The Business Lounge Podcast with Kimberly Ann Jimenez
Welcome to The Business Lounge Podcast! Each week we'll share proven marketing strategies to help you build an audience of buyers, create impactful content, and grow a profitable business without compromising on your values with your host, Kimberly Ann Jimenez!
Kimberly is an Online Marketing Strategist, Educator, Founder and Thought Leader in the online marketing industry.
Having worked with 33K+ small business owners & entrepreneurs across an array of industries over the past decade, Kimberly and her business partner Chris Harris are obsessed with helping you level up your marketing game, and grow your bottom line.
They co-lead their flagship program, The Business Lounge, which teaches business owners & entrepreneurs like you how to navigate the confusing & often overwhelming world of online marketing and build an unapologetically profitable business on your own terms (and without compromising your faith, your family or your freedom).
Join us at kimberlyannjimenez.com/businesslounge!
The Business Lounge Podcast with Kimberly Ann Jimenez
EP0: Biggest Shifts in Online Business...What you need to know!
Introducing "Sip and Spill" – Where We Break Down the Realities of Online Business ☕️💬
The online business world is shifting FAST, and we’re here to spill all the tea. After building multiple seven-figure businesses since 2012, we've seen trends come and go. But the rise of AI and shifts in the course creation space? This isn't just another trend—it’s a game-changer. Selling information alone isn’t enough anymore. Your audience craves transformation, community, and hands-on support.
In this episode, we’re breaking down why DIY courses are struggling, the rise of high-touch offers, and why authenticity matters more than ever. If you're a course creator, coach, or service provider, don’t miss this! Stay tuned for unfiltered, practical insights.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
✨ Text Me - Text 'tblplus' to (866) 498-2080 & ask me questions directly about TBL+ Group Coaching & whether it's right for you. :)
MORE FREE RESOURCES
📅 Download The FREE Content Calendar Template:
http://thecontentcalendartemplate.com/
📔 Download The FREE Success Path: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/success-path/
📈 Sign Up for our FREE Profitable Content Class: http://profitabilityclass.com
📽️ Watch our FREE Content Creation Class: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/content-class/
WORK WITH US:
✨ Join The Business Lounge Waitlist: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/businesslounge/
📌 Work With Kim & Chris 1:1: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/tblc-waitlist/
✨ Grab The Content Calendar Playbook: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/content-calendar-playbook/
✨ The Prosper Plan: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/the-prosper-plan/
Hit us up on Instagram and tell us your biggest takeaway from the show!
✅ Kim: @kimannjimenez
✅ Chris: @heycmh
✅ The Business Lounge: @thebusinessloungeco
Go to ContentToCustomers.co & enter code 'Blueprint' for $90 off your 3-day workshop seat!
Y'all welcome back to the Business Knowledge Podcast. I am your co-host, camilla Jimenez, and I got Mr Christopher Michael Harris in the house.
Speaker 2:Technically your host and I'm co-hosting. You're oh, is that we're not co-host, co-host? We're. I guess we're co-manager and co-manager.
Speaker 1:Co -manager.
Speaker 2:The office. People will get that. I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. So listen y'all. This is a different kind of episode. We're super excited. This is like episode zero in our new season.
Speaker 2:You've been promoted to co-manager.
Speaker 1:I have been promoted to co-manager Demoted, but listen, it is so exciting because Chris is here with me. We have decided based on popular demand. We asked you guys last year if you would like for us to come on here and talk about the economy, culture, things that are making big impacts in the online space AI, how things are shifting, because there's just so much going on with online business right now, and you said absolutely yes. So we are right now delivering on that promise and launching a brand new segment within the Business Knowledge Podcast, called Sip and Spill S and spill sip and spill which I love the reason.
Speaker 2:Okay so, but they gotta say the reason right. So there is kind of I wanted to build some momentum and some anticipation anticipation and you're like you gotta tell the reason, tell them okay, so the the reason is so one we we said something in the business lounge a while ago inside of the the membership. Yeah, um, we said we're like we're gonna spill the tea and everybody's like, oh, I'm always here for the tea, so whenever we talk about things that are juicy, everybody gets really excited about it.
Speaker 1:So we're like okay, cool, yeah, plus kim's a big tea drinker.
Speaker 2:I'm a big coffee drinker, so it just kind of like would it played a double meaning here. So we got our mugs, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do we clink?
Speaker 2:Clink, coke, you owe me a coffee. Jinx, you owe me a coffee. Jinx you owe me a Coke. What am I saying?
Speaker 1:I don't know, because you're in the Sippin' Spill Show.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So on this side you'll see the well. We haven't talked about the new logo. We're gonna talk. We're gonna talk about it and then, on this side, our, our go-to motto get it done get it done get it done it's gonna be fun, y'all.
Speaker 1:We're going to break down some of the hottest trends in online business and talk about the real stuff. I think we're gonna get real. Show you guys kind of behind the scenes of um, all the stuff we talk about with our clients that they're constantly telling us this needs to be a public podcast.
Speaker 2:It's true and so we're finally making it happen yeah so I'm excited, let's get into it yep, all right, cool, let's talk about the live event live event yeah, so we shared the video hold up, hold up.
Speaker 1:Do we need to go back to why we're partnered, because I don't think we made an announcement about any. Yeah, we do get some messages People are so confused.
