Hey Grace, welcome to the show. We're

super excited to have you Marketing

Against the Grain today.

>> Thank you. All thanks so much for having

me today.

>> Grace is going to show us a repeatable

pattern that you can use for any

marketing discipline, whether that's

your design work, whether that's your

performance marketing, whether that's

your demand gen because it connects back

to like contacts intelligence. Grace,

you have built a whole system for how

you build, manage prompts, and actually

scale how you work with AI products like

building a design system in Claude.

>> To then building a template for a

carousel, turning that template into a

skill, and now you can anytime you're in

Claude build a carousel in this case cuz

that's what we built.

>> Right, like if you're building a system

today and you want to have a team that

really uses AI, you have to have like

contacts intelligence, you have to have

skills that you can give to them, and

you want to make sure that you evaluate

those skills to make sure they do the

things you want them to do.

>> Exactly. Yeah, and so the system that

I'm going to share today is also work

with SEO and also Google Ads.

>> Yeah, so if you're general smart

marketer, this is critical cuz you can

apply it to any of the tasks you have to

do on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.

And so Grace, maybe kick us off with how

to actually get started working in a

better way with AI versus just like kind

of one-off basic couple sentence

prompting.

>> So first thing is of course like to

create a folder. So this folder is just

like your structure, like your system.

So basically like for example maybe for

marketing team, usually we have

different disciplines. So we can have

ads, we can have SEO, we have social,

website. And then the first thing is we

would create a contacts folder. So you

can see this is a contacts folder, and

inside we will have different core

contacts. And these core contacts should

be reusable. So I will prepare all those

contacts file first before like doing

anything.

>> So I think this is really important. I

just want to like underline this for

everybody watching and listening to the

show today. We have David Epstein coming

on the show soon. He wrote this book

inside the box and it's about how

constraints are really valuable in

working and and the way when working

with AI because you can do anything, you

can get really distracted. There's a

whole concept around like you need to

work slow before you can work fast. And

what you're actually saying instead of

going in and prompting everything, you

actually need to do the setup and get

that magically right and understand,

hey, this is the context around my

brand, my voice, the way that I actually

do marketing needs to be very explicit.

And and by the way, if you don't have

those answers,

then you don't even need AI. You have to

go and figure out, you know, what your

brand voice and those more foundational

elements are.

>> Yes, absolutely because yeah, most

marketer just directly jump, okay, I

have to create skills. But to me, skills

is always like the last mile. Because

skills is about like automating, scale

things up. So, you just have like a

simple system. And I think one of the

mistake people make is they make the

system so sophisticated and complicated

when it gets started. Okay, how many

folders I should create the first like

like 10 folders, 20 folders, but however

your system will evolve, so you will

adjust along the way. So, my advice is

do not complicate it your folder setup.

Just just make sure it works for you.

>> The cool thing about, you know, AI

really is in the show off your kind of

systems stage right now and I I've done

a lot and it's cool like AI has made

local file structures really cool. Like

everyone's like, look at my local file

structure and then I show it in an

obsidian and wow, look at this. Like

I've got so many cool files on my laptop

and a cool local file structure. It

makes kind of all of these things that

used to be pretty boring like I I have

so much fun doing file structures now.

I'm going to organizing all my folders

together like contacts and all my

different layers.

Which which by the way is hilarious, but

we also have to all remember that most

people in this world their desktop looks

like it exploded.

Right? So, that you know, this is not a

natural habit for anybody to have. And

And Grace, that's why I'm trying to make

sure for everybody watching why they

understand it's so important. It It

seems silly that a few folders on a page

is like worth looking at, but it's

actually critical to being successful

when you're trying to do

really important tasks over and over

again at a high quality.

>> Yes. So, this is Yes, that is a system

right is like the most important thing.

Yeah. And so, for this show, I will be

using Cloud Convert.

>> You're doing You're using Cloud Convert.

People could use anything. This is just

the example. You know, we're We're

showing you a system that could work in

any in any AI system.

>> Hey, if you like what you heard in this

episode and you want more, click the

link in the description or scan that QR

code. We have a ton of incredible

resources that can get you started doing

this stuff in a very short amount of

time.

