The AI-First Company

A Blueprint for Small Business Change

By David Jenyns
Founder SYSTEMology

SYSTEMology.com | Copyright 2024

Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................... 3
Unprecedented Opportunity.....................................................................................................4
Nature of the AI Revolution..........................................................................................................4
Why Small Businesses Are Poised to Benefit...........................................................................5
The SYSTEMology Approach to Leveraging AI.......................................................................... 5
Most Small Businesses Will Miss This.....................................................................................5
Resistance to Change.................................................................................................................... 5
Lack of Knowledge & Expertise................................................................................................... 6
Resource Constraints.................................................................................................................... 6
Overwhelm & Prioritization...........................................................................................................6
Fear of Implementation Failure...................................................................................................6
Finding the Right Partners............................................................................................................ 6
The Cost Of Inaction..................................................................................................................7
Becoming An AI-First Company............................................................................................... 7
Step 1: Identify Your Systems & AI Champion.......................................................................... 8
Step 2: Document & Analyze Current Processes.....................................................................8
Step 3: Identify High-Impact Areas for AI Integration........................................................... 8
Step 4: Re-engineer, Test, and Iterate....................................................................................... 9
Practical & Real World Applications........................................................................................ 9
AI & Customer Support................................................................................................................. 9
AI & Content Marketing................................................................................................................ 10
AI & Sales......................................................................................................................................... 11
AI & Recruitment........................................................................................................................... 12
Culture of Innovation............................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 14
References................................................................................................................................ 15

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Introduction

In an age where the speed of technological advancements is accelerating at

breakneck speeds, there is one development which stands in a league of its own:
AI (artificial intelligence). The impact AI will have on you and your business
cannot be emphasized enough. If you don’t heed this call, then the writing is on
the wall…

Take the recent example of Klarna (an ecommerce solutions provider) who, in a
recent press release, stated their AI assistant handled two-thirds of their
customer service chats in its first month. The AI assistant had 2.3 million
conversations, doing the work of 700 full-time agents.

What’s more, it’s on par with (one could argue it’s even better than) human
agents in regard to customer satisfaction. Customer issues are now resolved in
less than 2 minutes compared to 11 minutes previously. The AI assistant is
available in 23 markets, 24/7 and communicates in more than 35 languages.

It’s estimated to drive a USD$40 million profit improvement to Klarna in 2024.

"Klarna is at the very forefront among our partners in AI adoption and practical
application.” said Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI. “Together we are unlocking
the vast potential for AI to boost productivity and improve our day-to-day lives."

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, said “We are

incredibly excited about this launch, but it also underscores the profound
impact on society that AI will have.”

Read full press release

While this application demonstrates AI's impact for a larger player like Klarna, it
marks the first time in history that technology has leveled the playing field for
everyone. The opportunity for small businesses to leverage AI for unprecedented
growth and efficiency is more significant than ever. Now is the time to grasp this
opportunity and run with it—not a time to shy away.

I'm David Jenyns, author of the best-selling book SYSTEMology, and a serial
entrepreneur whose mission is to help small businesses build systems-driven
operations. In this whitepaper, we explore the heart of the AI revolution, its

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implications for small businesses, and actionable steps owners can take to
harness its potential.

Drawing from decades of experience in systemizing businesses for scalability and

efficiency, my aim is to demystify AI and guide you through becoming an AI-first
company—a journey promising not just survival but thriving success in the new
digital era. This document isn't just a call to action; it's a blueprint for
transformation.

Unprecedented Opportunity

The AI revolution is not merely another technological trend; it represents a

paradigm shift with the power to redefine the essence of conducting business.
For agile, small businesses, this shift offers an unprecedented chance to bypass
traditional growth barriers and outpace competitors.

Similarly, to how emerging economies embraced global commerce and

communication with the advent of the internet, cellular networks, and
smartphones, small businesses that adopt an AI-first, systems-driven approach
now stand on equal footing with major market players.

Employing AI-first, systems-driven methods enables small businesses to deliver

their solutions more swiftly, affordably, and effectively than those slow to
embrace change. This presents the most significant opportunity to get ahead and
surpass your competition.

Nature of the AI Revolution

Unlike previous technological advancements, AI's impact is vast and varied,

touching on everything from customer service to product development,
marketing, and more. It serves as a tool that can enhance human capabilities,
automate mundane tasks, and open new paths for innovation and efficiency.

The revolutionary aspect of AI lies in its ability to transform what was once
expensive and time-consuming into processes that are infinitely more affordable
and efficient. This shift has already begun transforming business models,
creating new value propositions, and redefining market dynamics.

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Why Small Businesses Are Poised to Benefit

Historically, the advantages offered by AI were accessible only to those with

deep pockets. However, with the public release of technologies like OpenAI's
ChatGPT, small businesses now have access to powerful tools at a fraction of
the cost.

