Speaker 1 (00:00):

You're listening to marketing news, Canada. Canada's number one show featuring the brightest minds in marketing PR and digital advertising.

Speaker 2 (00:10):

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of marketing news, Canada. Canada's number one podcast, and all things, communication, advertising and marketing. I'm your host, Ted Lau award-winning agency, owner podcaster and family guy today on our show, we have Kate Bradley Turners, who is the founder and CEO of lately an AI company that learns which words will get you the most engagement and turns audio, video, and text into dozens of social posts containing those words as a former rock and roll DJ, Kate served 20 million listeners as music director and on air host at Sirius XM. She's also an award-winning radio producer engineer, voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications brand building sales and marketing expertise. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence. Okay. Welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:03):

<laugh> we're I'm laughing because, you know, we are having trouble getting my microphone working and here I am supposed to be this expert, you know, and it's just like, not my day <laugh>

Speaker 2 (01:13):

It is all good. All good in the hood. We gotta be like grateful the fact that like, you know, you're all the way in, uh, was it country, uh, New York and I'm, I'm in Vancouver and we're still doing this. So it's all good.

Speaker 3 (01:25):

It's incredible. I mean, it's so by the way, let's just stop on that real quick, Ted. Like what's amazing is that, you know, we're able to figure out, I think that, that we could easily go have a drink together right now and have a really good time and just knowing each other in five minutes, right.

Speaker 2 (01:42):

It would be a great time. And you know, if we have time, we'll talk about your, your rock and roll career as well. But before we do that, let's start with every superhero's journey. What's your origin story. How'd you get here? You know, you, you went from rock radio, DJ to AI CEO, so what's going on?

Speaker 3 (02:01):

Yeah. Um, good. It's a great story. So, so buckle up folks and, and women especially lean in. Um, so here I was at the show, right? I'm at XM satellite radio, I'm broadcasting to 20 million listeners a day. What a ride to my first day, Tony Bennett walked by, you know, I was like, oh my God. And, um, it was a boy's club as radio is. Um, and I knew that, and there was sexual harassment of course, but it was so celebrated and awarded that I even, I participated in it. Right. It was just part of the part of the day. And, um, what I didn't understand was that it was being used against me to create, what's now referred to as a hostile work environment. We didn't have these terms back then, Ted. Um, and so it was really frustrating because I couldn't seem to get ahead, even though I was kicking.

Speaker 3 (02:51):

Right. Um, now my body was trying to tell me something because I, I kept having all these weird ailments. And what it was trying to say was Kate, this situation is really stressful for you. You gotta get out of it, but I wasn't listening until I was fully incapacitated. So I, I fell down the stairs at work and tore Liga in my ankle and it was misdiagnosed. So I was in a boot or in a wheelchair for like a year and a half. Oh my. Yeah. Um, and I had this like strange rash on my torso that no one could explain. And then my, my hands and my arms and my fingers developed epicondylitis and tendonitis. This is 2005 or six. And suddenly I can't type without extreme pain in any way. Okay. I can't do what everyone in the world seemingly can do use a computer.

Speaker 3 (03:43):

Holy, this is bad. Right. So I, I, I did what everything I could do in my power. First, I hired an intern to type for me cuz XM wouldn't do that because I looked fine. I looked like there was nothing wrong with me. You know, they didn't believe me. And then, um, I learned about dragon naturally speaking, which is actually now the, the engine that powers Siri, but then no one knew about dragon. And I still use it to this day. I have a, I have a partial permanent disability and I only can talk to my computer. I can't touch it. Um, so, but, but then like the tech team at, at XM, wouldn't put this into my computer there. Like that was, this was too much to ask, right? This is a big company and worse. I had to have my own office.

