Today, we are thrilled to welcome Ethan King as our guest.
Ethan is an entrepreneur and author who coaches individuals on AI through the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). He joins us today to share insights on entrepreneurship, books, and life. He also explains how small business owners can implement AI.
Stay tuned as Ethan breaks down practical AI strategies that any entrepreneur can start using today.
Ethan’s Journey
Ethan has been an entrepreneur for 25 years. He began with a passion for art and a pivot into graphic design. While in college, a class project evolved into a real e-commerce business supplying fraternity and sorority gear. Over time, he expanded into Zeus Closet, a retail and custom apparel business serving entertainment, corporate, and educational markets. Starting with only $700 alongside his future wife and business partner, Ethan emphasizes creative problem-solving and simplicity in business. His focus on automation began in 2011 and eventually evolved into AI, which he has been teaching and applying in practical ways across his businesses for the past three years.
Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and Accelerator
Ethan considers EO and its Accelerator program his practical MBA. After joining EO in 2014, he applied systems and frameworks to scale his businesses, focusing on people, cash, strategy, and execution. Since then, he has coached other entrepreneurs through the Accelerator program, helping them reach the million-dollar revenue milestone. He highlights the value of peer learning, mentorship, and surrounding oneself with a like-minded community as essential elements for business growth.
Wealth Beyond Money
In his book Wealth Beyond Money, Ethan introduces his six dimensions of success: spirituality, intellect, money, physical presence, love, and entertainment, spelling SIMPLE. He recommends constant calibration across those areas, rather than balance. The book, inspired by a TEDx-style talk in 2014, became a bestseller in multiple categories.
The AI Evolution
After his wife introduced him to ChatGPT in 2022, Ethan immediately implemented it in his businesses and demonstrated its power to other EO marketing chairs. Recognizing the demand, he began teaching AI strategies to business owners and wrote ChatGPT to Double Your Business in 90 Days. He updates the book continuously, providing readers with fresh content and practical tools for implementing AI efficiently.
Implementing AI in Business
Ethan used AI in his own business as a testing ground before he began teaching others, applying tools like voice agents, social media automation, and custom AI solutions to improve efficiency and scale operations with minimal resources. His approach focuses on practicality, so he only teaches methods that genuinely benefit everyday business owners in B2B and B2C contexts.
Perspective on AI Adoption
Ethan has noticed that most entrepreneurs are aware of AI but are barely scratching the surface. Experts using AI are rare, while some people remain resistant. He highlights proactive learning, noting that AI will replace jobs for those who ignore it, but can create opportunities for those who embrace it. He draws parallels to past technological shifts to illustrate the transformative potential of AI.
Work-Life Integration and Partnership
Ethan explains that working with his wife in business has strengthened their relationship. She handles operational responsibilities while he focuses on vision and creativity. He stresses the importance of shared goals and complementary roles, describing their partnership as a battlefield collaboration that builds resilience and alignment.
Year-End Advice for Small Business Owners
Ethan recommends three key actions: invest in AI learning and team training, upgrade necessary equipment and software, and intentionally reflect and plan for the upcoming year. He encourages people to create vision movies as a tool to emotionally engage with people’s personal and business goals, integrating reflection and planning into a meaningful process that drives results.
Bio:
Ethan King is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and former president of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Atlanta. He has won five EO global awards for marketing and innovation.
His latest book—Chat GPT To Double Your Business In 90 Days—has helped thousands of business leaders do more with less, automate success, and scale without the stress.
As co-host of the King Moves podcast, Ethan shares bold insights at the intersection of AI, business strategy, and personal mastery.
With a unique background in art, marketing psychology, and applied creativity, Ethan has grown multiple brands from zero to 8-figures, including stuff4GREEKS and Zeus’ Closet. His client work has appeared on platforms like The Grammys, Oprah, and 60 Minutes.
In an era of artificial intelligence (AI), Ethan teaches leaders how to harness their Authentic Influence™ (AI) and fuse it with automation for explosive growth. His mission is to empower YOU—the dreamers, the hungry hustlers, the radical pursuers of excellence—to not just grow in business, but to design a life where you can truly have it all, on your terms.
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“AI will come for your job unless you come for AI first.”
Ethan King
Full transcript of episode 301 of The Business of Meetings podcast, Eric Rozenberg with Ethan King. Lightly edited for readability.
