Trust-Driven Marketing, AI, and Building a Business That Fits Your Life with Wes Towers

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to another work at Home Rockstar that’s been working from home for more than 20 years. That is super cool. He’s got me beat. Uh, so he is the founder of Uplift 360, and what he does is he helps you turn your online presence into a growth engine using AI powered trust driven marketing systems.

Super excited to be rocking out today with Wes Towers. Hey, Wes, you ready to rock?

Wes Towers: Absolutely, Tim, that’s good to be with you.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Wes Towers: Sure. Well, I suppose success has changed. What I’ve, uh, thought success was, has changed over the years as I, I guess I’ve matured, but. The, the biggest success story, uh, right now, this year, uh, is, uh, bringing my son on board as part of the team. So, um,

as you, as your children grow up, you, you feel as though you might lose them and not see them ever again.

You know, being, being 20 and with a girlfriend and everything, and, uh, living with his [00:01:00] girlfriend and so on. Uh, there’s always the, the, the risk that you won’t see them again and that you’ll lose, you’ll lose them. But, um, to have him on board one day a week, um, and he’s helping with wealth, with, uh, social media and, and so on, and, um, create, creating some graphics and, and, and, and that type of thing.

He’s really creative, so to have him under my wing as well to help mentor him a little bit as well because he is got our visions of having his own business, uh, in the, in the future as well.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that is so awesome. Family business. I love it. That’s so cool. Yeah, I, I, I hope at some point my son ends up working with me as well. He’s off, off to university now. Take. In a me mechanical engineering degree, but, uh, but, uh, so it’s unlikely, but you never know. Right?

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wes Towers: Yeah, so they, and yeah, my other kids are not in similar paths to what I did as a career, but certainly I hope to be able to support them in, in their journeys. They’re a little, little younger, so, yeah.

Tim Melanson: My other kids [00:02:00] are, are, uh, one, one of them’s a server. I doubt she’ll ever work for me, but I have a feeling that she’ll be an entrepreneur at some point. She’ll start her own business and I’m, I’m actually hoping all three of them do.

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wes Towers: Well, I think that, I think ’cause you are modeling to them what life might look like and so many people are just not aware of what an entrepreneurial business could look like in a home-based business. And a, a business built around your lifestyle effectively is what you ideally want to want to create.

It can take some time to get there because it’s just so, it’s, it can be difficult, particularly at the start, but once you build something around your life, it’s, it’s powerful and, and a wonderful life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I totally, I totally agree. It’s, and it’s, uh. It, it’s, uh, it’s not normal. Like, I mean, it’s starting to get a lot more normal now, but, uh, but I mean, I, I, I think that they would kind of look around at their other friends and go like, oh my goodness, like this is weird. You know? ’cause I, I know like my wife and I [00:03:00] actually work together in our business and we’re both working from home and we both got this massive flexibility.

But on the other hand. It also kind of seems like we’re working all the time too, in a way. So it’s like this weird kind of like, are you free? Are you not free? Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Yeah, I’ve heard it said that works. Being self-employed, you’re free to work any 80 hours a week you want to, so.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Now, on the other hand, I mean the flexibility. I mean, that was the reason why, I don’t know what your reason was, but that was my reason for, for doing this. I wanted to have that flexibility of being able to work later or, uh, you know, be able to go to those parent-teacher things during the day.

Like there was a lot of. Things that I was able to do that would’ve been a lot more challenging had I had to ask someone’s permission to do those things, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, a hundred percent that, that was the beauty of and for me too. So I was able to do just same. Many more dad things, um, as the kids were growing up and you know, kids, [00:04:00] you know, have the activities, the sports, and even just school drop off and pick up and all that kind of stuff. You can do, you can fit that into your day so

much more easily than having to ask a boss, Hey, I need to run out for, for an hour to do whatever it is.

Um, so it was, it was magnificent. Um, over the, over the years.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Now, on the other hand, I mean, there’s some things that don’t go super well, you know, on the path as well. I’m not sure if yours was, but I know mine, I, I, I didn’t make all the right decisions. And I’m wondering, uh, I like to normalize that a bit because as people are potentially thinking about starting a, a business or doing something like this.

