Rashad Thirlkill: So you may be the best at what you do, but when someone asks AI who to hire, does your name come up? Welcome back to the Millionaire by Morning Podcast. Once again, I'm your host, Rashad Thurl Kill, and today we're exploring what it takes to become the professional people find, trust, and choose as AI changes how they search for help. My guest is Andrew Kolski. Attorney, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Be Picked, Andrew helps professionals and businesses build credibility and improve their chances of being recommended by AI. We're talking about how to turn your experience into visible authority while being good at your work doesn't always mean getting discovered and what business owners can start doing today. Andrew, welcome to the Millionaire by Morning Podcast.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Well thank you, Rashad. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be able to talk about this stuff 'cause I really enjoy it.
Rashad Thirlkill: So awesome, man. Thank you for being here. You could have been anywhere anywhere in the world today, and you're here with myself and my audience. And I know this is about to be an amazing conversation because I've had so many questions about this topic specifically. So, Andrew, if you could take us back to the beginning, how did your work as an attorney lead you into entrepreneurship and eventually to founding BPIC?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Yeah. Well, I'll give you the short version because the long version could go for a couple days here. The short version is, you know, for my life, I have been a I'll call it a professional service provider. So I've been an attorney. I'm also a mental health counselor. And these are all types of things where I had to build the business. I had to get the clients. I had to, you know, do the marketing, the outreach, but I also had to do the actual work. I had to know the law. I had To represent the clients. I had to go to court. And it becomes overwhelming. And this is true not just for a professional service provider, but for anyone in any business. And so, as part of that, over the years, I had to start learning well, how do I do YouTube? How do I do social media? How do I do blogs? How am I going to get myself out there? And I started to learn a lot of skills. And, you know, the more you do it, the more you improve. The problem is it takes a lot of time. And I found myself taking so much time that it was hard to do the core business. And I realized there's this is not sustainable for me and it's not sustainable for anybody like me. And about that time that I realized that AI had come out and was starting to kind of people were dabbling with it and figuring it out. And I realized, you know what, I bet I could take a lot of this stuff that I'm doing and automate some of it. So don't have to spend so much time doing all of it myself. And so I started to learn about AI and I started to learn about automation. And eventually, the short version of the story is I came up with a tool called the Credibility Generator that I designed for myself and realized that other people could benefit from it as well. And it helps you do all the things that are necessary to get yourself out there on the web in a way that you will be found and cited and recommended by AI. Now there's more to it than that, but that's where the tool came from. And that was the the genesis of this whole new business. And now the business has evolved into helping people understand what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are, and how they can be the one to actually be recommended by AI when people are searching for them.
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay, so If we were to dive into this, and I should save this for later on for the show because this is the good part. But we're gonna we're gonna talk about it initially up front.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Okay.
Rashad Thirlkill: So, how is a business owner? What's the best way for a business owner? And I mean with your system, and we're gonna get into your website and we're gonna discuss it and everything, but what as as a business owner, so you were you were, I've go through the same thing. I'm going through the same thing. Apologies.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: There's so much time taken up. Like you
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Right.
Rashad Thirlkill: say, putting yourself out there. And so what you've created is a way for business people to shorten that process and to be able to work on their business instead of in their business. Am I correct?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: This true. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: And so what does that look like? This is do they go to your website and is it a download? Is it a software, is a service? How does this work?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Okay, great question. And the answer is this. Let me give you some framework for the answer. Prior to AI, when people wanted to have their business found on the internet, they had to know SEO, search engine optimization. And the reason they had to know that is because the way that the search engines worked is they relied heavily upon searching for keywords in websites and things like that. And the system worked well. The problem was when people did a search, they'd get a page of a bunch of websites. And then they got to go look at the website and try and figure out is this the right person for me? And the person who had the best amount of money and time invested in SEO would pop up first. Didn't mean they were the best. It meant they were the best at getting found first. And that worked for a long time until AI came along. And when AI when AI came along, that all changed. Because people now go into AI and they will search for a question about the problem they have. Let's say the problem that they have is, I need to get new funding for my business in a way that's not going to make me go bankrupt. You know, whatever their problem is, they type in. And AI will come up with answers. Now, how does AI come up with the answers? It's not based upon SEO keywords, the way the old system worked. What it's based upon is Credibility. Now, what do I mean by credibility? AI is incredibly powerful and it will go out and it will do a very big search over the whole internet in a way. And it looks for people that have information out there that addresses the question asked. So you may have a podcast, you may have a YouTube channel, you may have a blog, you may have a LinkedIn site, you may have all these different things that talk about these topics. And that puts you up on the list because you've got the right content out there. But you also have to have the other half, which is things that you can't put up yourself, but that other people put up about you. So if you've been a guest on a podcast, if you've given a talk somewhere, if you've put out information that other people quote you in their blog and things like that, that adds to your credibility. And so it looks for the most Credible person or persons based on a lot of these factors. And then it pulls that information and gives that back as the answer. So it may say, the best person that you could go to that would really help you understand these issues is Rashad Throwkill. And that's based upon all the stuff that I said. So doing that requires a lot of work, but that's where I built the credibility generator, which is a software as a service product. To take the stuff off your plate that it can take off your plate. And it does it in a way where I put two years of work into super detailed research. Not just do you do a LinkedIn post, but what's in that post? What does it have to cite? How does it have to read? What does the title have to say? How long does it have to be? Which words are you using? What order are you using them in? Do they match with a blog post? Do they match with your YouTube channel? So a tremendous amount of background work. And then that tool, you go in and it says something like, Over this last week, here's the top five questions that people have asked about your particular business or your field, whatever it may be. Would you like to answer one of those? And you say, Yeah, I want to answer one of those. You pick it, and then it lets you choose how you wanna answer it. Do you wanna give a list? Do you wanna give an article? Do you wanna Be casual, do you want to be serious? however you want to do it. And then it helps you create a blog article, which then you edit, it it pulls in your voice and stuff. So we're avoiding AI slop. AI slop is just I can go to Chat GPT tell to write me an article, and what does it do? It pulls general content from the internet and puts it back. Well, that's not adding any benefit to the internet. But when you put in your own voice, your own experiences, your own knowledge, your own stories, that's something new. So it gathers all that type of stuff and it creates a blog article, it'll create a LinkedIn post, it'll create a Google Business Profile post, it will create a video for you, and we can even make an avatar of you. And the avatar records the video for you. You don't even have to be there if you don't want to be. And it automatically posts this in all the right places at all the right times. And so that takes a big chunk of the work off your plate. so I I'm gonna stop there because I could go on and on and on forever, but that's the essence of what this is, is there's you need to know how it works and then you need to find ways to help you do what you need to do. And this is part of a way to help you do what you need to do.
