Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / CEO Kate Bradley on Using AI to Write Better Content: The ROI Online Podcast Ep.138

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CEO Kate Bradley on Using AI to Write Better Content: The ROI Online Podcast Ep.138 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:03
  Kate Bradley: People to your point they hate writing and social media is that four letter word right, like, but we all have to do it. We're trapped, in a way, you know. But the funny thing though, Steve is that selling, as you know, has always been social like since we first sold the wheel, back back in the way, way, way back day, right.
• 0:22
  Kate Bradley: So that part's not new. And marketing, based on connection is not new. It's just the tools in front of us that are evolving, right? And this is the one that's driving the ship right now. It's social media, right? And it's really actually not as hard as people think.
• 0:42
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody.
• 0:42
  Steve Brown: Welcome to the ROI Online Podcast, where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown and this is the place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together.
• 1:18
  Steve Brown: Kate Chernis, Welcome to the ROI Online Podcast.
• 1:22
  Kate Bradley: Hey there, Steve.
• 1:22
  Kate Bradley: Thanks for having me.
• 1:25
  Steve Brown: You know, what do you get when you take a rock and roll DJ for XM radio that has an audience of like 20 million people? Okay, and you mix her up, and you put her in this position where she's doing social media for maybe Walmart, or all these others, and she's really good at spreadsheets.
• 1:49
  Steve Brown: What do you get?
• 1:52
  Kate Bradley: You get Kately.
• 1:52
  Kate Bradley: Right. That's a crazy mix, Katley from Lately Yeah, that's the thing that, you know, I'm 47 years old. And and, um, you know, I like to be able to look at my life and assemble the pieces and hope hopefully, they've made sense so far, right. And they're making more and more sense, right? Like, that line seemed like a zigzag for a long time. But then it all came together. And the fact that I can use something, like being a rock'n'roll DJ, in another part of my life is kind of a miracle. Of all things, right.
• 2:36
  Kate Bradley: The same went to raise your hands, everybody's listening, if you were an English major, I was to fiction writing major. And back then they used to call it a bit of a useless degree because you could become an author. And, you know, that's a hard, hard way to make a living. Or you could become a teacher, which people, sadly, don't respect that profession or pay it very well either. So they poopoo to us. But now look who's laughing Steve, right. Because the internet runs on writing, doesn't it?
• 3:07
  Steve Brown: It does. It's it is the what I say is the gas that goes into the engine of your online platform. So here's what we didn't do. Here's why we you need to get to know Kate. She's got a beautiful company. It's called lately.ai. Okay, now, what does lately.ai do? What every single person that's listening to this knows they need to wander into this slimy yucky swamp of social media.
• 3:38
  Steve Brown: Okay, it's this. It's the IRS of content marketing. It's where it's like the Facebook owner, the Twitter owner, the LinkedIn, they're the Harvey Weinstein's of tech. And why do I say this because they steal our data and they get rich. But then, as a business, we need to meet our consumers our client somewhere, but guess what lately does lately helps you navigate that swamp, safely and successfully?
• 4:18
  Kate Bradley: Thank you so much, you're hired. You're right, that I mean, people, people to your point, they hate writing and social media is that four letter word, right, like, but we all have to do it. We're trapped, in a way, you know. But the funny thing though, Steve, is that selling, as you know, has always been social, like since we first sold the wheel, back back in the way, way, way back day, right.
• 4:44
  Kate Bradley: So that part's not new. And marketing, based on connection is not new. It's just the tools in front of us that are evolving, right and this is the one that's driving the ship right now. It's social media, right? And it's really actually not as hard as people think. But I think people get, they get bogged down because they don't.
• 5:08
  Kate Bradley: They don't think themselves to be very interesting. Which is sad. Right? So they don't know how to find that message that gives people the reason to connect with them. Which is why when we first started talking today, before we push record, we talked about where we are.
• 5:23
  Kate Bradley: Right? Look what we did, like, right away, we knew each other.
• 5:28
  Kate Bradley: I'm in the Hudson Valley, you're in Texas, we talked about, you rode your bike here. You know, you an amazing time you you discovered that there's parts of New York that aren't disgusting, like New York City. I'm saying that that's not your words. And I talked about Texas, and you had me dreaming about maybe traveling for the first time in two years. Right? And the weather does the same thing.
• 5:51
  Kate Bradley: When you ask where's the weather? It's not a boring question. It's the most intelligent question, because it levels the playing field. And it gives people a reason to react and connect. And it's not fluffy. This idea, this is not about just loving people for the sake of loving and talking about random things like cereal and weight gain or whatever. It's literally finding the common ground to get to trust, because trust is the thing that makes us buy. Right?
• 6:23
  Steve Brown: Of that is true.
