Friday, March 8, 2024
Hey there, it’s Terry Brock and Gina Carr.
In this episode of Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, you get to learn about the exciting world of AI and sales. We’ll be sharing some practical strategies for leveraging AI to supercharge your sales and take your business to the next level.
We build on top of what Ann Handley said about 3 questions for tech purchasing. Well, the same 3 questions work in looking at building sales and using AI tools to accomplish that.
We’re all about asking the right questions, and we’re going to show you exactly how to do that with the help of AI. These 3 key questions that can make a dramatic impact on your sales and discussing how AI can supplement your gut instincts and drive better decision-making.
We’ll take you on a deep dive into practical applications of AI in solving problems, boosting effectiveness, and fostering sustainable connections. And let’s not forget the fun part – hyper personalization! We’ll uncover how AI can help you build those meaningful, deep connections with your customers.
So grab your favorite beverage, get comfy, and join us as we explore the intersection of AI and good old relationship marketing. It’s going to be an eye-opening, fun-filled ride!
Tune in because we promise it’s not going to be your average, run-of-the-mill business podcast. We’re here to mix plenty of business insights with our signature dose of humor and fun. You don’t want to miss out on this one!
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For your convenience, here are some key time stamps of this episode:
1. [00:00:00] – Terry introduces the topic of asking the right questions for AI-driven sales and emphasizes the importance of using AI to supplement gut feelings when launching a new product or service.
2. [00:02:09] – Terry discusses three questions presented by Anne Handley about buying new technology and how they apply to marketing and sales.
3. [00:05:52] – Gina explains the concepts of Ikigai and the hedgehog in the context of solving problems for clients and finding one’s passion and expertise.
4. [00:07:46] – Gina shares how she uses AI to understand client problems and generate workshop ideas, likening AI to a valuable brainstorming partner with vast resources.
5. [00:09:16] – Terry talks about how AI tools can boost the effectiveness of products or services in measurable ways and gives examples of how AI can save time and money for businesses.
6. [00:13:44] – The hosts discuss the importance of triggering deeper, sustainable connections with customers through hyper personalization, using the example of the Rancho Gordo Bean Club as a model for building strong customer relationships.
7. [00:17:35] – Gina expresses her gratitude for AI tools, comparing the impact of AI to the early days of the Internet and emphasizing the potential for AI to significantly impact businesses and individuals.
Here is a summary of this episode in Spanish:
En este episodio de Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, los anfitriones, Gina Carr y Terry Brock, discuten la importancia de usar la inteligencia artificial (IA) en las ventas. Destacan la importancia de hacer las preguntas correctas al lanzar un nuevo producto o servicio, e ilustran cómo la IA puede ayudar a mejorar las decisiones empresariales. Se enfocan en 3 preguntas clave para tomar decisiones informadas y promover las ventas, y destacan la importancia de aplicar principios de marketing de relaciones.
Además, exploran cómo la IA puede ayudar en la resolución de problemas, impulsar la efectividad de los productos y servicios de manera específica y medible, y crear conexiones sostenibles. También comparten ejemplos de uso de la IA en la investigación de mercado, la hiperpersonalización y la creación de programas en línea.
Los anfitriones destacan la influencia positiva de la IA en el mundo empresarial y proporcionan recursos gratuitos de herramientas de IA para los espectadores. Terminan animando a los oyentes a explorar el potencial de la IA y los principios del marketing de relaciones en sus negocios.
En resumen, el episodio destaca el papel transformador de la IA en las ventas y destaca cómo combinar la tecnología con principios comerciales sólidos para lograr el éxito empresarial.
ABOUT
We’re Stark Raving Entrepreneurs. We help you with the lifestyle of “Live and Let Live.” Do whatever you want, but don’t hurt others and don’t take their stuff. We embrace what is called the “Non-Aggression Principle” (NAP).
For your convenience here are some time stamps of note-worthy content for this episode:
TERRY
Hall of Fame keynote speaker Terry Brock is a globally connected leading authority who works with organizations that want to leverage technology and social media for more customer engagement, productivity, and increased profitability.
Terry is the former Chief Enterprise Blogger for Skype, former Editor-in-Chief for AT&T’s Networking Exchange blog, and former Chief Retail Advisor for ACE Hardware.
A master at his craft, Terry earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association and was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Virtual Speakers Hall of Fame and he was recognized as a Legend by the Veteran Speakers Association.
