AI is transforming the way we work and connect, but how can you make sure it amplifies your impact without compromising your authenticity?
In this episode, Samantha chats with messaging and AI expert Amy Yamada about integrating artificial intelligence into your business while staying authentic and human.
Technology continues to evolve and it’s easy to start to feel disconnected or overwhelmed. Amy shares how using AI strategically can actually strengthen human connection, help you craft impactful messaging, and free up your time to focus on what truly matters.
Whether you’re an AI skeptic or already knee-deep in automation, this conversation offers actionable insights to bridge the gap between technology and human connection, craft authentic messaging, save time with smarter tools, and focus on what only you can uniquely deliver.
Listen in and learn how to let AI handle the heavy lifting while you amplify your impact, stay true to yourself, and build stronger relationships in the process.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- Meet Amy Yamada (00:05)
- How to harness AI’s power to revolutionise your business while staying aligned to your values (01:22)
- Why resisting AI could mean losing your voice in a rapidly evolving digital world (04:37)
- How the Ideal Client Handbook unlocks audience insights like never before (08:23)
- The secret to messaging that resonates with your ideal client (14:28)
- Will AI really take over and replace human jobs? (19:08)
- Why authentic human connection is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage (24:10)
- A tool that finds, qualifies, and closes leads while keeping things personal (28:16)
- What’s next for AI in coaching? (36:54)
- Where to find Amy (39:49)
RESOURCES
QUOTES
- “AI is here, whether you push back or not, and if we push back, we are not going to be involved in the creation of it. So if we’re not involved in it, to me, that’s crazy. We’re just handing the power to someone else.” – Samantha Riley
- “Knowing your ideal client and knowing how to speak to them is one of the biggest things that holds most entrepreneurs back — they just can’t articulate their ideal client well.” – Samantha Riley
- “The reason I do what I do is because I want people to feel seen and heard and valued, and being able to put AI together with that to create deeper human connection is exactly what I want to see AI being used for.” – Samantha Riley
- “What if the AI is really the AI doing, and we are the human being?” – Amy Yamada
- “A lot of businesses are missing out on so many wonderful clients that are ready to buy from them or invest in them. They’re just not getting back to them fast enough.” – Amy Yamada
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ABOUT AMY YAMADA
Amy Yamada is a seasoned business coach, speaker, and the founder of IdealClient.AI, specializing in authentic messaging and effective communication. Amy is a leading authority in empowering entrepreneurs to master marketing and communication by deeply understanding their target audience through AI. Also, feel free to share this “ICH Podcast Generator” custom GPT, where Sam can simply upload her Ideal Client Handbook and my Ideal Client Handbook as plain text .txt files, and this ICH Podcast Generator will create podcast host questions that are relevant to both of us and our target audiences:
WHERE TO FIND AMY YAMADA
- Website: https://amyyamada.com/
- Website: https://idealclient.ai/
- Website: https://botleads.ai/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyyamada/
- Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2876780559058356
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyyamada/
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
Facebook: Samantha Riley
Instagram: @thesamriley
LinkedIn: Samantha Riley
Twitter: @thesamriley
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:05
Welcome to today’s episode. I’m so excited to be talking with such a good friend and colleague of mine, Amy Yamada, and we’re going to be diving into AI. And really, what I love about the way that Amy talks about AI is keeping your soul, making sure that you’re not coming across as a robot, as vanilla, and how you can use it in your business. So welcome to the show, Amy.
Amy Yamada 0:31
Yeah, thank you so much. Samantha, I’m so happy to be back. I appreciate it.
Samantha Riley 0:34
Yeah, so we’ve been connected for literally years. You’ve done all sorts of things. You’re amazing at messaging. You’re amazing at VIP days. But the last couple of years, you have really dived deep down the AI rabbit hole, and you were probably one of the first people that I saw. Like, your speed to market when Chat GPT came out was super fast. I was like, what do we use this thing for? Oh, lucky. Amy and Ken have written a book. Now I know what to do with it. So tell us a little bit about how you got started in AI, or, like, what was that thing that made you go, this is, this is the thing that I want to be known for? Or this is the thing that we’re going to follow.
