Are you tired of hearing about AI being the future while having no clue where to actually start today? Feeling overwhelmed by all the AI tools, platforms, and promises that seem more like science fiction than practical business solutions? You're not alone – and frankly, most of the AI advice out there is either too technical, too expensive, or just plain too theoretical for real business owners trying to run profitable companies.
Here's the problem: Everyone's talking about AI transformation, but nobody's showing you the actual playbook that works whether you're running a 90-person agency or working solo from your kitchen table. You're being sold on massive enterprise solutions when what you really need is someone to say, 'Here's exactly how I use ChatGPT 20 times a day to make better decisions, write better emails, and run my business more efficiently - and here's how you can adapt these same systems even without a team.'
Well, today we're solving that problem once and for all. I'm bringing you Ron Callis Jr., CEO and Co-Founder of One Firefly, a marketing powerhouse that serves technology integrators across North America. Ron isn't just talking about AI – he's living it daily. This is the guy who's built custom GPTs for project management, uses AI for everything from podcast preparation to employee reviews, and has systematically integrated AI into his leadership workflow without losing the human touch that built his business. Ron was recognized as a CE Pro Masters Class honoree for his industry contributions, has mentored robotics teams, and has been building and scaling businesses for over two decades. But what makes him perfect for today's conversation is that he's not selling you AI dreams – he's going to share the exact tools, prompts, and processes he uses every single day to lead his team and grow his business.
The AI Hat Podcast host Mike Allton asked Ron Callis about:
✨ Start Where You Are: Begin with one daily AI workflow that eliminates your biggest time drain - Ron shows how his email system works with or without an assistant
✨ Systems That Scale With You: Learn how to build AI workflows that work solo today but can grow with your business tomorrow
✨ Practical Over Perfect: See real examples of AI implementation that prioritize results over complexity - no technical degree required
Learn more about Ron Callis
- Connect with Ron Callis on LinkedIn
Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode
- One Firefly
- What Is a Custom GPT? A Non-Technical Guide to Building Your Own
- How I Used AI Research to Transform My Solopreneur Business in Days
- Fathom.ai
- AI Digital Clone: How to Augment Your Team’s Expertise with George B. Thomas
- Magai
- Matt Wolfe on YouTube
- Isar Meitis
- AI Primer: A Comprehensive Guide
- Explore past episodes of the The AI Hat Podcast podcast
Full Transcript
(lightly edited)
Beyond the Hype: A Real CEO's Practical AI Playbook You Can Copy with Ron Callis
[00:00:00] Ron Callis: Not gonna lie, it sounds like even maybe a little bit smarter version of me and, uh, and I enjoy it. I think it's helped me elevate my game. I use ChatGPT so regularly and now that the, the knowledge base and the memory is so expanded, it's able to output prompts or, or if I tell it I'm drafting an email or I need help.
[00:00:21] Giving it some different inputs. Maybe I'm, I'm helping field a client inquiry here at One Firefly, or maybe there's a complicated situation. Then I'll give it multiple inputs, and then ultimately it'll help me craft either the outline of the response and then I'll craft it myself. And or it'll give me at least a first draft and then I'll take that first draft and then go and refine it before I send it.
[00:00:45] But I, I find that using AI, I just feel like it's made me smarter because the output's just so much more refined and inclusive of important, relevant details. So it sounds like me, but it, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it sounds like even maybe a little bit smarter version of me. And, uh, and I enjoy it. I think it's helped me elevate my game.
[00:01:12] Mike Allton: Mike's got The Hat, the AI kind. Unlocking power in business, you'll find. Cut through the hype, explore the tech. Every week new ideas to check.
[00:01:36] Allton leads us on a digital quest. AI secrets, he'll always invest. Tune in tight, don't miss a beat. Knowledge, groove, keep you on your feet. Listen up! To the AI flow. Business growth, here we go. Cuttin the edge insights, that's the plan. With The AI Hat you'll understand.
[00:02:21] Greetings program. Welcome back to the AI Hat Podcast, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at harnessing the power of AI across all areas of business. From streamlining operations and boosting productivity to gaining a competitive edge and driving explosive growth. Oh, and you get to learn too.
[00:02:38] Subscribe to be shown to prepare yourself and your brand for this AI revolution, and come on ahead. Listen, you tired of hearing about AI being the future while having no clue where to actually start today? Maybe you're feeling overwhelmed by all the AI tools, the platforms, and the promises that seem more like science fiction than practical business solutions.
[00:02:58] You're not alone. And frankly, most of the AI advice out there is either too technical, too expensive, or just. Too theoretical for real business owners trying to run profitable companies. And here's the problem. Everyone's talking about AI transformation, but nobody's showing you the actual playbook.
[00:03:14] You're being sold on massive enterprise solutions when what you really need is someone to say, here's exactly how I use Chat GPT 20 times today to make better decisions, write better emails, and run my business more efficiently. You need real use cases from a real CEO who's actually implemented ai.
[00:03:30] Across every aspect of the leadership, not just the marketing department. Well, today we're solving that problem once and for all. I'm bringing you Ron Callis Jr. CEO, and co-founder of One Firefly a marketing powerhouse that serve technology integrators across North America. Ron isn't just talking about ai, he's living it daily.
