How to Adapt, Thrive, and Stay Human in an AI-Driven World

0:09Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct tape marketing podcast. This is Jon Jantz, and I think I'm kind of the guest today because my host today is Sarah Ney, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, and we're just going to have a conversation about some of the things going on in the world of marketing. I've said before, I think 2025 is going to be a year to remember in terms of change. I'll say that next year too, I bet. But I think the pace of change that I think we're seeing right now, just in the first couple of weeks of January. It's kind of flooring me and I think it's going to be tough to keep up.

0:44So strap in, hang on, and here we go, sir. And we were just having a discussion with some of our team about how we're always, you know, looked at it staying on top of marketing trends. And that's been the position of duct tape marketing for a while. And right now we feel like we're sprinting more than we have before with all the advancements. And that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today. So thanks for letting me steal the host seat. I want to start with a question. Can I throw in a joke, a lame joke? So R &D now stands for run and dash. Run and dash. I love it. Well, I'm going to start with a question.

1:15You've been in the game, the marketing game for quite some time now. So you were involved when websites, everyone started building websites and getting online. And also when social media became a thing and everyone was talking about how that's going to change the whole entire industry. And so right now, obviously, we're going through a lot of conversation and discussion and excitement around AI and everything that's evolving there. So I'm curious, how does right now feel the same than some of those different excitement phases that have happened or developments that have happened over the years?

1:44And also on the other end, how does it feel a bit different this time or does it feel different? Yeah. So, I mean, in some ways it feels, if there's a same, it's fundamentally what we're here to do as marketers. I don't think it'll ever change. And so a lot of the changes that came along, we were like, oh, wait, we have a new way to interact with customers. We have a new platform to be found. Customers have a different way to buy from us. So those were kind of, in a lot of ways, incremental changes, significant ones for a lot of folks. In terms of the change with what AI is bringing, I think it's much more foundational.

2:19It certainly feels very different. And I think partly because it impacts so many areas of a business. A lot of a website was kind of a marketing thing, whereas AI is impacting finance, it's impacting customer service, it's impacting certainly all the marketing functions. And ultimately, it's impacting consumers and what they're able to do greatly. And I just feel like this is a... I've heard some people say this, and it might be kind of cliche, but this is almost like the industrial revolution, Like all these machines, you know, came along that automated, you know, manual labor that, you know, that really displaced a lot of jobs and started creating the, you know, the knowledge economy.

3:03And I think this is a bit more like that. This is going to fundamentally shift how we work. Yeah, absolutely. And the school system, a lot of it was built from that era as well. And so I've heard a lot of conversation about, you know, potentially AI adjusting how we actually teach our children in school as well. Yeah, no more math, right? Who needs math? Who needs to learn math, right? It's done for you. A lot of what you've spoken about over the years is strategy before tactics. And now a lot of people are talking about strategy before technology. And so I'm just curious your take on there's a lot of shiny objects in AI.

3:36There's a lot of every time I check my email, there's 10 different tools that are being recommended for me that relate to AI. And so I think a lot of people are getting sucked into just doing things and figuring out how it works, but not necessarily taking a step back and saying, how could this apply to my business? how could I approach this strategically? So what would your advice be there for someone that needs to get out of the shiny object syndrome and focus on the strategy behind it? Well, I think there's a real danger in not. In fact, I think strategy is more important. And here's why. It's like taking somebody who used to ride a bike.

4:09You got a helmet, you're riding the bike, you're probably okay if you crash unless you're like on a mountain or something, right? But now we're going to put somebody in the seat of a Lamborghini without a seatbelt, without a helmet. We're going to say, drive really fast. And if they don't, if they're on the right road, if they don't have the right map, if they don't have the right skills, you know, they're just going to die faster. I know that's sort of dramatic, but I think that that's what's going to happen from a marketing standpoint, from a business. If your strategy is wrong, if your messaging is wrong, if your product market fit is wrong, you're just going to fail faster now.

4:47So you might succeed faster as well. But if you don't have the right strategy in place, it's going to say, here's the path we're going to take. There's a real danger in just having a whole lot of technology that's going to get you there faster. Yeah, absolutely. What about the mindset shift too? Because there definitely are different sides of things. People are like, AI is the future, stuff's changing quickly. This is the best thing ever. But there's also the other side of things where people are like, I'm terrified as where we're going. We're going to lose all these jobs. And so what about adopting the right mindset to be able to advance with these?

