EXPERT SERIES: Don’t Destroy Your List! Email Advice with Amy Griffin

Do you use any form of email in your marketing? I. And have you ever used AI to write copy for you? Doesn’t matter how you answered either of those questions because I guarantee you are gonna learn something from today’s episode. This is an expert episode where we are speaking with health and wellness, email marketer and copywriter, Amy Griffin.

Amy is sold millions of dollars in health and wellness products over the years from supplements to shakes and online courses. We get into why you need to be using email if you’re not now, and if you are already. Then how to get better results as well. A big topic on everyone’s mind at this point. AI specifically, if you are using AI to write copy for you, what are some of the dangers and things that you should go check your copy for right now?

 I’m Joel Oliver, and this is Profits Through Podcasting. Amy, welcome in.

Hey, thanks.

I’d like to ask you first, what led you into writing specifically for the health and wellness space? Since everyone here both listening, myself and you are in that niche, how did you get there?

Well, I mean, whew, it’s kind of a long, a long journey, but, both of my parents, got cancer in their fifties and they both passed away. My mom had a glioblastoma and my dad had a very rare form of liver cancer, and it just kind of sent me down this rabbit hole of like, what in the world? Why did this happen?

You know, um, how can I prevent it from happening to me? I’m a single mom. I don’t wanna leave my, my son. How can I be better and healthier? And then I’ve also had a kind of a lifelong struggle with my hormones.

You know, I’m a very detail oriented person, so I just kept researching and researching and researching and researching, and then turned my, my marketing experience into health and wellness marketing.

So.

Interesting. So every, yeah, we’ve got a backstory there as to why you went down that path, which is, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s interesting to hear what inspires people, but I’m so grateful that this space exists. Unfortunately, you know, like in your case there was a, a sad story there, but there’s so much more information out there these days.

Than just being able to go to your doctor and kind of having to live with whatever you’re told. Like, I, I, that’s what I like about this. So I think you and I both have similar inspiration for being here, although not quite the same, but it’s great to be part of being able to get that information out there and, and see other people’s lives change for it.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of times I see a lot of, a lot of pearl clutching online of, you know, oh, people are getting their health information from influencers, you know? And it’s like, well, yeah, because the system that we have doesn’t give us information. You know, when you’re basically given seven minutes to talk to a doctor and you’re dismissed and you’re just sent on your way, of course people are gonna look to each other and look to other avenues to learn about their bodies. You know, it’s like we, we shouldn’t have to have permission to know how things work.

Okay.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, okay, let’s get into what we’re gonna talk about here today. So you, you write copy, you do emails. Everything is constantly changing these days faster than ever when it comes to marketing, social media especially. And so many of us rely on that. Not not everyone, but uh, that specifically changes so fast and, you know, things that worked, stop working email despite many naysayers is still hanging in there.

It’s still working. Do we see as much change in terms of what works and doesn’t with email or is it kind of just the tried and true stuff continues to work?

I mean, that’s one of the things that I love about email is it’s, you know, kind of the survivor of the internet. You know, it’s Tried and true things work. The formulas still work, nurturing your audience, educating your audience, especially in the health and wellness space. It works.

So that’s why we keep sending, sending emails. I think that, email is one of the few places where you’re in control. When you’re on social media, when you’re, you know, scrolling, you’re getting served ads that other people decide you’re getting served content that the algorithm decides for email, you’re in charge.

You’re the one who says, yes, I’m inviting you into my inbox, and I’d like to learn more. And there’s this kind of like permission based relationship there that I think makes it extra powerful. And again, especially when it comes to health and wellness it gives you a really, a really great opportunity to build that know, like, and trust to, help people find the solutions.

So definitely something that we should be invested in as entrepreneurs.

Definitely. I mean, If you’ve got a podcast and you’re not getting people from the podcast to your email list, you’re missing out on your best revenue channel because when people are in the zone of consuming a certain type of media, they tend to stay there. So yes, on the podcast, they’re going to get to know you, like trust, all of that.

Getting them to the email list is gonna make it easier to convert. Same thing with your social, use your social media as a channel to get people onto your email list also, because that’s the land that you own. I had a client. Earlier this year that she got de platformed at over 200,000 Instagram followers.

Wow.

without a list, she would’ve been outta business, you know?

