Prompt and Circumstance

Prompt 17 -
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[00:00:28] Tom Adams: Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, good to see you.

[00:00:32] Mike Richardson: Good to be seen

[00:00:33] Tom Adams: Yes. Yes.

[00:00:35] Mark Redgrave: race fans

[00:00:36] Mike Richardson: Come on, England

[00:00:39] Tom Adams: Yeah, what, what's, what's happening? Let's start with World Cup because that's the only appropriate place to start

[00:00:44] Mark Redgrave: This isn't--

[00:00:45] Tom Adams: two hooligans

[00:00:46] Mark Redgrave: how many of these do we have during the World Cup actually? Like, we're gonna have a couple, aren't we? So we can continue the narrative

[00:00:52] Mike Richardson: yes. Well, if England, if England continue to do well, yes. Otherwise we won't. And of course, come on USA. Come on, come on

[00:01:00] Mark Redgrave: Well, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll still continue the narrative, Mike. It just might not be the narrative people

[00:01:03] Mike Richardson: come on Canada. Are Canada still in it, Tom? They are, aren't

[00:01:06] Tom Adams: Canada are still in it, yes. They lost their last game, but they're hovering, you know, in uncertainty. Um, they've got to the, they get to the round of 32, so that's positive.

[00:01:17] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, it's good, man. I tell you, like, I, I was chatting to somebody about this the other day. I, like, for those of us that are in the US, uh, there was so little buildup. I was honestly, I was really worried. But it had-- the this last week has been amazing. Like, the, like, it's been so energetic. Everyone's taken to it.

People... You're out and about in cafes and restaurants, people are talking about it. So I, I think it's come out of nowhere, though. It's absolutely wild. 'Cause if you, if you, if I had to place a bet a couple of weeks ago, I'd say, "Oh, this could go off like a wet firework," you know? Um, but it, so but it's been, it's been, it's been great.

[00:01:54] Mike Richardson: Yeah, so Canada are playing South Africa in the next round. And

[00:01:59] Tom Adams: Yes. Yes

[00:02:00] Mike Richardson: don't, we don't know who England is play... Oh, J- USA is playing, um,

[00:02:05] Mark Redgrave: Bosnia, right?

[00:02:06] Mike Richardson: Bosnia, yeah. And, um, uh, we don't, we don't know who Mexico is playing yet. We don't know who England is playing yet. England and Mex- if England and Mexico both get through, they will meet in the si- the round of 16

[00:02:19] Tom Adams: Oh, interesting

[00:02:20] Mike Richardson: Assuming that England end up top of the group, which of course is happening on Saturday, so...

[00:02:24] Mark Redgrave: We've done a classic though, man. I, I read this the other day, Mike. Mike, like, like apparently game two we always suck. Like apparently it's

statistically, factually true

[00:02:35] Mike Richardson: it's the fourth tournament in a row in which we've drawn the four-- the second match of the group stage.

So anyway, how does this all relate to AI? Have you noticed, have you noticed any ways in which, or you've heard of any ways in which AI is being utilized at the World Cup?

I haven't researched it

[00:02:50] Tom Adams: Well, I have to be completely honest with you, I have not watched a game. Um, I ha- I know what the scores are, but I, i, I have literally watched, like, I, I love watching the Nor- the Norway team in Times Square, the, the fans. I, I bet watched more of the fan action than I have any of the ga- I've, I've seen a couple of the goals just sort of, but I, I'm sorry, I, I'm not a b- game watcher.

[00:03:15] Mike Richardson: Anything beyond ice hockey and you're not interested, is that the thing?

[00:03:18] Tom Adams: I don't even watch ice hockey. I mean, I'm, I'm the worst Canadian you can possibly imagine

[00:03:24] Mark Redgrave: He, he's, Mike, he's too busy hobnobbing with like

executives of these, like, like, the biggest companies on the planet.

[00:03:30] Mike Richardson: We'll come

[00:03:30] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, he's got no time for soccer, mate. He's like, he's far, far too

[00:03:34] Mike Richardson: where's, uh, where's Ryan? Where's he today?

[00:03:36] Tom Adams: Ryan is, uh, taking a break. Uh, our, our good friend Ryan seems to have been, uh, called to the dark side and is, um, really, you know, running corporate something. I don't know what he's doing, but he's, uh, he's out there in the world doing magnificent things and, and we're just, we're, we're no longer in the tier of what, uh, kinda pulls him in.

I think he's, he's, uh, he's got more important things to do

[00:04:03] Mike Richardson: did the average IQ of the hosts of this podcast go up or down as a result

[00:04:06] Mark Redgrave: No, Mike is the opposite, man. He, he'll come back, tail between his legs. You watch. He will.

[00:04:12] Tom Adams: Yeah, eventually come back and join us lowly folks.

[00:04:15] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, he'll come back and he'll say, "Guys, I really thought I was, really thought I was, uh, better than you guys, but I'm here to learn."

[00:04:23] Tom Adams: After all, I'm not.

[00:04:25] Mark Redgrave: I'm here to learn.

[00:04:27] Tom Adams: So what's, uh, what's happening in your worlds this last few weeks? What's, uh, what's grabbing your attention? Let, let's start with just sort of the, the in-the-moment stuff. What's, what's pulling your attention? What are you seeing? What's interesting to you right now?

