Aug. 22, 2021

Using AI to Create Content for Social Media with Kate Bradley Chernis

Using AI to Create Content for Social Media with Kate Bradley Chernis
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Season 6

In episode 85, host Eric Dickmann interviews Kate Bradley Chernis. Kate is the Founder & CEO of Lately, the only social media management platform that creates content for you with the power of A.I. As a former marketing agency owner, Kate initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart, and got them a 130% ROI, year-over-year for three years. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM radio.

She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer, and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales, and marketing expertise.

For show notes and a list of resources mentioned in this episode, please visit: https://fiveechelon.com/using-ai-create-content-for-social-media-s6ep4/

Send us your questions or comments

A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire.

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https://fiveechelon.com


WEBVTT

00:00:31.339 --> 00:00:33.590
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.

00:00:33.829 --> 00:00:35.564
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.

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In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business.

00:00:48.310 --> 00:00:51.009
Hey, Kate, welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.

00:00:51.009 --> 00:00:52.719
I'm so glad you could join us today.

00:00:52.924 --> 00:00:53.644
Hey there, Eric.

00:00:53.704 --> 00:00:55.835
Thank you so much, it's my pleasure.

00:00:55.835 --> 00:01:00.125
As we're all like settling into hopefully a COVID free summer, right?

00:01:00.349 --> 00:01:04.359
Oh I know, and a crazy summer too, with a wild weather everywhere.

00:01:04.409 --> 00:01:11.204
I went to go out to eat on Friday and it was hard to get in any place because the lines were just out the door.

00:01:11.385 --> 00:01:14.655
There's so much anticipation for getting back to normal.

00:01:14.775 --> 00:01:15.224
It's good though.

00:01:15.224 --> 00:01:16.094
The demand.

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Isn't it so interesting to see how all of that is so volatile, sensitive, you know.

00:01:21.465 --> 00:01:26.944
And I mean if hairdressers and restaurants didn't feel loved previously..

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Certainly.

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The ones that are left at least, uh.

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It's sad to see how many empty shops there are and businesses that have closed.

00:01:36.134 --> 00:01:40.524
But I'm a big fan of Scott Galloway and The Pivot Podcast.

00:01:40.780 --> 00:01:47.950
And you know one of the things he talks about is that, you know, this is providing opportunities for new people to get in there and start businesses too.

00:01:47.950 --> 00:01:54.619
So well, it's sad to see some go, it's providing a great opportunity for many new entrepreneurs to get in there and start their own businesses.

00:01:55.159 --> 00:02:05.018
Yeah, it does feel like lots of this change was already underway and the pandemic just accaelerated you know good or bad some of these things.

00:02:05.078 --> 00:02:06.048
No absolutely.

00:02:06.487 --> 00:02:14.200
And you know, there's this whole concept behind, you know, if I've got a business, you know, should you be entitled to keep a business that runs on razor thin margins?

00:02:14.229 --> 00:02:16.030
Well, you know, maybe not.

00:02:16.030 --> 00:02:18.039
Maybe not every business is meant to succeed.

00:02:19.185 --> 00:02:20.354
Sounds like a startup.

00:02:20.509 --> 00:02:20.670
Yeah.

00:02:20.670 --> 00:02:21.090
Yeah.

00:02:21.564 --> 00:02:22.075
That's right.

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That's very much like a startup.

00:02:24.895 --> 00:02:27.295
Hey, I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

00:02:27.325 --> 00:02:28.735
You know, first of all, you're everywhere.

00:02:28.735 --> 00:02:41.575
I see you out there on social media, which is good, given that you're a social media technology provider, but you know, you have really embraced podcasting and the benefits of being a guest on podcasts.

00:02:41.725 --> 00:02:50.125
And I'd love just to hear about your thought process there and how you sort of looked at podcasting as a way to sort of build your personal brand and then also help your business.

00:02:50.645 --> 00:02:50.975
Sure.

00:02:50.975 --> 00:02:53.860
Well, thanks for asking me to be your guest, of course.

00:02:54.570 --> 00:02:57.580
Well, number one, like work what you got.

00:02:57.610 --> 00:03:01.060
I mean I did have this other life in radio.

00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:05.290
My last gig was broadcasting to 20 million listeners a day for XM.

00:03:05.920 --> 00:03:12.130
So of course I love the power of sound in general and broadcast medium.

00:03:12.790 --> 00:03:19.270
And I got good at that, and my super power, although it's a cliche to use that phrase, but my superpower is making fans.

00:03:19.750 --> 00:03:21.490
And so listeners into fans, right?

00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:23.469
Customers into evangelists, same idea.

00:03:23.920 --> 00:03:26.380
So let's lean into, that was my first idea.

00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:28.780
And then this is content for me, Eric right?

00:03:29.050 --> 00:03:35.860
So to be really honest, I'm not just doing it to be cool or you know, to be seen or heard.

00:03:36.350 --> 00:03:37.750
We use it all as lead gen.

00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:41.439
So I'm going to ask you for the file afterwards and hopefully you'll give it to me.

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And then I'm going to run it through the AI of Lately.

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Lately is going to dice up everything we say into the coolest quotes with matching video clips.

00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:55.750
And then I'm going to use that to go and get our customers.

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And this process that we use gives us a 98% sales conversion.

00:04:01.180 --> 00:04:03.000
Let me just say that again for people.

00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:04.250
That's amazing! 98%.

00:04:04.270 --> 00:04:04.450
Yep.

00:04:05.980 --> 00:04:14.020
So it's selfish and it doesn't matter to me whether you have 200 listeners or a 20,000, because the content is what you know what works.

00:04:14.409 --> 00:04:17.079
why I don't look at it as selfish at all, I look at it as smart.

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You know, you're taking advantage of a channel that is growing in popularity.

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You know as a podcaster, who's been doing this for a little while now, I am really excited about what's going on because we've got you know, Spotify making big moves, they're pushing Apple to make big moves, now you've got Facebook getting into the game.

00:04:34.728 --> 00:04:41.199
There's a lot going on, which is going to give more channels, more opportunities to creators, more ways of getting the message out.

00:04:41.624 --> 00:04:47.383
And that sort of leads me into, you know, what do you think the state of social media is right now?

00:04:47.383 --> 00:04:51.764
It seems like these platforms are really investing in themselves.

00:04:51.764 --> 00:05:01.483
Twitter finally sort of got off their ass, if you will, and is starting to make some investments in that platform with spaces and subscriptions, and things like that.

00:05:01.813 --> 00:05:05.764
Is this a great time to be using these platforms?

00:05:06.443 --> 00:05:07.413
Isn't it interesting, right?

00:05:07.413 --> 00:05:09.799
So like there, it remains to be seen.

00:05:09.799 --> 00:05:13.399
So Clubhouse seems pretty dead actually, but they certainly stood at a fire.

00:05:13.704 --> 00:05:17.694
And we don't know if everybody's just piling on to be copycats.

00:05:17.935 --> 00:05:30.444
I was most excited to see Spotify in that race, because I think they can do it best because I believe that Spotify understands the theater of the mind and the artistry of sound more than anyone.

00:05:30.865 --> 00:05:31.944
I really do believe that.

00:05:31.944 --> 00:05:34.674
And that's what makes it magic, right?

00:05:34.704 --> 00:05:38.964
You can't just, it's not just the platform or the media or the medium itself.

00:05:39.444 --> 00:05:48.305
You know what the potential is and how well it bridges the gap between art and science or human and technology, right?

00:05:48.794 --> 00:05:54.294
And then the other thing I was thinking about when you're saying this is LinkedIn, right?

