[SPEAKER_01]: I got to a point where I saw this AI writing on the wall of everything will be able to be automated. [SPEAKER_01]: Do I sit back? [SPEAKER_01]: in my business that I'm already burned out on and watch this slowly dismantle everything that I've built. [SPEAKER_01]: Do I take that chance? [SPEAKER_01]: Do I be an early adopter?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I bet on this being a technological revolution and trying to be a leader, create something early that helps people risking cannibalizing my business? [SPEAKER_01]: That was the decision that I made. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a never ending grind man, and then you feel behind if you take that rest time or at least I find myself doing it. [SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly it, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like, how do you marry?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you marry this desire to achieve and grow and get better with the fact that, you can't just go all the time, and I think we all probably know too, I'm sure, you know, I be interested [SPEAKER_02]: When you are on that full tilt all the time, always on kind of thing, you're not doing your best work all the time. [SPEAKER_02]: You're just not, and, you know, that's a, that, I struggle with that harm, you know, finding harmony there, I struggle with quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: So. [SPEAKER_03]: There we go, that's better. [SPEAKER_03]: Cool, okay, awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: All right, dude. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, pertinent to the moment. [SPEAKER_02]: Hot on your brain, a story that just came out, something that's happened recently that I wouldn't have picked up in all the research and your materials that you're like, you know, this would be really cool if we talked about it today or I'd love to talk about this today, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the book is a big one. [SPEAKER_01]: How deep do you want to go down the AI rabbit hole? [SPEAKER_02]: We can go as deep as you want because as a completely, I think, I think that could be a really interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to do, I don't want to do everything nerdy AI, but I do want to do some nerdy AI because I know, [SPEAKER_02]: not being a technical god so i'm not technical at all like don't know how to code et cetera uh but was a math major so i understand how the logic works behind these things and i'm kind of trying to download as much as i can
[SPEAKER_02]: And like I have my own open claw that I set up that I've been learning learning the hard way on that learning a ton use cloud code to build multiple applications that I'm not having commercialized but I'm using for like personal stuff or you know personal in my business stuff and you know one of the things that what was really funny about what happened this week is so I do. [SPEAKER_02]: growth acceleration consulting. [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I've done for Lizard ten years. [SPEAKER_02]: And obviously right now everybody wants to talk about how those concepts now apply through the lens of AI. [SPEAKER_02]: So I ended up but the workshops I did this this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: What ended up happening was I threw out the entire presentation, sat up at the front of the room and literally just asked, so what it was was it was a large group that they broke up into groups of 50 and then they cycled through four times throughout the course of the day. [SPEAKER_02]: So I got four different groups of 50, which is cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would just yell out to the audience essentially like what's a problem that you're having in your [SPEAKER_02]: in your marketing or your sales. [SPEAKER_02]: And we would just, I'd either pull up, you know, man is quad or open claw, and I would just solve the problem for them, like in real time. [SPEAKER_02]: And it was so much fun. [SPEAKER_02]: I know I could have done it a million times better, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's not like my area of expertise, but this is where I'm going with this. [SPEAKER_02]: I know that even hyper non-technical people are starting to play with this, and I think how we frame [SPEAKER_02]: Here's how you don't fuck your whole world up going down this path, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, how to avoid the chasing Chinese objects to how do you make sure that your cloth, your open cloth doesn't spend $10,000 on your credit card to buy whatever, like, you know, how do we, and then I really wanna take it to kind of your book
[SPEAKER_02]: Getting to like I want to finish future casting like not so much, you know, where how do we start positioning ourselves today for for what's going to success is going to look like in the future, because I think Last thing I'll say in the off shot to fuck up because I'm supposed to be interviewing you. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, the good thing is when it's your show, you can do whatever you want, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, you know, I think the last thing is, yeah, you got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to cook. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing all this prep, um, but there's really no reason for that. [SPEAKER_02]: So I do a little preamble, so it's all good. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So we'll just start going, um, appreciate you. [SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate the opportunity, brother. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, dude, same. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think this couldn't be more timely.
[SPEAKER_02]: What we're going to talk about today is been on my brain and I have been doing so much dabbling, so much hobby, AIing strategies that I've used for growth consulting in the past. [SPEAKER_02]: And now I'm looking at these things and like as a non-technical person,
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see it right I can see there is it's not just like on technical I'm non technical to the other way I just got it really yeah I'm just a marketer in an opportunist and gotten the software game pretty early on and interested in AI and it's changed my life but yeah I'm with you I'm not a coder so for the audience the context of this conversation guys is going to be I want to spend this time with Austin to talk about I'm
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, level set where we are today, I want to then get into some of the obstacles around things like, Claude Code, what agents are and how we should be thinking about them and our businesses, what is this open-cloth thing and why has it taken the world by storm? [SPEAKER_02]: And whether open clot ends up being the tool or the platform, the set of agents that that lives or dies will be a different story. [SPEAKER_02]: But the technology seems undeniable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I want to get into kind of your book in this idea of leveraging AI and ways that are actually going to produce real results. [SPEAKER_02]: Because I see man in this, and this is where I love what you're doing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of love the way you approach it. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was so excited to chat was, [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much slap on how to use this, like AI's slap on how to use these tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really want to get into like where can people play some bets that have the best chance of producing real results. [SPEAKER_02]: So with all that said, how did you get into the marketing game, why the marketing game, and what was it about AI in particular that is really caught your interest lately and diving so deep into this technology? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, Ryan, firstly, thank you so much for being on the show. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited to narrow it out with you. [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I was born for marketing to be honest as as lame as that might sound, but I stumbled into social media marketing when I was 14 years old on my space. [SPEAKER_01]: This is now 21, almost 22 years ago, crazy to think. [SPEAKER_01]: I had hundreds of thousands of followers. [SPEAKER_01]: I was able to monetize it in multiple ways. [SPEAKER_01]: My mom thought what I was doing was illegal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it might have been, but I got caught up in that grind really early on. [SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of never stopped. [SPEAKER_01]: Fast forward to about [SPEAKER_01]: 11 or 12 years ago, I moved out to Orange County, California, which is where my professional career really began.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got started in an unpaid internship in a video production video marketing agency, really worked my way up for being an unpaid intern, paid intern, part-time employee, full-time employee, ran that company, started my own marketing agency about seven years ago. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's when I started to grow my personal brand pretty heavily on social media. [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to practice what I preach. [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely fell in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Got an early with TikTok. [SPEAKER_01]: And what I started to notice, and this is going to lead up into the AI game, is my organic top of funnel content that was attracting my perspective leads of business owners, entrepreneurs, or aspiring business owners, or entrepreneurs, [SPEAKER_01]: was useful websites for them. [SPEAKER_01]: So I created this series useful websites that feel illegal to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was sharing software tools, productivity tools, marketing oriented software. [SPEAKER_01]: And it was a very natural pivot for me. [SPEAKER_01]: I've always been an early adopter and I saw in the market shift some of these AI tools start to come out. [SPEAKER_01]: chat to be tea really early on before it was even public. [SPEAKER_01]: I got involved with Jasper, which was a Jarvis before, and I just really went down that rabbit hole pretty early on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to a point in my company, in my agency, where I'm like a little burned out on this, and I'm really interested in this software game. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sharing these websites. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also an affiliate for these websites. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm making pretty decent money from affiliate marketing recurring with not as much work on a hands-on basis with agency clients. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that led me to starting my first software company, which is, uh, is called syllabi.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little over three years now. [SPEAKER_01]: It's an AI software company. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm non-technical as we were just kind of chatting about it as well. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what kind of led me. [SPEAKER_01]: down this entire path from agency work, organic work, organic content creation to software to AI. [SPEAKER_01]: And now it's just exploded. [SPEAKER_01]: It was one of those early bets that really has paid off. [SPEAKER_01]: And frankly changed my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we're on this endless rat race of new AI tools coming out. [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about open claw just yesterday. [SPEAKER_01]: And I have it running in the background right [SPEAKER_01]: Herplexities computer, which is a safer, more user-friendly competitor to open clause as well. [SPEAKER_01]: We can go down that rabbit hole if you want, but I just want to open that up and that's kind of been my fun journey over the last 22 years. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: similar in some regards in that was non-technical, found the marketing space, 2009, but was probably more LinkedIn than my space. [SPEAKER_02]: This is back when, like, you couldn't even reply to posts on LinkedIn. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it was just, like, literally just cards, floating down a timeline, where you still had to click the load more button just to give everyone context. [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't even in videos, it was all invented back then.
