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278: Crafting Words That Convert Stress into Success with Guest Jon Clemence · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, kendra Korman, and I'm excited to be talking about an amazing topic with John Clements of Cedar Press Proofreading.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Proofreading is really important.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I'm always talking about editing and reviewing your stuff before you push it live, and so that's why it's super relevant.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, john, for joining me.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into editing, writing proofreading?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you bet.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Thanks, kendra, for having me.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: So I've been doing writing and editing and proofreading since early 2021 because of COVID.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So I actually lost my job during COVID.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I had a 15-year career in the corporate world and before you start feeling sorry for me, I had a 15-year career in the corporate world.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Before you start feeling sorry for me, I actually am happy because I hated my old job with a passion.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: But here's the deal I let fear hold me back.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I was afraid to step out and do something else.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Well, with COVID and the economic downturns, I didn't have that to stop me anymore, because I had to do something else.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So, rather than go back to a career that I was pretty much over, I said, okay, what can I do that I enjoy, that I'm good at and that provides value to people?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And I came across editing and I thought, hey, I've always loved to proofread, like even in school.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I was a guy who loves Shakespeare, for example, in English class.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: So, yes, I'm a big nerd and I admit it, I just wear it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It's cool.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: And even like in college, I was the guy who was like, hey, I'll read your paper and I'll like edit it for you, just for fun and with no concept that you can actually do that for a living.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So when that opportunity came after I lost my job during COVID, I thought, oh, I wonder if people would pay me to edit their work, and you know what People will pay me to do that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: So that's how I got started is just the ability to do something I was passionate about that can help people and that can provide for my livelihood.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: And it's just.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: It's not easy per se to be an entrepreneur, but it's been such a blessing and so fun so far.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: That is so great.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So I am a geek myself?
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I am definitely.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I love school.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I was actually talking to my niece last night and was telling her how much I love school.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: She's like I hate school.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like suck it up, buttercup, like what are you going to do?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: But I was not reading Shakespeare in my free time.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But I definitely did love school and, yeah, if you don't let fear hold you back, it's like what would you do if you weren't afraid?
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Go do it, give it a shot, give it a try.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of options there and I definitely get what you're saying about would people pay me for this?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And it's like when I was starting my agency, my marketing agency, I met with the head of my MBA program and I'm like, okay, I'm going to quit and do my own thing.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: And he's like well, do your own thing.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And I was like, because I was looking for another job.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And he goes he goes, no, do your own company.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And I was like I don't have enough money for a Subway franchise.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And he's like you don't need a subway franchise.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, what would I do?
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: He goes what you do.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And I'm like who would pay me for that?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: He goes people already pay you for it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: It's called your salary.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my gosh, I just we're so close to it and what we do that sometimes we don't really see the value that we can provide along the way.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So that is so cool that you found that opportunity and identified it and are living, hopefully, your best life.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It is not always easy, but it is always for you which makes it easier, I think.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So I am a big.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I'm very passionate.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I'm adjunct faculty at a local university.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I talk about that all the time.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: One third of my students' grades is grammar and, yeah, spelling and grammar.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So editing, I feel, is really important, because spelling your name wrong, spelling someone else's name wrong, a brand name wrong, I mean just to start with that is a problem, right.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So talk to me about why editing is important from like a bigger standpoint rather than just like the small typos.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, first of all, I'm going to say that I'm jealous of you because I want to be an adjunct professor someday.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: That's one of my life goals.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I'm really that's how.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I'm really happy for you about that.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: But as far as yeah, the bigger pictures, let me just tell you a story.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So I recently reached out to one of my long-term clients and I asked him.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I said look, what problem am I actually solving for you, like, when I edit a piece or write a piece of content for you?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Why do you keep coming back to me?
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And so what she told me surprised me, because she didn't say you fix all the typos, even though I do fix all the typos.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: And she didn't say well, everything is formatted correctly and it's easy to read, which is another thing that I do.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And she didn't even say well, you make sure that everything that we write is voiced in a way that the customer is going to appreciate and connect with.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I do that too.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So it's like well, what problem do I solve then?
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And you know what she told me?
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: She said well, when I send you something to work on, I don't feel nervous when it goes out.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: You worked on it, so it's good.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So, from a broad perspective, I think that's the problem that I actually solve is not the typos or the formatting or the spelling, as important as those things are and they are important but I think what I solve is I take that worry and that stress away.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: So when you edit a piece of work whether it's you or whether you hire someone like me and you come at it with that critical eye, you know that when you hit send or hit publish, it's polished, there's no stupid mistakes, it's aligned to your customer base, you know the formatting is out and all these things.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And so really it's just that worry and stress is off your plate because you've thought about how can I make this the best it can be, how can I give this piece of content the best chance of success?
