Join Asher & Kelly on The Unlearn Podcast this week with special guest Kate Bradley Chernis as they discuss Empathy, AI, and Personalization to Thrive in Sales and Marketing. Tune in to this free flowing conversation that covers how AI can help you become the best version of yourself by learning from your best practices and then defaulting to that.
00:00 - Introduction
08:21 - Theatre of the the mind
15:55 - Being the magnet in the room
17:18 - Weaving a web of values in your conversation
19:01 - Introduction to Empathy when learning marketing
22:06 - Being a "Hall of famer" content writer
28:05 - Understanding how to evoke certain emotions.
30:51 - Not losing yourself while going down the AI route.
41:20 - People like to talk about themselves
48:12 - Personalization in marketing.
52:19 - Private AI
"The old way of the message being consistent, and the same all the time; that is done! It's done, because we think of it as spam now and we're bored".
"You can rise up through 90% of the content folks out there by just posting consistently. Then you can rise up to 99% of them by just making sure that you are relatable."
00:02
Welcome to unlearn where we talk to industry leaders about unlearning, and how we go to the Market.
00:05
I'm Kelly Van and I run tech partner enablement and advocacy at Hubspot.
00:09
And I'm Asher Matthew, co-founder of the partnership Leaders.
00:12
The old ways of going to market are getting more expensive and less effective.
00:17
To thrive in an era of visual transformation. you have to go up the market differently. Let's find out how. All right, Kelly, we're back. I see that your camera angles change the game.
00:31
Well, my fancy camera battery needs to be recharged. so I'm back to the regular old mac camera, AI will be less high definition if anybody's watching a video.
00:46
Hey, what's happening in asher? Hey, Kelly, thanks for joining us. I'm low deaf, super low deaf today. Even in my mind, you know.
00:56
You were just telling us about Mr. David Scott. tell us a little bit about your relationship with him.
01:00
Oh, he's the best. So um David Scott is one of our investors. He's become a friend actually and he, I met him, someone introduced us to investment or for becoming a customer. So he became a customer and then 10 seconds later, he's like, I'm investing, you know, pull, pull out all the stuff and he's an amazing, amazing, really genuine human who, by the way, has some crazy, um, like hobbies. So he's a massive, um, an astronaut and space, um, buff and he's got all kinds of really cool.
I don't know, things do we
01:37
Have a super expensive telescope? I feel like that would be required. he has, um
01:41
He has like, I think the joystick for one of the apollos, right?
01:47
Which is like paraphernalia
01:49
That's right. yeah, like real, real deal stuff, and then he is a guitar aficionado as well. He has some amazing guitars, but he wrote this very famous book called um cray, which was all about the fandom of the Grateful Dead. So he's this massive, massive, deadheaded as well. So of course, when we met sparks flew because we had like a million things in common. You know, my Uber power is turning listeners into fans or customers into evangelists.
02:18
Interesting. and actually, um we've had some prior episodes talking to people about the new role of media in b to b Sassy and how companies often buy that up because they don't have the skill set in-house. but I think there is that strong analogy, right? like converting, telling good stories, converting to customers, and converting to listeners, and what is the same about those skills for sure?
02:46
RHateto hates to do this. but I need to tell you guys about David and Scott's story. Oh, yeah, you got One.
02:51
Ok tell me
02:53
You guys are gonna like,
02:55
Wait, so you're a fanboy. Is that what you're saying? oh,
02:57
This guy is unbelievable. like, I'll tell you like, so like for everybody who's in sales, like my big thing is you have to learn marketing, you're not gonna be able to survive in the future if you don't know marketing as a seller. And specifically, David Mirer, Scott's favorite, specialty is newsjacking. And he's like, how do you take current events, tie your value proposition into them, and then amplify that message and make it resonate with people, right? And he has several stories on this stuff, right? And so because I have been very fortunate to have been mentored by many amazing people. My thing has always been like, let's give back and invest in the future of our leaders, right? And so a very long time ago and this is probably like 10 years ago um I decided to do the emerging leaders' day at this thing called the Worldwide Partner Conference, which is, is Microsoft's Partner Conference, right? And uh and, and, and I saw that the people that attended the conference were all in their forties and fifties or maybe sixties. And I'm like, these people are gonna retire like, like, where's the next generation of these leaders? Right. And uh and I happened to be on the worldwide partner executive board and there were like 30 CEO S and like uh uh sorry, 27 CEO S and three young people. And it was like, Amy me and, and another, another gentleman who was also in the Bay Area. Um and then we were like, we have to do something for the young people, right? Like, like for the people who are gonna be more leaders and we want to run businesses in the future, right? And uh uh and, and so, we got permission from Microsoft, like as part of their entire conference, they gave us like five sessions to do, right? And uh uh and one of them was uh uh by Steve Clayton, who's the chief storyteller of Microsoft. He does as all of the core comes at Microsoft now, right? But then the other session was David Muir Scott, oh my God. And, so the story gets better because like, they and this is, this is just like a really good example of like an a, a person who is just working at this prime, right? This was even 10 years ago, right? And so the sessions are on a Wednesday.
