Transcript:

CJ Cruz:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Values Proposition, a podcast for entrepreneurs, creators, and leaders who strive to build values-driven grams. My name is CJ Cruz Pronouns. He, they, and I live in Austin, Texas.

Hank Paul:
And I'm Hank Paul. My pronouns are they them, and I live in Sydney, Australia. Each episode we'll chat about topics that matter in your business, work identity and wellbeing to empower you to lead with your values and go beyond the bottom line.

CJ Cruz:
So go ahead and hit that subscribe button and let's dive in.

Hank Paul:
Hey, listeners, so today's episode is a little bit of a chaotic start, and that's just because we were having a conversation and all of a sudden I realized, oh, this is our podcast episode. So I just hit record as CJ was answering a question that I'd asked. Uh, I don't remember what the question was, but you'll pick up the context pretty quick. There's heaps of really good valuable stuff. We chat about ai, we chat about our business, how we're pivoting. Yeah, we had a lot of fun. It's a good chat. So, enjoy...

...

CJ Cruz:
...And I think this is a lot of things like entrepreneurs face in general. There's that need for stability, for financial stability, and then oftentimes like this passion for, you know, doing that thing that makes an impact. And it's, it's navigating that space of like, okay, this is what I want to be doing. And at the same time, this is the reality that I live in now, and there's this chasm and I'm going through this like phase of really asking myself, how do I build a lifestyle that's closer to alignment? And in a way it's like going to the chiropractor. You don't just go there and then boom, all of a sudden you're like back is straight and magically healed. It's like the adjustments over time on a consistent basis and just doing it and going through this rebrand is this moment of alignment, of realignment, of saying, okay, this is what we've been doing. This is the status quo. Um, where do we move closer to where our values are at, where our heart is at? And, and yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

Hank Paul:
Okay. So that's some really lovely esoteric thoughts and I love to hear it, but I'm also like, but what are you doing? What's, what's that mean practically for you? You, ooh, you're talking about balancing

CJ Cruz:
Follow up

Hank Paul:
<laugh>? Well, I'm just like, yeah, you're talking a big talk, but like, just genuinely curious. What are you actually doing about it? Yeah.

CJ Cruz:
One thing that I've been doing about it is every day I've been challenging myself to kind of have and learn conversations with AI and on different AI platforms. Like there's chat, C b T, there's Jasper, friend of the show, Jasper <laugh>, friend of the show, Jasper. There's, you know, the Google, um, oh, what do they call it? The Google, I don't know, version Bard, Google. Bard. Bard, yeah. Um, and then, and then Snapchat has their own Snap ai and I've kind of been like, whoa, I didn't know about that one. Yeah, Snapchat, I actually find theirs to be kind of interesting cuz it feels like you're having a conversation with a friend. At least that's how I've approached it, um, to, to go through this like listening and reflecting phase of, of my own like self and identifying my own needs. And I mean, even talking about it here with you is, is helping me be like, okay, this is what I want to do.

CJ Cruz:
This is where I'm at. So on a day-to-day basis that looks like, well, it's one been kind of recent, so it's not like this has been going on for a long time. Mm-hmm. But I think it's mapping out on paper, and I messaged you a lot of it, like what Lis vision is, and it's has to do with one re, I don't wanna say relaunching, but like being a bit more intentional about the entrepreneurship community and connecting with other entrepreneurs. Um, adding that to the, the work that we're already going to be doing with like the values proposition of like, how do we engage and bring, um, more outside thought leaders and kind of have this melting pot of advocating for owned brands and also, um, experts outside of, you know, our, our community, our community to add add value to that.

CJ Cruz:
So it's one doing that valley's work. Two, I've been looking into what type of brand physical tics brand would I build if I don't want to build it. And so I've been doing, for the most part, like market research and a lot of my conversations actually with like these AI tools as saying, okay, this is the criteria of a brand that I would want to build. Something that where there's market need that is, um, a consumable good, can be subscription based, has healthy margins, and there's an underserved community component around it. Um, here's X, Y, Z ideas, what do we think? And then listing out asking it like, okay, what are, who are the competitors in this space? Sure, yeah. What does the market look like? Um, what are the alternatives? Tell me about, you know, how you would position this or is this a good idea or not? Yeah. And kind of just having these open-ended questions as if I, you know, were talking to a team or a business mentor, but just doing it with <laugh>. All my AI buddies,

Hank Paul:
I've been using AI a lot lately as well for really similar questioning about this is who my target market is, what, what are they afraid of? Um, you know, what, what's their biggest desire mm-hmm. <affirmative> or, you know, what's a gap in the market here? And um, literally just before we got on the call, I was doing an exercise where I was trying to, um, figure out like in terms of what the outcomes of my online course are and how I'm promising, you know, certain specific external outcomes. And it's like, what are the internal outcomes that flow on from that? And so like the follow up question of, you know, so one external outcome would be book your first LGBTQ plus client through my course, right? Like, that's just a very basic specific outcome that someone could get from doing my course. And so then I say, and then what does that give them?

