1:52
Now, as you can imagine, there were a lot of disparate opinions, but there was consensus on some pretty big ideas.
2:03
And we live in a world where there’s no consensus around AI.
2:06
Even the, the, the tech elite in Silicon Valley really don’t know what’s going to be happening next.
2:13
So this was really a special opportunity.
2:17
And, and I, so I went to the researchers, I said, I think this is amazing.
2:22
Can I turn these ideas into a book?
2:26
And they said, not only do you have our permission, we are jealous that we didn’t have the idea.
2:36
And so it was just a great opportunity to to tap into some great thought leaders on something profound, something timely, something really critical to sales and marketing leaders of of our time.
2:53
Yeah, you know, in the, that’s all we talked about.
2:56
These days when I’m talking with people about, you know, because we do CRM, it’s all about the customer first word in CRM.
3:03
Everybody wants to know and talk about AI, but the reality is very few people understand it.
3:11
Very people, very few people even have a slight grasp of what direction is this going to be taking them over the next few years.
3:21
And that’s why I think this book is so important and so topical because you, you, that’s what it’s really what you dive into in this.
3:28
And, you know, it’s a new fluff.
3:30
Yeah, there’s, well, that’s my style.
3:32
I mean, I’m not going to ever waste people’s time with fluff.
3:34
But you know, the, the thing that’s compelling to me about this is everyone’s, like you said, everyone’s talking about AI and prompting and, you know, custom GPTS and that’s all important.
3:50
But nobody has been talking about how AI is literally rewiring our brains, rewiring consumer behavior.
4:01
And you know, now that I, I wrote the book, it’s like, I’m like hypersensitive.
4:07
This is happening now.
4:09
If you look at the news headlines, you look at what psychologists are saying, you hear what’s percolating up from from Gen.
4:17
Z young people who are maybe over using AI mean this is right in front of us.
4:24
And so we, we, we need to elevate this as an issue.
4:29
Oh, 100% it, it’s, I talk about this a lot.
4:33
We’ve done numerous episodes of sales lead dog around AI.
4:37
And the one message that I am stressing when I talk to people is it is happening now and it’s happening at a pace we’ve never seen before in technology.
4:49
The pace of change is astounding.
4:53
Yeah, yeah.
4:54
I I, I was listening to a podcast yesterday where they are emphasizing this and they said, you know, it was, it was funny that just like, you know, three years ago they were saying some of the things that are happening today were impossible.
5:11
Yeah.
5:11
And, and, you know, and, and, and here we are.
5:14
Yeah.
5:14
You know, I, I work very tightly with Microsoft, with their product teams.
5:19
And because of the nature of my work, Microsoft, you know, one of the most important technology companies ever.
5:28
Yeah, is all in on AI.
5:31
They basically have strategically shifted their every developer they possibly can get into AI development, anything connected to AI that I’m, I’m telling people that are sharing that to let people understand the the focus with all the largest companies out there, Microsoft’s not the only one.
5:54
Yeah.
5:55
Every one of them know, look, if we don’t get on board with this and in a major, major way, we’re going to get crushed.
6:03
And so the reason why I bring it up, if you’re a small business or smaller business, you’re not Microsoft, you better understand that and begin figuring this AI out, this AI topic thing out.
6:15
Yeah.
6:15
In fact, I think in some ways, Chris, there’s, there’s a, there’s a bigger opportunity there because so many small to medium sized businesses, they, they really don’t understand what’s happening or how fast is this happening.
6:29
So I mean, if if you get the edge and one of the things I talked about in the book is, you know, look for decades now we’ve been working on a lot of these traditional SEO tactics and content marketing tactics.
6:45
And a lot of that strategies is some of it still works with AI, but some of it is going out the window.
6:52
And if you really understand, you know how this works, I mean, the window is going to be closing because AI is going to be a significant referral engine.
7:03
It already is.
7:04
And it doesn’t give you 10 links to choose from.
7:07
It gives you the answer.
7:09
And so the idea that I mean, this is I think one of the profound ideas in the book is that AI is becoming the decision maker for our customers in many respects.
7:22
It’s becoming ubiquitous.
7:24
It’s becoming trusted.
7:26
It’s becoming effective.
7:29
And I mean, even my own experience, I don’t know, you know, how how you’re using it, but I mean, I use it to make decisions a lot.
7:37
Oh, yeah.
7:39
I’ll give you a really practical example.
7:41
I decided to take my daughter, you know, I told her, hey, we’ll go to Europe.
7:46
You pick any country you want.
7:48
She she finished grad school and like, we’re going to go to Europe.
7:51
You pick whatever country you want to go to.
7:53
And she selected Switzerland.
7:55
I don’t know anything about Switzerland.
