Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio. Ready to revolutionize your franchise with AI franchise now empowers franchises with advanced AI solutions, automatic processes, and enhanced marketing strategies. From personalized customer interactions to predictive analytics, we help you harness AI to drive growth and efficiency. Transform your franchise with the power of AI. Visit Franchise Now to learn more and take your business into the future. Now here’s your host.

Rob Gandley: Welcome back, everybody to Franchise Marketing Radio, the podcast where we spotlight the visionary shaping the future of franchising. Today’s episode dives deep into the powerful intersection of technology, compassion, and franchising. And we have the perfect guest to explore that with us. We’re joined by Alex Green. He’s the co-founder and director of Radfield Home Care, a franchise brand that’s not only redefining eldercare, but also pioneering some things with the use of AI to humanize and scale the quality of their care. So if you’re a little bit curious about how AI might be transforming franchise operations without compromising values, this conversation is going to be for you. So let me jump right to Alex. Alex, it’s great having you on the call today. Welcome.

Alex Green: Thanks, Rob. Yeah, it’s great to be here. Really looking forward to this conversation.

Rob Gandley: Absolutely. Absolutely I love that I love that, and I always like to start with, you know, how did you wind up being Alex Green, the Alex Green of 2025, this amazing brand. You obviously have done a lot to get here. So why don’t we talk about how it all came to be and the thought of franchising? How did that come to be as well?

Alex Green: Of course. Yeah. So, my sister Hannah and I were were lucky to have a childhood that was quite unique. So my parents in 1982 decided to create to set up a care home, a small care home for around 18 residents. And so we lived there. I was ten, my sister was seven. We grew up in a care home full of lots of lovely older people. And and the thing I think reflecting back now is those guys, the people we lived with, they were Victorians, so they lived under Queen Victoria, which is going back quite a long time. So they were a very different generation to ours. But the lessons that we had in terms of growing up in a care setting, um, from our mum who created all those values, were really invaluable. And that’s what set us on the path to doing what we do now. So Hannah went off and became a doctor. I went off and worked in financial services, ran charities, did some stuff with blockchain and all sorts of craziness, and then we came back together. In 2008, we decided to create Radfield Home Care. So taking the inspiration for the care that we saw our mum give in a care home and then turn that into something that could be delivered at people in people’s own homes, because obviously the world had moved on a little bit. Most people wanted to have care at home. So that’s that’s how we got here. That’s what we do. And then in terms of the franchising, we grew our company owned business for several years learning all the lessons. And then we kind of hit a point where we realized that if we wanted to scale the business and find people who had the same passion for care that we did, franchising was the best way. Not going out looking for employees and doing the company owned way. But if people bought into us and bought into the business, then those guys were the ones we needed to find. And so franchising took off there really. In 2017, we started franchising, and we’ve been growing the franchise network ever since.

Rob Gandley: Wow. So let’s just real quick, I mean that that first part was very unique growing up in a care home scenario. Any lessons learned by being around all those folks? Anything that stays with you today? Um.

Alex Green: Yeah. I mean, one, one lesson is, you know, don’t run up and down the stairs and make a lot of noise because you get shouted up.

Rob Gandley: Yeah, there you go. That might be a feature.

Speaker4: That might be a feature people care about, right?

Alex Green: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, the things that I learned, I mean, I think just just that insight into a previous generation, we had one one gentleman who stayed with us, who sat down and told me that he’d, you know, he’d been to Queen Victoria’s funeral and he could tell me what it was like. And this is going back a long, long time. And he told me about his life in the army. And this was during the British Empire. So, you know, quite an incredible life this, this chap had led. Um, so just getting that insight and I think for me, the biggest lesson was learning from our elders. You know, I think we live in a very disposable, youth focused society these days. And, and we lose so much by not valuing our elders in the same way that some other societies do. So I think if there’s one lesson to take forward from that experience is there’s so much to learn from older people.

Rob Gandley: I love that. It gives me hope. All this as I get older, I’m like, I must be getting smarter, right? I must be more for why? But but I but you know, your your words echo for sure. Because ultimately they really land. Because, um, you know, it isn’t just about performance, right? In life. It’s about impact. It’s about who you are and what you represent. And, I don’t know, older folks sometimes have a way of being more comfortable with themselves. They understand themselves a bit better. And and so you learn from that. You learn from that sort of comfortable in your own skin feeling. Right. So I think I think it’s hard to get there. You know, you’re kind of taught, hey, you ought to be this way. Hey, you ought to try that. Hey. So anyways. But but okay, all that being said, I know you and I spoke before the show and we talked a lot about technology and how you like me, you have a, you know, a natural inclination. I mean, maybe it’s partly, hey, I want to grow the business. I want to do well, but it’s also you’ve done some things and I meet a lot of owners and visionaries that that aren’t as focused as you might be. But tell me a little bit. We talked about AI and there’s a lot of innovation, not just AI, but talk to me about how you’re approaching AI right now and still keeping that human centered focus that we’re talking about here. Uh, you know, just tell us a little bit about how you’ve been approaching this idea of this rapidly changing landscape and how will you, you know, prepare your business to kind of evolve with it. What are some of the things you’ve been working on there?

