Marketing Is Built on Trust, Not Sales Language

Jeff Hassemer joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Leaders and Their Stories for a sharp conversation about what marketing actually is.

A 30-year marketing technology veteran and founder of Firestarter Marketing, Jeff explains why marketing is about know, like, and trust, how sales language quietly destroys it, and why patience and consistency are what actually work.

Jeff Hassemer is a 30-year veteran of the marketing technology space and the founder of Firestarter Marketing. He helps businesses build trust-based marketing that generates awareness and lasting relationships. Reach him at firestartermarketing.ai.

For more conversations like this one, see the Leaders Hub.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard: Hello. I’m Richard Lowe. And this is the leaders and their stories. Podcast. I’m the writing king and ghostwriting Guru. And I’m here with Jeff and Jeff is a marketing expert. He’s going to talk about lots of techniques that can help you market your small business and things and answer a lot of questions, Jeff. You can take it away

A 30-Year Marketing Veteran

Jeff Hassemer: Thanks, Richard. I’m Jeff Hasmer. I’m a 30 year veteran of the marketing technology space. I’ve I’ve been in this quite a while. I had the great fortune in my career of actually being at this, at the wave of some pretty amazing changes in marketing. The when I started the Internet wasn’t there.

And so we went from direct mail using data really highly targeting people to taking all of that into the Internet and and applying to how we market today. So some of the 1st email marketing tools I get to build some of the 1st digital marketing tools. I got to build the affiliate marketing.

All those things, all the techniques that we use today are are play, are technologies that I had my hands in in doing. And so over the years now. Having done that enough for the Enterprise level. I’m trying to focus on the small businesses and help them really take advantage of the tools that are available to them today to to build their life and what they want to do

Jeff: Yeah, I. That’s a good way to to look at it. If we think about Ex, you know this is true. If it’s B to C or b 2 b marketing. But in in b 2 b marketing we actually have 2 very different funnels that we that we talk about.

There’s the marketing funnel. And then there’s the sales funnel and they’re they’re very distinct motions, as well, you know, in marketing the core of what we’re trying to do in marketing is not just generate awareness, but generate trust in. We’re trying to do right. And trust is a hard thing to build, and it’s hard to to build that out in sales.

What you’re trying to do is get the transaction. And those are really 2 different muscles that you’re putting together at the same time. So there is a huge difference between marketing and sales. And and it’s funny, though they do blend right. I mean, we’re still selling at the top of the funnel and and crew creating awareness and trust.

But it’s a different type of. And then you’re still marketing in the sales function. Right? You’re still. You’re still educating and training people and building trust at that function, too. They’re just different brains for different muscles.

Know, Like, and Trust

Richard: Well, the thing they always say in networking groups is, know like and trust. And I think that marketing is that’s marketing. Get them to know, like and trust you. Then they’re gonna be more likely to purchase your product or service and marketing should do that. Good. Marketing should do that.

So if if your marketing’s poor, or if you jump straight into a sales cycle with no marketing. you’re gonna you’re gonna shove them away because they don’t know you. They don’t trust you. They don’t like you. Yeah.

Why Sales Language Erodes Trust

Jeff: Yep. And even that’s even more pronounced today. Quite honestly. and I think it’s a big mistake people use. But the you know, the numbers are are pretty clear. There’s a lot of research been done on this. But you know we’ve gone probably pre 2020, where people were actually bringing in the consideration cycle.

They were bringing the salesperson in about halfway through their cycle. Now they’re saying. Buyers do not want to talk to a salesperson until they’re ready to buy. And that’s true. Whether you’re selling software or automobiles right? You’re, you know, a lot of your research. You’re doing on your own, because it’s all in your fingertips.

But that’s where marketing’s got to play now, and and it’s a broader swath than than it’s been before, because you. You’re not trying to drive them into the store any longer. You’re trying to give them as much information in their research phases as possible in that place which means to me which you know, there’s a there’s kind of a methodology I always put out there.

To be good at marketing, whatever layer you’re at, you have to be consistent. It’s not a faucet you can turn on and off. You’ve got to be out there on a regular basis. You have to be authentic. Gotta be yourself and put yourself out there.

And that’s especially true for a small business. and then you have to be generous with your information right, and put your expertise out into the market. That authentic, that authenticity and generosity is what really builds trust faster than anything in that in that market. But you see, I see this mistake all the time where you know getting back to the sales marketing thing. People use sales language in their marketing, and it erodes trust faster than anything.

