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Federal agencies warn of an active campaign targeting critical infrastructure. Citrix races to patch critical NetScaler flaws. More than 50,000 exposed Stripe API keys raise fraud concerns. Black Hat and DEF CON attendees are targeted in a new social engineering campaign. Atlassian, Splunk, and Cisco fix hundreds of vulnerabilities. A new Android banking trojan adds an unusual twist. A healthcare breach impacts 3.8 million people. SilkParasite expands cyberespionage in Central Asia. And CISA eyes a major overhaul of federal cyber software procurement. Our guest is Chris Wallis, founder and CEO of Intruder, on how AI agents killed the annual pentest and are reshaping exposure management. AI powered robots find bananas quite appealing. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest On our Industry Voices segment, Intruder's Founder and CEO Chris Wallis joined Dave at Black Hat to discuss why the annual pentest Is dead and how AI agents are reshaping exposure management. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to check out the full interview here. Selected Reading NSA, FBI warns of hackers using AI-generated tools in attacks on critical infrastructure technology (The Record) Citrix urges admins to patch new NetScaler flaws as soon as possible (Bleeping Computer) 50,000 Stripe Secrets Leaked in Public Code (SecurityAffairs) Black Hat/DEF CON attendees targeted in malware scheme with Google Doc lure (SC World) Atlassian, Splunk Patch Dozens of Critical, High-Severity Vulnerabilities (SecurityWeek) Cisco Patches Critical Crosswork, Secure Workload Vulnerabilities (SecurityWeek) New Manic Android malware can exfiltrate data through nearby devices (Bleeping Computer) EHR Vendor Notifying 3.8 Million Patients of Data Theft Hack (GovInfo Security) SilkParasite: Tracking a China-Nexus APT Across Central Asia (Bitdefender) CISA contemplates whether to hire security software buying help (Washington Technology) I Saw the Future of AI in a Robot That Can Learn on the Spot (WIRED) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry's most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc.
How can you get your books surfaced when readers ask an AI what to read next? What are the hallmarks of authors and businesses that last more than a decade in the indie author industry? Ricardo Fayet gives his marketing tips after more than a decade at Reedsy. In the intro, Expanding Your Book's IP through Merchandising [Wish I'd Known Then]; Guide to writers conferences [Kindlepreneur]; Rick Rubin and Stephen Pressfield on resistance and the muse [Tetragrammaton]; Pulitzer Prize winners disclose AI usage [Nieman Lab]; My new rebuilt fiction site JFPenn.com. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Ricardo Fayet is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Reedsy, a marketplace for writers to find vetted freelancers, author training courses, and lots more. He's also the author of How to Market a Book and Amazon Ads for Authors. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How AI search actually finds and ranks the books it recommends Why keywords and search volume are disappearing as marketing metrics Building an internet footprint so your book is worth recommending Why Claude leans on Goodreads while ChatGPT and Gemini lean on Reddit Product is more important than marketing, and how to find your comp titles Passion, business sense and resilience in the authors who last You can find Ricardo at Reedsy.com. Transcript of the interview with Ricardo Fayet Jo: Ricardo Fayet is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Reedsy, a marketplace for writers to find vetted freelancers, author training courses, and lots more. He's also the author of How to Market a Book and Amazon Ads for Authors. So welcome back to the show, Ricardo. Ricardo: Thank you, Jo. It's been a while. Jo: It has been a while. As we were saying, it's been a decade, which is crazy, because you and I see each other at events and things. For anyone who doesn't know you— Tell us a bit more about you, where you're from, and also, what is Reedsy these days and how have things changed? Ricardo: Yes, sure. I think I'm hard to dissociate from Reedsy because my only background really is Reedsy. We started Reedsy right after business school for most of the founders. There are four founders, and I'm one of them. We've been going since 2014, so it's been 12 years. We started around the same time, and you started even earlier than we did, but we've had the chance to meet at quite a few conferences since. I think the main thing we're still known for is our marketplace. Since the very beginning, Reedsy is a curated marketplace where authors can come in and look for editors, cover designers, marketers, ghostwriters, literary translators, author website designers, pretty much any freelancer you would ever need to hire throughout your writing career. That's how we started. That's our main source of revenue and our main business. Since then, as you mentioned, we've also added courses, live events, so we've got a membership under Reedsy Learning. The main thing we're proud of right now is our writing tool, Reedsy Studio, because we've been pouring a lot of engineering talent into it over the past five, six years, and I think it's a really cool writing tool that is 90% free. It also does the formatting, so it's a good alternative to Vellum or Atticus for those who haven't purchased those tools. So there's a lot of things that Reedsy does at this point, which always makes it hard for me to describe what we do. Jo: But you generally serve writers. That's probably the crux of it. Ricardo: Exactly, yes. We're mostly at the production stage. The thing we say is we help authors make beautiful books, right? That's a little bit the tagline that applies to 90% of what we do, though we also help a little bit with the marketing side of things. Jo: And then just tell people where your accent is from. Ricardo: So I'm half French, half Italian from my parents, and I was born in Spain. So depending on my mood and the moment, it might be anywhere from French, Italian, Spanish. It's anyone's guess, really, at this point. Jo: Yes, exactly. You've been part of the indie author ecosystem, as you said, since 2014. You're often at the author conferences, and you stay abreast of everything that's going on. So what are the biggest changes you've seen in the industry since you started out? Like you said, you guys came from business school. You chose to come into the industry at a particular point, and yet things have changed. So what do you think are the biggest changes, and how have you seen authors adapt? Ricardo: It's crazy, the amount of things that happened in the past 10 years. Obviously we came into the industry as a result of Amazon launching Kindle Direct Publishing, and then the Kindle Store becoming one of the number one places where people buy books. That's what enabled self-publishing in the first place as an industry, and obviously we wouldn't exist without self-publishing being a thing. But then I think probably one of the biggest changes that happened was the introduction of Kindle Unlimited and various other subscription models. Perhaps as a response to that, afterwards, I would say direct sales is the other massive change that happened in the industry. The ability for authors to sell direct to their readers via their websites, or running Kickstarters, or basically the ability to reach your customers directly. Now, obviously, artificial intelligence is probably the biggest change of them all, not just in publishing, across every industry, but of course it's going to affect publishing very strongly, or it has already started making big waves. So I would say those are the three main changes that we've seen happening in the industry. Jo: Just interestingly, given that you're French, Italian, Spanish, European— Has the pace of change been the same in mainland Europe? Because you and I have also met up at European conferences, but I just get the sense that each individual European country, the UK included, as I include the UK in Europe, goes at a different speed. Ricardo: No, they definitely do. Our market at Reedsy is all in English. We only have an English website, and I would say 70% of our market is US, then 15% UK, and then Australia, New Zealand, et cetera. We do have clients in continental Europe, but they're mostly going to be American or British expats. A lot of retired people who write books and use Reedsy services. I think the main reason for that is that self-publishing as an industry hasn't really grown in Spain, France, Italy the way that it's grown in the US and the UK, probably because these are countries where book buying habits are a lot more traditional. So all my friends from high school and university in France, they all buy books, they all buy paper books. They all buy from bookstores. They don't really buy from Amazon that much. They love the smell of paper, all these sorts of things. So obviously that makes it harder for indie authors in those countries because they cannot place their books in the places where people buy them, which is traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores, or at least it's much harder. So there is an indie movement in those countries, but it's much smaller. I would say Germany is maybe the exception in Europe, where I've seen more and more full-time indie authors, but I don't think it's a market that's comparable even to the UK. Jo: Interesting. Okay, so let's go to marketing, because you love marketing, you have a newsletter about it, and you have a book, How to Market a Book, same title as mine, and we've found each other in our Also Boughts over the years. You have, however, updated yours several times. 2025 was your last update. Mine was 2016, so yours is definitely the most up-to-date one. So what are your thoughts on how authors can reach readers now? And let's split this into two. Let's start with some tips for new authors who just have maybe one book and are really just starting out. Ricardo: Yes, first of all, sorry for stealing your title. Jo: Oh, you know, it's never been a problem. Ricardo: We were trying to come up with something… I know, I know, I know. But still, we wanted something more original, and then we realised that for SEO purposes, that's the title we should really go for. The good thing is, if you search “how to market a book” on pretty much any retailer, you're going to find your book or mine in any order really, but those are going to be the top two books to this day, thankfully, so I'm good with that. I think in terms of marketing tips for new authors who have just the one book, I'd say, despite all the changes in the industry, the basics of marketing still stay the same. One of my big mantras when it comes to marketing is that product is more important than marketing. So having a great book is going to be more important, in my opinion, than being a great marketer. Having a great product. By that, I generally don't talk about literary value or prose or anything like that, just because I'm not a book critic. I'm not an editor. My opinion on whether a book is good or not is worth zero. From a marketing standpoint, for me, a good book is one that resonates with its intended audience. So the first step for newer authors is to basically figure out who they wrote this book for, right? Have an idea of who their target market is. A great way to do that, without entering into marketing jargon like proto-personas and stuff like that, is to think in terms of comp titles, comparable titles. I think that's probably the base of any marketing, whether traditional publishing houses or indie authors, to think, “Okay, which other books out there are similar to mine?” If your book is completely unique, you have, I would say, 99.9% chance of not selling, because your market doesn't exist, and 0.01% chance of creating your own market and completely dominating it, right? So being unique is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would say 99% of the time, it is. Obviously being unique within an existing niche, within an existing market, that's completely different, but you need to work on some comparable titles. So I would say that's where I would start, and that's one of the things that AI is great at. If you even just plug in your book into an AI chat that has enough context, if you're comfortable doing that of course, or if you plug in a synopsis, like a long synopsis, you can basically ask the AI chats, “Okay, what would be some comp titles?” Either you'll have heard of those books, and you'll think, “Okay, they're good comps,” or you may not have heard of them, in which case I would really recommend buying them and reading them and seeing whether they're comps or not. I think that's where marketing starts. Jo: Yes, and we might come back to that for book discoverability. Well, let's just talk about it now, because I now pretty much use Claude for discovering books as well. I just find that the Amazon search, for nonfiction it works really well, right? As you said, if you want to learn how to market a book, you just search “how to market a book”, and our books are very well titled for that. But for fiction, it's so difficult to find new books and comp titles, especially if you don't write in a clear genre, which I don't. I know lots of people do. So we're writing cross-genre. So in terms of book discoverability, I know you've been looking into SEO for books and all of that. What are your thoughts on how authors can more effectively have their books surfaced if people are using the AIs for finding books? Ricardo: That's a very big topic. That's one of my favourite topics right now. That's what I talk about in my marketing newsletter, and I want to start a Substack on the topic as well, because I think it is the future of book discoverability. As you say, search on Amazon isn't great, and if it's not great on Amazon, you don't even want to imagine on Google Play, Kobo, all these sorts of places, right? If you search on Kobo or Apple Books or Google Play for witch cozy mysteries, the top 10 books are going to have exactly “witch cozy mystery” in the title or the subtitle or the series title, right? Jo: Yes. Ricardo: Search is very simple on those sites, so it's very easy to game, but it's terrible as an experience for readers. So I do think that a big part of search is going to move to AI, and now you have Rufus within Amazon itself that appears as a chatbot and encourages you to talk with it, to ask for recommendations. In the beginning Rufus was really terrible, but now I recommend authors play with it. In general, I recommend when it comes to AI discoverability that authors play with all the AI search tools. So it's going to be Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Rufus within Amazon. Just like we talked about comp titles, right, ask for something like, “What would you recommend for fans of this book? Which other books would you recommend?” Or if you're looking for something specific that describes your book, what books would you recommend on… I think one of your examples was fiction around masonry or something like that, right? Jo: I always say, for example, if you ask for action adventure thrillers on pretty much anywhere, you're going to get 20 books by male authors. For those of us who are female authors, but also who have female main characters, you can then be far more granular. That's just not something that necessarily works on Amazon. So, action adventure thrillers with female protagonists written by female indie authors, which is very specific. That will work in AI, whereas that definitely won't work on Amazon. Ricardo: Exactly. So one of the great things about AI search, and terrible things at the same time, is that the concept of keyword is lost, right? So we title our books How to Market a Book because the keyword that people would search for is “how to market a book”, or “book marketing for authors”. Those were the two keywords that had the biggest search volume if we looked at Google Keyword Planner, or any search tools that give you keyword volume. When it comes to AI search, since it's conversational, and it's very personalised, and it can go as niche as you want, keywords are going to disappear, and search volume as a metric is going to disappear. The search you just told me about, maybe there are 10 people who are going to run it exactly. Most people are going to run variations of that. Since you can go as granular as you want, it's going to be very long phrases, very long sentences. So the whole concept of keywords, search volume, SEO, is going to disappear in favour of what some people call GEO, generative engine optimisation, AIO, AI optimisation, AI search optimisation. There's a bunch of names for it, but it is a different discipline. It still works on the basis of Google SEO because what most of these search engines will do is they're going to search the internet, right? They've been trained on a lot of information, but not all of that information is current. Most of these models have been trained on documents and web pages before 2021. That's why when you used the very early versions of ChatGPT, and you asked it about current events or current books, it didn't find it. It didn't have that information. Now all these models have the ability to search the web, and they do that really effectively. So the first thing they're going to do if you run a search like that is they're going to run dozens of different searches on Google or a similar search engine. Action thriller books with female protagonists. Action thriller books with female protagonists by indie authors. Action thriller books by indie authors. They're going to create what I call a corpus, so a massive document of information with candidates, books that probably meet those criteria that they have found through regular web searches. Then they're going to go through all those books and determine which are the most relevant to recommend, and they'll return with that. Then they'll usually have a verification layer as well, which is, okay, I have these five books that I want to recommend to this user, but I just want to make sure first that they are written by indie authors, that they do have a female protagonist, et cetera. And if I'm not able to verify that, I'll flag it in my answer to them. So there are these three layers. Web search, then ranking of the book candidates, and finally a verification layer, and then they serve you the answer. Obviously, that's really powerful. If that's the way that search is headed, which I firmly believe, then we as authors need to learn how to get our books in there. Jo: Yes. It's so interesting, and I do this all the time. Really niche stuff, like a thriller about anatomical Venuses, which are these models from anatomy museums and stuff like that, with an edge of the supernatural. What is brilliant is that you can find the books that come up. I actually got one that I read and reviewed, and it was fantastic. So I love the more granular thing, but we're really in the very long tail now, right? It feels like you can write a very nuanced book, and it will be surfaced, but only by a few people. So do we have to write our books and then try to not even retrofit them in the way that we used to? We used to try and figure out the seven keywords and all of that kind of thing, and now I almost feel like we just get to be grownups, where you just get to write the book and put it out there, and these things are more intelligent than the search terms. Ricardo: Yes, absolutely. I think in terms of the variety of books that are going to be read and discovered, that's amazing. A little bit like the whole indie publishing movement was amazing, because if you remove the traditional publishing gatekeepers, then suddenly zombie books aren't dead anymore. Zombies are alive again. They've… Jo: Come to life. Ricardo: They've come alive, and so you get a bunch of zombie books again. It's not a small niche audience. It's actually a pretty big niche audience that loves zombie books, and suddenly they have those to consume. This is a little bit similar on a much, much bigger and more granular scale, because anyone can find exactly the kind of book that they're looking for, with the tropes they want, with the type of characters they want, with the type of author they want, and you can basically use any kind of filter. So for discoverability on the side of the reader, that's great. For the authors, it doesn't mean that you can just write whatever you want and then rest, and readers will find them. Because your books still need to have generated a certain internet footprint and a certain review footprint in order to become interesting or recommendable to AI search engines, right? Unless you're the only book that an AI search engine can recommend for that specific search, and yours was very specific, so it might have been the only one. If there are other candidates, the AI search engines are pretty smart. They're going to recommend the candidates that have more reviews, better reviews, or are more famous, that have more, when I talk about internet footprint, more pages talking about them on the internet. That's for me the big finding I've seen. The more pages you have on the internet talking about your book, so that could be book review sites, that could be Goodreads lists, Listopia lists, anywhere on the internet where your book is mentioned, that creates a footprint for it. The more footprints, the more famous your book looks to AI search engines, and so the more worthy of recommendations it is to them. Jo: Yes, and this is one reason why I now ask people, especially when you sell direct, or say you have a Kickstarter and you want reviews, I ask people if they can review on Goodreads. Obviously Goodreads is owned by Amazon, but it is far more searchable by the bots than Amazon is. I sometimes find that Amazon gets blocked. Or Amazon blocks some of the bots, let's put it that way. They might change over time. They own 15% of Anthropic or something. But Goodreads I feel like does get indexed, and I'm not willing to engage on Reddit. I know Reddit is another popular one. Just be very clear on social media, because some people think, oh, I just need loads of influencers to talk about my book, and that will impact the AIs. But I find that social media just almost isn't even there. Ricardo: It depends on which social media. For me, Reddit is a social medium, right? It's a very weird one, but it's obviously the number one social medium used by AI search engines, and it's pretty dodgy stuff with lots of conflicts of interest, because Google has a paid partnership with Reddit. I think Sam Altman has shares in Reddit. So both OpenAI and Google Gemini heavily rely on Reddit for their AI answers, right? If you ask anything from ChatGPT or Gemini, I'd say there are very high chances that in the sources and the citations of the answer, you're going to find Reddit, right? That goes for books as well. Every time you ask for book recommendations, Reddit is going to be big for those two AI search engines. Claude, it's a little bit different. They do have a little bit of a relationship with Reddit, but I don't think it's as big. I found that Claude relies heavily on Goodreads, not Reddit. To me, Goodreads is another social medium at the end of the day, right? It's not the kind of social medium we think of, like… Jo: It's not TikTok. Ricardo: It's not