How to Stay Human in the Age of AI: Marketing Strategies for 2025

How to Stay Human in the Age of AI: Marketing Strategies for 2025 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Table of Contents

Start with Strategy—Not Shiny Objects

Emotional Intelligence Still Wins

Storytelling Is Your Superpower

Know Your Voice—and Stick to It

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Get Personal

Use AI to Boost Your Team—Not Replace Them

You Don’t Have to Master It All Today

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Let’s face it—marketing in 2025 feels like a whirlwind. AI tools are everywhere. They're writing copy, designing graphics, analyzing data, and sliding into your inbox with “game-changing” promises daily.

But here’s the real talk: just because you can automate everything doesn’t mean you should.

If you want to build a brand people actually trust and connect with, you’ve gotta keep the human part of marketing alive. And in a world that’s getting noisier by the second, that might just be your biggest advantage.

Let’s walk through how to actually do that.

Start with Strategy—Not Shiny Objects

New AI tools are fun. But chasing every single one is like trying to drink from a firehose.

You need a plan.

If you don’t have a clear strategy—who you serve, what you stand for, how you solve problems—AI won’t fix that. It'll just help you screw it up faster.

• Before you plug into the next “must-have” tech, ask:
• Does this help me hit my actual goals?
• Does it make my customer experience better?
• Does it align with how I want to show up?

If the answer’s no, skip it.

Emotional Intelligence Still Wins

AI is getting smarter by the minute. But here’s the kicker—it still can’t feel.

Empathy, context, tone, real human understanding? That’s on you.

The marketers who are going to thrive are the ones who can actually read a situation, listen well, and build trust—not just crank out perfectly formatted content. That human connection? That’s your edge.

Storytelling Is Your Superpower

Look, AI can generate blog posts all day long—but it can’t tell your story.

Your actual experience. That awkward client meeting that turned into a breakthrough. The late-night idea that changed your business. That’s the stuff people connect with.

So don’t hold back. Tell your story. Be real. That’s how you build trust (and stand out from all the generic, AI-generated noise).

Know Your Voice—and Stick to It

The fastest way to lose credibility? Sounding like a robot.

You’ve got a voice. Whether it’s laid-back and funny or sharp and straight-shooting, your audience knows it—and they expect it.

So if you’re using AI to help with content (which, hey, go for it), make sure it still sounds like you. Your voice is part of your brand. Own it.

Get Personal

We’ve all gotten those “Hi [FirstName]!” emails that feel anything but personal.

Now that AI can access more data, personalization is getting way more interesting—and way more powerful.

Imagine sending someone an email at the exact time they’re usually online… with content that directly speaks to what they just posted about on LinkedIn… and a product suggestion that actually solves the problem they’re dealing with.

That’s where this is headed. The brands that do this well are going to win.

Use AI to Boost Your Team—Not Replace Them

Let’s squash the fear: AI isn’t here to steal your job—it’s here to kill the stuff you hate doing.

Repetitive tasks? Data cleanup? Endless scheduling? Let the bots handle it.

What’s left for you and your team? Strategy. Creativity. Relationship-building. The high-impact work that actually grows your business.

So instead of thinking, “How do we replace people with AI?” ask, “How can we free up our people to do what they’re best at?”

You Don’t Have to Master It All Today

AI is moving fast. That doesn’t mean you need to learn every tool or automate every part of your business this week.

Take a breath.

Pick one tool or use case. Try it. Learn. Keep going.

Better yet, find a few smart people you trust and share what you’re learning. Start a mini mastermind. Talk about what’s working, what’s not, and how to stay grounded while still moving forward.

Because this new wave of marketing? It’s not about choosing between human or machine—it’s about finding the right mix.

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Weekend Favs March 29th

Weekend Favs March 29th written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Teamfluence helps you turn your team into creators by making it easy for employees to share branded content on social media.

• Clay is a powerful, customizable tool that lets you build lead gen workflows, enrich data, and automate outreach—all in a spreadsheet-like interface.

• Napkin AI is an AI-powered tool that helps you turn ideas into content fast. Whether you’re writing tweets, LinkedIn posts, or blog drafts, it takes a simple thought or note and expands it into publish-ready content in seconds.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Build a Brand Gen Z Wants to Work (and Buy) From

Build a Brand Gen Z Wants to Work (and Buy) From written by Jarret Redding read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Len Silverman

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Len Silverman, a veteran marketer, former Learning Center owner, and author of Mesh: Aligning Your Personal Brand with Gen Z. With over 30 years of experience and firsthand insight into the Gen Z workforce, Len offers a clear roadmap for companies struggling to connect with this rising generation of workers and consumers.

Len shares why simply labeling Gen Z as “lazy” or “hard to manage” is a massive misstep. Instead, businesses need to understand Gen Z traits and align their company culture and employer branding with what this generation truly values—authenticity, flexibility, purpose, and opportunity. Whether you’re hiring Gen Z employees or marketing to them, the key lies in understanding the intersection of personal branding and company identity.

Len Silverman’s insights are a wake-up call for any business that wants to stay relevant, both in the hiring market and in customer engagement. If you want your brand to resonate with the next generation, it starts with getting real about who you are—and who they are.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the Gen Z Workforce: Gen Z isn’t afraid to ghost employers—but it’s often due to broken hiring experiences, not apathy. Simplify, clarify, and personalize your process.

• Personal Branding Matters: Gen Z expects employers to have a brand identity that mirrors their own values. They’re looking for alignment, not just a paycheck.

• Company Culture Is Everything: This generation wants mentorship, not micromanagement. They crave environments where feedback is open, and purpose drives work.

• Think Employee Journey, Not Just Customer Journey: Gen Z sees work as part of their life experience. Treat recruitment and retention like a well-crafted marketing funnel.

