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You’re using AI to handle more of the work that your team used to do. That’s exactly why the human side of the business has become a competitive advantage.
In this episode, Chip and Gini make the case that as AI slop floods everyone’s inbox and feeds, the bar for genuine human interaction has dropped so low that clearing it will make you stand out. Demonstrating real experience and expertise in conversation — not just in content — is where agencies will win.
That starts with having actual conversations. Chip argues that meetings have become more valuable, not less, because you can’t fake a real-time interaction the way you can a written deliverable. And Gini adds that it extends to one-on-one meetings with your team, which can be used to get the specific decisions needed from you.
Written content is increasingly hard to trust, and Chip admits even he can’t reliably tell his own writing from AI output. Video helps close that gap for now. So does the handwritten note, which Chip still sends to podcast guests when he can track down an address. He jokes that the illegibility is proof of authenticity.
In person beats everything. Chip pushes agency owners to budget for it deliberately, with clients, prospects, and remote team members alike. Gini mentions the Augusta Rule as one way to offset some of those costs, though both are quick to say talk to your accountant before you try to benefit from it.
Key takeaways
- Chip Griffin: “In the age of AI, meetings are even more valuable than they were before because you can’t fake this kind of interaction.”
- Gini Dietrich: “The more time you can spend with a client or with a prospect really understanding their business, the way that they operate day to day, their pain points — those are the kinds of conversations that are gonna make you smarter.”
- Chip Griffin: “When you hit that inevitable rough patch somewhere down the road, and we all hit rough patches with our clients at one point or another, it gives you that oftentimes reservoir of goodwill that you can draw on because you made that human connection.”
- Gini Dietrich: “My day-to-day contact there became one of my closest friends. She’s one of my closest friends today, even though we haven’t worked together in 20 years, and the reason being is that we got together in person all the time.”
The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.
Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.
Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.
Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think we’re, we’re people people. We’re-
Gini Dietrich: We’re people people?
Chip Griffin: I’m a people person, so that make us people people. People- People … people. We’ll just keep saying the word people. But in all seriousness, the age of AI, everything seems to be impersonal, so that opens the door to be more friendly to actual people, to be more personable.
And so I think we can talk about how we can set ourselves apart as agencies, as leaders in this age where the tech seems to do almost everything for us.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, it’s funny that this conversation is happening right now because I’m coming to this conversation straight from our bimonthly learning session internally.
And one of the things that we talked about today was, you know, how to use AI, our critical thinking skills, but also how to use questioning and probing with it- new business prospects and with clients to be able to uncover the real problems of what they’re, the real pain points of what they’re facing versus just the surface level, “I have a measurement problem,” kinds of things.
And it’s, it’s definitely not something that you can rely on AI for. You have to actually use your people skills to be able to do that kind of work, and that’s what we spent about an hour going through internally today.
Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s so many more opportunities now to leverage the human connection piece with your clients, with your prospects, with your team because so much of what they’re seeing is AI slop. Is technology-driven.
And, and whether that’s the pitches that we get in our inbox, and you sit there and you’re like, “I know AI generated this and sent it to me,” and all that. And so trying to find ways where you can break through and make a human relatable interaction with somebody and provide real human insight in those conversations gives you the opportunity to do things that, you know, a couple years ago nobody would’ve paid attention.
Now they do.
Gini Dietrich: Right. Right. Yeah. You know, one of the things I always talk about is, especially with content, and I think this applies here as well, is demonstrating your experience and expertise because nobody else can do that. And I think if, as you’re thinking about those human relations and the people skills and actually interacting with actual human beings, where you can demonstrate experience and expertise is really what’s going to set you apart in all of those conversations. Because nobody else has your experience or expertise.
You know, they may have some of the similar experience, and they may have similar expertise, but nobody does it exactly the same way that you do. And I think being able to demonstrate that in your conversations is where you will win every time.
Chip Griffin: Well, I think the key is having actual conversations.
Gini Dietrich: Fair. Start there.
Chip Griffin: I was talking with a leader today who said, “Look, I just, I don’t even have time to read half the stuff that comes in, even from my direct reports. And so for me, the best way to interact with all of my direct reports is through actual conversations, either in person or by video call because that’s, that’s the only way I have an opportunity to focus on it.”