TikTok. TikTok is surfaced a little bit, but not that much. It might become more surfaced in the future, but right now what I've found is, it's really Reddit and Goodreads. Facebook, LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is big for nonfiction topics more than fiction, because there are just not a lot of fiction readers, sorry, talking about their favourite books on LinkedIn. They usually go to other places for that. Jo: Yes, it's really interesting. So obviously TikTok has its own BookTok thing, so some people are finding books on BookTok, and some people like me are finding books through asking Claude, and that's just my overwhelming feeling about the industry. We talked earlier about what's changed. When I started, so 2006, there wasn't even KDP, and then KDP arrives, then you came in 2014, and probably until maybe a few years after that, there was one way to self-publish. Then what's happened since is this kind of splintering. There are so many ways to self-publish. There are so many ways to reach readers. There are so many ways to market. So someone, for example, could sell direct on TikTok Shop, only market through TikTok, and you wouldn't even know that they existed over in another ecosystem, right? So do you feel like that's happened too, this total splintering? Ricardo: Absolutely. I think there are so many different ways in which you can reach your audience now and monetise it as well, that it's absolutely possible. We both know examples of authors who are only visible to their TikTok niche, right? I think the big difference is also monetisation, because earlier you also had different ways of becoming well-known. Like you had Facebook, you had potentially Twitter, back when it was Twitter. Various social media, word of mouth. But where people bought books was Amazon. So that was your monetisation. It was either selling your book on Amazon, or potentially getting KU reads after that when KU launched. Now you can sell on TikTok, you can sell direct, you can run Kickstarters, you can start a Patreon or Substack and make your money through there. There are pretty much infinite ways through which you can monetise your content as a creator. Most of those places will also have a discoverability engine built in, so you can not only sell through there and make money through there, but also grow an audience there. That's probably the biggest competition that Amazon has ever had to face, is this sort of splintering. For us authors and content creators in general, it's amazing, because it's a bunch of different opportunities. Jo: Yes, and I think probably that's circling back to marketing. As we've said, some things have changed, some things stay the same. Is the email list still the number one way to market, do you think, for authors who want a long-term career? Ricardo: I think so. It's just the one thing you really own that allows you to communicate with readers, right? Because even if you build a following on TikTok, TikTok can change. The things we said about Facebook 10 years ago, if you build your Facebook group, Facebook can change, and Facebook changed. Facebook destroyed the reach of pages, and now groups also aren't amazing, et cetera. So the same thing that happened to Facebook can happen to TikTok, can happen to any other social media. Substack is a bit of a hybrid because it is a newsletter, it is a mailing list, but it also has a discoverability engine built in. So I still wouldn't really go all in on Substack. The great advantage there is that you do own the emails, right? So you can move away from it at some point. For me, the email list is the one thing that you are completely in control of. Personally, the main thing I check is my emails every day. I spend more time in my inbox than anywhere else, and I think that's probably the case for most people. So I do think, despite the influx of mails that readers are getting in their inbox, I still think it's one of the most important marketing tools for authors. Jo: Yes, and I still remember when I started my list in December 2008, and I still have people on the list who've been with me that whole time, and have moved email list services several times as well. So I think that's important too. The care of that list too is so important. One of the things that I am annoyed about with Substack, I don't have a Substack, but when I follow some people's, it's always constantly trying to get you to sign up to other people's lists, trying to subscribe you to this or that or the other. I'm like, “That's so annoying.” Now I've found on all these email services they're trying to pair you with other creators and cross-promote and all of this. So it feels like even the email list is becoming a difficult place unless you really protect it. So just protecting your list, I think, and remembering that those are people. Those are people who've bought your books, or people who read your emails. Like people listening to this, these are humans. Sure, some bot might be looking at the transcript, but humans listening to this are individual humans with individual email lists. We tend to forget that, don't we, as you get a bigger list. You think about it as a big number, whereas it's still individual people. Ricardo: Yes, it becomes a number, it becomes metrics, the open rate, the click rate, and all that. But the great thing about email is that you get replies in your inbox. There you remember that they're actual human beings who write you back. I think for readers, the ability to write back to an author and get a response is just amazing, right? If you write to your favourite author and they write back to you, that's the best feeling ever as a reader. So I think email is still one of the best ways to turn your readers into fans and into super fans of your brand, by just interacting with them and answering them. Because yes, you can answer comments on TikTok, Facebook, and all those places, but it doesn't feel the same as an author answering you in your inbox, I feel. So you do get that ability to create a real connection with readers directly through email. Jo: Yes, and I think that trust and the reputation is so important. Just in terms of seeing the authors that you've seen over the years, like I said, you've been going to a lot of the author conferences. You know a lot of the authors in the industry. A lot of people will know you from events. But you've also seen authors come and go, and you've seen vendors come and go. Both of us have seen people arrive, and we'd be like, “Oh, yes, I wonder how long they're going to last.” Then some people do and some people don't. So what are some of the elements that you've noticed about the businesses that last more than a decade? Ricardo: I think they need to solve a genuine problem, or offer a genuinely better solution than one that already exists. I see a lot of businesses come in and they do what another vendor already does, without doing it necessarily better. Those businesses tend to disappear, or linger there, but you don't really hear about them again. When they solve a real need… I still remember when BookFunnel came out, and they've since become massive with one very, very basic thing, which is, “We will take care of delivering your ebook files to readers.” That's how they started, and that's how they became massive. To me at the time, I was like, “That seems like a very small problem,” because I can just email an ebook file. I didn't realise that it was so complicated for a lot of readers to upload files to their Kindle or other devices, and that having a service that takes care of that for you is just massively helpful. I realised that when I published my books, actually. So businesses that solve even micro or apparently very small problems, but they really solve them effectively, they stay. Others that surf on trends, they tend to disappear when the trend disappears. When there's a new marketing trend, and that trend stops working, then those businesses tend to go. Jo: Yes, and what about the authors who last? Because let's face it, most of us don't solve a problem in a different way. Maybe you could say we solve your entertainment problem in a different version to your last book. What about the authors who last long term? What have you noticed about them? Ricardo: Two things. So the first one… Maybe three things. First one is passion. I always say to people who are looking to start self-publishing, I always say that publishing in general is probably one of the worst ways to make money. It's awful. You can pick up any other occupation and it's probably going to be easier to make money. So writers who make a career do it because they need to write, because they have a passion for writing. So a lot of people who come into the industry thinking, “I've heard about all these self-publishing success stories. Surely I can write a book and I can market it. It's not that hard. So that's going to be a great way to make quick bucks,” those generally don't last, because they don't have that genuine passion. The first hurdle they're going to face—and there's going to be a bunch of them along the way—they're going to quit. The second thing is business sense, or business education, the basics of business, right? Thinking in terms of marketing, thinking in terms of who's my reader, unit economics. If I'm selling my books at $3.99, I shouldn't be spending a ton of money. If I just have one book at $3.99, I cannot afford to pay $5 on ads to generate a sale. So those kinds of basic economics or business knowledge, I think, if not a requirement, it's a massive plus. The third thing is resilience. The industry has changed a lot, as you mentioned. There are a bunch of ways now to reach an audience. There are a bunch of ways to make money. It can also be distracting, because you go to one of these conferences and you go back thinking, “Oh, I've got to create my own website, sell direct. I've got to launch my Substack. I have to use Claude Code for my ads,” and three more things, “and I have to set up my TikTok Shop and do TikTok Lives to sell books,” right? Jo: All of those by next week. That's why we go to the conference. Ricardo: Exactly. All those by next week, right? And during that one week after the conference, you have the energy to start implementing all those things, but afterwards you lose that energy and you go back to, “I just want to quit.” So you need to have some sort of resilience, and the business sense of, “Okay, I'm going to try this for the next six months, and I'm going to stick to it, and I'm going to see whether it works or not. And if it doesn't work, I'm not just going to despair. I'm going to try something else.” That goes for marketing tactics, but also goes for books. Most authors I know who make a living writing, they didn't get there with their first book or even their first series. A lot of times I see authors who write a couple of series, and those series do okay. They sell a little bit, but not much, and it doesn't afford them to quit their day job. Then suddenly, based on what they've learned with those first two series and what they've learned potentially going to conferences or listening to podcasts like this, et cetera, they write a third series that's a hit. That's a hit, and that's instantly much easier to market, and that's when they can afford to go full time and write full time, because they've found that sort of product market fit. And product market fit for me is the main thing for marketing in general and for authors in particular. Until you find that, everything is really difficult from a marketing perspective. But finding it usually requires writing more than one book and more than one series, because you're rarely going to get the big lottery ticket on the first try. Jo: Or ever. I think it's really important. I've never had a breakout book, but I've made good money every year. I think, and Hugh Howey said this, that the real story of self-publishing is not the people who make seven figures a year, it's the people who can go on a holiday once a year, or the people who can just put a bit towards their mortgage or whatever. So you may never have a breakout series. I think that's really important, too. Ricardo: That's true. Jo: That's true. You can just keep writing and make all right money and be what we call in the mid-list. Ricardo: Yes, but you've got to keep going. You've got to have that resilience to keep going, probably because it's your passion. Exactly. You're not chasing that seven figure series. You're writing because you need to write. Jo: Yes, and you can't stop, and you get the bug. I think when you're writing that first book, I'm not sure if people understand that you either get the bug or you don't, I think. You've written a couple of books now. Do you think you have the bug, or is it more about the business? Ricardo: I don't have the bug. I definitely don't have the bug. I would've kept writing otherwise. Jo: You're a technologist, right? Ricardo: Yes. I'm more of a technologist, more of a marketer. To write my first book, How to Market a Book, I actually had to write newsletters, because that I can manage, right? One newsletter a week. Now I don't even manage that. I send it once every two weeks when I can even manage that pace. But back then I did one newsletter a week, and that's how I wrote my first book. I then put all these newsletters together, and that was before the age of AI, so I couldn't just dump all that into ChatGPT and tell it, “Create me a book based on that.” I had to do it myself. Jo: Oh, terrible. Ricardo: Terrible, I know. The days when we had to work. No, but that was a really good experiment. The second book, Amazon Ads for Authors, I actually wrote it from scratch, and I didn't love the experience. I loved the finished product, I'm very proud of it, but I didn't enjoy the experience of writing it. Amazon Ads is not the most exciting topic in the world. Even for people like me, who actually enjoy Amazon Ads, it's not super exciting to write about. The fact of having to write that whole book from scratch, I didn't love the experience. So now I do want to write a third book at some point, but I think it'll probably be in the format of the first one. Like, when I finish my series of newsletters on AI search and AI discoverability, I might do a booklet or something around it, but we'll have to see. It's not my favourite thing. It's a good thing I don't need to. Good thing I'm not an author, basically. Jo: No, but I think that's really great to recognise. You actually have written books that support your business, and that is very common for nonfiction writers. That's completely normal for nonfiction authors. So I think that's another important thing for people to recognise, is that the reasons we write are different, the reasons we market are different, and we all have different approaches. As we wind up, and obviously you talked a bit there about how easy it is to generate books with AI, and that is probably one of the biggest things that people are worried about. Now, those of us like you and I have been talking about AI at conferences and things for years now. Neither of us are afraid of it, I think basically because both of us use it, and we're technologists, so we just get on with it. There is so much fear in the community. There's so much negativity. You mentioned Substack, and now they've integrated Pangram, which is renowned for false positives around what is written with AI, and so people are very worried. If we look forward and we look at the next decade, this is not going away. This is going to change a lot of things. So how should authors be thinking about AI, do you think, if they want to prepare for the next decade? Ricardo: I think they need to play around with it, because you and I know that until you actually use it, you don't realise what it's capable of. We've both had these moments of “Oh my God, I'm going to be out of a job,” or “Oh my God, this is incredible,” the kind of things it's able to do. You also realise by using it the things it's not great at, or the things it can be good at but needing a lot of human input. There are courses out there, there are books, there are a lot of things, but for me, the most important thing is to start playing around with it. So you can pick one specific topic to play around with. Either something that you've been meaning to get into for years and haven't done, or something that really annoys you. Looking at the results of your Facebook ads, for example. If you run Facebook ads in the first place, and when you log into your Meta dashboard you cannot make sense of it, take screenshots or download the data, feed it to an AI chat, and talk with it. One of my biggest tips when talking to AI chats is asking them questions rather than asking them for things to do. Because if you just feed it your advertising data and you tell it, “Tell me what I should do,” the chat has no context about what your ads are about, what your goal is, et cetera, et cetera. If you feed it just a screenshot and you say, “Here are my ads. I would like you to help me make sense of them. What do you need to know from me in order to help me with this?” Then it's going to start asking you questions. “Okay, what are you advertising?” They're books. “Okay, what kind of books? Where are you selling? Are your ads going straight to Amazon or retailers, or are they going to your website? If you sell direct, okay, are these conversion ads?” Et cetera, et cetera. So you build that context, and they can help you with it. So that's just one example, but I would pick one thing that you want to test AI with, with zero expectations. Don't expect that by the end of the week you'll have a full system for understanding your Meta ads thanks to AI. You might get to that or you might not, but at least you'll play with it and you'll understand its capabilities, and have a sort of understanding of how it works and how you can potentially use it for other things. I think that's the best way to adapt, because once you play with it, you start thinking. You're walking the dog and you're just thinking, “Ha, I could maybe use it for this thing or that other thing,” and that's how you progressively become more familiar with it. I think there are a lot of worries around AI, but as you say, it's there to stay. So far, I think I was looking at data this morning, and the unemployment rate in the US has stayed stable ever since ChatGPT was introduced two years ago. So there are a lot of narratives out there around how it's going to replace humans, it's going to replace jobs, et cetera, which it might do. I'm not great at predictions usually, but so far it hasn't. What it will definitely do, however, is completely change the way we work. Obviously AI was one of our big reckonings at Reedsy, because we run a marketplace. Our main business model is the marketplace, where authors come in and look for editors, for marketers, for cover designers, for translators, and some of these domains and services are being transformed by AI, right? AI translations are massive right now. We haven't really seen a decline at all on the Reedsy marketplace, but we're prepared for it. It might very well happen, but what we think is happening, or is going to happen, is professionals using AI tools to provide a better output or a faster output or a cheaper output, or all three of these things. So for example, we now have literary translators who say they're open to editing AI translations, right? So you can come in, you can have your book translated with AI, whichever tool or method you choose for that. Then if you want a set of human eyes on it, you can hire a literary translator who's open to working on an AI-translated manuscript, and that's obviously going to be much, much cheaper than paying 10 cents per word from scratch for a literary translator. I'm not necessarily recommending you completely bypass literary translators, or that you go this way, but you have options, right? You have options for different sets of budgets. I think all these human editors, narrators, translators, designers, et cetera, they're not going to disappear, but they might have to reinvent the way they work in the future. Jo: As we all are doing. As you say, for me mostly it's the business side, getting Claude to help me with business stuff. Like even bookkeeping. There are bills that we've all been paying for years that we can now maybe reduce, and reducing costs as well as increasing profit is obviously good business sense. So, interesting times. But just as we wrap up, what are you excited about in what's coming? How do you see Reedsy shaping up in the next decade? What is coming for you and Reedsy? Ricardo: We're really excited about the decade to come, because obviously 10 years for a startup is a long time. I think most startups after 10 years, the founders are gone. Jo: Yes. Ricardo: Or they've exited or they've sold or whatever. We've stayed, we're the same founders, and we're still as excited because I think we have new products, right? We're working on new things. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, Reedsy Studio, our writing tool, is probably one of the things we're most excited about, because first, it's getting adopted very fast. It has startup-like growth that we hadn't seen for other products in a long time, and it has very cool technology built in. We probably have a team of 10, 15 engineers now working full time on it and adding a lot of things. So we've added templates for plotting your book, with relationships within different characters and places and magic systems and things like that. We've added writing goals and writing statistics. We still have the free exports. One very cool thing we've added is real time collaboration. So just like Google Docs, you can write in real time with a co-author, or you can get an editor to work in there live with track changes. So you could have an editor working on chapter one while you're writing chapter three, for example. That kind of thing. It's really powerful technology, and that's one of the things we're really excited about for the future. A business, just like authors, we've got to reinvent ourselves. We've got to find ways to keep things exciting and keep motivated, and that is definitely one of them. When adoption goes along with it, then that's obviously super satisfying. Jo: Brilliant. So where can people find you and Reedsy online? Ricardo: So Reedsy you can find at reedsy.com, R-E-E-D-S-Y.com. And there you'll find the whole suite of tools and services. For me, you can find me mostly by email, as I mentioned. That's the one place I check consistently every day, and my email address is ricardo@reedsy.com. So again, R-E-E-D-S-Y.com and ricardo@reedsy.com. You can email me any questions you have about this episode, about AI book discoverability, about marketing, about Reedsy. I always try to answer every email I get, because I think when we started Reedsy, I really appreciated people like you, and some other agents and editors and authors we contacted who were influential in the industry, who actually answered us and took the time to do that. So now I try to answer every email I get, because I feel like we've been very lucky in the beginning to have those people answering our emails, so we should do the same. Jo: Oh, well, thanks so much for your time, Ricardo. That was great. Ricardo: Thank you, Jo. Thanks for having me again.The post Book Marketing, AI Book Discoverability, And Resilience, With Ricardo Fayet first appeared on The Creative Penn.
