132: Why Most AI Content Fails at Sales with Molly Mahoney (And the Buyer Psychology Fix)
If you have been using AI to create content and it still is not converting into sales, you are not alone and you are not doing it wrong. You are just missing one crucial ingredient. Today I am sitting down with Molly Mahoney, known as The Prepared Performer, a digital marketing strategist who launched the world's first AI-focused content membership back in 2021, long before AI became everyone's favorite buzzword. She has built a seven-figure business entirely on organic content, she has had videos reach 39 million views, and she is one of the most brilliant people I know when it comes to blending AI strategy with genuine human connection.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
05:14 What buying beliefs are and why they are the missing ingredient in most AI content strategies
09:38 How to use AI to uncover the hidden objections and fears standing between your ideal client and a buying decision
14:22 The awareness ladder: unaware, problem aware, solution aware, most aware and how to create content for each stage
19:45 Why most business owners are only creating content for people who are already ready to buy and what they are missing
26:03 How Molly uses ManyChat automation to move people through the awareness stages and into sales conversations
33:17 The exact AI prompt framework Molly uses to train AI on buyer psychology before creating any content
39:52 Why your weird is your superpower and how authenticity is what separates AI content that converts from content that just sounds good
ABOUT OUR GUEST: MOLLY MAHONEY
Molly Mahoney, known as The Prepared Performer, is a digital marketing strategist, keynote speaker, and AI content expert who has built a seven-figure business entirely on organic social media. She launched the world's first AI-focused content membership in 2021 and has helped thousands of coaches, creators, and agency owners craft content that converts without sacrificing authenticity. Her content has generated tens of millions of views including a single video that reached 39 million people. She has been featured in Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur, and has spoken at Social Media Marketing World, Traffic and Conversion Summit, and the Conversations Conference.
HOT REELS IS OPEN
Hot Reels is officially open for enrollment and this is the last time it will be offered at the current investment. Here is what is included:
Live coaching twice a month on Zoom
Weekly trending content idea with exact hook formulas and AI implementation workflows
Up to two pieces of content reviewed per week inside the private community
Active coaching support Monday through Thursday
A program capped at 20 business owners so Elizabeth knows your name, your business, and what you are working toward
A private bonus coaching session for everyone who enrolls during this launch
Current investment: $444 per month or $4,444 paid in full. This investment increases at the next enrollment.
LINKS MENTIONED:
ManyChat The DM automation platform both Elizabeth and Molly use and recommend
A Truth You Need to Hear:
"The more fun you have, the more money you make and the more lives you change."
Molly Mahoney
S3 Ep132 Transcript - Why Most AI Content Fails at Sales with Molly Mahoney (And the Buyer Psychology Fix)
00:00
If you're using AI in your business right now, or you know you should be, but you're still trying to figure out where it actually fits, this episode is gonna give you a much clearer picture of what's possible. Today I'm bringing on Molly Mahoney, a digital marketing strategist, keynote speaker, and long time AI early adopter, who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs blend smart technology with actual human connection.
00:28
She's had videos reach more than 39 million views and she launched an AI focused content membership two years before ChatGBT entered the conversation. Molly has a gift for making this stuff feel practical instead of overwhelming. And in today's conversation, we talk about the two things you really need to have in place before AI can become truly useful in your business.
00:56
We also explore the concept of buying beliefs versus content pillars and the different beliefs your ideal client or customer needs to have before they're ever gonna pull out their credit card and pay you. Plus how these beliefs can guide your entire content strategy. So if you wanna use AI with more intentionality, create content that moves people closer to buying and focus on the metrics that actually matter,
01:24
You're gonna love this conversation. I hope you're pumped. Let's go.
01:31
Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies. I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole led work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place.
02:00
Let's dive in.
02:11
Welcome back to the show. I am so pumped that you have joined me for today's episode because I am bringing on a very special guest. Her name is Molly Mahoney and she is a digital marketing strategist, keynote speaker and former New York City performer who helps entrepreneurs blend AI-powered marketing with authentic human.
02:37
Molly and I actually met at Social Media Marketing World this year where we were both speakers. And it was really interesting. It was my first year speaking at Social Media Marketing World, but Molly is like a veteran speaker there. And I had reached out to the team at Social Media Examiner and I said, hey, I'm this newbie speaker. I would love to connect with some experienced speakers. And they were like, okay, Elizabeth, you're a former professional dancer. You and Molly need to meet you guys.
03:04
would totally jam together as former performers turned to marketers. So Molly, I wanna roll out that red carpet girl and welcome you to the show. Let's strut it on the red carpet. I can't wait. I'm so grateful to be here. Yes, awesome. Well, I wanna kick off by you sharing the behind the scenes of the most epic viral moment I think I've ever heard. Tell us what happened. Okay.
03:31
Let me just give like the, I'll give the punchline and then I'll explain the backstory. So we had a video, it was 13 seconds long. It hit a reach on my Facebook business page, a reach of 39 million people in one video and Facebook paid us $30,000 for the video. Woo! Yes! What?
04:00
Okay, we ended up then launching a, I did in true Molly Mahoney fashion, I launched a little mini training on how to do what we did and we ended up bringing in an extra $130,000 because of that video and then sharing the strategy behind it. So that one 13 second video led to $160,000, which I think is amazing.
04:29
It is, that is bananas. And when Molly and I did our pre-interview and she told me that story and I hadn't heard it before, I was on the floor. Like I was just like, wait, what? Like I've never heard of anyone having a video like that that popped off at that level. And I just want to highlight good for you for taking advantage of that moment and monetizing it at an even deeper level with your own offer. That is so brilliant. So such a cool story.
