EP10: Flex In Action: Rethinking Business, AI and Innovation with Marcy Nelson-Garrison (Part Two)

What do you do when something that worked for years suddenly stops working?

In this episode, Jennifer Britton continues her conversation with Marcy Nelson-Garrison, exploring the Flex side of the Flow Flex Scale framework and what it means to stay adaptable when the business landscape changes.

Marcy shares a very real example from her own business. After successfully using the same launch model for seven years, she began seeing a decline in results over the next three years. Instead of assuming the program had failed, Marcy began questioning the marketing model, messaging, and changing environment around it. With the help of ChatGPT, she gained a different perspective: perhaps she hadn't failed at all. The volume and way people were finding offers had changed.

Jennifer and Marcy explore what it looks like to respond with curiosity rather than panic. Marcy shares how she's rethinking enrollment for her upcoming Epic Leap Mastermind, experimenting with workshops, small intimate salons, conversation-based invitations, and potentially a webinar all designed to bring more human experience and implementation into the process.

The conversation also turns to the rapidly changing world of AI tools. Rather than seeing these changes simply as setbacks, Jennifer and Marcy explore how disruption can become a catalyst for innovation, experimentation, and building more ownership around the platforms and systems that support your business.

In This Episode

•  Why Flex is especially important in today's rapidly changing business environment 
•  What happens when a marketing or launch strategy that worked for years suddenly stops producing the same results 
•  The value of small, intimate salons and conversation-based invitations 
•  Why human experience and implementation still matter in an increasingly AI-enabled marketplace 
•   Reframing setbacks as opportunities to innovate 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:08

This is the FlowFlex Skill Podcast, your field guide to the Solopreneur Operating System with author and coach Jennifer Britton. Daily steps plus consistent action equals momentum. That's Jennifer's mantra, and it starts right here, right now, with you. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

All right, welcome back, everyone. I'm Jennifer Britton. I am the author and podcast host here at FlowFlex Skill, the Solopreneur Operating System. And I really enjoyed my last conversation with you, Marcy. If you didn't catch it, check out our last episode. We talked creativity, we talked products, and we talked also one of my favorites, image prompts. Creativity is a skill of the future. So if you haven't listened to this episode, it is important. And it doesn't mean that you have to become a writer or an artist, but creativity leads to innovation. And that leads us to today's topic around flex. We are living in a world of change. Now, Marcy is an amazing product mentor. I have been with her for a couple of years now. I attended her card deck masterclass, which really helped me add multiple card decks onto my offerings. I also have been very lucky to work with Marcy in a mastermind for the last year. And that's a weekly commitment to my creative juju. But today we're going to talk about flex. And I think one of the things that I've realized and made me say yes to working with you, Marcy, is a realization that, you know, even as a writer, I didn't want to keep writing the same thing. And I've been with you, Marcy has been in the background, actually, as I sort of born flow flex scale, which comes out of 20 years of work in different iterations under different umbrellas. And so let's talk a little bit today about flex, because both you and I have been in business for a long time, decades. And what worked yesterday is not working today. And that is why it's not just flow and scale. It's flow, flex and scale, because we live in a world that is ever changing. Some things we can anticipate, many things, as we've seen, especially in the last six years, have taken the breath away for amazing entrepreneurs. And I think sometimes we just we have to react to the changes. So, Marcy, talk a little bit about why flex is something that you're really attuned to right now. How is it showing up in your work, your business right now?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

I I'm gonna speak more from what's happening personally in my business because I think it's probably happening in others with my clients and with other people as well. And that's that I create amazing programs and you need to fill them to make a living. Seven years, wow. I have been, I mean, I really wanted to learn how to do it well. I did learn how to do it well. It brought in really good results for quite a while. And it's probably just in the last three years, where each year was a little less and a little less, and then this last year, it totally tanked. And it's not doing anything different than I'd done before. I maybe didn't have as many JV partners, but the two two programs in a row, both just the results were low.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

And low enough that I questioned, you know, because we do that. Yeah. When when things don't work, we go, oh man, do I have to like just toss this whole thing out the window? Do I have to do in the card deck class? Is it is it past its prime?