Terry is also a Cavett Award recipient, recognized as the National Speakers Association’s “most cherished” award (only one per year).
GINA
As the CEO of Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, Gina Carr works with business leaders to leverage AI-powered marketing for more impact, influence, and income. Gina has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an engineering degree from Georgia Tech. Known as “The Tribe Builder,” Gina helps passionate people build powerful tribes of raving fans.
A serial entrepreneur, Gina has created several businesses, including an award-winning real estate company, a chain of community magazines, and Video Rock Starz. She is the CEO of TEDxDupreePark. A native Atlantan, Gina now lives in Orlando with her sweetie Terry Brock. Gina is a passionate advocate for animals, freedom, and plant-based living!
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MISSION
We’re a channel devoted to those with an entrepreneurial spirit who believe in freedom and liberty. If you like the idea of living a voluntary life, not initiating force or coercion, and living life peacefully, abundantly, and making a lot of money, this is the place for you!
We look forward to hearing from you and getting your opinions and thoughts. Drop us a note at Terry@TerryBrock.com or Gina@GinaCarr.com.
Thank you for joining us today.
Terry Brock & Gina Carr
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And here is a copy of the (unedited) transcript:
Terry Brock [00:00:00]:
Are you asking the right questions for AI driven sales? Well, when you’re launching a new product or a service, you know, it can be something that customers really need to purchase. You gotta make sure of that. And many times people will say, well, I’m just using my gut. But you know what? Your gut can be wrong. And with all due respect to your gut, we wanna make sure that is supplemented with the best of AI. And in this episode, we’re gonna show you exactly what you can do right now and how AI is gonna help you, and how you can boost those sales dramatically using AI, coupled with some time honored principles that work in relationship marketing. I’m joined by Gina Carr. I’m Terry Brock.
Terry Brock [00:00:41]:
We’re gonna be talking about ways you can grow with this. Gina, this is a big area of using AI sales. What are you seeing in a from a big picture point of view that’s really making a dramatic difference?
Gina Carr [00:00:52]:
Well, it’s so important to offer your clients products that and services that they really need, that they want, that they’re willing to pay for. And when you can use tools like AI to reduce the mistakes that you might make, to do additional research on your clients, and to ramp up really the way that you share the material, the, products and services with your clients, then it’s really gonna be much better. So it’s I’m excited to share these 3 key questions that we’re going to be sharing with our folks as to how they can make better decisions to get those products and services out into the world with higher probability that they’re going to succeed.
Terry Brock [00:01:33]:
Yeah. It’s something really important. Matter of fact, what happened is I was reading in a newsletter that I get regularly, from Anne Handley, and she said made some really good points on this like she does so often. And I love what she said. We actually did a video on this just a little while ago here at Stark Raving Entrepreneurs. And I love these 3 questions she had. It was about buying new technology, and she said, do you when you’re buying it, does it solve a problem? Does it boost the effectiveness of our programs in measurable specific ways? That’s important right there, measurable specific ways. And then also, does it trigger deeper, sustainable connections? All of that is really important.
Terry Brock [00:02:09]:
And what we did on that, we talked about you ought to see that video, but we got to thinking, wait a minute. What Anne said about that applies in other areas as well. So we thought, well, with marketing, that’s something we do with our clients regularly, help them to build their marketing and their sales quite a bit. So we thought, let’s start with that. Matter of fact, the first one is to start with a solving a problem. I think that’s really important, and what we do that, Gina, you do that often, I know, in the work you do. What I wanna do is look at some of the areas right now that the world is looking at and how we can use this particularly to solve the problem. One of the tools right now with AI is what they call sentiment analysis.
Terry Brock [00:02:48]:
Sentiment analysis says, okay, let’s go out and look around. What are people asking about? What are they complaining about? And through the magic of AI, it can find out on websites, on public posts, on areas that are available for anyone to see what people are talking about. So if you’re selling, let’s say, blue widgets, they’re going to look at what people are saying, what they like, what they don’t like about blue widgets, etcetera. And so what you want to do is you want to find out what they’re saying and then further go and ask more questions. Ask questions of, okay, what do you think? And tell me more about that. I like the idea of what my buddy, Chris Brogan says, as he said very, very well long ago, You need to grow bigger ears, listen better. And I would agree with Chris on that. We need to grow bigger ears, but I would also say maybe we need to also grow more ears.
