May 25, 2025 • 32 mins
Segment 1 with Chuck Wisner starts at 0.00.
Have we lost the art of conversation in work and life- seems like we communicate more often through text and emails and other asynchronous methods. What are we losing and how can we become more effective?
Chuck Wisner is the author of "The Art of Conscious Conversations, Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact"". He is a coach and speaker focusing on the lost art of conversations. His theories of the why, how, and what of conversations deeply dive into their DNA and introduce new tools and practices that transform how we can think about and be in them more successfully. He has spent thirty years as a trusted advisor to leaders, their teams, and their families in highprofile companies, including Google, Rivian, Apple, Tesla, Harvard Business School, Ford, and Chrysler.
Segment 2 with Debra Andrews starts at 19:06.
How can your company use AI in your marketing to attract more customers?
Debra Andrews is the President and Founder of Marketri, a strategic marketing consulting firm that specializes in serving middle market, growth-oriented B2B companies. With 25 years of marketing experience and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Maryland.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Have we lost the art of conversation in work and life- seems like we communicate more often through text and emails and other asynchronous methods. What are we losing and how can we become more effective?
Chuck Wisner is the author of "The Art of Conscious Conversations, Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact"". He is a coach and speaker focusing on the lost art of conversations. His theories of the why, how, and what of conversations deeply dive into their DNA and introduce new tools and practices that transform how we can think about and be in them more successfully. He has spent thirty years as a trusted advisor to leaders, their teams, and their families in highprofile companies, including Google, Rivian, Apple, Tesla, Harvard Business School, Ford, and Chrysler.
Segment 2 with Debra Andrews starts at 19:06.
How can your company use AI in your marketing to attract more customers?
Debra Andrews is the President and Founder of Marketri, a strategic marketing consulting firm that specializes in serving middle market, growth-oriented B2B companies. With 25 years of marketing experience and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Maryland.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now a the air with your host,
Barry Maltz.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
this is show eight hundred and thirty two. Well, have
we lost the art of conversation in work and life?
It seems like we communicate more and more often through
text and emails and other asynchronous methods. So what are
(00:38):
we losing? My first guest is Chuck Weisner, who is
the author of the Art of Conscious Conversations, Transforming how
we talk, listen, and interact. He's a coach and speaker
folks on the Lost art of conversations. His theories of
the why, how, in what of conversations deeply dive into
their DNA and introduce new tools practices that transformed how
(01:02):
we think about and be in them more successfully. He
spent thirty years as trust advisor. He's worked with Google, ribbyan, Apple,
Harvard Business School, Ford, and Chrysler. Chuck, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So why is the quality of our conversations so much
worse than they used to be?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, I think where we can.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Just start right?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Where to start?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Well, I do think there's been certainly the onslaught of
social media and iPhones and texting an email even sort
of has a huge impact on the quality of our conversations.
But I'll back it up a little bit and say,
we actually learned conversations through our families and cultures, and
are never really taught the DNA of conversations, how they
(01:51):
work and how.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
We can do them better.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So I think even before we can talk about how
can we how do we use texts and emails more
efficiently so we don't get ourselves in trouble, we can
back up and go, let's really understand how conversations work
and learn things.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
That we never knew so we can hear them and
see them differently.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I guess that's really true. We learned conversations depending on
how our parents communicate and our families communicated. Of course,
some families and parents are better than others.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Absolutely, Some people communicate.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
By shouting at each other, right, that's their language of love.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
That's right, right, Well, my family, my wife's family couldn't
be any more different. My family was, you know, five kids,
a lot of noise, you know, lower middle class, a
lot going on, dad working two jobs, and there was
always noise and arguments between me and my siblings. And
my wife had My wife had a family, Her father
was an admiral in the navy, and they were you know, good,
(02:52):
good New England folks, and they were very quiet, a little.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
More disciplined, a little more disciplined.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, right, yes, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
When you say that it dives deep into our DNA conversations,
we never think of it that way. What do you
mean by that?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Okay, so that what it means is that we actually
we think of just oh, we're in a conversation, but
in fact, there are different kinds of conversations. There's conversations
where we coordinate action with other people.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I call that the commandment conversation.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
There are conversations where we're trying to collaborate and learn
from each other. We aren't taught very well how to
do that. We live in our stories. We have stories
about ourselves, we have stories about other people. Stories are
a beautiful thing, but there's also a dark side to stories.
Where we have stories that don't serve us well. And
then there's the creative piece of the wonder of what's possible.
(03:47):
So all those things are ways that we're in conversation,
but we don't distinguish between them. And so when we
learn that, oh wait a minute, what is the story
I'm telling?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And how do I do that with other people? And
how do I create what do I want to agree to?
That there's a process there that we aren't aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know, it's interesting to me because as I think
of myself and conversations, being a former motivational speaker, I'm
really good at telling stories and I'm really lousy at
listening to other people. So it's kind of like a
one side I'm really good at one sided conversation.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
I guess, yeah, yeah, well that's that's one of the
lessons in the storytelling conversation where if we are if
we we are egos, are sort of addicted to our
perspective or addicted to our story about what's going on
in the world. It's sort of it's sort of like
locksures down so that there is no space in our
(04:42):
in our head to really absorb other people's perspectives or
other people's ideas.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know, so no, go.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Ahead, go ahead. So so like the stories are great
and there's a downside too.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, it's interesting because of course we all develop our
own stories over the years when we get together with
other couples. And so my wife always says, we meet
a new couple, she says, listen, why don't you go
out with them by yourself, tell all your stories. And
I'm gonna come in the second time because I don't
want to listen to all those stories over and over again.
