Bryan McAnulty [00:00:00]:

What if you could run your business faster, smarter and make more money just by using AI in the right way? Lauren Petrulo has done exactly that. She's an entrepreneur, marketing expert and the founder of Mongoose Media, an award winning agency that's helped brands like Disney, Meta, Coca Cola and Pearson grow. An innovate. Lauren was Featured in Jasper AI's very first case study and since then she's used AI to generate over $1 million in sales. Today, she's here with us to share simple ways that you can start using AI to save time, serve customers better and grow your brand faster.

Lauren Petrullo [00:00:30]:

We'll do this for clients like every 20,000 conversations, we can upload them into an AI script. Here's the conversations and we ask what are the three most common concerns people had? So this type of stuff, like just turning on AI isn't necessarily a solution but like building a well crafted plan. And it takes a time to add in that human centered creativity and strategy so that then you don't have to keep training it and you can get the outcomes in your conversations that lead to conversions.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:57]:

Welcome to the Creator's Adventure where where we interview creators from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. Hey everyone. I'm Brian McEnulty, the founder of Heights platform. Let's get into it. Hey Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren Petrullo [00:01:16]:

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:19]:

Yeah, glad to have you. So my first question for you is, what would you say is the biggest thing either that you did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Lauren Petrullo [00:01:29]:

Honestly, the biggest thing I've done has been hiring an executive assistant, hiring someone that can chase me on all the things. Because what I'm really good at as like the visionary person is coming up with a lot of really good ideas. And what I'm not so good at is following through on the admin steps of it. So it was like ever since I decided to hire an executive assistant, someone that can monitor my email, monitor my calendar and put a to do list of priorities for me has been the most game changing thing. And I always say in every interview I've had with my executive assistants is like I'm hiring a mother to hold my hand and hold me accountable.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:10]:

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it is so helpful I think to have an assistant. Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm curious how you do it. I, I think I'm, I'm happy with how I am as far as the productivity But I always feel I could do better. So my assistant like she'll help manage my calendar and schedule and things like that and emails and she'll like if there's things I'm forgetting that I have to get to like she'll make tasks for that. But it's more so like the like administrative type, things that like for some reason I have to be involved in.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:46]:

So for you you have actual like prioritizing of things you said you know you want to work on as well.

Lauren Petrullo [00:02:52]:

Yeah, yeah. So for example this week, hello to Augustine if you're listening. She's the best and she and I like we made a combined number one like big rock for the week which is we're onboarding a newest client success manager in two weeks. So we're making an onboarding deck and it's something like I wanted to do for a while. And in our drive folder and ClickUp, our project management tool, we have like 10 different documents that talk about what our onboarding is, our SOP for onboarding. But nothing is unified into like one single source of truth and there's nothing that reflects Mongoose Media as a brand. So for example that's something I've always wanted to do. I don't have the time, patience or energy.

Lauren Petrullo [00:03:32]:

And so we met today is Monday. We like hashed out what my goal is for the project, what success looks like and now she's run with it and it's already been three hours and I have a full document just before recording of what the outline could look like that she's been like powering through with AI, adding all the resources together so that we can give to our design partners to bring to life so that we can have a proper onboarding experience. And she extrapolated that as like Lauren, I've seen on your we call it parking lot of ideas and things that we want to get done. Here's a really good time, here's a timeline that I can do it. If we combine together we'll do these check ins and the next week we can pass it to design before Alex onboards. Um, if we don't do it now, we won't be motivated by a deadline and then we'll have to wait for the next hire. I was like yeah, we'll do it because version one is version done for us. So it's not just the checking my emails, making sure that we're applying to clients, customers, possible customers and vendors, or making sure my calendar is booked to the way I need to.

Lauren Petrullo [00:04:33]:

Like I have very Strict color coordination. I have a lot of rules in my calendar, but it's also empowering them to take agency over some ideas I'd like to get done and co collaborating together.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:43]:

Yeah, I really like that. I think that's, that's a really useful tip, especially for those who are either maybe considering to get an assistant and wondering what that could look like, or maybe have one and are wondering like, well, how, what, what could we do this better?

Lauren Petrullo [00:04:57]:

Oh, I mean, if I can give a reference. I started with a company called the Freedom Geek. So t h e Freedom Geek, they source executive assistants from the Philippines. And I had like, until Augustine, the best greatest assistant I've ever had came from that team. I had a great repeat of multiple good assistants. The challenge is there's a 12 hour time zone difference if you have an executive assistance from the Philippines. But when I was starting my career, like, that was the most important thing I did for myself. There's a recruitment fee, but it made it so that I spent 80% of my time on things that I like doing.

