Molly Ruland:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of Camp Content, your go to resource for all things content and revenue in 2024. Joining us today is Steven Tedjamulia, CEO and founder of Social Lift, bringing a deep trove of knowledge with over 25 years of experience in customer focused strategies and AI technologies. Steven is a true pragmatist in the field, starting his journey in AI at Dell, leading the AI predictive science group, and later establishing Predictive Science and AI intelligence firm collaborating with major brands on transformative AI AI strategies. I definitely wanna get into that. Throughout his career, Steven has taken startups over 35,000,000 in revenues, and he holds 14 patents in social selling. Also super curious about that. His insights are notable in the industry, thanks to his role as well published author impacting business communities worldwide. At Social Lift, Steven Architects AI advanced AI driven growth strategies, optimizing market positions, and customer relationships for his client firms.

Molly Ruland:

Today, we’re gonna talk about the role that generative AI plays in building scalable engines for b to b tech companies. We’re gonna share successful strategies and case studies from his portfolio and provide actionable advice on integrating AI into business growth plans. So without further ado, let’s jump right in. Welcome to the show, Steven.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Oh, thanks for having me here, Molly. I appreciate being part of your camp content podcast.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Yeah. No problem. Thanks for coming on. I’m really curious about your background. That’s a lot of years talking about this type of technology, which a lot of people feel is a new thing. So I’m sure you have a lot of insight to bring to the table today. So can you give me a little snapshot of social lift? You know, what does the company do? How many employees? Where are you located? You know, that kind of thing.

Steven Tedjamulia:

We are located in Rexburg, Idaho, and we provide marketing and sales support as a service. So what we’ve done is we’ve taken the different roles in marketing and sales with the different activities they do around digital marketing strategy, content marketing, and outbound sales. We’ve optimized each one of those processes with AI, and we have resources in the United States that companies can hire so they don’t they can delegate those 10 a dollar an hour tasks to these superpower marketers, and they can focus on high high value ad skills. So it’s a, you know, on demand, you need content marketing, you need sales, you need digital marketing, you need strategy, come to us. You pay a simple, monthly rate, a 1,000 starts at $1,400, and you get access to resources up to full time that then can help you, and we train those resources. We have a university. So for each one of, like, podcasts, content marketing, training, course creation, podcasting, we train these resources on these skills and certify them so then they can work for your company. It’s very very cool that AI has been able to let us take a marketer, teach them skills, train them, give them the power of AI, and then really boost their productivity to lower the cost for businesses, to be able to engage with US based marketers.

Molly Ruland:

That’s amazing. And how many employees do you have?

Steven Tedjamulia:

We have a flex of employees right now. We have about, you know, about 15 people working with us.

Molly Ruland:

That’s amazing. And what kinda size businesses are you typically working with? I mean, 1400 is a pretty low buy in. It seems pretty, you know, accessible for a lot of businesses. So what is your sweet spot?

Steven Tedjamulia:

We’ve worked with large companies, and we know what we’ve done because AI has been able to make us a lot more productive. So we provide CMO services, digital strategy services, dashboarding training to larger companies. There are larger ticket prices for their teams. But then we also serve with our resources to companies who are, you know, they’re they’re they’re a technology shop looking that doesn’t have a marketing department to expand. So we provide services for them. And also you have, you know, small business companies, 15,000,000 who really need to amplify their marketing and sales, but they don’t wanna hire people full time. So we have a mix, but what we’ve tried to do is really, open up the small and medium business market while still providing high end services of CMO work.

Molly Ruland:

Can you give me an example of, like, one of your favorite case studies or success stories of work you’ve done?

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. We’ve been able to, this was a project with Oracle where we did account based marketing targeting for a specific division of theirs. And in the beginning, you know, they could only do generic content because they would have a general message that they would try to send to each customer, and that wasn’t scaling. So they work with Social Lift, and we were able to use AI plus our marketers to augment their teams so that every content was personalized. So we increased content production speed by 70% and engagement rates by 40% because now the account manager as they were targeting their clients, instead of some generic piece of content, was highly specialized to that account. And it was able to boost that engagement rate and lower the cost of production, because they were able to have resources and AI letting them do that. So that’s one example of something they could do. Another one, we worked with a training company, and they were training people in the United States and have their content only in English.

