EP12: Using AI to Amplify Solopreneur Expertise and Build Practical Tools with Denise Wakeman (Part Two)

What if you could use AI to amplify what you already know without trying to master every new tool?

In this episode of the Flow Flex Scale Podcast, Jennifer Britton continues her conversation with digital marketing strategist Denise Wakeman, co-founder of AI Success Club. Together, they explore how solopreneurs can use AI to extend their expertise, increase visibility, and create practical tools that support their audience.

Denise emphasizes that AI doesn't need to replace your thinking. Instead, it can serve as a thinking partner... helping you explore ideas, repurpose existing content, and move from concept to creation more quickly.

In This Episode

• Why solopreneurs should embrace AI without trying to master every tool
• Using AI as a thinking partner rather than simply a content generator
• Repurposing existing content while preserving your voice and perspective
• Building practical tools around one minimum viable problem
• Turning your expertise into interactive experiences
• Designing the next logical step in the customer journey
• The importance of judgment, beta testing, and ethical AI use
• Moving beyond visibility toward deeper audience engagement

***Guest Links & Resources***

Website: https://denisewakeman.com/

Publisher: Your Visibility Edge | Substack

Co-Founder: AI Success Club

***Host Links & Resources***

Quick Link to Substack

FlowFlexScale Substack: https://flowflexscale.substack.com/

***

Let's Connect

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferjbritton/

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

TikTok: https:///www.tiktok.com/@groupcoach

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:08

This is the FlowFlex Gill 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

Welcome back, everyone. It's Jennifer Britton, the host and the author of Flow Flex Scale, your Solarpreneur operating system. I'm excited to be sitting today with Denise Wakeman. If you have not listened to the part one episode that Denise and I recently did, I invite you strongly check it out because we just did an episode around how to be found in today's AI-enabled landscape. And as entrepreneurs and especially as solopreneurs, this is, it's all on us, right? It's all on us to be creative and sappy, I think. That's what I really took from our conversation, Denise, that the way of being found is different as it as we have seen many iterations. And as you'll hear in Denise's intro, you know, Denise, you've seen all the changes since you started your work in 1996. Pre-internet, I first met Denise through her blog squad days when I was setting up my first blogs in 2005, 2006. I got to work with Denise a decade ago. She was one of my mentors as I was bringing out effective virtual conversations. And just this recently, haven't finished it yet, but I came back to you around doing, um, actually working, starting to work on the FlowFlex Scale app, which is still in design. It is not yet ready, maybe 2027. But what I love about you, and I'm going to give Denise's formal bio. But what I love about Denise is her practicality and depth of knowledge, because Denise is a digital marketing strategist who has helped solo business owners build their online visibility since 1996. That's 30 years. She teaches experienced professionals how to turn their expertise into useful content, digital tools, and new ways to serve their audiences. As co-founder of the AI Success Club and publisher of Your Visibility Edge, Denise focuses on practical ways to use AI to save time, develop ideas, and create work that still sounds human. And so today we're going to dive right into AI and solopreneurship. So, Denise, why is this so important right now for solopreneurs everywhere?

SPEAKER_02 2:46

You've got to stay ahead of the game the best you can. Or you need to, you need to embrace it. Maybe I should say that. You don't need to stay ahead of it. Um, I think that's pretty much impossible.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

I'm in it. I'm in it all the time and I'm not ahead of it. But I'm keeping an eye on it pretty carefully because that's what people I work with are looking for. They want me to tell them what's working and what's not working. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And you're really that expert, right? Like, and I think for all of us, whether you choose to be AI enabled or not, Denise is a voice that can be trusted. She is practical and understands the world of solopreneurship. So again, like what is the lowdown that we want to be, if not aware of? Like I think I like to use the word aware of because again, I'm not an AI expert, but we've been AI enabled since the day Chat GPT opened, right? I uh I I last year I got my little thing. I'm in the top 0.1% of users. And like I use it a lot actually for repurposing, right? It's it's such a content generator over the years. Yeah. And I use it as a brainstorming partner, as a creative. I don't use it to write books, right? Because that's for me taboo, but I use it as a as a like a thinking partner in terms of like I you can't be creative without having something to bounce off against.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