• Authenticity Wins: Performative branding won’t last. Gen Z will call it out. Make sure your values show up in your leadership, actions, and communications.

• Mentorship Over Management: Support Gen Z through peer mentors or structured programs to guide behavior, expectations, and professional development.

• Generational Understanding Builds Trust: Bridging the gap between Gen X leadership and Gen Z employees starts with empathy, open dialogue, and mutual respect.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introduction to Len Silverman
• [00:53] What is the Personal Brand of Gen Z
• [02:56] Common Stereotypes of Genz
• [04:16] The Old Ways Aren’t Going to Work
• [06:39] The Employee Journey
• [08:35] Importance of Cultural Consistency
• [10:39] Changing Mindsets
• [12:44] Gen Z Customers
• [14:19] Common Mistakes Trying to Align with Gen Z
• [17:11] Turning Gen Z into A Players

More About Len Silverman: 

• Check out Len Silverman’s Website
• Connect with Len Silverman on LinkedIn
• Read MESH: Aligning the Personal Brand of Gen Z with your Company Culture by Len Silverman

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.176)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Len Silverman. Len has over 30 years of experience in marketing his own a seven figure company with dozens of employees in multiple states. As a former Learning Center owner, he has seen Gen Z grow up and has gotten to know the generation and what makes him tick. maybe that's why he wrote a book called Mesh, Aligning Your Personal Brand with Gen Z of Gen, sorry.

I'll try. Let's try that all over again. Mesh aligning the personal brand of Gen Z with your company culture. So Len, welcome to the show.

Len Silverman (00:39.317)

Thank you. Appreciate you having me,

John Jantsch (00:40.864)

So, Gen Z is, as I recall, something like 13 to 28 years old now. Is that who we're talking about?

Len Silverman (00:49.097)

Yeah, pretty much. look at 1997 as the beginning of that group. So yes.

John Jantsch (00:52.48)

Okay, okay. So the personal brand of Gen Z, what is that?

Len Silverman (00:58.643)

So, you lot of people these days are talking about personal branding. So I thought it'd be really nice to sort of combine that with things that I'm hearing about Gen Z on the street. But just to give you a little bit of a frame around this, I started in the learning center business in 2004. So at that point, Gen Z was seven years old and I owned learning centers for 21 years. So basically I have seen these kids grow up and I call them kids. Obviously some of them are young adults, but

More and more, as I talk to business owners and leaders, I've been hearing stories about, they're so hard to work with and I can't figure them out. And basically, some people are saying that they're kind of washing their hands of it. And that really was disappointing to me. And I thought, well, the first thing is you've got to understand Gen Z. And I'm not saying that you, as a company, have to completely change to meet them where they are.

But I'm a big believer that you need to understand your customers, you need to understand your constituents, and in this case, you need to understand your potential employees. So I go into a lot of depth in terms of why the generation Gen Z is the way they are. You you can't paint anyone with a broad brush. So they're obviously not all the same, but they, you know, they experienced their economic downturn in 08 or 09 and watch what happened to their parents.

who maybe thought they had safe jobs. They saw the whole country shut down for COVID. They obviously grew up with phones in their hands for the most part. So their access to information and their view of the world is so much broader than mine was at that same age that I think their perspectives on working and being a part of a company are very different than my generation, Gen X, was when we were first coming out.

John Jantsch (02:35.064)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:54.828)

Yeah, and I think every, it's interesting. I've read some society or societal studies on generations and a lot of it comes from what their parents experienced. That's what they experienced as they were coming up. Same with, I was born in the sixties. mean, so my parents were post-World War II and it really has a lot of influence, but from a...

from a workplace standpoint, particularly, what are some of the stereotypes is the best word, that folks are saying, hey, I don't get it because X.

Len Silverman (03:38.045)

Yeah, probably the one I hear the most is, they're lazy. They don't want to work. They ghost you. You you'll not only set up an interview, but sometimes you'll actually hire them and they don't show up for the first day of work. So those are some of the common things that I hear. I also hear really quite a lot about. And first of all, I do want to preface this by saying, I'm not saying this. These are the things I'm hearing, but that they're they're kind of uppity that they will.

John Jantsch (04:03.192)

Yeah. Right.

Len Silverman (04:07.785)

they will sit in a meeting with senior executives and chime in like they have an equal seat at the table, which is an anathema to baby boomers and Gen Xers. We just frankly don't get.

John Jantsch (04:18.552)

Yeah. Not going to turn this into a comedy routine, but I could. So who do you feel? mean, on the surface, you wrote this for maybe people like me that are hiring folks, But I think there's kind of a broader audience for this, it?

Len Silverman (04:27.817)

Hahaha!

Len Silverman (04:42.557)

What I really, the people that I'm really trying to get to pay attention to this would be folks who are in a position where they are frequently hiring and need to understand that they are going to have to make some changes or adaptations in their company to work with this generation, which now is more than 20 % of the workforce. And obviously it's only going to continue to grow because these

John Jantsch (05:06.67)

Mm.

Len Silverman (05:10.899)

these guys are becoming more of the age to work. So the old ways of doing things are not necessarily gonna work. And I'll give you a couple for instance, when I started working, and this was probably the same for you, John, we had mentors and they maybe didn't call themselves mentors. I had people who would grab my shoulder and say, Len, we don't do this. You don't do this in the office. If you're in a meeting with my boss, you don't talk. Those were things that I was told.

John Jantsch (05:33.134)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (05:38.606)

Yeah.

Len Silverman (05:41.203)

And in a lot of ways, I think that the folks that I've met with are almost a little afraid to have those kinds of conversations. But I will tell you that Gen Z craves mentorship. It has to be positioned the right way for them. They have a different way of speaking and being mentored than we did, but they still want that kind of tutelage. The main thing is they want opportunities. I found them to be extremely entrepreneurial.

