AI-Automated Authenticity: Robot-Written Thank You Notes to Help Businesses Thrive in 2023 with Rick Elmore

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like No Straight Path. Today, we'll be breaking down AI automated authenticity, robot written thank you notes to help businesses thrive. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Rick Elmore into EO Fire Studios. Rick is an entrepreneur, sales and marketing expert, and former college and professional football player. Following his football career, Rick translated his competitive of drive to sales and entrepreneurship by finding Simply Noted, an automated handwritten letter company founded on the idea of making it easy to create simple, scalable, powerful, and meaningful real pen written communication.

0:47And Fire Nation will talk about the benefits of using AI generated thank you notes. We'll talk about the effectiveness. We'll talk about the business that it can generate with the overall marketing and branding strategies and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rick and our sponsors. Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business.

1:19Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Fire Nation, as I mentioned in the intro. We're talking all about AI automated authenticity. We're talking a robot written thank you notes to help businesses thrive in 2023 and beyond. And Rick, I want to know your aha moments that started the Simply Noted journey. Yeah, it's a great question. So this actually began back in 2017. I was going after my MBA at night school. So I was in a marketing class about a year into my program and I had a marketing professor talking about all the success rates marketing and everything was super nominal, you know, very low, you know, either single digit or double digit success rates.

2:03And after this three hour long lecture, you know, this was at the end of the day, it was about 11 o 'clock at night. My brain was just like on fire from everything we were learning. He ends the lecture with something I just thought was just so profound. He said, hey guys, you know what works better now, if not better than ever, is a good old-fashioned handwritten note. They're rare. They almost get open 100 % of the time. They have a 99 % open rate, and people just appreciate them now more than ever. And I grew up in a generation without cell phones. I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 17, so I just knew the value of a handwritten note.

2:40So that was the moment when I just thought, hey, there may be a cool business behind this if we can figure out a way to either A, automate it for businesses because nobody has the time to do it or scale it. And yeah, fast forward five years, it's been a pretty crazy wild ride building a company that helps businesses automate and scale it. I can tell you, having run Entrepreneurs on Fire for 10 and a half years now, I've gotten a handful of handwritten notes, not as many as one might expect, but I can tell you for sure they have a 100 % open rate at the Dumas household. I see a handwritten note.

3:18I said, whoever took the time to write this handwritten note, I am going to, number one, definitely open it, definitely read it. And number two, probably response because again, it is just that effective. But authenticity is so key. Rick, how can we ensure that these thank you notes generated by artificial intelligence are actually authentic? Well, yeah, that's really the heart of what we do over here at Simply Noted. It really is all around the technology. What we do is we're not sending printed handwritten notes. We're actually sending real pen written, I guess, handwritten notes. And how we do that is leverage, number one, AI to coming up with these great messages, but also robotics.

4:02Simply Noted is the world technology leader when it comes to scalable automated handwritten notes. We built our own handwriting robot from the ground up. The genuineness, the authenticity is just completely, it's amazing just how real these handwritten notes are. Everything down to the customization is just like MailMerge. As long as a variable is triggerable through a CRM or a software or in a spreadsheet, we can completely customize it. And yeah, we just really try to make sure everything that we do, it's going to look like it came from your desk. We use real physical stamps, real stationery, real pens, and all the messaging is hyper focused and hyper personalized to the recipient that you're sending it to.

4:46Now, I want to talk specifics because Fire Nation are small business owners. We are entrepreneurs. So I want to know how businesses can benefit from using these AI generated thank you notes. Well, yeah. So simply note, it's an engagement platform. Our most consistent, regular customers are using for retaining. So we think we're a great, number one, for attracting new clients, but also retaining current clients. So just saying thank you, we firmly believe, or at least we see our biggest and best customers at least sending a thank you card after a purchase and a holiday card. So at least twice a year, we see our biggest clients reaching out and personally engaging their clients a couple of times a year.

5:29But also, it's a great prospecting and business building tool. And that's how we still use it to build our business. Like you said earlier, it's nearly 100 % open rate. It's rare. Handwritten notes are the last form of communication that people truly don't think can be scaled or automated. So when they get it, they open it, they appreciate it. They automatically put you in a different realm than the other sales rep or company that's emailing, texting, sending print mail. So yeah, we say that the easiest way is to either just say thank you, and we can do that through our web app, an API integration, a Zapier integration, Integrately, whatever way that we try to be as flexible as possible for you to use us.