[00:04:41] Mike Richardson: Well, I'll go first 'cause, 'cause I wasn't here last time. You guys, you guys did a great job in the last episode, and you know that, um, you know, my hair's been on fire. I think it's out now, right? I think, I think I put the fire out. Um, my hair's been on fire with, um, selling a large house and a large property and moving out and close- closing and moving out and getting into a rental and all of that.

So it's just been crazy. But, but in the midst of all of that, I still managed to have another great AI speaker come to my forum in my peer forum in, um, in Temecula, a guy called Gerran Fraser. He did a phenomenal job. And even more importantly than that, I just did a summit, an AI summit in Temecula last Tuesday afternoon.

Had about 50 people in the room with the headline speaker being Riley Strickland from Cadre AI, and he gave a latest, greatest kind of set of insights and it was just awesome and, you know, we'll talk about it more later, but even more than ever before, he's saying this is not a technical problem. Um, there is plenty of technical resources around.

You, you need engineers, right? 'Cause no data, no AI, as Marvin Dejon said to us, right? Uh, this is a human problem. This is a change leadership and change management problem, like on steroids now. But he did a great job. It was great. Everybody loved it. We spent the whole afternoon. He had the first half of the afternoon, and then I had what I called some AI accelerants in the room, peop- local resources, local people that are blazing a trail with AI, um, who, you know, we could then talk and share and all of that kind of stuff.

So it worked out. I know it's not a, not a patch on what you did, Tom. You were getting everybody building stuff and they were going, "Ooh, aah," you know, in the audience, but, you know, they still loved it

[00:06:39] Tom Adams: What, what, so like going back to Riley, 'cause we talked to Riley, I don't know, eight months ago now. Uh, what, what are some of the latest and greatest insights that he's bringing to the room now that are shifting, you know, shifting his focus, shifting their focus? What, what showed up for you in that con- in his presentation?

[00:06:59] Mike Richardson: Well, really the, the, that obvious one that we just talked about, which is your challenge isn't really AI anymore, it's really data. And everything you've said about if-- And Mark, you've said, I think, used the language pilot's purgatory, right? Where you've got all these pilots around, but they're not connected to anything.

And yeah, people are doing cool stuff, but it's not connected to anything. So what are you gonna do with it? Nothing. And, and the only way that you'll get a real payback in, in... for the business at least, apart from, you know, some, some playful learning, uh, is, you know, if you can connect it to the data and, and tr- and then pro- you know, productionize it, right?

'Cause yeah, connecting it to the data the first time, fine. But now you've got to productionize it and make sure that this thing is gonna work every time. And if you take your eye off it, it's gonna go down and you're not gonna notice, and everybody's-- the phone's gonna start ringing off the hook, and you're scratching your head left like you were that day.

The AI ends up saying to you, "I can't help you. Sorry."

[00:08:08] Tom Adams: Can't help you. We're done. Sorry.

[00:08:13] Mike Richardson: Anyway, that's what, that's what's been happening in my world.

[00:08:17] Tom Adams: Very cool.

[00:08:17] Mark Redgrave: I, I, uh, Mike, I think like that, the, the local, the, the, that local level traction is super interesting though, right? 'Cause these are real people doing real things with real challenges and real op- like I love that stuff. So I think you're doing an awesome job there with the, with the, with that team,

um, to kind of get, get, them to motivate each other and, and, and, and kind of like dri- like drive each other, right?

It's cool.

[00:08:38] Mike Richardson: Yeah, and just, you know, little, little stories, little use case examples, little, little demos and things. And, uh, we actually had eight local AI accelerants identified. Four of them were unfortunately out of town, which I knew about. But we had four in the room and they did a great job and, and you could just see that people were almost sighing, uh, uh, relief that, okay, uh, we, we don't have to pay through the nose perhaps if we're a smaller company.

We can begin to find a way forward with some more local, smaller, lower cost resources, at least, you know, for phase one of doing something

[00:09:20] Mark Redgrave: So, so your, your sigh of relief, I've, I've got a, I've got... We might mention this, but something that happened to me this week that I thought that I'm, I'm increasingly seeing. Um, CEOs have a s- uh, sigh of relief when they realize your previous point, Mike. This is not a technology challenge, right? Because they go, "I don't get the technology."

And when you say, "Well, hey, that's not-- Success is not gonna be determined by technology, Mr. and Mrs. CEO. Success is gonna be determined by like, by like the people around the problem." And, and I've, I've heard audible exhales on that, right? From leaders where they go, "Cor, that good, 'cause I'm totally out of my depth on the other stuff."

So, so, so that's interesting, right? Because like I, I think there are a number of people do still feel like, "Wow, like I don't get it, guys." And it's like, you don't have to 'cause there's many specialists who can help you with that bit. But the bit you've gotta be across, leader, CEO, board member, is, you know, like how you are going to think about like people in your organization in this new context and how to change them from one place to another.

That's what, where you have to focus

[00:10:28] Tom Adams: Yeah, that's really good. And it, and it's, um, and, and I think the, the challenge is as, as soon as you try and make technology the thing, um, you're always behind the eight ball, right? 'Cause you, you just can't keep up with what's going on, uh, which is why the challenge I see so often is, um, if, if it's about the tech, then you dig into the tech and then you realize, oh, it doesn't work or it does work, one of the two depending on which week you looked at it, and, you know, it didn't work last week, but this week it works.

