Thursday's Businessing opened with Pat walking into the studio fresh off an hour outside. 70 degrees in Milwaukee. An AI Installation Group meeting behind him. A mountain of work ahead. The conversation that followed was the best kind of course correction.

Consultant Michael Rampolla of Fortum Advisors joined Pat (on hotel lobby wifi, then literally outside) to unpack why small business owners work so hard and still miss. Michael's core diagnosis: we have a bias for action. Feeling stuck feels bad, so we move. We move before we check what problem we're actually trying to solve. And we end up running hard in the wrong direction.

The fix is uncomfortable. Sit with the stuck. Check the assumptions under your beliefs. Ask how do you know. Use an AI like Claude to play devil's advocate on your thinking before you commit real time and money. Track lead indicators you can control, not lag indicators like revenue that only tell you the verdict after it's too late. And surround yourself with people authorized to tell you you're wrong.

The AI story of the day: Google Workspace Intelligence is live, with AI now integrated across Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Calendar, including a new inbox that auto-sorts mail. For SBOC 26, Pat announced strategic growth and SEO expert Myrna Dyramy as Wednesday's third speaker, joining Mike Michalowicz and Taylor Cusick Holman. 115 tickets remain against a 235-person waitlist.

The weird story of the week: Northwestern University has successfully printed artificial neurons on plastic that fire like real brain cells, opening the door to restoring vision, movement, and speech. Pat closed with his usual note about the NFL Draft, the importance of keggers, and zero regrets.

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Guest: Michael Rampolla, Fortum Advisors — team@fortumadvisors.com

Three AI wins you can install this week. That's the show.

Jason Kolins of Kolins Intelligence spent years running AI at Fortune 500 companies. Then he brought the playbook home to Cedarburg, Wisconsin and started helping solo shops and small teams without the Fortune 500 price tag. He came on the air with three wins any business owner can deploy right now:

1. Stop writing everything from scratch. One business owner went from 45 minutes on morning customer questions to 5 minutes with a single prompt template. 10+ hours a week, back.

2. Look like a bigger business than you are. AI doesn't care if you're a one-person shop or a 500-person company. Same tools. Different budget.

3. Never let a lead go cold. HVAC, plumbers, pest control... if you miss a call, you lose money. An auto text-back setup is the fix.

Also: Why "cringe is the new cool." ChatGPT Image 2.0 and the branding arms race. And the first SBOC Conference speaker is announced: Taylor Cusick Hollman of Enng on lead generation.

Guest: Jason Kolins, Kolins Intelligence — kolinsintelligence.com

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Do you care that the number one song in the country was written and performed by AI? Today on Businessing, Pat Miller unpacks the synthetic content tsunami... including new data showing less than half of new podcasts released yesterday were likely made by humans... and makes the case that real-life gatherings are about to become the most valuable asset a business owner can own.

Then: the lead story. Pat put the show on TikTok and watched the comments go brutal in 24 hours. Bald jokes. Boomer jokes. The worst stuff people could think up. Then the algorithm found his people. The lesson from two decades in broadcasting: when you introduce yourself to an unfamiliar audience, the first wave is almost always negative. Get uncomfortable anyway.

Plus... the Idea Slam pulled from last night's Milwaukee SBOC meetup: how to land your first client using Know, Like, Trust. News update on the Iran ceasefire, $4 gas, and the weird economy where consumer confidence is at COVID-lows but spending keeps climbing. And a major SBOC Conference announcement: Mike Michalowicz is the keynote, with an Idea Slam Lunch sponsored by Taco Tom from G2 Insurance.

Subscribe and come back tomorrow... Jason Collins joins to share three wins with AI for small business owners.

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Claude Design just launched, and Pat demos it live, rebuilding the ugly AI Installation Group landing page in real time. The insight: if your website looks homemade, your prices look homemade. The tools for small business owners to look professional just got a lot better and a lot cheaper.

Also on today's show: the SBOC 26 keynote reveal. Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First and The Money Habit, headlines the September 15–17 conference in Brookfield, Wisconsin. In person this time. Tickets are $399, the lowest Pat has ever set them, and go on sale May 13 (May 11 for SBOC members).