John Jantsch (06:06.594)

Yeah.

Len Silverman (06:10.035)

And that's whether they're doing their own thing or within an organization. They're basically doing what we call skill stacking. They just want to grow their own skill base, which means look for, you know, cross-functional opportunities for them and ways for them to grow their own personal skill, which hopefully they'll continue to pay back to the company. But from their perspective, it also allows them to take those skills somewhere else. So that's another thing is you got to be aware you're.

interaction with a Gen Z employee might be shorter than it used to be with someone Gen X, Gen Y.

John Jantsch (06:43.085)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:48.494)

So if I'm a 24 year old looking for a new place to go work, would there be something in this book for me?

Len Silverman (06:58.847)

There would. First of all, we talk about it you're going to be very familiar with this. I know that you and I and a lot of other people have talked about the customer journey for a long time and I'm a big believer in it. I know that there are people who have discussed the employee journey, but I hadn't seen a whole lot where folks saw the interaction between a customer journey and an employee journey. To me, they're kind of one in the same. And so,

John Jantsch (07:08.974)

Sure. Right.

John Jantsch (07:17.272)

Mm-hmm.

Len Silverman (07:27.847)

If I was a younger employee just starting out, I'd be looking at companies very differently. I would be looking at kind of the pre-application process, what kind of brand they're positioning themselves with out in the marketplace. So if I get to know them, what are the things they're going to make me like and trust them? I would be actively looking for companies that are talking about the things that are important to me. And I discuss those in the book.

John Jantsch (07:33.806)

Mm-hmm.

Len Silverman (07:57.225)

But I also give advice to the employer that some of the hoops you have to go through in today's world when you submit an application to a company are just not going to work anymore. So you've got to make it transparent, quick. I'm not going to say easy, but at least it to be manageable for the applicant. So I think that to help Gen Z sort of understand and identify those companies that are clearly

John Jantsch (08:08.428)

Yeah, yeah.

Len Silverman (08:26.293)

trying to make a connection with them will make it a lot easier so they don't do what I call crop dusting, which is going on and shooting out 40 or 50 resumes a day. Because that's very disheartening when you do that. So they can spot things that I'm talking about in the book to identify those companies who are clearly making an outreach to them.

John Jantsch (08:38.124)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (08:47.79)

So, you know, there was a day when, you know, this is a prestigious company. This is a big company. You know, they pay well. mean, those were like, that was like the checklist, right? Now it might be paid a lot of flexibility for time off. They, they give to causes I believe in how much of that sort of balance of the brand is kind of just playing to who they're trying to attract. mean, because the problem with brand and culture is it's kind of hard to fake it.

you know, it usually comes out, you know, one way or another. So how much, you know, is, a company, you know, this, this idea of aligning their brand, you know, how much of that is, is intentional. How much of that is just, Hey, we're already doing this stuff. We're just not communicating it.

Len Silverman (09:35.445)

In my opinion, it's very intentional. As matter of fact, I just made a LinkedIn post about five minutes before we jumped on here. And it talks about that kind of consistency that you can, you could talk about culture all day long, but at the end of the day, your culture will show itself through how you and your leaders represent your company on a daily basis. So from my perspective, for those companies that are serious about this, there's pre-work that needs to be done. You know, you need a, you need a quick audit to make sure that your

John Jantsch (09:47.118)

Mm-hmm.

100%. Yeah.

Len Silverman (10:05.441)

of experience and your brand as a company are what you think that they are. Because otherwise you're going to keep having these glancing blows where Gen Zers will try you out and they're pretty quick to discover whether you're a fit or not. And they'll go find something else because they clearly have a work to live attitude versus a live to work attitude. So if it's not you,

John Jantsch (10:19.309)

Mm-hmm.

Len Silverman (10:31.807)

they'll go find some gig work until they're able to find the next full-time job. So you really do need to look at your own internals and make sure that your company on a daily basis is what you think that it is, monitor and manage that, and then go out there looking for that new employee base. Your retention will be much better.

John Jantsch (10:36.237)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:53.41)

You know, I wonder how much generations, whatever all the letters we apply to them, millennials and Gen Xs, I wonder how much they could learn from that. Cause you know, was that, there was that kind of, they're just lazy, you know, they don't want to work hard, you know. And some of it was like, no, they just want to have a life. And you know, here I am working 80 hours a week, you know, thinking that that's like the way.

And if they don't want to do that, then like they're wrong. So I'm, you know, I wonder how much the, um, you know, the new workplace, the modern workplace in the world could actually maybe gain from, uh, a different mindset.

Len Silverman (11:34.889)

You know, I remember clearly, I can't remember if I talk about this story in the book or not, but I remember clearly one of the very first corporate jobs that I got. I'd been in the job maybe six months and my boss calls me in his office and he says, Len, I gotta tell you, I really appreciate your work ethic. And I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, you come in on time, when you go to lunch, you only take an hour for lunch. And he said, I gotta tell you, I've worked with a number of people your age and it's very unusual.

Okay, and I'm Janette. So I don't think what we're talking about now is anything totally new. I think every older generation in a way kind of thinks the younger generation is a bunch of screw ups, which, you know, clearly they're not. But what's different today is I think we all talk more openly. I think that the ability to have these kinds of conversations are so much easier than they used to be. So now is a great time for employers to pick up on.

John Jantsch (12:06.711)

Yeah, right.

John Jantsch (12:11.426)

Yeah, every generation, right?

Len Silverman (12:35.623)

and realize, you know, again, this is a growing workforce. We have got to figure out how to make this work for everybody. And you mentioned work-life balance is going to be incredibly important for this generation. They're going to look for, you know, what kind of community impact you're having. So there are things that you could pay attention to and kind of put in place again, before you go out there full throatedly trying to hire these younger people.