Speaker 3 (04:28):

I'm this peon in a, in a big, you know, office of 400 people. And I need my own office. I need special treatment because the microphone hears everything. You have to have a quiet space. Right. So I buy my own laptop with no money. I mean, I'm in radio salary. Like I, I, I eat ramen and drink two buck Chuck. Right. And <laugh>, um, I find there's only three dragon experts in the country. I find one of them, she lives in DC. I'm so lucky. I can't pay her. Turns out she's a huge fan of my station. So I pay her in with a couple hundred CDs. Okay. And she teaches me this software, which Paraic use actually. And it's like learning a, a language. So, um, I end up having to move out of XM cuz it's so hostile and all, all the, everything hard to explain frankly.

Speaker 3 (05:15):

But, um, and my body is really only getting worse. Like not even though I'm doing everything in my power to, to fix, it's not happening. I move to another music related company. It's the same shows a different day. And um, one, one day and I'm crying all the time. Ted and I, I used to smoke. I'm an excellent smoker. Right? So I'm this toxic ball like kind of like Pigpen on, um, Charlie, Brad, right? It's like all this toxic toxicity coming outta me. And so one day, um, my dad shook me lovingly by the shoulders and said you can't work for other people. And there's no shame in that.

Speaker 2 (05:56):

Wow. That was powerful.

Speaker 3 (05:58):

It was. And there, so that's part one. Um, part two is in this. This is, so this is the same week my dad says this thing, I think, oh my God, there's another way. And also I think the shame he hit, he hit on something because, and here's the part for you ladies is that my default is to think what I was doing wrong. All the things, this is my fault. Right? This is what we do. And I wasn't doing anything wrong. Those guys were doing the wrong thing. Right. But I didn't know that. And I was reading a self-help book. God help me cuz I really hate those things. But I, like I said, I was trying to do everything in my power

Speaker 2 (06:41):

And on the which book, which book,

Speaker 3 (06:44):

The secret <laugh>

Speaker 2 (06:46):

Hey, that's a great one. I actually watched the, the DVD, the

Speaker 3 (06:49):

DVD, right? Like, I mean, so the me, the message is great, but the writing was I think terrible. And um, it was just so cheesy and corny and I was like killing now. But to your point, like, you know, so the secret is not a secret at all. It's a mindset. That's what it is. And I got it. Cuz all, like I said, I, I was Pigpen. So like all that was coming outta my mouth was I'm in pain. I hate my life. I hate my job. I smoke. Right. I wouldn't be killing myself essentially here. Right. So I stopped that and I suddenly, I didn't have a lot of people to talk to at work. We would all go out and smoke cigarettes and complain about our days, you know? And um, at the same time my husband had overheard my dad. He was my boyfriend then and, and his great wisdom went physically out to the bookstore cuz I'm old and that's what you did. And he got me, um, GEI Kawasaki's art of the start, which is a very famous startup book. Right. And right in the first or second chapter guy says don't make a plan. Just get started. So I ditched the book cause I was like, well I don't need this thing. Let's roll. Let's go here.

Speaker 2 (07:56):

So you need to finish the book here at chapter two. And you're like, oh it. I'm gonna just do this

Speaker 3 (08:00):

<laugh> so, so that was, so my dad, the book, the other book, and then again, this is all the same week. I got invited to a lunch date with some clients who normally would mail ship, ship me what we needed for work. But they were fans of mine from XM and they wanted to meet me and they happened to be two, uh, angels. I didn't know this. And we went to lunch and I was just spouting off all my ideas with a lot of some swears by the way, cuz that's, that's who I am. And they were like, we love you. Here's $50,000. Let's start a company.

Speaker 2 (08:35):

Wow. And that was the birth of lately.

Speaker 3 (08:38):

That was the birth of, we started a music taste making company, actually like a widget. Remember widgets.

Speaker 2 (08:44):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:44):

Yeah. And as I was marketing that someone else came along and said, boy, you're really good at marketing. How about you? Leave the music industry all together. We'll pay you a lot more money to come advise us. And um, that was the Walmart project head.

Speaker 2 (08:58):

Mm.

Speaker 3 (08:59):

So now, oh wow. I'm advising the largest retailer in the world on marketing. And you know, you, as you can imagine, I come from, I was a line cook. I came from radio. Polish is not my strong point.

