by Gene Marks, 2025 Marketing & Distribution General Session Speaker. This article was originally published in .

A recent survey from Goldman Sachs found that about 68% of small-business owners are using AI — specifically generative AI “assistants” — and another 9% plan to begin using it within the next year. Whether it’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, or other popular platforms, AI can make a significant difference to your business.

Here are six business uses that will help you increase the productivity of both yourself and your team.

Chatbots for your website: There are a number of customer service platforms targeted at small businesses like Talkdesk, Zendesk, Salesforce, and Zoho that enable their customers to easily deploy chatbots on their site that can automatically answer visitors’ questions or pass on the customer to a human agent for further help.

“As these tools become more advanced, they are taking on a bigger role in customer service processes,” said Charanya Kannan, chief product, engineering, and customer officer at Talkdesk. “As today’s economy drives labor and skills shortages that hinder customer experience, it’s more important than ever that companies not only invest in automated tools.”

Restaurant Reservations: Sydney Grims, who is the director of business development at Fearless Restaurants, a regional restaurant chain with 14 locations including popular spots like White Dog Cafe and Moshulu, uses an AI platform called Slang.ai to take reservations and answer questions 24/7. Staff can now focus on serving their customers without phone calls distracting them.

“This is not to reduce head count,” she said. “We cannot get rid of greeters. Our goal is to provide easy answers to guests quickly. We had over 250 coinciding calls at one restaurant in a week … that’s about a thousand covers we would just lose without this platform.”

Improving communications: AI assistants have become good at transcribing and summarizing online meetings as well as polishing emails, writing memos, and tightening other written communications.

“Writing emails is a lifeline, but is often time-consuming when running and scaling a business,” said Kevin McLaughlin, a partner at Philadelphia-based accounting and advisory firm Centri. “We use ChatGPT to assist by quickly drafting emails that capture the right tone and message, which the owner can then personalize in minutes.”

Company policies: I always tell my clients to never allow a single contract, agreement, quote, or bid to leave their office without uploading to their AI assistant for comments. These platforms have become well versed in spotting problems, identifying issues, and suggesting ways to not only improve your corporate documentation but to identify risks and protect you against potential liabilities.

Neha Arnold, CEO of Sedna Consulting Group, a technology consulting firm based in Edison, N.J., agrees. She frequently has her team use an AI assistant to help with corporate documentation by double-checking outputs, and acting as both a creative and analytical assistant. But she’s also careful to not rely on the platform entirely.

“It’s important to understand AI’s limits,” she said. “Recent studies show that AI models can falter with complex reasoning. It’s best used to support — not replace — human insight.”

Marketing materials and blogs: Howard McCabe, founder and creative director of Dream Syndicate, a brand specialist based in Philadelphia, leans heavily on AI to write rough scripts, create graphic styles, come up with content ideas, design and generate voice-overs and custom music.

“When shooting a commercial if we miss a line of copy, or the talent mispronounces something, we can train the AI on the particular actors’ nuances and then the AI can generate a new scene with the talent saying the missing line or correcting the mispronunciation,” he said.

“In addition, now we are able to have the talent speak in a different language … so if we produce a commercial in English, we can then very quickly generate that same commercial in a different language.”

Not everyone’s in the content creation business, but with image and video creation platforms like Sora, Google’s Veo, and others, you can publish professional content that can help set your company apart from its competitors.

Market research and competitive analysis: Your AI assistant is a trained adviser who has the entire internet at its immediate disposal and can discuss — just like a human — any business problem, issue, or challenge. I have clients that are leaning into AI assistants for help researching markets, products and competitors, and brainstorming ways to stay ahead.

Arnold said he uses his AI assist to provide critical feedback by prompting questions like “Why do you recommend this approach?” or “What are the alternatives?”

Other business owners, like Russ Napolitano, a partner at the Philadelphia marketing agency Xhilarate, uses an AI assistant for client discovery and meeting preparation.