Amy Yamada 1:22
Yeah, I mean, it’s so crazy to think about the journey over the last couple of years at this point, because it’s just been such a whirlwind. And it’s not something I would have ever imagined as an entrepreneur. You know, you go down a path that evolves over time, and then it just completely shifted into the AI world, and it really felt extremely organic. It wasn’t really planned out to be totally transparent. I just remember when I first experienced Chat GPT, you know, gosh, it was like, what November 2022 and I, I just saw what it could do. And I think a lot of people have had that experience the first time they use it and tell it to do something, and it’s like, boom, it’s done. Wait, what is happening here, right? So I knew that’s gonna be a really like, a next big thing. And even though AI technically has been around for a long time, Chat GPT becoming mainstream, I feel like that was a really big like, announcement to the world of like, AI is here and it’s for everyone. So as I dove into it, I thought, Gosh, I’m a words and messaging person, right? I’ve always loved messaging and communication and authentic marketing. And how can I connect with my audience? How can my clients connect with their audiences in a way that’s real and true and not just marketing fluff? And so I thought, I wonder if I could bring in what I’ve been training my clients to do for the past now 13 years, or even before that, I worked in the corporate media, where it was all about, you know, the programming and the audience, and how, how does that connect? And how do we bring in the advertisers and the sponsors? And so it’s always about connection, right? So to make a long story short, I start off with really focusing on training Chat GPT on how to write in my unique, authentic voice. And I know there’s a lot of people who do that now, but early, very early on, I figured out a way to do that, and then it has just evolved from there. So I just, I just dove in because I saw something really powerful, and I thought, You know what? I think that I can initially integrate this into what I’ve already been doing inside my business, so I can make things easier for my clients, where they can accelerate their results and their success by leveraging AI and then from there, we, you know, now, launched different software products, and now we’re in the thick of a much bigger collaborative launch, and bringing this whole, you know, entire bot system where you can have a team of bots working for you. So it’s, you know, and I’m, like a lot of people of the world, it’s, there’s a part of it that is scary, right? There’s a part of it. It’s like, oh, is AI taking over the world, you know, it can have that kind of sci-fi feeling. And so I’m just doing my best to really think about, how can we use it for good, and how can we be a part of the evolution of AI versus be so scared of it, you know? So, yeah, so it’s been, it’s been quite the journey. I think it’s a very exciting time. And I just like being, I like being on the edge of it, you know, just like innovating, and it’s really, it’s gotten me so out of my comfort zone, Sam, like, I’m just like, Okay, I’m gonna figure this out. And a lot of it is just when you’re in your own world, or in your own way, trailblazing. It’s really uncomfortable, and it’s also a great challenge.
Samantha Riley 4:37
Yeah, yeah, you bring up a really good point that, do we want to be involved in this? Because there’s so many people pushing back and saying, I don’t want to be involved in it. I don’t want to be a part of it. But the thing to realise is that AI is here, whether or not you push back or not, and if we push back, we are not going to be involved in the creation of it. And I’m thinking specifically about LinkedIn. And the way that AI is being used within LinkedIn at the moment, it’s collecting the data, so if we don’t interact with it, we’re essentially silencing ourselves. And I’ve seen stats talking about women, especially, sort of that, around that 50 year age. You know, obviously it’s a span, but women in that age group are not having anything to do with AI, and essentially that means that we’re silencing a whole group of people. So if we’re not involved in it, to me, that’s crazy. We’re just handing the power to someone else. What can you speak to in regards to that?
Amy Yamada 5:42
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean it, and it’s interesting. I think you mentioned women, you know. What I found is that whenever I’ve been in a circle or meeting with AI experts, often I’m the only woman, you know. And I look around, Where are the women here, you know? And I think that, you know, and I understand it, and that if I didn’t jump in when I did, I would likely be that woman who’s like, oh, I don’t want anything to do with this, because it would, it would scare me and make me uncomfortable. However, I just, I just see what is possible now, and I think that it is, it’s just like, it’s as revolutionary, if not more, than when the internet first came out, or when we first started getting our phones, right? Like, I mean, I am kidding myself, but I remember I wasn’t until I was like, after college that I got my first cell phone, you know, and so even at the time, I was like, Why do I need a phone with me, right? Like, why do we need to carry, like, I was just thinking about, like, a phone, right? Like, why would I need to carry them around when people can just reach me at any time? And now I can’t imagine not having it. So I think that it’s not going anywhere. It’s only going to evolve. And so it still is early enough. And at the same time, my belief is that for those who wait another three, 6, 12, months, then I do believe you’ll feel behind. And I don’t see that to create fear. It’s just more like, at least be aware of what AI can do for you, especially as an entrepreneur, there is so much that AI can do besides copywriting and content creation, that is like the tiniest little speck of what all AI can do. And I know the key thing is to not get overwhelmed, but to think about, hmm, I wonder if AI could help me save time on this task, or to help me to create this so that I don’t have to spend hours and hours creating this thing that I used to have to do. So that’s what I’d say.
Samantha Riley 7:29
Yeah, yeah. Like talking about evolution and phones. You know, what came up for me when you were saying that is even, when mobile phones very first came out, we thought about it as well you can ring someone on the go like and then it evolved into now we text people because we didn’t even text people when mobile phones came out, and now they don’t even sell phones. Or, you know, the marketing around phones isn’t about calling or texting, it’s about how good the camera is. And that’s all evolved within such a short time, and that’s just mobile phones. You know, AI is a whole different beast. Tell me or I’d love you to share how you’re using AI in your business, over and above Chat GPT. Because I think that a lot of people, when they think AI, they only think Chat GPT. How else are you using it?
Amy Yamada 8:23
Yeah, well, we’ve been in the building AI space for over a year now. And so what we realised after we figured out how to train AI on specifically Chat GPT or Claude, those are still my two favorite large language models. After we figured that out, we thought, Well, wait a minute, when minute, when we’re communicating with an audience, it’s really about deeply understanding the audience, not just oh, it’s all about me and my authentic voice. I want to make sure that it sounds like me. It’s like, what about putting the spotlight on the client, the audience, the people on your email list or your social media following? And so we started to really think about, how could we also train AI on your ideal client? And so we started to play with a series of prompts and seeing how we could tap into AI for the intelligence side of it, not just using it to create but using it to provide data and create these insights. So that’s when we developed our tool called The Ideal Client Handbook. And The Ideal Client Handbook is where you can create an account, and all you have to do is answer three questions. One, what is your purpose? So why do you do what you do? Number two is, what is your desired outcome or transformation for your ideal client? And then number three is to describe your business type, and you can include what type of offers you provide your clients. And then you press submit, and it goes into this production queue behind the scenes, and it goes through an AI based complex process, and then it will email you within about 10 minutes, about a 40 page document on everything that you could ever imagine knowing about your ideal client. So it’s a deep qualitative analysis. So it gets into the emotions of your ideal client. It gives you a mission statement, a profile overview, and then it goes into what they say in their own words. So it truly is a messaging tool, an emotional marketing, psychology, marketing tool that can really help to then use that as a large input into AI to then use it to say, Okay, this is who my ideal client is on the deepest level. Now let’s bring ideas. Now, let’s, you know, come up with what is my ideal customer journey, and how can I use this with AI to develop, you know, further develop or grow my business. So we love building our own tools and then using it with the AI platforms, so that it’s really not just about prompting, but it’s about your larger inputs, like knowledge inputs. So you could say, Hey, here’s a lot of information. So instead of just using AI to write for you, you’re actually using it to read and analyse and comprehend what it is that you’re trying to do. And so whenever somebody says, Oh, yeah, I tried Chat GPT, but what it gave me back was not good. I’m like …
Samantha Riley 11:12
It didn’t work. It sounded wrong. It was off.
Amy Yamada 11:17
I’m like, garbage in, garbage out, you know, it’s just you worked with a team member and said, Hey, here’s a little bit of information about my business. Now go do your job. And they’re like, Okay, I have skill sets, and I know your website, I know a little bit about you, but I want to make sure that I do a really good job for you. So there would be information, there would be education, there would be training, there would be company culture, right? Like we need to give it more, so it understands what it needs to do to be successful. AI wants to be successful for you. So it’s up to us as entrepreneurs or whomever is using AI to say, Okay, what information can I feed it? Not just little prompts, but information like you can go really deep so it understands what it is that I want to talk about or to figure out. And so there’s just so much more that it could do.
Samantha Riley 12:10
Yeah. I find it really difficult to talk about how amazing this handbook is, like, even listening to you talking about it, then I’m like, in my head, I’ve got one, my husband, Leon’s got one for our ideal clients, and it doesn’t just help prime the AI, it also helps you really understand what you’ve never been able to put into words before. It’s like, oh, that’s what they’re thinking. Oh, that’s what’s keeping them up at night. Oh, I thought it was this problem, but I can see this little nuance. It’s actually this, and we use it in it for ourselves. A few of our clients have got it, and they’re using it. And what I’ve seen happen with the use of this handbook is speed, because all of a sudden, now you don’t need to be questioning, did I get that right? Is it this? There’s not really much sort of split testing needing to happen, or on a such a greater scale, in your copy, because, you know, we use it, for example, we’ve written the copy ourselves, and then we say, Okay, here’s our Ideal Client Handbook. Please tell me, what is it that I’ve missed, or what haven’t I touched on that’s really important? Or, you know, with this copy, what does my ideal client still need to know that I haven’t explained? And it just, it’s the nuance that it brings, it’s the speed, it’s the certainty in really understanding who that ideal client is. And as you and I know, knowing your ideal client and knowing how to speak to them is one of the biggest things that holds most entrepreneurs back, is they just can’t articulate their ideal client well. So yeah, I just wanted to sort of even go deeper on that, to have people think, Huh, okay, like, how could we even use it? We use it multiple times every day to create copy, to, you know, to give us feedback for any of our offers, you know, any of our marketing like, it’s just the most incredible document. So yeah, thank you. I want to publicly thank you.
Amy Yamada 14:28
You’re so welcome. You know, I’ve always been a messaging girl. You know, I love that, that communication and personal interaction, and so I’ve always loved being able to both work on my own and also help other entrepreneurs to really take their messaging to that next level. And I don’t mean just marketing and taglines and subject lines, I mean deep human connection, which is why it’s ironic that I’mat this space, but I like bringing the deep human connection into AI so that way, when, you know, when we’re when we’re communicating with one another, it’s like the client feels so seen and heard by you, right? And that’s why whenever somebody says, like, like, I’ll even have colleagues and friends of mine who will have like a true confession with me, and when they get their ideal client handbook, like Amy, it was amazing. I started reading it, and it was frighteningly accurate. It went so deep. But honestly, I read like, the first few pages, and it’s like 40 pages. I just didn’t have time to read the whole thing. And I always, we always kind of laugh about it, because I understand we’re all busy entrepreneurs and and I always tell them, It’s okay if you don’t read the whole thing, just at least skim it so you can see how accurate it is. You know, otherwise, you can generate another one, and you can always use it as an input. But a little part of me has a little heartbreak, because I think about how this is representing your ideal client. And in my heart of hearts, if you really care about deeply understanding your ideal client, you will take the time, even if it’s in chunks, to read through the whole thing, because there are many parts of this, this document, my favorite parts that are in quotes, which is saying what they think in their own words, which is what they would say in their own words and that reveals their deep vulnerabilities as humans. And so I just always like, oh, man, you’re missing out. Like, just make a little cup of tea and, like, make it a party, you know, read through it and say and stop and think, like, have I heard my clients say that? Is it something I haven’t heard them say, but they’re thinking it, you know, as a messaging person, I sometimes might have a little ego like, oh, they don’t say that. And I always before I dismiss whatever line of all of the pages that I feel is wrong, I’ll just take a moment and say, Well, wait a minute. Is it possible that they have been thinking this? I just haven’t noticed it. Yeah. So I’ve noticed my own messaging gaps. And so I started thinking about, okay, I can actually include this in some of my own messaging that I put out there. And I notice, wow, yep, my clients do feel that way, my audience does feel that way. So it is fascinating.
Samantha Riley 16:54
I think that this, in itself, is the goals. Because for me, the reason I do what I do is because I want people to feel seen and heard and valued, and being able to put AI together with that to create deeper human connection is exactly what I want to see AI being used for. I don’t want it to be, right, robotic and taking away human connection, but it’s actually adding to connection, and that’s why I think I’m so passionate about getting your message out there, because in this world that moves so quickly, that is so online, everyone is, everyone, I don’t know anyone that’s not at some point missing deep, deep human connection and just being able to, you know, with what you’re doing and helping people to be seen and heard is is so good.
Amy Yamada 17:46
Yeah, I like to think of it as, let’s let AI get these deeper insights, and let it help us to connect with and even find our ideal clients and connect with them. So that way, ultimately, it can speed, you said the word speed. It can speed up the point where the actual humans come together, right? Yes. So when, when we can then use, use these tools and, you know, our latest tool even can help with this is in terms of actually finding the ideal clients, starting the initial conversation via email, going back and forth, actually getting on a call with a voice spot or at least pre qualifying the potential client, the lead to see if they are a fit for what you offer, and then booking a call with you like, it’s just amazing how we can actually work with AI to do some of that initial heavy lifting for us, so that we really focus on connecting with the people we are meant to serve. And so it just speeds up that process, prequalifying them, connecting with them, and seeing, like, calling forward our dream clients, so that way we can get to working with each other, you know. So, so that’s, I know that’s a whole other thing that I just jumped to, but it’s just to me, that’s what it’s about. It’s about, you know, really focusing on how we prioritise our time, and how can we work with AI to actually bring more humans together. Again, ironically.