So it wasn't tech after all, it was just that that was just a blip in time and, you know, um, and it's still coming back to what we've talked about all along and what we continue to say, which is this is not a tech problem. Um, I, I mean, I particularly love the tech, but, um, at the same time, it's not a tech issue

[00:11:19] Mark Redgrave: I, I, I had a really, really interesting, um, uh, conversation with a client last week. They're doing a brilliant job, like by anyone's standards. Uh, mid-cap, uh, like 40 AI projects in flight, right? Like with owners not in IT. So, so like distributed ownership in the business. Everyth- and, and on like a cadence.

Yeah, like established cadence. Like, uh, they meet three times a week. Uh, one of those moments the CEO joins to get his update. Um, but like I'm-- I look at it from an operational point of view and I'm like, "Man, good job." Yeah. Like really, really good job. Now, where it gets interesting is when you start to think about and started to presh- and push on like how does these, this effort align to like what you're trying to achieve?

Yeah. Like at, at, at, at a macro level, because the effort's there. No question, right? But it's like, it's like some of this... And, and I think we knew like instinctively, like they're all good projects and there's effort being expended, how much do they really matter is a very interesting question.

Yeah. So it's like, so, so which is, which again is like, so if you're a leader, a CEO, it's like that's where we need your brains, right? 'Cause like y- you, this concept of like you can't delegate your strategy. Your strategy's your strategy. So like how does this stuff align to your strategy becomes a real interesting sort of, kind of question.

And I was delighted to be in a real context with a real company really doing things and like being able to, to like have that conversation and everyone's like, "Oh yeah, maybe we, like we could do better there." 'Cause I, I think because that, that, this is about value creation, right?

[00:13:05] Mike Richardson: And Riley again was very clear, um, you know, right out of the gate, uh, as he was doing the sort of introduction to his stuff, he was very clear again. He said, "Our focus is not laying people off. Our focus is avoiding hiring people as you grow." So he said, you know, if you wanna grow 2X, 3X, think about which departments are you gonna need 2X or 3X the number of people, or maybe it's not fully linear, but you're gonna need a substantially nearly linear expansion of help desk people, sales people, support people, et cetera.

And let's get AI focused on how you can, you can avoid the linearity of that headcount growth, and that's where the real payback comes.

[00:13:53] Mark Redgrave: Yep.

[00:13:54] Mike Richardson: Anyway, Tom, you've heard from the guy, you've heard from the guy in the slow lane, that's me. You've heard from the guy in the medium lane, that's Mark. What about the guy in the fast lane?

[00:14:03] Tom Adams: Well, again, I, I, I, uh, I'm the guy who doesn't code, and weirdly, um, somehow my life has taken me places that I never expected. And, a number of, I don't know, six months ago, I started playing with an idea of a building myself an advisory board. And, um, Mike, you and I live in this realm of advisory boards and, um, interestingly, we had a conversation one day with the CEO, and he point-blank said during that call, "Are you building an advisory board, um, if, with AI?"

And I didn't have the heart to say yes at that moment, but I do now. Um, um, and so what I did was I constructed an advisory board, but not from a single LLM, from multiple LLMs. So there was a Grok and there was a-- But I deconstructed each of those as somebody that has had a profound influence on my life.

And so Tom Peters, Dan Kennedy, who is a, uh, an old-time direct marketer who I, I've spent a lot of years studying. Dan Sullivan, who runs Strategic Coach. And I've taken-- I took their books and I took their audio podcasts, and I, I literally deconstructed these guys' worlds and, um, made sense of them for myself and, uh, built, built different LLMs to talk to me about them as if like channeling them in a meeting.

And, um, and, and really worked on it for a while. And then I was talking to a friend of mine, he used to be the chief of staff for a large publicly traded company, and he had just, uh, retired and he said, "Oh, Tom, I got this idea that's brewing." And I, I said, "Oh, that's interesting." And it turns out he had sort of a similar concept.

He hadn't done all the fleshing out. I had actually built it. Um, and I showed it to him and he said, "Oh, you gotta talk to this other person. She happens to work at Accenture." And so I showed it to her and she goes, "Oh my gosh, this is really sweet and interesting." And so we, we, you know, she, sh- she kind of gave me some advice and, and, um, he gave me some advice, and I went on a roll, and I, uh, really re- rebuilt it in a much more robust way.

And, um, and then weirdly got in front of some people that I wasn't expecting through some of these contacts who are big corporates. And I got in front of some people and I showed it to them and they said, "Wait, can you do this?" And, "Wait, can you do that?" And I worked away on that and then layered in, I got in front of some other people who are really big in the, uh, AI industry, um, some of which work for Google, and, uh, showed it to them, and they asked to be on the advisory board for my company, which I don't have.

I d- I didn't have anyways.

[00:16:55] Mike Richardson: What you do now?

[00:16:57] Tom Adams: But I do now. So, uh, yeah, it's been, it's been fascinating 'cause, you know, we've talked all along on this show, and I've been really honest. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just trying to figure this out as I go. But I had a mental model for something from both the experience I've had in advisory boards, my own coaching work, how I think about coaching somebody, how I think about advisory boards, and I kinda deconstructed that, but using a multi-agentic platform that doesn't just talk to me, it talks to each other, which is really cool.

Which is a really cool thing. So, um, so what I was building eventually was, um, if I'm an advisory board structure, the people in the group aren't just talking to me, they're talking to each other,

[00:17:41] Mark Redgrave: they talk to each other.