So I think that's one of the big breakthroughs for the solo business owner is having a partner to think with you. I am frequently surprised at like ideas that come up. I use Chat GPT, Claude, Perplexity, uh, Nobook LM, or Google Notebook, it's called, no, Gemini Notebook it's called now. Whatever, sorry. All the changes, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Every every day, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah. And that's that's the thing is that these are tools that we can use to make our solo businesses easier to run so that we can focus more on the things of uh that our expertise is valued for. So, and that's generally working with clients or writing books or serving people in some way, creating products, et cetera. So the big thing to keep in mind when you're, you know, it's like, oh my God, AI, I have to learn something new. No. If you brace AI, use it to amplify your expertise. Doesn't mean you need to have every tool and you need to become a vibe coder or you know, you don't you don't have to do any of that. You don't have to create agents and you know, there's so many ways unless you want to. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm kind of one of those I want to people because I love experimenting. But it really is a um, you know, you've got to know what works for you and be able to say it's okay. I don't need to know every single tool out there that I need that I know that this one works for me, to be able to generate ideas or to build a course outline, or you know, those kinds of things. And be good with that because it's going to make things a lot faster and more efficient for you. And we know, you know, with a solo, you're doing everything, right?

unknown 6:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

And you know, you've been how many years has it been that you've been running the AI Success Club, Denise? It's been a while now.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

We started it in February 2023. So basically three months after ChatGPT. I'm partnering with Andy O'Brien on that. And we, it was just like, oh my God, this is changes everything. And we just should jump on this. We are not experts, but we will stay one step ahead of you to help you out.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

And so with that in mind, you know, again, and and a solopreneur in mind, what do you think is important for people to be keeping an eye open for? I think that's if you had a few words around like one of the reasons why I'm bringing FlowFlex Scale out in the world now, because it has been a book in multiple iterations since 2020, first for remote preneurs. You know, we're no longer remote preneurs. We're what I also had a title, drovepreneur, digital, remote, online, virtual, entrepreneur, right? We're every one of those, but we're also schoolpreneurs. And so, you know, as you think about helping people flow, really get into like doing, and and I'm hearing from you, it's like being able to spend time doing what we're really good at and looking to offload some of the rest. Like, what are your tips on that? Because to me, yeah, it it's a no-brainer. It's like I don't need to fight the system. I have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Well, you mentioned repurposing, and that's something that I've been a very strong advocate for, I don't know, 15 years or something. But definitely, and of course, this AI is a perfect repurposer because it's taking something you have created, supposedly. I don't write 100% with AI either, but I can give it an article I wrote and just say, okay, I want 15 sub stack notes, a LinkedIn post, and an email. And it's based, you're using your own content to do that. And I know that that's a concern for people. It's like, well, I don't want to sound like an AI and and I don't want to lose my voice. And totally get that. Totally get that. And those are the things that you do need to say, it's like, what is my expertise around this? How have I worked with clients on around this? And you probably have a ton of documentation of all those things fitting in cloud storage. Okay, I do, you know, I don't know about other people. And all of that content, all those emails, all those courses you've created, all the lead magnets you've created, now you can repurpose them in other ways that doesn't take you two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

You know, truly. And it's the speed, right? Like it can do things in five minutes that would have taken a week. Absolutely. Which, if you have a team, that's not a problem. But if it's only you and you choose to remain only you, there's a cost factor around time and money and the attention of supervising someone as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

