#243 The Art of Writing to Influence and Engage For For Tech Executives and Founders : A Conversation with Joshua Lisec

0:00:02 - Mehmet
Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the City of Oshawa, in Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased to have with me Joshua, joining me from Ohio. Joshua, the way I love to do it is, you know, and some people love it, some people they don't, but I believe no one can introduce someone else better than themselves. So this is why I would ask you to introduce yourself and what you do. 

0:00:25 - Joshua
Yes, thanks for having me on, mehmet. 

I am Joshua Lisec and I have ghostwritten more than 80 books in the last 12 years for executives, founders, entrepreneurs. That's my primary business and what I always like to say is that my clients aren't the authors, it's actually the readers the readers of the customers, people who buy the book. So, understanding consumer psychology what works for influence and persuasion to drive readers to not just want to buy a book but to apply the book to such an extent that the book actually works for them creates word of mouth marketing. The word gets back to the author that this book actually works. They sell more copies, the author's friends get a little envious and then they say who do you use to write your book, joshua? That's how I've grown my business over the last 12 years and I found a nice niche in the technology space with startups, early stage and even a little bit later stage companies. So I thought it might be a good fit for you and I to have a conversation about writing, publishing, written persuasion, that sort of thing before the tech space. 

0:01:37 - Mehmet
Yeah, great, and thank you for again being on the show today, joshua. Actually, you know what? I think one of the underrated thing that we talk about generally in tech is writing. Actually, because tech people usually they do things fast, they are always in rush. So from your experience, joshua, why, first of all, they need to have the concept of doing writing properly. So let's start from there. We're going to the other techniques and the persuasive part of it. So why it's very important. 

0:02:23 - Joshua
Yes, writing, particularly persuasive writing. And I use that adjective for a reason because we want to make sure that when we're communicating, not only are we communicating our ideas effectively, we're communicating them in such a way that when people hear them, they say, oh, that makes sense. Let's do that, let's do that way. If you're a leader, if you're an executive, if you're a CTO, it behooves you to inspire people to take the actions that you want them to take. 

0:02:57 - Mehmet
This is effectively. 

0:02:57 - Joshua
Leadership 101, particularly in the tech space, in my experience, there is a predominant concept of coercion or coercive writing or manipulation. I'm going to get people to do something I want them to do, be at the board or be at employees. Well, what can we do to will them into taking the action that we want? Could we use fear? Could we use scarcity? Could we use urgency? Could we use your jobs? Your livelihoods are on the line. The fear of missing out, and that framework or perspective is the starting point for much communication, be a communication with customers or shareholders. Sometimes I'm an investor myself. 

There have been some unfortunate situations where you could tell the executive was doing some obfuscation, where they're trying to say things are really bad while using lots of positive language, but what they write is word salad, which I like to call anti-persuasive. So word salad is where someone uses many multi-syllabic words altogether in dense sentences, where there's a lot that they're saying that's abstract and that's vague and reading it you're thinking what exactly is this person saying? I see each of these words and I know what they mean, but all together I don't know what the point is. And usually that sort of communication indicates I really don't want you to know what's going on around here. That's what it's like, and so those of us who understand persuasion can see what's really going on in the world. So not just being able to write, but also being able to read between the lines, so to speak. And persuasive writing is useful not just as a communicator, but as the communicatete. 

0:05:05 - Mehmet
So it's Joshua, like to understand if I understood the right from you. So I need to think as a CTO or founder or whatever position I am in, so because I believe I do this, also this mistake, I did it a lot as well. So I write something and then I ask myself okay, let me imagine for you that moment that someone sent this to me and let me analyze what I mean by that. And the reason why I did this is because and this is why the question will come here I want to understand from you, joshua, what are the consequences if you do it the wrong way. What could go wrong? 

0:05:51 - Joshua
Yes, so anti persuasive communication, particularly in writing. Number one it leaves everything you've said open to interpretation, and usually an unfriendly interpretation, such as wait a second, what is she saying here? Is she really saying? And then something that dismantles your credibility, your authority in this, at this space. So that's the first downside. 

Another downside is if you have something that is urgent, something that is important, that that's actually going on be it in your email or your slide deck or the landing page on your website, where you're trying to get, let's say, alpha customers or Vana customers, and you're unable to get across the message, it's like, oh, that's really cool, okay, going to go back to the way things were, going to go back to that act, my routine, back to life here, and there's no drive to oh, I should do this right now. We should take action right now, like, oh, that's, that's nice, that's interesting, okay. And that's the impression people are left with and when they feed back to you, they will lie, they will say, oh, I would totally buy that. Oh, I would totally buy that. You see my body language. Those watching. 

0:07:15 - Mehmet
Yeah. 

