AI, Ethics, and Your Photography Business

338 - AI is everywhere — in your email, your editing software, your search results. Nicole Begley and Heather Lahtinen sit down to have the honest conversation the photography industry has been avoiding. What does AI actually mean for your business, your ethics, and your future?

What to Listen For:

• Why AI is the new plastic (seriously)
• The tractor farmers didn't want and what happened next
• The three biggest AI objections photographers have
• Where Nicole draws her personal ethical line with AI
• Why "I won't use it" doesn't mean it goes away
• What AI can do beyond writing your captions
• How to make AI actually sound like you
• The one business task most photographers skip that AI can fix

Nicole and Heather aren't here to tell you what to do with AI — they're here to make sure you're making an informed choice. Listen in, then decide what your own AI policy looks like.  

And if you're ready to learn how to use AI to help you work more efficiently, join Nicole during our 4-week sprint from May 20 - June 10 inside Freedom Focus Formula.  Join us here:  — use code MASTERAI to save $50/month or $500 off the pay in full. 

JOIN THE PARTY:

• Connect with us on Instagram
• Explore valuable pet photography resources here
• Discover effective pricing and sales strategies for all portrait photographers.
• Ready to grow your business?  Elevate helps you do just that.
• Check out our recommended gear and favorite books.  

Transcript

Nicole Begley (00:00)
In today's episode, we are talking about the good, bad, and the ugly about AI. ⁓ I believe strongly that it is going to be and already is impossible to avoid. It's kind of like plastic that we need to be educated on just on what's happening in the world of AI, how it affects us, how it affects our business, what the trade-offs, what the pros, what the cons are, figuring out what

our line in the sand is, what our AI policy is for our business, what can help us, what we maybe want to avoid, ⁓ just all of those different ethical considerations as well as practical considerations as you dig into this AI wormhole. So stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:46)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:45)
Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Bigley, and joined with my duo, I don't know, my other half, Heather Lahtinen you know, she's basically our co-host of the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast at this point, and I am here for it. No.

Heather (01:54)
I like it. Yeah.

I am too. Thank you

so much for having me. I love these conversations that we have been having. I think they're very helpful. mean, people could let us know, but.

Nicole Begley (02:07)
Yeah, I'd say.

Yeah, of course. Of course. know sometimes it feels like we're just talking and we're like, does anyone actually care? Does anyone actually listen? I know you guys are listening. I know. I know you guys are listening and I know that a lot of you reached out. thank you. Heather and I appreciate that more than you know, because sometimes it feels just like you're like, wait, why am I doing this? Does this actually even matter? Does this help anyone? So thank you for letting us know when it does. But anyway.

Heather (02:19)
Yeah, anyone there? Anyone home? Yeah.

Right.

Nicole Begley (02:36)
Today, today I wanted to talk about something that we've been getting ready to talk about for a while. And then every time we're like, OK, next time, next time, next time. But like, it's it's time. It is time. It is here to stay. And the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. And that is AI and what is happening not just in the industry, but like with.

every industry, I don't know that there's going to be any industry that is not touched by AI. Like even, you know, the, the trades of somebody that's putting in, you know, electric in your house or rejoin plumbing. Yeah, of course. Like at this point, people need to actually do that, but there are still aspects of their business that they might be starting to use AI for that. You know, there's just, there is there it's

The genie is out of the bottle, cannot be put back in, so we need to talk about it.

Heather (03:33)
Yeah, do you want to hear something funny though? You know that Canon for decades has always used AI servo as one of their focus modes. And that, I mean, that stood for artificial intelligence then, AI servo. Well, I used to teach it at the collegiate level. And every time I taught it, I would explain the difference between continuous, you know, focus. I always said it's like it's hunting continuously.

Nicole Begley (03:44)
Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.

Heather (04:02)
right? Or it's one shot. And then in between that is AI servo, which means the camera tries to determine if there is motion, then it will automatically go into continuous or if it's still, it will stay in one shot. And I made this joke every year for about 100 years. I said AI servo, it stands for artificial intelligence. And until I have a robot cleaning my home, I just don't believe that it's happening. So, you know, I just want to say I have been talking about artificial intelligence for the past

17 years, I just didn't realize how that was going to evolve.

Nicole Begley (04:36)
I mean, none of us have realized how any of this was going to involve. Cause I remember going to college. Okay. I graduated high school in 94 guys do not do the math. and I remember my freshman roommate asking me, are we going to have email? And I said, what's email? Yeah. So now I have an entire online business. Like, okay. ⁓ but yeah.