Rashad Thirlkill: Got it. Okay. Thanks, man. So for our listeners, if we can make, you know, this real and people are, man, they are kind of in a tizzy about AI, right? People
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: don't know what is is happening so fast. People don't know what to expect. Is it going to take their jobs? is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? as far as let's just speak about The SEO aspect, the Googling aspect. So many people are used to, especially this crowd, this crowd of my listeners. So many
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm.
Rashad Thirlkill: people are used to you go on Google, you look for an automotive shop, or you look for expertise in a certain area, Dr. Dennis. When someone asks AI, who's the best for my situation? What influences which names appear? How much can we actually know about that particular process of what influences who comes up?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Right, a really important question. And I've spent a lot of time researching that. And so I can give you the best answer I can give you. Nobody can tell you exactly because they don't share all that, but I can pretty closely tell you what it does. And understand there's a lot of different AI models out there. So they don't all work exactly the same. They work similarly, but not exactly the same. So the general answer to your question is. AI is trying to, and this is where I think it's it's a good thing, because it's actually making credible, honest, good businesses show up as opposed to businesses who paid more for ads or or or whatever. And what I mean by that is going back to what I said before, people who spend their time putting out useful information about the specific types of problems that their ideal client would have. So if you're a dentist and maybe you really focus on tooth whitening. So your ideal client is someone who is really looking for tooth whitening as their primary thing, and they have concerns because they've had, I don't know, certain type of problems before, and they don't want to have any sort of interactions with the tooth whitener and whatever teeth problems they've had in the past. And so you put out articles about that. You say, you know, tooth whitening comes in many different ways. It can be done. This way, it can be done that way. Some of the complications are this, some of the benefits are that. And you start putting out material that relates to what your ideal client would be interested in. And you do it not only one time, you have to do it on multiple platforms, and you have to do it consistently because information that's 30 to 90 days old is old to AI and it moves on to the newer stuff. So you have to consistently be putting out. Information, but information that's relevant to your ideal client profile. So AI is looking for that. It's not looking for, and this is a big mistake that like a lot of lawyers make, for example. Lawyers will come on and they'll want to tell you, and if you look at their websites, you'll see this. I went to this school and I got this degree, and I have that license, and I'm wonderful and great for all these reasons. And maybe they are wonderful and great, but that's not what their clients care about. What their clients care about is can you solve my problem and get me out of the trouble that I'm in? That's what they care about. They don't care what school you went to or what your degree is. They care about can you help me with my problem? And so if you can demonstrate that, that builds your credibility online. And that's the type of stuff that AI is looking for. So each platform does it a little bit differently. And I've done in-depth studies. And you can even go to my website and see a study that I did, and I compared the four different models of. Chat GPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini. And you'll see, you know, kind of who gave what type of results. But ultimately that's that's what they're looking for, is that those credibility signals.
Rashad Thirlkill: Thank you for that. Thank you very much. So, Andrew, I'd like to ask you this because I'm I am in the I am in the realm, right? I am in the realm of Generation X to where business just does not operate as normal, right? So at this moment in time, a lot of generation X age people are looking to maybe have a new career, maybe move into a new direction. in life.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Uh-huh.
