No More Planning: Craft Epic Experiences!

[00:00:00] Charlie: People are not loving surprises as much as... And we do an immersive, uh, three-day event where every moment is a surprise. Nobody's allowed to know what's happening next. 

[00:00:09] Eric: Wow. 

[00:00:10] Charlie: And there are some people that are like, "That's so cool." Most people don't like it. They wanna know what's going on. Mm-hmm. They wanna know if they're wearing the right clothes.

They wanna know when they're gonna eat next. They wanna know should they go to the bathroom now or wait till later? What are they gonna miss? Do they need to take notes? Should they have a pad and paper? They have all these questions, and so sometimes you have to give people a forward look at what they're about to experience in a way that they feel settled and calm, and like, "Okay, I'm in it to win it."

[00:00:43] Eric: Welcome to the Marketing Team of One podcast, where we have conversations about the 

[00:00:46] Charlie: issues one-person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now here's your hosts, Eric and Mike. 

[00:00:53] Eric: Welcome back to the Marketing Team of One podcast. My guest today is Charlie Fusco, founder of TGC Worldwide.

She grew up on film sets and in funding meetings, and started producing infomercials before she was 21. She built that into a $15 million agency, then sold it in 2018 to start TGC, landing clients on the New York Times bestseller list and building out immersive live events for brands. Today, we're gonna talk about why live experiences build trust digital content can't, and how she scripts the emotional arc of a conference the way you'd script a film.

If you plan events, you're gonna wanna listen. We also get, uh, into her take on AI. So, thanks for being on the show, Miss Charlie Fusco. 

[00:01:39] Charlie: Oh, thanks, Eric. I appreciate being on the show. 

[00:01:42] Eric: Yeah, we appreciate, uh, you taking the time to, uh, help our un- our listeners understand, uh, exactly what kind of business you're in.

'Cause it, it, we talked a little bit about show business, and, uh, it sounds like a lot of what you're doing now is those immersive experiences for brands. Uh, but let's get into a little bit more of your history. How did you go from running an infomercial agency to where TGC Worldwide is today? 

[00:02:11] Charlie: It, it was a pretty defining moment.

Um, I got into the infomercial space very young and was in it a very long time, and so I can honestly say I've pretty much sold it on television, radio, direct mail. If you can think about it, I, I sold it on TV. Um, we had a call center, we had a media buying company. So when I say I sold it, not only did we write and produce the TV commercials and the radio infomercials and the direct mail pieces, but we also had the people answering the phone.

So when you'd call that 800 number, they would come in, and that was an interesting take in the business because you could always, let's say, put a commercial out there. It's a different story when that woman calls up and says, "I wanna buy your product. How much is it?" And then that customer experience and upselling.

And, um, so we really did get a 360-degree view of the buyer journey on so many products over, you know, almost two decades. And in that two decades, you know, when I started in the business, people were still writing checks and mailing them in to buy products on TV. Um, and I remember the... Like, early, early on when I first started doing this, we got a check in the mail to buy a product, and it was a calcium magnesium powder that you would put in hot water and you would drink it and it would make you sleep better.

And this lady who had seen it at 3:00 AM in the morning not sleeping, mailed in a check, but she didn't have enough money for the product 'cause the product was, you know, $80 to buy this powder. So she sent in a Casio watch and she said, "Would you accept my watch and this check and give me this miracle sleep powder?"

And, uh, I, I just remember that going, "Wow, she really sent her watch in, in the mail." And you can't do that anymore, but today you're not gonna have that experience where somebody sees- Yeah ... you know, something that you've made in the world and responds and says, "I really want that, that I'm gonna give you my watch."

But about 2016 rolled around, and I remember waking up early. I was gonna go to a meeting. I was getting dressed, and of course the television was on 'cause you always, when you're in the business, you watch the business. Mm-hmm. So I was watching infomercials at 6:00 in the morning to see who was the competitor, what was the product, where's mine, and I could not stop flipping channels, and I saw one of my infomercials on, on every channel.

And I was like, "Well, look at that. We're on all the channels." And then I realized they were all for fish oil. Um, you could buy fish oil of any kind. And then I realized they were for six different companies, and I was like, "Wow, six commercials, six fish oil products. They're all doing really well. I just became the world's biggest fish oil salesman."

And, you know, like that in the, in the bedroom, I was like, "What am I doing?" Y- like this is not, uh, gonna go on my gravestone that she could sell fish oil. And so I did have this like kind of moment where I just said, "What am I really doing with my ability to sell in stories," right? And that's what it was is, you know, my clients could care less that I had six different fish oil 'cause they were all different stories, and they were all working.

Mm-hmm. And the consumers just picked the story they wanted, and then they called, and they bought the expensive fish oil So it was at that time that I really looked in the mirror and said, "What am I doing this for? And, and why am I doing it, and is it beneficial?" And I came to the conclusion that I was just really putting a lot of bad karma in the world.

It wasn't that my clients were bad or the products were bad or anything. It was that I was just telling stories to make people do a transactional purchase. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that, in my world, just was like all I'm doing is just putting bad karma in the world. Just because I can tell a good story and get people to react doesn't mean I should be.

And so it was then I decided I was gonna get out of the infomercial business, but what was I gonna do? And I decided that, well, if we can amplify products like that, what if we took everything we knew about that and we just put it on people, and we focused it on people trying to do good in the world who wanted to put in the, the time, the resources, the effort, the money?

And what if what they were talking about now was still gonna be important in 10 years, and we could amplify them? Then I thought, all right, and this is me trying to make myself feel better, well, then I would be able to reverse all this negative karma because we'd be helping people put more good in the world.

[00:06:36] Eric: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:37] Charlie: And so that was how I started this company, and it didn't, uh, necessarily start as a book, uh, driven company. We are very much a book driven company. I didn't care. I just wanted to find good people that were trying to do good in the world and were gonna be a, you know, really disciplined about doing it.

And so it just so happens that The majority of people trying to do that, a book becomes, uh, sort of a gateway into getting your platform message out there. And so now what TGC does is we look at a person and we just say, "How many ways can we sell your message?" Mm-hmm. So we might put you on the New York Times bestseller list, you might be on a TED Talk, you might be, uh, sold your life story rights to Netflix or Amazon Prime, or we might be helping you script your annual, um, conference for your leadership team, you know, and really trying to get what, what your core message is delivered to your internal audience.

So for us, it's, it doesn't matter as long as your story is getting amplified. And when you've been in film and television, radio for your whole life, telling people's stories isn't hard, but it is, um, important that it's the right story, and that's what we really figure, you know, focus on is are you telling the right story to the right audience at the right time?

[00:07:54] Eric: So you, I mean, it sounds like your process begins a little bit with writing. I mean, it, it, that's where most things begin. But do you d- immediately start to dive in and start to craft those stories with your client when they come to you, and then start to look for events? Or do they look for, "We need to amplify our voice.

We're gonna choose the, we think these channels work." Uh, where does it begin for your team? 

[00:08:17] Charlie: Yeah. Great question. I, if you were to ask my husband, he would say that it starts with the judgment process- Mm ... that I'm very critical and judgmental. People come to us at different stages, right? Some will come to us in the last 90 days of their biggest book launch ever, and they wanna just, you know, hit The New York Times, and they give us a 90-day runway and it's just a rough, short path.

