254. Messaging, AI, and the Skill Everyone Is Trying to Skip with Laura Schoenfeld

In this episode I'm joined by Laura Schoenfeld, strategic advisor and founder of The Nourished CEO, for a conversation about messaging, and it turned into an incredible discussion about so much more. 

This episode gets into:
– why messaging is the skill most experts try to shortcut and why that always backfires
 – the "good student trap" and how it's quietly draining people's businesses
 – Laura's take on where the industry is going and why the competitive edge is going to be your actual voice
– how Laura uses AI to amplify her content without letting it originate the ideas (and what that process actually looks like)
 – the "would you hire someone for this?" test for deciding what to delegate to AI
 – why the people who keep practicing their communication out loud are going to win

By the end of this episode, you'll have a very different lens on where to use AI in your business, and a clear sense of where your voice has to show up first.

READ THE FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

📣 WORK WITH HEATHER  → https://heathersager.com/

📧  Get the Hint of Heather NEWSLETTER → https://heathersager.com/newsletter

Connect on Social:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermsager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If this episode hit home, I'd be so grateful if you took a second to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show.  Thanks for tuning in to the Hint of Hustle podcast! See you next week!

Transcript

Heather (00:11)
Well, hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the Hint of Hustle podcast. It's your coach, Heather Sager, and I am super stoked for today's conversation. It is my first guest on the podcast since we made the big return here within the last couple months. ⁓ I haven't had a guest on the show in over a year, and I could not think of an

A better guest to have on today. So my friend Laura, ⁓ you're gonna you're gonna fall in love with her very, very quickly. So just like me, she's a manifestor in human design, which means that when she talks, you're gonna get like lit a fire under your butt and get so excited. Cause we're talking about something that I love to talk about, which is my spicy take on AI. We're talking about messaging, we're getting into how to actually make those two things work together and how to start being more bold with your voice today. So, quick note about Laura. We met on the internet.

Internebs, interwebs. Probably like somewhere, somewhere in there. I I I I've been aware of you for a while now, like when your name popped up, but it very much started coming up consistently on threads last year. Where you know, like when someone pops up, how you're like, I should pay attention to this person, because every time they post, it's smart, it's well said, and it resonates. Like when when Laura posts, like it's as they call it slaps every single time. So I started paying attention.

Laura Schoenfeld (00:59)
Somewhere. Somewhere out there.

Heather (01:25)
And I'm like, man, she's one to one to learn from. And then we started connecting. We're now in a peer mastermind together. About quick reference point. Let's give the audience the official. So I Laura calls herself strategic advisor, diagnostic business coach, and founder of the Nourish CEO. I call her like a brilliant brain who tells people exactly like how things are going down and why your business is not feeling as great as you know it could. And it really comes down to what Laura helps people with is she helps them make good money, but helps them really answer that question of.

I know logically speaking, my business and expertise should be doing much better than it is, but something doesn't feel right. So what really I love about what Laura talks about is making sure your business model fits. So she came up with something called the authority arc, which is totally my love language when we think about authority. But it helps people really understand what's misaligned in your business and how do you come across as a stronger authority and start getting traction so that you can build the kind of business and the kind of life that you want. So if you love podcasts and you love today's episode, make sure that you go follow her podcast, the Nourish CEO.

But without further ado, Laura, welcome to the show. I am so freaking excited about this conversation. It's official you're here.

Laura Schoenfeld (02:30)
Thank

you. I feel so I'm like, I could hear you talk about me all day. I love this.

Heather (02:34)
Yeah.

Same. I I like it. Yes. Yes. I ⁓ I'll write you a love letter that you could read to yourself every morning or I'll record it for you.

Laura Schoenfeld (02:37)
Words of affirmation, girly over here.

Yeah, record

me like a subconscious meditation or something. It's just your voice telling me how amazing I am.

Heather (02:47)
Yeah. we'll do we'll just

you just listen to my podcast and I got you, girl. All right, we're gonna dive in what had prompted today's conversation. So flipping flipping gears, I was on Laura's podcast. It hasn't come out yet, I don't think, at the time this airs, but I was on her show on the interview a couple weeks ago. So I'll let y'all know when that comes out. And we just realized we have so much like overlap in how we think about business and how we do things a little bit differently. But really what came up for me.

with you is you talk so much about messaging and this is like a genie in the bottle situation that's like business owners struggle how to talk about themselves. That's why they come into my world. I'm but I'm curious for you. We'll get into like your background and stuff in a moment. But when did you discover that you really liked talking about messaging and like more importantly that you were really good at it.

Laura Schoenfeld (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I guess it's interesting because when I first started putting stuff out on the Internebs, I think you called it. ⁓ I I did not think anything about messaging. Messaging was not a concept in my brain. It was content creation and the person that I was working for at the time that really got me into this world in the first place, it was all about communication. It was just about how do you actually communicate ideas, how do you

Heather (03:49)
Yeah, we're gonna call.

Laura Schoenfeld (04:11)
write primarily in a way that is both informative and engaging and actually grows an audience because this was back in twenty twelve was when I was doing all this for the first time.

Heather (04:22)
This is

like the like the ice ages of the internet.

Laura Schoenfeld (04:25)
I know, I know. I'm gr it's gross. But anyways,

this is what we were doing back back then. ⁓ before they called it the Internebs. I don't know what we called it back then, the the worldwide web. ⁓ so back then, you really had to be a really an effective communicator, and not in the way that I think a lot of people think about it now, which is the whole like grab their attention the first point seven seconds and like you know, make sure they watch the full seven seconds of the reel and all that stuff that didn't exist.

Everything we were doing was long form, long form writing, long form speaking. And I don't really think messaging was something almost anybody was talking about back then because really at that point, either you were creating content on the internet or you weren't. And most people weren't. And if you were, people were like, This is weird. This is very interesting, novel. my gosh, you're like, you know, the one person that's talking about these things.

So it was very much this sense of you just got on there and you talked and you had something to say, maybe had a little bit of an opinion about some stuff, and that was it. And so I really think I got most of my communication chops during this time where I didn't have to necessarily think about how I was positioning things, the messaging behind it, because at that time the market really was not that sophisticated. There were not that many people doing what I was doing online.

So there wasn't that much competition, and especially not from other people who were kind of that connection point between the people writing really science heavy stuff in my space. I was in the nutrition and health space. It was like you got all the nerds like really going deep in like PubMed and research and blah blah. And then you had the people that were like, This is what I ate over the weekend on their blog. And then there was this kind of empty space that I f was filling, which was

I'm gonna take all that complicated research stuff and make this something practical for you so that you can actually get some value from and make changes to your life with. So that was honestly the way that I approached content creation. Did not have any like, how do I need to message this so that people want to work with me? ⁓ so I I'm trying to think it must have been kind of this eventual just shift. I don't think there was any point where I was like, now I care about messaging. But over time.

As I started learning, I think honestly when I started learning about how to sell courses was when messaging started to become something that was in my awareness. Because when you're selling one-on-one services, you kind of just need to know first of all how to get in front of an audience and then how to talk to a person. Like if you can do those two things, you can sell one-on-one. When you're selling a a course or group program, something one to many, now you have to be able to communicate to people in a way that they can receive and

take action on without you having any back and forth with them. So I think for me, that was really where the concept of messaging started to come into place because you had to build your sales materials in a way that you would hope. And you know, back then a lot of ⁓ a a lot of our launches did really well. Like, you know, small audience using an affiliate, we had like a, I think like a $70,000 launch on a $300 product back in 2015. And so that

stuff that we had to do to actually make that work, you had to really figure out what is it that people need to hear so that they can make a purchase of this offer without me having to actually explain it to them in person in a conversation. So that was honestly, I mean, like I said, 2015 was probably when that started to become a thing that I was ⁓ focusing a lot more on. And from there it just kind of evolved into this, you know, as the market became more sophisticated, as I started getting into business coaching and helping other people do that for their business.

