232: How to Use AI to Sell More Without Sounding Like a Robot

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Welcome to the Creators MBA Podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of Digital Product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks constantly live launching or worrying about the social media algorithms. My special guest today is Ruth Pound White. Ruth is a visibility, sales and mindset coach supporting heart led and ambitious business owners. She's the author of the book Quietly Ambitious and host of the Soulful Sales show podcast. And through her courses, Ruth has helped over 7,000 online business owners work through their self doubt and increase their sales and income in a way that honors their energy, values and personality. And Ruth, I am super excited to be chatting here with you today and I know everybody's going to love the topic that we're going to be talking about. Before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the good audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people?

Thank you for that lovely introduction Destiny. I'm really excited to be here as well. I've been on a long and winding journey so I will give you the short version because I first started an online business in 2008. I used to work as a copywriter and I really did not vibe with a lot of the traditional way of doing business and I thought there was something wrong with me for a very long time. Fast forward very in like doing all the inner work and getting to know myself and all of that. I help people to do things in their way and why this is so important to me. Back then I was just like a, just I was a massive introvert, still am and I had tons of self doubt. Like I would never do a podcast interview showing my face. My voice wouldn't even. I didn't even have a profile picture that clearly showed my face. I was so scared. So I had all that going on and that's a big part of the reason why I do what I do. But now as well, through a lot of self discovery I've realized I'm probably neurodivergent and I've been dealing with chronic fatigue for probably since 2020. So for the last five years it's not super super bad, but it comes in, goes in phases and my capacity is like massively reduced. I actually often think that I wouldn't be able to work in a traditional job. I've always thought that, but especially now. So I'm really passionate about helping people like me who have this is not a good way to put it, but issues. And we need to accommodate ourselves with the way that we work. So that is the big why behind what I help people with and why I do it.

We all have issues. Even if we think we don't. We all have issues. So I think everybody listening to this can relate to that. We always have these self doubt and things that pop up. I did not know that about you. And for those of you who are listening here, Ruth and I know each other pretty well. We're in like a pure mastermind together. But I didn't know that you wouldn't even do like a podcast interview or didn't even have your profile picture.

Well, I wouldn't even do a zoom call like it, let alone like even if it wasn't being recorded, I wouldn't be on a zoom call. I was terrified.

You have come a long way. It's because one of the things we're going to be talking about or inviting people to is your aligned AI Summit, which is coming up next month. But we'll get to that in just a second. But really what I want to do is to really delve into a little bit more about AI and how it has helped you with all of the quote unquote issues that you just described. So tell us a little bit more about how you're using it and how it has helped you.

So the first thing I want to say is that, and this is, I know a very common experience for a lot of us who might describe themselves as more sensitive like I do. I was so overwhelmed when ChatGPT first came out and this whole like rush to get to know it and play with it and all of this, I was so overwhelmed and I played with it a bit and remember when it first came out and it was basic then and I was like, yeah, I'm not that impressed. And it's too much. I can't add another thing. Like whenever there's a new social media platform or something, I'm like, I can't handle it. So I was really overwhelmed and left it for ages. But eventually something clicked in my brain and I was like, you know what? This is here to stay and this is come. This is moving really fast. I probably can't. I know I definitely can't keep up with everything to do with it, but let's explore how I can use it to help me in any kind of way that would give me one step forward. And the first thing that I found that was so helpful for the way I worked so I mentioned that I'M probably neurodivergent. One of the things that I can often struggle with is executive functioning. Actually getting started and overwhelm is a huge symptom of that. I get this, like, analysis paralysis, even just chatting. This was before I had explored other, deeper uses of AI and stuff. Even just having it there to chat with about. I'm thinking about doing this or that, or I have all this stuff in my brain, help me filter it out and help me decide, like, where I should take the next step. That was a huge turning point for me and realizing actually, oh, this tool isn't just overwhelming and giving me a million days. Yes, it can do that, but I can use it to help me honour the way that I am. As much as it can be frustrating sometimes that my brain is like that and actually take steps to get started. So that's when I realized, you know what, I need to dive deeper into this. And you and I, we have a lot of conversations about all the different ways we're using AI, and there's a lot that we could dig into. But, yeah, that's what got me thinking about it as a. I like to think of it as a support rather than something I have to do. I think that was the big mindset shift for me because when I thought this is something I have to learn or I'll get left behind and all that, it's really stressful. And I know a lot of people listening will resonate with that. And because I talk to people about it all the time, like, I feel behind, I feel like I have to do this. I feel like it's changing too fast, I don't know how to keep up. I think that is understandable, but it's not the right way to be looking at it. The way to be looking at it is what do I personally need and how can I take a step to train or use AI in a way that gives me that.

