Change for the Better? Our Honest Take on Agents of Change 2024

Kristy: Welcome back to another episode.

Anna-Lynn: I’m so excited. I’m finally back.

Kristy: Uh, Anna-Lynn’s back in the studio, which is very exciting.

Anna-Lynn: That was dumb pretend I didn’t do that.

Kristy: No she did it and you don’t even understand the struggle it took to get here and we both have bad attitudes.

Anna-Lynn: Uh I’m getting over it though because I’m here with you again and it’s been a hot minute so.

Kristy: Yes, I’m happy you’re here.

Anna-Lynn: Not quite so hot but now it is.

Kristy: I’m sweaty.

Anna-lynn: Wait that’s it’s because we’re together again.

Kristy: Correct.

Anna-Lynn: It’s just too much the studio can’t handle it.

Kristy: Can we explain to people why we’re dressed up like sports lunatics?

Anna-Lynn: Yes okay, um today was boss’s day and Bill is an absolute Sports fanatic especially hockey so I’m wearing a hat I knew nothing about.

Kristy: Hockey ladies.

Anna-Lynn: Until my husband explained it to me that sounds like a typical like girl thing don’t come after me feminists. I really am not a sports person yeah and so yes my husband did have to educate me about the Quebec nordiques because I did not know that this was actually a sports hat when you bought it I was like oh that’s a weird like.

Kristy: What’s this symbol mean?

Anna-Lynn: Graphic on there and he’s like um…

Kristy: The worst thing you can do is call it cute, I think.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah I’m like cute hat babe, it’s like instantly murdery.

Kristy: I just became very aware when I lifted up mine how much I need deodorant and I feel like that’s very a little bit on brand for wearing a hockey jersey.

Anna-Lynn: So wait did you borrow that from Bill?

Kristy: No so this is actually mine okay this is actually mine so I’ve shot two to three…

Anna-Lynn: That’s right.

Kristy: Ish tournaments for Bill and I got this for doing that I’m shooting another one next month you should come you should try to come with me because it’s very very fun and I’m team captain.

Anna-Lynn: I want to come so I saw your video from the last time you went and I’m like I should have been there.

Kristy: Okay so you should you should try to come next time yeah get free stuff you can have free stuff.

Anna-Lynn: What do I have to do to get free stuff?

Kristy: Show up, show up.

Anna-Lynn: Participation trophy.

Kristy: Yeah okay can we talk about that.

Anna-Lynn: Can we make Tim give it to me?

Kristy: Oh if Tim came… We so- we played a game this morning it’ll be on social media by this point it probably already would have been and Tim had a bad attitude number one let’s talk crap about Tim for a second can we.

Anna-Lynn: First of all it’s fall which automatically ticks him off.

Kristy: This will prove Tim are you listening this will prove it he didn’t want to dress up for sports day.

Anna-Lynn: I didn’t think he had he came in he’s wearing like a button-up he’s like slacks.

Kristy: Yeah I’m like you didn’t even he’s like I’m dressed I am dressed up for what?

Anna-Lynn: He was not.

Kristy: For fishing? Fishing is a sport no man that’s not what I said.

Anna-Lynn: Oh you wound him up so good though.

Kristy: And he’s like I could have dressed up for hunting. Hunting’s a sport.

Anna-Lynn: When you told him fishing wasn’t a sport I thought his head was going to pop off it was awesome.

Kristy: So good and then I made it worse by being like Hailey dressed up as a cheerleader, cheerleading is a sport.

Anna-Lynn: It was awesome it was worth coming in just for that.

Kristy: If he was going to dress up for fishing though he could have at least worn his waders.

Anna-Lynn: Right yeah like make it obvious he he put his sunglasses on and was like a fish I’m like.

Kristy: No all he did was wear clothes.

Anna-Lynn: For what compliments?

Kristy: You wear- you fish in your dress clothes?

Anna-Lynn: Yeah no.

Kristy: I’ve been fishing with him he didn’t look like that.

Anna-Lynn: He did not look like that, yeah.

