Author's Edge: the go-to Marketing podcast in Publishing

AI and Outsourcing: How to Streamline Your Marketing in 5 Simple Steps with Jen Lehner | Ep. 50

• Allison Lane • Episode 50

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Feeling overwhelmed by marketing your book or personal brand? You don’t have to do it all alone. In this episode, Allison Lane sits down with Jen Lehner, marketing strategist, systems expert, and outsourcing pro, who shares 5 powerful ways to streamline your marketing using AI, automation, and virtual assistants. 

Whether you’re an author, speaker, or business leader looking to grow your audience without burning out, this episode will help you work smarter, not harder, so you can focus on what you do best.

Tune in to learn how to market your book in a way that fits your strengths and lifestyle.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to hire the right virtual assistant and delegate like a pro.
  • The AI tools that can handle tasks for you.
  • Why short-form video is key for brand growth.
  • Outdated marketing tactics that just don’t work anymore.

Resources Mentioned:

  • Connect with Jen Lehner: https://jenlehner.com
  • The Front Row Podcast for Entrepreneurs: https://jenlehner.com/podcast 
  • Jen’s VA Hiring Program: https://www.jensprograms.com/work-with-me 
  • App Sumo for business tools: https://appsumo.com/ 
  • AI Tools Mentioned: Notebook LM, Google AI Studio, ChatGPT, Claude
  • Recommended Books:
    • Mel Robbins' book “The Let Them Theory” A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781401971366 
    • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9780143110439
    • Table for Two by Amor Towles: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9780593296370

Timestamps:

  • [00:02:04] The biggest branding mistake most authors make.
  • [00:07:43] Why you shouldn’t try to do everything yourself.
  • [00:15:30] The easiest way to create 25 social media posts in one hour.
  • [00:22:18] How AI tools can revolutionize your book marketing.
  • [00:34:38] The

Your book launch is your chance to build your visibility and grow your audience. In the Bestseller Launch School guided program, I'll show you how to get buzz before your book hits the shelves, master pre-orders and early sales to get attention and keep sales going long after launch day. Live trainings start April 30th - June 11. Grab your seat now: https://lanelit.com/bestseller 

 No matter how you're publishing, you need to launch your book like a pro. Join me 7-week guided program: Bestseller Launch School. Live trainings start April 30. Grab your seat NOW!  https://lanelit.com/bestseller  

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Jen:

The magic that you have been looking for is hiding inside the work you have been avoiding.

Allison:

Welcome back to the Author's Edge, where we're here to help you make your journey and your path and your quest as an author exciting and interesting and freaking fun because it should be. It should not feel like you are climbing the mountain from the bottom, scraping and begging and digging'cause that really blows. Instead, my job as your literary Sherpa is to give you the tools you need at the time and make things easier. If you have a question for me, you can go to this podcast episode description. At the very top it says. Click and send me a text. You can send me a question, a comment, a request. You can ask for more dog picks because my trustee, co-host Hazel is always with me. She's my dog that is now, she's waiting patiently for me to complete this. And I will answer your questions on my Thursday episodes, which are always shorty episodes q and a to give you the solutions and the answers you need. Today, we're joined by Jen Lehner, who is a Digital Wonder Kin. She is a marketing strategist and a systems expert who has transformed my personal effort after I left corporate America and didn't know how to create a website or even get paid. She helped me transform my thinking so I could take care of all those entrepreneurial things and still consider myself a marketer for non-fiction authors book coach and help people get their books into the world in a bigger way. Because the ripple effect you can have is so much bigger than you can actually even consider right now. That's my job for you. But Jen did that for me. That's why I asked her to be my guest today to talk about how we can streamline our efforts and build our brands and market ourselves effectively. So many authors find themselves suddenly needing to navigate social media and create content and find someone to help them build their website or create a logo, or a myriad of things. Design a bookmark. Please don't design your own bookmark. Nobody wants your bookmark. But Jen is here to break it all down for you and to give you all the elements and resources you need to make it easy. So, if marketing yourself and your book feels overwhelming, yes, of course it does'cause you're trying to do everything yourself, but this episode is for you. Welcome, Jen Lehner to the podcast. Jen, I have been wanting to have you on this podcast for so long because you're so genius and you gave me my start. You helped me figure out everything about setting things up and making things easier because I was mired in all the problems and the friction. So, for people like me, who are full-time doing something awesome. They're not usually starting out as entrepreneurs, but suddenly they're thrust into establishing a brand presence or gag me with a spoon, have to build their platform, which nobody understands or likes. What is a mistake burgeoning entrepreneurs who are aspiring authors or even seasoned authors when it comes to making and building their brand and marketing themselves?

Jen:

There's few mistakes, but I would say that at the top of the heap would be listening to too many voices because there are million ways to do it. And then to do what, right? It's like you could do all the things. You could just do one of the things. And so, gets it gets very very overwhelming. Oh, I'm gonna do podcast. I I need a webpage. Page, I I need social media. I i, and it overwhelming. And if you're listening to five different guru arguing for their thing, which is, you have to have Pinterest, you have to have a a website you have. a, an online course. It's very, and I I think early on in my career I I that I i, getting, I was listening to a lot of good, solid voices, but it's just, I didn't need to listen to them all at the same time. so So

Allison:

this.

Jen:

This is. We're all playing the

Allison:

Smart

Jen:

Those of

Allison:

ones, smart

Jen:

playing the long

Allison:

game, right? We're serious about this.

Jen:

and

Allison:

we're not just

Jen:

aiming to

Allison:

to be a flash.