And so I think it's very smart.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Of her, actually a wise woman.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Right, wise woman. You talk in the beginning of the
book again, the book is called The Art of Conscious
Conversations about awareness and ego? What role do those things
play in having conscious conversations?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Okay, so ego first, ego is you know, it has
a bad name.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
We all have egos. We all have to have egos
to survive in the world.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
However, the ego's role is often to make us right,
make us, you know, make us whole. And so if
we have an old pattern from our history with family
or whatever, and we're as a child, like I was
told I was not a big enough man. I lived
(06:05):
with that story that I was not a big enough
man in my mind and my ego, and I believed it.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
What did that mean? Physical, statue wise or the impression
of man? No.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I met my grandfather who was a redneck. I grew
up in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
He said, you know, if I cried, or if I
didn't want to skin the deer, or if I didn't
want to go hunting, he would always say, You're not
a big enough man. And all I'm saying is a
little boy. That story. Because he was an authority figure,
that story stuck in me and I had this imege
that I'm not a big enough man. Well, when I
started studying language and conversation thirty years later, I was,
(06:42):
wait a minute, that story isn't true. That was his
story about what a man is, you know, So I
had to re I had to bust that story so
I can then build my own.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So ego plays a big.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Role in how we get attached to our identity and
how we get attached to our stories.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
A lot of times, awareness, yeah, awareness is we won't
go about ego because I think those stories are important
because a lot of times when people are going through stuff,
when I'm trying to help business owners. I would say,
well where to learn that, right, because that's not your
own thought. You learn that somewhere. In that case, you
learned it from your grandfather. So now tell us about
awareness versus ego.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
So awareness really is saying because we adopt language and
conversation through our families and our cultures, we often.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Are in conversation or autopilot. We're telling our story.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
We're doing whatever we do, we even make agreements, but
we're doing it sort of without full awareness. So what
I like to think is when we learn distinctions about language,
like the different kinds of conversations or the different elements
of each conversation, we then have a we can raise our.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Awareness say ah, this is what's happening.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
So that piece is awareness of our own story is
number one, and we can process them. The ones that
help us are great, the ones that harm us do
something about it. And number two, we become more aware
of the subtleties and the different ideas of conversations.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And that's so then when you have.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
The awareness that there's differences and distinctions, you you it.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Takes your innocence away.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
You just can't be in conversations innocently you have to say, oh,
oh that can be better, and that can be different,
or I could do that better. So that's that's the
idea of awareness, where we have we gain new information
so that all of a sudden we can't just be
in them without thinking.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Where does listening and allowing pauses in the conversations really
contribute this whole thing? Because I find that some of
us are really good at listening, not me. Some of
us are really good with like silence and conversations and
pauses that have to fill every spot, not me. What
role do those money?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Well, they're all they're all different little tools, little practices
that serve us well in conversation.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know, I think you know.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Different personalities, different ways of learning conversations. Some people are
in families where there they their parents model listening. Other
people are in families where they don't. They're never listened to, right,
So we adopt these things. But each one of those things,
whether it's a pause, whether it's slowing down, or whether
(09:28):
it's asking questions to really understand the other person's perspective
so you can so you can really listen, so you
listen and really understand them those are all tools that
are a part of how we play, how different conversations
play out, and we all have different we all have
different skills at it.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Absolutely, you talk about four different types of conversations, right,
conscious conversations. Let's talk about each of those briefly.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Now, so briefly. The first one is storytelling, which we
talked about a little bit. We have stories.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
There are beautiful things. We have fiction and entertained us.
Movies entertain us their stories.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Money is a.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Story, you know, all these things are stories. And we
have stories about ourselves internally, like my internal story like
I'm not a big enough man, did not serve me well, Well,
when I discovered that story, I could bush that story
by doing some investigation, by looking at my look at
the story and say what's true, what's not true? Is
that the story I want to live by? So stories
(10:28):
are a beautiful thing, and there's a lot we can
learn from the stories we tell about ourselves and the
stories we tell about other people. Then if we do
that well, we leave go into a collaborative conversation, which
is now that conversation is can we take multiple perspectives?
Think of a meeting, right, and everybody comes into the
meeting with their different perspective.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Well, guess what.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Everyone's there hammering away like this is my idea and
I'm going to win this argument and meetings go south quickly.
So the idea in collaborative, how do we really learned
to productively advocate and productively inquire?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
So that conversation is a mutual learning.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
That conversation is an absorbing of other perspectives so that
we can learn from each other and go I could say,
oh man, and when I hear you say that, I
never I never thought of it that way, and.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
That makes me change my mind. So that's that's sort
of that collaborative.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
And then the creative conversation is about can we be
in a conversation where we think about instead of just saying,
here's what we need to do, we you know, wait
a minute, let's take a few minutes to what are
all the alternatives? What are other possibilities? Are we think
leaving anything out? Let's really dream and let's wonder for
ten minutes and go, okay, are we missing something? That
conversation is really interesting because there's multiple dimensions because we
(11:46):
have internal creative conversations where do we listen to our
an intuition or not.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Do we listen to our intuition or do we not?
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And then when we're with other people, can we take
the time to really imagine possibilities? And then that leads
us to the final conversation, which is a commitment, which
is the action conversation, who's going to do what by when?
We love that conversation. We want to get to work.
We want to make an agreement at home, whether it's
with our wife or our kids, or our family, okay,
who's doing what by when, or whether we're in a
(12:16):
board meeting deciding on the strategy of the company. We
make commitments all day long, but we pretty much do
it unconsciously in a semi sloppy way.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
That's a brief hit on all four.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And so let's talk about because I think storytelling for
a lot of us or is easy. Creative for some
people's very easy. I think collaborative sometimes is difficult. But
I also think that a lot of people have trouble
with the commitment conversation. They don't want to be pinned
down what by when, by who, or things like that
kind of squeeze, especially in business. They don't really want
to do that. Right. What is important here is it's
(12:52):
important to identify to have more conscious conversations. Is important
here to identify which kind of conversation I want to
have versus I'm actually having or how would you do that?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Yeah, so the way I'll answer your question about the
commitment conversation. But these four conversations actually they are actually
important the order that they show up. So, first of all,
it's primary to think about the storytelling conversation because that's
very personal. It's a lot of internal mind chatter and
(13:25):
things that go into that conversation and what we believe,
what we don't believe, So that's primary. And then if
we do that well, we can go into the collaborative
conversation more productively. If we have a productive collaborative conversation,
it results in creativity. And if we do all three
of those, when we get to the commitment conversation, we're
better informed and we're more likely to make a wiser decision.
(13:48):
So as far as the commitment conversation itself, it's like
we are sort of addicted to. Yes, someone says flies
by the desk and say, hey, can you make me
a PowerPoint for money? Canmit me a PowerPoint? For Monday morning,
and I say, sure, no problem. Well I spend the
weekend on it, and I get to Monday morning, I
delivered to my boss and she says, well, this isn't.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
What I want it.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
And that's because we made a sloppy promise. And the
way to undo that is when she says, can you
make a PowerPoint pot point for me for Monday morning?
I say, yeah, I can do some work on the weekend.