00:05:54.294 --> 00:05:59.544
So LinkedIn just like put out all these new algorithms, they just tanked my experience there.

00:05:59.544 --> 00:06:04.134
So LinkedIn, as everybody knows, the last couple of years has been this like super high engagement.

00:06:04.134 --> 00:06:06.264
You could get like organic reach all day long.

00:06:06.774 --> 00:06:10.375
And then they actually put the kibosh on like all the stuff I was doing.

00:06:10.375 --> 00:06:19.555
Like, so my team piles on everything, we do use it for lots of lead gens, but it also forced me to participate in like, be a really super active member.

00:06:20.004 --> 00:06:25.245
And because the new algorithms are giving me probably a third or quarter of the organic reach.

00:06:25.245 --> 00:06:29.724
I've had before, I'm looking to other platforms, right?

00:06:30.414 --> 00:06:31.375
So, duh.

00:06:31.464 --> 00:06:32.245
I'm pretty mad at them.

00:06:33.038 --> 00:06:35.498
No, LinkedIn can be a challenging platform, right?

00:06:35.498 --> 00:06:36.878
You know they're a little slow.

00:06:36.878 --> 00:06:39.698
Look at what they've done with their stories feature.

00:06:39.908 --> 00:06:43.538
It's pretty basic, pretty primitive, not a lot of people are really engaged with it.

00:06:43.778 --> 00:06:53.889
I've been trying to get into their live streaming video forever in a day, and it's been in beta for years, and they just can't seem to get out of it and allow more creators to get on the platform.

00:06:54.218 --> 00:06:54.908
Which is too bad.

00:06:54.908 --> 00:06:57.209
I don't know why they move so slowly.

00:06:57.329 --> 00:06:58.439
Yeah, they're very tight string.

00:06:58.469 --> 00:07:01.409
I mean, it's, you know, remember when they first got breached a while ago.

00:07:01.409 --> 00:07:03.419
I mean ever since then, they've just been sort of tight.

00:07:03.779 --> 00:07:06.599
Around it and believe me, same frustration as a startup.

00:07:06.599 --> 00:07:19.769
You know, for most of these platforms, in case anybody's wondering out there, if you pay lots of advertising, like half a million or more a month, then you get to become a quote partner and you get access to all these goodies and the rest of us have to just sweat it out, right?

00:07:19.769 --> 00:07:24.859
So they're really putting the kibosh on the underdog, which is annoying to me.

00:07:24.859 --> 00:07:26.789
But anyways, we will find a way.

00:07:26.789 --> 00:07:31.289
I mean you know, social, it's so funny, Eric like, social media.

00:07:31.709 --> 00:07:37.949
Everything is social, sales is social, humans are social, obviously, you know, if you didn't realize that in this point pandemic, then what the hell?

00:07:37.979 --> 00:07:39.599
Even dogs are freaking out a little bit.

00:07:39.599 --> 00:07:40.889
They didn't know how to behave suddenly.

00:07:41.378 --> 00:07:42.088
It's so true.

00:07:43.008 --> 00:07:43.198
Right?

00:07:44.168 --> 00:07:53.349
So it's not new, but again, it's the medium or the media that's providing us either better, faster, or easier ways to do it.

00:07:53.849 --> 00:08:07.349
It's really as you can tell, I'm really excited about the potential for more and more people and the mindset toto make that art part of the default, right?

00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:12.299
Because generally as humans, we tend to science everything to death.

00:08:12.303 --> 00:08:12.853
That's true.

00:08:13.349 --> 00:08:13.649
Right?

00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:18.750
And I believe that the pandemic has helped shift some of that, right?

00:08:19.469 --> 00:08:20.430
You know, thank God.

00:08:20.979 --> 00:08:21.639
Well, yeah.

00:08:21.669 --> 00:08:22.719
And you know, it's interesting.

00:08:23.044 --> 00:08:24.454
You mentioned Clubhouse before.

00:08:24.454 --> 00:08:29.824
And my personal feeling is that one of the reasons that Clubhouse took off is people were dying for engagement, right?

00:08:29.824 --> 00:08:32.615
They wanted to be able to personally connect with other people.

00:08:32.884 --> 00:08:35.315
And that was the right tool at the right time to do it.

00:08:35.735 --> 00:08:38.705
And actually their success is partly what hindered them.

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As they got bigger, it.

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became harder to actually engage with anybody because the room sizes would get so big.

00:08:44.674 --> 00:08:53.524
So you know, maybe they had their moment in the sun and now people are going back to some of these more traditional channels, but they're obviously opening up new ways to interact as well.

00:08:53.825 --> 00:09:00.125
And you talked a little bit before about how you would use the content from this podcast for promotion.

00:09:00.485 --> 00:09:04.774
How important has video now become for what you're doing at Lately?

00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:08.509
You know, it's so interesting.

00:09:08.899 --> 00:09:13.889
A couple ways, number one, video changed the market for us, right?

00:09:13.889 --> 00:09:18.539
So last year we had a confluence of events happening.

00:09:18.659 --> 00:09:23.399
One is we released a video feature where we clip up the video quotes, right?

00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:26.189
And make you hundreds of mini movie trailers, essentially.

00:09:26.699 --> 00:09:38.460
And that inspired Gary Vaynerchuk to create an entire Twitter channel fueled 100% by Lately's video clips that got him a 12000% increase in engagement.

00:09:38.819 --> 00:09:40.919
So social proof is good.

00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:48.409
And then using dog food in our own products, so doing exactly talked about before on this podcast, gave us more social proof.

00:09:48.409 --> 00:09:56.914
And also in two ways because people can see our product in action.

00:09:57.059 --> 00:09:59.519
So I was able to cut out kind of the middleman.

00:10:00.259 --> 00:10:03.059
And video's cool, right?

00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:03.919
It is cool.

00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:05.860
I like audio better than video.

00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:09.299
I mean to be really honest, I do because you have to work harder.

00:10:09.329 --> 00:10:10.409
It's like reading, right?

00:10:10.409 --> 00:10:19.259
So there's a part of your imagination that has to participate in the products to product process to close the loop there, right?

00:10:19.350 --> 00:10:20.529
The theater of the mind.

00:10:21.329 --> 00:10:22.720
And I'm in love with that.

00:10:22.740 --> 00:10:37.169
I think it's so fascinating that you, Eric, when you wield the mic as the host, you've got this really beautiful, almost visceral kind of power that you can leverage or not leverage, right?

00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:39.870
The skill is how do you leverage it?

00:10:40.139 --> 00:10:46.759
But to make me feel or the listener feel as though we have a voice with you.

00:10:48.283 --> 00:10:49.122
Well, I love that.

00:10:49.122 --> 00:10:52.242
And I think that it's that human connection, right?

00:10:52.242 --> 00:11:03.432
I think that's part of the reason that video works so well is because people buy from people or they relate to people, and so being able to see you is one way of sort of opening that door so that they can relate to you better.

00:11:03.702 --> 00:11:07.332
But I go back to your DJ days at Sirius XM, right?

00:11:07.513 --> 00:11:10.452
I think about, you know, somebody like a Delilah, right?

00:11:10.452 --> 00:11:12.252
And how popular she was.

00:11:12.252 --> 00:11:13.393
It still is, I guess.

00:11:13.602 --> 00:11:19.122
And it was all about her voice and the way that she related to her audience.

00:11:19.992 --> 00:11:21.852
So it doesn't have to be video.

00:11:21.883 --> 00:11:23.893
You can do it through audio for sure.

00:11:24.009 --> 00:11:24.669
The mystery.

00:11:24.669 --> 00:11:25.659
is what it is, right?

00:11:25.659 --> 00:11:30.179
So you know, my radio voice Eric is a different voice.

