With RJ Redden, creator of Black Belt Bots, who designs epic engagement experiences for entrepreneurs.

RJ solves one of the biggest problems in marketing a business: Lack of engagement. What’s going to bring qualified clients to your doorstep? Maybe if you focus on building your email list… step up that social media posting… go live more often…

Three years ago, RJ turned her entire business over to chatbots. Conversational marketing brings engagement, connection, and qualified clients beating down your door.

You will love this conversation with the energetic and brilliant RJ where we dig into all things bot-related. Looking for a way to create a unique and standout client experience? This conversation is for you! We dig into RJ’s background, what caused her to “jump ship” and shift her entire business into creating chat-bots for clients, and the numerous ways that chatbots can be used in your business to create an epic client experience.

Entrepreneurs hire RJ to skyrocket their engagement, because most feel like they’re shouting into a black hole, or they’re a carbon copy of everyone else, and they can’t get traction online to save their lives. So RJ creates epic engagement experiences that make people click that button, connect with you, and convert like crazy. Bottom line, RJ is on a mission to motivate a million people to join the engagement marketing revolution.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• People are not clicks.
• “It’s a content crush out there. And people have blinders on.” How do you get through that crush?
• There is a way to communicate better. 
• The difference between engagement marketing and traditional marketing (see timestamp below!)

Check out these highlights:

7:05 Some awesome insights into RJ’s background, including owner of a painting company, an IT coach, and what led to her work today..

11:40 “Most of the information that is coming to me in a single day… 90% of it is completely value-less to me. We have forgotten in digital marketing that there is a person on the other end of that screen.”

12:28 There IS a way out of modern marketing.

17:58 How a bot can get your clients to tell it things that they have not divulged before.

22:40 Where can you plant a bot? (Outside of FB messenger?)

37:59 How a bot can make a recommendation without being overbearing, salesy or sleazy.

43:05 The difference between engagement marketing and traditional marketing. (You don’t want to miss this!)

How to get in touch with RJ Redden

On social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjredden/

https://www.instagram.com/blackbeltbots/

https://www.facebook.com/BlackBeltBots/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp5nYW-5yxzwRb8ugY_hQ5g

FREE GIFT FOR LISTENERS:

To Schedule a FREE Strategy Session with RJ to learn more about how you might apply bots in your business, go to www.MeetRJ.com

Or, want to experience a chatbot directly for yourself? Go to http://CheckOutMyBot.com to play around with RJ’s chatbot. You can take her free 7 day mini course about bots, connect with RJ one on one, and more!

You can also learn more about RJ at her website here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro 0:00
Coming up today on Guts, Grit and Great Business.

RJ Redden 0:03
People aren’t clicks. Please don’t count me as a click. What I began to learn when I started chatbots was that we can change all of that we can have two way conversations with people we can learn about them learn about what they value, send them things of value, or send them to a friend of ours that might provide them better value. There is a way out of Modern Marketing. There is the adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of Guts, Grit and Great Business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast where endurance is required. Now here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell 0:59
Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, and serving online information entrepreneurs around the world. I am super excited about this conversation today. I have my buddy somebody who I just adore you are going to adore if you don’t already know her. RJ redden, welcome.

RJ Redden 1:31
Thank you, Heather. I am so happy to be here. This is going to be exciting.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:36
It is going to be exciting. And like I said for somebody that if they’ve not yet connected with you, they are in for a treat. So for folks who don’t know our day, RJ is the founder of black belt box where she designs epic engagement experiences for entrepreneurs. She comes to work every day because she loves to solve one of the biggest problems in marketing lack of engagement right? So her her journey and I met RJ gosh a year and a half two years ago now Yeah, yeah at a live event and I you got up on stage and I was in love luv, you were speaking our language, all of us who have been on any kind of marketing journey know exactly what you’re talking about when you talk about the struggles of getting engagement and focusing on building email lists getting people to your doorstep, right. So three years ago, RJ turned her entire business over to chat bots. conversational marketing breeds engagement, connection and qualified clients beating down your door. So entrepreneurs hire RJ to skyrocket their engagement because most feel like they’re shouting into a black hole, or they’re a carbon copy of everyone else. And they can’t get traction online to save their lives. So she creates epic engagement experiences that make people click that button, connect with you and convert like crazy. Bottom line. She’s on a mission to motivate a million people to join the engagement marketing revolution. RJ I love your intro, and I love your focus on engagement. I think everybody knows the feeling of putting stuff out into the interwebs and on social media and just have it like be lost and not heard and never interacted with. And it’s not what we want. And we shouldn’t be wasting our time. So I’m so excited for what you’re here to talk about today. And all of the amazing gems that our listeners are going to get out of this conversation.