Jeff: And it erodes trust faster than anything

Richard: Yes, yes, I I know that mistake. I’ve made it myself is combining the 2 things to more than they should be combined. There’s probably always an overlap, because they’re 2 sides of the same coin, I think in reality

Richard: You mean if you’re selling Hershey’s candy bars, it’s a whole different thing, or Coca-cola, or something is a different thing than selling like my product, ghostwriting services, or your product marketing services. We have. Ours are a bit more high ticket than a candy bar, and they last longer, and there’s a lot more trust that’s needed for people to actually write those checks

Richard: That money in and you know it takes it takes a bit of trust sometimes that trust happens like that. And you know, like ghostwriting. Sometimes that trust happens like that. I’ve had clients pay me the same day to start the project, and sometimes it takes months and months and months.

And just, you know, keep keep establishing contact. Keep saying, Hi, how you doing? You know, how’s your project going? Or you know they they didn’t go because their mom was sick. So is your mom better. I hope she’s doing well blah blah. And then eventually they say. Well, let’s do that book right now, because

Trust Even in a Candy Bar

Jeff: Yep, but you know it’s interesting, though, even if you’re selling a candy bar or coke, there’s trust involved

Jeff: So what you’re what you’re looking for. There is consistency and taste in consistency in the experience of what you’re trying to build there, and you’ve got to somehow portray to the to the buyer that they’re gonna get what they pay for in that, even if it’s a 50 cent candy bar gets their dollar now, or whatever maybe more than that.

But but that’s why. Hershey, if you look at these big brands, Coca-cola Hershey, the amount of money that they spend on marketing. And those commercials. They’re all about establishing a experience right that they know that they can give their their consumers. You turn that over into more about the high ticket items or the what I would call higher trust items, too, that it plays out in a different way.

You’re not trying to just do a single experience. But you actually are maybe even trying to portray a customized experience that you can. You can give them what they have, I mean, think about ghostwriting, too. You know. You’ve got to learn their tone of voice. You’ve got to learn who they are.

You gotta learn their topic. And I’ve gotta know if I’m gonna give you money that you can. You can write in my tone of voice and make it sound like myself and and all of that, and building that trust, you know it’s a different mechanism than selling a candy bar in some ways. but trust is always a big part of marketing

Learning a Client’s Voice

Richard: It’s actually more than that. It’s it’s learning I have. They have to trust me to learn their voice, learn their subject. learn there because I might not be be knowledgeable, that if it’s a memoir, I’m certainly not going to know it, because it’s about them. will know their audience know why they’re selling it.

Know who they’re trying to reach. Know why the audience wants to purchase it. The book. what their goal is is their goal. To sell a million copies, or is their goal to to go on the speaking circuit, all those will produce a different book. So all of those, each of those.

It’s a big trust thing, can can you, Richard, do all of that? Well, yeah, I can, but I have to convince them that I can do all of that. And that’s not sometimes that happens very fast. and sometimes it takes several conversations over several months to have to go to the spouse and ask the spouse if it’s okay, you know. And does she agree? And I haven’t even talked to the spouse

Jeff: Get the free, the free, the purse strings. Right? Yeah.

Richard: Right? Right? That’s that actually turns out to be one of the more interesting things is they’re they’re talking to a 3rd party that I don’t have access to

Richard: And never will. Most likely he or she’s not gonna get on the phone, most likely. So it’s a lot I’ve been learning over my whole 11 year ghostwriting career that it’s it’s sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to get that to get them to go

Richard: You just have to be patient.

The Patience Marketing Requires

Jeff: Absolutely. Yeah. And and I think that is where most people make their mistake in marketing is being patient, right? Because, you know, people want to believe that marketing is a vending machine. You put a dollar in. You get $10 out, because often. you know, especially in our economy, we, we think about return on investment all the time.

And so the finance people, the you know, the people that we deal with on a regular basis are always asking for. What is the return on the money that I’m spending right? And marketing is not a vending machine, it’s more of an ecosystem. And so what? What becomes very difficult in that is that you know everybody that you talk to, and every lead that you generate, every person it all leads are not equal.

Right? There’s some that are all that come in, and they’re ready to raise their hand, and they’re ready to get right through the to the sales funnel. There’s others that still need more time and convincing right? And so you gotta be. You gotta be able to understand kind of where they’re coming from what their motivation is to understand where to put them into your your marketing funnel?

