June 5, 2025 • 30 mins
Want to Save 30+ Hours a Week and Future-Proof Your Business? Here's How Tech and AI Make It Happen with Tom Altman
If tech overwhelms you but you know it could change the way you work and market—this episode is your gateway to clarity.
Tom Altman, longtime CIO/CTO, tech strategist, and AI advocate, joins me to talk about how small businesses can stop drowning in complexity and start using technology to scale smartly. From cutting proposal time in half to turning AI into your standard operating procedure assistant, Tom shares no-fluff insights that save time, reduce stress, and help you grow—even as a team of one.
We cover:
🎯 How Small Businesses Can Leverage Tech to Scale
• Why shiny tools aren’t the problem—it’s lack of systems
• The real reason to start documenting your processes now
• How to use AI to create SOPs (even if you hate writing them)
• The “system map” every business owner should create
🤖 AI Tools That Make Marketing and Ops Smarter
• Why Copilot might be the most underutilized asset in Microsoft 365
• How to use Zoom, Teams, or Meet to create transcriptions that write themselves
• Why ChatGPT, Gemini, and NotebookLM are more than content tools
• How to use AI as your “empathetic lens” to improve messaging
🛠 Security, Automation, and the Risks You Might Be Overlooking
• The overlooked danger of file access in AI-assisted workspaces
• Why standardizing permissions is critical (and often skipped)
• The dotted-line system Tom uses to track manual vs. automated processes
• How to create automations that check on your automations
📈 Scaling with Purpose: Marketing Lessons from a Tech Leader
• Tom’s biggest SEO mistake—and how to never get your dev site indexed by Google
• Why your “top 10 proposals” should live in a folder right now
• How AI can turn your best client work into templates and time-savers
• Why legacy systems still matter—and how to bridge the gap with AI
Whether you’re a solopreneur, marketer, or small team ready to compete with the big dogs, Tom offers clear and actionable tips to transform how you work with technology (even if you don’t love it).
“AI doesn’t take your place—it gives you more time to do the things only you can do.” – Tom Altman
Tom Altman’s contact info and resources
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomaltman/
Website: https://altuscxo.com/
Looking to leverage AI? Want better results? Want to think about what you want to leverage?
Check and see how I am using it for FREE on YouTube.
From "Holy cow, it can do that?" to "Wait, how does this work again?" – I've got all your AI curiosities covered. It's the perfect after-podcast snack for your tech-hungry brain.
Watch here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello and welcome back toImperfect Marketing.
(00:27):
I'm your host, kendra Korman,and today I am joined by Tom
Altman, and I'm super excitedbecause we're going to be
talking about something that Ihave a love-hate relationship
with, and that is tech, becauseI love how much easier it makes
my life, but I hate figuring itall out, so welcome.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you.
Well, you know, I always sayyou don't have to use technology
.
I don't know what you do, Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I know Like if technology goes down like I'm
like woohoo vacation, that's itso welcome.
Thank you again so much forbeing here.
Why don't you?
So you're a CIO.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yep, I kind of walked the line of CIO CTO.
I've been in technology forabout 25 years.
I quit the radio business toget into tech, learned to be a
web developer.
I always say I wasn't thatgreat, so then I ended up being
a manager.
When you can't do well, thenyou manage right.
So that took me down the roadof working in media businesses.
I worked for some people andthen I got into e-commerce about
(01:28):
15 years ago and did a couplestints with a couple companies
there, Got out of that, gotpushed out of that and started
doing fractional work.
So fractional CTO CIO kind ofwalks the line from there.
For me, my forte would be morein strategy, more in the things
that go down.
Again, I still continue to bethat good manager, but not maybe
the best practitioner.
(01:48):
So it's been fun, especiallyfor me learning a lot about AI
and all the things that comewith it.
But it's been fun because I'vedone a lot of SEO, marketing and
working for the media companiesand advertising agencies.
Along the way you pick up allkinds of fun.
It's been a good ride.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Okay, can I ask something that might be a stupid
question?
What's the difference between aCIO and a CTO?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I would say the biggest difference is CTO deals
with the software side a littlebit more, cio maybe a little on
the hardware side more.
So I've worked at companiesthat were less than 100 or 200
people, so usually you kind ofwalk both those lines.
As things get a little biggeryou tend to kind of have to
separate.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
All right, interesting.
I know I'm always working on mysoftware costs because they
just every year, they just keepgoing up and they get out of
control with the SaaS right.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean it's per seat Pretty soon.
Yeah, okay, we have two people,it's great.
Well, now we have 10, right,and now?
This isn't add on and thatisn't add on it.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We're not using that anymore.
Exactly, we're still paying forit.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Maybe we are but we still have the customers in
there.
We haven't taken them out yet.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Again, I love hate relationship from my perspective
.
I love tech, I love shinyobjects.
That's why I would have all thethings, because I love them and
I love playing with them and Ilove talking about them and new
things.
But I'm small right, and wecan't have all the things, even
(03:12):
though we want them all.
How do small businessesleverage technology to like
streamline their marketing,improve ROI, that type of stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
That's a great question.
I think we're moving into aworld now where that becomes
easier and easier.
Right With AI and automation,it really is becoming something
that's interesting.
I mean, you've probably donethis before already, but you
take a small business.
I know my wife runs a smallstorage company and she knows
that she needs to market.
(03:42):
So what do you do?
You start asking her questions.
You tell it your goal, you tellit who you are, what I am, and
then I always like to sayinterview me, ask me questions,
what did I forget to ask you soI can make this the most
effective thing?
And then you know, take thebest marketing concepts you know
and teach me.
You know, tell me what I needto do.
(04:03):
And I think this is one of themost interesting things, and
that does not mean it replacesexperts or replaces anything but
boy, when you know what youneed, if you think, if you want
to learn to do it yourself, andor you need to go to a company
and ask for a marketing firm tohelp you, you can never be too
educated, I think in that way.
So I love that part ofartificial intelligence and some
(04:23):
of the things that are comingright now.
They're just so helpful.
They educate you.
They teach you.
I don't know if you've used theGoogle LM platform, but you can
put a whole bunch ofinformation in there and it can
help you learn it as well.
I love it.
I think it's one of thegreatest things that's come
around since the internet,probably.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I love AI, Love, love , love AI.
I love, I love AI, Love, love,love AI.
I mean it saves me 30 to 40hours a week on average, which
is insane right, it sounds wrong, but it's you.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Know you to do this.
I'm paying you to do that.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And he struggled with the value that it would provide
.
He gets it now but he's like Iwish I had known more at the
beginning.