Uh, a lot of people are a little bit worried about, oh, well what if I, what if I fail? Or what if I make a mistake or what’s gonna happen? And I like to make sure that people understand that, Hey, you know what, that’s part of the process and, you know, you can get, get through it. And so I’m wondering, can you share, you know, a big one that we can, we can learn

Wes Towers: Oh man, I’ve got, I’ve got so many stories that fit into that, uh, line of thinking and it feels as [00:05:00] though I’ve just stumbled and bumbled my way forward. Uh, through, through the business journey. I started completely naively so I had a skillset and similar to yours. Um, I was a graphic designer, web designer.

Um, always had a vision of starting my own business. And I suppose like most of us, we see what our, uh, employers charge us out at. And, uh, you see, oh wow, that’s a pretty enticing, they’re only paying me a, a small fraction of what that is. And so it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, uh, seducing, uh, I suppose just to see what the income might be.

But, so to start out in business. I had the skillset to, to do the work, but I’d never been. I’d been to a couple of client meetings but said nothing. Um, just attended with the salespeople, uh, didn’t know how to do, you know, the bookkeeping and the proposals and any of that stuff,

and all the, all the legal stuff you gotta get, uh, sorted out to, and the tax and.

Just so much. I had no idea, no concept. Um, I was pretty shy to, to show up at, [00:06:00] you know, I remember sweating, sweating so much, just going to the first couple of potential client meetings

and, and so on. And, but bumbled and stumbled my way through and, um, you know, just learned the hard way. That’s just the, that’s just the start.

It just feels as though. There’s always a lesson to be learned. Um, there’s always a challenge. There’s always an obstacle, but that’s human, human growth. Um, I enjoy it. I enjoy the, uh, the challenges that it presents.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean, you learn really quickly why there’s a discrepancy from what they pay you and what they get paid for your per hour. They bill when they bill you out. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, a hundred percent. It’s, uh, you know, as a young guy, you could, you could, you know, I was pretty low income as a, as a, uh, as a junior. Um, and you see they’re charging a phenomenal fee for the hours you put in. But you, you, you not quite aware that how much it takes just to run the business side of things. Not [00:07:00] doing the, the, the billable work, but just the other stuff. It’s, it’s amazing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well that, and that’s just it, right? I mean, you, you, uh, like, I I keep saying that you, when you start your business, you, you usually, like, you say, you had this skill. And oftentimes it is very similar to what you just said. I, I, I think it’s like you, you re, you recognize or you see how much they’re billing you out at, and you’re like, come on, they’re taking so much money from me, you know, and, uh, whatever it is.

And then you start your business and you realize that you’re doing like. 80% of what you do has nothing to do with that billable thing that you’re doing. It’s all this other stuff. So it’s like, oh, okay, now I get it. Why? Why I have to charge out so high? Right? And, and I mean, and then like. Even, uh, I found another, another interesting challenge to get around was even when you’re sort of like telling your clients what you charge out at, you know, sometimes it gets a little bit awkward ’cause [00:08:00] you know, you, you see the look on their face going like, really?

You charge that per hour? Like, that seems like a rip off. Right? And, and it’s like. It’s, it’s awkward, right? Like, ’cause you feel like, oh, well maybe I’ll give them a little bit of a break. But that, you know, that other time has to be spent. Some like, you do have to do those things, right? Or you have to hire somebody to do it.

Wes Towers: Yeah. And that’s, that’s why it can be incredibly difficult if your target market, I, I, I, it’s great to work with solo. Uh, it, it’s great to be a solo business or work from home and to have a small team and run a small, uh, small business, but it can be difficult to work with solo. Um, businesses, solo operator businesses as a, as a client, just because of those sort of mindset things they’re not kind of used to spending, spending money to, to get things done, or they can’t because they’re really starting out lean and mean.

We all start like that. So, um, I can, I can appreciate and understand where they’re coming from when they haven’t got a budget to do something properly, but you’ve just gotta start [00:09:00] where you’re at and, and grow.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Uh, I, that’s an interesting topic too, because I mean, when you’re speaking to like, uh, when you’re running your business and your, your clients are solopreneurs, like you say, or, or people that are just starting their business, they’ve got a job, they’re working on the side, they don’t really understand that.

The same way that you didn’t when you first got started, right? However, when you start to work with bigger size businesses, it seems like they don’t even blink an eye at, at some of the prices, but it’s because they, they get it right. They, they understand why the, why the hourly rate is so high. It’s not because.

The, you know, that that particular, like they, they could get a junior for sure. They could hire a junior to do that and hire them on as an employee, but now they have to pay their taxes. There’s a whole bunch of other things that come into play that a big business will understand, but the small businesses don’t necessarily understand that.

Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah. And the bigger guys, they just want a, a, a specialist who does the work really well and they, they want to be hands off and, and know that it’s just done. You know, they don’t wanna have to handhold a, a junior in the office. [00:10:00] Um, and I think that’s kind of the way work is going to have. Specialized freelancers in niched fields, I think is the way of the future, especially the, with the technology these days.

I mean, things have transformed

phenomenally over the years, but over the last few years it’s been crazy, uh, crazy exciting and and terrifying sometimes. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I remember, uh, when I was still working in the cubicle over 20 years ago, uh, the company that I was working for was a high tech company. It was during the, the, the burst of the bubble. And, uh, that company was already. Sort of transitioning out of hiring employees and trying to hire contractors instead.

And I remember that sort of trend that was happening and nowadays as being, it’s, it’s, it’s even easier to hire, to hire, uh, like a contractor instead of employee. Like, and I’m wondering, like for you, you know, either in your business or in some of your client’s businesses, do you see a benefit to hiring an employee versus a, a contractor?

[00:11:00] What, what do you do?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so I have, um, a team in India and Philippines, so they’re obviously remote to me.

And so, and it’s ’cause I’m a home-based business. I can’t have people here all the time. I mean, my son comes in to work here and that’s. That’s just so I can spend time with him. He could do it at home,

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Wes Towers: but I, I, uh, trick him into coming to the office and we have lunch once a week and all that kind of fun stuff.

So, um, yeah, but the, uh, everything’s digitalized. And, and I suppose that was the for, for what? For what I do. I mean, we’re making websites. We are doing SEO search engine optimization.

We call it Search Everywhere optimization. But that’s another story. Everything we do is behind a computer, so it makes practical sense that that people can work from anywhere really.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, uh, and so I, I mean, how do you, how do you run that? Like, I mean, there’s no water cooler anymore. Like, do, do you have regular meetings? Are they over zoom? Uh, how, how do, how do you keep everybody, you know, in line? I guess I.[00:12:00]

Wes Towers: Yeah, well, absolutely. It’s, it’s worthwhile in my view to have a, a weekly face-to-face zoom meeting that’s just booked in. Um. Even if you’ve got not much to talk about, it’s just business as usual because everything we, we, um, run all our projects in Clickup. There’s lots of different project management systems and so on, but find a little system that works for your entity and, and that everyone can collaborate on.

’cause it’s all about collaboration. Um, but I think it’s really worthwhile just to have that once a week call, even if. It’s just to see the person and, and just to remember they’re a real human, that it’s just not a, um, digitalization of everything. So, um, I mean, those meetings are very rarely anything much that we need to talk about at all because everything’s in, in the platforms that we’re using, so day to day.

So, um, but it, it is good to stay connected because people have issues as well. You know, you, you wanna know if someone’s got a ma massive. [00:13:00] Um, life circumstance that really might be affecting everything. You know, you, they should become your friends. You, you want people, you know, you wanna build that relationship.

So the downside of being remote to everybody is the relationships can be lost. So you’ve just gotta work a little harder, um, to maintain that.

Tim Melanson: You know, there was a guest a few episodes back that was talking about that, uh, that, you know, comment that people say, you know, you shouldn’t go into business with your friends and how maybe that might not be necessarily. Right. Or, or there. There, there could be a way around that. I’m wondering, ’cause you, you just mentioned you want them to be your friends.

Isn’t that sort of a contradiction, I guess?

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s an interesting, I I did hire a friend in the early days and that went horribly wrong. So,

um, I.

I, hired a graphic designer and yeah, so that. That. Yeah. So, um, a long story. [00:14:00] Um, but when I had my fir we had our first child and I was taking some time off and she was the only worker with me. Um, and at that time she chose to leave and take a suite of clients with her

Tim Melanson: Oh dear.

Wes Towers: was trying to have a couple of weeks off. So that was, uh, a lesson, another lesson learned the hard way and, and lose a friend over it as well, so that there’s. Yeah.

Think li life is, life is complicated and messy at times.

Um, but you just do the best to get through.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean in, in that particular instance, was that really a friend? I mean,

Wes Towers: Yeah, I know, I know.

Tim Melanson: really treat each other that way? Right. I, I, I think.

Wes Towers: true, true.

