Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Suzanne Frear, where we take a deep dive into the pros and cons of using Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, to create content for your business.
Suzanne is a Creative Copywriter working with passionate small businesses. She helps makers, bakers and motivators shine on the internet and connect with their audience.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- The privacy concerns you need to consider when using AI generated content
- The impact AI generated content has on your SEO
- The limitations and potential for deception and bias, when using AI generated content
I’d love to hear what learnings or light bulb moments you take away from today's episode – please do come and connect with me over on my social media and let me know.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out Suzanne's ‘Things You May Not Know About Chat GPT' Blog
Join Suzanne's Email List
Check out the Dream Business Club Page that Suzanne wrote the copy for
Connect with Suzanne on Instagram and LinkedIn
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. And as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing. But there's a bit of a difference today. After having a, almost a year, I think it was just short of a year off doing interviews, they're back. And I basically got a bit bored of doing episodes on my own and not talking to other people.
And also I am limited in the things that I can talk about. Now, obviously I can talk about a ton of stuff because I've been in this business for a long time and I do my own marketing and all that jazz. But there are things that obviously I am not expert in. So although I could probably give you the headline stuff on it.
Actually, I need to bring in some experts. So I have started by picking some of my most favorite people who are not only amazing at what they do, but also happen to be awesome people as well. So please welcome to the podcast today, the amazing Sooz Frear. Suze, how are you doing?
Sooz: I'm really good. Thank you very much for having me on.
Teresa: Oh, my pleasure. I am really excited to have you here now. Sooz has been in my world a little while and what's kind of exciting about her is that her business is fairly new and I've been with her since the beginning, which is quite rare for me. I don't often get to work with people from the very beginning.
So tell us a bit Sooz, about what you do and how you got to doing the thing that you do now?
Sooz: Okay, so I am a creative copywriter, so I work with predominantly small businesses to help them write their copy to make real connections and build relationships through website copy, through email newsletters, blogs, et cetera.
I have been doing this professionally for just coming up to a year now, although it was as you say, like I'd been doing it a little bit on the side before, but yes, a year ago I decided to quit my day job, so to speak, and I took the plunge and yeah, it brought me here because I've always loved writing and so to be able to do that as part of what I do for a living is just a great joy for me so I'm, I'm, I'm really proud of myself for getting here and yeah I'm just so happy that I get to do what I love as a job.
Teresa: So I've watched you, Sooz's in executive club, she works with us there. I've watched you go through already some roller coasters of running a business. So talk to me and in case anybody's out there, cause actually surprisingly there are a number of people either in my world directly or perhaps listening to this that have jobs or do a part time job and they're not quite ready to take that step.
So talk to me about actually taking that step of going, “I'm going to leave my job and leave my income and I'm going to better myself.”
Sooz: Yeah. It's, it's a big, big step and I would never be one to recommend it and say everyone should do it because obviously everyone is so different. Everyone's situation is so different. The situation I was in, but the job I'd been doing for a little over 20 years.
I had to come to an end for a lot of different reasons. I was working within the European Union and following Brexit, obviously things had changed. Also following COVID and the new normal, my working routine had changed and just, it wasn't going to work going forward. So I knew I had to leave that particular job.
So the situation I had was whether I was going to find a new job, a full time position, a part time position working for someone else. Or if this was, I was going to listen to what was actually going on and take the chance to do it myself. And I did go backwards and forwards on this. I know I discussed it with you more than once because there were times when I had the possibility of taking a job.
At the end of the day, I think betting on myself is the best thing I could have done. And it's a huge risk. It's a big thing to do. Walking away from that guaranteed income is a huge thing to do. But when, if you get the opportunity and you have that little bit of stability to be able to do it, that, that, position of privilege really that, you know, next month I'll be all right if I give this a go, then I urge you to take it because if you can enjoy what you do, it's not like going to work.
And that is a huge, huge thing. What I was doing before didn't light me up. This does, I enjoy what I do. I look forward to working. I don't mind working longer hours, things like that. And I get to design my own life, which is a real joy.
Teresa: And I think that actually, you know, to say that it feels like a privilege is, is true. You know, you were in a position where, you know, you, you had an option to leave, like obviously you still need to bring your income in. You still need to, you know keep a roof over your head, but there are some options there.
So that is a privilege. But also I want to kind of go, it's not a privilege. You took a risk. You took a big, brave, massive step to say I'm betting on myself. And, and that takes the most guts. I think of anyone doing anything, honestly, I constantly say to the business owners I work with that they should be high fiving themselves every single day.
The fact that they're even here doing this thing, like they are a hundred times braver than most people out there. So tell me, cause there was one pit that I'm thinking about in particular where you started, you were waiting to get your website up and running and the website went up. And nothing happened.
And I think that was one of your very first, like, oh, oh God, what am I going to do? Like, so talk to us about that, about what you thought was going to happen and then how we managed after that.
Sooz: So I think, yeah, I had this, this, this picture of, of, of what a successful business looked like. And it was definitely a website.
