A (4:24)

What other stuff?

B (4:25)

Well, just like, I feel like we've had. We. We went right from holiday to like, well, I came home from Austin after The retreat and my. I like, walked off the plane to a text message that my son was throwing up and I was like, cool, cool. The virus has made its way now through everyone in our whole proximity, sparing me. And also this, like, I don't know, the undercurrent of AI in my household right now is so everywhere. And I, it's like starting to kind of scare me and also give me a thousand ideas of I, I Let Sawyer learn ChatGPT or, or understand what ChatGPT is. And now it is like he is just a little creator. Like he, he's so creative with the questions he asks and everything he asks that I don't know the answer to. I'm like, yo, go ask ChatGPT. Like, go learn. Go research. And it is, it's so interesting to me. And I'm like, am I, is this a good parenting choice? So I've really been in question lately of, of am I doing a good job as a parent if I'm letting my kid have AI? So anyway, that's my update.

A (5:24)

In private or just with you?

B (5:26)

No, just with me. So I can see what he's asking and I, I read everything it gives him and I, you know, I don't know everything about everything he's asking. So I guess I'm assuming that what he's giving, what he's being answered is accurate. But I got some feedback on a reel I posted a while ago that was like, make sure that you're still teaching them how to do independent research. Like, make sure that you're not just making it too easy for him. And that really put me in the question from a parenting standpoint of, you know, is that basically like telling us 30 years ago, like, make sure you still know how to do multiplication in your head? Because, yeah, like, I know it's good to learn it. And I very rarely do multiplication in my head anymore. Right. And so I don't know, I'm very much in this question of, like, how much do we keep them free and nature based and office screens and not exposed to AI and how much do we let them experiment and like, train a chatgpt as a second brain for our kids. We've talked about this before, so that's. But that's the thing heavily weighing on my mind outside of work lately is how do I keep my kids, like, progressing with what's happening in our culture but not making them too, not making it too easy.

A (6:29)

I mean, it's tough. Listen, right? Isn't it? Because at the end of the Day we're not going to know the answer until 20 years from now. And then you'll be like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have give it to him. Or yeah, it was a great idea that I did. I think like that it's just, it was parenting, especially when you're parenting in a way that there's never been a roadmap for. I don't know that I love the idea of kids having AI unsupervised. Just hearing about the AI boyfriends and girlfriends really freaks me out. But I also, you know, think about when I was really little and we had encyclopedias. But as soon as Google came out, I wasn't going through the encyclopedia, I was learning how to Google it. I think a really important skill with AI for us right now is learning how to prompt AI. So I don't think it's bad that you're teaching him how to prompt. It's just, it's more like instead of the logical reasoning and thinking that they're having to do now, it's, that's going into the prompt. Like, how can you be really logical about the prompt you're asking to get the best response. But I mean, at the end of the day, who knows? There's going to be people that I think have opinions on both sides. So I don't really, I don't really know what's really challenging. And anyone who's an entrepreneur, CEO and a content creator I think will relate to this. It's very challenging to be both at the same time and you really have to pick your season and you have to be okay with it. My natural season that I really enjoy is normally content creation. I really enjoy the creation part of things, but it's like, oh, I accidentally created too hard and now I have a business to run. So last year for me was really about running the business and that was my focus. And so the content side really did slip for me a little bit. This year I want to get back into that and it's always this push, pull, push, pull. Because if we want the business to keep growing as a creator led business, you have to create, but then you also have to step back to just systemize and, and then step back in again. And so a lot of the stuff that we talked about last year of creating things that are profitable, predictable, repeatable, that's what I call the absolute essential work for a creator who is also an entrepreneur. Because when your purpose of being creative is to make money to bring in clients, creating gets really, really challenging because you're no longer creating what you want to create. You're creating what you have to create in order to get the results. And almost every creator will tell you that's the worst place to be. It's important to get your business going. And so last year and the year before, we were setting up so many systems and so many funnels and processes and playbooks that have now led me to a place where everything's built, everything's going, and the success of the business right now isn't day to day dependent on whether I create content or not. And so I feel like the next kind of evolution and quantum leap in the business is starting to play around with content again, see what I want to do, see what feels fun and find a different way of doing it. I will say in January, especially for those of us that are on Instagram, things have changed so much that it's going to take a little bit of time to get your head around and understand what. What this new version of Instagram looks like. The feed has fundamentally changed. It was just announced that you can now upload directly to your grid without actually posting on the app, which is really fascinating. So at the point of recording this episode, we haven't seen that in practice. We just know it's coming. I'm starting to jump in and think about what does that mean? Does that mean we're going to see the grids are really a curated version of here's who I am, here's what I do, here's what I post. And then people on the day to day are posting more unfiltered raw content and have Instagram done it this way because they want the unfiltered raw content, but people really are too worried about how their grids look. I don't know. And I'm sure hopefully by the time this comes out or in the coming months, we'll start to understand that a little bit more and see and they probably will share the why behind it. But I'm in my head right now thinking about what does this mean for overall content strategy? How does this need to pivot? How do I need to be thinking about the content pillars, the content types, the content frequency? There's a lot of new features right now that I've been testing a lot of and that's been really fun. And I think with TikTok, it's really interesting because I've never been on TikTok, but the, the fact that it went away and it's come back and it's probably back to stay is Making me more interested in it. So I don't know, maybe I'll get on it. Maybe I'll play with it. TikTok has had a crazy amount of press, which is so fascinating.