John Jantsch (13:03.16)

You know, we've spent most of our time talking about employing the generation, but there's a lot of them that could be customers too, right? And so would a similar kind of brand alignment, you know, apply to your marketing messaging?

Len Silverman (13:06.378)

Yeah.

Len Silverman (13:18.421)

Which is precisely, and I'm glad you brought that up, it's precisely why I think that the employee journey and the customer journey are so closely related. Because early in that process, it doesn't matter if you're positioning your brand for employees or for customers, that voice should be the same. And so I do think that this has a huge impact. If you're going after a Gen Z consumer base, the book clearly lays out what's important to them.

John Jantsch (13:25.08)

Yeah. Yeah.

Len Silverman (13:47.303)

and can really help a company to kind of align not just their communication, but more importantly, what they're doing every day with what Gen Z is looking.

John Jantsch (13:55.298)

Yeah, there's certainly a growing trend in marketing circles of this idea of employee branding, where the idea that you're a cool company to work for is a pretty good marketing message too.

Len Silverman (14:01.545)

Hmm?

Len Silverman (14:06.452)

Right.

I think it is. Yeah. I mean, we, want to be the cool kids and it's, it's good to work for a company that you could be proud of because as you know, I mean, you've got, you know, the marketing hourglass and the bottom of the hourglass is basically repeat and refer, which is retention and being an advocate for your company out in marketplace to find other employees. our end goal is really the same. And that's to convert these employee customers into advocates for our, for our business.

John Jantsch (14:22.348)

Yes. Correct.

John Jantsch (14:40.312)

So I think a lot of companies, whether they wanted to or not, found that as a practical nature, we're not going to find the people that we want if we don't kind of realign our brand. What are some of the mistakes you see people that are actually trying to change? What has either been their perception or their reality? What are some mistakes in trying to kind of adapt and align with this new generation?

Len Silverman (15:06.345)

You know, it's hard to say if it's a mistake or not, because I think that the jury's still out a little bit. But, you know, we've read in the press about DEI initiatives. And, you know, right down the street from me, we have Tractor Supply as an example, and they had initiated DEI as a department. And then they pulled back on that because they were getting pushback from their customer base. So were they doing that in order to grow sales, or were they doing that

John Jantsch (15:12.494)

Mm-hmm.

Len Silverman (15:35.547)

in order to attract this younger generation. I don't know which it is, but again, it ultimately turned out to be a misalignment with their company culture. So I would say if you're doing these kinds of things, if you are looking to use pronouns with all of your employees, just make sure that that absolutely aligns with the company you are. And you're not simply doing that to try to placate

John Jantsch (15:46.401)

Right.

John Jantsch (15:55.246)

Thanks

Len Silverman (16:04.777)

Gen Z. Does that make sense? Those are the mistakes that I see. If you're genuine, you're fine.

John Jantsch (16:05.666)

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Well, and I think you go to really the root of all of this is be who you are is probably going to now, there some things that you can do to where I see people making mistakes is they have that alignment, but they just don't communicate. You know, it's like, well, of course we do that. That's, know, that's the right thing to do, you know, as opposed to, but then can you take that too far? And, you know, you see companies.

Len Silverman (16:27.977)

Right.

Len Silverman (16:32.732)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:39.534)

promoting their environmental consciousness. And it's like, make styrofoam. So how far is too far?

Len Silverman (16:48.019)

But they're aware of it.

Len Silverman (16:54.843)

You know, I think that is a very interesting point. And I think that is for each company and possibly its own board of directors and its customers and its employees to kind of decide for themselves. But you know, again, in marketing, we talk about content pillars. And I think for a company like we're talking about, if I were them, I would come up with three or four areas that I would want to talk about, and then I would weight them. So

If environmental issues are important, but maybe they're not the most important thing, I might spend 10 to 15 % of my time talking about that. And that would be internal conversations first to make sure that we do have that right mix that feels right.

John Jantsch (17:38.158)

How would you advise a company that wants to realign their brand, there's also, it's like, here's our culture and we believe it and we're gonna stay true to it. How does somebody like that attract, so they attract folks that want a job. How do they get that, how do they turn them into A players? They may be a little bit misaligned initially, but is there a way to then say, look,

Here's how we do it here. Here's why we do it that way. And some will fall off, but some will turn in day players.

Len Silverman (18:10.515)

You hit the nail on the head. We do it this way and this is why we do it this way. That's the most important thing for this generation. They want to understand why. And if you've established a culture that I think we're both talking about, then the whys are going to be there. And the other thing, I'll go back to the mentorship thing again. You know, I talk about this in the book. I think it's critical for these new employees.

You could set up a buddy, could be a peer mentor, it could be a leadership mentor, but someone who reinforces that message and helps that newer employee to shape how they're presenting themselves to align with the company, most importantly, understanding why we're asking to do that. And it could be, hey, I've been on your social media and I got to tell you that some of those things just don't really align with what we're doing. And let me tell you why, this is my customer.

and my customer doesn't really like to see that on social media. okay. Well, that becomes pretty clear.

John Jantsch (19:09.442)

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about abbreviations and punctuation. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We're not going to go there. So, so Len, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Where can where would you invite people to connect with you? Find out more about your work, but then obviously more about the book Mesh.

Len Silverman (19:18.389)

It's dangerous stuff to talk about.

Len Silverman (19:35.687)

It is very simple. The easiest place to go is Lensilverman.com.

John Jantsch (19:42.606)

Awesome. Well, great. I think, it'll be interesting to see, you know, we're talking about Gen Z now what's the next generation and what's going to be like their iteration, right? that's what we're calling them. We're going back to a, okay. Okay. All right. Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to side by. Hopefully we'll see you out there on the road someday soon.