[00:08:40] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:08:41] Charlie: Um, we meet with people who are exiting their company, they're retiring, and they're now onto the legacy portion of their life, and they wanna do a philanthropic movement, and they're in the ideation phase, and they have kind of the dots that they wanna connect, but they don't know how to connect them.

Those are our favorite- Okay ... to be really thought partners in being able to say, "Well, let's look at your ecosystem, let's look at your world and what's important to you." And so I think the first thing I always try to do, regardless of when you come to us is, is to really push back and say, "Is this really the story you wanna be telling?"

Mm. "And if so, why? And if so, are you sure you know what the results are gonna be to, to measure success," right? And to really push back on people and say, "Whether it's a film, a book, an immersive experience, somebody experiences you, your message in one of those formats, what then? Is it just that they buy another book or they buy another ticket?

Are they wanting to come do work with you? Are they writing about you in whether it's their social channel or their article? What do you want from that person that entered your world?" Hmm. And to really drill down, and that I think a lot of times helps people cl- clean answer is that it's really important- that you analyze the story you're trying to tell.

The, the format will follow, and hopefully if your story is really good and your message is really clear and your intent is purposeful, the formats will multiply. Mm. It'll work as a social media post, as a 300-page book, as an immersive experience, as a product sponsorship, a podcast, right? And so being really, really intentional about that story I think is key.

And, you know, the challenge I think that people face right now, whether you're a service provider, a writer, or the end client, is that, um, AI is making storytelling so easy and commoditizable and cheap in some respects. 

[00:10:42] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:10:42] Charlie: And if you're not a natural-born storyteller, if you're not a trained, gifted writer, and you're relying on Claude or Chat or Perplexity or fill in the blank to write your story, those AI systems want to impress you.

So they'll go out- Mm ... and they will find everything about you, and they'll spit it back and they'll tell you a story and they'll say, "Look how great that story is." And part of the challenge, right, is that they could be capturing a story that's 10 years old, that that's you- Mm ... 10 years ago, but it feels really shiny.

And it doesn't have to be even AI that does that. A ghostwriter could come and tell your story, 'cause they're gonna go what they know. 

[00:11:25] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:11:25] Charlie: And you're gonna s- feel safe in what people know, 'cause it, it's what happened. But if you're trying to do something that's future forward, you have to ask yourself like, what do I need to not talk about in my past?

What do I need to focus for my future to make this message really valuable, not just today, but you know, in 10 years? And so being really, really specific about your storytelling and what you're trying to get across I think is critical. Um, and understanding that if somebody says to you, "Hey, we can write a book, produce a film, do a podcast in 30 days," there's something wrong with that.

'Cause you do need- Oh ... to put the, the thought work in, you know? Yeah. You need to go to the whiteboard, and then you gotta erase the whiteboard and you have to do the whiteboard again. And I think that's where I get very passionate now, probably going back to that fish oil story. I don't ever wanna see six of the same clients-

doing the same thing, right? And so, uh, that's, I think, our challenge as marketers, as business people, as humans trying to do good in the world is- Are we really, really crafting the right stuff? And then that leads into, you know, everything else you wanna do with it, whether it's an immersive experience or other.

[00:12:36] Eric: So it's really y- you know, getting into the details, differentiating, 'cause everybody's story is unique, and there's always unique elements to the story, and helping- Mm-hmm ... your clients go d- dive deep into what does... 'Cause every- think everybody's proclivities are to like, "Yeah, let's make it sound like that person or that story because I'm familiar with it."

But really the, the magic is in the stuff that doesn't sound like anybody else out there. Um, it's, it's your story Yeah It's the uniqueness of what you're providing. Yeah. Um, do you start at the end then? It sounds like you start at the end. Like, "Let's, let's play the movie forward three years. Where are we at?"

We, we ask our clients that a lot too, so- 

[00:13:14] Charlie: Start with the end in mind, yeah. What do you really, what do you really want? You know? And, and really asking those questions, and I'll give you, you know, a couple of examples. A lot of people will come to us and they want us to help them make their book a huge success.

And we have a- Mm-hmm ... a large referral network from the different publishers, and we've put a lot of books on the New York Times bestseller list and- Mm ... USA Today, and all these things. So people find us kind of because- Mm ... "Hey, we heard you can do this for a book." And really, a book is the doorway that people will enter to find out more about something.

And they may have found out about that book because they're listening to a podcast. They may have found out about that book because they read somebody's Substack, or they went to a annual conference and the speaker on stage was so inspiring that they want that person's book, right? So I always say it's just a doorway, just like a podcast is a doorway or a live event.

So really thinking about, well, what is this book trying to do? Is it a workbook? Is it a guide? Is it a, an inspirational moment? Is it something that you're gonna write in the notes section, um- Mm ... you know, or is it just pretty, and you're gonna put it on your shelf and tell everyone you bought the book.

And those are all fair answers, you know, and they all have merit, but, um, we really do start with what's the end in mind. And I'll give you an example. On the book side, one of the things that I, I think is important for people that are maybe thinking about writing a book or thinking about amplifying their business with a book or, uh, their stage presence, the average book sells something around, you know, maybe 3,000 copies in its lifetime- Wow

if. Most actual, uh, books that are produced are maybe around 300 copies, and that's- Okay ... your 300 closest friends and family. People are so inundated with books that they don't, you can't possibly compete for market share. So that's number one. Um, the, the other thing is, the hardest thing I think to do, we do book launches weekly, the hardest thing for any author, outside of selling a book, actually selling it, not giving it away, is to get somebody to write a review about it.

You can't even get your own mother to stop what her, she's doing, go to Amazon, and leave a review in one ask, right? And so it's really important for people to say, "If it's that competitive to get my message out there, what am I doing differently?" And so part of what we've been doing, and we work with, um, celebrities that are on television and in films.

You know, we've done immersive events with people like Hugh Jackman and, uh, international world leaders, and we've also done events with CEOs you've never heard of that are running billion-dollar companies, right? 

[00:15:48] Eric: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:48] Charlie: So we don't really- Uh, care who our client is. They don't have to be a celebrity or a, you know, top podcast host.

We care about what they're doing. But we've changed the game a little bit when we talk about something as simple as a book launch. Nobody wants to come to your book signing. Nobody wants to go to Barnes & Noble, wait in line to get a picture with an author they may or may not know, to get a signature in a book just to say they have it.

Those days are gone. 

[00:16:15] Eric: Gone. 

[00:16:15] Charlie: But you need these, uh, activities to get a book to catch fire. So what do you do? Wait- Or not do it. And so we really look and go, how do we value that potential reader's time? What can we create as an experiential moment that they would wanna come to, whether there's a book involved or not?

Because if they come to that moment and they feel what you want them to feel, then the book just becomes a, a trophy from that event for them, and that then becomes part of the conversation. So we will look at, um, a book tour just like we will look at a three-day immersive event that, you know, you might, uh, akin to like a Tony Robbins event, right?

Mm. For us, if you're going into a book tour, we don't even like calling it a book tour. We will say, "Hey, we're gonna create an in-conversation. We're gonna create, um, a place where maybe for the first hour you're going through a manifestation writing workshop, and for the second hour it's a business networking event.

And somewhere in there you're gonna meet the author, and he might talk about the book a little bit, and you're gonna walk home with a book. But you're gonna pay money to go to this event because you're gonna connect into an experience that is interesting and fun, and then you're gonna connect to other people."

