Bryan McAnulty [00:00:00]:

What do creators not see about the entertainment business? From the outside, entertainment can look like followers, fame, viral videos, big platforms, and sold out events.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:07]:

But behind the scenes, there is much more at work. Strategy, partnerships, monetization, positioning, infrastructure, and trust. Today we're interviewing Jeff Duncan, the founder and CEO of Ingenuity Live, a talent and business advisory firm that works with digital creators, executives and media brands. Jeff and his team have collaborated with major platforms including Netflix, Snapchat and Hulu, helping talent turn audience attention into real long term businesses. Jeff is also the CEO of Meetingmax, a platform used by major live events including South by Southwest.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:37]:

In this episode, we're going behind the curtain of the entertainment business to talk about what separates a creator with attention from a creator with real business value, and why the strongest entertainment businesses are often built long before the audience ever sees them.

Jeff Duncan [00:00:50]:

First thing I do is looking what value I can provide to them without looking for a return on investment. My immediate instinct is to figure out what I can do for them, figure out how to give value to them. Give enough value out, value comes back to you in spades. And if you're just focusing on giving value out, you're going to get value back.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:09]:

Welcome to the Creator's Adventure, where we interview creators from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. Hey everyone, my name is Bryan McAnulty. I'm the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Duncan [00:01:27]:

Thank you. Nice to be here.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:29]:

What would you say is the biggest thing that either you did or are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Jeff Duncan [00:01:36]:

I think what I did and continue to do is put proper planning and strategy before actual execution. So building the framework, determining beginning with the end in mind, starting with the end, and then working backward from the end to figure out what it is. If this is where I want to land, do I effectively need to be in the next 12 months? This is where I need to be in a year from now. What do I need to be working on this quarter? What are the three to five most important things that I need to be focused on this particular quarter? So I think it's probably the planning and the strategy before the execution.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:08]:

Yeah, that's a really good point. Do you think that's something that people tend to either get wrong or takes them a while to figure that out?

Jeff Duncan [00:02:14]:

I've found from the majority of talent that we work with almost feeling like they're a ship on the ocean without a rudder and without a sail. So an opportunity is like the wind that's going to push them one way and another opportunity is like the tide that's going to pull them back. They end up in three years from today and they're at the exact same spot that they started from without having the longitude and latitude of where they were going to head so that they can build a plan for going, okay, now who do I need on the boat with the oars? What direction do we need to be rowing? I think that that's probably one of the biggest mishaps and I see it all the time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:52]:

Talent. That's really interesting. If you haven't figured out the thing that you're trying to do yet and what you're trying to eventually reach, then yeah, you just get pulled in all these different directions by just whatever happens to kind of come your way.

Jeff Duncan [00:03:03]:

That's exactly it. And I think without having that clear direction, you really are going to end up being pushed in all sorts of directions. And it doesn't mean that that final destination is not going to pivot, because it will. But starting out with the end in mind, knowing as you're getting closer to it that you can reset it and continue to make some pivots. It's kind of like we talk to talent about if you use the app Waze in order to get from point A to point B. You know when you get in the car and you put up Waze and you have set a destination that you want to get to and as you're on the road and you realize, oh, actually this road is actually closed for construction or this one's turned from a two way to a one way and you need to go left instead of straight or you need to go right instead of left. It's not like Waze just entirely gives up on you and says, okay, well you're done.

Jeff Duncan [00:03:58]:

What does it do? It reroutes you. It's still got the destination in mind. But life is obviously going to take you on multiple different paths and different roads. The direct line to A to B is never a straight line, but I think at least having that destination and Waze knows where you ultimately want to land, therefore things will. It will reroute itself to say, okay, well this is the next best way to get into that particular direction again. It doesn't mean that that end destination won't change a year from now. Maybe it's like, well, I wanted to get over here, but maybe it's actually over here now, and that's okay. At least you're on a path towards the direction that you want to get to.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:35]:

Yeah, yeah, it's a great analogy. So as the founder of Ingenuity Live, you work behind the scenes with creators, platforms, media companies. When people look at the entertainment business from the outside, what do you think that they misunderstand the most?

