Ep. 5 | Navigating AI Disruption in Business with Wes Towers

In this conversation, Wes Towers, founder of Uplift 360, shares his journey of navigating the challenges posed by AI in the digital marketing landscape. He discusses the importance of embracing change, the significance of authenticity in content creation, and the need for businesses to build trust in an era of misinformation. Wes emphasizes the value of collaboration, the role of a strong brand voice, and the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance. He also reflects on his legacy as a mentor to his children and the lessons learned throughout his entrepreneurial journey.

💬 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞

➺ Wes Towers is the founder of Uplift 360, a digital agency focused on the trades and construction sector.
➺ AI disruption posed significant challenges to Wes's business valuation, prompting a reevaluation of strategies.
➺ Reinventing business processes and collaborating with team members led to Uplift 360's most profitable year.
➺ Search Everywhere Optimization is the new approach to SEO, focusing on visibility across multiple platforms.
➺ Client success stories highlight the effectiveness of optimization strategies in generating significant contracts.
➺ Balancing ambition with self-care is crucial to avoid burnout in entrepreneurship.
➺ Authenticity in content creation is essential for building trust with audiences.
➺ The Brand Voice Operating System helps maintain a consistent brand identity in content.
➺ Wes emphasizes the importance of mentorship and guiding the next generation in business.
➺ Taking brave steps and embracing imperfection is key to achieving ambitious goals.

𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭:

Wes Towers runs Uplift 360, a digital agency for builders and trades. His focus is simple: smarter websites, practical SEO, and growth you can measure. He earned his playbook on real jobs, not in theory, and now helps others skip the painful lessons.

Connect with Wes:  https://uplift360.com.au/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The value came in less than the assets that it held. Basically saying that the business is worth nothing.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Make It Ambitious, the podcast for bold thinkers, doers, and leaders who refuse to play it small. I am your host, Vic Moser, strategist, creative entrepreneur, and conversation junkie. Each episode, I sit down with industry disruptors, creative founders, and corporate game changers to discuss the strategies, mindsets, and turning points that have shaped their journeys. Whether you're building your personal brand, scaling your business, rewriting your career story, or dreaming up your next big thing, this space is your permission slip to go all in because playing small was never the plan.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

I am super excited to speak with you because your, you know, background is so diverse and you've been through a lot of things. I'm really interested in getting into the nitty-gritty, but before we get into that, I will love for you to tell everybody just a little bit about who you are and what Uplift360 is.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, thanks so much. So Wes Towers is my name. Uplift 360. We're a digital agency here in Australia, in uh in Melbourne, just outside of Melbourne, actually, in a place called Geelong, uh, Australia. And uh so we design websites, we do search engine optimization. We're calling it search everywhere optimization these days because it's not just Google, it's a large language models and a whole bunch of other things. And uh so we're we're really niched into the trades construction businesses. So they're the clients we serve. Wasn't always that way. We did websites for anyone and everyone initially, but now we're really uh focused in on the niche we serve.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Take me back to a moment when a valuator told you that your agency was not gonna be worth much because AI was coming. What did that moment do to your ambition and your identity and your career in general?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, it was a really uh tough time and uh a real kick in the teeth, it felt like at the time. So it was about three years ago now, maybe just over. Everything in place for the business that was doing really well and all the signals that would help to get a great valuation um done. So reliability, the business has been operating a long time, it's over 20 years. But it was the start of it was the rise of AI, and uh people were realizing it had the potential to disrupt lots of businesses, and certainly the value was said, my my business was vulnerable to AI because potentially it could wipe, wipe a business out like mine. So, and people don't buy uncertainty. So if they're buying a business, which is a value of a business, they want some level of reliability, and so there was just so much uncertainty and disruption and a lot of noise, particularly, and it's still going on. But you know, a few years ago when it was just starting to take shape, take shape, people were really concerned. So the value came in. I don't know how this is possible, but the value came in less than the assets that it held, which is don't know how that's possible, but basically saying the the business is worth nothing. So um, yeah, so it was, as I said, a real kick in the teeth at the time, but a real wake-up call as well to think about okay, what does it actually what does AI actually mean to my business? What are the what are the risks? How do I use it to advantage? Um, but also to think about my ambition of of what I want the business to be and what what are my personal values and convictions and how do I make my business um serve me uh as and you know the the personal values, convictions, uh the things that I enjoyed doing, I wanted them to be in the business because it um I think as founder-led businesses, they're usually a reflection of who we are as a person. So it was a real time to think about technology and AI and what we could do to enhance what we're doing, but also to double down on the human aspect of business. I love human connections and talking to people and relationships and and and all that side of things. So to focus on those human touch points was uh a really key thing that I've that I've done uh since that point in time.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

