Susan Finn 0:07
Hey there, welcome to rise above noise. Each episode I have the honor of shining a spotlight on someone in the rise above noise community who's making a real difference and helping others with their business growth. I'm your host Susan Finn, I am a digital marketing strategist, and have been with rise above noise for over 15 years, working with transformation creators, right coaches, consultants, energy workers, and I guide them in their own personal roadmap for their digital marketing journey, everybody's journey is different. I'm here for it. So together, we create your own system for showing up in a way that feels generous. And so you feel in service. And that way, you're going to show up with consistency. So that the people who are already searching for you can find you, your business is going to grow with flow and ease. So today's spotlight is on Donna cavada. She spent she spent most of her career helping her clients be visible. Today, Don is going to help us with making the most of what she calls her. Almost trustworthy assistant, Donna wants us to be practical about AI. She wants us to use it. But not to ever lose ourselves in the process. Today, we're going to learn about how generative AI works in an easy to understand format, she's going to give us a few tools and strategies to get us started. And she's going to give us a process that's going to help us keep things simple. I know you're going to pick up some great takeaways from today's conversation. Let's get right to it. Don and I were just talking about just all the things that we do, as entrepreneurs as heart centered entrepreneurs to be visible. I know that Donna's having like a whirlwind week, she's on podcast, she's doing podcast, she's got a roundtable coming up, like all of the things that we do, to rise above noise to show up. And I know and I talk about this all of the time that now. Now I always say now more than ever, but honestly, like now more than ever. Our world needs people like you, like you, Laura Clark, who just joined in and said, Hello, thank you that the world needs. People were deeds, people, our world needs people like you to show up and make the difference in the world that you're here to make. So I'm gonna take three or four minutes to review the rise above noise and what it means to be visible through in the rise above noise kind of mentality or process, I should say, right. So with rise above noise, if I invite you, this is a mindset shift, we've heard you may have heard me say this before, it's a mindset shift. So if I invite you to every time you hear the word marketing, to, to replace that with showing up and for today, let's talk about being visible, because that is where Donna spends her time. So in the rise above noise process, we want to make sure that you are being visible that you are showing up to dig into your core values and attract clients so aligned. So you need to know what those are. Right? So that's where we start everything within the rise above noise process. And then you're going to want to create compelling content. This is where I think today's topics is going to be able to help you. They often talk about using frequently asked questions, I think this is still valid using frequently asked questions, but then how to parse it out how to comb it out in a way that is compelling. And that I think is something we'll be talking about today. You want to also be able to tell the stories of how you've helped people make the transformation that you're here to make. And that's that's proof of concept, right? It's testimonials. It's your case studies. It's storytelling. And I know that's something that John has spends a lot of time on organizing and scheduling. Like if we're not protecting our time and our energy, then we can't show up in our best versions of ourselves. And so what are the things you can do? What can you let go of? And what's the automations? What's the tools that you can use it it's going to protect your time and your energy and all of this is so that you can show up you can be visible and you can Keep in touch with the people who are going to be attracted to you. So this is a client attraction kind of a track. And then you need to once they've been attracted to you, how can you keep in touch with them, as you know, I spend a lot of time working on email marketing email showing up so that you can show up with consistency. And with continued value for the people who need you, and of course, it's all all towards, so you can actually be of service to people who need to write somebody woke up at three o'clock in the morning and was like, I don't even know what to do. I don't even know what to do, like things are going through their head through their head, and they don't know what to do. And what if you get to be that angel in the inbox and they open up their inbox, or they open up a blog or something that answers exactly the problem that they have. Right. So let me introduce you to this. This be visible Maven, my friend Donna crevado, of the Corvara Media Group, I'm going to read her official bio. Donna is the CEO and founder of Corvara Media Group and the creator of the mix tape brand story reels be visible dot Club, which is a group learning community, I think we're going to be talking about that today. I'm very interested in this, and the real 50 over 50, which is a visibility project featuring over 50 Women who are quietly making a difference, shall we say rising above the noise. After years of creating marketing strategies and building customized online platforms, Donna saw a recurring theme. Clients had gaps in their own stories, they left out parts of the journey that got them to where they are to where they are today. And that gap created disconnect in their work and in their marketing. I can I can relate to that. So Donna flipped her own story spent a year learning how to redesign 40 years of experience to help people like us to help us heart centered entrepreneurs. And now she's focusing on guiding us, her clients as they pull together all the parts of their stories, and mix tried and true strategies with new technology to be visible and connect with their perfect audiences. I asked Donna what her superpower is. And she said that it is listening and seeing possibilities. I'd love to learn more about your superpower. Before we really dive in. John, tell me more.
