Craig Andrews 00:03

Today, I want to welcome Mark Savant. He is a savant indeed. And he is the founder of podcast production agency Mark Savant Media. He specializes in helping thought leaders launch and automate podcasts. He hosts are you ready for this? He hosts the globally ranked top 1% podcast after Hours Entrepreneur, which highlights industry disruption such as AI, automation, and independent media. He leads dozens of entrepreneurs in his mastermind community. Mark. Welcome to leaders and legacies.

Mark Savant      00:42

Greg, glad to be here, brother. Good to be here with more leaders. What's up?

Craig Andrews 00:47

Well, this has been so we were chatting a little bit in the green room, and I can't wait for everybody to discover what you shared with me because I think there's so much that's valuable, so much that's relevant. And for those that are listening, just so you know, we're going to talk about staffing. We're going to talk about employees leaving. We're going to talk about getting rid of employees when you have to. We're going to talk about AI. We're going to cover a lot of things in just a few minutes. But let's go back. You were telling me that a key team member left you a while back ago. What's the story there?

Mark Savant      01:31

Well, so in my podcast agency, I have about ten team members, some full time, day to day, some part time. But about a year and a half ago, I had a key team member say, hey, Mark, I'm going off to a university. I'm moving to Spain. I quit. And I did what most business owners do and promptly freaked the hell out because I just lost a key team member and what am I going to do? And I did the next natural thing that business owners do and say, well, it's time for me to fill in those gaps and start doing the work so that we have a smooth process and a smooth experience for all our clients. Well, I became completely overwhelmed immediately. And what I started to do was look for options. How can I fix this problem? I'm overwhelmed. I've got too much work. How can I solve this? And I soon found AI, and I started using AI in the workflow, and I reduced my workflow the time spent by about 90%. Wow. Life changing. It was just a life changing moment when I started to put this process into place. And what I did is I started empowering my team. I started giving them more tools, and I started training them with how to use this AI. And it's reduced cost in some areas by, again, up to 90%. We're much more efficient. We can handle a much higher workload, and the quality of the product is much better too. So I've seen what AI has done in my business, and it's really life changing stuff, which most people don't really fully comprehend just yet.

Craig Andrews 03:01

Yeah. Well, let's go back to so you lost this employee. He was moving to Spain and what have you. So tell me, it seems like it caught you by surprise.

Mark Savant      03:15

Well, he did. He was a good kid. I've been working with him for a couple of years. He was doing a ton of copywriting. I work with a lot of people overseas now. I have people here in the States, I have people in India, Serbia, the Philippines. I read the four hour work week a few years ago. Completely changed my perspective on getting jobs done and completing tasks. And so I work with a lot of people overseas. And this young man just was going through a life change. He said, I quit. And he was the only guy at the time who was doing blog writing for me and writing show notes. He was doing a lot of the copywriting, which historically has been a very expensive and very difficult task to outsource. But with the use of AI, with use of automation, it can turn, let's say, a very novice or level one writer into a very solid writer. It's transformative on a wide variety of topics, but specifically, when it comes to writing, AI is an incredibly powerful tool for you and your team.

Craig Andrews 04:15

So let's break down the levels you talked about. Level one. What would you say are the different levels of writing and different levels of copywriters?

Mark Savant      04:24

Well, sure. Let's say level one is someone that doesn't speak English real well. English is a complicated language to not only speak, but to type in. So they're maybe foreign, they don't speak English real well would be level one. Level ten is like Stephen King. Like, they've been writing books, they know what the heck they're doing. And then you have all these kind of levels in between based on you kind of get it. Let's say Ten is Stephen King. Level one is I barely write English. So someone who's like, let's say a two or three, you know, these types of emails you get where you're like, oh, this is weird, there's no punctuation. Well, AI, if you just give it a few ideas, like if you go to Chat GPT and say, hey, will you write me out a script for a podcast episode about AI and leadership, it'll write out the entire script, the entire blog article, the email, the blog post, it does it all. And it's just tremendous. When you start using these tools, you're able to magnify your impact, but also the impact of your staff.

Craig Andrews 05:28

Yeah. So if you're starting with a level one writer, where will AI take them?