Hank Paul:
As in, and I gave some context to AI around like, you know, what does that give them? Meaning, um, how does this speak to their values or what they believe about themselves now that they've got that outcome? So now that you've got that external outcome of booking your first LGBTQ plus client, what else do you get that's more internal? And it's like spitting stuff out. I'm like, ah, this is really great framing really great sales copy, really great. Like understanding the psyche of how I can position my course. And so like what does it get them when they book, uh, their first LGBTQ plus client is like, they actually feel connected to our community and they feel like they're actually making a positive contribution to the community. Um, you know, I've got other things like a specific outcome and I'm focused on specific outcomes. So a specific outcome of doing my course is master saying the lgbtqia a plus acronym out loud. You know, like it's very basic stuff, but it's like, what does that get them will, that gets them feeling more confident when they talk about their allyship and it gets them understanding the, the language that we use in our community. And so, you know, things like that that AI has really helped me to solidify and, and clarify. So I love that. Like, we've both been using AI and maybe this is an episode about how to use AI to, you know, uh, relaunch a brand, but, um, yeah, a anyway, so you,

CJ Cruz:
It goes there. That's where it goes <laugh>, because in a way that's what we're doing. Like yeah, when we were talking just last week about, you know, repositioning profit on the margins to the values proposition, which FYI audience, if you're sticking around with us, that's

Hank Paul:
What we're doing. Really launching

CJ Cruz:
Profit on the margins to the values proposition. We, you know, we went through an exercise of like, okay, well how, what do we envision? What does our audience look like? Like how do we use this platform to serve others and also help our own brands and initiatives and dreams? And, and it's really amazing just like how, like we didn't have this resource a year ago, two years ago. Like this is literally just in the past couple of months and just the feedback and perspective from, you know, the internet, but summarized in a way that's digestible has just been super helpful. And at least for me, you know, it's, it's not a take it at face value, but it's, here's a way to then have a deeper conversation or here's a different way to think about it that you might not have been thinking about it and then, you know, actually have those conversations. Mm-hmm.

Hank Paul:
<affirmative>. Yeah. Yeah. I think like, and this is, you know, we had an idea of what we might talk about on this episode, but it's just turned into this, which is great cuz I just hit record as we were chatting <laugh>, but

CJ Cruz:
Well, this is the episode now.

Hank Paul:
This is, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not, we're not coming back from this, but I was just like, this is, I think like the framing of this is how you and I are using AI to build our values driven businesses because essentially, you know, if you are new to the show and welcome to the show, uh, we are each kind of doing our own projects and things that we work on individually, but then we come together on this podcast and we chat about that and that this is kind of a joint project between the two of us to serve our respective target market and audiences and community. So yeah, I think like AI is absolutely, and, and you know, I think to be really clear as well, often when I'm putting in prompts for ai, I will tell them, I will tell it things about me that I want it to know that are values based.

Hank Paul:
Yeah. Like for example, when I talk about my brand voice, cuz I'll say like, oh, can you write an email, blah, blah, blah, using my brand voice and then I specify my brand voice and literally a line in my brand voice is I am inclusive and therefore it knows that when it's pumping out copy, that that's part of my brand voice is that I'm inclusive. So it's probably not gonna use gendered language. I mean, and sometimes it might and I'll fix that, but yeah, so it's like throwing my values into the prompts to ensure that they're reflected back in the, in the, uh, outcome or output.

CJ Cruz:
No, I think that's a good point that you made. Like you don't just ask, I mean, you can, you can ask, you know, chat pt, all these AI tools, just generic questions, but I think where you really find value is if you give it the context behind the question whether for you it's, these are my values, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you talk more about, you know, your situation or just feed it more information, um, to help it understand where you're coming from Yeah.

Hank Paul:
Or who you're speaking to, because sounds like creepy, these are my values, right? But then these are my customer's values. This is what they care about as well. Yes, yes. And, and so yeah, it's always obviously dependent on what the prompt is, but yeah, keeping that in mind is, is really helpful for then creating, you know, copy and, and outputs that are on brand still.

CJ Cruz:
Welcome to the new,

Hank Paul:
This is the new show, <laugh>

CJ Cruz:
And more aligned podcast on the values proposition. Um, so Hank let's just like share really quickly like what we'll be talking about, um, for people who may not have listened to the Bridge episode, um, and what are, you know, thoughts and why we did the rebrand.

