Can AI really help you grow your business? And can it ever really be used with integrity so that the output sounds like you and feels authentic? These are some of the big questions I ask my latest podcast guest Michelle Thames. She’s a marketing expert and knows all there is to know about AI. In this brand new episode she shares her top tips for saving time and money with AI whilst maintaining a human touch.
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Transcript
Teresa:
[00:00:00] If you’re a business owner, you literally can’t go. a couple of posts without someone talking about AI and what it can do for our business. But is it really true? Can using AI save us loads of time, loads of money, and most importantly, without it looking like it’s AI? Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t want AI written stuff and images that look like they’ve been made with AI.
Can it really do that stuff? So today I am talking to the lovely Michelle Thames, who is a marketing expert, who is a passionate fan of AI and what it can do for our businesses. So we get into the weeds of using AI for marketing, what kind of things you can get it to do and how most importantly, you can get it to sound like you and not a robot.
Hello, and welcome back to this week’s episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. I am Terese Heath- Wareing, your host. And I am so glad you’ve decided to spend your time listening to me today. I’m guessing you’re doing something else while listening. I always do. So in the morning, when I get ready, I always have my phone propped up in my bathroom and I am listening or watching.
I’m really into watching YouTube at the moment. I’m learning things to do with the business, to do with [00:02:00] myself. I actually, just as a side note, by the way, I have my human design done. wondering if anyone else has had theirs done, come and DM me if you have. And if you love it, I love all this kind of stuff.
Now someone is probably sat there going, what’s human design? And I’m going to start to explain it. And you’re probably going to go, what really? But you know, I’m into like, you know, I like a bit of woo. I don’t mind this stuff. So human design is based on the time, the place and the date in which you were born.
That’s as much as I can tell you because I’m not an expert, but I’m a projector. Okay. So if you are an expert in human design or you have done your own, just so you know, I’m a projector, come and tell me what you are. So I’ve been watching a lot of them on YouTube at the moment, explaining to me what it means. Anyway.
So I’m guessing as you’re listening to this, you are doing something else. So again, why not come and DM me and tell me or comment on one of my posts and tell me where you listen to the podcast. Cause I like to know, cause I’m very naturally nosy, which is good. Because I interview people and that’s quite a [00:03:00] helpful skill.
Okay. Today we have an interview, which is awesome. Now, a couple of weeks back, we had Holly on talking about AI and it was general AI just talking about, you know, what it does and what it is and, and big AI and fancy AI and all that sort of thing. And today I have the lovely Michelle Thames on. Now, Michelle is a marketing trailblazer, an acclaimed podcast and a trusted monetization strategist with a passion for empowering women entrepreneurs.
She has established herself as a dominant voice in the digital marketing space. Michelle also spoke at my summit, so I had her to come and speak at the summit, and she talked about AI at the summit, and that’s where I wanted her back on, but she’s going to talk about AI in a very different way, she is going to talk about marketing and AI, so we are going to dive much deeper into how is it saving us time, how can it save us money, I have to say, if you’ve listened for a while, you know, I’ve been in this space for a very long time.
I [00:04:00] did my degree in marketing 20 years ago and have worked in marketing my entire life. And the stuff that AI can do now would have cost thousands years ago, not even that many years ago, like literally two, three years ago, it would have cost so much money.
As business owners I think we often kind of go, it’s hard and things are hard and it is hard. Boy is some of this stuff easier than it ever was. So I for one, I’m very grateful, but Michelle has basically built her marketing agency and her marketing business on using AI and she uses it for so many things. So in this episode today, we are going to dive into What AI can do for our business, how we can use it for marketing and how we make sure it doesn’t always sound like AI.
Cause that is one of the downfalls to it, is that sometimes we can spot AI very quickly. So I really think you’re going to enjoy this episode. She has some really useful tips. [00:05:00] If you find it useful, I would love to hear it. Please go and check out Michelle as well. We will make sure we hook up to all of the links in the show notes, which you can find them at teresaheathwareing.com/363. Here is the lovely Michelle.
Michelle, welcome to the podcast.
Michelle:
I’m so excited to be here. So excited to chat today.
Teresa:
Me too. Me too. So I always thought the podcast the same way and I keep saying I’m going to change it and I will change it, but I haven’t got, got round to that.
So let’s start as I normally do, by you explaining who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today.
