Interview Eric Thorsen + Joe Apfelbaum // How to use AI

to another edition of Joe and His Friends on LinkedIn. Eric, thank you for joining me here today.

Thanks for having me, Joe. It's always a pleasure to chat.

So, Eric is a longtime CEO and founder. He's also an expert at helping people grow their business and get empowered by AI, husband, father, guitar and digital music enthusiast. I see you have a bunch of guitars behind you there.

That's it.

A lot of people are worried about using AI. They're very, very concerned about it and they don't really know how to properly leverage it. What do you tell people that are business owners that are kind of like worried about AI, they're worried about using it, they're not sure what to do? What do you tell them?

You know, it's a great question and it's something that I've been thinking more and more about over the past, probably the past like 6 months in particular. So the first thing I would say is, They gotta, uh, they have to use it personally, right? So like one of the things that, that I think happens is there's so much information out there and it's, and it's exciting. You have to admit these generative AI tools are unique, especially the multimodality piece of them being able to do things with digital, um, audio and, and text. Um, and then you're hearing these sort of fantastical kinds of claims about like, what are we going to be doing in 5 years, right? Like, so it's hard not to be intimidated, maybe even a little angry, right? Resentful about listening to people talk about this technology in this way. But, um, and, and, and I think we're pretty far off from anything like that happening. Um, and then they also likely hear very similar stories where companies dive into utilizing generative AI in workloads that it's not meant for and have, you know, somewhat disastrous, very expensive experiences, right? So like, what do you do with this information? So the things that I tell, um, business owners and leaders is, first off, you got to start using it, right? Start using it personally, right? You need, you need to have that experience of having it do something for you. Could be simple, like a vacation itinerary. It could be whatever it is, right? Just start using it. And, and what I feel happens when you start doing this is it opens up your mind To start doing things that you normally wouldn't bother because you don't have time for. Like, think about, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a big fan of yours, Joe. Like, I've been watching you use this technology since the very beginning, and you're using it in a space that it's really designed for, right? Really, like, and not just AI, but you, you're doing things with automation, right? And so, uh, I've watched you continue to experiment with tools, find some things that work, find some things that don't work. That's the kind of thing that business leaders need to be doing sooner than later. And it's never— and even if they're not terribly technical, you're not a software guy, right? You didn't come from that background. Look at the incredible things you've been able to do with this technology. So the reason that that's so important is it's going to start to open up their mind, and they will likely have a similar experience to what most people have with these— with the generative AI tools— is it's inspiring. Most business leaders are pretty creative people, right? So it's inspiring. And then it's very enabling. Like when you start using like deep research to really dig down into learning something and you realize, I probably would have not even bothered thinking I could get that question answered versus getting that much detail. So now I can take that information and look into it. And then the other piece, which is probably a longer conversation, is they need to figure out how to build AI into the culture of their business and how they operate it because of the surface area that this technology will touch, right? And we can go into some more detail about that too. But so I'm curious, how do you approach this when you're talking to business leaders?

The way that I approach it when I'm talking to business leaders is telling them to stop thinking about it as AI anymore because AI is integrated into everything. Like when you, if you're allergic to the word AI, stop using the word and stop talking about AI. And as a matter of fact, as a provider, let's all just stop talking about AI. 'Cause AI is just integrated into everything. It's integrated into this conversation right now because LinkedIn, it's streaming on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever. It's linked, it's streaming everywhere. Like literally even on Twitter. And there is AI that's analyzing it in real time. If it's on YouTube, AI's analyzing it. So we're using AI right now in this conversation. AI might even be changing the voice that we have and improving it somehow. So everything that we're doing is AI. So let's just stop talking about it cuz we, it's like, do we talk about constantly water? Everything is, we're all water. The world is water. We stop talking about water all day. Why are you so obsessed with it? So let's stop being so obsessed with AI and instead let's talk about solving problems in our business. So for example, let's say you have a meeting coming up in your calendar. Wouldn't it be nice to automatically get an email that tells you everything about the meeting that somebody went and scoured your, your, uh, your recent emails with the person? That did some internet research, that pulled up their LinkedIn profile, that pulled up all the information, sent you a prepared document with context that you could look at, and even opened up a note document for you and saved it in a file in Google Drive for you? Wouldn't it be nice to have that done for you every single day? And wouldn't it be nice if it cost you less than $100 a month to be able to have that prepared for you? Imagine you had a dedicated employee and they cost you $1 an hour and they spent 100 hours Per month preparing for your 100 meetings a month. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody do that for $100 a month? I would pay an employee $100 a month. So why wouldn't you pay a piece of technology because it's called AI? Who cares? Artificial intelligence is part of everything that we do from now on moving forward. Your car's running on AI. Your phone runs on AI. Everything runs on AI. So let's stop talking about air and water because that's what AI is. And let's start solving problems. That's what I tell people. It's like, okay, what problem do you wanna solve? And then you know what they tell me? I have a list of 6 Twitter handles and I need to get everyone's first name, last name, and email address. Can you do that for me? I said, yes. I go to manus.im, I paste it in, and then I said, find me their info. And it goes off to work. 30 minutes later, it comes back with all the information I need.