Why is this significant? Small businesses, with their agility and capacity for rapid
adaptation, are uniquely positioned to harness this revolution. Free from the
cumbersome legacy behaviors and bureaucratic inertia plaguing larger
corporations, small businesses can pivot quickly, adopting and utilizing AI
solutions before their slower-moving counterparts even start to react. This agility
gives small businesses a competitive edge in an era where speed and innovation
are crucial.

The SYSTEMology Approach to Leveraging AI

SYSTEMology offers a framework for identifying, documenting, and optimizing

business processes. When coupled with AI, this methodology is enhanced,
allowing for quick wins by applying AI to streamline existing processes, achieving
faster, more cost-effective, and superior outcomes.

Most Small Businesses Will Miss This

Despite the enormous opportunities AI presents for small businesses, the sad
reality is that the vast majority will not recognize or take advantage of them.
Some will believe the changes won't affect them, others will claim they don't
have the time, and many will get in their own way by failing to act.

The reasons are multifaceted and deeply rooted in human nature...

Resistance to Change

It’s in our evolutionary nature to seek familiarity and establish routines. This
resistance to change is not just about adopting new technology but also about
the fear of disrupting the status quo that has been in place for years.

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Lack of Knowledge & Expertise

For many small business owners, the gap between understanding how AI can
help them and how to actually use it is a big one. Without clear guidance and
expertise, the path to AI adoption seems fraught with challenges that many feel
ill-equipped to navigate.

Resource Constraints

Investing in AI requires not just a financial outlay but also a commitment to

training and possibly expanding a team to include systems and AI specialists.
Small businesses, with their limited budgets and lean teams, often find it
difficult to justify or allocate resources towards something that they think won't
deliver immediate, tangible benefits.

Overwhelm & Prioritization

For small business owners, the day-to-day demands of running their business
can make it difficult to focus on long-term strategic thinking - let alone
contemplate where AI sits in their wheelhouse.

Fear of Implementation Failure

There are numerous tales of technology implementations gone wrong, leading to

wasted resources, both time and money. For a small business, such failures can
have significant repercussions. This fear of failure, coupled with the lack of a
clear roadmap for AI integration, leads many to “wait-and-see”, hoping to learn
from the successes and mistakes of others.

Finding the Right Partners

Navigating the AI landscape requires finding the right partners and solutions that
are actually valuable for a small business. The market is flooded with AI tools
and services, each promising transformative results. Deciphering which ones are
truly beneficial and align with their business goals is a daunting task for small
business owners.

Unfortunately, the gap between recognizing the potential of what AI offers and
how to integrate it into a small business is wide. Just remember, while change
can be challenging the rewards will far exceed the effort required.

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The Cost Of Inaction

While the reluctance to embrace change is real, especially when faced with the
rapid advancements in AI, it’s critical to understand the true costs here.

The cost of inaction is greater than you realise.

This goes far beyond short-term missed financial gains. Failure to embrace this
change opens the risk of becoming obsolete.

The digital age is replete with cautionary tales of businesses that failed to adapt
to technological shifts. Blockbuster's decline in the face of streaming services
and Kodak's late embrace of digital photography underscore the peril of ignoring
innovation. These examples illustrate the stark reality: inaction can lead to
extinction.

The fact is, businesses who don't adopt change will see their competition using
AI to increase their productivity while lowering their costs - leaving them with a
distinct disadvantage which will ultimately hurt their bottom line.

The message is clear: you cannot afford the cost of inaction. The transition to AI
is not just about adopting new technology; it's about securing a future in an
increasingly digital world.

Let’s take a closer look at how to become a success story here.

Becoming An AI-First Company

There are a lot of things to consider when starting anything new, let alone
beginning a journey with such a revolutionary thing as AI. So where do you start?
Where should you apply AI first? Do you need special software? How will you get
your team onboard?

Don't stress; I'm going to give you a step-by-step system to follow. Buckle up…

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Step 1: Identify Your Systems & AI Champion

First things first, you need to identify who in your team will lead this initiative.
Your organization needs a dedicated AI and Systems Champion, a role crucial for
maintaining momentum and focus on your AI-first transformation.

Select someone who is:

- Detail-oriented,
- Passionate about learning new technologies,
- Enjoys a challenge,
- Has capacity in their workday. Note: this often excludes the business
owner, as owners rarely have the capacity and ability to follow through.

For more help on recruiting for this role, click here.

Step 2: Document & Analyze Current Processes

Remember the old adage “You can only improve what you measure.” Before you
can enhance your operations with AI, you need a clear understanding of your
existing processes. This involves simple systems documentation.

Following the SYSTEMology approach, have your Systems & AI Champion work
with your team to record, transcribe and create simple documented processes.
The best news is, this is easier than ever with AI - find out more.