I really just dug into the actual science and skill of communication in the sense of how do I message an offer? How do I message my positioning? How do I message who I am and what I do and why would they pick me in a way that creates sales in my business of the right people, the people I want to work with. And over time I just think with the market getting as ⁓ I hate saying saturated, but it kind of is. I mean, let's just call spade a spade.

lot of people out there, a lot of competitors, lot of noise, a lot of distraction. The market has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Now messaging is like you literally you have to understand it. You have to use it. You have to refine it and it has to be done in a way that allows you to stay true to who you are while also speaking effectively to the people you want to sell to in a way that drives conversions for the thing that you want to sell. And this is if you're running a business, right?

If you're not running a business, none of this matters. But if you're running a business, this is what we need to be aware of. So it's a very long-winded way of saying I think 2015 was when I first came across this concept of messaging. ⁓ but I had been creating content on the internet for years before I really started having to think about how do I position an offer to sell it to a large number of people.

Heather (09:31)
Yeah. Okay, long-winded way you actually bring up something that I think is really important for us to call out here. So heads up, we're gonna take this in two directions. So we're gonna circle back around in a second. Yes, two qu two two directions. So on one hand, we're gonna come back to this question. And I we I want to get super explicit for audience today. When we're talking about messaging and that exact area that you're talking about, I want to define that more and kind of geek out about it in just a minute. But where I want to go first is you brought up something that I had this thought where I'm like, ooh, the

Laura Schoenfeld (09:39)
Same time.

Heather (09:59)
Back in my day, right, we were talking about the ice age. I was just thinking about you saying you really got your chops with long form and with writing and really obsessing over creating content, figuring out how to communicate better. And I what I think about is for me, different context, right? When I say got my chops back in 2012, I was speaking on stages. I was running workshops. I was physically in the room daily, if not weekly, leading sessions. And something that I think is really difficult that people don't recognize right now. So many people are.

Taking their expertise and trying to come on online, come come to the internet or trying to start with speaking. And they don't realize that the people who have been doing it, who are able to refine what we're going to talk about today, we have been practicing whether it's online or offline for like more than a decade. So for anyone who is challenged by trying to figure out how do I talk about my stuff better.

I mean, it's no wonder we struggle with it because like the people who do it well have been doing this for a very, very long time, whether or not you see it. So I just think we have such this like instant gratification need that everybody thinks that they has to come out fast and perfect and now, which we'll talk third track, we're gonna talk about AI and how AI is influencing that, right? But I just I I don't think people are realizing just how freaking difficult it is.

Laura Schoenfeld (10:59)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha ha.

Heather (11:17)
To do messaging and to talk about your expertise in the world we live in right now, which is instant, you have to hold that attention. So I love that you actually started with the fact that you have so much experience in that skill because I don't think people see or even recognize how much work goes into a really effective short form video or really effective outputs from AI or anything that happens in your business. There's just skills that are stacked over time.

Laura Schoenfeld (11:24)
Mm-hmm.

Well and I will say this year I'm making so many changes to my messaging, my audience, my offers. Like I, you know, for better or worse, I'm pretty much starting I don't say from scratch. You don't ever start from scratch, but everything's new.

So I really am in this season of having to figure out how am I positioning these new offers, how am I messaging them, how am I messaging my brand. I'm, you know, two weeks away from launching my new website, which is I did all the copy for it. And it's been a really interesting experience because

I haven't had to do this in a while where I really had to like go back to the basics and what is my, you know, core premise? What is, you know, what are my actual people wanting? What do they think about this whole situation? And I do have a bad habit of we were kind of talking about this before we hit record. I have a bad habit of being like, Well, I know what they need, so I'm gonna focus on that and really speak to that because that's what they actually need. And it's like, ⁓ well, just because I know that they need it doesn't mean that they actually are aware that they want it or need it themselves. So even in the last

gosh at this point, five months of working on this, I'm still refining how I want to position all of this new stuff and not getting it right all the time because it's an experiment and it's testing things. And I think people

think even with the deep knowledge of the skill and the actual like strategy that that just means you're gonna nail it every time you open your mouth and you're gonna say all the perfect words and it's all gonna just be like a hundred percent everybody's gonna get it as soon as you say it. And I think for me, doing this new thing has given me an opportunity to reinforce the skill, but also practice it in a market that is a lot more difficult to be heard and be listened to because of all the stuff that we're getting

bombarded in our in our eyes and ears every time we open our phone. And so it's been a really interesting experience to just almost have that like clean slate, how do I want to position myself? What do I want people to experience when they come across my stuff online? And having it be like very intentional about what I want it to be, ⁓ just has really reinforced this need to understand the basics even of communication and messaging.

Heather (13:56)
Yeah.

Do you find that that's been harder? Like thinking it back back when you first started, you didn't know what didn't know, right? So you for for lack of a better term, you didn't fumble your way through it, but you kind of fumbled your way into success, right? Being able to test things out. You didn't know about messaging as you mentioned. But now, now that you know what a quote unquote good offer is, now that you know around market research, now that you know that, do you find yourself like is it hard to hold yourself to that standard or do you get all up in your head?

Laura Schoenfeld (14:04)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (14:25)
Trying to be like, I wanna like skip past this part. Like I'm beyond the beginner stuff. Like, walk, walk me through your inner dialogue that you've been having around this over the last five months.

Laura Schoenfeld (14:34)
Yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm feeling like I'm too good for beginner stuff because honestly I've literally gone back to the very same things I teach my clients as far as, you know, understanding your idol client and what, you know, describing them and understanding what they want and, you know, what's the transformation, all those things. I think my issue that I run into is I I tend to be a bit ahead of the curve as far as

Heather (14:56)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (15:02)
like I my brain's like in the future, I think, as far as where I I think our industry is going and w what people are gonna be caring about and what people are gonna be looking for. And I don't know if my market, my audience has necessarily caught up with it. And so I get into the situation where I'm like, I know technically I should talk to this because this is what they say they want, but I wanna talk about this topic. I wanna, you know, I really wanna like elevate the conversation and and be more

⁓ talking about stuff that really matters in my mind and is where I again I do think we're all heading. ⁓ and that's where I tend to I think struggle the most is I'm like, I gotta reel things back in and get back to where they are, where my brain wants to be like, but this is what's coming in six months. And and it's hard because I've I've been around so long that I feel like I do see those trends and I and I generally feel like I've been right about them. And so when I'm like, this is where we're going, that's where I want to go versus actually being

where the market is. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that's usually where I get frustrated is I'm like, like I know that this is what people need and I know this is what they're gonna want and gonna really value, but I I almost can't even talk about it because they're not there yet with their thinking about it.

Heather (16:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well it's very manifestory, right? Of of seeing things or having ideas for things that other people don't see yet. But okay, but now you got us all curious, wondering about okay, so what like what are some of the things that you want to talk about more or that you do see the industry going? Like do you feel comfortable sharing around some of your thoughts around that?

Laura Schoenfeld (16:16)
Mm-hmm.

A lot of it comes, I mean, it's kind of what we're gonna talk about today, whereas this concept of everything being proven formulas, proven templates, like Joe, just follow my 10-steps stem 10-step system, and you'll get the result that you want. And that's what a lot of business coaches sell. Like they're very aggressively selling, this is the result, here's how my life looks, here's the receipts that you know. If you want to be like me, just come and get my my proven system. And I just unfortunately.

For most people, you go into a program like that and the proven system is not actually a match for you and what your needs are and what your capacity is or your skills or the way you serve your clients or just ethics or anything like that. And so you get like a percentage of the people that are like crushing it with that system, and then everybody else is struggling. And it's like all you see is the the testimonials from the person who's crushing with with the results, and the people who are struggling are kind of like, Let's just like ignore them and put them to the side. Yeah.