0:07:15 - Joshua
I actually like this product. That's the feedback that you would get, but it would be in print and many cases, oh wow, they're super enthusiastic about this when they say what they said. Now this gives us the third reason. We want to not be antipersuasive at our communication and that is when we use adverbs. The density of adverbs, like I gave there totally, very completely, you know, some are L? 

Y and in the suffix, l Y, not all of them very for example but, when we are using adverbs ourselves or we're hearing them back, we're receiving them in communication back from someone. So that indicates is deceit. Why does it indicate deceit? Adverbs are modifiers of verbs, adjectives, other adverbs. So when someone says, for example oh, we are totally putting you next in line. 

If they had said you are next in line. That is a statement of reality, a fact we don't have to like. If it's a fact, you don't have to dress it up or anything with an adverb, but if we say you're totally like, literally, it's very certain. 

I'm really having to modify this. I'm having to make you really feel there it is again another one that what I want you to believe is true. I'm trying hard here. When I'm using adverbs, that is a tell for the informed and engaged communicator that there is deceit. You'll notice this in media, in news. How often journalists, pundits and commentators and even everyday news reporters will insert adverbs into headlines and into stories where they don't belong, and usually it's a tell that the opposite of what they have said is true. For example, if they mention that, they will say a certain world leader literally said, and then a claim that often indicates the world leader did not literally say any such thing. 

If you look at the transcript of what the world leader said, and then what? 

the journalist says they said it's not even close to that. So adverbs are both a tell for being deceived by someone else, but also self-deceit. If you are finding yourself inserting, it is very important that you do this. Okay, it's either important or it's not. If it was actually important, you would give us the reason you watching this right now. If it was important, you would give us the reason. 

Now I want to go from what's wrong with being anti-persuasive, like we have been if that's okay, remember To a subtle and useful, quick and easy reference point for being persuasive, Because I can talk about the use of persuasion, persuasive writing, particularly as a leader and executive, or founder and entrepreneur, and the cost of getting it wrong. 

Of course, the cost of getting it wrong is goodbye career, goodbye job and one of the worst economies we've seen in 15 years. 

So we know the cost, we know the cost right, but the upside is astounding and you can get there Communicating your ideas effectively moving people to take the action you want them to take, no obfuscation, people understanding you the first time, be it in print or in your speech, with this one simple question what's in it for me, If you ask yourself that whenever you are giving a command, whenever you are asking something, asking for something, be it the sale, the job, the capital. What's in it for me? Now, not literally you, what's in it for me, what's in it for the other person? I like your thought there, Mehmet, where you're, let's say, writing up an email or writing up something perhaps a social media post or something to a client or something, and you ask yourself how the other person feel about this. I like that and it aligns well with this what's in it for me concept, Whereas if you say, for example, it's very important that we do it this way, my way, why? 

0:11:56 - Mehmet
What's in it for the other? 

0:11:56 - Joshua
person and that one simple question I ask yourself that leads you in the direction of being more persuasive, because then you have to answer that question in your communication, be it an email or a white paper or a slideshow. Well, shouldn't it be obvious what's in it for you? You get to keep your job. 

That leads into the fear, the coercion, the manipulation, the urgency which cultivates a desire to lie to you, to use adverbs at you, and that's not the sort of relationship that we want. If we want to have a maximally successful enterprise here, or you want to have a career where the people that are closest to you you can trust, they can trust you, Any sort of obfuscation of the communication kills off that trust, a little bit at a time and then all at once. 

0:12:48 - Mehmet
Yeah, Now the question I want to ask you, Joshua. So we talked about the consequences right, so now how do we fix that? How is the best way to make that works? 

0:13:00 - Joshua
Yes. So if we start to go backwards a bit, one thing we want to do is to eliminate adverbs from our speech as much as we can, so in line with the what's in it for me concept, if I feel the urge to write or say it's very important that or it's so important or I really need you to that sort of coercive language. That is a win lose situation. I have to win, you have to lose, because that's just the way it is. While there are some relationships where there's superiors and subordinates inside of an organization and it may literally be that way from an organizational hierarchy perspective, that is not how you inspire or motivate or drive. I'd say, get people to do something. There is a popular quote from the Angelist founder, naval Ravikant, which he says that it's better to play long-term games with long-term people. An anti-persuasive communication is playing a short-term game with short-term people, meaning, okay, do this thing for me once, and then you never have trust with that person Again, mutual trust in that relationship. It's very short-lived. So this one concept of what's in it for me, not using adverbs, steering away from that, stating the facts as they are, that subtle shift allows you to speak from the other person's perspective. Some might call it empathetic communication, and that's true, where you feel what the other person is going to feel, but think what they're going to think and then speak to that as a ghost writer. With books, I always tell my authors that the first chapter is there to build rapport. Where you align with someone, you get the reader and they understand that where you're coming from is where they're already at. And that can be done in white papers, in slideshows, in emails, and it's really laying the context. And so often communication is missing the introduction of, or the reminder of, a certain context. Now, what do I mean by context and what would that look like in a communication? So we'll do that with the book, we'll do that with the email real quick, is that okay? Yeah, sure, yes, so often in books an author will feel inspired to just start sharing their ideas open with their stories or life story. 

