2908: Crafting Authentic Content with AI: Balancing Technology and Human Touch

[00:00:00] Have you ever find yourself wondering how the convergence of artificial intelligence

[00:00:05] and automation is transforming the landscape of content creation and marketing? Or are

[00:00:12] you concerned that all this talk of AI is going to harm your career potential in the

[00:00:17] creative industry or do you just feel overwhelmed with it all? Well, no need for any of that

[00:00:22] stuff because in today's episode we're going to be diving into the world of innovative

[00:00:25] content strategies with James Taylor. He's the founder of Powleads and with a rich history

[00:00:31] in marketing and automation, not to mention a profound interest in all things AI, James

[00:00:37] has dedicated his career to empowering businesses with technological advancements and educational

[00:00:42] programs aimed at helping them enhance brand presence on dynamic platforms from LinkedIn

[00:00:48] to TikTok. But today I want to learn more about his entrepreneurial journey starting

[00:00:54] at the tender age of 14 and having travelled around the world, James is testament to the

[00:00:59] power of innovation and adaptability. But today he's going to be joining me to share

[00:01:05] his insights on how you or your business can future-proof your brand, whether that be a

[00:01:11] corporate brand or a personal brand, and how you too can leverage AI and automation for

[00:01:16] impactful content creation. We all know we need to be creating more content but I think

[00:01:21] a lot of people feel overwhelmed and, hey, I've just not got time to do that stuff. If

[00:01:25] that sounds like you, James has got so much gold to share. I personally learnt so much

[00:01:30] from him today and it's a real pleasure to get him on here and shed light on how businesses

[00:01:35] can thrive in a digital age by embracing AI and automation. So buckle up and hold on tight

[00:01:42] as I beam your ears all the way to the UK where you can sit down with myself and James

[00:01:46] where we unlock the potential of AI and help you delve into the automation insights and

[00:01:51] learn more about the strategies that have propelled James to the forefront of digital

[00:01:56] marketing. But enough from me, let's get him on the show now.

[00:02:01] So a massive warm welcome to the show, James. Get everyone listening a little about who you are

[00:02:07] and what you do. Yeah, I'm James Taylor. I'm from England and I kind of do AI and marketing

[00:02:16] and a bit of content creation at the same time. I started out doing video production

[00:02:22] at university, then realised that people don't really know what they're doing with the videos

[00:02:26] that I was creating. And I've been creating like dropshipping companies and things like that since

[00:02:32] I was 14. So I've been doing quite a lot of marketing all through life and little mini

[00:02:38] startups and everything. And I started getting into a bit more about the psychology of marketing

[00:02:44] using content creation. And that was all going quite fun. And I was creating little animations

[00:02:50] and doing all that. And then the and I have a little business called Our Leads, which is a

[00:02:56] marketing agency and a piece of software, which is kind of like a nurturing software.

[00:03:02] And then about a year ago, I guess the world went crazy with AI and chat GPT. And it used to be a

[00:03:10] bit of a not particularly useful, but I started using it more and more for content creation.

[00:03:16] And out of the blue, I just started to get really interested in how to use AI in content creation

[00:03:24] purposes, as well as all of these millions of automation tools that you can connect all together

[00:03:30] and kind of automate most of your business, which has been really fun to kind of people and

[00:03:37] figure out the puzzles of their marketing plus the automation within their company as well.

[00:03:43] So that's what I've been doing.

[00:03:44] Fantastic, keeping you busy. It's funny because we're just saying before you came on the podcast,

[00:03:48] we've both got AI assistants on this very call, haven't we? And what kind of tools have you been

[00:03:53] getting the most out of over the last few months? Yeah. So, I mean, this tool has been I remember

[00:03:59] using this tool about I think a year ago and it just blowing people away. So this one is called

[00:04:04] read AI. And that's that simply just listens to your transcripts and sends every client that's on

[00:04:11] the call an email with like a summary and goes through everything and plans what's meeting,

[00:04:18] what they have to do, the action points after the meeting and what's expected.

[00:04:22] So this actually can be really well used and to plan what's next after a call.

[00:04:28] And I like that. And I've been also using things like make.com and Zapier to create

[00:04:35] and combining AI within there to create content or to create tasks for the rest of my team.

[00:04:44] So after a meeting or something like that, I can not only have that message sent to everyone,

[00:04:50] but also I can get it sent to to Powerleads to create tasks and then send it out and text

[00:04:55] everyone what they need to do next or that day. So, but yeah, I've been absolutely loving all the

[00:05:01] new tools that have been coming out content wise. I think my most used is probably chat GPT

[00:05:07] law. How about yourself? Have you been using any tools? Yeah, I use it for so much because I record

[00:05:12] this podcast every single day is a whole heap of work there and would help whether it be generating

[00:05:18] questions, whether it be creating a summary from here. So I use Fathom AI, very similar to read AI

[00:05:24] I think exactly the same, all the key parts of the conversation. It will transcribe it and then I can

[00:05:29] put a lot of that stuff into chat GPT to help with the intro to help with the episode description.

