Speaker 1: (00:03)

All right, today I'm sitting down with Kate Bradley Cherniss. She's the founder and c e o of Lately, uh, which is an AI that actually learns which words will get you the most engagement and turns video, audio, and text into dozens of social posts containing those RO words. Uh, she has a very interesting background as a former rock and roll dj, and she served over 20 million listeners as a music director and on her host at Sirius xm. She's also an award-winning radio producer, engineer, and voice talent with over 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand building, sales and marketing experience. And then what she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel lately AI's artificial intelligence. So prior to founding lately, she also owned a marketing agency, which got Walmart 130% r o i year after year for three years. And so Kate, I am super excited to chat with you and dig into your background today.

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Speaker 2: (01:02)

Me too. Kira. Hi. Hi everybody.

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Speaker 1: (01:06)

Hello. Hello.

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Speaker 2: (01:07)

What are we, we're recording on a Monday. I don't know if this will air on Monday, but like, this is my, my first thing I'm doing on my Monday. And, and, uh, what a way to coast into it, you know,

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Speaker 1: (01:17)

. Yeah, same here. Same here. This is gonna be fun. Uh, so tell me about how and why you got into marketing and eventually founding your company.

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Speaker 2: (01:28)

Yeah, so for marketing, you know, you sometimes you realize you're doing it, you didn't even know you were right. Like, so I was a fiction writing major, which some might argue is like marketing a little bit . Um, and then as I went into my career on radio, I focused on the production side. So that's the commercials and the imaging, the drops that happened between the songs that identify the station, because that's where the money was. Um, and so I wrote and produced hundreds and hundreds of commercials, of course. Um, and then when I got to, you know, having the marketing agency with, when Walmart was my client, it was so interesting because at the time, Kara, so, so I'll just get into that real quick. So it was Walmart and all of their franchises and Bank of America and all of theirs and at and t and all of theirs.

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Speaker 2: (02:21)

Then the i r s was involved as well as the National Disability Institute and United Way Worldwide. So there were 20,000 marketers. Everyone was working together cause there was a good cause that Walmart was behind and there were small B businesses, uh, medium and and large, obviously, as well as for-profit, non-profit government. So that's a long way of saying everyone . And what I learned was that they all had the same problems around content creation, which I know you know well. Hmm. And number one was the fear of the blank page is real. Even I suffer from it. Right? That's stopper. Like, how do I get started? You know? Right. Well, I don't, how do, I don't wanna guess of what to say. I don't wanna be wrong, I don't wanna sound stupid. How do I make sure it's engaging or the right thing to say?

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Speaker 2: (03:12)

And then the other problem is, um, figuring out how to take a national message and spread it out in a way that can be customized by all the multiple voices involved without just saying the same thing over and over again. And that's really important these days. Like marketing has evolved, you know, it used to be the same message all the time, right? Hmm. But as we've become so sensitive to spam that as humans, we don't want that either. I'm just kind of zigzagging around here now. But, but that variation, the variety, you know, because as, as human, we're multifaceted. And so you have to now reach us not only in d in multiple ways like channels, but with multiple messages.

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Speaker 1: (04:01)

Hmm. Right. Hmm. Okay. Okay. makes a lot of sense. So how did that lead you to, uh, lately ai?

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Speaker 2: (04:12)

Yeah, so in, in the radio business, um, when I was there, it was in two, this was, I left in 2006. So this is a long time ago. For those people, you know, radio is that thing in your car that you probably have never touched before with a dial Yeah.

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Speaker 1: (04:30)

For radio. Uh, I don't, I term seems familiar, but I don't think I've seen one in the last 20 years .

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Speaker 2: (04:37)

Right. Um, it's sort of old school, but what I, what I love about radio is the theater of the mind, which is also what I love about writing, because they're, those things are both at play, right? And so the theater of the mind is when your imagination plays a role in the listening or, or of the story, you know, the reading of the story. Um, and so it's, it's a beautiful thing. I, I believe about radio. But anyway, so I was there and um, you know, sexual harassment was everywhere cuz there were almost no women in radio. And even I participated it in it because it was rewarded, you know, it was, it was everywhere all the time. Hmm. And what started happening was that the more successful I became, the more my sexuality was used against me to create a hostile work environment. Hmm.