Heather (04:51)
All

No, I know. So I was

talking to Ella the other day about picking up one of her friends and I said, I have to take this route, you know? And then she said something about, when you and dad started dating, I don't know, it came up about, you know, getting to the house or whatever. And I said, no, we met places because he, I said, you understand that we didn't have the internet. There was no map software, okay? There wasn't even the TomTom yet. So she's like,

She was like truly perplexed. She looked at me so confused and she was like, Mom, what did you do? I said, well, you wrote a map. Yes.

Nicole Begley (05:32)
Well, we had an atlas in our car, number

one, and number two, you would ask for direction.

Heather (05:38)
You would ask.

Yeah. You would ask. said, well, when I had to explain to him how to get to my parents' home, I had to say, you know, take this road to this road and then turn onto this road. you know, he had to write it down in order to get there. She just could not believe any of this. And I'm like, that was not that long ago, or at least it feels like.

Nicole Begley (05:54)
So funny. No, it really was not. It was not. So

who knows where this is going. But the reason, yeah, we wanted to do this conversation is because it's here and it needs to be addressed. I feel strongly, I'm going to get on my soapbox here for a minute, that like it or not, AI is here and it is going to disrupt, I believe, every single industry on the planet. Period. Done. Like there is not going to be one thing that doesn't get affected by it in some way.

It's not all going to be bad. There's some good things that can come from it. There are some challenging aspects that I want to talk about a little bit today too. And I think it's important that we all are educated on what's happening and avoid just sticking our head in the sand because of, you know, whatever reason there could be a plethora of reasons that you don't agree with it or you don't want to learn more about it, but the ignoring it.

I think is doing a disservice to yourself because you're not going to know, a, you're not going to know how it actually could help you. B, you're also just not going to be aware of, what is potentially coming and how to continue to pivot and react in your business, in your life.

Heather (07:05)
Well, choosing not to learn it, I mean, that's a decision, but it doesn't stop it from advancing. It just removes you from the conversation. So you can opt out, but you don't get to opt out of of the progress that it's going to create. That's going to happen whether you participate or not. And so my thoughts are, you know, I want to be a part of the conversation. I want to know what's going on. I want to utilize it as best that I can. I'm

Nicole Begley (07:13)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (07:33)
I always have considered myself an early adopter because I just love technology. I mean, certainly there are some interesting challenges, but OK, well, then let's have some fun with it.

Nicole Begley (07:44)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So actually we were just talking about this before, and that was when the tractor was invented. Do we know what year were you able to look up what year?

Heather (07:54)
Yeah,

it was in the late 1800s. It was like 18, maybe 1860, 1880, something like that. When the tractors showed up on the market, you can imagine what farmers did. You would think, well, they were probably very excited. No, that was not true. Most of them were very, very upset by this. They were anxious. know, they thought this is absolutely going to ruin.

Nicole Begley (07:57)
Okay.

Heather (08:17)
farming because their thought was real farmers use their hands. My grandfather plowed these fields with his horse and his crops were beautiful and this is just how it's done. And I'm certain that one of those objections without question was something could go wrong here. We don't know. And by the way, mean, they're right. Things did go wrong. But what actually happened is that the farmers who adopted the tractor

They produced more food. They worked less physically and they were able to stay competitive while the others were just, I don't know, slower, more exhausted and broke. I mean, they went out of business because they couldn't keep up.

Nicole Begley (09:00)
Yeah, like it not, the tractor's here. So what are we going to do with it? What are you hearing from our elevators and the people in your circles? What are you hearing photographers say about AI?

Heather (09:09)
Yeah, there's

a mix. It's a mix that I'm and I don't have a percentage because I haven't done a formal study. I've done a lot of formal studies in my day, Nicole, but this was not one of them. But I've noticed that when I bring it up on some of our strategy calls, I get some excited faces and I get some curious faces and I get some not so excited faces like people shaking their head like, no, this is not for me. So I would say it's it's very much a mixed bag, which is to be expected.

There are people that have questions. are people there. People have questions and there are people that don't question anything and everything in between. Right. So I don't know. What have you seen?

Nicole Begley (09:42)
Thank

Yeah, no, I've seen the same. And I think there's three main things that people are concerned about. Obviously in the photography space, people are concerned about copyright. They're concerned about the environmental impact and they're concerned that, you know, it's just not going to be applicable to them or sound like them or be helpful to them. So I think those are like the three main pieces and listen, they're valid. I mean, they're they're definitely valid.

