← AI-Driven Marketer: Master Practical AI Marketing Skills
AI-Driven Marketer: Master Practical AI Marketing Skills
Turn 100 Scattered Posts into 1 Book With AI
00:29:42
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- [00:06]
A
I have a confession, Ken. This idea that we're going to unpack in this episode, I've not always been good at implementing this, and it's for. It's even part of the reason why we're having this series for Own the show to go from podcast to book as part of the AI Driven Marketer. But it's an idea around creating a portfolio of ideas. I've been working on LinkedIn for five years now and have just been shooting out unique ideas like a freaking cowboy on the range. Like, just, here's one, here's one. Here's something helpful. Here's something I experimented with, and they're just all over the place, and I feel like I could have got a lot more traction faster if I would have realized this sooner. So this particular idea has come out of a pain of not doing this for too long. And it's an idea of collecting all your ideas into one place, grouping them, and creating like an overarching portfolio or theme to make it so the idea itself isn't packaged and easy for people to share, but the whole collection of ideas is packaged and easy for people to share. Because thought leadership is rarely ever just one tiny idea. It's usually collection of ideas. So for those of you listening, welcome back to the AI Driver Marketer. I'm Dan Sanchez. I'm joined by my co host, Ken Freire.
- [01:26]
B
Yo, yo, yo. When you said this is my confession, I just wanted to sing the song, which I have a terrible singing voice, so I'm not going to.
- [01:34]
A
I would have let you go, man. And I would have stood back and enjoyed the moment. This is my confession. Next time.
- [01:40]
B
All right.
- [01:43]
A
So that's the whole thing. This, what we're going to be unpacking this episode is how to do that and why it's important, because rarely do ideas ever stand alone like the problems your industry faces. There's still problems for a reason. Like, they've probably been tackled before. Maybe there's some ideas we're patching together in order to solve it, but it's still a problem for a reason. They're not easily fixed. And it's not going to be like one really good insight, one really clever hack tool framework is probably likely to fix. Can't just be one thing. It's going to be a collection of things. And that's where you're going to need a collection of ideas in order to. In order to fix it. It's not enough to just have one.
- [02:26]
B
Yeah. And what's different about this is that it's important for people to understand that when you create a framework, right, A framework has multiple of these ideas in place, but that's why you need a framework. And many of you might have it, but there are some of you who might not be at that place. So if you listen to our previous episode when we were talking about idea creation and developing your ideas, right, that was talking about one idea. Now we're saying, how do we take all those ideas and bring them into our portfolio and really make it concise and something that people can follow? So there are a couple questions that people should start asking themselves when it comes to this idea creation or this portfolio container, right? So, Dan, what's the first question that they should be asking themselves?
- [03:16]
A
The first one you should ask is what ideas are you currently known for and which ones actually deserve more weight? You could ask your friends, your peers that are pretty familiar with your work and read and engage a lot with you. If you've been posting on social or have just worked alongside you and know maybe some past clients that have been with you for a while would know and tell you, like which ones have been the most helpful for them. A really cool hack is if you have been posting whether to a blog or a podcast or maybe even LinkedIn is you can go and take all those different things you post and just ask Chat GPT to analyze it. And it doesn't have to be ChatGPT, it could be Gemini, it could be any of the other ones too. But like download a CSV of all your posts from LinkedIn. Google it's. It's possible. Go Google it. It'll Google will find you an article to walk you through the step by step process. And you can do that with the blogs. You can do it for the podcast. There's a way to get all your ideas together and then ask AI like what are the unifying. What's. What are the different individual elements and help me rank stack them according to this particular problem my audience is dealing with. You even say, hey, group them in different clusters and AI will help you group your ideas in different clusters. You might find that some of those ideas are rough and need to be packaged. Go listen to our past episode. A lot of them probably do, but if you go and package each different one, you find you'll have quite a collection already. If you've already been in this work of being an authority, then you probably already have it. You just need to package more of your ideas and then group them together in clusters in order to find that you probably have a whole port portfolio already. We just have to do a little bit of work of organizing it. That way people can actually get more, more bang for their buck with each idea because there's parallel ideas that work really well together. For example, like I have two different ideas we've already covered of being a student and learning in the light. They're pretty similar because they go hand in hand, but they're distinctly different enough that we created two different chapters on it. But one really is helpful to another. If you want to be a student, it's helped to go and learn in the light so you can actually authority while you're learning what you need to learn in order to become true expert and lay the foundation to become the contributor so that you can build said portfolio. Right. All these ideas link together.
- [05:30]
B
Yeah. And on the flip side, the other question that you could add is which idea gaps weaken your perceived authority right now? So you have this cluster of ideas that you're working with, but there might be some other ideas that are missing that you need to strengthen your frameworks or your portfolio. So you gotta start asking those questions. And a great way when once you figure out those gaps for you to get those ideas out there is start posting it on LinkedIn. Create a podcast. Right? This is one of the things that we always talk about is like why if you are a thought leader or an expert, to create a podcast is because you can get those ideas that you might be weak at and and start strengthening them, be the student, start sharing those ideas and also at the same time share you the ones that you are really good at. Now if you're wondering for yourself, like, is podcasting right for me, we actually have an assessment that you can take. If you go to Dan, remind me of the website.
- [06:29]
A
Come on, Kent. Aidrivenmarketer.com Pod oh man, I was so good.
- [06:34]
B
It was so. It was like coming right off the tug.
- [06:36]
A
You almost nailed the cta.
- [06:38]
B
I almost nailed the cta and that's.
- [06:40]
A
Why we co host this show.
- [06:42]
B
I was actually thinking about another one of our clients that we work with. And that's the only website name that kept coming to my mind. I'm like, that's not it. But it's aidrivenmarketer.com forward/pod and you can take the assessment to see if podcasting is right for you to take all these thoughts, all these ideas that you might either have a great strength in or you might be weak in and start sharing your ideas.
- [07:06]
A
So I'd gone through this process before. And we're kind of going through this process now, even solidifying some of the things that have come out of this very show from the AI driver marketer. The one thing I find is once you've created a bunch of unique ideas and you started grouping your ideas together, you have to actually start finding how to create a through line of sorts or a unifying theme across all of them. It's probably there. This is another thing that AI's very good at identifying. If you give it all your ideas, like, what's the unifying theme across what I do? It's. It's pretty dang good at calling it out. And it'll probably resonate with you. And you'll be like, yeah, that's it. Now you'll still want to test it and have conversations with other people about it. Be like, hey, is this the thing that you like about what I. The information I put out there? And they'll agree or disagree or be like, I don't think it, that. I think it's more this. So test it. But generally, AIs are great at also finding a unifying theme. If you think of Tim Ferriss, like, he's put out multiple ideas around business, then health, and then even cooking and all that kind of stuff. But what's his unifying theme? Well, it's hyper efficiency. That is his unifying thing. Can you think of any other authors that you love learning from or thought leaders you follow that have like a strong unifying theme?
- [08:20]
B
Yeah, I mean, similar to hyper efficiency, but I would say like whole life balance. We've already mentioned him. And I used to work for him. Michael Hyatt is one of those people who anytime you read his books, it was always like, how do you have whole life balance? Or some people like to call it whole life integration now, but that whole concept is there. Patrick Lencioni. Right. We were just talking about him before the call. He has. What's it called? Vulnerability based trust is a through line that he has in a lot of his books. Right. Cause he's trying to get out of this picture of having to fake it till you make it kind of deal.
- [08:58]
A
You know, it's funny as I think about other people I've learned from, obviously I'm still working part time for Social Media examiner. And I think of Michael Stelzner. I'm like, it's, it's not confusing to me that he became one of the people leading the charge on social media from back in the day and still today, because he's honestly one of the most authentically social people. Not just in a social media sense, but like the guy is social. Like that's. There's a reason why he's has. Does an interview based podcast. There's a reason why he throws an event and makes it so his event makes it really easy for people to build relationships in there. So, like, you'll find that unifying thing across all his work. Now, I don't think he's actually even published that idea. It'll be interesting. Mike, if you're listening to this, I know you listen to some episodes sometimes if that resonates with you, but that is a unifying theme. Whether it's the one you'd capitalize on or not, I don't know. But it is, it is something I see consistent across his, his work.