So I love that using it toeducate, because, no, it doesn't
replace experts, but knowing alittle bit more about what you
want or need going into itdoesn't hurt.
I mean, I've said numeroustimes if I had a dollar for
(05:34):
every person I talked to.
That was excuse my languagescrewed over by some other
marketing agency who promisedthe world I'd be rich and
retired.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
What I love about it is its ability to pivot as well.
So if you think about, like, Ijust think we as humans we're
very single track.
I know that, you know I like towear black t-shirts, I know
that I like to drive Volkswagensbecause that's what I do, but I
can't really put myself intosomeone else's shoes, and I
think that's another thing thatjust is amazing to me is I can
(06:07):
say what am I missing here?
You know, like, who isinterested in these things or
what's another angle for thistype of thing.
That is something that I wasjust terrible at.
I think we as humans there'svery few people that are truly
empathetic, and I think that's apiece of this whole marketing
puzzle that you need to figureout and to just have it be in
(06:28):
another person's tone, anotherage group's tone, any group that
you can imagine's tone.
I mean it's just magic when Isee that happen, and the same
thing you said with your client.
I mean that's how you learn, Ithink, by taking it and looking
at all the angles.
What am I missing?
I just love using that termwhen I'm trying to figure things
(06:49):
out with AI.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So I was writing a Google response to a Google
review for a client, because Iwas going through their Google
reviews and somebody was upsetabout something and it was like,
well, if they used us, theywouldn't have this problem,
right.
But I was like, okay, so itgave me a response and then I
(07:11):
said, all right, what?
Like I was thinking I mightwant to say, hey, if you used us
, you wouldn't have had thisproblem.
And they're like no, like hey,I just said no, I don't think
that that's a good idea.
It goes against your, yourbrand values and this and that,
and explained to me why Ishouldn't do that.
Now, keep in mind, I was on thefence as to whether or not I
(07:33):
should do it anyway, but it was,it was really good.
It's like yeah, no, I don'tthink you should do that.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
and I'm like thank you, I agree with you you know,
I think also to say, hey, howcan I turn this review because
you know, negative reviews arethe second best kind of views,
right, uh, so you know how do Iturn this over so that, yeah,
maybe that person's frustratedstill.
But if someone reads it like,how are they going to read that
and say, well, that seemscompassionate and the fact that
(08:00):
they're replying is awesome, youknow it's good, because it's
like, hey, we're not foreverybody right, like, but you
know we want to make it right,or you know, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, and there's only like so many times you can
say yes, but that's not reallyour fault.
I remember reading actually along time ago talking about what
you're mentioning was a longtime ago, I'm guessing it's
probably close to 10 years agothat negative reviews actually
sold more products than positivereviews on Amazon, because
they'd say it doesn't have thisbutton.
Oh, finally, I've been lookingfor something without that
feature, or it has this featureand I don't like it.
(08:31):
Oh good, I've been looking, youknow so.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
What do we do when we see five stars?
You know, this is a five stars,all five stars.
It's like well, that's just notpossible.
I don't believe it, right,until you see, I mean, someone
had to hate it, you know, forsome reason.
And when you see that, then Ithink it starts to be like oh
yeah, this is real.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's good.
It feels a little bit more real.
So, talking about AI, so Google, notebook, lm, you like that?
What other tools are you using?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I'm still a chat GPT guy right now.
I think I just got used to it,using it a lot.
I'm really trying hard to learnCopilot more and more because
it's in everyone you know.
You look at these companies andso many companies are using
Microsoft, so I've just beenlearning a ton about that.
I think that their next versionis coming out soon.
I think they're beta testing itnow and I think we're going to
(09:26):
see a lot of updates there.
I think the beauty of that isor the questions I get asked by
CEOs.
A lot is like I'm scared of mydata being taken, right.
So I love that about Copilotbecause it allows you to have
that world garden already.
So it's already.
You don't even have to moveyour data, you don't have to put
it anywhere.
So we have a lot of talks aboutthat and I think that's good.
(09:46):
So I think when Microsoft isreally good usually at version 3
, and when we get to version 3of Copilot, I'm pretty excited
about what I see there.
And then you add in all thePower Automate platform back and
stuff, things get reallyinteresting.
I think people underestimate ita lot.
There's a lot more there thanmeets the eye.
They've been doing theautomation game for a really
long time.
(10:07):
So I think if you're aMicrosoft shop, I think it's
something to keep your eye on.
You know so, I think.
And then you know a lot ofpeople.
You kind of are in a Microsoftor you're in a Google shop as
far as, like your backend goes,and so if you're in the
Microsoft shop, there's a lot tolook forward to there, and
Gemini is doing well too.
And then my son is into dataanalytics and data science and
(10:28):
he's explaining that he reallylikes X slash, twitter slash,
whatever it is called these days, and he's telling me that it's
got some pretty strong skills,especially in the analysis.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Some of my clients that do a lot of financial
analysis.
They like Wolfram Alpha, whichhas been interesting.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Anytime you have the maths, the maths love that.
So yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yes, I am a Microsoft shop, just in case anybody was
curious.
So I do have Copilot.
I pay extra for Copilot to beon my computer.
I've been learning a lot moreabout it.
I want to do a lot more with it, because I think that there's
just so much I haven't eventouched when it comes to it.
So much I haven't even touchedwhen it comes to it.
And it is built on ChatGPT,right.
(11:11):
So Copilot is ChatGPT.
It's just a different interface.
It's inside your Word, yourOutlook, your PowerPoint,
whatever that happens to be, andso I think that there's a lot
of power there.
So I'm loving it.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's very stuffy right now.
I think if you think stuffier,you'll get the answers that you
want.
But I do like also and I'm notsure how you've used it but the
Copilot.
You can turn that on duringmeetings and it does a heck of a
job transcribing and you canask it in real time if you had
to slip off for a secondmentally.
The other thing I like to comeback is it's really really handy
(11:45):
when I'm writing emails after ameeting that was transcribed.
Yeah right, so then it'll do areally good job of that and you
can ask those questions.
There was a detail about this.
I've forgotten what it was andit'll focus on that.
And again, like it's just, itlearns you and that's what these
things do.
They get better over time.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So I've been using Fathom as my note taker because
a lot of my clients been usingFathom as my note taker, because
a lot of my clients, Zoom istheir preferred meeting software
, so I end up in Zoom and so,yeah, so Fathom works with both
Teams Well, all three TeamsGoogle, Meet and Zoom.
So that seems to work.
So I definitely don't playenough with that aspect of it.
(12:26):
I've got a couple of clientsthat we do team stuff, but not
enough.
So I'll have to check that out.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
If you record the meeting, then it's all in there.
