[00:00:00] Speaker A: That's one thing that I've heard people are doing recently. A lot of people I've heard don't want to go back to the office. I think it's about also making sure that you can track individuals and their productivity.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Today I've got Tamara Thompson with me. She's a dynamic host of Broadcast yout Authority tv. Now, as an award winning director and video marketer, she, she's invested in over 25 companies. She is the founder and CEO of Broadcast yout Authority. It's really cool because her agency specializes in trying to craft micro content sourced from podcasts that are happening regularly. And they strategically try to position these companies with influencers and experts and respected industry leaders so that they can maximize the reach of what a company's hoping to do with the content that they're already producing. Truly, truly incredible stuff. Now she began with video marketing back in 2013 when she founded Serious Take Productions. Now what's really interesting about her story is that she sold out prestigious film festivals and she actually started to achieve some viral fame on YouTube. This caught the attention of indie flicks which acquired her films for distribution. Absolutely incredible. What an crazy story. Excited to hear more about it. Welcome to the show. Excited to have you with us today.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Now, you know, you've had this incredible journey. You graduated from film school. You've obviously understand, you know, we're, we're joking a little bit about camera technology here before we hit the, the starting of the record button. And what's interesting is some of that early success led you to be able to build a business, the one that you're running today. And you've gone through some iterations of that. Obviously it's really focusing on kind of this independent film track and then transitioning over the years into really serving clients on a more regular, recurring basis rather than creating new content, more so on helping people with their existing content. There's, there's a weird scenario to make that genesis transpire. And I'm kind of curious, what was it that led you down the track of saying, hey, I'm really good at this? Obviously we seem to be knocking this out of the park. Maybe I should just start doing that for other people.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a great question. It actually started back in my late 20s. I started paying more attention to YouTube and paying attention to the algorithms. Like, oh, this content was taken off, like, what are they doing? And so I went back to film school and I was actually in the fitness industry for about eight years. And I went back to school. And it was funny because my fitness director literally was going around the gym basically telling everyone at the time, like, hey, this is Tamra. Like camera, but not spelt like it. So it, like, I was like, oh, I guess my mom, like picked a great name, Tamara. And so I was like, I guess I was meant to go down this realm with like cameras and things like that. And I was intrigued with YouTube and started watching some of my friends and colleagues take off. And this was quite, quite, quite a while ago. And what happened though, is so I did go back to film school because people were like, well, if you're not happy in your career, why don't you do something with filmmaking? And it took me about four years before I actually was convinced by friends and colleagues, like, hey, you know, like, I can actually go back to college in my late 20s and build a career of something. So I went back to film school. Everyone there was doing like 48 hour film festivals. And I was taking it more seriously because I was no longer a teenager and I wanted to build a successful portfolio. And so I started getting the mentorship from some of the instructors there, and some of them actually became famous directors. And so they put a challenge on me and they said, hey, I would like you to take on every single role to direct a documentary and submit it into Sundance Film Festival. And I was like, I love a challenge. Let's go. So I went through all the roles and then I directed this documentary submitted into the film festival, literally uploaded it into their Dropbox by 11:59pm which was due at midnight. And I was like, boom. But I did it, right? I went through, I followed through, I did it. I was not accepted into that Sundance Film Festival for that film, but that was okay. Because what evolved from that story was the fact that we turned around and started directing films. So I graduated film school, started a production company in Seattle, Washington that focused on telling stories from the same system that we utilize now. So micro content from short form content, which of course we, back then we call them teaser videos or trailers, right? That led to the long form content. Back then it was documentaries for us in, in our actual production company. But we knew we wanted to scale more and work with more people. So we're like, we don't want to just direct documentaries and do one off projects. So later on in life, it. It evolved into what kind of content that's long form is consumed more frequently. So that we understood YouTube's, you know, obviously a marathon, not a sprint and they're like, oh, well, how is YouTube going to suggest the content? So we got really good at directing these films and these teasers and the content took off. So one of the films, actually, the one that I submitted to Sundance, that was like, we don't accept this. Basically, we did a teaser video. We uploaded the teaser video, didn't know what we were doing. Literally, in 10 days, we checked it. We're like, it has 888,000 views in a matter of 10 days. And so that was what was unique. Inspired me and everybody that I was working with, I said, okay, we have to figure out what we did here. What is it that is. Is it the content? Is it the keywords? Is it. You know, what does this look like? So we started testing it for all these teasers and trailer videos to link them back to these documentaries. And then a lot of them took off and went viral, starting back in, like, 2012. And when they started taking up and going viral, all of a sudden we got in front of indie flicks and they were like, we love what you're doing. We love this concept that you're doing with YouTube.
We were like, we want to just acquire your films, basically. So we're like, okay, let's do it. Like, so we're grateful for that opportunity for them to acquire multiple documentary films. But then it's still at the same time, we're like, well, you know, like, we still, at that point were like, how can we do more? Right? But that also launched my speaking career, basically, on that side, being asked to go speak first at, like, film festivals and things like that, and then colleges and filmmaking schools in the beginning. And then I jumped into entrepreneurship more so that way and started going to entrepreneurial events and of course, went down the line. You know, you invest in your first mastermind and things like that. So I did that in 2014, and then we launched, basically Broadcast your authority as an event space later on. That led into our content marketing system for podcasts. But it all started from this model that we still utilize today. Of course, paying attention to the data and, you know, switching up the algorithms and switching up the content direction and things like that.