[00:03:47] This is the guy who's built custom GPTs for project management. Uses ai for everything from podcast prep to employee reviews in a systematically integrated AI into his leadership workflow without losing the human touch that built his business. Ron was recognized as a CE Pro Master's class honoree for his industry contributions, has mentored robotics teams and has been building and scaling businesses for over two decades.
[00:04:11] But what makes him perfect for today's conversation? That he's not selling you AI dreams. He's gonna share the exact tools, prompts, and processes he uses every single day to build his team and grow his business. Hey Ron, welcome to the show.
[00:04:25] Ron Callis: Mike. Thank you so much. Happy to be here with you and your audience.
[00:04:29] Mike Allton: So excited to have you. Let's, let's start with the basics. What is your daily AI workflow look like from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed? Walk us through like a typical day.
[00:04:42] Ron Callis: Well, as, as the CEO and founder here at One Firefly, you know, I have an awesome executive team and, uh, leaders throughout the org which, which helped me run the business, which means I, I really get to live my day and my week and my month by design.
[00:04:58] You know, I would say it starts out with I'm not sure what I'm about to say is actually best practice, but it's honest. I, I get up and, uh, I am one of those people. The first thing I do is grab my phone and I, I give it a quick scan. I'll scan my, my social media accounts. Typically I'll, I'll then scan my crypto portfolio, uh, and my other portfolios and, uh, I'll check emails.
[00:05:25] And then, uh, pretty quickly, I'm, I'm out the door. Uh, I, I work out six days a week, so I, I'm usually out the door at by 7:00 AM running and then lifting. Usually I have about two hours segmented daily for workouts. And then, uh, I'll come back in and, and get my day started around nine. And, you know, and you, you mentioned AI in, in the workflow, I am.
[00:05:50] Generally in terms of my workday, I am, I'm scheduled out most days. I, I'm scheduled out with internal company meetings. I, I provide a role within One Firefly for sales coaching and account management, co coaching. So I'll work with the different people in my organization on either, um. Joining their L 10 meetings, their, their weekly meetings, and or, uh, individual coaching sessions with the players on those teams.
[00:06:20] I'm also heavily involved in product development. That's just a, an area that I enjoy kind of tinkering and building our future with, uh, the leaders in my organization. And, uh, and then I have other standing meetings such as, you know, financial review and analysis meetings with my CFO. Um, in terms of AI though I would say I'm, I'm interacting and, and utilizing my Chat GPT account all day, every day. So it's just really become a, a tool in my tool belt that I'm, I'm using, I would say, nearly every hour on the hour throughout my day. Often it is a tool that I'm, I'm, I'm leaning on much more heavily than maybe in the old days where I would only exclusively go and do a search query or something in Google, I'm now relying on, the, the brain trust, this extra brain that I've gained in the knowledge within chat GPT, just to help me kind of in day-to-day tasks. I, I'm assuming, we'll, we'll go through more of that, but, uh, that's at a, a super high level overview of what a, maybe a typical day or typical week looks like for me.
[00:07:33] Mike Allton: I love that you referred to it as a second brain.
[00:07:35] 'cause I, I, I think about it the same way I happened to use Gemini. I was already on a paid account. In fact, our mutual friend, Chris Carr and I were doing an AI bootcamp in Philly. And he asked me to learn either Gemini or Copilot. 'cause he already knew chat GPT and he wanted somebody else teaching, right?
[00:07:51] Who could, who could teach the, uh, the students, the attendees about Gemini. And, and so I, I dove into that and I, I'm in it all day long. Love that I'm, I can be on the phone or on the laptop and asking questions or doing search queries and so on. You had talked to me before about using, uh, ChatGPT for things like email, social media posts.
[00:08:11] Can you walk us through that? Maybe not the exact prompt, but what's, what's the process that you use now? Sure to help a, to have AI help you with that, and how has that changed maybe your efficiency?
[00:08:21] Ron Callis: Sure, I'll, I'll, I'll describe it in a couple of different levels. First of all, I, I have an executive assistant Allison, she's amazing.
[00:08:28] And I have her assisting me with a number of different tasks throughout every day. And one of those is she will, she helps me manage my inbox. So if you send me an email. She's also in my inbox and she's able to help me curate and filter. And on occasion depending on certain types of emails, she also will respond.
[00:08:49] And depending on the email, she'll respond as her or she'll respond as me. We'll say, well, how could she respond as me? She's not me. Well, she and I built an Email GBT. Where within that GPT we trained it on, you know, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 or 20 authentic emails that I've drafted myself without the assistance of ai, over the last several years.
[00:09:14] So it's in my voice, it's in my tone. I have a, particular style of communication. We then, uh, separately post-process, those emails to create a style document on my writing style. So now that becomes a separate document or source file for the GPT in addition to the selection of examples. And I'm trying to think of what else is in that Email GPT.