And I'd prefer to pay $20 a month for Chat GPT and $20 for quad because they do different things. And um, instead of hiring somebody for, you know, $1,000 to create a lead magnet for me or to uh repurpose all my content and post it. You know, that's the the trade-off. And it's I always what I tell a lot of you know, the people that I'm working with is that you know, use the content you've already created because it's got your voice in it. And that's how you train these AI tools also. If you've been using Chat GPT for any length of time, I got on it like not the first day it launched, but like maybe the fifth day, because at first I was like, oh no, not another thing. And then within a minute, I was like, oh my God, this changes everything. Um but you want to use your judgment, which you have honed over all the years of your education, of your business, of any work work that you did for other people before you became solo. You know, you've got all of that piled into you in in a way that it's about bringing that forth when you're working with AI and using your judgment about what works and what doesn't work for you. Because if you start seeing things that are like, this is I don't like this, I don't like the way it sounds, okay, great. That's something to keep to yourself, right? That's something that you do uh without AI. But it's about around the flow part, it's like, okay, what am I working on right now? How can AI help me do that? Am I trying to learn something about this? And what am I trying to teach somebody else about this? Or how am I trying to serve somebody else around this? And if you just stay in that space, you know, of how you want to use it, then you're going to find that it will be very it will become more like a flow. Like I don't I barely ever use AI for anything personal. I just use it for work. I'm not well, I did because I was going to Japan right when um when ChatGPD came out. I was like, oh, make me an itinerary for my trip to Japan, you know. I think it's pretty cool too, because it brought in lots of all kinds of stuff. But I other than that, you're a business user.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, I'm a business user. I it's like I don't I don't need it unless, yeah, there's a rare thing every once in a while. Now the tools have become, you know, well they've evolved to become so much better than they were. So much better.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Do you have any like well, I know you have lots of insights on this, but any tips like a agentic, right? The agentic era is being embraced by many. Like any tips for solos on, you know, where to start with considering adding agents. So I'm I'm being very specific here. Where to start? I know.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

I know you're being very specific, and I will confess to you right now that I have not created any agents.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Okay. Yep. So I I I suspect it's like much bigger than radar. Okay. So it's on your radar. So I might come back to it in a few months or a year. Yeah. But you know, I'm I'm intrigued by this, right? In terms of hmm. And I can also see the other side of like, oh, that's more things to manage. And there's risk, etc. So let's not go to let's not go to agents, but let's go to something that you are, you talked already about use, like we have to use our own content, right? Like I think there's an ethical layer to all of this as well. And so I really hear from what you shared with us like an easy win is to take a blog post, cut it up, you know, like that has always taken a lot of time. Do a graphic, right? And so exactly. Do you recommend like integrations? But like I I know a lot of people are like, should I integrate my chat GPT or my cloud with say Canva? Because there's an integration there. There's a Yeah, I've done that.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

I do that. I've got uh I've got it also integrated with my Google account. Okay. Um, because it can then I can pull in docs that I have in my drive and that sort of thing faster. Yes, yeah. So it's integrated, it's there, yeah, successfully. Yeah, I I do a lot of integration. And the other thing that I'm working on more now, and I think is a big vis can be a visibility boost for people. And you alluded to this earlier is building things based on your expertise. So AI assisted tools that you can build. Because when I created the first one, that I was just people were talking about building things. And I was like, I would follow a lot of women who are building with AI on Substack, and like, oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. Let me try that. Let me try that. And I was like, oh, maybe I could do this too. You know, I mean, I I don't think myself as a coder. No, I am a coder match, right? But I am an experimenter and I can use AI to build things, is what I discovered. And like I started by creating just a little personal habit tracker, which it just lived on my computer. So it was a local only, not web app. And then you know, somebody said, Oh, well, here's a problem that travel agents have. And so I built something that could be on the web, although it hasn't been deployed publicly because I kind of lost interest in it. But it was really an experiment anyway. Yeah. And what I realized is building tools that are based on your expertise, based on your workflows, based on how you work with people, um, you know, whatever your frameworks are, that kind of thing. If you've written a book, for example, like what you're doing, is that this is a way to engage people at a much steeper level.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

And so it's all about packaging a part of your expertise and making it usable, making it user-friendly. So maybe an app. So with that maybe be an app. Cloud skills? Claud's Claud Skills. I have been creating a lot of cloud skills lately. Really? And I'm also converting our the in the AI Success Host Club, we created a lot of GPTs for our members. And sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yes. And so now that now they've become cloud skills.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

How how can I make them? It's a process. But but the point of all that is that by having an AI assisted tool and a skill is a tool in my book, um, or uh an app that I'm working on, as you know, because I asked you to be a beta tester.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