Kristy: Yeah anyway…

Anna-Lynn: And then he was mad because we gave everybody a trophy a little trophy okay we don’t have one to show but they’re like these little…

Kristy: Bring one to the set, please.

Anna-Lynn: Thank you you’re amazing. Everyone got a trophy and he was ticked off about that too because he was like there are winners and there are losers there you don’t get a trophy just for participating.

Kristy: There are children here Tim.

Anna-Lynn: And I’m like you know what we don’t need a life lesson every second.

Kristy: That – take take away from the episode take away from the episode you don’t need a life lesson every second.

Anna-Lynn: Sometimes you just need a stinking trophy.

Kristy: A stupid little plastic trophy.

Anna-Lynn: To get you through the day.

Kristy: Yeah like yeah and did he even get a goal?

Anna-Lynn: No he didn’t.

Kristy: Oh I did.

Anna-Lynn: I did too so I guess I earned mine.

Kristy: Yeah he didn’t even earn his I’ll take it back.

Anna-Lynn: It’s because he wasn’t dressed right.

Kristy: We were dressed right. We were ready for hockey.

Anna-Lynn: The universe was like no sir.

Kristy: Okay now let’s say one good thing about Tim so.

Anna-Lynn: Um he has nice hair.

Kristy: He does, he’s good at um lifting stuff for me.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah, I like how he changes the water. The bottle out on..

Kristy: I – he’s capable of turning on the TV.

Anna-Lynn: That’s true.
Kristy: Yeah he’s good at that in fact yesterday uh man I took a screenshot of it but I didn’t post it on Instagram I messaged him and I said hi it’s me Kristy hello I said it’s a season of putting my fire back on for me and I said and it’s always the season of coming down to say good morning to me cause he had not yet.

Anna-Lynn: He’s slacking.

Kristy: It was 30 minutes into the day.

Anna-Lynn: Oh come on there’s no excuse.

Kristy: No excuse actually he said ah I suppose it is. I’m on my way and the Google draw Google responses were okay see you soon okay and drive safe.

Anna-Lynn: And you’re like none of those none of those.

Kristy: Anyway we love you.

Anna-Lynn: We’re not here to talk about Tim though. I don’t know how we got talking about him.

Kristy: I- it’s my fault. I love talking about him.

Anna-Lynn: It’s okay we have to like just get in our digs when can.

Kristy: We can get in our digs. But we love you, Tim.

Anna-Lynn: We do.

Kristy: Yeah, anyway. What are we here to talk about?

Anna-Lynn: We’re we’re going to talk about other men.

Kristy: And women.

Anna-Lynn: And women um yeah we just went to the Agents of Change conference.

Kristy: Yes.

Anna-Lynn: In Portland Maine uh last week which was really cool.

Kristy: We went to that it’s our first year going we went because normally we go to inbound every year.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah we’re inbounders usually.
Kristy: And permission to let’s let’s go pros and cons of inbound real quick.

Anna-Lynn: Well the biggest like con for me like just okay it’s not inbound specific but like I was so sick this summer so I couldn’t have gone to inbound I was really disappointed about that because I was super excited about going again because um the year before had just been fantastic and the seminars that I had caught had completely like completely changed how I um did my job basically just transformed my approach to my work so I was really excited to go again and I got super sick and I was like I’m missing all the conferences this summer and beginning of fall like I’m just not going to make any of them so when Bill was like I’m gonna send you there I was like okay didn’t know what to expect yeah but but there I will say that as much as I enjoyed the seminars I got it was hard to get a lot of seminars in because that place is so huge where they had in Boston yeah it’s so massive, the scale is overwhelming.

Kristy: Yeah so, I feel like Inbounds always been like it’s been a good way for the team to go to it’s it can be fun it’s feels a little bit of a in years past it’s been just the right amount of party-esque yeah you get some free stuff you go to learn some things uh for us it’s convenient because it’s right in Boston um traveling to Boston like where it is not don’t love but we can do it um but I don’t know the past few years I’ve been kind of just like I haven’t got personally I haven’t got a lot out of it because I feel like the the um programs that I attended were some of them were good but some of them were just like I’m a millionaire and here’s why I’m amazing sometimes I just throw away $500,000 cause I’m bored and you should all look up to me and kiss me because I’m amazing everyone’s cheer for me bye and I’m just like I learned I hated that I hate you and I hate this and then I make some uh boyfriends and then I leave.

