of seeing the market, using AI to leverage that,

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:28

either get to market faster, serve clients at, with a higher margin.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:33

again, anything with a higher margin will be compressed eventually, but it allows us

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:38

to think at a different level rather than just the default cost-cutting methodology.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:44

And I'm all for cost-cutting.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:46

that's the first thing we do at every business.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:47

How do I do this faster?

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:49

How do I do it more efficient?

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:50

How do I do it with less hours?

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:52

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:53

But that's not going to be enough.

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:55

We

Vit Muller: 00:29:56

And also

Peter McCarroll: 00:29:56

thinking strategically and growing with AI

Vit Muller: 00:29:59

you can't just create an efficiency for the sake of increasing

Vit Muller: 00:30:02

profit and then get comfortable, right?

Vit Muller: 00:30:05

Because the market is shifting, the innovation is happening, and it's not

Vit Muller: 00:30:09

happening at a linear progressive scale.

Vit Muller: 00:30:12

It's a J curve, so it's crazy.

Peter McCarroll: 00:30:15

As we say here in Canada, it's a hockey stick curve.

Peter McCarroll: 00:30:18

Yeah

Vit Muller: 00:30:18

The hockey stick curve.

Vit Muller: 00:30:19

But yeah, so efficiency, strategy, and the last one gonna be the

Vit Muller: 00:30:24

entrepreneurial use of AI with markets.

Vit Muller: 00:30:28

And what's exciting about that one, a lot of entrepreneurs, me

Vit Muller: 00:30:32

included, we get excited about an idea, about a product or service.

Vit Muller: 00:30:36

But sometimes we forget that no matter how brilliant your idea is, if there

Vit Muller: 00:30:40

is not market for it, it's gonna fall on its head, or you're gonna spend a

Vit Muller: 00:30:45

lot of time and money and effort trying to create all the education and do

Vit Muller: 00:30:50

the ec-educational marketing to create your market, which is very expensive.

Vit Muller: 00:30:54

So AI could definitely uncover a lot of opportunities in markets

Vit Muller: 00:30:57

that we have not even thought of for services that may not even exist yet.

Vit Muller: 00:31:02

So it'll be very interesting

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:03

Mm-hmm.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:04

Yes.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:05

A- and one, one of the things that I predict is we're gonna

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:07

see a lot of businesses that are gonna not survive the AI wave.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:12

but we're gonna see a lot of businesses that get created in the AI wave.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:16

And as an existing business owner, you have to make that decision.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:19

Do you wanna be the one that closes, or do you wanna be the one that

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:23

works out how to thrive and grow in this challenging environment?

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:28

my… I call it my origin story for AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:30

two years ago in 2024, I'd been listening to podcasts, I'd been hearing about

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:34

AI, and I was starting to get nervous.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:37

I mean, I've always been tech-forward.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:38

I mean, I was one of the first people on Xero.

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:41

Xero was created in my hometown, so you know, us New Zealanders, we got early

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:45

access to this wonderful technology, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:48

And so I was the first to, like I was ready to buy a server to install,

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:52

accounting software on it, and I saw Xero and I said, "Why would I

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:56

spend $10,000 on a server?" Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:31:58

Never bought that server.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:00

So happy I didn't do that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:02

And I was an early adopter in cloud, and our whole practice

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:04

was all about being tech-forward.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:07

and two years ago when I started hearing about AI and I started thinking to

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:10

myself, "If this is true, what would this mean for our firm?" And I realized

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:16

that we were no longer tech-forward.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:17

We were now the big majority.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:20

Majority of firms that have adopted cloud are using tools like Dext

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:25

and products like this, and we were doing no different from them.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:28

And I realized that I'm now no longer the leader I thought I was.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:33

And I started thinking about what AI could do in our business,

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:37

not then, but coming up now.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:39

so the next three years was my thinking back then.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:41

And I had this vision of me sitting on the side of the road crying with a

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:46

broken desk and broken records on the road as a truck just drove through my

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:50

business, and I knew who that truck was.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:53

That truck was AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:54

And my decision at that moment was: Do I wanna be the guy sitting on the

Peter McCarroll: 00:32:58

side of the road crying because my business just got destroyed, or do I

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:02

wanna be the guy driving the truck?

Vit Muller: 00:33:03

decision

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:04

Simple decision.

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:05

Absolutely.