And so we will create these, um, experiences all over the country, sometimes virtual, but whenever possible in person. Yeah. And the ch- the, the opportunity is that you really get people excited about coming to this, um, experience. And so that becomes an interesting thought leadership game. If I couldn't use the word book or film or podcast, and I couldn't say my company's name, how would I get people into a room to experience something that is meaningful to the work I'm doing?

And maybe that's a luncheon, maybe that's an in-conversation with Hugh Jackman. Maybe that's a fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Maybe it's, um, a, a chef tasting at a bookstore where you get to come and sample, right? So you think about your story and what would it manifest into physical, and that's where you could start with these events.

And so when we, um, do that, we want people leaving that event going, "I, I don't know why, I don't know how, but I felt something at that event." 

[00:18:31] Eric: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:32] Charlie: And now that book or that podcast or whatever becomes more meaningful and becomes what ultimately I think is the goal, dinnertime conversation. I had the most incredible two hours of my life today, let me tell you about it over pasta.

So that's sort of, um, when I engage with clients, I'm always looking for that. How do we create that? And then from there, if we do it correctly, it becomes duplicatable. You can turn that two-hour networking event into an annual conference, let's say. And we do these conferences for clients where instead of, you know, your traditional leadership conference where somebody comes, they speak on stage, you guys have dinner together, and there's that.

What if we created a journey for your audience, for your staff, for your team, for your vendors, and in that journey they become transformed Maybe we talk business at the breakouts and the luncheons, but on stage, it's more for the audience as opposed to the business. And so we will script just like a film, um, scenes, and we will script it.

The... where my team goes a little bit crazy is I'll be on site, and if I don't feel that the energy in the room is shifting the right way, I will rescript in real time- Mm ... which is, for an event planner, uh, that's a lot of work. But you really have to be clued into that, and I think more and more people are f- people are feeling so disconnected from people and brands and business, that more and more everything from, like, efficiency and AI and work from home and all of the issues that we're dealing with are bringing people to this place where they want to connect in real time.

So as a business leader, I would always say if you have $5,000 or $5 million, what is the highest use of that money this year to make sure that your audience feels super connected to you in a way that isn't about the tangible fish oil in a bottle, you know? 

[00:20:32] Eric: Interesting. Lots to unpack there. Yeah. That's a really, uh...

I love that lens of the sitting around the dinner table telling this, having your audience members, picturing them telling the story of what they just experienced because that really gets to that feeling. Um, and that's what you're... That, that hits the heart. That's what everybody in marketing really is trying to do, is cut through the clutter.

I mean, uh, I know that there's so much static out there right now. There's so much lack of trust that we talk about a lot on this show. But, um, this is an ex- this is a great way for people to kinda understand and look at their stories and then see how that can translate. 'Cause like you said, it sounds like what y- you've transformed a lot of these into these immersive events, and I know that you're spending a lot of time now.

Is that, uh, is it kind of in a w- in a, in a weird way you've kinda rebranded what you do but just calling it immersive events now? Because it's... You're adding on so many different layers that in the past where it's like, yeah, there's the author. Just go get the book signed and then on your way. It's gotta be better.

You gotta offer more value. You gotta bring more to 

[00:21:43] Charlie: it. Because we do a lot with scripted and unscripted television and film and documentaries and reality shows and things, 'cause ultimately that would be another version- Yeah ... of somebody's life. I always look at how do we connect it all together. So examples might be you're on Amazon Prime and you see a new, you know, three-part series on health, and so you're like, "Okay, I'll watch this."

And, um, at the bottom of the screen comes a QR code, and you click that QR code, and all of a sudden it goes to a website that allows you to download digital products that, that help you- Mm ... implement what you just saw on there. And while you're, um, on that website, maybe you see a book or maybe the, part of the digital download is a podcast that nobody's heard before because it's not live, it's private, and you've now- Yeah

gotten that. And with technology, you know, the next day I can get a text message that says, "Hey, thanks for watching the show, and hope you're using it this way. Would love for you to come to this, you know, live experience," right? 

[00:22:45] Eric: Hmm. 

[00:22:46] Charlie: How do you connect everything that you're doing? Not that everybody watching that show is gonna go to that QR code and go to that website and download it, but how do you connect what you're doing in, in ways that, um...

It's almost like, like having a meal. People might take a bite of the appetizer, but how do you get them to stay for dessert? And that's where I think people really need to think about the interconnectivity. So a live event sometimes is the cherry on top, because you might have a podcast that people listen to religiously every week, and you might have a newsletter or a Substack that they consume every week.

The next step would be would they pay to buy a book? Would they pay $14 to see your, uh, your segment on Amazon? And then, you know, somebody who's really, um, a good example is look at Mel Robbins. Yeah. I mean, Mel Robbins is selling tens of thousands of books weekly, but it's because people wanna go see her live.

Hmm. And part of the way that you see her live is you buy her book, right? So that is proof, the books are proof that people wanna experience her, and I would argue of the tens of thousands of books she sells weekly, uh, 50%, sorry, Mel, I don't think have gotten read. I don't think the spine hasn't been cracked because they are not the point.

The point is they wanna- Right ... experience her because they have fallen in love with her on her podcast and read her stuff. And so she's a really good example of connectivity. And we do right now focus a lot on immer- on immersive experiences, not just events, but how do you make a television program or a film equally immersive?

Or how do you make- Hmm ... um, a conference immersive? Because that's what's gonna keep people coming back annually. And right now, when everyone has so many choices, the more connected, the less choices they have in the future 'cause they just remember this one. And that's what I think business owners really need to think about, is, uh, something as simple as, and I'll give you this tip- When I go out to dinner, my kids hate this, but when I go out to dinner and they hand you the machine so you can pay, right?

And you have to sign the credit card thing, most of them are on a screen now. You don't get- Yeah ... the pen anymore. So I will take time and I will draw a picture with my finger instead of my signature. Whatever the... I'm not a great drawer, by the way, so it's like chicken scratch. But I will draw some sort of picture, and then I will hand it to the waiter and say, "Thanks, I really appreciate it."

And half of the time, the waiters just move on their way. They never notice that I didn't sign it or that I drew a picture, and the other half of the time, the waiters stop and they laugh and they're like, "Oh my God, that's so funny. Thank you." Right? All the time. So 50% of the time I can invoke that reaction.

Yeah. And hopefully at dinner, the guy's going, "This crazy redhead came in and drew a picture of an elephant on her receipt," you know? So I just think that, to me, is at the very basic level, a form of connectivity and immersion- 

[00:25:43] Eric: Yeah ... 

[00:25:43] Charlie: for that experience. So I don't think it has to be bright lights and big city all the time.

I think it just has to be a conscious decision of how you interact in the world. 

[00:25:52] Eric: How do you... Uh, you know, what's tough, and I, and I, I got to this a little bit earlier, is there's, the audience is, and I think you used the word fractionated. It's everywhere. Mm-hmm. I mean, uh, you know, the, it's a nonlinear world we're living in.

There's so many choices. There's so many channels. There's so many screens we're experiencing. How, you know, would, uh, what other tips would you provide for people, like, if they're pr- planning a conference or an event or something like that? How do you break through some of that stuff? 