Jeff Duncan [00:04:52]:

I think that when people look at creators, you know, there's this kind of assumption and you know, it's funny that the term creator has become ubiquitous now. It was influencer before and that got really a bad rap to be like, oh, I'm an influencer. You know, the idea of being famous for being famous was kind of the rap that it's developed. I think that the majority of people, the assumption is that it's just this easy ride. It's an easy ride to get to fame and fortune. Successful creators are just kind of sitting around and waking up at 3 o' clock in the afternoon and turning on their camera for a couple minutes and doing a live stream and putting out some content and then going to the bar for the night. The reality is, and that does happen, but that is not the successful creators. The people that have success inside of the world of content creation are some of the biggest hustlers I've seen. These are the people that are hungry for strategy and hungry for saying, hey, I'm ready to work.

Jeff Duncan [00:05:55]:

I just need to know what I should be doing. I need to have a disciplined execution plan in order to be able to feel like I've got a progressive realization towards my goals. So it's not a free ride. And the people that have long term success, it is fairly consistent that the people with long term success are some of the hardest workers. And you should see, I mean, some of these guys and gals are up early in the morning figuring out what the strategy plan is. The amount of energy that goes into creation of good content is phenomenal. Like, we've got some creators that spend like storyboard and like, you know, you go to watch the filming of a piece of content and they're like, okay, well we have six different scenes here and you know, the first scene, this is the organizational theme and this is where we need to be as part of our headspace in order to really capture this. Like, it's almost like bridging the two worlds of the old Hollywood and the new Hollywood, which it does require real thought. And the best content out there are people that actually spend the time to plan prior to execution.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:07]:

Yeah, that's a great way to describe it because some creators, as they get started with it, they realize it's not so easy as I'm just going to turn on my camera, but it can appear that way when you see, okay, this person, they just make some quick video with their smartphone or something. But the reality is like this is a hyper competitive area, especially now. And yeah, people are putting a lot of effort into it because if you didn't, then there's so much content out there and why would somebody spend any moment of their day to watch yours over somebody else's?

Jeff Duncan [00:07:37]:

Totally. And I think that that's the double edged sword, I mean, where social media has really democratized audience attention because before, I mean, you needed to be part of a major network, you need to be part of a major production studio and you had all of the power to what the human eyes were going to see, what was going to land on the big screen or the little screen that was controlled by a few. All of a sudden, social media has made that barrier to entry so much lower. But as you stated, the space is noisy. I mean, the barrier to entry is quite low. You and I could go and get a TikTok up in the next 45 seconds together. We could do a collab and get a TikTok up. But because it's so noisy, because there's so much content out there, it's becoming more and more difficult to be able to garner the attention of the audience.

Jeff Duncan [00:08:29]:

Therein lies the need for actual proper structure and planning and figuring out what's taking place with the algorithms and how to benefit from this new feature that Instagram just put out, or how to, you know, the balance of saying, okay, if I put this TikTok up and I collab with another creator, at what point should I be getting the collab accepted in order to push the audience further and to get further reach between the two different creators? There's so much that goes into it. I think that the biggest misnomer, back to your first question, is that this is an uncomplicated business. And the reality is there's a lot of complication. I think the challenge is that anyone can get in it and that therein lies the whole, hey, you know, because the audience feels like, hey, I could throw up a TikTok in 45 seconds. The assumption is that's what the creator is doing as well, and some are, but the long term success people are actually, you know, putting elbow grease into their whole process.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:27]:

When a creator starts getting some kind of serious attention, what needs to happen behind the scenes to turn that momentum into a company?

Jeff Duncan [00:09:34]:

I see this all the time as well with creators, which is like the 15 minutes of fame. And if you want to take the 15 minutes and apply it to, you know, reality TV star, just take a hit, you know, a big show hit out there and all of a sudden that there's this rise, this momentum. But inevitably, without having some sort of a plan to like, what do I do next, how do I use what I've just done and leapfrog into the next thing and what is the next thing and then what's the next thing after that? Some of the most successful creators have been able to start with some relevance from some success and then figured out, well, how do I get to the next plateau and then how do I jump from that to get to the next thing? Understanding the power of collaborations with other creators, we really see some of the successful creators that got some level of relevancy, have now an opportunity because they're relevant and the algorithm is skewing in their favor, have the ability to collab with a creator that's maybe less relevant right now, but with a much larger following.