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:06

The problem right now is a lot of accountants still

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:09

think they've got a business

Vit Muller: 00:33:10

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:33:11

And look, I think, yeah, for those businesses that haven't been staying

Vit Muller: 00:33:15

abreast of what's happening and keeping touch with the innovation, for whatever

Vit Muller: 00:33:22

reason, maybe they're just being ignorant or they are thinking, the old principles

Vit Muller: 00:33:26

will last, they'll be in the shock, right?

Vit Muller: 00:33:29

Because you can't hide under the rock and wait for-- This is not one of those

Vit Muller: 00:33:32

where you can just weather the storm.

Vit Muller: 00:33:35

This is gonna, this is gonna railroad you and you'll be out.

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:39

It took 10 years for cloud accounting technology to

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:42

become normal in the accounting space.

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:44

10 years.

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:46

AI is gonna do this in two

Vit Muller: 00:33:47

Yeah

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:48

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:49

It's at the point now where the momentum is so great that

Peter McCarroll: 00:33:53

it's effectively unstoppable

Vit Muller: 00:33:55

It's, you know the levels of competence, like you don't know

Vit Muller: 00:33:58

what you don't know, then you know what you don't know, then you know

Vit Muller: 00:34:01

what you know, and then the ideal is like you don't even think about it.

Vit Muller: 00:34:04

It just becomes so second nature.

Vit Muller: 00:34:06

You're so experienced.

Vit Muller: 00:34:07

That's the ultimate, right?

Vit Muller: 00:34:09

But that's all based on fundamentals and, timeless principles, and

Vit Muller: 00:34:15

those things are changing.

Vit Muller: 00:34:17

Certain things are not, but from a technology perspective, they are.

Vit Muller: 00:34:20

So even for me, even for you, like trying to stay ahead of this game and trying to

Vit Muller: 00:34:26

get to … Well, what I'm trying to say is say three years ago, agency model,

Vit Muller: 00:34:31

or four years ago, the agency model that worked really well is like you depend

Vit Muller: 00:34:35

on it, selling ads, paid ads management.

Vit Muller: 00:34:37

It's yeah, that's great and that works.

Vit Muller: 00:34:38

That's a great model.

Vit Muller: 00:34:39

That model is shifting now.

Vit Muller: 00:34:41

So now we're, all of us like, we don't know what we don't know.

Vit Muller: 00:34:46

It's like back to square one.

Vit Muller: 00:34:47

Like, this is always there, but it's now at e- even more than it's ever been.

Vit Muller: 00:34:52

So

Peter McCarroll: 00:34:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Peter McCarroll: 00:34:55

the whole model is changing and we've gotta learn how to stay

Peter McCarroll: 00:34:58

a- abreast of those changes, not e- not even reacting to them.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:02

we've gotta learn how to be leaders in that space, otherwise we become the

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:05

normal majority, and the normal majority are going to… like the laggards

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:10

will, th- they'll just retire 'cause they can't handle the pace of change.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:14

That was my dad's story.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:15

He just couldn't handle the pace of change and d- just decided to retire.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:19

I don't wanna be in that position where, it's like, "It's just too hard.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:22

it's just too hard. I don't wanna do this anymore." I'm not quite that old.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:26

I've got a few years left.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:28

I w- I wanna be the guy driving the truck.

Peter McCarroll: 00:35:30

Absolutely

Vit Muller: 00:35:31

So how do we-- What's the best, what do you think is the best?

Vit Muller: 00:35:33

Like, how do we stay ahead of the game or how do we keep up with it?

Vit Muller: 00:35:37

I mean, in the most simplest way, I would think it'd be, well, just make sure you

Vit Muller: 00:35:43

dedicate time, allocate time, not once a month, not once a week, but daily.

Vit Muller: 00:35:49

Just have a look what's happening just a little bit so that stay in,

Vit Muller: 00:35:54

in touch with what's happening.

Vit Muller: 00:35:55

Like I, I do it because I'm in-- on Facebook and on LinkedIn and I'm friends

Vit Muller: 00:35:59

with a lot of people in the HighLevel space, and they all happen to be

Vit Muller: 00:36:02

marketers and nerds and, there's Mario who's one of the like most knowledgeable

Vit Muller: 00:36:07

people when it comes to vibe coding and building your own vibe coding stack.

Vit Muller: 00:36:10

And so I'm trying to stay in tune with that.