Alex Green: Okay, I think it started because we’ve always been very much tech first in the business. And when we started in 2008, most of our industry in the UK was paper, paper, business. Everything was on paper. Computers were, you know, they were there, but they weren’t being used properly. Um, so we we decided to do things differently. Um, you know, it’s great when you’re new. You can set things up the way you want to go forward. So I think that that discipline has led us down lots of paths. But that’s why we’ve ended up doing I quite quickly in the business, um, because we’ve always been looking for the leverage we can get from technology. Um, so I think, you know, there are some there’s some challenges in what we do in care with using AI. Um, so we have to be careful with it, you know? And that lesson came very much from the last few years where we’ve been testing in-home tech. And I think we may touch on that later. But the lesson is that sometimes the promise of this stuff isn’t really the reality. And you have to be really careful that that, that there isn’t a mismatch there if you’ve got people’s lives at stake, but also that care is a human thing, and we can’t automate the care and the human out of what we’re doing with our clients. So that’s the kind of first principles thinking we go through, is to say everything has to enhance the human experience, not take away from it, But given, you know, having said that, there are lots of areas in any business where you can implement this automation, your marketing is the key example.

Alex Green: So that was the low hanging fruit for us to say, how can how can we use AI to scale and improve our marketing activity? And one of the key things for us is we’re a franchise brand. So as you know, with franchising, you have franchise owners spread across the country. And some of them are fantastic at marketing. Some of them haven’t got a clue. Some of them do load, some of them do none. And what we found with AI is that if we can get people trained up on it, it’s a good way of getting everybody a little bit more productive using these tools. Um, so, so that’s kind of how we’ve we’ve really approached that. But as I say, you know, I think we can see a lot of promise. Um, with AI, we can see a lot of things that are coming down the line. But where we are today, um, it’s quite interesting. I was reading a thing the other day, and it was a study done by University of California at Harvard Medical School about, you know, can ChatGPT be as empathetic as a human doctor. And they studied this and they put put out the sort of they got human doctors to respond to patients and ChatGPT to respond to patients. And 80% of people scored ChatGPT responses as more empathetic, higher and more knowledgeable. And that’s really interesting. So it’s not that I think I can’t be empathetic, it can’t deliver human focused experiences. And as we go on, that will increase and improve. But I think that there is still a huge place for humans that we’ve got to keep really focused on. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Gandley: Well, I think that, you know, that whole idea of ChatGPT being more empathetic, I think what we’re saying is a complete answer that’s personalized and well thought through, much like comparing it to the ability can write an article for me about any topic. When I first discovered that in 2022, it was pretty obvious even back then, which is why we’ve gone leaps and bounds with capability and it will continue to evolve and get better. But even back then, we kind of knew, man, it can write a long article way better than me. I mean, I can edit it and maybe I need to put it back on the rail a little bit, but man, that’s pretty good writing, right? Yeah. And so I had the same experience with a doctor and asked him some questions after a pretty routine surgery for me. And it was, you know, good answers, routine answers. But, you know, he’s standing there thinking, okay, I’ve got to get to my next my next patient. Right. He’s on his rounds. He’s flowing. Right. I’m thinking, I know he can’t just sit here and have a long conversation for too long. Right. He’s going to answer some questions. And so he did. And and I went back and I decided to ask ChatGPT the same questions. And what I felt was a feeling of completeness, like it really understood. It went a little bit further, kind of like it went the extra mile where maybe not people have those extra 15 minutes right now in this world we are currently in.

Rob Gandley: I don’t think it’ll always be that way, because it’s almost like if we give AI some room, we can then have more time. So it’s interesting because we’re not really trying to replace that more human impact that I just mentioned, but yet it does it well. So the question is how much time can we save? And so we can spend more human interaction to give the person the feeling that, hey, this person really cares about me, this doctor, this company, this organization truly cares. So I think it’s just being careful and deliberate about how you’re communicating so people feel cared for. It really doesn’t matter if you use AI as long as they see why you did it that way, because you can care for them better. And I think as long as they see that, they won’t feel like you’re being you know, I’m stepping away because I just don’t want to spend time with you. It’s not about that. It is about, you know, and I did. I felt great, but I and I realized I didn’t wasn’t I didn’t feel anything towards the doctor. Like he didn’t do enough. I just felt like it wouldn’t have necessarily been possible for him to be that thoughtful, right? As as I because of what it means.