Terry Brock [00:03:38]:
Yeah, grow more ears, we could imagine that, where you’re able to get a little bit more perspective perspective on what’s going on in the marketplace. Take a look at what they’re doing and, work with it. And you gotta take real discipline to avoid an attitude that a lot of marketers have when they go, well, I think I know what they mean. I’ve been in this industry long enough or I’ve seen that and I know what they well, be careful. It’s just like saying my gut tells me, with all due respect to your gut, it can be wrong. And we want to make sure that we’re getting it from hundreds of thousands of AI data points. That’s gonna be better. Why not use the technology, use AI for tools like that? Because what we wanna do is we wanna get the right answers, and be really inquisitive in ask about that.
Terry Brock [00:04:22]:
I think that’s a key. And Gina, one of the things that you’ve talked about is the ikigai and the hedgehog, when we’re looking at that. Tell us a little bit about what you mean by that when we’re looking
Gina Carr [00:04:34]:
to solve that problem. Well, Ikigai is a concept that comes to us out of Japan, specifically Okinawa. It’s, the basic of Ikigai is why do you get up in the morning? What do you live for? And so when you are combining what you live for, your passion, with your expertise and with the ability to make money and all that comes together in a Venn diagram, that is a great way to to figure out what it is that you’re passionate about and that you want to offer the world and so that you’ll be happy as you’re working and so that you’ll be better at serving your clients. And so the hedgehog concept was presented by Jim Collins in the book Good to Great, and I see a lot of similarities with those that concept. It talked about the best companies in the world chose something they could do better than anyone else and that they had the best expertise for and that they could monetize and there must have been a passion component in there also. And so with that, what’s the Venn diagram? What’s the intersection? What can you do on a personal basis or on your business basis in order to serve your clients?
Terry Brock [00:05:52]:
Yeah. I think that’s really important. We’re testing for that and, finding out, and I think that’s a real good thing to do as well. What we wanna do is do a lot of initial tests. With AI, we can test a lot real fast and very inexpensively. Hey, it’s better today than it was ever before. I remember years ago, it would take a lot of money to do the tests. Today, you put a video out on YouTube.
Terry Brock [00:06:12]:
You run a podcast. You try something on a post and you find out, do people resonate with that or they go, oh, where did that come from? We don’t want that. So use AI in your testing to check for that. And remember that important thing of being there to check on sentiment analysis. What people are looking for, how they are, and what can be done. Matter of fact, one of the things we do here at Stark Raving Entrepreneurs is we look at thought leaders who are creating content, they want that consistent cash flow. Gina, tell us a little bit about that and what we’re doing here at Star Craving Entrepreneurs.
Gina Carr [00:06:45]:
Well, if you think about the problem that you solve, well, we think about the problem that we solve. And what the one of the biggest problems we solve in our program called Start Craving Entrepreneurs is we help thought leaders to create consistent cash flow and we do that with helping them learn how to create AI enhanced online programs that will generate money month after month. And so that’s something that’s been really hard for thought leaders to do and we say, we help you, do what you love to do and get paid for it and without getting on airplanes and without worrying about is money gonna keep coming in month after month. And so that’s a big problem that we solve, and I love using AI to further enhance what we’re doing. And, I use my AI just as I would use a a new team member or a new consultant, a new employee. And I basically have a conversation of, hey. This is our target audience. This is our client base.
Gina Carr [00:07:46]:
Tell me more about their problems. What are their problems today? What’s keeping them up at night now? And then it’ll give me a list of problems, and I dig in. I say, well, tell me more about number 1 or tell me more about number 3. And then I say, suggest a workshop that I might offer to address problem number 3. And then give me the outline and it really just it’s like a brainstorming partner. It’s like the best business partner because there’s no disagreement. It’s just conversation. And, they the AI has so much more resources and so much more access to the correct answers and a body of correct answers than an individual would have, which would be much more limited.
Gina Carr [00:08:33]:
So I love I love using AI for this.
Terry Brock [00:08:36]:
Yeah. It’s ideal for that. Well, the 2nd question that Anne talks about, and I think is very applicable not only to selecting your technology, but also making your sales better, is does it boost the effectiveness of their lives in specific ways? I love the way that she said that, specific ways. Measurable, specific ways. What are we providing in our company? What are we providing that the market wants and is, here’s the key, ready, willing and able to purchase? I think that’s something we’ve got to look at. What we wanna do is be able to get as specific as possible. The more specificity you have, the better when you’re solving problems. You show how your product and service will solve that problem that you discovered from step number 1.
