AI Was Supposed to Save You Time — So Why Are You Busier?

Episode Summary

Kris Ward Solo Ep VA & AI Podcast Interview

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today we are going to do something very different, unique, I’ve never done it before in almost seven years. Here we are, we’re gonna have a solo episode, and it’s gonna be about why AI was supposed to buy you time, and why are you even more busier now than ever, okay?

What is up with that? First of all, let me go back into the history of business, and if you can imagine, there was a time where we didn’t have email. Yes, wasn’t my time, but there was a time. And the premise when email came about is that it was going to save you so much time because you wouldn’t have to make these phone calls and have these pleasantries, and we’re gonna get all this time back with the advent of emails.

Okay. So we know that’s not the situation, right? We know [00:01:00] the dreaded emails are like… I always say you send one out and you get three back at least, right? I’ve got a whole email technique on that too, how to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. We can do that another episode. But today, what is up with why is AI supposed to buy you time and you’re even more busier than ever?

So let’s get into that, ’cause I think that’s really important, and it bleeds into some other really important subjects. Now, if you don’t know me- What I do is I help entrepreneurs get time back. I work especially with people who look good on paper, have been doing this a while. They’re the go-to person for all the people in their life.

They get stuff done, and yet after all this time they’re still working more hours than they should be at th- at this point in their journey. They still have income roller coasters ’cause you get busy and get new clients, you get caught up with the deliverables and then you’re busy being, doing that, and you just have no time for anything else.

And so all of a sudden, one or two clients leave you, and now you’re back to, ah I gotta get clients. And so we got that feast and famine income cycle, all that stuff. [00:02:00] And so we find, hire, and onboard virtual assistants, put them in our Leadership Program to make leaders out of them so that they can work with entrepreneurs who are properly set up so they can keep the VAs and really make more money, get time back, all that kind of stuff.

So we’ll talk about that. That sometimes bleeds into my conversations with the guests. But today let’s talk about, okay, what’s going on? You’re busier than ever, and you’re not, and you’re supposed to have all this AI saving you time, right? All right. So a client of mine last week just said this.

He said, “Oh my gosh, I spent a whole day building prompts. I got caught up in this, and I was supposed to do all this stuff.” And he’s a really smart guy, and he’s a leader, and he does a lot of public speaking, and he’s doing all this stuff, and he was just like, “What happened?“ And so what I really want you to understand is the tool is not the, the tool is not the problem, and the tool often isn’t even the solution, right? And what does that mean? It’s not [00:03:00] about the tool the promise that AI does the work and you’ll get everything back, we’re calling it AI now, but obviously we’re not new to technology. And I remember what I call the dark years of my business.

There’d be some project management platform that’d be like, “Oh my gosh, yes, if you w- when you learn this, your whole life is gonna change.” And I spent time and money learning different platforms that were so complicated. Okay, let me rephrase that. I didn’t actually learn them. I never learned them. Oh my Lord, I don’t even remember the name of this one that I spent three months, they kept promising me I had to pay for coaching on it, and it was expensive program, once I learned this, it was just going to…

The work was gonna take care of itself, right? And of course, that sounded like hopeful, inspiring and something I should do for my business, and I would get all this time back, and it never even came close to happening. I was so beat up by the end of that, how much money I spent, how much time I wasted. And so from [00:04:00] that, first things first.

I would say to you, here’s the thing I always talk to my clients about. It’s not an effective tool if it’s not something you can learn in five, 10, 15 minutes. Really, seriously. And especially nowadays. If you can’t learn something in that short a time, it’s not a tool, it’s a whole new project. It’s a whole new learning.

It’s a whole new ambition. And then what happens is you’re moving further away from the goal. The example I used to often give is s- let’s say somebody wanted to update their website, and then they’re like, “Okay, I just need to refresh my website and do whatever.” And then somebody says you need to know more about SEO.”

And then you start looking at SEO, and you start learning, oh, I don’t know this about SEO and that about SEO, and all of a sudden you’re 10 steps backwards when you’re trying to get one step forward, right? And so that’s what we wanna understand when we come in with these tools and go, “Okay, what am I doing here?

I’m just now adding to a longer, more painful to-do list of, things blocking me from getting to the real work,” right? [00:05:00] So that really is a interesting concept. Remembering, adding more people or tools to chaos does not create calm. And I’m starting to see online, too, is with this whole AI thing from time to time, the argument comes up AI or VA?

Artificial intelligence or a virtual assistant? And what I want people to understand is th- those two things should not be paired against each other. The virtual assistant a team, when I call it a team I think a team is a philosophy, not a number. So you can have a team of one. Having a team with effective tools- amplifies that team.