You've been building your business for 20 years. Were there any specific fears that jumped at you initially that and then if that happened, what happened after that? But how was that process for you exactly?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

We all knew AI was changing things, but I couldn't avoid it because it was a big report that I received, and I I listened to a lot of experts and so on, and everyone had different views on what it might mean. Some people are optimistic, some people are pessimistic. It's probably for me somewhere in in the middle just thinking through, and I think we all need to do it. What does it genuinely mean to my business and how how do I make the most of the opportunities that are presented before before me? And I think that's what everyone needs to do. Any career path really who sits behind a computer and does the does the work is vulnerable to um disruption. So yeah, a lot of fear, um, but invested a fair bit of time in figuring it out and and building better standard operating procedures that worked. So same outcomes that we're achieving and working towards for client, uh, but just improve the way in which we do it so we can deliver it a faster way, really.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yeah, we have AI and anyone can go out there and potentially build a website with an AI tool, and the AI tool can build it, and that's fine. But the AI tool doesn't have the 20 years of experience that you have. The AI tool doesn't understand people like you understand people. And those are the values that you will bring to the table that people cannot get by themselves. You know, no matter how much they ask AI, it cannot replace the humanity. So you said you've completely rebuilt Uplift 360 from where it started. What was the first uncomfortable pivot that you had to make in this reinvention?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, so the the reworking of the standard operating procedure. So all the team follow a fairly regimented process, so the outcome was always consistent. It was something that I always wanted to set up in business. I read the um the e-myth a long, long time ago when I started the business, and it speaks about systemizing things, so the outcome is predicted. Yeah, it's brilliant, isn't it? And the way it's uh presented in in story form. It took a fair bit of time and investment to to rework all of those standard operating procedures to get to the same outcomes. But the the challenge also is that the tech is changing as well. So we'll need to keep evolving those standard operating procedures. Well, we had them consistent for a long time, um, the software stack and so on that we were using. So things have adjusted a lot. And it and it takes time because the the team members were following these procedures for a long time. So they kind of knew it uh robotically, like they knew it every step of the journey, and then to rework that, so everyone had to follow a new set of processes. It took a bit of time and investment, and I really leaned on the team as well because particularly the techie guys, the developers, they really understand this kind of stuff. So I really opened it up to them to give some guidance on on what we should do and how we could improve things. Historically, it is it was always me leading the way, the way in which we do the work, but this time around, it felt like I only had a limited amount of knowledge, and I felt like I needed to draw upon my team in in new ways to to rebuild and think about okay, if we were starting from scratch, what what would it look like? What would what would we do differently? And it was a powerful process, and it worked out really well. We had our most profitable year ever, our just last financial year. We report in at the end of June, so a few months ago now, was the most profitable financial year as a as a result really of rebuilding and reshaping the way in which we work.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