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Speaker 2: (05:27)

And at the time, I didn't have those wor no one, no one had those words. Even I didn't know what it was. I just knew that I felt bad and my body was trying to tell me like, this is not a good fit for you anymore. And so, um, like I had a rash on my torso that no one could explain for like six months. And I fell on the stairs at work and tore a liga in my ankle, and it kept rein injuring. I was always in a boot or a crutches or like a wheelchair thing. And so it was like this, this, this, all these, these physical ways, my body was just screaming at me like, get out, you know, you're having panic attacks all the time, you gotta change. And I'm not listening Kira

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Speaker 1: (06:07)

Hmm.

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Speaker 2: (06:08)

Until, uh, it, until it incapacitated me fully. So I couldn't type anymore suddenly without extreme pain. So now the way the world operates on a computer, on a phone, I am not able to participate in mm-hmm. . And this was terrifying. We didn't have talk to text then, you know, um, there was this company called Dragon Naturally Speaking, that now was the engine behind Siri. But back then no one knew who it was. It was very young and it was very difficult to learn, like learning a, a new language. And I had no choice. And so I, um, figured out I bought the software myself. I mean, I was living on ramen. I had no money. I took out a credit card. I had to buy a laptop because XM didn't believe me because I had hands, I had hands, I looked normal. Mm-hmm. . And they wouldn't install the software on my computer in order to use the software. I had to be in my own room. So I needed an office. And who the hell did I think I was, I was a junior music director. Right. And now I'm demanding these special treatment,

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Speaker 1: (07:13)

You know? Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (07:14)

And so I was crying all the time. I was, I was just so scared. And I found this woman to train me. She was an expert on, on Dragon, naturally speaking. Um, thank God. And, and, but I still, it still wasn't right. And so I moved to another, uh, music related job and it was a boys club. Again, the same thing. A hostile work environment. And my dad one day kind of just had it with me and all my complaining and crying and, and very lovingly shook me by the shoulders and said, you can't work for other people. And there's no shame in that.

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Speaker 1: (07:49)

Hmm. Hmm.

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Speaker 2: (07:53)

So then a little light bulb went off . Right. And now we were talking about, you know, I, I mentioned to you how much I, you know, listening to myself. Like, so here's, here's my body trying to shout at me and I'm not listening until I start listening. You know? And then again, my dad has to be the catalyst for me to listen some more. So he hit on two things there. One there is another way, number one. And then number two was the shame. Cause it, that was what I felt. I thought it was my fault. I'm running through all the reasons why I caused this.

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Speaker 1: (08:28)

Right. Right.

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Speaker 2: (08:30)

Which we do that, especially women do that. And I didn't do anything wrong. You know, I was trying to do everything in my power to succeed and get over this thing and no one was helping me. Right. And, um, this is a long story, but it's a good one. So in that same week, my boyfriend, now husband heard my dad and thought, okay, I'm gonna go go to the bookstore cuz that's what you did. You walked into Barnes and Noble and he bought me, um, uh, a handbook. It's called The Art of the Start by Guy Guy Kawasaki's, now a famous startup book. Right. And I started to read it and write, like right in the first chapter, guy says, don't make a plan, just get started. Hmm. So I was like, well obviously I don't need this book , I just need to get on it here.

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Speaker 2: (09:17)

You know, and I was reading another book too, cuz I'm trying everything I can. Right. So I'm reading, I'm reading a self-help book, which, you know, I don't like self-help books, Kira, I don't know about you, but I don't know, they just made me feel like squishy and, but I I I I'm trying to change the channel here cause I'm trying to listen, my body's screaming at me. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll do everything I can. And, um, it was the secret, and I call it a barf of a book because it's just so poorly written, really is like, um, .