Yeah. Wow. That’s an, that’s a great example of why this matters. We don’t

You don’t know. You know, especially in this space because you say the wrong thing and. Somebody reports you for, you know, medical misinformation or whatever the, the misunderstanding might be, and that’s it. You’re done, you know.

Yep. Okay. That’s a great intro to why we need email. I would hope that most people have something going at this point, but let’s say in the event that someone is not using email marketing at all, or at least not to the full possible extent, can you give us a quick rundown of what’s the bare minimum that a health and wellness online entrepreneur should have in place when it comes to email?

Well, the first thing should be a good welcome sequence. So a welcome sequence is an automated set of emails. And again, yeah, I’m assuming most people already know what this is, but sometimes people don’t. So an automated set of emails that helps introduce your story. Really. Forms that bond of trust and gives people an intro to your world, to your ecosystem.

You do it right and it’s the highest grossing set of emails that you should have. And then once they’re done with your welcome sequence, it can be anywhere from.

Ideally five to 10 emails. If you don’t have bandwidth to do that, many, just do three. And then transition to, to ideally once a week, anything less than that and people tend to forget to look for you in the inbox kind of thing.

So, that would be my recommendation for bare minimum.

Bare minimum. Okay, so welcome sequence. Is that going to be connected to a lead magnet or how would they actually get on that list or their variety of ways?

Yeah, I mean, typically you wanna come up with a, a lead magnet of some sort, whether that be a quiz, whether that be some sort of a resource that is very outcome focused. A lot of people get tripped up on that, you know, like you want to be able to solve a problem quickly, obviously without giving medical advice or, you know, violating any FDA regulations, but you want to solve a problem that people are looking for a solution.

Got it. Yeah, adding this, uh, email funnel has been great for us. I know personally, like most calls that we would get booked are not right after they download the lead magnet. Some were, ’cause we do have it on the, the thank you page, but they’re from email. I. I think that’s gonna be the case in a lot of instances where they’re not just gonna listen to a podcast episode and immediately come and buy your course or book a call or whatever.

We need that nurture there, so I’ve definitely seen firsthand the benefits of email if you’re not using it, it’s really just leaving money on the table.

Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. And you know, obviously, when you’ve got a podcast it’s easy to say, here’s your code to go save. You know, that’s easy. Sitting on to write an email can be a little bit more labor intensive and a little bit more annoying.

I get that. But push through.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So anybody with email that is set up now to some extent, maybe it’s a welcome sequence, maybe it’s a little more, and they’re curious if my copy is good, is this working at all? Could I improve the copy in all these emails or one email? what could they go look at and assess right now?

And what is something that you commonly see that’s like, that’s a problem in this area?

Well, I see a lot of problems. the first thing is we have a tendency to want to talk about ourselves, which is important. You, you want to showcase your personality. You want people to get to know you, but the main thing is you want to show what you can do for your customer. there.

Only question is what’s in it for me? That unless you are the most talented writer and have the best stories, and you are so funny, people are there because they wanna know what’s in it for me. So that’s, that’s where I see most people get tripped up. The, especially for, for doctors. There’s a lot, you know, tied up in that kind of prestige and all of their education.

So they wanna talk about how qualified they are and how, you know, stuff like that. Honestly, people don’t wanna read that. People wanna read about. How can you help me feel better? So that’s the main thing. I see a lot of people get tripped up on subject lines. When it comes to email, I think I.

Writing in general. You know, we all in school, were taught to use $10 words and sound super smart and, make it as complicated and complex as possible to showcase your intelligence. Writing online and writing emails isn’t like that. People are busy. They need something that’s scannable, that’s easily digestible.

And that is, that is a, a challenge in this space because, you know. We don’t wanna be like providing surface level results, you know, surface level advice. A lot of times, you know, the answer is, it depends. And, you need to come in and you need to work through my one-on one-on-one program and, everything like that.

So I’m not trying to discount that. But when it comes to your emails and it comes to your writing, simple. Simple, simple, simple is, is what converts. Choose, choose one main idea for your, for your emails. A lot of people get trapped in trying to, um. Use too many, too many CTAs. One idea, one CTA per email is usually plenty.

And then to go back to subject lines, people, people write this, the, those very complicated, long-winded email, and then they put their, the title of their term paper at the, at the top and, and make that their subject line. So. That’s the most important thing because without a compelling and curiosity inducing subject line, nobody’s gonna open your email.

all of that hard work that you you did on writing it, nobody’s gonna read it. So definitely focus on curiosity. When it comes to subject lines. couple of easy shortcuts are, put a number in there. Go through your email and see, see what would make this funny. What would make someone want to read this?