Heather (17:27)
Look away. Does everybody look

away?

Laura Schoenfeld (17:29)
Yeah, and

listen, I'm not I'm not saying it's the coach's responsibility to like be, you know, fixing everybody's business, but I do think that people are really craving this honesty about not every system works for the individual and you have to be really discerning about what actually is a match for you and you know what is involved in the system. I've seen people, business coaches especially that are selling

These offers that are like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tell you what we do. You just are like gonna buy based on what I'm saying is gonna happen as a result. And it's like, how do I even know that your system is gonna work for me if you won't even share what the system is? Right. Or they they say that this is the system, and then you get into their program and you're like, you have like 20 team members that are doing all this for you, and that's why it's working. It's not because this system is some magic, you know, ⁓ you know, proven thing that everybody's gonna get benefit from.

So I've just been in enough situations where I've seen how the sausage is made as far as like business coaching programs are concerned, my own programs that I've run where it's like, why does this work for some people and not for others? And my feeling is that yes, selling a transformation is always going to be important. But when you hear all these people saying nobody cares about the how, I don't think that's gonna be true for much longer. I think people, at least the smart people, do wanna know.

How how are you actually gonna walk me through this? What is the process? Tell me how you think. Show me the way that you think differently than someone who's just like, you know, I I sat on my couch and I manifested it because I was in the right frequency or whatever, right? And it's so it's like, right, right. Just, you know, and then get a vibration plate and you're good, right? Actually I have a vibration plate plate just sitting right next to me. ⁓ but not to make money, just to give myself some movement during the day. But all I was gonna say is that I I feel like you get all this

Heather (19:02)
Cold plunge.

Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (19:19)
kind of like hypey selling strategies that's like just like s slap people across the face with the outcome, just make really big claims, the bigger the better. You know, it needs to sound really amazing if they're gonna buy it. And and I mean, regardless of whether that's even ethical, because I work with a lot of health experts and I'm like, I don't even think that's legal. At least, you know, in many countries it's not legal to like make these claims about health that are completely unfounded and you know, one percent of your audience actually gets. But I also think this idea of like, you know

only talk about the results and never show the how or the you know the overall the methodology behind what you do. I don't think that that's gonna keep working in the the near future. So really understanding yourself and understanding what do you need for a system to work for you and then expecting whoever you're buying from to be able to speak to how that system is actually a fit for what you need.

Or if it's not a fit, they say, hey, I don't think this is gonna be a fit. God forbid anyone like turns down somebody with money. ⁓ or it's like, yeah, this is we're gonna optimize this and we're gonna modify that. And here's how we'll customize things to make sure it's w works for you, or here's how I help you think about that. I think people really are gonna want to understand, even if it's a one-to-many program, how is this gonna work uniquely for me? Versus it just being like, this is the proven way to get this result and don't ask questions.

Heather (20:46)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (20:46)
So I I

just think that's part of it. I mean, that's just one thing that I see happening is this like they call it the trust recession. But I think some of it's even if you've had experiences where you've tried something and it didn't work for you, you're now in this like, d can I even trust my own self? And if people can't see, you know, h is this actually the way I wanna do things? Is this a fit for where I am in my life and my circumstances right now? They're probably not gonna buy because they're just worried.

Hey, I kinda got sucked into this thing last time that promised all these incredible results. And I'm a hard worker and I'm willing to do what is necessary, but I also need to make sure it actually is a fit for me and my life right now. And I do think people are gonna wanna hear that without you having to fire hose them about, you know, the eighteen thousand different deliverables that you've packed into your program and the forty five hours of videos, which that's a whole nother if we wanna add another thread is the idea of like how courses are changing with AI right now, but

Heather (21:41)
Ha ha ha.

Laura Schoenfeld (21:45)
Yeah, I just think people are people are really starting to feel like distrustful of anyone who's just waiving the dream outcome without being able to really back up the method right now. And I just think that's gonna keep getting more and more ⁓ hopefully. I mean I'm I'm hoping people will start to wake up to that, but I think it's gonna be something you have to be able to balance talking about the how without

basically just giving away all the how to content that makes people not feel like they need to buy.

Heather (22:16)
Yeah. I love that you brought this up. The whole trust recession. I did an episode on this a couple of weeks ago just talking about how that buzz term is just hilarious to me because we have been in a trust recession, if you will, for the last 15 years where people are just super skeptical of brands. It's just now at a different level. But I love how you flipped it and talked about that the trust conversation is really more about internal trust, right? I even think about in

Laura Schoenfeld (22:29)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (22:43)
2019, 2020, people are at this high peak of like possibility with online. And it was very easy to get swept in. I'm gonna call this like the peak of the million dollar business dream, where everyone, right, when they started their businesses or got in, everybody adopted this like the goal is a seven figure business. And I don't know where that came, but it was like a swept-in, right? And it was just like, it's it's inevitable, it's gonna happen, it's whatever. But along the way, right, people trying things.

Laura Schoenfeld (23:04)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (23:13)
I it is interesting how you bring up there's ⁓ people being burned or overpromised or whatever that is, right? There's an external piece, right, where yes, others need to take responsibility. But I think what you just mentioned, which is really interesting, is this ⁓ internal damage that is done when people say yes too many times, or even say yes, but then don't do the work, or they don't follow through, or they get distracted, or I think we have a big integrity issue.

⁓ not ethically, but I think with people personally, they say a lot of things, but actually don't walk the talk. I think it's really easy for people to spout off and say, I'm gonna do this, and then go watch Netflix or like procrastinate and do other things in their business. So I think for all of the reasons, good, bad, or indifferent, I think people right now more than ever don't trust themselves to do what they say they're going to do. And yeah, please.

Laura Schoenfeld (23:50)
Mm-hmm.

Well can I can I say something about really quick?

I mean listen, we all know that lots of people are lazy. I don't think anyone listening to this podcast is lazy, especially if it's like

Heather (24:08)
I'm lazy.

I bring that I'm we were talking about lazy marketing, right? ⁓

Laura Schoenfeld (24:12)
Well, true. I mean,

there's a diff I think there's a difference between like you like to optimize your energy output versus I'm just gonna like I bought this course and I'm not even gonna open it. Like I don't think anyone listening to this is like, I spend money and then literally don't even touch the thing that I bought. I think what a lot of people are experiencing is they get sold into these programs that really make it like

Heather (24:18)
Okay, I like that. I like that. That's neat.

Laura Schoenfeld (24:33)
this is gonna be so easy for you to do because we all know that's like how you sell something is you talk about how easy and like effortless it's gonna be because that's what people wanna pay for. And then you get in and you're like, this is actually a lot of this is effortful. Like there's a lot of effort here. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't be willing to put in effort, but

If you were sold this like easy system plug and play, just like, you know, knock a few things out and you'll be rolling in the dough. And then you get in and you're like, holy cow, this is like a lot more work than I was expecting. You may not have even been like in the headspace or the life circumstances or whatever to actually even use all of that. Like I've been in that situation before where I've I've been in programs that I'm like, I don't need to be like,

doing all this crazy like team building and hiring and performance reviews and all this stuff. But that's what I'm being taught right now because that's what I'm being told is what I need to get to this level. And in the meantime, I'm like wasting all this time and energy in a very ⁓ challenging season becoming a mom trying to do all this stuff that I'm like, nobody nobody even stopped to ask, hey, does this do you even need this right now? Like is this even appropriate for you? It was just like if like to your point, if you want to hit seven figures, this is what you gotta do. This is what everybody's doing. All right, I guess I'm doing it because

I was this is I'm paying for this, so I better I better actually use what I'm paying for. And so that that to me is an experience that I think is like way more subtle where you come in, I call it the good student trap. You're like, I wanna do what I'm being told. I I'm like, I'm here to learn, I'm here to grow. And then you start doing all this stuff that you're like, holy cow, this is like a lot more than I expected. And now it's actually pulling me away from the money making parts of my business. And now I'm like, why am I doing this? But now I've hired this person and now I have like a salary I gotta pay for. And it's just this like

situation where you're like, holy cow, I'm I'm trying to do what I'm being taught and it's it's making everything harder. It's making this like less pro less profitable. It's it's but this is what I'm being told is what I need to do to hit this goal that I have. And so I think a lot of people have that experience where they get into a program that didn't really express what they were going to be doing as well as it needed to. And then they get in and they get like overwhelmed by all the things their coach is telling them to do.

