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Our weekly blog provides leadership tips and up-to-date insights and trends in business.


We found 5,581 leads with a simple prompt
**** I want to tell you a story and then point you to a free resource. One of our clients sells medical supplies to people who can't get to a hospital fast. We started digging through their customer list to figure out who their best buyers actually were. Turns out it was fishing boat owners. Before we asked a single question, nobody on their team knew that. Fishing vessels are brutally hard to find. Most databases don't track them well, and the ones that do charge a fortune f

Matt Symes
3 days ago2 min read


How do you actually rewire a workflow?
**** You've heard me talk about why the workflow has to come before AI. So let's say you've done that. You know which workflow needs the most help. Now what? How do you actually rewire the workflow effectively? We use a proven method called DMAIC. Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. Here is the short version: Define the actual business problem. Not the solution someone already decided on. "We need AI in our sales process" is not a problem, that is an answer looking fo

Matt Symes
Jun 252 min read


Start With the Constraint, Then Add AI
**** Most leaders I talk to are approaching AI in the wrong order. Tools first, problem second. It's why most of it doesn't stick. I recorded a 1 min 33 second video on what the right order actually looks like, using a real business’s story. A contracting company that found its constraint first, mapped the workflow, and then pointed AI at it. What came out the other side: 600 hours saved, conversions up 17%, the business doubled in revenue in 6 months. Worth a few minutes of

Matt Symes
Jun 221 min read


Some Quick Proof That This Works
**** On Wednesday, I announced the launch of the AI Simplified Boot Camp and 1 year of monthly State of AI webinars - for only $97. I could tell you what happens in these AI session. Or I can let the people who were in the room already tell you: 👉 “It is a must for small business owners feeling overwhelmed with AI and where to start. It makes integrating it feel possible and exciting versus overwhelming" - Shawn Arsenault 👉 "This session goes beyond theory and shows real,

Matt Symes
Jun 192 min read


A Few Things Every Leader Needs to Know About AI
**** Over the last three years, I've run AI sessions with more than 3,600 business leaders. Every session is different. The industries are different, the team sizes are different, the challenges are different. But three things keep coming back as the top takeaways, session after session. Three principles that leaders tell me, more than anything else, actually changed how they use AI at work. I recorded a short 5 min 35 second video walking through all three. [3 Things Every

Matt Symes
Jun 171 min read


Capability Was Never the Problem
**** The two most powerful AI companies in the world just admitted something. Capability was never the problem. OpenAI and Anthropic both recently announced they’re partnering with, or outright launching, deployment companies. Sit with what that means. They’ve spent years building the most capable models ever created. And they just conceded, publicly, that the model isn’t the bottleneck. Getting it into your actual work is. So they’re coming to find the workflows themselves.

Matt Symes
Jun 101 min read


The most powerful minds in AI just admitted they were wrong
**** Two of the most powerful people in AI just admitted they got it wrong. Sam Altman. Dario Amodei. Both walked back their job apocalypse predictions this week. The data has been saying it for two years. The IMF at Davos: 60% of jobs in advanced economies will materially change. Not disappear... change. The WEF puts it even more precisely: 92 million jobs displaced, 170 million created. That's a net positive of 78 million jobs. This is the Luddite fallacy playing out in

Matt Symes
Jun 52 min read


This is How You Capture The Compounding Value of AI
**** Integration is where all the value with AI is. Organizations are handing out tools. People are trying things. And according to McKinsey and BCG, somewhere between 94 and 96% are getting worse results after integration, not better. That’s the J-Curve. They grabbed something that looked like a solution, pointed it at the noise, and made the noise louder. The 5% that are compounding results are doing one thing differently. They identified the business constraint first. Then

Matt Symes
May 292 min read


Before You Fix Anything, Find This.
**** Every leader I work with is trying to solve something. More sales. Better margins. A team that isn't stretched thin. A business that doesn't rely entirely on them showing up every day. And almost all of them start in the wrong place. They go straight to the thing that's bothering them. The thing that's loudest in the room that week. And I get it. When you're already overwhelmed, when AI is everywhere and everyone seems to understand it but you, when you can feel your com

Matt Symes
May 222 min read


The Work Has Changed, Has Your Business?
**** I spend a lot of time in rooms with enterprise leaders navigating what AI means for their organizations. I get to do the same thing with 90 to 120 small business owners a year who are working through Levership cohorts. I also spend time with our own portfolio figuring out the same thing. The conversations look different depending on the size of the room. But the question underneath all of them is the same. What is actually happening here? You may have gathered my opinion

Matt Symes
May 153 min read
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