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From Litigation Lawyer to Lead Gen Queen | Liana Ling | Planify Podcast Ep. 3

• Planify Agency • Season 1 • Episode 3

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👉 Get your custom Business Growth Strategy Blueprint: https://planify.agency

Stop guessing and start iterating. Discover how to treat business challenges like a diagnostic laboratory and use data-driven testing to solve any marketing or operational bottleneck. 

Welcome to Episode 3 of The Planify Podcast! In this session, host Casey Cease sits down with Liana Ling—widely known in the digital marketing world as the "Lead Gen Queen". Liana pulls back the curtain on her fascinating career pivot, shifting from a 9-year career as a high-stakes litigation attorney to becoming an elite brand and corporate growth strategist. 

If you are currently feeling paralyzed by a broken marketing campaign, shifting algorithms, or an operational plateau, Liana reveals her exact blueprint to "test your way out" of any crisis. Together, Casey and Liana break down how to view failure as necessary data, how to treat advanced AI tools like highly niched "micro-employees," and how to leverage Dennis Yu's legendary "Greatest Hits" framework to dominate personal branding without burning out your creative team. 

🕒 CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Welcome to The Planify Podcast 

01:11 Introducing Liana Ling, the Lead Gen Queen 

02:12 Career Pivot: From Litigation Lawyer to Business Strategist 

04:25 Running Toward Failure: Lessons from Norm Brodsky & Lewis Schiff 

07:19 The Testing Lab Mindset: Solving Major Funnel Bottlenecks 

13:12 Detaching Emotion from Business Performance Metrics 

14:54 The AI Framework: Squeezing Maximum Value from Your "Frenemy" 

19:15 Micro-Employees: Delegating Niche Tasks to AI Agents 

24:53 Staying Indispensable: Finding the Human Role in an AI World 

29:51 Personal Branding & The Dennis Yu "Greatest Hits" Strategy 

30:30 The Lighthouse Strategy: Shared Network & Authority Building 

35:32 Final Takeaways & Where to Connect with Liana Ling  

💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

  • The Litigation Shift: How a 9-year career in corporate law built a unique framework for diagnostic, structure-driven business problem solving. 
  • Failing Forward: Lessons learned working alongside Lewis Schiff and Norm Brodsky regarding why self-made successful founders intentionally run toward failure to find real data. 
  • Testing as a Lifestyle: How Liana used her data-testing methodology to reverse her Type 2 diabetes diagnosis in two weeks and map out her defensive strategy against cancer. 
  • The AI Frenemy Philosophy: Unpacking Zack Rammer's perspective on why AI should never be trusted as a baseline macro-manager, but instead leveraged as highly-niched "micro-employees" to automate tedious tasks. 
  • The Lighthouse Strategy: How co-creating high-authority content allows business leaders to naturally share and pass credibility across corporate networks. 

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Welcome And What We Will Cover

Casey Cease

Thanks for joining us for the Planify Podcast. I'm Casey Cease, and today I'm here with a good friend of mine, Liana Ling. Liana Ling is known as the Lead Gen Queen, but beyond just Lead Gen, she's an attorney turned marketing strategist, turned brand strategist, turned all-around business strategist. And we have a lot of fun in this episode talking about things like ad buying, changes, how we approach failure, how we approach problems in ad buying, in business, in personal life. We talk a lot about AI and AI integration and what we're not afraid about and things that we can be afraid about. So there's a lot of topics packed in this next half hour. So I really hope that you'll plug in and then you'll go connect with Lana Ling. So now let's enjoy the show.

From Litigation Lawyer To Lead Gen

Liana Ling

I do. Thank you so much for having me. It's always great to hang out with you, Casey. Yeah, just a little bit about me. First of all, I'm from Canada. In case you can't tell from my accent, I hear it's quite pronounced sometimes. I started off life as a prof like my professional life as a lawyer, a litigation lawyer, actually. And then after I was doing that for about nine years, I got restructured and realized that I was what another lawyer friend of mine told me, a frustrated entrepreneur, like locked inside there. And so that's when I started my entrepreneurial journey with an agency. And just over the last many years, uh, you know, I found that I have a knack and a gift for working with other businesses, especially B2B businesses, to help them scale and um, you know, generate leads and fill their pipeline and things like that. And along the way, I've had some really, really interesting um experiences. We can dive into some of those if you want, but I've had, yeah, I've had some interesting adventures over time. And Casey's been along with me on some of those pretty wild, uh, wild and crazy rides, right?

