Speaker 1If you work in communications, marketing, PR, change, chances are someone in your organization has now said, I'll just get AI to do that. And it's a fair thing to try and it raises a big question for those of us who do this work for a living. Where does human skills still matter? And that's what this episode is all about and I cannot think of a better person to explore it with than Kate Toon. Kate is an award-winning business mentor and digital marketing coach. She's a down-to-earth human on a mission to demystify the realities of running a successful online business. Her Stay Tuned group of companies include the Digital Marketing Collective, the Recipe for SEO Success, the Clever Copywriting School, and the Umino Beach Book Nook. Now, Kate's helped more than 20,000 other businesses demystify digital marketing. Grab all the Google beast and find their own version of success. Kate is a renowned speaker, podcaster, and author. And multi-award winner. On top of this, Kate hosts three podcasts, speaks at events around the world, and is willing to roller skate. In our conversation today, Kate shares what she thinks will keep skilled professionals in work in an AI world. She also shares her practical tips for getting started with AI and why she thinks selling is really about explaining, not pushing. We also talk about her latest book, Six Figures in Sales, and why she would never let AI write her books. So let's get into it. Kate Tuned: Without further ado, here's Kate. Kate Tuned: Kate Tuned, welcome to Less Chat and More Matter.
Speaker 2Kate Tuned: I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1Kate Tuned: Oh, I am very excited to have you on the show. I am a long time follower. But before we get stuck into our conversation today, for our listeners who may not know much about you, can you tell us a little bit about who you are? What do you do? How did you come to develop your expertise in this space?
Speaker 2Kate Tuned: So who am I? It's an existential crisis question. These days, I am a business mentor. So I help people with marketing and Google and all that kind of stuff. And then a speaker, and I've written several books. But then the other side of me is that I own a bookshop in my local town, which has kind of consumed my entire life. It started off as a little hobby, but now it's my whole life. And I've really been in the advertising industry since I left university, really, working at big agencies, and then moving into working on my own. For the last 15 or so years, and then now doing all manner of different things. Kate Tuned: I love it.
Speaker 1And I love that you own a bookshop, especially in an age of AI, which we'll talk about. We are seeing a lot more AI-written books popping up on Amazon. I've been seeing some research around that, which makes me very sad, especially somebody who also just lost the physicality of holding a book too. What are you finding, just off topic a little bit, but in terms of customers coming to a bookstore, are you still finding there's more people talking about this experience, I guess, of having that bookstore then? Kate Tuned: Yeah.
Speaker 2Since I bought the bookshop a couple of years ago, we have doubled the revenue, which is substantial. And I think really people are craving reality, they're craving community, people are very lonely, disenfranchised. And there is something about going into a bookshop, it's quite magical. Kate Tuned: The smell of it, the physicality of holding it. Kate Tuned: The smell of it, the physicality of holding a book that people crave. I think older people enjoy it, young parents wanting to introduce their kids to the world of reading. So we're doing okay. In a world of not just AI, but Amazon, the fact that we survive, I think is a lot about the space that we've created and the vibe. People clearly know they can get the book for half the price on Amazon, but yet they come and buy it from us. So something going on there.
Speaker 1Kate Tuned: There is, yes. And I have become one of those people. Actually, I'd rather go to a bookstore than buy from Amazon lately. Anyway, you talked about the fact that you've been in marketing, advertising comms since the early days. What are some of the biggest changes that you've noticed in this sector in the last few years in particular?