Donna Cravotta 7:41
Okay, so what I've been saying for many years is the most overlooked marketing strategy is listening. Because people jump into the bright shiny things and the things that are a little more sexy. But they're not listening to where they really need to be. And where they fit into the landscape. They're often trying to reach too many people. And in the process, they reach nobody. And they end up talking to themselves online. And it's very frustrating. And it it really puts a ding in your confidence with yourself and your abilities and makes you second think you know second thoughts about what you're doing. Am I doing the right thing? Do I know anything? Why am I here? The imposter cysts syndrome boils up. But when you start to listen and you start to listen to yourself, first you realize you have the answers. You can't nobody has those answers for you. We're all small personal brands, we're not Coca Cola, we're not Federal Express, we're not, you know, a big conglomerate, we're just people that are doing, trying to make an impact, trying to make a difference with what we know. And what we're almost called to do. I've I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say most of the people in your community are called to do the work that they're doing. And when you really get deep into yourself first, and you understand what that is, and you can then listen externally. And you can you know, just go on social media, read the posts, what are people saying? Are these the people that you can help? What do they need? What do they need that they don't even know they need, but you know, you can provide to them? And then how do you create from that space and create in a small way, you know, maybe there's only 20 clients you need a year. So how do you create your online presence to speak to those 20 people? Not to 10,000 people?
Susan Finn 9:43
I love that so much because it's true. I see a lot of people say niched down niche down niche down but I am and I think that maybe you're saying that but in a in I think in a fresh different way. I think you're seeing it more like, know who you are, you only need 20 clients, I mean, unless you're trying to make this big membership thing where everybody gets in for 10 $20, whatever it is, but to get started, know who you are, know who you want to serve, and find 1020 people and and serve them really well make the transformation they need. And get clarity on that I love the way that you've phrased that.
Donna Cravotta 10:25
And even if you have the big membership, where you want to get hundreds of people into something, or even 1000s of people, you've got to get the small group first. Because there's always that disconnect. If you know if you're building on a broken foundation, so build that foundation of those 20 people who are they like, go find them? Go find them. I mean, it's so much easier. And like I have found with clients and just people I've helped over the years, that when I bring it down to those 20 people by case they have a sigh of relief. It's like oh my god, I don't have to do all those things.
Susan Finn 11:02
I love that. I'm going to put that in our notes here. sigh of relief.
Donna Cravotta 11:06
Yeah, it's big. And it's true. And then once you once you get down to really watching what these 20 people are doing, like, you know, what are they posting? What are they sharing? What podcasts? Are they listening to? What podcasts? Are they being featured on? What books are they reading? Did they go see the Barbie movie and I mean, whatever it might be, each one of those things is a touch point of how you can now connect with somebody on a on a human level. And and you get to see what they care about not just a demographic, you know, it's like, what do they care about? What drives them? What do they value? And in most cases, the people that we work best with share the same values that we have. So how can we align those values and then build that into how we talk to them. So we build content, we build social posts, we build conversations and talking points, based on what the people that we want to connect with care about. And it changes everything.