B (11:03)

Yeah. Remember when we talked about. We had an episode, I don't know, last year where we talked about how only fans had had a moment of this where, like, they announced on a Friday that by Monday they were. They had to remove all explicit content, all sex worker content, because their payment processor had told them that they couldn't process payments for that stuff anymore. And. And so they were like, yeah, guys, sorry, like, as of Monday, we've got to remove all of these creators. And it sent this, like, shockwave through everybody and a ton of press about it. Ton. Every single person was talking about how only fans was going away because they couldn't have explicit content anymore. And of course, by Monday, it had all been worked out. Worked out, you know, quote in quotes, because you never know if it was all just a publicity stunt to start with. And they had had so much press in, in like, conservative Christian press that was talking about, like, oh, thank you, thank God this, like, platform is going away. That's contributing to the degradation and porn addiction of all these people. But it got so much press in those niches where it normally would never get talked about that it actually had a huge spike in subscriptions the following week. And I was like, is that what TikTok just did? Like, basically, like, was all over Instagram, all of us talking about it, and now all of us that have never really done anything on TikTok are like, well, shit, maybe I should be over there. It makes you wonder.

A (12:24)

I know, it's really interesting. And listen, everyone in them and their dog has said this. I'm not going to be a dead horse. But just build your email list. I don't care what you do, just build your email list. Every single creator could be doing this. Write a newsletter, send weekly updates, send out your favorite things, send a roundup of your content, put a free PDF out there. Like, I don't care what it is, just have some sort of backup. And listen, your email list probably will always be smaller than your overall social following, but build it anyway, because that is a lot of people you will still have a touch point with no matter what happens. And I think we've seen this every single time Instagram goes down. We see it. This whole thing with TikTok, we are back, we are building on rented land. It's always going to be like this. And you know, we're probably not going to use Instagram and Tick Tock forever. There's going to be another thing at some point, and maybe that'll even, you know, change from email list. But at least with email list, you have control. You can migrate platforms, you can take your emails with you. I think that's just fundamentally so important for anyone that's building. I wish in the beginning of my creator journey I was more on it with my email list. I didn't think about that until, like, really late in the game.

B (13:34)

You know, so many people, I think, said that after it came back of, like, it's a good reminder that dependency on any platform, any single platform, which we've all been saying forever. And it, like, I think people know, but sometimes it takes these kind of universe punching you in the face moments to be like, oh, yeah, right. Like, if I'm this upset about TikTok going down because it's my sole source of income, this isn't very good for me. Not because, like, it's censorship or all the ways you want to weaponize it, but more because these are. These are platforms owned by white men or foreign governments or whatever they are that could go down at any time or could change at any time. The algorithm could shift. And while obviously it's incredibly lucrative and we prioritize social media in our business, always we're thinking about. It only takes one idea from Zucker or Masari, and all of a sudden the grid changes or the algorithm shifts, or now all of your reels are ver. You know, rectangles instead of squares and everything, you know, and it's like, we don't have control. And so you would never advise somebody to. To go all in on something they don't have control over. So maybe it's. It should be email and, like, it might be a podcast, it might be YouTube, like something like diversify always. And I, I wonder how that, like, reconciles for you with the people, because we heard this a lot in CEO Mama too, of people being like, okay, I'm gonna. I have a podcast, I have a YouTube channel, I have two Instagrams. I'm doing this. And I also need to be sending to my email list. And they're just, they're on content burnout to the point where now it's. It's either contrived or they. They aren't able to be consistent. And so, like, finding the balance to. In this world of still picking the platform you like the most and doing the short form or the long form, there and then, I mean, I think we would now say use AI to help you figure out how to get it onto other platforms. Because the same ideas and principles you talk about on one of those platforms you could turn into other types of content that would resonate on other platforms. You probably have to do the formatting different though. But yeah, like what do you say about that, that aspect of it? Because I also think we've, we've gone around and around in the business too of like which pieces are our main focus. And you always have good insight on creating one short form and one long form. But email is kind of its own thing, always.

