Kevin Rogers on Why AI Is Breaking Brand Trust and How Human Stories Fix It

Ian Garlic: Join Ian Garlic as we uncover the hidden marketing stories that shape our world. Reveal the latest marketing tactics that will shape your future and the amazing people that grow organizations, movements and businesses. Learn to grow your business and shape the world around you. Welcome to the Garlic Marketing show with Ian Garlic. And yes, it's Ian, not Ian, that's marketing too.

Ian Garlic: All right, on this garlic market show, we're going to talk about AI we what you're doing wrong, what you're doing right, why you're blowing up your copy. Because I've got the copy chief, Kevin Rogers. Kevin, uh, thanks for being on.

Kevin Rogers: My pleasure, man. Great to be here.

Ian Garlic: And we're going to talk about the big question he asked himself that every changed everything. How he gained back control of his time, uh, the thing about cheesy mission statements and how he shifted his, his idea behind it. The dangers of AI copy. We're going to talk about M M dashes.

Kevin Rogers: It was a really strong uh, the

Ian Garlic: problem with AI and finding your North Star and how this is going to massively affect how you show up in AI, how you show up for businesses and how it will affect your brand and your audience. You've got a short gap to do this. All this on the Garlic Marketing Show. But one of the best places to be putting your North Star is in your fish in the barrel strategy. Everywhere that people look at you are looking you up. You need to have your North Star, those videos everywhere. Go to videocasetory.com fib to the fish and Barrel Analyzer and figure out how you can be doing better and how much money you're missing out on. All right, let's get started. Kevin, thanks for being on.

Kevin Rogers: It's my pleasure, Ian. Good to be with you. Although, you know, it's interesting your name Garlic, right? Like that's, it's almost like a double edged sword. Somebody loves garlic. They, they feel close to you. I personally hate garlic, so I'm m trying really hard to like you.

Ian Garlic: Oh man. Do you really hate garlic?

Kevin Rogers: Yeah.

Ian Garlic: You're one of the few people I

Kevin Rogers: know that I know most people love it and I'm like, okay, I'm definitely the oddball. I just, I just don't. Yeah, you know, if it's in an Italian dish or something and I'm not thinking about it, I'll probably, I'm probably enjoying that it's there. Um, but if going into a, uh, proposition somebody mentions garlic, I'm like, if there's any way that cannot be part of it, I'd be happy.

Ian Garlic: You know what's funny is. You know, folks, this is getting off, but you might find this entertaining. Well, my good friends Jen Ross. Actually Jen and John Ross live in St. Pete and she despises garlic. Whenever I hear someone hating garlic, I think of her.

Kevin Rogers: Uh, so maybe I was thinking about this because I have some time on my hands. Other foods, like Jack Lemon. Nobody's really mad at lemons. And they're refreshing and you're kind of glad when the lemons around. But you know, again, most people really enjoy garlic. But garlic, there are people who find it offensive. So. Yeah, I just wonder how that's affected your life in ways that you don't know.

Ian Garlic: I don't know. Yeah, that's a. That's a good point. And most people, you know, most people are super excited. They're like, is that your real name? Like, it is.

Kevin Rogers: So that's good.

Ian Garlic: And then I have to tell them, like, it's not Ian. It's I am, but you can call me Ian.

Kevin Rogers: Right. You got a lot going against you when it comes to the simple name.

Ian Garlic: Yeah. By the time we get done with it, people remember, though.

Kevin Rogers: That's true. That's a good point. They've gone over. Yeah.