[00:17:42] Tom Adams: And if Mike says something, then Mark, you go, "Oh, what Mike said, but think about this," and sort of evolved it, but each coming from their own unique point of view.

And, uh, it's been a fascinating journey, both understanding how, how systems work, how multi-agentic systems work, and then trying to build it from a structure that's actually enterprise-grade capable

[00:18:07] Mark Redgrave: So is the idea, Tom, is, would, would the idea be that like you, that an individual could create an advisory board based on, uh, influences and stimulus that they define? Is, would that be the idea? So if I said, if I said, uh, "I wanna be, I want an advisory board of racing drivers, and I want to," uh, I don't know why you'd want that, but I'm trying to make it not about business.

It's like, and I want, I would like to be advised by Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, and, um,

[00:18:35] Mike Richardson: I think we agree, Mark. Uh, you do need to move, move faster, Mark. You do. You do. We've always said that to you. Faster, come on

[00:18:40] Mark Redgrave: I know. But it, but, but, but it's like, so, so, so, so that would be the concept though, right? You pick. You can pick who... Yeah, yeah, right. That's super interesting.

I love that

[00:18:49] Mike Richardson: So Tom, have you intentionally been keeping this a secret from us?

[00:18:53] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, of course

[00:18:54] Tom Adams: Well, I, I

mean, uh, not trying to keep it a secret, but, like, I didn't feel like I, I had really... Uh, it's, it's kind of you don't really know what you've got until somebody else sees it. And I was just playing with it myself, but I, I had a structure that was starting to make sense, and it was flowing. And, Oh, okay. And, so what's evolved out of that

[00:19:16] Mike Richardson: I'm just speaking personally that I'm feeling a little bit frozen out, that's all. That's all. I'm just, Yeah, no, just... I, I, you know, I think we came here to be honest, didn't we?

[00:19:25] Tom Adams: Yeah, we did. And, um, I, I think it was more, I didn't, I didn't realize it was as valuable as it was in the form that I had it

[00:19:34] Mike Richardson: See? Awesome. I'm

[00:19:35] Mark Redgrave: Mi- Mike, here's the rub. Here's the rub. Um, in the two weeks since it's been live, uh, the advisory vo- board fired Tom on Friday. That's the, that's the rub. It was working great until they decided they didn't need him anymore

[00:19:50] Tom Adams: I'm actually gonna be honest with you, the evolution of that has been where all the magic is though, 'cause my initial idea was advisory board. The evolution of that is what I'm starting to call conversational intelligence, right? Which is using, uh, conversational intelligence to support a multifaceted, multi-agentic approach to conversations that matter, that need to be confirmed and, uh, that, that can be fully auditable.

So now I've built it such now that in every conversation, there's actually an auditor sitting there going, "Wait a second. You can't say that," tells the supervisor, "No, no, no, no, that, that's not right," and audits everyone such that any time an enterprise would need some kind of confirmation, we can see the full chain of thought for the entire conversation

[00:20:48] Mike Richardson: It's a good job I sold my house recently 'cause I think I'm gonna be out, out of business real soon. Yeah, you got my attention. I noticed conversational intelligence in the WhatsApp messaging that we shared. I, I forgot to say something, but yeah, you've heard me talk about conversation flow to cash flow, right? Collective intelligence. So it seems like you've done a nice job of sort of mashing together conversational intelligence, which is really cool.

[00:21:13] Tom Adams: Yeah, and I think, I think, yeah. And I think the thing that I've, I've realized is all of this kind of mashes together in my head at 61, and I, I don't, I don't understand code necessarily, but I've worked with Claude Code to help me build this and others. But what's, what's really kind of profound at this point is the ability to piece all that together based on this massive history that, you know, we've all had.

But even the conversations that we have had in this group have helped shape how I think about this thing that's emerging, and yet it's very emergent. It's not like, oh, I have this definition of what it's, it is. It, it's an emergent thing that keeps evolving. And it started from that advisory board perspective, which I still use.

Like I eat, I dog food this all the time, which is, "Hey, what do you guys think?" And I bring three people into my boardroom, and those three people advise me from their unique perspective,

which is really cool.

[00:22:09] Mike Richardson: So he's, he's, he's sitting there thinking, "Yeah, on the one hand I could call Mark and Mike, or on the other I could just go to my advisory board and I'm likely to get much better input."

[00:22:21] Tom Adams: Well, they, now the interesting thing, and I, I've, I have disclosed this to you guys, I have deconstructed my whole coaching process, everything that I've done. It's now in what are called markdown files, such that I am now my own advisor, and I can put myself in the advisory board and say, "What would you say to me based on how I talk to everybody else in the world?"

[00:22:43] Mark Redgrave: Tom, you're gonna get fired, man. I can feel it.

[00:22:46] Tom Adams: Going full meta here. f-

[00:22:48] Mark Redgrave: I I can feel it. You're gonna, you're gonna fire yourself, and this is gonna really other, t-

[00:22:53] Mike Richardson: somehow or other, Tom is turning himself inside out, upside down, back to front before our very eyes, everybody. It's going to be interesting.

[00:23:00] Mark Redgrave: We're gonna be like, where's Tom? Either he's been fired or he's had a mental breakdown or like... But he won't be with us today.