David is thinking about the sessions on Thursday and the session, but the session is ready on Wednesday. And so we are like, ok before his session, we will all meet an hour earlier just to get my check done. Make sure he has the black batch to get through the entire conference because there are like 30,000 people at this conference. Right. And David Lands AI believes like an hour and a half earlier than the session. And it's almost like time for us to meet. And we're like, where is David? Oh my gosh. And I'm like, is the guy AI Like there's like 800 people in the audience that are gonna be here, especially to watch it, right? So we called, and they were like David. Where are you, man? He's like, um I just landed, and uh I wanted to go to my hotel. Uh and I thought the session was tomorrow and I'm like, no, it was in an hour and he's like, oh dang it. And so basically what he did, he jetted from the airport straight to his hotel. I don't even think he went to his hotel, but like he came straight to the conference, right? The guy is in cargo pants.
06:25
Like this is like, just keep in mind, Asher was the one that told him the wrong time. No, no, no, this is not me.
06:35
I do. but I'm very
06:40
Because he wanted a good story 10 years later. I was like, actually
06:45
That would be a great one. anyway. So like, like, like what happens is this guy gets in the cab and comes to the thing too, to the conference location. We sent special security for him to bring him out. Uh, He doesn't register because like, obviously there's like a huge security risk. If somebody's entering a conference that is that big without registering comes straight into the session and delivers an amazing presentation. Don't even miss a single slide. Wow, that nails the whole thing. And this is why I'm like, we have to have one of the podcasts. You got to figure out how to get on the podcast.
07:18
Because I've seen him present before and I don't think he would mind if I said this. but because I get nervous too. and so, you know, he has stage nerves and he has a routine to prep as so many people do. I do too, right? And so, I mean, that's pretty impressive. He just, he must have gotten a lot done in the cab ride on the way over there.
07:35
I Sure Did not miss a single slide. the people were like, wow, this is great and 800 people learned about the art of his jacking, and like they were like, uh trying to figure out uh and I think he's like, it isn't. The new rules of marketing is also a book that he wrote, right?
07:49
Yeah, it's in its eighth edition and lately, it's featured in the new edition by the way. So, yeah, he wrote that. Like, I think it's one of the most famous marketing books. Right? Anyways,
07:58
Like, when I heard that, like, I, I mean, I'm a big fan of the, the guy because I follow a lot of stuff that he did and, you know, like, I'm a big fan of you jacking as well and I ai some somewhat, sometimes successful at, at doing it, but that's what I learned it. and this is like 10, 12 years ago. so, yeah, we gotta have one podcast, Kate, you gotta get out for sure.
08:15
So well.
08:21
So I wanted to touch base on what Kelly was saying, which is that we're still in David hr Scotland because he lives and breathes all of this as well. so the parallel that you, I believe you were touching on is what I call theater of the mind, right? so the theater of the mind is this incredibly powerful gift that we as humans have when we're reading or listening, right? Your imagination plays a role and fills in the blanks there. And that's why those acts are incredible, more meaningful, and memorable than watching a TV show or a movie, right? Because those are gummies, you don't have to do anything you just veg out. Um Right.
09:05
So what Depends on the movie, right?
09:07
Depends on the movie. yeah, I mean if it's alien,
09:09
The bench-out ones are like complete formulas like you don't have to think at all or independent film dramas where it's like a red balloon, like, being watched for 10 minutes. then you, you gotta put in your imagination.
09:23
Right. a lot of imagination. Exactly. Exactly. So, what's, what's, what I was thinking a lot about is, um, you know, there was that book, this is your brain on music. And, um, I read it. It's kind of thick. But what fascinated me was this idea, which is when your brain listens to music, Asher, it must instantly and a new song specifically. So you, you get a new song and your brain is like, oh, where do I index this new song in the library of the memory of my brain? And it's running down every other song you've ever heard before trying to find familiar touch points. So it knows where to log this one. And it's tugging on nostalgia and memory and emotion, which are all the things that build trust and trust is why we buy right now. Similarly, Kelly, when you write a text message or a social media message or an email or a chat, when someone reads it, they hear a voice in their head, your voice, right? And so as the author, it's also your job to figure out how you tug on nostalgia and memory and emotion and get that trust thing happening there, right? So these commonalities are the same and this is what we fueled into lately because my idea was, let's not just go for the sale, let's go for the fan. It's a double win. We want the megaphone, right? And um,
10:55
It was Amazing.
10:55
Well, I want to give you one more proof in the pudding.
11:03
No, I think we should dig into it. It's a super fascinating topic, I think in the context of using an AI but also, um even outside of that and just the human-to-human context, which is obviously what most businesses have done before, but also to your point entertainment, um which is a fine line, right? because it's an audience and you're trying to establish trust.
And I think the challenge, right? Um In any of those things you're often trying to establish trust very quickly. Um You have a very limited window and um so it's, it's an interesting question in terms of how you are framing. I guess when we think about it, what are your thoughts on sort of the best ways to do that human to human? And then we can discuss how an AI comes into it and if I can potentially do it better. Um, Many people in the audience might have read that. I think it was the New York Times article where the reporter was talking to the bing chat and the chat fell in love with him and started sounding creepy, which was a total misfire. The chat was like, I don't think your wife is good for you. I'm good for you. Those were not the exact words, but it was very creepy. Um Now, of course, this is all very much one point. Oh. Right. So we can easily imagine those kinds of emotionally charged conversations where the AI becomes much more skilled and effective and people, you know, start to have feelings for the AI. But let's take a step back. Um because you also have had a lot of success as a marketer, right? Um, When you have AI roles,
12:46
Ai, I feel like Kate has a little bit more to expand on just what happens in the mind and stuff. So do you want to continue your thoughts?
