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The 2 Skills Thomas Moen Can't Live Without · AI DTC WTF

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If you work in D2C and you use AI and
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you're wondering what the
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F is going on every week,
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this is your podcast, the AI D2C WTF
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podcast, your home for
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tactical tips, strategies, and
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ideas that you can implement right now in
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your AI workflows to
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make your brand or agency
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more money.
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Hello, and welcome to a
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new episode of AI D2C WTF.
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Today is actually a solo episode, and I
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thought we are spending all
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this time talking to really,
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really inspiring people in the D2C space
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who are really geeking
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down on things, talking
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about super advanced
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workflows and all that kind of stuff.
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And today I just wanted to break down
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some of the most
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impactful skills I've encountered
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in my everyday life now for a long time.
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And they're super simple and they're not
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really tailored to
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the marketing space, but
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it works really, really
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great in the marketing space.
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It works really, really great for to
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running your business and
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making sure that you're making
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the right decisions.
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And so I thought I'm just
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going to share it with you today.
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So the idea here is that instead of going
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like super, super high
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level, let's go super, super,
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super practical and let's dive into it.
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Okay.
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So I'm presuming you know what skills is,
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but skills is basically
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an MD text file that Claude
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or your OpenClaw or the other AI things
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can read to do a certain
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recipe, like a standard
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operating procedure.
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That's the whole idea.
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And the skill files, Claude and others
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will automatically
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understand when you want to or
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should use a skill.
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And automatically based on that, it will
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kind of go through the recipe.
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So that's a general idea.
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Okay.
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And instead of talking about how to
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create amazing creatives or
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creating beautiful reports
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or going deep on some analytic things,
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the most valuable
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skills for me in my everyday
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life at the moment are
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the following skills.
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The first skill is called grill me.
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And grill me, the skill grill me, the
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whole premise, the whole
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idea is to make sure that
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you and the AI align.
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Okay.
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So anytime I'm uncertain on what I think
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about a certain thing, or
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if the AI is understanding
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a certain thing, I
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use the grill me skill.
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And I'm going to give you a few use
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cases, but at first I kind
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of just want to share where
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the grill me comes from.
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So one of the guys I follow on YouTube,
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great guy, Matt Pockock.
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He has this skill file on, uh, on GitHub.
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I'm going to share that with you.
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And in this skill file, he has the grill
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me skill and it is three small sentences.
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Um, and it is just so powerful.
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It doesn't need to be
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super, super advanced.
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So the grill me skill basically says,
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interview me relentlessly
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about every aspect of this plan
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until we reach a shared understanding.
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Walk down each branch of the design tree,
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uh, resolving
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dependencies between decisions
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one by one for each question, provide
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your recommended answers.
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Ask the questions one at a time.
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If a question can be answered by
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exploring the database,
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explore the code base instead.
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So it is originally created to do
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development, do coding, right?
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And I do a fair bit of that.
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So that's kind of when I started using
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it, but it now has evolved.
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So for example, me and my business
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partner were considering
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hiring, uh, a new head of our
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agency.
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Uh, we were not really sure
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what kind of role it should be.
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We just felt that we needed some help.
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So we both used the grill me skill.
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And I think I had something like 36
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questions asked and Chris,
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my partner had something like
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17 because they then reached a shared
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understanding quicker.
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Um, that really helped us to hone down
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what we actually want,
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what we actually need, what
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are we looking for?
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And both of those were
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created as MD documents.
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And we then kind of compared notes and
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discussed and, and found
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kind of the right path, right?
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It can also be, um, what's not working
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with our weekly reports.
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What kind of things are
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we not thinking about?
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Is it actually solving the problem?
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You can then evolve, uh, invoke the grill
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me skill and the grill
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me skill will actually
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help you get clarity.
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So it doesn't really have to, uh, to be
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anything around coding or development.
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It can be business.
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It can be life.
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Should we go to, uh, a tent trip or
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should we do a
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glamping trip with the family?
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Whatever it is, the grill
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me skill is just amazing.
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Okay.
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So, um, it, it might sound super simple.
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It is just kind of three, uh, small
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sentences, but it's
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really, really, really powerful.
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So don't underestimate.
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And I would highly recommend you testing
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out the grill me skill.
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AI D to C WTF is
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brought to you by motion.
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And this episode is brought to you by
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runneth from motion.
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And if you run paid social, I mean,
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obviously, you know,
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motion, it's a creative analytics
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platform that everybody uses.
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Uh, but the thing I've been
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obsessed with lately is run it.
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And it's their AI agent that lives right
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inside of your ad data.
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The simplest way to explain it.
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Most people use AI by
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asking it one thing.
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Like, Hey, what did we do yesterday?
