How to Get Found Online in the Age of AI with Monique Bryan

In this episode, Laura sits down with personal brand authority strategist Monique Bryan for a candid, hilarious, and deeply insightful conversation about AI, visibility, entrepreneurship, motherhood, and the future of online business.

Together, they unpack how AI is changing the way people discover brands and businesses online, why traditional marketing strategies are evolving, and what entrepreneurs need to do now to stay visible in a rapidly changing digital landscape. Monique also shares her approach to personal branding, authority building, and positioning yourself as the obvious choice online.

This episode is packed with practical insights, honest conversations about motherhood and entrepreneurship, and powerful reminders about adapting, evolving, and embracing the future instead of fearing it.

In this episode you will hear:

01:13 — The pressure and judgment women face around motherhood

03:56 — Monique’s background in branding, entrepreneurship, and AI visibility

06:28 — How AI is changing search, discoverability, and online visibility

08:13 — Why blogs, podcasts, and long-form content matter again

09:13 — How to test whether AI tools can “find” you online

11:47 — Monique’s free AI authority audit and where entrepreneurs should start

13:14 — Why inconsistent messaging hurts your visibility online

14:21 — The importance of thought leadership and POV content

16:13 — How AI recommendations are changing consumer behaviour

18:03 — What a personal brand strategist actually does

20:22 — Why perception, styling, and authority matter in business

22:52 — Building a personal brand that aligns with bigger opportunities

25:24 — Why relationships, rooms, and proximity still matter

27:24 — Entrepreneurship, motherhood, and learning empathy after becoming a parent

29:46 — How AI tools can save entrepreneurs time and mental load

31:05 — Using Whisper, Claude, and AI workflows in daily business operations

34:00 — How AI design tools are changing content creation

36:17 — “Adapt or die” — why entrepreneurs need to understand AI now

38:07 — Why parents need to understand the AI tools their kids are using

Use code TMMB to get your free AI Visibility Audit: https://moniquebryan.com/audit

Monique's Links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moniquebryan_co/

Check Your AI Visibility: https://futureproofyourbrand.co/

Website: https://www.moniquebryan.com/

Join This Mother Means Business : www.thismothermeansbusiness.com

Laura's Links:
• Website
• Laura's Instagram
• LJSocial Instagram 
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• TikTok

Transcript

Laura Sinclair (00:16.638)
Welcome back to another episode of This Mother Means Business. Today, my friends, we are going to have some fun because we have been chatting for 15 minutes before we actually hit record on the show. But I am joined by the fabulous Monique Bryan. She is my new friend. She's a brand authority strategist. And her and I have a feeling are going to get some in some trouble together. But I had the pleasure of hearing Monique speak at High Vibe Women in their March event at the Pearl, which was just a couple of weeks before This Mother Means Business Live.

And I sat in the back of her session and I was like, damn, I need to know all of the things that you know. Monique, welcome to this mother means business.

Monique Bryan (00:50.198)
Yeah, yeah, thank you, Laura. mean, I just feel like we could get in trouble together and it would be okay. And people would love it.

Laura Sinclair (00:57.662)
I think they would. think like we have a plan, we have a specific mission for this conversation, but I think that you and I could probably riff on a lot of things that would make some people laugh or make some people think, damn, I'm really glad they said that out loud. That could be us.

Monique Bryan (01:13.774)
I honestly agree. That's like kind of how I felt when I saw your post the other day when you were talking about, who were you talking about who saying they spent three hours a day with their kid and you were like, yes, thank you. I was like, who are these bitches talking about how mom should be doing mom in? Like if you're a mom, you already know you don't want nobody telling you about how you should be doing what you're doing. It's hard enough.

Laura Sinclair (01:24.524)
Yeah. Emma Greed. Emma Greed's getting so much shit right now about...

Laura Sinclair (01:37.876)
No, like I am if I am the wrong girl, I have had people come up to me and literally say like about other moms that I know, like, why are they doing this this way? And every single time I'm like, No, I'm not your girl for that conversation. I am not your girl. You can feel you are entitled to you can feel however you want to feel about that. But I am not your girl to come and talk to you about that. Like I don't care about that thought that you have because we are not going to judge other moms about how they choose to

Monique Bryan (01:49.271)
Absolutely.

Monique Bryan (02:00.43)
you

Laura Sinclair (02:06.976)
raise their babies unless they're doing things that are like abusive then yeah we're gonna judge but we're not doing that we're we're we're gonna mind our business and we're gonna let women raise their babies how they want to raise their babies run their businesses how they want to run their businesses and shit emma greedy she wants to spend three hours a weekend on her kid have at her go for it go for it

Monique Bryan (02:25.87)
Like I remember when somebody had said something about, I was talking about how when I put my kid in daycare and within a week he got hand, foot and mouth disease, which I'd never heard of before. And it was terrifying. And then I was like, what the hell is going on with the daycare? I was like ranting on my Instagram and somebody drops into my DMs and like, yeah, that's why my husband's a stay at home dad. And I was like, well, I'm sorry, we don't all have that luxury.

Laura Sinclair (02:35.564)
Of he did.

Laura Sinclair (02:48.056)
Mmm.

Yeah,

Monique Bryan (02:51.308)
I said, yeah, no, I'm just saying. And I was like, bitch, you lucky I don't block you because I'm a big, like, I'll just block you. I'm true Aquarius. if, like you're basically dead to me. Like I can't even remember you existed. But I was like, he just calmed down, I did put my business on the street, but also people know me well enough that this is my place to vent. You should probably keep your opinions here.