Samantha Riley 19:08
I love that. Leon and I were just having lunch together yesterday, and had a really deep AI conversation with the people or the person that we were having lunch with, and he just deployed, in this week, his AI sales team. So we were so intrigued about all of this. From your perspective, and I know that you’re big in the AI world with your partner, Ken, what’s your opinion, or what have you seen happening in the space of AI taking human jobs, because that’s a very big part of the conversation. I know that I don’t want to focus in on the whole world, but let’s focus in just kind of in the coaching space. What have you seen from a negative or positive or whatever it is in that?
Amy Yamada 20:03
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, you know, I never want to focus on the fear and all of that. And at the same time, I like to be very real. And I do believe it will take over some jobs, I do, and I know that that can bring up emotions and feelings for some people, and at the same time, what I’m always encouraging entrepreneurs and professionals to do is to use it so that way you are more likely to be kind of, quote, unquote safe in that even if your role evolves, even as an owner of a business, if your role evolves, your team members’ roles evolve, it’s those who know how to use it that will continue to have a job, because they’re now speeding up the process by, like, creating the autopilot, right? That has having it all run, and then really leaving the parts that are, where the human is necessary to the humans, right? There’s things that AI can do that humans can’t do, and vice versa. And so something that there’s been a circle of us in the AI space that have been talking about this, and we’re like, we are human beings, right? Like we’re here to be and, and like, be together and, and like, that might all sound like a fairy tale, right? But I really love the idea of, like, what if the AI is really the AI doing, and we are the human being?
Samantha Riley 21:24
Yeah, I love that thought.
Amy Yamada 21:28
What I love doing the most of this right here, connecting with humans I love, right? If I could just spend, I have, I do spend a lot of my time connecting with people I love. Like, that’s, that’s what I really want to do. And sometimes I want my own alone time to be with myself, right? And so if I can have more and more of the tasks completed by an AI, then the human beings, including the human beings on my team, can focus on other elements of the business. So, I would say I do see it starting to replace jobs. And also, and I also see, I see it doing things that we haven’t yet been doing up until now, like some, some of us are developing different types of really cool AI software that is creating such a personalised experience. So for example, one of my colleagues, he developed this for one of his clients, not remembering all the names of who was involved, but essentially, imagine where you have a landing page, right? And the landing page is about like it could be a sales web page or an opt-in page, and it has its copy and it’s being sent out to your email list, but it’s the same, you know, it’s the same page that’s going out to everybody, right, for your audience. Imagine if, instead of it being the same for everybody, it has studied every individual person, and the words on the page are refined specifically for each individual person. So it’s almost like one to one, even though it’s one to many, but it’s nice and specialised for each person, right? So that blows my mind, because then the person as you and I love this will feel seen and heard like, wow, this is really speaking my specific language, not just me as a part of a demographic or an audience, but me, right? And so if I, if I had a sales web page that said, you know, Hey, Amy, I know that you’re looking to X, Y and Z, right, like, and that you live in the greater Seattle area with your family, and you like, wait, are they to have a webcam on me? You know? I mean, it might be a little creepy, but …
Samantha Riley 23:37
But, yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Amy Yamada 23:41
And I might not be quite ready for it. But I think, haven’t we all seen those futuristic movies where someone’s walking through an airport and the ads change and they’re like, Hi Sam, welcome to the airport. You know, like, you know, like, where the ads change because they’re the person, I’m like, I think that there’s some reality there, that the marketing, the ads, the messaging, is going to become more personalised to the person, not just the audience.
Samantha Riley 24:10
What was coming up for me, as you were saying that is, I wonder how long or how far it is in the distance where even that starts to not work. We become so blase, I guess because that marketing is so specific that it’s almost like we switch off to all things. I wonder what, how long that will take to happen?
Amy Yamada 24:36
You’re probably right, because, I mean, I think we already tune out a lot of it, because there’s just too much noise coming to us. I mean, even when I worked in corporate, I worked in the media advertising world, even then they were saying that, like back then, which is way more now, they would say something like, Oh, there you get like, 10,000 messages coming at you every single day. I know it’s like way more than that now, I think it’s like 2 million now, like we’re just being bombarded, I mean this thing about how much you know, if you scroll even for like, 10 minutes, you probably have all these ads coming to you. And if you, if you look around like it’s just, it’s just overwhelming. So I think you’re absolutely right. I think that it will become something that we’ve come a little bit like, immune to, in a way, and that’s when I believe that deep human connection will become even more valuable.