Or here's my 7-point framework for blah blah blah. Or my 12-part system for blah blah, blah. Okay, why is there a need for this system? What are previous systems attempted? What are the other frameworks that are out that I've already tried? Why do those not work? Why is yours better? What are the problems I'm dealing with. How do I feel that those are problems, for example, and so what we do is we construct the first chapter of a book like a sales letter, a sales letter. 

That hooks us in with a very important claim or some curiosity that's relevant for us right now, and what we have going on. What is the problem we're dealing with? How do we know it's a problem? What have we already tried? How does your how do I know your solution works? For example, the fundamentals of sales copywriting apply to a book, and so the reason I do it this way is because, on Amazon and other websites, readers can read the book for free. First, they can read the first chapter or so for free. 

All right, so we have to treat that free chapter like a sales letter. We can't just start the book. So I like to tell authors think in terms of chapter zero. That is a proper and useful way to think of persuasive communication, for speeches, for white papers and for emails Meaning. What's the context here? What's most important in this situation? Why are we doing this? What's in it for you and lead with that in mind? 

0:17:13 - Mehmet
So if you're going to ask someone to do something for you. 

0:17:19 - Joshua
Start with what are the things that they want to get accomplished, what is the problem that everyone wants to have solved? And that's your first few sentences, that's your first few paragraphs. It's the reminder of what's really important and what's at stake here, and then you can get to your request versus do this now or I need you to start with what's most important. What's the agree upon context here, what's going on? Remind that, reinforce that before asking the request. And, by the way, you'll notice that Excellent slide decks that people have shared. You know, here's the slide share, or the you know of this famous slide deck that that resulted in this many hundreds of millions raised, for example. I see people a lot in the tech space will will share those and will will try to use those as templates, kind of grip it and rip it to lay out their own pitch, following that format. Of course, a lot of AI companies having trouble raising money right now. That's a whole other. 

0:18:24 - Mehmet
Exactly. 

0:18:25 - Joshua
But what do those slides all do those slide decks? They always start with the context what's changed in the industry? What's stopped working? What are the new opportunities out there? Why do we need to act fast? Long before the technology is mentioned. They don't lead with hey, here's our idea, want to give us money? No, what's the context of the idea? What are the problems? What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? Those sorts of things that that are agreed upon. 

0:18:55 - Mehmet
What are the? 

0:18:55 - Joshua
risks, what are the threats? Why is this urgent, like actually urgent? Don't just say, oh, it's urgent that we, what we get our product to market, who cares unless you've told us why to care. So those, those are some simple tips to think through before you you demand or command. What is the context here that is agreed upon? What is the what is the innate urgency of the situation? 

0:19:24 - Mehmet
Yeah, yeah, actually, if, if, maybe I'm sure you noticed that, Joshua, and this is exactly I'm doing the same Sequence when I'm asking you the question, because what I wanted to show that we didn't deep dive, you know, immediately in persuasive. You know writing, so need to give the context to the audience and this is why, you know, sometime I I consult with startup founders, or to be startup founders, and they come up with me, you know, like, yeah, exactly as you mentioned, yeah, we have this idea, you know, and we, it's gonna be the next unicorn. I said, guys, okay, you might be up to something, but if you don't, as you mentioned, it's, I love to call it. You call it like it's a sales, you know, letter, I like to call it like a Story, right, so it should be a or customer journey. So you need to tell me what happened, why this happened exactly the way you mentioned, and this is why I didn't want also to dive. 

Now, today, I say, hey, hi, joshua, how are you Tell me about? You know personal writing, so I could have done this right, but I wanted to put the context so people understand. Now, if I want to learn this right, I want to, and, of course, like it's not something that can happen overnight, like it's something that needs a lot of practice, I'm sure. But like what are some the techniques and, you know, tools that we can use to learn to do the proper method? 

0:20:58 - Joshua
Yes, yes, so I'm going to borrow a little bit from a program that I that I have. 

So so I have a program called best way persuasion and every single month I send the subscribers the paid subscribers a new technique, specifically an advanced business persuasion technique that's working this particular month for my clients who are authors and entrepreneurs, often in the tech space, and I spend, I go through the, the here's, here's why it works, here's how it works here, so you can do it to either take a few hours, implement it, or a few weeks if you want to go full, mastery level implementation. And one of the one of the first case studies that I that I lay out is the concept of the 97%. So market market research analysts have, when they examine a total of adjustable market, find that only 3% of that market Is ready to buy. They are credit card in hand, they are check in hand, they are, they are sold. Those are the people who do not necessarily need the context. They're ready and yet, and yet, so many. This is owners, entrepreneurs, founders, so on and so forth. Marketers, salespeople Speak or write as if they're talking to. They're addressing only that 3%. 

