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Build AI Agents Before They Replace You | PMAX Scripts and Automation | Mike Rhodes — Transcript

by Niklas Buschner · 14,786 words · 2,005 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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  1. 0:00So, welcome to a new episode of the
  2. 0:01Masters of Search Talks. I'm super happy
  3. 0:04to introduce today's guest, Mike
  4. 0:06Rhodess, who has become one of the most
  5. 0:09influential voices around PPC and AI.
  6. 0:13After building and selling four
  7. 0:14businesses, Mike has spent a lot of
  8. 0:17time, probably he will tell us today how
  9. 0:20much time, building products like the
  10. 0:22famous PMX inside script. I think like
  11. 0:25in PPC everybody knows this or at least
  12. 0:2890% of the people and teaching people
  13. 0:31how to do the same. So Mike, can you
  14. 0:34give us a quick intro about your journey
  15. 0:36and especially your move from agency
  16. 0:39founder or a business builder to AI
  17. 0:41builder?
  18. 0:43>> Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, I fell into Google
  19. 0:46Ads by accident. I went to a conference
  20. 0:49in 2004
  21. 0:51um and Perry Marshall was in Australia
  22. 0:53for the first time speaking um ripping
  23. 0:56into Yahoo or Overture as it was back
  24. 0:59then and talking about this new thing
  25. 1:00that he was starting to look at called
  26. 1:02Google Ads and uh yeah well yeah a quick
  27. 1:0620 years later here we are I ended up uh
  28. 1:09doing all of the training for Perry's
  29. 1:11group and writing the book on Google Ads
  30. 1:13with Perry which I believe is the
  31. 1:15world's bestselling book on Google Ads
  32. 1:16but that was all Perry not me. Um, and
  33. 1:19then yeah, built an agent, fell into an
  34. 1:21agency by mistake, too. I took me sort
  35. 1:23of a year of helping people here and
  36. 1:25there and swapping advice for a case of
  37. 1:27beer or a round of golf. Um, and all
  38. 1:30these people kept saying, "Yeah, but
  39. 1:32mate, I don't care how it works. I just
  40. 1:35need you to do it for me." Because
  41. 1:37apparently my MO is just I like to
  42. 1:39explain things and I like to teach
  43. 1:41people how it works. So fell into agency
  44. 1:44land and all of a sudden turned around
  45. 1:46and my kids were still both in primary
  46. 1:50school a couple of years ago and I just
  47. 1:52thought you know what like this time
  48. 1:55I've always been very careful of my
  49. 1:56time. I was never working 70our weeks um
  50. 2:00maybe right at the beginning before
  51. 2:01kids. Um but I just thought you know it
  52. 2:04this is a time I do not want to miss. I
  53. 2:06know I'm never going to get this back.
  54. 2:08It's time for someone else to take the
  55. 2:09baton and and take this forward. Uh the
  56. 2:12plan was to basically do not too much
  57. 2:16and that lasted about three weeks and
  58. 2:19then I rediscovered how to code and it
  59. 2:22was right around the time that GBT4 was
  60. 2:25coming out and and growing and I just
  61. 2:28yeah the the the PMAX script as you
  62. 2:30mentioned just went gang busters. Um
  63. 2:34which gave me a lot of leeway then to to
  64. 2:36just explore. Um, and since then I've
  65. 2:39been building tools. I've always built
  66. 2:41tools for, you know, the the PPC
  67. 2:43community going back to 2008 I think was
  68. 2:46the first one that I built. I've always,
  69. 2:48as you said, tried to teach other people
  70. 2:50how to do what we did back in the agency
  71. 2:53world. Um, again, starting 2007208, I've
  72. 2:56had various sort of membership groups
  73. 2:58and, you know, spoken at conferences and
  74. 3:01so on. And, um, I just absolutely love
  75. 3:04it. I love building stuff. I'm not
  76. 3:07particularly good at managing um people
  77. 3:10and stuff and things. So like the the
  78. 3:12running of a mediumsiz business um
  79. 3:16definitely not my forte. I was I was
  80. 3:18definitely much happier once I had a
  81. 3:20sort of a proper general manager come in
  82. 3:23and and she managed all of the
  83. 3:24day-to-day and allowed me to to travel
  84. 3:27more and and speak on stages and so on.
  85. 3:30But um yeah, I just I just love building
  86. 3:32stuff. And so now it's just such a
  87. 3:35wonderful time to be a builder because
  88. 3:37you can go from idea to impact in the
  89. 3:41course of a day really and then get a an
  90. 3:43MVP out there and get feedback on it and
  91. 3:46and see if it resonates and and that's
  92. 3:48what I've really been doing most of the
  93. 3:49past two years.
  94. 3:51Before we dive into more of the PPC, the
  95. 3:54AI, the building stuff, I can imagine
  96. 3:57that there are a lot of people in the
  97. 3:58audience also either from maybe a
  98. 4:01freelance background or maybe also uh
  99. 4:04agency owners to just like to take a
  100. 4:06very short moment uh to recap um this
  101. 4:10journey when you were selling the
  102. 4:11business or when you were transitioning
  103. 4:13out of the business. Can you just give
  104. 4:15us a little bit of um an overview of
  105. 4:18things you were doing in the runup uh of
  106. 4:22you going out of the business? So, were
  107. 4:23there certain like key milestones you
  108. 4:26set for yourself that you have to
  109. 4:28achieve so the business is sellable in a
  110. 4:30way? Joe, just I'd like to hear a little
  111. 4:33bit of this this process.
  112. 4:35>> Yeah. Right. Um
  113. 4:37I I mean yes I suppose I so going back
  114. 4:40gosh more than 20 years I was an ETH
  115. 4:44consultant. I paid Michael Gerber a very
  116. 4:46large sum of money a long time ago to
  117. 4:48become an E-Myth consultant. I'm not
  118. 4:50sure if you've even heard of or read the
  119. 4:52book the ETH. It was the small business
  120. 4:54bible you know 25 years ago. It was the
  121. 4:58thing and it was the thing that really
  122. 4:59helped my first business be a success.
  123. 5:02And I didn't know there were these
  124. 5:04consultants. I went off to the States. I
  125. 5:06paid him a huge amount of money and
  126. 5:07trained and basically it's all about
  127. 5:09work on the business, not in the
  128. 5:10business. That's that's essentially it,
  129. 5:12right? Um, so I've always been a a fan
  130. 5:16of systems and processes that run the
  131. 5:19business and the people run the
  132. 5:20processes and a business is just a
  133. 5:22system of systems. So the business was
  134. 5:25was pretty systemized. I mean, it's a
  135. 5:27professional service business, so it's
  136. 5:28always going to be a bit messy and
  137. 5:30especially in the industry that we're
  138. 5:31in, there's a lot changing all the time.
  139. 5:34It's not we used to joke you know it's
  140. 5:35not like insurance where you could
  141. 5:37probably do the same thing that you were
  142. 5:38doing 10 years ago you know the halflife
  143. 5:40of information in the PBC world is two
  144. 5:43years so I don't know that there were
  145. 5:46milestones as much I mean getting a
  146. 5:48general manager like I said which was
  147. 5:50probably five years to selling but it
  148. 5:51wasn't like I was like oh I'm I'm going
  149. 5:53to sell in five years so I'll get a
  150. 5:55general manager now if you'd asked me
  151. 5:58then I would have said I'm never selling
  152. 6:00the way I pictured the business imagine
  153. 6:02a big sheet of paper in front of you
  154. 6:04like A3 sheet of paper. I've always said
  155. 6:06that it's easier to work out what you
  156. 6:08don't want to do than it is to work out
  157. 6:10what you do. So you picture all the
  158. 6:13stuff that you do as this huge sheet of
  159. 6:15paper in front of you. It's much easier
  160. 6:17to go, "Oh, I don't want to do that half
  161. 6:20of the page anymore. Let's let's spend
  162. 6:22the next year getting rid of that half
  163. 6:24of the page. Okay, now I'm down to a
  164. 6:25smaller piece of paper. Now next year I
  165. 6:27want to get rid of that half of the
  166. 6:28paper and then this bit and then this
  167. 6:30bit and then this bit." and you end up
  168. 6:32with just this little and that's where I
  169. 6:33was. I was just doing the little bit
  170. 6:35that I felt I was quite good at and that
  171. 6:38I really liked doing.
  172. 6:41But I don't know, it was always a um
  173. 6:43what I really struggled with, I'm sure
  174. 6:45many people will relate to this, but I
  175. 6:47always struggled when when a team member
  176. 6:50quit or when a client left. I was
  177. 6:53supposed to be kind of removed from
  178. 6:56that, you know,
  179. 6:57>> couple of layers away from that. um
  180. 7:00that's why you put in a proper general
  181. 7:01manager, you know, but I I could just
  182. 7:03never quite remove my my brain and and
  183. 7:07the feeling of that. It always felt like
  184. 7:09a kick in the guts and I thought, gosh,
  185. 7:11if I if I'm still feeling like this now,
  186. 7:14I'm always going to care and it's always
  187. 7:16going to hurt. Um
  188. 7:19ah yeah, I just like I maybe maybe I
  189. 7:22should try something different after
  190. 7:24after 17 years. Um, and yeah, I had a
  191. 7:28chat completely by chance really. I was
  192. 7:30actually considering maybe expanding and
  193. 7:33buying a creative agency. Like there
  194. 7:35were a lot of different sort of options
  195. 7:36floating around. And then I just, yeah,
  196. 7:38back to two kids in primary school.
  197. 7:41Actually, I don't think I want to do
  198. 7:44that. I really want to hang out with
  199. 7:45them and spend time with them. We worked
  200. 7:47out back then that my daughter had 134
  201. 7:50Monday mornings left in primary school.
  202. 7:53Um, and we've been counting those down.
  203. 7:55Um, you know, we don't actually have a
  204. 7:58chart on the wall, but we both know
  205. 7:59roughly where we are on that list and
  206. 8:01we've got about 55 to go at this point.
  207. 8:03So, you know, it's been counting that
  208. 8:05down and I was just very very aware of
  209. 8:07that number. So, yeah, in terms of
  210. 8:10milestones, I mean, not really. It was
  211. 8:11just had an amazing team. That was the
  212. 8:13worst part, you know, being away from
  213. 8:15your team and missing those
  214. 8:17conversations and missing the the
  215. 8:19problem solving part of it. That was
  216. 8:22definitely the hardest part of of
  217. 8:23dealing with it all. But um no, it's
  218. 8:26yeah, dive into a new thing and don't
  219. 8:28look back.
  220. 8:29>> Keep moving forward.
  221. 8:31>> Awesome. I once uh saw this video of
  222. 8:34yours on LinkedIn where you were telling
  223. 8:36an analogy or a metaphor about playing
  224. 8:39table tennis.
  225. 8:41um you probably remember this maybe and
  226. 8:44after that question we will definitely
  227. 8:45move into the AI and the PMGs and and
  228. 8:48the PPC stuff but maybe can you quickly
  229. 8:50share the story again with the audience
  230. 8:51because I think it's so it's so
  231. 8:53eyeopening.
  232. 8:54>> Yeah, I like this one. I wish I knew
  233. 8:56where this came from so I could give
  234. 8:57proper attribution. It's definitely not
  235. 8:59mine but um
  236. 9:01you always feel like you have a lot
  237. 9:03coming at you, right? And
  238. 9:07basically I get you picture that as
  239. 9:10you're playing table tennis and there's
  240. 9:12just constant there's a ball coming at
  241. 9:14you all the time and it's all you can do
  242. 9:16to just keep trying to pick up the bat
  243. 9:19and just keep smashing the ball back.