04:57
Yeah. So here's the thing. I then, after that happened, decided to stop doing viral videos. You're like, and now I'm done with that. I already did it. Yeah. So let me just explain why. So I started as, as you mentioned, as a musical theater performer. I worked in New York. I did the national tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I've sang on cruise ships, danced and sang in Vegas, which I don't always talk about, but it was like kids and families could be around. It was in the middle of the Rio, like very awesome.
05:27
Oh my gosh, amazing. Yes, and I took that and applied it to business owners. So in 2016, I decided rather than teaching singing lessons and helping other performers to have a career like I had had, I started teaching business owners how to perform. So over the years, I've had several shifts in my focus. I had a program called Camera Confidence that did super well. We helped people build messenger bots and the technology behind the messenger bots.
05:57
We now focus mainly on AI, like you said, but underneath it all, the whole thing has really been this combination of connection and humanity and clients. So none of this was ever really about like the big vanity metrics and the viral stages. It was more about how can we truly impact human beings and how can we do things strategically to turn them into clients? Which is...
06:26
Interesting because sometimes, and I'm sure you've experienced this, you have to let your ego go when everyone's talking about these viral numbers. Like recently, for example, we've been sharing these quote cards that we call Barnum statements. This has been a part of our strategy for a long time. The Barnum statement is instilling a very specific buying belief, but they don't usually take off in a way where they're getting major views.
06:53
they do is when we have videos that take off and then people come back and see our content and they see that post, it either shifts something in them that makes them go like, and then they get deeper into our world. We've even had people like email us, Hey, I saw this post, tell me about that thing. So it's a metric that's not always visible. And I have to like, I don't know how you feel about that ego thing. you like, mean, I love the idea of
07:22
questioning like what metrics really matter to a small business owner. And I remember this was something that you and I really aligned on is that is it fun to have a viral video? Heck yes. But so many small business owners and creative entrepreneurs are spinning their wheels because they're distracted by the metrics that aren't actually moving the needle for their business or their ultimate goals.
07:48
of leads and sales or community development or brand visibility or awareness. Yes, the viral video gets you that visibility, but you and I know there is a huge difference between a content creator that's posting to go viral and then a person who is really connected into their business and how the content supports the business. There's a difference and I think a lot of small business owners even get taken advantage of by different
08:16
companies or agencies that are promising them these views when in reality it's like, are we chasing the views or like what are we doing here? So, love that you're kind of like highlighting a different approach. And I do think there's space for those that wider, we call it like an unaware audience, right? That wider audience that may not be your ideal client because
08:41
with this video that had nothing to do with my business. The reason that I did it is because Facebook was really trying to compete with TikTok. And I do more on my personal Facebook profile than anywhere else. But as Facebook was trying to compete with TikTok, they were offering cuckoo amounts of money for views on Reels because they really wanted to get people on the platform. And so this window of time was like a very specific window of time. But what I did was I just went back through my phone and I found the weirdest video that I could find.
09:11
Uh-huh. And I know, like you, like I know how to put a good hook together. So I added a really good hook. I added a trending sound and I posted it and I didn't really think much about it. It was just this thing that I was like, oh, this is funny, whatever, it's weird. And when I noticed what I was seeing come through my feed at the time was not things that were in the reals feed or whatever. They weren't things that were valuable or entertaining. It was like weird fake cooking things or like
09:40
you know, gross or like America's Funniest Home Videos. Pranks. Yes. It's changed a lot since then, but at the time that was like the main thing. So I doubled down on it. And then I was on a coaching call and I was showing my clients how to go and look at their insights. And I was like, what? And the video, I didn't even know it had hit a reach of 7 million. And I was like, wait, what? Live on this coaching call, which was
10:08
Amazing. I hope you were recording. Oh my gosh, totally. I need to go back and find that. I have a couple of moments like that throughout, you know, the thing where I've been like, oh my gosh. So I'm like, this is insane what is happening. And so then where you're saying like, it's fun for it to happen. It's fun, but it's also this level of adrenaline. Like we are similar in our energy of being like pretty high. Like I've never done Coke because I think it would be really bad for me because I'm basically
10:38
Like, yeah, but so this level of adrenaline was like too much for my body to actually take in. And then out of these 39 million views, there ended up being people hardcore arguing in the comments, which was not offensive to me. It was hilarious more than anything, but they were fully cussing each other out, arguing about what my video was about. And it was so weird, but also so funny. And my husband was like, dude,
11:08
you have to post more videos like this. And I had to take a step back and be like, wait a minute, is this the brand that I want to build? I don't think so. Okay. You do have to tell us now what the heck was the video? Cause I'm sure everyone is scratching their head and they're like, was this like a video of a squirrel like humping a fire hole or like what's happening? Funny that you say that because the video my husband wanted me to post was of our neighbors.
11:34
had construction in their backyard and we babysat their tortoise. And when they gave us their tortoise, they told us, giant tortoise, they told us it was a female tortoise until the day that it had a sex change in front of me. And I thought it was dying. And I was recording this to send to the people. I did not post that one because I was like, no. Okay. Here's what it was. I was in the bathroom. Oh no. Okay. I had filled the bathtub and I had a bath bomb. Now you know how you like
12:02
buy bath bombs or people like give you like candles or random things like as a gift. So I don't know where this bath bomb came from, but I opened it and I put it in the bathtub. Ghostbusters had just come out, like the second, the new series of Ghostbusters and Slimer is pink in that new series of Ghostbusters. So I put the bath bomb in the bathtub and it's like bubbling up. And then I started looking and I was like, what is that lavender?