You know, what's great about what you were talking about is this is one of the things that has kind of bugged me also, is, is in the media, they just say the word AI and it's this, you know, and then they're mostly talking about some of the generative AI models, like the model wars, you know, who's got the best benchmarks of the, of the week. And then people have forgotten about like, well, what problem are you trying to solve, right? So like when I work with CEOs, founders, I, I meet with their leadership teams, like what, what are you trying to do? Like what is your business already trying to do, right? And then you can start to apply The technology, right? And it's also, you know, AI is not just generative AI. Like, there are plenty of things that generative AI is really not intended to be used for, but there's plenty of technology that's been around, machine learning and other kinds of things that are also in the AI field that are perfectly suited for those repeatable kinds of workflows that you have to have right answers for. So I love what you're saying about, like, stop talking about AI, let's talk about, you know, problems.

Yeah.

problems that need to be solved? And then what is the appropriate technological solution for those kinds of problems, assuming that they can be solved with technology, right? We're talking about problems that, that can be aided with technology right now.

Here's, here's, uh, here's a, another thing is like, let's say you, have you heard of Plaud? This? Yeah.

Oh no. What is that?

Uh, it's called Plaud. It's a, it's a wearable. Plaud. P-L-A-U-D-E. Or it's P-L-A-U-D, whatever. Uh, let me just see what it says on it. P-L-A-U-D. Okay. There's no E at the end. It's just Plaud. Plaud.ai. So this, I, I avoided buying this cuz I'm like, what do I need this for? I already have, I already have Otter. Like, why do I need this?

Right.

Why, why do I need this if I have Otter? Then I realized I'm at a conference, a mastermind called the Speakeasy. I think I told you about the Speakeasy mastermind.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It looks great. I gotta check it out.

Yeah. Yeah. Go to, if you want, I could introduce you to Eric, the founder of the organization.

Yeah. I'd love that.

He might wanna open up a chapter and, and you're looking to open up So like, I'll make an intro. Jen, could you—

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Jen, could you remind me to make an intro to— you know what, let me open up Plaud right now on my computer. So I'm gonna open up Plaud on my computer, and whoever's watching can see this. I'm gonna hit start recording. Action item, introduce Eric Thorson to Eric Berman for the Speakeasy Mastermind. We're having a conversation now on LinkedIn Live. So I use this technology called Plaud that sits on my computer and listens to my computer audio. When I wanted to. I just turned it on and you guys could see it, like it's like playing on the right side. I don't even know how to move it. I'm trying to move it here and I, I don't know. I can't move it. I'm trying to drag it and it's not dragging. Um, but it's just running in the background now and it's, it's recording. So let's say I'm at a conference and I meet with somebody and I want to do, I want to remember something. So I could just push this little button over here one time. It just vibrated. And now it's recording. You see it, it's on, it's recording, and I don't have to wonder or worry, do I have this captured or not? Now I push it again, it stops recording and I'm done. Whatever I said was captured onto this little thing and was also sent to artificial intelligence and was turned into, was turned into whatever I want to turn it into. Now the beauty about Plaud is that what it actually does is it, um, you can give it a prompt. You can set a prompt for how you want it to treat the recording, which is something I haven't seen anywhere else built into the software. And for like $240 a year, you get unlimited recordings. So I pay $169 for this on Amazon or wherever. And then, um, and then you, then you're good. Then you basically are good to go. Um, which is, you know, like, and then you buy the, if you want unlimited recordings, it's $240 a year for unlimited recordings. So it's like, I'm in the car with someone, I'm talking to them, I pull out my Plaid and they're like, can we record this? Yes, I can turn my Otter on on my phone, but then I can't use my phone. I can't make phone calls on my phone. I'm done.

That's great.

So this is a separate wearable that kind of, it's like instead of buying a new phone, which I could buy another phone, then I have to charge the phone, maintain the phone. I have a thing that just sits in, it's integrated with their system. And I was like, this is brilliant. And the fact that they have a desktop app and records my computer audio. So let's say I'm watching a course. And I want— and I'm watching a course and I want to take notes on the course as I'm watching it because I walked away for a second, then I came back. What was said, I don't know. Claude is recording it and it's fine. I don't record every single thing on my desktop or computer or whatever. I can if I want to. Like yesterday, I recorded 4 and a half hours. I realized I forgot I left the recording on, so it just went on and just kept recording. But I have unlimited access to it, so like I can go there, clip it, listen to it, do whatever I want. And it's just amazing how— I can record 24/7 every single day. I can have things recorded and transcribed now as much as I want for $240 a year. And so like, that's a real problem that you solve wearing a wearable.