[SPEAKER_02]: And kind of a, [SPEAKER_02]: Took a similar path into marketing and I've always been on that side and you know I have a question you said you were early adopter and one of the things that I get particularly from we'll say service businesses, main street businesses that reach out [SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of owners, operators, executives, maybe second generation family members.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I also seemingly get this a lot, and maybe you see this from the sons and daughters of business owners who maybe tend to go operations, versus the hard grind of sales. [SPEAKER_02]: I think they struggle a lot with, how do I... [SPEAKER_02]: How do I stay out on the front edge of what's coming?
[SPEAKER_02]: While still doing the day-to-day work that it takes to actually operate one of these businesses, this is a big mental struggle for people and they constantly seem to be yo-yoing between I'm way out ahead, this isn't really producing results, I'm spinning my wheels, I'm wasting time with oh my gosh, I'm behind, we don't have the right tack, our competitors are getting out ahead of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, also being a business owner where to spend your time without getting too lost in this new tech new ideas that doesn't actually maybe produce an ROI right away. [SPEAKER_01]: Such a great nuanced question that my brain is going in a million different directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is definitely the trap that business owners find themselves in, right, and it really is the question of why they hired a marketing agency in the first place, is because they are too immersed in their own company and they need to focus on the company in order to grow it, so they don't have time to focus on all of these new marketing opportunities or AI opportunities, and so they hire an agency or trusted partner, and that whole back and forth there,
[SPEAKER_01]: Delegation is my answer. [SPEAKER_01]: So I understand where my full superpower is in business and that's where it's um, it's in research, it's in testing, it's in content creation, it's in public speaking, it's in doing amazing podcasts like this, it's writing books, it's being the face, it's leading the vision. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I don't need to do everything myself, nor do I want to do everything myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I personally, to answer that question, bring on amazing business partners that I outsource my sub 2. [SPEAKER_01]: I have team members that are able to do a lot of the day-to-day nuance things so that I can experiment and stay on the cutting edge and find and experiment some of these new
[SPEAKER_01]: early adoptive opportunities that are out there, and I thoroughly test them, and then if I see traction, if I see ideas, then I'll bring it into my team internally for some use cases, or I'll do some marketing strategy on it. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, I'm using perplexities computer right now, just if they're really tested, I've been using open claw for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm using open claw personally, but I haven't pulled it into my business yet because I think there's some risks and security issues there. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's how I personally focus on it. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll give it [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty thorough tests, amount of time, test different use cases and see that cost benefit analysis of if is it really worth the time to go down it or to I let that shiny object go and focus more on what's actually working, but I do a lot of testing.
[SPEAKER_01]: what I'm home. [SPEAKER_02]: Can you describe your process for setting up what a test may look like, how you determine what success parameters are for what you'd say, hey, this, you know, I can see it as like three buckets, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So you try something, you're like, I just don't see this working. [SPEAKER_02]: I see this working but maybe not now and this is working like this is something I want to package up and put into the business.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you set those parameters up? [SPEAKER_02]: How do you set the tests and how you determine what success looks like for things that you actually want to bring into your business? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So time and money are the two biggest KPIs that I focused on. [SPEAKER_01]: What are the current steps or current software or current processes? [SPEAKER_01]: How much time am I doing? [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll give you an example thumbnail creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now I have this this new tool creating thumbnails for me. [SPEAKER_01]: I was manually creating them in Photoshop for most of my YouTube career, canva made it a little bit easier, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the natural progression. [SPEAKER_01]: It saves me a little bit of time. [SPEAKER_01]: less probably year to half a year with Gemini's nanobinana, now it's even faster, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I compare that where I can upload an example thumbnail, a headshot of myself and an idea, and it will give me a thumbnail that's faster than I would have been able to create it. [SPEAKER_01]: in Photoshop or in Canva saves me time saves me money. [SPEAKER_01]: Now with tools like OpenClaw or computer there's a lot of these agent tools out there. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a little bit faster and that's exactly what I'm testing right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do in this test exactly right now. [SPEAKER_01]: I said go do some research on the top AI tech thumbnails in the space. [SPEAKER_01]: Here's a headshot of myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to create a new video tomorrow demoing this tool, create five thumbnail variations for me and it's doing that and it's it's learning and it's proving and so it's a little early for me to assess if this is the perfect workflow but if it saves me time and it saves me money and it's faster compared to the previous steps than it's worthwhile for me to continue and go down a little bit deeper in that rabbit hole.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I realized this week when I was working with this group, what we were talking about, I think I mentioned to you before we went live. [SPEAKER_02]: So I had guys two days before recording this, which is why I feel a little sluggish because I did six hours of workshops.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was only actually hired to do two hours of workshops and then someone else bailed and ended up doing an entire day's where the workshops which, [SPEAKER_02]: was exhausting but also phenomenal, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And I want to explain why, and then I want to put this in front of Austin.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we ended up doing because instead of a formal program around kind of growth acceleration in these businesses, I have this human optimized model that I talk about different story unless you're interested. [SPEAKER_02]: But the idea was, you know, I didn't want to go to down too far down the AI rabbit hole because I knew this particular group weren't AI natives.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was kind of my initial premise when I showed up, and then every question, the entire day was about AI. [SPEAKER_02]: So what I ended up doing was literally just kind of tossing my slides or my formal presentation away. [SPEAKER_02]: I just screen-shared my computer and I had people throw out problems that they had in sales, marketing, or some sort of flow. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, and we kind of built them on the fly. [SPEAKER_02]: All right, cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool, very fun. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's the thing that I realized, and I want to get your take on. [SPEAKER_02]: How I go through this is very similar to what you just described. [SPEAKER_02]: I will literally pull out my whiteboard, which is about 10 feet off camera to my left, and I will write out the process and detail. [SPEAKER_02]: This happens, then I have to go to this tool, right, and if it's seven tools, it's seven tools, whatever it is, and I go start to finish.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is exactly what I'm doing today. [SPEAKER_02]: What could I replace in here? [SPEAKER_02]: What I found on Tuesday that I thought was very eye-opening, not judgmental, but eye-opening was how few individuals in that room could articulate the full process. [SPEAKER_02]: Not just the way they do it today, but how they would actually like it to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I would say okay, if that's the problem What would you like to have happened and you would get like this deer in the headlights like just better right so No, okay, all right, but so I guess my question to you is like you work with a lot of clients you have an agency of dealing with a lot of business owner like [SPEAKER_02]: how do you help them? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, is there a framework or a model that you used to start to actually scope out?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not just what you do today, because I think we most of us could do that with a little bit thought, but how do we start to think about what we actually want? [SPEAKER_02]: Because that feels like a huge unlock is like, you [SPEAKER_02]: because just because it's the way we do it today, doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: And you can get some time back just by kind of rip and replace.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if we really want to take AI in particular to the next level, it's almost building a more optimized process. [SPEAKER_02]: How do we, how do you get your clients to make that transition or even how do you do it in your own business? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I got, I love this. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you'll probably appreciate this [SPEAKER_01]: a time inventory is what I've been doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I when I learned the power and what a time inventory is that I just completely changed my life and I really just learned about it from [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know how to think through that step-by-step process of what you want, document the entire process. [SPEAKER_01]: From the moment that you wake up, you can focus on your work, whatever, however you want to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The task, how much time it takes to start time the end time, your level of enjoyment of that task, the ROI on that task, verse how much you value your time at, every individual step. [SPEAKER_01]: So if it's like thumbnail creation for instance.