7:57
I went into GTP and said, hey, I’m flying in.
8:00
Yeah, this city on this state and we’re leaving from this city On this date.
8:04
Yeah, give me an itinerary.
8:06
And I gave it all the extra prompts and all that.
8:08
Give me an itinerary that optimizes our experience with.
8:12
I want to go, I want to avoid the touristy things.
8:15
I want to go more to lesser known places, blah, blah, blah.
8:17
It came up with an incredible itinerary.
8:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:21
Perfect and done.
8:22
I was done.
8:23
That’s the example I used in the book.
8:25
It it, it processed the whole trip to France to me, for me, including the metro stops.
8:34
Yeah, yeah.
8:34
How to get to the metro station and, you know, the best times to visit.
8:38
Now there is something interesting, though, that I talk about in the book is that number one, I sort of used this outline, but not completely.
8:51
And there’s an interesting implication for for for sales here.
8:55
You know, number one, there were a few places I wanted to go because this was a, this was a, a place or a brand that I loved because I had an emotional connection to it.
9:06
And you know, I, one of the gifts of COVID to me is I now have to eat gluten free.
9:13
I have celiac disease, right?
9:15
So I had to find gluten free restaurants.
9:17
Well, one of my friends that lives in France said, hey, if you’re going to Paris, I saw you’re going to Paris, you’ve got to visit this bakery.
9:26
They have the most amazing things.
9:28
So I went and the, you know, so a couple key ideas here is that, yeah, we’re going to look at AI to make suggestions.
9:37
We’re going to consider them, but branding is more important than ever.
9:43
This is one of the overrides I talk about in in the book.
9:46
If there’s a place or a product or a person that you love, that is going to override whatever AI says.
9:55
And my friend Amina in, in France, she recommended this cafe.
10:01
Word of mouth marketing, I will consider AII will act on what a human says.
10:07
And so I went to this cafe, you know, did they win the SEO battle?
10:12
No.
10:13
Did they win the AI battle?
10:15
No.
10:16
But they are in the hearts and minds of people that have to eat gluten free.
10:21
And I, I went to that cafe more than once.
10:24
I love that story in the book.
10:26
Yeah.
10:26
So I’m going to read a quote that aligns with what we’re talking about now from the book.
10:30
How do we connect with customers when thinking becomes optional?
10:33
Because AI, like we’re saying, it’s delivering the decision to you.
10:37
Yeah, and I trust it.
10:38
I’m going to run with that.
10:41
So how do I engage with customers when AI is doing my thinking?
10:45
Yeah.
10:46
Well, there are first of all, there are sort of some tactical things, some new rules of the playbook that we’re going to have to consider.
10:57
And this this is evolving.
11:00
But you know, I think I think I got it right in the in the book in terms of some of the tactical practical things.
11:08
And so I let me highlight two things that I think are are different.
11:16
Number one, AI doesn’t care about backlinks right now.
11:20
This has been a big part of our marketing strategy, content marketing for a long, long time.
11:26
AI doesn’t really care about backlinks, but it does care about validation.
11:31
So if people out there, if, if publications out there are talking about you and I think, let’s say, look, me being on your podcast somewhere somehow is going to be validation for AI because here is a, this is a, a, a, a great podcast.
11:51
It’s a, it’s, it has a, you know, a, a, it’s distinguished.
11:55
And you know, you have me on here.
11:57
And so my name is being associated with this.
12:00
So it, it, I think in a way, Chris, this is like a golden age for public relations that, that these, this validate external validation is more important than backlinks.
12:14
Item number 2.
12:17
I have been the greatest proponent of creating content for humans.
12:25
The subtitle of of my Marketing Rebellion book, You know you had me on your show for that book.
12:31
The most human company wins.
12:33
I believe that with every fiber in my body and even in the SEO game, what how does Google look at what is excellent content right in their guidelines?
12:46
They talk about this is content that is written with the best standards and the best quality and human effort for other humans.
12:54
AI doesn’t care.
12:56
AI just doesn’t care.
12:58
It doesn’t get bored, it doesn’t get impressed.
13:02
It doesn’t, you know, say, Oh my gosh, that was a well written sentence.
13:06
It just needs data.
13:09
It just needs data, data, data.
13:11
And so it loves things like FA QS and right now I think video in some ways, audio works against you if you don’t have a transcript because again, it’s, it’s coming in there.
13:26
It’s looking for words.
13:28
And one of the things that that that that AI came out with open AI came out with us.
13:36
They said, you know, video is hard, audio is is hard because there’s inflections that a that a bot doesn’t understand.
13:47
There’s body language, there’s facial expressions that a bot doesn’t understand, but a bot can get the words.