A (15:52)

Well, let me use that as kind of a bridge to go into some of my content predictions for 2025. So one thing that I, yeah, I always teach a long form and a short form. I think that's really important. I think one of your platforms should be owned. It's really that simple. I do think as you become way more established, if you enjoy content, you can create content on different platforms, but not at the expense of everything else in your business and not at the expense of your exhaustion. You really have to be smart about it. You know, I'm a decade in, still slowly migrating onto other platforms because I run a business. It's not like being a creator is my full time job. I'm an entrepreneur first and foremost. I'm running a company, I'm managing a team, I'm managing a P and L, you know, product development, all of that stuff. And that does take precedent over all of the channels. If I was a full time creator, it would be a different story. I would be having a YouTube day, an Instagram date, a TikTok date, whatever it was. So it's really just thinking, you know, first and foremost, am I an entrepreneur or creator? And what does that mean for me? How can I make that work for me? How much energy and time do I have and how much do I want to show up? I think all of that's really important to ask yourself because at the end of the day, if you half ass something, you're probably not going to get results. And I would rather not half ass a bunch of different platforms and I'd rather do one or two really, really well. So for me, I've always been an Instagram girl and then once I, you know, knew about building my list, then it was newsletter. And I've not missed writing a weekly newsletter for, I mean, years and years and years. So Instagram newsletter. Then I introduced podcast, Now I'm introducing YouTube and then, you know, maybe after all this PR, I'll introduce TikTok. I don't know, that's kind of where I'm at. But I also want to preface with I'm not solo. I'm not doing this whole thing on my own. I have a team and that's also really important. So going into some of my predictions and like what I think this means, obviously we talked about creator led brands. I think that personal brands built by creators are just going to continue to rival bigger brands and that infusion of personality and trust is going to make such a big difference in brands. I'm super excited about that. I do think that we're going to see a shift to micro niche markets. We've heard niche down, niche down. Or if you're an American, niche. Just so you all know what I'm saying, niche down. Right. We've heard that forever. I think we're actually seeing this double down and go into micro niches. So really being hyper specific about your audience to build really loyal, engaged communities rather than broad appeal. We're seeing this, it's something that we're thinking about and I feel like every week I'm giving someone on my team feedback saying more niche, more niche, more niche, double down. I don't want something that's a bog standard and applies to everyone that's not interesting to our audience. They can go get that anywhere. They can go and get that from AI. What they can't get is a really niche perspective. That's what's really important. AI is not going to be giving you those right now. You get those from really understanding your hyper, hyper targeted audience. So I think we're going to see a lot more of that. I do think that short form video, you know, listen, is crushing. We've loved short form for a really long time. But Instagram now introducing the three minute reels I think is really interesting. Consistent growth of YouTube. I think people are craving a layer of depth and storytelling and more substance. So I do think we are gonna see that show up a lot more. Even for me. I'm, you know, I've been very used to the 6 second reels for a long time and I'm starting to think about, okay, what does a three minute reel strategy look like for me? What kind thing do I want to share and put out there? I think AI is going to continue to really change the landscape of being a creator and social media and all of that stuff. Creating content has never been easier with AI. But what's really interesting is and I'm just gonna say it. It's so obvious when someone's written their newsletter with, with ChatGPT and that's just not. That is one of the first.

B (20:07)

We can spot it.

A (20:08)

Yeah, you can spot it mile off. But it's one of the fastest ways to get unsubscribes because we do not want to be. We don't not want our inbox flooded with a sea of bog standard content that just looks copied and pasted from ChatGPT. So again it's about your perspective. Use AI to help you. But what unique perspective and experience are you bringing to the table? You have lived it, not Chachi pt. So how are you bringing that in and then using ChatGPT to deepen the way you're sharing something, make it more under, like make it easier to understand, dial in the copy, really use it as a sparring partner, but don't use it as a thought leader. I think that differentiator is really important. I also think, and we've been seeing this for a while, we're starting to see the decline of huge mass influencers and the increase of, I guess, said it again, hyper niche creators with really engaged specific audiences. I think we're going to continue to see that. I think that's really going to grow more. We've been seeing this again but like more raw, real kind of content versus feeling like you've got to have really perfect content all the time. We want something that feels more authentic. We want to kind of see the behind the scenes. We do not want filters. I'm just gonna also say that like stop with the face filters. We don't want to see them anymore. They reduce the quality of the video super significantly. They're like difficult to watch. When you're watching someone's story and they're using all these filters, like nothing looks the right color, the quality looks crappy. We just want like the realness. We want to feel like we're actually there with you. So use good lighting, sure. But filters, no, that's, that's just not a thing. So I mean I have tons of different predictions on 2025. Those are my main ones I would say. When it comes to social media, I also am wondering, you know, are we going to be seeing social media fatigue and are we going to be seeing people start to lean into really specific communities where they're around like minded people where they're not seeing loads of random shit where they're not getting trolled? Are we going to really be seeing people gravitate towards that I could see it. I think people do get a little bit tired with the constant content coming at them. So much consumption. I think they do get tired of that and I wouldn't be surprised if people start seeking out more, more. I'm going to say it again. So buzzwords might be, it might as well be a drinking game. Take a drink. Every time I say niche but like a more niche community. So that's my prediction on content. I have tons for 2025 but let's see what happens.