12:56
Well, I'll get it. I'll touch on both of you guys. They are so awesome. By the way, I love that we're having a circular conversation because this is how I think, not linearly. So I hope people are keeping up, which is to say like, yes, so on the, I wanted to give you a proof point of why what I said works. So, lately, we only use the market, nothing else. Only organic social media run through our AI that is designed to collaborate with humans specifically because of the power of the theater of the mind, the AI that third party in the room is so impactful that you see results like a 98% sales conversion, which is what I have or 12,000% increase in engagement, which is what we got. Gary Vansh check or a 40 X increase in productivity, which is what we get signifier slash Phillips electric, right? So, it's not just because it's ethical to include humans in the process of how A I works. It's because the results are so much more galactic.
But to answer your question on the human side, Kelly, here's one of my favorite things that I learned, which is um when you're at a conference, like the one you were just at Asher. Um, recently all the marketers, one of the things I want AI to, you want to be the takeaway, right? You want to be the thing that's memorable because it's a sea of so much going on. And I've found that it's especially when we're all often personalities and, and like being on stage, naturally, it's very easy to walk in the room and be like, you know, hey, hey, hey, right, like being the loudest person, the harder thing. But the much more powerful thing to do is if you are the, the person that is the um more the magnet in the room that is shining the light on other people, right? So you're making them glow by giving them the spotlight. This is that two-way street that I'm talking about right with an AI talking in circles with the theater of the mind listening and reading. If you are the author or you are wielding the microphone, you're doing a good job with that nostalgia and motion, et cetera. The person on the other side feels like they have a part in the conversation, right? They're playing a role here and the idea is the same thing: if you're surrounded by people and you're making them feel as though they are the ones on the stage, then they walk away with this as a gift, right? They're a fan now, they're a fan. David HR
15:37
Um, And what does that look like? Even in the context of a conference say, um because I know Asher likes to go in and hold the stage so that
15:50
The camera, you know,
15:55
But it is interesting because of the idea of a magnet when you think of a magnet at a party, right? you, you immediately think of or at least I do of the person who is um telling stories or being funny and very charismatic and people are coming more to listen. Now, of course, people can talk, which I think is partly what you're saying.
And then they feel part of the conversation even though if you have a transcript, the other side is not contributing as much. Um But then you have another extreme where people who are just great listeners, right? And they are not producing much content themselves, so to speak. They're just really good at listening to the other person, kind of amplifying the other person and, to your point, shining a light on the other person. But I think of those as sort of two different sorts of personalities or approaches, is what you're saying in the middle of those. Is it more the second? That's
16:49
So smart because, I mean, of course, everyone wants a good audience, you know, so amen to those listeners. But, um, you know, I think the key is like dropping familiar touchpoints along the way that make you lean forward and go. Oh, me too. right. That's, that's what you want, that common ground. Who are the people that can find common ground?
Um, Which is why the weather is so beautiful. That's when we started this conversation. Where do you live? How's the weather? Right. That's, that's what we
17:14
Do. zoom go for sure. Where are you coming from? So Meaningful?
17:18
Like it sounds so dismissive, of course. but I mean, here, how many things have we dropped already in this conversation? We're talking about the Grateful Dead David Marin Scott. I've got a Pacman poster that's Velour behind me, child of the eighties, right? Um, We talked about being a rock and roll DJ briefly. There are just so many ways that I'm trying to access, whoever's listening, and whoever's watching because we know that humans are multifaceted, right? So let me think, let's talk about this in terms of going to market the old way of the message being consistent and the same all the time that is done, it's done because we think of it as spam now and we're bored. You have to be entertaining online and humans. This is my friend David Allison's project called Value Graphics. Humans respond to 56 values like productivity, uh education, community, and stuff like that. And so you have to figure out how to weigh a way to touch all those values in your conversation, right?
And it's, it's um it's complicated. You're weaving a web so that you walk away and think I love her. I love her. That's what I want, right?
18:36
That's what people do when they meet Kelly anyway.
18:45
So I like the things that I Need to buy as a gift to make more friends. And I'll convert to the place.
19:01
What you said is very interesting because like, like most, let's call it folks that want to learn marketing, right? they understand at some level somebody introduces them to empathy, right? The word empathy, right? And then they start thinking about the situation, the person is professional, right? But they think about all the situations that they could be in personally, right? And then the voice in the head that they're thinking about or they don't mind, right? As you're saying it right is almost always drawn from the professional environment versus the personal environment, right? And what you just hit on, it's a little tough, right?