Casey Cease

So it's it's always been fun to watch you navigate and problem solve, right? Because you're you're no longer practicing as a litigator, but the way you approach problems is you're one of my favorite to watch when things could be an emotional situation and your problem-solving brain kicks on. And the way you approach whether it's an algorithm problem on Meta or it is a client issue or it's a staff issue or whatever, um, the way you approach problems is unique. And what I what I always love about you is you seem to view problems as opportunities rather than a challenge that's going to overcome you, but one is saying, like, there's a solution and we're gonna find it. So it, you know, I I'd love for you to tell. I mean, because you you're very kind and saying and humble and saying, like, oh yeah, I went from litigation to you know, some ad buying and things like that. But uh, having been your friend now for several years, watching you you've taught, I mean, you're one of my primary teachers that really opened, led to a big unlock for me in ad buying uh about five years ago or so. And we became friends, we've done work together, we've worked on projects together, and watching you approach the problem solving um and your ability to innovate. So you're you're unique, you're unique in the fact that you're you're very linear in your thinking, you approach problems very structured, but you can adapt very quickly. And so you you've been a great encouragement to me and the adaptation of when AI was just getting going, when ads were changing, when the approach was coming. You know, my personality, I kind of sometimes, not for very long, but melt into a puddle and you'd be like, okay, let's go, let's go figure it out. And so tell us a little bit about how you approach, right? Because you're not just an ad buyer, you're great at helping people understand personal branding, you're under understanding their corporate branding. You're really a strategist that takes that whether it's you're dealing with AI and integration into businesses or your own practice or integrating, you know, problem solving for lead gen. Like, how do you tell us a little bit about how you approach situations like that? Because I think it'd be good for all the business owners that listen to this podcast, uh, because you have a very it's not complex, but it's very clear approach on how you deal with these various things. And we can break it down then how that applies in different areas.

Liana Ling

Yeah,

Failure As A Skill You Build

Liana Ling

sure. And, you know, I think like with a lot of things, it's things that we've learned through our battle scars. Um, and and so that, you know, again, and hopefully people can watch this and learn from our mistakes and failures. So you can because you're gonna make your own. Right. So, you know, kind of you can be ahead this way. But it really started, um, the seed of this actually started when I was working with Lewis Schiff and Norm Brodsky at Inc. Business Owners Council. And I was helping to run in, new marketing, and then um we moved over to Birthing of Giants. And like one of the things that stuck with me there, which was not it was it was a painful lesson to learn just because that's how it is naturally, is is you know, Lewis wrote this book called Business Brilliant, and I got to see all the things that happen in the back end. And one of the principles in that book is is how you use failure as a stepping stone and how you improve and he said, like um, self-made successful people really run towards it and embrace it and learn to love it and leverage it. It still hurts, right? But that, and that it's something that it's a muscle that I've intentionally really worked hard at over the years, and I keep doing that, but I found that it just keeps coming back over and over again because we fail all the time. Like, especially as marketers, you know, I'll put an idea up on ads and maybe it'll work, maybe it most of the time it doesn't work, right? So we got to figure stuff out all over again. And and that's the that's the basis of the approach that I come at. The second prong of that is I look at the world of uh as I can test my way out of it. It's like if there's a problem in so I I'm mostly known for doing meta, used to be called Facebook advertising. I've worked for people uh because of NBAs, I can't disclose all of them, but I work for very well-known kind of brands in our space. And um yeah, that that's a thing that I I always looked at whenever something would happen, because it's never gonna stay, even if you're doing well, right? It's it's always gonna go down at some point. Um, you know, I I've had this mentality of we can test our way out of it. And I treat it like more like a testing lab. I even keep like a testing log, like uh, you know, like you would from like grade seven science or something. Like here, you know, what do we want to test? What's our hypothesis, you know, and then what are the notes from there? Um, and I find that that's that's really what gets you out of it. Yes, like everybody has a different way of doing things, and that's fine. You can start with one way of doing things. And I like to teach people how to do it in just a very simple way. And then you get some data, and then it's just a matter of how you're gonna deploy the tests. And, you know, quite frankly, sometimes it's like literally um you just can't, you maybe you just can't last long enough for to just keep testing your way out of it. That's why sometimes sometimes things just don't work out. But I usually find that I haven't been able to find a problem yet that I haven't been able to test my way out of. You know, we can go if you want, like we can go a little bit more into how I approach it on ads, but that's also like how I approach like funnels and marketing and all sorts of stuff.

