[Perspective Series] Creating Clarity Through Processes With Adi Klevit
- Quik! News Team
- May 10
- 30 min read
Updated: May 12
Adi Klevit is the Founder and CEO of Business Success Consulting Group, which identifies, creates, and documents processes to help businesses scale. She has 25 years of experience as a trained industrial engineer, management consultant, and business executive. With this knowledge, Adi helps organizations and companies improve efficiency and performance.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[3:01] Adi Klevit discusses how Business Success Consulting Group helps entrepreneurs gain freedom through systemization
[6:52] Why documenting a process is only the first step to successful implementation
[7:47] Adi describes the mindset leaders need to create a process-driven organization
[8:53] Common objections business owners have to building systems and how to overcome them
[11:11] How consistent processes improve customer experience and retention
[13:56] Why giving team members ownership increases adoption of documented processes
[17:23] Adi shares how she customizes process complexity based on the organization’s needs
[19:37] The role of optimization and technology in improving business processes
[22:59] How AI tools and agents are changing the way businesses document and execute systems
In this episode…
Running a business without clear systems can leave leaders feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and stuck in a cycle of inefficiency. As teams grow and operations expand, the lack of documented processes can lead to inconsistency, bottlenecks, and a poor customer experience. How can entrepreneurs gain more freedom and control without sacrificing growth?
Adi Klevit, an expert in business systems and process implementation, outlines a powerful framework for building scalable operations. She emphasizes that freedom comes not from delegation alone but from implementing documented processes that empower teams and improve consistency. She shares actionable strategies for creating buy-in from staff, cultivating a process-driven mindset, and using AI tools to streamline operations. From identifying bottlenecks to optimizing workflows, Adi offers a practical roadmap for founders looking to reclaim their time and scale sustainably.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Adi Klevit, Founder of Business Success Consulting Group, about how structured systems give entrepreneurs freedom. Adi explains how process documentation leads to better customer experiences, smoother operations, and empowered teams. She also discusses the importance of mindset, leveraging AI agents, and driving team engagement through ownership.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
"[Perspective Series] Scaling a Franchise With Simplicity With Bennett Maxwell" on The Customer Wins
"[Perspective Series] Unlocking Business Growth: How Fulfillment Drives Success With Nickie Froiland" on The Customer Wins
"Navigating Wealth With Transparency and Trust With Brian Thorp" on The Customer Wins
The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann
Quotable Moments:
“Processes give me the freedom to not have to wear all the hats in the company.”
"Freedom means the ability to create and live the life you want, not being restricted by unwanted tasks."
“The correct mindset is I want clarity; I want predictability; I want my people to win.”
“If you have a process and you can actually get AI to do it, it's an agent.”
"I love bringing order into things, taking something chaotic and making it smooth and polished."
Action Steps:
Document your business processes clearly: Clear documentation creates consistency, reduces errors, and empowers your team to perform independently.
Involve your team early for process buy-in: Including employees from the beginning fosters ownership and reduces resistance to change.
Adopt a process-driven leadership mindset: Leading with systems in mind enables scalability and predictable outcomes.
Optimize before you automate: Automation without process clarity can amplify inefficiencies and hinder long-term scalability.
Use AI tools to enhance — not replace — human decision-making: AI can streamline tasks but still requires human oversight for quality and context.
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Episode Transcript:
Intro: 00:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn, grow their business.
Richard Walker: 00:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Bennett Maxwell of Dirty Dough Cookies, Nickie Froiland of Motus9, and Brian Thorp of Wealthtender. Today is a special episode in my perspective series, where I talk with innovators, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs to gain new perspectives. So today, I'm speaking with Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing.
When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms. Instead, get Quik!, using our Form Xtract API. Simply submit your completed forms and get back clean context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of a thousand submissions. Visit Quick Forms to get started.
Now, before I introduce today's guest, I want to give a huge thank you to John Corcoran and Jeremy Weisz of Rise25. Go check out their website at rise25.com as they specialize in helping B2B companies like mine build their network through the power of podcasting. And yes, I'm one of their customers. All right. My guess is Adi Klevit.
