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00:00:01
Finally… The Announcement I’ve Been Waiting to Make
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Join me at the Solo: Scaled live event at: https://soloscaled.com/event
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez shares an exciting personal update about the future of the show and his latest ventures. He reflects on the journey of AI Driven Marketer, announces his part-time shift at Social Media Examiner, and reveals three major projects: a new YouTube series called AI Explored, a podcast automation tool called Smack.fm, and a hybrid podcast agency and coaching program called SoloScaled. These initiatives are designed to help marketers, solopreneurs, and consultants harness AI for content creation, lead generation, and business growth — all while maintaining consistency without burnout.
My Favorite AI Tools
- Tella - https://danchez.com/tella
- High Level - https://danchez.com/highlevel
- Zencastr - https://danchez.com/podtools
- n8n - https://danchez.com/n8n
Resources Mentioned
- AI Explored YouTube Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIglN6SkRDM&list=PLITe1ltD-mS213yIHUe96UA9D6cJYX_ZT
- Smack.fm - https://smack.fm/
- Solo: Scaled live event - https://soloscaled.com/event
Timestamps
- 00:00 – Reflecting on the AI-Driven Marketer journey and audience growth
- 01:47 – Joining Social Media Examiner as Senior AI Marketing Strategist
- 02:36 – Launch of AI Explored YouTube series with Social Media Examiner
- 03:53 – Shifting to part-time at Social Media Examiner to focus on personal ventures
- 04:14 – Introducing Smack.fm: AI-powered podcast content distribution tool
- 07:26 – Lessons from building SaaS and plans for Smack.fm beta launch
- 07:53 – Launching SoloScaled: hybrid podcast agency and coaching program
- 10:20 – How SoloScaled helps solopreneurs overcome feast-and-famine cycles
- 11:08 – Co-founding with Ken Ferrer and details on the live event launch
- 12:23 – The evolving agency model and future of founder-led content marketing
- 13:47 – Closing thoughts on AI’s role in transforming marketing
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Personal Update
00:00:00
Dan Sanchez
Hello and welcome back to the AI Driven Marketer. I'm Dan Sanchez. My friends call me Danchez. And today it's a more of a personal update. Yes. Every once in a while, I give personal updates on the show to talk about where this show is going. Because if you're new to this show, it's been a journey.
00:00:17
Dan Sanchez
It started with me in December of 2023 when I saw the writing on the wall that AI was going to kind of become a big deal. And it certainly has been on its way, right?
00:00:28
Dan Sanchez
And a lot of you have been joining me on that journey because we're all trying to figure out and master AI together. I think if you're listening to the show, we're all the kinds of people that have seen that writing on the wall. and It's kind of like, dang, this is going be a big deal.
00:00:39
Dan Sanchez
We better roll up our sleeves and learn this thing. So you're listening to
Podcast Growth & Influence
00:00:41
Dan Sanchez
the show. You're trying to master AI. I'm just trying to share what I'm learning about AI. And you're probably ah marketer who's just a few steps behind me.
00:00:50
Dan Sanchez
And that's the whole point. I want to, I always wanted the show just to be me documenting my journey into AI to help as many people as possible. Also master and probably come a little bit farther, learn from some of my mistakes, learn from some of my wins on how to use AI in your work of marketing.
00:01:07
Dan Sanchez
And that's been the overall journey. It's been a fun
Role at Social Media Examiner & New Ventures
00:01:09
Dan Sanchez
18 months. The show has grown bigger and faster than I could have expected. We're almost getting to 2000 downloads an episode. It's been averaging just under 2000 episode after a week or two for each episode. And that's, that's just exciting. That means like, man, I must be saying something worthwhile as people are sticking around. You're still here. Yeah.
00:01:31
Dan Sanchez
So I've been excited. And there's been a number of things that I haven't told you about. As much as I try to document and share everything that's going on with AI and the show on this podcast, I tend to be pretty open book. I don't really keep back any secrets.