[SPEAKER_01]: step, you know, I spent five minutes going to YouTube and researching what the best thumbnails were, and then I opened Photoshop, and then I uploaded an image of myself, and I removed the background, you know, going through the step-by-step process, and you'll find by doing this for several days to a week tops. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can do it for two weeks, but you're going to find patterns really quickly from doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of these are the exact step-by-steps, [SPEAKER_01]: This is where the time annoyance is, I wish this thing could be sped up, this is my annoyance. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like doing this thing, I do like doing this thing, you know, and just going through that, you'll find so much clarity.
[SPEAKER_01]: in all of the steps that you can then take to now a Gentic AI or find a AI software solution to a task that takes you a large amount of time, finds somebody a virtual assistant and executive assistant or somebody to do that task. [SPEAKER_00]: That has been just the biggest life changing. [SPEAKER_00]: thing for me, for processing and outlining step-by-step that applies to AI and it applies to just improving everything about your life and your business.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I couldn't agree with you more. [SPEAKER_02]: I hate that my best AI advice is do a time audit. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I hate that that's what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: But it really is like, it works. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, I got, you know, it's funny. [SPEAKER_02]: So again, this is just fresh in my mind. [SPEAKER_02]: The last two, these two days, I spent this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've said, you know, let's wear my mind is, but like to look on people's faces when I would start my AI growth acceleration talk with, [SPEAKER_02]: The first thing you need to do is a time on it and you know, like, they look at me like, what? [SPEAKER_02]: I came here for like, you know, machines taking over the world. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, we don't know if we're trying for efficiency and effectiveness, right, in a broad stroke. [SPEAKER_02]: If we don't know where we need to apply those things, [SPEAKER_02]: You're just, again, you're just chasing rabbits, you know, we're shiny objects for the purpose of what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not having foam or, or, or, you know, creating a new desk roll habit, you know, which, which look, I have, unfortunately, like, prompt, Instagram, prompt, [SPEAKER_02]: channels, like, have taken over my brain for a period of time. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just, I'm like, naturally, by, you know, the psychology and the phrasing and the setups. [SPEAKER_02]: And most of them, I bookmark and never go back to, but, you know, it is what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can all chase these rabbits, but this idea of a time on it. [SPEAKER_02]: in my opinion, it's so incredibly important because it allows you to go just like you said, I do this one. [SPEAKER_02]: When I do it, I find, I'm like, oh my god, I didn't realize I did that thing as much as I do it, holy crap.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and here's where my next question goes is, [SPEAKER_02]: The last time I did a time audit, which probably was in the fall, I tried to do the Middle East twice a year. [SPEAKER_02]: If not more, if I'm feeling off, it's almost like a recalibration hack, if I'm feeling like my schedule up, but try to do it every year. [SPEAKER_02]: It was probably the falls last time I did it. [SPEAKER_02]: And this question popped into my brain.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I started to look at some of the things that I was doing, some of the things, [SPEAKER_02]: were most likely replaceable with an AI system process and agent, etc. [SPEAKER_02]: However, in evaluation, I was like either I do actually enjoy doing that thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Like it brings me joy to do that thing [SPEAKER_02]: was actually a feature not a bug. [SPEAKER_02]: So, if you understand where my question is going, how do we actually choose, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we can just overoptimize our entire life and take the humanity right out of our business. [SPEAKER_02]: And now all of a sudden we hate what we do, we're completely detached and our customers feel no connection to us. [SPEAKER_02]: Because we just went hyper-efficiency. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: I actually think we need the human in the loop. [SPEAKER_02]: I call this a human optimized business.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you determine those places where the human is actually a more effective, I mean, I don't mean to go completely anti-humanity, but like a more effective utilization than an AI tool that could do that job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a great question and just to kind of take it back to the time of audit, the time inventory is that row of level of enjoyment is so important to add to there because if you like to do something, you don't need to outsource it, you don't need to find an AI for it. [SPEAKER_01]: I love posting on social media. [SPEAKER_01]: I could automate it. [SPEAKER_01]: But I like to post, I like to spend my time on social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's a time so I guess I'm probably addicted to it. [SPEAKER_01]: It's my socially acceptable addiction. [SPEAKER_01]: But there are other aspects.
[SPEAKER_01]: that I can outsource, that free up more of that time so that I can stay online more where my networking happens in the DMs to me having a hand on the pulse of my trained feeds where if a news report comes out, I see it very quickly so that I can jump on it and maintain my status as a early news source in AI, for instance.
[SPEAKER_01]: AI helps me with research, AI helps me with some of the actual content creation, image generation, thread generation, outlining of some videos, but then I actually enjoy the creation process. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll record videos myself a lot of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do, I own an AI video company, so of course I use some AI video, but sometimes I edit them because I like to, sometimes I outsource them because that I, you know, if I don't have that time, I have that option to outsource if I want, or if I have a little bit more time, I still like to do video editing on on my phone. [SPEAKER_01]: And I like the process of uploading and posting and publishing and responding to comments.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I could absolutely just set up automations to find content, create content, schedule and post content, respond to content. [SPEAKER_01]: But then it's just the dead internet theory and play of bots creating content, responding to bots and posting. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's just for me, so do more of what you love and what you enjoy and find AI solutions and automations where the things that you don't like to do. [SPEAKER_01]: That's where I would focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, life is short, like focus on what you love doing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I want to take us back to just something you said earlier in our conversation, which was, you kind of were evaluating your business and you decided that out of the things that the owner or the founder needed to do, right? [SPEAKER_02]: You could have gone whole hog into agency work and bend the, you know, the BD guy, the, you know, be there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you chose, hey, I'm going to be [SPEAKER_02]: Not necessarily the owner that works in the business, which is perfectly fine. [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a stigma against working in the business because of all this work on your business, not in your business stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I think you just have to choose one path.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess I want to transition our conversation from [SPEAKER_02]: kind of this setting the stage, which we've done quite a bit, and I think a good job of to how we actually, you know, more of what your book does, like tools that we use, et cetera. [SPEAKER_02]: But before we get there, I just want to frame this and, and for, [SPEAKER_02]: for the rest of your responses, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you could give us kind of a dual answer for partially for that business owner who wants to work on the business like you do, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Loves the posting, likes writing, likes creating, likes researching, okay? [SPEAKER_02]: And then I'd also like us to try to frame a path because I know there's a lot of business owners and executives who are gonna be in this camp too.