Speaker 2 (09:13):

Let's say not your jam, not your jam,

Speaker 3 (09:15):

Not so much. <laugh>. So I came in there like a bull in the China closet with my wacky ideas and it took them a while, but I ended up building a spreadsheet for this project that got us 130% ROI year over year for three years. Wow. And that was the beginning of lately. Um, yeah. So,

Speaker 2 (09:36):

But how'd you how'd you factor in the, the go from spreadsheet to AI

Speaker 3 (09:40):

<laugh> yeah. Good question. All right. So, so I have these catalysts in my life. My dad's the first one, right? The second one was, um, this guy, Steve, who someone had introduced me to and he came from the tech world. Steve was an angel investor, a serial entrepreneur. He knew this whole other life that I had never heard of. And he kept asking to see all of my spreadsheets cuz now I had other clients and I was using the same idea. Right. And I just thought he was so annoying. Like he was harassing me basically for like a year. And finally he was like, listen, we just need $25,000. We can build some wire frames and we can automate your spreadsheets, your spreadsheets. And I thought, I didn't know what he was saying. I didn't know these words. I didn't know what a wire frame was.

Speaker 3 (10:27):

I didn't know what, um, automating really meant. And $25,000, like I said, I'm eating ramen and two buck check here. And I'm actually about to buy my first house at this time. So like my $25,000 I've worked saved my whole life for is, you know, going to something else. So he took the money out of his own pocket and found a designer, Jason who's now my co-founder and they came to my house. It was a Sunday night. So, so marketing consultants you'll appreciate this. You know, I only took a vacation when my customers took a vacation.

Speaker 2 (10:57):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Speaker 3 (10:58):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> right. Christmas week, the Sunday night, um, between Christmas and new year's. So I'm two glasses in these guys are rolling up at my house at eight o'clock at night and they wanna do some business and I'm like, off.

Speaker 2 (11:09):

Right. <laugh> it's Christmas

Speaker 3 (11:13):

<laugh> and they showed me the wire frames and then I got it, you know? Um, and I'll never forget, you know, Steve and I deciding to move forward on this project. And I said, you know, there's only one rule, which is I have to be the boss and that little sneaky, sneaky sucker. He knew Ted. He knew what it meant to be the CEO of a startup company. I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (11:36):

<laugh>

Speaker 3 (11:38):

It's all you <laugh> right. So I like to joke it's all his fault.

Speaker 2 (11:44):

Well, I mean good for you. I mean, it is funny that we kind of have similar, uh, origin stores insofar as like I had a call with my dad recently about, you know, Hey, when I was younger, what, what do you what'd you think I would do? And he was like, well, the only thing I knew was you weren't gonna be able to work for somebody. And I was like, so it was either run my own business or be homeless. Like that's those were my options. And he was like, yeah, pretty much. Right. But I think there is something about, you know, entrepreneurs and, and those that lead just you, you, I joke that we're certi certifiably unemployable. Right. And there is a, there is a, an excitement to it, a grace to it and a, oh my F you know, I better figure this out cuz there's all these people depending on me.

Speaker 3 (12:32):

Yeah. It it's a huge weight to bear. Like, because it's not only my employees, but it's my investors. It's the people, you know, at this point now other people look up to me. I still can't figure that out honestly, a lot. Um, but does happen and um, you know, cause I'm weird. I came from a different place. I didn't go to a fancy school. Right. And I don't own a suit actually that my whole LinkedIn photo by the way is totally fake. That's my husband's jacket and I don't wear glasses. Um, <laugh>,

Speaker 2 (13:07):

I'll make sure I let everyone know on our, on our promo. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:11):

Opposer. Um, so it's um, the, the weight is also the, I mean the biggest one is you, right? You're the you're I imagine you're your artist critic, right?

