#448 The AI-Driven Consumer: How Businesses Must Adapt with Shahar Boyayan

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased joining me Shahar Boyayan. Shahar, thank you very much for being here with me today. The way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce themselves. So tell us a little more [00:01:00] about your journey, your background, and what you're currently up to, and then we can start the conversation from there.

Mehmet: Just, you know, a teaser for the audience. We're going to talk, of course, about AI, but this time From consumer behavior perspective. So Shahar, the floor is yours.

Shahar: Yes. I'm really glad to be here. You know, in a nutshell, I am originally from Brazil 20 years ago, me and my daughter, we decided to come to the United States.

Shahar: We came to Utah with two bags and a teddy bear, and we started our journey here. It has been a very, very good journey. Uh, in the last eight months, we decided to move to Puerto Rico. We have been here for eight months. And our passion. Was always consumer behavior. I was already a consultant in Brazil and we just kept this going.

Shahar: And as things change, we saw that AI now is causing a major change in behavior and which we all need to be aware, especially the small business owner. And [00:02:00] that's our focus at the moment. How the consumer is relating itself with AI. How is it adopting and the good and the bad side of all this.

Mehmet: That's great.

Mehmet: And thank you again, Shahar, for being here with me today. I'm sure, you know, the audience will benefit a lot from your experience. So let's start, you know, from your research on the intersection of AI and consumer behavior. What was, you know, the main thing that surprised you in the trend, uh, that you spotted that you think businesses are not Paying enough attention for

Shahar: I think it is the size of this change.

Shahar: We haven't seen a change like this in a very long time. We saw Some change in behavior with covid, right? Because we were all forced to be inside the house and things like that. But this type of change where A. I. Is actually becoming an extension of ourselves. It is the first time. And another very interesting point is [00:03:00] that is the first time in history that we go through a change so big where Yeah.

Shahar: Five generations are alive at the same time experiencing the same thing, which is very unusual to happen. Right? With all the changes that we see going towards the consumer, we need to understand that AI is not new, right? We have been talking about AI for a long time, but this is the moment that the consumer is not only becoming aware of the AI, but adopting in their daily lives.

Shahar: We all have a device at home that can shop for us and can put the alarm on. Many of us have smart watches. Many of us have Smart glasses, and we are starting to interact and being monitored by all these devices. And sometimes we're not even aware they are AI, but they are. And with this change, the consumer and again, I'm talking mostly to the entrepreneur and the small business [00:04:00] owner, they cannot this time, like they usually do, cross their arms and think, okay, let's see where this is going.

Shahar: And then I'll see what I have to do because Once behavior changes, it does not come back to what it was before, and if they don't move ahead and start implementing AI in their own business, they will be left behind.

Mehmet: That is very, very interesting, I would say, uh, Shahar. Now, I know also in the report, one thing that stopped me is you talk about eight laws of irresistibility, right?

Mehmet: So I know maybe it would take us long time, but you know, on a high level, what are these eight laws? And if you can pick maybe some of one or maybe two of these laws and you know, how businesses can apply them.

Shahar: The loss of irresistibility are the ways that you can become a very attractive to a market [00:05:00] because it is not an easy thing in today's world.

Shahar: We all get Super overwhelmed with all the information that we get. We all have many, many options out there. We live in a global world where our competitors are everywhere. So if I don't position myself in a way that attracts attention, a lot of attention, I'm not going to succeed. So what I really need is to become irresistible.

Shahar: to a market, but I need to become irresistible on an emotional level. It is not about your mission statement. It's not about the branding, the colors that you use. No, it comes before that. Why do you matter to the market? Why do you matter to the consumer? And there are basic things that you have to do, like create a resistible promise, not a mission statement, not a, uh, your model.

Shahar: Your promise to your market. The main question here is who they become by working with [00:06:00] you. It doesn't matter if you sell coffee or if you are a high level coach, right? You need to understand that by interacting with your business, people will. Change if you do everything right. So the very first question for you is, who do you become by working or who they become by working with you?