So I kind of want to talk about these three a little bit and just have a conversation because like you said, it's here. mean, I don't know if you guys have gone to Google recently, if you open that up. I I just opened up Photoshop and they have a new AI. Like you just straight up type into the box on the AI piece now. I haven't even played with it, but I'm like, it is everywhere.

Heather (10:32)
you

Nicole Begley (10:36)
So if you are going to use software of any kind, it's in your email, it's on your Google, it's literally in everything. so the, I'm just not going to use it. It's not an option unless you are literally going to go off the grid and live like in a cabin without, you know, being anything online or like functioning with the outside world. it is here. So.

Heather (11:00)
And people did that. People did that when the Internet came on the scene. So there were people who were like, this is terrible. mean, I mean, most of our listeners were alive in this era, right, when the Internet came online. So there were people that were like, I'm not doing that. I don't want to have anything to do with it. And they did. There are people, know, like Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who went off the grid because

Nicole Begley (11:04)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, there's

probably some people off the grid that did not end up quite like that, but yes.

Heather (11:25)
Didn't bomb things.

They just didn't want to use it. that I mean, that's okay. But I just wonder about the people who were around when electricity came into homes.

Nicole Begley (11:38)
Well, I think the challenge is that if you make the decision that you don't want to use it, but you're making the decision that you don't want to use it before you've really looked at the different things. And listen, I'm not here to like try to convince people that you need to use AI. I just want to open the conversation. And I think it's important for everyone to look at it.

Heather (11:55)
Right, right.

Nicole Begley (12:02)
without preconceived notions and decide where on the spectrum they want to be and how much they utilize this technology or how much they avoid it. So I wanted to kind of touch on those couple pieces here, first of all. So the biggest one, I think, for photographers was the copyright issue, especially when it came on and like so many people were making...

random AI things, AI art, AI this and that. And I think a lot of people immediately jumped like the farmers that AI art creation, AI images is going to put photographers out of business. But I don't know about you. Actually, I do know because you showed me some of these little AI headshot things and they I'm like, that looks like it could be your sister. Yeah. And and.

Heather (12:41)
Mmm.

Haha, it's definitely not me!

Nicole Begley (12:54)
I just feel like there is going to be like when you take pictures of someone's family, you take pictures of someone's dog. Like I don't want an AI picture of me and my horse. I want an actual photograph. I want an actual photograph of my family. Like there is no comparison for actual photography, actual artwork. And yes, there are some photographers out there creating AI art for pets that have passed.

Heather (13:04)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (13:22)
creating really like beautiful, unique art pieces, but like still printing beautiful art with it. Like that's great. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's important that we look at it and say, what are we comfortable doing for that? Like, do you want to create that as a whole separate revenue stream in your business? It's not right or wrong. Like for me personally, I think

Heather (13:24)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (13:47)
I think this is something that all of us will need to kind of look at and it's something that will probably evolve, but having basically our own personal AI policy for our business. So what does that look like? Thanks for asking. For me, it looks like at this point in time, I don't want to say never, but I want to say I cannot think of a time

Heather (13:57)
Mmm.

It's a good idea!

Nicole Begley (14:14)
that I would be okay with it right now. Like I can't see a situation where I'm like, yeah, I see how that could fit. My hard line for it is I will not use any AI generated images of myself for headshots or for marketing. And I will not use any AI generated talking heads. Like absolutely not. If you see my image, if you see a video of me, if you're on one of my calls, like it's me, like pinch me. I am an actual human.

Heather (14:32)
Mmm. Mmm.

It's real.

Nicole Begley (14:41)
So, so like I feel like everyone needs to kind of learn what's available, learn what what is happening, but then decide where their line is.

Heather (14:41)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, I have a scenario for you. So, and I think you know that I did this, but my friend Susie takes amazing headshots for me. And she, this last series I loved and she's been really busy lately. So I haven't had a chance to get some new ones. And you know, as a marketer, we need a ton of these headshots, right? So I took one of my headshots. I did not change the background or my face or my, I just asked it to change my blouse.

Nicole Begley (14:57)
Okay.

⁓ huh.

Heather (15:23)
So I wanted it to be a different color. I have, there's, it's, use it everywhere. It's actually a dress and it has like a floral design on it. And so I asked it for different designs and then I wanted a solid color. wanted Navy and.