Vit Muller: 00:36:14

I'm not implementing everything, but I'm trying to stay

Vit Muller: 00:36:17

knowledgeable about those solutions.

Vit Muller: 00:36:20

That's for me.

Vit Muller: 00:36:21

what else do you-- what else-- how else can you-- what do you think?

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:24

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:24

So probably two things.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:26

One is staying abreast of what's happening in the market.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:29

So listen to podcasts, YouTube channels.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:32

Don't limit yourself to marketing sources.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:35

That's probably the biggest thing.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:36

If all you're doing is watching Facebook or LinkedIn, you're probably

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:39

getting, a narrow view of the world.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:41

So try and choose channels that are a little uncomfortable.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:45

If you're not very techy, listen to something that's a little techy, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:49

Most of it will just go over your head, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:52

There's this one guy that I lo- that, that I watch his YouTube channels.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:55

I've subscribed to a Substack.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:56

His name is Nate Jones.

Peter McCarroll: 00:36:58

He's a developer, and he publishes a 20 to 40-minute video every single day.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:03

This guy is a, is a monster.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:05

and he's a nerd.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:06

I mean, and he would not object to me saying that, I don't think.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:09

he's a developer.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:10

He's a technologist.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:11

He understands how AI works.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:14

I barely know how to spell it some days.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:16

and so, but, and he's talking about stuff, and half of it just goes over my head.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:20

It's "Okay, that's good for you, Nate.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:22

that's not for me.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:22

That's n- That, I don't understand that." But every now and then, something comes

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:26

up and I go, "Oh, that's interesting And then, so then what I do is I take

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:30

the transcript and I paste it into Claude, and I've told Claude how to

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:35

analyze stuff and think like I think.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:37

I've got written instructions for it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:39

And it will go through that transcript, and it'll pull out

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:43

things, and I'll tell it what, what triggered my, my, my reaction.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:46

And it'll tell me where I was on track with that reaction, maybe

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:50

what I missed with that reaction, but then it'll tell me, "But here's

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:54

something you haven't mentioned."

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:55

And so just thinking outside of my space.

Peter McCarroll: 00:37:58

I'm an accountant, I do that really well.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:02

I'm not a technologist, but I listen to enough of that to be able to say, "Right,

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:06

I think I've s- I've heard something that might be relevant to me." Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:10

For you guys, SmarterX, is one of the best.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:13

I listen to their podcast.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:15

they're fantastic in talking about marketing kind of stuff and general AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:19

but, find something else.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:20

Think about some of your clients.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:21

if you're working in a particular industry, find an AI podcast about their

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:26

industry and be thinking about that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:29

and go beyond what's comfortable.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:31

So that's level one.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:32

that is knowledge.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:33

That is just understanding what's happening in the space.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:36

The other one is experiential.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:38

You've got to be doing it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:40

You've got to have dirty fingers, so to speak, when it comes to using AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:44

You've got to get into Claude or ChatGPT.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:47

I highly recommend Claude.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:49

but you've got to get into it, and you've got to use it on a regular basis.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:52

And don't just settle for rewrite my emails.

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:55

Now, of course, you guys in the marketing space, I know you're all

Peter McCarroll: 00:38:57

about- against sort of AI-generated slop.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:00

but you know, think through what is it that I can do, whether it be

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:03

strategic thinking, whether it be i- ideation, coming up with brainstorming

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:08

ideas that you can then go and develop, more, in, in more detail.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:12

get used to using it as a tool on a regular basis.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:16

If it's only something you reserve for certain things, it's one of those things

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:20

you just put on the shelf and you, "Well, I'll c- you know, I don't have to do that

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:23

task today." But if you get used to using it regularly, you will find new ways

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:28

for it to help you, in your business.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:30

And particularly when you get to that strategic level, that's

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:33

when you start to really unlock the power, of that second brain.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:37

I think of Claude now as my second brain, I know what I know, it

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:41

knows what I don't know, and it helps me sort through those ideas

Vit Muller: 00:39:45

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:39:46

Peter, what advice would you give to somebody just starting

Vit Muller: 00:39:49

to explore AI for their business?

Vit Muller: 00:39:51

Any quick wins they can implement right away?

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:53

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:54

as I said, use it every day.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:55

Find something to do with it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:57

practice.

