E275: How AI is Changing Small Business Forever – Jonathan Mast on Scaling After the Acquisition - Watch Here

About the Guest:

Jonathan Mast isn’t your typical AI guru. At 55, with a Gandalf-like beard and 20 years in digital marketing, he’s positioned himself as the “voice of reason” in a landscape full of overhype and under-delivery. His company, White Beard Strategies, teaches business owners how to use AI without losing their minds—or their margins. Mast’s approach blends deep industry experience with a no-nonsense communication style. He’s not selling pipe dreams; he’s offering a toolkit.

Summary:

In this refreshingly candid episode of the How2Exit Podcast, Ron Skelton flips the usual script. Instead of diving into how to buy or sell companies, he sits down with Jonathan Mast—founder of White Beard Strategies and self-declared AI pragmatist—to tackle a more pressing question: Now that you've bought a business, how do you scale it with AI?

With a long white beard and a sharper edge on reality than most AI evangelists or fearmongers, Mast offers a grounded, practical view of how artificial intelligence is changing the game for business owners. From cutting costs without cutting quality, to using AI as a "force multiplier" for human creativity, the conversation strips away the hype and lays down a roadmap that business buyers and owners can actually use.

Key Takeaways:

1. AI is an “Easier Button,” Not an Easy Button: Mast cautions that AI won’t magically solve all your problems—but it will streamline, accelerate, and amplify your existing business processes if used right.

2. Prompt Engineering is Just Delegation 2.0: The most effective prompts treat AI like a new hire—tell it what role it’s playing, what task you need, what the output should look like, and give it context. Then ask, “Do you have any questions?”

3. AI Won’t Replace Humans—But Humans Who Use AI Will Replace Those Who Don’t: The real risk isn’t AI taking your job—it’s your competitor using AI better than you and outpacing your entire operation.

4. Agents Are the Next Frontier: Current tools still need your input, but AI agents—autonomous task-doers with goals instead of prompts—are coming. These could revolutionize business ops by handling repetitive, logic-based tasks with little oversight.

5. AI Is a Skill Multiplier: A mediocre copywriter becomes competent with AI. A great copywriter becomes world-class. AI doesn’t level the playing field—it widens the gap between skilled and unskilled.

6. Bias Is Inevitable—Just Like in Humans: Every AI model reflects the biases of its creators. That doesn’t invalidate its usefulness, but it does mean you need to be vigilant about aligning its output with your brand’s tone and truth.

7. Business Intelligence on Steroids: Jonathan envisions a near future where agents will analyze data from every platform—Google Analytics, YouTube, LinkedIn—and proactively suggest growth strategies without human prompting.

8. Start Small, Start Now: You don’t need to be an engineer or visionary to benefit. Begin with basic tasks like drafting emails, summarizing reports, or analyzing transactions—and build from there.

Article:

“What Now?”: How Jonathan Mast Uses AI to Actually Grow a Business After the Deal Is Done

So you bought the business. Congrats. Now what?

This is where many first-time acquisition entrepreneurs hit a wall. You’ve done the due diligence. The ink is dry. You’ve got the keys. But when the dust settles, you’re not scaling—you're spinning plates. And in today’s world, if you’re not bringing AI into the mix, you’re probably wasting time, money, and talent.

In this episode of How2Exit, Ron Skelton sits down with Jonathan Mast, founder of White Beard Strategies, to answer the question few in M&A dare to ask: How do I actually run and grow this thing in the age of AI?

Mast cuts through the buzzwords with the precision of a business operator who’s been around long enough to smell snake oil from across the web. His first point? AI isn’t a magic wand. It’s more like a chainsaw—powerful, but only useful if you know how to handle it without losing a limb.

He offers a compelling framework: treat AI like a new employee. Be crystal clear about its role, give it background, spell out what you need, and always give it the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. You’d never hand a new hire a vague assignment and walk away. Why do it with AI?

Mast also debunks the “AI is coming for your job” narrative with a well-earned smirk. “AI won’t replace good salespeople,” he says. “It can’t build trust at 2 a.m. when someone’s making a high-stakes decision.” But it can write the follow-up email, prep the slide deck, and schedule the next meeting—while your salesperson is sleeping.

And the real fire? The future. Mast is laser-focused on AI agents—goal-based systems that don’t just wait for you to prompt them but take initiative. Imagine one agent monitoring your Stripe account for fraud, another handling your recurring event setup, and another crawling your competitors’ YouTube channels for growth insights. That’s not tomorrow. That’s next quarter.

As Ron shares his own experiments—from trying to add AI co-hosts to the podcast to building custom prompt formulas—what becomes clear is this: the winners in this space won’t be the ones with the best AI toolkit, but the ones with the best use cases.

So if you're sitting on a newly acquired business wondering how to optimize operations, lower overhead, or just get 10 hours of your week back... this episode isn’t a thought piece. It’s a playbook.

Listen, learn, then prompt smarter.

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