Kentaro Oi
Hi, welcome to today's episode a word presented by me Kintaro, OE Director of Design at AdSapiens. This season, we're talking to our guests about attention, AI and not tech, exploring the burning questions, future trends and challenges surrounding all things creative and advertising. I'm joined today by Edwin Abl. Edwin is an independent b2b marketing advisor and coach. He's grown and scaled startups from around the globe through exponential revenue growth. And well, welcome to the show. Welcome.
Edwin Abl
Pleased to be here.
Kentaro Oi
Yeah. How? Talk to us about you know, some of the projects you've been working on right now, like, what's what's exciting for you like, what are you looking forward to in the next couple months? In terms of your role?
Edwin Abl
Absolutely. Right now, it's, it's an interesting time, actually, right now, in terms of the line of work, I'm in with regards to read about advisory work and helping b2b SaaS companies grow. And I'll explain what I mean by that, that in a second. And it's, I guess, the advent of AI into the process of I've been really fascinated with actually in terms of like, go to market advisory, because there's a sort of thing that I've realised that I've sort of come across around sort of this, that there's a, there's a commoditization of information out there at the moment, and, and there's a lot of go to market advisors, and actually, I've just recently moved to the States. And what I've noticed is there's, there's, there's a lot more go of going to market advisors, especially on the West Coast, and, and then you throw AI into this mix of this, this ability to get this instant advice on any topic. And it's, it's actually made me think in terms of where I am in terms of what role I've been doing the last few years, which is giving companies the advice of what works and what doesn't work. And in essence, now, in theory, you can go and ask an AI, the same question. So actually, I've been doubling down on the the real core local meta problems within, within companies that actually needs that, that that skill and ability of experience from a human to actually go and solve and, and what that means is it's focusing on actually the real, the real world, a cool strategic, like big challenges that often scaling companies has, especially if they're at the sort of three to 10 million ARR range, which is actually being enrolled as an operator is often neglected, which is around, you know, having the right ICP, having a differentiated point of view, having a really crisp and clear value proposition, having strong alignment, and also having, you know, having clear positioning and messaging, which actually, a lot of the time, those are not super clear within a business. And so the work I'm really enjoying, actually, right now is sort of working in sort of a sprint type format, with with, with organisations on solving sort of these bigger problems, that helps unlock growth a lot quicker. And, and I think, what I've been encouraging them to run away with this sort of take that mentality in general, or in terms of how they operate, you know, how cmo should think about things how CRA should think about things like start thinking more on the business in terms of inside the business. And I think if you do that, then you're more likely to, you know, to unlock the block is you have around growing a software company, especially in the early days. So that's what I've been working on. That's what I'm excited sort of launching a new website next few weeks and looking to take that message out to really help and support individuals and businesses.
Kentaro Oi
definitely want to get into some like the AI points, because that's not like it's not it's not something that you initially think of when you think of you know, some of the things that AI gets into it's, it's a bit more, I think we think, on the more like the creative side or more of the automation side and less of like something that takes a lot of time to build a relationship, and I understand the business. But I first want to ask you just to kind of set the stage for for some of like the b2b advisory that you do for some of these companies, you know, can you talk to us because it's you, you tend to work on like the early stages, right, like you said, when a business is kind of figuring things out, they're looking to scale up. And there's there's a lot of challenges and things that can go wrong in that kind of vulnerable stage. So can you talk to us about like some of the more common mistakes you've seen b2b businesses making in these early stages of scaling?