Always include if you can’t, if you can’t think of anything else, include the word. You, include the word this. These are, these are easy like shortcuts that, you know, make your subject line open rates jump up.

So interesting to hear from a professional who does this stuff all the time because you, that’s like, that’s what you’re paying for. You hire someone like you, you know, these little secrets that just make it work versus what everyone else would not know.

Yeah, it’s, it is crazy because you, I think everybody does know this, you know,

mm-hmm. Right.

like you look at your inbox and you think, wow, this is horrible. How. many emails get sent out every day that don’t get read because the subject line is terrible. So.

Okay, so that’s some of the basics. That’s great stuff. Subject line, single call to action, making sure that the text is actually simple and straightforward. So. We could evaluate our own messages right now, even just based off that, to see if we’re making any big mistakes. When it comes to numbers too, ’cause a lot of these email platforms have various numbers and statistics you can look at in reports to see what’s, what’s getting open, what’s not getting open, what’s getting clicked.

Should we be putting any credence into that as well?

Well, I mean, first things first, as far as like. Your welcome sequence goes when once someone downloads your e your lead magnet, that’s when they’re like the most excited to hear about you when, when they first encounter your content. Once they get that lead magnet, that open rate should be. 65, 70 5% or more, the click through rate should be really high as well.

10, 20, 30, percent because people are looking for that information at that moment.

you’re talking about the specific email that would have the lead magnet in it

yes, the first, the first email in the sequence. So if you’re not seeing that. It could be a couple of things. Number one, you might need to warm up your domain because if you’re just starting to send out emails your email could be going to the, to the junk. So, so there could be a problem with deliverability, which is always another little tricky thing about emails is that, you know, you could go through all this work and then it ends up in the junk, which you don’t wanna do.

know. Yeah, that’s that. Side note there. It’s funny too, you know, when we talk about like, is a consultant worth money and that sort of thing. Remember that story where the guy fixes the, the boat and he just, it takes him two seconds, but he knew exactly where to hit the hammer.

Like, that’s the kind of thing because, uh, we had been doing email for a while and like just nothing was working. And I was saying, what is going on here? And, you know, one of the first things the consultants, our marketing consultant pointed out is like, uh, all these are going to the junk. No one is getting, no one is opening the email.

So that was the whole thing.

Yeah, I mean that’s, a lot of people see that and they, a lot of people just are exactly the same. They say email doesn’t work, email is dead. Nobody opens emails. And it’s like, well, let’s talk about this for a second.

for a second. Yeah. All these are unopened status. Okay.

Yes. So, yeah, that’s, that’s a huge thing to pay attention to with your numbers. If, if you start off. And it feels like you’re not getting the numbers. Nobody’s excited, nobody’s reading. It’s probably because your emails are going to junk and you need to warm up your domain, so

So that’d be the first one. And then from there, if you just look, let’s say we have a 10 email welcome sequence and we look at the numbers across those, any big red flags that would stand out, like that’s not working well.

and I mean that’s, that is the great thing about this kind of marketing is that the data is so readily available so you can, you can plug the holes. in your ship, you know, if you see one where the click-through rate is low or the open rate is down, or you know, then you just change the subject line.

You can, it’s easy to test. You don’t have to, go through this whole rigmarole and redesign something. so yeah, if you’re going through the welcome sequence and you, and you see. Spots that could, could be better. Tweak your subject line, try something different. Do something, add an emoji. Emojis also tend to open, not across the board, but they tend to also increase open rates.

Add a, add an emoji, add in the number, add in the word you, you know, that kind of thing. And then if the click through rate is low, you’ve gotta look at how you’re positioning the CTA. A lot of people do get tripped up on trying to give too much information instead of teasing it and then having them hit the button.

Ideally, an email should be kind of a bridge between the person and going to the next piece of content, the email isn’t, the, isn’t the end all be all.

Okay. Got it. for you who specializes in a specific niche, there’s big value in working with someone like that. How have you seen this play out in the work that you are doing for clients in the women’s health space?

Like do you have any either stories or just general thoughts on things that you’ve seen in the past where they’ve worked with maybe a general copywriter or even kind of DIY. Versus when they started coming to work with you, like what were some things you noticed that needed to be fixed or some issues that they had been having?

one of the big things especially in women’s health is, the challenge with spam filters. So you can’t use. Anatomically correct words, for body parts there’s a lot of things that you cannot say or otherwise you’re gonna end up in spam. A lot of people don’t understand FDA compliance and then they get in trouble.

