[Top Agency Series] Transforming Customer Experience Through AI Innovation With Ephraim Ebstein

Ephraim Ebstein is the Founder and CEO of FIT Solutions, a San Diego-based leader in managed IT and cybersecurity services. Under his leadership, FIT Solutions helps organizations cut costs, boost efficiency by up to 40%, and defend against evolving cyber threats. Serving clients across healthcare, finance, and law, Ephraim builds his companies around one guiding belief — that innovation starts with people. He’s also the Co-founder of AI Integrators, a venture helping organizations accelerate performance through AI-powered solutions such as human-like virtual employees and intelligent concierge bots.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [5:45] Ephraim Ebstein explains why most AI rollouts fail — and the proven path to success
• [7:26] Secret to creating AI chatbots that sound truly human
• [14:11] How AI revives cold leads and drives real sales growth
• [18:09] Innovative AI applications for webinars, events, and class actions
• [19:42] Key insights on navigating strict business texting regulations
• [23:02] Lessons learned from scaling challenges and breakthrough growth
• [26:22] Recruiting strategies that attract and retain top performers
• [38:28] How to lead like a pro sports team and build a winning culture
• [47:50] What makes FIT’s training combine tech, service, and leadership?

In this episode…

AI is rewriting the rules of customer engagement, building smarter, faster, more personal experiences than ever. Yet as tech takes center stage, many leaders risk losing the culture and connection that drive lasting success. Can AI fuel growth and strengthen what makes a company human?

Ephraim shares how he transformed a small IT venture into a $30 million success and how his latest project is helping businesses truly harness the power of AI. He explains how his team creates AI “employees” that text customers with human-like names, personalities, and even realistic pauses or typos to make conversations feel natural. Ephraim also shares real stories — from hotels using AI concierges to online shops managing thousands of chats — showing how AI boosts both efficiency and engagement. 

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Ephraim Epstein, Founder and CEO of FIT Solutions, to discuss how AI and strong team culture fuel business growth. They explore using AI to drive revenue, streamline support, and revive leads — while keeping people at the center. He shares his “professional sports team” approach to leadership, mentorship, and hiring, offering actionable strategies to scale any organization without losing its human touch.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Ephraim Ebstein on LinkedIn
• FIT Solutions
• Fit AI
• Good to Great: A Study of Management Strategies of Companies with Lasting Growth by Jim Collins
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell and Steven R. Covey
• The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
• TeamWork: How to Build a High-Performance Team by Natalie Dawson
• Start The Work by Natalie Dawson
• Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz
• The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz

Special Mentions:

• Natasha Herrera on Instagram
• Send Blue
• Brandon Dawson on LinkedIn
• Grant Cardone on LinkedIn
• Alex Hormozi on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “Negotiation Tactics From FBI Agent Christopher Voss, Founder of Black Swan Ltd” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Sweet Process Series & Top Author Series] How to Make Your Business the Next McDonalds of Your Industry with Michael E. Gerber Author of The E-myth” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity with David Allen of Getting Things Done” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How to Craft a Compensation Plan that Attracts and Motivates the Right People For Your Company With Verne Harnish, Owner Scaling Up” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Author Series] How to Have Your Business Run Without You with Mike Michalowicz – Fix This Next” on Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “The ultimate goal is that we are replacing humans. I hate to say it, but that’s what’s happening and I guess we’re a facilitator of that.”
• “Most AI deployments actually don’t work properly and don’t really replace the headcount like people were hoping — the ones that go well have integrators.”
• “It’s really important to be humble and adaptable — being able to admit when you’re wrong and learning from your mistakes.”
• “I run my company like a professional sports team. If you’re not cutting it, you get traded, you get cut, you get benched.”
• “If I even hear a whisper about someone that was good at something, I’m like a blood trail hound on them now.”

