The 4.7% Rule: Why the Middle of Every Industry Is Disappearing

Ever get a text from a family member asking you to "just promote their business a little"? 

Joe Downs did from his sister-in-law Lexi, a copywriter turned hat entrepreneur, and what started as a casual Sunday text turned into a full-on AI career reckoning. 

Joe and Peter Swain break down what that conversation revealed: that the middle market of creative work is about to disappear, and the people who survive will be the ones who become a marketing agency of one. 

Then they get into the 4.7 rule, a cold outreach data point so wild Joe almost didn't believe it…and how AI automation via Claude Cowork can turn a 1.1% email reply rate into 4.7% without a sales team. 

If you've been wondering where you fit in the AI world, this one's for you.

Listen For

3:00 How do you help a copywriter-turned-entrepreneur build an AI-powered marketing plan without starting from scratch?

9:00 Why does Peter say hustle and grind still matter before you ever touch an AI workflow?

14:00 Which creative professionals are most at risk from AI disruption — and which ones are actually positioned to win?

28:30 What is the 4.7 Rule, and why does cold email-only outreach look embarrassing by comparison?

30:00 Can Claude Cowork really automate your entire LinkedIn-to-email outreach sequence without a sales team?

Links Mentioned

Claude Cowork

Lemlist

Claude AI (by Anthropic)

Peter's Free AI Business Audit

Pen Stables

Email the “Idiots” Joe and Peter Idiots@successfulidiots.com

Joe Downs

Website | Email | LinkedIn | YouTube

Peter Swain

Website | Email | LinkedIn | X

Transcript

Peter Swain: [00:00:00] AI's not taking your job, but somebody using AI probably will.

Joe Downs: I got a text on Sunday from my sister-in-law asking for me to help promote her business, not an email, a text, which tells you everything about how this started. Casual, no agenda. Just, Hey, can you help me get the word out a little bit?

I kind of, you know, gave the thumbs up Blue Pass a little bit. It was a busy week, but then she was texting again a [00:00:30] couple days later and at some point she started asking about AI carefully though, like she wasn't sure if it was. If she was allowed to ask or if she should be asking, or maybe she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.

I don't know. But here's the thing. She's a copywriter or she was, and somewhere in the back of her mind, I think she already knew. What AI was about to do to that part of her identity. She just hadn't said the quiet part out loud yet. So I said it for her. I told her, you're not a copywriter [00:01:00] anymore.

You're an ideator. AI rates the copy. Now your job is to tell it what to say. And today we're gonna get into what that conversation actually looked like and what it means for anyone who's built a career around creative skills and is trying to figure out. Where they fit now in this new AI world.

Then we're gonna get into a piece of data about reaching new clients that I honestly couldn't stop thinking about after I came across it. I'm Joe Downs. With me is Peter Swain. We're just a couple of successful idiots who [00:01:30] figure out how to use AI to improve our lives and help run our businesses, and that's again what we're gonna show you today, Peter.

True or false, AI has done more for solo operators in the last three years. I love, I love your face right now, just in anticipation of what I'm about to say then the British have done for punctuality in the last 300 years.

Peter Swain: That's probably [00:02:00] true.

Joe Downs: Hmm.

Peter Swain: if you said queuing, I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. We've, we've, we own that, but punctuality not so much. interesting though, 'cause I, I grew up abroad, in, when I lived in the Middle East, if someone says, I'll see you at three, they say, and Shaah, which literally means God willing, but it also becomes their get out of jail free card if they're late.

if they turn around and they show up at four, not three, they'll say, oh, it, it wasn't. 

Joe Downs: Was meant to be.

Peter Swain: East is [00:02:30] horrible. My next business partner after that was a Swiss guy. That was a very different experience. So yeah, I'm kind of more attuned to the timekeeping. Honestly, it's not that I was late today or anything, than the most, but yeah, that's not our strong point.

Joe Downs: Well, if to Doug's point, if they would just move Stonehenge, you know, one hour forward a little faster each year, then you wouldn't be late. But all right.

Peter Swain: accepted calling it GMT instead of UTC, we'd be fine.

Joe Downs: I, I don't even know where I stand on the whole time zone [00:03:00] change. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it. Alright, this episode first, again, we're gonna get into my sister-in-law. Lexi texted me about her, creative business this week that turned into a, an actual, an AI conversation that I, I, I want.

I want you to Peter to, to break down and understand 'cause I think there's a lot of listeners that are in the same boat. And then, there's that number I came across this week. This the cold outreach. That's I think, gonna change how a lot of people think about how they do cold outreach. Alright, Lexie, [00:03:30] first, , and a reminder, even though this was a text, Lexi didn't have to send an email to idiots@successfulidiots.com because.

Who knows how to get to me faster. Uh, but keep those emails coming folks. We're loving 'em. And again, we're here to help. So, whatever's on your mind, whatever you need help with, whatever ideas you have, shoot, shoot that email over idiots@successfulidiots.com and we will, we will love to break it down on the show for you.