Speaker 2:Some people get extremely upset. Yes, they're like so. It's really bizarre to me because They'll send me hate mail. Legitimately, or they'll send in all caps, they'll send a testimonial. But it's like I love Kim and I love what Kim says. I know and I love that Kim gives good advice. Yes, I know and I love that Kim gives good advice and it's like okay, we get it. You don't like that. I'm here, I'm not the only one that's new to the team or Brian or Brian yeah.
Speaker 2:So what's crazy? To me, though, that makes no sense at all is like Kim and I have been basically unofficial partners since 2012.
Speaker 1:Yes, like for real. This is our second like seven figure startup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so figure startup. Yeah, so we've run three businesses together. So we, kim and I, started dating in the end of 2011. Yeah, uh, within like two months, I'm like, hey, I hate my job and she's like you should quit it. And I'm like you're right. And so by that was like November, we started dating by, I think, january, I quit my job crazy kids yeah, really stupid.
Speaker 2:No plan whatsoever, but I had been working on this side hustle. It was a moving business that my brother and I started from our college apartment, yeah, and so I had some traction. We had made I don't know. I think one summer we made like 20 grand as a side hustle. It was pretty solid and Kim's like you should just go for it. You're unhappy in your job, this is whatever. And at the time I'm in entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to school for marketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's studying dietetics Nothing like that.
Speaker 1:I'm in dietetics, nutrition, wellness. That was my passion and so I was like, okay, if I am going to see my boyfriend, I got to be a part of this company because he's obsessed. He's obsessed with it, and so that's how I got into social media and doing content and we need to do a whole episode about our story. Yeah, I was telling people.
Speaker 2:The highlight I was telling one of our clients, uh, in group coaching. I was telling nadine like for the live event. She was here. I was telling her the moving company stories and she's like my mom, this can't be real, it's just crazy stuff that happened.
Speaker 2:But anyway, the point of that was that kim quickly jumped into what I was doing and she was doing our marketing and she was crushing, and that's how she got into marketing, yeah right, and no one said boo, no one said, oh, she's taking over the company, she, she can't do it. He can't do it on his own are you salty, chris?
Speaker 2:you sound a little salty, because it's ridiculous it's like no one assumed that they're like oh, how cute your girlfriend's helping you, but here's the thing she helped me we grew to multiple seven figures. And then I. So we weren't doing that business anymore and I was like figuring out what my next play was and I was like, well, I was playing around in the tech space here in Austin and I was, you know, kind of like interviewing some people, did the podcast, just kind of kicking stuff around.
Speaker 1:A pretty big podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're just like oh, the podcast, basically all our sharks on it, some very notable names.
Speaker 2:well, anyway, continue so meanwhile, kim's exploding the marketing thing that she had started literally 10 plus years ago at this point. Right, yeah, and she got to the point where, once you hit scale, you need team yeah, I need to.
Speaker 1:I need to tell that part of the story because people are gonna hate on you. Okay, just for telling it. Yeah, just just for telling it along. You take it from here am.
Speaker 2:No, you're right, she can't even tell a story herself.
Speaker 1:I know People are crazy, man. Here's the thing. Chris is trying to defend me right now because for the most part, what people always assume is like, oh, she couldn't. They literally will send us emails. She couldn't do it on her own, she had to bring her husband. I thought she was successful and so when I was a part of your company?
Speaker 2:no one. That's why she had to bring somebody to help her no one, no one said that about me no but now that you're here, everyone like downplays, like what have I achieved? What I have achieved and you get very protective over that, which is really sweet, and I love you for it but you're good most of the time.
Speaker 1:You're the one who tries to defend me, and then you get more hate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true.
Speaker 1:But the reality is I had gone to a point in the business where I was so overwhelmed I was having panic attacks I was crying. How many times did I come to you crying Just because like this is too much, like I can't?
Speaker 2:handle it. She was running a multiple seven-figure operation with a bunch of VAs in the Philippines. That's not feasible.
Speaker 1:It was too much and we finally got to the point where we were, like we prayed about it and felt like God was really calling us to come together and stop trying to build separate things that were so aligned Because, guys, we were sharing customers Everyone who was your customer was in TBL. Everyone who who was your customer was in the t in tbl everyone who was in tbl was like in startup uh books, which was one of the memberships you were running you were coaching and it was like why are we building two coaching businesses?
Speaker 1:this doesn't make sense. So, as we were pivoting, it made a lot of sense for us to partner, and we didn't know what that looked like at the beginning, so we didn't announce it or talk about it publicly.
Speaker 2:Also, I was very sick and we'll talk about that later, but anyway, but one of the main things we realized was that and this may be the case for many of you we're going to talk about that like doing business either with your spouse or supporting your spouse is doing business, because both are completely different dynamics. But for us, I think we realized one of my biggest mistakes in business, and I'm happy that it happened the way it did now, because everything works out for a reason. It was part of God's plan. But in the moving business Kim and I I mean what we did doesn't happen often.
Speaker 2:We went from launch as a full-time venture to a seven-figure plus company within 36 months, like that's insane in a blue-collar industry in one of the poorest counties in the state of georgia yeah you know, like that doesn't happen, and we were in our I mean, kim was early 20s, I was mid-20s. We had no outside funding. It's like we raised a bunch of venture capital no, we were broke. We were more than broke because we were in debt, because college yeah, I mean, we were literally like okay, are we gonna like eat today, are we gonna like do laundry?
Speaker 1:at the laundromat, because it can't be both.