Michelle:
Yes. I am Michelle Thames. I’m from Chicago. It is the windy city, but it’s beautiful in the summer. I am a marketing strategist and business coach and how I got started is really crazy. I actually have a background in healthcare administration.
You know, I went to school, got a job like they say, do, you know, go to school, get a job and worked in healthcare, but it wasn’t for me, unfortunately, unfortunately, I was fired from my job in [00:06:00] healthcare and it really pushed me into my passions. And so I was already blogging on the side, doing beauty blogging and really figuring out this digital world.
Back in 2008, 2009, we’re like, this was all so new to people. And I got the opportunity and was found online because of my blog and everything to work for a beauty brand that was up and coming. And I got to help them build their social media foundation, their digital foundation, everything from email, social, digital, influencer marketing.
I got to learn so many different things. And I was like, oh my goodness, I could totally like do this for myself too and do this for more people. And so I started a marketing agency with my husband and that’s where I am today. And I also help women build businesses online, whether that’s you’re a solopreneur, whether you’re an author, you are a dentist and you want to create a brand like building a personal brand in today’s age, it’s like something really amazing that we can do and we can make money being ourselves.
So I like to equip people with those skills and say, Hey, you can monetize off your skills and expertise, but you have to be able to market [00:07:00] yourself too. So I do a little bit of everything on a podcast just like you, but that’s, that’s who I am.
Teresa:
So there’s a couple of things I want to pick up on that first off. You and your husband working together. Was that scary? Well, there’s a couple of questions I’ve got like, first off, both of you going into a business and therefore I’m assuming no other income coming into the house. Was that terrifying? And secondly, how do you manage working with your husband?
Michelle:
Yeah, no, I really love working with my husband.
He loves social media, just like me. It’s really crazy. We’re like marketing nerds and it was scary. I’m not even going to lie, but I had asked my husband, could I quit my job? And he told me that I totally could. I was like, you know what? I got a plan. We’re going to be fine. I just like, believe that, you know, we’re going to have faith.
And like, what we’re going to put into is going to work. He used to work in education. So he was a teacher and it was just really stressful. And one day he came home. He was like, I don’t, I don’t think I can do this anymore. And I was like, Quit. We’ll figure it out. And we’ve been figuring it out for the last, he has been home three years, and I’ve been doing this for [00:08:00] five years full time.
So we’ve been figuring it out. And like, yes, it’s scary, but I kind of feel like you have to know that you have something and know that it’ll just be fine. Like, everything will be okay. If you really have that mindset, like, I know people say like positivity, but no, really say, okay, I know it’s going to work out.
I am diligently working towards this and it’s going to be fine. Like, I feel like this is what we’re supposed to be doing. I really love marketing and he really loves marketing too. And we really help. We really love helping people get their business visible and like helping them get new clients. It’s like a high, like that you can’t get anywhere else.
Teresa:
I love that. And, and I think there is something about we need to work it out, which means you work it out. I think when it’s optional, it feels optional when it’s like, I need to pay my mortgage. I am going to make this work. There is no greater motivation. Is there?
Michelle:
None? Because it’s like, yeah, I could go back to a nine to five, right?
But I don’t want to do that. And that is okay. Okay. It’s okay. People do that. It is okay. If you’re a part [00:09:00] time, but like, this is all that we do have. And so people, yes, it is me and my husband. So yes, it is one income, right? We’re all, it’s the family business. So it is like a different type of mindset. I’m like going hard every day.
Like, well, okay. I’ve got to reach out to leads. I got to follow up with these people. Make sure I post on social media, make sure I keep up with the clients that I currently have. Putting myself out there speaking, getting on podcasts like this. It is a strategic plan every day. Yes. So there is no other choice.
Teresa:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. We want to talk about, or one of the things that you talk about is AI, and I want to talk about that. However, I want to talk, I just want to ask you something else first. It’s kind of like, obviously, you know, and both of us are from a marketing background, we both do marketing. I want to get your take at the moment on social media because you are so passionate about social media.
It has worked so successfully for you. I personally, at this point, I have a, I’m having a real like, ugh. Like that noise just describes it like, uh, with social media. [00:10:00] And I am wondering, do you think it’s still working? Is it still working? What are people doing wrong? How can they make it work? What just where do you, and I know this wasn’t one of the questions I was going to ask you, but now I’m just picking your brains.