But it all just evolved from. From that viral video. So it was very interesting.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, fascinating. I mean, to have the awareness and the observation to say, okay, something really worked and just assess what worked and see if we can duplicate it and test. And so there's a sequence of events that happens there for you to start to say, okay, do we do this at randomly or can we replicate essentially what's been created. And being able to do that through both a look back and then a projection forward into what you want to create is pretty fascinating.
Now, moving forward, you mentioned investing in a mastermind, looking at getting coaching, being around more high performing entrepreneurs so you could see how you could grow and scale. And so what, you know, you mentioned about, you know, before we kind of hit record, that it was through a mastermind and through a good mentor that you were able to make a pivot in your business. And you kind of talked a little bit about how Covid came up for everybody, but it, it hit for you guys in your business a little differently.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, so there was two. Two scenarios that played a part into our journey with Masterminds. So one of them, our very first mastermind that we came into, we had a similar consistent offer that came into play, which allowed us to come into more high subscription models. And what was unique about it was this was the first time that we actually stepped in a mastermind. We were like, okay, we're building our network, right? And so when we came into it, we had kind of like a basic offer that was a little bit smaller but a lot of value because we had the production company background and things like that and the marketing and the storytelling. And so we started off with basically a 90 day offer before we went into the podcasting piece, which was more of like the content marketing piece. And so we turned around and offered basically a flat like $2,500 for a 90 day program, just as a test. Right. And then it was interesting because it was literally we went into the Mastermind and generated our first $85,000 in the first month. So we're like, okay, that was interesting. You know, it wasn't quite six figures, but as an entrepreneur, when you're coming in on that side, it was very, it was, it was an exciting point because we didn't know how to leverage connections and communities at that point. Fast forward, that was like our first mastermind way back in the day on that side. Move fast forward, leverage other communities, masterminds, high level masterminds.
We hosted events for a while starting in 2017, then it came into 2018. And this was, you know, before COVID hit and things like that. And we invested in this high level mastermind. We came into the space understanding that we wanted to do more than just have a production company that could do, you know, these packages that were fairly customized, right. Like you, in order to scale, you really have to have very specific systems in place. And this is what I learned over the years. Like you have to have the teams, operations, the processes. Everything needs to be like booked to a T.
And in order to first reach out for seven figures. And when you hit like second seven figures and so on and eight figures, everything is different. I think the craziest thing that I would actually say would be the most challenging thing during that process, I think is companies that are scaling their first six figures to seven figures. That's probably the most challenging point ever on that, that regard. But when we went into this other Mastermind, basically this, they turn around, they said, restructure your offer to X, Y, Z. Find something that makes the most sense, that can be more consumable. And it was like light bulb. Like, we're like podcasts.
We're like, what's something that's consistent that people can do weekly? It's not like it's like a no brainer, right? So, but we hadn't really thought about it because we were still in like the content marketing and the storytelling aspect at that point. But I said, we have to evolve. And it was funny because we were in the Mastermind group. And then a group of the entrepreneurs that were in there were so supportive and this is why I love Mastermind. They were so supportive. They said, we'll be your first client in this model.
So they stepped in because they knew, they believed in us and they knew we had high quality. We knew we had great customer service because they worked with us on some of the other offers we were doing in production.
And then right before COVID hit, we decided to host a three day event which really launched and propelled that business model. So we went in and pitched an offer from the stage and made over a quarter million in two days in sales. And so that point was like a pivotal moment. Knowing this is something that people actually want and it makes sense. And it was, you know, just shortly, about five months before COVID hit. So we enrolled clients to come into this experience and it's been great because we've actually have a great retention rate still to this day. There's about 88% of clients that have come in since then that still work with us today. And so, you know, it's, we're super grateful for that, that experience and we take feedback while the team, you know, adjust things quickly. They try to stay on top of things. You know, nobody's ever perfect on anything, especially in a service based industry.
But you know, we take the time to take the feedback, adjust things accordingly. Like, you know, you have to Stay innovative as well. And so that was a really good push, you know, but we were also going into Covid.
But gratefully, during COVID we had a pretty stag, like, not stagnant, but a very consistent year. But what was unique about it is we actually were coming in to help people shift and pivot online podcasting during that time because people were frantically looking for solutions that they could do recording from their home offices. So our solution for our content marketing for podcasts made sense. You know, some. Some of them might have not made sense. You know, people that might have not had budgets or were closing the doors for brick and mortars and they were losing out on opportunities. But those that had a large, larger mindset or had a budget set aside, they're like, I'm gonna do this and push forward because we don't know how long we're gonna be in lockdown. Right? So that really helped us propel that first challenge out of the gate coming into Covid. So very unique on that. But we had to build our team very fast.
