Friction is the silent killer of momentum in side hustles, preventing entrepreneurs from building the consistency needed for success. By eliminating friction through automation and AI tools, we can transform our businesses into efficient systems that practically run themselves.
• Identifying sources of friction in your business processes
• Understanding the difference between static friction (getting started) and kinetic friction (staying in motion)
• Using automated scheduling with tools like Motion to ensure consistent content creation
• Leveraging ChatGPT for content ideation, outlines, and show notes
• Streamlining production with tools like Stream Deck, Ecamm, and Descript
• Automating distribution across platforms with Make.com and Repurpose.io
• Applying automation principles to different business models (example: drop shipping)
• Breaking down business processes into steps that can be partially or fully automated
Identify your most important business processes that need optimization, then ask ChatGPT in research mode to recommend automation and AI solutions for your specific situation. Start with one friction point, perfect it, then move to the next to build lasting systems for sustainable success.
Resolutions off the rails? You’re not alone. But there’s still time to turn things around. The ALIGN Productivity Challenge is a proven system to help you achieve your goals in just 90 days—no fluff, no overwhelm. Head to AlignProductivity.com and start your comeback today.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Episode 275.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing
podcast, we'll talk abouteliminating the friction in your
side hustle using automationand AI.
This is the way you need tothink about getting more stuff
done in less time so you canmake your side hustle dreams
come true.
All this and more on the LateNight Internet Marketing Podcast
(00:34):
.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast and
now broadcasting late at nightfrom a little studio in the big
state of Texas, your host, markMason.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hey, hey, hey.
I am your host, mark Mason,coming to you from the little
studio in Dallas, texas, andtoday we're going to talk about
something really exciting.
This is something near and dearto me.
It's the way I think aboutthings, both in my day job and
my side hustle, but I think it'sreally going to help you get
(01:14):
more done and get those dreamsaccomplished how you can think
about the work that you need todo in order to be successful and
get your side hustle to thelevel of success that you've
been dreaming about for so longby eliminating friction in your
side hustle.
(01:34):
We're going to do that by usingautomation and AI.
We'll talk about the way Ithink about the problem, and not
only that, but the tools thathelp keep me consistent as I
work through the constantelimination of friction and the
improved efficiency of mybusiness.
(01:55):
It involves mindset shiftingaround AI and how you do things
in your business and use of cooltools that are coming available
to us now as side hustlers andsolo entrepreneurs.
It's super exciting, and ifyou're ready, we'll get right
after it, okay, so here's thefirst thing I want to talk to
(02:18):
you about, and that is thatfriction is the silent killer of
momentum.
Let me say that again, frictionis the silent killer of
momentum because, without youeven realizing it, it keeps you
from getting up the head ofsteam that you need, as a solo
(02:38):
entrepreneur, to go from win towin, to win, from strength to
strength, from strength.
A lot of times we confuse thisas laziness, but it's not really
laziness.
We see it sometimes asprocrastination, but I would
argue that the procrastinationthat you're feeling a lot of
times, that comes fromresistance, the energy that it
(03:01):
takes to get things going.
You know, in physics there aretwo kinds of friction.
There's the kind of frictionthat you have when things are
moving, like when something'ssliding along a surface.
It generates heat.
And there's the kind offriction that it takes for
something to start moving in thefirst place.
We call that static friction,that friction of getting moving
(03:23):
in the first place.
That's always bigger than thekinetic friction.
Once you get moving, it'salways easier to stay moving.
And so these hidden sources offriction that we have in our
business, the things that keepus from getting started, we need
to get rid of those and we needto use some of these magical
new tools that we have in orderto eliminate this, and I would
(03:46):
say this is really a systemproblem.
This is a problem for yourwhole business.
But when we think about it, wewant to think about it in terms
of the things that we actuallyneed to do and are most
important in our business,because eliminating friction
will allow us to get consistentresults.
(04:07):
We'll be able to build momentumwith less effort, and friction
is one of those things thatcauses burnout.
If you're having to overcomefriction and things that are, in
your way, obstacles to gettingeven the simplest task done,
that just sucks away yoursustainable energy that you need
for long-term growth and thatresults in burnout.
(04:28):
So we want to avoid that asmuch as possible.
And when the hard things becomeautomatic, we start going from
strength to strength, to win, towin, and inevitably we make
progress.
So how do we think about this?
We know we want to eliminatefriction.
We want to make things easier.
I think that's a way to saythis.
(04:49):
So we need to identify the mostimportant things that must get
done in our business and spotthe points of friction, and
we're going to go through areally detailed example from my
business to help you understandthis.