Let me understand what you really want, let me understand
the timing, let me understand who it's for. We ask
a few clarifying questions to make sure that we're making
(14:33):
a promise that we can keep, and make sure that
we're making a promise that everybody agrees on, that we're aligned.
That is slowing down the process by five or ten minutes,
but it results in a lot less breakdowns and a
lot more successful promises, and that's how we build trust.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Check. The last question I wanted to ask you was
are you afraid that the younger generation, the ones that
were brought up on technology, are they losing the art
of conversations. I mean, as I as I go to
a restaurant, I sit around, I see four younger people
sitting at a restaurant all on their phones not talking
to each other. Is that worries?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, it does. It absolutely does. I see the same
thing happening. And I think my hunch is that I
also have young people that when they hear about my
work or other work around language and conversations, when they
hear about it, they're actually intrigued because it rings the
(15:33):
same bell, like I don't know really what the heck
I'm doing in this conversation. So I do think this
social media and the phones and texting as a downside.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
But I'm also part of.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
My reason for my book and promoting my book is
to bring this awareness to people that we can understand
them a lot better and therefore we can be in
them a lot better.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I think it's really wise information. Chuck, Where can people
catch up with you?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
So my website is Chuckwisner dot com.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
There's a place on there just if you put in
your email you can get a free download PDF of
the introduction to the book. They can find the book
on Amazon, The Art of Conscience Conversations. And I'm a
little bit on social media Instagram, LinkedIn, Chuck underscore Wisner.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, and people can reach out via my website with
questions they want to have a conversation, they won't to
have a conversation. Absolutely, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Chuck, Thanks so much. This is a small business radio show.
Will be right back. My work with thousands of small
business owners over the last twenty years inspired me to
write my next book on how to make changes. Well,
that's not exactly true. More accurately, my frustration and the
resulting challenges working with small business owners forced me to
(16:52):
write this new book. Let me explain. I'm often asked
by companies and small business owners that I don't know
to help them. Typically, they're feeling stuck by a problem
and their companies can't move forward. After analyze the situation,
we mutually decide on a go forward strategy. I help
them assemble a detailed plan to make any changes and
the critical sess factors and actions that need to be completed.
(17:15):
They agree that taking these actions will help them solve
their issue for their company and make them more money,
and then almost nothing happens. Unfortunately, most small business owners
implement a few easy steps but never take the critical
or difficult ones that could make a difference. This has
(17:36):
long frustrated me. Since we worked really hard, I'm putting
together this plan, and at the beginning we were both
excited about the result. I wrote my new book, change Masters,
How to Actually Make the changes you already know need
to make to figure out why small business owners do
not make the changes or take the actions that they
know will help them reach their goals. Where is the
(17:59):
gap between I mean, sincere intent to make these changes
and the actions to actually do it. What holds most
people back and keeps them stuck on the same path
over and over again. Why are they still so comfortable
and not making these changes and staying on a path
that clearly doesn't work for them? One thing is it's
not adding to their happiness, and it's not adding to
(18:21):
their feelings success. What steps do they need to take
to slowly break free and start to make those changes
today that will help them in the long run. In
my new book, I reveal much of the psychological research
around why change is just so hard for so many people,
and real life strategies that every small business owner can
(18:41):
employ right now to make the changes they need to
make in their companies to grow. So get my new book,
Change Masters. Remember I'm not trying to convince you to
make a change, but rather help you make the changes
you already know you need to take.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Stick around to get your small business unstuck. More of
Small Business Radio with Barry moles.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Well.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think one of the hottest topics for small business owners,
besides the tariffs, is really how can your company use
AI in marketing to attract more customers. My next guest
is deb Andrews, who is the president founder of market Tree,
a strategic marketing consulting firm that specialized in serving middle
market growth orning and B to B companies, with twenty
(19:29):
five years of marketing experience and NBA marketing from the
University of Maryland. Deb, welcome to the show. Oh I
can a mute you in order to hear you. Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So I think there is this equal sense of fear
around AI and also that people say, well, I got
to use it, I got to use it, I don't
know how to use it. Where should small business owners start?
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Yes, we you're exactly right. I feel like there's a
sort of paralysis going on with AI because it's so big,
it's moving so fast, and it's so transformative that people
in general, especially business owners.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Small business owners.
Speaker 6 (20:13):
Don't really know how to engage, so they're kind of
choosing not to, like they can't make that one step forward,
And so what we recommend is, like, I don't really
like the cliche, how do you meet an elephant one
bite at a time? Is to really start on that journey.
Very small and in the marketing area. Honestly, most small
(20:35):
businesses are creating some form of content. Whether that content
is a social post, it could be a blog, it
could be an email. How can you leverage generative AI
and the large language models to somehow make that task easier.
It seems like something so small and simple, but it
(20:56):
is the best way to get started is to find
something that you do a lot and think, well, maybe
there's a way that AI can help make this better and.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Faster, and then try it out.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Most people are dabbling with open AI's chat Gipt, some
are using Perplexity, some are using Gemini. Any of them
work fine for any of these sort of simple use
cases like an email or social post, and that's really
the best way just to get started on the journey.
I think just kind of putting one step in front
of the other and taking that first step is really
(21:32):
the key.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I think starting somewhere. I mean, I think one of
the mistakes that people make with you know, like chat GPT,
you say, right, write me a blog post, and then
they post it. It sounds just like chetch ept wrote
the blog post instead of saying, hey, write me an outline,
get me started? What can I do to what are
some of the key points I should be talking about.
I think that's really the best way to get started,
(21:54):
just not be robotic about it. What do you think?
Speaker 5 (21:57):
I completely agree.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
Most people can start to recognize the AI generated content
as like, oh, that's chat GBT. I've heard a lot
of people say that, oh that looks like AI, and
it probably is AI.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
I think the key with that.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
Is how you end up prompting the large language model,
and some of them even allow you to adopt a
voice in tone.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
So here's an example. I like to use Claude.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
It's one that many people haven't heard of, but it's
the model that Anthropic has created and it's excellent for
both writing and for coding as well. But we'll talk
about the writing instance. So with the writing instance, you
can actually say select a couple of blog posts that
you've written or anything you've written in the past, you personally,
(22:46):
you can upload it and ask it to find your
voice in tone and it will take that and say
it will name it. Like for me, I uploaded my
five favorite blog posts and it gave me the marketing
storyteller kind of person that's my voice in tone. So
every time I ask it to write something, I ask
it to use this marketing storyteller persona, and it sounds
(23:09):
like me. Also, I think it's important in the prompt
to ask the larger language model to play a persona.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Say I want you to act like a.