Edwin Abl
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, the advantage I've had actually over the last couple of years working as an operating partner for VC fund is you get this fantastic chance to observe lots of different leadership teams, lots of lots of different businesses, you know, have been 20, 30 companies at any one time. And so from that you start to unlock like some clarity around again, what what do most people do what works? What does good look like? What what does good not look like? And, and strategies and tactics. And I think you know, there's definitely a commonality. So if you're a company, under 10, even 10-50 million Arr, what I'm going to talk about now is probably some of the stuff I see week on week, which won't be rocket science, but just things that actually are common. And actually, the other things that need to be addressed. So if we, if we think of the top three, I would I come across in, in that. So number one would be, again, going back to this go to market principle, a lot of these companies are confused about, you know, who the customer is. They're confused about how many how big their tam is? So how much they should be going after? everyone's obsessed with scale. So everyone's obsessed with like, how do we reach our tam straightaway? Whereas not many people think about the sort of the TAM, Sam som concept? No, that's a marketing spiel. But basically, all it means is, you know, who can you sell to right now? And the basic principles of marketing, which is, you know, who can you sell to? And, you know, how are you going to make their life better? How do you match your proposition to that? And how do you distribute messages to go through your market? How do you get to them, and a lot of companies at that sort of under 50 million, have have a lot of complicated stuff going on. And it's, it's, there's a real lack of clarity in their go to market and a real lack of alignment as well. And there's all the buzzwords these days, which of which I'm sure you've heard about around, you know, go to market alignment, it's a team sport, all that sort of thing. It is true that, you know, the, the the ones who are doing it well are are getting really clear on those core concepts of the go to market, the ones who are struggling are the ones who are not getting to the core. They're focusing more on tactics now. They're not as aligned as they should be. So that's, that's one. Number two is a super obvious one. But it happens every time, which is people. You know, I think I have this, this framework I use in coaching, which I call the Triple P framework, which means four, which means plan, priorities, performance. And I created that because when I went in, when I've been into lots of these companies and operators, one of the biggest issues is is people and sort of people being accelerated in doing the right thing. And often people in terms of this three p method, you know, so we look at plan, they don't necessarily have a simple clear plan a lot of the time. That's a big blocker. So how do you create that? That's step one. Step two, how do you do prioritisation every company under 50 millionaire I'll have an issue with prioritisation. I think in some ways, it's something that will never be solved, because it's always a problem. But the ones who are doing doing well and doing and consistent growth. They're clear on their priorities both at an individual level and our team and alignment level. And so again, work through that, like how do you refine your priorities? How do you do less? How do you contract what you're doing is really key. And then number three is performance. So performance is execution. And again, what I've found is and I was guilty of this myself over the years that you always do a lot of strategy, a lot of planning you do a lot of internal meetings. You have a lot of poor prioritisation you have a lot going on, you don't have a clear plan and so the result of that is that it's really hard to execute and and I would say maybe a bit harsh but you know nine nine other people have a problem executing and and for me as per my process I think if you get the plan really clear and simple and simple so the key not basic but simple so people can understand it to you actually a really brutal about your prioritisation which is hard, but it's key unlocks the ability to execute and again, and then it's just about, you know, speed to execution and doing things and doing things consistently with the right systems process, plan, focus and momentum. And so, number two, you know, that that whole people, either on an individual level or a team level, being being unclear on the plan, prioritising their performance and how they execute is, is a real, real big thing. And then, and then free I think. I think we've been in the sort of random acts of marketing error, maybe for the last three or four or five years and what I mean by that is Is it goes back to my point one people have forgotten the basics on things. And, and just the true basics of marketing and what it is. And people have been so obsessed over the last 2345 years with the narrative of exponential growth leads to, oh, we've got to use 10 channels, we've got to do SEO, events, content for leadership digital retargeting lists goes on and on. And it's this continuous wheel of doing more and more, without getting the basics in place. Now, and I know a lot of companies, we talk about putting the basics in place, like the real anchors of your go to market, which is, which is that inner circle I, I alluded to before, which is around your ICP, which is about your differentiated point of view, which is about the value prop, which is about your positioning your messaging, your category, battle strategy, you know, being clear on what problems you solve, and what you do. And so I think, yeah, point three is, is what I like to go like, you know, just to get back to basics, let's get out of the random acts of marketing era, focus on the right things, you know, do less channels. And I'm really closely as a unit in a one commercial engine so that you're not siloed, especially on the marketing side, you're not siloed as marketing, which, which, which it happens, your inability to like work on the bigger picture, which is, overall, what everyone wants is to grow the pipeline, and revenue not growing number of leads, or MQL says partner,