12:30
as I saw these little bits like floating in my bathtub, but they were bugs.
12:40
ran downstairs. I was still dressed. I was like, oh my God, you guys have to come upstairs. So my whole family runs up into my office. I have a bathroom attached here, right? So my whole family runs upstairs. I was like, there are bugs in my bath bomb. So the video was very ASMR. And I record everything and only post 25 % of what I record. But I close up in the bath bomb and I said, in a very whispering voice, I said, I was about to get into the bathtub.
13:08
with this awesome bath bomb and I was like, oh, is that lavender? No, it's flipping termites is what I said in the video. Oh my God, no. And then I said, I may never take a bath again was how it ended.
13:23
So the people who are arguing were all bug experts. Oh no. Oh my God. Who were like, they're not termites. It's clear that you just had bugs in the drain of your bathtub. But like, I swear to you, whatever it was, they came out of the bath bomb. Maybe it was actually lavender, but if you go look at it, they look like termites. This is so funny because, you know, obviously everyone listening to this podcast, they're a small business owner, entrepreneur, trying to grow a brand on social media.
13:53
I'm dying inside because this video is attracting all these people who love bugs or buzzwords. And you're just like, that's not my brand. okay, Facebook, if you want to pay me 30K to talk about termites, I'm down for it. At the time, Facebook was so weird about who they were giving monetization rights to. So I was like, I could start a whole other channel and get it monetized. that was not my focus. And I was like, I need to just put some blinders on. But out of the 39 million, I think we got 5,000 followers.
14:23
Wow. And 5,000 followers is a lot of people, but not compared to 39 million. Like if you look at the percentage on it, it kind of also is good though, right? Because the people who followed you were probably the only people who were interested in you and your brand. If you had your profile position correctly, which I'm sure you did, in terms of like what your branding was and all of that. And if you treat your profile or your platform like a funnel, it will detract people.
14:50
Also. Yeah, I love that. So you pivoted, you've expanded your brand. I know you talked a lot about the buying beliefs and I would love to dig into that a little bit more. Like buying beliefs versus a traditional like content pillar approach and kind of talk us through that and really like how we can think about our marketing in terms of buyer beliefs and how do we identify those in our companies.
15:19
Yeah. So I first learned about this from my friend, Ron Wright. He is amazing. And we were at a retreat for a mastermind in Barcelona. And I think getting out of your house and going to mastermind events is so important and so valuable. I mean, that's how we met also right at the conference. Yes. And so he talked about this idea. He called it the ladder of beliefs.
15:43
I have since learned that it actually is something that my very, very good friend, Rich Schafran, created a million years ago called the ladder of inference. Okay. Which is basically where your ideal client is at a certain stage in their belief system. Now, when I teach this like with slides, I call it the tree of beliefs. Okay. So it's like you're sprinkling the seeds of belief and then you're, you know, growing this tree till they're ready. It's very similar to what we look at. I make up all these weird words, but I call it the awareness pyramid.
16:12
But if we look at that bug video, that was completely unaware content. Right? So that's someone who is just like a human being believing whatever they want. Right? So that's where people are at when we first connect with them. Then there's a series of beliefs that we want to move them through in order for them to be like, yes, take my credit card. Right. And so we want to persuade them into this belief that is going to be the one that triggers them to say yes.
16:42
you're never necessarily going to know like, oh, I need to do this belief and this belief and this belief because everybody's different. So what we teach is that when you're first creating content, you want to start with this tree of beliefs and there's a certain core set of beliefs we want to address. the categories, is it okay if I go into the categories? Yeah, please. We love like actionable takeaways here. So anything you want to give our people so they can run with, I appreciate. Amazing. Okay.
17:10
So first, you're obviously going to start with who that perfect person is and you have to know who they are. Then you're going to map out the beliefs that they either already have, so you want to match their beliefs, you want to instill specific beliefs, you want to stretch specific beliefs, or you want to squish specific beliefs like objection squishers, right? Yeah. So the belief categories that we mainly cover and then there's a bunch more.
17:39
are as follows. The first is why me? So it's like, why is the human being caring about any of this? And do you have a lot of social media managers in your community? Are they mostly other types of businesses? I would say there's definitely some social media managers or marketers, like marketing teams. I would say most of the people listening to the podcast are either solopreneurs, small business owners or creatives that either
18:07
it's just them creating their content or maybe they have a marketing assistant or a VA or something like that. Amazing. Okay. So when it comes to like, let's say my business was teaching social media, we may lead with, oh, it's social media, social media, social media. But a business owner who's not into social media is not going to be connected to that as a why me. The real thing is like, what is happening in their life?