Jen:

pan. And

Allison:

And so if

Jen:

that

Allison:

that is true about you

Jen:

you

Allison:

the luxury being able

Jen:

to just.

Allison:

piece

Jen:

by

Allison:

Create this and look first at what are.

Jen:

levers to pull, I guess is and I think, so to answer your question, the mistake would be the opposite of that, doing a million different things all at the same time

Allison:

And listening to several.

Jen:

voices.

Allison:

Exactly. It's exactly what I see usually. When I'm working with someone, they're a full-time expert. They're leading an HR organization or they're, the director of an emergency room or their. Seeing patients all day long, or they're teaching at the university level, which means that their time is committed, it's devoted. They are not going to be taking a sabbatical and they're not opening a business. Although now that they have a book or they want to be writing not scholarly works, they wanna write a mass market book. They're suddenly thrust into this do I have to have a website now I have to build my social, nobody's sharing my posts. And it, that can be overwhelming because I think they feel like they're reading the menu at the Cheesecake Factory. Nobody reads the whole menu. You know that there are a thousand cheesecakes that you can get. You know you're gonna end up with strawberry cheesecake just. You don't need to read the rest, really. No one reads the rest. So when you know that, and you know that even the, in the people you work with in the front row VIP group that I was a part of, these women are doing what they do full time. And also they need just a little bit of help almost. They need like helpful blinders of don't feel like you need to build an entire sales funnel or learn what a sales funnel is, because marketing jargon can choke a horse. But you need to find a way to be excited about the things that you get excited about without getting pugged down in. Things that give you the hives. Like for me, it's technology, the tech.

Jen:

at it though than you let on.

Allison:

I'm better than most of my clients, but I did delete my own website twice by accident. And then my virtual assistant, who you help me find, went in and with a click of a button, it was back. I still don't know what she did. I don't care. That's the great thing about you helping me find someone who was not like me, who could be in charge of those things. So yes, people get overwhelmed because they feel like they need to learn all of the things because they're used to being an expert in their field. So they do know everything that everyone who reports to them knows they know how to do everything.'cause they're the big boss. But when an author is suddenly an author, but they're also a speaker an educator leading voice in their industry. They may not see themselves as entrepreneurs, but they are because they will get paid for speaking gigs. And the first thing you say often is stop doing things by yourself, especially when you know that you are expanding. Like you're expanding the ripple effect that you are having in the world. You can't be answering every email. You will need to establish some, funnel or filter of the things that get you involved. So tell me, why are you so excited and so amazing to help people who may not see themselves as entrepreneurs, but end up in that situation who they need to grow. It's so funny.

Jen:

As you were talking, I just thought, I've been talking about this for years, but I suddenly thinking, first of all, I. many people don't think twice about hiring a house cleaner because We'd rather spend our time doing something else. the house and we don't wanna clean the house. many of us have that luxury Do do. who aren't rolling in cash. They just have decided, this is just not something I wanna do we get our car serviced. We extend it to someone else who knows how to service our car. We do not go and watch a bunch of online courses on how to fix our carburetor. So then

Allison:

That's true,

Jen:

earth do we think, as, you. coming to this new venture that of all, of putting all the things together, the opt-ins, the lead magnets the email sequences, The automated reminders. All of it. Why Do we think we have to do that? I. why. It's because we think it doesn't make sense on paper, right? I'm not making money from this yet, so I need to just bootstrap this. But honestly it

Allison:

it really is one of these things where,

Jen:

you, we

Allison:

we need to hire someone else

Jen:

really sooner

Allison:

rather than because

Jen:

gonna get

Allison:

there faster

Jen:

and

Allison:

they're

Jen:

shorten the amount of time and they're gonna bring their skills to the table

Allison:

that we

Jen:

could

Allison:

continue

Jen:

being the one

Allison:

the,

Jen:

from the stage.

Allison:

You.

Jen:

when you know there's

Allison:

There's all this other stuff. The websites being created,

Jen:

are

Allison:

emails are being written, like all of that.

Jen:

or being

Allison:

being

Jen:

up.

Allison:

up.

Jen:

We get to be

Allison:

We get to be on stage, like talking about our,

Jen:

get to be on

Allison:

on stage

Jen:

telling

Allison:

people about our new online.

Jen:

coaching program, whatever it is.

Allison:

and

Jen:

really, that for me that's more than half the

Allison:

The

Jen:

is just

Allison:

just

Jen:

people to

Allison:

understand.

Jen:

no. You don't have to wait until you're making six figures with this venture in order to hire someone. And there are ways to do it because there are ways, yeah. It's not feasible for

Allison:

for a lot of people. Spend

Jen:

an

Allison:

an hour,

Jen:

To

Allison:

someone

Jen:

for

Allison:

40 hours a

Jen:

I like, I get that, like I'm

Allison:

I'm.

Jen:

and go bankrupt.

Allison:

There are ways to

Jen:

Even if in the beginning it's just hiring someone off of Fiverr or Upwork or a contractor to get some initial things set up for you. It's not a favorite way to do it, but I'm just saying it's an affordable way.

Allison:

Again, just remember You're not, you take your car

Jen:

You

Allison:

you try

Jen:

your

Allison:

car

Jen:

yourself.

Allison:

something. That even something do. I don't even know. I have no idea.

Jen:

so

Allison:

yeah, I do hear people say I can figure it out. I know you can, But do you, because it looks simple. But what looks simple? Or easy to learn. I'm doing air bunnies. People is time consuming to do it well. We know that Canva is attractive and you can start to think, oh, I could create my logo, but unless you know what a logo that's good, looks like you are going to create some poo a poo logo and it's not. And you're gonna think I just used canvas template. But then you changed the font to be script because you like cursive, but nobody can read cursive anymore. And so you made a bad choice, but you don't know any better because you don't do that.'cause that's you, they make you think that it's a good use of your time. But now you spent two hours when you could have been, I don't know, taking a nap or

Jen:

but you

Allison:

speaking with a new client.