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Speaker 2: (09:51)

But the idea was that the, so the secret is, is that the success is a mindset, right? Meaning if you're thinking to yourself all the time, I'm in pain. I hate my life, I hate my job. It, you know, you're, that's this non-starter there . Yeah. So if you, you know this, right? So you gotta flip the mindset. And so I, I got, I understood that cuz I, I knew what was coming outta my mouth. I was toxic, you know. And then, um, so this all happened the same week. My dad tells me this thing. I read this book, I'm reading this other book. And then a client was a fan of mine from XM and they wanted to meet me. And so instead of mailing a product to me, they wanted to go to lunch and deliver it. And it, these two guys who are fans, they just happened to be angel investors.

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Speaker 1: (10:41)

Hmm. Which

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Speaker 2: (10:41)

I didn't know. Yeah. And yeah, by the end of the meal they said, we'd like to give you $50,000 to start your first company.

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Speaker 1: (10:50)

Wow.

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Speaker 2: (10:51)

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Speaker 1: (10:52)

Just like that. Huh?

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Speaker 2: (10:54)

Just like that. It really was. Um, wow. Yeah. So that's part one of the story,

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Speaker 1: (11:02)

Oh please proceed into part two.

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Speaker 2: (11:04)

. Are you sure? Um, yeah. And I hope you

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Speaker 1: (11:07)

Know how $50,000 turned into, uh, lately that AI over the last eight years or so.

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Speaker 2: (11:15)

Yeah. I, I gotta write a book here. Right. You know, and, and for those listening, I hope by sharing these things, like I, I want, I want people to feel empowered by, by their mistakes, by their physical inabilities. I, I have a partial permanent disability. So, so to this day, I cannot type, I still use Dragon naturally speaking and I use the kind that paraplegic use. Um, and I, I consult other people now just for fun or to be nice or to help help them because, you know, it's hard. Um, but anyways, so, so here I am with my $50,000 and, and I don't know what, what I'm doing. Um, and what's great about these two guys, Alan Scott, is they, they believe in me. Kara, they don't really care what I do. They know that whatever I do will be great. Like my worst failure will be great.

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Speaker 2: (12:09)

Right? Hmm. And I've had to this point in my life, I've had two oth one other mentor who treated me like that. And so I, I, val I see it right away and I value it. I know that I thrive in an atmosphere where someone says, make all the mistakes you like, how bad can they be? Right? Um, and as I was marketing the thing that we made, which was a music related product, um, somebody else came along and said, Hey, you're really good at marketing. How would you like to leave music behind forever and come and work on the Walmart project and we'll pay you more money. And so that's how that connected, right. Because it seemed like a good idea cuz life was still telling me to get say goodbye to the music industry. And when I hadn't quite got there yet, you know?

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Speaker 2: (12:56)

Yeah. Um, so with the Walmart project, as you mentioned, I got them 130% ROI year over year for three years. And one of the ways was thinking about how to reuse the content. We created the long form content makeup blog, for example. You know, I could tell that a lot of time got spent on these like four hours and then they got pushed to a link on a website and no one ever talked about it again. Right. That seemed like a huge waste of time for me. And yet everyone was clamoring for content. Social media was just taking off. Right? Twitter was around for maybe a few years. MySpace was still around. Okay. , I'm old , um, . So , I was like, all right, well let's take this blog that I wrote. The title is Boring, Walmart Helps the Poor. It is, people aren't interested in that.

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Speaker 2: (13:53)

Sad to say, but it's true. But each sentence had enough information and mystery to it where I could quickly maybe just contextualize with some hashtags, drop a link to the full version of the, the blog at the end and use them as like a teaser, you know, like a mini movie trailer. But, but in text. So that's how we did it, right? And Walmart was able to approve the content quickly cuz they already had. So now I'm winning on the speed front and then I figure out how to disseminate this content and, and show people how to localize it in their own voice. Right. That the piece we talked about. Now, at the same time, um, I'm doing something else that I don't know I'm doing, which is I'm tapping into what I, what I learned about, um, turning listeners into fans from radio. And so, you know, big difference, right? A fan, A fan, uh, evangelize it to you for free cuz they can't help it.

