On the 330th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Rob and Kira sit down after two weeks of in-person retreats to share what they’re most excited about in 2023. Between new conversations around writing a book, learning new languages, competing in an Ironman, and AI and ChatGPT, you’ll want to tune into the few surprises Rob and Kira have up their sleeve.

Tune into the podcast to find out:

• Who’s going to learn Italian – Rob or Kira?
• Did Rob actually bike 200 miles in one day?!
• Is Kira going to be the new Ironman?
• The tentative releases of Rob and Kira’s books.
• Is there a ghost in Kira’s photo?
• The power of in-person retreats and masterminds.
• Will there be a new AI workshop for copywriters?
• Who should worry about AI?
• Where will the next Think Tank retreats take place?
• A Copywriter Club spin-off podcast is happening… what’s it about?

Find out the answers by tuning into the podcast below.

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The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

If you’d like to be the first to know about the AI workshop + limited series all about AI and ChatGPT, then click here to add yourself to the list!

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  Welcome to the Copywriter Club podcast. We don’t have an intro today, but we were just talking about the fact that maybe we haven’t ever even said our names on the podcast other than occasionally talking to each other. So this is the Copywriter Club podcast with Rob Marsh and Kira Hug.

Kira Hug:  Right.

Rob Marsh:  What else should we say about ourselves? I don’t know.

Kira Hug:  Well, Rob, so we’re at the beginning of February. What are you really excited about right now? Personally, professionally?

Rob Marsh:  Personally, a couple of things are going on. So outside of work, I am taking an Italian class with my wife and my oldest daughter, and the class actually started a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t been able to take the first two classes because you and I have been traveling out of town. We had our retreat; then we had our mastermind group that met together. And so today that we’re recording is my first day that I get to go to this class. So I’m hoping that after missing the first two classes, I’m not hopelessly far behind in my attempts to learn Italian. So I’m looking forward to that.

Kira Hug:  You got to prove it. You have to say something.

Rob Marsh:  Well, I haven’t been to class yet, so I don’t have anything to say, but I will eventually. I think, maybe I even said this on the podcast once. I can’t remember, but Italian to me, is the most beautiful language. It’s musical. When I hear people speaking Italian, it sounds like they’re singing in a lot of ways. My wife lived in Italy for close to a year at one point, and so we have some friends in Italy that we’ve connected with over the years, once or twice, and usually, it’s my wife talking to them at dinner or sitting around their homes, and I’m sitting there quietly picking out a word or two that I might understand because I took high school Spanish and there are some similarities there. And you know what? It’s just time for me to pick up another language, so in addition to the very little Spanish that I can understand and joke about speaking, maybe I’ll learn Italian. And so yeah, that’s going on in-

Kira Hug:  That’s so fun.

Rob Marsh: … In my life right now.  Yeah, it’s a lot easier than training for a marathon and 112 mile bike race and a two-mile swim all at the same time.

Kira Hug:  I don’t think it is. I am slightly jealous because I do want to learn another language desperately, but I also realize I tend to take on too much. And so I was like, don’t take on any other goals for now; just focus on what’s in front of you. But then I was thinking if I’m training for an Ironman, there’s a lot of time I have to just listen and think, and maybe that is the best time to learn a new language, just to listen to it while you’re on a long run. I don’t know if you’re going to do that and integrate the two together in your running and your bike riding.

Rob Marsh:  That’s a good idea. I hadn’t. I have thought about watching movies in Italian or TV shows, having those on in the background and trying to pick out what you know. I know that that’s one of the ways that you can get closer to being fluent in a language, but actually putting on Italian podcasts or that kind of thing as I’m running is actually a really good idea. So maybe I will do more of that. We’ll see. But yeah, catch us up on where you are with the marathon that you’ve got to be running in eight months, nine months?  Not Marathon. Sorry. Triathlon.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. Well, I signed up officially, so I have shared with the community that I wanted to do an Ironman, and then of course, I waited till the registration fee dramatically jumped up. And so now, I officially registered last week for the Ironman in Arizona in November. It felt like that was a perfect amount of time. I have enough time to train, but not too much time where I don’t train hard enough now. And Arizona seemed like an easier course. I don’t think there is an easier course for an Ironman, but I think I just don’t know what I’m getting into fully. And I think that ignorance is bliss. Otherwise, you wouldn’t do anything. You wouldn’t have kids. You wouldn’t start a business. You wouldn’t run an Ironman or compete in an Iron Man. But I do talk to people occasionally, like you. You were telling me about your 200… 100-mile bike ride, right?