“Before meeting with a prospect or client, we use ChatGPT to conduct quick discovery — researching their industry, identifying potential challenges, and surfacing relevant trends,” he said. “It’s like having a research assistant who can brief us in minutes.”

AI cannot be relied upon 100%. But what adviser can?
Even in its current infancy there are plenty of ways for today’s AI chatbots to help in your professional life.

“We’ve been utilizing AI across our operations for quite some time, and it has truly transformed the way we work,” Arnold said. “Personally, AI has allowed me to save an average of 60–75 minutes every single day, time that I can reinvest directly into accelerating business growth, deepening client relationships, and exploring new opportunities.”

Don’t miss Gene’s presentation on Navigating 2025 and Beyond: Strategic Moves for Manufacturers on Wednesday, October 29 at the Marketing & Distribution Convention in Las Vegas. Learn more at .

Last year, the noted columnist Andrew Sullivan was fired from his position at New York Magazine because, he wrote, the staff and management at the publication seemed to believe “that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space.”

Around the same time, centrist columnist Bari Weiss left her position at The New York Times after alleging she had been bullied by colleagues and called a “racist” and a “Nazi” for her expressed views. “There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge,” she wrote. “I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.”

Unfortunately, these newsrooms were deemed to be unsafe places for their employees because they were forced to work with people with differing views. Imagine how those same employees would feel if their organizations hired someone who had been convicted of committing an actual violent crime.

That’s what’s happening across the country. Because of the dire labor shortage caused by a perfect storm of government entitlements, higher savings and a media hysteria around a virus that is in our rearview mirror, many people are still concerned about their “safety.” They’re quitting their jobs in record numbers and choosing to stay at home because it’s “safer.”

So, what can employers do? They can hire unsafe people.

In California, the practice of hiring ex-felons has built a workforce at a rubber recycling company in which about half of the 65 employees have served prison time. “They stack up very well when it comes to skills,” the company’s CEO told the Los Angeles Times.

A job fair in Ohio attracted “background friendly” companies willing to hire people with a criminal past. A man who spent 33 years in prison for robbery and murder recently celebrated a work anniversary with a manufacturer in Cincinnati. The CEO of JPMorgan Chase started a coalition aimed at hiring ex-cons. There’s even a federal tax credit that rewards employers for hiring ex-convicts.

Even before the pandemic, the Society for Human Resource Management and the Charles Koch Institute found that employers were widening their employee searches to include people with criminal histories (a whopping one in three American adults). Many U.S. employers said they were willing to hire someone with a record, with more than 28 percent of respondents even willing to hire those with prior records of violent crimes. Good for them. People can be rehabilitated.

But what about safety? This is a world in which employees can get seasoned journalists fired because they feel threatened by existing in the same “virtual space.” This is a world in which an off-hand comment or an overly friendly hug can supposedly create an “unsafe space” and lead to accusations of harassment. This is a world in which some employees feel threatened when a co-worker has a different political view or doesn’t believe in climate change.

So how can these workers, so afraid for their safety, cope with colleagues who killed or raped someone? We are about to find out, because those workers are being replaced by those very people. This is what happens when you get involved in a company’s employment practices.

Difficult times require difficult decisions. Many of my clients would be happy to hire an ex-prisoner who had been convicted of aggravated assault rather than some wokester who is upset because her boss once voted for a Republican and doesn’t support an increased minimum wage.

Let’s relax rules around drug use and prior convictions if it means getting hard workers.

This column was originally published in The Hill. Gene Marks is founder of The Marks Group, a small-business consulting firm. He frequently appears on CNBC, Fox Business and MSNBC. He will speak at our Marketing & Distribution Convention on Nov. 3.

Thanks to the CARES Act—and subsequent stimulus programs—there are a few great opportunities for businesses to get the government’s help to attract and retain employees.

And, you can go for this funding even if you didn’t have such a bad year in 2020.