Kentaro Oi
right, right. If you like, thanks, thanks so much for sharing all that. Because it's super insightful. And I guess I'm hearing it I'm thinking of, I guess, I kind of picture you know, business leaders that are so caught up and excited. And I think it comes from a positive place where they're, you know, they're, they're growing their business, and they kind of want to do everything, right, they want to go after everything. And obviously, that's not possible without prioritisation. So, I'm curious. This might be more of like a, like a psychological question. But like, I guess, how do you help these leaders, these business leaders kind of get out of their head about their business and try to see things from like a, like a, like a bird's eye view, almost like, kind of take it out? Because I feel like that's kind of what's needed, right. And a lot of these things is just, you know, there's so in the weeds, they live this every day, every single day. But sometimes, if you do that, you can't really see the bigger picture. So like, I'm sure that's kind of where you come in, as, from a more of a consultant perspective, but like, how do you? How do you like help them kind of be open to help in this way? And to kind of let them see the bigger picture?
Edwin Abl
Yeah, it's great question I, you know, I'm not the only one in the world that can help people do this sort of thing. And I can only do it with a lens on. Yeah, my experience and where I've helped and how I do it, but I think I think it's hard, you know, it is hard. I think it's very hard for a CEO to do that. You know, some ways in the UK, not so much in the US. But you know, that's why you have a chairman at times, actually, in as part of your company, because of the chairman's role in a way is to guide the CEO to think about the business not being in the business everyday gives him that escape valve, the US don't have a chairman role. So that is interesting. But I still think CEOs need need their help. And actually, the term work on the business or in the business, it's not something I invented it actually an old boss I had a few years ago, he used to say, repetitively over and over again, he was more than more of a chairman. And I got it, and as an operator, I got it, but then I really failed to act on it a lot of the time. But then what I did try to do is, remember what he meant by that sort of every week, every other week, and it's like, it's really about teaching you to reflect, basically, rather than just keep going really fast. And I think it's just about that, you know, I think when you say for example, I get introduced to CFO, we just talk about that concept, I think on the business in the business. And then that point, again, around solving the biggest problems one at a time, and picking them off. And and finding the variable that is the on the business issue, not the in the business, you know, and what I mean by that, you know, again, it's not about tweaking digital marketing, you know, it's not about sending 1000 more emails and things like that. It's like, what's the real core of the problem for you, if you get unlock that in their brain that oh, the core of our problem is, is our you know, differentiated point of view. And work on that to solve that challenge, and they're more open to it. And then once they start getting that level of thinking around, okay, what's the core problem and what core problems we pick off one at a time? Now, you know, they work in our mindset. So when I engage with people, that's sort of how we work together, in in, in kind of solving for that and then and then it gives the CEO the ability to actually do both, you know, be in the business to execute, you know, and help the team drive forward and speed but also at the same time have a bit of tight time to reflect and have an outside perspective in to help solve the big problems. And obviously by us those who get paid to go and do repeat, I think at times, it does help having an outside lens, because I think when you're in your own head, it's hard to get out of of that. And so me or others who do similar types of thing, I think we can help people get out of their heads, which then ultimately allows the ability to refocus on where the important issues are. So, you know, and then, but you can't solve everyone, I guess, you've always got to have someone that's open and receptive to, to wanting to do that, if if someone's got a closed mindset, fixed mindset around that. Nobody can help solve that. So I think it's, it's people with that, for them more growth mindset perspective that they know, they need to think about being on the business more and solving big solving problems, and then that's where you can collaboratively help them.