Rob Marsh:  200, yeah.

Kira Hug:  200-mile bike ride.  And you were just kind of telling me how difficult it was. And so I think when I talk to people who have done any type of long-distance event outside of a marathon because I’ve done a marathon, I understand how hard that is. It’s just a good reminder when I feel other people’s anxiety and stress over it, I pick up on that and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what am I getting into?” So you warned me a little bit about the biking part. And so I’m waiting for my Peloton to arrive because it’s hard to bike in Maine right now, but it hasn’t arrived yet. So I’m ready to start training for the biking portion, which makes me a little more nervous.

Rob Marsh:  That’s the fun portion. Riding the bike is the fun portion.

Kira Hug:  I think so.

Rob Marsh:  So I told you about this race, and just for everybody who’s listening, it’s a race called LoTaJa. If you want to, you can look it up. And when I was a kid or a teenager, a group of guys just started riding their bikes between Logan, Utah and Jackson, Wyoming, and they would take this route that kind of went up through Idaho. And it’s really pretty, the route’s not quite the same as what it was back then because the small towns that it goes through can’t support what this race has become. But as a teenager, I would hear about these, it was maybe 20 or 30 guys that would ride this… And it wasn’t even a race at that time, but it was this ride that they would do at the end of the biking season. And we would hear about them finishing and we’re like, “That’d be so cool to join that ride.”

And then, over time, it became a race. And now there are, I think, more than a thousand people who participate every year. And it’s kind of crazy. The elevations, the elevation gains, there are three mountains that you go over the top of. And the first time that I trained with it… Or for it, I had always had this in the back of my head. I wanted to ride it. And one of the guys I was working with at the time when I was living in Idaho is the beginning of… Very end of June, beginning of July. And he said, “Hey, we’ve got this extra slot on our team. Somebody dropped out. Do you want to ride it with us?”

And so the race was literally in eight weeks. I didn’t own a road bike at the time. I had only been riding my mountain bike. And so immediately I said yes, which was crazy because again, 200 miles in a single day is not the kind of thing that you should be doing after eight weeks of practice, but-

Kira Hug:  In a single day?

Rob Marsh:  Yes, in a single day. So it’s 200 miles in a single day. So I ordered a bike online, had it shipped to my house, and within six and a half weeks or so, I rode every day that I could to try to get my miles up. And I suffered. That first time I really suffered. It was hard. I didn’t think I was going to finish. There was a woman that was riding about my same pace, and we sort of paced each other for about 150 miles, which was really helpful. I don’t know who she is. I’ve never seen her since, but maybe she was an angel guiding my way.

Kira Hug:  Maybe she listens to the podcast.

Rob Marsh:  Maybe so. But I finished the first time and then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do it right.” So yeah, I’ve done it five times solo. I’ve done it another time with a team, but the other times I’ve trained, I’ve taken eight months to train and make sure that I’m riding several hundred miles a week before I get to… And it’s gone much better. But yeah, that’s what goes through my head when I hear you talking about training for an Ironman.

I’m like, okay, not only are you doing a massive bike ride, but you’re also running a full marathon and you’re swimming. I don’t know if it’s open water or what in Arizona, but you’re swimming somewhere for a couple of miles. It is an undertaking, and I’m a little bit jealous but also still happy it’s not me.

Kira Hug:  Where did most of the pain come from on the first bike ride where you weren’t fully trained for it? What was the pain you were feeling?

Rob Marsh:  I think it was just not being prepared for the actual distance. Because I hadn’t been training, my longest ride before I ever got on this 200-mile ride was a hundred miles. And I had only done that once or twice before, once during the training. And so once I’m approaching 80 or 90 miles, I’m starting to feel it and I’m like, I still got another one of these to go. So it was there, and it was a little bit hot that year. I’ve actually ridden it when it snowed. They called it SnowTaJa and there were not very many finishers that year because a freak snowstorm that was not in the weather forecast the day before just came out of nowhere. That was a fun day. It was a little cold that day. But yeah, it’s the training part. So I think if you train, you’re going to be okay. And you have a plan.

Kira Hug:  You think I’m going to be okay. So that’s important.

Rob Marsh:  Of course. Yeah.