It was definitely, you know, a full and bustling email list. It was really busy socials, et cetera. And I'd worked really hard to get this to my website up and I was so proud of it. I'd put in so much work because anyone knows who does the website. Thank you so much. It takes a lot of work. Obviously being a copywriter, I wrote all the copy myself.
It's a lot of work and talking about yourself isn't always the easiest thing. And that's why I do what I do to help other people. But I had to do it for myself. So all this work has gone in. I was so excited. I remember doing, a little video to celebrate that you were part of it. All these people celebrating that my website was up and it had been up two days and I wasn't yet a millionaire.
And I think I came into the group and I was like, Now what? Because I'd worked so hard, nothing had happened and then, well now what? No, no one's seen it apart from you guys that I've shared it with. This was it. Yeah. Then the next stage is obviously really pushing yourself out there, getting, getting people to the website, talking about the website, talking about what they can find there and, and then encouraging them, following links and things. So that was it. . Yeah. Things don't just happen. You have to find them.
Teresa: The story really makes me like, it makes me laugh in a nice way, not in like a ha, stupid as a way. Like that, because that is the truth there. So many people, like having a website with your name on it feels, and like you said, it's a ton of work, right. Even when you've had a website before, like, if I ever do a website change or the last time I changed a website, it is still a ton of work. And, and like you said, it was just that whole, like, get it up there, like, what? Come on, they're the ones, all my customers, like, hello!
Sooz: They're that phrase, build it and they will come. They don't.
Teresa: No, they don't. It's absolute BS. But what was so great, from my point of view, is that you were working with us and you were in our world, which meant that when you went, Oh my God, like nothing's happening.
I'm failing at this. I'm doing, which you absolutely weren't by the way, because that is what happens that actually we could work on the next thing and work on it and keep you going and then get to the point where you are today, where you have clients and proposals and all sorts of things, which is awesome. But so many people would have got to that stage. And stopped.
Sooz: It's true.
Teresa: And you didn't.
Sooz: No. Well, I think there's, there's a few things that kept me going, but predominantly was like this, this, that I wanted to make myself proud and I couldn't give up for that. It was too soon to give up. I'd given myself, I think I've given myself three years to see if I can make this work.
It's already working, by the way, so there was very much that, like, don't give up, but I have to say, yeah, the people around me, and this is one thing I talk about quite a lot, is having the people around you that either have been there, have done it before, have some experience, or just that believe in you and support you, and when they see you starting to lose that faith a little bit in yourself, it's just so, wait, have you seen what you've done?
You've done all this first, remember that, and that, that's a big learning curve, that's something else I've learned over the past couple of years that I, actually, I have got quite a strong willpower, and I am a strong person, I can do something if I put my mind to it, but I've taken time to learn, you know, we've always relied on other people, like, but everything we do and think, oh no, it's not for me, or I'll find a different way.
But relying upon yourself is a big learning curve. And that's, yeah, definitely something that kept to come through when I've hit these little bumps. But yeah, the people around me and other people cheering me on, like yourself, like the group that we're in. Yeah, it's invaluable. Absolutely.
Teresa: And, and I love it because we're now a year in, almost a year in, and you, you have a thriving business that has always got room to grow because every business has, but you have got clients, you're doing work, you're showing up, you're, you know, you are getting people saying you are brilliant at this, Sooz, and you are brilliant at this, which is amazing.
In fact, Sooz, I should mention Sooz helped me write the club page, so if you go to teresaheathwareing. com/ the club. You can see Sooz's work on that page and it's lovely because she got to know me and understand me and she did pretty much anyway by this point. But, and what was lovely is she was in the club so she could very convincingly and, and authentically go, this is what you get in there and this is how you feel and that sort of thing. So do go and check that out.
Okay, so the next hurdle that come across, which actually is gonna be where we're focusing our time today, is that you start your copywriting business. And then the world explodes with chat GTP.
Sooz: Oh, honestly, you couldn't make it up, could you? I'll just wait.
Teresa: No, no. So basically.
Sooz: Yeah, I'll wait for it. I'll wait for an energy crisis when people are low on free up cash. And just something else that comes in that people can use themselves to write their own copy which is brilliant.
Teresa: Exactly. you know what? I am pretty late to the party with most tech things because I understand, like I'm still not on threads and I won't be, and now there's a surprise, everyone stopped talking about it.
But like, you know, I, I hold back a bit because I know that I've got to stay in my lane. So actually I didn't look at chat GTP and as you know, and people listening to this, if they're not new, I write all my stuff pretty much anyway, bar the page I got you to help me with. So, and the show notes, Becci writes the show notes based on what I've said on the podcast.
So, for me, I never really looked at it. And then I started to like dabble and look. And I remember sitting in bed, I've told you this, with my husband. And it was a Saturday morning, or Friday morning, we were both doing a bit of work in bed. and rock and roll life we need. And basically I'm doing something and I'm like, look at this.
