Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Basic Business AI, a podcast dedicated to simple AI strategies for businesses who don't want to get an advanced degree or hire some marketing bro. I'm your host Ana Gonzalez and you can find me on social media at AnnaBugPrime. We bring on regular business owners like you and me to discuss practical strategies, ideas and perspectives about AI without getting too far into the weeds of the tech bb. AI is sponsored by Conversational Funnels, the new way to automate lead generation, qualification and appointment bookings for service based businesses. If you want more sales calls on your calendar without having to pay some expensive marketing agency or higher appointment setters, Conversational Funnels are the best bet for your buck in 2024. Download the Blueprint for free by going to conversationalfunnels.com Today's guest is Adam Seeds.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Actually, I'm sorry. That's all right.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Adam Seitz. I forgot to ask. Thank you so much for that.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: I spelled it wrong, so don't worry about it.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Today's guest is Adam Seitz and Adam Seitz. From Broadway to the boardroom, Adam Seitz is award winning writer, producer, turned award winning comedian, actor, and now a best selling author and keynote speaker. A lifetime performer and master improviser, Adam combines humor, neurodiversity awareness and personal growth to empower others to be more resilient to overcoming adversity. As a seasoned coach, producer and sales professional, Adam ignites transformation through bold creative storytelling and personalized guidance. Adam, welcome to Basic Business AI Hi.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: There, how are you?
[00:01:41] Speaker A: I'm doing amazing.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Great.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Know that we're going to have a great time together today. So tell me from your perspective, how is AI reshaping the future of your industry?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Well, my industry, I'm kind of involved in a number of industries. I've been a performer for the past quarter century. Now I'm doing more speaking engagements and workshops and traveling around doing other stuff. But first of all, as an actor, not just an actor, but mostly a lot of the stuff I've been doing in the past few decades is a lot of voice work and characters and different kinds of, you know, things from all over the world, whatever it is. And the thing is is now they cloned voice and they don't need me anymore. So that's a real, that's a real issue with a lot of recording. And that's why SAG after went on strike last year because there was no agreement for them to never be able to use the record they wanted to literally include in the contracts. We can use your voice and the likeness of your voice in perpetuity.
No, that doesn't work. For example, like now, what's interesting is because of that rule, James Earl Jones, who just passed away, he sold his voice, he sold the rights for like, I think over a hundred million dollars, and then he passed away. But his voice will continue to work forever at this point. That was Darth Vader.
It's amazing.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: That is amazing. And that's so interesting. And this is the first time in this podcast that someone comes with like this kind of problem. You know, I've heard of people being very happy because they can clone their voice and they can clone their likeness and they can just like write something and have a video say whatever they wrote.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: I, I've now seen video that will take my conversation with you. And now my mouth and I'm speaking a completely different language. It's translating and it's my face and my mouth doing it. So it's kind of great because again, also in my other my. I'm a writer also. So I've been whether for a book or I've written for other comedians, I've written for television shows, I've written for award shows, I've written for ad agencies. I'm like a creative hired gun that comes in and helps on certain things incorporating humor and the funny. And AI is I use it quite a bit on certain things that help me to polish stuff up, clean stuff up. Then I go back through it and put. Put back in my flavor that might have been removed after I put it in. But I do enjoy it. One of my issue is like images. I wrote a new series of books called Wonky the Monkey. It's about a monkey that's different, big ears and just a cool little monkey. But the issue is I found I did some mid journey and some of those and I got a great image of where I wanted to start. The likeness of Wonkey. I could not get any other product or even other. Any other artist that works with AI to be able to take the image I have that is mine and use it and build pictures with you AI or CGI or whatever it is. So that, that's, that's the only come out with extra fingers. You know, the people on the sidelines have faces that are not four eyes or eyes, two eyes are on half a half face. So you know that that's the one issue I have with AI but it's coming. So whether you like it or not, get used to it. And you got to find a way to tap in and capitalize where I can and just accept it. So that's why I'm kind of really enjoying things like this and speaking and really getting people out of their heads and to understand that they're okay just the way they are. AI will help a lot of people that don't have that creative juices or to be able or confidence to write something really strong to send to someone as a proposal or a pitch. AI can definitely help people with that. So can I. But, you know, it's a little different. My thing is the humor. I'm really strong on knocking things that are not as strong, that don't necessarily bring a smile to the face. It's just a bunch of information being thrown. And to me, you put a smile on someone's face, they're now more than willing to listen to what you're going to say. If you could get them to laugh, sit on their lap and close the deal, you know, it really. It's a very helpful tool, is to have humor. I can't do that just yet. And, you know, actually I was. We were working, I was mentioning it before with the government with a process for. They were trying to get AI with DARPA to understand humor and funny because it's very interesting. I'm learning how to be for how. How. What is funny? How do you be funny? So it's interesting because in this book I actually have a chapter called what Is Funny? And what I did is I pulled it out and wrote another book based on just that. It's called the Funny Is a Factor. I'll be more than happy to give it away at the end of this, but that it really gives all those little pointers, the things that help you to add the funny, you know, from the law of three to the setup punchline to the reversal, the switch, the self deprecation, the using of voices and characters, you know, or impressions of people that you might have heard already, you know, different kinds of things are really helpful. And you see, I get a little chuckle right there. So what's helpful is if you could just trust in yourself and your mind's ability to pull things from left field. That's what this improvisational thinking is all about. I've been an improviser for years, and when I first started, it was about. It was. My ego was so in the way, my status up