Len Silverman (19:54.835)

Yeah, Gen Alpha. That's what we're calling him,

Len Silverman (20:07.093)

Thanks, John.

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Why AI Isn’t Replacing You—It’s Freeing You

Why AI Isn’t Replacing You—It’s Freeing You written by Jarret Redding read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Keith Lauver

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Keith Lauver, a serial entrepreneur, product launch expert, and founder of Atomic Elevator—an AI-powered marketing company behind Ella, a high-definition marketing platform. With six startups and over $34 million in product launches under his belt, Keith brings a sharp, practical lens to how AI can be used to transform marketing and business operations—especially for small business owners and agencies.

During our conversation, Keith broke down the real-world applications of AI marketing and how it’s not here to replace people—but to remove bottlenecks, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock creativity. By shifting the way we think about tools like ChatGPT and agent-based workflows, Keith challenges small businesses to stop treating AI like search and start viewing it as a team of collaborators. He also shares how his own company operates without a traditional org chart—thanks to the power of strategic marketing tools and automation.

Whether you’re leading a team, launching a new product, or running a solo consultancy, this episode offers a practical look at how AI and marketing automation can help you grow smarter, leaner, and more focused.

Key Takeaways:

• AI is an amplifier, not a replacement. It removes low-value tasks so entrepreneurs can focus on strategy, creativity, and relationships.
• Small businesses are underusing AI tools. Many still treat AI like a search engine instead of leveraging its full potential for automation and productivity.
• High-definition marketing creates clarity. Tools like Ella reduce “fuzzy” marketing by integrating proven marketing frameworks and better data.
• Agent-based AI is coming. The future involves task-specific agents collaborating in workflows—streamlining execution across teams.
• Forget the org chart. Keith’s company operates around tasks, not job titles—powered by AI and fractional expertise.
• Personalization needs data. AI in business thrives when it can access behavior, style, and preferences—delivering truly tailored content.
• AI unlocks your superpower. By automating what you’re not great at, it helps you focus on the work that energizes you and drives business growth.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Keith Lauver
• [01:52] Understanding the Practical Uses of AI
• [04:17] What are AI Agents?
• [07:45] How Does AI Affect Organizational Structure
• [11:46] AI Doesn’t Change Human Value
• [16:22] Personalized Marketing
• [17:37] Ella AI
• [21:22] Privacy Concerns with AI

More About Keith Lauver: 

Check out Keith Lauver’s Website
Connect with Keith Lauver on LinkedIn

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by

Want to elevate your marketing game? AdCritter pairs Connected TV ads with precise digital retargeting to drive real results. Discover how their full-funnel strategy can help your business grow smarter. Let them know Duct Tape Marketing sent you, and you’ll get a dollar-for-dollar match on your first campaign! Learn more at adcritter.com.

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00.923)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Keith Lover. He is a serial entrepreneur and marketing expert who has founded six companies, raised over $34 million for product launches and now leads Atomic Elevator. His team specializes in product launch support and created Ella, a pioneering tool for high-definition marketing.

He started his entrepreneurial journey at 14. He secured clients like Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and inspires others as a speaker and mentor. We were just talking about it. He lives in Red Lodge, Montana, active community in community service through Young Life. So Keith, welcome to the show.

Keith Lauver (00:44.526)

Thanks so much, John. Good beer.

John Jantsch (00:46.172)

So what did you do at 14?

Keith Lauver (00:48.026)

my gosh. So I had the opportunity to, build a software platform for an airport in Billings. was painting pipes in the summer and they found out I knew something about computers. And during the regular smoke break time, I started creating a database to keep track of the paper towels and other inventory got invited upstairs. That turned into an invitation to build the software.

John Jantsch (00:56.883)

Ha

John Jantsch (01:09.907)

Ha

Keith Lauver (01:14.862)

And apparently KPMG had offered him a bid for about $20,000. I said I'll do it for two and they took it. So that was the very first commercial client I had.

John Jantsch (01:26.547)

Well, I think I started my first business when was 16. It was not nearly as glamorous. I was going door to door convincing people to let me seal their driveway. I paid my way through high school and college doing similar things.

Keith Lauver (01:32.723)

my gosh.

Keith Lauver (01:38.016)

That's.

Keith Lauver (01:44.072)

I think the idea of asphalt going down and paint going up, we do what we have to do. I just caught a lucky break that day, right?

John Jantsch (01:47.347)

So we, we're going to talk about, AI a lot today. I think, it's a hot topic. It's probably the hottest topic going right now. I, have, in fact, I've started a group I call practical AI for marketing. because I think it's just a lot of, with any technology, there's all this futuristic talk of what it can do.

or what it, you know, is going to do someday. And I really liked always bring it down to, okay, that's great, but what should it do? So in terms of, of your conversations with smaller businesses, how do you help them see the practical uses of AI and not sort of the robots running the world, you know, future.

Keith Lauver (02:25.271)

Yeah

Keith Lauver (02:40.046)

You know, one of things that I like to do is separate the application side of things from the construction side of things. And I think there's a lot of people that are confused about that, John. think, you know, I'm reminded of a workshop that was being done for business owners in Montana a couple of weeks ago, and they brought in a prompt engineer and machine learning expert for the day to teach them how to do stuff that most of them really didn't care about and frankly didn't understand.

John Jantsch (03:06.557)

Right?

Keith Lauver (03:08.738)

that that was what was going to be the topic. So don't think people even know what this beast called AI is. So there's people who are building tools and then there's people who are actually using tools. And those two probably need to be separated before I could even answer the next part of your question.

John Jantsch (03:25.029)

Yeah. Well, first off, then let's back up a little bit. What percentage of businesses, business owners, people working for businesses, do you think are actually using even a simple interface like chat GPT?