SPEAKER_01 4:10

You know, and those are big questions, right? Those are really, these are like the the existential questions for an entrepreneur because you have you have not only it's not just about making money, it's about making impact. You have impacted, probably with card deck masterclass, hundreds, if not thousands of card decks and by default, thousands of clients through the experience of those products.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I think here's where chat GPT came in a little handy. Okay, so talk about that. Give me a future forecast of my business. Wow. It was a really interesting because it'd been working with me for quite a while. Give me a future forecast of my business. Yeah. And because I was kind of thinking that I had failed. Chat pointed out that I didn't. But here's what you want to notice is that you got people signing up, you still got people in your program. It's just not the numbers, not the volume that you're used to. And there can be a lot of reasons for that, but what it pointed back to for me is it's more about the marketing model and the messaging than it is about the program. That was a really important distinction for me to get. And I still may use the launch model with that particular program again, but I'm rethinking, I'm definitely rethinking my upcoming internal launch for the Epic Leap Mastermind.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Oh, yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

I am not doing the regular old launch model. I'm gonna do something very different. And so this is scary.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

It's scary because it's different, right? It's different, and I'm also hearing there's an opportunity to maybe do things in tandem, right? Like for some things, maybe you keep going the old route. For some, maybe you experiment with something new. Yeah, and you know, again, the as we heard with Denise a while ago, um, the world of marketing and visibility has changed. And I would say, with my next writing in in focus, really like the human experience is even more important, which is what you excel at, right? Marcy, that is your sweet spot of helping business owners, not just creatives, but business owners create exceptional human experiences through products and programs.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

So when you're rethinking how to launch something or have an enrollment period, yeah. Um and you want to break out of that launch model, what are the pieces to pay attention to? And you just pointed to one that's really important the personal experience, intimate personal experiences. So this is gonna be I decided I'm not doing a channel. I have all the pieces from last year's launch. Wow. Okay, um you're I'm gonna be redoing it, you're experimenting. I'm gonna turn my challenge into a workshop. And then I'm going to do salons. Now, this is a whole new idea, and I haven't quite worked it out yet. Small intimate salon experiences where we have conversation, yeah, and we get a few image prompts going, yeah, and we talk about what really matters in different ways. So each salon will be a little bit different, yeah. But then an invitation to have a conversation with me. So not overly pitching in the salons, just like lightly mentioning I have a program coming up, but you know, so that feels really different. Of course it is. Then I probably will do some sort of a webinar.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Um, and then I'll have I'll keep inviting people to have conversations rather than directly signing up. I you know, we'll we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I love it. And as as we're talking, I'm now remembering like you joined me back in maybe 2007, eight, or nine, like or in the early years of group coaching essentials, right? Right. Which group coaching essentials has never changed. We have four to eight coaches every time, right? Group coaching is a small, intimate space, and it's interesting because I think to the counterpoint of the bigness, the big rooms of the last six years, people are really flocking to these intimate spaces where they can be seen, they can be heard, they're not being judged, you know, they can just show up. Internet totally being pitched to. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And it's a di it is a different energy and it's a different something. So it'll be I I applaud you for the flex because we do. We need to keep iterating, right? Like your gifts are no less than they ever have been. If anything, I think you're you're continuing to become even more powerful in what you offer, and yet the vehicle to find you has changed.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Yeah. Well, and I don't know how the card deck masterclass will change. I mean, I want to do a JV model. I want to do I need JV partners, I think, to get the numbers up. But I but I've been watching other people get their things they're putting together for JV partners that are a little different. I don't know what it'll look like, but I'm going to keep those creative intuitive feelers out there. It's like, what else could it be?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah. What if it were a wild stallion?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

So what would it look like?

SPEAKER_01 9:51

True. Or what if it was the pink flamingo, right? Pink flamingo. Yeah. Yeah, like that's a different energy. It's a different approach. It's a whole other way of enrolling.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

This is what we were talking about earlier with image props. You can use things like that to just think about it differently. Instead of trying, kind of me and chat trying to hammer it out. It's like, I gotta go find some creative input.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Input and some creative, like uh off ramps, too, right? Like I think you said it, right? We can only stay in the the space of AI for so long. Maybe it was actually Denise. Denise was talking about how important it is to get beyond AI. And she runs the AI Success Club. They've been running it for three and a half years, but she said it's about implementation, right? And that is the piece that you excel at, I excel at, right? This is the piece around coaching, which, as much as the voice is like AI can be your coach, AI can be a listener, but it's not gonna get you into action. It may be very syncophatic, but it's not maybe gonna tell you what is happening.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