[00:26:19] Charlie: What I tell my team every time we're doing an event is, "Don't fall in love with the 90% that you're doing right."

Be really hyper-focused on the 10% we're doing wrong. 

[00:26:30] Eric: Mm. 

[00:26:30] Charlie: Right? And wrong could be a different word for missed, overlooked, uh, too exhausted to carry out the 10%, right? Mm-hmm. Because people never understand why they like the 90%. It's almost overlooked 'cause you have an expectation. If you do an event, whether it's a board meeting or a three-day immersive, you, you have expectations.

Of course I'm gonna get coffee and water. Of course they're gonna break for lunch. Of course there's gonna be a fancy speaker on stage. Um, but you focus on the 10% that went wrong. The bathrooms were too far down, I had to walk so far that I missed- Mm ... half the speech because I didn't know. Or, you know, they didn't have a vegan option at dinner, and I had to ask and it was embarrassing.

Or the, um, tablecloths on the table that we were sitting at were so long that my feet would get tripped up in the tablecloth, and I always felt like I was gonna trip getting up. That was a distract- That's what they remember, right? 

[00:27:26] Eric: Interesting, yeah. 

[00:27:26] Charlie: And so when you're, whether you're planning a board meeting, you need to hyper-fixate on the details, and that's where I think a lot of people get lazy.

It's, it, it's an unneeded cost. It's too expensive. It takes too much time. You're being a perfectionist. The team has other things to focus on. Nobody's gonna notice. It doesn't matter. I would say that the future is eliminating that 10%, because everyone can give a 90% experience, whether it's a podcast or a Substack or a Times Square video.

Yeah. It's the people and the brands and the agencies that focus on that 10% and reducing it, that's gonna be what people remember, and I think that's how you become... People keep coming back. They don't know why, but the answer is because they don't experience that friction in the 10%. And so that's, um, I think easy for people to focus on, 'cause if you sit in your own business and you pick anything, if you wanna do this exer- Look, go to your website, and do not focus on your website except for the 10% that sucks Go to your client onboarding experience.

Go, um, take a recorded call and shove it into ChatGPT and say, "Tell me what was wrong in this call. Tell me where my team seemed unenergetic. Tell me where I didn't say thank you enough." Um, just pick any part of your business and, and just hyper-focus on the 10%, and then sit back and go, "Okay, what would make that awesome?

What would eliminate that? What would people..." And e- whether the customer and person ever recognizes or articulates it, you will notice a change in how people respond to your material, your programming, your infomercial, your documentary, your book. 

[00:29:12] Eric: Interesting. Yeah. I think that, that, that shows, you know, you're right.

People are... have high expectations for especially conferences and events, 'cause a lot of them are kind of figured out already. The, the, the, you know, the event space has this dialed in. They've done 50 of them or 100 of them in the past, and it always goes this way. But keeping your eye on some of those things, even above and beyond some of what maybe what your, even your vendors are providing, is probably what's gonna separate- Yeah, 

[00:29:41] Charlie: I'll give you one more example, Eric, just so your audience can- In their own head just start dreaming up ideas.

We did a conference last year. It was about 100 plus people in the audience for three days, and during that time it was heavy programming. You know, you're in the- Yeah ... the chairs for eight hours at a time. So we hand-sewed this, this little doll, and at the, the beginning of the conference we put the doll up on stage and we said, "Hey, um, there's some prize at the end of this conference for th- if you take enough pictures of this little doll.

He's gonna be hiding, he's gonna be around, he's gonna be watching you." And we kind of made it this sort of adventure challenge where if you spotted this little doll and you snapped a photo and you uploaded it, you would get these points. Nobody really knew what the prize was or the points. It was a little bit of a weird idea.

But I will tell you, there were so many people looking for this doll and snapping the photos and coming up and saying, "Hey, it's the breakout session. Instead of going and getting a Diet Coke, I'm looking for the doll. I can't see it. Are you sure your people put it out?" And on day two we had to stop the conference and put up a poster, a wanted poster, because the little doll had been stolen.

And we couldn't do it. And so we had to stop everything and put a wanted poster, and we had to address the audience that we needed the safe return of this doll. And the audience, I mean, half of them were appalled, the other half had this smile on like, "Ah, somebody stole the doll." And then the n- at lunchtime all people could talk about was who stole the doll, and by the end of lunch the doll magically appeared again and he went on his merry way to get hidden, and people took the pictures.

And so by day three you had people going, "When are you gonna announce the winner? Did, did the doll... Who, who's got the most points?" And something as stupid and as simple, it cost us nothing to do that. 

[00:31:36] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:31:37] Charlie: But it allowed people in between very serious topics on stage and long, you know, butts in chairs and awkward business dinners, it gave them a shared conversation and a shared- Yeah

experience that allowed them to bond. And so that, I would say it's not hard to do what we're talking about. It could be as impactful. We did an event where Hugh Jackman was our, um, our featured keynote, and you got to go into a green room and take pictures with him and meet him. And I would say that people had as much fun meeting Hugh Jackman as they did looking for this little doll.

[00:32:12] Eric: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:12] Charlie: So just being really thoughtful. It's not always the big, big stuff. It's sometimes it's just thinking through what does the experience deliver. 

[00:32:20] Eric: And I really like the idea because I think with conferences, the big, big challenge is getting people to talk to each other, and there's people who've been there 50 times, and there's people who are newcomers to those conferences.

And what you've done is created a space where they can have a very level set conversation about the same thing. They're all concerned about the same thing. So I love that part of it. 

[00:32:41] Charlie: And the other way to judge anything that you're doing right now, um, whether you're on a Zoom call, a webinar, a conference, or even a screening, we'll do screenings of our documentaries or something, and I'll look around the room, and all I care about is who's doing this while they're watching my doc, right?

Mm-hmm. And so if you're at a conference, and there's a speaker on, and you look out at your audience, and they're checking their email, something's wrong. Yeah. And so part of doing things like the doll or, uh, different things like that are to keep people focused on the experience when their brain is trained to look down at their phone- Which is-

which is more and more what's happening. 

[00:33:17] Eric: Yeah. That's, uh, it's hard to compete with the phone. I know that that's affecting every generation almost at this point. Um, again, remember back in the day, you'd go stand in line at the dentist or at the, you know, wherever, and everybody would kind of look around and start chatting and all that stuff.

You don't see that happening anymore. Yeah. Everybody just goes down on their phone. Nobody really talks to each other. You talked about scripting the journey, the emotional journey, and this gets a little bit more into what you're talking about with this doll. Uh, h- go deeper into what you mean by scripting a journey over the course of a two or three-day conference.

What does that mean? 

[00:33:52] Charlie: You really need to think about your audience, and I would say I script books like this. I script, you know, anything is think about if that conference starts at 9:00 in the morning or if it starts at 1:00 in the afternoon, the person entering that conference has a different lived experience.

Mm-hmm. In the morning, maybe they're still tired. Maybe they're still hungover. Maybe they haven't had enough coffee. Maybe they just dropped their kids off to school. Their mind's fragmented. They're late. It's running, but they look perfect because they just got out of the house. At 1:00, they maybe have already had a long, tiring day.

They're hungry. They haven't had lunch. They don't feel their best 'cause they've lived a, you know, a certain day. So, like, how are they entering, just that energy will change how receptive they are, whether it's a conference, a book marketing event, uh, you know, or even a cocktail hour at a networking. So really thinking through, uh, we did an event in New York a couple of days ago, and the event was 2:00 to 5:00 in New York I mean, that's a rough time to throw an event, 2:00 to 5:00.