Speaker 2 (13:22):

At times I've learned, I've learned and you know, I, I didn't smoke, but I did, I think understand I've done a lot of self-help stuff, myself and, and leadership growth cuz you, you kind of need to, you're like, why, why am I hitting all these goals yet? I'm still miserable. And so figuring out, you know, self-love and compassion and, and you know, we, I do a grateful exercise every day. I meditate now. And so it's very different than what I used to be. I definitely like rock and roll was my jam. Right. My first concert ever was Fu fighters at the Commodor their very first, their very first con I found out Dave girl had a documentary on Amazon or something like that. And I watched I'm like, and then this was our first tour and blah, blah. We were so nervous on. And it says like Vancouver Commodor, I'm like, holy like that.

Speaker 2 (14:03):

I was there. Right. And so that's where I came from. I had no, no fancy, no Hennessy. Right. I'm not, I'm not sure we have two buck Chuck here, but you know, we definitely had like forties of OE and stuff like that. Right. That's kind of where I came from too. And, and I think a lot of, a lot of entrepreneurs, agency owners, CEOs are, are, um, renegades in a, in a way, right? Like we're, we're kind of like revels, you know, with the cause without a cause, whatever you wanna call it, we kind of don't give a. It's just like, we're gonna do this. We have a vision. We're gonna go. And then we kind of figure out along the way, like, I didn't have a plan. I didn't read guy. I don't even read that book art from the start. I was just like, I remember I had, when I started the agency, my, I had a partner at the time.

Speaker 2 (14:42):

I had two partners at the time and they were like, what do we call the name? How are we gonna do this? What's the plan. I'm like F it, like, if we're not making money, we don't, it's just a hobby. Like let's, let's go. And now I've made many a mistake because of it. Right. Because you think, you know, I think a little bit is the ego like, oh, how hard could it be? Right. Like, like you said, like, oh, the CEO, oh, I'm was gonna be the CEO. How hard could that be? And he's like, Ugh, like, oh my God.

Speaker 3 (15:11):

See. So I, I knew we could go have fears together.

Speaker 2 (15:13):

Right. So, oh, we will, we will, my friend don't you worry, but let, let's go back to the serious BIS of the marketing. So you talked to Gary V you did something with Gary V your, the, the notes that I have is, you know, you got them I'm am I reading this right? 12000% increased engagement, 12000%. Is that a typo?

Speaker 3 (15:34):

Yeah. No, not a typo. <laugh> um, yeah, Gary is one of our advisors. We did an experiment with them a couple years ago when we first launched our video capability. Um, and we should tell people not for commercial purposes, you know what lately does? Um,

Speaker 2 (15:49):

Oh yeah, we should probably do that.

Speaker 3 (15:50):

Yeah. On a second. But anyway, so with Gary, um, the idea was to, he wanted to launch a Twitter channel fueled 100% by lately and nothing else. And it's called at Gary VTV. You can go look at it. And the idea was, you know, Gary has tons of content, obviously, so let's see if we can unlock it and use the AI to find the best, um, video clips or one liners from whatever he's publishing and pull them into social posts. And how well does it do that compared to Gary's team of humans? Cause of course he has an army, right. Um, and the answer was 80%. So there's an 80% parallel between what our AI pulled out and what his humans did, which is really cool. Um, and you know, Gary's the experiment with Gary really helped ed educate us about how to take what we had built, which was really a robust enterprise level platform and strip it down into more of a layperson's, um, tool, which we were actually recently able to do 74 days ago, just launched.

Speaker 3 (16:53):

Yay. Um, to give anyone the ability to be, to be Gary, right. This is what we were trying to do. You know, how can you have an army when you are only an army of one? Yeah. Um, so the, the, the platform, by the way, folks, so, so let's see, where should we start Ted? So, so first let's, let's back up to radio. Let me tell you a little story. Okay. Okay. So of course I've wrote hundreds and hundreds of commercials for radio. I was, I was a production director cuz that's where the money is in radio. If you can learn how to produce the commercials, then you can charge for it on the side and make your living. Um, cuz there's no living in radio. Um, then, uh, I was also a fiction writing major. So <laugh> writing for a living is something I was prepared to do who knew <laugh>.