Speaker 6 (23:22):
Marketer who has twenty five years of experience in b
to b using the marketing storyteller persona create a fifty
word social post about XYZ. So with those kind of adjustments,
I think you end up getting a much better human
sounding response.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And that's really the best balance I guess between authenticity
and automation.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
Yeah, you do want to provide I always say, with
like content creation and even a social post, you do
have to have the human element that people want to
read your original thoughts. They want to know what you
are thinking. I would think of the large language models
as excellent copywriters, but you still when you work with them,
(24:10):
need to provide the base knowledge so that you're not
churning out stuff that not only has the voice and
tone of everybody else, but actually is saying the same
thing that everyone else is saying. And so it's become
like this phenomenon of like grag of content, grag of
social media, where everything's sounding the same. It's because it's
all pulling from that same training.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Set, so to speak.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
So you do need to provide it with some substance
in order for it to actually come out different.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
You know, one of my clients hired a high level
vice president. I think that she was very nervous about
fitting into the company. So she had Chechibt start writing
the responses to her emails, and it sounded like che Gibt.
So finally the president said to her, listen, just cut
that stuff out. Just tell us what you're releasing. Yeah,
you know, it just didn't make any.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Sense exactly right, And it still can be automated, and
you can still use the large language model. Maybe like
a junior associate could interview her and ask her some
questions like what are you so excited about in this role,
and what are you looking to do for your first
ninety days? And tell me a little bit about your
background and how you're going to leverage your experience to
(25:24):
bring into this new job. And take then those responses
with the proper prompts and you know, using a voice
and tone and it's going to sound so much more authentic.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
What about deb what about using it to help you
figure out who your competitors are or what your marketing
strategy is.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
Sure, it's very good. Well, some of them are better
than others for what we call this like deep research.
I would say, if I had to pick my favorite,
it's going to be chatchypt's new O three model deep research.
You have to select that, and it basically is queuing
it to big harder. I also like Gemini for deep
research as well, and Perplexity. Each time you have to
(26:07):
select that as an option, you're going to tell it
how hard you want to think. And when you select
the deep research, what you want to do is well,
there's two things with some of the large language models.
Their training data is kind of cut off and it
doesn't actually go to the web and it can't read URLs.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
So I would.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
Actually recommend going to chat GBTIZO three model selecting search,
which means it's going to go out and search the
Internet in addition to pulling from these large language models,
so you're getting like the best of both worlds. And
then you put in a prompt basically saying, here's my company.
I first like you to give me like an overview
(26:49):
of my company. Here's the things that I want you
to be paying attention to, the positioning, the geography, the
vercal markets we're in.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
What are some of the pros and cons of doing
business with my company?
Speaker 6 (27:00):
And then I want you to do the same assessment
for these five companies. Provide the URLs, and then specify
how you want that output to look. I want it
in a table format. I want the columns to be
titled X, y Z, and honestly will do an amazing
job of churning out like a really nice report for
you that's easy to read and very skimmable.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You know, what I find is that a lot of
people just don't start depth. You know, they don't test,
they don't ask, they don't test to find what's possible.
Because I find that you know, chet g EPT or
these large langue model models are good at some things
and some things they're not, but you just don't know
to ask.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
I think you know it's hard to just start using them,
but once you start, you kind of you get hooked
and you keep going back, and that's really I feel
like the fun part of it is like having more
of a conversation with these large language models and seeing
what happens when you ask them to make adjustments and
(28:00):
you see them make adjustments on the fly.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I also like to experiment with different ones. So I'll
go to say chat Schipt.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
And I'm gonna ask it this one prompt, and then
I'm going to go to Claude and I'm going to
ask Claude the same prompt. And then I like to
see the differences and responses. And oftentimes what I like
it to do is then I take the both of
them together.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
I know this seems like a bit much, but.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm just surprised that visit big big differences.
Speaker 6 (28:27):
Yeah, well they might not be huge, they might be subtle.
But then I'll take both of them together and go
to a new tool.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Maybe I go to Gemini are Perplexity and.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Say, take this from Chatchiputa and from Claude, and I
want you to pull together the best summary from these
two and oftentimes I like that result the best because
you're kind of pulling from the best of the best.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
So you just start to play with that.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
And that's something like I didn't read or I didn't
learn in a podcast, just something like through playing with
it and going back and forth and try different things,
it kind of came up with my new way of
creating deliverables.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And one of the things I love about what you're saying,
I think people kind of overlook this is to try
to feed information about you or your company or what
you're trying to accomplish, so it can learn about you
or your company and can give you help from that viewpoint.
So the prompting obviously is key.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Yeah, Prompting is absolutely key, and for anybody that's getting started.
There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube and blog posts
out there that talk about some prompting best practices. I mean,
just simply, I think one is just tell the large
language model what you wanted to act like. You can
tell it to act like an animal, you can tell
(29:43):
it to act like an ananimate object. If you want to,
but typically you're going to say, Hey, I want you
to act like an attorney. I'm going to be uploading
some legal documents and I want you to evaluate it
skeptically for XYZ. So the more specific that you can
be in the in the prompt telling it how you
(30:05):
want it to act, and then what you want that
output to look like, the more successful you're going to
be in terms of getting it right from the first
couple tries.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Deed, the last question I want to ask you is
where should people start to get advice. Do they need
to bring in an expert, Should they just you know,
have chechype teach them about how to use chech ept
your claud What do you suggest?
Speaker 6 (30:26):
Yeah, I think it depends on the sense of urgency
you have around it. If you're a business owner and
you're starting to kind of hit the panic button a
little bit because you haven't gotten started on the journey,
it may be worth kind of partnering with a consulting
firm to get the journey moving, to assess how the
company is currently using the technology, if at all, and
then developing a roadmap for the company for the folks
(30:49):
within your company to start using it. Consistently, so that
might be a way to accelerate it if you're not
feeling the sense of urgency, but you're getting pretty curious
and knowing you need to start. I think some of
the things that we talked about today is just finding
a use case that you can try it out on,
and then trying some of the different tools and figuring
out you know which one works best for you. There's
(31:12):
also a ton of resources. I started my journey about
two years ago listening to the Marketing AI podcast. I
think it's called The AI Show, and I religiously listen
to it every week just to hear the latest and
greatest of what's going on with the large language models
and kind of keeping up to date. So podcasts are
a great way too to factor them into your every day.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Well, deb, I appreciate you joining us. Where can people
catch up with you?