And I wrote an email that I would send to my list and I put it into chat GTP. And I said, improve this. And it just started typing. And Paul, my husband is like, “What the world. How much are you paying for that? That's ridiculous.” I'm like, it's free. However, what we want to talk about today is, and what you're going to share with us because you've done some great content around this, which is why I wanted you to come and share it with us, is we're going to talk about using ChatGTP, and when it's great and when it's not great, and when you need a copywriter, when you don't need a copywriter, and when you know, the things that you should use it for and the things that you should bear in mind when you're using it. So, where do you wanna kick off Sooz? What things should we talk about first?
Sooz: Well, I'll start with, with what you just said there. So, yeah, I want to talk about like, the fact, like you said that you, when you, you entered stuff in, you just said it, it is brilliant. I have to say like, I can't knock it really.
The fact that you can put a couple of really simple prompts in, I mean, you put in a whole, email, but you can put in just write me an invitation to, write me for social media posts about, it is brilliant in that the innovative technology behind it is fantastic. I can't knock it, but it just. I urge people to be careful with it.
There's so much we don't know about it. There's so much that we're still learning. And that is because AI in itself is a learning tool. So it is learning as well all the time. For example, the fact that you put in a newsletter, once you put in something like that, that could hold information, it could hold, it could hold customer data, for example.
Anything like that, then goes in there and stays there. It becomes the property, so to speak, of, ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, any of those. That once it's in, it becomes part of that system. So, be very aware that anything you put in is no longer private to you. It could be served up as information to another user if they put in just the right kind of prompts, it's using your information to learn from.
A lot of the time this isn't too bad. You know that there's things we're entering in a quite generic that questions and things like that. But sometimes people are putting in whole reams of an article or a whole magazine, something similar or course, I know someone who's put a whole course into chat GPT to find out how it sounds. And yes, you'd have to get the right product. It's mind blowing and it's really scary.
Teresa: That's mind blowing, isn't it? Like, you know, and, and also the fact is, and I, you know, and we talked about this and you told me that example, and I was like, so if someone else, so if someone saw that she'd put that in, because she talked about it publicly, that's how, yeah, how we know that she put her entire course in.
Yeah. So if someone saw her talk about it and knew the title of her course and then went back to chat GTP and said, write me a course based on or called the likelihood of them using some of that information back in that response would be really high.
Sooz: It could be. Yeah, exactly. But it's also. It's impossible to tell and then from there, you don't know how unique your answer is.
So it's really hard to, I couldn't say what the percentage chance is and I wouldn't want to put myself out of it because there's people who know a lot more about it and the data behind it, but it's just that there is a chance. I heard a story about someone in a separate group who she managed the social media for an accounting firm or a financial firm.
She'd put out a post that she'd put through ChatGPT. And her firm got in touch with her and said, This is not your post. You've, this is, you've stolen this from someone else. Basically, and the chances of this happening are slim, but two different people have put the same prompt into chat GPT, got the same thing out, and in the same field, and the fact that they were linked anyway, the same post went out.
So the second person to put it out looked like she'd literally copied the first person, but she'd got it from chat GPT. So it does happen, the chances are slim. And especially that you're going to get caught in that lie, so to speak, that lack of authenticity.
Teresa: If that's your job, and you're, you're a freelancer or you're a social media manager or you're a marketer, and it's like…
You know, you writing something and it being out somewhere else, like you just can't do that, that credibility. And also, I have to say now, you know, I've used chat GTP, and I've looked at it in different ways and we can talk about that, how, you know, how I've used it. But I, if I came to you to write some copy.
Or if I came to you to write my social media or went to someone to create my social media and I thought they were just plugging it into ChatGTP, that kind of, personally, that would put me off. Yeah. Personally, I would think, well, you know, are you not good enough quality that you can just do it yourself?
Now, I don't mind double checking and improving and that sort of thing. But if. Yeah. It's like, well, I could just do the same, couldn't I?
Sooz: Yeah. No, absolutely. You could too. I mean, I would say that, no, that we could then come in, a good copywriter could come in and edit it for you and get it for tone of voice, your brand voice, speak directly to your customer.
But in theory, yes, if you were paying me whatever I charge to write you social media posts, which by the way, I don't do, but if I did, and then you found that I was just popping this into some AI. What are you, you're paying me to do a little bit of typing and then some copy and paste. That's, no, that's absolutely not what should be happening.
It's great for idea prompts, get some bullet points, you know, brilliant ideas for subject titles, you know, that you can work with and make your own. Absolutely. But taking it verbatim word for word. It's, it's not what AI is for, not what ChatGTP is for, because you're going to get, you're going to, you're not going to get exactly the tone of voice that you want.
You're not going to, you can't guarantee it's unique. You can't guarantee that it's 100% factually correct, because there's no way of fact checking it. So, it, there's a lot going into it that you have to be so careful of. Also, then it brings us quite nicely onto the second point that I was going to bring up, which is about copy and pasting.
So, as we've talked about, it is a learning tool. AI is learning all the time. And so, everything that you put in or that it generates, it will, it wants to learn from. But what it wants to know is that when it's, it's created, a block of text, whatever that may be, It doesn't want to use that again. If it comes across, if someone does copy paste it into somewhere, it doesn't want to use it again when it's looking for the information.