If you have Copilot, if you'rethe originator of the meeting,
you can just turn on the Copilotpiece and then that will be
running as well.
So, yeah, so there's kind of atwo-factor piece, but it's
really.
The summaries are really great.
Yeah, it's really interestingwhen you start to use it to kind
(12:53):
of figure out.
You know.
The other thing that Copilot'sreally good at is digging into
where your files are and findingfiles for you too.
So that's another thing to find.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Okay, you just sold me to spend more time in Copilot
because, yeah, where is thisfile?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I am a huge fan of Microsoft 365 because most of us
only use Outlook, powerpoint,excel.
You know we're using like fivedifferent tools, but there's
like 60 or something in there.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, I mean SharePoint's becoming very, very
powerful.
It's ugly still, it's clunky,but once you kind of get over
that, there's a lot of featuresto it.
I use it a lot.
You know, every time you builda SharePoint site you get a
folder repository that's kind offor that and you can add that
as a link to your OneDrive soyou can kind of have those in
(13:44):
your OneDrive when you're inFile Explorer too, and to me
that's super handy.
I don't have to go all the wayinto the SharePoint but I could
find the files that I need.
I really enjoy it.
I mean, I know everyone's not aMicrosoft fan, but you know,
the funny thing is is a few ofthe places that I've worked that
had Google Workspace.
Then they end up buyingMicrosoft tools because they
need them anyway.
So yeah, yeah, that's the toughpart.
(14:05):
I mean there's no doubt aboutGmail is definitely a more
superior tool than Outlook, butoutside that, the rest of the
tools are pretty darn good.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah Well, and I love Excel.
I mean, I use Excel all thetime and Google Sheets just
can't compare in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
But that just might be me, Definitely in the larger
data sets, but I worked at aplace that was a very Google
shop and so I learned a lot.
There's a lot of neat thingsyou can do with both programs,
like querying data, more like adatabase that you know, kind of
accessing things.
So there's a lot of advantagesin both places.
But there's a lot of coolfeatures.
But by far Excel can holdbigger file sizes, which is
(14:43):
probably what you're dealingwith.
A lot of the analytics that youmight be aware of Very cool.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Well, and I know a lot of people are very concerned
about security, I mean, but ifyou're trusting Microsoft with
your Excel and your Word doc,which is your entire business,
right, you should be able totrust Copilot as far as you can
trust any of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I think the hardest part about security when it
comes to that the Microsoftplatform, or any of them, is cut
this term it's used looselydata governance.
You really have to know who hasaccess to the data, Because
right now it's like I would sayit's security by obscurity.
It's seven layers deep into afolder, somewhere that no one's
going to dig into, but thatcopilot does dig into there.
(15:27):
So you know, if youaccidentally left the salary
spreadsheet somewhere whereeveryone could see it but just
couldn't find it, chat GPT willor, excuse me, copilot will
answer that question for you.
How much did we make last month, you know?
So you got to be really careful.
Security levels or securityaccess is something to be very,
very mindful in this kind of AIrule, and that goes for any of
(15:50):
the pieces of using any of theplatforms that I've accessed.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Oh, I love that tip because I think people have a
tendency to like give all theaccess or none of the access,
and the more detailed they getand the more complex it gets.
I've seen this at a couple ofclients.
They get really complex ontheir permissions and and it's
like then they forget who haswhat and they move on and don't
(16:16):
need it.
Or someone comes into theirrole new and they get all of
that person's access that theydidn't need.
Half of it, it's just yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, that happens, you know, and it's over time too
.
Sometimes the employees thathave been there a long time will
get.
You know they had sales access.
Now they're having warehouseaccess, you know, and now we're
giving them, you know, someother finance access and all of
a sudden they can make decisionsand do things that maybe we
didn't design it that way.
Or, you know, this is a newperson and he's going to be
(16:47):
doing exactly what Kendra'sdoing, so let's just give him
the same access.
Well, we forgot that like wayback when Kendra also had access
to the finances because sheused to do accounting and, you
know, marketing at the same time, because we only had 10 people
then.
So those are those littlethings that slip by.
If you're not careful, it justit'll catch you.
Especially, there's just alittle more gotchas in that data
(17:07):
security game with AI.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So interesting.
I'm horrible at it.
I'm just like access foreverybody.
Here's my one hidden folder.
But outside of that, yeah, it'sjust really intriguing because
it's very much about process.
It's really about making surethat you have standard operating
procedures, which I love.
Using AI to come up withstandard operating procedures,
right, like, hey, here's how Ido something, and you can even
just talk through it, take thetranscript of the talk and have
(17:40):
it, make it into it if it'sreally your process, or say, hey
, how would I go about doingthis?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It can even give you ideas about stuff you've never
done before which is so cool,you know, if you go into Teams
and you click on the calendarview, you can start a meeting
anytime with yourself, andthat'll do a screen recording
too.
So, like I would take it onestep further, because most of
these now are able to read andsee the pictures on the screen,
(18:06):
and it'll take it even one stepfurther.
So talk your way through it,just like you're talking about,
but it'll screen record it, youknow, and then it'll analyze
both pictures and the audio.
And then to your point, help meunderstand where I'm.
Where was I getting caught?
How would someone maybe notunderstand this?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I'm horrible at creating processes and standard
operating procedures, but I'm inlove with them, so I can't make
them myself, but thank goodnessfor AI.
Ai helps me out with it a tonand can really assist me in the
whole process of it, but I loveit.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, if you create yourself a template as well,
then it'll fill in the templatefrom you so you can have them
become actually standard.
We all have operatingprocedures, but it's nice if
they're more the same.
It's a beautiful thing for that.
And then what we're going tofind is, as these agents come
into play, which are kind oflike little bots that we can
(19:02):
build for these, they're goingto be able to read your standard
operating procedures andthey're going to be able to
execute on them for you.
It's too awful long.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It's moving so fast, like it just blows my mind.
But for those of you listeningand watching, like, take notes
here, because if you're notusing Microsoft, that's okay.
Google has a lot of the samethings in there and there's ways
to line everything up.
But I mean there are at least10 different things that are
(19:33):
going to save you hours thatwe're discussing here.
And I think one thing again onthose standard operating
procedures is even if you're ashop of one, even if it's just
you and your business, startthem now, start documenting that
so that when you get big enoughyou can start handing that
(19:55):
stuff off, because without themit's going to take you a ton of
time.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, and you forget that you're maybe not doing it
very consistently and you know,yet we're training people, but
they don't know.
