Ep 75 - The Power of Being ChatGPT-Searchable With Tom Schwab

Summary

Episode Summary: Ep 75 - The Power of Being ChatGPT-Searchable With Tom Schwab

Podcast Information:

• Title: The ChatGPT Experiment - Simplifying Chat GPT For Curious Beginners
• Host: Kerry Weston
• Guest: Tom Schwab, Chief Evangelist Officer at Interview Valet
• Release Date: June 24, 2025
• Description: Transform curiosity into capability! Embrace AI with ease as Cary Weston guides listeners through ChatGPT, offering expert insights and practical applications tailored for diverse professions and backgrounds.

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1. Introduction: Welcoming Tom Schwab

The episode kicks off with host Kerry Weston introducing Tom Schwab, the Chief Evangelist Officer at Interview Valet—a company that transforms podcast interviews into potent marketing tools. Kerry emphasizes the evolving landscape of marketing and SEO, highlighting the increasing role of AI in driving website traffic and shaping business visibility.

2. ChatGPT as a Premier Referral Source

Tom Schwab delves into how ChatGPT has emerged as a significant referral source for Interview Valet. He explains that since the summer of 2024, ChatGPT-driven referrals have surpassed traditional sources like podcast interviews due to their higher quality and personal nature.

Tom Schwab ([10:23]):
“ChatGPT is becoming one of our better referral sources. Starting in the summer of 2024, we started to see referrals come from that and the people were well educated. It was more like a personal referral than it was a cold inbound.”

3. The Shifting Landscape of SEO and Search Engines

The conversation explores the diminishing dominance of Google in search traffic. Factors such as Google's staff layoffs and the rise of zero-click searches—where users obtain answers without visiting external links—are discussed. Tom highlights the necessity for businesses to adapt their SEO strategies in response to these changes.

Tom Schwab ([25:51]):
“SparkToro is a great company...we're running these for customers and prospects and everything. And it's been very interesting, right?... We have more searches ending without clicks. What kind of effect is this having to the average business person that has a website and relies on traffic as a generator for new business?”

4. Long-form Collaborative Content: Definition and Importance

Tom introduces the concept of long-form collaborative content, emphasizing its depth and engagement compared to short, superficial posts. He outlines how podcast interviews, which span 30-45 minutes of meaningful dialogue, serve as excellent long-form content that benefits both human readers and AI algorithms.

Tom Schwab ([20:50]):
“Long form is something that has a lot of words, a lot of beef, a lot of content to it. It’s not just a meme, it’s not just a quick little post... It’s a conversation.”

5. Sentiment Analysis in AI Referrals

The discussion moves to sentiment analysis, where AI evaluates the tone of content—positive, neutral, or negative—to determine its impact. Tom explains that positive podcast interviews inherently pre-load favorable sentiment, enhancing their effectiveness in AI-driven referrals.

Tom Schwab ([23:25]):
“If they're talking all negative, you're going to get talked about in AI and they're going to tell all of the negative things. So it's not only that you want people talking about you, that whole thing of, you know, any press is good press. No good press is good press.”

6. Practical Tips for Leveraging Podcast Interviews

Tom offers actionable advice for businesses aiming to utilize podcast interviews as a marketing tool:

• Be a Guest vs. Hosting: Being a guest on existing podcasts is often quicker and easier for gaining exposure.
• Authentic Outreach: Personalized outreach, such as sending a Loom video instead of a generic email, can significantly increase the chances of securing podcast slots.
• Repurposing Content: Utilize podcast recordings to create various forms of content like social media snippets, blog posts, and tone of voice guides.

Tom Schwab ([33:11]):
“Start with just a few podcasts that you like that you think you could offer value to. Listen to them, leave them a rating and review... [and] reach out and not in, hey, I’d like to be on your podcast and use and abuse your audience. No, it's like, hey, I listen to the podcast here. I think I've got a... interesting perspective that could add value.”

7. The Importance of Tone, Voice, and Authenticity

Authenticity emerges as a crucial factor in content creation. Tom discusses the development of a tone of voice report derived from multiple podcast interviews, ensuring that AI-generated content aligns with the company's authentic voice. Consistency and genuine communication build trust, which is more valuable than mere visibility.

Tom Schwab ([40:18]):
“Authenticity and consistency is so important today. And maybe visibility is the wrong word because for years it was all about attention, right? How much attention could we get now? I think it's about more trust because you can buy attention, right? You can buy ads... You can't buy trust.”

8. Conclusion: Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts

Kerry and Tom wrap up the episode by reinforcing the significance of adapting to AI-driven changes in marketing and SEO. They encourage listeners to embrace authentic, valuable content creation and strategic podcast participation to enhance business visibility and trustworthiness in an AI-influenced digital landscape.

Final Quote from Tom Schwab ([41:11]):
“Whatever we do through AI generated, it's already been trained on our tone of voice, so it knows how we talk. So the emails, the content seems a lot more like it... And I think that's that authenticity that people are looking for.”