Alright, Peter, [00:04:00] sister-in-law, Alex who, sends me this text about, she's, so she was a copywriter. I don't know. She started her own business. Your, here's your, your, uh, free promotion, lexie pen stables.com. So what she did, she's an entrepreneur and she doesn't really know it yet.

She started a hat meet like a high-end hat business and, you know, picture like the, Kentucky Derby or I don't know. Sunday in, in London. I, I, I don't know what you guys do over [00:04:30] there, sipping tea with their fancy hats.

Peter Swain: it's the races, Cheltenham, et cetera.

Joe Downs: Yeah. Okay. Fine. Same thing. So fancy to me. They look like cowboy hats to her, their designer, you know, actually I could see like Hollywood celebrities wearing these things, but, um, so she's got this hat business, but you know, like any, any business owner, she's trying to get it off the ground.

So she's, she's pivoting to some other businesses like. You know, the, the bachelorette party world, like, get your custom hats for the [00:05:00] 15 of us, 20 of us going to a bachelorette party or the bat mitzvah, you know, that whole, the, the, the whole custom swag, game, whatever that event is. Or you win the Swains, go to Disney World and they want the, you know, you know, m Daddy Mickey or whatever.

I don't know what the goofy things people wear in Disney World are, but don't. Don't, you don't admit to wearing anything goofy, Peter. I don't wanna lose respect for you. But anyway, so she's got this business and the text was, [00:05:30] Hey, can you help me? Just, it was just a, can you promote it? You know, like, let your family know I'm from a big family.

Let your family members know about my business and whatever. And I'm thinking. Like, as I said, it was a busy week. Gave her the thumbs up on the text. I, I don't have time to do anything with this. And really, is this the, your plan? No offense, Lex, if you're listening, but this is how I was feeling about this text.

Like, is this really your plan? Uh, spread the word. A couple people are gonna, you know, yeah, sure, your business can [00:06:00] grow slowly and organically that way, but, bottom line is this, it, it really evolved. It, the conversation evolved into. Me asking or she asking about ai and then it went like this. And, and, and she said, I started to throw some ideas at her.

she said, I'm a copywriter. And I said, not anymore. You're not, you're an ideator, like I said in the opening. And, and, and the real question Peter came out through this conversation was. She was really asking. I've got a marketing brain, I've got a few clients, I've got this [00:06:30] product, but I don't know how to use AI to find more clients.

So to take what she's creating and and producing. And right now she's the whole run of it, the creation and the production, without giving, without having to hire a team or to outsource everything. Now, Peter, I know you've probably. You probably answered this ver a version of this question. I don't know a dozen times by now through our various episodes, but I want to go there again.

I wanna go there again because the more specific the example, the more it [00:07:00] actually lands for people. So someone listening right now might not be making hats, but if they've gotta create a background and they're trying to figure out how AI fits into that without blowing up the thing that they built. going to hear themselves in Lexi's situation. So again, tighten it up. She's got this hat business, she wants to promote it. she's a creative copywriter, some illustrative. and she's also, you know, she's there for small [00:07:30] businesses, for any sort of creative, not just hats.

What's her first step? Like, what does she do with this? Because to me, the answer isn't, let me text my friends and family and have them. Promote my business for me like that. That's not going anywhere. But God, look at what she has in front of her, what she could do with ai.

Peter Swain: Okay. Fun story.

Joe Downs: Okay.

Peter Swain: a colleague of mine, an acquaintance of mine at best about 20 years ago. An acquaintance bought a list. I'm not [00:08:00] endorsing this by the way, but he bought a list, an email list, sent out to a million people this weekend. The dolphins are gonna beat the bills.

I've got this foolproof system that proves, that gives me the football scores, right? He'd send that to the list and to the other half the list, he would send exactly the same email, but the bills are gonna beat the dolphins. The next week he would throw away the half that lost and he's left with the half that was right.

he would say, Hey Joe, I told you that I could predict the results this [00:08:30] weekend. The chiefs are gonna beat the Cardinals to half and the other half the Cardinal's gonna be at the chiefs. And he'd throw away the list, half the list. He did that six times before he made an offer for $97. He was.

successful, complete con, incredibly successful. Not endorsing it and not recommending it. What I'm saying, just I wanna just defend Lexi here a bit. Basically, Lexi, on your behalf to your brother-in-law, don't know how many texts she sent on that day. [00:09:00] When I launched the mastermind business, I sat down at my coaches. table and I sent 684 texts, and that business is now doing 2 million a year. So in fairness to her, if she blasted that text to everybody in her phone, fair play to her because that is actually the first lesson in becoming a successful entrepreneur. Hustle and grind before you start finding shortcuts.

So, Lexi, that was for you, defending you when you can't [00:09:30] defend yourself. If, however, you just said it to Joe, you're a schmuck. Okay? With that, done,

Joe Downs: I,

Peter Swain: Thing I would

Joe Downs: I think she sent it to, less than 6, 6 80, but more than one.

Peter Swain: so

Joe Downs: It was probably about 10.