Lauren Petrullo [00:05:37]:

And I would have paid. Like, there's nothing I can tell anyone that's listening to this if you're like considering it. I found success at the Freedom Geek. So much so that when I hired my executive assistant at a time when I didn't think I could afford or should, within six months, I hired eight more people because I was able to grow my company. So much so when you're like, what was that one thing? I'm like, oh, it was a who.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:03]:

Yeah. Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah. I think people, they want to think about it from purely like what they imagine the investment, like return could be from a business standpoint. But there's these parts that you can't think about or can't realize until you, you hire somebody for the first time to realize, wow, suddenly like, I just feel better because I'm able to focus on the things that I enjoy more.

Lauren Petrullo [00:06:26]:

Oh. And it's not just that, like, I mean, I do have a team. I work with a lot of vendors and suppliers and stuff. And it wasn't just like feeling better. Like energy management is such a real thing. And like I faced burnout before and I haven't since I was able to get someone to take off those burdens. And then one thing I would say is if you're a female and you're listening to this, I'm sorry if it's like TMI for the others, but like, my assistant knows my cycle and then she can plan my calendar According to whatever phase I'm in. Because we have like women's have like creative phases.

Lauren Petrullo [00:07:01]:

And then I say my monster days, right? So she doesn't let anyone on my team schedule meetings with me or one on ones during like what we call my monster days. And I know that sounds silly and whatever those small differences I wouldn't have thought of, but my assistant had thought of so that I could have the proper calendar and energy management for me and for the rest of the people around me because I didn't have to think about it anymore because it wasn't my priority, it was hers.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:29]:

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So I know you've worked quite a bit with AI. What would you say is like the first aha moment that made you realize that AI could transform the way that you run your business?

Lauren Petrullo [00:07:43]:

Oh, well, when. So maybe a year and A half before ChatGPT came out, I had started using AI for SEO purposes. The agency, like my background's in Facebook ads and I was like, all right, here's this company called jarvis, now known as Jasper, that was doing some cool stuff with AI and we'd done some blog work and we had a copywriter who was made to do Facebook ads but had extra capacity in their full time schedule to take on more. I was like, yeah, let's try these blogs, right? So I think this was like 2020, maybe 2021, maybe even the pandemic years make it hard. But it's a year and a half before ChatGPT launched and we were just testing creating some blogs with AI and it worked so well. The aha moment was when a year later, my website had 100,000 organic visitors a month, all done with content we made with AI that didn't take more than a few hours a week to do. So that was just like a holy smokes. This works because SEO takes time.

Lauren Petrullo [00:08:50]:

But we just saw this like radical transformation and like significant ROI that then we were able to hire an additional five copywriters because we were able to offer blog writing services leveraging AI at a more cost effective means for our clients. And it was just like holy smokes, I get to pass off the cost savings leveraging AI with still having strategic performance expected of the Mongoose Media Marketing agency. And it's a win win for everyone because it's cheaper than hiring a full time staff writer. It's guided by a staff writer. And it just felt like I don't have to do long division by pencil anymore. I've been given a TI83 calculator and it was the same feeling I had in sixth grade when I was like, I don't have to use a cal, I can use a calculator now. Oh my gosh. That was my aha moment.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:39]:

Cool. So you used AI Daily as an entrepreneur, what does like a typical workday look for you as far as like the workflow of where AI appears in it?

Lauren Petrullo [00:09:51]:

Okay, so AI is in like every thread. It's like a zipper on pants, right? Like almost every pair of pants you own has a zipper on it. That's how like almost every task or exercise that we do in the company almost always leverages AI into some capacity. But I'd say like I start my day as of right now. Like my, my plan day is like I work hard from 7 to 11:30 and then I take a break in my day till 2:30, whether I'm going to the beach or working out or whatever. And then 2:30 to 5:30, whatever. I'm in like this prep for the next day. But in my like 7 to 7:45 time, it's like honestly, just me and AI.