Ian Garlic: So, Kevin, tell us a little bit about, uh, copy chief, what you were doing there and why you stopped doing it. Because I think this leads in really important North Star. And we'll finish up with the AI Stuff because everyone loves a tactic.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah. Uh, so Copy Chief, Amazing life changing, um, entity in my life for 11 years. I was a freelance, uh, direct response copywriter for about 10 years. And that went incredibly well. Big breakthrough in that career was halfway through I found a writing partner. It's actually the first guy I ever coached privately. I had coached in John Carlton Simple Writing System and learned a bit. I learned. What I learned is I love coaching. And I was okay at, ah, it. I was pretty good at it. And then, um, this dude came to me and uh, I coached him privately and he was just like. I'm like, you know what the. Today, Ian, I'd be sure he was cheating because of A.I. but back then, this is probably 2010, um, I really thought he was swiping, sending me like, swipe. I'm like, he can't be this good. Yeah. But. And I literally would check it and, uh, it was him and he was that good. So. And we were just a perfect partnership. So that's why I started thinking myself as really, why am I chiefing this guy? And I'm m. Chief. And people would come to Me, ask me for critiques and whatever. So I started sort of a, early into my career adopting the, the mindset at least of a chief more than a copywriter. And so then when I wanted, uh, to build a community because there was a big hole in, in, in the industry, you know, um, there was just nowhere because, you know, copywriters were coming to me asking for, how am I getting all these great clients? And clients were asking me, if I can't hire you, who should I hire? And I only need like five people, you know, So I was like, I got to get everybody in a room. So I started Copy Chief as a community, paid community. And it just grew and grew, grew. We did live events, uh, you know, guys like John Carlton and Paris on Propolis would, would play guitar at the parties and jam with the band. It was like, it was paradise. Like, we just had a blast nice. And made, um, you know, some good money. It was a seven figure business. And then, um, you know, a few things intersected to make me decide to close it. One was A.I. certainly, uh, wasn't. Look, there's all kinds of ways I've could, I could have capitalized on that and made, you know, Copy chief. Say, like, copy chief AI and everything we've ever done and taught in here is now at your fingertips, trained this AI with it and blah, blah, blah. But for me personally, like, I've always been more of a person to person connector, and I really need to feel the people to, to help them. And what I felt was like, there was just no longer one. It was no longer a set of common beliefs or ways that we were working or ways that I could definitely help someone improve their workflow. Um, because everybody was all over the place with AI and figuring out the relationship with it. Number two, all the claims went away pure and simple. You know, I, uh, did a lot. I connected copywriters with clients to the tune of $25 million in contracts. Just that I can count.

Ian Garlic: Wow.

Kevin Rogers: Just that I can count. Um, there are many, many more that happen organically through the forum. Um, so even though I would always tell people, don't come to me just for clients, because that ain't how it works. I don't know you. I don't know if you'd be a good fit, but if you're in my coaching group, more often than not, I'm gonna, there's gonna be a client who's a good fit for you. And that was true for many, many years. And then that the bottom just fell out of that aspect. All of a sudden, what used to be a weekly, twice weekly occurrence. Hey, Kev, can you recommend somebody went down to two months, then every six months, just. There were no clients. And, uh, that just indicated to m. Me like, what is this craft anymore? And what is, what is this market? And, um, so there was that.

Ian Garlic: And.

Kevin Rogers: And then in my personal life, I just, um, started feeling, you know, I had that moment a lot of people around 50, uh, can relate to, which is getting this sort of like ongoing uneasy feeling that as hard as I've worked for, for these roles and this identity and as thankful as I am for all the success. Is. Is this it? Is this really it? And a friend turned me on to a, uh, an author named James Hollis, who's written many books. They're all amazing on this topic. But the one that really got me was called the Middle Passage. And I thought I was starting to go crazy a little bit. Everybody around me, uh, was telling me I was going crazy because I was m. Detaching and just not feeling energized by the same things that you. That very recently energized me. And people tell you to change your diet and get off that testosterone. And I did. I did all the things that they swore were it. None of it changed, did not change the feeling inside. And so I made the decision to change my life. I moved, um, to dissolve my 25 year marriage. Was, um, living on my own for the first time in that long and longer, probably 30 years. I, uh, have two adult children. Um, and, you know, so I knew I could still navigate those relationships without causing any real damage. Um, and I just needed, Needed to go find myself. I know it sounds like very privileged and all that, but I'll tell you, if I hadn't done it, I don't know what, what the ultimate outcome would have been. I was, I was not in a good place. And, um, so two years later, I can tell you it worked. You know, I really feel like myself again. It's been hard. It's been. But man, you know, I'm in control of my time, all of my time now and my energy. And I know who I am. I know what my preferences are. I know what my patterns are. I know what lights me up. I know it turns me off. And I get, uh, very much to choose where I spend my energy now, and it's lovely.

