When ChatGPT Almost Killed My Business: How Adapting to AI Made Me a Cover Story Entrepreneur
VA company owner transforms business model to AI-enhanced services.
07/06/2025
VA company owner transforms business model to AI-enhanced services.
AI Integration:
Don't compete with AI; make it work for you.
“AI Made His Marketing. He Made $70K on the Promotion.” That’s not just a catchy headline from my recent Entrepreneur Magazine feature—it’s cold, hard PROOF of how dramatically AI transformed my business. But rewind two years to when ChatGPT first launched, and I was staring business death in the face.
“Do you worry about your VA business now that AI is taking over?” a client asked me then. The question hit me like a sledgehammer. My thriving virtual assistant company with over 150 team members in the Philippines?
Suddenly looking like yesterday’s news. I came within days of selling my entire business. Twice. The offers were good. The multiples were fair. My business mentor even thought it was the right move.
But here’s the truth most business owners won’t admit: Sometimes the “smart” move isn’t the right move.
My initial reaction to ChatGPT was blind panic. If an AI could do what my virtual assistants did at a fraction of the cost, who in their right mind would keep paying for human VAs? I immediately flew to the Philippines with a mission: assemble an internal task force to “beat AI at its own game.”
This approach was fundamentally flawed from the start. We tried everything. New processes. Specialized training. Attempting to outperform AI at tasks it was simply better at handling. My team and I worked tirelessly, but reality slapped us hard: we couldn’t type faster than AI, research more comprehensively, or match its 24/7 availability.
I had built a business model centered entirely around human virtual assistants in a world that suddenly had superhuman virtual assistants. The math didn’t add up anymore.
Here’s where most businesses fail: They either keep doing what they’ve always done, pretending disruption isn’t happening (the ostrich approach), or they panic and sell at a discount (the chicken approach). Both strategies lead to the same place: oblivion.
The darkest moment came when I was reviewing the second purchase offer for my company. The paperwork was prepared. Everyone around me thought it was the right move. But as I stared at the signature line, something felt profoundly wrong.
Then came the breakthrough—during a late-night strategy session with my team in Manila. One of my senior managers said something that changed everything: “What if we stopped trying to compete with AI and started leveraging it instead?”
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That’s when the lightbulb went off.
We didn’t need to beat AI—we needed to make it work FOR us. Instead of positioning our VAs as alternatives to AI, we would transform them into “AI whisperers”—human professionals skilled at leveraging AI tools to deliver exponentially more value.
We pivoted hard. We created intensive training programs to make our Filipino VAs experts at using ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools. We positioned ourselves as an AI-powered staffing agency, offering “AI-Enhanced Virtual Assistants” who could deliver dramatically more value than either traditional VAs or AI tools working alone.
What happened next should be a lesson to every business owner facing technological disruption. Not only did our business survive—it THRIVED beyond all expectations. The combination of human EQ and AI processing power created a service offering that was unprecedented in the market.
Within six months, I wasn’t just saving the business—I was exploring a completely new revenue stream: AI consulting. My experience transforming my own company into an AI-powered operation became the case study that other businesses wanted to replicate.
I found myself in a mastermind group, showing fellow entrepreneurs how I used AI to transform my business. Sitting in that room was none other than Parthiv Shah—co-author of Dan Kennedy’s latest book “No B.S. Guide to Successful Marketing Automation.” As I shared how AI—the very technology I once thought would destroy my business—had become its savior, I could see Parthiv’s eyes light up.
The story was so powerful that my strategy was featured in Chapter 14 of their book, which became an “Editor’s Pick” for Entrepreneur Magazine. Of all 17 chapters, they chose MY story to highlight as the prime example of AI implementation done right—showing exactly how I used AI to create an offer from start to finish and launch a product that generated $70,000 in sales in just 48 hours.
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"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
- Charles Darwin
AI Integration:
Don't compete with AI; make it work for you.
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If you’re facing technological disruption in your industry, here are the no-B.S. lessons from my journey from near-business-death to magazine cover:
First, recognize disruption as opportunity. What looks like the end of your business model could be the beginning of something far more valuable—if you have the guts to see it through.
Second, pivot to integration, not competition. Fighting technology is a fool’s game with a predictable outcome—you lose. The winning strategy is finding how to integrate new technology into your existing business model in a way that creates a new value proposition nobody else is offering.
Third, double down on human elements. As AI handles more technical tasks, the premium on human skills—emotional intelligence, cultural understanding, strategic thinking—increases dramatically.
Fourth, move with decisive speed. From nearly selling the company to implementing our new strategy, it took less than three months. In times of disruption, the spoils go to the swift.
Finally, become the implementation expert. The biggest opportunity in any technological revolution isn’t in creating the technology itself but in helping others implement it effectively. Today, I run the world’s largest AI community with 3.4 million members, started the world’s 1st ever AI Certified Consultant Program, and get paid to show other people how to use AI.
The journey from that moment of near-business-death to seeing myself on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine has taught me the most important business lesson of all: In business, what initially appears to be a devastating threat often contains within it the seeds of unprecedented opportunity—if you have the courage to pivot rather than retreat.
The question isn’t whether AI will transform your industry—it’s whether you’ll be leading that transformation or become roadkill on the highway of progress. Embrace change, even when it scares the hell out of you. Pivot when you need to. And always, always bet on your team.
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