I mean, if you're a marketingshop of one, what I would be
doing is keeping a list of mytop 10 proposals just my
favorite 10, and then put thoseinto a folder and use any one of
the to your point any one ofthe AIs to say here's my 10 best
(20:20):
proposals.
Now here's the data that I needfor this new proposal.
Let's write it like that, ormaybe you break it up by subject
matter so this is my arcadegame clients and this one's my
other people clients, and sokeep those together.
Wherever your proposals seem tobe similar, put those together
(20:40):
in your best ones.
What's my best work?
And let's use that as opposedto the first one you found and
then copying and renaming it.
Hey man, those are beautifulways that are just really
efficient.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Oh my gosh.
I love that, Okay.
So again, no matter whereyou're going, standard operating
procedures are hugely important, because I think it helps keep
you accountable.
Like you mentioned, you mightnot be doing it consistently.
There might be a lot ofexceptions.
How do you word those in?
Should there be exceptions,right?
And so how can you limit thoseso that you can train people to
(21:11):
hand it off eventually as youcontinue to grow?
So it's a lot easier to do itnow than it is later.
I will attest to that becauseI've been in business for over
11 years now and yeah, it addsup all the processes that are in
the background, and then howthey change is always so very
interesting.
But yeah, AI is just.
It is so easy to scale and savetime that it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And I also like to have my system map written down
as well.
So all the tools that you use,write those down and kind of
draw lines how they interact,because with that and the
processes, boy, you've got a lotof knowledge about your company
.
At that moment in time it'sreally easy.
Some people are visual learners, some people are audio learners
, so that's kind of a way foreveryone to kind of see it and
(21:59):
hear it.
It works really well.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I have a list of my systems but I don't have
anything where it shows how theyinteract, which is really
interesting, and a lot of mysystems don't interact or
they'll interact with, likemakecom I don't use.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Power Automate as much as I want.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So you would connect those two.
Then, if there's manualprocesses, that interact.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You write them down right.
I mean, what I usually use isthese dotted lines, Like if I'm
drawing a picture.
The dotted lines are justmanual, but at least I know that
there's things that arehappening there.
When I was doing a lot more webwork, you know a lot of
downloads from Google Analyticswas data files and then I
process them somewhere else andthat would have been a dotted
line.
So you can say that manualprocess.
(22:43):
If you're using a makecom, drawa regular line and maybe it
just goes one way right.
It doesn't come back into thesystem.
So you use the arrows on theend so that you can see that.
It's sometimes easier forpeople to see that when they're
trying to put two and twotogether later, Because maybe
what happens to me is I tend toforget those little details, you
don't write them down, thenthey just become a new one.
(23:03):
Oh, I forgot to write that Allthe time.
Yeah, I mean as the emails comein.
Those can be manual, but atleast write that down.
They come in via email becausea lot of these tools now are
really accessing email and theycan grab those attachments and
then they can press for you.
If it's not able to do it now,it will be able to do it soon
and those are going to be timesavers.
To get one of you Look at AI ashelpers right, it just helps
(23:27):
you do things.
Proposal time can get cut downfrom you know you want to make a
great proposal and you'reputting a couple hours into that
.
Well, if you already have thegreat proposals now I'm using
that as a template you couldprobably get that down to 15 or
20 minutes pretty easily rightafter a little while, yep, well,
because you know what you doand, again, you're involved in
that process.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Ai is not yet at the point where you can't be
involved in the process.
Like you have to be involved tosome extent in the review
process.
Like you're not just saying, oh, an email comes in someone
asking for a proposal and itautomatically creates it and
sends it out.
You do not want to be doingthat.
Can I do it?
Yeah, you can, but I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, I'd like to go to draft mode.
Yeah, exactly so.
You just never know.
But the little research, oh mygosh, the research that I can
help you do too.
It's just amazing.
You know things that maybe thecustomer is not doing yet.
You know, do some competitiveanalysis for that.
There's some really great toolsfor that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Now some of you guys might be wondering why are we
talking about technology when itcomes to marketing?
Well, because technology is atthe core of almost everything we
do marketing, and traditionalmarketing too.
Right, because there's stilltasks and projects that need
managed and all that stuff.
Technology makes it so mucheasier.
Technology can educate you canchallenge, you, can really aid
(24:47):
you in your process, and I thinkthat that's so important and
that's why I have Tom here todaytalking about all of this.
In case you're like, where'sthe marketing?
The marketing is there, likeit's taken notes from the client
meeting or from your brain, sothat there's no lost in
translation.
Right, when you're taking thenotes, nothing is missed and it
(25:11):
just, it really truly doesstreamline all of the processes.
Again, like I said, it saves me30 to 40 hours a week on
average, which is insane.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Little nuances of meetings or things.
You just don't want to forgetabout them.
I find it super helpful for me.
My mind is scattered most ofthe time, so when I can build my
to-do list and make my notesfrom that, it's been super
helpful.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We've talked about a lot of things and I know that
you're in the CIO, cto space,but this show is called
Imperfect Marketing, becausemarketing is anything but a
perfect science.
What has been your biggestmarketing lesson learned?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, I've spent a lot of time trying to work SEO
or websites over the years and Ithink of a couple things.
I think one when you'rebuilding new websites for people
, you know we tend to put thesedevelopment websites up.
A couple of companies that Iworked for had many, many
products, so we were in thee-commerce space.
(26:08):
One thing that I just haveburned all over myself is we
were building development sitesbut then we didn't put out the
don't index, don't follow on thedevelopment site.
So pretty soon we're doingGoogle searches and people are
like calling because they can't,they didn't know where their
order was or something.
So we had gotten our website,our development website, indexed
(26:31):
.
So people were ordering on thedevelopment site and didn't
realize that it was that.
Nor did we.
So you know, I learned reallyearly now is no matter what
Google's so efficient these daysabout indexing websites.
Before you had to beg them tocome and see it right, but now
it's become so efficient.
You just got to really becareful of what sites you have
(26:53):
indexed.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
That backs up that whole need for standard
operating procedures andprocesses and checklists and
procedures that go along with it.
And again, if you don't thinkof it, AI probably would have.
What am I missing here?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
We can automate it, because I had recently built a
development site for a clientand I had asked the people that
were doing the work for me hey,make sure you put that on there.
They didn't.
I went and manually checked itbecause I have the scars.
But how great would that be, Imean because everybody makes
mistakes, right.
So, like you know, maybe justin your process, have something
(27:28):
that goes out there and takes apeek and make sure every week,
every day, it can automaticallycheck it.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So anything you can automate that way, and that's
something that doesn't needhuman supervision, right, if
it's checking it and stuff likethat, you know it's something
that you can just take off yourplate and not need to worry
about.