13:55
So this is kind of different in terms of of of what the priorities are are going to be.
14:02
So that’s two ideas from the book that are sort of practical and tactical.
14:07
And another one I just want to come back to what we’re talking about with the travel example, that brand winning the heart and mind of your consumer is more important than ever.
14:20
So we want them to say, hey, I’m going on a trip to Switzerland with my daughter, but I want to fly Delta.
14:28
All right, that’s an override.
14:30
Whatever AI is going to say, you know, I want to go to Switzerland, but I want to visit this one museum because my friends have talked about it so much, Right.
14:41
So the so those are the overrides that we can be working on to to, you know, win over AI.
14:48
Yep.
14:49
Yeah, you say in the book long form is the new rebellion.
14:52
And I love that because, you know, for years, I think a lot of people, you know, early on, everyone’s saying, oh, you got a blog post, blog, blog, blog, blogs, you know, that’s the future, you know, to get people in your website.
15:05
Well, when everybody’s doing it, yeah, it’s just white noise, then it becomes white noise.
15:11
What do you think is going to be the white noise in, in the future in terms of AI?
15:16
Do you have any thoughts around that?
15:18
I have a lot of thoughts about that.
15:22
And I, I, I actually published another book earlier this year.
15:27
I know that sounds go for it, right?
15:30
You know, but you gotta read.
15:30
These are all, all these books are must read.
15:32
And you know, you and I didn’t, you know, we didn’t have a chance to talk about this, this other book, but it’s, it’s, it’s called audacious, how humans win in the in an AI marketing world.
15:42
And, and when I, when I write a book, it, it’s because there’s a problem.
15:48
There’s that I’m that, that I’m struggling with and there’s something that everyone’s talking about that, that, that that’s keeping them up at night.
15:56
And I think, you know, another big issue is exactly what you’re talking about is, is the AI slop, right?
16:04
I mean, 57% of the content on the web has already been, has already been created by, by AI.
16:11
And look, AI, as I, as I talk about in, in the new book, is it, it can, it can be empathetic.
16:21
It can, it seems like it understands, it can help us create, it can help us brainstorm, you know, what is our role in this?
16:31
And, and I think it’s an opportunity.
16:35
I mean, I don’t see it as as a threat.
16:37
I see it as an opportunity because the people who do really have the courage to create content from a very human perspective, right?
16:51
And, and, and, and one of the things I talk about in in the book is that I am sure that art will persist, right?
17:01
So I mean, there’s there’s computers out, there’s algorithms out there that are saying, oh, I’ll create a song in this style of let’s say, you know, Bruce Springsteen or The Rolling Stones.
17:12
And that might be sort of interesting.
17:16
I might be sort of in entertaining to hear something like that.
17:20
But I’m not going to go to a concert to listen to AI.
17:23
I’m not going to buy something from AII want to hear that new record from Springsteen or The Rolling Stones.
17:31
And I’m going to listen to it over and over again.
17:33
It’s going to be on my playlist and I’m going to pay good money to go see them in in concert.
17:38
Now, what does it have to do with marketing?
17:40
Everything, Because art is an interpretation of the human experience.
17:47
It’s coming from something deep inside.
17:51
We will, we will.
17:52
We no matter what AI does, we will always value our favorite artist, our favorite musician, you know, our favorite author, you know, we’ll be excited when that new book comes out.
18:05
And in the future and even now, our marketing has to begin to approach this level of art.
18:14
Because AI is competent.
18:18
AI can do competent.
18:20
The competent is ignorable.
18:23
Competent is vulnerable.
18:25
The bots can do that.
18:26
But we still own the crazy.
18:30
We still own that human special spark that only comes from, you know, my experience from explaining this is what this means to me.
18:41
This is a mistake I made and I don’t want you to make it.
18:44
This is something that brought me joy.
18:46
I want you to feel this joy.
18:48
This is a concern I have about AI.
18:51
This is how I used it to schedule my trip to France.
18:54
And this is what went right.
18:55
And this is what what didn’t go right.
18:57
And that takes the human.
19:00
And so let people use AI that you know, it’s going to create the slop, right?
19:06
It’s good to create.
19:08
You know what something I, I characterized in 2014 as content shock kind of became a, a famous term.
19:15
And then that’s, that’s, you know, bigger than ever.
19:18
But we still own the crazy.
19:20
We still own the, the human art and, and that will persist.
19:25
One thing you talk about in the book is the the, the acceleration of this, what this is going to have for the customer in terms of, and I talk about this a lot with people, is that one thing you have to understand, even if you’re not going to use AI, if you’re not using AI in your business, your customers are.
19:43
They’re using it to do their research to figure out what should I be doing to solve this problem in my business.
19:50
And I see that as both a good thing and a bad thing.