00:11:31.804 --> 00:11:32.585
Can you hear that?

00:11:32.644 --> 00:11:34.504
Ah, for sure.

00:11:34.504 --> 00:11:47.221
And it's on purpose, and I had to learn that voice and practice it and figure out what voice was going to be mine so I can communicate the personality that I want to communicate which is authentically me but is very specific.

00:11:47.221 --> 00:11:47.420
It's the one that can talk to a black box of emptiness and twenty million people all at once.

00:11:47.420 --> 00:11:56.615
Which is a different like, you know, that's a different person than the woman you're seeing here.

00:11:57.064 --> 00:12:11.735
You know who can still do those things, but like on stage in front of a couple hundred thousand people, I use different tools in my kit to achieve my objectives whatever they might be.

00:12:11.735 --> 00:12:15.095
So in radio it's to there's some command authority, right?

00:12:15.125 --> 00:12:16.085
I need you to trust me.

00:12:16.085 --> 00:12:17.314
I'm going to take you on a journey.

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You got to be there, stay with me through the songs you don't like, because there's a reason.

00:12:21.574 --> 00:12:24.524
You know, I'm going to deliver you something and there's a reward there, right?

00:12:25.105 --> 00:12:35.674
And how do I do that in a way that I feel is disarming cause disarming makes people trust me, it makes you feel like we have something in common, right?

00:12:35.884 --> 00:12:37.204
That you're human too.

00:12:37.235 --> 00:12:38.794
Anybody could do this thing that I'm doing.

00:12:38.975 --> 00:12:47.345
That really works well for me to figure out what, what kind of little tactics either on the radio or on a stage or on camera can I use to do that?

00:12:47.345 --> 00:12:49.745
So like here, I've got PacMan behind me.

00:12:50.194 --> 00:12:51.454
That's not by accident.

00:12:51.645 --> 00:12:51.975
Yeah.

00:12:53.085 --> 00:12:55.985
Sometimes I change it up, but like I'm a child of the eighties.

00:12:56.074 --> 00:13:01.414
II have a couple of arcade games from when I was young outback.

00:13:01.865 --> 00:13:04.424
And that sucker is Velour Velvet, remember?

00:13:04.424 --> 00:13:04.605
Velur.

00:13:04.605 --> 00:13:04.954
Ooh yeah.

00:13:05.284 --> 00:13:07.914
Remember stuff from yeah what was it?

00:13:08.054 --> 00:13:08.904
Spencer Gifts?

00:13:08.904 --> 00:13:09.424
You're right, exactly.

00:13:09.595 --> 00:13:14.944
But my dad was actually a print retailer in the eighties so that's where I got it from.

00:13:14.944 --> 00:13:19.465
But I do that so that just like you have, you know, cool objects to art behind you.

00:13:19.465 --> 00:13:20.424
I see a flag.

00:13:20.454 --> 00:13:22.225
It looks like a veteran veterans flag back there.

00:13:22.674 --> 00:13:27.625
Um, so talking point, I could ask you, I'm assuming it's a relative of yours, perhaps?

00:13:27.735 --> 00:13:30.042
It's a much longer story, but no it's not.

00:13:30.042 --> 00:13:30.401
Yeah, yeah.

00:13:30.414 --> 00:13:30.684
Yeah.

00:13:30.715 --> 00:13:38.944
So we have to get into it, but at least there's there's these, these are those things that we're all looking for, the access points, you know, in the mystery.

00:13:39.384 --> 00:13:43.585
So the bummer about Zoom, even though we've been doing it for a long time is everybody's doing it now.

00:13:43.914 --> 00:13:45.894
And I'm in my shorts, as you already know.

00:13:46.194 --> 00:13:50.875
Cause I got up to change a couple of times that my hair is messy, but you can see my closet back there in my life.

00:13:50.875 --> 00:13:55.495
And I don't care to polish it up personally because it works for me, right?

00:13:56.004 --> 00:13:58.554
Um, but it's sort of working for everybody, which is annoying.

00:13:58.554 --> 00:14:05.184
So now I have to change it up because I was giving people access to my green room before which was cool, and now it's cliche.

00:14:05.184 --> 00:14:05.764
Hmmm.

00:14:07.404 --> 00:14:08.004
What am I going to do?

00:14:08.034 --> 00:14:08.365
I don't know.

00:14:08.365 --> 00:14:09.235
I haven't figured it out yet.

00:14:09.237 --> 00:14:09.538
No.

00:14:09.538 --> 00:14:20.727
I think that's really interesting though, because when you're talking about voice, I mean, this is really a great segue into starting to talk a little bit more about AI and what AI can do for you.

00:14:20.997 --> 00:14:24.508
But it is something that is truly unique to each of us, right?

00:14:24.508 --> 00:14:27.148
Our voice, how we want to portray ourselves to the market.

00:14:27.298 --> 00:14:34.377
And that's so different for a brand, a brand has a voice and they want to portray themselves to the market in a unique and authentic way.

00:14:34.798 --> 00:14:43.288
And so now when you start to layer on technology to voice and you start to say, okay, here's some really great content that I've written.

00:14:43.288 --> 00:14:44.548
This is in my voice.

00:14:44.727 --> 00:14:53.452
Now I'm going to give it to a machine, and the machine has to regurgitate something back to me that sounds like my voice, and how successful is it?

00:14:54.764 --> 00:14:55.293
Right.

00:14:55.293 --> 00:15:04.114
I mean, for us it's well, there's that 98% sales conversion that we get, and we don't do any paid ads or cold calls or cold emails.

00:15:04.183 --> 00:15:06.943
Now that might change, but we've been able to get away with it so far.

00:15:07.370 --> 00:15:09.409
And I'll describe to you how it works, actually.

00:15:09.409 --> 00:15:12.189
So I was a fiction writing major, Eric.

00:15:13.478 --> 00:15:21.639
Um, so I'm good at writing copy, and I was in radio for a dozen years and I was also the production director at almost every station I worked with.

00:15:21.848 --> 00:15:31.269
That's the person who is in charge of all the commercials,but in also all the station identification sounds like the cool ones, not just the boring ones.

00:15:31.949 --> 00:15:34.838
So what's the audio imagery of the station like?

00:15:34.838 --> 00:15:48.308
So I got to do all that stuff, and for Lately, like the copy that I write for our brand, the organic social posts that I personally write from my channels, Lately studies, the AI studies.

00:15:48.908 --> 00:15:52.298
And I created a series of writing rules based on how I write.

00:15:52.328 --> 00:15:55.688
I actually give workshops about it all the time, but I gave it to my staff.

00:15:56.499 --> 00:16:03.578
And so I asked my copywriters to mimic these rules, which again the AI learns.

00:16:03.578 --> 00:16:11.499
And so it's the first thing that it learns before you the customer log in and give us your access to your analytics.

00:16:11.588 --> 00:16:13.198
So there's a baseline of content.

00:16:13.509 --> 00:16:19.114
Then it starts to study your content and then tweaking your voice but adding on my best practices, cause they work.

00:16:19.933 --> 00:16:26.193
And then it also was able to use the knowledge of all of our customer base as well, right?

00:16:26.943 --> 00:16:38.313
Um, so with us however, the human element is huge and this is a deal breaker for a lot of customers where the AI is designed to get you three quarters of the way there.

00:16:38.973 --> 00:16:45.573
But we insist that you, the human must come in and touch every piece of content it vomits out there.

00:16:45.903 --> 00:16:47.703
For the reasons you all just said, right.

00:16:48.213 --> 00:16:55.754
To give it that context to make sure it is you know on point and then to help it learn, to give your, to put your voice on it.