>> Yes. And so, uh by the way, how you set

this up, you go to project, and then you

create new project, and then you can

choose an existing folder. So,

basically, I can choose my folder here

for running in the projects, and then

download, and then marketing. So, I'm

I'm good to go. And this is exactly the

folder you just see with the cloud

empty. And by the way, I haven't

mentioned what is cloud empty. So, cloud

empty is basically just um the project

instructions. And I I tried to make it

really simple. So, how the folder

structure work, and then what is the

context file routing. So, you want to

brief Cloud how to route the system, how

to navigate different folders, and also

like the tool routing. Might be for some

system you have already connect so many

different tools, and they're conflicting

with each other. So, I will also have it

like a tool routing instructions. Like

for example, maybe for competitor data,

always use Ahrefs, Semrush, or like

other AI search tools, or maybe like

search performance, I already have

Google Search Console connected. I also

have Google Ads, Meta Ads Connectors

connected. So, I will direct it, "Okay,

what are tools that issue use?"

>> I think one of the important things

you're showing here

is the skill kind of inherits things

from the context. So, you run a skill

and it goes and checks in the context

folder and it loads things before it

executes the skill.

>> Yeah, so Claude will be okay, I know

exactly what what I should behave for

the system. Yeah.

>> So, someone comes in and they're

creating their project for I want to do

like paid advertising. So, I set up my

context

I set up my context folder. Here's kind

of what works. Here's our brand style.

Here's the kind of design that works.

And I then I set my Claude.md file. Is

it probably it is scary for someone to

go, how do I even like know what

instructions to put in here?

>> Exactly.

>> Do you do a first pass with Claude to

say, this is what I'm trying to do, give

me like a first pass at the Claude.md

file and then kind of edit and cut cut

it down to what you think is important?

>> Yes. Yes. So, actually I these days I do

make the Claude.md the project

instructions with Claude. So,

I just tell it, okay, what this system

is going to be like how I want like the

files to be organized and then you just

let it build it.

>> Yeah, for that work.

>> Okay, so if we go to Claude design and

then we will create a design system. And

this is the first thing because you want

to have

a reusable branded design system where

you can apply it no matter you're

building decks or dashboard or carousel

post and play which is

in this case. So, we can click create

and then we can create here.

So, here you can set up you can give it

different example. Maybe you have a

GitHub, you can just load it your your

files there then it will extract. But

here I have the branding. So, this is

the folder I already set up. And this

folder you can see I have the brand logo

in SVG and then I also have the landing

page. So, this is just a like preview

like what the style look. And I know

like different marketers they already

have some existing brand asset, then you

can just load it here and also like that

the palette.

And then you can just load back the

photo here and then you can add the logo

and then perhaps maybe you have like

other notes.

>> Yeah, some notes if you have a custom

font, you do that. But it depends on the

sophistication of your company, right?

>> Yes, so it depends on like how you want

the final like design system looks. And

then this is the results just to give

you the preview.

And then it will extract the logo, the

style, like how it should look. So this

is how you like create the brand design

system on Cloud Design. And I think this

day is pretty good. Yeah, then what you

can do is you can share

and you can export it into a project. So

you can just download the project

archive here and basically this is a

skill. So this is a reusable skill that

you can deploy back to your system and

then we can just use the same

methodology, load it and then make it

like a reusable skill.

>> Yeah, you can do everything from here.

Like we're going to do one thing, but

once you've done the hard work of making

a system, you can you can literally

design 10 different things off of that.

>> Yes, yes. So the the design system is

like the first

thing we we can do and then based on

that we will start creating different

reusable marketing templates. So in this

case I just make a reusable also to make

a reusable social media carousel

template and then I just pick back the

brand design system we just created and

then it will create assets. You can see

everything looks on brand. It's just

like exactly the same and then we can

tweak it here. And once we're done, we

can just download it as a standalone

HTML carousel template.

>> I haven't used Cloud Design too much.

So, you you basically created a uh

folder structure. You have the cloud

that MD file tells you how the how the

overarching marketing marketing project

should be should be run. Then you have

the contacts that kind of sets the

contacts, which is like, "Hey, this is

our brand aesthetics. This is our tone

of voice. This is our writing style.

This is how everything should look when

we create brand assets." Then you have

the individual folders for each of the

kind of core marketing disciplines.

>> Why I do it in Cloud Design is because

it already got the system. It is uh

reusable, so that's why in that case, I

just incorporate um like a extra step.

So, we use Cloud Design to first build

the template.

And this is what I found the best value

from Cloud Design. It's not like

building the end product, but to build

all those reusable marketing asset

templates, tags templates that can be

exported back to the system we just

created.

>> That's cool. That's cool. I haven't seen

it used that way. So, you create these

reusable templates, and then you move

back in Cloud to turn that You're like,

"Oh, this this looks correct. It works

really well. This is the kind of

carousel that I want." Turn that into a

skill to create carousels.

>> Let me show you like how the skills

looks like.

And so, this is the brand design. So,

this is like the the brand design we ex-

export from the brand design system. And

then we also have the carousel design.

So, uh you can see the carousel design

we have the asset. So, this is the asset

uh uh

my brand logo. And then the carousel

template. You can see actually this is

just a placeholder, right? So, every

time Cloud will

use this to generate. So, everything is

predictable. We can control the quality.

So, this is how we we can control

everything.

Okay, so now we have created this

carousel post, and then uh we can click

here to view it. But of course, we can

also um show it in the

folder. So you can see this has been

created inside the folder and then as we

open it

so we can see the post. So this is the

post. This is the carousel post we just

created.

So it contain six slides.

But this post is not ready to be

published yet because if you are doing

Instagram you you have to convert it

into images or if you might be want to

post on LinkedIn platform you have to

convert it into document so that you can

publish it. So that's why we can create

an all skills to export these posts out

of carousel post into ready to post PDF

document or images.

So first of all, let's say if I want to

post it on LinkedIn then I can use the

skills carousel PDF export. So these

skills will

export these carousel post into a PDF

document.

And it will export and save it into the

same folder. So now you can see it is

spinning off progress and now you can

see it has just export this carousel

post into a PDF

um document.

So actually it has So this is perfect.

And this is ready to post on like

LinkedIn platform.

And this is how you complete the whole

workflow end to end

from drafting proposing the topic

and then let it outline

the copy for each slide where you can

tweet it back and forth. You can make

changes to each of the copy like what

are the the things you want to emphasize

on each slide and then you can just

export it into a PDF document. Or maybe

let's say you are posting on Instagram

and you need it to export you need them

into images, then you can also use this

scale

and do the same thing

and let Claude to convert it into ready

to post images.

Okay, so you can see immediately

um it has converted

um the six slides into individual images

and we can actually check it inside the

folder as well. But you can actually

just click on it and then you can

preview each images.

So these are perfect and when you open

the same folder, you can see so this is

the HTML file we generated with Claude

and then this is the PDF document and

then here is the images we just created.

So these are slide one, slide two, slide

three, slide four, slide five and the

end slide.

So this is how you create the workflow

end to end. So think about what is your

typical marketing task and then try to

break it down into a smaller step

and each one can be a reusable skills.

So this is also how you can debug

faster, identify like where the areas

you can optimize

and so you can like design the workflow

from end to end.

So shall we So we try a problem?

>> Yeah, let's make one.

>> So maybe first I would ask it to propose

five potential topics. Oh by the way,

I'm using Sonic.

I just love Sonic.

I don't know you guys, but yeah, I found

Sonic

>> Sonic's awesome.

Yeah, I I think the Opus models have

degraded. I think that was actually

something one of the Claude code PMs

admitted to.

He said 4.7 4.8 so I've kind of used

4.6, but I've been using Sonnet way

more.

>> But they've let they've let Sonnet

because they were really focused on

their smarter models. I actually think

they've lost the lighter weight model to

Chat GPT at the moment.

>> Mhm. Yeah, I I agree. Yeah, I found

Sonnet faster, more efficient than

actual

>> Yeah, 100%.

>> Yeah.

>> Way faster.

>> Yeah, way faster.

>> Yeah, Claude or the smaller ones are so

slow right now. And I'm I'm all in on

Claude, so it pains me to say that, but

I'm actually moving some of my stuff

over to Codex.

>> You're coming to the Codex camp.

>> No loyalty.

No loyalty in this game.

>> in this game.

>> a model. Yeah, I'm a model.

