How Far Can AI Take Your Endless Customers Strategy? [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 174]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

[00:00:00] Should we work with an Endless Customer coach, or should we try to do it on our own with AI? You may be asking yourself this exact question, and it's one we're hearing more and more from companies getting ready to start their Endless Customers journey. Because today, AI can help you do a lot. It can help you build a strategy, create content, improve your website, train your sales team, and you can get surprisingly pretty far implementing Endless Customers on your own.

[00:00:22] So do you actually need a coach? In this episode, Tom and I are going to take an honest look at both paths. We'll talk about what you can realistically accomplish on your own with AI, where companies tend to get stuck, and what a great coach can add that AI still can't, and how to know which approach makes the most sense for your company.

[00:00:38] By the end, you should have a pretty clear answer to one question: Should you keep going on your own with AI, or is it time to bring on a coach?​

[00:00:39] (Intro)

[00:01:30] Bob Ruffolo: And welcome back to the Endless Customers Podcast. We have a great episode today. We have a guest. Uh, your name is Tom DiScipio. DiScipio, how do you say your last name?

[00:01:40] Tom DiScipio: Close, close. It's DiScipio.

[00:01:42] Bob Ruffolo: DiScipio. And, um, how should we know you?

[00:01:46] Tom DiScipio: I sweep up around here, um,

[00:01:49] Bob Ruffolo: I'm Tom Oh, oh, you're the janitor.

[00:01:51] Bob Ruffolo: Oh, okay. That's good to know. Yeah. No, I'm, we're just kidding. Uh, those of you might know, and some of you don't, uh, Tom and I, uh, have been business partners now for, [00:02:00] man, almost 17

[00:02:01] Tom DiScipio: The whole time.

[00:02:02] Bob Ruffolo: The whole time. So Tom's my best friend. He was my officiant at my wedding. And, uh, and yeah, so good to have you on the show, buddy.

[00:02:10] Tom DiScipio: Good to do this with you.

[00:02:11] Bob Ruffolo: Thanks. Good to be here. Yeah. And, uh, just for, for context for people that don't know who, who you are, obviously you're here at IMPACT, and you're a big champion of endless customers. But what do you do on a daily ba- basis, uh, here at the company?

[00:02:21] Tom DiScipio: Yeah, on a daily basis, uh, I am usually the first conversation when somebody wants to talk about how to bring endless customers to their business.

[00:02:29] Tom DiScipio: So they've either read the book or have seen you speak or Marcus speak, and they're like, "This is the right path for us. I want to do it." I get to have those conversations with people and help them de- determine if it's gonna be a fit.

[00:02:40] Bob Ruffolo: and help them to determine if it's gonna be a fit. Awesome. So if you are considering working with Impact, you're looking for help, um, just go to impactplus.com/talk and, uh, and say you wanna talk to Tom DiScipio

[00:02:52] Tom DiScipio: And I will respond.

[00:02:54] Bob Ruffolo: Cool. Well, um, that-- your role is obviously what set the tone for the [00:03:00] episode today, um, because something happened recently and you're like, "We have to talk about this." So, um, what was your recent experience that you wanted to share today?

[00:03:07] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. Uh, I was scheduled to have a conversation with a prospect, and ahead of that call I got an email. Um, and I won't read the exact words, but I'm gonna paraphrase what it sh- what it said, which is, uh, "I see our meeting. I'm gonna cancel. We can't afford this right now. Um, we don't have the time, and we took the book and actually built this out on our own using AI.

[00:03:33] Tom DiScipio: Uh, and we're super excited about it, and we're gonna relaunch our website with it, and thanks so much."

[00:03:41] Bob Ruffolo: so when I first saw this, I loved it. I, I, and you know, I know this might sound like a weird thing because, you know, obviously that's our customers. We do coaching, we do website services, and that's how we make our, our money here. But it's not what we do is not for everybody. Not everyone needs to use us.

[00:03:55] Bob Ruffolo: So here's an example of a company that is trying this on their own. How, how, I mean, did [00:04:00] you have similar feels when you saw this?

[00:04:01] Tom DiScipio: I had the exact same feels. Like, for me it does two things. One, it stretches the Endless Customer circle wider, even if it's not us directly doing it, and two, they're gonna see improvements in their business, and that's ultimately, like, what we want- Mm-hmm

[00:04:14] Tom DiScipio: for, for our community.

[00:04:16] Tom DiScipio: Awesome Well you know 

[00:04:18] Bob Ruffolo: and this wasn't a r- really a question. It was something we heard.