And that actually happened to a client of mine recently where, you know, they’d been saying. Calling their product this and that for forever and ever and ever. And I was like, you can’t do that. And then I got proved right? Unfortunately. So, you do have to be very careful. You know, alls it takes is somebody, somebody with a.

A, a little bit of spite in their heart to, to report you and start an FDA investigation that can cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. So, compliance is, is very, very important. I mean, yeah, you can get your products taken down. If you’re selling on Amazon, same thing. It can be very, a very costly mistake to make.

So yeah, I’ve had, I’ve had. some worst case seeing, some worst case scenario things happen for people that I wish I was able to save them from. But yeah, especially in women’s health, it’s, it can, it can be very difficult if someone doesn’t understand compliance and or the whole creative way to say, to say things without being boring, that’s the other key, you know, to, to keep it, to keep it sort of fun and lighthearted as to, you know, well we can’t say this, but we, you know, we’re gonna call it that kind of thing

Right, right.

around.

Or use an emoji. Well, okay. That’s great. That actually would lead well into this next section that I want to talk about, and I wanna avoid sounding biased here. I don’t want to sound like salespeople for hiring humans, but because we’re both humans in an industry where AI is kind of encroaching, but.

That’s like, that’s every industry. But I do wanna have a bit of a chat here about the issues with using AI or the cautions to be aware of, because both of us have seen people rush to use AI for their copy. I’ve seen it for podcasts, and the fact is, at least at this point in time, in a lot of cases, it’s not done a good job.

So it’s good for people to be aware. As we, you know, everyone’s rushing out to just use it and toss it in their email. If you have used AI to spit out all your email marketing and copy, what are some potential issues that you’ve seen or that you could caution people to look for?

Like, this is not a great aspect of what it puts out there.

110%. I mean, I, yeah, I don’t wanna like AI bash, but It is still not a very good marketer. and it’s certainly not a good marketer as far as compliance goes. It, it’s kind of actually scary because I also do a lot of like really research backed, science intensive blog posts where so, so like I take.

Someone from the email to read the blog post. And that’s where the conversion happens. And AI will literally just completely and totally make up a, a reference, like a, an author for a study that doesn’t exist and it will like, just insist that it’s true. Um, so that’s, that’s actually really frustrating.

And, and if you, are relying on it to, to try and get you through that, that 2000 word blog post, like it’s it’s dangerous territory. And then, I actually had a client that has a huge newsletter, this is a horrible, worst case scenario kind of story, but you know, a hundred thousand people on the list.

People that were dedicated readers, every week reading this newsletter, gobbling it up, loving it. Great, great source of revenue for the company. And then they started a podcast and instead of like sitting down and writing the email and teasing it, they took the transcript, send it through chat GPT, and just had it spit out a email and had the, had, the VA or whatever, send out the email. Well, it literally, after, I mean a very, very short time, we’re talking like a matter of weeks. It pretty much tanked the entire list. All of all of the campaigns that we were sending it, we just saw this massive decrease in deliverability engagement, interest in everything. And it’s been months and we’re still not back to where we were. Just from sending out ai slop it basically just kind of broke that trust, broke that interest. You know, email is, it’s a, it’s kind of a cumulative environment, you know, every email builds upon the other.

And if you think about the emails that you like getting, there’s a relationship there, there’s an expectation, there’s a, you get excited when you see it.

’cause you know this is going to be a good story, you know, this is gonna be something that’s relevant, something that’s valuable. When all of a sudden a brand sends out something that doesn’t have that same vibe now, now you’re trust is broken, you’re not interested, the spell is lifted and it’s so much harder to to get that attention back.

Right. And so you’re the what, what you think happened there is that essentially people had been, had come to really enjoy this newsletter for what it was and the writing style and the content, and they literally saw this and just. It was such low quality, they just kind of gave up on it.

Yep. and deliverability was affected as well. So now, you know, you’ve gotta work on getting out of that junkie mailbox, getting, you know. Out of the, the promo tab kind of thing. it may seem like this great cost effective shortcut, and I’m sure there are people that have, have different, different experiences, but from what I’ve seen, I would say use it, use with caution.