Tim Melanson: think because I’d been thinking about that since that episode and, uh, ’cause some of the comments that, that, that the, the guest made, and I can’t remember, I can’t remember which one it was.

Uh, but it was sort of like, you know, around the lines of like, you, if, if you, you subscribe to the adage of like, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, like your, your [00:15:00] friends should be. High integrity, you know, high functioning sort of people. And I, I, I do get that.

However, on the other hand, I don’t know if that’s where everybody starts, especially long-term friends. I mean, you, your friends tend to be the people that are around you, like, and, and chosen by somebody else. And you know, it’s just a matter of like, you’ve spent a lot of time with them, not necessarily that they align completely with your values.

And I think that’s probably a different scenario. Than maybe the later in life friends that you choose, uh, because they have the same values, you know?

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah. So if I think about my, I’m really fortunate to have a close friendship group, you know, well, there’s, I’ve got lots of friends. On the, like most of us do, but the at close core set of friends who are all, we’re all kind of similar

in that we run businesses and, um, we have the same [00:16:00] challenges.

So it’s kind of, it’s, it’s a, it’s a different. Path, the, the way we work and, you know, running businesses and small businesses and working from home and all that sort of stuff. And it presents different challenges and, uh, we’ve, we’ve all got our little quirks. Um, and it’s good to have a, a friendship group that can support you, um, through those, those journeys.

And even I feel as though my friends are smarter than me in, in, in their fields. Uh, you know, they’re running. Great businesses, so it’s always good to have them as almost like mentors as well as friends.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, totally. Oh, totally. Absolutely. And I, you know, I have definitely done a lot of business with my friends over the years. Uh, and, and you know, I, I think maybe the, I, I think probably the. The one thing that I would say that does happen is that I think sometimes your friends or you might take advantage of your friends or of the relationship, and you might actually make choices that are [00:17:00] low integrity because you’re thinking, well, my friend knows that I’m going through this right now and I need it type thing, which.

In my opinion, it’s still not a good excuse, but, but I, I could see how that might end up being something that would come, would come by. They’d, they’d be like, ah, they’ll bounce back type

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But, uh, I, I think, I think that that, you know, kind of swings back to what you just said a few minutes ago, that if you are, you know, catching up with them quite often and you know what’s going on in their lives, well, then maybe you might be able to have that conversation instead of being blindsided by something that happens because they didn’t really tell you and you didn’t, you weren’t aware of what was going on in their personal life, right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, absolutely. And particularly with remote teams that I have, so I have people in the Philippines and India, Philippines. Um, they, they, they have the typhoon season and so it seems like nearly every year someone will be impacted to some [00:18:00] degree with that, you know, whether it be their extended family or whatnot.

But there’ll be, there’ll. Challenges that I, I’m just sort of aware that whe when that season comes and what that might mean for various team members and just, uh, to be aware of that. And that’s partially why I’ve got two te, like two locations of teams so that, um, because there can be some downtime obviously in those, in those seasons, uh, in the Philippines as well.

So some team members won’t, won’t be available.

Um. But the, the Indian, um, people will be able to take o over some of that workload as well. So building, building around, um, those sorts of challenges to, to make sure that, uh, things are stable, um, that you can continue to deliver what you need to do.

Tim Melanson: That’s smart. So let’s talk a little bit about, uh, getting fans. Hey, you’ve been doing this for 20 plus years. The world has changed drastically. Like,

Wes Towers: Yeah, man.

Tim Melanson: wondering actually if you can tell me [00:19:00] how have things. How are things different? Like how did you go out there and get your first few, uh, fans we’ll say, uh, in the very beginning versus what do you do now?

Wes Towers: Well, yes. As I said, starting the business, I was completely naive and I started way earlier than I thought I would, simply because an opportunity came up. There was another guy who, who I knew, I didn’t know him very well, but I knew him enough that he was running a, he was trying to run a a, a business similar, similar service.

To what I now do.

He said, he, he, he was just saying, I’ve had enough. I’m not making enough income. I’m throwing, throwing this in. I’m going to go get a real job. So just go work for somebody again. And I said, well, what are you gonna do with a few clients? You’ve still got left? And he said, we can have them. I thought, okay, well I will have them. And uh, so he handed them over to me. There wasn’t much. There was a little bit. And so it was a, a way to start with something. And so I didn’t start full-time in my own business. I just did his few clients in the [00:20:00] evenings, um, for a little while until I could drop my day job back, um, to a couple of days a week, and then eventually drop it completely and then go full-time and then. Get team, get team to support me as well. So, um, that’s the, that’s the, uh, transition, um, of how, how it all kind of transpired. So it’s probably different to some people. I had a little opportunity, but I think that’s true in a, in a, a way. For every business you’ll see an opportunity. But there’ll be reluctance to start because you’ll never feel quite ready.