But think about the things thatyou know you must get done in
(05:09):
your business, that you eitherhave a hard time getting started
or a hard time doing over andover again.
Where are you consistentlygetting slowed down?
Where do you feel resistance?
And we need to find solutionsfor those problems that allow us
to automate things and makethings easier to do.
So I think it's one thing,probably, to talk about these
(05:33):
things in abstraction right,there's focus that we need to
have and they're the mostimportant things in our business
.
But let's talk about my businessand an example of something
that I think you'll be able torelate to, and that's this very
podcast.
After all, you are a listenerand this is an important part of
my business.
It is the organic contentcreation engine for my business.
(05:59):
This is really the main organiccontent that I create and I
repurpose this content.
So if I don't get my podcastout, my organic content creation
engine suffers greatly andleads and customers and clients
and coaching clients and, course, customers.
Many of them come from thatorganic content engine.
(06:22):
So it's very important for mybusiness.
But I think you probably havesomething similar, something you
need to be doing in yourbusiness to make it run well,
and so, if you know me andyou've been listening to this
podcast for any amount of time.
I've been on the air, off and on, since 2009.
It's been 15 years that I'vebeen creating this podcast, but
(06:44):
I don't have 15 years worth ofepisodes, and that's because
I've been inconsistent.
And boy, what would my businessbe like if I had never missed a
week of podcast creation inthat 15 years.
That would have been amazing.
That's water under the bridge.
You know, it's one of thoseplanting a tree things.
The best time to plant a treewas 20 years ago.
(07:05):
Second best time is right now,and that's true for you too.
So when I think about thispodcast, I know that I need to
get more consistent withcreating it.
And the question is, why am Inot so consistent?
And the answer, I think, hasbeen friction.
So I've eliminated manyfriction points in my podcast
(07:28):
around the scheduling of it,including the content, calendar,
ideation and content generationand outlining and run sheets
and recording and production andshow notes and distribution
Many, many points of friction.
Many steps involved in theproduction of this podcast have
(07:48):
been eliminated or reduced, andthat's helping me be more
consistent with the content.
So let's go down through thoseone by one and what I want you
to do is not think so much aboutmy podcast.
You may not even have a podcast.
What I want you to think aboutis the kinds of things that are
analogous in your business thatyou can eliminate as well.
(08:10):
So the first thing isscheduling.
So my big problem was findingthe time to record this podcast.
I've talked on and on about howI use motion as my personal
scheduling and projectmanagement app.
Now I moved from ClickUp mostrecently and I'm using motion,
and motion has this amazingcapability to actually block
(08:30):
time on my calendar to recordthis podcast.
It sounds simple and silly, butthe truth is that motion is
persistent and consistent and itcontinues to remind me hey, you
haven't recorded this week'sepisode yet and I recommend that
you do it tonight at nineo'clock.
I mean, this is a reallyhelpful thing and it integrates
(08:51):
with my calendars and if youwant to try it, you can get a
free trial at markmasoncom slashmotion.
The second thing I do is thisidea of ideation what am I going
to talk about on the podcast?
And you know, this is not justa problem of coming up with
random ideas.
This is also um, as presidentGeorge Bush used to say
(09:15):
strategery right, I can't justpick any random topic.
I really want to consider whereI'm taking the brand, what
product launches are coming outfor me, what my listeners are
telling me, and all these things.
A conversation with chat GPTgive it all of this information
and we can have a discussionabout how to set the future list
(09:39):
of podcast episode ideas and wecan brainstorm and I can tell
it the things I like and why,and the things that I don't like
and why, and it can get smarterand smarter, and smarter about
suggesting what the next fewepisodes would be.
And that used to be a hugepoint of friction what in the
world am I going to talk abouton the podcast?
(10:01):
Now, that's no issue at all.
I use chat GPT as a partner tobrainstorm and then, of course,
once I decide what the nextepisode is going to be about, I
need an outline for that episode.
As most of you know, I workfrom outlines.
I shoot off the cuff, but Ilike to be organized.
Otherwise you would get totallybored and restless, and so I
(10:22):
use some custom chat GPT promptsto help me structure an outline
in the way I would do itwithout chat GPT, and it's
remarkable in the way that it'sable to generate exactly what I
would generate, plus add somethings in that I might not have
thought about.
I've got a specific format thatI use.
Those of you that listen to theshow a lot know what it is and
(10:50):
then I'm able to take thatoutline and edit it and use it
exactly the way that I want touse it, in just a few minutes
instead of half an hour, andthat's an amazing reduction in
friction.
And as a bonus, I've startedfeeding that outline into
gammaapp to create slides andI'm working on a fully automated
flow that incorporates thevideo of those slides and of me
(11:11):
talking and of B-roll and ofcaptioning and other interesting
visual elements, jump cuts andall that.