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And then you can hit send, hit publish, and you can go sleep at night.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: There's just so much in there that I loved, yes, the easy to read in a way that your customer will appreciate those typos which are really important.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But it is stressful hitting send on an email to 20,000 plus people.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I know that like nobody's going to die when I'm sending my clients emails, you know if I send a typo or a link doesn't work or something like that.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It's stressful when you've got 20,000 plus.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I mean I freak out when I'm getting ready to send it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I mean I check it probably 17, 18 times, right, because I do get so nervous.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Relating to is it right?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Did I do everything correctly?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Even if I look at it with a critical eye, I don't think I would ever have the full confidence in myself for that, if that makes sense.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, so, wow, yeah, I definitely agree with you and I'm going to go ahead and give you like huge credit for doing one of the things that I am a broken record about, and that is talking to your customer.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: It sounds so simple, but so many people skip that step.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Talking to your customer, while it's not always the easiest thing to do, gives you just such amazing insights that you don't expect, because you expected her to say well, it doesn't have any typos, well, it doesn't.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: You know it's easy to read, or it's formatted correctly, or whatever else they were looking for.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden it's like no, that's not it.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It's taking the stress of that off the plate, which is huge.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So that's awesome, yeah, so editing is really important.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I know in Hanley who's somebody I've got her book back here somewhere and a bunch of other people say write it and then step away from it for a day.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that?
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: That is something that I have in my own process.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So if you have to edit your own work, it's hard, like you said, because you're too close to it, right?
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: You know what it's supposed to say, you know what it says in your head.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: You don't always see what it says on the page, and this happens to me too, as anything I write, I have to deal with the same problem.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, step away from it.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to basically like cleanse your palate, so to speak.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Come back to it with that fresh set of eyes and you know if you can have a day.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: If you have two or three days, that's wonderful.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Life isn't always like that, but you know, even five or 10 or 20 minutes is going to be better than none.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: So that is definitely an incredibly valuable tip.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, and because, again, I do feel like you need to come at it from that fresh perspective and if you're reading it over and over and over again and sometimes you can't avoid that but you do know what it's going to say and you do fill in those blanks a lot.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I actually just sent an email yesterday, I think.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the link didn't work.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Didn't test that before I sent it.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: It's like oops, but luckily it's all fixed.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Everything like oops, but luckily it's all fixed.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Everything's fixable for the most part, but it does.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: It does frustrate people and you don't want to do that in your process.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: If you could avoid it.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can I jump in real quick?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: and give another tip that goes right along with that.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I love tips Because this is something that if you don't do this for a living, you probably would never think to do this, but it works in conjunction with stepping away.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: When you come back to your whatever it is your email, your blog post, your newsletter here's what I want you to do next time you have to look at it, read it from the bottom to the top.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: What that does and it could be the sentence level, the paragraph level doesn't really matter but when you read from the bottom to the top, it breaks that flow up and now you're not reading what you think you wrote.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: It forces you to read what's on the page.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: So again that, as a professional editor, that's like the number one tip I could share with anybody for that, for doing their own editing is go step away from the text, come back to it and then read it from the bottom up, and you will find so many more mistakes than if you just read it straight through again.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I've heard that tip before and I've never really figured out how to do it, so I've never actually done it but I like how you said well, no, you can go to the paragraph level and like, read the paragraph and then go to the you know and just read from the bottom up.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Um, cause I was always like reading backwards just doesn't make any sense and it's like, no, it's not reading backwards, it's just reading from the bottom up.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: This is just different order.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: So, very cool, I love that tip.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Any other really good tips that you have for anybody or anything else that you wanted to add first, I do.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: So if you want to go down the editing rabbit hole and what I actually do like when I'm editing that you can implement.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: The other tip.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I would say and this is again something that people dismiss just out of hand but go spend $20 and buy a dictionary.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, you don't know how to spell every word.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I'm really good at spelling.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to spell every word.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: So rather than adding to the stress of trying to remember how a word is spelled or hoping that Grammarly is spelling it right and here's a tip, they don't always spell it right Just get a dictionary, look it up.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: No one's going to dock your points for that.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Between stepping away from the text, reading it from the bottom up and using a dictionary like that.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Right, there is so much of my own process and you're going to again just find so many more errors just by doing those three things than by just, you know, reading it through again and calling it a day.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: So if I had to give any tips, those would be the absolute top tips and I think that that's a great one.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I do still have my dictionary.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I actually can spell quite a few words all by myself, but there are ones that I can't spell.