That's incredible. Congratulations about that. Super happy for you. Tell me, I'm curious because you said, you know, you were so used to what how you did things and you were stirring the ship and you were the one who knew best. And now that's a little bit more so you gotta rely on your team members a little bit more. How was that pivot for you? How was that process for you?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I think it was a new level of leadership, really. So I guess when I started the business, I had pr pretty much no leadership skills as such. And so I knew how to do the do the work. And so the way it kind of evolved was I ended up just modeling everything on how I would do things. And so I delegated aspects of what I was doing. Um, so that's kind of how it took shape. But this is different in that I'm relying, I've relied on uh the team who are experts in their field, oftentimes better than than me, in their one thing that they do for the business. So it would be naive of me just to think that I could set the new way forward when they know their piece better than me. Now I needed to bring it all together and and make sure and understand it and bring it and make the decisions, the final decisions. But um, when technology is evolving so fast, no one person knows everything. So it's it's um it's a been a lesson learned in in leadership and understanding how a team can work to a higher level.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

The whole point of getting your teammates and the people to work for you is that they know that a specific area so much better than you could ever do it. We all have our strengths for sure. I love that approach. So, for founders who might not speak the SEO language, can you touch upon what does the search everywhere optimization mean that you mentioned earlier?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

A few years ago, everyone would go to Google or a search engine to find a business. That's just what we all did. And and people still do that. Obviously, Google are um still a major player in that space. But these days as well, there's the large language model. So chat GPT is is the most popular. Before they make a buy buying decision, they're typically doing some research. Um, and I do it all the time. I have a conversation with my chat GPT if there's something that I'm looking to learn about or or I need to purchase something or you know to find out what the best options are to optimize so your brand has the potential to show up and be uh recognized in these platforms. So all these platforms, they're pulling all the very what they perceive to be the best information and surfacing the best information for the exact thing that someone's looking for. And they can do that from a broad range of places online. So it's a matter of publishing that information that's um super specific and niche. For us, it's we're a niche business, so it becomes easier because you can be the expert in the field for a certain type of person and a certain type of need. That's the way we're we're looking at it. So search everywhere optimization, it's about showing up in all the right places where you possibly can. It's it's difficult to publish everywhere, but there's ways in which you can you can do it to a large degree by as long as you've got a core message worth sharing, it can be repurposed and uh syndicated far and wide through social media, for example. So you might write a wonderful blog post, uh a pillar piece, or a really strong piece, but you using AI can quickly repurpose that into a series of uh social media posts and have it syndicated out to all the platforms really quickly. That's the beauty of AI. So once you've got a core message, it's worth amplifying that message through the technology that we have at our fingertips now.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

You mentioned Chat GPT, I love that. I use ChatGPT probably like 300 times a day. I don't even know at this point. But I also love perplexity, actually, especially if I'm doing research. I feel like I love how the research component of that one is. But for discoverability and visibility, what changes do you foresee for 2026 for people?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Understanding what they're all trying to achieve is to give the very best information for a very specific uh query. It's a matter of producing that very best information for the very specific things and publishing it wherever you can. So obviously, your website is one area you can easily uh control. Um, so that's the pillar, that's the priority for our clients to get the website right and to get the quality content in there. It's it's kind of a two sides of the same coin. There's the main sales pages of your website. So they're typically clear, concise, compelling, all driven around getting the call to action happening. So whether that be people requesting a quote or buying something online or making a phone call, those sorts of things, the call to action. So the main pages are around that, so that marketing angle. But behind the scenes, we'll have insights or blog or news or case studies somewhere where we can fuel lots of um specific information. But all of that information helps inform all the all the platforms. So we're looking for the very best information. So you've just got to be there. But typically we're working with um local businesses who who want to be known in the region in which they serve. So talking about the locations in in in in which they work is really important too. So some clients will send us their job sheets. So sending that, and we can quickly with the right prompts produce content around that and make it a case study, just finding ways that we can work in with the customer so we can help them uh to achieve the goals that they have.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah, that's very interesting. I'm wondering if there's like a better way for SEO, for example, you would rename every single image so that you know Google can find it. And it's part of like your keywords and things like that, right? So, what are some of the results that your clients have seen when they implement your system correctly?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