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Additional Resources:

• Tom Schwab’s Book: Podcast Guest Profits: How to Grow Your Business with the Targeted Interview Strategy (Available on Amazon and for free through InterviewValet.com/chatgpt)
• Survey for Listeners: chatgptexperiment.com (Include your email for a chance to win a $100 gift card)

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This episode offers valuable insights into leveraging ChatGPT and podcast interviews for enhanced marketing strategies, emphasizing authenticity, consistency, and adaptability in the evolving digital landscape.

Transcript

[Tom Schwab]

Hi, Zoe Saldana.

[Kerry Weston]

Welcome to T Mobile.

[Tom Schwab]

Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us. Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in. You don't need to trade in. When you switch to T Mobile, we'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old Phone up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it. There's always a trade in.

[Kerry Weston]

Not right now.

[Tom Schwab]

At T Mobile. I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma. That's okay. I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.

[Kerry Weston]

I'm good.

[Tom Schwab]

Seriously. Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints. Really, I'm fine. Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car. It's our best iPhone offer ever. Switch to T Mobile. Get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us, no trade in needed. We'll even pay off your Phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line $100 plus a month on experience beyond Finance Agreement $999.99 and qualifying. Ported for well qualified. Plus tax and $10 connection charge. Pay off via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days credits end and balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel mobile.com. for years, it was all about attention, right? How much attention could we get now? I think it's about more trust. And anything you can do to increase trust increases your value.

[Zoe Saldana]

Hey there and welcome to the ChatGPT experiment. And this is a podcast designed to help you better understand what ChatGPT is and how to find some purpose, right? Some nuggets for your personal or professional life. My name is Kerry Weston and I'm your host. I'm glad you're here. Hey, today I've got an interesting guest for you, and I'm going to get right to that. But first, have you taken the listener survey? It's on the homepage of chatgpt experiment.com and I've got a link in the Show Notes here. So if you're listening this, listening to this, your favorite podcast platform, the Show Notes has a link to the survey. Real quick hundred dollar entry to someone that fills it out. What I'm really looking to do is get information from you as to how you use ChatGPT, what your interest might be, are your interests beyond ChatGPT? How can I add value? What topics can I be thinking of? What can I bring you to make your time spent here with me as valuable as it can be. I don't want to make it up, I want to hear from you. So it's in the show notes and it's on the [e-mail] and as I mentioned, if you want to put your your email address in there for an entry, I'm going to give away a hundred dollar gift card to someone that fills this out. How about it for a couple more weeks? Really good listen, really good input. So far. I was going, going through the entries and it's really super valuable and I appreciate it and I want to give as many people an opportunity to give me their information and also get it on the contest. But what I'm really appreciating is how thorough you're explaining what you're doing, what you're using, what you're looking for, how it could be helpful. Terrifically valuable. So this week, Tom Schwab is going to join us for a conversation. Tom is the Chief Evangelist officer at a company called Interview Valet. And this company is dedicated to turning podcast interviews like the one I'm having today into powerful marketing tools. But here's why I want to share this with you and here's why I think you're going to find it interesting. If you've been paying attention to marketing or SEO or website traffic at all, you might be noticing a couple things. One, the landscape is changing and Google is driving more or less traffic actually to your website. There's a couple reasons for that. The rise of AI inside Google itself is answering more questions without having you search through all those blue links to go find it yourself. But also more folks are using tools like ChatGPT as a search engine to get information to find resources. And not only is it giving them answers, but it's also giving folks access to companies like Google does too. So there's a rise in website traffic from tools like ChatGPT. And listen, there's articles I've read in the past few weeks. Google's laying off staff, right? Traffic is down. The zero click web search, which is people are putting in their web search and getting the information without clicking on those blue links is rising and all this is changing and it means something for your business. So if you have a business that relies on you being visible, right. A lot of you have spent time writing or paying attention to SEO or putting website copy together to try and be found, right? That's an important component to a lot of businesses that I talk with and work with Tom has put together a free offer for ChatGPT experiment listeners. There's a link in the show notes as well, and he's going to give you what's included in that link. But there's some free resources, including a free copy of his book that I know is going to be super valuable for you. So check out the show Notes, listen to the URL, and thank you to Tom for putting together that offer for our listeners. If the world of search, the SEO website traffic, finding customers, having customers find you, if any of that's important, you're really going to some value. And what Tom brings to the table, he's obviously been curious. You're curious too. So if these are two things that you are fond of, you're going to find some value in here. So, speaking of curious, I appreciate you joining me each and every week. ChatGptExperiment.com is the website you can find some information on me, you can send me some questions. You want to do a training group, individual or otherwise, you'll find it there. And listen, jump on and take that survey again. What you share with me helps me put the plans together to be more valuable for you. Right. And I am curious. And that's my final parting words here. Today is, as always, the most important nugget in all of the things that you're exploring are your own curiosity. So enjoy the conversation here with Tom and until we talk again, do stay curious. Okay, see you soon.

[Kerry Weston]

Well, hey, Tom, welcome to the show.

[Tom Schwab]

Kerry, I am thrilled to be here.

[Zoe Saldana]

Well, a pleasure.

[Kerry Weston]

Hey, listen, I want to start by having people understand who you are. So if you could share just a little nugget who you are, what you're doing these days, and who you're doing it for, that'd be awesome.