Casey Cease

Well, I've seen you approach business challenges that way, like that, or outside that, and even life challenges, right? Like figuring things out, whether it's personal, it's business or whatever. But yeah, let's

Micro Yes Funnel Testing On Meta

Casey Cease

chat. I mean, because you and I both know since 2024, into 2025, when Meta started putting out the new algorithms and wanting to help us with AI and everything else, uh, I know several businesses that were significantly disrupted by those changes. Um and and so, you know, as you approach, and there's gonna be more coming down the pipe, the more they want to integrate with AI and other pieces, what used to work six months ago doesn't work the same way now. So, how have you been thinking about that and approaching that?

Liana Ling

Yeah, so um, yeah, and to your point, that's it's it it works in everything. It works in your life and it works in business. You just have to just kind of keep at it. Like uh just just really quick, like when I was diagnosed with um diabetes type two, I got off of the insulin in two weeks because I treated my body exactly like that. You know, I I'm also a cancer survivor, and that's how I got through chemo. Is this like, you know, test, test, test, test, okay, this isn't working. Okay, we try something else, you know. And so that's it, it just it just works, at least for somebody the way that I think, you know. Um, you know, and then when I take a look at let's just like let's, for example, um, I just launched um a new funnel. It's an assessment funnel uh about your your lighthouse authority. And so how I look at that is I go, okay, let's start from best practices. You know, put up your ads, I've got my landing page, I've got everything there. Then the way I think about it is I think, okay, let's just break this up into little micro steps. What are like, let's not try and go, oh, I'm trying to get a sale. No, like what's the first thing we want to do? Well, actually, I just want them to stop and look at the ad. That's it. Like, that's what I'm just trying to do. If I can't do that, it doesn't matter. Everything else after that doesn't matter because they're not even looking at anything, right? So I put up a lot of ads with different creatives because I'm just seeing what can I do to get the right person to stop the scroll. Once I do that, then what's the next step? Well, uh, they need to read it and then they need to click through and take some action. We just take this uh lighthouse assessment. So um, and by the way, we can we can give everybody the assessment if they want. Like if you just want to kind of check it out how it's working, then no problem. But um, so so then I was like, okay, look, great. Now I see they're stopping. What are they clicking through? Okay, some of them they're clicking through. That's great. Because you know what? For the first three days, nobody really was clicking through that much until I changed up some of the creatives. Um, and then you're like, okay, are people actually filling out the assessment? And then are they filling out their information? And that was the next step. And that actually, uh, I was going, wow, this is not working. You know, I had some I had different ads and audiences running for 48 hours. And and then I talked to uh one of my business partners and he was like, Well, what try this, try this, right? So I came at it from a different way, changed the offer because I felt that that was the thing that wasn't working as well because the ads had good click-through rates now. Change the offer. And like literally, as soon as I put up the new headline, boom, like got a lead, you know, came in, right? And like, okay, now can we get another one? Now can we get another one? You know, actually, just right before this, I was DMing with somebody who went through it, and she's like, Oh, like, and I found you on Facebook and like I came across your assessment and I have questions, and we're probably gonna, you know, and she's like, How can I work with you? Right. So it, so now I'm like, oh, okay, I'm getting more data. I'm getting more data, right? So so now I'm going like, okay, now how can we keep people filling out this assessment? And then the next step is, okay, am I getting the right people? And, you know, uh, how can we get them to take the next step? And I've probably already now, because I needed to work a little bit faster. So I've probably changed the assessment like two times now, but it's really, but it was all about trying to get to that next step. So I find if you break everything down into these micro steps, or as Flint McLaughlin calls them, you know, micro uh yes method, like just these micro yeses, then and then how can you test just to go to each one? It just makes it so much easier, you know? And like I said, it it doesn't always, I mean, I will say like it doesn't work 100% of the time, only because sometimes we just run out of time and money, right? To get to make this work. Um, but but I find that that general principle works, like even with AI and even with AI's help, you know, AI can help leverage that. You can help leverage um AI to just get these done to give it you ideas of what to test next. But yeah, like even when we're doing uh, you know, I'm just figuring out something, you know, like I was even for this assessment, I was trying something different with the automation. And I'm like, hmm, okay, well, I just want to get them to this point. And then, okay, that worked, but now I want to actually uh send this information over to my new email marketing system. And how is this? This isn't working. This is, you know, I just so I just broke it down that way. And then I, that way you can also um kind of tame your AI a little bit to tell them like what you want to do next, right? So I'm I'm also very forceful with my AIs too, like telling, okay, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. Like, don't tell me this. I I want to do this, just you know, give me your ideas within this box. Um, but yeah, so that that's basically just how I keep testing my way out of it. And with this assessment, I'm just that's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna keep doing it till it's more smoother, getting people through. And then we're gonna keep testing, you know, the results pages, all the follow-up, like whatever it is that we're doing from there. And and it's just I just have to make sure like we just keep getting fresh data in, which is what the ads do, just keep bringing us fresh data, fresh data. Um,