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Speaker 1: (14:58)

Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: (14:59)

and I knew a lot about the long tail, um, because I was in a format that relied on the long tail specifically. And so I I, I instinctively knew how to leverage these kinds of things. Now, and I'll talk about that for a second cuz it, this is what influences the ai. So we have the functional component from Walmart, but then there's this more like ethereal component from, from the neuroscience of music right now. Um, Kara, when you listen to a new song, your brain must instantly access every other song you've ever heard.

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Speaker 2: (15:35)

Hmm. And in that moment it's looking for familiar touchpoints so it knows where to index the new song in the library of the memory of your brain. Okay? Hmm. And so now you know why music is so powerful because in that moment of listening, you've got nostalgia, memory, emotion, all these factors, all of which cue trust. Right? In order for trust to happen, all those things have to be there. And your voice is like a song, it's like a musical note. All sound, all voices have a frequency to them, right? Mm-hmm. . So when you write an email or a text or a Slack message or billboard copy and I read it, I hear your voice in my head,

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Speaker 1: (16:20)

Right?

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Speaker 2: (16:22)

So as the author, it's your job to give me familiar touch points and get that nostalgia, emotion, memory, trust, like have all those things happening. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: (16:32)

Right? Right.

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Speaker 2: (16:34)

And this is the thing we talked about before, that the third, the third party, the theater of the Mind. So a great, uh, radio host, a great podcast host, a great author, allows for that character to enter because the imagination is a character. There has to be room in the story for them to fill in some blanks and you guide the blanks, right? Mm-hmm. . So it's the same, you see how it's the same. Um, so the, the AI uses these two kind of underlying ideas to fuel what lately has become today.

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Speaker 1: (17:10)

Right? Yeah. That's super interesting that, that kind of made me think of content differently because now every time it's like every time you're writing something down in an email or a text, it's like you have your, your own style of writing that's like your unique finger fingerprint. And then when people read it, that's like they're accessing the memories of you talking to them. So fingerprint unlocks in their brain the memory of your voice. Hmm.

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Speaker 2: (17:42)

I love how you said that. Super

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Speaker 1: (17:43)

Interesting. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so you finally got to founding lately and Neuroscience of music. So what, what was the main insight that helped you, um, grow that into what it has become nowadays?

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Speaker 2: (18:03)

No, it was, it's the catalyst. So like my dad, the first catalyst was my friend Steve, um, who had met me and heard about my spreadsheet system, which is the Walmart thing, and wanted to learn more about them and was constantly ask, asking me, cuz now by this point I have an agency and I have other clients and I'm using the same processes. And Steve was the one who came from the software world and he had had a successful exit. And he was like, you know, all you need to do is make wire frames. It'll cost $25,000 and we can automate your spreadsheets. And at the time ki like, I didn't know what those words meant.

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Speaker 1: (18:41)

. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (18:44)

I'm like, I don't know what a wire frame is and don't touch my spreadsheets. I mean, what are you crazy? They're awesome. $25,000. You kidding me? I've been eating ramen and two buck chuck for, you know, years, right? I'm in Radio . Um, so he ended up pulling the $25,000 out his own pocket and brought in, uh, Jason the designer who's now one of my co-founders. And they, they built the wire frames, which are, um, like blueprints for a website so people can sort of visualize how it works, you know? And they showed them to me and, uh, he said that I was a lot nicer to him after that .

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Speaker 1: (19:23)

Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (19:26)

So the catalyst there first was Steve seeing what could be done. But then to answer your question, once we built the product, um, you guys were the triggers, right? So we just watched the customers and we built the platform that where each, each spreadsheet that I had was a, was a feature. And we could see that there was this one feature that everybody liked the most , right? And so we began to pivot the company around that. Um, and it took a long time. We didn't know it was ai, actually. We didn't know that's what we had created. Um, and then we started learning about AI and we're like, oh, I think this is what we're doing and we're watching the customers use it more. And at first we'd pr we'd made it only for text, and then we had more and more demand for video and audio.