Kentaro Oi
Definitely, I do feel like it also kind of comes down to like, the culture side of things as well of just like, you know, that that, you know, that mindset that the business leader has is whether it's the CEO, or whoever, that can really kind of trickle down into the culture of the company and, you know, allow everyone to kind of, you know, ask questions and be more critical and reflect more, like you said, and I, and if, you know, I'm sure that that type of place might be easier for you to kind of like, go in and be like, Okay, I can help here. Because everyone's already open to it. You know. I'm also curious, you know, you talk a lot about and I think you've touched on some of these points in terms of like, prioritisation, you know, having like a sound strategy and operational excellence, but I guess like, you know, for within a set, the SaaS startup phase of some of these companies. Do you feel like all these things operational excellence, a really good strategy? Like, can some of these things be not perfect when they're going to market? Or do you feel like everything? Like, everything has to be like, polished and clean? I guess I'm trying to, I guess I'm trying to understand, like, when you're really like launching a business, or scaling up, like do can a lot of these things can be worked on as, as you're scaling up? And yeah, what does that kind of like? Can you pull different levers to be like, Okay, we're gonna really focus on here, while this will stop figuring out but we need to kind of move on, on certain things like how does that look like for you? I'm sure that's different case by case, but I'm just curious, situationally.
Edwin Abl
No, it's a fascinating question to get into the before proceeding on actually because as you were asking, it made me reflect on maybe what I did wrong back in the day, or in terms of my process and what my learning was, and then what I see now, what I've observed, and I think to start the to answer that question, in terms of my own learning what I did wrong, I think, I was always obsessed with creating the perfect playbook. So perhaps I spent too much time theorising about the perfect playbook creating the perfect playbook. And thinking that was my role was, you know, I'm cmo created the playbook, you know. But that perfect playbook might take three, four or five months to make might be a 50 slide deck. Now, so few issues with that two things I probably reflect on wasn't the best was that it wasn't simple enough for other people to understand. It was, it was in my head, but it wasn't simple enough for people to understand. And, and at the same time, it doesn't need to be perfect. And also, when you're in the early stages, you need a really good speed of execution. You know, like, I say that, you know, that combined with momentum is really what helps. So that's a reflection on what I probably did wrong. And, you know, then leading to the answer to that question around that learning what I've seen since and what's important is, is it is important to have a plan, you know, but it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be clear. I think that's a good distinction. Because what people do a lot of time and what I really did was overcomplicate things. And, and at the same time, when you're in a scenario of we need to scale, you start building something 10 steps ahead. So, my strategy again, I think if I look back, I was building a strategy probably 567 steps ahead of where we were because I was thinking, Oh, how do we get to 40 million? How do we get to 50 million. In reality, what we needed, you know, that's all great in terms of visionary and where you need to get to but what we needed was okay, from where we are now, where do we need to get to what's the plan for that? You know, however there's done that what can we learn from as a first step, you take that first step you don't And you make a strategy for the first step. And then you make a strategy for the next step. And then you make, you know, it's I hate to use like a sporting analogy, because people always kind of do that. But it's a bit like the same concept of like, we focus on the next game, right. Whereas what most people do is fail to connect the way you want to go to the next step. Big learning for me on that I, I was thinking too far ahead, didn't think enough on the first step. And then what happens is you get frustrated and you create and you over complicate things because you're trying to over engineer scaling process. And to conclude on that, you know, what you really need is like said, you need a clear, simple plan so that, you know, you do need a plan, don't get me wrong, you can't just completely wing it. It doesn't have to be perfect. But the two things that you need to focus on, quite simple is it, you know, strategy and execution. So simple strategy, execute quickly, then you then you'll start seeing what works, what doesn't work off that. It's a bit like a read a LinkedIn post the other day, I can't remember what it was, but you know, some, some person who's done very well for themselves, you know, they don't have a iPhone 15, they have an iPhone eight, you know, because the concept of the analogy there being you know, they still been very successful, because they have a good strategy. Next few, they don't need all these fancy things to go alongside it. You know, so again, you don't need a fancy playbook. That's perfect.