Jen:

Yeah, Canva's my favorite example because Canva makes us all feel so creative

Allison:

And

Jen:

at

Allison:

at the end of a good

Jen:

canvas session of making a

Allison:

bunch

Jen:

little things, we

Allison:

we feel like we've gotten

Jen:

work done.

Allison:

and that's really that

Jen:

translates

Allison:

into so many other things.

Jen:

good friend Miriam Schulman talks about procrast the learning, right? Like we do that a lot as well and if we're being really honest.

Allison:

Be.

Jen:

And if

Allison:

If we were being really smart, we

Jen:

we would

Allison:

would take those

Jen:

or

Allison:

three

Jen:

or

Allison:

four hours of busy work.

Jen:

and if we found someone else to do that for us.'cause yeah, it's not about being capable. Many of us are capable. That was my biggest, for the first two years in business.

Allison:

I.

Jen:

because I am goba tech that. It wouldn't make sense to hire someone, so I need to do this all myself. So my days were 80, 90% filled with setting up webinar funnels and sales funnels and all of that. When really, if I would've used that time to create a really compelling webinar or my signature talk that I could then reach out to the right people to get

Allison:

Get in their audience.

Jen:

Can

Allison:

Can you imagine how fast you would grow

Jen:

If

Allison:

if you really

Jen:

the

Allison:

the time, not necessarily trying to build

Jen:

your

Allison:

own

Jen:

audience

Allison:

audience

Jen:

all your brilliant social

Allison:

media

Jen:

but to figure

Allison:

out.

Jen:

are the right people that I need to connect with my brilliant signature talk to get in front of their existing audience of people who are the exact right

Allison:

People

Jen:

To

Allison:

to buy my book,

Jen:

my

Allison:

my name.

Jen:

That is

Allison:

is a much better use of our time

Jen:

than starting

Allison:

here at the bottom of the mountain,

Jen:

Little brick by Brick. Yes.

Allison:

our way to the top thinking I can do it, but, and also I don't wanna ask people for help because I don't want them to think that I don't know how to do it, which is another thing.

Jen:

Yeah, but they're

Allison:

They're

Jen:

hiring

Allison:

you.

Jen:

with you because you make brilliant websites.

Allison:

They're right. Unless you're a website.

Jen:

and that is that brings, puts food on the table. But otherwise, No, the surgeon or the person who's in charge of the emergency room, that is your client, that person, nobody's coming to them because they know how to build a beautiful website.

Allison:

Or, and so they, they do get in their own way because they're so used to being capable.

Jen:

Sure.

Allison:

sometimes being capable is knowing what needs to be done and realizing it's not a good use of your time to be doing it because only you can do the things that people want from you and all the other stuff.

Jen:

Yes.

Allison:

Put in a bucket.

Jen:

yes. And I would

Allison:

I would.

Jen:

combined with adopting the

Allison:

The mantra.

Jen:

really like really. Believing the

Allison:

The mantra.

Jen:

that is done is better than perfect. like the sooner everyone can embrace that, the happier we all are.

Allison:

Yep. One of the probably the top three laments that I hear is social media is so overwhelming, which is, or translated into, I don't know what to post. I can't post this often. people don't know about schedulers and if they have a book that's coming out, they don't know what to post when you can. don't hire your next door neighbor's, niece for the love of Pete and all that's holy. That's not a good idea. But you can hire someone strategically that you find on Fiverr or a virtual assistant. before I ask this question just so I can reference your Find a VA program, which is how I found you listening to a podcast. Just describe that for a second.

Jen:

What I do.

Allison:

Yes.

Jen:

help people find their perfect match, virtual assistant, and it's a program that when I say perfect match virtual assistant, I'm referring to a person who's going to be in

Allison:

In your business

Jen:

for years,

Allison:

right? For a long time. Not a fly by night

Jen:

or the

Allison:

contractor or the kind of person that you would find project based,

Jen:

on Fiverr or Upwork.

Allison:

But anybody who's.

Jen:

before it's just not. That's simple, right? We all know that have been through the process of spending all that time and effort and aggravation, interviewing, thinking we just found the most perfect person only to find out after they're hired that they're not what we thought they were. But we keep them because we spent all that time and money and effort in hiring them and then training them and then and it's just a vicious cycle. And then people throw their hands up and they say I might as well this myself because this is a nightmare. So

Allison:

my, my,

Jen:

virtual assistant has been with

Allison:

with me for nine years

Jen:

and

Allison:

and I have many people who.

Jen:

through this program who are with their virtual assistants since the program began because there is really a process that is the right way to do it from screening.

Allison:

And then, I would say like

Jen:

the

Allison:

the

Jen:

cornerstone of the

Allison:

the program that

Jen:

that

Allison:

differentiate from

Jen:

is

Allison:

is that

Jen:

we

Allison:

we do this

Jen:

called it's a paid.

Allison:

trial.

Jen:

and you might have several people going through this paid trial week, and we show you how to set that up in advance and replicate it so that basically,'cause you can have a brilliant interview, they could have wonderful rec

Allison:

Recommendations

Jen:

A gorgeous

Allison:

portfolio,

Jen:

they

Allison:

they show up.

Jen:

who are you?

Allison:

come

Jen:

This is what we wanna make sure that never happens

Allison:

and

Jen:

you find people with the right skills. the right vibe, the

Allison:

skills.