Anna-Lynn: That’s true.

Kristy: Like I always leave with love affairs.

Anna-Lynn: Okay that last dude he was married.

Kristy: Okay last year I left yeah okay let me be so clear let me be so clear.

Anna-Lynn: That was like a not…

Kristy: I didn’t leave with a married man.

Anna-Lynn: No.

Kristy: I- I had people fall in love with me everywhere I go okay let’s just be honest.

Anna-Lynn: Conferences especially.

Kristy: Everywhere conferences I just she has to keep the men off of me.

Anna-Lynn: I do.

Kristy: But it’s true like not exaggerating I’m just like and yeah anyway moving on.

Anna-Lynn: But I- I totally get what you’re saying because there were a few and especially the bigger stages I thought it was more about well here’s my story here’s what I do and it wasn’t so much I’m going to teach you how to do something that’s going to benefit you instead it was like bragging on I was in the right spot at the right time it wasn’t so much here are the steps I took to be successful and you can do the same thing.

Kristy: Yeah

Anna-Lynn: And trying to bring people into the same space.

Kristy: Right.

Anna-Lynn: It was more by I’m here.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: You’re not.

Kristy: You’re not.

Anna-Lynn: Don’t you want to be me? I’m not going to help you get there I’m just going to…

Kristy: Just worship me.

Anna-Lynn: Throw out past history for my success but not really teach you how to do it yourself and that I didn’t think was…

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Not very helpful and it kind of gives you that ick Vibe like we didn’t stay very long in in those but some of the smaller um seminars I really liked because I felt it was less about ego and it was more about actual actionable insights that were.

Kristy: Education.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah exactly it was education and it was interesting and it was interactive there were a lot of you know questions being taken and answered and they’re like I’m gonna you know you can download these slides after I love when speakers do that because then you know you’re furiously trying to take notes or take pictures of their slides um and so there were a couple that were really good that I felt like I really came away from inbound learning something and they were extremely helpful but then there were others that just were exhausting.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Like you walk from one end of this massive building to the other just to…

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Get from place to place and then when you get there you’re not really hearing anything beneficial so it just felt like I wasted half the day.

Kristy: Yeah people just want to step on a stage to brag about themselves I literally literally went to a talk where a guy was just like yeah this like last year I was I was bored and so I bought I don’t remember what he was like I bought like a $50,000 car and then threw it in the trash like and I’m just like okay dude like why do we need to know that you’re literally just bragging about all your money it’s not I’m not here to listen to that and I really don’t like you now and I’ve checked out now I don’t want to listen I’m like I’m standing up and walking out yeah with my new boyfriend.

Anna-lynn: I’m going to have to break his heart for you.

Kristy: Just- yeah so finding a new conference to go to that was closer to us that was uh like a tenth of the price but…

Anna-Lynn: I wasn’t sure what to expect honestly.

Kristy: I wasn’t sure what to expect either.

Anna-Lynn: When- when I saw the price point for the tickets you know and I’m thinking okay and it’s in listen- I am a Mainer I grew up in Maine this is not shade to Mainers but we have a very particular way of doing things and it’s not always.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Like the same level as the rest of the country I don’t know it’s not this isn’t coming out right but I Mainers have a very Maine way of doing things I guess is what I’m trying to say so I wasn’t really sure what to expect you know is this going to be Boston level or is it going to be very Maine.

Kristy: And cheap yeah.

Anna-Lynn: I-I didn’t know and with the price I didn’t go into it expecting to be to come away from it with any of the same like caliber.
Kristy: Yeah. More, more.

Anna-Lynn: Tips or right and so I was you know open to seeing like okay let’s let’s give it a shot I mean it’s close Portland is so close to us and I love it.

Kristy: It was just easy get there.

Anna-Lynn: I love Portland it was easy to get in and out um the venue itself was a little bit claustrophobic because there were so many people there.

