28 | AI-Powered Marketing: Drew Brucker on Brand & Content Hacks

What happens when you merge AI, branding, and content strategy? Marketing leader Drew Brucker has the answers. As the Head of Brand and Content at Goldcast, he’s helped brands leverage AI for everything from custom visuals to high-impact video marketing. In this episode of AI Marketer's playbook, he shares how startups and enterprises alike can use AI to scale content, empower internal creators, and boost brand differentiation. 
Plus, get his take on where AI-driven creativity is headed—and why curation, not just creation, will be the ultimate skill of the future.

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Transcript

Audrey Chia: 0:00

Hello, and welcome back to the AI Marketers Playbook, where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI and marketing strategies in your business. I'm Audrey Chia, your host, and today I have with me a real treat, a powerhouse guest that I've been waiting to speak to, Drew Barker. Now, Drew has spent the last Decade scaling B2B sales brands driving over 130 million in marketing sourced revenue and leading teams through multiple product launches all while keeping his sanity intact. Now he made the 4 under 40 list by the American Marketing Association. And of course, it's a top 1 percent creator on LinkedIn. Drew has worked with companies like Marriott, Meta, TikTok, Ogilvy and Google leading over 70 Gen AI workshops and launching an exclusive Meet Jenny digital product that has generated more than 52K in passive revenue. Right now, he's also taking on an exciting new role as the head of brand and content at Goldcast, a leading B2B video content creation platform. Now need I say more, Drew, I am so excited to have you on the show.

Drew Brucker: 1:04

Oh man, I am so pumped to be here. That was a great intro and yeah, you and I go way back, you know, like we Cross paths early in the AI movement is I think, you know, like both early adopters and we just kind of took it and ran with it and Yeah, like fast forward a year and a half and we're we're back at it and talking again So i'm excited to catch up. It's been a minute.

Audrey Chia: 1:25

It has been a real minute indeed Now, would you tell us more about your journey? Like how did you get started and because you know, we were both early movers, right? What got you into the whole world of AI?

Drew Brucker: 1:35

Yeah, I, I think I really like quickly recognized just like a lot of us, right? Like how big of a thing this was like, and when, you know, Chachi BT, you know, sort of landed in our laps, right? It was just like, Oh wow, this feels massive and it feels like. I need to be a part of this. I felt compelled. It didn't feel like a chore. It felt like genuine interest and curiosity on my part, which, you know, I try to listen to, and I just kind of dove straight into that. And, you know, the LLM side of that was, was obviously really big. I tried to figure out how I can. Start to use this in my, in my business role, like in my career, in my role as a marketing leader and a B2B SaaS company, but also like just the breadth of Gen AI too, right? Like I love photography. I love creativity. I love design. And so like that whole aspect of being able to create AI imagery from my desk, you know, when I've got. Two kids under the age of three at that time felt awesome, right? Because I didn't have to pack up every, every bit of my gear and plan to drive out somewhere and do photography. It just kind of felt like a chore when that, when that happened and I became a dad, this really opened up the doors to be creative and it didn't require all the resources and logistics with it. Right. I could really just kind of use my imagination. And create anything that I wanted. And so I just don't head first into that. And then I quickly just tried to figure out the practicality and like how I could use it in business. What, what kind of business utility it had? And as you know, right, like there weren't a lot of answers at that time. It was more or less just surrounding yourself with other people like you and others, right. Of just. Sharing ideas. And, you know, as you, as you start to use these tools more and more, you unlock more and more ways to use them. And so that was really the fun part of just kind of like slowly peeling that back.

Audrey Chia: 3:23

Yeah. I love that. I think one thing that I guess both of us really enjoy is experimentation, right? no playbook. So we wrote, there was no playbook.

Drew Brucker: 3:32

Yeah. Throw it out.

Audrey Chia: 3:33

But then also allow you to basically, you know, have an edge over everyone else because you're putting in more hours. Into blending your own creative mind and AI, tell us more about that process, right? Because you, you say you like design photography, how do you blend both worlds together? And what was that process like?