Samantha Riley 25:23
Yes, and that’s what I believe, too.
Amy Yamada 25:25
Think about what happened during the pandemic, right? We couldn’t wait to be with each other. We couldn’t wait till things opened up. There was a whole world depression around like, I’m living in my bubble, you know? And like, I want to see my other people and so I think that it was a really crazy experience of like, not being with people. And so I think that with AI evolving as rapidly as it is, I think that it’s just going to increase the value and the awareness of the value of deep human connection.
Samantha Riley 25:54
And I think that’s where I was going with the job piece too. Like there are going to be some jobs that are going to be, I can’t think of the word, deleted, like changed, where people won’t be needed, but it’s going to just shift the energy to different places. And I think that soft skills, empathy, communication, connection, are going to increase in value as we need that, because nothing can replace human connection. I don’t believe, anyway, this might be played back to me in 50 years and like, Haha, listen to that old, old, outdated thought. But I don’t believe, you know, we can chat with Chat GPT and ask it deep things. I’ve had some really funny, deep conversations with Chat GPT, but it’s still words that don’t have heart behind them. It’s just words on a page.
Amy Yamada 26:50
That’s just it. We even developed a GPT that is very compassionate and empathetic, like it, I have actually been brought to tears a few times communicating with this specific GPT that helps, it almost feels therapeutic, right? However, it’s still not the same as connecting with a human being. Because one thing that it doesn’t, you’re right, it doesn’t have a heart. It also can’t say, You know what, Amy, I totally can relate to you, because I remember when I did this, this thing, right? Like it can’t relate to that. It can’t look into my eyes. It can’t hug, you know. So it’s just like, it’s not the same. It can, it can be helpful to process thoughts and look at things from a different perspective. So it’s, yeah, that’s why I happen to be intelligence of it. And then save the deep human connection for your humans, you know, spend time with them and and love on them and like never lose sight of what’s most important, which is these beautiful relationships in our lives. So, yeah, it is, it’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, even the next one year, two year, five years from now, right?
Samantha Riley 27:57
I can’t believe Chat GPT only came out a couple of years ago. Because I remember, it was over the Christmas break, we were recording episodes, and someone said, If you heard of Chat GPT? And I was like, oh, yeah, I just heard a little bit about it, like, and that was only two years ago. That’s just incredible to me.
So the Ideal Client Handbook is something that you’ve been working on a lot. You’ve been working on a lot of GPTs, building your own. You also have been working on a big project. botleads.ai. Talk to us about how that came about.
Amy Yamada 28:33
Yeah, that came about because, well, once we developed the Ideal Client Handbook, and we started to offer that to our clients and our colleagues, and we started licensing it for communities. We noticed that, well, while people loved and appreciated it, they would get this document, and then they would read some of it, or all of it, and they would say, Okay, what do I do with this? You know? Like, it’s like, here’s, here’s the key to unlock the door to, like, messaging magic. And they’re like, What do I do with it, you know? And so, so initially, and we could still continue to build custom GPTs, you know, like, I have a GPT where you can upload the Ideal Client Handbook into it. It’ll ask a few questions, and it’ll create an irresistible offer for you based on who you are and who your ideal client is. I have another one that can build out a sales framework. So if you’re leading workshops for webinars, it can actually build out the entire, the entire, in a way, a script, I don’t believe in scripts, but a framework that will help you to go through the process of making a group offer. So there’s a lot of really cool ways that you can use the Ideal Client Handbook inside these custom GPT, these specialised AI tools. But the other piece of it is the never ending question, even prior to AI, where do I find these people, right? Yes, right. Oh, great to see it on paper. But where do I find these people? Like, where, where are they? And, you know, I used to, I used to say, well, we’re, you know. Where your ideal clients spend their time, both online and in person, which can be a maddening question. I realized that for like, I don’t know, I mean, they might be on, you know, Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or and a lot of people don’t like that, back in my day, right? I used to go to networking events all the time, right, when I worked in corporate, and they, even when I first started my business, I was a local Seattle socialite that went to everything, and I was always connecting, connecting, connecting, and, you know, building relationships and getting referrals. And it was, it was actually looking back now I get a little nostalgic for that time, but now I feel like everyone’s so online, aside from hopefully spending time with family and friends, that