And so, you know, I, I know that we all are of the mindset, geez, you know, we don’t want to be meeting to death and all of that, but I would argue that in the age of AI, meetings are even more valuable than they were before because you can’t fake this kind of interaction.
Gini Dietrich: Right.
Chip Griffin: If you’re engaging with somebody on Zoom or Teams, I mean, sure, you could have one of those AI apps that, that, you know, the kids are apparently using to interview these days where it puts the answers up on the screen or whatever.
I don’t know. But the reality is nobody’s really doing that that I know of, in the agency and client world. So, you know, it’s reasonable to assume that you are actually being yourself when you are communicating with a client, prospect, or team member. And so take advantage of those opportunities. Don’t say, “Well, this could’ve been an email.”
Well, yeah, it probably could’ve been, but people are gonna think that was generated by AI. So, you know, don’t meeting yourself to death, but certainly be more open to meetings than you might’ve been five years ago.
Gini Dietrich: And I would add to that, that I think the person you mentioned a few minutes ago, I think that’s exactly right.
You know, at, I mean, as my agency grows and as we get bigger and, and like the amount of stuff that comes at me every day is impossible to keep up with, and the meetings, especially the one-to-one meetings that I have with my team that are most effective are the ones that they say, “I need this decision, this decision, and this decision,” and then they walk me through so that I’m not having to review decks.
I’m not having to review documents. They walk me through what they’re doing. They walk me through their problem-solving, and they walk me through the decisions that they need from me to be able to move forward. Otherwise, it’s gonna sit on my to-do list for two or three weeks when they can use a one-to-one really effectively that way.
So I think you’re absolutely right. You don’t necessarily have to have more meetings. You just need to use them more effectively.
Chip Griffin: Right. And I mean, even before the age of AI, I always told all my direct reports, “Use those one-on-one meetings to just get every answer you need from me.” Yep. It, it’s the best way…
you’ve got me focused. Take advantage of that. Absolutely. Don’t walk away saying, “Geez, I should’ve asked him this.” If you can get the answer, get the answer. And I think we can, we can do that, but it’s also your opportunity to show that you’ve actually got the knowledge yourself in these conversations.
You’re not relying on AI to spoon-feed it all to you because, I mean, let’s face it, you know, we’ve all come to distrust the content we see from almost everybody- Mm-hmm … and say, “Well geez, is that really theirs or did that come from AI?” And people are, they’re trying to say, “Oh, well, I can identify the AI.”
You can’t. I guarantee you can’t. I can’t tell the difference between my writing and AI writing unless I do a forensic analysis and go back to figure out who wrote the first draft of something. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, honestly, I think the people who have the toughest time with that are the people who, you know, were prolific writers before because prolific writers tended to write in a certain way, which is what the LLM’s all trained on.
So, you know, those of us who were professional writers … we used a lot of em dashes. That taught the LLMs, “Use em dashes.”
Gini Dietrich: Yep.
Chip Griffin: Now, you use an em dash, you must be using AI. Yeah. Baloney. Baloney.
Gini Dietrich: Baloney. I still use an em dash, and I will die on that hill because I am not going to stop.
Chip Griffin: No. And, that’s the human style that we used to be able to express in writing.
I think it’s becoming increasingly difficult to truly express yourself in written form, in a way that is fully trusted by folks. And so I think the, you know, for now at least, there is also an opportunity to do more video in your content creation. Because while, yes, you can fake AI, and that’s getting really good, to be honest with you, the avatars you can create and, and I could create it as if this show was me talking, and nobody would be any the wiser.
Gini Dietrich: Yep.
Chip Griffin: It’s still rare that that’s happening today. Right. So for now, you have that opportunity to make that human person-to-person connection through video, and so I’m encouraging everybody to do more video. Maybe not instead of the written, but at least in conjunction with it, because it helps to show that you’re putting these thoughts and ideas into your own voice and not just, you know, generating something with Claude or ChatGPT and shipping it without a thought.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And in person, if you can do it in person, I would recommend that as well.
Chip Griffin: Oh, in person’s even better.
Gini Dietrich: Like, yeah. Like, I mean, I- absolutely, because-
Chip Griffin: ‘Cause you really can’t fake it in person, at least not yet.
Gini Dietrich: You definitely cannot fake it in person.