Eric Rozenberg: Hello and welcome to the Business of Meetings podcast. I’m your host, Eric Rozenberg. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of helping businesses in the meetings and events industry grow and succeed. And I’m excited to share that experience with you. If you feel alone and overwhelmed, and if you’re looking to take your business to the next level, improve your strategy and sales, and connect with like-minded professionals, you are in the right place. I invite you to visit eventbusinessformula.com and join our community of event business owners dedicated to exponential growth. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Business of Meetings podcast. Today I have the great pleasure to speak with yet another entrepreneur, an author, but also somebody who’s coaching a lot of people that I know and a lot of people that I don’t know in the frame of EO about AI. We’re going to talk about entrepreneurship. We’re going to talk about books. We’re going to talk about life. We’re going to talk about AI and how to implement it specifically for us small business owners in the meetings and events industry. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Ethan King. Ethan, thank you so much for being with me today.
Ethan King: Great to be here, Eric. Thank you for having me.
Eric Rozenberg: That’s wonderful. And I have to tell you, every time I see the name Ethan, so I have three amazing daughters, but if I would have had the boy, I always wanted the boy to be named Ethan. And of course, I don’t know if your parents were a big fan of Mission: Impossible and Tom Cruise, but I love when they say, “Ethan, this is your mission.” [laughter]
Ethan King: Yes. Well, I think my parents are a little bit beyond those years. I was already born before Tom Cruise, Ethan Hunt, came around, but yeah, he’s definitely a cool Ethan to be compared to.
Eric Rozenberg: Wonderful. So, Ethan, if you accept this mission, and I know you will deliver. We’re going to talk about your journey, and I know you’re very concrete. You help people as well with how to concretely use AI. First and foremost, what is your journey?
Ethan King: Wow. My journey has been one, if I had to sum it up, it has to be around entrepreneurship, because that’s been a big part of my life. I’ve been an entrepreneur for the past 25 years. And when I look back on it, I’ve always kind of wanted to pave my own way. Believe it or not, Eric, I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. Like seriously, like drawing and painting was my thing. My parents said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “I want to be an artist.” And they said, “Artists don’t make any money until after they’re dead,” right? [laughter] But they wanted something practical for me, doctor, lawyer, something like that. But I was big into the arts. I had my work in exhibitions and all that type of thing. But they’re right, it is tough to make a living as a traditional type of fine artist.
So, I pivoted that into graphic design so that I could actually apply my art in a way that could make some money. And then, so we were doing branding, complete branding packages for companies, your website, your business cards, all your marketing collateral, even to your apparel and clothing. And along the way, I’d started out this school project called Stuff for Greeks when I was in college. Greeks as in fraternities and sororities, college campuses. So, it was a class project where we had to create a fictitious company and designed the website and all of the marketing collateral around it, and I had just pledged my fraternity, and I was crazy about Greek life, and that ended up becoming a real company, and it still is today. We’re one of the top players in e-commerce for fraternity and sorority gear, if you go to stuffforgreeks.com.
So that was kind of my foray into entrepreneurship. And yeah, one of the signals, when you start getting orders from someone who you don’t know, who’s not a friend of yours or a relative, a complete stranger from across the country, that’s your first sign that you’re on to something, where somebody has actually spent money with you. And then you kind of repeat that process.
So along the way, we’ve had lots of other ventures. And one of the main things is I look for the most simple approach. I don’t like playing life on hard mode, but I look for the most simple and ethical way to achieve more with less, because I never had any investors in my business. I didn’t come from a family that had a bunch of money. I didn’t like have people pouring into my business. We started off with $700, my girlfriend and I. We split $350 each to start our company, and now she’s my wife of 22 years. So, we’ve been business partners…
Eric Rozenberg: Amazing.
Ethan King: Yeah. We’ve been business partners longer than we’ve been married. But I bring that up because we have to figure out how to do more. Like, when you don’t have a lot of money to throw at a problem, you have to get very creative.
So along the way, back in 2011, that’s when I first learned marketing automation to grow our company. And I’m not a tech guy. Just told you I was an art major in college. So I’m not coming at this AI thing like a tech Silicon Valley guy. But I know how to apply it in practical ways that any person can use, and I also know how to teach it in a way that is fun. It’s engaging, and it gets people to understand, like, “Oh, I’ve got this, and I can apply this in my business right now, today.” So that’s why I’ve been speaking and teaching about AI for the past 3 years, and I published the book ChatGPT to Double Your Business in 90 Days.
Eric Rozenberg: Amazing. Now, at least I have an answer to the question why Zeus’s Closet, that I saw on LinkedIn, that’s the Greek life part. And before we get to the AI, you also wrote another book about wealth. And you joined EO. You’ve also been, like me, a coach for the Accelerator in Atlanta. I don’t know how to pronounce it in good English, but…
Ethan King: We don’t either in Atlanta. We don’t use good. We say Atlanta. If you’re from Atlanta, you say “Atlanta.” Like, that second T isn’t there. It’s just “Atlanta.”