18:36
that is separate from social media that we can connect with them on. So this can be more of a wider, unaware type content or type belief. I want to pause right there. Part of my marketing strategy is I'm like you. It's like I can teach Instagram marketing strategy all day. I love it. I love the tactical stuff, but I always want to make sure that people are connecting with me as a human. so yesterday I did a post where
19:04
I said, I'm about to shut my laptop and go on a date lunch with my husband. I just flew in from Dallas yesterday. I spoke at this conference. It was incredible. And I'm exhausted. And it's really hard for me to slow down. And I tend to be superwoman. And I tend to go so fast. I'm very comfortable with speed and working through it. We dropped our kids off at school. It was their first day back at school. And I was like,
19:31
before we just dive into work, because we're like, the kids are in school, can we just have a moment to pause and reflect on summer? And anyway, I did a whole post about that. And then I transitioned that into promoting this podcast. But I feel like, like, obviously, that would be a universal thing that so many people could relate to, whether they're just sending their kids back to school also. And they're also exhausted from summer and experiencing the transition. But it's like, is that what you're kind of talking about is like,
19:59
building those bridges where it's not always so explicit about our product or service. Because that's going to draw them in. And what's really cool about that example specifically, you that one matches two spots because there's the why me, which is why the human being and even if you have people in your community that are not parents, by telling that story, they'll be able to connect it to their own story because it's specific and unique to a parent, right? Right. That's on the why me side. The next one is a why this
20:29
belief, which is like why whatever it is that you're selling or the mechanism, but let's come back to that one in a moment and go to that third one, which is why you. And so what you did in that video actually, or whatever type of post it was, matches both of those because it allows them to see themselves, but it also allows them to see, hey, know, Elizabeth is someone who is practicing what she preaches. Elizabeth is someone who
20:55
just spoke on stage, like you're able to infuse that belief, like you're able to get all kinds of these beliefs into the content, which is like next level tree of beliefs. Yeah, yeah, I love that. So we said, why me? Why the human being? Then why this? Which is why the type of solution that you're providing. So it could be you're a real estate agent, why buy a home? Because they could rent, right? They don't have to buy a home. So why this?
21:22
then why you, why do it with you, in between the why this and the why you is where the product itself lives as well. So it could be why real estate, but then also why buy a home with me, right? So it could be why a specific coaching program or why a specific method or mechanism, that's all gonna be in the why this. Cool. Then the why now belief is multifaceted as well. It could be that there is a
21:49
promotion that you're doing. could be back to school is happening. So an external like holiday type thing that's happening. It could be something in their own unique life like menopause or whatever, right? So like why now? Why do they want to say yes now? Then on top of that, we have why stay, which is why should someone keep working with you? And then the final one on the basic list that we do is why worse, which is where you paint the picture of what it would be like without you. Yeah.
22:20
I'm curious of those different, you know, buyer beliefs and approaches. Which of those in mentoring business owners do you find is the place where most people get stuck or they overthink or they get it wrong? Yeah, everyone. I would say like 99 % of people try to stay in the why this area because all they're doing is talking about their product. And it's like, we need to pull back. And it's hard sometimes
22:50
for people to see like, oh, there could actually be another way to get a similar solution. Like, unless, I mean, I can't even think of any unicorn product that is the only solution for a specific thing that actually works. Can you? No. I mean, I will say this is so random, but I love, do you know the product, a makeup eraser? No. It's so weird. And it used to be a direct sales company, which didn't work, but now I like find them at TJ Maxx and stuff sometimes.
23:20
It used to be in the shape of an eraser. was like in a box that looked like an eraser, but it's basically a piece of fabric that is like microfiber that you don't need anything besides water to take your makeup off. And I am obsessed with it. I have loads of them now because one time my husband used it to clean off like the lime on our pool. Cause we live in California where there's like hard water and I found it in the backyard being used on our hot tub.
23:47
That's one of the only products I can think of that like they have it down. Yeah, no, totally. I find that a lot of small business owners when it comes to Instagram marketing, social media marketing, they're in that trap of, okay, I'm trying to sell a product or service. So I'm going to design content as promotional to sell my product or service. And then nobody wants to look at your content. Nobody wants to look at your content. They're like, well, it doesn't work for me.
24:17
And so that's where social media marketing is a skill that you can learn. And Molly and I were not born knowing how to do this. We were performers and dancers. It's so interesting, Molly, like our connection around that piece, because I don't know about you. Well, you probably were always connected to your voice because you were a singer. For me, I was a dancer. So I was very comfortable in expression through movement, but not...
24:43
in expression through my voice. so social media has been a really huge gift for me of actually finding my voice and becoming a better speaker and learning the skill that is speaking and communication and all that. And I think social media is such an opportunity for, know, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, getting on camera is scary or hearing my voice is scary or sharing a story feels scary. It is. It's scary at first and it's vulnerable. And Molly, I'm curious because I know
25:13
you did have the offer about confidence on camera. If people are listening and they're like, I do want to get on camera or I do want to, you know, these yapping videos are like all them, all social media marketers are like yapping is nothing new. This is not a trend. Like literally we've all been doing this for years. But anyways, those direct to camera talking head videos now lovingly called yaps. If someone's listening and they want to do that and they're scared to get on camera or
25:41
they're scared to even get started, what would you say to them? Yeah, I actually also just went and looked, do I still have camera confidence as a sales page somewhere? I do, which is magical to me because I didn't even know if it still exists. But the biggest thing is, do you, okay, I'm going go back to what you also just said about how you were comfortable in your movement. Yeah. And that maybe I was comfortable in my voice. So I was comfortable in my voice, but in the same way that a lot of dancers are comfortable in the choreographed movement.
26:09
But then they'll like trip if they're walking on a flat ground. I can relate. can relate. Right? It was the same thing. Like I was very, very comfortable. I mean, like I could sing an aria right now for you without warming up at all, because that has like been a skill set that I have learned my entire life. But that's a put on activity. That's a good point. And I was very comfortable doing speaking that was very like
26:37
you go watch my old videos, they're so embarrassing where it's like, you know, like I was like a cheesy musical theater, nonstop, way more than I am now. And so what I had to do, I went back to my foundational training, getting a BFA in theater and on the wall in our classroom that we were in mostly at Chapman University was this poster.