Detaching Emotion And Staying Resilient

Liana Ling

yeah. But I think like the one thing that I wish I knew years ago that I learned probably more recently is detaching myself from the emotion you have to your funnel and your products and your ad and your, you know, just your services, even right for your business. I think a lot of people watching may kind of understand what that means. But I found that once I took emotion out of it and went like, okay, let's just try it. Like, even if I'm like, this is horrible, I don't think it's gonna work, I don't want to do this. Uh a lot of times I'm wrong, you know.

Casey Cease

Well, we have the luxury when we're testing on ourselves, right? Our own brand and everything else to apply more grace. Now, when you're navigating that with the client and something that had been working stops working, and and you've been great, you know, helping me learn how to communicate with the client ahead of time that things stop working. Here's how we approach it when they stop working. This is our plan, right? This is how we move that forward. Um, and really begin approaching uh that with more clarity. Uh one of the things that I want to bring up is you brought up the cancer thing. So I I wanted to chat about that briefly, not in depth, but I had the privilege of working with you a lot during that season of your life. And uh I've walked with many people through cancer treatments and everything else, and I would say um the faithfulness, the perseverance, the stubbornness in the right way to keep going, and the honesty with yourself when you're but even the consistency of managing it that way for yourself in that approach. I mean, I I told you this in private, but since you brought it up, I want you to know like it it was one of the most encouraging seasons for me to watch you suffer well and not drop a beat in caring for those you're working with and those that you're serving as clients. But just to say that your approach to life with viewing everything as an opportunity for growth was true, whether it was type 2 diabetes cancer, whether it was dealing with a client that wasn't satisfied, whether it was you know scaling a campaign that was working very well, but staying one step ahead and solving those problems.

Using AI As Microemployees

Casey Cease

And I you you've mentioned AI, and because I know you've worked a lot with AI, how are you approaching the integration of AI, not only personally, but with your clients, um, by that same approach? How are you looking to integrate AI? Because you do have a unique way of doing that, that I think mirrors you know, this way of structuring your thinking, I think is important for you to explain a little bit. Just and what I've been doing when I talk about AI right now because it's moving so quickly, is talk about 30,000-foot principles rather than exact tools. But but talk to us a little bit of how you've been working with AI by that same approach of looking at problems to be solved and opportunities to do that.