Eric Rozenberg: Atlanta. Okay, Atlanta.
Ethan King: There you go.
Eric Rozenberg: And Boston, I heard you say the khaki instead of the car keys. And here in Florida, because of all the New Yorker, we say coffee instead of coffee. But that’s [laughter] another story. But you joined EO. What impact it had on your life?
Ethan King: Oh my goodness. EO changed my life. So I didn’t have any formal business training. And I first heard about the Accelerator program, I think this is back around like 2010, 2011. One of my friends said, “Have you ever heard of this program called EO and Accelerator that get your business up to a million dollars in revenue?” I think at the time we were maybe doing around 400,000 in revenue. And I was like, “Yes, sign me up.” Because I did not know what I was doing. Everything I had gotten to that point was just probably by sheer luck and hustling. So I signed up for Accelerator, and I tell people that EO Accelerator was my MBA, and I learned everything about business from either reading business books, going to conferences, or EO Accelerator. So it completely changed my life. Helped me to put systems and frameworks around my business in all the different areas, people, cash, strategy, execution. Like, I learned the stuff, and I applied it to my business immediately.
And it just so happens to be around that same time, that’s when we introduced the marketing automation processes, and we combined that with what we were learning, and like across my whole company, we adopted an automation-first mindset, and that’s what really helped us scale.
So that was Accelerator, and then I joined EO in 2014. So, I’ve been a member for 11 years now, and I learned so much about leadership in EO. As soon as I joined, I helped lead the Accelerator program, been a coach just like you are, and helping mentor other entrepreneurs and getting them to that million-dollar revenue mark. And as you know, it’s not just about the money. That’s a target that was kind of arbitrarily set, but, right, it really helps. It shapes your mind and your behaviors and your systems to be able to get to that point and beyond.
So, it’s very rewarding for me to be able to help others, because no matter which industry you’re in, the same systems and processes apply across the board. And I learned things from helping people in a completely different industry. I’ve had mentors who make mailboxes. Their business makes boxes for a living. I’ve had mentors who own a comedy club, who have helped me, who have taught me things to help me in my business and my public speaking. So, we learned so much from each other in this organization. If anyone’s listening, if you’re not a member of some type of peer learning group or mastermind organization, it doesn’t have to be EO, YPO. Just get around a tribe of like-minded people. Don’t isolate yourself, because that is the key to growth.
Eric Rozenberg: Absolutely. I could not agree more. And to your point about revenue, well, you do need some sort of KPI, but as a common friend, Greg Crabtree, would say, revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king. So I prefer to have the focus on profit than on the revenue. But then you wrote a book about Wealth Beyond Money. What was the genesis of it, before we get to the AI part?
Ethan King: Yeah, Wealth Beyond Money. So when I gave my first talk, it was in 2014 when I first joined EO, and we did these, it’s kind of like a TED Talk, TEDx. We called it EOX because it was inspired by TEDx. And they were like, “Just share any idea, whatever it is. Doesn’t have to be business related. It can be, but you do an 8-minute talk.” And I have this framework that I live by that I decided to share with the group, and I call it the six dimensions of success: spirituality, intellect, money, your physical presence, your love, which is all relationships, and E is for entertainment. So that spells the word SIMPLE. S-I-M-P-L-E. Spirituality, intellect, money, physical presence, love, entertainment. And I look at those as like my six areas of life. And I’m constantly looking at my levels day-to-day in each of these areas, realizing that it’s in a constant state of flux. That’s my answer to life balance, because I believe that balance is a myth. But instead, if we focus on constant calibration across those areas, almost like the flaps of an airplane wing, how you see the different flaps, and they’re always moving on the wings to get you to your destination. You just got to adjust those areas, and there’s different things you can do to adjust those flaps to get you to your destination. And I believe that you can apply a lot of automation processes to do that, to achieve success in those areas. And I believe that whatever it is you decide that you want in life, you can design the life of your dreams, and you can truly have it all on your terms if you focus on those six areas in constant calibration, depending on what’s going on in your life at the time.
So that’s what led to the book Wealth Beyond Money. So it was about eight years in the making, because I started talking about it in 2014, and then I published a book in 2022, and over the time I’d been speaking to a lot of groups and like really fine-tuning my message. I did a TED Talk about it. So it’s not about wealth. Yeah, wealth is in the title, but wealth is just one of those six areas. The true wealth is having it all in all of those areas, because if you just have the money piece and you’re missing the other areas, your life is miserable.