Speaker 2Kate Tuned: Well, gosh, I was talking today about how I started pre-internet. So I remember the days where there was no email and we used to print out a memo and put it in an envelope and pass it around the office and you signed the envelope when you'd read it. Kate Tuned: Crazy, right? It's crazy. Kate Tuned: I'm a man. Kate Tuned: So I'm ancient. So we're both ancient. Kate Tuned: Yes. Kate Tuned: Look, I think in the last couple of years, obviously the biggest flick has been the advent of generative AI. We've had AI around for ages, if you've used the Hemingway app or any kind of app. There's some element of artificial intelligence and Google has been using AI to plow through all its search results for years. But this generative AI, I think, is the. Kate Tuned:. biggest shift. And I think it's had massive impact on the marketing industry, on copywriters, on graphic designers, developers, and on businesses themselves. It's both a blessing and a curse. Kate Tuned: Yes. And I've certainly seen that
Speaker 1myself in some of the work I do with my clients, but also just the work I do. It's a real blessing in terms of productivity and just getting shit done. There's all that sort of side of things. But the actual creativity side of things, certainly the research I've done, is people love using AI, but they hate receiving stuff that's been created by AI. And it's so obvious so many times, isn't it?
Speaker 2Kate Tuned: Yeah. I think for me, AI is a very useful tool. I'm not the best speller in the world, so I've been using AI proofreading tools for years. It helps me often structure things. Obviously it's there for the blank page, but I tend to not use it too much for the blank page because I do like to keep that muscle moving. In terms of design, I think seeing just a plethora of horrendous posters made with ChatGTP. But yet, if you use Canva, there's an AI function in there, which is far superior and you can edit it afterwards. You don't have to just prompt and prompt and prompt until you get what you want. You can just suddenly go, "Look, it's easier for me to just fiddle with this graphic myself." And I think, you know, really good, people who are really good at using AI, you can't detect it. You can't. And, you know, we mentioned before we started talking, or in the podcast, can't remember, about AI books and AI books coming down the pipeline and them being pumped out on Amazon. But there already were terrible books on Amazon that were just being pumped out by, you know, this is it. Now we can use ChatGTP to write our blog posts. Kate Tuned: Before that, we were using freelancers in Pakistan and paying them $6. So there's always been Kate Tuned: bad content and good content. It's just how it's been created has changed a little.
Speaker 1Kate Tuned: So let's delve into that a little bit more because this is the million dollar question for marketing and commerce professionals. How is AI changing our jobs and what do you think the future might look like? Kate Tuned:
Speaker 2Well, look, I, two years ago, had a big community of copywriters. I had over 250 copywriters in the community. And I kind of saw the writing on the wall with ChatGTP and I closed that community down. And before that came along. Kate Tuned: And I would say that probably 95% of the people who are in that community are no longer copywriters. Just gone in-house or gone to do other jobs or working in marketing strategy or other things. But there are still copywriting jobs. I've had two briefs this week sent to me. I'm kind of dipping back into copywriting because even though the tool exists and even though it's relatively easy to use, people don't want to use it. I mean, they could be the most amazing vacuum cleaner in the world that does it in half the time. I still don't want to vacuum. I'd rather hire someone to do it. I don't anymore. I do it myself. But vacuuming was a bad example because I love vacuuming. Kate Tuned: It's very cathartic. Kate Tuned: It's so cathartic. Just because something exists, just because it's good, doesn't mean people A, know about it, B, know how to get the best out of it, or C, can be bothered. I know I'm writing a presentation for a big brand, Invisalign. I'm doing a speaking gig for them. And I know I could build that in Canva myself. I could probably do it in like four hours. It's a big presentation. It'd take me a while, but I don't want to. So I've sent the brief to a graphic designer. Now she may use Canva. I don't care. She may use whatever she wants. I don't care. I just want my presentation, but I don't want to do it. So I think that I don't want to do it factor will save us. And also you can, just because Canva exists, doesn't mean you have a design aesthetic. Doesn't mean you understand what goes with what, what font works with another font. Or how the leading or kerning should be. So again, you know, just because the tool exists, doesn't mean we know how to use it.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's very true. I do see a lot of people worried because they are seeing, I guess, in the bigger workplaces too, like there's big corporates. You've got more and more people who aren't comms or marketing people who go, you know what? I'll just get Copilot to write that email. I'll just get Copilot to do my comms plan for me. All well and good until the rubber hits the road. And, uh, by then it might be too late. So when we're working with clients who sort of say to us, and again, from the copywriting perspective, you know, well, that's, I'll just get AI to do that now. What would you be saying to them?