Action steps:

1. Learn from mentors and industry leaders: Surround yourself with experienced guides, like Ephraim Ebstein does with Brandon Dawson and Grant Cardone, to model success and navigate new leadership challenges effectively.
2. Commit to ongoing education: Regularly read, train, and attend events to stay adaptable and competitive in fast-changing fields like AI and IT.
3. Use core values in hiring: Have candidates demonstrate alignment with your company values to improve retention and team culture.
4. Practice through role play: Daily or weekly simulations prepare teams to handle real scenarios confidently and maintain high standards.
5. Adopt a sports-team mindset: Prioritize accountability and performance over family-style leniency to foster growth, honest feedback, and sustainable results.

Episode Transcript

Intro 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Ephraim Epstein. You can check him out at FitSolutions.biz and Ephraim, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out.

You know, there’s been some interesting ones over the years. This just came up on the last one I did, which is Chris Voss. Chris Voss wrote Never Split The Difference. He was a great guest. He’s an ex FBI hostage negotiator. It was phenomenal episode. He’s got a phenomenal book. I was telling him, I think it should be made into a movie. I don’t know if you’ve checked that one out, Ephraim.

Ephraim Ebstein: 01:01

I have I, I, I love him, I love his book and I also he has a course on masterclass. So if you sign up for masterclass, totally make sure to watch his course. It’s awesome.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 01:14

Totally. And on that the author front, I had Michael Gerber of the E-Myth. That was a really good episode. David Allen of Getting Things Done. So if you want to be more productive, the book, you know, the the episode Verne Harnish of Scaling Up was a good episode as well.

So a lot of cool authors. Mike Michalowicz, he’s got some of my favorite books. I don’t know if you’ve had any listened to any of his Ephraim, but Mike Michalowicz some of my he’s he’s just a funny guy. So listen to the audio is fun. He has Profit First and The Pumpkin Plan and a number of other books that he’s written over the years. So those are all all good ones. And check out more on InspiredInsider.com. 

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that in a few ways. One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability, and the full execution and production. Number two, we’re an easy button for a company’s gifting, so we make gifting and staying top of mind to clients, partners, prospects, even staff members from a culture perspective. And we’ll talk a little bit about that with Ephraim, about his hiring processes. And in culture. You know, we make it simple, easy, affordable. You just send us the addresses. We do everything else.

And so, you know, we call ourselves kind of the magic elves that run in the background and make it stress free for a company to help them build amazing relationships. You know, for me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my relationships, and I found no better way over the past 15 years than to profile the companies I most admire and feature them, and what they’re working on in the podcast and Podcasting. Sending them sweet treats in the mail. So if you have questions, go to Rise25.com or email [email protected]. I’m excited to introduce Ephraim Epstein. He’s the Founder and CEO of FIT Solutions. FIT Solutions is a $30 million managed IT and cybersecurity provider. They’re based in San Diego, but they have offices all over. 

And he’s Co-founder of AI integrators. And that’s an AI services company helping organizations harness artificial intelligence. And it’s for growth, efficiency and a number of other things. You know, that’s hot. People are know that they should be using it. They’re not sure how to use it. Right. He’s got 15 years plus experience in IT. Strategy, compliance. You’re one of the only first, you know, one of the only people when I look back at what you studied in college from, it’s actually similar to what you do now, which is probably not the case like 90% of the the time, including myself actually. So they help, you know, healthcare finance law firms. It goes on and on. So Ephraim, thanks for joining me.

Ephraim Ebstein: 03:57

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I’m excited to be on with you.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:03

Let’s just start off and tell people about we’ll start with FIT Solutions and what you do, and then we’ll go to Fit-AI in what you do.

Ephraim Ebstein: 04:10

Yeah for sure. So the first time I launched a business was FIT Solutions 13 years ago. And I did what I knew how to do before, which is a managed IT service provider, and that has just blossomed with a lot of legs. So we never departed far away from that. But what we what we’ve kind of expanded into is creating a security operations center with our cybersecurity offering, pen testing on the IT side. Sorry, I skipped over that. But that’s just, you know, everything from consulting strategy to just user support. So just kind of the the basic but done very well, obviously. 