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[00:14:04] Speaker B: You were able to get some appropriate advice and some suggestions to get you thinking differently. Oh, you know, yes, we, we might need to pivot and let's go ahead and do that. Something that's like regular consumable content effectively is, rather than, you know, because the challenge is often how do we get content out of people? And then there's all these extra hurdles about now turning that content into something. But it's also like, how do we just get them to get us the content versus over here? There's people that are producing it willingly all the time, on a regular basis. They just want to do that part. They don't want to do all the other stuff. And maybe that's where our niche can be. But, but just like the timing of knowing, you know, six months or so before COVID really started to have a tremendous impact, you were able to make that pivot, get some, you know, again, someone having some faith in you that you'd already been working with to say, yeah, we're going to come with you on the ride. We're going to get going, having some early success. The fact that you were able to have that three day kind of event and be able to make that happen before lockdowns, I mean, that, that alone really would have helped, you know, get some of that amplification effect taking place. So just really, really incredible how so many of those things started to come in alignment for you now with COVID coming into play and some of the entrepreneurs you're serving. You talked about people no longer being able to go to their brick and mortar building. They're them having to shift their businesses. You've made the shift early to some degree already in a highly, you know, virtual oriented technology space to a larger degree. But almost being able to now use Covid as a, as a, as a starting block for some of those people to help them create a new path so they could still be mission functional in growing a business. I think that's very interesting. So, so how was it that you were able to start to see that trend that you could help them say, look, you can't go to your office anymore. Why don't we get some content in place and we'll help you move the dial forward?
[00:15:56] Speaker A: That's a great question. So the way that we thought too was being able to create an experience and an enticing offer that made sense virtually. So when a lot of people were. I'm very much an action taker. I'm very much going to my deep story, but there's a lot of things that happen in my life that make me a very resilient person.
First off, I have about 14 years sober on that regard. And we'll go to the deep story, but the things that I went through going in my sobriety journey really pale in comparison to scaling a company. Like there was so many trials and tribulations in the personal life story that, you know, as an entrepreneur made me dig my heels in deeper. You get your back up against the wall when there's challenging situations like Covid and things like that. And I'm that type of person that will pivot rather quickly but ask for help. I think a lot of people don't tend to ask for help. They want to do it themselves. Or maybe they have an ego. It's really about letting the ego go on a lot of, a lot of sides because I had a decent ego there. When I first joined my first mastermind, especially when we had that one offer and they were like, oh, we just made, you know, 85,000 in the first month. We're like, oh, this is easy, right? You're like, oh, because I joined a mastermind, I put together an irresistible offer and I sold it in the first 30 days. That doesn't always happen like 24 7, you know, didn't mean that the next month was the same on that journey. But what I noticed with COVID is what we did is I actually was talking to a lot of our clients. Some of them had large influence already, some of them did not. And I actually reached out to a good handful of them and we put together basically what we called the shift series. And we came in and did a three day virtual event series with our clients that had influence that also wanted to help in very specific industries. There was health care, hospitality, business owners.
It was attracting a brick and mortar businesses. So right away, within the first six weeks of lockdown, we literally formulated this event. We had over 500 people sign up in the matter of a few weeks. And we did a bunch of different trainings and had them come in as speakers to one promote the event. That led into a specific opportunity to work with us through the year, built that power partner relationship with our clients, and then we reduced some of the rates for our current clients to give back to them during a hardship time. Obviously, we didn't want to come in and do things for free, but we understood the complexity of what was going on and revenue going down. So we wanted to talk to them and strategize about how we can get revenue up virtually. And so that was a great success as well. Within like six weeks of it basically locked down. And so we're like, okay, what makes sense? And so we just started giving more value, reducing our costs at that point in time, and then reaching out to our clients also to say, like, how else can we help you to, like, who can we introduce you to? And that really, it's something that just comes naturally to me normally, like through life. I just want to open doors for people because they call me the Connector. My nickname's the Connector behind the scenes. So, like, when I understand what a company does or business does or I hear something in a conversation, I literally will be like, oh, you should connect with Richard, right? Like this. He can help you with this. It's just like a automatic thing for me. So I started just doing that with everybody in our network. I was just like, how can I help you? Like, how can we open the doors during this time? So I just started to communicate more with people. Even though people were retracting and closing up and sleeping in and like, there's like, I'm depressed. You know, I was like, like walking outside, I was like, okay, what. What can I do to help? And so that really just evolved from that point to allow us to continue to scale. But at that point, we were bringing in a lot of lead generation to help, and we had to scale our teams. And that's where we were like, okay, we need more people on board. So we were helping supply jobs during. During COVID and supplying services during COVID and shifting our author offers and things like that. And the. I think the biggest challenge during that time was like, when you see things that shift and you need team members to come in, it's like, oh, how? How are we gonna get the team members trained fast enough to help all these people that just came in from this 500 person event, you know, it was a good, good challenge to have, right? But at the same time, you're like, yes. Like, they say that, that one of my mentors, she's always like, you say yes to success. And I'm like, so I took that for a while, but then later on in life, I was like, I was like, there's certain things that you just say no to at this point.