[00:05:35] Ultimately, it's just about working smart and not hard and isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I kind of jokes in

[00:05:42] another podcast I was in that I was I make all these things just to be lazy. Yeah, just so I

[00:05:48] can because it is as soon as you start figuring out these things that take 10 minutes of your day.

[00:05:54] And then you combine them all up with all the other things that take 10 minutes and start creating

[00:05:58] systems in order to automate them. It's amazing what how much time you can save on how much

[00:06:03] you can use your brain for other more creative aspects. 100% with you. The only danger is for

[00:06:09] myself, and I'm sure you're the same as all that time you save you don't use it to kick back and

[00:06:14] relax or go for a walk in the countryside or maybe just play some Xbox or PlayStation or something.

[00:06:21] You just fill it with more work. Don't you? Yeah, I know. I have been trying to keep like

[00:06:25] a keep a journal and having like a particular like a walk in the morning. Yeah, to kind of walk

[00:06:31] to and like a nearby bench where I read something like using a physical book and I not my coat and

[00:06:38] not my phone or a notepad or anything like that. And that's quite nice to kind of get out of my

[00:06:43] head and not use the tech and then come back and then fill it. Fill the day with more tech.

[00:06:50] What about things like audible? Is listening to a book whilst going on a walk the same as

[00:06:56] sat on that bench reading the book? What's your views on that? I like I like I love audible for

[00:07:03] fiction. Yeah. So and for things like philosophy. So the book that's in front of me at the moment

[00:07:08] is Marcus Aurelius is meditations. That one I take and I'll go and physically read. I think

[00:07:15] that's better. You have to I think I made a bit of content the other day about speed reading. So

[00:07:21] understanding you can read like thousands and thousands of words really quickly as long as you

[00:07:27] kind of figure out. So this is nonfiction. So a lot of nonfiction books has got is just filled with

[00:07:33] pointless kind of what's the word like filler content. And you've just got to be able to have

[00:07:39] that in your head to kind of read through what is actually going to be important. And then you

[00:07:44] can memorize it better and kind of yeah proper analysis of what you're actually reading. But I

[00:07:49] love audio books for fiction. So I read I'm just like I think I just spent last night reading like

[00:07:57] a whole book in fiction. So I think it's important to kind of jump between those two. I think fiction

[00:08:04] and nonfiction don't just read loads of help help books self-help books and everything throw in

[00:08:10] some old philosophy and fiction there I think as well. Yeah 100% I think it's the monk who sold

[00:08:15] his Ferrari is my soundtrack to my dog walks in the morning as well. I recommend that one. Have

[00:08:20] you heard of that one? I have heard of it. I heard I have heard that and I haven't got around to

[00:08:25] watching that listening to that yet. But yeah definitely I'm going to add it. Yeah. So you have

[00:08:31] like a list of from everyone who's been on here. Yeah I always ask people at the end to either leave

[00:08:37] a song or a book and every now and again. Well pretty much I'm a little bit a cheapskate really

[00:08:42] because all those books those great pieces of art that people will add to that wish list. I put them

[00:08:48] in my audible wish list and then wait for the two for one credit. So I get the most out of my credits.

[00:08:53] So two for one deals come up then I go straight in. See there's a trick if you buy the Kindle.

[00:08:59] So if you pay monthly for the Kindle thing and pay monthly for the audio thing you can buy the book

[00:09:04] well you get the book as part of the Kindle deal for free and then as soon as you do that then you

[00:09:10] go back onto audible and then it's like three pounds for the audiobook. Yeah it's a weird little

[00:09:16] trick that I haven't I didn't realize that was there until only recently. Yeah so it's really

[00:09:22] good to keep reading and keep your mind going but and kind of step away a little bit from all the

[00:09:28] all the technology and everything. But it's still amazing. I still love tech every single day.

[00:09:33] Yeah me too and obviously you're a guy we're talking before we started recording so you've

[00:09:37] been traveling all around the world and there's a bit of an origin story and backstory there. So

[00:09:41] can you share your journey that took you from the world of marketing and into automation and also

[00:09:48] towards AI because I've got a feeling there's a story there too right? Yeah because I started

[00:09:53] with animation so sorry I started at uni doing testimonial videos and those kind of to camera

[00:10:01] stuff and I realized I'm not very good at that. I actually got better at animating things on my own

[00:10:06] and then again I ended up realizing that I was staying indoors a lot. So this is before the

[00:10:12] pandemic and it was cool to to work online or not go to have an office or anything and I think the

[00:10:18] company I had back then we tried we ended up spending a lot of money getting an office just

[00:10:23] and it just felt like it was and we weren't really using it as much. We could do everything

[00:10:30] outside of the office and for our business anyway and it just felt like it was just there

[00:10:35] just to kind of show off that we had an office and to be taken more seriously. So we ended up like

[00:10:40] all working from home from that point but in the end I ended up like not really leaving my place