5:20Well, I think there's legitimate fear. There are a lot of jobs that are going to be displaced, a lot of positions, a lot of skills that are not going to be that important. I mean, when you think about I now have the world's smartest human being, the world's, you know, greatest IQ at my disposal, you know, all of a sudden being smarter, you know, is not going to be an advantage necessarily because we can tap that that computing power. So the mindset shifts, I think it's at two levels. Certainly at the leadership level, you have to embrace it. You have to train your folks. You have to get them ready.

5:54And I think at the manager, the skilled person working in an organization, they have to realize that their job is probably not anymore about doing technical things. It is going to be about managing the path that those technical things are being done on. So, you know, that might not be a fit for everybody who, you know, really likes to get in there and crunch the numbers and analyze the data. You know, instead of really, you know, looking at like, I need to be really good at reading actuary tables, for example, you actually need to be really good at analyzing, you know, this amazing output that you're going to get from these tools and managing and orchestrating the output that you get and making sense of it and contextualizing it.

6:38And that's probably a different skill set. Before we got on the call, I was, and I give Lisa Adams full credit for this. Look her up on LinkedIn if you want to find out somebody who's really doing some great things in AI. But she said this statement, I think we've been saying it for a long time. Strategy is going to be more important. The human element is going to be more important. But she just nails it with this. as AI democratizes IQ, EQ is going to become more important. Some people call them soft skills, but emotional quotient, the ability to bring emotion, the ability to bring reality into who you're trying to market to, to understand your customers, to understand the context in which your customers are trying to solve their problems.

7:25Those are things that humans with high IEQ, you know, are very, very good at. You can take it farther. I mean, AI is democratizing reach. So community is going to be more important. Like as we can like spam more people, you know, communicating is going to be more important as AI just makes it so easy for anybody who's never written two words or put two sentences together can now create, you know, theoretically create long form content. You know, having that personal connection with your clients is going to become more important. So those are all things that, you know, if you were going to go read a book or take a course on EQ, you know, those are the kinds of things, you know, listening, empathy are the kinds of things that they would talk about.

8:07And I think those are going to be the things that those are going to be the skills that are going to be valued in the job market moving forward. Yeah, absolutely. And so we've talked about this a lot, you and I too. It's right now, we're not thinking about AI as replacing jobs. It's helping us do different or better or higher level work. And so I think that also sums up what you were saying there. We're not like firing our whole team and letting them go because we're bringing a bunch of AI. But we are helping them all elevate and us ourselves elevate, you know, to focus on the strategic thinking and the creativity and the collaboration and the EQ elements that you talked about there as well.

8:44Yeah. And sadly, there will be people that are looking at that way. Look, I can have all these agents and I don't have to have any people. I saw somebody post on LinkedIn, in the$3 billion company with only three employees. And those get headlines, those get clicks. But frankly, it is going to displace the positions or the functions inside of organizations. And certainly people with high EQ, I think, who can adapt to a new way to work, I think will thrive. And there will be some... Just like everything. I mean, when the automobile came along, You know, when the factories came along, I mean, different jobs got displaced when the computer came along, you know, different jobs got displaced.

9:26And ultimately, you know, new jobs were created, new education was created, new training was created for people to, you know, to change the skills. But that's, you know, that's never great for somebody that, you know, all their life has done a certain type of job. And now they're being told, oh, you have to you have to work differently than you have your whole life. But, you know, that's come really with even incremental changes, you know, over time in the workplace. Yeah. I think it's really important. I read something the other day about the mind shift with AI and what you were talking about there is like you really have to have a growth mindset with this thing.

9:59You have to be eager to learn and expand and grow as a human to be able to get the full capabilities of AI. And I think that's a good way to think about it as well. Yeah. And I'll acknowledge it's exhausting. Yeah. But, you know, I think particularly at the speed, you know, that we're moving right now. But you're absolutely right. You have to have that growth mindset. And it's tough because, I mean, it means you have to do things that are not comfortable maybe. You know, there's a lot of people that you mentioned this idea that AI, you know, seems really frightening and kind of techie. And so there's just, you know, some folks that that's, you know, that's not their comfort zone.