She is the leader and visionary of Business Success Consulting Group for 25 years of knowledge and experience as a trained industrial engineer, management consultant and business executive gives her a unique understanding of the challenges businesses face, how she utilizes her practical know how and wisdom to successfully help organizations and companies of any size dramatically improve their efficiency and performance. By leveraging her ability to understand business processes as well as people, and drawing on her high-caliber skills in vital areas of personnel management, finance and operations, Adi can help virtually any business owner achieve their goals and bring order to their lives. Adi, welcome to The Customer Wins.
Adi Klevit: 02:18
Thank you Rich. It's great to be here. I really appreciate being here, and I want to also give a shout out to Jeremy and John. I'm also one of their very satisfied customers or clients and I've been doing my own podcast. But yes, that's exactly what they do is they connect people networks through podcasting.
So thank you for giving them a shout out.
Richard Walker: 02:39
Yeah, we better be careful not to make this their show.
Adi Klevit: 02:41
Right.
Richard Walker: 02:43
All right, so for those who haven't heard this podcast before, I love to talk to business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they build and deliver great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. Now, I want to understand your business a little bit better. How does your company help people?
Adi Klevit: 03:01
Well, we help them gain knowledge. I mean, gain freedom and knowledge as well, but gain the freedom that they want by creating, documenting, optimizing and implementing processes and procedures.
Richard Walker: 03:14
Okay. What do you mean by freedom? Do they really get to quit their jobs?
Adi Klevit: 03:18
No, because it's a very good question. So what do I mean by freedom? We actually asked that question, right? I mean, because that's a word that's being thrown out there a lot. What does freedom mean?
And that is an excellent first question or basically the follow-up on the first question, like what does freedom mean? And really what it means to you as an entrepreneur. So when we ask a follow-up question, the freedom is freedom to create, right? The freedom to actually do and live the life that you want. The freedom to not be restricted by things that you don't want to be restricted to.
And I know we are trying. It's now it sounds like a philosophical All answer. But think about it. If you do not have processes and procedures in your business and you are stuck in your business and you are working 18 hours a day and you feel like there is no end to it, you are really feeling like you are a slave to your business, not necessarily that you have the freedom. If you have the freedom, it doesn't mean that you're going to quit your business or you're going to go do something else, but you have the ability to create and decide what you're going to spend your time on.
Richard Walker: 04:27
Yeah, I asked the question because fundamentally, people buy for emotional reasons, and that emotion of freedom is a really important one. I mean, for some people, some entrepreneurs, it really does mean I don't want to run my business. I want it to run itself. For others, it means I get to do my best work and focus on what's important to me or my clients. Another one, like you said, is creativity.
What is it for you?
Adi Klevit: 04:50
Yeah, it's a very good question. First of all, I wanted to say, I mean, you do the same for business owners. I mean, you give them that freedom by taking away those tasks that they don't need to do, they have a freedom then to do other things right. For me, what freedom means. It means the looking into the future and creating on the business, creating new opportunities, new relationships, new ways of doing things.
That is what freedom means to me in terms of having processes. Right? I'm looking at it. I'm answering the question because we have internal processes. So what do those processes give me?
They gave me the freedom to not having to wear all the hats in the company, but having the ability to concentrate on what I want to be concentrating on and what really energizes me and what gets my, you know, gets me passionate about.
Richard Walker: 05:41
Yeah. I mean, look, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm the founder of my company. I get this so well, because for the first ten years of my company, 12 years of my company, I worked 80 hour weeks. I thought putting more time in was the answer to success.
It wasn't. In fact, it wasn't until my first child was born where I promised I'd only do 40 hours or less, that I realized it wasn't about me doing the work. So do you primarily work with entrepreneurs and founders, or is this problem prevalent with bigger organizations? More mature organizations too?
Adi Klevit: 06:12
Well, we work with entrepreneurs, but we work with companies that are already I mean, they're fast growing companies that are lacking consistency. We don't work with startups, so they are in business. They are successful. They have clients, they have customers. They want to get everything to the next level.
They want to open another location, whatever it is that's those are the people who we work with.