  244. 9:21But no matter how much you do it just
  245. 9:23keeps on coming at you. and the idea of
  246. 9:27systemizing a business really and and
  247. 9:29putting some automation in place and
  248. 9:31putting letting go a little bit and
  249. 9:33having other people do some stuff. It's
  250. 9:35all related. But you notice one day that
  251. 9:38down by your feet there's a pile of
  252. 9:40bricks. Oh, I haven't noticed those
  253. 9:42before. That's handy. The trick is that
  254. 9:45you have to bend down to pick up a brick
  255. 9:49to put it on the table to start building
  256. 9:51this wall at your end of the table. The
  257. 9:54downside is when you bend down to pick
  258. 9:56up that brick, inevitably a couple of
  259. 9:58balls go flying past you. I missed
  260. 10:00I missed one. And that's you feeling
  261. 10:03like you literally dropped the ball on
  262. 10:05something. You You've missed something
  263. 10:06in the business. Something has gone a
  264. 10:08little bit wrong. No worries. We'll
  265. 10:10repair that. We'll fix that. Now I've
  266. 10:12got to bend down and pick up another
  267. 10:13brick. And And if you keep on doing
  268. 10:15that,
  269. 10:17you keep picking up these bricks. You
  270. 10:18eventually build a wall such that the
  271. 10:20ball's coming over the net, bounce off
  272. 10:22the wall and go back. And to begin with,
  273. 10:25not very many bounce back. But over
  274. 10:27time, if you keep building the wall,
  275. 10:29yes, every time you pick up a brick, you
  276. 10:31miss a couple. But eventually, you've
  277. 10:33got this whole wall there, and all of
  278. 10:34the balls bounce back. And now,
  279. 10:37freedom, you know, freedom to do what it
  280. 10:40is that you want to do. freedom to do
  281. 10:42the thing that you set out to do in the
  282. 10:44first place. You know, um Gerber used to
  283. 10:47tell the story about the carpenter. He
  284. 10:48loves carpentry. He works with wood. He
  285. 10:50loves the smell of the sawdust. But now
  286. 10:53he's running a carpentry business and he
  287. 10:55hasn't touched a piece of wood in six
  288. 10:56months, but he's wearing 12 different
  289. 10:58hats and he's hiring other carpenters
  290. 10:59and he's dealing with invoices and
  291. 11:01dealing with clients and but he's not
  292. 11:03doing carpentry. He just wishes he could
  293. 11:05get back to the carpentry. That was why
  294. 11:07he got into this in the first place. And
  295. 11:09it's it's a similar sort of thing,
  296. 11:11right? But you've just got to you've got
  297. 11:12to build the wall. You've got to let
  298. 11:13other people do the stuff that they're
  299. 11:15great at and you're probably not. And be
  300. 11:18okay with missing a couple of balls
  301. 11:20going flying past. Yeah, I have no idea
  302. 11:22where that comes from, but I love the
  303. 11:24the picture that it builds in your head.
  304. 11:27>> Maybe at some point in time we will find
  305. 11:29the person that originally came up with
  306. 11:31the story. But yeah, I found it so
  307. 11:33inspiring. So now let's move over to a
  308. 11:35little bit more PPC and AI related
  309. 11:38questions. So your PMX script which we
  310. 11:41um obviously have already introduced has
  311. 11:44become some somewhat legendary. I like
  312. 11:46the term you use it went gang busters. I
  313. 11:49have to use this too. Um and like for me
  314. 11:53I feel like um all of the time
  315. 11:55especially in startup world people are
  316. 11:57talking about yeah the idea is one thing
  317. 11:59but execution matters a lot. Now we have
  318. 12:02this great new tools and obviously
  319. 12:04execution is still very important but we
  320. 12:06have stuff where basically our
  321. 12:08imagination
  322. 12:10uh can become reality in a much shorter
  323. 12:12period of time. So I just want to get a
  324. 12:14feeling of how did you come up with the
  325. 12:17idea for this product or for the script?
  326. 12:20>> Oh um oh gosh that's probably going back
  327. 12:22about three years. Um, it would have
  328. 12:24been a conversation with Stacy and
  329. 12:27Calvin and Brent and and the wonderful
  330. 12:30team that I had back at Web Sabi back
  331. 12:32then and um just really solving that
  332. 12:35problem. So, we worked out that you
  333. 12:37could work out how much of your total
  334. 12:39PMAX spend, how much you were spending
  335. 12:41on shopping because you could go into
  336. 12:43the product groups, but you couldn't
  337. 12:46just export that and sum it all up,
  338. 12:49right? Because each line was repeated
  339. 12:51two maybe three times. So, you couldn't
  340. 12:53even just sum it all up and chop it in
  341. 12:54half.
  342. 12:56If it was a very simple campaign setup,
  343. 12:58you could just about eyeball it and go,
  344. 13:00"Yeah, it's probably around about 23
  345. 13:02grand last month." But it was a bit
  346. 13:05painful to do and a more complicated
  347. 13:08setup with more product groups. It was
  348. 13:10just hard. And then, but we kind of
  349. 13:12lived with that and we eyeballed it and
  350. 13:14we moved on. And then we worked out one
  351. 13:16day that oh actually if you add the
  352. 13:20columns for the number of views and the
  353. 13:22CPV, you could multiply those together
  354. 13:25and you could work out how much money
  355. 13:26you're actually spending on YouTube. But
  356. 13:30um gosh, this is really testing my
  357. 13:32memory. But that worked for accounts
  358. 13:36that had a YouTube campaign running or
  359. 13:38had ever ran a YouTube campaign. that if
  360. 13:41that campaign had never turned on any
  361. 13:42YouTube campaigns, those columns weren't
  362. 13:45available. But they were with scripts.
  363. 13:48And so we've sort of found this magic
  364. 13:50hack, we thought of like, huh, well,
  365. 13:52let's save doing all of the maths for
  366. 13:55the product groups. Let's let the script
  367. 13:56do that. Let's let the script work out
  368. 13:59how much we're spending on video because
  369. 14:01it doesn't matter if they've got a
  370. 14:02YouTube campaign or not. We can work
  371. 14:04that out. And then whatever's left is
  372. 14:06search and display. That was version
  373. 14:08one. And then I ended up chatting to a
  374. 14:12wonderful bloke in Copenhagen. I
  375. 14:14actually met him in uh speaking at
  376. 14:16Bologna, John Jan Carlo's uh John
  377. 14:19Paulo's event uh the wonderful AdWorld
  378. 14:21experience, one of the best events in
  379. 14:24Europe. Um and Tobias was there. We had
  380. 14:27chatted maybe two and a half years ago
  381. 14:29and Tobias showed me how they had
  382. 14:32figured out how to get a rough
  383. 14:34estimation of that display spend. So now
  384. 14:37we could split apart display and search.
  385. 14:40And I said, "Oh, can I build this into
  386. 14:42of course you can go for it. It's not my
  387. 14:44thing. I just But he discovered that,
  388. 14:46not me." Um, and so built that in, gave
  389. 14:50away a free version of this 2 and a
  390. 14:53halfish years ago and still felt like it
  391. 14:57was a bit of special source um for us as
  392. 15:00an agency to to do, you know, the big
  393. 15:03version of this that we had. and that
  394. 15:04bucketed products um very similar to the
  395. 15:08what the labelizer script and product
  396. 15:10hero now do but we had sort of our own
  397. 15:11janky version of that back then um and
  398. 15:14when I sold the agency um I kept the IP
  399. 15:18for the script and so you know four
  400. 15:20weeks later I was speaking in Italy at J
  401. 15:23Paulo's event I thought yeah bugger it
  402. 15:26why not let's see if more people want
  403. 15:28this and are willing to pay couple
  404. 15:30hundred bucks for it that's all and it
  405. 15:33went gang busters Um, so I quickly built
  406. 15:35a little site and started selling it
  407. 15:38through that. Um, then built an MCC
  408. 15:41version because a lot of people like,
  409. 15:43"Yeah, this is great, but I have to do
  410. 15:45this for every single account." And
  411. 15:46every time you keep changing the script,
  412. 15:48which is all the time because I kept
  413. 15:50having new ideas and everybody kept
  414. 15:52telling me what else they wanted. Hey,
  415. 15:53could we build this in and could you add
  416. 15:55this? I'm like, yeah, here's a new
  417. 15:56version. Oh, great. Now I've got to
  418. 15:58update 50 accounts again. Um, so I
  419. 16:00created the MCC version and sold that
  420. 16:02and um, yeah, it just went it went went
  421. 16:04ballistic. It was great. Um, but yeah,
  422. 16:07it's it's the it's the community around
  423. 16:09it that I love. Like all these people,
  424. 16:10it was back to those conversations that
  425. 16:12I missed from the web savvy days. Now
  426. 16:14all of a sudden like I'm having
  427. 16:15conversations about, oh, how are you
  428. 16:17using this? Oh, that's really cool.
  429. 16:19That's really smart. And what would you
  430. 16:20like me to add to this genius idea? Hang
  431. 16:23on, let me just let me go and add that.
  432. 16:25So that's how it sort of built and built
  433. 16:27and built and we're we're up to version
  434. 16:2888 now. So keeps on going.
  435. 16:33>> It's a great story. Now if someone is
  436. 16:35listening and feels like hey I also want
  437. 16:38to get started with building
  438. 16:40automations, building scripts or maybe
  439. 16:42even building agents although like there
  440. 16:46are different uh specialtities to to
  441. 16:49these different um stages of automation.
  442. 16:51But what would you recommend someone
  443. 16:53that says, "Okay, Mike, I'm down. Um,
  444. 16:56next weekend is all like exploration
  445. 17:00time." How should you get started with
  446. 17:02building that stuff?
  447. 17:05Start with a problem. Start by thinking
  448. 17:08about what are all the tasks that I do
  449. 17:12rather than try and solve this for
  450. 17:14someone else. Think about the your own
  451. 17:15tasks that you do of those. Which ones
  452. 17:19are sort of data related? And is there
  453. 17:21anything in there that you're doing on a
  454. 17:23regular basis? Let's say more than three
  455. 17:25or four times a month. So maybe you're
  456. 17:27pulling the same data for your boss.
  457. 17:29Maybe you're creating some sort of
  458. 17:31client report and they want to see that
  459. 17:33every week or or every month, but you
  460. 17:34got a few clients and it's kind of the
  461. 17:36same, but you're doing this stuff
  462. 17:38repeatedly and you find yourself doing
  463. 17:40the same sort of things over and over
  464. 17:42again. That's the sort of stuff that a
  465. 17:45script is perfect for, assuming that
  466. 17:46it's Google Ads data. If it's some other
  467. 17:48type of data, you're going to need some
  468. 17:50other type of automation. Um, where to
  469. 17:54answer that question
  470. 17:56a year and a half ago, I would have said
  471. 17:58something completely different to what
  472. 18:00I'll say now. Because what I'll say now
  473. 18:02is just turn on your favorite AI chat,
  474. 18:05GPT, chord, whatever, and just start
  475. 18:08having a conversation with it. Here's
  476. 18:10this thing that I do and I get this data
  477. 18:12and it looks like this and I find myself
  478. 18:15doing this and this and this all the
  479. 18:16time. Like I've heard of this thing
  480. 18:19called Google ad scripts. I've never
  481. 18:20created one. I've used other people's
  482. 18:22never created one. How could I do this?
  483. 18:25What script could we create? So rather
  484. 18:27than just diving into chat GPT and
  485. 18:29saying I need a script that's going to
  486. 18:30pull this data and do this and maybe you
  487. 18:33don't know what you don't know yet. So
  488. 18:35have a conversation with an AI first. Be
  489. 18:37prompted by the AI. say, "Can you please
  490. 18:40ask me some questions so that you can
  491. 18:42figure out, dear AI, what it is that we
  492. 18:45need to build?" Great. Now, can you
  493. 18:48build that for me, please? Because guess
  494. 18:49what? It's seen millions and millions of
  495. 18:51Google Ads scripts, and it's really
  496. 18:53quite good at getting it right.
  497. 18:56Sometimes it'll get it wrong. But the
  498. 18:57wonderful thing about code, it's a bit
  499. 18:59like maths, right? There is a right
  500. 19:01answer. So, you take the script, as you
  501. 19:03well know, and you go chuck it into
  502. 19:05Google Ads and it either runs or it
  503. 19:07doesn't run. And if it doesn't run,
  504. 19:09there's usually some sort of messy error
  505. 19:10thing down the bottom. You don't even
  506. 19:12have to understand what that means. You
  507. 19:13just copy the whole thing, chuck it back
  508. 19:15into your favorite AI and say, "Your
  509. 19:17script got this error. Fix it for me,
  510. 19:20please." Um, and it does. And you
  511. 19:22usually only have to go around that loop
  512. 19:24these days with the powerful AI that we
  513. 19:27have now, maybe two or three times, and
  514. 19:29all of a sudden, you've got a working
  515. 19:31script that solves that problem.