10:37but it's a matter of, I don't mean this in a really negative sounding way, but I don't think we have much choice. Yeah. Yeah. Another area I want to dive into a bit more is you mentioned the human element a little bit more and making personal connections with your clients. And so with the evolution of AI right now, we're seeing people are producing more content. There's chatbots online, you're getting cold outreach, direct outreach from AI tools. And so there's a lot of stuff that feels very automated. LinkedIn comments is another example where it just feels very automated. So how can companies stand out from that noise by doing things such as, you know, building trust, building brand, actually connecting with people?

11:17So what are some examples to stand out from the noise? Well, I think for a lot of marketers, particularly, you know, you have to really understand your brand voice. I mean, you have to have a brand voice. I mean, there is, that's one of your differentiators. It's, you know, duct tape marketing is quite often seen by people as very practical, down to earth, plain spoken. And that's a brand voice that we've spent a lot of time developing. And shame on us if we use some of the automation tools to not sound like us. So I think that's really... I feel like we're very empathetic. I think we're very caring about what we do and care about the people that we serve.

11:54And that comes out, I think, in the content that we produce. And it is really tempting to say, oh, look, I can automate somebody having 100 LinkedIn comments spread all over the place. Well, first off, it probably is counter to what you're trying to do because you and I have laughed about it. You see these comments on your LinkedIn posts and just clearly that was just AI generated. And it really actually kind of makes you want to ban that person. And so it's certainly not doing any value for them. But I think what it just means is it'll get easier to spot something that is both AI generated and something that is actually authentically generated.

12:39I think the gap between those two is going to get even larger. And so spending the time to say, hey, here's who I really am and this is how I talk and maybe I don't use punctuation here. Whatever it is that is your brand voice, I think just understand it and stay true to it. And I know there are a lot of people talking about, oh, you could train AI to do that, but I can spot it. Yeah. I think one of the easiest ways to spot an actual human producing content for me versus AI, one of the best ways I can see is storytelling. If someone's talking about their actual personal experiences, I think that's an easy way to spot.

13:16So do you think there's going to be an increased importance of storytelling as a brand and also humans representing the brand as well? Yeah, I think storytelling has actually been, it's been hot for 10 years, you know, I mean, that idea in marketing. But I think you're right. It's now going to be a key differentiator. I mean, AI can't make up that case story or that example of, you know, what happened, you know, on a day at work in your actual office. It can't be made up. And so, you know, I think that that's, in a lot of ways, going to be a huge differentiator. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Do you think there's a specific area of marketing that's being shaken up the most right now?

13:55So SEO, paid, any channels that are being shaken up the most right now? Well, I think the content one was the first one that, of course, when people woke up and went, wait, I hate writing content. You mean I can just put this in this thing and it'll spit out 700 words? I mean, the real temptation was first there because it seemed so easy. It seemed too good to be true, right? And so people certainly jumped in there. So now a lot of people are starting to realize the backlash of that and the fallacy of that just being able to produce content. So that was the first area, though, that clearly got disrupted.

14:30I would say the next one is clearly going to be coming in the creative space, the design, the video, the editing. I mean, those are things that, again, I don't think there's too many people out there going to Dolly and producing you know, images for everything. But certainly it's not far away. And they're, you know, they're not only having video and audio editing tools that work quite well, they're going to have video and audio creation tools that are going to work, you know, to the level where you could actually put in a script and it will actually create an entire video for you. So I think there'll be some disruption there.

15:08Again, I think that's one of those things that now all of a sudden there's the, you know, there's a lot of things that AI tools can do. And, you know, I think the differentiator is going to be somebody looking at it and saying, you know, with our brand voice in mind, with our brand promise in mind, what should it do? And so, you know, there are things, you know, I had somebody that wanted to have an AI bot interview me for a podcast, you know, for example, I was like, well, first off, I wasn't interested. But But secondly, I was like, why would anybody think that was a good idea? But there are a lot of things that people do because they look at it and they go, look, if we connect this together and this connect, and people get really excited about that.