Richard Walker: 06:34
Okay, so I think there might be some people. I mean, I felt this way to some degree that that here's what you're saying about documenting your processes as purely that it's a document. How does that actually improve what you do just by documenting it? What's the next step?
Adi Klevit: 06:52
It doesn't. I mean, that's why I tell people it's like, don't document for the sake of documentation. And I also say, you know, we are not in the business of documenting processes because you're not. I thought that's what you do. I said, no, we are in the business of implementing those processes.
It's just that you cannot implement if you don't have them documented. Because if you don't say first what those processes are, you can't really implement them. So we have an eight-step process on how to make sure your processes are followed by all. The first one is having the right mindset. The second one is to get the buy in from your team after you got a buy in from yourself.
By having the right mindset, you get the buy-in from your team. And number three is having them well documented and correctly documented, so that then we can move on to the rest of the steps to make sure that those processes are actually being implemented.
Richard Walker: 07:43
What is the right mindset? What does that mean in an organization?
Adi Klevit: 07:47
So it's the right mindset as a process-driven leader. So what is let's start. Sometimes it's easier to understand by having not the correct mindset. So then you know what the correct mindset is, right? An incorrect mindset or I don't know if incorrect, but some mindset is not ineffective.
Ineffective. Thank you. An ineffective mindset is having that mindset of like you know what? I've gotten so far. Without it, I can continue doing it.
I can just wing it. I can just answer any questions that come my way. It's easier to just solve the problem as opposed to create the process. Processes change all the time, so why am I going to document them? You know, people have to be able to figure it out.
I'm hiring right people right seats. So they should be able to figure it out and know, you know, all those things that are basically simply excuses not to sit down and create those processes.
Richard Walker: 08:37
There were two more in there. What, can I throw two more in there?
Adi Klevit: 08:40
Of course please.
Richard Walker: 08:41
We've always done it this way. And then the other one is nobody can do it as well as me. Yeah. It's too important to let somebody else do this. Only I can do this. That. Well.
Like invoicing.
Adi Klevit: 08:53
Spot on. Absolutely. So the correct mindset is an opposite is a mindset of I want clarity, I want predictability, I want my people to win. That's a mindset. Another mindset is I am going to lead by example.
So even maybe I'm personally not inclined to sit down and write processes, I'm still going to make it happen. Another mindset is I want to have quick implementation and I want to have predictability. I don't want things to just linger and go on and things not getting executed. Another good mindset, I mean, a mindset is that I want my people to be empowered and it's not all about me, but the knowledge has to flow throughout the organization. So if you have that mindset or develop that mindset in terms of.
Future, but also like what you said, this is the way we've always done. So you have to have the mindset that change is okay doesn't mean everything has to change, but you have to have the mindset that maybe there are ways that I can actually improve what we are doing. What are you not doing that well and you want to improve it. Or maybe you're doing fantastic, but let's consolidate. Let's figure out where we can actually tweak it so we are doing even better.
So that's also part of this mindset.
Richard Walker: 10:05
I think I'll add two other ones. One, you kind of said, I'm going to say it in my words though, which is it's to empower others to do their best work. And this is a really important one from my standpoint, because it's the, the, the core foundation of who we are as a company. We're helping our customers do their best work. We're helping our employees do their best work.
We're helping our partners do their best work. Here's the thing if I do somebody else's job, I'm depriving them of their opportunity to do their best work. And if I'm doing a job I don't even want to do because I think I am the only one who can do it. I'm not doing great, and they're not doing great. Right?
The opposite is I get to get rid of it and they get to do their best work. Wait a minute, that's a double win. The other one is the theme of my show. How do you create a customer experience that is consistent, that's reliable, Liable. That's high quality.
If you don't have a system and a process to do it. Does that come up a lot in your work? The customer experience facet.
Adi Klevit: 11:04
In terms of what.
Richard Walker: 11:05
Well do, do people approach you because they're trying to improve their customer experience? Is that something they come to you as a core problem?
Adi Klevit: 11:11
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, they notice that they notice because I asked them, why do you want processes and procedures where we have inconsistencies? What does that cause? Well, the client the customer does not get the same experience every single time. Or we got complaints or problems in retention because they and they notice it's because of lack of processes, because they just don't run the plans through the process and they don't get uniform, uniform results.