A guy who called, he only invested a, I think it was a quite a small program we did. It might have been $3,000 that he invested for helping optimize his site. So we only did a few little things to get it going. And uh he he got a call from someone from a completely different city in Australia looking for his particular service. But it turned out after he he spoke to them, they said that they were having a conversation with their chat GPT asking, and they ended up asking who's the very best in Australia for this particular service offering. And he can't he showed up as the very best. So uh it worked. So that was a hundred and forty thousand dollar contract that he won just simply by that one client who found him on Chat GPT. Just a small business, it's just a solo operator.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Wow, that is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

If anyone wants to do it themselves, I've published a whole heap of prompts that people can copy and paste. It's on our website. You haven't got to give your email or anything like that. It's on there. You can just get that and and start using it right away. So things are changing so fast as well. So it's um we need to adjust the prompts as well as as things progress, no doubt. But they're working really well right now.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Just the fact that you just mentioned that there can be very small tweaks that offer some big, big payoffs for your clients. Like, imagine like this person got the contract for you and for your clients. This is not only niche, but also like location-based as well. But they are still showing up for other people because of such a good job that you did at positioning them the right way that now they're still getting the contract, even though they're not even in the same city. You mentioned to me that you're candid about boundaries and burnout. How can ambitious people build authority without burning themselves out down to the ground?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

It's hard to step away from your business sometimes when you're so passionate about what you do and try to achieve. So it's really important, I've found, to have people in my corner, other business people who run different businesses to me, but just to have a sounding board so um to keep me level-headed and and to step away from the business directly, but to have conversations around what I could be doing better or or differently, or taking stock of what you're trying to achieve because it's so easy just to get stuck in the day-to-day that you don't realize there's a better way forward until someone sort of highlights it to you. So that's been really helpful to make sure that I stay connected with a group of friends that that I feel are smarter than me in a whole lot of ways. Remember to step away from the business because when you're refreshed, you'll achieve so much more. Certainly early days I I spent a lot of time on the business and just trying to just hustle, just doing the hustle to get enough work to create a good enough income. But those days, I don't need I don't need to do that anymore. I've got systems, I've got team, um, I can rely upon the team, I can step back and guide the ship rather than try to do everything on my own. It's been a real, real blessing.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

I understand what you're saying, that there's a point where you start the hustle, you start your business, you're getting it going, and you have to do most of the things yourself. But as soon as you start delegating things and letting things go, and like you mentioned earlier, you get your systems well organized and in place. There's a point where you have to let it go and let it see what it does and let people do their thing and not be in their way. So a lot of business over owners and creators themselves overthink their content and they never chip it. Um and I know you were talking a lot about blogs and social media and all of that. So, what systems can be helpful for people to create consistently, even though they don't like really feel like it? Um, have you found anything that has helped your clients do that?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah, definitely. So it can be really difficult, but to come up with something fresh because business people typically they're so busy doing the work that it's hard to go and create the content. But if you can create a way in which you can make it part of your daily habit, that's the ideal. So I mentioned before, some people just send their job sheets and we create content on their behalf, case studies. There's there's another guy, I had a really tough time understanding exactly what he did because it's quite specific and it's something that I hadn't experienced before. So, but he was having a tough time explaining it. He's super busy. So even finding the time to have a conversation around what he did so we could produce content and get him found and all of that was difficult. But in the end, he ended up videoing the projects as he was doing them, and they were crude videos just with on his phone while he's in the truck. I don't know if he should be doing it, but um, whilst he's in the truck, he was explaining what he was doing, why he was doing it, what the benefits were for the customer, where he was working, so the locations, and just showing me exactly what he did as he did it. He found that easier to communicate. He ended up using the videos on YouTube and so on. They're pretty rough and ready, but they serve his purpose. So they were the videos, but from the video, we could use the transcript. So just take the transcript and repurpose that into a blog posts, which were quite detailed and you know, case study style blog posts. And from that, those blog posts can be repurposed quickly, really, really quickly with AI. So all of a sudden, from one piece of information which was relevant and valuable for him, the video, we've got a whole series of content pieces, and and he hasn't got to uh touch any of it really. He um once he's done that first piece of the puzzle for him, the video, then we can we can take it from there. And it's just a powerful way to amplify a message. Um, you still need to be guiding that the initial thought and bringing something new to the to the table. Otherwise, what some people do is just rely on the AI tool to do the writing and and content creation for them. But it's pretty bland and generic because it's just the average sum total of what of what everyone else has already said. It's just pulling in information and collating it into a new pace and people publish that. But it because it's not adding anything new to the online world, it's very rarely going to surface on search engines or large language models because that information is already out there. You've got to bring something fresh. So the stories that uh are unique to your business, the case studies, the examples, anything that's genuinely yours, um, your own opinions. Uh, there might be things that you do as a business that others don't do. Those unique aspects are really the things that you need to highlight throughout your content marketing.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Wow, I'm having such a hard time figuring out how to do content for myself. And you just like blew my mind because you were like, he just took it in his truck and he was doing whatever he was doing and he was filming it or what, you know, whatever he was working on. Um, because it's a construction, right? I'm curious for a person um who is like a team of one, let's say, like, what are some other simple little workflows that they might be able to like do for themselves to like help them out a little before they can hire somebody like you, of course.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

