Is AI Coming For Your Job Or Business? Here’s What to Do — Claus Lauter | Why Fear Of AI Limits Your Growth, How To Become Future-Ready, What It Takes To Stay Competitive, Why AI Should Be Your Partner, What To Avoid With The AI Hype (#408)

In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and what it means for entrepreneurs.

Host Claus Lauter shares his thoughts on both the good and bad sides of AI. Many people worry that AI could take their jobs or hurt their businesses. Claus explains how entrepreneurs can work together to turn AI from a threat into a helpful tool.

The episode also introduces The Exchange—a new community program designed to help business owners and freelancers adapt to the AI era.

Sign up for the free waiting list at https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/exchange 

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why fear of AI is holding entrepreneurs back. 
• How AI is replacing entry-level and freelance jobs. 
• Why burnout and imposter syndrome are so common. 
• What business owners must do to stay competitive. 
• Why AI should be your partner, not your threat. 
• How AI boosts content, speed, and productivity. 
• What to avoid with overhyped AI tools. 
• Why community matters more in the AI era. 
• How ‘The Exchange’ helps you pivot with AI. 
• What you gain from joining a future-focused group. 

Links & Resources 

The Exchange Waiting list: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/exchange
Website: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecommerce-coffee-break-podcast/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ecomcoffeebreak
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecommercecoffeebreak/ 

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/4z4392c9 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to a very different episode of the E-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today, today's solo episode, I don't have a guest with me, and I want to talk about something that's very close to my heart. I want to talk about entrepreneurship now, in the last couple of weeks, I was talking to a lot of people.

And one [00:00:20] topic that came up all the time was artificial intelligence, ai, and what they think about it. Interesting enough, a lot of people mentioned that they are scared about artificial intelligence. There's a lot of uncertainty, obviously a lot of unknowns, and they fear that they might either lose their job or that they need to change their business [00:00:40] or even lose their business because of ai.

And AI as a risk. Would replace them in one way or the other. So I found this quite interesting and as I'm a big fan of AI and see the positive side, I obviously also see the downsides of AI and what will come. Now [00:01:00] I'm in business as an entrepreneur since 2001, so that's a long time. I have done a couple of businesses, not everything worked out as planned.

And when you're an entrepreneur, you have to deal with a lot of. Positive things that might be lifelong learning. Learning all the time, pivoting all the time, shifting all the time, being curious. That's just being [00:01:20] part of being an entrepreneur. But also the downsides. Um, downsides can be burnout. I have been through, unfortunately, a few of them came out hopefully better on the other side.

That might be just the typically ongoing, dumping yourself, questioning yourself, um, having imposter syndrome. All of this comes together. [00:01:40] Now there is this new thing on the horizon, or it's already here for last at least two years. Artificial intelligence, I'm using AI a lot with the podcast. It helps with production, it helps with quality, it helps with just the pure volume of what on.

Kind of content we can produce. So that's the positive side. The negative side [00:02:00] is that we were playing around, this is, and as you probably know, is you can by now do complete podcasts that are basically created with artificial intelligence. You see all these examples of video creation, audio creation, using my voice for, um.

Editing and so on and so forth. So I see that there are risks involved. By the way, the newsletter is a hundred [00:02:20] percent manual. We are not using any AI tools for creating a weekly newsletter. Now back for, to the topic of the risk. Of AI and about what I talked about or what people told me, what they think about now, one risk specifically for freelancers.

Um, I'm talking here about virtual assistants. I'm talking about [00:02:40] people who are doing repetitive tasks that are easily being able to sort of structure it in a standard operating procedure. They will go away. I'm a hundred percent. Convinced there will be a broad path of jobs of, uh, low level entry jobs that will just manage specifically for people who are coming just [00:03:00] from college, university or whatever, going into the world with their first job.