Speaker 2:And even when Kim was pitching her first marketing clients, I think I spent like my last 19 of my $22 to get my portfolio together.
Speaker 1:I was at the FedEx Kinko's. I still have it, guys.
Speaker 2:I mean it was amazing. So she printed out and I'm like it has to be laminated, it has to be bound, it has to look legit.
Speaker 1:Because you're such a sales person and I love you for it.
Speaker 2:But you never go to a meeting without leaving them with something. It's true, right? Because otherwise you're just another person that had a meeting. Like you want to leave an impression, and so I knew that and I was like this is going to be thousands of dollars monthly, over 19 bucks. It doesn't make sense to not do it, and so, but when you only have $22, no-transcript, but thank you.
Speaker 1:I don't know how great of a boyfriend. What an ROI, though. No crazy. What an ROI.
Speaker 2:But I did at some point tell Kim after that first year in business and we started to experience some massive growth, I was like quest for marketing to stay here, you need to like start your own business, and I kind of like you kicked me out lovingly. But we've always wanted to protect the relationship.
Speaker 1:It's true.
Speaker 2:And that was always at the heart of all of it, until we realized candidly that you were like spaghetti to my meatball.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, Like you're so cute, seriously, we're so complimentary and many I think of you are running a business and maybe your husbands or your wives, like that is the case, and I think we we we really failed to pray about it that time and be like how can this work? How can we protect the relationship and still tap into something? Because clearly there was something there, yeah, and I think also, like there's seasons for everything.
Speaker 1:First of all, I would not be at all an entrepreneur if it wasn't for this guy like this is the person who literally pushed me and encouraged me, like you were like, relentlessly encouraging me, yeah, but like demonstratively you're like you have to do this, you have to do social media. I'm like, no, I I don't know enough, I don't know what you're talking about. How am I going to do this for their clients? I would be so scared. And you're like no, you can do it. You can do it. People are asking about it. You need to just do it. Just post some videos, just figure it out.
Speaker 1:I got you and constant, constant support. Remember, like, even in my wildest dreams would I ever be able to replace my corporate job with, with my social media agency? But then you were like, no, you can make multiple six figures. And then, when I got to that, you're like, no, you can make multiple seven figures. And now you're like we can run a hundred100 million company a year. Like this guy, guys, like, for all the ladies who are single, you need to find yourself a godly man who believes in who you are and what your potential is, when you're not showing any of it, because I was like the shyest, most scared little girl ever and you were like you can do it, you got this, you got this, so it wouldn't happen.
Speaker 2:It's, um, it's interesting because it's a similar dynamic we see now with a lot of our clients where, uh, we have to coach men and women differently. It's true, men, I have to beat him with a two by four, like most men. I just, I just do, I mean my husband's very blunt, so men are just like. Sometimes they hire you and you're like why did? Did you hire me, bro? Like clearly you already know everything.
Speaker 1:Because they question everything.
Speaker 2:And it's like, oh, I already did that, bro. Like, oh, I got. And it's like, no, you don't got it, you wouldn't be here, you wouldn't have just paid me all this money. Like, clearly you don't got it, you know. So you have to kind of like either that or you.
Speaker 1:Um, so what's the sound again? Okay, that's right, I'll listen to you now. Now that I'm bankrupt, my family can't eat. Y'all are seeing like our every day.
Speaker 2:This is how we talk to each other, so women, women, mostly right I'm speaking obviously very stereotypically, but largely generalities that are true that we found over and over and over again, it's the confidence thing with women.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's confidence for me, women will say things like I trust you guys, I feel safe um you know, so it's confidence we encourage, encourage yeah so for me and I say it with all love about beating men with a two by four because I was that bro like kim should have beaten with a two by four, because I got us in a lot of trouble with doing crazy stuff. That led me to do all kinds of crazy stuff. I mean literally stories you wouldn't even believe in, the movie.
Speaker 1:We'll tell them, we tell them on the show. You've got to stay tuned, you've got to subscribe and you've got to stay tuned. No rabbit holes, no rabbit holes.
Speaker 2:I could write a book about two years of my life. I could write an entire book about the craziest things you've ever heard in a startup business, but anyway, so all that to say, kim will keep me grounded, right, kim will keep me being like yes, like yes, I know you're gonna achieve this and grow this company 100 million dollars, but in the meantime, like, can we have a home? Like can we have food on the table?
Speaker 1:like not now at the beginning, at the beginning right because men were crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, like, live under a bridge to pursue our dream because you're hunters and we're hunters and we've been talking about that a lot like women are nesters and men are hunters. And the problem is with women. They need that confidence because they're you guys to protect the nest and I think that's intrinsically who you are, and it's great that you are that way. Yeah, and men are like buffalo, go hunt buffalo and like that's all we see. You know, it's like we got to go get it.
Speaker 1:Totally and that's why I love, like the female, like you know, energy that's very nurturing and, you know, very encouraging. But I love the male energy too, because it balances it out, because men will be like no, this is what's possible for you, like go get it Right. And I know that's going to offend a bunch of people and like listen, don't leave me hate comments. Leave me hate comments Cause it's just going to push this episode more, but this is a reality. Okay, like stop with the crazy sensitivity.
Speaker 2:We've worked with thousands of people and this has been universally almost always the case.
Speaker 1:And it's beautiful because it's complimentary right. Like men usually are risk takers and women we like to protect and oftentimes in entrepreneurship, we coach mostly women, Some men. We're bringing in some dudes now, which is great.
