Speaker 1: (00:08)
Good morning or good afternoon, everyone, depending on where you are in the world. Um, my name is Wendy Howell. I'm the CEO of executive council network. We are one of the sponsors of this fine event. So I wanna say thank you to STS in one business world for hosting another great event. Um, you are in for a treat. We have the amazing Kate Bradley chairness, who is going to be, um, your presenter for this session. She's the co-founder and CEO of lately. And her session's going to be on social AI copywriting, but get this fueled by the neuroscience of music. So it's, it's an extremely interesting topic and we're thrilled to have her here. So Kate take it away.
Speaker 2: (00:48)
Wow. Well, thanks. Hi everybody. Wendy. You're the best great to be with you again. It is. Well, um, and, and I love your Buddha. It's reminding me the message that I really need today, which is like Zen calm breeze. It's already been quite a morning. Um, hi to all of you as well. Um, so I'm Kate from lately. The TA can't remember me. Um, we're gonna do a couple of quick slides, sort of a condensed version of this workshop, and I'll make sure that you guys all have access to the slides afterwards. So, so don't Pret about that. I'm gonna do a, a screen show, um, for those of you who don't know, I used to be a rock and roll DJ. My last gig was broadcasting to 20 million listeners a day for XM satellite radio. You can see that that's me. Um, and there, this is my husband. He has short hair now and wears chinos and he's in sales.
Speaker 1: (01:41)
days of your
Speaker 2: (01:44)
Days of your when. Exactly. Um, but what's, what's really interesting to me is so my, my Uber power is turning listeners into fans or customers into evangelists right now. This is the mindset I want you guys all to really start thinking of and to shift to because when you stop being in the business of sales, and then you start to be in the business of evangelists, you get exponential bang for your buck, right? So if this is the new objective, cuz a sale is a fleeting type of thing, but an evangelist, not only do they become a customer, but then they work for you for free and they do it for almost a lifetime, right? We've had so many customers, even customers who who've churned and moved on that are still promoting us. for free on a daily basis. Okay. This is the mindset I'm gonna ask you to kind of shift to. And we'll talk about how to do that in your writing, uh, specifically. So Wendy, I'm assuming you like music, what do you listen to?
Speaker 1: (02:45)
Oh, I am so all over the board. I go any anywhere from classical to eighties to rock and roll to, uh, spa music. You name it. I'm everywhere. I'm freak of nature.
Speaker 2: (02:59)
No, you're normal. Right? That's that's great. So, so let's talk a little bit about what happens, um, with sound and like how we listen to it. So I'm just gonna share a couple pieces of information for you guys. Um, so 84% of marketers rely on site alone in their marketing. Think about that. We've got five senses here, but we all default to one and I'm gonna argue that, that there's one, that's the most powerful and that's that's sound right. So hearing is our fastest sense. It takes humans 0.1, seven seconds to respond to audio versus almost twice that for visual. Right. And just think about in the world we all live in. They know that the time is everything. Our patience is short. Our actual time during the day is short and sound lets you literally cut through the noise. Right? There's I was just, I was just rewatching top gun. Anyone else?
Speaker 1: (03:53)
Oh, we rewatched it and then we went to see the movie. So yes, it's a thing now it's a trend.
Speaker 2: (03:58)
Awesome. so the need for speed is, is real. Right. Um, and, and it always has been, so, you know, what's also interesting about sound is sound can't play tricks on you, but your eyes can't, they're very good at lying to you. Esher is a great example. Look at these kind of visual tricks here. Yes. Um, when it comes to, um, audio illusions, there's really only a, a handful of all of, all of them. And I'll sort of try to put this into a bit of an example. So with a song Wendy, so say it was song song from the eighties, say it was, um, let's say it was who can it be now for a minute at work? That's that's a song we're listening to classic classic classic song. Okay. Now say we fast forwarded 30 years and a woman is gonna sing the song and they're gonna up the tempo of it twice as fast.