[00:09:39] Certainly a, a very clear set of instructions. Um, you know, one of the little tricks for writing instructions or writing prompts, uh, I don't know if it's a trick or maybe just standard operating procedure, but I'll, I, and we will always use or go into Chat GPT, usually the 4.0 model, and ask it for help writing a prompt or help it ask it for help writing the instructions for A GPT. You know, whenever we go and start slamming into our keyboard, into ai, usually, usually we can get there to accomplishing whatever the outcome is. But, uh, I've just found a dramatic shortcut. If you go in and say, help me draft a prompt that will accomplish A, B, and C, then I'll banter and I'll, I'll type a long-winded response, and then it gives this beautifully formulated output.
[00:10:32] So then we copy paste that into instructions into the GPT. Anyway, so that's an example of an Email GPT that she uses when she's creating draft communication on my behalf. Uh, she did the same thing, a same version of that for social media posts as well. So, for example, if you see me on LinkedIn, a lot of times that is e either me, so I'll keep you guessing, keep you on your toes, uh, and or it's Allison acting as me. Utilizing the Social Media GPT, which then again, everything full in our internal process. We, we operate at one firefly inside of Slack, and what she'll do is she'll then send me the draft in Slack of the post that she's going to make.
[00:11:18] Then I'll go in and tinker with it if necessary. And then I'll just give her a green light, and then that's the post that'll go up there. So that's how I have an assistant operating at a higher level of efficiency and accuracy on my behalf for, in this case, using Chat GPT and g and custom gpt, and then for myself.
[00:11:37] I will I will often, I actually don't use my Email GPT just, as odd as that might sound, she, she uses that on my behalf. But I will go in, you know, there's, I, I use it, I use Chat GPT so regularly, and now that the, the knowledge base and the memory is so expanded. It's able to output prompts or, or if I tell again, I'm drafting an email or I need help giving it some different inputs, maybe I'm, I'm helping field a client inquiry here at One Firefly, or maybe there's a complicated situation, then I'll give it multiple inputs, and then ultimately it'll help me craft either the outline of the response and then I'll craft it myself and, or it'll give me at least a first draft, and then I'll take that first draft and then go and refine it before I send it.
[00:12:26] But I, I find that, using AI, I just feel like it's made me smarter because the output mm-hmm. Is just so much more refined and inclusive of important, relevant details. So it sounds like me, but it, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it sounds like even maybe a little bit smarter version of me and, uh, and I enjoy it.
[00:12:51] I think it's helped me elevate my game. That's just, it's a very simple example. There's, you know, if I scan it and look at my. GPT. There's just a, a, a plethora from personal to professional use cases and applications that I'm utilizing, you know, chat GPT every day. And I, I'll just add in terms of Gemini here at one Firefly, we're also a Google workplace.
[00:13:15] Mike Allton: Yeah.
[00:13:16] Ron Callis: Which means we have a company-wide Gemini account. Uh, but I'm, I've just found my personal style or method is, I'm all in on Chat GPT. And, I've, I, I listen to a lot of the educational videos on kind of the nuances and the horse race that are all of the models, you know, whether it's Gemini or Meta or Claude or or, or the others.
[00:13:42] And they're all really in a horse race. Depending on the week one might be better at writing, one might be better at Math, one might be better at critical thinking. They're all, they're all amazing. And so I've just gone in on chat GPT and I'm a regular user of that. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with any of the other models.
[00:14:04] It just means I have, limited capacity to go and explore other things. I do dabble in explore with some other Ais, but in terms of a primary day-to-day model, I've found open AI solution pretty good.
[00:14:17] Mike Allton: Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. Folks don't need to just run to a different model because of some new feature they release or some new version. Folks just wait a couple months. All the other models will have their own version of deep research or canvas or whatever. If you haven't done a custom GPT or a gem for Gemini, I'll link to a resource in the show notes that'll walk you through how to actually build some of the things that Ron and I are talking about.
[00:14:39] And, and it was just funny 'cause Ron, you mentioned in, in the green room that you had actually seen one of my LinkedIn posts, I was talking about our mutual friend Brooke Sellas. So I have proof that Ron does in fact personally use LinkedIn some of the time
[00:14:50] Ron Callis: I'm, I'm personally on LinkedIn at least 10 to 15 minutes a day every day, seven days a week.
[00:14:57] Mike Allton: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:57] Ron Callis: And so yes, I wanted those. This is not Ron bot reading your LinkedIn. This was Ron reading your LinkedIn and I saw that post 'cause yeah, I was commenting just before we, we started recording.
[00:15:08] Mike Allton: Yeah. Well, I'm gonna ask you about Ron Bot. Before I do, I wanna go back and underscore something you said.
[00:15:13] 'cause I, I, I thought it was really, really important. You talked about how today we can actually ask the AI to help us create a great prompt. And this is something I've talked about a lot, that, that AI is a technology is different from everything else that we've ever used in our entire lives. You pick up a cell phone or, or a piece of actual hardware technology or you open up an app like Canver Photoshop.
[00:15:36] You can't have a conversation with it about how to use it. But with ai, you can. I was writing an article over the weekend about, uh, how I use deep research and if you're not familiar with deep research, you can have it do all kinds of autonomous research for you and deliver this incredible, powerful report.