- [09:49]
B
Now, there is a difference between a through line and just an idea, right? Because a through line should last years, not just quarters.
- [09:57]
A
That's right.
- [09:58]
B
It's something that's staying consistent. So when we talk about Michael Hyatt or Michael Stelzner or Tim Ferriss, these guys, right, it's. You can see it over a lifetime that they're doing this and it's not just a season. And why this is important is because it actually filters out what ideas you pursue and, and how they evolve, right? So like for example, if all of a sudden Michael Stelzner was like, hey, I'm going to now become a person who's going to be a basketball coach, right? Like, it just might be so out of his lane of what he's known for. It's going to take a long time. One, if he actually wants to do that. But two, he could be like, no, that's actually not a part of my portfolio or what I'm an expert at. So I can easily say no to that. That might be a fun hobby that he has. And I'm totally making this up, Michael, if you're listening to this, right, but it could be a fun hobby, but if not, great. He could just keep moving forward.
- [10:57]
A
Yeah. I mean, you think about HubSpot, right, has a unifying theme called inbound marketing. And they have a freaking huge collection of clusters of ideas that fit under that unifying thing. Now they've just switched, but they've been pushing inbound marketing for just almost 20 years now, and now they're switching to something else. Honestly don't know what the next thing is. I don't know if it's going to be as successful as inbound, but they're going to try. But they're certainly good at building out ideas and unique contributions and even creating whole new categories based on their unique ideas. So I'm sure they will get it over time. I do find that it takes a long time to really build a unifying theme. Like, it takes a lot of individuals ideas that then become clusters that then become a whole portfolio. So it just takes time because it takes time to find real problems, find real solutions, test those solutions for yourself, and then test it with others and then refine them to become really helpful ideas and then do that one after another after another after another so you can actually have a portfolio. I mean, this kind of stuff takes years, sometimes decades to see fully through, which is why I'm not surprised that they're now moving from inbound marketing to something else, because they've been using inbound marketing for a long time and it has worked for a long time. So this is big picture stuff, but it's good to start thinking about it. And I also find that the unifying theme usually is tied closely to your core values. Yeah, it says something about you personally. It doesn't like inbound marketing. What does that say about HubSpot? Well, a lot. It says we don't want to inconvenience people. We want to be attractive to people more than interrupt people, we want to draw them towards us. That says something about, you know, the founders and what they were thinking and what this could be like. It's a much more considerate version of marketing than the interruption style we had before. So that starts to speak to their values. And so I find that those things correlate a lot more, more than unique individual ideas do. The overlying theme is probably going to hit a little bit more close to home about who you are as a person or even as an organization.
- [13:00]
B
Yeah. And even going back to kind of like HubSpot's idea. Right. There's a lot of marketers who are drawn to that. I think you and I are drawn to that. Like, oh, yeah, let's focus on inbound marketing versus there are a lot of people who are like, no, no, no, we want more of like the Russell Brunson type style. Like, let's just direct sell, sell, sell, sell all the time. And some people love that, but other people is their core value. They're like, that's too intrusive. I don't want to do that. So be mindful of that, Dan, as people are processing this.
- [13:26]
A
Right.
- [13:27]
B
And they're thinking, man, I don't want to wait years upon years. It might Take that. What are some questions that they could start asking now to help them clarify or even get it directionally in the in the right place of what their portfolio might be.
- [13:44]
A
So if you look at all your pieces of content, you might ask yourself, as you even go back through your timeline, if you've been publishing and read some of the headlines and some of the intros to kind of remind yourself of what you've been talking about and ask yourself, like, what theme is there? If other people saw it, what would, what would you say? What would you think they would be guessing at? And again, of course you can ask AI like what it thinks the unifying theme are. Give some guesses to it. It'll probably be able to do a good job, especially if you have a large portfolio shoot. You might even be able to ask it just based on the past chats you've had, what it thinks your unifying theme of your ideas are. And it would probably do a pretty good job there too. But obviously it's going to be a lot better based on things you've published. Something else you can do is does your ask. Something else you can ask is, does your current unifying theme match with what you want to be known for long term? Because your current unifying theme that's kind of emerging, what people know you for might not be the thing that you actually want to be known for. And so you'll have to reconcile that and think like, well then what do I want to be known for? What can I start baking into ideas? How, what approach am I currently taking that's not lining up with those values, maybe that I want to be known for? And then you might want to ask which ideas align with your theme and which ones actually dilute it. You want to create a collection of the ones that actually fit there. Now you can make jumps and go up level too. Think about Tim Ferriss. He was known as the four hour work guy and then he came out with a fitness book and people are like, wait, aren't you the business guy? Same thing with Gary Vee, right? He was the wine guy and he broke everyone's mold when he came out and started launching an agency around social media. And they're like, stay in your lane, wine boy. Well, his unifying theme broadened quite a bit. Tim Ferriss went from being the four hour work guy to becoming the efficiency guy and it broadened out quite a bit. But he's taken to that now, I think. I don't know where he's at. I honestly think he's just kind of made it and like wanders all over with his podcast now. But he's still kind of the efficiency guy.