Eric Rozenberg: Absolutely.
Ethan King: Yeah, that’s Wealth Beyond Money. I will say this, and it hit bestseller in like 50 different categories, which I was totally amazed by, 50 different Amazon categories. It hit the number one spot in three categories. But what I was most blown away by is that the category where it hit the top is happiness. And I never thought of that word. In fact, that word, I think, is only in the book maybe three times. But I never framed it that way. But that’s really what the book is about, is true happiness, not what we perceive to be happiness based on what we think we want, because we see what other people have, and we want it because we see other people wanting.
Eric Rozenberg: Absolutely. I could not agree more with you. I always speak about professional and private life integration, certainly not balance, and I love your image of the flaps, that’s perfect. And the six categories you mentioned, it’s really the exercise that I’ve done with my forum about my life in 10 years, and that I’m also helping people to start with, because I think it’s the foundation, the basis of everything. Now, you are doing the clothes for fraternities, you’re speaking, you have this great concept, you’re speaking with TED Talk, you’re doing automation. What started the AI bug, and when did you say, “You know what? That is, I’m going all in in that”?
Ethan King: Yeah, well, the automation had already been part of my life, so yeah, since 2011, I think. 2011. And AI is just the evolution of automation. It’s just another form of automation. It just happens to be very advanced. So when ChatGPT first came along, I was one of the first users of ChatGPT, when it came out November of 2022. In fact, the new browser, Atlas, it tells you how many days you’ve been using ChatGPT. So, at this point, it’s been over a thousand something days I’ve been on the platform, because I immediately got it. Like, I mean, of course, everybody, the first time you use ChatGPT, you’re blown away probably by the results you got. But then I realized the power of it, and we started implementing it immediately.
And then at the time, I happened to be serving on the EO board again as the MarCom chair. Again, I’ve done the role a few times, because that’s naturally my thing, is marketing. So I went to the leadership conference in South Africa, and I taught all of the other marketing chairs. I showed them how I’m using ChatGPT, and I did a 20-minute demonstration. I built all these custom GPTs. Because then, for clarification for your audience, this is a board role as the marketing chair that you do not get paid for. This is a volunteer role in addition to running my businesses and my family and all this other stuff. You know, Eric, because you do a lot of this volunteer stuff, which is great, but I have to really be efficient with my time if I’m volunteering. So, I built all of these automations and custom GPTs to help with the marketing for the EO chapter. I showed it to these 200 other marketing chairs from around the world. And honestly, Eric, I thought everybody was kind of already doing it. I had been using automation in my own business. I always thought I was behind, and I thought, “Oh, everybody else is doing this. I need to catch up.” But it wasn’t until I started teaching about automation and AI, and everyone in that room was blown away. I mean, like jaws on the floor, that people were grabbing me after I spoke, and it was just a 20-minute presentation. They were like, “Can you teach this to my chapter? Can you teach this to my business?” I was like, “Yeah. You weren’t already doing this?” So that’s when the demand was just so high, and the hunger for it, and I’m still seeing it to this day. So many businesses, they hear about AI, it’s the big buzzword now, and they’re like, “I know we should be using AI, but we don’t even know where to start.”
And that’s why I’ve been passionate about teaching it, because automation has been so impactful in my life, my personal life and my business. And now AI has made it even more impactful. So I’m passionate about teaching it to other people because it saved our business. It saved us from almost going out of business. Like, if I had to throw money at the problem back in 2011, we were going through this nasty legal battle, and we had to pay lawyers with money we didn’t have. I had to learn automation in order to survive.
So that’s why I’m passionate about teaching people, because we’re in a tough economy right now. A lot of people are struggling. The landscape is shifting everywhere. So people need a lifeline, and we’ve never been given a gift like this before. AI is truly a gift that, once you harness its power, it can take you to new heights in your business.
Eric Rozenberg: No, that’s fascinating how a conversation with someone can change everything you’re doing. I remember back in 1995, it’s another century, I was teaching some small business about time management, and I was still a student, but a friend of mine, after the training, looked at me and said, “Buy the domain name rozenberg.com.” And I looked at him, said, “What am I going to do with the domain name of this ridiculous, Skull?” His name is Skull. And he looked at me, said, “Eric, shut the f up, buy the damn domain, and you will thank me later.” Guess what?
Ethan King: You got it. Nice.
Eric Rozenberg: So, do you remember the first person who told you about ChatGPT and that you should look into it?
