aren't

impacted like that.

When we talk about how the economy is, because of how we've diversified geographically and through different industries and size of companies, we've been, and I'm knocking on every wood surface I can find, really insulated in some ways by the ebbs and flows of DC and the overall quote-unquote economy.

I'm not saying that our clients aren't affected, which doesn't directly affect us, but it's not the way that... lot of people are really impacted.

So my job is to continue our diversification.

My job is to look at how AI is impacting some of our clients' industries and which ones seem to be least quick to adopt because those are the ones who still need us the most.

My job is, and we've been doing this for three years now, how do we allocate the small tasks to AI and and keep the important thinking tasks to the humans so that we continue to bring our best self to our clients and really have kind of what I think of as an AI sandwich.

Jackie, has this been an issue in your company?

Do you wanna go first?

I would love to go first.

Thank you, Loren.

I think that we need to think about a couple of things.

One, people aren't buying less online.

They're actually in some cases buying more online.

Even through the financial uncertainties that exist right now, what we see is that if people have just one product, one channel, one outlet, haven't built a brand that makes them the top choice, that's where you're seeing a lot of price consideration and a lot of being considered a commodity, and not nearly enough being selected.

Do you think she was right about that?

[laughs]

Instead of following the typical protocol that people do, which is, you know, you look at your P&L, and there's the money you make, and there's all the expenses, and then whatever's left at the bottom, there's your profit.

This reverses that.

This says, and I read the book long enough ago that I'm not gonna tell you exactly how he recommends doing it.

I can tell you the system we've personalized for ourselves.

Every two weeks, I go in and I look at, um, what our top-line revenue has been, what our real hard costs are that, you know, like media buying.

That's not my money.

Have you had, uh, a month where you set aside money, you set aside that profit first and then ran short at the end of the month and had to scramble to figure something out?

[laughs]

Just to jump on that bandwagon real quick, Sarah makes a great point.

When people do the right things the right way, they tend to get the right results.

And Google has always published their kind of list of rules, and they change the rules every once in a while because there's always somebody trying to game the system.

AI has not been as clear with their list of rules, but it seems to operate on the same foundational principles as Google, which is own a space.

Don't try to be a generalist talking to all people about all things.

Be very clear with the problems you solve and who you solve them for and have a specific way that you solve them.

Tell, tell.

[laughs] Jackie, uh, what has this meant for, uh, the business operation?

Well, um, it was a real good test.

You know, everybody talks about the founders and entrepreneurs being the bottleneck, and your team should be able to function without you.

We got to figure out real quickly [laughs] whether or not they could, um, because we both checked out.

Now, there was some forewarning, and there was some opportunities to put some systems in place and make sure things were properly transitioned.

It wasn't like we had been in, um, heart attacks or car accidents, so that was great.

Um, I did not have surgery, and I felt great, so I was still able to do work remotely, a little here and a little there, just some things that only I can do, and there's not a lot of that.

And how did this end? Did he just come in one day and go, "Listen, I have to tell you, just-"