- [15:47]
B
Yeah. And he's probably just doing like efficiency in all areas now. And that's the interesting thing, is that when you kind of have a niche of your expertise, you want to be known for that. And once you kind of get known for that and you start getting to a place of status that you want, whether it's financial status or academic status or social economic status, then you can broaden out. Right. Kind of like Tim Ferriss, all these guys have broadened out because we as human beings, right, we're developing all the time, we're growing all the time. So I'm actually never surprised. For people who are like, oh, I want to transition or change into some something now, the key is making sure you're not changing so much so fast that people can't follow you.
- [16:31]
A
That's right.
- [16:32]
B
So you want to have that, that unifying theme, which then leads to making sure that your ideas, right. Are following that unifying theme. And they're actually grouped into clusters. That's the third thing that we want to talk about, is that as you're building out your portfolio that they're grouped into idea clusters. Dan, walk us through this. What are we talking about when it comes to grouping these ideas into clusters?
- [16:56]
A
So you'll start to find that your ideas kind of are like minded. Even in the creation of this series, in this book, there is different clusters that I've grouped together around the different stages of becoming a thought leader. Right. So one of those first stages is one like, what do you do when you're already a professional and you're trying to get to the idea where you're starting to become a contributor, which is the category we're on right now. But I gave out a bunch of different unique ideas on what it, what it takes to do that. Right. And I clustered those all together. See one, the idea that anyone can be a thought leader. Here's. Here's what it takes to become one. The idea of being a student, individual idea, then the 30, 30, 30 plan, that's a unique idea. And then learning in the light, that's a unique idea. All of these four ideas becomes one little mini cluster. But then you can cluster it farther still across this whole book. In fact, books are like the ultimate portfolio. We'll talk about that in a second. But this whole book is essentially a larger cluster around the idea that you can. That authority is going to be a big thing as Content becomes more prolific through AI and everyone can post amazing content all the time. What are people going to lean on? What are people going to trust? People who have perceived authority. We're going to be looking for shortcuts through all the different information. Sure, we'll lean on AI tool tools to evaluate and look through all the research for us too. But we're also going to be leaning on the ideas and opinions of experts and thought leaders out there. It's this idea that there's still a human edge, that there's going to be something that is uniquely human, especially for marketers and solopreneurs and agency owners and coaches and consultants to lean on. And that's the hard won ideas and frameworks and different things you've put together as an individual. So this, this whole book is essentially one cluster, but I have other clusters around just tactical AI, strategic AI. Right. This particular book is more focused on the human element that you need in order to succeed with the more tactical element of AI. So those are two big things. I call it being AI driven. But human first. This book is the epitome of that human first through line. That fits really well with being AI driven, which is what we usually talk about on the show is the more tactical AI technical stuff. So that's the example. Yeah.