Rashad Thirlkill: so what I would like to ask you What what became before the AI? And I I want to say this because what has happened, it seems like AI is a really huge opportunity. And we go in the direction that we're led in, but a lot of the times, okay, it has happened so fast. AI has come about so fast in such a way that now you're like, well, I have to take a deep dive. And a deeper dive, and a deeper dive, and normally you come out with a business of some sort, right? So was you
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: doing anything before you dove? Did you have another direction you were going in before diving into the AI aspect and creating this business?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Yeah, and and this is something that I think is relevant to to your listeners. So, you know, I've had a lot of different careers throughout my life. And it's because I like learning about different things and I I like to try new things. And I hear so many people who are maybe in their 30s or their 40s and they talk, I can't learn anything new. I it's too late to learn a new career, whatever. Now you're talking to someone who went back in my mid-40s and became a mental health counselor. in my late 50s early 60s learned ai I don't I don't believe any of that you can learn whatever you want to learn as long as you're motivated to learn it. So if you have someone out there who's thinking to themselves, you know, w what sh should I do something with this AI? What's going on? I asked them to think back, you know, if if they remember back so far when the internet came out, when email came out, when cell phones came out. When all these new technologies came out, and it was the same story. my God, the world's gonna end. This is gonna change everything. Everybody's gonna be unemployed. There's gonna be no more jobs. And what happened? We had tons of new jobs that came up of people learning to build websites, people learning SEO, people learning to do YouTube, people learning to do all these things that came about because of the internet. And it's the same thing with AI. I am seeing so many new jobs come about because of AI. Are there some that are being taken? Buy AI? Yes, there are. But are there so many new ones that are coming about? Yes, there are. So if somebody came to me, and this is again based on I I spent a lot of time doing a lot of research on AI, about AI. And one of the things that came up, because I I was curious, is it what would be a great business today that's in high demand, that people are looking for, that they need, that there's not enough people doing? Well, that that those are some important questions if you want to start a new business. And the answer was people who know how to use AI to help automate systems. And what I mean by that is right now, maybe think of a a you know, think of a tire an an auto shop. They get calls that come in, they gotta schedule appointments, they gotta keep track of their inventory, they gotta make sure their bills are paid, they gotta make sure they're billing their clients. There's a lot of things they have to do administratively. With AI, a lot of that can be automated. So you literally the bill goes in the system, it knows what parts you used, so it knows whether you got to order new parts, it automatically sends out an invoice to the customer, it knows whether it was paid, it puts the payment in play it does all it for you don't have to think but somebody's gonna build that system and so there's a job and you know what it's not that hard to do. AI does not require you to go out and get, five years of training of how to be a computer programmer starting from scratch. No. AI does a lot of the programming for you. And I can't tell you how many processes and and programs I've developed for myself just for simple Tasks because I don't have the time to do them. But now my computer is just running these tasks every day, keeping track of everything, and it makes my life so much easier. So you can learn it. You can definitely develop new businesses from it if you're looking to get into a new business. And I don't care how old you are, you're not too old to do it.
Rashad Thirlkill: All right. I like that. I like that, man. Like it a lot. So many people are afraid right now. You hear it all the time, man. And so we need, you know, we do need at this point our mentors and people who have taken a step forward to reach back and grab others, especially especially in a certain age group where people think that they can't get they can't get it. they can't get it down. like you say, it's not that difficult. Is it's just something that you have to get in there and play with and push buttons, like everything else, you know. So yeah, man, thank you for that. So tell us a little bit about your about your website, b pick.com, your your your business. Let's get an overview.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Sure, sure. So, you know, I tell people that right now, with everything that's happening with AI, to me, it's like the new gold rush. And I really mean that because the the world is wide open now because everything that everybody had been doing to get themselves set up on the internet through Google search, is it relevant? It's relevant. Is it where we're headed? We're headed AI-wise, and it's going to become less and less and less relevant, and AI becomes more and more and more prominent. So people have to get set up to do that, but they don't know how. They don't know what to do. And they don't know where to start. And I get, you know, comments from colleagues all the time who have websites who say, you know, I've noticed over the last year my My new clients and all are down about 30%. I'm getting a lot less traffic to the website. And this is not just one person, this is across the board I'm getting this. And that's because people are moving to AI search, which is going to find different people. So I built out an entire ecosystem of my own around this concept of helping business owners understand how they can be the one recommended by AI when people are searching. And so Talked about the credibility generator, which is a software product we have. But we do like a 90-day boot camp where we take people. We're running one right now. We take people who have nothing. Maybe they have a website, maybe they don't even have a website. And we teach them everything they need to know. And we give them what they need to do step by step. And we walk them through and we hold their hand and we bring them to where they need to be 90 days later. So now they have all the habits, the skills, the knowledge, and they just keep it going. We have individual consulting. We have courses that people just come on and take the course. We have one thing that I am the newest thing that I've been working on, which has taken a very long time to build, is if if a person comes to me and says, you know, here's my business name, here's where I'm located, here's what I do, let me know what I need to do to get myself found by AI. I built a program where I can go in. And it will scan using all the different AI models, not just one. And it will scan the internet thousands and thousands and thousands of different ways to look at your business from every single angle. It'll look at your competitors, it'll look at the market you're in, it'll look at everything. And eventually it comes back with a pretty long, detailed report that says, here's your strengths, here's your weaknesses, here's how you need to fix it. And here's what's going to get you in the position to be found and hopefully ultimately recommended by AI. And it is intense. It's like taking a microscope. And I'll, you know, some of the answers that it will come back with. I'll I'll give you some some tricks here. If you put yourself out on the internet, and let's say you have a LinkedIn account and a website and you know some other places that you list yourself, you must list your name. Exactly the same way everywhere. So, you know, my name, there isn't anybody else out there with my name that I know of. I don't have a very common name. But my name, I was out there as Andrew Kolsky. I was out there as Andrew E. Kolsky, Andrew Kolsky JD, Andrew Kolski LMHC. I had all these different titles and I used them for different purposes depending on where I was at. And so when AI searches, it's like, is this the same person or is are these different people? It didn't know. So it couldn't really categorize me. But when I started to use the same exact name everywhere, every website, every title, every article, every video, every everything, now it knows, this is that same guy. Yeah, this is the guy that talks about AI stuff. And he's always giving information related to how to be found on AI. So when I go to AI and I search For my comp and I don't search for my company. I search, I'll give you an example. I did a search that said, I happen to be in the Washington, DC area. So I did a search on AI and I said, I have a law practice in the Washington, DC area, and I want to learn how to be the one recommended when someone asks AI for a lawyer in that area. Who should I talk to? Well, guess whose company came up as the very first choice? Mine. Now, will it always do that? No. AI is not going to be 100% consistent all the time. But will it do it sometimes if you're set up properly? And if you're not set up properly, it won't. So when you go to my website, you're gonna see something that we call the 3% club. And where did that come from? That came from a deep, deep, deep dive search across all the different search engines and how all this stuff works. And it came out and it said, you know what? 3%, I happen to be doing a search about attorneys. So 3% of the attorneys came up consistently on all four search engines. 97% maybe showed up once, most didn't show up at all. So the real goal here is to be part of that 3% if you're really going to be found. And that's what I've been working towards. So that's what the website is all about is all the services we provide and why we do it and how we help you get to achieve the goal that you're trying to achieve. And I'll throw one other thing in because it's important for everybody. I have a free assessment on the website, and you can get to it easily by going to getyouraq.com. AQ stands for AIThority quotient. It's a book that I'm coming out with. I actually have a copy here. It doesn't come out till January, but it's coming out. And if you go to getyouraq.com, you answer 20 questions. And right there, you don't have to wait for it or send away for it. Right there, you will get a a a score and you will get a report that shows you what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, so you know where you need to start working to get yourself better ranked. So it's a long answer, but there's a lot of stuff that we're doing.