Ian Garlic: Um, so at what point did you decide. Did you figure out this whole North Star, Explain to me what it is and, and what, what point did you figure out, like, this is the Thing.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah. So in all this sort of ruminating and re constructing of my life, I kept going back to, okay, what is the thing I would do for free? You know that classic question, right? And it's this, and it's having these conversations with interesting people. You know, I've hosted well over 500, uh, episodes of podcasts. I started my first podcast this same time. I started copy chief in 2014 and I've never stopped. And um, it just always lights me up if I'm having an off day after the, after the episode, I'm in a great mood. Right. It's just the thing I'll, uh. You couldn't stop me from doing so I thought, okay, well how is that useful now? Do I want to play the podcast game? Not really. It's different, competitive. It comes down to algorithms and things that I don't want to think about. And um, so I thought, well and then I started seeing lots and lots of interesting mainstream media articles and reports about the importance of uh, knowing a founder's story and knowing a company who's behind this company. As you I'm sure I've seen, Ian, you know, Gen Z especially are starting to turn their back on brands and break trust with brands that they see using AI too much. Yeah, right. Gen Z among, among everybody. Uh, very interesting. And so suddenly founders are scrambling to go, oh, I better, I better get known. And then they like, oh, I also have to get real. What is that? What does that look like? You can't run that by the board and don't let the lawyer tell you how to be real. So I thought, you know, this is what I'm uniquely, um, qualified to do. You know, I spent 10, 10 years as a stand up comedian, so I know, I know what lands and what doesn't in a very, very big way. Uh, you know, and all the podcast. I trained as a journalist, so I, you know, I'm an insatiably curious person. And so I thought, man, I'm a really good candidate for somebody to sit down and not only help them record their story, but I can extract their story from them. You know, when I was a freelancer, my favorite part of the job was that first that onboarding call with the client. Right. You know, I was very proud of the fact that by the end of that call we were both so on fire for the project, you know, in the offer and we knew exactly why it was relevant and had ever all the material we needed to go write great stuff. And uh, it was like a, ah, love affair. You know, and I, and I just thought that's how all copywriters worked. Come to find out, a lot of them aren't that good at that part of it because they're shy or they don't want to. I'm sorry to bother you, but I have one more question. No, it's like, no, I'm. No, that's not it. Like, go deeper, man, go deeper. Like, what's really. You know, it's just that. And then they start. It's like a therapy session. They're like, you're right.

Ian Garlic: Oh, my God.

Kevin Rogers: I didn't think of it that way. So that's what, that's what brought me to Northstar. And then I came up with the, the concept of, of calling it Northstar because in your business, like, that's what it is. It's that story, it's that information, it's that genesis of why you do what you do that people connect to. And at some point along the journey of them doing business with you, they're going to want to know what that is. And so for them, it needs to be findable. And it's an extra bonding layer of bonding on the relationship for the founder and everybody. And company wide, they need this to cling onto, to look to and say, does this align with our North Star? Does this piece of content align? Does the way we're talking about this alignment? And it just makes everything easier from there to write, to think about, to know your take on.

Ian Garlic: And so when you find the North Star, you're saying all these things they can do with it. Tell me a little bit about implementing it.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah. So, I mean, to be honest, it's a new service. So, um, I'm just figuring out all the ways that we can, uh, infuse it into a business. But some, some very obvious ones are, number one, your about page should be this, not resume highlights.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: Uh, number two, if you're working with AI in any capacity, it needs this very badly to understand who you are. And you know, AI is very good, particularly cloud. At once you give it really good source material, it'll stick to it, it'll go back to it. Right. Still not going to write well. But you do it. It gets you close. Um, you know, even internally, uh, mission statements. Funny thing I. And you know, I went through EOs, you know, EOs.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: And so we installed that with our team. And before, until they forced me to create sort of the, uh, like the mission statement, the purpose statement for the business, I had always rejected it because I just Thought it was cheesy. And then, you know, I didn't like, what's your five year plan? I'm like, I don't know my five day plan. Like, you know, I m mean we're all figuring this out in real time, right? But once I sat and wrote sort of the mission statement, the North Star before I was calling it that.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: I'll never forget. I read it to the team and the woman who had been with me the longest literally cried.

Ian Garlic: Oh, uh, that's awesome.

Kevin Rogers: She teared up and she said, I'm just so emotional to finally hear everything I've known. We believed in, in words. And I was like, wow, what they say about leadership is true. Like everybody needs to be bought in and understand what they're there for. Otherwise it's just a job. And so, uh, you know, as, as a team building tool, as a, as a, you know, why is everybody, you know, if somebody comes along and offers more money, it better be a lot more money. If they really love the North Star of the business they're in now, if they believe in it, it's, it's not going to be pluckable in an easy way. You know, it's going to be a life decision for them. Um, so all, all those things and um, certainly I, I would be happy to as sort of a, ah, a next level service, sit down and record that story with a founder, have them come here to St. Pete, rent a studio for the day, do a three camera shoot, give them the best version, closest version to diary of a CEO they can get without the joy of Stephen Bartlett. You get me instead. And, and you know, but if you're not gonna get invited on that show, at least you can look a hell of a lot like you deserve to be there.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: In your context. Um, and then of course there's the AOE stuff, which I know you and I are both kind of geeking on and learning about because I think it's a very big impact on the immediate future of how we're found online.