• 6:23
  Steve Brown: Okay. Here's what's happened in this train wreck of whatever's been going on in our world this past year and a half, okay? Is that if you didn't, if you're a business owner, and let me tell you, entrepreneurs are what I call the heroes of our invisible heroes of our time, right?
• 6:46
  Steve Brown: Because I believe that here they are risking everything their future, their family's future, and they provide us services and products and improve our lives.
• 6:54
  Steve Brown: And yet, they didn't sign up for this day in the future that we just learned where you had to stay home, you couldn't have people come to your showroom, you couldn't meet them in in a conference area and shake their hands. And yet, you have to pay the bills, you have employees that are depending upon you to figure out how you're going to navigate this new environment.
• 7:15
  Steve Brown: And so if they weren't convinced they need to get their act together online. I'm telling you, they're convinced now and they're they're searching and grasping. And that's why lately is like a great thing that you should know about.
• 7:30
  Kate Bradley: Thank you. It's true. Actually, the the demand for social media platforms has increased, I want to say it was from 16. Point 6 billion to they're predicting 44 billion in the next four years. Right.
• 7:44
  Kate Bradley: COVID is driving that, of course, also. But then, as well, the demand for artificial intelligence in the content creation sphere, specifically, which is what lately does, around those social media platforms, that's also gone up from I think it was, I want to say 2.2 million to 14 billion to 14 billion. And the reason is, is because the pressure now more than ever is not only on a business to play in this in the sphere, and to meet people where they already are. But for individuals to be responsible for their own social media connections and targeting, right, so people are having to do things that are uncomfortable, I was just talking to my friend who's an entrepreneur the other day, and she's like, you know, I'm so good at the cooking part of all this. But this part, the fundraising part, the sales part, it's terrible. And I remember Steve, every musician I ever met said the same thing to me. Right? They hated being their own business leader. And it's, I get that and it's unfortunate a bit that that's the way it is now, but it is you have to figure out a way to make your the cover of the magazine, so you're selling the magazine, and and you're on the cover, right? And it does come natural to some people. And to others it doesn't. But I find a lot of people just need need kind of the nudge, right. So for us the artificial intelligence is is Do you mind? If I say it, I don't want to be a commercial, but I just described it. No, please do. Okay, so so the way it works lovely listener, is we study your social media channels, and we're looking at what words and phrases and second structures get you the highest engagement and we learn every day. And in fact, we invite you to help us learn so you can curate the AI and kind of boss it around a little bit, right? And then we build a writing model based on the words that will get you the most engagement, clicks and shares. And anytime you feed us long form content, like a podcast like this, or a chapter of the book you just wrote or blog link or the interview that you just gave, or audio even like so podcast, which is audio will atomize it into all the one liner snippets, where we find that the writing model exists, you know, and in the case of video clip clip up the video quote at the same time, and give you a whole bunch of a lot to choose from. And the goal, as Steve is, you know, is again, not to remove the human out of the loop because we are essential here still, right. But to take the headache away, so you don't guess what to say?
• 10:13
  Kate Bradley: Because that's guessing is pointless and hard. Like, that's the you have the fear of the blank page, Steve. I do.
• 10:21
  Steve Brown: Yes, it's writer's block. I sit there, and I really self doubt. I
• 10:27
  Kate Bradley: need to. Yeah, me too. You know what? So I have my interns and my staff, I do this thing. They, I don't know if they hate it. I imagine I would hate it. But they all do it graciously. Which is I'll ask them to write me an email, a blog, whatever it is just just start it for me. And then I go, and I rip it all apart. But because, and I make it how I want it to be, but because they started it for me. Even if I don't like it, it doesn't matter. They got me over like the biggest hurdle, right? Yes.
• 10:54
  Kate Bradley: Yeah. So you know, lately is designed to do that with with social. And we use it so and I just want to to, to for anyone who's rolling their eyes about social and whether it's effective or not. So we don't do any paid ads, or any cold calls are cold emails that lately we only use our own organic software and AI, which I you did by hand for Walmart back in the day. And we have a 98% sales conversion, Steve. I'll say that again. So people can lean in 98%. Right,
• 11:30
  Steve Brown: when someone connects with you, and you have a sales call. It's so compelling that your close rate is 98%.
• 11:39
  Steve Brown: That's right. Yeah. I was wondering,
• 11:41
  Kate Bradley: you were one of them. And it's because the AI.
• 11:43
  Kate Bradley: So how'd you hear about us? Do we find you online?