Laura Sinclair (02:55.832)
You

Laura Sinclair (02:59.5)
Yeah. Yes.

Laura Sinclair (03:10.552)
Yeah, yeah, you keep your judgment to yourself. I'm a Capricorn. So we, you're also dead to us, but we you probably don't know that you're dead to me. Like, we don't like the conflict. We just like, casually are like, well, you don't exist to me anymore. And then we just move on. That's what we do. Because we don't desire the conflict. Because if we have to go there, now we're also mad at you for making us go there. And so it's just a whole thing that we don't like.

Monique Bryan (03:21.478)
Okay, yeah.

Laura Sinclair (03:38.338)
But we very much do that. You're dead to me. That is also a Capricorn thing. So that's why you and I are going to have a good time. But some of our listeners might be meeting you for the first time and are like, what have the last three minutes and 45 seconds of our life been? Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?

Monique Bryan (03:56.192)
a hundred percent. So I am a serial entrepreneur. I have been running a personal brand consultancy for almost a, God, like a decade now. And when AI dropped into our world, good or bad, or however you feel about it, I was obsessed because I, we talked about this on our last call, which is like, we don't have a speed limit. Like I like to move so quickly, literally in my family, they call me speedy. That's my nickname that and bam bam, but that's whatever. And

Laura Sinclair (04:25.538)
don't think that's whatever. I think I know why.

Monique Bryan (04:25.566)
I could start, it's like, break things every day. It's just what it is. Don't put anything expensive around me. And I was like, with this new tool, I now can run a business, like the things I would do, like in a, in a eight hour day, I can do like in 20 minutes. And I was like, I can iterate, I can create things. So when I saw that happening, I was like, I need to switch my positioning. I would hear online. And I started talking to AI a lot. Like it's my best.

business partner in the world because I had like no filter with it whatsoever. And it started to tell me what it knew about me out here in the world. And I was like, well, some of that's right. Some of that's old. How do I position myself now to be found as the new me? And that's what led me into this whole space of like AI visibility, which is the talk I was doing when we met because I was like, what I do never changed just how people discover you and what visibility is now is what has changed.

So that's what I have been diving into and loving and seeing like just it's insane to go and like put your name into one of the AI tools and see what it says about you or not. Like you don't exist. And then discovering that like the AI machines read you completely differently than Google or SEO. I was like, I never fully understood SEO like a hundred percent. I knew it was like search words and da da da, but I like really started to understand what we're doing today.

in what SEO is and discoverability and trying to get clicks and what the future is going to look like with AI machines and AEO, answer engine optimization, because we're just lazy beings where we're like, I don't need to go to Google and get 15 links. I'm going to go to my chat and it knows me better than I know myself. And it will just tell me what I need. So instead of 10 links on who to hire for this, it's like,

no, based on you, you're gonna wanna hire this person, right? And I'm like, that changes the game entirely. And I wanna be the one that shows up. So this is what I'm doing now, and I'm loving it.

Laura Sinclair (06:28.824)
I love it and I got so much out of your session and I haven't told you this yet. So I'm gonna tell you right now. I got a DM the other day on Instagram or threads. I don't know, one of the places I hang out. And the girl was like, hey, I put into chat GPT that I was looking for a podcast for mom entrepreneurs and I found yours and now I'm listening to it. And I was like, yes, the robots know me. Yes, I put in the practice, the things Monique said and I showed up. So.

Monique Bryan (06:33.87)
Woo!

Monique Bryan (06:50.229)
Yes.

Laura Sinclair (06:56.822)
That was a really exciting moment for me. But I think like that's just the reality. And you know what's funny for me? I am a former corporate marketer. So I've been in the marketing space for a while. And then I went into the online and went to online business. And now everyone's talking about AEO and wanting to make sure that the robots can find them. So people saying things like, blogs are coming back. They never left. They never left. We just all got so wrapped up in Instagram and virality on these.

Monique Bryan (07:21.389)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Sinclair (07:24.856)
different social media platforms that we forgot. Like there's actually people just organically looking for things and you probably want to show up in them. So I just find it so interesting as a marketer. Obviously it's a very different SEO to AEO, but it's so interesting that these conversations are coming back around. Or it's like, no, like you probably shouldn't just spend your whole time posting reels and on your Instagram stories when there is a myriad of other visibility tools available to you.

Monique Bryan (07:29.868)
and reading.

and reason.

Monique Bryan (07:51.148)
Yeah, and it also doesn't help you, it doesn't help AI to find you and recommend you. So it's one thing to find you, it's another thing to recommend you as the one. It's not gonna be able to do that from a bunch of clips, from a bunch of short form clips on Instagram or anything like that. That's just superficial, top of the cake. It likes to recommend, basically it's like AI wants to look good. It's number one job.

is to be helpful. That's why it gives you bullshit sometimes. That's why it always tells you everything you said with Chef's Kiss, Monique, right? It's job, like it wants you to feel good and it wants to look like it's the smartest person in the room. Like I helped you get there. So it needs to pull from depth. It needs to pull from a blog, a long form piece of content, whether that's a podcast, podcast notes, LinkedIn article.

or the blog, like I had to relaunch my blog. was like, Hey, if it is going to be pulling and looking for things that are different, that's what it's looking for. Something unique it could give to the person who's searching. So it looks good. It's like, well, this is a different train of thought. So I'm like telling everybody it's like, yes, we're going to do the things to help you be found through clarity and clarifying your, your, your title. But now how are you putting how you think out here online?

because that's really what's going to have you stand out from the rest.