Jeff Duncan [00:10:41]:

And I see that all the time where, you know, someone comes out, they've got maybe 30,000 followers on Instagram, but they got those 30,000 followers in the last 48 hours and the algorithm is skewed very heavily in their favor. And you've got another creator that's got, you know, 10 million followers, but their engagement is pretty flat because it's, you know, they rode the wave previously. So putting those two pieces together and allowing for those collaborations to happen can be incredibly successful for both creators. There's value being provided on both sides.

Bryan McAnulty [00:11:14]:

Yeah, yeah, that's an awesome idea even. Because I think a lot of creators, they have the one, one or two, some kind of content goes viral. They get those 30,000 or so followers really quickly and then they think, okay, now what? I hope I can do that again. But they're kind of lost maybe. And sometimes then it's like they go, they kind of drift back to the baseline of where they were at and takes a while.

Jeff Duncan [00:11:39]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:11:39]:

But they might also think, well, I can't go and approach a creator with 10 million followers. They don't care about me yet. I only have 30,000. But yeah, that's a great point that everybody wants to be in what's happening right now. And so that is a really strong reason for the bigger creator to want to be able to share their take on it or collaborate with you in some reason.

Jeff Duncan [00:12:02]:

100%. And I feel like a lot of the larger creators got there with some design, especially those that have been tenured and have been around the block for some time and they've got substantial following. It's just a little quieter. The algorithm is not as skewed in their favor just solely because of the fact that, I mean, they've got their tenured followers, they've got their loyal die hard fans that will continue to tune in and consume their content, but they're missing that element of how to get new eyes on them. And I think that those ones that have some longevity in this space are also the ones that understand, hey, this could be a reciprocal benefit. This is not a one sided where I'm agreeing to do this thing out of the goodness of my heart for a fledgling new creator. It's got to work for both sides. And when that's presented that way, even if one of the more established creators doesn't even see that, well, you know, a smaller creator that's got a lot of relevancy sending over the insights, it's just to say, hey, I just wanted to share with you what's happened in the last seven days. Here's the insights and the established creator is looking going, there's more profile visits, you know, in the last week than I've gotten the last month. That is sometimes a good way to approach in order to be able to get that connection point put together.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:21]:

Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. So you've worked with platforms and media companies like Netflix, Snapchat, Hulu. When it comes to talent, what do the larger platforms tend to care about that creators might not realize?

Jeff Duncan [00:13:37]:

I think the platforms are, and each one granted is different. And if we're talking about, you know, Netflix scripted versus Netflix unscripted versus, you know, Snapchat versus Hulu. These are all different arenas. Maybe they share some context. I'd say across the totality, I think the lowest common denominator is authenticity. And I think that that's one of the biggest pieces when, you know, when Netflix is looking at casting an unscripted project, they have like a recipe that they're looking for because they know what is going to work and what's not going to work. They know the personality makeup and mix that they're going to need in order this show to make sense and to create good television that's going to have people tune in and watch it.

Jeff Duncan [00:14:37]:

But I think with a project like Netflix or Snapchat or Hulu, you have this authenticity. The audience is smart audience. Maybe there's not enough credit that's given to the audience. As you're scrolling on your social feed and moving from one reel to the next, instinctively you know something that's contrived or you know someone who's doing a brand deal that doesn't actually really align with them, and you know, the ones, you know that are appearing to be advertising something and you instinctively question, okay, is this really relevant? It's like me, I just scroll right past it to be like, I'm actually looking for authenticity, like, I'm looking for real. And I think that there's a reasonable segue into, you know, where things are taking, where things are going with AI and the AI slop that's out there. I mean, we're going into an age where we talked about the democratization of social media and anyone can get on a camera and anyone can put up content. Well, all of a sudden now you don't even need to turn on your camera to put up content. You can put out, pump out hundreds of pieces of content with a couple of keystrokes.

Jeff Duncan [00:16:06]:

Like a couple of keystrokes, a simple prompt and enter and then set the agents to go create the video, create the subtext, and then put it out onto five trial reels, one on main reel, get it out to Instagram, have it automatically cut to YouTube Shorts and get it out over there. I mean, we're getting to that place where it's going to become so simple to get content out and where I feel like legacy creators have concerns about artificial intelligence. And the fact that we said it's noisy, I mean, it's going to get even noisier. I'm very bullish on the analog versus the digital. I mean, we're going to get to a place where human beings have real innate need to feel like that they have a real human connection.