[00:15:51] And if you're not sure what to ask it to do. You can start the conversation with Chat GPT or Gemini, Hey, this is what I wanna learn about. Help me create a really great research prompt and then copy and paste that into the deep research function. So that was a huge point. I'm so glad you mentioned that 'cause it's something that I think people really need to be aware of as they're using these tools.
[00:16:12] Ron Callis: So I'll, I'll give you a little opportunity or maybe a nugget for folks that are managing others, whether you're leading the company or you're managing people, or maybe you just wanna help your family or your friends. Hmm. I here at One Firefly, I do one-on-ones. Uh, I have a cadence of weekly with my leadership team, monthly with my, uh, leaders that are below the leadership team, and then every quarter with everyone on the team and in the interactions of the one-on-one, which are mostly non-work related, they're not, usually task focused or project focused, but just kinda life focused.
[00:16:48] But I will ask anyone and everyone, everyone on my team, you know, is probably nodding their head when I describe this. I'll say, can you just show me a recent use case on how you use Chat GPT or Gemini? Just show me a, a, a scenario where you used it recently and I'll have them pull something up and then I'll, ill take them through.
[00:17:08] Odds are nine times out of 10, they started clicking away about some outcome they wanted or some help they wanted with something. And I said, just, will you enlighten me? I wanna show you something. And they're like, what is it? And I said, all right. So now go to your prompt. And I want you to say, you could even take what you'd asked it above, but I said, I want you now to say, help me write a prompt to accomplish the following, and then put all of your notes there.
[00:17:37] Then look at that output and that prompt that the AI generates is always many, many, many multiples better than anything that you probably chicken scratched into the keyboard. And it allows for when you run that. So for example, just yesterday, talking about real life examples. So our washing machine here in our house just died.
[00:18:00] We knew that it was gonna be on its last leg for months. And then finally the door locked couldn't open. It wouldn't turn on. It was, it was it rang, it threw in the flag. It said, I'm done. And so my wife's like, we gotta get a new washer. Well, we hadn't bought a new washer. I can't even remember the decade I bought a new washer. And so I didn't even hesitate. And what's interesting is I did not go to Google. I went immediately into chat GPT into oh four, and I said, help me write a prompt for deep research that will look at all of the best washer dryer side by side combos. It does not need to be stackable.
[00:18:40] I want it to be white. Price is not an issue, but I want it to be considered a good value. Please look at all the available reviews. Tell me the, the top five considerations I should look at. It, so that's my chicken scratch version of a prompt. And it just wrote this beautiful Shakespearean prompts of, of just significant detail and analysis.
[00:19:05] And then I just switched to the O three model and I said, great. And then I went down to deep research, I clicked it on and I said, great, run that prompt in deep research and, um, create it in a format that will be easy for me to understand your rankings and the why. And I ran it and then it output and literally my wife, right after I forwarded, I forwarded it to my wife.
[00:19:28] She read it. 'cause I was in meetings. I didn't even have time to read the output. I just knew it was gonna be good. She then took it and then she reported back to me. 30 minutes later, she bought number four on the list and Lowe's is delivering it today. So that's just an example of how it took me all of maybe five minutes to get that inquiry going, and I, you know, in a couple of years ago, maybe I would've asked my assistant to go do that research, or my wife or I would've done that research maybe in the morning or in the evening.
[00:20:06] Now AI went and did the research and it handed us just a beautiful analysis. She went and fact checked some of the review schedules, you know, some of the review feedback and some of the, the references seems totally legit, and in fact it found a nuance. So I mentioned that in, in my opening that I, I try to work out every day.
[00:20:28] Well, so does my wife and so does my son. So our house is always full of gym clothes. I had written that in my chicken scratch input into the AI that we, we are a household with lots of, you know, sweaty gym clothes. It had processed that in the analysis and this particular washer, it pointed out. Was a front load washer that had a certain feature to keep air circulating in the machine even when it was done.
[00:20:58] And that helps prevent any odor or mildew from forming, particularly when you're washing gym, workout clothes, gym clothes. And I was like, oh my God. That's exactly the feature that we needed based on our lifestyle. And that was just. One of, uh, on what feels like almost an infinite array of opportunities between personal life and business to be deploying these technologies to make our life a little bit better.
[00:21:26] Mike Allton: Oh, I couldn't agree more. I, I just published an article about how I was using deep research to research opportunities for me to pivot into solopreneurs and creators and a, a field that I personally identify with for two decades, but I hadn't really thought about talking to them and trying to help them.
[00:21:43] And in that case, I had used Gemini to help me craft a great prompt like you did with chat GPT, and, and the output prompt was beautiful. It covered so much more nuance. The other thing they often do is ask the AI to ask me questions. I, I give it that permission. Feel free to, you know, ask me any clarifying questions you want, and often it comes back with an entire questionnaire.
[00:22:06] But there are all these angles and things that, you know, I didn't necessarily think to cover, whether it's a research or just any kind of prompt. But you talked about your Ron Bot and I, and I know you've created this for like sales and account management as well as other kinds of things. What was the problem that that was solving and how did you actually build it?