I'm working on that automationflow in my editing.
But to create those slides thatgive me additional collateral
visual collateral that I can usein post-production, I'm using
(11:31):
Gamma Dot app for that andthat's an amazing tool just for
creating additional assetsaround your content.
Then, of course, there was justthe idea of actually sitting
down and recording, because I'vegot to set up the studio right.
I've got to turn on all thelights and I've got video lights
for my face and I've got lightsin the room and I've got lights
(11:55):
in the background that are blue.
If you've seen me on video,I've got this kind of bookcase
in the background and that's alllit up and things need to be
turned on.
I've got to get software up andrunning, I've got to get the
cameras pointed in the rightdirection and all that.
I've been able to automate allthat using my Stream Deck where
(12:15):
I can just push two buttons toturn everything on.
It turns on the software on myPC.
I push another button, it turnson all the lights and I'm ready
to record inside of two seconds.
Literally I'm ready to go, andthat's been a huge reduction in
friction, because if you've gotto turn everything on.
By the way, this is somethingalso I think you'll hear Leslie
(12:37):
Samuel talk about.
He and I both use this amazingsoftware called Ecamm to capture
a video.
I edit video into script and Icapture it in Ecamm.
He has a similar kind of setupin his house.
His studio is much moresophisticated in advance and he
gets even more advantage out ofthat.
You should check out some ofLeslie's videos on the I am
(13:00):
Leslie Samuel channel.
He's kind of an amazing dudeand a good friend of mine.
And then, of course, I want tobe able to do jump cuts between
my face and the slides and Ineed to get all that recorded in
sync.
As I mentioned, ecamm does thatfor me and it is all handled
automatically.
I literally just hit the bigbutton that says record once
(13:21):
it's all set up and I admit,some of this stuff takes some
time to set up, but once it'sall set up, I just hit of this
stuff takes some time to set up,but once it's all set up, I
just hit the record button, pullthe mic over to my face, like I
have it now, and I'm ready togo.
I could even do switching liveduring my recording, and Leslie
does do that.
I don't do that.
I wait and do it in postbecause I don't want to be
(13:42):
distracted by hitting thosebuttons, but the stream deck can
handle that as well.
If you want just a one-shotthing with no post-production,
ecamm Live is the way to go, man, and you can check that out
over at markmasoncom.
Forward slash, ecamm, e-c-a-m-m.
And then in post-production I'musing Descript and that feeds
(14:04):
directly into Buzzsprout for theaudio.
So Descript is becoming themost famous editing tool for
podcasters.
It's got a lot of amazingfeatures.
It's a text-based editor.
It uses AI to transcribe theepisode and then you can edit
the text.
It uses AI increasingly toidentify clips and to do
(14:27):
different kinds of editing, andthis year we're looking for even
more AI editing functionalityinside of Descript.
That is truly an amazing thing,because editing is a huge point
of friction in content creation.
Editing is literally what keepspeople from having YouTube
channels.
Descript is making that all goaway removing filler words and
(14:51):
doing all kinds of things likethat.
And Descript, along with othertools like Buzzsprout and, of
course, chatgpt, can create AIshow notes and titles and tags
and all the things that you usedto have to do in
post-production.
It wasn't enough just to recordthe damn episode excuse my
French, but you had to do allthis kind of silly, monotonous
(15:15):
work to decide on show tags andwrite descriptions and all these
things for SEO and blah, blahblah, and it just wasn't nearly
as much fun as recording theepisode, and so for me
personally, those representedhuge points of friction that are
now completely gone.
In fact, buzzsprout has thisamazing capability called
(15:37):
co-host AI, which is or AIco-host I can't quite remember.
It's amazing.
If you're looking at podcasting.
This totally eliminates, atleast on the audio side, all of
these points of friction aroundgetting your recorded episode
out into the world.
Check them out at markmasoncomforward slash buzzsprout.
(16:00):
So once I've got an audio and avideo, I get into this issue
where now it's time to dodistribution.
I've got a video recorded andreally most of my distribution
comes from the video product andI need to distribute it.
I've got a full makecomworkflow that sees the new
YouTube video, the full lengthpodcast, and then it can take
(16:24):
that, transcribe it, createYouTube description and title
and tags and then, using thatinformation, it can create show
notes for my blog, some linksthat I apply in other places,
and create links back to otherpodcast episodes and do all the
(16:46):
things that you would do if youwere normally writing really,
really good show notes.