Speaker 6 (31:37):
Yeah, you can find me on market tree It's m
A r K E t r I dot com, or
feel free to email me directly at d Andrews at
marketree dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Dam thanks so much for joining us, and I want
to thank everyone for joining this week's RATO show. I
got to thank our incredible staff, our booking producer Sarah
schafferin or soundead or Ethan Moltz. If you're serious about
being more successful in twenty twenty five, give me a call.
I've set up a private line seven seven three eight
three seven eight two five zero, or email me at
Barry at molts dot com. Remember love everyone, trust a few,
(32:09):
impal your own canoe. Have a profitable, impassionate weekly.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
You can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barrymolts dot com,
or more episodes of Small Business Radio at small Business
radioshow dot com
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now a the air with your host,
Barry Maltz.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
this is show eight hundred and thirty two. Well, have
we lost the art of conversation in work and life?
It seems like we communicate more and more often through
text and emails and other asynchronous methods. So what are
(00:38):
we losing? My first guest is Chuck Weisner, who is
the author of the Art of Conscious Conversations, Transforming how
we talk, listen, and interact. He's a coach and speaker
folks on the Lost art of conversations. His theories of
the why, how, in what of conversations deeply dive into
their DNA and introduce new tools practices that transformed how
(01:02):
we think about and be in them more successfully. He
spent thirty years as trust advisor. He's worked with Google, ribbyan, Apple,
Harvard Business School, Ford, and Chrysler. Chuck, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So why is the quality of our conversations so much
worse than they used to be?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, I think where we can.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Just start right?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Where to start?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Well, I do think there's been certainly the onslaught of
social media and iPhones and texting an email even sort
of has a huge impact on the quality of our conversations.
But I'll back it up a little bit and say,
we actually learned conversations through our families and cultures, and
are never really taught the DNA of conversations, how they
(01:51):
work and how.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
We can do them better.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So I think even before we can talk about how
can we how do we use texts and emails more
efficiently so we don't get ourselves in trouble, we can
back up and go, let's really understand how conversations work
and learn things.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
That we never knew so we can hear them and
see them differently.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I guess that's really true. We learned conversations depending on
how our parents communicate and our families communicated. Of course,
some families and parents are better than others.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Absolutely, Some people communicate.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
By shouting at each other, right, that's their language of love.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
That's right, right, Well, my family, my wife's family couldn't
be any more different. My family was, you know, five kids,
a lot of noise, you know, lower middle class, a
lot going on, dad working two jobs, and there was
always noise and arguments between me and my siblings. And
my wife had My wife had a family, Her father
was an admiral in the navy, and they were you know, good,
(02:52):
good New England folks, and they were very quiet, a little.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
More disciplined, a little more disciplined.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, right, yes, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
When you say that it dives deep into our DNA conversations,
we never think of it that way. What do you
mean by that?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Okay, so that what it means is that we actually
we think of just oh, we're in a conversation, but
in fact, there are different kinds of conversations. There's conversations
where we coordinate action with other people.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I call that the commandment conversation.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
There are conversations where we're trying to collaborate and learn
from each other. We aren't taught very well how to
do that. We live in our stories. We have stories
about ourselves, we have stories about other people. Stories are
a beautiful thing, but there's also a dark side to stories.
Where we have stories that don't serve us well. And
then there's the creative piece of the wonder of what's possible.
(03:47):
So all those things are ways that we're in conversation,
but we don't distinguish between them. And so when we
learn that, oh wait a minute, what is the story
I'm telling?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And how do I do that with other people? And
how do I create what do I want to agree to?
That there's a process there that we aren't aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know, it's interesting to me because as I think
of myself and conversations, being a former motivational speaker, I'm
really good at telling stories and I'm really lousy at
listening to other people. So it's kind of like a
one side I'm really good at one sided conversation.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
I guess, yeah, yeah, well that's that's one of the
lessons in the storytelling conversation where if we are if
we we are egos, are sort of addicted to our
perspective or addicted to our story about what's going on
in the world. It's sort of it's sort of like
locksures down so that there is no space in our
(04:42):
in our head to really absorb other people's perspectives or
other people's ideas.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know, so no, go.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Ahead, go ahead. So so like the stories are great
and there's a downside too.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, it's interesting because of course we all develop our
own stories over the years when we get together with
other couples. And so my wife always says, we meet
a new couple, she says, listen, why don't you go
out with them by yourself, tell all your stories. And
I'm gonna come in the second time because I don't
want to listen to all those stories over and over again.