Drew Brucker: 3:50

Yeah, for me, like in startup space, it's, it's more or less like you're wearing all these hats. And, and of course that's the case in a lot of roles, but, I kind of grew up, in. The sports industry. And that was taught to me early on, like nothing, there's nothing that isn't your job, right? If something needs to be done, you just kind of jump in and do it. And that was sort of drilled into me early on. And I've taken that in my career. And so with, with startup world, that can be the case, right? You're always doing something differently. there are so many priorities. And so it just kind of becomes one of those things of like, what feel like the right priorities for today and this week and this month. And those things change and evolve. So. I guess one of the ways I was doing that was, you know, let's, let's go specifically on the AI image gen front was, man, we're in this niche industry and there's no good photography for our industry. So how do we establish a strong brand that feels like you could resonate with it and people could see themselves in their shoes and you just couldn't do it. Right. And so I got to thinking, I'm just like, man, it's so painful. You know, to dig through stock photography, to just try to find something that kind of feels like your brand. And even if you find one image, you got to string together a bunch of images that feel like you. And guess what? Somebody else could be using those same images. Flip flip side of that. As, as somebody that was leading the marketing team, it's like, I also managed the budget. I also knew I didn't have this big budget to go and hire a professional photographer. And I didn't really want to deal with all the logistics of finding that person. Where are we going to shoot? Finding the models, getting them dressed, like, and. Even if all that goes well, right? Like you get a finite number of images. And so I just, I, I wasn't thinking about it that hard, but it just kind of showed up and I just thought, wow, there is a gap here that I think AI can solve because at that same point in time, I was really diving deep into a tool called mid journey. And it was obvious that like. The quality had started, started to get good enough where it's like, you could use this, right? Like there are certain, this has use cases right now that I could put into practice. And I just didn't see anybody really like leaning into that early on. And, yeah, my curiosity got the best of me. We had like some campaigns and some customer events that were coming up. And I just remember one campaign specifically that was focused around our customers at an in person event. We built the landing page. We did the email nurture. We did all the. The marketing components, but really leaned into using AI as much as we could just to like test it. Right. So I'm, I'm using, you know, chat, GBT or quad to help me develop the landing page copy. I'm using mid journey to help me develop the theme in terms of the look, the field, the swag that we're going to have, the slides we're going to show, right. Like, like everything from text to visual. And I remember I was like, man, I think we did like 90 percent of this. With the help of AI, right. And it was just like,

Audrey Chia: 6:30

it was like

Drew Brucker: 6:31

March, it was like March of 2023. Right. And it was just like, yo, like, I know some people see this, but the mass, you know, the, the massive majority didn't. Right. And so it was just like, there's something here and I just kind of let, you know, curiosity get the best of me, which, which I do, like, I love to learn new things. If it feels organic, right. If it feels like fun and it feels like experimentation and you lean into those things naturally, it doesn't feel like a chore, you know? So you, I understood the value. I understood the potential and that made it easier to jump in.

Audrey Chia: 7:02

And you understood the assignment,

Drew Brucker: 7:05

understood the assignment. Yeah, absolutely.

Audrey Chia: 7:07

Yeah. But it's, it's so amazing that even in like March, 2023, right. Technically, you know. AI was still in the really early stages. You already managed to create such high quality marketing assets, right? can, and I think it's really cool to see how AI has evolved because even on the copy front, ChatGPT when it first launched versus ChatGPT now is absolutely. Insane, like the difference in the kind of quality of copy that you get with chat GPT now without much prompting would easily be able to replace that of a mid weight copywriter. And I think that's something you might have noticed, right? True.

Drew Brucker: 7:42

A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. And also, God, it's, it's even hard to remember what I guess capabilities really existed at that time. I think we were just so enamored with the novelty of. Typing in something and getting something that kind of felt at least like somewhat high quality back. And you're just like, wait a second, this is, yeah, my mind's blown. And you're right. Right. It was just like quickly. One of those things where, you know, no one knew how to. Prompt right out of the gate, you know, it's like a brand new language. You, you had to tinker and experiment and figure it out and really like, just understand that this is a two way conversation and the output's only as good as the input, right? And that's still, for some reason is lost on some people, but you're right. Prompting has got easier. I've seen that on the same side with AI image gen too, you know, like there are so many new features that have rolled out. You don't have to think so hard about starting with an empty box and going from zero to one anymore. Now there are different features where you can take a style reference or an image reference, or you could do this, or you could do that. And now the barrier to entry is a little bit lower at the same time, right? We all know like the hardest part is getting started. And so it was just fascinating to see. How that has sort of taken shape. And I'll be interested to see how that takes shape, like over the next 12 to 24 months too, because I think when we really think about text prompting, it is kind of exhausting and look like we're in 2025. That sounds a little bit like millennial Gen Z ish. But like, when you really think about. How much energy you need to think about with the context of what you're putting in. It can be a little bit exhausting if you're using these tools every day. So, you know, the fact that you could get the speech right component, like that was like a nice little unlock because it kind of felt easier to describe versus sitting at your keyboard and you know, Oh, I know I need to put this and Oh, I need to put that. And then you get to a point of like diminishing returns where you're just like, I just want to hit enter, right? Like, I just want to like, let's just. Get this going, right? So I, yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy to think about how things so much have changed, but, it already feels a little bit nostalgic now, doesn't it?