Kira Hug:  That’s exciting. So when I hear you talk about that, it gets me really excited to just think about any goal that feels a little bit far out of reach and that you might have to suffer to achieve at some point. That’s what I’m excited about right now. So training’s going well. I train, I run on Sundays. I do my long run on Sundays. I’m up to 11 miles. I want to really push it to 14 miles this weekend. It’s lovely because it’s a time when I’m not in charge of anything.

I’m not taking care of other people. I just get to chill out and listen to podcasts. And so to me, it’s joyful. And so yeah, I’ll keep you updated on how it goes once I get the Peloton and once I get into the pool. I also got my nose pierced, so I’ve used that as an excuse not to get into the pool. Because I was like, “I can’t get into the pool because I have this piercing, and so I have to take care of it.” Which is a really great excuse not to get into the pool, but I do need to do that soon.

Rob Marsh:  See, I don’t even need an excuse not to get in the pool. I just don’t want to swim. It’s not going to happen. I’ll get on my bike and I’ll run, but I don’t think I’m going to swim.

Kira Hug:  What else are you excited about business-wise? What’s happening in marketing and copywriting?

Rob Marsh:  Well, we mentioned that I’ve missed those two Italian classes because we’ve been out of town together. Two weeks ago, we were with the Think Tank in New Orleans. We should definitely chat a little bit about what we did there. And then last week we were in Florida with the mastermind that we belong to and had some really good takeaways from that as well.

And I’m excited to build some of the stuff that we learned in that into our business. And I know I mentioned this on the podcast a few weeks ago, but while we were in Orlando, I kind of committed, and I think you committed too, that we’re both writing a book this year. And so I’ve started, why not? I started writing the book. I mean, you’re training for an Ironman, we’ve got all these awesome things happening in our business. You might as well write a book too.

Kira Hug:  But again, you can do it. If you start to think about how it all overlaps and fits together, if you are on a long bike ride and you’re thinking maybe you can capture some of your thoughts on a voice memo, turn it into a chapter of your book. If I’m out running 14 miles, there’s no reason for me not to think about… And that’s actually when I get my best ideas anyway, to capture those ideas and turn them into something. So I think for me, it helps to think about how all of these projects start to intersect. Otherwise, it does become disjointed and overwhelming. So you start… You, yes, Rob and I, when we were in Orlando, I guess it was after a presentation about a book funnel, even though we’ve heard, I mean, we’ve talked about books on the podcast so many times. You’ve written a book, but I wonder why the two of us were like, “Yes, we need to do it now.” Why this time and not every other conversation we’ve had about books?

Rob Marsh:  For me, that’s a good question. I know I mentioned last year that I wanted to write a book. I think it was when we were… I was talking with Kim Schwam recently on a podcast where I said, “Yes, I’m doing it this year. It’s happening.”

Kira Hug: So you’d already made the decision?

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. I’d made the decision. I’d kind of started to outline what I want to write about. So I have an outline. I’ve put together a few of the elements that I want to write about. My biggest question is, and this is something a lot of people say that you should create in public and start sharing chapters with people and maybe even have an email list that’s specific about the book. And then other people are like, “Well, there are a lot of people that that’s actually not that helpful to see that information upfront.” And so I’m curious, I would love to hear from anybody who’s listening if they would be interested in regular email updates on a book. If they don’t want to just reach out to me directly. If more than a handful of people say yes, then maybe that’s something that I can put together and we can put together just a separate email list for anybody who wants to maybe preview chapter ideas.

There are some things that I want to do with this book. I would love to share a bunch of copywriter stories that illustrate the principles that we’re talking about in the book. So my book is all about building that business, call it a six figure business or whatever, and the steps you have to take. It’s a lot of the principles that we talk about here on the podcast, that we teach in some of our programs. But I want to put it in book form so that it’s really easily accessible, and I’m hoping to be able to profile a bunch of copywriters in there as well and how they’ve dealt with some of these things.

So anyway, I’m throwing it out there here. If people want to see that unfold in real life, like I said, email me, let me know. And if more than two or three… Well, let’s say if more than 10 or 20 emails back that there’s interest there, I’ll go to the effort and put something together. I’m wondering about your book though, Kira, because you’re not quite as far down the list and you committed… Or down that journey. You committed to writing a book, and then you’re like, “Yeah, but I just want to write my own personal stuff.” You don’t want to write about business.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, that’s always my struggle is I see where it fits into the business model, and I think that’s where I overthink it and get stuck because I’m like, “Okay, it needs to be about copywriting or branding or position, all the things.” And then I’m like, “But I just want to write about my feelings, or I just want to write about connection and relationship, whatever.”