And it's not customized. There's no like, here's how to know if this is even appropriate for you. And then they get burnt out. And then it's like, well, maybe I shouldn't do a program because look what happened last time I tried that. I just got like overwhelmed by all the things I was being told to do. So I know that's like not the same as like, I bought this program and then decided I'd rather watch Netflix. It's like, like, I think there's a lot of people that really did put a lot of effort into things, and then it was like,

my gosh, like that didn't work at all. And now I don't even know if I can trust myself to make a good investment decision on where I should go to grow my business.

Heather (27:22)
Yeah. I think that's really valid. And I to be fully transparent. I've done I've done all of the versions of everything, right? I have totally bought programs before and logged into them once and never touched them again. Like I I've done those, I've done that, I've done I've done all of right. I think all of us have done a variety of it probably depends on our personality. It's what's interesting is this is gonna be a great segue. Thinking about right, joining a program, thinking how does this fit me, how does this work for me? I see this subtle shift where people are taking that same energy.

And displacing it to AI. They're looking to AI to guide them. And I have a whole episode around like AI is making people stupid, right? If you outsource your thinking, like we're gonna experience creative atrophy. So that's something that we just talked about a couple months ago here on the show. But I am curious if you've noticed too that where people were looking, let's say, to a coach or a mentor for that instruction and they weren't getting it, but they weren't getting it from themselves either. Have you noticed people starting to displace that to AI? And do you see any cautions around?

Laura Schoenfeld (27:54)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (28:21)
People looking to AI for answering those questions or even those customizations and that not serving them either.

Laura Schoenfeld (28:27)
Yeah, totally. I mean, it's the same root issue of somebody else knows better than me what I need to do for my business and I'm just gonna listen to what they're saying. So I think for a long time it was, these really successful business owners, they must know better than me because look at how successful they are. And then it's like, ⁓ that wasn't that wasn't as helpful as I was hoping it would be. so then you go to AI.

And you're like, well, maybe AI knows better than I do. I mean, it has access to the entire internet in the blink of an eye. Like, it's gotta know more than I do about what business model is gonna work. And AI is literally just pulling averages from the internet and then basically wanting to make you happy with its output. So it's like, yeah, sure. If you think this is the right thing to do, I'm gonna tell you yes. It's not gonna challenge you on things. It doesn't have any I'm laughing. So I was like, it doesn't have any experience with any of this stuff.

I'm laughing because I was asking Chat to PT recently about my my youngest baby sleeps a lot. And I was like, is this too much sleeping? Like I'm not mad about it, but I'm like a little like maybe this isn't healthy. And in its response, it said, as a parent myself and having worked with a lot of parents, I'm like, Excuse me? Like, you are not a parent. I know. I know.

Heather (29:40)
Little Chatty G babies. Little Jatty G babies. Chatty G all night

nursing that little one.

Laura Schoenfeld (29:46)
I know

that little that little ⁓ USB drive that's plugged into me overnight. ⁓ no, it was crazy. I was like, I have never had AI respond in such a like blatantly like hallucinatory way where it was like saying it was a parent. But it's one of these things where if you don't know what to ask it, if you don't know the inputs, if you don't know how to think about the question, you're not gonna get good output. And so you're gonna be asking AI these questions about what to do or how to do something, and it's gonna give you

information that's potentially correct as far as a response, but it's not gonna know if that's a good fit for you, right? It's not gonna know, yeah, you tried something like that before and it wasn't a good fit. Or, ⁓ you have this circumstance in your life that makes this particular f way of doing things more difficult and maybe wouldn't be a good fit. Or, you know, you don't have the the buffer to spend as much money on this thing because you're the breadwinner. And so you can't like put all your money from your business into growth. Right. So I think it's like

I love AI and I'm happy to share more about like how I find AI to be really useful, but I think it's the same issue where people are outsourcing their thinking and their decision making to something that is not them and not even a thing that has done what they wanted to do to give them some needed context and it's designed specifically to agree with you.

So I think any good coach that you're working with is going to when they don't agree with you, point that out, be like, wait a second, or they have a history that like a relationship with you, or they have that like, you know, body body language, visual acuity where they can pick up, she's kinda like acting all funny, or her voice changed, or something where you have that human ability to be like, wait, maybe we should talk more about that, versus, yeah, here's your output and go make this launch plan and you know, hopefully it's a good fit for you. So

That's where I think with some of these coaching programs where people did put the effort in and it didn't work for them and they do have this like maybe I'm just not a good business owner kind of mentality, it's probably because they were putting way too much stock in what the the leader was saying, especially if that leader didn't know them.

didn't know their business, didn't know their circumstances, didn't know what they had been through, didn't know their limitations and challenges and like, you know, traumas and all the things that affect how you show up. And was just like, well, just go execute, right? Like just go execute the plan. And I feel like AI is the same thing. It's like, it'll give you a beautiful plan. Is that the right plan for you? Who's to say? Who knows? Right. And yeah, if you want to go test it, go for it. But it doesn't I think the real issue is like, are you completely outsourcing your decision making?

to something that you literally don't know if it even is sending you in the right direction.

Heather (32:39)
I think this is like personal development one on one. It's like that step number one for any personal development is a hundred percent responsibility for your own outcomes, a hundred percent responsibility for your own actions. And I think making decisions for yourself, thinking for yourself, weighing things against like, does this feel right for me? Does this make sense for me? Just having that step, right? Even when somebody technically knows more about a subject than you, you know you and your environment better than yourself. But it's interesting. What came to mind? I saw this infographic on LinkedIn.

Laura Schoenfeld (32:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (33:09)
weeks ago and it was that like people make very pretty infographics on LinkedIn and I will read them. And it was talking about the difference between a director role and a VP role. This goes into corporate world. But it was it really interesting because I as I read this infographic I was like crap. Yeah this is exactly what was the difference for me when I moved from a director to a VP. And I share this because the difference was a director in a company, they're responsible for executing a plan with their team versus a VP in the company is actually

shaping the vision and cre like creating the tone and the whatever for the plan. Like director executes versus a VP is like the one setting the direction. And it got me really thinking about a lot of times when people run their businesses, they act more as a director and less as a VP or CEO C suite, whatever method you want to use, right? But at the end of the day, you have to be the one who sees the full picture to make the decisions around what's best for you.

Laura Schoenfeld (33:42)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (34:04)
So I love I love that approach and simplifying it down to decision making, ownership, all those things. So let's let's talk about let's talk about AI and then we're gonna come back to messaging here. open loop. We started like 20 minutes ago. I am curious, knowing that you have a lot of conviction, right, around how you run your business, but you also are in a season where you have two young girls at home and you're rebuilding everything in your business, like how like tell us how you're using AI and

⁓ where you're loving it versus maybe where you're like, ⁓ I've learned my lesson. Don't use it for this. Like I I'm I love how your brain is with AI, so I want to hear your take around how you're using it right now.

Laura Schoenfeld (34:37)
Yeah.

So I will say, even with the frustration around ⁓ being led to do a lot of team and hiring and stuff that I was like, this isn't necessary for the season of life I'm in, the the stage of business that I'm in. ⁓ hold on one second. I know you you don't like to edit and I'm like, I'm gonna cough. Hold on a second.

Heather (35:03)
Cough, sneeze, do whatever you gotta do. We're all in good company here.