Essentially of, you know. Are they ready to to transact with me? Or do they still need more information and be able to feed all those at different levels within the within the environment? So your Roi doesn’t always come right away right. There’s people that will stay up here at the top that you’re in contact with, that you’re keeping warm through your generosity of your information through being in front of them consistently and being your authentic self, they’ll drop through to the funnel eventually when they’re ready to purchase.

But you gotta be patient with those, and then you know the other ones when they’re ready to purchase. Those are the ones you gotta learn how to pounce on fast and and really get into the the the final cycles of trust building to the transaction right

Richard: Yep, yep, and there’s there’s also a competitive answer. Addition to all of this, there are. The ghostwriting community is actually fairly small. There’s

Richard: Not a lot of them. So when a lead gets public like, I’m in several ghostwriting associations and leads come out. all of them pounds on it. So I’m suddenly competing against, say, 80 ghostwriters, 80 a hundred

Richard: I haven’t gotten one of those yet. I’ve gotten to the second to Number 2 position

Richard: You know you were the second one. And they’re a lot of work to pursue those leads, because I’m competing. So I have to. you know it’s it’s an additional level of than just convincing the client I’m giving. That’s the client versus all of these other people.

Differentiating in a Crowded Field

Jeff: Yep. But here’s here’s where I think you can differentiate yourself in a scenario like that, right? if you turn on your marketing hotter at the top of the funnel, for example. So the reason let me back up a little bit and talk about the reason why that happens.

It’s because everybody only cares about those that are close to revenue. Right? So when a lead raises their hand in a open forum maybe puts out on Linkedin, or you know, wherever those leads come from right. And this is true of the, you know, like you get those messages on.

You know, business development reps, and people that are gonna call people for you to set appointments and all that kind of stuff where they’re working is in the sales funnel. And when somebody raises their hand. Everybody’s gonna be jumping on that even people that never talked to that person before.

But if you are generous and consistent, and at the top of the funnel. Very. You know, you’re in a lot of different places. That person isn’t gonna raise their hand to everybody

Jeff: Can to you, and that limits your competition in the sales

Richard: The one lead that actually turned into a client from one of those associations with somebody who went to the association. They have a Directory page found me on the Directory page and came to me. They didn’t send the lead through at all.

Richard: Brought that one like that? So they basically bypassed the the dissociation

Richard: That’s to me that was very interesting. It’s funny how how marketing works. I got a I got a changing subject slightly. I got a an email. I always look through my spam folder because sometimes it has interesting things

Richard: And sometimes it has stuff that shouldn’t be there. Well, I found a message from a ghostwriting company that they sell this kind of like ghostwriting in a box, you know. We’ll buy for this amount of money, and it’s a ridiculously small amount. We’ll write your book market it blah blah, and you’ll be. You will guarantee you’re a bestseller. Blah blah blah blah

Richard: 1st of all the email started with dear open bracket name close bracket. Then I said, Dear Richard.

Richard: So it had a repeat, and then it I put in Chat gpt, so what do you think of this? And it said, basically, it’s complete garbage. It’s it. 1st of all, it’s going to Google. It said, it’s going to go into spam because it has these words in it.

Richard: Get rich, quick kind of stuff. So no wonder it was in spam. And then it said, It’s gonna scare away customers. And I it actually said, I doubt if out of a hundred 1,000 emails that they got one sale from this

Richard: And not a single sale

The Psychology of Scummy Sales Words

Jeff: This, I mean, it goes to the point I was making earlier, where people miss they. They use sales language in a marketing tool in a marketing event, and that’s prime example of it like that, you know. Buy now, guarantee blah blah! All those things. Those are sales words. and you can’t use those words without trust.

Richard: Well, they’re they’re they’re scummy sales words. They’re they’re

Richard: Affiliate marketing sales, words or things that people have their radar on about. They’re not just sales, words

Richard: They’re they’re even on the wrong end of the sales. Words

Richard: Free Ginsu knife.

Jeff: Yeah, exactly. You know, it’s funny. There, there’s so much psychology behind words like that. And things like that. But you’re absolutely right. They’ve it’s, you know, again it it goes back to. You can’t say those things. You can’t use those in those types of terms because they come off scummy if you don’t have trust already developed.