Lauren Petrullo [00:10:29]:

So I'm using chat GPT, I use the, the voice audio and then I've set up a web hook so that I just Talk to chat GPT for 25 to 40 minutes. Honestly, it's the best when I walk the dog because it's a productivity one and I'm getting movement. But I'll talk to my ChatGPT agent, like my assistant, and tell them everything that's on my mind, what are my top priorities, and then have them go back with what I had discussed yesterday and ask me questions, follow ups, what did I miss, what do I need to focus on? And then at the end of it, I'll get a summary of what is top of mind and then we'll have it send that summary list to my assistant via Slack, and then it'll create tasks into my ClickUp project management so that I get to just brain dump what's top of mind. And then my team is set up to know what is there and then the team can take over. So that's like how I start my day and then how AI is infused in like every small component. I mean, ChatGPT is one of the tabs that's always, always open on my browser, but I think right now in the position I'm in, it's more of training and finding ways that other people on the team can leverage AI more. So like with the Agostina task of hey, let's create an onboarding welcome deck. She understood like what we want, what the vision was and she's working on her own GPT now so that she can put in stuff and she set up two other meetings for other people to talk to the same GPT to get what it is.

Lauren Petrullo [00:11:57]:

That's why three hours later I have, I can even hold. Let me just check this other screen. It is nine pages of notes of what to put in this deck and it's organized in a way that it's not nine pages of text like an essay, it's nine pages of copy that will go onto a slide deck that helps someone feel welcomed in the onboarding experience.

Bryan McAnulty [00:12:17]:

Yeah, yeah, that's great. So I think many entrepreneurs now are like, obviously they are aware of AI's existence and, and how it's on only probably going to continue to be used more. But I think there's many who feel kind of overwhelmed by it. What's the simplest way that you've seen somebody start to use it to save time or make a bigger impact right away?

Lauren Petrullo [00:12:43]:

Yeah, I would say the, the biggest way to start like the entry point would be one of two places. So one, again the essays I use ChatGPT. I paid the $20 for the Pro. If you just start asking it for itinerary information, do it personal like do you want a date night? Where do you want to travel? Like using that for search instead of Google. So I'd invite you to like start a conversation via AI instead of doing Google because then when Google you ask and it answers. But with AI, if you're able to start the conversation before you hit send, I would invite you to say like a few parameters of one, like okay cool. When you give me an answer back, I want you to give me the answer as if. And then insert like some sort of authority level like as if you're the world's leading travel agent for golf and tennis tours.

Lauren Petrullo [00:13:34]:

As if you're a 70 year old Italian grandmother that wants to make sure me and my friends are going to have the best vacation ever and not blow all of our money and do all the tiny things. So giving it a. Before you answer, I want you to answer it as insert, fill in the blank. And then this most important piece that I learned was and before you say yes, you're ready, make sure that you fully understand and ask me at least three questions to give you better clarity before you deliver this task. So like if you're just starting telling them who to act as and then making sure you put in a placeholder that they're not just answering but they're asking you questions has been game changing. Because it's like when you have an intern or you have someone else and you're like, hey, can you go get me coffee? And that intern, Brian, doesn't ask you anything back and they show up with a black coffee, no cream, no sugar, and you're like, well, actually I wanted single roast coffee with oat milk and two sugars. But if they don't ask you the questions, they're going to deliver you the wrong order. Not intentionally, but that's just because they weren't necessarily trained to do those tasks.

Lauren Petrullo [00:14:43]:

So if you can get them to ask at least three questions back to make sure they fully understand their request, it will change you so much into liking AI because otherwise you're like, what? This isn't what I wanted. This doesn't make sense. Now you didn't give them the parameters, but those two things I think are the best parameters. And then on the second way I would say so that goes into like ideas like you can do that for any work stuff. But I would start with personal tasks that you would normally Google. The second thing I would do is if you are a solopreneur, I'm sure you're making a lot of content right now, like filming video. I can tell you reels has so much inventory. If you're listening to this, you take nothing out of this.

Lauren Petrullo [00:15:21]:

Instagram test trial reels are amazing. One of our clients got 15,000 new subscribers to their Instagram channel since test reels started. It's like the best feature that so few people are taking advantage of. But with this demand for creating so much content, video editing and all this stuff is exhausting. There's an AI tool that we use called Opus Pro. So it's like Opus Pro Clip and we can upload like for example, this long podcast, a 40 minute podcast. And it will deliver within a few minutes, seven or eight shorts, pre edited, pre cut for you. That can add in like the subtitle graphics and it just that type of imagine where you don't have to do the editing.

