Ant Hodges 0:00
Well, you know what a change is already ensuing. You know, this is the next episode of my podcast. Less is the strategy, and today I'm freewheeling it. Today I'm just speaking to you as me, without script, without notes, because I truly believe that when you over complicate things, you end up getting into a bit of a prison. And already, in this podcast, in trying to get things right and trying to do things in the best possible way, I've already suffered at the hands of the complexity monsters, and for me, I just don't want to go down that road, because the whole point of this podcast, less is the strategy is to help you understand how the art of simplification, removing things, subtracting will help you in your business, in your marketing, to get more sales, more leads, to have the success that you want from life and to have a successful business. So I'm just going to be speaking to you from my heart today, and following on from a conversation that I had with someone who's become quite a close friend over the last few weeks, in just his insights and speaking into my business and what I'm doing. And I really want to encourage you to listen to this episode with some fresh ears. Here, I'm got a few points that I really want to cover off, but the key message is that human is the way forward. I'm ant Hodges, this is less. Is the strategy. The podcast that proves doing less is the most powerful business decision you will ever make. Are you ready to find out what becomes possible when you simplify. Then let's dive in. Whenever you want to learn how to do something, you go to the very best. You go to the people who have been there and done it and are willing to teach, willing to mentor, willing to take you on a journey. And podcasting is one of those things, I think I said it in my first episode. It's one of those things that I've really struggled to consider in terms of my own business and what I'm doing, because of that inferior complex that that I had in my head of, what would people think of me? Would people really accept what I'm saying? And you know, it's taken me a long time to get this podcast moving, but coming out of the shadows of agency work over 20 years of being behind the scenes, working on people's businesses, helping them to grow their businesses, to now coming out front and center with my book simplify the funnel. To be doing this podcast, to be launching YouTube, to be speaking on stages. I'm enjoying life, because what I'm able to do is share stories, share real stories from 20 years of seeing people over, complicate things, seeing people, over the last 20 years, get really stressed about things not working, and also sharing some of those wins and some of those strategies that actually did work. And what I'm talking about there is, I'm talking about the people who simplified, and when you simplify, you can scale, and in the back of my mind there was still this, okay, well, you're a dyslexic ADHD guy, and it took you ages to write your book, so even writing scripts for your podcast is going to take time. So why don't you just put together some thoughts, freewheel it, brainstorm, throw it into an AI, ask AI to tidy it up and give you a script, and then you can read it. It's your words and it's your thoughts and it's your methodologies. All of that was true, but the last few episodes, I've literally read from an auto queue when doing these podcasts and Cliff, Cliff Ravenscraft, Mr. Podcast Answer, man, I reached out to him just to get some advice around podcasting, and we've had a few coaching sessions. And his advice to me more than any was one stop using a script he could tell. He could hear. This is a man who's produced 1000s and 1000s of podcast episodes himself, who's got over 50 podcasts that he
Ant Hodges 4:50
contributes to, who has 1000s of students in his training programs. This isn't an advert for his training. I'm just telling you why I reached out to Cliff. Yeah, but he's seen it all, and there was patterns in the language that was being used. There was the way in which it tidied up content, the way it took my thoughts and put it together in a script for him, sounded like aI because he's heard it time and time and time and time again. So this episode is dedicated to the coaching that I received from Cliff to free will, to speak from my heart, not to speak from my head, because also, when I found I was scripting, I was overthinking. I was putting maybe language in there that I wouldn't necessarily use because I was researching and using AI to brainstorm some of those ideas, rephrase things, you know, all of those kind of things. But I think the first thing that I really want to encourage you to understand, and it's something that I've come to understand, is that your voice is your brand, the moment AI words, your thoughts, shapes what you're saying, puts it into a different structure, a different rhythm, all of these kind of things, you end up sounding like everybody else, And unbeknownst to many people, we will probably subconsciously have already started to train our brain on how all of this sounds, how all of our writing sounds, even if we think, Well, I didn't write that using AI. If you've spent every waking moment using something like chat, GPT or Claude to create content and then you've edited it, you're training your brain subconsciously to write in the same way, even when you're writing just straight from a human perspective. And that's really important to think through. And Cliff saw it in a lot of the things that I was talking about. And there were patterns and there were rhythms, and he's got different tools that look at scripts and look at transcripts of podcasts and highlight these kind of things, but it was just pure gold to get right from the offset an understanding of how I could literally free wheel, because I know what I want to say. Each podcast will have a theme. Each episode will have shape, and maybe I could just put some bullet points on a post it note, just record straight from start to finish without any editing, so you get all of the mistakes and the hiccups as we go through but I want to really get to a point where the