Small Biz AI: Simplify, Personalise, and Scale with Shahar Boyayan

Are you overwhelmed by the rapid rise of AI and unsure how it applies to your small business? In this episode of Talk About Digital, Mark A Preston is joined by Shahar Boyayan, a neuromarketer and small business advisor, to explore how AI can help you personalise customer experiences, automate repetitive tasks, and grow your business without breaking the bank.

Learn:

• Why small businesses can’t afford to ignore the AI revolution.
• Practical ways to use AI to save time, boost efficiency, and personalise customer interactions.
• Real-world examples of how AI is transforming industries, from restaurants to service providers.
• The importance of maintaining authenticity and critical thinking in an AI-driven world.

Plus, Shahar shares her TAD Takeaway: an actionable strategy to enhance your customer experience using AI, starting today. Whether you’re new to AI or looking for simple, affordable tools to improve your operations, this episode will help you take the first step towards a smarter, more efficient business.

Connect with Shahar Boyayan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahar/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/shaharb

Connect with the Host - Mark A Preston:

Website: https://www.markapreston.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markprestonseo/
X: https://x.com/MarkPreston1969
Mark's Latest Book: Customer Growth Unlocked

This podcast is produced by Voice It Podcast Agency
https://voiceitpodcastagency.co.uk

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mark A Preston: Welcome to Talk About Digital, the podcast for small and medium sized businesses looking to grow new customers through impactful, low cost digital marketing strategies. Have you invested in digital marketing with zero positive impact? If this sounds like you, then this is the place for you. Each week, we provide actionable steps to move your business forward with our TAD Takeaway, helping you to harness your biggest asset, yourself, to achieve big impact with minimal investment.

[00:00:36] Stay tuned as we dive into the world of digital marketing, offering insights and advice that will transform your business. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to the Talk About Digital podcast. I'm your host, Mark A. Preston, and today we are tackling a game changer for your small business. How AI is transforming consumer decisions.

[00:01:02] Joining us is a neuromarketer, speaker, and small business advisor, who's mastered blending psychology and AI to drive customer growth. From co creating an AI powered platform for small businesses to guiding companies of all sizes. She knows exactly how to help you stay ahead in this fast changing digital world.

[00:01:30] Get ready for real insights and actionable tips you can start using today. Please welcome Shahar Boyan. Hi, so glad to be here with you, Mark. Wonderful. Well, just for the audience listening, could you give us a background of your own personal journey of where you've come from and basically how you became what you are today?

[00:01:55] Shahar Boyayan: So, uh, I am originally from Brazil. And in Brazil, I have always been a business owner. Um, uh, mostly I had an agency, uh, with characters called funny faces for many years. And that led me to start doing consulting in entrepreneurial organizations. 20 years ago, uh, I decided to move to the U S with my daughter, two bags and a teddy bear.

[00:02:19] And we came to Utah, uh, to start a new, a new phase in life. After a while, we came back to, to doing consulting. I always talked about consumer behavior, neuromarketing, anything that is really triggering the consumer into taking action, uh, on a, on a very organic way, right? And so we start, uh, giving talks around the country in several events, and it has been a very, very cool journey.

[00:02:47] Uh, five months ago, I decided to, uh, move to Puerto Rico, and now we are, uh, experiencing the Uh, island kind of life, very different than Utah, where it's very, very, very cold. 

[00:03:00] Mark A Preston: Wonderful. Wonderful. Now, for the small business audience, I mean, how are you personally seeing customers? I mean, for me, the people, they're not pieces of data, the actual people, how are you changing like their behavior online over the past year?

[00:03:23] Shahar Boyayan: You know, uh, Mark, I think for the business owner today. It might be a little overwhelming because we had a big change in behavior when we had the COVID era, right? Uh, that forced us to adapt to new behaviors. And once we, once we adopt the behavior, we don't go back. Right. And I saw at that time, the many business owners, they were just like, well, let's wait and see things are going to go back.

[00:03:49] to what it was, or what they used to call normal. So that alone was something that we all had to adapt very fast if you wanted to be in business. And now we are seeing the beginning of this AI revolution, which is changing the behavior. Many times without us noticing that we are changing our behavior.

[00:04:10] You know, we just start using stuff on our phones, on our watches, and that is becoming part of us. And it's important for the small business owner because we usually we don't like change. Right? In marketing, people don't even use the word change, but change is the only constant that we have right now. It is changing.

[00:04:31] It's not going to go back. And we, if we are not fast to adopt this, then we are going to have an issue business wise. We are going to be left behind. And the, what I think is dangerous for the small business owner is that they see what the big companies are doing. And they are investing a lot of money.