Um, but I, I, I feel as though the things that we fear the most are the things we need to do the most. So whilst it might be fear, there might be some level of fear to step out and start your own business. I think figuring out ways where you can dip your toes into the water and just get started with some basic practical step first steps. I think that really worked for me, and I think that’s, uh, true of every, every business. [00:21:00] If you can start, start as small as you can, as, uh, as quickly as you can and build some form of momentum, um, to take you forward to the next level, I think that’s the way to do it. So, growing the business in the early days, I mean, a, to answer your question more clearly, like. So that was kind of the starting point, just taking on whatever I could get. Um, but as you grow, I sort of niched into the business, um, with, without the clients we wanted to target a bit better. So trades and construction businesses were, um, clearly our best clients for the most part. So there was other clients outside of that field, but started to niche in because I realized they were the ones that were the happiest, getting the best outcomes for.

So you kind of learn as you go and you evolve. I, I think that’s the way of, of doing it. Um, but yeah, business has changed. People expectations have changed as well. Obviously COVID disrupted everything, but the

beauty of it in the end was. People know about [00:22:00] Zoom, you know,

I mean, man, the amount of hours I used to spend driving around, all over the place, um, for a client meeting.

And so you, you factor that into your day. You, you just lose a whole heap of your day. Um, but now you just jump on a call and you’re in and out and you, um, can deal with things really quickly and it, uh, that’s the expectation. Everyone knows how to do that now, so it’s pretty cool.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree with that. The, the, I remember when I started my podcast, I started this podcast in, uh, what was it, 2015, so about 10. Years ago. And, uh, and, uh, the reason why I started in the first place actually, was because I wanted to, uh, have a, a, a basically teach people the things that I didn’t know when I first got started.

I wanted to be the resource that I would’ve been looking for. Right. And a lot of it kind of like stemmed around that 80% thing of like, man, there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know. Right. And, uh. But I just remember, uh, the, the, to me it seemed [00:23:00] logical that people would work from home. And I thought that it would grow over time.

I was like, you know what I mean? Give it a few years. I bet you, I bet you most people will be working from home if they can. And I did not expect something like lockdowns to start happening, and then all of a sudden people are forced to do it right. Uh. So it happened a lot more sudden than I had expected.

I thought it’d be a lot more gradual. But, but I mean, like you say, the, the, the silver lining of that is that. It has now afforded a lot of people that didn’t have that opportunity to, to do this. Right. And even in, in companies, I, I know that it, it just baffled me that so many companies were just anti working from home.

Like, they would not let their workforce work from home. It was just this, this, this, this very, very bizarre, uh, idea that they weren’t gonna be productive at all. And. I do kind of see that there are personalities that [00:24:00] some personalities work better in an office and some personalities work better at home.

I know for me, I work better at home. I don’t know about you, but I mean, you put me in any company, I will be far more productive at home than I will be sitting at in the office and getting interrupted by everybody every few minutes, right? So I think that there are some personality differences, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, for me there’s a bit of a balance. I mean, I, I love to work at home because I, when I’m working, I’m really working and

focused and don’t talk to me, don’t, like, don’t disrupt my

thinking at the time because, you know, I’m dial in. Um, so that’s the beauty of being at home and just focusing. Um, but I also. Chose to live in a, a spot, which is, we’re right in, in town, um, in kind of the business district. So if I go downstairs, we’re in an apartment, um. If I go downstairs, it’s the business world and community. So I still feel connected to people as well. Um, so for me that’s a great balance. I know not [00:25:00] everyone can just move, but it, uh, it’s about creating a balance that works for you.

And so, and there’s other ways to connect if you, if you have that craving for people and connection, I mean, there’s networking groups you can go to and there’s a whole bunch of other things you can do to have people. If you’re a people person and you, I am a people person, I like to connect, but I’m, when I’m focused, I work.

When I’m talking to people, I do that. I, uh, um, so yeah, just getting that balance right for the individual I think is important.