relationship is built. There is what's called a para social relationship that is built between content creators and people who consume their content. What this basically means is that people who spend a lot of time binging content and watching the same creators over and over and over and over again, they get to feel like they're building a relationship with them. This is how sort of fans, you know, the whole fandom thing grows, because people start thinking in their mind that they have a relationship with you. And I want these podcasts to be and to feel like that, that I'm just talking to you, my friend, that I'm speaking directly to you, to your business, but I know that it's only one way, because I can't hear what you're saying and responding back to me. What I'd love for you to do is find me on Instagram. Over at ant hodges.com Find me on LinkedIn. Message me. Let me know your thoughts. Send me a reply email to any of the emails that you get. Tell me your thoughts around these podcasts and what I'm talking about, because I want to get to know you. I want to get to know what makes you, you know, feel a little bit ticked off with the industry right now, so that we can discuss these things, and I really want to understand your businesses and your challenges so that I can impart the wisdom that I've had from journeying this industry for over 20 years and seeing what works and what doesn't work. So this para social relationship, I feel like it really can only be built if I'm just speaking and free really, I can script to the best of my abilities, but it's not necessarily going to feel heartwarming. I mean, I'm even stood up recording this, because I feel like I just need a little bit more energy in what I'm saying, whereas the other episodes I've been sat in front of my computer recording. Yes, I'm
Ant Hodges 9:44
stood on a sit stand desk today. You're in front of a sit stand I'm not stood on the desk. I'm stood in front of a sit stand desk today because I want that energy and I want I want the passion for what I'm talking about to come across. I. Think what we will do as we start to think about this from a perspective of, how do we freewheel? How do we literally just shoot from the hip? How do we serve from the heart, rather than necessarily always, from scripts and notes? It will end up turning our listeners into fans, our followers into fans, and then, in turn, into clients. Because the relationship is built through people hearing the real you. It's built from hearing the real me, not a polished version of me. And certainly, you know, I don't want people to see a polished version of me, because I want to come off not just as authentic, but as genuine. I think we can certainly put authentic content out there, because we can write stuff that is truthful, and people can put that label of authentic on that content. I think that word has been overused, particularly in content marketing, and we are not necessarily seeing the genuine person when we're seeing content online, we're not seeing the real them, and that's what we need to get to. That's what we need to work ourselves, work our content through, so that our genuine self shows up. And I think, without scripts, without a teleprompter or without an auto queue, whatever, however you call it, that's going to come across even more. Because even when you're writing scripts, what you're trying to do is you're trying to put as much as you know into something. And when you write that script, and you start giving people advice, and you start sharing content. It's it's kind of like that default position. I want people to see that I know a lot of stuff and that I'm an expert. But the reality is, we've got all of the AI tools on the planet now. So if somebody wants something, then they go to their favorite AI, or even to search, which now has AI built into it and they ask the question. Or they go to YouTube again, which has got aI built into it to find the content. Or they go on to their social media, which has become more interest media the way that the algorithms are running now they're putting content in front of you that are based on your interests, not necessarily what you're following now, all of these kind of things. We people have got access to information. If they want to know something, then they can go and get it. But how you naturally speak, how you bring your stories, how you bring your thoughts, your feelings, your genuine self to the party, no one, and nothing can replace that, no one, and nothing can even come close to being 100% genuinely you. And that's what I want to do with these podcasts. That's what I'm going to do moving forward with these and with YouTube. I think a script just complex, just complexifies. I've made up a word there. It complexifies scripting. Stuff adds complexity. Speaking from what you already know is the simplest way that you can just build a relationship with someone. I think for me, I want to be able to have a conversation with you, almost like we're stood next to each other next to the grill having a barbecue. We're just chatting. We're shooting the breeze, and yet we don't always want to talk about work while we're at a family barbecue or a makes barbecue, but that's the kind of thing that I want you to feel because I barbecue, I smoke meats, and we have a great summer here in the UK. We don't have a great summer, but when summer is here, or for the one week of a year that we get, the barbecue goes on, and we have friends over, and we just socialize, and we get together and we talk. There's no screens involved. It's conversation, and that's what I want these podcasts to be. So even though this is only a few episodes in, I'm already kind of hitting the reset button. I'm going to leave what I had there as the first few episodes, and we're going to move forward, because less ultimately, is the strategy. If I can say it without notes, then this is something genuine that I do know, that I've lived, that I want to share with you. In that sense, I also think that when I'm stood on a stage and I'm speaking, or if we're stood at a barbecue, you don't hear me, Oh, stop. Let me just say that again. Let's do another take.