I was like, as a business, I was like, no, that doesn't serve me. Doesn't serve like where I'm going with my. My life. But that was in my head at that point. It was like, say yes to success. I was like, how can we help? How can we add things? And some things started getting a little bit more customized. And that got to be very challenging because people were like, do you do this and this? And so we're like, well, we started to build the systems and the processes and the offers, and everybody's coming in like, can you help with this? Can you do this? Because all of a sudden everybody's like coming online. So it became a little bit overwhelming for the team. And then we had to bring in more team members to help train, to bring the flux of people we're helping during COVID So it was very interesting time on different matters, I guess you would say.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: And I mean, to give people perspective, you know, what's the time frame that you realize you really needed to ramp up? I mean, Obviously that event, 500 people, a lot of people wanting activity, like, that's an immediate signal that you need to do it, but sounds like you had to, you know, almost like double the size of your organization in the matter of a few weeks somewhat in order to get people to train and that that's. So that's finding people, hiring people, then beginning to train people is like there's, there's a lot in there. It's, it's, it sounds like three steps, but it's not. It's like 10,000 steps.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: True. Very much like 10,000 felt like 10 million steps on that part. So we were grateful for that opportunity to have this shift come in and help people during that time and put together this irresistible offer that made sense to help them pivot and market online.
But yeah, we literally had to hire like 20 people in the matter of like a week in. You know, when you're trying to vet through individuals through different platforms. If you're using something like indeed.com for like applications, processes like that, at that point in time, it wasn't, it wasn't like something that was super knowledgeable for always coming on like a zoom interview or anything like that. Because people still thought they were going to go back to work, right? Like they're, they're like, oh, this is just temporary. So I think a lot of the positioning that we were putting out there was we can start off with this as like a, a temporary part time position, paid trial period to see how you work with the team. Because the way that we do our business with our, with our either team employees or contractors or staff, everybody comes in on a paid trial period. We want to know how they perform, how they communicate with the team, you know, take a different personality test, whatever that looks like. Like, we want to know how, how efficient they are in specific ways. So we always obviously offer a paid trial to go through that. So at that point we're like, we kind of just need to hire, right? Like we'll do a paid trial for like 20 people. So we just were like, okay, this is a contract position.
We can unbind this contract at any point in this contract that we put in there. So we had to literally test people based on their portfolios, their visuals. This was a lot of the creative sides, right? Like portfolios for video editing, copywriting, graphic design, things like that. So we're coming in like, okay, because at the same point you've got your project manager, so the project managers are managing the entire hub under there. So you've got roles for copywriter, garbage designer, reels editor, video editor, audio podcast, finesse person, YouTube, SEO person, social media person. Like there's so many different people that like that account manager is managing under one hub. So you can imagine how it literally was like, okay, like we have to make sure that they're really good at what they do, they can respond quick enough into our system. Like, are they available, like coming in as a contractor? Are they open to, you know, hitting a certain amount of goals that we have and being careful on a contractor level? And so it was very interesting to watch, but it was like we were just, we were doing the tests, but we're like, okay. And then we had to allow that our team leaders in each department to take the lead and train to in those departments. You know, here's the. Our main video editor, John, who creates the templates for a new video editor. And he goes through the process, gives them all the templates for Adobe Premiere, Adobe Motion Graphics templates, whatever that looks like the brand guidelines. Here's all the assets that are going to go into animated know places, whatever. So it's like he had to be taken away, you know, our main people, each department had to be taken away to train. And so then it slows down on their workload too. So it got to be very interesting to say, like, okay, like, who else do it? So now we've got different. So then we created project floor managers. Those people turn around and they turn around. And one of my, my mentors, he taught us this whole system because he has a agency that generates over 25 million a year annually. And so we put those same systems into place that he taught us, so we're able to scale rapidly with those systems. But it was very interesting to be like, oh, yeah, of course it had a lot. It was a lot of challenges and, you know, things throughout the way. But I was like, as long as people just stayed on top of it or people that were like, driven, that like, wanted to show up, that were passionate about the skill that they provided, they were great for the team. Like, they were like, I love stability, I love what I do. I can hit deadlines, I'm a good person, I can communicate. And they're kind. And those are really the factors that we were looking for. And then those people basically have been with us for years. I think the majority of our team has been with us for years on that regard. So great, great.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: That's incredible. I love it. Well, we're going to hear more about the incredible team and the work that you're doing when we come back after.
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[00:26:57] Speaker B: We are back here with Tamara. We're talking about, of course, the incredible journey of growing her agency, all the amazing things that transpired during COVID the pivot, the change, the rapid need to grow a team with people who thought that they might go back to their old jobs and then found out they couldn't.
