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Are You Delivering A Transformation Or Just Selling Information?
Episode 37425th February 2025 • The Scalable Expert • Tara Bryan
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In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the rules of online business are changing and transformation is the name of the game. In this episode, we dive into why information-based programs are no longer enough in an era where AI makes information more accessible than ever. Simply providing information doesn’t create lasting value for your customers; instead, they crave curated experiences that help them achieve real results. We discuss why businesses that continue relying on outdated, information-heavy models will struggle to retain customers, while those who prioritize transformation will thrive. This episode is your wake-up call to rethink how you design your offers, shifting from passive content consumption to action-driven, transformational learning experiences that drive engagement, satisfaction, and long-term loyalty. If you're looking to future-proof your online business and build a reputation for delivering results, this episode is a must-listen.

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Welcome & Episode Introduction

02:15 – Why Information-Based Courses Are Failing in the AI Age

05:30 – The Rise of Transformation-Focused Offers & Products

08:45 – How Customer Expectations Have Evolved

11:20 – Real-World Example: The Golf Company’s Costly Mistake

14:50 – The Critical Mindset Shift for Business Owners

18:35 – Practical Steps to Create Transformational Experiences

22:10 – Why This Shift Will Future-Proof Your Business

26:00 – Final Thoughts & Call to Action

📲 Connect & Take Action:

If you’re ready to shift from information-based offers to transformational experiences that customers rave about, let’s chat! Book a free strategy call here: https://taralbryan.com/step/15-learn-to-scale-call/

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-bryan/

💡 Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe!

Your support helps us continue to share insights that empower businesses to scale without maxing out their schedules.

💌 For business inquiries: support@taralbryan.com

About Me:

Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results. 

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business. 

Join us each week as we dive into different strategies, tactics and tips you can apply immediately to your business.

To learn more:

Find us at https://www.taralbryan.com

Here are two ways we can help you create, grow and scale your business:

1. Want to package your expertise or become a Scalable Expert? Take our free quick assessment to see how close you are to creating a scalable business.

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2. ALREADY HAVE AN ONLINE BUSINESS & READY TO INFINITELY SCALE?

Download our free 50 Ways to Engage Your Customers guide or Schedule a 30 minute call with Tara to talk about our offers that will help you master the game.

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Transcripts

Tara Bryan:

Welcome to the Scalable Expert, the podcast where we unlock

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the secrets to building a business

that grows with you, not around you.

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I'm your host, Tara Bryan, business

strategist, mentor, and creator

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of the Infinite Scale Method.

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If you're a coach, consultant, or

service provider who's maxed out

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with one on one work, overwhelmed by

the grind, and ready to scale your

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expertise into a business that works

for you, then you're in the right place.

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Each week, I'll share actionable

tips, inspiring success

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stories, and proven strategies.

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to help you reclaim your time, grow your

income and create a business that delivers

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results without sacrificing quality.

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Let's dive in and make your

business infinitely scalable.

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Hey, everybody.

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Welcome to this week's episode.

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I am so happy that you're here.

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Hey, in this episode, I want to

tackle a couple different things.

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I'm so excited because you know that

moment when you've been talking about

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something for years and years, and

you feel like no one's listening

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or no one hears what you're saying.

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I feel like that has been

something that I've been struggling

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with for quite some time.

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I would say it's been

about five years ago now.

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I was part of a high level marketing

group, and one of the things I always

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struggled with was, so my expertise

is in creating e-learning so high end

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courses, if you will, for corporations.

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So we would go into their organization,

and we would uncover all of kind

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of the performance challenges,

things that were going on in the

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business that weren't working, right?

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Most of the time there was some sort of

challenge with how the employees were

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doing their job or, they didn't have the

tools or they didn't have the training or

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they, there's something that was going on.

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So for example, we had a golf company that

we worked with and they were having a ton

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of quality issues with their golf clubs.

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And it was a huge problem.

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They had lost millions of dollars.

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Customers were unhappy.

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There was a ton of returns.

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I don't remember what the percentage

was and they're like, we need help.

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We can't figure out why all

of these golf clubs are being

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returned, like what is happening?

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And so anyway, we went in, we did a big

assessment to try and figure out what

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was going on at the end of the day.

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It turned out that there was a hiccup in

terms of the process on the assembly line.

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And that is why things were derailed.