Ethan King: Yeah, it was actually my wife. So, at the time, I don’t know if you remember Clubhouse. It might still be around.
Eric Rozenberg: Yes. Yes.
Ethan King: Clubhouse was really big in. It just took off, right? And my wife was spending a lot of time on Clubhouse, and that’s when she first heard about it. People were talking about it, and she said, “You got to check out this thing called ChatGPT.” So, of course, I checked it out, and immediately I was like, “Oh, the world has now changed. This changes everything.” I knew it.
Eric Rozenberg: You know what? That’s a motto. You should put it on the t-shirt, especially for the fraternities when they starting their life. Always listen to your wife. [laughter]
Ethan King: Right. Right. Very true.
Eric Rozenberg: That’s awesome. So, you realize that a lot of people are interested, but nobody’s really using the way you’re already using it. You start speaking about it. So, at what moment do you say, “Okay, you know what? I should devoted a certain amount of my time training people. It’s going to become another part of my business, and I’m gonna also write the book”?
Ethan King: So I wrote the book in 2024. I announced the book in January of 2024, and honestly, Eric, how it happened is I had a lot of demand to speak, and naturally, when people have events and they book a speaker, sometimes they want a book to go along with that, right? I know your audience probably knows that very well. And with my last book, Wealth Beyond Money, I was on the speaking circuit, and they would buy copies of my book, do the book signing after. It’s a nice package to have. So when I started getting booked for my AI talk, they said, “Oh, we want to buy copies of your book on AI also.” Well, I didn’t have a book on AI.
And honestly, I wasn’t planning to write one, Eric, because I was like, “AI changes too fast. I’m not going to write a book about it. By the time I get to the last page, I got to change everything.” But when they said that, I said, “Hm, maybe I should do this.” So on the fly, I was like, “Okay.” So I announced pre-orders of the book before it ever existed. I said, “Well, you can pre-order this book at this QR code. It’s called ChatGPT to Double Your Business in 90 Days.” I had a rough outline in my mind of what the book would be about. So people actually pulled out their wallets and started pre-ordering the book in January of 2024. The event where I promised that I would deliver copies was in August. So, I had eight months to actually get the book out there.
Eric Rozenberg: Oh my God.
Ethan King: And of course, I started writing it and crafting the words, but then now it comes June, and I’m on summer vacation, and I’m like, “Man, I need to write this book. I got to finish this book.” So, I was under pressure. Well, fortunately, I have AI to help me. Not write the book for me, but to help and be my authentic ghostwriter, which I teach exactly how to do it the right way. I have a whole chapter in the book devoted to how to use AI to help you write your book the right way, because you need to do it authentically. Needs to be your real stories, your real experiences, your real actual voice. But you’d be foolish if you didn’t get AI to help you get it out there faster.
So, I did that, and we’ve sold thousands of copies of the book ever since August of 2024. And here’s the thing, I figured out how to keep it fresh and keep it updated. So if you buy the book from my website directly at ethanking.com, every time there’s an update of the book, it automatically pops into your inbox. You don’t have to do anything. And then if you buy it off on Amazon or something, I put a QR code, like on page four of the book, where you scan it and you can get the free updates. So we’re updating it every few weeks, every month, and so it’s fresh. So now we’re on the fall 2025 version of it. It has the latest stuff in there about ChatGPT-5 and agents and all that stuff. And we’ll be releasing another version for 2026 in January. And it’s the gift that keeps on giving. You just keep getting free updates of the book.
Eric Rozenberg: It’s the chicken soup for AI. [laughter]
Ethan King: Love it. Love it.
Eric Rozenberg: That’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Now, how much of your time today is dedicated to… First of all, how many businesses do you have? How much of your time is dedicated to each business, and how many days on average do you spend on the road?
Ethan King: So my main business is Zeus’s Closet. That’s the one. So I kind of skipped this part in the story, but we started out with Stuff for Greeks, which was online, and then we opened a retail store in 2009 called Zeus’s Closet. And so we wanted to have a loose connotation to the Greek world. So Zeus, king of the Greek gods. But we also wanted to expand beyond just fraternities and sororities. So, at Zeus’s Closet, we do custom apparel for the entertainment industry. We’ve done custom wardrobe for movies. We do a lot of stuff for rappers and musicians. We’ve even had jackets worn on the Grammys, and even like school uniforms, business logo uniforms. So, we touch a lot of different sectors and projects with Zeus’s Closet.
