🤘Eric Cook, MBA

The good news is that thanks to LLMs and natural language prompting, they don't "need to be" technically proficient - they simply need to know the marketing function and have the ability to explain what they want to accomplish. Use an app like Pi or ChatGPT's new advanced language model and just talk to it like you would with an intern, or even senior level consultant that you want to help you with a project or talk through a problem. It's also helpful to focus something "non-work" related that you may want help with first so that the pressure of "work results" is off the table. Even just asking "give me some motivational advice to help me better organize my day," will reveal the power, yet simplicity, that AI can provide, building comfort.

If you're getting pushback from senior leadership, it's best to attempt to understand the reason for their resistance and try and see it from their perspective. In many cases, senior leaders are not "in the weeds" on AI (or other projects) and their perception of what the reality is of AI may be off and require adjustment. Starting with AI literacy and education will help, but first just focus on identifying "business challenges" that are holding you back. A skilled AI expert can help you uncover how these business issues could be addressed by AI, and starting with some simple "quick win" projects may help in getting leadership comfortable with the process and how AI can be a valuable asset to the organization.

It's important when implementing any sort of technology that you want to be a part of your support and brand voice that you actually infuse it with just that - your brand. You also shouldn't expect 100% autonomous capabilities (until it's been trained well) so that when someone interacts with your "bot" they your personality still is able to come through. Many chatbots provide the ability to train the model with pre-existing information, so that it knows answers to common questions. But when something comes up that is not in the "system," ensure an on-brand and comfortable transfer to a human staff, letting the customer know what's happening and ensuring they don't have mixed expectations - or it could do more damage than good.

It's important to let staff know early on in the process that your objective in using AI is to help "super power" them to do their job(s) better, eliminate (or reduce) the mundane and repetitive elements to make work more enjoyable, and to allow you to better serve customers (and become even more valuable to the company). But in many cases, there is a lack of understanding around "how" this works, what AI can (and cannot) do, and the real risks (and benefits). This means that you should also plan on AI literacy training and education so that your staff all starts their journey on the same page. If they "don't know what they don't know," it's your responsibility as their manager to bring them all up to the same level to help ensure success.

Think of email as a "conversation" with another person. If you just start talking and don't have any sense of what the other person (in this case, the email recipient) is interested in, the conversation is going to be very one-sided and not very valuable. You'll need to first use data and insights to ensure you understand their needs/interests, then work to include that content into your message. Further data analysis will help you determine what is (and is not) resonating with the recipient(s) so that you can continue to add value with future email messages. If you've ever been in a conversation where the other person just talks about themselves, it's easy to understand why this is not a great strategy to build credibility and loyalty.

Remember, when creating and sharing content it's all about THEM (your audience) - not YOU. When you are producing content for social media, ensure that you have a clear picture in your mind of your audience and what they need. What they want. What questions do they have? The more you show that you're sharing content that is "not about you" but focused on making the readers' lives better, the more people will want to follow you (and that creates networking opportunities). It's also a good idea to not just focus on your own content, creating posts and articles. But think about your commenting strategy and ways to add value to existing conversations, still focused on the readers (and, in this case, the original author).