Peter Swain: With that said, the first thing I would do in Lexi's situation is I was open up Claude and I would describe the situation. This is what I do, this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm bad at, this is what my products are, this is who has received it. [00:10:00] This is how many followers I've got 

on Instagram. By the way, is how many, how much time I have to dedicate to social. Per day. This is how much time I have to dedicate to this. This is how much it's really, really sit down for the day dump everything that you can think of into like a Google Doc first so you don't lose it and then put it into Claude and say, this is the background.

Give me a marketing plan I can actually execute on. And that all of that context is so [00:10:30] critically important because what's right for Lexi and what's right for a million dollar brand are very, very different things. Incredibly different side of things. So that, that would be the first thing I would do of like, just give me a marketing plan I can actually execute on

so that would be my first thing. I know that's probably not the answer you were thinking of, but where I'd start.

Joe Downs: Okay. Does that, I I'm, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna ask the question. I'm gonna make the statement and you can correct it. She should then also, [00:11:00] in addition to, prompt that you just gave her, which was just a very high level prompt. She should also tell, Claude what her end goals are. Right? How many hours a week do I wanna work?

How much do I wanna make? What, what my profit margins are? You know, all that stuff.

Peter Swain: Yeah. And it's, imagine the, the way I like to think of AI is imagine you are sitting

Joe Downs: I.

Peter Swain: an incredibly smart person. That was a incredibly bad communicator. [00:11:30] Because you and I have, we've discussed this, Joe, like if you said, Hey Pete, got this family emergency, like you and I we're, we're playing golf.

It's a great weekend. Like, I've got this family emergency. Can you pick up the kids please? gotta go. you pick up the kids? what I would do. I'd go, yes, sure. One. What school are they at? Like that's an important piece of detail. Two, do I need like a code word to pick them up, [00:12:00] or do you need to text the principal in advance?

what do I need to say to them to make sure they're gonna be psychologically okay with the fact that this random dude they've never met has showed up? I would ask five or six really key, important questions before I accepted this task from you. AI wouldn't do any of those things.

Joe Downs: Yeah.

Peter Swain: AI's job is to go, I got you. Don't worry. And away it goes. And it [00:12:30] does the thing. It's not to stop you and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, I need this, this, and this in order to do an half decent job. So the context to AI is honestly, it's, it's the number one problem by a very long way of users of ai, no matter where they're at in the journey, Mo obviously it's more beginner.

They forget to do things like, does Lexi wanna make a hundred million dollars? Does she want like franchises, does she want shops across the whole country, does she just want one shop that pulls [00:13:00] in 200 K profit for her at the end of the year? Either of those answers is a fantastic answer.

I'm not judging either, but it's gonna be a very different plan depending on which one of those we're going for.

Joe Downs: Yeah. No, that, that's great advice. I think her husband Bill wants her to make 200 million, but I, I think she'd be, she'd be happy with the 200 k.

Peter Swain: after defending her and calling a rock star, then I should get a little cut as well. So I wanted to make 200 million as well.

Joe Downs: Fair enough, I'll work that out. And I'll get paid as the agent. [00:13:30] So for, so that's, that's, um, Lexi, that's, and I, I'm gonna have some follow up questions there, but before we get to the follow up questions. about the, the her? So I introduced her as a copywriter, and I think it's pretty well generally agreed that the copywriter is gonna be one of the first victims of ai, right?

From a

i I don't know how many of them there are out there, but the, that workforce has [00:14:00] gotta shrink. Yes. Not go extinct.

Not be extinct, but.

Peter Swain: I wanna make sure we're specific because I think it'll help people across every industry if you are. Predominant output is keyboard based. You are in trouble. you're in trouble a lot quicker than some other people, right? Plumbers are still, your Ultimos Pro and e Elon Musk are gonna take out plumbing, but that's gonna take us another five, 10 years.

yes, right now, if your predominant output mechanism is typing something, [00:14:30] especially something that doesn't have a quantitative resolution. Like you can't measure how good it is. Like for example, an assessor, their main output is on a keyboard, but you can measure how good they are. Well, you did 10 assessments last year and you were plus minus x percent accurate.

You can't do that with creative. It's a qualitative judgment, not quantitative judgment. So the people that are. Straits Trouble the mid-market, and this has been [00:15:00] the, this is just pattern in technical disruption, and it's always been this way, and it will probably always be this way. gets hit first and gets hit bad.

Let me give you an example. People will be able to relate to. Louis Vuitton better than ever. They still managed to persuade people to buy a bag for $20,000 when they produce it for $50 in a sweatshop in the far East, and that's not undocumented. It's not even like, oh, Pete, what did you just say?

This is some scandal. Everybody [00:15:30] knows that's true, even the people that buy the $20,000 bag, but it's still worth $20,000. I'm making more money than ever before because they're experts at efficiency in supply chain. They take every cent off the product a, in a way that I can't even really begin to understand.

Pottery Barn, bed, bath and Beyond. Mid-tier no defensible advantage either way. They're neither the best nor the cheapest. [00:16:00] And when you get this kind of disruption, you'll see the same thing. Copywriters, developers, voice artists, very similar trajectories.