What are your thoughts on it? Like, am I right to think, Oh God, it’s hard or am I just not doing it right?
Michelle:
No, this is good. This is a good question. And no, I think all of us are feeling like, uh, but the truth of the matter is it definitely still works. Here’s the thing, me and you, we have taken time to build a community of people.
We have followers that’s that huge number, right, 400, 000, whatever. None of those 30, 000 people are probably your ideal person or part of your community. So we really focus on building community and really digging deep to the clients and customers that we already have and getting repeat customers, you’ll be fine.
Because I work with big brands and what we do is we focus on the customers and [00:11:00] clients that are always showing up, that are always buying, that are VIP clients. They’re going to always tell more people, but you have to build a community and care about the actual people. A lot of people care about that big follower number, which means nothing because there’s influences with 4 million who can’t get 20 people to an event.
I’ve sold out of free events. I’ve sold out of events that cost money. I’ve had people show up to my, I mean, I have 30, 000 followers. I don’t think that’s like a huge, massive number considering how long I’ve been online. But I feel like what I have done is built a community.
And so yes. Instagram is like changing. It’s like, uh, but I feel like if we just show up and create the content that we want and like stop the oh, it has to be 20 seconds, this whatever, like fit into a mold and just be ourselves. And because I was thinking about a video that I want to post, I’m going to go to a concert.
I want to post how I had fun as a millennial because that’s who I am, right? I’m building a personal brand. I think. We can take off the, like, it has to be so rigid and just have fun with [00:12:00] it. And like the clients will come if we focus on community. So I feel you girl, like, and everybody’s feeling this way.
Instagram is like, Oh, but if we don’t show up, then it’s like, we won’t get, we won’t build the clients, especially organic. We can always run ads to things, but having that organic foundation, I think. is this. And let’s just, you know, think about like why we’re doing it. We don’t even have to show up every day or feel the pressure to either.
Teresa:
I think, I so love what you just said. I think creating the content you want to create. I love that. I think too many people, and I remember hearing it was an influencer. It was someone talking at an event and they had a ginormous account and they were saying, don’t just jump on the latest trend to get followers and to get views because you’re going to attract people that aren’t your people.
And if, and this is the whole point, and I think you’re so right where people just get swayed by the numbers. They just think, Oh, I really wish I had that many followers. I really wish. And you know, and [00:13:00] I know we can look at an account that has loads of numbers and their engagement is on the floor for the size of the account.
Right? So I think one. Embracing the what do I want to post, I think is really, really helpful to me right now, because I feel this pressure. So I used to have a social media manager and the social media manager stopped doing done for you services. And basically since then I haven’t replaced her. So I am technically doing my own social media, which is laughable because that’s what I used to do as a service.
Like I used to do this. And now when it comes to my own, I’m like, I don’t want to do it. And I don’t know what to do. And I’m struggling to, like, I can teach this stuff all day long. I can support someone else doing it all day long, doing it for yourself, very different.
So I think the whole kind of like, well, actually what do I want to post for starters? Whereas I think probably I’ve been overthinking of, oh, I need to be doing this type of content and this type of content. And then of course I go and research other people’s content and then think, oh, well, they did this.
I probably need to do this. And also it’s about loving on those [00:14:00] people. And it’s about building a community. It’s not about, you know, woo, I got X amount of views or X amount of follows off the back of something great. Move on to the next thing is about actually, am I really appreciating the people that are in there?
And. And I think this is the beauty of having a smaller account. When someone is starting off, you can do that personal outreach. You can get to know them. You can follow them. You can see their content. You can engage with them. When you, yours must be a really hard account, well, much harder now to manage given the size of the account compared to what it was.
Michelle:
Oh yeah. No, you mean my, my Instagram? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have 37, 000, but I feel like that’s not like super huge where I can’t manage it. Like, I get messages every day, but I feel like, number one, like you said, I make connections with those people. Now, one of my clients has 147, 000 on our Instagram account, and yes, like, that’s, you know, It takes like a team to manage something like that.
So like, yeah, I think if it does get to the size, but you [00:15:00] never want this because of the size of the account of the customer service or like how the brand or how you respond to go down because then if that goes, the whole ship goes down. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it needs to be like, and we have to think about, Oh, don’t think about people are DMing me.
That person could be DMing you because they’re trying to work with you. Like, yes, respond.