Shahar: This is the very first one. And then when you have that, that answered, you can craft a resistible promise. For example, we all know the Harley Davidson motorcycles, right? They are popular, very popular in the States. And if you ever go to the West, you're going to see Saturday and Sunday huge lines of bikers going around the that area of the country.

Shahar: Well, what, uh, this company does is say. We make bikes to machos or macho wannabe that want to go on an adventure. This is a promise that talks on an emotional level [00:07:00] about who the consumer is, what they expect and what they want to achieve. And that's what you have to do as the very first thing to become irresistible to a market.

Shahar: Like you said, meme, uh, it is a, a, a discussion for several minutes, right? Because we have to think, okay, I craft my, my message. Then, then what? Well then you, you'll see that you have to have your unique voice, a way to put out what you believe in, what your business is about, who they become by working with you in a unique way.

Shahar: And a unique way is being yourself, the company being clear what it stands for or against, and you doing like you would do on a day to day basis. Like we are here talking, the two of us right now, and it's just like a conversation. This is how it needs to be today. Not well polished, not super edited things, because people want to know.

Shahar: [00:08:00] Who you are, what you are about, what are your principles? And the, you know, the, the back part of your business, what people usually don't see, that's what you need to put out there with your own style.

Mehmet: So let me ask you this Shahad and this is something that popped out, out of my mind because you mentioned something interesting.

Mehmet: Like you said, it doesn't have to be polished. It doesn't have to be, you know, now we know, especially in, of course, when we talk about consumers, we talk about marketing. And when nowadays, when we talk about marketing, we talk about generative AI. Now generative AI is actually. trained by our data. So is this the reason why sometimes, you know, we can easily spot these marketing messages that are written by I just out of curiosity, because I would love to understand from you also the narrative.

Mehmet: Behind you [00:09:00] saying that we don't need to you know, polish it much. We need to keep it like conversational so What's your take on this? Like is this what we are seeing now? We are seeing a lot of AI generated content in marketing

Shahar: Yeah,

Mehmet: what's your take on this?

Shahar: Well, you know, the fun part about AI is that it gets better as the more you use, the more it gets better because it learns from you.

Shahar: And it comes a point that AI can really mimic who you are, what I call the digital doppelganger. I have some videos on platforms like TikTok that it's me talking, but if you pay really close attention, you're going to see it's not me talking. It's my face, but it's AI. Now for the trained eye, Like you and I, we can spot that for the average person.

Shahar: Many times it goes unnoticed. There is one case of a video that became viral of a toddler playing a guitar, and it's [00:10:00] obviously a toddler, obviously a fake guitar and he's singing. And if you look at the hundreds of thousands of comments. It was something like, What a smart child. What a beautiful voice.

Shahar: What a gifted kid. And you can say it's not possible. It's a toddler, and it is a fake guitar, obviously a fake guitar. But people buy into that. So there is a good side and a bad side about that. The bad side, of course, is that we can use AI For fake news for fake. A lot of things that may go south. The good part is that we as human beings, we need to start exercising our critical thinking.

Shahar: We do need to question everything that we see today, and we need to double check everything that we see today. The critical thinking not only is a way that is safer for us to be using the digital world as a whole, but it also is Will allow us to [00:11:00] know where the boundaries are of everything because there needs to be boundaries and also the exercise that I am the person that makes the final decision.

Shahar: Never the AI. That's very important for us to exercise now. While things are just starting and not when it's too late, because again, I keeps learning and is able to encompass an amount of information that, you know, we cannot even dream off.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Um, so one thing again, like, which is kind of a related thing.

Mehmet: So hard. So Now, we know the power of AI and we know how we can make it and train it to become exactly, as you said, kind of a digital, you call it that name, like some people they call it digital twin, some people they call it my owl avatar, AI powered avatar. Now, If I want to take the other side of the story.