Kentaro Oi
Interesting, really good
Edwin Abl
plan simple. And you need a cadence around how quickly you execute against that. And then how quickly you level of effort change directions in terms of is the execution working or not? That's I think that would be my advice, I think, to you know, those earliest stage under 15 million era?
Kentaro Oi
Yeah. I mean, it makes sense when you say it in those terms, because, you know, like, if you don't have flexibility is like, perfect, this playbook. But you know, things always go wrong. And if you can't adapt to that, then you don't like be you haven't thought of anything outside of that. Out of that out of that scenario. So then you could kind of get stuck in a rut, I guess. So I could definitely hear you on that thing.
Edwin Abl
And I think there's always there's another adjacent thing to that as well, in terms of the playbook everyone feels that they need to be build a playbook. But I feel the way the way everything moves so fast. Now, it's more creating, you know, the plays not the playbook. So what do you, you know, you have a master vision, but what are you doing quarter to quarter again, a simple plan, right, that you execute against, and you're not over complicating against ultimately, and players can alter faster than a big playbook. And people?
Kentaro Oi
Definitely. I want to ask about, you know, I think we're talking everything in this context we're talking about is within b2b startups. Right. So it's not b2c, it's not the same as you know, businesses that are that have like a strong like, regular consumer bases are selling to businesses. So, you know, I have my own, like, probably misconceptions about b2b As you know, I've worked on b2b campaigns, but, you know, there's a certain level of like, maybe like staleness or like, less of like, a human side to the sale, a lot of messaging. So, you know, I guess, can you break down some of these misconceptions for us about b2b marketing? Like, is there like, how important is like that human touch? And like, the emotional side of like, the messaging and, you know, the building blocks of, of these b2b markets, and strategies?
Edwin Abl
Yeah, sure. Sure thing. I'll try and get to the main points really as possible in there. I think b2b marketing suffers a bit like being trapped in a playing and safe world, I think is and then I think CMOs and CMOS was car CRO sorry, and, you know, marketing team sales teams, they, they get stuck in seeing what others are doing, and copying the same thing. Which has some validity to you know, again, the concept of what works doesn't work, you want to mirror what works, but I think it's generally that not every is it's always other b2b looking at each other. You know, and I'll give you an example. Like, you know, there might be an innovating innovative b2b company, they do something innovative in terms of their messaging or something, every other company starts copying it. And, and then that just happens over and over again. And, and I think the thing that you know, I would always visors and it is tough because you gotta have the right CEO and the compass be able to do it, you know, you should go learn from other sectors more, you know, how does b2c is a perfect point, because, you know, b2c marketing is more about creating emotional connections, like pulling on emotional triggers, right and a bit more out there but being more forword with the emotional message that they're putting forward to Pete. Yeah, yeah. And I think we forget that in b2b A lot of the time and again, maybe it's easier for me because I'm out of role. So I don't have that pressure of you're a b2b cmo. But I think the best thing you can do if you're a b2b is Go, Go study more like psychology of how advertising works, you know, a bit like you even like the classics of Ogilvy in the 20 to 22 laws of marketing or the like, emotionally driven marketing angles, because it works, you know, and then how can you apply that in a b2b context? I would do you know, as a takeaway, that will be my strategy now, but I would think I'd do two things I look at the b2b companies that are doing really well figure out by observation like what is it they do really well taking some learnings from that area with an outside lens of like, what a great b2c marketing what's b2c? Great b2c marketing? What's what sort of frameworks or process or like, how are they messaging people in a more emotional context and bring the two together, and actually be then a bit bolder with your, your b2b message and not playing it safe, so much love? No, because selling is all it always has been. And more so than ever, it's, it is around the, you know, the the individual, you know, mapping to an individual's feelings and emotions and, you know, ultimately, helping them solve a problem and helping an individual be better at their job or, or be brighter.