Uh And it's interesting AI was just hanging up with Morgan Ingram last night, right? Like, like, and he's a very amazing content writer, right? Like, like he spent a lot of time when you talk to the guy. You're like, wow, man, you are a content person because you spent hours on this stuff, right? And he was explaining this concept saying, like, look, you can rise through all the content folks out there. So obviously, so 90% of the 100 folks out there just repeat uh posting consistently, right? Then you can rise to even the next like the 99% of them by just making sure that you are relatable, right? Like, like that, that you've understood their situation, right? And then he was like, but there's these Hall of Famers, right? And the Hall of Famers are playing a very different game, right? We couldn't unpack the maybe we should, we need to get him, get him on the podcast too. But like, as you're saying this, I'm just thinking about like, I and we have Jamal HR on the podcast. And Jamal's number two lesson for me was like, hey, the, the deal is happening here. It's not happening here, right? And, this is a lot more from a marketing perspective so that people can write a basic copy that stakes and then ultimately gets to fandom, right? And, and people are, unfortunately, a lot of like, execs are like, hey, get me these off deals and stuff like that. But like, if it was more about like, let's get fans and people started focusing on what's happening in the mind and what are people's life experiences that you need to be cognizant of. So when you write an amazing copy and you do a creative thing that resonates with all those people and then they totally 100% agree with what you're saying, which is like they volunteer in versus you pull them in, they volunteer themselves, right? And it's like a different level of color in a way, right? Because you're telling an amazing story, but it hits those points, right? Um, Amazing. I mean, it's like, I mean, this requires hours and hours and hours of work, but obviously, you've created a tool that allows people to draw on some of it. So tell us about how your company even hears what it is.
Oh yeah, we should probably Do that well
22:09
And to your point like, so I'm a Hall of Famer, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna say that I am. So like when I write posts on LinkedIn, for example, I get 86,000 views right. I'm good at this. And so lately we taught lately to learn from me actually as it learns from you first in your best practices and I'll go over that. But then it, it, it defaults to me and then because I get the 98% sales conversion with my brand, it defaults to that. It's looking for different ways to support you, you know. So lately is um an AI-fueled repurposing engine that is also a social media management, employee advocacy, and sales enablement publishing platform.
So it's like a lot all at once.
22:57
It learned from you and then basically, it's advising or whoever is using it is essentially becoming more like you in their post.
23:07
No, it starts with you. and then it just uses me, uses me as a buffer, and kind of Mark as what works essentially.
23:15
Yeah. so when you connect your social channels to lately and we study everything you've ever published going back for the last year on those channels. and we're specifically analyzing the messaging that performed the best for you the highest. yeah, for you. and we're breaking that messaging down into words, ideas, phrases, and sentence structures. so we have a very clear model of literally um how you sound your brand voice, then exactly what your target audience will like, comment, click or share.
Once we have that, then you ingest long-form content like this podcast for example, we'll transcribe it instantly in the background, we'll read it through with the model in mind and we lift out the pieces that are in the model and we clip up the video of who said what at the same time in that little snippet there, right? And then we will also do a style transfer which is we take you, take what's written there and uh and kind of unify it, right? So for me, I say in real life, I curse like a sailor and I try not to do that online. So I make up things like holy hot pickled jalapeno peppers and stuff like that. And it does that for me.
24:26
So initially, the client would be the best version of themselves for the current audience that they were reaching. I think that would be like day one of using the tool.
24:37
Day one. yeah, unless they have nothing, then it'll default to my brand, and then pickles and pickles mean another hot favorite. um but then we have millions of data sets from like all the customers we've ever worked with as well. so that's the next note that it pulls from to Scary thought.
24:56
Two Kellys. oh,
25:00
Wait for a 2nd. I want a clone. Are you kidding me?
25:07
I mean, there are like 100 ks out there now. so, you know, like
25:13
People are like, oh, ai don't want an ai to replace me and I'm like ai do like god, what i could get done?
25:19
I feel Like your page will become more and more popular because there's now a sense of familiarity and, almost like eventual nostalgia about you because they're like, this sounds vaguely but not exactly familiar. I Love this person.
25:35
There you Go. I mean the thing is, that's so important though is this human training that we've been talking about, right? this theater of the mind. So what we built into lately was um every little thing that you do it's taking note of and we surface you, even the word clouds, the exact ideas in black and white that are ringing true with your audience and you get the opportunity to be like I. That's awesome. It'll say like, oh, the idea of humans versus an AI got 43,000 impressions in two posts. Do you want us to do more of this? And you can say, yeah, that's great. And then it could say, well, what about Pickles? And you can say nope off the rails, right? So there's a massive learning um with the human involved and, and to touch on the question you had earlier, Kelly about the New York Times. Um So let's level-set everybody here today real quick. So an AI as we know it in Hollywood does not exist, that's fake, right? Um, Magic does not exist. I'm so sorry to break this up with everyone. Uh You know, I'm a major Harry Potter fan. So, um, and AI AI wants to believe in magic, but it doesn't exist if you think we
26:50
Just lost all our kids, we're gone. we just killed
26:54
Everybody. I just I'm not a cab,
26:58
Right?
26:59
Um so, so if you think of it like that, imagine humans. so, as mammals, we're pretty useless. we're, we come out of the womb and we can't feed ourselves, we can't defend ourselves, we can't do anything without care from another human. we're pretty unique in mammals. escape like that. and AI is the same way. and so if you think of AI as a human, it's about three months old, right? Requires a
27:24
A lot of care, but it does talk better than a three month-year-old because uh as a mother, ai was shocked at how little newborns can do or say just
27:37
I think like somebody, I mean somebody online and I feel bad. I should figure out who it was and not take credit for this and give them credit. but they said emotional intelligence is what's missing and still and that's true. so like we're short on the e I, you know.