Speaker 2:The bro-hort.
Speaker 1:The bro-hort, but mostly women, and so we have to constantly like challenge them right, like you could do this, like go take a risk, go invest, because you're full of potential and you just need to believe in yourself a little bit more.
Speaker 2:And then they blow up unbelievable it's like me men are untapped, men are unbridled like yeah just tasmanian devil potential, and that was me right. It was like I don't know but.
Speaker 2:But I got a bunch of energy. You know like I remember one weekend I called Kim from the office Again, moving company stories we'll get into later today but I was like I'm going to write a book this weekend and I'm going to sell the book and then I'm going to use the book to fund the business and it's like that. But at the time it just was. So it's like why don't you go get another move, bro, like you're a moving company, like that would make you way more money. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We have to focus y'all's energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's the lack of focus and clarity and like, but the energy and the pursuit is always there.
Speaker 1:It's just a matter of getting a little bit straight and narrow. So, anyways, established the business. The problem is you weren't front-facing, you had your own brand, your own podcast, your own company and I think I livestream bombed you guys you did. That's how it started. I just sat down.
Speaker 2:I was like what's up guys? And then I just never left right.
Speaker 1:So in in TPL we do like monthly workshops and so I was answering questions and teaching at the time they were called coaching calls and you just pulled up a chair and you're like, hi guys, what's up? And then everyone loved you and you stayed every single month and it was like, oh, this is so much easier to do with two people yeah so it was great because, like people actually, uh, at the live event.
Speaker 2:It was really cool because, uh, these are, you know, top paying clients that came in, you know they're coaching we have background, tell people what happened.
Speaker 1:We haven't, we haven't told them about the live event so we have.
Speaker 2:We hosted our first in-person masterminds people had been begging for for years. So if you guys don't are familiar with how the business runs like we have, you know the membership level, which is tbl academy is what we're calling it now. Then we have tbl plus, which is exactly that group coaching.
Speaker 2:Group coaching. So you get plus the group coaching, and then we have TBL coaching. Tblc is what we call it, so that's one-on-one right. So our TBLC, which is our top, top people, we work one-on-one with them every day. On Voxer and the TBL Plus group coaching, people have been begging us to do an in-person event Because, you know this, literally, they've never even seen our legs. One of them was like I can't believe you have legs and shoes, and it's like yeah, we do so, um, so they've been begging for it so we're like, fine, we'll do it.
Speaker 2:This is going to be fun, let's just keep it small, let's keep it cozy, intimate, whatever. So we did it here where we live in the austin area, and, um, yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 1:But it was so cool. Yeah, we had some people who have been with us for like eight years and we never met them. It's just so fun.
Speaker 2:But anyway, a couple of things that we wanted to the thing I was going to say about it, though, was that, um, we talked about me being a part of it, and I was like it was like. You know, at first some people didn't receive it. Well, they were like come on, we knew like it was gonna, so that's kind of how I saw. It is like but you're getting two now for the price of one like. That seems like a win to me. I don't know, I don't get it.
Speaker 1:You're still salty, it's okay. It's okay, it's all good, it worked out, it was literally like two people that complained. It really wasn't that big of a deal.
Speaker 2:I'm like focusing on the two and I'm like whoa, but yeah, but the hate emails are real. They were pretty fierce.
Speaker 1:And they were more so towards me than they were, oh my gosh, I mean, the raging feminists came for me, but also like the men who were feminists. That was weird. Anyway, it's fine. It's fine, we're moving on. Listen, y'all we want to like after all this backstory remember, this is episode zero, promise that the next ones are going to be more to the point, but essentially we wanted to tell you guys. Maybe not. We'll see if you guys like this style, or just rambling.
Speaker 2:The average watch time is going to be 32 seconds on YouTube. That's so good, no one's going to watch.
Speaker 1:It's fine. We wanted to share with you guys some of the biggest trends that we talked about in our live event, that we've been sharing with our coaching clients, things that are coming up constantly on our Voxer threads when we're coaching, when we're doing workshops in TBL and I think the first one, Chris, is like the core space specifically is shifting dramatically or has shifted dramatically really the last five years and now it's kind of coming to a head and people are like why is my course not selling?
Speaker 1:It's like okay, you need to be in rooms where this stuff is being discussed 100%. Because we have been seeing this trend for almost three years now Almost yeah. Right and it's crazy. So if you have a course, you gotta pivot fast. Why are courses like slowing down?
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because we were invited to a SamCart mastermind different mastermind about a month ago and it was exclusive to the top 40 sellers on SamCart, which was really cool. That was a really awesome milestone moment for us to be included in that group, but anyway. So they were asking to kick things off. They were like what are the biggest challenges everybody's experiencing? And everybody said this and this and Facebook ads and this and this and this.
Speaker 1:And I'm like no, no, no, no, no, Like guys the elephant in the room here.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm like, yeah, the implications of AI when it comes to this space. And then Brian Moran, one of the founders of SamCart, said, can you like flesh that out for me? Like, what do you mean? And somebody yelled.
Speaker 1:They're like our course is dead and I'm like, yes, right.
Speaker 2:And so I think what we have to realize is that the human value proposition is really changing quickly, yeah, fast. Because what we've done largely for a long period of time in this space was it was the value proposition, was the information.
Speaker 1:Right Knowledge.