Speaker 3 (17:42):

Um, but when you are so, so, so my, my Uber power is turning listeners into fans, Ted, right? And that's a big deal. Fans work for you for free the same way customers can become evangelists. That's what you want. There's an investment piece that has to happen there and it's hard and it takes human work, you know, to do this and it takes time, but I know this from my career. And so with lately we, you know, from day one, we've been just doing the hard, hard way of laying down, um, organic marketing. Right. And by the way, that's all we do. We only use lately to market lately. Nothing else. We have a 98% sales conversion,

Speaker 2 (18:23):

98%. Mm-hmm

Speaker 3 (18:26):

<affirmative>

Speaker 2 (18:26):

Yep. How many humans do you actually have working with you or is this just the, all the platform

Speaker 3 (18:30):

There's? Um, well, so on my marketing team, uh, so let me explain how it works. Um, okay. So, so at the high level let's connect the radio. So when you're, so I, so I learned a lot about the neuroscience music just by reading, you know, and researching and wanting to kind of understand what I was having success. And why was I, I wanted to know like what was the, as BS and CS around it. So in a nutshell, when you listen to a new song, Ted, your brain must instantly access every other song you've ever heard before in that moment. Pretty incredible. Right. And what it's really what, yeah. It's looking for the familiar touch points. So it knows where to index that new song and the library of the memory of your brain. Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:14):

So just for the audience, uh, because we're doing audio, you can't see my face. I'm just like, what, like what, what is what's going on right now? Keep going, Kate.

Speaker 3 (19:25):

It's wonderful. Um, and, and so the reason music is so powerful, cuz again, in that moment, what's happening is nostalgia, memory, emotion. All these things are getting triggered in the process of trying to figure out where to go in, in the, in the library and those components by the way, must be in place for trust to happen. And trust is why we buy. Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative>. So now let's segue to writing when you, your voice head is like a song, there's a musical note, there's a frequency to your voice. All sound has a frequency, right?

Speaker 2 (19:59):

My wife would not say my voice to this song, but thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. It's recorded now. So it's true.

Speaker 3 (20:06):

<laugh> I like your wife. Um,

Speaker 2 (20:09):

So <laugh>

Speaker 3 (20:12):

Mine. Mine says, why don't I get the nice voice, which is, this is my nice voice, Ted the

Speaker 2 (20:16):

Radio voice.

Speaker 3 (20:17):

Yeah. So we should hook, hook them up. Um, so they can complain about us together. So, so, um, when you read text, Ted, if you read a, a, a email or a social post or anything, you hear the voice of the author in your head mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. And if the job of the author then to give you familiar touchpoints and trigger nostalgia, memory, emotion, and trust, right? Same. Yeah. Yeah. One more parallel between audio and, and text, which is this, um, there's this beautiful thing called the theater of the mind, right? And that's the idea of, you know, you have to play a role. Your imagination has to play a role in fill in the blanks, right? Video. Doesn't do this for us. Video is a little bit dumbed down in that way. Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> but reading and listening have this com factor now a good author or a great podcast host knows this and leaves room for the human to play a role in the conversation and make them feel as though this is a two-way street, even though you wield the mic or the pin. Got it.

Speaker 2 (21:22):

Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 3 (21:23):

Right. So now Lately's AI uses this as an overarching kind of strategy in how it works and the Walmart project. So the Walmart project was how do we unlock long form content and find the best bits? So I, I was writing a blog. Every sentence was awesome, cuz I wrote it. And I thought, well, instead of just publishing on social, the title of this blog, which no one cares about Walmart helps the poor, sorry, nobody does care. Instead let's take sentences that are here that have a little mystery to them. Maybe contextualize them with a hashtag drop the link to the full version of the blog at the end of the sentence. And suddenly if I pick out 40 sentences, I've got 40 social posts and now everybody in this project can talk about what we're doing, uh, really easily without having to sit down and write it.