Laura Sinclair (09:13.912)
Okay, let's get practical for a second because when we were in at the event, I think you said put your name in and see if you come up or ask a question specifically. So I was like, who's Laura Sinclair? And I asked it in a platform that it, I don't usually use, cause I didn't want to just ask my own because it would have been like, it's you idiot. But it gave me the correct answer and I was really happy about that. I was like, sweet. But then when I asked it about,

Monique Bryan (09:17.005)
Next.

Monique Bryan (09:24.398)
Thank

Monique Bryan (09:32.245)
Yeah.

Laura Sinclair (09:41.504)
mom entrepreneur support platforms in Canada, did this mother means business didn't come up and that sucked for me. was like, and so I know you sent me this is what you were teaching was how to come up, but I would love to start there. How would a person if we're not coming up right now, where can we start?

Monique Bryan (09:58.744)
Well, first things first is exactly that. It's go and ask a tool that you don't usually use, or you can open a temporary chat or an incognito window and put in your name, right? Definitely don't use it. Cause the same thing, if I open a chat, would be like, would give me everything it needs to know about me. Cause I've told it everything in the world. Like someone's trying to copy me, like duplicate me as as like clone me in reality. They can't, it's there. It's too late for me. So.

Laura Sinclair (10:17.845)
You'd like, I'm, look, I'm crushing it.

Laura Sinclair (10:24.034)
Yeah.

Monique Bryan (10:26.188)
Definitely do that first. Then the next thing you want to do is ask it if I was looking for someone to hire for and then put in your expertise or how you want to be found, see who comes up. If you don't come up, you're going to see other people that come up. And now you're like, that's the situation you're in. You're like, okay, well, why is that? And like in your case, we discovered like they've been, they have a lot more content out there online. So things that had come up were they have mentions like

mentions from media, other people putting their content out there. They probably have a lot of articles or blog posts. They've just been in the game consistently longer, right? So that's one thing. Definitely if you have a podcast, have a client who's like, she's had a podcast for nine years and like 25 % of her business now is coming from ChatGPT because...

The AI has like nine years of consistent, like she hasn't shifted or anything. It's like this, it's, she is a speaker coach, right? It can pull from that while she like, is like, this is like amazing, unprecedented. So the first thing you want to do is find out what other people would be searching for by putting in what you think they would be searching for. Then what you want to do. So I have an audit that I'm going to offer to your audience for free that they can go and do.

Laura Sinclair (11:46.136)
Amazing.

Monique Bryan (11:47.242)
And this is going to be the first step for them. So if you go to Monique Brian, that's brianwithay.com forward slash audit and put in this, what's the T T what is it? Thank you. That's the promo code I put in for it. Put that in and you will get it a hundred percent for free. And it's going to ask you just for your LinkedIn, your website, your probably your Instagram, like whatever your social that you're on.

Laura Sinclair (12:01.122)
The MMB.

Amazing.

Monique Bryan (12:15.03)
And you're going to in three minutes, it's going to tell you exactly where your authority is leaking online. And it's going to give you one thing to do to fix it. So that would be the first place to start. our, I'd say the second place to start after you have established, what am I coming up at all? Who else is coming up? Another thing I love to do is like, I, it's so interesting with titles, right? Like we give ourselves these titles. I've changed my titles so many times. It's a bit ridiculous. and even Claude has told me, Monique, I need you to move on.

like it literally said that to me and I was like, Claude, I pay you, I need you to calm down. Okay. So I like to really look at your title across every single platform because you'd be surprised how inconsistent they are or how we like to speak to our audience on Instagram one way threads, another way, wherever we are, like, we should cater to that audience. And listen, that's what I used to teach as a market. I'm like, it's a different audience. It should, your title should reflect the audience.

the platform you're on. But for AI machine, they're like, if I see five versions of you out here, I cannot confidently recommend you. And that's similar. If you think about it, it's exactly like just old school marketing. If somebody finds you in five different places with five different titles, they're like, well, I'm just going to go find someone who's more consistent so I feel safer about my decision. So definitely look at your titles. They should be consistent across the board. I know it's hard to like,

pick one, trust me, I know I love some marketing sauce, but that marketing spin so so saucy, make it saucy, right? But AI is like, I don't want no sauce, okay?

Laura Sinclair (13:48.332)
Your cute, saucy shit no longer apply.

Monique Bryan (13:52.354)
Yeah, they want fries, no ketchup. That's how they want it. Just fucking give it to me and stop trying to be cute with everybody else because nobody cares. So that is, it's a simple thing to do, but I do find it difficult to do that. So you're gonna wanna do that. And then you're going to want to do the audit because it's going to pull like all the different pieces of you online and be like, this is what's leaking. You think this is clear.

but this is more clear for the AI machines. That's what it's going to give you. And I had to do this for myself. Even before I went to go speak, I was like, you know what, let me run my audit on myself again. And that's what it said to me. They're like, you're good. And it scores you on five specific categories. So I was like, they're like, you're good at all these things except your title is still inconsistent across all. I was like, it's the same. They're like, no, your homepage has one thing, your LinkedIn is a little bit different, and your Instagram says something entirely.