Kristy: But in a way I liked that it was smaller yeah because it was easier we were like there was like here there’s three to four rooms where the where the talks will be.

Anna-Lynn: Right, that was fantastic.

Kristy: I was like I know where everything is they’re close by when we separated it was like I’ll be upstairs and you…

Anna-Lynn: It’s not going to take me 5 hours and 15 texts to find you.

Kristy: When we separate at inbound it’s like maybe I’ll never see you again.

Anna-Lynn: I know, maybe we’ll find the car.

Kristy: Meet you back in Maine.

Anna-Lynn: Right yeah yeah. Your boyfriend will give you a ride and I’ll just walk? I don’t know.

Kristy: Yup.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah so I did I loved that a lot of I love that there was um the majority of the day I could spend just in one Auditorium and um then there were you know rooms that you could go to to catch other other things but it wasn’t like this big I- I didn’t need a map which I loved.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: And I loved too because I wasn’t like rushing to and from you know one side of a building to the other I was able to catch more talks than I did at inbound.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: And you know there’s a whole process because it’s a different scale at inbound you’re you’re registering and you’re having to make sure you’re there early because there’s going to be a line and.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: I think it’s an experience you should definitely have as a marketer like you should go at least once.

Kristy: I agree.

Anna-Lynn: Um especially if you are part of the HubSpot Universe like you need to go um and I think it’s it’s valid um but I very much appreciated Agents of Change because it was less expensive, closer to home, a much much easier venue to navigate, and the caliber of speakers was I think on par with inbound 100% And I know speakers that have been to agents of change that have coconut inbound as well um so it’s like you’re getting the same quality mhm but you get to we get to be closer to home which is great.

Kristy: Yeah. So I think if anyone has the opportunity to now it’s going to the West Coast next year if you’re on the West Coast close to the West Coast and you have the opportunity to go take advantage of that and go just so you can experience it.

Anna-Lynn: But if you’re here on the East Coast next year you can’t fly your team out to the West Coast or you don’t want to check out agents of change because it’s- it’s it was really good I was I was really I- I- I left feeling just as excited as I did from those inbound courses that I sat in on um because of the insights that we took away from the speakers here like I- I got the same feeling of it like okay I’m learning something that we can definitely use.

Kristy: I was just much less exhausted frankly much less exhausted.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah, I got more out of the day because it wasn’t such a…

Kristy: It was slower paced like the parking garage was like you walk out of your car and straight into the building it was like we had they we had lunch as part of our ticket we had a lunch break and we were able to sit outside and chill like we still got to take our dumb photos together like just all that so yeah. And we just left what we wanted like we couldn’t we didn’t we decided not to stay for the drinks at the end just cause we you you know are both chronically ill and I decided to just not take any boyfriends home this year so yeah.

Anna-Lynn: I think I did some preemptive um.

Kristy: Screening?

Anna-Lynn: Screening. I really did because there were a few like checking you out and I was like…

Kristy: This is making me sound really bad it’s jokes.

Anna-Lynn: No you can’t help it.

Kristy: It’s jokes.

Anna-Lynn: You can’t help it. You put out a Vibe. I don’t know what it is but…

Kristy: I don’t know what it is. In the comments what do you think it is?

Anna-Lynn: No so should we talk about who some of our favorites were we spent like half our time just we’re going to have to edit this hard.

Kristy: Oh my God no I’m not editing anything.

Anna-Lynn: The problem is. We- we haven’t been together- the problem is we haven’t been together in so long to do a podcast we’ve been doing like these remote ones which fine.

Kristy: Fine.

Anna-Lynn: But we haven’t done this you know and…

Kristy: You know I thought about it Kevin when I had Kevin on the podcast and he was talking about how there…

Anna-Lynn. You wished it was me? Aww.

Kristy: He was talking about how there’s just a different vibe doing it in person and watching it when people are in person versus and then he also I’m picking up him being like so if you agree put it in the comments you can chat GPT that so anyway favorite Agents of Change parts you go first.

Anna-Lynn: Um yeah so um I really loved there were a few that I liked um but one that I really loved was John Jantch from duct tape marketing.