  516. 19:33Awesome. Use the time that you've saved
  517. 19:36by automating that thing. Even if it was
  518. 19:3810 minutes a week, doesn't matter. Use
  519. 19:41that time you've saved to go build
  520. 19:43something else. I have a little
  521. 19:44calculator on my website now that shows
  522. 19:46like if we only spent 20 minutes a week
  523. 19:50building some sort of automation. And
  524. 19:52even if it takes three weeks, it takes
  525. 19:54three lots of 20 minutes to build one
  526. 19:57automation that saves me 20 minutes. So,
  527. 20:00I'm going to spend an hour building the
  528. 20:01thing that's going to save me 20
  529. 20:02minutes. It just shows this exponential
  530. 20:05chart. If you keep doing that week after
  531. 20:07week after week after week and then you
  532. 20:09plug in what's my time actually worth,
  533. 20:13then you very very quickly find out that
  534. 20:15you can save or make thousands of
  535. 20:18dollars a year depending on how you
  536. 20:21value your time or dozens and dozens of
  537. 20:24hours per year if you prefer to think in
  538. 20:26terms of time saved just by continually
  539. 20:29going, "Oh, what next?" And just and
  540. 20:32once you get the bug for this, it
  541. 20:33becomes quite addictive, right? because
  542. 20:35you just start seeing problems
  543. 20:37everywhere and I just love solving
  544. 20:39problems. I love the the intellectual
  545. 20:42part of that of like how am I going to
  546. 20:43do this? And then you just keep pushing
  547. 20:46the edge of that of like, okay, what are
  548. 20:50some more pro? Oh, yeah. Not that, not
  549. 20:51that. Oh, that's that seems like a a
  550. 20:53hard problem to crack. How am I going to
  551. 20:55solve? Oh, yeah. Okay, let's just go
  552. 20:57attack that problem. And it's just
  553. 20:59addictive. Like I said before, going
  554. 21:01from idea to to impact so quickly is
  555. 21:05just so much fun. And yeah, you don't
  556. 21:07need to learn to code. It helps to know
  557. 21:09a little bit about code, but
  558. 21:13I think it's much much easier to learn
  559. 21:15that as you go. You don't have to. There
  560. 21:17are plenty of people using scripts that
  561. 21:19have no idea about code. That's totally
  562. 21:21fine. But if you do want to sort of
  563. 21:24understand a bit about code, it is
  564. 21:26infinitely better to start by trying to
  565. 21:29create something. Even if it's like a
  566. 21:31little 30line script that Claude writes
  567. 21:33for you and you use and then you start
  568. 21:36asking Claude like what does this part
  569. 21:38of the script do and why did you do it
  570. 21:39this way and and give me three other
  571. 21:42ways to do this part and you learn by
  572. 21:44doing rather than learning the way I
  573. 21:46learned to code a long long time ago. um
  574. 21:49which is like learning if statements and
  575. 21:51for loops and and yeah variables and all
  576. 21:54this kind it was so abstract back then
  577. 21:57learning from a textbook for 6 months
  578. 21:59before you could actually write any kind
  579. 22:01of workable code now it's like give me
  580. 22:03workable code and I'll follow along with
  581. 22:06you and learn as we go is a much much
  582. 22:08more interesting way to do it but of
  583. 22:10course you don't have to learn to code
  584. 22:11if you don't want to but you just have
  585. 22:14to get the bug for solving problems
  586. 22:16>> yeah I also remember myself 10 years
  587. 22:18years ago, uh, googling all the time
  588. 22:21and, uh, hanging out on Stack Overflow
  589. 22:23and always searching for the part of the
  590. 22:26code that would help me solve this, uh,
  591. 22:28nittygritty problem in a WordPress
  592. 22:31plug-in or WordPress theme. It was such
  593. 22:33a different time, but
  594. 22:35>> and it was so painful back then, right?
  595. 22:37Because you spend I remember when I was
  596. 22:39a kid type copying out computer programs
  597. 22:42from a magazine to create some computer
  598. 22:45game. It's like 18 pages of code. And of
  599. 22:47course, yeah, one semicolon out of
  600. 22:49place. Nothing's going to run. I'm like,
  601. 22:51"Mom, you're a touch typist. Could you
  602. 22:54just could you Yeah. And she'd do like
  603. 22:56two, three pages and then go, I'm done.
  604. 22:58Back to me." D. But it was so painful to
  605. 23:02to debug those things back then. And you
  606. 23:05got these weird error messages and you
  607. 23:06didn't know what they meant. And this is
  608. 23:07before you could go to Stack Overflow
  609. 23:08and actually look it up. But now it's
  610. 23:11just so simple. It's like, here's the
  611. 23:13error. You know what that means? And
  612. 23:16even if it doesn't get it right first
  613. 23:17time, do that enough loops, like I say,
  614. 23:20two, three, maybe four times, it's going
  615. 23:22to solve the problem and write working
  616. 23:25code. That's the wonderful that's why AI
  617. 23:27is so good at code because there is this
  618. 23:29kind of binary it works or it doesn't,
  619. 23:31right? We thought that AI would take
  620. 23:35years and years to write creative things
  621. 23:37like poems and songs. Turns out to be
  622. 23:39quite good at that too because it's just
  623. 23:41language. But running code and just does
  624. 23:44it work or doesn't it work? Great. Give
  625. 23:47it the problem. It just goes round and
  626. 23:48around that loop until it solves the
  627. 23:49problem. It's great.
  628. 23:51>> Now give us a little bit of an um behind
  629. 23:54thescenes look into the text stack
  630. 23:56you're using because I mean people I
  631. 23:58think see GPT are now releasing GPT5.
  632. 24:03They have they some people I feel like
  633. 24:06it's still quite unknown have used
  634. 24:07claude. Then there's Gemini. Then
  635. 24:10there's whatever all sorts of stuff.
  636. 24:12>> Rock and Quinn and Kira and
  637. 24:15>> so what are you using? What are you
  638. 24:17using or what would you recommend? Maybe
  639. 24:18even if you're using something that you
  640. 24:20feel like you wouldn't recommend for
  641. 24:21somebody that's just starting out. So
  642. 24:23where would you start? And maybe
  643. 24:24>> I I someone was just starting out
  644. 24:26exactly. I would not recommend the tech
  645. 24:28stack that I'm using today. But that has
  646. 24:30evolved to this point. But also I I see
  647. 24:34very much Google ad scripts as just the
  648. 24:36first step on that bridge of going from
  649. 24:39ads to AI, right? Of just that's the
  650. 24:42that's the gateway drug to go, oh this
  651. 24:46is possible. And the bit that I think
  652. 24:48might be useful for your audience, the
  653. 24:50bit that kind of got me over that hump
  654. 24:52by the beginning was was this
  655. 24:54realization that code can run in
  656. 24:56parallel. So, you take the time to you
  657. 25:01you found that 10-minute task and you're
  658. 25:03sitting there thinking, "Is it really
  659. 25:05worth Mike said it's going to take me an
  660. 25:07hour, so it's probably going to take me
  661. 25:08two. Is it really worth me spending two
  662. 25:10hours of messing around with something I
  663. 25:13do not understand to save 10 minutes?
  664. 25:16Let me just try it." Okay, it's going to
  665. 25:18take 12 weeks to pay back that 10
  666. 25:20minutes, right? Because we have lots of
  667. 25:2210 minutes. But it was that realization
  668. 25:26that I've built that little 10-minute
  669. 25:28thing and that little 10-minute thing
  670. 25:29and that little 10-minute thing, and I
  671. 25:32don't have to sit there and wait for
  672. 25:34them all to run one after the other. I
  673. 25:36can cram in at 9:00 on a Monday morning,
  674. 25:38hit the button, and by 10 9 50 of these
  675. 25:41things are all complete, and I've just
  676. 25:43done a day's worth of work, and it's
  677. 25:45only 10 9 and I haven't even had my
  678. 25:47second coffee yet. Oh my goodness, this
  679. 25:50is quite fun. And then you again you
  680. 25:52reinvest that time, right? So at the
  681. 25:54beginning, yeah, pick one. I think it's
  682. 25:57I think it's very useful to be aware of
  683. 26:00a few tools. It's kind of that T-shaped
  684. 26:03marketer type idea really, isn't it?
  685. 26:05like being aware of lots of different
  686. 26:08tools but probably going fairly deep
  687. 26:12into one because you get a bit of an
  688. 26:14intuition. You get a bit of a feeling
  689. 26:15for a particular model which is why last
  690. 26:18week there was all this um uproar about
  691. 26:21GP4 going away and GPT5 replacing it
  692. 26:23because people felt that they kind of
  693. 26:25they understood GPD4 that the way it
  694. 26:28spoke to them. It sort of it had a
  695. 26:30personality if you like. I know we tend
  696. 26:32to anthropomorphize things, but it does
  697. 26:34feel like these things have a bit of a
  698. 26:35personality. You get used to it. You get
  699. 26:37used to the way of working with it. Um,
  700. 26:40and then when that disappears and a new
  701. 26:42thing comes along, people just aren't
  702. 26:44very good with change usually, right?
  703. 26:46So, pick one. Yeah, I I agree. The vast
  704. 26:49majority of people, it's, you know, most
  705. 26:52stats are made up on the spot, but it's
  706. 26:53something like 95 90 95% of people are
  707. 26:56using Chad GBT at this point. Um Claude
  708. 26:59is a very very very distant second or
  709. 27:01third and then yeah Google have their
  710. 27:03Gemini. Gemini is really good at code
  711. 27:06and you would think oh it's Google ad
  712. 27:08scripts and Google Sheets so maybe I
  713. 27:10should use Gemini but their interface
  714. 27:12like the the website where you go to use
  715. 27:16this thing is just horrendous. I hate
  716. 27:18the Gemini website. So I personally
  717. 27:22would use Claude. I love the way Claude
  718. 27:25works but also the anthropic team are
  719. 27:27just they are shipping stuff like all
  720. 27:30the time. So I now use a tool called
  721. 27:31Claude code. Um I probably went from
  722. 27:35just writing code um see when you start
  723. 27:38and you wouldn't do this today but when
  724. 27:40you start you start doing it all in the
  725. 27:42Google ads interface and it's a horrible
  726. 27:44place to try and edit code or see what's
  727. 27:46going on. Def definitely don't do that.
  728. 27:48So today, if you were starting out,
  729. 27:50you'd probably start in chat GBT because
  730. 27:52you're probably listening to this and
  731. 27:53going, "Well, that's what I use." So
  732. 27:54start there. But if you're open to
  733. 27:58change, then have a go with claude. As
  734. 28:01well, and you do that for a bit. And
  735. 28:04then when you get to the point of, okay,
  736. 28:06I want a place to save all of these
  737. 28:08scripts that I'm downloading from
  738. 28:11LinkedIn and I'm making little changes
  739. 28:13to, and I just want to build up my own
  740. 28:14little library of these. I don't just
  741. 28:17want to save them in an account. What
  742. 28:19happens if I lose access to that
  743. 28:20account? Right? You want to be saving
  744. 28:22those? Don't save them as as Google
  745. 28:24Docs. That's when you sort of graduate
  746. 28:26to using a tool like Cursor. So, that's
  747. 28:29sort of the next step on from just doing
  748. 28:31everything in a browser like in a chat
  749. 28:33GBT. A tool like Cursor is fantastic
  750. 28:36because you can save all of your files
  751. 28:37in different folders down the left hand
  752. 28:39side. Your code is in the middle of the
  753. 28:42screen and then you've got this AI agent
  754. 28:44over on the right. So instead of copying
  755. 28:46and pasting code between all these
  756. 28:48different screens, you've got everything
  757. 28:49you need in front of you
  758. 28:52and then eventually you'll get bored
  759. 28:54with cursor's limitations and that's
  760. 28:57when you might use a tool like clawed
  761. 28:59code which I use inside of cursor
  762. 29:01because I like the visual aspect of
  763. 29:03cursor and being able to see all of my
  764. 29:05files and see the code changing but
  765. 29:07claude code is just the most powerful
  766. 29:10coding tool and it's kind of almost
  767. 29:12programmable. It's hard to explain and
  768. 29:14we definitely don't need to go there,
  769. 29:15but you can basically take huge big
  770. 29:18things that you do and automate them
  771. 29:21down to a word. And so by typing a
  772. 29:24series of a few words, you can do an
  773. 29:25amazing amount of work in a very very
  774. 29:27short time. It's just incredibly
  775. 29:30powerful. It's what the anthropic team
  776. 29:32use to build Claude. So, you know,
  777. 29:34they're quite good at it. They've made
  778. 29:36it basically freely available and it's
  779. 29:38just an incredibly powerful tool. But I
  780. 29:40wouldn't start there. I would start in
  781. 29:43cloud.ai or chatgbt. Or if you really
  782. 29:45really love Google, you might try and
  783. 29:48start in the Gemini app, but it's just
  784. 29:50it's a bit ugly and it's just a bit
  785. 29:52geeky and not very nice to use.