[00:10:46] for for like a couple of weeks or something and paying high prices in Manchester of where we were

[00:10:52] living. So in the end I was just like okay well I'm just gonna get a one-way ticket to Thailand

[00:10:57] and ended up living there for a couple of years and I think that was about eight years ago

[00:11:02] and since then got the bug and just tried to create business using for animation as well as

[00:11:11] marketing jobs of all while I'm traveling around kind of thing so I didn't have to physically go

[00:11:16] into the office. Then I think the pandemic after years of doing that the pandemic obviously hit

[00:11:22] and then it was a lot more easier to do because everyone was it was easy to go online jump on

[00:11:28] a zoom call but yeah and during the whole of that I was still interested in psychology and marketing

[00:11:34] and then slowly I was kind of wanting to use AI more so I started to learn about chat chat GPT like

[00:11:42] the prompt engineering and everything. The second that word came out I knew that it was going to be

[00:11:49] a very important thing because eventually it is essentially trying to how you talk to the AI

[00:11:55] is going to be is going to determine what the output is or the quality of the output and I know

[00:12:01] that's going to be the case maybe for another few years and then it probably you probably won't need

[00:12:07] these tricks and things like that in order to get the output it will just know the output based on

[00:12:13] the data that it knows about you. So I started to create content more or less every day I wanted

[00:12:21] to start doing this daily videos and creating content of all the stuff that I know and the

[00:12:28] things that are trending and my opinions on the things that are trending or the information that

[00:12:34] is out there however I'm not very good at writing so here I started to use AI to help me write scripts

[00:12:42] and these things just started to and then I was wondering like how much can I get away with

[00:12:47] creating AI content so using AI images and then all the AI motion creation came out so turning

[00:12:54] images into motion and animation which is what I originally did and spent hours trying to create

[00:13:00] these kinds of things to go in the background like call b-roll and then it turns out the AI

[00:13:07] was such a perfect tool for this and it just got so quickly so much better to kind of simplify

[00:13:14] things and then I started to notice that I don't have time to physically do even with the AI I still

[00:13:20] don't have time to physically do a few of these things like inputting it into the into so many

[00:13:24] bits of AI so that's where I came about with the content alchemist so combining virtual assistants

[00:13:32] out there and training them how to use AI and use all of these all these tools individually

[00:13:39] and then connect them together by using the VA to input the data in each one and get the content

[00:13:46] that I needed out of it and then edit it together so therefore it would only take me a very small

[00:13:52] amount of time per week say maybe an hour or something to make a video every single day and

[00:13:59] that to me I think is one of the ultimate goals in business if you're looking to build

[00:14:07] connecting a personal brand to your business is so powerful and it's something that used to be only

[00:14:14] achieved by people with a lot of money and a lot of time in order to and a lot more effort

[00:14:21] to kind of build it and nowadays I think if you get the right things in place and a good VA

[00:14:28] and a good system in place you can kind of create what I think is possibly one of the most powerful

[00:14:34] marketing tools out there which is a personal brand. Wow what a great story and as you said

[00:14:40] that inspired you to create your own AI content creation tool and I'm conscious there'll be a lot

[00:14:46] of people listening all around the world we set off all those light bulb moments they want to hear

[00:14:50] more about it what's it called and ultimately how does it work? Yeah so the so I like I said I started

[00:14:57] the free tool called sorry the free course called content alchemist and that's teaching people how

[00:15:05] to connect VAs train them in order to use them individually but then all the I think a few

[00:15:11] thousand people have taken that now and a lot of the feedback which I got from there was the VAs

[00:15:17] are still taking a long time to to put everything through and so if you hired a VA for like three

[00:15:23] hours a day they were spending about two hours of that day inputting all getting the content

[00:15:29] inputting in all the tools and then creating images for each sentence and then creating a video for

[00:15:37] each one and then and then they've only got an hour to edit that all together so I thought if

[00:15:44] I could create auto alchemist which is what it's called and try and automate that entire process

[00:15:51] and and I'm not a coder so I've actually used make.com in order to create auto alchemist I've

[00:15:58] combined our leads to create the credit system make.com and about seven different AIs and APIs

[00:16:06] inside of there to create like the automation the system behind it and then it's just WordPress on

[00:16:12] top so at the moment it's at beta and MVP level however it's I found it more of a just a just a fun

[00:16:22] thing to kind of make on my own in like three weeks during dry January that that month we have

[00:16:29] nothing to do this so I just spent hours kind of just putting it all together and then more and

[00:16:36] more people have started using this auto alchemist to kind of create so you what you can do now is

[00:16:42] basically you can go and find like a blog article something that's trending in your subject or a

[00:16:49] fellow youtuber or a tiktoker and you can use a couple of tools to just grab the transcript

[00:16:56] you throw it into the tool and then it will recreate a 60 second script image prompts for

[00:17:01] every single line a blog a social post and a newsletter all out of one single thing the auto