Mehmet: So some people would [00:12:00] say that, you know, utilizing the AI and because of course, AI is built on machine learning and machine learning is, you know, training the machine to understand how we behave. So again, going back to, to, to the AI and you know, some, I would call it maybe fear from some people or maybe even businesses that AI driven personalization.

Mehmet: Could become a little bit invasive, right? So how? Because, you know, like it happens a lot of people, you know, whenever they see an ad or something like Papa. Oh, how did they know that even I was thinking about it? You know, like we hear about this a lot. So how to strike the right balance? I would say between hyper personalization and at the same time, keep the trust That you know, consumers need to have.

Shahar: I think this is up to every single business owner to understand that there need [00:13:00] to be boundaries of what they can get or not. We need to understand that A. I will keep learning and he can. Uh, be too much invasive, like you said, right? So again, that is why we should be exercising, exercising critical thinking all the time and say, this is too much.

Shahar: This I will not allow because, you know, you know very well that we can talk about, I don't know, uh, plastic swimming pools. And when I grab my phone, there will be an ad for that, even though we haven't used the phone right now. So it can get a little bit too much, but it's the problem is. It's still unregulated.

Shahar: Regulations need to come in place, and it is up to us, the voters, to start voicing there gotta be limits to this. AI is very good at many things, not as good in other things. For example, creativity is still, uh, not there. Ethics is also not there. [00:14:00] So we have to put the boundaries. What I see as a problem is that we have had cases where we allowed AI to go too far.

Shahar: with bad outcomes. So it is important always to be voicing out what you think it can be done or it cannot be done. Right now is the beginning. So everything is out there, right? Then you need to start seeing. We had a discussion the other day. Mammoth, my daughter and I, uh, we were talking about the humanoids robots, right?

Shahar: Because they look cool. And there's a company from Europe that is about to, it was supposed to launch here in February, the first humanoid robot for the house. And we were talking, okay, it's cool. We can clean the house. I don't like cleaning the house. Gotta have somebody doing that. Maybe do the cooking if you don't like cooking.

Shahar: Oh, this is very cool. How much do I want the robot to be listening, recording or uploading information inside my house? Where, where is it [00:15:00] going allow, uh, going to be allowed to be? How much is going to be allowed to record? How much is going to, uh, be allowed to upload? And where does is this information going?

Shahar: Because in the hands of the wrong billionaire, it can cause. A lot of damage, right? So we have, we have to be asking questions. It's not a problem. It's not a matter of, am I fearful of this or not? Should I use it or not? We, like we see, I talked to business owners that they say, I don't use AI. I don't want anything to do with AI.

Shahar: And I asked them, do you watch Netflix? Case closed, right? So again, sometimes they are not aware of what they are using. What they need is to exercise everything that I use. What are the limits here? And if the company doesn't, uh, it's not transparent and doesn't say exactly how much data, how much things are going back and forth, we should demand that to happen.

Mehmet: I think just, it's good you gave the example of Netflix Shahar because I tell people, you know, collecting data [00:16:00] about us has been there since the internet where was invented, right? Because, you know, I'm going a little bit technical here. So, but I think everyone knows the concept of cookies in your browser.

Mehmet: And, you know, the basic, I would say, uh, information they collect is your location through your IP address. And. They can also can understand multiple other things, your device type and so on and so forth. So collecting the data is, is, it's something that was with us since the internet was invented. And it's also required.

Mehmet: So just to put it into context, it's required also for our own security, because like, imagine if someone logs to your, logs into your banking account. Uh, from a different place or different device. So this is how they can track that. So now there are regulations like in Europe, they have the GDPR. I know like in the states, like each state they have their own act on on [00:17:00] data privacy.

Mehmet: But the fact, as you said, like it's something that also we can control ourselves, Shahar. And, uh, yeah, it's in our hand. Very interesting. Also, the example you gave about the humanoids, you know, the robots and that they can listen to us. But again, if I think about it, I think Alexa has been with us and, you know, since long time now and we know that it can listen to us like they don't hide it like, uh, even our phones, smartphones, listen to us.

