Why Smart Businesses Froze in 2025 and What Will Separate Winners in 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: Business Lunch with Roland Frasier

Episode Title: Why Smart Businesses Froze in 2025 and What Will Separate Winners in 2026
Hosts: Roland Frasier (A), Ryan Deiss (B)
Release Date: January 8, 2026

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Overview

In this candid and insightful episode, Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss look back at the unique and turbulent year of 2025, dissecting why uncertainty “froze” many businesses—including their own—and how the winners of 2026 will separate from the rest. They cover evolving deal dynamics, shifts in buyer confidence, the real impact of AI, radical changes in decision-making, and practical lessons for business operators navigating volatile times. No cheerleading—just real talk and actionable insights for leaders designing their next moves in 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. 2025: A Year of Unprecedented Business Paralysis

• Not a Crisis, but a Freeze

  • Businesses, customers, and capital didn’t “disappear,” but assumptions did ([02:23]):

    “What disappeared was confidence without proof. Everything slowed down—not because people were scared, but because they stopped assuming.” — Roland Frasier ([02:23])

  • The market response felt like “deer in the headlights”—an absence of optimism or fear; just collective inaction ([02:51])

• Traditional Economic Indicators Didn't Apply

  • Classical models broke down: despite high inflation, people kept spending; the stock market (fueled by AI stocks) diverged from the real economy ([03:16]-[04:02])
  • Quote:

    “A mistake that a lot of businesses make and certainly the media makes is equating the stock market with the economy. They have increasingly become disconnected.” — Ryan Deiss ([04:02])

  • AI-adjacent sectors thrived, especially commercial services linked to data centers, while traditional and home services lagged ([04:02])

2. Deals Took Longer—Trust Got Replaced by Proof

• Dramatic Shift in Deal Dynamics

  • Deals that previously would have closed quickly became protracted, with buyers demanding more in-depth diligence at every step ([06:06])
  • Example: Attempting to sell a company saw months of due diligence before even an LOI ([06:47])
  • Analogy:

    “It’s like that uncomfortable moment right before you cry. We’re still living in the tension of trying not to cry—we haven’t just let ourselves go.” — Ryan Deiss ([07:24])

• Prove It Culture Across the Board

  • Speed in business once masked bad assumptions; in 2025, “prove it” replaced “trust me”—in sales, hiring, lending, and partnerships ([08:56])
  • This caution is likely to become the norm until the macro climate feels truly “safe” again ([09:59])
  • Quote:

    “The thing that actually moved the needle [on consumer trust] the most was the founder or the CEO having a consistent presence on social media. We’re just looking for real humans.” — Ryan Deiss ([11:11])

3. Key Lesson: Profit Dollars Beat Margin Percentages

• Businesses Learned Hard Lessons in Measurement
  • Business owners fixated on margin percentages missed opportunities for higher profit dollars ([12:03])
  • Many painful, necessary decisions (stopping pet projects, letting people go, killing sunk cost ventures) led to record profits despite flat or lower revenue ([16:07])
  • “Hard times create strong men ... Good times create weak men ... The cycle continues.” ([16:32])

4. 2025 Was the Year AI Became Labor, Not Just Software

• The Big Mindset Shift

  • Early AI use was incremental ("just another tool"); late 2025 saw a breakthrough—using AI as an employee, not just software ([17:10]-[18:30])
  • Story:

    “I put the job description and training materials for a real team member into ChatGPT. Suddenly, I had a mini AI version of that person working on my project. That changed everything for me.” — Ryan Deiss ([18:30])

• AI Accelerated from Tool to Team Member

  • Roland used multiple AIs (Claude, ChatGPT, Lovable) to build and iterate an app in four weeks—a process that would have taken a developer team four months ([22:10])
  • Naming and codifying 'protocols' within AIs allows repeatable, rapid content creation and task delegation ([24:38])

• AI Protocols—A New Moat for Operators

  • By creating and naming custom “protocols”, users get bespoke outputs without constantly re-prompting or arguing with the AI ([24:38]-[29:31])
  • Quote:

    “If you’re building your versions of AI, with your own protocols baked in, it creates an ever-widening moat over users who are just typing prompts.” — Roland Frasier ([25:44])

5. Cultural Evolution: Less is More, Simpler is Better

• Embracing the Systems They Teach

  • Roland and Ryan “ate their own dog food,” rigorously implementing their own frameworks, processes, and content strategies ([30:56])
  • Content was treated as a business asset—selling, training, supporting deals, and anchoring decisions ([31:57])

• Faster, Harder Decisions

  • Hard decisions (letting people go, shutting down underperformers) were made more quickly than in previous years—but could still be improved ([32:44])
  • Lesson for faster decisions: if you won’t measure or scorecard a project, it’s probably just an expensive hobby ([34:21])

• Optimizing for Predictability and Inevitability

  • The goal for 2026: move from momentum to inevitability by systematizing success—fewer bets, more certainty ([36:14])
  • Quote:

    “As you begin to compound assets instead of just events, that’s what creates predictability and inevitability.” — Ryan Deiss ([38:22])