00:16:56.083 --> 00:16:58.514
That's that magic because we don't want to art science, right?

00:16:58.514 --> 00:16:59.563
We're back at the same thing.

00:16:59.774 --> 00:17:03.563
We know the art is crucial to the sign, so they got to go hand-in-hand.

00:17:06.727 --> 00:17:09.576
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast.

00:17:09.576 --> 00:17:14.437
But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level?

00:17:14.646 --> 00:17:21.007
If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO consulting service may be a great fit for you.

00:17:21.277 --> 00:17:27.187
We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step.

00:17:27.427 --> 00:17:29.977
We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads.

00:17:30.247 --> 00:17:34.386
How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers.

00:17:34.747 --> 00:17:38.317
How to strategically package and position your products and services.

00:17:38.646 --> 00:17:43.057
How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business.

00:17:43.386 --> 00:17:51.156
To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services.

00:17:51.606 --> 00:17:52.866
Now back to the podcast.

00:17:54.913 --> 00:18:10.946
The easiest way that I think I can relate to what I think you're describing here is oftentimes when you outsource content development, maybe to an English speaker in a non sort of US country, you get back the content and it's grammatically correct, but it's not right.

00:18:11.096 --> 00:18:12.237
It's not your voice.

00:18:12.267 --> 00:18:19.836
It's not something that somebody you could send out to the world and then not say, he didn't write that.

00:18:20.354 --> 00:18:20.773
Yeah.

00:18:21.134 --> 00:18:25.854
The AI actually, because it's actually, it's only pulling quotes from you originally.

00:18:25.874 --> 00:18:28.033
So it's actually not rewriting anything, which is great.

00:18:28.483 --> 00:18:30.973
So you know garbage in, garbage out.

00:18:30.973 --> 00:18:39.074
If you're, if you're a good writer from the beginning or a good public speaker from the beginning, Lately will do a really smart job of grabbing exactly what you say.

00:18:39.554 --> 00:18:46.933
Um, and then it's really, it's your role to take out the SOs, the ANDs, the UMs, or use hashtags to contextualize it.

00:18:46.933 --> 00:18:53.243
Because I find that a lot of speaking is nonsequiturs just is, it's the way we talk, right?

00:18:53.263 --> 00:18:56.334
And so you do need to have that component in there.

00:18:57.233 --> 00:19:01.933
We do have a version of the AI that does write from scratch by the way, but that's in private beta.

00:19:02.203 --> 00:19:02.533
Beta.

00:19:02.594 --> 00:19:06.183
So I can't talk about it or I'd have to kill you.

00:19:06.314 --> 00:19:13.033
No, just kidding.But it's funny, and this is the exciting part to me.

00:19:13.033 --> 00:19:26.564
I love watching the way customers are thinking about what we're making and turning it into things we didn't intend or expect, right?

00:19:26.638 --> 00:19:28.229
Can you give me an example of that?

00:19:28.604 --> 00:19:29.354
Yeah.

00:19:29.384 --> 00:19:34.394
Um, well, first of all, we had people start using Lately in multiple languages.

00:19:34.423 --> 00:19:38.743
So like suddenly, I saw someone, I saw a Portuguese tweets go out on account that I knew it was ours.

00:19:38.743 --> 00:19:39.763
And I was like, what.

00:19:40.304 --> 00:19:41.533
And they just decided to try it.

00:19:41.683 --> 00:19:49.293
They put in a blog, press the button Lately,

00:19:56.874 --> 00:20:08.733
See what happens.

00:20:08.733 --> 00:20:08.824
Yeah.

00:20:08.993 --> 00:20:10.793
Lately pulls them all out.

00:20:10.824 --> 00:20:12.241
We do Japanese, German, French, and whole bunch of other ones now, which is crazy.

00:20:12.241 --> 00:20:12.454
The other we saw was a customer who started to reverse engineer the product.

00:20:12.454 --> 00:20:12.474
So they would go to the

00:20:12.474 --> 00:20:12.475
analytics.

00:20:12.475 --> 00:20:12.489
Lately is studying the keywords and phrases, and sentence structures of social posts that you produce that get you

00:20:12.489 --> 00:20:13.449
the highest engagement.

00:20:14.019 --> 00:20:23.828
And then it applies that writing model to whatever long form content you feed our AI brain and pulls out the best quotes based on that, that model, right?

00:20:24.189 --> 00:20:26.019
And so we show you the model..

00:20:26.769 --> 00:20:28.658
And it's updated in real time every day.

00:20:28.658 --> 00:20:29.949
So it's somewhere you want to look.

00:20:30.338 --> 00:20:33.459
And so they were looking at the, we call it it's a word cloud, basically.

00:20:33.999 --> 00:20:34.598
And thought.

00:20:34.749 --> 00:20:41.469
Huh, you know, if this is the keywords and phrases that I already know, my audience wants to talk about.

00:20:42.009 --> 00:20:46.179
I'm going to make this the topic of my podcast or I'm going to rewrite my blog.

00:20:46.179 --> 00:20:49.653
So it emphasizes these things more, right?

00:20:50.403 --> 00:20:53.913
Yeah, because I mean, if it works, why, why guess?

00:20:54.183 --> 00:20:55.953
If it's right there in front of you, right?.

00:20:56.374 --> 00:20:57.723
And I was doing this by hand.

00:20:58.023 --> 00:20:59.253
Um, Just so

00:20:59.366 --> 00:21:00.346
Prior to the tool?

00:21:00.814 --> 00:21:01.084
Yeah.

00:21:01.144 --> 00:21:05.554
Like, I don't want to undercut AI, but I do want to demystify it a little bit.

00:21:05.554 --> 00:21:09.584
I mean, I did this process by hand for Walmart for three years.

00:21:09.604 --> 00:21:14.283
And got, we got 140%, 130% ROI year over year for three years.

00:21:14.552 --> 00:21:15.002
Hmm.

00:21:15.483 --> 00:21:20.158
So, um, you know, AI, good humans, also very good.

00:21:20.573 --> 00:21:23.512
Well, but the combination is really where you get the leverage, right?

00:21:23.512 --> 00:21:30.593
Because if you can get to that 85, 90% level, and then now I'm only spending 10% of my time, just sort of, you know, thumbs up.

00:21:30.833 --> 00:21:33.682
You know, up or down, I think that makes a big difference.

00:21:33.893 --> 00:21:41.603
Are you seeing with your customers that part of the success is this allows them to really ramp up their online presence?

00:21:41.722 --> 00:21:49.462
So you know, where maybe it was solely a human before, you know, they were able to get out a couple of tweets a week or a couple of social media posts a week.

00:21:49.613 --> 00:21:51.653
Now they're doing multiple a day.

00:21:51.772 --> 00:21:55.093
Is that really where you're getting the leverage?

00:21:58.002 --> 00:22:02.692
That's some of it for sure.

00:22:02.863 --> 00:22:05.941
We work with a lot of agencies who are able to upcharge their clients based on least production, right?

00:22:05.941 --> 00:22:06.459
They are able to turn out way more for example and get better results.

00:22:06.459 --> 00:22:11.963
But we also have a syndication capability, Eric, cause we'd discovered that boy, everybody hates writing.

00:22:12.223 --> 00:22:15.153
Takes a lot of time.

00:22:15.153 --> 00:22:15.213
Yeah.

00:22:15.213 --> 00:22:27.533
Whether its sales teams or executives, we were talking about executives earlier, people at the top, and need to look smart on LinkedIn, um, or employees who want to do employee advocacy or influencers.

00:22:27.953 --> 00:22:42.013
So if a CMO can auto-generate content from Lately and then give those people either the content directly or a starting point, then they don't have that fear of like, how do I represent my company well.