And at that time, once I've gotgreat show notes and a link to
those show notes and a YouTubevideo embedded in those show
notes and the podcast player appembedded in those show notes,
all done by makecom, then I canstart and push links to that
(17:08):
blog post with the show notesout to social media and all of
that is completely automatic andcan be completely automated and
makecom, and that's justanother point of friction that
God.
It was time to start working onthe next episode, but I was
still working on theseproduction things from the last
episode.
That's just really terrible apoint of friction that I wanted
(17:29):
to get rid of, and with ChatGPTand Makecom and other tools that
are available there, I'm ableto do that automatically.
Of course, I mentioned therepurposing of video content
into Reels and Shorts.
I use Opus Clips, which isreally cool for that.
You can also do that intoscript and then once I create a
(17:49):
clip and I push it out toYouTube, usually first I use
repurposeio to send it intoTikTok and Instagram and
Pinterest and all these placeswhere I repurpose this content.
And the point of it is just sopeople can discover the show.
If I say a clever thing and itcauses someone to check out the
(18:11):
show, well that's a win andthat's very inexpensive to do.
But I'm not really going tospend time creating TikToks.
I mean, I need to automate this.
That's a huge point of frictionand basically, when you remove
that friction, it's just freepromotion and it's not magic.
It's not like these TikToks aregoing viral.
But again, this podcasting gameand for my particular
(18:39):
application, is a game ofattrition that you win by being
consistent over weeks and monthsand years, and so you need to
keep that content coming so thatpeople can discover you.
So those are some examples frommy podcast.
And you're saying to keep thatcontent coming so that people
can discover you.
So those are some examples frommy podcast.
And you're saying, well, yeah,mark, but that's just an example
.
That's content creation.
Everybody knows there are allthese really good content
creation tools.
Well, we did this with dropshipping too.
(19:00):
When we worked on a dropshipping store and this was
three summers ago ago, when Idid this with my son, we did
about $50,000 worth of lowticket items over that summer.
That's a lot of work.
That creates a lot of point offriction.
We listed a thousand items onFacebook marketplace.
Maybe really in the end it wascloser to 2000 and all of those
(19:22):
things are points of friction.
The finding the items is a pointof friction.
We wrote a script to do that.
The listing of the items was apoint of friction.
We found automation to do that.
In that case, there was no chatGPT back then, four years ago.
That was useful to us, so wehired a virtual assistant to
sort of run these things.
When orders came in, we wroteautomation to notify us so that
(19:46):
we could manage the order.
There was other software thatwe used to eliminate the point
of friction of getting thecustomer's information from the
order system into the dropshipping system so that they
could get their package For shiptracking we automated the
tracking of shipping byautomatically taking the ship
tracking number and putting itinto our ship tracking software
(20:09):
so the customer could self-serveand look up their package,
because customer service isanother huge point of friction
friction in that business onyour most important things.
And if you break that processdown into steps and simply ask
what can AI or automation or thecombination of AI and
(20:32):
automation do to help mecompletely or almost completely
automate this, I think you'llfind there are amazing
opportunities for you tostreamline your business and get
more done.
So here's your call to actionstreamline your business and get
more done.
So here's your call to actionIdentify your most important
parts of your business thateither you need to do more
(20:52):
efficiently or, like me on thepodcast where you're getting
stuck, and then do some researchand ask what tools can help.
And here's a pro tip Explainyour situation to chat GPT and
put it into deep research modeand tell it to find
recommendations for how youmight optimize this process
(21:14):
through the use of automationand artificial intelligence,
using existing tools that it canfind on the internet, and it
will come back with an amazinglist of recommendations that you
could consider.
Then figure out which AIsolutions fit for you and start
at the beginning of your process, or the most painful part, and
just start implementing them oneat a time.
(21:35):
You don't need to do this allin one day.
Just do the first one and whenthat's running well and you're
happy with it, do the second oneand so forth, and before you
know it, the most importantthing in your business will be
running almost automatically.
So I want you to make progress,and I want you to do that, as
we say here on the Late NightInternet Marketing Podcast, one
(21:56):
night at a time.
Do it by eliminating friction.
That's going to point youtowards sustainable success,
because you'll be buildinglasting systems for your
business.
It's going to improve your timefreedom, you'll be able to do
more with less hours, and it'sjust going to make the whole
thing much more enjoyable.
Hey, thanks for listening today.
My name is Mark Mason and I amsuper happy, excited and
(22:19):
privileged to be talking to youtoday.
I'm really excited about ourepisode next week.
So next week we are going torespond to a listener question
from a listener named Sarah andshe's got a business.
I'm not going to tell you theexact business, but she asked me
a business question.
She's just getting startedabout what strategy she should
take, so we're going to talkabout that again.