But I think I’m figuring out… I have an idea in mind that I think I’m going to pursue that I am not going to mention yet, but I’m feeling good about it. And so it feels exciting to me. It needs to feel exciting. And this does feel exciting. So it might not be a good book and it might be three chapters, but I’m committed to putting something together and self-publishing. Just to go through the motions of it would be really fun, because we’re both doing it at the same time. And I know we’re kind of competitive here, and it’s fun, and we do well with competition, but are we working towards a certain date? Maybe we can have a book launch and share our book launch. Maybe we do separate book launches.

Rob Marsh:  That’s a good idea. So I haven’t put a date out there yet simply because I want a little bit more leeway as I’m really formulating the plan. But I think by summertime, I would definitely like to have my book done. So that would be by June-ish. So I’m hoping three or four months to have it done, out and ready to go.

Kira Hug:  You’re fast.

Rob Marsh:  Well, again, it might be a very short book. It might be. So we’ll see. I want it, but I would like it done, done this year. And once we get into the fall and we’re talking about the accelerator again and all kinds of things, it would make a big difference to me, I think, just to have it done by the time summer starts.

Kira Hug:  Okay. Well, cool. I will try to do that as well. I feel the urgency to do it this year because I’m turning… I have a birthday in a couple weeks, next month, and I’m turning 40. So I think that’s also the reason I’m setting all these big ambitious goals is because I want to do all these fun things during the 40th year. Not that it matters if it happens outside of it, but I think that’s, for me, kind of the catalyst for, why not do everything this year? Don’t wait. So I don’t know if I can make a June deadline, but I will aim for the fall.

Rob Marsh:  Awesome. So summer for me, fall for you. We’ve committed to it. It’s on the podcast. People can hold us accountable. And again, if you want to follow along while we do that, reach out to us. Let us know so that we know if anybody actually really cares. Otherwise, once the books are done, we’ll just share them with you.

Kira Hug:  No one cares.

Rob Marsh:  We’ll see.

Kira Hug:  I care about your book, so I would like to hear updates about your book.

Rob Marsh:  All right. I’ll give you updates. We’ll see if anybody else should get them. But let’s go back and talk about New Orleans because it was really cool to get back together in person with our Think Tank. We did it last year as part of IRL where we had a day with the Think Tank, but it was fantastic and a good reminder of how valuable it is to get face-to-face with people in more than just a 15-minute conversation. So what was your experience in New Orleans and maybe a couple of highlights.

Kira Hug:  New Orleans is, to me, the most magical place you can visit. We didn’t have enough time there because it’s such an incredible city with such a great spirit. I feel the same way. I think you and I had two back-to-back retreats. So we were in person for two weeks in a row, which doesn’t happen typically and has not happened for a long time. And so for me, just in general, I feel energized and I am setting these big goals, and I feel so excited in a way I haven’t in a long time, and I know it’s directly connected to those in-person mastermind retreats. Because you can’t, it’s hard to muster up that energy if you’re just doing it alone every day, even if you’re connected to people online, it’s just a different energy. So from the Think Tank retreat in New Orleans, yeah, it just felt so good to be in person again.

I know you and I were like, “Can we do this? As introverts? Is this something we still want to do in person?” And after the second day, I was like, “Oh, yeah, this is why we created the Copywriter Club in the first place, because the magic does happen when we’re together in person brainstorming, sharing ideas, listening to speakers.”

And so to me, it was just a reminder of, this is why we do what we do, and this is why I will continue to do it. Because of that time together, not just listening to speakers like Leanna Patch came in to talk about speaking and visibility with our Think Tank members. We had Think Tank members teaching each other and really getting into the nitty-gritty of what we do in our businesses. And then we had time just to be social, and we went to a really fun, fancy French restaurant and just had a lot of fun together, not talking about business and getting to know each other on a personal level. And so I just left it feeling like, I want more of this. I want more time with these copywriters who I admire and sign me up for more. That’s what I took away from it. What about you?

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, well, in addition to just being together, you mentioned Leanna’s teaching, members of the think tank that taught each other, and we were talking about systems and what systems we need in our business and the tools that support that. There was training on welcome sequences and lots of different ideas on how to do that for not just ourselves but for our clients. We talked about building a minimalist business, which is a great idea to think about how do we get more done with less, or how do we get the same done with less? We talked about being thought partners, and by the way, these are all ideas that came from the group, things that they were teaching each other, showing up as a thought partner for your clients, which again is another term that I just, is a reframe of how we serve the people that we work with.