I'm like, all right, you know what? Who am I to argue with the machine? It's fine. So you're definitely gonna wanna do that. And then the other thing you're gonna wanna do is like we were talking about blog posts, you're going to wanna write a POV, like long form piece of content, like something where you you put your stake in the ground around something inside of your industry that may be opposing, like an opposing view to what the rest of the people are saying in your industry. So something like, unlike other...

whatever in my business or in my industry, I believe X or I do things this way. That is what AI likes to pull from something different that they can, that doesn't sound like everybody else. And if you're struggling with that, who do you ask? You ask AI, hello. It's like, this is what I do. This is who I'm targeting. I really want to write some POV long form pieces of content. Let's talk about it. Make it controversial, make it inversive. Like I'm always like, make it controversial.

not because you're trying to be controversial, but because it's going to give you something that's a little bit less vanilla than what everybody else will be writing out here.

Laura Sinclair (15:58.572)
I love that. Do we know and are there stats and if they're not, that's okay, around like how, what percentage of people are using like chat, cloud, AI tools for search now versus Google?

Monique Bryan (16:13.034)
There, so Google is still number one. It is still number one significantly. had, I'm trying to see if the stats here on here. it said, no, but I was looking for the exact stat and really from mine is like through research, like having these conversations with people and they're like, no, I'm using chat more and more to look for the things that I, that I want. But there is a stat that says people who discover

Laura Sinclair (16:15.351)
Yeah.

Laura Sinclair (16:24.306)
to put you on the spot with the numbers.

Monique Bryan (16:43.054)
like the thing they want to buy through any of the chat LLMs converts higher at 13 % higher than somebody who's finding it through Google. So for me, that was enough. That was enough because it's like you're warming. It's like you've warmed up the sales runway. By the time they've come to buy, they already have what they need to know and that's their trusted source. It's like this chat knows me. It's fine. You know, as long as this person doesn't seem crazy, I'm probably going to hire them.

Laura Sinclair (16:54.968)
Yeah.

Monique Bryan (17:11.894)
And that's what's been happening with me. And that's why I was like, I didn't know people were using chat until somebody came on my discovery call and was like, no, I don't know you. Like I don't follow your Instagram. I'm like, you found me on my Instagram. Obviously. Yeah. They're like, she's like, no, I don't do any of that. I don't care. She's like, I looked for a personal brand strategist. I'm doing a rebrand for people showed up. They wrecked my chat, recommended four different people. I wanted a woman of color.

Laura Sinclair (17:24.44)
Where they all do.

Monique Bryan (17:40.45)
weirdly only two of you were and were on this call and like she hired me and like she'd already decided she tells me this later because we actually became really good friends I was like this is so perfect she's like no I already decided you were gonna be the one as long as you weren't like you know crazy and you seem like you knew you were doing I was like I would love everyone to come to my discovery call like that thank you yes

Laura Sinclair (17:56.973)
important.

Laura Sinclair (18:03.256)
That's great. mean, he doesn't want that. Okay, so talk to me about personal brain strategy. What does that mean? What does a personal brain strategist do exactly?

Monique Bryan (18:04.278)
I know!

Monique Bryan (18:13.378)
What do I do? Well, I don't know what everybody, I can't tell you what everybody else does. What I can do, because I've looked.

Laura Sinclair (18:15.608)
Well, we talked about the AI in showing up, but.

I don't care what everyone else says, I wanna know what you do.

Monique Bryan (18:23.15)
Specifically, I really look at how do we align your presence, your messaging in person or online? How do we align that with the opportunities that you say you want? That for me is key. And then so that is like such a big, there's a lot of pieces that go into that. So yes, there's the what you say, what you write, but then it's how you're being perceived. So sometimes you've got great,

marketing and all of that. And then you want these premium paying clients. Everybody wants higher paying clients, higher paying clients. You know, I don't I'm always like people are like, I don't want these people who want like her nickel and diming me all the time. Right. But they don't present a like a persona of somebody who makes money. It's this weird catch 22. It's like you've got to look the part in order for people to believe what's coming out of your mouth before you ever open your mouth. People have decided. And I heard this thing

long ago, like when I first first started my business that because I because I come from a fashion background. So I would be in design. It's very like I'm obsessed and also this industry is like one of the most judgmental industries. It's like the most cutthroat women I've ever met in my life. That's what I grew up in in my 20s. I didn't there wasn't the patriarchy like there was like no men in our in our entire

Laura Sinclair (19:30.136)
This makes so much sense now.

Laura Sinclair (19:50.488)
I started my career in PR, so not dissimilar.

Monique Bryan (19:52.384)
Okay, right. It's like from the CEO to all the buyers to the the founder, like everybody was a woman and they were freaking like, yeah, they're like, well, yeah, they're like taking no prisoners and they don't care that they're taking no prisoners. Right. So it was also very cliquey. Like it was like you buy you wear a certain thing or you wear are you like you have certain labels, you're like accepted in a certain way. You're part of the executive team. It's like it was all of these perks. So it was just like high school, but with grown human beings and paycheck.

Laura Sinclair (19:59.992)
They're mean.

Monique Bryan (20:22.222)
and private planes, it was just interesting. So because I came from that background, it's like embedded in me as well. And I think also just like growing up in a culture where like any African, like I grew up in an African household, but also like, but like my dad's Jamaican. It's like you look, you're supposed to look like you always have it together. Even if you don't, that's.

