What Should You Hire For in the Age of AI? Identify What Makes You Special and Delegate the Rest

I kick off a new series on hiring and keeping staff in the age of AI by answering the first hiring question: what should you hire for and what should you hand off? My key rule is to identify what makes you special and delegate everything else. I outline a six-step exercise: record every task you touch for one day, group similar tasks, define what a 10/10 looks like for each, score yourself on completion (consistency beats occasional excellence), then hire for your lowest score first instead of duplicating your strengths. I explain why you should hire for tasks, not time, often using specialists, contractors, companies, or software, and why automation can’t replace human responsiveness and care. I share examples across industries showing AI handles mechanics while humans win through relationships, reassurance, and trust.

00:00 Hiring Anxiety and AI

01:07 Core Rule Delegate the Rest

01:32 Step 1 Track Every Task

03:11 Step 2 Group Similar Work

04:36 Step 3 Define a 10

05:48 Step 4 Score Completion

07:53 Step 5 Hire Your Weakest Link

09:43 Lead Nurture Confession

11:49 Hire for Tasks Not Time

15:33 Protect Human Contact

19:39 Where Youre Irreplaceable

21:17 AI Proof Value Examples

29:24 Weekly Action Plan Wrap Up

Chris Cooper argues that as AI-generated video, voice, text, and images become harder to detect, people grow more suspicious of anything delivered through screens and phones, making real human interaction increasingly valuable. Citing a 2026 CIRA report that 53% of Canadians have been exposed to deepfakes and 16% have accidentally liked or shared fake content, he explains how distrust and growing isolation raise the premium customers will pay for accountable, in-person help. He introduces the “hands test” (would you trust this person with your body, home, family, or money?) and highlights areas where presence changes outcomes: healthcare and touch professions, trades and home safety, financial planning and legal/accounting reassurance, childcare/coaching/teaching, and gyms where retention depends on coaching relationships, not programming. He advises businesses to automate back-office tasks but protect trust touchpoints, make the human element visible, and price accordingly.

00:00 Sick Of Bots

01:28 AI Tells Disappear

02:13 Deepfakes Breed Distrust

03:54 Isolation Raises Premium

05:10 The Hands Test

06:14 Body Care Wins

07:40 Trades And Safety

08:38 Money Needs Trust

11:13 Family And Coaching

12:35 Gyms Need Humans

15:46 Price The Premium

16:19 Protect Trust Touchpoints

18:09 Make Humans Visible

18:39 Career Paths By Hands

19:23 Weekly Trust Audit

20:13 Closing Thoughts

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

In this episode, Chris breaks down the four marketing funnels every business needs — social media, content, referrals, and paid ads — and shows how each one is really a different conversation with a different person. For every funnel, he answers four questions: Who are you actually talking to? How do you start the conversation? Where is it supposed to go? And how do you move it along?

Using the social media funnel as the deep-dive example, Chris explains why stopping the scroll isn't enough, why starting an argument is a shortcut to nowhere, and why the real goal of social media is getting people off social media. Then he applies the same framework to content, referrals, and paid ads — showing why treating a warm referral like a cold lead, or nurturing paid traffic like a stranger on Instagram, kills conversations that should already be moving.

If your marketing feels like it's going nowhere, this episode gives you the four questions to find out why.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/