Rashad Thirlkill: That's so awesome, man. I checked out the website. I will say it's an awesome, well put together, very informative website.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Thank you.
Rashad Thirlkill: And it's especially for people who are interested in moving forefront in the forefront of AI. Go check out the website. Like, literally, I'm I'm telling you this. Because I haven't ran across too many people who can give direction on. I know about SEO. I'm a I'm a marketer, right? I know about SEO. I know about running ads, but How do you get AI to recognize you? How do you get upfront when it when it comes to AI? So Andrew has studied this stuff. So y'all listen to him. Okay, this very important conversation. Where can people find you at, man? Yeah, go right ahead.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Can I throw something in there? Well, I want to throw one thing in there because I think it's really important based on the conversation. Because you you said some magic words in there, and I want to I want to make sure your audience gets this. You
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: talked about advertising, you talked about marketing, right? Businesses need to know about advertising and marketing and all that. And the the reason I bring that up is when we talk about AI, I want you and I want your listeners to start to start thinking about this differently. Here's what I want you to think about. Marketing and advertising means that you are spending money to try and reach out to people who might be your customer. When you do credibility work, which is what builds you on AI, so you're not paying money out to market or advertise, you're building your credibility online. What happens is you become the customers come to you instead of you going to them. Now I would rather be in the business where customers are coming to me any day of the week.
Rashad Thirlkill: Definitely. Definitely, man. Inbound. Inbound marketing. That's what that's what I was taught after I learned how to guerrilla marketing. After I learned how to knock on doors, after I learned how to code call. Someone said, Hey, what about inbound marketing? You can get people coming to you. Yeah, that sounds
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: There you go.
Rashad Thirlkill: that sounds a whole lot better, man. So where can people find you, Andrew? As far as social medias and online, other than the website, where can people
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: find you or follow you?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Well, I tell people I have a very strong presence on LinkedIn. So I have a personal page there, which is Andrew E. Kolsky, and I have a business page there, which is B Picked B-E-P-I-C-K-E-D. So we do every week we do a live show on Wednesday at two thirty and we give you the most up-to-date information about being found by AI that came out over that last week. So every single week you watch a live show there. We have a Podcast, Be Picked Podcast, B E hyphen, P-I-C-K-E-D podcast.com. We do a podcast. We started off once a week. Now we're at twice a week because there's just so much information that has to go out there. So you can find a lot of information there. we have let's say I told you about LinkedIn. We have a YouTube channel, which is at bepicked, B-E-Hyphen, P-I-C-K-E-D, and you can see tons of information there that's going to be helpful to you. We got a Google business page, which, if you have a business, you need to have a Google business page. Period. I don't want to hear any complaints about it. Get it. It's free. Put it up. It is incredibly important for you and your business. Take advantage of the free stuff that's available to you. so you'll find us there. So we we're, you know, then we're on podcast networks and we're all over the place as best as I can be. But the number one would be LinkedIn and YouTube.
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay, all right. That's great, man. Y'all heard it first. what is the date for the book? When will it be dropped?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: So this new book is called the AI Authority Quotient. It is going to be coming out on January 12th. It is actually available for pre-order on Amazon right now. And I have another book that I wrote that just came out in September. I don't have a copy in front of me, called Left of Trust. And that book is available now on Amazon. You can also find it at my website. Just go to B-E-Hyphen-P-I-C-K-E-D dot com and look for books, and you'll find both of these there. And you can order them. And left of trust is all about the psychology of what happens with a consumer as they're searching online that drives them to eventually hire you. Like what's going on and how do you take advantage of that? And then AI authority quotient is the the new one, and that's all about how do I get found online and the psychology behind it and all the science behind it, not just, you know, basic facts, but we kind of dive in deep.
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay. Okay. All right. That's great. Hey, give Andrew a follow. I I ask of you. We're starting this AI journey. We're early. We are in the early. We are in the infancy stages of this stuff, man. Let's get a follow and get behind these people that can teach us one step ahead. Andrew, thank you for joining us and helping us think about how credibility becomes opportunity. And for everyone listening, here's the question to take with you. Does your online presence reflect the experience and value that you bring to your clients? Visit bpig.com to explore Andrew's work and the resource, the resources that we discussed. I'm Rashad Thurlokiel, and this Millionaire by Morning. Keep building your expertise, sharing your value. And giving people a reason to choose you. Until next time, we'll see you later.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Well thank you, Rashad. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be able to talk about this stuff 'cause I really enjoy it.