Speaker 2:Knowledge, and so you had to, like, sign up for something to get the goods, or you had to pay for something to get the insight and the secret sauce, and what have you? And a lot of that's changing now, and some people are still we jokingly call it you're selling a 2019 offer. I think COVID and I'll let you speak to that a little bit further, but I think COVID also played a huge role in that- I 100% agree and one of the things that we're also noticing if your core sales are slow y'all, you need to pivot immediately.
Speaker 1:Like do not wait, like you're already late, you need to pivot like this week, and figure out a way to position your offer in a way that's more attractive, because we've been telling our clients for over two years now. If you've been part of Conducted Customers, we did, you know, paid workshop with you guys. And if you're not in those, whenever we offer those are 10 bucks, they're going to be more. Now game changer, but you would know this, and here's the thing we talked about people want answers, they don't want information exactly there's too much information already on the internet.
Speaker 1:Right, we've we got youtube, university, we have ai, chat, gpt, grok, gemini all the ai tools and so what people are looking for is an answer to a specific problem they have right now. That is very custom to their situation, more so than more information. So the value proposition for courses should have always been transformation, not information. But we focus too much on the information part and so you want to position your course as transformation number one and number two. I think people really need to think about done with you rather than DIY.
Speaker 1:It's not the era of DIY is dead. If you're trying to appeal to that type of consumer, you're better off selling digital templates and that kind of thing over a course.
Speaker 2:The only way that I've seen that still work to some degree is if you have a very unique mechanism that they're following along. True, all right. So like if you're doing something very specific and there's your unique mechanism and they're following like a path, like a success path or something like that may still work, but there's an implied transformation and it's likely a hybrid of some sort.
Speaker 2:Like you're still showing up, right. You're still showing up, right, you're still having live calls, like what we do, exactly right. So, like there's, like I'm learning your mechanism, because if so, if information was enough, we'd all be billionaires, right? So we know that it's not the information, but, like kim said, there needs to be a transformation associated with your course, now more than ever, or your membership, now more than ever, but also too, I think people have gone through those things the evolution of the market, totally, and now I think what they're looking for is like but how does that work?
Speaker 1:for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also we talked about this, but also some like societal things going on where I think people are looking to be in a place where they feel understood, they feel like they have a tribe, Totally 100%.
Speaker 1:The political climate has like escalated to no end the last five years and people has like escalated to no end the last five years and people want to try rooms where their values are shared.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we saw that coming. Now you have the twitchers and they. You have a predominant platform where you're just on twitch totally and the gamers like they'll have massive followings. And then you have to be that massive and we talk about this all the time, about the importance of like really having super fan followers, not just creating engagement content so that, like you have a hundred thousand people, if they're not paying you any money, who cares? It's just vanity. But some of these Twitchers that I follow have like 18,000 and they're go live for hours and people just gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, and they'll make $10,000 a stream. Like it's crazy.
Speaker 1:But you're more so talking not about, like course, creators going live on Twitch or whatever, but you're more so saying build community build community and make sure that you talk about your values, like we have been very loud about our values the last couple years and we need to do a whole episode on that. I'm not. I know there's a lot of fear around that because you know we're in a cancel everybody kind of culture it's kind of died, though, but it's died first.
Speaker 1:It's died second, like no one cares anymore. Third, you're gonna get hate no matter what.
Speaker 2:Like your own tribe will cancel you if you don't actually talk about what you believe I think we've already found our own echo chamber now 100 I think like people are just like nope, this is not for me and they just quickly depart, versus like at the time we had built this massive tribe of these huge platforms and like everybody was still there, it's true, but everybody got tired of screaming at each other. Now they've just been like I'm gonna go to threads because maybe right or what's the uh, what's the blue sky? Right where?
Speaker 2:they're like I'm on blue sky. It's like the new x or twitter or whatever, yeah, and like they talk about their things. And now x has become kind of its own little echo chamber, and so I hate it because we are tribalistic just by nature, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we would be at war all the time.
Speaker 2:But I think though and this was the nature of the internet, when we grew up, we grew up in like a little bubble. Wherever you live if you were a suburb kid, like I was, you were an urban kid or you were a rural kid there were different cultures, there were different values and belief systems that largely you aligned with. There were maybe little margins of differentiation, right, like, maybe, systems that largely you aligned with, like there were maybe little margins of differentiation, right, like maybe some slight deviation from where you believed. Um, and then what happens is, I think, you kind of grow up with those people and everybody kind of has an understanding of who you are, what you believe, what you you know what I mean. But then the internet came about, and it's like you're exposed to everything everyone's opinions on every topic and everybody got amplified about them
Speaker 2:like stuff that they wouldn't say offline, like people I went to school with that I never even, I don't even know what their voice sounds like, and then all of a sudden, now on the internet, they're like political activists. I'm like what? Like you, your human thoughts, like I literally sat next to you in a class at one point, you know. So I think like not only the amplification but also the exposure to all these ideas, and I think we were still reeling with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that has definitely affected, I think, the online space and no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to talk about it. It's like taboo. I'm telling you, we sat with 40 of the top sellers and it was an amazing experience. This is not at all, brian or Scott, if you're listening a diss at the event.
Speaker 2:It was amazing, and Brian or Scott, if you're listening a diss at the event.
Speaker 1:It was amazing and we got a lot out of it.
Speaker 2:Do it again, please.