  786. 29:55>> Um, probably you're right. the session
  787. 29:57we have today is not enough to unpack
  788. 29:59all this and go as deep as you could or
  789. 30:02maybe we should also for the audience
  790. 30:05but you already dropped uh you already
  791. 30:08dropped an important keyword which was
  792. 30:10from ads to AI because you recently
  793. 30:12launched this membership program um I
  794. 30:15think it's quite new or at least fairly
  795. 30:17new um
  796. 30:19>> yeah so actually for me like let's let's
  797. 30:23maybe talk a lot a little bit about that
  798. 30:25because I feel like you
  799. 30:26a vast amount of knowledge and you were
  800. 30:29already uh telling the audience that you
  801. 30:31like to teach people stuff etc. So I can
  802. 30:33imagine this being a really really
  803. 30:35valuable um program but what's what's
  804. 30:38the vision here? What have people what's
  805. 30:40to expect?
  806. 30:42So I picture this this journey from ads
  807. 30:46to AI. I think that
  808. 30:49I think a lot of businesses a lot of
  809. 30:51agencies are going to be just fine but a
  810. 30:53lot of businesses are going to feel the
  811. 30:55squeeze of commoditization over the next
  812. 30:572 three years. I think that for many
  813. 31:00just offering the services that they
  814. 31:02offer today maybe ad management services
  815. 31:04I don't think that will be enough in
  816. 31:06isolation and I think there'll be
  817. 31:08pricing pressure on those services as
  818. 31:11businesses sort of start to say well
  819. 31:13isn't the whole thing automated you know
  820. 31:15pmax and all these things in meta like
  821. 31:18what what do you actually do they'll be
  822. 31:20saying they still they were already
  823. 31:23saying that um so I see this sort of
  824. 31:26path to
  825. 31:29offering
  826. 31:31new services to the same clients. I
  827. 31:35mean, 15, 20 years ago when I started,
  828. 31:38small businesses were crying out for
  829. 31:40someone. If you could spell AdWords back
  830. 31:41then, you got a client. And it's kind of
  831. 31:44the same now, right? All these small
  832. 31:46businesses, they they kind of feel like,
  833. 31:47"Yeah, we know met ads. We can do that
  834. 31:49ourselves. Thanks." But this AI thing,
  835. 31:52they're confused. They're overwhelmed.
  836. 31:54They're short on time like never before.
  837. 31:57They need help desperately. So agencies
  838. 32:00that are on the cutting edge here, and
  839. 32:02you don't really need to be too far
  840. 32:04ahead of everybody else to be on that
  841. 32:06cutting edge right now, have this huge
  842. 32:08advantage to solve those problems for
  843. 32:12the same clients they want to delight
  844. 32:14and surprise today, but they're just
  845. 32:17going to have to transition their
  846. 32:19services a little bit. They may still
  847. 32:20offer those ad services, but there's
  848. 32:22probably some adjacent services there
  849. 32:24teaching those small businesses how to
  850. 32:27get the most out of AI. That the
  851. 32:28question I hear all the time is, "Yeah,
  852. 32:30but where do I start?" And so I think
  853. 32:32for those agencies, they need to start
  854. 32:34on themselves. You know, what Americans
  855. 32:36would call dog fooding. You've got to be
  856. 32:38doing this to yourself and with your
  857. 32:41team and upskilling and lifting up your
  858. 32:44whole team, completely changing probably
  859. 32:47how your agency approaches things. And
  860. 32:51it's not just about efficiency. It's not
  861. 32:52just about cramming more work into the
  862. 32:54same number of people. But it's
  863. 32:56definitely not about, oh, how can I
  864. 32:58replace all of these warm bodies with
  865. 33:00some cold, hard code and save more
  866. 33:02money, Mr. Burns. It's not about that at
  867. 33:05all. I don't want to work with those
  868. 33:06agencies, but the agencies that are
  869. 33:08like, how do we take the amazing skills
  870. 33:11that we have in front of us and use
  871. 33:13these incredible tools like AI and
  872. 33:15automation to augment all of this to
  873. 33:18make these guys so much better at what
  874. 33:21they're capable of doing for our
  875. 33:23clients. do that to yourself first and
  876. 33:27then go provide those additional
  877. 33:29services, maybe extra products to those
  878. 33:32small businesses because I think those
  879. 33:34businesses, they're not stupid. They're
  880. 33:36going to be crying out for that. And if
  881. 33:38you're going, "No, we we just do Google
  882. 33:40Ads management because we're really
  883. 33:41really good at it." And they're going,
  884. 33:42"Yeah, thanks. I'm going to jump over to
  885. 33:44this guy who can do all of this stuff
  886. 33:46and teach us how to use AI and
  887. 33:48completely revamp the way we do content
  888. 33:50and change how we do all of these
  889. 33:52things. build these little tools for us
  890. 33:54internally. We used to spend 20 grand a
  891. 33:57year on this SAS tool and this agency
  892. 34:00over here just built us a little version
  893. 34:02of that in a weekend exactly to our
  894. 34:04specs. Um it's the same with the agency,
  895. 34:07right? You don't then have to if you
  896. 34:09know how to do this stuff. You don't
  897. 34:10have to do kind of things to like 80 90%
  898. 34:14of the way you want to do them because
  899. 34:16you're trying to fit your system into a
  900. 34:19tool. Just build your own tool and now
  901. 34:21you've got it doing it exactly the way
  902. 34:23that you want and you have the skills to
  903. 34:26keep changing that and evolving that.
  904. 34:27And as your team keep coming up with
  905. 34:29great new ideas of how you can use it,
  906. 34:30you're like, "That's a great idea. Let's
  907. 34:32build that in. I'll just spend half the
  908. 34:34weekend on that." And now we've got an
  909. 34:35even better tool that everybody can use.
  910. 34:37And so that for me is that journey. I
  911. 34:39picture it as a bridge from ads to AI. I
  912. 34:42think the scripts are just the first
  913. 34:44step on there. Like I said, the the
  914. 34:46gateway drug. That's the bit that makes
  915. 34:47you go, "Oh, wow. This is fun. This is
  916. 34:50possible. I save all of this time." And
  917. 34:53I get to solve problems and and build
  918. 34:55stuff. It's figuring out who on your
  919. 34:58team. It might be you. It might be
  920. 35:00somebody three levels down. It might be
  921. 35:02somebody three levels up. Figure out who
  922. 35:04the people are in your agency, in your
  923. 35:07business, or if you're a freelancer,
  924. 35:09it's probably going to be you. Figure
  925. 35:12out who those people are and invest in
  926. 35:14them. I have this line I use on stage of
  927. 35:185% or 100%. So, think about the amount
  928. 35:22of income, top line, not bottom line,
  929. 35:23topline number for last year and take 5%
  930. 35:28of that. Or if you're a freelancer,
  931. 35:29think about your income for the last
  932. 35:31year. Take 5% of that. That is the
  933. 35:33amount I believe you need to be
  934. 35:35investing right now in your AI literacy
  935. 35:38in your education because if you don't
  936. 35:42you're risking the 100% of that number.
  937. 35:44You're risking being obsolete and being
  938. 35:46gone in two three years. So I think
  939. 35:49that's a pretty easy thing to weigh up
  940. 35:515% or 100%. But I still see so many
  941. 35:55people just sort of head in the sand of
  942. 35:56like no it's it's all a fad. I don't
  943. 35:58need to learn anything about this. It'll
  944. 36:00all blow over. I'm going to keep going
  945. 36:02the way I'm going because it's the way
  946. 36:03we've always done it. I think those
  947. 36:05businesses are going to be in trouble.
  948. 36:06I'm not interested in working with
  949. 36:08those. But the ones that are really
  950. 36:10interested in like we know we don't know
  951. 36:12but we really want to learn. That's my
  952. 36:14crew. And I'd love I love working with
  953. 36:16those people.
  954. 36:17>> And what can people expect from the
  955. 36:19program? Like how does it work? Because
  956. 36:21I mean I can imagine a lot of people
  957. 36:23thinking like, "Hey, this sounds really
  958. 36:24great, Mike. I where can I join? How
  959. 36:28much does it cost? What does it include?
  960. 36:31costs about two bucks a day. That will
  961. 36:33go up at some point. So, I I love
  962. 36:34pricing that goes up in tiers. So, I had
  963. 36:36the first 100 people got it for 500 euro
  964. 36:39a year. Um, currently it's 650 and it's
  965. 36:42about to go up to 800 for a year or you
  966. 36:44can pay I think it's about 300 bucks a
  967. 36:46month. So, it's clearly aimed at people
  968. 36:48that want to be with me for a year
  969. 36:50because I want to massively overd
  970. 36:52deliver on that year. So, I have weekly
  971. 36:55videos where I talk about tools and show
  972. 36:57off how I'm using various tools and how
  973. 36:59small businesses are using tools. We
  974. 37:01have a monthly sort of office hours Q&A
  975. 37:04webinar. Um, just had one a couple of
  976. 37:06nights ago. It was fantastic. Um, where
  977. 37:08people can come in, ask questions, maybe
  978. 37:10show off a little thing, but just get
  979. 37:12unstuck. Um, and then I'm creating a new
  980. 37:15course every quarter as well. So, I drop
  981. 37:17my courses in there. Um, they get
  982. 37:20courses before anybody else. they get
  983. 37:22the courses for free and those courses,
  984. 37:24yeah, maybe I go on and sell elsewhere.
  985. 37:25So, I've redone just recently my entire
  986. 37:28scripts and sheets mastery course for
  987. 37:302025. Completely redid that. Uh, last
  988. 37:33week I just dropped a Claude code course
  989. 37:36showing how to use Claude code inside of
  990. 37:38Cursor, which has proven to be quite
  991. 37:40popular in the past week and a half that
  992. 37:42it's been out. Um, I've got so so many
  993. 37:45plans. I'm in the process of creating a
  994. 37:47a basically an AI literacy course not
  995. 37:51just for them but for them to be able to
  996. 37:53use with their clients so that they can
  997. 37:55take it white label it pass that on to
  998. 37:57their client and say here's a course
  999. 37:59that will teach you and your team in
  1000. 38:02small business world how to use AI and
  1001. 38:04they just get that for free they get the
  1002. 38:05transcripts they get the slides they can
  1003. 38:07tweak it and change it they can use my
  1004. 38:09videos or they can re-record their own I
  1005. 38:11just yeah I just I love overd delivering
  1006. 38:14on value. I hate feeling ripped off and
  1007. 38:16so I'm obsessed with overd delivering on
  1008. 38:19value. So yeah, build the agent stuff.
  1009. 38:21So, you know, done a few build the agent
  1010. 38:23courses. All of that stuff will be in
  1011. 38:26ads to AI in the nearish future by the
  1012. 38:29end of the year. That'll be the next
  1013. 38:30course that I do in Q4. And then yeah,
  1014. 38:33loads and loads of plans for for for
  1015. 38:34more stuff to add for yeah, couple of
  1016. 38:36bucks a day basically.
  1017. 38:38>> It's I think it sounds really good. So,
  1018. 38:40I think we'll just drop the link uh to
  1019. 38:43the landing page in description of the
  1020. 38:44video below so everybody can can check
  1021. 38:46it out.
  1022. 38:49>> Pretty easy. I found the shortest domain
  1023. 38:51I could and it doesn't really matter if
  1024. 38:52you type in from ads to aai t or the
  1025. 38:56number two. I've got them all. I like
  1026. 38:57buying domains.
  1027. 38:59>> Really, really great. Really great. Um,
  1028. 39:02you already mentioned um, build the
  1029. 39:04agent and I also saw you doing this
  1030. 39:06in-person workshop in I think it was in
  1031. 39:08Amsterdam, right?
  1032. 39:10>> Yeah.