6. Letting Go of Sacred Cows & Creating Capacity

• Killing the Gold-Plated Event
  • Decision to stop hosting the profitable Get Scalable Live event—a $2.5-3M outlay that netted $1M—despite market expectations ([38:22])
  • Instead, they’ll leverage smaller, high-value client events to replicate the revenue with less effort, freeing up focus and supporting work-life balance ([42:49])
  • Insight: Sometimes, the thing you think you “have” to do is the very thing you can replace for more leverage or more joy ([42:49])

7. Trends for 2026: Human, Simple, Systematized

• Simplification Wins
  • Complexity was trimmed from sales and marketing; streamlined processes performed better ([42:57])
  • Authentic, human-to-human contact (especially CEO/founder visibility) supports trust in the AI era ([44:54])
  • Final Reflection:

    “Don’t copy what we did in 2025; copy how we decided. Ask yourself what worked, what didn’t, what should have died sooner, and what would make 2026 inevitable.” — Roland Frasier ([44:54])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[2025] was a year where a lot of things that used to work stopped working, and it happened kind of quietly.” — Roland Frasier ([00:35])
• “It just felt like everybody froze...not optimistic, but not scared. True deer in headlights.” — Ryan Deiss ([02:51])
• “Deals that should have been easy...radically different buyer behavior.” — Roland ([06:06])
• “Speed before was hiding maybe bad assumptions...prove it is replacing trust me.” — Roland ([08:56])
• “Margin percentage lies. Profit dollars don’t.” — Roland ([12:03])
• “Treating AI as labor, not software, was the breakthrough.” — Ryan ([18:30])
• “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.” — Ryan ([16:32])
• “If we’re unwilling to put a scorecard on it, we’re not treating it like a business.” — Ryan ([34:21])
• “What would need to be true for us to not have to do that event?” — Ryan ([39:43])
• “Simple and human. I think that’s where things are headed.” — Ryan ([44:54])

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Important Timestamps

• [02:23] — Main insight: Confidence, not capital or customers, disappeared in 2025
• [04:02] — Disconnect between stock market and the real economy
• [08:56] — Shift from “trust me” to “prove it”
• [11:11] — Impact of consistent founder/CEO presence on brand trust
• [17:10] — How AI finally moved the needle: from tool to labor
• [24:38] — Game-changing discovery: Naming protocols in AI
• [34:21] — Lesson: unpaid, unmeasured projects = expensive hobby
• [36:14] — 2026 focus: From momentum to inevitability
• [42:49] — Killing the sacred cow (Get Scalable Live event)
• [44:54] — Closing call-to-action: Emulate the decision process, not the specifics

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Final Takeaways

• 2025 wasn’t a year of fear or collapse, but paralyzed inaction and heightened caution.
• Winners in 2026 will replace assumption with rigorous proof, focus on profit dollars over margin, and build unique company “moats” by codifying processes and AI use.
• Simplicity, human presence, and ruthless focus on scalable systems will be more valuable than ever.
• Challenge every sacred cow—sometimes your presumed “must-do's” are the biggest levers for future freedom.

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If you want actionable business clarity and the hard truths (not just hype), this episode is essential for your 2026 strategy.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everybody. We may be recording the first episode of Business Lunch for the year. We're not sure because both of our computers, everything got reset, and so we have no tech help. It's just me and Ryan, tech wizards that we are.

[B]

It's like it's the year 2000, and, you know, the millennium bug actually infected our computer. Like, it happened. It is broke everything.

[A]

So Ryan doesn't know what this podcast is going to be about, but I thought that it would be really fun to do a year in review.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

We're in 2026 now. This is our first recorded episode of the year, and we are thinking about this episode not as a highlight reel, not as, like, predictions, not the hype that you get with those typical reviews. But 2025 was a year where a lot of things that used to work stopped working, and it happened kind of quietly, I think. And so I wanted to explore that with me and Ryan. Talking about it, if you weren't paying attention, I feel like it just felt harder and you didn't know why. But I'd like to kind of break down that and really kind of do it more. I wouldn't say that either of us is currently acting as an operator, but I'd kind of. But I think that we're close enough to operators in our businesses and our consulting that. That we can say from an operator perspective, if you own an operate a business or, you know, or if you're, you know, an operator within one. We saw some cool stuff and we learned some stuff. We did some things well. We got some things that we could have definitely done better. I don't know if I'm going to admit that we did them wrong. Yeah, we did them wrong. How we're deliberately designing intentionally 2026. So if you're looking for, like, motivation, this might not be the episode of, like, you know, hey, rah, rah, go forward. We're really trying to help you give clarity going into 2026. I'd love to start talking a little bit about. Well, number one, how do you feel about that, Ryan?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's great. And I definitely think it's great to take it from the perspective of just. Just getting real about what actually happened and lessons that we can bring into the new year, as opposed to just predictions based on nothing. So, yeah, let's do it.