I loved it. Visibility Momentum Map, which all the feedback was quite humbling. So it took me a few weeks before I got back to start working on it. But uh the point is that when people use that, you're top of mind.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Because instead of here's a chapter of my book that they download, oh, free chapter of the book, and then they never read and they never read it. It just goes into the Google Drive or a lead magnet, same thing, right? If you give them a tool to achieve something that you've talked about that you work with your clients on, and you give a tool that solves one little problem like that, yes, you're you have now served them. They are using the thing that has your name or that they downloaded from you, or that you gave them or you sold them every time they want need to solve that problem.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

And if I make engaging with you.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, and people could go, but what about the flow flex scale? So we have the heat map, right? And I used coding, like very basic coding through Claude to create a heat map, which was a piece of paper, right? It's something we have been doing for a year plus in on a Monday morning with a sheet of paper. And then it was like, I just want to have it like in a digital space and it's available. So, you know, look up the link for the FlowFlex scale heat map because it is something that if you want to do it visually on your device, it's there. It doesn't have to be a piece of paper unless you want it to be a piece of paper, right? Like I think we all want to engage in different ways too.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah. So and the thing is, every time somebody fills out that heat map, they're gonna see flow flex.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

They know. Yeah. Jen Jennifer Bright. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. And that's better than that. And it's so true. Like, you know, like, yes, we're gonna have digital chapters that you can download, but these tools are embedded. There's always a tool per chapter so that you're not just saying, oh, this is nice. No, as a solopreneur, as a even as a leader, even as a team member in organizations, we need to apply. That is the human element that still exists.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Taking that extra step to actually engage in a tool and make something happen and get a response that you can implement or you know, that takes the connection between you and that user to another level.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah. Can you say that one more time? Say that one more time because I think this is a really important note. And you and I, as seasoned entrepreneurs, it's not just a flash in a plan. So what it what are we aiming for? Say it one more time if you can. Okay, how did I tool?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

No, having an interactive tool that you can give a user takes the connection between you and the user to another level, a higher level, because they are engaging directly with something that you have built that solves a problem for them. I know exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

So but yeah, and I I I hope that this really is an impetus then to start thinking about what is the problem you want to solve. That's been something I've taken from both of our episodes together, is like really it's going back to the basics. And that's the basics of experience design, right? And it and really, you know, for many listeners, it might be okay, well, that's great. I solved the problem, but how? How does that stand? Well, that's the experience we're building around it. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah, it's really, yeah, there's two things to look at. One is what is the minimum viable problem you can solve so that that a user gets an immediate solution that helps them. And then the next question is what's the next logical step? Yeah, yeah. Because solving the problem is only the first step. And then it's another problem and another step. Exactly. And that is how can I serve you more directly?

SPEAKER_01 20:53

So check out the chapter. There's interestingly, one of the nine catalysts is marking invisibility, right? And it talks about the whole customer journey. Because I wish when I started this business back in 2004 that I was able to see beyond that there was one problem. And a lot of people look at my business now and say, oh, you've got so many things. And it's because we build to address different needs, right? Flowflex scale is not just this thing in the middle of nowhere. It has evolved from the 20 years of coaching entrepreneurs. It has evolved from coaching business builder, which answered one set of problems, which is how do I plan? How do I track? How do I like measure what I'm doing? That's great. And how do I take it to the next level? That's flow flex scale. It's mindset, it's a consistency, it's the rhythm, it's knowing ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

And if if you find that your business is faltering or it's not, you know, going the way, it's not scaling the way that you want it to scale, take a look at what you're asking people to do at the end of off giving them something. What is that next logical step? And it could be to book. an appointment with you. It could be um buying a product or it could be solving the next problem. But that's something that needs to be built in. And I can help you with that too. I mean that's like, okay, here's the problem. Here's what I'm gonna build to solve it. Here's what people are going to do. Now what is what is the next question you think based on this that a person would have, that a user would have because I I can't I don't have access in my brain to oh you know the whole internet of things. Yeah. So but then you can get some ideas and you're gonna know I mean you may just say give me some ideas onto the next step and and what's gonna come back maybe one you'd go yes that's absolutely the next step. I I already do that with people now why can help them with that you know and others are like why and it might also be a different answer where you are going.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