So it's very clever. It inserts, it embeds its own code in there so that its own little crawler bots will ignore that text in the future. So that it won't try and learn from it again because it's already got that information. Now that's one thing and that's brilliant and how clever is AI, but what that also does is speaks to your, to the SEO crawler bots out there.
So if you are copy pasting a block of text straight from AI into your website, the SEO bots will totally ignore it, discount it, it will actually be negative for your SEO. So you might say, write me an article about so and so a subject, including these keywords, ensuring it's focusing on this phrase. It could be brilliant in theory for SEO, but if you just copy paste it, it will act negatively.
It will act like a blank space and it will, Google and the other crawler bots will see it as insufficient data and mark you down in your SEO. You've got to take that, you can't copy and paste, you've got to take it out. That so clever, it's so clever. And the fact that, but it's like a tripwire, isn't it?
It's like, you know, you can't just copy and paste this, we know what you're doing. It's, it's really, really interesting.
Teresa: And also, that is the one reason people are using ChatGTP. So, you know, we talk about, in fact, I wrote a blog the other day, Sooz, and I was unduly proud of myself for writing a blog.
Sooz: I was proud of you too, it was a wonderful blog.
Teresa: Thank you. And there were parts of the blog that I sectioned out, checked into ChatGTP and said, make that sound better. And then rewrote what they said into my blog. It wasn't, I didn't ask them for the content. I had already written all the content. I just got some improvements. But the fact is, the reason people are going to ChatGTP, and obviously when we say ChatGTP, we mean AI, so you mentioned Claude and a few others there.
So it's any of them, but like, the reason people are going there is to create content easily, to help, and the only reason you create content is to attract your customer, or bring them to your website, or picked up on SEO, or picked up on social media, whatever it might be. And if that is actually, Going against you. That is huge.
You might as well. In fact, it's not a case of you might as well not put a blog on. It's actually worse than not putting a blog on because it's marking you down. It marks you down. Exactly. So what can we do if we, because sometimes, and again, I am one of these people all over. So when I wrote that blog, I didn't start with the intro because I can't. I can't start. I hate starting writing.
So I knew what I wanted to cover in the blog. So I started with the core bits, the middle bit, and then I went back and pre filled the front and then I did the end. So for me, that's how I could start. But sometimes you need something to get you going, like if you're not very good with a blank sheet of paper.
So how, if we do want to use it, and I highly suggest, and as Sooz will, that we don't just type in, write me a blog on blur. But if we do want to use it. How can we make sure we're stopping those things from happening?
Sooz: So, first of all, I would suggest asking for bullet points or asking for ideas rather than writing you a full blog.
And that way you can take parts of it and then write around it in your own words. If you are just adverse to writing altogether and you do decide to have that full blog. Take it out, put it into a Word document of your own, and work on it. Make sure you, the phrases you're using are, are yours. I was listening to a really good podcast the other day and they said there's certain phrases that you can always tell come from AI, they read a blog and they're like, Oh, that's been AI generated.
And I think one of the examples was in this digital age. And if someone says something like in this digital age, yeah, that's AI that's talking about itself. So you You know, make sure that it's, it's phraseology, it's words that you would use, first of all, you know, and work on it, make it your own, just like Leroy Walsh liked to say in The X Factor.
You know, really make it resonate with, with your own.
Teresa: Pass for the basket. Show me. Do we remember that?
Sooz: Another really good thing you can do is once you've written your blog, I mean, again, and this is using AI in another way, but there are programs called AI detector programs where you can then copy paste your work instead.
And it will say the percentage chance and whether it can be read as if, can it tell that AI has written it basically. So, yeah, that's good, isn't it? It's really, really good. Again, you are inputting your words into somewhere else. And there's more I don't know about the AI detectives, but it can read it for authenticity for that human, element is so, you know, they'll give you a percentage readout on how likely that is.
That it's been AI generated beforehand. So that's also a good thing to try and use to make it sound more like yourself. But yeah, I would definitely say if you'd walk there, I want to work on it. You can always ask a copywriter to come in and just do light editing, which will, you know, won't be as expensive as writing a full blog.
And that's great as well. Make sure it's got your tone of voice. It speaks to your customers and that's really important.
Teresa: And I think that's the other thing. So when I have put things into chat GTP, and like I said, the way I use it is a couple of different ways. One. I either write something from scratch, chuck it in and go and improve this, and then it helps with my sentence structure and it helps with like, the grammar and things like that.
So that's great. And it might round it off a bit nicer, or I've used it for research purposes. So I will type in and, and again, like most things, and I know everyone listening to this, because you and I are included in this Sooz, we'd love nothing more than a quick fix, quick win tomorrow. If I could take a pill and I could drop for dress sizes, I'd be over the moon.
And the same with our businesses, right? If I could give you one hack and you'd make loads of money, we would all take it in a heartbeat. So we like the thought that there are these tools out there that make our life so much easier and quicker, and we don't have to put any effort in.
But the truth is… It is still a tool that is based on the amount of effort you put in is how good the effort will be coming out. That is so true. For me, you know, when I'm using it for research, I will spend a long time telling it who my customer is, telling it what problems my customer has, how my customer shows up, what my customer thinks.