00:01:46
Dan Sanchez
are a few things that I've been working on that I've been in stealth mode that I haven't really announced on the show. As a lot of you know, a few months ago, actually about half, about 10 months ago, I got picked up by Social Media Examiner.
00:01:59
Dan Sanchez
I went from working for myself to working full-time for Social Media Examiner over with Michael Stelzner to kind of become their in-house AI guy. Their chief, I don't know, not chief. I was just their senior AI marketing strategist, helping with their AI business society in their own membership.
00:02:18
Dan Sanchez
Also speaking at their Social Media Marketing World Conference and a number of different virtual events that they've had over the months. and I'm excited to announce a new, not new YouTube channel, but a new YouTube series where I'm hosting a whole show with them.
00:02:33
Dan Sanchez
And it's a highly
Focus on Smack.fm & SoloScaled
00:02:34
Dan Sanchez
edited, highly produced and awesome show where we're dropping some of the best things to learn. Uh, the, the, a bunch of the first videos have been about chat GPT, but of course we'll be expanding into other AI tools, but they're fantastic. I'm like, man, this is some of the best AI content out on YouTube right now. And I expect these videos will get lot of views over time.
00:02:54
Dan Sanchez
But we're launching that series. We've released a couple of videos so far. You can go check it out at YouTube. Just search for AI Explored is that channel. And you'll start to see a bunch of those those ah YouTube videos hit there as well as the AI Explored podcast episodes. So if you haven't been over there, you might already...
00:03:11
Dan Sanchez
be subscribed to that because I think about half of you have come over from the social media examiner community onto this show. And if you haven't checked out those new videos on there, go over to AI Explorer, check out that YouTube channel.
00:03:24
Dan Sanchez
I'll drop a link, of course, to the show in the show notes. So that's one exciting announcement is we've been working on that for a couple of months. And that was honestly kind of the plan ever since I got picked up by Social Media Examiner to do a series like that. So I'm excited that those are finally out there and they'll be coming about one a week for the foreseeable future. I got a whole new batch that we're recording even this week that'll be coming out in the weeks to come.
00:03:50
Dan Sanchez
So that's exciting. But another exciting announcement is that I've actually started to pull back a bit from Social Media Exam. I actually went to part-time with them a few months ago so that I could launch a few of my own things. I'm still working with them. still doing Business Society. I'm still working on those YouTube videos and I'll still be working with them on their conference and their ah events.
00:04:10
Dan Sanchez
But I've pulled back from doing extra work for them in order to work on some of my own things. And those are the things that I'm also excited to announce today. The first one being one that's almost ready, but I couldn't hold it back anymore. I wanted to share it with you guys because I've been working on this one for over a year. Yes, March of 2024 is when this one got got started. And I'm excited to actually announce it because I'm building a launch list for a new product that I've co-founded called Smack.fm or just Smack.fm.
00:04:41
Dan Sanchez
Yes, because this is that podcasting tool. This is a tool that takes your podcast and turns it on the content and has it posted everywhere for you. Now, before you think like, Dan, there's already a lot of tools out there like that. Yes, there are. And I've used all of them.
00:04:57
Dan Sanchez
I've even talked about a lot of them on this show. But if you've used them, then you have experienced what I've experienced. A lot of these AI tools, even my own custom GPTs that take the transcript and turn it all that wonderful content as close as it is to how I like to write and the content so good.
00:05:14
Dan Sanchez
It has one major problem. and that it only gets it so close to the end zone. It doesn't actually get it to the place where it needs to go. And I've even talked to some of these companies and begged them and said, hey, can you build this? Can you make it so I can get my podcast automatically sent there, transcribed, and turned to content, and then auto-posted to all the different platforms? Because the problem with other tools and even custom GPTs is that your content goes there to die. Yes.
00:05:41
Dan Sanchez
I've seen it with myself. I've seen it with others. You upload your podcast and the the bam, it goes there. It stays there. Maybe you take and copy and paste a few pieces out, but it creates a whole nother hurdle of trying to copy and paste it all and scheduling it all and getting it all set up.