Speaker 3 (22:16):

It took me, you know, half an hour to go create 40 posts. By the way, it takes 12 minutes to write one from scratch on average. Okay. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Time saving. So these are the two things, um, in, in sort of in, in process it lately, functionally, here's how it works. You connect lately to any social account that you like. And as many as you like, so let's say Twitter, mm-hmm, <affirmative> instantly the brain studies, everything you've ever published in the last year. And it's looking at the messaging that got you the highest engagement, the most likes and comments and shares. And now it builds a writing model cuz it knows what words, ideas, sentence, structures, phrases, work for you, right. Will get you the likes comment and shares. And you, the human, the qua, the theater of the mind have multiple opportunities to guide the AI and help it because this is the difference between a robot and, and the, the magic. Okay. These two have to, um, coexist very, very,

Speaker 2 (23:15):

So it's not just robot. You have to have the human element, the theater of the mind piece.

Speaker 3 (23:19):

Yes. Cuz otherwise it's just automation. This is AI. AI learns from humans. Okay. So then once you have the writing model, you feed the AI long form content like like a video or a podcast or any text you can imagine could be chapters, chapters of a book or a blog link. In the case of a video, it automatically transcribes the text of what everything you and I might be saying. It runs through with its writing model and it's pulling out the pieces that contain the quotes that meet its criteria. Right? And now you have dozens of mini movie trailers with matching video clips of the cool you said to go ahead and drive leads back to the full. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (24:03):

It does. Now let, how how's the video content work though? That, that video because okay. I get that. Maybe there's the writing piece, but are they, are you guys actually is lately actually making video?

Speaker 3 (24:14):

No, it's clipping it up. Yes. It's clipping it for you. Wow. Yeah. So it's, it finds the one liners that you said, and it clips up the video of where you said it and matches it to the text into a social post.

Speaker 2 (24:27):

So are you saying that at this point I don't need to hire interns anymore? Or like how, how does that, is that right? Is that cuz like, I mean that's, that's um, you know, if, if you're into rock and roll, then like you probably are a little anti-establishment and then when now we're hearing like, Hey, we're building robots and they're gonna like, creativity is supposed to be the last frontier last fashion or frontier, but you know, lately, you know, companies that unbalance like other companies have, have basically pushed into this foray where in fact creativity can be adapted by AI.

Speaker 3 (24:57):

Yeah. I mean, remember the human is essential to this process, so you can't get rid of us all together and you need a human with a brain because the AI will do weird things and the, and you have to catch it. You know, like we have customers who let it rip and I, and I see them online and I'm like, Alex, <laugh>, you didn't take a second to because it learns everything you do. It's taking note and it'll, it'll get better and smarter and not do that again. You know, if you help it out. Right. Um, so, and, and you touched on something else and let's, let's make the rock and roll metaphor of circle the loop back here for people. Um, as Keith Richards says often without the, the roll it's just a March. Okay. Right, right. Without the, the humans are slow, the robots are cold together. Rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (25:46):

Okay. Okay. Okay. Very cool. All right. So then back to the 98%. So this was with no cold calls, no cold emails, no paid ads. I get the framework now. How did you get like 98%? My goodness.

Speaker 3 (26:01):

Yeah. So Gary V gave me some great advice, which was something they were doing. Um, they were stopping cold calls in cold emails and they thought, you know, we produced so much content. We've got so many fans. Let's just focus on the people who are liking and commenting and sharing what we already create. Because guess what? They're warm. Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> so that just like cuts out a ton of work, you know? And how do you nurture that? So I had an idea, oh, let's use lately on ourselves. So every single day, which is why scheduling for my calendar is such a nightmare. I do one public speaking engagement or a guest blog. I ask the host for the file. We upload it into lately. Lately's AI runs down, finds the coolest things that you and I have said makes them into social posts. My intern, Alex, who's amazing. Um, she then takes what the AI spits out, augments it, cuz the human has to help along here. Right. Then we publish it on both our brand channels and all of our employee channels because together we're stronger. And we watch to see who likes comments and shares. Like Gary had advised now they're warm and then we can DEQ or cue them, get them into DM. So that the, the time that you're in the product, that conversion rate is so high. Cuz you're hot.