Tim Melanson: Um, I like to talk about practicing because I, I, I, I, I say this sometimes, you know, especially in music. Every great guitar player was once a very bad guitar player. Right. You know, it, it’s just there. You have to get to that point. And in every industry and every business, you know, you’re going to improve over time, uh, as long as you have some sort of practice.

And I’m wondering, do you have any practices or what practices do you have?

Wes Towers: Yeah, well, the, uh, it feels as though there’s always something new to learn, and so I, I feel like. It’s, it’s [00:26:00] kind of an industry as, you know, it’s kind of an industry where you never feel like you’ve arrived because something is new on the

horizon. And that’s, you know, increased with AI and transformation of how we, how we do things and, and get work done and, and all that.

So it’s just a matter of. Staying, uh, educated. And I, I watch a lot of YouTube. I listen to a lot of podcasts about the new, new and the latest tools. So I’m being educated, um, and even sort of dive a little bit divergent type of scenarios. I, I guess if you were to liken it to music, I don’t stick to just listening to my own.

Um. Style of music. I’m listening to other broader influences to keep me sharp and keep me. Unique in thinking about the world and what people might need, because we’re, at the end of the day, we’re producing marketing outcomes, so we need to understand the world in which we’re working and, and what, uh, might be influencing people, so [00:27:00] to stay connected.

Um, and, uh, to, that’s the beauty of things like, uh, YouTube and, and not the, I mean, just the mainstream media we used to live upon, uh, years ago, but now we can. Listen to really niched and specific, uh, things that we need to learn about. It might be software, um, different opportunities, you know, podcasting. I was, I plan to start my own podcast, uh, next year.

I’m just guesting on a lot at the moment. Um, and so just to be able to, uh, watch a whole bunch of different YouTubers on different podcasting platforms and the pros and cons and the um, and then just to try them, um, that’s kind of how I do life and do business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s, uh, the, the information is a lot more on demand rather than just kind like broadcast it out to us nowadays. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, you

can find what you want when you want it right away. Uh, you can talk to your chat JBT and uh, use it as almost like a personal psychologist half the time,[00:28:00]

Tim Melanson: You,

Wes Towers: um, but a brainstorming tool. Yeah,

it’s, it’s it’s so powerful. Like, I’m driving around in a car oftentimes, um, when I have my ideas and so I don’t wanna lose those ideas.

So I, um, get the, get the chat GBT on, obviously hands free and have the conversation so I can at least brain dump some of the thoughts, um, that I have right then and, uh, have a conversation with, with the, um, with the ai. And by the time I get to wherever I’ve got, I’ve distilled down my thoughts into something.

It’s helped me distill my thoughts down into something that’s tangible that I can action. It might be a blog post, for example, or it might be, um, it’s something new that I need to integrate into the business to adjust things.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think the, the voice activated part of chatt PT is a, one of the biggest game changers of the whole thing. Because I don’t know about you. I’m a, I’m more of a, of an extrovert. Uh, which as I understand it, means that I, I think out loud, I, I need to speak it. Right. [00:29:00] Whereas, you know, a lot of introverts are the opposite.

They think it and then they say it. Right. So for me, uh, talking things out is how I get to a point. And. If I’m alone, it’s weird just, you know, speaking to myself. And so here I am, I’m speaking to my wife and she doesn’t quite understand what I’m trying to say. And so it’s confusing and then, and, but, but with this whole, you know, this machine that I could speak to and it speaks back to me and like you can get quite a bit of work done.

You can flesh those ideas out. I mean, sometimes they’re just terrible and, and it comes out pretty quickly. And you didn’t have to take anybody’s time in order to do that, right? It was, it was an actual machine that did it for you, right.

Wes Towers: It’s so powerful. It’s just, I think for those that are reluctant to start with AI and just not, not even started, it’s just overwhelming. I think just. Download chat, chip D on your phone, pay, pay the $20, whatever it is to get the better version. Um, and just [00:30:00] having start having a conversation with it, you’ll soon realize it’s pretty easy to use.

And the, the, the power of it is really, um, it could be a huge advantage to your business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think so too. And I, you know, I’m, I’m starting to, uh. So I, I think chat GPT came out what, in 2023? Uh, you know, I adopted it pretty quickly, uh, as soon as it was available in Canada. And so I’ve been playing around with it quite a bit and it’s, it’s evolved quite a bit over time. It’s quite good right now.