27:51
Yes, I would assume that is yeah, very. but
27:54
Also, you made me think of silicon valley because like have you guys seen it when they fall in love with Fiona?
28:01
Yeah. Weird.
28:05
Ok. So let's talk, let's talk a little bit about how to go to market professionals, right? practice before they even use it, right? like practice, understanding how to evoke nostalgia there. Let's call it to copy or creative or in all their communications, right? Like, before I train the A I AI needs to be somebody who, who is something like that because I feel like A I is hard to get into a place where people are not gonna be scared or be super fans and stuff like that, right? Like, but I think the basics are still like you as a human also need to be cognizant of these things. And so do you have any thoughts on that case?
28:49
Yeah. So I'll give you some quick takeaways. so, the rules that I use are written down and I give workshops. That's how Crystal and I met. I did a workshop for um HubSpot academy on the rules. So I'll just kind of give you an example of one. um so, when I write, I like to drop a lot of these, these things, these kinds of nuggets into um
into the, to the mix, right? So here I'm just gonna read you a social post I wrote. Um So why, how's the weather the simplest, most powerful question still? Plus other sales and marketing pro tips. That'll make you go hm, with AI and Kaa Allison. So, what I'm doing here is a couple of things. First of all, um I'm asking the question, why when you use, why it's always followed by because we all know this, right? So I'm just tapping in on something that everybody knows a very familiar kind of thing. And it's, it's tricky like that because I said, why, how's the weather is still the most powerful question? But I didn't give the because I hid the because behind the link, right? Very tricky there. And then I'm, I'm using a question, a double question. How is the weather? Is a question framed inside the question? Right? And that is a great way of making people sort of lean forward. They want an answer to the question I'm saying it still is. I'm making a statement here. So the statement, even though it's in the form of a question, can convey authority. But I'm, I'm subtly, I'm not undercutting my authority, but I'm giving you an access point. So you don't feel like I'm commanding you into oblivion because I'm couching it in the face of a question.
The other thing that I'm doing is I'm referencing the nineties tips that'll make you go. Hm. Right. And then I also am referencing the seventies. I think of myself as Miss Piggy a lot and I refer to myself as, HS A, there's a whole lot packed into there.
30:48
Incredible
30:51
That is. yeah. and, and, and so I ai I guess the question becomes as people go down this path, right? Eventually, you also hit a milestone or maybe like a blocker or maybe like a point where you're like am I gonna lose too much of who I am as I'm going down this path? Right? And, I wanna come to the technology piece of this in a little bit. But I just want to stay focused on the person because again, like I said earlier my firm belief is that like every salesperson, if they do not learn marketing they are just gonna be done, right? Like, like and so, but these things like writing, effective copy, and writing, understanding how creative works, like is important, right? And so, but on that journey, you can lose yourself.
31:40
It's, I just had, I think it's so interesting because, on the one hand, the goal is to establish trust, right? And there's this concept of being an authentic person, but then taking these like 15-20 tips and tools and changing your content um smacks of artifice. Now, does that mean it's wrong? I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, it isn't, right? And obviously, um You know, I think people who are marketing on behalf of companies and brands expect to do some measure of sort of changing their voice to fit the brand, having said that AI does think marketers choose to work at companies where there's an alignment between their authentic self and the brand, right? So AI used to work at a branding agency and we did a lot of B to BS, but we also did some direct-to-consumer. And I remember doing craft beer because it was just a branding-like commitment. So it was like 3-6 months in one project. AI was OK to do it. But I was like, never in a million years. Would I like to work full-time for this company? Because I'm not hip in this way. I'm not cool and like that was the brand's voice. It felt very artificial to me.
Um, which doesn't mean it can't be done, right? But, it feels inauthentic. So I love Asher's question because I do feel from the human level, even just as a worker. What is the connection in your mind between intentionally thinking about the theater of the mind and using your knowledge of it too, to create trust and connection in such an intentional way?
33:23
Yeah. so, and that's you, it's the nuance there, which is the intention of the persona. So when I'm on the air, you're listening to XM 50 in the loft, right? That's my persona. That's my on-air persona. It's me, but it's just, it's a different slice of me, the person that I just read to you online. That's me. But that's very specifically my online persona.
Right. It's not, it's like, you know when we go to a wedding and I put on a dress and heels, my elbows are off the table, you know until we've had too much champagne, probably. But I, and I'm sitting up straight, you know, all those things. But, you know, tonight on the couch I'm going to be in my jammies and
having tequila with no mixer. Probably because that's how I feel like rolling on Friday night. You know, so I think it's the, and, and David Mirman Scott, by the way, is the same way. The guy who's on stage is a different guy that I, you know, went for a hike within Woodstock a couple of months ago with.
34:32
Right. I think that's a super valid point. and I think if you look at method actors, that's extreme, right? because they're acting, but they're adopting and living another persona in their life. but, when you think about how people live and work right now, right? your job may be, let's just say 50 hours of your, of your week, right? um, that's a lot of time to embody what may only be 10% of your personality.