Teresa:
I think you’re right. I think that’s the other thing. Like I actively encourage people to DM me and I actively respond to them. And I, you know, my account’s teeny tiny, but you know, I remember watching Jasmine Star years ago and someone, she stood on stage and she was talking about outsourcing and she was saying, I outsource the things I can outsource.
So I outsource stuff like admin. I outsource stuff like tech stuff. And, She said, I personally manage my own account and that at the point was like hundreds of thousands and someone asked her a question and they were like, well, the account, you know, my account is really busy. It wasn’t as big as, [00:16:00] uh, and I just don’t have time to respond to all these people.
So can I just get someone else to do it? And she’s like, You respond to the people. Yeah, but I get a lot of DMs and she went, you respond to the people. And she was really like, I loved it. Cause it was like, if Jasmine Starr can do it, you can do it. Like, you know, and I think people are a bit like, Oh, DMs, but hang on.
If that person, if you had a shot, that would be the equivalent to someone walking through the door. What are you going to be like, Oh God, will you just leave? It’s really irritating. So, yeah, I love that. I love that.
Michelle:
And you can use automations too. So, ManyChat, right? If you don’t have the time, we’re going to talk about AI.
That’s a tool that you can use to automate and to respond to people, at least. If you can’t, if you feel like you don’t have the time.
Teresa:
Yes, at least do something and, and also manage people’s expectations. So if you had something like many chat kicking in and going, Hey, I don’t check because obviously we can’t be on social media 24 seven.
I don’t check it every minute of every day, but I will look at it and I will get back to you. [00:17:00] Or, you know, the thing that I really struggle with that I am really bad at is if someone starts a conversation in my DM somewhere, because this is the other problem. We have millions of DMS in different places.
I can lose that conversation. And then I forget to do that because I have a brain that if it’s not dealt with, it’s, it’s gone. So one of the things I try and encourage people to do is email me if I’m having a conversation and it’s going somewhere, I will say, could you do me a favor and email me over here?
Cause when it’s in my inbox, it’s not going anywhere until I deal with it. Whereas on DMS, I do lose it. So at least I guess, try and manage their expectations, your expectations. I’m not great in DMS. I do try and reply. I do, you know, and I do reply, but I might lose it and I don’t want to lose it. So, yeah.
Okay. Let’s talk about AI. Now I had someone on the podcast a few weeks back who talked about general AI and that sort of thing. And one thing. I love about you and why I wanted you on and why I wanted this conversation is it’s not just a [00:18:00] conversation around AI is cool and we should look at AI. And, and, and the other thing I’ve seen all the time is like everyone going, this is how to do this thing with AI.
It’s how to do this with AI. I want us to look at. Is it really worth? And it might feel like this is the shut in the stable door once the horse is bolted. Is that a saying? Have I said that right? I know it’s been around for a while, but I still think people are barely scratching the surface. So when you talk about AI and revolutionizing marketing strategies, what are you kind of talking about?
Michelle:
So much, but.
Teresa:
I was going to say, that’s not a small question.
Michelle:
Take a breath and say, Ooh, it can be a lot, but AI can help you save more time. I think in your business. More time by helping you write emails, ideate ideas, put together whole events. I put together an online event using AI. All the way from the questions for the speakers, to the [00:19:00] emails, to what will go in the survey, to the funnel afterwards.
So really think about how you can use these AI tools. I have clients. who use AI for photo, for, yes, mid journey, right, to create an image for them. And they have used these images in emails. So think about the different, I think people, we get shiny object syndrome. It’s like, Oh my God, AI, this, this, this. But really think about how you can best use it in your business.
That’s how I’m talking about revolutionizing your marketing strategy, making it easier. You’re ideating ideas on Monday. Okay, let it help you come up with some ideas for your Instagram the script. The script for my podcast I definitely ask it to help me for a script with the podcast and I go off the script and I change the words or Whatever, but I hope it I use it to help me write a script It’s going to write it in two minus six seconds.
But here’s the thing you should know how to prompt it to really get it to say [00:20:00] and sound like you don’t just leave it basic. I think that’s the main problem is people are really basic. So you should spend time priming it.
Teresa:
And that’s the conversation I want us to have, because I think that’s the problem.