Kentaro Oi
Yeah, I think that's what I'm coming to find as well throughout my career is like, you know, it doesn't have to be such like a stale thing. It doesn't have to feel as transactional, the b2b side, like, you know, there is always the message is being driven to a person at the end of the day, whether it's a decision maker or a business leader, whoever it is, you kind of need to hit, you need to grab your attention some way, you know, so I think it's, you know, get contextualised in that keep that in mind that you're always, you know, every message going out there is being read by someone. So, you know, we're all human, after all.
Edwin Abl
Yeah, I think also, what b2c do really well, which b2b lacks. And I actually, think lacks, generally across the board, I don't, I mean, there's a few that probably do well, but don't make enough offers in b2b. And what I mean by that is in a b2c world, you're there. There's always an offor, like, you know, around, you know, sake, kind of a random example of like, you know, like a weight loss b2c offer, you know, there's, there's sort of giving you a, you know, get your dream outcome in a short period of time, minimal effort, you know, trust us, because, you know, we can help you do it, like that type of model of like, giving someone an offer, I don't think we think about that, in, in, in the b2b world very much, we just more think of, okay, we have a product that solves a problem, we're just going to go and market to that problem now in a linear way, that they're not taking, like an, as part of that process and offer to them, you know, like how it, you know, so yes, it solves your problem, but what was the other stuff wrapped around it to sort of make more of a psychological motive, you know, bias towards a decision type thing, you know, because the main reason people don't buy is not because of other products is because of indecision. And what a great author does is help people make a decision. And so again, I got quite fascinated with that last few years, and a lot of the companies I work with is sort of, we've got into this more about one part of the process, okay, what offer we make into the market or your prospect or your customer, like, let's, let's have a really good set of offers that we can equip the marketing team with the sales team with, so everyone can go somebody a little bit more persuasive, that's going to buy someone towards action more so. And I, you know, in my whole previous life as an opera, I don't think we ever had an offer, you know, and then we never problem solve that by how do we convert people we know, for our we need better offers.
Kentaro Oi
Interesting. Yeah. I never thought of it like that, to be honest. But yeah, I mean, what you're saying, I think, I think it carries a lot of weight. Right. And I think that's kind of what you're saying is like, you know, it's doesn't have to just be like, reach x amount of revenue, or do like, accomplish this. It's, you know, like, it's kind of like the imagination of like, you can you can get this and there's there's so much more that comes with it not just, you know, the pure numbers or, you know, meeting your goals or anything like that. Really interesting. I know, we initially started the conversation talking about AI, and I definitely want to get back to it. So I'm curious for you, you know, you were using the example of you know, people can write in prompts of like, What now, just just ask the question of like, what's this type of business? What's my go to market strategy? Sure. Something comes out there. Yeah. But I guess for you like what's, what's your take on some of these tools that that can help and I guess, are you using any to kind of help? Supplement maybe it like some of your, your ideas or your your consultant work like, how does that what kind of role does AI play in your day to day,
Edwin Abl
100%, using using in my day to day to be more efficient, especially around ideation, and coming up with new ideas and refining ideas, you know, as sort of like a sort of go to market buddy type of thing, or sort of work, buddy, that, that's a great way I, I'd say a quick story of where I've got to the AI. So I think about four months ago, I It's not that I wasn't into AI and didn't think it was important, especially if you didn't get to go to market. But I was probably been slow on the uptake, a bit reluctant maybe to really get into it, because in my head, I put it in the same bucket as something like tiktok where I'm thinking, I can't handle another app to use, you know, I use Instagram. And, you know, and LinkedIn stuff, I don't want to start using tick tock so I've sort of, I've never got into tick tock, I don't even haven't even looked at it, you know, I know what it is. But I'm actually in a way I've still had AI in that bucket as well. But But But what happened was I went to this event then over on in San Francisco, which actually, again, not always, but tech wise, you know, can be a bit of ahead of the curve. And so you get good learnings. And