Now, I flipped my 80/20. I used to spend about 80% of my time working in Zeus’s Closet, 20% of my time speaking and being on the road. And as of this year, about a year ago, I flipped it. And now I spend 80% of my time on the road speaking, writing, and then 20% of my time at Zeus’s Closet. Because fortunately, we have an amazing team at Zeus’s Closet, and my wife also runs that. So she was like, “Go do your thing,” because she sees how speaking and helping other people really lights me up. And she was like, “Go follow your passion. I’ll hold this down.” So, I’m in the office literally one day a week now, but I’m thankful for such an amazing team that keeps it going and growing.
Eric Rozenberg: That’s amazing. So, you’re the visionary, and she’s the integrator.
Ethan King: Yeah, you say that. Now, technically, like every test we’ve taken on that, we’re both visionaries, but we can adapt and be the integrator when we need to. So she’s being the integrator now. And we just hired a new integrator to help execute more things. So we’re training that person as well.
Eric Rozenberg: How is it? Because that’s something that I see a lot in my industry, the meetings and events industry. How is it to work and live with the same person?
Ethan King: I won’t paint this rosy picture like it’s always perfect, because we’re always talking about business. We wake up talking about it. We go to sleep talking about it. But I say it like this. I really feel like us being in business together is what keeps us together, because it’s like we’re on the battlefield fighting side by side, overcoming these challenges, working together for a common vision that we see on the horizon, and I feel like that makes us closer. And she stays in her lane. I stay in mine. I come from a creative background. I was an art major. She was a business major, risk insurance. She handles payroll, HR, all the stuff that I can’t stand, but that has to be done for a business. So, we make a great team in that regard. But I tell people all the time, if you’re just gazing into each other’s eyes as a couple, maybe that might fade at some point, maybe. So, have a common shared goal, a mission that you all can work together and overcome some challenges, even if that’s just traveling together or having some shared hobby or a common ground like that. I think that that is the true secret to a long-lasting relationship.
Eric Rozenberg: Yeah, I’m always impressed, because my wife is a top real estate agent here in South Florida, and a lawyer in Belgium. I don’t see any of the two of us working together. I mean, yes, doing things together, but working together, I’m not sure about this. I’m always impressed with that. So the AI part, how much of it actually do you implement yourself in your businesses, or is it what you implement in your business? Is it actually the basis of what you teach people?
Ethan King: That exactly. So I implement it in my business first. That’s the training ground, the petri dish of the experiment, to see, okay, because so many cool things come out with AI. Like, you can make talking cat videos, but is that applicable in your business? Maybe not, unless you’re maybe a veterinarian or something. So when these tools come out, I apply them and say, “Okay, can I use this in my everyday business and have it have a positive result?” And if I can, then I teach it, then I add it to the book as a chapter in the book, but I only teach things that your everyday business owner can actually use. In my business, we have one foot in the B2C market, one foot in B2B. So, I kind of understand a little bit about both worlds and speaking to both of them.
So, by implementing it, for example, voice agents, like having AI answer your phone, I’m not going to go out there and show other people how to do it and tell them to do it if I’m not doing it myself. So, we do it ourselves. We’re using that in our business, our social media. We’ve trained our social media how to speak in our brand voice. We’ve automated it so that all we have to do is like start with pillar content. We have one social media manager who chops up all the content for all of our different brands and puts it out there quickly at scale. So it looks like we have this big PR company, when it’s really just a couple of people who are managing it. So yeah, number one, the first hurdle, like, can I use this in my business? Then I actually use it in my business, and then I teach it.
And the reason it’s called ChatGPT to Double Your Business in 90 Days, well, first of all, it’s about more than just ChatGPT, but a lot of people treat ChatGPT as synonymous with AI. So, easy to understand, but talk about way more tools. But then it’s also meant to read the book in a way where each chapter is a day. Take a day, it’s one concept, read that concept and stop and implement it and go down that rabbit hole. And then day two, you read that concept and stop and implement it. And by the time you get to the end of 90 days, your business will look completely different.
Eric Rozenberg: Amazing. Absolutely amazing. So you speaking to a lot of EO chapter, but you’re also speaking outside of EO. But in the case of EO, that means that if people do over a million dollar in revenue, and we discussed that revenue is not the main goal, but still, that means that you’re talking to 4% of all the 32 million something businesses existing in the US, according to the SBA. And I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I have a bias or a clear idea of the level of understanding that most entrepreneurs have of AI. But what do you discover? What is really amazing you, positively or negatively, when you speaking to entrepreneurs when it comes to AI and how they’re using AI?