But again, that's where thatprocess or standard operating
procedure comes into play,because if something ever broke
(27:54):
with automation or somethinglike that, you'd understand why
it's there.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I love this.
I could talk to you for liketwo more hours minimum.
There's so much value in thetech, especially for small
businesses, that will allow usto scale and compete with much
larger organizations and allowus give us time to do the stuff
that AI can't do that creativethinking.
Ai is not coming up with newthings, but you can, and you can
(28:19):
do that even better if you havetime, and the way to get time
is through technology andthrough automation and all of
the wonderful things that itdoes.
Again, I have a love-haterelationship.
I get really excited.
I usually hate it when thebills start coming in and I find
out how much SharePoint spaceI've used, which I may have
found out this week.
But this has been an amazingconversation.
(28:40):
I hope all of you guys havelearned something new or this
has motivated you to dosomething you've been putting
off, aka procedures that youtake something away from this
that's going to hopefully saveyou some time and effort.
Thank you, tom, so much forjoining me.
I really appreciate the timeFor all of you those listening
(29:00):
and watching if you would learnsomething, rate and subscribe.
Subscribe, because that wouldreally help me wherever you're
listening or watching, and untilnext time.
Have a great rest of your day.
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello and welcome back toImperfect Marketing.
(00:27):
I'm your host, kendra Korman,and today I am joined by Tom
Altman, and I'm super excitedbecause we're going to be
talking about something that Ihave a love-hate relationship
with, and that is tech, becauseI love how much easier it makes
my life, but I hate figuring itall out, so welcome.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you.
Well, you know, I always sayyou don't have to use technology
.
I don't know what you do, Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I know Like if technology goes down like I'm
like woohoo vacation, that's itso welcome.
Thank you again so much forbeing here.
Why don't you?
So you're a CIO.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yep, I kind of walked the line of CIO CTO.
I've been in technology forabout 25 years.
I quit the radio business toget into tech, learned to be a
web developer.
I always say I wasn't thatgreat, so then I ended up being
a manager.
When you can't do well, thenyou manage right.
So that took me down the roadof working in media businesses.
I worked for some people andthen I got into e-commerce about
(01:28):
15 years ago and did a couplestints with a couple companies
there, Got out of that, gotpushed out of that and started
doing fractional work.
So fractional CTO CIO kind ofwalks the line from there.
For me, my forte would be morein strategy, more in the things
that go down.
Again, I still continue to bethat good manager, but not maybe
the best practitioner.
(01:48):
So it's been fun, especiallyfor me learning a lot about AI
and all the things that comewith it.
But it's been fun because I'vedone a lot of SEO, marketing and
working for the media companiesand advertising agencies.
Along the way you pick up allkinds of fun.
It's been a good ride.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Okay, can I ask something that might be a stupid
question?
What's the difference between aCIO and a CTO?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I would say the biggest difference is CTO deals
with the software side a littlebit more, cio maybe a little on
the hardware side more.
So I've worked at companiesthat were less than 100 or 200
people, so usually you kind ofwalk both those lines.
As things get a little biggeryou tend to kind of have to
separate.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
All right, interesting.
I know I'm always working on mysoftware costs because they
just every year, they just keepgoing up and they get out of
control with the SaaS right.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean it's per seat Pretty soon.
Yeah, okay, we have two people,it's great.
Well, now we have 10, right,and now?
This isn't add on and thatisn't add on it.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We're not using that anymore.
Exactly, we're still paying forit.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Maybe we are but we still have the customers in
there.
We haven't taken them out yet.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Again, I love hate relationship from my perspective
.
I love tech, I love shinyobjects.
That's why I would have all thethings, because I love them and
I love playing with them and Ilove talking about them and new
things.
But I'm small right, and wecan't have all the things, even
(03:12):
though we want them all.
How do small businessesleverage technology to like
streamline their marketing,improve ROI, that type of stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
That's a great question.
I think we're moving into aworld now where that becomes
easier and easier.
Right With AI and automation,it really is becoming something
that's interesting.
I mean, you've probably donethis before already, but you
take a small business.
I know my wife runs a smallstorage company and she knows
that she needs to market.
(03:42):
So what do you do?
You start asking her questions.
You tell it your goal, you tellit who you are, what I am, and
then I always like to sayinterview me, ask me questions,
what did I forget to ask you soI can make this the most
effective thing?
And then you know, take thebest marketing concepts you know
and teach me.
You know, tell me what I needto do.
(04:03):
And I think this is one of themost interesting things, and
that does not mean it replacesexperts or replaces anything but
boy, when you know what youneed, if you think, if you want
to learn to do it yourself, andor you need to go to a company
and ask for a marketing firm tohelp you, you can never be too
educated, I think in that way.
So I love that part ofartificial intelligence and some
(04:23):
of the things that are comingright now.
They're just so helpful.
They educate you.
They teach you.
I don't know if you've used theGoogle LM platform, but you can
put a whole bunch ofinformation in there and it can
help you learn it as well.
I love it.
I think it's one of thegreatest things that's come
around since the internet,probably.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I love AI, Love, love , love AI.
I love, I love AI, Love, love,love AI.
I mean it saves me 30 to 40hours a week on average, which
is insane right, it sounds wrong, but it's you.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Know you to do this.
I'm paying you to do that.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And he struggled with the value that it would provide
.
He gets it now but he's like Iwish I had known more at the
beginning.
So I love that using it toeducate, because, no, it doesn't
replace experts, but knowing alittle bit more about what you
want or need going into itdoesn't hurt.
I mean, I've said numeroustimes if I had a dollar for
(05:34):
every person I talked to.
That was excuse my languagescrewed over by some other
marketing agency who promisedthe world I'd be rich and
retired.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
What I love about it is its ability to pivot as well.
So if you think about, like, Ijust think we as humans we're
very single track.
I know that, you know I like towear black t-shirts, I know
that I like to drive Volkswagensbecause that's what I do, but I
can't really put myself intosomeone else's shoes, and I
think that's another thing thatjust is amazing to me is I can
(06:07):
say what am I missing here?
You know, like, who isinterested in these things or
what's another angle for thistype of thing.
That is something that I wasjust terrible at.
I think we as humans there'svery few people that are truly
empathetic, and I think that's apiece of this whole marketing
puzzle that you need to figureout and to just have it be in
(06:28):
another person's tone, anotherage group's tone, any group that
you can imagine's tone.
I mean it's just magic when Isee that happen, and the same
thing you said with your client.
I mean that's how you learn, Ithink, by taking it and looking
at all the angles.
What am I missing?