Terry Brock [00:09:16]:
In question number 1, as an example, for instance, let’s suppose you’re, providing AI tools that help in writing. And you go to someone, and they start using a customer, use that, and they find, wow, it was taking us this much time before, say 5 hours, for 1 of our writers to put it together, and then we had to get a graphics artist to build it and all that. Now they use AI, their artist now, their writer, can do it much faster, much better by using tools that we talk about in our start raving entrepreneurs like, of course, ChatGPT with the other GPTs that are coming out to support that, and plugins that are still there, we’re using those, they’re doing well. But also, creating it through DALL E, and through MidJourney, through Stable Diffusion. Tools like that that give you the ability to create those. And so, if they were spending this much money and time before, now they can do it in say, $50 per episode. And they’re able to do it much faster in only 30 minutes. It was taken 4 hours before.
Terry Brock [00:10:15]:
Now make that very specific and quantifiable. That’s what you wanna do is you wanna make sure that people are seeing that and they see the real way that it’s solving it so that it’s measurable. Gina, you’re an engineer. You deal a lot with measurable and specific things like that. Tell us how that applies in the world of marketing.
Gina Carr [00:10:33]:
Well, even if you believe you that your new product or service is going to solve your client’s problem, the more that you can assign a specific measurable result that they might achieve and help them think about specific measurable results that they will achieve, the more successful you’re going to be. For example, let’s say that you have a health business, that you’re in the health field. Well, in the health field, you could offer a product and service. You could say it’s going to help you feel healthier and have more energy, be more alert, versus more specific and measurable is to say you are going to lose £10 in 3 weeks with this new product. So that’s very specific and measurable and that’s the real difference there. I think back to the days when I owned a real estate company in Atlanta and, well, everybody would say, we can sell your home fast. We can sell your home faster than the other guys. Well, we adopted the slogan of Domino’s Pizza, which was, I guess, still fairly new at that time.
Gina Carr [00:11:37]:
This would have been back in the mid nineties in Atlanta, Georgia. And our guarantee was we will sell your home in 90 days or less or we’ll sell it for free. So if we didn’t have the home sold in 90 days, then we would not charge a commission. So that was our pledge, and that helped us get a lot of business. And I know people do it now. I I’ve seen this a number of times over the years. But back in the nineties, this this was really groundbreaking.
Terry Brock [00:12:07]:
I like that. You know, Gina, I did not know that. Those of you watching this, I didn’t know that, and she had done that. But I think that’s a brilliant strategy. So each of you, think about what you can do that’s unique. What can you do comparable to that? We’ll sell your home in 90 days or we do it for free. Something that you can do until you’re putting some skin in the game, people go, hey, she’s standing up here and saying she’s gonna take that responsibility. She’s gotta be good.
Terry Brock [00:12:29]:
Well, then let’s take a look at the 3rd and final trigger that’s out there. The question, I should say, because it’s trigger. What you’re looking at is does this trigger deeper, sustainable connections? That’s what Anne Hanley was talking about, and I think it’s so important. It’s really about relationship marketing, which is something I’ve been talking about for many years. I say it’s not about the e commerce, as nice as that is and as good as that is, it’s about the r commerce, relationships. Building relationships with others. And now, we can use AI tools to find out what you can do to help your customers more than ever and be positive about it. By using these tools of AI, you’re gonna be able to connect with people with hyper personalization.
Terry Brock [00:13:12]:
That means you find out specifically what they want, not just talking about what you think is great, but you really get to know them. Hyper personalization is a term we’re hearing a lot in AI now. Matter of fact, do a Google search on that and do a chat gpt prompt on that. There’s something we’re starting to hear more of. Do a chat g p t prompt on hyper personalization, and think about how you can do that. This is where people are gonna stand up and look at and go, hey. They’re knowing about they know about me. They’re looking at what I say because I asked for that a little while ago, and now there it is.
Terry Brock [00:13:44]:
Now you make sure you don’t do it in a creepy way because if you say, gee, I’m thinking about Buicks would be a nice car. Maybe, that Buick was nice. And now they think, okay, you’re buying a Buick and they give you gobs of ads on Buicks, as good as they are, we don’t need to be swamped with that. So you wanna use a good human reasoning with it, but go for hyper personalization. And matter of fact, Gina, I know you were doing some research on a club that’s out there about beans of all things. And as I look at it, I thought, that’s fascinating. Tell me a little bit about the research you’ve been doing on this.