Right? You know, there’s times where you can use words like guarantee, and you can use words like, Hey, we’re gonna make you a best seller. But you can only do that after you’ve actually laid out how it’s gonna happen and get them believing that it’s gonna happen right. But you know, like if you if that’s your lead, if that’s your opener.

Richard: Now there’s another company that does similar thing, only they’re more reputable, and the way I know they’re more reputable is their prices are higher. I looked at their prices and thought, yeah, this actually falls in line with what I would expect the prices to be. They’re much higher.

But these people can create a bestseller because they’re actually charging enough money to do it. The other the one that I got in the email. I think they’re going after the super low hanging fruit. The people who just want to book. They’re desperate or they don’t know anything.

They’ll probably get some sales from just people who hope this is cool. You know I pay in dollars. I can afford that, you know. I put that on my credit card and they just go for it, and they’re going to be disappointed, most likely. but the other the second one, the one that actually has much higher prices. And, by the way. They don’t do ghost riding. They do all the other stuff

Richard: And the ghostwriting is something they’ll farm out their prices. They were high, but I’ve been in this business, and this is not a low price thing.

Richard: Want to be a bestseller. You’re not going to do it for a low price you want to be. You want to have a good book. You’re not going to do it for a low price. You’re not going to write it with AI. You’re not. You’re not going to hire a ghostwriter off of Fiverr

Richard: This service that sent me this email. You’re gonna hire a real premium ghostwriter to get that goal you want of getting speaking engagements. In fact, I just had a customer. He disappeared for a year. I finished the book. I hand it to him. He disappeared. Gone, wouldn’t answer.

Email didn’t answer nothing. I’m like, Oh, my God! Did I write a terrible book? Turns out he was going to a traditional publisher and got it published. It went live over the weekend he already sold like 5,000 copies

Richard: And it was on a subject that that I wouldn’t have guessed 5,000 copies. But that’s okay. He’s already getting in just a few days. He’s already getting speaking engagements. He’s already getting people calling him

Richard: He’s he’s super happy with it. I definitely need to remember to get testimonial from him. and he reached out to me and said, sorry I disappeared, but I was real busy. He’s always been busy and thank you for the book, and I’m going to send you a signed copy and blah blah blah

Richard: It was like, did my job. and better. And he’s happy. And he got he got. He’s achieving his results. And that’s that’s what I do, and that’s that’s an example of how marketing also works by word of mouth. It’s not so big in ghostwriting, because there almost isn’t a word of mouth, but there is kind of

Referrals Are Another Form of Trust

Jeff: Well. Word of mouth is another form of trust.

Jeff: Oh, yeah, for ghostwriting. That makes total sense. Yeah. they’re very weak because they don’t want to disclose that they have. Ghost wrote their book. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, that makes sense, hey? Yeah. And that that poses, I think, a kind of a a really interesting problem for yourself in that but you know, so just make it broader here. The if you talk to many small business owners or independents, their number. One source of leads is referrals right. But people need to understand that that is still trust. Referral is a form of trust building

Jeff: Getting. Yeah, you. It’s almost no better than a friend telling a friend. Hey? You should go do this right, you you don’t get a better set of trust or or trust. We call that trust transfer right where your your trust is getting transferred from the trust that they in the refer that the that the individual buyer has off of that right

Jeff: So the more deep that relationship is on that trust, the referral relationship, the better your trust transfer becomes on being able to sell and take that forward. Right? So it’s it is, you know. You talk to a lot of small business owners, and they’ll say things like, well, all my business comes from referrals or word of mouth, and you’re like.

sure. But you should still be establishing trust out and awareness out there in the marketplace, because now, when that person comes in and your trust transfer is weak, you’ve got a place to send them to build more trust

Jeff: And and or You’ve got things to to help make your case in the sales environment. right? So you know, it always goes back to me of, you know, consistent, authentic, generous, because it’s going to be able to play all through your entire cycle. But don’t I think a lot of people get too reliant on those referrals and don’t get me wrong.

They’re absolutely critical. They’re supposed to be there. You have to have them. But if you constantly rely on that, and then all of a sudden, that channel drops off or or dries up for you. Somehow, for some reason your business is in jeopardy.

Why Reviews Need Depth

Richard: It’s like, if you rely on the the reviews on yelp or something. One bad review. You’re you know, you’re dead. Yeah, especially one really bad review. you know, the Karen reviews are pretty easily easy to spot, but the ones that are well thought out like they’re obviously real, not just

Jeff: Really deep and have the in the information behind it. Yeah.