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Speaker 2: (20:15)

So we, we produced those things as well. Um, would it be, he, I can tell I don't wanna be be a commercial, but I can tell you guys how lately works if it's helpful for context. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Um, so lately turns any kind of long form content into short form content, right? Um, but not just any short form content, short form content, it knows it's gonna get you the highest engagement. So it does this by con first you connect, uh, any social channels that you have, and it goes and it looks at the analytics, let's say for your Twitter account. And as it's reading your analytics, and it looks back to about a year. So it's building a lot of knowledge base here. And it's looking for the words, phrases, ideas, and sentence structures that built the highest engaging posts for you, right? So it it learning what, what works.

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Speaker 2: (21:04)

And then when you feed it long form content, it now has the writing model that it has built for you custom with your voice. And it takes that content and it pulls the phrases that contain what's in the writing model out into social posts with a link back to the full and all this stuff, right? The thing that I had done manually for, for Walmart right now, it also does this with video. So like this podcast to start into late, it'll automatically transcribe it, it'll read the text, look for the quotes, and then pull out the video clips of, of you saying something awesome, right? Um, and so the idea is you can see is like, let's repurpose what you have, but let's do it in a way where it's the exact words, phrases, and ideas that we know we're gonna get you the highest engagement.

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Speaker 2: (21:50)

And for anybody just wanting some proof in the pudding, um, we lately only use Lately to market lately. So I'm gonna ask Kira for this file afterwards, run it through my own ai, broadcast it on my channels, and we have a 98% sales conversion. I'll say that again. 98%, which is very high. And it's because the AI is so good at figuring out what people wanna read, watch, and share, right? Mm-hmm. based on all the things we just talked about, you know, you, you said it like this is everything is about emotion. Everything I do what you want me to do because I feel a certain way, right? That's the only way to get me to do something is to get me to react or feel

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Speaker 1: (22:35)

Right?

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Speaker 2: (22:36)

And so by combining those understandings with the a robot, like, so the two, the two things go hand in hand, right? Kira, you can't just have automation on its own. It's boring. The results will be fine, but they're not gonna be drop your job. Yeah, exactly. And that's what we're going for. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: (22:56)

Right. Okay. Very interesting. Hmm. Okay. So what allowed you to sort of grow your company was this insight to sort of go with your gut. I guess that's kind of what it all centers around. So after you kind of realized that , how did that, how did that change your perspective or like your approach to, you know, promoting your business?

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Speaker 2: (23:27)

Yeah, you know, it's the thing I live in, I live by, I would, I would, now, the moment I'm in any amount of pain whatsoever, I know something's wrong, right? So for me, , I often have panic attacks and my panic attacks surface, um, in the tightness of run throat.

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Speaker 1: (23:47)

Hmm.

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Speaker 2: (23:47)

And it's usually cause I'm not saying something that needs to be said.

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Speaker 1: (23:53)

Hmm. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (23:55)

And I, I have a, I say something a lot to my team, which is it's always right in front of you, meaning like when you're banging your head against the wall and you can't come up with the idea, it's usually, I've written it somewhere down before or it's on a sticky note. One of my, I've got 50 sticky notes in front of me here, , or, um, you know, it's in the library of my email. The, the idea has, I'm, I'm 48 years old, so like the idea has germinated somewhere before I just need to access it. And sometimes it's just taking an idea of that I think has nothing to do with this thing in the moment. And being able to metaphorically apply it, you know, to, to change my perspective or, or whatever it is, and get that catalyst, I need a catalyst to do it a lot.

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Speaker 2: (24:39)

Right? So like the first thing is knowing that my instincts are trying to tell me to do something. And if I can't figure it out on my own to, to go get help surround myself with other people who can, who can flip the switch, you know? And that mindset helped us, um, grow the company 240% in monthly recurring revenue. Mm-hmm. in 2020 covid. Wow. It also, yeah. Thank you so much. We've messed up other things. Believe me. Like , that was a good day, good year. Um, it also helped us, you know, we, we stopped, we really stopped all sales efforts the last year because we could see there was a problem with the product and we knew how to solve it. We thought we knew how to solve it. We had a lot of data, but I knew that I needed to look at the data differently.