Audrey Chia: 9:50

AI moves at rapid speeds. And I would love to know, Drew, from your experience, cause you have been working so much with AI and you are, I would say, maybe a top 1%, you know, AI user, right? So how are the top 1 Brands actually using AI for creative work. How are they actually integrating it into their workflows? What are they using it for? how are you seeing brands really leverage it and what kind of wins are they getting?

Drew Brucker: 10:13

Yeah, I would say like on, on the B2B SaaS side, it feels like it's very slow moving. I don't know that I've seen anything that I've been surprised. I think what I have been like more like nodding my head to and surprise that is probably like creative agencies. maybe even companies that are like Coke. I mean, they're, they're not common, right? But they, they are quick to sort of take on the risk and they see the potential of what's coming. Right. And so they just kind of, dive in head first. They've got that brand equity, the way they can kind of pour into it. I honestly, I've seen a few companies, but I really, I really haven't seen much where I'm like shocked. And I think that's because you've got all of, you've got some people individually that really. Can excel and are using this every day, but companies as a whole teams as a whole, haven't really integrated this in, in an upscaling fashion to really cater and get them up to speed. Right? So, like, I think individually I've seen it right between like people like you and me, there's others in our group, but those are one offs, right? I'm more surprised when I see an entire team or an entire company kind of do it. And I just, I really haven't seen much to this point.

Audrey Chia: 11:25

One thing that perhaps could be a potential blocker is it has to be a both ways things, right? So management has to decide that this is a direction they want to invest in. And then from the ground up, you as an individual need to feel incentivized or motivated to start leveraging AI, then as a whole company, you can move, right? but for example, the startups that you have been working with, what are some interesting use cases or potential use cases that startups can consider using AI for?

Drew Brucker: 11:51

Well, I, I, I go back to kind of what I was starting to, to use it for when I was at, Lasso, which was, yeah, back in 2023 and it's, it's the ability to build one on brand custom imagery and that takes. You know, it sounds so simple, but that really takes shape in, in so many ways within the organization. When you think about all the use cases that exist within the visual storytelling process, it's, it's hard to come to a definitive stop, right? Like, it's, it's literally, Website, blog, email. Yeah. You could use this for icons, illustrations. You could use this for slides, internal and external slides. You could use this for product training. You could use this for sales enablement, right? Like there are so many different ways to do it. I've, I have yet to see in another B2B SaaS company really. Do that, which I'm not surprised at because it does take a special skill set and that goes back to I think my previous point. It's like you might have one person, but you don't have a team. And I think what's happening is these companies are still still so focused, especially in startup world on. Revenue, revenue meeting targets in the short term that they're not thinking long term about the upskilling and they also know that people come and go, right? So I think it's a hard thing. I'm not at that level to make that decision, you know, in a C suite, but man, I think there are certain use cases where you actually. And absolutely have to be thinking that way of how are we going to invest in our employees to upskill to get them there? I mean, I I just think about that in terms of I could jump into any organization right now There's probably like one person who's like the AI person. Yeah, and how much are you empowering them? How are you training? Is that person internally training other folks, right? How much bandwidth do they have to actually create, you know? Cause I think that's also part of it too. We're talking about specifically with AI and on the visual storytelling front, like An opportunity to differentiate your brand and that is out there for the taking and, and no one's really taking it right now. And so it's like an interesting, it's an interesting sort of conundrum, I think, that exists right now. It's like, how much do you want to invest in the people that are already there versus just kind of like, wait and see to, to what happens to you. And. I don't want to, I don't want to know what happens to the organizations that are just sitting there, but.