>> Yeah, that's why the best that's why you

just want a harness that uses all the

models, but that's a whole different

show for another day.

>> Yes. Okay, so here you can see it

propose

different topics. So, why it knows

like what topics to propose is because

you can see it will load my strategy, my

like ideal customer profile. It already

got everything, so it knows my brand.

So, for example, maybe I love like four.

Let's do topic four.

And then I can just like hit

go.

So, then it will it will call the skills

because remember just now we

we have the instructions. So, in the

instructions, so it will know what to

call. So, it will first call the brand

voice, and then it will trigger the

brand carousel design because we already

instructed it's to do do so. So, it's

now generating

the carousel. And then it will save

inside the social folder. So, remember

just now we have created the folder

here. So, it will create the folder

here. So, it will like structure

everything as a project because this is

how I instruct the skills to do it.

>> I like that, actually. That's a really

great tip. Right in the I put into the

correct folders cuz if you don't, it

will just go into the base folder. It

gets pretty unwieldy. One of the

interesting things is like local file

systems. So, every AI geek is like

really impressed with their AI second

brain, right? Like I call it a second

brain Obsidian local file system.

>> Right.

>> And

I and I poured water all over my laptop.

Not purposely, but I did that anyway.

And so, I was like, "Oh my god, like

I've lost my second brain." And I was

like really lost. I didn't know how to

work for like three or four days. And

so, I got I got everything back on

track, but I've I've started making my

brain portable. And so, it basically,

you know, it it lives in my local

system, but it constantly syncs to get

hub. And then it will sync across the

Google Drive cuz sometimes you might

want to use like Claude on your phone

and you'll just want to connect it

through the web app. You just connect it

to a folder. Sometimes you'll be in

Claude code, you can connect it to get.

Sometimes you'll be in Codex, you want

to connect it to your local file system.

Do you think about that at at all like

in terms of when you're building these

local file systems, the portability of

it because it's all on your laptop? So,

let's say you're on the you know, you're

away from your laptop and you're on your

phone. I know you can use some of the

remote tools now, but I'm just I'm just

curious cuz you're someone who's a

systems builder. Do you think about the

portability of the kind of core contacts

that all these things connect to?

>> Yes.

>> Do you or do you just stick to local

file systems?

>> So, I'm also planning to migrate the

context file to GitHub.

>> Yeah.

>> Most of them most of the AI models like

like Codex or maybe Claude. Yeah, they

just have direct integration. And and

Google as well. Like AI you can just

directly connect to GitHub. So, I

imagine maybe the future working teams

they are more building the system to

GitHub. So, that is like platform

agnostic. You can make it portable. And

then not everything inside the the local

file. And the thing for co-work right

now has a limit

has a little little limitation is

because it's a local agent. So, it's

more like a personal productivity tool.

But what you mentioned is portability.

How we can collaborate with the team.

So, when it come to that, um yeah, like

we said, we have to make maybe put it

like a platform on a cloud. So, and all

of that's Yeah, that's the that's the

reason why I see like Claude has like

managed agent.

>> Yeah, that's a that's my little personal

project at the moment. It's making

making it portable and making it device

agnostic, which means you can access it

through the Claude standard, Claude

co-work, Claude code, Claude X,

perplexity. Anyway, I was just curious

if you It sounds like you you you are

thinking about that as well.

>> And I believe this is the trend that I'm

seeing. Yeah. So, it's not just about

Okay, log in to Claude ecosystem, but we

have the same set of files that we can

plug and play to whatever center a

platform that we we want to use, yeah.

>> I was working on

a system I built in Claude code

yesterday, but it just never stopped. It

would give me back my It would do the

work and it would say, "Okay, like ready

for next thing." But, it was still

working. I think it was still like

burning tokens. I was like, "Finished."

It's like you're And I kept saying to

it, like, "You're literally finished.

Stop burning tokens. Stop doing it." And

it's like,

"Ready for your next command." Burn

tokens, burn tokens.

>> [laughter]

>> I'm like, "What is this? Are you like

grow something?" Like, you can imagine

like a growth hacker is like, "Okay,

what we'll do is when we're finished

giving them the answer, we'll still burn

tokens until they tell us to stop doing

it."

