POWER CEOS (Aired 08-18-25) AI for Authors & Entrepreneurs: How Creativity Meets Technology

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to Power CEOs, the truth behind the business. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host, entrepreneur, investor, and business strategist. Why are we here? Because iron sharpens iron. And when we bring industry leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and investors here to share what's working in business and even some of what's not, we're all able to learn and grow. As a result, our businesses grow. And that ripple effect impacts not only ourselves, our teams, and their families, but also our communities in our world. You're in for a treat today. Whether you're writing a novel, a business book, or your next viral blog post, the blank page can feel brutal. But what if AI could remove the bottlenecks without killing your creative spark? Today we're going to be talking with G.A. giddings, author of Festivals and Trials about how AI tools are transforming the writing process from rough draft to final edit. Ga, welcome to the show. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Jen. I'm so happy to be here. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Okay, so we're going to start with the first question that I know everybody is going to be asking. What is it that surprised you the most when you first started using AI tools in your writing process? [00:01:29] Speaker B: So my expectation is it was going to do everything for me. It absolutely does not. It's another tool that takes away a lot of the laborious type stuff and makes it easier for you. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Okay, so it's a tool. Talk to me. What are the most powerful AI tools for writers right now? [00:01:47] Speaker B: So I use ChatGPT. I use Grok. I started using Meta AI as well. And so they each have different things they are strong at. I find ChatGPT is very strong for writing. And so if I'm ideating or trying to sketch out a new scene, you know, I'll ask, you know, questions. I have to prompt it up to say, hey, act like a scene writer would have you to kind of frame it. And I get better output that way. [00:02:12] Speaker A: And so you've leveraged multiple tools. [00:02:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:16] Speaker A: And talk to me about how they've evolved because you started this process a couple years ago at the beginning. Talk to me about what it was like when you first started writing the book, right up to completion of the novel and getting it published. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it was like failing forward constantly. And so it was, you know, when I started, when ChatGPT first came out, was it two, three years ago now? And it was limited and, like, because it was like a dare, it was like, you can write a book with this. Like, no, you can't. Let me try. And so, like, it started off as just this kind of dare thing, but it evolved. And so as the tools started to get better, I started to realize I needed some other things, like invested in Scrivener. And then so I started organizing myself a little bit differently. And then as well as going to a few classes, like, how do I use AI better? Like, I'm using it, but it's not giving me what I'm expecting to get out of it. So it was a little bit of a learning curve, but now it's great. It saves so much time. [00:03:09] Speaker A: So talk to me. How do you preserve your own tone and voice when using AI to help you with editing, structure, grammar, formatting? [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's not a panacea. I can't just go into ChatGPT and say, Make a novel. It doesn't work that way. So it's very strategic or very at a granular level. So I do things at the scene level and I'll say, sketch this out. So now, which would have maybe taken me, say, four hours just to get a structure of what it's doing that's gone in, like, seconds. So now that I have this canvas, if you will, the scene's kind of built. Now I can go in and just do dialogue because I want that to be my voice. So what would you say is an analogy for business? For that? [00:03:54] Speaker A: Well, I mean, we talk about this in marketing all the time. You know, a lot of people are just going in and prompting GPT create a marketing strategy and create all my posts for me, but they're not actually putting in what their business is or what their tone is, or using examples or even feeding some of their own expertise in to make it personalized to their business. And so what they're getting is generalized trope, like just sludge. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [00:04:20] Speaker A: And you can spot it a mile away. That's when you go on, you know, LinkedIn, for example, and you scroll and every. Every post has the same exact format. It's da, da, da, da, da, da. [00:04:29] Speaker B: Think it'll just do it for you. [00:04:31] Speaker A: It's very general and it doesn't really tell you anything. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:04:34] Speaker A: So, you know, it's. It's really important when we're integrating with these tools that we recognize what AI can do and what it can't do. So you said that AI is not a panacea. It doesn't do everything for you. What are the things that AI shouldn't be doing when we're writing, Whether we're writing copy for our businesses or a business book or fiction? [00:04:52] Speaker B: So you really, so far as an author, it's your own voice. And so what are the things that it should be taking away to allow you to do the 1%? The thing I really have to be doing, which is creating so punctuation is now gone. It takes care of all that editing, taking, I don't know, like little paragraphs, like, I don't like the way that kind of sounds. Try it like this. And then once again, once your structure's there, I'm going back in to do like the surgical things, the very high level things. I can also look at it more expansively so I can say, hey, look at this chapter. Look at these two chapters. Tell me about flow, give me some ideas. And then also go into the network and see what others are doing and give me a comparison. What that does is it gives me something I can look at very quickly and say, oh, I see this. I didn't even consider this. And so what it's done is, and I see this in my career life as well. Like you get project eyes, you get so focused on the thing that you can't pull yourself out to have the space to see it differently. AI helps with that big time. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Okay, so give me an example of some of the things that AI should not be doing, if we are. Or maybe let's frame it this way. What are some of the common mistakes, mistakes that people could be making with AI, maybe that you made yourself early on in the process, that we could kind of skip ahead and not make those same mistakes. [00:06:19] Speaker B: I think it's trusting it implicitly. So like when you start using it and you see that it's, wow, did you see what it did is AI is not a perfect thing. So like you'll go, and if you just, just trust it without verifying, it's going to have gobbledygook at some point. So you, there is a point where you have to go back and very carefully go through what it's, what it's putting out. So like in this creative process, it'll make up terms and it'll say, is this a good term? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you go look at it. It's like, wait a minute, that was used by somebody else. I can't use that term. So you do. It's not. Again, it's a tool. It does make things more efficient. But you have to back check it. [00:07:00] Speaker A: And you know, if you're writing, especially if you're writing a business book, you want to make sure that it's not copywritten information and it's not just lifting because it will plagiarize and it will lift and it won't cite sources. [00:07:09] Speaker B: That's right. [00:07:09] Speaker A: Or it'll cite fictitious sour. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Yes, it'll make stuff up. [00:07:12] Speaker A: And so what are some of the ways that you have kind of tweaked or some of the prompts, if you will, that you put in to check against it, Making up terms and stuff. [00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is a thing. If you're new to AI and you just like type in stuff, it'll just give you whatever. But if you go in and you say stuff, it's called prompt engineering and you say like, act as. I'll give you an example. Act as a best selling sci fi genre publishers editor and focus on character arc. Look at these three chapters and tell me what's happening here. So if you take that analogy to your business, you can be like, find these legal terms or find this story. Did it copy it from somewhere, something like that. You have to give it something very surgical. And so what you're doing is you're using AI in passes. Like I have my editor person looks through, then I have like my, I don't know, punctuation person. Just imagine the analogy for business and you're doing multiple passes with these different roles. Almost like you have a virtual team. [00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So you have for example, a copywriter and then you have somebody who's a social media manager and you have somebody who's doing the different posts for the different formats because otherwise it gets muddy and it ends up mixing things up. Yeah, we see that all the time. And so we're talking right now about takeaways from GA because it's important to you. And some of the things that I wanted to kind of pull away is AI is here. It is a tool that we should be leveraging, but it is not something that we can just rely on it to be the be all end all. So how can you use it as an entrepreneur? You can audit your content library, the podcasts that you've done, the emails, the trainings, maybe all of that can be pulled together to make your book. As an entrepreneur, AI can help you structure it, but it's using your content. You have to feed it your voice, your content. Use tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, WhatNot, and Turn stream of consciousness voice memos into a more polished book. What does that mean, Jen? That means like taking your phone and using the audio in instead of typing. And just maybe you're in the car and you have an idea and it's something that you do all day, every day you are with clients and you just realize that, hey, I'm actually an expert in this. You literally talk it in and then you say, please turn this into, you know, five points or an outline for a book. And then let it leverage the tool so that it can help ask you the questions and bring out what you need. Ask it to interview you on your expertise, to develop your chapters. So that's some, some of the ways that we as entrepreneurs can be leveraging the information that GA has been bringing to us and for sure be leveraging AI for the line editing. That way you're reserving your brain power for the ideation, the strategic thinking, the things that we need to do that we don't want AI doing for us. So ga, we've covered a lot. We've covered how AI can help you write the book. We're going to talk about repurposing it and promoting it and building a platform which is going to be really relevant. How can people reach out to you if they're Interested? [00:10:13] Speaker B: Go to festivalsandtrials.com and find me on the social media links. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Fantastic. Festivalsandtrials.com if you didn't catch that and you can find all the ways to reach out. So as we were saying, we do have to take a brief break, but we just covered how AI can be leveraged to help you write your book or your copy or your text. But next what we're going to do is we're going to look at how do we accelerate what we're doing, leveraging the power of repurposing our content promotion, building the things that we're going to need from the marketing standpoint, the sales and the copy standpoint in our businesses. We will be right back after these important messages. What you're watching, don't miss a moment of it. On demand, anytime, anywhere. Download our free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of programming. You can always as well check out NowMedia TV, click on shows and pull down power CEOs for previous episodes. So before the break, we were talking about writing a book. And publishing used to be the end of the road for writers, for example. Now it's the beginning of a brand ecosystem. We're going to dive deeper into GA Giddings, how he is using AI to repurpose his novel for podcast content for social media and deeper storytelling experiences. Because it's not a one and done novel, he's developing an entire series. We're Going to talk about how entrepreneurs can do the same with your content. So, Ga. Welcome back. [00:12:06] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:12:07] Speaker A: And I'm going to ask, how do you think about a novel or any content as kind of the seed of a whole brand or media ecosystem? [00:12:17] Speaker B: I think it builds kind of slowly over time, but now it's published, there's a website now there's, you know, Facebook posts and Instagram, and now podcasts are being developed. So it's like, once you have this mountain of material, it's like, how do I take what I have and repurpose it? So we, you know, we look at it and say, I don't know, we need to get a teaser for this. How do we get people interested in that? Well, let's have a hook. Well, let's focus on doing that. We do go down that road. And then it's, oh, win. A podcast will be really interesting for this podcast. Well, I don't know, let's do a soundscape, and then let's talk about the person in the first scene or whatever, and let's lead that in, build up that momentum into that first scene. But we're not going to say what actually happens in the first scene. So I think it's just being creative on reframing the existing material and seeing what comes out of it. [00:13:07] Speaker A: And so talk to me about how you're leveraging AI in this process. So let's use just the podcast. For example, you have the book. You leveraged AI to write and edit the book alongside of you, and now you're building it in a podcast. How did you leverage AI in order to help you with that? [00:13:23] Speaker B: Honestly, I don't know how to do this. So it's like, hey, we have this scene. How would you put this into a podcast? Can you go find others who have done this who are successful at doing this and give me some examples? And it said, oh, yeah, I can do that. And, like, came back with this list of things, and then we'd sit down and read it and say, I'm not sure about that, or whatever. And then we just went and did it. Like you go into the other room and it's like, let's. It put. Practice this. And then you just, you just kind of. You just kind of roll with it, really? [00:13:47] Speaker A: And, and so how did you come up with the content? For example, how did. How did that go? [00:13:52] Speaker B: So, so the branding's key. So you need something to anchor it, like when you're writing a novel or whatever. I need to anchor the character, whatever. So it had to be like, festivals and trials content. So, like, it would come up with, oh, let's do xyz. And then you go, well, no, it can't just be xyz, because I need it to tie back to this universe that I've created in this novel, this festivals and trials universe. So how do I do that? And it goes, oh, why don't you say that from the beginning? And then you like. And it comes back and it gives you, like the. How to rephrase the words, I guess, in a way that it's to your brand. So I don't know, how would you do that in business? I would say, yeah. [00:14:31] Speaker A: So, you know, the way I would look at it is I would go and I'd say, okay, look, this is what I do for a living. I am a business coach and strategist. These are the products and services that I have planned. Please research my website, research all of my social media. Here's all my links, here's my signature or my secret sauce. If you will. Please craft for me some compelling questions that can be asked to me by the podcast host so that I can be led into the content that the viewers are going to want to listen to. And so I would look at it from that perspective. I would be. I don't type very often into ChatGPT because I talk very fast. If you've been watching, you know, I talk very, very fast. I can talk faster than I can type. And so I just hit that little button and I'm like, hey, I'm looking. I'm going to be speaking for X audience. This is what they care about. What are the synergies with what they care about and what my expertise is. Give me all of the possible points that would be really important to them. Then I go and I say, okay, great, great, chatgpt. Do some market research for me. What are the things that people are actually buying? Like, what are their pain points they're actually buying? What are the gaps in the marketplace? So it's market research. And then I craft the questions for the podcast or the content for the social media post based off of that feedback. It's doing your market research for you. It's doing this. So it looks like what's going to be the most effective? What are people looking at now? So let me ask you, Ga, what's the evolution you've seen in the AI writing tools over the past two years? [00:16:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so I signed up for GPT right when it came out, it was under that premise. It was like, hey, did you hear ChatGPT can write a whole novel? A whole novel. I was like, no, it can't. Let