[00:17:09] alchemist course kind of shows you how to use that so you would you would create the blog

[00:17:16] you would use that blog have that on WordPress and then underneath the video that you make you

[00:17:21] would post the the link to that blog and then the newsletter you would then push that out to all of

[00:17:27] your followers or your newsletter list and you would do that within 30 minutes so you get like

[00:17:34] a bunch of new eyes on it and that tells the algorithms that it's good so therefore

[00:17:40] it kind of goes a bit more viral in that way and yeah and then it's just all about trying to take

[00:17:49] those image prompts and turn them into b-roll which I've made a second part or in auto alchemist

[00:17:56] I've just completed like two days ago how to bulk turn all of those image prompts within 20 minutes

[00:18:04] into all of this b-roll that you can just put behind yourself so the only thing you need to do

[00:18:10] is just record yourself saying speaking out the script and I think and that's a really good way

[00:18:17] to like so what I do is like once a week read out seven scripts straight to camera and then give it

[00:18:24] to my VAs they've already got all the background stuff there all they need to do is just put it all

[00:18:29] together and then they just post it on socials so it's a really cool way to kind of get to get it done

[00:18:35] like really fast. Wow that's incredibly cool and that was all using make.com and for people that

[00:18:41] don't know that pretty much allows anyone to design build and automate anything from tasks

[00:18:46] and workflows to apps and systems without the need for coding skills was there a big learning curve

[00:18:51] for anybody that's off to check that out before checking your tool out because we'll have different

[00:18:56] people listening any look big learning curves or any lessons learned from putting all that together

[00:19:00] using that platform? It was very easy to create for the first part that creating the document

[00:19:07] the b-roll creation remember I've never coded in my life at all so I don't know how to code and

[00:19:14] that part I needed to connect to outside APIs which is basically like so my tool connects to

[00:19:21] another tool called Leonardo AI which is like an incredible image generation system in order to

[00:19:28] connect to them you can't directly connect like make.com and Zapier have like nodes so normally

[00:19:34] they've got a direct connection if they don't have that then you have to create like a you have

[00:19:41] to use a bit of their code to connect to it so yeah it's like a tunnel between the two and that

[00:19:48] did take a bit of playing and messing about with and trying to get like timings right and

[00:19:55] and sometimes there would be like someone would input like a negative prompt sorry they would

[00:20:02] input something negative like the word dead and then Leonardo would come back and be like

[00:20:07] you can't put you can't put dead in because we can't create pictures of dead people or anything

[00:20:12] like that or celebrities so that would create an error so therefore I'd have to then go back

[00:20:18] and then get and have another AI and another like AI talk system to kind of look through

[00:20:27] all of their scripts and images to kind of determine whether or not this is gonna be

[00:20:33] errored or come up with to delete anything to do with like dead or celebrities before it gets

[00:20:40] into my system so the I think the fun part about that is it's using AI in order to improve

[00:20:48] something very simple so say if you created if you went to Zapier now and you wanted

[00:20:55] particular emails to be sent to you via SMS or to even be indenced then put through 11 labs which

[00:21:05] is like an AI voice simulator and then sent to you via SMS as a audio track you could easily do that

[00:21:14] in Zapier like very quickly and in make.com which is kind of crazy so that's like automating

[00:21:22] something that might take you 20 minutes of the day and then just having an audio thing so you

[00:21:28] wake up and instead of walking instead of listening to your podcast you might play that for five

[00:21:33] minutes yeah and I guess you're an overview so there's so many of these little tricks that you

[00:21:39] can make within like make.com and Zapier. It's incredibly cool I've been telling my clients

[00:21:45] for years at the best place the best thing to do is repurpose content to get more a video you can

[00:21:50] strip the audio out and create a podcast you can then strip the transcript out create a blog post

[00:21:56] a newsletter social posts for quotes for Instagram video clips audio clips all that stuff and I know

[00:22:02] this all too well but someone that records 10 interviews a week it blows my mind just trying

[00:22:07] to even think about doing that stuff and what you're doing here and how you're automating that

[00:22:12] it's certainly got my attention and I'll be checking it out and if I zoom out for a moment

[00:22:16] beyond myself and what I'm thinking about how do you see AI and automation shaping the future of

[00:22:21] content creation and ultimately brand building whether you're an entrepreneur or an individual or

[00:22:27] a small to medium enterprise or huge enterprise come to think of it. I think everyone is going

[00:22:32] to end up having a kind of personal brand I think it's become so much easier for everyone to

[00:22:40] start creating their own personal brands and connecting it to every the business that businesses

[00:22:45] that they own at the moment and the businesses they might be a part of in the future I think

[00:22:50] that would be and that's a really good way as well for getting employed I've been definitely offered

[00:22:57] a lot of jobs in the last in the last but since I've been starting to create quite a consistent

[00:23:02] content so that's a it's another route there. I think with with AI in general I think it's going to

[00:23:10] I think these people that are building these personal brands and creating a very small