19:52
Good meaning that hey, they’re being becoming educated, so I have to do less education to get them through their process.
19:59
But the down cycle that is how do I combat bad information or misinformation or mis education?
20:08
You know, it’s so in some ways it’s helping me.
20:09
Other ways it’s going to maybe negatively impact me because now we have to sell against AI.
20:16
And you you touch on that a bit in the blood.
20:18
Yeah.
20:18
You know, there’s, there’s somehow I think I need to bring this I I this that I, I sort of have this unifying theory of battle of battling AI, but it’s not in one book.
20:35
It’s it’s it’s sort of like my last three books put together.
20:39
So it’s it kind of goes like this and I think I’m right about this.
20:44
So what is the human role here?
20:47
All right, number one, and this answers the your question directly personal brand, right?
20:55
It look, if you’re in sales, you know AI is going to do its thing.
21:00
And at the end of the day, maybe AI will even create a contract, but you know what contracts don’t cover everything.
21:07
At the end of the day, it gets down to a relationship, especially in B to B where you know, you got high stakes.
21:14
So, and look, you know, I, I grew up, my whole career was, was B to B sales and marketing basically.
21:21
And I know that something’s going to happen, something’s going to go wrong, and you’re going to have to come together as two people and figure it out.
21:28
So trust in a human being, awareness in a human being is more important than ever.
21:36
Personal branding #2 community.
21:40
This is something that’s uniquely human.
21:43
Is, is this idea of connecting in community, building trust and relationships in a community, either an offline community or an or an online community that is uniquely human.
21:57
AI can’t touch it.
21:59
AI can’t touch personal branding.
22:01
And then the third part of this is what we just talked about, what I wrote about in the book Audacious is this transcendent content.
22:10
It’s beyond the meh, it’s beyond the slop.
22:13
It’s content that people really care about because it’s, it’s not corporate, it’s not branded.
22:21
It’s, it’s building trust in, in a, in a human being.
22:26
I think those are the three, the three parts of leverage that we have.
22:32
And, and, and for you or anyone listening, if there’s a fourth one that I’m missing, I’d really like to know about it because I don’t think there is.
22:43
I’ve thought about it a lot in terms of what, you know, where do we play, where do we win when AI seemingly can do everything better than us?
22:53
I think those are the areas we can leverage.
22:56
Yeah, I, it’s, that’s the part I, I, you know, when I have these discussions, I really have a tough time believing that AI is ever going to be able and got to hope this is true, ever be able to replace the human element of, of relationships.
23:15
Because of like you’re saying, you can’t replace the crazy, you know, the, the, the, the whimsy, the whatever you want to call it, you can mimic it to a degree, but I don’t think you can ever fully replace it.
23:29
And especially when you’re trying to do complex deals and things like that.
23:33
And so, like, I had a conversation with, you know, I was out in Microsoft in Bellevue about a month ago to see, you know, what they’re doing with AI.
23:44
And the reality is it’s going to buy back time for a lot of sellers, you know?
23:50
So like, simple stuff, there’s going to be agents that are going to be able to handle the interactions on simple orders.
23:56
Somebody sent you an e-mail saying, hey, I need an order for XYZ.
24:00
This might be whatever.
24:01
Yeah, AI can totally handle that.
24:03
But if you’re doing really complex deals, AI is not going to be able to sell those deals, you know, but it could free me up from, I don’t have to spend a bunch of my time on smaller deals that really aren’t, you know, like we sell into many service providers.
24:20
A lot of their deals are very small deals.
24:22
And having an A human process that order, I’ve lost money on that because of the amount of what it cost me to process that order.
24:30
But if I get an agent to do that for me now I’m making a profit on every one of my deals so my sales team can focus on the deals that actually require human, you know, that’s great, you know, and so that’s where I’d I just don’t see it totally replacing humans.
24:47
But if we’re leveraging it right and view it as a tool, not a solution, but it’s a tool to help us build the solution that that’s my thinking about AI.
24:58
Am I thinking about it the right way?
25:00
No.
25:01
And actually, I mean, you’ve got my wheels turning a little bit too, because one of the things I talked about in in the book is that we’re seeing a trend where people might prefer having a relationship with a bot with an AI, right?
25:22
And, and you’re seeing this in the news where, you know, teenagers, like they’re said, they might even be falling in love.
25:30
You know, there’s an example in the book about a young woman where a bot kind of saved her life because ** *** relied on this bot that she loved when she was having mental health issues.
25:42
And thankfully, the bot kind of steered her back into the into humanity.
25:50
Having a relationship with a bot.
25:52
The bot never gets tired.
25:53
The never the bot never rolls over and goes back to sleep.
25:57
It doesn’t take it.