me show. I'll just show you. There's no way. And so I started writing, you know, like putting in prompts and stuff. And it just kind of ideated and stuff like that. And I did notice like a vast improvement from like where it was in 23, now it's 24 and 25. It is a super tool. Like and. But you. But like it evolved. I had to learn how to use it. Like I had to spend the time to learn the prompt engineering or whatever and build the content. Because once I had all that and I kind of had my own flow of how to use it, I could very surgically go in, I need this very exact thing and then kind of get what I was after. [00:16:54] Speaker A: So it wasn't all in AI. You used other tools as well? [00:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So like, I mean for writing specifically, so like I use Scrivener because that helps me organize my notes for. So it probably worked really great for a business book as well. But you can have like your chapters kind of laid out, break it down granularly. So like for the sci fi novel it was scenes. So I have scenes in a chapter and it just helped to really organize thoughts better that way. And then I would also use like iPhone and notes like talking to the phone and say blah blah blah, this idea. And I don't like when I'm like out and about or whatever and I'm walking in the job site or whatever. And so like I just like blah blah blah, this. And then like later on I could take that and put that into GPT and say, can you make sense of, of what I said? It'll translate what I spoke into it and just help the organization. So it's like I'm constantly. So before it was like I can ideate only at this moment in time because I'm working a 17 hour day, I gotta get this thing out. But now it's different. Now it's like everything is happening in real time. So it's like I get that quality, the quality of life back. [00:18:00] Speaker A: And so for people who are watching, some of the entrepreneurs who are watching have been watching the show and they may not have taken action and may still be on the fence about using AI. Are they now too, too far behind to catch up? [00:18:12] Speaker B: No, you're never too far behind. So like. But two is like you have to. So for me, just be curious. Like it's hard if you're like Especially like, for a creative person, you're like, ah, it's going to take. It's taking this thing away from me. It's supposed to be me. Just try it. Like, go in there and just experiment with it and think of it. Like, it's not taking the whole thing of what you do away, it's taking the things you don't want to do away so you have more time to do the 1% that really matters. Like, for me, it's the creative part. I don't want to spend time checking commas and all this stuff. I want something else to do that for me so I can focus on the character development or whatever in this analogy. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Okay, so how do you personally stay creative while using AI tools to boost efficiency? [00:18:54] Speaker B: So sometimes it's like doing the brand, like the actual festivals and trials stuff, but sometimes it is science fiction. So I'll just go into like, hey, what's going on in the world? Like, latest research or something. Give me some stories of what have happened. Or maybe it's just like listening to music. So I think it's like taking other media and consuming it and that will like, oh, wait, this thing that I saw in this show. Or like, oh, wait, that thing that I heard in that song kind of generates an idea or something. And now I have. I'm like, well, what do I do with this? Let me go find a pen and a notepad. Nope. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Think about this later. And then I put it away and then it's like I'm capturing it in the moment, which is really cool. [00:19:35] Speaker A: And so a lot of entrepreneurs, we find we have a lot, especially for in the beginning. We may be small businesses, we may be wearing a lot of hats, and we find it overwhelming to then also have to create our marketing copy and our sales copy and some of those things. How can they leverage some of this so that they can get that done much more efficiently and effectively? [00:19:56] Speaker B: Well, there's a lot of tools out there. I mean, now in the most recent iterations, you see, you can create these, like these quick videos OR whatever. Thank ChatGPT and Sora. And you can do this in Meta AI and it'll give you like different versions, like four different versions you can choose from, and then animate it to get your, you know, stop the scroll kind of thing you're after to get people's attention and marketing or whatever. So you just kind of have to go see what's out there and play with it. And there's stuff to create for writing there's stuff for music or sound, there's stuff for video, and it's not all in one place. That's a little complicated. But then you could use ChatGPT and say, I don't know how to figure all this stuff out. Will you please give me a list of everything so I can go, like, quickly go figure all this stuff out? So it's just reframing how you operate. [00:20:41] Speaker A: I really appreciate that. So how can people reach out to you if they're looking to learn more? Maybe they're entrepreneur and they want to leverage some of the tools that you have or they want to pick up your book. How can they reach out to you? [00:20:52] Speaker B: Sure. Go to festivalsandtrials.com and find me on social media. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Fantastic. That was festivalsandtrials.com so, folks, you know, here's the time where we're getting kind of towards the moment where we need to take a break. But this is all about action. So think about some of the things that GA said. Draft your ideas, literally voice text them into ChatGPT or whatever system you're using. Dictate those rough thoughts. Don't leave anything out because the context is important. And use AI to organize it, refine it, repurpose it. Use AI to write your business book or turn your framework into a webinar, a podcast or mini course to serve wider audiences. Don't just think book, think. This is an IP asset. AI helps you stretch your content across platforms and audiences. So if you've been watching, make sure you reach out. Feel free to reach out to ga. Otherwise, today is the day to start really doing this. If you've been watching the show for a while, you know we've been talking about AI for years now. It's here, it's time, and it's time to take action. So ga, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us a real look at what's possible when creativity meets technology helped us peel back the curtain and not only the power of AI and storyteller, but how authors and entrepreneurs can use it as a partner rather than a replacement for our viewers at home. If you've ever said, I want to write a book, but I don't know where to start, today's episode gave you the roadmap. AI can help you get the words flowing, but it's your voice, your message that's still at the heart of the work. We'll be right back. We do have to take a brief break after these important messages. Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the business we are going to shift. Georgia, here's just a little bit. I know we've been talking all things AI, but now we're going to talk about something that's really close to my heart. Most CEOs will tell you the key to growth is execution or funding or product. But let me ask you this. What happens when you have the right product, the right funding, the right team, and still no traction? What if the breakdown isn't in the business, but it's in the message? Today I'm talking with Delores Hirschman. She's a TedX. She's got a history of TEDX curation. She's a fractional cmo, a brilliant mind. Behind the scenes of some of the sharpest scale and exit strategies that I've seen recently. We're going to pull back the curtain on something most lenders don't want to admit. That miscommunication isn't just awkward, it's expensive. And if you're thinking of scaling, selling, or simply surviving your next growth spurt, you're going to want to hear this. Dolores, welcome to the show. [00:24:03] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me and for having this conversation. I'm excited. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Oh, so am I. Let's get honest. Most CEOs treat messaging like a branding exercise. A logo here, a tagline there. But the sharpest leaders know your message isn't decoration, it's actually due diligence. I wanted to start with a potentially dangerous question. What are the words you choose are the reason your company isn't scaling or selling? Dolores, you've sat inside dozens of M and A deals and scale up strategies. How often is the messaging gap not just a missed opportunity, but the reason that the deal isn't going through? [00:24:39] Speaker C: Many times. And I believe our words create. Our words creates a reality. And our words create the opportunities, the engagement. They either attract or detract everything. Buyers, investors, talent. It is what creates our culture. It is what creates everything in our life really. Like if we extrapolate it. But in the case of business miscommunication or a messy message will really get in the way of your progress, of your growth, of your scaling. [00:25:18] Speaker A: So you help CEOs get clear before they scale. What does unclear actually look like? Especially when we're looking at a transaction, Maybe it's an exit or we're looking at acquisition strategy. Like, what does unclear look like? Because so many times we say this and people just let it go past them because they're like, oh, my message is fine, but actually they don't Recognize it in themselves. [00:25:40] Speaker C: Well, so clarity is not just so clarity can lack or lack of clarity obviously will be manifested in the words that we use, but it really is deeper than that because a lack of clarity in our vision, a lack of clarity in our goals, a lack of clarity in our intentions will actually create a messy message. So it's not about just cleaning the words, putting it on ChatGPT or wordsmithing. It really is about getting clear inside of like in, in your heart, in your brain, and trusting that when the clarity, when the clarity is inside of you, you will communicate effectively because you will communicate intentionally and you will communicate in the way to create the reality you want. You know, how many of us are kind of know where we're going but we're not sure and that fussiness inside, inside will translate to how we communicate. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I couldn't, couldn't agree more. So let's talk about this a little bit because entrepreneurs and founders are excellent at growing a company. They may be excellent at messaging to their teams and getting buy in and growing, but when it moves to transaction, they're inexperienced in that space. So can you talk a little bit about how a company's messaging morphs as it gets closer to that exit or that acquisition? What do buyers listen for that marketers often miss? [00:27:20] Speaker C: So I'm actually in the middle of that conversation right now with one of my clients helping this client on the messaging. And one of the coachings that I give this particular owner, business owner, it's is how her fears or her not knowing because it's the first time for her to be in an exit conversation is getting in the way of really connecting with that buyer because it will come out in the conversation. All of that kind of unknown and fear inside. If you are not intentional and you're not working with the right person or have the right guidance to know. You know, many of us don't know what we're saying unless it's mirrored back to us. Like you, we really