Peter McCarroll: 00:39:58

It's no longer about learning how to write the right prompt.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:02

It's learning how to tell it what you want to do.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:06

what's your goal?

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:06

What's your objective?

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:08

And then giving it the data it needs to give you good answers.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:11

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:12

So yeah, just get in there and start doing things.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:14

take something you don't think AI can help you with.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:17

This is a really good one.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:19

Think about something, go, "AI could never help me with that," and

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:22

then tell it what you don't think it can do, and watch the results.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:28

It will absolutely floor you.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:30

and like my Claude, 'cause I've told it to push back on answers, it's really honest

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:35

about what it, what it can do and the, and where it's gone wrong, and what it would

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:39

do differently, with, more information.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:41

And so yeah, just say, "Well, hey, I don't think you can help me with ABC.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:45

Prove me wrong." and then watch it.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:48

It'll probably prove you wrong.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:50

But start with something.

Peter McCarroll: 00:40:52

Get into it

Vit Muller: 00:40:52

Now, outside of using AI to give you some response, give

Vit Muller: 00:40:55

you some, intelligence, I've been a big fan lately of using AI agents

Vit Muller: 00:41:00

to actually do stuff for you.

Vit Muller: 00:41:02

Now, that's a whole new field that, that is, is becoming, very popular.

Vit Muller: 00:41:07

with it comes, you need to be really careful.

Vit Muller: 00:41:10

I mean, it all started with CloseBot, and that was a big thing.

Vit Muller: 00:41:13

just recently I come across a, a product called Victor.

Vit Muller: 00:41:17

HighLevel now has Ask AI, that's now just coming out of beta, and

Vit Muller: 00:41:21

it's actually to be released to the subaccounts for our subaccount customers.

Vit Muller: 00:41:26

but these things are amazing because you can just talk to it and it's like an MCP.

Vit Muller: 00:41:30

It has access to those different feature sets in terms of the Ask

Vit Muller: 00:41:33

AI inside HighLevel as an example.

Vit Muller: 00:41:36

So it can draft an email newsletter for you inside GHL.

Vit Muller: 00:41:40

It can surface, conversation, across all your customers to surface up the top

Vit Muller: 00:41:46

three that you should reach out to today.

Vit Muller: 00:41:48

Now, I-I've been playing with Victor, which is a new product.

Vit Muller: 00:41:51

it's been over, four days.

Vit Muller: 00:41:53

Jarryd Holmes introduced me to that.

Vit Muller: 00:41:55

It's a bit of a craze right now in our little, Facebook Messenger, group.

Vit Muller: 00:41:59

And, it's got two SOC compliant, so that gave me a bit more confidence.

Vit Muller: 00:42:03

And it's, built under-- You just integrate with Slack, so you just put

Vit Muller: 00:42:08

it in your Slack channel, and you can connect to whatever you wanna connect to.

Vit Muller: 00:42:12

It's got all the native integrations all the way to HighLevel, and

Vit Muller: 00:42:16

you don't have to go to API docs and do all the configs yourself.

Vit Muller: 00:42:22

it's got it all done.

Vit Muller: 00:42:23

it's incredible.

Vit Muller: 00:42:24

I haven't done it down that far.

Vit Muller: 00:42:25

I'm taking it more-- I, I generally like to take a more conservative

Vit Muller: 00:42:28

approach when it comes to this stuff.

Vit Muller: 00:42:30

So what I've done is I've given it access to just some of the Slack

Vit Muller: 00:42:34

channels that I know is just my own stuff, my Canva account for where

Vit Muller: 00:42:39

I've got all my graphics, and, and then another Slack channel that I

Vit Muller: 00:42:43

have, which I have connected with RSS feed, which is a HighLevel help,

Vit Muller: 00:42:47

a HighLevel release notes RSS feed.

Vit Muller: 00:42:50

And they release about two to three, feeds a day about either updates, improvements,

Vit Muller: 00:42:55

or brand-new features altogether.

Vit Muller: 00:42:57

Now, I've always, been very, nerdy and into this stuff and,

Vit Muller: 00:43:01

it's like my morning coffee.

Vit Muller: 00:43:02

I, I drool over it.

Vit Muller: 00:43:04

It's "This is awesome," but I can't be like that with my customers.

Vit Muller: 00:43:08

I can't go, "Hey," every day like, "Hey, look at this.