Nicole Begley (15:36)
feel like

that's going into Photoshop though, and just changing color and things. Like you're not changing your face and it's from a photograph of you.

Heather (15:39)
I think it is. Right.

And it did it actually, it did a really good job on that. Just changing my, have to be very specific and very careful what you tell it to do. But if you know the image, then you know that it only changed my shirt. And I loved that. I loved that because then I could use that same image that I really like in a couple of different places.

Nicole Begley (15:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's not putting you in an office that's not yours, not putting you in front of a house that's not yours in front of like offices that aren't yours with a fake camera in your hand and a fake coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even if it gets better and it looks legit, I, for me, my ethical line there is like, I'm a personal brand. I want to connect with my students and my people. How can you do that when you're putting

Heather (16:10)
no, no.

I tried that. It didn't work. It looked ridiculous. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (16:35)
out images that are very much not you. Yeah, yeah.

Heather (16:38)
Yeah, it doesn't feel authentic. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

There's this person that keeps coming up in my feed that teaches AI video generation for actual talking heads and B-roll for marketers. She I don't even know her name. It doesn't matter, but she keeps coming up in my feed. And so she uses it, obviously. And I looked at it. It's it doesn't. There's something that does not look real about it. Like you can spot it.

You know, there's just something unnatural maybe about her movements, but she's using it for video and she's selling courses on how to cook good for her. I mean, that's fine, you know, for people who want to use that for whatever reason. But I was like, that does not look right.

Nicole Begley (17:21)
No,

no. And I, I, like I said that I think there's still going to be demand always for actual true artwork created by humans for humans of actual humans. I think that from just a marketing standpoint, whether you're doing commercial work as well, like people kind of reject the AI generated images. Like I think there's.

Heather (17:28)
huh.

Nicole Begley (17:44)
It's more accepting of AI generated like illustrations or things that are very much that. But there's also then like the argument of like, I mean, I really love a hand drawn, beautiful piece of art from someone. I feel like there's like an energy in that actual piece of art that wouldn't be there from a robot. But anyway, I think in general, at least to what I've seen different

Heather (17:48)
Mmm,

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (18:08)
Businesses use AI in advertising. Like people are calling it out.

Heather (18:15)
Do you think there's like, there's this little bit of mistrust when you see it? That's like, yeah, it feels like you're not being real or you're you're you and if you're not being real, could you be lying to me in other ways about your about your product or service or whatever? Something's off? Yeah.

Nicole Begley (18:19)
Yes!

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I

think it, we already live in a trust recession. I think that like adds to it. Like what, what is this? You know? so yeah, so that copyright piece, like the things that I've been using AI for are not art creation. It's not, it's not anything like that. It's just like helping run the backend of my business in a more

Heather (18:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Business. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (18:55)
Green Line Way, which we'll talk about. So yeah.

Heather (18:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Same. Hey, you think Susie, I should ask my friend Susie if she's mad at me for taking her photo and changing my

Nicole Begley (19:05)
Well, this

is a legit conversation that we should potentially add into our, our contracts. I actually had a few friends that I've talked to for commercial images of like, do you need to add that into your, into your contract? And that would be a question. Like, how do you feel about that? Like if you were hired by a brand. And a lot of times in the commercial space, like if I'm hired by a bigger brand, I deliver the images.

Heather (19:09)
That's an Oscar! Yeah! my god.

Nicole Begley (19:34)
They often will manipulate them. They might manipulate a color. They might edit some things like, like, like our normal kind of Photoshop kind of stuff. They, they will do. And, and like, that's, that's part often of, of what they, we've agreed to when we deliver it. but now there's like, okay, do you want to allow them to train their AI robots or agents with your images? Like,

Heather (19:38)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Nicole Begley (20:01)
Does that need to be part of your conversation if you're working with commercial brands and, even, and, or even personal brands, you know, or personal people, like that, you really, you're not going to know if they went into their clod or chat and put in some of your images to make something, you know, silly.

Heather (20:04)
interesting.

Yeah, it's just-

It's just so much more prevalent these days. mean, there were, you know, I had clients years ago who were graphic designers or even photographers themselves that were really good in Photoshop. And if they wanted to take their files that I delivered and edit them further or change something, it was like, OK, I mean, they they purchased them. So I didn't it never got to the point where I had to put anything in the contract about whether or not they could.

Nicole Begley (20:29)
Thank

Heather (20:51)
retouch their own images or do something. But it's sort of gone further than that now, yes.