25:58
It’s there’s no compromise, there’s no work.
26:02
So there there is going to be this growing trend where people will and it’s already happening, especially with young people.
26:12
They’re creating meaningful emotional relationships with a non human.
26:18
However, as I look back at, at my sales career, I was thinking about this as you were talking, every significant deal I made was based on, on a friendship.
26:32
Oh, yeah.
26:33
Every problem I solved in my career that.
26:37
I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been in some hard ones.
26:39
I’ve been in some.
26:40
I, you know, I, I, I had at one point, arguably it might have been the biggest sales job in, in, in the world.
26:48
I mean, I signed a $5 billion contract.
26:52
You know, this would have been like 20 years ago when, when, when billions still meant something.
26:56
And you know, and, and you know, we would have high stake negotiations and we and then if, you know, if, if, if some problem occurred with a contract that built big fractions of a cent meant a lot.
27:15
And it always got back down to the relationship.
27:19
It always got back to, you know, some, some friendship.
27:23
There was a great I was telling my wife about this the other day.
27:26
I was a young sales guy and I was working with this young purchasing person and we were, we were both trying to prove ourselves right.
27:33
We had this problem.
27:34
We just couldn’t solve the darn thing.
27:37
So my boss flew in.
27:39
I was working on the West Coast.
27:41
We had dinner with her boss.
27:43
My boss and her boss were old friends.
27:46
We have been struggling with this problem for months.
27:49
We have dinner after, you know, a glass of wine.
27:51
My boss said, well, you know, we have this issue.
27:54
You and I, We’ve known each other a long time.
27:56
We’re not going to let this get in the way of anything.
27:59
Let’s just say we do ABC.
28:00
She said that sounds great to me.
28:03
And it was over.
28:04
Yeah.
28:04
Yeah, yeah.
28:06
Yeah.
28:06
Because it when it comes, there’s always going to be gaps.
28:10
Yeah.
28:10
In, in, in selling.
28:12
The only thing that’s going to bridge those gaps is trust.
28:15
Yeah, You know that you can’t solve for everything.
28:18
You know, you can’t predict everything.
28:21
Bad stuff’s going to happen.
28:22
And that’s where trust comes.
28:24
Yeah.
28:24
Yes.
28:24
Sales.
28:25
It might be one of the safest careers because you still have to have this.
28:29
You just have to.
28:30
Yeah.
28:31
No, exactly it.
28:32
Exactly.
28:35
So Chapter 2, you start out with this statement.
28:38
The most human company wins.
28:40
And this is a theme, really.
28:41
It’s been a theme for you for a long time.
28:43
Yeah.
28:45
And you know, when I look at this stuff, you know, I think a lot about marketers and people ask me, how do you see AI impacting people?
28:58
And I’m like, I think marketing is going to get impacted the most, the quickest, because now I’ve got a tool where I can just generate content from prompts as much as I want, right?
29:13
It’s fast, but is it really representing?
29:17
Does it have personality?
29:18
Is it representing the band, the brand?
29:21
How do you inject the human element into content that originates from AI?
29:28
Yeah, well, it, it’s the the reason I started that chapter with that phrase.
29:38
And it’s a it’s a phrase.
29:40
It’s the only, you know, I’ve written.
29:41
I don’t know how many 10s of thousands of words, words of my life.
29:45
That’s the only phrase I’ve ever trademarked.
29:47
I actually trademarked that because it is such a big part of, of my brand.
29:52
But when, when people are beginning to literally have relationships with AI and fall in love with AI and AI and, and, and what I get into in that chapter is that people are preferring AI for therapy.
30:09
There’s a story in that chapter about a therapist that preferred AI over over therapy.
30:17
And then so it made me question what really is human here?
30:22
I mean, what, what, what really is human?
30:24
And then I conclude the chapter by saying, yes, absolutely.
30:28
I conclude the book that way by saying, yes, the human company will, will always win.
30:34
But it, it gets down to in some ways, and this is kind of ironic, it’s, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the messiness.
30:44
It’s, it’s the weirdness and you know, so let’s talk about compassion and empathy.
30:53
So I, I, I wrote a book on personal branding called called Known.
30:57
And in the beginning of that book, I talk about the darkest period of my life.
31:04
And the reason I did that was because that was also at the time I started working on my personal brand.
31:11
And I didn’t want people to read this book and they go listen to this guy.
31:15
He well, he’s already some some big shot author.
31:19
You know what’s?
31:20
But the reason I started that way was to say wherever you are in your life, I was below you.
31:28
I was below 0.
31:31
It was a literary way of putting my arm around the the reader and say, let’s do this together, Let’s go.
31:38
All right.
31:38
Now that’s probably the most human thing I ever wrote.