actually, it was a day on AI and AI use cases and how it can be used in different contexts very practical sense, especially related to go to market type stuff. And, you know, I had a light bulb moment, it kind of blew my mind. And this probably sounds a bit silly to a lot of people because everyone's been talking about it for a while. But it really sort of reaffirms, to me that it's a thing, it is a thing, and it can't be ignored. And so I instantly after that day, switch my mindset to like, this is not a little tiktok thing where I'm just not wanting another social media platform like this is how we're all going to work and this transform the way you do certain parts of your work. And it got heavy into researching it using it for myself using it with clients, I'm doing a lot with with with teaching, actually, like sales marketing teams, how to use use cases in their day to day of speeding up what they're doing becoming more efficient, you know, getting better outcomes quicker, all that type of stuff. And especially in go to market, there's so many areas that can help do certain things and augment what what's currently happening to make things go faster. It's It's unbelievable. And again, this may sound super obvious to a lot of a lot of people. But that you know, actually from the teams I've been working with, I don't think a lot of people haven't yet fully caught on to to actually starting to get into it, you know, even learning. But that's the step one is just starting to play around and seeing what the possibilities are for yourself. And then that's what I'm trying to encourage with all the people I've started dealing with, because because it's powerful, and if you use it the right way is powerful. And I think if we actually think about our own jobs and roles, I don't think there's this, you know, it's not the big scare mongering of AI is going to replace all our jobs. This happens so quickly, every 20 years, I can't remember the last one, but it was something about automation, and robotics or something 1015 years ago, where we're all going to be replaced, I think we always evolve, we always find the best ways to use the new technology and blend it to what we do. So I don't think that's, you know, that's the case. But roles will change. And again, I'll give you an example. There's a has one marketing team on coaching, and then on a weekly one to one, you know, I was speaking with, like the VP of content and and she said, You know, I'd love to discuss a bit random. I don't discuss normal stuff this week. But the one thing I'd love to discuss it I'm a bit worried about my future role, you know, into for years, you know, I'm doing content, you know, the first and most obvious use case for AI is creating content and what's that mean? You know, we're gonna be out of a job. And you know, I said, I don't think that's the case. I think I think my one piece of advice to like a content person right now would be if you want to future proof or be ahead of the game. Go start to become the best like, prompt writer.
Kentaro Oi
Yeah, now,
Edwin Abl
right like that. That's a key skill is a first step in the next probably one or two years, right become so good at writing really specific prompts that give you amazing outputs quicker from what you're doing your work.
Kentaro Oi
there is an art to that. It's not as simple as just like writing what you think. And it's like, it's all it's gonna give me what exactly what a lot like,
Edwin Abl
it's 100% An art it really is, but And I've learned that the last three months, it's not just around writing two sentences. Oh, can you do this for me? You'll get a generic output. You can write really sophisticated prompts that give you really good answers. And again, like if, you know, there's a few people I followed that, you know that what they're doing is you know that that's the future of web content. But that's one micro area. But that will be the same in all areas, you've got to figure out where what's what, what bits, can it help you do better? And what, what areas can it help you be greater? Now, you know, I wrote a post on this few weeks ago around you know, that AI won't, you know, again, AI won't replace marketing. But AI will help average marketers become even more average. And AI will help great marketers become greater. Yes, what side of the fence Do you want to be on? Definitely, you want to be on the right to the fence and to get on the right side of the fence, you need to start taking it seriously. First, get it in your mind, this is the thing, start learning and play around with it become great at the things where where it can really ever go to work, like the prompts, the ideation, how you use it, and your workflows. And then just keep, keep improving, and start that now. Because if you wait two, three years to start those next three steps, you'll be up behind the behind the curve, navigating into your situation, how do I use it? Yeah, and then I use them myself, I'm, I'm learning figuring it out for myself. But what I do know is, especially in certain lines of areas of work, like positioning messaging, a process with a client that potentially could have taken six weeks, you know, can now be done in one to two, because of because of the way you can leverage things to get things done, you know, substantially quicker. And that's not diminishing quality, or human experience of the output, it just means that you can get to the output at incredible speed
