AI versus Marshy - What VoicePanel Does (or Why Marshy Sent a Survey Link Earlier in the Week)

If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Marshy, and this is my newsletter where I dive into the world of AI and tech. Last week, we celebrated our 1st birthday, and I promised to get back to regular business. This week, I want to share a counterpoint to the AI hype machine, and I’ll also give you a sneak peek into what I’ve been working on with VoicePanel. I was testing Voicepanel for a new thing (see below) but wanted to share what it looked like on the back-end for my readers. Before I do though - a big beautiful THANK YOU to those of you who answered, it’s sometimes a lonely job writing a newsletter as it’s much less interactive than other writing (say - a social media post or a Slack community). This isn’t restricted to small newsletters like mine - I wrote to my friend Bill about a great example in his newsletter about building systems and was humbled by his similar response: The sad truth. This wasn’t emotional bait for replying to this email (I got a great dose earlier this week) - but if there’s another one you’re enjoying be sure to reply and let the author know. This tip also applies to non-fiction book writers. So what’s the back-end of Voicepanel look like? ​ Nice! I got to see how many visits to the link were made. Then I got to see the response rate and how long it took people to answer (thanks 11minuter!) ​ I can go deep on answers and see the responses, as well getting a summary. Importantly - I’m not getting email IDs or identifying information. This is an option for higher-tier versions of the product, but unnecessary for what I’m building below (see next article). Thank you! Finally - if going through responses is too large a job - I can also get a summary report via the Analyze tab. Legends! Why is this relevant for marketers and researchers? I’ll give you an example with a service provider marketing themselves. There’s always a gap between what a service provider says about themselves versus what their clients say about them. This usually is a non-issue - once someone becomes a client, they have a much deeper relationship with their service provider that isn’t reliant on just what’s being said. When we’re marketing though - we’re looking to attract new clients (people who don’t know the service provider). The gap between what the service provider says and what the clients say becomes far more important. This is because we want to understand what led the client to work with the service provider before they knew them. A tool like Voicepanel can be designed to capture this information, which is a good bridge into my next AI project. Building an AI product from scratch - update 1 One of the things that fascinates me about AI is the ability to do more with less. We’ve seen this applied so far with varying degrees of efficacy. Some skills (like transcription) are orders of magnitude better than if they were done by a human. Other skills like authentic content creation - aren’t in trouble any time soon. I have a family. I want to work for myself and support them. I do this already but don’t want to be at the mercy of referrals and custom consulting work. These are all very good reasons for building TheLeadMagnet.biz . ​ It’s a service model I’m building with scale in mind, predictability, and running on my own. I think running something like this solo was very hard 5 years ago, and I think it’s more possible today. I’ve soft-launched it this week, and am putting it through its paces. It’s built with Carrd, Beehiiv, Airtable, Google Appointment Scheduling, and is using Voicepanel and Design Pickle (planned) for fulfilment. I coach a lot of startups - one of the things I coach them on is not running ads because they don’t know what they’re doing. I’m breaking my own rules here because I do know how to run ads, but also understand this service, page, and offer isn’t validated. I’m going to run ads through this over time with the goal of achieving predictable conversion . At the start my numbers will be pathetic and disappointing. I also know I can shift many things to refine this: my service, my offer, my process, my ads, my copy, my pricing, and much more. I’m planning to cycle through this process in 1 week sprints. Fully trusting that theleadmagnet.biz will be in much better shape by weeks 10, 50, and 100. I’m planning to #buildinpublic and will update the numbers each week via my LinkedIn. I also intend to continue updating things in here from an AI perspective. My stack is very deliberately built with automation and AI in mind. For example - I created a private “concept creator” GPT that’s been fed knowledge I’ve acquired over the years about lead magnets. I can use this to get started on orders that come through. Meta right? Haha. GPTs are still funny to use but one of the improvements is getting them to “take actions” outside of the interface. And make me a delicious sandwich while you’re there. What I will be able to do with more time and information coming through is automate form submissions (currently located here ) to connect into my GPT and produce output that moves the creation process forward. Not only this, but I can keep providing feedback and training in plain words about what it’s producing. So it will get better over time. This is without any specialist coding knowledge (to be clear I don’t have any). My ultimate goal is to build this myself so I can show others to do it as the capabilities improve over time. I know I’m not the only one who wants to work for themselves 😉 – That’s it for this week! On the personal front our twin boys (and in turn ourselves) have been battling waves of daycare sick. It’s not fun but I know the boys are enjoying the extra stimulation from going to daycare and playing with other toddlers. Was it a good issue? Let’s keep going! -Marshy 💪 Originally appeared in newsletter : AI versus Marshy #51: counterpoints, that voice survey, and building an AI business from scratch