Training everyone. There's just so many pieces under the sun here. And so as you've, as you've grown, drastically grown the size of your organization, you're finding ways to help support your existing clients and also bring on new ones. There's so many challenges in that process, but there's also so many opportunities. You really also created opportunities for your existing clientele by saying, hey, look, how can we help support you? Who can we introduce you to? One of the things I'm curious about is how did you start to see during that time frame, you know, Covid, and now in a very, you know, we're well past it now in a post Covid world, what have you start to see the changes around the types of tools and elements that you're using as a team in an organization? Because I'd imagine those have shifted and changed, you know, somewhat haphazardly over the last number of years with the advances of some of the technology that we use presently.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: That's a great question. So like I mentioned in a previous session where we're talking like, I'm that person that takes action fairly fast with things that come out because I want to learn and understand it and not be fearful of anything that's coming in to the world. Especially when we're talking with about, like AI, let's say like AI. Like the day it came out was November 30th a couple years ago, basically. ChatGPT. The day it came out, I signed up for it and I had the team sign up for it. I was like, everybody go in there and play like everybody. Like that was the thing. I was like, I just threw like, I was like, just go in there and see what you can do with it. I was like, at the time, I didn't know what quite was going on. And I think nobody did. And so we're like, well, we're going to do the research on not just chat, but some other different ones as well and see what's going on. Of course, that was the main tool that we're like, well, we have to utilize this for efficiency or process and team right off the bat. So, you know, it was one of those things where now, now of course with AI, like there's things that can seem more realistic and more humanized and things like that. At that point it was, it seemed like a lot of like, I don't know, fluff and emojis and you know, stuff like that are like what we would call sounds like AI, right? And some stuff still sounds like AI. I can read a post and be like, that was AI generated. Like, you know, some people like that stuff and that's fine. But I think the, the efficiency factor was each time something came out to evolve with innovating with AI, we've always jumped on the bandwagon, right? So we wanted to make sure that we tested different tools for like video caption editing, like resources, like efficiency. How fast can this tool spit out clips? You know, same time we would go back and forth with it though, because the, the, some of the quality of the clips or some of the timestamps that they, they've picked weren't like the juicy bullet point hooks or like the right types of hooks, like micro content, the real short stuff like that. And then they also the design element on some of those caption tools, like they just weren't very elegant or pretty. They, they've not everybody wants to be pretty. But I was like, if you want something to like pop and like look cool and fascinating, you know, you want to make sure that you had tools. So we would test them out. And I'm like, you know, the quality doesn't look that good. Yeah, they can spit out stuff, but like we're going to test different ones. So we found tools over the time that can create captions that look better than other ones. But there's also the element of like editing in. Like sometimes if you want B roll added in or something creative or some sort of animation to make it poppy or emojis or things like that that make it more engaging. So we had to test these tools, see which ones had the elements that, that were poppy. You know, back when, you know, her Hermosi style reels came out, right? Like everyone's like, I have to have reels like Hermosi. So of course all the clients were coming in like I have to have her Moses style reels that were like, of course, you know, so it's like being able to innovate and be like, well, which tools can do this? Or is this still something that has to be a little bit more Personalized, right? Like coming in on editing. I love the fact of AI that you can utilize AI to take a transcription and, you know, utilize show notes and timestamps for YouTube and stuff like that. But you have the ability to ask it very specific things. And I think people didn't know about that in the beginning. It's like when we were testing it, we're like, wow, if you literally ask it like very specific question and you're like, and this, like, please provide a strong YouTube optimized title around this topic and please, you know, give us certain, you know, keywords that make sense for this YouTube channel. Like being super specific with it though, that allowing it to spit out this content topic ideas or transcribing your, your, you know, and then having the human touch by the copywriters going in to pay attention to, to be like, okay, if it also took a transcription and said, here's 10 real topic ideals and hooks from this and here's the timestamps to cut. You know, that's great. So, but you still had to have the human come in and be like, you know, that one's not very strong. It's. It's not to the point like it thinks the AI thinks it is, but we would come in and be like, okay, well, you still need a human touch to go in and be like, yes, I believe that's strong. No, I think there's other ones that come in. So the copywriters would still go in and still select other timestamps that made most sense. So I think AI like is. Is amazing and it's great to be able to intertwine it into a service. Like, we need it at this point to be efficient with team, but it's having that human touch, like overseeing it. Right? So like, you could have. We've had ideas where we're like, let's have AI generate ideas for a podcast show graphic, right? So it will generate a very different style than our graphic designers will. But what's unique about it would be like, you know, I like this and I like this, but I think it could, you know, be better on something. And there's at points where AI just cannot quite take your feedback to alter that podcast graphic. So then we're passing it off to the designer. We say, hey, this is the design element, the feel, the color tones, the branding that really pops for the show. Can you recreate this to be more bold font, like something that stands out more? Take these color tones. But this element doesn't work for this brand. Can you help do so there it's helping the design team also create some other options as well. So I mean there's lots of different templates for like copy thumbnails for YouTube and things like that. But I mean you can utilize AI to help start the process.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: It reduces the amount of time of the back and forth between, oh, the client doesn't like this, they don't like that, you know, and so there's, there's an email transition there, there's all those, those lost steps where meanwhile the person just wants to keep moving forward and you want to be able to get, you know, get things in motion. So it's really a speed of implementation tool for your business in a lot of ways.