6:12But yeah, so you can either say thank you or use it to attract new clients. I love examples, like real world examples. And so you've seen a lot of these, obviously. What's one of your favorite examples that your customer or your client has actually utilized with thank you notes so far that have gotten them just killer results? Yeah, so I can think of a couple. First off, we work with a luxury hat retailer like Shopify brand. And anytime a customer spends more than$100, they'll trigger a thank you note. So we can set up like super hyper personalized triggers like that. Like if they meet this requirement, send them a thank you note.

6:50Also, you know, we work with insurance brands, real estate brands, automate birthday cards, anniversary cards of like their home being sold, you know, all these like milestones that are important to that person. And you're showing them that you're thinking about them. But in reality, you're just setting up a system and a process that is like out of sight, out of mind. And we're just handling it for them. So yeah, I would say, you know, just, you know, automating it through some type of trigger or an event that's happening within your software. or simply just sending over a spreadsheet and allowing us to handle all the work for you.

7:22So I would say those are two really normal use cases, but really we work with everybody in between from political campaigns to nonprofits to small insurance agencies to realtors to brokers. I mean, it's all over the place. Everybody can benefit from a handwritten thinking out. And what better thing could happen, Fire Nation, than you just hanging out one day than you getting this gushing email or message of some kind from somebody who was just overwhelmed with the fact that they received a handwritten note from yourself. And you're like, oh, I literally set that process up a year ago or six months ago or last week, and it's automatically making people happy and smile.

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9:54Elite Singles has your back with plenty of expert tips on how to create an A-plus profile that really showcases who you are. Sign up today for your premium membership at elitesingles.com slash fire and date smarter. That's elitesingles.com slash fire. Rick, we're back and I want to talk about measurements because there's a great Peter Drucker quote that I love. What gets measured gets improved. So how exactly do you measure the effectiveness of AI generated thank you notes in terms of building customer loyalty, customer retention, all of those important KPIs? Yeah, it's a great question. So that's one of the number one questions we get asked all the time from our clients.

10:37There's two ways to answer this. In terms of just building on relationships, that's measured over time. We usually check in every three or six months with our clients who are using us for thank you notes and just see what their customer attrition rate is like. What's their customer turnover? And it's always improving. They're talking about how they're getting more referrals, the thank you notes that they're sending, people are taking pictures and throwing it up on their social media. So they're getting kind of like a viral aspect, you know, like think about what that can do for your company, business or brand, you know, and your customers are bragging and putting that online.

11:10So we usually see that over time. It's always around turnover or organic referrals. But the prospecting, you know, my background is in sales and marketing. So there's always a lot of really cool, fun ways to set this up. But if you're doing outbound like business development campaigns trying to book meetings you know we see our customers either using like qr codes or personalized qr codes so you can track it down to the person who's actually scanning it you can set up really cool triggers when those qr codes are scanned to engage a phone call a text message um you know call tracking numbers so there's a lot of cool like creative ways that you can track it on an outbound prospecting campaign um it just really comes down to what systems that you have in place or that you're comfortable with integrating into this type of outbound handwritten mail campaign.

11:56Now, we've already talked about this and around this, but I want to get even more specific with this next point, which is actually how businesses are going to integrate these notes into their overall marketing and branding strategy. Like, what are some actual ways that you've seen that we haven't talked about yet that maybe can start lighting off some light bulbs for our listeners? Well, I think this is just such a new idea. I really, truly, honestly believe in my soul that handwritten notes are going to make a massive comeback with vengeance just because we've gone through the digital revolution.

12:31Now we're in the AI revolution and people are craving that personal connection. So I really see just how you have a constant contact or a MailChimp or a CRM. A handwritten note tool like this is going to be a part of your marketing or sales tool belt just going forward. It just has to be more adopted. People don't know about it, how to use it. But once that product adoption comes, this is just going to be built into everybody's business because appreciation, customer loyalty is incredibly important to every business that's growing. And this is just a really cool tool that's real, physical, and personal in a way to do that.

13:14We've also talked about how there's a lot of opportunities in a lot of sectors that this is going to work for. I mean, you mentioned real estate. We talked about all these other potentials that can work. I mean, that very niche hat store, you know, luxury hats. I mean, it makes sense for so many people in so many ways. I mean, I'm honestly thinking about ways that I can send these notes to people that join Podcaster's Paradise. I mean, there's just so many cool ways, Fire Nation, that we can use this. But where do you think they're more effective and less effective if we get industry specific?