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Speaker 2: (25:29)

And so I went and, you know, sometimes we, once you're open to it, things fall in your lap. So Mark, Robert, who's the guy who was the c r o that took, uh, HubSpot to I P o came into my life and I spent 10 weeks with him to change the channel. And as a result we were able to, um, I saved the company frankly. Like all of us were fried and burnt, tired. And we got together, figured out what to change, and spent the last six months doing it. And everyone was working over time and like, on weekends, like the, all the engine, the engine was moving together. You know, we were all so excited and, and we just released that version of the product a few weeks ago.

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Speaker 1: (26:14)

Hmm.

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Speaker 2: (26:15)

And you know, like, I don't, it's a zero to one our lives, right? You're either at zero or one in, in this, um, in the startup land, which is very frustrating because I'm far from zero, but I'm not at one, you know, and I don't know, everything feels right right now, Kira. It feels like the right things and, but I, I'm not at one yet. I I don't have the proof yet that I'm doing it, you know, that, that I've done made the right choice except that my gut is telling me I am. You know? Right. Hmm. Um, that's a weird way to live because you're just, it, it's more than guessing, obviously you're theorizing, you know?

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Speaker 1: (26:54)

Yeah, yeah. That educating us

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Speaker 2: (26:58)

. Yeah. And that's the thing, and you know this from startup life. Like, so when investors invest in an early stage company, they're betting on your gut, on my instinct. Right. They don't, oftentimes the product doesn't matter cause they know it's going to evolve massively. Right. Um, but it's the people.

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Speaker 1: (27:18)

Yeah. Yeah. That actually makes a lot of sense because it has more to do with your, your dedication to, you know, building and growing something rather than the initial product. IDX products change as you develop them.

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Speaker 2: (27:32)

That's, that's right. Can we, you know, we have this conversation all the time. I, I can walk through walls. I do it every day. Hmm. Right. Is it worth, it still is the pain of walking through a wall and, and do I have enough proof there? And I'm constantly checking with my co-founders on this and myself and my investors, and the answer continues to be yes. And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna walk through some more walls then. No problem. . But, but that's what you're, that's what it's like, you know, it's, it's, are you crazy? And if you are, is it the good kind ? Hmm. Or is it time to shut it down? You know, that's every day I ask that question to myself.

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Speaker 1: (28:15)

Right. So let's switch gears and let's say you're talking to a marketer, a marketing executive at a B2B SaaS startup, and they are trying to soak up your wisdom and implement your advice of going with your gut into their day-to-day job. If they had to go step by step to implement that in order to grow their own business, what are the steps you would give them?

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Speaker 2: (28:46)

Um, take a shower. This is the first thing. . Go. Yeah. Go get naked. Go. Just to be pure, like go and go in the shower and just, you know, that I find I do my best thinking in the shower and cuz everything is free and you're, you know, you're cleansing and like you're the water. And that's where I think of ideas that I haven't had or things that I need to do. But you gotta get to that pure place. Whatever, it's, maybe it's meditating, um, maybe it's going on vacation, maybe it's just sitting outside in the sun for a minute. But you have to get to that pure place first. And you, it's really hard. You have to do it every day. Uh, like it's, so it's the thing, it's like my one non-negotiable. So I meditate every day for 10 minutes. Um, and I go to the gym every day.

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Speaker 2: (29:36)

These are my things that I have to do or I'll kill somebody. Um, but it's more than that. That it's more like it's my level set every day. You know? So fir the first thing you have to do is figure out what that is. If you're not doing it, you already, you already know it's hurting you cuz your gut is already already telling you, you know, this. Like, if you think about for me, if you're in pain at all, I just believe that, no, I know this sounds like pie in the sky, but I believe that pain is unacceptable and that there's always a way to solve it. I really do. I mean, we have, and I'm saying this now as like, I'm starting to get arthritis and these other things that are happening to me cuz my body is just aging. But there's always a, a creative way to figure out like, you know, how to, um, how to address it.