Jen:

to work with you, because the hard skills aren't everything. So that's it in a nutshell.

Allison:

Thank you for that. And for those of you who are saying like, oh, raise my hand for that.'cause everyone has had some kind of help at some point. But what's really nice about your program is that you're not babysitting someone. They are self-starters. And you teach people like me how to manage and have a relationship with someone who's not sitting in the same room as you

Jen:

are they not sitting in the same room as you, what I forgot to mention is that now my system will work no matter where you hire your va, but most of the VAs come through my program are in the Philippines.

Allison:

And.

Jen:

is because number one, we're leveraging the exchange rate. But this is not about finding the cheapest labor. This is about empowering them as you grow as well. So they grow while you grow. And I give you

Allison:

Sort

Jen:

of, manageable sustainable ways to surprise and delight them and reward them

Allison:

beyond

Jen:

raising their salary.

Allison:

profit sharing model.

Jen:

There's all sort, all

Allison:

All sort

Jen:

things you can do, but starting at a

Allison:

a

Jen:

low rate and then maybe getting up to about. Let's just say a low rate because I don't know when this is gonna air, and this

Allison:

yeah.

Jen:

a lot, but I'm gonna say it's just, a much lower rate than you would pay in the US 25, 50, a hundred US dollars an

Allison:

An hour,

Jen:

which then

Allison:

then gives you

Jen:

chunk of time,

Allison:

right.

Jen:

you could have someone 10 hours a week at a low rate or 20 or 40 hours a week, and then that's really gonna give you some momentum and some growth. English is pretty much their first language. Everybody who you're gonna be interviewing has a minimum of a bachelor's degree. Many folks have advanced degrees, so I lived there for three years. Like I said my, my team is, I have several people on my team who've been with me for years and my head VA has been with me for nine years. And I just, I'm very much in love with this model.

Allison:

I am a total disciple and I dig it and my VA now is in the Philippines and I love her and she's a mom she gets some poo done. She really does.

Jen:

That's.

Allison:

And even she has an assistant. she has other clients, but I like that she is growing. But my point coming back to what can an author do? The first thing that you wanna do when you're struggling with, what do I put on social? Is have someone not your spouse and not your sister'cause she's not gonna read your book. Sorry. Is have your virtual assistant pull some power quotes from each of your chapters. You don't have to do that, just have her do it. Put it in an Excel spreadsheet. You eyeball it for two minutes, and then she can create quote cards using Canva, using the bulk create functionality in Canva, and she can create 25 quote cards that she'll schedule for you in the scheduler that you purchase on App Sumo. So I'm throwing you a lot of apps, but I'm gonna put all of these in the show notes. And then you've got at least one post a week for half the year, and that's just one step that could be taken care of inside of two whole hours, let's say. And that's just one. Thank Jen. You have such a great list of all the tasks that you could outsource to a virtual assistant. And do you still provide that on your site? Okay, I'm gonna make sure that we put that in the show notes'cause it is genius. I use it all the time in case you're thinking.

Jen:

case you were gonna quiz me. Yeah.

Allison:

I'm not gonna quiz you, but there's so much, not just on social, but social is usually the number one thing of I don't have time to be posting on social. There are a ton of options including managing your email and responding to people on your behalf once your website is live. Once you start with the foundational, easy Pickens, then what I hear you talking about is incorporating smart use of AI in your business. So what's one big shift you've seen recently in how people use AI

Jen:

Oh my

Allison:

really scale?

Jen:

I'm

Allison:

I just,

Jen:

I could just talk about it honestly for

Allison:

I know me too.

Jen:

It's

Allison:

It,

Jen:

it's really is unbelievable. We are

Allison:

we're living in times

Jen:

times and

Allison:

and,

Jen:

Is, it's,

Allison:

only

Jen:

scratching the

Allison:

surface.

Jen:

But I

Allison:

I would say, some of things that are really amazing

Jen:

are, is

Allison:

our ability to now

Jen:

dig into all of the.

Allison:

the.

Jen:

Golden data that we have from people that we've worked with over the years. So you know, whether people are answering questions when they join our Facebook groups or they're filling out

Allison:

Out client surveys,

Jen:

whatever.

Allison:

We can now

Jen:

analyze

Allison:

that information and extract things from that information that

Jen:

Would

Allison:

take

Jen:

10

Allison:

people

Jen:

a

Allison:

a year to give us back the information

Jen:

after we

Allison:

we launch all the data to help us

Jen:

form our

Allison:

next offer,

Jen:

or

Allison:

whatever.

Jen:

Obviously content creation when done well.

Allison:

And then my favorite thing is create.

Jen:

I'm

Allison:

I'm telling everybody to do is to create knowledge base and you

Jen:

And you can

Allison:

can do this

Jen:

GPT

Allison:

now has project,

Jen:

There

Allison:

is

Jen:

notebook. LM is my, one of my very favorite large language models right now. It's free, it's owned by Google, just type in notebook, lm so let's just use that as an example. So Notebook, lm it's just you, there's all these notebooks,

Allison:

Right

Jen:

you could go in and dump. It allows you to put in YouTube links, audio PDFs, just copied and pasted texts,

Allison:

Google Drive files,

Jen:

Google slides, everything.

Allison:

Okay.

Jen:

That's the

Allison:

the one that you

Jen:

seen

Allison:

demo.

Jen:

where Saturday Night Live did a hilarious skit about it, where it creates this podcast of two people talking about whatever content you put in there. And it's not really two people, but it might as well be two people. It's a man and a woman, and they even interrupt each other. It's crazy. And you can

Allison:

Raise your hand and ask a question while they're talking about whatever it's, you wanna talk about

Jen:

as if

Allison:

if you're a caller to your radio show and say, wait, could you elaborate more on this or that?