• 11:47
  Steve Brown: i That's a great question. I don't know. But here's what happened. And I'm interrupting your story. Oh, please, no. But here's, so I run an agency. That's how crazy self just just put run through a forest with your eyes closed and get knocked down by anything you run into, right? That's the kind of guy I am I run an agency. And what does that mean? It means that we help our clients communicate better. So but here's where this big trap has been for us. Okay, let's assume you have an employee that is engaged, and loves to write social media that loves this client's product, and is inspired every day to write social posts to help introduce new people to to what that great company does. Well, they're humans. And over time, their content gets stale. If they get interrupted, they may misspell something, they they may just miss the boat, but they're just winging it if for lack of a better word. But when I ran into lately, oh, my gosh, the the dots connected. Here's what AI does for AI is beautiful at recognizing patterns, and patterns of success and you so great entrepreneurs recognize patterns in and then they start to align a product to to capitalize on those patterns.
• 13:24
  Steve Brown: They recognize a behavior or interest or whatever. And so what does the AI do? It goes out and reads all these posts, and then goes, Oh, these are performing? Well, I can help you write a great teaser line that will perform well, as opposed to you having to make it up every time you sit down. And and we're going to read through this long.
• 13:42
  Steve Brown: So we're going to do we're doing this to end video and audio, right? Yes, I'm going to run it through that tool, it's going to pull out the pithy parts, write a teaser, and here's the most brilliant part, it's going to put a link and that link, we get to pick where that link is going to drop the person that bites on that. That's the most important piece of all that you do that link that brings them back to your, your place to develop a relationship. This is and now now all of a sudden this one person can be at their best, but the tool is like helping him do 1530 posts from a piece of content where realistic expectations might be two or three good posts from that engaged individual.
• 14:37
  Kate Bradley: Yeah, the objective is what you're touching on there, which is really important. People sometimes forget that.
• 14:41
  Kate Bradley: Everything they write whether it's a text, ask your husband to take out the trash, or you're on Slack, trying to get a team member to get a task done.
• 14:51
  Kate Bradley: There's always the objective, right? And social media posts also have an objective. There's only two in social, it's click or share. Right there's The main ones. And so you the click is obvious, like you want people to go somewhere and then take an action. And they people don't click a lot because they don't trust what's behind the link, interestingly enough, right? So we're really working hard with the AI to help you pull out that context for you. And then to get you the human to just make sure it's clear on what's there. And then with the reshares, so I'm just giving some pointers to people, the reshares of the things that are easier to get when you're a small business, right? Because he reshares about ego, Steve. So they make you look good. They make you look smart. Right? I always think of it as like in college, when somebody brought you a new record, and then you shared it, and you look like the cool one, right? Same idea. So you're looking for those quotables that somebody else will be like, Oh my god, I totally feel that way as well. Or this, this is relevant to my business, or etc.
• 15:58
  Kate Bradley: So that's what I'm thinking when we're writing. And that's how I'm training our AI. One thing that has come out of that. So we surface these word clouds that show you the words people are literally excited about and hashtag clouds as well. So an old marketing rule of thumb was to never make up a hashtag. But guess what? It's wrong. Because we see like our on late Lee's word clouds, like one of our highest performing hashtags is hashtag peeing my pants. Because I wrote that when Gary Vee shared something for me. So, but that just goes to show you right? Like you can say something that's pretty like a statement, but then the hashtag alone can put the human in for it, and contextualize it at the same time. So it can either give people a reason to reshare it, make them smile, perhaps, or give them just a little more information. So they know, when they click that link, what's going to be behind it.
• 17:01
  Steve Brown: Only. So you mentioned Gary Vee, when he saw what your tool can do, he had the same reaction that I did.
• 17:11
  Steve Brown: Okay. But here's what's amazing.
• 17:11
  Steve Brown: I don't think a lot of people, I think they get hung up on artificial intelligence. And it's intimidating. It's scary.
• 17:19
  Steve Brown: But let me tell you, if you will not think of it in that way.
• 17:23
  Steve Brown: Think about all your competitors, they're going to have the same reaction. And it's all it is, here's how I explained AI. You know, those times you walk into a dark room, alright. And when we especially when we were younger, it's like what could be in their monster alligators, you know, you or you bump into stuff and you until until you finally find the light switch, and you turn it on, and then it's like, oh, it's just furniture. It's just bad. That's all this is a competitive advantage. That removes a lot of barriers to producing what I call prolific pithy posts.
• 18:12
  Kate Bradley: I love it.
• 18:12
  Kate Bradley: Prolific, pithy posts.
• 18:17
  Steve Brown: That's all it is.
• 18:17
  Steve Brown: Why do we say that? Because these LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, whatever else is out there? What are they really their search engines? And they're their introductions to relationships, that most people are just like Gary Vee says, marketers ruin everything. Okay, but this tool is like, cutting through a bunch of them. I call it a swamp, and it's introducing you is just you go to a conference, or a mixer or something, why you want to meet people. That's all they are.