Mehmet: So, um, I would, I would tell to people, you know, say to them, like, be cautious in front.

Shahar: It's almost a lost battle. right? Because like you said, we've been giving our information for a very long time. Every time you click on accept cookies, you are allowing that to happen. So there's only so much we can do here.

Shahar: But again, you can always voice it is. It is the beginning, even though for programmers, this is not the beginning has been going on for years before the consumer. It is [00:18:00] the beginning. So this is the right time to start voicing. This is too much. I don't like this and it's You know, companies listen, right?

Shahar: Because they do depend on the consumer to make money.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, from your perspective, how you're seeing this reshaping? You know, traditional retail and e commerce, for example.

Shahar: There will be a lot of changes, and I actually think they're very exciting. This is the thing we need to think about mindset.

Shahar: Despite you knowing that there are issues with that, you also as a business need to think, How can I use this that will allow me to scale my business? And that's the beauty of AI. Right now, AI can do all the boring things that you do. From answering email in your own voice, answer your phone, uh, be there on the website, really catering to the consumer, not just answering questions.

Shahar: We've all seen some bots that can answer five or six questions. [00:19:00] This is not what the AI is doing today. It's a lot deeper than that. So it can take care of all these things, which allows you to free your time. In to think about scaling the business to grow the business, because a lot of small business owners, they spent the whole day doing stuff that needs to be done, and they never have the time for the brain to buffer and start thinking, Okay, I could do this next.

Shahar: I could do this next. So I can take care of all those things is very good. Why is it important when I think about the consumer? Because we're using this a I constantly, even though many times we are not aware. We are changing as people. So hyper personalization is one of them, but I need to go a little deeper and then I'm going to be specifically to the U.

Shahar: S. Because that's where I gather the data for this. Harvard did a study saying that one in every five Americans is considers themselves Extremely lonely and one in every [00:20:00] three Americans think they only have one good friend, if so, right? So we were isolated during COVID. Then we start working from home.

Shahar: Now we are catering. With A. I. Our home. So he has the right temperature. The lights turn on when I want and things like that. I'm very comfortable being by myself. But this is not a good thing, right? Because I do need that social life. I need social interaction in order to deal with difficult emotions. And we're not doing that.

Shahar: When I go out to consume from a business, I'm expecting that people See me that I'm not invisible to that business that I matter to that business. So the big that's why the hyper personalization needs to come to the business owner now on a way that they can. Oh, you came here, you wait the steak last time and the I will be able to suggest another dish that would go according to what they want.

Shahar: But it's very important to understand that the consumer [00:21:00] is expecting more from you. Now, when we talk about AI, we tend to think, no, nobody likes to talk to an automated voice message. No, they don't. But Harvard also did a study showing that 85, 87 percent of people actually prefer talking to a system that will go straight to the point and solve the problem instead of doing small talk like a real person would.

Shahar: How's your day going? Are you here to celebrate something? They don't like that, right? So they want to go straight to the point. Of course. The AI that you, you are using needs to be to that point that can carry a conversation almost like a human. For the average person, they might not even notice they're not talking to a real person.

Shahar: It can interact, change answers, change approaches according to what's being said. They will feel like you care about them, even though they are talking to a bot at the end, right?

Mehmet: It's, it's really interesting topic [00:22:00] Shahar, because there are two, two aspects in my opinion to this. So the first one being customer centric, of course, right?

Mehmet: So making sure that, as you said, when someone is interacting, let's say with my customer support, or maybe my sales agent, they are not feeling they are talking to a robot. But of course, at the same time, It's good to give this example because, for example, if I'm, if let's say I'm calling my internet provider to ask about something, I don't want them to start telling me about like other stuff because I'm there for a very specific, clear objectives.