B (22:52)

Yeah, I mean I, I, I feel that myself already where like I, I did it a few days ago where I just went through and unfollowed tons of people and I'm like love you but like I don't one, you know, politics and all of the like just cultural shift that's happened over even like the last six months. There's a lot of people where I'm like eh, like we're not on the same page and, and I don't need to be triggered by what you share all the time. So I'm just gonna get rid of this. And like so at a personal level, but also it's also like the really general stuff where I'm just like I've seen so many like five ways to do this thing. Also an interesting niche example is parenting. I, I feel like I followed so many parenting accounts when I had toddlers to be like ready and, and to start and now I'm like eh, I don't need people telling me what to do. Like I follow a couple people who are, who like have aligned or like you know, one of my children, Wesley has sensory, he's a sensory seeker and that I, that is a big, big thing for me right now is figuring out how to parent that because it is very different than parenting my 7 year old who like can sit still and do one thing for a long time but getting away from so Many like General 5 Things to Remember carousel posts that are just the same crap that I see on every parenting account. And it's mostly on the parenting accounts that have a million followers. You know, I'm like okay, like this isn't what I want to hear. I want to hear the hyper niche person who's like here's how to 5 Ways to Help your sensory seeking elementary school age kid sit down and do their reading. You know, I'm like yes, that's exactly the pain point I have. Tell me that. So that's really interesting. And I also think what, what I'm excited about and I know we're already talking about this inside of our business and this was before even like we knew there were going to be three minute reels. But it's. How do you take the storytelling of that you would get to in a long form conversation and summarize it in this one to three minute time frame where people follow you because they want to keep up with the storyline. And we've seen a couple creators doing this really well with like series and editing styles where it feels like super. And I think it is, it's highly produced. Like it's a lot of editing. It's not necessarily fancy equipment but it's a lot of editing. But the stories are so engaging and it's rocket ship for their follower count and stuff. But you like wait for, you want to see the next installment of the story. And I think it's, what you just said is interesting because it's like, it's almost different. It's so different than what we have known for the last several years where it was like just create more and like get these shorter ones out and give your audience more of you. And now it's like, well maybe take a little bit more time to create a story and like produce each post a little bit more. But people go a lot deeper with you because the storyline is so compelling and the work that you put into creating it is so evident that people are like, oh, this is like this is an experience to, to be following this person. And so it's just higher, it's a higher value exchange. And I think that's really interesting and I'm curious about that because it's like this is moving away from what we've heard for the last several years of like it doesn't need to be fancy, it doesn't need to be highly edited. And it's like well maybe, maybe it's time to like put a little bit more work into it. But it doesn't mean, but, but like you can create less in, in that way because then what you're creating, you can put one out every few days and your followers will stay with you because they want, they want the next piece of like really valuable thing. And, and it's not even value necessarily it's story. That's the piece that I'm really curious and, and I think we're, the prediction is right that we'll see that. And obviously like Instagram knows what they're doing so, so introducing a three minute timeline obviously has meaning in, in what they think is happening in culture of people. Maybe you know, a minute's not quite long enough to tell the story. We don't need to go all the way to 10 minutes with IGTV and like bring that back.

A (26:39)

Remember IGTV?

B (26:41)

Remember? Yeah, like 2016. But that like you can tell a pretty compelling story in two to three minutes. Right. And so that I'm very curious about that. And then I also think it's funny because you and I are such consumers of super hyper long form content. Like we love a four hour podcast and like we'll, we'll consume one of those a day and be texting each other all throughout the day. Of like did you get to this part where they talk about this? And I'm like, okay, so a lot of us also have the tolerance to sit through something super long form when it's interesting or you know, it's, it's tickling something inside our mind of curiosity that we can't consume in one to three minutes sound bites, you know. And so I don't know how to reconcile those two things. That's what's so interesting to me is like I'll sit down and well, I won't sit down. Like I'll listen to a four hour podcast while I go about doing other things and I'll, I'll stick with a creator who's doing like two or three posts a week. But they're, they're like very story based, more highly produced, real series. But I'm, but I'm not, I'm just not as interested in these like, yeah, bog standard, like basic general things anymore. And I've been clearing my feet of those. So I, I, I agree with those predictions. And the other thing I would say, listening so many people in our audience, you know, and it's like they just want the easy button and it's like all of these could work for you, any of these could work for you as long as you're consistent with it and you actually know how to express yourself in that medium. I think where we, we see people fall down or they get wrapped around the axle is when they've chosen one that they think is where they have to be and they don't like to create there or, or like I'll just say it like they're not, that's not what they're meant to do. Like I'm meant to be a podcaster. I love to talk me creating like a super theatrical, three minute long, highly produced storytelling reel. Like it's just not like that's not who I am. It's like, if you force me to, I'm sure I could figure it out, but I don't, I don't feel drawn to that, you know, and so I've never been somebody to really embrace going hard on Instagram because I, I so much would rather be on a podcast and, and repurpose it, you know, and so I, I think you can't hear that enough either. Where it's like, if you love a certain medium, go, go hard on that. Like, consistency is going to win over novelty or, or trends. Always, Always.