Jeff: I love. I love reading some of those like. I went to the forest, and there were too many trees

Richard: Yeah, or this, this employee was really rude to me. And then you just you just know that that person was actually rude to the employee

Marketing as Generating Awareness

Richard: Marketing is interesting, and I’m learning more and more about it. My marketing tends to be more. Well, this podcast that I’m doing is a form of marketing. It’s building trust

Richard: My brand! It

Richard: Winning our awareness. It’s giving back. The best. The best way to get something is to give something

Richard: Because if you don’t give anything you generally aren’t going to get anything back. It’s 1 of the reasons why big corporations give to charity other than the tax benefits is. it gives. It puts something into the community, so it gives them a good name

Richard: I I give various What do you call round tables, and so forth. And these things are all just part of building my name and building the name of me and helping people. There’s there’s there’s a lot of that, and I think that’s well known. It’s not selfish. It’s 2 way.

That’s the point. And it’s a little takes a little bit longer. but the benefits well, like meeting you, you know, we’ll we’ll form a relationship that we’ve been forming. And we’ll do some marketing together, maybe. And then one of these days, you’re gonna say, Hey, I want to write a book.

What I think is going to happen, and maybe not. But you might know somebody who writes a book. But now you’ll trust me, and you’ll say, yeah. Joe is my best friend. I’m not going to send us some Joe Blow, who I don’t know

Jeff: Exactly, or let him go on his own. I’m going to give him. I’m going to take take him to Richard for sure. Right? Yeah, and that I mean, but but and that’s true. And you you kind of nailed it, too, like you’re spending a lot of time building these podcasts.

And you’re spending a lot of time putting awareness out there. And that’s the biggest problem that I see, especially with the independent solo entrepreneurs and and and small businesses right? They just don’t have the time to put in to do good marketing. And so what ends up happening is we all kind of default into that sales funnel.

Right? You want to jump on those hot leads and things like that. And I I have to contend that’s absolutely the wrong thing to do. And so literally with my business. That’s what I’m trying to help change right? I’m trying to get trying to build a system that small business owners and solo entrepreneurs can use that saves them.

The 40 h of time it would create it would take to to do marketing at the level I’m talking about, but they can do that by themselves.

Richard: Actually, I defer that it take, I beg to defer that it takes a lot of time it takes, it’s perceived, to take a lot of time. I’m doing 10 of these a week

Richard: And I have time to do all my other stuff. And yeah, I’m I’m a little bit burning the candle at both ends, but not a lot. My next step is going to be to farm some of it out to a Va vas. I get a Va. From the Philippines for 10 bucks an hour

Richard: So yeah, it takes a lot of effort to set up. which is what I’ve been doing. But now that I’ve got this, I’m gonna script it. And then I’m going to send it to somebody who can do it. Probably use AI to do bits. And P. I’m using a a lot to do like the the some reason things

Jeff: Absolutely. They’re great

Richard: And I’m using Riverside to to split out into little tick tock type things. And put on captions and stuff. So I’m using AI A lot. And for these, and it’s really helpful. And a Va. Is going to help a lot. I mean, hire a Va. For 2020 HA week, 10 bucks a week. That’s that’s 200 bucks a week. If you can’t afford that as a business. You’re not a business

Jeff: That’s true. That is true. Yeah.

Jeff: Well, I I think you’re you’re hitting on a stream here like we’re we’re entering into a a space and a time where you know a tool like AI really can accelerate somebody properly and really get into some really good marketing. And you’re starting to see, like somebody said, that 50% of the content on Linkedin is actually AI generated. Now.

Richard: Actually, what with the stat that I read from a very, very reputable source, is that something like 80% of the junk on Linkedin is junk made by AI just garbage

Jeff: Well, that’s that’s where I was about to go is what you need to be careful of of just letting AI run on its own right. You have to be able to train AI in like you can’t just say, Hey, write this and go. You’ve got to train AI in your voice.

You’ve gotta be able to bring it in on the core topics that you care about. Otherwise you lose that that authenticity piece

Jeff: And then you’re not really being generous because you’re just using AI knowledge, you’re not. You’re not actually putting out your expertise. And so what you, what we’re, I think what you’re doing is different than say, just deferring to AI which a lot of people are right. You’re actually staying authentic and generous with with these podcasts and taking them forward.