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Speaker 2: (30:22)

So I think that's the first thing. And, and to think about like what feels uncomfortable. You know, we talked about, um, the voice and you, you did such a great job of describing, you know, another way or would of saying, but, but imagine this, if you read something you wrote out loud and you trip over it as you read it, that's, that's like your voice's way of telling you this is not working. You know, it's like another, it's a gut check, right? An audio gut check. Um, so I think that's, that's a good thing too, to think about. Like, you know, somebody told me a long time ago to be myself and I thought it was stupid advice because duh of course be myself, right. I'm being myself, but I wasn't, I wasn't like, I was going to these meetings in suits, which I don't own a suit .

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Speaker 2: (31:14)

Like I had a briefcase. Like I was in radio, you know, for God's sakes. I was a line cook before that. Like, I have jeans and t-shirts, that's what I have. Yeah. And I started wearing my jeans and my cowboy boots to meetings and you know, Kira, I, I swear like a sailor. I have a foul dirty mouth. And I started doing that too. I just started being myself because I'm, it's, I'm taller that way. I'm in, I'm, I'm more confident that way. I'm more creative that way. And, and people invest in that because they can see the me, right? Yeah. It's like all the doors, all the doors opened when I realized, you know, that if anything feels uncomfortable, that's my instinct trying to tell me, you know, that you gotta change it in some way. So it's pretty easy and cheap you can test yourself all day long on this. Um, what's interesting is when you listen to your gut, you give other people their permission to listen to theirs as well. Hmm. So your relationships, even with your employees, with your customers, with your podcast hosts, with your husband, whoever, everything, everything goes better and faster. Right? Right,

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Speaker 1: (32:43)

Right. Cause they can see who you are. They see your unique id, your fingerprint, .

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Speaker 2: (32:49)

Yeah. And it just, it cuts through the noise.

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Speaker 1: (32:53)

Exactly.

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Speaker 2: (32:54)

Right. Because like I gotta get done, you know, that's what I gotta do. And anything in my way needs to get out of the way. And so I want, I want the fastest route there. I mean I do, you know, this is how I am. And um, I don't have time to cover it up. Right. That's the thing, you know, like I get carrot in treatment in my hair every three months and it's really expensive and I do it because I only have time to take a shower once a week and wash my hair up once a week. I don't have time, you know, , um,

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Speaker 1: (33:27)

Do what you gotta do.

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Speaker 2: (33:28)

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and I think lastly on that, that note knowing when it's not only knowing to listen, but it's knowing really. Like if you're not, if you can tell something's wrong, but you don't know what it is or how to change it, you have to have the wisdom to get the feedback from other people. Hmm. You know, and, and take that, get that catalyst going. Right. Um, that's what makes a great c e o of great leader is knowing that you don't know at all. .

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Speaker 1: (34:09)

Hmm. Okay. So to summarize your steps real quick mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: (34:18)

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Speaker 1: (34:18)

number one. Let's take a shower.

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Speaker 2: (34:21)

. You're so good. What did I even say? ?

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Speaker 1: (34:27)

Uh, just find a way to tap into what's gonna help you think of ideas, uh, whether it's meditating or something similar. And do that every day. And then find a way to be yourself and bring yourself authentically to every interaction that you have. Cause that helps you get things done faster. And then make sure that if there's a problem, if there's some pain or something that you don't know how to solve, um, that you have the wisdom to go and get feedback from other people so they can help you, uh, sort it out. Uh, so within those steps, uh, is there any pitfalls that, uh, a marketer in particular might come across when they're trying to implement this in their company?

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Speaker 2: (35:19)

Um, yeah, I think that the pitfall is obviously, well for two things. Number one, waiting too long. So if you're not listening to your gut, the more you wait, the worse it gets. I'm proof of that. Right. Number one. But number two is you have to be really careful who, who you allow to be the catalyst who you listen to. You know, there's that saying that advice is free for a reason. Mm-hmm. , because there's so much of it . Right. Um, and everybody also wants to be on a rising star, you know, or on a, everybody wants a piece of the fund of the, of the good time. And so then the, the more successful you get, the more people are want to advise you, quote unquote. Right.

