Today’s episode talks about artificial intelligence (AI). You have likely heard some of the buzz around artificial intelligence and AI, but have you started incorporating it into your business?
Our guest today is Peter Guirguis, and he shares how there are simple ways to integrate artificial intelligence into marketing efforts, such as website chatbots.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Figuring out a starting point where AI fits for you. Try it out and see where it goes. AI is not going away.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Peter Guirguis, a seasoned digital expert, is the dynamic force behind Swift Press Support, a game-changing venture offering unparalleled technical support to WordPress website owners. With a rich history as the founder of Grace Digital Solutions, Peter has a proven track record in crafting exceptional websites for a diverse clientele, from businesses to personal brands. His commitment to excellence is evident in his ability to communicate intricate technical details to non-tech-savvy clients, ensuring they achieve their digital goals.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team, and in today’s episode we’re talking about artificial intelligence. And I’m sure you’ve been hearing and reading and watching the news and buzz all around artificial intelligence, but have you started incorporating it into your business or maybe you’ve been wondering how you go about and do that?
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:35):
Well, our guest today is Peter Guirguis and he shares with us how there are simple ways to integrate artificial intelligence into your marketing efforts with such simple things as helping out with your website chatbot. Now Peter is a seasoned digital expert and a dynamic force behind his company SwiftPress Support, a game changing venture offering unparalleled technical support to WordPress website owners. With a rich history as the founder of Grace Digital Solutions, Peter has a track record in crafting exceptional websites for a diverse clientele from businesses to personal brands.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:11):
His commitment to excellence is evident in his ability to communicate intricate technical details and non-tech savvy clients ensuring they achieve their digital goals. You’re going to love this interview with Peter, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (01:27):
I’m so glad to be here. So my name is Peter and I am the owner of SwiftPress Support. Our company builds websites for business owners that helps them get more sales.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:37):
I love it. Well, part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the show was to really talk about how artificial intelligence is really changing the digital landscape, and obviously it’s been a huge buzzword the last year-ish or so, and it’s really coming into force here. So I’d love for you just to talk about how you see just something simple such as a website or a WordPress website, how’s artificial intelligence impacting that?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (02:04):
I love that question, Tom and AI really has been such a game changer in our industry. And the thing is that before what used to be a huge problem of like, “Hey, somebody’s going to be creating their business website, and what are they going to put for the text and how do they know what to put for the about page?” Well, usually that would take such a tremendous amount of time because business owners wouldn’t know what to put on the pages and they wouldn’t know what’s going to bring in new business.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (02:32):
But now with AI, you can go and have a chat with different models and different AIs and different intelligence, and there’s so much of them, we can talk about the different kinds. And you can basically get something that’s absolutely amazing out of AI and basically what used to take you days can be done in minutes.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:52):
That’s incredible. So just for example, with some of these tools and so many of our clients I know that we work with and even our websites hosted on a WordPress site. What kind of tools… You mentioned some of these tools that they might use. Are there various tools or plugins that might help support some of this? What does that look like?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (03:09):
Absolutely. I think for a lot of times for our fellow listeners, some people, some business owners are going to be DIYers, but a lot of times they’re going to have a company that maybe they outsource to that takes care of their website. WordPress, for example, is the number one most popular website building platform in the world. At the time of us recording this episode, there’s approximately 1.98 billion websites on the internet. And of those 840 million are powered by WordPress. So that comes up to 42% market share with WordPress.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (03:49):
And so the advantage of using WordPress is that you are basically going to have this huge ecosystem where you’re going to have a Swiss Army knife. You can do anything in any business, and especially for folks maybe who are looking to franchise, that can be also very advantageous to have a WordPress website because you’d be able to do so much with it. With the different AI models that are out there, definitely at the number one spot at the moment is going to be ChatGPT. So they’re going to be probably the best algorithm out there.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (04:18):
And coming in at a close second is going to be Google Bard, probably at number two with the quality of their answers and its capabilities. And then number three will be Anthropic. So if you go and do a Google search for all those, each one has kind of its pros and cons in the different areas where they excel in. But basically any tools on WordPress are probably going to have some kind of ChatGPT integration since it is probably the most popular at the moment. You’re going to find plugins like Elementor, [inaudible 00:04:52], all sorts of different WordPress plugins. You just do a search for AI, look for things that are popular, and you’ll be able to find some kind of AI integrations.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (04:58):