Speaker 1:Please do it again. It's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2:Every six months.
Speaker 1:But it's not a conversation any of the big voices in our space want to have, because they're already experienced a lot of backlash for even saying minute little things.
Speaker 2:And so we'll say it because we can, because I think you don't try to serve everybody, but you end up serving the people that you serve deeply and it benefits your business in the long run to stand for something, for the love, like.
Speaker 1:I think people are tired of the like pc culture, vanilla, let's not offend everyone. Everyone is so precious, everyone has so many emotions and feelings and it's like you know what I appreciate when someone just tells me what they actually think, because I I can trust them. At least they're not pretending and we're in a place where I've talked about this a lot on email.
Speaker 1:Institutional trust is like yeah, it's never been lower no one actually trusts institutions, and so the more polished and PC you are, the less people trust that you're actually being real, yeah, that's true, and that's what people want right now. They want realness. It's a I think it's a losing game, and so I think we like I guess we hyped up amelia right like our dog is she's deciding.
Speaker 1:She wants to be included today we really just hyped up authenticity, be yourself right, this is what we talk about a lot in the girly spaces. But then when you actually talk about the real, real stuff.
Speaker 2:You think was really think it was just a character persona it was.
Speaker 1:BS. Yeah, it was BS.
Speaker 2:That's what I think.
Speaker 1:And no one actually like they say that. Yeah, but then when you are yourself and you talk about your values, and for us you know our conservative values the fact that we're Christians, oh, unacceptable, yeah, you know, unacceptable to have an opinion positivity ones got like real skinny all of a sudden like they like embrace the body positivity and then now they're all ozempic queens.
Speaker 2:It's like, what's like? You didn't actually believe that. Like but seriously, you said ozempic queen no ozempic queen, like seriously, because they were so about that and like they would actually share pictures of how proud they were, of who they were and like this and that on the internet basically naked, and then now it's like who is you?
Speaker 2:like what happened? What happened? But it because it was a fad, it was a trend. They were just they don't know who they are, they're just following what they think is going to be popular in vogue, and we've never been that level of smooth brain and so we don't do those things oh snap, like you went there sorry okay, no, I just, I've always, we've always been like seeing things for what they are, I think, and I can't buy into that, I can't go for that, because it's obviously not real and that's part of like.
Speaker 1:A lot of people built brands on that 100.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean and they knew they were doing the whole brand was that, yeah, and I get it.
Speaker 1:You want to differentiate? I understand that. Yeah, but ultimately, like, I think the market wants results more than they want extreme vulnerability. I think when you lead with strength, this is a season of leading with strength.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Not leading with vulnerability. I think you connect with people with vulnerability. I'm not saying vulnerability is a bad thing. Oh my God, the Brene Brown people are going to be just pissed oh, so many.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no. You guys are going to know. Some of the people are talking about it's gonna come up it's gonna it's gonna happen but the reality is it's true.
Speaker 1:Um, I think one of my mentors from afar, my spiritual mentors from afar, lisa bevere, she said it best yeah, you need to lead with strength and connect with vulnerability, otherwise it becomes tmi so fast and it's so awkward. And the reality is, guys, there's too much changing, there's too much at stake in our society today. There's too much happening in the world to just lead with weakness yeah, like you know people look for strength and for structure.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean you, you don't, you're not a human, or you don't talk about your vulnerabilities. You know there's a connection piece to that but everyone's leading with vulnerability and it's no one knows what to do.
Speaker 2:I think the perfect case study for that is Trump, Because he's strength, strength and then more strength.
Speaker 1:I can't believe this. Strength for breakfast, strength for dinner, but he's guess what?
Speaker 2:happened though. Right, he's super extreme, but guess what happened? It hurt him it hurt him until he got shot at and it hurt him until they arrested him and they used lawfare against him but he's and then it was. It was the vulnerable side that people connected with.
Speaker 1:But he should have done that from the beginning got shot at no no no, led with strength and connected and showed people his soft side. He didn't do that because he was feeling like he was attacked all the time.
Speaker 2:But I remember several times when the mugshot came out or when he got shot at. I looked at Kim and I was like he just got elected.
Speaker 1:No, I said that.
Speaker 2:I think both of us said it. No, I said it, give me credit. Kim said it.
Speaker 1:I was sitting on the sofa A thousand percent.
Speaker 2:Kim said it, but the strength component was there and people right now, when things are chaotic they are looking for strength they're looking for order, they're looking for that. But if it's just strength all the time, it's obnoxious and it's unrelatable, it's unrelatable, and so that moment for him allowed people to like connect at a vulnerable level, like he's human too, kind of thing and I think that is all else, because he didn't handle it with weakness. Well, he handled it with more strength, he handled it with more strength while he was being vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Which was like the most Americano moment ever.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was epic, it was crazy, but yeah, he won the election. Because of that, because of that 100,000%.
Speaker 2:From a marketing standpoint, decisions ever is because there is, first of all, there's no, there's no order at all. It's all chaos it's all chaos. It's all chaos, but there's all just vulnerability, vulnerability, vulnerability like connecting, listening, learning, all this and that and there's no strength, we're gonna do this we can, we will like yeah obama ran with that in one, because he was hope, and there's strength behind that message and he ran a fantastic campaign a time for change.