I just love using that termwhen I'm trying to figure things
(06:49):
out with AI.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So I was writing a Google response to a Google
review for a client, because Iwas going through their Google
reviews and somebody was upsetabout something and it was like,
well, if they used us, theywouldn't have this problem,
right.
But I was like, okay, so itgave me a response and then I
(07:11):
said, all right, what?
Like I was thinking I mightwant to say, hey, if you used us
, you wouldn't have had thisproblem.
And they're like no, like hey,I just said no, I don't think
that that's a good idea.
It goes against your, yourbrand values and this and that,
and explained to me why Ishouldn't do that.
Now, keep in mind, I was on thefence as to whether or not I
(07:33):
should do it anyway, but it was,it was really good.
It's like yeah, no, I don'tthink you should do that.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
and I'm like thank you, I agree with you you know,
I think also to say, hey, howcan I turn this review because
you know, negative reviews arethe second best kind of views,
right, uh, so you know how do Iturn this over so that, yeah,
maybe that person's frustratedstill.
But if someone reads it like,how are they going to read that
and say, well, that seemscompassionate and the fact that
(08:00):
they're replying is awesome, youknow it's good, because it's
like, hey, we're not foreverybody right, like, but you
know we want to make it right,or you know, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, and there's only like so many times you can
say yes, but that's not reallyour fault.
I remember reading actually along time ago talking about what
you're mentioning was a longtime ago, I'm guessing it's
probably close to 10 years agothat negative reviews actually
sold more products than positivereviews on Amazon, because
they'd say it doesn't have thisbutton.
Oh, finally, I've been lookingfor something without that
feature, or it has this featureand I don't like it.
(08:31):
Oh good, I've been looking, youknow so.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
What do we do when we see five stars?
You know, this is a five stars,all five stars.
It's like well, that's just notpossible.
I don't believe it, right,until you see, I mean, someone
had to hate it, you know, forsome reason.
And when you see that, then Ithink it starts to be like oh
yeah, this is real.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's good.
It feels a little bit more real.
So, talking about AI, so Google, notebook, lm, you like that?
What other tools are you using?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I'm still a chat GPT guy right now.
I think I just got used to it,using it a lot.
I'm really trying hard to learnCopilot more and more because
it's in everyone you know.
You look at these companies andso many companies are using
Microsoft, so I've just beenlearning a ton about that.
I think that their next versionis coming out soon.
I think they're beta testing itnow and I think we're going to
(09:26):
see a lot of updates there.
I think the beauty of that isor the questions I get asked by
CEOs.
A lot is like I'm scared of mydata being taken, right.
So I love that about Copilotbecause it allows you to have
that world garden already.
So it's already.
You don't even have to moveyour data, you don't have to put
it anywhere.
So we have a lot of talks aboutthat and I think that's good.
(09:46):
So I think when Microsoft isreally good usually at version 3
, and when we get to version 3of Copilot, I'm pretty excited
about what I see there.
And then you add in all thePower Automate platform back and
stuff, things get reallyinteresting.
I think people underestimate ita lot.
There's a lot more there thanmeets the eye.
They've been doing theautomation game for a really
long time.
(10:07):
So I think if you're aMicrosoft shop, I think it's
something to keep your eye on.
You know so, I think.
And then you know a lot ofpeople.
You kind of are in a Microsoftor you're in a Google shop as
far as, like your backend goes,and so if you're in the
Microsoft shop, there's a lot tolook forward to there, and
Gemini is doing well too.
And then my son is into dataanalytics and data science and
(10:28):
he's explaining that he reallylikes X slash, twitter slash,
whatever it is called these days, and he's telling me that it's
got some pretty strong skills,especially in the analysis.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Some of my clients that do a lot of financial
analysis.
They like Wolfram Alpha, whichhas been interesting.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Anytime you have the maths, the maths love that.
So yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yes, I am a Microsoft shop, just in case anybody was
curious.
So I do have Copilot.
I pay extra for Copilot to beon my computer.
I've been learning a lot moreabout it.
I want to do a lot more with it, because I think that there's
just so much I haven't eventouched when it comes to it.
So much I haven't even touchedwhen it comes to it.
And it is built on ChatGPT,right.
(11:11):
So Copilot is ChatGPT.
It's just a different interface.
It's inside your Word, yourOutlook, your PowerPoint,
whatever that happens to be, andso I think that there's a lot
of power there.
So I'm loving it.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's very stuffy right now.
I think if you think stuffier,you'll get the answers that you
want.
But I do like also and I'm notsure how you've used it but the
Copilot.
You can turn that on duringmeetings and it does a heck of a
job transcribing and you canask it in real time if you had
to slip off for a secondmentally.
The other thing I like to comeback is it's really really handy
(11:45):
when I'm writing emails after ameeting that was transcribed.
Yeah right, so then it'll do areally good job of that and you
can ask those questions.
There was a detail about this.
I've forgotten what it was andit'll focus on that.
And again, like it's just, itlearns you and that's what these
things do.
They get better over time.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So I've been using Fathom as my note taker because
a lot of my clients been usingFathom as my note taker, because
a lot of my clients, Zoom istheir preferred meeting software
, so I end up in Zoom and so,yeah, so Fathom works with both
Teams Well, all three TeamsGoogle, Meet and Zoom.
So that seems to work.
So I definitely don't playenough with that aspect of it.
(12:26):
I've got a couple of clientsthat we do team stuff, but not
enough.
So I'll have to check that out.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
If you record the meeting, then it's all in there.
If you have Copilot, if you'rethe originator of the meeting,
you can just turn on the Copilotpiece and then that will be
running as well.
So, yeah, so there's kind of atwo-factor piece, but it's
really.
The summaries are really great.
Yeah, it's really interestingwhen you start to use it to kind
(12:53):
of figure out.
You know.
The other thing that Copilot'sreally good at is digging into
where your files are and findingfiles for you too.
So that's another thing to find.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Okay, you just sold me to spend more time in Copilot
because, yeah, where is thisfile?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I am a huge fan of Microsoft 365 because most of us
only use Outlook, powerpoint,excel.
You know we're using like fivedifferent tools, but there's
like 60 or something in there.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, I mean SharePoint's becoming very, very
powerful.
It's ugly still, it's clunky,but once you kind of get over
that, there's a lot of featuresto it.
I use it a lot.
You know, every time you builda SharePoint site you get a
folder repository that's kind offor that and you can add that
as a link to your OneDrive soyou can kind of have those in
(13:44):
your OneDrive when you're inFile Explorer too, and to me
that's super handy.
I don't have to go all the wayinto the SharePoint but I could
find the files that I need.
I really enjoy it.