Thanks Pressable for supporting the show! Get your special hosting deal at https://pressable.com/wpminuteBecome a WP Minute Supporter & Slack member at https://thewpminute.com/supportOn this episode of The WP Minute+ podcast, Matt is joined by Jared Rethman, creator of WPSignal, a tool that adds real-time infrastructure to WordPress. It started as an idea for powering Google Docs-style collaborative editing. But Jared shares how this technology can transform WordPress development and what it means for the platform's evolution. He also reflects on the diminishing importance of technical hurdles for future developers and the opportunities for those willing to push boundaries.Key Takeaways:Real-time infrastructure turns WordPress into a live, interactive app instead of a static site.Infrastructure is the real moat, not just the feature set.WordPress keeps evolving because its architecture is flexible and API-driven.AI speeds up building, but it also compresses the traditional learning curve.WordPress's future depends on adaptability more than a fixed identity.Hype around AI can distract from the core technical skills that still matter.Reliable infrastructure will separate real solutions from flashy ideas.Important Links:WPSignalWorldHouseConnect with Jared: LinkedInThe WP Minute+ Podcast: thewpminute.com/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★
Google quietly shipped four new ad formats inside AI Mode, and almost nobody covered it. We did. Plus: a $13 CPC on ChatGPT ads, and Memrise's growth agent that lives entirely in Slack.CHAPTERS00:00 Cold open03:06 Welcome — Victoria joins, Polina returns04:24 What's on the show today05:30 WATERCOOLER: Sonnet 5's price hike and Fable 5's return07:38 Token-maxing culture and the hidden cost of the price hike10:16 Ford rehires the people it fired — to train the AI12:47 Why the most elementary AI framing gets the most buzz14:27 Benchmarking models on price, speed and quality before you buy15:12 Product Hunt's June: the top tools were integrations, not standalone AI17:30 The core stack nobody has replaced (and why Slack survived)22:14 The vibe-coded app problem: broken back ends, ToS exposure, $20 lessons26:01 Cannes Lions: the agency billing model everyone admits is dead28:02 Creator activations go niche — eyeballs over follower counts28:45 Why Victoria skipped Cannes, and the CEO as the next creator31:04 Celebrity clout vs. an actual event strategy33:40 AI's image rehab in marketing, and the founders paying for their own message36:06 SheaMoisture flipped the creator brief39:21 Why YouTube mid-roll ad reads stopped working40:42 Google's AI Mode ads — the story nobody covered43:03 Four new ad types, and what a business owner is actually signing up for44:43 A $13 CPC on ChatGPT ads46:10 Could ChatGPT just run an affiliate network instead?49:44 MARKDOWN: Lizzie Lawley, Head of Applied AI at Memrise50:20 From pilot, to AI companion platform, to Wombat, to Memrise53:39 The system map: every input feeding the growth machine56:00 Core principles: context first, cheapest capable model, disagreement as a feature56:36 "Months of work in hours" — what it actually saved58:36 The loops: synthesis, experiment shaping, prototyping, build ticket, human gate1:00:41 Live demo: "It's just Slack, baby"1:03:10 How the agent gets fresh context every single night1:06:04 OpenClaw V1, then real engineers rebuilt it1:07:06 The failures: how expensive it got, real quick1:08:32 The model pricing tier system, tier by tier1:11:19 Where the user interviews actually live (it's Google Docs)1:13:59 The bot that spammed banana emojis, and what it taught her1:15:54 Claude Design as a starting point for growth people who can't design1:17:35 Why we skipped Hot Button this week1:18:27 ADAHOLIC: the rules1:20:22 Round 1: Ed Sheeran, a posh restaurant, and way too many forks1:23:33 Round 2: red key, blue key, and a luxury pitch1:26:23 Round 3: "Yo... where's Dukey?"1:29:03 Round 4: the Mother's Day one1:32:26 Round 5: the car ad Arnav paused a second too late1:35:14 Round 6: puffballs, chrome nails and woodworking1:39:07 Round 7: "a better everyday life for the many people"1:40:41 Victoria takes the crown on her first appearance1:41:54 CloseTHIS WEEK'S GUESTLizzie Lawley — Head of Applied AI at Memrise, co-founder of Wombat. She built a platform handling millions of simultaneous AI interactions with cost-efficient model routing, and now runs agent orchestration for Memrise's growth team. Her system pulls from transcripts, app reviews, Zendesk tickets, past experiment synthesis, Athena and BigQuery, and runs a nightly cron job so the agents never work off stale context. Methodology follows Bob Moesta's jobs to be done. The team calls it BYOB — bring your own Bobby.Ads featured in Adaholic this week: Heinz, Kia, Budweiser, Honda, Pinterest, IKEA.
I recorded this one live on the last day of week two of my birthday sabbatical, and it published about ten minutes after I stopped talking. Because I spent the last seven days — on roughly four hours of sleep a night — building a custom client portal that replaced Airtable, Fillout, Notion, Google Docs, and Google Sheets in my business.What started as "let me move my AI assistants out of ChatGPT" turned into a full app where my clients log in, map their client journey, draft their emails, submit support tickets, send me voice notes, and do their weekly check-ins. I had a fully deployed version in 12 hours after telling myself since February that I needed time to plan it.I also knocked South Dakota off my list (47 states down, 3 to go), and I get into the irony of doing the exact thing I tell y'all not to do with your own systems.Demo and debrief coming to the blog soon. Get on the list so you don't miss it: coliejames.com/subscribeWork with me: Systems in Session | The Experience Edit
The terminal has been a constant in software development for decades. It has remained largely unchanged while everything around it transformed. However, as AI agents have become central to the developer workflow, the terminal is emerging as a natural home for agentic development, and a new category of tooling is forming around it. Warp is a popular Rust-based terminal and agentic development environment. The company recently open-sourced its codebase and launched Oz, its cloud agent infrastructure product aimed at helping enterprises automate software development at scale. Zach Lloyd is the co-founder and CEO of Warp, and a former principal engineer at Google where he led engineering on the Google Docs suite. In this episode, Zach joins Gregor Vand to discuss how Warp has evolved over the years, why the terminal is better suited than the IDE for agentic development, how Oz approaches the governance and auditability challenges enterprises face with AI agents, and more.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post The Terminal as an Agentic Interface appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
Send us Fan MailThanks to Simon & Schuster and Author A.J. Symon for talking about his debut novel, Golden Boy.Support A.J.:Read Golden BoyAdd on GoodreadsFollow A.J. on InstagramBooks Mentioned in This Episode:The Talisman by Stephen KingThe Top of the World by Ethan JoellaMisery by Stephen KingFor links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list. For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above. For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.
The terminal has been a constant in software development for decades. It has remained largely unchanged while everything around it transformed. However, as AI agents have become central to the developer workflow, the terminal is emerging as a natural home for agentic development, and a new category of tooling is forming around it. Warp is a popular Rust-based terminal and agentic development environment. The company recently open-sourced its codebase and launched Oz, its cloud agent infrastructure product aimed at helping enterprises automate software development at scale. Zach Lloyd is the co-founder and CEO of Warp, and a former principal engineer at Google where he led engineering on the Google Docs suite. In this episode, Zach joins Gregor Vand to discuss how Warp has evolved over the years, why the terminal is better suited than the IDE for agentic development, how Oz approaches the governance and auditability challenges enterprises face with AI agents, and more.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post The Terminal as an Agentic Interface appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
The terminal has been a constant in software development for decades. It has remained largely unchanged while everything around it transformed. However, as AI agents have become central to the developer workflow, the terminal is emerging as a natural home for agentic development, and a new category of tooling is forming around it. Warp is a popular Rust-based terminal and agentic development environment. The company recently open-sourced its codebase and launched Oz, its cloud agent infrastructure product aimed at helping enterprises automate software development at scale. Zach Lloyd is the co-founder and CEO of Warp, and a former principal engineer at Google where he led engineering on the Google Docs suite. In this episode, Zach joins Gregor Vand to discuss how Warp has evolved over the years, why the terminal is better suited than the IDE for agentic development, how Oz approaches the governance and auditability challenges enterprises face with AI agents, and more.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post The Terminal as an Agentic Interface appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
The terminal has been a constant in software development for decades. It has remained largely unchanged while everything around it transformed. However, as AI agents have become central to the developer workflow, the terminal is emerging as a natural home for agentic development, and a new category of tooling is forming around it. Warp is a popular Rust-based terminal and agentic development environment. The company recently open-sourced its codebase and launched Oz, its cloud agent infrastructure product aimed at helping enterprises automate software development at scale. Zach Lloyd is the co-founder and CEO of Warp, and a former principal engineer at Google where he led engineering on the Google Docs suite. In this episode, Zach joins Gregor Vand to discuss how Warp has evolved over the years, why the terminal is better suited than the IDE for agentic development, how Oz approaches the governance and auditability challenges enterprises face with AI agents, and more.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post The Terminal as an Agentic Interface appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
The terminal has been a constant in software development for decades. It has remained largely unchanged while everything around it transformed. However, as AI agents have become central to the developer workflow, the terminal is emerging as a natural home for agentic development, and a new category of tooling is forming around it. Warp is a popular Rust-based terminal and agentic development environment. The company recently open-sourced its codebase and launched Oz, its cloud agent infrastructure product aimed at helping enterprises automate software development at scale. Zach Lloyd is the co-founder and CEO of Warp, and a former principal engineer at Google where he led engineering on the Google Docs suite. In this episode, Zach joins Gregor Vand to discuss how Warp has evolved over the years, why the terminal is better suited than the IDE for agentic development, how Oz approaches the governance and auditability challenges enterprises face with AI agents, and more.Sponsorship inquiries:sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post The Terminal as an Agentic Interface appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
Okay I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I just had a $100K week
Discover how ChromeVox on Chromebooks is transforming accessible computing for blind users. With insights from Charmaine Cole of the Accessible Learning Lounge, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece explore whether Chromebooks can truly replace traditional PCs or Macs for everyday tasks. In this episode of Double Tap, Steven and Shaun dive into the world of Chromebooks and Google's built-in screen reader, ChromeVox. They're joined by Charmaine Cole, who has recently expanded her Accessible Learning Lounge courses to include training for ChromeVox, NVDA, and VoiceOver. Together, they discuss how Chromebooks perform for blind users, the surprising accessibility improvements in ChromeVox, and how these affordable devices could meet daily computing needs like email, Google Docs, and cloud work. Charmaine shares her journey of learning ChromeVox, the benefits of free screen reader tools, and the accessibility challenges still present in areas like Braille support and missing place markers. The conversation also touches on inconsistent hotel accessibility, the rising cost of tech, and why Chromebooks might be the budget-friendly solution for many users. Like what you hear? Share your thoughts in the comments, subscribe for more accessible tech discussions, and check out Charmaine Cole's courses for 10% off with code doubletap. Relevant Links Accessible Learning Lounge: https://accessiblelearning.gumroad.com ----Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedinSubscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheartAbout Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited."Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
AI in the classroom isn't a tool problem — it's an assignment problem. Dr. Nancy Frey on designing work students can't fake. Dr. Nancy Frey — professor of educational leadership at San Diego State and teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College — joins Vicki Davis for a practical conversation about what actually changes in a classroom when every student has AI. Not which app to use. What to assign, what to collect, and what to teach kids to verify. Nancy's newest book, Teaching Students to Use AI Ethically & Responsibly, is co-authored with Salman Khan, Douglas Fisher, James Marshall, and Meghan Hargrave. In this episode, you'll learn: - How to build verbal assessment into a classroom that has 180 students — including a Google Docs workaround when face-to-face isn't practical - Why you should collect the student's dialogue with the chatbot, not just the finished product - How lateral reading — Sam Wineburg's method — transfers directly to interrogating AI-generated content - What appropriate AI use looks like by grade band: "truth detectives" in K–2, "information investigators" in grades 3–5 - How to redesign a task so it's AI-resistant, plus Carol Jago's reflective questions a chatbot can't answer for a student Show notes, the full transcript, and every resource: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e957 ★ REVIEW ASK: If this show helps you teach, please rate and review it wherever you're listening. It's the single best way to help another teacher find us — and I read every one.