- [19:11]
B
Dan, you know what was interesting is as you were talking about it, I was thinking about how we as humans are naturally created. I believe God created us to be idea generating individuals. And no matter what happens in our lives, whatever circumstances come our way or whatever new technology is going to come up, we were designed to always be creating new ideas and clustering these new ideas and developing them. So I actually have a lot of hope, you know, how sometimes we can. There's going to be challenges and we've talked about it here in this series of like the challenge that AI is going to bring to certain job markets, but also the opportunity where we now can step up as men and women and say, man, what are these new ideas that we need to form in order to better our lives and to help other people flourish? And that's the beauty of this idea cluster is like you're trying to figure out what are the things that talk to each other. So a couple questions that we can ask here is number one, like which of your idea naturally talks to one another? Right. So like start thinking through those. Dan, you mentioned a couple of those already. The second one is what clusters already exist but you haven't labeled yet. And this might be something that, you know, you ask ChatGPT or an AI or someone to just talk through. Right. And the last one is which cluster could become your next framework or signature concept. Again, Dan just talked about that of like, hey, the new concept is like AI driven human first. Right? When you first told me that, I was like, bro, that's a banger. I was like, that's awesome. Go do that. And I started watching you and I started using it, I was like, there's no better way to talk about it than this way. Because we want to use AI as a tool, but we don't want it to consume us like some other people are doing.
- [20:56]
A
One common mistake that I find that up and coming thought leaders are run into is they actually have one framework and they've packaged it, but it's actually a cluster. It's, it's a really good framework. And the reason why it's so good is because there's probably like four or five unique ideas within the framework itself. You're actually dealing with a cluster rather than just an individual idea. So if you have a framework that you use all the time, it's like your go to take a look at it, break it into pieces, and ask yourself, are there a bunch of unique ideas that make this whole thing work together as a framework? You're probably dealing with a cluster, which means you probably need to package the individual ideas. You might even find that your clients who are leveraging your framework can actually do it better by you actually packaging the individual ideas within the framework. It makes it much more powerful to break it down. I know over and over again when I'm dealing with clients, like oftentimes they need more help. And I'm like, it's so simple. But it's simple to me because I've been through the pain, I've gone through it, and I know all the nuances of it, but I need to break it down even more granular detail. And this is something that I think would help a lot of coaches and consultants take a look at your framework, break it down into smaller pieces and go, go and individually package. Go listen to the last chapter on packaging ideas. But if you individually package the unique ideas within a framework, they're much more powerful. And that's part of the reason why you want to have clusters in general is because it just makes it simpler and easier for people to grasp. All great ideas can be broken down into smaller bits and pieces. I mean, they can go only go so far, but oftentimes great frameworks do that.
- [22:26]
B
Yeah, you know, we, I'm thinking about ourselves. Like, one of our idea clusters is all around, like, AI driven podcasting. There's a framework behind that, but there's. It's a cluster of a whole bunch of ideas that you have been developing over the last two years that are now coming into fruition. So when we even talk about being AI driven, podcast people have a question like, what does that mean? Or what does that look like? And we have to expound on it. But each part is the right, like the pre production, the production side, the post production, the distribution, all of those. There's a unique idea within it that we talk about.
- [23:05]
A
So the last thing I want to talk about is how oftentimes when you have a portfolio, it's actually a fantastic opportunity. When you finally have your ideas and a couple of clusters that has an overarching theme, you probably need to write a book. I am frustrated over and over again because there are certain thought leaders out there who don't write books and I'm like, freaking, like, write the book. The reason is, like, I've like, one person that made me really frustrated that he didn't do this was Chris Walker. Like, he had some banger ideas on demand gen. He was flipping everything and he's kind of like in the post phase going after something new now. His unifying theme has changed dramatically. Me now and a lot of people, I don't, I don't, I don't know anybody who's watching him as far as marketing goes. He's gotten into the, like, some other fluffier concept around motivation and stuff, but he had a lot of fantastic ideas around demand generation as a marketing principle. The problem was if I wanted to introduce somebody to that idea, well, I had to go and find and like, like, where would I point them to? Because his podcast is talking about the latest questions people are asking him. He's already moved on from some ide and it's talking about new ideas, even though they all come back to the his idea around what it really means to be dude demand gen. And I'm like, he needs to write a book to take all these different ideas, formalize them, and then give it into a nice little package that I could be like, oh, you should check out Chris Walker's stuff. Here's his book. It's nice, it's vetted. You don't have to weed through all the different years of social content in order to get the main ideas in one nice little package called the printed book or an audiobook. It doesn't really matter what the format is. But it's a condensed version of all the best, best ideas. And that's why I think a book is still kind of like that ultimate hallmark of authority. Hence, all the people who sell book services are like, you can't spell authority without author. You're like, ha, ha ha. But at the same time, they have a point. Because the book is the ultimate portfolio and collection of ideas packaged in one tight little, I don't know, package. I don't know how I'm using words to describe words now, and I'm falling apart. Help me.