And so I think it's very smart.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Of her, actually a wise woman.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Right, wise woman. You talk in the beginning of the
book again, the book is called The Art of Conscious
Conversations about awareness and ego? What role do those things
play in having conscious conversations?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Okay, so ego first, ego is you know, it has
a bad name.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
We all have egos. We all have to have egos
to survive in the world.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
However, the ego's role is often to make us right,
make us, you know, make us whole. And so if
we have an old pattern from our history with family
or whatever, and we're as a child, like I was
told I was not a big enough man. I lived
(06:05):
with that story that I was not a big enough
man in my mind and my ego, and I believed it.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
What did that mean? Physical, statue wise or the impression
of man? No.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I met my grandfather who was a redneck. I grew
up in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
He said, you know, if I cried, or if I
didn't want to skin the deer, or if I didn't
want to go hunting, he would always say, You're not
a big enough man. And all I'm saying is a
little boy. That story. Because he was an authority figure,
that story stuck in me and I had this imege
that I'm not a big enough man. Well, when I
started studying language and conversation thirty years later, I was,
(06:42):
wait a minute, that story isn't true. That was his
story about what a man is, you know, So I
had to re I had to bust that story so
I can then build my own.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So ego plays a big.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Role in how we get attached to our identity and
how we get attached to our stories.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
A lot of times, awareness, yeah, awareness is we won't
go about ego because I think those stories are important
because a lot of times when people are going through stuff,
when I'm trying to help business owners. I would say,
well where to learn that, right, because that's not your
own thought. You learn that somewhere. In that case, you
learned it from your grandfather. So now tell us about
awareness versus ego.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
So awareness really is saying because we adopt language and
conversation through our families and our cultures, we often.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Are in conversation or autopilot. We're telling our story.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
We're doing whatever we do, we even make agreements, but
we're doing it sort of without full awareness. So what
I like to think is when we learn distinctions about language,
like the different kinds of conversations or the different elements
of each conversation, we then have a we can raise our.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Awareness say ah, this is what's happening.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
So that piece is awareness of our own story is
number one, and we can process them. The ones that
help us are great, the ones that harm us do
something about it. And number two, we become more aware
of the subtleties and the different ideas of conversations.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And that's so then when you have.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
The awareness that there's differences and distinctions, you you it.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Takes your innocence away.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
You just can't be in conversations innocently you have to say, oh,
oh that can be better, and that can be different,
or I could do that better. So that's that's the
idea of awareness, where we have we gain new information
so that all of a sudden we can't just be
in them without thinking.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Where does listening and allowing pauses in the conversations really
contribute this whole thing? Because I find that some of
us are really good at listening, not me. Some of
us are really good with like silence and conversations and
pauses that have to fill every spot, not me. What
role do those money?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Well, they're all they're all different little tools, little practices
that serve us well in conversation.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know, I think you know.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Different personalities, different ways of learning conversations. Some people are
in families where there they their parents model listening. Other
people are in families where they don't. They're never listened to, right,
So we adopt these things. But each one of those things,
whether it's a pause, whether it's slowing down, or whether
(09:28):
it's asking questions to really understand the other person's perspective
so you can so you can really listen, so you
listen and really understand them those are all tools that
are a part of how we play, how different conversations
play out, and we all have different we all have
different skills at it.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Absolutely, you talk about four different types of conversations, right,
conscious conversations. Let's talk about each of those briefly.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Now, so briefly. The first one is storytelling, which we
talked about a little bit. We have stories.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
There are beautiful things. We have fiction and entertained us.
Movies entertain us their stories.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Money is a.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Story, you know, all these things are stories. And we
have stories about ourselves internally, like my internal story like
I'm not a big enough man, did not serve me well, Well,
when I discovered that story, I could bush that story
by doing some investigation, by looking at my look at
the story and say what's true, what's not true? Is
that the story I want to live by? So stories
(10:28):
are a beautiful thing, and there's a lot we can
learn from the stories we tell about ourselves and the
stories we tell about other people. Then if we do
that well, we leave go into a collaborative conversation, which
is now that conversation is can we take multiple perspectives?
Think of a meeting, right, and everybody comes into the
meeting with their different perspective.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Well, guess what.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Everyone's there hammering away like this is my idea and
I'm going to win this argument and meetings go south quickly.
So the idea in collaborative, how do we really learned
to productively advocate and productively inquire?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
So that conversation is a mutual learning.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
That conversation is an absorbing of other perspectives so that
we can learn from each other and go I could say,
oh man, and when I hear you say that, I
never I never thought of it that way, and.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
That makes me change my mind. So that's that's sort
of that collaborative.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
And then the creative conversation is about can we be
in a conversation where we think about instead of just saying,
here's what we need to do, we you know, wait
a minute, let's take a few minutes to what are
all the alternatives? What are other possibilities? Are we think
leaving anything out? Let's really dream and let's wonder for
ten minutes and go, okay, are we missing something? That
conversation is really interesting because there's multiple dimensions because we
(11:46):
have internal creative conversations where do we listen to our
an intuition or not.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Do we listen to our intuition or do we not?
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And then when we're with other people, can we take
the time to really imagine possibilities? And then that leads
us to the final conversation, which is a commitment, which
is the action conversation, who's going to do what by when?
We love that conversation. We want to get to work.
We want to make an agreement at home, whether it's
with our wife or our kids, or our family, okay,
who's doing what by when, or whether we're in a
(12:16):
board meeting deciding on the strategy of the company. We
make commitments all day long, but we pretty much do
it unconsciously in a semi sloppy way.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
That's a brief hit on all four.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And so let's talk about because I think storytelling for
a lot of us or is easy. Creative for some
people's very easy. I think collaborative sometimes is difficult. But
I also think that a lot of people have trouble
with the commitment conversation. They don't want to be pinned
down what by when, by who, or things like that
kind of squeeze, especially in business. They don't really want
to do that. Right. What is important here is it's
(12:52):
important to identify to have more conscious conversations. Is important
here to identify which kind of conversation I want to
have versus I'm actually having or how would you do that?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Yeah, so the way I'll answer your question about the
commitment conversation. But these four conversations actually they are actually
important the order that they show up. So, first of all,
it's primary to think about the storytelling conversation because that's
very personal. It's a lot of internal mind chatter and
(13:25):
things that go into that conversation and what we believe,
what we don't believe, So that's primary. And then if
we do that well, we can go into the collaborative
conversation more productively. If we have a productive collaborative conversation,
it results in creativity. And if we do all three
of those, when we get to the commitment conversation, we're
better informed and we're more likely to make a wiser decision.
(13:48):
So as far as the commitment conversation itself, it's like
we are sort of addicted to. Yes, someone says flies
by the desk and say, hey, can you make me
a PowerPoint for money? Canmit me a PowerPoint? For Monday morning,
and I say, sure, no problem. Well I spend the
weekend on it, and I get to Monday morning, I
delivered to my boss and she says, well, this isn't.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
What I want it.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
And that's because we made a sloppy promise. And the
way to undo that is when she says, can you
make a PowerPoint pot point for me for Monday morning?
I say, yeah, I can do some work on the weekend.
Let me understand what you really want, let me understand
the timing, let me understand who it's for. We ask
a few clarifying questions to make sure that we're making
(14:33):
a promise that we can keep, and make sure that
we're making a promise that everybody agrees on, that we're aligned.
That is slowing down the process by five or ten minutes,
but it results in a lot less breakdowns and a
lot more successful promises, and that's how we build trust.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Check. The last question I wanted to ask you was
are you afraid that the younger generation, the ones that
were brought up on technology, are they losing the art
of conversations. I mean, as I as I go to
a restaurant, I sit around, I see four younger people
sitting at a restaurant all on their phones not talking
to each other. Is that worries?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, it does. It absolutely does. I see the same
thing happening. And I think my hunch is that I
also have young people that when they hear about my
work or other work around language and conversations, when they
hear about it, they're actually intrigued because it rings the
(15:33):
same bell, like I don't know really what the heck
I'm doing in this conversation. So I do think this
social media and the phones and texting as a downside.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
But I'm also part of.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
My reason for my book and promoting my book is
to bring this awareness to people that we can understand
them a lot better and therefore we can be in
them a lot better.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I think it's really wise information. Chuck, Where can people
catch up with you?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
So my website is Chuckwisner dot com.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
There's a place on there just if you put in
your email you can get a free download PDF of
the introduction to the book. They can find the book
on Amazon, The Art of Conscience Conversations. And I'm a
little bit on social media Instagram, LinkedIn, Chuck underscore Wisner.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, and people can reach out via my website with
questions they want to have a conversation, they won't to
have a conversation. Absolutely, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Chuck, Thanks so much. This is a small business radio show.