Speaker 1:I think also, you know, wow, we got real deep real quick. I think we need to rename the podcast to like the depths of marketing. It got real intense. We're talking about courses and we didn't talk about, but it's true, and the reality too here is chris that ultimately, I think people we're in we're in a societal phase or era where people are fake vulnerable to get attention. Yeah, right, I'm the victim. Look at me, poor me. Or like let me show off everything because that's what's going to get attention. Yeah, and it's like, oh, my gosh, you're so brave. And it's like, no, no, it's not healthy for you to do these things.
Speaker 2:No, it's not, you're a therapist you?
Speaker 1:it's not healthy for you to do these things. You know it's not healthy for you. I mean I'm you know we're watching the crazy trends of like I don't want to go into all of it, but like happening with only fans and that kind of culture and it's like, oh, she is so empowered. That is not empowerment, are you crazy?
Speaker 2:so it's so funny, because they used to accuse men years, decades ago, about, like you, about objectifying women, and now it's like dude, women have just objectified themselves. Let's just double down on it, but somehow they've been sold a bag of BS. That that's empowering.
Speaker 1:What? Nope, nope. Listen, you don't need to, and there's so many women in the online space and in business who are a testament to this. You don't need to sell yourself on the internet and degrade yourself to be incredibly successful, like that's not necessary, and that's the beauty of what we do. So, anyway, we got real deep into a couple other things we want to talk about hey, we said, we said sip and spill, we're sipping are we sipping, though? Are we sipping enough?
Speaker 1:sipping spilling I need a break because Are we sipping enough, sipping spilling?
Speaker 2:I need a break because yeah, my throat's getting a little scratchy, yeah, so the live event.
Speaker 1:The live okay, what?
Speaker 2:were your major takeaways.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Were we.
Speaker 1:I thought that's what we're talking about with courses and all the things that are shifting.
Speaker 2:Right, let's unweave and get back to that. Okay, what do you want me to talk about?
Speaker 1:I don't know what were the biggest. Okay, so the ai, the ai consideration, oh, the ai is huge. I feel like most people are not ready for ai no and and listen. Chris and I are not early adopters at all, like when, you have a good distinguisher.
Speaker 2:Can you say your distinction? Because I think it's really good. We have to come up with a way of explaining it. Yes, it's really good.
Speaker 1:So we do not ever adapt our business to trends, because trends are here one day and then they go away right.
Speaker 2:So it's like the.
Speaker 1:Periscope era, or what was the latest, like the audio one?
Speaker 2:Oh Clubhouse.
Speaker 1:Clubhouse right, All of these apps. I'm not saying that like there's anything wrong with them, but we don't usually like change our whole business model to jump on these apps, because we want to see how the market reacts before we actually shift gears and try something new. Now when we actually double down on something is when we see an actual shift happen, and so a shift usually it can be a trend that becomes something that is accepted by the market. So for example AI, when that came out we were like social media.
Speaker 2:let's see Social media was a shift major myspace was a trend right, exactly, you know exactly.
Speaker 1:Or like vine videos vine videos, you know that was, that was a trend, and then it died.
Speaker 2:Sometimes platforms are just trendy, right, and people jump all over it and if you are early enough you can become like um. Her name was nicole walters, right, oh she was.
Speaker 1:She was awesome. Yeah, but she is awesome. But she ascended enough. She was scopra on periscope, right she?
Speaker 2:was awesome. Yeah, she is awesome, but she ascended enough. She was Scopra on Periscope, which was hilarious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was amazing. She's really cool, she's really nice. Shout out to her. She was on your podcast, right? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we saw her at a live event. Yeah, she's really cool and I respect. Actually that's her actual name and scopra would have the brand. Scopra would have died because she literally built her whole brand on the periscope model, right, yeah, and so for but that, but that's the case for like less than one percent of people that are these early adopters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people just lose their business altogether because they don't know how to shift and adapt right we saw that early, I think.
Speaker 2:I think the reason we're the way we are is because in 2013, we had been in business for about a year and everybody was building their business entirely on facebook remember that when, like facebook had tabs and you could actually build a shop inside the tab and everybody was just so organic because you know.
Speaker 2:You got to think about these social media companies and what they're aiming to do, like right I always say this everybody has an agenda, everybody, and sometimes we don't think about that Like this. Guys, these social media platforms, this is not charity, it's a business, and their business is engagement on their platform and time spent on their platform. Why? Because when you engage and spend time on their platform, guess what they show you Ads. Guess what happens when you see ads? They bill someone for running that ad or engaging with that ad or clicking on that ad or whatever the case may be running that ad or engaging with that ad or clicking on that ad or whatever the case may be. So the more time spent on platform, the more people engaging on platform, the more they can bill said people that are paying for those ads. So usually what happens and Kim has a really brilliant, it's like the life cycle of a social media platform. Guys, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:We have to show them yeah she has to show you it's so good. But usually what happens is that the organic game is through the roof At.
Speaker 1:But usually what happens is is that the organic game is through the roof At first, at first, at first everybody's killing it Organic, organic right their business model is users, that's what they want to do is they want to get early adoption.
Speaker 2:And so they know people are gonna come over there because the organic reach is great and I'm getting all this these clients and these businesses but at a point they hit critical mass and they're like we're going to start charging for this. Two factors right.