We learned about using Enneagram, and I know a lot of people talk about the Enneagram, “This is my number,” or whatever. But actually contextualizing that when you’re thinking about the products and services that you want to create in your business and making sure that it matches up with the way that you approach things. And that was kind of eye-opening in a lot of ways. We even talked about AI and different use cases for that, and I was really not surprised, but I’m trying to think of the right word, but really impressed by the number of Think Tank members who were using tools like Chat GPT already in their business, and how they’re using AI to speed up their workflow, to do research, to find not just the typical ideas that are out there, but just doing really smart things with it. And so being able to get together and learn from each other, that is an amazing experience. And then like you said, couple that with hanging out together, doing a cemetery tour, having great food, seeing a comedy show, those kinds of things, just, it’s frosting on top of the cake.

Kira Hug:  The cemetery tour was a highlight for me. If you are ever in New Orleans, you’ve got to do the cemetery tour. It was fantastic. Well, I already told you, I took photos. We were told to take a bunch of photos in one of the cemeteries, and I took a bunch, and I swear there is a ghost in one of my photos.

Rob Marsh:  I don’t see it. I don’t see it.

Kira Hug:  My children see it, and that’s all that matters. So anyway, it was just so magical and so fun to be away from our current settings and all the responsibilities we all got to leave behind, just be playful and feel like kids, but also to build the business and to learn and to figure all those things out together.

Rob Marsh:  This is probably where we should insert a promotion, if you’re interested in that kind of retreat, that kind of an experience in your business. We do them three times a year. We’ve done them, a combination of in-person and virtual. Hopefully, we’re moving more to more in-person. But if you’re interested in that, go to Copywriter Think Tank.com. Just submit that application and let’s have a discussion as to whether that’s a good fit for you. Let’s also talk a little bit about Florida too, Kira, because I think there’s some really good takeaways there.

Kira Hug:  And just before we do that, I do want to emphasize we are looking at the next few retreats for the Think Tank, and they will be in person. We will have virtual retreats as well, but it’s just not the same. And so we’re looking at the spring, going in person, at a retreat, probably in the United States, and then in the fall planning one possibly in the UK for our in-person retreat. So if that sounds appealing to you and you want to be in person, now is the time to reach out and to talk to us about the Think Tank. So Orlando. So why were we in Orlando?

Rob Marsh:  Well, we walk the talk. I mean, we talk all the time about how getting together in person with people who are doing similar and also different things in their businesses helps you grow. And that’s partly why we built the Copywriter Think Tank. But we do the same with our business. And since I think very early on, maybe four or five months into just having the Copywriter Club, you and I have belonged to at least one mastermind. Sometimes we’ve been in more than one, and I think we’ve kind of figured-

Kira Hug:  I’ve been in too many, for sure.

Rob Marsh:  If you can focus on one, but being around other people doing really impressive things in their business, it changes the way you think about your business. And it’s not just, “Hey, there’s somebody that’s making a million dollars or 10 million dollars.” It’s not just about the money. It’s about thinking about business differently and seeing how another business solves a problem that you also have and being able to borrow ideas to solve problems in similar ways.

And I thought that the presentations from our mastermind were fantastic. But the most useful thing to me is when you and I sat down with Paulo, one of the other members there who has a business that he runs in Portugal and Brazil, and he broke down step by step every piece of his business for us. And as he would talk about things, some of which were similar to what we do and some of which were very different, it just got me thinking… In fact, I wish I had a recording of this because there were so many-

Kira Hug:  I know, me too.

Rob Marsh:  …Good ideas. Because it wasn’t one of the major presentations, it was just Paulo, you and me, and I think-

Kira Hug:  I was also drinking wine as we were talking. So I kept some of it in my brain, but we should have recorded that whole conversation.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, it was just idea after idea and insight after insight, and over the course of maybe a little less than an hour, so many things that we could make small tweaks to our business, some maybe new programs that we should add, choosing to do things a different way, marketing in different ways. It was amazing. And that’s the power of a mastermind is being able to sit down with the other people there and just say, “Okay, this is how I’m doing something.” And have them ask questions and vice versa. And that hour that we spent with Paulo was, like I said, I wish I had a video of that because we could sell it, I think for hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars to people. It was so insightful.