Mark Savant      05:36

I would say it'll take you to a level seven. Level seven pretty easily. I mean, very easily. In fact, in a lot of cases, you barely even need a writer. I'll give you a perfect example of this. This is kind of like a quick little workflow, but you can automate Chat GPT, which is one of the flagship AIS at writing. You can automate it with a program called Zapier, which connects different programs together. So this is a really slick workflow. You can create a Google form that anyone can fill out. Let's say it's people you're trying to network with. Networking is great. So let's say you're trying to connect with CEOs or CFOs at other companies. Maybe they're the perfect fit for your business model. You say, hey, CEO on LinkedIn, you reach out, would you fill out this Google form? They fill out the Google form, it sends it over to Chat GPT. Chat GPT writes out a blog article. You post the blog to your WordPress site, and then you follow up with that CEO and you say, hey Mr. CEO, your blog article is live. We're promoting you. We're promoting what you do. You can check it all out here, Jack. GBD can write the whole thing. It'll write 1500 Word articles almost instantly. It's unbelievable. Wow, I'm kind of hitting that really quick. There's more steps to it, but once you start integrating AI with Zapier and start automating it, it really changes the world. You can do it with Calendars as well. Someone fills out a Calendar request form, send it over to Chat GPT. Chat GPT can get you prepared for it. It can send follow up emails. It can do a lot of powerful stuff.

Craig Andrews 07:06

So Zapier, is that's one of those tools where if you have two programs that you feel like they should be talking, but they're not talking, zapier goes in between to make those two programs talk. Is that right?

Mark Savant      07:18

Exactly. It's an API integration that connects softwares together that normally wouldn't communicate.

Craig Andrews 07:22

Okay, and so give us an example of what that would look like. What would be a flow? So you mentioned Chat GPT, which of course is the AI. What are you connecting it to?

Mark Savant      07:35

Well, in that example, we were connecting Google forms with Chat GPT, and then it can create Google Docs. You could also connect that to something like WordPress, which is a popular web host. You can do things with CRMs. So, for example, if you're using HubSpot or Go high level, for example, customer fills out a form, sends it over to go high level, let's say in this example, then Go high level, can respond back using AI to respond to that message, if that makes sense. So it's more customizable at scale, instead of just sending a raw generic like, thank you for filling out the form, we'll get back to you. It could say, hey Craig, thanks for filling out the form. I hope the weather's nice in, you know, home of the Padres or can. So it can start to do some more comprehensive customizable messaging at scale.

Craig Andrews 08:34

That's kind of interesting. Now, LinkedIn is like notoriously funny about going in and scraping their site or grabbing information in their site. Can you actually use AI to tie into LinkedIn content?

Mark Savant      08:49

You certainly can. In my Mastermind group, I had this developer, his name is David Awassi come in and he had a really cool tool. It was a plugin for Chrome. And what it would do is when you would pull up someone's LinkedIn profile, it would scan their whole LinkedIn profile and then it would open up a messaging chat with that person and it would fill in the chat based on that person's interest, maybe where they worked before their line of business. And it would create custom messages to start your discussion. Now, you might say, yeah, Mark, but I have a really authentic voice. I'm really good at this. I know how to open up conversations. Great. Love it. I'm sure you do. But what about your entire team? What about that person that you just hired that's overseas for $6 an hour? What about them? Well, now all of a sudden they're using these tools and they go, like I mentioned, from like, let's say a level two or level three rider to a level seven or eight writer, they become much more effective using a tool like that.

Craig Andrews 09:46

Got it. Now, this obviously has to be scary to some team members. They're seeing AI come in and what were the stats that you mentioned? You reduce your cost 90% up to.

Mark Savant      09:58

90% in some areas. Yeah. Wow. It changes everything. And I love when people say, well, you know what? You're not going to be replaced by AI. You're going to be replaced by someone using AI. And I say, well, you still don't have a job. It's the same thing. What's the difference? People are terrified. The World Economic Forum is estimated that 40% of the global workforce is going to be displaced by 2030. That's a pretty big number. That's like hundreds of millions, if not billions of people displaced.

Craig Andrews 10:27

Yeah. So one of the challenges leading people through this, I'm sure this is something you run into, is you have a couple of categories of people. You have those that say, well, and I think this is happened a little bit with the writer strike saying, no, we're not going to let AI come in and take our jobs, and they try to dig in and entrench. You have other people that know, I would say a much smaller percentage of people that say, all right, tell me what I need to do. So I'm one of those people using AI in the future.