[Tom Schwab]

So I'm Tom Schwab. I'm the chief evangelist officer for Interview Valet. And we're an agency been around for 10 years that helps people leverage podcast interviews to talk to their ideal clients. And that's what we started out with. And over the last year, we've realized that you're not only talking to your ideal clients clients, you're also talking to AI that's referring your ideal clients.

[Kerry Weston]

Well, thanks.

[Zoe Saldana]

So tell me a little bit about.

[Kerry Weston]

You talked about the ballet company. What does that mean? What are you doing there?

[Tom Schwab]

Yeah, so our company started a decade ago. My last company was HubSpot's first e commerce case study. And so when I was going through my sabbatical phase, people are like, well, how'd you grow your business. And I said, well, we did it through guest blogs, but those don't work anymore. And I hypothesized, well, could you use podcast interviews to tap into somebody's audience? And so we tested it. It worked really well. I didn't want to run an agency, so I thought, oh, I'll write a PDF, I'll do a cheesy little course. I never took it out of beta because people told me, listen, I just want to be the guest. You take care of all the rest. So we started in 2015, and for that first few years, Carrie, I'd give my elevator pitch, and people would go, what's a podcast? And then it started to take off, and really, it's leveraging other people's audience. Right. Having that conversation. I think today, especially with everything people are skeptical of. Right. Is this AI? Is it human? When they can hear your voice, they realize that, yeah, this is a real person.

[Zoe Saldana]

Yeah.

[Kerry Weston]

And I'm glad you said that, because I can share with you that when I have conversations in trainings and folks that have listened to the podcast, they share things like, I feel like I know you, or, you know, I know a lot about you, even though we've never met. So I understand that connection that happens through listeners having here. Yeah.

[Tom Schwab]

And. And I know they do AI text to voice, but it always sounds slightly wrong or slightly different. Right. No one talks as poorly as I do. Right. Because I don't speak always in complete sentences. I grew up in Chicago, so when it's the word ends in ing, I might drop the g. So there's that thing, and I think that's. That authenticity is something that people listen for, and sometimes we don't even know what it is, but something sounds off. I remember my team a while back, we were. We were hiring, and they started to look some of the responses, and they're like, nope, that one's AI. That one's AI. I'm like, how can you tell? And they're like, they use semicolons, and they used it perfectly. And I thought about that. I'm like, yeah, I. If I write and there's a semicolon in. Wasn't written by me, as my team will joke, if there's not a grammatical error or spelling error, it probably didn't come from Tom. Now, you know, with Grammarly and stuff like that, it cleans it up. But I still think people's spidey senses are up and saying, is this real or is this AI?

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah. So if spelling errors is a Sign of authenticity, then I will be extremely authentic for years to come. I can, I can be. So you had talked about not wanting to be an agency owner. And my path here for the last 25 years, up until last October, I was a marketing agency owner and I attended a conference called Baba Building a Building a Better Agency Summit. This year I did not because I'm no longer an agency owner. I sold my, my share of my, my agency back in October. But my business partner went to the summit, Baba in Denver this year and she said, you've got to get Tom, you've got to talk to him because he's right on point with some of the things been thinking and saying. You got to have a conversation. So can you share with me a little bit about what was in that presentation that caused her to say this is right on par and would be relevant to folks in the chat GPT ecosystem?

[Tom Schwab]

Yeah. And it really came from a conversation that I had with Drew McClelland, who's the founder of Build a Better Agency Summit there. And we were talking in earlier this year, probably in the January time frame, and I was sharing that ChatGPT is becoming one of our better referral sources. Right. Starting in the summer of 2024, we started to see referrals come from that and the people were well educated. It was more like a personal referral than it was a cold inbound. So we started to look at it and say, why is this happening? One of the clients who we're working with right now is agent AI Dharmesh Thaw's company. He was the found co founder of HubSpot. And as they explained it to us, it's what AI they believe is looking for is share of voice. Right. So how much are people talking about you? And that could be positive, you know, neutral or negative, which is the sentiment. So they felt that very strongly that podcasts are 30 to 45 minutes of positive content. Right. So you're almost preloading it. There's. And that was the thought. But then In November of 2024, ChatGPT started to show the sources. And I can still remember I've got screens open all over my computer and I thought I was googling a client's name and it didn't go into the search bar, it went into ChatGPT. And when I hit return, I was amazed what it pulled up. Right. And then I looked at sources and first source was Wikipedia. The second one was his book on Amazon. The third one was his website. And then after that, Carrie, it was nothing but Long form collaborative content. And so we'd always thought this is what they're looking at. And as I piece together things more, what I realized is that, you know, AWS last year said fall of 2024, that 57% of the Internet is AI generated. It's a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. So not only are people looking for authentic new content, but so are the AI engines. And so it's gotten to the point now where referrals from AI this month in what would this be June of 2025 are our best referral source. They're even better than the podcast interviews we do. We've gotten to the point where we've just given up on any paid media, any paid referrals, because they're just not qualified. And the ones from AI close, more like personal referrals.