There's no context laid first, whereas the 97%. 

They are the obviously the vast majority here. Those are the people who are not buying right now, but they have needs that you are capable of meaning, that your product is capable of meaning, that your company is capable of meaning, that your offer is capable of meaning. What we have to do is simply lay out the chain of beliefs, belief, chain of beliefs. This is a concept that we borrow from hypnosis. Actually, quick aside about hypnosis, people think that noses is a sort of stage magic, illusionist mysticism sort of Idea whereas really what hypnosis is is it's subconscious self persuasion, subconscious self persuasion. 

So in a clinical hypnosis context, the practitioners there with a patient patient sitting back to relax and the hypnotist walks the client through a guided visualization that has embedded Suggestions in the story that they're telling and when they're deeply relaxed or in that suggestible state, the person is offered suggestions instead of embedded in this story that the hypnotist is telling inside this visualization about the particular issue or an analogy for the issue that the person is is dealing with, that they're there for. The most common reason someone goes to a hypnotist is to quit smoking, quit drinking, sleep better, lose weight. This is sort of like everyday practical, practical challenges, practical challenges. The problem with hypnosis is that it works too well, too fast to be a viable business model. I will say that again the problem with hypnosis that it works too well, too fast to be a viable business model. 

Most hypnotists do not earn much money, unfortunately, because they're not therapists. They don't need to drag out the talk therapy sessions for weeks, months and years. Many of their clients will show up 150 bucks once or twice. The problem is done after the person struggled with it for years. Everyone listening right now understands that what I just said indicates they need to apply hypnosis principles to their business, to their career, immediately because it works so well. The chain and beliefs concept is borrowed from hypnosis, and so it allows us to speak to a much broader market, or a rather a much broader segment Of our total addressable market. This would have 97 percent that we find who are at various stages of awareness or research or whatnot. 

So the 97 percent are those who are aware that they have a problem, but they're not quite sure what the criteria for the solution are, because they figure it out themselves and just do what they've always done. Is it buy something that necessarily know? The chain and beliefs concept starts with what they know to be true. It leads them to what you know to be true. What they know to be true is that something is wrong here, what you know to be true is our product, our offer, our company makes it right. 

0:25:35 - Mehmet
So what are? 

0:25:37 - Joshua
the Steps, the stages in this chain and beliefs concept. A wonderful analogy that's useful here is Domino's. You ever see domino's where you set them up, one after the next, and you knock the first one down and then it just naturally goes on to the next. In writing, we call this flow, where the writing flows from one point to the next. There's not any leaps, jumps or gaps in reasoning. 

So many slide decks that I see are here's a problem. We have a startup that's going to solve it, and then let's skip right next, next slide, where this is a unicorn business model and this is whole gap of wait a second. How are you going to go to market? How do you know that that's the right segment? How do you know it's going to work? How do you know it's going to work? Have you ever done this before? And there's all sorts of questions that are asked that aren't answered, and so it's like there's a domino here, domino here, and the next domino is way down here. You knock the first two over and then you just have to. Well, the next one's going to fall over on itself, like there's a break in the chain of beliefs concept here. There is a wonderful marketer named Edwin Pagan, who said many years ago that the essence of marketing is changing someone's beliefs instantly and forever the chain of beliefs concept. By the way, he was a professional hypnotist and a marketer in his space. 

He worked a lot with the men on confidence issues and whatnot, which helps really well when you are persuasive. But coming back to the chain of beliefs concept, what does this mean for the 97% here? What's what's going on? This is advanced business persuasion, because what you can do is you can think through. What does someone need to believe in, the order they need to believe it to go from? We're aware that there's a need for this to I need these people, I need this company, I need this offer, I need this product. What is in that chain? By the way, when I'm ghost-friending a book for someone, we often align the chapters to each of those beliefs that people need to have and the order they need to have them in order to reach the conclusion that we want. For example, if you're fundraising, what are all the beliefs that need to happen? Well, I need to believe that there is a real problem. I need to see data so I can justify logically. Okay, there really is a problem here. 

0:28:01 - Mehmet
How do we know it's a? 