[A]

So I think the biggest thing that we noticed in 2025, and it took a while to actually put words to it, is that capital didn't really disappear. Customers didn't really disappear. Deals didn't really disappear. But I'd say what disappeared was confidence without proof. Like everything slowed down. Not cause people were scared so much, but maybe because they stopped assuming. How does that resonate with you?

[B]

Yeah, I think everybody just froze was the sensation that I got. Nobody, nobody was optimistic, but nobody was scared. It was this true deer in a headlights kind of mentality where everybody just seemed kind of stuck in the middle of the road and they were just frozen. Yeah, it felt like maybe all of the things like.

[A]

Like what wasn't true in my experience during 24, 23, 22 was that all of the economic indicators that we usually look at and say, oh, this is happening, like inflation is up, so people are going to spend less. But it didn't happen that way. Inflation went up and people spent way more. And then inflation kept going up and then interest rates went up and rent and housing costs went up and still everything prices went up higher. None of the stuff that normally happens when you are a traditional economic, you know, modeler was valid. And I think it just freaked. I mean, I know it freaked me out. I think it freaked all of us out. And I think maybe that finally caught up a little bit in 25. I'm not sure.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think a mistake that a lot of businesses make and certainly the media makes is equating the stock market with the economy. And they have increasingly become disconnected. So the stock market is not the economy, but we look at them like they're the same. And what we've definitely had in. What we definitely had in 2025 was the stock market that was propped up largely by AI and AI companies. Similarly, if you had a business small, medium or large, that was AI or AI adjacent, you were probably doing pretty well last year. I know we had a client that was in the environmental construction space and they crushed it last year because they were doing a lot of data center work. So it made sense. Similar, if you were doing plumbing and electrical in any kind of commercial capacity, you were doing well. Whereas if you were doing it exclusively in home services, you struggled a bit because people weren't doing as much home renovation. There wasn't a lot of new home construction taking place because people weren't buying as many homes. So it kind of depended on where you were in the economy. And so as is the case, there's never anytime there's a bull market, everybody. It's kind of like when there's a bull market, everybody's winning. Right. It's kind of like it's at high tide and it winds up lifting all the boats. And when there's a bear market, there's always still a bull somewhere. Like, there's always still some place where it's. Where it's winning. And that was definitely the case this last year. But I think, I mean, to your point, it never felt like. Because there were none, none of the economic indicators that told us, like, oh, no, it's bad. You should all feel bad. You should all be afraid. Like, what we saw in 2008, 2009, and so nobody there was not this release of, you know, of terror. So everybody, everything just stayed locked up.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things that we saw, I can think of a couple of examples, is that deals that should have been easy, same number, same business, you know, just radically different buyer behavior. And one that we're kind of in the middle of for selling one of our companies, like, we started with light diligence, went into a little bit more, and we still don't have an LOI on something that, I mean, has it been like five, six months? Has it been that long? It feels like longer to me, but.

[B]

Like, no, it's been. It's been five months. Been five and a half months.

[A]

Yeah. So we closed the year with, you know, we're going to try to get it done. And we had multiple meetings, you know, flew out, talked, had zoom calls, you know, had teams numbers exchanged and just getting the commitment to buy. We were selling, getting the commitment to buy from people who said they wanted to buy. But just, I feel like that the principals were on board, but the team on their side was kind of slowing it down for various reasons, but just way more detail before even getting an LOI than normal. Does that sound.

[B]

And I really do think it comes down to everybody being so uncertain about where was it going next. Maybe an analogy, like, if you've ever tried to, you know, tried to keep yourself from crying or maybe some, like, even just tried to keep yourself from sneezing like that. The most uncomfortable part is that feeling and that sensation right before you cry. Like, when you finally just let yourself cry. It kind of sucks when you're crying, but then when you're done, it's over. And I think we've still been like, living in this tension of trying to not cry because we haven't just let ourselves just go like, okay, I guess it is bad because again, it ha. The shoe hasn't dropped yet, and it still hasn't. And I'm not convinced that it will. That's the thing. Everybody's like waiting for the straw to break the camel's back.

[A]

And it's like shadow inventory. The shadow inventory that was supposed to depress the real estate market from that seven, eight, nine period. Right. Just it somehow got absorbed.

[B]

Right, exactly. This is, I think 2026 is going to be. I know this isn't a prediction show, But I think 2026 is going to be an interesting year because we find out, you know, we've all been deer in a headlights. I think this is the year when we find out does the car stop and the deer is able to kind of run away totally safe and unharmed or does the deer get plastered by the, you know, semi truck? It should be fun.

[A]

And the good of it is, I mean I can think of multiple deals. We had another deal that we've been working on an LOI for three or four months on a joint venture that's a significant joint venture between two pretty large companies. And it's just so much prove it, prove it, prove it not trust me. And I think that speed before was hiding maybe bad assumptions and that resulted in some challenging deals that people experienced. And so prove it is replacing trust me. And that that's showing up, you know, in, in credit lending, acquisitions, joint ventures, sales, hiring, partnerships kind of everywhere. It just seems like everything is cautious, slow, more, more data based than it was before. So that, that's something that. Do you think that's going to continue about that way? Do you think because we're, we're shoe droplets that is just going to be pretty much the same?