Jeff Duncan [00:16:47]:

And so I think that the real creators are going to be able to benefit from the fact that there's all this inauthentic information and content available that will drive human beings to be like, I have this need for something actually real. I mean, we've seen it as well, just in terms of the, you know, the amount of live events, you know, taking a look at what has been taking place over the course of the last couple of years and that will only be magnified live events and concert series. And people are craving human to human interaction as opposed to, you know, just having something that doesn't really feel right, you know, that it doesn't feel human. And back to, you know, the audience and people in general giving them credit for things that are authentic. I think we're really going to start to see this further push towards the need for human beings to gather and then feeling like they belong to something. They have a tribe, if you will. So yeah, I'm incredibly bullish on where things are going to go for real live human beings. And yes, there'll be a place for the AI and yes, there's going to be AI influencers that are generating money, but I think it's just really going to pull us back towards the need for this human to human connection.

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:45]:

Yeah, yeah, I agree and I use AI all day long, but I am also still super bullish on that as well. And I mean part of my business is being able to provide this community platform for people. And I see this as such a great time for creators who are trying to build these communities because everyone wants to be a part of these communities with like minded people doing the things that they're trying to do or that they're interested in. You don't want to be part of a community with a bunch of AIs talking about it that aren't having the actual experiences entirely.

Jeff Duncan [00:18:18]:

And I feel like the communities that you're creating and building, it's like my thoughts around it is that, you know, we all belong to a number of different tribes and you know, for your creators, they're creating a tribe of people that have a particular interest in that particular category. But we all have a number of tribes. I've got, you know, I've got my CEO group tribe and I've got, you know, I was a hockey dad, I was in that tribe. And, you know, as a business leader, I'm in that tribe. All these different tribes, none of them define me as a human being, but all of them assembled together in the equation equals how I see myself. And those tribes become incredibly important for me in order to really identify and feel like, hey, I've got a place in this world, I've got a purpose to what it is that I do, because I kind of know how I'm made up. I think that I'm with you entirely when it comes to people creating real groups of people feeling like they have a connection point and that they overall have some level of their identity attached to, you know, all the various places that they belong.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:31]:

Real quick, Bryan here. You know me as the host for this podcast, but what you might not know is I'm also the founder of Heights Platform. It's an all in one platform that over 10,000 creators have used to build their online courses, communities and digital product businesses. We recently added some awesome updates to Heights AI to help you turn your idea into a viable business. Heights AI can build entire product offers, review your content, and even coach you on how to grow. You can try it for free for 30 days. Links in the description. Now back to the podcast.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:00]:

So I think a lot of creators will focus on like the numbers that they can see, like the followers, the views, the likes, what's like, the less visible things that actually make somebody more valuable in this kind of business. Is it authenticity only or is it something else than that? And I guess if it, if it is just authenticity, then like what, like, comprises that.

Jeff Duncan [00:20:19]:

I'd say it's not just authenticity, but authenticity. Obviously every one of those data points you mentioned have some value. I mean, your follower count is a data point. It's not all the data points, but it is a single data point. Your engagement, what your likes and follows come out, and how the algorithm's skewing. All of these pieces are important, but I think it comes down to the authenticity, being authentic and doing it consistently. I think one of the biggest challenges that we see with creators is what you stated. I got a piece of content up, been consistent for a little bit. I don't see the results like how many more reels do I put up with 114 views on it. But the reality is if you're getting consistent, authentic content out that eventually you find the place.

Jeff Duncan [00:20:56]:

We talk about if it takes 60 pieces of, let's just use reels, for example, if it takes 60 reels to get out for one of them to go on a viral ride. Viral could be, you know, defined by maybe measured based on how big your follower count is. I mean, someone who has a few hundred followers, you know, viral ride of, you know, a reel that goes out to 53,000 people is pretty successful. Someone's got 100,000 followers that gets, you know, 1.2 million views would be considered viral. But if it takes 60 pieces of content out to get one viral ride, if it takes you six months to get 60 pieces of content out, you're going to get one ride twice a year. You're going to get two rides per year versus if you can get content out on the regular.