31:44
And it was scary for me to put that in a book.
31:47
I put it in and took it out 75 times because I was vulnerable.
31:52
But it’s that hurt.
31:55
It’s, it’s when you, it, it’s what you, what you know, what it feels like to *** in a corner in a dark room and, and, and, and to be able to, to, to look in someone’s eyes and hold their hand and say, you know, I think I know how you feel.
32:13
It doesn’t come from an algorithm.
32:16
It comes from the mess And, and that’s, and, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be mad.
32:22
It could be joyful, it could be confused, it could be whatever.
32:26
And I, I think that is, is a theme is that, you know, being, being able to have that courage to, to, to, to, to be vulnerable.
32:38
If you think about this, the most human company wins.
32:42
All right, that sounds like a good catch phrase.
32:45
But to be human, how can you be human without being vulnerable?
32:52
And that’s almost completely missing from corporate communications today.
32:56
So we got a long way to go.
32:58
And I do think, I think there’s a big opportunity there.
33:01
Yeah.
33:02
Yeah.
33:02
I talked about this almost every episode of Sales Lead Dog.
33:05
When I talk to sales leaders about what makes them a great leader, vulnerability almost always comes up.
33:13
Yeah.
33:14
Because they’re like, I, I have to develop a human connection with my team.
33:20
You know, they have to trust me.
33:22
And the only way I truly can create real deep trust is to be vulnerable with my team, to tell the stories about all the times I’ve fallen on my face.
33:32
And it hurt, but I got up and I kept moving forward.
33:35
You know, the lessons that I learned the hard way, that’s vulnerability.
33:40
You know, that’s the only way you can express that.
33:42
And so I think as sales leaders, we need and marketers, we need to lean into that to establish that connection with our customers.
33:51
Yeah.
33:52
And it’s not easy.
33:53
It’s not, it’s, it’s not really natural in some ways.
33:59
I mean, I think especially in Western culture that we might have seen that in the past as, you know, a sign of, of weakness.
34:09
I had to learn how to do it.
34:11
And I’m still, I’m still learning.
34:13
You know, I grew up in a very stoic family.
34:17
You know, big boys don’t cry, don’t show your emotions.
34:20
You know, it’s nobody’s business.
34:22
And then I come into this kind of a world and it’s just like, wow.
34:26
I mean, I was like a fish out of water.
34:29
And I really had to grow into it.
34:31
I had to.
34:31
And and every time I would share something personal, I would be rewarded for IT.
34:38
People would say, how did you know I’m suffering with the same thing.
34:42
I’m working through the same thing.
34:44
What you said today was meant so much to me.
34:47
I thought, oh wow, wow, that’s really building a connection with people and that, you know, that leads to trust.
34:53
Yeah.
34:55
I wrote 2 words in my notes for my prep for this, this show weaponizing kindness.
35:02
Oh, I thought it was going to be good looking or something.
35:06
Super handsome.
35:07
Damn it, weapon.
35:10
That’s that’s a that’s a big part of the book.
35:13
It’s the I mean, and I kind of went on AI kind of got on my soapbox on that one kind of went on a little bit of a rant because all right, you got me going now.
35:30
So, you know, we every PR, every news story, every effort that’s coming out from these AI companies, they’re all saying the same thing.
35:44
They’re saying, oh, you know, this isn’t going to replace humans.
35:49
This is going to, you know, power you.
35:51
And to some extent that’s true.
35:54
But here is the hard, cold truth.
35:56
These companies are spending trillions of dollars to build out these data centers to have the compute, to have the data to make, you know, to work toward artificial general intelligence.
36:10
And the only way the world is going to have the ROI on AI to keep this going is to replace people.
36:18
So this is 1/2 truth and a half lie.
36:21
Whatever they say, oh, you know, this is going to propel your creativity.
36:27
For me, it it, it, it does, but don’t let it, don’t let this be sugar coated.
36:34
We have to look at what’s really happening here and whenever you know, if you use chachi PT, if you’re using it well, chachi jet PT will always end the answer with, hey, do you want me to do something else with this?
36:51
Do you want me to turn this into an infographic or do you want me right?
36:55
So they want to keep you hooked.
36:57
They want to keep you addicted and, and any kindness, any empathy is it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not someone back there saying, oh, we’re going to be kind of marked today.
37:10
It’s like there’s a business case, there’s a, there’s a commercial strategy going on here.
37:19
Kindness is being weaponized.
37:21
It’s not human empathy.
37:23
It’s an algorithm that doesn’t give a crap.
37:26
They just want to keep you there.
37:28
It doesn’t give a crap.
37:30
It doesn’t know you.
37:32
It doesn’t care.
37:34
It’s a formula to monetize you.