And if you’re in that DIY, you want to do it yourself, go ahead and have a stab at it, but we always recommend that you do hire a professional because they’re going to know what are the best practices and be able to do things that are kind of maybe even research based on science to help you get quality leads into your business and that will result into sales.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (05:17):
How do you see this starting to just influence web design, layout? How’s it impacting the whole general landscape there?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (05:24):
That’s a phenomenal question. So the way that AI works is that it’s basically an LL model, which stands for a large language model, which means that it’s trained on all these different websites, articles, text, basically in the billions. So the way that AI is changing the landscape is that it’s helping to come out with text. If you need the text, you need help with assistance with what to put on your website, you can ask for it. And you know what, just because you also need to learn the art of prompting. So basically what you put into the prompt is basically what you get out.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (06:03):
So if people are putting in… People sometimes say, “Oh, I went to ChatGPT and I typed in this one sentence and I got a whatever answer, such a generic answer.” Well, that’s because your prompt was very basic, but you need to be able to speak the language even though it’s basic English, of course it’s multilingual. But if you know how to create the best prompt, you can get absolute gold nuggets out of AI. And not only can AI help you with text, but it can also help you with images. So the image landscape, it’s changing dramatically, and you’re able to have all these different AI tools like Midjourney, also ChatGPT can create video emails.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (06:46):
You also have Dolly DALL·E 3. There’s all these different ones that can create images for you. And currently there’s both pros and cons. The AI is able to create some beautiful images, but when it comes to creating realistic images like me and you, one of the problems that it has is creating images with all five digits. You’ll find that AI spits out a sixth digit, that’s kind of weird. Or some kind of anomalies where the eyes don’t look natural, so the AI teams are quickly working to fix this. By the time of this episode recording, that issue has still been around and it’s been around for about a year.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (07:23):
Teams are still looking to improve upon that, but that’s kind of some of the ways that you can use AI with layouts, with design, with text.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (07:32):
You mentioned a problem that’s been ongoing, we’re talking about current trends. What’s happening right now? Where do you see this going just from your vantage point? You’re in the thick of this every day, mixed in, and I get asked this about franchising because I’m in the middle of it every day. It’s what I do. So I’m curious where you see this going over the next five years of the integration of artificial intelligence and landing pages and websites, and how do you see all of this playing out or where do you see it heading?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (07:58):
I definitely see that AI is going to have more and more of a prevalent role in the website design space. I do think that you’re still going to need to outsource website design and website maintenance because ultimately you want somebody that’s going to be able to know what the best practices are, and sometimes you need to add new products to your website. You also need somebody to maintain it, to make sure it’s up-to-date, to keep it secure out of hackers. Security is still something that is of top concern and you’re going to need to outsource that, and you’re also going to need to build maybe new landing pages and to create changes.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (08:33):
So the whole point of using different companies with your website is to buy back your time. And I think that’s really important. And I think that’s also what you teach on your podcast, Tom, about buying back your time. That’s really important. And that’s the beauty of the franchise model and why it’s so successful. Even though AI is going to have a deeper, deeper integration and sure you can do things by yourself, you still are going to need to have an expert who maybe uses AI well, but you’re also going to see that prices are kind of coming down.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (09:07):
Because people who are charging… You can still probably hire a company that charges $10,000, $20,000 for a website, but probably you can get something very close for much cheaper from somebody else because they know how to use AI. So I think that AI is going to level the playing field and the days of charging for astronomical prices for websites is going to be changing pretty soon unless you’re going to hire some big agency to do branding with logos and a whole strategy that is still going to be around for a while.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (09:40):
It’s really going to be a collaborative approach, balancing when you need various forms of creative people and technical teams coupled with the artificial intelligence that’s available for use and how it all syncs up together. It’s the combination of all of that that’s going to happen.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (09:58):
Yes, a hundred percent. You’re absolutely right. So some of those things are still going to be around, but still AI is definitely changing the landscape.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (10:06):
I noticed here in preparation for this, the idea of virtual reality being integrated into this as well. And one of our recent guests, he’s a client, Top Tier K9. He’s been using virtual reality to actually train dog trainers for his franchise system, which is really interesting that he’s doing that. I think he’s really on the leading edge of that. And I’d be curious about how you see virtual reality starting to integrate into other businesses or what you’re seeing just on that landscape.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (10:35):