The cheapest of fine because people would still rather deal with people. So if it's a $5 an hour developer, yeah, sure. It's only five. What? Who cares? $1 versus $5. Meh. Doesn't really make much of a difference. I'll do it. The million dollar developer that's like, yeah, I built Shopify. Be like, [00:16:30] okay, worth still paying for because he's got domain knowledge and expertise and duh. But the $70,000 developer, like, wow, that's expensive for something that Claude K could do for me. Those people. Disappear very, very quickly 'cause they're neither the cheapest nor the best. And that's what you'll find in copywriting as well. The world class copywriters, the Jay Abrahams, the dross, they'll be fine. The churn and burn copy for [00:17:00] a buck will be fine. The 5,000, $200 an hour copywriter won't exist within a year.

Joe Downs: So my contention, I agree with you, but my contention is this, and this is what I said back to Lexi in, in texts, and I actually used Claude as well to, to shore up my, my argument, my contention is the. The winners, I agree with you, that middle markets has, is, will be dispersed somewhere else. They will be relieved of their [00:17:30] responsibilities to go find new and more beneficial and wonderful work.

Peter Swain: convenient answer essentially.

Joe Downs: Yeah. But what do they do? So my contention to Lexie was. This paradigm shift we're going through. I, I don't know how long it's gonna take, but it's beginning. My contention is to her and to anyone listening. Get out in front of it

Peter Swain: Mm-hmm.

Joe Downs: I think she could become a marketing agency of one.[00:18:00] 

She's got this product she's selling with, with hats and, and we can, we could talk about all the different AI tools that she could use to, to promote her business and this, and, you know, all that.

Uh, and, and I can work with her on that, but. In general for all of the Lexis out there, shouldn't they be be leaning into taking all of their skills and becoming a marketing agency of one because. I'm a small business at both Bell Rose Group and storage [00:18:30] moguls, and I still need, because marketing is not my unique ability.

Sure, I can get on and ideate with Claude and, and, and, you know, nano nano and create stuff and all that, but that's still time. A, I don't have b I'm not the best at, can I prompt? Yes. Could, could I prompt as well as Lexi could probably prompt when she learns how to. Probably not, because that's not the background I come from.

So won't there be a need for all the solopreneurs, the, the couple [00:19:00] entrepreneurs? By the way, have you heard this term that's being thrown around the husband and wife teams?

Peter Swain: yeah, I

Joe Downs: No. You are couple entrepreneurs. You and Liz.

Peter Swain: A couple preneur

Joe Downs: oh, oh, oh, you're, yeah.

Peter Swain: but

Joe Downs: Liz, 

Peter Swain: answer

Joe Downs: might argue, hold on. Liz might argue you're about 30% of the couple preneur, but,

Peter Swain: agree with whatever she says.

Joe Downs: but go ahead.

Peter Swain: The answer is in my, in my view, the answer is a resounding 100%. Hell yes. Like for me, I'm like, [00:19:30] hang on a second. Uh, Tony Robbins says this all the time in his seminars, what business are you really in? And if you look at, for example, there's some very famous examples of this, railroads. Were offered the opportunity to go into trucks and automotive and ref, and said No. 'cause they thought they were in the the train business, the railroad business, and they didn't realize they were in the transportation

Peter Swain: If they realize they're in the [00:20:00] transportation business, then it was a seamless migration and a seamless move and they had so much infrastructure they could have actually used and repurposed and et cetera, blockbuster and Netflix, Nokia and iPhone.

there's so many of these examples where the incumbent either a single or an enterprise just disappears 'cause they don't realize the business they're in. What copywriters, creatives often feel that their job is, is to produce creative. I've made my entire career out of not actually being [00:20:30] that creative, of mastering the skill of translating to people.

You've heard me do this on some of our other calls where I've gone. Do you guys mind if I just speak Joe for a second?

I just, I just stop them in their tracks. 'cause I'm like, no, he doesn't understand words like HML and CSS and JavaScript he doesn't understand a single word you just said, but I happen to understand what you just said, and I know it's really valuable that he does understand it.

So to me, [00:21:00] Lexi can form this perfect bridge, as you said, of like, I've spent the time understanding ai. And I understand marketing and I understand small businesses, so I can translate these two to each other, and I think that's a very valuable service. Because somebody could walk in and say, listen, I'm $2,000 a month. essentially you are getting the creative for free, the copywriter for free, the strategist for free. 'cause I've wrapped up AI on those. And then the next line, if I was her, would be to say, I'll be [00:21:30] honest with you, they're not as good as going and getting the person for 10 k 20 KA month from Sarchi and Sarchi.

So if you can afford to get the person from Sarchi for 20 KA month, you should. can you afford that, Joe? No, I can't afford that. Great. Then I've got the 80, 90% solution in my ai and it's just a flat rate to me for two, two and a half, 3, 4, 5, whatever the num, whatever the right

Joe Downs: all of the Lexis out there to realize is that you can [00:22:00] take what you have. It's not, AI is not putting you outta business. it actually could prop up maybe the greatest business that you've ever had.

Peter Swain: AI's not taking your job, but somebody using AI probably will.

Joe Downs: Yeah. 