RJ Redden 3:50
Me too, my friend. This is going to be wild. I love talking about engagement. I love talking to entrepreneurs about this. So we’re gonna have some fun today.

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:01
Yes. And for those of you who are not watching the video, because this will also be published in a video interview series. RJ if you’ve not seen her before, you need to go connect with her online as she wears the most brilliant cape and how do you describe your goggles are they like? They’re like pilot, right? How do you describe those? What are they?

RJ Redden 4:24
You know, sometimes my magic gets a little messy and I just need to pull them right over and protect the eyeballs. You know what I’m saying? I

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:35
like those old school like, like pilot goggles like I imagine the planes that don’t have anything you know, they’re just like open airplane. That’s what I pictured when I see those goggles are plain open air with those great goggles on Totally.

RJ Redden 4:53
Totally. Love Amelia Earhart and I so yes, these these These goggles are in that style.

Heather Pearce Campbell 5:02
I love her too. And did you know that when I was doing genealogy a little while back, I actually learned that she is a cousin of mine along? Yes. Like, I’m related to Amelia Earhart. I know.

RJ Redden 5:18
I love you just a little bit more right now. I just wanted you to know.

Heather Pearce Campbell 5:23
Perfect, perfect. Well, I’m down and I’m totally down with the Amelia Earhart goggles. So aardig take us for people that don’t know, you take us back to your roots in entrepreneurship, what brought to you because not everybody signs up for this path? Right? Not everybody raises their hand and says, Yeah, me, I want to be an entrepreneur. How did you get into this world?

RJ Redden 5:46
Well, I think the simplest explanation is that I was absolutely born for it. Because I am untrainable unemployable, please do not sit behind a cubicle. And it took me a while to find this out, you know what I’m saying? Like, I think that the name of my autobiography ought to be how I got from here to there in 18 million steps, most of which were entirely unnecessary. Ah, yeah, my time in corporate slavery was not fun for anyone. It wasn’t fun for anybody. Um, you know, I am a person who I just, I have ideas. About 10 years ago, I got this idea. I’m actually there’s a little bit more than 10. And it was an idea to create a business to go take orders for food, and movie rentals, go pick up the stuff, deliver it to the house charge an extra premium fee. We were good. That was my idea. Um, you know, and then I thought to myself, I can’t make I just don’t know, I don’t know if I can make that happen. And I just kind of, and then Netflix and Uber Eats comes around. It’s like, all right, dang. Alright, guys. But yeah, I just, I’ve always had the heart and soul of somebody who needs to go create something way too much energy to sit in a chair and be told what to do. So that is how I got here. And I got here. I mean, I this is, you know, not my first rodeo with businesses. I once had a painting company. Too bad. I’m scared of heights and spiders. You know, I was an IT coach for a while. I mean, there were many businesses have finally with this one, it was like I really hit that sweet spot of need, and being able to provide for that need. And that’s that’s how, that’s how I got really started, huh? No,

Heather Pearce Campbell 7:48
I love that. And, I mean, I’m laughing at your description of the 18 million steps. But I think so many of us can relate right, like trying something going one direction, you know, and it, it really just sometimes takes experimenting and trying idea after idea after idea. And I think a lot of people beat themselves up for like, not having it figured out from the start. But the reality I read some statistic like, you know, it’s a it’s a massive percentage, the vast majority of people never even end up working in the field that they went to university for. Right? So it’s like, people don’t be so hard on yourself. I mean, we are here to experiment, and play and figure it out. And I wish people could feel more playful about that. Because I think there’s a lot of pressure there.