27:03
that was Stanislavski who is, Konstantin Stanislavski is this acting theorist and it was his chart for how to be a true actor, like how to be Meryl Streep. And there's all of these different things on this chart, but on the very bottom of it in huge letters, it says work on one's self. Ooh, so good.
27:31
And if you don't take the time to actually do that, what you create is going to be a hot mess. So we always start with like, what makes you uniquely you? We call it your quesadilla of awesome. I have a children's book about it called finding my awesome. That is the core. And then from there with speaking, mean, nobody, people don't recognize the fact that it's an instrument that you're using. Right. And like if you were going to go be a rockette and
28:00
kick your face, you'd have to stretch first. Yes, at the minimum. Right, at the minimum, exactly. And then the same thing with your voice when you're speaking, like, are you doing a vocal warmup? We call it your vocal coloring box. There's so many different ways that you can use your voice, that you can use your face, that you can use your body to communicate. And if you're not doing things to open that up so that you can come from a natural place, you'll always be like stifled robot, zombie, AI.
28:29
Yeah, and even just taking a deep breath and visualizing, so you're like feeling a little bit calmer in your body. It helps me to think about a person I actually know, whether that's a friend or an ideal client that I'm working with that I love and, you know, where I'm speaking to that one person when I'm looking at that camera lens that helps me to feel more grounded. But I love, I just absolutely love what you just highlighted because
28:59
All of these are skills that you can learn and develop and you just have to make a decision that you want to invest in learning that skill, right? Preach. The decision and then acting on that decision is like things that I think a lot of people skip, but that is the most important piece of it all. I love what you said about speaking to one person. So was just doing another podcast right before this and I was talking about, I call it a Mr. Rogers style conversation because Mr. Rogers didn't say, everybody in the neighborhood,
29:30
He looked into the camera and he said, hey neighbor, are you having a hard time tying your shoes today? Let's go to the shoe factory and I'll show you how, right? He like connected with bajillions of people by just speaking to one person. Oh, Mr. Roger, I loved him. So good, so good. Well, I want to pivot the conversation into AI because I know that is a huge part of your focus. It's definitely.
29:57
something I've been weaving into my content and all of my programs as well. I'm so passionate about the power that is AI and the opportunity that we have as small business owners leveraging this, especially for those of us who don't have the privilege of having like massive teams and all these things. And I know that you talk about like AI agents and agentic AI and all that. So I guess.
30:24
In starting this conversation with you about AI, what do you feel like is the opportunity for us now in terms of using AI in marketing, sales, business? Like, how would you sum up what the precipice of where we're at as a society? It is so freaking awesome, is what I would say. I think there is a misconception.
30:53
that using AI in your business, and this has really just changed. It's interesting to go back and look at social media marketing world and like a few of us back then who actually randomly had very similar titles and were like, Isar and I just had a call. There's a couple other people where it's like, oh, we were kind of doing this thing back then that now is really taking off. And the misconception is, oh, you can create cool videos, which I love, but that's not the thing.
31:23
You can create really funny photos and it used to be like these image prompts were like wild and viral and I still think they're fun. I still think they maybe could be effective, but that's not the thing. Way back in the day, it was like you can write copy and you can write your sales page copy and your marketing copy. That's not the thing. Now people are like, oh, the most important thing we can do with AI is that it can code for us. So it can write an entire website, build out a funnel. Yesterday, someone showed me on a
31:51
call a client was like, I had this marketing funnel mapped out. It was a whiteboard drawing. And she was like, but it would take me a really long time to build this. And I was like, got you boo. I took the screenshot. I already have a lot of skills and tools inside my Clot account that are pre-trained. So I said, my, I listed out the skills I wanted it to use and all my frameworks, because it's got all of that. And I put the screenshot in there and it built me an entire series
32:21
of step, like an eight step process to build out the entire funnel pages, everything. That's not actually the thing. So here is the thing. People will say like, and I use the term AI expert loosely, because even though I've been teaching AI since 2021, it is changing like every second. It's very hard to be an actual expert because it's always changing. People will say that you need to have data, right? Have you heard that?
32:50
Like the more data, the more you win. So I've been backing up my social media content on my personal profile since 2018, which is cuckoo. So I had all this data that I could feed in and I was like, yes, I've got all the data. But I realized that's also not the thing. The thing is twofold. Part of this is you need to have documented systems that are organized in a way
33:18
that the AI can properly process it. So if you just have loads of data, but it's not organized or it's not being communicated with these AI tools in a way that it knows what to read and when to read it, huge problem. And I keep meeting eight figure business owners who don't have their SOPs documented. And I'm like, how is this possible? Or things aren't organized, but
33:46
That systematizing is like a major benefit and AI can help you to do it very quickly. That's huge. Huge, and we can come back to that. The other piece though is that if you don't get back to Stanislavski and figure out who you are as a human being, you have to add the soul into your AI. You don't want to have just a brain. AI without soul, I believe, is spam. And so we've got to have that mix of the systems and the organization.
34:15
with that soul in this AI operating system. We call it your AI soul system. Wow. I love how you just described that so beautifully. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And you're totally right because when it comes to AI in terms of leveraging it, it could be another tool that just fosters your disorganization.