I mean, I know everyone's not aMicrosoft fan, but you know,
the funny thing is is a few ofthe places that I've worked that
had Google Workspace.
Then they end up buyingMicrosoft tools because they
need them anyway.
So yeah, yeah, that's the toughpart.
(14:05):
I mean there's no doubt aboutGmail is definitely a more
superior tool than Outlook, butoutside that, the rest of the
tools are pretty darn good.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah Well, and I love Excel.
I mean, I use Excel all thetime and Google Sheets just
can't compare in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
But that just might be me, Definitely in the larger
data sets, but I worked at aplace that was a very Google
shop and so I learned a lot.
There's a lot of neat thingsyou can do with both programs,
like querying data, more like adatabase that you know, kind of
accessing things.
So there's a lot of advantagesin both places.
But there's a lot of coolfeatures.
But by far Excel can holdbigger file sizes, which is
(14:43):
probably what you're dealingwith.
A lot of the analytics that youmight be aware of Very cool.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Well, and I know a lot of people are very concerned
about security, I mean, but ifyou're trusting Microsoft with
your Excel and your Word doc,which is your entire business,
right, you should be able totrust Copilot as far as you can
trust any of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I think the hardest part about security when it
comes to that the Microsoftplatform, or any of them, is cut
this term it's used looselydata governance.
You really have to know who hasaccess to the data, Because
right now it's like I would sayit's security by obscurity.
It's seven layers deep into afolder, somewhere that no one's
going to dig into, but thatcopilot does dig into there.
(15:27):
So you know, if youaccidentally left the salary
spreadsheet somewhere whereeveryone could see it but just
couldn't find it, chat GPT willor, excuse me, copilot will
answer that question for you.
How much did we make last month, you know?
So you got to be really careful.
Security levels or securityaccess is something to be very,
very mindful in this kind of AIrule, and that goes for any of
(15:50):
the pieces of using any of theplatforms that I've accessed.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Oh, I love that tip because I think people have a
tendency to like give all theaccess or none of the access,
and the more detailed they getand the more complex it gets.
I've seen this at a couple ofclients.
They get really complex ontheir permissions and and it's
like then they forget who haswhat and they move on and don't
(16:16):
need it.
Or someone comes into theirrole new and they get all of
that person's access that theydidn't need.
Half of it, it's just yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, that happens, you know, and it's over time too
.
Sometimes the employees thathave been there a long time will
get.
You know they had sales access.
Now they're having warehouseaccess, you know, and now we're
giving them, you know, someother finance access and all of
a sudden they can make decisionsand do things that maybe we
didn't design it that way.
Or, you know, this is a newperson and he's going to be
(16:47):
doing exactly what Kendra'sdoing, so let's just give him
the same access.
Well, we forgot that like wayback when Kendra also had access
to the finances because sheused to do accounting and, you
know, marketing at the same time, because we only had 10 people
then.
So those are those littlethings that slip by.
If you're not careful, it justit'll catch you.
Especially, there's just alittle more gotchas in that data
(17:07):
security game with AI.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So interesting.
I'm horrible at it.
I'm just like access foreverybody.
Here's my one hidden folder.
But outside of that, yeah, it'sjust really intriguing because
it's very much about process.
It's really about making surethat you have standard operating
procedures, which I love.
Using AI to come up withstandard operating procedures,
right, like, hey, here's how Ido something, and you can even
just talk through it, take thetranscript of the talk and have
(17:40):
it, make it into it if it'sreally your process, or say, hey
, how would I go about doingthis?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It can even give you ideas about stuff you've never
done before which is so cool,you know, if you go into Teams
and you click on the calendarview, you can start a meeting
anytime with yourself, andthat'll do a screen recording
too.
So, like I would take it onestep further, because most of
these now are able to read andsee the pictures on the screen,
(18:06):
and it'll take it even one stepfurther.
So talk your way through it,just like you're talking about,
but it'll screen record it, youknow, and then it'll analyze
both pictures and the audio.
And then to your point, help meunderstand where I'm.
Where was I getting caught?
How would someone maybe notunderstand this?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I'm horrible at creating processes and standard
operating procedures, but I'm inlove with them, so I can't make
them myself, but thank goodnessfor AI.
Ai helps me out with it a tonand can really assist me in the
whole process of it, but I loveit.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, if you create yourself a template as well,
then it'll fill in the templatefrom you so you can have them
become actually standard.
We all have operatingprocedures, but it's nice if
they're more the same.
It's a beautiful thing for that.
And then what we're going tofind is, as these agents come
into play, which are kind oflike little bots that we can
(19:02):
build for these, they're goingto be able to read your standard
operating procedures andthey're going to be able to
execute on them for you.
It's too awful long.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It's moving so fast, like it just blows my mind.
But for those of you listeningand watching, like, take notes
here, because if you're notusing Microsoft, that's okay.
Google has a lot of the samethings in there and there's ways
to line everything up.
But I mean there are at least10 different things that are
(19:33):
going to save you hours thatwe're discussing here.
And I think one thing again onthose standard operating
procedures is even if you're ashop of one, even if it's just
you and your business, startthem now, start documenting that
so that when you get big enoughyou can start handing that
(19:55):
stuff off, because without themit's going to take you a ton of
time.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, and you forget that you're maybe not doing it
very consistently and you know,yet we're training people, but
they don't know.
I mean, if you're a marketingshop of one, what I would be
doing is keeping a list of mytop 10 proposals just my
favorite 10, and then put thoseinto a folder and use any one of
the to your point any one ofthe AIs to say here's my 10 best
(20:20):
proposals.
Now here's the data that I needfor this new proposal.
Let's write it like that, ormaybe you break it up by subject
matter so this is my arcadegame clients and this one's my
other people clients, and sokeep those together.
Wherever your proposals seem tobe similar, put those together
(20:40):
in your best ones.
What's my best work?
And let's use that as opposedto the first one you found and
then copying and renaming it.
Hey man, those are beautifulways that are just really
efficient.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Oh my gosh.
I love that, Okay.
So again, no matter whereyou're going, standard operating
procedures are hugely important, because I think it helps keep
you accountable.
Like you mentioned, you mightnot be doing it consistently.
There might be a lot ofexceptions.
How do you word those in?
Should there be exceptions,right?
And so how can you limit thoseso that you can train people to
(21:11):
hand it off eventually as youcontinue to grow?
So it's a lot easier to do itnow than it is later.
I will attest to that becauseI've been in business for over
11 years now and yeah, it addsup all the processes that are in
the background, and then howthey change is always so very
interesting.
But yeah, AI is just.
It is so easy to scale and savetime that it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And I also like to have my system map written down
as well.