Right. Maybe someday it will get better. Maybe there’s a way to prompt it to be better. But I think we’re gonna pay a big price here for just this, this craze everyone seems to be in, of just firing out AI stuff. Look how much time I’m saving. If you’re still writing emails, you’re an idiot because like, look, I did it in five seconds.

I. But it’s garbage, you know? It’s, it’s no good. And that was a great example of what you gave. And again, like I said, I don’t want to just say, well, it’s AI is completely useless. It makes no sense to, you know, I’m not saying that, but I have seen some crazy stuff as well, uh, in the podcasting space. I’ve seen people’s show notes, I’ve seen at the bottom, is this your style or could I rewrite this for you?

Like, they’re just not even looking at it. Pasting it in there, or, uh, insert link here. Like, okay, use ai, but how about we, you know, take five seconds to try to assure that it’s a quality piece of content you’re putting out for your audience. And I, you’re gonna pay a price if you, if that’s the amount of effort you’re putting into stuff.

There’s no doubt about it in my mind. I think we’re, we’re headed for a big reality check.

Yeah, I mean, it’s. Because I do think it sheds a light on this whole like ecosystem of content marketing because like the only reason content marketing really works is because people want connection. People want a relationship. People want to feel like they know you, they want to feel like you care about them. And AI just takes that out of the equation and it makes it very transactional.

it makes it so plain that you don’t really feel like putting in the effort. And I, it makes me personally wonder like, what is the point here, you know, for us all to just never have to use our brains and never have to use our bodies. And then like, what is the point of life?

I’m so confused, but I know I’m odd in that, in that respect. Everybody wants to save time and, and I get that, but,

they’re calling it AI brain now, where you’re not capable of producing your own thought. You have to just immediately look it up, and I’m guilty of doing that sometimes. It’s so convenient.

Something I’m curious to get you to speak on as well while we’re on this topic is the whole trust thing.

’cause I think this is specific, uh, especially important in the health and wellness space. Now, not everyone is a doctor necessarily, where it’s like your life is on the line, but even still, we’re looking to people as authorities for health advice and. I think this matters. So when I see stuff posted, even if it’s like Instagram with a, a spelling mistake in it, or what we’re talking about here with this weird AI stuff, you know, I think that matters.

I think that does add up and I, I think it’s gonna be a problem for people, uh, moving forward if we have these, these leaks of trust. Do you agree with that or what are you seeing there when it comes to like the content we’re putting out and how it builds or breaks trust?

Yeah, I mean, I, I 110% agree with you. I think, again, especially in health and wellness. Yeah. You don’t have to be a doctor. You don’t have to have a certain set of letters after your name. You don’t have to have any of that. To build an authentic brand. But you do have to have a human element. Someone that cares, someone that cares enough to at least, like you say, spell, check the spell, check the post.

Although I have seen actually people saying put in a couple of, put in a couple of spelling errors to make it feel more human. I’m like.

When I put content out, I proofread it, so Right. But maybe that’s the direction we’re going. Things are getting so weird these days, so who knows. Yeah. And

Yeah. And I, I guess that is the problem is that, you know, we just, nobody knows. No, it’s all moving so fast that nobody knows exactly what’s gonna stick, what’s gonna work. But what has worked throughout eons of human evolution is relationship building. And, again, that’s why content marketing works is.

Is the relationship building piece of it that helps people feel seen and helps ’em feel heard. When, when you’re struggling with something with your health and having someone listen to you, having someone at least try to offer some sort of a solution I. You know, that’s where, you know, like I was saying, the, the traditional medical system kind of falls down where, you know, they, they don’t wanna hear you, they don’t wanna see you.

They give you seven minutes and a prescription for something that’s going to, you know, give you, 20,000 times worse side effects than what what you currently are struggling with. And that’s it. So, you know, people want the opposite of that. People, people want. Want a real human that’s actually going to care about if they feel well.

Absolutely. Yeah. So unless it’s something physical like a product or a service that people need, I think very few of us are safe from ai completely. You know, even a health coach, I. I could just ask track GPT to spit me out a meal plan or something like that. Like, it’s gonna affect everyone.

So I’m curious, just from, from an entrepreneur’s perspective, for you, what’s been on your mind in terms of demonstrating your benefits? We, we kind of got into it a bit here, but your benefits as a human writer versus just, uh, AI can do it for way less than 30 seconds. I’m just gonna use that. What have you been kind of promoting out there?