Yeah. And that's a, that's a very reasonable price compared to a lot of the other kind of transcription services that are out there. So that's, that's attractive. I, I would wonder, like, my biggest concern would be, can I have something like that without losing it? So one advantage about having some of that stuff on my phone is I'm not gonna lose my phone. But, uh, that sounds very compelling. Yeah, I like it.

And even just like, here's, here's something else. Let's, let's say you see somebody that is a potential client of yours and they posted something on LinkedIn. You can try to spend 15 minutes to figure out what to say, or you could just click a button and the AI will write exactly what it is that you need to write. Just like that. You just click a button and, and write. Or if you wanna write a post on LinkedIn, let's say I just wanted to write a post. What would you wanna write a post about? Well, even if you don't have the idea for what to post about, you can literally go to LinkedIn, go to, go to an AI tool, for example, Evvy AI. You could log in and on the left side you click on idea generator and you can talk to it and tell it whatever topic you wanna talk about. And I, I can say something like, I could push the microphone button and say something like, let's stop talking about artificial intelligence and start talking about solving problems in the business because artificial intelligence is integrated into everything. You see that? I could generate ideas. It'll go ahead and generate a few ideas for me. And if I like any of those ideas, I can then click one button and generate a post out of it. That's the beauty of it. Now let's say I wanted to, I wanted to then take a photo of me and you and turn us into a Muppet, just like that. Have you ever done that before?

No. I've done some work with the video generation tools. I do some of these in-person events and I wound up having a tool create a scene where it was these people in business suits fighting these AR robots in the street with lasers. And I did this at an in-person event, and one of the guys who was there was like a 20-year veteran Madison Avenue, like, television director. And he got up and started to explain to me all of the things that were in the scene. You know, there's a dolly on the camera, and it's a twilight scene, so you'd have to pay the people the whole rate. And he goes, there's at least 20 people behind the scenes. He goes, that's a half a million dollars to a $750,000 shot right there. And, uh, and so yeah, I've used some of the, the video stuff, uh, which is really amazing, uh, really amazing what they're doing.

100%. And it's just, you know, for me to be able to like create content, um, in seconds that has a hook, main points, call to action, hashtags, everything done. Um, and then be able to like create graphics as well that goes along with it without having to like sit there and pay a designer or even literally like, you know, think about how much things cost now versus what they used to cost. and what they cost now. Like, even, even like hiring somebody overseas and having them work, but empowering them with artificial intelligence.

Exactly.

Like, think about that. Like, instead of paying somebody $50 an hour that has a degree in marketing, like my daughter was telling me, Joe, uh, she didn't call me Joe, but she's like, Ta. And she said, in my head I'm like, Joe. But she's like—

I know, right?

You know, like, why are you telling me to apply to marketing jobs? If I don't really have a degree in marketing? I said, do you really believe you need a degree in marketing right now in order for you to be able to do well in a marketing position? I said, you know what you need? And she said, what? I said, do you know how to use ChatGPT? She's like, yeah, I'm pretty good at it. I was like, that's literally all you need. You could use ChatGPT to be the little marketing expert on your shoulder that tells you everything. And when the client makes a request from you, Mm-hmm. you take that request You put it into ChatGPT and then you get a response for the client. She's like, how do you know this works? I said, because I did it on Upwork and someone paid me $500 to write them a strategy. And of course I read the strategy and it made sense to me. And then I may, I added my own 2 cents and so I sent it to him. But, and I got a 5-star review from the guy with how happy he was with the strategy. He's like, you changed my life. Like that is, well, that is just phenomenal.

You, you, You're bringing up something that I also talk to, to business leaders about too, because there's, there is this, you know, mixture of like, oh, we're not gonna need employees anymore, or you're gonna reduce your, your headcount, or you're gonna replace them with people who know how to use AI. Like, I, I, I think that the power of these tools is really in people who know how to use the output of these tools, right? Like, you know, you just gave a great example of something that saved you a lot of time, but at the end of the day, you're an expert in your field, right? So like you could, evaluate the output of this thing, determine what was right, maybe even tweak it a little bit, maybe, you know, adjust the prompt, right? So you're a subject matter expert using these tools, which means you're, you know, it's like an additional superpower for you, right? You really bring that. And so when you think about the amount of money people invest in their people, understanding the business culture, understanding their clients, then you empower them with these AI tools. I think that's the best way to really approach this and also just support your people that they need to, they need to learn how to use these tools and into their own workflows and and use their expertise in a more effective way.