00:22:42.689 --> 00:22:45.918
You know or I don't want to say the wrong thing, or I don't want to think about it.

00:22:45.979 --> 00:22:47.439
Fear of the blank pages, you know?

00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:48.439
A 100% real.

00:22:48.720 --> 00:23:00.798
Oh, Oh for sure.

00:23:00.798 --> 00:23:03.168
So yeah again, there's a few more used cases.

00:23:03.168 --> 00:23:04.247
Again by accident, we just hate attention.

00:23:04.247 --> 00:23:12.368
Humans are so inventive and magical themselves, which I love, I know we talked about this and I'm going to touch on it again, like, and I've realized that I'm wearing some rosy glasses over here during the pandemic.

00:23:14.138 --> 00:23:20.939
Um, but it's the thing that's gotten me through is to watch the inventiveness of humans.

00:23:21.004 --> 00:23:26.375
Oh, we're in this total creator economy right now where you know there's just so much opportunity.

00:23:26.800 --> 00:23:32.921
But it also brings up the point that most of these tools that we're using these platforms that we're using to push this out they're free, right?

00:23:32.980 --> 00:23:39.610
Which means that we are the customer so that we they're selling our data as a way to sell other targeted ads and whatnot.

00:23:39.881 --> 00:23:42.671
And this is becoming increasingly more difficult, right?

00:23:42.671 --> 00:23:44.830
As privacy concerns start to ramp up.

00:23:45.161 --> 00:23:54.230
And now, you know, we see Twitter going into the subscription model business, the others you know, we'll see what happens, but there may be more of this on the horizon.

00:23:54.441 --> 00:23:59.050
When you sort of look out, how do you see social media changing?

00:23:59.290 --> 00:24:05.050
Because of some of these changes in privacy laws and just ways to sort of, you know?

00:24:05.050 --> 00:24:09.250
If you're that underdog, how do you get your message through all that noise?

00:24:09.250 --> 00:24:13.889
When these platforms seem to be paying so much attention to only the biggest influencers?

00:24:14.358 --> 00:24:15.739
It's That's the question.

00:24:15.739 --> 00:24:18.769
So there's a couple things you touched on that are interesting to me.

00:24:19.038 --> 00:24:21.138
So the first one is the hard way is the way.

00:24:22.699 --> 00:24:23.598
Just this.

00:24:24.344 --> 00:24:33.144
I mean you know, whether it's going through an email list and hand emailing people individually, as opposed to the blanket blast.

00:24:33.453 --> 00:24:37.364
Cause you know, nobody responds to that, but people respond to you.

00:24:37.503 --> 00:24:38.043
They do.

00:24:38.394 --> 00:24:39.973
We see it all the time with my sales team.

00:24:40.834 --> 00:24:45.523
They'll be talking with somebody and then they get ghosted and then I'll DM the person they respond to me.

00:24:46.663 --> 00:24:47.624
You know, what is that?

00:24:47.624 --> 00:24:48.344
It's humans.

00:24:48.374 --> 00:24:49.223
That's just the deal.

00:24:49.753 --> 00:24:58.749
And the trick is, are you too lazy to want to even consider going the hard way, right?

00:24:59.078 --> 00:25:04.658
What's great about the hard way is it informs how to automate well, right?

00:25:04.719 --> 00:25:07.209
So once you can figure that out, then you can figure out how to scale it.

00:25:07.989 --> 00:25:15.778
Um, but the other thing you talked about there was the onus on the role of the participants, right?.

00:25:15.778 --> 00:25:19.548
So, you know, of course I saw I'm going to say something very unpopular.

00:25:19.848 --> 00:25:24.489
I saw the same Netflix show everybody else did on the social network.

00:25:25.148 --> 00:25:26.528
And I turned it off.

00:25:27.368 --> 00:25:29.709
Not even halfway through, because I was like, this is a bunch of bullshit.

00:25:30.128 --> 00:25:36.308
And, and what it is, and I'm not saying that those guys aren't predatory, they do some nasty stuff, super.

00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:37.118
It's true.

00:25:37.388 --> 00:25:39.038
But what do you think?

00:25:39.429 --> 00:25:40.388
Nothing is for free.

00:25:40.709 --> 00:25:41.269
Hello?

00:25:42.509 --> 00:25:46.749
The role is on you the human to understand what you're trading here.

00:25:47.048 --> 00:25:51.699
Like they, you don't think Mark Zuckerberg is like, he's not Mother Teresa, hello?

00:25:52.088 --> 00:26:00.479
You know, and so I just find people's ability to not want to own up.

00:26:00.509 --> 00:26:01.288
It's like food.

00:26:01.888 --> 00:26:03.118
What I'm 300 pounds.

00:26:03.148 --> 00:26:05.668
Well, you ate a freaking ice cream sundae every day.

00:26:06.989 --> 00:26:07.499
I mean.

00:26:08.158 --> 00:26:11.189
Now yeah, the whole foods is really too expensive.

00:26:11.219 --> 00:26:15.778
It needs to lower their prices to be more available to people with low incomes.

00:26:15.989 --> 00:26:16.679
Absolutely.

00:26:17.308 --> 00:26:17.638
You know?

00:26:18.239 --> 00:26:19.348
I also saw that other movie.

00:26:19.348 --> 00:26:19.739
What was it?

00:26:19.739 --> 00:26:20.449
Supersize Me.

00:26:20.489 --> 00:26:21.608
Supersize Me.

00:26:21.608 --> 00:26:21.939
Yeah.

00:26:22.019 --> 00:26:22.558
Great movie.

00:26:23.838 --> 00:26:25.588
But anyways, and that's the same thing.

00:26:25.588 --> 00:26:28.298
Social just general social media is the same thing.

00:26:28.318 --> 00:26:30.538
People freak out about context all the time.

00:26:30.699 --> 00:26:35.318
I remember, so something people go to the mat with me on his words, words and word choice.

00:26:35.878 --> 00:26:39.358
And I am not very traditional.

00:26:39.358 --> 00:26:40.288
Can you tell, Eric?

00:26:40.769 --> 00:26:41.930
I can tell.

00:26:43.318 --> 00:26:46.618
And, you know, sometimes I'm slightly offensive, maybe very offensive.

00:26:46.618 --> 00:26:46.969
I don't know.

00:26:46.969 --> 00:26:48.318
And I don't really care.

00:26:48.318 --> 00:26:51.298
I've grown up enough to not apologize for that.

00:26:51.328 --> 00:26:56.628
Even when I even embarrassed myself, which does happen a lot.

00:26:56.939 --> 00:26:59.249
But context is everything.

00:26:59.308 --> 00:27:05.729
Every word, every word, even though worst words has a purpose and a place in context.

00:27:06.088 --> 00:27:18.749
And the onus is on me and you to not only as the author of where we're talking about words to put the context there, but it's also on the reader to not jump to an assumption.

00:27:19.288 --> 00:27:22.648
To think about what is the real intention, you know?

00:27:22.679 --> 00:27:30.689
Like if that was the case, all this fake news, wouldn't be driving people's actions, you know?

00:27:31.818 --> 00:27:39.209
And this is what we're talking about and sorry to be you know whatever on a stoop here, but we're talking about.

00:27:39.959 --> 00:27:42.239
This is basic communication, right?

00:27:42.598 --> 00:27:46.318
Communication skills and how you know, right now with.

00:27:46.348 --> 00:27:52.378
I love emojis because I need them frankly, because I have what I call resting bitch face in writing, I do.

00:27:53.731 --> 00:27:54.362
In writing.