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Exactly. And that's really how AI has helped in a lot of regard. So in the right of utilizing it for transcription, for, for copy bullet points, keywords, title, title, market research, different elements. We still have a person overseeing each department depending on which type of tool it is. That's really important to us because, because, and we don't want to send something where somebody goes that sounds like AI, you know, because there are clients that are like, I don't want to sound like AI. I was like, of course you don't. I was like, I want you to sound like yourself on that regard. So, so it's a very important to just have someone oversee that. But as it evolves and AI evolves, of course there's different platforms that out better copy at this point, but there's still like telling it the tone or changing things. I can still read it and understand that it's still AI and different things. I'm like, please sound like me. You know, like, still doesn't sound like me. But yeah, there's, it's just the efficiency factor and then just having people oversee because it, it minimizes the time. Also for, you know, those copywriters that are picking profound timestamps as well, if they, it's already spitting out some profound clips and ideas that sparks even more interest of them, then they're like, okay, that's a great one. Now I'm just going to rate the copy for this, this reel, right, this hook. Now I'm just going to write the copy for this. They can use AI to read that copy, but we tend to have them come in and edit it because still we still want it to perfect the brand, you know, in that regard. So that makes sense.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it makes total sense. And I mean what I, what I am seeing and I'm hearing and I'm hoping that you know, for our viewers, if they're on the fence or maybe they're starting to use it, they're starting to see some use cases as well as to how they can implement that in their own practice. So whatever it is that you're doing, again, you're talking very much on the marketing side and content specifically and this day and age, content is the primary form that most people are doing marketing to some degree. So how can you create little steps of time saving mechanics along the journey of getting a content from idea or conception to the reality where it's out into the marketplace, whether it's blog related, text related, video related, image related. It's not saying don't rely on AI to get you a final product, allow AI to help you iterate to get to a final product faster.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. I use AI daily. I'm literally like asking like, I'll open up even like copilot app on my phone. I'm just like asking a question like, okay, I just, I just got my answer. You know, it's like obviously sometimes you want to back the, you know, the information that it's providing for you on that regard, but it, it is, it's all about the efficiency factor once you step in. And people can start utilizing it in their, their life or their business, you know, even like their finances and other. Them ask questions for things like that. I, I tend to ask just random questions. Even if it's on like, like law or you know, finances or just questions. I'm like, I'm gonna ask something quite faster than, you know, writing my CPA or something like, like something that makes sense, you know what I mean? Like obviously I can write them too. But if there is somebody that can help or a system or an AI bot or something that can help anything, I mean just utilize it like, just start leveraging it too. Because I know there's still, people are still fearful of it or like, oh no, it will never be like a human, but there's so many different things out there. And AI can be used for good because there are obviously situations where people are using AI for not so good. Um, and so our team is utilizing it for good purposes on the, on the podcast realm of that. So yeah, it's just like you can be fearful of something, but if you don't try it or test it or give it a shot, you know, there's a lot of different things that can.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: Now what would be, you know, some of the most, I guess, favorite or most utilized tools that, that you know yourself using Personally, or maybe your team uses that, you know, you would encourage people to give a try or a test out. Not. Not so much as, like, not. Not just. Just the things that you found. Like, hey, you know, we used to use ABC Tool, and now we've transitioned to CDF tool because it. It adds some different flavor. So is there, you know, because you've. You've iterated the things that you're trying. You've tried lots of different ones as they come out. You're testing. You're testing. So I'm curious, are you seeing the pace. The pace of tools is changing, but are you seeing the use case sufficiently enough, adjusting for you guys to say, you know what? This mousetrap is better than the one that we've been using for the last two years?
[00:38:48] Speaker A: That's a great question. So there's so many that we've tested, I can't even list them all anymore. Obviously, we started with ChatGPT.
Honestly, we don't really use ChatGPT, like, too much anymore. Myself, I actually use Copilot. Um, in that realm, it's just easy to app. So we started with one like that, and then we went into Video and some other ones. Descript. Um, there's just so many different ones that keep coming out. So we'll sign up for some trials and see if they have anything that's different and useful. Um, but what we really started to go back to, there's one that, like, the editors can use. Like, I don't even know all the lingo on some of this stuff, but they're like, they. They're like, we use the waveform. And I'm like, what is that? They've like, just. They. They've been innovative, and they're like, you should do this. And so we're like, okay. So, like, they're coming to us, and they're being the innovative ones, bringing ideas to the table. Because we're constantly asking the team, like, for their ideas and things like that. Because, you know, as a founder, I don't want to be jumping into, like, just, I'm cool to know all the information, but I don't need to be like, if you guys believe this is a better tool, we'll get that software tool for you. Like this. You just tell us at this point, that's kind of how it's evolved over the time. So the camera. We believe this is better for this. They were like, okay, great, let's try that. And so that's really how it's kind of evolved, because we're constantly touching base with a team every single month, asking them to bring ideas. What have they seen that may need some updated opportunities? Different things like that, like, we're opening, like, switching up different caption styles, different color tones that might pop. And that's just on the creative, like, side of that side. But they might. Of course, we'll look into, like, analytics, like, what, what keywords are actually working on your YouTube channels. Like, you know, they'll let us know what's going on and what's not. Every 30 days, basically. But I'm always open to testing new tools and pivoting where they make sense. So at this point, they've got a long laundry list over there of tools that they're like, can we test them? Like, go for it on that regard. So hopefully that answers a little bit of the question there, because I haven't physically used them myself.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: No. Fantastic. And when we come back after this quick break, we're going to learn more about the importance of developing an AI strategy for your business.
[00:41:04] Speaker C: What is this incredible thing called the Colby A Index I keep hearing about?
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[00:41:52] Speaker B: Growing an incredible organization, empowering your team to be able to implement, using modern technology, the power of AI at your fingertips, but not just yours, the fingertips of everyone that's working for you. So just imagine for a moment you had an organization that empowered people to do the same thing. Now you've gone ahead and done that with your company to an extensive degree because you've really fostered the embracing of the modern technology culture at a very early stage, and you're starting to see the impact of that as it starts to spread through. So what would you think and advise for people who are companies today, even the clients that you work with, in the importance of being on the cutting edge, of embracing the potential that AI provides for them and their business?