Kristy: Mhm yeah that was the first one right?

Anna-Lynn: Yeah, he was fantastic.

Kristy: Rethinking the Customer Journey.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah uh and I thought it was great because essentially he’s like you know the traditional funnel is dead. Which that’s shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody in marketing these days because I mean that funnel the Ada funnel the awareness interest desire action you know that was first created in 1898 but it’s still the gold standard.
Kristy: Isn’t it weird?

Anna-Lynn: Yeah it’s it’s very weird but pe- there are some that are still just like holding on to it clawing to it and like just refusing to accept that it’s shifted. Customers have changed the way they interact with businesses and the way that they are buying and so I loved his um- he put it out there that really business hasn’t really changed you know since that original Ada funnel had was created but what has changed is just behaviors and so he was saying that to grow a business today it’s less about demand and it’s more about organizing behaviors.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: And um how people- recognizing how people choose to be customers or clients and working with that instead of just refusing to change how you go after that business and just like nope this is what they’re going to do this is what they always have done and this is what has always worked you’re- you’re just basically digging your own grave.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: And so I loved his his new sequence of behaviors was no like trust try-

Kristy: Yep, I had that written down too.

Anna-Lynn: Buy, repeat, refer.

Kristy: Yep.

Anna-Lynn: It’s more steps.

Kristy: Yep.

Anna-Lynn: And it’s more of a process so that means you really have to understand and know what each of those steps are, what they mean, and then how to fulfill those things so that they will do each of those things.

Kristy: And he was talking about during that just like leaning into how we choose our customers and we choose our competition we attract and we repel by doing that. Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah, I loved that and it’s like we decide what our thing is going to be like is it going to be pricing okay if it is then you are directly determining who your competitors are going to be if you’re going to decide I’m going to lowball my price because I think people are going to be attracted to spending less money. You’re instantly putting yourself in a pool of competition that is saturated you’re not distinguishing yourself at all.

Kristy: Yes, oh Ioved that one.
Anna-lynn: I loved when he said that.

Kristy: Loved that point.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah and the same is true um with our customers you know we I love how he was saying that we we all have um these customers that were like oh we just want more like this you can go get them.

Kristy: Yep.

Anna-Lynn: And it’s steps like these that determine if you are going to have more customers like that? It’s totally within your control and it’s kind of frustrating um if you know you hear people talking about it like it’s some abstract thing that can’t be achieved it’s like a a luck thing or you know it’s like it’s a very intentional thing.

Kristy: Intentional.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah and I- he stressed that a lot about being intentional like really um intentionally passing the first impression test with prospective clients you know and being intentional with um your website um understanding just how these clients and uh potential customers interact with you and being intentional about what their interaction is going to be like.

Kristy: And how to try out your business I- I wrote notes about that like filling out a form filling out a form is- is just a way to try out your business calling- see calling listening to a video a webinar like what’s it like to work with you, yeah, how are you creating these opportunities for potential customers to try to see what it’s like to work with you?

Anna-Lynn: Right that no like trust part of the process is something that we can control right and I think a lot of marketers think that it’s- it’s just well they’re either going to like us or not you know we can’t decide for them. Well, you can influence it a lot. Is your website frustrating to deal with? You know do they understand like he was throwing out some percentages that 92% visit a website for a reason other than to make a purchase and that’s how they’re trying out your business they’re seeing if they want to do business with you.

Kristy: Right.

Anna-Lynn: And like does your website say what you do or does it say what problems you’re going to solve for them?

Kristy: Yeah, yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Like what’s going to be more interesting to them what’s going to be a better interaction for them so that intentionality I think was such a good point or a good reminder to stress because we can feel sometimes that so much of this process is out of our control and it’s not so and the other one other thing that he said that I really liked was to go after referrals.

Kristy: Yes.

Anna-Lynn: You and I have talked about it quite a bit.

Kristy: So much.

Anna-Lynn: Um and it’s such a big blind spot with a lot of companies because you know it can kind of feel icky and it can basically like to just go after and be like tell us why you love us you know?