Ethan King: It’s different from chapter to chapter, and it has changed a little bit over the past 3 years, but I am surprised at how little people are using AI. Every time I go speak, I kind of think to myself, “Man, they’re all going to know this by now,” but they still don’t, and they’re barely scratching the surface. Most people don’t have it customized. So, here’s where, and I’m speaking very generally, because if I speak to a crowd, say there are 100 people in the audience, it’ll be segmented to where you have some experts in there who are already building agents, but I would say usually that’s less than 5% of the audience. And then most people use it every day, but they know that they’re not using it to its full capability. And then there’s a small subset of people, maybe I’ll say 10%, who are brand new to it, have maybe only dabbled with it once or twice, and just are completely strange to it or resistant to it. So that’s another thing.
Eric Rozenberg: Resistant.
Ethan King: Yeah. Now, usually I speak to a lot of different groups, and entrepreneurs are the most receptive and optimistic about AI overall. When I speak to groups where it’s like management leadership teams, and there may be some employees in the room, I get a lot more resistance to just embracing AI, because they’re scared. Like, in their mind, they’re like, “I don’t want to train my replacement. Why would I learn this thing?” But by the time I get done, and I speak not just to big groups, but also I’ll come in and do trainings, specialized trainings for a company, and do consulting. And by the time I get through with my workshop, the employees are excited about AI, and their whole mindset has shifted.
In fact, I had this one young lady, she was an assistant. Her and her boss were on the call, was a small company, an insurance company. And at the end of the call, she admitted to her boss, she said, “I did not want to come on this call because I did not want to train my replacement, but now I feel like I’m the robot manager. I feel like I just got a promotion.” And we laughed about it. I said, “We’re going to get you some business cards that say robot manager.” Because we basically built assistants for her while we were on the phone. And it gave her peace of mind, because the boss is like, “No, I’m not going to fire you, but now you have these digital assistants that you can manage.” So now you’re a manager, and they’re going to help you get your job done faster, and it’s fun.
Eric Rozenberg: I agree with you. And in the same time, every time you have change, most of the people that don’t own their business, their first reaction is, “What does it mean for me? Am I going to lose my job?” Which is totally understandable. Now, if you look at any profession, if you’re a lawyer, all the research you had to do in the past is there with AI. If you’re a doctor, even doing a diagnostic, where you will be helped by AI, which is very promising in terms of curing disease and stuff like that. So, do believe there’s going to be some shift in the type of businesses, the type of profession. So that’s maybe where the fear of the unknown is for people, don’t you think?
Ethan King: Oh, for sure. And there will be a shift. It’s inevitable. What I tell people is AI will come for your job unless you come for AI first. So if you’re scared of being bullied by AI, then you need to bully the bully.
Eric Rozenberg: Learn it.
Ethan King: Yeah. Learn it, because never before have we had this much power, because you don’t have to know any coding or programming in order to excel with AI. It’s natural English. So it’s been democratized. So if you don’t jump on this opportunity, yeah, you’re going to have to pivot. AI is only going to get better and better and better. This is the worst it will ever be, and it’s pretty darn good. But it’s only a three-year-old. If you look at from the time ChatGPT came out till now, it’s been almost exactly 3 years, and it’s just a toddler. Think about how it’s going, if you equate it to human years. Think about how good it will be when it’s 10 years old, 15. By the time it’s a full adult, our whole world is going to be completely different. We can’t even predict what’s coming. So, it will replace jobs, but it’s also going to create new jobs, just like every other technology revolution, right?
I mean, one example I give, and there are tons of them: take Uber. Imagine if you went back in time to 2000, 25 years. Go back to the year 2000. Try to explain Uber to someone. “Oh, wait. Don’t go in a car with a stranger.” [laughter] “You guys just hitchhike everywhere? What? What? Are you all crazy?” So many things had to happen in order for Uber to be possible. First of all, internet speeds had to get faster, because we were on dial-up back then. And then smartphones had to exist. And then also the satellite, the geolocation, those features had to be up to speed. And all of these pieces had to work in order for something like Uber to make sense, or now we just take it for granted. It’s just, we expect it to work. So if we look out 20 years from now, what types of things are going to happen where we get that ladder effect? Okay, we have AI, and then that’s going to enable this other technology, and then maybe self-driving cars, and then AI plus self-driving cars. What will that unlock, and then what will that unlock? So, it’s hard to even really predict what’s going to be out there and possible and existing 20 years from now. But there will be new jobs created, and it’s going to unlock a whole new world for us.