[00:42:38] Speaker A: That's a great question, I think. Well, one of the things that we've. We've done is allowing the team to actually embrace AI and bring suggestions to the table. You know, one of the biggest things is, you know, when you want your team to have feedback, you don't want to just have them come in and just be a part of a team. And they're just doing tasks, you know, task oriented things. And we empower our team to go out and do the research or if they see different things and do tests, we're like totally open for it. Like, we'll sign up for different tools if they want to try something. We're open to doing trials on new tools and say, show us what, what you believe this tool can do. Because they're like, oh, I saw this new tool. Can we try it? We're going to empower them and say, yes, let's, let's try it. Let's see if this AI tool is a better, you know, video editing software that has better captions. Maybe it, it can also add animations, maybe it can add B roll. Maybe there's something cool that it can do that these other ones don't. So we always tell our team every week we're like, please, like, feel free to share, you know, anything that you think you could bring value more to the table. And they get it, really excited about it. They're like, oh, Tamara, you know, the tug, the team, the bike. I think we should try this. So just being able to be open to it, you know, and say yes, if it, if it makes sense, you know, if it's something that's not gonna, something that's gonna break the bank or something like that. But you know, if I get some kind of tool that's coming in that's a good resource, give them the opportunity to try it, be open to seeing what, and they'll bring it to the table, they'll do the presentation, they'll say, we'll say, well, tell us what, why you think this is better. Show us the example that you created and then we can decide as a team if it makes sense to move forward on that. So just being able to do that, like empowering your team in general is very important. So we have a remote agency and our team basically is all over the globe, basically. And so what's interesting with that though, is the fact that they come together as a team. They communicate throughout our, our systems and our processes. We primarily connect in Slack and Slack is a tool where we have, where they drop in even their, their Wednesday wins, right? So we want people to be involved and share great opportunities or things that either. The clients have said that they're, like, very impressed with the team. They're very thankful for the team. It gets the people really jonesed up in. In there. So you see all of a sudden, there's like, you know, 50 different people, and they're, like, commenting like, high fives, like, boom. You know, it's really cool to, like, watch that energy and empower them to get. Get ideas, too. So, like, as soon as they get that great feedback as well, of course we'll. Well, you know, not. Not all feedback's always the positive side, but we always work as a team to work together, to see how we can, you know, do better at other things or bring other things to the table too. But it's good to be able to allow them to be their own leader in their own departments. So what I was told from one of my mentors, they said, you as a leader, Tamara, you have to step up and allow each department and each person and each individual become a leader in their own way. So you have your leaders that are in each department that are directing and teaching and training all of. All of the people that are underneath them. So now we have a process that every single person that comes in from the hiring and onboarding system, they automatically get passed off to the project floor manager of that department so that they can go through the proper training, going through templates, things like that, the structure. So it was very interesting a couple of years ago, just being taken out of the onboarding, you know, side of it. Of course, I'll jump in with interviews or a second interview at times, you know, because I want to make sure that, you know, I ask questions too, so the team will ask it. But we've got our entire onboarding team and process that goes through there, and then they pass it off to the right departments for all the training and all the training videos and things like that through the platform that we have to train them, then have access to the box with all the templates and the videos that go with every single department on that regard and go through that system. So I think it's just important to have a system, have organization within the system, and then have the people that are really strong at that, you know, go through that process. But in the end, it's just empowering everybody on the team to feel like they're important because they are. They. They are helping you grow and scale your company. And so, like, when it. It's a. When it's more of a positive environment, because I've seen different cultures Come in and I literally have heard, you know, horror stories from other companies or even people or colleagues or friends of mine that may not be an entrepreneur, but they work for this company and their, their culture might be toxic or they're, they're reprimanding or negative or things like that. I was like, I never want to build a company that is like that. You know, these stories coming. So it got me to thinking, like, bring them, allow them to feel empowered. Allow them to feel like they can bring an idea or a tool to the table. It's always about them leading. It's never, it's always more than me. It's not just because I'm a founder, but it's always more than me. It's the team that's backing it. So they're all, they're all leaders.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: Well, I think it's important that you're identifying all those, you know, the idea of the winning Wednesdays and getting that kind of communication going. And there's a reference point that not every business will understand in because a lot of businesses don't operate in a virtual format. You have a very remote based, global oriented organization. And so you have people working in almost every time zone on the planet which has its own logistical challenges, has.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Some logistical advantages and challenges. I think it has good, good advantages. And one of the reasons we did that is because we cater to clients in different time zones. And so what made sense with some of it was the fact, because we started getting clients in Australia and the UK and different things like that, even Columbia. So it was like, well, you know, we started putting on producers that made sense that we're, you know, still on a time zone to communicate. They want to communicate within 24 hours. It's very important to be responsive. And then also having team members that oversee the project floor managers, maybe there's head of operations or head of strategy that also are cc'd on the emails as well. So we have basically team members that are over. Like if the time zones overlap. We want to make sure somebody communicates with them through the day. So we actually CC multiple people from the team so that somebody can be responsive. Obviously things happen, there's events, there's busy times, but that's our flow because we want to make sure that our team and even the team leads know all the communication that's going on between the clients as well, overseeing them. So if they have questions, they see the communication going forward with them and they can jump in and help answer. If there's like a time zone, you know difference or things like that. And that's really how we've kind of stepped in with that part because we're like, well, we want to make sure that we respond throughout the day, right. And so that's how we provided that solution. And it's worked pretty, pretty well at that point because people might be, you know, in this time zone and they can answer in the morning, this person might be in this time zone, they can answer in the afternoon or evening so that somebody can actually communicate what questions asked by the client. So that's how we've kind of figured that one out.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Well, and with the aspect of again running people who are in so many diverse locations, you talked about just the impact of using Slack as your primary communication tool. And there's something different about trying to keep and maintain a, both create, keep and maintain a culture in an organization when they're spread apart and they're not physically connected. It might be, there's a uniqueness to the fact that you're bringing people in, onboarding them into that realm right away versus an organization where maybe they started in an in person format and then they, they say switch to virtual. There's a much bigger disconnect I think that happens there. So, you know, it sounds like your team is really actively helping to cultivate that culture for you. What's some advice that you would give someone who is considering a more virtual setup for their business or already operating in that format? And how would you, you recommend that they, they maintain that, that connection component that can be more difficult to achieve in a, in a non physical environment?
