Applying AI To Learn Faster

Last year, we grew our site traffic at Rugby Bricks by almost 300% using AI.

This came from simply monitoring AI news and selecting the tools that make sense for our businesses.

Most of our competitors aren’t doing this - here are the resources I use and how to implement them:

1. There's An AI For That - this is a repository of all the AI tools on the internet with up and downvotes. Here is how we use it:

- Follow the onboarding

- Select the tools you care about most that pertain to your business

- Select the frequency you want to hear about new ai releases

- Select and discard what is and isn't helpful for your business

2. Future Tools - This is a YouTube channel I follow by Matt Wolfe. Each week, he shares the latest updates on news in the AI world. Here is how I implement his learnings:

- Grab the YouTube video URL of his weekly breakdown of new tools that he publishes on the weekend

- Feed the URL into https://lnkd.in/gcFBHVb9 

- Read the highlights

- Go deeper on what I think could be used in K&J Growth or Rugby Bricks

3. Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) - the team here publishes an incredible monthly magazine that summarises or highlights monthly ai research.

Here is how I grab the learnings:

- Head to their site: https://lnkd.in/gfH-rAmT

- Select "Archives and Current Volume"

- Select the current volume

- Scan the articles

- Download the PDFs of the relevant articles you want to learn about

- Upload that PDF to ChatGPT

- Use the following prompt: "I'm a founder who runs two businesses (insert a detailed description of your businesses) - I want to find practical applications of AI in my businesses. Can you please scan this PDF and summarise how the information in this PDF could be implemented in my businesses."

All of the tools or prompts I’ve used or shared in the last year or two have come from these sources.

Finding Hidden Profits

My gym didn't used to be open 24/7—we were a Monday through Sunday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m operation. I thought that was ample time for any reasonable person to get a workout in.

But then we started asking questions, like, is there anything that'd stop you from wanting to be a member here?

The numero uno answer was you aren't open 24/7.

It took a while, but eventually, I got sick of hearing that and decided to do something about it. After a tedious negotiation process with our landlord and the local council and a $15,000 investment in an automated door and security cameras, we opened 24/7.

Almost immediately, both the number of leads we received per week and our conversion rate on those leads jumped. In a year, we grew 100+ members. Which at the time was the difference between barely breaking even and making a $50k profit.

Opening 24/7 changed the trajectory of our business.

I've since learned that this phenomenon is called feature blockers. They're lines in the sand that people will not cross to do business with you.

Another one in the gym industry is join fees. Lots of our competitors charge them, but we don't because we know they're a line people won’t cross. I just hope our competitors never figure this out because join fee’s are pushing lots of extra members our way each year.

Every business has feature blockers; not many know what they are. And very few know how to find them.

We've discovered a few for our gym just by being curious.

Asking members questions like;

• Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to train here?

• Is there any reason why you might leave us for another gym?

• What aren't we doing that we should be?

• Who is doing a better job than us at xyz?

Alerted us to a few obvious, in hindsight, feature blockers hidden in plain sight.

In my experience, these appear at different stages of your customer's journey, too.

Some blockers are a matter of trust, like asking for credit card details too early in the sales process. Some are a matter of principle, like using imported products instead of local suppliers. Others are surprises—no one likes surprises, especially negative ones. I once changed mechanics because my old garage charged me a miserable 5% transaction fee on my eftpos payment—yes, 5%.

The best thing about feature blockers is that they are easy and cheap to address and, most importantly, highly profitable to do so.

The hard part is finding them.