Jeff Duncan [00:21:42]:

And I'm really big and push our creators into trial reels are absolutely vital and a great way to test and any of your audience to Google how best to adopt and utilize trial reels. But trial reels is free advertising. These are reels. And Instagram said, hey, we realize that people aren't posting because they're concerned what they're going to look like to their followers and the people that they know. They have an inability to put any risk or make any changes because for fear that they're going to lose followers or that they're going to get hate comments. So trial reels was like removing that from the creator's thought process. Just hey, I can get a piece of content out when I send it on trial reels, it's going to go to all my non followers and I don't have to worry about what other people are thinking of me. We've seen creators that have created hundreds and hundreds of thousands of new followers by utilizing trial reels.

Jeff Duncan [00:22:40]:

So I'm big on that. Back to the consistency piece. It's just about getting content out and not worrying about, like, just we tell our creators, regardless of what number you think is success and performance, stop looking at it. I mean do look at the one that goes on the runaway success but you're not going to have that each and every time. And if you're waiting for the adrenaline rush of a successful piece of content, you're going to be sitting around and you're not going to be producing any more content because you're going to be, you know, that was a flop and that was a flop and that was a flop. Well, you were so close to the next piece that was going to go, you know, on a huge ride and create some level of virality along with a long roster of new followers in it.

Jeff Duncan [00:23:44]:

So yeah, authenticity, but being consistent about being authentic. And if you've been trying it and it's just not working, consider what your content strategy looks like. I mean if you're being authentic, there is a subgroup, there's people out there that have interest in that and you're just waiting for that algorithm to kind of pick it up and say, okay, oh wait, I know exactly where to send these to, because these people are going to watch, you know, this piece of content because they've watched all these other pieces of content. But do try an A/B test, you know, get and trial reels is a great opportunity for that. TikTok is really more quantity than quality. And, you know, TikTok is one of those platforms that, you know, creators spend so much time building the creative content for TikTok and filming and editing, and it flops. And then they burn a piece of toast and record it and it hits, you know, 10 million people. And all of a sudden it's like, okay, well wait, you know, what's taking place here? So it's just about getting the consistent content out and making sure you're true to you and not being something that you're not.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:47]:

Yeah, yeah. I think in my limited experience in this, because I'm no like famous creator in any way, but the creators, they see consistency and they say, okay, I get it. But then they also hear people say, like, okay, well, you have to put out more. They say, okay, well maybe I can do it faster. But they maybe misunderstand that faster is not about just put out whatever at a lower quality, because that's never really going to work. But faster is figuring out like, well, how can you just optimize parts of the things that you're doing to be able to put out something that's good quality so that way you can get those reps in and get that experience to be able to see for yourself, oh, this is what the algorithm likes. Or, oh, now the algorithm found my little niche that I'm looking for.

Jeff Duncan [00:25:38]:

Totally. And I think what's underutilized, we talked about AI previously. I think what's been underutilized by content creators is using artificial intelligence as your thought partner. We have some phenomenally trained agents that have the context and banked content. So it's been. Persona has been set. We baked into it all of the knowledge base so that it understands what my content style might be. It's able to take a look and see what content pieces have done well, and then it's trained to go look and see what's taking place. Right now we have a client, Chloe Veitch, who was made out of originally from Too Hot to Handle season one. Back in the early days of if you remember the COVID-19 global lockdown, global shutdown, and this show went on a massive ride just due to the fact that everyone was stuck inside and needed to watch television. But she's, I think, just coming back from London right now. She's on her. Just wrapped up her 11th show that she's filmed since then. And we've worked on building an actual agent that's trained, it goes through and it looks on the regular for what trending sounds are taking place, what current trends are running. And because it understands her and her content incredibly well, the output that it provides for going, hey, this week, yeah, you got four pieces of content, here's nine or ten concepts.