But th- that’s where people get confused. It doesn’t replace it, it speeds up what already you have in place. So if, if you’re just doing this solo, or if you have a VA, but you’re following that mentality, the corporate [00:06:00] mentality of it’s very parentified and you throw things at them like a task puppet, and you meet with them a couple times a week, or communicate with them through email or chat, and they check in with you, and, you’re really like that parentified model where, you know, A, you’re the bottleneck, but B, you’re more like the teacher or the parent checking their work, right?

Then that whole setup is limiting, and you’re still the bottleneck, and you’re gonna continue to be the bottleneck. And I’ll take it an extra step, too Bottleneck or really you’re choking the business, right? So are you the bottleneck, and how is your setup? ‘Cause that setup is going to l- let you know if it will, enhance, improve, or just further limit you as you bring in more AI, ’cause you get caught up in the mechanics of the AI.

Now, also, let’s say you’re, fairly set up well and you’re pretty tech-savvy and you’re pretty, eating this AI stuff up and it’s… Oh, that’s [00:07:00] fine. That’s still not your primary goal, not your primary job. Let’s say you’re a marketing coach with a strong aptitude for technology and you’re like, “Oh, that’s always been easy for me.”

Great, fine. But you still wanna have, a team. Again, it could be a team of one. You still wanna have a team that’s going to take care of all this stuff over here, this noise, ’cause you should be working on your vision for your brand, for your industry, f- your, y- your, you as a thought leader, your position on marketing if you’re a marketing coach, whatever it is, right?

And then the VA, what they do is… ‘Cause sometimes if people say, “Oh no, I’m fully automated, Kris. I don’t need a VA.” And I’m like, “But, what?” ‘Cause here’s the thing. AI, as oh my gosh, I say if you, if I slept in a half hour extra today I’d be behind on AI. It’s going so fast. And even if it wasn’t going so fast, you need someone who’s going to check that AI.

All you need is one [00:08:00] update or one little hiccup or one little thing or one new thing and, that now plugs this AI into f- four other things, and it all derails really quickly. As we all know, technology’s fantastic when it works, but if we take that back to a time in history where we went, “Oh, we’re gonna replace this machine, or th- these 25 workers with this machine,” so great, but that machine n- that’s producing widgets still needs somebody to supervise it, that the machine is running, the machine is effective, the machine is up to date, it’s oiled, it’s turned on, it’s whatever, right?

So when people tell me no, I don’t need a team I’m fully automated,” it’s “Oh, okay. Who’s watching that? Oh, you are at 10:30 at night? Oh, it only takes you 15 minutes there and 10 minutes there, and then it’s a distraction, you’re figuring out Monday morning.” You have no idea how much time that’s eating up when you didn’t start your business to be plugging in and managing AI, right?

So [00:09:00] it really comes back to some of the fundamentals that we have in, you know- w- starting your business and that, that same old trap of, it’s the same story, it’s a new tool, and there’s always this new tool, and like I said, at once upon a time, that email was the new tool and was gonna give us all the time back.

And how’s that working for you, everyone, right? So the tools keep changing, but the trap stays the same, and you’re the one that’s still running everything. So here’s the thing. If you’re like so many of the people I worked with and you say, “No, it’s just too much work for me to bring somebody on and have to train them.

It’s easier, it’s quicker. Much quicker, Kris, to do it myself.” Or another thing, “Oh, I tried that.” A lot of my clients have burned through f- I don’t know, between three and five VAs before they found me. And yeah, “No, I’ve tried it. It’s too c- time-consuming. I’m not doing it again.” All right.

Then let me educate [00:10:00] you on some things and what happened there we only know what we know, and for most of us, we don’t even realize that we were in a very parentified setup in the corporate world. All right? So a- any sort of office or business, any corporation of… No how, matter how big, small, or whatever, it’s very parentified.

It’s like your manager is like your parent or your teacher. They check your work like you are a student or a child. And I’ve been there where, let’s say, I can’t be the only one oh, my manager is going through a divorce, so it’s kinda oh, daddy’s in a bad mood all month and you have to dance around his little temperament, ’cause it’s very hierarchical, parentified setup.

Okay? And so we don’t want that because it just takes up too much time and energy in our small business. So this part may even help you understand this more clearly. If I was working in the corporate world and I was really [00:11:00] good at sales, and they want to make me a sales manager, the first thing they would do is take back probably half my sales responsibilities and turn me into a manager watching other people and their sales, right?

And that’s the thing. So when you get a virtual assistant, you say, “Okay, great, now I need more time to train, onboard them, and do all this stuff, and constantly be checking their work. I don’t have that time.” No, you do not. You are so right. And that formula that works in the corporate world, I wouldn’t even say it works, it’s the p- one they practice in the corporate world.