Yeah. People just wanna go home or you're interrupting their day. So part of what we wanted to make sure is they were coming in for a two-hour presentation on some heady stuff around AI So we went out of our way to make, uh, handheld, very small little cups, uh, very unobtrusive size. This is how crazy you have to be.

And some of them were filled with s- candy, and some were filled with nuts, and some were filled with both, because sometimes all you need is a sweet or salty pick-me-up. We were really conscious of the type of candy that was in there. No chocolate, 'cause nobody wants melted anything on their hands. Nothing that would leave oil, stuff that was visually entertaining, because the other thing is sometimes they need this pick-me-up, but they're not trying to go grab a cup of coffee to sit in.

Yeah. And so we did have coffee. We did have Diet Coke. But we also had these very small, you could palm them in your hand and sit and not draw attention to yourself if you wanted to just wake up a little bit during the conference. Um, when they left the, uh, two-hour thing, we wanted them to stay for an hour to network, so we had little charcuterie, uh, there that you could walk around with that was unobtrusive, that wouldn't make you feel like you're stuffing your face while you're talking to everyone.

[00:36:10] Eric: Uh, yeah. 

[00:36:11] Charlie: Um, we positioned enough space that people could walk down and still, you know, walk away from the event a little bit and still feel connected. But, you know, if, if they're an introvert, they needed a little bit of reset time. So being really conscious of how people experience something, uh, is important, and that could come to, a lot of times people don't emcee an event.

They just put a speaker up and a speaker up. Sometimes you need an emcee to, like- Yeah ... give people levity or give people room, you know? And so if you were to, um... The ul- the other thing I do is I put the, all events on a timeline, and I go, "People can't feel a certain way for too long." So if it's very heady or very, you know, you're going deep into the future of AI is gonna put everyone out of business, and then now that head trash that you're learning, we need a moment of levity.

We need 20 minutes of something fun or interesting or bright. And films are like that too. Mm-hmm. When you watch, um, a very dark film, you don't realize why you're tired after. It's because you've just sat literally looking at a dark screen, very heavy stuff. When you see a film you love, even if it's a dramatic one, you remember it a lot differently when there's those moments where you just laugh out loud.

Yeah. And so I think that's an important thing for people to think about in their own experience, whether it's a business meeting you're throwing for a client, uh, or a podcast or a book. To me it's, are you aware of who's experiencing you, and are you conscious of how they're gonna experience it? 

[00:37:42] Eric: Well, I think it's interesting you bring up the timing thing, and I like, a- and I've experienced this before on planning events, uh, some of the things that I've been working on too.

When we- plan events, you really have to look at, like, what happens, how do people feel after breakfast? How do they feel after lunch? How do they feel in the afternoon? And I like what you did with the kinda understanding, like, that 2:00 to 5:00 is a tough time. Talk a little bit more strategically about, like, w- how you might script something that starts at 9:00 AM.

The first, first speaker's, let's say, kickoff is 9:30 or something like that. How would you pace out that day? Just, I mean, would we go until 5:00 or 6:00? Would you, do you feel like you need to end earlier? Get into the details. Like, how, how would you do, let's say it's a two-day conference. 

[00:38:27] Charlie: Those are all great questions, and I don't think that there's a formula, right?

There's not, like, here's the, the playbook, my playbook that you would do. Yeah. I think, one, building in movement is really important, and you can do it in very silly ways. You know, some people are gonna wanna put on a dance party song and have everyone dancing for the first five minutes at 9:00 and get groovy.

Some audiences love that, some audiences are like, "Dude, I haven't had coffee. I'm not jumping up and dancing. I'm not doing it," right? Other times it can be as simple as, you know, we've done things where everyone gets... They sit down, we're about to announce the first speaker, and maybe the emcee looks out to the audience and says, "Hey, we gotta do a shuffle.

If, if you've got short hair, you gotta get up and move to the table to the left of you." Whatever, right? Oh, okay. And get people to move, 'cause a lot of times people will sit in their known spaces next to the people they always sit with. But then people start being curious. "Well, why do I have to move?" Well, they don't know exactly.

Maybe it's linked to the speaker coming on stage. Maybe there's something special there. Um, or movement could be, "Hey, guys, you sat down. Before we jump into the programming, there's a little envelope on the table in front of you. Take the envelope out. There's a note in there. Right now, write down the word that you want to feel at the end of this next hour And then put it into envelope.

And they're like, "Okay." And some people will be like, "Not bored. Done, happy, elated," right? And so it gets them to just in their head move a little bit, right? 'Cause you need to wake them up before you just put them into programming. Yeah. And that's another way this movement forces them to put down their phone, to put down the notepad, to stop the conversation that they might be having with their person that they're gonna talk about business and not pay attention.

So being really intentional in the morning about making people wake up and stop and listen to what's about to happen. 

[00:40:19] Eric: Hmm. 

[00:40:19] Charlie: The other thing I've learned, which is a very concrete tip, people are not loving surprises. As much as, and we do an immersive, a three-day event where every moment is a surprise.

Nobody's allowed to know what's happening next. 

[00:40:31] Eric: Wow. 

[00:40:32] Charlie: And there are some people that are like, "That's so cool." Most people don't like it. They wanna know what's going on. Mm-hmm. They wanna know if they're wearing the right clothes. They wanna know when they're gonna eat next. They wanna know should they go to the bathroom now or wait till later?

What are they gonna miss? Do they need to take notes? Should they have a pad and paper? They have all these questions, and so sometimes you have to give people a forward look at what they're about to experience in a way that they feel settled and calm, and like, "Okay, I'm in it to win it." 'Cause otherwise they spend the conference wondering, "What's next?

When can I get out of here? When am I gonna eat?" And so taking those distractions away I think are really important. Um, I think if you're throwing something in the evening, I think it's always, um, a really good idea to Give somebody something to look forward to after this thing is over. 

[00:41:21] Eric: Hmm. 

[00:41:21] Charlie: Always assume that people don't wanna be there.

You know? Just 'cause they're coming to the conference doesn't mean that their boss didn't make them, right? 

[00:41:29] Eric: Right. 

[00:41:29] Charlie: So is there some sort of something that they're gonna look forward to at the end of the talk, the lecture, the s- you know, the workshop? Is that a cocktail hour? Is that a casino night? Is that, um, a dinner?

We've done things, um, that, that I think get highly rated when s- let's say you have 100 people in your company coming to this. Instead of throwing a dinner for 100 people in a hotel ballroom where everyone gets chicken or steak, and then you can mingle around tables, we've done things where we broke up those 100 people into groups of 10, and at 5:00, you get a mystery text, and you're just to show up at this restaurant, and you're gonna see who you get to eat with that night.

Right. Right? And so at 5:00, everyone looks, and they get a link. They go, and it's a restaurant we've picked for them, and then nine other people show up, and that's their dinner party. And then when they come back to the hotel, there's a cocktail mixer, and everyone's talking about which restaurant they went to- Mm-hmm

who they sat to, how they got there. I had Moroccan. I had Italian. And now that cocktail hour is highly activated because- Oh ... we removed the awkward, "I got the hotel chicken and broccoli dish, and I had to sit at my ta- table 10," you know? Nice. 