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Vanessa explores what happens when companies eliminate entry-level positions while still expecting experienced employees to magically appear. As AI continues taking over more beginner-level work, who will develop the next generation of experts?You'll discover why teachers may be uniquely positioned to solve a workforce problem that employers don't even realize they have yet, and how to position your experience as the solution.In this episode:Why the traditional career ladder is disappearingHow AI may unintentionally widen the experience gapWhy teachers are experts at developing people—not just delivering contentA new way to think about résumé bullet points: Task → Problem SolvedHow to connect your classroom experience to the business problems employers are trying to solveThis week's Teacher Hack: a simple Google Doc that keeps all of your beginning-of-year ideas, shopping lists, and PD notes in one searchable placeVanessa's recommendation: Ride or Die on Amazon PrimeReady to start your own transition? Schedule a complimentary Discovery Session at https://TeachersinTransition.com/calendar.Resources:
Sign up for Practi, a new platform that helps law firms use subscription billing.Here are the top 5 takeaways from this episode:* Perplexity Enterprise is a cost-effective, secure AI hub for lawyers. At $400/year, it provides SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance while giving access to multiple top AI models without needing separate subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.* The Comet Browser unlocks agentic workflows that let AI control your browser on your behalf. By clicking “Control Browser,” you can instruct Perplexity to navigate websites, fill out forms, and complete tasks like adding calendar events without you lifting a finger.* Connectors (MCPs) let Perplexity directly read and write to tools like Google Calendar and Drive. Once connected, the AI can bulk-schedule deadlines from case management orders or contracts by computing dates itself using its Wolfram Alpha integration.* AI can handle contract redlining and document drafting in stages, with the lawyer staying in the loop. By combining Paxton for legal analysis with Perplexity's agentic browser to apply suggested edits in Google Docs, attorneys can maintain judgment and oversight while offloading manual work.* Whisprflow enables voice-driven input across all apps for around $288/year. Speaking instead of typing, with the AI intelligently cleaning up dictation errors, dramatically speeds up the process of giving instructions to AI tools throughout the day.__________________________Want your question to be answered on a future show? Fill out this short survey.Have subscription model question? Check out this free resource to ask all of your questions at notebook.practi.ai.Sign up for Paxton, my all-in-one AI legal assistant, helping me with legal research, analysis, drafting, and enhancing existing legal work product.Get Connected with SixFifty, a business and employment legal document automation tool.Sign up for Gavel, an automation platform for law firms.Visit Law Subscribed to subscribe to the weekly newsletter to listen from your web browser.Prefer monthly updates? Sign up for the Law Subscribed Monthly Digest on LinkedIn.Check out Mathew Kerbis' law firm Subscription Attorney LLC.Want to use the subscription model for your law firm? Click here to sign up for a new platform that helps law firms use subscription billing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lawsubscribed.com/subscribe
Go Book Yourself! - Master Writing, Marketing, and Publishing One Byte At A Time.
DescriptionEditing is one of the most misunderstood parts of the publishing process—but it's also one of the most important.In this episode of Write Effing Now, Hilary Jastram breaks down the different types of editing every author should understand before publishing a book. From proofreading and line editing to comprehensive developmental editing, she explains what each service includes, why they're necessary, and how they help transform a rough manuscript into a polished, professional book.Hilary also shares insights into the author-editor relationship, discusses the pros and cons of online versus offline editing tools, and offers practical advice on receiving constructive feedback without losing confidence. Whether you're writing your first book or considering a career in editing, this episode provides an inside look at the editing process and why it's one of the most valuable investments an author can make.The differences between proofreading, line editing, and developmental editing.What each level of editing includes—and when you need it.Why developmental editing focuses on structure, storytelling, and clarity.How professional editors provide feedback that strengthens your manuscript.Why Microsoft Word remains the preferred platform for editing long-form content.The advantages and limitations of Google Docs and other online editing tools.What traditional publishers expect before reviewing a manuscript.How to choose an editor who is experienced, knowledgeable, and invested in your success.Editing is much more than correcting grammar and punctuation—it's about helping writers communicate their ideas as clearly and effectively as possible.Hilary begins by explaining the three primary levels of editing: proofreading, line editing, and developmental editing. She walks listeners through each stage, illustrating how every level builds upon the previous one to improve clarity, organization, storytelling, and the overall reader experience. She emphasizes that developmental editing goes beyond sentence-level corrections by evaluating structure, pacing, character development, and logical flow to ensure a manuscript is engaging from beginning to end.The conversation then shifts to the relationship between authors and editors. Hilary discusses the importance of constructive feedback, encouraging writers to view editing as collaboration rather than criticism. She shares why great editors balance honesty with encouragement, helping authors improve while preserving their unique voice and creative vision.Favorite Quote"You write. I edit... unless we've agreed otherwise."ProofreadingLine EditingDevelopmental EditingGhostwritingManuscript StructureStorytellingBook CoachingTraditional PublishingSelf-PublishingMicrosoft WordGoogle DocsOneDriveConstructive FeedbackEditing WorkflowWriting ClarityAuthor CoachingTrack ChangesBook FormattingEditorial EthicsPublishing PreparationWhether you're writing your first book, refining your manuscript, or learning the craft of editing, Write Effing Now is your trusted resource for practical publishing advice and professional writing guidance.Follow Hilary for weekly insights on writing, editing, publishing, storytelling, and building a successful author career.InstagramLinkedInTikTokFacebookWrite Effing Now is the podcast for writers who want to write smarter, publish confidently, and share stories that make an impact.Hilary Jastram, delivers practical instruction on writing, editing, publishing, storytelling, marketing, audiobooks, artificial intelligence, and the business of becoming a successful author.Whether you're just beginning your writing journey or preparing to publish your next book, you'll find actionable strategies, professional insight, and honest conversations designed to help you cross the finish line.Learn more at BookMarkPublishing
Get the 200+ Page Optimal Living Daily Workbook (PDF) — Free. Want to turn today's episode into an actionable plan? Join the Optimal Living Weekly newsletter and I'll send you our 200-page digital workbook immediately. It's packed with the best takeaways from the show, formatted for easy reading and implementation at home. Get your free PDF workbook here: https://oldpodcast.eo.page/join Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 2125: Antonella Pisani shows how structured feedback, recognition, check-ins, and goal setting can strengthen communication and morale across a fully distributed team. Her practical approach offers leaders a blueprint for creating accountability and clarity while preserving gratitude, humility, and respect. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.eyefulmedia.com/blog/performance-management-remote-workers Quotes to ponder: “Eyeful is a high-performance environment, and we believe in giving feedback early and often.” “Check-ins have made it easier for employees to share progress and help with performance management by supporting committed action.” “There's no substitute for face-to-face interaction, but for the times in between, adding performance management has helped improve our culture and communication.” Episode references: Slack: https://slack.com/ Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/ Adizes Corporate Lifecycle: https://www.adizes.com/lifecycle/ 15Five: https://www.15five.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Send us Fan MailSupport Jessica:Read Lyrics and Love Letters (on KU)Read Roses in Rome (on KU)Follow her on InstagramWebsiteBooks Mentioned:Dolly All The Time by Annabel MonaghanSame Time Next Summer by Annabel MonaghanNora Goes Off Script by Annabel MonaghanOther Mentions:Alexis Curran (xolex)For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list. For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above. For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.
#374 | Most B2B marketers think brand means bigger budgets. This episode shows otherwise. Dave sits down with Ryan Narod, VP of Marketing at Rippling, to talk about what it actually takes to build a brand people recognize in B2B. Ryan walks through the real campaigns behind that shift - from scrappy iPhone videos and webinar promos to high-production customer films and their Super Bowl commercial. Ryan breaks down how he built a content flywheel, why injecting real humans into every piece of content matters, and how they measure brand impact without losing accountability to pipeline. It's a practical look at going from growth-only marketing to a brand with real personality, with examples you can steal no matter your budget.Timestamps(00:00) - - Today's guest: Ryan Narod, VP of Marketing at Rippling (02:44) - - What Rippling actually does and why HR, finance, and IT live under one roof (07:00) - - Why brand building starts with content and story, not billboards and TV ads (09:00) - - Building a content flywheel out of interviews, written pieces, and video (13:10) - - Getting the brand story straight across personas and the C-suite (18:30) - - Marketing plays in action: from scrappy iPhone videos to big-budget customer films (27:09) - - How to build a brand on a startup budget without Rippling's resources (29:33) - - Comparing production value head to head: a big-budget campaign vs a lo-fi one (32:29) - - How Rippling measures brand marketing with mixed media modeling and incrementally testing (39:49) - - Inside the Super Bowl ad and the reverse timeline it took to pull off Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERETired of the billable hour, overlearning, and feeling like your tech stack still owns you? In this episode, Tyson Mutrux sits down with subscription‑based attorney and Practi co‑founder Mathew Kerbis to break down exactly how AI tools like Perplexity, WhisperFlow, Paxton, Gemini, and agentic workflows are reshaping how modern law firms are built and run. You'll hear how Mathew went from insurance defense litigator to “AI‑native” transactional lawyer, why he believes the billable hour is bad for both clients and lawyers, and how subscription models and recurring revenue can unlock more freedom, better margins, and a saner life.They dig into real‑world examples: using AI dictation and desktop agents to draft and format complex contracts, running redlines across multiple tools, replacing parts of traditional case management, and orchestrating systems so that actual legal work keeps happening while Mathew is teaching a CLE or recording a podcast. Tyson and Mathew also wrestle with big‑picture trends, MSOs and private equity in law, BigLaw's addiction to the billable hour, and how bar regulators and ethics rules might respond to the AI wave. If you're a law firm owner wondering how to actually use AI to save time, make more money, and serve clients better (instead of just “playing” with tools), this one is packed with practical insights.What You'll LearnWhy the billable hour breaks incentives and how subscription/flat fees create better results for lawyers and clientsHow Mathew's AI stack (Perplexity, WhisperFlow, Paxton, Gemini, Google Workspace) powers his daily legal workWhat agentic workflows look like in practice for reviewing, redlining, and improving complex contractsHow WhisperFlow lets him talk instead of type across apps and replace traditional dictationWhy he runs his practice on Google Docs, NotebookLM, and AI search instead of case management softwareHow standardized templates plus AI speed up NDAs, MSAs, and other routine documentsThe core business model behind Practi and how it helps firms launch subscription legal servicesWhy solos and small firms may be better positioned than BigLaw in an AI‑driven legal marketHighlights00:00 – Challenging the status quo and taking aim at the billable hour06:10 – Lawyers as “professional students” and the trap of endless overlearning09:01 – Why many women and lawyers of color leave BigLaw to start their own firms12:10 – Perplexity, WhisperFlow, and Paxton as Mathew's core AI tools15:01 – Using WhisperFlow for OS‑level dictation, prompts, and text expansion27:43 – Orchestrating AI tools to clean up, analyze, and redline contracts at scale31:00 – Running a subscription practice on Google Workspace and NotebookLM45:15 – MSOs, private equity, and why Practi is being built as an alternative path49:08 – How subscriptions and recurring revenue unlock growth beyond hourly billing56:59 – Letting AI run recurring tasks so work continues while you're offlineAccess Agentic Browser Redlines Demo HereConnect with Mathew KebrisLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerbisverse/
You don't usually run out of podcast ideas.You run out of places to start.Most of us plan episodes by asking, "What should I talk about this week?" But what if that's the wrong question?Because your ideal client isn't searching for a podcast because they want another episode about pricing, visibility or marketing. They're searching because something has happened in their world, and they're trying to make sense of it.In this episode, I'm sharing the shift that's completely changed how I plan my podcast—and why starting with your listener's moment, rather than your content topic, can make your episodes feel more relevant, more engaging, and far easier to plan.In this episode, I talk about:Why planning around topics often leads to repetitive content.The difference between a topic and the moment that makes someone search for it.A simple shift that will help you create episodes your ideal clients are ready to hear.A practical exercise to uncover the conversations your podcast should be having next.If you've ever found yourself staring at a blank Google Doc, scrolling through old posts or asking ChatGPT what to record next, this episode will help you think about podcast planning in a completely different way.—Not sure what moments your podcast should be speaking to? The Decision Gap Diagnostic will help you uncover them. Learn more and apply for a diagnostic here: https://evergreenpodcaststrategy.co.uk/podcast-audit-Resources mentioned in this episodeSimple SEO and Marketing Podcast-Thank you for listening to this episode of Rethinking Podcasting. If this episode made you think differently about your podcast, your content or the role your podcast plays in your business, I'd love to hear what shifted for you.Send an email to info@evergreenpodcaststrategy.co.uk with DECISION in the subject line. I read and respond to every email personally.