Speaker 2 (27:21):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> right. Wow. Okay. So, so you still have to produce, you still have to produce organic content for and, and on a regular basis, not just like, Hey here lately, go ahead and do this. You have to give it food almost, almost.

Speaker 3 (27:39):

You have to give it food, but you don't have to produce it so it can be owned media. So it could be you creating your own content. It can be earned media so that what I do, right. I'm mm-hmm <affirmative> I'm you benefit from this? I'm gonna ask you for the file. All 20 social posts we make are gonna drive traffic back to the full length for you.

Speaker 2 (27:57):

Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Speaker 3 (27:58):

It's lead gen. Right? So it's a win-win um, but also you can, we, we integrate with an amazing company called up content. So you can click a button in lately that says, discover content up content will go out and find you, uh, news articles related to your industry. And then lately we'll auto generate those news articles into social posts for you

Speaker 2 (28:19):

In your book. Okay. So this sounds all awesome. Fantastic for the regular. I don't know I'm I shouldn't say old school, but you know the regular marketer who hasn't dabbled into this, this is like the next frontier. And then some, how does someone like that get started?

Speaker 3 (28:37):

Right? Well, we just release self-service products for those people because the demand, as you're saying was there and what's so frustrating is like even really professional, sophisticated marketers are so lazy. They don't wanna do any work. Right. They wanna push a button and walk away. And this is a stigma around marketing specifically. So, so imagine you sit down to use Intuit to do your taxes or QuickBooks, to do your accounting and you think I'm gonna sit down and do some work with the help of this awesome tool. But for some reason, with marketing, people just like want nothing to do with it. They're like make, make magic. And I'm like, well, I like to believe that magic exists, but I don't think it does. <laugh> you know? Um, so you know, with lately you can just sign up and for 15 bucks a month, a, an individual person can generate content that we're talking about with almost no effort.

Speaker 3 (29:38):

So our job is to really start you at third base, 75% of the way there. <laugh> right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that human element though, it's not just getting you home. It's not just rounding the base and running the distance to home. It's getting you a run. It's getting a score. That's the difference that the human makes here right now we have a V2 of the AI that's designed to start you about, you know, let's say 10 yards from home plate <laugh> um, that will release later this year. But you know, we're just, we're just learning Ted. Like what do people want? How can we help? How could we not replace them? How can we augment and enhance what they're doing and doing it, doing it in a way that you don't have to be Gary V or me or you to just get this annoying thing everyone has to do done

Speaker 2 (30:33):

You're democratizing marketing. Is that what you're doing?

Speaker 3 (30:37):

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz like our, our original, our original tagline seven years ago was if you can make it, sell it and ship it on your own. Why can't you market it?

Speaker 2 (30:47):

Yeah, that's brilliant. Okay. Now I know you are a busy person, so I'm gonna go right into our rapid fire round. I wish we had more time cuz I have so many other questions, but uh, we do have to fly here. So I'm gonna ask you probably the toughest question of the day. Favorite rock album.

Speaker 3 (31:08):

Mm oh boy. That is so hard. Um, so it's going to be album. Can I just give you a song? Sure. Wow. Okay. Even better. Uh there's two. So the first one is by the Wells, my husband's band. They're amazing. I mean, I couldn't marry him if they weren't and it's called, I am a lever, uh, by the way, the, the Lee singer for the Wells has written huge hit songs for many, many, many famous people. So great rock, rock record. And my other favorite song is more boring, but it's the police. Um, don't stand so close to me. And the reason is because I love a song that starts out minor key and ends up major. Um, and also I love that you can segue that song with the Holly's bus stop. And there's a line in don't stand, um, about she's raining and he's picking her up, you know, also who the hell can RO rhyme, you know, NA AOV in lyrics. <laugh> sting back when he was cool, you know,

Speaker 2 (32:09):

Back when he was cool, what, uh, book are you reading? Because you're you said you, you, you know, you're, I'm old or whatever is what you cited and you, you read physical books or at least I

Speaker 3 (32:20):