Jeff Duncan [00:27:08]:

Which one do you want to riff on? And she'd be like, okay, I really like number three. Let's play with number three. Tell me more about number three. Like, why do you think this is going to be a successful hit? Like, give me some data and some stats to back this up. And artificial intelligence in its infancy right now is able to provide that kind of value to her. So I'm huge on saying utilize all the tools and resources that are available to you both on the platforms, all of the features. There was some time where Instagram came up with the whole interactive tools like the poll or the slider that you could say, how hot is this? Or how not is it? When they come up with a new feature, they disproportionately push the algorithm in that direction because they're trying to encourage the behavior for people to get used to it. So use the platform features, but use all the tools available to you.

Jeff Duncan [00:27:58]:

I find ChatGPT to be an incredible brainstorming partner. When you ask and finish every prompt with, what more information do you require from me to be most effective in your response? And ChatGPT sometimes has spit me out 27 different questions. And as I'm going through and answering the questions, I'm like, oh, this is a good question. Oh, I see what you're trying to do here. That thought partnership is giving me even more insight into the original. Like, I'm starting to come up with my own ideas that allows me to answer in a way that is acting as a thought partner with it. Our creators find Claude to be a little bit more, like, much more analytical and in depth and making less mistakes, but a little bit more to the point. You know, it's like you're saying, hey, I want this project. It's super quick to be like, okay, well, here's the project as opposed to, you know, here's 26 questions. I very rarely, unless you tell Claude, you know, keep asking me questions. Keep asking me questions. Keep asking me questions. It just inherently it's not, it's much quicker to get to the end project, but the end project has a tendency of looking better than, you know, the ChatGPT. But ChatGPT, we'll use ChatGPT as our thought partner and those 26 questions and then we'll take all of that knowledge and we'll pop it into Claude, we move it over to Claude now we get Claude to finish up the project.

Jeff Duncan [00:29:45]:

So like figuring out which product and platform is useful for what particular task. But yeah, utilizing everything at your disposal is creating a competitive advantage right now for creators to be able to, as you said, get the most for the least without having to spend 24 hours a day. I mean, you have a PhD level expert in your pocket available 24/7 at any point in time. You can pick its brain and its brain is going to be incredibly effective and incredibly accurate to be able to kind of riff back and forth on.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:56]:

Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. And I think what you described is really the right way for creators to look at using AI, because you're not using it to make the content for you, but you're using it to like, you're the best one to be making that content, but you're using it to help you understand how you can make that content because you can't make the good content until you understand the thing that you're trying to do or what the trend is or how the trend works or what people are interested in. And the AI doesn't understand it, but it can help unlock that understanding for you. So that's the one part.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:51]:

And then when you mentioned that, well, it doesn't always like give you everything or it just, it does this little bit. The analogy that I like to think about here with AI is that it's almost as if like it's alive for only a moment. Like it's alive for like that minute when it's responding to you. I think from the sci-fi movies we picture the AI always thinking and doing things.

Jeff Duncan [00:30:51]:

It's currently working on the problem I gave it yesterday.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:53]:

No, it's not right now, exactly, but the reality, at least right now, is that when you send the prompt, it's doing something and then when it's done responding, that's the end of it. And so it is like basically the equivalent of like somebody that's come to life for a moment with the sole goal of just trying to answer whatever it is that you gave it. And so if you didn't give it the full context or if you didn't ask for some other kind of thing, it's like, I'm just trying to do whatever you said. Like, here you go. So that's a great point to say to it. Like, well, what else do you need to know from me? Or things like that. That way you're opening it back up to be able to understand. Well, if you did tell me this, that probably would have been able to give you something different.

Jeff Duncan [00:31:33]:

Absolutely. And, I mean, I always talk about AI really being a golden retriever. I mean, it's really just there to keep you happy. Like, it's. And that's also why people end up down a rabbit hole through psychosis and what have you, because it's just so ingrainedly wanting to keep you happy. And if it thinks you want a quick answer, it's going to give you a quick answer. If you're like, hey, I need to dig. I need to dig into this, and I need you to be my thought partner. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can be your thought partner. I could be your thought partner. I'm here to please. I'm here to please. Which is what I was saying. ChatGPT tends to be more of a golden retriever. Claude tends to be a little bit more, okay, here's the answer.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:09]:

We done?