This collaborations are really powerful. So when you're because you're leveraging someone else's audience as well. So in this instance, um, I mean, it's you and I having a conversation and hopefully there's some useful uh guidance in there and uh ideas. But the beautiful beauty of collaboration is that you've multiplied your reach, doubled effectively if there's two two people with an audience. So it's you and I sharing uh reels and and content. And so the with that's why a podcast, so it's just a really powerful way for my business to reach so many more people uh around the world. We can share that on multiple platforms. It's two of us sharing and and just getting exposure to different audiences as well. So there's ways to do it. So this is a a cost-effective way of getting messages out there. Um, guesting on on podcasts, hosting as well is is obviously powerful. Um, and reusing that. So, I mean, even the transcript of this video, there was another lady. I I was on a podcast and she's writing books, she's taking guests from her podcast and using an AI platform, I believe, reworks the transcripts into a book, and each each guest is a is a chapter in the book. And so I'm assuming she um she finds. The uh speakers who have some uh similar content, similar ideas that somehow flow. But she's writing books off the back of her podcast. So once you've got a set of ideas, there's just so many avenues you can take that one piece of information and and re-rework it. So yeah, so she sent the chapter of the book that's that's mine, and it it read really well. It was a more polished, refined version of what I had said on the podcast, restructured in a way that serves as a as a book.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Because I've had so many powerful women in my podcast so far, I was thinking that I would love to write a book about them. And I never even thought about the fact that I have interviews with this women. So if there is a through line, I could potentially do it that way. That is so, or the lady that you went on the podcast at is doing that. That is such a cool idea because you guys give such valuable advice to us. I feel like I was telling a friend, I'm like, look, I'm getting like free business advice, free therapy. Well, technically not free, uh, because you know, like we put work into it. Being a host is a lot of work, but I feel like it's so fulfilling to me. I love getting to know people like you and just understanding what makes you tick and you know what you're doing and how incredible some people are. Like it is just so cool to me. So if I could use that and also repurpose it into a bigger thing like a book, that sounds incredible. Like, I don't know if like I'm I might need to borrow this idea from this person because this is such a cool idea.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

The other advantage of that is say, for example, you're featuring six, six um podcast guests. Well, if they're somewhat of an author or a contributor to the book, well, they're they're likely to want to sell it or gift it, give it to people in their world as well. So imagine six people with a book that they can say they've their their information is in and they're sharing it to all their people. Just imagine the multiplication of six six people, six uh guests. Could be really powerful.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

I didn't even think about that aspect of it, but you're right. You mentioned that you believe AI should amplify trust, not replace it. What does that look like in practice from like a business owner, founder, creator perspective?