Rob Gandley: Right. What it can be done. What can be done with it. So anyway. Cool. That’s exactly it I think so. So with the marketing kind of veering back on the marketing a bit. Um, tell me a little bit about that. Like you mentioned something very profound about, you know, just give everybody on the team the ability to just maybe raise their game a little. What is the one thing they have to do each day that might involve content creation? And then if you give people this ability to be a little more productive with some knowledge than now, everybody across the board is a bit more productive. And that is a big impact. So tell me more about how you’ve zeroed in on marketing capability. What what were the low hanging fruit like, for instance? I’ll tell you, I know in our in this space and I do work in senior care too is it’s about storytelling, right? It really is more about sharing those impact moments with families and children of parents and parents and different things that occur right as you’re helping them. And so you want to be telling those stories, and there’s so many ways to do that. Well, how have you used AI to help with these marketing stories? Right. So tell me that’s how I think of it. But tell me what you guys saw and and how you’ve helped everybody be a little more impactful.

Alex Green: Yes. I think the, the big realization for me was I came back from a meeting with a software developer who was the first person to show me ChatGPT. And I started playing with it, and we were having a conversation in the team here, and we had to build a suite of new web pages for the business. And it was, I don’t know, 30 new pages. Talk about a new service that we were offering. And I was talking to our head of marketing. He was like, oh, it’s going to take me weeks or weeks to create all this content. I was like, okay, fine, that’s no problem. So I went on ChatGPT and I said, right, give me a plan for these 30 pages. Give me the content brief, break it all down. And then I just went through and said, write me the write me the pages one by one, 30 times. And I got it all into a document, and I didn’t know how good it was going to be the first time I’d used ChatGPT, and I gave it to him and I said, what do you think of that? And he looked at me and went, where have you got that from? So I explained, and he took it away, and he came back three days later and said, I’ve done it.

Alex Green: I said, well, how have you done it? You said it was going to take weeks. He said, he said what that did for me was it got me off blank page. It got me off zero. And it gave me something to work with. And it’s much easier to edit something than it is to create from scratch. So we we saved three weeks, got it down to three days and launched a new web pages. So that was the real insight to say, okay, this is one way we can use this. I think the more the more impactful thing is kind of, you know, I’ve had so many conversations with people where they’ve said, oh, ChatGPT, yeah, but it’s rubbish. It writes rubbish. Like, yeah, it does if you if you prompt it with rubbish, you know, garbage in, garbage out, It’s absolutely like that. So we we really took that to heart. So we’ve created, you know, very detailed prompts, libraries of prompts for different scenarios. And one of the ones we did because our franchisees come from all walks of life, you know, and we want them to write great articles because content is so important about selling your business locally.

Alex Green: You know, it’s no good us just spouting off nationally and saying, oh, this is who we are as a brand. They have to do that in their town or their city and their village to say, this is who we are here. We’re here. So we created a prompt in ChatGPT that turned ChatGPT into a journalist. And it was a great, you know, it was several pages of prompting, but all we had to do was just fire that into ChatGPT and suddenly it became a journalist. So we just said to all our franchisees, there you go, use that prompt, stick it in ChatGPT and answer the questions. And what you’ll get at the other end is an article, you know, and so we we refined that. And that really helped because it got people to understand how they could use prompting as well. So, you know, and some of the people really took that off, and they went beyond that and created their own prompting, their own way of creating articles. But some of our offices have managed to really scale up the quality and quantity of content that they’re creating. And I would say, you know, really, really game change, the business game changer in the business for them.

Rob Gandley: Yeah. And it’s amazing that some still hold back. And you know, we we talk a lot in our business when we’re training folks and sharing the idea of using AI that, you know, it’s almost like this process you go through, I compare it to the stages of grief because it seems similar to this old life, this old way of believing we have to do it this way, to this new life, of saying, wait a minute, we have this unexplainable, really capability that kind of came out of the blue, if you will, for anyone not involved in AI and even those involved in AI were pretty surprised. And so you have this capability now, and you often feel like there’s those initial feelings for a lot of people are. I don’t know if it’s good enough. Like you said, the first thing they say, oh, it’s not good enough. It’s not going to write good content. It’s so I better not use it. Right. Or if you do use it, you feel like, well, I don’t know. Did I just spend ten minutes on something that should have taken a week? I almost feel like I cheated. It must not be because I cheated, right? Um, and that’s the process I think people have to go through to understand that, no, what you’re doing is you’re learning at a greater rate not only how to interact with this new capability called AI, but also as you’re interacting with AI, it teaches you at a greater rate.

Rob Gandley: You don’t. The things that it gives back to you are things that, yeah, you might have been able to kind of brainstorm it out of you and write it all out, but now it’s in front of you, and you can quickly learn whatever it is that it’s giving back to you. And you say, wait, I didn’t realize that when I create an article, maybe I should think about it from these perspectives. And all of a sudden now you’re learning this because it gave you that response, it gave you. And a lot of times when it responds, it explains why it responded that way. Right. As we know. And so there’s a meta learning that comes from just doing the prompt input output process. And you can learn quite a few things just because, again, it’ll scour the known knowledge of the internet and then put it together for you. So there’s a great amount of learning that occurs as you’re creating, create and learn at the same time, which I found to be.

Alex Green: Fun and learn from the LM, you know, say to it, how do I write an amazing prompt for you and get it to teach you that, you know, yeah, that’s amazing. That kind of that realization. You can you can get it to teach you anything.