(22:40):
I'm not going to tell youSarah's exact business because I
don't want to give away hergreat idea, but I do want to
tell you and Sarah how I thinkabout these things and maybe
that'll help you.
It's going to be an interestingcase study and that's what
we'll be doing next week righthere on the Late Night Internet
Marketing Podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Ciao, You've been listening to the Late Night
Internet Marketing Podcast.
Be sure to visit LNIMpodcastcomtoday to leave feedback for
Mark, Download special bonuscontent, access the show notes
and more.
See you there.
(23:19):
Until then, go and make somegreat progress on your internet
business one night at a time.
Episode 275.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing
podcast, we'll talk abouteliminating the friction in your
side hustle using automationand AI.
This is the way you need tothink about getting more stuff
done in less time so you canmake your side hustle dreams
come true.
All this and more on the LateNight Internet Marketing Podcast
(00:34):
.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast and
now broadcasting late at nightfrom a little studio in the big
state of Texas, your host, markMason.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hey, hey, hey.
I am your host, mark Mason,coming to you from the little
studio in Dallas, texas, andtoday we're going to talk about
something really exciting.
This is something near and dearto me.
It's the way I think aboutthings, both in my day job and
my side hustle, but I think it'sreally going to help you get
(01:14):
more done and get those dreamsaccomplished how you can think
about the work that you need todo in order to be successful and
get your side hustle to thelevel of success that you've
been dreaming about for so longby eliminating friction in your
side hustle.
(01:34):
We're going to do that by usingautomation and AI.
We'll talk about the way Ithink about the problem, and not
only that, but the tools thathelp keep me consistent as I
work through the constantelimination of friction and the
improved efficiency of mybusiness.
(01:55):
It involves mindset shiftingaround AI and how you do things
in your business and use of cooltools that are coming available
to us now as side hustlers andsolo entrepreneurs.
It's super exciting, and ifyou're ready, we'll get right
after it, okay, so here's thefirst thing I want to talk to
(02:18):
you about, and that is thatfriction is the silent killer of
momentum.
Let me say that again, frictionis the silent killer of
momentum because, without youeven realizing it, it keeps you
from getting up the head ofsteam that you need, as a solo
(02:38):
entrepreneur, to go from win towin, to win, from strength to
strength, from strength.
A lot of times we confuse thisas laziness, but it's not really
laziness.
We see it sometimes asprocrastination, but I would
argue that the procrastinationthat you're feeling a lot of
times, that comes fromresistance, the energy that it
(03:01):
takes to get things going.
You know, in physics there aretwo kinds of friction.
There's the kind of frictionthat you have when things are
moving, like when something'ssliding along a surface.
It generates heat.
And there's the kind offriction that it takes for
something to start moving in thefirst place.
We call that static friction,that friction of getting moving
(03:23):
in the first place.
That's always bigger than thekinetic friction.
Once you get moving, it'salways easier to stay moving.
And so these hidden sources offriction that we have in our
business, the things that keepus from getting started, we need
to get rid of those and we needto use some of these magical
new tools that we have in orderto eliminate this, and I would
(03:46):
say this is really a systemproblem.
This is a problem for yourwhole business.
But when we think about it, wewant to think about it in terms
of the things that we actuallyneed to do and are most
important in our business,because eliminating friction
will allow us to get consistentresults.
(04:07):
We'll be able to build momentumwith less effort, and friction
is one of those things thatcauses burnout.
If you're having to overcomefriction and things that are, in
your way, obstacles to gettingeven the simplest task done,
that just sucks away yoursustainable energy that you need
for long-term growth and thatresults in burnout.
(04:28):
So we want to avoid that asmuch as possible.
And when the hard things becomeautomatic, we start going from
strength to strength, to win, towin, and inevitably we make
progress.
So how do we think about this?
We know we want to eliminatefriction.
We want to make things easier.
I think that's a way to saythis.
(04:49):
So we need to identify the mostimportant things that must get
done in our business and spotthe points of friction, and
we're going to go through areally detailed example from my
business to help you understandthis.
But think about the things thatyou know you must get done in
(05:09):
your business, that you eitherhave a hard time getting started
or a hard time doing over andover again.
Where are you consistentlygetting slowed down?
Where do you feel resistance?
And we need to find solutionsfor those problems that allow us
to automate things and makethings easier to do.
So I think it's one thing,probably, to talk about these
(05:33):
things in abstraction right,there's focus that we need to
have and they're the mostimportant things in our business
.
But let's talk about my businessand an example of something
that I think you'll be able torelate to, and that's this very
podcast.
After all, you are a listenerand this is an important part of
my business.
It is the organic contentcreation engine for my business.