Vit Muller: 00:43:10

Hey," like that's just gonna overwhelm the heck out of everybody, right? So,

Vit Muller: 00:43:14

I just say, "Look- Victor, you gotta-- Like you literally target, a teammate.

Vit Muller: 00:43:17

Say, "Hey Victor, go to this channel.

Vit Muller: 00:43:20

I've had this RSS feed for the last six months.

Vit Muller: 00:43:22

There's plenty of updates.

Vit Muller: 00:43:25

pull out the updates for, all of this month of May.

Vit Muller: 00:43:29

and look, I wanna have a newsletter for customers that I wanna send

Vit Muller: 00:43:32

out once a month just to keep them up to date with the product."

Vit Muller: 00:43:36

They're already paying for it.

Vit Muller: 00:43:37

It's a SaaS business.

Vit Muller: 00:43:38

We are in a SaaS business.

Vit Muller: 00:43:40

Adoption is the name of the game, and if I can continue to make my customers

Vit Muller: 00:43:44

to adopt additional things that are already part of things that they pay

Vit Muller: 00:43:47

for, the logic is there, the strategy is there, they're gonna stay, right?

Vit Muller: 00:43:52

and it did it in eight minutes.

Vit Muller: 00:43:54

It did it eight minutes, and it gave me a PDF.

Vit Muller: 00:43:57

The first version wasn't so great, so, look it.

Vit Muller: 00:43:59

You gotta-- What it did is it had a PDF.

Vit Muller: 00:44:02

The information was there, but it wasn't on brand.

Vit Muller: 00:44:03

I said, "Look, can you go to Canva? In Canva somewhere, I've got, I've

Vit Muller: 00:44:07

got a document which is a brand guide that I did." Now, in my Canva account,

Vit Muller: 00:44:12

I've had, maybe seven different brand guides for different businesses,

Vit Muller: 00:44:15

but it already knows my business.

Vit Muller: 00:44:17

It looked it up in two minutes.

Vit Muller: 00:44:18

It knew exactly which one I was referring to, even without

Vit Muller: 00:44:21

me giving it enough context.

Vit Muller: 00:44:23

So it's brilliant.

Vit Muller: 00:44:24

I'm gonna put it in the show notes for you guys to, to check it out.

Vit Muller: 00:44:27

but yeah, that's

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:27

hit on a couple of things there that are really

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:29

important for people to think about.

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:31

security is alwa- always a big concern, so always use paid

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:34

accounts that don't train the model.

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:35

That's a not negotiable.

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:37

one of the keys to getting the best value out of AI is giving it

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:40

access to more and more things.

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:42

Now, I wouldn't recommend most businesses go and try and set up an

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:45

open core server and give it access to everything all at once, okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:49

That, that might backfire a little bit.

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:51

But I've given it read-only access to my email.

Peter McCarroll: 00:44:55

My Claude can search my email, and I had just this problem last night.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:00

A, a customer sent an email complaining about something that wasn't working

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:03

right, and I thought to myself, "Now, what have we discussed about this in the

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:06

past?" So I just said to Claude, "Check my email for messages from this address

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:12

and summarize…" It was a payroll issue.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:14

"And summarize what we've talked about, payroll services the last six months."

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:19

And within seconds it pulled down all the information, gave me a timeline,

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:22

the dates of the messages, what we said we'd do, and what her concern was.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:27

And bang, instantly I've now got that quick summary.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:31

And if I was too scared because of security to give it access to read

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:35

my emails, I would've just spent 25 minutes scouring through all

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:40

those messages trying to pull out that summary instead of 25 seconds.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:45

So the more that you give it access to, the better

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:48

experience you're going to have.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:49

You just have to, put the right safeguards in place, make sure

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:52

you're not just giving it access to do everything and do anything.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:56

But you know, if you limit it, you don't get the right behavior.

Peter McCarroll: 00:45:59

Your example there, access to Slack, access to Canva, it summarized data

Peter McCarroll: 00:46:04

and formatted that in your way, and you didn't have to tell it how to do that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:46:08

It just worked it out.

Peter McCarroll: 00:46:10

And that's how we start to get the best experience out of AI.

Vit Muller: 00:46:13

honestly, I would have spent half day trying to go through all

Vit Muller: 00:46:16

of it and because also I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I would tinker with it.

Vit Muller: 00:46:19

I would just… Yeah, and now it's just done it.