[00:22:23] Ron Callis: Sure. I've always, what, what is so amazing about AI and our access to this technology? That in, in just a few years ago was completely unattainable to most of us in society. It's now right here at our fingertips. So in, in the case of One Firefly. Well, I'll just say me personally, you know, I've been in the, the, my particular industry, this custom electronics industry for the last 26 years for my whole career.
[00:22:51] Graduated out of Virginia Tech in 2000 with a degree in engineering, mechanical engineering, to be specific. And I, you know, I went and worked professionally and then launched this business in oh seven. And, and I have the experience, the personal experience of working with, at this point, thousands of small business owners.
[00:23:13] Uh, I've, I've worked with them one-on-one. I've worked with them, and through webinar education, I've, I've, you know, stood on stage and keynote delivered content and, and taught various courses around the subject matters of marketing, engineering, process, sales, and so forth. So, I, I just have this, you know, all this experience under my belt.
[00:23:37] So that when I am in an interaction with a customer myself, I'm generally able to navigate most situations and, and you know, yield a positive outcome. That's for the client solving their problem. Maybe that's resulting in, uh, you know, addressing a client's concern. Maybe that's helping make a sale.
[00:24:00] And I can do those things at this point fairly intuitively, just because I have so much life experience under my belt. Uh. A role that I play at One Firefly with my team now is pouring into them to help them address these same situations that I, if I was in solo addressing I would just, I would do it, I would be on autopilot and it would be relatively easy.
[00:24:24] Well, if that's, if you're younger in your career you haven't seen it all yet. You haven't made enough mistakes, perhaps, and so it, that's value that I can bring them by either joining them for a call. Uh, or analyzing their call and post through. We, we record all client meetings here at One Firefly and Fathom which is just a great tool, and we will, uh, you know, and so I'll, I'll assist them and coach them.
[00:24:53] Sometimes I'll have the leader of that person and then the individual. Sometimes I'll talk to the entire sales team. I'll talk to the entire account management team, all with the goal of moving and advancing their knowledge forward to help them grow personally and professionally.
[00:25:08] The limitation is my time.
[00:25:11] My time is finite and I'm, I, I enjoy that. I'm generally pretty. Um. Pretty busy, pretty scheduled out, often, many weeks in advance. And so the luxury of me being able to spend the time with that team member isn't always there, although I try to prioritize it. Sometimes life happens, particularly like during the heavy conference season, see?
[00:25:32] In the spring or the fall. And so, my ea and I were brainstorming, how could we invent a tool that would try to capture at least some of the knowledge and experience that I have and make that then readily available to every member of our team. And uh, I was actually in my mastermind with Brooke and Rich and Andy Crestodina, and Brooke was showing us a sales bot that she had created, and I believe she's actually gonna be commercializing.
[00:26:04] And that just, that triggered the idea. I was like, well, why don't we take the, the, the recorded transcripts of my, my sales calls with clients, my account management calls with clients, usually with another participating member of our team, an account manager typically, and then internal sales trainings where it's one-on-one, me with a person or a group of people and or me with our account manager or groups of account managers in training environments.
[00:26:37] All of these things I'm describing become inputs for the knowledge base. So we went and mined all of the transcripts. For the last couple of years that we've been recording them to find good examples or demonstrations of where I'm, I'm providing value to the, the other party. We also then went through our library of webinars.
[00:27:02] We went through, uh, I'll just say lots of other bits of content. Where we are finding holes. Then I'll record custom content that then gets transcribed and added to the knowledge base and the goal from all of this, actually, just in our final stages of then releasing that to the team. Our goal is to release that here in the coming weeks.
[00:27:22] And so that our sales team and or our account managers that normally would wanna face-to-face with me now can at least chat with, we're, we're jokingly internally calling it Ron Bot. Mm-hmm. But they could interact with me through the GPT that has access to a knowledge base that I've trained and. The, the goal is to get that working here and then, you know, go totally nerdy and tie that to an avatar, Ron, and then train my voice in.
[00:27:54] So we're looking at, Hey Gen and Eleven Labs, and, and part of this is, is are those elements necessary? They're not necessary, but they're just cool. Yeah. And so part of our method here, part of my method is often, we'll just, I'll jump down the rabbit hole to learn it. Because I need to learn it so that I can then teach it, and I can then help others.
[00:28:17] I can help my team, or if I'm in an envi environment with our industry or clients, I can help them. It's hard to teach and help people if you haven't actually done it yourself. And so those are the reasons that the, this Ron bought as a, a sales aide and account management coaching aide is, has been created, you know, we've been at it now about three months, three or four months, and we're just gonna be rolling it out.
[00:28:44] I say we, my Allison, my assistant, and I, she's my, my right hand helping me get it all put together. She and I meet weekly on it. We're continuing to push it forward and enhance it and, uh, it'll be in the hands of my team in the coming weeks.
[00:28:59] Mike Allton: Love that I'm building a similar Blogging Brute Bot. cause I've got hundreds of articles and videos and courses and eBooks all about content marketing.