Steven Tedjamulia:

But they wanted to grow to several other countries. So they hired our team. We are able to translate their content presentations, go to market into Spanish, and that will increase their market to all of Latin America and speaking continents. So it gives them opportunities. Those are two examples of how we are able to do that with content. Also with AdWork, companies that wanna be able to hire us for digital advertising, we were able to take them, and this was from a social from a LinkedIn ad perspective. We’re able to take all of their ad content that they were creating and that wasn’t performing really well. And then we were able to analyze it, optimize it with AI to better target, and we’re able to increase your accuracy by 40% to the right audience, and their spend was reduced by 30% with greater results. So where they don’t have enough manpower to analyze all of their data, create all the ad assets, you know, pay attention to the ad campaign because they have so many tasks on their hands.

Steven Tedjamulia:

They were able to, allow us to provide those resources to do that. Those are just some of the apps we will share.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. No. Those are great. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. It’s really hard to be an expert in all of these things, and then now you gotta know how to run ads and read the data. And, I would imagine that’s a very helpful tool. So talk to me a little bit more about these, 14, patents in social selling. I’m very, very curious about that.

Molly Ruland:

Could you tell me a little more?

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. So when I was at Dell, I ran our digital innovation group. And in that group, Michael Dell had given us 25,000,000 and said go dominate, digital social. So we had all this money, and we had to really foresee where the market was going. At this point in time, society was getting started. Social commerce was, like, brand new. So we built a lot of products. We’ve tested.

Steven Tedjamulia:

We had a lot of big focus groups. We had a really cool advisory board that included Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn, Sheryl Samer Sandberg, Maynard Webb from eBay, CTO there. Ron Rose, he was CTO at Dell and a CTO of Priceline. And we had, like, Jim Brier and Jim Getz from Sequoia and Accel, Venture Capital Funds. So they would, like, advise us, plus Michael, on directions we should take. And during that process, we pretty much patent bomb every way that you can make money off social commerce. So we experimented. We patented the analytics, the affiliate part, the sales part, all of those things, and that’s kind of where those patents came from.

Steven Tedjamulia:

And that was a foray into getting into predictive analytics. So I had a little group under me that was doing that we funded internally. It was a lot of predictive analytics work and dashboarding work, and that’s where it got started. And from there, Dell decided they didn’t really need that department. They were gonna shut it down. And I said, well, can I buy it from you? And I bought it from Dell for $115,000 and then transformed a $25,000,000 business. And that’s where I realized, and that’s what we do at Social Lift. We provide these services, but then for CMOs who really want strategy and for us to analyze our data, that’s where I step in and we have a team of developers and dashboard creators that can then help optimize all the analytics and use AI to then forecast where they need to be, how to improve their content.

Steven Tedjamulia:

So that’s kinda where, you know, my foray into, AI started from that purchase of the predictive science group from Dell, but then I went on to grow and we we sold into the NFL, Carnival Cruise Lines, VMware, and and built a pretty good, size, customer base on the enterprise side working with some big companies.

Molly Ruland:

For me I can only imagine so. And what year was it that you got 25,000,000 from Dell?

Steven Tedjamulia:

Oh, that was, let me look. I have to look at the exact thing you’re good at. Great question. So it’s, this was in, let’s see here. I’m going through my,

Molly Ruland:

you know Steven, I gotta tell you, if somebody gave me 25,000,000, I’d never forget that day. I might tattoo it on myself.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. 2010. That’s when then 2010 and now so I’ve been on that predictive AI, you know, road from

Molly Ruland:

that time. On.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

A long time. You know, I saw an article recently about Walgreens being sued for using AI facial recognition and wrongly targeting, of course, minorities and, you know, certain people for crime. But it was from 10 years ago, and I just thought to myself, wow. You know, so many of us lay people think a lot of this technology is new, but Walgreens was using this in 2010, and it was probably not new technology then either. So it’s kind of, we really are quite late to the party. So having said that, we are. You aren’t. But, having said that, like, what do you think is the best thing a company could do? Like, if a company wanted to work with you.