  1033. 39:10>> Yeah. So now we we were talking about
  1034. 39:13scripts, we were talking about um,
  1035. 39:16writing code, we were talking about
  1036. 39:18code, automations, agents, all that
  1037. 39:21stuff. Can you give us a little bit of
  1038. 39:23your perspective and your mindset around
  1039. 39:26the differentiation for example between
  1040. 39:29automation general automation maybe also
  1041. 39:32automated workflows and then agents
  1042. 39:36right yeah I think so firstly the
  1043. 39:39definition of agents has changed a lot
  1044. 39:42over the past 12 months um there was a
  1045. 39:44quote I heard once technology technology
  1046. 39:46is is the stuff that doesn't work yet
  1047. 39:48you know it's the stuff that's just out
  1048. 39:50of reach And so the definition of an
  1049. 39:53agent 12 months ago
  1050. 39:55net today we look at that and go of
  1051. 39:57course it can do that but an agent
  1052. 39:59should be the thing that does this. It's
  1053. 40:00the thing that's just over the hill just
  1054. 40:02out of reach. Um I think that well when
  1055. 40:07I first got into AI I'll put it this way
  1056. 40:09when I first sort of went deep into AI
  1057. 40:11about seven eight years ago I came away
  1058. 40:13thinking you know what most businesses
  1059. 40:15don't need AI at all they really need
  1060. 40:18automation. and I wrote this whole
  1061. 40:20business plan out for like an automation
  1062. 40:21agency and then realized I didn't want
  1063. 40:24to do that because automation kind of
  1064. 40:26bores me. Um, and there were lots of
  1065. 40:28those. Um, there's a great guy here in
  1066. 40:31Australia, good mate, who's who's built
  1067. 40:32the automation agency. That's literally
  1068. 40:34the name of his business and it's really
  1069. 40:35good and it does really good stuff. So,
  1070. 40:37we just would send people his way. Um,
  1071. 40:41where am I going with that? Um,
  1072. 40:43automation I think is the place to start
  1073. 40:47because most of the time that will solve
  1074. 40:50the problem. You don't need the latest
  1075. 40:52shiny object. You don't need to be like
  1076. 40:55sending a whole bunch of stuff off to a
  1077. 40:57large language model to get a response
  1078. 40:59in text back. Actually, you kind of need
  1079. 41:02something that works every single time
  1080. 41:03in exactly the same way. and just
  1081. 41:06looking for those opportunities, looking
  1082. 41:08for things we can go automate
  1083. 41:11um is a really good place to start.
  1084. 41:13Really easy way to do that by the way if
  1085. 41:14someone's listening. Um
  1086. 41:17next time like so first of all think
  1087. 41:18about the tasks that you do and think
  1088. 41:20about those that maybe you do fairly
  1089. 41:24often and don't require huge amounts of
  1090. 41:27human judgment. So you can sort of plot
  1091. 41:30all your tasks out on that scale of like
  1092. 41:32really frequent to infrequent and loads
  1093. 41:34of judgment to not very much judgment.
  1094. 41:36Find that quadrant on that little chart.
  1095. 41:39Stuff I'm doing three, four times a
  1096. 41:40month at least. Not massive amounts of
  1097. 41:42judgment. Think about all the tasks in
  1098. 41:45that quadrant and then record yourself.
  1099. 41:47Turn on Loom and record yourself doing
  1100. 41:49that task and just talk your way through
  1101. 41:52it. Maybe it takes you 20% longer than
  1102. 41:54it usually would, but you just talk out
  1103. 41:56loud as you're going through. When you
  1104. 41:58get to the end, Loom will not only
  1105. 42:00create the transcription of that for
  1106. 42:02you, there's a button next to that
  1107. 42:04transcription that turns that into an
  1108. 42:06SOP or a standard operating procedure.
  1109. 42:08Then you take that SOP over to chat GBT5
  1110. 42:12and you turn on thinking mode up at the
  1111. 42:14top and you say, "Here's a task that I
  1112. 42:16do all the time. Can you see any
  1113. 42:19opportunity to help automate any of
  1114. 42:21this? Or are there any steps that we
  1115. 42:23could eliminate or are there any steps
  1116. 42:24you think I'm missing?" But basically,
  1117. 42:26how can you help me automate this task?
  1118. 42:30And it'll give you a bunch of ideas.
  1119. 42:31Some of them will be made up and wrong.
  1120. 42:33Yes, but most of the time a lot of it
  1121. 42:35will be right. And if it's Google
  1122. 42:37Adsbased stuff, you might even nudge it
  1123. 42:39in the right direction and say like, are
  1124. 42:41there any ways to use Google Ads scripts
  1125. 42:43to help with any of this stuff or Google
  1126. 42:45Apps scripts, which is a very close
  1127. 42:47cousin? But if you're working with
  1128. 42:49spreadsheets a lot, you definitely want
  1129. 42:50to look into apps scripts. They're
  1130. 42:52incredible. They're powerful. So, you
  1131. 42:54start there.
  1132. 42:56AI, you mentioned AI workflow. I think
  1133. 42:58most things in AI world right now are
  1134. 43:01workflows rather than truly autonomous
  1135. 43:04agents. There's lots of arguments in the
  1136. 43:06in the AI world about what actually is
  1137. 43:08an agent and how autonomous is it and
  1138. 43:10how agentic is it. I really don't think
  1139. 43:12that matters too much. What matters is
  1140. 43:14does it solve problems for you for your
  1141. 43:16business? And we've all seen those
  1142. 43:19flowcharts on, you know, LinkedIn and
  1143. 43:22drop your thing down below in the
  1144. 43:23comments to get the thing that gives
  1145. 43:24you. Yeah. All that rubbish.
  1146. 43:27Those flowcharts, something like a make
  1147. 43:30or a Zapia or today's flavor of the
  1148. 43:32month is N8N, which I know you know very
  1149. 43:34well. Maybe one or two of the boxes on
  1150. 43:38that big flowchart are large language
  1151. 43:41models and AI doing its thing. So you
  1152. 43:43get to that step and you take all of
  1153. 43:45that information to that point and you
  1154. 43:46send it off to Claude and it comes back
  1155. 43:48with some text. You go great, thanks for
  1156. 43:50that. And then you use the output from
  1157. 43:53Claude as the input for the next step.
  1158. 43:55So you just oh okay. So that's the bit
  1159. 43:57where a human maybe made some sort of
  1160. 44:00decision about something and that was
  1161. 44:02the point where we had to go is it is it
  1162. 44:03more this or or more that. Is this email
  1163. 44:07really urgent or can it wait till
  1164. 44:09tomorrow? If it's really urgent, then do
  1165. 44:11this step next. Otherwise, let's go off
  1166. 44:14on this other trail. Or is this customer
  1167. 44:17review really positive, really negative?
  1168. 44:19Do we need to respond to this urgently
  1169. 44:22or not? Do we need to thank them? Do we
  1170. 44:24need to send them a gift? So, I think
  1171. 44:26thinking about it in those terms, that's
  1172. 44:28exactly the right phrase that you used
  1173. 44:29of an AI workflow. So, it's it's just an
  1174. 44:32automation workflow, but some of those
  1175. 44:34steps might be AI, but I I think they
  1176. 44:38get conflated and I think that what a
  1177. 44:41lot of people call AI is really just
  1178. 44:44automation. And that's totally fine. Um,
  1179. 44:46and more people should be using a lot
  1180. 44:49lot more automation. I've heard some
  1181. 44:51horrendous stats recently about, you
  1182. 44:54know, just the the average number of SAS
  1183. 44:57tools that a small business uses.
  1184. 45:00Apparently, it's on 50 on average, you
  1185. 45:02know, and they're copying data from a
  1186. 45:05sheet into zero to create some invoice.
  1187. 45:08And then they're copying something from
  1188. 45:09Gmail into Asana and they're copying
  1189. 45:12from here and it's just all copying and
  1190. 45:13pasting stuff. And if you find yourself
  1191. 45:16copying and pasting or if you find
  1192. 45:17yourself saying things like, "Oh, that."
  1193. 45:19No, look, to do that, we go over to this
  1194. 45:22spreadsheet and we look over here to do
  1195. 45:24like, "Look for those little phrases
  1196. 45:26being used around the office or by your
  1197. 45:29workmates or by your clients." Like,
  1198. 45:31aha, right? that that's a really good
  1199. 45:32automation opportunity because if you're
  1200. 45:34going over to there to get some
  1201. 45:35information and then going over to there
  1202. 45:37to get some information and then okay
  1203. 45:39maybe you stay being the human in the
  1204. 45:42loop there synthesizing all of this
  1205. 45:44together maybe we don't try and use an
  1206. 45:47AI for that yet but hey it worth trying
  1207. 45:50but but please please it's 2025 please
  1208. 45:54don't be like going and fetching all of
  1209. 45:56this data bit by bit by hand every time
  1210. 45:59you do that task have everything brought
  1211. 46:01to you in the format that you want so
  1212. 46:04that it's always there at the ready
  1213. 46:07whenever you need it and then sure keep
  1214. 46:12making the decision yourself for now but
  1215. 46:14also in parallel be testing that you
  1216. 46:17know be testing can we use an AI to make
  1217. 46:20this decision that I make at this point
  1218. 46:21before we bounce it over to the next
  1219. 46:23step in the automation let let's run it
  1220. 46:25in parallel I'll make the decision 10
  1221. 46:27times let's get the AI to do it 10 times
  1222. 46:29and let's compare results
  1223. 46:30And when we get to the point that the AI
  1224. 46:32is kind of like 9 out of 10 good, maybe
  1225. 46:35that's something else that we can get
  1226. 46:36off our plate and we reinvest that time
  1227. 46:38into working on the next bit and on it
  1228. 46:40goes.
  1229. 46:42>> I remember so well like eight years ago
  1230. 46:44I was working as a student at a big
  1231. 46:46internet company in Germany and I felt
  1232. 46:48like okay I want to so besides all
  1233. 46:50freelance work I was already doing I
  1234. 46:53wanted to get an idea about how uh
  1235. 46:56actual business and internet business
  1236. 46:57works. I remember this colleague and I
  1237. 47:00liked him a lot, but I always felt like
  1238. 47:02when I was looking at his screen, he was
  1239. 47:04literally copying um like impressions
  1240. 47:07and click data from one Excel sheet to
  1241. 47:09the other Excel sheet which was then
  1242. 47:11connected to a PowerPoint um slide deck
  1243. 47:14which was then manually presented to a
  1244. 47:16client and like sent out. And this is
  1245. 47:19exactly like even at that point, I mean
  1246. 47:22AI for me was not a thing back then. So
  1247. 47:26eight years ago I was like hey this
  1248. 47:28can't be the case and then when I for
  1249. 47:31example stumbled upon uh Zapier and felt
  1250. 47:35like oh cool you can exactly what you
  1251. 47:37were telling just uh right now you can
  1252. 47:39connect these tools and send data over
  1253. 47:41there and there and I feel like a lot of
  1254. 47:44people just have to train this muscle
  1255. 47:46more right this um sensitivity for
  1256. 47:50>> it it's been either for me it was kind
  1257. 47:53of a boring thing I could work out how
  1258. 47:55to do it was boring. But but I think for
  1259. 47:57a lot of people up until now, it's been
  1260. 47:59very hard to do that. You've obviously
  1261. 48:01got the brain for it, right? You see it
  1262. 48:02and you go, "Oh, I can see what the
  1263. 48:04pieces of that are. I can see how they
  1264. 48:05fit together." And tools like that, like
  1265. 48:08M10, there's a bit of a lift there. And
  1266. 48:10and a lot of people don't want to spend
  1267. 48:11the 10, 20 hours to learn that up to a
  1268. 48:14decent level. It's the same with
  1269. 48:16Photoshop, right? Like you've got to tip
  1270. 48:18in the time to learn how to use the
  1271. 48:19tool. The wonderful thing is now is so
  1272. 48:23many of those tools just run on code in
  1273. 48:25the background, right? So Claude can
  1274. 48:27create or catch GBT if you want to use
  1275. 48:29it or Gemini, bless you. Um can create
  1276. 48:32that JSON file or that code that builds
  1277. 48:35all of those little boxes on the screen
  1278. 48:37that tells you how to automate the
  1279. 48:39thing. Maybe you need to go in and tweak
  1280. 48:41it a little bit. So you still need to
  1281. 48:42know how to use the tool, but it's it's
  1282. 48:44never been easier and it's going to keep
  1283. 48:46getting easier and easier. So, I think
  1284. 48:50it's about like finding the way to solve
  1285. 48:51the problem that that you enjoy. I just
  1286. 48:55love solving the problem. I like the
  1287. 48:57intellectual challenge of that. I like
  1288. 48:58seeing people's face light up and when
  1289. 49:00they get the bug and it's like, could we
  1290. 49:04really we can do that? Oh my god, that's
  1291. 49:06so cool. And that's that's why I did
  1292. 49:08build the agent because it was just like
  1293. 49:10sheets were getting a little bit in
  1294. 49:13straining, you know, like the the UI of
  1295. 49:15sheets having to do it cell by cell. I
  1296. 49:17would come up with a new version of the
  1297. 49:18pmac script and that was the e bit and
  1298. 49:21then I'd spend like three days fiddling
  1299. 49:23around in the sheet getting all the
  1300. 49:24formulas in the perfect place. That's
  1301. 49:26why I kind of moved to to doing stuff
  1302. 49:29inside of an app. And I I needed to
  1303. 49:31build the app first before I ran a
  1304. 49:33program called Build the Agent before I
  1305. 49:35tried to teach that. And it's just oh
  1306. 49:38it's it's just so much fun like having a
  1307. 49:41a slider. Have we got a minute? I can
  1308. 49:44give you example for your listeners. If
  1309. 49:46you go to 80 at 8020agent.com,
  1310. 49:48you do not have to sign up for an
  1311. 49:49account. Accounts are free, but you
  1312. 49:50don't have to sign up. I've put loads of
  1313. 49:52dummy data in there so you can play with
  1314. 49:54the tool just to experience what it's
  1315. 49:57like. So, go to ad20agent.com
  1316. 50:00and then you can use the sample data.