[00:29:08] Partly just to share that knowledge and partly, like you said, to just help myself understand how to do this so that I can do it with others. We had an entire episode with George Thomas. That'll link to below about, he's done the same thing from a HubSpot perspective. He's the HubSpot helper. Folks.
[00:29:21] We're talking with Ron Callis about how he's using AI in virtually every aspect of running his business. I've got seven more questions you aren't gonna wanna miss, but first, a quick word about how you could set up your own AI powered executive assistant.
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[00:30:22] Tap the link in the show notes to visit Magai today to learn more and now.
[00:30:30] So Ron, I, I love, earlier when you talked about how even in your weekly and monthly one-on-ones, you're asking folks for examples of how they're using ai and along those same lines, you launched an AI council in your company last year. What, what prompted that decision and what's the impact been on your team's adoption and results as a result of having this council internally?
[00:30:51] Ron Callis: When AI kinda stormed the beaches in, uh, I'll just say Q1 of 23, right Chat GPT was released in, I think it was November of 22. And I, I started reading about Chat GPT, I think it was 3.0 at the time. And I was masterminding. I, I actually operate in a number of different masterminds with other agency owners, but I was in my mastermind with, uh, Andy Rich and Brook.
[00:31:20] We were all I don't know, feeling the shock and awe of what was now gonna be possible with these tools. And, and I say our, our minds were going to all of the wonderful opportunities, but maybe we were more leaning out of fear with, oh my God. Does is do marketing agencies have a purpose going into the future?
[00:31:44] And what that led me to do was starting to consume just tremendous amounts of content, reading content, watching pod, listening to podcasts, watching videos seven days a week. For those that anyone that knows me, knows I'm an avid podcast listener, I'm usually listening to two hours, one to two hours of podcast a day.
[00:32:03] If not more, my happy place is give me some solitude and let me listen and learn to something. And so I was just consuming these, this knowledge at a mile a minute. And what was not happening yet was my team at one Firefly was not equally consuming knowledge a mile a minute. And at, at our agency, I'm the, the, the owner of the business.
[00:32:26] And so I, I, let's just say I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders in terms of the responsibility to keep this business in a thriving, growing, profitable position. Between our, our team and a handful of contractors, we have 90 people on, on staff here at One Fireflies, a lot of families, a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of roofs to put over people's heads.
[00:32:47] And so I just, I felt that weight of trying to figure it out. Well, the what happened initially was not necessarily positive in that I was sharing articles, I was sharing videos, I was sharing examples that I was doing myself. And what I now know in hindsight is I was overwhelming many, if not most of the members of my team.
[00:33:08] Because what was on their plate to accomplish was whatever workflow they were assigned or whatever, you know, responsibilities they had, whatever KPIs they're being measured by, maybe their bonuses are being tied to. And so although I was excited and I was feeling motivated, like, oh my God, we need to figure this out.
[00:33:26] Or else it had a, an adverse effect on our team and almost in some cases, uh, resulted in counter productivity. So I, I had in the summer of 23, uh, gone to MAICON, which was Paul Roetzer's conference in Cleveland. And I learned for the first time of his concept of an AI council. So think of it as like a hit, team of different players throughout your business.
[00:33:56] And, uh, that come together and kind of help navigate how to get Ai, brought into your company in a safe way that's mindful of your ip, mindful of your client's sensitive information, but ultimately in a structured way. And, uh, I gathered the, the documents that, uh, MAICON had made available Paul Roetzer, uh, at the Marketing AI Institute had made available.
[00:34:22] And then ultimately we. We, we modeled our own and fashioned our own AI council, and we officially launched it in January of 2024. So it took us about six months of kind of post-processing. I wanna say that conference was in July of 23. And, uh, over the fall worked with my leadership team and we then constructed a council.
[00:34:45] Uh, since then we've had a few players roll in and roll off of that council. And then in Q1 of this year, 2025. We brought in a manager of innovation and AI into the business. This was a brand new role created to help with product management, product development, and AI implementation throughout the company.
[00:35:05] And that person, her name's Jessica, she now sits and runs the AI council meetings. And, uh, I'm happy to go into more detail, but that's just kind of a little bit of the setup as to how it was formed and, uh, we could maybe talk about, what it, what it does or what the outcomes have been.
[00:35:24] Mike Allton: No, I love it.
[00:35:25] I mean, first of all, you know, MAICON, where you and I met a terrific event. I think we're both headed back there this fall.
[00:35:30] Ron Callis: I wanna you, you, uh, I was invited to a dinner that you were sponsoring and I was very great. I graciously accepted and I was, I was great to meet you.
[00:35:38] Mike Allton: Yeah, I was, I was a little bummed because I was there on behalf of Agorapulse.
[00:35:42] I was running the booth or Agora Pulse. I didn't get to go to any sessions while I was there, so I didn't hear Paul talk or, or Andy or anybody else. Uh, this fall is different, not running a booth. I'm just attending. So I get to go and actually learn and soak up all that knowledge. 'cause like you, I am now a podcast fiend.