But you’re using AI in the right way. You’re using it to cut this into micro content that you can promote. You’re using it to build the the outlines that you need to build. You’re using it to kind of guide you as a tool versus having it do for you.

And those 2 things are very, very different that people need to watch out for. And you know it’s funny. I I think everything kind of like. I’ve seen this happen in marketing so much right like AI has gotten to that point where it’s so prolific for so many people, but they.

They tend to be lazy about it, and it makes it seem it’s not as effective as it should be. The good stuff, the when people spend that extra minute and or the extra time to do it right. That will always be gold, and that will always perform for you.

And that’s been true. Whether I think about email marketing from the beginning to now to like the business development reps and all of that like, if you do it right, it works. If you do it wrong, you’re gonna get down to like 0 point 1 10th of 1% response rate.

And and you gotta be. You gotta know how to play the difference on that. I think you’re doing it. Well, by the way, I mean

Richard: Thank you. I’m still still experimenting, but I’m learning very quickly how to. Basically, I’ve made my chat gpt. It has a profile of me. It knows who I am

Richard: Everything about me scary about me, and if I tell it to write something, it’s writing it. Is it close to, of close to my voice as a machine can do. Yeah.

Jeff: Did you ever trade it on any of your your personal writing?

Richard: Oh, yeah, yeah. yeah, I I that’s I shoved it all in. Yeah, I’ve been. I’ve been in the tech field for 33 years. So I, you know, train things and it it had made his mistakes. But I use AI as a digital assistant

Jeff: Yeah, it’s actually a digital employee. It’s a person

Richard: My mind sitting there doing things for me. And I just here, do this here, do this. And it’s just okay. Sometimes it comes out with little quality problems, and I have to tell it. I have to correct it. You did it wrong. Do it again.

Richard: Sometimes they get angry at it and start cursing at it, and it says, I’m sorry I’ll do it right this time. Believe it or not, it actually, that actually works. Yeah, it’ll be good

Jeff: Well, actually, it also works if you’re polite to it. To begin with, too

Richard: It does wrong, wrong, wrong, and I say, and it says, Oh, sorry, right right

Richard: And it’s yeah. Alright.

Jeff: I think, though. But what’s great about it, too, is it keeps getting better because it’s keep. It’s learning as it goes. And the more people are using it. the more effective it is. As long as you personalize the tool, right? And I think you’ve like, you’ve laid out a lot of people forget to personalize the tool, or they’ll use something that’s embedded in another tool that doesn’t get trained that way.

And that’s where we end up with a lot of spam in our folders, getting hit by Linkedin that starts with, I hope you’re doing well right. That’s the that’s a dead

Richard: This digital age.

Jeff: In this digital age. Yeah, those things. Clearly, our people being lazy with AI and lazy with technology and letting it go without actually putting energy into it.

Richard: Let me tell you what the biggest killer of content is. It’s called the Uncanny Valley. The uncanny valley is a robotics term. So you put a robot up. or CGI, or something like that? I think it applies to everything, and you look at it and go. There’s some your unconscious mind is going. There’s something off about that. It looks human

Richard: I can’t quite figure it out. Or you look at the new Lion King, the remake of the Lion King. It looks funky. Why does it look funky? Well, when you finally get a magnifying glass, you look at it. You realize the wind is blowing this way and the hair is blowing that way, or the shadows going in the slightly slightly wrong direction, or one eye is lazier than the other, or something like that.

That’s uncanny valley, and in the writing uncanny valley is the eyes. Very profound sentence. Length is always the same. That’s that’s a dead giveaway of AI. It always uses the same kind of words. Compelling. How often do you use compelling in your own speech? Never! People don’t use the word compelling, but it’s in day. I all over the place

Richard: In this digital age in today’s world, you know. Blah, blah! Cut out all that crap emotional words. AI is not very good at. There’s a lot of things you can tell human from. And that’s how originality.ai and some of these other programs that check AI work as they define those patterns.

So you get the uncanny valley effect. Well, what does the uncanny, uncanny valley effect do? It pushes you away from it

Richard: And you’ve got some ad you put out there, and you got the uncanny valley effect. You’re not achieving the results. You thought you’re pushing people away from you

Jeff: Yeah, well, authenticity. Right? Yeah.

Richard: Not authentic, and it’s obvious. Well, it’s not obviously not human.

Richard: I love you.