It’s not where I, I think it will be, I mean, it’s gonna evolve a lot more. However, for the people that are afraid of. Of chat, uh, um, or of AI in general. I think the issue here is that it’s going to go no matter what we do. Like, it, it, it just, it is so, there are people that are pushing this forward and I think it’s actually more dangerous to not get informed on what it is because now, you know, [00:31:00] we’re basically just gonna be doing whatever the.

Six people and who are, you know, running the show are gonna be pushing us towards. And we won’t really have a whole lot of input because we won’t really have a whole lot of knowledge of what’s going on. But the more people that are. Understanding AI and understanding what it can do, what it can’t do, where it’s dangerous, where it’s super helpful.

I think that we’ll have more of an interesting conversation on where we want this to go, right? Because, uh, I think a lot of people look at the Terminator movies and think, oh my God. And, and you know what? That is totally possible. If, if we’re not careful, uh, however. You know, the Jetsons is also possible too, you know,

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: so it’s

Wes Towers: Yeah. We still want our flying cars. When we getting those flying cars, we to have.

Tim Melanson: I know we’re supposed to have flying cars and we’re supposed to have robot butler and all those things, but, and, and I, I [00:32:00] do think that that stuff is also possible. However, we, I think we do need to get into this conversation. We need to understand what it’s doing, what it’s not doing. I mean, it, it doesn’t take you very long of using chat GBT to realize that it is.

Cool. But it’s also very dumb in a lot of ways too. I mean, it, it’ll, it’ll tell you the weirdest things like you, you really do have to direct it. It, it’s, it’s, it’s not just magic, right? So

Wes Towers: A hundred percent. You still need expertise in whatever it is you’re doing, but it can just help get you there faster. I mean, there’s trouble, it’s probably similar for what you are doing sometimes you, you get a, you’re building a website and, and the um, there’s some sort of bug in there and it

used to be like a needle in the haystack.

So we do WordPress websites. I’m not sure what your software

you use, but Yeah, So you use a, a set of plugins, so effectively different, um, pieces of software that do different things in the website and sometimes they don’t necessarily play [00:33:00] nicely together or something’s not supported or something breaks.

And so it can be like a needle in the haystack to figure out what. What’s causing this issue. But now you can troubleshoot and find that needle in a haystack super fast

just because you can run the, run the code through, um, AI and it’ll find it, uh, it’s just phenomenal. But you still need the skillset in which you need to understand what, you know, the plugins and the WordPress and, and all that kind of stuff.

Um,

it’s just that you find the, find the issue quicker because it’s helping you, um, do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I found the same thing. I found that I could find issues really quickly, but then I try to get the AI to fix it and it will not. I get into so such big arguments with it. ’cause it keeps on, like keeps on reverting back and doing stupid things and I’m like, ah, I thought you were just gonna do this for me.

And the it does

Wes Towers: yeah,

Tim Melanson: it for you.

Wes Towers: yeah. It’s, it’s true. Sometimes it, and it will tell you lies if it doesn’t know. It just makes something up, which is really annoying.

Tim Melanson: I know. And you, you have to go find that needle in a haystack too, of the, [00:34:00] the, the thing that it just made up, it just fills in blanks. Oh, well you didn’t tell me, so I just filled it in. I’m like, oh,

Wes Towers: just made it up. But it’s, yeah, so, so you still need to be an expert in the field that you work in, but the, um, when you can use it to an advantage and, and even with the systems and processes, we’ve adapted a fair bit too, uh, and some great ones for when you’re working at home. Particularly, particularly if you’re working by yourself. I mean, we’re, we’ve got, uh, AI receptionist now answering the phone, which is really cool. Um, there was, I had a little bit of a mixed feeling about it, so I just thought, we’ll, we’ll try it and quickly turn it off if it doesn’t work for us. But it’s, it’s been magic in that it just deals with the, the phone calls.

We were getting a lot of telemarketing calls, so it just filters out all that rubbish. Um, but it gets meetings booked into our calendar right away if that’s what people are. It’ll just have a really basic conversation with the person ringing, um, and figure out if they wanna book a meeting and it’ll [00:35:00] do that.

Um, or if they need to speak to someone, it’ll, it’ll, um, put them through directly to me as quickly

as, as, as I can. So if I, if I’m available, um, I’ll answer that right away and deal with it just like I ordinarily would.

So it’s just, yeah,

Tim Melanson: platform do you use for that then?

