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Hello Reader, The other afternoon I was doing my stretches after our walk, and Mark was watching. He just had shoulder surgery, so he has been in physical therapy with someone correcting his every move. I lifted my arms up and down, slow and careful, doing my best. Then he said, you are going back too far, you don't want to go that far back. I really believed I was doing it right. From the inside it felt correct. But Mark stood a few feet away and saw what I could not see about my own body. I was too deep in it, and I missed it. It's just like this in our business. You are the one inside it, so the spots that are a little off are the hardest ones to catch. It has nothing to do with how hard you try. You just cannot stand a few feet back from your own work. I see it with AI right now more than anywhere. There's work you do every single week that AI could take right off your plate. You can feel it could help you grow, but you don't know where to start. And a fear stops you cold, that AI will hand you slop that sounds like everybody else, or do your thinking for you until your own edge goes dull. The part most people miss is simple. Walk up to AI and say build me a car, and you get a generic box on wheels. Hand it the blueprint, your exact build, and it makes your car. That blueprint has a name. It's a playbook, and it's what gets AI to sound like you and work your way. That's what my new post gets into. What a playbook is, what CRAFT is, how I build this so AI runs part of your business, not just answers a question about how to set up a welcome email. If you're curious, read it here. And if you already know the one task you'd hand off first, hit reply and tell me. It makes my day to hear from you - truly! Shell, Yes! Here's to your success, _______________________________________________________________________ “It’s Just Like This in Our Business”A weekly dispatch on the three things every small business has to get right: Operations. Marketing. People. Real stories about the structural breakdowns that keep good businesses stuck and what it looks like when you finally fix them. |
A weekly dispatch on the three things every small business has to get right: Operations. Marketing. People. Real stories about the structural breakdowns that keep good businesses stuck — and what it looks like when you finally fix them.
Hello Reader, "We're so busy and I'm all by myself and I can't help you now." That's what the woman at the grocery store told me on Saturday. I'd come in to rent a carpet cleaner, with a storm on the way and the whole town of Pacific Beach stocking up. I said I'd wait. (Cue me settling in by the registers like I lived there.) She came back three more times to tell me she still couldn't help. Meanwhile I could see stock people and a couple of cashiers with nobody in their lines. Then the shift...
Hello Reader, An hour after I told myself "just a few laps around the block," I was still walking. Yesterday I hit the 4pm wall. Hubby usually walks with me, but he was away at a conference, so I made myself a little deal. Some steps are better than none. Then I opened the front door. It was sunny and in the low 70s with a soft breeze, one of those early fall days that feels brand new. One lap turned into a longer loop down a street I haven't walked in a while. I didn't put on a podcast or...
Hello Reader, By Saturday night, there were twelve apple pies cooling on my stove. Every fall, we go apple picking. We've done it for as long as hubby and I have been together, and even before that. When he was a little boy, his family built a cute cabin in the Shenandoah Mountains with apple trees right on the property. My mother-in-law even wrote an apple recipe book. These days I bake at least a dozen pies every year, and a few of them are gluten-free. Pie day starts with bowls. I line up...