Professional presentation with AI

MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says AI can save you time and help make things that you do more presentable but we have to keep the human touch.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Alex Tolle: Hello, I'm Alex Tolle with metalcoffeeshop.com and I am back again for an influencer topic with my good friend Randy. How are you?

Randy Chaffee: Alex, could not be better. It's always great to chat with you.

Alex Tolle: So our February question is, how can you ethically integrate AI into your operations to improve efficiency without compromising trust, transparency or the human element? 

Randy Chaffee: Man, that's a lot of stuff. Phew. Well, you know, it is a big question and, it's funny, it's one that I love being a bit more senior in the industry from an age standpoint. I'd probably be one that would frown on it and hate it and think it's crazy and dumb and get that stuff out of here. But I'm just the opposite. Let me back up. At one point in time when I first heard about it, I didn't like it. I think everybody has that certain fear of what does this mean? Is it going to take over everything, going to take over the world? But I've dug into it enough and I use it every single day. It's an app right in the front of my phone, ChatGPT is right there. 

I use it all day long for stuff. But I think it's a great question because it's a great tool and it can save so much time and help you clarify, clean up and make things that you do more presentable. That's where I use it more for, there are so many more things we can use it for. I'm a novice still at using it. But I think the key comes in as you hit on, is doing it ethically because like anything, social media, right? We're going to be on social media. Social media's the same way you could use it for the good or the bad. And I think with AI, we have to be careful that we still keep the human touch, the personal touch and don't just let AI do everything because I think that's disingenuous. 

I'm very careful, as I think you know, I'm blessed to be able to write for several magazines in the industry. I do a lot of blogging and other things, and I'm always very careful to only use it for idea generation or for fixing or, geez, I hate the way that sounds, can you make that sound a little better? Then go back and write it. Never, ever, ever would I write a blog or an article and just have AI do it. Because at that point, I think it is disingenuous because, I think if we remember the biggest thing that we use, social media, digital, virtual to our benefit, you know, we've talked about before, visibility equals opportunity. And I think that's true and it's important, but I think we need to make sure that people know Alex, they know Randy, and that it's Alex or Randy talking, not some AI generated thing, because otherwise anybody could do that, right? 

And so I think it's really important to just use it for what it's for. But like I said, right now, I am one of these believers that if you don't grasp it and you don't start using it, just like with social media and digital and all the other virtual platforms, you're going to get left behind. People that are using it are just going to be quicker, faster, better prepared. I can tell you right now, I would say that I probably save multiple hours a week. I haven't sat and analyzed that, but multiple hours a week in just my limited amount that I use it compared to probably somebody like yourself, maybe use it a lot more than I do. But, like I said, I'm probably on ChatGTP 20 times a day and I use it as a search engine too. 

Google's a great search engine. YouTube's a great place to find stuff, but I really like to use ChatGPT to get another take. And, I guess the one thing that I've learned and you have to watch for, is it only knows what it knows from a limited time, right? It's not infinite where Google has been there for a long, long time. Even YouTube been there a lot longer. I think that we want to err on the side of going to another AI platform or go to Google and double check it before you go throwing it out there, because it may be slightly skewed.

But I think the two things that I would say is you better use it where you want. I mean, you can use it for lead gen, you can use it for literally anything. I was talking to a guy a few minutes ago, it's going to be on my podcast in a while and we was going to talk about AI for 30, 40 minutes coming up and that's how important I think the subject is. But you can use it for when you call in instead of getting a receptionist, you can walk through the process. For that idea in particular, in our industries, I would guard against that. And that's just maybe my old school way of thinking, right? I still think at some point there's that human part that people still want to talk to a person to explain what it is they're really looking for. 

I don't know that the general populace in our industry at least is ready to just talk to a bot all the time. Some machine, some weird thing in some chat box. I don't know if we're ready for that yet, but I also think that we're ready for a lot more than what we're doing right now. So you do it, like I said, do it ethically though. Do it with integrity. Don't use it for things it's not supposed to be used for, and make sure that's still you, even if you have it write something for you. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, "Hey, I'd like to do a blog about X." It saves you a ton of time, but yet if you don't go back and in my case, put it into my own words, but it gives you that outline. 

And that's what I'll usually use it for is give me an outline. I want to write about this, give me an outline and all of a sudden you have five, six different headings. I go, okay, that makes sense. I could write about that. That's where I use it. So I don't know if that makes any sense, but boy, I'll tell you, you have to use it, man.