By documenting your current workflows, you can identify inefficiencies and areas
ripe for AI-enhanced optimization.

Step 3: Identify High-Impact Areas for AI Integration

Pinpoint where AI can make the most significant impact. How do you do that?
Your Systems & AI Champion will begin exploring different AI and automation
tools with your existing processes in mind. Some areas will be more obvious
than others. To start, look for repetitive tasks, data-heavy processes, and
customer interactions that can be automated or improved.

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In the next section, I’ll provide some practical examples to get your mind going.
That said, remember to look in all departments of your business - marketing,
sales, operations, and finance.

You can even ask AI to make suggestions for your business. Use the prompt:

I have a <add your business type here>, can you please suggest some
high-impact areas where AI and automation can improve my business?

Step 4: Re-engineer, Test, and Iterate

Using one of the high-impact areas, and one where it is obvious to your Systems
Champion which AI solution will help improve your outcomes, begin to
re-engineer your processes. Do this in isolation from your existing processes so
as not to disrupt what’s currently working.

Where needed, allow the Systems Champion to work with any knowledgeable
team members to reimagine your new process utilizing AI and/or automation
tools. Run small tests to confirm your hypothesis and measure outcomes.

Focus on reducing turnaround times and increasing throughput, lowering

operational and per-unit costs, and enhancing customer satisfaction and
reducing defect rates. Regularly track these metrics before and after
implementing changes to observe improvements.

The goal is to achieve the quickest wins to create immediate value and build
momentum for wider AI adoption. It’s important for the team to recognize how
these changes benefit not only the company but also themselves.

Practical & Real World Applications

Let’s look at a few concrete examples to get you started. From customer service,
to content creation, to sales training, and recruitment processes, here are some
ideas that you can implement immediately.

AI & Customer Support

Incorporating AI into customer service isn't just a futuristic concept; it's a

tangible strategy, as demonstrated by Klarna's groundbreaking use of AI at the

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start of this paper. Klarna's AI assistant has shown that, with the right approach,
AI can handle a significant portion of customer service interactions, providing
outcomes that are on par with, or superior to, human agents.

Here's a simplified breakdown of how you can replicate Klarna's success on a

smaller scale:

- Start by searching for “programmable chatbots” (e.g., chatbase.co,

liveperson.com, sendbird.com) to find solutions that allow you to preload
your customer service data for interaction with a Large Language Model
(LLM).

- Train your AI assistant with data from your website, company white
papers, chat logs, email conversations, and any other customer
communication.

- Initially, have the AI assist your existing customer service team by speeding
up response times and improving response quality, starting with a limited
scope to ensure effectiveness.

- Monitor its performance closely and use your learnings to fine-tune the
AI's responses and capabilities.

- As the AI assistant proves effective, gradually scale its responsibilities to

allow direct engagement with your clients."

AI & Content Marketing

AI's application in marketing opens a new frontier for content creation, allowing
businesses to amplify their voice and reach with unprecedented efficiency.

Imagine leveraging AI to distill insights from client interviews, customer

feedback, and market research. This data, rich in nuances about customer
preferences, pain points, and desires, becomes the foundation for an AI system
designed to generate compelling marketing content.

- Tools such as Jasper.io, copy.ai, and ChatGPT, for example, are

out-of-the-box solutions to solve many of your marketing challenges. The
secret to getting the best output is to feed and pre-train them with your
own data.

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 - Gather data from client interviews, customer interactions, and other
relevant sources. This pool should capture the diverse customer
experiences, expectations, and interactions with your brand.

- Use this dataset to train an AI model, teaching it the language, tone, and
style that resonate with your audience.

- Once trained, the AI can assist in generating various marketing materials,

from captivating video scripts and converting email campaigns to
community-building social media posts and action-driving landing page
copy.

The AI, drawing from the depths of learned customer interactions, produces
content that feels personal, relevant, and timely.

Rather than replacing human creativity, AI serves as a powerful tool to augment

the capabilities of your marketing team. Writers can leverage AI-generated drafts
as a foundation, refining and infusing them with human insight and creativity.
This collaboration between AI and human talent accelerates content production,
allowing for a more dynamic and responsive marketing strategy.

This approach not only streamlines content creation but also ensures that every
piece of content is data-driven, customer-focused, and aligned with your brand's
voice. The result is a marketing strategy that can adapt quickly to market
changes, deliver personalized content at scale, and ultimately drive more
effective customer engagement and conversions.

To see the real world application of this, be sure to check out the systemHUB &
SYSTEMology YouTube channel here. Within a few short weeks from embracing AI
we have been able to increase the output of our content by a factor of 5 while
also improving the quality and reducing the time spent.