Rashad Thirlkill: So awesome, man. Thank you for being here. You could have been anywhere anywhere in the world today, and you're here with myself and my audience. And I know this is about to be an amazing conversation because I've had so many questions about this topic specifically. So, Andrew, if you could take us back to the beginning, how did your work as an attorney lead you into entrepreneurship and eventually to founding BPIC?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Yeah. Well, I'll give you the short version because the long version could go for a couple days here. The short version is, you know, for my life, I have been a I'll call it a professional service provider. So I've been an attorney. I'm also a mental health counselor. And these are all types of things where I had to build the business. I had to get the clients. I had to, you know, do the marketing, the outreach, but I also had to do the actual work. I had to know the law. I had To represent the clients. I had to go to court. And it becomes overwhelming. And this is true not just for a professional service provider, but for anyone in any business. And so, as part of that, over the years, I had to start learning well, how do I do YouTube? How do I do social media? How do I do blogs? How am I going to get myself out there? And I started to learn a lot of skills. And, you know, the more you do it, the more you improve. The problem is it takes a lot of time. And I found myself taking so much time that it was hard to do the core business. And I realized there's this is not sustainable for me and it's not sustainable for anybody like me. And about that time that I realized that AI had come out and was starting to kind of people were dabbling with it and figuring it out. And I realized, you know what, I bet I could take a lot of this stuff that I'm doing and automate some of it. So don't have to spend so much time doing all of it myself. And so I started to learn about AI and I started to learn about automation. And eventually, the short version of the story is I came up with a tool called the Credibility Generator that I designed for myself and realized that other people could benefit from it as well. And it helps you do all the things that are necessary to get yourself out there on the web in a way that you will be found and cited and recommended by AI. Now there's more to it than that, but that's where the tool came from. And that was the the genesis of this whole new business. And now the business has evolved into helping people understand what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are, and how they can be the one to actually be recommended by AI when people are searching for them.
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay, so If we were to dive into this, and I should save this for later on for the show because this is the good part. But we're gonna we're gonna talk about it initially up front.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Okay.
Rashad Thirlkill: So, how is a business owner? What's the best way for a business owner? And I mean with your system, and we're gonna get into your website and we're gonna discuss it and everything, but what as as a business owner, so you were you were, I've go through the same thing. I'm going through the same thing. Apologies.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: There's so much time taken up. Like you
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Right.
Rashad Thirlkill: say, putting yourself out there. And so what you've created is a way for business people to shorten that process and to be able to work on their business instead of in their business. Am I correct?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: This true. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: And so what does that look like? This is do they go to your website and is it a download? Is it a software, is a service? How does this work?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Okay, great question. And the answer is this. Let me give you some framework for the answer. Prior to AI, when people wanted to have their business found on the internet, they had to know SEO, search engine optimization. And the reason they had to know that is because the way that the search engines worked is they relied heavily upon searching for keywords in websites and things like that. And the system worked well. The problem was when people did a search, they'd get a page of a bunch of websites. And then they got to go look at the website and try and figure out is this the right person for me? And the person who had the best amount of money and time invested in SEO would pop up first. Didn't mean they were the best. It meant they were the best at getting found first. And that worked for a long time until AI came along. And when AI when AI came along, that all changed. Because people now go into AI and they will search for a question about the problem they have. Let's say the problem that they have is, I need to get new funding for my business in a way that's not going to make me go bankrupt. You know, whatever their problem is, they type in. And AI will come up with answers. Now, how does AI come up with the answers? It's not based upon SEO keywords, the way the old system worked. What it's based upon is Credibility. Now, what do I mean by credibility? AI is incredibly powerful and it will go out and it will do a very big search over the whole internet in a way. And it looks for people that have information out there that addresses the question asked. So you may have a podcast, you may have a YouTube channel, you may have a blog, you may have a LinkedIn site, you may have all these different things that talk about these topics. And that puts you up on the list because you've got the right content out there. But you also have to have the other half, which is things that you can't put up yourself, but that other people put up about you. So if you've been a guest on a podcast, if you've given a talk somewhere, if you've put out information that other people quote you in their blog and things like that, that adds to your credibility. And so it looks for the most Credible person or persons based on a lot of these factors. And then it pulls that information and gives that back as the answer. So it may say, the best person that you could go to that would really help you understand these issues is Rashad Throwkill. And that's based upon all the stuff that I said. So doing that requires a lot of work, but that's where I built the credibility generator, which is a software as a service product. To take the stuff off your plate that it can take off your plate. And it does it in a way where I put two years of work into super detailed research. Not just do you do a LinkedIn post, but what's in that post? What does it have to cite? How does it have to read? What does the title have to say? How long does it have to be? Which words are you using? What order are you using them in? Do they match with a blog post? Do they match with your YouTube channel? So a tremendous amount of background work. And then that tool, you go in and it says something like, Over this last week, here's the top five questions that people have asked about your particular business or your field, whatever it may be. Would you like to answer one of those? And you say, Yeah, I want to answer one of those. You pick it, and then it lets you choose how you wanna answer it. Do you wanna give a list? Do you wanna give an article? Do you wanna Be casual, do you want to be serious? however you want to do it. And then it helps you create a blog article, which then you edit, it it pulls in your voice and stuff. So we're avoiding AI slop. AI slop is just I can go to Chat GPT tell to write me an article, and what does it do? It pulls general content from the internet and puts it back. Well, that's not adding any benefit to the internet. But when you put in your own voice, your own experiences, your own knowledge, your own stories, that's something new. So it gathers all that type of stuff and it creates a blog article, it'll create a LinkedIn post, it'll create a Google Business Profile post, it will create a video for you, and we can even make an avatar of you. And the avatar records the video for you. You don't even have to be there if you don't want to be. And it automatically posts this in all the right places at all the right times. And so that takes a big chunk of the work off your plate. so I I'm gonna stop there because I could go on and on and on forever, but that's the essence of what this is, is there's you need to know how it works and then you need to find ways to help you do what you need to do. And this is part of a way to help you do what you need to do.