Will be right back. My work with thousands of small
business owners over the last twenty years inspired me to
write my next book on how to make changes. Well,
that's not exactly true. More accurately, my frustration and the
resulting challenges working with small business owners forced me to
(16:52):
write this new book. Let me explain. I'm often asked
by companies and small business owners that I don't know
to help them. Typically, they're feeling stuck by a problem
and their companies can't move forward. After analyze the situation,
we mutually decide on a go forward strategy. I help
them assemble a detailed plan to make any changes and
the critical sess factors and actions that need to be completed.
(17:15):
They agree that taking these actions will help them solve
their issue for their company and make them more money,
and then almost nothing happens. Unfortunately, most small business owners
implement a few easy steps but never take the critical
or difficult ones that could make a difference. This has
(17:36):
long frustrated me. Since we worked really hard, I'm putting
together this plan, and at the beginning we were both
excited about the result. I wrote my new book, change Masters,
How to Actually Make the changes you already know need
to make to figure out why small business owners do
not make the changes or take the actions that they
know will help them reach their goals. Where is the
(17:59):
gap between I mean, sincere intent to make these changes
and the actions to actually do it. What holds most
people back and keeps them stuck on the same path
over and over again. Why are they still so comfortable
and not making these changes and staying on a path
that clearly doesn't work for them? One thing is it's
not adding to their happiness, and it's not adding to
(18:21):
their feelings success. What steps do they need to take
to slowly break free and start to make those changes
today that will help them in the long run. In
my new book, I reveal much of the psychological research
around why change is just so hard for so many people,
and real life strategies that every small business owner can
(18:41):
employ right now to make the changes they need to
make in their companies to grow. So get my new book,
Change Masters. Remember I'm not trying to convince you to
make a change, but rather help you make the changes
you already know you need to take.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Stick around to get your small business unstuck. More of
Small Business Radio with Barry moles.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Well.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think one of the hottest topics for small business owners,
besides the tariffs, is really how can your company use
AI in marketing to attract more customers. My next guest
is deb Andrews, who is the president founder of market Tree,
a strategic marketing consulting firm that specialized in serving middle
market growth orning and B to B companies, with twenty
(19:29):
five years of marketing experience and NBA marketing from the
University of Maryland. Deb, welcome to the show. Oh I
can a mute you in order to hear you. Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So I think there is this equal sense of fear
around AI and also that people say, well, I got
to use it, I got to use it, I don't
know how to use it. Where should small business owners start?
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Yes, we you're exactly right. I feel like there's a
sort of paralysis going on with AI because it's so big,
it's moving so fast, and it's so transformative that people
in general, especially business owners.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Small business owners.
Speaker 6 (20:13):
Don't really know how to engage, so they're kind of
choosing not to, like they can't make that one step forward,
And so what we recommend is, like, I don't really
like the cliche, how do you meet an elephant one
bite at a time? Is to really start on that journey.
Very small and in the marketing area. Honestly, most small
(20:35):
businesses are creating some form of content. Whether that content
is a social post, it could be a blog, it
could be an email. How can you leverage generative AI
and the large language models to somehow make that task easier.
It seems like something so small and simple, but it
(20:56):
is the best way to get started is to find
something that you do a lot and think, well, maybe
there's a way that AI can help make this better and.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Faster, and then try it out.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Most people are dabbling with open AI's chat Gipt, some
are using Perplexity, some are using Gemini. Any of them
work fine for any of these sort of simple use
cases like an email or social post, and that's really
the best way just to get started on the journey.
I think just kind of putting one step in front
of the other and taking that first step is really
(21:32):
the key.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I think starting somewhere. I mean, I think one of
the mistakes that people make with you know, like chat GPT,
you say, right, write me a blog post, and then
they post it. It sounds just like chetch ept wrote
the blog post instead of saying, hey, write me an outline,
get me started? What can I do to what are
some of the key points I should be talking about.
I think that's really the best way to get started,
(21:54):
just not be robotic about it. What do you think?
Speaker 5 (21:57):
I completely agree.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
Most people can start to recognize the AI generated content
as like, oh, that's chat GBT. I've heard a lot
of people say that, oh that looks like AI, and
it probably is AI.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
I think the key with that.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
Is how you end up prompting the large language model,
and some of them even allow you to adopt a
voice in tone.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
So here's an example. I like to use Claude.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
It's one that many people haven't heard of, but it's
the model that Anthropic has created and it's excellent for
both writing and for coding as well. But we'll talk
about the writing instance. So with the writing instance, you
can actually say select a couple of blog posts that
you've written or anything you've written in the past, you personally,
(22:46):
you can upload it and ask it to find your
voice in tone and it will take that and say
it will name it. Like for me, I uploaded my
five favorite blog posts and it gave me the marketing
storyteller kind of person that's my voice in tone. So
every time I ask it to write something, I ask
it to use this marketing storyteller persona, and it sounds
(23:09):
like me. Also, I think it's important in the prompt
to ask the larger language model to play a persona.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Say I want you to act like a.
Speaker 6 (23:22):
Marketer who has twenty five years of experience in b
to b using the marketing storyteller persona create a fifty
word social post about XYZ. So with those kind of adjustments,
I think you end up getting a much better human
sounding response.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And that's really the best balance I guess between authenticity
and automation.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
Yeah, you do want to provide I always say, with
like content creation and even a social post, you do
have to have the human element that people want to
read your original thoughts. They want to know what you
are thinking. I would think of the large language models
as excellent copywriters, but you still when you work with them,
(24:10):
need to provide the base knowledge so that you're not
churning out stuff that not only has the voice and
tone of everybody else, but actually is saying the same
thing that everyone else is saying. And so it's become
like this phenomenon of like grag of content, grag of
social media, where everything's sounding the same. It's because it's
all pulling from that same training.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Set, so to speak.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
So you do need to provide it with some substance
in order for it to actually come out different.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
You know, one of my clients hired a high level
vice president. I think that she was very nervous about
fitting into the company. So she had Chechibt start writing
the responses to her emails, and it sounded like che Gibt.