Speaker 2I think I would say, good, have a go, you know, it's there. Why don't I have a go? See what you come up with. Give it a try. You know, I wouldn't just be like, don't do it. AI copy is terrible because this isn't, it's pretty good, you know? Um, so I would never poo poo it and you don't want to be a Luddite, you know, like smashing machines in the factory because it's happening anyway. So we have to get on board. So I'd say, i can have a look over it afterwards but i'd also say editing something that's already been created is a lot harder than just creating it correctly in the first place so you may find it's more expensive for you to generate something and get me to fix it that it would have been to just get me to do it in the first place um but i think you know a lot of people have dabbled they played and now they're coming back to traditional marketers because they realize it's it is harder than they think and the copy does sound a bit weird and they can't put their finger on what's not working in it whereas you as a marketer go well i can see straight away why it's not working so again it's that you know there's an element of being a craft person and being able to see the problems that maybe people who are lay people can't see so yeah i always would say have a go i'd encourage it ai is with us whether we like it or not we've got to jump on board and you know you know i'm a student of history we have a lot of people who are like me who are like me who are like me who are the industrial we had the agricultural revolution people weren't happy about that the industrial revolution and you know everyone was like everyone's gonna lose their jobs and for a while there was a work you know a lot of hand weaving people lost their jobs but you know what they found other jobs they got other jobs jobs ai will generate jobs as well it will create new opportunities um yeah i don't think it's all doom and gloom i
Speaker 1agree i and i think too what this can do for us is shift our value proposition beyond the doing and the you know the basic grunt work the grunt work yeah and to when i think about the skills and mindsets that we need as marketing and communications professionals the real skill is in that discernment and judgment like ai can spit out this stuff but you know it's a gut feel of i've seen this before and i can see how this went wrong um i know the audience and i know this is not going to fly with them it's that really innate skill that comes from just being a human being
Speaker 2yeah i get i absolutely agree so it's the discernment it's the experience it's the expertise um but for me as well it's also the relationship and i think this brings it back to the bookshop you know why do people come into the bookshop it's the experience of being with another human um and honestly if if lay people were so good at communicating that they could get such a great content out of charge gp they wouldn't need us but the truth is they aren't great at communicating you talk to some clients and say well how will you describe your brand and they go professional that's all they've got you know what's the most important thing to your customers i don't know you know what do you want in your business more money you know they don't have the answers if they had the answers and the thing is with charge gp you have to have the answer to the question before you can ask the question you know you have to be able to write the most articulate prompt that gets exactly and express yourself so purely otherwise you get crap and if people could do that in the first place they wouldn't need us anyways so yeah that's what i'm finding you know you put rubbish into charge v you get rubbish out and a lot of i find you know many of the clients i've which over the uh with overviews really struggle to fill out the copywriting brief the brief to me yes and they're like well if i knew how to fill out this brief i wouldn't need you and i'm like exactly and really all that all you're doing with charge gp is filling out a copywriting brief into charge gtp so yeah yeah it's a really good point
Speaker 1actually um so for those people who are getting started with incorporating ai into their market work in particular because there are some people who are leaps and bounds ahead you know they've built agents they're doing all the things but there are others who understandably are still sort of dabbling what are your top three to five tips for just getting started i think don't be
Speaker 2afraid of it um for me i like to use a tool called magi or magi which is an all-in-one ai so it's got charge gp cord all of them in one for one low price so you can try all the different ones out i think pick the right tool so chat gcp is really good for generating content but it's rubbish for providing sources it provides no source material so you don't know where it's getting the information from perplexity is a lot better for providing sources it'll provide 10 to 15 sources so if you're writing an article and you want to say this statistic came from here i'd be using that one claude is really great for code writing and and for testing checking other ai's work as well so that's the right tool don't be afraid um and just talk to it ironically like a human so instead of sort of saying write a brief about this blah blah blah say hey look chat gp i'm having a bad day and i can't really think of how to write this sentence i've kind of got this idea and i've also had this thought and i really like this website put the url in and then i found this cool little image put the image in and can you work with this and spit something out and then we can you know and then back and forth it a little bit you know have a little bit of a chat but my other tip is for me it's three to four prompts then out because if it doesn't get what you want in the first three to four prompt it kind of starts to backtrack and regurgitate and second guess itself and go oh you're right i got that wrong oh you're right i got that wrong and then it goes back and forth and it starts to get confused so you know two or three well-written prompts and then get out of your own love that