Susan Finn 12:04
So we can I think we can, it's so true. So far, I have two thoughts, right, all the thoughts are going through my head. But the first one is, this is why I love the rise above noise community that we have here is that, you know, just in the simple conversations people are jumping in to give people support, to find ways to align. And I know that my gosh, even since I started the Women's Business Network, that was a long time ago, I'm going to I think it was probably 18 years ago. And what I loved about it was people came in kind of as strangers, but with kind of a similar heart and find those ways to connect that you just mentioned. And then there were collaborations and people are building businesses together and having webinars together and doing workshops together, writing books together. And and it's it's finding those voices. And I know that's what I love about my work is every day I get to talk to people that I align with, and that I can learn from and who I can share some information with. So then the other thing is building the content, like let's get into the AI thing, right, like building the content, creating the social posts, making sure we're clear on the talking points, I know that you have been, I don't even think you slipped on. Because I think you have been really focused on learning everything you can on this topic. And we want to know,
Donna Cravotta 13:31
I learned a lot about you know, I have been quiet about it too, because I don't want to be that person that is like, Oh, I'm now an AI expert. There are a handful of AI experts out there. What I have been spending my time doing is learning what the options are learning what the pitfalls are, and how is it aligned with the work that I do. And I really want to take a very practical and pragmatic approach to AI. I also feel that there's a big responsibility. Because this isn't just another productivity tool. This is a tool that is actually changing structures in our society. And I think it's important that we all know what what it is and how it works. And that we use it mindfully and responsibly. So I feel that weighed heavily knowing what I've learned, and knowing that most of the people that I speak to have no idea about any of this. So I'm in that middle place where I feel like I need to bring that information. Because one of the things that AI will do, if you ask it to do something, and when this is regardless of what tool you're using. If you ask us to do something that's outside of the range of its knowledge, it will make things up and that's called a hallucination. And once it starts to hallucinate, it kind of takes on a mind of its own. And it starts to create these lies and it believes the lie Isn't it goes deeper. So one of the things that I like to like start with with this conversation is use your own content. Let it help you repurpose what you already have. So if you have a podcast, or if you have an interview, or if you have a blog post, feed that information into like, chat GPT, or whatever tool you're going to use, and ask it to, you know, turn it into 10 social media posts. Or if you're writing something, write whatever it is that you're going to write, and put it into an AI tool and say, Can you polish this up. Or you could also ask it to build you an outline. So let's say there's a topic that you want to write about, you can ask it to write you an outline of a blog article or a series of articles. And then you go back in, and you fill in the content, in your own words, but you just have, like the top level outline of what it is. And those are all really great ways to use this where you don't like risk getting into that hallucination zone before you really know how to use the tools. And they're going to become easier and easier to use. Because the thing that drives them is the prompting and how you ask the questions. And just today, I learned of two updates that are happening in chat GPT. And one of the things is suggestions, you know, when you're typing in Google, and it'll come up with suggestions, that's going to happen to GPT also. So as you start to type in a prompt, it will come up with, do you want to say this, you know what it'll actually like CO write the prompts with you. And, and the other thing that it will do is it will code it will like tighten up your prompts on the back end as you're typing them. And what happens before it gives you the results of what you've asked, or it will it will just like, you know, stream this long list of information. And what that is, it's its thought process. So if you go back and you read the thought process of chat GPT, you'll understand the way it works. And you'll ultimately ask better questions, questions that it can actually answer. And one of the things to keep in mind. Also, currently, there are only two tools that are pulling from live internet information. And that's barred and what was the other one No. Barred and being. But all of the other tools are pull pulling from a saved library of information that ended in September 2021. So you can ask it for current events. And when you start to ask for something more current, that's when you risk going into the hallucination zone.
Susan Finn 17:51
So they are so interesting. So if so the only burden being are pulling from current or can pull from current, the other ones pulled from everything before September 21. Two years ago, almost Yes, yes.
Donna Cravotta 18:07
And there's an enormous amount of content in there. But it's it's like, you have to ask the right questions. So the prompting is very important. And until recently, where there have been, you know, some guidance around prompts, you know, whether this was successful for you or not, was whether or not you were good at prompting. And one of the things that I found really fascinating was the people that are good at prompting, are people who are in PR people who are writers, people who interview other people, people who are curious, as opposed to technical people, because technical people are looking for, you know, a defined solution. But people that have more of a curious mind, or are used to being able to pull information out of people learn how to pull the information out of these AI tools faster and more efficiently than technical people do.
Susan Finn 19:07
Amazing. So wow, I've learned so much already. So I let's say I know very little about AI. And I say, Well, you know what, I'm a life coach. I'm a health coach. I practiced I have my solo practice here. And I know somebody should on me that I should be putting out social posts all of the time. And you know what, I'm a much better practitioner, let's say right then I am a social media expert, but I've got to do it. What would be a piece of advice you would give?