Richard Walker: 11:36
Yeah. All right. So you also said the team has to buy into this. I forgot the other two. But realistically, how does somebody implement a new process to ensure it's successfully being followed and used.
And what kind of resistance do you have to overcome with team members who don't want to do the process. They don't want the extra steps, they don't want the whatever work that comes with it.
Adi Klevit: 11:59
So that's why the buying has to happen early in the project at the beginning, before we even start documenting, you know, the followed by all that we follow has eight steps. I just named the first three. So you have your own mindset. Then you get the buy-in from the team. There are going to be part of it.
So I recommend you don't just create a process and you go, okay team, here you go. You get the buy-in to begin with. This is what we're going to be doing. We're now going to document all of our processes. We're going to put them all together.
We're going to see that everything is workable and that we actually can implement it. And you get that buy in from the beginning. You get them to participate. And the way that I do that, that we do that, I mean, my team and I the way we do it is we find out what is it in it for them, why, how they are going to benefit. But we don't tell them.
We don't feed them the answer. It's all about getting them to think and understand how those processes are going to make their life better. And if they cannot come up with an answer, then please say no, I don't. I don't know, I don't understand because then we know we have something to address or to talk about even more. But if they just say, oh yeah, yeah, it's good, it's good, but they really don't believe it, it will create a problem.
Richard Walker: 13:17
So you just said something. I'm going to shorten it up. Buy-in is ownership. If you don't give ownership.
Adi Klevit: 13:24
Yeah.
Richard Walker: 13:25
If you're not giving people the opportunity to have ownership in the process, they're not going to have buy in.
Adi Klevit: 13:29
But isn't it true for everything?
Richard Walker: 13:31
Yeah, but it's totally true for everything. 100% I have three little boys, and if I don't get their ownership of a problem, I definitely don't have buy-in. But I was also thinking about it. I mean, it's in its simplistic form. People always ask that question of what's in it for me.
And you're answering that. You're helping them see that? And what happens if they can't? You try to assess it and figure it out with them, right?
Adi Klevit: 13:56
Well, yeah. Because, you know, if they're part of a group, your group, your company, and you have certain core values, you have a mission, you have a vision. Obviously, having well-documented processes and procedures that are being followed should lead to the accomplishment of the goal. If somebody is so resistive to it, then we have a problem, but we don't assume we have a problem for the beginning. We're trying to solve it by getting the buy in, showing them how it will help them, you know, getting their participation. But if they don't want to or they're very resistive, or they're afraid that if now somebody is going to find out about their knowledge, it's going to be a problem, then it's either you have a culture cultural problem overall, or you have a problem with that particular employee.
Richard Walker: 14:42
Yeah, yeah. And that's it's a good way to surface those types of things so that you can address them. It's also hard and challenging. I used to be a consultant, and I've been in situations where people were crying to me and I mean tears and everything, that they're going to lose their job because of the change that's coming. And it's a very challenging moment because they're looking at it saying, you're going to eliminate my job, you're going to take away what I'm used to doing is you're going to change everything, and I can't keep up with the skill sets, etc. they were not right about that, by the way.
Adi Klevit: 15:13
I mean, I that never happens. You know, the only time that we see people basically get themselves out of the companies when they, they realize that this is not the right place for them.
Richard Walker: 15:26
Yeah.
Adi Klevit: 15:27
And we already knew that. I mean, the owner, the entrepreneur already knew that before before it all started. It's never it's never a surprise. Oh, I never knew that. You know, Susie or Joe are not really a good fit.
They always knew it. They just didn't do anything because the majority of the time they felt held hostage by the knowledge that Susie or Joe have. And they wouldn't let them go, because if they let them go, nobody will be able to do what they're doing. But now that they're not being held hostage anymore, and they see that there is really no benefit because all you're getting is objections and other counteractions, then we have to do something. But I'm talking about extreme.
I mean, that doesn't happen very often. The majority of the time, 80% of the employees, they want to participate. They feel that this is a good endeavor, like a good project that we engaged upon, and that will help them.