Lauren Petrullo [00:16:05]:

Opus Pro is a great tool or even looking at descript if you want it to be long, you can use AI to delete words or replace the words. So like we talk about how people mispronounce our names and if someone says like, oh hey Chrissy, I'm like, it's Lauren. I can delete that, retype Lauren and see that someone correctly pronounced my name in those situations. So using AI for creative idea generation with ChatGPT and those two parameters, or using AI for editing and video work with either Opus Pro or Descript. There's a whole bunch of other tools. Those are just our favorite. Can massively reduce a lot of your workload right now.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:45]:

Yeah, that's great. I especially like the, the first part about Chat GPT because I, I felt the same kind of pains of hearing other people say, oh, it doesn't work, it's not good, or it's stupid. And my analogy for it is, like, using Chat GPT is like going up to a random person on the sidewalk and saying, like, hey, do this. Like, just like you say, like a random intern, hey, get me a coffee. Like, they have no idea about, like, that they're supposed to act as an employee in your company or what your company does or just anything. And so you have to provide that context. And I think that a lot of people don't. They're too ambiguous in how they ask something, or maybe they didn't even know about certain details that were important to them, but they just wouldn't have even thought to communicate them.

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:36]:

And so I really like that idea of having IT ask you the questions because that's like the easy way of it being able to kind of extract that information from you that you meant to maybe communicate in the first place, but you didn't know how 100%.

Lauren Petrullo [00:17:49]:

And it's like you're like me and prefer using the chat mode because I don't want to type, my fingers, like, get exhausted. And if I'm mad, I'm like. And it doesn't understand the emotions. Like capital letters doesn't scream angry to chatgpt. But if you're using the voice component to make it a conversation, I would just encourage you to say, like, I need to make sure you ask me at least three questions, but do them one at a time and make sure that you take my information to then consider if the next question makes sense. Because you don't want them to just assume the three questions right out the gate. I like parsing out one at a time. Now ask me the next question to get the most context.

Bryan McAnulty [00:18:28]:

Yeah, yeah, that's great. So other than that, what are your feelings about, like, implementing AI in your business as far as, like, how it can affect the customer experience?

Lauren Petrullo [00:18:43]:

Okay, well, on the customer service side, like, we famous plug, like, we do a whole slew of AI assistants. Like, that's a division of our company. So, like, I'm incredibly biased in this, but bringing in AI for Your customer service. Like, we use a tool called Chatbot Builder. There's no affiliate links whatsoever. No problem telling people the tool we use, because strategy that matters, not the tool. But if nothing else, anyone who is active on social media needs to understand one of the most important things about why or how you can be successful on social media. Right now, social media in itself is social, then media.

Lauren Petrullo [00:19:19]:

So if you're not socializing on your content, you're missing out on a whole lot of opportunity. And what I mean by that is your comments are where your conversions are going to happen. Meta came out with a study a few years ago that said 85% of people are not commenting, they're watching for comments. Like, a lot of my reels that I'm looking at on Instagram are like, going directly to the comments because it further accentuates the storytelling in the video. And the comments are where you're building community, and community will help solidify your offer and lead to strong conversions. And so in the customer service side, if you're not connecting with your audience right away, starting conversations with them in your comments, you're just leaving money on the table. So I can do that. Where you can respond to someone immediately, personalize and in a conversational manner.

Lauren Petrullo [00:20:01]:

That's not the, like, reply, bright eyes. And I'm going to DM you this information. That's like, the worst you could do. And that's how some people have done AI. But that's like driving a car, Fred Flintstone style, right? Like, we paid too much for pedicures.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:18]:

That's like the. The ultimate, like, fake engagement hack that you're just trying to make the platform think that there's engagement. So it increases the reese.

Lauren Petrullo [00:20:28]:

It's actually worse for you because it looks like a bot and it's showing a terminal conversation. And when you're saying, like, go straight to DMs, no one's having a conversation with you. You're just like, essentially, hey, come to my party. But we're going to sneak you into the back and you're going to be in a room by yourself. So it's not actually a party. We just kidnapped you kind of situation. Like, it's so spammy.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:47]:

Everyone arrives and every single person gets kidnapped.

Lauren Petrullo [00:20:49]:

Yeah, yeah. Like, don't kidnap your commenters. Like, engage with them. Have social. And I can do that. And, like, use cases. Like, we had a client where we did $15,000 of their courses. Like, she was a business consultant.