Speaker 2: (04:45)
And they're gonna turn it into a minor P what's amazing is you will know that still men at work and that song you'll know that song. Right? So you can turn it inside out. But if I showed you a picture of me and I was two and a half feet taller and I had darker skin and maybe I had red hair and I gained a few pounds, you probably are not gonna know that's me. Right. Absolutely. So it's a very powerful sense. Um, the other thing I wanted to share about, um, listening and, and audio is the theater of the mind. And there's a parallel here to writing, which is what we're gonna get into on one second. So, um, radio is the theater of the mind. This is very famous quote television to the theater of the mind. Less, sorry, video you're for dumies right.
Speaker 2: (05:32)
cause there's no action required. When you watch TV, you just sit back and, and relax. Right? Whereas sound requires the human to play a role because there's this mystery there. You can't see, it's not a gimme. So your imagination has to fill in the blank. Okay. Now, if you're a good radio host or a good podcast host, it's your job to guide people along, give them enough touch. So they're filling the blanks that you, you want them to fill, but it's still sort of their own. They have got, they've got some control over the imagination that they're putting, putting in now reading is the same way, right? So no matter how good you think the Harry Potter movies are, the books are better. Mm-hmm cause you still have this imagination of what you read first in your mind and your mind always goes back to that.
Speaker 2: (06:20)
No matter what, um, you know, Ron, Ron looks like, or, or, um, anyone from anyone else from Griffindor or uh, any of the characters there, right? Your mind has that powerful thing that you first went to. So when you listen to music, this is, what's so exciting to me. Um, now whether it's classical Wendy or, or eighties rock and roll or anything else, what happens when you hear a new song is that instantly your brain must access every other song it's ever heard before. And what it's doing is it's looking for familiar touchpoints. So it knows where to index that new song in the library of the memory of your brain. Okay. Just
Speaker 1: (07:03)
Think about that. Isn't oh, sorry, Kate. But I was gonna say it's so, so crazy that you cannot hear a song for, I think this will support your point. Um, you haven't heard a song in, you know, 10 years and you hear the song and instantaneously you dive into the lyrics. So I, I think I'm a, a case, a case test for you.
Speaker 2: (07:23)
that's right. You do. And it there, what you're talking about is nostalgia, right? Memory nostalgia. There's a motion there. It's kind of like, you've heard, um, muscle memory, right? Mm-hmm , it's the same. That's what we're talking about. It's the, the power of the, the audio memory of your brain just to get right back in there. You know, it's very deep,
Speaker 1: (07:42)
Amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: (07:44)
It's amazing. And so what's happening when your brain is looking for those familiar touch points to know where to index that song. That's that nostalgia memory motion coming forth again, this is in an instant, right? It's why music listening is so powerful. What's also fascinating is those three characteristics, nostalgia memory emotion must be in play for trust. That happened Wendy.
Speaker 1: (08:09)
Hmm.
Speaker 2: (08:10)
And trust is why we buy
Speaker 1: (08:12)
Mm-hmm
Speaker 2: (08:12)
right. Absolutely. Okay. So what I want you guys all to think about now is the relate the relationship to writing. So if Wendy writes me an email or a text or a slack message, I read what she wrote and I hear her voice in my head. Even if I've never met her before, there's a voice that comes through. Right. And, and the, every voice is like a song. There is a musical note to the sound of your voice, all sound has a frequency, right? So it's the similar idea as the offer, Wendy of said, text your job is to be a good podcast host to give me familiar touch points and trigger nostalgia, memory, emotion trust.
Speaker 1: (08:57)
Okay.
Speaker 2: (08:59)
So let's talk about that today. Um, so to back up for one second, let me see if I've got a little slide for this. I think I do somewhere here. Um, so we use this at lately. I'm not going to make a commercial, but I wanna give you guys some social proof here lately uses artificial intelligence fueled by the power of what we're talking about to identify what words and messaging is, um, most relevant to your audience. What will get you the highest engagement? And then we take apart long form content like this video or a blog, for example. And we pull out the words and messaging that we know will get you the high engagement and help you create social posts with them here at lately, we have a 98% sales conversion. Cause we only use our own product for all marketing 98%. And the point I'm telling you this is that's how powerful, the understanding of what messaging will resonate when you use it to trigger nostalgia, emotion and trust, which by the way, is, is, goes to the, directly to the heart of making fans and evangelists. Okay. So the way
Speaker 1: (10:10)
Those numbers are insane, Kate, I mean like they're insane. Absolutely unbelievable. Right? So that's, it works that shows the power, right?