[SPEAKER_02]: who don't want to do that stuff, but they appreciate how important it is to their business. [SPEAKER_02]: They would rather be head of BD or running the team.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want to work in the business and have their hands in it, but they do appreciate that we need to have our marketing message, we have to be telling stories, we have to be building on, etc. [SPEAKER_02]: So, if you're cool with that, I'd like to just be able to talk those two paths because I know we have a pretty [SPEAKER_02]: equal set in this audience of in the business on the business, uh, guys and gals.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, um, with that said, I want to transition over to kind of your book and your business, um, and talk more about. [SPEAKER_02]: How do we actually start to use these tools to get our message, our audience, our brand out in front of people? [SPEAKER_02]: And you use the word viral a lot, which I know, like depending on what side of the cynical spectrum you sit on is either completely acceptable or this like slap word that everyone hates on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no opinion on it, and certainly don't have a negative opinion on it at all. [SPEAKER_02]: So like, why is viral important today? [SPEAKER_02]: And how do we start to set the stage that our business up, our messaging up, like, what are the building blocks to actually be able to go viral? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so such a great question. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, virology is a controversial word, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's also subjective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So viral for me is different from viral for you versus viral for the local plumber, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You if you go viral. [SPEAKER_01]: in different niches, it unlocks different things. [SPEAKER_01]: And I also mean strategically going viral. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean cat videos and dancing. [SPEAKER_01]: The whole thesis of my book is, don't be a content creator, be a business owner, who creates strategic content.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to have the back end systems in order to, [SPEAKER_01]: execute as well as capitalized on it as well because you could very glad you made that clarification to it. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very glad you made that clarification. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's very important when we talk about this because like you could post a video of one of your employees kicking you in the nuts and it would probably go pretty far.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you had like some trending music around it and like a [SPEAKER_02]: That's not actually, well, depending on your business, I guess that's not necessarily helping, and I would say the predominant amount of people that are certainly listening to this podcast, that's not going to really help them grow their business. [SPEAKER_02]: So I appreciate that quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about getting, we'll say, maximum reach and exposure on content that builds brand and real audience. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely, specifically in your niche. [SPEAKER_01]: So I love [SPEAKER_01]: think about a content funnel. [SPEAKER_01]: At the very top of the funnel, you have the broad awareness oriented content.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is at the furthest reaches touching somebody and bring them into your ecosystem that [SPEAKER_01]: could be a customer, or could eventually be a customer, just to brought us. [SPEAKER_01]: I brought up this example earlier, right? [SPEAKER_01]: When I was growing my personal brand for my agency, I was sharing useful websites that feel illegal to know. [SPEAKER_01]: All of those powerful opening hook, I'll get into kind of a framework stuff if you want. [SPEAKER_01]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do all the nerdy shit. [SPEAKER_01]: As nerdy as you want to know, yeah, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Cool, all right, all right. [SPEAKER_01]: How much time we got? [SPEAKER_01]: There's broad top of funnel orient content. [SPEAKER_01]: There's middle of the funnel, the nurturing, the how-to, the authority building, oriented content, where you'd deeper on individual topics.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the sort of FOMO conversion oriented topic at the bottom of the funnel. [SPEAKER_01]: I loved to stay at that top of the fund. [SPEAKER_01]: This is where virology happens because it is the most broad appealing. [SPEAKER_01]: It reaches the most amount of people. [SPEAKER_01]: A couple of, another great example of this shout out to Roger Wakefield, just an example that comes to mind, the expert plumber. [SPEAKER_01]: Massive, massive social media following.
[SPEAKER_01]: Millions of followers in the plumbing niche was a local Texas plumber. [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, sold as practice because he was so successful. [SPEAKER_01]: Um, he had a lot of great how to content how to fix a toilet how to, you know, change the spark plug or you know the whatever plug and on back and you know whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: But his viral content is comparing popular tools or plumber reacts to, um, [SPEAKER_01]: You know, septic tank explosions or something like that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's very niche specific, it's broad appealing, it's interesting. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to Home Depot and hoping the person doesn't buy the large, a brand named thing that everybody thinks about, but is actually just a scam because they're really good at marketing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like real plumber reacts. [SPEAKER_01]: That is top of mind, that's broad awareness oriented content. [SPEAKER_01]: that's going to attract people to follow you and then that's where real conversions can happen. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: So now we have living in that broad awareness-oriented funnel. [SPEAKER_01]: Think about that. [SPEAKER_01]: Structuring your content will really help you stack the odds in your favor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have a framework in in my book, for instance, that anybody can follow. [SPEAKER_01]: It's called the [SPEAKER_01]: As stands for stop to scroll with a powerful opening hook, the T stands for talk about a problem that's related to that opening hook, the A stands for align this where you can briefly talk about yourself and build authority, the R stands for resolve that problem. [SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be the meat potatoes of your actual video.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the tea is telling what to do next. [SPEAKER_01]: This is your call to action at the end. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you have a broad topic in mind, you have a strong opening hook associated with that. [SPEAKER_01]: You're expanding on it by talking about that problem. [SPEAKER_01]: You're building and extending the view duration. [SPEAKER_01]: Then you're talking about how you are the perfect expert for this. [SPEAKER_01]: information away and resolving that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're telling them, follow me if you want to learn more about this particular topic, et cetera. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you follow a framework like that, you're going to stack the odds in your favor that's going to deal with the viral. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to convert and hold attention. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you're actually going to generate leads and sales for your business.
[SPEAKER_02]: We break down two aspects of the start framework in particular that I see a lot of people who don't spend time in here struggle with. [SPEAKER_02]: First one is the asks for you, the opening hook. [SPEAKER_02]: I know just about everyone has probably heard this term and knows that hooks are important, but just butcher this.
[SPEAKER_02]: even pros butcher this a lot you know I mean like you'll see great ones and then you'll see the miss so I'd really like to dig into what makes a good hook how do we you know if I'm not a marketing person who thinks about this all day but I do want to put some content out like how do I start for a meal okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other piece, and this one I think is sneaky, but is so often missed is the A. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, why should what is it about my experience that you actually care, what I'm telling you? [SPEAKER_02]: I see so many people just blow past this, not do it at all, or butcher it in almost like, [SPEAKER_02]: When they do do it, it comes off as like braggie or ego-tistical and it gives you almost the opposite feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, love to talk about the hook and then how we do that kind of authority part, the why you should care part really well. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So, the other nuance here as well is short form content tends to go viral faster than long form content. [SPEAKER_01]: Keep that in the back of your mind. [SPEAKER_01]: With that said, the infinite doom scroll on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, reals now, YouTube shorts, all of these platforms.