35:03
Um Yeah, I mean, that's The game, right? like you're right when you're in sales, especially though you're, you have to turn it on. For example, at the end of the day, I always sit and watch tv, because I just talked all day long. I'm on all day long. I'm putting on a show here. I'm putting on a show with investors. I'm putting on my CEO hat with my team. like I gotta be these different people all day long and it's, it's effort, you know, major, you have
35:30
To put a show on, you know, what, what, what if people that's just who you were and maybe that's where you ultimately are.
35:38
Yeah, I mean, I'm cheap eating it by saying that it is who I am. but it's, it's a certain part of me that I need to highlight to get this specific thing done, right? Because I mean our whole lives, I believe this is gonna make somebody mad. I feel like everybody's life is about getting something done. We're all trying to get something done, lots of things done. And so communication is about that objective. AI Wants you to love me. I want you to take out the trash. I want you to make the sale. AI wants you to fund my company, whatever it is. I want you to be a good guest on my show and you have to change. Do you have to think about how I get that person to do what you want specifically? Because the way I motivate Kelly is different from the way I motivate Asher, right? And if you, if you're not doing that, it's not gonna work for you. That's why some people are good at this and some people are not.
36:33
That's interesting. um, I have a very hard time thinking that way, but I will say I know that this quote costs me even in my job, which is not, is not a sales job. and that's also why I know I'd be a terrible salesperson because I feel like I am too honest of a person. um and don't have very I don't have very good air. wait for a second, I know this well, but I'm going on, it's hilarious. Where are we
37:06
Going to this podcast?
37:08
I know I was a philosophy major and I feel like this episode is about my college. so we just
37:15
Went from like, let's help you be the best version of you to like salespeople are liars. got
37:21
It. No, no, they're, they're one part of themselves to get the job done, which I think is an accurate team. I think. So.
37:31
Kelly though. you sorry, real quick, you can, you, you were very intelligent clearly. and so, you know, to lean on that skill when you, when you need something that, that you can use it for. so like I put both feet in my mouth most of the time I just do, but I use it right because I already know that's my default. That just is how AI is. And so that kind of, uh, Shucks whoops charm. Like it gets me a lot of stuff. I mean, it does. Right. So, I don't, I don't bother to correct it because she works for me.
38:04
Ai I think, I think where I'm at in this podcast is like, if you want to exist, you're very welcome to, like, just be you and just be all about you and just go through life and you're gonna achieve some level of success. We just don't know what it is, right? And you achieve it all right. But if you want to live right, then you must care. And if you must care, then there's no similar level of caring. If you either care or you just don't care. And if you'd care, you must deliver your thoughts in a way that people would talk to themselves, and understanding where they're coming from personally and professionally is important. And when you do that, it'll start showing up in your copy and your creative, which if you're a salesperson, you need to be able to present your thoughts in the way that other people know how to understand because you are trying to get them to understand your point of view. And if you are a marketer, you must write extremely amazing, clear specific copy. It doesn't have to be hype, but it has to be very clear and you are not gonna be able to write it if you don't know where they're coming from, right? And so The two skills have to come together literally this day because we were just talking about this yesterday as well. It's like copywriting, and creative presenting. If you just do those, those 23 things, well, from the perspective of how another person likes to hear about themselves, from their perspective, you will win, right? And, and that's what I think that the, the where we are in this like economic slowdown, et cetera, et cetera. We said, whatever you wanna call it, right is we have an opportunity to actually live and not just exist, which I think was what we were already doing because it's all about his T two D three. This, this, this, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow and you just don't have to live by those rules anymore. You can just become an amazing copywriter, an amazingly creative person, and an amazing presenter and most people will do well just by being better than average on these three skill sets. What do you think?
40:16
I think that I was just like I was thinking about the mirror as you were saying that, right? so everybody likes to look in the mirror because we're narcissists and you know, like you
40:28
Fault, you know, throwing that out, everybody listening, you're a narcissist, you
40:34
Know, well, because on zoom is, you know, here we are. what are we on, we're not on zoom but like, it's the same idea, like
40:39
Which part of
40:41
We're gonna have to go to confession after
40:43
This. she's like, there's no magic. you're all narcissists, Jesus.