You know what you said about AI. AI is changing constantly. That is another place where flex needs to be present. I just had an experience of that just pissed me off. Really? I promised a custom GPT for my new product lab group. Yeah, I created it with chat, we got it all done, and now it's gone. No, it's not gone, but it but chat no longer supports sharing it with anybody.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I just heard I just so I just heard this with Denise. I was actually thinking about you. Yeah, so here's what she recommended go to Claude Skills.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Oh, yeah, I know a little about Claude Skills, yeah. Anyways, it it may not be the same hand call. Might be another. We spent hours trying to figure out how to make there's a new thing called site. Oh, okay. What is site? Chat GPT, like a little like a web page container thing that you can create. And chat GPT said maybe it'll work there. So we went through tiny baby steps all day trying to figure it out. It won't do the interactive conversation like I want. So we'll have to well, that's flex, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

And that's flex in the AI-enabled world. How much are we building? So I think there's a strategic question here of how much are we building in an ecosystem that is not our own, too, right? Like, what do we own? What do we own and what is our territory? And that's always been a digital component. And I wish I'd asked Denise this because I learned that from Denise about 20, well, 10 years ago. She always used to say, always own what you're building on. We saw it during Facebook. We saw what Facebook when that sort of changed, what disarray that put a lot of businesses into. Now I'm hearing possibly AI, right? Changing.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Yeah. But I think there is two options we're gonna look at next. Open AI with what is it called? I API, API, yeah, um connection or mind pal. Because MindPal, you can you need the the API connection there too. But yes, from what I understand, is you could take your custom GPT and embed it on a website through MindPal, you can embed it on your website rather than before that that's better than actually. So here's the cool thing about pivoting and flexing. Sometimes things get better, yes, because you need to respond. And if you didn't fall on your face or have a problem or feel like you failed, you would never go looking for the new thing. Truly. So there's that wonderful gift in perceived failure. It's never really failure, but it's not so.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I want to reframe it as the catalyst for or the activator for flex, which is innovation. What you're talking about too is like this is inviting you, even forcing you to innovate, right? What the custom GPT, the launch model change, like these are both moments of innovation. And what I have no doubt, like you've got solid products behind it, and so now the vehicle is changing. But yeah, like it's probably it may lead to some something you can't even see it.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

And that's part of entrepreneurship, right? That that is part of the experimental mindset, part of the, you know, just getting it out and trying it out. Yeah. Well, Marcy, we're coming to the edge of our conversation today. What and where would you like to write to direct people? We've talked a little bit about image prompts. So imageprompts.com are these amazing tools, creative tools that will get you on stock, right? Like I think as we talked about flex today, and you even made reference. Do I have the wild stallion? Do we have the flamingo approach to this wicked problem? We can't think ourselves out of wicked problems. We need to be innovative and strategic as well.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

So and I do think that sometimes you need to create a new product in response to a flex. Absolutely. And so I have this product idea playbook for you that'll get you started.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

And it's amazing. So the product idea playbook, we're gonna link it in the show notes. Do check it out, check out Marcy's work. If you're listening fall 2026, what happens in the fall for you, Marcy? What are the programs that are starting? Um, the Epic Leap Mastermind. Epic Leap Mastermind, which I have been in for the last year, and really to Epic Leap. Talk, what is an epic leap?

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Oh, it's different for everybody, but it stretches you and it claims more of who you are back and gives you a container to actually implement. You use the word implement, but also expand. It's really about expanding your presence, expanding your visibility, expanding your offers, just and just really claiming a bigger like you could claim more territory out there in the world. Yeah, you don't have to stay small over here, you just get to go leap and take it and take it and create something.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

What I've loved about it is the weekly touch points of like there's work, there's you know, mentoring, there's creativity, like we need it all. We need that combination of the three.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

So the new version might include some regular innovation sessions. It's fun. Well, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

To flex. So if you haven't read the flex chapters yet, this is important. There's team and relationships, there's also productivity and understanding your rhythms of work, and it's about execution and getting things done as well, right? Like you've talked in today's episode and last week's episode about getting the work out and getting reaction, which is so critical. It's not comfortable, but it's part of the creative process as well. So thank you, Marcy, for sitting down with me, not only for one episode, but for two. I've really enjoyed our call. And thank you for sharing what is working and where where you're experimenting in your business in response to what isn't working at this current moment. This current moment.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Yeah. Moment in time. Thank you for having me because what the work you're doing is incredibly important for entrepreneurs out there too.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Thank you. And want to invite listeners, please rate us, rate this episode, comment, like it, share it. What I've learned now, this is my third podcast in six years. It can only grow and be as visible as you make it. And so I hope you've enjoyed my conversation with Marcy today. I've loved it myself. So thank you, Marcy. And we'll see you soon with our next episode here at FlowFlex Skill. Take care, everyone. Be well. Bye.