A (29:00)

I really second that. Just do what you want to do. Literally just do what you want to do. Create what you want to create. Speak to who you want to speak to. Do. Do what you want to do. Because you cannot do something in the long term that you're just not lit up by. You will get bored, you will want to tap out. It's really like leaning into your strengths. I love that. Okay, another one that I want to talk about, which, yes, AI will know it. Like, it's going to be big. Specifically, what I see in 2025 is AI driven operations. So I think things for customer support to content creation, to personalized marketing campaigns, I really think that we are going to be working with AI to actually run different parts of our business. Like maybe we're using AI agents to create our content, to do some analysis and present us with ideas to handle our customer service, to do some of the repetitive work in the business. We're already using that now and it is just an absolute game changer. And it does genuinely feel like every single month AI is getting better and better and better, and there's more that it can take off your plate with your business. I'm really personally just excited to take more off of our plate so we can think better, we can think clearer, we can apply our time more creatively. I already shared with the team, I have no desire to let any of our team members go. We are so lucky to have the most incredible team of a players. But I want them to keep replacing themselves with AI so that they can free themselves up to move the needle in the business. Because I know that they move the needle most when they can. They can be creative, they can step back and not always be in the weeds of things, which I think AI is allowing us to do, which is such a blessing. If you told us five years ago this, where would be I, I wouldn't have been able to fully comprehend it. So that's something I'm really, really excited about. Oh, you know, another thing that I think AI will, will do in 2025 is hyper personalization. So very tailored recommendations, very specific emails, ads that feel like they have literally been customized for you. I could see, you know, an AI agent taking one ad and creating a thousand variants of it based on the very specific details of your audience's pain point and serving it to the right person. I can see all of that and I don't think it's going to be a really heavy lift. It's maybe going to be a bit of a learning curve to get into the software and understand how it works, but I could really see that happening going on, that kind of thing. I do think ads and AI is just going to go really, really hand in hand and using machine learning to have just hyper, hyper targeted predictive analytics where you can really start to get a good picture of what your ROI could and can be that I find very, very interesting. So I don't fully know how that's going to look for us. We obviously are not really big into the paid marketing world. I think we're going to probably up that lot in 2025. I would love to have, you know, look at. Okay, do you know what? All the foundations that I laid in 2024 in the business has really set things up so that 2025 can be the year of paid marketing for us and we think about how we're leveraging AI. I can really, really see like on, not just to like to write your hooks and to write your ads, but how can we use machine learning to just get so good at understanding who our customer is, where they're hanging out, what they need to know to decide if it's the right purchase for them, how we can support them on their journey. I think there's going to be so many advanced tools that we can really make the most of. But then speaking of ads, another thing that I wrote down was I do think that long term partnerships are going to be where it's at and we've seen a shift to this. I mean we talked about last year, we let go of all of our micro sponsors on the podcast where we're doing a podcast ad here and there and you know, everywhere. It was exhausting. And I don't feel like it gets the best results for brands to hear us talk about something one time and then move on. I do think that brands are going to be thinking about how can I really sign long term deals with creators that have very, very specific targeted audiences? How can I sign a deal with them that's going to feel really authentic. That's going to build up on like, build over time and maybe they're not giving as much money to all these random networks saying, okay, get me one ad on 20 podcasts, but more get me 20 ads on with this one creator in all these different formats. I think that's going to be really interesting. And we, we were kind of talking about yesterday, but I don't know that partnerships are going to be a big focus for us in 2025. Just we've really built the foundation of our own business. But I think if they were, I would also want to prioritize those long term partnerships because I think it's also more fun for us to really be able to get behind a brand and to be able to share a brand that we're really passionate about multiple times because we know that it actually makes a difference to the brand and moves the needle with them as well.

B (34:04)

Yeah, no, I mean the. On that piece, I think, you know, what comes to mind is when TikTok went down, there was like this whole movement that was going on where, where all the creators were admitting that like stuff that they had promoted they never used.

A (34:20)

Wait, yeah, tell me about this because obviously I'm not on TikTok because I didn't see this, but I seen a news article.