34:44
That is what actually happens. One million percent, that is what happens. Yes. And it's happened to me. It's absolutely happened to me where I'm like, shoot, I had this chat where I discovered this thing and I want to come back to it. And I'm like, where was it? Did I do it in this project? I don't see it in the project. And now you've got the online version and the
35:06
version on the computer. it's like your, you know, which computer did I do it on? Like all of this. Yeah. Yes. And so I absolutely love that approach. And I also love it. I always teach this and I learned this from Jeff Woods. He has a book called The AI Driven Leader. Oh yeah. Have you read it? I have it, but I've never read it. I think did they sell it at the airport? I'm sure. I think I got it at the airport and then I never read it, but I have the, I've seen the cover.
35:35
Yeah, it's great. his approach is AI is your thought partner and you are the thought leader. And so I think that's backed up by what you just said, which is that there's so much that we can delegate to AI, but ultimately, we have to be mindful that we're still in that like thought leadership seat. And part of that thought leadership is
36:00
embodying your authenticity and your voice and your storytelling and all those pieces. And that's how we're not all going to sound the same with our content, right? It is like all those unique elements of your essence. And yeah, it requires work outside of the AI to understand like what are the processes and all of that. And I love that you said that AI can help us. So I want to go back into that piece. If someone's listening and they're like, OK, I'm using AI.
36:30
But Molly, I'm definitely using it as kind of like a band-aid, right? Like I'm having it help me with this caption, I'm helping it do this, or maybe I have some stuff organized into projects, but I don't yet know how to develop the operations and systems. Can you give us a little bit of like, what would be our next step to?
36:53
organize? And I guess what platform are you using to organize your information? Like is it Asana? Is it Notion? Is there an external platform that you're doing all this in? Yeah, I have switched it up a little bit over the past several months. So I've really dialed it in now. And I actually like on the 4th of July, I was in Malaysia training an entire team on this system. So I've seen a lot of people implement it, which is awesome.
37:20
What we are doing is we are starting with just in the simplest fashion. We have a document that's called your company details document. If you don't want to get crazy, start with one document. If you want, you can use the back of an envelope. I don't care what you use, but you want to use something that is going to be your constant. So if it's on the back of an envelope, store it in a safe place and don't lose it. Okay. Because
37:47
We recommend Google Drive for that, but you could use Notion, whatever works best for your brain to have one place where you store a living, breathing document. So that's where the envelope would be a little hard. And I want to pause for a second. Molly, I know you're going to appreciate this. A few weeks ago, I taught a workshop called Build Your AI Thought Partner Document. Okay. That's what it was. It was like this living, breathing document that lives in Google and it's very
38:15
strategically designed, course, but yes, keep going. Amazing. Okay. So that is the foundation, like figure out that document. Jonathan Mast calls it your dossier, right? We just call it your company details document, your thought leader document. And that has all the important information about your bio, your unique differentiator, your offers, your ideal clients. Like it's got all of that so that you have one place that everybody on your team can use as your core central piece of information. Then.
38:45
The next level above that is you take it and you put it into something like Claude and you create skills based on that. And a skill, if you don't know what that is, it's kind of like a custom GPT, but it's a more advanced version. And these skills have a set of information and also can have a set of tools that they connect to or like reference documents.
39:11
It can have tasks that it does, that these skills do separately. There's a bunch of different ways that you can use them. But what we do first is we create your core five foundational skills. I think I may start saying six because I added one to mine, which they're all numbered. So we have one, two, three, five. I added my own secret zero one. Let's call it six. We'll call it six, but it's more important than everything else. So that's why I made it zero zero. It's where you truly set your North Star and your mission.
39:41
So having that mission and that North Star documented as a skill in its own separate place is amazing. Then your, and these can go in any order, but it's like your identity and positioning, your ideal client, your competitive research, your programs and offers and your brand voice. So all of those, we build out as individual skills so that they can work together or you can use them piece by piece. From there, the next step is where things get wild.
40:11
So I'm excited. know. So we take it and we build out a folder. Now I have clients doing this in all different tools. I prefer Google docs. So I just do my name as a Google doc folder and I do it on my computer. So it's synced to the cloud. This Google drive folder has a whole series of different folders. Those core foundations that I mentioned go into the Wiki and the Wiki folder is the first place that AI will look.
40:40
in order to get your core information. So that Wiki folder is updated as your stuff updates, but it's the main information that goes to your AI tools. And you can take this because you build it in Google Docs or Notion or whatever. It connects to Claude. It can connect to ChatGPT if you're using the desktop browsers. So you're actually owning this sole system and you are able to move it from tool to tool. And then there's a bunch of other
41:09
things that we add in there. Okay. So I just want to like recap for everyone listening, because I'm sure everyone's at different places. Yeah. So you're creating what I would call in my brain, like a master folder in your Google Drive. Within this folder are lots of sub folders, I guess. And each folder has its own role. So like one folder would be your mission and values.
41:39
So actually the way we do it, those are files. So like the one folder would be the Wiki folder, which has the main core pieces of information. So the mission and values, all that kind of stuff is going to be different files, not a full folder. But then you can also have separately from that Wiki, even though you have your document that has your programs and offers, you could have a separate folder that has way more information about your programs and any resources. I have a separate folder that stores all of my stories. So when I do an interview or a
42:09
coaching call like this, it's automatically backing up the transcript and the stories are pulled out of it and put into the stories folder because we use those in our, you know, everything, writing our videos, all of that. There's another folder for wins and testimonials. So if I was like, Elizabeth, this is the best podcast ever. Right. And I like go into that and it's like so awesome connecting with you and I love your blend between the strategy and the human. So your AI agent.