Wes Towers: that’s in go high level.

Um. Yeah. Yeah. So there’s, there’s, there’s more sophisticated ones out there.

I just went with the one because we’re already using go high level as a CRM and a whole bunch of other things in there. So do, do you have, do you have go high level or something similar?

Tim Melanson: Uh, I use, uh, HubSpot for the most part, for, for my CRM. Um,

Wes Towers: yeah.

Tim Melanson: I’ve used go high level several times with different clients and I, you know, so far I. Uh, I haven’t really liked it a whole lot, however, I think it’s improving quite drastically, especially with the white label type stuff, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.[00:36:00]

Wes Towers: The problem with it is it’s just overwhelming and sometimes I feel as though they’re just adding more, more capabilities, but not really refining and polishing it as best as it could.

So I think that would be better served if they stopped adding new stuff and just got the stuff that they have

got working a bit better.

It’s a little bit clunky at times.

Tim Melanson: that frustrates me.

Wes Towers: yeah. Yeah. So. But yeah, it’s working, it’s working well for us. And

because we’re a bit techie as well, you know, we can, we can figure it out,

you know, we can figure out what the clunks are and work around them. So, but it might not be a great fit for, uh, other businesses who are, who are less tech savvy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So tell me, uh, it is time for your guest solo. What’s exciting in your business right now?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so the, um, well launching a podcast next year that’s super exciting

for us. But, um, just the changes that of the industry are really exciting. So, as I said, we’re, we’re calling it, we’re doing Search Everywhere optimization. We’ve done SEO Do you do SEO [00:37:00] as well as part of your service

Tim Melanson: I, I, I do some basic stuff, but I’m not an SEO expert.

Wes Towers: Yeah, so we’ve done that for many, many years. Um, and uh, so it’s kind of been a challenge in some ways recently because obviously SEO for people listening who might not know, understand search engine optimization,

it’s attempt to show up as highly as it can for as many keywords as you can. So keywords being something that people might search in Google and historically it might be service and location, so plumber, Melbourne, um, and people would search that hopefully. Show up number one or close to that, get traffic to the website, get a, get some business as a result of that. That was nice and simple and easy, and we would work on a number of keywords for clients and grow their traffic. And, um, get them more business. And it was super, super easy to demonstrate the value of it.

But then ai, uh, AI overviews comes on board and, and less traffic was coming to websites. And so all of a sudden clients were saying, Hey, you’ve worked with us so long [00:38:00] and you’ve always increased our traffic. Why is it going the opposite? Why are we getting less traffic now? So that was a difficult challenge to discuss with them, but to. To show them they were still getting the same return, same quality of leads coming through. It was just that less research based, um, traffic was getting to their website. So to adapt our service offering to facilitate the new, um. Search everywhere. Optimization’s not just about Google anymore, it’s about showing up in large language models.

So helping our clients show up in chat, GPT when people are searching for a service or a, a product that they offer. And, and particularly in the local region. I mean, we had a great story of a client just gave me a call and said, Hey, thanks so much for the work you’ve done. Um, we’ve just won $140,000 client as a, as a result of showing up on chat GBT.

So,

um. Yeah, that’s, that’s the beauty of what, that’s exciting. It keeps me on my toes because it’s obviously changing super fast. But the benefits of being [00:39:00] able to get those really solid successes for clients, uh, it keeps me, keeps me excited, um, uh, you know, day to day. So that’s what it is.

Tim Melanson: Amazing. So how do we find out more?

Wes Towers: Well, uh, yeah. Uplift three sixty.com au is is the business website, and you can book, book a strategy call with me there. And, uh, happy to, happy to discuss, um, how it might work for any individual.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Love that. So, hardest question of the day here. Who is your favorite rockstar?

Wes Towers: Oh, favorite rockstar. Wow. Yeah, that’s, uh, pretty cool. Um. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go on a slightly different, um, I’m gonna choose a local, uh, I, I think a rock star. He, he sings at the, um, at the bar just near here. Um, so, uh, yeah, Luke Biskin is his name,

and so you will find he’s on Spotify and so on.

Um, but he’s my favorite, so I, I know him reasonably [00:40:00] well now. Um, just a local, local, um, muso.

Tim Melanson: Nice. It’s nice when you walk into a place and they know your name. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Uh, right on. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Wes. This has been a lot of fun.

Wes Towers: Yeah. Great. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.