[B]

Yeah, I do. And I think, and I think it's because the opposite has been so true. If you, if you ever do want to predict the future, look at what the past has been and invert it when, you know, we're kind of on the other side of a trend. And one thing that we had seen was the offers, for example, that were the biggest were the ones that won. Right. So if you could just make the biggest, boldest claim, then in general you won and you didn't really even have to back it up. People were likely to believe it. They wanted to believe it because everything was up and to the right. Interest rates were zero percent and the government's giving people free money. So we want to believe all the claims because we have free money just to throw around. Well, that's not the case anymore. And so let's invert it now. We don't want to believe that. We're not going to believe that. And so what's the inversion of that, well, now it's show me, prove it. And so we're seeing this across the board. And so it isn't impacting deal flow and the time that it's taken to get deals done. It's also dramatically impacting sales and marketing. One of the things I'm trying to remember, I think it was. It wasn't Procter and Gamble. It was another big consumer company. They did this research study and they were looking into what are the factors that impact consumer trust, right? Like, how can we get consumers to actually trust our brand again? And is it the number of times that they, that they. That they see our brand message? Is it association with known influencers and celebrities? And the thing that actually moved the needle the most was the founder or the CEO having a consistent presence on social media. Because, again, we're just looking for real humans. Show me. Prove to me that you're a real person. Prove to me that you actually do this. And I do think that that's going to continue even. And until everybody breathes a sigh of relief.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's interesting. One of the things that I would say that was a lesson that kind of repeated all year was that margin percentage lies and, and profit dollars don't. And so basically, you know, one of the most repeated conversations I feel like I had with, with deals we were doing and with consulting clients and negotiating and stuff was something like, you know, it was, yeah, we could do that, but then their margin goes down. And. And every time the same thing happened, we would just run the math and the profit actually went up. And so it's not. I mean, I guess it's a little bit of, you make it up in volume, but not, you know, the hyperbolic. You know, when you're losing money, you can do it. I think that that last year finally killed the idea that margin percentage is the goal. That it's really not that profit dollars are. And. And I saw that across a lot of deals, and it was really like something that was getting in the way of making things go. And to that end, both we had a financial call this morning, you and me and one of our other business partners, and I just got off of one before this. And both of those companies had their record month in December of last year. And I think that that's part of it, but I'd love to kind of get your thoughts on that. And if you guys that are out there listening to this had your record, you know, like, had, like, December was the best month of the year, and that's not Traditionally how it is like some, some businesses like, oh, it's always Black Friday and that, but if you're in a business like ours where that's not the case, and actually sometimes it's a tough time of year, I think it'd be interesting to talk about that. Do you have any thoughts?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's important to point out, just for context, this, this particular business is, does not historically have great November and December. It's not a, it's not a retail heavy, consumer heavy month. It's not like it's horrific, but it's certainly not one of its better months. And I have been hearing that. I just did a call with a bunch of our clients and portfolio companies on Monday. So as we're recording this about 48 hours ago, and I asked them, hey, how was your December? And well, I first asked how was your 2025? And it was just across the board, hard, difficult, exhausting, you know, headwinds, like everybody was kind of like tongue wagging. And I was like, well, how was December? And, and you, you could just see faces kind of start to light. Cause it's a zoom call. So I can see a whole lot of faces across the screen and you could just see postures change a little bit. And then when I asked him what was, tell me about your growth and profitability. Just about everybody was either flat. Some were, I mean they, they might have been down a bit, but most were kind of flat. Ish. And if they were up, they were up kind of 10 to 20% and it was really hard to get there. So they were kind of sort of in this like 20% range. So they might have been down 20%. Up 20%, but everybody's are flat. Everybody's kind of in that range. But even the people that were down were more profitable than they had been in previous years. And I thought that was interesting. And it's because pretty much all the businesses that are still around made a lot of really difficult decisions in 2025 because they were concerned about where things were going and they made decisions to make their businesses more scalable, to make their, their businesses more profitable. And what I was so excited about, and all of them were more optimistic going into this next year because I said we get to bring these efficiencies with us going into a year that by and large people think at least is going to be better than the year before. Now will it? Who knows? But, but at least we're coming in with stronger businesses that are, that are ready to kind of maybe Endure something. Yeah, I think the.

[A]

The hardness of the year had. Had that as a benefit, that it made you do things that you maybe didn't feel great about, didn't want to do. Stop supporting pet projects that you maybe wanted to fund. Give up on sunk cost ventures that weren't producing fast enough. Let people go that. That you probably should have let go, but didn't want to. And that. That had a lot to do with it. Yeah.

[B]

What's that quote? Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. And the cycle continues. I do think that's a bit of what we're experiencing right now. I do think that we are on the back of some really, really, really good times that created a lot of really, really, really weak entrepreneurs, a lot of really weak business owners, and a lot of really weak businesses. And I think a lot of them are either getting stronger as a result of this or. Or they're going away, which is going to be a good thing for the ones that get stronger.