• 18:52
  Steve Brown: That's all they are.
• 18:56
  Kate Bradley: The same idea. It just gives you that leg up, right? It takes the lets you know the same way that LinkedIn, you know, you Google people beforehand. So it's not totally cold, meetup, you have something to talk about, where you're from, where you are, where you been, whatever it is, where you've worked, college, that kind of thing. And that's the idea with artificial intelligence. For people who are scared. Let me just really help you out here. So if if AI was a human, on the scale of a life of a human, it's about three months old.
• 19:26
  Steve Brown: Yes. Yeah, right.
• 19:29
  Kate Bradley: Yeah. So once you know that it's just necessary a big fan
• 19:35
  Steve Brown: of so Peter Thiel says really well in his book, zero to one. Like, we're all excited that Google Photos can identify a picture of your dog.
• 19:47
  Steve Brown: But I can put pictures of people and my dog and whatever on the floor and a little toddler come in and I go, give me all the pictures of my dog. No problem.
• 20:02
  Steve Brown: Okay, well,
• 20:03
  Unknown: no problem.
• 20:04
  Steve Brown: So what's the big deal about this, it's there, there are some, there are some concerns in an industrial or military application. But for a business owner who's trying to pay the bills, trying to make it over all the hurdles that life is throwing at us, this is a beautiful way to really optimize and get efficient and, and exploit an opportunity that your competitors are. Are there crying in the shower about having to wonder media, aren't they crying in the shower? It's
• 20:38
  Kate Bradley: true. Yeah, it's really the competitive advantage is a big thing. And they're, you know, they're saying, now that and I'm not just saying this to sell my product, but they're saying now that if you don't have AI in your marketing stack in some way, you can just close up shop, because everybody does now, right? You know, it's kind of like, cars have the have the backup cameras, like, I still turn around, I do because I want my neck to be flexible. As far as like, as long as I can have it that way. But you know, it's it's just been, it's just something that's just there now just part of it, it's become part of the fabric of the things you know, and what's amazing to me, Steve, is that I don't I know, I mean, the next generation of lately, we're working on releasing in about two weeks. And it's amazing, maybe more amazing, actually. So the AI is going to do little more to get you further along the path. Because people read this writing problems really crucial, difficult thing. And, and they want more, you know, which is amazing to me, I'm like, oh my god, I just basically, I think of it as I was just sharing this metaphor the other day. So when Betty Crocker came out with a box cake mix, it was all you just added water, everything was just powder. And the housewives at the time didn't feel as though they had any human action here.
• 21:56
  Kate Bradley: They didn't make the cake. And so they took out the powdered eggs so that we could add the eggs ourselves. And then suddenly, we have baked a cake.
• 22:07
  Kate Bradley: Okay. Right. So that's my job as an entrepreneur is to find out what, what what is the right component, so I can get just the eggs, you know,
• 22:19
  Steve Brown: only. Hey, I wanted to pause right here and tell you about a book that you need to get today. It's the funniest book on marketing. It's called the Golden toilet, stop flushing your marketing budget into your website and build a system that grows your business. And guess who wrote it? That's right. I wrote it. And I wrote it just for you. Because I want to help you get past the last hurdles of setting up your business and getting it squared away. I wrote it so that you can avoid time wasting time wasting money, wasting frustration, get the book on Audible. You can get it on Kindle, you can get it on Amazon, but get the book, take advantage of the insights in there. And let me know what you think. And now back to this excellent episode. So tell us a little bit about lately, as far as you know, how many do you have on your team? How long have you been in business and who's like this? Investor whips first name starts with Gary and his last name starts with V.
• 23:29
  Kate Bradley: Here is he's an advisor, actually. So he's not an investor. But he's a really nice man. And, and we've been really grateful for his help, right? I mean, he's kind of the poster boy of what we've been doing. Although I didn't know Gary, or I'd never heard of him when I did this for Walmart back in 2000. What was it? 11 or 12?
• 23:47
  Kate Bradley: I think. But I didn't I did meet him at South by Southwest once the when Twitter was two years old. I remember that. But yeah, my team is pretty small. We're about seven full time and six part time and by part time, either interns or consultants who help us. You know, you piece together what you can to make the ship fly and you're always building the plane as it's flying, right? Or the rocket ship. And then you know, that we haven't paid. I've been able to pay them for a long time. So I am right now, which is great.