Peter Swain: Such an opportunity for, because the same prompts that Lexi would run for you, for me, for Jim, Bob, Harry. And they're the same prompts,

with different context loaded in.

every time she upgrades the prompt for one client, she's upgrading it for all of her clients that [00:22:30] sit. Infinite scale, zero cost of ownership. 'cause you could do that on a $200 max account with Claude easily, you'd easily have enough capacity, so your total cost of delivery would be $200 a month and your job would be pressing a button once per day per client. 

Joe Downs: Incredible.

Peter Swain: Joe, I

forget that consultancy gig. I quit. Go, this is me announcing I own a marketing agency. Yeah, it's, it's such an opportunity. 'cause you either [00:23:00] sit on the wrecking ball or you stand in front of it. You are

or Bounds and Noble that that's the two choices. You, you have, you really can.

There's no mid ground, there's no survive option. There's a thrive option or a die option.

Joe Downs: Yeah. And I love the analogies you gave in the, and the last one I'd throw in there is, McDonald's wrote one of Ray Croc's most famous speeches, gave it Wharton and, and the, or. One of his sayings anyway, he [00:23:30] asked the kids what business I am, am I in, and most of 'em raised their hand and said, hamburgers.

And he said, no, I'm in the real estate business. Hamburgers just pay the mortgage. And, and that, that was, that was fantastic. I mean, I was one of the first business lessons I ever learned growing up or heard about and, and it's so applicable to this conversation today. folks, look, that's exactly what's happening across a lot of industries.

Right now the production is collapsing down to one person with the right tools. And that Lexie, I think [00:24:00] that's what you can be. And I say that as someone who's living it. We're building, storage moguls.ai right now, and Peter's literally my consultant on it. We're using AI to educate students and completely new ways with how to guides and videos and AI tools that, make, you know, one person or my team's knowledge just stretch.

In ways and bounds, that it's never been able to before because of ai. So it's taking my team of, you know, there's five of us, and through Peter's help, you know, just blowing it [00:24:30] up and being able to offer it in ways that just weren't possible before. And I say blowing up, I mean a good way. Um, Peter, I'm gonna give you a, a little, I'm gonna, as my kids would say, I'm gonna glaze you right now.

Peter Swain: So a bad thing?

Joe Downs: It's a, your kids are too young to understand this new language that's out there, but it's a good thing.

Peter Swain: I think 40 50 olds would've gone I if I want that.

Joe Downs: so get ready to be glazed here

Peter Swain: Okay.

Joe Downs: for your high school kids [00:25:00] listening. I, I, I had you in mine, neighborhood, but, uh, this is Peter. I, I am in Peter's mastermind. Um, and obviously I just said, you're consulting with me on this project. Um, but I generally think there's people listening who have Lexi's. Exact situation.

You know, a real creative background. Maybe a few clients. Maybe it was just trying to figure out how to build this thing, whatever this thing is, without hiring a team. 'cause they're probably on their own now. Right.

And if someone like that wanted to reach out to you for advice, for help, to join a mastermind, to take an [00:25:30] audit, of where they are, whether they're, they're solopreneur, whether they're a couple entrepreneur like you and Liz.

Whether they're, they're about to start a business or maybe they already have a small business and, and they're listening to us to try to, take, turn the corner, take the next edge, stay, stay ahead of what's next. How can they reach you? Go ahead, give yourself a plug. Uh, 'cause you've, you've been so instrumental to, to, to two of my businesses, actually, not just one.

So

I wanna acknowledge you.

Peter Swain: the website is peter [00:26:00] sue.com and you can join our programs there. But the thing you just referred to, we just launched, we're really proud of, we just did a, an online audit where you can put in what the business is, how the business is doing, what behaviors you typify, and it draws on 10, just shy of 10,000 case studies work out where you should put ai.

Because one of the things we found is learning it isn't actually the hard part. Working out where to put AI in your business is often the hardest part of the equation. So you go to audit dot peter swain.com and it will [00:26:30] say, this is the inflection point for you. So yeah, audit or Peter Swain, it's completely free.

It's not gated. You don't have to like sign up for a call with my team to do it. So audit dot peter swain.com. So that's a great resource for anyone. I strongly suggest it. It's pretty cool.

Joe Downs: Awesome. And Le Lexi, you don't need a team. You need to stop describing yourself as a hat business or copywriter and start describing yourself, in my opinion, as a one woman creative agency. The hats are just what got your clients. AI is what is gonna let you scale. And, and I'm, when I [00:27:00] say Lexi, I'm talking to anyone who feels like they're Lexi. Um, your marketing.

Peter Swain: felt hat though. She did good.

Joe Downs: You're on the website, your marketing brain is the actual product. And you know, in Lexi's case, in my sister-in-law, Lexi's case pen-stables.com that Peter's now shopping on. Uh, it's in the show notes if anyone listening needs custom branded merch. Uh, there you go. Lex free plug.

Don't ever ask it again. Kidding? Uh, all right, Lexi's, question about how to grow this [00:27:30] next, this next segment is about, a piece of data. I came across this week. That is honestly the most direct answer to that question I've seen. And it works whether you're selling hats or anything else. So, Irwin goer.