Audrey Chia: 14:11

Yeah, you'd rather take action first, right? I think maybe one consideration that organizations have is the time it takes to upscale and train a team, because the truth is you need to spend time working with AI to understand how it works. And it almost becomes like you're in turn where you understand what are the problems that work. How do you nudge it in the right direction? You pick up things where it hallucinates on and you're like, I knew you were gonna hallucinate this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are things you wouldn't know if you don't spend time, you know. You know, I really working with AI. I think that is also something that companies need to consider if they want to upscale their team. They do have to make that a priority and make time for that. Right. but I also know that you are working at, Goldcast, right? tell us more about it. Like, is it, it's an AI enabled or powered company, right?

Drew Brucker: 14:55

Yeah, so Goldcast was originally known specifically for virtual events. They launched during that whole COVID period where it was like people need a way to do events now that live events aren't happening. And so they really leaned into like, let's create. a really exciting and optimal virtual experience for folks that want to hold events, webinars, right? Hybrid events, even, you know, things like that. Then I think GoldCast is really credit to GoldCast. They're really leaning into video as a whole, right? It's not just about virtual events or webinars, which Always have been effective. They've been around for a long time. They're a great way to kind of bring together a very specific cohort and provide value. But gold has is really leaning into video content at scale, which, which. To me really resonated with why I would want to be there. They're thinking about this in terms of let's empower marketing teams with the ability to create a video first content strategy, something like if you've been in content for a long time, you're just like, Oh, you know, like. It sounds so daunting and for a long time it was, right? It was just like video, video, video. Would love to do more video, but it just takes forever. And how many people do we have on the team? And do we have an editor? And like, how much, how much, you know, how much money do we have? And, you know, blah, blah, blah. Because, you know, the reality is in, in a lot of the B2B just like, that's just one other thing. That's going to eat up a lot of time. And so unless it's efficient, unless it's scalable, unless it's fun, you know, like people aren't going to lean into that. And I think GoldCast has really done a great job of like building a platform of video content at scale from start to finish. And they're thinking about that in terms of not only virtual events, but we're thinking about podcasts, right? We're creating, we're thinking about taking a long form video and the ability to chop it up into social clips to create, you know, blog content, email content, right. And, and get really smart with how we partner with AI to go from that zero to one to get us started. Right. The big misconception. AI is not going to solve all our problems. AI is not something that you plug something in, you get something out and you just run with it. There's always going to be the human component that needs to be involved with it. And so this helps people get started. It helps them do things faster. It helps them do things cheaper and no, it doesn't take people out of the process, right? It takes the best parts, the most laboring parts of what would happen normally. And it does that automatically. And it does that in a streamlined fashion and then utilizes the creators to really like infuse their best talents to get the end result. Right. And so I think that is the important part. I love the way that GoldCast is sort of like leaned into that. They also really leaning hard into the idea of mindshare marketing, which I love. Which is look, people want to buy. Software where they have some sort of connection, right? There's gotta be a brand affinity there. The brand has to be known. There's a lot of opportunity there that exists within dark social. We've all heard about that, but like you have somebody that, you know, at Goldcasts, for example, right. If you know me and you happen to be in the, you know, the market for something that Goldcasts does, right. Goldcasts will probably make your shortlist because maybe you're following me and you like my content, or maybe you've seen. Gold cast in use from other people, or maybe like people are talking about gold cast in a slack channel. So I think the shift now and the thing that's going to happen a lot in 2025 is the lean, the swing back all the way into brand because brand is that one differentiator at the end of the day that makes you stand apart others. And there's so much creative opportunity, which I alluded to. That it only makes sense for that to be the case revenue is important, but you have to have a brand that's going to differentiate stand out and get you on that short list, you know, to start seeing a lot more traction with your, with your revenue in the first place.

Audrey Chia: 18:40

And with the rise of AI, right. I think we will see a lot more content being put out, which is also why. The brand positioning and being a distinct brand that is personable that has that human connection That has that face. I think it's going to be extremely important in this next phase of like marketing, right? it would be interesting if you could show us something that gold cast does do you have like any kind of preview of what? You know the team is actually working on so that Our audience can also have a peek.