Mehmet: This is why I picked up the phone and I called right? So now maybe it's something I'm, I'm futuristic little bit. So. Do you think that the AI can help also understand the psychology of the consumer? So [00:23:00] I don't know how they would be able to figure this out, but maybe from your Voice tone or maybe if they are able to see me from how currently I I am looking sad angry So they can maybe And I know, like, you have some background in psychology as well.

Mehmet: So, do you think this is something possible? Because, in my opinion, if someone can not only suggest to me what I want, like, as the AI does with Netflix and Amazon and all these things, if it can understand my mood Am I in the mood now for having a chat or am I in the mood? No, I want to do the job and then, you know, go back to my home So do you think this is or am I am I too much futuristic here or is it

Shahar: something?

Shahar: No, you see it coming I will tell you this a totally possible and you are going to see this probably in the next two years There are some ais already that are being trained to understand the mood and they are already able to suggest well [00:24:00] today you're feeling under the weather weather why don't you we prepare a chicken soup for you there are some AIs already doing at the moment most of them are not there but it is impressive again it keeps learning from you this is why it's important for you not only choose a Any AI that you want to check, GPT, but start interacting on a daily basis with that and you will see the change.

Shahar: We did our, our, we have a, an agency, an AI agency, and we did a test with the voice AI over the phone to a fake company that was a funeral home. And we wanted to see, okay, this is a very sensitive matter. Of course, the person calling at the time will be stressed. How will the A. I. B. Able to interact with them?

Shahar: Because usually they do have to ask a few questions and things like that. And Mamet, you would be really impressed. The A. I. Is not able to show empathy, but on the conversation, that's exactly [00:25:00] what it looked like. You know, it carried the conversation in a very nice tone. uh, showing respect to the customer all the time and only making suggestions according to what the customer was saying on the phone.

Shahar: The customer at that point was one of us and we are pushing hard to see where the flaws are because there are a lot of flaws. So you see, for a machine that does not have empathy, that has a hard time understanding emotion, it did a very good job at the moment. Let's wait a few more months. Keep using that and you will, you know, it's going to be jaw dropping.

Shahar: It is evolving so fast that I can, whatever I tell you it is right now, it's probably not going to be a month from now. It's going to be different, right? So that's why I think it's fascinating, because even though you might use AI in your business and you may think it's still not there, Well, you keep training it and you will see amazing changes.

Shahar: They, even [00:26:00] StratGPT now can do its own reasoning on a deeper level. So you are seeing the things happening every, if you use it, you see it every single day, how it improves.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And you know, like, um, I can't, it's not like I cannot, but I mean, for the first time in my career, I would say, because, you know, I've been in tech all my life.

Mehmet: And, uh, so it's the first time I'm not, I would not say difficulty, but, you know, like, okay, I wake up in the morning. What's what's the new, right. So for the transparency and the audience knows that, you know, I mentioned the date of the recording. So it's the 25th of Feb. So this week alone. Right. So it's only Tuesday.

Mehmet: It was Tuesday 25th when we recorded this episode. So Grok was released, Grok 3, during the weekend. And then we had Anthropic Cloud 3. 7 released. And I don't know who at Preplexity announced a new browser that [00:27:00] they will, uh, they will have. You know, but at the same time, I'm happy because, you know, what a great time to be alive, right, Shahad?

Mehmet: So, of course, and this is by, you know, I asked you the question because I know it's possible. I know, like, of course, maybe we don't have it today, but who knows, maybe tomorrow, maybe after a couple of months. Yeah, right right now one thing also in the report. I want to go back to the report before like also like discussing a couple of other things you talked about the Ai shopping cart concept.

Mehmet: Um Can you explain that like isn't the ai goes do shopping for me? What is it exactly? Like what's that experience exactly? Yeah,

Shahar: he's already able to Uh, do it if you shop virtually from any of the big stores, uh, the AI is already able to do that for you, right? Uh, you will be able to do a lot more. I'm not sure I understood your question Mehmet So do you do you mind explaining again?

