During Katherine Pomerantz’s nine years as a financial strategist running her own business, she often considered hiring a business manager as her first employee.
But she held off on adding more employees, saying she struggled to translate her expertise and voice client communications into standard operating procedures that new employees could follow.
“I don’t see how that could be turned into a step-by-step workflow for other people,” said Pomerantz, owner of Money Storyteller, which provides tax and financial services to small and medium-sized businesses.
Katherine Pomerantz, founder of Money Storyteller, said AI helped her create a framework of processes that new hires could follow. Business Insider’s Joseph Bui
When she started using generative artificial intelligence, her perspective changed.
Pomerantz and Decode Real Estate’s other founder, Daniel Naninitzky, told Business Insider that generative AI enabled them to effectively make their first hires, which in turn allowed them to further expand their small business.
AI helps streamline employee processes
Pomerantz told Business Insider that she started using ChatGPT for her business about a year ago. She quickly came to view the generative AI platform as a “second brain,” using the technology to streamline administrative and organizational tasks.
ChatGPT helped her reverse engineer her strategic thinking into everyday processes. Pomerantz inputted client call recordings, emails, brainstorming sessions, and other materials into the model to help identify patterns in the workflow. Soon she had a procedure that others could follow.
Last year, Pomerantz hired two employees. A manager in the US and a bookkeeper in the Philippines. She said they allow her to do twice as much work as a solo operator.
“We have many more customers and we’re meeting all the deadlines pretty early,” Pomerantz said.
AI helps Pomerantz administrators organize information around recommendations. Business Insider’s Joseph Bui
Pomerantz said he uses ChatGPT not only to help establish standard operating procedures, but also to create documents detailing decision-making. Now, when a customer sends a question via email (for example, whether to use a Roth IRA), Pomerantz administrators can ask the AI to provide a detailed overview of when Pomerantz recommends a particular financial strategy.
Ultimately, Pomerantz will discuss important decisions with clients, but she said using AI and its managers to organize information in advance allows her to respond quickly and thoroughly while saving time.
So her clients can always feel like they’re receiving a high level of service without increasing Pomerantz’s work hours. “We want them to feel like they’re getting a lot more out of their time,” she says.
Generate leads using AI referrals
Daniel Najnitsky, owner of Decode Real Estate, a boutique real estate firm in New York City, has also found that generative AI can help him grow his business and hire new employees.
She told Business Insider that ChatGPT acts as a “referral engine” for her service.
From inbound leads, Najnitsky said she found that some prospects were finding her name via ChatGPT. To build on this momentum and drive customers to her brand, she engaged GEO Company to increase brand awareness for Decode.
Danielle Nazinitsky, founder of Decode Real Estate, learned that potential clients were finding her through ChatGPT. BI’s Lucia Vasquez
She learned that to strengthen her position in GEO results, she needed to write more branded blog posts and encourage clients to leave reviews on Google. Najnitsky used AI in part to enhance the content.
Najnitsky said the company had the resources to hire a second broker six months ago, due in part to growth in GEO. Like most real estate agents, her second agent is a contract employee and not a full-time employee.
Najnitsky said learning how to best use AI has allowed him to select external resources more effectively. BI’s Lucia Vasquez
Najnitsky said that in addition to using AI to market your business, it is equally important to learn when not to use AI. She said she pays professional contractors to write press releases, handle branding and oversee customer transactions.
“You get much better results when you spend money on actual experts,” she told Business Insider, adding that you spend less time redoing work and dealing with costly mistakes than when you outsource highly specialized tasks to generative AI.
“For solopreneurs, time is the most valuable asset,” Najnitsky said.