B (34:25)

Well, I saw it on Instagram because I also am not on Tick Tock. I have a Tick Tock account but I've never posted. So basically in the final days leading up to the ban, a bunch of creators, like it was a, it was a trend to basically like come on and like there was a song and then like at the end of the viral sound you would admit to something that you had lied about on your TikTok. And many people, like I don't know how many, presumably tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands. What they were admitting was like that they had lied in their influence and, and said like they like one woman, one woman had sold, she was like a, she was selling workouts and she said she never did any of her own workouts. Like she made them up and then never actually. But she didn't do any of them. One person was like a coffee influencer and said she doesn't even like coffee. And like, yeah, and, and, and like this big trend going on. And, and one, I was like, this is so short sighted. These people are stupid for thinking that TikTok wasn't going to come back. Like you've just alienated your whole audience. Two, why are we not enraged by these kind of like admissions because, because exactly to what you're just saying, like you see people hawking stuff and you're like, you want to believe that it's authentic. Like, because we all want to believe the best in humanity. So you want to believe when somebody's selling you something that they actually use it and that they actually believe in it and that they're not just trying to make money off of you, you know, you believing them. And then people go to it on admitting that that's exactly what they were doing, is they never used this stuff to begin with. They just were hawking it because they were in a sponsorship deal or that's how they make money. And so I think the consumer, and I say this all the time, it's like a broken record. But now more than ever, like the consumer, you should be skeptical of people. And I think, like, I think long term partnership in a brand, especially a creator, LED brand or a personal brand, like I me as a consumer, I'm very discerning. I'm like, do I think this person actually uses this software? Do I think this person actually uses this product? And I know a lot of people and I know the ones who are truthfully using what they're selling you and the ones who aren't. And so maybe my discernment is attuned a little bit more because I actually know the truth. But I think now we have to question things. And so to me, it's a smart business move to double down on long term partnership because it's, it not only streamlines operations inside of the business and makes it more fun and more authentic for you as the creator to talk about something that you actually use, you actually get benefit from. But your audience, presumably, I hope people are waking up to this, but the audience is now going to be more skeptical because there's been so many examples of people trying to, of, of saying that they use something or putting something with an affiliate code on their, in their content and it's not actually truthful. Like they don't use it and it doesn't serve and then it just feels inauthentic and it, and it devalues long term, it devalues the brand. So yeah, that's my rant on that. But I was like, this is, how are people like not outraged about this? This, this is so crazy to me. But I think also we're just used to it. Like we just, we, we see people trying to sell stuff all the time and we, a lot of us are just so numb to it that we kind of pass right by and we don't stop to think. And I also think that long term partnership helps with that problem because it's like this first seven or eight times you hear boss babe talk about kajabi or one of our long term partners, you may not pay attention, but then you start to really hear in our programs and how we use it and you're like, oh no, they really use the software, like everything they do. And then it starts to make sense why you would have a long term brand partnership. And so I, yeah, I, I'm interested to see how that evolves this year because I, I think the objection we'll get from people is, well, I don't, like, nobody wants to work with me. I don't. How would I form a long term partnership? Like, it's easy to get these little short term things and make 500 bucks here, a thousand bucks here. How do I cultivate a long term partnership? And I, and that's a good question. But don't sacrifice your integrity over something that for 500 bucks that you don't actually use. Like to me that's just not worth it.

A (38:20)

Okay, so I'm hearing this and I have a somewhat probably controversial response. I'm so not enraged by, not enraged by that because that's just, that's been advertising forever. Like, do you not remember growing up and you would see like a hair ad and it was, they're promoting a blonde box dye and then the, the woman, the celebrity who's actually advertising it has clearly been in the chair getting professionally hair dyed, highlighted for like six hours and then they're doing an ad. Like it has always been bullsht. I would honestly rather that these creators are getting money in their pockets than these massive brands that don't need it. So I'm not enraged by it. I'm like, okay, yeah, get paid. But I do think it is short term thinking. Like, but maybe for these creators, they actually are thinking short term. They're like, you know what, I don't want to do this forever. There's probably a really good way to just make a living. Right now. I'm going to kind of take anything I can get. Then if I do want to do it, maybe one day I'll come cle and then I'll start afresh. Authentically, when I have an audience, I don't really know what the thinking is behind it. It's so hard because I was, I've not been in that position necessarily because I kind of had a business, I had a Business in tandem with growing my audience. I never was like creator first but I can imagine if you desperately want to be a creator and you want to do it full time, it's so. And it's hard to monetize. You're like, you know what, I'm just going to take any kind of sponsorship revenue I can get until I can get to a place where I can maybe sell my own thing or bring in something that's more authentic. I think any of the really successful creators that we all know and love and have followed for a long time, they probably haven't done this like they have been pretty in integrity most of the time which is a long term play. But I'm like, you may have heard that I recently co founded a brand new company Glossy which is a skin routine you can drink. And I wanted to tell you a little bit more about it. It is incredible. It says powdered supp that you drink at least once a day. I'm personally a morning and afternoon kind of person and it is so good for your skin and your gut. One of the ingredients that I want to call out is probiotic D111 so it helps maintain a healthy gut microbiome. It supports digestion and skin barrier function. It's also really good for helping to reduce any discomfort in your stomach and bloating. I swear by Glossy, that's just one of the key ingredients. We also have vitamin C, magnesium, hyaluronic acid, coconut water powered, a sea salt, zinc. It really comes from all angles to support you inside out. I love it. In a morning I drop in and hydrogen tablet just to really boost things. And then in the afternoon I normally add some B vitamins. It makes me feel absolutely amazing and I really feel the difference in my gut specifically I'm more regular, I'm less bloated. I just really feel a difference. So if you're interested go to get glossy.com that's g l o c I.com and use the code boss babe and you'll get a huge discount off your order. This just feels like advertising 101 to me. Like I've, I'm. I'm so like I just remember growing up seeing all these ads and like, like the celebrity selling the skin care of like anti acne and then clearly has probably never had acne in their entire lives. Like we have always been sold a lie. Always.