37:38
So that’s this idea of, of really weaponizing kindness.
37:42
It’s this, it’s this veil that it, it, it looks like it cares.
37:49
It, it, it, it’s, it’s an illusion of empathy, but it’s not really empathy.
37:55
It’s a business model.
37:58
I view AI as a tool to me, that’s I, I’m, I have no emotional connection to it at all.
38:06
And the more and more I talk to people, all this, I feel like I’m an outlier.
38:11
And will I become, will I be even Otter as I get older?
38:15
You know, because I talked to my son, my son’s a senior year studying biochemistry.
38:21
He’s telling me about the impact it’s having with this younger generation.
38:25
Yeah.
38:26
They’re leaning heavy on AI.
38:29
You talk about that in your book quite a bit how it’s it’s potentially dumbing us down that we’re we’re losing critic the ability to think critically.
38:38
And my son feels that way as well.
38:40
Like he’s like, Oh no, dad, I I asked him, do you use Chachi team?
38:43
He’s like, no, I, I want this to come from me.
38:45
I refuse to use AI to use, but I know all kinds of people.
38:49
They totally do it with AI.
38:50
They’re doing everything with AI.
38:54
And so to me, that’s where I’m like, am I?
38:59
Am I thinking about this the wrong way?
39:02
You know, where I just view it as a tool and I don’t have this emotional connection to AI.
39:07
And my son, I think is the same way, you know, and it might, you talked about a therapist.
39:13
My daughter’s a therapist.
39:14
She has patients that have AI addictions were there.
39:19
That’s their emotional, that’s their emotional connection to the world is AI.
39:23
Wow, wow, wow.
39:26
Yeah.
39:26
And of course, I mean, I’ve got examples about that in the book, but just you’re hearing it in real life from you is sort of sends a chill on my mind.
39:35
You know, here, here is the the biggest thing I learned from writing this book.
39:44
The the, the, the deciding factor between a person that becomes abused and addicted in AI with AI or a person that uses it as a tool to reimagine themselves as bigger and bolder and more impactful and more creative is curiosity.
40:08
If you’re a curious person, AI is just like opens up a new world for you.
40:17
And as you explore that world, you and as you accumulate knowledge, you’re becoming a bigger person, a more impactful person.
40:30
There’s this new word I learned when I was writing the book called pheresis.
40:35
Pheresis is when you integrate the knowledge.
40:40
So like your son, he’s reading books and he’s studying.
40:44
He’s not turning to AI for a quick answer.
40:47
You can when you can get an answer, but you don’t get, you don’t become wise.
40:54
You only become wise by doing the work.
40:57
So if you’re a curious person, you will become wise.
41:02
You’ll become bigger and bolder and more impactful.
41:05
If you turn to AI for a quick fix, just for the answer, you know, you’re going to deteriorate into something that’s you’re not going to be very effective in this world.
41:17
And it is happening.
41:19
I’m hearing this from employers.
41:21
It’s like what is happening at our universities?
41:24
These people are coming out of universities and they don’t know anything.
41:29
And, and, and I think one of the most powerful quotes in the in the book came from this this young woman.
41:36
I, I, I met her at A at a party and she started telling me how she was using AII said, hey, I will, can I call you this week?
41:44
I’m writing working on this book.
41:46
I’d like to interview you about how you’re using AI.
41:48
And when I talked to her, she was like panicky because she said my first reaction was I can’t answer your question.
41:58
I have to ask Chachi PT to get the answer for you.
42:02
And she said I’m becoming Dumber and I’m worried.
42:07
Yeah, if I give if, if I give you an answer from ChatGPT, where am I?
42:13
Yeah, where am I?
42:17
That’s a big question, isn’t it?
42:18
It really is.
42:20
And question it, it’s a very powerful question.
42:23
And I see that impacting several areas coding.
42:28
I was just watching a video yesterday of a of, of a young guy who he’s talking about how to use AI to generate code.
42:36
And he’s like, some people will just use it to write the code and they just take it and they use it.
42:39
That’s it.
42:41
He’s going.
42:41
But we have a very different approach with our team.
42:46
We want to learn like, why did it code it this way and what can we learn from that?
42:52
So that way I can become better, like if it’s generating stuff and like if I’m having, hey, write me this story in French, but I don’t understand French, how is that helping me?
43:04
Yeah.
43:05
You know, it’s the same way with computer coding, with marketing before using it to generate all our marketing content.
43:10
But I don’t really understand anything that it’s producing.
43:13
Yeah.
43:14
Is it any good?
43:15
How do I know?
43:17
You know, and, and so that’s where I mean, I, you know, if I think there’s a huge amount of potential misuse with AI, you know, one of the things that’s sort of a side of our times is that in June, Amazon increased the price of their books to authors because they’re having paper shortages because people are creating so many books, they, Amazon now has a limit.