Kristy: But that clients that were referred are five times more likely to refer someone else that was an interesting point to me.

Anna-Lynn: I- I the percentage that stuck out to me was even if you have across the board have happy customers or happy clients only 29% of people refer a business that they love.

Kristy: Yes.

Anna-Lynn: Which is it’s okay but it’s still pretty low when you think about it I know when I love a product or a company I tell everybody. Because I’m like it either made my life easier it produced um something that just was fantastic you know it and you want to tell people when something was successful, and- but I loved his point that when we use referrals it’s like borrowing trust which can help build trust with new customers or clients Which is far easier than like starting new with someone.

Kristy: Yeah, yes.

Anna-Lynn: And I- I really liked that thought of borrowing trust so it- it’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked and that we should be going after more and that was one of the things I’m like we need we need to do this more.

Kristy: Yep we already feel passionate about that.

Anna-Lynn: Most likely anybody listening also needs to do that more.

Kristy: Oh yeah, I’m sure everyone can work on that.

Anna-Lynn: It’s the one thing unless you’re super on top of it you kind of just well people will talk about it if they like.

Kristy: I feel like it’s one of those things everyone can probably improve in yeah.
Anna-Lynn: Yeah.

Kristy: Yeah. Um I feel like we only have like 10 minutes left so let’s keep moving. Um so I had next 10 AI methods of uh B2B content in lead gen.

Anna-Lynn: Oh from Andy Crestodina?

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: He was great.

Kristy: Yeah I really liked that a lot. Um just kind of going through um some AI uh was this the one that was AI tools?

Anna-Lynn: Um he talked a lot about prompts. I loved this I- I took away a lot from his talk because um I wasn’t really into AI at all few years ago like hated it thought it was dumb and was like did just didn’t want it anywhere near a writing team because I’m like it’s not a writer it’s producing crap you know?

Kristy: Yeah and this kind of got me thinking on like certain things like um certain things that he said really got my brain spinning like um AI stands- think that it stands for assume incorrect yeah like don’t trust a I trust yourself and that’s something that’s like you do have to think about that when you’re using it you do have to assume that it’s not giving you accurate information or that it’s not writing correctly for you. You can’t just spit into it and- and assume it’s spitting out…

Anna-Lynn: It’’s not a better version of you, that’s what I think writers sometimes forget it’s a tool.

Kristy: Right it’s a tool.

Anna-Lynn: It’s like I explained it my husband asked me once he’s like when I told him that I had used it to write something and he was like so it wrote it for you and I’m like no let me explain it to you this way say you’re building a house it’s like using a nail gun instead of a hammer.

Kristy: Yeah, yeah.

Anna-Lynn: It’s a tool.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: It’s not you.

Kristy: If you use it that way.

Anna-Lynn: It’s not going to build the house for you.

Kristy: Right

Anna-Lynn: You still need to be there but it can make it easier for you to do your job and that’s one of the things that he- Andy did so well in his talk was explaining um how to prompt chat GPT as an example um to create better content. Um I loved his thought to create AI personas for clients and then prompting that instead of just a straight prompt um and because… He said this sentence that really stuck out to me he said that the world does not need another mid quality blog post.

Kristy: I wrote that down too.

Anna-Lynn: I loved it because that is 100,000% what I thought from the beginning.

Kristy: Totally agree.

Anna-Lynn: I thought that’s all the AI could produce.

Kristy: Well and he also said if you if you can write a prompt and get a response in 10 seconds so can your audience.

Anna-Lynn: Exactly.

Kristy: All it does is summarize what’s already on the internet that’s what it does.

Anna-Lynn: Exactly.

Kristy: It’s not a it’s it’s not a human writing it is summarizing what’s on the internet so if you can do it so can your…

Anna-Lynn: So can your clients.

Kristy: So can anyone else just using what’s spit out from it anyone can do that it’s you as a human customizing it.

Anna-Lynn: Right and someone as a skilled writer like that’s the thing too because there will be people out there who would be like I don’t need to hire you for this because can’t I use Chat GPT to you know I can do this all myself you still have to be a writer like you need to have the skills behind that’s like I can’t go build a house because I own a hammer.