don't know what you can read between the lines unless someone gives you that feedback. So it's really important as business owners in any transaction, but especially in an exit transaction to have that back and forth coaching feedback with someone. It could be your spouse, it could be a friend, it could be an advisor, but, but someone needs to be hearing how you communicate because they can pick on the, on the, on the, on the subtle, on the subtleties of your lack of clarity before you can. [00:28:44] Speaker A: You know, I couldn't agree more. And being a consultant myself, and you and I have talked about this. It's so incredibly important to have that objective bounce back, that person who's been there, who understands it. I work on the strategy side and, and on the up side of M and A a lot with my clients. And I know you're big on the messaging and the, in the marketing and communication. So something that I come across a lot is everyone says market to your buyer and the founder thinks the buyer is their customer, but in this case the buyer is not their customer anymore. It's the person who's going to acquire their business, it's their exit strategy. And it's a different language. Can you speak a little bit about that different language that we speak? I mean, I do acquisitions myself. I also buy businesses. But I would love to hear it from your perspective because you are an expert in this space. Like how do you speak the language of the person who's buying your company? [00:29:38] Speaker C: So first of all, it is, it is a different audience and it's a different product. You know, when you are, when someone's buying your company, they're not buying your service or product, they're actually buying the enterprise that you've created. And there's what you say and what you don't say and there's how you show up. For example, one of the things that happens in an exit back and forth is the sharing of documentation. How you share that documentation, the speed on which you share it, the way and format in which you share it will say a lot about what they're going to find in the back end. I believe that how we do anything is how we do everything. And so however you show up in that documentation prep, in that first impression of how you're organized is a direct reflection of what they're going to find under the hood when they come and look to, you know, buy the full thing. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Oh, I couldn't agree more. I can't tell you how many times one of the first things I ask for is of course the financials. Because if your financials don't meet my metrics, I'm not buying your business. I mean that's like, it's not, it's, it seems like a no brainer, but it really is simple. And when they send me, I'm just going to use an example, a QuickBooks PNL that's dirty and has no clarity in any way, shape or form. I walk away because I can't see clearly where their expenses are or anything. And that tells me that they really don't know either. So you're exactly right. The first impression, they take a long. [00:31:07] Speaker C: Time to give you that information. It means that if they, if they don't have their numbers ready to share with you, then they're not running their business based on their KPIs and their numbers. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Oh, you're absolutely right. And then I know I'm going to find a train wreck on the inside because it's just history has repeated itself time and time again. So you talk a lot about clarity. You talk a lot about ip. Actually, let's talk about how you take intangible assets like thought leadership, like positioning and, and brand credibility. How do we make that feel real enough to add value in the valuation process? [00:31:48] Speaker C: So many of us running online businesses are not aware that how we do what we do has a value that's called your intellectual property. It's an asset documented how to's called SOPs. It really is a way to create your house into a tangible form that can be shared and that can be replicated. Sounds very simple. Most people don't know about it and most people don't do it. I mean, my experience with this happened when someone approached me to license my processes and build and we actually ended up building and I partnered with this person and we build a $20 million company for years. But I was just doing the things I did and I was lucky to be organized enough and proactive enough in my documentation. This is how I roll that. When someone said, well, I want to understand more, I didn't sit and talk for five hours. I said, here you go, here's a link. It was one sentence email with a link to a folder where all of my SOPs were organized in a clear way. And the person was so blown away by that that we signed a contract days and I was making money within the next 30 days. [00:33:11] Speaker A: That's awesome. And you're so true. It's, it's all about being proactive. It's about having everything documented. We talk about that a lot on the show. And so now I'm going to ask you the next question because this is a question that comes up a lot in our audience and that you've been through a lot of negotiations. What has your experience taught you about strategic silence, storytelling and knowing when to shut up in this process? [00:33:37] Speaker C: So there's a great book, Never what is it Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss. And I actually am fascinated by that book because really it's executive coaching meets hostage negotiations. When you are in the process of a negotiation, when you are in a transaction Especially on an exit. It really is about playing the game. It's not a game, but being in the role of how can I find out the more I can about this person, how can I find out what they want? What makes them tick? What are the motivators? What are the drivers? The more you actually have a passive role