  1317. 50:01You go up to the top and you find the
  1318. 50:02keyword page. I think it's under analyze
  1319. 50:04account. There's a few pages on there
  1320. 50:06now and there's a keywords page and it
  1321. 50:08shows you a a tree of keywords. It's
  1322. 50:11just a for me a really intuitive way of
  1323. 50:14thinking about campaigns that branch out
  1324. 50:16into ad groups that branch out into
  1325. 50:19keywords. And as you move the slider for
  1326. 50:22cost or impressions, you move the slider
  1327. 50:24up and it shows you, oh, only keywords
  1328. 50:26that have spent more than $10 last
  1329. 50:28month. Move the slider up. Oh, let's
  1330. 50:29just show only the keywords that have
  1331. 50:30spent more than 50, more than 100, more
  1332. 50:32than 500. And so it's a really intuitive
  1333. 50:34way to say, what are the most important
  1334. 50:36keywords in my account? Now, yes, you
  1335. 50:39can go into Google Ads and you can set a
  1336. 50:41filter there, but it's just feels a bit
  1337. 50:43more cold and impersonal. I just I love
  1338. 50:45the the the UI and constantly trying
  1339. 50:48different ways of displaying data and
  1340. 50:50turning it into useful information. And
  1341. 50:53then, yeah, you can try chucking AI over
  1342. 50:55the top of that and turn useful
  1343. 50:57information into insight into actionable
  1344. 50:59insight. We're kind of right on the
  1345. 51:02border to finally answer your earlier
  1346. 51:04question about agents. We're kind of
  1347. 51:06right on the border between insights and
  1348. 51:08action. And I think when we're really in
  1349. 51:12agent mode, maybe next year is actually
  1350. 51:14the year of agents, we'll be trusting
  1351. 51:17the agents to then take those actions
  1352. 51:20and and do much more of the stuff for
  1353. 51:21us. But right now, we're at the point
  1354. 51:23where the AI can help us surface those
  1355. 51:25insights and sort of solve the blank
  1356. 51:27page problem and give us an 80% good
  1357. 51:30enough, hence the name 8020 agent. give
  1358. 51:32us an 80% good enough insight, but then
  1359. 51:36it's kind of still on us at that point
  1360. 51:37to go actually let me let me bring my
  1361. 51:40human brain to bear on that and
  1362. 51:42synthesize it with some other data and
  1363. 51:44think about that and then I'll go take
  1364. 51:46the action for now. I'm not at the point
  1365. 51:48where I'm ready to trust the agent to do
  1366. 51:52everything from where to go, but I'm
  1367. 51:55sure Yeah, I'm sure that that's going to
  1368. 51:57come.
  1369. 51:59>> I think the keyword tree example is so
  1370. 52:00cool. I also obviously tried the 8020
  1371. 52:03agent. I also so I can just recommend
  1372. 52:05everybody signing up for an account and
  1373. 52:07connecting their or one of their uh own
  1374. 52:10Google ads accounts or a client Google
  1375. 52:12ads account. I did it and I found it
  1376. 52:14really useful and I think this is
  1377. 52:16something that I just want to do a plus
  1378. 52:17one for the data visualization part
  1379. 52:20because people I think a lot of people
  1380. 52:22still feel like they have to just
  1381. 52:24tussles through these spreadsheets etc
  1382. 52:27and uncover stuff whereas
  1383. 52:30A well done data visualization can help
  1384. 52:33you see stuff that is just impossible to
  1385. 52:36see from just like campaign campaign
  1386. 52:39campaign some costs some conversions
  1387. 52:42like it's really hard especially if you
  1388. 52:44take in a dimension of time like
  1389. 52:46developments over time. So if you think
  1390. 52:48about like okay hey my campaigns went
  1391. 52:51down the last month why did it happen
  1392. 52:54probably there's something that happened
  1393. 52:56either to the keywords to the ads uh
  1394. 52:58maybe something like in a particular
  1395. 53:00week and like trying to to track those
  1396. 53:04changes down and then revert it or come
  1397. 53:06up with optimizations. I think this is
  1398. 53:08where people confuse their job. They
  1399. 53:11think their job is to hunt down this
  1400. 53:13stuff whereas the the job is to actually
  1401. 53:15uncover this and then come up with ideas
  1402. 53:18to solve it or what's your take on that?
  1403. 53:20Do you find this reasonable approach?
  1404. 53:22>> I love that. I hadn't thought of it in
  1405. 53:24those terms. I it's it's adjacent to one
  1406. 53:27of those things I was saying before
  1407. 53:28about you shouldn't have to go get the
  1408. 53:32data from there. I want the data brought
  1409. 53:34to me. I want those insights presented
  1410. 53:36to me in such a way that I'm going to
  1411. 53:39going to get it straight away and then
  1412. 53:40then we get to action and then we get to
  1413. 53:42what clients really want which is how is
  1414. 53:45the business going to change what's
  1415. 53:46going to happen to my profit when you do
  1416. 53:48all that stuff. They don't want a report
  1417. 53:49with a whole bunch of insights. They
  1418. 53:51definitely don't want a dashboard with a
  1419. 53:53whole bunch of data. What they really
  1420. 53:54want isn't just the list of actions.
  1421. 53:57What they really want is like what's
  1422. 53:59going to happen to my business? How much
  1423. 54:00more profit is this business going to
  1424. 54:02do? How many more people are we going to
  1425. 54:03be able to serve? How many more people
  1426. 54:05am I going to be able to hire when I
  1427. 54:06grow this business? That's what they
  1428. 54:08care about. And yet, you know, Avanash,
  1429. 54:10who was Google's uh digital evangelist,
  1430. 54:13I think was his title for many, many
  1431. 54:15years at Google. He's left Google now.
  1432. 54:17Wonderful guy. If you ever get a chance
  1433. 54:18to see him speak, please do. He's a
  1434. 54:20wonderful, wonderful speaker. But he
  1435. 54:22talks about the data vomit. You know,
  1436. 54:24like all these all these agencies are
  1437. 54:26just vomiting data over their clients.
  1438. 54:28Clients don't want that. What they want
  1439. 54:30is expected business outcome. what's
  1440. 54:32going to happen when we do all of these
  1441. 54:35things. But yes, it it it's very very
  1442. 54:37similar like have it brought to me,
  1443. 54:40make the the getting of the insight
  1444. 54:43way easier and way faster so that you
  1445. 54:46can as you said then go do something
  1446. 54:48about it, make the change, run the
  1447. 54:50experiment. I think most agencies would
  1448. 54:53be greatly served trying to outdo the
  1449. 54:56number of experiments that they ran last
  1450. 54:58month. that that should be the the
  1451. 55:00leaderboard of like no we run 136
  1452. 55:03experiments. That's the thing I think
  1453. 55:05that clients want to hear too. Like we
  1454. 55:06have a a system for running experiments,
  1455. 55:09a system for always trying new creative,
  1456. 55:12trying new things. Sam Tomlinson talks
  1457. 55:14about this a lot in his wonderful Sunday
  1458. 55:17newsletter. Like the the velocity that
  1459. 55:19you can test new creative at is going to
  1460. 55:22be one of the the key things that that
  1461. 55:24matters. Not do you have a really good
  1462. 55:28way of you know looking at engrams that
  1463. 55:31helps but you know it's it's about speed
  1464. 55:33really and and and we're all under
  1465. 55:36pressure to be more efficient. That's
  1466. 55:38that's what I love helping people with.
  1467. 55:41We we will get to the point where like
  1468. 55:42okay so then everybody's using the same
  1469. 55:45tools and everybody's 30% more efficient
  1470. 55:47than they were last year. Yeah true.
  1471. 55:49That becomes the new baseline and then
  1472. 55:51you just have to keep on going to the
  1473. 55:53next bit. I mean, this is this is the
  1474. 55:55bit I don't like saying, but it's true.
  1475. 55:57This is the slowest it's ever going to
  1476. 55:59be. It only gets faster from here.
  1477. 56:02Sorry. This is the slowest the world's
  1478. 56:03going to be for the rest of your life.
  1479. 56:05But it's also this is the worst AI we're
  1480. 56:07going to have. And yes, I'm completely
  1481. 56:09red build on the AI. But I I honestly
  1482. 56:11believe if it never got better from
  1483. 56:13here, we would spend the next 5 years
  1484. 56:16putting in place the AI that we have
  1485. 56:18available today because businesses tend
  1486. 56:20to move slowly. It's incredibly
  1487. 56:22powerful. It's stupid, too, and it does
  1488. 56:25weird stuff and it hallucinates. I get
  1489. 56:26all of that. It's not all singing, all
  1490. 56:28dancing, brilliant at everything.
  1491. 56:31But your job, if you're still listening
  1492. 56:32to me drone on an hour later, your job
  1493. 56:35listening to this is to figure out what
  1494. 56:37it can help with and what it's not good
  1495. 56:39for. And you do that by playing with it,
  1496. 56:41by experimenting, by testing it out. Go
  1497. 56:44spend 10, 20 hours with it. every single
  1498. 56:47thing that you do throughout the week,
  1499. 56:49every task that you do, you're like,
  1500. 56:51"Hm, how could AI help me with this? I
  1501. 56:54wonder." And if you're really unsure,
  1502. 56:56turn on voice mode and chat GPT. Go for
  1503. 56:58a walk and have a chat with it. Ask it.
  1504. 57:01Explain what you do and ask it where it
  1505. 57:04thinks there might be ways to automate,
  1506. 57:07ways that AI can help. I love chatting
  1507. 57:10to the the So, I use the chat GBT mode
  1508. 57:13on the on the phone for for a
  1509. 57:14conversation. I use Claude mostly for
  1510. 57:17for code, but I love that chatbt app.
  1511. 57:20It's um it's quite amazing to listen to.
  1512. 57:23My kids love talking to it as well. It's
  1513. 57:25quite bizarre. What do you know about
  1514. 57:26Mike's daughter Frankie?
  1515. 57:29>> I was having a chat to it.
  1516. 57:31>> I did it too. I did it too. I um had a
  1517. 57:34walk in the park and just was talking
  1518. 57:36like half an hour uh to to chat about
  1519. 57:39some I don't know random problem or or
  1520. 57:42challenge in the business. And I felt
  1521. 57:44like it's it's just it also helps
  1522. 57:46structuring your thoughts. And I think
  1523. 57:48there's just this this key insight. It
  1524. 57:51goes back to an article that a German I
  1525. 57:54don't know if it is was it philosophist
  1526. 57:57or doesn't matter but Hinri Kle is his
  1527. 58:00name and he wrote this article about the
  1528. 58:04yeah I don't know the English term but
  1529. 58:05basically the idea is um that while
  1530. 58:08talking you have to structure your
  1531. 58:10thoughts in a way if you talk to another
  1532. 58:12person you have to structure your
  1533. 58:13thoughts in a way that the other person
  1534. 58:15can understand what you're saying
  1535. 58:18>> and if you do this and it also applies
  1536. 58:20to public speakers, for example, you
  1537. 58:22have this you have this um this wild
  1538. 58:26idea about where you want to go with
  1539. 58:28your thought, but
  1540. 58:30>> like on the go, you have this energy of
  1541. 58:32just your thoughts structuring like the
  1542. 58:34unstructured thoughts in your head
  1543. 58:36structuring around this this really
  1544. 58:38cohesive message. And this this thing I
  1545. 58:40just I can't stress this enough. If you
  1546. 58:43have a complex problem in your head and
  1547. 58:45you feel like, hey, this stresses me
  1548. 58:47out. It's like so confusing. Talk to
  1549. 58:49someone. Talk to a person that at least
  1550. 58:52like generally gets the context. What is
  1551. 58:54this? Okay, you have to tell me what
  1552. 58:56this is in a second. But or talk to AI
  1553. 58:58because it also helps.