We do not have time for that foolishness as founders, as small business owners. We do not. So we want the opposite. We want the exact opposite. We don’t wanna have to give up any of our time to train them. We want them to give us back time. Now, that is very doable when your set up is correct. It’s not doable when you hire someone and you think, [00:12:00] oh, I just want them to come in and organize my business, the business I’ve had, and I don’t know which end’s up, and I’m pivoting all day, and I’m in chaos.

Adding more people to chaos does not create calm. But I expect them to parent up to me and then take control of me and get me like a 1950s doctor when Ethel, the secretary, manages him and gets his keys and sends his wife flowers and foolishness like that. I’ve had people say to me, “Oh, Kris, I just wanna hire someone and take…

I want them to take the ball and run with it.” Or they say, even better, they say, “I want them to take it and run with it.” And take what and run where? Like you don’t know what you’re doing. How? And the stress that puts on them, they’ll tell you afterwards “Oh my gosh, I have to come in, I have to figure their company out.”

And then even when they do, they can’t say to you hey, Sarra, I’ve told you three times last week you have to start doing this,” or, “When you give me instructions and you’re missing the password, it takes me two days to get back to you, it’s a waste of my time.” They’re not… They can’t say that to you, right?

So- It is the setup. Finding, [00:13:00] hiring, and onboarding a virtual assistant is one thing. It’s a whole skill up- sk- skill set on its own. We’ve got a 90% retention rate. We got a 12-step process. It’s a whole thing. It’s not something that you’re gonna do effectively when you’re in between what you do.

Again, let’s go back to the marketing manager. Oh, I’m a marketing manager, or sorry, marketing coach, and in between doing that, I’m going to, start knowing how to find, hire, and onboard a VA. That’s I had a lawyer once, he worked with me, and he was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it.

I’ve tried doing this, and it just didn’t work out.” And then he was like, “I don’t know how you did it, Kris, and it worked out so beautifully.” I’m like ’cause that’s a whole career on its own, and I’ve worked really hard on that. Just like in between my work, I don’t go out and practice law. So why do you think in between practicing law you can go out and do my job?”

It’s a whole thing on its own. But that aside, here’s the thing keeping that virtual assistant, keeping that amazing talent is another thing. And it is [00:14:00] not that the industry is flawed, it is not that the VA is not committed. That is not the case. It’s you’re burning through them, you’re burning and churning, you’re exhausting them, you’re stressing them out.

I’ve heard the stories. We’ve got this Leadership Program and they tell us how different our stuff is compared… “Oh my gosh, this is the stuff we’ve been through before.” And, and I’ve had clients come to me say, “I had this virtual assistant. I thought it was going fantastic, and we worked together a year, and they were amazing.

I couldn’t imagine my business without them. And then one day they just never came back. They could be dead for all I know.” And I’m like, “Yeah, ah, I’ve met those VAs. You burnt them out. They were trying to keep up. They liked you. They didn’t even know how to break up with you. You were causing them sleepless nights.

You were all over the place, and they just thought at some point you’re gonna turn on them because you’re n- nothing is consistent and you’re inefficient in your processes. And even if you didn’t turn on them, they just couldn’t take the pressure anymore,” right? So these are things that I want you to [00:15:00] understand because this is what’s holding you back, not the next AI thing.

It’s not… You don’t get caught up in that debate, robot versus human, right? And the wh- the whole industry’s arguing which assistant, to purchase, right? But that’s the wrong question, right? In fact, we had somebody, we found this out too, because somebody in our Leadership Program, one of the VAs, he, we f- he…

Long story short, we found out he was quietly lo- job hunting ’cause he was scared AI was going to replace him. So even the people closest to the work misunderstand their own value. Now, when his team leader found this out, it was by accident, and he was like, “Oh my gosh, no, you’re not gonna be replaced. Oh, my heavens, do we need you,” right?

And so it was really interesting to me, and I think it’s something we’re gonna address in our Leadership Program next month and to put some other things in place. But everyone’s just getting really confused. You [00:16:00] still need people. Now, I’ll give you, it’s like back in wartime when you used to have 50 secretaries- typing things out on 50 typewriters, and then they invented something that, carbon copy, and then they invented photocopies.

Okay, great. So you still needed someone producing the content, but you needed less and less of them. So can AI empower your virtual assistant? For sure, and make them more efficient and get so much more done and speed things up, and you can burn through projects even faster if you’re set up effectively?

100%, right? But we still have to make sure the setup is there and intact. The real question is, who owns the work? And that you’re not the bottleneck, and that it’s not coming through you, and that you’re not spending all your time with these new distractions. And there are going to be distractions, people.

Digital mosquitoes are gonna be coming at you like nobody’s business, and you have to [00:17:00] know that is just another shiny object syndrome. No matter how effective it looks and how technology is soaring, it’s still just another piece of shiny object syndrome, right? And we have to take a look at the bigger picture of how…

What is the setup? Where does the setup begin and end? What’s the problem in the setup, there’s all kinds of things that we’re doing in my company, and we’re, enha- what do you call it? Appreciating AI, and it’s enhancing things that we do. But- AI is a amplifier. It’s not the architect, right?