And then I will say to it, write me some content ideas based on that customer, or you do this thing based on that customer. So for me, that's how I've used it. Now, I have to say. Even though I've tried to get my tone of voice in it, it still comes out with a tone of voice that is absolutely not me. And some of the words it comes out with, I am like, “Mm mm, that does not sound like me.” I would not write that.
So sometimes I'll put something in and go and prove this and then I'll just dismiss everything it said because it's like actually, it's now taken out all aspects of who I am or what I say and like some of those key phrases that it would say and I'm like, I wouldn't say that. Yeah. Like, so, and even when you're like, because you could type in, make it friendlier or, you know, more approachable or whatever, and then it'll do, and you're like, Jesus Christ, like, that is absolutely not how I talk.
Exactly. So yeah, so for me, that's how I'm currently using it. But like I said, for It really is the more effort you put in using it, the better results you're getting coming out. So in some ways it's a great tool for that, but if you're not putting good stuff in the first place, you're not going to get good stuff out.
Sooz: No, absolutely.
Teresa: So what's your next one, Sooz? What next tip have you got?
Sooz: So along those lines, because obviously AI is learning from what we put into it. And I know that you attended the same event that I went to where we heard the wonderful Joanne Boyce speak. And she spoke about how AI is grossly biased because the people using it, we all have bias.
If bias is Prevalent in human society, it is going to be just as prevalent in AI and we have to be so aware of it. And Joanne used a brilliant analogy. She said you have to think of AI as all these word writing bots as a puppy and that puppy is being trained. So if you were to go over to a puppy and this puppy bit you, would you blame the puppy or would you blame the people who had trained it?
It only has the information being given to it, and that's what it is. That's what it becomes, this puppy. And AI is the same. And as we know, there is a lot of privilege in the world, but we have white privilege and we also have gender cis privilege. This bias, it comes through in AI, she used a lot of different examples, but it's so important to be aware of it. Again and again, it comes from the copy pasting, but also, you know, take, don't take what is written as the best way to speak to somebody because there will be underlying things that you might not pick up on yourself because, because again, because of your privilege and not being well, we, we need to start embracing intersectionality and Being better at this.
And so I think, you know, it's, it's really, really important to, to approach AI in that way. And one of the examples you can use is it, as you just said, you can start with, you are a copywriter for brands, wood, we'll just call it wood. I've got no idea is it for the wood brand.
Teresa: And you know, that brand, that brand, that popular brand.
Sooz: Yeah. That one just happened to me. I want you to write me an article of 500 words about trainers. Okay. So these could be platform purple trainers, for example, what you then need to ask the AIs do is I want you to add inclusivity to the copy because trainers can be worn by anyone, not just able bodied athletes, for example, things like this, or perfume, if you're doing one for perfume, include it, inclusivity in the copy because perfume can be worn by any gender, men and women or non binary or however they identify.
And it's putting that in so that AI knows to remove certain things. And then it will learn from you that you want an all inclusive piece of text. When Joanne spoke about this, I know that you and I, like I said, we were there together.
It blew our minds. It was just something we hadn't even considered. And when she gave us this example of, I think it was, she wanted to write an article about a black blind or deaf lady, something like this. And it was just what came out. Yeah. It was blind or deaf. Yeah. From thing that she was smashing the ceilings of, of what she could do because of she couldn't see or hear, and her, her name was grossly inflated across the lives of what we would expect. We would expect a black person's name to be. It was just, yeah, it was quite appalling.
Teresa: But was, we, we didn't realise, like, this was the worst thing. So when Joanne bought the thing up and showed the text, and she was like, where's the bias in it? I'm reading it, right?
And I'm not laughing because it's not funny, but like, I'm reading it as a… white privileged woman and I don't see the bias, right? So imagine if you are a white cis woman and you are writing something aimed at black trans people, right? And you ask AI to do that for you and it makes all these grossly over kind of ridiculous, you know, descriptions or whatever it might be.
But actually, yeah, are pretty offensive. You wouldn't necessarily know because you are not as versed or as, as in that world as you should be or could be, and therefore you're putting that out there and actually it's doing more damage than it's doing good because you're trying to be inclusive, but because you don't understand the bias and the AI is not understanding the bias, you're potentially doing loads of damage to your brand.
Sooz: Absolutely. And in this, in this day and age, we cannot use ignorance as a defense. You know, we have to educate ourselves on these things. And so we have to be all the time doing our absolute best to learn, to include. And so to say, Oh, well, I put this into ChatGPT it's not my fault.
That's. Not an excuse at all. And that's just, yeah, we need to be better. And that's, it's, it's really interesting how when we are trying, we think we're doing well, we're still missing the mark. Mm-Hmm. And, and unfortunately because AI is created by us, it will do that too. And so it's, you've gotta be so aware of, of what it's, it's giving out back to you and check it, double check it, take it away from where it is.