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Speaker 1: (36:15)

Right.

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Speaker 2: (36:16)

And being able to filter through that is hard. Not just for marketers, but for life. I mean, this is like life thing. Like who are the people that you're gonna trust and look up to and listen to? I, for example, um, so I love my, my two co-founders. So, so Brian is our c t o. He's very empirical, he's very calm, he's very measured, you know, he's this equals that. I know I can always ask him for a very rational explanation of anything cuz I'm a drama queen. And so like, I know that he's gonna interpret reality for me, you know, and Jason takes criticism. He's my desire. He takes criticism super well. I'm terrible at that. Um, but he like lives for it. And he's also very detail oriented. Um, and so I have these two people around me that have qualities that I don't have. Right. You know, and, uh, I find that there are times when I don't spend a lot of time with them, and then I realize that I'm s I'm suffering and the business is suffering because I'm not. And I need to make sure that the three of us are, um, solving the problems together.

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Speaker 1: (37:35)

Hmm. So find the people in your life or seek people out who you really trust to give you, you know, the right information and then seek out their advice.

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Speaker 2: (37:47)

Yeah.

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Speaker 1: (37:48)

Yeah.

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Speaker 2: (37:49)

And that could change too, right? Kira? I mean like, it's not always the same people. There's people that come and go outta your life, you know?

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Speaker 1: (37:56)

Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Um, and then are there any tips that you have in particular that would help to make your your steps successful?

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Speaker 2: (38:11)

Um, wait, it's, it's hard. I'm trying, we're trying to science the, the process here. Um, tips to make

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Speaker 1: (38:19)

Successful Yeah. Yeah. The, the steps were, you know, think of ideas, be yourself, um, get feedback from others, you know, make sure that, uh, you're getting feedback from the right people. Anything that could help make any of those successful.

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Speaker 2: (38:34)

Um, you know, there, it, there's so much I think around all of it. What works for me is to not have an edit button. So I just say what I think when I think it . Now this may not work for everybody, but it works for me. Right. And I, I let it, I let that go. That's one of my ways of like being my most true self is just like knowing that whatever needs to come outta my mouth needs to come out, otherwise I'm gonna have a panic attack here. Right? Number one. Um, and number two, knowing that the people around me, um, are okay with my not edit button, right. I don't have to apologize to them. So I'm, I'm around people who came tolerate that or celebrate that however way it is. Um, and then, you know, I even, I, I'm listening to myself, we just talked about that. Like, I can hear when it comes out just by saying it aloud, the idea is I can hear when it's not the right thing or when it's the hundred percent right thing, right. It's, it's right. I'm actually literally manifesting my destiny by saying whatever it is i, I need to do or I want to do or I'm thinking about out loud.

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Speaker 1: (39:56)

Hmm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, awesome.

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Speaker 2: (40:01)

Yeah,

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Speaker 1: (40:01)

That. Um, and as we kind of wrap up, it's time to shine a spotlight on you and your company. So are there any projects you're working on, anything that you'd like people to know or anything anywhere that you'd like people to be able to get in touch with you?

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Speaker 2: (40:19)

That's fine, Kara. Thanks. Um, they can always pop over to dub dub dub lately, AI and follow me in all the social places. Um, or my team we're, we're entertaining and fun. , that's for sure. Um, we just released three new products and they're all designed for smaller businesses, so we're testing them right now. And, uh, we've got some great partnerships with both HubSpot and Hootsuite and really looking for those customers actually. Um, so we can do some better beta testing. So if you're a Hootsuite or a HubSpot social customer, call me. I've got some free stuff for you. Um, and I want your feedback. But otherwise, um, thank you so much. I mean, it's really nice of you to host, host me today, and to listen to me blather on .

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Speaker 1: (41:07)

No, your blathering was amazing and I, it was really incredibly, really, really incredible having you on.

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Speaker 2: (41:15)

My pleasure was mine. Thank you so much.

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