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I cannot spell bureaucracy that's my kryptonite those the ones that have the french or origination in them.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't do it.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I have a friend who's a french expat and he used to help me.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: French is as his first language.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: He'd be like that's because it's French, and I was like, okay, whatever, tell me how to spell it, because spell check can't even figure out what I'm trying to spell.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: But I could find it in a dictionary.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: You are correct, and I do actually have a dictionary, my old.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I probably need an updated one, though, because they've added some words, so they add every words every year.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Every year yeah.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So All right, so let's, let's talk about applying this in for for business owners, for people that are working to build their business.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And let's talk about websites, because websites are living documents.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: It's not set in stone.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: You can always update it right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about how does the quality of the content and the lack of typos and things like that, and the bigger picture of flow and voice and structure, how does that tie into SEO eliminating people from jumping off the pages, conversion rates, things like that.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: So that's a great question, because it's very easy to get into the weeds with those subjects and it's very easy to get confused and lost and think you have to hire a technical SEO expert.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And there are definitely technical aspects to SEO.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying there's not, but at the end of the day, here's the ultimate hack for better SEO, for higher reader retention, higher, better conversion rates.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: If you want those, it's really about publishing quality content, because, at the end of the day, that's what people are looking for.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: That's what Google is looking for as well.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: So if you can focus your website on information that answers people's questions or solves their problems, and it's written and formatted in a way that's super easy to read and get that information, you're going to have better SEO, you're going to have better reader retention, you're going to get more conversions.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: That's how it works.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: So my advice is, before you dig into the technical aspects of SEO, or at least in conjunction with, make sure you have that quality content as a foundation, because that's what Google is actually looking for, because that's the information that helps your customers out.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, quality content is like the name of the game out.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, quality content is like the name of the game.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, answering questions is where I tell everybody to start.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: That's why talking to your customers is so important, because then you know what questions they're asking, right.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: You now know the fear people have before they hit send on an email.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: You get rid of that.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: That's quality, right.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: That will lead to conversions and everything else that goes along with it Inquiry calls and discovery calls and everything else that we do right.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: If somebody was using AI and I am a I'm a huge fan of AI.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I talk about it all the time.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: It's a huge time saver.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Using it by itself is never good, in my opinion.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It always needs human review and your expertise and insights.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: But let's talk about the pros and cons of AI from your side.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with AI.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I find it's really great for some things and terrible for others, and I know you use it as well, and so I don't want to judge anyone for using it or not use it.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: That's not what I'm about.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: So you're absolutely right If I I find that AI is fast and effective If you take the time to learn how to use it.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: You can't just like hop on one day and and start typing and think it's going to going to work Like.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: It requires effort, just like any other tool for me personally, and so this is maybe where I approach it, maybe a little bit differently than what you would.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but I'm an editor, I'm a writer, so you might realize that I actually enjoy the writing process, and so one thing I came across or I thought of the other day was like, can AI help me write content?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: It can, but I like to do it, it's fun, I enjoy it, so I don't want to optimize the fun out of my life.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So for me, what I find it most useful for is a brainstorming and research tool.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: In fact, I just ran across Google's got one called Notebook LM and you can basically dump all your notes, all your research and get this assistant to parse through it all for you and kind of find the elements for you.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So to me that's the most effective use I've found to date is just having it be a research assistant.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: No, I definitely love using it as a research assistant.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I want to plug perplexityai, which we'll put the links in the show notes to all these two.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I love using that one as a research assistant because it gives me those sources that you can click on.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: There's a free version of it and stuff like that, but it's definitely a very cool way to do research, and I had a tech issue go wrong this weekend and so I'm figuring out how to fix this redirect problem.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Just typed the problem into perplexity and it gave me step-by-step-by-step solutions.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: That made my life so much easier.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: So I definitely, I definitely agree with you that I do use AI for the ugly rough draft or ugly first draft, or whatever you want to call it, a lot of times because it, while I enjoy the writing process, I enjoy the thoughts and the creation of the ideas more than I do the writing itself.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So it taking my ideas and putting it into a format I do enjoy and it actually makes me less tired the next day, which is awesome, because I'm always looking for ways to be able to get more stuff done.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: But I like it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Don't.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Don't use AI just because it can do something.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you have to use it for that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Think about other ways you can use it.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It's here to stay, so you really need to figure out how to use it, but make sure that it fits to what you're trying to do with it, right?