Rob Gandley: Anything right from beginning. Like if you wanted to become a medical write a doctor, literally. I mean, obviously you’d have to learn it, but it would still be that. But it could it could walk you through what does someone like that need to know? Right. And it it is quite amazing. You can self teach self-teach on any topic. So yeah. And you just got to get past that feeling that you’re supposed to be doing it a different way. Or maybe people will look at it differently internally. That’s the other thing. Even as a leader, and I’m sure you know this, you don’t want your folks to be at odds with one another because of this. In other words, some folks using it, other folks looking at it like, why are they almost cheating? Like, all right, fine, I could have done that, if you know what I mean. Almost like almost resenting that others are maybe jumping ahead. It makes them feel uncomfortable. Um, and so you want the team to all be leveled up if they want to go further, fine. But at least you have that foundation. Give everybody that, that, that permission to say, this is the new way you can do your, your role in this, in this company. And I think they need that permission from leaders. So anyway, I’m glad that you’re doing it. But again, if you just leave it up to them then it is sort of this, hey, what’s going on? What are they doing? And, uh, some may be doing nothing and that’s the problem anyways, so operationally, I know that you.

Rob Gandley: So you’ve been diving a little deeper than many brands that I speak to, which is a big again, uh, a compliment to you, uh, because again, it’s pretty straightforward. As you said earlier, they they have been doing studies where they know that if they give, they empower the team, they empower their employees. They know that that that empowered employee becomes an experienced employee with AI. Is similar to an expert with a team. I mean an expert with a team. Someone had no experience, expert with a team. That’s the comparison. That’s the end result of this. This study done by Harvard and Procter and Gamble. And you’re seeing it. You see it firsthand. Like just by the way you’re seeing your teams and how you’ve evolved. But that’s the importance of continually using it across the board. So let’s talk about operations because I know you’re not just thinking about, okay, marketing, content creation. That seems pretty straightforward. And hey, that’s a great place to start. Tell me a little more about how you’ve kind of discovered ways that I can streamline a process or make things a little more efficient for you.

Alex Green: Sure. Um, I think, as I say, the journey with ChatGPT started when we were looking at building software. So as a business, we were looking at building some pretty big software, and the bill was coming back over 1 million pounds, you know, and we were thinking, that’s a big investment. You know, do we want to go down that journey? And then what ChatGPT, I suppose, gave me was the insight that maybe I could build some stuff myself. And yeah, not million pounds worth of software, although that’s probably coming. But at the time I thought, you know, is it possible for someone like me who doesn’t? I’m not a coder. I’m not a developer. I don’t really understand that stuff. Can I build something useful with ChatGPT? So that was the task I set myself, was can I take one of our work processes and turn it into a piece of, you know, functioning software? So I set out to build a sort of troubleshooting piece of software. So before we’d had these diagnostic tools. So for our franchisees, you know, when things aren’t working well in your business, answer these questions and we’ll tell you what’s wrong, and we’ll give you a plan of how to fix it. So I was like, well, can I turn this into a self-service tool? Can I turn this into a kind of just a simple thing where the franchisee fires it up, answers the question themselves, and then ChatGPT creates a report based on their answers and gives them a report says this is what you need to do.

Alex Green: And after a few days of fighting with it, it actually gave me some functioning software, which is quite incredible. Um, and there was a lot of trial and error. Um, but I think what that gave me more than anything was just the insight that, yes, you can do it now, but it’s going to get so much easier. And all that prompting I had to do in fighting with ChatGPT. That is probably going to be one clear prompt is going to give you a functioning piece of software. And I think, you know, even since then, which was probably 12 months ago now, we’re far further along the line of being able to do that. Um, so, yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was really insightful to be able to understand we can do this ourselves. We don’t need to pay software developers huge amounts of money. The world is going to change very quickly around that.

Rob Gandley: Yeah, it’s going to be more about being able to test things at a greater rate, being able to be more generous with your ideas. Right. Like so many ideas flow through our minds and we just say, well, that’s not possible and push it aside. I feel with AI it’s like almost anything might now be possible within scope, within timing, within budget. Right? It’s just normally you know what I mean. Yeah. So the the idea of piloting new ideas, I think, you know, is increased. It’s the idea that you can move faster, you can learn quicker. And so but tell me, tell me more about. So I know for a lot of franchisors especially in the US and I you know, I know in the UK maybe some differences. But you do have an operations manual which is a key key document. I mean it’s it’s sort of the document in pre-sales that people have to understand thoroughly. Early. It’s part of the agreement. It’s, uh. It’s really the secret sauce of. Of why? You know, you have this proven model or system. And so I know you did some unique things with your operations manual. Maybe you could explain your approach. And we I know a lot of my clients use Google Suite, so Google has just unleashed so much power within their platform that much of us are still using yet. But I know you’ve kind of tapped into something there, so maybe you could explain that.