[SPEAKER_01]: we have to capture attention immediately where the next piece of content probably will. [SPEAKER_01]: There is an endless supply of content now and that is the importance of the opening hook. [SPEAKER_01]: You also have to remember that nobody is doom scrolling on social media for you specifically. [SPEAKER_01]: They are there for entertainment, for education, [SPEAKER_01]: time killing whatever, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So you need to have all of those components in mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I see a lot of people get wrong is placing that A, that authority, that alignment at the beginning. [SPEAKER_01]: But that is not a good opening hook. [SPEAKER_01]: You can save that for later. [SPEAKER_01]: It's important to mention who you are, why they should trust you. [SPEAKER_01]: There's different ways that you can do that, stop doing it at the beginning. [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody cares, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So think about it from newspaper headlines.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should be able to read it in your head and in one to two seconds. [SPEAKER_01]: I think you have the grace of three to four seconds if you're really good with it. [SPEAKER_01]: You can also stack this with series as well. [SPEAKER_01]: Just a little bit more nuance, but so a series, for instance, I'll give you some examples of opening hooks that I use. [SPEAKER_01]: So I said earlier, these five websites fill illegal to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: takes two and a half three seconds in order to say that. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a recurring series because I can swap the five websites in their each individual time, but it stops the scroll. [SPEAKER_01]: What are the websites? [SPEAKER_01]: Why are they illegal? [SPEAKER_01]: Are they actually illegal? [SPEAKER_01]: It's a curiosity gap. [SPEAKER_01]: Another series that I have recurring right now, actually variable is cat GPT secrets.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should know part X, clawed A I secrets. [SPEAKER_01]: You should know part X, Gemini, our Google Gemini secrets. [SPEAKER_01]: You should know part X, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It creates that curiosity gap. [SPEAKER_01]: It's if it's something that I'm interested in, I'm going to continue to watch. [SPEAKER_01]: And I can fill in the blanks every single time. [SPEAKER_01]: So think about it from that perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oversensationalize it a little bit, create that curiosity gap. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the A, the Align, there's different ways that you can do this as well. [SPEAKER_01]: By the time you're in that process, so we'd stop the scroll, you have your opening hook, talking about a problem, so you're expanding it a little bit. [SPEAKER_01]: Now you're maybe 15 seconds into the video.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a really good view extension retention hack that if you follow that strategically, especially in a short form video, [SPEAKER_01]: much more likely to go viral with that content because short-form content has that drop-off point immediately if you're not hooked on them. [SPEAKER_01]: That align, keep it brief. [SPEAKER_01]: You've earned their attention for, well, 15 seconds or so. [SPEAKER_01]: You can say, hi, my name's Austin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your, I'm your friendly AI expert. [SPEAKER_01]: Or I've seen one recent, I love horror movies. [SPEAKER_01]: I forget his name off hand, but he's like, hi, my name's John. [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to be your, your movie guru, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's, that's his authority in there. [SPEAKER_01]: Or another way that you can do it and save the time is having your credentials listed on there as well. [SPEAKER_01]: therapists and psychologists.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they had to put like their name and LCSW license clinical social worker under it or side D or if you're a real estate agent, mortgage broker, you have to put your license number on the video, you know, on there as well. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that builds the [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and and that builds that trust factor on the way as well. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, no like trust is a little cliche. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's even expanding past that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, uh, but it really, um, adds adds into that as, as well. [SPEAKER_01]: So you build a little bit of trust after holding their attention, and then you can go into the rest of the framework. [SPEAKER_02]: And with all, you know, just to be clear with the audience, I am not a, I do not teach this type of stuff, but I do get asked questions. [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, somebody will be like, hey, I created this, what do you think, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think about, okay? [SPEAKER_02]: And I see, I really, I just wanna stop on the alignment, authority piece for one more second, because I do see things were like, [SPEAKER_02]: I see sometimes it's like this big brag. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I've done this and this and I've done this thing and it goes too far, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And then like you said, other people blow right past it. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what is like a good stat?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I know when I'm doing I found when I'm doing a post about like a communication method, [SPEAKER_02]: I nerd out so hard on the psychology of communication. [SPEAKER_02]: I just love the idea that, like, if I know how to spin a certain set of words in a certain order, I can literally hack your brain to do what I want you to do and visually it works as well. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just fascinated by it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I found that when I share a communication oriented piece of content, particularly short form, [SPEAKER_02]: that if I say, hey, my name's Ryan Hanley and I've done over 400 paid keynotes as like my alignments, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So one little stat that kind of gives validation to I've done this for a while. [SPEAKER_02]: that seems to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I go farther, I can literally see on the Instagram thing, like right at that section, I'll get, and guys, if you're watching on, you can see me do a hand gestures, like a crazy person, but essentially the graph and Instagram's retention, I've seen it like in that section, if I go more than one stat, or I spend too much time there, it literally drop, like people are just scrolling away.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, how do you determine if, let's say, I'm, again, let's go mainstream services, businesses, like an insurance agency, a plumber, you know, whatever, how do what are the stats that they could be thinking about? [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe beyond just like their license or I'm a licensed, whatever, that could add credibility without sounding too much like you're bragging or being a [SPEAKER_01]: I think you absolutely nailed it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: One line about something that you've achieved or something or how you've helped somebody, particular to that video. [SPEAKER_01]: So try and tie the alignment to the topic of that video, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So the plumber route, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm Roger Wakefield. [SPEAKER_01]: I've helped 10,000 people in the state of Texas over the last 20 years. [SPEAKER_01]: But you know, just move on on for you can get a little bit more specific.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've I've, you know, if it's a five best toilet unclog strategies from from home deep. [SPEAKER_01]: You can be like. [SPEAKER_01]: In the last 20 years, I've unclogged over 20,000 toilets in the state of Texas. [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, and they flew on from there. [SPEAKER_01]: Like a stat achieved based on the opening hook. [SPEAKER_01]: Again, yeah, like you've got like two, three seconds in each little segment here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The resolve you can, that's where your meeting potatoes are. [SPEAKER_01]: You can put more emphasis there, but specifically for this alignment. [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, like, again, this is discovery oriented content. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't care about you. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, sorry, everybody. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't give a crap about you. [SPEAKER_01]: If they want to learn more about you, they're going to click on your bio. [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to click on the website.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they'll DM you. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they'll go to the website. [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to do a little bit more research. [SPEAKER_01]: This is the user journey. [SPEAKER_01]: stop making it about you and always make it more about who you're trying to reach. [SPEAKER_01]: Give your best information away for free.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just have that two to three second alignment piece in there, associated with a stat or a number that you've helped again tie it into that opening hook. [SPEAKER_01]: That's all you need. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and guys, I don't mean to spend so much time here and I want to move on from this particular topic, but I did think it was incredibly important because when when when when you guys send me your posts and you'll say, hey, can you just take a look at this right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I don't present myself as a viral expert. [SPEAKER_02]: I am not. [SPEAKER_02]: But [SPEAKER_02]: The reason I, I had awesome spend so much time is that I feel like we go right to the info that we want to bar fund people. [SPEAKER_02]: And while that is important, right, it is unfortunately you can't skip these two steps guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is these are the two things I see kind of will call them more amateur or non-professional marketers make is that [SPEAKER_02]: This is where you psychologically hook people in so that they do give a shit about this stuff that you're actually going to teach them So you know, they're never even going to stop and you'll be in that like 200 view You know death valley forever if you can't get past this point So I just wanted to spend a little bit of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate you letting us languish there for a minute But I did think that was important you know, so now you hadn't had an agency and now you start [SPEAKER_02]: AI tool that does video marketing, video creation, video editing to a certain extent. [SPEAKER_02]: Like aren't you cannibalizing your business by doing this? [SPEAKER_02]: Like why would you, why would you go out and get into this?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the tool is wonderful and please dig into it, tell us about it. [SPEAKER_02]: Guys, not a paid sponsor to burn anything. [SPEAKER_02]: I just think it's wonderful and I really want to think through kind of [SPEAKER_02]: taking your business and adding and seeing going, we can turn this actually into an actual product that people can use. [SPEAKER_02]: I want to think through that whole process. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it did cannibalize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was strategic. [SPEAKER_01]: That was on purpose. [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, [SPEAKER_01]: To one degree, I was completely burned out in agency life. [SPEAKER_01]: I was stepping away, I tried to hire people to run the company for me. [SPEAKER_01]: I ran it into the ground. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to be frank and honest there. [SPEAKER_01]: I was in the marketing agency space for a total of about 12 years, and I got really burned out on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I still wanted to help people I love what I do, and love social media so much. [SPEAKER_01]: It changed my life. [SPEAKER_01]: My whole purpose and mission is to provide the tips tools and strategies to help change other people's lives and make money online with social media. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I needed to find out a way that I could do that that wasn't burning me out, and that I could help even more people at scale.