and listen, people will actually speak, they will share. If you really build a container of trust, they will share what they want. And when you know what someone wants, you can actually give it to them. [00:34:40] Speaker A: That's fantastic. I couldn't agree more. We do have to take a brief break. But on that note, if you're listening, if you're watching, sometimes we say more in the silence. And active listening is everything when we're in a negotiation. So you're not going to want to touch that dial because coming up, we're going to go into why communication failures don't just stall your brand, they stall your exit. The next segment is everyone who's learned that clear languages is leadership. So we'll be right back after these messages. Foreign loving what you're watching, don't miss a moment of power CEOs or any of your other favorite shows, live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. Download the free app now media TV app on Roku or iOS and enjoy that in the comfort of anywhere you are. Or check our website, NowMedia TV. Click on shows, catch the first half of today's amazing episode, and don't miss a moment of anything. We're going to dive right back in. I'm here with Dolores Hirschman. We were talking before the break about what it looks like, communication and transactions, communication and business. It's more than just marketing. And, you know, execution often gets all the credit. But if execution is the engine, communication is the oil. And not just in marketing and branding or when we're looking to exit a business, but also in leadership, in clear communication and getting what we need done. And so, Dolores, in your experience, when founders stall during a sale or when they're scaling, is it usually a strategy problem or communication 1, pretending to be strategy? In your experience, it could be anything. [00:36:48] Speaker C: But it actually comes down to them being able to clearly communicate the vision to their team and their stakeholders. And I believe clarity is kindness. And when we hold back information for whatever reason, fear, lack of trust, not the right culture for full transparency. And I believe that if you don't have trust and transparency, you're going to hit a wall at some point. But when you are holding back information, where you are giving what I call fast food Fast food requests. What's a fast food request is hey, can you do this and then run away without context, without, without, without details, without deadlines, without what the success look like. You are setting yourself for failure and you're setting your team for failure. And whatever it is that you think you are accomplishing, you want. [00:37:41] Speaker A: You know, I couldn't agree more. And you know, one of the things we were talking about in the break is a lot of times the question comes up how do I know my business is ready to sell? So I want to ask you that and then I also want to ask you what is the cost? When we think our business is read sell but it's not and we listed anyway. Because I think those two questions go hand in hand. [00:38:03] Speaker C: Well, as many layers here. First of all, I'll say your business, you need to make sure your business is ready to sell before you're ready to sell. What does that mean? It's almost like your home. If you have a home that's falling apart in all the places, if one day, for whatever unfortunate reasons you have to sell your house, it's going to be a disaster. Same with your business. If you're not keeping processes clear, you're not documenting, you're not having a clear strategy of investment, you're not managing your money well, you're overstretched. You know, you have a ticking bomb at any point. So, so first you have to clean house. You have to make sure that your business is running like, like a well oiled machine. So when are you ready to sell? If the business is cleaned up, it's operation operating well documented, then it's really more a decision of where is your heart and where is your vision? What do you want in your life? I believe that our business is a big part of how we live and what we do with our talent and time. And when our heart is out of the business, it might be time to sell. Maybe you're ready for a new adventure, maybe you're ready for a different type of life or maybe you recognize that what got you here won't get the business there. And you want to, to you have the respect and the, and the loyalty to the business and your team to know that you might not be the right person to scale it. And, and that's totally fine. There's a lot of respect, I have a lot of respect for, found for starting founders who know that they're not the ones to, to see through the scalability. [00:39:47] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I couldn't agree more with that. You know, and and, and part of that that I find is when, when the founder is not the person to achieve scale because they've never got there before, they don't have that other skill set. Maybe they don't have that Rolodex of relationships to get to the next level or whatever that may be. That the cost of being not in alignment with the vision or where you want to go is what ultimately kills momentum and actually can cause that to slide back. So you lead as a multilingual executive and you and I talked a little bit about English as a second language and communication and how that actually has sharpened your skill set in high stakes room. I would love for you to weigh in on that. And what do you tell non native English speakers who think clarity is about speaking better instead of thinking better or being clear? [00:40:47] Speaker C: First of all, yes, being English as a second language has helped me because I look to communicate in plain English. I also believe, and as a TEDx organizer and TEDx speaker coach is that big words are how we show that we are afraid of what we're saying and