[00:23:15] small smallish following but like a niche following I think those people are going to be

[00:23:21] they're going to create micro communities within places like Facebook and I think Facebook are

[00:23:27] quite are going a lot towards creating grabbing these personalities creating like an AI character

[00:23:34] out of it so that your community can always talk to that person so I think there was a lot of

[00:23:41] there's a lot of new tech that's coming out at the moment whereby people are I think there's like a

[00:23:46] pin or something that's coming out soon which is by the same developers that creates the iPhone

[00:23:53] and that's is it's essentially like an Alexa that follows you all the time but it purposely

[00:23:59] records everything like every sound and everything you say I think you can obviously turn that off

[00:24:05] but having the ability to kind of give you a summary of the day like a journal

[00:24:09] and then compile all of that data all of that information and then create almost like an avatar

[00:24:17] of yourself as the other people can go and talk to and get advice from so say for example everything

[00:24:24] that you've said on here now throughout the years if you compile all of that together you can easily

[00:24:30] make a book and that's what a few AIs are quite it's quite easy to do that at the moment so you

[00:24:36] can compile all the podcasts that you've been on all of your previous books and make like an a

[00:24:42] super book but I think what will probably most likely happen is more everyone will start going

[00:24:47] towards avatars so you would instead of having a book you would have you would sell almost like

[00:24:54] an avatar that can kind of work so someone could work the AI the AI you it can kind of work for a

[00:25:02] very small community of people and they can ask you ask it sorry questions about what's that's

[00:25:10] around one particular subject they've everything about so I think there's going to be a lot of those

[00:25:16] niche avatars kind of popping up soon I think that's going to be quite interesting.

[00:25:22] That's incredibly cool and I must admit because we're approaching 3,000 interviews on here

[00:25:26] and when I look back at some of the huge names that we've had on here such as William Shatner

[00:25:31] Gary Vaynerchuk etc I do think I'd love to create a book of some of those best moments and some of

[00:25:36] the biggest takeaways from those biggest names but let's be honest wading through 3,000 interviews is

[00:25:42] never going to happen what are they for anybody out there that may also have a podcast and want to

[00:25:48] do the same thing what are the ones that you've seen out there that will allow podcasters for

[00:25:52] example to create their own book through AI is anything that that's caught your eye?

[00:25:57] What like tools stuff yeah tools that will just do it for you maybe take the RSS feed and then just

[00:26:03] create it. There was one oh there was one I can't remember it now there is there are a few

[00:26:09] there's a few tools for podcasters that allow you to take all of the recordings like say on here for

[00:26:16] example yeah and say if we were using video it would also record those and turn those into shorts

[00:26:21] you would have audio shorts and video shorts and I think it also creates summaries of different

[00:26:28] things you can even do things like I think there's a podcast matching service so it would

[00:26:34] match two people that have a podcast and want to cross market or a person who is looking to get

[00:26:41] onto a podcast with you and then it would also make those questions based around the LinkedIn

[00:26:48] profile or the latest content that they created so I think there's a few of those I think there's a

[00:26:55] there's a there's an online platform called meow which does like micro networking so like four

[00:27:02] people together and I was on the phone to the creator of that and I said to them that would be

[00:27:08] such an amazing little thing if they could add an almost like an AI to determine the best the most

[00:27:15] interesting questions to ask each one of those people and then for that to then take that

[00:27:22] recorded footage and then put it into a little micro short short video because that would be

[00:27:28] incredible content to to push out especially if someone said something really interesting

[00:27:34] or you've said something really interesting in a little micro networking meeting and then you

[00:27:39] push that out for everyone to see like there I'm sure there's a bunch of tools that are out there

[00:27:45] probably one of my favorite places to go is futuretools.io and just type in podcast and

[00:27:52] it's like a it's a huge list of all of these AI tools out there so people like me like auto

[00:28:00] alchemist and everything to just go out there and just randomly make one in a few weeks they're all

[00:28:05] up there for like niche things so if some of your if some of your listeners are in one particular

[00:28:12] area I bet you if you type in like plumber AI it's like a plumber AI or there's like a vivarium

[00:28:19] designer I don't know I'm not sure I'm just trying to think of the most random thing or something

[00:28:25] but yeah I guarantee that there's AI's out there on that site so definitely worth uh worth to check

[00:28:31] it out. Oh wow well I will get a link added to that and that's my weekend gone I'm going to be going

[00:28:37] deep down that rabbit hole and I'm conscious there'll be a lot of people listening we're

[00:28:41] blowing their minds right now they want a pineapple they want to learn more and I know that you're so

[00:28:46] passionate about this and it comes across in our conversation today and you did create a free course

[00:28:52] so can you just give everyone listening a bit of a sneak peek into that free course if they were to

[00:28:56] sign up what they can expect to learn from them? Yeah it's essentially just this idea that at the

[00:29:03] moment anyway there is no true Jarvis there is no there's no one single tool that can creatively think

[00:29:12] and connect all of these brilliant AI tools together so the whole argument is essentially