[00:23:07] Tom Adams: The really cool thing is nobody can fire me 'cause I'm not employed by anyone. That's the really wonderful thing,

[00:23:13] Mark Redgrave: Well, yeah, there's that. I, um, I was thinking though, like with, with-- And this is, this is by-- this is just an interesting question. It's like when we-- 'Cause I've, I like there's-- I've, I've read instances where people have said like, actually in the context of sales and marketing, like if you want like incredible sales and marketing advice, like create, you know, like, like ask Claude to go out and learn all about Alex Hormozi.

Yeah. Go out and learn about like their, their, their teachings, their practices, read this book. Exactly that similar thinking, Tom, right? But I'm like, when that person-- I, I wonder how Alex Hormozi is feeling about the IP in that. Now, because it's all publicly available, right? Then I don't think there is a, there-- I don't think there's a proverbial leg to stand on.

But it's, it's kind of interesting, right? 'Cause I'd love, like I'd love if I, if I used your system, Tom, and I said, "Right, on my advisory board, I would love to have like these four people in it." And maybe Alex, everything Alex knows and loves, like would be a very powerful part of that. I'm like, I wonder how Alex feels about that.

I, I don't like, it doesn't really concern me, but I mean, it's, it's interesting, right? It's like this whole thing which is emerging as to like, uh, what's like, you know, what is intellectual property? Um, is there any way to ring-fence it? Uh, are we about to see a Spotify-like licensing model emerge that we've never even thought of?

I, I don't know. It's like 'cause it, 'cause it feels like, wow, this is gonna blow up real quick, right?

[00:24:45] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Huh

[00:24:47] Tom Adams: Yep.

[00:24:48] Mark Redgrave: Interesting. I don't know. I don't, I don't have the answers. I just think like, wow.

[00:24:51] Tom Adams: no, and to me, the, the, the, you know, the names that I stated be- are not publicly available. I'm not putting them out in the world because they're not mine to put out in the world. Uh, I have extracted those from all their public stuff, but it's purely mine. I, I don't believe I could do that, um, legally, uh, without some degree of challenge. Um, but Internally for me.

[00:25:15] Mark Redgrave: If you're a con- content, content creator, we've just spent the last three years being encouraged to share content liberally, right? Don't, don't gatekeep this stuff, guys. Like, so I think a lot of these thought leaders, and they've made tremendously successful businesses out of it.

I mean, Alex Hormozi's worth a couple hundred million bucks, right? By giving away like insights on how you sell your ass off and then charging people $10,000 for a phone call, right? That's like he's made, he's made $200 million. So y- you sort of like it's been very successful, but it's like the act of making that public domain is now making things like this possible.

[00:25:55] Tom Adams: Oh, yeah. And, and I mean, we know that the LLMs have vers-- um, you know, basically consumed every possible available content to m-make sense of that in their model. So I mean, it's all in there weirdly, and it's how do, how do you extract it now? Uh, and that's where I think there's a lot of interesting challenges ahead legally, and legal battles that are likely to come from all this.

Um, but you know, the, the evolution for me is less about advisory board. It's more about using what I've learned to build conversational intelligence engines for things like, uh, lead triage, things like, um, um, supporting e-commerce, uh, conversations, um, uh, internal mechanisms that, that help, um, staff deal with particular issues, um, versus a single conversation, right?

The single conversation gets kinda lost, but if you're in a multi, uh, volt voice conversation, uh, lots of interesting things happen there

[00:27:01] Mike Richardson: And where are you at, Tom, baby steps or halfway in maturing this into a productized thing?

[00:27:11] Tom Adams: right now, um, really recently I moved all of it off of sort of generic, uh, easily accessible toolkit onto the Google Cloud platform. So like int- i- into really robust structure stuff. Moved it from old code to new code, which is much more resilient. Um, uh, working on demos for large companies right now that, um, I'm getting lucky enough to be in front of, which is kind of fun.

Um, and, um, you know, structurally set up a company last week, so, um, just to, to do that with in Delaware. So when you, when you do something in Delaware, apparently you're trying to do something. Um, so there's, there's momentum. I'm, I'm still not sure if there's anything there, right? It's just given the nature of the world.

I, I believe what I see, and I believe there's something of value here, but it's, it's just, is this timing right? All of that. It's still a... And Mark, and you would, you would speak to this based on your life, like you can take a g- really good run at something and, and, um, and it either works or it doesn't work.

And I feel like I'm taking a run at it, but my coaching practice and advisory practice is still my primary thing. This is, I'm playing with this on the side, um, with a lot of intention and focus, but it's still on the side

[00:28:31] Mark Redgrave: And World Cup analogy, Tom, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

[00:28:36] Tom Adams: Correct. And I'm taking a... Yeah. And just for fun, I'm building two other pieces of software on the side because I've had POCs with two different companies and they both said, "I'm willing to do this." Um, and so I'm making those more robust right now, and hopefully just have a couple of little pieces and parts playing.