I definitely do see that virtual reality is going to be a trend in the future. I don’t know if it’s going to be the near future in the next year or so. I think I see it. It’s definitely gaining more market share and more traction, but not as much as AI or different things. But what I am seeing more is going to be augmented reality. And the difference there is that you have augmented reality, is where you can put on those goggles or a headpiece, and basically you’re seeing your current environment that you’re in right now, but you’re seeing a digital layer, a virtual layer on top of it, and you can interact with it.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (11:13):
I’m thinking that that is probably going to take off a lot faster or it’s going to take off first before virtual reality, although virtual reality is still going to be around. So I like augmented reality a lot at the moment. I think Apple’s new headset that they’re releasing, it’s coming out in a few months. They announced it last year, but it’s coming out this year. It’s going to come out at a whopping $3,500. So it’s very expensive. But the thing is, I don’t know if it’s going to have mass adoption, but that’s their first product out there that’s going to be able to do that. And the things that you can do with it is amazing.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (11:48):
So imagine being in your office right now and you’re able to pull up a file and you have these goggles and you’re able to split your hands. You can just make changes to it, you can speak, you can do whatever you want, put it around. And at the same time, you’re seeing everything in your office. So let’s say for example, a member of your family walks in, you’re going to see them still through your goggles and able to interact with them. You don’t have to take off the headset. I’m really excited about augmented reality, and I still see virtual reality is still going to be something to watch out for in the future.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:18):
Very interesting. And noting that Apple’s is coming out, albeit it sounds like it’s expensive. One thing we’ve learned when Apple releases a product, they’re often not the first to market, but they are able to bring it to a mass market and create user adoption on a mass scale. So that’ll be interesting to see if we see another pattern happen in that regard. Well, Peter, this is a great time in the show where we make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (12:50):
It’s more like 10 or 20, could be even 50 or a hundred. But definitely I’ve had plenty of misses, Tom. One of the ones that I like to share is early on in my business career. When I first started my first business, I just wanted to make some extra income. And because I wanted to do that, I had my kids, they were born, and I just found that my corporate job at the time just wasn’t cutting in a lot of money. I wasn’t able to pay all the bills. And so I said, “Hey, I’m going to start a side hustle just to see what if I can bring in some extra money on the side.”
And so at the time, I was really good with time management and productivity, so I said, “Okay, what can I do with this?” And I said, “Okay, let me create some small, little, mini courses where I could teach time management and productivity.” And I would wake up every day at 4:00 AM just so I could build my website and create these little mini courses about time management productivity. And I was selling them for $19.95 each. And so behold, I went and I launched it and I did everything. And I sat there and I marketed it.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (13:57):
And at the end of the day after I did the launch, I made a whopping one sale, $19.95, and I ended up even refunding that person their money back. And you know what? It just wasn’t successful no matter what I tried to do. And when I look back at that failure, it turns out that really the miss was because I wasn’t doing something that was my calling. And that’s really important. You really need to do something that you feel like you’re called to do. And I was just looking at, “Hey, what am I good at?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (14:28):
Hey, there’s this time management and productivity space.” And I just didn’t have enough momentum to keep it going to get through the failures and the problems because I wasn’t in sync with that. And so that’s always… A part of my message is that, “Hey, whatever you’re doing, make sure that it’s what you’re called to do because it’s going to help you to get through the tough times and that’s really important.”
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:50):
Thank you for sharing. Well, let’s talk about a make or two on the other side.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (14:55):
So definitely a make on the other side after that, I went through another miss first where instead of going very low end and I was selling stuff courses for $19.95, I tried to go very high end and sell courses and coaching to CEOs for $5,000 about time management and productivity. And I actually got into debt and I paid on a credit card a $10,000 course that would help me to create courses to sell them to CEOs. And after I did that again, I sold a big fat goose egg, zero, and then I was $10,000 in debt because I bought that course and I couldn’t get a refund. So that wasn’t good either.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (15:33):
So there was a miss first, another miss, and then finally the make was right after that. I had a friend of mine who owned a very successful marketing agency who called me up and said, “Hey, Pete, I know that you’re really good at website design. Do you want to do white labeling services for us?” And I said, “White labeling service, what’s that?” And so he says, “Well, that’s when you basically build websites for our clients, but you act as if you’re a part of our staff, but you’re actually a freelancer and a contractor.” And I said, “Yeah, I’d love to do that.”