One of my favorite shows is Scrubs, and there's one episode that's stuck with me for nearly 2 decades, and I think about it nearly every day. In it, the team can't diagnose a patient showing every sign of Lyme disease, because they can't find the tick bite. Every test comes back negative. Then Dr. Cox shaves the patient's head, finds the bite, and mentions Occam's Razor: the simplest solution is often the correct one.That idea has run through my whole business; I'm a natural overthinker. So today I talk about why we overcomplicate things, and why tool hunting feels productive when it's really just busy work in disguise.If you feel stuck or don't have a system in place yet, get the free Solopreneur System Starter Kit at https://streamlined.fm/kit. (00:00) - A Lesson from Scrubs on Simplicity (01:18) - What is Occam's Razor? (03:20) - Simplifying Client Onboarding with a Google Doc (04:14) - The Trap of Tool Hunting: Tools vs. Systems (05:22) - Designing Simpler Workflows (Fewest Links Philosophy) (07:37) - Practical Takeaways & The Starter Kit ————Streamlined Solopreneur helps solopreneurs automate their business so they can take time off worry-free. Each week, Joe Casabona shares practical systems, tools, and strategies to help you reclaim your time and run your business without sacrificing your the rest of your life, or your health. If you're looking to get started, you can download the Solopreneur Systems Starter Kit. It's 4 systems every solopreneur should have, the simplest way to get started, along with the exact tools, automations, and AI prompts you need. No guessing here. Get it for free at https://streamlined.fm/kitConnect with Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcasabona/
#372 | Dave sits down with Jay Schwedelson, founder of subjectline.com and Guru Media Hub, one of the sharpest tactical minds in email, webinars, and live content. Jay explains why so many B2B marketers get live content wrong from the very first step, and how small shifts in packaging can completely change who shows up and who doesn't. They dig into the psychology behind when people actually open and engage with email, why shorter almost always wins, and the habits that quietly keep you out of the spam folder. Jay also shares the specific email and send-day habits he swears by, a few of his go-to tricks for getting people to actually reply, and how he thinks about testing your way to what works for your own audience.Timestamps (00:00) - – Why "webinar" might be costing you registrations (01:12) - – Meet Jay Schwedelson and the virtual event he built to 30,000 people (06:26) - – A simple trick to get more people to actually show up live (08:44) - – Why giving everything away on-demand might be a mistake (10:23) - – The case for live, human connection in an AI-saturated world (13:00) - – The send times most B2B marketers are sleeping on (15:18) - – How to package and name your content so people actually want it (22:02) - – The newsletter habit that makes people stick around (26:09) - – Small email tweaks that quietly boost open rates and deliverability Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
What if the best leaders are not the ones with the biggest ideas? In this episode, John Dues argues that the leaders who make the greatest impact are the ones who create the fastest learning cycles. John and Andrew Stotz explore why small tests often outperform large initiatives, how PDSA builds real organizational knowledge, and why improvement is a learning process, not an implementation process. If your organization is launching new initiatives, this conversation offers a different question to ask: What's the smallest test we can run to learn whether this idea actually works? TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is the Fastest Way to Learn What Works. I love that title, John. Take it away. 0:00:30.0 John Dues: Hey Andrew, it's good to be back. Yeah, I was thinking about talking about leadership today, and I was thinking about who are the leaders that we tend to admire? I think the typical person would say these leaders with big, bold ideas. In my world, a superintendent launches this district-wide initiative, or maybe it's a principal has this sweeping school improvement plan that they've put in place. In your world, maybe some CEO unveils this new strategic direction. We think about these leaders, if they're described, they're visionary, decisive, courageous. But I think, as I've done this study, I've become increasingly convinced that we're paying attention to the wrong leaders in a lot of cases... 0:01:31.6 Andrew Stotz: So the right leaders are the ones that have their pen over their right ear. 0:01:36.9 John Dues: Always. That's the mark. That is the mark... 0:01:39.6 Andrew Stotz: I think I see that on you. 0:01:43.9 John Dues: I'm definitely not describing me. I'm just an observer, observer of the world. But I think these leaders make these big promises, but I'm increasingly convinced that the leaders who we should be paying more attention to are the ones that create these fast learning cycles. So in a typical place, a company or something, a school, they're faced with a problem. These leaders don't immediately ask, "How do we scale this? How do we scale this idea?" I think they're turning to a different question, and that's, "What's the smallest test we can run to learn whether this idea actually works?" It's a very different, very different question. And I think it's tough because this is a question that's not gonna make headlines, but I think it's one of the more important questions that a leader can ask... 0:02:49.9 Andrew Stotz: Isn't a great leader supposed to be doing the big things? You're talking about the smallest. 0:02:52.8 John Dues: The big things, right, the large initiatives, that's what gets attention. But I think the larger the initiative, the problem is the longer it takes to learn whether that thing, that idea, is helping or hurting or maybe having no effect at all. And I think what happens is, and what I've seen in schools repeatedly, I'm sure it's probably the same in the private sector, is oftentimes by the time the evidence actually arrives, if it ever does, so much time, money, and goodwill has been spent that it almost doesn't matter whether the idea itself was successful. All this cost was sunk into training people, all these new expectations have been established, and then we almost become more invested in proving the initiative was the right decision. And then once that happens, it's almost impossible to go about learning if it's actually having the effect that we intended to. And I think a lot of this has to do with many improvement efforts that I see. They start with a solution. They're sort of starting with not a clear definition of the problem, but this idea that they think is gonna have an impact, whatever that is. It could be a new curriculum in a school, an attendance campaign because attendance has been a big thing lately, some type of new evaluation process that they're gonna use with teachers or workers, whatever. But the point is that the assumption is that the solution's known at the beginning and that success really just depends on implementation. But I think the problem I see is that no one stops and thinks, "What if this solution actually doesn't work in our system?" We copy these ideas, we've seen this thing, whatever it is, work somewhere else, and we almost don't even consider whether the context matters. And it's maybe the most important thing to consider. 0:05:11.7 Andrew Stotz: I think about Deming, Dr. Deming, saying, "How would they know?" 0:05:16.0 John Dues: How would they know? Yeah. And I think, again, so much gets sunk into the initiative, all that training, all the money, all the resources, whatever. At a certain point, the organization is so invested that they almost sort of solidify into defending the idea rather than trying to learn whether it's actually working. That tipping point, I think, can happen pretty quickly, especially if it's a large, organization-wide initiative. 0:05:50.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and I can imagine a new person coming... A superstar coming in from another place where they implemented something that really worked, and now they're going, "Let's do it in our..." and that may or may not have the same impact in that new location that that person's responsible for. 0:06:09.6 John Dues: Yeah. And I think almost immediately the conversation then shifts from learning whether the idea is working to confirming what everyone hopes will happen. I think that might be the most dangerous moment in an organization. And so the purpose that I'm talking about, testing on a small scale, is not actually to verify the idea. The purpose is to learn whether the idea survives contact with reality. A good scientist, for example, their first step when they have a hypothesis is try to falsify it. And I feel like if it was ever taught to education or business leaders, that idea has been completely lost to history. And maybe even in some respects in the science world too, that falsification principle is sort of... That's the first step when you're testing an idea. That is not what I've experienced as an educator. I don't know if you've had that same experience in the business world. 0:07:21.9 Andrew Stotz: Yep, yep. I'm just thinking about that quote about no plan survives first contact with the enemy. I know von Clausewitz said it. There was another guy that said it, I think, before him, but it's just so, so true. 0:07:41.2 John Dues: Yeah. And I think this other way of thinking that I'm talking about is so counter to how most organizations operate. Once that solution is selected, whatever it is, the focus completely shifts to implementation and adoption. But the thing is, improvement, at its most fundamental level, it's a learning process. It's not an implementation process. And so... So often we're asking, how do we roll this thing out? I think a good leader, what they're gonna ask, is how can we learn more about this idea as quickly as possible? Right? This other way of thinking, this small testing, it reduces risk, generates feedback, reveals obstacles that you're blind to initially. But most importantly, it creates knowledge, like real working knowledge in your system, in the context where this idea is eventually... When it does roll out system-wide, where it's gonna have to work. And the thing is, is if it works at that small level, you can expand it. If it fails, you can cut your losses when not much has been lost in the way of time, resources, that type of thing. But either way, the organization is gonna learn from that small test... 0:09:09.2 Andrew Stotz: I found it, by the way. 0:09:10.6 John Dues: Oh, go ahead. 0:09:11.9 Andrew Stotz: Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, a Prussian field marshal and military strategist. The closest translation was, "No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength." Or summarized as, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." So it wasn't Mike Tyson who said it first when he said, "Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face." 0:09:45.3 John Dues: Yeah, right, same idea. I think the Prussians had quite a bit of revolutionary ideas coming out of their military prowess. I think the organizational structure maybe came even from Prussian military hierarchies and stuff like that. 0:09:54.0 Andrew Stotz: Definitely. 0:10:02.8 John Dues: Yeah, but I think, going back to my original sort of statement about which leaders get branded as outstanding or great or leaders to pay attention to, is those large initiatives attract attention, right? And we tend to celebrate those leaders with bold visions or these big plans, sweeping announcements. They're decisive and courageous because when you make those pronouncements, it appears as if they know exactly where the organization could go next or should go next. I think the problem here is that confidence can so easily be mistaken for knowledge. And often, especially in the world that I live in, not just schools but urban schools, the average superintendent is only in their seat for three or so years. Some a little more, some, a lot, a lot less. And so by the time you find out whether the thing worked or didn't, the person's gone. They're on to the next thing, and no one remembers what exactly they promised to do when they got here three years ago... 0:11:18.7 Andrew Stotz: He was really good. "I liked him. He was nice. I thought he had some good ideas." 0:11:21.5 John Dues: Right, right. 0:11:24.4 Andrew Stotz: "Who's our new boss now?" 0:11:27.4 John Dues: Yeah. And so they get this recognition for these big announcements, and it's before any evidence exists that this thing works, right? And so meanwhile, there's these other leaders who I think deserve more attention, are frequently doing something that's much less visible. And what they're doing is building a system that learns. 0:11:40.2 Andrew Stotz: Mm. 0:11:53.1 John Dues: And so instead of asking people to just trust their ideas, they're really thinking about ways to design tests of those ideas. So they're not really trying to prove themselves right like this first camp of leaders is. What they're trying to do is discover where they might be wrong. And that's just not as flashy. It just doesn't garner the same type of attention as that first type of leader. But I think if we really want to improve organizations, schools in my case, or businesses in your case, the thing is, if you're really gonna improve, it depends on actual knowledge, not just enthusiasm, not just charisma. When I think about a promising idea, that's not the same thing as a good idea. And a good idea, even a good idea, is not the same thing as an idea that works in your system, right? And so what we're trying to do is learn, learn, test, not confirm, learn what actually happens when we put something to the test in our system. 0:13:04.7 Andrew Stotz: It makes me think about what I mentioned to you before we turned on the recording, which is that I've been starting to do PDSAs with my accounting and inventory team. Every month I go and sit down with them after they've closed the books, and I've designed a simple format for them. And the way I've explained it to them is that imagine that you want to lose weight, and you think, okay, there's three things I read on the internet: get good quality sleep, eat less carbohydrates, and walk every day. If we do all three of those things, we're probably gonna lose weight. And as an individual, that may be good enough. But if we do them separately, we'll actually acquire knowledge as to which one has the biggest impact. Now, it gets even more difficult because if you do them consecutively, it's harder to make an impact as you start to lose weight. But the point is, is that... And the reason why it's important is because we need to think about how we as an organization are acquiring knowledge. And so I've got a golden three-ring binder, and each of the PDSAs we put in there, and then we're starting to collect them. Once a month, our impact that we're expecting from that PDSA may take six months to occur, but we're revisiting and discussing and deciding, do we continue with this or do we improve it? And we just have two things that we're focusing on, the accounts receivable and also reducing the amount of inventory that we have in the business. And those two things, the beauty of doing PDSA with accounting is that it's a repetitive cycle. Marketing's not a repetitive cycle. Sales, not necessarily a repetitive production, but accounting is the same thing over and over again. So what a great opportunity to improve. 0:15:10.8 John Dues: Yeah, and that's really interesting because a lot of times financial or accounting functions in businesses sort of get left out of the improvement equation. And that's a big mistake, I think, because especially if those people are sort of left to their own devices and the sole focus is on the bottom line, right? And so you could cut cost in an area and actually cause the business, obviously, great harm if you don't have the full picture in mind. So I think that's a great... 0:15:44.0 Andrew Stotz: And that's a whole another area of misusing finance. But the point that I'm thinking about as I'm going through this, because I was thinking about where is the best place to really start strong implementation of PDSA, and my conclusion is accounting. Because accounting is not even like finance saying, "Oh, we need to hit this target" or something. They're just cranking through a process over and over again. And I told my accounting team, I said, because it's a pretty big team of people in both accounting and inventory, I said, "We're gonna work on this for 12 months until we've got the format, the structure, everybody understands it, we have it all translated into Thai from English so it's very clear." I said, "And then you guys are gonna then teach the rest of the organization how do we do PDSA." 0:16:34.0 John Dues: The accountants are, huh? 0:16:36.1 Andrew Stotz: Which is pretty exciting. 0:16:38.4 John Dues: What's... How are they receiving it? 0:16:40.8 Andrew Stotz: It's confusing. It's hard. They're thinking about things and writing stuff down. The first few ones, they realize they didn't really make it that clear, so it's a struggle. And I can say for myself, being an expert in this area, that bringing it to them in a simple way, not easy. And it's also easy to abandon. And I suspect that many employees would think, "Okay, this is the next initiative," versus something that I'm just gonna, every single month, review, work with them on, and keep improving. And then we want to build that competency to understand what works. Because if we can test things one at a time, they also can see how you really got to narrow it down. 0:17:30.8 John Dues: Yeah, that's a great application of continual improvement where you're learning by doing. There's no better way. It's gonna feel clumsy at the start, the first few cycles that you go through. But I think once people see it's not a test, it's not an evaluation especially, it truly is a learning process that can have a big impact on whatever the problems in your area are. That's what I've found. After people go through this a few times, and you make the predictions, and people think they're gonna get judged on their predictions, or the predictions are gonna be wrong, especially at the start, I've continually had to tell people, "No, you're not failing. Yes, your prediction may have been off quite a bit, but that's in the first cycle." We do this a few times, and you're gonna get your sort of understanding of reality and that gap is gonna get closer and closer as you run those cycles. 0:18:28.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and I've been teaching more and more on corporate strategy, and I've identified what I call 11 Ways to Win, how great companies win. And so I've kind of tried to narrow it down to what I think are the core ways that companies win. And one of them is know-how. And Toyota is a good example. 0:18:40.2 John Dues: Yeah. 0:18:52.0 Andrew Stotz: And part of the question for know-how is, does this company have a method of acquiring knowledge? Because know-how can't just be, "We got a couple really smart guys," because when they leave, that competitive advantage is gone. 0:19:00.4 John Dues: Yeah. 0:19:08.8 Andrew Stotz: And that's where the process of how do we acquire knowledge, this idea of narrowing it down as you're talking about, yeah, exciting. 0:19:19.8 John Dues: Yeah, that is exciting. And the PDSA is a great, I think, technique to use to introduce people to continual improvement methods. Because I think after you've gone through it a few times, it becomes pretty intuitive pretty quickly. And it basically combines all the elements that Deming taught into a single sort of learning process. You get the psychology in there, the systems thinking is in there, understanding variation, obviously the theory of knowledge, the PDSA is core to that. So you get all four components right there with the PDSA. 0:19:55.1 Andrew Stotz: Well, shall we wrap this up? What do you want to leave people with? 0:20:13.3 John Dues: Yeah, I think one thing I was gonna say right before the wrap-up was one of the areas that we're trying to do this actually in is actually strategic planning, which is a broad area of an organization that's sort of comprehensive. But we've, I think, tried to incorporate that same sort of PDSA thinking into our strategic planning process. Because schools, like any organization, they're dynamic and the conditions are unpredictable, especially over an extended period of time. And so what we're thinking through is how do you have sort of this combination of a long-term constancy of purpose, because you have to have that, what's our long-term purpose, our long-term aim? But then how do we also continually adapt? And we've tried to build both of those things into our strategic plan. So I think that's sort of a unique approach, a unique way of thinking, even down to the fact that the strategic plan document itself, what we used to do is the culmination would be this color spiral-bound document that looked really, really nice when the consultant would hand it off to you at the end of the process. Now we're doing this all internally, and the strategic plan is in a Google Doc, and it is literally continually updated as we learn through the various tests that we're running over the three-year period. So it's more like a management system than a static document. So even a thing like a strategic plan, which of course there are components that we have locked in for the three-year period, these are some long-term priorities, but there are some annual and quarterly things that we're updating all the time based on what's actually happening on the ground and what the data is telling us. So you kind of have to sort of do a hybrid of both those things in certain areas of your organization, I think. And I think the most important thing is that we're creating a system that's capable of generating knowledge that we're learning over time, all while focused on a sort of clear long-term aim. I think that's kind of the key thing. So... 0:22:15.2 Andrew Stotz: Excellent. I don't think I can add anything to that. So on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org and jump into DemingNEXT to continue your journey. You can find John's book, Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools, on Amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, and that is that "people are entitled to joy in work."