[Kerry Weston]

Okay, so you've opened up some doors here and I want to make sure that we don't overlook them. So first door that you open that I want to go down, you, you've mentioned a few times ChatGPT is becoming a big referral and you said that this has become your biggest referral. For those listening that hear that and go, how does he know that? Like what's a, what's a basic, what's some basic directions you could give somebody so they can maybe start to explore as to how do they find out if ChatGPT is a referral to their website.

[Tom Schwab]

So up to this point, sometimes if you looked at the UTM at the end of a URL, you would, they would put ChatGPT or they wouldn't coming in June 2025, they've corrected that. So it always has that extra code on it so you can tell where it came from. So if you use.

[Kerry Weston]

Let's go just for a second. So the utm. So I'm just going to, I just want to, I don't want to overlay, I don't want to talk over anyone else. When you say they put utm, what does that mean?

[Tom Schwab]

So if you look at the URL, right, the address that it goes to, the website address, they usually throw extra codes on it from where it came from. And sometimes ChatGPT would give it, sometimes it wouldn't. And In June of 2025, OpenAI came out and said, we're going to consistently do that. So Now Google Analytics, HubSpot, whatever platform you're on, should tell you where that traffic came from. Where we were actually seeing it was an open ended question. So when people would schedule a discovery call. We would always ask them, how did you find out about us? Because we wanted to know what podcast interview was driving the traffic or who personally referred them. And we were shocked when all of a sudden we started to see ChatGPT. And early on we would ask the people, well, what did you search? And they could never remember what they searched. Right. Because it's not a word. It came up in a conversation that they were having with ChatGPT. So, you know, it's. There's scientific ways to do it, but one of the great ways is just, you know, if you've got a discovery call, a sales call, to ask them very early on, how did you find out about us?

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah, absolutely. And you had mentioned searching a client. Would you recommend someone just search themselves in ChatGPT just for the sake of seeing what comes up?

[Tom Schwab]

Very much so. I would say not only put in there what comes up, but then click sources and see where they got it from. Another great one is name your company, right? And say, tell me the good, the bad, the ugly about this company, because they will. And it's interesting. That's one of the things that we have found, is that when you're seeding this content to the AI, make sure you're very clear on who you. What you do, who you serve, right? We do a lot of fiction books, or, excuse me, non fiction books, but we've tried fiction books, and they never work off the podcast interviews. And I say that a lot in pod, in my interviews. And so when I started to ask the good, the bad, the ugly, right? They came up and straight away said, you know, it doesn't work for fiction books. They don't work with fiction authors. I'm like, that's great, right? If that's what they're pulling is the negatives, I'd love people to see that because at the end of the day, I don't want more leads. I want more great clients. So if somebody sees that, they're like, oh, that filters me out. That helps them, and it helps me.

[Kerry Weston]

So let's stay in this, in, in this zone here for a minute. Who, who is best for me, who's not best for me, who I work with, who I don't work with? The algorithms. We say, right, the. These chat GPT search algorithms are just. Search algorithms as a whole are getting more complex. They're getting more human, if you will. Like, they're looking at it from a. As a human would. More logical and valuable. To that point, would you recommend is there benefit to a business putting a page on their website that literally says, this is who we serve best, and perhaps this is who we don't work with, or some variation of that. Would that feed the algorithm to your point, for better referrals?

[Tom Schwab]

That's an interesting question. It's something I've been looking at, right. Because I want to put that. Because it's clear in my head, but I want to put it up there too. I talk about it, but it's one of those things where I'm looking to do that because I've heard even people say that when they come to the website and look, you know, tell me who it's for and tell me who it's not for. And I think that's a fundamental shift in where marketing is going. And digital marketing is. It used to be this whole thing of, you know, more, more, more. Right. I need more leads. And I had a client. I learned so much from our clients. Guy by the name of Ari Gelper. He's like, I'm tired of the sales funnel. I don't want a. A thousand leads so I can get one client. He says, I want the sales cylinder. Give me six conversations so that I can get five clients. And the only way that's going to happen is if we educate the people very, very early on and let them self identify.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah, yeah. And so one of the themes that I'm hearing you say is something that we've spoke about many times before, is we no longer can look at the web as a computer separately from what the human needs. We used to be feeding the computer right as one goal and then feeding the human on the other, meaning talking to them and giving them information. It's blending now. And I see this in workshops when I do ChatGPT training workshops for businesses. And I. And I demonstrate how I talk to ChatGPT. And I'll usually get a few, you know, sideways heads, like. Well, you're talking to it like a person. I am, because that's how it responds best. That's how I get more value out of it. It. So I think what I'm hearing you saying is regardless of whether you're doing it for the algorithm or the human, it's becoming the same now. And so the information, the clarity, what you're presenting for information that you'd want a human to understand is also benefiting these searches, perhaps, and getting you better qualified business opportunities.