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really just over the course of two years preparing for creating this tool, so by I talked to a lot of our customers. [SPEAKER_01]: I talked to a lot of business owners of [SPEAKER_01]: Why they hired a marketing agency in the first place? [SPEAKER_01]: What were the problems that they were facing that needed to hire a marketing agency?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the core problem is that I came across and I really broke everything down as they know they need to create content for social media. [SPEAKER_01]: but they don't know what topics to create. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know what to say on camera. [SPEAKER_01]: They need help staying consistent and accountable. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know how to do video editing or they don't wanna do video editing.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have the time to create and edit videos and schedule and publish it across every social media platform. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they don't have a son or daughter that can do it either. [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's a chicken or the egg problem of them being so focused and not having time when their business, but not getting the word out enough, so not enough new businesses coming in.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why they hired a marketing agency, and I got to a point where I'm like, oh, when I break this down, all of these steps can be done with software. [SPEAKER_01]: And so syllabi started as an internal tool, really, because I look, I did that, I've [SPEAKER_01]: I looked at what was taking me the most amount of time, and it was the content strategy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was going out and doing competitor research, I was doing keyword research on topics to create videos on for our customers, and then studying competitors and outlining this big content strategy. [SPEAKER_01]: So we started with that, and so [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that's that was really the main first feature of syllabies, enter a topic, enter a service and it shows you all the topics and questions and keywords that your customers are searching for online.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I also believe that within this viral landscape, Shamedia is a search engine. [SPEAKER_01]: The discoverability engine is so good. [SPEAKER_01]: These algorithms are so good. [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to put content in front of you based on your needs because of your viewing patterns and your search history on social media. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a long-lended ramp there. [SPEAKER_01]: And then they don't know what to say on camera as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we came up with this whole interview process. [SPEAKER_01]: Like when I was at my agency, this whole interview process where I looked at main keyword that you're trying to create a video for. [SPEAKER_01]: And then what are the logical questions that make this a longer video all within the same topic. [SPEAKER_01]: And so now with AI, the last couple of years, [SPEAKER_01]: Script generation just follows that format. [SPEAKER_01]: So we have our topic now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a script that is based on my framework of That's starting video framework that I mentioned, but it has It's based on tens of thousands of video scripts that I've handwritten myself and then have studied as well [SPEAKER_02]: That's alignment right there folks. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you hear him just align? [SPEAKER_02]: It works. [SPEAKER_02]: It's now you believe what he's about to say. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, a call you have a perfect one. [SPEAKER_00]: That one line.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so ingrained. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right now it was perfect. [SPEAKER_02]: Not like literally you guys just did what we were talking about before, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So now the next part and I mean, it erupted. [SPEAKER_02]: But it was like, it's so perfect. [SPEAKER_02]: It was a good thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, now, like, I know I just said, I go, oh, shitty knows what he's talking about. [SPEAKER_02]: He did 10,000 scripts by hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, like I little I like felt myself leaning in that's why I didn't erupt you. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry But that that's what you do by setting the stage there and saying I did 10,000 handwritten scripts myself I can tell you from blood sweat and you know blisters on my fingers from holding the pen You know what this scripting process looks like and what produces a good script So just wanted to point that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no. [SPEAKER_01]: Great, great catch. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even, I don't even catch myself. [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's just habit now. [SPEAKER_01]: And then so what's the next up? [SPEAKER_01]: So you have your video script right? [SPEAKER_01]: Then it's the actual video creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's gone over through a lot of iteration processes and so by an image generation based on the context of the scenes and now AI video generation with all of the models based on the scene edits everything together. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you can connect all of your social media platforms and schedule and publish it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's basically [SPEAKER_01]: all of the steps that I was doing manually at my agency, charging a lot of money, multiple five figures per month in some instances.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's self-serve, it's automated, it just helps it, and I don't mean to be self-promoting, but I just thought that, you know, I got to a point [SPEAKER_01]: will be able to be automated, do I sit back in my business that I'm already burned out on and watch this slowly dismantle everything that I've built? [SPEAKER_01]: Do I take the chance?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I be an [SPEAKER_01]: do I bet on this being a technological revolution and trying to be a leader and be and create something early that helps people and risking cannibalizing my business? [SPEAKER_01]: And that was the decision that I made and I think it was the best decision that I possibly could make. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in a better situation, mentally, physically, financially in my relationship, [SPEAKER_01]: everything because of that decision.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I cannibalized my own business. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that agency down. [SPEAKER_01]: But it was worth it. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I love it. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's, I, I want I love that it's a product that you created out of your own business and I want to put a pin there just for a second. [SPEAKER_02]: I want to come back to this concept because I do think this is where we're headed with some functionality.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, I'm okay with just one to clarify here. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm okay with you talking about your business being a little self promotional and the reason that I'm okay with it is because I'm one you built it you're on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are so many tools that we're getting bludgeoned with every day, I think it's important to learn how you thought through these tools, how you thought through creating your own tool so that the audience can start to create their own filters as to what tools they choose, because $250, $100 a month subscriptions to these tools can stack up really, really quick if we're not smart about the ones we're using and actually using the tools that we pay for, which is a whole other conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, I want to get into this idea of kind of thinking about our business and creating solutions for just for us. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: So this is cloud code. [SPEAKER_02]: This is madness. [SPEAKER_02]: This might be open claw using these different code acts. [SPEAKER_02]: If you're an opening eye guy. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm almost completely off. [SPEAKER_02]: Open a eye and change your T by the way. [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of am to I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, drop the ball. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be honest man is say I have you played around man is yeah, yeah, I mean I love the direction that you're going here because I've been super in divide coding Yeah, that year as well. [SPEAKER_01]: So I have great answers for what yeah, I want to know Okay, but yeah, so I'll give you audience [SPEAKER_02]: So I just, I'll set the table and then I want you to run with this. [SPEAKER_02]: So two things guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one, the first thing I did from a vibe coding perspective was I am terrible at personal finance, terrible. [SPEAKER_02]: Like I just, the idea of slowing down at the end of every month down shifting into second and like how much did I spend on this? [SPEAKER_02]: And what did I spend? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like my ADHD crazy brain hates doing that. [SPEAKER_02]: However, I'm not a dummy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I logically understand how important it is to understand where your money is, where it's going, et cetera. [SPEAKER_02]: So I just vibe-coded this little tool that allows me to upload my bank statements, my credit card statements, and then it acts as, um, I told it to act with, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Gordon Ramsey style, even though I know he's a chef like his style of aggressive like I want you to yell at me when I do the things that I told you I didn't want to do right so like so I have this little thing and I get this little report once a month I've had this for this week I third month now and it's just like you said you weren't gonna spend more than three hundred dollars on door to action a month and you spent five hundred like bop you know you know right me this like nasty grass
[SPEAKER_02]: And okay, so that's an idea. [SPEAKER_02]: That's one idea and then for my business guys, just to set the table here for how I'm thinking about these things is I went down the open cloth path mostly because I was super interested in it, but I had a real need for this podcast [SPEAKER_02]: I've, the podcast is grown to the point where I'm in that in between stage between doing it myself and hiring a team member to come in and manage all the admin stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I said was, I wonder how far I can get with, you know, I chose OpenClaw. [SPEAKER_02]: I could have done Cloud Code agents or something like that, but I just went with OpenClaw. [SPEAKER_02]: How far could I get with a tool like OpenClaw where I built out my own systems for doing this without having to hire somebody, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm thinking about simple things in my business like when I get a pitch from a PR person, which I get five a day to be on the show, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I got a research to person. [SPEAKER_02]: I got to click on other links. [SPEAKER_02]: I usually do like a wide research on chatGBT or open AI. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's hard. [SPEAKER_02]: You don't always know. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, some people, you know, just aren't good fits.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't mean the people are bad or wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: But like, that takes a lot of time. [SPEAKER_02]: So now I have a simple, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: group in Telegram from my open claw. [SPEAKER_02]: I call him maximum effort. [SPEAKER_02]: He's max for short. [SPEAKER_02]: If you get that reference, you're one of my people. [SPEAKER_02]: And one of his tasks is I forward him an email from from PR pitches, and he does this full build out and then gives me a score.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the score is over a seven or above, he automatically responds and says, hey, we'd love to have insert person on the show. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's a [SPEAKER_02]: That alone, just that two-step process saves me probably two hours a week of work. [SPEAKER_02]: That's it. [SPEAKER_02]: And, and. [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you start to think through this?