I am getting a lot of people kind of showing up with like piles and piles and piles of stuff that they’ve put into chat GPT, and they don’t know which direction to go. It’s like there’s all this information, but you still need someone to, to tell you exactly what to do because unfortunately with marketing.

A lot of it is a science, but some of it is an art. And if there was an exact formula that you just do A, B, C, and D and you got the results, everybody would be billionaires and, you know,

everybody.

there, there wouldn’t, there wouldn’t be marketers. So, there’s still like a big. Need for the strategy piece, and I’ve actually been saying this for years.

You know, as a copywriter, like we, we should stop calling ourselves copywriters because number one, we would never let our clients call themselves something so vague and confusing. And it doesn’t speak to the results that we can provide. It’s not outcome driven. So, you know what I always did was called myself a copywriter and then did a whole heap of strategy that I didn’t really charge for.

So, so basically to me, I’m doing the same, the same exact thing, but just leaning more into strategy. And then copywriting is kind of like. The little, little extra bit that I’m not really charging for. So

Mm-hmm.

I don’t know if that applies to any other industries or not, but I’m definitely, like I said, seeing a lot of the, there’s just so much information.

You can, you can put in the chat. GPT. Yeah. Write me, you know, a Russell Brunson style funnel for this. Product or course that I’m thinking of, and it will spit out a bunch of stuff, a bunch and a bunch of stuff that’s mediocre. But without the direction of someone who actually has some experience and can actually guide you through which stuff to take next.

It’s almost useless because it’s so overwhelming.

Right. And maybe it could do that someday too, but I definitely agree right now, these services that it’s able to quickly replace the strategy is, is so important and it’s interesting to see what AI spits out, you know, and I’ve tried it myself, especially when it comes to writing here.

I have an affinity for old school, like quality content, you know, where we actually cared about it and people made it. I like that. Maybe we’re gonna be old school in the sense that people aren’t, they’re not gonna care anymore. That it has mistakes in it, that it’s just fired out what you know. Video editing is all choppy.

Now. Content writing is just bland. Maybe that’s just gonna be, that’s the thing. They’re like, look, your way costs 10 times more and takes way longer, and it doesn’t justify. The RO i’s not there. So maybe we’re just gonna go all AI. And that’s just where we’re gonna be. But personally, when I’ve written some stuff, like I’ve tried it in, you know, chat GT or grok or whatever, versus writing my own, it’s not right.

Like I’m not even a writer, but I’ve even said like, can you just, here’s what I wrote. Can you make this better? And, you know, make it suitable for LinkedIn and it just ruins it. It’s not what I wanted. And it just sounds like everything else, I don’t know what to do with it or how to prompt it, but at the end of the day.

It’s just not right. It’s not what it was supposed to be. So I just end up finding it was easier to just write it myself in the first place. And maybe that will pay off in terms of like engagement and impressions and people will like it. Or maybe I could compare it and find that, you know, the AI version would’ve done better or just as good.

And I thought, why’d I spend an hour writing this? I don’t know. But it feels wrong to me for sure to see that stuff that it just spits out and to, and to use that.

Yeah, I, I have to agree. I’ve taken courses on the prompting. I’ve taken, you know, all sorts of classes because don’t wanna get left behind. And, you know, the people that aren’t using these tools are gonna be the ones who are outta business. and I think, you know, in marketing in general, things, people get really excited about things and then they die away.

And then the old stuff comes back and, personally I can still sniff it from a mile away. When you’re scrolling through LinkedIn or, or you know, wherever and you see a post that isn’t, that is AI generated and, and especially the AI comments. you know, it just makes me laugh. There’s just a vibe to it that just, it doesn’t feel right. It’s just lacking in depth. It’s lacking in imagination because at the end of the day, AI doesn’t have imagination. It can’t, it can’t ideate.

That’s basically it. It’s downfall is that it’s just together everything that. Everyone else has already written. And you know, personally, as someone who’s written over 2 million words that are on the internet, so it’s stolen all of my work, all of my blood, sweat, and tears kind of makes me a little, at first it made me angry.

Now I’m just like, whatever. It is what it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. But where are we headed with all this? What, what is the point? You know? I mean, to me, I see, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie Wally, but my son used to love that movie when he was little, and

I like that movie. Yeah.

it’s like this is the future I see us steering towards, you know, it’s just like. Man, we’re all, you know, we have no, no bone mass and no muscle mass, and we’re all just, we’re all just sitting in our chairs drinking a big gulp, letting the, letting the computer run the show.