Vit Muller: 00:46:22

Actually, I've gone above and beyond and that, my, my follow-up message to that

Vit Muller: 00:46:26

was like, "Cool, I like this newsletter.

Vit Muller: 00:46:28

You're giving a summary of the most juiciest bits that are most relevant

Vit Muller: 00:46:32

to my customer base." But I'm thinking, "Hey, look, we've got a knowledge base

Vit Muller: 00:46:37

where there's hundreds and hundreds of articles, thanks to our partner, HL Pro

Vit Muller: 00:46:41

Tools, who do that for us because we just, white label their knowledge base," right?

Vit Muller: 00:46:46

but I said, "Look, I reckon, some of the latest stuff maybe have not

Vit Muller: 00:46:50

been published there as an article.

Vit Muller: 00:46:51

Can you… And I think, if I send out this newsletter, I bet you that some

Vit Muller: 00:46:55

of the customers would wanna dig in deeper if it's really relevant and might

Vit Muller: 00:46:58

wanna click on something to learn more.

Vit Muller: 00:47:00

So I wanna have that feature as part of the newsletter.

Vit Muller: 00:47:02

Can you go to check out my knowledge base and reference if we have

Vit Muller: 00:47:06

articles that are existing there, and if not, highlight it for me.

Vit Muller: 00:47:10

And if it's, if it's not there, then include the link to the

Vit Muller: 00:47:14

HighLevel's knowledge base.

Vit Muller: 00:47:15

That way I at least know where to, where to repurpose that."

Vit Muller: 00:47:18

It's done it as well.

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:19

Yeah.

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:20

and that's the second thing that you hit on there was pre-built

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:24

instructions or pre-built context for something that you want to do.

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:29

your example of Canva where you had a design template already built

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:33

in Canva is a great example of this, because you've said, "This

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:37

is the brand rules for brand…

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:40

th-this brand.

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:41

So whenever preparing information, follow these rules." Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:44

Well, in my Claude, I've got a couple of markdown files, that's the technology

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:49

term, just a text document, and in that text, those text documents,

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:53

one of them is my brand voice.

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:55

How do I speak?

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:56

I always speak in the first person.

Peter McCarroll: 00:47:59

I'm always blunt and unapologetic.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:02

Tell the truth, don't speculate.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:05

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:06

So it's… I've, I've helped it dra- you know, draft my brand voice.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:12

I've also got a brand visual identity.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:15

This is when we… So when we post something to the website, it's

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:18

always using the right colors, the right layout, the right styles.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:22

all those things are visually compatible with the brand that I have.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:26

That's your Canva example.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:28

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:28

The more of these kinds of things you can codify into a written document,

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:34

a text, in this case they're just text documents, the better the

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:38

results you'll get out of an AI tool.

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:41

Because if it doesn't know who you are or it doesn't know who your client is, it

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:46

will give you generic advice, and that's how we get slop, 'cause what we end up

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:52

with is the lowest common denominator.

Vit Muller: 00:48:55

嗯。

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:55

the more it knows about you, the more it can give advice

Peter McCarroll: 00:48:58

relevant to you and your situation.

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:01

The more it knows about your client, the better it's gonna give you information

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:06

that's tailored to that client.

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:08

If it doesn't know that your client is a bicycle repair shop, it

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:12

might give you advice that's only relevant to an e-commerce store.

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:15

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:15

So building those profiles is probably the single most important

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:18

thing you can do when using AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:21

Build that context library about yourself, your processes, your

Peter McCarroll: 00:49:24

voice, and your client, and now AI becomes a super powerful partner

Vit Muller: 00:49:29

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:49:30

Yeah, that's one of the things we do.

Vit Muller: 00:49:31

We actually create a project for each client inside our, GPT account that

Vit Muller: 00:49:35

we keep some of the information so it c- becomes siloed and per client.

Vit Muller: 00:49:38

And then what we do is we reference link to that project inside a ClickUp

Vit Muller: 00:49:43

where we do all the tasks and management and fulfillment, and then the team can

Vit Muller: 00:49:47

go there and, yeah, that's, important.

Vit Muller: 00:49:50

Peter, we're at the end.

Vit Muller: 00:49:51

we've covered a whole bunch of stuff.