Ian Garlic: Oh yeah. I mean it's the AI. You know, it's interesting because there's this dichotomy, I think, especially where you're talking is everyone's running to AI for copy, for creative. And I, I mean, I want to see how you feel about that because, you know, when I look at it, people bring it to me like, look how great this is. I'm like, that is not good. And, and they don't know the difference. But then there's this opportunity of Controlling how AI uh, talks about you, how to become an authority. And because people are asking all these questions of it, you know, they're asking the problems that they have and they want someone to solve it in a certain way. Um, you know, so what, you know, when you still can, you still look at AI content and go, that's horrible.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you, it's very interesting. In fact, I wrote about this today. Uh, again, we've, we've all talked quite a bit about it, but it's an ongoing conversation for that reason, because it's still evolving. M. But I'll tell you, when it comes to the simple concept of people thinking it's good, I'll say that like, you know, I don't know if you're a music fan, but like Matchbox 20 has more fans than Jeff Buckley.

Ian Garlic: Yep.

Kevin Rogers: Okay. And you, uh, there's no argument about who has better taste. Jay Leno was number one and Leno and Letterman could never beat him. I mean, you know. Yeah, it was two different. I say you could split the whole of United States over Leno and Letterman fans. Like, I don't want to talk to a Leno fan. It's a very short conversation. I didn't hate him. It's just silly. It's Jimmy Fallon. Like, do you like Jimmy Fallon or do you like Stephen Colbert? It's a completely different proposition. Right. And so I, I, with all due respect, if somebody gets copy from their AI and thinks it looks as good as real copy, you just don't, you haven't developed the taste to understand the difference. And that's okay. I'm sure you're busy with other stuff, but don't be fooled because it's dangerous. And again, too many people in your audience have that taste and are seeing it and smell, even if they can't quite identify it. Mhm. That's the, that's the first layer. The second layer is keeping respect among your peers. Just yesterday, Ian, I got an email from a good friend who's a high, uh, level, A list copywriter who's known me. He was one of the first people to sign up for copy. He's been following me this whole time and he wrote me this beautiful email and it was kind of that. Hey man, I've been debating whether to say this or not, but there's been a lot of times in my life when I wish somebody would have said something. He goes, are you overdosing on AI? I was like, what? And he's like, I don't know, this is like the last couple emails. I just. I. I smell it, and I know you're in there somewhere, but it's not your writing. And I'm like. I'm like, can you tell me exactly which emails? Because I, uh. In my mind, there was only one that I. I let Claude have an influence in, and I won't go into the reasons, but I wrote about it in the email today. Um, and he pointed to that one, and that was interesting because it was all about the EM M Dashes now. Interesting. So with the M Dash issue, for instance, to me is like, I think, oh, yeah, you're. And he kept saying, like, I just may be too sensitive about it right now. And I'm like, with the EM Dash as you are, because the reason I stopped using EM dashes like everybody else for a while, because people just immediately assumed it was AI Uh, I went back to them because I saw other writers I respect who I know are not letting AI Anywhere near their words, still using the EM M Dash because screw you, AI. I've been using M Dash as long before you were a spark in the metaverse or whatever, you know, and so I thought, yeah, I want my M Dashes back. But then he pointed out a second one, and I was busted, dude. I had forgotten it was a short email. And I thought, whatever. Uh, you know, it's fine. And it goes to show, like, people are paying attention, and if in one offense really, like, spoils the. The. Now they're looking for it. Now they're suspect. Yeah, that's the small ways that the trust can get eroded.

Ian Garlic: And that one person that calls, that's amazing that you give that person a call. But there's so many people that are just going to drive right by and never trust you again. Right.

Kevin Rogers: And I thought, man, if. If he said it, how many other people I respect are going, oh, Kev, you know what I mean? So it's like. So I sat down and I made a new rule for myself. Um, I'll use it as I deem helpful throughout the process of. Of working through an idea and then. But when it comes to sitting and writing the words, it's got to leave the house.

Ian Garlic: Interesting. Yeah, I agree.

Kevin Rogers: For better or worse, if it's, you know, the of it is. It's like sometimes. And it's like, I never asked, Claude, please write me a draft of this. It's like, you want me to take a shot at it? And I'm like, fine, go ahead. I'm m. Like, damn, that's pretty good. So then you go, well, okay, I'll just take out all the real obvious AI stuff and then I'll, I'll interject enough. And by then it's, it's still there. This stink is still on it. Right? And so my new rule is like, no, when it comes to the words itself idea there, I'm not even going to go back and check the notes in Claude. I don't want to see. It's, uh, got to be pure. Whatever I got and whatever words I can come up with in that moment, in that mood, that's what's going to come out. Because that's way. How did I put it in the email today? You know, that's the edge. Like, uh, edges are often jagged. They're always sharp. They're, they're, they're, you have to be careful around edges. Edge of a cliff, a sharp edge of a knife. You know, that's what edge is. And better to risk somebody getting cut than to sand the soul off the thing, you know, like, keep your edge.