Jen:

I don't,

Allison:

I don't wanna go too.

Jen:

on a

Allison:

We'll definitely put notebook, LM in the show notes.

Jen:

what I want you to

Allison:

know.

Jen:

you could

Allison:

Do this.

Jen:

and you could do it in all the others.

Allison:

Much now

Jen:

Claude has folders. You

Allison:

put in all of your stuff.

Jen:

Okay?

Allison:

Okay? So you put in all of your,

Jen:

episodes,

Allison:

all your

Jen:

posts, all of your

Allison:

content.

Jen:

all the chapters of your book. It will stay inside of Google, it won't train the model the way chat, GPT will, okay? I'm not gonna sit here say that it's a hundred percent lockdown, secure, or

Allison:

Or anything like that.

Jen:

The

Allison:

the way that they're set up.

Jen:

training the model.

Allison:

Okay.

Jen:

And

Allison:

And so now what this means is that

Jen:

you

Allison:

you,

Jen:

in, so let's take the podcast episode. So you put in 50 of your PO last podcast episodes, and then you go in and there's a million different things you can do. I want to do a series that is a roundup of

Allison:

of all the quotes

Jen:

that about websites,

Allison:

website building,

Jen:

I wanna do an episode that is just pulls the best about

Allison:

website building,

Jen:

from

Allison:

all

Jen:

episodes. It would

Allison:

take me.

Jen:

10 years,

Allison:

yeah, it would take all the cutting and pasting and editing pieces and then putting them back together.

Jen:

It can find it synthesizes information, so it finds gaps in your own logic and your own reasoning and all of that.

Allison:

So you can say

Jen:

here's another one.

Allison:

so one of the first things you'll do

Jen:

if

Allison:

if you follow my instruction,

Jen:

when you

Allison:

you have assistant

Jen:

create simple. Your VA will create simple SOPs,

Allison:

operating

Jen:

Checklist, if you will, of

Allison:

basic operat.

Jen:

in your business. Once you have a little library of those, and by the way, takes no time at all,

Allison:

So

Jen:

so you have a little

Allison:

you have library.

Jen:

you're

Allison:

You're gonna upload

Jen:

all of

Allison:

of your

Jen:

SOPs

Allison:

SOPs into one of these knowledge base.

Jen:

Now you

Allison:

you can ask questions like how to do,

Jen:

how

Allison:

how to

Jen:

publish one of

Allison:

one's.

Jen:

right? So it will give me step by step, it'll just spit it out for me.

Allison:

Also

Jen:

do

Allison:

is say

Jen:

oh, I had a

Allison:

list questions,

Jen:

in front of me, but

Allison:

but you can ask things like,

Jen:

look at

Allison:

at all of my SOPs and tell me where I'm missing opportunities for automation

Jen:

And it will tell me let

Allison:

know.

Jen:

Where you see gaps in my systems, it will tell me. So it's just, my lord, I could just go on forever.

Allison:

One of the things I've been wanting to do, and maybe I'll do this with Notebook LM, is take pictures, screenshots of my schedule for the last two months, and have AI tell me how to better use my time.

Jen:

Oh

Allison:

Yeah, you could also

Jen:

open

Allison:

up Google AI Studio and

Jen:

on the left of the screen it says

Allison:

like something like live streaming.

Jen:

It's not what it means, but the word live in stream is there and you click on that and immediately. It's seeing whatever you're looking at on your screen.

Allison:

Really.

Jen:

you could just scroll through. You could just go open up your Google calendar and start talking. It's like having the guy or the my, my voice is a guy like sitting

Allison:

Beside you,

Jen:

looking at your

Allison:

at your,

Jen:

with you. It's incredible. And then on

Allison:

on that same note

Jen:

now you have your own internal IT

Allison:

department.

Jen:

because if I go into Zapier and I'm trying to create a zap, inevitably, and for those who don't know what that is, it's an automation software that allows you to connect things together. When you run a news app, more often than not there's

Allison:

Usually,

Jen:

a little tangle of some sort.

Allison:

and because it's a multistep process that can be really consuming trying to figure it out.

Jen:

just

Allison:

just go

Jen:

AI Studio, let it see what

Allison:

what you're saying and talk to in real time. Uh, Hey, look, I

Jen:

caught up

Allison:

up here. What you.

Jen:

problem is? and they're all, you know what's so interesting to me who

Allison:

Reports on

Jen:

every

Allison:

every day and

Jen:

is

Allison:

really

Jen:

this

Allison:

very closely

Jen:

is

Allison:

is that they're all starting to do the same thing,

Jen:

So

Allison:

have capability.

Jen:

all

Allison:

They're that direction.

Jen:

And the stuff that they're doing is just mind blowing.

Allison:

And the great thing for people who have books coming out, or they want to expand their career and think bigger about where they're going, especially when you hit a point where you're the top of your game and you think I still have 20 or 30 years left of working. I'm not done yet, but I'm at the top of this peak. You have to be the one to imagine what your next step is because your head of HR is also. Tapped out in terms of what the org structure is, whether you're professor or you are chief of staff, or you are the director of an er. I'm just thinking of all my clients at you have a globally renowned podcast, like you are the tippy top of the tippy top already, but you are still, we're all. Wired to be wanting to grow and be challenged and do the next thing, right? Otherwise, we get bored. I get bored. So you have to figure out what your next step is, and you don't wanna get mired in learning how to be a website developer. Whoa, yuck. Unless that's your jam, which more power to you. But I don't think it is because you are uncovering deception in marketing practices like my client Dr. Mara Einstein, whose book Wig just came out. She doesn't have time to be setting up her own site and doing all the things. and I tell all of my clients this, do not put your entire manuscript into chat GPT because it does become part of the world knowledge and that's not what we want. That's, you still own that, so don't do that. But if Notebook LM is has boundaries, then maybe that's a way to go, or at least a VA could be helping you. There are all kinds of options that don't require your time, that still make your ripple effect bigger object.