Mark Savant      11:00

Yeah. I mean, listen, we're business owners. I was talking to Patrick Bette, David, about this a few weeks ago at a like, if you want to win Mr. Olympia and you're going to beat Arnold, you need to be using steroids. I'm sorry. You need to be using the tools. If you want to win the Tour de France against Lance Armstrong, you're going to be probably doping in a van with the rest of his homies. If you want to win a race and someone's in a Ferrari, you're not going to win on a bicycle. And AI. Is that steroid? It is that Ferrari. It's so empowering. So the way that I tackle this Craig with my team, when I started using this early on, I said to all my team and everybody that's coming on board, I said, Listen, AI is going to change the way that you operate. We're a creative agency. We create a ton of content from written blogs to LinkedIn posts, to emails. We're an entire marketing company based on a 30 minutes zoom call that our business owner client has. And I said, Listen, you're going to be impacted by this. But instead of being fearful about the AI coming and impacting your job, let's have a conversation. What is the stuff in your day to day that's taking up a lot of time? The stuff that's boring data entry? Maybe it's creating clips or the written word that we talked about. Or what are those processes that take up a lot of time? And let's look for solutions. Let's look at these AI large language models and predictive algorithms and see how we can save you time to make you more effective. And even if you leave this job, one day, you're going to be empowered because you're going to know how to use the tools. You're not going to be the person that's replaced by AI. You're going to be the person that's leveraging AI to change the world and create a difference. And so that's the stance that we've taken at Mark's Vault Media is we're going to tackle it head on. We're going to empower you, and you're going to be safe for life because you're going to understand the tools.

Craig Andrews 12:53

Amongst your team. Have you seen people that have still resisted adopting that? What have you seen?

Mark Savant      13:00

No, they love it. They love it when you tell them you're going to save this much time. I'll give you an example.

Mark Savant      13:10

There's a process that we do in podcasting where you switch back and forth between the person who's speaking and the person that's listening. Right? Because you always want to have the camera focused on the person that's speaking. Historically, that is a very laborious process because you have to go through and clip out, this is where this person's speaking. And I'm going to b roll this. I'm gonna add this to the overlay. Just takes a lot of time. Well, Adobe Premiere Pro released an add on that allowed you to just upload the add on and it would automatically split up and focus on whoever was speaking.

Craig Andrews 13:44

Really, I want to know what's the add on?

Mark Savant      13:48

So I have it on my YouTube channel because one of my team members said, mark, I found this add on and it's changed my life. And I said, do tell. He told me, I said, let's record a video. So he actually did a walkthrough. I highlighted him on my YouTube channel so that he could walk us through. So not only does that help me help my audience for people like you who are using these tools. Right. But it empowers him, because now when he goes to the next job, he can say, I know what I'm talking about. I work for Mark Savant. I have this video. I have this video that highlights and then it goes deeper than that, though, Craig. It's telling team members, hey, you find something that you like, let me know and I'll pay for it. I'm going to pay so that you have the tools to be more effective in your job. So the first step when I'm doing one of these AI planning days with a business is, let's sit down, let's figure out where the time is being wasted, what's the laborious stuff, what options are there to eliminate that? And then how can we highlight and incentivize team members to use these tools? Because they will absolutely transform your business.

Craig Andrews 14:58

Wow. Now, when you're working with another business, I would imagine you run into some people that aren't eager to adopt it. They're looking at themselves as about to be replaced. How do you lead their teams through that?

Mark Savant      15:12

Well, I mean, it all starts from top down, but I find that most people are very ready and accepting. Most people are not like, oh, I will never use AI. The vast majority of people are on board because you can see it happening. It's like saying that you want to run a business without a smartphone, without a cell phone. This is a necessary part of competing. It's like trying to build a business, doing Excel accounting when you could be using a robust accounting program. So I find that most people are on board when they find out that we're not trying to replace you, we're trying to empower you. That is the goal. Our vision is to empower you, to keep our business afloat, to be competitive in the marketplace.

Craig Andrews 16:02

Very cool. So tell me about a time where you feel like your leadership was put to the test. You were facing a tough decision. You weren't sure how it was going to play out. You made the decision. What was that and how did it work out?

Mark Savant      16:22

Oh, jeez. As business owners, this happens all the time. Recently, I had a run in with a team member who I really like. Great guy, been working with him for several years. But as the business grew, he was consistently falling behind with Deliverables, and he just wasn't releasing stuff on time. And I had spoke to him once, I spoke to him twice, and it got better for a little while, but after a couple of months, we were right back in it. And I really struggle with this because as a person, I considered him a friend. But again, the problem is, if you have one person in your company that's consistently under delivering or over promising and under delivering, it impacts everybody. Nobody in the organization is like, oh, Jim can slack off, but that makes me feel good. No, they say Jim slacking off, so I'm going to slack off too. It's like a know and so I made the tough decision. I was reading a book, Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud, and I just came this realization just, I can't go on. As much as I like him, as much as I'd like to find a way to make it work, we're in a business of getting stuff done on time and frankly, ahead of time. That's the business that we're in. And so I let him go, and I was nervous that the team was going to be upset because he was one of the OGS in the agency. But on the flip side, the team was like, you know what? We get it. We get it. We understand that you did what you had to do, and we're motivated. We see the vision. We want to explode people's brands on digital media. We believe in what we're trying to do here. And they all got in line. They supported the decision. Nobody was upset about it, not even the guy who I had to let go because he knew, well, that's impressive.