• 24:26
  Kate Bradley: But that's the part of the rocky road that you talked about before. Right? So there were two years where 90% of the team wasn't paid. And then recently, there was about six months where we were doing the same kind of shuffle. And it's always this new the roller coaster is a cliche, but it's 100% True, right. And obviously I'm addicted to it, Steve because you know I keep I keep getting up but they're a great crew and we're we've always been a dispersed team. So several people in Canada, Denver Now a couple of dogs. We've got a few people in Colorado and out New York, New Jersey. And that's been we had a huge leg up when COVID started because, you know, we do zoom. Well, we always have. I mean, I talked to nobody. 20 million nobody's in a black box for a lot of my career, right? And that, again, this is what an AI can't do.
• 25:24
  Kate Bradley: Like I can reach through this screen and give you a hug we already have basically, right.
• 25:26
  Kate Bradley: And that's the scale. Who did you work with? You work with with Chris, bro on my team?
• 25:33
  Steve Brown: I beat him I
• 25:36
  Kate Bradley: press her, Lauren, or maybe Andy Plunkett?
• 25:40
  Steve Brown: Oh, it's been a little bit, but it's been a
• 25:42
  Kate Bradley: while. Yeah, well, whoever they were, I know they were real nice to you. Because we don't have any salespeople. I lately, everybody comes from something else. And we saw my head of customer service was outselling every sales gun I ever hired, you know, guys with great resumes. And huge networks, she would just kill them. Because she's just being Lauren. She just being herself just being nice. You know, kind, the golden rule. Right? That's the, it's I know, it's corny, but there's nothing more important. Do unto others sell into others? Right?
• 26:19
  Steve Brown: Yeah. Yeah, that's a big deal. As I always say that in sales. It's not about convincing or persuading someone, it's, if you're really doing it, as a human, you're, you're figuring out whether this is a best fit for them. And if it's not have the courage to go, you know what, this is not? This is not for you. I would recommend you do this. Yeah, it's just a long game.
• 26:46
  Kate Bradley: It's a long game.
• 26:46
  Kate Bradley: Yeah, it sure is. I mean, we're, it's funny that you say that, like, so. So I've raised $3.4 million to date, Steve, and for other entrepreneurs listening who might not know this for woman, you only get 2% of all the venture funding, so I have to work 98% Harder. If you're a person of color, that you're not even on that scale, right? So it's really difficult, and it's very screwed up. You know, industry, but But as we've, you know, been along this road, I mean, really amazing people like you help, you know, and sometimes you're looking for the help, and sometimes you're not.
• 27:32
  Kate Bradley: And the best part is, is the lifting of the others up, right?
• 27:34
  Kate Bradley: So people are lifting me up, you're doing this now I'm so grateful. Right? I can't do this without you literally, I cannot.
• 27:43
  Kate Bradley: And I can't do it without my team either, who are really amazing people, but then it's my job to to lift others up. So like I try to, you know, it's hard for a lot of people actually want want guidance or entrepreneurial consulting. And I can't do that because I'm running this other business. But like, once in a while, I say yes. Or, you know, send other entrepreneurs, I know your way or other people's way or like OD, can you recommend someone else to talk to, you know, this kind of thing. But you you try to pay the karma back where you can, as best you can. And know that, like there's a there's going to be a perpetual for me, I feel like there's a perpetual debt there. Right, like, so the bigger lately gets, the more obligation, I have to pay it back and to lift other people up.
• 28:32
  Steve Brown: I love that about you. I when I was doing my research on you, I was just immediately I like her. Thank you. I just like you as a person. You You and I share. I want the same thing for my team.
• 28:40
  Steve Brown: Right? Yeah, my team had to cut back as well. But what does that mean is that we all came together and, and like had each other's back through a tough time.
• 28:53
  Kate Bradley: It's amazing. And in what a team I mean, I'm so that's impressive that says so much about you, Steve. Right, that people are willing to do that. And I don't think I don't think people realize what a big deal that is. I undercut my own leadership skills all the time, actually. I don't know it's just sort of, maybe it's a woman default, or I don't know or what it is, but like it's, it's it is a miracle that when people come together and they realize the value of what you're doing, either brings them joy, or they want you to win or who knows what their reasons are really.
• 29:26
  Kate Bradley: But that skill comes down to what we've been talking about already here, which is like the human part, the connection part, this stuff that we're talking about how we how we are prescribing external communications is also the same way. We lately practice internal communications. Right, you go, you walk the talk inside now.
• 29:49
  Kate Bradley: And I worked for XM, I worked for IBM. I've worked for corporate America before and I hated it to the point of where it incubate Ask Me Like literally, right? Like I have a, I have a partial permanent disability. Because the stress was so high. And I wasn't listening to my body, which was trying to tell me get out of this, you know. And so because I don't want to repeat that experience anyone around me, like, I'm always thinking about it now, I'm not super nice all the time. In fact, most the time I'm, I mean, I know thyself.