Laura Schoenfeld (35:10)
One thing I did pick up from all that, and also being an employee, a team member for another business owner, is I did learn a lot about training. And I look at AI as a tool that if you could train somebody else to do it, it's a great tool. But if you would not hire somebody to do it in your business for you, then you probably should be cautious about doing it with AI.

Heather (35:11)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (35:35)
Right. So if you wouldn't hire somebody to come into your business, although I guess some people would be like, please, yes, come take over all the decision making and I wanna hire a CEO, but you probably would not hire somebody to come in and make all the decisions about how you're showing up online, what your, you know, brand is about, what your messaging is from like a a, you know, top down perspective, who you're selling to, who your idol clients are, what the transformation is, like all that stuff that

99% of small businesses who do like service and coaching based businesses, which is I think your audience as well as mine, you're not gonna hire somebody to come in and like say, No, we're not, we're not you're not a a speaking coach. Heather, you're gonna sell you're gonna sell how to go live on Instagram and that's the only thing you're gonna sell. You'd be like, No, I wanna talk about like skills and development of like actual speaking ability, not just like

Going viral on Instagram, right? So you wouldn't hire somebody to come in and tell you this is what you're gonna talk about, this is what you're gonna decide, this is what you're going to, ⁓ who you're gonna work with, the kind of clients you're gonna work with, here's what your pricing's gonna be. Like you wouldn't want somebody to come and make all those decisions for you without you having a say, but you probably would hire somebody to write your podcast show notes for you after you recorded a podcast. You would probably hire somebody to come in and

write some emails for you if you if you're like I need to get some emails out right now but I don't really have a lot of time. Let me get some emails written so I'm not just like ghosting my email list. That's probably something you'd be like, I'm comfortable hiring somebody for that. ⁓ you might even hire somebody to do some of the social media stuff where it's like they're not coming up with the ideas and the topics and the perspectives but they're like writing the caption because you just needed to get a caption out with that content. Those are the kind of things that I think most people would be like yeah I would hire somebody for that.

So I think that's a really good metric of whether or not AI should be running it for you is if you would be willing and happy to hire somebody else and delegate it to them and let them do it for you. If it's not, then you really shouldn't be allowing AI to do it as the core function. Now I'm not saying you can't use AI to brainstorm. I use it all the time as like a I need my thoughts reflected back to me so I can like

Have a conversation to get my ideas out because I'm a verbal processor, but I'm not gonna say, Claude, should I do this for my business? Or Claude, what's the best way for me to talk about this topic? Like that's gotta come from me. And so I think people because they think there's a right way to do stuff, right? And they are in that space where they're like, I don't know if I know the right way because I've been kind of struggling here or I've been having a hard time getting in front of the right people or

I say things and they it doesn't make sales pop off like immediately. So maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. And so they start to get into that space where they're like, well, maybe AI knows better than I do. And then they're outsourcing things that really should come from them. And for me, I think the messaging piece is one of those areas that people try to outsource and then it just gets trashed. Like they're like, they're creating content that looks like everybody else, sounds like everybody else, reads like AI, so you can tell it's AI.

And then they're asking people to trust them with their money as a coach or an expert. Like, who's gonna think that you even know what you're talking about if your content is like straight out of chat GPT, right? So there are ways to use AI to to get your stuff out there to ⁓ really amplify what you're doing in a way that is effective and not going to hurt your brand, but it has to come from you, it has to start with you, and you have to be the originator of the ideas, of the perspectives.

of the messaging itself, of the the way that you want to present yourself to the world. And then AI is able to just take what you're already presenting and get it out to more people. So that was kind of a roundabout way of saying like I mean it's kind of to your to your VP and director point, like the AI can be a great director. It's not going to be the VP of your company. It's not going to be the CEO of your company.

Heather (39:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, the sneaky part though is it'll act like a VP, right? It will it easily, I find that it easily okay. This happened to actually this week. I was on a walk similar to you. I'm like, I I have this idea, I need to get it out. I'm an external processor. And what I used to do, I used to voice note when I was on my walks and voice noting and I would run through otter and then go back to it or have my assistant go back to it and reflect it back to me. What the heck did I say?

Laura Schoenfeld (39:48)
Mm.

Heather (40:08)
But now I'm like, I'll just use Claude or Chat GPT. I I actually prefer the audio voices on Chat GPT. They actually have more inflection in their voice and actually it is less passive-aggressive asshole, like hate all the audio voices on Claude. That's just a personal preference of mine. But the other day I was like, I just need you to just capture what I'm saying. And even though I was so explicit, every single time it come back, ⁓ I love that. And it would try to ⁓ either validate what I was saying.

Or it would start taking over. It would literally move into and here's how to do that. And it would start shifting. And it was interesting. It didn't matter how many times I gave him the direction. I have the male voice on, so him, ⁓ every time it would take the reins back and start trying to systematize or process or have it tied to some other goal that I had shared earlier. And it was just interesting. It can't help itself. It moves into that and tries to take that VP reign. And I don't know if you've experienced this, but for me,

Laura Schoenfeld (40:42)
Mm.

Heather (41:05)
What I had to get really good at recognizing is it was sneaky. Because what it would serve back to me would sound so good. I'm like, ⁓ I didn't quite say that, but what it just said sounds better in the moment because I can't rearticulate what I just said because I kind of blacked out when I was talking. Right. So then I would go, well, that's good. And it was just enough of a dangle carrot that I would then take it and start going down that conversation. And just little by little, it would start taking control of.

Over the idea, and it was so subtle I didn't even notice it. It took me a while to figure this out. Now I catch it really quickly, and I'm like, shut up and get in your lane, Claude. You're just a note-taker right now. But it's just so interesting how, unless you're really, really aware of it, how quickly AI can take the reins. So you have to understand what role you're playing and what role it's playing. I love how you simplified it saying, Is it a role that you would outsource? And

Laura Schoenfeld (41:42)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (42:01)
What's funny is I think about a lot of business owners who would like to outsource things that they probably are not ready to. Like when you men mentioned marketing, I know a lot of my clients would love to have somebody else market for them and set the strategy and set the direction and be like, I just, I just want to do what I do. I just want to help my clients. Somebody else work it for me.

Laura Schoenfeld (42:11)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right. But they wouldn't be okay with that

person saying, like, I don't care what your opinion is. I'm going to go like say what I want to say on your social media. They would not be okay with that as much as they want somebody else to do it for them. And honestly, I have been chatting with some people, myself included, who have experimented with some done for you marketing stuff. And we're like, this sucks. Like, we do not even like doing this because when somebody comes in with the idea of you're just going to do it for me.

It doesn't work because they're like, they're not even trying to do it for themselves. They're like, I just want somebody else to do it for me and figure it out. And I'm just gonna like let let the money roll in or whatever. And it doesn't work. It just, it's, it's like nobody can be you. Nobody can really capture the ultimate essence of who you are, how you wanna communicate. And even if you had somebody

working for you to get your content out there, it's it's always gonna be someone who's taking what you already said and just changing the format. I've seen this happen with a I mean, this is it's gonna be a whole nother ball of wax here. I've seen so many really well known business owners who I am like very convinced has somebody on their team using AI to like create their content for them. And it is god awful. They have like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers and they get like fifteen likes.

On their content and they're like trying to sell stuff off of it. And I'm like, this is terrible. This is so bad. And people are looking at these people as like people to imitate as far as their messaging strategy. And like this is garbage. And so it's it's that idea of like you're outsourcing to somebody who doesn't know you, isn't trying to know you, isn't like literally just like in your world trying to like get all your stuff and capture and just bottle it and put it out there effectively.