Lauren Petrullo [00:21:05]:

She has a whole host of courses and she does live events. We did $15,000 in six weeks of adding the transactional side. Because AI, if you can train it, can not just continue the conversation. Get them to ask questions. Like, ask your audience. They're like, hey, this video was so good. Like, oh, we're so happy. What was your favorite part of the video? And then, like, say you have a podcast and someone comments on a specific post about the podcast.

Lauren Petrullo [00:21:28]:

If you can spend an extra 10 to 15 minutes training that your AI on that specific post and someone's talking about your podcast and you've uploaded the transcripts, they may say like, oh, my gosh, this was so interesting. I like how Lauren is talking about AI assistance. Like, oh, that's so amazing. Do you know we also have another podcast where they talk about AI assistance or another one that Lauren was on. You get to continue the conversation. And with AI for customer service, they don't take off from Memorial Day. They are working on Black Friday. There's no reason for them to sleep, there's no reason for them to call out, and there's no reason for them to go outside of what you've guided.

Lauren Petrullo [00:22:03]:

You only have to train that person or that AI assistant once, and you can maintain brand integrity. And I know there's a lot of coaches and consultants that are listening to this that have hired someone maybe overseas or maybe like a friend or someone's nephew or niece, and you watch some of their answers and replies and you're like, I would never say that. Well, if you can leverage AI, you don't have to have that shock re. Answer reaction again.

Bryan McAnulty [00:22:31]:

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. And I. I think that one of the things that people maybe miss with it is they think like, okay, AI. So that's like the equivalent of having like a live chat on my website and having customer service to do a live chat. But it's not even a live chat. It's instant because you just instantly are giving the person the response. So it's an instant support. And so like you said, forget about hours, forget about holidays, it's 24 7.

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:00]:

But it's also completely instant. And most, Most companies that I've seen where they have a live chat, they don't have a good live chat. It's like you're dealing with the bot that's not a good AI. And then you're dealing with a person who doesn't actually know what they're talking about and is just repeating, like, candid responses to you anyway.

Lauren Petrullo [00:23:19]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:19]:

And then the whole process is like, well, can I suffer through this enough to actually talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about. And so you're just kind of delaying the customer to maybe hope that somehow you can resolve it. And when I compare that to, like, what I know actual AI support can be, it's just such a massive, massive difference. And I think that some people, I think where they haven't yet experienced, like, good AI support are maybe like, oh, well, I don't know about this. I don't want an AI helping me. But the way I feel now is like, I rather, like, that's a pro for me to have a company that has actual good AI support versus me having to either wait a very long time for a good reply or, like, suffer through, like those kind of older live chat slash bot situations.

Lauren Petrullo [00:24:12]:

Oh, for sure. Where it's like you have to click a button and then there's no answer for you. And those outputs. And I would just add to your, like, what is a good conversation with AI is when there's a plan in place to escalate. Because where I've seen AI bots or even like live customer service, where it's like, I can't help you. Okay, well, what do I do now? It's like, hey, and so like, for what we've found is like, you know, between 2 to 10% of conversations need escalation, especially in refunds. Or if there's different situations, like bad AI bots and like, poorly trained staff treat everyone that enters in the conversation as the same, wanting the same thing, guiding to the exact same, without getting to know who they are first and then lead qualifying them. Because if someone comes in, Brian, in your Instagram and is like, hey, we're shooting a commercial and we'd like to bring you in as your podcast to like, be part of this commercial.

Lauren Petrullo [00:25:04]:

It's a $25,000 paid opportunity that would be very different than someone who's asking specifically about an episode of your podcast or if there's like, you know, a best friend you grew up with that's trying to make plans to meet up with you because now you're going to come to Chicago and see how diverse the community is here. Those type of situations, I think, are what bad bots and poorly trained staff don't do well. And then the other part is there's not an escalation situation because you, the owner, or someone who is a trained customer service person needs to be available to answer those hard questions so that you don't have a hard drop off of people interested in your Brand.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:42]:

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. And yeah, I think more people should consider that. I think there's also the maybe the desire to think, oh, I got it, sounds good. AI support. That means they can't get a human now. And we're not saying that. So like what we do internally is at any time you can just immediately talk to a human human. You can not use our AI at all if you don't want to.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:09]:

But besides that, we actually have a separate support agent that reviews every single thing that somebody is talking with our AI and will automatically escalate it to us if it thinks that it might need to be. So if it senses that they're like frustrated or if there's seems the problem's not resolved, things like that. And then our team knows that we can step in even if the person didn't necessarily like try to get in touch with a human themselves.