00:05:57
Dan Sanchez
So SMAC is a tool that makes it all easy. It takes your RSS feed. When as soon as your publish hits live, it takes it, transcribes it, turns it into all the content, shoots you an email, you click on it, and then you're in the tool and then just go down the row and say, approve, edit, approve, edit, approve, edit. And you just go down and approve every single piece really, really fast, like a checkbox or make the few tweaks that maybe AI missed, maybe it misspelled your guest name or something.
00:06:24
Dan Sanchez
And then you go down the line and click done. So within 10 seconds, all that content is ready to go. You click done and it publishes everywhere for you, either all that once or on a scheduled timeline automatically.
00:06:38
Dan Sanchez
That's the kind of tool that I wanted and we are so close to finishing it. So I'm actually announcing it today at smack.fm. You can go get on the launch list. We'll be releasing it in batches to like some private beta for a while.
00:06:51
Dan Sanchez
as we test it, refine it, make sure it's good to go, put it through the ringer and see if this tool is something that the market wants. So again, been working on this with a co-founder, a technical co-founder for over a year.
00:07:03
Dan Sanchez
It harder to build SaaS. Every time I try to build SaaS, it matter what company I'm at, it ends up taking longer and being a lot harder than I thought. Even with your AI tools that can go and help you figure out problems, it is time-consuming endeavor. So it's taken over a year. It's almost finished.
00:07:19
Dan Sanchez
So go over to smack.fm and check that out. again, this is a podcast. If you're listening to this and enjoy podcasts and have considered getting into the podcast game, that's where my third announcement comes in because not only we am am I launching smack, I'm also launching a, i don't know what to call it. It's not a podcast agency. It's not a group coaching thing. It's kind of a mix of the two called solo scaled.
00:07:45
Dan Sanchez
what happened is was doing well with this show, the AI driven marketer and a lot of my friends and a lot of even just acquaintances that knew what I was doing. I'd showed them how to do the stuff that I was doing.
00:07:57
Dan Sanchez
I tried to give you all the playbook. yeah Like I said, I'm not holding back any secrets. There's nothing that I'm working on other than side projects, but the things that I'm doing with AI, I'm publishing on the show. I'm trying to give the most detailed step-by-step instructions so that you guys can take what I'm doing and duplicate it for yourselves. And I'm trying to make high-level templates and stuff to try to get it to you.
00:08:19
Dan Sanchez
But no matter how simple I try to make things, inevitably, and this is just kind of how it works. You show people how to do the thing. Inevitably, some people will take it and do it, but some people will be like, man, that just takes too much time.
00:08:32
Dan Sanchez
Can I just pay you to do it for me?
00:08:34
Dan Sanchez
So that's what SoloScaled is going to help others do. If you are a coach, if you are a consultant or a solopreneur, though, even if not, there's probably a few other people. I think some boutique agencies would do well with this. If you have to build a strong founder-led brand,
00:08:49
Dan Sanchez
And you want to do something like what I'm doing with AI-driven marketer, where you have a show that pushes out your expertise to the world, but you don't know how to get started. You don't know where to build and create a neat, interesting, memorable show and make it consistent and build systems in place so it's actually manageable, not taking you five to 10 hours a week, but only taking you a few hours each week so you can actually stay consistent with a show like this.
00:09:13
Dan Sanchez
That's what SoloScaled is there for. And of course, it's a lot more. It's a lot more than just a podcast. We're actually helping people. The big part of it is a podcast, but also how to generate leads and create that automated AI-driven lead nurture sequence to get people in, get them into what your expertise is, and then have an AI-driven sales sequence afterwards to get them to book meetings with you to become clients. Because we all know that solopreneurs, especially...
00:09:39
Dan Sanchez
struggle with the feast and famine cycle. It's one of the main issues that we all struggle with. you It's good for a month or two, and then it's a couple of months of not having enough, and we lose some clients. We try to get get the leads back up, and it's kind of a constant issue.