[00:04:50] They are putting AIs that, you know, it's not doable. For me and you, for example, and they, then they think, Oh, I cannot do this. This is too complicated or too expensive, but that's not the fact. Today, really, you can, you can start incorporating AI in your business in a, in a simple way and in a inexpensive way, but you will have to do it.

[00:05:11] If you sit down and keep just watching to see where it's going, you are going to be left behind. Because this change is going not only to happen fast, I think we are going to see a totally different future in the next three years. Uh, it's, it's also, um, going to, to happen in a way that you either take action now or you lose later.

[00:05:33] Mark A Preston: Yeah, I, it's always been the case of, If you don't tweet what you're doing, you'll soon be left behind. And I saw related to what you were saying there about, um, especially through COVID. Everyone thought we'll return back to normal, but nothing was the same. Even this thing like people think, well, okay, I can work from home now.

[00:05:59] Why should I go into the office? Exactly. You know, um, everything like that and the way people interact was changing all the time. Uh, with messages online, uh, but with the AI world that's upon us, do you think that the consumer, the customers are wondering, well, is this actually real? You know, is, is these messages, are these people actually real?

[00:06:28] Because with AI video and everything, there's so many things that can be done. And I'm just personally feel as though, well, Has it lost some of its authenticity? 

[00:06:41] Shahar Boyayan: Yes, I think we are going to have to question a lot of things, uh, that is the first one. What am I seeing today? Is it real or not? Uh, not only that, how much am I going to allow the AI to be part of me?

[00:06:56] Uh, am I going to become an extension of an AI or is the AI becoming an extension of me? Uh, privacy issues. So we have a lot to question. The very important thing, Mark, as consumers and as business owners. We need to not stop exercising our critical thinking because it's very easy to become very lazy and start letting AI do things for you.

[00:07:23] Up to there, okay. But when you allow AI to make decisions for you, you are taking your accountability out of the picture, putting out there and whatever happens, happens, right? So in most cases, It's just a matter of how much are you going to allow, um, an AI to make a decision for you. But you have other situations that we all need to be discussing.

[00:07:49] I was talking to my daughter the other day. You have, uh, self driving cars. So you have AI self driving cars. And an accident is going to happen. It's inevitable, right? It's going to happen. The AI will decide. It protects you or the pedestrian crossing the street. The problem with that is the AI has no moral compass.

[00:08:15] It has no ethics, not at this point. So how are we going to deal with this type of situations? Who should it protect? You see, so there, there are many, we can have a very big, deep conversations because Uh, all this will need to be discussed, right? How much are we going to allow AI to make decisions for us is very important.

[00:08:38] Because if we stop exercising critical thinking, it can be an issue. And I can see it's already happening. The other day I posted a video on social media. With, uh, a little boy, uh, is a toddler, maybe, maybe maybe 1-year-old, a AI toddler playing a, a guitar, a fake guitar, a toy guitar, and you wouldn't believe the amount of people commenting how bright that kid was.

[00:09:04] How, uh, blessed, uh, the parents to have a kid like that. It was obviously ai, uh, not on my account, but in other accounts, David got over 4 million comments and the majority. Was accepting it as real. Now, if you look, a toy guitar cannot do that. A baby cannot sing like that baby. So, you know, we are already not exercising that critical thinking.

[00:09:30] We need to be aware, we need to do that. 

[00:09:33] Mark A Preston: Yeah, I have seen lots and lots of things, you know, lots of things being tested with AI and everything. But from my own perspective, when I'm educating and training, talking to small business owners, it's more about how can AI take care of the manual tasks that you've been doing.

[00:09:58] Exactly. So it allows you. To grow your business. For me, it's not about how can AI run my business for me? It, I mean, that, that's just crazy. Letting the machine take over. Like you said, the decision making is absolutely crazy, but there's lots and lots of manual tasks. Yeah, exactly. People within their teams are doing that AI could easily do.

[00:10:27] And that's where I see AI help, really helping small businesses to grow. Again, there's a difference between AI and automation as well. Is that something that you, you are seeing like confused into one? 

[00:10:47] Shahar Boyayan: I think, I think that's where it really excites me because it can do so much. For you to have an idea, Mark, the other day I went to a networking meeting here in Puerto Rico, but with American business owners.

[00:10:58] And, you know, everybody moves here thinking, this is paradise. I'm going to go to the beach every single day, have a margarita. And the reality is that usually the business owner works like 60 hours a day. A week in their businesses and don't go to the beach. Well, think about this. Let's say you are a massage therapist.

[00:11:17] Okay, so you need to book appointments. You can have four pennies on the dollar. You can have a voice AI answer the phones for you, answer the questions. Book the appointment, take care of the customer. It's, uh, we were testing actually yesterday this, and it looks like you're talking to a person. But the good part here is that we already know that 60 percent of consumers, they do not like to call and talk to a person because there is all the small talk.