[A]

Amen. The other thing I'd like to chat about is kind of how AI showed up in 25, because if we talk about it honestly, I feel like early in 25, it didn't really move the needle much for us and we were doing what everybody else was doing. I feel like we've been ahead of the schedule or ahead of the curve on it so since it started. But like we were using tools and saying, you know, what are the tools we should try and what are better prompts, you know, what are the experiments we should run? Which was all interesting, but it wasn't really particularly transformative. And that the breakthrough that happened maybe towards Q3 and definitely into Q4 is when we stopped treating AI like software and started treating it like labor. And I know that in our digital marketer business we had been doing that and then we productized that into agents to do things for people. And so I'd love to talk a little bit about that. Like, you know, maybe if you can think of. Was there a moment when you, like when you reframed AI as an employee that had a job versus, you know, isn't this a cool thing that I can kind of like basically use like Google, only better without the ads? And then maybe, you know, did sequencing or ownership or anything like that impact that?

[B]

Yeah, that was the breakthrough for me. I mean, I've been. You've really been the person driving the AI initiative at our companies, and I've been the laggard admittedly and it's not that I wasn't excited about AI, it just. For me, it just seemed kind of like another tool. Right. And I knew that it was powerful and I was using it and I was learning it. It's not like I was anti AI, I just, it seemed like a force multiplier, but a multiplier like 2x3x, not necessarily 10x, 20x. And it wasn't until I remember there was a project that I really wanted to get done. Like it was a passion project. I was enthusiastic about it. I felt like it was going to be a game changer. I remember trying to take it to the team and being told that we just don't have the capacity to do it right. We just, we just can't do it. We don't, we don't have the, the bandwidth. We don't have the manpower to do it. And so I remember going to AI and pulling up projects in Chad GPT and seeing that it had these two boxes at the time. The UI has changed since then, but at the time it had these two boxes side by side and one of them was instructions and one of them was files. And I thought, okay, well, what if I just take the job description of the person, Matt, who I want to do the thing that doesn't have the time to do what I want to do. I'm going to take his job description, I'm going to put it in the instructions, and I'm going to take a bunch of the training materials that we'd use to train Matt, a bunch of the, you know, data and stuff that I would give him so that he could build the thing. And I'm going to put all those files in the files and now the files are in the computer and I'm going to get this mini AI mat to do the thing that I actually want to get done. And that was when the breakthrough happened. I know for me is because I stopped, like you said, stopped thinking about AI as a tool and started thinking about it as an extension of the team, as an actual team member. I was able to, in about a half day, working with this new AI team member to crank out all of the assets needed for that campaign. And that completely changed everything. That mindset shift.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's pretty cool. The two big things for me there were at the cause I'd been using it similarly, I mean, but much more consultatively, I'd say. I consider it its own person separate from me. That's basically like a peer to bounce things off of And I've used it like that for a while. But, but, but definitely getting into Lovable for building things. Like, like I, I had played around with stuff, but like in November when we did our Get Scalable Live event and I was looking at all our Google sheets in the operating system, I was like, this needs to be software. And we're like, yeah, we've tried that. You know, it's just so hard and expensive and, you know, hadn't worked in the past and all. And I was just like, well, screw it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it that with Lovable and basically built and then verified the amount of work that building the app that is becoming the scalable AI app with my own team of software developers, which was Claude, Chat, GPT and Lovable, all working together, by the way, was able to accomplish what it said. And it took me, I think about four weeks working, you know, at least 10 hours a day.

[B]

Yeah, you did sleep.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I was like obsessed with it, but basically coming up with something that it said would have taken a small software development team about four months, you know, with five or six people on the team. And I was able to do it myself and get it the way that we wanted it, not the way that the developers interpreted what we told them after multiple, you know, false starts and bad runs and building things we didn't need or want. And the power of that was truly transformational. I mean, like that's that I think for our business going into 2026 and all the other businesses that we work with, the ability to do that and have that, that language barrier that exists and the time barrier that exists between developers and the people who have the vision of what they want developed, that's a major, major game changer. And then the second part of AI for me, which is really just over the last, maybe it happened over 25, but I realized what had happened in, right at the end, like in again around the end of November, early December. And that was that I don't really prompt anymore as much as I call on protocols that I've built. And so I like for my content creation I have a protocol I call North Star 3.0. And so it's obviously gone through several iterations. And so now if I just say here's, here's a bunch of thoughts and ideas we've been brainstorming, me and the AI and now I want to make a LinkedIn article in an X thread, then I just say, okay, based on our discussion, create a LinkedIn article in X thread using the NS3 protocol or say sometimes I have to say the NS3 compliant protocol and it will actually give me what would, what would have taken me two or three hours to create before because it's already hard coded in it and there's nowhere that you can see it by the way. You have to ask it to share with you the protocol that you've built. But it is, if you start naming the things that you do over and over, it will absolutely change how fast you can do things. And so now I'm like, is that all within one chat? Say again?

[B]

Is that all within just like one chat?