[SPEAKER_02]: So just table setting for the audience, how do you start to think through this and go, here's something that not that I need to go, I don't need, I wanna go look for a tool for this. [SPEAKER_02]: This is something I could actually use cloud code or another similar tool to actually create this functionality. [SPEAKER_02]: How do you make that determination? [SPEAKER_02]: What are your filters for the things you can create versus going and finding a tool?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what are the advantages to creating yourself versus going and buying a tool? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, firstly, thank you, Max. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad I made the cut in the pure outreach process. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to, thanks to Max and the method. [SPEAKER_02]: I think he said, you got to get this asshole on the show. [SPEAKER_02]: And because he goes like a sailor, he didn't mean that in negative light. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: F-E-M-X.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so it's a classic build versus buy, perspective, even in business. [SPEAKER_01]: What is the cost investment and savings of building it yourself and internal versus just outsourcing it and buying it out of the box solution?
[SPEAKER_01]: This traditionally has been a much more expensive cost benefit analysis because you'll have a technical team that, yes, you can build this internal, [SPEAKER_01]: feature, but it's going to take 20 hours of developer hours at $50 an hour, and then maybe you'll see a total ROI from that investment over the course of six months. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe it's cheaper to just buy a $20 tool, outsource it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I literally have agent, agent to gay, I perplexities computer coding me a calendly alternative right now so that I don't have to spend 50 bucks a month on calendly anymore right now in the background. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a tool that I'm using and then I'm also able to sell it. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the other benefit here is creating tools for yourself. [SPEAKER_01]: that guess what, probably other people are gonna have that same problem, so you can sell it to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a great example of what I did recently about seven months ago, actually, using Manus. [SPEAKER_01]: I was, so to set the stage here, last year I did about 1.4 billion organic views on Facebook, organic, no dollar spent behind it. [SPEAKER_01]: 80% actually 79.3% of those organic views came from text posts. [SPEAKER_01]: These long text posts that were rest in peace, Photoshop, these five new AI tools do it faster, kind of that structure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in the comment section is one tool at the time what it does, what it costs, overview, blah, blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_01]: These posts went mega viral. [SPEAKER_01]: I used to do that research manually on Google and find the tools right the headline right into the dual posts. [SPEAKER_01]: Then I went and started using Chatching PT tasks last year to do that research and automate it for me. [SPEAKER_01]: and I still was just copying and pasting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I had the idea about seven months ago, well I wanna just streamline and automate this whole process. [SPEAKER_01]: So I used Manis to create this tool called Threadmaster that does all of that. [SPEAKER_01]: It's stored all of my top performing text threads that got those billions of views. [SPEAKER_01]: I can enter in any topic that I want and it automatically generates the thread in that format that I can then copy and paste it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That saved me so much time and effort from how I was manually doing it, and then because of the cost of it, I'm like, you know, and I'm sharing my results in my marketing, I'm like, I bet other people would be interested in this too. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I charge $5 a month for it for unlimited use. [SPEAKER_01]: It has about 2,000 users right now. [SPEAKER_01]: So that tool, and it's like 95% profit margins.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I used Banas to create an internal tool that saved me a lot of time that was helping me go viral on Facebook. [SPEAKER_01]: Facebook's paying me because I'm monetized, but then I can sell it as a solution that genuinely helps other people achieve the same results as well and save them a time. [SPEAKER_01]: And this tool is made like $60,000 so far and it's profited 52, 53,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's an internal tool that started with me and then I just put a small price tag on it to sell it as well. [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, it kind of goes back to the time and inventory as well. [SPEAKER_01]: But also just like, also do it do a price audit like you were saying to, you know, what's that tool that attracts your
[SPEAKER_01]: tracks all your subscriptions I forget you just like sign in your gene rocket money is one rocket money yeah rocket money exactly so it just you know sign up for rocket money or just look at your bank account statements and be like okay you know I'm actually paying for 10 software tools right now per month and it's chart you know they they stack up it's i'm paying $500 a month and software
[SPEAKER_01]: look at the ones that you're using only maybe specific features of, not the entire suite, use a Vibcoding tool, everyone, you know, there's, there's Manus, there's Loveable, there's Raplettes, there's Cloud Code, there's Codex, pick your poison doesn't matter, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Vibcode that for yourself, [SPEAKER_01]: Get it as efficient as it can be, very simple process. [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to be a technical founder to be able to do this either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get it to a point where it works, cancel your subscription. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you want, you can add your own subscription on top of it and start making money instead of just saving money. [SPEAKER_02]: Guys, this is like, [SPEAKER_02]: So I had another tool that I created because scheduling time blocking is basically how I run my life. [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of similar to the time audit, if it's not on my scale, this is the thing I get in my family, I get an issue in my family all the time. [SPEAKER_02]: Like guys, you can't just text me and like have that be it. [SPEAKER_02]: Like my calendar for a whole bunch of reasons my calendar runs my life on the calendar, I will be there. [SPEAKER_02]: A promise. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not on the calendar.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a good chance I don't even know, it doesn't matter how many times you told me, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: So I created a simple tool that any time I needed to do a project, I would type in the box and I tell it what the project is, say it's, hey, so I'm working on a book. [SPEAKER_02]: I want to get the next chapter of my book done. [SPEAKER_02]: This is what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm starting from scratch. [SPEAKER_02]: So I have to do research phase.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to do all these phases for this particular chapter. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: Great. [SPEAKER_02]: And I take go. [SPEAKER_02]: And what it would do is it would basically figure out is it creative or is it tactical. [SPEAKER_02]: So it either schedule morning for creative afternoon for tactical. [SPEAKER_02]: And then it would say based on and what's your time frame. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, my time frame is a month for this chapter. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just making that up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great. [SPEAKER_02]: So then it would go and say based on your current schedule. [SPEAKER_02]: and the amount of time we believe it will take to do this and the amount of creative versus tactile it would then go out and schedule those time blocks into the calendar to get that particular project done. [SPEAKER_02]: So now it's not I'm hoping to get it done in a month. [SPEAKER_02]: I've literally got the time scheduled in my calendar to get this project done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of messed up a bunch of stuff before it goes because it was very first thing I ever did. [SPEAKER_02]: Like I think about that, and I always come back to that and I go, this was me literally, and this is why I mess it up is, is I want to get into, I want to be respectful of your time, and I want to kind of wrap up with the audience here, but I want to kind of get you to break down what this realist, it feels overwhelming to a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody that I talked to this week when I was talking about some of the things I was doing that are out on the edge a little bit, they're like, that seems too far, you know, I feel intimidating, they feel overwhelming, [SPEAKER_02]: All I did to get that was tell the talk into the text and put the talk to text file though into the computer exactly what I just said basically. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, there's more to it to make it really work. [SPEAKER_02]: I messed up some things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got some things I got to fix, but it's not much more than that. [SPEAKER_02]: Just telling a replet or a lovable or a man, et cetera, what you wanted to do. [SPEAKER_02]: So for the audience who maybe has some of these things in here and really wants to start playing. [SPEAKER_02]: What is starting to spin up your own vibe-coded application actually look like in reality? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, do you kind of have to dedicate a significant amount of time?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the nerdy-ness level? [SPEAKER_02]: How accessible is this? [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's extremely accessible if you're willing to put in a little bit of time. [SPEAKER_01]: I also want to say that it's not that expensive, either. [SPEAKER_01]: You can get a fully deployed product up for, [SPEAKER_01]: less than 200 bucks. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe even less than that, depending on how much back and forth that you do, it's quite simple too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Using a tool like Replet, Replet's a personal favorite of mine. [SPEAKER_01]: You can take a screenshot of a website. [SPEAKER_01]: The URL and say code this. [SPEAKER_01]: It literally [SPEAKER_01]: pace in the URL of Calonly, and Reflit will gather all information and code it for you. [SPEAKER_01]: It gets a little bit more, and you want to iterate with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're able to talk to ChatGPT, you're able to talk to Cloud, you're able to talk to Gemini, you can create your own software now. [SPEAKER_01]: There's really no barriers anymore. [SPEAKER_01]: If you say this is broken, hop to it in natural language, get it to a point where everything pretty much works. [SPEAKER_01]: And again, you're just using it and saying, like, this doesn't feel right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can self-deploy it in these tools, host it on that tool, map it to a domain, connect it to a stripe account if you want to charge, you don't have to if you want to use it as an internal tool. [SPEAKER_01]: You can now publish it to the Google Play store as well for mobile apps. [SPEAKER_01]: everything is self-hosted in these tools and they're getting better and better every single day. [SPEAKER_01]: So realistically, it can take a couple of hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends on the complexity of the tool as well. [SPEAKER_01]: It's also a thing to remember that you're not going to just recreate go high level CRM that has [SPEAKER_01]: three or four simple functions, you can get that online in less than a day and just a couple of hours just going through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might spend tens of hours working on something and if you're a perfectionist maybe a little bit more, but it's simpler than most people think, and everybody including their uncles had an app idea, but they've never had the resources, the money, or the know-how [SPEAKER_00]: and that barrier is no longer there.
[SPEAKER_02]: me this is one of the greatest unlocks of the next three to five years in business is figuring out an am a big FAFO guy here like build a couple things that don't work and just delete them right like you said it's gonna cost you 20 30 bucks to mess around see what works it doesn't work it looks ugly i don't like okay great delete it start again right like play around with this
[SPEAKER_02]: The ability from a leadership perspective to see these nuanced repeatable tasks that you can bring internal, maybe strip out the 17 features you don't need and just have the two or three that you actually use. [SPEAKER_02]: saves time money, especially guys. [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a larger team and you're paying 15, 20, 30 user seats, I mean that really adds up for some of these tools. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I built, I built for a little side hustle thing that I have.
[SPEAKER_02]: I built a slack [SPEAKER_02]: Replacement doesn't do, it does 15% of what Slack does. [SPEAKER_02]: It does everything that that little side hustle needs from like a message board communication standpoint. [SPEAKER_02]: That's it. [SPEAKER_02]: It does everything we need, none of the other stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was actually doing it for a client. [SPEAKER_02]: And it took 17 user seats at 15 bucks a user seat, off of their books.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I think it costs maybe $40 a month total in like API cost. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's, I mean, and now they have all the messaging they need. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not too much because their thing was like Slack was too much. [SPEAKER_02]: It was too much. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just overwhelming. [SPEAKER_02]: We get lost, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, all right. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what do you actually wanted to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: And guys, you know, like I'm not hype, I'm nerdy, but I'm not technical guys, like I'm not a technical. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how to code, you know, like I'm learning some of this stuff, but but I'm not I didn't walk into any of this, I walked in with zero intrinsic knowledge about how any of this stuff works to be honest with you, coding and that whole side of the game has scared the crap out of me for such a long time because I felt like.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't speak the language, it was like scary. [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_02]: I've worked with tons of devs, I've been on product teams, but like that side has always been scary to me because I felt like they were speaking the language. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't understand so I could never be fully invested in the conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now with this ability, even if you do have [SPEAKER_02]: a more technical person or more developed, you can, you can be much more engaged in the process because you don't have to understand C++ or JavaScript or whatever language, you just have to understand what you want it to do. [SPEAKER_02]: And that to me starts to become the skill. [SPEAKER_02]: Huge unlock. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, this has been absolutely phenomenal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like a talk to you all day. [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us about where people can find out more about your AI video tool that you've created and then also how they get deeper in your world and obviously we'll have all these links including a link to your book in the show notes guys, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening, just scroll down, you'll find all this. [SPEAKER_01]: So the name of my company is syllabi, the video generation tool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's s-y-l-l-a-b-y-dot-i-o and basically automates everything for video marketing to help you drive leads and sales, saving you a 70% of your time and budget. [SPEAKER_01]: My book Li-Rality, you can find anywhere you buy books, Amazon, you can search for Austin Armstrong on Amazon. [SPEAKER_01]: You should be able to find it in there. [SPEAKER_01]: It is everything that I know about marketing. [SPEAKER_01]: helping you go viral in the right ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: For business focused, I'm not going to tell you to dance or to kick your employees in the nuts in order to go viral. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll teach you all of the frameworks and nuances for every individual platform as well as psychological triggers that will increase your engagement. [SPEAKER_01]: Things that will have an immediate lift for you in your organic content.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I just hope that it helps you and I'm very easy to get a hold of if you search for Austin Armstrong on social media. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm everywhere. [SPEAKER_01]: I am the nerdy with AI and glasses Austin Armstrong. [SPEAKER_01]: I am not the defensive line coach of the Florida Gators Austin Armstrong nor am I [SPEAKER_01]: the six foot two curly-haired relationship vlogger in L.A. Austin Armstrong. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm that business nerd right in the middle.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very easy to get all the please DM me. [SPEAKER_02]: I love it, bro. [SPEAKER_02]: This has been great. [SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate your time. [SPEAKER_02]: Guys, check out the little bit. [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely get the book. [SPEAKER_02]: The way that the reason I wanted to have Austin on versus so many other people that talk on this topic is the fact that he has dialed in on this idea of strategic, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Strategic, virality.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is so incredibly important going viral means nothing if you're not doing it for the right reasons. [SPEAKER_02]: Appreciate the hell out of you, man. [SPEAKER_02]: We're out of here.