If you are like a lot of people running shops in the decorated apparel industry, you’ve been using AI for some time now. Got a question about how to do something? You type it in. Presto, you get an answer.
It could be about anything. Your pricing. How to handle a tough customer, or a problem employee. Feedback on your P&L. Anything and everything is shoved into your AI tool. It answers in seconds, and the answers usually sound great.
You feel more informed than you’ve ever been with your business. And that’s ok. Except…
Two Guys in a Boat
Let me tell you a story about two guys fishing in a boat. They are out on a lake, and have been at it all day. One of them keeps hauling up monsters. Just about every time he throws his line in, he reels up large, record-breaking-sized fish. And after landing each, he immediately unhooks them and tosses them right back into the water.
Then he lands a little scrawny 9-incher.
And THAT’S the one he drops into the cooler. His buddy can’t take it. “What are you doing? You threw back every big fish, and you are keeping this dinky one. Why?”
The guy shrugs. “I’ve only got a 9” skillet at home. Anything bigger than that won’t fit in the pan.”
Now, let’s change up the metaphor here a little bit. AI is the picky fisherman. It is only working when it solves the problem you asked for, which is a fish that can be cooked in a 9” pan.
Can AI Replace a Business Coach?
Fun fact: I really enjoy using AI. I create images using Midjourney. With Claude or ChatGPT’s help, I’ve used it to build some amazing tools on vibe-coding platforms like Base44 or Lovable. I use it every single day. Which is why I know what it can’t do, what it struggles with, and where the strengths live.
How AI works is that it predicts the most probable next move based on the patterns it has seen and what you asked it. AI is always only going to catch the 9” fish, because it never knows how else to solve the problem or what questions to ask unless you include that thinking in how you interact with it. The challenge, of course, is that you don’t know what you don’t know.
How are you going to get AI to work better for you if you just give it a 9” pan problem to solve?
A business coach, like me, works differently. I’m going to ask questions you didn’t think to ask. I’ll hear something in your answer or tone of voice, or I'll press you for more facts. The questions I ask are based on my years of experience in the industry, problems I’ve solved, conversations I’ve had with other people, or research I’ve completed. And to use the same metaphor, I’ll ask you why you're even fishing instead of doing something else that might be a better use of your time.
AI is a prediction engine. As a business coach, my role is to help you find clarity by provoking you or challenging you.
The answer AI serves up will always only fit the 9” skillet, because it is optimized for that. I’m going to help you wonder if maybe we should be making ice cream instead. Maybe there is a better use of your time doing something else or solving the problem in a different way than you imagined.
Isn’t a Coach Just an Expensive AI?
I’m sure you are thinking to yourself that you don’t need a personal business coach for your shop because you can ask AI anything and get an answer. It’s a fair assumption and ok to think.
Using AI is fast and cheap, and available to you whenever you want. Working with a coach is time that has to be scheduled, and has a higher cost. On paper, it looks like you might be paying a premium for a business coach for something you already have in your pocket.
Here’s the difference, and it explains a lot. AI answers the question you brought it. A coach questions whether you brought the right one. Solutions and clarity are found with personal, confidential conversations.
Let’s take a real example. A newer coaching client has been working on their production throughput. Despite being booked at capacity with sales, they simply can’t get jobs produced fast enough. They have been working on their screenprinting setup times and reviewing the data with them; it looks like they have most of their jobs being set up around five minutes per screen, which is great.
But if they are setting up faster, why aren’t they producing more per day? During a conversation, I ask many questions until two questions land. ‘How many times are you stopping the press during a print run? What is your downtime %?
They had been focusing all of their attention solely on getting the job set up and running. Not what happens during the print run. As it turns out, their downtime percentage was 53%. Meaning, in an eight-hour shift, composed of 420 minutes, they are only printing 197.4 minutes of that time. 222.6 minutes were spent not producing. That’s 3.71 hours of the day not printing. We then spent time working on strategies to get that time back and keep production humming as it should.
While the shop was completely thinking that their setup speed was what led to more orders produced a day, it was the unexpected line of questioning that revealed it was completely a different problem. This allowed the shop to find hours a day on their production schedule once they implemented the guardrails and SOPs that were discussed after the problem was identified.