Liana Ling

Yeah, and I mean you and I have been using AI since before it became mainstream. That's right. So it's it it's almost like to me, it's almost like when we used to, you know, just reach for our calculator, right? Or we reach for a phone, and and to now it feels very more natural to me, almost the way we would, oh, let me just Google that. Okay. So it it's very, it's very natural to me. And I think also like just how things have evolved, you know, our our um attitude and the way that we use it has evolved as well. Just like when you're navigating life, right? You just gotta figure out, but you have to know where you want to go and just figure out where are we at here, is how much is the boat rocking, so you can kind of figure it out. Um, I think right now, at the time that we're recording this, um, to me, AI continues to be something, a tool that I leverage. AI continues to be something that is, I think, refining things that I do and helping me to deliver better results. And I've been able to use it to augment the way that I think um and the way that I make decisions in ways that I know I could never have done before. Um I think that stems from the fact that I've and a good friend of ours pointed this out to us first, right? Zach Hammer. He said, I remember he said, like, AI is not your friend, it's your enemy. And how would you work with an enemy, somebody you do not trust, to get the the squeeze the most value you can out of them? And that was the most helpful thing ever. And ever since I saw it like that, I've been able to get so much more out of it. Like, so first of all, I see it as a junior uh assistant. I call them microemployees because I don't know about you, but I find that when I give, I need to give um different AI and automations like niche down tasks. It's it's better that way instead of one giant thing that says like just control everything, right? It's it's just easier to troubleshoot too. So I I like to think of having all these little microemployees that um either do stuff I hate doing, um, or now I'm like doing going more into being proactive. Like, how can they alert me about stuff and then how can they give me ideas? It's it's kind of like when you have an intern, they'll cut like a uh they'll come to you and all these ideas, and maybe one of them is good, but the fact that they make you think about something is actually more valuable. So I have different ones that just give me ideas, like, oh, we should change this, we should change that, or uh maybe you should take a look at this, right? And and then you can, and then I can spend most of my day making decisions. I love having AI do that because it's it's so much better than I am at just managing data. So I'll um, you know, so I'll have AI and automation kind of do that. Obviously, with ads, I actually have it do like a lot of the heavy lifting with the creatives. Um, and I see myself as the creative director. So you give it the um, you know, you give it the direction and uh, you know, and then and then just take a look and see how it goes. Like somebody gave me a really, I'm testing this out right now, so we'll see how it works. But uh somebody in my community said, hey, like he started testing out creating video scripts following the South Park episodes. There's a certain way that they do things, which I didn't even know about. So I actually just posted a video following that, and I did get like an LOL from a friend on it. So I think it kind of worked a little bit. But I was like, that's interesting, right? I never would have thought of that. AI never would have told me about that, but I'm just adding that now to one of the frameworks that I'm gonna try, you know, creating video scripts out of. So um, yeah, like I mean, it's kind of like where do you it it affects everything that I do, but then on the other hand, I'm also being very cognizant about keeping certain things analog. I don't know about you, but like I like I just need a break sometimes, right? So uh, but but uh and I find that that helps just with the balance. Um just for me.

Casey Cease

Yeah, with that with that in mind, like the balance of navigating that is on one hand, you have people like us who've been working at pre-Chat GPT and you know are kind of rolling with it and breaking things, and and then you have people that are so terrified to even just really get started because it is moving so fast. And one of the things I've been telling people is think more about your workflows before you worry about agentec this or MCP this or anything else. Like pay attention to your workflows and then think through how I can take one step of that workflow and leverage AI and be able to do that. Whether let's say it's uh, you know, for a marketing agency, you're ad reporting, right? Rather than worry about, well, I'm gonna drop this here, do this here, go over to cloud design here, do this. No, no, no. Just how can you culminate the data and then structure it appropriately, and then have AI train you how to do that? Hey, I want to do this. What would be the steps to use this tool? It's been really helpful to help break that in for people. Uh, one of the things I did, Liana, like I remember a while back you talked about a board of advisors. Well, I went to my open claw instance on my VPS and I created a board of advisors, and so it spins up my subagents that each have their own role. And the most helpful advisor I have is the contrarian. Because one of the seats I have is contrarian, and so everybody will be sharing their thing or whatever, and then the contrarian will pop in and be like, yeah, but and then watching them kind of navigate as AI agents. Now, obviously, I go to my elders or my friends or live advisors to really process, but you know me, I'm I'm clear as mud half the time when I have an idea, and so it's forced me for clarity so that I can go leverage my team or my support or my advisors and have that conversation. And so I think helping people simplify um ways that they could begin to test and integrate it. And you've always been so helpful in saying, I've made a little agent that does this role. I think that's the first step in figuring out and you I'm not sure.

Liana Ling

And it doesn't even have to be something that you need, by the way. Like I did a vibe coding like session with a group of women, and it was like, I was like, just think of something you want. It doesn't matter. Like, because they're like, oh, what do I need? When it was like, no, it's like you want to create something fun, like do it because you're actually doing something. Yeah, that's right.