Hank Paul:
Okay. Why, let's answer, why, well, I first reached out to you and I said, I am having a hard time. Uh, I don't think I said this verbatim, but this is what I was thinking. <laugh>, I'm having a hard time justifying all the energy that I'm putting into our podcast when the podcast itself is not speaking to my ideal customer that I'm trying to build a business for, to serve. And so who I'm trying to serve is I'm actually helping allies who wanna be more inclusive in their business and that, like, I, I have a, an online course that helps people do that. And this podcast has not really been a part of my main, you know, business operations and rather it's just been a really fun side project hobby to do with you, for us to, you know, stay connected. But I said, this is what I'm thinking, I think I'm gonna launch a new podcast that does speak to that audience because I need that content in my like cycle of, you know, how I'm, how I'm connecting with people. And I said, I don't know if you wanna collaborate on that or if it should be separate to our existing podcast, but that's where my head's at. Um, and then I don't know, do you want to, you know, take, take the story from there? What was your processing from

CJ Cruz:
There? Yeah, and I feel like, you know, our podcast, um, up to this point, you know, we kind of started with a strong vision and um, it's always been fun for me just having our fortnightly catch ups. Um, and in a way it kind of was like, okay, we're doing this, but what for again? And I think when you call that out, it's like, okay, we do need this realignment. We do need to say, okay, what are we doing it? Why are we doing it beyond the fun? Like, it is fun, but for you, I think there, there needed to be alignment with your activities and your time and how that translates to, you know, your bottom line and then me and my bigger vision for, you know, this, this community of business brand builders in within the community and outside of it and kind of allowing us to go beyond just talking to and only with like people within our community.

Hank Paul:
Yeah. I don't know if you actually specified, but within our community you're referring to the LGBTQ plus community. Was that something you had already specified, but Yeah, so going

CJ Cruz:
From I'll speci you specified

Hank Paul:
Yeah. Going from a podcast that just speaks to lgbtq plus entrepreneurs and business leaders to going to like impact driven and, and values driven entrepreneurs and business leaders.

CJ Cruz:
Yeah. Yes. So that's like the why. And then the, what we're talking about is, is more on the, you know, we came up with, and we'll be transparent here, like part of it was, uh, assisted by our friends, you know, Jasper and, and whatnot. But, um, it really came down to saying how do we, um, create a podcast for, and I'm reading this verbatim from our, our new podcast hook, um, entrepreneurs, creators and leaders who strive to build successful, inclusive, and ethically driven brands that make an impact. And we'll continue to talk about, you know, topics within business work, identity and wellbeing, but treat it more with a values driven, um, lens.

Hank Paul:
Yeah, absolutely. And having a bigger focus on bringing in other voices, other experts, other perspectives is something that I want much more of. And I think that I've now seen enough of how that's done well and experienced enough of how to make that like manageable within our capacity. So it's now about just like figuring out the best way. But yeah, so I mean, I'm looking into it. I don't think I've told you this, but there's a really great software program called Pod Match, which actually, heck, let's just say, I think they've got an affiliate link. So let's just get one set up and I'll pop it in the show notes. So if you are listening and you want to use this, but essentially Pod match is, um, a program that you kind of put in a little bit about your, you know, your bio and, and maybe what your show is about or as a guest, like what you want to, what your expertise is. And then it will, you know, spurt out some suggestions of who you might connect with and get on their podcast. So I've, um, I've been looking into that and I've actually got a VA currently doing some pod matching for me as a guest on other people's shows, but eventually I think it would be really good to flip it and become the show that receives requests from other people. So yeah, I think like that would be a really good way to manage how to get more diverse voices on the show with us.

CJ Cruz:
Yep. And that's another thing we'll have more guests, hopefully.

Hank Paul:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well let's, let's leave that there. Uh, we have a bunch of different ideas and things we'll talk about in coming episodes, but I think for now we just leave you with a bit of that background and where we're at and it's always really fun to just like share what we're doing and, and like the behind the scenes or, you know, lift the curtain a little bit. I think like that's one of my favorite things about our show and something that I don't see as much in other, uh, business podcasts. So I think we keep doing that as much as we can.

CJ Cruz:
Yeah, we're, we're pretty transparent, y'all. So if you're listening to this in your car and being like, what are these two doing, <laugh>, well, you're part of the journey. Thank you for being here and we hope that this is valuable to you, um, and adds joy to your life and helps you in your brand. Go beyond the bottom line.

Hank Paul:
Hey, man, sister. All right, see you cj. Bye. Thank you for tuning in to the Values Proposition Podcast.

CJ Cruz:
If you found value from this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast. You can also connect with us on social media. I'm everywhere @cjocruz

Hank Paul:
And I'm everywhere @hankpaul.co. Catch you next time.