Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to basic Business AI. My name is Josh Thomas. I am your host, and this is a podcast dedicated to simple AI strategies for businesses who don't want to get an advanced tech degree or hire some marketing bro, you can find me on social media.
What we do on this show is we bring on regular business owners just like you, just like me, to discuss practical strategies and ideas and perspectives about AI without getting too far into the weeds of the tech BB. AI is sponsored by Anna Bots. And did you know that companies that respond to customer inquiries within less than 1 minute have a 400% higher chance of closing the deal? Our AI powered assistants have an average response time of just 9 seconds, and that means you can close more sales without generating more leads. No tech skills are needed, and you can get started in less than five minutes. You can go to Anabots AI to learn more. Once again, that's Anabots AI. Today's guest is Wayne Mullins. Wayne's company, ugly Mug Marketing, is a full service marketing company that provides website design, social media, and visual marketing, event planning, SEO speaking, and more. That's already a lot, Wayne, but that's awesome. So, hey, the name ugly mug marketing stems from the belief that the results should never be compromised, not even for the sake of good design. We would rather have an ugly design that delivers results than a beautiful design that doesn't. The day we begin focusing on winning awards instead of delivering results for our clients is the day our business has lost its way. Wayne, welcome to basic business AI. From your perspective, how is AIH reshaping the future of your industry?
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Thank you, Josh. Thanks for the opportunity to come and visit with you today. Um, so what I would say for the marketing industry as a whole, I think that the level and amount of change that AI is bringing and has already brought is pretty seismic. It's huge, right? It's opening up possibilities. It's opening up opportunities like never before. Um, and I think that the biggest opportunity is where we can learn to leverage AI tools to help us do what we were already doing, but do it more effectively and more efficiently. So there's a million different ways we could talk about the practical implications of this and how we see it being played out. But at the end of the day, I think the companies and the organizations that figure out how they can leverage aih to have more meaningful, more conversations in real time with customers, the better.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. And really, what's happening here with AI, specifically in marketing, is, honestly, I think we should dive into this a little bit, Wayne, because a lot of our conversations have been like, hey, here's some cool thing I do with Aihdem, but you run a marketing agency and to some marketing agencies AI is a threat and to others it's an asset.
And I'm not going to ask you which side of the fence you end on. You're on the podcast, so that's something.
But I'm curious, what turns AI from a threat to an asset in the marketing industry specifically? Im curious your thoughts on that.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, the simple word, Josh, is strategy. So if your marketing centers around tactics, in other words, doing a bunch of different things, Facebook posts go and do some emails, going to do whatever those things may be. If all of your marking is strictly tactical and theres no strategy that is driving those tactics, then AI is going to be a tremendous threat for your agency because AI is going to do those things better and more efficient than you ever will. But if you come from a position of strategy and you understand at the end of the day, if you really understand human psychology, how humans make purchasing decisions, and then you leverage those tools to help you, that is when you will not only survive this avalanche of AI, but you will actually thrive as a result of it.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: That's strong.
The line really is drawn at can the task you're performing be automated in some way or be delegated? Or is it repetitive or is it not really innovative in some way? And if the answer is yes, then AI will and probably should replace it, even for you. And what you need to be doing is elevating yourself to a higher level and executing higher value tasks. Because despite what we may hear, human beings are still superior to machines because we have the capability of discretion, empathy, discernment, and making judgment calls based on a preponderance of all the evidence. And AI can mimic these things by running a formula or a program, but it can't actually do it. It can just make it look like it's doing that. Humans still are far superior in that, and they will be for a long time.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So again, AI is going to run based on facts and figures, right? There's no real emotion. It understands emotion from the perspective of words and text, and it understands the implications of emotions. But AI is incapable of filling emotions. And 90 plus percent of people make their purchasing decisions based on emotion, and then they justify with logic. And so at its essence, that is what marketing is. Marketing is about understanding human psychology, the way people make purchasing decisions. And so when you, when you think about your marketing or if you're an agency owner, you're thinking about the pieces and the components that you do and you put together for people. Um, if it's all pieced out, in other words, if your agency, maybe you do a lot of social media posts and that's why people come to you, because, you know, you do their online social media presence. The problem with that is, number one, that's a very tactical thing, right? You can go to AI, you can tell AI, go analyze the last, you know, year of post on my page and create more posts similar to this, right? Same verbiage, similar graphics. Like, all of that is on the horizon, and all of that means is you're going to be replaced, right? It's going to be cheaper, quicker, and easier for someone to go to technology. I think a distinction and a unique place that we're in right now with AI is this. We are still in the very early stages and days of AI. And what I see happening, Josh, over and over again, I often say that AI is the new gold rush, right? So everyone knows they should be doing. Every entrepreneur is running out, trying to figure out what to do. And the mistake I see so many making is this. They will literally spend hours and hours, days upon days, researching, testing, trying to piece together all these little things, and they end up with this Frankenstein, Frankenstein thing that doesn't produce what they're after. So what I would say is people don't factor in the cost of their time. They think, once I crack this AI thing, right, everything's going to be easier. And that is probably true, but they're not factoring in the cost of their time. And so I'm a huge believer in buying other people's expertise. Like, I've had coaches pretty much my entire adult life. I've had business coaches and running coaches and coaches. And I'm buying their years of experience. I'm buying time. You know, you've got books sitting over your shoulder, some great books up there over your shoulder. Those are people who spent, like James Clear, atomic abbotts, for example. You can go read his story. He spent, I think, three or four years writing that book. So he condensed three or four years of research plus his life experience into a book that you can read in a few hours. And yet, if we flip that same analogy around to AI today, people think because there's so many, you know, inexpensive or even free AI tools, that by going around hunting and pecking and trying to figure it out and piece things together, that they're saving time, they're saving money, when in reality, the most precious commodity you have as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, is your time, and we need to treat it that way.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah, indeed. And really, it's all about creating a tool to save time. And one of the things that I'm a huge advocate for, Wayne, is don't worry about understanding technology. You don't need to understand technology to use it.