I had a conversation the other day with someone who was talking about AI, and they very rightly said, and we were laughing about it, that, you know, you can spot it, right? And you can, and you must be able to, because you work in it a lot. So, It’s, it’s more about how, what are we getting it to give us? How do we make sure that it understands what we’re saying and gives us proper content out, not just your standard AI stuff that everyone’s gonna go, that’s AI.
What do we need to do? How do we need to train it? Because I think that’s the thing that people are struggling with.
Michelle:
I think you should take a voice note of like you talking and how you talk everything like that and feed it to the AI for feed it to something like chat GPT or I’ve been using Gemini, to be honest, it’s been really good.
So that’s Google’s version. It’s [00:21:00] been it’s been really good. Now I like me some good chat GPT. And I do pay for like the 4. 0 subscription, but I think Gemini is really good. Google workspace, you’re probably already paying for it. So I would speak into your voice. Now, you can do Otter or whatever on your phone and like feed that to chat GPT, because you can upload pictures.
You can upload audio, all these things into chat, GPT. Think of this as like. Google on steroids, like it’s going to find all the research and things that you need. But when you give it the right prompt, so when we say prompt, that means what to tell us. So after you give it that, you know, say, my name is Michelle Thames.
I’m a business coach. I help people with marketing. My target audience is this person between this age. They like to do these type of things. Here’s a sample of how I talk. Here’s a sample of one of my emails. Can you take this and just, you know, be the voice for me, right? And then start to ask it things.
You can say, okay, I’m trying [00:22:00] to promote an event. I’m creating an event. Help me come up with the title for this event. It’ll give you like five titles. And then you can break that down from there and say, Oh, I like number three. What would that be about? Give me an outline. Like I asked To give me the whole schedule for the event.
Like from 9:30- 10 : 30 you’ll do this. It’ll be a networking session. You can do so much. And I think sometimes we get lost in our thoughts and we just let the thoughts sit there. And this can be that thing to help you execute better.
Teresa:
Mm-Hmm. And I think that’s the key thing in terms of adding in the bit about you so that it can give you, it’s not about the content it puts out is only driven by the content you put in, isn’t it?
Michelle:
Yeah.
Teresa:
So if you’re not asking it to do proper things, if you’re not focusing it on the right things, then it is just going to have to guess what you are expecting of it. And I think so the uploading the videos, can you upload videos?
Michelle:
I believe so. You can upload photos, everything.
Teresa:
[00:23:00] Uploading that and saying, you know, this is who I am, or this is what I’m doing, or this is the thing.
And then asking questions off the back of that is a really, really good thing to do. Because I think what most people do and what you probably see is most people just say, give me some content ideas for this. And that’s not going to work, is it?
Michelle:
No. Be more specific, like give me content ideas for my fitness instruction on lower body focusing on X, Y, Z.
Teresa:
Yeah. Okay, so give me some examples of how people have used AI for their marketing and how it, how it’s saving them time to do some of these things.
Michelle:
Yes. One of my clients uses it for her emails. So she has a abandoned cart series, right? Putting to asking ChatGPT or whatever prompting, you know, there’s so many, like I said, ChatGPT, there’s Poll, which is free.
There’s Gemini, but asking and saying, this is who my company is, even taking it from your [00:24:00] website, copying and pasting that the about section, and then say, help me come up with an abandoned cart series that I can send for X, Y, Z. It will give her, you say three emails, it’ll give her the three emails. She goes over that, edits what she needs to edit.
That can take about ten minutes, alright? Next, saying, okay, now help me come up with a DM automation that I’m gonna send via ManyChat. Like, help me come up with a copy that all you have to do is copy and paste. If you know about ManyChat, it is an automation where if someone sends you a word or comments something, you can just have, you know, yourself automatically send them the link.
So that way you’re not spending all the time. So, another automation, you can use ChatGPT for the copy, you can use the DM automation for that. What about Canva? We forgot about Canva. Canva has so many AI features that you can use right now. The background remover, all these things. You can take a picture and put it in there.
It’ll give you five versions of one type of [00:25:00] flyer. You can have it take words and create a PowerPoint slide. That’s saving you time. So that’s what, again, what I’m saying, revolutionize the time. Because, like you said, Most of us say we don’t have enough time in the day. Many of us are solopreneurs. So really thinking about how you can automate some of these things to make the workload easier and the ideation period where we’re spending most of the time, like with so many ideas, but we can’t execute, but if you ask something like ChatGPT, to give you an outline on how you should do this.