Kentaro Oi
Right yeah, it is really incredible. I think it's, you know, regarding, you know, kind of going back into scalability, I think it's just it changes that game. Right. And I think, you know, just to kind of wrap it up in the ask you like a final question, you know, like, and I think a as a perfect example of this, when you're are like an outside consultant, kind of, you know, advising different business leaders and CEOs, like, you know, something that's so new that everyone has this fear of, and it's a bit of an unknown, there's a lot of like, misguided information surrounding as well. But like, you know, what do you do in terms of it doesn't even have to relate to AI, but like, in terms of like, advising on something new and trying to push people kind of forward thinking and allow them to kind of challenge themselves in terms of how they think about the business, like, what's like, what's your process that goes on behind that, like, hey, like, take comfort in like the unknown, and like, push yourself into, you know, challenging ourselves? Like, what's your approach on that for revising?
Edwin Abl
I think the I think the advice that I've tried to instil in myself around, you know, being more useful to people is, is, is getting people to solve bigger problems in a way that they can then execute against them. And, and be very practical. I feel that a lot of advisors can be quite theoretical. And and this is not necessarily about being in the business, you know, like running reports doing pipeline, I don't mean practical like that, but what I mean is like being practical, in the sense of it, actually helps you unlock something, do something and take the next step. Rather than just basing your advising on theoretical type ideas or theoretical type what ifs or theoretical type strategies, it's, it's more sort of bringing, bringing things down on the next step practical layer in terms of advising and then and then whenever I speak to people who, you know, who are, you know, a few steps by me, and ask for advice is the same as what I do the people ahead of me and I asked them for advices, you know, I always say to them, you know, like, just don't be a sort of, you know, McKinsey type advisor, like figure out your model in terms of how you, you know, like, help get things done with people in a more practical sense. And not not stick to your lane but there's there's a great podcast, I think it was the guy from 37 signals who did it and I really loved the podcast around this concept of there's there's the there's an exploration to advice and I became quite popular listened to em quite high in my mindset around. I need to be careful on that myself in the useful advice is practical, and it's from what generally you've learned So it could be something I've learned two years ago, you know, one year ago or something that I'm learning now that I think will be useful in a couple years, it's sort of like in the practical sense. And so you've got to be careful, you don't give people advice that was relevant 10 years ago, or isn't relevant to their stage. And I think the quote in the podcast was, you know, be careful who, who you listen to for advice. Because, you know, and always interpret advice, to your own situation, don't take advice, verbatim, nothing too many advisors give that sort of verbatim. And this is what you do. Yeah. Can be generic. And so, my hope is, anyway, that I was teaching people that, you know, give people make things practical. And then also with with my clients, it's, it's the goal is always to, is to, is to get them to a point of a tangible, practical thing that they can take on as next step. They're not just left with, you know, a theoretical deck or, you know, something like that, which can happen all the time. We've seen some advisors.
Kentaro Oi
Gotcha. Really interesting. Edward, thank you so much for your time today. This is super insightful. I've learned a tonne on revising, and I go to market strategy. So it's been a pleasure speaking to you.
Edwin Abl
Thanks, Ken. I've been been a pleasure. And for those out there who are interested I, I run a weekly newsletter called scale smarter. It's at my website, www.Edwinabl.com. And yeah, if you're interested in a weekly sort of view on what's working, what's not working in, in, in go to market then then you might like, you might like the content and that
Kentaro Oi
sounds good to everyone. Go and subscribe. And for all our listeners, please tune into the next episode of The a word brought to you by AdSapiens
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