They're just like, here's the template to follow. Here's what's quote unquote working online. Let's like slot our details into it and then just like slap it out there and hope that people buy from it. And it's just like, it's it's terrible. And I don't think it's working for these people who are, you know, the ones at the the top of the pyramid. And then they're teaching other people how to do it and it's not working for them either. So with AI, with with content, it's like it's literally only meant to take your actual words.

And get them into different formats or maybe tighten it up. Like if you're a really long-witted speaker like me, I can talk for obviously a long time, as you're noticing. If I if I need something consolidated, it's a good, it's good at like shortening things and condensing things, but I am not gonna ask it to come up with an idea and use this template and like, you know, pull what you know about me from your memory and go write this like sales page or something and then be like, why isn't anybody buying from this? So it's it's

Heather (44:45)
Same girl.

Laura Schoenfeld (45:07)
And I I understand why people wanna outsource it. I get it. Even as somebody who teaches this stuff, I would be very happy to not have to think about it because I like really just love coaching and talking to people. ⁓ but it's not something that can be outsourced. And if you're thinking either AI is gonna do it for you or you're gonna hire some marketing team to come in and take over it and just like send you all the clients, it doesn't I don't know anybody that it works for. I've never ever worked with somebody who said that that actually worked for them.

Heather (45:32)
Yeah. So let's talk about what is working. Cause this is one of the things that I was really, really impressed watching you on, well, I guess reading you on threads, right? I you you crank out so many thought leadership style posts on threads. I'm like, there is no way you have little babies at home. There is no way that you're able to write all this. Like, how is this happening? And so then when we were talking and you're like, yeah, this is what I use AI for. I'm like, how is this possible? Because I'm one of those people and I I know you and I have different opinions on this.

I when I see someone blatantly using AI on it, my brain automatically turns off and I can't read it. Like it's just like a automated mode. I'm like and it's it's AI for me is it comes down to it's around ⁓ like an expert. If if if a spa business or like a local plumber, if they're using AI, I'm like freaking power to you. Like you're getting cli like I don't care if a service-based business or businesses like with products or whatever use a frickin' AI. I don't even care if it says

Laura Schoenfeld (46:21)
Mm.

Heather (46:31)
It's not complicated. It's just pure whatever. I don't even care if it's the shittiest AI. I'm like, I'm cheering for the local business owner who's using AI to get content out. However, if you are an expert and you make money off of your ideas and your teaching and you're cranking out shitty AI, my brain will literally just hijack it and be like, I can't even read it. But your posts do not. Like I read whenever I like read the whole thing through. And they're not short-winded. They're good.

Laura Schoenfeld (46:37)
Ha ha ha.

Mm.

Heather (47:00)
So the the question is, how the hell do you do what you do to actually have this thing work for you? Because you really have been able to create the system. And I know this is all you teach, and we can't get into all of this today, but you've been able to really make the AI quote unquote dream that people want come true. You've figured out how to make it work for you. And I see this with the asterisk of obviously what we've talked about this whole episode.

There's gonna now be a qualifier for anyone listening that just because this method works for you does not mean it's gonna be plug and play for anyone else, right? The whole thing we've been talking today about nuance. But I I really would love to hear how the heck have you been able to make this work? Because I haven't been able to figure this part out. ⁓ I'll I haven't really explored it too much. So that's not really saying a lot, but I just I'm just so impressed by your written content. I'm like, how? How have you done that when people like these big brands?

Laura Schoenfeld (47:46)
Ha ha.

Heather (47:53)
They haven't even figured it out. Like you were just you just gotta go it on, girl, with the writing.

Laura Schoenfeld (47:55)
I know.

I well, thank you. I appreciate that. I it's it is a little shocking sometimes when I see some of the stuff other people are putting out. And again, it's like these like eight figure, very famous business owners, and I'm like, this is terrible. Am I the only person who's like gagging in my mouth about this stupid carousel that you just put out? That's like the same formula every single time. ⁓ gosh, there's a lot of okay, so first of all, I do still write my own stuff. I don't

write everything. I will I will ⁓ keep that a little ⁓ close to the chest as far as what I actually write versus what I don't write. But it's not

Heather (48:32)
Well add that

it what we talked about at the top of the episode, the fact that you have been writing for so many years, that is something that we have to make sure we call attention to because you're a really good writer, but you've been in practice with it and that skill for so long.

Laura Schoenfeld (48:42)
Yes.

Yeah. And

that I will say to your point, you mentioned that concept of creative atrophy. That's actually one reason that I am very cautious that I don't only use AI for written stuff because it would be very tempting to only use AI for written. I am a like, I will talk into a mic for hours. I can do it. Like I've already today been on this, you know, screen talking to people for the last like, I think two and a half hours since my meeting started. So I will talk and that is fine. There is no problem there.

The challenge I run into now with two kids under four years old is I just do not have the time and the mental energy that I used to have that a really well-written longer form written content would take for me to actually execute on. And so I just don't have the option of doing fully raw-dogged long form written content at this stage of life. That said, I did spend now going on.

15 years writing long form and writing for business. I'm probably past the 10,000 hours of like actual practice. And like I said, I still do a lot of writing because I don't want to lose that skill set. And I have noticed if I if I lean too much on AI for writing, I start to get a little bit of that writer's block. And I'm like, I don't want to ever have the issue of like I've I'm forgetting how to do this. So I do still write my own stuff. ⁓

What I really try to do with AI is capture stuff I've already said and turn that into something written. So it's not like making anything up. I'm literally giving it as much source material as I possibly can to then inform what goes out. So one of my favorite things to do lately is like I use Claude I don't wanna say exclusively because I do pop on chat GBT once in a while, but like I'm mostly on Claude.

And Claude has a lot of really cool tools where it can integrate with different softwares that you use. You can ⁓ teach it skills. So skills is almost like a recipe for how to do something that is 100% custom and that you can literally just like ask it to do something and it'll run that programming and do the output that you want it to do. So I've I've done a lot of that kind of stuff where now I can take transcripts, which ⁓ one of the things I do is I take

a tool called otter. I otter on most of my meetings where it's recording everything that we're saying and it's getting all my like stream of consciousness, you know, inspiration moment that I'm sharing with a client. It's capturing all that in written form. And then I can run a a process on my Claude where I'm like, hey Claude, run the Substack skill or run the thread skill or whatever. And I've trained that skill to go into my otter transcripts to actually look for the source content.

So if I wanna like just put out some like, you know, hot take or something that I was like, I said something really smart two days ago on a comment call. It's like I don't have to remember all of that because Claude can go find it for me and then be like, here's what you said, and here's how I recommend positioning it, and here's like the baseline ⁓ content that I would put out there. And then I'm doing the final pass on it. I am not putting anything out on whether it's threads or Substack or Instagram or whatever that has not been like

Edited or at least read through by me to make sure, okay, that is what I would have said, and that is something that reflects how I communicate. So basically it starts with me and it ends with me. And Claude is in the middle just doing a lot of the heavy, like getting the actual words onto paper work. And that's the part that as somebody with, like I said, a almost four-year-old and a 16-month-old.

I can't be doing that. I literally don't have time to be writing a 3,000-word blog post to be a compliment to the podcast episode I just recorded. But I know that some people like to read. Google's gonna love that I have that content on my website. It's gonna be like training the the AI systems to pull me as an expert. Like I know how important it is to have that written content for visibility and for access accessibility with my thought leadership, but I don't have the time to do both. And so that's where I bring AI in.

It's not just like, write me a blog post about this keyword and this many words. It's like, no, go into this transcript and extract all the things that I said that would make a strong article here. And then I'll go in and like change the language to make sure that it's things that I would actually say. I I can pick up on certain AI tells and I get rid of those because I'm like, I don't say it like that. And that's, you know, that's clearly something that AI loves to do. ⁓

And you can even bake in tools where it's like, here's a list of all the things that AI sounds like. Don't do those things. Doesn't mean it listens to you all the time. The number of times I've like c cursed out my Claude for using M-dash is I'll be like, do not use them. I've told you before, don't use them. Like it still wants to. But it's like that kind of stuff can actually be then filtered and it can pull out some of those AI tells. But again, it's like, this is a little bit of like the how the sausage is made. But the most important thing is that it is not.