Chip Griffin: I mean, we, we don’t have convincing holograms out there that someone can’t tell is a hologram.
Not yet. Not yet.
Gini Dietrich: Not yet. I am very much looking forward to that, but not yet.
Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, I, I do believe- Mm-hmm … that the world needs more of us out there physically.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah.
Chip Griffin: I mean, we could take the Chip and Gini Show on the road-
Gini Dietrich: We could …
Chip Griffin: without having to, to leave anywhere. Just have the AI do it all for us.
Gini Dietrich: Fantastic. I love it. Yeah. We’ll just be like Princess Leia and we’ll beam in. I love it. Let’s do it. I think that’s fantastic.
Chip Griffin: Ah, yes. But I mean, I think there are other ways that you can make those personal connections. You know, one of the things that I’ve done for a number of years now is I’ve done handwritten notes to people on a weekly basis.
Not everybody every week, obviously, but you know-
Gini Dietrich: I’ve never gotten a handwritten note from you.
Chip Griffin: Uh, I think you did, like, at the very start of this show, I think. I believe I did, but I would have to go back and-
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you might be right. Okay, I take it back …
Chip Griffin: pretty, pretty sure that you did. I- All right
you know, I, I try not to overdo it because at some point it- Fine … it gets cheapened. But, generally speaking, when I have a podcast guest on, for example, I send them a handwritten note after the episode goes out, assuming I have their address. I mean, that’s obviously a challenge in some cases.
Sure. And it gets a little creepy when you start asking people for their addresses sometimes. So you gotta … It’s, it’s not as easy as it once was, and sending something to a business address- Right … doesn’t necessarily get there anymore. Yeah, yeah. But when you can get an address to send them a personal handwritten note, it stands out today ’cause nobody gets any mail.
Yep. Nobody sees things that aren’t electronic, and even though, in my case, nobody can read my handwriting, but they still know that I put the thought into it. That’s right. Yep. And the fact that they can’t read it tells them it’s real, right? Because if I paid one of the services, ’cause you can pay services that will, you know-
Gini Dietrich: To type it out, yeah
Chip Griffin: well, no, will do a fake handwritten-
Gini Dietrich: Oh, yeah, yeah …
Chip Griffin: thing. But it’s computer generated, so it’s, it’s fully legible.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah.
Chip Griffin: There’s no way anybody would pay for what I send. I mean, it’s just, it’s … I mean, I can’t read half of what I write. And I try. I, I do try, but I just have horrible, horrible penmanship.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that you’re right.
Any way that we can create the human-to-human interaction, and lots, there are lots of tools available today that make it easy for us, that’s gonna be, that’s, that is going to set us apart. And like I said to my team earlier today, the more time you can spend with a client or with a prospect really understanding their business, the way that they operate day to day, their pain points, the business’ pain points, those are the kinds of conversations that are gonna make you smarter.
And if you use AI, you take that transcript and you dump it in there and say, “These are the kinds of things I’m thinking about. Can you poke some holes in it or tell me what I’m missing?” For sure you can do that, but do that after the conversation so that you, you understand, you can demonstrate your experience and your expertise and really have that human-to-human interaction.
Chip Griffin: Well, and, leaning into something you said before- Look for those opportunities where you can get together with people in person.
Gini Dietrich: Yep.
Chip Griffin: And so again, I think the value of that has been elevated. It’s always been important and useful to, to meet with clients, prospects, team members in person, but I think it’s even more valuable today because, you know, we, as we talked about, you can’t fake that kind of interaction.
Technology isn’t doing it for you. But it also allows you to elevate yourself over other people they may be interacting with, whether that’s a prospect looking at different firms, or whether that’s an employee who’s like, “Well, I, I feel disconnected ’cause we’re remote.” I mean, we, we talk about the importance of if you’re running a remote agency, which many of you are, you need to have regular in-person get-togethers, and you need to have budget to get people to travel.
If they’re not all local, you still need to bring them in because those human interactions that you have by getting together, meeting in person, sharing a meal, sharing a coffee, those are all things that allow you to strengthen the connection and really set yourself apart in the age of AI.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, and I think you said something really, really important, which is set the budget. So as you’re budgeting – granted, I know not everybody budgets every year, but you should be doing that. As you’re doing that, set some budget aside for these kinds of things. And I will tell you, and certainly I am not an accountant, I am not a finance professional, but in many cases, you can…
Even if you host that in your home, something like that in your home, not have people stay there, but host, like, strategy planning meetings or things like that in your home, you can deduct some of that from your taxes. So you can… There’s, there are ways that you can do it so it’s not actually costing you money on top of, like, it’s something that’s deductible.