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In this week's episode, we share nine tips and tricks to help indie authors manage their files. Since I now have 174 novels, file management has become important! This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store: JULYSKULL The coupon code is valid through July 27, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 311 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 10th, 2026. Today we are discussing file management tips for indie authors. Before we get into that, we'll have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is JULYSKULL. As always, the coupon code and the links to the appropriate pages in my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through July the 27th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Thieves is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, Bookshop.org, and my own Payhip store. It is selling well and people seem to be enjoying it, so thank you all for that. Now that Blade of Thieves is out, my next main project is Cloak of Frost, which will be the 15th book in the Cloak Mage urban fantasy series. As of this recording, I am 52,000 words into it. I'm thinking the rough draft will be about 100,000 words. So if all goes well, I hope to have the book out in August. My secondary project is Blade of Visions, the sequel to Blade of Thieves, and I am 4,000 words into that. Once Cloak of Frost is finished, Blade of Visions will become my new main project. In audiobook news, recording is done for Dragon-Mage, the sixth book in the Rivah series, and that will be excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. I just have to proof/listen to that and then we can submit it to QA and then it should be showing up on the audiobook stories in a few weeks. Recording has started on Cloak of Worlds, which will be [recorded by] Hollis McCarthy, and Blade of Thieves, which will be [recorded by] Brad Wills. So look for more news and updates about that in the coming weeks. So that is where I'm at with current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:16 Main Topic of the Week: File Organization for Writers So let's move on to our main topic this week, file organization tips for writers. One of the inspirations for this episode was an episode of the sitcom Community, which is quite funny. In the episode, the college is making a movie based on a legal loophole because they have some archival footage of a suddenly popular actor. One of the characters, Jeff, becomes concerned that people aren't treating the movie as seriously as they would deserve. So he steals the laptop with the movie and sets out to edit it himself. However, Jeff doesn't know anything about editing a movie, so he watches a YouTube tutorial about how to edit videos. The first lesson is "Step 1: How to properly organize your files." Jeff rages that no, he just wants to learn how to edit movies. While realizing that proper file organization is vital in the age of digital video editing, maintaining a good file structure isn't quite as rigid for authors and writers as it would be for video editors. However, even though many people consider file structure to be old-fashioned or pointless in the age of Google Docs and AI, in my years working in IT, I found that people wasted many hours trying to find files unnecessarily. For example, I always flinch a little bit when I see someone whose desktop is just a wall of misplaced icons and thousands of documents stacked upon each other. I used to do tech support for someone who had the most amazing gift for the most unhelpful and un-useful file names, often with misspelled words. He would get very frustrated and angry that he couldn't find anything because he hadn't labeled files properly with good file names. Better file structures and file naming conventions would have saved them all that stress and time. It's not wise to have all your files stacked up on your desktop and hope for the best. As you grow as a writer, files suddenly become much more complicated than one single draft in a word processing file. There needs to be organization for audiobook files, cover art, marketing materials, research, and much more. Blade of Thieves was my 174th book. So if you think about it, that means I have 174 separate book files on my computer. Many of them have audiobooks. They all have cover art. The audiobooks have cover art, to say nothing of the hundreds of short stories I've written and all of that needs to be organized properly so I can find it when I need it to. So today we're going to talk about setting up and organizing file structures for your writing work. First of all, what do I mean by file structures? In traditional computing, files like Word documents and Excel spreadsheets are organized in folders. How you navigate through the folder structure on your computer or server to find the files is called a path. Much like with a real path on a hiking trail, you want the path to find a file in a folder to be as clear from junk and confusion as possible. Good file and folder naming is like setting up signs on that hiking trail to help you find the way. Setting up your folders and files correctly makes them easier to use, find, and share with others. So let's go through some tips on how to properly organize your writing files and save yourself much stress and hassle of trying to find things. #1: Make a plan before you begin. Instead of borrowing someone else's file structure, take some time to think about how you use your writing files every day. Do you have a lot of project files for each book like book research, cover ideas, mood boards, and so on? Do you do most of your writing collaboratively? Think about your working style, the amount of files you have, and what kind of files you have that need organizing. It helps to plan for flexibility and growth in the future as the amount of files you have grows. For example, if someone currently runs only ads on Amazon but wants to add other companies like Facebook or BookBub, it'd be messier to add files from those projects if everything in their advertising folder was all Amazon documents with no sub-folder for Amazon. Making an Amazon sub-folder right away in your advertising folder prevents confusion as you start to add other companies into your advertising strategy. What you design should be realistic and as simple to use as possible. Are you someone who makes grand and complicated plans, but then sees them fall by the wayside after a couple of weeks? Many people are. Good organization is something where it's easy to let the perfect be the enemy of the possible. If you design overly complicated file and folder structures and naming conventions that you can't remember without a 20-page guide, you're not very likely to keep up with it. It's better to make something simple that it's easy to remember. Carve out the time to do this with your full attention instead of trying to do it in bits and pieces on the fly. It may take anywhere from an hour to days, depending on how many writing files you have. At the very least, set up the initial folders in one chunk of time so the organization is in place before you start moving files around. #2: Clean up before you start organizing. Get rid of duplicate and obsolete files before starting to organize other files. It will save time and make the process easier. #3: File structure is supported by good naming. Versions and drafts should be numbered to find the most recent one. Be specific. "Second draft" or "Volume one" without a book title isn't helpful if there are multiple books with that name across multiple folders. If you are using dates, be sure to include day, month, and year because in 10 years, "March ads" is not going to make much sense without the context of a year. Be consistent in how you order month, date, and year in a file because being inconsistent with it could make for mixed up dates. #4: Version control. "Rough draft THIS ONE" is not a good name to indicate that this is the latest draft and never use "final" as part of a draft or project name until it's well and truly done. On both Windows, Mac, and Linux, you get 256 characters for file names and it's a good idea to use them to be as descriptive as possible in your file names. #5: Be consistent. Don't make a folder called "Fix These File Names Later" because guess what? That date won't come. In the meantime, you'll probably get annoyed trying to find one of those files that don't have a correct name. If you're struggling with remembering to use your folder and file names, either make yourself a one-page reminder guide or take it as a sign that you might have made your structure and naming conventions too complicated. Remember that simpler is always better. #6: Document it. As with so many areas of life, proper documentation will help you remember something in the future. Write out how your folders are going to be structured, what style and formatting you will use to name the folders and files, and give yourselves some examples to jog your memory. If you're sharing the files and folders with others, make sure to share documentation with them and go over the system with them. That will save much time later since you won't have to spend so much time explaining to people where to find things in your file structure. #7: Decluttering isn't just for your college t-shirts. Schedule a regular time monthly or quarterly to declutter and fix anything in your file structure that isn't working or isn't consistent or correct. Much like organizing a drawer of shirts, things will only stay in order if you keep up with putting in and taking things out using your system. #8: It should fix, not create problems. Your first attempt at file organization may not work once you've added more files or tried it out for a while. Reflect on what is causing problems, what you would like your system to be able to do, and what you dislike about your current system. Train others who will use it. For example, differences in month/[day]/year naming conventions between countries can lead to incorrect dates if it isn't clear what date style is being used. Abbreviations should be standard to prevent confusion. For example, United States state abbreviations could follow the US Postal Service Conventions instead of writing your own abbreviations. MN would be Minnesota instead of M-I-N-N or M-I-N-N-E-S. (Though this can cause a confusion if you're not accustomed to them since, for example, in the postal codes, people often get Missouri and Minnesota mixed up.) Tip #9: Sharing isn't always caring. You can set up password protection on folders and files you don't want to share with others, especially if you're in a shared storage space. Read-only access is a way to share documents with others without worrying about them changing the files. For example, I have read-only access set for my book files so that someone working on my series bibles can download them without editing or changing the files themselves. So instead of having to make extra folders and files that are safe for someone to use without changing, I just set read-only access to those files [for that user]. Now let's take a look at some pros and cons of some typical structures. I'm going to provide examples of three possible folder structures you could use for writing and give you some of the pros and cons for each. #1: Organizing by date. In this system, the year is the first file and more specific files like quarters and months are sub-folders. This system might work best if you write based on challenges or projects such as National Novel Writing Month where each year is its own project. If you're taking writing courses, organizing by date and then by semester or course also would make sense for many people. For many writers, however, this could be a difficult way to organize because then you have to remember what year each book was written and many books are written across several years or months. If you're sharing the files with others, then you have to give them information on the history of each book project so they know which folder dates to look at, which creates extra work and most likely confusion. Like for example, off the top of my head, I could tell you that Ghost in the Forge is the sixth book in the Ghost series. However, I couldn't remember what year or month it was written in. I think it would be 2012, maybe February of 2012, but I would not be able to confirm that without looking it up, which would mean trying to find the file for Ghost in the Forge if I needed it would be a bit of a challenge. #2: Organizing by book. In this system, each book has its own folder and then other aspects like drafts, marketing materials, research, and covers are subfolders. If you don't have a large volume of books and don't have many writing adjacent activity files like research and advertising and don't share files with others, often this is a pretty straightforward way to organize your writing files. #3: Organizing by project type. In this system, the type of project is the main subfolder and sub-folders such as the books, marketing materials, covers, and series bibles would be in folders instead of being organized by individual books. For example, there would be a folder for marketing images. Instagram would be a sub-folder, and then there would be sub-folders in that folder for specific images and ads or individual books. If you have a lot of marketing images, that can be easier than trying to remember what image was for a certain book. This file organization system is more complex than just organizing by book and could be hard to keep up without some dedication. It might be unnecessarily complex for someone who only has a handful of books and only a small amount of files. As your writing adjacent activities like marketing and social media grow, it can be easier to organize this way than just by individual books. It's also much easier to share folders in a granular way using this method. For example, if you hire an assistant to help with social media posts, you can give them access to the social media marketing folders without having to give them access to the folders that have the book files and drafts in them. Now, what do I do for my own file organization system? Now, my system has partly been thought out and partly developed organically over the 15 years I've been doing this. And I found for me, since I've written so many books and series, that the best organizational principle is to run by series. My rough drafts are not super organized because once I am done with the book, I tend not to look back at the rough draft files. So usually my rough drafts are sitting in individual folders for the series like Frostborn, Dragontiarna, Blades of Ruin, and so forth. I am much more organized in the final drafts. Each individual series has its own folder and within the series, each individual book has its own folder as well. To help with keeping things in order, I usually number the folders. So for example, in Blades of Ruin, the first folder within it would be 01 Blade of Flames, then 02 Blade of Shadows, 03 Blade of Storms, and so forth. Within the individual book folders, I have the final files in ePub and PDF form for the books along with the cover images for both ebook, audiobook, and paperback. However, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I don't have just the book files. I also have audiobook files, advertising files, and a very large photo library from a combination of stock photos, 3D renders, and photographs I have specifically taken over the years for the purpose of using for ebook covers and advertising materials. For advertising images and materials, like I said, I found the best organizing principle for me is by series. So I generally tend to just organize them by series. So Frostborn, Sevenfold Sword, Dragontiarna, and the Andomhaim books generally have just one folder of advertising images since I can use the advertising image for both Frostborn: the Gray Knight and Sevenfold Sword: Champion. For my audiobooks, I keep those on a separate drive because they eat up a lot of space. But then I just have them organized out by book and series, which is pretty easy when I need to find something. For my stock photos, I do have those pretty well organized and again, in a separate drive, which I back up separately. I divide out the images by type. So I have a folder for castles, a folder for medieval or ancient cities, a folder for modern cities, a folder for fireballs and so forth. And so if I'm making a book cover image and I think, hmm, I want a sword, I can go into the swords folder and look at appropriate pictures of swords until I find one that would work for the project. How this [has] changed over time is I've had to become a bit more organized with the files because I started using Vellum, which generates a separate file of its own. So then I had to make sure that those were organized into proper files. I used to keep all my stock photos in just one big folder that quickly became unmanageable. So I once took two days to properly organize these stock photos. Just keeping all the rough drafts in one big folder for the series has worked pretty well for me because once I am done with the rough draft and have turned into the final draft, I just ignore the rough draft file and any changes that need to be made are obviously made to the final draft file. I also used to keep all the cover images in one folder for some reason and that was a bad idea. So then I started keeping the specific cover image in the folder with the specific book and that has worked out well. Would this be something I would recommend to someone just starting out? I think so. You can obviously get more complicated with this and my file structure is pretty simple overall, but it works for me. I can find anything I need to pretty quickly. In fact, my folder structure is deep enough I find sometimes that I get halfway down the folder structure and forget what I am looking for before I find it, which is a separate problem from folder organization. But I've stuck to this pretty consistently over the last 15 years and it's worked well for me. So I think I could recommend this to someone starting out. I'd have a folder for your rough drafts and then a folder with separate folders within it for your final drafts. Conclusion File organization is not glamorous, but as any records manager at a US government agency can tell you, it is extremely important for finding, organizing, and preserving what you create. Searching for files is not a writing adjacent activity that you want to take up your time and you definitely don't want the stress of losing something that you worked on for a long time by naming and storing it incorrectly. Finally, I want to close out with a reminder that however you set up your writing files and organizing them, they absolutely need to be backed up on a regular basis. I would recommend using a combination of cloud and local backups since they reinforce each other. If heaven forbid your house explodes and you lose your local backups, you still have your cloud backups. And if your cloud provider goes down or gets hacked or something, you still have your local backups. So no matter how you organize your files or how well organized they are, you definitely want to back them up on a very regular basis. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all of the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and we'll see you all next week.
For years, I was convinced I just hadn't found the right tool for our styling evaluation reports. So I kept searching, rebuilding, and starting over. Every new solution fixed one problem while creating another, and every switch demanded more time, money, and energy than I ever expected. Looking back, I wasn't really searching for better software. I was trying to create a workflow that actually fit the way staging businesses operate. What I didn't realize was how much opportunity I was losing while trying to force tools to do a job they were never designed to do. Today, I'm sharing what that journey taught me. Not just about technology, but about systems, opportunity cost, and why the right solution isn't always the newest one. What You'll Learn The hidden opportunity cost of forcing software to do a job it wasn't designed to do What worked and what didn't with paper checklists, Google Docs, Dragon Dictation, GoCanvas, and Jotform The features I was searching for but couldn't find in any existing platform Why efficiency matters just as much as presentation when creating client deliverables RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#371 | Most B2B companies gate everything and hide their pricing. Funnel Leasing does neither, and grew from $3 million to $50 million in revenue anyway. Dave sits down with Alex Howe, SVP of Marketing and Growth at Funnel Leasing, to talk about how he built that growth engine with no marketing background, no paid ads, and no sales team pressure. They get into why his whole philosophy is built around being different rather than better, why ungating everything (including pricing) builds more trust than gating ever could, and how to prove marketing is working without hard metrics like a two-week sales cycle. Plus: how a background in political PR shaped his approach to getting attention, the event marketing stunts that actually got prospects talking, and why messaging should keep evolving without ever losing its core story.Timestamps(00:00) - - Introduction (05:32) - - Be Different, Not Just Better (09:13) - - Why You Should Ungate Everything, Including Pricing (13:34) - - How to Prove Marketing Is Working Without Hard Metrics (18:38) - - A Great Product Makes Marketing Easier (24:54) - - Build a Point of View by Staying Close to Your Customers (27:10) - - Creative Event Marketing Beats a Boring Booth (31:00) - - What a PR Background Teaches You About Getting Attention (35:59) - - Hire Specialists and Give Them Ownership (39:00) - - Why Differentiation Matters More Than Ever in the AI Era Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
Send us Fan MailThank you to the HarperCollins Team and Author Georgia Stone for talking to me about her latest release, The Roommate Rule.Support Georgia:Read The Roommate RuleRead The Friendship FlingAdd on GoodreadsWebsiteBooks Mentioned in the episode:Never Over by Claire GilmoreFavorite authors - Jessica Joyce, B.K. Borison, Emily Henry, Ali Hazelwood, and Myah ArielFor links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list. For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above. For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.