Alex Green: Yeah, it was around the same time I was trying to build that first piece of software. I was like, I succeeded with that. And I was like, well, what next? What can I build next? And I wanted to build a fully interactive operations manual, because so often our team were getting the phone calls from franchisees. How do I do this? How do I do that? It’s like, well, it’s in the operations mind. If only you’d read it. And they’re like, yeah, but it’s a long document. I don’t have time. So I was like, let’s create something interactive. Um, so I looked at trying to sort of use a ChatGPT API and structure it, and, and I knew it was possible and I could have built it at the time, but I sort of ran out of steam with it. And I thought, actually, you know, I think probably there’s going to be systems created that are going to do this much better than I can. What I build is going to be a bit clunky here. Um, and what’s I suppose what happened off the back of that was within a few weeks of me making that decision.

Alex Green: Google launched Notebook Elm, which again created a product that was exactly what I was trying to build, where you can upload a load of documents and it turns it into a little a little LLM. It understands all those documents. You can ask it anything about those documents, and it’ll even create a fantastic podcast for you to explain those documents for you. So I was like, okay, that’s really interesting. So I stopped all the sort of developing it myself. I think at the time we were looking at it and it was still a beta version, and you couldn’t kind of make it private, you couldn’t secure it. So I think now that is possible. So I think that’s what we’re looking at doing now is comprehensively rolling that out as a fully interactive operations manual, with it all built in into Google LLM. Um, but what we were telling our franchisees, just do this. Take all the ops manuals, stick them into your own version of Google and use it. Why not? Then it’ll give you.

Rob Gandley: Right.

Alex Green: On. Yeah, it’s so easy. So easy. But I think that’s a great lesson as well. And it’s something I hear quite a lot now from people I listen to in podcasts is, you know, if you’re trying to build something today and it’s not out there, the best thing to do isn’t to try and build it is to wait a couple of months because it’ll probably appear, you know, the rate of change and progress is so, so quick at the moment. If it’s not there now, it’ll be there in six months. So just hang on.

Rob Gandley: Yeah. Yeah. I think anything in the digital world that we’ve now created over the last 30 plus years, if you call 1991 the first HTML website, like, think of that. And, uh, that was when when we took the what was then the internet and made it sort of this thing that all of us could maybe use up. And that’s what, 33, 34 years now and pretty much everything we’ve created over that span of time, anything digital, anything valuable that we’ve created now use every day and depend on and have to work with people like myself, you know, technology, people and services. And it we’re transforming all of that into a natural language. It’s almost like speaking. You think of R2-d2 or you think of these robots we’ve had in in popular culture, like having an assistant like that that knows everything you needed to know and can do. Everything in digital you need it to do, can use all the same tools you need to use every day. And now, now, just thinking that capability is right around now, like we’re. And it’s just about society now evolving and getting used to things. But that is sort of what it is.

Rob Gandley: It’s like it’s not limited to anything but what you think and how you communicate. So your natural language, your natural ability to communicate, your ability to be creative and document, and that’s what you want to work on because there won’t be anything you can’t then go and get going. As you said, that first, that first version to kind of get you off that sticking point, but that is kind of mind blowing. Anything, right. Anything we think of can be done digitally just with natural communication. That’s kind of hard to get your head around when you think about it, but it’s almost there. But you’re right. And maybe a year, maybe two, I don’t know. I think at that point you’re focusing a lot on what I said, really having these these strategies and plans well documented and then having I really take that down the road that you need to take it down. But start with that. Don’t don’t start in yourself without I start I first and it’ll take you where you need to go. It’s going to going to get easier as you say.

Alex Green: Absolutely, absolutely.

Rob Gandley: So so with all these innovations and I just said a lot of things as we, you and I know from using it, it sounds like a lot of your franchisees are pretty well versed, or at least getting there. Right. Um, but but still, when you on board or when you bring someone new into the into the culture. Now, how do you. Because I know prior to say AI adoption with technology would be really hard, right? It’s always a challenge for most, most brands. Right. So how how are now? Are you facing this? I know you still have that. It’s not like everything went away. And they don’t have to use software and use certain processes. But how now are you getting people used to using technology with this idea that, hey, I’ve never even heard of AI. I don’t even know. I’m not technical. I have a huge heart I want to serve, but like, how do you get them now on board? No, no, really, you don’t have to be technical, right? Almost like they won’t believe you, but, like. Yeah. How are you now onboarding people into this new world of using AI?

Alex Green: I think it goes back to what you were just saying. It’s about natural language and the thing. So, you know, if you’ve got a really complicated piece of care logistics software, you know, it takes a lot to learn it. There’s so many buttons, so many switches, so many ways of doing it. But the beauty of ChatGPT and all the others is it’s, it’s it’s a it’s a, it’s a natural language interface. You know, it’s like well, and I think this is why it’s going to disproportionately benefit the older generations. You know, everyone will benefit, but it’s so accessible. You know, all you do is you fire up a browser and you start talking. You open your app on your phone, and if you don’t want to type, you just talk to it and it will talk back to you. And that’s the real revelation, is it’s so easy to use. You just have to get people started using it and overcome that initial fear factor of saying, well, what do I say to anything you like? Absolutely anything you possibly want to say. So you can’t make it. You cannot get it wrong. Anything is okay. And I think once people get that into their heads and they understand that and that’s that’s often the key thing. Some of them just go go wild, don’t they? They just go, yay, this is the new world. And um, so I think that’s the key thing. It’s it’s the easiest thing. You can get someone to use it because you just say, talk to it.