Casey Cease

No, and and I think I think that approach has been extremely helpful for me. And what I love is one of the other things you mentioned is your part of collaboration, right? Where you partner with a lot of different folks doing different projects and things, you contribute the way you contribute, you do a wonderful job there, but also you've been a great advisor to many people. And you're not afraid to ask for help either, right? And so I think that's something for business owners to think through is even if you're quote unquote an expert in your field, right, you're able To go and ask other experts and say, I don't help me think through this, or am I approaching this the right way? And I think that's something I see a lot of business owners struggle with, is they believe that just because they can do something on their own, should they be the one doing it, or should they reach out for help? So how what was that journey like for you? I know we both have tried, you know, at times hiring, you know, fractional folks and everything else hasn't been the best experience at times, but but really leveraging or leaning on uh a group of friends or other experts you recommend. Like how how did has that mature for you and being able to really leverage the community that you've built?

Liana Ling

So I found that AI helps me um have create better questions asked the humans. And I do, and I I mean I do tell some of my mentors and friends, like I said, like I do have an AI version of you, by the way. Hopefully that doesn't sound too creepy, you know, but it does actually help me to think through some things before I go talk to them. And then when I do talk to them, I've actually been able to get much, much deeper answers because I get the surface level stuff, right? And even for some of the things where I said, Oh, I've got like your course, or I went through your book, I didn't quite understand it. AI can help me, can speak to my brain, the way my brain works, to get their ideas across. And then I'm like, okay, now I can ask for clarification over here because there are nuances that AI cannot pick up out of, you know, their their whatever videos and everything that they have out there. And that's been super helpful. Like even just with like medical stuff, right? You give it, obviously, you don't give it personal information, but you can ask questions. You can have like I took a picture of all of our supplements, and I was like, which ones are we, you know, um are working against each other or a duplicative or whatever, right? And then now I actually have something that I can go to the pharmacist with to ask some more intelligent questions instead of just getting the surface level. And I found like that's just deepened my, I think, interactions with um like experts, mentors. Um, and then even when I, you know, even with my media buyer, right? Like I think we were able to have much better conversations because again, I can take what he's saying, have AI basically interpret it for my brain, you know, and then I can also say what I like literally say what I really think, right? Or not really really think, but ask all the questions that I wish I could ask, right? Right then and there. And then I can like break it down into what I really should ask the human. So that also helps us to work more asynchronously, because that's just how I work well in Slack, um, and to keep just to keep things moving along a lot faster, you know.

Staying Human While AI Accelerates

Casey Cease

So when you when you approach AI, you know, you have a marketing agency, you do a lot of, you know, brand identity, kind of the lighthouse project help companies and individuals with that. But one of the things that you and I have talked about is I think every industry is a little disoriented of where do we fit now and in the future. So, how are you approaching that?

Liana Ling

Yeah, I'm trying to, man, like such a hard question because it's a I think, and we knew it was coming. You and I both knew it was coming, right? We've been all talking about, oh, things are gonna change so much with AI. Uh, and I think that we're all trying to figure this out, right? Um, I try and I I really try and figure out I don't like thinking about it in terms of saying, hey, how can I be somebody they can't fire? I think that's how some people are thinking. How can I be somebody that will keep? I'm really trying to think, what are the what are the human parts of things that I think will continue even as AI continues to develop, right? So, like right now, AI can create images with text on it. And we're all amazed that it can pretty much write everything almost perfectly, but it still doesn't, right? It still misses out letters, it's still like, so what is the human part of that role in terms of creating these images for ads that will still exist at when at the point AI is like perfect, right? It it pulls out everything, it did like it it creates it perfectly. It can look at all the competitors on Facebook ads and it can, you know, and it can just create variations on there. And I thought, well, for example, there, again, it goes back to you saying like you're more of a strategist. Yeah, I found I have to be that creative strategist because what is everybody doing? They're using AI. Um, even as it evolves, they're using AI just to copy what everybody else is doing. And it pretty soon we're just copying what somebody else copied, what somebody else copied. Like there's no originality into it until the human pulls in, brings in something, finds something new, and then just, you know, goes. Like, so right now, honestly, like a lot of the ads I'm creating are stick figure ads, like cartoon ads, because they don't look like they're made by AI, right? And people pay attention to it, you know? Um so that that's how I just that's just an example of how I try and like look for where's the human role here, you know, and also like what do people appreciate? And I think people still appreciate being able to talk to a human in some way, you know. Like, have you gone to that? Have you heard of that AI store in uh is it San Diego or San Francisco?