And now, since AI has become such a demanded thing, and most AI deployments actually don’t work properly and don’t really replace the headcount like people were hoping, the ones that go well are the ones that have integrators that help help them do that. And we had a lot of customers saying, hey, we’re we’re getting stuck. Help us out. We started doing a lot of AI integration for businesses, and we really built up a whole side of the business on that. But we got very niche on the AI side because obviously there’s so much going on with AI, but we got really what we are really, really good at is setting up with creating basically an AI employee that communicates via text message. That can be for revenue generation. That can be for customer support, anything like that. You know, a lot of people think, oh, chatbot. 

It is basically chatbot. But to get it integrated and working properly, where it can actually replicate a human and get so good that the person texting doesn’t realize they’re not talking to a human. That’s a lot harder. And so, yeah, anybody could go buy a chatbot, try and plug it in and make it work. But if you want it communicating like a human, knowing information, doing actual tasks, it’s it’s it’s more involved. And so that’s where we come in because we can set up those chatbots to basically go to, you know, pull from the different databases, communicate the way a human communicates. And really the goal is to either generate revenue if it’s on the revenue generation side or if it’s on the support side, it’s actually replacing head count. That is the ultimate goal is that we are replacing humans. I hate I hate to say it, but that’s what’s happening and I guess we’re a facilitator of that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 07:05

There’s certain things you do and I’ve listened to some other interviews and you correct me like the way you make it feel more human, like, yeah, one of those things, I think, is if you don’t do it like instantaneously, there’s, there’s a slight delay, right. Because like, a human’s not going to like within a millisecond, like respond. Right.

Ephraim Ebstein: 07:26

That’s right. That’s that’s one of the biggest ones.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 07:29

Yeah. Some of the things you do there.

Ephraim Ebstein: 07:31

Okay. So the one you mentioned, delay is absolutely important. So you, you when you’re texting back and forth human doesn’t sometimes you respond fast. Sometimes you respond slower. Especially the longer the message the slower the response. And it’s it’s varied. It’s never exactly it’s not like always on 30s, right? It’s always kind of varied. So that’s one of the first things we do is vary the time of the responses. Also, another thing we do is when we train the AI, we actually give it a human name with a backstory and a personality.

Most businesses, it’s really the businesses choice. But our recommendation in most scenarios is that it’s a woman, a female, and that we. And the reason for that is people are just nicer to girls. And so they’re more you have a higher engagement rate, a faster response rate. And so that’s why we do it. So we’ll usually do a woman give her a name. Could be Alyssa. Could be Jennifer could be Sarah could be Brooklyn. Could be any name that you like. We will create a name and personality.

And then another big thing we do is we will introduce emojis, variation, some texts long, some text short. And grammatical and spelling errors. Another thing we can do is we can set it up with. There’s a provider called Send Blue. We can integrate Send Blue so the bubbles are blue instead of green. That’s another. It has more strict rules on what you’re trying to do. So sometimes you can’t get around those rules because you’re not just dealing with cell phone carrier rules. You’re dealing with Apple rules. And they’re very, very strict about that. And there’s that. But we can do it and we have done it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:34

I’m curious. Just give people a sense, where’s this living on someone’s site or within their company that people are engaging with them?

Ephraim Ebstein: 09:42

Yeah. So okay, so there’s a couple different use cases. Let me just tell you a story. We’ve been doing a lot of hotels lately, and boutique hotels, particularly where there’s not a whole lot of staff. There’s there’s some staff, but not a lot of staff. But this is actually a great solution for, for any hotel. And so let’s just say you book a room at a hotel when it comes day to check in. Of course, you probably get the emails and you can go to the front desk and all of that. But we set up the very first hotel we did. It was Hotel Zindel, and we set up the AI concierge.