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah, so that I mean there's it feels as though there's a massive erosion of trust these days because people realize AI can mass produce content at scale, and it seems to be, it reads pretty well, and the videos look so realistic now. And imagine, you know, in six months' time how realistic those videos are going to be. So there's there's a a lack of trust in the information that we see. We can't we can't necessarily believe what our own eyes are showing us anymore. So trust is, I think, the new currency. So anything you can do to build trust and authority and and uh recognition in the industry in in which you serve, in which you work, and the people that you serve, they're they're going to be powerful. So the things that you can't easily manipulate. So reviews, for example, on third-party platforms such as Google, those sorts of things are going to be really, really powerful. They already are, but I think it's going to just be even more so because people can't necessarily believe what they read on your website, um, but they they'll believe the reviews or the third-party endorsements on the social media, wherever it is.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

How if it's finally time for us to move into the Web3 world because of that, a contract cannot be altered. And if it is, you wouldn't know it's in the code. Like nobody can make stuff up there. Takes your likeness uh from a video, and especially, you know, as creators or business owners putting themselves out there for their business, whatever. Anyone can take your likeness. Like, we're here in this podcast. I'm gonna upload it to YouTube. Anyone can pretend to be you or me and create videos with our voices, with our face, everything. But in the web 3, it's gonna be a lot harder in the blockchain to make that because you just can fake it like that. Like if it's not original. So I'm wondering if that might be a direction that things might go.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Um Yeah, you're probably right. I hadn't really looked at that, considered that, but you I think you're you're spot on with all of that. It is interesting with plagiarism and so on at the moment. I mean, a small legal battle at the moment because someone's I've got a tra my company named Trademarked, and there's someone stepping in my territory, you know, they've got they've got a logo very similar to mine and the name very similar to mine, and colours and everything. Like it's um, I don't know if they even knew. Oh I think they probably knew that they were replicating a lot of what what I've done. But the resemblance is is uncanny. So I mean, I don't usually pursue things legally, but in this instance it's just so dramatic that I that I've uh I've had to hire a lawyer to check it out for me and so on. So but these things are going to increase in you know the way in which things are done these days. So it's interesting. I I just need to obviously I'll I'll pursue this one legally, but for the most part, when things people step on my toes or or what have you, I've just got to lift my game and and and work to a higher level to make sure I uh I remain visible and and trusted and and the authority in the in the field that I work in.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

I also think that, you know, maybe like a first of all, I'm sorry that that's happening to you because it's not fun to go through things like that at all. But also I was thinking about back to when we were talking about trust and everything, how the best way I feel that people could trust you is if they actually know you. So I don't know if we're gonna see also a lot of more uh like you were mentioning with your client, for example, you know, how he was recording himself doing this and doing that and whatever. Like it's very authentic to him because it's literally his day-to-day what he's showing. I wonder how much more important authenticity is going to become for this trust purpose as well. Because that way, if somebody sees a random video with your face and they're spewing some stuff that it's obviously not something that you would ever say. I feel like your audience would be like, that's not you. If you show up as yourself fully with people, um, the good, the bad, the ugly, uh, everything. Like if you just show up authentically yourself, it's a lot harder to like manipulate that.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

I feel like authenticity is really important because we can all present like a polished version of ourselves. But deep down everyone knows that every human is flawed. So even when you make a mistake, potentially, if something's not delivered on time or um something wasn't quite right, to own the the mistake and and to remedy it, obviously, for the for the customer or whoever it is, but to own those failures, I think that puts you at a a stronger position in the in the long run. It's a it's like the long-term game. People will start to um recognize you you have a level of integrity and they'll want to work with you despite the um minor hiccup that you might have had, the um the integrity will will stand the test of time.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Let me pivot a little bit to the brands. Like, how do you help brands keep their voice human, talking about authenticity and you know, integrity, um, while using AI behind the scenes? Like, how how do you help them with that?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