[00:04:22] Bob Ruffolo: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:22] Bob Ruffolo: And in the philosophy of They Ask You Answer, uh, we felt this is something that we needed to address. And, and you brought this up and you said, um, because of AI, uh, should companies be doing Endless Customers more on their own now, or should they still be using a coach to help them implement Endless Customers?

[00:04:45] Bob Ruffolo: So we want to spend this episode honestly and transparently and just, you know, really address the pros and cons, uh, on both sides, um, because not everyone needs coaching and not, you know, and, and not everyone can do it on their [00:05:00] own with AI either. So, um, let's start right there. Um, and obviously I have a lot to bring to this too 'cause we've seen a lot of examples of this.

[00:05:09] Tom DiScipio: Yeah.

[00:05:10] Bob Ruffolo: Doing it on your own with AI, um, where- what is your stance on that for companies?

[00:05:16] Tom DiScipio: Well, I think before we even get to that, um, and I learned this from you, I think it has to be a conversation about and in many cases, not, not or, and maybe one or the

[00:05:30] Bob Ruffolo: That's a Jim Collins principle.

[00:05:31] Tom DiScipio: Yes. And you introduced me to him, so I'm gonna give you credit. Uh, so before we even get to the tactile piece of it, like, to me it, it has to be an and conversation. Both are relevant at different times, maybe in, in your life or your business. 

[00:05:44] Bob Ruffolo: we always have to remember that AI is simply the tool, like the internet, like email, like websites, and it can do a lot on its own. You can approach it and execute things at a, at a pretty s- in a pretty stellar way. But at [00:06:00] the end of the day, it's just a tool, and that there's so much underneath it from a strategic perspective that sometimes i- isn't considered when you're, when you're going into these tools like this.

[00:06:09] Tom DiScipio: So for me, it's, it's not a no. It's a, it's a yes, do it, experiment with it, try it, get started with these things. But just remember that your lived experiences are what helped you, help you get more out of the tool. So if you've done Endless Customers before, if you've taken part in writing the book or executing the strategy, you will get more out of that tool, which then, I guess, makes the case on the other side of the argument for a coach.

[00:06:37] Tom DiScipio: Um-

[00:06:37] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. So, so, you know, um, I, I, I would agree. I would say starting it on your own is always a great idea because you have to start somewhere.

[00:06:47] Bob Ruffolo: And, and certainly anytime we start working with a company that's been doing this for a little bit, uh, with a, you know, without a coach, most cases obviously not with a coach because they're, they're doing it on their own, but they're down the road a little bit. They've had some light wins. They've [00:07:00] done some things.

[00:07:00] Bob Ruffolo: Now they want to take it to the next level. Those are always, um, uh, great clients for us because, uh, then we, we fill in the gaps of what they couldn't do on their own, and they value that a lot more, and they're doing a lot more. But AI is, AI can do a lot. I mean, we're, let's, I'm not gonna lie, um, if you are driven to figure this out, um, even probably more importantly is that you have time to do this.

[00:07:25] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. So that might mean that you are an executive, that this is a top priority and a top initiative for you, so you're spending half your week working on your Endless Customers implementation. I think that's totally okay. We see, like Steve Sheinkopf, he, that's, he spends most of his time at Yale Appliance in his content program and doing his Endless Customers journey.

[00:07:45] Bob Ruffolo: Um, uh, or you, you hire somebody on your team, on your marketing team, and, and that's their largest responsibility, and they, they own that position. They understand that doing Endless Customers is the highest priority in this company, and I'm going to figure this out, and I have ChatGPT, I have [00:08:00] Claude. I'm gonna use these tools.

[00:08:02] Bob Ruffolo: I'm gonna pump in stuff about the perfect pricing page or the stuff about the Big Five or, and, and AI knows these things too. And when you start talking about your company, you can build an editorial calendar, start building some content for you. You can get really far down the road on your own. So I, I definitely don't discourage that

[00:08:18] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. I, I 100% agree, and I think just like you would approach a human or a coach, when you approach AI with curiosity and connect it back to what's actually going on in your business, you'll, you'll do well.

[00:08:32] Tom DiScipio: You'll get far.

[00:08:32] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. Now, on the other side of it is, like, where does coaching really come in? Um, I know I have my perspectives on this. Um, but you've obviously are j- talking to companies and many of them have maybe done this on their own for a while. What are the main reasons that they're coming to us and saying, "I probably need coaching, uh, now"?