Rob Gandley: Exactly. Yeah. And I remember, you know, the, uh, making the comparison to the advertisement that Apple did back in 2003 ish, four ish, whatever, with the iPod. And they had this beautiful picture of an iPod and saying, imagine having a thousand songs in your pocket. Right. That was pretty amazing. The thought of it. And then and then you’re like, and now what we do is we say, imagine having a thousand experts in your pocket. Like anything, you just talk to it. It’ll give you anything you want to know, right? And it’s no judgment. No judgment. You don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to feel uncomfortable. I just don’t think, uh, that level of of sort of, uh, being similar to it being a human assistant, but also this idea that there is no budget, there’s no, hey, I’m taking too much of their time or I’m asking too many questions or, you know, we always have to say to people, there’s no dumb questions. There’s no super quiet. You know what I mean? You always want to encourage questions because people do hold back. They don’t want to kind of think they miss something or, you know, and that’s the truth about AI. No one cares. I don’t care. You can ask 100 ways. 100, you know what I mean? And just get to where you’re understanding. And now you can flow. There’s no judgment. Just do it. Just go learn. And to me, that’s a breakthrough. That’s a breakthrough in and of itself.

Alex Green: It really is. It really is. It’s so important to get that get that through to people. And, and and I think it’s also teaching them how to think. It’s how to ask the questions. If you ask one question, you’re only going to get a limited answer if you if you set that question up, if you give it context, if you give it information, if you explain what you’re trying to do in more detail, you’ll get a much more nuanced, deep answer out. So it’s learning how to actually ask the question, but basically it’s just it’s just learning how to think, learning how to speak and learning how to get the best out of the AI. Right?

Rob Gandley: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And in doing that, you learn how to communicate better. It’s like there’s there’s no. Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing the way it can. Again meta learning when the more you use AI the smarter you get in my opinion. Um so that’s beautiful. So with with now I know in senior care there’s, there’s other concerns or thinking. Right. So the delivery of the service is very much, again about relationships, about trust, about outcomes, you know, being, you know, working through. And and there’s a lot to be concerned about their safety. And, you know, folks are at home. Mom or dad are at home. You know, we know that there’s some risk sometimes depending on the circumstances. And so how are you seeing AI doing some things that are innovative around home monitoring or, or where do you see things moving there, where you’re kind of helping even provide another level of of comfort to the families and to the to the seniors themselves?

Alex Green: Yeah. I mean, some really interesting developments coming, coming down the line for that stuff. I think, you know, one of the big things we have to be aware of is, is GDPR in the UK and Europe. You know, we have this data protection. You have the same similar in America. Um, but you know, LMS obviously, you know, you start firing confidential patient information into an LLM and that’s not going to end well. Um, so you either have to be using a very secure system if you’re going to be using an LLM at all, or be very careful about making things confidential. So I think there are some challenges around that. But but stuff we’re seeing coming down the line is certainly around the use of big data. So there’s some really interesting things where care providers use software to do care planning. Um, there’s one company in the UK that is developing a system where they, they hope to have a very large data set of all the patients. So they know they will know when that patient was first recorded on a system, what they were presenting with in terms of symptoms, conditions, medications, you know, the home environment. And they will be able to track the progress of that patient over time. And the promise of that, I think, is that once that data set is matured, um, when you go to the system to enter in your new patient data, it will be able to say to you, well, based on 10,000 people that we’ve seen who are presenting with this situation, these are some things you want to watch out for because so many, you know, a higher percentage of patients had these things happen to them.

Alex Green: They may have had a stroke within six months or a fall within six months or whatever else. So that predictive, um, healthcare, um, is huge potential. We’re not there yet. But, you know, there’s a lot of potential and promise coming down the line with that. You can see the benefit, I think, with the with the home monitoring tech. And we’ve been testing systems now for 4 or 5 years. Um, and again, it’s around that kind of, uh, spotting problems before people know that they have problems. The real promise of it is keeping people safer from that sense. So, you know, When patterns of behavior change, it’s usually an indication that there’s something going on. So maybe if someone’s getting up in the night more often to go to the loo, then that could be an indication that there’s something wrong. A urine infection or something like that. And with older people, we know how damaging urine infections can be. Hospitalization, illness, you know, it doesn’t usually end well. So if we can avoid people progressing to the point where they need hospitalization because of some sensors in the home, and we could get antibiotics in sooner and we can cure that UTI quicker, that’s an incredible benefit for the patient. You know, so again, we’ve tested a lot of these systems. Again, I’d say they’re not quite there yet. Um, we haven’t been able to kind of really replicate the benefit, but it shouldn’t be far. It shouldn’t be long before these systems are there. And that’s a real impact for patient safety. Yeah.