Molly Ruland:

Right? My head is kinda spinning from everything that you just said. If a company wanted to work with you, what what like, a small business, like my company, like a media company or a podcast production company. You know, how could you really build in and enhance what a smaller business is doing, and what kind of what would that cost the company, a smaller company, to work with you in this really robust way?

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. So to get started, our basic package is 14.95 per month. That gives you about 40 hours where we come in and, you know, we can assess you and you can access a wide range of services. Like, we have, from LinkedIn newsletters to sales outreach to, email scripting, creating training, creating presentations, inviting podcast speakers, creating your podcast, video editing, partner outreach, account based marketing, social media. So we train our skills, our our individuals and certify them on all these aspects. And you say, looks, this is what I want you to do with these hours. And then you set the plan and they go out and execute it. And then we have our next plan, which is 20 hours a week and then, full time.

Steven Tedjamulia:

So that’s the benefit is that we provide them, you know, the tools, the training. We also educate them on AI, how to use it appropriately so that they can, you know, be superpower experts, for you, Molly. And these resources are in the United States. We’ve learned that that helps a lot from being able to execute. Some of them are offshore with the but they are in the background to help out if we need to, but most of them are in the United States doing the work. So in your case, if you wanted to say, hey. I need more speakers for my podcast. You know, here’s someone that can just go out there and look at speakers, can post all your content, social media for you, offset that, Create your social account.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Reach out to a lot of people, to get advertisements. Can help you, you know, if you wanna do ad campaigns to promote the content on your podcast or build a landing, funnel a funnel to convert people. Those are several things they can do and can do very effectively for you, and we train them and certify them in those areas.

Molly Ruland:

You know who I am doing any work with, like, life coaches or business coaches? I spent well, life coaches and people in that space because I feel like they are really lacking all of those tools and resources and would probably find you wildly helpful in their businesses.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. We’ve done some with life coaches, technology, like, companies, you know, where the c t there are CTOs, ecommerce companies. So all those companies, we provide them the same benefit we’ve given, like, the NFL and Verizon. Now we’re taking those skill sets to, you know, the business so they can execute Right. The best one that works for them.

Molly Ruland:

I mean, I think it’s really amazing. Right? Because when you’re talking about technology and automations and, you know, you can, you know, do the same thing for these bigger companies that you’re doing for the smaller companies and vice versa. So I really appreciate that you’ve made it an affordable price point because for a lot of people, these skills are out of reach and would take a long time to get them in house. And so, you know, who wouldn’t wanna hire you with your resume and all the time and experience you’ve been doing? It seems like a no brainer to me. So, let’s ask you one more question, a future question. What is the number one tool or the number one automation that a small business could do that they would see some results on right away?

Steven Tedjamulia:

I would say a small business learning to use generative AI, like chat gpt wisely across their different aspects will create a humongous impact. We worked with one company who were doing podcasts and they were doing 1 a month, and it would take them a long time to get that done and to reach out to attendees. And we were able to triple their podcast production capabilities. So all of a sudden, they were doing 3, 4, and double the number of attendees because they were using Generate AI in the right way and engaging with us. So just if you learn how to use Generate AI, I have a whole class that I train enterprises on on how to use it effectively. It provides scripts. It goes through all the content creation, sales processes, and it just helps sales and marketing come together with Gener AI.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah.

Steven Tedjamulia:

That helps a lot. But I think that would be the number one tool now. And then, we’re doing a lot around AI dashboarding because what we see is as soon you start using Gener AI, you start collecting a lot of data, and it’s really hard to takes time to analyze all of your data from your website data to your LinkedIn data to to your podcasting data and then triangulate all of that. Oh, goodness. Right? Like, you’re like, I don’t have time. So you just keep moving and you try. And then how do you get the right way to make decisions on the data? That’s just really hard for one mind to do. But when you have Gener AI, it can do so much more for you.