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So it costs the company

millions of dollars and issues

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with customer retention.

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So those are the kinds of programs or

curriculum that we would be a part of.

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Again, large, super large projects.

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But the one key component of those was

always, there was always a transformation.

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There was always something, some

problem that needed to be solved,

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some issue that, needed a training

intervention for it so that the change

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could happen, and you could see from

a business result that if you were to

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tackle this training problem, then the

business results would mirror that.

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And even in that industry that we

were a part of, there was a huge

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sort of divide between those kind of

training interventions and we just

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need some sort of training to check

the box, saying that people did it.

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And even if you look at that, in

that world that was maddening, right?

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So our agency really

focused on business results.

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Don't hire us to just create fluffy

information based training that didn't

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actually move the needle in the business.

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And we were pretty adamant

about that even early on.

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As we were growing, it was what we

were known for because there was a

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lot of fluffy e-learning out there.

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If you have experienced it, you know what

I'm talking about, where it's just like.

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You just click the next button

in the e-learning and you don't

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actually have to do anything.

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Then you take a quiz and then you're done.

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My husband who's in healthcare has

all of those courses all of the time.

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Compliance is another place where it's,

we just need people to check the box

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saying that they've watched the training.

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They don't actually

need to change anything.

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So like cyber security, we don't

really need them to know anything

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or do anything different, we

just need them to check the box.

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What an, what a missed opportunity.

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So there was always This difference

in terms of transformation and

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information, and which one was better.

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And unfortunately, it all comes

and stems back from the education

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system that is out there, right?

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Where we just give you a bunch,

we open your head, we give you a

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bunch of information, and then you

go figure out what to do with that

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information, have fun, figure it out.

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And the better approach is actually

to put somebody in a position

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where they can practice in a safe

environment, and be able to learn

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what they need to learn and then

apply it and then keep moving forward.

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That's how you create transformation.

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Throwing people a bunch of information

and hoping that they do something

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with it does not actually help anyone.

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So anyway, we were having that problem

even in the e learning industry, which you

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would think, from a corporate perspective,

everybody would want transformational

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training, especially when they're

paying millions of dollars for it.

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Not the case.

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So then I go into more of the

entrepreneur business owner digital

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marketing space, and everybody is talking

about all these information based courses.

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We're just going to throw up a bunch of

videos, give people as much information

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as possible, and then, charge them

for it and then, call it a day.

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And I remember, very vividly when I was

at one of these conferences for marketing

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the, there was a speaker up, it was a

huge conference, thousands and thousands

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of people, and there was a speaker up and

she said I just, just to create my course,

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I just like, throw my phone up and start

recording videos while I'm on my yacht.

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And I lost my, I just lost it.

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So if anyone's listening who was there

with me, you know that I lost it.

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But that to me was the moment

I was just like, come on.

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There's got to be a different way.

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I've got to be able to

communicate this to people.

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That it's all about how do you help

somebody create a transformation?

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How do you move them from where they are

today, like the problem that they have,

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to the solution that they're looking for,

and help them be able to do that, right?

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How do you give them the fast

track to be able to do that?

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That is why people want you, is

because you can help them actually

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do the thing that they can do.

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Learning is not a passive activity.

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Change is hard, so you have

to be able to help somebody go

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through that transformation.

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Information, or throwing something

up on a membership site and charging

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for it, doesn't serve anyone.

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At the end of the day, it doesn't

serve you because you're not retaining

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those people, and it doesn't serve

your customers because they're

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not actually doing anything, so

there's no change that's happening.

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So that, to me, was the moment,

then, on a previous episode, we just

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talked about, like, how do you define

your expertise in your body of work?

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What does that look like?

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For me, I knew that, and I have

known that in my core for 20 years

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that I've been doing this work

because I always had that passion.

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But that moment I was like, that is it.

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I love it.

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So I have been talking

about that for years.

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Like I said, 20 years.

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But specifically with this digital

marketing group, for years.

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And it's landed with a lot of

different people who are like, oh

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yeah, I really want to do that.

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Like especially coaches and business

owners who know that you can't

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just give something, somebody a

bunch of, information and hope

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that they do something with it.

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But what was happening is some

people weren't hearing me and

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it was very difficult to get

that message across because they

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were thinking about marketing.

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They were thinking

about their bottom line.

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They were thinking

about just sales, right?

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Fulfillment is just this random thing

over here I don't need to worry about.