[00:08:52] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, what are you seeing?

[00:08:54] Tom DiScipio: what are you seeing? Yeah. I, I wanna share a personal experience on this that, that, uh, may make it a little easier [00:09:00] to understand.

[00:09:00] Tom DiScipio: So when I think about using AI in Endless Customers, I think about using AI as it relates to myself and my relationship with my financial advisor. So I use Claude to help me with my finances. It knows my budget, it knows my long-term future goals, and I ask it questions all the time. "What should I do?

[00:09:18] Tom DiScipio: Should I do this?" But I still meet with my financial advisor to say, "This is what I've learned. What do you feel I should actually do in this scenario?" And it's an experience that Claude has not lived, but my financial advisor has. Mm. And so that's, that's the connection that I make that last, you know, 15, 20% of what's right on the execution side.

[00:09:42] Tom DiScipio: What should I do? What should I not be doing based on what I've learned from AI and what AI is telling me? Yeah. And that's the gap right there.

[00:09:49] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah, completely agree. Completely agree. Because AI is artificial intelligence, and the word there is intelligence.

[00:09:57] Bob Ruffolo: It's incredibly smart. It-- you give it [00:10:00] a question, 99.5% of the time it's gonna give you the perfect answer back. Um, and I would say 5% to 10% of the time, there will be a gap. It's, it's going to miss something. We've all had these experiences with AI where we get an answer and we're like, "Wait, this is wrong."

[00:10:18] Bob Ruffolo: And then AI goes, "You're right, I should've caught that." And then it, it either fixes it or just tries to please you, and then you have to continue to adjust with it again. That's the human element that only lived experience, uh, expertise, um, judgment brings to, to the, the conversation that if your company is starting Endless Customers for the first time, you don't have this experience judgment when it comes to doing Endless Customers right, there will be some gaps there.

[00:10:47] Bob Ruffolo: They will cost you a little bit. They won't cost you everything, but they'll-- you'll be leaving money on the table. You'll be leaving opportunity on the table. That is a place where coaches come in, um, because AI also doesn't [00:11:00] know what you should be doing in the right order. It knows all the stuff about Endless Customers and knows what a good Big Five article is, but doesn't know how to help you prioritize.

[00:11:08] Bob Ruffolo: It might... If you prompt it, it will. Otherwise, if you don't even know to prompt it how to prioritize, what will likely happen is it'll just t- give you this big roadmap of everything you should possibly do. So that's where the judgment comes in, that's where the experience comes in, and I think when you think about Endless Customers, Endless Customers coaching, they have so much experience working with 500 plus businesses now on implementations and all these shared learnings that they can come in and say, "Great.

[00:11:35] Bob Ruffolo: Based on a company just like you and the companies we've worked with that were in the same exact position, this is the exact order you should be going in step by step." And then even though AI might be telling you you should be doing one thing, you might still have in the back of your mind, "There's no possible way I can do this."

[00:11:53] Bob Ruffolo: That's where a coach comes in and says, "No, you can do it. Think about it differently. Think about it this [00:12:00] way." And then of course- Once you get over that and everyone, company's bought in and you start doing these things, then they actually hold you accountable to getting it done, which AI is not the best at holding you accountable because it's, you gotta trigger it to get a response.

[00:12:15] Bob Ruffolo: Where a coach, if you- they're, you're not doing your job, they're gonna be all over you, right?

[00:12:18] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. I think you can 

[00:12:20] Tom DiScipio: I think you touched on the, the most critical maybe advantage to the coach piece is, yes, strategically huge advantage.

[00:12:30] Tom DiScipio: But, um, for those, uh, business leaders or others who allow other things to get in the way, you could have AI give you literally the best output possible that never gets executed because of distractions or other things that go on in the business, and that accountability piece is the key part. So again, AI, amazing tool.

[00:12:52] Tom DiScipio: You should use it. You should try it, and you'll, you'll have more success with it when you're the self-starter and you have the [00:13:00] tenacity to get it completed. And if you don't, and you know yourself better than we do, so if you feel like you have that tenacity, keep going.

[00:13:07] Bob Ruffolo: Keep going. And if you're getting the wins, keep going. Like why, why waste money with us, right? Yeah, 100%.