Steven Tedjamulia:

So we’re really trying to tie all that data together in a dashboard that you can see every morning. And then Gene AI can, like, tell you, oh, this is what you need to do today. Right? To double your output and accelerate your revenue. We’re far from automating that, but we’ve been working with companies to get that done. And I think that that’s a day where in the morning stand up, you review and say, okay. This is what I did yesterday. What can I do better today? Okay. Let’s adjust.

Steven Tedjamulia:

And you have real time adjustments based on plans you do every day.

Molly Ruland:

I love that. I’m big and I love data. I love looking at all the analytics and the numbers because, you know, it’s very informative. And I like being able to see the direct correlation between, like, oh, we put out a podcast episode, and then the web traffic increased, and then we got a discovery. You know? To be able to kinda put all those things together, I mean, even in the podcast space, it’s very difficult because there’s there’s, like I think maybe there’s a couple, like, chartable, but I don’t even think they’re doing it. I don’t think anybody has figured out how to, like, merge all the data. Like, how many plays did it get on YouTube and how many, you know, streams did it get on Spotify versus how many downloads that they get on Apple. You know, like, there’s so many different numbers in there.

Molly Ruland:

And so when you’re trying to figure out well, you know, tell a client what their podcast is doing, it’s almost impossible to get real numbers, because of that huge spread in all of the information. So I would imagine that that dashboarding will really do well.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. And we’ve done a lot of merger data for big companies, but what I think is different so when you merge all the data, you just have a whole bunch of data that is, like, okay. I got it all in front of me. What should I do? And then you hire all these people to go evaluate it. With Generate AI, the cool thing is you just feed it all to, like chat gpt, and then it goes out and with the right scripts, it tells you what you should do. And it gives you backing and information and even writes content for you that you need to produce next.

Molly Ruland:

I mean That’s

Steven Tedjamulia:

which is like that to me is a miracle that we didn’t have, you know, 10 years ago.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. I mean, it’s really fascinating stuff. I love the efficiency of it for sure. It’s really smart and really helpful. Okay. I’ve got a wild card question for you. If you could deploy an AI solution to solve any global challenge outside of the business world, what would it be?

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. That is one of my missions. That’s why I started Social Lift . You know, there’s a lot of countries that don’t and people in those countries that don’t have access to jobs and like good jobs, and they’re struggling. So, we’re using AI to create training courses and certifications to certify them and make them more effective. And, you know, giving I know, giving, you know, a 100000 people, that’s our goal. A 100,000 people better jobs in third world countries though that would be, it’s a mission I have set to do.

Molly Ruland:

That’s amazing. How are you, what’s the plan? How are you gonna get that done?

Steven Tedjamulia:

So we’re creating certifications and training for all so we’ve identified all the marketing processes that are used in sales processes. We’re creating training and certification that they can take, and then we’re building out social lifts where companies can come in and hire us. And we’re starting in the United States. Little by little, we’re incorporating, you know, these other trained people in third world countries that then can do this work as well and become effective with generative AI. So that is our goal is to really, if they want a career in marketing or sales to help companies around the world, they can work with us, get certified, and use generative AI to, you know, be equally skilled as someone, here in the US. And then that uplevels the game for them and their country, and it lowers the cost for people all around the world from a business perspective. So that’s kind of a mission we have. Core to what we do at Social Lift is being able to help the world become better, especially with these people that, you know, they’re struggling in third world countries.

Steven Tedjamulia:

I think the stat is, like 1 week of food that we buy in the western world feeds the rest of the world for a month or something. So it’s I mean

Molly Ruland:

yeah. It’s, I mean, can I appreciate living in Costa Rica? There are, like, a lot of call center jobs popping up. You know? But the reality is, like, TICOs, the Costa Ricans here are, like, undereducated just because of the way the school system is, and there’s no entrepreneurial, like, hey. You could just own the company. You could start your own thing. It just doesn’t really exist here. It’s not really taught or encouraged. And so, you know, these people are taking these, like, call center jobs, and they’re just dealing with people being angry at them all day.