Keith Lauver (03:37.888)

I think every business owner I've talked to has at least experimented with and tried chat GPT. When we take forms on our website, we ask them how frequently are they using it? And I would say that probably a quarter of them aren't using it more than once a week. And that's surprising to me. They still haven't found that thing. And if I might offer a hypothesis about why, I think we are used to something like Google where

John Jantsch (03:55.847)

Yeah, yeah.

Keith Lauver (04:06.978)

You type in a search and a computer gives an answer. And AI's potential is so much different than that. But most people are sitting down and thinking about this as a search tool and maybe a little bit smarter search tool. And they're just not sure what's beyond that even at the application layer.

John Jantsch (04:25.757)

So one of the things that, I don't know, I, you you talked about bringing in this, large language model expert to talk about things and like that just goes nowhere with the business owners. So I'm going to bring up agents, which, know, maybe we have to kind of break down a little bit, but that's one of the areas where people are like the future's coming. You're going to have, you know, agents replacing all of your people. We don't actually have agents yet. Not really.

because there's a lot of things that I think are going to happen, over, mean, I think we're going to have some simple task bots. but, but, but the one that people throw out, tell your agent to book me the best ticket on this flight, you know, blah, blah, blah. Well, they've got to have access to all the data, all the airline things. And those people aren't going to share that information. Or if they do some big tech company, it'll be the one that does the interface and we'll just be a product of theirs like Facebook.

Keith Lauver (05:20.994)

Okay.

John Jantsch (05:23.973)

and not, not a user. talk, I just went and rambled all over the place there, but talk a little bit about, you know, the, the, where we are now with agents, what agents are, guess, where we are now and really what is going to be a hurdle to this large scale adoption.

Keith Lauver (05:41.516)

Yeah. So as I understand and use agents, they basically are bots, you will, programs that can perform a discrete task and do so in repetition and kind of string those tasks, perhaps one to another, to another. And instead of like right now, if you sit down and chat GPT and say, Hey,

John Jantsch (05:49.203)

you

Keith Lauver (06:02.926)

you know, can you give me input about a story or can you review this website and tell me the pros and the cons of it or whatever the query might be, an agent can actually do something that's much more complex and a series of steps. So it might be, can you build me an entire website? Right? And step one is this and step two is this and step three, I think where agents are today,

John Jantsch (06:18.621)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keith Lauver (06:27.538)

is still very much in the experimental world. I love the fact that as a company that's created a platform, we now can begin to move our entire architecture into what they're calling agentic. So we're able to take what we were finding other ways of doing and we can now do it better and easier because most of the things that we need to have done are complex and require more than one step and agents will help us do that.

John Jantsch (06:40.883)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (06:53.757)

Yeah, no, there'll be a lot of stringing these things together too, right? You complete this task and then go give your output to this agent who then has been trained to do X, right? I mean, is that kind of another way to look at it?

Keith Lauver (06:57.55)

for sure.

Keith Lauver (07:02.487)

Yeah.

I love that vision, John, that really interoperability of agents. It's like, why not have the thing that's really good at X talk to the other thing that's really good at Y and talk to the other thing that's really good at Z. In the field of marketing, of the analog metaphor, if you will, would be the branding person who just is the wizard in the marketing world, right? They're able to just say, this is the emotional state that we're going to evoke for people.

John Jantsch (07:12.179)

Right.

John Jantsch (07:31.123)

Mm-hmm.

Keith Lauver (07:34.254)

pontificate on that. And then you've got the designer who tries to interpret that. And then you've got the copywriter who actually puts words to it. And then you've got the HTML person who has to construct it. And then maybe you've got somebody that needs to be the messaging architect that's thinking about it. And then the performance person, we get all these different things. Wouldn't it be great if those could all be strung together?

John Jantsch (07:56.731)

Yeah. And I think that's a, maybe that's a little bit of the dilemma of how people, when they're thinking about embracing AI in general is that, you know, one, one vision I've seen is, the org chart that has maybe those, those analog managers, if you will, is that what we're to call people now? Analog managers. but that, but then each of those people will have three agents that help them do their function.

Keith Lauver (08:14.83)

I hope so.

John Jantsch (08:24.371)

and they've all been maybe specifically trained on a thing, but then I've also seen people say, no, we're going to have, we're going to have the data analysis agent. That's going to go across department. you know, how do you, how do you see the org chart of the future?

Keith Lauver (08:39.266)

You know, I think, the org chart of the future is probably going to be as diverse as organizations of the future. think models, what's beautiful about what's happening in this world is the models can be completely novel. can create things that have never before been seen. An example is, you know, we have been building our go-to-market plans using our software itself. We haven't needed really a marketing department. even haven't had to do.

John Jantsch (08:40.305)

Peace.

John Jantsch (08:56.466)

Yes.

Keith Lauver (09:08.352)

advertising in a traditional way. Most of our team is fully fractional and we can all cooperate and actually perform at a much higher level for a lot less money. And I don't even know what an org chart is. We had a potential investor asked us to build one and I'm like, we haven't, we don't even have one for our company. It's just not the way we operate. We kind of collect around tasks and bring expertise to those tasks and then perform those tasks.

So it's just a very different organizational model that we've chosen. And I think there's a lot of freedom in how people are going to build the company.

John Jantsch (09:43.827)

But see, I hear an org chart in there. It's just way different than anything we've been taught. So I think it's still, because an org chart to me is not people doing jobs. An org chart is what functions need to be done. And so I think that's kind of what you're describing, but we're all just used to this is our head of that and this is our VP of that. And I think that that whole, that's what's interesting about it. think what's going on is it's not just like,

Keith Lauver (09:48.878)

Yeah, yeah.