[00:35:58] I was not. Before AI rolled out, but now that AI is here, there's so much rich content, particularly in podcasts, uh, you know, Paul and Mike's podcast. You know, Artificial Intelligence Show is a great example. They, they talk for over an hour every single week about what's new and latest and greatest in the industry.
[00:36:15] Are there any other shows that you recommend or podcasts that people should listen to?
[00:36:19] Ron Callis: Well, I, you know, I, I watch oh, now that I, I, I totally have the, the film. Ella's face, oh. Matt Wolf. I love watching Matt Wolfe's, uh, YouTube content. It's, uh, I, what, what's neat here in my house is you know, my son is 16 years old and on many Saturday mornings we'll put on Matt Wolfe onto the YouTube on our TV in our living room, and he and I will sit there and nerd out.
[00:36:48] And watch Matt Wolfe. And then if you look at the YouTube feed, then that runs to this. I mean, just this last two Saturdays ago, he and I watched like three Matt Wolfe videos and then Ray Dalio came in and talked about macroeconomics. And then the CEO of Nvidia was interviewed and my son sat with me and we watched that interview for another hour and he talked about the inception of kinda the history of the graphics card and the invention of Cuda, which allowed for applications, uh, such as machine learning to utilize the graphics processor and thus the AI revolution that we know AI's been in development for 50 to 60 years, but there's been a revolution in the last 10 years. It was tied to the ability to use graphics cards processing.
[00:37:40] Anyway, I know all of that because I'm watching podcasts and, you know, usually with myself, uh, or I'll listen, but I have also been incorporating my son because I need him to realize the world that he's entering. He's, he is a junior in high school. He's gonna be going to college soon. Uh, it's gonna be a brand new frontier of what society looks like.
[00:38:01] Uh, what does what do jobs look like? And and how does he navigate that to find his way? It's just, it's not good. It's not bad, but it, I can tell you, it's definitely different. It's different than the world that I entered into. I joke, when I started my first job in 2000, I was issued a pager.
[00:38:23] Okay? So that's something era that I am at. It's like client pages, you pull over at a payphone. Call. I know I don't look that old, but I'm, I'm there and, and here my son is in an era where I mean, right now, literally last night, he's just, uh, over the last couple of days he's discovered rept and cursor and vibe coding, and now he's watching all of these educators and solopreneurs and entrepreneurs talk about how anyone can start an internet business.
[00:39:00] And he was asking me, dad, do you think Stripe has an API connection into the output code from lt? I'm like, I'm pretty sure they do, son. I have no idea how to do that, but I'm pretty sure it's true and it's just, it's exciting where the world's going. It's, it's mildly terrifying because it's happening.
[00:39:19] Mm-hmm. It's happening at an accelerated rate, particularly for any of us that are business owners with so much on the line. But you know, I just churn. I choose to turn that fear into energizing positivity and, and, decide if someone's gonna figure this out, why not me and why not us? And that's how we go about our day and our week.
[00:39:41] Mike Allton: Yeah, I, I, I couldn't agree more. I mean, you, you talk about what we were doing a couple decades ago. I was selling NVIDIA graphics cards. I used to be in IT sales. Wow. Could not have even remotely envisioned what these tiny little graphics cards plugged into an Intel processor could do two decades later.
[00:39:59] It's pretty crazy.
[00:40:00] Ron Callis: I, I was buying Nvidia graphics cards, GForce cards for my tower computers. 'cause I was playing World of Warcraft and StarCraft, and I wanted the fastest graphics. And then, and then of course the Nvidia blew up in, 17. Really maybe 16 or 17 with their application towards mining Ethereum and cryptocurrency.
[00:40:24] And that was the surge. And then, you know, they went to to proof of a stake from proof of work. So that killed the Ethereum application. And then, oh my God, it's the new Gold Rush with the application of Nvidia processors leading the way for AI processing.
[00:40:43] Mike Allton: Amazing. Yeah, we were using GForce chips to, uh, demo counterstrike.
[00:40:47] There you go.
[00:40:48] Ron Callis: There you go. That was all the rage.
[00:40:50] Mike Allton: Ron, if a, if a business owner or Solepreneur, they're listening right now, they wanna start implementing AI like you have, what do you think the first three things they should do? Monday morning would be,
[00:41:02] Ron Callis: I believe in leadership from the top. Right. So, and again, whether it's it's for yourself or it's for an enterprise.
[00:41:11] I mean, my, my personal experience. Is around the motivation to get my company adopting and utilizing and benefiting from these technologies more than, uh, personal. Initiative and I'm just, you know, that's my truth. That's been my experience and that's been highly motivating to me to figure this out.
[00:41:34] You know, as a, an engineer through education, I, I, I'd like to think I went to school on problem solving, and so the problem that I was handed was how do we take this technology that's likely to change everything? At the fastest rate things have ever changed. And how do you get a company to adopt it in a way that has them producing better quality results for our clients so that the value proposition for us as a service provider stays in high esteem.