15:50But I think we have to stay real and say, okay, from a practical sense, what would be the best experience for our clients? Yeah, absolutely. And that's why we've been really focused on recently in our conversations is what's a good use case? Like, why are we exploring this? How can we actually make a difference with that? And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind. Another area that I've heard you talk about a little bit is hyper personalization in terms of communication. And so it's not going to be just about mass content to everyone that follows you. Like we have an opportunity to get a lot more focused in what we're saying to specific people.

16:22So I would love to just hear your insights and what do you think the opportunity there is for 2025? Well, for a lot of smaller businesses, the opportunity, I mean, personalization has been there. let's face it, since email service providers came along and you could say, hey, John, inside an email, that's a level of personalization that's been there forever. But what AI does is gives us easier access to a lot of data. So for instance, not only do I know your first name, I know your LinkedIn profile, and I know the last five things you've posted about. And that can actually be brought into a data set, keeping all privacy things in mind, that can be brought into a data set that would allow me to say, hey, here are four products we sell.

17:05You talked about this. I'm going to send you an email on Tuesday morning at seven o 'clock because that's when you post all the time. And I know you're around on your computer. So I'm going to send you that email and I'm going to talk about not only a certain product that we have that I think would be a fit for you, but the problem that you uniquely identified that it solves for you. So that's the promise of it. Now, the challenge, of course, is a lot of small businesses don't have access to that data. A lot of larger organizations certainly are way ahead in that game. But segmenting and personalizing is something that a lot of the tool sets are going to start making easier in the very near future.

17:47And I think it's a lot of what we have to do as marketers is informed by behavior that other companies are doing that people get used to. And so when people start expecting that you're going to understand what they need or you're going to understand it, they already bought that product. They're going to be less tolerant about your kind of one size fits all kind of promotion. Yeah. On the sales side of things, I'm using a tool right now to prepare for sales calls where it basically brings in someone's disk profile based on their LinkedIn. And it helps me understand how to sell to that unique individual, how to get their attention.

18:27Should I stay very high level or should I get down into the weeds? And so that's just an example of more personalized sales. I know you were talking a lot about marketing, but marketing and sales go together. Sure. Yeah, and it's funny that I use that same tool. Of course, I just did a Google Meet with somebody and it actually popped up in the Google Meet and said, here's how to talk with that person. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. Awesome. I suspect it does in Zoom. I've never done it, but that was the first time I'd seen it. Nice. Well, we're at the top of our time about, so any final thoughts just on the topic of 2025, what people should be focusing on right now in marketing?

19:03Well, you said probably the one that's the biggest, you know, is, is continue to evolve. I mean, this is not going to stop. You're not going to catch up necessarily. So continue, you know, to grow, continue to commit to growth. And I don't think you have to, I don't think you have to throw your hands up and say, Oh, I have to learn everything about this. Follow a couple good people, focus on one new tool or one new use case, you know, a month or something so that you'll start understanding it and start making it a priority for your teams to start, you know, to continue to grow, to continue to learn these things so that you can actually explore them together and really start to get that mindset cemented about, you know, how we have to work with this new set of tools and technology that we're all going to have available, whether we like it or not.

19:55And I would add one more too. I've learned a lot from just connecting and masterminding with other people that are doing really interesting things with AI. And so I would also encourage you on top of what John just shared to form a mini mastermind group with some peers and share use cases and how you're both all exploring the different tools as well. Because I think you can just learn a lot from others because we're all just figuring it out right now. We ought to do that. Why don't we create a membership type of program where you can join and we'll give you a use case once a month and kind of collaborate, you know, as a group in a live training or something.

20:30If that sounds interesting to you, send me an email because that's something we might actually work on. I think that would be a really cool thing. So it's just John at Duct Tape Marketing if you think that that idea of a collaboration membership around AI so you can learn in real time. Like there's no way to create a course on AI because it's changing so fast, but kind of having a monthly accountability group where you're working on a use case might actually be kind of cool. So let's do that, sir. Let's do it. You heard it here first. We'll keep it as practical as possible. So thanks, John. Well, thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

21:06And this is where I guess I'm supposed to say, hopefully we'll see you one of these days out there on the road. Thanks, everyone.