Jen:

out. Your author, people are gonna love this. So like you can take an entire PDF of a book and you can make it's really easy

Allison:

To

Jen:

you

Allison:

just Google how to make a Kindle book pdf.

Jen:

and

Allison:

there's also three

Jen:

PDFs of

Allison:

of books

Jen:

over the internet.

Allison:

and you can upload a

Jen:

PDF of a book that would be

Allison:

Be Relevant

Jen:

to your

Allison:

own research

Jen:

into a Google

Allison:

book.

Jen:

And you could just say

Allison:

Say What parts.

Jen:

book or pull quotes from this book that have to do with what was the thing? You and I

Allison:

I talked about

Jen:

long time ago.

Allison:

it was a great migration.

Jen:

Right? Of workers leaving the

Allison:

The work,

Jen:

and working from

Allison:

great resignation.

Jen:

Resignation.

Allison:

Yeah.

Jen:

Yeah,

Allison:

So

Jen:

what

Allison:

I, oh my gosh,

Jen:

I could just put in four books that I know covered it at some point, but I

Allison:

I

Jen:

to

Allison:

elaborate on something.

Jen:

find quotes from other authors or whatever.

Allison:

They're right there.

Jen:

and the deep research

Allison:

that so many of the

Jen:

platforms

Allison:

are the AI platform offering right now.

Jen:

are.

Allison:

I keep saying in,

Jen:

don't know what other word to say. Jaw

Allison:

It is incredible, but also you don't have to become a Jen Lehner level expert in usage. You can do just the two or three steps that we've discussed today and still save yourself a month because no one is putting their life on hold to just do this. we're all finding little shards of time. And so you really, no one has a chunk of two hours to really dig in and figure it out. That's why this podcast exists to help you leapfrog over doing that and to take the few steps that we are talking about. Yeah, and the other thing

Jen:

and the other thing to

Allison:

to keep in mind, I'm glad you said that. The other thing to keep in mind and why this is different than any other sort of like

Jen:

tech

Allison:

breakthrough in the past is that first of all,

Jen:

Those of

Allison:

of us a certain age

Jen:

are

Allison:

are actually

Jen:

we benefit, and here's why. Like to your point when you're like, you don't want, SU's high school, son to come into your social

Allison:

Media,

Jen:

Yeah, they know their

Allison:

Way around and everything. Know how to do

Jen:

a cute selfie. But the

Allison:

what they lack in

Jen:

life

Allison:

experience, context,

Jen:

strategy communication skills, right? Like by a certain age we've learned some stuff. And the beauty of all these AI tools, they're called LLMs, which means large language model. And what that means is that they

Allison:

Operate

Jen:

human

Allison:

language

Jen:

we

Allison:

we don't have to come up.

Jen:

we

Allison:

We don't have to know how to do anything, and you don't need

Jen:

a

Allison:

a prompt engineer and you don't have to buy.

Jen:

When you

Allison:

you see these ads for like prompts and

Jen:

you

Allison:

you ask,

Jen:

just

Allison:

go,

Jen:

your, whatever

Allison:

you

Jen:

pick any of'em,

Allison:

okay? They're all great.

Jen:

And

Allison:

Just type in,

Jen:

I

Allison:

I

Jen:

need

Allison:

to

Jen:

I don't know. I

Allison:

build a content plan for six months.

Jen:

you. Perfect. I need to build a content plan for six months.

Allison:

My

Jen:

What are the best

Allison:

prompts.

Jen:

to use with you to come up with the best roadmap? then will tell you, and you just are gonna have a dialogue back and forth. And by the way, you can

Allison:

Can do it.

Jen:

You

Allison:

You don't have to do

Jen:

all

Allison:

all, have

Jen:

dictation features

Allison:

features at this point.

Jen:

And

Allison:

which is great. You can do it while you're walking the dog. Anytime we can do double duty, you can do it while you're folding the clothes or separating your son's sweatpants from your husband's sweatpants. And now that they are the same height, it is impossible. I'm just speaking for myself.

Jen:

Yes. Mabel's labels we have, we buy

Allison:

Oh, sweet mother. That's helpful. And they're all, everything is black. No, this is charcoal. Like it's still black. I can't see it. So yeah, this is all optional action that you can decide to do one thing. If you're gonna do one thing, choose just one. Of these LLMs to put on your phone so that you can talk to it while you're doing something else, even while you're driving carpool. Dropping your daughter off at basketball practice again, I'm speaking for myself. She has seven practices a week and it's a lot when you're on three stupid teams. Not stupid. Yeah. Oh, and also lacrosse. And also soccer'cause she doesn't need to also get straight A's too. And sleep? No, she's a good kid. She just is, has FOMO sports, fomo. But at least I can use that time to be creating a schedule for the people I'm asking to be on my podcast. And it's not me like plugging in my laptop to my, the car fob thing. I'm using the time in a way that's making technology use work for me. Now, Jen, what is a common myth People believe about marketing, especially when it comes to social media and their own thought leadership. And why is that myth misleading? this is not a trick question. I'm just I think that people believe these urban legends.