Craig Andrews 18:31

That's impressive to be able to cut someone loose and not have them upset. Do you know what he's doing now? Has this been a good move for him?

Mark Savant      18:40

Well, quite frankly, because of the stance that my agency has taken in really empowering team to be top notch, to be the best of the best, he went out and he started landing his own clients. So as far as I know, he's doing okay. But again, I kind of struggle with that too. Like, how much do I want to empower my clients or my team? Because then they're just going to go off and do their own thing. But I don't think we can think with a scarcity mindset. I want to empower everybody that is in my atmosphere to be the best version of themselves, period and stop. And I believe that if I can do that, if I can empower people to be the best version of themselves, a rising tide will raise all the ships. So as far as I know, he's doing very well at this time.

Craig Andrews 19:30

And you said something really bold there, and you touched on something earlier in the conversation where you said, people that work for you, they have the reputation of having worked for Mark Savant Media, and that's something bankable that's something that they can take out and actually help them land a job or help them land clients. And from my perspective, I would rather be the Savant who creates all these incredibly smart, equipped people then be one of them. Because if the word getting out, tell me if this makes sense if the word getting out is people that work for Mark Savant are incredibly smart, incredibly capable, and sometimes they leave oh, if you could only be so lucky to acquire them. I think that still makes you look best. I think that still drives most business to you.

Mark Savant      20:34

Hell yeah. Like I said, anybody that's in my atmosphere, they're going to be a high performer. And frankly, that's something that I've started to have a low tolerance for. I hate to use that term, but I've become very thoughtful about the people that I spend time with, the people that I'm engaging with, the friend group that I hang out with and the employees that I'm working. And

Mark Savant      21:07

I want to have that reputation that, oh, wow, you were working with Mark. Oh, Mark was on your stage, mark consulted with your business, mark was handling your show. There's a reputation that precedes and I think that's important, for sure, especially with leadership. How do you attract the best talent? It's by treating your employees, right? By empowering them, by developing that reputation.

Craig Andrews 21:35

It's so wise. So as people are looking forward to this economy that we're in and there's a lot of people that are scared, there's a lot of people that are worried about AI. What's a quick piece of advice that you would share with other business owners as they look ahead?

Mark Savant      21:54

You should be assessing every step of your business and reassessing systems and asking yourself, where are the places that AI can save me time? I think Chat GPT is a great place to start. It's very easy to use. And if you're using Chat GPT for 15 minutes a day, for strategy, for copywriting, for outlining, for task management, there's a lot of things you can do with Chat GPT. But, yeah, when AI really hits, it's going to hit really hard. There's going to be mass layoffs. Do you remember QR codes? Of course you remember QR codes. QR codes have been out for a long time. They were invented, I want to say in like 1998, they had QR codes, but they've been around a long time. But when the pandemic hit and you couldn't order, they didn't get handed a menu at restaurants. What do we would do? You'd walk in, you'd see a QR code. I think a lot of areas of AI are going to be like that. There's going to be a certain inflection point where they'll go from being cashiers to zero cashiers. You're going to go from having a customer service rep at your front office to having an AI chat bot. Everything is going to flip very quickly. So the next 18 months are going to expose businesses that aren't ready and it's going to present extremely massive opportunities for businesses that are full stop. The world in five years is not going to be recognizable. It's going to be so different.

Craig Andrews 23:34

Now you have a mastermind group for entrepreneurs that are trying to figure this stuff out, right?

Mark Savant      23:41

Yeah, that's what we're focused on. I'm bringing in AI app developers, coaches, consultants, people that are using AI day after day because things move so quickly. There's about 2000 apps that drop every single week. You might be saying, well, how the hell do I keep up it's? By getting into these rooms, by getting to these conversations with business owners that are using these apps that are using these tools and sharing the resources. We have lots of worksheets, trainings and a lot of highly, highly motivated people in there that are just crushing, crushing, crushing. And that's something that I feel very strongly about.

Craig Andrews 24:16

Well, very cool. Well, if they're interested in that or they're interested in contacting you, how did they reach you?

Mark Savant      24:21

You can find all my assets@marksvantmedia.com, marksavontmedia.com or you can go ahead and shoot me an email, mark@marksavantmedia.com. Pretty simple to shoot me an email, Mark@marksvantmedia.com.

Craig Andrews 24:35

And your top 1% podcast is the after hours entrepreneur.

Mark Savant      24:39

That's it. That's it, baby.

Craig Andrews 24:42