(05:59):
This is really the main organiccontent that I create and I
repurpose this content.
So if I don't get my podcastout, my organic content creation
engine suffers greatly andleads and customers and clients
and coaching clients and, course, customers.
Many of them come from thatorganic content engine.
(06:22):
So it's very important for mybusiness.
But I think you probably havesomething similar, something you
need to be doing in yourbusiness to make it run well,
and so, if you know me andyou've been listening to this
podcast for any amount of time.
I've been on the air, off and on, since 2009.
It's been 15 years that I'vebeen creating this podcast, but
(06:44):
I don't have 15 years worth ofepisodes, and that's because
I've been inconsistent.
And boy, what would my businessbe like if I had never missed a
week of podcast creation inthat 15 years.
That would have been amazing.
That's water under the bridge.
You know, it's one of thoseplanting a tree things.
The best time to plant a treewas 20 years ago.
(07:05):
Second best time is right now,and that's true for you too.
So when I think about thispodcast, I know that I need to
get more consistent withcreating it.
And the question is, why am Inot so consistent?
And the answer, I think, hasbeen friction.
So I've eliminated manyfriction points in my podcast
(07:28):
around the scheduling of it,including the content, calendar,
ideation and content generationand outlining and run sheets
and recording and production andshow notes and distribution
Many, many points of friction.
Many steps involved in theproduction of this podcast have
(07:48):
been eliminated or reduced, andthat's helping me be more
consistent with the content.
So let's go down through thoseone by one and what I want you
to do is not think so much aboutmy podcast.
You may not even have a podcast.
What I want you to think aboutis the kinds of things that are
analogous in your business thatyou can eliminate as well.
(08:10):
So the first thing isscheduling.
So my big problem was findingthe time to record this podcast.
I've talked on and on about howI use motion as my personal
scheduling and projectmanagement app.
Now I moved from ClickUp mostrecently and I'm using motion,
and motion has this amazingcapability to actually block
(08:30):
time on my calendar to recordthis podcast.
It sounds simple and silly, butthe truth is that motion is
persistent and consistent and itcontinues to remind me hey, you
haven't recorded this week'sepisode yet and I recommend that
you do it tonight at nineo'clock.
I mean, this is a reallyhelpful thing and it integrates
(08:51):
with my calendars and if youwant to try it, you can get a
free trial at markmasoncom slashmotion.
The second thing I do is thisidea of ideation what am I going
to talk about on the podcast?
And you know, this is not justa problem of coming up with
random ideas.
This is also um, as presidentGeorge Bush used to say
(09:15):
strategery right, I can't justpick any random topic.
I really want to consider whereI'm taking the brand, what
product launches are coming outfor me, what my listeners are
telling me, and all these things.
A conversation with chat GPTgive it all of this information
and we can have a discussionabout how to set the future list
(09:39):
of podcast episode ideas and wecan brainstorm and I can tell
it the things I like and why,and the things that I don't like
and why, and it can get smarterand smarter, and smarter about
suggesting what the next fewepisodes would be.
And that used to be a hugepoint of friction what in the
world am I going to talk abouton the podcast?
(10:01):
Now, that's no issue at all.
I use chat GPT as a partner tobrainstorm and then, of course,
once I decide what the nextepisode is going to be about, I
need an outline for that episode.
As most of you know, I workfrom outlines.
I shoot off the cuff, but Ilike to be organized.
Otherwise you would get totallybored and restless, and so I
(10:22):
use some custom chat GPT promptsto help me structure an outline
in the way I would do itwithout chat GPT, and it's
remarkable in the way that it'sable to generate exactly what I
would generate, plus add somethings in that I might not have
thought about.
I've got a specific format thatI use.
Those of you that listen to theshow a lot know what it is and
(10:50):
then I'm able to take thatoutline and edit it and use it
exactly the way that I want touse it, in just a few minutes
instead of half an hour, andthat's an amazing reduction in
friction.
And as a bonus, I've startedfeeding that outline into
gammaapp to create slides andI'm working on a fully automated
flow that incorporates thevideo of those slides and of me
(11:11):
talking and of B-roll and ofcaptioning and other interesting
visual elements, jump cuts andall that.
I'm working on that automationflow in my editing.
But to create those slides thatgive me additional collateral
visual collateral that I can usein post-production, I'm using
(11:31):
Gamma Dot app for that andthat's an amazing tool just for
creating additional assetsaround your content.
Then, of course, there was justthe idea of actually sitting
down and recording, because I'vegot to set up the studio right.
I've got to turn on all thelights and I've got video lights
for my face and I've got lightsin the room and I've got lights
(11:55):
in the background that are blue.