Lauren Petrullo [00:26:36]:

So with that, it's amazing that you have that human oversight because we are not delegating fully to AI. AI is as powerful as the collaboration you have with the human. Inspired creativity. Like AI is confined by the rules. It knows, it doesn't know the laws of physics, it doesn't have all the data available. It's honestly dated, private. And there's a component of it that makes it wrong, right? Where it can give you information about an election and a winner that hasn't come out yet because it's data deprived. But I think like an important of that is having someone monitoring it to catch those opportunities is huge.

Lauren Petrullo [00:27:13]:

And I think a lot of people neglect that aspect to it. Or even if like you take those conversations, like there's consumer insights you can get from that, right? Like you can pull all those conversations the last week and depending on volume, like we'll do this for clients, like every 20,000 conversations, we can upload them into an AI script. Here's the conversations and we ask what are the three most common concerns people had? What were the obvious call outs where it looked like someone was not getting the answer that they received? Were there any product enhancements or suggestions that had come out from the last 20,000 conversations? You can have that data and not have it live in a silo of whoever that customer service is. You can build out consumer insight extractions from it. Like I recognize that's like a next level of stuff stuff, but that's not something your human teams are doing. And when I talked about the example earlier of someone making $15,000 within six weeks of us enabling it to sell when we Say enabling it to sell. It's like we gave it direction, we uploaded the course links, we provided like insights of what to look for, where someone would want each course. That, that was massive.

Lauren Petrullo [00:28:26]:

And she had six full time people doing that. And we came on because they had been six full time people. They couldn't keep up with Instagram comments, couldn't keep up with Facebook DMS and they had over 2,000 unread emails in their customer service inbox. So within a month of us seeing it, we would just find people that are like, you're not answering me on WhatsApp, you're not answering me on Facebook, you're not answering me in email. Where do I get this answer? And that can really destroy your brand. So this type of stuff, like just turning on AI isn't necessarily a solution but like building a well crafted plan and it takes a time to add in that human centered creativity and strategy so that then you don't have to keep training it and you can get the outcomes in your conversations that lead to conversions.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:11]:

Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. And, and what you said about how you can analyze everything after you have some of those conversations. I think if, if you're thinking about this right now, watching or listening to this and you're like, okay, well I'm maybe just getting started with it. That's, I'm not ready for that yet. The idea is like, it's not actually so advanced to be able to do that now. It's so much easier than ever was before to be able to do that. Before it was like, well, who am I going to hire to like full time figure this out and talk with my other teams and other people and try to analyze all of this data. And now it's like, well, we can upload it all here and then you kind of know the answer and you.

Lauren Petrullo [00:29:51]:

Can go to Fiverr, you can go to Upwork or like go to your local university and you can pay someone like 20 to $100 and just say, here's all the data I want, I would like you to upload it to ChatGPT. You can do that. And if you're like, you're more comfortable bringing the human there, you can, or you can just go to ChatGPT and say, this is the outcome I want, this is the data that I have. Give me a step by step instruction of how I can give it to you so that I can extract the most amount of consumer insights. And then I would just say, but before you give me this full step by Step instruction. I need you to ask me at least three questions to make sure that you're going to deliver me what I actually, actually want. And ask me one question at a time and decide the next question by taking the context of the previous question. Sound good? And then they say, okay.

Lauren Petrullo [00:30:36]:

Then you start. I would, like take what I said and use it as the prompt. So replay and like write it verbatim because that's the way that we prompt and it works really well. Or just hire someone on Fiverr or a local college kid intern, because they would love that opportunity.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:51]:

Yeah. What would you say is a myth about using AI and marketing that you think needs to be cleared up?

Lauren Petrullo [00:30:59]:

Okay. It's like an assumption. When people say AI and marketing, they're blending different types of AI together. And for me, AI artificial intelligence is like the word vehicle. Generative AI is a truck. Right. Algorithmic AI could be a motorcycle. Then you have like a module.

Lauren Petrullo [00:31:22]:

Then there's also fork casting. Like, there's so many different types of AI, so just one component of that is AI itself is like the word vehicle. And there's a thousand and a half different versions of it. But then the myth I would say about AI is that it only is a solution to come up with ideas, and that's what we started with it as. But AI, once you feel comfortable, I think can become a place that doesn't just collaborate and come up with ideas for someone else to execute. There's an opportunity for you to build stuff. So you can go from like, level one of give me an idea of a Facebook ad campaign. And then level two is like, okay, I love that copy.