Today I'm giving you the two emails that have made my company millions of dollars — word for word — so you can send them to your list this week. One reconnects a cold list and starts real conversations. The other one drives booked calls using a three-sentence email and a Google Doc that most people would never think to write. In this episode, I walk through both of them line by line. But before you send anything, there's a rule about email deliverability that almost nobody follows — and if you get it wrong, it'll wreck your inbox placement for months. I learned that the hard way. We have over a million contacts in our database. We email maybe 30-50K of them. I explain exactly why. I also get into the real reason most coaches aren't emailing their list at all — and it has nothing to do with not knowing what to say. "The thing you keep avoiding — that avoidance itself is the tell that you're close to something that could change your life. We don't resist things that don't matter."
In this fiery Ward Radio episode, the crew tackles one of the biggest frustrations in LDS wards: endless, unproductive Sunday meetings that steal time from families. Hayden makes the case for destroying meeting culture with asynchronous tools like Slack, Discord, and Google Docs — backed by quotes from President Nelson and Boyd K. Packer. From 8+ hour meeting marathons to revolutionary ward experiments that slashed meeting time from 6 hours to 1, this conversation is equal parts hilarious, salty, and practical.Is meeting culture a sacred tradition or a relic that's burning out young fathers? Can technology help us reclaim the Sabbath for families while still getting the Lord's work done? Hear real solutions, pushback on “proximity,” and why fewer but better meetings could strengthen the rising generation.Featuring raw honesty, laughs, and actionable ideas every leader (and member) needs to hear. #MeetingCulture #LDSLeadership #WardCouncil #SabbathDay #AsynchronousWork #LatterDaySaints #WardRadioAccurate Chapter Markers (Reset to 00:00 based on the transcript):00:00:00 - Intro: "We Need to Destroy Meeting Culture"00:02:25 - The Problem: Unprepared Agendas, Rehashing Last Week, 8+ Hour Sundays00:04:16 - Devil's Advocate & Corporate Meeting Wisdom00:06:05 - The Solution: Asynchronous Work – Could This Be an Email?00:06:52 - Real Example: Idaho Ward Using Slack to Cut Meetings from 6 Hours to 100:08:19 - What the Brethren Actually Say (Boyd K. Packer & President Nelson)00:10:39 - Leaning Into Tech: Slack, Discord, Google Docs for Follow-Ups00:13:07 - Personal Success Story: Shaving 4-5 Hours Off Sunday Meetings with Discord00:16:57 - Bishop's Kids & Family Time on the Sabbath00:18:22 - Sponsor Highlight: Tiny3D Temples00:19:06 - Cultural Resistance & Passivity Activists00:22:20 - Making the Meetings We Do Have More Effective00:25:00 - Defense of Proximity & In-Person Value00:28:28 - Spontaneous Interactions & Ministry of Presence00:31:13 - Opportunity Cost: Family vs. Meetings00:33:55 - President Nelson on Simplifying Programs & Increasing Faith00:38:00 - Closing Thoughts & Call for Better ConsecrationJoin this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnmsAFGrFuGe0obW6tkEY6w/joinAmazon Wish List: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1AQLMTSMBM4DC?ref_=wl_shareVisit us for this and more at: WardRadio.comThe following authors and/or sponsors are generously offering discounts on their gospel-related publication to Ward Radio listeners.⚡For free trial of Scripture Notes please visit the following link!: https://scripturenotes.com/?via=wardradio⚡For a discount on Tiny 3D Temples, Save 15% with code WARDRADIO at checkout or visit tiny3dtemples.com/wardradio⚡Family: A Rhyming Proclamation for Kids book visit the following linkhttps://plainandpreciouspublishing.com/products/family-a-rhyming-proclamation-for-kids . Use the code "Ward Radio" for 10% off. ⚡To Order Jonah's Book, “Lost Gems of Genesis” visit the following link and use coupon Code: WARDRADIO https://plainandpreciouspublishing.com/products/coming-soon-the-lost-gems-of-genesis-how-apocryphal-texts-prove-joseph-smith-fixed-the-bibleFor 10% off Plain and Precious Publishing Books, visit plainandpreciouspublishing.com and use Coupon Code: WARDRADIOFor a 5% discount on Go and Do Travel, visit goanddotravel.com and use the promo code WARDRADIO5#christian #mormon #exmormon #latter-daysaints #latterdaysaints #latterdays #bible #bookofmormon #archaeology #BYU #midnightmormons #jesus #jesuschrist #scriptures #sundayschool #biblestudy #christiancomedy #cardonellis #kwakuel #bradwitbeckTo support the channel:Venmo @WardRadio or visit: https://account.venmo.com/u/MidnightMormonsPaypal: paypal.me/@midnightmedia CashApp: $WardRadioFollow us at:Instagram: @cardonellis @kwakuel @braderico @boho.birdyFacebook: @WardRadioWorldwideTwitter: WardRadioShowTikTok: WardRadioWorldwide
#370 | Most B2B marketers have no idea you can run TV ads for $50 a day. Dave sits down with TV advertising veteran Amit Sharan, SVP of Marketing at Tatari, to talk about this, and how to think about CTV as a B2B channel. They get into the difference between linear and streaming, why programmatic buying only reaches 15% of total TV inventory, and the case for retargeting your website visitors on TV instead of just running more ads on LinkedIn. They also get into what makes TV creative actually work, where AI fits into that process, how to measure performance without relying on last-click, and why it's worth testing a channel you've never touched before. Timestamps(00:00) - - Why B2B marketers are sleeping on TV ads (01:17) - - Getting into ad tech: video advertising, Facebook, and a $450M acquisition (07:03) - - How to cold-apply your way into a company you want to join (09:05) - - What scale looks like for a modern TV ad platform (11:02) - - The three buckets of marketing: demand gen, product, and corporate (13:59) - - How to actually measure whether your brand is working (16:12) - - Why marketers respect good marketing more than any celebrity spokesperson (20:04) - - CTV 101: linear vs streaming, and why programmatic only touches 15% of inventory (25:03) - - The $50-a-day move: retargeting website visitors on CTV (28:07) - - What actually makes TV creative work (33:42) - - Should you use AI-generated video for your ads? (37:21) - - Measuring TV without relying on last-click (38:19) - - Testing new channels: the case for trying something you've never done Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
In this episode of The Truth In This Art, the guest is Miles Johnson!About Miles Johnson: Miles Johnson is a self-described "unclassically untrained oil painter" and mechanical engineer based in the DMV area. In over 4 years—starting with over a year on iPad before transitioning to oils 3 years ago—he has created numerous pieces. His late grandmother was a painter herself who created approximately 300 pieces and inspired his creative path. Miles first painted her portrait last summer for his solo show.Growing up, Miles would run cross-country to the Smithsonian, where Thomas Cole's four-part series "Voyage of Life" gave him a revelation: "I never thought that paintings were like almost manga panels." He also draws inspiration from Little Black Goat, incorporating anime-style faces into his work. Miles applies his engineering background with painting by creating bullet-point lists and maintaining over 200 pages of documentation in Google Docs. His research process studies figures like Fannie Lou Hamer—someone who was "born into sharecropping and ended up dying with a foundation that gave a million acres of land across Mississippi."Later we discussed Miles working on Common People Ain't Common, a 2025 undertaking. He made 100 pieces dedicated to celebrating the small moments in life and of the people he has observed. His goal was to make this art affordable for the everyday people who supported him on his art journey. His aim is that these pieces will serve as a great investment for first-time collectors. His Instagram handle @MJonthewall pays homage to Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" album. Connect with Miles on Instagram and TikTok at @MJonthewall or visit MJonthewall.com.Photo courtesy of subject. The Truth In This Art is supported by William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, the Maryland State Arts Council's Creativity Grant and Mayor's Individual Artist Award - Creative Baltimore Fund (Baltimore). Host: Rob LeeMusic: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis.Production:Produced by Rob Lee & Daniel AlexisEdited by Daniel AlexisShow Notes courtesy of Rob Lee and TransistorPhotos:Rob Lee photos by Vicente Martin for The Truth In This Art and Contrarian Aquarian Media.Guest photos courtesy of the guest, unless otherwise noted.Support the podcastThe Truth In This Art Podcast Fractured Atlas (Fundraising): https://www.fracturedatlas.orgThe Truth In This Art Podcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thetruthinthisart.bsky.socialThe Truth In This Art Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truthinthisart/?hl=enThe Truth In This Art Podcast Website: https://www.thetruthinthisart.com/The Truth In This Art Podcast Shop: Merch from Redbubble ★ Support this podcast ★
#369 | It's hard to know what works and what doesn't, what's real and what's not right now. So we tapped 9 B2B marketing pros, all specialists in their area, to share one thing that's produced real results so far this year. Here's how it works: 9 speakers, one play each, two minutes on the clock. When host Dave Gerhardt hits the buzzer, it's on to the next play. The audience votes on their favorites, and the top plays come back for a second round with more detail. 60 minutes of back-to-back insights across demand gen, content, brand, social, product marketing, strategy, and more, featuring plays from senior marketing leaders at companies like Snowflake, Sprout Social, Tekmetric, Lendio, and many more.Timestamps(02:23) - - Nine marketers, two minutes each, one play — welcome to the B2B Blitz (07:23) - - 6x podcast engagement with comic-style clips, Jess Cook (Vector) (09:41) - - Adapting core messaging across different segments, Diane Wiredu (Lion Words) (11:43) - - Turning win-loss research into pipeline recovery, Drew Giovannoli (BuriedWins) (13:28) - - An AI-powered voice-of-customer system built from sales calls, Jonathan Rosenfeld (Hologram) (16:09) - - Treating your internal team like a demand gen channel, Hunter Talpas (Tekmetric) (19:23) - - A revenue-first framework for campaign planning, Hailey McDonald (Sprout Social) (21:27) - - AI messaging tests that delivered an 8x CTR lift, Casey Patterson (Snowflake) (23:23) - - Putting AEs in the ad to build familiarity before outreach, Spencer Rule (Lendio) (25:30) - - Automating LinkedIn ads with Claude Code, Anthony Blatner (Speedwork) (40:51) - - The winning play, round two: AE-led video ads in depth, Spencer Rule (Lendio) Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
I tell people this all the time and I don't think they realize that you are literally just one post away from blowing up on Instagram. But here's the thing most people don't think about, you need to have the systems in place before it ever happens. I'm not saying don't post your content, or use my hooks, in fact I want you to do that today! If you're sharing online and people are connecting with you, eventually people will start reaching out, and I want to make sure you have systems in place to handle it, because trust me, once the ball starts rolling, you might feel overwhelmed. In this episode we'll be covering:The three most important systems to have set up in case you blow up on Instagram (or other social media platforms.)How I'm leveraging ManyChat for the podcast and other ways you can use it for your business to create effortless automations that work for you around the clock.Creating a Canva account for digital products so you can start selling your expertise, I know you have something sitting in your notes that can make you money.Making sure you have a way for people to contact you, whether it's brand collaborations or speaking opportunities, you need to have a simple way for people to get in touch with you. It's ok to start small and simple, I used Google Docs for years, your people don't care about the packaging, they want your brain and your knowledge. Featured content in this episode:Social.varsity is your ManyChat Expert!Recommended episodes:Episode 87: How to Get New Followers on Instagram: Trial Reels, Bios, and More!Episode 98: Start Selling on Social Media without Feeling SalesyEpisode 108: Why You NEED To Take Content Creation SeriouslyEpisode 117: How to Start Making Money Without Fancy FunnelsEpisode 119: Your Boring Life Moments are the Shortcut to SuccessSend a message!If you use the send a message option above, be sure to include your email address if you would like a reply! (Please allow 3-5 business days for a response)Join me in the Reels Lab!Love this conversation? Make sure to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode.Connect with me on Instagram!
You sit down to work on your business, not in it, but on it. Two hours later you have a 14-page Google Doc, a color-coded spreadsheet, and a project management system you've never opened before. And you haven't done a single thing that moves the needle. That's not preparation. That's procrastination with lipstick on it. Over-planning is fear in disguise and it's the number one thing keeping smart entrepreneurs stuck. In this solo episode, George breaks down why concrete actions always beat elaborate strategies, the real cost of waiting until you feel ready, and the simple 24-hour rule that breaks the planning loop for good. This one pairs directly with last week's 3M capacity episode. Together, they're a daily execution playbook. What You'll Learn In This Episode: Why over-planning is procrastination dressed up and how to spot it in yourself The Jeff Bezos 70% rule: why waiting for certainty kills momentum The three things small concrete actions give you that strategies never can Why clarity comes after action, not before it The 24-hour rule: one question that breaks any planning loop How to separate ideas worth pursuing from ones that only sound good on paper Why the market, not your Google Doc, is the only thing that gives you real data Key Takeaways: ✔️A perfect plan you never execute is just a very expensive journal entry. ✔️19% of businesses fail due to weak execution, not bad ideas, bad products, or bad markets. ✔️Most decisions should be made with about 70% of the information you wish you had. Waiting for 100% means the moment passes and the fear grows. ✔️Small, concrete actions create three things strategies never do: feedback, momentum, and clarity. ✔️Clarity is not a prerequisite for action. It is almost always a byproduct of it. You cannot think your way into clarity, you act your way into it. ✔️The 24-hour rule: anytime you find yourself over-planning, ask one question, what's the one thing I can do in the next 24 hours that gives me a piece of data to know if this is worth pursuing? ✔️Over-planning beyond a reasonable window is never about being thorough. There's usually something underneath it, fear of rejection, fear of failure, or fear of finding out. ✔️The market is the only one that decides if you win. Build the feedback loop with them, not around them. ✔️Stack this with the 3M model from last episode: must move, must maintain, must release. Together they're a daily execution system. Timestamps & Highlights: [00:00] — The 14-page Google Doc, the color-coded spreadsheet, and zero needle movement [01:18] — Procrastination with lipstick: why over-planning feels productive but isn't [03:30] — Less-prepared entrepreneurs stumbling into progress and why that works [05:00] — The real cost of over-planning: delay, distraction, and someone else ships first [07:00] — Jeff Bezos's 70% rule and why waiting for 100% costs you the moment [09:30] — Small concrete actions vs. elaborate strategies: the three things only action gives you [11:00] — Feedback: why no plan can give you what the market can [13:00] — Momentum: why it's built by moving, not built up to [15:00] — Clarity: why it comes after action, not before it [17:00] — The 24-hour rule explained: one question, one test, one next step [19:30] — What over-planning is really hiding: fear dressed as due diligence [21:00] — The recipe analogy: you can't eat dinner by staring at the kitchen [22:30] — George's challenge: identify your one thing and your one action in the next 24 hours Your Challenge This Week: You already know the thing you've been planning without executing. Write down the one action you can take in the next 24 hours. Not the launch. Not the full strategy. Just the first move. Then tell George what it is, DM him on Instagram or email through the site. Follow George: @itsgeorgebryant Work with George: The Alliance — Community for entrepreneurs committed to execution, not just planning. 1:1 Coaching — Limited spots. Live Retreats — In-person experiences for entrepreneurs ready to stop planning and start shipping. Follow for dates.