If you've seen me on video,I've got this kind of bookcase
in the background and that's alllit up and things need to be
turned on.
I've got to get software up andrunning, I've got to get the
cameras pointed in the rightdirection and all that.
I've been able to automate allthat using my Stream Deck where
(12:15):
I can just push two buttons toturn everything on.
It turns on the software on myPC.
I push another button, it turnson all the lights and I'm ready
to record inside of two seconds.
Literally I'm ready to go, andthat's been a huge reduction in
friction, because if you've gotto turn everything on.
By the way, this is somethingalso I think you'll hear Leslie
(12:37):
Samuel talk about.
He and I both use this amazingsoftware called Ecamm to capture
a video.
I edit video into script and Icapture it in Ecamm.
He has a similar kind of setupin his house.
His studio is much moresophisticated in advance and he
gets even more advantage out ofthat.
You should check out some ofLeslie's videos on the I am
(13:00):
Leslie Samuel channel.
He's kind of an amazing dudeand a good friend of mine.
And then, of course, I want tobe able to do jump cuts between
my face and the slides and Ineed to get all that recorded in
sync.
As I mentioned, ecamm does thatfor me and it is all handled
automatically.
I literally just hit the bigbutton that says record once
(13:21):
it's all set up and I admit,some of this stuff takes some
time to set up, but once it'sall set up, I just hit of this
stuff takes some time to set up,but once it's all set up, I
just hit the record button, pullthe mic over to my face, like I
have it now, and I'm ready togo.
I could even do switching liveduring my recording, and Leslie
does do that.
I don't do that.
I wait and do it in postbecause I don't want to be
(13:42):
distracted by hitting thosebuttons, but the stream deck can
handle that as well.
If you want just a one-shotthing with no post-production,
ecamm Live is the way to go, man, and you can check that out
over at markmasoncom.
Forward slash, ecamm, e-c-a-m-m.
And then in post-production I'musing Descript and that feeds
(14:04):
directly into Buzzsprout for theaudio.
So Descript is becoming themost famous editing tool for
podcasters.
It's got a lot of amazingfeatures.
It's a text-based editor.
It uses AI to transcribe theepisode and then you can edit
the text.
It uses AI increasingly toidentify clips and to do
(14:27):
different kinds of editing, andthis year we're looking for even
more AI editing functionalityinside of Descript.
That is truly an amazing thing,because editing is a huge point
of friction in content creation.
Editing is literally what keepspeople from having YouTube
channels.
Descript is making that all goaway removing filler words and
(14:51):
doing all kinds of things likethat.
And Descript, along with othertools like Buzzsprout and, of
course, chatgpt, can create AIshow notes and titles and tags
and all the things that you usedto have to do in
post-production.
It wasn't enough just to recordthe damn episode excuse my
French, but you had to do allthis kind of silly, monotonous
(15:15):
work to decide on show tags andwrite descriptions and all these
things for SEO and blah, blahblah, and it just wasn't nearly
as much fun as recording theepisode, and so for me
personally, those representedhuge points of friction that are
now completely gone.
In fact, buzzsprout has thisamazing capability called
(15:37):
co-host AI, which is or AIco-host I can't quite remember.
It's amazing.
If you're looking at podcasting.
This totally eliminates, atleast on the audio side, all of
these points of friction aroundgetting your recorded episode
out into the world.
Check them out at markmasoncomforward slash buzzsprout.
(16:00):
So once I've got an audio and avideo, I get into this issue
where now it's time to dodistribution.
I've got a video recorded andreally most of my distribution
comes from the video product andI need to distribute it.
I've got a full makecomworkflow that sees the new
YouTube video, the full lengthpodcast, and then it can take
(16:24):
that, transcribe it, createYouTube description and title
and tags and then, using thatinformation, it can create show
notes for my blog, some linksthat I apply in other places,
and create links back to otherpodcast episodes and do all the
(16:46):
things that you would do if youwere normally writing really,
really good show notes.
And at that time, once I've gotgreat show notes and a link to
those show notes and a YouTubevideo embedded in those show
notes and the podcast player appembedded in those show notes,
all done by makecom, then I canstart and push links to that
(17:08):
blog post with the show notesout to social media and all of
that is completely automatic andcan be completely automated and
makecom, and that's justanother point of friction that
God.
It was time to start working onthe next episode, but I was
still working on theseproduction things from the last
episode.
That's just really terrible apoint of friction that I wanted
(17:29):
to get rid of, and with ChatGPTand Makecom and other tools that
are available there, I'm ableto do that automatically.
Of course, I mentioned therepurposing of video content
into Reels and Shorts.
I use Opus Clips, which isreally cool for that.