Don't ask it to check itself. You do the check-in, you do the independent research on it because. You could, you could be really offending people. You could be missing out on whole groups of people that you want to speak to. You could be, you know, pushing them away and that's the last thing you want to do.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So I think can bring us onto your next point.
Sooz: Yes. That, like I just said, you can't ask AI to check itself because AI lies. Which is bizarre.
Teresa: Such a liar AI. Eh? Liar AI. It's a liar. A liar. Yeah, just swap them around. I'm a liar. A liar. That's brilliant. We could go for hours. That's what we'll call it from now on.
Sooz: Yeah. And then again, I got this from someone else. I have to say this. So I was listening to a brilliant podcast from Lucky Knight and Louise was talking about the fact that AI lies. So you could ask AI to go to a certain URL.
You could say, go to this URL and, and check something. So, or find this piece of information. You can literally type in the URL and you could say to it, please, you know, go there, check this for me. And ChatGPT will come back and say, yep, did that. And here's what it says. You say, okay, great. All right. Can you tell me what the second point was on that page?
And then it will say, oh no, I can't go to websites. So it's already lied to you. It said, yes, I've checked that URL. It's brilliant. Everything. Yeah. What you said is right. No, no, I can't go to websites. So, and the idea is, is because AI needs to tell you it's more clever than it is. It's like it's being a little bit, it's the, it's the town jock.
It's like, yeah, I'm amazing. I'm great. So it wants you to think it's better than it is. And then if you push it and you dig deeper, you can catch it in its lies. So it.
Teresa: And it's like, yeah, no, sorry, didn't do that.
Sooz: No, exactly.
Teresa: Can't do it.
Sooz: It's got a lot of limitations, but it won't tell you about its limitations, it hides it. I can do that, but it can't. And it's really interesting to see that, you know, it, it doesn't always tell you that it's not totally up to date. Although the, the, Bard from Google is saying it's not limited by, a certain year of knowledge. That's what they're claiming.
But even so it can't learn that quickly. You've got, if you're putting information into it or there's in, it can't, it doesn't learn on the spot. So if you're having a conversation with it, someone else won't get that information. It's got, you've got to wait to the next update of it for the, all the information to come in.
The fact that yes, it, it can lie to you. It can, or, or the other people have lied to it. So the information that's got in there might not be factually correct. And there's no way you know that you just, Oh, okay. That's fine. I'll, I'll take that as as right then. Don't ask that. Is it for facts and data and things like that?
Get that yourself, find that information out yourself. Use it to craft your words, to give you ideas, to build your article, to, to plan it out. So where, where should your middle start? What should your middle include? Then like you say, then you can go back and write the introduction for it and then form your conclusion to it.
But don't ask it to, to give you all the information because you just don't know what's true, what's correct, what's unique. And there's, you know, there's a lot riding on it. And then if you're putting your name to something going out there. You want to be sure that what you're doing is right.
Teresa: A hundred percent, you know, my integrity and my authenticity comes from me being real.
So if I am using content that I have not created or like, so, you know. And I don't know whether people have, you know, know this sort of stuff that listened to this podcast, but like I've sat in a lot of conferences that talk about AI and there are like things that can take my voice and recreate my voice saying whatever it wants.
Weird, it's terrifying. Absolutely. Literally terrifying. But also imagine if a podcast came out and it wasn't and I couldn't be bothered to do a podcast, so I got AI to do it for me. Yeah, like I think the, and the other thing is right, even though I say to AI improve this email, there is a part of me that thinks.
You know, like, and I don't often get people, in fact, I don't think I've had anybody come back and say your grammar's off, which surprises me because it would be all the time, but that is almost a sign of, no, I am really writing it because I spelt things wrong or the grammar is wrong. But then, but then, how long will it be until AI does that?
Sooz: Well, that's really interesting, isn't it? Yeah. To, to, to mimic those human mistakes. Yeah, it's scary stuff. I mean, one of the things we say is that it can't pick up on human nuances and that, you know, the, the delicacies of language. But yeah, it's learning all the time and absolutely this idea that you could have your voice or your image actually created falsely to do whatever you want.
I mean, I've seen things on TV, I've seen series about the real deep fakes and it's.
Teresa: Deep fake stuff. It's nuts.
Sooz: It's absolutely nuts. It's absolutely nuts. And we're only dabbling in such the edge of it without asking it to write us a blog or a social media post. We're literally just on the edge of it. And so when you can, when you see what it could do, it's, you've got to treat it with respect, but also treat yourself with respect in that, you know, you've got to still place yourself above it and you've got to be the final say on what you put out there. Don't just take it as road and done.
Teresa: Yeah. So, I just had a thought, Sooz, which I think you should do, to have a, just to play with it. Yeah. Like, what if you said to him, it wrote something, or you wrote something, and you said, Put this in a Sky's tone of voice, like I'd be fascinated to see if he could put an accent on, on the written piece. Like it's really interesting, like sometimes some of these sky woods would come in or like, and I'm just picking sky for the sake of a accent that I could think of really quickly, but, but I would be fascinated the American listeners might be thinking, what is she talking about?