[Tom Schwab]

Very much so. And I have to pull my hair out at times when I hear people talking about deal with AI, just like we used to work with SEO 20 years ago. Right. You just have to put the right keywords in. It's like, I really don't think even the search engines are looking for magic keywords anymore. Right. They're listening to everything, they're watching everything, they're indexing it. And this idea that, well, I just have to talk in keywords, it's almost like, well, why don't we just call all of our companies Acme, whatever? Because, you know, what we learned from the Yellow Pages is if it starts with an aa, it's at the beginning. It's like, no, the rules have changed. There's no tricks, there's no hacks. It's like, you've got to be authentic because it's looking everywhere.

[Kerry Weston]

And you just lost half the audience with the two words Yellow Pages. Like, I have no idea what this person's talking about. All right, so you mentioned also used a frame phrase, long form, collaborative content. Right. And so I want to make sure that we define that. So can you just give a little bit? What does that mean when you say that term?

[Tom Schwab]

Okay. Long form is something that has a lot of words, a lot of beef, a lot of content to it. Right. It's not just a meme, it's not just a quick little post. And when blogs came out originally, Google made sure that it was at least 350 words right before they'd give it credit. And then it went to 500, then it went to 750. They were looking for longer and longer meaningful content. And you think about it, you and I talk about 150 words a minute. So if you figure, what's that for a 30 minute podcast? That's a long, long blog. So that's the long form portion of it. Right. The collaborative content is. It's not just me saying it. Right. It's two people or more engaging. And that shows that it's a conversation. And you even see this in videos. And I remember somebody from LinkedIn pointing this out to me that the more eyeballs or faces you have in a video, typically the better it does. Right. Because you don't have to tag the other person. Right. If Carrie and I are both in the video, whatever the facial recognition or whatever, we'll know that's Carrie. So we're going to give the authority that goes with him. We're going to push it out to his audience. That's Tom. So that collaborative content, so it's not just one person and stuff, that's more depth to it, more of not just A meme.

[Kerry Weston]

It's not just five ways to enjoy a swimming pool this summer. Yeah. Or the five things that every tourist needs to know about Bangor, Maine. Right. We're getting better. A little bit more analytical stuff that humans care about. Right.

[Tom Schwab]

Yeah. The six hacks to make six figures in six seconds, that is not something that somebody wants long form on. That's not a conversation, that's a listoid.

[Kerry Weston]

Okay. And another door that you opened, another thing you mentioned that I want to make sure listeners hear more about is you talked about sentiment, which I think is interesting because we've always talked about content as the singular, focused thing. More of here's a bunch of words, maybe here's some thought, but when you say sentiment, there's intention there. Like you're. You're getting into another layer here. So what do you mean when it says it's picking up on. And I'm talking about searches and search results and algorithms there, too, it's picking up on sentiment. What does that mean?

[Tom Schwab]

It it. If you go to HubSpot, they've got an AI grader and they do a really great job on this, you can put in your URL the company name, and it will tell you how you rank for share of voice and sentiment. So people may be talking about you, but if they're talking all negative, you're going to get talked about in AI and they're going to tell all the negative things. So it's not only that you want people talking about you, that whole thing of, you know, any press is good press. No good press is good press. So in the same way with reviews online, Right. It's not just the number of Amazon reviews you have, it's what's the sentiment of those. Right. So you're looking at that. And an analogy is with AI, right? How many people are talking about them? And we're not looking at keywords anymore. They can tell is somebody talking positively about them neutrally or negatively. And I think that's one of those things where podcast interviews can be helpful, because I've done a lot of interviews. I can't say that I've ever had one that was a hit piece. Right. It's always a positive sentiment. Right. It's just the nature of the medium there.

[Kerry Weston]

Correct? Correct. Right. Just wait till you see what I do with this one.

[Tom Schwab]

Right.

[Kerry Weston]

It's always a first. Look, I have my other browser open as I'm talking to you, and I thought I'd share this with you. I'm looking at some headlines and some multiple Tabs. I have one that says Google is offering buyouts to US employees throughout the company. Right. Another one says nearly 60% of Google searches end without a click in 2024. Another one says Google search drops below 90% for the first time since 2015. Why? Google seems to be losing its iron grip on search. There's a trend happening now and over the past 20 years we've been taught to use Google as the end all authority. And we just put a bunch of words into it and comes back up. But when I see Google shrinking and this is all relative terms, right? I mean, it's a huge, massive company, but it's shrinking. It's US search employees. We have more searches ending without clicks. What kind of effect is this having to the average business person that has a website and relies on traffic as a generator for new business?