Heather (53:37)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (54:00)
originating the idea and it's not shipping it without my review before it goes out into the world.

Heather (54:05)
That.

You know, I love that you described it in this way. I I feel mildly dumb ⁓ not drawing that conclusion until this moment as you're describing it. But when I think back, remember when I when I left my corporate job and started my business, I remember having this very real moment when I'm sitting at my computer realizing that, shit, I'm the one that's literally gonna do all the work. I had moved from being a VP, right, with a team of, I think at some point we had like 40, 60 people on our team.

I had workers and I literally my job was to show up and be the face for things or to set the strategy or to make sure my team had the support. But I didn't actually complete anything at my own. I hadn't done the physical like typing of shit in quite a while outside of emails. So I remember having that realization, but thinking back for my team, I would always think about any kind of new project would get started. My involvement was at the very beginning, the first 10% was setting the strategy, clarifying like the plan and all those pieces.

And then pulling me in for the last 10% before we shipped it on stage or for whatever else. And that worked really, really well for me because those are the two places that I was most interested. But everywhere else in between, my eyes would glaze over. And I'm like, this is way, I don't want to be part of any of this. This is not where my best talent is. It's those two pieces. So it wasn't until you were talking that I'm like, ⁓ that makes ⁓ one a lot of sense too. But that's really where when you are the visionary.

Laura Schoenfeld (55:06)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (55:31)
and the face of the brand, you are responsible for those two points. So I love that it now brings up a lot of questions around, okay, in the middle, but we won't go into all of those pieces.

Laura Schoenfeld (55:39)
Well, and I'll just I I love

that anal well meta it's not a metaphor. I don't know. Analogy, there's a word for it. Yeah. ⁓ and it's so funny because I think a lot of the reason I can do this the way that I can so naturally is because I used to be the Claude for somebody else, basically. Like he was running a multi seven figure online health business. AI was not a thing. He would tell me

Heather (55:44)
Example. We'll call it an example.

Laura Schoenfeld (56:04)
'Cause I I helped him launch courses, I helped him train practitioners, I helped him like, you know, get emails out. I was basically his AI tool as a human. And he would give me I know, right? So like he would he would give me, here's what the topic's gonna be, here's what I want you to cover. And then I would go make like a slide deck outline. And sometimes he'd even like put it into the slide deck. Eventually we got to a place where he had a designer on his team that would actually

Heather (56:14)
Call you Claudette.

Laura Schoenfeld (56:31)
take the bullets and put them in there. But I would write the slide decks based on what he told me to do. And then he would come and review them and approve them and then give them to somebody to design it. So I'm like, and this was 10, 15 years ago at this point. So in my mind, this was something that people have been doing forever where they have somebody else do a lot of the actual like brunt work. But he wouldn't have just grabbed somebody off the street and it's like, hey, do you know how to type?

Can you make an out or can you make a slide deck for me about this topic and you know, make sure it covers these things? The person would be like, I don't know anything about what you're trying to teach like put out there. So the reason I'm saying that is because w the way that I work with my AI tools is I treat them like they're a team member that I need to train on my voice, my brand, my offers, my perspectives, all of that stuff. I make sure it has access to as much of my thought leadership as possible. I give it transcripts, like I'm like, I want it to learn me so that it is like a true team member.

that I can trust is gonna get it ninety percent of the way there and then I can do the finishing touches on. And that's when I worked for this other guy. He was training me all the time. He sent me a I don't know if you've heard of Strunk and White, the grammar book. It's like this little gray, it's like really old. It's like decades old. It's it's this tiny little book. And I think it was all about just how to write in a concise way. I forget what the name of the actual book was, but Strunk and White, people probably know what I'm talking about.

And I just like learned how to communicate. I learned how to write. I learned how to distill the idea into something simple. And I took what he wanted and I executed on it. And then he again made it like this is the this is the final product now. And so for me, it's almost like having been the Claude or the Claudette, as you said, the Claudia. being that role for somebody else now helps me understand what does that mean.

Heather (58:18)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (58:24)
tool need to have so that it's doing a good job and that I'm not coming back and like, my God, this is terrible. I have to rewrite the whole thing. It's just little little touches here and there to get it to where I want it to be. And it's like you said, starting with me, ending with me. And I'm using a trained tool that is trained on my stuff. So it's not just like going off the rails and like pulling in some random crap that I'm like, I never said that. That's not what I think. Like that's not how I would say those things. And so

Heather (58:51)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (58:52)
That's what's really important because I think if you're gonna be a an expert with a business, you are selling your thoughts as like a primary thing that people are ba paying you for. And if they don't think that they're coming from you, why the heck would they pay you money if they're like, I could just get this for free from AI if that's where you're getting it from?

Heather (59:15)
Yeah, I agree with that one thousand percent. And I think the regardless of who your audience is, right, unless you're the plumber, right? Or like we talked about in like different businesses that don't make sense here, I think that's

Laura Schoenfeld (59:25)
Anyone who's not

creating like actual content, like even a plumber, how many plumbers have Instagram, right?

Heather (59:28)
information. Yeah.

Although I ⁓ I really am a fan of right now my algorithm is being fed by a lot of landscapers with dancing, like little like they're creating like boy band groups in the b between their jobs and they're doing these awesome like dances to music. It's kind of my favorite thing. Anyways, you know what's interesting here, I'm we're we're gonna land the plate in here in just a minute, but when you brought up that idea of you

you were the Claude, right? For that dude. I instantly thought I was like, man, I just made this big hoopla around I didn't do the middle stuff. But actually before I was in the VP role, I was in that, right? I used to work directly with the C-suite of my old company where I'd create the presentations. I'd create the events from the CEO's brain and then we'd go execute and then bring them back in.

And what it just makes me think about is, I mean, I'm trained in instructional design. I'm trained in creating content. I'm create like trained in speaking presentations, those my lane, you like in writing. I just think about how many people that are listening that to this who are their expert in their thing, but it's not writing, it's not speaking, it's not in these vehicles we're talking about here. And it it's no wonder that they then look to Claude, Chat GPT, whoever else as others because they don't have

Laura Schoenfeld (1:00:31)
Mm.

Heather (1:00:43)
that quote unquote expertise or experience in these these to modalities, if you will. So I'm just I'm do you have any like advice for anyone who maybe isn't as strong a writer right now, or they're they're trying to figure out what you were talking about earlier, that messaging, which let's circle back and answer the question. The messaging is like the content around the sale that as you mentioned earlier helps someone make a decision to say, is this really a fit for me? Is this a great piece? Like how

Laura Schoenfeld (1:00:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (1:01:11)
How does someone go about getting better at these things when they have no experience, but the pressure's on for them to be good because their depicts like business relies on it?

Laura Schoenfeld (1:01:21)
Yeah. I mean, I honestly think you're gonna need to be okay with being bad at it and doing it the hard way for a while. And if you're gonna take shortcuts, I think for most people having somebody, whether that's a coach or a mentor or even a colleague that can look at stuff for you, having somebody who can objectively look at what you're saying and say, Does this make sense? And do I understand what you're trying to talk about? And do I

you know, see where you're leading me with this content. Cause I think for most people, they're so caught up in like, I'm not a good writer. I don't think you need to be a good writer necessarily, but if you don't understand what your ideal client wants and how what they want actually connects what you're selling, that is where the breakdown is going to happen. So if you can get help with the more foundational underpinnings of what you need to talk about so that it actually does communicate effectively and does create sales.