Kira Hug:  Well, you and I need to debrief that. I think we should debrief that conversation sooner rather than later. But yeah, you’re right. That’s, when you’re thinking about being a part of a mastermind, it’s not just about learning from peer presentations, which is great, and you can always take something away from that. There’s also a lot of content in the world that you can pull from outside of a mastermind. But I think the special part is what you just shared. It’s sitting down with people who have built a relationship with you and could charge thousands of dollars for giving you the advice. But oftentimes, they just give it for free because you’re part of the same community and you are supporting them, they’re supporting you, and you can’t get that everywhere. And so I think that you’re right. That was what I took away from it too.

So many great ideas. And I think the accountability for me is really important because we were there in person with this incredible group that I respect, and I feel like we are the smallest business in that room, which is great. That means we’re in the right room. And so I’m thinking, okay, if we’re going to see all these brilliant business owners in four months, what do we need to do before then so that we can share what we’ve done and implemented? So I like that baked-in accountability that I take away from being in a group too.

Rob Marsh:   It’s really useful. And then our mastermind does similar things to what we did with the Copywriter Club. There are fun things. There’s dinners, and the place where we went this time, there was a bowling alley at the house and a game room and swimming pool. So there were all kinds of activities that are sort of adjacent to it. But my favorite takeaways are still just the learning that I get from the people who are there.

Kira Hug:  No, my favorite was beating you at the pool. I think I beat you two times or maybe three times playing pool. Not just the two of us. We were playing on teams. But you did not seem happy that you didn’t win.

Rob Marsh:  Well, I came home, I took the ping pong table off my pool table, and I am practicing every day. The next time we play pool, I will not lose. I’m going to win.

Kira Hug:  I don’t have a pool table.  Yes. So we’ve got a little competitive with air hockey. You did beat me at air hockey, but I think-

Rob Marsh:  We have video. We should share that video in as many places as possible, because-

Kira Hug:  I don’t love that video. But yes. Great. So that catches us up to this week. We’re back, energized, focused. I think focused. Maybe not so much focused, lots of ideas. So we’re trying to focus and we’re… What are you excited about now that we’re back?

Rob Marsh:  Well, two things I think that you and I are working on that I think has some excitement from everyone. I emailed our list about a week and a half, two weeks ago when this podcast goes live, just asking if anybody would be interested in an AI workshop that we’ve started putting together. And we’ve had an amazing response to that. People emailing saying, “Yes, absolutely. I would love to see that workshop.” I posted something similar in the Facebook group, the free Facebook group, the Copywriter Club. And again, there’s a couple of dozen people there that are interested in it. So you and I are moving full force in making an AI workshop available. This is the kind of workshop that it’s like, look, if you don’t know anything about AI, this is a good place to get your feet wet. And if you do know some things about AI, you may pick up a couple of additional ideas that will help you as you start to use tools like Chat GPT.

And one of the things that’s most amazing to me, Kira, about AI is that things are changing so fast. Literally every day there’s this new AI that does something else incredible. With the release of Chat GPT, a week or two ago added a paid tier that gets you faster access. Obviously, it’s not going to stay free forever. Microsoft has talked about how they’re adding it to Bing. In fact, I believe there’s a test going on currently where you can actually try Chat GPT or Open AI, which is the background for Chat GPT as part of Bing. Google has talked about how they’re going to be bringing their AI into their search. And I know one of their AI… They’ve got a couple, one of them is called Sparrow, which is basically Chat GPT with an internet connection.

So you’re not limited to the data set that’s fed into Open AI once they release it. AI’s doing all kinds of new things like identifying paintings of masters that have never been seen before, solving puzzles that have never been solved before. It’s happening so fast. And I know a lot of copywriters are worried about its impact on us, on the work that we do, the content that we create. And there are reasons to worry, for sure. But it is just a tool. And if your job is being a hammer and somebody brings along an automated hammer, you’re going to lose your job.

If all you do is produce the kinds of content that a chatbot can produce, then you’re in trouble. But if you can take that tool and use it to augment what you do in your business, the originality, the creativity, the personal stories, all of that, it becomes really valuable. So anyway, we’re going to talk a lot about that in that workshop and then also to make it even more accessible. What else are we doing?