Vit Muller: 00:49:53

My last question to you would be because you, because you do work with,

Vit Muller: 00:49:57

other accountants' practices and some of them may be still skeptical, and

Vit Muller: 00:50:03

same goes for us, like we're trying to, offer this and explain, "Hey,

Vit Muller: 00:50:07

look, you really gotta jump on it, otherwise it's just a matter of time and

Vit Muller: 00:50:09

you'll be squeezed out of the market.

Vit Muller: 00:50:11

The window of opportunity, is now." And the stuff that we know it's,

Vit Muller: 00:50:15

it sounds cliché, but it's true.

Vit Muller: 00:50:18

my question is, those that are skeptical and resistance to ch- resistance to

Vit Muller: 00:50:22

change, even after, explaining all this amazingness stuff, how do you build

Vit Muller: 00:50:27

this AI confidence within such a team?

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:30

You start with openness.

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:32

I've got a funny story.

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:34

we told our staff, that we're going down this AI track.

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:37

This was about just o- just under two years ago.

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:40

We started training everybody on pro- back then it was prompt engineering.

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:43

We put everyone through this training course, and we then said

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:45

to the whole team, "No one will get in trouble for using AI."

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:49

We gave them permission, and we then did an all hands meeting, and we wanted

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:53

them to do an exercise where they were doing some financial analysis, and we

Peter McCarroll: 00:50:57

gave them the brief, and they all ran away to their teams, and two of the teams

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:01

took their phones out and photographed the information and had AI give them

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:05

the answers, which of course was not what I wanted them to do because I

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:08

wanted them to think, not just repeat.

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:11

and I had to say, "On one hand, I want to tell you off, and on the other hand,

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:15

I want to praise you because I did say that no one's gonna get told off for

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:20

using AI in this firm ever again. So I have to commend you. Next time, I better

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:25

give you the right instructions." So give them permission, give them the tools.

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:30

Never let them use their own AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:33

That's a huge… we call it shadow AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:35

That's a huge risk.

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:36

If they're out there using their own, free ChatGPT account, anything they

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:40

submit could be training the model.

Peter McCarroll: 00:51:42

So give them paid accounts, help them try it out, and give them permission

Vit Muller: 00:51:48

Any professional practice, whether it be legal or accountancy

Vit Muller: 00:51:52

or otherwise, I even think it's a standard by the industry, isn't it?

Vit Muller: 00:51:56

You have to have an IT layer and restrictions in place on even IP

Vit Muller: 00:52:03

addresses and things like that.

Vit Muller: 00:52:04

At the bare minimum, for sure, Microsoft email infrastructure and all that.

Vit Muller: 00:52:08

I know that's a big one in Australia.

Vit Muller: 00:52:11

So if you're listening and you're running a professional practice and you don't have

Vit Muller: 00:52:13

that in place, and you are saying that to your team to go and have a go at AI,

Peter McCarroll: 00:52:18

guidelines.

Peter McCarroll: 00:52:19

Yeah

Vit Muller: 00:52:20

give them guidelines.

Vit Muller: 00:52:21

But even I, I'm, I would go e- even beyond that because I know people are peculiar.

Vit Muller: 00:52:26

we are creative, right?

Vit Muller: 00:52:28

And so I think at, there's so much at stake at such a type of business

Vit Muller: 00:52:32

that I would even make sure that, I like hard-code restrictions and talk

Vit Muller: 00:52:36

to the IT department and lock it out and just only allow particular tools.

Vit Muller: 00:52:41

I think Microsoft Teams has pretty good enterprise when it comes

Vit Muller: 00:52:44

to AI and things like that, so.

Peter McCarroll: 00:52:46

they are probably the best for overall enterprise layer.

Peter McCarroll: 00:52:49

obviously Claude's enterprise layer is really good, but now really pricey.

Peter McCarroll: 00:52:53

so yeah, those have probably been the two leaders.

Peter McCarroll: 00:52:56

and the Microsoft product suite, while it's not the best AI tool in

Peter McCarroll: 00:53:00

the world, it's probably got the best enterprise-wide features and security

Vit Muller: 00:53:05

Mm-hmm.

Vit Muller: 00:53:05

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:53:07

Peter, well, I wanna thank you so much for, jumping on this podcast.

Vit Muller: 00:53:10

this was, very refreshing to get somebody from non-HighLevel space,

Vit Muller: 00:53:14

and we still-- I think we draw a lot of, correlations that, I hope that

Vit Muller: 00:53:19

you guys listening found valuable.