00:09:55
Dan Sanchez
It's because we don't have our own audiences, and we don't have our own audiences because it's too hard to maintain a show like this or some other kind of long-form content or even the short-form content that we're creating on LinkedIn. The cool thing is with the podcast, you can get all of it.
00:10:07
Dan Sanchez
And it's a lot easier to stay consistent with if you have the right systems in place. So at SoloScale, I'm actually building an accelerator to set up those systems for you. Build out a really compelling podcast, build out the lead nurture sequences, build out the sales sequences, and then we're fine.
00:10:25
Dan Sanchez
So that's a big upfront piece. And then going into a group coaching slash membership system for a year so that you can actually learn not just how to tweak and modify the things that we built, but also learn how to build them yourselves so that you don't need this anymore.
00:10:40
Dan Sanchez
Essentially trying to build a system that you can come in, get up to speed, learn over time, and then graduate from and do it better yourself. I try to make a program that I wanted when I first started, when I didn't know what to do.
00:10:55
Dan Sanchez
I'm actually co-founding this with Ken Ferrer and we're doing an event. We're hosting an event tomorrow. Yes, I should have announced this a week ago, but it just it wasn't ready, y'all. Sometimes you got to announce and do the best with what you can. We're having a live event to talk about how to scale your business. And we're going talking about the processes and systems that I've been using for this show at AI Driven Marketer.
00:11:15
Dan Sanchez
But also a lot of things that Ken brings to the table as a freaking master at sales and operations. And that's why I co-founded with him because there's a number of things he does that I can't do that I was like, man, you got to bring this in because a lot of people need this. And I don't have the goods on anything but marketing and AI and systems technical. I i a lot to the table, but I needed more. I needed his help.
00:11:36
Dan Sanchez
So Ken and I are going to be co-founding this company. We're doing this presentation together tomorrow at Wednesday, August 13th at 1 p.m. Central. I'm going to drop a link in the show notes so you can register for this event, but it's going to be at soloscaled.event.
00:11:52
Dan Sanchez
Come be there. If you missed it because you're listening to this episode on Thursday or later, that's okay. Go to Solos Guild slash event. And if you register, you will get access to the recording there right there immediately.
00:12:07
Dan Sanchez
So... take some time, go over there, register for the event, see what we're doing with SoloSkilled. I'm also trying to push into something where I think just agencies won't go away, but I think a lot of agencies will change. And I think I'm trying to dip into a new model that I think might be more popular in the future, which is do something, do the heavy lifting up front and then change to a membership slash group coaching model.
00:12:32
Dan Sanchez
That where we can kind of learn together over a period of time and then graduate you from the program so that you're not only up to speed having having having had an expert like me build it out for you myself, but also learned over time in a group setting with coaching over a period of year so that you walk away having actually mastered the material.
00:12:53
Dan Sanchez
So that's what we're launching. If you're a consultant, if you're a coach or you're a solopreneur of some kind, that's the best fit for this program, hence solo scaled, right? But if you're just interested, you're like, huh, well, I mean, I'm a marketer, but we have a founder-led brand and this might be good for them. I might want to learn these systems. Then, you know, come and join us as well.
Reflections & Future Outlook
00:13:14
Dan Sanchez
We're developing this product for solopreneurs, but I acknowledge that there might be more than just solopreneurs that this is good for. So come check it out. And just want to thank you so much for following this show. Nearly 2000 of you are tuning into almost every episode now.
00:13:31
Dan Sanchez
And it's just exciting times, guys. I think AI is going to change everything. I think you're all starting to feel it now. As AI improves, as we get better at the skill of managing AI, it's starting to change the game for a lot of us.
00:13:44
Dan Sanchez
I'm excited for these announcements I just made. And I think AI is going to continue to help us in all these different ways. So thank you so much for joining me on the journey. It's been a fantastic ride. And I'm
00:13:56
Dan Sanchez
looking forward to where we go in the future together.