Richard Walker: 16:23
So there's another freedom. The freedom is you're creating clarity in the organization around how things work and how people do their work and who does what. Most people like structure. They like to know their boundaries. They like to know their area of responsibility, accountability, etc..
I don't think the majority of people are free. Free motion. Like I can live in any environment and structure and just let me bumble around people like they're kind of lanes and walls and guidelines and Guideposts. Some of them want to run off the road, but so that's to me, that's another really interesting freedom that you're creating, is the whole organization can benefit from clarity around how the company works by doing that. Right?
Adi Klevit: 17:06
That is correct. Absolutely.
Richard Walker: 17:09
All right. So let's go into a tactical thing. When you document something how complex or how simple can a documented process be? What's your favorite tool of choice and how much words do you have to put on paper.
Adi Klevit: 17:23
A lot of questions. So first of all, it's not one size fits all. You know we have we it depends on the complexity of the organization itself. If we are working for instance, right now with an engineering company, the documentation is going to be more complex than, let's say, a property management company. A property management company will have compliance and forms that they have to use, but is not as complex as Manufacturing or.
You know, other companies that have a lot of like the quality control has to be super detailed. So it really depends on who we are, what we are documenting. But regardless, we always try to make it short documentation. We don't like pages and pages and pages of documentation. You always have to look at it from the consumer.
Our consumers are from the consumer's viewpoint, and our consumers are the people in the company. Are they going to read it? Is it going to be attractive for them to read it? It has to be aesthetic enough. It has to be nice enough.
It has to be something they are curious about and something that they will be able to use. So what is the balance between videos and writing? You know, that is a very good question. And think about it. You know, when I look for something online and I see a video, even for five minutes, I don't I won't watch it.
It's too much, right? I would like to watch like short segments and maybe read something. That's me. That's my style of learning because I want to scan through it and see which what data do I actually need? Are we using screenshots or not using screenshots to what degree?
So we answer those questions. We always want to have best practices. What are best practices? What are you running into? Where are the bottlenecks?
What are the things that you see that are being done in executing this process and are really like, can drive you crazy and you can't stand it? Okay, what are those points? Let's make sure we address them ahead of time. Let's make sure we solve those points. So those are different tools of actually asking questions.
Richard Walker: 19:26
Yeah. Do you do you take time in your process to perfect it and improve it and find technology that solves steps that shouldn't be done or eliminate redundancies? Is that part of what you're doing as well?
Adi Klevit: 19:37
100%. So in our proven process we have the first step is design. We design, we map the processes from beginning to end to make sure that we know exactly what we're going to go document. Then we do the knowledge extraction, the documentation. It goes hand in hand with optimization.
So we document existing state, and then we take a look at it on how we can improve, how to use technology. What is being redundant. You know maybe use of too many tools, too much technology. Maybe there is one tool that can consolidate. Maybe too many people are involved.
We can eliminate it, make it simpler. So that's one thing. That's the optimization and documentation. And from there we go to implementation.
Richard Walker: 20:21
What is your favorite part of what you do?
Adi Klevit: 20:24
I love bringing order into things. I like taking something that is chaotic or disorganized or unknown. You know, when you start every project, there is always that feeling of, oh, it's just unknown. And how do we put the pieces together? And here are all the pieces and the people and how do we put it together?
And I think there is some kind of a beauty of an aesthetic to it when you take everything and everything just falls into place one after the other, and then you can look at it and you go like, wow, okay, now it makes total sense. It's smooth, it flows. There are no things that you look at it that seems rough or unpolished. You know, it's just like, you know, when it when you see it that you actually can take it from beginning to end without stops and without being, you know, it's not it's not a jerky ride. It's a very smooth ride.
Richard Walker: 21:16
My favorite part in this process is the client reaction, because I and maybe it's not exactly the same, but I think it's very highly correlated if it's not the same, because I've done a lot of consulting. I had a client, he spent two weeks per month building a draft of a budget forecast, turned it over to the CFO, who then made some changes, and then spent two more weeks redrafting the budget to get a final version by end of month. I built a process that took that two weeks down to 30s. Wow. Click of a button.