Speaker 2: (10:17)
Yeah. It works. I mean, you know, I was, I was, I was number one in my format, which is very rare, uh, formats called triple a and um, at, in the evenings, which is're only number one, usually in the, in the morning or middays, you know, those, those are the number one slots and it's usually country or pop music. And I was in trouble with no one knows. And my boss, I remember called me six months later and said, Hey, you're number one. What, what did you do? ? And I said, I threw out your playlist every day, which I did and I, at the time I was the production director. So I also made all the drops between the songs. And I had this sound library that I was using of all these samplings of like touch points of pop culture from now. And in the past that I was using to drop in along the way to tug on the things we're just talking about. Right. So this is where it comes from.
Speaker 1: (11:15)
And a drop is just, you know, a, a, a really short vignette. It sounds vignette that you drop in. Okay.
Speaker 2: (11:21)
Yeah. Like the, the identifiers of the station, you're listening to XM 50, got it off it, you know, whatever. So let's talk about how, so let me switch to another, um, another slide here for you guys. Welcome to my life. Just doing a, doing a quick, doing a quick, uh, thing here today. Cause I wanted to show that to you and I wanna get to a couple of the rules. So the rules, um, are what our AI learns from. Okay. So here's my oops. I just stopped sharing my screen by accident. Here's my first rule and this is my favorite one women in the house. Raise your hands. I find that we're the most guilty of this. Wendy, are you, do you do this? Do you undercut your authority with weak words sometimes?
Speaker 1: (12:08)
Um, I think I used to, but I think I've very consciously worked on that. So I I'm, I believe I'm better than I was, you know, five years ago.
Speaker 2: (12:16)
great for you. And, and it's, it's a thing, you know, it happens to all of us. So when you use weak words, like maybe I think versus I know perhaps perhaps there you go, we all do it. Right. And there's a time for that, you know, but really think about how valuable your authority is. And, and this translates also into, you know, think about statements. So if you start out, uh, and I'll give you an example too, and you guys can have both of these slide sets, um, when you start out a sentence with something like, oh, Hey, I just wanted to say X, Y, Z, you're wasting time. Cuz you're making me read that before the beat of the thing. Number one, you're, undercuting your authority. So that I'm already second guessing. I'm already doubting the value and the trueness of what it is.
Speaker 2: (13:09)
You're about to say. Whereas if you start to think in statements and that can be as simply as putting a verb first, right? When you put a verb first in the front of the sentence, it then makes the whole sentence, a call to action. There's a, there's a command that happens. So I'll, I'll show you guys an example here. Um, and I'm gonna read this to you, but then you can have, have a copy and read it your own. So marketing is like brushing your teeth with a, with an electric toothbrush. Yes. The head moves on its own, but you still have to hold the brush work required. Humans, plush machines, more on how AI and humans must both be part of the equation. So there's, I'm gonna break this down. Okay, Wendy. Right? So, so the first thing I did sentence, number one, statement marketing is like, it's not kind of like, or did you ever think that marketing might be like, you see this I'm state making marketing is like rushing it's definitive.
Speaker 2: (14:02)
Mm-hmm it's definitive. That's right. And then I sort of further go to it by saying yes, the head moves on its own. Here's another statement. You still have to hold the brush. Okay. Now I've got those in capital letters because I really want you to not only feel the power of my authority, I want you to nod like you just did. Right? Exactly. Uh, I want you to smile. Cause all messaging is about and let me surprise. Here's the spoiler alert. Every communication any of us do anywhere is about getting someone else to do what we want them to do. Very simple. Right. Mm-hmm . And so if you start in your mind that mindset, we talked about what end game do I want after this with social media, there's only two, uh, share or click. Okay. Mm-hmm very, so I'm always going for the share.