Shahar: What [00:28:00] exactly you want to know because I mean he can make sales and he can go and buy as well on on the virtual So,

Mehmet: so how, how, how this is different from the traditional, um, recommendation engines that we all know, like for example, if I go today to Amazon, I buy something. After a couple of days, they're going to send, Hey, because you bought this, we think so.

Mehmet: So how that is different, the concept of a I shopping cart from what I experienced with Amazon, let's say,

Shahar: I think it's just get more and more personal with time, right? Because it learns from your habits and it learns even from your mood. Uh, there are there already is being tested. They can predict, for example, on a on a streaming platform.

Shahar: If you're not feeling well, It can, it can show you certain types of series that you should be watching. If you're, oh, hyped up, it can show you another series. So all of this is, it, that's why we talk the first law [00:29:00] is the hyper personalization because it's becoming all about us. AI is here to serve us, right?

Shahar: So it is always trying to understand how you, you talk to it. Or, for example, the way I talk to my AIs, I use Claude a lot. I love Claude. Um, I talk on I talk like I talk. And if I get mad, I get mad at them and I call them lazy. And I, you know, sometimes they go into a pattern that you say, Oh, my gosh, come on, get out of that.

Shahar: It's like an addiction. And I know friends that they talk in a total different way with. structure prompts and things like that. And I know I have some friends, they make a point of saying thank you every single time and being very polite because they are afraid that when the AI learns enough, they're going, you didn't treat me right.

Shahar: And I tell them, you know, I'm going to be the first on the line for them to kill because I can be rude with them as well. But, uh, but you, you start seeing that [00:30:00] they respond to your style, they, uh, to your voice. And at the end now with broad project managers in, in cloud and in GPT, it is amazing once you create the structure for what you want and how you, the, you wanted voice.

Shahar: It does it every single time the same way.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Now, uh, you mentioned something at the beginning about, you know, the small businesses and the startups, and especially startups who have to deal with consumers. Right? Um, one thing that comes to mind with. The capabilities that the big guys they have, how much still?

Mehmet: You know, small businesses and startups can be competitive with the big players.

Shahar: Well, I would say, Mehmet, that the big problem with small businesses is actually not related to the technology. They need technology to overcome that, but it's the follow up [00:31:00] process. We all know in business that it costs a lot less money to keep selling to the same people other than keep acquiring people, right?

Shahar: But on the day to day, we Which if money falls through the cracks, because again, we're busy. We don't have enough staff and things like that. We don't do a proper follow up. Well, think about this. You have a business that's supposed A client calls me. Right now, I'm on a podcast. I'm not answering the phone.

Shahar: Let's say my ticket on average is a thousand dollars. I miss one phone call a day. I miss $1,000 a day. How much is that at the end of the year? That's for one phone call. Well, an AI voice agent could be answering that phone call, qualifying that person. Putting into the next step and the next step may be talking to you, the person or not, but it can take care of all that.

Shahar: Send me a text right after and you say you need to call this person right away. We need to understand that we usually lose a customer [00:32:00] when we don't give an answer in five minutes. Now, the funny part is most businesses, they take 72 hours to answer to text, email, phone, voice messages and things like that.

Shahar: So we are losing business all the time. So, can you have a voice AI? Absolutely you can. Can you have, uh, AI answering emails? Yes, you can. A very good AI on your website. Uh, all this, how much is it going to cost you? Like a fancy dinner a month. No more than that. So now I cannot compete with companies like Sephora that have developed their own A.

Shahar: I. S. to cater to the customer, but I can take care of my customers so well that they will become my fans. They will become really engaged and loyal to my company, and that makes any business grow. Right. So I would, I think it's a bad habit for us to compare ourselves with the others. Stories are different.

Shahar: I used to do that myself being the marketing industry. You know, there [00:33:00] there's one marketer everywhere and I always, Oh, but that guy started when I started and look where they are and look where I am. And you know, my daughter remind me all the time. You have a different story than they have, right? We immigrated, we, you know, all the things that you go through.