I love that. So it's really a mindset shift for you. And I know that all of us can relate to that. I still feel it. I feel like I'm behind in AI, but I know that truly I'm probably not feel like there's. I'm gathering a lot of information, but what does that mean to be truly behind? None of us are really truly behind if we approach it with the mindset that you're referring to there. One of the things, and I actually heard this from a very seasoned online business owner last week, is she really wasn't using AI because she felt it didn't sound like her. It wasn't like giving her the type of information. I think she was trying to use it for copy, like for either an email or sales page, but it just really wasn't working for her. So she was like, I'm not going to use it. I'm going to go back to my old way. But tell me a little bit, because I know that you have done a lot of work here. Tell me a little bit about how you are getting AI and how you are using it and how you're training it. Right. To sound like you.

Yes. So I think this was one of the other reasons why I abandoned it in those early days because I was like, this is overwhelming. But also it sounds generic. And I think we. We've all seen those emails and social posts that are sounding generic at the moment and are obviously written by ChatGPT. And I'm totally on board with it as a shortcut. But I do think that we need to, we absolutely need to inject our personality into it. Because my belief as a business owner is that not for all businesses, but for those of us who are like the face of our business, like our personality is the magic.

Right.

And it's why people want to work with us. But absolutely. I use ChatGPT all the time for my copy, but I just don't use it for all of my copy. And as is, the first thing that I would say about it is that it's not about. What we need to remember about using these conversational AI tools is that they're just giving us a guess at what it is that we're looking for and what it is that we want. So we need to be super specific in the way that we ask it for what it is that we want. I don't believe that there's a perfect system for writing these fancy prompts. And I know that you're on the same page with me about that. There's a lot of systems being sold. It's not necessarily about that. It doesn't have to be super, super complicated. But you do have to have more than just write me an email about this topic that's going to give you something generic because the prompt itself is generic. What you should I give like a step by step of what I would do if I was just giving someone.

I want to hear your process and then I want to talk about my process. But. And let's just compare them and see how we're doing things. Either the same or maybe a little bit different.

Yeah. And that's A good point actually, because there is no one right way and that's like kind of a mantra in my business as a whole to stop me getting overwhelmed. So here's what I would do if I was someone sitting with someone here who I want to start using it and I want to get beyond this generic output. I would say go to some of the top kind of social posts you've written, top emails you've written, download a few of them, or copy and paste them into a document. Upload that document into your AI tool of choice. I use ChatGPT, so I'm going to refer to ChatGPT but you can use other tools and get it to analyze your writing. I would probably do it separately for social media and emails. Get it to analyze your writing, ask it some questions and if you don't know the specific questions to ask, ask ChatGPT what do you like what act as an expert email writer. Go through my emails with what questions do I need to know to analyze the amount? You don't even need to know the question. It will just do it for you and get it to summarize it. Ask it to summarize it in some like a brand voice document export that, save it as a document. Next time you want to write an email, start a conversation with ChatGPT and say act as an email copywriter here I've uploaded my brand voice. You probably also want to do a similar process with summarizing in a document about your audience. You can also upload a sales page of your offer and say give me some ideas for emails to sell this offer. I've said that very quickly so I hope that it is is all clear. But basically the summary is getting ChatGPT to analyze your writing style and giving it the information about your offer and your audience then then giving it the prompt about things it can write. So it's got so much more context then about you and your unique business offer and style to give you something a bit different out rather than just a generic email. I love that. What would you do differently?

And that is very similar to what I do but I've set up that custom GPT and I'll just use my newsletter as an example. So this past week I was writing a newsletter and so I have a custom GPT for that so it has that background information. But I wanted, I always like to leave with a story if I can. So basically what I did, I went into that custom GPT and the story that I wanted to emphasize was about one of my failures. So Back In November of 2022, I'd actually launched an app very similar to like Jasper AI, if people are familiar with that. And that's the same month, literally almost the same week that chat GPT launched into the world. And I had to, I realized, like, very quickly I had to pivot. So I took that story and I put it in my custom GPT and I said, can you help me basically refine this? Because I was just like throwing ideas and thoughts at it and then it helps me. Okay, here's the intro for your newsletter for your story. Very helpful. But I love kind of your process that you don't even have to have that custom GPT, but you want to make sure you're giving the AI all of that information in that context.

Yes, definitely. And I do think your point about giving it a story first is a very good one, because if you go to it and just upload that, the documents I mentioned and say, give me a launch email about this product I'm selling about, whatever, it will be so much better if you say, oh, here's a story I have about how, like, it could be something about, like, how I was so scared to get on a zoom call, right. Or I had this profile picture where a hat was literally covering half my face because I didn't want to be seen. That would just make it so much more personal. Even though it knows your writing style and your audience stuff, it's not going to know that kind of stuff about you. So I do I, with my own custom GPT, I often use it that way as well. Or I might get it to give me some ideas and then say, okay, now let's personalize them. Ask me some questions. If I can't think of a story immediately, I'll say, ask me some questions to dig into some personal anecdotes or results that I could share. And it often comes up with something so much better just from that little extra step. And that's again, like, it's using the AI as a tool, but it's not the be all and end all. It's like it's part of the process and then you're adding your unique magic to it as well.