  1554. 59:00>> There is a concept in computer science
  1555. 59:03called rubber ducking. The idea being
  1556. 59:04that you have this object on your desk
  1557. 59:07and many people have an actual rubber
  1558. 59:09duck on my desk. I really should have a
  1559. 59:10rubber duck sitting here for this
  1560. 59:11example, but I have this little 3D
  1561. 59:12printed metal thing. I've had it for
  1562. 59:14years and years. It's one of those kind
  1563. 59:16of shapes that you can't make, but it's
  1564. 59:18been 3D printed. And I just have it here
  1565. 59:20and I sort of sit with it. It's not that
  1566. 59:21I talk to this, but yeah, you're dead
  1567. 59:24right talking out loud helps. So, the
  1568. 59:26idea with the rubber duck is you explain
  1569. 59:28your problem to the rubber duck. And the
  1570. 59:30act of talking out loud and explaining
  1571. 59:32it solves like 50 80% solves most of the
  1572. 59:35problem. AI is a rubber duck that talks
  1573. 59:38back
  1574. 59:40and it can ask you questions and yes it
  1575. 59:42can be a bit sicopantic sometimes and it
  1576. 59:44can blow smoke up your ass as we would
  1577. 59:45say in Australia but you can also prompt
  1578. 59:47it and say I want you to play devil's
  1579. 59:49advocate. I want you to push back on me.
  1580. 59:51I want you to think critically about
  1581. 59:52this. Don't just say no to everything
  1582. 59:54but think critically about this and and
  1583. 59:56maybe poke me a little bit where where
  1584. 59:59my argument is weak or yeah you can use
  1585. 1:00:01it to roleplay. If you're going for a
  1586. 1:00:03job interview, you can use it. If you're
  1587. 1:00:05interviewing someone, you can say like,
  1588. 1:00:07"What are they likely to say? And what
  1589. 1:00:09are my questions? What what are a bunch
  1590. 1:00:11of good questions for this particular
  1591. 1:00:13candidate?" Not like, "Give me five
  1592. 1:00:15questions that I'll ask everybody.
  1593. 1:00:17Here's their CV. Here's their work
  1594. 1:00:19history. Here's everything, you know,
  1595. 1:00:20about our business and the role and the
  1596. 1:00:22and the PD and the job description and
  1597. 1:00:26what should I be asking this specific
  1598. 1:00:28person?" It's wonderful for stuff like
  1599. 1:00:31that. It's it's so personalized and
  1600. 1:00:33tailored and yeah, having a chat to it
  1601. 1:00:35to get clear around your thoughts. I
  1602. 1:00:37think it's one of the most underrated
  1603. 1:00:39uses of AI. I'm just in the process. I'm
  1604. 1:00:42trying to build this new app just this
  1605. 1:00:45week. Just been playing with it a bit.
  1606. 1:00:46So, I've no idea when this comes out and
  1607. 1:00:48if it'll be ready on time. Um, but I'm
  1608. 1:00:50going to keep going with it even though
  1609. 1:00:52it's doing my head in as a way to show
  1610. 1:00:54people the power of just adding that
  1611. 1:00:58little bit more context of telling the
  1612. 1:01:00AI a little bit more about yourself,
  1613. 1:01:02about your business or about the
  1614. 1:01:03products that you sell or the services
  1615. 1:01:05that you offer and just how much better
  1616. 1:01:08the response can be if you take the time
  1617. 1:01:11up front, that upfront investment to
  1618. 1:01:15educate the AI. It's it's the old um
  1619. 1:01:17what's the saying? I don't know remember
  1620. 1:01:18who it was, Abe Lincoln or Benjamin
  1621. 1:01:21Franklin or somebody. You know, if I had
  1622. 1:01:236 hours to chop down the tree, I spend
  1623. 1:01:25the first four hours sharpening my axe.
  1624. 1:01:27It's that upfront investment. And I get
  1625. 1:01:29that nobody has the time to do that, but
  1626. 1:01:31oh my god, if you do, the payoff is is
  1627. 1:01:35massive.
  1628. 1:01:36>> Yeah. We also use this concept uh at our
  1629. 1:01:39business that and also for our clients
  1630. 1:01:40that we call a super prompt and it's
  1631. 1:01:42exactly uh what you were just
  1632. 1:01:44emphasizing. So we have this document
  1633. 1:01:46where we just say hey this is the
  1634. 1:01:48business this is the target group these
  1635. 1:01:50are key demographics these are the
  1636. 1:01:52products these are the services these
  1637. 1:01:54are the the core objections that people
  1638. 1:01:56have about the service this is how this
  1639. 1:01:58differentiates and this is like it it
  1640. 1:02:00depending on the client it ranges from
  1641. 1:02:031,500 words to something like three 3k
  1642. 1:02:07words so there might also be like text
  1643. 1:02:09examples in there
  1644. 1:02:11>> yes
  1645. 1:02:11>> and the quality of the output that you
  1646. 1:02:13get out especially like
  1647. 1:02:16>> around strategic thinking it's already
  1648. 1:02:18great but especially if you write like
  1649. 1:02:20content for example if you work with
  1650. 1:02:21landing pages and all that stuff like
  1651. 1:02:23it's just it's a night and day
  1652. 1:02:25difference. Yeah, it's you mentioned
  1653. 1:02:28strategy, right? AI has basically read
  1654. 1:02:31the entire internet. So, it's seen every
  1655. 1:02:33slide deck that McKenzie and Bane and
  1656. 1:02:35BCG and every consulting firm has ever
  1657. 1:02:37put out online. It's read all of that.
  1658. 1:02:39As you say, it is a genius management
  1659. 1:02:42consultant. But if you don't tell it
  1660. 1:02:45about you, about your business, about
  1661. 1:02:47the stuff that you do, you're just going
  1662. 1:02:48to get bland average answers because
  1663. 1:02:51it's just predicting the next token.
  1664. 1:02:53That's all it is. It's just a big bag of
  1665. 1:02:54words and it's just pulling words out
  1666. 1:02:56the scrabble bag and it's just
  1667. 1:02:58predicting the next word. But the more
  1668. 1:03:00context you give it, the more
  1669. 1:03:02information about all of that stuff
  1670. 1:03:04around you, then that helps sort of
  1671. 1:03:06ground it. It helps move it away from
  1672. 1:03:08that that that average has this really
  1673. 1:03:10strong gravitational pull that that
  1674. 1:03:12average. And if you can push it away
  1675. 1:03:14from that center and push it out to the
  1676. 1:03:17edges by explaining all of that
  1677. 1:03:20information that you're talking about
  1678. 1:03:21and drag it away from the boring average
  1679. 1:03:23center, that's where the gold is. That's
  1680. 1:03:25where the really interesting answers
  1681. 1:03:27are, where it can be the best management
  1682. 1:03:30consultant in the world, but on your
  1683. 1:03:31specific business, on that particular
  1684. 1:03:33problem at that moment in time for that
  1685. 1:03:35person, it's incredible. But again, it's
  1686. 1:03:38it's an upfront investment. It's a bit
  1687. 1:03:40of a heavy lift. So I'm building this
  1688. 1:03:41tool to sort of say like here's some
  1689. 1:03:42dummy data again. Play with it. See
  1690. 1:03:46what's possible with and without this
  1691. 1:03:47context. This is the answer you get
  1692. 1:03:49without. This is the answer you get
  1693. 1:03:50with. Try it with different models. See
  1694. 1:03:52which one works best for you. Now bit by
  1695. 1:03:55bit. Add your information to that
  1696. 1:03:58because nobody wants to sit down and
  1697. 1:03:59write a 30,000 word document in one go.
  1698. 1:04:03But you can add that bit by bit. Oh,
  1699. 1:04:05okay. Now I can see the benefit of doing
  1700. 1:04:07that. I'm willing to do the next little
  1701. 1:04:09bit. And yeah, I use a tool Whisper
  1702. 1:04:12Flow. That's part of my tech stack that
  1703. 1:04:13you were asking about before. I I love
  1704. 1:04:15Whisper Flow. Roads.ai if you want my
  1705. 1:04:17affiliate link. Um, it's a wonderful
  1706. 1:04:20tool to just you hold a button down and
  1707. 1:04:22you just talk and you can get so much
  1708. 1:04:25more nuance out that way. Yeah, it's
  1709. 1:04:27four times faster than typing, even if
  1710. 1:04:30you're a good typer. And I'm pretty
  1711. 1:04:31fast, but I can just ramble a bit. As
  1712. 1:04:34you've noticed today, I tend to go on
  1713. 1:04:36tangents and I tend to ramble a bit. But
  1714. 1:04:38just just doing that for three, four,
  1715. 1:04:40five minutes gives the AI so much more
  1716. 1:04:43to play with than just I'm got this
  1717. 1:04:46problem and I'm typing it out and I'm
  1718. 1:04:48going to stop as soon as I can because
  1719. 1:04:49I'm typing and I'm not very good at
  1720. 1:04:51typing and go. But if you just ramble
  1721. 1:04:53for 3 minutes and just talk to your
  1722. 1:04:55computer, gives it so much more to play
  1723. 1:04:57with and the answer will be so much
  1724. 1:04:59better. I'm so glad we got to that bit
  1725. 1:05:02that you reminded me about that because
  1726. 1:05:03it's just it it is night and day. I
  1727. 1:05:05totally agree. And people need to
  1728. 1:05:07experience that. They need to see that
  1729. 1:05:09and go, "Oh my god, really? I I did not
  1730. 1:05:12know. I thought it just wrote Dr. Zeus
  1731. 1:05:13poems. I didn't know it could do that.
  1732. 1:05:15Holy Okay, I'm in. What else can
  1733. 1:05:17it do?" And that's the best question you
  1734. 1:05:19want to get to. Like, what else can it
  1735. 1:05:21do? Not where do I start? Just start by
  1736. 1:05:24playing.
  1737. 1:05:25>> Yeah. Couldn't agree more with that. So
  1738. 1:05:27now to be uh respectful of your time and
  1739. 1:05:30wrapping um our obviously very
  1740. 1:05:33insightful, very great conversation up a
  1741. 1:05:35little bit, you already mentioned speed
  1742. 1:05:37and velocity uh velocity and uh a big
  1743. 1:05:41struggle I hear from either friends or
  1744. 1:05:44colleagues and also other business
  1745. 1:05:46owners is the the speed of change in the
  1746. 1:05:50AI world. So there's all the time a new
  1747. 1:05:52model coming, a new feature release.
  1748. 1:05:54Then there are people obviously on
  1749. 1:05:56LinkedIn and you have so you have the uh
  1750. 1:06:00the confidence to say yeah yeah this is
  1751. 1:06:02an end and a workflow and it yeah it's
  1752. 1:06:04rubbish I go past that but I feel a lot
  1753. 1:06:06of people have uh fear of missing out
  1754. 1:06:09they feel like maybe I should get that.
  1755. 1:06:12So how do you handle this or what's like
  1756. 1:06:14your mindset around all this news and
  1757. 1:06:18information that's just coming at you?
  1758. 1:06:22It's a really good question.
  1759. 1:06:26Answer it this way. Um,
  1760. 1:06:29so I love books. I've got a thousand
  1761. 1:06:31books over there. I've read 80% of them.
  1762. 1:06:35Um, we tend to read stuff or even watch
  1763. 1:06:38a YouTube video just in case. Yeah, it's
  1764. 1:06:42just in case learning. We'll read this
  1765. 1:06:44book because it's come out. We've heard
  1766. 1:06:45good things about it. it just in case
  1767. 1:06:47maybe one day, 6 months from now, two
  1768. 1:06:49years from now, I've got a problem where
  1769. 1:06:51I can use some of that information and
  1770. 1:06:53apply it and yay, feel better about that
  1771. 1:06:55problem.