So it’s amplifying our efficiencies. It will amplify your inefficiencies and be roadblocks for you at the same time. It speeds up whatever you already have, including chaos, right? So AI plus chaos is just faster chaos, right? AI plus an effectively set up virtual assistant and a team who owns their outcomes and you’re not the bottleneck, that’s times [00:18:00] ba- that is time back.

When ChatGPT first came out when we first heard that, I remember. What was it? 2024? I don’t know. It was like in November, maybe a year or two ago. I didn’t know, like, how big of a deal this was. I was like, “Oh, they got this cool tool,” and I’d heard about it. I was like, “Oh, all right.” Now, Maura on my team is like, “Hey, can I have some time to play with that?”

I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” So we always have time in our calendar, the way we’re set up, is to be able to have the freedom to take on more ambitions. ‘Cause I always s- explain to people, no matter what you’re doing, whatever you’re doing is only gonna create more work, right? So when I wrote my book, I was like, “Oh my gosh, my book is finally done.”

Okay, great, the book is done, but now I need to pitch to be on podcasts, and now I need then an hour for each podcast to be on. The work just creates more work, so you have to have a setup that constantly gives you time back so you can new- move to the next level of project, right? So my team has that, too.

So Maura’s “I’d like to focus on this ChatGPT thing.” I’m like, “Yeah, sure. [00:19:00] Whatever.” I trust her, and I was like, “It’s gonna be fine.” Here’s an example of I am not the bottleneck, and that we’re set up for independence, and things do not come through me. I saw it after Maura showed me on Google that we ranked above Forbes in the beginning of the year about, small business trends for that year, above Forbes for six weeks, and then we were underneath it.

She showed it to me online, right? And she had used ChatGPT for the research and the SEO and the trending topic and things like that. And so that is example of the backbone of the situation was the VA plus AI, not VA versus AI. That is the difference. So I really want you to stop asking, “What can AI do?”

And start asking, “What never comes back to my desk? What is it we really wanna look at there?” You don’t need to master AI. You need to master a team who [00:20:00] owns outcomes and uses AI to get it faster, right? So if you’re the go-to person for everything in your business, you’re the new go-to person for all the AI stuff, too, and that is just…

that is not even… I can’t even say that’s a full-time job. That’s 10 full-time jobs. You could just lose your mind going down those rabbit holes, right? So- That’s what I really need you to understand, was don’t get caught up in the wrong debate. Adding more tools or people to chaos does not create calm.

Remember, your business is here to support your life, not consume it. And my God, business is supposed to be fun, people. We’re supposed to be having fun, and you can have fun. When you leave your workday feeling a sense of satisfaction, and you also leave it feeling, still rested, you start the day refreshed and leave fresh, right?

And that you should be [00:21:00] as effective at 3:00 in the afternoon with your creativity and everything you wanna do as you were at 9:00 in the morning, right? These are all very doable, and that’s the thing my clients will tell me. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, I just feel so satiated at the end of the day, and I feel a sense of accomplishment, and I feel complete.

Before it was just like a race against time, and exhaustion, and fatigue, and frustration, and this constantly moving target, and it was just never enough. But now I feel, a sense of pride and really connection to the work at the end of the day instead of…” It’s one… She said I didn’t have that Monday anxiety.”

This the… It’s always “Okay, this week will be different. Oh, I can get to it, I really can. I’m gonna go so hard and fast I’ll finally get caught up,” right? So the idea of business is not to get caught up. You’re never gonna get caught up be- ’cause there’ll always be more to do, or if there’s not, you’re out of business, right?

So just don’t get seduced into all this stuff about what is AI supposed to buy you time, [00:22:00] efficiencies, the answers to all your problems. It’s not. It’s, it is another tool, but that tool on top of chaos does not change anything. So let me know if this is helpful. I thought it would be boring as dirt, me sitting here talking to myself, and I’ve been persuaded otherwise.

So I’d love to DM me on LinkedIn, send me a message, do whatever you can. I’m out there all over the place. We love your reviews, but I’d love to hear what you think about this solo episode because it’s taken me all this time and all this convincing to do one, ’cause I think the guests are so interesting.

I was like, me by my little self is just… I don’t know. Let me know. I want to hear your feedback. All right, so now this is the part where I usually say, “Hey, share this with a business buddy. We do not want them banging around by themselves.” But I don’t know. That’s when I’m bragging somebody else up. So you let me know, was this worth sharing?

I would love to hear that. Thank you, everyone. We’ll see you in the next [00:23:00] episode