Jen:

Yeah, no, there's a couple, one one though, I don't know how

Allison:

How much,

Jen:

a myth it is with your folk folks,

Allison:

because I know these publishing houses

Jen:

do

Allison:

do wanna see. Right. But I,

Jen:

for most people, the myth is that you do have to have a huge following in order to see any sort of thing happen. Have not, everybody needs millions of people to have a sustainable business like that. It's more important that what

Allison:

What you're

Jen:

on

Allison:

social media

Jen:

Is something

Allison:

that,

Jen:

somebody's interested in, right?

Allison:

it doesn't have to be everybody that's interested

Jen:

just needs to be,

Allison:

you

Jen:

The

Allison:

people. And so I think it's very disco.

Jen:

when we go on a social channel and we see someone who, what we're really saying to ourselves is I'm way smarter than that person, and my

Allison:

I think is way better than their,

Jen:

Why do

Allison:

do they? Why do they have?

Jen:

gazillion followers and nobody, it's crickets over here on my page. But

Allison:

Here's the.

Jen:

that is great news for everybody right now. Love Facebook or hate it, love meta Instagram, love it or hate it. Here's the fact of the way things are operating now. And this is a huge benefit and

Allison:

Good news,

Jen:

for all of us, is that the

Allison:

the social networks, we publish

Jen:

out

Allison:

your content

Jen:

to. they, the

Allison:

the people they think are your audience.

Jen:

and

Allison:

And believe me, they know us better unfortunately

Jen:

than

Allison:

than we know ourselves. The amount of data

Jen:

They have on us from

Allison:

these years

Jen:

of us interacting with

Allison:

with.

Jen:

Is pretty precise, which is why you're seeing, ads you like, et cetera. They're gonna push your content, your organic free content to the

Allison:

The people

Jen:

need to see it, to the people who they

Allison:

they think is your audience

Jen:

And the

Allison:

playing

Jen:

has

Allison:

has

Jen:

all over again, like it

Allison:

it

Jen:

2009. It really, there's a great

Allison:

opportunity.

Jen:

But the one thing we can't escape is that the content that we put out there, if we wanna see lift from that, the content does need to

Allison:

To be

Jen:

good.

Allison:

You

Jen:

It needs to

Allison:

It needs to be good. when we say good, we mean compelling, provocative, surprising. It can't be something that everybody has heard a thousand times and believes because people don't stop for the expected. They're like, yeah why did you even bother saying it?'cause everybody knows that.

Jen:

But more good news is that it doesn't have to be polished. In fact, the less polished the better. If you're wearing your

Allison:

Sweatpants.

Jen:

having a chat, on the which I know isn't for everybody, but I'm just saying it doesn't have to be, the lighting doesn't have to be great. It's just, it's more casual than it's ever been. But little things, I saw a LinkedIn expert who's coming on my show soon, talk about posting a poll on LinkedIn once a week. And never had so much action on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my worst, like I never can

Allison:

Oh, I love LinkedIn.

Jen:

you should, and that's where your people are. mine goes back to a mistake years ago that I just haven't been able to recover from. Not because I posted like a naked picture or anything but because back when I first started, which is in the very beginning, LinkedIn used to prompt us to export our whole contact list from your phone. It was just as much as clicking one button. one button and next thing you know, I connected with everybody in my phone, became a LinkedIn connection, and that would be like the cable guy, the plumber the movie hotline number, like when that was a thing random. And now of course if you have a large number of Contacts and zero

Allison:

Engagement.

Jen:

them, it really looks bad for your channel. So I really think it's been hard to recover from that,

Allison:

The cable guy is not interested in your content.

Jen:

Yeah,

Allison:

nice.

Jen:

that. Darn it. And so the but I've been posting a poll once a week and yeah, I'm getting a lot of engagement,

Allison:

Yeah.

Jen:

I don't know if I,

Allison:

I dunno if I really,

Jen:

if that really addressed the myth, but that you were looking for but.

Allison:

Well, I think it is helpful to hear that perspective for sure. Let me ask you this, since we're telling people what not to do as well, don't import your phone context, but since everything is changing, what's a once popular marketing or branding tactic that doesn't work anymore?

Jen:

Honestly, just pumping

Allison:

Out the,

Jen:

graphic memes just.

Allison:

you know that to be enough and

Jen:

and it really doesn't work anymore. Just too much competition for really compelling content. I still love a good quote and I think most people

Allison:

do

Jen:

but we have to mix it up with other content. I think that the

Allison:

32nd video.

Jen:

video is here to stay for a while.

Allison:

Yeah,

Jen:

mean, we have to do the Macarena. Although I would like to see you do the Macarena Allison.

Allison:

I will consider it.

Jen:

Okay. That's not what that means. But I think, from just looking at my own client's stuff that they're posting, in fact, I just messaged one of my clients the other day and I was like, you're gonna have to, you need to up your game because particularly for this

Allison:

Client Based on what she does

Jen:

Her stuff is

Allison:

intrinsically.

Jen:

and not everybody is lucky like that, like where you could just snap a picture and it's just interesting based on what you do. I think it gets harder as you get deeper into the information product thought leadership space, because we have words, we have ideas, we're not, we don't Factory, you

Allison:

right. although that would be fun to see video of,

Jen:

Yeah.

Allison:

what I would hope people do is stop posting quotes from someone else that inspired them. We know you like Gandhi's quote, but it's not interesting and we know that it spoke to your heart, but I could give a po I wanna hear what you have to say not who inspired you. that's one thing that just puts me to sleep is when someone says, I really wanna quote this person but nobody's following you so that you can quote somebody else it really gets in the way. You are taking away their decision. You're essentially telling them that they were wrong for following you.'cause they're there for you and you're saying, oh, I'm not that important, but listen to this other person. That's not that helpful. And you're telling them that they made a poor decision and that's not really what you mean to do. So let me pivot because I wanna hear what you are reading. You have given me such good book recommendations. What's a book you love right now?