40:54
But I mean, you know, so you're, you're looking at, how often do you look at people in the air on camera? you're, you're looking at yourself. I mean, this, it just happens. we can't, we're, that's human nature. and so it's like generally speaking, people like to talk about themselves. Everybody knows that you go to a party, you just ask questions and you're off, you know, you're off to the races. Um So I think like, so, so there's that obvious thing, but the other thing you made me think about was, um, I don't know if it's, it's like to, to me to be human and to be good at your job, which is kind of tied together. You want to, you're always aspiring to be better, right? Like that's part of the human experience. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to try to get onto the road. You know, that's the road you're on, it's like getting 1% better every day or whatever the mantra is there. And um if you're, I mean, you're just, you're not living if that's not in your, in your aspect. So if you want, why wouldn't you want to be a better communicator? Which by default makes you a better salesperson because all communication is some kind of sale. Right. Get me to do something. Give me your money,
42:05
I believe would be an amazing salesperson if she wanted to. but she doesn't want to be that. So that's the problem. yeah. so, I agree with you. I think I think it, it, like, it's like everybody wants to do better. I think it's also trained behavior because we've been trained like that through school. Right. But I think everybody just wants to live because, and if, if all the constructs that we've been taught just vanished away, it vanished. Right. We would just actually act like normal people. Right? Like, let's go live and build shared experiences and some of those are gonna be great and some of those aren't gonna be great, but the ones that aren't great, we're just gonna learn from them and not do them again because that's how humans are trained. Right? Like, when the first time you hit fire or you touch fire, you're like, oh, shit, this, I'm just not gonna do that again and it just doesn't make any sense. Right. And so, yeah. Or, or if like, like, um, right. I mean, this is going to resonate with a few people, hopefully, and not alienate people. Like we've been doing the, the rest, the rest of this podcast, like,
43:13
Get a title for this podcast.
43:15
You're all narcissists and there's no magic as you,
43:22
As you go through life, right? and for the folks that have kids, right? like, like more people have two kids than have like three kids, right? but the, the, the thing here is like after you've had a couple of kids, right? And you try to get your life back together, most people I believe don't have kids after that because they're like, oh, we understood that experience. It was great, but we also understand that we want to live the rest of our life also with shared experiences with the, with the and a lot of the families that do and I'm sure there's data around this, but like a lot of the families that go in that direction do end up creating like being very invested in their kids and then the kids become amazing humans that they go on to do great, great things versus the people that like falter back on. And uh you know, have a, have a lot more kids. And again, as I said, this is probably a very controversial statement to make. The goal here is that the body is designed to not do things when it learns that like that, there's a better way to do things, right? Um, So I'll pause there because I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of hate mail on this one.
44:25
Yeah, I mean I think you hope that people learn. I mean, that's, that's, not everybody I feel has that great skill there. and I think that is a skill. You know, we've been talking about that um in my company as well. Like I've said before, when we hire people, our expectation is that the worst mistake you will make is still gonna be just fine. Right. So we very much prize the idea of just doing it, figuring it out as I'll ask for permission. No. You know, don't, don't ask permission, ask, ask for forgiveness and just go make a bunch of mistakes and learn from them. And whenWe know right away when we meet people and we've hired them and that's not working out because it's a, it's a, it shows us that they can't self learn in this way and in the startup, we don't have time to teach them, right. So it's a, it's a, it's a super catch-22 because not everybody is built like that, which is understandable. There's nothing wrong with that. But um too, you know, fail fast and fix it.
45:28
It would be ok in another company, just not in a startup. And then again, I think I intentionally understand why you are in a situation that is designed to grow fast and make it or break it, right? Like I don't think a lot of people understand it's actually like when this whole S V B debacle happened, right? And I was standing in line outside of S V B and there's gonna be founders and I'm just like, 40% of your people should never have raised money because you just added a lot of like, like anxiety into your life and a lot of like urgency in your life for no reason because they were gonna be ok. And then when you ask them like, hey, how much money do you want in life? They would throw these random numbers out and they're like, well, they didn't even know what they would do with it, right? And so like the whole intentionality about like, why am I even in the startup? And does the startup align with what I want to do? And then the values of the company aligned with what I am. If a lot more people kind of started dating this stuff out, you would have a lot more success than the scary stories that we hear. And uh and, and, and I do think that that's where we are right now. Like people are questioning, why are they even in this thing specifically. Because a lot of founders return money that they raise from, from uh from, from the venture? Yeah, I mean there's a lot of that happening right now.
46:46
Yeah. um what do you, what are you gonna say, kelly, you look inspired.
46:50
Oh, I wasn't inspired by that. I've been thinking about something else I want to go back to for a while. so, if you have a response, but ai but I agree. I would just say I agree that not everyone, um, fits in an early-stage startup, and nor does everyone have that sort of need to progress. I think probably the three of us do, um, on this call, but I do, I think that's a personality trait. I think some people are very content to go into the same office and do their work and get off at five PM. Don't think about it again until nine the next morning.
Um which again is fine. I don't think that society needs all different personality types, right? Like you gotta fit in where you go and, and that's how society runs. But um but what I want to return to is this personalization thread, right? So I feel like in marketing, we're in very early days around personalization. So what we have are websites that can personalize based on who's visiting. Um, That's probably the most interesting thing that I think has some wide level of adoption. We have smart content and emails as well where we can flip up the content, depending on who's receiving it. Um, Sales. Um, There's a wide spectrum. You still see a lot of people's company first names, like a very rudimentary attempt at personalization, even though everyone I think acknowledges its table states to use it in marketing and sales. Um But when you look industry-wide, I would say we're not that far down that journey yet. I think I could open up a ton of really amazing but potentially um hard to manage possibilities of say LinkedIn eventually making it where you can change up your post to be surfacing to different audiences that you've selected, right? What's interesting is a lot of what I hear you saying with the theater of the mind is about tapping into those individual triggers, right? So some people might not um know much about seventies bands or um miss piggy and like, so those things aren't gonna be as much of a sticky for them. Um, It might still be endearing because it is. But like I, I, I think if we go far down that road of personalization powered by programmatic um tools, essentially, we could see a world where companies can whip up a crazy level of personalization and have their brand voice kind of modified in the way that you were saying earlier where you have a slightly different brand voice to persona X um to your web person, but then to the marketer or the salesperson, your brand voice changes a little bit. So I'd love to hear your thoughts as someone who's probably at the forefront of thinking about those issues. Um, where are you, we, and do you agree with kind of how I describe the landscape, and then where do you think we're going? Yeah.