Kristy: Right.

Anna-Lynn: Well I can swing a hammer I cannot build a house it’s the same mentality and um so I loved his- his um insights on how to use this as a tool to really differentiate your content from generic content that AI is going to spit out um I liked his idea his other idea that um one that he said he did himself was he has a AI codex built into to drive with prompts based on the AI personas that he’s created um and that helps them to efficent- efficiently create content for these clients and I thought that’s a fantastic idea that’s something I want to do I- I hadn’t thought of it like I’ve got my writing team using Ai and you know taught them about prompts and how to get more detailed information and so we’re not spitting out this generic content that I cannot stand won’t stand for.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Um and but I love the idea of having like this prompt library that all the team can like add to or use.

Kristy: It’s already done so why do it again.

Anna-Lynn: Right, right I just I thought that was fantastic. Another thing that he came up with that I thought would be cool for social he was talking about using AI to come up with typically mundane topics that people have strong reactions to in order to come up with like safe provocative content that will build up your engagement on social platforms so I thought that was cool like making statements like the only coffee is dark roast you know?

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: It’s not you know gonna switch any a HR buttons you know it’s not going to flip any and HR switches but…

Kristy: And that’s what makes humanized content is cause he also said AI cannot the things that AI can’t do is take a stand collaborate and make video bec in the sense that video has no face.

Anna-Lynn: Right.

Kristy: So when you when you’re using it to help you get started you’re then making cause you know just the whole we could talk forever about the whole topic of like is AI going to take over our jobs? No because there are things that there are things that it can’t do.

Anna-Lynn: Right, yeah, yeah it was great. He’d a lot more but we probably have to… Oh one last thing that I wanted that really was a big takeaway that I hadn’t really thought of before was prioritizing AI to find deficiencies not efficiencies so use it to see what’s missing and where you might have gaps and he was talking giving an example like using it to recommend SEO edits to pages on your website.

Kristy: And titles and meta tags and…

Anna-Lynn: Right um primary key phrases and semantic related phrases like making asking it what’s missing or um you know are there any topics pertaining to my client that aren’t being covered by popular blogs?

Kristy: Yep.

Anna-Lynn: Like is there something more obscure that is going to be super beneficial for this audience that we could fill that need so I thought I thought that was great I hadn’t really thought of it that way before.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: I’ve always looked at it as a tool to improve things which this would finding the deficiencies would but I hadn’t ever really connected it to hey tell me what I’m not doing.

Kristy: Right, yeah.

Anna-Lynn: I- I would always ask it to tell me how to do this better.

Kristy: Yep, no it’s a great idea.

Anna-Lynn: So I love that.

Kristy: Yeah. Uh one of the ones that I went to that you didn’t go to um was building your brand on LinkedIn and I’m not going to get into it too deep because I do intend to make a whole other episode about this but that was Viveka- Viveka Von Rosen and she’s uh bit of a LinkedIn professional and she just went through how to optimize your whole LinkedIn profile and just to kind of touch on it she was just really leaning into how people use their LinkedIn profiles as a resume and how that’s not what it’s for um so you know just as a- as an individual as a company as a brand how you can optimize it what each section is for um you know what should be in the featured section what should be in the about section you know how to um just again briefly I’m going make a whole- whole thing on this but just getting your yourself verified because you can do that for free for now.

Anna-Lynn: Right.

Kristy: Do it now while you can for free before they find out we’re all doing this um so anyway activating campaigns blah blah blah so uh I was I really I was like furiously taking notes um I need to email her for the her slides but…

Anna-Lynn: So find her on LinkedIn and follow her.

Kristy: Yeah, so helpful so I’m excited for that one to come out. Um Lou Bortone.

Anna-Lynn: Oh he was a favorite. Loved him.

Kristy: This is one we’re super running out of time so let’s just do this one really quick.

Anna-Lynn: Okay.

Kristy: Uh leveraging AI to transform your video. This one is you and I were just like whispering whispering whispering like.

Anna-Lynn: We gotta get that we gotta get that.