Eric Rozenberg: That’s very exciting, and very much looking forward to that. You know, when you say it’s natural English, or you will put in natural English, I couldn’t help but smile, because every time I tried to use that, they don’t do my accent. It’s terrible. [laughter] I said, “Do this” or “Call that.” “That person is not in your contact database.” Said, “Yes, it’s my wife. Don’t tell me she’s not in my database.” Anyway, so approaching the end of the year and the end of our conversation, unfortunately, because I really love listening to you. What are, besides, of course, and we’re going to give the information just in a few minutes at the end, besides buying and reading your book, what are three things that any small business owners or solopreneur in the meetings and events industry should do before the end of the year?
Ethan King: Invest in learning AI and getting your team trained on AI. There are lots of ways you can do this. There’s a bunch of certifications out there from online colleges. You can hire in people like me to come in and do a training. You buy books, of course, but do it teamwide, because the more you have everyone focused on this, then the faster you will go. Especially if you have some budget that you need to spend by the end of the year, I think that would be a great investment, is investing in training. Let’s see, the second thing I would do. You said three things?
Eric Rozenberg: Yes.
Ethan King: Before the end of the year, I would look at what equipment you need also, like investing in any type of equipment, computers, so forth, phones. So, not just the soft, like learning part of it, but also hardware and software. And then really sitting down. You know what I love about this time of year is like how things slow down, and I get a chance to look back and reflect over the past year, what went well, what didn’t, and then also to plan the next year. And I know that may sound cliché, but like really sitting down and being intentional about it. I do this exercise with my family, and we create vision movies. So, you probably heard of vision boards, where you cut out things, your goals, and you put them on a board, and you look at the board all year, and you manifest it. Well, we take it to another level. We actually create movies on our iPhone of things that we want to achieve. So, when you see moving images, it registers in your brain, and it triggers those emotional points more than looking at still images. It starts to feel real to your brain. You ever watched a movie and felt emotion? Maybe you’ve cried in a movie, Eric, before. I don’t know.
Eric Rozenberg: Yeah.
Ethan King: People have, right? It triggers emotions. Even though logically your brain knows it’s not real, but emotionally you feel it. Well, you want to do that same thing with the life that you want to build and have intentionality around it. So, I would encourage everyone to do that. We actually teach that process, and I teach it in my book, Wealth Beyond Money, that whole vision movie process, but I do it with my family every year. So you can use that for life planning, business planning, and it’s been amazing what things I have seen come to fruition because they’ve been in that movie.
Eric Rozenberg: I love it. And now you’re using Sora to make sure that you’re… [laughter]
Ethan King: I do have a lot of fun with Sora. Yeah, you can add that to the movies as well.
Eric Rozenberg: That’s funny. It’s cool. Wonderful. Listen, Ethan, that is a pleasure speaking with you. As you know, I launched my own AI with an amazing team, where people ask me question anywhere in the world in their native language, and I was fascinated by the fact that it’s not only the knowledge, but it’s the wisdom, the way they’ve been trained. So the opportunities, even for small business owner, are phenomenal. My two last question. First, how do get people in touch with you, and also, if you can tell them how they can get your book.
Ethan King: Yes. Awesome. I try to keep it super simple. So, if you just go to my website, ethanking.com, it’s just my name, ethanking.com. That has links to everything. So, you can choose your flavor of social media, wherever you want to follow me, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram. I’m on all the platforms. You can also buy my book there, ChatGPT to Double Your Business in 90 Days, and I also have Wealth Beyond Money on there. Then those books are also available on Amazon.
Eric Rozenberg: Wonderful. Thank you. And my last question, when we meet again in one year with a bottle of champagne, what are we going to celebrate?
Ethan King: Oh, that’s a wonderful question. See, I haven’t sat down to do my new year visioning yet. So, I’ll have that answer for you in a little bit. But you know what? I have a lot more speaking engagements lined up for next year. I’m really looking at expanding and touching more other countries. A lot of my speaking engagements over this past year have been in North America, primarily US and Canada, but we’re branching out to Mexico and some other countries next year. So, I really hope to be toasting a glass of champagne to having a global impact with my journey and my message.
Eric Rozenberg: Wonderful, Ethan. Thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon again.
Ethan King: Likewise, Eric. See you soon. Thank you.
Eric Rozenberg: Thank you for tuning in to the Business of Meetings podcast. I hope you found today’s episode valuable. If you enjoyed the show, the most important thing you can do is leave a review and share it with your colleagues. It really helps spread the word. I truly appreciate your support. And if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, don’t forget to visit eventbusinessformula.com to learn more about how we are helping event business owners like you. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