Help Employees Pay Student Loans

Prior to the pandemic, employers have been allowed to deduct as much as $5,250 per employee per year to pay for their education expenses, regardless of whether that “education” was training for your business. Through 2025, you can use that same amount to help pay down your employees’ student loans.

Why is this a big deal? Because if there’s one thing many of these younger workers have in common, it is that they’re shouldering a massive amount of student debt from their college loans—as much as $1.6 trillion according to some sources. Younger workers (the millennial generation is now the largest generation in our workforce) are desperately in need of help to pay down this debt; offering this assistance simply makes your company more competitive to job seekers.

Work Opportunity Tax Credit

This credit, which is an amount you take against the taxes you owe, has been extended through 2025 and, if used the right way, will save you big money on hiring new workers and help you provide a “hiring bonus.”

Before you hire that new worker, get together with your accountant, do the math, and fill out the required forms to notify the federal government and your state. If that worker is a veteran, coming off welfare, coming out of prison or—most relevant today—returning to work after long-term unemployment (defined as six months or more), you can get a credit for up to $9,600 per new hire. If you don’t use it, you can carry it forward.

This hiring tool takes planning, but if you’re on top of it, you’ll benefit.

Employee Retention Tax Credit

To take advantage of the ERTC, you do need to show that you were affected by COVID in any quarter of 2020 or 2021. What does that mean? It means that if you were shut down, or even partially shut down (like sending your employees home) during that time because the government required it, you’re eligible. Or, if your revenues decreased more than 50 percent in any quarter of 2020 compared to 2019 or 20 percent in any quarter of 2021 compared to 2019, you’re also eligible.

If you’re eligible, you can claim up to $10,000 of wages per quarter (in 2021) per employee as a credit against the payroll taxes you owe or paid during that quarter. The credit is smaller for 2020 but you can still go back and apply for it.

Best yet: It’s refundable! That means that if the credit is more than the taxes you owe, the government will give you a check back. The credit is available through the end of the year.

I realize that many farm equipment manufacturers held their own through the pandemic, but even so, you may be in the running. If you are, this is potentially big money to help fund your business, or perhaps return the savings to your employees in the form of higher perks or compensation to retain them in this tight market.

A Giant Forgiveness Program (Not PPP!)

Forget about the Paycheck Protection Program. Instead, ask your SBA lender about Section 7A or 504 loans. These loans can be up to $5 million and range in maturities up to 15 years. Interest rates are competitive.

You have to go through an approval process with your bank, but there’s a big benefit, thanks to the CARES Act: If you get one of these loans, your first three months of principal and interest are forgiven—wiped away. You don’t have to prove you were affected by COVID, either.

Here’s the people tie-in: you can use the proceeds for working capital, like hiring, compensation and operations. One other thing: if you have an existing 7A or 504 loan, you’re also entitled to three months of forgiveness, so talk to your banker now.

The program expires in September.

Set Up a Retirement Plan

Prior to the pandemic, a new law went into effect that got overshadowed, and it’s important you know it. It’s called the SECURE Act, and it has four big things in it that will help you provide benefits for your employees.

The first is that the government will pay you in the form of tax credits (if you have fewer than 100 people) up to $5,000 to set up a new 401K retirement plan for your business. The second is that if you have an existing 401K, you’ll get another $500 per year back in tax credits from the government for three years, simply by making employees automatically enroll in it. (They can still opt out).

Employees are not forced to withdraw their retirement savings until the age of 72 (previously it was 70 1/2), which may give some of your senior people more time on the payroll. Finally, you can join with other companies to form a multi-employer retirement plan to cut costs.

According to many studies, retirement plans are among the top three most requested benefits, so you’ve got to be offering something. Plus, the country is in a retirement crisis. According to research from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, households approaching retirement had average savings of just $144,000 in 2019, an amount that would provide a couple with only $570 per month in retirement.

Offering a retirement plan makes you competitive and relieves a potential long-term financial issue.