Jen:

I am

Allison:

I'm reading

Jen:

fiction

Allison:

right now.

Jen:

now. Do you

Allison:

Yes, I love it.

Jen:

Okay.

Allison:

Short stories about a guy who wrote

Jen:

a

Allison:

a gentleman in Moscow. Okay.

Jen:

What's his name? I have my phone turned off, so I cannot remember the name of it. But before that I wrote a

Allison:

A gentleman in Moscow. Say it again. It's historical fiction.

Jen:

Yeah.

Allison:

Yeah. But

Jen:

It's his

Allison:

it's a short story, but a dinner for two, I think is what it's called.

Jen:

Table. It's good

Allison:

It's good so far,

Jen:

but I

Allison:

but I.

Jen:

about it because I'm not deep enough into it. And then I gotta tell you, I hate to say it because I hate to just be like, one of the heard, but I listened to let them the right time

Allison:

Oh, the Mel Robbins book. Yeah. And the funny thing is that like

Jen:

I was

Allison:

I was absolutely not gonna read that book. I was I'm jealous

Jen:

of

Allison:

her.

Jen:

I have no problem saying that because she's the same age I am. normally we wear the same glasses. I don't have all my glasses here. Here's Mel Robbins glasses.

Allison:

We talk about a lot

Jen:

stuff. I

Allison:

and then

Jen:

the

Allison:

five,

Jen:

The stratosphere.

Allison:

I like,

Jen:

man, I

Allison:

I believe success. She's, there's nothing to that. How somebody write a book

Jen:

about that? A whole book.

Allison:

so when I,

Jen:

let them, I was like, what? What's she

Allison:

she could

Jen:

say that the title doesn't say? I get it. I don't need to read the book. Then Oprah interviewed her and Oprah said, in 25 or 30 years, she's never, she's

Allison:

She's been trying to say the same,

Jen:

but Mel Robbins

Allison:

Robinson,

Jen:

beautifully in this book. And you know what she said after that, she said, this is the best self-help book I've

Allison:

I've read

Jen:

I was like, I cannot believe What is, and they can't keep the book in stock.

Allison:

yeah.

Jen:

I got the book and I listened to it. And what is so funny is in the very beginning she talks about jealousy. And she says, don't look around at these other people that you And get jealous. They've done you a

Allison:

a

Jen:

You get, and I tell this to my clients, you can ver they've done the hard work. You can

Allison:

reverse.

Jen:

Not copy but reverse engineer their funnel or their framework or whatever, right? And I was like, I was just chuckling. I'm like that serves me right. And I enjoyed it so much and it was like listening to a good friend and her stories are very good. And probably'cause we are age, our

Allison:

Kids are the same.

Jen:

everything she

Allison:

she talked about from the beginning

Jen:

end

Allison:

really resonated.

Jen:

And so now I'm like the biggest fan. I don't know if I'm her biggest fan, but

Allison:

But I,

Jen:

the biggest fan of the book.

Allison:

I haven't read the book, but I've heard her talk about it and I listened to her podcast and I loved her podcast episode where she interviewed Dr. Doty about the science of manifesting. And the neuroscience and how it actually works and how it could work for anyone. So highly recommend that. And I will put, these show notes are gonna be just chock full of goodness. Oh my gosh. But I keep thinking I'm gonna run into her at the grocery store since she lives in Boston and I live just outside of Boston, obviously. We don't live in the same town. likely, I don't know where she lives and I have not

Jen:

Vermont, or she's in Vermont now, I think.

Allison:

Right, but her podcast studio is in Boston,

Jen:

got it.

Allison:

so if I ever left my basement and went into Boston, I would be looking around for her, but I don't because of, I don't know why. It's like I'm locked. I locked myself in the basement. So, we'll include the show notes to the Let Them Theory and to the A Gentleman in Moscow. And then the other book you mentioned, the table for two, all in the show notes. Before we call this podcast complete, what's one thing you wanna leave people with?

Jen:

It is a quote and it's somebody else's quote, but I can't give it attribution'cause I don't know who said it. But I I really love has been inspiring me so much and that is the magic that you have been looking for is hiding inside the work you have been avoiding.

Allison:

Well, I'm gonna have to sit with that.

Jen:

Because it's true for all things. It can be, the work can be personal, business, spiritual, emotional. it works in all things. what you're looking for is inside the work you've been avoiding. And that motivating to me.

Allison:

right. Oh, that's a good one. Thank you so much for that, Jen Lehner, we're going to link to all the show notes, all the links that you mentioned. So many good tips. I know that you're gonna be hearing from people as well. Where can people find you?

Jen:

Jenlehner.com That's J-E-N-L-E-H-N-E r.com. And if they're interested in the program, you have a link for that

Allison:

I'll put all the links in the show notes, and I urge everyone to not just connect with Jen, but listen to her podcast. It is so good. I learned so much from you and I'm so honored to now, have your email address and that I found you on a podcast and now you're on my podcast. And

Jen:

we're BFFs.

Allison:

I haven't been to Shaker Heights yet, but someday I will show up on your doorstep with a backpack and a smile.

Jen:

I hope so. Bring that dog though. Okay.

Allison:

Oh yeah, Hazel, she travels. Yeah. Alright. Thanks so much.

Jen:

Thank you.

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Allison Lane

Host

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