Donna Cravotta 19:50
Okay, so if you have a list of questions that your clients routinely ask you, you can take that list of questions and put it into Have GPT and say, can you create a list of, you know, 25 topics around these grand and maybe even you're just putting in one question at a time or two or three questions at a time, the more defined you are with your questioning, the better the results are. So, you know, if let's say you put in three questions that are somewhat related, and say, Can you give me 25 topic ideas around these three questions. And then if you give a little bit more background, this would be speaking to an audience of so fill in who your audience is. And then you know, it'll give you those, it'll give you the 25 topics. From there, you can say, okay, like, I would go one at a time and say, Can you give me more information about this topic, this topic, this topic, and it'll start expanding it. And you can turn that into a content plan. And then you can like schedule posts in advance. You could also ask it to create social posts for you like, you can take an article that you wrote, and you can paste your article into chat GPT and say, Can you turn this into five LinkedIn posts that speaks to such and such audience with relevant hashtags?
Susan Finn 21:20
I love this so much. Okay, so Okay. And then I would say to that, I've used it a little bit. And one of the things I learned was two things I've learned is, and it's getting to know my voice chat, GPT, it's getting to know my voice a little bit better. But I will often remind it to write in the voice of a digital marketing strategist who works with heart centered entrepreneurs, because otherwise it gets super ready to get super technical,
Donna Cravotta 21:52
it actually works even better when you assign it a role. So if you say, you are a digital marketer, who works with heart centered entrepreneurs, and you're writing an article about, you know, marketing, Facebook Live, the topic is authentic marketing, can you provide five speaking topics about this topic, and you know, that you can, like put it all at once like, and say, like, five social media posts, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I kind of like to go, you know, point by point and have a back and forth. And what's happening now with the improvements that are coming to chat, GPT. And I just want to put a little side note in, there are two versions of chat GPT, this chat GPT 3.5, which is free. And then there's 4.0, which is paid, it's $20 a month, and it's worth paying, that's one $8 a month, because all of these improvements that they're adding on are only on the paid side. So you can just go into your account if you already have one and upgrade it. But a couple of the things that you can do is you can put in customizations. So there's, if you click on your name, down at the bottom, it'll open up a little menu, and one of the things there's customizations, and you can put in there a little bio about yourself little information about your voice and you know, how you like to say things and then it will pick that up so you don't have to keep putting it in there. One of the things that I found where it retains your voice is you can actually put in a an example of your writing. So like you know, something that really, really sounds like you you know, and say ask Chachi PT, you know, you are you know, a marketing specialist, can you define or even a branding specialists or brand voice specialists, right? Can you define the tone of the voice in the content below, and then it will tell you what it reads your voice to be. So like, I forget what it came up for mine it was like, you know, I don't know whatever but I'm just going to make things up. But you know, you can say that you know made let's say to chat GPT tells you that your voice is confident and conversational. Okay. So then when you're adding new things in you know that these are terms that not only just chatting, PT understand but associates with your voice. So you can say write this content in a confident calm, a calm, confident, tone, confident and conversational tone. Sorry.