that we are, we are hiding behind a mask. Right. And so for me, I believe that as a foreigner and as a, as a English as second language speaker, my accent is my asset. How I speak brings a different dimension to how I think. And of course the accent has to be one that can still be properly understood and there's layers of that. Right. But if your accent is not getting in the way of comprehension, then trust that you can add more value because you think differently, you construct sentences differently and you seek to communicate and engage in a different way and that adds value. I'll add one more little thing. The first time I was ever hired as a speaker, it was one of my clients, it was 12 years ago, and she was a coaching client and she hired me to speak at one of her events. And I said, what do you want to talk about? And she said, I don't really care what you talk about. Talk about something in the coaching space, but because you've, you have an accent, people will listen to you more attentively. I was like, huh, I never thought about that. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it's really, it's really true. I've noticed when you speak in other countries, like when I go to other countries, people pay attention more all of a sudden because you're speaking in a different country or you have a different accent, you're not from here, so you must be someone. It's like an elevated level of credibility and authority. Actually, it's interesting it's an interesting phenomenon. [00:42:41] Speaker C: And the unicorn in the room. [00:42:44] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. And it's. And, and, and something that I hear a lot and I have got so many friends internationally. One of the things that they say is, well, I have an accent, I need to get rid of it. And they, they kind of hide behind that fear of speaking. They use that as a, like, as a shield to communicate their fear of getting on stage. What would you tell to the people who are hiding behind their, their shield of their accent? And if only I need to learn better English or I need to, I need to do some sort of speaking training in order to get rid of my accent, what would you tell to those people? [00:43:21] Speaker C: Granted that the accent doesn't get in the way of communication, of course, but if that's the case, then your accent is your asset. It's why they will pick you over someone else because you will stand out. People are looking for different. People are different than everybody else. You want to stand out. It's like college application or any kind of application. If you are on the line and have multiple speakers on the same topic, all evaluated equal as far as knowledge and capacity or experience, then if you speak differently, there's an edge to you that can add value to the, contribute to the event. [00:43:58] Speaker A: You know, I'm, I'm thinking as you, as you speak, I'm, I'm thinking about communication. Everybody talks about communication is a soft skill and they think about their accent or, or their limitation or anything that's different as a limitation, but actually it's a superpower. So if you're watching, Dolores is here, she is super successful and she's here to tell you that your accent is a superpower for you. Start treating communication like infrastructure. And that's just a, that's just a little extra steel to your infrastructure. So this has been really fantastic. We are running towards the end of our show, unfortunately. But I wanted to ask Dolores, if people are watching this and they want to learn more or they want to engage with you as a speaker coach because you have had tremendous success or they're looking at that messaging and communication as they move to transact in their business, how can they reach out to you? [00:44:56] Speaker C: Yes, come to dolores, me or mastersinclarity.com there you go. Mastersinclarity.com you'll find a lot of information there. You'll find ways to connect with us and connect in our social. There's a lot of free resources you can actually access. So come to mastersinclarity.com thank you for that. [00:45:17] Speaker A: Clarity isn't cosmetic. It's currency, folks. Whether you're pitching investors, leading a team, closing a deal, your ability to get to communicate with precision is what builds trust, accelerates execution, and really multiplies your value. Dolores has reminded us that language isn't just a tool. It's a competitive advantage. I love to leave this show because I'm a. I'm a coach as well. Dolores. With one action step that anyone watching, whether they're an entrepreneur who's just starting out, someone who's looking at exit or looking at pitching investors, what is the one action they can take today to improve their communication and enhance that competitive advantage? [00:45:55] Speaker C: That next meeting you have with a potential buyer or a potential client, record it and watch it. It's like a athlete. When they're looking to level their performance, they watch their play. So watch your play, listen to your talk, and if need be, get feedback. [00:46:15] Speaker A: Thank you for that, of course. Always. And engage with a mentor because that is so tremendous. If you don't have one, reach out to me, reach out to Dolores. We are happy to get you in the right space. All things do come to an end, including this show. But the good news is we will be here same time, same station, next week. You have your marching orders. Record your next conversation, whether it's a buyer, whether it's to a pitch, an investor. Watch it, listen to it. Pay attention to the little habits you have, the nonverbal cues, and pick one thing to work on and move that along. Or find a mentor or someone who can help you, guide you and grow that area. Until then, take your action. Win today, win this week, and we'll see you same time, same station, next time. Have an amazing rest of your day.