00:27:55.019 --> 00:27:59.128
But like we've reduced ourselves to grunts essentially.

00:27:59.818 --> 00:28:06.969
You know, and this is why again I'm so interested.

00:28:06.969 --> 00:28:09.088
So we saw fastfood, go to slow food.

00:28:09.568 --> 00:28:10.078
Okay, right.

00:28:10.918 --> 00:28:14.479
We're seeing radio comeback, Clubhouse.

00:28:15.788 --> 00:28:19.908
You know I believe marketing is going a similar way.

00:28:20.118 --> 00:28:22.979
I certainly am pushing that one as I think you'd can tell.

00:28:23.729 --> 00:28:25.179
The hard way is the way, right?

00:28:25.179 --> 00:28:32.818
And I'm curious to see kind of what else, but like, you know as far as communications go.

00:28:33.618 --> 00:28:37.929
Specifically like, pick up the damn phone is my favorite thing, right?

00:28:37.929 --> 00:28:45.528
I I'll see on my own team, Slack communication, if I say to them, if there's more than two or three back and forth, time to get on the line.

00:28:46.163 --> 00:28:47.513
Yeah, yeah, right?

00:28:48.114 --> 00:28:51.364
And people are allergic to.

00:28:52.973 --> 00:28:55.523
They're allergic to helping each other sometimes.

00:28:56.483 --> 00:28:59.814
You know, to really getting someone across the line.

00:28:59.874 --> 00:29:00.324
Excuse me.

00:29:00.354 --> 00:29:00.683
Go ahead.

00:29:00.776 --> 00:29:05.605
No, I was just going to say, I really liked the way that you talk about you know, sort of the hard way is the way.

00:29:05.605 --> 00:29:18.203
And I think so much of the technology that we have is designed to make things easier, but in its effort to make things easier, it's also making things a whole lot more complex.

00:29:18.413 --> 00:29:23.183
I don't have it loaded up, but one of the charts that often show is that huge MarTech.

00:29:23.574 --> 00:29:23.783
Yeah.

00:29:23.783 --> 00:29:24.033
Yeah.

00:29:24.233 --> 00:29:27.293
mess, you know that shows all of the logos on there.

00:29:27.864 --> 00:29:34.043
you know, you can't even read them they're so small now because there are so many marketing automation kinds of technologies that you can incorporate.

00:29:34.344 --> 00:29:35.663
And some of them are wonderful.

00:29:35.663 --> 00:29:43.043
They do an incredible thing for your marketing strategy, but then you had another one, then you add another one, then you add another one, and.

00:29:43.433 --> 00:29:48.864
you know, you'll find your whole work day is chewed up just managing all of this technology that you have.

00:29:49.283 --> 00:29:51.624
And you wonder what is the effectiveness of it?

00:29:51.624 --> 00:29:56.634
Am I really improving the way that I communicate with my customers, that I get my message out.

00:29:56.993 --> 00:29:58.824
And I think that that's still the heart of it.

00:29:58.824 --> 00:30:02.304
Do you have a message that is clearly defined?

00:30:02.304 --> 00:30:04.374
Do you know who your target audience is?

00:30:04.584 --> 00:30:06.443
Do you know what you want to say to them?

00:30:06.443 --> 00:30:08.483
Do you know what their needs are their pain points?

00:30:08.814 --> 00:30:14.423
And some of that gets just lost in this sea of technology and all of these channels that you can speak in.

00:30:14.423 --> 00:30:17.564
For sure that is the science to death, right?

00:30:17.564 --> 00:30:27.854
Like here's a story that someone told me that I love to touch on, and I should look this up because I always start it by saying, I don't know if it was Betty Crocker or Dunkin Heinz, thing was Betty Crocker.

00:30:28.663 --> 00:30:32.173
But when they first made cake in a box, they included powder eggs.

00:30:32.173 --> 00:30:33.854
So it was the whole thing was in a box.

00:30:33.854 --> 00:30:35.663
And you just had to add I guess, oil or water.

00:30:36.293 --> 00:30:40.213
And they found it didn't sell very well because it just seemed weird.

00:30:40.543 --> 00:30:48.384
So they took out the eggs so that the housewives at the time had to add eggs, and then they felt as though they baked the cake, they made the cake.

00:30:48.384 --> 00:30:49.546
They were really cooking.

00:30:49.816 --> 00:30:50.425
They are really cooking.

00:30:50.443 --> 00:30:57.054
So there's a great example of like, there has to be just enough human, right?

00:30:57.314 --> 00:31:02.953
What is the tipping point of where we feel like it's too robotic or not enough, you know.

00:31:03.793 --> 00:31:08.413
Another metaphor and I think this is so important for people to get we were talking about.

00:31:09.384 --> 00:31:11.203
Keith Richard says it the best.

00:31:11.773 --> 00:31:16.469
Without a role, without the role, it's just a march.

00:31:17.338 --> 00:31:17.999
Rock and roll.

00:31:18.538 --> 00:31:20.144
Think about that, right?

00:31:20.156 --> 00:31:20.966
Well, that's interesting.

00:31:21.686 --> 00:31:25.047
A profound comment from Keith Richards during one of his more sober moments.

00:31:26.288 --> 00:31:27.668
We were actually thinking about the other day.

00:31:27.668 --> 00:31:32.418
So if you listen to it like any stone song, you hear, you hear the roll, you hear a little swing because they came from the blues.

00:31:32.658 --> 00:31:35.808
But if you listen to almost any, and I love Boston, for example.

00:31:35.808 --> 00:31:39.128
But any, any eighties band, it's four it's four on the floor.

00:31:39.193 --> 00:31:41.173
Dude, dude, dude, dude, dude.

00:31:41.233 --> 00:31:41.503
Right?

00:31:41.503 --> 00:31:42.433
You can hear that.

00:31:42.554 --> 00:31:43.574
That's not a role.

00:31:43.834 --> 00:31:45.403
Hmmm.

00:31:45.733 --> 00:31:46.844
It's a March and a lot of drums.

00:31:48.710 --> 00:31:50.190
I like that, good old Keith Richards.

00:31:50.450 --> 00:31:53.460
Well, you know, I've got to touch on something else that you commented on before.

00:31:53.460 --> 00:32:08.994
Because as a guy who's worked in a lot of B2B companies, you know what you said about the importance of those demo requests leads, I can't tell you the number of meetings that I sat through, where they said, just get us more demo requests, just get us more demo requests.

00:32:09.025 --> 00:32:10.734
That's the lead that converts.

00:32:11.335 --> 00:32:19.224
And the thing that I always struggled with is that, of course it is, that's along the buyer's journey, that's getting near the end.

00:32:19.525 --> 00:32:22.075
But you still have some steps ahead of that.

00:32:22.375 --> 00:32:26.694
It's hard to short circuit all that other stuff and just get a demo request.

00:32:26.815 --> 00:32:38.994
So when you look at your own company, how do you look at that overall buyer's journey and the pieces that you have to satisfy along the way to get them to that point where they say, I want a demo request.

00:32:39.627 --> 00:32:41.193
Thanks for asking because you're right.

00:32:41.193 --> 00:32:45.117
There are so many components in that whole funnel, right?

00:32:45.117 --> 00:32:46.198
From beginning to end.

00:32:46.462 --> 00:32:51.723
And believe me, we've struggled for years, and we'll struggle again, right?

00:32:51.903 --> 00:33:05.094
But at the moment, what we know is this that we'll use Lately to auto-generate content that we already know is going to you know, tip the fancy of our targets because that's what the AI does well, right?

00:33:05.723 --> 00:33:10.493
And so the other thing there is not only the quality, but it's the quantity.