49:58
I love the way you speak. I'm, I'm stealing little ideas from you all the whole time by the way.
50:07
Um, ai do agree
50:10
With you. I mean, the, you know, so, yes, I, I feel like the, the general, the personalization or customization now is fairly rudimentary. we, we're all on to it, right? um and which is why we like it, we haven't sent any cold emails. like we're doing one weird experiment at the moment which I don't want to be doing at all, but a long story while we're doing it. Um So, you know, open A I um can't customize your voice right now. It can't understand your audience because there's no learning, learning loop of data there. So, you know, you and I put in the same um inputs. Generally, we'll get the same outputs. It's very much like cliff notes, right? With the Chat G BT You know, we were in their closed beta when it was Chat GP T two. So four years ago. Um So we're, we're O G s but, but all these others, even Jasper, by the way, included, like they can't, they don't own the engine. Chat G BT is an engine that everybody, it's a car they're driving, they can change the color of the paint of the car, that's it. And the engine also only has data that's always a year old. So it's not up to date, right? So my machine learning and natural language processing is nine years old and it's mine.
The whole engine is mine, right? Um And then because we're able to customize your voice, you're making fun of me, learn, learn your voice, and learn your audience. Um, My friends at Microsoft were asking me like, how can lately expand the impact of open And this is how, right? So I'm, I'm convinced that I'm not even convinced I Know that the future of AI is AI and humans together. I've already been living that for nine years and everyone else has to catch up.
52:05
So get with it. you're holding society back.
52:11
I don't want to, we're gonna run, run, run out of time. um but
52:17
I didn't realize,
52:19
Yeah, as, as, as we, as we, as we're working through this whole AI thing. I do believe that there is the concept of private AI that it's gonna come up at some point in time and it's because of what you just said, there's gonna be models that are just very customized for certain situations, right? But there are also people's data that they're just not gonna be comfortable putting in, sharing it across. Let's call it the escrow of data that we are feeding into this giant A I Right. And so, it happened with clouds also, right? I mean, it's no different than that. And by the way, data scientists have been working on things like this forever, I mean, and, and that's kind of the basis of all A I anyways. Right. And so, the, the, the, um, the, like there's the general consumption, let's call it an AI. That will help us do things better. But then there will be this niche A I that is designed for certain scenarios. And um and I, and, and maybe like, like, I don't know, at some point in time, all it's just an AI and like all this stuff. But I, don't think that's shortly that's gonna be AAA thing, but to answer the personalization question, at least from my viewpoint, it's like, well, if everybody uses the same per uh a personalization for an AI and the AI is designed to like, look at what, what's the trending topic, then we're kind of back into like unpersons, emails anyways because they're all gonna look like the same thing and they're gonna be like spam, you know, like in a way like you sure.
53:48
They're all talking pickles to each other. exactly. exactly. one great loop of pickles. no, but that answered your question. It's these unique data sets, right? that could, could provide the competitive edge for people, to go ahead, which it sounds like that's how kate's tool works, essentially making a person the best version of themselves while no one else is taking all of those person posts and, and viewing them. Although things that are public in the future may indeed be consumed in other, other places. But I think there's always additional data that, for example, you could be pulling from people's um papers, how they are in their slack internal channels, talking like wherever they want to get like a unique data set.
54:36
All right, I don't have one minute left. so if it's ok, we're gonna have to bring the cake back on, on, on because I, I think in this journey of how do we use AI uh uh I AI Think there's like other learnings that, that, that we get. But Kate, before we let you go outside of Mr. David, remember Scott, are there two other people that you would recommend bringing on the show now that you know how Kelly and I do these things
55:03
Won't be turned off by our conversation.
55:09
Well, for sure, my friend David Allison, who I mentioned um he consults the United Nations and values graphics is his baby. it's the death of demographics, right? so it's the idea of predicting human behavior based on what they care about as opposed to their name and their, their, their date of birth or their um sex or their location because you know, the three of us are in different places. We all look different. we're different ages, and we come from different backgrounds, but we have a lot of commonalities we discovered here today, right? And so it's much more valuable to understand how we're making decisions based on what we care about than our eye color. Um So definitely David would be a good one and then I'm going to have to think about the other one.
Ok? Let me get back to you. Um, AI Wanna, I wanna recommend a wonderful woman and I'm trying to decide which one. So let me, let me get back to
56:04
You can, you can recommend you also, you know, we're here all day. well, not all
56:08
Day. a will send you fake personalized cold emails following up for your third one, your name.
56:20
Ok? Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed being a guest on our podcast as well and we've enjoyed learning from you.
56:29
Yeah, back to you guys, you guys are super cool and I hope I get to meet you in person sometime. cheers.
56:35
Awesome. Thank you so much.
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