Kristy: This one we want this one we want this one.

Anna-Lynn: He was uh what I really appreciated about his presentation was he didn’t just talk about these um programs these AI programs that he was promoting because he liked using them he also showed like actual demonstrations of this is the what I put into it this is what it spit back out this is how you can tweak it like it was like real life demo…

Kristy: Yep.

Anna-Lynn: Using it and I thought that was fantastic because he you can sit up there and you know talk about these things but seeing it in action like really really impressed on us which ones could actually work for our business and actually be helpful for us and so I thought it was great that he approached it.

Kristy: Yeah just the demonstrations that he had he you know he had to kind of move through them quickly because there were so many and he’s limited on time but he just the the way he was able to show like here’s a here’s a brief demonstration of this one what you use it for it’s cool and I just liked him as a person because he seems very super intelligent, knowledgeable, and humble he wasn’t up there just being like now I’m so smart like he was just kind of like here’s what I know here’s how you do it and very chill about it I was just like I was super locked into him.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah he was so real and engaging and I think it was because he wasn’t about using the marketing speak.

Kristy: Yeah, yes.

Anna-Lynn: Which you hear so much of it.

Kristy: I didn’t pandered to.

Anna-Lynn: And you can hear a lot of that at conferences where it’s just like if I hear someone say Circle back or level up one more time I’m to snap you know? And you just he was actually just so probably the most real of any of the speakers there uh because he was just like here’s what I did with it, here’s what you can do with it could you do more maybe this one might work better for you.

Kristy: It was not his intention at all but he created little fan girls in us.

Anna-Lynn: Yes, we invited him for to a waffle party and I think we’re going to make it happen.

Kristy: Yeah cause he’s close.

Anna-Lynn: He reached out…

Kristy: You hear that Lou? Are you watching? Are you listening?

Anna-Lynn: He responded on LinkedIn was like I can be there in seven minutes.

Kristy: That’s amazing.

Anna-Lynn: Like dude we’re best friends.

Kristy: I really hope he does yeah. Well I I do think we could do if he decided to come but if he did not we could do a whole episode on AI video tools.

Anna-Lynn: Oh yeah. Like some of the tools that he talked about um and he talked about some that were free like Notebook LM the Google one that’s free and then he also talked about ones like descript.com, pictory AI. hedra.com, um ones that had like minimal monthly subscriptions and I love that he um talked about ones for a wide range of uses like not just for content um like writing content but also like podcasting um and video.

Kristy: Yeah, yep I’m excited about those.

Anna-Lynn: And they were all at different price points and he demonstrated from each like the top three I think that he used all the time he did a demonstration of each one of those like here’s how it could be beneficial for you so again I just I loved his breakdown of it he made it seem so accessible which I think was really cool because there were some people in the audience that were just starting out in marketing, were like a oneman show or one woman show and wanted to incorporate video or podcasting like he was showing tools that can help agencies like that who don’t maybe have a full team and he was talking about how you can utilize them even if you don’t have a full team like he was talking to everybody he was fantastic.

Kristy: Yeah, well that’s the highlights guys.

Anna-Lynn: It was a lot of good stuff it was a packed day like I we left feeling like we’d filled up our brains and it’s like we’re not new to marketing and sometimes when you go to these and especially where we hadn’t been to this one first were like it’s a lot cheaper than inbound are we really going to get anything out of this but I- I was happily surprised it was fantastic.

Kristy: I told Bill I’m like we’re taking more of us next time.

Anna-Lynn: Yeah I want the whole whole team let’s bring the whole team next time because it was it was a great day.

Kristy: Yeah.

Anna-Lynn: Really they did Maine proud I felt like yeah good good stuff.

Kristy: Okay we rambled on and on and on so we must call it quits and hope you’ll be here next time.

Anna-Lynn: I know we got to do this again soon because we can’t we can’t have you know there’s too much crisis in both of our lives.

Kristy: Yes.

Anna-Lynn: We need more of this.

Kristy: Yes. Thank you all for listening and being here.

Anna-Lynn: Bye.

Kristy: We’ll see you next time.