0:28:02 - Joshua
problem. So what are the manifestations? What are the consequences? The data that demonstrates that. Not just a claim, but demonstration of data. Okay, I guess it is Okay. Well, how do we feel it? So what are the anecdotes? The qualitative market research? What are we hearing, feeling, seeing that we know that this is a real, urgent issue, that is beyond the fact that data, the boring, the humdrum people are feeling it right. And then, what are people currently trying? So what are we doing here with chain of beliefs? So I believe that there's a problem. I believe that there's evidence demonstrating that it's a real problem. I believe that people are feeling it. So what's the next thing I need to believe. 

Well, the next thing I need to believe is that people aren't getting solutions that are working, so I need to believe that existing solutions are inferior, so I haven't even pitched my product. Yet I haven't even said you need to do this. You need to jump in, you need to buy, you need to do any of this right. 

0:29:02 - Mehmet
We're selling the belief. 

0:29:03 - Joshua
So I also need to believe that there are existing solutions that are inferior. Now, what do I need to believe in the chain next? What's the next domino to fall over that will knock over the next one? Right, that's what flow is is where you're not skipping any steps. You're not skipping anything that people need to believe to be true. 

Now, this is rather a tedious process, but you'll notice, it's not art or creativity or inspiration or the muse or anything that so many people think that communication is. Is that persuasion is where it's a sort of inspired creativity laced effort. It's not. It is boring, frankly, and it is tedious. That's what people buy best way persuasion. 

If I could give a little plug for that right there, because I just say just do this, I do the hard part of the thinking of the creativity first, and then, okay, you just do this and that we can run the sales and marketing test for your company. You know this this month and turn out of the next month and the one after that, so on and so on and so forth. The chain of beliefs concept is is so useful and applicable because what you do is you make sure that there is alignment, there is context, there is rapport, and so that it's natural that people say, oh well, yes, this is, this is the product, this is the offer, this is the company. We're going to do this by getting each of those beliefs stacked in the right order. So really, it's not trying to core someone to believe something, it's thinking through what do I need to believe to be true and in what order do I need to believe it to naturally reach the conclusion I'm trying to persuade people to. 

0:30:43 - Mehmet
Because at that point. 

0:30:45 - Joshua
You're not doing any persuading or sleight of hand. Manipulation or a popular phrase, is reality distortion field. What you learn as a hypnotist is that it's all self persuasion. What you're suddenly doing is you're giving people what they need to believe in the order they need to believe it to reach the conclusion. I don't need to smoke anymore. 

I'm a non-drinker now I can sleep well deep every night. And then those beliefs manifest in reality, often after the, after the sessions. We hear reported from hypnotist clients, and so it's the self persuasion as another reframe, a useful reframe of persuasion. It's not something you do to someone. It's something that you give people what they need in order to do to themselves and the order they need to do it in order to reach the conclusion that you like them to. 

0:31:40 - Mehmet
Wow, like this is a master. Really, it's a master class, joshua. A lot of things you mentioned. I'm sure many people will benefit from it. So how do you usually do this, joshua? Like to run a program, like, how do you trade people on that? 

0:31:59 - Joshua
Yes, it depends on what the capacity is that they want to help. So I mostly ghost write books, but it's not just full and nonfiction books for founders and executives, it's also there. Sometimes it's their white papers, it's their slide decks that I even worked on it's their emails. 

There are a lot of stuff they have going on right. Something that executives have realized they need to be doing more of, founders have realized they need to be doing more of, is creating ongoing content on the regular as part of their own frankly, their own personal branding, thought leadership efforts, because if you don't have a personal brand, people are going to give you one. If you don't have leading thoughts, people assume you don't have any. That's less than ideal. That is less than ideal as a leader, and so I will often assist in writing that. But, at the same time, executives, founders, entrepreneurs recognize that it's not just a an individual issue. That is the content creation I need to be doing. It's a company wide issue that there's, there's a marketing communication strategy, there is salespeople that they have, there's the entire funnel, top of funnel, bottom to bottom of funnel, and that's not just for customers. That's also for VCs, angel investors, firms, et cetera, where they need capital infusion and stakeholders. 

There's multiple funnels inside of their, inside of their business, and so the one way that I work with founders is, as I said, with the best way, persuasion program, where I lay out here's a here's a business persuasion strategy and how to implement it. This month, if I could give a little plug, it's at elicetgoestridingcom. Slash subscribe, if I, if I may. That's. That's the most scalable version of my persuasion, of my business persuasion. Training is is that program and the 97% report that we've kind of borrowed from a little bit here. That's one of the case studies and everybody gets that as soon as they join, because that is fundamental to understanding business persuasion. Apply hypnosis is what I call. It is the chain of beliefs concept. 

0:34:11 - Mehmet
Wow, that's. That's really very useful, joshua. And and you know, question that you know just came to me. So, other than you know you, you gave some some use cases, so you gave we, we talked about emails, communication, you talked about the pitch deck and we talked about even communication, not between only like the same team members, like communication between founders and investors. Is there are there any other use cases for for you know, or benefits that we would get from applying this methodology? 