So finally the president said to her, listen, just cut
that stuff out. Just tell us what you're releasing. Yeah,
you know, it just didn't make any.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Sense exactly right, And it still can be automated, and
you can still use the large language model. Maybe like
a junior associate could interview her and ask her some
questions like what are you so excited about in this role,
and what are you looking to do for your first
ninety days? And tell me a little bit about your
background and how you're going to leverage your experience to
(25:24):
bring into this new job. And take then those responses
with the proper prompts and you know, using a voice
and tone and it's going to sound so much more authentic.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
What about deb what about using it to help you
figure out who your competitors are or what your marketing
strategy is.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
Sure, it's very good. Well, some of them are better
than others for what we call this like deep research.
I would say, if I had to pick my favorite,
it's going to be chatchypt's new O three model deep research.
You have to select that, and it basically is queuing
it to big harder. I also like Gemini for deep
research as well, and Perplexity. Each time you have to
(26:07):
select that as an option, you're going to tell it
how hard you want to think. And when you select
the deep research, what you want to do is well,
there's two things with some of the large language models.
Their training data is kind of cut off and it
doesn't actually go to the web and it can't read URLs.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
So I would.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
Actually recommend going to chat GBTIZO three model selecting search,
which means it's going to go out and search the
Internet in addition to pulling from these large language models,
so you're getting like the best of both worlds. And
then you put in a prompt basically saying, here's my company.
I first like you to give me like an overview
(26:49):
of my company. Here's the things that I want you
to be paying attention to, the positioning, the geography, the
vercal markets we're in.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
What are some of the pros and cons of doing
business with my company?
Speaker 6 (27:00):
And then I want you to do the same assessment
for these five companies. Provide the URLs, and then specify
how you want that output to look. I want it
in a table format. I want the columns to be
titled X, y Z, and honestly will do an amazing
job of churning out like a really nice report for
you that's easy to read and very skimmable.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You know, what I find is that a lot of
people just don't start depth. You know, they don't test,
they don't ask, they don't test to find what's possible.
Because I find that you know, chet g EPT or
these large langue model models are good at some things
and some things they're not, but you just don't know
to ask.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (27:37):
I think you know it's hard to just start using them,
but once you start, you kind of you get hooked
and you keep going back, and that's really I feel
like the fun part of it is like having more
of a conversation with these large language models and seeing
what happens when you ask them to make adjustments and
(28:00):
you see them make adjustments on the fly.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I also like to experiment with different ones. So I'll
go to say chat Schipt.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
And I'm gonna ask it this one prompt, and then
I'm going to go to Claude and I'm going to
ask Claude the same prompt. And then I like to
see the differences and responses. And oftentimes what I like
it to do is then I take the both of
them together.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
I know this seems like a bit much, but.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm just surprised that visit big big differences.
Speaker 6 (28:27):
Yeah, well they might not be huge, they might be subtle.
But then I'll take both of them together and go
to a new tool.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Maybe I go to Gemini are Perplexity and.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Say, take this from Chatchiputa and from Claude, and I
want you to pull together the best summary from these
two and oftentimes I like that result the best because
you're kind of pulling from the best of the best.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
So you just start to play with that.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
And that's something like I didn't read or I didn't
learn in a podcast, just something like through playing with
it and going back and forth and try different things,
it kind of came up with my new way of
creating deliverables.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And one of the things I love about what you're saying,
I think people kind of overlook this is to try
to feed information about you or your company or what
you're trying to accomplish, so it can learn about you
or your company and can give you help from that viewpoint.
So the prompting obviously is key.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Yeah, Prompting is absolutely key, and for anybody that's getting started.
There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube and blog posts
out there that talk about some prompting best practices. I mean,
just simply, I think one is just tell the large
language model what you wanted to act like. You can
tell it to act like an animal, you can tell
(29:43):
it to act like an ananimate object. If you want to,
but typically you're going to say, Hey, I want you
to act like an attorney. I'm going to be uploading
some legal documents and I want you to evaluate it
skeptically for XYZ. So the more specific that you can
be in the in the prompt telling it how you
(30:05):
want it to act, and then what you want that
output to look like, the more successful you're going to
be in terms of getting it right from the first
couple tries.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Deed, the last question I want to ask you is
where should people start to get advice. Do they need
to bring in an expert, Should they just you know,
have chechype teach them about how to use chech ept
your claud What do you suggest?
Speaker 6 (30:26):
Yeah, I think it depends on the sense of urgency
you have around it. If you're a business owner and
you're starting to kind of hit the panic button a
little bit because you haven't gotten started on the journey,
it may be worth kind of partnering with a consulting
firm to get the journey moving, to assess how the
company is currently using the technology, if at all, and
then developing a roadmap for the company for the folks
(30:49):
within your company to start using it. Consistently, so that
might be a way to accelerate it if you're not
feeling the sense of urgency, but you're getting pretty curious
and knowing you need to start. I think some of
the things that we talked about today is just finding
a use case that you can try it out on,
and then trying some of the different tools and figuring
out you know which one works best for you. There's
(31:12):
also a ton of resources. I started my journey about
two years ago listening to the Marketing AI podcast. I
think it's called The AI Show, and I religiously listen
to it every week just to hear the latest and
greatest of what's going on with the large language models
and kind of keeping up to date. So podcasts are
a great way too to factor them into your every day.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Well, deb, I appreciate you joining us. Where can people
catch up with you?
Speaker 6 (31:37):
Yeah, you can find me on market tree It's m
A r K E t r I dot com, or
feel free to email me directly at d Andrews at
marketree dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Dam thanks so much for joining us, and I want
to thank everyone for joining this week's RATO show. I
got to thank our incredible staff, our booking producer Sarah
schafferin or soundead or Ethan Moltz. If you're serious about
being more successful in twenty twenty five, give me a call.
I've set up a private line seven seven three eight
three seven eight two five zero, or email me at
Barry at molts dot com. Remember love everyone, trust a few,
(32:09):
impal your own canoe. Have a profitable, impassionate weekly.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
You can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barrymolts dot com,
or more episodes of Small Business Radio at small Business
radioshow dot com
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