[00:42:43] Eric: So 

[00:42:43] Charlie: little things like that. 

[00:42:44] Eric: How do you address, then, differences, though, when you talk about your audience, th- and there's different age groups too, and I know that, you know, the younger prefer this, and the older ones prefer that.

Like, do you engineer it around that dynamic or that, um- 100% ... psychographic a little bit? Or it doesn't matter? If... 

[00:43:01] Charlie: Yes, 100%. If I'm involved in planning your event, we talk through all of these things. 

[00:43:07] Eric: Mm-hmm. 

[00:43:07] Charlie: Um, a- a- and you have to. And I think when you create something, whether it's a book or a podcast, you have to ask, like, who is this for?

And if you- Yeah ... the more niche you get, the better the experience, but if you've got a mixed audience and you're talking to 80-year-olds and 18-year-olds, you have to address that. You have to build in for that and create spaces for both. And the content, you know, generation to generation, is important, too.

You know? Mm-hmm. What my 22-year-old cares about and knows about is different than what my 60-year-old girlfriend knows about. You know? I'm now at that place where I can legitimately use the word Rolodex, and half the room doesn't know what I'm talking about. 

[00:43:50] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:43:51] Charlie: And so really being intentional about the experience you're giving, um, is key.

And that sometimes, especially in an event, whether it's a bookstore event and you're talking about an in-conversation partner or a corporate event, am I choosing the right speaker? Did I bring Mel Robbins on stage 'cause she's so popular? I will tell you, my kids could care less who she is, right? 

[00:44:14] Eric: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. 

[00:44:15] Charlie: But other people would be super impressed. And at the same time, a lot of times event planners go with the safe. Well, my client will like this because it's safe- Mm ... it's proven, we know the quality. Sometimes you wanna go and get something that's really great but unexpected and maybe not as well known.

And, um, talking to the younger generation, you'll discover, you know, really incredible experiences and people that you may never think is a safe bet to book, but once you get them out there on stage, your audience then reacts differently. 'Cause now the older audience is seeing something new for the first time.

The younger audience feels like you're really dialed into what's important to them. So it- there's an art form to it. 

[00:44:56] Eric: Yeah, and it's really a challenge. I've got, uh, uh, kids in their early 20s myself, and it's, the, the channels and the influences that they get are completely different, and their star, you know, characters or, or people that they relate to and, and listen to and watch all the time- People in my generation have never heard of them, don't even know how to find them.

You know, and it's a totally different... It's so bifurcated now. You know, back when I was a kid, it was like, "What's on TV? What's on the radio?" There you go. Everybody knows all the pop stars and all the different music and all the different, you know, movies that are out there. Now, content is so spread out and so thin that you've got these little tribes of, you know...

And it doesn't, and sometimes it's not even by age, it's just by interest. And, and- Mm-hmm ... you know, how do you address some of that? Like, when you look at, like, different industries, outline a little bit about all the different industries that you deal with. Is it a wide range? Is it just kind of this focus?

Or 

[00:45:59] Charlie: how do you- No, it's, um, it's a great question. In my line of work, uh, it's a little schizophrenic. Uh- Okay ... you know, one of our longest running clients is th- I would argue the premier assisted living memory care provider in the country. 

[00:46:11] Eric: Hmm. 

[00:46:11] Charlie: And so I spend my days talking about, you know, Alzheimer's and memory care and- Hmm

housing laws and longevity and things like that. Um, we represent people like Kelcey Knight, who was, you know, a cheerleader and on E! News and has been on the LadyGang podcast forever. Hmm. And she's very red carpet Hollywood, and so sometimes you're talking about that. We have amazing lawyers that change the foster care system.

We've got people that are talking about the future of work, um, legitimately, uh, doctors, uh, mental skills coaches for the biggest football teams you've ever heard of. 

[00:46:50] Eric: Hmm. 

[00:46:51] Charlie: Um, a lot of business leaders that are trying to do something in the world, not just business, but do something. So a lot of philanthropy, um, based projects.

A lot of mothers. You know, there's a, is a big thing is female leaders really trying to usher the next generation of mothers so that mothers can raise children and do great business. 

[00:47:11] Eric: Hmm. 

[00:47:12] Charlie: Um, we represent two children's authors that have written books before the age of 10. Um- Wow ... we represent, um, some singers, independent music singers.

So going back to why we started this, it's are you trying to do good in the world? And I don't care if I agree with your politics or not. Is what you're trying to do good? 'Cause I'm not gonna silence you necessarily. There are certain people we wouldn't take on, but we have one client I've had forever, um, and- He, his politics and I do not align.

Uh, his, um, view on guns ownership and I do not align. Um, but he is doing more for veteran mental health- Mm ... than anyone I could imagine on an annual basis. So I will support his amplification because I think mental health for veterans is really important, and the fact that we don't agree on gun control is irrelevant.

And so in that sense, um, we don't have any boundaries. It's more about can we amplify good people trying to do good in the world, and that's how it becomes so, um, non-category specific. 

[00:48:22] Eric: Yeah, that's interesting, 'cause usually people, uh, I would imagine, come to you because you do this for this industry specific, and it sounds like it's- 

[00:48:32] Charlie: I did that

[00:48:33] Eric: at all. 

[00:48:33] Charlie: I did a lot for the fish oil industry. So 

[00:48:38] Eric: that's where I, uh- But you've handed your crown over to somebody else now. Yeah, exactly. So they can ascend to the, uh, levels that you were at. That's pretty exciting. Now let's talk a little bit about AI. Um, 'cause I, like I said before, we need to, I think that this is gonna be a consistent, uh, the AI corner we'll call it.

And, uh- Yeah ... you need to talk a little bit about that. 

[00:48:59] Charlie: I mean, it's such a big topic and an evolving one, and I think- Yeah ... the first thing that everyone needs to understand is that everyone is an AI expert. Ask them. Um, and, you know, I think that that is something everyone needs to be really aware of, is that everyone out there, just like when computers first came out, everyone was a computer expert.

[00:49:19] Eric: Sure. 

[00:49:19] Charlie: During the pandemic, everyone was a, you know, a book author expert. So we're just at the very beginning, and I think a lot of people have solid opinions on AI, and they're like, "This is what it's gonna do for us." Or this is why I like it, or this is why I don't, or this is how I use it, or this is the best form.

Yeah. I, I think we are all babies in this AI pool, and every day it's changing. Um, I think there are serious conversations around how it should be used and how it should be governed, and when does it make us lazy humans and when does it make us dangerous humans? So I, I think the first thing that people need to know AI in business, do I think it's going to change the job force?

1,000%. Even as a business owner now, I have to watch my temperament because when somebody on my team or a vendor is doing something slow or inefficient, my first thought is, "Oh, I bet a robot could do it quicker and faster." "Let me go there." Right? Yeah. And when you're a business owner, at the end of the day it's a bottom line conversation.

Yeah. And so I have to constantly put myself in check and say, "Wait a minute. There's a reason we have humans doing this. Let me think through it." Got it. Um, I do think, again, from a brand reputation standpoint, whether it's personal or your business, you need to be super conscious about how it's affecting, um, your s- your own Google search.