So I'm going to throw a little bit of a curveball here. I know that you're using AI to help you sell more, and I know the audience will be interested in learning some of your tips and tricks here. So can you walk us through that?

Okay. One of them is that email custom dbt. So if you are doing it manually, Conversation by conversation. I will absolutely recommend Create yourself a custom gbt. It is so helpful. So that's probably my most used AI tool that I have. Don't know about you Destiny, but yeah that's my most used one. Like I use it all the time and I love writing emails like I was. I didn't have a problem writing emails before but it has absolutely shaved so much time off of it. One of the other things that came to mind was like I have programmed another custom GPT with. So I did this whole like goal setting process at the beginning of the year and I recorded a mega like voice note to ChatGPT and I just like actually no, I was recording a behind the scenes for my membership for my members anyway and I was like, you know what, I may as well use this in ChatGPT. I uploaded the transcript of all my goals and the things that I wanted to do this year. I uploaded a list of all my offers. I had gone through the data of all my offers from 2024, sales numbers and all of that. I basically uploaded a ton of information about my business to this custom GPT and I use it to help me make decisions about plugging gaps between different offers or if I'm like should I do this, what should I sell next? And it reminds me your goal is this. You said at the beginning of the year your goal was that. So it you might be going a bit off piste if you do this. Obviously goals can change and we need to change the instructions if something major was to shift. But I love like that is probably my second most used custom GPT and it's I guess the first example of the emails is more practical. I can sell more because I send more emails and I do it more quickly. And I do believe that largely sending more like most of us need to send more emails. Definitely the people that I work with definitely need to send more emails. The second one is more of a bigger picture giving me that strategy confidence to get moving and make decisions quicker. That's definitely one of the things that I have always struggled with as a business owner. It's often a manifestation of self doubt, making decisions and running with them. And I absolutely believe as business owners that if we can make those decisions and get things out there quickly and get the information back, whether it works or not, we're going to be in such a better position than if we think about it for too long. So that kind of strategic assistance that knows all that information about my business is really helpful. The other thing that and I know you've been working on this a lot as well, is using it not just to sell and come up with those ideas, but also to retain our members and support our members. One of the things that I would often totally not know what to do with or never get around to using was like all the intake forms that people fill in when they join my membership and using AI to analyze that. And one of the questions on the intake form is like, why did you join this and what are you hoping to get out of it? That's such good information for supporting them to actually get what they want out of it and to use in your marketing copy and to tweak the way you're selling it and the angles of the messaging, I've just. That's another thing I use it for, coming up with different angles. Yeah. Is there anything specific? Because I could just reel off all these ideas all day long.

Oh no, you gave us a lot to think about there. But I do want to talk about your Aligned AI Summit that is coming up. So can you tell us a little bit about that and the dates?

Yes. Okay, so aligned AI summit is starting on the 8th of September. Very happy to have Destiny as a speaker. So Destiny is going to have a unique sign up link. It's not set up at the time of recording, but I'm sure you'll have it all ready when this goes out. So the thinking behind the Aligned AI Summit is to support people, to use it in the ways that I've said. It's about doing it in a way that supports you as a human and keeps the human heart of your business. You don't want to sound like a robot, you don't act like a robot. I guess my philosophy is that we get to use AI to support the things we need help with so that we can then do the things that connect us most to our people. Because we have more capacity, because we're using AI for the other stuff. So yeah, it's all about saving time, saving energy, boosting income and doing it all without sounding like a robot. One of the days is about how we're feeling about AI and owning our thought leadership and letting AI support that and all of that kind of stuff. One of the days is about really specific use cases. So you're going to get very specific ideas, like kind of the ones I was just reeling off for, like how I sell with AI. I've literally totally forgotten what the third day is. But I promise you it's all going to be amazing. There's too much going on in my brain. And I will say one of the reasons why I love using AI so much is because I have brain fog and that's why I forget things when I'm talking. But it really supports me with that as well. So yeah, it's all done with heart, but there's so much juicy stuff going to be shared in that summit as well.

And I'll make sure, Ruth, that the link is in the show notes for everybody and can you let them know where they can find you and you have a free gift for them also?

Yes. So you can visit my website@ruthpoundwhite.com there's the soulful Sales show podcast and Destiny is going to be a guest on there. May or may not have gone out by the time this is out, but watch this space. You can just search for that in your favorite podcast app. And I also have a free custom GPT to help you identify where AI can support you. And that is@ruth poundwhite.com aishortcut GPT all one word.

Yeah, and I'll make sure too that the link for that is in the show notes. And Ruth, thanks you so much for joining me today and I look forward to your summit coming up. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.