So the guy who can't code at 61 happens to have software that's out, going out in the world right now, which is kinda interesting

[00:29:04] Mike Richardson: Eat your heart out, Ryan Nieman

[00:29:11] Tom Adams: Yeah

[00:29:12] Mike Richardson: I told you you were in the fast lane. I, I can't wait to get some visibility of it and see it in action

[00:29:20] Mark Redgrave: Yeah

[00:29:21] Tom Adams: I, I, I will at some point let you see it. So it's, uh, we're, we're close. We're close to sort of the first visible

[00:29:28] Mike Richardson: be like a big reveal, right? A big reveal

[00:29:30] Tom Adams: Big

[00:29:31] Mark Redgrave: The, um, can I, like, I've got a question for you guys 'cause I, I, I wonder your experience in this. So, so like when we, we talked about data, Mike, you talked, talked about data like a few minutes ago. when we have... I, I think with these, a lot of these like what, what role should AI play in my business conversations?

They very quickly get to like, like where's the data? What kind of state is that in, right? Now, who-- Like, what's the best approach to preparing data assets in your... Like, like I'm a mid-cap company, right? I've got data everywhere. It's a bit of a mess. who and how do you begin to prepare that for effective AI utilization?

'Cause I don't know the answer to that question. And it's like, 'cause so, so, so either Mike or Tom, whatever, like what are you seeing, hearing? Like, like what's the first move? Who can help you with that? Because I feel like you get there real quick

[00:30:33] Tom Adams: Mike, do you want to start do you want me to go?

[00:30:35] Mike Richardson: Why are you waiting for me, Tom?

[00:30:38] Tom Adams: Well, I, I, I, I'll give you my initial answer, and then we can, we can, uh, track from there. But to me there's, there's really two, two data elements. One is structured data, and the other one's unstructured, right? So structured data is, you know, we have defined data structure with- which is basically columns and rows, and we got that sum.

Our financial data, uh, client data, any of that internal data.

[00:31:03] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, CRM, ERP, all of that stuff

[00:31:06] Tom Adams: Yeah. But then the unstructured data is things like documents and, uh, layers of documents and where, where are those and where the catalogs are.

[00:31:16] Mike Richardson: Call call transcripts and meeting transcripts and

[00:31:19] Tom Adams: all of that unstructured stuff. And so those two to, to me become the catalyst of figuring that out.

The, the challenge often is that historically a lot of the structured data, unless you just have it in spreadsheets, is in, um, ERPs, CRMs, things like that, that haven't historically given you access to those very easily, and so they're kinda hidden behind walls. And I have clients who can't extract that data and are literally replicating data now to get it into things like Airtable or standard spreadsheets just to be able to have access to the structured data, let alone the unstructured stuff.

Unstructured stuff seems to be stuff hidden in, you know, in your, um, OneDrive or your Google Drive or your Dropbox and, and then weirdly in, in the CEO's CEO's desktop and many peoples have all this stuff, meeting notes, things like that. So I think the first place is you gotta know where it is, and then you've gotta find a way to either extract it so it's accessible and available, uh, and then you have to restructure it in a way that puts it in places that, that can be a- attacked or supported by AI toolkit.

[00:32:34] Mark Redgrave: Roto-Rooter for that, right? So who would you, who would you traditionally like, like look to engage to do that work, right? If you were like, what, what, w- who would you, who would you call? Batman? I don't know. Like, who is it?

[00:32:47] Tom Adams: Well, I, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm seeing people realizing in conversations I'm having, and I'm not mid-market, I tend to be at the smaller end of the, the market or the, the smaller. And what I'm encouraging people to do is go find their data. Like, just go find those two pieces and ref- re-put it in places that will be accessible.

Um, and that, that's kinda how I'm going at it. Um, a lot of them, you know... A- and th- then the question becomes which data's relevant to this anyways? Like, there's a b- there's so much data in a company that's 10 years old, what's relevant to where we go.

[00:33:24] Mark Redgrave: But can any,

can any IT consultant do that, Tom? Or like who-- I'm literally wondering, like, if you're gonna make a phone call, like who are you calling to say, like, "Help me."

[00:33:34] Mike Richardson: So I had a speaker, I had a speaker about three months ago called Peter O'Sullivan. I've known him for about 20 years, and his whole angle is the data challenge of AI. And so he came in and, and presented, you know, I didn't understand a lot of it, but he talked about data lakes and the data warehouse and, and how you've got to sort of plumb, you know, get all the plumbing in place, um, you know, that on which you can then sit, you know, the kind of intelligence layers.

And actually, uh, Riley did something similar where he had a pyramid of three layers, and the base level of the pyramid was data, data, data, and how, how are you, you know, collecting and curating that data. And you guys know better than me, you might not need as much of a data lake as you used to because you've-- you can connect different LLMs into different databases to some degree.

[00:34:35] Mark Redgrave: yeah, and the, and the unstructured text analysis has come so far in the last 10

years right 'Cause those were always the assets that were impossible to, uh, to extract value from but now, "

that stuff's easy

[00:34:48] Mike Richardson: and what Riley was saying, he says, he says, you know, he says, "When my sales team lets me know that I'm gonna go for a meeting with a new prospect, you know, I've got a little research routine that, like you had Tom, that just, you know, kicks in." And of course, if that's not connected to emails, if it's not connected to project management stuff, if it's not connected to financial stuff, if it's not connected to meeting transcripts and call transcripts, then when I, when I pose the unstructured question, tell me everything I need to know about this prospect, I get a very limited answer

[00:35:26] Mark Redgrave: This is why, you know, tangent, this is why Microsoft-- people using Microsoft have a massive potential advantage by

using, you know, by, by using the embedded Microsoft AI tools.

[00:35:39] Mike Richardson: If only copilot would accelerate and keep up.