[00:29:17] how easy is it to train someone a VA who has been who is their skills at the moment are starting to

[00:29:25] decrease in terms of like data finding data online sales and everything like that it's being

[00:29:32] replaced or improved by these new AI tools so some my thoughts were how do we make sure that they

[00:29:41] can stay they can still be used as VA's but trained in just a different slightly different

[00:29:47] way so the the using of these tools if you create a good system and a good training

[00:29:55] and simply use things like scribe it is another scribe.ai where it just records exactly what you

[00:30:01] do so you can easily pass that on to a VA so say if there was like a tool or something an AI tool

[00:30:07] that you found on future tools you played with it for like an hour and then you were like oh I would

[00:30:13] like to do this every single day then it's just using scribe or like loom or something to record

[00:30:20] your screen and create like a training to send to your VA so the whole argument of the content

[00:30:27] alchemist is that it can that it's easier to it's a way to train them and manage them it's a way to

[00:30:35] track them as well VA's how to make sure that they are working on your system but also it's about

[00:30:42] how to use how to get into recording yourself online so there's a whole section in there about

[00:30:49] how to record yourself what tools to use using teleprompters or on your phone using CapCut and

[00:30:56] how to edit things directly on your phone or to get your VA to take that take that little

[00:31:02] teaching and for them to do it because I think I'm not sure if I said it I think I said we said

[00:31:07] it right at the start what did I do at the beginning the I used to do video production

[00:31:12] video editing and I tell you that I you needed to go to university back then because it was quite

[00:31:18] complicated to to use the tools and the software and everything nowadays it's so much easier like

[00:31:25] you don't need a degree in video production at all so it's so nowadays it's so simple and there's

[00:31:32] so many amazing like AI tools within AI editors and CapCut and and Premiere and everything that

[00:31:41] are all free tools and you can like press a button and it will delete all the silences

[00:31:46] delete all the repeated words delete all the ums cut it all down so you don't have to mess about

[00:31:51] with anything and then come up with AI generated b-roll so there's absolutely tons of free tools

[00:31:59] and tips in there that you can use to kind of kind of get your personal brand going or just to make

[00:32:06] content frequently using a VA. Yeah for me it's really lowered the barrier of entry to creativity

[00:32:13] and for too long we've almost put certain people on a pedestal that all they're the creative people

[00:32:18] everyone else isn't and it's completely untrue you go around any classroom in infants or junior school

[00:32:24] every kid in there is creative which is almost like we lose it as we get older or convinced that

[00:32:29] we're not creative and I think a lot of that might be down to the creativity depends on do you have

[00:32:35] the money do you have the time do you have that money for uh not only the education but for also

[00:32:40] let's say an Adobe Creative Suite and even if you can afford this at the expense of that

[00:32:45] you need hundreds and hundreds of hours of experience getting the grips with all that and

[00:32:50] suddenly you've just removed that barrier haven't you? Yeah yeah it's definitely I think AI tools

[00:32:55] and all these tools that are removing barriers just allows you to play more and play equals

[00:33:01] better creativity. I think we we decrease our creativity because we're not allowed to play

[00:33:06] because there's too many of these barriers up so all these AI and new tools that are out to make

[00:33:12] it easier there's yeah less barrier more play which means that we can be creative and we can

[00:33:17] play about with new ideas and new tools like like me building this auto alchemist thing I can't code

[00:33:24] so that's a barrier right? Yeah. But after playing with it for I think a couple of days or something

[00:33:30] and just making something for myself so I suggest for everyone to go and just make a little thing

[00:33:37] for themselves add in chat gpt into it and just see if you can make just something little for

[00:33:43] yourself and then make something small for your clients to improve improve your service a little

[00:33:49] bit or create a lead magnet using these so using something like formwise AI they fill out a couple

[00:33:57] of lines you ask them a couple of questions in a form and then it outputs a little document it could

[00:34:03] be like a marketing strategy or calculator or something but and then just go and give that to

[00:34:09] your clients for free and see see the reaction if it's useful and and of high value to them then you

[00:34:16] can start looking into the next stage which is doing like what I did with auto alchemist make

[00:34:22] it like an MVP with a bunch of forms and kick it out there again having a really a free side to it

[00:34:28] and then eventually when there's a lot of people and you've got a lot of data behind it and a lot

[00:34:33] of feedback then you can start looking for founders and seeders and the startup funding

[00:34:39] and that will be my next plan to kind of get like a real developer one of those people that can

[00:34:43] actually code yeah to come and make it prettier so that would be my next but fundamentally the

[00:34:51] back end is all just create and make so go play I say 100% I think that's such fantastic advice

[00:34:58] just go and play if for years you felt like you can't code you can't use the adobe creative suite

[00:35:04] you're locked out of that world just banish that thought for a moment go play see what you can

[00:35:08] create and let me know on this podcast if you've heeded any advice that we've talked about today

[00:35:13] let me know what it is that you've created but we will have some people we've all been there