We call it the brand voice operating system, so OS, and um, it's just a bit techy, but uh it's really like a style guide to make sure that the content that we're producing on their behalf is really exactly how they would say it. So getting those foundations in in place for every customer because we're producing the content on their behalf, it needs to sound exactly like them. So it's worth putting that effort in. Sometimes people skip that step and just rely on the tools to do all the content for them. So that's the that's the brand voice, it's the way in which you might say something, but the message obviously is the is the core thing. So you've got to find a way to make sure the message is uniquely the customer, and that's why the video is powerful. It's his message, wasn't very polished, but with that in combination with the brand voice, the the content that was produced was a perfect match for who he was, and it was authentically his, just in a more refined way. It you know, it helps to structure the ideas into a logical sequence so other people can understand it because the videos were just him talking, talking and a little bit uh sporadic, I suppose, and not in a logical sequence necessarily. So the AI tool tools help you to refine it into some in into a structure that makes sense for other people to engage with.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Tell me a little bit more about the brand voice OS that you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Yeah, it's really like a style guide and a brand style guide for the content writing. So bigger companies always had their uh style guides for everything that they produced and content writing. And copywriters would use these documents, and I've seen some massive ones for bigger organizations, multiple pages outlining precisely what language to use, how to structure sentences, the the tone. It was always a bit of a headache for a copywriter. So they would take these documents on board and it was so elaborate, they'd read it all, understand it, get busy on the writing. Because it was so prescriptive, it was hard to remember exactly what was in there because there's just so much. And so they'd slowly deviate back towards their own prep preferred styles. But now you can write some content and then run it through the brand voice operating system. So it's a really large um prompt, effectively, and it will tidy up everything. So it just makes sure everything's on point and the style is consistent each and every time. Because we all have our own preferred way of writing and communicating and so on. And so that's not necessarily in line with the client, the customer. Basically, it's just an uh a massive prompt um to make sure everything's kept um in that consistent format.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

That's great. And then that's is that just internal for you, or are do you sell that to people for people to be able to like go to your website and use the brand voice OS for themselves?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Most of the time we're just creating it for internal use. So there's been some clients who have purchased that as a service. So they'll get the document and they'll use it internally. It depends on the nature of the business. So some clients they'll have a marketing department, they might have a team of people, or they might just be a marketing person with within an organization, or at least someone responsible for marketing. They might have multiple tasks on their plate. So giving them the tools so they can use them ongoingly. And it's really helpful. Sometimes uh we'll do it, depends on the nature of the business. Sometimes we'll do the blog content writing, and then we'll give them what they need, the prompts, so they can repurpose it really quickly into social posts, for example. Yeah, so there's been some instances where we've sold that as a service standalone, and people have run with that themselves. But for the most part, we're just using it internally.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Oh, I see. Um, I think because you and I have a little bit similar background in that sense, um, I have one for myself, for sure. Even trained my chat GPT on really funny, really, to some people, but I'm like, I don't think it's funny. Like, I think the more it knows about me and how I want to write and the things I would say, then the easier it will be for it to sound exactly like me almost, so that then I only have to change some wording here and there, and it's just a lot less on my plate. Mine knows my astrology, mine knows my uh Myers Briggs, mine knows like all of these like big things that you know are for me. Um, and then of course it knows like what I want the brand to be like, all of that. So in combination with all of that, it like helps me write things. Um, you spoke about intentionality and reinvention and boundaries and all of that. What is a legacy that you're building towards for you? Like what do you see your legacy being?