[00:13:12] Tom DiScipio: Exactly right. Exactly right. And I, I don't know if I'm allowed to tease this, but we are gonna have a future guest on our podcast who has that level of tenacity who's gonna talk about what that looks like. But if you're not that guy, then a coach- Or a gal

[00:13:27] Tom DiScipio: or gal, uh, y- you know, a coach may be the, the other option, the better

[00:13:30] Tom DiScipio: option 

[00:13:31] Bob Ruffolo: You know, I think there's, there's another thing too. It's like the, um... 

[00:13:37] Tom DiScipio: AI 

[00:13:37] Bob Ruffolo: is great, uh, especially if you know how to prompt it. And I was trying to find another word but prompt. I think prompt is still the right thing. When you have a trigger in your brain say, "Oh, I should go to AI," or, "I should redirect it," or, "I should do this with it," um, if you don't know what to prompt it to really get the most out of you Endless Customers, that's where it could be a gap, and that's where coaches will come in.[00:14:00] 

[00:14:00] Bob Ruffolo: Because we are not obviously anti-AI. We're so pro-AI here. Um, we help companies do AI at higher levels, workflows, content, website, everything, right? Um, but there's, there's certainly a magic of, like, knowing, um, "I saw these things out in the world," or, "I read this thing on LinkedIn," or, "I saw this YouTube video, and how does this play into our, our program?"

[00:14:27] Bob Ruffolo: Um, and to have it weigh out the pros and cons of using a tool or doing a strategy or trying something, um, that ag- that does speak to the tenacity that you're talking about and the curiosity and the ever learning. But again, a coach does a great job of helping you redirect, say, "No, what you should do, you should go to AI and ask it about that, and spend some time with it and brainstorm and learn and see if that is right for you."

[00:14:52] Bob Ruffolo: That's another opportunity as well.

[00:14:54] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. Yeah. I, I 100% agree, and it's that lived experience that's gonna give [00:15:00] you, uh, that question to ask that y- another may not know to ask it.

[00:15:06] Tom DiScipio: Um, and that lived experience comes from having done the work before, which is what our coaches do.

[00:15:13] Bob Ruffolo: You know, the, the other thing that I've been learning too, um, not learning, but I've been, I've been saying is strategy used to be expensive

[00:15:22] Tom DiScipio: Yeah.

[00:15:23] Bob Ruffolo: and now it's free. When we really think about that, um For, for example, I was at a Vistage event, uh, three months ago, whatever it was. Oh, you were there. Yeah, you were there with me.

[00:15:37] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. We were at this Vistage event together. And I sat in on another marketing person's presentation.

[00:15:43] Bob Ruffolo: Mm.

[00:15:43] Bob Ruffolo: And their whole talk was about strategy, and at the end of the day, what they first sell you was a strategy, and when I looked it up, it was about a $50,000 strategy is what they're, they were trying to sell.

[00:15:53] Bob Ruffolo: And this was only a few months ago. And, and honestly, it's like you can sit down with AI and 

[00:15:59] Tom DiScipio: [00:16:00] and 

[00:16:00] Bob Ruffolo: get all of that done in a few hours and never have to pay that $50,000 for strategy, which is a massive shift from where the world was a few years ago. Because if you wanted a strategy, yeah, you can go online and do a whole bunch of research.

[00:16:12] Bob Ruffolo: It's very manual. You might as well go to an agency like this company and, and buy a product like that from them because everything is gonna come from you. You know, and we have some of that work that we do with our deep diagnostic and roadmap, but it's obviously a much lower price point and the, the value is not the strat- strategic work of that.

[00:16:30] Bob Ruffolo: The value is the judgment and the expertise and the building the roadmap and, and doing that part of the work, which we're able to do much more efficiently 'cause we're AI powered. So we're seeing a, a big shift in the world there too. So what are you seeing in terms of like... Again, you're probably gonna see a lot of stuff that the audience is seeing too, but like that is a massive shift when you start thinking like strategy is free.

[00:16:52] Bob Ruffolo: What should I do in this particular situation? And getting the advice is free. It's a big, big difference in the world.

[00:16:59] Tom DiScipio: [00:17:00] Yeah. As you were talking about that, and, and we can go back if I don't answer the question fully, but like for me it comes down to what should get done and what does good actually look like when it's done?

[00:17:12] Tom DiScipio: Because the strategic component can be free. It can be a list of things that you should do, and even maybe a prioritized list. But again, it comes back to that lived experience of knowing what to do at what particular time and why, and then when you actually do it, knowing if it was done well. Yeah. You could half-ass things all day and it's not gonna get you the results that you want, and that's where the additional guidance and the accountability comes in making sure the strate- the strategy was worth it.