Ian Garlic: And also the thinking part of it too. Right? It's, it's like you, when you're writing that stuff, you have to think about that person on the other side. And then you, when you let AI do it, you let them think about it for you. And I think, uh, you know, and when it comes to. So now when it comes to the North Star, you know, how are you? What do you feel is the difference between you doing it or sending out an AI app?

Kevin Rogers: Yeah, good question. So this is where I think there's another level where, where it's like, where does it matter most? Right. So, for instance, I think the, the, the, the crux of the North Star itself has to be pure. But another thing we know we can do with the North Star is create at least 40 pieces of content from it that in some instances might be visual storytelling. And, and you can get away with a lot more. It's, it's less noticeable. It's, it won't feel hollow because it's coming from the pure thing itself. But man, like working with Claude, just last night with the first test session I did, and the collaboration and the ideas it's bringing, you know, the moment we have all had. And this is why it's so addictive and so hard to know where to draw the line. It's unbelievably helpful and it can do things in a split second that would have taken us weeks or months.

Ian Garlic: Yes.

Kevin Rogers: Um, I'm not unhappy about that, but, um, I Do think. And you know, when it comes to the North Star, it's got to pass the smell test. It's got to feel very real. The good thing about it iron is that it's 100% that founders words.

Ian Garlic: Mhm.

Kevin Rogers: So what you have to do then is keep that source pure. Like I don't necessarily want to come in even as a human writing for them. If I'm writing the version of it, it's still me, it's still not them. Right. So. But what my job is to bring taste and discernment to it and anything that gets produced through the process that I just have to continually get sharper and sharper and sharper about making sure it does not smell or taste like AI in any way.

Speaker D: Yes.

Ian Garlic: That's, it's, it's an interesting thing. Right. Because it's like. And that's a taste where it's like it's tasting the saccharine. Right. Or the, you know, the artificial sweetener.

Kevin Rogers: Right.

Ian Garlic: And being like something's off and you got to be able to be like this is where it's off. Now on the flip side, tell me what you're seeing as far as this, the potential of this influencing AI and the AI. You know we talked about the AI search aeo, however you want to call it.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah. Uh, if anybody hasn't heard it yet, AEO is Answer Engine Optimization. So we all know about SEO Search Engine optimization. And it's the difference between the two very different ways that they decide who to give as results when somebody searches for something or asks a question. Okay. And let's just focus on CHAT GPT. And I want to credit our friend Donovan Rittenbach. Ah. For the research he's done on this is mind blowing. And so I'm giving my layman's version of what he's so wise about. But if you just look at ChatGPT, for instance, the way he described it to me is it's um, it needs a cheat sheet. It's also lazy and it doesn't want to fly around all the Internet trying to figure out if you're worthy of talking about or not. Okay. It's going to go to a certain source, look for a schema report, and it needs the cheat sheet for the fact that you're a badass MFer. Okay. Once it sees that, it'll then go verify that. But without that, it's just going to blow you off and go to the next person in whatever fraction of a second it does these things. Okay. And so the North Star allows you to create that cheat sheet that you can put in a very specific place in your assets to be found and indexed. And the reason that is is because if we look at the difference between, let's just say forget Gemini for a second. Old Google use, uh, you know, was like, feels archaic now. It's like you'd ask for something, you'd have to scroll through pages of, of links and then read through that and then you have to go down some hour long rabbit hole to get maybe what you needed.

Ian Garlic: Yep.

Kevin Rogers: Well now what ChatGPT and the other AIs want to do is they want to be the end all, be all source for you on that topic. You know who, who are the best, uh, copywriting coaches or who are the best founder storytellers right now in the industry? Okay. Kevin Rogers comes up third. Uh, oh, interesting. He used to be a standup comic. I love stand up. Tell me more about Kevin Rogers. It need, it wants to go, oh, you're gonna, you're gonna really love this. Kevin Rogers did this and that. And then right now he's, he's like divorced and he's going through this whole life thing. And so that might be relatable because I mentioned, you mentioned in three chats ago that you're kind of like you went through a divorce and you see what I mean? It's just a whole different dynamic to how we're, we're receiving information from our search. And again if you're, if you, if you haven't told that story you to that depth, uh, it's going to pass you by for somebody more interesting.

Ian Garlic: Yeah. And I think this is where it's important is the depth of the story and people are afraid of it because they're like, I don't want people to reject me. It's common, you know, it's what's been around all the time. I don't want to be different because I don't want to get rejected. I want to talk to everyone. But more importantly now it's like you're going to get rejected because you're not this, you're not lining up with that person.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah, yeah.