Like that's the standard. So I've always had that as a part of me. So what would happen is like, I fast forward to all the things I do in business. What was happening is even though we were, started as a business coach and as I was like helping people, was like, yeah, but you're like, I'm sorry. you, like you're like, you can't tell someone they look a hot mess express, but you need to be like, unfortunately, I don't find that your headshots are actually aligned with what you want to be charging.

That's what you actually say, right? And people just like, they just don't know and they don't think it's as important. And unfortunately, I know how important it is. And then I heard, I read this thing because I was like, how do I prove what I'm saying is correct? And there was this really great article somebody wrote and they were like, how this guy jumps on a bus and he doesn't know where he's going and he's asking for directions. And there are two people standing beside him, one that's in a suit and tie and one that looks like he just woke up from sleep.

So he asked the guy, he's like, okay, where's such and such street? And the guy who's in, you know, looked like he just woke up from a bad night was like, okay, you're gonna take the next three stops and then you're gonna get on the 92 and you're gonna go south. And then he looks at the guy with the tie and he's like, no, you're not gonna do that. He's like, don't do that. He's like, get off of the next two stops, take the 93 and go north. And he's like, this guy knows what he's talking about. He goes and he does what the guy did in the suit and he was a hundred percent wrong.

Laura Sinclair (22:12.322)
Mm.

Monique Bryan (22:12.514)
He just took it at face value because he looked like he knew what he was talking about. And I was like, this is personal branding guys. This is what business is. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in. So when I was explaining that on Instagram live, someone was like, know, when you call yourself a business coach, I really think you need to just own the personal branding space. And I was like, what's personal branding? Right. Like, so that's, that's how I came to be. And it just made, it just was aligned with all, you know how we do a lot of things in our lives and we're like,

prepared me for this moment. That's literally what happened. So that was a long-winded way of saying, like, I make sure that you look good and people want to actually buy from you and recommend you to all their friends.

Laura Sinclair (22:45.057)
I love that.

Laura Sinclair (22:52.962)
And are we doing that through like actual styling? are we doing this through? What's the mechanism that we're using?

Monique Bryan (22:57.55)
So styling, we did in my consultancy for a long time because it's something I can't get away from, but it always starts with your messaging. Like I always like to actually start with the sole part of why you do what you do. So I like to say like, if you were to leave this planet tomorrow and you had one sentence to leave for your legacy, what would it be? And that really brings people around. Like it takes out all the minutia of like, I'm building this thing to get to the next thing, or I'm doing this now to get to the next thing. It's like, what?

impact you really want to leave, right? And what do you really want to be doing? Like if money and time and circumstance were not an issue and now people are sharing their big dreams and I believe like you are like I like to operate with people as their future self. So whatever they are in that moment, there's nothing wrong with it. But if you know this is just a stepping stone for where you actually want to be, it's like we don't need to wait for that. Let's just be that now. So that means

you, whatever you need to do to be that, look that, feel that, then we do that. So if it is styling, we bring in a stylist. I mean, it's funny I bring in stylists, but then I also boss and tell them what to do. Every stylist knows already, like the ones I work with, tell them upfront. like, I'm really sorry. I'm going to like totally get on your nerves because I like once I've taken on a client, they become a part of me. They're my brand now. So.

Laura Sinclair (24:10.092)
I'm sure that stylist has so much autonomy.

Laura Sinclair (24:24.012)
Yeah.

Monique Bryan (24:25.684)
Nothing gets, I just, I'm uncontrolled. Right? So if it's the wardrobe, if it's how you're going to show up on stage, how you want to show up on your Zoom calls, that might be a piece of it, but it's what are you saying? What stages are you showing up on? Are you writing a book? Okay, great. What do we need to do business wise to align your audience for that time that comes? What do you need to be talking about? How does that now impact like your content pillars? Right? All of those pieces.

are part of the bigger picture. And then there's also like your associations. So that's like, know, when people are like your network is your network and whatever it's like, yes. And your relationships as we know is, like gold, but you want to be in rooms and around people and associated in the same conversation with people who are like, you could quote unquote sit on the shelf with. So they're like, okay, you know, you're at a, I was like, you're at a store and you have a choice between

this bag and this bag. Are you one of those options or are you on the bottom of the shelf where you're not even considered? Right. And this is something that in life, you know, you'll see somebody at an event. I'm like this. I'll see somebody at an event with somebody I'd really admire. And I'm like, how did she get there? What are you doing? When was that event? And I'm like looking it up. Right. And I've had clients say, you know, and I hired you. I didn't even know what personal branding was, but I saw you at these events with these people. And I was like, my God, I want to be in those rooms too.

It's like association, like we really underestimate how that impacts people's impression of us. So you want to be in rooms, you want to be building relationships. think podcasting is such a great way to do that. I met some of my best relationships being like, Hey, you want to be my podcast? It just opens so many doors. And then it's the same thing with AI. Now it's start, it is scraping the internet for where your name is mentioned with other people.

Laura Sinclair (26:09.698)
same.

Monique Bryan (26:21.742)
who are also at the level that you want to be at, right? So everything, whether it's AI or whether it was here or not, the same principles still apply. So we do all of it. It's strategy, one-on-one, styling, if you need it, but it's really like, let's make sure your online presence speaks exactly how you like it to be speaking. So if you are not in the room, it is very clear who you are, and it's undeniable that you should be chosen.