Nicole Begley (20:57)
Yeah, no, mean, that's a question again. This comes down to us knowing like can't put your head in the sand. Like we need to keep up with what's happening here so then we can make decisions for our business for what, what we need and want. So that's. Yeah.

Heather (21:12)
Also, you know what I'm thinking?

I'm going to talk to Susie about this, but I'm going to say to her, listen, if I were a headshot client of yours and you and I purchased, you know, I don't know, five headshot files and you gave me different variations with different colors of shirts or, you know, maybe a gentleman wearing a tie and you changed the tie just so they would have variety, that might be part of a service that you offer for them. I mean, maybe, I don't know.

Nicole Begley (21:35)
Mm-hmm. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that's copyright piece. ⁓ the second, which is a legit concern, especially I'm someone that runs a nonprofit conservation, you know, like support wildlife conservation. and there, there are significant environmental impacts of, of AI. there, there is an environmental footprint data centers use energy. It's real. It's important.

Heather (21:43)
Okay. Copyright check.

Nicole Begley (22:06)
But again, just not, not even educating herself on what's happening is not something that I think we can afford to do. And I think that again, it is everywhere. I think it comes down to like, look at it as my plastic use. Like I try not to use single use water bottles. Like it pains me. It pains me if I have to drink out of a plastic bottle. Like it.

It is a major value conflict. you know, and there are so many things that I choose to do. but if I were to just say, like, my gosh, I'd like, cannot, I can't fly. Okay. That's I I'm not, I, I, I fly quite a bit, teach workshops for work, for whatever, like personal travel, but I choose to do other things.

Heather (22:46)
Mmm.

Nicole Begley (22:58)
the benefit, you know what I mean? Like it's not, it's not a black and white that you are either a hundred percent on or a hundred percent off because that's impossible unless you go to move in the woods and you grow your own food and you're living off the land. We're trying, but you still need internet.

Heather (23:03)
Yeah.

We're We're trying. But you know what? You want to hear that?

Well, do you want to know? Yeah, because I'm here. But do you want to know really? This is so ironic, Nicole. This is so ironic. I live on a homestead. I've always dreamed about going off the grid and we have chickens in a garden and all of that. But our biggest issue right now is just over the hill from our homestead. Guess what? You'll never guess. They are building a massive data center.

I mean, it's just so funny. I'm trying to do that and be more aware and then yeah, here we go. Okay. I mean, it's like the resource thing, the environment is, know, does AI use resources? Yes, of course. Everything does, but it's like, what, do you get relative to that cost and does it make sense? it is nuanced. I like that you said that because have you watched, by the way, that plastics documentary on Netflix? Okay.

Nicole Begley (24:08)
Not yet, I need to,

it's gonna make me angry.

Heather (24:10)
Brace yourself.

Yeah, you will, but it's really good. It's really, really interesting. the doctor who's performing all of these studies is just fantastic. But anyway, they show a clip from one of the shell plants and it's the one next to my house. It's in the documentary.

Nicole Begley (24:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, you've got the shell plant.

You've got the Ohio train derailment and a data center. Like the thing you have some good water cleaning for your house. yeah.

Heather (24:32)
and nuclear. Yeah, nuclear is right there too. Yeah, yeah. No, anyway,

so I was telling Ella about this and I said, you know, I really am trying to get away from using as much plastic. You know, you and I, these places we go, like Blue Land I'm thinking about where we get the tablets and such. But anyway, she said, Mom, you're going to make yourself crazy. Like you can't escape it. And I said, I know that and I'm not trying to escape it completely. That would be a fool's errand.

But what I am trying to do is limit my exposure and just be aware of what I'm using. So for example, one of the first things I started avoiding was anything with heat and plastic because of everything they get. Okay. So I said, yeah, I know there's plastic here and there's plastic there, but I'm trying my best. It's just like with everything. It's never as simple as maybe you want it to be.

Nicole Begley (25:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, you're exactly correct. I think that's the key though is the, the being more aware and then making the decisions. Like I really truly try. Like I am not going in here just to do like, let me just do these silly things. that to like, no, like I, I, I have looked at what things in my business do I need to streamline.

Do I need help managing hashtag ADHD? Like, this is going to be like a godsend for me to have like help keep it's like a live spreadsheet of like, these are the projects, help me rearrange, help me like do these different pieces. But like we all have choice. We all have choice on which AI companies we use. know, there's personally I've I moved from chat to Claude because

Anthropics company owning Claude is slightly more ethical AI company than OpenAI. And then when I got over there, was like, Claude is one million times better. The output is incredible. But like you look at it and it's like just like with plastic use, just like with like anything.