I have another parting word because I always have another parting word. If you don't start learning it now, it's going to be like you're in high school and you never had all the math all the way through elementary, junior high and high school and now all of a sudden they throw you in college prep calculus, you're screwed. If you don't jump into it now and start getting your feet wet a little bit, you're going to wake up six months from now or a year from now and so whatever we do today is going to be outdated, like literally in 25 minutes, right? So if you don't stay on it every day and and learn what's going on, you're going to wake up someday and go, okay, I really need to use this around October of next year. And you're so far behind, it's going to be very hard to catch up.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, for sure. I really like the point of using it as a starting point for ideas and an outline, because I do that all the time. Writing is not my strength. And so if I need to write something up, whether it's short or a couple of pages, a starting point really helps me to get the ideas and get the juices flowing and just, "Hey, I need to write about this." And then it, maybe it'll give me the full thing and then I'll take a few nuggets out of it. But it gives you that starting point to be able to put something together or give you ideas on how to improve something or in your business, like how do I go about fixing X, Y, Z and then put it in there and it'll just give you a bunch of ideas. And most of them might be trash, but there might be one thing and then you're like, "Oh my God, why didn't I think of that?" So it's a great resource. 

Randy Chaffee: It is. And you can plug, like I said and like you just hit on, you can plug in, maybe you just wrote a policy for work, right? And you wrote it, but did you miss something? Did it sound as good as it could? Is it as to the point as it can be? And I love if you can stick it in here and say "Does this thing make sense?" And I think one thing we didn't touch on is I'm really learning and a guy I just talked to a few minutes ago is going to send me some information that I'm kind of looking forward to is it's the prompts, right? It's all about the prompts. It's kind of the old computer thing. Garbage in, garbage out was something way back in the time that got talked about more. 

But you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. So you have to ask it the right stuff and ask it the right way. And that's a whole science in itself and an art in itself that I get better. It's funny, I find myself actually talking to it. I need to name it because I, and some people have named it, but I haven't figured that part out yet. But, I'll compliment it. "See, that's exactly what I was looking for. Well done." Or, if I write something, I put it in there and say, "Does this sound good? Can you make this a little more conversational? Or could you make this a little more professional?" Because I want to put it on LinkedIn. But then I say, "Now, could you make it a little more witty and quirky," because I'm going to put this one on Facebook. You can take the same work you did and and make it useful for the different platforms. So that's where I use it mostly as marketing right now. But you could write policy, you could write plans, you could write business plans, you could do just about anything you want to do. But biggest thing is ethical integrity based and get started. 

Alex Tolle: And don't forget to add your personalization to it. Don't make it sound like ChatGPT, make it sound like yourself. 

Randy Chaffee: Exactly. And that is really key. And as you use more of it, you can ask it to use your voice, right? And the more you put in and the more that you talk to it, the more stuff you give it to do, the more it understands how I talk, how I say things. And I always ask it to write in my voice, what you know about me and what you know about my interest. 

Alex Tolle: That's smart. I didn't even think about doing that. 

Randy Chaffee: Yes. That's one of the things I automate using my voice and what you know about me and my industry. And then I might say, do it in a conversational tone. Do it in a quirky or witty tone. Do it in whatever. And the thing I've worked on, just because it eliminates a little bit of do over doesn't always work very well because it loves to put its own phrases. And if any of us has used it any little amount of time, you can recognize those notorious AI phrases. 

Alex Tolle: Delve. It says 

Randy Chaffee: Delve a lot. Yes. That drives me crazy. I don't, I've never delved into anything. But I always ask it to not, I always ask it to avoid any notorious AI phrases. I don't know if it does any good, because I still get some, delve is a great one. And the other one I notice is it loves to use the little lines after a word, where I would use an ellipsis. But, just some of those things you notice, but you only pick up on those after you do it for a while. And as you said, talk to it as a person. That's what I do. I chat with it as if it's a person I'm talking to. 

Alex Tolle: Yeah. And as it develops more, it's going to be more like a person in a few years. It might be your new work buddy all the time. 

Randy Chaffee: It's good stuff. You know it. And the big thing is, just stop being afraid of it. It is here to stay. I've said many times, anywhere anybody will listen is, if you don't have a website presence, if you don't have a social media presence to a large percentage of people your age or my age, you don't exist to a lot of people, right? And I'm not going to say you're not going to exist, but you're not going to exist at the same level if you don't get involved with these things. It's happening too fast. There are going to be jobs out there that probably will be eliminated by AI. There's always that fear, right? But I still follow so far the theory that the jobs that are limited by AI, there'll be new jobs that come into place. You just have to learn them. 

Alex Tolle: Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.

Randy Chaffee: Yeah. Hey, you know, before Henry Ford started to model T, you didn't need car mechanics, right? The horseshoe people needed to figure out how to work on cars. It's the same thing, you know, just have to learn new things. So good stuff. I could chat about this forever because I love it. But really, I'm an old guy and and I love it. So if I'm an old guy, you can love it. 

Alex Tolle: I love it. Thank you so much, Randy, as always. 

Randy Chaffee: Thank you.