I've got my car in the shop right now, and it's like some kind of weird electrical issue. And I don't have to be an electrician to get my car fixed. I don't have to understand what the problem is to get the car fixed. All I have to know is how to drive down to the Honda dealership and say, hey, this is still under warranty. Please fix it. You know, that's all I have to do. And to drive the car, I don't have to know how the engine and the gears are all cranked together.
I don't have to understand, you know, the aerodynamics. The only thing I need to understand is the traffic laws and how to turn a steering wheel this way and that way, and that's it. And so if we look at AI the same way, just because a lot of people are saying, spewing a lot of jargon doesn't mean you need to know any of that. All you really need to know is, if you go back to the fundamentals, what is it I'm trying to accomplish, and what tools can I use to help me accomplish this thing? And AI may be one of those tools, but it may not.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I completely agree. You need to go to someone that has experience that you can trust to give you guidance and insight. And the. The only other thing I would say is this. That don't just go searching for AI to figure out what AI can do for you. Look at what's taking place currently in your business, in your organization.
Look at all the things that are already taking place, and then go look for things that AI can help automate, help make more efficient. All of those things don't go out just looking at AI and seeing, oh, well, that's a cool thing. Maybe we should implement that instead. Look at your systems, look at your processes, look at what you're currently doing, and then go to someone who can help point you in the right direction. On. Here's something that could possibly be leveraged in your organization that would either save you time, help you close more deals, whatever that may be.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: So, Wayne, something you're really, really qualified to do. Tell me where I can get an ugly mug.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I don't know where you can actually get an ugly mug, but I know where you get some ugly mug. Marketing.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Tell us about it.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Yeah, you can come to us. Uglymugmarketing.com. and again, as you said in the intro, our whole belief is simply this, that we would rather focus on what matters most to you, and that is results. You know, you don't care if the ad is pretty. You don't care if the ad is ugly. At the end of the day, you want more money in your bank account, more revenue, and you want more profit at the end of the year.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: That's right. And truer words can't, can't be said here.
There's so many marketing firms out there that are going to build you a really huge, shiny website with 17,000 pages that nobody will ever see. And even if they do, they're going to be so overwhelmed that they leave in 2 seconds. And that's not marketing. That's not going to work. That's not going to get you where you need to go. What's going to get you where you need to go is the words and the message and the experience that converts a looker into a buyer, a subscriber into somebody who's a paying member or whatever it may be. A prospective customer comes in and is interested in your product and they have enough information from you and a compelling enough reason to want to make a decision.
Buy the dang thing.
And it's the same thing. Kind of pulling it right back to basic business. AI. AI doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to do what it needs to do to help you get the job done. Marketing is the same way. Marketing doesn't need to be fancy.
Look at for those of us that you got a little gray in your beard there. So we're both familiar with Craigslist. That was a huge thing. It's still around, by the way. I don't know if you knew that. It's like, still a thing.
Craigslist is like literally just a bunch of words unstyled on a screen, multi billion dollar company, because they had the right product and the right messaging around it. And so ugly websites sell. Ugly marketing sells. What really matters is you're going to get the results that you're looking for. So I'm on board with that mission, man. I'm going to buy an ugly mug now.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Awesome. Let's do it.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: All right. Hey, we're going to wrap up here. Thanks so much to our guest, Wayne Mullins, for coming on and sharing some practical insights about AI and how it's reshaping the marketing industry. For those of you who want to learn more about Wayne's business ugly mug marketing, you can go to uglymugmarketing.com dot. If you run a business of any size and you have some ideas or strategies around the topic of AI, we'd love to have you on a future episode as well. We interview business owners of all levels of experience and exposure to AI so we can represent all voices, especially those 90% of us who are curious about AI but not trying to be tech geniuses. You can apply for a future episode by going to basicbusinessai.com. and one more time, if you want to install a sales and support team for less than 10% of the cost of an employee, get yourself an anabot. You can learn more at anabots AI. We'll see you next time here on basic business AI. And by the way, if you liked this episode, tell your friends. See you later.