Yeah. What people are finding about you, interpreting, 'cause nobody's really going to Google anymore. They're going to chat. Yeah. They're going to AI mode, and those AI systems are trained to, again, make you happy, the person searching, not necessarily tell the truth, um, even though you're using true facts.

But even in how people are buying paid advertising, if you're still using, you know, Google AdWords and SEO to drive leads to your business, you are probably missing out a lot because AI search has taken over in a different way. 

[00:51:17] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:51:17] Charlie: Yeah. So you need to, I think as a business owner, ask yourself, "How is AI impacting my business right now, or how could it?"

And have that conversation before you decide if it's good or bad, right? And then, um- Really harness the, the stuff that's working. Like, where can you be more efficient because of AI? I'm a big fan of efficiency. Um, where can it help you be a better communicator? 'Cause sometimes, especially as business owners, even to our own team, we communicate how we wanna communicate, and that doesn't- Yeah

necessarily translate how they wanna hear it. So in those cases, I think it can be a really valuable tool. Um, I'm lucky enough to represent some of the biggest thought leaders in AI, and so I get to hear conversations about the future. Hmm. And I'm pretty excited about it. Um, do I think that Erin Brockovich has some valid points around her data centers and the environment?

Ab- absolutely. Am I hopeful that AI is gonna help us solve those issues faster, and help with cancer, and all those things? I do. Um, but we're in this weird space and place right now, and so I think we all have to kind of be really conscious of what we're doing. Um, but in the business and branding space, the biggest trap for AI is that you stay who you were and not who you want to be, and so that's where you have to be really conscious of how you're using it and how it's representing you to other people.

[00:52:47] Eric: And what do you mean by that? Unpack that just a little bit, because I've heard that from a lot of people. But, uh, the, like the actual step-by-step, what, what do you do to, I guess, check yourself or check your use or your team's use of AI? Get a little bit more into the, uh, granular on that. 

[00:53:03] Charlie: Well, one example would be this podcast, right?

I haven't been on podcasts in maybe eight years. I stopped doing it when I started this business. I was head down and, and I don't need to be on it, and we're lucky enough to have plenty of lead flow, and so why would I do podcasts? Well- 

[00:53:20] Eric: Yeah ... 

[00:53:21] Charlie: part of the reason that I'm doing podcasts is I need the internet to know who I am today.

[00:53:25] Eric: Mm. Mm-hmm. '

[00:53:26] Charlie: Cause if you just go, all you'll hear is the podcast I did 10 years ago about Fish Wheel, right? Mm-hmm. And so if people are searching me, I need the internet to know that I've evolved as a person, and I need the internet to know what we're doing as a person. Yeah. Otherwise, it doesn't matter who I am, it just matters who chat told you I am.

[00:53:43] Eric: Interesting. 

[00:53:43] Charlie: And so very specifically, I think people need to understand what's out there on them. And so maybe you don't do podcasts, but maybe you should start publishing op-ed articles, or maybe you should start, um, running different kinds of ads because you need to make sure that the information is current.

We spend a lot of time, um, helping clients get Google panels, and the, one of the simplest step to get a Google knowledge panel is that your biography has to be the same in all the places, like LinkedIn and your website- Uh-huh ... and all these things, right? Yeah. And so if you think just at the smallest level- And actually, now that I'm saying this out loud, I don't know if I go to my LinkedIn right now if my bio is accurate.

It might still say what I did for a living 10 years ago, right? 

[00:54:28] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:54:28] Charlie: So part of, um, AI can help you in a lot of ways, but you have to help AI, right? You have to tell it- Yeah ... what you want people to say about you. And that is where, um, you know, you can have paid accounts in chat, you can, um, put more organic content out there.

You can, um, AI amplify the copy on your website, make it shorter, sweeter, those kind of things. But you really, again, going back to the storytelling, what story do you want AI search to tell people when they search you up? And that's gotta be the intentional part. Um, there's a lot of, you know, people are using Claude in their business now, and they're telling their teams everyone gets this many minutes a month and, and use them Um, people are using Copilot.

Everyone's started- starting to adopt what feels good for them. I think that AI works as good as you train it to be. Mm-hmm. And so having a meeting with your team and saying, "What do we wanna train our AI to do for us?" That's probably step one. 

[00:55:29] Eric: Yeah. I think that... I, I love that you've touched on a lot of points there, and in a sense, this is a very meta conversation because you were talking about your LinkedIn.

Of course, that's where, you know, our team goes to research our guests and look at things, and so it's funny how ... And we use AI for helping us, you know, consolidate, condense. We love to have genuine conversations, but it's great to use the tools then to go back, analyze, take a look at things. Yeah. What other tips and tools other than training AI, which I think everybody's, uh, pretty much understanding that, that, you know, you can put in junk and it'll spit out junk too.

But other than training, what other... Are you're, are you playing other language models off of each other, chat, bot? Oh, 

[00:56:14] Charlie: 100%. I, I probably... And I'm a huge user of AI. Um, it makes me faster and more dangerous. You know? Mm. I think smart people who have, uh, a lot of skills, if you give them efficiency tools, they can do a lot more smart things faster, and so- Yeah

I'm very aware of that. I'll give you a very quick example. I'm going on a cruise in December with my family. We're going on Virgin Voyages, Richard Branson's cruise line, and he has this very swanky chatbot on the website, and the chatbot will come up, and it'll give you all sorts of great branded conversation.

And I was trying to, like, upgrade my room, and it was telling me all these reasons I should do it, and this, that. I copy and pasted that conversation in real time into Perplexity, and I said- Oh ... "What's wrong with this conversation?" And then Perplexity's like, "Oh, he's not telling you that if you wait until day five of the cruise that you get this 25% blah, blah, blah."

And I said, "Great. Give me an answer." And then Perplexity scripted an answer for me and went back, and I pasted it into the Richard Branson Virgin Voyages chatbot, and it created a different conversation. Oh. And I did that for five minutes in real time and to make sure that I was getting the best of what I wanted, but I didn't have to go search 55 pages in a substack- 

[00:57:30] Eric: Yeah

[00:57:30] Charlie: you know, um, to figure it out. So there's little things like that. Um, we use in our company, uh, a project management system called ClickUp. ClickUp has a great, uh, AI tool in there called Brain. It's works better the more you put into ClickUp. So something so basic is to tell the team, "Listen, if you're in there, you need to put a date and time on every task," because then the program can literally say to you, "Guys, you're overworked.

Hey, you've overscheduled. Hey, there's a dependency here." And when we, we have, you know, dozens and dozens of clients, so to manage everyone's tour schedule, everyone's book launch, everyone's film drop, my schedule, putting it in there. And so part of our success as a company is that we have to become more diligent about having conversations and saying, "Nope, not I'll get it next week.

When next week? Tuesday at 1:00." That goes into our project management system, then the Brain comes back and goes, "Guys, you can't do it next week Tuesday at 1:00- Mm ... and here's five reasons you can't." 

[00:58:33] Eric: Interesting. 

[00:58:33] Charlie: Right? Yeah. So really figuring out how that you can use that. Um, the other thing is AI is so detectable- 

[00:58:42] Eric: Yeah

[00:58:46] Charlie: We will do something, let's say, to do a research project in Perplexity. I then might put it into, um, Chat, because Chat writes differently, it thinks a little bit differently. And then I will go to Grammarly and say, "Gosh, is this even English?" Right? Yeah. Before I even look at it. Sure. And then Grammarly has its suggestions and moves the commas, and then I will move it into a Word document and let it settle and then read it, and then, um, decide, is this, is this getting the information across that I want it to?