Rob Gandley: No doubt. No doubt. Yeah, I know in America there’s some things they’re doing now where they can kind of pick up on certain patterns or and they’re doing it in a secure way and they’re doing it in a safe way. But yeah, just making being at home aging in place safer and easier to do. And I think most anyone wants to do that. Assuming home is a is an established home and place where mom and dad have been a long time. Um, and so, uh, that that is important. So just in everything we shared, we talked a little bit about marketing, a little bit about operations. Um, this obviously affects how when you recruit and you bring people in. Is there any stories that you are starting to think about sharing about I, how I made things easier or made a, you know, a journey for a franchisee a little bit better? Like, man, they learned that quick or wow, they they were able to make that breakthrough happen faster. Is there anything you’d want to share now that that you’ve kind of started to mention to some of the new candidates, or do they ask questions sometimes about about I and where this technology is technology’s going.

Alex Green: Yeah, we’ve integrated it into our training for new franchisees. So it’s become part of the business now. It’s integrated throughout everything we do. So, you know, that becomes part of their induction and training. I think that one of the stories that really comes to mind with with ChatGPT, that’s the one we use most because it’s the one we’ve been using longest, um, was I had a meeting with one of our franchisees who was she was struggling at the time. She was struggling on several fronts, so her business wasn’t doing what it wanted. She wanted it to do. She had lots of personal challenges at home that were, you know, keeping her very distracted. And she felt very much on her own with the business. And so I traveled to speak to meet her and have a chat with her. And we were talking about, you know, how she could turn things around. And I’d been really starting to use ChatGPT, uh, voice mode in my car, and I’d been using it to brainstorm ideas and getting used to that. So I said to her, I said, if you if you use ChatGPT. So I sort of said, well, you know, you might think I’m a bit crazy here, but this is what I do with my car. This is what I was doing when I’m driving to meet you. I was talking to a robot on the internet. You know, she was like, really? What? Sounds interesting. Tell me more. So I, you know, I got the phone out and I said, this is this is it. This is what it does. And I said, you know, fired it up and said, you know, do introductions.

Alex Green: And we started to have a conversation with ChatGPT. And I sort of said to her, you know, how do you think you can help this person? This is the situation. And it started explaining all the ways that it could help her. And she really took to that. And so she she found a way of using it that really helped her have those 1 to 1 conversations. Anonymous. Private. You know, you can share your darkest fears. You can share your biggest hopes and dreams, and it knows all about that stuff. And if you keep doing that over days, over months, it you know, it sort of builds up that understanding of who you are. And the advice gets better, the conversation gets richer, it all becomes a bit deeper and she really talks that it really helped her. Um, it helped her having that that advisor, someone to talk to, someone to go in the car and shout out, you know, whatever, whatever she needed that she wasn’t getting in the real world. She, she could get there. And now she’s, you know, she uses it throughout all of her daily, you know, business and I think probably in her personal life as well. So that was a real moment for me where I saw what this, what this can do, you know, because again, you know, we talk about business, we talk about marketing. But, you know, the other thing ChatGPT knows, it knows all about humans. It knows all about psychology. It knows all about everything you could possibly think about. All you have to do is find a way of getting it to share that with you.

Rob Gandley: Yeah. No. Exactly. And just by giving it some extra guidance, it will go and give you more depth, whether it’s, you know, as you said, psychology. So if you were to say, you know, I’m struggling with this decision and here’s why I believe I am, this is, you know, is there any psychological strategies for this or whatever, like you’re just asking that would get you an answer that’s beyond what you could imagine how? Well, and again, it resonates like for you and I, we’ve used it a lot and you’re sharing stories now, but you know, when it feels right, like, my goodness, that hit me right in the heart and head like I got it. And so that’s the exciting thing about it is it just. But you gotta do it. You gotta start asking. Um, but I love that voice mode. Yeah. We we we do a lot of role play training, a lot of, you know, sort of how do we start conversations about different things, right. Whether, you know, what I mean, if it’s in the business or even if it’s in your personal life. But that role playing is a big thing for anybody in a franchise business getting started. Right, getting used to those conversations. And man, is this an amazing tool. So we yeah, we’ve built a lot of like, hey, here’s a great tool to start conversations. Here’s some great script examples. But you know what? You can just go over and talk to it. And that is probably what you should do, not create a document. Right. But you could after. You know what I mean.

Rob Gandley: It’ll say, hey, after we’ve just spent 15 minutes doing that, would you like a this, this or this? And it’ll give you some choices. Like to help, you know, add some value to what it is you’re doing. So amazing. And it truly is a life assistant and anything that you do. Yeah. Cool. So so listen, you’re the co-founder of this brand and I just real quick before before we wrap things up, I wanted you to again just quickly share the brand. Like what makes you guys unique today. But and I could tell you just for anyone listening, one thing that makes you unique is your eye on innovation, your eye on AI, and your eye on getting that into the business model where it makes sense. And continually looking at that, what you’re telling me you’re right on top of it. And it’s that to me is where leaders should be. So congratulations on your on the way you look at things so good. But so. But I also know guys like you have visionary sort of tendencies. So tell us a little bit about the next five years. I know that’s a little far out. Maybe it’s two years out. I know a lot of people are kind of saying, I don’t have those longer range plans, but what does it look like for this brand for you? The way you see AI being a part of this, any any things that you really always wanted to address, any, any future plans that you just can’t wait for get there? Or what do you’d like to share about the vision for Radfield?