[00:17:43] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. That's a great, great point. Uh, we could always go through framework by framework. Maybe we should do that now. Go framework by framework then with customers and talk about, like, with AI on your own or with AI and a coach, and what that-- the differences might look like.

[00:17:58] Tom DiScipio: Let's try it.

[00:17:59] Bob Ruffolo: So let's take a, [00:18:00] a standard Big Five article.

[00:18:02] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, we'll take a comparisons article. Um, you can go to AI and say, um, "Based on the principles of They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan and the book Endless Customers by Marcus and IMPACT, um, I want to write a comparison article. Give me some ideas for a business like mine." It'll come back and give you a whole bunch of ideas.

[00:18:23] Tom DiScipio: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:24] Bob Ruffolo: And then you can pick one, and you could say, uh, "Go ask me some questions, and then that way we can draft it." And then we can go through, and they'll ask 

[00:18:32] Tom DiScipio: we can go through and I'll 

[00:18:33] Bob Ruffolo: you questions, and you give it the answers, and hopefully you're using Whisper Pro or something like that, and you're just talking to your AI, like I do, um, because I type like a, a child.

[00:18:43] Bob Ruffolo: Um, and, uh, and what will come back will be a draft. And, you know, you can look at that draft and be like, "This is pretty good, I think," and we can go and publish it. It might sound like AI. You might not know that it sounds like AI. You know [00:19:00] your business so well that it might sound jargony or insider. You might not really realize it 'cause AI didn't pick that up for you 'cause you didn't know to ask AI for that.

[00:19:10] Bob Ruffolo: And, um, and then when you publish it, it might sound a little biased, or it might sound a little AI-written, or it might just sound a little flat. So now you know the experience is like, that's a great starting point. Now how does a coach layer onto that?

[00:19:26] Tom DiScipio: Hmm. Couple ways. Uh, I think the first is, and as you were telling me this, I was asking myself this question because I actually don't know the answer. How many other companies should we be comparing, right? So AI gives you the draft, and maybe it, maybe it gives you three comparisons when in our experience we found that five or six might be the more magical number.

[00:19:49] Bob Ruffolo: so in that instance, an article comes over, coach takes a look at it, and the thing that's gonna be different in this scenario is they're gonna be saying, "Hey, you know, I know AI told you this was the [00:20:00] best, but aren't we being a little bit biased here? Um, aren't we saying things that might be somewhat maybe slanderous against other people?

[00:20:09] Tom DiScipio: Are we connecting this back to our own brand and maybe client stories that we've had? Um, how are we connecting this in a real way to the way that we actually talk as humans at this company?" And that's where I could see the coach filling, filling some gaps.

[00:20:25] Bob Ruffolo: that's exactly right. That's exactly right, and that's the, the human element of experience and judgment coming in and adding something that AI wouldn't.

[00:20:33] Bob Ruffolo: And the coach will tell you, "Go put that back through AI and ask it to make these revisions or make these changes," and that is an example of if you, if you were doing this on your own, you might not know to go back and tighten it up or make even better and better and better, 'cause that's w- again, a coach like an Austin or a Mandy or somebody like that, they do this all day, every day, and they are helping you hone in on your content, like your Big Five content.

[00:20:57] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. And, and I don't want this to sound like an ad for [00:21:00] the coaches, but I'm even thinking technically too, right? Like let's say, let's say AI gives you the markdown file or even the web file of this thing, and it has two H1s listed on the page, or it's missing keywords here, meta descriptions. It's like you have to find that stuff.

[00:21:15] Tom DiScipio: Like that's still important things, uh, that need to happen as part of

[00:21:18] Tom DiScipio: this 

[00:21:18] Bob Ruffolo: For sure. For sure. But again, you have to know to ask these things if it misses it. If you don't know to ask it- Right ... then you're gonna miss it. Yeah. Same thing happens on, you know, you talk about any website page, could talk about perfect pricing page, all these opportunities that the first draft might be good and you might think it's, it's done, but then having that second set of eyes come in that's, that's seen 100 perfect pricing pages and can see, you know, you're biased here, you're missing this, you're missing that.

[00:21:43] Bob Ruffolo: I know you told AI to do it here, but you probably shouldn't have told it to do that 'cause you probably should do, do it this way, which is going to capture more people into it.

[00:21:50] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:51] Bob Ruffolo: videos, the same thing

[00:21:54] Tom DiScipio: Videos, same thing. 100%. 100%. And, and I think, you know, just bringing it back to some of the core of this discussion, right?