Lauren Petrullo [00:32:04]:

Now create for me. And you can go into chat GPT and say, create for me three images. Like, for us, we're like, we like dark neon colors, grungy a little bit with like a retro 80s flare. I'm like, give me three 1080 by 1080 Facebook ad style images based off of like a David Ogilvy style ad. So you can just say like, okay, I like that copy. Now give me a design from it so you can have not just the, like, you start with like, here, give me a campaign idea. It's like, okay, cool. I'm going to talk about, like, practicing safe marketing, which is like a big thing we talk about, right? And then it's like, okay, give me ad copy and make it dirty.

Lauren Petrullo [00:32:43]:

Because I'm like the dirtiest marketer. And so it's like I collaborate with them. And like, examples are like, how to stop blue balls in your Bottom line, how to get an erection in your sales and advertising. Like, that type of stuff is Mongoose Media branded. And then it's like, okay, amazing. Now I want to design custom condom business cards. Give me some examples. And they can go from idea and then copy, then ad creative, which then you have actual assets you can copy and paste and put into the algorithm.

Lauren Petrullo [00:33:08]:

Like, the myth is, like, it's not just idea creation. You can then have it give you deliverables. And then when you get to like, super ninja status. I wouldn't say super ninja status, but, like, for me, what feels like ninja status is when I talk to my AI and I use MAKE to extract my conversation, put a summary, and then deploy it into my project management tool and my Slack channel conversation for the people that I'm working with so that they are aware of what's top of my mind without me having to be like, oh, I have all this on my plate. Someone take it off. I let AI do it. And then becomes the, like, bridge between my morning frenzy and what my team can start their productivity day with.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:48]:

Yeah, yeah, that's excellent. Yeah. There's the way of using it that you can actually just build these things and use it in workflows. But then what you mentioned about, like, these assets and transforming these ideas, I think, like, the fundamental piece of AI that's so important to realize is, like, it's amazing at transforming information. So when you have this concept or this idea and you're trying to think about, like, well, what would this look like? What would this. What if we wrote something about this? And if you use, like a music tool, what would this sound like? You know, and you can, like, faster than ever now, have that creative feedback loop where I think as a creative entrepreneur, you don't have to go through the whole process of like, let me spend six hours and see where this idea goes. You can kind of just get a result immediately and then think, okay, not exactly like that. Let's change it to this.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:41]:

And it's just so much faster to be able to iterate now.

Lauren Petrullo [00:34:44]:

Yeah, you're the person listening to this. Like, you're the creator. You're the person behind the product and services. And I'm sure you all are like, I wish I had another me. Well, now you can. And you can have a conversation with yourself and you can push yourself and getting that power of, like, pushback. I know it's hard. Like, we all have egos, and the first few times you'd be like, dang, I didn't Think of this and it might feel like, oh, is AI smarter than me? It's like, not at all.

Lauren Petrullo [00:35:10]:

It's AI is smarter with you because now you're smarter with AI.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:15]:

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Any particular recent trends that you're excited about that you think more business owners should be paying attention to?

Lauren Petrullo [00:35:27]:

Well, I will say, like, if you're running Facebook ads, again, I'm biased towards it because that's where it is. Like, one thing that you could do is what's working now, like, with a 10 to 12% increase of conversion is like those basic ugly ads where you just have text and a single color background. You can use AI to give you, like, 20 examples and you can do what's called atomic testing, where you can take, like 20 examples. So you have a lead magnet or an event or a wait list for a new course you're going to launch or an online summit. You can put together, like, with AI, 20 statements that, like, you want that can incite your existing ideal customer. And you're like, hey, here's my ideal customer. It's someone who owns a yoga studio, has at least two locations, and, you know, they sell merchandise inside their store, and you're like, wanting to connect with them to find these yoga preneurs that are looking to become a yoga franchise or something to that effect. She's like, give me 20 powerful statements that would capture their attention.

Lauren Petrullo [00:36:32]:

You can get that from chat right now. And once you approve, like, okay, now put them into the 1080 by 1080 or 1080 by 1920. That's the vertical format. And then you can have those ads. Like, that's a trend that I know in marketing that very few people are taking advantage of. That's driving, like, real conversions. So that's the first place that my mind goes to. And then the second would be, is if you've got an E commerce component to it at all.