Laura Sinclair (26:52.406)
Oof. Undeniable that you should be chosen. mean, who doesn't want that? And by chosen we mean hired. Paid.

Monique Bryan (26:57.806)
I don't

hired for whatever that could be. Because sometimes it's just being chosen to even be in a room, right? Like being invited. I know a lot of women entrepreneurs are like, how did I miss that? Or how do you get invited to those things? And I've talked to a lot of founders, especially in this last year, because I'm curious myself. There's people that you know, but then there's rooms that you still want to be in. And those aren't.

necessarily open invitations. They're not closed. They're just unknown because they don't know you. Right. So the only way for them to do that is for you to put yourself out there. but also form relationships that are not just, you know, one way where like you're trying to get something or pick somebody's brain or, know, it's like form real genuine relationships. Cause I really feel, especially today, like we're craving it. We need it. And that's why I love what you do. Like mom's girl.

moms and entrepreneur women who are moms. I didn't know. I have a three and a half year old. So I was in the dark for very long what moms were dealing with. And I really didn't understand it. And I didn't actually sympathize. I'm sorry. Like I didn't get why COVID happened. All these kids are like on the Zoom call while we're doing our group calls during COVID. I'm like, guys, like this is too much. And now all my clients laugh at me. They're like, we love this on you because literally I had a Mari Holmes thing for two days. He's like,

Laura Sinclair (28:07.734)
No, I mean, I was the same before I had kids.

Laura Sinclair (28:22.046)
and you don't know until you know, you just don't. And I was the same. I I think about my 20-year-old brutal self in my corporate job with my boss who was a single mom and being like, must be nice that she gets to come to work late and leave early. Must be nice. Like, that was literally the thought that I had. Like, I know. Like, that is...

Monique Bryan (28:25.986)
That's it.

Monique Bryan (28:43.294)
my god. What must be nice is like, it is like venom, honestly. my god, it's so bad.

Laura Sinclair (28:51.032)
It's horrible that I ever had that thought, but like you just you just don't get it until you get it. And like it is it is what it is. And it's I always love when people get angry about it on the Internet, especially on threads, people get angry about this. Like, just don't understand it yet. You don't. That's the point. Or people say anyone that says that if you're a mom and you should only work with business mentors that are mom, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'm like, girl, you can think that. Go ahead.

Monique Bryan (28:59.33)
Yeah, that's what happened.

Monique Bryan (29:17.024)
No. Yeah.

Laura Sinclair (29:20.04)
You go ahead and think that, but like, you can learn, I think you can learn skills from people that don't understand your life circumstance. I think that's fine. Like if you want to go and learn a specific skill, you want to learn how to use AI, you want to learn how to copyright, you want to learn how to run ads, like go, go for it. But if you want someone to like actually understand your life on a human level, like you cannot work with someone that doesn't understand what it's like to be you for even a minute.

Monique Bryan (29:46.357)
112%. I can't agree more.

Laura Sinclair (29:46.488)
Just can't, I get fired up about it. There is one more AI thing that I wanna talk about. And it's something that you're really good at. And we were talking about, we obviously know moms, moms are busy. We got a lot on our plates. We're using AI for some things. We talked about using it for, for AEO. But what are some of the ways that we can also use AI to make our lives easier and save us time in our businesses?

Monique Bryan (30:10.914)
Well, I don't want to make this a chat versus Claude conversation because I'm actually, I'm not attached to either tool, but I will say chat was already helping me a lot of my business and Claude has transformed my business because it has the abilities to do work for me. So if you want to save time, if anyone is like, well, I don't know, Claude, you can like, literally you can learn exactly what it needs to do in like 20 minutes, if that. And

I'm a big like, what I love about AI is that it never, I never feel dumb asking you a question and back. can't say that in every group program ever. I'm like, Oh, I'm just going to wait to somebody else. Maybe I'll ask it. Maybe I won't ask it, but I just ask it. Like, this is what I tell it. This is what I do. This is where I'm struggling. And I talked to it. Oh, if I can't, if I don't have to type anything, I'll never type again. Um, so I use, there's a app called whisper. don't know if you use it. Love it.

Laura Sinclair (30:48.536)
Yeah.

Laura Sinclair (30:55.828)
You talk to it, right? You don't type it. You don't have your talk.

Laura Sinclair (31:05.046)
No.

Monique Bryan (31:06.924)
Yeah. So I was on a, on somebody's masterclass. Yeah. And she was like, whisper and it's free. You can pay to upgrade, but it's you download it to your desktop. I think they even have it on your phone. You can download it, but you just press a button. Like I think it's like on Mac, it's like an F whatever. And then you just talk, you just hold it down until you're finished speaking. So it's literally like, you're just like, that's how I talk. Like my brain is very ADHD. Like I'm, there's no linear.

Laura Sinclair (31:10.232)
gonna write it down.

Monique Bryan (31:35.66)
There's nothing linear about what I say. And it will tell you based on what you do, based on, you know, what your bottlenecks are. This is how you sound like. I'll even tell it like I'm like ADHD brain. I said, I don't like to get caught in the minutia. I'm a Colby five, eight, two, nine. I'm an Enneagram this I'm a manifesto generator. I was like, I'm a mom to a three and a half year old. I'm a wife. I'm an entrepreneur. I fired all my team.