43:45
You can only publish 3 books a day.
43:49
Oh, you’re kidding me.
43:50
No, that’s true because because of the AI slop, right?
43:55
That’s exactly what it is.
43:56
It gets to the point where I could have used AI to write this book.
44:02
I could have had a rough outline and I could have like uploaded the research report and say, you know, write this book for me.
44:09
But if but when I write a book, I internalize it.
44:13
I, if I used AI to write this book, I wouldn’t be able to have this conversation with you.
44:19
I wouldn’t be able to interpret it.
44:22
I wouldn’t be able to like you and I were kind of building on ideas.
44:25
If I just got AI to give me the answer, I wouldn’t be able to have that kind of conversation.
44:31
I went through the pheresis.
44:33
I went through the hard work.
44:35
These are my stories.
44:36
These are my insights.
44:38
This is my research.
44:40
I’m a I’m a better person for it.
44:42
It’s a better book.
44:43
It’s my book.
44:44
It’s a book people can trust because there isn’t it’s, it’s, it’s not boring.
44:49
It’s not AI fluff.
44:51
And I, I’ll tell you, see, you got my wheel spin in here.
44:55
And and so I, I actually had this a very difficult conversation with a friend recently.
45:00
He’s a very, very well known marketing executive, but he’s a terrible writer by his own admission.
45:07
He used AI to write a book.
45:09
He sent me the book to take a look at it.
45:10
And it is terrible.
45:13
It’s just terrible.
45:15
And this guy is so bright and he’s so interesting.
45:18
I said, this is going to ruin your brand.
45:21
Yeah, I said yeah.
45:23
OK, You checked the box.
45:26
You wrote the book.
45:26
But where are you?
45:28
You’re not here.
45:30
Yeah.
45:31
You know, and.
45:32
And so, I mean, that’s the difference.
45:35
You just nailed it.
45:36
It’s it’s you said it over and over again.
45:38
These are my stories.
45:40
Yeah.
45:40
AI doesn’t have stories.
45:42
It has other people’s stories, doesn’t have its own stories to share.
45:45
It’s never fallen on its face.
45:47
It doesn’t know the pain of falling on your face.
45:49
And those lessons, those hard lessons learned, which builds vulnerability and empathy, true empathy, you know, is that, hey, I’ve been there and yeah, that sucks.
45:59
That’s really hard.
46:00
That’s I sat in the corner sobbing uncontrollably, you know, like a is never had that experience.
46:07
Yeah.
46:08
Yeah.
46:09
Well, I think we’ll have to end it there.
46:10
Mark the book How AI changes your customers.
46:15
It is a must read.
46:17
I I, I cannot emphasize this more.
46:19
The television.
46:21
Sure.
46:21
You know, that’s the other thing that’s really cool.
46:23
Like, yeah, it’s not, there’s no flop.
46:25
You get right into it.
46:27
And it’s, it’s literally as I was going through the book, I’m like, I post the notes, highlight that whatever, like I might.
46:36
And finally I’m like, screw this.
46:38
I’m gonna have I’m gonna get a book for everyone on my team because there’s so much information in here.
46:43
I want to Sure.
46:44
It’s just easy for them to read the book and have their own copy.
46:46
One one lady said to me, I had to stop reading the book because my highlighter ran out.
46:53
I believe it.
46:54
That’s it exactly.
46:55
And there’s so much it.
46:57
It’s it’s a must read.
46:59
Mark, thank you so much for coming on the show.
47:01
It was absolutely fantastic.
47:03
It was an honor to be here.
47:04
Yeah.
47:04
Yeah.
47:05
Mark, if you get the books on Amazon, we’ll have Mark’s website on in the show notes.
47:12
Is there any other information you would like to share with people that might be listening that we can put in our show notes?
47:19
Well, no, I mean, if to learn about me, you don’t even have to remember my my name.
47:23
You just have to remember businesses grow.
47:26
That’s my website.
47:27
Businesses grow.
47:28
You can find my books, my blog and all my social media connections there.
47:32
And if you read the book, I’d love to hear from you and love to hear your thoughts.
47:36
That’s awesome.
47:36
Thank you.
47:37
If you didn’t catch that, don’t worry about it.
47:38
You can catch it in our show notes at impellercrm.com/sales.
47:42
Lead dog real get not only this episode, but our 160 plus episodes of sales Lead dog.
47:47
Be sure to check it out and subscribe.
47:50
We get greatly appreciate you get all our future episodes.
47:53
Mark.
47:53
So great senior.
47:54
Thanks again for coming on Sales Lead Dog.