It’ll be helpful. One thing I do want to say, too, is how I’ve used ChatGPT plenty by quarter. If I know that I’m having a event coming up, help me come up with a promotional plan. I’m going to go live. I’m going to post a link there. I’m going to do this. Give me some ideas and timelines and then I take that and then create the content from that.
So even help you come up with timelines that you could put in Asana. Like I take and copy everything and just copy it in Asana, especially for my client. Yeah.
Teresa:
Yeah. [00:26:00] So I’m interested actually in terms of like, how much do you see it taking over Like, so obviously people, the reason people pay marketing experts is because we know what we’re talking about with marketing.
If I can just plug into ChatGTP and go give me a marketing strategy, do you worry that AI is going to remove the aspect of humans on stuff?
Michelle:
No, because you still have to know how to market and promote. It can only do so much. I think us as marketers is a great tool for us to know how to use, but once a marketer, always a marketer.
And I think you need the actual person and the person’s brain to know how to ideate different ideas. It can be, yes, a starting point to help you get further, but you still need the marketer because even if you’re doing an event, you still need that person on the ground, like a video team, all of these things to like conceptualize and put the whole idea together.
So no, I don’t think that it will like completely take over. I do [00:27:00] think that it’s just a tool that we should know how to use and leverage because solopreneurs like we’re saying we’re too busy and we need something that’s going to give us more time back in our day. So we can make more money. I think by me using it, I’ve made more money by my clients using it.
They have made more money and been able to focus on the money generating activities in their business instead of like, Oh my God, I have to create this content or create this blog post. Like, yeah, you can have just AI create a blog post, you know, and make it sound really great post it and great. Now you don’t have to hire a designer.
Maybe you don’t have 50, 000 to do that. So, Yeah.
Teresa:
So that brings me nicely to my next question in terms of like, how do you stand on the, I don’t know whether it’s the legal side, the ethical side or whatever it is. So let’s just say we are writing, you know, we were asking it to write a blog post. Now for me, I guess, I could plug in a podcast and go write me a blog post based on that podcast and in my tone of voice.[00:28:00]
So it would be my information, my tone of voice, and therefore bearing like a few little tweaks, it should be fine. But what if I was just saying, write me a blog post on XYZ and just lifting that and putting it on a website? How, what are your thoughts around that?
Michelle:
Yeah, I think with everything you should still put your spin on it and put your information.
Essentially, it’s pulling things from the internet. So you will be researching this anyway, right? You will be researching whatever websites you’re going to, researching those types of things. So I still think you should be ethical with that. But again, we’re on the internet, I’m on the internet. Sometimes I can say like, Michelle Thames, look up this about me or take it from your website.
I think that’s the best use of using AI from your own content, from your own things, like telling it about you and really prompting it to give you that information, right? Don’t just come with it and say, okay, write me this on X, Y, Z. That’s going to be still so basic. It’s not even going to sound like you.
So yes, I definitely think that we should think about those things when we are using [00:29:00] AI. Like, don’t just tell it, okay, just write me this. We have to go deeper. We have to change things. It’s a tool.
Teresa:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that is the thing. And I think sometimes when we see these tools and it’s so exciting that, Oh my God, look, I remember the first time I showed it to my husband, right?
He honestly nearly lost his mind. Like he was like, what? And how much do you pay for that? And I was like, it’s free. And he was like, are you serious? And then I’ve got to tell you such funny story. So he went on, he’s in, he’s a in corporate world now. He never was, he was in the military. So he’s trying to play this corporate world and he’s, you know, he’s doing really well.
Like he’s done it quite a few years now, but, and I always laugh because he is not a corporate man. Anyway, he went on a conference with work and it was a, he’s been selected for some management thing, which is awesome. And he went along and he’s like, I feel like I need to put something on LinkedIn. Like he doesn’t post ever barely post on his own stuff ever.
And he’s like, I think I need to put something on LinkedIn to talk about, you know, this thing I’ve been to, to kind of go [00:30:00] look the other people in my company, look at what this cool thing I did. Anyway. He was really struggling. And I said, why don’t you drop into chat GTP, what you’ve written and ask it to improve it.