Speaker 2:One, once everybody shows up at the party now you're all fighting for that organic reach, whereas before maybe that wasn't the case. But then also two they're trying to make money, and so they're going to start charging, because now it becomes pay to play. They want you to run ads on their platform so they actually make money. They're going to start charging because now it becomes pay to play. They want you to run ads on their platform so they actually make money. What does it benefit them for you to use their platform for life, make thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and they don't make any money. That doesn't make any sense for them. So we've talked about a lot where paid verification should have been a thing.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Pay for a business account. We've talked about that in 2021.
Speaker 2:Well, it's so much more accessible for people to do that. More importantly, specifically with meta, picking on meta, running facebook ads was the hardest thing to do on their platform, I know, and yet it's the way they make money I know it doesn't make hello yeah, like that just shows you how unevolved the market was. Now a guy named elon came around. I'm sure nobody's ever heard of him, but he made it super simple oh, because he's an entrepreneur because he's an actual owner.
Speaker 2:He's not just a nerd that can code, literally, I mean, he's a nerd too that can code, but also other things. He's a businessman and so he has changed the game of. Hey, like we should have businesses just pay for verification, instead of finding somebody in Silicon Valley and paying them $10,000 so that they can go behind the scenes and verify their account or sell a verified account like black market status or sell a verified account like black market status.
Speaker 1:that's the kind of stuff that was happening at facebook and it was easy to fix within like two seconds. Yeah, so, like as we're landing the plane, because maybe we could do a part two of this too. Um, what are?
Speaker 1:I know that we're talking about the live event, like whatever the takeaways, but really we talked a lot about ai and how it's replacing a lot of what we normally would offer as a paid offers in the online space, and how we have to pivot what are maybe like three things people listening can do right now to pivot an offer that may be competing with ai well, I just said a lot.
Speaker 2:So you say number one. I'll kick it back to you. What's number one?
Speaker 1:well, we, talked about you. You have to add some component of live interaction yes I think you know having a cohort and running the program over 12 weeks. You know live meaning like, hey, we're gonna meet every monday and every friday or we're gonna meet every wednesday, uh for sessions and you're gonna teach live what you normally would teach in a course.
Speaker 2:I think that's number one. Yeah, um, I would say number two is really so. This is something we did and it actually took us a couple of years. What are people struggling with now, after this thing? Right, there's always going to be a new blue ocean. There's always going to be something that people are still struggling with. What is the thing they're struggling with now? Because Grok is not going to show up and knock on your door and be like, hey, you need to implement today, right, right, and so, grok, as much as you can chat back and forth, it's not a community, it's not a tribe.
Speaker 1:It's not people.
Speaker 2:It's not connection.
Speaker 1:That's XSAI by the way XSAI.
Speaker 2:What did I say? That?
Speaker 1:No, you just said Grok.
Speaker 2:Oh, grok, yeah, really leaning into your people. We are big advocates of finding brand models, following people in your industry that are further ahead than you are, observing what they're doing. We saw a lot of our mentors and coaches going a certain direction and we analyze and observe that we talk to our people. So I think you kind of have to always be a detective over your industry and, as such, when you do see the new opportunity, you can actually get out ahead and in a lot of ways, we actually did get ahead. In many ways we got ahead of the market because we've been working on this transition for like two or three years in preparation for this.
Speaker 2:So I would say lean into your market, lean into your people. Your offer always starts with people. If you just start trying to sell stuff in the world, you're just selling a thing. But find out where your people are at where they're still underserved challenges are, and meet them with that offering. I love that.
Speaker 1:It's basically like what's the new opportunity? So a lot of times for most people the new opportunity is like hey, go and implement some kind of level of coaching or high touch where they can actually ask you questions so that they can implement specific answers for their individual businesses. Or if you sell to the consumer market, you know what are their specific problems. I think another thing that people could do to like pivot and shift is really think about how can they help people get results faster yes how can you go faster?
Speaker 1:speed man um and so implementing things like done for you templates done for you. You know custom, yeah, I prompts custom, like custom gpts whatever you could do to integrate and help them get a win and get something launched done for you. You know, custom AI prompts yeah, ai prompts, custom GPTs, whatever you could do to integrate and help them get a win and get something launched faster. They're going to be all in for that, and what's awesome about this is it also basically warrants a higher.
Speaker 2:She wants to be a part of the show. She's just whimpering back down the floor.
Speaker 1:It basically warrants a higher price point. And that's awesome too, because now you can actually shift into high ticket potentially and people are willing to pay for that.
Speaker 2:The future is fast. The future is fast, so you've got to help people do that. It's fast, it's sleek, it's a scalable solopreneur. Companies are going to be able to run with basically nothing but AI.
Speaker 1:It's crazy and with basically nothing but AI. It's crazy and I think that's the next thing we really need to talk about is like where is AI going? As we like, recap our life mastermind event.
Speaker 2:Don't go down rabbit holes, chris. Let's talk about the future of AI BRB. Give me six hours.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, but let's do part two and talk about some of the other takeaways of the mastermind, but particularly like hey. Part two and talk about some of the other takeaways of the mastermind, but particularly like hey, where do we see ai going and how do, how can we position? Because that's, I think, that is what everyone's really concerned about right now. I'm sweating already trying to.
Speaker 2:I don't know how I'm gonna do that all right, episode zero in the books clink clink.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us. Sorry that our dog is just just she is she says goodbye yeah, she says bye. Thank you for watching maybe we'll get like a tiger cam next time.
Speaker 2:We love you, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to subscribe to the show if this was interesting to you. Let us know what topics you'd like for us to cover next in the comment section, and we will see you in the next one. You guys.