>> [laughter]

>> Like, "Stop burning tokens, Claude

Claude. You're finished."

>> Often I found Claude sometimes have the

overthinking overthinking too. I'm not

sure if How's the experience, but it's

always overthinking, "Okay, is it the

right way to do?" And then, yeah, and

just overdo it, yeah.

>> So, I kind of I wrote a little thing

about this today. So, the Microsoft CEO

wrote a pretty cool post. I'm sure

everyone's read it cuz everyone's a

geek.

>> [laughter]

>> The thing he talked about is like you're

you know, don't seed your intelligence

to AI models, right? He's basically

saying, "Hey, like how do you still

survive in a world of AIs?" Like you're

are the asset you have is uh

intelligence. Like you understand how to

do marketing, you understand workflows,

you understand your customer, you

understand what works, what doesn't

work.

And today

that either lives in the minds of your

employees, right? Your employees has

marketing intelligence and they kind of

walk out the door and it leaves with

them, or they are outsourcing that to

the AI model cuz they're just going to

the AI model and they're saying, "Hey,

like create me an ad. Hey, create me a

strategic proposal for this. Hey, create

me an EEO strategy." And the LLM is

basically saying, "Okay, well, I have

all these marketing tutorials and I'll

give you back the average and that's

best practice." And so what I think

you're showing is the future of how you

differentiate yourself from everyone

else and that your context layer is the

raw intelligence that you have that

makes you special, that is that is your

core asset, which is like, "I know how

to do marketing and I'm going to put it

all into this context layer.

And this is what works, this is what

doesn't work, this is the learnings that

I've had, these are the things that I

know will resonate with my customers."

And then when you build skills on top of

it, it will inherit that intelligence

and so your output will be different

than everyone else's. And that's how you

win in a market where everyone else is

going to look the same because you're

you're using AI to do those things,

right? Like you have very different

aesthetics that work for you and it's

differentiated because you have raw

intelligence of the things that will

engage your audience. Like these are the

things that work for my audience. And so

for me, like the core takeaway is like

if you are building AI for a marketing

team or you're a marketing team using

AI, if you don't actually have that

context and intelligence layer, you are

being moved into the best practice

place. Like the model will just give you

the best practice and that's how your

marketing will likely die is you will

just be like the one of everyone.

>> Well, I think [clears throat] I think

that's right, Kieran. And you know, you

and I wrote this new book Loop that

comes out in a couple months and in that

we talk a lot about taste and how taste

is really important. How taste is how

you differentiate and like Grace just

showed us her taste. Right? She didn't

just show us a file system. She showed

us the colors, the fonts, the word

choice, the sources she trusted, the

sources she doesn't trust, how she wants

to work. And I think that is fundamental

because if you don't it's not just

you're going to the middle. It's like we

said a little earlier on the show. It's

like you know if Claude does sign

something. You know if chat GPT

generates an image.

When you have a high context system like

we walked through today,

you don't know that. All you know is

that Grace built it, right? And then it

connects back to her and what she's

trying to do and I think that's

fundamentally a very different way of

working than a lot of people are working

now, but I think it's the long-term

durable way of working to get real

advantage and to be a successful

marketer not just in the next year, but

in the next decade.

>> Yeah.

>> I agree.

>> Hopefully, yeah. I I still think like

human intelligence like has a place or

to earn not just like

because LLM they don't just don't get

that smart, but they don't have the

understanding of how we were works, how

like things connected. Yeah, maybe

they're an expert of doing Google Ads,

but they don't know how

other like

um your competitive landscape, the

trends like how impact everything and

this is why we still have like judgment,

the taste and humans.

>> I love that. I think that's the perfect

closing. Yeah. Grace, I really

appreciate you. You gave us a

masterclass in how to work and how to

build systems to work with AI in a a new

and meaningful ways and I hope everyone

learned a ton on today's show. We want

to thank you. We'll see you next time on

Marketing Against the Grain.

>> This data is wrong every freaking time.

>> Have you heard of HubSpot?

HubSpot is a CRM platform [music] where

everything is fully integrated.

>> Woah, I can see the client's whole

history, calls, support [music] tickets,

emails and here's a task from 3 days ago

I totally missed.

>> HubSpot, grow better.

>> [music]