Right. Which I quite like that feature because it’s like my grammatically is not my forte. Okay. Spelling, grammar, no, does not work for me. Right. So I can write something and also I’m not very good at rereading and checking. That’s, that bores me. So to write something, throw it into chatGTP and go improve this and then decide whether I want to use it.
So anyway, he threw it into chatGTP and then straight up copied what it said. It was fricking hilarious. Right. It was. It was for anybody that knows my husband, it would be like, who wrote this? Like it was talking about his trepidation as he walked into the room on the first day. And I was howling, literally howling, like, I can’t believe you actually just posted [00:31:00] that on LinkedIn.
So definitely tweaking it to your own tone of voice, I think is really important. How do you feel then about Because one thing that really worries me and, and I, it kind of worries me and it doesn’t, right. It’s like, how do you know someone’s an expert? Because one of the ways in which people prove they’re an expert is by creating content.
If I can just go on and you know, what was really funny, I was interviewing Amy Porterfield for, I think it was for the summit, actually. And You can write on ChatGTP, write me an email in the tone of voice of Amy Porterfield and it will do it in her tone of voice, which is terrifying, by the way. But how do you know?
Like, are you worried? I guess rather than ask you how do you know, because that’s a big question, but are you worried that this is a problem? That people are going to go, look, I’m an expert because I’ve written 300 blogs when actually they haven’t written one of them and they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Michelle:
No, I think we definitely need to have discernment number one, right? Yeah. And like really research people do not just give up your credit card to [00:32:00] people just because they said that they built a social media following. I want us all to do deeper research on people. That’s number one social media rule, right?
Just go deeper research on people. I think you can kind of know who. Who knows what they’re talking about. I would definitely search the internet for people, like Google their names, Google scam behind their names. I do that for my fans. Like I, I had somebody who came on and they ended up being not such a great person.
We couldn’t post that episode, like just search people. So like, that’s my number one thing. Like, Search people and then that will tell you everything that you need to know, right? Yeah, I definitely think that, you know, people can just use ChatGPT to just like anybody can be an influencer. But when you really start working with people, you really see, you’ll, you’ll find out very quickly.
People can only hide from things so long. That’s why we have these shows, American Greed and all these types of things on Netflix, you know, with these people doing this crazy thing. So yeah, have discernment, really research people 100%.
Teresa:
I think that is such a good [00:33:00] point in general, not even including the whole AI conversation, is that you should, and I know what it’s like because, you know, these are clever funnels doing smart stuff, drawing you in thinking, Oh, I probably need this.
You probably don’t need it, but it is the case of, you know, You do want to do some homework. You do want to check people out and go, actually, are you legit? And I think that’s one of the things that I, my, my name, Teresa Heath-Wareing is not my married name. My married name is different. And when I got married to my husband, this is actually part of my old ex husband’s name, which is not ideal. Anyway.
But the problem is when you Google Teresa Heath-Wareing, there I am. Like literally all the pictures, all the posts, all the things like all the credibility that you need to know that I am a real human talking about the same thing, which I have been for a really long time. So I think you’re right. I think we all just need to do a bit more research.
Okay, so I’m conscious of our time, but One thing I want to know is what is exciting you at the moment about AI or [00:34:00] what kind of things, cool features have you tried and you’re like, Oh, that is brilliant. Like what should we be looking out for in terms of cool things that are either to come or here that we might not have seen?
Michelle:
I love the cool feature right now. I use Riverside for my podcast and I love how it can just take the really good clips and like put the words on it for me, right? You’re already recording inside of the app and then it just takes it and creates more content for you. I think that’s really cool because I need more time back in my day.
And now you, the, the, the app has given me that time, taking the clip, put the words on it already too, and you can go back and edit and everything. I think that’s really cool. But just the advancements in AI, I think it’s really cool and just, we should keep our ear to the ground on things that can actually help us.
Of course, everything is not for everybody. We don’t have the tap into everything AI, right? I think that the tools that do benefit you, we should, maybe we should think about, you know, how long it takes you to write emails and to put an event together and you could do it in a day, right? [00:35:00] You could put your training together in one day and even tell chat GPT to help you, you write the slides and what pictures you should put on there.
Like, I’ve done that. Like, tell me what pictures and then I’ll just go find the pictures, put the stuff on the slide, write my notes, and be done.
Teresa:
And I think Like, so I did my degree 20 years ago in marketing. And when I think about the journey that I’ve been through, and obviously the journey that you’ve been through, the money it cost me, even in my business of 10 years and years and years ago, it would have cost to do the things that we can do in seconds is un real.