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (16:03):
And that’s how my business started because a friend of mine reached out to me to give me some business. And you know what? It just so happened that website design is my calling and it is what I’d love to do. I could do it all day, even on the weekends. So I think that was the big make for me. So I hope that’s helpful to the listener.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:25):
Fantastic. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier as you’ve grown, whether businesses that you’ve owned and operated or helped lead, maybe that you worked at or just even growing yourself personally or professionally.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (16:38):
One of the multipliers that I’m really proud of is for one of our clients, if I could share about that. Her name is Carrie. She came to me and she is a dietician. And so she said that, “Hey…” She sees clients all day and she wanted to build a website where she helps students in her field pass an exam called the Registered Dietician Exam. So in order for you to be a dietician, you have to pass this exam in any state. So she wanted to be able to create a membership site that teaches them how to prepare for the exam and to pass. And so we went ahead, we built the website with her and we helped her out, and she launched. And you know what?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (17:14):
Through her marketing efforts and through the website, she’s been able to grow her business significantly, and now she’s three years down the road and she can quit her own private practice if she wanted to. But she loves it so much that she continues to do it, and she also helps other students to pass the registered dietician exam. So in that way, it was just such a blessing for me to be able to be a part of my client’s success and to help her to multiply her business.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:43):
Well, the final question we ask every guest is, what does success mean to you?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (17:48):
I think what success means to me is… I look at success holistically. I don’t just look at it as business success, but I’m looking at, “Hey, what does success look like in your business, in your finances, in your family, in your spirituality, all these different things, in your fitness.” Success is really important when you look at it holistically and I think that because we’re interconnected beings. That’s really important.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (18:13):
So success to me is success in all those areas where you’re living a balanced life, where you’re having healthy relationships, you’re happy, and it’s whatever basically you make of it. And I think for me, I just look at it from a holistic approach.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (18:30):
Wonderful. And Peter, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (18:38):
I think the one thing that’s most important that I’d love to get across is that I know that we’re talking to different business owners in their multiple different places in their journeys. And no matter where you’re at in your journey, you’re always going to have maybe a failure or so, or maybe fall on some hard times. I think it’s really important that during those hard times that you don’t give up and that you continue to persevere. And sometimes, during those times, you need to look outside of yourself.
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (19:05):
So maybe you have a trusted friend and maybe a business partner, maybe you’re a family member, a spouse, somebody that you could really talk to and that you trust them. And you can tell them what’s on your heart and they could be able to help you and give you good advice. And that’s what’s really helped me during the times when I failed, as I shared on today’s episode, and when I’ve had misses in my business or in my career. It was always friends, family, a trusted confidant, somebody that was really helping me to say, “Hey, you know what, you’re going to get through this.”
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (19:37):
Or they were able to give me some advice that I could never could have thought of by myself, and that’s what got me through. So I think having a circle of trust, a circle of friends that can speak into your life is going to be really important.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:49):
Wonderful. And Peter, if someone’s interested in learning more about what you’re doing or maybe to find out about some of the service or product offerings that you have, how can they get in touch with you?
Peter Guirguis, SwiftPress Support (19:59):
For sure. Best place to do it is to go to my website. So that’s swiftpresssupport.com. Swiftpresssupport.com is the website. And maybe tell them we have a link in the show notes or something, then that would be super helpful and our listeners can click on it and they can get in touch.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:15):
Peter, thank you so much for a fantastic interview, and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. Takeaway number one is when Peter talked about being successful with AI and artificial intelligence, it comes down to this prompting skill and learning how to do prompting. Takeaway number two is when he talked about the three artificial intelligence options available that he thinks are the best on the market today, he said, number one, ChatGPT, number two, Google’s AI and number three, Anthropic. And takeaway number three today is when he talked about in his make, how a friend had reached out to him to help him help his friend with some digital marketing needs.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:02):
And to me, the takeaway there is it just shows how important your network is. Because Peter had talked about how he really wasn’t pursuing his purpose and that his network through his friend helped him figure out and discover what that true calling was for him. And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win is about incorporating artificial intelligence and AI into your business. And the win-win is figuring out a starting point for you. Where is that starting point? It can be something very, very simple, such as just figuring out what do you write in a birthday card.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:48):
Try it, ask it, see what happens, and start somewhere to start figuring out where and how you want to try and use this. And the point is, you want to start somewhere now, maybe you have already done it and now you’re on level two and level three. So I encourage you to keep going. AI is not going away. This is only going to continue to be an important part of business and our society for the foreseeable future. So that’s the episode today, folks. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast and give us a review.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:21):
And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.