42:36
would come back, grab this transcript, automatically divide it up into all those places of where those things are then cataloged on the backend. And frameworks is another one. So like I taught the tree of beliefs that's inside my frameworks already so that I can pull from it in the future. But it would go and update it if it wasn't there. Okay. So the Wiki folder is full of like files about the brand and then you have
43:03
like not within that wiki folder, but like separate folders with the different buckets. Correct. Okay, great. And so then when you are working with the AI, you are giving it access to whichever folder it needs or like, do you connect all of these folders and then it figures out what it needs? Yeah, so that's where it gets really cool. If you're a visual person, I know some of this may be like, what? So.
43:30
If you want to see what it looks like, go to mollymohoney.com. have a blog post about the AI Sol system, so you can see it there. basically, what happens is we create all these files. And it may feel very overwhelming or scary at first. But when you connect the folder to Claude, and this is when you're on your computer, in the bottom of your chat, it'll say projects or folders, like add a project or add a folder.
43:57
Yeah. So what I usually do is I will add my whole soul system, which has all of this information in it. This is like a secret thing that a lot of people don't know. Every time you connect a folder to Claude, it needs something to give it instructions. And so if you don't give it instructions, it will create the instructions document for you. The document is called a Claude MD file, and it's a specific type of file that is written with the instructions for Claude.
44:26
And so what we give our members is a Clawd MD file that is prewritten to tell Clawd where to look first. The problem that happens is it starts to hallucinate when you give it so much information. Right. So instead the Clawd MD file says, hey, you're here running Molly Mahoney's business. This is where you need to go before you do anything else. You look at the index and you look at the Wiki. And so it knows to go look at those core Wiki files.
44:55
before anything else. Got it. Okay. I love that. I'm curious about if you could explain the difference between, and this might be kind of going backwards a little bit in the AI conversation, but for AI newbies or for people who are still deepening their AI skills, which we all are, can you talk through the difference between prompting the AI in the chat?
45:23
projects, which Chad GBT has projects, projects, and then this idea of like, agentic AI, where now I'm giving the AI a task to run without me. Yeah. Can you just talk through those different levels so that way our listeners can kind of identify like where they're at in the process? Yeah, such a great, awesome question. You are the best. I've broken down into three different levels and
45:48
everybody's kind of co-creating this terminology, but this is the way that I define it to our members. So there's an AI assistant. Oh my gosh. We are also creating a full glossary right now. That is a series of videos that are Sesame Street cartoon themed. And we just released the one yesterday about an AI assistant and it is so cute on my Instagram. It's like a new series we're doing. an AI assistant is like
46:15
how we used to use chat GPT, where you ask it to tell you something and then it gives you the information back. There's no other tools connected. If you put a prompt in and then it talks back. Okay, that's an AI assistant. An AI agent is when you ask it to do something and it goes out and does it. So that's when you give it permission to use a specific tool. could be inside chat GPT. For example, it's using its model for creating images. It gives you an image back.
46:44
or you've connected it inside of Notion or Slack and it goes and sends a Slack message. It goes and writes a draft of an email for you. That's an agent. The third level is agentic automation. And so that's when you have scheduled tasks. Like every Friday, my agent, Marie, that is her name. Ooh, that's my middle name by the way. Me too. What? Hey. Oh my God.
47:14
I love it. she goes, she looks at my calendar, she reviews the notes from the calls we've had this week and she looks in Slack and she's like, okay, what does Molly have promotion wise coming up? I'm going to go, I'm going to make a list of buying beliefs that people need to have in order to want to do whatever that thing is that they're promoting. Then she writes content out, creates the videos because she connects to Higgs field, creates images like quote cards or whatever.
47:43
images and meme images because I trained her to do that. And then she connects to high level on the backend and will schedule things inside high level all on her own. Wow. That is so epic. It's so cool. And there's always a human reviewer. So after she does that, we use Slack in my business. So she goes into Slack in her specific channel and says, Hey, and she tags Shira, my human team member.
48:12
Hey, I just did all this content. And I like to be like, to the fire. I don't want the content to just sit in a folder. So she schedules it, but we go review it as a human before it posts. Very smart. Yes. That's definitely an important part of the workflow. So that's the agentic part of it. Now, when you talk about projects, a project is a way to save information in something that's similar to what they call a sandbox. So the sandbox is like,
48:42
Hey, all of this information is just in this folder. Like if you have client projects, not on Claude, but like a client campaign that you're working on, putting that client information in a separate project will separate the information so it doesn't cross contaminate their stuff. But what I have found is that I'm no longer using projects as much anymore. I'm using the sole system instead. And I have multiple sole systems for different clients or for myself where
49:10
I can pull from different pieces inside these folders because it's just more effective that way. Yeah, that is so cool. I know that was a lot, but I know that you dropped so much gold in there and that my beloved listener, if you can just take like one thing away, maybe it's identifying kind of where you're at. And maybe it's also just, I know for me, when I hear other successful entrepreneurs, business owners talk about how they're leveraging AI,
49:39
and I can understand what's possible in my brain, then I can kind of pause and look at my business and say, okay, what are some of the things that I'm doing every week that I could start to automate through AI? And if I were to do that, how would I need to train the AI just like a team member, just like if I hired someone on, right? And maybe just start with like one process, one task.