Saying that actually don't I <laugh> um, what book am I reading? I'm reading, um, quit like a woman by H Whitaker. It's about, um, it's about a lot of things, but to me it's about how big alcohol markets, alcohol, the same way, big tobacco markets, alcohol to, um, underserved populations and minorities specifically. And now think about this. If you are killing off your audience, you have to be clever to come up with the new ones. Wow. So just think about these guys, right? And it's, it's talking a lot about in our society, Ted, um, there's a, it's very binary. A alcohol is right. You're either an alcoholic or you're not right. You're either falling down your pants or you're just like getting drunk or, or drinking a little, but that's not really how most people operate. And everyone I know is trying to drink less.

Speaker 3 (33:10):

Everyone I know is struggling with this, you know, and is not an alcoholic, but is still, you know, addicted or has some kind of weird tie that we can't break. And so, um, I, this woman is she's been through hell, you know? And, uh, she writes like I talk, so I, I appreciate that. And I'm St I'm struggling with it. I mean, this is the human thing for me. I, I, I am drinking a glass or two every day and it's very hard for me to not, and I don't know why, and I don't like it cause I didn't like something controlling me, but you know, I, I run into the end of my day. I'm still going a hundred hour, a hundred miles an hour and I'm slamming into dinner time, the do I relax? And I just, like you said, I meditate every day too. You know, I go to the gym every day. I go for, for a walk outside almost every day and still like, I'm, you know, I'm having these panic attacks and it's hard.

Speaker 2 (34:09):

Have you ever, have you ever, um, read the book when things fall apart by Pamela Chodron?

Speaker 3 (34:14):

I know this book and I should read it. Shouldn't I,

Speaker 2 (34:16):

This book has changed my life. She's a Buddhist monk for those you don't know owns the biggest she's from New York owns the big, I think not owns runs the biggest monastery in, I think the Eastern seaboard, if not,

Speaker 3 (34:30):

Is it in Woodstock? Is that hers? Do you know? I, I wonder if don't

Speaker 2 (34:34):

You don't, I don't know either way. Great book changed my life audio book. I like basically just played it like an album over and over and over good tip. And it really got me to start seeing a lot of my habits of what I do to cope with stress. And she has a, she has a book I shouldn't spoil too much about, um, hope it's on hopelessness and death. That particular chapter. It does. It's not what it actually sounds like, but it kind of is, was amazing. So if you get a chance, do listen,

Speaker 3 (35:04):

Things fall apart

Speaker 2 (35:06):

When things fall apart by Pema Chodron, and you can get your AI to like whatever, you know, make snackable content outta that.

Speaker 3 (35:13):

We work with Forbes books. By the way,

Speaker 2 (35:16):

There you go. There you go. All right, my friend. Hey, um, thank you very much for your time. How can we, uh, get a find you get ahold of you or, you know, yeah. Get in contact, that kind of stuff. Follow you.

Speaker 3 (35:27):

Thank you. Thank you so much, Ted. Um, find me, uh, in all the places I'm at lately, AI Kaitlyn on Twitter. Um, and, and on LinkedIn, Kate Bradley churn, I think, or maybe just Kate Bradley, who knows, but I'm friendly and I won't try to sell you anything cuz I don't have to. We have a 98% sales conversion. So just watch out. <laugh>

Speaker 2 (35:47):

Just watch out just gonna like, oh, what what's going on? I'm in. Okay. Hey, thank you very much. Uh, for joining marketing news, Canada, I had a blast on this and yeah, if I'm ever in the countryside, New York state, I'm gonna look you up and we're gonna go for a, maybe a small pint

Speaker 3 (36:06):

Like hell we are. Yes. Thanks Kate. <laugh>

Speaker 2 (36:09):

Thanks Kate. All right, everybody have a good one and we will see you next time. Bye.

Speaker 1 (36:14):

Thanks for listening to marketing news, Canada for more episodes and other great stories from Canadian marketers, visit marketing news, canada.com. All episodes are recorded in the jelly marketing studio. Thanks to our producer, Chris pinner and editors, Travis Jeffers and the pod father.

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