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How'd it go?
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Runneth is the upgrade of that.
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You just tag it and ask
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it to do almost anything.
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It goes into your account.
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Does it like build me this week's
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creative recap, pull the
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data and write a brief on what
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to iterate next.
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Tell me which ads, uh, to make next.
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And it goes on and does
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this in plain English.
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So two things that actually make it
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really special, right?
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So under the hood,
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it's, it's Claude, right?
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Um, and anything Claude can do, right?
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It can do basically even
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better as long as you get access.
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And second, it's wired
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from everything motion has.
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So, uh, the AI tags, the creative, the
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frame by frame breakdowns.
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Um, and then it's trained by $14 billion
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in ad spend on motions customers, right?
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So it's pretty insane.
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Um, so the way that, you know, we're
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using it and I know some
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other colleagues are using it.
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Like I looked at what they're doing and
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we talked through it.
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People are, you know, having it drop a
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morning brief in Slack on how the
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account's performing.
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It gets smarter every time it runs.
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It's less like a tool and more like a
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creative strategist
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working while you sleep.
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So go see it at motionapp.com.
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That's runneth from motion and make ads
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that win without getting lucky.
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Then the second one I wanted to talk
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about today is the handoff skill.
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And the handoff skill, you know, you, in,
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when you use AI, you have very limited
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context windows, right?
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I think right now, as of this recording,
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Opus 4.8 is like 1 million tokens or
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something like that.
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And what happens, uh, and again, uh, Mac,
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back to Matt Pockock, who
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are also created this skill,
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which you can find in his skill library.
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And this is kind of the handoff here.
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But, um, he calls it, uh, that the
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context window has a
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smart zone and a dumb zone.
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And after two, 300,000 tokens is used,
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uh, the AI starts to be confused.
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It starts to be quite stupid in terms of
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how, uh, they're, uh, remembering things
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or trying to solve things.
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It can be confused, et cetera, et cetera.
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So whenever I find myself having a longer
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discussion with, uh,
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with, for example, Claude,
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and I realized that I'm now transitioning
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from the smart zone to the dumb zone,
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that is why when I use the handoff skill.
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And the point of the handoff skill is to
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take all the relevant information that
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you had in this chat,
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in this context window, capture
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everything down to an MD file,
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and give me a short prompt I can give to
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a new, uh, Claude or a new, uh, open
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Claude or whatever it is.
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And based on that, uh, it
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can then continue working.
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It can just hands off the work to a fresh
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context window instead.
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And this is so brilliant, right?
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So you feel like you
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finally nailed something down.
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The core concept where you want to keep
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on chatting, you want
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to keep on discussing,
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you want to keep on exploring.
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You can just, uh, use the handoff skill
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and it will then pack
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everything very nicely in,
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and then let you work, uh, continue the
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work somewhere else.
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So the handoff skill is, uh, what is it?
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One, two, three, four,
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five small sentences.
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Write a handoff document summarizing the
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current conversation.
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So a fresh agent can continue the work.
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Save to a temporary directory of the
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user's OS, not the current workspace.
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Include a suggested
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skill section in a document,
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which suggests skills
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that the agent should invoke.
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Do not duplicate content
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already captured in other artifacts.
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Reference them by path or URL instead.
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Redact any sensitive information such as
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API keys, passwords,
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personal information.
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If the user passed arguments, treat them
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as a description of
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what's next we'll focus on
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and tailor the doc accordingly.
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So again, short,
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simple, super, super powerful.
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So anytime I find myself having, like,
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going into a good flow and I feel like
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the AI is getting into the dumb zone,
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I just invoke the handoff and I kind of
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continue in, uh, another section.
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Yes.
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My friends, first of all, um, we will
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share in, uh, the description of this,
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uh, this, uh, podcast episode,
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link to Matt Pocock's
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skills on, uh, GitHub.
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I highly, highly, highly recommend it.
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Uh, I think it's, it's great.
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I love that it's so simple,
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but it's also then so powerful.
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Right.
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Um, and, uh, again, I think it's
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important to find little things that are
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making your everyday
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work much, much better.
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It doesn't have to be a super, super, um,
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complicated skill, right?
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It can be small things like this.
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So I used to grill me and
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the handoff 10, 15 times a day.
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So for me, it is super, super valuable.
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Okay.
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So that's kind of it for
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my little solo episode.
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Uh, I hope you find it valuable.
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Please give us some feedback.
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If you like this, um, I think that it's
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underrated to have small
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little tricks like this.
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And I felt obligated to
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share this with you today.
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Okay.
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Thank you so much for
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listening or watching.
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Remember to subscribe
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and have a wonderful day.
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And I catch you in a next one.