[00:21:59] Tom DiScipio: [00:22:00] The zero to one, that we don't have a comparison article to we now have one that we could put on our website that's good enough to launch to get some results. Awesome, right? AI for the win. The one to 10 piece of it, how do we get more traction with it? How does sales leverage it more in a conversation?

[00:22:18] Tom DiScipio: How does it get even more juice from the squeeze?

[00:22:22] Bob Ruffolo: right? One

[00:22:23] Tom DiScipio: Coach, right? One to 10.

[00:22:25] Bob Ruffolo: Now here's, here's another good example, assignment selling. This is totally different than creating content or stuff for our website, right? So you could read the book and it'll give you the script.

[00:22:35] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, Endless Customers has the full script of how to do assignment selling. Um, but there's a big difference between saying it and delivering the script.

[00:22:46] Tom DiScipio: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:47] Bob Ruffolo: We've seen that often. Because if you say it and be like, "Um, I'm gonna send you two pieces of content and, um, uh, one's gonna have this," and you start getting nervous and you're like, "And the other's, [00:23:00] um...

[00:23:00] Bob Ruffolo: So I'll send those over. That'll be great, okay?" And then you move on, right? It doesn't make assignment selling effective. And then some companies will be like, "Yeah, they're doing the script sort of. They're doing it 80% of the way there." And they think they're doing assignment selling, but they're not getting the success from it because the delivery of the assignment selling script by the seller to the prospect matters so much.

[00:23:23] Bob Ruffolo: When someone's saying, "These two pieces of content, they're really important. The first piece is gonna give you this. The second piece is going to do that. Before our appointment on Friday, will you take the time to read both of these pieces of content?" Pause. Let the person say yes. "Great. I'm going to follow up with you on Wednesday before our appointment to make sure you did this and to confirm the appointment."

[00:23:50] Tom DiScipio: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:50] Tom DiScipio: Right? 

[00:23:51] Bob Ruffolo: And then the role playing on the delivery of it with a coach that knows exactly the way it's going to sound

[00:23:57] Tom DiScipio: Yep

[00:23:58] Bob Ruffolo: will 10X your [00:24:00] assignment selling results. The AI, I mean, you can role play with, with it on the assign- you know, the, the voice. It'll be helpful, but I don't think it'll get you 100% of the way there.

[00:24:11] Bob Ruffolo: But it might get you 70, 80% of the way there, which might get you some results, but you might be leaving a lot of money on the table.

[00:24:16] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. Again, a-about maximization and optimization of the res- those results, and I mean, I have first-hand experience with that, even looking at you as my sales coach, 'cause if you remember, we'd gone through that where I knew what I was gonna say on the call.

[00:24:31] Tom DiScipio: I had... We don't have a script, but I had an idea of what it was, and then you were like, "Tom, stand up straighter." And then you were like, "Put your shoulders back. Now s- now..." Yeah. It-

[00:24:42] Bob Ruffolo: Ta-da. Yeah.

[00:24:44] Tom DiScipio: " And, and now say it as if you just won the lottery." And, and the, the, the, the words are different at that point. The energy is different, and that, the AI can read your transcript and give you feedback on the words you're saying, but how you're saying [00:25:00] them, just not at that point yet.

[00:25:02] Bob Ruffolo: That's true. Yeah, great point. And there are great sales coach AI tools are out there, but I mean-- A- and they augment, and that's the thing, that they should augment what a sales manager can do. It, it can take 80, 90% of the work off their plate, so they can reallocate that time to doing more coaching like this, and that is something an Endless Customers coach can come in and do that AI 

[00:25:25] Tom DiScipio: AI just 

[00:25:26] Bob Ruffolo: just can't do.

[00:25:28] Bob Ruffolo: Just can't do. Uh, another important component of Endless Customers is, um, both the hiring and people management component of implement- implementing the system, so having a content manager and a videographer. And there's also a big difference between doing on your own and you're saying, "I think they're doing a good job," sort of by the job descriptions in the book.

[00:25:54] Bob Ruffolo: And what I'm learning on AI, they're doing their job, but very big difference [00:26:00] between an Endless Customers coach that has actively working with 10 other businesses or so, and they're working with 10 other content managers, and they can tell these content managers are freaking killing it, and these ones are really just not at level at this point.

[00:26:17] Bob Ruffolo: They need to get up to level or we need to make a change. And that is something I don't think AI can do either.