[00:35:18] we've do scroll down our phone AI is replacing everything we've seen those worst case scenarios

[00:35:23] reported as fact that we're heading to a dystopian future plugged into a ready player one lifestyle

[00:35:29] the world's full of a to a ai to ai conversations humanity is lost but with that in mind for those

[00:35:36] people listening how do you balance innovation in technology but ensuring that you keep that

[00:35:41] essential human element in content creation and marketing because we've both played with chat gpt

[00:35:47] and we know you can almost spot something that's been entirely generated just through chat gpt so

[00:35:52] for me i think it's all about the best of what technology can do when you add that human element

[00:35:58] that the your opinion your passion and that's where it all comes to life that fusion but any advice on

[00:36:03] how you can maintain that balance and ensure that human element is not lost yeah exactly so so there's

[00:36:10] two things one is editing so in my tool the output of the script i always say add in a personal note

[00:36:18] and use it as more of a structure as it's your is your personal brand and number two is the the part

[00:36:24] of the tool that allows you to grab all of these image prompts that are created i also say change

[00:36:30] a couple of the image prompts because sometimes the ai can't be creatively perfect and even then

[00:36:35] and that's why i have the vas as well to go through and go like i actually i can do a better job if i

[00:36:43] manually animate well if i use an a different ai tool to animate this picture because like one one

[00:36:51] output of a motion image sorry of an image turning into an emotion an animation maybe you want like

[00:36:59] the person to be actually walking up the stairs that are in front of them rather than like the

[00:37:04] stairs just moving so in that case she would need that that's where you have like a va or we call

[00:37:10] them content alchemists to to physically go in and go like oh we're going to go and improve each

[00:37:16] one of those images and put it through a different tool which is called runway which is a bit more

[00:37:22] higher you actually have to figure out what you want to move so you need to use your human brain

[00:37:28] and human creativity to make that work however there will be there is more and more stuff coming

[00:37:34] out like sora is going to blow everyone away and already has i think so yes seeing the creativity in

[00:37:42] there but i think i think a lot of it is is also the training so it's going to be creatively using

[00:37:50] your human element to train it with right data and the right examples that's why i say in the future

[00:37:57] those pins and everything that record every everything you say or takes every podcast that

[00:38:02] you're you've been a part of to really understand how you talk and what you say what kinds of words

[00:38:08] that you say it will use that completely and ultimately to make something way more like

[00:38:16] what you would say and what you would make because at the moment like a few i'm sure have you ever

[00:38:21] seen have you ever tried using chat gpt to like make your script and it will just come out with

[00:38:26] so many buzzwords yes i keep adding certain words to my custom gpt to stop using there's just visionary

[00:38:34] boys i don't know i've got each time i add it to the little list in future don't use these words

[00:38:40] i'm determined to get rid of the woods and fruit yeah eventually i think with chat gpt5 coming out

[00:38:47] of 4.5 coming probably around the corner the context windows gets bigger and i think that

[00:38:54] will drastically improve i think claude at the moment is actually pretty good at creating scripts

[00:39:01] and to get rid of a lot of those buzzwords and to match what you've the context that you've given it

[00:39:07] i think claude is like it has actually started to become a little bit better but i think it's

[00:39:12] only one more month away before chat gpt released some i've been reading a lot about claude on reddit

[00:39:18] over the last few weeks and i'm not giving it any time yet how would you compare the two

[00:39:23] it's like it's for different tasks or is one better than the other what have you found from using it

[00:39:29] i found that claude's better for outputting blogs yeah and like i said getting rid of buzzwords when

[00:39:35] you tell it to but it's not very good at creative like creating image prompts and things like that

[00:39:40] so it's not very good at say if you took a line of a script and then said create an image prompts

[00:39:46] based around that line claude would just go off on one and make make maybe it would make a very strange

[00:39:53] creative decisions whereas chat gbt seems to be a bit more relaxed and doesn't go too crazy

[00:40:00] with like impossible overly complicated images that just doesn't work i think claude is faster

[00:40:08] as well so all of the ai tools at the moment they're all trying to be as fast as possible

[00:40:13] so that it's almost like instant i'm not sure exactly why i think they want it they want their

[00:40:19] everyone who's developing tools to have to have a so you could have a direct conversation

[00:40:26] using a voice to reply to you so a bit like jarvis like that i think that's what everyone

[00:40:32] is trying to aim for like there's a another ai kind of kind of clip thing i think it's called

[00:40:38] rabbit io yeah i haven't fully got looked into it but it's more of a it's more of a instead of a

[00:40:45] communication tool to under like a large language model it's a large action model so it's like it

[00:40:51] would record you opening the fridge and then it would record millions of people opening their

[00:40:58] fridge and try and figure out what is on average in their fridge and then you could say something

[00:41:04] like what should i cook tonight and then it would know it could take a picture and figure out what

[00:41:09] each individual thing is and then come up with it but the whole point of doing that is to