• 30:26
  Kate Bradley: Like I have people like Lauren and Chris And Ankit. And, and, you know, who actually just got hired somewhere else, which we were like, Oh, amazing, go do your thing. But in Bryan and Jason and Greg, and Kristen, it's because they, they they, through the yin to my Yang, right? They get to be the soft, so I can be the hard, but they they know my heart. They know what I really mean. So I don't have to cover it up. I don't have to smiley face it up with them. You know, I mean, so I can I have to surround myself with those people, Steve, who can fill in the blanks that I it's not my, my specialty spot, right? And I think a lot about, look, I'm a wild horse, you might have heard me say this before, like, when you the moment you tell me what to do, I'm like, bye. I'm out. And sometimes it's totally irrational. But that that is my instinct, you know. And I, I've tried to treat other people the same way. Now that can be a mistake as a leader, because a lot of people need more guidance, and they like more control. But I haven't been able to really employ them for very long, I need to have other people who just run on their own and, and figure it out. So it's, it's it's a really interesting mix that we have. And I and you should probably do this too. I don't sit back and take enough pride in the culture I've created. Because it's important, right work is its to do sleep.
• 31:59
  Steve Brown: It's the fuel of your organization. And it's an invisible tax. That will it's like the house, the house. The gambling house has a bigger, right? You don't have culture?
• 32:15
  Steve Brown: Yeah. Bigger is taxing your organization and slowing it down. And it's invisible. And it's a stupid tax.
• 32:24
  Kate Bradley: Yes, yeah. It's, it's useless. And you can see, you know, you go, you go somewhere, and someone's unhappy with their job because they're just pissing vinegar all over you. And you feel bad for them.
• 32:32
  Kate Bradley: Because, you know, I know what it's like to feel stuck. I mean, I do YouTube, right. And I just want to shake them and be like, just get out of this. You can do it.
• 32:45
  Steve Brown: But it took that from your dad,
• 32:47
  Kate Bradley: to Yeah, my dad, he, he, I was, I was crying all the time, I was so unhappy because my body hurts so bad.
• 32:56
  Kate Bradley: And I was terrified, because I couldn't. So I don't just so the listeners know, I don't, I don't type with my hands. I type with my voice. So the irony that I still talk for a living is not not wasted on me. So I I, because I've epicondylitis and tendinitis through my fingers and elbows. And so I'm scared, right? Because this is everybody types. There's nothing that you can't, there's no job you can do where this is not a thing, really. And I also was, I knew I had to leave radio. And that was terrifying, because that was where my identity was wrapped up. And I believe like the best, the best radio, I made it, I made it to the show XM, you know, 20 million listeners today I was doing it. And my dad shook me by the shoulders lovingly, and said, you can't work for people anymore. And there's no shame. And that
• 33:50
  Steve Brown: was, that was a powerful comment.
• 33:54
  Kate Bradley: It was huge, because he hit on two things, because he he opened my eyes that that there was another way.
• 34:01
  Kate Bradley: And I was like, Whoa, duck because my dad owns his own business. And my mom owned her own business, right. And the other thing that he hit on was the shame. Because I the reason I was so upset and stressed is because I felt like I had I was disappointing my male in this case, boss. And that shame was a huge burden. And I know, I know a lot of people, but especially the women entrepreneurs that I know, we put it on ourselves first, we think what have we done wrong? It's first thing we do, right? That's the default, and you run through all the things that you've probably done wrong. Which is, you know, that's like such a weird way to always see yourself as the cause of the thing. And then when I realized it wasn't me, that was like, it was that lift, you know, and it wasn't easy to Steve just going you know, that was a great option. Haha that my dad gave me. But my I read a self help I was reading self help books which I love because I, I mean, come on, they're just terrible. So I read the secret and it was so bad and I was, you know, I was a fiction writing major. So like, I feel like as you know, I have a standard. And this was not it. But I plowed through. And I remember, there was some, some line in it that just said, you know, what you say is, is what you are basically you're like, like, it's like you are what you eat, you know, that sort of idea. And even today, I'll catch myself but so so at that time, all I was saying was I hate my job, I'm in pain. But you know, negative toxic, and I used to smoke cigarettes, I was really good at smoking. So is this like, toxic Pigpen cloud of just negativity? And so I, I stopped that. Because I really, I thought about the moments in my life where I felt really good.
• 36:01
  Kate Bradley: And I was thinking about softball and hitting a line drive and how I felt like a million dollars then. And I was like, you know, that's a really good feeling. I'm going to maybe there's something to this. I'm gonna try it. It seemed ridiculous, you know. And it was hard because my friends at work, we all took our smoke breaks together. And we all complained about how much we hated work. I had to stop doing that, you know. And even today, like, I've got, I've gotten on my note, I've got a bunch of sticky notes on my laptop right here. One says, Are you sure? It's a great question to ask yourself about anything that you're thinking about? That's especially negative? Are you sure that that person who was up your ass and traffic today was really out to get you? Right? Are you sure?