Kira Hug:  Yeah, I mean, the part I’m most excited about is we are launching a new podcast series about AI for creatives. So for you listening copywriters, as creatives, we are… I feel so excited about this topic. I see it as a huge opportunity for us as creatives. I definitely understand the anxiety around it. So the podcast will give us an opportunity to have deeper conversations about the nuances of AI and what it means from so many different directions. What does it mean to be creative and use AI tools? What does it mean to build out and simplify your business? Because now we have ways to simplify with AI. What does it mean as someone who’s trying to provide value? You’re going to provide it in a different way now. And so I think there’s just such a huge conversation around it. We don’t want to get lost in one tool.

We can definitely talk about the tools, but they’re going to be ever-changing. So we kind of want to just look at the big picture in this new podcast and talk about everything that’s happening so you’re updated. And also, for me at least, I want to dumb it down a little bit. Let’s talk about it so it’s easy for me to understand because a lot of the conversations I hear now are way over my head, and I just want to talk about it in a way that makes sense to me.

And so the best way to do that is for us to grab the mic and interview people we find fascinating, interview other creatives, copywriters who are using these tools, who have strong viewpoints to share about these tools so that we can give copywriters and creatives in our community the best opportunity to navigate and be agile in this ever-changing terrain, because it’s not going to go anywhere. And so let’s figure it out together. And again, the best way I think for the two of us to do that is through a podcast format, because we’ve proven that we love it through this format. We love interviewing people, we love talking to people. So I can’t think of a better way to tackle this topic than on a podcast.

Rob Marsh:  So if you’re listening to this and thinking, “That sounds like the kind of thing that I would love to listen to, or I have questions about AI that I would love you guys to answer,” send those to us. Or if you have a tool that you love or want to know more about, if you have somebody that you would like us to talk to that’s in the world of artificial intelligence, let us know that too. Because we’re just starting to make those interviews happen. We hope to be able to release the first couple of episodes in the next couple of weeks. So we’ll get it going pretty quickly. It won’t be a weekly, forever kind of podcast. We’ll probably build a couple of seasons that we can… So that we can just take a step back, look at what’s happening, what are the changes, and come back and address them. But we’ll see how it all unfolds. But we are excited to-

Kira Hug:  I want it to be forever. So I don’t know. We’ll figure that out.

Rob Marsh:  We’ll see how it goes.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, I think the important part is if you are also using tools, you have user studies and stories to share from your business as a practitioner, we’re very interested in sharing your story, especially if you’ve been in it pretty deep. Reach out. We’d love to chat with you. And it’s probably worth noting, this doesn’t mean that we’re shutting down the Copywriter Club podcast you’re listening to. This show will continue as usual. There probably will be conversations where we do talk about AI, and it’s part of the conversation here, but we felt like we needed a separate place to just go really deep and get lost in the world of AI rather than keeping it as just a small part of the conversation, but not being able to jump fully in.

Rob Marsh:  Yes. Well said.

Kira Hug:  What else have we got? What else? So I think you already said this, but if you have any interest in the new podcast, checking it out or this new workshop series, you can click a link in our show notes. We will have a link in there just so you can sign up for the waitlist, interest list and get more information and updates on that. But we’re really excited about figuring out how it can best serve you as someone who’s listening to this show, what would make it useful to you, and that’s what we’re focused on.

Rob Marsh:  And then beyond that, we’re really excited about some of the interviews that we have coming up in the next few episodes. We’ve talked to some really smart people. We won’t share their names now, but we’ve had a couple of interviews just this week that were fantastic and really looking forward to sharing those. So keep listening. If you like what you hear from our guests, from what we share, the conversations, leave a review at Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Or you can just send us an email and tell us what you think about that episode, what you learned from it, share it on social media, whatever the place is that you do that. We appreciate that.

Our intro music was composed by songwriter and copywriter, Addison Rice. Our outro music was composed by copywriter and songwriter David Muntner. I already said that if you like what you heard, leave us a review. So I’m just going to skip over that part.

Kira Hug:  We don’t have to skip over. We don’t get that many reviews, so we would love your review. We don’t get that many of them. It’s a pain to leave them, but if you can do that, we’ll read it out loud on the next show.

Rob Marsh:  We used to get a lot. We used to get a lot, but maybe when podcasts turn 330, well, they’ve got enough.

Kira Hug:  Maybe we just need to step it up.

Rob Marsh:  Coming to you next week, a stepped-up podcast that you’re definitely going to want to comment on, leave a review. Anyway, everybody, thank you. We’ll see you next week.

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