Ian Garlic: And ah, yeah, I think that's what you were saying. It's like, oh, divorce, divorce. It lines up all of uh, I just had a client the other day who got another client because like this person put in like 20 different problems they had and it lined up and that's, it's really contextual, like understanding context and being like, hey, you have to give it as much context as possible. And that's where that story. And, and like you said, I think this is an important thing for people is, you know, we always want to buy from people, but now we can buy from people more so than ever because of this.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah, right, exactly.

Ian Garlic: Um, and then the feeding. Yeah, feeding, chat, GPT or Claude. It is amazing. Um, what do you think's, who do you think really needs to do this?

Kevin Rogers: I mean honestly, everybody. Like I was just thinking as you were saying that like if you're a brand and there's no human to be found in the brand, it's okay if you're selling a widget. I, I suppose like just the, the product itself is. But you remember M. Donovan's thing is like sugary soda, Coke. Why Coke? Over Pepsi or rc or just because they got there first and they never stopped telling you. Now do I need to know the CEO of Coke?

Ian Garlic: No.

Kevin Rogers: Uh, if they screw up, I'm concerned, you know what I mean? This person's too busy doing bad things in hotels and not making sure my stomach is safe, you know. So CEO's job in a huge brand like that is to just not do anything wrong. Um, among other things. But if you are a person who, if you're an investor even, even if you're not a founder offering a product, for instance, people in the VC space are very active on LinkedIn and hiring pros to write for them on LinkedIn because they have to have a presence, they have to have a take, they have to have a position on things, they have to be in the conversation to be seen as relevant. Right. Otherwise just ignorable. And they're not looking for someone to click a link and buy a thing. They're looking to create connections with other like minded people and do big deals behind the scenes. But you, if, if unless you're so good at what you do that it's better that people don't know your name, which is a very small niche, then if somebody hears about you, what are they going to do? They're going to go to LinkedIn and search for you.

Ian Garlic: Yep.

Kevin Rogers: Or they're going to go to chat GP and go, who is this guy? Iron Guard, like I heard about.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: And if they don't see anything, they're going to go, I don't know, like what's he hiding?

Ian Garlic: Exactly. Or if it's old or if it's, you know, or if it's. Yeah, if it's too. And also if it's, if it's too

Kevin Rogers: bland, if it's vanilla yeah, if it's just like, no, this guy seems boring. Like, I don't. Again, like, uh, what, what, what are we connecting on? If you're trying to be for everybody, if you're trying to be safe, if you're letting your lawyers dictate what you say and don't say, you might just don't. Like it's nobody cares.

Ian Garlic: Or if you're just letting AI write whatever it wants about you.

Kevin Rogers: Right. Also very. Even more dangerous in some ways because you don't know what it's going to say.

Ian Garlic: Um, so, uh, tell me a little bit about the process of getting this done. How do you go through this?

Kevin Rogers: So it'd be a conversation like this. There'd be a, uh, prep call where I help you understand exactly how to show up for this conversation and make sure. Establish some rapport between you and I make sure that you're get a sense for what you're comfortable sharing and not sharing. Um, and then also I would instruct you to be mindful of your aesthetic because whether we do a more polished session or not, I want you to come away with really great clips from the conversation. And then on the actual call itself, I think of it as eras. Once I have the prep call and I've done my research, I can kind of like put their, their story into eras of their life. And I like to take those somewhat chronologically. So I just did one with an incredible woman named Hillary K. She's an Enneagram coach, um, and works, you know, she's worked with Nike, she's worked with all these big Fortune 500 companies, and she also works at a lot of solopreneurs and founders. Um, and she, uh, is fourth generation entrepreneur in her family. So that was a perfect starting point.

Ian Garlic: Right?

Kevin Rogers: And then we just took. And then she would say in the conversation she. Twice she used the phrase, but life had other plans. And so now as an interviewer, it's my job to go, okay, she's mentioned it twice. It was a big turning point in her life. But if she wanted to talk about it, she would have said, but what that means. So, But I can't let it go by. So I'm either going to say, you've mentioned this twice. Can you tell me more about what life having other plans meant? But then she revealed that at, uh, 23, she had a child with special needs. And then, so we had a whole discussion around that. Now that may or may not be relevant to her North Star story, but it matters about who she is in her life. Um, and so it was worth discussing. And again, that's why I feel this is why I love doing this. There's nothing more exciting to me than being in control of a conversation like this where you, you want it to be raw and you want it to be free flowing and, and fun. But at the same time, you know, this iron. You're deciding 100 where this goes next based on what I tell you, what you decide to follow up on. And so that's what I prepare them for. It's like, um, and she even told me then. She's like, I was nervous not having my answers or not knowing the questions because I like to prepare. She's like, but I just trusted you. And I'm like, I didn't, I don't want you prepared at all. I want the things, I don't want the canned answer. So that's, that's how it goes down. And then once I have that interview, I bring it and I, uh, run it through the process. And for instance, it was interesting, um, last night, Claude was I. First thing I did is I said I want you to, before we even go into her material, I want you to critique my, uh, skills as a interviewer. How'd I do?