So in order to record something, download that recording, change. So when you’re talking about Riverside, what it does is what you will see on my podcast. I don’t use Riverside, but it will put one image on top of the other, whereas we’re recording it and we’re side by side. It will then through AI pick what is a good clip and what is exciting that it makes [00:36:00] sense.
Like that would have taken someone, editor, highly skilled to go and upload that, look at it, or decide someone probably would have had to approve it because obviously we still need to look at the content and go, actually, does this make sense? And whatever, you know, to prove it, then they’d have had to have done the things they’d done, then they’d have to done the captions.
And then like, when I think about how someone can produce content now, they’re almost, and I say this very gently, but there almost is no excuse. Money and time, not an excuse anymore.
Michelle:
No, because like you said, it takes the whole thing for you and it writes show note. Yeah, it takes all the best parts and we’ll write you show notes.
You can add to it. But hey, it’s pretty good. It’s been working for me. Nobody probably really reads the show notes anyway.
Teresa:
Well, and I was about to say exactly the same, so we, I always have someone write my show notes for me because that would bore the living hell out of me having to listen to my own voice and then write about what the hell I said.
But that person was the same social media [00:37:00] person and they stopped working with me. So when they said they were stopping, I was like, okay, what are we going to do about these things that this person does? And we had been using, so I record in zoom. I have tried Riverside and it didn’t work for me, but. I recording Zoom and then I upload that to Opus Clip, and Opus Clip does the clips.
And then we use the script for the transcript, which I could probably, you know, there’s, there’s loads of different versions of it and I pay for various things, but, but Riverside does all that. I think it does the transcript as well, doesn’t it? Yeah. Mm-Hmm, . So now what we’re doing is, because no one reads the show notes, they literally don’t like a handful of people if that would read the show notes.
So we are asking AI to do the show notes for us, and then we are tweaking them to make sure that I agree with them and it’s picked the right bits and it sounds more like me rather than just straight up a robot saying this little things. But again, for that, it doesn’t need to. It doesn’t need to sound like me even because it’s taking the content from a conversation that I’m having.[00:38:00]
So that for me and the other thing that it’s doing is and we’re actually bringing someone in to help us with content soon. They’ve just started this week, actually. is it, we get the AI, we get to script to give us examples of what the title could be. And then I look at those as a starting point, because I am one of these people, like many of us who do not like a sheet of paper that is blank, give me something to start from.
And I can then go, Oh no, this isn’t good. Or this is good. Or let’s add this or let’s tweak that. But literally, if I had to sit there and go, what’s the title for this, I would never ever think of one. So again, that time it speeds up the, the skill, you know, you could ask it to write your, I’m assuming you could ask it to write your show notes with SEO in mind.
Michelle:
Yes.
Teresa:
Like this stuff is for someone who’s been in marketing like you have for a long time. This is like think of magicians.
Michelle:
But all type of stuff, like I would have been done with my work and everything. Like it’s crazy. Yeah. We’ve [00:39:00] come a long way, like we’ve come a long way. So I think it’s, you know, it’s a great thing, but like you said, we just need to be conscious of things.
We just need to really think about how we want to use it and what we say to it so that we get the best output.
Teresa:
Brilliant. Perfect way to finish. Michelle, thank you so much. Where can people come and find you? If they want to find out more and all that good stuff, where can we send them?
Michelle:
Yes, please come on over to Instagram.
I love hanging out on Instagram at Michelle L. Thames. also on Facebook too. I have a Facebook community. So Michelle Thames on Facebook as well. And I have a podcast. If you want to learn more about social media, I dive into the nitty gritty five, seven minute, 15 minute episodes. You can listen on your treadmill in the morning and get some things that you can implement on social media and be coded as well.
And my amazing friend, Teresa was on the podcast. So come check it out.
Teresa:
Awesome. Awesome. So good. And I think I need to be giving that a listen to get some more social media stuff. Cause I feel like I’ve fallen out of the [00:40:00] love of social media and I probably need to just find a way to fall a little bit back in love with it.
So yeah, that is definitely going to help. Michelle, thank you so, so much. It’s been a pleasure having you on and yeah, we will speak to you soon. Thanks Michelle.
Michelle:
Thank you so much.