Boom. Everything done in Excel. Automated, etc.. His the reaction he had was so amazing, but the long term reaction was even better. I mean, his surprise and like, wow, you're going to free me up to do all this other stuff I can do now.
But the other outcome that was amazing is they went from monthly budgets, forecasting, I mean, to daily forecasting. And it was a company managing 200 store locations, and they wanted all their inventory and sales for the day and everything. So every single day they could run this process in 30s. I love those types of outcomes.
Adi Klevit: 22:25
Yeah, that's what I like as well. Is like, you know, when I was describing is the outcome that we bring to our clients. But I love the feedback and the results and clients telling me that they're using what we built for them. And this is the difference that it it created in their lives. So for me, this is this is what I live for is the success of our clients, the wins of our clients.
Richard Walker: 22:45
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to shift gears a little bit because that's something I love to do. Where does artificial intelligence, large language models or any kind of AI-driven tools? Where does it fit into what you do, and how are you adapting with what's coming out?
Adi Klevit: 22:59
Yes. So I'm definitely very much into it. And I follow the latest trends I read, I listen to podcasts. I joined an AI collective with entrepreneurs that are interested in it, and the conversation lately has been about creating AI agents. But in order to create it, there is a need for processes and procedures. So what I'm looking at is the way I see the industry going.
I mean, of course we're going to continue to document for businesses and create training modules, etc. but two things. One of them is the use of AI agents in order to execute some of the processes and procedures. So that's where the integration between what we do and what we create and put together and using AI in order to for companies to basically they can advance the utilize the people that they have right now for other tasks or figure out how they can integrate. I'm not into letting people go, not at all. But I think it will just be able to utilize your workforce better and using the AI agents to take over some of the documentation, some of the execution of the documentation.
So that's very important to make sure that those documents are exact. So then AI agents can be built on top of it. And another one with AI is the ability to use AI to ensure the processes are being followed. So a very common one that I've seen at many of our clients use is in the sales processes. In terms of we can create a sales process and then you feed it into an AI app, like for instance, Realize an example of that.
I interviewed the owner of Sebastian Jimenez, and I have a podcast so we can give him a shout-out. And many of our clients, our clients use that. So you basically can use an AI tool to make sure that your sales process is being followed, but you have to have the process obviously documented first. So that's where I see it. I mean, obviously we can also see it internally in terms of utilizing it for the documentation, although that has still has its challenges.
We haven't overcome that. The challenges you still need are the HR, the human intelligence. But in terms of utilizing it to make the experience better in terms of the implementation and how you can use it, that's definitely something I'm constantly looking at.
Richard Walker: 25:36
So I have two things about that. Say the name of that sales product.
Adi Klevit: 25:41
Rila.
Richard Walker: 25:46
Okay. Okay. Just so we can notate it. And I want to look at it. Yeah.
I'm always interested in the next thing. The second one is that I've had success using plod. Note. Note taker. And I have one.
It's really tiny. It's a little pin. Yeah. And I hold it and record it. I've had really good success recording conversations around processes or product ideas and taking that transcript into ChatGPT and saying, summarize it.
Give me a product roadmap. Give me a product design, give me a specification. Are you trying that too? Is that something that you play with?
Adi Klevit: 26:18
Well, of course. We use AI tools. The thing that we need to make sure is that the prompts are correct, because we're not necessarily I mean, we will use the AI in order to write a procedure, but then you have to improve upon it. And that's where you have to know. Make sure that you prompt it correctly, because there can be great ideas on improvement as well by using AI.
Richard Walker: 26:40
Yeah. Yeah. Oh that's fascinating. So let's go back to agents. Let's do it.
I think there's a lot of confusion, myself included, as to what an agent is. How do you actually make one work for you? What does it take to set one up? And there's a lot of, I think, confusion around what it is.
Adi Klevit: 26:59
Yeah. And I'm not an expert at that at all. So I cannot really answer. I'm not going to start answering on a podcast before doing the research. I know, I mean, I've seen what it does. I mean, I the concept basically that we are talking about here is that you take a process and you get somebody to do it for you.
Richard Walker: 27:16
Yeah.