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: So what are, what are other ways that either you like to use AI or you don't want people using AI?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: or?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the things you said is you take, you take your ugly first drafts and you kind of let it work on it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So one thing that I know that you must have done is you have trained your AI.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: So you have examples already of your voice, of your style, you know, like you've told it, how to write this.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: So that's one of the drawbacks is, if you don't have your voice and if you don't, I'll even go so far as if you don't recognize quality content already, ai is not going to help you with that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a down the road solution for the way you're using it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: So that's a potential con or something just to be aware of.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And like to your point is, I think when AI first came out, we all thought it was going to be an easy button right, I'm just going to type in a prompt and it's going to spit out a thing and it's going to be wonderful.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully we all know at this point that's not how it really works.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I've kind of got a funny story.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: I saw this guy on LinkedIn the other day.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: He wrote a post, a really nice post.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: It read well, formatted, great, his voice, really cool.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And then he goes.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I actually had chat GPT write this post for me, like, oh, that's pretty cool, like he really did a good job with it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Well, someone in the comments said, well, how much time did that save you?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And he wrote back and he was honest.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: He said, well, it actually didn't save me any time.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I used it more like a writing partner and I had to like iterate a ton to get it to do this.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Like, okay, well, if you love technology and you love, you know, messing around with prompts and prompt engineering, that's wonderful, but I'm just going to write the stupid thing.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I think you've found a way for yourself to make it a time and energy saver, but it takes work to get to that point.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: That's the main idea, because otherwise it's just going to sound like AI and I don't want to read that and most people don't want to read that.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And then probably the last.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: So if there was a con, I suppose it would probably be in the world of ethics and environment, because there is, you know, some ethical concerns about where these AI companies are getting their data to train their machines and I, you know, I don't know how the court system is going to deal with that.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: So if you're using it, you just have to give that some thought.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And then the same thing with environmental factors.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It does use a ton of energy and so that is not going to help, you know.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It's not going to help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, it's not going to help us lower the temperatures of the planet.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: So if those are things that are important to you, again, I'm not saying use it or don't use it, or I'm not judging anyone, but just like be aware of those factors.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: And so for me it just means do I really need to use AI in this application or do I just want to?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: And maybe I choose not to do some of the superfluous things because of the ethical, environmental, but maybe I do need to use it for other things and it makes sense.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: So just know about it and factor that into your decision.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So just to give you guys more on the environmental piece, I do think that that's important because I don't believe that the average person is thinking about that at all and I actually wasn't aware of it myself until I saw that there was an environmental activist group that is about deleting old emails.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Why is some environmental group all about deleting old emails?
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Because of the data centers it takes to hold those emails.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Delete your old emails.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You do not need that Costco email, that Amazon email, the Shein email, whatever else you got going on from last month, let alone from three years ago.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Hit delete, get rid of it, don't archive it, don't save it.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Save some greenhouse gases and get it going.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But I do think it's important because I don't think we truly understand the size of these data centers that are supporting the way we do it.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: We're like, oh, it's paperless, yeah, but it's not free, right?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: So I think that that's something that we really need to look at as people.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: So that is a great thing to bring up, because I do think people need to be more cognizant of how they're using technology and how they're saving technology, because it does have an impact on our environment and being more aware of it is very important.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I also love that you're bringing up the ethical issues of where it learned, trained on it, trained on the entire internet.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I had blogs out there that it was trained on.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: You probably had work that was out there that was trained on.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Neither of us were compensated for that, and I understand that to an extent.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I hire photographers very often and don't use very many AI generated images, and if I do, I'm very clear that it's AI generated images.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: We don't know how this copyright is going to go.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, right now, anything that's AI generated is not able to be copyrighted.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So just something to think about, at least in the United States.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So you want to think about how you're going to work through that going forward.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: That's why I find, yes, I do train my AI and I do make sure that it has my voice and it has my input.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I also give it my insights.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So then it's just structuring right and so it's not coming up with the ideas on its own.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I'm giving it the ideas, which I also think has, because I have different experiences than you do.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: You have different experiences than I do and I don't want that vanilla washed out content right that you can get from AI.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: We could have this conversation.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: These could be AI generated video avatars.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I just don't feel the quality is there.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: We can't go back and forth and talk about that.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Things aren't going to surprise me like, oh, the environmental piece, I haven't talked about that.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: That's a really good point to bring up and to make sure that we're bringing it up so that people understand what's involved here, and so I think that that's fantastic.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: So, yes, use AI.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I think people need to figure out what their ethical boundaries are around it.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: It's here to stay.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: It's not going anywhere.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I think you know, we all know, that it's figuring out how do we work with it, right, so I love that.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about with YouTube going gangbusters TikTok.