Molly Ruland:

And, sure, they’re making a little bit of money and going home with it, but, like, they’re not learning anything. You know? They’re just learning how entitled and mean Americans are is really what they’re learning. But that’s not a skill set that’s going to help them. And so I love this idea of, like, you know, if they can, the AI can be a teacher. Right? Like, they can see how it’s being done, and they can start to learn and start to put those, you know, connect those dots and then start to come out of this with a lot more skills than just answering an angry phone call. And I think I think people deserve that. People deserve that opportunity to learn that and to understand it and provide a better future for themselves. So I I I think that’s great that you’re doing that.

Molly Ruland:

I really do.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Yeah. So that’s just one of the ways the world can benefit. So I I enjoyed that question that you asked.

Molly Ruland:

Awesome. Well, I’m glad that I asked. Alright. So we have one more segment, and this is where it gets really fun, so hang on to your hat. But, this is our real or fake round. So I’m gonna list off some podcast names, and then you are gonna guess whether or not they are real or fake. Are you ready?

Steven Tedjamulia:

Okay.

Molly Ruland:

Alright. Number 1, unbelievable futures.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Unbelievable futures, probably real.

Molly Ruland:

It is real. Alright.

Steven Tedjamulia:

It’s really hard to do because there’s so many podcasts nowadays. I bet you someone’s taken the name.

Molly Ruland:

Exact there’s a lot of ridiculously named podcasts too. Alright. Next one is Next Gen Business AI in Action.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Oh, that’s a pretty long name. I’d say it’s fake.

Molly Ruland:

Mate, you’re killing me, Steven. Everybody always gets these wrong. We gotta, hey, Brian. Will you put Steven on the screen because I have no poker face? Alright. Next one is Quantum Leap Living.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Quantum Leap Living. That’s pretty short.

Molly Ruland:

Real. Alright, Steven. We’re we’re we’re ending the show. You’ve gotten them all right. You’re taking all the fun out of this. You’re supposed to get them wrong. But you’re right. Wait.

Steven Tedjamulia:

You’re talking to a brand marketer who’s looking okay. That could be a name. I guess it’s short. You were tracking It’s

Molly Ruland:

too long. Exactly I should have shortened the fake ones, and then I woulda had you. Well, listen, Steven. Thank you for coming on the show today. I really appreciate you taking time. I am super impressed with everything you’ve done. I definitely wanna continue the conversation with you. I’ve got some ideas that have been spinning around my head, and you might just be the perfect person to talk to about that.

Molly Ruland:

But before we go, can you tell people where they can find you and the best way to connect? We’ll have all your links in the show notes, of course, but if you wanna tell them where they

Steven Tedjamulia:

can find you, that would be fantastic. Yeah. Just go to social lift.com, and you can schedule an appointment with me. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page, and there’s my Calendly link. And you can reach out to me, and there’s also my phone number and email posted there. So sociallist.com.

Molly Ruland:

Amazing. So, I’m sure if anybody’s been listening, they are also intrigued by your services and your price points, all very reasonable. So thank you for taking time to come on the show today, Steven. I really appreciate it. And thank you for tuning in today to the con to the podcast, Camp Content. A lot of people have been asking about the cartoons, and it’s because it’s summer camp, and these are our honorary camp counselors. So on that note, I hope you guys are having a fantastic summer, and we will catch you on the next one. Alright.

Molly Ruland:

Alright. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Camp Content. This is Molly.

Matt Billman:

And this is Matt.

Molly Ruland:

And we are Heartcast Media, AKA Camp Content, and we appreciate all of your support. If you found this content valuable, please comment on social media, LinkedIn, wherever you find us and we will make sure to comment back.

Matt Billman:

And be sure to go on and subscribe and like on your favorite platforms, Spotify, Itunes, YouTube, you name it. Leave us that subscription to give us

Molly Ruland:

that good review. We’ll love you forever. So until next time, be excellent to each other, and we’ll see you next week.

Steven Tedjamulia:

Produced by Heartcast Media.

Molly Ruland:

Thank you for tuning in to Camp Content hosted by Heartcast Media. We are a digital content agency focused on content marketing for businesses and brands. If you’re looking to save time and be more consistent with your marketing and need a little guidance on what to say and how to say it and where to say it, we got your back. Book a discovery call today, and let’s talk.