Adi Klevit: 27:17
But there are different ways of doing it. I mean, you can have I mean, yesterday somebody told me about like an AI actually calling the it was for an insurance billing company. And you can call you can send your AI to call and find out the status of the insurance. Well, that would be an agent, right. There would be like somebody who does something.
So there is confusion. You know, there is there are definitions. But the concept is that if you have a process and you can actually get AI to do it, a robot some automation to do it, then it's an agent because it is. You do it from beginning to end to a certain outcome.
Richard Walker: 27:58
Yeah. So actually this is where I wanted to go with this question. I wanted to kind of clear this up because the word agent is too nebulous. It often makes you think, oh, it's a person acting in a role, doing a high quality, lengthy, complex job. I know, but honestly, an agent could be as simple as doing 2 or 3 steps.
It's just taking that and doing it autonomously whenever it needs to be triggered. And are you using workflow automation tools like Nadin or Make.com? You guys start leveraging tools like that, or do you have your own secret sauce.
Adi Klevit: 28:29
In terms of. You know, we haven't we do know those and we look at it, but right now we're doing it still internally. So we'll definitely explore that.
Richard Walker: 28:41
Well, it may also depend on your client's infrastructure, too. Yes, they may be automating things in Salesforce and they're going to go to Salesforce Developer for that.
Adi Klevit: 28:48
Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right. So we do more documentation and implementation.
Richard Walker: 28:52
Yeah. All right. So one other question about AI. Do you feel like AI is empowering you or is it discouraging? Is it is it causing customers to think they can do this themselves?
Therefore they don't need you? Do you have any kind of negative reaction with AI?
Adi Klevit: 29:05
Not really. I mean, my only negative reaction to AI will be when people use it without thinking. AI is has to be driven by us as humans. It will not replace us as humans. And that's what needs to be understood. So I also with my staff, for instance, you know, I always coach them on don't just put something into ChatGPT and whatever it spits out will just take it.
You know, you always have to challenge it. You have to look at it. You are the strategist, and I really like the book by Jeff Woods, AI driven leader. And there is like the question that you always ask is what can the I do for me? Look, I helps me tremendously.
Even right now I'm renovating my home, we're renovating our home and I'm using I. It's amazing. It gives me mood boards, it gives me suggestions. It even created some an imaging that I was able to show to my contractor. It gives me ideas I didn't think about.
It gives me an analysis of like, even you take two different paint colors and which one will go with the floor that I chose. And it gives me this whole analysis with the lights and everything. And I love it because it saves me a lot of time. I use I for a lot of things. So and I is here to stay.
It's not going to go away. It's not something we're going to put our head in the sand and we go, okay, forget about it. I'll see what happens. No, I'm always like, want to stay a step ahead? I want to know exactly what's going out there.
There is still confusion, there is still unknowns, and it's up to us to learn it and figure out what to do. But we always have to stay ahead. And I just had that conversation with another entrepreneur, and our value and the value of everyone that wants to stay in the workforce is our ability to think logically, and our ability to prompt and guide the eye. That's where we have to stay a step ahead from the AI. So I actually find it very encouraging, challenging and exciting because I think we are going to evolve as humans to think sharper, clearer, faster and get to results faster because we have AI.
But it will only be dangerous if we let the AI rule us.
Richard Walker: 31:16
Yeah. And I think there's a misnomer as well where I love Jeff. He was on my show, and he makes the comment that these AIS have read the equivalent of 200 million books. So it's easy to think they know everything. No, they don't know everything.
They don't know you. They don't know what you see in the world. They don't know your dynamics of your business and your competitors and customers, etc.. And even if you try to tell it all that stuff, it can only infer. It can't really know.
So you have to keep ahead of it from that standpoint. It's your data and your knowledge that's truly adding the most value to the AI that you're choosing to use.
Adi Klevit: 31:51
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. And that that is key. And if you understand that then you will be able to use AI. You can be a verb. You can say, oh, AI is going to go away or I don't want to or what not because it's not, it's here and you're going to stay behind.
So that's that is I think it's like really looking and predicting what's going to happen with it in the future. And you're staying ahead of it.
Richard Walker: 32:13
Yeah. No, I love this man. I could keep talking about this stuff. But we do have to wrap up. And before I do, I have another question.