[Tom Schwab]

I don't like to talk about averages, right? Because the average temperature of the earth I think is like 54 degrees. That doesn't help me on what I should wear today, right. It's different markets, different climates, all the rest of that. So there's a great company out there called SparkToro, Rand Fishkin's company, and they do audience insights. And one of the powerful things that they show is how much visitors to your website use different search engines. So it could be Bing, it could be AOL, Google, but they also put in their ChatGPT, Claude, all the rest of that. And so we're running these for customers and prospects and everything. And it's been very interesting, right? If something is a mass market, B2C commodity product, right. They're not using AI that much more. But then we get into clients that are professional services, higher income, higher education, and it's not uncommon to see them using AI 100% more than the US average, right. So, and I'm showing my age again. I'm going to go back to the Yellow Pages, right? And for anybody that doesn't know that's how we used to look up businesses. It was a yellow book and they had all their phone numbers listed by category and alphabetically, right. And in Y2K, when the Internet started to come, come around, those people that were more early adopters, the techies, the more educated, they stopped using the Yellow Pages and they started to use the Internet. Now, did that mean the Yellow Pages went away? No, there was. My mom would still look up the number for the phone or for the pizza company from the Yellow Pages as her grandkids were ordering the pizza online, right. So it's starting to die. And I really see SEO going the same way. The early adopters, the more educated, the more affluent, the more business to business, they're already there. And I think the mass market will be coming there. So I think it has to depend on where you are, where your clients are. And I'd encourage you. Sparktoro.com he lets you do free searches, see where the traffic to your site's going.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah, great tip. And another thing I've realized in both my own business and with clients is to use ChatGPT search and just say I'm looking for something that looks like me. Like for instance, I'm looking for a marketing consultant, right, that specializes in integrating ChatGPT into the process or something. Or I'm looking for a roofing company in Maine or I'm looking for whatever it might be, right? And just see how it gives you different information. And then the two way conversation with ChatGPT I think is what most people are starting, that I find are most people starting to enjoy, which is not only can I say I'm looking for a roofer in my area, can you help me? But then I can go back and say, why do you recommend this? Or what are people saying about that? Or right. And it can come back and gives you comparison tables, gives you a little bit more reasoning behind it rather than just here's a website in a blue link, good luck, right? Go find it on her own. And I, and I really do pause when I say this word, but it's almost giving me some reasoning, right? It's giving me like thought process behind the results where it's telling me based on your criteria, based on what you've said you've wanted, this person seems to be the best fit, right? And here's why. And to your point, they serve this person best or this type of person best. They don't, they don't specialize in this over here. So this is why we're suggesting it to you. Chat ABC Search has that two way communication that Google just doesn't seem to have yet.

[Tom Schwab]

And I think it's got a different level of authority too because I can remember asking people, how'd you find out about us on the forum? And the first time I saw one that said Chad, I was like, I wonder who Chad is, right? And I asked him on the call and they're like, oh, sorry, chatgpt. It's like I got tired of saying that. So we just call him Chad around our house. And to him Chad was a person. And Chad said this about you. Chad said that about you. I remember being in a roadmap call, right, Showing somebody our complete outline. This is what a campaign would look like for you. And I got to the end of it and I said, do you have any questions? And his response shocked me. He's like, no, this is pretty much what I saw online. And this isn't publicly available online, right? And he's like, no, I asked a lot of questions online chatgpt, and they told me all of this stuff. So I don't know how that happened. It could have been, you know, we send the PDF to clients right after the call and someone might have uploaded it into ChatGPT, but this person was such an informed buyer that it was almost like it was a personal referral. And their friend had told them, this is exactly how it works.

[Kerry Weston]

So you mentioned at the, at the beginning of this conversation that the business opportunities that are coming from ChatGPT seem to be more informed, more thorough, more ready to have a conversation. Right. Why do you think that's happening? Is it the stuff that you just said? Like they have, they have this two way kind of opportunities so they can dig deeper and keep to say, tell me more, tell me more. Are they having more tools, more assets, more capabilities in a chat search?

[Tom Schwab]

This is a guess, right? Because there's not the data behind it. But it just seems like when they show up, they're a lot more educated. And I don't believe that it's coming from spending hours going through my website. I think they just keep asking questions about why, right? Why is this a good company? Why would this be good for me? And a lot of times the questions that they want answered on the discovery call, they'll just start asking ChatGPT to get that idea. So it's, you know, we used to have these things called SDRs, the Sales Development reps, the junior ones that would, you know, take the initial call and then push it up to the senior rep. I look at it now as like Chachi pt, sort of my sales development rep. And people are a lot more open to that than they are to jump on a call because it's done at their time. It's in their world, not mine.

[Kerry Weston]

So let's talk about some practical and tactical things that folks that are listening that are interested in this topic. Meaning how do I make sure that I'm in the best position to be found? How do I get smarter, more informed customers calling me or reaching out to me? Right. What are some tips that you would give folks to make Best use of this information that you're gathering, that you're seeing. Admittedly, we're testing it, right. This is a smaller sample size and it's growing, but you're seeing some positive things and some key takeaways. So someone says, this sounds interesting. How do I defend myself? Or how do I get into this, or how do I best set myself up to succeed? What are some tools, some practical and tactical tips that you tell them that they could start doing this week?