Ant Hodges 14:41
And this was something that I started to learn when I was creating training products and programs for my clients, and I was kind of building the membership I was kind of known by my video guy who worked for me as the one take King, because I very rarely need. The script when it came to my training content, because I had either a couple of bullet points underneath the camera on a post it note, or I had a giant flip chart, the super king, King flip chart on the side. And I'd have post it notes that I would just kind of rip off, and there would be words underneath, and I would use them as prompts, or indeed, I would literally just shoot from the hip to be able to deliver the content that I wanted to. And that's exactly the same as what I feel like I want to do here. I want to come across as genuinely me knowledgeable about my stuff, but without all the Polish, I think the mic for a podcast is no different from me having a face to face conversation with you, or me standing on a stage, or me delivering my training project projects, training products before, because that is genuinely who I am and who I am to show up. So the title of this episode, it's better to be human is really just where I want to come from with these podcasts, I'm going to shoot from the hip. I'm going to tell it like it is. I'm going to have a subject that we talk around, and I'm going to give you my thoughts. I'm going to give you wisdom. I'm going to impart my knowledge from my stories. I'm going to ask you to take certain action steps. But more than anything, I want you to know that this is genuinely coming from me and nobody else, and it's not scripted, it's not AI. It is just you and me having a conversation my friend, so that I can help you to simplify, so that can help you to see that less is the strategy for your business moving forward, so that you can see that by simplifying, you will be able to scale and that's my plea. I want you to see from me what I'm doing, so that you can understand what it is that you should be doing. If you want to read any of the methodologies around simplification that I teach. You can head over to simplify the funnel.com and you can grab a copy of my book, or just subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast. Please share this episode if there's somebody in your life who is an AI nut and they are doing everything in AI and they're not necessarily showing up as genuinely themselves, send this episode to them, because we're going to get to a point where everybody does sound the same, and it's starting to even just from what Cliff has said. I'm looking around and I'm listening to other podcasts, and I'm going I can hear what he's saying, and it's kind of switching me off a little bit, because I'm not genuinely connecting with the person on the other end of the mic, because Are they really showing up as genuine in themselves if they're using their favorite AI to script a podcast? That's a question. That's a question I want you to ask yourself of when you're listening, when you're reading content, when you're seeing stuff online. That's the question I want you to continually ask of this, you know, ant, that sounded a bit polished. Did you really I want you to reply, send me comments. Tell me when you think it is, because genuinely, this is not going to be ever scripted around AI. I'm just going to shoot from the hip. We're going to have a topic. We're going to cover it. You're going to have me a human on the other end. And because it's not scripted, I'm just waffling again, and I'm just repeating myself. We're 18 minutes in, and we're going to wrap up. But the thing about all of this is that in the age of AI, in the age of technology, I really, truly feel like we've got to bring the human back into the funnel. It was actually in it was the January just before we went into covid and lockdowns that I sent a newsletter out to my mailing list saying all of these automations and everything that people are doing today. You know, we've got to bring the human back into the funnel, because that's where relationships are built, that's where sales are conducted, that's where people really feel like they are connecting. And it's no different today. It's probably even more important today, because after I sent that newsletter out that year, we had chat GPT launch. We had all these other content
Ant Hodges 19:20
creators going all nuts, saying we can create a month's worth of social in five minutes, all of this, but it's just a I dross that is just proliferating the internet and genuinely people, genuinely my friend, we need to Make a change when we stand out in the marketplace, that's when we get noticed. So if we want to stand out, let's just do this something different. Let's just show up as ourselves. I've stood here for 19 minutes. I've been able to talk to you non stop with just four bullet points in front of me, because it comes from my heart, it comes from my knowledge, it comes from my. Stories. It comes from my experience. That's how you should treat your content. That's how you should be reaching out to your people. Have a great and a blessed day today. If you want to know any more, you want to learn to simplify, go to simplify the funnel.com. Grab a copy of my book. Please do subscribe. Give this podcast a five star rating on Apple podcasts, and leave a review, let me know your thoughts, and even just reply to any email that you may receive from Me. You can go over to my website, ant hodges.com you can get access to a sample chapter of my book if you don't want to get the whole thing. And let's just continue the conversation. I'll be here again next week, and look forward to having more dialog with you about how you can simplify, because less is the strategy you.