Lauren Petrullo [00:36:57]:

Last week, ChatGPT announced like a whole E commerce thing. And like, to get your website and your materials into the LLMs, like Claude and Gemini and ChatGPT, which is owned by Microsoft, you have to index yourself a little bit. So maybe this is someone you hire on Fiverr or like, you know, something you can talk to ChatGPT specifically. But a trend right now is most nearly everyone listening to this and nearly every brand I've worked with is not indexed on the various LLMs. So if you can do it, it takes a bit of time. Like, the work is you upload it once and then it can take up to Two to three months before you're fully indexed, but you will beat all your competitors to being searchable. Chat and all this stuff are going to, like, scrape the Internet to find what's possible. But if you can inde yourself and upload your information yourself, you get to control the narrative.

Lauren Petrullo [00:37:51]:

So I think that's a component that, like, we're, like, we're investing in. I found out about this from Manic, who's the CEO of Search Atlas. So if you're on X at all, I would follow him because he's given really, really clear instructions on how to do this. But if you're going into that space, if you want to show up in AI search in a way that you control the narrative and that pushes towards your stuff, especially if you have E commerce, like, there's never been a better time to do it because before it was a lot more confusing.

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:20]:

Yeah, Yeah. I think that's really, really powerful and really important. And for anyone watching or listening that doesn't know what that is yet, it, like, just came out in ChatGPT that now you will actually see products in responses. And so, like, your products could be there that you're selling. And, yeah, it's super powerful. And you, you should. If you're not already thinking of it as like a whole separate traffic source like Google, you should, because, like, we're already seeing that, like, it's. It's already getting close to the Google traffic that we have with the ChatGPT traffic.

Lauren Petrullo [00:38:51]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:53]:

All right, so on the show, I'd like to have every guest ask a question to the audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether something you're curious about or kind of just want to get everybody thinking about, what would that be?

Lauren Petrullo [00:39:05]:

So the question I would ask everyone who's listening and whether you're new or, like, been using AI for a minute, which is like, everyone's talking about how, like, AI can replace jobs. Like, that's like, a very real fear. And it's something I'm like, well, what does the marketing agency look like in five years? Well, three years? No, because I've been talking about this for a few years now. And like, AI is. They're like, AI is coming for your jobs. We hear that there are some applications that are stronger than others, but the reality is, is how much are the people and your employers actually adapting AI? I think what's possible with AI supersedes what is actually being adopted with AI. Because AI itself, like generative AI, we were using it for a year and a half before ChatGPT came out, then Chat BGB exploded. So I would just ask you guys, if you're listening to it, like, what is the real adaptability of your current environment and at your current employer and in your industry? And while yes, there will be AI solutions, just like with other software and tech solutions, like there are a lot of teams and services that can do exactly what you want but aren't so easily accessible or like commonly deployed.

Lauren Petrullo [00:40:16]:

So I would just ask you, like, instead of always thinking like, oh, when is chat, like when is AI replacing my job? I just like ask you or like consider you to start thinking like, well, besides the threat, how much are people actually adapting to it right now and to what level? Because I think like we're AI is all the way up here of what can do and then. But what people are actually doing is so far down here. And I think that time between that gap closure is a lot longer than what the news is saying. So you have time to learn and adapt and leverage it in a way that you can be great and become excellent so that you won't have to worry about AI replacing anything. Because we work with enterprise clients. And so that's where I like to see the conversation. That was a really long question, but that's what I would invite you to think about.

Bryan McAnulty [00:41:01]:

That was, that was a great, great thing to think about, I think. And I think you're completely right as well because like we went all in on it right away and we were using it and like building with it before Chad Beatty as well. And we built one of the first like autonomous agent products in 2023 and like nobody even knew what that really was then. And I feel like there was interest that we. From people who used it. But like, I feel like a lot of our market actually didn't understand even what it could do because there's nothing else that they had experienced with it yet. And I think it's really about like a two year gap between what you're saying of like the actual capability and the actual like implementation for most businesses.

Lauren Petrullo [00:41:45]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:41:46]:

So, yeah, like, because the models that we have today, I feel there's so much more that we could be doing with them even if we never got like a newer, better model. So yeah, yeah, if you are not involved in this and you're feeling like I'm just, it's too late for me. It's definitely not. Yeah, yeah.

Lauren Petrullo [00:42:04]:

It's like it, it takes time and like Gen Alpha is, you know, they were born in. What's it like.