0:34:50 - Joshua
Yes, one of the most tangible benefits, frankly, is attraction. What do I mean by attraction? Here you have a good example of this. You are a good example of this. You call your podcast the CTO show. What does that do? It attracts CTOs whom you want to be speaking to, and not just CTO, but technologists and founders and the C-suite and whatnot. Imagine if you had called it the Mehmet show. Unless people knew who you were, they would not be attracted to it. Frankly, right. 

0:35:28 - Mehmet
Right If so here's an example. 

0:35:36 - Joshua
If someone visits my website and they see it's all about me, me, me, my experience, my books, my opinions, my life story, my bio, as so many ghost readers have on their website. Right, consider what I do, which is I explain how I write books. I have 20 case studies of authors I've worked with maybe 24. At this point, I focus on what their books have done for them in terms of revenue generated, opportunities created, media unlocked, investors courted. That is attractive, versus work with this Ohio ghost writer who is blah, blah, blah, blah. No one cares. So this simple concept of attraction, just be attractive. We don't have to lie to ourselves. We don't have to puff up and think well, I'm Mehmet and I'm great, so I should call the Mehmet show. It is okay to put the customer, the user, the shareholder, the stakeholder as the center of attention, and yet so few do, and I think one of the reasons that people don't is we're misled by popular brands that do brand awareness. Being a personal brand, they're their founder. 

A good example in terms of podcasting is the Joe Rogan experience. Is the name of the number one podcast Right? Everyone knows who Joe Rogan is. We already have context for what the show is going to be like who he tends to bring on as guests. Everyone knows this. There's no questions here. It's all answers. It's going to be six hour conversations. 

Like one break right there in the middle. So we know. But if you call the Mehmet show, I just have question marks Right. Unless we already know who you are, unless we're already followers, unless we're already bought in, we don't understand what the context is here. This is a shift that I've made over the years I talking about myself as a ghost writer to what I talk about. The result of the book is so, instead of the call of action B, hire Josh Realizek. It's writing 99th percentile quality book, 99th percentile. 

People know exactly what I'm talking about. They know what the benefits of the book are going to be. They know the care that's going to be taken. The context is late, it's all about them versus hire Joshua. He's done all the no one cares, right? So assume that you are not the Joe Rogan of your industry, let's say where everyone knows who you are. And yet we look at those sorts of examples. Or companies that do brand awareness, advertising or promoting, or they rely on the reputation of one of the founders and that's half the slide deck is all about them. That person you might be that unicorn superstar who's got all of those experiences, or you might not. So if we look at people who already have name recognition people and brands and we try to do that it's not going to work so well. 

So that's why we don't want to be the Joe Rogan experience. We want to be the CTO show. 

0:39:14 - Mehmet
Wow, exactly this is when I started to brainstorm what should I name the show? Right? So of course it should be discussing technology. Of course I know what I'm going to discuss, right? So I know the topics. 

But at the same time, I wanted to blend with business and entrepreneurship. And then, when I started to brainstorm, what name could attract audience to that? First thing? First, of course, because who calls the? As you mentioned, who calls the show by their name? People who had some authority before actually they started the podcast. So Joe Rogan, tim Ferriss is another example. The guy was blogging for years and he had the books and so on, going on. So, yeah, so people know who's Tim Ferriss. And for me, okay, my friends know me, people who have I interacted during my life, they know me. But I mean, this is something that's gonna go for everyone. And who the guy called Mehmet? He's calling the show Mehmet Show, right? So no one knows me. So I wanted to get a name that has all these, I would say, traits that I just mentioned. So, technology first. So CTO CTO is also usually people when they you say CTO, CTO and co-founder, startup, right? 

So yeah this is what it is, and then CTO it's also like entrepreneurship, and CTO it's also executives. So yeah, so this is what I wanted to do. So, yeah, let's call it the CTO show. Of course, I checked is there any CTO show out there? And I was lucky enough that there are some CTO other thing, but not show, I mean, as I put it, and yeah, so I decided the CTO show looks a good combination. 

And one more thing I want to add, joshua, and this is because, even if you are a founder listening or watching us today, so this method it will work also when it comes not only raising funds and because I work in this domain as well, so even in sales, actually, because when you are a sales guy and you go out, the last thing you want to go and do is just send a customer an email or a LinkedIn message or whatever, or a phone call hey, I have this product. That is fantastic. Do you want to try it? Like it doesn't work like this, so you need to give the context. And again, joshua, like this topic excites me actually, so really, I enjoyed this One question, which is maybe not related to this, but of course, in your bio I saw it and because you are in the ghost writing, you know in space for a long time. Is AI doing anything in that space? Is it going to change anything for you, joshua? 