Vit Muller: 00:53:22

now, for those that are running the business in New Zealand or Canada, whether

Vit Muller: 00:53:29

it's, for themselves or they are helping other accountants, I think that could be

Vit Muller: 00:53:34

some, opportunity, to work with yourself because of what you do and how you help

Vit Muller: 00:53:39

other accountancy practices with the AI accountant, business that you have.

Peter McCarroll: 00:53:45

Any- anywhere in the Western world, we could provide some

Peter McCarroll: 00:53:47

support and training and guidance to any accounting firm who are thinking

Peter McCarroll: 00:53:50

about, "Where do I go from here?" Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:53:53

Brilliant.

Vit Muller: 00:53:54

And look, I've always been a big believer that, partnerships is one

Vit Muller: 00:53:59

of the best, leveraged ways to, to generate leads and generate customers.

Vit Muller: 00:54:05

Accountants are perfect 'cause they work with business.

Vit Muller: 00:54:07

They just happen to work with a lot of business owners in

Vit Muller: 00:54:10

lots of different industries.

Vit Muller: 00:54:12

But I also found it's always been, it's not been as easy building that

Vit Muller: 00:54:16

relationship from my experience.

Vit Muller: 00:54:19

I wonder why that is.

Vit Muller: 00:54:20

But I also think if it's an accountant that is more technologically advanced,

Vit Muller: 00:54:25

they might be more, open to those strategies too, wouldn't you think?

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:29

Absolutely.

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:30

and that's probably, one of the big challenges right now is a

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:32

lot of accountants still don't think this impacts them yet, and

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:35

they're very resistant to change

Vit Muller: 00:54:37

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:54:38

So guys, so look, if you, if you put your business hat on, I would be reaching

Vit Muller: 00:54:43

out to your existing accountant, and if they're not abreast of all this

Vit Muller: 00:54:47

stuff, you might wanna send them to listen to this episode, maybe introduce

Vit Muller: 00:54:52

them to Peter, and you never know what happens on the back of that.

Vit Muller: 00:54:55

there's opportunity everywhere

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:57

Yep.

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:57

Well, but you normally give, your guests an offer.

Peter McCarroll: 00:54:59

Yeah, a slot to, to pitch a service.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:02

I've got nothing to pitch.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:03

I'm not here to try and, get you guys to come and use me as your accountants.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:07

Although, I'll take that, but, that's not what I've got for you.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:10

what I've actually created just for your audience is five questions

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:14

to ask your accountant about AI.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:16

Okay?

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:16

So if you go to my website, theaiaccountant.ai/ask, they'll be able

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:21

to get five questions and almost like the answer key, what to listen for when

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:25

your accountant responds, to know whether your accountant is really thinking

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:29

about this well or whether they're, what I call the ostrich accountants.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:33

Got their head in the sand, they're not, this is not a, we're not thinking

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:36

about this, we- we're resistant.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:38

and it'll give you a good idea as to whether your accountant is really sort of

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:43

either aware or embracing these changes.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:47

And if they're not at least aware, you might wanna think about making a change.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:53

So that's theaiaccountant.ai/ask.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:57

No lead capture, no email address.

Peter McCarroll: 00:55:59

You'll probably tell me off for that.

Peter McCarroll: 00:56:01

, but just a way for them to say, "Hey, how do I talk to my accountant about this?"

Vit Muller: 00:56:06

Brilliant.

Vit Muller: 00:56:07

Peter, thank you so much for sharing your experience,

Vit Muller: 00:56:11

providing valuable advice today.

Vit Muller: 00:56:13

it was, yeah, it was great having you on, mate

Peter McCarroll: 00:56:15

Yeah, it was a pleasure

Vit Muller: 00:56:17

And guys, thank you as well.

Vit Muller: 00:56:18

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode on the

Vit Muller: 00:56:20

HighLevel Experience Podcast.

Vit Muller: 00:56:22

Listen, if you've enjoyed today's ep-episode, then please share it

Vit Muller: 00:56:26

with, your fellow agency mates and other HighLevelers that you think

Vit Muller: 00:56:28

would also benefit from listening.

Vit Muller: 00:56:30

For show notes, links, and extra tips to help you grow your agency

Vit Muller: 00:56:35

or your SaaS at HighLevel, please go to highlevelexperience.com.

Vit Muller: 00:56:39

Thank you, and have a great rest of your day, everybody