Susan Finn 24:41
I love that. How about like when I went sometimes when it gives me something it gives it to me very technical and dry. And then once in a while now write it because that's what Donald Miller always says right? Write it like a fifth grader could read it and then and then it just, it goes off the rails and it's not. It's not good either. So I do see Let's simplify it like how would I get it to, and I know that I'm going to edit everything into my own voice a little bit more, but it's a good jumping off. Absolutely,
Donna Cravotta 25:07
it's not a copy paste situation. Anytime this isn't this I what I call it is my almost trustworthy assistant. So what you could do it that way, but you could also tell it what you don't want. So you can say write it in a confident and conversational tone, it should not be technical in nature, do not make this technical in nature. You know, you can say, include, like, if you know that you want to highlight certain points. Like I do this, because when I do my real 50, over 50 interviews, when I put the recordings up on the spotlight pages for each speaker, I put a brief summary of what the interview was. And I've been using AI tools to pull this information. So I tell it like I cuz I just did an interview. So I know what the things were that I want to call out from the interview. So I will give it certain words. So it pulls those words out. So it works really well. When you know your own voice, you know your own content, you know the things that you want to lead with. And the more that you do that, the more it kind of becomes in tune with you. Like one of the things I've been talking about is, you really need to onboard it like you would a team member, though, if you were bringing on a new team member, you wouldn't assume that they were starting on Tuesday. And by Wednesday, you were going to hands everything off. And it was going to be this magical scenario of I now work four hours a week, it doesn't work that way, it takes several months to get somebody you know up to speed working with you where you can really, you know, engage with each other. And they understand what you're trying to achieve, what your mission is, what your work is, what the meaning is behind what you're doing. And what I have found to be successful, and I've helped some other people do this as well, is go through the tasks that you're doing. And what are the things that I mean like just as you do when you automate your business, what are the things that can be automated, it's not going to be the you know, the be all one magical thing that takes everything off of your plate. But it can do a lot of things. And when you're realistic about it and practical, about what these tools can actually do. And what they can't do, can save you an enormous amount of time. And you know, the saving of the time isn't so you can like not hire somebody or let people go. It's so you can be more creative, and spend more time doing the work that actually means something. Because as small business owners we have to do, even when we have team we have to do so many things over and over and over again, things we don't want to do things we hate doing. So like how can you get AI tools to lift some of that load for you. And, and just be really thoughtful about how you're bringing them into your business. Be thoughtful. Learn about the biases that are built into these tools. I saw a video yesterday, I haven't even touched on any of the video or, or image driven tools yet because I work mostly with with contents. And I just think there's so much there right now I don't want to kind of have acid, I want to really know how it works, particularly if I'm going to be teaching other people. So I'm just I'm staying in my wheelhouse now with the content, and that somebody posted a video the other day. And they went into mid journey, which is one of the tools that creates graphics. And they asked mid journey to create graphics of somebody with autism. And he created 150 graphics and all of the 150 graphics were like somebody who was white male, under 2324 years old, and not one picture was smiling. So they're building that bias in that it's trained to assume that everybody that has autism is white and male and unhappy. And if you ask it to put in a CEO, or they're gonna put in a white male CEO, so it means you have to factor this in that you know you have, you can't take any of this at face value. You have to do the research you have to look through and make sure that what you're sharing is in alignment with who you are and what you do, and is actual truth. It's factual. It's real, because it will make up stories that it tends to believe and once it believes it, it just kind of spins. It's really wild to watch. Like if you want to see it just put in something crazy and it will just kind of take off on it. It sounds believable. And if somebody is just copying and paste In this demo to share things that that just aren't true.
Susan Finn 30:03
Yeah, this has been amazing. I think one of the things I was thinking about while you were talking about it being a productivity tool, and that's something that I love, understanding automations and productivity tools, with the caveat of everything you just said, like watch for the biases, watch for the hallucinations. But for me, I get stuck in that learning vortex right. So um, we're making a webinar for this, this month's webinar is going to be why segmenting your email list can support you and your your readers because you get to make more targeted content. So I have my slides, I have my content. And I could easily go down that path many of us have of having 25 tabs open, trying to make sure that I'm doing the right thing and then going, I'm overwhelmed. I'm going to go water my gardens, and then come back and start again, and doubling up where I feel like if I were to use the tips that you've given me, and I'm looking forward to your roundtable on Thursday, and having a deeper discussion on that, I know that you're going to talk about that. So that I don't get sucked into that learning vortex that I enjoy, but it doesn't serve me. Yeah, yeah.
Donna Cravotta 31:25
Well know what you need help with first. Yeah. You know, like, just as you would ask a person to help you, you're not going to go, you know, somebody that you're paying to help you get something done or somebody that you're paying to advise you, you're not going to give some blanket question that can result in 800 different answers, you're going to go with a specific request. So before you even open the tool, figure out what you need. Or if you're not sure, just say okay, I'm going to use this for brainstorming because it's a great brainstorming water. Yes. So go in and say, you know, I'm writing a presentation, this is the topic, do you have any ideas to put what what can what should go on the slides and see what comes up? And the other thing? Like, you know, once you get into maybe the third or fourth question about something that you're trying to get information from, you can ask it, this is what I'm trying to achieve. Can you tell me what I'm missing? And, you know, from the knowledge it has, it will tell you what you're missing in what you've already got going on. But I wouldn't start there. I would like go through a couple of different iterations of what you're trying to achieve. But knowing what you want is the first step. Because if you go in there open ended. It can take you down 4000 rabbit holes.