[00:26:22] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, coaches are studying their interpersonal skills, how they communicate, how they interview, how they extract that information and turn it into real things that can be used in marketing.

[00:26:33] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. And again, that goes beyond a transcript- Yeah ... in so many ways.

[00:26:37] Bob Ruffolo: And I think the, the last thing I, I'd probably bring up as I, as, you know, 'cause I could probably go on all day. I can give you probably 15 more examples of, like, AI alone or, or with a coach. Um, business is hard.

[00:26:49] Tom DiScipio: Yeah.

[00:26:50] Bob Ruffolo: Um, for many businesses that we work with, the digital-- or the, the landscape, not digital landscape, but even just, like, the e-economic landscape, um, has been [00:27:00] like this, right?

[00:27:02] Bob Ruffolo: And because of that, um, there's a lot of things going on that is calling for our attention. There's a fire over here, we got a problem over here, I'm feeling like this over here, I got an employee issue over here, and it could be a lot. 

[00:27:18] Tom DiScipio: I 

[00:27:18] Bob Ruffolo: know how AI helps you navigate that unless you are knowing to go to AI and say, "I need you to be my therapist," which is not recommended, um, a- or if you have a really good business coach.

[00:27:29] Bob Ruffolo: But, but having some outlet to have somebody work through some of these issues and help you prioritize things while keeping the trains running.

[00:27:38] Tom DiScipio: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:39] Bob Ruffolo: Endless Customers, if you read the book, you know the promise. It does wonderful things for your sales and marketing funnel. But it could easily become something that falls off if we're not giving it the little but appropriate attention that it needs on a consistent weekly basis as an executive. [00:28:00] And that is one of the things that the coaches will do well. Have our standing meeting, how does this compare to everything else going on in the business? What are we struggling with? What are we doing well? What are we not doing well? And how could 

[00:28:09] Tom DiScipio: use 

[00:28:10] Bob Ruffolo: tools that we have to do everything better in terms of generating more customers and keeping customers longer in our business?

[00:28:16] Tom DiScipio: Mmhmm And I 

[00:28:17] Bob Ruffolo: don't know how AI replaces that either

[00:28:19] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. A- and, you know, that brings up an example for me of, of the Endless Customer scorecard, right? Where you're-- you might be actively using it on a quarterly basis, and you're seeing your numbers, and you're like, "You know, wow, we- we're, we're at a six here."

[00:28:33] Tom DiScipio: And, you know, automatically in your brain like, "Oh, well, if we're at a six, we need to be at a nine or a 10." And your coach might be like, "I understand that, 

[00:28:43] Bob Ruffolo: but 

[00:28:44] Tom DiScipio: we, but we gotta look at your website." Like, the right website, if you go from an eight to a 10 there, it's a greater impact on your revenue.

[00:28:53] Bob Ruffolo: Hmm.

[00:28:53] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. 

[00:28:54] Tom DiScipio: a- and so it's, it's having that- Yeah

[00:28:56] Tom DiScipio: that deeper insight.

[00:28:58] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. I think just as this conversation has gone, [00:29:00] gone on, it's the AI on a base level, um, can get you some of the way there. When you have the right tenacity and the right drive, you can get even further.

[00:29:13] Tom DiScipio: you can get even further.

[00:29:14] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. Even more important than that is knowing the right things to ask it, which now judgment and experience starts playing in. And you might have that judgment and experience and, and while you're still self-implementing, and you can know when AI is not giving you the right answer, or you know when you wanna have it redirected into a different direction.

[00:29:35] Bob Ruffolo: Um, you know to give it the context it needs to make sure that the output of it is going in the right direction. And if you don't have that, that's where the coach can come in, and the coach will layer on even more human-only capabilities that AI can't do that we just talked about.

[00:29:57] Tom DiScipio: And

[00:29:57] Bob Ruffolo: that is really-- it's the human and AI [00:30:00] makes it, you know, 100 out of 10. Um, and I say 100 out of 10 'cause it's gonna 10X your abilities. When human alone can get you part of the way there, AI alone can get you part of the way there, the two together is like rocket fuel.

[00:30:13] Tom DiScipio: Yep,

[00:30:14] Bob Ruffolo: Yep. 100%. 

[00:30:15] Tom DiScipio: All right, so I think that pretty much answers the question, uh, should we do AI on, on its own to, to implement Endless Customers, or should we use an Endless Customers coach?