Then it's just a matter of practicing the actual ex expression of that, right? So it's like practice the writing, practice the speaking. I I talk about this stuff all the time. And I'm like, I will happily get on podcast interviews, you know, meeting with colleagues to like do even like random coffee chats. Cause I know, especially this year, the more I talk about what I'm doing now, the more I'm gonna be competent at it and actually be good at expressing what I do and how I do it and how I think. And that I cannot.

outsource that. I cannot skip that step, especially with this season being like I'm starting over, or not over, but I'm speaking to a new audience. I'm speaking about a new offer. I'm speaking about a new problem that I help people solve.

so people are way too self conscious about what they look like on the internet. And when I first started all this, for better or worse, there weren't a lot of people that were excellent at it. So I guess I had the advantage of like not having so many people that I'm like, look how good they are. But I used to get ⁓ I don't say hate emails, but like borderline hate emails being like

I would love to listen to your podcast, but you have the worst vocal fry. You sound like a Kardashian, and I can't listen to you. And I was like, okay, that's great. How do I fix that? So I put in a lot of reps being kind of bad at things. And I spent time to learn how to get good at it. And so I do think and and I also got to a point where I was like, this is kind of also just how I sound. You think I sound like a valley girl? If I do, I am at that point. I was like 24.

white girl from New Jersey. I'm like, listen, there's only so there's only so mature I can sound at at twenty-four, right? Like I think the bar was a little high there, but it is something where I'm not I don't get good at talking about my stuff by thinking about it. I get good at talking about my stuff by talking about it and having like those core understandings of what do I need to like what do I need to know about what I do and who I do it for and what they need to hear. And then I go practice. And I don't get it right all the time. I ramble.

a lot as you guys probably have heard by now, but it's something where it's like the practice is where I start to like find the message. And I don't nail it right off the bat. It's like I get the idea, I have the concept, I have like the vision for it. And then I just talk about it until I actually figured it out. So that's what I recommend. And I know it's hard and I know it's like, ⁓ just like give me the the a Claude prompt to like pull all this out of me. But it's not

Heather (1:04:37)
Yeah.

Laura Schoenfeld (1:04:46)
It doesn't work like that. And the more you rely on that stuff, the more you're just gonna blend in with everybody else. And I honestly think for most people, moving forward, the competitive edge in this industry is gonna be that you like actually express your own thoughts consistently and repeatedly, even if you sound stupid and even if you make mistakes.

Heather (1:05:05)
Y'all, I promise I did not hurt pay her to say any of this, but ⁓ yeah, co-sign on all of this. This is what I have been rambling on for especially for the last year on, is pick up a microphone and start talking. And I guarantee a year from now, one, you'll be better. And two, you will be so much farther ahead of all the people who were leaning into AI. Like, do you just start talking? Like

Laura Schoenfeld (1:05:09)
Not yet at least.

They're all gonna their businesses are j yeah, the people who are

like just hardcore using AI to come up with all their stuff, their businesses are not gonna survive. So some of this is just like a waiting game for all that to shake out. But while you're waiting, practice communicating about what you do publicly.

Heather (1:05:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think ⁓

that's so I yeah, y'all like I this is not new information for the people on my show, but like y'all need to hear it this because it is really hard when you look around and it seems like everyone else is outpacing you. I love that you said wait it out. Wait it out and keep practicing the skills because that's I mean, when we look ahead, like it it's going to it's gonna it's gonna shape out here in a little bit. It's we're gonna shake out all the average crap.

Laura Schoenfeld (1:06:06)
Mm.

Heather (1:06:08)
⁓ and go from there. my gosh, I could talk to you all day long, Laura. This is so good. But let's as I said, let's land at the plane here. So I know people are gonna want to know more about you. So your podcast is a great, great place for people to go. We didn't talk about this in advance, but I know you have a really awesome messaging guide thingy. I keep getting your ads and I was opening it the other day. I'm like, this is really freaking good. Do you want to talk about that? Cause I think that would actually be great for people from this episode.

Laura Schoenfeld (1:06:32)
Yeah, so it is I call it the one hour messaging makeover. it do not use AI for it. That's the one thing that I always tell my clients as they're going through this messaging extraction process that you you do the extraction from your own brain and then you put it into AI to train your AI. So I'm not saying don't use AI, but don't use AI to come up with the actual ideas itself.

And it's basically I have a one hour training where I walk through all the different questions and how to think about it and how to answer it. And you can go as deep as you want. It's great for like, you know, just dump as much as you want to say on this document. And ⁓ I do have an order bump if people want to add an asynchronous messaging review. So basically I'll look at your workbook that you filled out and give you suggestions or ask questions or just like say, Hey, I think you should go deeper there, or that's a really strong angle. I would really reinforce that. So

it's like a twenty to thirty minute loom video that it ends up being where I go over the workbook for them. So ⁓ this is something I give to pretty much all my clients in every program I run at this point. and then with all my one on one clients, doing that messaging extraction process is I'm pretty sure every single person I work with, we do that ⁓ on Zoom together because it is so important. And the nice thing when you work with somebody like me, I have the

underlying skill of the actual thing that you're trying to do, but I'm not the expert in your topic. So if you're telling me what you do and I'm like, I don't, this isn't landing. I'm not really getting this. I can actually help you pull out what you do and your expertise and use these strategies to communicate it effectively in a way that you may not have realized because you're too close to it and you're you you just have too much in your head. You know too many things and you don't know what

you don't know about what you d like what your people don't know. And so having somebody come in that doesn't have that depth of expertise in your actual topic, but has the depth of expertise in messaging strategy can really help you get that core positioning. And that core positioning honestly is the thing where I think most people do need help. Even people like me, I still hire people to help me with mine because I I know too much about what I know. And it's like I didn't realize this wasn't landing. So that's where I think hiring is really, really important. And then

practicing communicating it is like it's all the reps, you can't outsource that.

Heather (1:08:52)
Yeah.

that's so good. Okay, we're gonna we'll link to it in the show notes. I'll grab that link from you because I definitely think I was peeping that the other day. I so it's funny, I teach messaging, right? I have a workshop around the messaging map, and it's something I've done in part of my core program for for years, but I'm shifting a lot like less from messaging and stage talks into coaching the leader behind the business and doing a lot more high performance coaching. And so I want people to get really freaking good at this. So that's why I brought you on here today. Cause I'm like, I want them to buy your

Laura Schoenfeld (1:09:20)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (1:09:21)
I want them to buy your thing. It's like under fifty bucks. Like they should buy this. Like

Laura Schoenfeld (1:09:24)
Yeah.

Sho I try to make it like a no brainer price point, so

Heather (1:09:30)
Yeah,

it's great. Okay, we'll link to that. ⁓ Laura, thank you so, so much for sharing all of your golden I call them golden rambles, today on the show. before we wrap anything else you'd like to share?

Laura Schoenfeld (1:09:41)
⁓ well, thank you so much for having me. I have been very ⁓ grateful to have you in my network this year. And yeah, if people are really interested in getting some help with the messaging stuff, ⁓ that is an area of expertise for me. So I do some one on one clients. I have a mastermind that I'm launching this year called the Decision Room, which a lot of it is helping people get clear on this stuff and then go take action on it and stop swirling in their head about all the

500,000 different things that they could be doing. And even ⁓ I'm gonna help people figure out how to incorporate AI into their business so that a lot of this execution work is done for them and they have more brain space for those bigger executive decisions that they need to make as the CEO, which is what a CEO is, is the decision maker of the business. And that's the whole training my people how to actually be the CEO in their business and operate like that and show up like that. So ⁓ feel free to DM me on Instagram if you want to hear about any of those opportunities.

Heather (1:10:36)
I love that. Thank you so much. All right, guys. You know this was a good episode today. ⁓ also we held your feet at the fire a little bit. If you've been using AI to think for you, just gentle reminder. so gentle Knock it off. Friggin' knock it off. Stop doing that and start acting as a CEO. All right, friends. We'll see you again on next week's episode. See ya.