So all the tools that you use,write those down and kind of
draw lines how they interact,because with that and the
processes, boy, you've got a lotof knowledge about your company
.
At that moment in time it'sreally easy.
Some people are visual learners, some people are audio learners
, so that's kind of a way foreveryone to kind of see it and
(21:59):
hear it.
It works really well.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I have a list of my systems but I don't have
anything where it shows how theyinteract, which is really
interesting, and a lot of mysystems don't interact or
they'll interact with, likemakecom I don't use.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Power Automate as much as I want.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So you would connect those two.
Then, if there's manualprocesses, that interact.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You write them down right.
I mean, what I usually use isthese dotted lines, Like if I'm
drawing a picture.
The dotted lines are justmanual, but at least I know that
there's things that arehappening there.
When I was doing a lot more webwork, you know a lot of
downloads from Google Analyticswas data files and then I
process them somewhere else andthat would have been a dotted
line.
So you can say that manualprocess.
(22:43):
If you're using a makecom, drawa regular line and maybe it
just goes one way right.
It doesn't come back into thesystem.
So you use the arrows on theend so that you can see that.
It's sometimes easier forpeople to see that when they're
trying to put two and twotogether later, Because maybe
what happens to me is I tend toforget those little details, you
don't write them down, thenthey just become a new one.
(23:03):
Oh, I forgot to write that Allthe time.
Yeah, I mean as the emails comein.
Those can be manual, but atleast write that down.
They come in via email becausea lot of these tools now are
really accessing email and theycan grab those attachments and
then they can press for you.
If it's not able to do it now,it will be able to do it soon
and those are going to be timesavers.
To get one of you Look at AI ashelpers right, it just helps
(23:27):
you do things.
Proposal time can get cut downfrom you know you want to make a
great proposal and you'reputting a couple hours into that
.
Well, if you already have thegreat proposals now I'm using
that as a template you couldprobably get that down to 15 or
20 minutes pretty easily rightafter a little while, yep, well,
because you know what you doand, again, you're involved in
that process.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Ai is not yet at the point where you can't be
involved in the process.
Like you have to be involved tosome extent in the review
process.
Like you're not just saying, oh, an email comes in someone
asking for a proposal and itautomatically creates it and
sends it out.
You do not want to be doingthat.
Can I do it?
Yeah, you can, but I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, I'd like to go to draft mode.
Yeah, exactly so.
You just never know.
But the little research, oh mygosh, the research that I can
help you do too.
It's just amazing.
You know things that maybe thecustomer is not doing yet.
You know, do some competitiveanalysis for that.
There's some really great toolsfor that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Now some of you guys might be wondering why are we
talking about technology when itcomes to marketing?
Well, because technology is atthe core of almost everything we
do marketing, and traditionalmarketing too.
Right, because there's stilltasks and projects that need
managed and all that stuff.
Technology makes it so mucheasier.
Technology can educate you canchallenge, you, can really aid
(24:47):
you in your process, and I thinkthat that's so important and
that's why I have Tom here todaytalking about all of this.
In case you're like, where'sthe marketing?
The marketing is there, likeit's taken notes from the client
meeting or from your brain, sothat there's no lost in
translation.
Right, when you're taking thenotes, nothing is missed and it
(25:11):
just, it really truly doesstreamline all of the processes.
Again, like I said, it saves me30 to 40 hours a week on
average, which is insane.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Little nuances of meetings or things.
You just don't want to forgetabout them.
I find it super helpful for me.
My mind is scattered most ofthe time, so when I can build my
to-do list and make my notesfrom that, it's been super
helpful.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We've talked about a lot of things and I know that
you're in the CIO, cto space,but this show is called
Imperfect Marketing, becausemarketing is anything but a
perfect science.
What has been your biggestmarketing lesson learned?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, I've spent a lot of time trying to work SEO
or websites over the years and Ithink of a couple things.
I think one when you'rebuilding new websites for people
, you know we tend to put thesedevelopment websites up.
A couple of companies that Iworked for had many, many
products, so we were in thee-commerce space.
(26:08):
One thing that I just haveburned all over myself is we
were building development sitesbut then we didn't put out the
don't index, don't follow on thedevelopment site.
So pretty soon we're doingGoogle searches and people are
like calling because they can't,they didn't know where their
order was or something.
So we had gotten our website,our development website, indexed
(26:31):
.
So people were ordering on thedevelopment site and didn't
realize that it was that.
Nor did we.
So you know, I learned reallyearly now is no matter what
Google's so efficient these daysabout indexing websites.
Before you had to beg them tocome and see it right, but now
it's become so efficient.
You just got to really becareful of what sites you have
(26:53):
indexed.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
That backs up that whole need for standard
operating procedures andprocesses and checklists and
procedures that go along with it.
And again, if you don't thinkof it, AI probably would have.
What am I missing here?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
We can automate it, because I had recently built a
development site for a clientand I had asked the people that
were doing the work for me hey,make sure you put that on there.
They didn't.
I went and manually checked itbecause I have the scars.
But how great would that be, Imean because everybody makes
mistakes, right.
So, like you know, maybe justin your process, have something
(27:28):
that goes out there and takes apeek and make sure every week,
every day, it can automaticallycheck it.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So anything you can automate that way, and that's
something that doesn't needhuman supervision, right, if
it's checking it and stuff likethat, you know it's something
that you can just take off yourplate and not need to worry
about.
But again, that's where thatprocess or standard operating
procedure comes into play,because if something ever broke
(27:54):
with automation or somethinglike that, you'd understand why
it's there.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I love this.
I could talk to you for liketwo more hours minimum.
There's so much value in thetech, especially for small
businesses, that will allow usto scale and compete with much
larger organizations and allowus give us time to do the stuff
that AI can't do that creativethinking.
Ai is not coming up with newthings, but you can, and you can
(28:19):
do that even better if you havetime, and the way to get time
is through technology andthrough automation and all of
the wonderful things that itdoes.
Again, I have a love-haterelationship.
I get really excited.
I usually hate it when thebills start coming in and I find
out how much SharePoint spaceI've used, which I may have
found out this week.
But this has been an amazingconversation.
(28:40):
I hope all of you guys havelearned something new or this
has motivated you to dosomething you've been putting
off, aka procedures that youtake something away from this
that's going to hopefully saveyou some time and effort.
Thank you, tom, so much forjoining me.
I really appreciate the timeFor all of you those listening
(29:00):
and watching if you would learnsomething, rate and subscribe.
Subscribe, because that wouldreally help me wherever you're
listening or watching, and untilnext time.
Have a great rest of your day.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.