00:33:10.493 --> 00:33:18.263
You have to put out a lot because like radio taught me and everyone else, we're going to hit you with the same song at least 300 times a week.

00:33:18.442 --> 00:33:21.062
Hoping you'll hear it once, that's Marketing 101.

00:33:21.083 --> 00:33:23.143
You have to have quantity.

00:33:23.512 --> 00:33:28.163
Now, the way we do it is every little message is different so you don't feel that spam effect there.

00:33:28.462 --> 00:33:37.607
And also the other thing to think about is we found that our targets value different things.

00:33:37.968 --> 00:33:44.117
So let's make sure we have multiple messages so that they can have multiple avenues of access, right?

00:33:45.357 --> 00:33:49.097
So as we publish these things and then we do it not only on our brand channels.

00:33:49.097 --> 00:33:51.948
So this is our only source of lead gen, this kind of push marketing.

00:33:52.367 --> 00:33:56.597
We do it also on all of our employee channels because we're stronger together, right?

00:33:56.627 --> 00:33:57.617
I'm a little engine.

00:33:57.617 --> 00:34:00.107
I get to make a lot of noise as much noise as I can do.

00:34:00.528 --> 00:34:03.708
And the software does that for me automatically you can do this by hand.

00:34:03.708 --> 00:34:04.067
Of course.

00:34:04.488 --> 00:34:05.837
Um, So

00:34:06.319 --> 00:34:06.450
So.

00:34:06.450 --> 00:34:12.032
you've got, uh, an employee advocacy portion or functionality within the platform.

00:34:12.052 --> 00:34:12.293
Okay.

00:34:12.534 --> 00:34:13.644
That's right, and it's built in.

00:34:13.644 --> 00:34:18.534
So when you're hired at Lately, I just say you're volunteering to like talk about the company.

00:34:18.713 --> 00:34:22.893
And let's be clear, like you know if you don't have companies.

00:34:23.753 --> 00:34:27.353
If you don't have employees who are willing to do that, you probably have a bigger problem.

00:34:28.432 --> 00:34:28.733
Right.

00:34:28.793 --> 00:34:32.782
You know, so you have to have good people who all are excited and they want you to win, they want to win themselves.

00:34:33.353 --> 00:34:40.704
And then what we do is so once the AI spits out the content, I have my writing team that has the writing rules.

00:34:40.704 --> 00:34:43.373
I trust them to put the voice on it, just enough context.

00:34:43.733 --> 00:34:46.554
We publish across all of our channels and our employee channels.

00:34:46.824 --> 00:34:48.293
And then I have another Katie Jordan.

00:34:48.293 --> 00:34:50.264
She watches what happens.

00:34:50.333 --> 00:34:54.653
So people who are liking and commenting and resharing, she engages you all.

00:34:54.653 --> 00:34:55.523
Thanks, Eric.

00:34:55.523 --> 00:34:57.114
I see that you're in Baltimore.

00:34:57.353 --> 00:35:02.092
You know, whatever she keeps the conversation going, finds out some touch points, familiar touch points.

00:35:02.362 --> 00:35:08.963
And then eventually we'll tag a sales person when she deems there's interest enough to like learn more, push you in a DM.

00:35:09.413 --> 00:35:16.699
And in the DM is where we, we do a no sell, sell, generally, Eric, as much as we can.

00:35:16.699 --> 00:35:26.007
Because we're curious enough between female entrepreneur, AI, rock and roll DJ, um, people do go"Holy" they see it.

00:35:26.027 --> 00:35:27.768
So there's that, you know, Um.

00:35:27.797 --> 00:35:30.358
But then we're moving you into that demo request.

00:35:30.378 --> 00:35:36.317
The reason it has a 98% sales conversion to your point is because by the time we get there, they're pretty hot.

00:35:36.679 --> 00:35:41.179
But for us, they're warm to begin with because there's no cold calls and no cold emails.

00:35:41.179 --> 00:35:45.498
And we see anybody who likes commenting or sharing as a potential.

00:35:46.007 --> 00:35:50.177
Who we quickly either qualify or disqualify, like we have a checklist, you know?

00:35:50.177 --> 00:35:54.617
So you, you engage with us, we see if you're a fit, you are, Okay, we're moving on.

00:35:54.648 --> 00:35:57.588
Now, we're now we're having a hang, we're chatting, whatever.

00:35:58.427 --> 00:36:00.858
You know, again, we're all so still guessing cause it's morphing.

00:36:01.157 --> 00:36:02.777
We're going up market.

00:36:02.777 --> 00:36:05.762
Sowe're changing what we're doing, we're breaking stuff also.

00:36:05.762 --> 00:36:07.362
I it's part of my life.

00:36:08.387 --> 00:36:13.697
But we're trying to grow and morph and still use the things we know that are working.

00:36:13.697 --> 00:36:16.518
So the hard way is the way is, has been always a major one.

00:36:17.088 --> 00:36:20.268
And what I've told my staff is don't make the sale, make a fan.

00:36:20.588 --> 00:36:20.938
Hmm.

00:36:24.268 --> 00:36:27.347
I like that.

00:36:27.588 --> 00:36:29.418
Evangelism goes a long way.

00:36:29.418 --> 00:36:37.139
Where working on calling in Microsoft, right, that's a fan.

00:36:37.588 --> 00:36:38.369
That is a fan.

00:36:38.969 --> 00:36:49.048
Well, and I know we're coming up on our time here, but just on that point, one thing that I wanted to ask you is part of the challenge with a lot of the automation tools that are there.

00:36:49.378 --> 00:36:59.278
Is once you start to automatically post online to the various social networks, they're not all very accessible in terms of tagging people.

00:36:59.309 --> 00:37:03.418
Sometimes you can tag a person, but you can't tag a brand or you can take a brand, but not a person.

00:37:03.809 --> 00:37:08.048
And one of the things that I found is that's a great way to get engagement, right?

00:37:08.048 --> 00:37:13.528
Is that if you tag somebody in it, obviously they're more likely to see it and share it and whatnot.

00:37:13.798 --> 00:37:22.648
And so it almost forces people to the original platform so that you can do that tagging, which then defeats the whole purpose of having some of these automation tools.

00:37:22.949 --> 00:37:35.822
So I'm just curious about, do you think that that's a correct assumption that the tagging really does make a difference or if you just post enough, eventually you get through that anyway.

00:37:35.838 --> 00:37:40.817
I mean, what you're touching on is again, the hard way is the way, so those platforms do that for a reason.

00:37:40.817 --> 00:37:47.623
They want you to engage and you know, we have customers who are you know, we'll go to the mat with us about, um, Social listening.

00:37:47.623 --> 00:37:54.313
So we don't do social listening you know, the traditional, well not the traditional, the modern way, whatever that means.

00:37:54.563 --> 00:37:56.322
But we do it the traditional way.

00:37:57.373 --> 00:38:02.922
Which is like go to Twitter and pay attention to your feed, which is what you should be doing anyways, right?

00:38:02.922 --> 00:38:04.213
There's a total reason for that.

00:38:04.742 --> 00:38:09.402
And I'm a huge fan of, i mean it's just, people don't want to do work.

00:38:09.402 --> 00:38:10.543
It's amazing to me.

00:38:12.612 --> 00:38:13.452
I mean, I get it.

00:38:13.603 --> 00:38:18.882
You know, but like we always make a boring, very boring comparison to sorry, QuickBooks to QuickBooks.

00:38:19.963 --> 00:38:23.583
Right you sit down and QuickBooks and you expect to sit down and do some work.

00:38:24.302 --> 00:38:24.692
You do..

00:38:24.873 --> 00:38:29.492
Like, they're going to help you a lot, which is great, but like you have to participate, right?