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I just need to keep bringing people in.

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Bring them in.

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Doesn't really matter what happens when

I bring them in because I'm just going

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to focus on bringing people in, and

then the rest will take care of itself.

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And you and I both know that is crap.

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But, that was the mentality.

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And, what's so fascinating, and this

is, gets me to my point, what's so

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fascinating, is the other day one

of sort of the big voices out there

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in digital marketing came out with a

post that was, what's happening now

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is that if you are not focusing on

transformation, with your customers, you

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are going to be knocked out of the game.

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Information, for information's

sake, is not going to be

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the thing that people want.

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Because again, we have AI now.

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AI, you could go out and be

like, give me all the information

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topics about blah blah blah.

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And it will spit it out, it will create

the thing for you, it'll even do your

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video without you even doing video.

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Right?

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The game has changed.

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And so all of those people who were

just selling a bunch of crap that was

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just, basically a Google dump are now

going to be in a position where their

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consumers are more sophisticated.

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Their consumers are not going to buy

anymore because there's not going to

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be an element of transformation, an

element of a curated experience that

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helps somebody go from where they

are today to where they want to go.

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And I just, it makes me so happy

because it's finally going to

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be something that people hear.

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And so this is my moment because I have

been talking about this for 20 years and

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I still have had people go, wait, what?

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Obviously I have awesome people like

you who know exactly why this makes

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a difference to your customers.

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And, honestly, to your bottom line,

who are really committed to building

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something that solves a real problem

and helps people move from where

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they are today to where they want

to go to create that transformation.

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Now what's exciting about that is you

can create this transformation in a

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similar format than you could creating

information type courses, right?

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It's just a different approach.

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It's just a different way of putting

the pieces together to make it into

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an experience that helps somebody

actually do what they want to do versus

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just dumping them full of information.

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So I was very excited when

I saw that because it means

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that the industry is changing.

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It means that now the people who that was

falling on deaf ears before are now of

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course, talking about it, which is very

exciting and totally frustrating at the

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same place because they have a bigger

platform so they're able to share it

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wider, but I am thrilled that messaging is

coming out because it's 100 percent true,

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which is what all of my clients realize

and why they have committed to not only

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packaging their expertise, but creating an

experience that helps people get results

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without maxing out their time, right?

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There's a way to do it in,

I would call it a hybrid.

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I, 90 percent of it can be automated.

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But you're doing it by creating

an experience as they go.

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So you're thinking about the journey

that your customers are going on,

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and you're putting different pieces

in place to help them actually

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become successful along the path.

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Not just giving them all of your expertise

in terms of all the information and all

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of the things It's really looking at what

they need at the time that they need it

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so that they can do the thing that they

need to do so that they can move on to

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the next step and it's as simple as that,

but it takes a reframe of your thinking.

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And that my friends in a nutshell is

how you stay out of becoming irrelevant

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in the AI game you are creating a

curated experience for your people to

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help them go from point A to point B

that requires more than just a bunch of

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information that can be spit out from AI.

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So I am thrilled, but I was so happy to

hear that conversation kind of bubbling up

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because it is something that you're going

to hear about more and more as we start to

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transition from the sort of the old school

traditional, like, automated courses or

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evergreen courses into how do we leverage

the power of automation and platforms to

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create a curated experience that feels

personalized and moves people into action

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at the right times throughout the journey.

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So I am so excited for what is to come.

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If you are interested in talking a

little bit about this and wait, do

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I have just a course that's full of

informational videos and topics, or

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do I have something that's curated?

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Interesting.

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Let us know.

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I would be happy to take a look

at what you have and offer some

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suggestions in terms of how to start

shifting it into a transformation.

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If you are starting to build your online

experience or business for the very

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first time, and you're like, I want to

make sure I start right so I don't end

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up in a position where either nobody

buys or you've built all of this stuff

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and it's not actually what people need?

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Again, get on my

calendar, schedule a call.

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I would be happy to talk through a

strategy for how do you move that forward.

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All right, my friends, thank you so much

for listening to this episode, and I just

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challenge you to start thinking about the

transformations that you are going to be

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able to create for your customers, not

only once when they come into your world

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for the first time, but over and over

again as they become a customer for life.

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If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you

give it a like or subscribe depending upon

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what platform you are listening to it on.

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Alright, take care until next time.

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