There’s no silver bullet to finding and keeping good people. But my smartest clients are using a combination of benefits and compensation strategies to deal with this problem. And many of them are taking advantage of these government programs while they last. You should too.

Gene Marks is a writer and consultant. He wrote this column for the summer issue of Ag Innovator, which publishes this month. Marks will speak at the 2021 Marketing & Distribution Convention.

The economy is recovering from the pandemic, and the farm equipment manufacturing industry is booming. But, thanks to stimulus checks, higher unemployment compensation, and continuing health and safety fears, many employers are finding it difficult to entice workers back to their jobs.

Some larger employers have been offering hiring bonuses. But can small businesses afford the same? Thanks to a little-known federal tax program, the answer could be yes.

The program is called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. It’s been around for a number of years, but was extended in December’s stimulus bill through the end of 2025. The credit, which reduces the amount of federal taxes owed, can be a lucrative recruiting tool for small businesses that want to pay hiring bonuses.

“Many of our clients have been impacted adversely by COVID-19 and have looked to us for ideas to cut down on costs in order to keep their doors open,” said Rebecca Norris, a CPA and tax manager. “The program is one of the money-saving tools we recommend to these clients.”

The tax credit is available to employers that hire certain types of employees, such as those coming off welfare or a “qualified” veteran, which includes ex-service personnel who were unemployed for anywhere from four weeks (whether or not consecutive) to at least six months over the last year. The list of eligible workers also includes ex-felons, qualified Social Security insurance recipients or those who have been receiving long-term welfare assistance.

But the credit is also available to employers who hire a “qualified long-term unemployment” recipient. That worker is defined as someone who has been unemployed for not less than 27 consecutive weeks at the time of hiring and received unemployment compensation during some or all of the unemployment period.

Sound familiar? It should. Given the deep impact of the pandemic recession, many workers today find themselves in this situation.

If any of your prospective hires fit that description, your business may qualify for this credit. To make sure of this you have to file Form 8850—the Pre-Screening Notice and Certification Request—with your respective state workforce agency within 28 days of the worker’s start date to certify that he or she is eligible.

The credit can reduce your taxes anywhere from $2,400 to $9,600 per employee, depending upon which target group the qualified employee belongs. For most hires, however, it’s calculated at 40 percent of their yearly wages, up to a total credit of $6,000. The person must be retained for at least 400 hours during the year to get this amount. Otherwise the credit may be reduced. The credit can be even higher if the person you hire has been receiving long-term welfare assistance.

If you own a pass-through organization such as an S-Corporation or partnership, the credit is taken on both your federal and state individual tax returns against the taxes you owe. But it can also be used to offset payroll taxes, so both for-profits and non-profit organizations are able to take advantage.

“While for-profit businesses have greater flexibility in utilizing the Work Opportunity credit, in some cases tax-exempt organizations can benefit from it as well,” Norris said.

All of the calculations are done on IRS Form 5884. The credit is non-
refundable, which means you need to use it that year or lose it. However, you are still able to carry it to last year’s tax returns or carry it forward for 20 years.

My advice is to not wait until the end of the year to take advantage of this credit. Use it as a proactive tool.

When you’re looking to hire a prospective employee, find out as soon as possible whether that person falls into any of the credit’s eligible categories (the “qualified long-term unemployment recipient” being the most common). Calculate the credit in advance of hiring the employee and use that future benefit to offer a hiring bonus. It’s extra money that the government is providing you, and it could make the difference between hiring a great person or losing the job candidate to someone else.

“Due to the effects of the pandemic over the past year, there are more job applicants than ever that can qualify employers for the program,” Norris said. “We recommend that all employers pre-screen their job applicants for Work Opportunity Tax Credit eligibility to avoid leaving money on the table.”

This article was originally published in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Gene Marks is a certified public accountant and the owner of the Marks Group, a technology and financial management consulting firm.

He spoke at the Supply Summit & Showcase in Little Rock in 2017. The Association is in conversation with Marks about the possibility he will join us in Oklahoma City in November.