Gina Carr [00:14:16]:
Well, I was thinking about, okay, if I were launching a new product or service, how can I create that deeper, sustainable connection with my clients? And you can offer a lot of products. But one that came to mind that truly is above, a great example of a deeper sustainable relationship with a customer is what’s called Rancho Gordo Bean Club. And a few years ago, a friend of mine told me about this. And at first, I thought she was joking because she knew I was vegan and eating plant based, and I love to eat beans, and that’s, you know, one of my core foods. And she said, oh, are you part of the bean club? And I bean club? I I didn’t even know what she was talking about. And so she said, oh my god. You gotta join the Rancho Gordo Bean Club because we are a club. We get deliveries of great beans, and we get recipes, and we get invited to special dinners, and we have a special Facebook group just for us.
Gina Carr [00:15:13]:
And I investigated. I thought, boy, that’s amazing and wild. And how much different is that than the beans that are sitting in my pantry that I ordered through a delivery service? I don’t even know what brand they are. They work as beans, but I’m not part of the bean club. And so I think that that’s a real example of developing a raving raving fans, and they did very special things to take this essentially a commodity product and make it into something very special. In fact, you can’t even join right now. There’s a waitlist.
Terry Brock [00:15:48]:
That is interesting. A waitlist for it. Well, I think that shows there’s a lot of excitement for that. And so I would say for you that are watching this, that are listening to this, if you’re catching this on our podcast and listen to it, think about ways that you can create that kind of hyper personalization. Use AI as a tool to really serve your customers better than ever. You can do it when you do it right, you can do as we’re working with our clients right now, showing them specifically how to use it, they’re saving money, getting more done in less time for less cost, and increasing their sales dramatically. So some good things are happening with that. What you wanna do is be able to use all of this to build better relationships and to make sure you’re using those things that are gonna help others.
Terry Brock [00:16:27]:
And you can find out more about that at starcravingentrepreneurs.com. Bounce over there, take a look at it, and be sure and like and share this so that this helps those wacky algorithms to know, hey, you like this kind of thing and you believe in working with that. So Gina, we’re gonna be looking at using those 3 questions that Anne Hanley gave us. I think it’s got some real good application in AI and in our business. What do you think?
Gina Carr [00:16:53]:
Well, I’m just so grateful for AI tools. It’s changed our lives so much better already. I use AI everyday for business and personal and love sharing it with our clients. We’re hosting an AI lab today for our community of star craving entrepreneurs, and, that’s just a great chance to look under the hood of different AI products and see how they’re being see how they’re working. There’s so much opportunity out there. It’s just it’s like the early days of the Internet, which I remember well, and not seeing the vision at that time of how much the Internet would impact our lives. But since I did see that, now I am seeing how AI is gonna impact our lives.
Terry Brock [00:17:35]:
Yeah. It is. We always love those times, and we do them every so often. So bounce over to starcravingentrepreneursdot com. You’ll see that. We do those every so often for our members and find out ways that you can get involved with it. Matter of fact, we’ve got some goodies for you here. Talking about AI.
Terry Brock [00:17:48]:
If you’re using some tools, we’ve got something free for you. There’s no charge at all. AI tools for, the number 4, b I z. Aitools4biz.com. You’re gonna learn about ChatGPT and some of the capabilities there. Canva, which is great, packed with all kinds of great AI as well. DALL E three, which you can use for creating pictures and graphics in a real nice way. Chat GPT and DALL E three, both owned by OpenAI, the company that’s given it that and brought that to the world in a big way.
Terry Brock [00:18:21]:
Stable diffusion is another one we talk about. And also, if you do any kind of public speaking or presentations online or offline, Yodlee, y o o d l I, is a tool you want to look into. It has the ability for you to get better all the time. We’re using it and it is fabulous. So just bounce over there, aitoolsforbiz.com. There’s a QR code for you that are catching this on video. You’ll be able to see it right there pretty quickly and easily. So, Gina, I love these ideas of using the AI tools as well as time honored principles of relationship marketing seems like a really good combination.
Terry Brock [00:19:00]:
What do you think?
Gina Carr [00:19:01]:
I think so. An absolutely winning combination.
Terry Brock [00:19:05]:
Absolutely. Well, say thank you very much for joining us today. And matter of fact, we’ve got some more goodies for you. Right up here, we’ve got a video that we did, before about Anne Hanley’s quote. You’ll learn that. It’ll be really good and some others as well for you that you’re gonna like. Come back and see us again. We look forward to seeing you in the future.