AI & Sales

Another quick win for many organizations is within sales, as AI revolutionizes

how businesses understand, engage, and close deals with customers. Let’s take
a closer look at how it works…

- By using platforms like gong.io, chorus.ai, and salesloft.com

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 - Recording and transcribing sales calls and client interactions allow
businesses to amass a wealth of information. This includes common
objections, frequently asked questions, successful closing techniques, and
more. This data becomes the training material for AI models designed to
understand and predict customer behavior and needs.

- With this dataset, AI algorithms can be trained to recognize patterns and

insights that may not be immediately apparent to sales teams. This
includes identifying language that tends to lead to a successful sale,
pinpointing areas where customers seem to hesitate, and uncovering the
most effective responses to common objections.

Incorporating AI doesn't stop with analysis. By continuously feeding the AI

system feedback from sales outcomes, the model becomes increasingly adept at
predicting which leads are most likely to convert, the next best steps for
nurturing specific leads, and even recommending personalized outreach
strategies.

This approach doesn't replace the human touch in sales; instead, it augments it,
allowing sales teams to focus on what they do best—building relationships and
closing deals—while AI handles the heavy lifting of data analysis and
personalization.

AI & Recruitment

AI can transform your traditional HR processes - from recruitment to onboarding

and performance management. Remember these are not just nice ideas of
what’s to come, but rather ideas you can execute today with existing tools.
Here’s how it works…

- Ask chatGPT to draft your position descriptions, suggest KPIs and write
your job advertisements.

- Have it analyze successful past listings and identify key elements that
resonate with top candidates.

- Allow AI to suggest improvements or variations based on industry trends,

ensuring that your listings stand out and attract the right talent.

- Then let AI formulate interview questions by analyzing the job description

and required competencies, ensuring that questions are relevant,

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 challenging, and tailored to the role.

- Use tools such as talenteria.com , sparkhire.com to allow AI to conduct

interviews, review the collected data against success criteria to rank
candidates, suggesting which ones warrant further consideration.

Depending on your recruitment volume you can only imagine how much time
could be saved when compared to manual screening. This time saving could
then be reinvested into further engaging with top-tier candidates.

And that’s just the beginning! By automating and enhancing tasks with AI, HR
professionals can focus on strategic decision-making and human engagement.

Remember these are just generalised applications for AI. You and your business
are unique. With the right approach, and by empowering your Systems & AI
Champion, you’ll be able to identify the highest impact areas that can
immediately solve your current biggest pain points.

Culture of Innovation

Change starts at the top. As a leader, your commitment to embracing AI and

desire to improve processes sets the tone for the entire organization. Share your
vision, the reasons behind the shift towards AI, and the impact you believe it will
have on the business.

Then demonstrate how these initiatives are closely aligned with your business
goals and objectives. This alignment ensures that the technology serves a clear
purpose and contributes to the overall success of the organization.

The next important step is to identify and empower a Systems & AI Champion
within your organization. This individual will lead the AI implementation efforts,
acting as a bridge between the technology and its practical application in your
business processes.

Start documenting your existing processes! Process documentation will form the
basis of re-engineering them with AI. And once AI agents become more powerful,
your processes documentation will become the programming for the machines,

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meaning an ever-evolving improvement to squeeze the most efficiency and
profitability out of each system your business undertakes.

Give your Systems & AI Champion support to offer training sessions and
workshops that demystify AI and showcase its practical applications within your
operations.

It’s also important to foster an environment where questions, concerns, and

ideas about AI integration can be openly discussed. Regularly update your team
on the progress and learnings from AI initiatives, and encourage feedback and
suggestions.

Last but definitely not least, remember to recognize and celebrate successes,
even the small ones, to build momentum and demonstrate the benefits of AI
integration. Equally, when things don’t go as planned, openly discuss what went
wrong and what can be learned from the experience. This approach encourages a
growth mindset and resilience in the face of challenges.

Conclusion

Driving change to become an AI-first company is a journey that involves

leadership, education, and a culture shift towards embracing innovation.
Remember, the goal is not just to adopt AI but to weave it into the fabric of your
business operations, making it a cornerstone of your strategy for growth and
success.

Finding and hiring Systems & AI Champion is now more critical than ever.
Throughout this white paper, we've explored the seismic shifts AI has already
brought to the market (not to mention what’s yet to come!), the unique position
small businesses hold to leverage it, and the practical steps required to
transform the most common departments – which form the backbone of an
AI-first company.

Businesses that move first will secure a competitive edge, drive innovation, and
ensure long-term success. The cost of inaction is too great, and the time to act
is now.

SYSTEMology.com | Copyright 2024

References

27 Feb 2024 - Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats

in its first month - here

SYSTEMology: Create time, reduce errors and scale your profits with proven
business systems - here

Find & Hire a Systems & AI Champion Masterclass - here

Systems & AI Certification Program - here

Automate Your Process Documentation with ChatGPT Masterclass - here

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