[A]

It's any chat now. So like, so that's what's cool about it is. So like if you create the protocol and say, make this a protocol, I'm going to refer to this as the NS3 protocol going forward. And it's like locked and now it's in the code somewhere. So that whenever, whatever chat I'm in, it doesn't matter. I can say, give me an NS3 protocol with. Through a teal lens to EAL lens and on Pulse 4.2 content. It's taken all of the things like it's, it's kind of like projects, only bigger around everything with no walls, but very compliant. And then what you have to do is keep holding it to the protocol. So when it comes back with something like I've got one, that's a 21 point thing and it comes back with kind of crap, even though I've told it what I want, it didn't follow the protocol. And then I'm saying, did you follow the NS3 protocol? And it's like, I didn't. Okay, now I will.

[B]

And it does.

[A]

And so instead of arguing with it for an hour to get it back to what I need, it just refers to the rules. I mean, protocols are basically rules that I've given it and named. So like that, that's been a giant thing for me. And so I think going forward into 2026, the people who are building their versions of AI, like your user on your chat GPT or your Gemini or whatever, where you've got your protocols that have become part of that, creates an ever widening moat for the people that are just prompting and using it. You know, even if you're an advanced user and you're not using protocols, you're having to repeat yourself so much to get back to what you want and you're not going to remember all of the things that you did to make this thing better. You know, I guess you could, like, evolve a prompt forever on a note or something and then copy it in, but you'd still have to argue it. This is like inside the brain that you're using, and it's only in yours. It's not like in your friends. So it becomes.

[B]

Can I try to. Can I try to explain back what I think I heard you say? Yes, because this is cool. And I've never heard anybody do this, and I want to. I want to try to do this. So I'm. I'm. I'm inside of Chad GPT. And I'm guessing the same thing would work inside of Claude and Gemini. And if it doesn't now, then. It will.

[A]

It does.

[B]

Week.

[A]

It does.

[B]

Okay, cool. So I'm in there and I'm. I'm. I'm in a chat to. To try to get some type of output, and I'm going back and forth with it, and I. And I finally get a result. That's awesome. Once I've done this, I can now define this particular conversation chunk. I can give it a name that is whatever, you know, Hitty, you know, Bibbidi, Slop protocol.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Right. And it will forever be named that. And so instead of having to come up with a specific prompt, which I totally understand what you're saying, because a prompt is inherently somewhat limited.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And it now has this entire chunk of context.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. That can then be re referenced and applied anywhere else. And so it's. It's almost like you're reverse naming something that happened as opposed to having to do it ahead of time.

[A]

It. It's basically just naming a process that you went through instead of having to go through that process, because if you had it as a prompt, you'd still have to go through the process. Like, one prompt isn't going to fix it. So it's. It's so powerful, though. And I just kind of stumbled on it because I had been doing that and naming things, and I didn't really even think about it. And then I was like, why didn't you do that? And it's like, I'm sorry, I failed to follow the protocol.

[B]

And I was like, aha, protocol.

[A]

You know, okay, well, I want this protocol to be every single time. And I have called it this. So, you know, what. What's the problem? So then, you know, I started calling it out when it doesn't follow it. And then I deep, deep dove on using protocols through a thread, having a conversation back and forth with the AI about it, and that's Basically what it said was, it said, it's like, this is the future. This is the way to use me. The best is to have these protocols. And I am not built to comply with the things that you're saying in the prompt. But if you've given it to me as a protocol, what you can do is you can save yourself a ton of time because that's the set of rules and that I know that I have to follow. Like, I know this can't be because I'll be like, you've given me bumper sticker wisdom. This is completely useless to me. I need you to go back to the detail that we did before. And I would always have these arguments with it about that. And it's like, I'm not good at that. It says, you know, that's an inherent weakness in how AI is. I'm not good at doing that without a protocol to follow. That's a process and rules and a. And a way that I'm supposed to think through things.

[B]

And.

[A]

And so I'm like, well, if I name this, you know, if I keep naming this, then that's really how I ought to be talking with you in the future. And it's like, absolutely everything will go faster and you'll get what you want. And I've been using it, you know, for three months now, and it's definitely game changer.

[B]

Hey, business owners, I've got a quick question for you. Do you feel like you're missing the data you need to make strong business decisions? If so, it's probably time to build a CEO dashboard. It's an easy way to get everyone in your company literally on the same page, focusing on the numbers that matter. So the scalable company put together a free spreadsheet template that will give you everything you need to deploy your own dashboard. And to make it even easier, Ryan Deiss recorded a short training on how to use it. If you want to get your hands on the template, go to businesslunchpodcast.comdashboard. that's businesslunchpodcast.com dashboard. And you can download it for free. Nice. Well, watch, in the future, people are going to start instead of giving away their prompts and stuff like that as, like lead magnets are selling them on whatever, they're going to start giving away their protocols just waiting for them.

[A]

Yes, they can. But like, I think that's hard.

[B]

But I mean, you, like, you'd have.

[A]

To, I guess you could define it. I don't know, It'll be interesting to see.

[B]

You basically would have to go in there and like have a full blown conversation to let it, let it build, I guess. I don't know.

[A]

Right, right. Yeah, that's cool. What do you think we did well in 25, you know, I'm really proud.