I just sent you the link to the post that I just did. I just did a post that I think you'll find fascinating.

I see the one with CS.

And, um, and it's live on LinkedIn. And now, you know, I can use technology like mention saver. Do you know what mention saver technology is?

No.

Um, so one of the things that we teach our students is how to be able to use mention saver technology. To be able to just literally mention a group. If I wanted to mention a group of 30 people that came to our posting party yesterday, I can then go into the comments of the post and paste the list of people that I just that I just that went to the party, and I literally just mentioned all them and they all got notified just now. So if you go to the comments of that post, take a look at the first comment. If I had to mention each person in the comment, it would take me how long? I don't know. 15 minutes to Pick each person, put the@ sign, click on their name. Pick each person, put the@ sign, find who they are and put their name. I vibe coded a piece of technology that I give all of our Evie AI clients that are Evie AI Pro. And I have 30 different technologies that I give out like that, that save you a ton of time. Like even for example, let's say you find an influencer that has 50 comments on their post and you want to take all the people from the comments and put it into a spreadsheet. What would you do? How would you do that? We have something called the Comment Saver technology. You just select everything, paste it into our tool, and makes it into a spreadsheet. And then it can tell you all, then you can do AI stuff on that, or you can do data research on that, or even somebody's likes. You can go to anybody's likes, grab all the people from their likes, put it into a spreadsheet. Or for example, all your newsletter subscribers or all your company page followers. You, we can easily do that using Evvy AI Pro and our community of people that are constantly asking me, hey Joe, can you build this? And then I see, I don't know if I could build it. Let me go into Gemini, let me go into Claude, let me figure it out. And then I go and I build it and sometimes I do it real time in front of the clients and their mind is just blown. Like, how would, how did you build it? I was like, you watched me do it. I saved the prompt so I don't have to write the prompt again. That's right. That's right. So I have this like mega prompt with all the different things I need in order for me to code and build whatever I need. And now this technology is so helpful for me because I'm able to access it very, very quickly. So yeah, so I'm, I'm looking forward to it. I have a session tomorrow at 10:00 AM that you're welcome to join. Um, 10:00 AM, I'm gonna be doing 2 hours on how to properly leverage LinkedIn. Um, talking about how to create a marketing plan, business plan, LinkedIn plan, talking about how to use some of these new technologies that I built, and then answering questions from our community. We have, uh, 20,000 users in 37 countries around the world, and it's all because of this. this tech that we're building, but it's really with a strategy. That's, that's the idea.

Yeah, I'd love to. Uh, yeah. Uh, I don't see it on my calendar.

Yeah, it's from 10 to 12. It's, yeah, it's this, it's this same Zoom. So just add it to the, add it to the calendar for tomorrow. I think it's this same Zoom. Hang on a second. I can check. I'm not sure if it's the same Zoom, but I'll make sure to add you to the calendar for that.

Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.

Um, let me go in there and do it now. All right. So my team is telling me I have something coming up right now. I have a demo. I'm actually doing a demo of Evvy AI now for a guy named Thomas who's a LinkedIn— he's a sales trainer. So the best people for me to meet are sales trainers. Those are the people that I wanna meet. Why? Because sales trainers work with sales teams and they need to learn how to use these tools.

Right.

So those are really the best people for me to meet. So if you ever come across a sales trainer, whether a Sandler trainer, or any other type of trainer, then just hit them up and let them know that I'd love to meet with them. So this way I can get to know them. Who would be the best person for you? So people listening to this know who to introduce you to.

So just really, you know, CEOs, founders who are just struggling to come up with a strategy about how to incorporate AI into their, really into their lives, but mostly into their businesses. So, which is probably a lot of people, but business owners in $3 million to $50 million is really the sweet spot for, for me.

Are you using Sales Navigator to reach out to those CEOs right now?

Yes. Okay.

Sales Navigator has been really transformational for me. And, um, I have a way to use Sales Navigator where I can send out 800 messages per month versus the regular 50 that they give you. Okay. So come tomorrow at 10:00 AM. I added you to the calendar. It's a separate invite. It's not the regular, um, it's not the regular Zoom that you have here.

Okay.

Um, and so come tomorrow at 10:00 AM, bring your assistant if you want. If you have an assistant. And if you want to invite a client of yours, bring a client along too that might be interested. And, um, and yeah, it's a 2-hour session, so it's exciting. It's an exciting session.

Sounds great. Sounds great.

All right. Well, this is really great. Thank you very much for joining me here today. Really appreciate it. If you guys have any comments about any of the topics that we spoke about, put them in below in the live, and we'd love to stay in touch with you guys and feel free to share this video. It's on YouTube, on Twitter, on Facebook. And of course on LinkedIn. Thank you.