I don't know why I keep picking names that are, 

Peter Swain: but even

Joe Downs: I don't know. All right. Irwin. 'cause I have this thing where I need to pronounce people's last names and try to get it right, but then I probably end up butchering it. So, er, I'm gonna do it.

Peter Swain: know if you did. That's why it's so confusing. 'cause Owen's not here to confer or [00:28:00] deny.

Joe Downs: Could be listening. Alright, Irwin.

Peter Swain: I'm saying you're never gonna know.

Joe Downs: That's true. he runs growth at a company called LEM List, which means he sees data from thousands of outreach campaigns. And I came across a number he shared recently that had to read twice. So here, so email only, cold outreach, Peter is a 1.1% reply rate. I would you agree with that?

Peter Swain: Yeah, I've seen the stats from

that say you can bump it up to about 4% with [00:28:30] enrichment, but that's enrichment. 

Joe Downs: Well it might be so,

Peter Swain: the poor to average is around one, I'd say one to one and a half. So, yeah.

Joe Downs: okay, so Erwin is contesting or suggesting that you, if you add a Linked In, if you add LinkedIn into the sequence. You connect with someone there and then follow up by email. Your email reply rate number jumps to [00:29:00] 4.7%. That's more than four times. 

Peter Swain: Mm-hmm.

Joe Downs: just by adding one step. And, and look mo most people doing email, uh, only because it feels like less work, I think.

But if AI is handling the research and the drafting, does that extra LinkedIn step actually cost you that much time? Peter, how does a regular person build this without a sales team? So. the sequence is, I reach out on LinkedIn. I don't know if you connect or I don't know if you have ideas there, but one, [00:29:30] I do that first, then they're added to my cold email, outlist or outreach list, and then I, that my response rate goes from 1.1 to 4.7, that's the sequence they're talking.

Peter Swain: so I,

Joe Downs: But that sounds like a lot of work to me. That sounds like a lot of work. So how does AI help me do that? Because that's a four x

Peter Swain: well in, in AI terms, that is a lot of work because the skill in Claude Cowork would take [00:30:00] you at least an hour and a half to develop. Once and then obviously it would be automatic every day. So it would be an hour and a half to one off, hour and a half to do what you said, which in world is a lot of work.

Joe Downs: You're gonna break that down for people, or you can't just say that and not tell people how to do it

Peter Swain: can?

Joe Downs: because it's not fair.

Peter Swain: step one, go to claude.ai. Step two. Sign up. Step three, go to claude.ai/download. Step four, download Claude Cowork. Step five, tell it that you want [00:30:30] to, you're gonna give it a CS V list of people. Each job is to log into LinkedIn, connect with their account, and then draft a cold email and send them the email from your Gmail connector.

six. the extra time to buy a hat from Lexi.

Joe Downs: All right. I know that was step one, step two, step three was, you know, to

Peter Swain: down that, that's literally it.

Joe Downs: I to you. I know that was ridiculous to, I think a lot of [00:31:00] people needed to hear that because again, you,

Peter Swain: I was being pithy and sarcastic, but all of doable. 

Joe Downs: I'm still idiot one, and I'm asking idiot one questions for a reason

because I, as simple as that is as you just laid it out, there's still, I know because I still live it myself.

There is still this. I don't know how to do it. I don't know the first step. So I, as I actually thank you for saying go to Claude, download this to [00:31:30] 'cause you say Claude Cowork. Well, what is Claude Cowork? I barely know what Claude is for most people. Right? So we get into Claude. Let's assume most people can get into Claude.

We get into Claude Cowork. Can you break it down more simply because it be. Even if the, even if you can't break it down more simply, just say it again so that people think it's real. That you can actually have,

Peter Swain: Yeah.

Joe Downs: you can have a bot or what a Claude Cowork something. What do we call this thing? Actually connect my LinkedIn or I [00:32:00] guess I have to give it permission, but then what does it do?

Like it doesn't seem real. That's why I want you to break it down. Say it slower. Say it some other way. I don't know.

Peter Swain: so here's the easy way to kind of frame the, is it possible if it involves clicking your mouse or tapping your key on a keyboard? AI can do it. So if that's all we're doing, moving the mouse and clicking keys on the keyboard, which is actually all doing, when you describe. LinkedIn, or we're [00:32:30] actually just doing a very complex set of micro movements of moving a mouse and clicking a keyboard.

That's all we're doing. AI's really good at doing that. Claude Cowork is good at tasking.

Joe Downs: Oh, okay. That's a good analogy.

Peter Swain: Talk versus task. So if you wanna talk to something, CLA ai works

 task something called Cowork Works. It has a number of mechanisms of doing this.

One of them is called connectors, is. [00:33:00] Direct connections into stuff like Gmail, Google Drive, et cetera, et cetera. Hyper tune that I spoke about last week, that's a Claude connector for the technical people, if you ever listened to this, they're called CPS model context protocols, but basically they're the bridge that connect Claude to something else. One of those is for example, Gmail. So there is a connector that allows Claude Cowork to pilot. Gmail, so it can log into Gmail. [00:33:30] can read your emails, and it can write emails. There is another Claude Cowork skill, that is the ability to control Google Chrome. So Claude Cowork can open Chrome and click tabs and click buttons.