00:38:29.523 --> 00:38:32.132
This is where the human component comes in there.

00:38:32.132 --> 00:38:33.902
So like, I think those things are good.

00:38:33.932 --> 00:38:39.963
Sometimes, you know it's frustrating for us of course because it's what customers want and we want to please our customers.

00:38:40.442 --> 00:38:41.913
Um, and even for ourselves.

00:38:41.913 --> 00:38:56.552
Like, yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is now killing us for all for overtax people who, you know, sorry, cause there's friends who do this a lot, but like I hate it when someone just posts something and then they tag me, that's nothing to do with me, because they want likes and shares on it.

00:38:57.003 --> 00:39:08.163
And it's like a big old zero for me, you know, like, cause I really do, as you pointed out, I engage a lot load on social, but I have to make it count and that doesn't count, you know?

00:39:08.268 --> 00:39:08.938
It's kind of a cheat.

00:39:10.047 --> 00:39:16.018
Yeah, it's kind of like a cheat.

00:39:16.358 --> 00:39:20.927
It's the same thing as adding me to your nerwsletter, I mean got to ask me.

00:39:22.307 --> 00:39:27.228
You know, and especially if like I follow you everywhere, I don't also need your newsletter.

00:39:27.347 --> 00:39:30.858
I'm fully engaged, we talk, on Instagram often.

00:39:31.521 --> 00:39:31.820
Yeah.

00:39:31.971 --> 00:39:33.101
Why do you need to send me this?

00:39:33.280 --> 00:39:37.998
Um, But what we're talking about here is again, you know, I love going back to these points.

00:39:38.057 --> 00:39:38.867
I should be a comedian.

00:39:39.438 --> 00:39:40.347
Because they're so good at this.

00:39:41.217 --> 00:39:43.277
But reading the room, you know?

00:39:43.577 --> 00:39:44.567
And what does that mean?

00:39:44.567 --> 00:39:45.737
And how can you?

00:39:46.588 --> 00:39:47.838
It's the same, but different.

00:39:47.867 --> 00:39:51.168
There's one thing about reading the room where it's just me and you talking, Eric.

00:39:52.128 --> 00:39:58.967
And another about reading the room of the people that I don't even know who are listening or watching right now, right but there's some innate ability.

00:39:59.268 --> 00:40:02.717
And I'm taking my cues mostly from you, because this is your show, right?

00:40:04.177 --> 00:40:09.407
But that's important to you know, what are people willing to do or not willing to do?

00:40:09.467 --> 00:40:11.057
Where is their impatients at?

00:40:11.057 --> 00:40:11.768
Where is there?

00:40:13.128 --> 00:40:14.688
What's their spark?.

00:40:15.157 --> 00:40:17.358
You know, what's going to drive their spark?

00:40:17.838 --> 00:40:26.382
And as communicators and salespeople and marketers, we have to find what those are and they're not always the same.

00:40:26.382 --> 00:40:32.742
And in fact, for the same kind of sale there might be you know, many ones and you just need to be open to that.

00:40:32.882 --> 00:40:33.302
Yes.

00:40:34.291 --> 00:41:02.581
Well, you know, I think one of the things that I've really enjoyed about our conversation today is here you are, you know, the head of a company that deals with artificial intelligence, but yet we spent the most of the time talking about the human side of things, and the story, and how we as humans have to be ultimately in control of the communications that we send out that we deliver and targeting things to the audience that they want to hear about, and so I love that.

00:41:02.581 --> 00:41:06.581
Technology is here to help us, it's not here to replace the humans in the

00:41:08.262 --> 00:41:08.931
Exactly.

00:41:09.572 --> 00:41:11.072
Hey, Kate, before we go today, I'd love it.

00:41:11.072 --> 00:41:19.791
If you could just tell people a little bit more about Lately, or where they can find you online and anything you else would like to share and we'll make sure to put that in the show notes as well.

00:41:20.288 --> 00:41:21.632
Um, You're awesome.

00:41:21.998 --> 00:41:22.329
By the

00:41:22.487 --> 00:41:23.326
Oh, well, thanks.

00:41:23.559 --> 00:41:23.588
Rona.

00:41:23.619 --> 00:41:26.889
I want to like mimic your piece of wood, your wood sculpture back there.

00:41:29.949 --> 00:41:32.318
But yeah, I'm I'm, I'm on LinkedIn.

00:41:32.318 --> 00:41:35.259
I'm think I'm Kate Bradley, not Kate Bradley turning so on LinkedIn.

00:41:35.318 --> 00:41:36.788
And I love people to say hi there.

00:41:36.788 --> 00:41:39.099
Tell me that you met me with Eric, which would be great.

00:41:39.579 --> 00:41:41.228
Uh, lately.ai is us.

00:41:41.259 --> 00:41:42.128
We're very friendly.

00:41:42.128 --> 00:41:46.268
And like I said, we'll, we will, we treat all of our small customers like our larger Carlos customer.

00:41:46.298 --> 00:41:47.228
So that means a demo.

00:41:47.798 --> 00:41:51.188
Um, so if you're allergic to, you know, a social hang, sorry.

00:41:52.509 --> 00:41:54.548
But we were super nice and pretty funny also.

00:41:54.818 --> 00:41:57.099
Um, so I promise you'll be entertained, but also watch out.

00:41:57.099 --> 00:41:59.498
Cause we do have that 98% sales conversion.

00:42:00.938 --> 00:42:03.159
You might be getting a Christmas gift early, right?

00:42:03.284 --> 00:42:06.304
Uh, some new software under the tree.

00:42:07.744 --> 00:42:08.103
Yeah.

00:42:08.494 --> 00:42:10.204
No, I think it's a fantastic platform.

00:42:10.204 --> 00:42:10.744
I love what you.

00:42:10.744 --> 00:42:18.724
guys are doing with It I think for so many organizations, you know, it that can be a game changer because I know what the pains are in my own company.

00:42:18.934 --> 00:42:21.693
Just trying to Get the word out consistently.

00:42:21.693 --> 00:42:22.503
it's a lot of work.

00:42:22.534 --> 00:42:56.588
It's a lot of work.

00:42:56.588 --> 00:42:56.956
It sure is but we're doing it.

00:42:56.956 --> 00:42:57.262
It feels so go good doing it.

00:42:57.262 --> 00:42:57.349
We are an underdog.

00:42:57.349 --> 00:42:57.492
Some people may have it harder than I do.

00:42:57.492 --> 00:42:57.545
Nothing is more to me than inspiring someone else to get up.

00:42:57.545 --> 00:42:59.288
Maybe its t otell your boring CMO that they need to be more human on LinkedIn.

00:43:00.278 --> 00:43:03.878
Or maybe it's to you know, start your own marketing agency.

00:43:03.998 --> 00:43:14.228
Like you or start your own AI powered software company, even though you came from a career in line cooking and rock and roll DJ.

00:43:14.567 --> 00:43:15.677
Rock and roll DJ.

00:43:16.306 --> 00:43:17.536
What was that voice again?

00:43:17.536 --> 00:43:19.016
What's your radio voice?

00:43:19.887 --> 00:43:22.677
You're listening to The Virtual CMO on StreamYard.

00:43:22.909 --> 00:43:23.780
I love it.

00:43:24.070 --> 00:43:30.338
Kate, thanks so much for being here with us today, I've really enjoyed our conversation.

00:43:31.621 --> 00:43:35.132
Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast.

00:43:35.282 --> 00:43:42.782
For more episodes, go to fiveechelon.com/podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice.

00:43:43.141 --> 00:43:53.222
And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit fiveechelon.com to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.