[00:11:50] There is, uh, wasted time. And especially as we get younger, it's You know, the, the, the Gen Zers and then Gen Xers, they really don't, don't like small talk. So they want to go to the point, the AI will go to the point being very gentle, right? With the person, but it's going to schedule or even in some cases make the sale for you, right?

[00:12:12] So that alone It's amazing the amount of time you can save as a business owner. Plus, not only that, let's, let's suppose you're a restaurant, right? And Christmas is coming, I want to book a party for, for the office and take all the mates. Well, I'm busy, let's say I'm the secretary, I'm going to call, you're not open, you don't answer the phone, and then I'll keep calling until I find somebody that answers the phone.

[00:12:38] So you lost the business. Well, if you had the voice AI. It doesn't matter if it's 3 a. m., it would answer the phone and book the party for you. So you, you could scale your business quite fast just with one Android, just with one. But there, they had, you have, you have possibilities in every single area of your business to insert that.

[00:13:01] Mark A Preston: Yeah, I think it's a case of rather than a small business owner thinking, how can I implement AI? Turning it on its head and thinking, well, what manual tasks am I doing over and over again? I mean, what am I paying the team to do over and over again? The repetitive tasks. And then it's a question of talking to somebody like yourself who understands AI more and say, well, okay.

[00:13:33] My team spends 20 hours a month doing this task. Now that's 20 hours a month that we're not helping the business to grow. So can AI actually help me to do that task? And I think that's the confusing bit for small businesses, understanding, well, what can AI actually do without going too far? Because there's an element of training something to actually progress forward.

[00:14:08] And I think from the conversations I've had with small businesses, That's the confusing bit. Are you seeing the same thing? 

[00:14:17] Shahar Boyayan: Yes, like I told you at the beginning, most business owners are overcomplicating what AI is and the kind of investment they would have to do. But for anything in your company, you can increase productivity.

[00:14:31] Some are with simple tools. For example, I have a graphic designer that works full time for me. But yesterday we needed to put a promotion and it needed to go now. Right. I didn't have the time to go talk to the guy and, and wait. Well, I went to Canva and I used their AI. I just posted whatever idea I had.

[00:14:52] And I had like six images in less than two minutes. So I was able to launch that campaign at the moment that I wanted and not when everything was ready. This is a simple thing, but if I, as a business owner, I would actually get pen and paper. It's still very good to use pen and paper when you want to think.

[00:15:11] Um, Write down the biggest things that you're not happy with your business, right? From, from the top down. So for example, uh, let's say you're not, not such a small business, but you already had a, have a team that sells over the phone, like a telemarketing team or sales team, you're a coach, for example, you sell products online and you have a team to answer.

[00:15:34] Statistically, the person, uh, calling people to, to try to close a sale, goes for each lead three times. After three times, they forget about it. So, 48 hours is usually what that takes. Well, I can have a droid picking up that lead that didn't convert. And start sending very personalized messages through the phone, for example, through text.

[00:15:59] In each country, I know you have different rules for that. Here in the U. S., I can do that. I'm not aware how it is in the U. K., but I know you have more restrictions. But I can do that by text, by email. I can even have the A. I. calling. So it's one way to get people that didn't do business with you. And you can have that happen 30 days.

[00:16:19] Let's say you sell. Coffee makers, for example. The person needs to go home and try the coffee maker to see if they like or not. You can wait 10 days and have the AI pushing them to do a Google review for you. Right. So you are not going to be able to do this manually, because if you have several clients, they will fall through the cracks.

[00:16:40] You're not going to have time to do that. So I would go from the top pain points to the small ones. And the small ones, you have Free tools like Canva, it's not totally free, but most of them have, uh, free trials and you, you can say, okay, I need videos or I do podcasts like you, you do podcasts all the time.

[00:17:01] So you have long videos, 40 minutes, an hour, things like that. Well, I use an AI called Opus, for example, that will cut those into tiny clips, but it does in a way that makes sense. A year ago, that was not true. Now they make sense. They are contained in that small video. Imagine how much time it saves me editing things, right?

[00:17:24] So you have from top pain to small pains, there is a solution already. And, you know, Again, the investment on these things are maybe 20 a month, 30 a month. It's no big deal. 

[00:17:37] Mark A Preston: Yeah. I mean, as soon as you said Opus there, actually over the past week, I've, I've been seeing targeted ads for it. I mean, yes, I've used similar things in Veed.

