Find Your Hidden Hours: The Truth About AI and Automation with Dan Kurtz

Every company has a conference room quietly bleeding hundreds of hours a month, and almost nobody notices until someone actually goes looking for it.Dan Kurtz has spent twenty years in digital marketing, working across Fortune 50 companies, Microsoft, Nielsen, and scrappy startups. In 2018, he discovered five graphic designers each losing 40 hours a month to manual busywork, 200 hours gone, fixed with a $300-a-year tool. That discovery became the foundation for Miss Pepper AI, where he now helps companies find their hidden hours and automate the work that shouldn't require a human.In this episode, Dan walks through the conference room moment that changed his career, explains what he calls the "40-Hour Month" and why almost nobody in a company ever notices it happening, and breaks down why he believes automation is meant to free your team, not replace it. He also shares his rule that roughly 85% of work can be automated, while 15% has to stay human, and how leaders can figure out which is which.WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT:The conference room discovery that changed his entire approachWhat the "40-Hour Month" is and why it hides in plain sightWhy "that's just how we do it" is the most expensive sentence in businessWhy automation should free your team, not replace itThe 85/15 rule for what should and shouldn't be automatedThe first step any business owner should take this weekCONNECT WITH DAN KURTZ:Website: (linked on his profile)LinkedIn: linked on his profile