• 36:45
  Kate Bradley: Are you sure that your husband really didn't put the cap on the toothpaste? Because he wanted to piss you off today? Right as these questions, you know, and the other one I have that I just got from my meditation app that I love, Sam Harris. He recently said, the day will arrive anyway. There's no rush to get to the next moment. It's going to mean so that you don't have you don't have control that it's going to happen no matter what.
• 37:17
  Kate Bradley: So all you can do is embrace this thing here. Now and it's this is hard for me to do. Is it hard for you to do Steve?
• 37:27
  Steve Brown: To be here in a moment. And yeah, no, I, I get it. I get energy from it.
• 37:32
  Steve Brown: Because think about it. Okay.
• 37:37
  Steve Brown: How often do you get to sit and talk with someone, you're not interrupted by a waitress or a waiter? You're not You're not checking your text, your spouse is not wanting to be a part of the commerce that you were getting to talk like geeks.
• 37:52
  Steve Brown: Okay, we're getting we're getting to talk about what it's just, that's great. My dogs here, my mother is not asking for me to better, right. We're just work. We're just in a room getting to focus on this conversation. And that's what I love.
• 38:10
  Kate Bradley: Amazing. It's, I find it. It's my test, a test that I have to constantly take personally. And like, for example, we'll be driving you know, as you mentioned, it's a beautiful here, the Mohawk Mountain House is right over there. We're, you know, we're right in the thick of the shunga mountains, it's fall and everything like that. And so most nights, around five o'clock, we both leave the office, which is our here at the house. And we try to go for a walk because why not? In COVID, you know, like, let's just get out, it's going to be winter, and we're not going to go out so much. And so I've been trying to do this, which is I'll try to turn my phone off then right before we go and leave at home and now it's off for the night.
• 38:51
  Kate Bradley: As opposed to on the way there I'm doing Twitter and my last check of the social for the day.
• 38:58
  Kate Bradley: So like I'm missing the whole drive. And then after we've had a walk if I make my phone is still on I'm like erasing the whole effects of the walk because I'm back at work. So you know how hard it is as an entrepreneur to turn your phone off at like, five 530
• 39:16
  Steve Brown: Well, you pass if this is a test for you, your your ace in it today.
• 39:23
  Kate Bradley: Thanks. No.
• 39:27
  Steve Brown: That conversation that you Dan had with you, you know like there's no shame and you you are not supposed to work for someone. There is this thing that I went through that too. I did bad the shake me like that.
• 39:40
  Steve Brown: But there's think about why it was so hard. We were trying to be a good employee. We were trying to do our best job but there was something about that environment that was not really grasping our value and it felt wrong and that There's something in that that wasn't healthy. But then we grow up thinking we need someone's permission to go and do this thing that's deeper and what we're really mad about. And so your dad was saying, Look, you don't need permission. You have what it takes, it is going to be messy. And, and I guarantee Kate, I would bet that it's been harder and more stressful. But at least you're driving that. That caravan.
• 40:34
  Steve Brown: Those people that are following you, you're the one that's in front, going through all that.
• 40:37
  Steve Brown: That journey. Yeah, I
• 40:41
  Kate Bradley: would never not not do this. Like, even though I know, all the know, all that I know. I mean, I, we like to joke and say, I get punched in the face every day. But that's how it feels, you know, but you like it somehow. Because to your point, it's, it's the stress of working with holes is infinitely worse. Which is weird, because like, there's safety and money, you know, like getting a paycheck and knowing it's coming. That's, that's, that can relieve a lot of stress. But I mean, it's not that I don't stress out about money. But I mean, if there's, you know, we've been down to the wire multiple times. My level of my level of pain tolerance is just, or that is higher than maybe someone else's. Yeah.
• 41:28
  Steve Brown: So I want to pivot here. So if you're listening to this on the podcast, be sure to like a just do this for me.
• 41:38
  Steve Brown: Because Kate, I know you're loving listening to Kate, just hit a like or subscribe. Okay.
• 41:41
  Steve Brown: And same on YouTube. If you've been watching this hidden hit do it for Kate, not me. This I this is awesome. I'm this is the best part. Okay, I want to ask you some questions, Kate. Okay. Not that I haven't been. But it's like, these are questions that a lot of people ask, and I just want to hear your answer, because they want to know. Okay, so in your opinion, a robust social media plan includes which of the following.
• 42:16
  Kate Bradley: I'm gonna answer bizarrely. But the first thing is the most robust, and I'm not sure I like that word so much.
• 42:25
  Kate Bradley: But the most robust thing you can do is one thing well, so pick one thing, and do it well.