B (41:41)

That's true. I mean that's a good hot take. I hadn't thought of it like that. I mean thinking back I'm like, did any of those supermodels in the 90s use CoverGirl makeup? Like. Like, were they going to the. Were they going to the drugstore and buying CoverGirl makeup? Like, no, but all of the top models were, you know, on all those commercials for CoverGirl and all the advertisements. And so. And I just. I wonder if every consumer, though, is that discerning, right? Like, that. That's the. That's. My question is like, is it? And this is an existential question about just everything on social media, holistically, always, which is like, are any of us telling the truth? Like, and also, without social media, none of us would know this stuff about each other anyway because we wouldn't be exposed to so many people. And so it's this bigger existential thing that I'm probably wrapped around the axel on, where it's like, why lie? Why sell something that you don't actually use? But also, yes, that is advertising forever. That is how you get exposed to new things. Even. So maybe we don't use something, but we think it could help our audience. And so there's a reason it's still in integrity. Like, there. There are those approaches to it. So, yeah, I. I rescind my total condemnation of it. But I'm also just like, tiktokers announcing that they lied to their audience and then expecting to come back onto the platform with. With the audience still, like, loving them. Just seems. I'm like, I don't know. Is that. Is that really the state of age that we live in?

A (43:06)

Maybe they've literally been lying awake at night thinking, oh, my God, I'm lying. I need to come clean. They see this trend. You're like, you know what? It's time. And then if the app comes back, maybe I can start afresh. I don't know. But I. Yeah, I just feel like we. It's all. It's our responsibility. Just take things with a pinch of salt. Like, none of us show up on social media, and we're having our absolute worst day. Like, the last thing we want to be doing is getting on social media and telling people, I'm having the worst day. I'm having the hardest week. Things are going wrong. Whatever, whatever. And so I like. And I get caught up in the trap, too, of, like, seeing other people's lives and thinking everything's real. And I constantly have to remind myself, natalie, take everything with a pinch of salt. You are not sharing your hardest days. You are not sharing every detail of your life. And no one else, no one is really so I think that's so important that we have that, but it's, it's really hard. I think it's human nature to compare yourselves or to think that maybe you're not doing as well as everyone else so you're not as good at whatever than anyone else. It happens all the time. I think none of us are immune from that, so I get it.

B (44:11)