50:08
Like sending an email or, you know, it can be very granular. Note taking, I think, is a perfect place to start with that because a lot of us have AI note takers. But then what are we doing with that? Yes. I have a skill that's connected to my Zoom account and she grabs the notes from every call. She sends them in Slack. She pulls the stories out like just doing something with those notes because we all have that data just like sitting there. I have a question for you about that. OK.
50:37
So in Zoom, because I use Zoom as well, it generates transcripts. How are you getting the connection of like Claude to Zoom to talk to each other and download the transcripts? Yeah, so you can just go straight into Claude. You go to the settings. It says customize if you're looking at it from the outside of Claude. But when you're in the settings, there's a section on the bottom that says connectors. And so you just search for the Zoom connector.
51:02
You can also find things like Fathom or Grain, any of those. So like we have two Zoom accounts and you can only have one connected at a time. So I have it pull from one Zoom account and one Grain account. So it's backing those up. And then people may be able to see this, but can I show you something like so cool that it does? Oh my gosh, I can't share. I requested to share. Okay. I allowed. Thank you. I think that this is also just a fun story for us because we are performers.
51:31
So my grandma was Patrick Swayze's mom's best friend, which is so cool and so random, right? So cool. So much love there also, just like such deep love. So in my content that I had updated, or I first just went and grabbed a bunch of Zoom recordings, it pulled that information directly into the Google document.
51:59
But then it also, what we are doing every time a document is added in, adding this tagging information on the top of the document. So it's called, the weird word is yaml front matter, which we can talk about another time. That's like the technical term for it. But notice all the tags that it has here. So it's like celebrity, grandma, keynote warmup, so random. stories.
52:25
life stories become brand stories, origin, origin story behind Patsy skill. That's so random as a tag, but I have a skill named Patsy, which is the name of Patrick Swayze's mom. Oh my gosh. But then the story is here about how I met Patrick Swayze when I was 13. His mom asked me to get him a plate of food from the buffet and we ran upstairs and he kissed me on the cheek. So it was like such a big deal. Oh my God, I can't. I'm so excited.
52:54
And so then you can see, and AI does all of this on its own, it'll find the related stories as well. So if I say to Claude, like, hey, I want to write a story about showing up and doing things that may be scary or the power of personal connection, go pull from that Patrick Swayze story. Not only does it pull the Patrick Swayze story, it also knows there may be more similar stories underneath these other tags or in these related stories.
53:24
Wow, that is so incredible. That like blows my mind. I'm telling you like back to when you said like what makes it matter or whatever in the beginning. Having this system on the back end when I need to write a presentation, when I want to do a whole campaign about something, I don't have to reprompt. I don't have to retrain things. I've just started documenting my systems. I keep
53:51
this living, breathing soul system that's growing with me. Yeah. And when you ask like, what's the big opportunity? I think the big opportunity for us is that we can get this built. But the real opportunity is learning how to do this stuff and selling it to other people. Because most humans do not know how to do this stuff. And so if you can learn a system like this and you can go build it for others, you are instantly on the forefront of the entire world.
54:20
I just had that conversation with my husband at lunch yesterday where I was like, I think the huge part of the opportunity right now is building these AI operating systems and selling them and then helping people to understand it. Cause it, there's so many different pieces and you have so much experience doing this. And it's so cool that you have so much proof of concept too, not just in your own business, but in all of the people that you've helped and everything. So I know our listeners are going to be like chomping at the bit to go,
54:50
check out all your stuff. Where can they find you? Where can they follow you? Get all your goods. And of course, we will link everything down in the show notes. Yeah. So I'm Molly Mahoney on most platforms. My YouTube is The Prepared Performer, Instagram, Molly Mahoney and The Prepared Performer, all those things. And I put together because what we were talking about with the Stanislavski chart and what all this starts with and the Mr. Rogers conversation and even all this AI operating system.
55:16
If you don't know who you're speaking to, like really know them, it doesn't matter. So I built an app called the Perfect Person Profile Creator. I'm going to give you guys totally for free. So if you log into it, you can create multiple perfect people that are the right people for your different offers. And if you go to molly.live, so M-O-L-L-Y dot live slash strut it, S-T-R-U-T-I-T strut it.
55:45
Molly.live slash strut it, it'll take you right to the perfect person profile creator. Oh my gosh. You guys run, run, don't walk to that website and test that out because you're right. We could have the best operating systems, but if we're not clear on who our ideal client or customer is, we're not going to be able to make those sales. Right? And so that is so imperative. So definitely go check that out. I love, thank you, Molly, for
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sharing that with our community and we will make sure that we link that down in the show notes. This has been such a fantastic conversation. Thank you so, so much for just pouring into the community and being so generous with what you know and inspiring us. And I just thank you for being here. Thank you so much. I'm just so grateful for you and the way you show up. So thank you. Wow. I hope you enjoyed my conversation.
56:43
With Molly, make sure you go check out her resources. Molly is such a leader in this AI space and I continue to learn from her. I'm so grateful that she shared her zona genius with us today. And if you got something out of today's episode, do me a solid, share it with a business bestie or colleague who is also trying to understand social media marketing and how to weave AI into our work without losing our authentic
57:12
I hope you enjoyed today's show and I cannot wait to strut it with you next week Thank you for listening to strut it if you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business Then you're gonna want to grab my free monetize your IG guide Where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways to finally make money on Instagram
57:38
You can grab your guide at elizabethmarberry.com slash freebies. That's elizabethmarberry.com slash freebies to get my monetize your IG guide. If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platforms. And I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.