Shahar: So we cannot compare. And the same thing is with AI. What do I have at my reach that I can use? How can I be resourceful and understand exactly where I lose the customers? Where are the pain points? Where are the 10 questions they always ask me about that I'm tired of answering? And I can have AI for that.

Shahar: Then the generation of that income will, extra income will allow me to go to the next level. So instead of comparing, start thinking, what do I have around me that I could use to fill the gaps and move on?

Mehmet: And this is, I think comes also to choosing the right niche, right? So, and when I say right niche, not [00:34:00] specifically in the category, it's in the persona that you are serving.

Mehmet: So if you pick up, you know, maybe I'm just making up the numbers, hundred customers that they are willing to pay you. 1, 000 versus you thinking, Oh, I gonna conquer the world and I gonna sell like Amazon. I used to do this when I was younger, of course, in a different situations. But what I've seen, you know, to your point, the successful entrepreneurs usually, and not only in e commerce or like in consumer business, even like even in B2B, by the way.

Mehmet: So if you go and focus on like the set of. Customers to your point you serve them very well And you know that they're gonna pay you The high ticket if you serve them the way you promised then right, you will have the success that you want and again, I like, you know, the The anatomy you gave like it's just a a monthly dinner when you pay for these [00:35:00] tools Because you know, it's kind of reinvesting in the business and then you start to do what the big guys can do So i'm i'm i'm very much bullish also on Ai becoming kind of a commodity in a sense that everyone will have the reach to use these tools And if someone wants to see the example, so till today I know that OpenAI, they still price their higher models at 200 per month.

Mehmet: But what I'm seeing and with Grok3 coming out and, you know, some other AI, uh, you know, providers or vendors are doing, I think OpenAI, they would not have any choice other than reducing their prices also as well, and it become available in the hands of everyone. So this is 100%, you know, something which I also believe in.

Mehmet: Now. As we are closing to an end, uh, with you Shahad today, um, if you want [00:36:00] to, um, give a piece of advice to maybe small business owners like founders who are starting their journey and they want to You know, keep their customer experience strategy at the top. So what you would share with us,

Shahar: uh, I will answer that.

Shahar: But let me pick back on what you said about, uh, the ideal client or however you call that, right? I talk to business owners every single day, and I ask that question all the time. And many times I answer the answer is something. Oh, I cater to women 25 to 65. That is impossible. And if you use A. I. In this situation, it's going to fail, right?

Shahar: Why? Well, a person with 25 years old, it is starting maybe a family. Maybe it's starting to get married, has a limited budget by nature, right? Because they're entering the market very different, for example, than a 60 year old, where already has established ish. Life has [00:37:00] raised kids don't have kids going to college anymore, so they usually have more disposable income.

Shahar: If I say I sell to 25 to 65, I cannot carry a conversation that is really personalized. My fears and desires at 25 are very different than my fears. years and desires at 65, right? Totally different. So for you to be successful using this tools, you will need to understand better who you're selling to, who is your ideal client to the core.

Shahar: I do an exercise with my clients where at the end we know their three biggest fears and their three biggest desires. With that, you have enough tools. to educate the AI to do what it needs to be done and keep and acquire new customers. Without that, it's going to be generic as your, your definition of an ideal client.

Shahar: So we need to understand there's work to be done. It's not just implementing something. And yes, it's going to get cheaper and cheaper as we have more [00:38:00] options. But again, you will have to do part of the work. My advice to Business owner is first of all, do not be afraid. You know the saying from that movie, right?

Shahar: With great, uh, with great achievements comes great responsibilities. We have responsibilities around the tools that we are using with our customers. We need to set the boundaries. We need to see what's good and what's not good. We need to be ethical about everything that we do as a business owner so we can survive unstable times.