Ian Garlic: Oh, nice.

Kevin Rogers: Yeah. And it made some great points. And it was interesting because, and again, this is an important point about AI. It is a relationship and it will adjust, but you can't take its first answer. And it's, it's, it's number one pushback was that I didn't go more into that period of her life when she was 23 and, and was, had two kids and was getting divorced and one of them had special needs. And it even suggested it might be worth a follow up call just to get a little more about that. And I, and I said, okay, uh, just so you know why I didn't do that on the call. First of all, I could sense she was on the verge of tears and if we went deeper on it, she would have been drained for the rest of the interview in a different, different place emotionally than, than we needed her at all and she needed to be. And second of all, it's, I don't think that's her story. She overcame it. She explained what it was like. She actually revealed something incredibly interesting and deep and raw, uh, about having a child with down syndrome. And I thought there's no reason to push beyond that. We said more than I thought we'd say about that. And uh, then it came back and it's like, you know what you're right. It's like I'm making a note right now to put in the memory, which just yesterday, Claude got. Memory. I don't know if you're aware of that.

Ian Garlic: Yeah. Um.

Kevin Rogers: And, uh, it's like, this is not a biography, not an autobiography. This is a North Star, and it's primarily about business. We want the personal stuff, but I won't push you again to go make it more personal when that's not the point. So that was interesting, but it, um. So then it processes it all down, and then from there I'll very lovingly get to the actual North Star story, and then from there we can process it and all the other ways that it's necessary.

Ian Garlic: Yeah. Well, I think that interviewing part is so crucial and it's. It's such a subtle art. I love it. I love it because. And it's so important in this because you have to know where to dig and know when to stop digging.

Kevin Rogers: Yep.

Ian Garlic: And where we want to go with this. And, uh, I think so few, so many people underestimate that. Like, when I do case stories, people like, can you just send me the questions? I'm like, that's not. That's not how it works. And I don't think. I mean, I think AI can do a decent job of it, but like you said, it's like it can dig in the wrong spots where you can. And it won't feel that going the wrong way.

Kevin Rogers: That's what it would have done, I imagine, if, say, Claude was doing the interview instead of me, it would have been. It would have went on and on about that one thing in her life that in. By. She would have been just drained, you know? And, um. And, you know, the other thing is, Ian, it's not this. It's not you and I, right now, even though we're both seeing each other digitally, we are feeling each other's energy.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: We're on our toes because we don't know at any given given moment what the other person's going to do or say. Or is he liking what I'm saying? Is he thinking, this is interesting? Uh, am I boring into tears? Is. Is, you know, is he going to tell me why he shouldn't even air this?

Ian Garlic: You're cancelled.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: It just puts you on a different, uh. You're firing different chemicals in your brain than when you're sitting there slumped over on your couch, looking at your laptop, answering questions. It's. It's. It's not anything like the same.

Ian Garlic: It's nothing the same. It's nothing the same. And I think that's where, you know, it's, it's, that's why this stuff's so important. It's going to become more important. Going through this process is going to become more and more important to separate yourself out because so many people are just going to, or uh, they're, they're going to, you know, pawn it off on AI. Write about me, tell me what my North Star is.

Kevin Rogers: Uh, and, and you know, here's the real cost of that. Okay. Not only do you kind of like my friend emailing me and me going, oh, how many other people, you know, thought this, uh, how many people read it and just would have connected with you and went on. So that's the invisible cost, the hard cost, the measurable cost is that for instance, ChatGPT is right now up until November in a training cycle. Right. Which you probably know it only does like every three years. It's rescanning all the information in the world to update what it reports on and what it gives us answers and what it doesn't. Okay. So if you're in this cycle, if your North Star is not found in an index by Chat GPT, goodbye for the next three years while chatgpt continues to gain market share as a search engine.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: Okay. Now others do rag which is more like real time generation of information that it shares. You'll be okay with Gemini, you'll be okay. Uh, but Chad GPT is the one people are using. They were the first to market and they've got the biggest share. And so that, that's just an example of the real cost of not telling your story these days.

Ian Garlic: Yes, it's a real cost. It's a huge cost and being inconsistent with it too. I think that's another piece that people don't realize is you can't tell 20 different stories anymore because it looks for the consistency. Um, that's fantastic.