0:42:00 - Joshua
AI's impact on ghost writers has already been noticeable and I think it's a good thing. Frankly, especially with the inflationary recession sort of shenanigans we have going on locally, regionally, nationally and globally. So there's a nice little one, two punch here, call it gone. So I will say this twice AI replaces 99% of ghost writers. Ai replaces 99% of ghost writers. 

0:42:34 - Mehmet
And the reason. 

0:42:35 - Joshua
AI replaced 99% of ghost writers is because most ghost writers think like AI, but slower. Most ghost writers are not themselves, say, creators. They don't have their own books, their own courses. 

They are transcribers and interpreters where they will interview the client and then they will transcribe what they say, either manually or automatically, and then they will try to take what exactly the client said remove the us and the uns, make a couple of edits so that it reads grammatically correct, eliminate spelling errors, add a couple of zingers in there and there you go. There's your ghost written book, case study, chapter email, white paper, social media post article for your blog email. Whatever that's the outcome, what I just described, ai does so much faster, cheaper and better. So what's funny about this is I thought about this in my own book and AI, so I've seen this coming for a little while now. There is an expression of colloquialism Fast, cheap or good. Pick two. Ai writing is all three. 

0:44:02 - Mehmet
AI writing is all three. 

0:44:03 - Joshua
So what I described in the animation of Ghostman, what they do, they are a host, to use a Canadian expression, and frankly, I think, rightly so. It's much easier for an executive to talk through their ideas to the voice recorder on their app or on their app or their phone or their computer, and then take the scratcher and throw it into, let's say, chat, gpt or another program is called sudo write, s-u-d-o, write, and I write like writing, sudo write, and say a very slightly, edit this for me. Now feel free to hit. That's funny. I used adverbs. Adverbs and prompts work well, so you're just deceiving the AI, you're deceiving it to give you a better output, a better result. I'm the only person who talks about that, by the way. So it's a little alpha for prompt engineering, for everyone listening is using adverbs to trick the AI into giving you better output, better quality output. 

But that right there where you're taking your ideas, going to transcript, going to something that's workable, that replaces instantly 99% of ghost writers fast, cheap and good. Well, he's good enough in most contexts, in most circumstances. I'm okay with absolutely obliterating my industry in this, in this regard, frankly, because, number one, that's just the way that it is. And number two, we're already seeing the ghost writing profession need to be less utilized because in a economic downturn, people are less concerned about thought leadership and brand awareness these sort of fuzzy words that you spend a lot of money on. 

What you need to be focusing on right now is demand. The generation, and a ghost writer's writing is not really doing that. I have been a harbinger in the go try profession for years now, telling other writers, if you're there's on a direct connection between generating revenue and you writing, you are screwed. I've been saying this since at least 2017 2016. And it seems that the bill is finally coming due and so most go tryers you talk to now are out of work, and that's unfortunately, but it's just the way of things in the ghost writing business, with a nice little double whammy. I have my own books, I have my own courses and programs, and I also work only with a particular type of client. That particular type of client is not going to be spending hours and hours and hours prompting chat GPT with transgrows of theirs. They want someone who can do the writing for themselves. A good example of this is Dr Phillip of ADIIT, one of my clients Now he's not a. 

0:46:58 - Mehmet
He's not a. He's not a technologist. 

0:47:01 - Joshua
He's in the health and wellness space. They do use a lot of technology in their platforms, but he is a founder of a company. He is not going to spend hours and hours in front of the computer with the transcripts. He is going to get on a call with me for 10 minutes between flights, share a couple quick ideas that he has and then I'm not going to then go Trump from JAPT, JGPT. 

I'm going to write something from scratch, Do a third party research, compile it together and weave in his two ideas and turn 500 words into 10,000 words. And it's not going to be abstract, it's going to be concrete, it's going to be visual and it's going to have all of the persuasion principles and apply hypnosis laced into it. So there is still a place for actual creators who are writing stuff from scratch, Not the sort of copy and paste and improve process that that that ghost writer, that AI does to replace ghost writing. But frankly, in 90-inch of the use cases of a ghost writer, AI writing is superior because it's fast, it's cheap and it's good. Like I said, in many cases, good enough. I still I have not seen a book, nonfiction book replaced by AI. I think completely. There's still space for editors, even if they're using an AI. So that's fine. 

But, by the way, a fiction AI writing is amazing, it's amazing. And that's the last thing that most people think could possibly replace by AI is fiction. 

0:48:36 - Mehmet
Nope, that's actually first, and they're. 

0:48:38 - Joshua
they're authors, traditionally published authors, novelists. I know I'm kind of going off at this point About little soapbox here, but there are fiction writers and novelists who are running trainings on how they're using AI to write their books now, instead of using fiction. Ghost writers and fiction editors and how you can do it's. It's nuts out here. How much has changed in the last 10 months? 