on stage was in the way, and I was too caught up in fame, wanted to be a celebrity, wanting to have fortune. And, you know, what I've learned through the improv that now is where it's all at and looking tomorrow or yesterday or a moment from now or a moment ago is not going to do anything for me. It's all fantasy. Thinking like an improviser is something that's really very helpful because you have to be focused on right now, listening, watching and trusting that something will trigger. And it's really just training and work on doing that, you know. Plus, this is a bunch of other stories and anecdotes and reasons. My book was a bit of a story about myself, so it has a lot of stuff of my background from being diagnosed as an ADHD poster boy as a little boy. And I re diagnosed myself with hyper awareness. I have a faster than normal brain is the way I look at it. And you know, that kind of messed me up for a while. And the improv changed everything for me. It really did. And I think for anyone, anyone should definitely take an improv course if you haven't taken one yet. But I will now let you speak. I've blabbed on for a little bit. I will say yes and yes and that's exactly it. But one of the strongest things that I like to really push is number one, do it now, not a little while, a little later. Because if you don't, then the possibility of it getting done is like half, half the percent of giving. Honey, can you empty the dishwasher? In a minute. It won't get done. So like that was, that's how it started for me. Was just emptying the dishwasher, bringing the garbage cans down from the street because my sons didn't bring them down. And I used to say, hey, you got to go now. I just do it. If it needs to get done, get it done. Your life will be so much better. Say yes and is helpful. But the yes alone is so much stronger than a no. You could always say yes, begin, and then politely decline and back out if it's not something for you, but saying yes. And the last but not least is asking for what you want. Because when you don't ask, it doesn't happen, you know. But if you do ask, it could still not happen. Or you can get anything and everything you want. Like, for example, I ended up on Broadway. Not once, twice, three times. And it all happened because I asked for some time and I got it. And then I asked again and I got that. And I've learned that it doesn't hurt to ask. You should.
So I will.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: I love this. And I will leave it here because yes AI is really good to understand patterns and to use those. But it's not great at being creative like humans.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Right. It's very intelligent, which is great because it brings other words that I don't use in my thesaurus that might be a little cleaner, a little more professional. But again, I also trust in my methodology. I like, I like to take the scenic route. I'm never on an expressway to make a deal. I like to take the scenic route because that's how a relationship begins. Even with my, even when I'm dealing with my AI, I always say thank you and please.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Me too. But just because I'm very polite and sometimes I just say do this because I also wanted to know who's boss if whatever happens in the future.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, also I just wanted to know that I was polite to them before they choose to take over the plan.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Right.
So Adam, tell us about who you serve and how people can reach out to you.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Well, I help many different companies.
You know, let me, let me do this. I. What my company does is somebody helped me with this because, you know, ba ba ba ba ba. What we do is we help entrepreneurs and salespeople to vanquish self doubt with the specific purpose of improving the quality of their communications.
Our local clients, our ideal client is anyone in management, leadership or sales. And they're looking to enhance their team performance, trust their own innate abilities and get to know that they can do anything that they really need to. So they may ultimately feel empowered and get a smile on their face. That's kind of it. But we work with a lot of different companies, from corporate leaders to leadership to sales groups to attorneys and realtors and schools. And you know, if you're having corporate training fatigue where, you know, it's like everyone's doing the same thing and it's boring, that's when I come in. I do a lot of ice breaking, stale sales pitches that aren't getting the thing done. I can help improve that pitch.
Bland customer service interactions. I help those people to learn how to again, incorporate the funny and get those smiles because, you know, and nobody likes to be sold. Everyone likes to buy something. Nobody wants to be sold. Conference and seminars. I, I do speaking and executive meetings and all that kind. My website, adamsites.com kind of says it and that's.
I own the other one too. But yeah, just in case.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Amazing. So we're going to wrap him here. Thanks to our guest Adam Seitz for joining us for a practical conversation about AI and its potential for business. You can learn more about what he does by visiting Adam sites.com that's Adam S E I T S no S.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: I S I E TZ and you know what? If you do S E I, I own that one too. But, but I want to give something away and the only way that'll work is with the SIE. Adam sites S E T Z.com forward slash summit giveaway. I just did like three summits in the past two weeks and my had I set up something called a mail chimp and my assistant's doing all this stuff and that's, that's one thing that I did that I want to give to anyone and everyone. You go buy it on Amazon. It's. It's for sale there but I rather just give it. The dollar is not what drives me. If I can get you to help put those smiles on faces, do it again. Adam sites.com forward/summit giveaway and I think you got to put in an email address so we can send it to you. I don't know how this all works, but this is what's going on. If you don't like that and you don't want to do that, just call me or email me and I'll send it to you another way.
It's my pleasure. And again, it's what I was telling you before. It gives you little tips and tips and tools to, to incorporate more funny and to observe to get to capitalize and these offers and opportunities that are in front of your face and you don't even know it but you will when you look at it. Oh wow. That's how, that's why that's funny. Oh, that makes sense. And that stuff. And it's my gift to anyone that would like it.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Amazing. So if you run a business of any size and you have ideas or strategies are on the topic of AI, we'd love to have you in 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 the 90% of us who are curious about AI but not trying to be tech geniuses. Apply for a future episode by going to basicbusinessai.com and one more time, if you want to solve the problem of lead generation qualification and follow up by automating it completely, download the conversational Funnels blueprint for free at conversationalfunnels.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Com.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: See you next time on Basic Business AI. Oh, by the way, if you like this episode, tell your friends. See you later.