Drew Brucker: 19:06

Yes, absolutely. so let me share my screen here. Let me pull this up. like One of my favorite things, I think, just like as a creator in general and the way that I would look at it as somebody that's in charge of content for B2B brand is content lab. I think it's one of those great tools that kind of rolls in to the rest of what Goldcast has to offer. Right. So if you're looking for a great webinar slash virtual event experience in general. Gold cast already great at that. This is another opportunity to, to basically take that as a starting point and then repurpose all that content. Right? So this is an opportunity to take an existing virtual event, drop it in using content lab, you can create clips on the fly in whatever. You know, aspect ratio that you're looking for, depending on the platform, you can pick and choose what clips those are. It also gives you the ability to like drag and drop that clip. So like once that clip loads, you can extend the clip, you can trim it, you can cut it just like you would a podcast. And it really just allows you to maximize, right? Like. The mileage that you have on any piece of long form content that you have. Right. And I think that's the important part, you know, back before like tech was really, really good at repurposing what we used to do as content people. And I'm sure you, you remember this was it's like, okay, how can I hack? Like, how can I create as much quantity as possible? That is also high quality and the way to do that 10 years ago, Was this like, okay, let me sit with the SMEs. Let me sit with the people that really, really know their stuff. Let me interview them. Let me ask them very specific questions. And then I'm going to take those answers and I'm going to go ahead and like, you know, move these parts around to create multiple assets that come out of it. Well, now technology has come a long way and I think like pieces like this make it Much, much easier to use video first because it's like, Hey, look, we could get on a zoom. We could get on a Goldcast event. We could do a podcast using Goldcast, like anything like that. And then we could go in here. And start to trim that up for all the other channels for all the other use cases that we have so you've got clips You can also create social posts that come out of here. You can also create like Blogs out of here, right? And again, it's important to mention that while these are good These are not and no program should like You plug it in, you press a button and you post it. No, but this is going to basically really streamline your process. You don't have to pull, you know, that over to chat GBT. You don't have to break down all those parts. You just take the link, put it in here. You go from zero to one and you're 80 percent of the way they're right out the gate. Same with anything from an email repurposing standpoint, general takeaways, you can pull the transcript. Right. And so like content lab, I think is really built for the creator within the organization. The creator or the people that are involved in content within those businesses to really streamline and get the most value that they can out of the content they're already creating. Because as you know, you can create the best content in the world, but if you have no distribution plan, you have no promotion plan, you have no real thought and strategy behind how you're going to extend the life of this. It's going to, it doesn't even matter, right? It doesn't matter how good the content is. If no one sees it.

Audrey Chia: 22:04

Interestingly, now we're in the era where content is the new currency. you also mentioned something about having like a content champion in the team, right? That is something I would strongly advocate. In a smaller startup, it would probably be the founder, but in a bigger organization, I think there is a place and a space for, people to start standing up and really, really. Develop their own like content bubbles, right? So that each individual then plays a part to creating that whole content ecosystem for the company

Drew Brucker: 22:32

Well said and and you that to me cannot be That cannot be overstated because really what it's about now and you're seeing this with any company account that you have But let's just put linkedin into the crosshairs for a second. You can only get so much organic Reach with a company page So Yes, you, you probably need to be there. If your audience is there, you probably need to be posting as a company, but how do you really squeeze the most juice possible that you've got to lean into the individual, you know, creators and employees within the organization. And again, that goes back to the mindshare piece, right? Because if you're thinking about this as a creator first strategy, I can, I can create content and post things that are. Not just like gold cast this gold cast that right. I can establish thought leadership. I can establish inspiration. Like I can just let people get to know me. There are so many things that I can do to also like attract people to the brand. Through me. And that's important, right? Especially when we're talking about the limited reach. And so, yes, if you're a content creator on a team, you have to be thinking about how many people can I leverage in inside of the company? One of the great things I, you know, like we did over at, at lasso was, was kind of that same thing. We had a founder led strategy. We did a podcast with that. We repurposed all that content, but one of the other ways that we did a video first strategy was, okay, let's take some of the key. People within the organization. So, you know, head of customer success, head of sales, head of marketing. let's talk about, you know, some of the people on the product team. Like let's, let's basically take a small handful of people. Let's come up with very strategic questions that we can ask them. Let's go on video. Let's ask them the questions we can team up ahead of time and let's just let them answer them. And now all of a sudden, let's just say you had 10 internal SMEs and you had 10 questions that were very specific and they could be very different in terms of the output of what you're trying to get. Now you have a hundred clips of people within your organization that not only are talking about things that are especially relevant to the audience, you're putting a face to the brand, right? And let's not understate how important that is, right? So going back to that original point, empower the people that are already there and do it in a way where you don't have to take up a bunch of their time either. They'll really appreciate you for that.