[00:42:07] IE our clients still see their need to have One Firefly in their life as a partner in their business. And that is that, that. Motivates me. It motivates me every day when I get up. And it has me motivated every night as I put my head on my pillow. So you need to take the initiative as the leader or manager of yourself or your team to go and, and the first step is learn. Listen, be a student. Be be, accept that you'll be nicely humbled, uh, accept that you'll be likely very uncomfortable for much of the entirety of the experience and just be a student. Be a student again, and watch the videos. Listen early on we hired a consultant. Issa. He is a, a great podcast. I can shout out that podcast, but he's based in Orlando. We hired him directly. He, he was able to provide me some personal counsel and us some personal counsel. We actually met him at MAICON back in, uh, the summer of 23. Uh, there are many now AI consultants out there.
[00:43:19] Mike, I believe you also provide counsel and services, you could provide clarity on that. And it's just, you know, so don't be afraid to go out and ask others that have figured some of this out and, uh, solicit their assistance. It's worth their money. It's worth the money that you'll spend times 10 or times a hundred because when you realize utilizing these technologies, what they're gonna add, not only to the quality of your work product, but then the ability that they are a force multiplier. So you're going to be able to get far more done in the same amount of time. And the work product that's produced is likely at a much higher level in quality than it would've been if you, quote, did it the old school way of do it yourself, you know, I'll give you a reference you know, to building a house.
[00:44:09] Uh, would you want the builder that was using a screwdriver and screws because that's how they had always done it, and the people that taught them had done it. Or maybe they used a hammer and nails, or would you wanna use the builder that has this newfangled thing called the power drill and the fact that now they can zip screws in at lightning speed and those screws are likely stronger than the person using nails and a hammer.
[00:44:42] And is one good or one bad? It's said No. It's just life has advanced, technology has advanced, and that's the age we're in. It's in an, we're in an exponential age of technology revolution. And so it's just a matter of accepting that and then learning everything you can about that. Going to courses, paying for courses, going to conferences, and that's step one.
[00:45:08] Step two is start playing and utilizing it, finding a reason to use it every day. Maybe you're not using it every hour. No problem. Find a reason to use it at least once a day. Like, make yourself challenged to give yourself that application. And become, my opinion is become an expert in a platform.
[00:45:30] So become an expert in Claude, become an expert in Gemini, become an expert in Chat GPT. And then once you're, uh, an expert in just how to conduct basic chats, then you wanna move to, um. You know, the next stage of a agentic progression, which is you wanna start using the tools like the custom gpt or the Gemini Gems, actually don't know what it's called in Claude.
[00:45:56] So Mike, maybe you, you'll be able to jump in and, and help me with what that's called. But you wanna learn how to now have, create tools for yourself that allow you to ultimately accomplish an outcome. And I can give lots of examples where we've, we've done that. I know I've mentioned a few. And and then once you're using the tools regularly challenge yourself to produce higher quality outputs because of the machine learning and the knowledge processing and analysis capabilities of the software, right? You now can upload data, you can upload large knowledge files, and you can ultimately get better, often better insights in a far shorter period of time than you would otherwise.
[00:46:48] You can do that to the benefit of your customer so that what you're delivering, that customer is of a higher quality. And if it's of a higher quality, then you have an opportunity to be valuable to them, and that means they will pay you for your services. They will pay to keep you in their life if you're regularly learning about their pain points, thoroughly discovering and understanding those pain points, and then ultimately able to provide relief or value to them in answers or solutions or counsel around how you can improve their quality of life. And AI tools en mass simply are a force multiplier for all of us.
[00:47:30] Mike Allton: I coiuld not agree more. For Claude, it's projects. Uh, Michael Stelzner, host of the AI Explored Podcast, uh, has talked a lot about how he uses projects really well, uh, within his team. There's differences between projects, gems and custom GPTs, but they're all very, very similar. And you're right. The research has shown that, uh, solopreneurs in particular, if they invest a little bit in AI training, they're likely to see a 10 x return on that investment.
[00:47:54] So, I'm so glad you brought that up. Ron, you've been absolutely amazing. This has been such a delight to talk to you. For folks who want to connect or maybe learn more about what you do, where should they go?
[00:48:04] Ron Callis: Certainly, if they wanna learn about One Firefly, you can go to our website, one firefly.com. Uh, we, you can find me personally on LinkedIn.
[00:48:14] Uh, just look for Ron Callis and, uh, you can also find me on, uh, what, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, I'm not on Facebook. My Facebook account got hacked back in June of 2021 and out of spite, I just haven't gone back on there. But, uh, I know that's a bit sacrilegious, particularly if you have a, a marketing audience and we, when Firefly provide Facebook management services to many hundreds of businesses. But, uh, I haven't, uh, found the heart to, to go back on there. But, um, yeah, those are a few ways.
[00:48:49] Mike Allton: Fantastic. We'll have all those links and more in the show notes as always, but that's all the time we've got for today friends. Remember this is your first for into the world of AI in business. I've got the perfect resource for you in the show notes below the AI Primer designed to quickly get you up to speed and all the terms, the tactics, and the underlying technology that's powering this AI revolution. Check it out and I'll see you in our next episode.
[00:49:10] Welcome to the grid.
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[00:49:30] Until next time, keep innovating and remember, the future of business is human and it's powered by Ai.