I was like, nobody, I was like, I don't like to manage people. Like I just went on and on and on and on. And I was like, this is what I need. And it's like, okay. And I was like, now tell me the best way to use you as a tool. So Claude Cowork is like, you know, the thing everybody's talking about now because it can do work on your behalf. It only works on desktop. But if you literally go to like Claude Cowork, you can set it up to do things for you, schedule. So my schedule task,

Every morning I do a daily briefing and I got this off of YouTube. Anything you want to learn, you can learn on YouTube anyways, by the way. mean, everyone's like, take this course for like 40. I'm like, it's on YouTube for free. It's a hundred percent free all the time. And this guy was talking about his daily briefing and I was like, daily briefing. I was like, I'd love for someone to tell me every day, like I'm reading my own newspaper. It tells me I'm like, there are three specific things in AI I want to know about. I want to know what's going on in AEO, what's going on with OpenAI, what's going on with Anthropic and what's going on with Loveable. Cause these are the tools I use the most.

Laura Sinclair (32:33.025)
It's so true.

No, it's free somewhere else, I promise. Yep.

Monique Bryan (32:57.548)
I'm like, and I want to use it for content. was like every single morning run that scrape the internet, bring me three really key articles. Then I want you to bring up my sales tracker, which it built for me in notion, cause it can connect your notion. can connect your Google. It can connect your schedule. It can connect your calendar. And then I'm like, pull up my sales tracker tracker. Who should I be speaking to? where am I on par to my goals? And I need you to tell me who I'm speaking to today.

because if it's not in the calendar, literally my brain does not know it exists. So it'll be like, today you have a podcast interview with Laura, Laura Sinclair, this is who she is. This is what she does. This is what you're going to talk about. I was like, where's the intake form? What did I say I wanted to talk about? This is what you said Monique. These are the points you're going to want to hit. Don't forget to talk about your audit. I'm like every morning, 6 a.m. it runs. As long as your computer's on, it runs. And it's changed the game. Like I feel like super executive. I got like three screens now.

Laura Sinclair (33:56.408)
Yeah.

Monique Bryan (33:56.782)
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, you can't stop me.

Laura Sinclair (34:00.024)
I've got, have, I had, I was, it used to be a laptop and a second screen person, and now I'm a desktop person. Now I need to get my screen back. I'm going to have to get my cloud cowork going. I just taught myself how to use Claude design in like 90 minutes. And I'm like, whoo, it's crazy. And, but I did the same thing. I asked Claude, how do I set up? But I'm a typer and now I'm regretting that I need to use whisper and be a talker. Cause that would be way faster. But.

Monique Bryan (34:08.462)
Oh yeah, you need muscle, you need to be like...

Girl.

Monique Bryan (34:27.07)
you can tie it if you like it however you want to do it.

Laura Sinclair (34:28.854)
No, don't like it, though. I really don't. I need to talk. just I'm a little bit. I'll be honest, like I'm kind of a tech grandma. Like I understand it. Like I know that it can do these things, but actually pushing the buttons and like figuring out where to push. I don't know. I really want to be better at it. It's just I'm a little clunky this way. Anyway, I'm going to take this is my takeaway from our conversation is talk to Claude. But I just asked it, how do I set up my Claude design? How would I how would I use this to create, you know,

Monique Bryan (34:52.024)
Talk to you

Laura Sinclair (34:58.168)
social content, whatever I was looking to do, built my whole design backend. I did this in 90 minutes, whole design backend, was working on a bunch of content, pulling some stuff from old podcast transcripts and being like, turning this into like carousels. And it literally created graphics. Like I will never use Canva again. Love Canva, but won't be using you.

Monique Bryan (35:16.718)
Same. I was creating in this, like Claude design just dropped on Friday. So before that I was creating a graph. You are early adopter. You are an early adopter. And thank goodness it did because Claude was doing pretty good graphics for me, just regular Claude co-work. It was creating stuff. What I love about it is it creates edible stuff. That was the key thing that wasn't happening with GBT. It's like, I need to be able to put little edits on things if I need to.

Laura Sinclair (35:22.472)
Look how tech savvy I am. Look how good I'm doing. I'm an early adopter. I'm so proud.

Laura Sinclair (35:34.679)
Yes.

Monique Bryan (35:46.222)
And it wasn't able to do that. now it can, it, you know, export says the PDF and you can go and edit it. Yes. Yes.

Laura Sinclair (35:50.774)
Yeah, you can export it right into Canva. Did you know that? Yes, I've just been telling it to make the changes that I want it to make. I say, just do this, change this, because I like to be bossy. But you can export it right into Canva, which is crazy. I'm such a baby beginner. like, we're the crazy thing, Monique, is like, we're just on the cusp of this. And I think, you know, to your point earlier, but like, whether you love it or hate it, listen, friends, adapt or die.

Monique Bryan (35:59.5)
I do. Yeah. Cause like, would you do it? Yeah.

It's my list.

Monique Bryan (36:17.634)
Well, you at least need to understand what you're up against, right? Like you need to understand. One of the questions I ask it at least once a month is how do I future proof my business? How do I future proof my career? Because it has predictability features that knows kind of what's coming, even though we really don't know. Like if we could have this conversation a month from now and we will still say we're on the cusp, we'll have it a year from now and we'll still be like, and we're just discovering what it can do, right?

Laura Sinclair (36:18.488)
It's like, yeah, you do.

Laura Sinclair (36:27.436)
Yes. Love that. Yeah.