So that back to something you said earlier, right? We have to use our judgment and I think there isn't there's a very compelling use case for solopreneurs that this helps us get clearer on what we believe and what we say no. Heck no.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Exactly exactly yeah you know on the few things that I've been working on building that are AI assisted that I'm using Quad and ChatBT to work on I'm constantly evaluating is this a good response is this not a good response does it go there or not? And you know that's what I learned from doing beta testing. Very important to do beta testing it's like oh that didn't work. Oh that was slow you know oh that's because it's on this kind of server and not that kind of server and you know it's like okay so I'm learning a lot but I'm also making every decision for every step.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah because it's your business right and it's your reputation. I think that's something else I really have taken from our work together over the years like visibility matters and how do we want to be seen and probably now it matters even more because anyone can do anything, right? Anything can be programmed. However your expertise can't be replaced.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Right. And even I mean I have many colleagues who talk about visibility and help their clients with visibility but none of us do it in the same way. So I'm not going to create the same kind of product or app or whatever as somebody else it's gonna be from my perspective and that's the thing that you know is really important to keep in mind is you've got the expertise use your frameworks use your tools that you've developed analog over the years and see how you can update those upgrade them and use AI as your support system to do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Sage words so as we come to a close Denise like I think you know a couple of things we want to know how people can find you I'm intrigued with the AI Success Club.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Is that something that people can join at any time is it a membership how does that work yeah it's a membership it's we have a month we have a monthly membership and we have a lifetime membership because we've created tons of course like 19 courses also for three years. So the lifetime includes all of that and then the monthly is every Monday we deliver uh what we call a super prompt which are very not complex but they go real they go deeper than just because Andy's a copywriter a 20 year copywriter I'm a content marketer. So that's our those are our lanes but we're getting into things that are a lot more complex like how do I make decisions or how do I you know I'm getting lost in the content how can I bring myself back you know evaluate these things for me. So we're getting much more um we're going deeper into more nuanced I'm hearing yeah and as and as I think many of us realize you know there's a plus and a minus right lots of ideas but I've got to discern and I talk a lot about discernment and yeah decision making as well and flow flex yeah yeah Andy's been working a lot on that and um and then once a month we do a a work a training basically like whatever if something's new or just showing them how you know we're doing things and and sometimes we bring in guests who know things on at different levels than we do. And is so is that at aisuccessfulclub.com yes it is love that love that and where else can people find you you've got a substack let's give a plug to the substack as well that's where I spend most of my time it's at your visibilityedge.com and it is a sub stack uh I'll be hitting two years on that of I think I've missed two weeks out of that. Wow that was my my I had become inconsistent I had become really inconsistent and so two years ago I was like okay I need to get back into just a regular flow of you know writing sharing my expertise. Yeah yeah exactly so sometimes it's hard to be consistent but I do my best and I think I've only missed two and it was when I was like with my mother in the hospital or something like you know doing important things that weren't yeah it's like family comes first especially with an elderly mother.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

So you know that well Denise I have to say I'm so thankful that you joined us today and for our last episode. I have learned so much from you over the years. You've been such an amazing mentor to me. I'm so glad that our paths have crossed again and I might see me in the AI Success Club. Like I'm intrigued by that because I think AI really is an important tool in the future. And I have no doubt that there will be continued iterations that we're not even aware of right now. Like even just with custom GPT, right? I'm glad I didn't invest in spending a lot of time to create one, but what now will I be doing? So I hope yeah skills that'll be the next one. So if you have a course let me know I'm sure you will okay um everyone please check out Denise and thank you just for what you do in the world and you know helping all of us as business owners in a a very you know detailed way. You've been an amazing guest today.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Thank you so much. It's been a joy to reconnect with you and talk with you and you can probably see that I'm very enthusiastic about all this stuff. Sort of, you know, it's like people say aren't you retiring? And it's like no why why retire when you have fun but I got more stuff to learn.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

And you know if we look at the future of work and the future of life we need to keep learning and we need to keep curious right that is going to keep us uniquely human. So that's keep going Denise you'll you'll always see me somewhere popping up. So okay thank you for joining us thank you again Denise have a great week everyone take care thank you bye bye