[Tom Schwab]

Week. So one of it is people will say, well, you know, long form collaborative content, should I host my own podcast or should I be a guest? And I don't think it's an either or. Right. Hosting a podcast is a great way to nurture your current leads and your current clients. Being a guest is a great way to get new leads, get new exposure. But one is easier than the other and one is a lot quicker than the other. So if you're just looking for long form collaborative content, it's easier to be a guest. Right. And anybody that says doing a podcast as easy as either never done it or never done it, well, so that's a way to get out there. The other thing I would say is create in the way that's easiest for you. Right. I've written a lot of, I've written a lot of blogs in my life. Every one of them felt like a homework assignment. I'd much rather talk for 30 minutes than write a 20,000 word blog. It's easier because here I am just responding to questions. The other thing that we started to do is the people at Agent AI said it's all about share of voice. So ramp up your share of voice. Well, I do about a podcast interview a week. I have no desire to do more than that because my fear is that it'll turn into Groundhog Day. It won't be meaningful. So I've got a great team and they've got different viewpoints on it. And so we've got one lady that runs the health and wellness area. And I asked Chloe, would you be on podcast? She's got a background in college radio and she's like, I'd love to. Well, she's now out there talking about podcast interview marketing for more the health and wellness. Right. I don't know the difference between a calorie and a keto. Right. If you look at me, I am not the face of health and wellness. But she can talk to all of these things. And what we've seen is now they are getting indexed and last week we Got the first lead that said, I heard Chloe on a podcast and so that's sort of the voice of the company. So I think especially for smaller companies, if you can have more advantage out there, that'll help you. A lot of times it doesn't have to be on the founder, the owner, if you can find different people to talk about it, sort of the same way you would be at conferences, right? Different people talking at the booth or different people talking on stages.

[Kerry Weston]

Especially if you have niches within your company, like you said, that they could talk in a specialized way. You had mentioned it's easier to talk than it is to write the homework assignment analogy of the blog. Is there a best practice for if I do, if I am on a guest of a podcast, is there a best practice to maybe get the transcript or get that conversation so I can do something with it? Maybe with ChatGPT?

[Tom Schwab]

Yeah. One of the things I preach is don't just do more interviews, do more with your interviews. So this is gold. Today, 95% of podcasts include video. And you can take that video, you can slice it and dice it, you can get those little reels and shorts, you can get Facebook posts out of it, you can get all of this content. And prime example of this is Joe Rogan, right? They say he gets hurt by 100 million people. I remember hearing that during the election and thinking there is no way that one out of three adults in the US listens to his three hour podcast. And if you look at it, it's, it's gets 2 million downloads. It's the number one podcast. The other 98 million are hearing them from the repurposed content. And one of the interesting things that we have done is been getting something called tone of voice from the podcast interviews. So for small companies, we all have our brand guidelines, right? This is the color we use, this is the font we use, the this is the logo we use. But for bigger companies, often they'll spend tens of thousands of dollars to come with, with their tone of voice report. And it's. So this is the point of view we have, this is the kind of words we use. And you can take your podcast interviews and go through that and get that tone of voice report. HubSpot recently has started something called, I think it's brand voice. And they do it off of 500 words. And that's supposed to capture your essence. We've tested it and we needed at least six interviews to get a substantial tone of voice. After 12, there was no change to it, but it was interesting because as we looked at that, we did the tone of voice report for myself, then we did it for the different team members and we started to talk about where's the difference? Right. We all have to be singing from the same hymnal. And then we took this report and now anything we do through AI generated, it's already been trained on our tone of voice, so it knows how we talk. So the emails, the content seems a lot more like it. We even went back and QA'd some of the content in our website and we had hired a company to create some blogs. They were great blogs, but when we ran it through this filter, they didn't sound like us. So we rewrote those. So it was more in our tone of voice. And I think that's that authenticity that people are looking for. We got our spidey senses up and as soon as we think this isn't the same person, we leave.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah. So for those listening to this on the homepage, it's a great reference here on the homepage of the ChatGPT experiment, there's a free guide, there's a downloadable guide, tips for beginners. And when you download that to what Tom was just saying, one of the bonuses that comes with it is a step by step kind of guide on how to get voice, tone and style, how to get your. Your recipe, if you will. Because all of the work that I do both for myself and with clients wouldn't be possible if I didn't have that voice guide, if I didn't have my style guide for voice, tone and style. And once you've got the that either in an external document or in ChatGPT, the ability to take any topic, any blog, any, either from scratch or something you've already written and have it be consistent to that voice that you want your company to kind of talk in. It's very easy and it's very consistent, isn't it? It's very standardized once you have it, but that's one of those homework pieces that you've got to do up front in order to get more use out of it. So when you talk about voice and tone and style in sentiment, will these pieces all contribute to helping you be more visible through search results when it comes to things like chat?

[Tom Schwab]

I don't know if they'll help with visibility, but I think authenticity and consistency is so important today. And maybe visibility is the wrong word because for years it was all about attention, right? How much attention could we get now? I think it's about more trust because you can buy. Buy attention, right? You can buy ads. You've got all the. The influencers out there buying attention, but they don't necessarily get the business, especially the bigger business, because it's not a transaction, it's a relationship. And so it's not attention anymore. It's trust. And anything you can do to increased trust increases your value. And if you lose that trust in any way, that can be. That can be deadly.

[Kerry Weston]

Now, somebody listening that says, I, I want to try this out, but I'm not sure how to go about finding podcasts or how do I become a guest or just start emailing people. I think that's what you do. What do you share with people if they're at the point where they're curious, but they don't know what to do next?