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Out with YouTube going gangbusters TikTok.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: We're recording this in January, just so you all know.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: So hopefully it's still around in February when this comes out, but we'll pretend, and we're going to make an assumption, that it is.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So, with the short form video and short attention spans all over, how important is writing really?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's still critically important.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: I've actually got I'm going to say three reasons why I number these right in my head.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So I the first I think there's always going to be a place for quality written content.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've been reading and writing as a, as a species, for what?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: 10,000 years or something crazy.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to stop anytime soon.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I still read books.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: My daughter is 12.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: She's reading like a maniac.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: So there's still that need for many of us to read books, read information.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: So I don't think that's kind of ingrained in us at this point.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: The second reason is look, I watch a ton of YouTube videos, just like everybody else.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not on TikTok, probably because I'm over 40 and I don't understand it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe I need to fix that, but sometimes the fact is, reading is more efficient.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: So if I'm researching your product or service, yeah, I can go to your YouTube channel and watch a 30-minute product demo, and that might be a step that I take, but I can can go to your YouTube channel and watch a 30-minute product demo, and that might be a step that I take, but I can probably go to your website, if it's well-written and well-constructed, and get that same information in five minutes.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I would rather spend five minutes than try to wade through a 30-minute video.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: So, again, that's kind of case-dependent, but there is definitely situations where having a blog, having an e-book or something is going to be more efficient and is going to be what people want more than a video.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: So there's that aspect, but really there's also and I like to say it's not necessarily an either or it's a both, and so this is something that not a lot of people probably think about either.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: But your existing website, your blog, your newsletter, your e-book you have out there has the seeds for so many videos right now.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Right, it's so easy to take a blog post and make it into a video.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: You can literally just hit the record button on your camera and just read it if you want.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I mean it'd be a very good video.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: There's probably better ways to do it, but really the concept is that easy.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: So if you want to grow your presence on YouTube, on TikTok, on whatever like, look at your existing content.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: You've probably got a hundred video ideas in your blog right now.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: So I think it's a reinforcing thing.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Right, write more blog posts, you can do more videos, and then your video is going to prompt more ideas.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: You can write more blog posts.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: There's really no reason to focus on one or the other when you can have the best of both worlds.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I like that a lot.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: One of my clients back in the day a couple of years ago.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: They were doing videos and sending out transcripts with the videos.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: They started sending videos and they were getting a higher engagement.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Then they started sending out the transcript or like a blog summary of the video, and this was just internal communications.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: More people were spending time on the written piece of it and clicking through to that than actually watching the video, because they could do it at a different pace.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: They could do it in between calls and things like that, but they couldn't do the video right, because you can't listen to a phone call and have it pulled up and then stop it, because then you forget.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: You can read the sentence before it, right To remember where you left off and and and gather where that is.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So I think that there's a lot of value there.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I think that I'm getting ready to read.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: This Is Strategy by Seth Godin, but he's been talking a lot about like.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: His blog doesn't need to reach everybody.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: It doesn't need to go viral, right.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It has to reach the right people and if it's five people, that's fine, right, because they're the right people and so as long as he's got value, he's going to keep writing his blog and I think that that's important.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I think that writing is hugely important.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I think AI-assisted content is fine.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Ai-generated content is not, as we've covered a little bit, because I think that it's really about your voice, your experience and who you are and making sure that that's included, so very cool.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, john.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I love all of the tips that you've given, and so everybody go on Amazon, buy a dictionary so that you have one on hand If you don't have one already.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Make sure you're reading from the bottom up, and that's all, after taking a step back from your writing for at least a day, and I think that those tips can serve us all well, whether we're using AI assisted or 100% human generated content, to make sure that it's what we need for our customers.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: But before I let you go, there is a question that I ask all of my guests, and that is this show is called Imperfect Marketing, because marketing is anything but a perfect science.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: What has been your biggest marketing lesson?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: My biggest lesson actually ties into the title of the podcast.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: The biggest thing I learned about marketing was you just have to get started.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: So I have not found marketing the kind of thing where you can develop the perfect plan before you start.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: In my experience again as someone who's learning it on the fly is, yeah, you can have a plan going in and that's fine, but hold it loosely, because I'm always working on my marketing, I'm always refining it, but it's never perfect, and if you wait till it's perfect, you're never going to start.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: So just get started.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Just write that next post, just send that next email, just do it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was talking to somebody the other day and I said we were talking about their podcast and it's just to get started.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You're not going to like your first episode.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: You're not in 10 episodes, but you got to get through that first episode to get to episode 10, where you don't like number one, and that's okay because nobody's listening to number one anyway, so it's all good.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, john, for your time.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: We will have ways to get in contact with John in the show notes, so be sure to check that and no matter where you're listening or watching, it would help us if you would rate and subscribe.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: We would love to see you again on another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Until next time, have a great rest of your day.