There is a massive scale and we're making little decisions every day of what we're doing. And then I am also looking for those other things of like, how can I contribute in other ways? Still run the nonprofit, still contribute to conservation, still do what I can locally, still support local things, local businesses. I do business with B corporations whenever I can. It is all on a spectrum. again,

I'm not saying my decision is the right one for all of like everybody listening. But what I am saying is I think that it is not as clear as I use it or I don't because just like you say, I don't use plastic. It's impossible. It is going to be impossible if not already impossible to not use AI. So you need to choose where, where and how you use it and what your limits are.

Heather (27:13)
Mm, right, right.

Are you saying that AI is the new plastic?

Nicole Begley (27:28)
think I am! I think I am. They're both terrible for the environment. And our brains.

Heather (27:34)
just like you,

you Yeah, you walk in the grocery store and you look up and down the aisles and it is just it is all plastic. It is everywhere. We very difficult to eliminate it from our from our lives completely.

Nicole Begley (27:41)
Yeah.

It is. mean, there's

like little tiny things too. Like Costco has, my family loves, we all do peanut butter filled pretzels. Um, and Costco has this big giant jug, it's like thick plastic giant jug. And I'm just like, I, I can't, I will not, I will not buy it because of the packaging. Thankfully. Yeah. Thankfully Aldi has it in bags. I'm like, great. We go to Aldi and I get like five bags. Like, yeah, put them in bags. Um.

Heather (28:05)
This is unnecessary.

⁓ perfect.

Perfect. Yes. Yes.

Okay. What do you say to someone that just really kind of digs in their heels and is like, no, I'm not. No, no, nothing. No, hate it. Won't do it.

Nicole Begley (28:16)
one.

I

mean, again, we have to make our own decisions, but I would ask like what is behind that and like what is most important to you? So obviously if you have that strong feelings, there is something that like that you feel strongly about. There is a strong value behind that, like absolutely not. So that's not a bad thing. I think that's a good thing because you have

Heather (28:36)
Yeah, that's the thought.

Nicole Begley (28:54)
Values like we all should have values. But the question then becomes, all right, what is most important to me here? How does AI or plastic or whatever else it is that we're talking about affect that value? What are the benefits if I were to use it at what costs? Where can I make up those benefits or how can I feel good about things that that actually do have other value? You know what I mean? Like because maybe you use

Heather (28:54)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (29:25)
You know, I'm on a spectrum of like 100 % AI. Like you're like, okay, I'm using it for three hours a day every day. Um, but maybe you're like, Oh, but I really do want to use it for 10 minutes a day just to do these couple things that I wouldn't do otherwise. That will actually allow me to reach more clients. Like for instance, what if you had help like Heather, you and I both know, both know that email marketing, keeping in touch with our clients. It's like one of the most important things to do as a photographer. You want to be running a successful business.

And we also both know that 90 % of photographers are not doing it. Not because they don't want to, not because they don't know how, just because it gets pushed on the list. That's too much of an ask to start or like to figure out what their plan is. And like, even if you don't want to use AI to write the email, it is great for planning and just saying like, Hey,

Heather (29:59)
Right.

Nicole Begley (30:17)
I have this email list. Help me come up with an email schedule. What kind of things can I include in here? Help me brainstorm. This is my brand. This is who I serve. It really can be having a business mentor that kind of you get out of your own head and move forward a little bit.

Heather (30:21)
Hmm

Yeah!

Yeah, I've created tools for Elevate. Everybody knows about the coaching tool that I've created. Everybody in Elevate knows about it because a lot of them are using it. But I've trained it on how to coach people the way that I do. I uploaded documents and transcripts. I've done that for the visibility workshop. There's a visibility accelerator with prompts that I've trained on everything with photography and marketing. It's incredibly helpful. Of the ethical selling workshop, I have prompts for that.

Nicole Begley (30:46)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (31:07)
to help people get over maybe their ideas or thoughts about selling and money and all of those things. Yeah, it can be super useful. mean, just ask some of the photographers I'm working with how it's helped them. It's blown their minds. It's been so, so useful. Just helps us get through some things faster, some things we didn't even know. You know, I use it for, I've talked openly on the podcast, mine and yours, about how I use it. I use my own bot to coach me, myself.

hilarious, but it helps. It's helped me work through a lot of problems that honestly would have taken me maybe weeks to get through on my own. I'm like getting through in just like a couple of minutes working through challenges. So there's just a bunch of different ways that you can use it that you might not realize can be super helpful and simplifying and making you more available for what you actually love and want to do, which is photographs.