SPEAKER_00 34:16

It's an interesting question. I suppose I've evolved over over the years. Uh, I guess being a a dad, my outside of business, my my biggest legacy is if I can leave um my children with a a a good solid foundation uh to work from. Uh my eldest son is working with me now one day a week, which is I see that as a legacy um move. It's it's almost like a mentoring opportunity. It gives me an opportunity to see my son because he's uh nearly 20 now. So it's good to have that connection ongoing and to help guide him. I I just made so many mistakes in business in general, and I I realize he wants to start his own business as well eventually, uh, in a creative endeavor as well. So uh to have him on board and uh hopefully mentor him so he he doesn't have to make all the same mistakes I did. He'll make his own as well. But um, if I can guide him, that's that's real legacy for me to set my my kids up in that way.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

So exciting that your kid is working with you. I love supportive parent. Last question before we move on to the rapid fire ones. Um, for ambitious listeners who, you know, are stuck doubting themselves, what is one neck brave step that you think they can take?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

I think uh just to always remember that momentum beats perfection. So just to get started and start moving towards that ambitious goal that you have. I think sometimes we just delay, we don't get started because we don't think we've got it quite right yet or we're not quite ready. It's never going to be the perfect time. There's always going to be something that some reason that can you can say to yourself, no, this is not this is not for me now. That that'll that'll never change. You just have to get started and and and start working towards that end goal. Learn on the way and adjust correct course. The the road to success isn't linear, it's kind of like it's it's a crazy uh roller coaster ride sometimes, but I think just get started and and uh work from there.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

I think I needed to hear that from you today, too. Because I'm always um trying to make everything as nice and as perfect and as aesthetic as I know how, of course, because I'm still learning. Okay, so now some just fun rapid fire questions. Like, um what is the one AI tool you'll keep if everything else just vanished? Right now, at least.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Or ChatGPT is the is the one that I think I'll stick with forever. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

One business hill you will die on.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Uh integrity, I suppose. Yeah, that's uh gotta stick with the integrity, even though it costs, it feels like it costs you sometimes, but for the long term, it's it's something that's worth continuing with.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Awesome, yeah, I agree. Um most overrated marketing advice that you've heard, right, to this point.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

I suppose I always find the Google Ads to be overrated. Seems so expensive and oftentimes doesn't produce the outcome it easily gets on other platforms.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

What is the biggest ick in business, your biggest ick in business?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

There's networking groups where you feel compelled to give referrals to other members, but they're not referrals because the people deserve them, they're because you've joined the club and and you feel compelled to do so. I think um, yeah, I I would avoid I've been in those groups before, uh, and I think I'd avoid that. It just gives me an icky feeling.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

I feel like you're reading my mind right now because I so many of the things you've said have been so helpful for me. And one of the things that I was looking into was joining one of those like business things down here in Miami. Um, so yeah, if they're icky, maybe I need to stir clear of those.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

It depends on the on who's in the group, I think, as well. So if you can genuinely refer people to the other people in the in the group, then that's fine. But if you're giving it the referrals just because you you kind of have to, then that that's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Right, yes. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I guess I will have to just go to one of the meetings and see and like fill it out with my thought to see. Okay. Uh, one thing every ambitious human should try at least once.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Probably the thing I think the thing you fear the most is probably the most useful thing in your life. It feels like that for me in my life. The things that I've feared the most, like public speaking, for example, doing those things, um, figuring out how to do that is is always worthwhile. Those things you fear are holding us back.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Wow, my brain is like going. I'm gonna go write stuff after this interview. Um okay, so your ambition level today, how is it? Calm, caffeinated, or in building your empire type of mode? How are you feeling right now?

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Today I'm um super caffeinated because I started at 3:45, their first um podcast, so which is cool. I love doing podcasts, but uh to get through to to this point in time, I've had more coffee than I probably should have. So, but I'm fueled up, ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Oh my goodness. All right. Well, uh, hopefully you get to rest a little bit uh after you take care of whatever business you have to take care of. Thank you so, so much for coming, Wes. It was amazing having you and such amazing advice. So I hope everybody enjoys the interview. I know they will. I know I did. Um any last words for everybody?

SPEAKER_00 39:45

That's been brilliant. Thanks so much. I think the interview's gone really well. I've done a lot of these now, and this is one of my my favorite ones so far. So uh well done on what you're doing with the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Thank you so much.