they need ways to call for their ideal client. And of course, there’s many different ways, as you and I both know, and I’m sure have experience with building our own businesses from ads and funnels and speaking and books and lead magnets and all the things, but we thought, well, what if we could use our specialised tool and integrate it into an AI system that actually can go find the actual human beings that represent the ideal client? So that’s when we launched botleads.ai, and that’s where we can upload the Ideal Client Handbook. It can be trained on your ideal client. It can be trained on your business. It can be trained on your offers, and then, and then it has these different search options where you can go find the people or the companies or even influencers that serve your ideal audience. And so it’s, think of it as a prospecting tool to find your ideal client. And it has enriched AI insights about the people. So to me, it’s quite a dreamy tool, because I think about how I could have used that back in the day, when I worked in sales to find the person right, part of my job was to actually cold call or do cold outreach and find who is the decision maker from this company, or research the types of companies that we wanted to sell advertising to for the radio stations and online streaming that we provided back then. And if I’d have this tool, that process of prospecting would have been much easier and faster, and then it can create these messages for me to send out to them that are personalised. So that’s the leads tool. And now we’re developing our, we’re about to launch, and hopefully by the time people see this, we will have fully launched our sales system that does both lead generation, lead pre-qualifying, the outreach, the sales conversation by an AI bot, closing the sales and doing the onboarding and wanting to bring in more and more of our human elements. So that way, these communication pieces that the AI bots are doing, bring in more of those, those beautiful insights in the way in which it communicates with the prospects. So it’ll just, that way, it’ll bring the humans together faster, because it’ll do all of that for the business owners. So by the time someone is in touch with a human, they’re already like, I’m ready to buy, or I’ve already bought. Now we get to work together. You know, so …
Samantha Riley 32:53
Wow. The future is here.
Amy Yamada 32:54
Yes, it is, it is. And I always feel like, intuitively, I can sense that somebody’s listening to this or watching this right now, and they’re like, shaking their heads, like, I don’t, I don’t like this, you know, I don’t. I don’t like the AI, I don’t like the thought of an AI phone call. Like, I understand kind of the heartache that we as humans can feel. And at the same time, I think about how often you or I call a company because we need answers, and the thing that, they’re not answering saying, Oh, hi, this is Comcast. How can I help you? It’s saying, Welcome to our, you know, called, you know, our, our phone tree, right? I’ll say, Oh, thank you for calling Comcast. If you’re calling about billing, press one. If you’re calling about, right, and you go this, and you’re like, oh my gosh, can I just get to a human being to answer my specific question? So we’re already dealing with non-human, automated services. So imagine, instead of that, if we could just call the business. And the business saying, hi, you know, Hi, Sam, thank you so much for calling us. Thank you for being a customer. How can I help you today? You said, Oh, well, I just, I just needed to call in and change my address. Awesome. I see here that your address has been this. What would you like to change it to? Right? And just like, Okay, great. Has this satisfied you? Yes. Okay. Thank you, right? Like, speed, speed, client satisfaction, right? Or even, or even when you need something and you, you reach out to, I had this happen recently where I needed my car auto detailed, and I reached out via, we use Yelp here in the US, and I think you guys have over there, but use Yelp to, like, find the businesses that have auto detailing services. And the first business that got back to me took an hour to respond to me. Another one took a day. Some of them never reached back out. And like I am a buyer ready to buy right now. Why is no one getting back to me? Right? When you all have my message and I’m ready. And if I don’t care if it’s an AI, if something would have said, Thank you so much for your interest in auto detailing. Can you tell us what’s happening, what type of car you have? Great, awesome. Would you like to, this is how much, what specifically you’re looking for. This is how much it is, would you like to schedule your appointment? Done, done. Right?
Samantha Riley 35:22
I could not agree more. I was just saying to Leon, probably about a month ago, there was three things that I was really looking to buy. And I said it was absolutely frustrating. I had my credit card in my hand ready to hand over, and no one would take my money. I was like, come on, people, you know, people, you know, there’s a big talk about the economy and people aren’t buying. There’s people that are actually wanting to buy, that are being or having walls put up in front of them. There’s friction there. There is people out there ready to buy. Just make it easy for them to buy what they want.