[00:30:24] Tom DiScipio: And the answer is yes and yes,

[00:30:25] Bob Ruffolo: answer is yes and yes. The answer is yes and yes. A- again, if you want to do it a 10 out of 10 and you've never done this before, and you know you might have some knowledge gaps, but you want to do it well, this is a priority for you, then I-- you c- I hope that the, the viewers here can now see the value of what a coach brings to the experience leveraging AI.

[00:30:42] Bob Ruffolo: Exactly. Because I think they both go together. Now, one of the things that we do here, um, is we bring a lot of AI into our experiences, and it's a great way to get started, um, with Endless Customers, is a product we call the Deep Diagnostic and Roadmap. Um, and the way that works is that [00:31:00] when we start working with a client, we want to understand everything that's going on, their full digital landscape.

[00:31:05] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, we want to understand the competitors and how their competitors are impacting their customer acquisition efforts, what they have to do to be more competitive and gain more market share so they can truly become the most known, trusted, and recommended company in their market. A lot of that has to do with becoming more visible with AI, uh, but other things as well as like the, the implementation of Endless Customers or everything else that we should be doing in terms of our website and, and, and things we can't see, like our customer data and, and, and everything else.

[00:31:30] Bob Ruffolo: So, um, so we've, uh, created a product for this. The Deep Diagnostic and Roadmap is a great way for, for clients to get started. So talk through what the e- that experience looks like, how we're using AI, how coaching mix into-- mixes into it, because I think it's very relevant to this conversation. And if someone is interested in doing this, what can they do?

[00:31:50] Tom DiScipio: Yeah. Um, so one thing that AI is really good at is self-awareness. It knows what it wants to see from a business in order to make the recommendation, [00:32:00] uh, of your company or a business in general. And so that's where this, that's where this starts, is using AI to scrape everything it knows about your brand publicly.

[00:32:10] Tom DiScipio: The coach-led piece comes in on the second stage of this, which is an intake meeting with your leadership team, your key stakeholders who care about marketing, sales, growth, business decisions from the inside out. So extracting operational capacity. What are your targets for the quarter, for the year, for next year?

[00:32:27] Tom DiScipio: Uh, what can your team do or not do yet? What initiatives do you have in play? And the third piece is fusing those things together into a tangible three, six, 12-month roadmap and showing you what's gonna have the greatest impact sooner than later that you can choose to execute with AI, with a coach, with a partner.

[00:32:48] Bob Ruffolo: Awesome. So that's an example of like AI and coach together. It's a great way to experience it. Um, we try to keep this, this product as low cost as we possibly can. It's about a two or [00:33:00] three-week engagement, and it costs about $5,000. So, um, we wouldn't be, um, living what we do if we weren't talking about pricing honestly and openly.

[00:33:07] Bob Ruffolo: So that's how much it costs. And Tom, if somebody is interested in having us do one of these deep diagnostics and roadmaps for their company, um, how do they get in touch with you to do that?

[00:33:18] Bob Ruffolo: Um, yeah, so w- we have a page live on our site that's gonna tell you everything you need to know about this. Um, but generally speaking, go to impactplus.com/talk, and it'll set up a time with me, and we can dig into all the details.

[00:33:31] Tom DiScipio: Awesome 

[00:33:31] Bob Ruffolo: and we can 

[00:33:32] Tom DiScipio: so much for being on the show today 

[00:33:33] Bob Ruffolo: into

[00:33:33] Tom DiScipio: Yeah, man, of course.

[00:33:34] Bob Ruffolo: all the 

[00:33:34] Tom DiScipio: Excellent Well this has been another 

[00:33:36] Bob Ruffolo: details.

[00:33:36] Bob Ruffolo: Awesome. Tom, thanks so much for being on the show today. Yeah, man, of course. Excellent. Well, this has been another episode of the Endless Customers Podcast. We will see you at the next episode 

[00:33:40] Stephanie Baiocchi: You're listening to the Endless Customers Podcast, brought to you by the team at Impact. Endless Customers is the proven system to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. If you want to learn the principles of Endless Customers and how you can implement them in your business, pick up a copy of Endless Customers, a national bestseller, [00:34:00] wherever books are sold.

[00:34:01] Stephanie Baiocchi: Ready to start implementing Endless Customers in your business? Talk to Impact about how our coaching program can help you implement Endless Customers to success. And if you want to experience Endless Customers in person, don't miss our upcoming event, Endless Customers Live, in Hartford, Connecticut, October 5th through the 7th, 2026.

[00:34:19] Stephanie Baiocchi: Registration is now open. And now, on to the show. Here's your host, Bob Ruffolo