Her name is Brooklyn and the AI employee Brooklyn would would text and say hi. You know, Dr Weisz, this is Brooklyn from Hotel Zindel. Just wanted to reach out. Anything you need, I’m going to be your personal concierge. If you have any challenges checking into the room, let me know right away. And then, like, a few seconds later, she’ll send one other little message because, you know, humans do that sometimes. So that’s one. Two things I’ve done to trick the mind. One a name. She knows who you are. And and then like one message, five seconds 10s later. Second follow up message. Hey, if you also need recommendations for the area, I know some for you, right? You’re like, oh, okay. Thanks.

On that, on on on the hotels we get about a 74% engagement rate. And now if you said, hey, I need towels to my room, or hey, can you give me recommendations for the area or for a lot of boutique hotels? They use door codes like Airbnb. I’m locked out of my out of my room. I need I need it unlocked. What we found is more people prefer to text that than to call or go to the front desk, and which was kind of interesting. So say you’re checked in and you need towels more people would rather text that they need towels to Brooklyn than they would rather pick up the phone, call the front desk and say, hey, I need some towels.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 11:52

Hands down. Totally.

Ephraim Ebstein: 11:53

Yeah. So so what we’ve been able to do is reduce their staff because they don’t need they don’t need as many people. I mean, you still you can’t reduce cleaning staff and stuff, but you can reduce like your Vas your, you know, remote the remote support, even some of the on on prem staff that’s kind of doing that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:16

Yeah. And even the staff who’s on site, they can worry about other bigger issues or something like that and like it cuts out. I like anything that cuts out multiple steps in the process. Right? Instead of like calling the front desk, front desk has to like, let housekeeping know. It literally goes to someone who automatically goes to that AI chat, who automatically redirects it, and it like, cuts out like multiple steps to this process.

Ephraim Ebstein: 12:42

Exactly. So Brooklyn will text the housekeeper, say, hey, room 103 needs towels. Or if it’s a lockout, doesn’t even need anybody. It can just handle and unlock the door and give a new code. So so we’ve been able to do that. But imagine that setup. It’s complex because you have. The AI component you have the workflows. 

There’s usually around 400 workflows for that to to make that happen you need to connect with your door access code needs to communicate to house cleaners, needs to communicate to VAs, needs to pull from their booking system who’s coming in for the night so it can text them on on a schedule. There’s just a lot of information, right? So to set that all up to make that work, that’s kind of that’s kind of what we do.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:36

So I can see from that use case I could also see any hotels I could also see, you know, Airbnb property managers or something because who you know, you’re getting text. I’ve been Airbnbs. I’m like, hey, where’s this? Where’s that, where’s the internet? If they just sent it to my text, like they have this booklet that’s sitting like on the desk or whatever that I’m gonna have to page through if they just sent me like a slew of texts because the common questions are, what’s the internet code or whatever it is.

Ephraim Ebstein: 14:04

Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:05

So I could see that. What are some other use, like types of businesses that you found are good for this?

Ephraim Ebstein: 14:11

So any business that wants to that has a big list of dead leads. That’s a great use case because we can resurrect leads and re-engage them. If you have customers that need reorders, we can create AI employees around that. Those are both revenue generating. Also, if you have if you’re a type of business like e-commerce, a hi. Well, potentially, I’ll give you an example. We have a company that I don’t know if you call it e-commerce, but it is they they sell stones like they sell sell the, the tools for cutting stones, like semi-precious minerals, like, you know, jade crystals, geodes, things of that nature. So not only do they sell the stone, they also sell the machineries to cut it, polish it, you know, and these are for hobbyists that like.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:07

Other hobbyists, it’s not like a manufacturing company that’s doing like.

Ephraim Ebstein: 15:10

No, no, no. They yeah. Yeah. They, they, they’re, they sell to hobbyists. Now if you’re selling a crystal for 15, $30 and you have somebody wanting to ask questions about it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:26

You’ve just lost all your money.