[00:35:44] Mark Redgrave: But, but that's the, that, that's the, that's the zinger for Microsoft. It's like, it's all here. We can see the structured, the unstructured stuff.

We can see your emails. We're the only guys who can see

[00:35:54] Mike Richardson: with the security that you need, it's already in place

[00:35:56] Mark Redgrave: Yeah.

[00:35:57] Tom Adams: Yeah, and I've, I have a, I have a $70 million, uh, a year company, um, that I work with, and one of the things that they've just recently, uh, and they've, they've had to, uh, they've done that. They're within the scope of Microsoft, and they had a... And going back to your question, uh, Marc, which is who came in, uh, their existing IT team had a consultant on it, um, who understood this.

Their IT team is, like, fix computers and fix network and do all that kind of stuff, and we can put software in. But they had this consultant on that team who understood data and has gone into their Microsoft system and extrapolated or figured out how to connect all that together in a way that uses, uh, Copilot, that uses some of the automation function, and they're building everything internally in their, um, in their Microsoft system.

So it's, like, that, that's the advantage. Whereas someone like me, I'm pulling from all these various source, and a lot of smaller businesses tend to do that. But if you're in that Microsoft environment, there's a lot of stuff, like you said, in inside the, inside the walls of that, um, well-maintained system, as frustrating as many people find it

[00:37:15] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, yeah. I, I kind of feel that the company that cracks this, like that productizes data augmentation, like is going to be a trillion-dollar company. Yeah. It's like, it's like, uh, uh, 'cause, uh, 'cause if you, if you can, if you have a proposition where you can go into an enterprise business or a mid-cap business and says, "No problem guys, just let me see it all, and we will automatically create a data lake for you," that's it, that's it.

That's it, Right?,

[00:37:49] Mike Richardson: Let me plumb myself to every source of data, and then the rest takes care of itself

[00:37:54] Mark Redgrave: Just connect it all and we'll mag- we'll automatically f- like, like organize it for you. You're like, "Whoa, hold on. That's like-"

[00:38:01] Mike Richardson: Aut-automagically, there's a word

[00:38:03] Tom Adams: Ooh, that's good. That's good.

[00:38:05] Mark Redgrave: No, because I'm, I'm, I'm seeing this though with client conversations 'cause you quickly get to a point where it's like, oh gosh, like to, to really do some of what you're trying to

do, it's like we do have a data problem that's like not easy

to fix,

[00:38:17] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Anyway, back to the World Cup. Did you say earlier, Tom, that you're enjoying watching Norway? Did you say

[00:38:25] Tom Adams: the guys on the street who are

[00:38:27] Mike Richardson: Oh, doing the,

rowing thing. Oh, okay. I was wo- I was wondering if

there's some family legacy background to, to the Norwegians 'cause

[00:38:35] Mark Redgrave: Viking Adams

Adams

[00:38:36] Mike Richardson: Norway's about to play France in less than an hour, and that, that

could be a good game

[00:38:41] Tom Adams: Yeah, no, I

[00:38:42] Mark Redgrave: support, I support England and anyone who plays against France, Mike

[00:38:47] Mike Richardson: Well, and Germany, Mark, and Germany.

[00:38:51] Mark Redgrave: It's tribal. I love it.

[00:38:53] Tom Adams: what, besides World Cup, what's your, uh, what's your, on your plate this next couple of weeks? What's, what's the thing you're gonna do, accomplish, figure out, learn, focus attention on, et

cetera?

[00:39:07] Mike Richardson: sort of, I'm sort of resurfacing, coming back up for air after being, you know, doing a long underwater swim of selling a house and a property and all that kind of stuff. I'm actually excited about shifting into an all next gear, you know, springboarding off of that event that I just did last Tuesday afternoon.

We're already planning the next event in November. We had 100 people in that event last year, and I hope to have 200 people this year.

[00:39:32] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, that was awesome. I remember that one. That

was

[00:39:34] Mike Richardson: that's right. You were there, Mark. That's

right.

[00:39:36] Mark Redgrave: was

a great day, yeah

[00:39:37] Mike Richardson: And mobilizing, just mobilizing that kind of mid-tier and that mid-market, you know, to, to fill a void of an ecosystem of support locally, where peers truly can rub shoulders with peers in that sort of tier two, mid-tier, mid-cap as you call it, you know, small to medium-sized enterprise.

And, you know, obviously I just did what I called an AI incubator. That's what I did on Tuesday afternoon. But obviously I'm now planning that AI will be a bigger portion of that in November this year. So I'm just enjoying sort of getting my-- getting back into gear with all of that and building the membership base here and in San Diego, because I'm just finding I'm having more and more conversations with more and more people that as, as the AI rises up, feeling lonely at the top is only gonna get worse, and we do need a human antidote to this AI isolation that we're gonna start experiencing more and more and more.

So I'm excited to sort of be in the right place at the right time, until, of course, smart people like Tom come around and replace in-person peer groups with AI peer groups, and I'm out of business

[00:40:45] Mark Redgrave: But, but Mike, it was, it was from what you just said, it was like, um, it was lonely, it is lonely at the top when I knew what I was doing. Now with AI, I don't know what it's like, it's like, it's like lonely squared.

[00:40:58] Mike Richardson: What top? Where is the top? I've no idea where the top is anymore.