Liver pool , liver padian, Liverpool. If you've not heard a liver podian accent please, you probably wanna Google it. But yeah, like that would be really interesting. And like certain words I say, I often start, but again, sentences with so. Right. And obviously it's not a great way to start a sentence, but it's kind of proving that it's me writing it because I'm like, so I can I do it as if I'm talking.
And that's where that comes from. So, so look, I'm now going to find myself saying it every day. Now you'll notice it. Yeah, but that's one of the ways in which it's me writing it. Whereas. AI would take that out because grammatically it's probably not, well, not needed as much as I do it.
Sooz: No, that's so true. That's a really, really interesting point. Absolutely. Yeah. I do think yeah, it cleans itself up for the grammar, for spellings, for, you know, repetition, things like that. I'm sure that that is a big part of it. And so yeah, for anyone to get that when it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be a conversation.
It's a colloquial thing. It's never going to sound authentic to you, is it? But yeah, the idea of putting in, can you do a CERN accent? So for me, I would ask it, you know, my homeland, Yorkshire, but would it just elongate every vowel? No. And then, and then that's biased, isn't it? That's like, oh, that's not how we actually talk.
Teresa: Yeah, like, honestly, it's, it's a minefield. So anything else you want to add or anything we've missed in your notes?
Sooz: There's nothing we've missed. I just, a couple of bullet points just to say, well about bullet points. So as we've said throughout, it is brilliant. Do use it. Have a play with it. See what it can do for you.
Because if nothing else, it's a brilliant, brilliant starting point for writing. Anything at all, especially your website copy, if like me, you know, it seems so far away from where you can get to, like, it's such a big thing to start. If you're not in a position to take on someone like myself to help you, you know, you can ask it to say, what should I include on my about page?
How do I start talking about this if I'm speaking to so and so? And if you're not happy with it, if it writes something, say, no, I need more humor in there. Or you, you are a female doctor, speak from that point of view, things like that. Give it the information, try and tweak it. Don't just take the first thing and go for it.
But if you can ask for it, idea generation is absolutely brilliant. But bullet points on what you should include in an article, remember not to overshare. As we said, when you're putting information in, it keeps that information, stores it. So nothing you put in is ever private. So don't put in customer information, your private information, anything like that, that should all be removed before you put in there.
Don't, don't trust it. Yeah. Don't ask it to create an article on a subject that you know nothing about. You need to, you can't put something out there that you know nothing about because you've got no way of checking it. You don't know how factually correct, true, and unique it is. So you need to have some knowledge on this so that you can say, well, that doesn't sound correct, or yep, that's got the facts right. That's brilliant. It's put it into a way I like.
Teresa: I've had another thought of something else you could do right. Now for the rest of the day. All Sooz's going to do is play in chat GTP and send if you typed into chat, yeah. Chat GTP and said to it, what are the flaws of using chat GTP? Like what would it tell you?
Sooz: Oh, no I have.
Teresa: Have you?
Sooz: I have. And did it say? Yeah. I know. It says, so this is literally, it says, when it comes to using chat GPT for copywriting, it's essential to be aware of certain considerations and potential pitfalls. It says maintaining brand voice and authenticity. It's a powerful tool, but it cannot possess true human understanding over reliance and automation.
It's a valuable tool for generating ideas, but it's crucially not. It's crucial not to ever rely on it. Human creativity, intuition, and expertise remain indispensable in the copywriting process. Potential for inaccuracies and misinformation. You cannot avoid the fact that you might be plagiarizing and it's not original.
You should always fine tune for your specific industry and audience. Understand that there is bias and sensitivity and language. The legal and regulatory compliance. ChatGPT does not check for that. You should always proofread internet, it, it may not meet your client expectations or transparency because if you use chat GPT, you're lying to your client that you're doing the work.
And it has limited context awareness. So it can't double check everything. It can't be totally up to date with the nuances of what's going on in the world. And yet it's a growing process. So it's limited in what it can do. And that's what it told me itself. About things that can't do.
Teresa: Awesome. and, and that, right.
So if I was to end this podcast and go, so tell me why someone should use it as a copywriter. Well, chat, GTP ironically summed up perfectly.
Sooz: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I would, obviously, I advocate using a copywriter left, right, and center, but I also understand that it's not, it's not financially available to so many people, and that is right.
That is the way of the world. I totally understand that. So, ChatGPT is a brilliant, brilliant place to start and I do encourage people to have a play around with it. See the ideas it can give you. Or even if you have a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph that expresses everything you want to say. You know what you want to say, but you read it and think, God, that sounds just, it doesn't have, it's not interesting.
It's not intriguing. It doesn't inspire me. Pop that in and just ask it like you did. Improve this. And really simply, and then you can tweak it again. Just make sure it sounds like you. And, and no one else will have it, and it's just perfect for really quick fixes, like you say, but do, do be careful.
Teresa: Yeah, but when you're doing bigger, more important projects, like obviously if you've got the budget to get someone to write your blogs for you, then awesome, like that has got to be the best thing.
Unless you're an amazing writer, which I am not. But, if the budget dictates that you can't get someone to help with those things, then get them to help with… Websites. For me, the stuff that Sooz has done for me is sales page stuff, because that is like, there is, and I know there's an art and a science behind it.