Kevin Rogers: That's a really good point. Yeah.

Ian Garlic: Um, that's what I'm seeing is when you see the story 20 different times, it's like, well, it must be true. And if you think about that, we really see it in Google with news stories. Right. The news stories that come up to the top are the ones that are being told over and over and over again. And like that deep dive story, that's really important but only one news center covered it. You don't see.

Kevin Rogers: Right. Um, right.

Ian Garlic: And so I think, you know, and it's, it's amazing. And uh, this is so cool. So Kevin, if someone wants to get a hold of you. They want to do the North Star. Tell me about where we go find you.

Kevin Rogers: Kevinpychief.com email me directly. I'll give you my. I get my phone number if I want. Harry Belcher does that all the time. You know that he's always giving out his phone number.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: And I was like, are you out of your mind? He goes, nobody calls. He goes, like, the only people who use it are the people with intention. And I'm like, that makes sense. I wouldn't call you out of the blue. You know,

Ian Garlic: now I'm tempted to just start calling.

Ian Garlic: Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: Email me directly. And. And that way I know I'll get it. It doesn't get lost in any other system. And we'll talk.

Ian Garlic: Yeah. And where's the best place to follow you?

Kevin Rogers: Substack. Uh, you can go on any of the streaming platforms to hear all of my podcasts. Copy Chief Radio, Truth about Marketing, if you. That's almost like a museum these days, because I, I, you know, I have great interview with Clayton Makepeace, which ain't gonna happen again, you know, so it's, um, doing this a long time. And if. Yeah, if you want to know more about me, those are the places and, and love, uh, Substack. You can find me a official Copy Chief on Substack, kind of doing the best of what I've done over the years and, And Copy Chief there.

Ian Garlic: So, yeah, the official. The real Copy Chief.

Kevin Rogers: The real Copy Chief is. Is. Yeah, that's actually the. The handle on, um, uh, on Instagram Copy.

Ian Garlic: It's.

Kevin Rogers: And then, you know, with Kevin Rogers, it's like, there's so many Kevin Rogers. There's a baseball player, there's a stuntman. And I'm like, man, you know, too common. There's no iron garlic's running around for you to work.

Ian Garlic: There's only one in, uh, England. He's 80 years old. And I've had, like. It's funny how I get random texts from or random messages from people that are. For him.

Kevin Rogers: That's funny.

Ian Garlic: And it. And, uh, like, I. Yeah.

Kevin Rogers: And oddly, he has the URL, Right? Like, he won't give it to you. Oh, no, no. It's.

Ian Garlic: It's just on Facebook. It's on Facebook, people, like, look up and then they. They message me. They don't look at the picture or I guess I look ad. Um,

Kevin Rogers: um.

Ian Garlic: And it's. It's. It's very bizarre.

Kevin Rogers: But, yeah, randomly, the, The. The guy who has Kevin Rogers. Dot com. Last I checked, lives in Tampa and does nothing with it. You know, and it's like, bro, like, can I come to your house and like, somehow charm you into giving me this? Like you're doing. You're wasting it.

Ian Garlic: You're wasting it. Uh, this is awesome. Well, Kevin, thanks for sharing everything about the North Star, your story. This has been fantastic. We'll put a link to all this in the show notes. Uh, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to comment down below on YouTube. Tell them what you liked, tell them about your North Star. Uh, but Kevin, thank you so much for being on the Garlic Marketing Show.

Kevin Rogers: My pleasure, buddy. Enjoyed it.

Ian Garlic: And thank you all for taking Kevin and I on your journey and making us part of your story. This has been I Garlic and the Garlic Marketing show video. You know it'll make you an authority.

Speaker D: You know it will get you more leads, better leads that close faster and spend more with you. And video stories will help you be remembered and connect with those perfect clients. The problem is, where do you start? Storycruise.com is the place to go. It's like a film crew with an S. What's your strategy? Do you do it yourself? Do you hire a videographer? An agency? Do you need an editor? How do you know if they really know your business and how to make videos for business that work? The answer to all of this and more can be found@storycruise.com it is the place to find the latest video marketing strategies, the best gear for your business, as well as videographers, editors and agencies near you that are trained in video storytelling for business. Go to storycruise.comgarlic to get special insider info for listeners of the Garlic Marketing show, including special access to several of my courses, including including my Case Story course. Go to storycruise.comgarlic to get a whole bunch of special offers just for listeners of the Garlic Marketing Show. Whether you're looking for a videographer or to do it yourself, go to storycruise.comgarlic garlic to get started today.

Kevin Rogers: That's it for the Garlic Marketing Show. If you want to get the inside scoop and the latest techniques, make sure to follow Iron Garlic on Facebook.