And before I get there, what's the best way for people to find and connect with you, Adi?
Adi Klevit: 32:26
Yes. So the best way is you can find me on LinkedIn. It's Adi Klevit. So Adi Klevit, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on LinkedIn with that name. And you can also call or text (503) 662-2911. Or email me adi@bizsuccesscg.com
And I'm sure Rich is going to include all of that in the show notes.
Richard Walker: 32:51
We can get it in there for sure. In fact, our entire transcript is posted on our website, so you could always just search for it. If we miss it somehow. Wow. That's awesome.
All right, here's my last question. One of my favorite parts of the show. Who is someone that you admire and has inspired how you do business?
Adi Klevit: 33:10
Yes. So, you know, I want to give a shout-out to a good friend of mine, Alice Tang. She is. She has a great story, I interviewed her, she's a financial advisor, very successful one, but she's also a thought leader. And she inspires.
She has. She has a great way of and a great way to tell stories, a great way as a speaker to tell her story. And she really has a unique way of how to create relationships and nurture those relationships. and the way she tells it is wonderful. And I did have her on my show.
Rick, you should have her on your show, because I think she will be a great person to tell that story and inspire others. And she inspired me to network, to reach out there, to develop those deep relationships that are meaningful because, as she always says, you know, her net worth is your net worth. You know it's going to be your network, is your net worth. You know, it's like those are the people that you know, and I admire people like that. You know, I admire people that know how to reach out in a way that you're doing it in order to help others, you know.
Ivan Misner from the founder of BNI had a great impact on me as well. Like when I started my business, I did not know how to network. I didn't know how to reach out, you know, but that was all about, you know, the givers gain is really helping others, you know. Bob Burg as an example. He's the writer of the Go Givers.
I met him, he was on my podcast several times. He's a really genuine individual that gives and gives and gives, and that's how you build relationships and that those individuals really impacted me because that's the way I like to do business. That's the way I like to interact. You know, if I can be a business matchmaker, that's what I would do is like those connections and connectivity is very important, you know, and John and Jeremy for Rise25, I know it's not their show. Yes.
But I'm going to give them another shout-out because I really learned from them on how to connect to people via podcast. And that is a very successful way of connection as well.
Richard Walker: 35:16
Yeah, I agree, and I love your answer. I really, really do. I have strived to give as much as I can possibly give when I meet people. And this question of do I know enough people? Have I met the right people is always coming up with me like, am I doing enough to be out there and to meet people?
And you're right, this podcast is an amazing tool for that. But also just the fact that I get to meet such amazing people like yourself and vice versa.
Adi Klevit: 35:43
I mean, you know, you are definitely. I mean, it's interesting, you know, I just have to say that is that we are both we met through John and Jeremy of Rise25. You know, they had a round table. I mean, I don't know.
Richard Walker: 35:55
Panel.
Adi Klevit: 35:55
Or whatever. And you know, you said you I listen to your answers and you're like, yeah, I think the same way I want to meet Rick. And then we reached out and we started, you know, we were guests on each other’s podcast, and we refer guests to each other and people because, you know, it's like like-minded people, like, just, you know, they have things to talk about and like to interact with each other. And that's how you create a strong network of people that care about you.
Richard Walker: 36:20
Yeah. You and I are very we do have a lot of things in like and in fact, I was going to ask you a question about how you got your mindset of efficiency. But then I thought, I don't know how to answer that, so I'm not going to make her answer it. We're probably born with it to some degree.
Adi Klevit: 36:34
Yeah, exactly.
Richard Walker: 36:36
Oh, man. All right. So I want to give a huge thank you to Adi Klevit, founder of Business Success Consulting Group, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Addie's website at Business Success. That's the consulting group part. It’s bizsuccesscg.com.
And if you want to hear more about her conversations around business efficiency, check out her podcast called Systems Simplified. And don't forget to check out quickforms.com where we make processing forms easy. I hope you enjoyed this discussion. We'll click the like button, share this with someone, and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins.
Adi, thank you so much for joining me today.
Adi Klevit: 37:16
Thank you Rich. It was a pleasure being on this podcast.
Outro: 37:20
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