• 42:28
  Kate Bradley: Right. So you don't have to do all the channels, email, social, whatever it is just pick one and be like, I'm going to master this thing.
• 42:39
  Steve Brown: Boom. Yeah. So why is social media an important part of inbound marketing?
• 42:52
  Kate Bradley: reasons it's because what it's, I feel like it's like, you know, Oh, would you jump over the bridge if all your friends are jumping over the bridge? So, first of all, it's because it is what everyone's doing. And it's where you have to be where people are, right? I mean, if you know that 3000 People drive down this particular road every day. But your sign out there. Right? I mean, be stupid not to. So that's, that's, I think, the the most obvious. Most obvious answer, yeah, it's not very sexy one, but you have to write?
• 43:30
  Steve Brown: Yeah. And then why is social media so attractive for consumers?
• 43:37
  Kate Bradley: Well, because the people still think they can measure marketing. And you can't, by the way, that's the point. You're laughing as you know. Yeah, this is the big myth about social media, is that now lately certainly is trying to measure the thing that nobody can measure, which is the words themselves, right. So the thing people are still most scared about with marketing is because they don't get it. It's mysterious there. And that's that human part we talked about before the human makes it magic.
• 44:09
  Kate Bradley: It's the Genesee quad the thing you can put your finger on.
• 44:13
  Kate Bradley: Right? And it will always be that way. So you know, try not to get too bunched up about that. But you know, I always think of this is tied in maybe to your last question a little bit as well. There's an old marketing adage that says, if you're not marketing, you're winking in the dark. Get it
• 44:39
  Steve Brown: nobody can see that's right. Yeah. Flirting with them in the dark.
• 44:45
  Kate Bradley: Yeah. And you got to do it you know social you mentioned this in the top is social is part of SEO they're they're just basically SEO engines now. All the all the channels, Facebook or meta that whatever they're calling themselves now which is thanks for worrying a good word for me.
• 44:59
  Kate Bradley: My You have to be there because you want to be found, right? And the tough thing is there, you know, some people may in fact try to find you. But if you build it, they will come does is not true. You have to do handsprings and magic tricks, basically, to get people to notice you.
• 45:24
  Steve Brown: You have to have, you have to have the experience, and you need to be able to communicate, you know what you're talking about, not just post stuff regularly. Yeah.
• 45:37
  Steve Brown: Yeah. So I'm curious about, you mentioned it so that Facebook's name is going to change. I think that these social media companies are realizing that people are leaving those platforms, they used to be the only game in town. Yeah. Okay.
• 45:59
  Steve Brown: And, and so they they're all these other platforms showing up? What's the clubhouse, right, clubhouse, and rumble and all these other things, does lately have a plan that includes those.
• 46:18
  Kate Bradley: So here's the secret, we're actually about to release a product that doesn't include a publishing platform.
• 46:26
  Kate Bradley: We're lately attaches to whatever you already have. And there's a lot of reasons we're doing this. One of them is because it'll get us much faster adoptability. Because I don't have to get you to switch from what you already have number one. And it'll, we believe that it'll make us whether it's integrating with HubSpot, which have already done HootSuite, which is underway, working on Agora Pulse, you know, trying to get buffers attention over there, because they've, they've paused integration. So I gotta go yell at Joel and get him to notice me. But the idea is to make it make it a frictionless experience, so that we're not in charge of figuring out how to integrate with all these new places, right? Somebody else has to do that. Who's way better at it than we are, frankly.
• 47:21
  Steve Brown: Right? So we've been listening. We're excited about maybe learning about your platform, how should people reach out, get set up, get a free test drive, whatever it is.
• 47:35
  Kate Bradley: I just love you, Steve, thank you for being so kind to me today. We're at dub dub. dub.lately.ai. Just wave high, it's no sweat. We're, we like to meet people as you know.
• 47:48
  Kate Bradley: And if you if you don't want to buy it, that's fine. At least see it. I can guarantee you that your eyeballs will pop out of your head a little bit.
• 48:00
  Steve Brown: Yeah, do it. 98% of the folks that the eyeballs pop out, sign up. Yeah.
• 48:05
  Kate Bradley: All right. You might as well learn our tricks, but you know, if nothing else, see how it works.
• 48:11
  Steve Brown: Kate Chernus you've been an awesome guest on the ROI online podcast.
• 48:16
  Kate Bradley: Thank you so much, Dave. I hope you come for a ride this way again, and I can meet you.
• 48:20
  Steve Brown: Yeah, I want to.
• 48:20
  Steve Brown: We'll figure it out sincerely.
• 48:26
  Steve Brown: Alright, Kate, thanks so much. I appreciate you. And that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise, that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.