RJ Redden 8:41
There’s a lot of pressure there, particularly when money is involved. And everyone’s safety is involved, right? Just go back to what you were doing. It’s going to be um, I get it, and I’ve been there. But I’ve also been in that moment. You know, the moment the last job I actually Oh, Heather, I don’t think you know, this. I actually my last corporate experience I walked out of, I just couldn’t for one more minute, be there and pretend to believe in what we were doing. And all of the things and my wife actually this job that I had, she begged me to quit three separate times. She told me it’s gonna be fine. She’s a pharmacist, we’re doing okay over here, people. She said, college, quit come home, do your job. Do your, you know do your company thing. You can have the basement as an office. I mean, she’s she’s begging me to quit and I’m like holding on going oh, you know, I don’t want to go there again because it was so scary last time. I’m finally that just came the day where they announced a change which I won’t go into But they announced a change. And it was I just remember, I remember hearing the clock tick in my boss’s office as he told me how it was going to go down. And, you know, he, he announced the change to me. He said, This person is now going to become your boss. And I set up Betcha he’s not. And he knew immediately that that meant that real soon. And really, you know, I mean, I said, How can I make this transition really easy for you? And he said, Well, you should, you should go and don’t tell anybody and just pick up your coat and roll. And I was like, okay, and I did it. I mean, I just couldn’t for one more minute go. Yeah, this is totally okay. Something I can contribute to, to make money for my family. No, I had to get I had to go. And, you know, I mean, things, things weren’t easy. When I was starting my business, I’m sure everybody’s had this. I too, did the marketing, you know, get the whatever people are saying out there and, you know, turn it into something, okay, content, I’ll create content. Great. I’m a content person. I’ll tell you a story right now. You know, I’m ready baby. Cash, I’ll write it down, film it and turn it into a dance move. I don’t know, I’ll do it. I’ll create that content for you. But the problem is, you know that with a lot of the is a content crush out there are so much. And people have blinders on. Because the problem is that most of that information that’s coming to me in a single day, through my inbox through, you know, those stupid banner ads, through the retargeting through everything 90% of it completely, valueless To me, that’s, I think that we have forgotten in digital marketing, that there is a person on the other end of that screen. We are not a people, people aren’t clicks, please don’t count me as a click. What I began to learn when I started chatbots was that we can change all of that we can change all of that we can have two way conversations with people, we can learn about them learn about what they value, send them things of value, or send them to a friend of ours that might provide them better value. There is a way out of Modern Marketing, there is.

Heather Pearce Campbell 12:33
Hallelujah, the clouds are party and people are listening. I know. Well, and I wonder when you first discovered this functionality, right chat chat bots? Was it like suddenly the lights came on for you? Or did it take you like experimenting with it, trying it like Tell me how you know how that transition went? When you realize like this may be the solution that I’ve been looking for?

RJ Redden 12:59
Yeah. So it’s a kind of a combination I popped on to somebody is to a group because a friend of mine, a friend and a client had was in the group. She is the kind of person who will get her feet wet. And then say RJ pulled me out of this one. I don’t know what I’m doing. So I saw she was in this group about bots. She’d been talking about bots. I’m like, all right. Do I wait until she calls for help? Or do I just go in? So I went in. And in this bot group, they had a little thing in the side of the Facebook group that said in the description said start here. And so all right. I’m a rule follower ping, I’m going to start there. And it connected me to a messenger bot. I was having this conversation. I knew it was a bot, it was completely transparent. Because they had made it that way. They’re like, Hi, totally, uh, you’re talking to a bot right now. And then the bot told me a joke, and asked me where I wanted to go give me a choice of where I wanted to go. I laughed at the joke. I looked at choices as to what I wanted to hear about. And I said the revolution is coming.

Heather Pearce Campbell 14:12
So you knew.

RJ Redden 14:15
Yeah, I knew immediately that I had stumbled upon the answer to a question that I’d had for a long time. People would come to me and they would say RJ we you know, because I was doing it marketing help for a long time coaching. People come to me and they’d say, Well, I did everything you said. But then they changed the algorithm again. And people would come to me and they would go well, why is why is my open rate on these emails so low? And you know, and so it was like I kept watching my clients and my friends, do these things and then have the world change on them. And I thought there’s got to be a way that we can communicate better. There’s got to be a way that we can communicate And create a feedback loop for ourselves so that people can tell us their opinions and their views and what they value. There’s got to be a way I couldn’t find it, couldn’t find it. And then there I was that day I pinged on that bot. And it was like, right here, this is it. And so I did at that moment, before I changed my entire business. I did an experiment. I wrote an accountability bot for a client of mine, who had promised to get me some stuff. But then maybe, you know, kind of I was waiting and waiting, you know, so I had written her this beautiful, this air table, and this, this Google form that fed into it, you can make charts, and oh, my God, it was good Christmas. And I showed it to her. And she’s like, Yay, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna keep accountable, this is gonna be great. And I’m like, great. And then I kept checking it every day. Because, you know, I want to see when she opens her presence, and week went by nothing. So I said, Hey, how you doing with that thing? Notice you haven’t been in. And she said something very, very reasonable, which, and I don’t have this. I don’t have this issue. But she does. She said, RJ, I’ve got five kids. They need to be out the door fed with the correct homework in the correct bag. Every morning. I cannot go report in here, go somewhere else. I want to but I can’t. And she said could you make it so I never had to leave Facebook. And I said, I can make it so you don’t have to have to leave messenger. And she’s like, okay, so I went back back to the drawing board. I created her a chatbot. That checked in with her twice a day. She loved it so much, that she put it on her wall, and more friends put it on their wall. And I had 70 people I didn’t know, in my bot talking to me about personal stuff. And stuff that I had not been able to get an answer for in my group for a long, long time. And I had four I got four clients out of that one instance. It was it was like, Okay, that’s it. So it ended up being to about two weeks from start to finish from first landing on a bot to deciding that. I’m going to turn my whole business over into that. And my wife looked at me, she said, you’re you’re changing the branding again, aren’t you? I said yes. And this time, it’s gonna work, honey, and it

Heather Pearce Campbell 17:43
will. And anybody who’s ever seen you and the black belt bots, whether it’s on stage on light, right? It has it has people know, and when RJ is in the house, it’s a good thing. So what is it? Do you think about like, I’m fascinated that this little bot you created that checked in with people twice a day, was able to get them get? I mean, it was Yeah, it was able to get them to tell you things. Right. I’ve been able to get them to talk about or divulge before, what do you think it is about?

RJ Redden 18:19
I totally know what it is. It’s this when I ask a question in a group. And it causes people to even have to be slightly vulnerable to answer it. Even if they know no one in the group. The perception that all those eyeballs are looking at their answer makes them go on non answering. When I put it in a bot, that’s a perceived one on one conversation. And they’re in they’ll write you a book. Yes, I was like, I couldn’t even keep up with it.

Unknown Speaker 18:56
Couldn’t even keep up with it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 18:57
Yeah, so it literally creates like a safer space for people to answer be truthful. Tell you the stuff. Yeah. Well, yeah.

RJ Redden 19:05
I mean, and so what that taught me was use the group use memberships to celebrate accomplishment to push each other forward to to do all of that, but use bots to communicate with people about things that cause them to maybe be vulnerable, a little bit. Make it a private conversation. You are You know, when you’re having a conversation in Facebook group, it’s a roomful of people, you know, not just you and that person. Hmm.

Heather Pearce Campbell 19:37
I love that. I love that. So you tested it. You launched you rebranded you went headfirst into it. And obviously that’s probably been a few years right. I think you said three years. So yeah, give us about what has happened in the bot space over the last three years because there have been some changes.

RJ Redden 19:57
Oh huge. So you know in the beginning In the beginning, it was just bots on messenger. And, gosh, for a good two, two and a half years, you could send anybody you wanted Facebook Messenger inbox message to start a conversation. And now, a lot of people got hold of that and just treated it the wrong way, you know how folks are sometimes? Oh, great, now I can take that entire email message that nobody’s reading. And I’m just gonna put it in messenger where they will read it, and then miracles will happen. No, no.

Heather Pearce Campbell 20:42
That because, you know, I think the way you use bots and design them is very thoughtful. And it can be different than the mass marketing strategies that you see out there that you go, Ah, because I know like, for a while, I was very intrigued by bots. And then being on the receiving end of somewhere. I was like, oh, like, I just started to ignore them. Yeah, inside of Facebook, right. Yeah. So you see it being used in that way. Right. And you were like, No, I know, you would never set your clients up for that. Talk to me about how it’s evolved beyond just being used inside of Facebook Messenger. Yeah.

RJ Redden 21:27
So Gosh, the, the evolvement came, I met some guys on a cruise ship, beware of dudes on a cruise ship, waving technical papers at yachts. Um, I met some guys on the marketers cruise that had their own ship product. And it was a chat product because I had been looking for a way to get away from messenger, not just because of the spammy, but also because the writing is on the wall for that once something starts, like really, truly making money, and Zuckerberg is not making that money, he will make that different. He will make it so that he makes the money. And so I knew that the situation, the sweet spot that we had in messenger wasn’t going to stay forever. And also not particularly wanting to be at the mercy of somebody else’s company decisions, right? Once again, not employable. So, uh, so I’ve been looking but I had not found us anything sufficient. That even would dm maybe into a different program, Instagram, Twitter, anything else? Well, these guys sat down and talked to me. And it was like, you can plant a bot on a website. And you can plan a bot that doesn’t go through messenger at all. You can plant a bot on Skype, you can you can plant a button just about anywhere you want. And I’ll tell you that idea that business owners can a cat, because we all got really enamored with Facebook, we all fell in love with the idea that we post here people see it, it’s awesome. But people aren’t seeing it anymore. We forgot the skill almost of Hey, let’s bring it back to our own website where we can give them some value. Websites kind of became an a digital brochure there for a long time, which is fine. But we’re not getting that traffic. Google’s not seeing us as a viable website. So what so obviously, then I just went into this new platform, and it was like, Look, look, I can do videos for hour long, you know, classes I can do. There’s so much more that I could do because I didn’t have to, you know, kind of stay within Facebook’s purview. So I began planting bots on websites. And now I do everything I do onboarding for clients. I do entire courses for people. We’re doing Gina gadolinium course, in the spring here. I do. I do just about everything, quizzes, surveys, obviously, all of those types of things. I can bring that traffic back to someone’s website and I can create, I can design a journey for them. I can design you know, the immersive journey where Okay, now we’re walking through the woods and I’ve got Woods sounds playing in the background and you run upon this, what do you do next? I mean, I can make it into a game. I can make it into an experience where people have fun instead of Okay, I’m just not going to take that survey. I don’t have time to do it right now. You know what I mean? It’s so different. It’s different. So, yeah, now we’re all over the place. We’re also all over the text message. is all on that. And we’re we’re sending emails as well. But we’re just saying we’re sending very different emails, very targeted, and hopefully valuable to our audiences.

Heather Pearce Campbell 25:12
So I assume the texts and emails are connected then with these bots system so that it’s all part of a basically a coordinated effort, same campaign, whatever. It’s just all tied in. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:23
absolutely.

Heather Pearce Campbell 25:25
I love that. And I remember you and I spoke right, right before COVID. Right before that last event that I went to right before COVID. And, you know, you were giving me some of the updates of what had happened in the bot world. And like, my mind was blown. I was like, What? deliver courses through bots, like, I think you had described like, you know, create this whole gamified map and all this crazy stuff. And, you know, here we are, what is it nine months later or something? Right, and I’m sure that that’s, you know, even developed more. So, give me some examples. I like hearing the real world application of how people are using this, right, even the story about your client, who was a mom with five kids and like, Look, I can only show up to limited places in a day, right? True story for so many of us in the online space. So how what are the ways that you have helped some of your clients use these bots that have really changed something about the way they’re either showing up in their business communicating with people in their business?

RJ Redden 26:32
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I will tell you the story of rallying rallying is a little bot, that is a part of or was a part of, we ran his challenge for a year and a half, there’s a weight loss challenge. It was about keto. And aralen would show up every morning, and invite you into the bot. And then Ron would share, you know, what’s, you know, what, what are we learning about today, or he would do encouragement for people, or he would give away prizes at certain points and the challenge. Now, we wrote this challenge one time, one time, we ran it every month at the beginning of the month, we would run it for 30 days, we did it for a year and a half. There were some women who did the challenge every single month of its existence and lost weight. The people there were hundreds of people losing weight off of rallyin, just because he was fun. Month after month, I’m like people you’re not getting new material here. But they would talk about rolling as if he was a real person. He created a little movement, he was just a little

Unknown Speaker 27:48
robot, you know what I’m saying?

RJ Redden 27:50
But people fall in love with that type of stuff. People fall in love with an opportunity to maybe kind of get pulled out of their day to day, especially right now. Right? day to day is kind of all the same now. Strangely enough, but um, but that one, that one is one of my favorite stories, because they would they would absolutely talk about, I haven’t gotten my message from Rowan today. I wonder if he’s all right. I mean, it’s about people. And here’s, here’s more more real life application. So one of the things that we can do, and I work a lot with coaches and people who build courses, one of the things that we can do is put some accountability in there for folks. And, like the accountability bot that I wrote the first time, I can write a bot that is very central to the path that you’re taking in the course, I can, you know, have a goal setting day, have a checking day, have a check in day at the end of the week, and then start over with goal setting. And I can tell how long has it been since you’ve last been in the program? And I can set little messages to fire if you haven’t been around in a while.

Heather Pearce Campbell 29:09
That part I love. Yes.

RJ Redden 29:12
Because like, you know, people don’t mean to fall off. But the minute that we send out the text that says hey, haven’t seen you in a while. You can totally catch up though. Click right here. And then they get into the bot. We ask them where they’re at if they’re having any issues with the class. And people tell us things that we never would have known. Yeah, they will.

Heather Pearce Campbell 29:36
And the thing that fascinates them, I mean, it fascinates me even about probably how influential that little pieces is that there is something that feels like less pressure coming from a little bot like hey, haven’t seen you in a while. Then a real person like imagine the coach leading that program popping in and being like, hey, haven’t seen you in a while. Like there’s even something Different about that, right? Because the one experience could trigger people, if it’s the coach or the live person to be like, Oh, you know to mean, yeah, it’s like feeling. I don’t know, shame or this need to explain, you know, it’s, we’re as the bot does feel fun, it feels lighter, it feels much more. I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s the right description of it. But even in hearing you describe that scenario, that’s how it feels to me.

RJ Redden 30:29
Absolutely. It’s like a cartoon avatar approaching you instead of, Okay, why don’t we got your work done? You know, there are so many, like, there’s so many they call them LMS learning management systems out there, like think if ik, teachable. Let’s see you to me, those are kind of the big three, they’ll send you week after week, an email that says you’re not done yet. How useful do you think that is for people? A guilty email?

Unknown Speaker 31:00
Right,

RJ Redden 31:00
what what we’ve got to do is make it seem like, hey, Heather, there’s a party going on over here. And you haven’t been to see us in a week, we got a whole bunch of new stuff going on? Do you want to come and hang out with us? Come hang out with us? Heather, click this thing. There’s where you got to do you know what I’m saying? And people will smile, and they’ll go, alright, boom, click the link, and all of a sudden, they’re back in class. So it really is very, very useful for people to keep on track when especially if you’ve got like a year long mastermind or something going on holy, it is so easy to get distracted. It is so easy to just fall off the wagon and let life happen because life has happened to us this year. What if, what if more people made it through the finish line of those courses? What if that you would you would get to decrease your marketing budget? Yeah, because so many people will be out there going, Oh, my God, this person’s amazing.

Heather Pearce Campbell 32:00
Right? Well, because if they actually finish the course and they do the work, then they get the result without the result. They’re not running around in the world shouting your name from the rooftops. Right? That’s Yeah. Are there are there interesting, either professions or? Like what I’m thinking right now is that there’s probably a lot of ways that people who might not otherwise consider this as a strategy in their business, that could actually have a lot of fun using it. Have you had some unusual, either types of businesses or circumstances where you’ve been able to play with the bot in their business?

RJ Redden 32:38
Absolutely. Well, so one of them is one of the strangest is one that I’ve just heard that I did not write this about personally. And, and then of course, I have a client named Jonathan bangles. So you know, there’s some weird stuff going on with that guy. So I’ll start with the one that I didn’t write, and then we’ll move to the Jonathan. So we so when I was first reading bots, I was, you know, reading all kinds of articles about what you could do, there was a bot, not kidding you that it was about a 45 minute process of funeral home, put it out, so that people could get in there and make end of life choices. So it was all about how you want it, you know, it would get information on how and where you want it to be buried. And, you know, how do you want the the week to go and all of these questions, you know, and here’s the kicker. So it did it in a really light and funny type of way. No one wants to think about that. Much less. Tell someone. So these people were like, we know, they don’t want to tell us, but maybe they’ll tell a computer. I wonder how we can you know, make this enjoyable for people. And they created this last, you know, the this last choices bot type of thing. It was like, I remember reading that article, and it just blew my mind. Because the perfect thing. It’s the perfect storm. People use chatbots for therapy now. Oh, absolutely. They do. Um,

Heather Pearce Campbell 34:18
when when you and I were talking last this idea of like, because obviously I live in the professional services world, right? And part of me was thinking like, oh, would this be a disconnect for people showing up and but as I think about it, like you know, somebody in the tax world like our mutual friend, Jonathan, somebody in the legal world where things can feel heavy and serious for a consumer of those services, right, or, I don’t know any other of the professional services. This could actually change that experience for people right. and have it be more of an invitee. Lighter process. So I just love the idea that, you know, people are using this in interesting ways. And then it can really be used to change that client interface.