Joe Downs: Is it only Chrome?

Peter Swain: Yes.

Joe Downs: Okay.

Peter Swain: That's great. If you're using Safari or something else, fantastic. You carry on using Safari as the human and let Claude Cowork [00:34:00] Chrome.

Joe Downs: Oh, okay.

Peter Swain: I'm not asking you to change. I'm just saying let Claude Cowork let it cook and what it needs to cook is Chrome. So you can say, I want you to, here's a list because it's running on your local machine.

Here's a CSV. Here's an Excel file. the 200 people I just met at this conference. If you think about this, Joe,

Joe Downs: Yeah.

Peter Swain: people I just met at this conference. I want you to connect with, find them, and connect with them on LinkedIn. [00:34:30] Then I want you to craft an email that they're gonna find interesting and engaging. And your goal is to book a strategy appointment. Your goal is to get them to download my e mag, my lead magnet, your goal, whatever the goal is. And it's gonna take 15 minutes, give or take to

Joe Downs: In the setup.

Peter Swain: Yeah. And 

then it'll take to run every time you do it.

Joe Downs: [00:35:00] I gotta be honest with you,

when I, when I read that, I think it was LinkedIn post, when I read that post from Irwin, I was. Taken back by the number

it's a 400%, you know, increase. But I was very skeptical about how you could actually achieve it, because my brain's not there yet, so Wow, wow.

Is what I have to say to that.

Peter Swain: but this [00:35:30] is the journey for everybody. Ai, everybody. It's the, the only limit is your imagination. That's the only limit because we are

preconditioned into how we do things and how hard they must be to do.

Joe Downs: can I let mine run here for a second?

Peter Swain: Sure.

Joe Downs: And, and let me go back to Lexi's example in a, in a simple, the side business. I don't know why my brain went there, but So she's trying to reach, let's just take bat mitzvahs, right? [00:36:00] That's, that's a perfect use case for fun hats. What? Whoever's turning 13, right?

And everybody gets a hat. You got a hundred kids there, there's a hundred hats, right? Could she reach out to, could she have, could she go on either C Claude or Manus? I don't know. And have it search for every catering company. I gu I event planning company that plans these. Bat mitzvahs or bachelorette parties or whatever the events.

I think it [00:36:30] could be corporate events. It doesn't have to be a bat mitzvah. It could be any event where you're looking for, I I, I was in

Peter Swain: planner.

Joe Downs: Yeah. Event planner, party planners. Right. She could have. Claude and Manis search the whole country. what's the, what's the difference, right? For every party planner, event planner, get their build a list.

Then give it to Claude Cowork, have Claude Cowork link in with them. [00:37:00] Then let you know when you're linked in and have it create a list from there of an email list of, all right, now we're linked. Now let me start my marketing sequence campaign. To that list.

Peter Swain: The only thing I would change in what you said, although the answer to what you said is yes, is why have you made all those things separate steps?

Joe Downs: I don't know. I'm an idiot.

Peter Swain: Claude Cowork can just do everything you just said in one go.

Joe Downs: Now I need to start thinking about my business. All [00:37:30] right, folks. Show's over. 

Peter Swain: But when I said, you know, the limits imagination that applies in quotes all the way up to me. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal, but last week, Andro. It came out, you know, the people behind Claude, $8 billion revenue company. It came out that their entire digital marketing team one guy. So this is an 8 billion revenue company, and he's non-technical. Very, very similar to [00:38:00] like the Lexi example that you're discussing, and he programmed a Claude Cowork skill, the same thing we're discussing, and it does the following every day. It logs into Facebook and pulls down a CSV of all of the ads in their performance, number one.

two, it generates a hundred. Headline and variation. Headline and primary text variations. Number three, it connects to Canva and generates new ad creative. [00:38:30] four, it combines all of the ad creative together, all the headline variation and ad copy. five, it then plans its own experiments.

As to which it thinks will be more successful and which it thinks will fail. Records the experiment, and then deploys the ads. Then the next day it brings the CSV down and goes, which of my experiments succeeded and which failed? So [00:39:00] the experiments on the next day are sharper. So if it's like, oh, if we put this word, not this word, the click through goes up by 20%.

Great. So we now know that we're gonna use that word, not this word.

 Million a year ad campaign, $3 million a month. One person, not one copywriter, not one marketing manager, normally, just in case people aren't in this industry, that would be at least two media buyers, at least a [00:39:30] copywriter, at least a creative, and at least an ads manager.

That's a team of five at the absolute minimum. Normally you pay the ad planner, the media buyer, as an agency, and normally they take 20% of ad spend. So normally you'd be paying, if that's $3 million a month, normally you'd be paying $600,000 a month to the people buying the media. This was one guy, and I've been doing this for three years, and that was enough for me to go, whoa, I'm stupid.

Joe Downs: [00:40:00] Yeah.

Peter Swain: didn't I see that?