13:48I would say if you're in any type of relationship-driven industry where, and I think almost every business is that, but we see it really used a lot in political, nonprofit, real estate, mortgage. I mean, I would say those are our biggest factors or our biggest clients by far, just because at the end of the day, there's always so many options in those industries. So that relationship to that sales rep or that company means a lot when people are giving you their time and money or they're using you for that service. So I would say, yeah, it's real estate, nonprofit, for sure, insurance, political.

14:26We've also seen a massive increase in product adoption in the e-commerce space of people who are using Shopify or Amazon seller market, or even some really cool WordPress plugins. We can integrate and automate based off of people signing up to your website or filling out a form. Like you just mentioned earlier, hey, when they sign up on your website, all you add is an address field and we can trigger that and automate it based off of however you want to do it. Set up a delay, send three notes, wait 90 days. I mean, it's really cool. And that's the fun part about this. It's infinitely flexible, but it's also the hard part about this.

15:04We got to consult with our clients. How do you want to set this up? And we help you do that. Now, is this going to become the norm in the future? I mean, is this going to just be what everybody's doing? Because honestly, if that is the case, now all of a sudden, you know, handwritten letters kind of lose their uniqueness, their specialness, their rarity, so to speak. So let's talk a little bit about that. So I think when anything works, there's going to be a ton of people, a ton of competition. The hard thing about this space, the only way that you're going to be competitive in this space is if you've done what we've done and built our own robot.

15:38And that's a massive overtaking because there are some smaller companies are trying to do this, but they're using like pen plotters that they lay on tables and the quality is just not there. But yeah, I do see a lot of players getting in this space in the next five-ish years. I think AI is going to kind of take over and kind of jump to the front of the line and get everybody's attention. But handwritten notes, they just work. They grab attention. They have long shelf lives. You know, they sit on people's desks for six weeks or they get put in a drawer and they come back to it. And there's just nothing like that.

16:09But I think in order to stay ahead, companies like Simply Note have got to keep innovating. And that's what we do. We put all our time and energy into the technology to ensure our users are getting the most realistic, authentic product. Because the last thing you really want to be caught doing is sending a fake, fake handwritten note. And that's what we have done over here is make sure that we're not doing that. It looks like you guys are sending it from your desk at your house. Oh, so good. So listen, what I want to end with is what you want Fire Nation to really get from our conversation today.

16:46What's the one big takeaway you want to make sure we understand? Well, it's relationships. Everything's so transactional nowadays. Everything's automated. People really don't value that personal connection anymore. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm saying to send more handwritten notes in general. I think Simply Noted comes into play when you want to scale it or automate it and kind of build it into a system to where it's more manageable or you can track it better. But I just I think we need to get back to what works. Every we all know relationships and business relationships or business are invaluable.

17:24You can't scale a business or keep a business open if you don't have a good relationship with your clients, vendors, even your employees or your team. So I think we really got to pay more attention to what's going to help us be more successful in the long run. And that's people, that's relationships. That's good. If you want to go fast, you go alone. But if you want to go far, you go together. And that comes down to relationships with people. So I really think we all together need to do a better job at just building those strong relationships. If Fire Nation wants to connect with you, what is your call to action for our listeners today?

17:56I would say go connect with me on LinkedIn. It's just Rick Elmore on LinkedIn. But go to our website. It's simply noted, S-I-M as in Mary, P-L-Y noted.com. And just request a free sample kit. In the top right-hand corner of the web, on our landing page or home page, you'll see an orange button where it says request a sample. We'll send you a really nice demo kit for free, no strings attached. You may get a couple emails that are automated to follow up, but you'll be really impressed. We're really excited about what we're doing over here. It's an amazing technology. It's an amazing business sales and marketing tool.

18:31And we know because we've seen over the last five years, It's just, it works really well. Fire Nation, you are the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with R-E-N-J-L-D today, so keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about today, visit eofire.com, type a Rick in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And I wanna say, Rick, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Rick for sponsoring today's episode in Fire Nation.

19:08Successful entrepreneurs are great at three things, productivity, discipline, and focus. That's why I created the Mastery Journal so that you can master these three things in a hundred days. And we're talking step-by-step. Visit themasteryjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business.

19:38Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts.