Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Welcome to Ever Changing Technology. I'm your host, Jim Bradfield. And this show is all about helping you adapt, lead and thrive in a world that's moving faster than ever. Whether you're a business owner, tech enthusiast or team leader, we bring you the insights to keep up and get ahead.
Today's conversation is one every leader needs to hear.
As automation and AI continue to reshape the workplace, many teams are asking, so what does this mean for me?
Our guest knows exactly how to answer that.
Evan chi is a three time founder and returning expert from AI Today and BizTalk.
He's worked with global giants like Oracle, Sony and Bank of America and He now leads ReGenesis IO, a platform that helps entrepreneurs grow, influence and automate outreach.
He's here to show us how to implement tech without losing the trust and heart of our teams.
Evan, welcome to Ever Changing Technology.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Thank you very much, Jim. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: So the problem facing many in the audience is they want to use automation tools. But you know, it often feels like their people are scared it will replace them. So Evan, why do teams feel threatened by automation?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it's, it's simple, it's, it's kind of, it is kind of automating a number of processes that, that, that, you know, previously were done by humans.
And so, you know, it is a replacement. But you know, I don't think the replacement is really like a threat. It's really like an augmentation. I mean, for instance, outreach automation, you know, it's going to consistently send some kind of message on your behalf.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: So I mean, a human can do that. You know, a lot of Companies, they hire VAs to do this.
A human can sit there and they can spend the time, they can write the message, send it out, click the buttons, or you can think about the most valuable elements that we have, which would be time, money and energy. We can basically save those through a simple automation and then use the time, energy and money somewhere else.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So how can a leader introduce AI tools without fear with their team?
[00:02:49] Speaker A: I mean, you have to think of it really as just a machine that's just going to do a certain amount of things. It's going to do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, just kind of one after the other.
The beautiful part about that is you no longer have to do that, but it still does take someone to kind of manage it, to oversee it, make sure it doesn't hiccup or hallucinate, which AI does tend to do.
So there's still kind of at Least currently there's still kind of this human involvement to kind of at least oversee the automation as well. Because the automation is really only going to be as good as the inputs are.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that hallucination. That's a, that's a good, that's a good point. With AI.
Yeah. So can you share an example where automation made everyone's work easier for them?
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah. I mean, a really, really kind of stupid, simple example would be, you know, every day, you know, we, we would have a meeting, you know, at same time, you know, 2:00pm PST and you know, we would have someone go and kind of create that meeting every day and then shoot around to the people and then, you know, we would all kind of jump in. This person would have to like kind of all let us into the call.
So instead of, of doing that, we simply just create an automation that just, you know, books. It just creates the meeting every day, it sends everybody the links and you know, no one has to kind of like let everyone, everyone in on the call. I mean that's just a super simple example. But to kind of like go deeper, you know, you know, one of the main automations that we typically build are sales flow automations.
So you know, imagine, you know, as, as a brand you need to kind of build these foundational pieces into your business.
All businesses do, you know, that's going to be typically some kind of social media presence and some kind of like outreach system to go find clients, whether that's through email or through like LinkedIn outreach or whatever it might be. Those are just kind of like foundational pieces to like almost anything that people do.
So you know, why not, you know, let those, let AI kind of jump in and automate all of that stuff for us if, you know, we're going to start a brand and we can spin it up by, you know, plugging in these two or three systems, you know, 10 times faster, 10 times cheaper then why not?
You know, what that ultimately means is, you know, you're going to have a lot more people being able to spin up businesses a lot quicker and a lot easier.
So you know, what the result of that is, I think remains to be seen, but it should be really interesting.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Well, you know, speaking of that, my grandkids actually asked me some questions and something along those lines about spinning up businesses. You know, they're a bunch of their friends are selling things online. Right. And so is that something that an AI can help them with?
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah, definitely. Those. Every, every business has some kind of operational function, whether that's collecting money or onboarding a client or keeping up with your CRM or again, kind of sales outreach, whatever it might be. There's always operations within an organization. The good thing about that is almost all of those operations across organizations are pretty standard. So you're able to automate a lot of that and just kind of put a system into your company and just let it run.
So, you know, E commerce is no difference, is no different so, you know, at all. A lot of it starts with social media, A lot of it starts with paid ads. And there's definitely a lot of mechanisms, a lot of really cool AI tools and more coming out every day to kind of help us like, do all the work in a really, like, short amount of time at a fraction of the cost. And that includes, you know, generating really cool videos, commercials, let's say, to kind of like, you know, sell the product or sell the widgets, the whole nine yards. I mean, it's, it's really like all at your fingertips.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, that's. I'm sure that's going to help you make them feel a lot better. Now, what steps help teams feel safe, you know, not judged by the tech?
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Well, that, that's always, there's always this kind of question, and I think it usually comes down to authenticity.
[00:07:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: So as a human, I'm actually performing the same exact actions as the automation. And so as a human, it's, you know, it's authentic because I'm a human, because I'll make a mistake, I'll misspell something. I will kind of vary my, my outreach sequence a little bit, you know, so that's. Those, those little elements are kind of like what's missing from AI. Typically, however, if you're smart, you can actually program that into the AI to actually make it feel very authentic. And the main thing about AI really is, you know, if it's used right, it's really coming in. It's really like looking at an entire data set of your company, depending on which direction you're trying to go in. But it's going to really, like come in and look at all of the data, meaning, you know, all of the things that you've been doing, you know, how you interact with your clients, how you interact with, you know, your, your partners.
And it's kind of like it's going to ingest all of that and basically recreate that, let's say, personality and be able to, and be able to, you know, help, let's say, disseminate information or help a customer Answer questions, schedule, schedule times for you to, to meet someone in, in sales, etc. So you know, the, the authenticity comes from the ability to understand that, you know, it's still the exact same action that the human was taking. The only difference is, you know, you're trying, you're letting it automate for, you know, a large, say, you know, volume at over a certain amount of time. So then as long as you have the ability to go in and make those adjustments or kind of make it seem more authentic and human like, then that's really the differentiator.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's how you're keeping the human side alive alongside the machines.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: No, look, I mean there is this big question about humans versus machines. And I think one of the really interesting things is, you know, in social media you kind of have two schools of social media. So you have certain social media where they, let's say, allow AI influencers to kind of come in and do their thing.
And so you have other social media platforms like LinkedIn, like Meta, where you know, each profile is tied to a verified identification of a human being.
[00:10:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: So, you know, they don't allow for AI influencers to come and kind of like muddy the waters.
So in this kind of like, you know, universe of, of content that's just, you know, being more and more proliferated because that's also one of the areas that AI, you know, is doing a lot in is kind of like content creation.
So there's just kind of like this proliferation of AI generated content. So that kind of human essence and that being able to anchor that content or that profile to an actual human being today I think is very important and tomorrow is going to be even more important.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Awesome.
So Evan, this has been a fantastic start. You know, if our viewers want to learn more about your work or explore with Genesis IO where can they find you online? All of the things including that now Media Biz talk.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Well, you can find me on LinkedIn definitely. The name is Evan Chi E V A N last name is Chi C H I Or you know, we, you can hop on the the website which is regenesis IO R E G E N E S Y S dot IO.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Awesome man. Really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you this morning.
We'll talk to you again in a few minutes.
And we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and this is Ever and we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and and this is Ever changing technology here on NOW Media Television.
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So we're joined again by Evan Chi, a leader who's helping businesses get real results from automation without losing their sanity or breaking the bank.
In this segment, we're talking about a common struggle. Feeling like tech is just too expensive or too confusing when you're trying to grow.
So the problem facing many in the audience is that they want to scale their business, but it often feels like tech cost way more than it helps. So, Evan, how do you decide where to invest in tools wisely?
[00:13:32] Speaker A: That's a really good question because there are a lot of, say, like, you know, let's say good and bad tools out there.
But you know, just like any, you know, say, you know, quality conference, you know, there's going to be a cost to it and that's just how it goes. But luckily I would say like two things. So, you know, one thing is that most good software out there, you know, there's always kind of like a, a DIY or SaaS version of it where you can kind of jump in and, and play with yourself and kind of get going yourself. So typically that model or that type of software is not very expensive.
So, you know, that's one thing. The other thing is I think today, you know, we have this amazing opportunity that allows AI to create stuff for us.
And quite simply, and it's really quite amazing that, you know, today, quite simply, you can go and you can speak a few words and it can spin up your website very easily. It could put together lines of code for you and write the code for an app for you off of a few ideas and a few diagrams.
So really there's really been no time and no tool. That has kind of been a greatest equalizer as AI really, like, this is really like tool. I think that, you know, it really equalizes everyone.
Instead of like having the big divide before, you know, now, like, I think like those costs of everything, they're going to start to come down because people are going to start to understand that you Know, people aren't going to buy your software because you know, it doesn't really take a lot of effort to spin up their own.
So what that means is that you know, the market's going to see, you know, a lot of noise and that market that, that, that prices are going to come down across the board, especially for things like software.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Well, you know, tell us about some low cost, high impact tools you recommend.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Oh, I mean, look, I mean if you were talking about, you know, social media or you know, anything like marketing related, you know, definitely there's some good stuff. If you need a great CRM, there's, there's, there's ones that you can purchase, like say for instance, HubSpot. HubSpot is, is a great tool and as a small business it's very affordable.
But you know, tools like this, you'll find that like, if you're really growing, if you're really scaling that in order for that tool to scale with your business, it becomes quite cumbersome and really expensive.
So there's other similar tools out there that kind of really basically do the same thing for a fraction of the cost, like closed CRM.
So that's a really interesting CRM that's not very expensive that, you know, our software is integrated. Well, we're integrated with HubSpot as well. But so, you know, I would definitely do my research, you know, because what that obviously tells us is, you know, there's kind of like this piece of software that does a lot of really cool things, but one is priced here and one is priced here and it's really for the exact same thing. So research on that is key for sure. And again, you have AI, which is a wonderful research assistant, the best ever.
And the AI is happy to go and research all of the, whatever CRM, whatever types of software you're looking for, compare the prices for you and everything and give you a complete breakdown, you know, all with a simple prompt.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Wow, that's very impressive. Now so given that though, what tool gave you the biggest ROI early on?
[00:17:33] Speaker A: I mean, to be honest, like, you know, I guess I'm supposed to talk about some tool, but it's really the own, our tool that we built ourselves.
You know, I was a CMO at a AI company a few years ago and one of the biggest problems that we kept having was, you know, making get, you know, getting awareness in our brand, you know, without spending big bucks, you know, because for instance, in social media, you know, we just, our, our content just kept getting buried by, you know, paid advertising, advertisements are just really big profiles. So we built a tool called post Booster. And essentially what that tool does is it boosts every single analytic across social media. That's from your, you know, your engagement, your reactions, your impressions, your views to your profile, your follower growth, you know, you name it. It literally tags every single analytic trackable by social media. And so we built this really interesting tool to basically help get our content out. And we, I think at the time we just didn't realize, you know, how powerful of a tool it was until, you know, a couple years later where, you know, it suddenly just dawned on us that, you know, like, you know, in social media, in, in in all of this, like, game of, of awareness that basically attention is key. And so our tool is exactly that. It, it brings attention to whatever content, you know, we, we add it to. And so that became a cornerstone of everything. So, you know, again, going back to social media, you know, to win in social media is to become influential, to become an influencer, right?
And so the path to that is virality.
And the path to virality is exactly our tool. So our tool became or is very instrumental in basically being able to grow social media presence for brands at a very accelerated rate. So, so I think like our own tool, you know, was, was, was probably the most transformative tool that, that I've come across. But, you know, it's also a tool that we built and it came out of a need.
So, you know, and then beyond that, once you have a brand, then what's needed, then you need systems, you need, you know, outreach systems, you need marketing systems to basically continue to help nurture that brand.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: Right?
[00:20:04] Speaker A: But the most important thing is to get that brand out there, that awareness, that trust.
And once you have that and you can build the systems in, you know, that's when you can really kind of start to sell anything.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Okay, so when somebody's starting out, for example, you know, when do they know when to go ahead with you and to really go to town?
[00:20:28] Speaker A: You know, like, it's always, it's always better to start early. Like, the earlier you start, the better because these types of results, they take time.
Trust takes time to build. You know, like, you know, you can have a viral video, but, you know, you've probably heard of the, you know, 1174 rule where, you know, you need to be seen, you know, 11 times, I think, like over, you know, in seven different formats on four different, you know, platforms or something like that. So really, like, you know, it's a game of consistency, right? But making sure that Your consistent effort is being seen and heard. That's the most important thing, right?
So making sure that you're being seen and heard, and then as long as, you know, the content that you're putting out there that is being seen and heard is effective, then that's essentially winning the game.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: So, you know, what we're able to push out, you know, in, in, you know, the snap of a fingers, you know, get across a million eyeballs every time we want to publish something so that, you know, it's a really kind of like, interesting and large number. You know, we've hit 48 million impressions on one post before. So you can, if you can kind of think about that in regards to our relation to a, a Super bowl ad, you know, it's really like, kind of crazy. And, and ours cost 50 bucks.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: I, I mean, that's remarkable. That's all I can say. That's just amazing. So, you know, advice that you would give someone to budget tech without stress. It sounds to me like yours is pretty easy to budget.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: It is, but you need to solve two things. First, you need to solve your brand and you need to solve your sales, Right? So if you can solve those two things, you can do anything. And so those, you know, again, if you have the eyeballs to do it, it's solved as long as you can tell the right story. And over time, you know that that's what it takes. So if you can solve either one of those two things, you're in a really good position.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And so all the social media platforms will work with this, is that right?
[00:22:44] Speaker A: That's right. So what, you know, all, let's say most of the social media platforms, there's a lot, and there's new ones coming out.
We're trying to keep up as well, you know, but we're, we're mostly a LinkedIn centric gig. And that's because, you know, LinkedIn is kind of where the professionals are. You know, it's, it's a really good form of trust for everything else that you do. So even if you're an Instagram star or whatever it is, you know, you're still, your resume, it's, it's still on LinkedIn, right. So you can think of it as, you know, your business card, your resume, it's really like everything that you've done, you know, post college, right. And every event, everything that you walk into these days, you know, no one's handing out a business card. It's always trading your LinkedIn and making sure you're connected on LinkedIn. So, you know, that's why it's really at the forefront of all business and all professionals today.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Wow.
Okay. Well, I'll tell you, this has been just awesome advice for anybody who's looking for a smarter way to scale and wants your help making those choices. How can they get in touch with you?
[00:23:57] Speaker A: You can find me on LinkedIn. The name is Evan Chi E V A N C H I or ReGenesis IO R E G E N E S Y S IO and also on.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Biz Talk and also on this show, Ever Changing Technology.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: Thank you very much for talking with us. We'll see you next segment.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Thanks, Jim.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: And we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and this is Ever Changing Technology here on NOW Media Television.
Welcome back. Still with me is Evan chee, founder of ReGenesis IO and an expert in helping businesses make sense of their digital strategies.
Now, if you've ever felt overwhelmed by the amount of data your business collects but have no idea what to do with it, this segment is for you. So one of the biggest problems facing many in the audience is they've collected so much data, but it often feels like it's just noise, not insight. So, Evan, why does so many businesses have data but no direction?
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Well, it's really like what to do with the data.
I think a lot of times that, you know, they might have the data but they're not paying attention to it or they're just simply not tracking it or tracking the right things.
I think that's, you know, that that's usually the key.
[00:25:37] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: So, you know, a piece of automation or software that we built basically tracks everything that you do from, you know, from, well, it's an outlet, it's an outreach piece of automation. So it tracks everything from, you know, the acceptance rate of your campaigns, the reply rate that you're getting on each campaign, you know, the, if anyone's clicking any links there, it's going to also track your email rate because usually we're attaching email campaigns to the outreach automation so your email open rate, the bounce rate, etc. So, you know, you really kind of need all of this kind of data to really make an informed decision.
And really kind of funny thing is, you know, funny way that I kind of like really kind of fell in love with data is, you know, I had a buddy of mine who, you know, he was always bragging to me that he was kind of like this, this really good sports better and that he was betting and he was winning like, some crazy amount of his bets. And, you know, you hear these stories and, you know, and it sounds great, you know. Okay, cool.
And at some point, he became a client of mine, and I was actually kind of posting all of his. His sports picks. And over time, I realized that his picks were really incredibly accurate.
And, and funny enough, like, you know, over the next couple of months, I just, I didn't bet any money, but I just kind of tracked. And I said, okay, well, look, if I just bet, you know, $100, you know, every time on, on every win or loss that he picks, you know, what would happen? And I would have been nine grand ahead.
And so I would have never known that. And I think that he himself never knew, like, you know, how good he was. But now there's an actual number that we can put to his winnings and we can say that, like, you know, whatever kind of system you're using or whatever you're doing, it works. And because we have the numbers to prove it.
[00:27:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: And so I think that data is extremely powerful, but you just have to make sure that you're reading it right and you're tracking the right metrics.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So. So how do you make sense of all the numbers? What.
How do you do that?
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Well, hopefully no one's just giving you a large, like, data file and dumping it on you.
Hopefully, like you're, you're using data, you're using it through some kind of agency or through some kind of company that has, you know, a user interface for you that kind of cleans things up and kind of like puts things into perspective for you.
And so I think most companies like us, you know, that's how we're going to present all the data. We're not going to just give you a spreadsheet of a bunch of stuff. Right. So hopefully if you're working with a good agency or a good company, they're telling you or they're showing you what the right metrics are that they should be tracking. And then from there, you should be able to kind of just comfortably go to their user interface and look at everything.
So again, for us, the most important things are kind of like, how well the campaigns are being accepted. You know, like if. If our. If the intent data is working or not, if we really need to, like, change the targeting. So, you know, it's really like giving you the type of information you need to understand which levers to press to make sure that this vehicle is successful.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Wow. Okay, that's.
That sounds impressive as well. So what's one data point every leader then should be watching for.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Well, if you're in my business, which is the attention business, you know, then we're looking at impressions, you know, we're looking at, you know, every day how many people are, are seeing my brand, seeing my logo, reading my content, seeing my videos and then engaging with my content.
[00:29:42] Speaker C: Right?
[00:29:43] Speaker A: So we need to kind of even in social media where we're tracking so many different things and it takes a number of these things to all kind of work in unison in order for social media to go right, that's what we call an optimization.
[00:29:57] Speaker C: Right?
[00:29:57] Speaker A: So to give you an example.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: The.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: First thing that we optimize for is something called scroll stopping. Okay. So because there's just so much social media out there, people are just kind of thumbing through, so we actually need something engaging enough for them to stop scrolling and be like, wow. Okay. So that's what we optimize for first, number one. Okay. The second thing that we optimize for is what we call our headline. So now that we've got them to stop, we have basically our first three lines of text that now need to engage you.
And of course it has to be, you know, has to relate to the image or the video that initially stopped you and then provoke even more curiosity in your mind enough to get you to click see more.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: Right?
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Which is kind of like the three dots to click see more where you basically can expand the text and kind of go into the post and read more and there's more optimizations like I could kind of keep on going. But essentially we're trying to optimize for every single pit part of this interaction. And if we can get them to kind of go through and do everything that we need, comment, repost, you know, engage, etc, then, then that's what we consider a home run. And the more often that we can do that and score home runs, the farther and the more viral our content's going to go.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Wow.
Yeah, that's. Wow, that's a lot of work there. That's impressive.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: It's a lot.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So how do you turn data into real action then and get things that people can trust?
[00:31:40] Speaker A: Well, it's really easy. So you do that through something called testing.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Right.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: And so testing is that we. Is something that we are constantly doing and it can be really simple or it can be really complicated. So you know, testing could simply be you just have two different offers and you run them at the same time and, and you see which one kind of gets more engagement, gets more responses Gets more clicks to the website, whatever your call to action is.
But essentially it comes down to testing. And the more testing you do, the more clarity you'll have, because again, it goes back to data. So we're testing, we're getting a bunch of data, and then we're just comparing that data to say, oh, people like this more. All right, let's do more of that. That's it. Testing, testing, testing.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah, got it.
So how about sharing a story where data helped your team pivot?
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Well, that's. So I can tell you. So that, that 48 million impression posts that I was telling you about, we had seen this trend going on where there was a lot of attention. This was, this was last year. There was a lot of tension, particularly in the area of sustainability and particularly in. In, in when it comes to wildlife and maintaining wildlife.
And so we were able to see that trend through analytics, you know, because we were putting out all kinds of content and we were seeing that, you know, a lot of things were bubbling up every time something socially conscious or environmentally conscious came about. And so, you know, we just kind of kept accelerating on that for the brands that we work with. That made sense.
And then, boom. Home run. 48 million impressions. I can tell you from that one post, they were able to get 30,000 new followers, which I can tell you most. Most profiles on LinkedIn don't even have 30,000 followers to begin with, but they were able to get 30,000 new followers from this one post.
And they spent seven days, or let's say we as a team spent seven days just responding to the 10,000 comments, just kind of engaging with all of the repost. And it was amazing and hellacious at the same time.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Wow.
Gonzalo, are you listening? You need to work with me on this.
He's my program manager, so he's the guy that sets up our LinkedIn. So I need to make sure that we absolutely do everything that you're telling us now. Also, you know, just curious, I talked about my grandkids, you know, and they're. They're only 16 years old and whatever.
Can this kind of thing really help them as well do what they want to do, selling online?
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I mean, at 16, they're probably even better at than I am.
I mean, these kids are amazing. But yeah, definitely. I mean, it's. It's the cornerstone to every big brand. You know, the brand is why Nike is so powerful. You know, it's why in. In a Nike advertisement, you don't need to see, you know, what the shoes made out of and you know why it's great and this and that. You just see some random person working out and you know, and there's a swoosh next to it and you're like Nike, you know, and you know, the brand is there and it for. And it forever holds real estate in your brain whenever the swoosh comes out.
[00:35:26] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: That's amazing. And so, you know, that's the ultimate goal of basically ever every brand. You know, of course, that's kind of like the pie in the sky, you know, and there's going to be levels to it.
But, but, but ultimately, no matter what, if you're able to achieve that brand, whether you're a celebrity or you're a musician or you're a Mr. Beast or whatever it might be, once you have that attention, you can basically do anything. You can sell anything, you can promote anything. You can be politically like, you know, persuasive, as we've seen, you can do anything. So it's really like today we're living in an attention, attention economy and there's really nothing more important than attention.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Well, listen, we really appreciate you helping us simplify something that's very overwhelming to many, including myself apparently.
So where can viewers go to follow your insights or learn more about ReGenesis, how they turned data into growth?
[00:36:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: I mean, so definitely, like on LinkedIn, you can follow me, Evan Chi. I post every day, you know, about, you know, insights and systems.
Definitely. You can come pop over to the website regenesis IO we've got all kinds of cool blogs and, and case studies there for you to kind of show all the really interesting things we've been able to achieve through the agency over time.
So those are probably the two best places to find me.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, listen, we appreciate you being here and we'll see you on the next segment.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Thanks, Jim. Thank you for having me.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: And we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and this is Ever Changing Technology here on NOW Media Television.
Welcome back to Ever Changing Technology.
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So welcome back to the final segment of Everchanging Technology. We've been unpacking big questions with Evan Chi. How to lead teams through automation, grow wisely, and use data meaningfully.
Now we're closing out with what might be the most important topic of all. How do we scale our businesses without losing the heart of that makes them human?
So the problem facing many in the audience is they don't want to scale with tech. They want to scale with tech, but it often feels like they'll lose their brand's heart and humanity. So they don't want to lose that heart and humanity.
Evan, how do you scale operations while keeping your culture alive?
[00:39:07] Speaker A: That's, that's an excellent question. And I think that's, that's a question that we're dealing with, you know, know, all the time.
And that basically comes down to brand authenticity. You know, I think that comes down to like a really good understanding of, of who you are. So there's a couple of facets to that though, because there's kind of like who you are as a business, number one, and then there's how you want to be seen in the public's eye, right? So, you know, a lot of companies, you know, you see a lot of their marketing, but that's just marketing. Like a lot of people are putting out the, you know, content where, you know, they're, they're, they're trying to help the community and they're doing this and that. And the reality of it is they're only doing those things, you know, to, to, to get, to get some brownie points.
And so I think sometimes, you know, we try to do good, but you know, a lot of, a lot of times, like, it's kind of like if it's not authentic, people can kind of see right through it. So that again, kind of comes down to the brand being authentic, who you are, and the actual, you know, morals and, and everything that you guys embody and then, you know, making sure that, you know, it's authentically expressed through your social media. And I think there's really cool ways to do that these days.
You know, a lot of content that we put out these days is, you know, like team content where we're showing a lot of internal culture.
And I think that's, that, that's really good for brand building.
That really, that kind of like glimpse into kind of like the day to.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: Day.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Operations of businesses and stuff. I think that's, that's a really authentic way to connect with your audience. These Days, you, you know, kind of like lets people in behind the scenes see what's going on.
And it does. They're just not kind of like out there being persuaded by, you know, like say like, you know, donations or whatever that are actually meaningless, where the actual people behind it only do it for marketing.
[00:41:19] Speaker C: Right.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: So a lot of this kind of like user generated content where, you know, a day in life, a day in the life of the team or a day in the life of the CEO, this type of content really goes a long way and is, and, and people are, are really like looking at that stuff these days. So.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Yeah, so that kind of thing, you know, we're talking about tech keeping people connected. Is that what you're recommending?
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Definitely. I mean, there's no better way to keep connected than tech. I mean, think about, you know, how, how Facebook has kind of changed, you know, know who you've been able to reconnect with in your life and this or that person that you found from, you know, some years ago or whatever. So definitely like tech is the way to go. I mean, you know, again, they're just, they're tools for, for us humans to use. And I think that's the important thing for us to remember is that, you know, they're here for us and they're here to basically enrich our lives and hopefully stays that way.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
So can you share a moment where the tech supported but didn't replace relationships?
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Well, look, I mean, conversations are at the heart of all relationships. I mean, I think that's key. And you know, there's two ways to have conversations. Like, I can go in and I can write every conversation myself, you know, or I can basically have the AI mimic me and help me basically do that at scale. So while people might say that, you know, that is, you know, inauthentic, I mean, for me it's basically just enhancing what I would, would have done as a human anyways. Except I'm doing it at scale. And again, I'm saving time, energy, money, those are three most important things.
[00:43:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: So it's just basically enhancing everything that I would do. So something that would have taken me a year to do. Now the AI can do it for me, let's say perhaps a little less inauthentically, unless I have that programmed in, but doing it for me, you know, in a week. Right, so that's the trade off.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: Yeah, very fast. Yeah. So, but how do you keep the human touch in that automated experience?
[00:43:32] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's, it's, there's a Handoff. And so what we, what we use automation for is really to, to, to get them to say hello or basically get someone to respond to something. And then that's the handoff. That's when the human kind of comes in and has to say, oh, hey, I'm a human, what's going on with you? So you have the automation run to basically find you the tidbits and then once you find those, you hand it off to the human and then that interaction is authentic.
Excellent.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: So what habits help the leaders then lead from the heart in a digital world on like with this thing we've been talking about so they stay true.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: I mean, every human is different, right? So I would say like again, like it, it starts with yourself, you know, so everything starts with yourself. And then as a brand, if you're really trying to put it out there, what message are you trying to put out there?
You know, they're not, you're not, you're, you know, we're not going to want to put out everything, right. So you know, some people, they don't want to, they don't want to share things about like, you know, the grades they got in high school or their previous career at McDonald's. Like, who knows what it might be? But you know, so, you know, what is it though?
You know, are those things what make you authentic then? If they are and if you're comfortable with that, then that's what you should share. And I think that's typically where, you know, the difference is. So when someone is authentically sharing, yeah, man, I slaved away at McDonald's, I was doing fries for so long and you know, but I came out of it better because I learned all these systems. I learned how to make food properly, I learned, you know, excellent customer service.
[00:45:21] Speaker C: Right.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: So it's really like again, trying to be authentic in everything that we do.
And social media is a great, great way to put that out there. Especially with kind of like the, you know, day to day, day to day life stuff.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So just real, you know, just real quick, the percentage of the human kind of thing versus the sales kind of thing when you're posting these things, what would you say that percentage is again?
[00:45:50] Speaker A: That's going to be brand to brand and that's probably going to be, you know, different depending on, you know, during the, the period of time that we're talking about.
[00:45:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: So I would say that like most brands in the beginning, they all have the same challenges because they need to generate revenue, they need to do these things. And so I think the brand becomes a little bit more salesy because they're trying to push certain initiatives, and that's okay, you know, like, you know, it's okay to sell things, right? People need to buy things. So I think it just needs to be done in a respectful way.
So, you know, there's. There's kind of like, you know, all of these kind. All of this kind of content has its place in the universe, right? So as a brand, you know, as long as, you know, every piece of content I put out isn't just salesy and completely trying to just, you know, buy this and buy that and lower the price on this. And check this out.
You know, as long as we have a thoughtful mix of everything that's going on from, say, personal branding to, you know, what we call growth posts, right? And those, what. Those are posts that basically we know are going to get a lot of attention. For instance, like cat videos. We know that people can't turn around from. Turn away from the cute cat video, and it's just automatically going to get lots of reactions, right? So we kind of have different types of posts to make up this universe of posts. And so those sales posts, they do have their place in this universe, but they're probably going to be more kind of prevalent in the beginning, kind of as you move or as the brand kind of grows, it's probably going to shift because now you found your customers, now you've built systems to get customers. Okay, now I want to talk about, you know, why my brand is unique or, you know, why I'm, you know, a great brand or why we're a great company to work for, you know, and then beyond that, it can go into, like, personal branding perhaps for, you know, like Sam Altman, you know, for the. The CEO of OpenAI. So it can go into the human element.
[00:47:55] Speaker C: Right?
[00:47:55] Speaker A: So it kind of evolves, but it usually starts off because there's a need and they're trying to fulfill that need, and that's usually sales.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. Well, that's a lot to take in. So, Evan, this was really important reminder that technology should serve people, not replace them. For viewers who want to scale the right way, how can they learn more from you?
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Definitely, you can shoot me an email that's going to be EvanGenesis IO r e g e n e s y s IO or find me on LinkedIn and shoot me a line. Evan Chi.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Appreciate it, man. Well, thank you for joining us today, Evan, and showing us that success in technology doesn't mean sacrificing your humanity.
So to everyone watching, whether you're building a startup or leading a team through transition, remember this. Tools don't build trust, people do.
Technology should enhance your work, not erase your heart. And when done right, it can help you serve more, connect deeper and lead better.
This is ever changing technology.
I'm your host, Jim Bradfield.
Until next time, keep evolving, but never stop leading with heart.