And the Marines rappel from a helicopter to take an Iranian cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz while Pat spent the weekend making four trips to the hardware store to fix his lawnmower. Hashtag - not a marine.

The SBOC quarterly meetup is TONIGHT, 4–6 PM at the Technology Innovation Center in Wauwatosa. Come say hi.

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You never have to wonder what to post on social media again. The problem isn't that you don't have ideas...it's that you have too many. Creative constraint is the fix, and Pat breaks down exactly how to use it.

Plus: Jeff Bezos said something about AI that broke Pat's brain. AI isn't a product like the iPhone. It's a horizontal market like electricity. It doesn't compete with what exists...it replaces it. What that means for your business is something every owner needs to hear.

Two SBOC Conference 2026 announcements: Coaches Row is back with free laser coaching sessions, and Thursday afternoon gets a brand new format. Tickets go on sale May 13th.

And Pat shares a moment from Iowa that'll remind you why you do this: "It feels really good to have someone believe in you."

Creative constraint: the social media trick that makes ideas explode

Jeff Bezos on AI as a horizontal market (like electricity, not iPhone)

The AI house wars: Claude vs GPT vs Gemini vs Grok

SBOC Conference: Coaches Row returns + new laser talk format

Tax Day survival tips and Profit First reminder

Why 70% of small business owners still expect to grow in 2026

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Your business doesn't need to be better. It needs to be weirder.

Not goofy weird. Strategically different. The kind of different that makes people stop scrolling, stop comparing, and start paying attention.

Today we break down four ways to get weird with your business: quality, speed, entertainment, and scale. The Grateful Dead just launched a $10/month streaming service for live recordings...60 years in, still cutting through because they got weird and stayed weird. That's the lesson.

Also on today's show: Ticketmaster just lost a federal monopoly lawsuit (86% of concert venues, seriously?), Senator Tammy Baldwin wants to fix the $1,500 local sports streaming problem, Claude Opus 4.7 dropped with better vision and less babysitting, and we announced a GenHead AI super session at the SBOC Conference.

Plus the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2026 class, and why you should unironically listen to Phil Collins today.

Solving small business problems so you can be more profitable, with less stress, and run a modern small business.

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Gas prices just crossed $4 a gallon and your clients are about to start acting different. Pat breaks down what rising fuel costs really mean for your business and gives you three moves to protect the bottom line right now.

Then we're rewriting the rules on to-do lists. If your list makes you remember everything, that's why you're stressed. Pat shares the system he used with Abby over the weekend that turned 52 tasks into 8 things that actually needed to get done today.

Plus: A Gallup survey says half the workforce isn't using AI...but adoption is climbing past 51%. Alibaba's Accio agent just hit 10 million users and proves the agentic future isn't coming, it's here. The SBOC Conference drops Feature #4: Whiteboard Magic with Michael Rampolla. And the Milwaukee Marathon misspelled "marathon" on 4,000 medals.

Businessing with Pat Miller is the daily live show for small business owners who want their business to actually work for their life. We talk about what's real: making more money without burning out, getting the right stuff done without losing your mind, and running a business built for 2026, not 2006.

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The two most dangerous words in your business are "what if."

You know the spiral. What if my biggest client cancels? What if AI takes part of my product? What if there's a new competitor? We what-if ourselves into paralysis trying to control a future that probably won't happen anyway.

But here's what we never do...we never what-if the good stuff. What if that big client says yes? What if you double your rates and people pay it? What if you have to hire more people because things are going that well?

Today on Businessing, Pat breaks down how to escape what-if thinking and trust the evidence you've already built. You got this far. You can handle tomorrow.

Plus:

Iran's peace deal is shakier than yesterday's market rally suggested, and Pat explains why energy prices matter to your business right now. The DOJ is investigating NFL streaming rights, and it could change how content gets distributed everywhere. Community member Michael demos a photo cataloging app he built entirely with Claude...no coding required. And the biggest product launch in history is coming: a pill that gives your dog two more years.

SBOC Conference update: Two happy hours announced for this year's "Find Your People" event. 115 tickets remain with 225+ on the waitlist.

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