What a Full Room at the Chamber Luncheon Told Us About AI
Two weeks ago we had the opportunity to speak at the Mt. Shasta Chamber of Commerce luncheon about AI and what it actually means for local businesses. It was the best attended luncheon the Chamber has had. We think that has everything to do with AI, not us.
Walk into any business in town right now and you'll find owners who keep hearing that AI is going to change everything, who suspect that may be true, and who have no clear sense of what they are supposed to do about it on a Tuesday morning when there are calls to answer and payroll to make.
AI is moving fast
The first thing we wanted people to sit with was the pace. AI is changing faster than any technology of our time, perhaps of any time. What was true a year ago is not true today. Tools that were clumsy and unreliable are now useful and the cost is decreasing.
That speed matters because it is already changing how your customers behave, whether or not your business has changed with it. People expect instant responses to a question, a quote that comes back the same day instead of next week. The bar for what counts as responsive keeps moving, and it is being set by the businesses that have started using these tools. The risk for local businesses is not that AI replaces them, it is that their customers' expectations move and they do not.
Two stories from right here
We walked through two projects we have been working on with businesses in our own community.
We worked with Truby Achievements to build a database that organized years of their own material and expertise into something they could quickly draw on. With that foundation in place, they wrote a book in a month. Not a year, a month. The value added was taking knowledge they already had and putting it to work at a speed that was not possible before.
The second is our collaboration with Mt. Shasta Realty, where we built a set of AI assistants for their team. Real estate is a business where a lot of valuable work quietly slips, the listing that never gets marketed the way it should, the MLS description that swallows an afternoon, the past client you meant to check in with months ago. The assistants we built take that work on. One watches the MLS and turns every new listing, price change, and sale into ready to post social media campaigns. One writes the MLS description from the actual listing photos in minutes. One keeps past clients close on the moments that matter, birthdays, home anniversaries, regular check ins, even real handwritten cards. Every piece of work gets drafted by the assistant and handed back to the team to approve, edit, or skip. The agents keep their voice, their relationships, and the final call. It is a clear example of using this technology to make a local team more effective, not to replace anyone on it.
What ties it together
Both stories land on the same three places we see opportunity for almost every local business.
Finding more customers. A lot of businesses are quietly losing work they never see, the call that goes to voicemail, the inquiry that sits for two days, the quote that never got a follow up. The first business to respond usually wins the job, and often nobody responds fast enough.
Working smarter. Every business has a pile of repetitive work that eats the day and never grows anything. The goal is never to replace people. It is to hand the busywork to a system so your team can spend their time on the work only they can do.
Making better use of the data you already have. The Truby book is the clearest version of this. Most owners are sitting on years of knowledge, customer history, and information without a good way to turn it into something useful. There is real value in there once it is organized and put to work.
We think of AI as a tool for your team, not a replacement for it. And you do not have to do everything at once. The right first step is usually small and aimed at one specific problem that is costing you money or time right now. You'll prove it works, you see the result, then you decide what is next.
A bit about us
We are Vince and Mira Francesi, and we run MV Technology Partners here in Mt. Shasta. We spent years in engineering leadership at Apple and Netflix in Silicon Valley before coming home. Mira grew up in Siskiyou County, and after a long stretch away, building this here is the thing that means the most to us.
We started this because the businesses in our community deserve the same tools the big companies have been using, explained in plain language, by neighbors who are going to run into them at the grocery store.
Come talk to us
If you were in the room and wanted to keep the conversation going, or if you missed it and any of this sounds familiar, we would love to sit down with you.
We are offering a free one hour consultation to any member of the Mt. Shasta Chamber. We come to you, learn how your business actually runs, and tell you honestly where AI could help and where it is not worth the trouble. One hour, no obligation.
Reach out anytime at [email protected], and thanks to the Chamber for having us.