Nicole Begley (31:36)
Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, like that also frees up time then to support the other things that matter to you as well. ⁓ Okay. The third piece, the third piece, I think the third objection is that like, it doesn't sound like me or it's just like too, too, roboty or too like, sounds like everybody else. and I, listen, I get it. Like I have beef with.

Heather (32:08)
Yep, yep.

Nicole Begley (32:26)
these AI programmers taking away my dash.

Heather (32:30)
Everybody has been saying that, I know.

Nicole Begley (32:32)
I loved an dash long before AI existed.

Heather (32:35)
I know you were ahead of your time.

Nicole Begley (32:38)
So anyway, just that that angers me. But but I think that is one of the challenges. But the the way to get around that is to learn to utilize it in a way that you can train it for your voice, your offers, your clients that like it's still. It might help you brainstorm. It might even write an email that gets 90 percent of the way there.

Heather (32:52)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (33:03)
But like if you're inputting your own stories, if you're adding your experiences, if you're then taking that email and tweaking it and editing it and like making sure it's your voice, like read it out loud to make sure that's like, yeah, I would actually say that. Then it doesn't have to sound like the thing. And they just came out with cloud design. I haven't played with it yet, but I can already pick out things on social media that were created with cloud design.

Heather (33:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (33:29)
Boom.

Heather (33:30)
Yeah.

Nicole Begley (33:31)
if you don't use, if you don't customize it, yeah, it's going to look like everything else.

Heather (33:36)
Yeah, it does help. It helps me brainstorm ideas and then it might write something for me. I usually try to write it on my own and then have it help me with my grammar because that is not my that is not my zone of genius, Nicole. So, you know, it just helps me with things like that. My kids think erroneously, I might add that, you know, I'm using it to write all of my emails or my posts or everything that I do. And I'm like that.

shows me that you have a very limited understanding of AI and the way that I can use it because that's the least of how we're using it. It was very exciting at first to have it help you write things. Remember, we were like, this is amazing. But then we learned, it's starting to sound like everyone else. You have to customize it. You have to put your own stories in there. And then we started to learn how to optimize business, how to give it things and help you schedule and reframe and connect it to things like your Monday boards. And it's just

phenomenal, the tasks that we can give it that are so far beyond. I'm just gonna have it write things for me. It's like not it at all.

Nicole Begley (34:43)
Mm hmm. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. Yeah. So I'm actually hosting a, um, a new sprint. in our freedom focus insiders group and our elevators get access to it as well. Um, we do periodic sprints on one topic. So it's going to be four weeks, um, on making cloud your new BFF. So we're going to customize it, create the documents, learn about skills, learn about projects, create those things, figure out what it is in your business that, that

would actually be helpful and build it, build it out together. So, really excited. start that on May 20th. So we'd love for you guys to join us. yeah, it's going to be so good.

Heather (35:22)
I have a friend who's a DJ and he was telling me how he's used Claude work to organize his external hard drives with his thousands of, he's been a DJ for I think 35 years to organize playlists and couples and match things to blog posts and just do, and then put it all together. Like he's really brilliant. Technically he always has been. So you get AI in his hands and it's like, it's almost difficult to understand what he's accomplishing, but it's

Mind blowing. He's explained this to me several times and I'm like, wait, you did what? And he's connected this and then I had it do this. And so, I mean, think about what you could do. So when he told me this, I was thinking, what could I do with all of those photos from like 10, 15 years ago that need to be organized or cleaned up? Could I have Claude? Cause you can connect it to your hard drives, you know, and allow it to do things on your behalf. And there you put safeguards, know, you don't want to just like delete it.

Nicole Begley (36:16)
Yeah. I mean, I definitely

recommend like, I made a folder called Claude's Playground. So he has been there. ⁓

Heather (36:21)
There you go. Perfect.

Perfect. Or like you can have it do certain tasks at certain times. I don't know. It's just really fascinating when you think I'd like to watch different creators on YouTube, all of these ideas that they have around clod or chat, GPC, any of the AIs for that matter. And they're doing this and it just sparks so much. I'm not the best ideator. You know, like I watch people

Nicole Begley (36:48)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (36:50)
And I see how they're doing it. And then I'm like, that makes me think I could put this together. I could do it this way. that would be great. So that's what I do.