Speaker 2: (14:54)
Cuz clicks are harder, um, because nobody knows your name and you're not like trustworthy unless you're a big brand. Generally speaking, there's an exception which I'll share in a second. Um, but, but the share is easier. So part of going with a share is the ego. My goal is to make you look smart if you shared this. So when I use statements, the statements become yours when you share it. Okay. It's all about the ego. Think about music when you're in college, Wendy and somebody came and played you a new record and you loved it. First thing you did was share it with somebody else and guess what? You get the credit for being the case maker.
Speaker 1: (15:29)
Exactly. Exactly. Okay.
Speaker 2: (15:32)
So then if we continue to break this down, even in the hashtags, I'm using work required humans plus machines. Okay. those are, they're all statement asked more on how AI and humans must not, should be, but must both be part of the equation. So can you see all that? Right.
Speaker 1: (15:51)
Very powerful.
Speaker 2: (15:53)
Um, cool. So should we do a couple more tips? You guys want a couple more?
Speaker 1: (15:58)
Absolutely.
Speaker 2: (15:59)
All right. Um, let's see. I've got, I think I have 10 or 11 here, but let's see. Oh, this is, I gotta do this one. Okay. Sorry. Stio I think you're guilty of this we all are. We've all done it. Uh, I want you guys to think about the verb. Check out. I talked about verbs and how powerful they are. That the source is your friend. Okay. Check out is a meaningless phrase. We've all done it before. Check out my blog, check out this idea, check out these pictures. It means nothing. It's like awesome. I'm guilty of awesome. Awesome. Does not mean awesome anymore. Cause we've, you know, hyperized it to death. Um, when you think of another verb, other than check out, guess what else you do? You support your own authority. Mm-hmm
Speaker 1: (16:39)
Speaker 2: (16:40)
Right. So this is gonna be a constant thing. Authority means trust. Trust is why we buy it's all connected here. Um, the other thing that checkout does is it kind of makes you look spammy at this point and certainly lazy.
Speaker 1: (16:53)
I would definitely approve that,
Speaker 2: (16:55)
Right? Because you're not communi, you're not communicating the value. So there's like this weird mystery around like, well, what happens if I click the link? You want me to check out what do I get out of it? So now I think you're wasting my time by not actually telling me right. To see all that that happens just by this lazy, lazy verb. so pick something new. Okay.
Speaker 1: (17:19)
I am like the queen of the sars.com. So I'm so there with you, Kate queen, there you go.
Speaker 2: (17:25)
and I'll give you guys an example. I actually, um, I kind of avoid calls to actions altogether more or less. Um, I'll sh I'll show you a few more examples as we go through here, but here we go about to record the next edition of scaling your startup with Miha and Jason, I even brushed my hair, subscribe to hear a few copy tricks I haven't shared before. So my call to action is subscribe. Yeah. But there's more to that because I don't wanna just say subscribe to this, scaling your startup. Right. You know, what is it about it's about copywriting. So now I'm, I'm giving you that, right? Mm-hmm so now you know what it's about at least, um, I'm also saying, because I happen to know there's people that are gonna be there that had been in my workshop before there's tricks.
Speaker 2: (18:12)
I haven't shared before haven't before. So they get a little more, there's some mystery here. There's enough mystery. So it's not spammy, but my, my design is for you to obviously, you know, come right. Um, I'm doing a couple other things. So the parentheses, I even brush my hair. That's an under the breath thing that's designed for emotion, memory nostalgia. Um, I'm trying to relate to you who hasn't, who else hasn't brushed their hair. I'm on day three of not washing my hair today. cause I'm lazy and I don't have time for it. and I don't know why you used to be able to go five days now it's three and I'm pushing it. It's greasy in the back. you guys only have to see the front. Thank God. You know? Um, but there's, there's a lot here that that's going on to support what we've talked about before. Um, so let's see if I can squeeze in a few more tricks. Uh, I'm gonna just go to,
Speaker 1: (19:09)
Uh, I'm intrigued by that one, this one, the negative one calls to action. And, and then the why as well.