You can also do that intoscript and then once I create a
(17:49):
clip and I push it out toYouTube, usually first I use
repurposeio to send it intoTikTok and Instagram and
Pinterest and all these placeswhere I repurpose this content.
And the point of it is just sopeople can discover the show.
If I say a clever thing and itcauses someone to check out the
(18:11):
show, well that's a win andthat's very inexpensive to do.
But I'm not really going tospend time creating TikToks.
I mean, I need to automate this.
That's a huge point of frictionand basically, when you remove
that friction, it's just freepromotion and it's not magic.
It's not like these TikToks aregoing viral.
But again, this podcasting gameand for my particular
(18:39):
application, is a game ofattrition that you win by being
consistent over weeks and monthsand years, and so you need to
keep that content coming so thatpeople can discover you.
So those are some examples frommy podcast.
And you're saying to keep thatcontent coming so that people
can discover you.
So those are some examples frommy podcast.
And you're saying, well, yeah,mark, but that's just an example
.
That's content creation.
Everybody knows there are allthese really good content
creation tools.
Well, we did this with dropshipping too.
(19:00):
When we worked on a dropshipping store and this was
three summers ago ago, when Idid this with my son, we did
about $50,000 worth of lowticket items over that summer.
That's a lot of work.
That creates a lot of point offriction.
We listed a thousand items onFacebook marketplace.
Maybe really in the end it wascloser to 2000 and all of those
(19:22):
things are points of friction.
The finding the items is a pointof friction.
We wrote a script to do that.
The listing of the items was apoint of friction.
We found automation to do that.
In that case, there was no chatGPT back then, four years ago.
That was useful to us, so wehired a virtual assistant to
sort of run these things.
When orders came in, we wroteautomation to notify us so that
(19:46):
we could manage the order.
There was other software thatwe used to eliminate the point
of friction of getting thecustomer's information from the
order system into the dropshipping system so that they
could get their package For shiptracking we automated the
tracking of shipping byautomatically taking the ship
tracking number and putting itinto our ship tracking software
(20:09):
so the customer could self-serveand look up their package,
because customer service isanother huge point of friction
friction in that business onyour most important things.
And if you break that processdown into steps and simply ask
what can AI or automation or thecombination of AI and
(20:32):
automation do to help mecompletely or almost completely
automate this, I think you'llfind there are amazing
opportunities for you tostreamline your business and get
more done.
So here's your call to actionstreamline your business and get
more done.
So here's your call to actionIdentify your most important
parts of your business thateither you need to do more
(20:52):
efficiently or, like me on thepodcast where you're getting
stuck, and then do some researchand ask what tools can help.
And here's a pro tip Explainyour situation to chat GPT and
put it into deep research modeand tell it to find
recommendations for how youmight optimize this process
(21:14):
through the use of automationand artificial intelligence,
using existing tools that it canfind on the internet, and it
will come back with an amazinglist of recommendations that you
could consider.
Then figure out which AIsolutions fit for you and start
at the beginning of your process, or the most painful part, and
just start implementing them oneat a time.
(21:35):
You don't need to do this allin one day.
Just do the first one and whenthat's running well and you're
happy with it, do the second oneand so forth, and before you
know it, the most importantthing in your business will be
running almost automatically.
So I want you to make progress,and I want you to do that, as
we say here on the Late NightInternet Marketing Podcast, one
(21:56):
night at a time.
Do it by eliminating friction.
That's going to point youtowards sustainable success,
because you'll be buildinglasting systems for your
business.
It's going to improve your timefreedom, you'll be able to do
more with less hours, and it'sjust going to make the whole
thing much more enjoyable.
Hey, thanks for listening today.
My name is Mark Mason and I amsuper happy, excited and
(22:19):
privileged to be talking to youtoday.
I'm really excited about ourepisode next week.
So next week we are going torespond to a listener question
from a listener named Sarah andshe's got a business.
I'm not going to tell you theexact business, but she asked me
a business question.
She's just getting startedabout what strategy she should
take, so we're going to talkabout that again.
(22:40):
I'm not going to tell youSarah's exact business because I
don't want to give away hergreat idea, but I do want to
tell you and Sarah how I thinkabout these things and maybe
that'll help you.
It's going to be an interestingcase study and that's what
we'll be doing next week righthere on the Late Night Internet
Marketing Podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Ciao, You've been listening to the Late Night
Internet Marketing Podcast.
Be sure to visit LNIMpodcastcomtoday to leave feedback for
Mark, Download special bonuscontent, access the show notes
and more.
See you there.
(23:19):
Until then, go and make somegreat progress on your internet
business one night at a time.
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