[00:41:15] they need to speed up the reply to be almost instant otherwise it's pointless because

[00:41:21] it's no it's not very useful if you open the fridge and you've already figured out that

[00:41:26] exactly what you can before the ai camp that's not particularly useful oh wow we've got so we've

[00:41:32] given me so much homework today but for anyone listening that just wants to dip their toes in

[00:41:37] the water is any advice you'd give to anyone listening no matter what their background is

[00:41:42] looking to start their journey and experimenting in ai driven content creation any tips that you

[00:41:48] would offer to that person listening i think what we said earlier like go and play i think it's one

[00:41:54] of my favorite things to say because that's that is essentially how i've got to where i am

[00:42:02] in terms of my understanding of everything is simply to go and play with it get one of those

[00:42:08] timers have you seen those timers that you get on amazon yeah you might just press it for 20 minutes

[00:42:12] it just spent 20 minutes just writing down your daily the things that you do every day that

[00:42:18] the small things are just taking being mindful of exactly what you're doing each day

[00:42:23] and noticing that oh this is actually taking me a long time i would go on make.com and zapier

[00:42:29] they've actually on ai in the bottom right so you can literally just say i'd like to connect my email

[00:42:35] and do this and this and then it will respond and create it for you it won't create anything very

[00:42:41] complicated like the back end of auto alchemist but like it would still like it's still somewhere

[00:42:47] to start just to see how easy it is and then it's just about like yeah just keep on it i think if you

[00:42:55] go through your day and try and figure out these little tiny automations and the things that other

[00:43:01] people maybe that in your business that are their day is an hour doing this particular thing there

[00:43:08] might be an ai out there or a tool to kind of to half that or maybe completely make that a two minute

[00:43:16] thing instead of a whole hour so it's i think it's really important to be wary of be aware that these

[00:43:23] tools are out there and yeah just and then go and play go and have some fun and yeah have a go build

[00:43:29] something i think that's the perfect moment to end on today but before i do let you go at the very

[00:43:34] beginning i was talking about how i always ask my guests to leave everyone listening with one final

[00:43:39] gift so my question here is a song for our spotify playlist or a book for amazon wishlist what would

[00:43:46] you like to leave everyone listening with and why let's see marcus teraeus meditations yeah i think

[00:43:53] and i think a song 15 minutes of fame by tim minchin oh nice i like it an eclectic mix there

[00:44:03] that's absolutely brilliant for anyone listening want in to find out more information about you

[00:44:08] the course we mentioned how they can uh contact you your team of vas or or whoever yeah what's

[00:44:14] the best starting point for everything if you just type in powleads.com on the right hand side

[00:44:21] you've got a free ai tool that will you can answer free questions and about your your target market

[00:44:29] and everything and it will kick out a strategy a marketing strategy for you for free and then

[00:44:35] at the top of that there's a learn button that's you'll see a link to the free course which is

[00:44:41] the content alchemist and again on the right hand side just underneath there's a free contact tool

[00:44:46] which at the moment you get a bunch of new free credits and you can yeah you can go and start

[00:44:54] create a document create some b-roll and start and yeah go create your first to camera or whatever

[00:45:03] you like a blog or anything like that you can create in like about two minutes well it's so

[00:45:09] much i love chatting with you about today from exploring and demystifying the latest tech

[00:45:13] breakthroughs rendering them accessible as well as applicable for businesses and that talent of

[00:45:19] yours for automating procedures discovering created solutions that ultimately provide valuable insights

[00:45:25] and practical approaches but let's just take a step back from the tech of the minute and all

[00:45:29] the headlines and all the hype and just go and play thanks for sharing your story today thank you so

[00:45:35] much now that's been great fun wow i learned so much from james and he's clear that the future

[00:45:42] of content creation and marketing it lies in the integration of ai and automation so i will be

[00:45:48] checking out his ai tool and that free online course one of those episodes as well i found

[00:45:53] myself furiously making notes of all the tools that he was mentioning so i will try and include

[00:45:59] some of those links in these show notes where over on my website if you go to tech blog writer.co.uk

[00:46:04] go to podcasts find today's episode i'll try and put links to everything that james mentioned

[00:46:09] because there's quite a few tools that i'm going to be checking out but before we part ways let's

[00:46:14] ponder on how we too can contribute to the evolution of content creation and marketing in our own

[00:46:21] fields how will ai and automation help you shape your strategy create more content what steps will

[00:46:27] you take to ensure your brand remains on that cutting edge as always tech blog writer at

[00:46:34] twitter linkedin instagram and neil c hughes i'm the easiest guy in the world to find don't just

[00:46:38] hit follow or connect send me a little message be great to hear from you because remember this

[00:46:44] dialogue doesn't stop here with me sat in a room on my own talking into a microphone i'd love to

[00:46:49] hear your vision for the future but that's it today i'll be back waiting for you in your podcast feed

[00:46:55] nice and early tomorrow but thank you for listening today and until next time don't be a stranger