Yeah. Yeah.

not the future I want personally,

no. And we’ll see, because we don’t get to dictate what the future becomes, but I can say ideally I would love to see people rise to the top, that we’re continuing to put some actual effort and humanness into their work, you know? So, we’ll see. I don’t wanna be a naysayer either, and it’s gonna, whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen, but.

Just my personal view on things. Just if you’re churning out a bunch of junk, why is that going to rise to the top? I don’t think that it will.

Yeah, I, I feel exactly the same way. And I, I, I had a bit of an existential crisis, you know, because I think because it hit my industry hardest. You know, I was like, what is, what even is life? What is going on? Like, oh my gosh. And then I kind of came to that realization like, wait a second. Cream always rises to the top if you’re doing good work, if you are, if you are being interesting, if you care about people.

Those are the things that matter and always have and probably always will, hopefully. And, writing your own stuff is part of that.

Yes. And that strategy, like you talked about, is important too. That’s for people that are trying to do business out here, I need that part. ’cause otherwise you’re just gonna end up with some emails you paid someone for or you used AI for. And no business still, still nothing is working. So, like you said, what do I do now?

 Okay. So we’ve covered some great stuff. The importance of email. We’ve looked at the, the cautions around ai, the imp, like the benefits of using a person. I think that’s all great. I would’ve like to ask a final question here. That’s a bit of a different direction, but you, you, something you mentioned to me in a conversation that did make me quite curious because.

you mentioned that you have a ton of business come through referrals. So this is a little different from email, but so many of us love referrals for a lot of different reasons. Uh, I was just curious, as an entrepreneur, did you do anything to help encourage additional referrals or optimize that, or are you just literally sitting back and letting them just come in from your clients?

Gosh, I am literally the worst marketer when it comes to marketing my own business. I, I I, I don’t know what it is. I just, I put in like a little bit of effort and then like I. The universe like sweeps in and just inundate me with, with good things. I don’t know why that is.

I’ve, but I’ve just always been very lucky people. My clients have always sung my praises and always. Just referred me to other people. You know, other contractors that I’ve worked with have always referred me to other people. I, I wish that I had this like, great strategy of things that I’ve done to, to make that happen.

but other than just. Never missing a deadline, always showing up, doing my best work, really and truly caring from the depth of my soul about the quality of my work. That’s it. I I, I really literally have, have never come up with any sort of strategy around creating referrals. I’m sorry.

No, that’s, that’s great to hear. I like to hear others’ experiences around it as well. That’s really it. Doing good work. People are happy to refer you. The, the thing that we found in our business though is just we grew to a certain point and we wanted to grow more. And referrals, they still come, but they only kind of got us so far.

Like we needed more referrals. We launched a referral program and that sort of thing, only to find people really tell us, like, Joel, I don’t want any money. I don’t care. I’ll happily refer anyone to you. Anyway, it was just a matter of how many people they had. Right. So it’s great to hear that you were able to have a great business largely from referrals.

Yeah, I mean, it’s been, it’s quite a blessing. You know, I, I am a single mom. I’ve been a single mom for 17 years, and there was, there was many years of my life where, you know, I worked for the whole entire month driving back and forth in Atlanta traffic to bring home $2,800. You know, like, the, this business has been such a blessing to our lives and I’m so grateful for it.

and I’m also very lucky that, I can only do so much, you know, there, I can’t really, if I wanna scale, I’ve gotta hire people. I’ve gotta hire other writers and.

Wait, you haven’t turned yourself into a chat GPT bot yet, and just doing copy for 5 billion people.

So, yeah, I, uh, I can only do so much. My calendar stays very full and you know, I’m, I’m very blessed that, that I have the kind of business model that I do, and I understand most people don’t. You know, you’ve gotta work with more people at scale in order to make it work. But, uh, for me, so far, I haven’t had to do that.

Because I don’t like managing people.

Well, let’s hope it’s all it’s continuing for you. ’cause you definitely have the expertise here. There’s no doubt about it. So whatever shift that may have to happen in the future, you’ve got that strategy expertise clearly much more beyond, uh, a chat GPT AI written email. So, really appreciate you sharing your insight.

This was extremely helpful. And it’s Amy Griffin at griffincopy.com. We’ll put your link in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much. This was so enjoyable.