[00:51:11] Speaker A: That's a great question. So some of the things that, that I've heard from actually other colleagues that to actually implement on this structure, a lot of people ended up going virtual because of COVID but everyone was so used to being in person. And then they started like understanding they're like, then people like, were like, well now let's bring people back to the office. And a lot of people didn't want to go back to the office. I think it's just about paying attention to those that are able to work virtually. Like so, so if people moved from an office space and they went virtual, like are they motivated to complete anything that's being thrown at them? Are they communicative and Slack? You know, one of the things that, that I've seen people do is actually keep a zoom meeting open that somebody runs every day. So they designate a person from the team to keep that zoom meeting open. So if it's a communicator if it's like head of, like operations or head of team or chief of staff or something like that, if they have a zoom room just open that people can come in and meet throughout the day, or they have like certain time timelines, everybody just goes in that room. They're like, they know that this one's open from like 9 to 5, you know, PT or whatever. Like, they know that they have that support from the team and then they can get things resolved right away. That's one thing that I've heard people are doing recently.
A lot of people I've heard don't want to go back to the office on that regard, but I think it's about also making sure that you can track individuals and their productivity. So productivity is one of the biggest things in our world, in the content world. So I am grateful that I know every single element of content production, editing, script writing, you know, whatever. I know how long it takes to edit a video. I know how long it takes to export a video. I know when someone's BSing me on any realm in regard to production. So when I. When we first bring people in to do a test project, we state what are.
What we think is a reasonable amount of content to produce within their time frame, right? Is it. Are they working on an entire episode of reels for one day? Are they working on three episodes per day? What is their efficiency? What is their productivity look like? Right? And so there's so many different tools that you can watch and track people to. I was actually talking with a gentleman, I think, a couple days ago or something, but he was saying how his sister would utilize and make sure that she moves her. Her screen thing so that the. The Time Doctor, like, would actually look like she was working. And I was like, there's ways that we can watch things like tools like Time Doctor. So we have our contractors and team, you know, utilize things like Time Doctor so we can see how long it's taking them. We can see the screenshots of their computer. Like, are they surfing the net? Are they working? Are they doing things like that? So, like. But the thing is, is you can actually trust people when you put a certain amount of goals and content or things on them. And we say, we know that it takes this amount of time depending on your efficiency level on that. So if someone's like only completing one project a day, where these people over here are doing three projects a day, right? So we're like, this may not be a fit for this person that's doing one project a day or one episode a day, you know, or maybe they're just not as efficient or not don't have the background as many years of this skill. Right. And so it's interesting to see that. But we always want to give people a chance. Benefit of the doubt. But we have tools that we can pay attention for their productivity, set specific goals. So as long as they're hitting the goals and they're continuously going and showing up, you know, each day of, you know, coming through, then we, we build that trust with people and in our team on that regard. If we start to see something right away, we will literally confront and, you know, say, hey, this isn't quite a fit. So like yesterday, like, we had a conversation with the gentleman who we let go. Unfortunately, the productivity wasn't. Wasn't there. But then we also onboarded three new team members, so we released one and brought three on. So that was our Monday.
But so things like that. So it's like once you bring them in and you incentivize them to continue to be strong with the team, but you go through and they have different things going on and you give them a few opportunities or attempts on things, we usually will let them know our feedback. And before we actually say, I don't believe this is the right fit anymore, but we really appreciate the opportunity for you to work with us.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: Well, virtual business, global domination, marketing machine that you've built. Absolutely fascinating to share it with us. Thank you so much for being on the program today. Love what you're doing, love being a client of yours and, and for what you've done for our podcast, our show. We really appreciate it. And for those of you tuning in, make sure to come back next week as we continue to unpack the incredible journey and stories of the entrepreneurs who are making real waves out in the marketplace. Thanks so much for being with us today.