[Tom Schwab]

Well, I always say, learn from other people's mistakes, right? We had a thing in the Navy that said, never learn from your own mistakes. It's painful. So we share a lot of things out there, and it's one of these things where you want to make sure you're talking to the right audience. So just don't think I want to go on Joe Rogan. No. Start with just a few podcasts that you like that you think you could offer value to. And sometimes people will say, well, I'm not the expert. No, but you've got expertise to offer, right? There's no such thing as the expert. And so one of the things I preach is Gary Vaynerchuk always used to say, you know, jab, jab, jab, jab, right hook. Missed a couple jabs in there. But I look at it as serve, serve, serve, serve, ask. Right? So go and find a handful of podcasts that you think that you could offer value to, listen to them, leave them a rating and review, right? We're all vain. We all read our own ratings and reviews, right? Share it on social media, make comments, right? So now you're giving feedback, then you reach out and not in, hey, Carrie, I'd like to be on your podcast and use and abuse your audience. No, it's like, hey, I listen to the podcast here. I think I've got a. Interesting perspective that could add value, you know, could I offer that to your audience and give, give, give. They'll be asking you to be on the podcast. And then at the end of the podcast, if you've done a good job, right, thank the host and say how much you enjoyed it and say, are there any other podcasts that you can think of that I could bring Value to. And the thing is, podcast hosts know podcast hosts, right? So if you start out with five podcasts that you've identified and get on two of them and do a good job, well, they'll probably introduce you to two more and so on and so on. And so many people will go, well, that's not scalable. No, but it's effective, right? There's a. A service out there right now that has become the butt of jokes in podcasting. And their tagline is you can pitch a thousand podcasts in the time that it would take you to pitch one, right? Yes, you can. And most of those are going to go to spam, and you might get a couple of yeses, but it's not the yeses you want. So once again, that, that whole idea of be human, right? And do that, and then after you're on the podcast, focus more about being a guest and less about being a podcast, right? So what's a guest do? They show up on time, they show up appropriately, Right. They sound great, they look great, and then afterwards, you thank the host. You know, if you over for dinner, send them a thank you. If you're on a podcast, well, when it goes live, promote the episode, thank them. And for some people, they're like, yeah, I just, I want to be the guest. You take care of all the rest. And that's what we do at Interview Valet. We help find the podcast, we help get you introduced. We've got a great team of 21, all based in the US and really look at it as a marketing channel, not just as an activity.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah, I think there's some great advice there because I could spend probably another half an hour telling you, just as you could, telling you about the emails I get from those services that say, you know, I've listened to your podcast and I have someone that you need to have on your show. And then it's nothing to do with my podcast, right? Like, I think there's some just like we all get hit on LinkedIn and emails. There's a lot of bad services. I think your advice is right on. And I think the authentic outreach, the valuable outreach, the thoughtful outreach, the give, give, give, ask is great advice. So thank you for that. And I think that we forget that folks that have podcasts also have a need to have an editorial calendar. Like, they have to fill their airwaves with something. If you have a point of view, if you have value, if you have something to bring to the table that makes them look good, makes their job easier, and adds value to the audience. Right. Those three together is gold. Those are fantastic. And so I think what I'm hearing you saying is instead of going for the biggest, maybe find the niches that would really be the listening audience in and of itself would be good prospects or good folks for your business to be in front of as well. It's. It's like advertising one on one. Right. The biggest audience isn't always the best audience. It has nothing to do with your business.

[Tom Schwab]

I'll add another one. Just as I look at you, Carrie, instead of just sending an email, do a quick little loom video and send it. Because in that they know that it's really you. It's not some third world VA they're looking and very quickly saying, all right, they look like a professional. They've got a good camera, they've got good lighting, they sound good on camera. All of those things that the reasons in the back of their mind they would say no to in the first two seconds of the video. You just answered all of those.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah. It's so easy to put that together now. Whether it's a LinkedIn video directly to them or like you said, using Vidyard or loom or something like that. I think the authenticity factor plays well. Tom, really appreciate the conversation. If people want to learn more about you, what you do and how you do it, where do they go?

[Tom Schwab]

Yeah, easiest way is just go back to interview valet with a V.com forward slash, let's go chat GPT. Right. Easy to remember. Everything Carrie and I talk about will be there. There's an assessment. Right. Will podcast interview working for me. I put a copy of my book in there. Podcast guest profits, how to grow your business with the targeted interview strategy. You can buy it on Amazon, but if you go there, I'll. I'll mail you a free copy. If you're in the u. S, you're outside, I'll email you one. And if you want to talk with me, I'll put my calendar link there too. It's all at interview valet.com forward/chatgpt.

[Kerry Weston]

Oh, great. And I'll put that in the show notes as well so people have it. Tom, I'm so happy that my business partner reached out. I know you provided some great value at BABA and you're going to do the same thing here for our audience. So really appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining me.

[Tom Schwab]

Thank you, Kerry. I appreciate all you do. High interest debt is one of the toughest opponents you'll face unless you power up with a sofi Personal Loan A SOFI Personal loan could repackage your bad debt debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment.

[Kerry Weston]

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[Tom Schwab]

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