Speaker 1and uh i certainly noticed that with claude when i said well where'd you get this source from or this statistic from and i'll say i got it from here okay well where's the original source it's like oh you're right there is none yeah should i take that out yes and then yeah it has gotten a bit back and forth but it's i've trained it a little bit better now so that it does actually now go here's the original source here's this yeah but um i certainly yeah could always double check everything that it spits out yeah
Speaker 2i mean it's a people please uh people describe it it's like a really eager intern and so you know like if i wrote we're just doing a session with my my marketing membership and we're like you know what is k2 and a good person that we put into it uh and it kind of came back with a few answers but it knew it was me and and it said but if this is you okay then you know i've got a different response and it and i said yeah yeah it's me you've got me and it went ah got you um you know and it did a quite a funny response about how i should stop googling myself but then someone else did it and it did a much better job of kind of going to review sites and collating positive reviews and saying what my core strengths were but also what my weaknesses were you know so it knows who's asking it knows everything you've ever asked before it's got memory you know some some of them are better than others so that's both wonderful and also terrifying you know so it's getting better and better you know well
Speaker 1that leads nicely to my next question which is well what excites you about ai but also what worries you
Speaker 2uh look honestly nothing worries me because i this is very kind of philosophical i i have a deep rooted belief in humanity uh and that we overcome things easily and that we are hugely adaptable you know we develop from little creatures that crawled out of a pond we'll survive ai um it will change lots of things i mean i worry about the environmental impact uh you know i do worry about that but lots of other things doing a lot worse things to the environment and lots of humans making decisions which are doing a lot worse to the environment you won't name them now but you know um i think we'll all be okay or we won't and we'll be obliterated and another species will come along and do a lot better job than we will and that'll be fine as well either or really i don't think it doesn't matter do you know what i mean and if if we do implode and destroy ourselves well we won't be here we won't know anything about it will we so that's very true now you've written a few books so
Speaker 1what's your latest one my
Speaker 2latest one is called six figures in sales for anybody who's watching the video uh how to win more customers without spending a cent on ads so that the premise is i don't like giving money to mark zuckerberg so how can i sell my products and services without using meta ads
Speaker 1okay go ahead yeah and
Speaker 2is that something you've
Speaker 1been testing with the bookshop and your own products yeah i mean i've
Speaker 2written three books my first one was about juggling parenthood and running a business and the guilt that's associated with that the second one was about building passive income so using your skills and turning them into digital products this one really is kind of like the summation of everything i've learned i mean i've been in since i was 21 you know ogilvy working for like amex and telstra and then microsoft you name it you know and then i've been working on my own business as a solopreneur for many years and now i have a bookshop so i've got face-to-face retail so there's really no type of selling i haven't done from door to door to online to in person to from the stage to e-commerce to retail um and there's some very common threads throughout all of that and i just kind of wanted to shove that all into one non-boring non-dry business book yeah
Speaker 1wonderful so for those who are interested in the book you say you know without using meta without using google ads can you give us a little sneak peek of or an idea from
Speaker 2the book yeah i mean the thing is you could you can do everything in the book and use ads as well um because really the book is about understanding the core nature of advertising and selling and how it's different from marketing so you know marketing is all about brand awareness and getting people to know who you are and what you sell and why you're different but you know i've been doing a lot of marketing and getting a lead getting someone to the point where they're almost ready um and then selling is getting them over the line, so overcoming their objections. I think the biggest message from the book is that selling isn't bad. You know, people like buying things. Most people, by the time they've got to the point that you're talking to them, have gone through a series of decisions, they've done vice-verses, they've read testimonials, they're at the point of talking to you, whether that's via your form or over-the-counter, and all they need to do is overcome some final objections. And they're very rarely about Christ. People often think it's all about the price. Often it's like the thing it's really about is value. I'm happy to pay a high price if it does what it says on the tin. Does it do what it says on the tin? Prove that to me. Explain it to me. So I see selling as informed explanation, enthusiastic explanation. You know, if you really think something's great, it's easy to sell because it just seeps from your pores, your excitement about it. And if there's a bit of a twitch, you know, that maybe the salesperson doesn't quite believe what they're saying. And customers can smell that, I think.