Nicole Begley (36:58)
I think the best place to start is where are the pain points in your business? So for me, one is my computer desktop and all the screenshots and random things. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I've tried to clear it up and I think I'm like six layers deep in inception of like desktop, desktop, desktop, desktop folders. Cause I don't want to like get rid of things, but anyway, so I can create a new little Claude cowork like once a week.

Heather (37:01)
Mmm.

I've seen it.

Hahahaha

Nicole Begley (37:24)
cleans it up and tells me the other piece too is just like a morning scan of my email of like, Hey, what, who do I need to get back to here? because there's just so many things that, that, that you spend so much time. And the key is things that need to get done that are not getting done, you know, like,

Heather (37:30)
Yes.

Right.

Nicole Begley (37:46)
up this desktop will just allow me to come to my computer and feel so much more spacious and be able to work more appropriately. Like if it is just like, okay, here's these things like, and I'm not even explaining it all well right now because it's just like, I'm in so in awe of what is possible. And that's like, that's like kindergarten for some of the things that you can do is, is the stuff that I'm still doing with it, but it's yeah, you can go as as you want.

Heather (38:01)
I know it so much.

Right.

I know,

I know, you you can create like watched folders in Claude work. And when something happens, you're like, as an engineer, this just tickles me pink. It's like you put a bunch of if then statements in there, you know, you watch this folder. Yeah, if this happens, then do that if this and then you can have it doing all kinds of things. It just like sounds like fun to me.

Nicole Begley (38:23)
So I love it, good if then.

So.

I just got a great idea. After our calls goes into a Dropbox folder, Claude can watch that Dropbox folder, run it through. Cause we do have, I have a custom project that then takes the call transcript to create the description. And it needs to be like a short little description, but now like these are the things that like, I feel like this is worth it because it's going to serve my clients better. So instead of just saying here's our office hours, October call.

Heather (38:50)
Yes.

Yeah.

Nicole Begley (39:04)
And then people don't have time to watch it. It now takes the transcript and lists out all the questions that were asked, what my recommendations were. Like this is all a transcript now on the Kajabi portal where our replays are. So when somebody goes into search mini sessions, like any call we talked about that pops up because the search doesn't go by transcript. goes by just copy. ⁓ And then like somebody that maybe doesn't want to watch, but they could like, they want to read faster. Like all that stuff's there.

Heather (39:11)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (39:33)
you know, it can also like go in and pull out like really great at pattern recognition. Like, Hey, here's the past six months of calls. What are people struggling with? What, how can I help my clients better? Like there are just so many things that we can use it for. That's not just like, This Instagram caption.

Heather (39:50)
Right, right. So,

you know, I have it. I have trained it. I have a couple of skills I've created for Claude around Reels on Instagram. And I mean, they're pretty in depth. So what I've been doing is uploading transcripts from our podcast episodes as well as Elevate Strategy Call Replays in some of my one-on-one clients. I'll upload it and it runs through this skill and it gives me 10 to 15 Reel ideas. Reel, Reel, Reels ideas.

Nicole Begley (40:18)
Okay.

Heather (40:19)
that I could create and it gives me a little snippet of something that I can talk about. So then every day, I mean, the theory is every day I could look at all of those ideas and just like grab one and record a really quick reel. But what I've been thinking about doing, see, I automate and then I automate the automation. Do you know, back in the day, I was the queen of droplets in Photoshop. I mean, I always told people I took actions and then I automated the actions, which is essentially what I'm doing here. So my...

Nicole Begley (40:38)
yeah!

Mm-hmm.

Heather (40:47)
My next step is to create a watched folder where I drop or it gets sent somehow transcripts from certain calls get sent to this folder. Claude sees the transcript automatically runs it through that skill. And then just all of that is taken care of for me. So again, when I sit down and I think, I should record a reel on something. I can just go look, scan, pick one boom done. Amazing.

Nicole Begley (41:12)
Yeah.

All right. If you guys want to join us, if you're in elevate, you get to join us May 20th through June 10th. If you're in freedom, focus insiders, which is the business coaching side of things on my end, you also get to join us. If you want to join us in either one, links are down below in the show notes. So come and join us. ⁓ all right, everybody have a great one. We'll talk to you soon.

Heather (41:29)
Let me know. Yeah. Yes, please do.