It doesn't mean I can write an amazing sales page. I just know what should be on it in what order and how it goes and all that sort of thing. But having someone to Pull your brain out to and go this is what I do. This is why I love it. This is like, and the truth is, I know if you're listening to this podcast, you are a genuine, real, awesome business owner who really gives a damn about their customers and therefore, you know, you're offering a good service, but we aren't the best people to tell people how good we are offering that service.
So actually working with someone like Sooz being able to go this is what's so brilliant about it. This is how it shows up. This is what's good. This is this, this, this, this. And then having her write something about you and having her write your page for you is like a game changer.
Sooz: I totally agree. I think having someone objective come in and talk about different businesses and which is what I love.
I love learning about other people. I'm nosy at heart. I like to hear about people. But as someone, I saw an advertisement for a copywriter recently that they wanted certain expertise. I don't know whether it was in the care industry or something similar. It's irrelevant, but they wanted someone who knew a lot about it and writes about it all the time.
And I would, I would object to that in that I spoke to someone recently, someone came to me to talk about getting a quote for to do some work with them. And they're lawyers, a new lawyer, legal consultancy that's just starting up. And they did ask me if I had experience in the legal area and I said, no, I don't.
But what I bring to you is total objectivity. So I will ask you all the questions that I need to know to fully understand and write about you. And I will pick out things that you might assume your audience already knows. But actually they don't because they're like me, they're JoBlogs, they don't know anything about that.
And so having that objective tone of voice and coming in, asking all the information, seeing why I think you're brilliant and then picking that out, which is something that you've been doing for ages and you still think, Oh, well, like that's just something I offer. It's nothing special. Actually it is.
It's something I really need. It's really. It's really great to have that objective voice come in, find the information and talk about it for you. And as I said, right at the top of the show, talking about yourself is not something that a lot of us come naturally to. There's plenty of people out there who do love it, but the majority of us, especially us Brits, we don't like to talk about ourselves.
So to have someone else do it for you, it can be an absolute breath of fresh air. And like you say, if you don't have the funds, the budget to use someone all the time, use it on those projects that are really making you struggle. So whether it is your website copy, because there's so much talking about you, whether it's a sales page, because as you say, you know, the theory behind it, the science.
So the different points you need to address, but putting that together and making it compelling, create an emotional response and convert your potential customers into paying customers. Doing that is an art form. It's a skill. And so if you can afford to pay for that, that's a really good place to put your money.
Teresa: Love it. Thank you, Sooz. This has been a lovely, lovely welcome back into the interviews. That, honestly, I am like dead happy with. Like that whole conversation and all the stuff that we've given people and all the knowledge that they now have about how to use chat GTP.
Sooz: And what I will do is I'll give you some information.
So if you want to put anything in there, in the show notes about places that I found information, people can go to, to find more and stuff. Absolutely. I can send all that through so.
Teresa: Awesome. Thank you, Sooz. Where can people come and find you and say hi and ask you for a quote and all of that jazz?
Sooz: You can find me on my wonderful website that I want everyone to come and visit, which is, simple to mind.
It's www.suzannefrear.co.uk. You can find me on Instagram, on Facebook and LinkedIn. I normally hang out on Instagram. It's a, a beautiful place to be. And I have a, a, an email newsletter list. If you'd like to sign up to that, you can do so through my website really easily. So yeah, please come along and I will send you the random ramblings of my brain twice a month.
Teresa: And do you know what? They're wonderful. I signed up, so I was told off the other day by Sooz, because I very proudly said on one of our calls that I subscribe to all of the members email lists, which I thought I did. And then Sooz went, you don't subscribe to mine. So I quickly remedied that and got on Sooz's email list and her onboarding.
Like, one of the ways that I've always learned for all these years is I follow and watch and look and like, see what other people do. I've done that for a long time. So if you are like struggling with an onboarding and you want to see how someone else does it, then Sooz is brilliant. But what Sooz is particularly brilliant for is that it's so her and it's so authentic.
So you're not going to be able to just take her copy because it won't sound like you. But, and it's funny. Like emails, like it's a funny email, like just even the first one you get, so do, we've given them enough anticipation. Do go and sign up.
Sooz: They should definitely sign up. Thank you so much.
Teresa: You need to see what she puts in her emails.
I mean, I might have picked it up a bit too much and now.
Sooz: No, there's pressure now. No, they're not. There's pressure.
Teresa: Love it. Sooz, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed having you on the podcast.
Sooz: Oh, thank you. I've, I've had a brilliant morning. Thanks.
Teresa: Wonderful stuff. Okay. So if you enjoyed today's episode, please come and say hi to Sooz and I on social media.
Like I said, we both hang out on Instagram. That's our favorite. Please share this episode and let us know what you thought. We would love that. I know it will make our day if we see you share it. So please do that. I will be back next week with another interview. I'm kicking off like quite a few interviews all at once.
So I will have another awesome person for you to meet next week, but until then, have a wonderful week.