And then I move it into an AI writing program that I've trained over 400 hours to speak like me. And, um, we're now creating, um, scripted AI, um, clones essentially- Yeah ... that can talk like me, act like me, speak like me. Um, and so the more that you train it and feed it the stuff and literally go back and go, "I would never say that.

I would always use the word groovy." It will start to, you know, uh, do that. And so you can't just go into an AI program and say, "Write me up a blog on branding," and go, "Ooh, look, that's pretty," and then you stick it on LinkedIn. Like, that's not how it works, and that's not how your team should work. And I think as business leaders, you have to be really conscious that your team is using AI and how and how is that affecting your brand.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, those are... It's, it's a wild, wild west right now, but- 

[01:00:12] Eric: It, it's interesting, just to take it further, uh, and a suggestion back to you, one of the things that I do when I'm writing blogs a- or emails or other reports or things like that is I've got a tool on my phone called Speechify. I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but it basically is a very natural language reader.

And I know that there's a ton of them out there, but I've found that this one works the best. And I'll listen to a blog that I've written or had AI help me write versus the way you're doing it, back and forth, back and forth, test it, and listen to it and have it read to you. And if it sounds funky or weird, I scrap whatever that is and make notes within it that way.

So it's almost taking it to the next level where, does this sound like a robot talking? Does it sound like me talking? And I hope that it gets much more of that genuine me inside of that. But, um- 

[01:01:04] Charlie: That's, that's awesome ... just another way to do it. Yeah. O- one other t- so similarly, we all record our calls on Zoom, right?

Pretty much everyone- Yeah ... does that now. So I will have almost every call on Zoom transcribed, and I'll feed that into an AI- Mm-hmm ... and I'll say, "Remove the babble and feed me back- Hmm ... the deliverables." And- That does a great job. It'll write an email for me. It'll do the project management. But because I know I'm gonna do that, when I'm on a call, I'm very intentional of what I say and what I communicate and what I promise, because then I know I can turn that into a working action item after.

Nice. And so my team can take it, clients can take it, and we get it. But you have to go in, and the more and more you do that, it will pick up on how you talk and the words you use and the cadence, but you- but it's also makes you less verbose, which is good. Yeah. People don't wanna hear all that, so. 

[01:02:00] Eric: Droning on and on like I tend to do.

Yep. Well, this has been a great conversation. I think it's probably time we start wrapping it up here. I don't know if you've got anything else you wanted to add. I can go into kind of s- wrap up a couple of questions here. But, uh, this has been really great. Yeah, no, I'm good. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for all the very, uh, dense amount of content and knowledge that you're, you're laying on us here.

I appreciate that and, uh, it should help the robots- ... recognize you back again once this transcript gets loaded on our website. That's all, that's gonna be cool. All right. Um, well this has been a great conversation. Anything else that, anything you're working on right now that's exciting that you could talk about that is cutting edge?

It sounds like you're on the front lines and, and- Oh ... listening in on the AI conversation a lot. Anything else that's getting you- 

[01:02:47] Charlie: Yeah, I mean, I, I, because I work with so, honestly so many amazing people, humans, um, in every walk of life, uh, most of everything I'm working on is exciting to me. The people are exciting.

The work we're doing together is exciting. Um, I'm doing a lot in the longevity space, and so, uh, in longevity we're in the middle of, um, filming a documentary where we're interviewing 100 people over the age of 100- Oh, cool ... trying to distill down what makes longevity possible, and those conversations are incredibly rich.

That will come out later next year. At the same time I'm in a room where the AI scientists that are documented globally as the people who sort of invented AI are saying, "If you can im- i- if you can live 10 years longer from today, you will live 40 years longer easily." That's how fast the AI is improving science and science- Wow

breakthroughs. So here I'm going, well look at that, you know? If I can just- Hmm ... live another 10 years, I'm gonna get another 40. What, what am I gonna do with that 40? So I get excited about, I better get on my game. Um- Yeah. You know, we're doing a lot with selling life story rights. What I love is that content, whether it's Netflix or Hulu or Roku or Amazon, there's just this desire for more and more stories.

And so we are working with, um, peak performance experts on getting their stories into reality shows where you can interact with somebody whose entire life has been spent on how to make, you know, Olympic athletes 1% better. Um, we're doing- Hmm ... uh, documentaries around, again, a lot of women are doing some incredible things, and, um, making motherhood and business simultaneously, um, the same thing, which for me, I started my other agency, you know, when I was, uh, had a six-month-old on my lap, and there was- 

[01:04:46] Eric: Wow

[01:04:46] Charlie: I, nobody even knew I had a kid, 'cause back then that would've been anti-business. So yeah, a lot of things, and there's a lot of cool things happening in the music space, and so we are representing more people in music, um, 'cause that still becomes one of the biggest connectors. 

[01:05:01] Eric: Yeah. 

[01:05:01] Charlie: And, um, and then really helping people go into this immersive experience, like that's the other thing.

So any day of the week, um- You know, we're throwing an event somewhere for some client, and really helping people do that, uh, i- is exciting. Right now, I can leave you with this, if anybody in your audience has a solution, I'm doing an event now, and what I envision is that during the event we're gonna have an A-list celebrity talent on stage.

They're gonna be riveting. But in the middle of the event, I want a drone to fly in over the audience and drop little packages onto the table in mid-speech. 

[01:05:42] Eric: Oh, my God. 

[01:05:42] Charlie: And there'll be some very cool thing. I've done... talked to these, uh, drone operators, and the challenge is if you're not Amazon, the drones can fly in and do this, but they don't have a little claw.

So I'm in the middle of figuring out how can I DIY a claw onto a video drone- ... that will release. And there's all sorts of aerodynamics around the weight of the claw and the weight of the package and the size of the drone. So I have, um, three months to figure it out, 'cause it doesn't currently exist like that unless you're 

[01:06:11] Eric: Amazon.

And that's a little insight into the creative mind of, uh, Charlie Fusco. That is, uh... Sounds like you're putting a lot of thought into making these experiences super unique, which is probably why you're having such success all over. Um, it's been really in- intriguing to talk to you and hear some of the things that you- Well, thank 

[01:06:35] Charlie: you

uh, have been working 

[01:06:35] Eric: on, and the problems that you're trying to solve, and champion, you know, and bring voice to, and amplify, like you said. It's very respectable, and it's exciting to hear those stories. Where can people find you? Uh, TGC Worldwide. What... Give me some LinkedIn. Where, where would, where would you like people- Yeah.

[01:06:53] Charlie: I, I'm almost worried to send people to LinkedIn. I don't know if my bio's updated. Um, tgcworldwide.com is, uh, where my world is, so you can go there. And I'm on, um, any social channel under Charlie Fusco. But, uh, yeah, I think those are the easiest ways. I'm pretty easy to find, actually. 

[01:07:10] Eric: Very good. And hopefully after this podcast it'll be even easier to find.

[01:07:14] Charlie: Aw, thank you. 

[01:07:16] Eric: It's been great talking to you. Thank you so much, Charlie. 

[01:07:19] Charlie: You too. Thanks, Eric.

[01:07:23] Eric: Thanks

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