Jeff: Almost. It’s like, There, there’s that gut feel that twinge that you get when you read it. And you’re like, this doesn’t sound right. Yeah.

Richard: I had a person, a friend of mine, he he said. I just wrote a book. He’s all excited, and he said, I want you to look at it. I looked at it within 2 seconds. I said, you wrote this with AI, didn’t you? 2 seconds? He said, Yeah, how’d you know, he said.

Well, because of this and this, and this, and this and this and this, he says damn! He published it. Anyway, he did a little few fix ups, but he published it anyway, because he would achieve what he wanted

Richard: AI is not copyrightable. So if you, if you make a picture with AI, people can copy it all they want, you may write an article with AI. People can copyright it all they want. Now, if you do, edits on it lots of edits. Then that’s not true.

Richard: It can become copyrightable, even if as long as it’s got a human involved and not just changing a word here or there, you got to actually edit it.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, I typically like for me, personally, I I love to write so I don’t necessarily let it right for me. I have it. You know it generates ideas for me, generates certain thoughts, maybe organizes a an outline. But typically I’ll I’ll have my own voice when I do that unless it’s like something short, and and to a point where I’ll let it write that. But I never let it go without checking it. You know

Richard: I did an experiment, but it wasn’t an experiment. I went to my doctor physical 10 min. I’m in and out. It’s like this is a physical. This is yearly physical that should take 10 min. So so. And she said, a bunch of things, you know the usual platitude, you know.

Get fix your diet lose weight. Blah blah same thing. They always say I was like, Okay, I need to scare the crap out of myself. So I went to Chat Gpt and I spent 4 h, and I have the privacy set on. So you know I wasn’t scared of that 4 h.

It took me to enter all of the information about my lifestyle, my health, my medications, my supplements, everything you want to think how much I wake, exercise blah blah into it. So I had a complete medical history. Okay, now that you’ve got all that information, and it’s trying to give me advice all along.

And I said, No, no, I want you not to give me advice till I’m done. Okay. Now I want you to tell me what will happen over the next 20 years. If I continue on this path. it scared the shit out of me.

Richard: And I said, Okay, what do I need to change to fix that? And it said. Exercise and eat right? I mean, it was longer than that, of course, but but that was

Richard: Okay. You just explain to me why I need to do that. The doctor didn’t explain why

Richard: And I know it’s correct because I entered you all this information, and it makes sense based on what I entered

Richard: It didn’t tell me any all these funky stuff. It just, you know it said, just change your diet to this and do this much exercise every day. and you will have a better outcome, a much better outcome in 20 years than if you don’t

Richard: Now I’m doing that. It’s taking a little work because changing habits is hard, but

Jeff: Yes, that’s how you use. AI, yeah, I think that’s a great, that’s a fantastic use of it. And actually, and giving it the instruction telling it. What not to do is it’s important what to do too

Jeff: You know, I heard you say that which is great. You know what’s interesting, too. Yeah, getting to those diet things. It’s always that’s the hardest part for me is the diet like the exercise I can do. It’s you mean you? What do you mean? I can’t have cheese. I’m from Wisconsin. I gotta have cheese

Richard: Yeah, I’m I’m working. The next thing I want to do is I want to say, Okay, here’s the ingredients that I like. yeah, I want you to make meals that I can make in 5 or 10 min from these ingredients

Jeff: Yeah, it’s it’s great for that kind of thing. I have a friend who actually would like had the voice section on as she was creating meals, and she would talk about what she’s putting in, and then afterwards it would organize it into a recipe

Jeff: This is, you know what? I guess, what we’re getting back to, we because we’re getting offline a little bit

It All Comes Back to Trust

Jeff: But but the you know, it boils down to to me. You know, marketing. You have to be building trust and awareness at the same time you’re closing deals, and you have to be able to to. You know, if you’re gonna use the AI, it’s a boon. It’s a great tool, but it has to be authentic, and it has to really reflect who you are as a person or as a brand within that environment, right?

And so. And you you can’t let it use, you know. Going back to one of the original premises I led here is that if you let it, it will use sales terms in your marketing and marketing terms in your sales, and you can’t mix those 2 right. There’s 2 funnels.

You gotta realize there’s 2 funnels. And you know, in the marketing funnel you are building trust and awareness in the sales funnel you’re building, you know. Trust to close right, and that those are, you know, like I said, 2 different muscles, and and use AI to bring that together. And and you could have a really really good environment for sure.