They might just be competing because they don't have the skills, they don't have the experience. They might just compete with some kind of AI tool, and that will be very difficult for them to get into the job market because of that. On the other hand, um, if you are [00:03:20] in a business that provides services and it's your business and you're not facilitating ai, there might be a good chance that your competitor will facilitate AI much more and will be cheaper, will be faster, will be mu much more competitive than you can be, and that will definitely have a negative impact on your business.[00:03:40] 

So. It is always difficult to change your mindset specifically if you have done something for a long time and you were successful with that, but AI is just speeding up the game. There were always changes, as I have seen a lot of changes within 25 years of digital marketing. It was always adapting, picking the best what [00:04:00] you can do Now.

AI has increased the speed of change. A hundred times, a thousand times. I dunno, it's so, so fast. And, um, there's no tools coming out and obviously not all AI tools will survive. Um, the market will sort out itself. I think the market is overheated right now with AI tools. Every [00:04:20] marketer in the world puts ai, ai stamp on their product if it's AI or not one of a sudden it is.

So you need to be careful on what you're using. Now thinking about this whole situation and me being an entrepreneur for a long time and the battles that I had to fought through, I thought there might be, I. A chance [00:04:40] to come together to help each other. And the human factor will not go away, even even with ai.

And I think it will even bound us more together as humans and learn from each other. And I think important there is to have people on your side. And I had a lot of people on my side during my professional life that might be business angels, that might be [00:05:00] coaches that help me going forward. So. With all of this in summary, and to make a long story short, short, I thought we will introduce a place where you can meet with others, A premier community, a coaching program designed to help you, to reinvent yourself, to help you to pivot, to [00:05:20] help you to overcome entrepreneurial loneliness, imposter syndrome, and at the end, build a resilient business with AI as your alley, as your friend, and not your enemy.

And with that support. There might be a smarter way forward for you with another, with a group of entrepreneurs, uh, with fellow freelancers, people that are [00:05:40] in your shoes to make it easier to pivot and to find a way into the future. So I am introducing here now the exchange. The exchange is a platform and I can't tell you exactly where we are heading to this with.

This will be an ex, um, platform where we [00:06:00] will work together. As a small group to help you make the change into the new area era of ai, much, much easier. There might be just the exchange of experiences, the exchange of skills, the exchange of stories to help you to [00:06:20] become a better entrepreneur, a better worker, find a new job to find your path that will help you.

Together with ai, the well will help you to continue making money, not to lose your job, not to lose your business, and being on the positive side of the AI changes that are there. So [00:06:40] if you wanna be part of the exchange, then I have created a signup page. It's basically a waiting list for people who are interested.

Who will be notified once we start the exchange program and open the doors, and it will be by invite only, so you need to be the right fit for the group. I specifically want to work [00:07:00] with people where I see that they contribute to the group, that they contribute to the community, and they give and they take, and then altogether we will have some positive benefits from it.

So if you go to eCommerce coffee break.com/exchange. You will find a page where you can leave your email address and [00:07:20] join the free waiting list. And then once we have enough people on board, I will send out an invite and then you can decide if you want to join or not. So there will be a couple of bonuses for the early birds, so to say.

And um, I'll mentioned this on the page and also I give you a [00:07:40] rough overview of what the exchange will be. And again, this is a blank sheet of paper. We start from scratch with a small group and then we will grow as we go and the exchange might pivot as we do. I hope that makes sense. So head over to eCommerce coffee break.com.

[00:08:00] Head over to eCommerce coffee break.com/exchange. Sign up there and I will notify once we get started. So that's it for this episode. Next week we'll start again with having great guests on the show going back to eCommerce, but this was just a time to share what I see in the market, what I see in [00:08:20] entrepreneurship, and I hope I can help you with that.

So stay tuned and I see you in the next episode. Have a good one.

Hey, Klaus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you. First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It'll also make it [00:08:40] easier for others to discover the podcast.

Simply like, comment, and subscribe in the app you're using to listen to the podcast. And even better, if you could leave a rating. And finally, sign up for our free newsletter and become a smarter online seller. In just five minutes, we create content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research, and helping you to stay on top of your e-commerce game with the latest news, insights, and [00:09:00] trends twice a week in your inbox.

A hundred percent free. Join now at newsletter dot e-commerce coffee break.com. That's newsletter dot eCommerce coffee break.com. Thanks again, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Have a good one.