Keith Lauver (09:57.516)

Ooh, I love that. Different, yeah.

John Jantsch (10:13.405)

How do we augment what we're already doing? It's how do we rethink everything, right?

Keith Lauver (10:18.772)

I love the freedom. think the moment, when we accidentally discovered this idea that turned into this platform for marketing, call Ella, when this was not an intentional discovery, it was pure accident. And in that moment, every single neuron in my brain fired every pattern from that 14 year old kid who wrote the software for that airport and Billings to the guy who'd been a student of marketing for the last decade fired and said, wait a minute.

I can do this differently now and I can ask this question in this way and get a completely different perspective than the old model was go to the expert. If we invert and put all the experts into a model, it shifts and everything changes. And I'm addicted to that innovation. So I think it's wonderful.

John Jantsch (11:07.633)

Yeah. Yeah. So, one of the certainly themes that is prevalent is that this technology is going to replace a lot of people. mean, every technology does, right? I mean, or at least changes, you know, what those people do. Where do you fall on kind of the, it's going to revolutionize industries, replace a lot of people, augment, you know, lot of the value we can bring. I mean, where do you fall on that?

Keith Lauver (11:20.814)

you

John Jantsch (11:37.867)

continue.

Keith Lauver (11:39.342)

So yes, yes, and yes. I do think that AI is going to transform, to augment, to replace. But I don't think that changes our sense of self. I don't think that changes our value of fact. If anything, for me, what it's done is created more freedom around that. I talked to so many people on our team. We're avid minute by minute users of AI.

John Jantsch (11:41.391)

Yeah, OK.

John Jantsch (11:50.034)

Yeah.

Keith Lauver (12:08.974)

We're more confident in what we can do and in the gifts that we've been created to bring to the world because we augment the things that maybe we're not as good at. I'm a visionary, I'm not an integrator. So I see big ideas and when you ask me to actually turn that into a you know, a set of sequential steps, I just, my brain hurts. I don't like that work and I don't have to do that work anymore. So.

John Jantsch (12:13.939)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (12:35.795)

Yeah. Peace.

Keith Lauver (12:36.246)

I think it's not replacing people, but it's replacing some of the things that we as people have done. And what that does is gives us the freedom to go back to what is our zone of genius? What is our superpower? What is it that we love to do? And I don't think AI will ever replace humanity. I think it's just bringing us up to be the very best versions of ourselves.

John Jantsch (12:41.317)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:57.395)

Well, it's interesting because I certainly, I've always, you know, from a marketing standpoint, we've, our monitor has always been strategy before tactics. Um, and I think that in a lot of ways that makes the strategic thinker who can also master AI, who also understands marketing operations. That's the job of the future, isn't it? As opposed to the agency that comes in and does the stuff.

Keith Lauver (13:22.06)

I think that's right. I would say our focus has actually been trying to go in and provide even greater effectiveness and efficiency for the strategists. And so because of that, I see a world where AI can actually do a lot of the strategy when well-guided and augmented by humans through that. I would say for me, as I've contemplated kind of my own work shift in the last, say, year, most of my time is now relational.

And that can't ever be replaced by AI. Most of my time is getting to understand people and their problems and then finding a way to bring that in. But I'm not spending time on strategies so much as I am building relationships that allow my tools to build that strategy. So I think that's a higher level.

John Jantsch (14:12.413)

Yeah.

Well, there's such a, even though it's more one-to-one, there is such a brand aspect to that. There is such a trust aspect to that. And I think that those are the things that are really going to allow the, if there's going to be winners and losers, I think people that get that, think are going to side on the win.

Keith Lauver (14:23.063)

Ooh, I love that. Yeah.

Keith Lauver (14:33.326)

You know what I love about what you said there too is just kind of reminds me of the benefit to AI in getting us out of ourselves that if we're going to be able to establish trust, one of the ways that I do this today that I did in 12 months ago is I talk about the fact that I run everything I do through a blind spot and a bias detector. I run everything I do through the lens of our software.

that can look at 100 different marketing people's perspectives. And that actually increases my trustworthiness, my credibility with somebody because I'm actually admitting my own limitations.

John Jantsch (15:05.811)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (15:16.339)

Yeah, yeah, that's one of my favorite prompts is like, what should I be asking you? Or what am I not asking you? You know, that kind of thing, you know, or, or I sometimes have to say, stop agreeing with me. That's a brilliant idea.

Keith Lauver (15:24.43)

Yeah.

Yes. I like to think that my AI is sometimes a little bit too puppy-like. You know, it just wants to wag its tail and say, yes, Keith, I love you. Will you rub my belly? It's like, yeah. Exactly. It's like, no, no, no. Or even when I ask AI to be to go do something and the end result, if I say, is this biased? And she says, yes. I'm like, well, why did you do that in that way in the first place? So.

John Jantsch (15:54.021)

Right. So, so, I have one more question, but I really do want, we haven't, I want to spend some time on what you're doing specifically with Ella because it relates to everything we're talking about. But, one of the things that, anybody who says the five things that are coming this year, you know, personalization in marketing is, certainly a buzzword that's going to be on that list all the time. is, is, and it seems AI can help that.

But I also don't see a lot of people doing it yet. And is the real missing ingredient is it can't personalize without access to data.

Keith Lauver (16:33.304)

think that's a great insight. think I would challenge how much data we can give it access to. would say in general, I'll give you an example. I love what there's a tool called Crystal Nose has done, which is they've used AI to go, you know, essentially determine somebody's personality. And that gives you a degree of personalization to present information in a particular style. So for example, anytime I do a sales follow-up,

I run it first through Crystal and I have Ella rewrite it to that person's disc profile. And that gives me a level of personalization that's not just this was the conversation we had, but this is who you are and how you probably prefer to receive information. So I think we're getting closer to it.

