The AI Founder Telling Advisers Not to Sign Long-Term Contracts, Even Though It Costs Him Business | Hardy Michel

So anybody listening right now and they're thinking about Malu, just, just again, just reiterate, like, what's the easiest step to actually starting to use AI within your business, um, the most cost-effective way of doing it, and the less amount of stress and probably fatigue-

Yeah

... that you might experience.

What's the, the best way to do it with Malu? What's the best way to work with you and the best way to start?

Yeah.

So I would say, like, adoption is the battleground.

We're very good at procuring software, and essentially what that looks like is you pull out your credit card and you say, "I'm gonna have this," 'cause you've been really excited upfront.

But a lot of AI, you know, product in the financial advice space has become like the gym membership.

You go a couple of times in January, once or twice in February, and then kind of usage drops off.

So the question is, why? And my advice to, um, you know, firms and advisors and paraplanners is you need to start very simply with one thing in mind.

And, you know, I think a lot of people will sit there and say, "Everyone's, you know, already done meeting notes," or, "Everyone's already doing the reports." That's not true.

We're still so early in the adoption curve.

There's still a ton of people out there who are using no AI whatsoever.

So one, like, don't be discouraged or put off by that, like, you're still early, and then two, I would start very simply with meeting notes.

And the best way to, like, actually nail adoption and roll things out and, you know, um, not run into that gym membership analogy is run a trial.

Like, you need to set a two-week period.

From what we've experienced, that is the best to kind of, like, garner adoption, and you create a social contract where you say, you know, if you're less than three advisors, then, like, all three of you would, you know, use the product.

If it's more than, you know, a three advisor firm, just cap it at, you know, the three most interested people and say, "We're gonna use this for every client meeting for the next two weeks, and we're gonna do two things.

We're gonna try and quantify the impact and set a hypothesis, i.e. like, how much time do you think we're gonna save? And then we'll prove whether that's true or not.

And then, you know, probably 50% of it's just anecdotal feedback, like have I enjoyed using this? Has it been simple, intuitive?" And so if you can do those two things, like, you typically will get to the end of the trial and, you know, like you've embedded the behavior within the firm because you've had, like, a concentrated and concerted effort.

And then if you're larger than just the three advisors who have been trialing, they will typically evangelize and roll out.

And so, you know, rather than you, if you're the firm owner or, you know, a leader in that firm, having to kind of, like, pull everyone along, you can use your advisors as evangelists to kind of, like, push, um, for you.

And that's, like, just again, a very different, like, dynamic and perspective, and it's a way to best solve from a behavioral perspective in terms of introducing something new.

Yep.

Um, so in terms of the Malu product, it's like anyone can sign up in two minutes, try it out, and/or, like, book a demo, and it's the best way for us to tailor, you know, your onboarding and also support with a trial.