Alex Green: I think a lot of the the future for us is based on where we’ve been as a brand and where we stay as a brand, which is about quality care. Um, one of our early taglines was exceptional care by exceptional people, and we really live with that. Um, you know, we’re all we’re in the business of helping our nation age. Well, that’s what we do. We want to be a positive experience. And I think one of the things that we really focus on is how do we do that? Going ahead with with the promise of, uh, robotics coming into the home. So Tesla with the Optimus robot figure I you see these incredible developments of robots. The price point looks like it’s going to be affordable for a lot of people. Robots in the home doing your chores and housework. Amazing, amazing future lies, you know, lies ahead of us. But I still think that people will need and want care humans in that care journey. And so for us, it’s kind of being really clear about that. And that’s why humans come first for us as a brand. And AI supports us and helps us in the same way that robots will support and help us to deliver human care experiences for people at home. So I can really help us. It can help us do things better, do things quicker, do more of it. But I think ultimately it will never replace that human human touch because it’s so important, you know, we will need that connection. So that’s where we want to stay focused as a brand. Is is continuing that real focus on quality human centered care? Yeah.

Rob Gandley: Now that will not change. And I guess at the end of the day, we’ll keep evolving in terms of our creative way. You know, human beings are very creative. We’ll create services that make sense where humans can be at the center of it, but the capabilities are completely game changing. Therefore, maybe you just do more than than you would used to do, right? Maybe, maybe there is some type of robot centered care that is directed and managed and customized by by a team member, right? It’s hard to say where this all goes, but human centeredness does not leave. And honestly, it has to be an economic decision too. It has to be a financial one. Meaning I think every business has a choice in the coming years. Are we AI centered or are we human centered? You know, so human to the power of AI, right? It’s about humans becoming more or products or services becoming more. And maybe they are not even defined yet. Um, but but it certainly shouldn’t be about replacing people, and my hope is that most businesses find a way to redeploy and reimagine what their current teams are doing, right. Maybe they will slow down the hiring. We’re seeing certain businesses are slowing their hiring down, right. They’ve got plenty of people to work with, and maybe that is how they evolve. But ultimately, that’s how I see it. Definitely not. Hey, we could do it all with robots now. Therefore we don’t need people. You know, like that. That should not be in anyone’s thinking. It should be. What can we what can we do with this resource? Now we have these amazing people that are here to help us expand. So it’ll be interesting, but it’s up to guys like yourself and to me as well. Anyone who’s leading a team or part of a business, it’s it’s about figuring this all out and delivering better. So we’ll get there. I know we will.

Alex Green: We will.

Rob Gandley: Yeah. So before I let you go completely, did you want to share like the best way to get Ahold of you guys website whether it’s interested in care or interested in maybe being part of this business. Um, and any final tips that you might share with somebody that isn’t thinking about you guys? Uh, maybe they’re on the fence. Um, maybe they thought about a business like this. Any final tip you might want to share with a person like that?

Alex Green: Yeah, sure. I think final tips is, is care is an amazing business. Um, it’s it’s not an easy business. You know, there’s far easier ways to make money, but there’s not so many ways to feel as good as you do about the money you make when you’re in care, because every day you make a massive impact on people’s lives. And that really counts for something. So I think that’s that’s the unique experience we all share. All of our franchisees resonate with is, you know, it’s tough some days, but they really, you know, feel good about what they’re doing. So for anyone who wants to feel a real sense of purpose in life, then care is a fantastic business. And we at Radfield are, you know, we’re a growing brand with, you know, lots of focus on the future and technology. So I think there’s are lots of reasons to come and join us, if that’s kind of what you want to do with your future. And finding us is really easy. So you can find me very easily on LinkedIn. Um, and we have our website. So Typekit UK um, is the best place to find us in the UK. Beautiful.

Rob Gandley: I appreciate you for sharing that. And honestly, this has been almost a masterclass right in, uh, in uh, how to integrate AI into a brand. I mean, it’s obviously there was no playbook for this, uh, but you hit all the things I think about, and I’m trying to do this for a living is help brands transform. And it starts with all the kinds of things you were talking about. Doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have a massive budget. You just need to maybe a little bit of focus and awareness around it and start implementing. And I think the momentum kind of takes itself from there and it’ll shape things for, for your brand. So definitely share the, uh, if you found it helpful and you listen to to our episode today, I just want to thank you for tuning in. Uh, but please share it. And again, I transformation will affect all of us. And again, Alex, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. And thanks again.

Alex Green: Thanks a lot, Rob. Great pleasure.

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