Speaker 2: (19:15)
Okay, cool. So these ones are like they're Trixy which I like them so the negative calls to action. It can mean the same thing, but there's something about the negative that makes us respond and lean forward. Okay. And we see this in sales copy all the time, actually. So it's it's FOMO is what it is. Remember to follow these rules, versus don't forget to follow. When you say, don't forget somehow this, this kind of feeling of shame comes over you. And you're like, oh my God, did I forget? Did I, now you're asking yourself right away. It's the first thing you do. So now you're, you're involved. Mm-hmm I made you part of my conversation, but you can't even help it. Right. And that's what that's, what I want you to do is to react because the first step, again, we're back. I always back into the objectives share.
Speaker 2: (20:10)
And like, so before I even think of sharing or liking, I have to react in some way, right? Yes. First thing. So here we go. Preach words are the DNA of every sales pitch. The wrong words are costing companies, 400 billion in the us alone. Don't let that be. You join wa three 18 for a free copy rating course. So let me break it down. Don't let that be. You, you see that that's also serving as a call of call to action of sorts. It's precursor. Tomo. Yeah, yeah. Sort of FOMO. And also you put it's it's the go, it's the, uh, empathy, right? Sympathy. You're putting yourself, I'm forcing you to put yourself in a, in someone's shoes. You know, um, other things I'm doing here preach there's my command. there's my verb right up front. It's that authoritative that action. Um, and then a statement words are the DNA not might be, could be.
Speaker 2: (21:02)
I think they are none of that. They just are, you know, um, the wrong words again, I'm saying another statement. Our costing companies formed a billion. When you even use a word like wrong, guess what? Everyone instantly thinks. Sh am I using the wrong words? Exactly. Have I done something wrong? Right. This it's, this is that punishment factor. that we feel, um, other things here, um, you know, join wa I, I grew up in the era of miss piggy. So , that's my sense of humor, right. That I can do here. So I'm these little touch, touch sheet things. The other thing notice that the tagging and the hashtagging in line, when you do it in line, you get the visual cues there, which helps stop the eye and pause in different places. When you just throw a slew of hashtags at the end.
Speaker 2: (21:52)
It's guess what? Lazy. Uh, but also it doesn't actually do anything to further emphasize your content because we've all learned to ignore those suckers, you know, kind of like how we we've ignored, um, banner ads for so many years. So mm-hmm we have to move quickly. But you had asked about, I'd want to show you guys this one and one more, um, perfect. The wine, because, so trick. Okay. This one I love, so we all know the journalistic questions. Right? Who, what, where, why, how went so it's or why, how, when I get the model or six, right? Um, who, what, why, how, where went? Yeah. So with why the answer is always because always right. You know, it's coming you expect it to come when it doesn't come, you feel a sense of unresolvedness yes. You're at a loss you're left at the altar.
Speaker 2: (22:41)
Right? So you want that BEC you want that because, so you can use it. Now you get the question mark, also that this is back to that visual cue. Um, so, so I, I was a line cook all through high school in college. Wendy had a voracious appetite and I got two free meals a day in the kitchen. Yeah. You that, yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, we all have seen the cooking shows. There's a reason why chop has that category of visual appeal. Mm-hmm cause we eat with our eyes and we read with our eyes. Right. We totally do. So you wanna really think about that? We talk talked hashtags previously, but you know the question mark is part of this visual appeal. So here's an example about the why, because why how's the weather is the simplest most powerful question still. Plus other sales and marketing pro tips. That'll make you go. Hmm. With one and catch Allison. Remember I told you guys I don't like call to action. So here's me. Not even using one. I just use arrows after still pointing you toward the click. So it's a little more subtle there. Um, why, so now using why kind of twice here. So why how's the weather is the, the question is why, but I haven't resolved it. You don't know the answer. You have to click to find out. Yeah. See what I did. I burned the, because behind the click that's mean
Speaker 1: (24:01)
Uh, I would also call it exceedingly intelligent. the intelligence
Speaker 2: (24:04)
well, thank you. Those, those glasses by the way are, are fake. So I use them to make myself look smart on LinkedIn. um, love it. And so let's, let's break down the other things you said before. There's the statements. Here you go. Why how's the weather is the simplest most powerful question still. That's the statement, even though there's a question built in, right? There's two questions. How's the weather. I like doubled it out on you. There. I've got the quotation marks, which I didn't have to do, but I give you a visual and I wanted you to really focus on that and think about that question, which most people think is a very boring topic, but it's not at all. Um, still is the hard emphasis, right? Um, plus I use the plus versus the word plus, cuz I've given you visual inline hashtags, things that make you go.