[B]

That we ate our own dog food in 2025. We did a really good job implementing the systems in our companies that we teach. We actually forced ourselves to slow down and to implement the systems. And that was a big part of how we were able to get productivity gains. It was a big part of how we were able to get margin gains. And much of it came out of necessity, but a lot of it also just came out of saying like, hey, we cannot ask our clients to do this if we're not willing to do it as well. And leading up to this previous years, there was a lot of chaos. You know, we were adding stuff. I mean, we were business owners like everybody else. But I think we did a really good job actually doing that and following some of the processes. So.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

I think that's also, that's one. What do you think?

[A]

I think also we started treating content like an asset that we stopped. Well, you embraced content, but also I feel like we, we stopped you. We started using content to sell. It's, it's just like we, we're like, okay, this is great. Rather than just general branding, we're actually going to use our content to deliver value while selling. And I feel like we did a really good job of that with frameworks and pillars and pulses and all the different things that we've been putting out there. So now it sells, it supports deals, it gets consults, it trains teams, it, it anchors decisions, it. And all of it is designed to drive back to some thing that we want to have happen in our business. So I, I felt like we did a really good job of that.

[B]

I think we can always improve in this area. We weren't perfect, but it, it's better than it's been in the past. I think we made difficult decisions faster. So whether there was a difficult decision to, to let somebody go who was like a, you know, critical, like a key team member. So, you know, a tough, a tough decision, you know, that's something that we might have lingered on for a little bit longer or to shut down a business unit. These are decisions that we might have lingered on for a quarter or two or, you know, 10. That was now made faster. It still could and should be faster, but it was better than it had been in the past. I like that.

[A]

Cause if I Would say what. What we could have done, what we could have done better. It's the kill too late lesson.

[B]

I know. I had it in both columns. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, right. So we definitely kept some things alive longer than we should have. I would say not, you know, even because they were profitable, just because they were. Maybe they were interesting to us or we liked them, or it's. It's the same thing with people that we were talking about before. You know, you like. You like somebody and you want to have them in your organization, but it's just not, you know, it's just not the right thing. So is there anything, like, you could learn from that, do you think? Like, is it. If we find it interesting but not compounding, then that's a sign, or what do you think could help us and anybody that may be watching or listening to make those decisions faster?

[B]

I think if we're unwilling to put a scorecard on it, then that should be a sign that we're not treating it like a business. And. Or if we're unwilling to look at the scorecard. And the scorecard can be a P and L. Right. But for all of the businesses that. Or. Or the people where you apply some type of metric and you look at it on a weekly monthly basis and you're forced to deal with the reality of that, then in my experience, that's when you're going to make the decision. If you decide that, like, oh, no, this is just kind of a test, and we're sort of in this kind of early startup phase and we're getting it going. If that kind of lingers on in the build phase, and that's why you haven't yet, you know, put a scorecard on it, and that lingers on for, like, months and months and months, then you should probably acknowledge that it's just a really, really expensive hobby that you probably can't afford. And that was the case with. With a lot of the, you know, projects and businesses. Either we didn't have scorecards attached to them, or if we did, we weren't looking at them because I think we intuited that we wouldn't like, what if we did? We wouldn't have liked what we saw.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's easier. Easier to keep it if it's not staring in the face with all reds, right?

[B]

Yeah, Exactly.

[A]

So for 26, saying what we want there. I was thinking about it this morning when we were doing a call, and I feel like it's that we really want to go from momentum to inevitability. I felt like that's what we were talking about when we were like, this is 26. You know, we had some good momentum here and here and here, but we really want to make that systemic. We want to make that inevitable. Not like, yay, we finally found something. How does that resonate with you?

[B]

Yeah, I like that. Because again, so much of 2025 was putting the systems in place that created the momentum and the predictability that should make this. That should create the inevitability. I mean, we did have, for the first time in certain businesses, we were actually able to project what was going to happen in the next quarter. And, oh, wait for it, it actually happened. That's where businesses are supposed to get. I mean, if you look at public companies, right, they project out. This is what we're going to. To do this, you know, this is what's going to happen next quarter. And they hit it. Or ideally they overperform just a little bit. Right. And if they don't, then that's a really, really, really big problem. This is where companies need to get too. And we had some that were there and we had most that were not. And so I like the fact that through the implementation of the systems that were put in place, that, yeah, we finally got there, especially on the sales and marketing side.

[A]

So more systems to help there be fewer bets where you're not sure, like you're betting that this time and effort or this hire is going to work, but more systems so that the bets become fewer and the outcomes become more certain, and that's going to drive the inevitability. So mostly systems, would you say?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think in 2025, we actually did less. Well, I can just stop there. I think we did less. We executed less overall projects, we flailed less. But the projects that we did do, the initiatives that we did do, created lasting assets as opposed to just being a random act of marketing, a random act of sales, a random act of fulfillment in the form of a launch. It was something that, that, that gets to kind of linger around. And as you begin to compound assets instead of just events, that's what creates that predictability and that inevitability.