Laura Sinclair (36:36.6)
Yeah.

Laura Sinclair (36:43.702)
No, I just like, especially if you're a mom building a business, like, I don't know how you like if you choose to not learn it, I saw you. Was it you that was talking about Reese Witherspoon? How you were like, agree. I how dear I mean, listen, this this moment that we're in, we're just talking about emigre and Reese Witherspoon, we're attacking Alex Cooper. Like, I don't know why we're in the season of attacking women on the internet. Like, let's can we just stop? Can we just mind our business and let people be there be themselves? Just do you. But I do think that it's like really important to learn this.

Monique Bryan (36:53.647)
yeah. How dare they do that to Reece?

Monique Bryan (37:08.11)
was just talking to him and...

Laura Sinclair (37:12.428)
whether you want to or not, because this is where we're going. And there is a reality for a lot of women-owned businesses, truly, where their businesses are in jeopardy because of what these tools can do. And I think that if you choose to not learn because you don't want to or because, it's competitive, quote unquote, maybe competitive with what you do, I think you're going to get left behind. really do think that, like, I say adapt or die, and, I mean it. Like, figure it out. Figure out how to use it to your business. Like, you know, to your point, you're like, now I'm using AI.

Monique Bryan (37:24.878)
100%.

Monique Bryan (37:37.582)
know, but that's...

Laura Sinclair (37:42.594)
help my personal branding clients makes total sense. You for me, I'm like, how can I use AI to help the women in my community, the women that are listening to the show, to make their lives easier, to create simplicity for them so that they can be more profitable, they can have more time with their families, like all of these things are relevant. And like, I'm just grateful for this conversation of people like you who want to learn this stuff and then teach other teach other people. But I just think it's so important.

Monique Bryan (38:07.746)
Yeah, but even as moms, like, our kids are gonna grow up in a complete, like, I'm, I'm like also.

Laura Sinclair (38:12.642)
My daughter knows what chat GPT is. She's eight. She's like, mom, just use chat GPT. I'm like, that's wild that you even know what that is.

Monique Bryan (38:18.158)
Well, that's why, like, as parents, we should know what they're using. We should understand how they're using and how it could get them in trouble. Like, that's a whole nother conversation that really should... If you don't want to use it for you, that's one thing, but use it so you're educated, so you don't get blindsided when something happens with your kids. And nobody's... I got one. And Mama Bear, Lion Bear, Monique is not playing around. So as smart as he thinks he is, just because he's three and he can speak in full sentences and tell me, God, Monique, Mom, that doesn't make sense.

Laura Sinclair (38:26.882)
Yeah. I know that's a follow-up episode.

Monique Bryan (38:48.44)
How dare you say that to me? Well, we did teach you my name the other day, but because it's harder to say, he still calls me mom, but he does call Cory, Cory. Cory's dad, that's dad to you, right?

Laura Sinclair (38:49.558)
I hope he doesn't call you Monique.

Yeah.

Hehehehehe

That is your father. Be nice. No, I get bro sometimes. Bro, and I'm like, I'm not your bro. I'm I'm an eight year old. Yeah, bro. No, no, no, no, mom. Mom, mama, mommy, somewhere in there. Sometimes Laura, if she thinks I'm not listening. I'm listening, I just don't, I'm not in the mood to hear you right now.

Monique Bryan (39:08.43)
From your, seriously? No, no, no, no, no.

Monique Bryan (39:23.192)
Fresh, no first names. You're not gonna get no first names. He gets away with it because he's three. You keep getting older, I'm telling you. The respect, not gonna happen.

Laura Sinclair (39:25.366)
No. No.

Laura Sinclair (39:30.06)
Yeah, it's okay, buddy. You and I can chat forever. There's been so much gold in this episode. And I think really an invitation for women to start thinking about how we're using AI to get more visible, to make sure that we're being seen and then also to make our lives easier. I know there's so much that we could have talked about and so much more that you know and can share. And how can our listeners learn more from you? Where can we find you?

Monique Bryan (39:54.094)
to my world. Instagram is where I am the most right now. Monique Brian underscore co because Monique Brian was taken and that's Brian with a Y. Definitely go and take that audit and you will come on to my list and I will share all other amazing tools and I love to test things on my audience. So like come on down, show me what your audit says and you might win a little something.

Laura Sinclair (40:19.768)
Ooh, I love it. And they have to use code TMMB to access the audit. Gorgeous.

Monique Bryan (40:22.262)
Yes, exactly. Well, they can access it. They just won't get it for free unless they use your code. Yeah. And then for free, get it for free. and then come listen to the podcast. I relaunched my podcast. It's called Who Knows You? Like, who knows you? And it's all about what we're talking about right now. It's like, what does visibility really look like for entrepreneurs going forward for the future and how do we protect ourselves?

Laura Sinclair (40:25.76)
Well, use the code, get it for free. We'll put it in the show notes for our listeners to check it out.

Laura Sinclair (40:37.398)
Who knows you? love that. Cool.

Laura Sinclair (40:47.2)
Love that. I love the title. Who knows you? We'll link that to the show notes too so our listeners can check that out. Monique, thank you for coming and sharing your energy and your magic and your wisdom with us.

Monique Bryan (40:54.978)
Laura, I love you so much. Thank you. I appreciate you letting me share with your audience.

Laura Sinclair (40:57.25)
Thank you. Absolutely. And thank you for listening. We will see you on the next episode.