Rashad Thirlkill: Got it. Okay. Thanks, man. So for our listeners, if we can make, you know, this real and people are, man, they are kind of in a tizzy about AI, right? People
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: don't know what is is happening so fast. People don't know what to expect. Is it going to take their jobs? is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? as far as let's just speak about The SEO aspect, the Googling aspect. So many people are used to, especially this crowd, this crowd of my listeners. So many
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm.
Rashad Thirlkill: people are used to you go on Google, you look for an automotive shop, or you look for expertise in a certain area, Dr. Dennis. When someone asks AI, who's the best for my situation? What influences which names appear? How much can we actually know about that particular process of what influences who comes up?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Right, a really important question. And I've spent a lot of time researching that. And so I can give you the best answer I can give you. Nobody can tell you exactly because they don't share all that, but I can pretty closely tell you what it does. And understand there's a lot of different AI models out there. So they don't all work exactly the same. They work similarly, but not exactly the same. So the general answer to your question is. AI is trying to, and this is where I think it's it's a good thing, because it's actually making credible, honest, good businesses show up as opposed to businesses who paid more for ads or or or whatever. And what I mean by that is going back to what I said before, people who spend their time putting out useful information about the specific types of problems that their ideal client would have. So if you're a dentist and maybe you really focus on tooth whitening. So your ideal client is someone who is really looking for tooth whitening as their primary thing, and they have concerns because they've had, I don't know, certain type of problems before, and they don't want to have any sort of interactions with the tooth whitener and whatever teeth problems they've had in the past. And so you put out articles about that. You say, you know, tooth whitening comes in many different ways. It can be done. This way, it can be done that way. Some of the complications are this, some of the benefits are that. And you start putting out material that relates to what your ideal client would be interested in. And you do it not only one time, you have to do it on multiple platforms, and you have to do it consistently because information that's 30 to 90 days old is old to AI and it moves on to the newer stuff. So you have to consistently be putting out. Information, but information that's relevant to your ideal client profile. So AI is looking for that. It's not looking for, and this is a big mistake that like a lot of lawyers make, for example. Lawyers will come on and they'll want to tell you, and if you look at their websites, you'll see this. I went to this school and I got this degree, and I have that license, and I'm wonderful and great for all these reasons. And maybe they are wonderful and great, but that's not what their clients care about. What their clients care about is can you solve my problem and get me out of the trouble that I'm in? That's what they care about. They don't care what school you went to or what your degree is. They care about can you help me with my problem? And so if you can demonstrate that, that builds your credibility online. And that's the type of stuff that AI is looking for. So each platform does it a little bit differently. And I've done in-depth studies. And you can even go to my website and see a study that I did, and I compared the four different models of. Chat GPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini. And you'll see, you know, kind of who gave what type of results. But ultimately that's that's what they're looking for, is that those credibility signals.
Rashad Thirlkill: Thank you for that. Thank you very much. So, Andrew, I'd like to ask you this because I'm I am in the I am in the realm, right? I am in the realm of Generation X to where business just does not operate as normal, right? So at this moment in time, a lot of generation X age people are looking to maybe have a new career, maybe move into a new direction. in life.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Uh-huh.