- [25:15]
B
We're packaging the book. We're talking about a book.
- [25:18]
A
Packaging the package.
- [25:20]
B
Packaging the package. But that is the beauty of it. So here's a couple questions that you want to ask yourself if you're like, are you ready to turn the book into it? Right. Like, take all your information. So number one, if you turned your ideas into a book today, what would the chapter list be? So just start writing it down. Start playing around if you want. Ask ChatGPT. Hey, I'm thinking about writing a book. Help me create the outline. Here are some of the chapters that I'm thinking about writing based off of all my ideas.
- [25:49]
A
Just make sure to say, go preview past conversations or this document with my ideas in it to see how you would format my ideas into a book outline. And it'll do pretty good. It also makes some stuff up, so you have to go and check. I mean, it certainly helped me outlining this book and made up chapters that I'm like, nah, that's not a thing. Or at least that's not part of what I've said before. And you have to eliminate and come back to what you've actually said.
- [26:11]
B
Yeah. Which then leads to the second question, which is which chapters would be weak or fillers? Like, Dan, you and I joke around about this a lot. Like 2/3 of books sometimes just feel like a filler book. And you're just like, I could read the intro, I could read maybe one or two chapters and then the conclusion, and I got the whole book. You don't know.
- [26:30]
A
An author who had published multiple books told me once he's like, most business books are only worth two chapters. The reason why there's more chapters is because they have to hit the 200 word page count to hit the price point of a normal book. That's changing because I'm finding that I'm reading more business books and they're much shorter. Yeah, they're, they're 100 pages sometimes or they're. I listen to A lot of audiobooks to preview books. They're. They're often getting down into the four hour mark rather than the seven or eight hour mark. So they're half, they're like little mini books. They're 30, 30,000 word books rather than 60,000 word, which is the normal marker. And honestly, I'm fine. I'm getting irritated by listening to 60,000 word books because again, most of it's like, you could have said that in much less time. You didn't need so much backstory. I'm also the kind of guy who reads a lot of the same types of books, so I get bored with the same repeated information. But I don't think we need to be that long anymore. I think you can, as long as, as long as there's not like gaps in your thinking. That's like, oh, we have a gap here and it needs to be addressed. In order for this cluster to work, you probably have to go find a unique idea and it means your portfolio is not done yet. Cool. Go finish the portfolio and then fix that. Find, fill the gap and then cluster it up and, and then pull it all together to create your book. And the last question you should probably ask if you are thinking you might be there yet is, would the book reflect your true unique unifying theme or expose a missing one? And that's the big question. If you have a lot of ideas and you even have them grouped into clusters and those clusters go up, what's the unifying theme? Generally, I can. You can anchor a unifying theme into a specific problem, or you can find what maybe all these, all these ideas together are saying about how your general overarching theme or approach to the problem is. There's probably something there. Again, ask AI. It can help you find it or at least come up some ideas of what that would be. But you need all of them. You need all the individual ideas. Generally, one idea per chapter can work pretty well. That's actually how we're unpacking this whole book slash series ourselves is I'm just taking each idea. Each idea becomes an episode, becomes a chapter. The chapters are grouped into sections, and then the sections all together become the book on the show.
- [28:43]
B
And that's the beauty of what we're doing. That's the beauty of what you can do too. So if you're listening to this, I'm hoping that this would encourage you to step up, to actually be at a place where you're like, I know I have these ideas. Listen. I know some of you are listening to this right now, and you're feeling inspired because you're like, I've had these ideas for years. I cannot tell you how many times I talk to people who say that. They're like, oh, I've had this idea. I've had this idea. Go take action. Go take this stuff. Start crystallizing it. Start writing them down. Go post them. Go create a podcast. Go do something with it. Because you may never know. You may have a book inside of you waiting to be released for someone to be impacted by. And that's why I'm always excited about this stuff, because I'm like, I want you to go out there, and I want you to go do the thing that's been placed on your heart, because so many people's lives could be changed for the better.