Audrey Chia: 24:46

Efficiency and effectiveness, the two things that I absolutely love. And then your ROIs are really amazing. Whenever you have an AI tool in the mix, of course, AI plus human, then you really get like supercharged success. I think Drew, you might have seen it a lot. I personally have seen it, especially when I work with startups. So again, they are lean and mean. the goal is how do you maximize the small, tiny resource pool that you have. Then of course, an AI tool like Goldcast or any other, you know. Repurposing tool will be very, very handy.

Drew Brucker: 25:16

Absolutely. You nailed it. You know.

Audrey Chia: 25:18

Yeah. But Drew, maybe one thing that could be interesting for our audience is since you've worked with so many startups and you are a founder yourself, can you tell us more about building that, you know, AI first business? I'm sure you have tested different models. You also have the digital product and you have also done like workshops for teams. What has that journey been like?

Drew Brucker: 25:37

Yeah, I mean, when I really think about it, it's, it's sort of a reshuffling of the cards in many ways, right? It's, look, I think, I don't know that I've experienced anything this big in terms of the way that it's really disrupting everything that's, that's happening. We're still in like the very beginning of this, but I haven't seen that since. I was a kid and I was at home and my dad brought home a computer and I'm, you know, sitting there on AOL dial up and I'm just like, Oh, like this is wild, you know, and you could surf the internet. Right. And it's like, yo, what is this at that time? And that was, that was the inflection point of traditional business. And digital business, you know, and everything changed, you know, people didn't have computers on their desk. Now you couldn't imagine doing work without a computer, right? It's going to be the same thing here with AI shortly. I think I just got so excited about that and I quickly realized that I was probably one of the few people within my company at that time that was really, really leaning in hard to it. Like it just consumed me because I, I, it was fun. I was curious. The use cases were limitless, right? And so I just kind of let it take me, you know, and, and so where I leaned in was kind of going back to that point earlier is just like there is a brand opportunity here for marketers. I know this pain. I felt this pain. I've gone through it. I know other people are going through it. So I think if nothing else, let me start with this idea that we can create custom imagery for a brand. And we don't have to think about costs. We don't have to think about time and we don't have to think about creative compromises to the extent that we did before. And I started with that and that was, you know, like I had never gone out on my own before. Right. So, you know, at the same time, I'm like, is this the right move? Should I be thinking about this or that? Right. And I just kind of listened to what people were saying. So there was, there were some of those projects and initiatives that I worked on, but I also realized in having a digital product, like you mentioned. I had started making a lot of sales with the digital product. I quickly realized like people really wanted to learn this stuff. And I quickly realized, Oh shit, I am early, you know, to this, like, there's still a lot of people that don't know how to get into mid journey and even prompt to begin with, let alone, you don't know how to do this, this, and this as a relates to like building in a brand strategy. So I tried to build that bridge. And I think where I saw the most success was in the digital product and offering workshops for teams and individuals that wanted to learn it. And I knew I was early, right? So at first it was a little bit slow. I had to educate people on why they needed to do this. Six to nine months go by and all of a sudden I'm not, I don't have to make that decision. Education component anymore. They already know they're coming to me. And I think one of the beautiful things about that, like from a business standpoint was I didn't have to do any outbound, everything came inbound. And to me, that really told me two things. One, I'm providing something. Like on LinkedIn, for example, that feels valuable to some people. I'm hitting the right chord there. And two, like I'm early enough to where I'm taking a good enough of the market share, where people are just coming to me, right. They have nowhere else to go. And there were a couple of people in that loop, you know, like Rory Flynn, for example, good buddy of mine who I do the podcast with, I looked around LinkedIn for mid journey stuff, and it was just like me and him, you know, at the beginning, I'm just like, dude, what? What like, this is crazy. It's just literally me and this other guy that are talking about this. And, and so, you know, like a lot of it was timing and luck, but I leaned into that and I just kind of like kept showing up on, on LinkedIn, for example. And, yeah, just pay dividends. I tried to listen to the feedback I got in the moment and also. Realize like, look, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Like it's a lot of trial and error at the same time. And so I think I did waste a lot of time at the beginning, you know, saying yes to certain things that I probably should have said no to, for example, but those are lessons that everybody learns along the way.