So, you know, talk to your accountant about that, but there are some things that you can do to offset some of those costs, too.
Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s, you’re talking about the Augusta rule. So when you talk with your accountant, ask about the Augusta rule. It is something that is potentially useful, but please, dear God, do talk to your accountant before you do this-
Gini Dietrich: Yes, please. Please. …
Chip Griffin: Because I’ve talked with some folks, they see someone online say, “Oh, you should use the Augusta rule,” and they’re like, “Oh, cool. Well, I’ll just do…” No, there’s actual proper steps that you have to go through to prove that it’s a legitimate expense, to prove the amount and all of that kind of stuff.
So, so please, do make sure that, because it is, that is one of the more complicated areas of tax law, and so you really wanna make sure that you’re getting that one correct so that-
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, just- …
Chip Griffin: they don’t come in and whack you for-
Gini Dietrich: Take our advice to, take our advice to look into it. Yeah. Do not take our advice to just implement it.
Chip Griffin: Right. But regardless of how you go about getting together in person, the important thing, at least for this episode, is that you do it, because that does, it, it strengthens that human connection, which pays all sorts of dividends. I mean, even with clients, getting together in person, it, it helps you.
You can read body language in ways that you can’t do even on a video call. You can strengthen the relationship so that when you hit that inevitable rough patch somewhere down the road, and we all hit rough patches with our clients at one point or another- it gives you that oftentimes reservoir of goodwill that you can draw on because you made that human connection, and you’re not just, you know, the other end of a contract.
You are someone that they’ve gotten to know. And so we want to try to find as many ways as possible to have that relationship with everybody that we work with at every level, vendors, clients, prospects, team members.
Gini Dietrich: Yep, yep.
Chip Griffin: Whatever it may be.
Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah, I mean, my newsletter that’s going out in a couple of days, talks about how Ocean Spray was one of my very first clients as a young whipper-snapper working at FleishmanHillard.
And there, my day-to-day contact at, there became one of my closest friends. She’s one of my closest friends today, even though we haven’t worked together in 20 years, and the reason being is that we got together in person all the time, we traveled together, we were, you know, sort of in the, the ranks together working through all sorts of issues and challenges and, you know, building…
We built a real friendship. And you can’t do that on Zoom. You just can’t.
Chip Griffin: Right. And, I know we all want to be more efficient and all of that, and that’s all fine and good, and I am a huge believer in using the technology- Oh, yeah … whether it’s AI or otherwise-
Gini Dietrich: Absolutely …
Chip Griffin: to, to make yourself more efficient, but you can’t do that at the expense of losing that human touch.
Gini Dietrich: Right. Totally. People skills, people skills, people skills.
Chip Griffin: They are more important today than they have ever been. And that, that is common throughout history. As, as one thing becomes dominant, the antidote to it, if you will, or the opposite piece of it often becomes equally valuable because everybody else is ignoring it.
So find those places where you can stand out, you can be a little bit different. And, many people went into the agency world because they were people people, people. I… it sounds so stupid.
Gini Dietrich: People, people people, people pleasers. Person, person, people. People, pe- people
Chip Griffin: ‘Cause you’re a people person- A person so if you’re people pe- I don’t know.
Gini Dietrich: I don’t know either.
Chip Griffin: I feel like I’ve taken this off the rails as I usually do, so maybe this is a good point to, to draw ourselves to a close here before people get peopled out.
Gini Dietrich: We are all people people. People people.
Chip Griffin: Makes me think of that old song, what is it, the, The Purple People Eater or something like that?
Gini Dietrich: Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking of at the beginning. Yeah. Yep.
Chip Griffin: Yeah. Which if I could remember it, I wouldn’t sing it anyway because we’d probably get a copyright strike, so. Or maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know how all that stuff works. I wouldn’t either. On that note, uh, I’m definitely careening off the rails here, so we will draw this episode to a close.
Thanks for listening. I’m Chip Griffin.
Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.
Chip Griffin: And it depends.