Relationship Accountability
AI only works if you set it up and ask it something. It is built based on the rules and scenarios you add. Let’s be clear, AI tools work. It’s not that they don’t.
But a human coach has the one thing that AI won’t have, which is that real accountability lives in a human-to-human relationship. Your AI tools don’t care if you logged in and used them today, or if you actually implemented the recommendations. AI will answer a brand new question tomorrow, like the last one never happened. You can’t outsource your thinking to AI, as it lacks experience and context.
It’s not going to say, “Wait, did you work on the steps to reduce your pinholes, stabilize your screen tension, organize today’s production yesterday, and monitor when your staff starts and stops work around the time clock for breaks and lunch? We identified those three things as the leading cause of your downtime.”
When your goal is attached to the outcome, and mine is attached to it as well, I notice when you aren’t doing the thing we talked about. I remember what you committed to last time. I’ll ask you about it, and “I got busy” isn’t going to be acceptable.
Here’s the question that matters here the most. How do you know you’re actually doing the work that matters, or just feeling like you are? AI can’t tell the difference. It’s not watching. It has no stake in whether you follow through, because you can close the tab and it costs you nothing. Just kick your problem can down the road again like you did last week.
Should I Use AI or Hire a Coach?
First, why do you have to choose? 100% of my coaching clients are digging deep into using AI. They are actively using it and building their own solutions to a myriad of problems.
In fact, some of my calls with them are reviewing what they just built. For example, I just had one client show me a vibe-coded tool they created in Codex to help determine how many boxes they need for an order, and what should be in each one. This uses an API to an existing order in Printavo, as that software doesn’t provide that information. My first thought was that they did a great job on building the tool and deploying it live on the shop floor.
Then I asked, “Well, are you printing the box labels with that information so you can custom create a box label that not only shows the quantities and sizes inside, but that it is box 1 of 3, 2 of 3, and 3 of 3. Then when you ship, you can marry up tracking to each of those boxes, so your customer service rep can tell the client what box has the 12 red size smalls.”
This isn’t anything they thought about, and immediately added a deeper level of how to use their tool. Codex completely missed this connection, as it doesn’t know what to ask, as it doesn’t know everything a customer might value. It’s great at serving up 9” skillet answers.
The risk here isn’t relying on AI to give you the answers. It’s using AI only to feel informed and build the tools, without having a conversation with an industry coach who is dedicated to providing clarity for what you haven’t thought about yet. AI optimizes whatever you hand it. And sometimes it will help you get better at the wrong thing, or only give you a solution that partially fits.
Again, this isn’t an either/or problem or question. Yes, you should be using AI. But you should also invest in a relationship with a coach that has a personal stake in making you better and helping you succeed.
Remember, It’s All About the Outcome
I’m an outcome-driven person. It’s my nature. When I put my name on the outcome of helping you achieve your goals, that means something to me.
Using AI isn’t tied to the reputation of the tool. A correct or incomplete answer is viewed as the same. All day long serving up 9” sized fish because that’s what you asked about.
You know this to be true, as you undoubtedly got wrong or partial answers back from AI. That’s been my experience sometimes too. Who is double-checking the AI? What does it say that you can’t get the same answer with AI twice in a row? Doesn’t that bother you?
For me, I honestly don’t know everything. But I do know suppliers who will actually answer your questions, a peer a few states over that just solved your exact problem, or a book to recommend that digs deep into your situation. I talk to a crazy number of people in the industry every week, from all facets, sizes, and geographic locations. That, and my 30+ years in the industry mean I can help untangle the mess you might be facing now.
Get a Different Skillet
The lesson in the fishing story was obviously never about the fish. The guy limited what he was willing to catch to fit the equipment he was comfortable using. He discarded the other fish because he never considered getting a bigger skillet.
AI will always hand you the “fish” that fit your skillet. It’s fast, cheap, and in most cases, genuinely useful. Keep using it.
But a coach hands you a bigger skillet, because you want to scale and build a better business. Or looks at the monster fish you just landed and says, “Cut that one up. Here are three different ways to cook it you haven’t considered yet.”
What’s the monster fish you threw back recently and never knew what to do with it? AI didn’t tell you because it kept serving up 9” fish solutions. That’s my job.