Amy Yamada 36:00
Yes, make it easy. Make it, make the whole onboard, like the communication and the onboarding, easy, and your clients will be very happy, and you will actually get the client. I think a lot of businesses are missing out on so many wonderful clients that are ready to buy from them or invest in them. They’re just not getting back to them fast enough. So speed is everything when people want it, they want it like, we’ve become an impatient human, right? Like, whereas humanity, we’re like, on things quickly. We want things right, right away. And so usually it’s, it’s the first one that gets back to us, that gets the business. So it’s important for us to put ourselves out there, make sure that when people do show interest, that we are serving those people, and we’re seeing if they’re a fit, and then if they are, then here’s the offer, right?
Samantha Riley 36:54
Yeah. Now I know AI is working so fast, so I’m not going to ask a very long question, but what do you see happening within the coaching space in AI in the next 12 months?
Amy Yamada 37:09
Well, I think there’s going to be a lot more like personalisation because of AI. So for example, one of my friends and colleagues, he has a newsletter that is AI powered, where it will write the newsletter. So it’s kind of like the landing page example I was giving you. It will write the newsletter based on who’s receiving it. So the overall framework of the newsletter will be the same, but it will then, it will then understand and experience what, not only what is the recipient reading, but what are they clicking on, right? What are they clicking on is what they’re actually interested in, because that’s where they’re taking action. So then it starts to be, it’s training itself on, when Sam reads my newsletter, what is she interested in the most? What is she clicking on? How long is she looking at it? What are her interests, right? So then the next time it sends you a newsletter, it’ll be really dedicated to you. And then the next step of that is for it to some, and this is a part I don’t quite understand yet, but somehow it will better understand your personality type and the language you like to use. So even the messaging within the framework of the newsletter will be more in the way that you would better receive it. So I think that’s going to be …
Samantha Riley 38:24
That blows my mind.
Amy Yamada 38:27
I know too much. I still think of that. I’m like, I can’t even believe this. And so that I think it’s to me more and more personalisation by being AI powered and then, and just the sheer quantity of individuals that it can reach out to, like, even with what we’re, what we’re launching, I mean, our bots can work together and work 24/7, and reach out to I mean, there’s no, there’s no real limit. I mean, imagine having a sales team that can make 1000 calls a minute, right? Like it’s 100,000 calls a minute, like we, I can’t even wrap my brain around it. So I think that for those who really are diving into the deep end, who want to scale and grow their businesses, I mean, they will still, you know, hopefully it takes like, we’re not going there yet, because we don’t, we don’t want the system to break, right. So we’re like, Okay, let’s start here and then see where we want to go from here. But I think that there’s just going to be a lot of rapid growth, because now we have bots that can do things that human beings cannot do. I can’t call 1000 people at the same time. Nobody can, right, having that level of, that quantity, that sheer quantity of personalised outreach is just, I can’t, I still can’t believe it, that it’s possible, but it’s happening. So, yeah, yeah.
Samantha Riley
Yeah. Amy, how can people connect with you and follow along on this amazing journey that you’re on?
Amy Yamada 39:56
Yeah, for sure. Well, I’ll, you know, will share the links to my beloved products with idealclient.ai, and that’s where we really speak into how to really deeply understand your ideal client. And that’s where we feature our ideal client handbook that’s customised, done for you. AI powered. And then now we’ve got botleads.ai, and that’s where we’ve got both leads tool as well as the complete bot system that can generate the leads, manage the leads, pre qualify them, have a sales conversation onboard them, so you can definitely check those pages out, or you can just reach out to me. You know, DM me. Everything online with me is under Amy Yamada, so you just go to my Instagram at Amy Yamada, and you can find me there. So I always say, though, if you Google my name, though, you’ll find me, and then you’ll find the famous Japanese novelist for trashy romance novels. She’s not me.
Samantha Riley 40:51
Either of those sounds okay.
Amy Yamada 40:54
It might be, might be kind of fun, but just know that we’re two different people. I’m sure she’s great. Maybe someday I’ll meet her, but that’s a different Amy Yamada.
Samantha Riley 41:03
That’s okay. I also have a Samantha Riley in my world, who’s an Olympic swimmer. I, on the other hand, cannot swim.
Amy Yamada 41:10
That is amazing. I love it.
Samantha Riley 41:13
Amy, thank you so much for sharing everything you have with us today. I look forward to getting you back on the podcast, probably in 12 months time, and discussing what has changed and what’s coming up then. It’s an exciting time, and thank you for sharing what you’re up to today.
Amy Yamada 41:29
Thank you so much for having me. It’s always such a joy.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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