John Jantsch (17:17.169)

Yeah. Yeah. And it might just be bullet points and short sentences as opposed to, you know, necessarily, hi, John. Exactly. Right. Right. So talk a little bit about Ella. If somebody came to you and said, what's Ella?

Keith Lauver (17:26.321)

Yes. Exactly. These are the three things we talked about. Sign here.

Keith Lauver (17:38.86)

Yeah, so we describe Ella as a high definition marketing machine. And the reason that we've chosen to describe her that way is we have found as professional marketers that most marketing has historically been very fuzzy. The fuzziness has been caused by specializations and fragmentation, right? The fuzziness has been caused by shifts in tactics and expectations. And the fuzziness is the fact that at the end of the day,

Most marketing is really a hypothesis that needs to be tested out there anyway. So it's social science, it's behavioral science. And so what we've said is let's try to provide more pixels to the picture. Let's take frameworks and connect them. Let's take pictures and define them in greater resolution. Let's interconnect them so that when somebody says, I want to talk to John about duct tape marketing,

John Jantsch (18:10.515)

Yeah.

Keith Lauver (18:34.37)

they're able to do so with just a high degree of precision. So Ella is a tool that enables better messaging, more discrete personas, and essentially better results because of this high definition process.

John Jantsch (18:49.907)

Yeah, boy, will say, you you used a fate, one of my favorite words, frameworks. Um, you know, one of the best things you can do if you're trying to get some sort of output out of, uh, out of an AI tool is, is to say, use this framework, uh, that's well-defined. think at least it gives it some guardrails to say, okay, you know, I'm not just going to write something that hopefully sounds good. You're going to write something that.

Keith Lauver (19:04.216)

Yes.

John Jantsch (19:14.875)

maybe is using a proven framework. And so it's going to be more effective right off the bat, whether or not the outputs, know, word for word, what you're going to use, at least the structure will be there.

Keith Lauver (19:18.093)

Yeah.

Keith Lauver (19:25.538)

Yeah, I think frameworks, you know, I got drawn into the idea of frameworks because I was a computer guy who fell into the field of marketing, right? I'm used to here is a subroutine. If you're going to tell a story, here's seven blanks to fill in. Donald Miller, thank you for giving me the seven blanks to fill in. Like I need that kind of thing. And what has been true about all the frameworks, at least that I've experienced is while fantastic, they've always been discreet.

John Jantsch (19:32.541)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (19:44.381)

Yes, exactly.

Keith Lauver (19:55.008)

and probably more unitaskers. So they're fantastic for one thing, but they are often missing another thing. And what, least in my mind has been the missing link to all of this is a unifying, almost marketing operating system that pulls all those frameworks together. And that's the big aspiration for what we're trying to build.

John Jantsch (19:59.675)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (20:16.817)

Now, are you staying very focused on the niche market of, and I thought I read this, of SaaS go to market, or are really putting yourself out there as any type of business or industry?

Keith Lauver (20:27.21)

yeah.

Keith Lauver (20:31.756)

Yeah, we started in the field of SaaS. Obviously, we are too a SaaS product and understand those frameworks very well. But as Ella has so quickly grown, people are contributing their own frameworks. We've got authors who are saying, use mine. Or we've got practitioners who say, have you heard about this amazing system called duct tape? And I'm like, yes. Yes, I have. And so we're trying to integrate those. And so

John Jantsch (20:36.147)

Sure.

John Jantsch (20:47.251)

Sure. Right.

John Jantsch (20:52.999)

Hehehehehe

Keith Lauver (20:58.988)

The idea of Ella is she can help with B2B, B2C, really across industries. And she's getting smarter every single time somebody uses her and at least volunteers their feedback to Ella.

John Jantsch (21:13.619)

So one question that comes up a lot of times and will probably be continued to be debated forever, but are there privacy concerns? You know, I'm sharing all of my personal company data. that something or, or, you know, as an agency, I'm sharing my clients data. Is that an issue with a model like, or a tool like Ella?

Keith Lauver (21:36.64)

It is an issue for all AI and Ella has decided to respond to that with kind of a very clear privacy policy, a very clear non-disclosure agreement that we enter into, and also very clear technical parameters where we have opted out underlying our tool is OpenAI, but we have basically disallowed OpenAI from using any prompt

for training purposes, any prompt for storage purposes. And so we can say with confidence that we are protecting the confidentiality of that information. And I think it is important that we do that.

John Jantsch (22:15.461)

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's going to be, you know, a raging debate for some time. And I think we'll end up having, won't we end up having the same thing that happened to the search engines, that, you know, the, the, all the privacy and all the stuff that they're, they've been doing and not telling anybody. We'll, we'll come back to in lawsuits probably.

Keith Lauver (22:35.31)

I am excited to see how intellectual property will continue to evolve around all of this. But in the meantime, we're going to let people do great work and keep what they're doing private.

John Jantsch (22:38.291)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:47.155)

Well, Keith, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you'd send folks to learn more about Atomic Elevator and your work?

Keith Lauver (22:56.652)

You bet, AtomicElevator.com and we've got free trials available. We'd love to sign up anybody. Let them take Elifer spin for a couple of weeks and see what kind of impact you can make for their clients.

John Jantsch (23:08.627)

Again, appreciate you taking a moment and maybe I'll run into you one of these days next time I'm up in Montana.

Keith Lauver (23:15.713)

I hope that would be the case.

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Weekend Favs March 22nd

Weekend Favs March 22nd written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Mutiny – Uses AI to personalize email content based on web behavior and segments.

• Mailmodo – AI + AMP emails for interactive, conversion-focused campaigns.

• Omnisend – Uses AI for smart segmentation and automated email flows for eCommerce.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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