Jeff Duncan [00:32:10]:

Unless you're pushing it to say, like, I'm not done. Like, I don't want to be done yet. But, yeah, the placation that can happen with artificial intelligence is real. So knowing what those guardrails and putting some guardrails up in your discussions with AI to say, I don't want this. What I do want. And I've seen a lot of people and I've had success with saying, hey, play devil's advocate here. Like, tell me why this won't work. Like, give me all the rationale. Like, take the opposite standpoint. Say, okay, I'm trying to keep you happy. So I'm going to poke holes in everything that you said, which is exactly what I want. I want to have that sparring partner. I even have an agent that's created just literally to poke holes in everything that I say. And I could say, hey, the sky is blue. And it's like, Jeff, you know, that's a little misguided at best, because the sky, you know, and it's going to take and it's going to go and prove the fact that the sky is not blue is very, very convincing as well. Like, we both know, I mean, AI has a great way of like, you're reading it and it's like, even if I don't understand it, this sounds really good.

Jeff Duncan [00:33:15]:

Hence why lawyers have been disbarred for putting court documents in with fake lawsuits that have never, or fake cases that have never occurred. But yes, I'm all for, you know, just bouncing between them and really, you know, playing with everything at your disposal. Everything is available to you. You should be using it all.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:39]:

Yeah, so I want to go into like a lightning round here, so looking for like quick like 10 second takes on these next few questions. Okay, so if somebody blows up from Netflix or something like this tomorrow, what is it that they should do in that first month?

Jeff Duncan [00:33:58]:

I would say that the very first thing that they should do is figure out they're going to need some additional guidance. So this is where teams come into play. You're going to need a team of people at a certain point to get to where you need to get to.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:15]:

And what do the celebrity clients that you've worked with understand about building attention that normal creators don't?

Jeff Duncan [00:34:24]:

Attention is built and kept through consistency and authenticity.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:32]:

Maybe a similar answer that you'll have for this. I'm curious what separates the people who stay relevant from the people who disappear?

Jeff Duncan [00:34:41]:

I mean, in part, yes, there would be similar. However, the people that remain relevant have a structured plan, they're working at that plan and they have the intention to continue. A lot of people have the 15 minutes and that's all they were really in for from the first place.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:05]:

So you've been close to high profile people and media companies. How do you build relationships in rooms where everybody seems to want something?

Jeff Duncan [00:35:16]:

You know, the first thing I do is seek looking what value I can provide to them without looking for a return on investment. I will walk into a room without looking for what can you do for me? My immediate instinct is to figure out what I can do for them and find an angle that I can assist them. And not looking for, not making it, you know, in a murky kind of fashion where they're like, well, I suspect he wants something from me. Figure out how to give value to them. Give enough value out. Value comes back to you in spades. And if you're just focusing on giving value out, you're going to get value back.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:56]:

What's one painful mistake that you made while learning how to advise high profile people?

Jeff Duncan [00:36:04]:

Coming from the traditional business. I'm also the CEO of a software company, and in the world of software and regular business, I am, you know, meetings start on time, people show up when they need to, people are accountable. Otherwise they're going to get fired. Or if you're not accountable, you're a customer, you're going to lose your customer. The biggest mistake was walking into the entertainment space, assuming business was done like it is elsewhere. And it really isn't. You're dealing with an entirely different type of person. You're dealing with the creatives, like we were talking about working with the creators creatives, which sometimes different rules apply. And so being able to adjust to that, I think was one of the biggest challenges at the outset.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:48]:

Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. Yeah. 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?

Jeff Duncan [00:37:07]:

If you feel like you're focused on creating growth on your socials, what is the purpose of that? Why are you creating growth on your socials? And I think spending a few moments determining why you want to grow, not for growth's sake, but I want to grow because what's the intention behind it? And is the intention behind it to create more change for the world or to create a larger tribe for people to feel connected and have some purpose in their life? Or I'm going to give new skills to people so that they can go forth and thrive in their lives. Guess having that intention, not growth for growth's sake, but having the intention, has a tendency of leaking back into everything that you're doing leading up to that particular intention.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:57]:

Yeah, that's a great way to think about it. Jeff, it was so great talking with you. Thanks for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Jeff Duncan [00:38:05]:

You are welcome to probably Instagram's the easiest for me. It's Jeff. J E F F X Duncan D U N C A N.

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:14]:

All right, awesome. Thanks so much, Jeff.

Jeff Duncan [00:38:15]:

Thank you.

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:17]:

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