Rashad Thirlkill: so what I would like to ask you What what became before the AI? And I I want to say this because what has happened, it seems like AI is a really huge opportunity. And we go in the direction that we're led in, but a lot of the times, okay, it has happened so fast. AI has come about so fast in such a way that now you're like, well, I have to take a deep dive. And a deeper dive, and a deeper dive, and normally you come out with a business of some sort, right? So was you
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: doing anything before you dove? Did you have another direction you were going in before diving into the AI aspect and creating this business?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Yeah, and and this is something that I think is relevant to to your listeners. So, you know, I've had a lot of different careers throughout my life. And it's because I like learning about different things and I I like to try new things. And I hear so many people who are maybe in their 30s or their 40s and they talk, I can't learn anything new. I it's too late to learn a new career, whatever. Now you're talking to someone who went back in my mid-40s and became a mental health counselor. in my late 50s early 60s learned ai I don't I don't believe any of that you can learn whatever you want to learn as long as you're motivated to learn it. So if you have someone out there who's thinking to themselves, you know, w what sh should I do something with this AI? What's going on? I asked them to think back, you know, if if they remember back so far when the internet came out, when email came out, when cell phones came out. When all these new technologies came out, and it was the same story. my God, the world's gonna end. This is gonna change everything. Everybody's gonna be unemployed. There's gonna be no more jobs. And what happened? We had tons of new jobs that came up of people learning to build websites, people learning SEO, people learning to do YouTube, people learning to do all these things that came about because of the internet. And it's the same thing with AI. I am seeing so many new jobs come about because of AI. Are there some that are being taken? Buy AI? Yes, there are. But are there so many new ones that are coming about? Yes, there are. So if somebody came to me, and this is again based on I I spent a lot of time doing a lot of research on AI, about AI. And one of the things that came up, because I I was curious, is it what would be a great business today that's in high demand, that people are looking for, that they need, that there's not enough people doing? Well, that that those are some important questions if you want to start a new business. And the answer was people who know how to use AI to help automate systems. And what I mean by that is right now, maybe think of a a you know, think of a tire an an auto shop. They get calls that come in, they gotta schedule appointments, they gotta keep track of their inventory, they gotta make sure their bills are paid, they gotta make sure they're billing their clients. There's a lot of things they have to do administratively. With AI, a lot of that can be automated. So you literally the bill goes in the system, it knows what parts you used, so it knows whether you got to order new parts, it automatically sends out an invoice to the customer, it knows whether it was paid, it puts the payment in play it does all it for you don't have to think but somebody's gonna build that system and so there's a job and you know what it's not that hard to do. AI does not require you to go out and get, five years of training of how to be a computer programmer starting from scratch. No. AI does a lot of the programming for you. And I can't tell you how many processes and and programs I've developed for myself just for simple Tasks because I don't have the time to do them. But now my computer is just running these tasks every day, keeping track of everything, and it makes my life so much easier. So you can learn it. You can definitely develop new businesses from it if you're looking to get into a new business. And I don't care how old you are, you're not too old to do it.
Rashad Thirlkill: All right. I like that. I like that, man. Like it a lot. So many people are afraid right now. You hear it all the time, man. And so we need, you know, we do need at this point our mentors and people who have taken a step forward to reach back and grab others, especially especially in a certain age group where people think that they can't get they can't get it. they can't get it down. like you say, it's not that difficult. Is it's just something that you have to get in there and play with and push buttons, like everything else, you know. So yeah, man, thank you for that. So tell us a little bit about your about your website, b pick.com, your your your business. Let's get an overview.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Sure, sure. So, you know, I tell people that right now, with everything that's happening with AI, to me, it's like the new gold rush. And I really mean that because the the world is wide open now because everything that everybody had been doing to get themselves set up on the internet through Google search, is it relevant? It's relevant. Is it where we're headed? We're headed AI-wise, and it's going to become less and less and less relevant, and AI becomes more and more and more prominent. So people have to get set up to do that, but they don't know how. They don't know what to do. And they don't know where to start. And I get, you know, comments from colleagues all the time who have websites who say, you know, I've noticed over the last year my My new clients and all are down about 30%. I'm getting a lot less traffic to the website. And this is not just one person, this is across the board I'm getting this. And that's because people are moving to AI search, which is going to find different people. So I built out an entire ecosystem of my own around this concept of helping business owners understand how they can be the one recommended by AI when people are searching. And so Talked about the credibility generator, which is a software product we have. But we do like a 90-day boot camp where we take people. We're running one right now. We take people who have nothing. Maybe they have a website, maybe they don't even have a website. And we teach them everything they need to know. And we give them what they need to do step by step. And we walk them through and we hold their hand and we bring them to where they need to be 90 days later. So now they have all the habits, the skills, the knowledge, and they just keep it going. We have individual consulting. We have courses that people just come on and take the course. We have one thing that I am the newest thing that I've been working on, which has taken a very long time to build, is if if a person comes to me and says, you know, here's my business name, here's where I'm located, here's what I do, let me know what I need to do to get myself found by AI. I built a program where I can go in. And it will scan using all the different AI models, not just one. And it will scan the internet thousands and thousands and thousands of different ways to look at your business from every single angle. It'll look at your competitors, it'll look at the market you're in, it'll look at everything. And eventually it comes back with a pretty long, detailed report that says, here's your strengths, here's your weaknesses, here's how you need to fix it. And here's what's going to get you in the position to be found and hopefully ultimately recommended by AI. And it is intense. It's like taking a microscope. And I'll, you know, some of the answers that it will come back with. I'll I'll give you some some tricks here. If you put yourself out on the internet, and let's say you have a LinkedIn account and a website and you know some other places that you list yourself, you must list your name. Exactly the same way everywhere. So, you know, my name, there isn't anybody else out there with my name that I know of. I don't have a very common name. But my name, I was out there as Andrew Kolsky. I was out there as Andrew E. Kolsky, Andrew Kolsky JD, Andrew Kolski LMHC. I had all these different titles and I used them for different purposes depending on where I was at. And so when AI searches, it's like, is this the same person or is are these different people? It didn't know. So it couldn't really categorize me. But when I started to use the same exact name everywhere, every website, every title, every article, every video, every everything, now it knows, this is that same guy. Yeah, this is the guy that talks about AI stuff. And he's always giving information related to how to be found on AI. So when I go to AI and I search For my comp and I don't search for my company. I search, I'll give you an example. I did a search that said, I happen to be in the Washington, DC area. So I did a search on AI and I said, I have a law practice in the Washington, DC area, and I want to learn how to be the one recommended when someone asks AI for a lawyer in that area. Who should I talk to? Well, guess whose company came up as the very first choice? Mine. Now, will it always do that? No. AI is not going to be 100% consistent all the time. But will it do it sometimes if you're set up properly? And if you're not set up properly, it won't. So when you go to my website, you're gonna see something that we call the 3% club. And where did that come from? That came from a deep, deep, deep dive search across all the different search engines and how all this stuff works. And it came out and it said, you know what? 3%, I happen to be doing a search about attorneys. So 3% of the attorneys came up consistently on all four search engines. 97% maybe showed up once, most didn't show up at all. So the real goal here is to be part of that 3% if you're really going to be found. And that's what I've been working towards. So that's what the website is all about is all the services we provide and why we do it and how we help you get to achieve the goal that you're trying to achieve. And I'll throw one other thing in because it's important for everybody. I have a free assessment on the website, and you can get to it easily by going to getyouraq.com. AQ stands for AIThority quotient. It's a book that I'm coming out with. I actually have a copy here. It doesn't come out till January, but it's coming out. And if you go to getyouraq.com, you answer 20 questions. And right there, you don't have to wait for it or send away for it. Right there, you will get a a a score and you will get a report that shows you what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, so you know where you need to start working to get yourself better ranked. So it's a long answer, but there's a lot of stuff that we're doing.