Joe Downs: You know, I'll be honest with you,

Peter Swain: it's the same thing

Joe Downs: I'll be honest with you, when I was kind of writing the show and my show notes and, I was, this was my close, this was what I was going to say, and I'm gonna openly, honestly. Let every listener know right now this show closing is now irrelevant and stupid.

But what I was going to say was. The 4.7 number, 4.7% number doesn't sound huge until you [00:40:30] do the math. And, and, and in my head, here's what do you remember, Reno, the attorney from, a couple episodes ago, and I had him in mind when I was thinking about that. he's does I think business development for his law firm.

So I was thinking he, he was going to be. Manually linking in with people. Right. I don't know why my brain couldn't make the AI jump there. 'cause I try to make it everywhere I can, but I just was like, oh, this is manual. Something in my head. I'm going, all right, well is this worth it? [00:41:00] Because I almost didn't do this segment because I was thinking, is Reno really going to link in with a hundred people a month?

Because if otherwise the old way, a hundred people a month, 1.1%, right? That's, that's one person a month that you emailed that you got a response from. This could take it to five, right? But in my head I was doing, he was doing it manually. 'cause he gotta do a hundred to make this worth it.

Otherwise it's 400% is a statistic, but it's not meaningful in real life. [00:41:30] Unless it turns into business. So in my head I'm going, yeah, a hundred's reasonable for Reno to reach out to on LinkedIn. That's only a couple a day. And then you send your email and you know you should go from one to five.

And now I'm going, how? How stupid was I when I was. Thinking about this, this clo kind of closing paragraph here. A hundred, it'd be a hundred a day. It could be a thousand a day. If Claude's doing the work, what's the difference?

[00:42:00] whatever, whatever the limit on LinkedIn is, right?

Peter Swain: But even if it was only for a day, imagine that for a second. A response rate of four a day. If Claude's doing all the work and you just ran it once a day, that's 1600 a year.

Joe Downs: Yeah, you could, you can't keep up with it at that point. Now you're refining the search to today a hundred. You're linking in with anyone who agrees to link in with you. I, if you have Claude doing the work for you, now you need to be even more specific because [00:42:30] you can't handle the success if these numbers are true.

Peter Swain: Yep. But even if those numbers are half true, the one of the great things I love about the AI game and, and we're like playing around with some of this on it storage mobiles, is it costs nothing to roll the dice. You can roll the dice as many times as you like. Now, ai, it doesn't cost nothing, but it's pretty close.

Joe Downs: It's a rounding error.

Peter Swain: [00:43:00] Like imagine, you know, we were talking last night about ads and lead acquisition. It's like, yeah. So we could get the AI to produce the lead magnet, the AI to produce the landing page, the AI to produce the ad copy. So previous iterations of this conversation would look like, well, what's the minimum? the minimum Joe's $30,000 'cause we need to

and this person, and this person, this person.

And at 30,000, have to be confident you're gonna get result, but you've got, you, you've gotta put a lot of pre-work in to reduce the risk to, to be willing to [00:43:30] pull the trigger. If, if you're clever now it's like, it's gonna be two hours prompting Joe, like it's gonna cost 500 bucks, a thousand bucks.

Yeah. Well, let's try, and as any good marketer will admit, if they're being honest, is about accurate guesswork because no marketer knows what hook is gonna land, what the right audience is. We just don't. We just don't know. the more times we can roll the dice, the more times we can try stuff, the more [00:44:00] times we can try different angles and different creatives, the more chance we have of getting lucky AI makes it. AI is like playing craps with weighted dice. It's like cheating because you can, you can choose the role before you start. you gonna hit every time with weighted dice? No. Are you gonna hit more often than you should? A hundred percent.

Joe Downs: we're gonna have to cover Claude Cowork in a future episode. like ASAP. [00:44:30] And I didn't know you were a craps guy. That's, that's the only game I'll play. Oh, I'll teach you how. It's the only game worth playing.

Everything else is boring. I can't even play black track.

Peter Swain: of those you know, I'm in these brackets now I just don't understand the sport at all. 'cause it goes so fast.

Joe Downs: Well, you'll do well then.

Peter Swain: I know football well because football is designed for tv. Stop. What did that mean?

What do you mean a shotgun? What do you mean a dime? Don't understand basketball, not so much craps. It's like, hang on a second. What just happened? Did I just lose a while [00:45:00] buddy? Or did I just win? Like, I, I really don't understand it, so I'd love to learn.

Joe Downs: Craps is the only game where you walk out a winner when you just lost a shit ton of money. 

Peter Swain: I'd love to experience that. guess, what can

Joe Downs: please. Yeah, go ahead.

Peter Swain: like to win as well.

Joe Downs: Oh no, that when you lose a lot of money on the last role, you walked out a huge winner.

wanna lose as much as you can on the last role. It's the craziest thing, [00:45:30] but it's ah, it's a fun game. Alright, 

folks. Thanks for listening. 

again, keep those dear idiots Emails coming idiots@successfulidiots.com. For Peter Swain, I'm Joe Downs. We are your successful idiots. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.