[A]

I like that. So what we're optimizing for in 26 businesses that throw off cash, definitely something that we've talked about. Fewer meetings, less decision fatigue, more optionality, not more activity, but more leverage from what we're doing, which would include things like one big thing that, I mean, it was a fairly certain bet every year that we've decided not to do is hold the Get Scalable Live event, which is a, you know, a massive cash investment, but also a massive cash returner. And so I like to maybe wrap by talking about something like that to help people think, is there some big thing that you're doing that you just kind of assume you're always going to do it, and the whole market assumes you're going to do it, and everybody expects you're going to do it, but maybe you decide that that's not the optimal thing. Want to talk about kind of how we came up with the. With that decision?

[B]

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, because when. When you look at Get Scalable Live and Richard, that. So that's the event, annual event that scalable's held for the last, I think, four or five years, depending on where you put it. Because it held, which is an asset.

[A]

That we know we can sell, too, that we're basically saying we're gonna. We're gonna put a bullet in it.

[B]

Exactly. But this is an event that costs, you know, a couple million bucks to put on. Two and a half, $3 million to. To put on. It's going to, you know, every year it nets a little over a million dollars. And so pretty decent margins and, you know, pretty decent chunk of cash that. That it gets generated. But I think in. In everything in business, you've got to ask yourself, are there easier ways to make the same amount of money? And if we didn't have to devote all the resources that go into. Into the way that we're getting it right now? Because if there's one thing that's true about that event, it is an enormous outlay of resources and effort by all of us, especially you and I. And I think when we were looking back over previous years, what is the thing that we like doing the least and that just drains us the most and that we most regret, and you're just like, ugh, I don't want to have to do that again. It's that event, and I think we like it when we're there, and we like hanging out with the people and we like speaking, but just all the buildup around it and when it's done, it's so exhausting, and there's so much pressure around it and all these other things. And so that was the dealers, like, what would need to be true for us to not have to do that event. And I think that's such an important question to ask because there's a lot of people listening to this right now. Who they say they don't like their business, but in reality you love your business. There's just some aspect of it that you don't like or you love your business, but you hate your job. And so if you could just say what would need to be true about my business for me to fall in love with it or what would need to be true about my, about my role in the company for, for me to love Monday and to be excited about the weekend being over so I could get back to work again. And invariably there's always just one or two things that if, if it wasn't there, you'd be more excited about it. And for us it was, it was that event. And so we had to ask ourselves, okay, so it nets out a million dollars. A million dollars isn't nothing. But let's be honest, we know easier ways to make, to make a million dollars. And what we figured out is that we do four client meetings a year. We could just go out to our existing clients who aren't at the, at the highest level. We could invite them to, to these meetings as our guests and say if you like what you see, then you should ascend. So our accelerator clients, we should invite them up to a founders board meeting and invite them to ascend up to founders board. Just by doing that we can generate the same million dollars in revenue with literally no additional work, no additional investment. So much easier. And when we had that realization, we're like, yeah, we just don't have to do this event anymore. And it frees up all that additional time and space to now do a number of other things or wait for it, nothing at all. Sometimes it's good just to create capacity to leave room for serendipity.

[A]

Yeah, I like that. Is there anything else that you think we should talk about before we close out?

[B]

The other thing that I would then I think another kind of theme from, from last year is just how much we simplified a lot of our systems and processes, especially on the sales and marketing side. We used to have very complicated, like when a lead would come through, we used to have very kind of complicated follow up campaigns and we got rid of almost all of those. Right. We used to have very complicated like multi step things on the sill and we got rid of, you know, a lot of those in favor of just let's do some basic outreach. And the more we simplified stuff, the better it performed and specifically the more human that we got. And I do think that that's going to become a theme moving forward as people, as The AI ification continues as people are looking for more and more authenticity. I think you're going to see a significant lift by swinging the pendulum the other way and getting a little bit more human. And so that's why, I mean, you mentioned it, the embracing of content. It's not just me embracing content, it's also me embracing my role as, as the CEO of being the face of the business externally. This is a, you know, a role that you've taken on and been willing to do, you know, for years now. I haven't. But I do think that it is incumbent upon founders, CEOs, why of our roles now today, whether we like it or not, is to serve as that kind of external face to the organization. Because as the world becomes more AI ified, they're going to want to see more humans. And so simple and human. I think that's where things are headed.

[A]

I like it. So if you're listening to this or watching it, then say, don't copy what we did in 2025. Copy how we decided and ask yourself, what worked for you, what didn't work, what should have died sooner and if. And really, what if worked would make 2026 inevitable? What would help you make fewer bets? What would help throw off more cash? What would make you happier with the business that you've. That you own? Because that's really the. Those are really the things that are going to make the biggest difference to you. So if you have takeaways that you would like to share with us, or if you think that there was something here that resonated with you that you're going to try, and particularly if it works, we'd love to hear from you. We've got all of the socials available, all of the content that we are all embracing now to reach out and give us a comment. We'd love to hear from you. And if you found this enjoyable or helpful, we would love for you to share it with somebody else. Thank you, guys. We'll see you next time on Business Lunch.