[00:17:51] Myself, you know, but so it's just time saving otherwise I'd have to physically pay somebody to do that job or do it myself. Which is all time and when my time's better invested somewhere else, you know, and this is where small business owners need to start thinking rather than, you know, doing all these things that need to be done.

[00:18:19] Well, okay, this might be, I'm not saying there will be all the time, a solution for it that you're not aware of. 

[00:18:28] Shahar Boyayan: Yes, I agree with you. And I see that a lot in, you know, so many years in consulting, I have a very good friend today that is still is a client for many years. And he has a restaurant, right? And one day we had all these things about creating a training for the employees.

[00:18:45] So we can create consistency in the customer service. And he was busy unclogging the toilet, right? And I told, I told him, JR, You have to understand that your time has a high value, because you're the only person inside the company that can strategize. Right? So you either pay somebody to do this, you know, figure another way, but it's not you.

[00:19:10] But, you know, the small business owner, we, we are all like that, right? We are going to do this. We are going to edit the videos ourself. We are going to do, well, if you put a team, it can cost you quite a bit, right? Because if you think we all need visibility, we all need to be creating content and all these things, uh, it can cost.

[00:19:28] But again, with AI, you can balance that. Because the fact is that one AI, whatever is the AI that you're going to choose to use in your company, can usually do the work of three or four people. And they don't complain, they don't take breaks, right? Uh, and they don't use the time to watch Netflix while you're thinking they are working.

[00:19:49] So, uh, you know, we, I understand the other part of the problem, but as a business owner, I'm interested in productivity and profit. You have a balance there. Comes in that point that said, okay, I can save you time. I can save you money and headaches in the process. 

[00:20:06] Mark A Preston: Yeah, definitely. I just wish sometimes that AI were around when I built my own agency.

[00:20:14] Me too. It'd be mind blowing. But, you know, like I say, things change all the time. You've shared so much value so far, but I can't let you go without asking you to share a TAD Takeaway. Something that's actionable. One piece of advice the small business owners listening can implement into their business now to help them grow their customer base.

[00:20:40] Now, my question to you is, what is your TAD Takeaway for the audience? 

[00:20:46] Shahar Boyayan: You know, I think it's to really pay attention on what you hear from your customers now. Because every time they talk, behind what they are saying, there is a wish, there is a desire of how things should go. And that's when you say, okay, in my case, I should.

[00:21:05] Be paying attention here, because there are many things that we can do to attract the customer. One thing that we are going to see increase a lot as behavior is the need for hyper personalization. So the more personalized you go, it doesn't matter if you sell coffee, if you sell clothes, if you are a coach, it doesn't matter what you do, it's going to be true to everybody.

[00:21:27] Start thinking, how can I create a more personalized experience for each one? If you sell things online, sometimes it can be as simple as sending a thank you note written by hand, right? But you can use AI to write by hand and ship to them without you having to worry about that. But you start thinking about, how can I personalize more the experience the customer has when he's in front of me?

[00:21:52] And then you worry about which AI you can use for that, because there are many options. 

[00:21:58] Mark A Preston: What an amazing TAD takeaway. Well, My final question to you is what conversations would you like to have with the small business audience listening and where can they find you? 

[00:22:12] Shahar Boyayan: Yes, so I would like to talk to them more about the behavior people are going to have with AI.

[00:22:19] So I wrote a report about the, the, uh, eight new trends that we have in consumer behavior related to AI, right? You're going to see that hyper personalization is not one of them, but is inserted in one of them because we need to look at the big picture so we can adapt to our needs, right? And I have a report that you can get for free.

[00:22:42] If you go to prop Taki, P-R-O-P-T-A-L-K-I e.com/. AI trends, prop talkie.com/ai-trends, and you can get that for free. And then you will see the major changes that we are going to see. And then you start thinking, how can I adapt that? Because, you know, for service providers is very different than for product designers, for example.

[00:23:13] Mark A Preston: Wonderful. I mean, I'm not sure about the audience, but you've got my head. Thinking about all the different things. That's what I want from this podcast. I want people to think. Yes. You're not going to radically change everything in your business overnight, but if you start thinking about those things slowly away, one step at a time.

[00:23:35] We can all push forward. Well, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. And I know the audience have received massive value from that. 

[00:23:47] Shahar Boyayan: Thank you very much. 

[00:23:48] Mark A Preston: Thank you for tuning in to the Talk About Digital podcast. Remember, every small step you take brings you closer to your business goals. If you found today's episode helpful, subscribe to our podcast and sign up to your free 12 week TAD customer growth course.

[00:24:05] I. At www.talkaboutdigital.co uk to receive even more customer generating tips and in size. Until next time, keep harnessing your strengths and making actionable, impactful moves in your digital marketing journey. See you soon.