RJ Redden 35:11
Absolutely change their entire experience with you. And you know, another thing about professional services is sometimes the questions that people have, we’ll call them level one questions. And with just a couple of clarifying questions, you know what that answer is going to be it’s not highly technical and highly dependent upon many, many circumstances. So what if a professional person has a bot? To answer all of the level one stuff? And what if we get to a level two question, and that’s an appointment? Now? You know what I mean. But while that line is sometimes I know, that’s a little hard sometimes to draw for me, I don’t know about your personal experience. But the bot knows when it’s a level two question, and can draw that line and say, Hey, would you like an appointment? And you know, if it costs, this is how much it’s going to cost? We’ll cover these things. You know, where as I might just kind of keep answering questions until they’ve got an entire, you know, universe of knowledge. But that that sort of interface is on demand, we could have instead of having 600, Heather’s not possible people could have 600 people hit upon the same bot, and get level one help.

Unknown Speaker 36:36
Mm hmm.

RJ Redden 36:37
So it is, it’s, it’s mind blowing when you think about it, but but really, if you think about it from this starting point, and that is a conversation, a one on one conversation at scale. Mm hmm. Because one of those one of those ends is a computer. That that’s when that’s when you start to realize the possibilities of bots.

Heather Pearce Campbell 37:02
Yeah. Well, and it’s, it’s fun to think about that as a viable option. Because even if you can’t duplicate yourself, and you’re like, well, maybe my VA can do a certain amount, you know, I mean, you’re still paying somebody else for that one on one time, that really is not still very duplicatable, right. And so that piece, especially if you get a lot of the same kinds of questions, or a certain amount of standard inquiries over and everybody knows what these are in regards to their own business, right? Like, how fun to have those handled in a totally different way by a bot that then I assume, could point them in the direction of any of the resources that they’ve already built up, like, oh, here’s my membership site over here that’s going to handle this kind of stuff for you. Here’s the document database, right? Here’s how you get a one on one call with Heather. I mean, it could really go in any direction.

RJ Redden 37:58
And when the bot treats it, as here, I see you’re having these kinds of questions or these kinds of problems. Let me make a recommendation for you. It doesn’t come across as salesy and sleazy, it comes across as, Oh, look, I need jeans. And the gap just sent me an advertisement for some jeans. I don’t know if good capsules jeans anymore. But I may be dating myself right now. But that’s nice. All right. Um, but it just it comes along right at the right time. And it doesn’t seem it is not overbearing, it is not sale, right? speaking, people can make a choice to click out of there. But they’ve been served that information and they know, something they can you know, get more information later, or maybe click the button right now. But you can answer people’s questions and at the same time, highlight opportunities where the bot can make some recommendations that make sense in that moment, two people and what have you just done, you have answered their questions you’ve been Heather on the spot, or Johnny on the spot, or whatever you want to call it. You’ve been on the spot, answering questions correctly, giving them value, value, value value, and then you recommend, hey, you’ve got this other product that you think would work well for them. Most people are gonna say yes. And you’ve just made a sale in your sleep.

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:21
Yeah, I love that. Automation. That’s fun. But the funny thing is, when I first interacted with some of your bots, I remember thinking like, oh, cuz I know the whole goal of creating a bot and maybe this is not the whole goal is to duplicate, like your your approach to something duplicate your energy, your approach, you know, get it out there in the form of this little bot, but then I was like, oh, maybe RJ would make something that’s even better than me.

Unknown Speaker 39:56
How is that possible?

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:58
It is possible. But I mean, there is really something magical about this idea of the but. So for folks that are listening, RJ, where do you like to connect online? Where do you show up? Where should people go find you? If they want more information, they want to figure out how they can learn from RJ how they can begin to explore this topic. Where would you send them?

RJ Redden 40:21
Well, I am all over that internet as blackbelt bots, you know, there’s a show Monday through Friday 10am Central, where I am discussing all things bots, and engagement, marketing. fabulous, fabulous. If you want to lurk, you can come watch the show, ask some questions. We’re on Facebook. We’re on YouTube. We’re on LinkedIn, we’re on Twitch, we’re on Periscope, you can find us trust me the bot signal. So there’s that there’s that that’s there’s lurky mode. All right. And then there’s um, I want to do this in 2021 mode. Yeah. And where you would go for that is meet rj.com meets as an m e t, right? Not stuff you would have for dinner. Some of you meet RJ calm will lead you right to my calendar. And what I’ve got on offer is a strategy session. So first, q&a about bots, anything you want to know I’ll tell you, I will because I love talking about them and I will talk about them all day long, possibly online if you let me. Second half of it is let’s talk about what your strategy is and how you can use engagement marketing to drive you miles forward in 2021. So either both opportunities completely available to your audience I I love you and I by extension love your audience so please come take advantage of my time.