Speaker 1And yeah, I draw a lot of parallels with that with change work that I do a lot of internally in particular. You know, it's what is the motivator for people to change, to make a decision to follow what you've asked them to do or. Especially when people hate change in all its forms. Yes, exactly. And it's very rarely, I remember Dan Pink's research around what motivates employees. And it's not money, it's autonomy, it's mastery and it's purpose. And you know, that's the thing you got to
Speaker 2sell, not the wage, not the bonus. I mean, they're nice, but. And I think the same with change and with sales is that like, people only want a few basic things. They want to feel important. They want to feel secure. They want to feel part of the pack. They don't want to feel ostracized. They want to be loved. They want to be admired and they don't want to look like a fool. Um, you know, and I think. I think that would apply to everything you do as well. Like those are the core emotions. And I mean, everyone wants to not worry about money, but security is different to money and being loved is different. And if you can get to that, like any product you pick up and you go, what, what, what is this product really providing for the customer? You know, I've got a nail file here. Sell me this nail file, Kate Toon. I'm not selling the nail file. I'm not selling the grit of the sandpaper on it or the shape or anything like that. I'm selling having nice nails. And why do I want to have nice nails? Cause I don't want someone to look at me and think I'm a grubby moo. And why do I want someone to look at me like I'm a grubby moo? Because I want to be accepted and loved and admired. So I'm selling admiration. I'm not selling a nail file. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I love that. One last question for
Speaker 1the formal part of today's particular thinking back to the books you've written and knowing what you now know about AI, would you change anything in those books? Um, it would have saved
Speaker 2me a lot of bloody time if I didn't have to write them. Write them. Um, no, I wouldn't. And you know, AI is always sitting there in the corner. I'm writing a novel now. I've started a course to write a crime, a crime novel, and it's always sitting there in the corner corner. And the most tempting one for me is co-pilot, uh, which is a Microsoft AI, which is just amazing because you can be in the middle of a sentence and going, can't be bothered finishing the sentence and co-pilot will finish the sentence for you fully understanding the sentiment of the paragraph above and the paragraph below and the document on it. And it can finish it in a fun way or a sad way or a serious way. And geez, it's so easy to just press that button and what it pumps out, you know, you really want to say it's bad and it's full of M dashes and it says innovative and it's shit, sorry to swear, but it's really good. And sometimes what it pumps out is a better one than what I could write. Um, so no, I wouldn't change it and I wouldn't want to use AI in anything I do. And I don't think I talked about AI in the last book and the book. Because it was around then I wrote the books in the last three years. Um, so I've included AI. I'm glad I didn't use AI because I think it would be like, you know, imagine going out to your book launch and being all proud of your book, but knowing that chapter six, maybe write that chapter, like you're just so worried that someone's find you out and you're a charlatan and you just wouldn't, you wouldn't love the book in the way that you, you could, if you poured over it at the dark of the night, you know? So yeah. And I wouldn't. I wouldn't change a thing. I love that.
Speaker 1And I don't agree like with both my books, the actual process of writing is horrendous.
Speaker 2Yeah. I enjoyed it. It's enjoyable. It's so enjoyable. It's also torturous and hard work.
Speaker 1You second guess constantly. And is somebody going to think this is shit? Um, the hard part came afterwards. You're trying to convince people to buy it.