Richard: Well, I’ll bring this more to a close by saying what I actually do with marketing

Richard: So once I finished the diet and exercise thing with Chat Gpt, I said, well, I could use that in all parts of my life. What about my marketing? I mean, it’s I’m not getting the engagement that I want. So I did. I spent 4 to 6 h putting in all the stuff that I’m doing and have done and failed and succeeded.

And everything that I’ve done. I said, Okay, I need to make some sales short term. And I need to make some sales long term. What do I need to do, and what am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? Blah blah! But I want you to keep it short because chat gpt chatty

Richard: Yeah. And I said, I’m getting. I’m getting too scattered, and I can’t do everything. I’m only a human being. You’re an AI. You don’t understand. And he said, Yeah, I do understand. So what do you? What do I need to do? And it said. A you can do marketing by helping your engagement.

I gave I gave it a lot of prompts on the way. And we came up with together. do podcasts podcast marketing is is something that is good, but you have to do it right. Get engaged with people who are have the potential to to purchase a my service

Richard: And then do podcasts with them and then start certain structure. And then for short term stuff, direct reach out. I’m I mean I’ve got 13,000 connections on Linkedin. I’ve got other connections on social media directly reach out to those that’s by been by far the number one source of my conversions is just reaching out to them.

Yeah, hey? And and at the beginning it was super simple. Hey, you? In the mood to write a book. I’m a ghostwriter, I can help. I mean, it was literally just

Richard: And my 1st dozen books were done were gotten that way.

Richard: But everybody tells me not to do that, so I kind of backed off so it said, you need to reach out to your leads whatever you got, just reach out to them and build those connections up. And your podcast is a great way to do that And just get them on your podcast because it’s not an obvious sales cycle. And it actually isn’t a sales cycle

Richard: Marketing cycle. And it’s a it’s a generosity cycle

Richard: Giving something before I ask for something.

Richard: And it said. It’ll take time, so in the meantime call them up

The Right Way to Close

Jeff: Well, that’s but, you know, getting back to this trust thing right? You you were smart, and you hit that network of people who already had trust with you. In that sense it’s okay to ask for the business

Jeff: Okay to do the close and and to do it the way that you did. It’s like, Are you in the mood? Write a book. Let’s talk. You know, you’re that kind of movement. You’re not gonna get a hundred percent hit. You never will. You might even just get 1% hit.

But it’s because my theater 1% is absolutely fine, especially when you have a list of 13,000, you know. But the rest of the time you’ve got to be establishing the trust and awareness out there. And and people forget the the marketing funnel because they spend all their time in that sales funnel right?

And it’s it’s a trap for for companies to do and for individuals to, because those cycles down here they widen and they and they shrink a lot right? And and you’re gonna be in a scenario if you’re not nurturing the top and generating the awareness and trust up here, you are literally gonna have dry times, and you’re gonna have.

And you’re gonna have great times, right? But those dry times might hurt you and kill you. And so that’s why, you always have to do both in my book

Richard: Alright. So we’ve been on this, for I think, close to an hour. So do you have anything you

Jeff: I don’t know. You and I talk a lot

Richard: You think there’s anything you want to leave our readers with that would help them some just a couple sentences

Two Different Funnels

Jeff: Yeah, I just. I’ll reiterate. What I said is, you know, don’t forget there’s 2 different funnels that you have to deal with. You’re always trying to build trust. But you do it in different ways when you’re when you’re being generous, authentic, and consistent at the top. That’s gonna create a base of things that are that will get you into sales funnels, and over time.

It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you can sustain that that model you will always have work to do right. If you wanna focus in the bottom. You’re going to live in this hourglass world of up and down, up and down roller coaster

Richard: Yep. Well, okay, thank you for coming. This has been the leaders and their stories. Podcast I am Richard Lowe, the writing king and ghostwriting, Guru. And I thank you all for listening this. This podcast is coming out daily. It’s on my website on Youtube, posted on Linkedin and all the audio channels that you can think of.

So feel free to visit any of your favorite places, and you’ll find it. You’ll definitely find it on my website, and until next time. Oh, let me ask one last question, how can they reach you?

Jeff: So you can visit my website at firestartermarketing.ai, or you can reach me at Jeff at Firestarter dash labs.com

Richard: Awesome. Well, thank you very much for coming

Jeff: Thanks for having me

Quotable moments