Shahar: Like for example we are seeing right now in the U. S. So we need to see, question, and pick the parts that we can adopt. Right. And we need to adopt them fast. Again, it's not a matter of waiting the majority to be doing something so I can do that. You will be left behind. There are tools out there that you can use at any point in time.

Shahar: You can start with one. I would suggest, for [00:39:00] example, a voice AI. See the difference that it does when all the phone calls are answered during the day. And then you put another one, and then you put another one. Again, when you compare prices, it's, it's, it's funny because I used to pay for a, uh, autoresponder system, a very good one, but an autoresponder.

Shahar: system without any A. I. It was 100 a month, and it was worth paying for the amount of things we could do to interact with customer. So if I'm telling you, it's 200 300. What is that compare? And how much money is it going to bring to you? That's the question. So let's not say, Oh, it's expensive, not expensive.

Shahar: No. What is it going to do to my best? So don't be afraid. Test the tools you have right now. Like Mame said, you have Claude, you have, you have GPT, you have so many of them. You have Opus. Go try it. Doesn't matter which one, there's a new one every single day. Go try, get comfortable and then start creatively thinking.

Shahar: That's what entrepreneurs do best. [00:40:00] They tend to be very creative and problem solvers. They know the problems they face every day. Start looking how this tool could fix this problem. How that tool could fix that problem and then test it.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And you know, like sometimes even I go and you try some tools which are probably I would not use.

Mehmet: Right. But the thing is, it stays in my mind because I say, okay, I know for a fact if a problem arise or maybe a challenge arise. So I would know, okay, I saw this tool before and I think it can be helpful. And sometimes not only for me, it's also for anyone that, you know, maybe They have a discussion in front of me and they say, Hey, it happened many times, by the way, like someone was struggling the other day, uh, for finding a specific tool.

Mehmet: And I say, Hey, like, why, like you're kind in a rabbit hole, like you can go and just try this tool out. And I believe it will be beneficial for you. He said, how do you know about it? I [00:41:00] said, yeah, I saw it. I tried it. Although I don't need it. But I think it's gonna be useful. I said you need to be curious, right?

Mehmet: Being a being a business owner means also an entrepreneur being curious, like always trying to see, as you said, like how we can find things that might be beneficial not only for us, but also for others. Now, Shahar, where people can get You know, to know more about you and get, uh, you know, maybe also to contact you

Shahar: if they go to prop talkie.com prop, like in property talkie, like walkie-talkie prop talkie.com.

Shahar: Scroll to the bottom of the page. You're going to be able to get the five laws of resist ability and also the report about, uh, driven AI driven behavior. which is very important for you to go through because we give some examples in different industries because every industry needs a different approach and you can read all that.

Shahar: And if you call me, you're going to test the AI voice first, but then we can talk.

Mehmet: Great. [00:42:00] Great. I will make sure that, uh, So for the audience, you don't need to go and look around. So I'm going to make your life easy. I'm going to put the link to the website in the show notes. So if you're listening on your favorite podcasting platform, so you will be able to see that if you're watching us on YouTube, you will be also.

Mehmet: Able to see that in the description and uh, you know, like char really I enjoyed the conversation as It was very very engaging. I learned also a lot like I think it was also beneficial for the audience So really thank you for this and this is how usually I end my episodes. This is for the audience So if you just discovered this podcast by luck, thank you for passing by.

Mehmet: I hope you enjoyed it if you did so, please Subscribe share it with your friends and colleagues and give us a like also as well And if you are one of the people who keeps coming back, thank you for being loyal to the show Thank you for making us. This is the second time. It's the second month of the year.

Mehmet: We are entering [00:43:00] multiple countries as top 200 Entrepreneurship and sometimes business podcast in Apple podcast platform. So thank you very much for, you know, the support. It cannot happen without you. And also thank you for making us the top. I think we are now 15 in the top 40 must listen business podcast in Dubai.

Mehmet: Thank you very much. So this is something really which I am very grateful to the audience because without you, it could not happen. So thank you very much for. All your support. And as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye.

Bye.