  1772. 1:06:56And I think we're moving to that world
  1773. 1:06:58of more just in time knowledge. So
  1774. 1:07:02that's certainly what I do with YouTube
  1775. 1:07:04now. I'm not just watching video other
  1776. 1:07:06than all the sports highlights and stuff
  1777. 1:07:08that I watch there. It's mostly like
  1778. 1:07:09I've got this particular problem right
  1779. 1:07:11now. I'm trying to figure out this new
  1780. 1:07:13thing and I can watch something that
  1781. 1:07:15solves that problem right now. And so my
  1782. 1:07:18use of books has changed dramatically
  1783. 1:07:20over the past two years. And so to turn
  1784. 1:07:23that around to answer the really good
  1785. 1:07:25question, I would say like focus on the
  1786. 1:07:28problems. Don't don't get caught in the
  1787. 1:07:31headlights and looking at all of the
  1788. 1:07:32shiny objects and thinking that you need
  1789. 1:07:34every single one and you need to type
  1790. 1:07:36checklist into LinkedIn 15 times a day
  1791. 1:07:38to get all of those things sent to you.
  1792. 1:07:40Maybe
  1793. 1:07:42instead just go like what is the problem
  1794. 1:07:45I need to solve in the business right
  1795. 1:07:47now? I I picture businesses like a pipe
  1796. 1:07:50and there's always a thin point in the
  1797. 1:07:52pipe somewhere, right? It might be over
  1798. 1:07:53here and it's fat pipe over here and it
  1799. 1:07:56goes thin again. It's fat over here.
  1800. 1:07:57There is no point making a fat part of
  1801. 1:08:00the pipe even fatter. There's no point
  1802. 1:08:02taking this part of the business and
  1803. 1:08:03making this part better if there's a
  1804. 1:08:05really thin part of the point. It's the
  1805. 1:08:07theory of constraints. It's the
  1806. 1:08:09bottleneck in the business. You have to
  1807. 1:08:11identify the bottleneck in the business
  1808. 1:08:13and work on that. There is no point
  1809. 1:08:15working on other parts of the business.
  1810. 1:08:17You could have three times the leads
  1811. 1:08:19coming in, but if you have one person
  1812. 1:08:21calling people back, it ain't going to
  1813. 1:08:23matter. You need to work on the
  1814. 1:08:25bottleneck first. So then, okay, what
  1815. 1:08:28specifically can I do right now to work
  1816. 1:08:31on the bottleneck? And yeah, okay. I
  1817. 1:08:33suppose I'm at the point now where I am
  1818. 1:08:36consuming a lot of AI stuff because I'm
  1819. 1:08:38fascinated by it and I want to stay on
  1820. 1:08:41the cutting edge and I have a community
  1821. 1:08:42of people now to serve and I feel that's
  1822. 1:08:44sort of part of my job is to and I've
  1823. 1:08:47always loved this. I've always loved
  1824. 1:08:49running four or five hills out into the
  1825. 1:08:51future and then coming back and not just
  1826. 1:08:53reporting on it. never been really
  1827. 1:08:55interested in that. But like showing
  1828. 1:08:57what's possible and building stuff to
  1829. 1:08:59say like this and making it really
  1830. 1:09:01useful and really practical and then
  1831. 1:09:03running off again into the future. I
  1832. 1:09:04kind of live my life six months in the
  1833. 1:09:06future, four or five hills that way and
  1834. 1:09:08then every now and again pop back into
  1835. 1:09:10the real world and go like look at what
  1836. 1:09:12it can do. It's amazing. I I just love
  1837. 1:09:14that. So I like consuming a lot of
  1838. 1:09:16stuff. But I get it. You're wearing 12
  1839. 1:09:17hats. You're running around like a
  1840. 1:09:20chicken with its head cut off and just
  1841. 1:09:22like you're super super busy running a
  1842. 1:09:24business. Where the hell do you start?
  1843. 1:09:26Pick the bottleneck and exactly what you
  1844. 1:09:29were saying before. Talk it through.
  1845. 1:09:32Have a chat. It may feel ridiculous the
  1846. 1:09:34first time you do this because why am I
  1847. 1:09:36talking to a computerized voice that's
  1848. 1:09:38just a big bag of words apparently? It
  1849. 1:09:40doesn't actually think. It doesn't
  1850. 1:09:42really know. And yet it's actually
  1851. 1:09:45really really good at that. So talk the
  1852. 1:09:47problem through and like give me four
  1853. 1:09:49ways. I have this thing of 141. Here's
  1854. 1:09:52my one problem. Give me four possible
  1855. 1:09:55ways. Make them as different as
  1856. 1:09:57possible, as diverse as possible. Give
  1857. 1:09:58me four different ways that we might be
  1858. 1:10:01able to solve this problem. You're not
  1859. 1:10:02saying like, tell me how to do it, and
  1860. 1:10:04I'll follow what the AI says. Saying,
  1861. 1:10:06give me four different ways that I might
  1862. 1:10:07be able to explore to maybe try and
  1863. 1:10:10solve this problem. And then give me
  1864. 1:10:11your one recommendation. So one, four,
  1865. 1:10:13one. and just pick a couple of
  1866. 1:10:16bottlenecks and try that and then go,
  1867. 1:10:18"Okay, Let's do it. Let's try and
  1868. 1:10:21solve this problem. Let's ask AI for
  1869. 1:10:23help. There's probably some automation
  1870. 1:10:25in there to free up some time." And
  1871. 1:10:27also, if you're listening to this, it's
  1872. 1:10:28not just you. Like, lean on your team. I
  1873. 1:10:31think I think it's absolutely an all
  1874. 1:10:33hands- on deck moment for most
  1875. 1:10:35businesses. It's it's it's got to come
  1876. 1:10:37from the top. It's got to be like this
  1877. 1:10:40is important and yes, we are going to
  1878. 1:10:41fund this. We are going to give you the
  1879. 1:10:44resources to do this. Again, back to 5%
  1880. 1:10:46or 100%, you need to invest in teams
  1881. 1:10:49right now, but also those people on the
  1882. 1:10:52front lines, the people dealing with
  1883. 1:10:53customers all day. Those are the people
  1884. 1:10:55that are going to have the best ideas of
  1885. 1:10:57how to implement these, they're all
  1886. 1:10:59using these tools anyway, boss, sorry to
  1887. 1:11:01tell you. They're just not telling you
  1888. 1:11:02about it because they're worried that
  1889. 1:11:03you're going to tell them off or you're
  1890. 1:11:05going to fire them or they're going to
  1891. 1:11:07end up creating the system that replaces
  1892. 1:11:10them. They're worried about that.
  1893. 1:11:11They're worried that they're breaking
  1894. 1:11:12some AI policy and maybe they shouldn't
  1895. 1:11:14have pasted all of that client data in
  1896. 1:11:16and it's against some policy that your
  1897. 1:11:18lawyer wrote for you and so they're
  1898. 1:11:20worried but they are using it in their
  1899. 1:11:22jobs already. They're just not telling
  1900. 1:11:24you about it. I think you got to get the
  1901. 1:11:26whole business together and say right we
  1902. 1:11:28are taking this seriously. We are
  1903. 1:11:30investing in to start with just basic AI
  1904. 1:11:33literacy. We just all need to just be on
  1905. 1:11:35the same page and then let's invest in
  1906. 1:11:37right who's going to be that sort of
  1907. 1:11:38like the advanced team who's going to
  1908. 1:11:41run one or two hills into the future
  1909. 1:11:43with me as a business. But it has to
  1910. 1:11:46come from the top. There has to be a
  1911. 1:11:47vision of where we're running to. We're
  1912. 1:11:49not just brushing off in different
  1913. 1:11:51directions over different hills. It's
  1914. 1:11:52like here's the mountain we're going to
  1915. 1:11:54climb. This is what the business is
  1916. 1:11:55going to be like two or three years from
  1917. 1:11:58now if we all go do this now. Now, I
  1918. 1:12:00need a few like scouts to come with me
  1919. 1:12:04one or two hills into the future. Like,
  1920. 1:12:06who's going to come with me from base
  1921. 1:12:07camp up to camp one and help build the
  1922. 1:12:10trail for everybody else that's going to
  1923. 1:12:12follow along behind? Like, this is the
  1924. 1:12:14view from the mountaintop, but now let's
  1925. 1:12:17focus on just getting from here to here.
  1926. 1:12:18Let's just get to camp one and then
  1927. 1:12:21let's go build that path and then bring
  1928. 1:12:22everybody else up to camp one. Okay,
  1929. 1:12:24this is the new version of the business.
  1930. 1:12:26Okay, take a moment. Let's have a big
  1931. 1:12:28party. Right, scouts, you come with me
  1932. 1:12:31now. We're going to build the path up to
  1933. 1:12:32camp 2 and we're going to keep on and it
  1934. 1:12:35just keeps on going and going and going.
  1935. 1:12:37But yeah, I I get it. Most particularly
  1936. 1:12:40small business owners who are doing 12
  1937. 1:12:42different jobs, it is utterly
  1938. 1:12:45overwhelming. They don't have a spare
  1939. 1:12:47minute, plus they're trying to be super
  1940. 1:12:48parents, plus they're trying to be
  1941. 1:12:49friends, plus they're trying to do
  1942. 1:12:50everything else. It is really hard. So,
  1943. 1:12:53just don't get distracted by the f the
  1944. 1:12:55uh the shiny object. Focus. And focus
  1945. 1:12:58stands for follow one course until
  1946. 1:13:00successful. That's what focus stands
  1947. 1:13:01for. Follow one course until successful.
  1948. 1:13:04Fi figure out that thing, that
  1949. 1:13:06bottleneck, fix that bit. Get that part
  1950. 1:13:08of the pipe wider and then find the next
  1951. 1:13:11bottleneck and don't get distracted and
  1952. 1:13:14just keep on going. The game is just
  1953. 1:13:16staying in the ring. You will get
  1954. 1:13:18knocked down. The whole game is getting
  1955. 1:13:19back up again and staying in the bloody
  1956. 1:13:21ring. My mentor told me that once. He
  1957. 1:13:23said, "There are many, many days where
  1958. 1:13:24you just want to quit and walk outside
  1959. 1:13:25the ring and just go, I'm done." No, you
  1960. 1:13:28get back up and you stay in the bloody
  1961. 1:13:30ring.
  1962. 1:13:32>> Mike, I can't tell you this has been
  1963. 1:13:34such an enlightening and insightful
  1964. 1:13:36session. So actually I want so everybody
  1965. 1:13:38that has listened until now I can
  1966. 1:13:40actually recommend you just listen the
  1967. 1:13:42whole thing again because there has been
  1968. 1:13:45so much to unpack. So actually the this
  1969. 1:13:49metaphor or this um image of going like
  1970. 1:13:52two three hills into the future I will
  1971. 1:13:56like
  1972. 1:13:57If you ask my team, you will hear this a
  1973. 1:13:59lot. Now,
  1974. 1:14:00>> I've got a whole document I've written
  1975. 1:14:02around that. Happy to send it to you.
  1976. 1:14:03Link in the show notes. Whatever you
  1977. 1:14:04want to do.
  1978. 1:14:05>> Yes,
  1979. 1:14:06>> that's that's how I picture it. I'll
  1980. 1:14:07send it to you.
  1981. 1:14:08>> Let's do it. So, Mike, thanks so much
  1982. 1:14:11for um this insightful session. It has
  1983. 1:14:15been a blast. Um, everybody that wants
  1984. 1:14:18to follow you, um, see more of the stuff
  1985. 1:14:22you're doing, uh, try some of the tools
  1986. 1:14:24that you're doing, what's best to follow
  1987. 1:14:26you, where to find your stuff. Um,
  1988. 1:14:30I'll make it easy for you. Nine
  1989. 1:14:31characters 8020 agent. So 8020agent.com.
  1990. 1:14:37Um, all the courses are there. The link
  1991. 1:14:39to the ads to AI community is there.
  1992. 1:14:41That's the best place to find me. I
  1993. 1:14:43don't really do social media. I'm on
  1994. 1:14:44LinkedIn a bit, but I don't do anything
  1995. 1:14:46else. But yeah, adagent.com.
  1996. 1:14:49Everything's there.
  1997. 1:14:51>> Awesome, Mike. Thanks so much. And uh
  1998. 1:14:54yeah, everybody else, go explore. Try to
  1999. 1:14:57use some of the concepts and some of the
  2000. 1:14:59ideas and some of the thoughts Rogers
  2001. 1:15:02that Mike has given us today and just go
  2002. 1:15:04try it out uh today or tomorrow.
  2003. 1:15:08>> Thanks very much, man. Appreciate.
  2004. 1:15:09Thanks for having me. Been great fun.
  2005. 1:15:11>> Thanks so much.

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