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:57
Awesome well and that’s a hugely for anybody listening that’s a hugely generous offer one on one time with RJ is tough to come by I know you’re busy RJ I know you’re working with some amazing folks. Go connect with RJ if you’re really serious about learning about bots and implementing one in your business, absolutely jump on this. RJ. I’m also going to share your links and anything else in the meantime that you want me to share in the show notes which people can find at Legal Website Warrior® forward slash podcast. I have one question for you. And then the final question. Okay. What’s the alternative to engagement marketing? let’s say somebody like, Huh, right. I know, it’s not it’s not a great, it’s not a great probably thing to think about. But I think a lot of people see this already in the marketplace, right? What the alternative is, but share in your own words, like why engagement marketing is so important versus the alternative?

RJ Redden 42:58
Gladly, okay. Ranger is visiting us as Apparently, he misses his mother. Okay. So the difference between engagement marketing and traditional marketing, traditional marketing is like standing on a street corner with a bullhorn, shouting as loud as you can, so that people will come back, and maybe, you know, engage with you and pay you something so that you can get more money so you can get a bigger bullhorn. So you can go stand on a busier street corner and yell louder into it. It is a never ending cycle of basically, I’m hoping some people will consider this valuable. The problem is this. People are so tired of being treated like a number. People are so tired of just, you know, having that invisible dollar sign hanging over their head. People want to be seen, heard and cared about right now, more than at any point in human history, talking about some of the events of this year. And so we need to create marketing that is interactive. We don’t need to create another email blast that shows up the same to absolutely everybody who reads it. This is what I say to my clients. And I say on my show all the time. One size fits all doesn’t fit any buddy. We’ve got to have personalized marketing out there that gives people choices on where to go. It gives people an opportunity to feed back to us. We got to make it fun for people. If we can do those things. They’ll smile every time we they see us in their inbox. Isn’t that what we want? That’s what I want. That’s what I want for everyone. So traditional marketing. It’s the guy on a street corner it’s walking into a busy marketplace, and all of a sudden everybody’s trying to drag you into their booth doesn’t matter whether you like beads or jewelry. You don’t see any jewelry on me. Well I got a bracelet but it is secretly made of a icicle spoke okay. So anyway, um, the the the point of it is traditional marketing does not care who you are, is alienating is boring. And mass marketing is for the birds actually I would not treat birds that way it’s for the lighters anyway. It is it is it just doesn’t fit anybody anymore once we start to interact with people and treat them like real people and value their choices, then my friend, we have hit the wave of what is to come?

Heather Pearce Campbell 45:35
Well, I love that so much, and especially the piece you talked about earlier about being able to accomplish that level of conversation and providing personal choice at scale. Right. So I love that it’s super powerful thing. And is, is there any final point that you want to leave with our audience for folks that are still listening?

RJ Redden 46:00
Yes. When you, you know, if you’re an entrepreneur, when you are sending out your marketing materials, whether it’s an email, whether you’re making a video, a live stream of podcasts, whatever you’re doing, if you don’t feel when you hit that send button or when you finalize stuff, if you don’t feel like that is rock and roll and people are absolutely going to love it. If you are sending something that you yourself if you got it in your email you personally would avoid then it’s time it’s time to give marketing a run for its money. It’s time to put your personality out there and allow others to have a choice in what they’re doing. It’s time to create some stuff that makes your heart sing when you send it to your people. You can do it it is not impossible, I promise you. And of course I can help if you need need some nudges along the road.

Heather Pearce Campbell 47:04
I love that I love that RJ so fun to see you and connect with you and your doggy today. I hope I get to see you on a stage actually anywhere. Sometime again soon. Wouldn’t that be fun?

RJ Redden 47:22
Yeah, would it would still be my dream of that day when I can again enter a hotel ballroom I don’t even care what happens after that.

Heather Pearce Campbell 47:36
Yes, you and I are in the same boat this same boat. Well, I love you. I’m such a big fan. Thank you for coming on and sharing this with my audience. So excited to point them in the direction of wherever you show up online. We’re gonna put the link so if you’re visiting, go check out RJ in the show notes Legal Website Warrior® forward slash podcast. Also hop over to Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts online. Leave us a rating and a review really helps other entrepreneurs to find this podcast be able to benefit from the types of conversations that we have here which are all about helping people, entrepreneurs in the online space, build their businesses do it the right way and really enjoy it along the way. Thank you, RJ. Thanks, Heather.

GGGB Outro 48:27
Thank you for joining us today on the Guts Grit and Great Business podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more. See the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.