Casey Cease

No, I haven't been yet. Have you heard of it? I've heard of it, but I have not been.

Liana Ling

Uh, it's actually an AI company. They created an AI called Luna, and they they had they gave Luna like $100,000 and a credit card and some guardrails, and so like designed this business and set it up. So it set up a retail store and it picked out all the inventory. It hired human people to work in there and it manages them. And uh a friend of mine just went there and he came back and he did a video and he bought like a chocolate bar, and it's like this artisanal shop there. But it even AI in that point recognized it needs humans to kind of like run this, you know. Um, it's it's very interesting. It's very interesting. Uh, you know, that's those types of things. But uh sorry, I digress there. But um No, it's okay.

Casey Cease

I mean, to your point, like there's I I think the panic of am I going to be replaced by AI isn't really the focus point. The focal point is am I a person that can leverage this tool to enhance the value I'm able to create?

unknown

Yeah.

Casey Cease

And how do I become a human that that interacts with it in a life-giving, empowering sort of way rather than a replacement sort of way? Because I haven't spoken to many business owners that are like, I can't wait to fire everybody and have robots run the whole thing. I I don't think we're meant for that. But I do think there is an opportunity to really ask these better questions on how do we leverage AI to enhance our top performers so that they can be liberated to do what they're absolutely best at doing, is the first question that we bring. And then even with you know, ad creation or anything else, like what do I mean? I was joking with a friend, I was like, would you have a marketing strategy to market to bots yet? And he was like, What? And I was like, Okay, you know, because Stripe just you know put out recently that they now create up wallets for your agents to be able to transact with, right?

Liana Ling

That's oh, I absolutely think I think that's a thing. Yeah, I think we're gonna have to we'll learn how to create ads for bots, absolutely, yeah.

Casey Cease

But with that in mind, it's like we can either be terrified and you know, bury our head or at least start the conversation and begin thinking through okay, is that something we're going to do? Well, you're going to have to if you're running ads to an extent, but then that's not gonna be true for every industry, but we're gonna have to be able to identify which industry that comes into. And I think that's the dialogue that is more resourceful for us to spend time thinking through. Then will I be replaced? Well, yes, in some things, and quite honestly, like you talked about doing leveraging AI to do things you don't enjoy doing, if it's able to do it as well or better, why not do that? You know, at the same time, there I have a buddy of mine that's a fractional CFO, and I showed him some ways that he could leverage Claude and Claude Design to you know, he he still has to give direction and make sure the content is accurate, so you can't replace him on that. But you can help him not have to make a mediocre PowerPoint for two hours when he's able to create one much quicker using AI. And so I think that's the way that that we bring this to bear for our clients and

Authentic Personal Branding In 2026

Casey Cease

everything. So the last thing I want to talk to you about on this episode is when you're helping people develop their own personal brand and create a lighthouse, you know, lighthouse thing. And I know you and I respect greatly Dennis Uh and the work he's helped us think through those ways, but how are you seeing AI impact that and what would you tell people? Because, you know, I I was real big on my personal brand back when I was traveling and speaking and all that kind of stuff, but now I'm just kind of tired. So um, you know, but there's a lot of content we've all created. And so talk a little bit on how you're helping people, you know, through your workshops and through the different things, really think through and establish their personal brand.

Liana Ling

Yeah, yeah.

Casey Cease

In 2026 moving forward.