Rashad Thirlkill: That's so awesome, man. I checked out the website. I will say it's an awesome, well put together, very informative website.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Thank you.
Rashad Thirlkill: And it's especially for people who are interested in moving forefront in the forefront of AI. Go check out the website. Like, literally, I'm I'm telling you this. Because I haven't ran across too many people who can give direction on. I know about SEO. I'm a I'm a marketer, right? I know about SEO. I know about running ads, but How do you get AI to recognize you? How do you get upfront when it when it comes to AI? So Andrew has studied this stuff. So y'all listen to him. Okay, this very important conversation. Where can people find you at, man? Yeah, go right ahead.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Can I throw something in there? Well, I want to throw one thing in there because I think it's really important based on the conversation. Because you you said some magic words in there, and I want to I want to make sure your audience gets this. You
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay.
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: talked about advertising, you talked about marketing, right? Businesses need to know about advertising and marketing and all that. And the the reason I bring that up is when we talk about AI, I want you and I want your listeners to start to start thinking about this differently. Here's what I want you to think about. Marketing and advertising means that you are spending money to try and reach out to people who might be your customer. When you do credibility work, which is what builds you on AI, so you're not paying money out to market or advertise, you're building your credibility online. What happens is you become the customers come to you instead of you going to them. Now I would rather be in the business where customers are coming to me any day of the week.
Rashad Thirlkill: Definitely. Definitely, man. Inbound. Inbound marketing. That's what that's what I was taught after I learned how to guerrilla marketing. After I learned how to knock on doors, after I learned how to code call. Someone said, Hey, what about inbound marketing? You can get people coming to you. Yeah, that sounds
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: There you go.
Rashad Thirlkill: that sounds a whole lot better, man. So where can people find you, Andrew? As far as social medias and online, other than the website, where can people
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rashad Thirlkill: find you or follow you?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: Well, I tell people I have a very strong presence on LinkedIn. So I have a personal page there, which is Andrew E. Kolsky, and I have a business page there, which is B Picked B-E-P-I-C-K-E-D. So we do every week we do a live show on Wednesday at two thirty and we give you the most up-to-date information about being found by AI that came out over that last week. So every single week you watch a live show there. We have a Podcast, Be Picked Podcast, B E hyphen, P-I-C-K-E-D podcast.com. We do a podcast. We started off once a week. Now we're at twice a week because there's just so much information that has to go out there. So you can find a lot of information there. we have let's say I told you about LinkedIn. We have a YouTube channel, which is at bepicked, B-E-Hyphen, P-I-C-K-E-D, and you can see tons of information there that's going to be helpful to you. We got a Google business page, which, if you have a business, you need to have a Google business page. Period. I don't want to hear any complaints about it. Get it. It's free. Put it up. It is incredibly important for you and your business. Take advantage of the free stuff that's available to you. so you'll find us there. So we we're, you know, then we're on podcast networks and we're all over the place as best as I can be. But the number one would be LinkedIn and YouTube.
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay, all right. That's great, man. Y'all heard it first. what is the date for the book? When will it be dropped?
Andrew Colsky JD, LPC: So this new book is called the AI Authority Quotient. It is going to be coming out on January 12th. It is actually available for pre-order on Amazon right now. And I have another book that I wrote that just came out in September. I don't have a copy in front of me, called Left of Trust. And that book is available now on Amazon. You can also find it at my website. Just go to B-E-Hyphen-P-I-C-K-E-D dot com and look for books, and you'll find both of these there. And you can order them. And left of trust is all about the psychology of what happens with a consumer as they're searching online that drives them to eventually hire you. Like what's going on and how do you take advantage of that? And then AI authority quotient is the the new one, and that's all about how do I get found online and the psychology behind it and all the science behind it, not just, you know, basic facts, but we kind of dive in deep.
Rashad Thirlkill: Okay. Okay. All right. That's great. Hey, give Andrew a follow. I I ask of you. We're starting this AI journey. We're early. We are in the early. We are in the infancy stages of this stuff, man. Let's get a follow and get behind these people that can teach us one step ahead. Andrew, thank you for joining us and helping us think about how credibility becomes opportunity. And for everyone listening, here's the question to take with you. Does your online presence reflect the experience and value that you bring to your clients? Visit bpig.com to explore Andrew's work and the resource, the resources that we discussed. I'm Rashad Thurlokiel, and this Millionaire by Morning. Keep building your expertise, sharing your value. And giving people a reason to choose you. Until next time, we'll see you later.