Susan Finn 32:56
Okay, so just like an internet search or two, but at least this way, you get a little bit more
Donna Cravotta 33:01
special. And it's not an incident search, like the hallucinations will happen. If you treat this as an incident at search. It's not an intimate search. It's it's someplace where you can gather information. But it's not really a research tool. Like Like, like how you would Google for things. Right, right.
Susan Finn 33:24
So this went by so quickly, I think I've already kept you over our time. Tell me what people need to know, to get more of you, to learn from you to engage with you. And to just get all that Donna crevado yumminess.
Donna Cravotta 33:42
Well, I'm hosting a series of roundtables I did one a couple of weeks ago. And I'm having another one on Thursday, the 10th at 2pm. Eastern time. And it is going to be talking about how you can combine AI and PR. So how you can like find podcasts opportunities, how you can write a press release, you know, the different things that you can use it for and what you should absolutely not use it for. More importantly, and you know, I'm just going to do a series of these I've, I just think that everybody's curious things are changing so fast, that this is the best way to kind of get out there and talk about it. Because you know, people have questions, people have ideas, people have fears, and if I can help in any way, and if I can't help, I'll point you in the direction of somebody that can because I don't have all the answers and I don't think there was one person that does,
Susan Finn 34:45
no, nobody has all of them. And then I would invite people to check out your Wednesday lives of the real 50 over 50 Women real 50 over 50 and sell plus self promotion tomorrow I get to be, we're kind of switching the tables here. And I will be on Donna's show the real 50 over 50. And I'm very grateful for that. You've had some amazing people, a lot of people from the rise above noise community have been spotlighted there and I know will be so I'm really happy.
Donna Cravotta 35:18
Yeah. And if there's anybody else in the community that wants to be part of it, reach out, I'm going originally it was gonna be 50 women, we're up to about 60. I've got more people coming in. But I'm going for 200 at this point. And we are quietly making a difference. So we have weekly interviews every Wednesday with a woman over 50. We've done 17 interviews. So far, we've got interviews booked all the way into May 2024. And we have a collective reach of 600 More than 600,000 people. So next up is panels and media. And I'm just going to keep growing it. And if you want to join us reach out if you want to join and listen in on the interviews. It's noon, Eastern Time on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. But most of the activities happening on LinkedIn.
Susan Finn 36:10
It's been amazing. Eastern on Wednesdays, and they can find more information on your website. And I'm sharing also your LinkedIn information here as well. Okay, good. So find Donna, wherever you find her, you're gonna learn.
Donna Cravotta 36:23
And I share the link to the roundtable because it's not even on my website. Sure, sure. Let me just find it. I have. I wish I only had 25 females, tabs open.
Susan Finn 36:37
I actually just signed up for it this morning. I can add that. I'll add that in after.
Donna Cravotta 36:44
Okay. I'll just put it in the chat here if you haven't Sure. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's it. Yeah. So and the last one that we had was so much fun. Everybody just started sharing screens and showing each other what, what they were doing. And it was a great conversation. And it was really fun. And I think it's what people need. And you know, this what people have been telling me they just don't know what to do. They don't know where to start. They're nervous about doing something wrong. And I'm happy to share what I've been learning the best.
Susan Finn 37:17
And what I'm so glad you're in my community. So good to be with you, Donna. Wish that off the things here but thank you for being here.
Donna Cravotta 37:26
Thank you for inviting me. Well, there you have it. I
Susan Finn 37:30
hope you enjoyed this week's rise above noise a spotlight. Did you grab some takeaways from our talk? I know I did. Not Dawn is on a mission, right? She's guiding her clients and her followers to be more productive, show up with consistency so that they can make more of an impact in our world. You've heard me say before, I will say it again. Now more than ever, our world needs you. Transformation creatives to be successful in your ventures to show up with consistency in service and make a real difference in our world. Make sure you go out and find the tools and the people who are going to help you do just that. Many of them are within our rise above noise community. I want to thank you for joining today. And thank you for being a member of the rise above noise community