[00:41:01] Mark Redgrave: But it's like, it's like all these, all these CEOs and leaders, it's like I kind of, I've got a really good handle on my business, I, but I'd love to share and be able to talk to somebody about it. And now they go like, "I don't even think I know, I don't think I even know what to do anymore." So

[00:41:13] Tom Adams: No, I, I'm completely lost.

[00:41:16] Mark Redgrave: it's a thing.

[00:41:17] Mike Richardson: What about you, Mark?

[00:41:19] Mark Redgrave: Uh, I'm, you know what? I'm in the middle of some, uh, I'm, I'm just trying to talk to as many companies as I can just to flesh out some new propositions. I've got like a, a number of sprint kind of, uh, things that I'm pulling together, which is like a short, sharp way of clients getting their arms around everything we're discussing.

So just trying to talk to customers, um, and clients and just r- like battle test what I'm proposing. So that's taking up much of my time, to be honest. Um, and I've got, you know, like, uh, uh, fee- feels like we're on a good path, but, you know, like, like as entrepreneurs, right? Hardest thing of all is to put your stuff in front of clients because, 'cause there's the fear of, it not being right or it not being accepted or it being wrong.

It's like it's so prevalent, but you just gotta do it. but it's ch- it's challenging, right? 'Cause we all sit here at our desk and we think we nailed it, right? And then you, and then you go and talk to somebody and they go, "You f- you didn't think about this."

And you go,

[00:42:18] Tom Adams: Yeah. There's this whole world over here that, that

[00:42:21] Mike Richardson: I, I had a great, I had a great conference call this morning with, with two-- one guy I know very well and another guy he's introduced me to, who's actually, by the time we were finished talking, he's actually giving birth to a whole new category of approach, um, that, that I won't go into right now. And they sent me a two-pager, and they were asking me, you know, would I be open to sending that onwards to, you know, an organization that I'm a part of, which isn't, which isn't Ref, it's somebody else.

And I said, "Well, yes," 'cause I like what I'm hearing. I said, "But you're gonna have to put a simpler one-pager at the front of that two-pager," because even I couldn't figure out... I, I use the analogy, you know, if your, if, if your concept is a jigsaw puzzle, it's full of all kinds of funny shaped pieces, what's the picture on the box?

And I said, "You sent

me a

two-pager that-- you sent me a two-pager that's got all kinds of funny shaped pieces, and I tried, I tried to reverse engineer the picture on the box and I couldn't do it. But now at the end of this hour, I believe the picture on the box is this." And he said, "Yeah, I think you're right."

I said, "Well then put that front, put that one-pager at the front end and we're in business."

[00:43:35] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Yeah. No,

[00:43:36] Tom Adams: But very cool.

[00:43:38] Mark Redgrave: So, and then, and the other thing I'm doing is I'm going to, uh, I'm

going to liquidate all of my SaaS stocks and invest in Tom's company. So that will happen

[00:43:46] Mike Richardson: There it is. We will get, we will get preferential shares, Mark.

[00:43:50] Tom Adams: Yeah, no, you g- you get, uh, you get class A on that one for sure.

[00:43:54] Mark Redgrave: not, I'm not bold enough to, I'm not bold enough to demand that, but, uh, expectations are clear

[00:43:59] Mike Richardson: Right.

All

right you, Tom?

[00:44:01] Tom Adams: Well, I'm just gonna, you know, keep my head down. I've got a couple of big demos this next couple of... Or next week or so, so I've gotta sort of be ready for those. Those are real-life ones, um, where the rubber meets the road and, you know, could get a, either a proof of concept, um, agreement out of those or a, "You don't have any clue what you're talking about," kind of response.

So, you know,

[00:44:24] Mark Redgrave: Love it

[00:44:25] Tom Adams: as Mark said, you don't know what you're gonna run into, and so we're, but we're putting it out in the world in a big way in the next couple weeks, so

excited about that. Yeah.

[00:44:35] Mark Redgrave: I I had a I had a super funny thing happen yesterday, which, uh, just came into my head. So I contacted one of the guys on LinkedIn. He's-- I actually really engage with his content and, like, I'm trying to get a couple of things to market. So I set up a call with this guy, and he, um, and he's got an interesting approach to this thing and, like, about scaling and stuff.

Anyway, we got 10 minutes into the call. He went, "Mark," he said, "You're not ready." And I was like, "Oh." I was kinda really annoyed, you know? 'Cause it, like, it hit, it struck me. And, uh, he's right. But I was like, number one, I thought, "That's such a good sales pitch from him to me," right? "You're not ready," yeah? Like, um, I'm gonna say no.

I never wanted anything more in my life than

when, than when somebody tells me no, right? So, so that, that's right. But then I thought, "He's right." But I was like... I got off the call and I was like, "Oh, I'm really, I'm really disappointed." But then it, that galvanized me. I'm like, "Right," like, "He's right. I've gotta get further, so I'm gonna get further."

But it was like, you- it's that same thing, Tom, right? Like, you, we don't wanna hear it, but man, you gotta hear it.

[00:45:39] Tom Adams: You gotta hear it. You gotta put yourself out in the world, and you gotta get nos, uh, in order to get the other ones. So, well, gentlemen, um, um, good luck, uh, you hooligans in, uh, in the World Cup. And, um, for the rest of us, we'll see what happens, and, uh, we'll catch up in a couple of weeks

[00:45:58] Mark Redgrave: Awesome.