Audrey Chia: 29:20

Perhaps, you know, the one key lesson that. You picked out during this journey,

Drew Brucker: 29:27

probably. Okay. So probably the big lesson and I, and I knew this before there's, but I think there's a difference between knowing something in your head and actually experiencing it physically and mentally, and then having to actually like abide by it, and that was time was so limited. I've got two young kids. They're both in daycare. I've got eight hours to maximize my day. Right. And so the real unlock for me was almost reverse engineering it to a sense of like, okay, what do I want to bring in revenue wise monthly? Let's start there. Because for a long time, I just kind of said, Oh, I'm going to try to do this prior to try to do that. But when I started to think about it in terms of, okay, I want to make this much money monthly. Now, what are all the different income streams I have? To get there. And what are the things that take up time? And what are the things that don't take up time? Right? So you'll remember I had that digital product and I did. It did really well in that first year. And then I just kind of like stopped promoting it. You know, then I just thought, well, okay, well, what if I made some updates here and I continue to make lifetime updates and continue to add value and poor value and poor value, then I can keep promoting this thing. Right. And that's the best case scenario because I've already done all the work, right? Yeah. There might be a tweak here or tweak there and update their update there. But for whatever that price tag was to just get those rolling in, I'm not spending an hour on the phone. I'm not spending three or four hours in a creative project. Right. So I really, I really sort of use that as, okay, this is. Priority one, because this is passive income that I don't have to pour any more time into. Second part was like these individual workshops, because I knew I was offering them like one hour at a time. I liked the price that I could basically ask for that hour. And the other person liked the price that they got for the hour. Right. So it was like a really good, middle ground that I found there. And at the end of the day, that's an hour. Right. So I can deal with an hour. Right. And so it was like, Okay, I got that. I got this other thing that, you know, only takes up an hour here and there. So if I stack this and this is what I want to make monthly, I would need X number of guide sales. I would need, you know, X number of workshops and maybe like one big creative project. And I don't know that, that sounds to me very like elementary thinking back on it, but to me is like going through that as a first time you're on your own kind of. Thing, pal, like figure it out. That was one of those lessons I learned right away. Cause the first couple of months, I'm like, what am I doing? Can I do this six, nine months later? It's like, okay, well, I'm, I'm actually starting to figure some things out year after I've darted that I've, I've started it. It's it's down, right? I've got it down. I know I need to do this, this, and this, I know these are the levers that I can pull to attract sales. I know these are the kinds of posts that I know are going to, you know, attract inbound messages, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So. I don't know that that unlocks anything for anybody listening to this other than the sense that Some things you just have to experience firsthand to really like give you that nudge And again, I knew that going in but there's no way That would have done anything for me unless I went through that pain myself.

Audrey Chia: 32:33

And I think fun fact for me was like, I tried doing a low ticket offer. and I realized that the time that I spend in my case, trying a low ticket offer, because that's what everyone also suggested, right? But in my personal case, the time spent Invested in a low ticket offer that was not, did not pay off, you know, the investment made compared to chasing a high ticket offer. So this model technically should have worked based on, you know, what a lot of other creators have shared, right? But then it depends on what you're offering, the value that you deliver, how much time you're also going to be spending on creating that product service and the kind of clients you want to work with. So there are so many other factors that you might want to consider when building the business. But like what Drew, you said. You have to go through it,

Drew Brucker: 33:13

you have to go through it

Audrey Chia: 33:15

and you know,

Drew Brucker: 33:16

you know what to though? Like, I think it's one of those things. If you're, if you're in sales, you're in marketing, especially like to be able to sell for yourself to ever to be able to market yourself, right? Like. To stop thinking about it in terms of, okay, yeah, like I'm a B2B marketer at X company, these are the things that we market. And then going to actual things that you have and thinking about it from a totally different perspective that, that I felt made me a better marketer in the end, right? Because I've seen both sides of that. I also really believe that. You know, we're kind of moving toward that creator first aspect, even within the B2B organization, right? Like almost the entrepreneurial aspect. and so like, there were a lot of great lessons along the way, but yeah, I mean that, that was probably the biggest one.