Speaker 2: (24:49)
Hmm. You know, I grew up in the nineties. There's that reference. And then again, um, some was so, so I said we would look at one more thing and I'm going so fast. I have two minutes. Um, you guys are the best. The last thing was this one, I just did this for you for 20 minutes. Read what you write out loud. Remember a lot times not. Yes. Remember what we said? When, when Wendy writes text, I hear her voice. Mm-hmm okay. So this is my challenge to all of you guys. Think about how you sound like I have, uh, what, what's, what I call resting face in writing. Okay. I have to either I have to soften it. So sometimes I have to use weak words. Mm-hmm like just probably, maybe need, so I don't sound like such, um, or emojis or, or other things.
Speaker 2: (25:36)
Now, if I'm gonna give you this one example, as fast as I can, uh, west Elm, where I shop sent me this in the Smail mail, it says this, this certificate is issued for reward purposes and is a duplicate of the certificate you received by email. Can you hear how hard that is for me to say yes. Reward purposes, duplicate of the certificate. It's awful. It's legal speak. What they're trying to tell me is they sent me a second email. That's this is a coupon. They sent me the email in a coupon also mm-hmm and they wanna say, Hey dingling, you can't use both
Speaker 1: (26:10)
I love that. Yeah. That's this is a much better, a much better way to say that that's one of the worsens I've heard. Yeah.
Speaker 2: (26:16)
It's much better. So I'm gonna do this one last time. So you guys can all see, but here we go. When I had to fire a client that didn't have the balls, cuz they owed me so much money G and another catalyst that sprung the lately spraying. So on and outta PI, great thing to use. I'm doing it there a ton ging. You get the pause of the ellipses. I, I forgot to do a close print, but you can see what I was trying to do with the under the breath thing we talked about before. That's like the aside, it's what we, we really do that lets you know, I'm a human right. You can see that, um, the inline hashtags, um, even I made that a it's kind of curious, like what was the situation when you had to fire a, a client click to learn, to find it out. Right? I misspelling things balls, cause now I can do that. Cause I have that personality, but mm-hmm that's another visual cue and it also gives you a taste of my vernacular language, me, exactly. Right. A real human. So lot of, lot of pack in the punch there, Wendy.
Speaker 1: (27:11)
Awesome. Oh my gosh. These are, these are fantastic. Um, you, you did see, um, that you're going to, uh, be comfortable sharing that the deck with the folks that attended.
Speaker 2: (27:21)
Yeah, for sure. So, uh, should I send them to you and STS?
Speaker 1: (27:25)
Um, probably, yeah. I, I would like a copy of them, myself as well. So that would be fantastic.
Speaker 2: (27:29)
Sure. And then you guys can share, um, as, as people like,
Speaker 1: (27:32)
Yeah. Okay. So every time Kate does one of these, just so you're listening, STS, I won, I wanna be her person. So I'm always gonna do your introductions, Kate, just so you know,
Speaker 2: (27:40)
I would love that. You're you're I'm gonna hire you at my next, you know, at my wake for
Speaker 1: (27:45)
Sure. I'll I'll come and I'll come and like yeah, just do the, the anything you need. Um, and so I wanted to thank everyone for coming. I, I, I learned, um, a couple things that I'm probably not doing, uh, appropriately. So there you go. I'll maybe I'll just start, um, sending you all of my posts and you can just do them for me.
Speaker 2: (28:03)
You got it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: (28:05)
Thank.