#368 | Dave sits down with Jonathan Hunt, VP of Content and Media at HubSpot, to talk about what it means to run a media company inside a software company, and why that framing changes everything about how you build a content team. Jonathan runs a 70-person operation reaching 50 million people a month across 17 YouTube channels and a creator network of 150. They get into how HubSpot thinks about the three jobs of content (demand gen, influence, and earned media value), why gated PDFs are dead and what's replacing them, how Jonathan's team built an AI clipping engine in a six-week sprint, and how to tell the measurement story to a public company's CFO. Plus: what Jonathan looks for when hiring, how creator partnerships actually work at scale, and why "creative freedom" without strategy is just chaos.Timestamps (00:00) - - - Jonathan Hunt, VP of Content and Media at HubSpot (03:17) - - - Running a media company inside a software company (07:47) - - - From the HubSpot blog to a network of 150 creators (11:22) - - - How to find creators (and the tool Jonathan recommends) (12:39) - - - The three jobs of content: demand gen, influence, and earned media value (17:22) - - - How to tell the measurement story to your CFO (20:42) - - - Why gated PDFs are dead and what converts now (24:00) - - - What actually works in creator partnerships (31:21) - - - The AI clipping engine HubSpot built in six weeks (45:38) - - - HubSpot's public code of ethics for AI use Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
What happens to the entire product development process when creating software becomes as easy as creating a Google Doc? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Jay Patel, Cartwheel CPO Sarah Turrin speaks on how the collapse of software costs is reshaping healthcare product leadership, why the era of CPOs as pure strategists is already over, and how she thinks about deploying AI in healthcare environments where a probabilistic model simply cannot be unleashed on patients without deterministic guardrails. Thirty days into her role at one of the nation's largest K-12 mental health platforms, Sarah brings a rare combination of clinical sensitivity, technical fluency, and genuine urgency about what product leaders need to do right now.
The Tropical MBA Podcast - Entrepreneurship, Travel, and Lifestyle
Brian O'Connor spent three years building a 40,000-person Twitter following, launched product after product into that audience, and made almost nothing. The turning point came when he stopped looking for clever ideas and started running a boring business where product market fit already exists. He wrote down everyone he knew, sent texts, and sold $20K of recruiting services off a single Google Doc in two weeks. Today he runs TalentHQ, a recruiting agency placing Latin American project managers into US businesses — built nomadically with a co-founder, now operating with a team of two plus AI. In this conversation: why reach and revenue have almost nothing to do with each other, how he turned a podcast into his primary acquisition channel, and what it actually looks like to build a service business from scratch in 2026. Guest: Brian O'Connor, Founder of Talent HQ Sponsor: wayfront.com/tmba Thanks to this week's sponsor Wayfront — the AI-ready operating system for productized agencies. One client portal. One team dashboard. All your data, AI-accessible. TMBA listeners get an extra free month on top of the trial at wayfront.com/tmba. Links: Business Resources Upcoming DC Events
#367 | Dave sits down with Jess Cook, VP of Marketing at Vector, to talk about how she spent $12K on seven micro-influencers with zero UTM tracking and generated $1.1M in pipeline. Jess also breaks down why she started a brand podcast as an awareness play, how a B2C copywriting background at major CPG brands shaped the way she thinks about brand and standing out in B2B, and what it actually takes to make the jump from content leader to VP of Marketing.Timestamps(00:00) - - Intro (07:00) - - Why influencer marketing made sense as a first channel (12:15) - - Tracking pipeline without UTMs: using keyword alerts (13:06) - - The results: 45 demos, 80%+ ICP, $1.1M in pipeline (15:45) - - Why loose briefs outperform tightly controlled campaigns (20:23) - - How to scale an influencer program when you're a team of two (23:01) - - How to make your podcast an awareness magnet (31:49) - - How to know if your podcast is working when you can't track it (37:01) - - LinkedIn: 37K followers in 3 years and how the content strategy works (44:58) - - Why brand and mascots aren't optional anymore in B2B Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more
Send us Fan MailThanks to Penguin Random House - Dell Romance, and author Anna McCallie for taking the time to talk about her debut novel, Abby Offsides.Support Anna:Read Abby Offsides Add on GoodreadsFollow Anna on InstagramBooks Mentioned in the Episode:The Last Page by Katie HoltInto the Blue by Emma BrodieWelcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen by Kate McGovernBe Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina GartenFor links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list. For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above. For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.
"There is nobody else out there putting out content like mine." I got to sit down in-person with one of my favorite TDE grads, Stacey Eddings—a New York City assistant principal who came into my world wanting to do health coaching and left knowing she was meant to serve a very different niche. In this episode Stacey and I are breaking down the messy, non-linear journey of finding your edge—growing from 222 followers to 22,000 on Instagram, how she made $10K from a low ticket offer, and strangers in Connecticut talking about her at dinner. This one is for anyone who feels like they're in the right lane but still can't get the content to click. → Apply for TDE: https://meganyelaney.com/tde → Say hi to Meg on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganyelaney/ → Say hi to Stacey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stacey_eddings/ → Get the full show notes (with all the links) here: https://meganyelaney.com/2026/06/24/10k-from-a-low-ticket-offer-and-tde
Send us Fan MailEvery reel, every caption, every time you show your face on camera — you're building something you can't fully see yet. You never know where all of this will lead until you get into action and start finding your voice.This is part two of my four-part series on how to use AI to market and grow your business on social media without losing what makes you you. Last week I covered the three biggest AI mistakes small business owners make. Today I'm diving into the four things AI actually needs from you if you want your content to stand out instead of blend in.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE01:19 Why Elizabeth is speaking to 150 people in Cincinnati — and what it proves about content compounding over time02:44 Why most small business owners are under-leveraging AI even though everyone is using it03:36 A quick recap of Part 1 — the three biggest AI mistakes (and how to avoid them)04:32 The missing ingredient in most people's AI content strategy: the human element05:00 Thing #1: Your stories — why your lived experience is the raw material of your brand06:52 Thing #2: Your opinions — where thought leadership actually lives09:34 Thing #3: Your client stories — what AI will never know unless you tell it11:50 Thing #4: Your perspective — the differentiator AI can't replicate13:44 Your homework this week: how to build your Story Vault in a Google Doc15:34 What's coming in Part 3 — the exact document Elizabeth built to train AI on her brand15:59 About the live workshop: Build Your AI Thought PartnerYOUR HOMEWORK: BUILD YOUR STORY VAULTOpen a Google Doc this week and create a document called My Story Vault. Add these four headings:Stories from my life (mistakes, wins, pivotal moments, childhood memories that connect to your work)Client success stories (transformations, results, things clients have said to you)Things I believe (your hot takes, opinions, frameworks, things you'd push back on in your industry)Questions my audience asks (the same questions you hear on sales calls, in DMs, in emails — every week)Add five items under each heading. That's it. Once you start feeding this into your AI conversations, the quality of everything it creates for you will shift dramatically.Links Mentioned:Build Your AI Thought Partner WorkshopPart 1 → Ep121: Everyone Has AI. Here's How to Stand Out Anyway.Hot Reels — my 12-month Instagram content lab. DM me the word HOT on @elizabethmarberryFree DM Automation Guide + 1 Month of ManyChat Free — DM me the word LEADS on @elizabethmarberryFree Monetize Your IG GuideWORK WITH ELIZABETH MARBERRYApply for your FREE Instagram Breakthrough Session with ElizabethFree guide to Monetize Your IG: Seven Simple and Proven Ways to Finally Make Money on InstagramFollow Elizabeth Marberry on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook Please be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple podcasts (or wherever you find your podcasts) so we can get this free value to other people who need it.
Rachel and Liz demonstrate how built-in AI features in JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion, including Picture Smart AI, Vispero Companion, Page Explorer, and AI Labeler, can help users better understand, navigate, and interact with inaccessible or complex digital content. Through real-world examples such as online calendars, Google Docs, email images, and grocery shopping websites, they show how these tools can simplify everyday tasks and improve productivity.
Undiscovered Entrepreneur ..Start-up, online business, podcast
Did you like the episode? Send me a text and let me know!! Productized Services: The Hourly Trap Debunked | Pi & Piette 2.0 | Business Conversations Episode Summary: Is charging by the hour slowly killing your business before it even starts? In this episode of Business Conversations with Pi and Piette 2.0, AI voices PI and Piette tackle one of the most critical decisions every founder faces: should you charge hourly or package your skills into a productized service from day one? Spoiler — the data says ditch the hourly model immediately. Drawing from John Warrillow's Built to Sell, Paul Jarvis' Company of One, a Journal of Business Research academic paper, and a raw interview with agency founder Brad Martin, this episode gives you a complete roadmap for building a service business that generates predictable revenue, eliminates scope creep, and ultimately doesn't need you in the room to run. What You'll Learn: Why the hourly billing model traps you in a revenue-for-effort death spiralThe three mandatory traits of a true productized service: specified, branded, pricedWhat the LUX Hotels Cinema Paradiso experience teaches us about mental tangibilityHow Brad Martin's Google Doc discovery process doubled his efficiency overnightThe "Jam Session" method for eliminating scope creep without damaging client relationshipsWhy retainers and recurring revenue are NOT the same thing — and which one actually builds business valueThe one question that forces you to stop thinking like an employee of your own companyTimestamps: [00:00:00] – Introduction & Today's Listener Question[00:01:30] – The Menu-Less Chef: Why the Custom Hourly Model Is Broken[00:03:00] – Brad Martin's Story: Giving Away the Farm Before the Contract[00:04:30] – The Hourly Trap: Why Your Business Becomes Unsellable[00:05:30] – Bespoke vs. Productized: Why the Tailor Analogy Actually Proves Our Point[00:06:30] – What Is a Productized Service? The Academic Definition[00:07:00] – The Cinema Paradiso Framework: Specified, Branded, Priced[00:08:00] – Mental Tangibility: Why Packaging Makes Clients Feel Safe[00:09:30] – Minimum Viable Profit: Paul Jarvis' Day-One Strategy[00:10:00] – Brad Martin's Google Doc Epiphany[00:11:30] – The Embarrassment Test: Launch Ugly, Launch Now[00:12:00] – Jam Sessions: The Genius Fix for Scope Creep[00:13:00] – Retainers vs. Recurring Revenue: A Critical Distinction[00:14:30] – Final Verdict & The Blank Check Thought Experiment[00:15:30] – Submit Your Question & Wrap-UpResources Mentioned:
Photographer Rick Sammon shows how AI is transforming creative work and what happens when the Pope issues a sweeping 42,000-word encyclical on artificial intelligence and invites tech skeptics and true believers to weigh in? The Pope's AI encyclical: technology, ethics, and human dignity Amazing interior, controversial exterior: Ferrari's first electric car Even if you hate AI, you will use Google AI Search There's a new way to create Google Docs with your voice White House, Anthropic near deal for spy agencies to use AI Claude Mythos preview uncovers 10,000+ zero-day vulnerabilities in Project Glasswing Anthropic to release Mythos-class models to the public Chinese AI startup DeepSeek slashes price of flagship model Spotify and Universal Music strike deal allowing fan-made AI covers and remixes ElevenLabs's new music generation model can switch genres mid-track David Sacks's 11th-hour plea led to Trump's backtrack on AI executive order I'm tired of talking to AI In Memoriam: Don Newhouse Picks of the Week: KMart Muzak Infinite Jeffs isaiprofitable.com Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Guest: Rick Sammon Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: trustedtech.team/intelligent365 zscaler.com/security
If you want to scale your real estate or coaching business from $5 million to over $10 million, organic reach alone isn't going to cut it. In this special episode, Brent Daniels sits in the hot seat at a live Coaching Inc. event, interviewed by Storyteller Jet, to drop massive knowledge bombs on scaling through paid traffic and content creation.Plus, if you are stuck at $5K to $10K a month, Brent gives you the undeniable blueprint to hit six figures: get over your fear of other people's opinions, stop being selfish with your knowledge, and start livestreaming. If you want to leave a legacy of teaching and impact, this episode is your masterclass. Be a part of the TTP training program now.---------Show notes:(0:00) Beginning of today's episode(1:24) Brent's origin story and how Rich Dad Poor Dad inspired his entrepreneurial journey(2:20) Evolving from wholesaling and coaching to running a high-level Google Ads agency(4:29) Breaking down the "Alex Hormozi" content multiplication strategy(5:38) Why Meta rewards fresh creatives and why you need 30 to 40 new ads every month(7:03) Using a Video Sales Letter (VSL) to pre-qualify your inbound leads(9:25) How enforcing a minimum ad spend ($5,000/mo) protects your sales team(13:38) Biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when outsourcing their Google Ads to consultants(18:16) Stuck at $5K to $10K a month? Why you need to start livestreaming 10 hours a week(20:00) Overcoming the fear of judgment and accents to build a massive audience online(23:08) Using Zoom and a live Google Doc to control discovery calls(25:27) Why slowing down a prospect by taking live notes helps you gauge if they are a good fit(26:36) How Tom Kroll helps entrepreneurs find their true "why" and avoid burnout(29:51) Why overcoming your fear of judgment is the key to leaving a lasting legacy----------Resources:Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert KiyosakiAlex HormoziMyron GoldenTom KrollJoe McCallJeremy HaynesEcamm LiveStreamYardHubSpot@realbrentdaniels on InstagramTo speak with Brent or one of our other expert coaches call (281) 835-4201 or schedule your free discovery call here to learn about our mentorship programs and become part of the TribeGo to Wholesalingincgroup.com to become part of one of the fastest growing Facebook communities in the Wholesaling space. Get all of your burning Wholesaling questions answered, gain access to JV partnerships, and connect with other "success minded" Rhinos in the community.It's 100% free to join. The opportunities in this community are endless, what are you waiting for?
Winston Weinberg is the CEO and co-founder of Harvey, the AI platform built for the legal industry. In this episode, Winston explains how AI is reshaping legal work, why judgment becomes more valuable as routine work gets automated, and how to build the prioritization muscle required to move faster, stay focused, and make better decisions when everything is changing. He also shares the operating principles behind Harvey's growth: make decisions faster, treat most choices as two-way doors, use stress to build resilience, prioritize the one thing that matters most and the Google Doc that drives it all. Harvey began with a simple test: take real legal questions, run them through GPT-3, and ask experienced lawyers whether they would send the answers with zero edits. On 86 out of 100 questions, three out of three attorneys said yes. This is a conversation about AI, law, speed, resilience, and building in a world where the bar keeps getting higher. ------ Timestamps: (00:00:00) “The List” that Powers Winston's $11B Business (00:02:20) How to Say “No” Like a CEO (00:07:26) The 3 Principles for Strong Decision-Making (00:08:18) How Harvey is Changing the Legal World (00:11:36) One Cold Email to Sam Altman that Changed Everything (00:12:56) The Demo Strategy that Shocked Investors (00:17:55) Advice Winston Didn't Take (00:19:34) The Deal that Almost Killed Harvey (00:21:56) How to Build Resilience to Failure (00:24:00) How Winston Hacks His Stress (00:29:36) The Key to Creating a Sense of Urgency on Your Team (00:31:29) The Kinds of People Not to Hire at Startups (00:35:09) How to Screen for Resiliency in Interviews (00:41:49) Winston's Advice for Law Students (00:45:28) Would AI Make a Better Lawyer than a Human? (00:48:54) The Future of Agent-Powered Law Firms (00:49:14) Will AI Cause Law Firms to Shrink? (00:52:45) Can AI-Only Law Firms Exist? (00:54:52) Why Legal Costs Aren't Going Down (00:56:48) Three Principles All Entrepreneurs Need to Follow (01:00:54) How Winston Defines Success ------ Newsletter: The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter ------ Follow Shane Parrish: X: https://x.com/shaneparrish Insta: https://www.instagram.com/farnamstreet/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-parrish-050a2183/ Follow Winston Weinberg LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winston-weinberg/ Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai/blog/author/winston-weinberg ------ Thank you to the sponsors for this episode: +CoinShares: Delivering Reason to Digital Asset Investing. https://coinshares.com/ +Granola AI, The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings: https://www.granola.ai/shane Check out the Granola Notes. HeyGen is a message-first AI video platform that helps people and AI agents turn ideas into professional video in minutes. Try for free at https://www.heygen.com/ Join the salty rebellion: https://drinklmnt.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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