Audrey Chia: 34:01

And thanks so much for sharing that Drew. So maybe the last question to wrap things up, and this is a fun one. What do you think the future of creativity is going to be

Drew Brucker: 34:11

the future of creativity? Yeah. Oh my God. How much time we got here? I don't know. I listen, I, okay. I will say this. This is just the first thing that comes to mind. and I've seen this start to take place, but like, especially when we'd start to think about things, well visually, but also I think the same is true. With something like an LLM, but at some point it's become easier and easier. Right. And this has already taken place a little bit on the AI images to create good stuff. But how do you pick the great stuff out of the good stuff? So for example, if I create 50 images, how am I going to pick the best two? Right. The best one, it's going to come down to taste and curation, right? Because it's like the creating aspect. We'll become easy, but the creating great stuff and picking the right thing is the hard part. So then it becomes, you know, that's where I think the skills ultimately going to kind of go into that next phase is just like, and that'll be great for people like us, for the people that are listening to this, right? That. Like have been using this stuff pretty frequently because you're going to naturally have an eye for those right things. And I think just as like a creator that used to strike a chord with me, even just in the photography days of like, when you first start doing photography. You don't really have an eye. You think you do, but you know, you look around and you're just like, Oh shit, I wish I could do what that person does, or this person, you know, like, but, but the reality is it just comes with reps. And I think that's the next unlock is the people that are using this stuff so frequently, they're going to have a better sense of the taste, the right stuff, the curation. Right. And I think that's the important part that I think I, I would want to answer that question with just because, man, that's a loaded question. You know, like we could talk about that specific question for a whole podcast. I think,

Audrey Chia: 35:57

but it was so cool that you say, you know, you have 50 images, right? How do you know which is which? You know, the best image of that 50, right? I actually use the exact same analogy. And do you really? Yes. I say, Oh, that's awesome. How do you know? Oh, really? Yeah. Because that's the

Drew Brucker: 36:12

great part. You know, that's the great part because like an LLM is so good at giving you the zero to one with brainstorm and ideation, right? You give it enough context and you're just like, look, I'm looking for headlines that do A, B, and C. And then all of a sudden you have 20 or 50 to choose from. Well, how do you pick the best one outta that group? What are you looking for? Right? And so, yeah, I mean, it does come down to that. I think that's, that's a very real thing. And I'm, it's, it's funny that you've experienced that same thing, but it totally makes sense.

Audrey Chia: 36:39

And I think for anyone who's listening, right, if you don't already have the foundation set, AI is only gonna get you this far. So even with ai, I highly recommend you to put in the reps, put in the work, really figure out, put in the work, right? What is good, what is great? and I think the more. What you put in the better you get at using AI. That is, is just how it is as a creative and marketer.

Drew Brucker: 37:00

And the more, more things you can use it for. I don't know if you're, your use has evolved, but I've noticed like, obviously at the beginning, you use a lot for like question, answer, or, you know, brainstorming ideation. I think I've used it a lot more lately for like troubleshooting even. Right. So I'm like, and I'll give you like an example. If I'm creating like an image. And I do want to take it into Photoshop, and I do want to add some extra elements, right? there are certain things that I don't know in Photoshop. But I might, I might have the LLM, like, assess the image and say, Here's what I'm going for. What recommendations do you have? It'll give me very specific actions within Photoshop. And it's like, I don't know how to do this. Give me simple step by step instructions for how to do this in Photoshop. Well, now all of a sudden I have a Photoshop teacher and go step by step, right? And I don't have to go off into YouTube and find the right video and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like that troubleshooting aspect has been awesome, right? Like the troubleshooting part, and I think that can take shape in like, how do I do this? Or, like, another example was, I've got a camera here and it wasn't hooking up properly for a long time. And I just kind of sat on it and sat. I tried everything in the book and then I really like described every single thing that I tried, went through blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, put that in chat GBT and I got like five options and one of them worked. Right. And it was just like, you know, But the troubleshooting thing, I mean, has been kind of like a cool little unlock to, you know, I, I wasn't really thinking about using it in that way at first, but to your point, the more you use it, the better you get, but you also unlock more and more ways to use it, which also gives you more power to decide how. When and why you're going to use it because at the end of the day you want to outsource everything But you'll know having gone through that experience of like, oh, okay Like this is probably better suited for this right

Audrey Chia: 38:44

and with that drew. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah. Thank you Where can our listeners find you and who should be reaching out to you?

Drew Brucker: 38:52

you know what I would say linkedin's probably still the best place to find me. you know, like god I'm not sure We've been posting on there for a long time. yeah, I'm still, I'm still there. So if you, if you want to get in touch, anything related to what we talked about today, especially when it comes to like AI, visual storytelling, that kind of thing, feel free to shoot me a DM. Happy to happy to answer in chat.

Audrey Chia: 39:13

Thank you, Drew, for joining us. And it was a pleasure having you on the show. guys for tuning in and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and hit the bell for more actionable marketing insights. We'll see you next time. Take care.