Ephraim Ebstein: 15:28

About 5000 questions they get a month. They just literally don’t answer them. Because for I’m not going to hire and staff to answer questions about a $15 item. It just it is. And they get all kinds of questions like, hey, I if I want to does this does this stone fracture when I cut it or hey what what is the the you know, what, what do you have in stock that’s purple or hey do you you know, what wavelengths do crystals have like all these kind of things that you can’t do.

So we set up an AI employee where they can text those questions and it can answer all of those questions about everything that’s in stock, plus just stones in general, everything that you could ever search on the internet, it can it can pull. 

It can also answer like, hey, what if someone says, I need to cut, you know, Jade, what saw do I need? Or I need to polish it and say, hey, what size of cuts are you doing? Are you trying to make a necklace or a ring or like, you know, a coffee table and it’ll give them the link to the product and the stones and they can just order it. And so that’s like a great way that they’ve been able to increase that. Another thing we have for for webinars for people that like do a lot of webinars. You know, usually what they’ll do, someone registers for a webinar. They will email. They probably have automated texting. 

But when you get those texts, you know, right away this is an automated system and then it reminds you and stuff like that. But we’ve set up one like Sophie for a for an investment mastermind that someone runs and they register to that webinar, Sophie will text and be like, hi Doctor Weisz, I saw that you, you know, you invested in this, you know, masterclass. Just curious. Wanted to introduce myself. Just curious. Have you ever invested before? First time so. So she will without selling you anything. She is engaging with you, figuring out, are you an accredited investor? Are you just starting out like what is going on? And then she’ll like the next day she’ll text you, be like, hey, I just wanted to share this podcast. I thought you was really interesting. You might like it. 

Boom! Sends it to you. Hey, excited next day. Excited to see you at the webinar tomorrow morning of hey, I hope I see you on the webinar. Boom boom. So now you’ve created a relationship with Sophie. You think she’s a real human the whole time she goes there? We’ve done that for big events. We’ve done it for. Class action lawsuit companies where people sign up for class action lawsuits and they fill out the form, but they maybe didn’t complete it or it or the class action lawsuit requires that they speak to somebody and they never got them on the call. 

We created AI that will communicate them via text. And we’ve gotten like we did one for the Maui fires, and they just thought they were talking to human entire time. And we were able in the first day of running that, you know, they averaged around 45 K that they generate. Because they get paid by signups for class action lawsuits. So that just like pays for itself. You know, 100 X in that case. But it just it just depends. We can do anything that people communicate on text message with. We can get AI to do it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:12

I’m curious how are people interacting with it? It seems like some of it may on the back end, like if someone signs up for something, it captures their, you know, their their phone number and then you can communicate that way, right? If it’s a hotel, if you book an appointment, you know, book a room, or if you’re signing up for, you know, to buy something. And it sounds like there’s front facing ones too. Someone goes to a website and they’re interacting with people or. Yeah.

Ephraim Ebstein: 19:42

Yeah. So we’re not technically supposed to. I mean, you’re not supposed to. Legally, cell phone carriers can block you if you have more than a 1%, you know, report junk rate. So you can lose. It’s it’s kind of a difficult process to go through and get a cell phone number for texting. And so we do it all the time. But they’re very strict. And the rules are continually getting stricter. So it’s called ATP registration. And if you have too many people saying hey, don’t contact me, you’re going to get time out. You’ll get that a couple times, but that’s only a 1%. So you text 100 people. One person says report this as junk. 

That’s gonna that’s going to get you a time out. And you do it enough, and you’re just going to outright lose your cell phone number and the cell phone number. It’s not like super easy. I mean, you can spin up a new LLC or something, but it’s tied to your business to get the registration. They want to see your your articles of incorporation. They want to see your website. They want to see your privacy policy on your website. They want to see a lot of things. So it’s kind of a big deal. And to you know, so so we’re very we can guide on that just because we’ve done so many of them on like, hey, this will work good and this will not.

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