Liana Ling

Yeah, I'm really trying to think about ways that we can leverage what we already have. Um, that's sort of like the overarching theme, right? What can you like because because we can use, let's be frank here, you could Google or like ask AI how to do this for free, you know, how to put out 500 pieces of your AI clone self every day, right? Like you could just you could just basically spam the whole internet with your stuff every single day and it can be automated and you don't have to lift a finger. That's not gonna get you to where you want to be, right? Um, so it's really to me, I think that makes it even authentic brands, even more valuable. Cause I think people see that already, because people are doing that. They're just putting stuff out there, like with AI, they call it AI slop, right? Because you can just push it out there. Um, and then when people see that, oh, there's something that's authentic, they actually appreciate that more. So I think that's also where people's personal brands can really filter in there. It's just like how, just you being you, just showing that you get results from what you say you do. That's so simple, but that's so rare. You know, like here, both of us do that, but that's a very rare thing. There's a lot of people out there making a lot of noise. We all know who they are, and they're not getting results, but they're just making a lot of noise, right? So I think that that's what makes people stand out more in this market, just even as from your personal brand and even just showing up. So I'm I'm encouraging people to use AI and automation to free up more of their time so they can make more meaningful content. That's number one. And then number two, I'm also encouraging people to like what I love about Dennis Yu's approach is he says he looks for the greatest hits. And I mean, I was with him at Digimarcon like a couple weeks ago and he reminded me, he's like, I'm he's like, this is we're not a news agency. We're not trying to churn out like so much content all the time. He's like, I just want to know what the greatest hits are and leverage those. So we're not thinking, oh, we have to fill out a content calendar, we have to post like, no, he's like, just why don't you use stuff that already works? And if you don't know what works, figure it out and then use it. I was like, oh, okay, that's a good point, you know? So that's it's just how we already have stuff that we've already done. Just how do we sift through and we can use ads? And there's a lot of ways you can do that. Like, can you can ask ChatGPT and it actually knows what this process is, but you you can do that to figure out what are your quote unquote greatest hits, and then start to leverage that uh to help boost up your personal brand. And then you mentioned Lighthouse a couple of times, and that's something that I've that like I've always missed over in terms of how to actually use lighthouses properly, and it wasn't didn't hit me until recently, which is creating content uh with somebody like yourself, Casey. We're doing this right now, um, where we show the world that you know we're collaborating, we're chatting, and that kind of passes authority to each other each other as each one of our audiences sees this as well. Um, and that that's another way just to again build your personal brand because you're aligning with other, you know, authority figures in your space. But um yeah, I just see it more and more like I think it's authenticity. Um there's even somebody in my um my community, she does lives all the time, right, for artists. And we were like so excited to go kind of see what she's doing because she's she's always giving these reports about these amazing things happening and you know, she's get picking up clients and stuff like that. And and I remember I was actually blown away by how simple it is. She's got like uh she's got her iPad white whiteboard here underneath. She doesn't have no fancy backgrounds like we have. She's she's like showing up like whenever she wants and just like talking, you know. She's like it doesn't, she's got a plain white background, nothing, but it's working, you know. People love her, it's working, it's it's getting her business. Why? Because she looks authentic and she's she's showing as well that like what she says works, right? Like, you know, she's giving real examples and really helping people. And and I think that's the way it is. Because I I do, especially with, I don't know if you find it with your kids, but you know, my kids are very, I don't know, they're not necessarily anti-AI, but they're way more skeptical than anybody older than them, right?

Casey Cease

You know, so it's yeah, it's our kids. So my daughter, my eldest daughter will use it, so um, but she she even sees the danger and she's like, Yeah, why are we going to college? You know, I'm like, baby, it's it's not gonna completely replace you. What it's going to do is enhance your real skill set. But yeah, they are skeptical.

Liana Ling

They are, you know, one of those are our future leaders, those are our future buyers. So they want to look for authenticity, you know. They they they absolutely want to look for that. And um, yeah, and they're not very trusting, you know. So um, so I'll yeah, I'll I think and and a lot of times I just think a lot of people um, you know, I've done this before, like you hide behind your AI a little bit too much. And and I do think that the world wants to see you. Everybody's got something special inside of them, and like they they want to see you, and like how can we elevate more of you and what you have, you know, in the world.

Where To Find Liana And Closing

Casey Cease

And on that note, I think it's a great stopping point. Liana, where can people connect with you online?

Liana Ling

Sure. So on social media, uh, I'm known as the Lead Gen Queens. You can kind of find me over there. Uh, tag me, message me, love to hear from all of you. Uh, my main uh website is powerupstrategy.com. Uh, but I'm I'm active on all the socials.

Casey Cease

Yeah, she's all over. You can go find Liana Ling anywhere you find it. So, Liana, I'm sure we'll be talking again. Thanks so much for for joining us today.

Liana Ling

It's a delight.