0:49:00 - Mehmet
Yeah, I've seen a lot of. I've seen a lot of these, by the way, recently. Like they come, they pop up in front of me here and there, you know people who you know. I would show you how to write a book using chat, gpt and so on. So, and fiction, by the way, you're right, I'm seeing like more fiction. They start, I think, with like kids story, I mean, you know, nursery rhymes, these kind of things you know like, and yeah, they're developing very fast. So, joshua, again, I know that you mentioned the website, but I want you to mention it again and it will be in the show notes, so where people can find more about you. 

0:49:38 - Joshua
Yes yes. 

My my best content by far are the monthly business persuasion case studies for founders and technologists. That said, lycec ghostwritingcom slash subscribe for the monthly case studies is looking at my leave. One last tip with, and it was one that was prompted by you In fact. We're talking about like right chat right, a book with chat gpt I'm seeing those all over my feed and it's so screen to keep running these $47 trainings for a live workshop. You know that that replaces a $47,000 US dollar ghostwriter or there are some ghost writers who are celebrities that have done $100,000, $200,000 plus for for a book, I being one of them. 

Why am I not concerned about my business completely evaporating overnight? Despite this and this is a persuasion principle, by the way pattern interrupt We've all heard a pattern interrupt. One thing is not like the other Apple, orange, ferrari, banana One of these things is not like the other. That is a child's version of pattern interrupt. Right there, how? 

to interrupt in a persuasion context is saying and doing exactly not what someone would expect. I do that for my clients. Number one because it shows it AI didn't write it or edit it. Number two because it gets, gets attention. So one quick example of this is my book called so good, they call you a fake which is a riff on so good they can't adore you, by Cal Newport, which most of your listeners will ever read, I'm sure. So good, they call you a fake. What I don't want to call it fake Wait, it's a book title Like it's a good thing, I'm so good I should be called a fake. 

What I have to read this thing, it's a pattern interrupt. You know I didn't write that. I'm not interested in that thing. I write what's obvious because most people are obvious communicators with not pattern interrupt but with patterns, and I tends to create patterns. So what I like to do as a, as a writer, is it's communicator is connect things that are not at all connected, it seems, and make these intent, make these things tie in one with another. So what's going? 

0:51:57 - Mehmet
on with these business research studies. 

0:51:59 - Joshua
Has anyone ever heard of it? If monthly advanced business persuasion case studies that you can test every month with your marketing communications, that's not a thing, and yet now it is A like would not have come up with that unless you knew exactly what the prompted and say, and it's a concept of this book right here I mentioned from Dr Philip Ovedi, the cardiologist. It's not a heart surgeon's guide to health and wellness, which is what an AI might have said, and that's good enough in most contexts, but the title is Stay Off my Operating Table. It might have taken some prompting to get an AI there, but you have to know prompt engineering, and so now prompt engineering and editing become essential skills for a ghostwriter. Anyway, that one tip right there of the pattern interrupt the unexpected. The tying seemingly disparate ideas one to another together as part of the message, and even laying the context, is powerful and also differentiates your communication from anything that's AI written which is sounding like everyone else. 

And this day and age where attention is influenced. We need attention more than anything else and, frankly, bar none right now. By far the best way to do that is with these pattern interrupts and tying together the unexpected to introduce your message. 

0:53:23 - Mehmet
Wow, this is so intense, joshua, like I love it. And. 

I learned something new today from you, joshua, honestly, and this is, you know, I hope that the audience will. I'm sure that they're going to benefit from it, especially the last part. You know about the pattern interruption. This is something amazing. Well, joshua, like I wish you know we could do more and more, and I think we should do another episode, actually I'm sure about it, just to go deep dive in these methodologies and you know these concept that you mentioned. But again, still, with what we did today is it's a master class and really I appreciate you know it was after midnight for you and you showed up on the show with me today, so really I appreciate the time I'm being. We'll make sure that all the links that you mentioned, they are on the show notes. So, guys, you can reach out to Joshua directly and also, you know, like, if anything you want to ask and you know you have difficulties reaching Joshua you can send your questions to me. I will forward them and, as usual, this is how we end the episodes, like you know. 

Thank you very much for tuning in. Keep the feedbacks coming. Keep you know, even if they are negative ones. I love to read negative feedbacks because they keep me doing the right thing. Later on, and if you are also interested to be a guest on the show, don't be shy. Reach out and we'll arrange for it. You need to have, like an idea. Maybe you are a startup founder, maybe you are up to a concept you know which is not very known, but you believe the world should hear about it. So don't hesitate to reach out. This is an open space for all the ideas and, as you will take you very much for tuning in, we'll see you again in the next episode. Bye-bye. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page