Speaker 2Like that, you know, I think, you know, I know that the people say writing a book is the hard part, but absolutely not. Now I work in a bookshop. You understand. I understand that so many books are published and, and so many of them get returned and pulped, you know, and, and, you know, the poor authors, you've put like three of, I mean, my business books didn't take too long to write cause it's, you know, like you, I've been doing this every day for 20 years. So when you suddenly put pen to paper, it just kind of goes, but writing a novel, I mean, it's probably gonna take me two years to write a novel and will it do? Well, probably not, you know, and that's, that's a weird concept and I know as I'm writing it. That it will probably never get published. It will probably, even if it does, it probably won't do very well. Even if it does well, no one will care about it because another book will come out the next day. And that's a weird thing, but yet I still want to write it. And that shows that we're humans, right? That we, we're going to do something that will ultimately, we know will probably fail, but we're doing it anyway.
Speaker 1Well, I always say, unless you're Brené Brown or Adam Grant or Simon Sinek, you're probably not going to make a lot of money out of writing a book. Ah, no. It's getting the ideas out. It's having the credibility of having. A book as well. And yeah, just that, um, you know, having something that you can share with people.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I think it also, for me, really consolidated what I know. Like, I feel I know what I know a lot better because you, to try and, people who can explain what they know, know it better than others. You know, I get a lot of people coming on my podcast and they're great at doing the do, but they're not good at explaining how they do the do to others. So I think writing a book is an excellent personal development task to really. Go, I can only put in here. What's essential is some of, you know, get rid of the fluff and really get to the core of it. So I think it made me cleverer writing my book.
Speaker 1Um, now we have three questions that we asked every guest on the podcast. You ready for those?
Speaker 2Yes. Yes. Let's do it. No, I'm done.
Speaker 1You'll be fine. What is an unexpected or left of field way that you've learned a valuable lesson about communication?
Speaker 2I think just the stupid things I sometimes say, or used to say. Like I think I'm very funny, uh, and it's a real problem and I'm, and I am to some people, but I'm not to other, I'm very dry and quite sarcastic and just understanding that the way you say things and things you say just sometimes just don't land. Um, and being a bit more cautious about that rather than just thinking they don't have a sense of humor, accepting that my sense of humor isn't their sense of humor and being a bit gentler. I think I'm a lot more gentle now than I used to be.
Speaker 1Good lesson learned. Next question. What is. A book or podcast other than your own, of course. That you love and would recommend to our listeners.
Speaker 2Look, I'm not bizarrely, although I've written business books and I have business podcasts, I don't listen to any, uh, because my time reading and listening to podcasts is for me, it's for leisure and for pleasure. So I'll pick it. I'm going to pick a thriller. And I love Lisa Jewell. She's a, an English domestic thriller writer. Um, I think she's absolutely excellent. Um, uh, don't let him in. By Lisa Jewell would be my top pick. Ooh, okay. Let's go check that one out at your book store.
Speaker 1And last question. If you could wave your magic wand and change one thing about communication at work, what would it be?
Speaker 2At work. I mean, it's been a long time since I've actually had a real job. Um, I would pretty much ban all kinds of group meetings, uh, where there are more than three people in the room, um, because I think they're utterly. Pointless and one-to-one or one-to-two conversations work much better.
Speaker 1Oh, I love that. If I could ban town halls, I would. Yeah. They just don't achieve anything usually.
Speaker 2Yeah. Two people are engaging in the rest. Just wish they weren't there.
Speaker 1Exactly. They turn up because they were told to. Yeah. Uh, Kate, thank you so much for your time today. If people want to learn more about you, the work you do, your courses, your books, what's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2Well, thankfully I did SEO for very many years. If you Google Kate. Toon, T-O-O-N, you will find something about me and you can start your adventure there.
Speaker 1Wonderful. And we will put a link to your website in the show notes as well. Kate, thank you so much again for joining us on Less Chat and More Mentor. Thank you.
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