That's true. Yeah. There's so much to think about. And I think 2025 really feels like this from a creative standpoint and a social media standpoint, a big turning point. And I think it's starting with like a TikTok ban that got reversed in 12 hours is, is kind of predictive in and of itself of just how important, even at a political level, a geopolitical level, how important the creator economy is to America and how politicians, you know, it was like I, I deep dove on why it got banned and like, you know, the NSA briefed the, the House and the Senate on the data compromise that tick tock provide. Like how badly it really is, is giving all of the data and, and betraying every American citizen and just sending it like straight line to the Chinese government and like how hundreds of millions of people are still like, yeah, I don't care, like, give me my, give me my social media platform. And so, and Trump obviously felt that that was imperative enough to issue an executive order, like literally on inauguration day or the day before, whatever. And so I, you know, I think if, if nothing else, it tells us a lot about social media is so embedded in our culture and like it or not, and all these little nuances and all the urges you feel towards what you do want to see and what you don't want to see and what you do want to create, what you don't want to create. Being a creator, if you're an entrepreneur, is pretty inevitable at this point. Like your brand or you have to show up somewhere because your customer spends so much time on these platforms, it's really, really hard to succeed without any presence on, on them. Right. And so, you know, I, I'm always like, how do we encourage people to be curious about it? How do we encourage people to not be negative? Like, we hear it so often of people being like, I just like, like, I don't know what to do. I don't like it. I don't want to have to do it. I like how to make it easier, you know, and, and I think the sentiment going into 2025 that I feel is like, it's never been easier. You know like ChatGPT can help you. All these editing tools can help you in, in black and white. It's never been easier. But you've got to want, you've got to love it. Like, you've got to want to be there. You've got to find the storyline and the niche and the audience that you want to talk to. And like we opened this episode with like, you can't be afraid of the people coming for you. I, I think that that happens and I, and, and you're gonna ruffle feathers and there's people out there that no matter what you say, they're not gonna like your opinion and it can't be a reason that you stop. And I think there's so many trends we could talk about and so many like tactics and we do talk a lot about that. Like, come join the society. That's where we'll teach you like the tactics of what to do. But I think overall it does feel like for 2025 it's like hyper niche creator led embracing these platforms and that that's where people spend a lot of time. Whether you like it or not, that's where they are. So you've got to find your voice there, get your email list popping. Like you don't want to be a victim of, of the government taking an app down. And AI is coming, right? It's here. AI is here. And I think a year from now when we listen back to this episode, just like we did, I listened back to the 2024 episode and I was like, oh man, we were like pretty accurate, I think. I keep sending you things and I'm like, maybe in 10 years is how AI is. And you're like, no, in six months, Lindsay. Like in six months it's going to do that. And I think that like, the more I read about stuff and how quickly it's moving, I really do think a year from now a lot of this like operational stuff inside of all of our online businesses will be so advanced. Like, don't get left behind, right? Like, don't keep telling yourself the story that you don't need it and also don't tell yourself the story that AI is going to depersonalize your business or, or like take away your essence as a human. Because I've also seen that narrative starting to come where it's like, don't use AI. Like remain a human. Like the human based brand is going to be what can, what sells in five years. Because everybody will be so they'll know everything was created by AI. Like Being a human is what's going to sell. And I want to say, like, I think I'm like I'm such a humanist. Like I love people and I like figuring people out. And I think you have to learn how to use it in tandem. Like you have to learn how to keep your humanity but use AI because it doesn't make sense to me that being the anti AI person is the smart move at this point. That would be like, I'm not going to use a cell phone. You know, 20 years ago when they started to become little computers in our pockets. Right. Like, okay, and like you're ultimately doing yourself a disservice and your customer a disservice because it can help you get your message out more easily, it can refine things, it can help you niche down, it can make processes easier, it can teach you things. Like we just had somebody, one of our employees say like they learned something on chat GPT. Like they gave, they asked a hard question of how to set something up and chat GPT gave them step by step instructions. And I'm like, this is, this is going to change how you run your business. So anyway, I do think like the one year advancement of AI this year is going to be so huge for people like us and our customers where we're going to keep talking about it, but go do the work. Like go study this stuff, go start playing with it, get a chat or a Claude trained. Like start working on it. Because it's such a huge advantage and it could make those, it could make your creator blocks easier. It could take away that creator block by giving you the thinking partner that I think a lot of us need to be really in our creative mindset.

A (49:32)

Yeah. And listen, I completely agree. People relate to people, people buy from people and so much of what we do in our business is being little worker bees. Like there's so much that goes on behind the scenes that if AI can do all of that for you, you will be able to show up more human than ever. Like you will have more time to show up. So I like, I think that argument is so invalid because you will have more time to be human if you are outsourcing so many of the worker be tasks that is taking up so much of your time. I will say I do want to do another episode in a couple of months on social Instagram specifically, just as I'm finding my feet with Instagram and all these new updates, I really want to lean in and learn. So I'll report back in a couple of months. We'll do a follow up of like what I'm seeing working, what's really moving the needle, how I'm going to approach it. And we can probably do an, let's keep doing AI updates just as they come out. Maybe some of the softwares we're using. But this was fun. This was, it's always just like nice to drop in and just talk about what we think is going to happen because ultimately like none of us, us really have a clue. None of us really know. And it's not like we're predicting something that's so hard to predict, like the writings on the wall, everyone and their dog saying it. But it's just good to kind of talk about and hypothesize and see how we can make it work for us. So I love it.

B (50:48)

Yeah, I just want like everybody listening. Like I want you to. I just love it when people hear someone else say it and they're like, okay, this is validation or this is permission of hearing someone say it. I've been curious about it, but I've been dismissive. I'm going to go invest some time in it because that's like, that's what I love about podcasts. And I also think that's what people like you and I were, we're heavily investing in it and like we can, we can learn a lot quickly and then help other people with it. And I, that's, I, I feel like that's how I've gotten to here in life is listen to people who are ahead of me and what they're learning and how I can shortcut it. So yeah, I think we'll keep talking about it, especially the, all these Instagram updates. It sounded like a lot of them don't even roll out till like March. So I think it'd be good to come back in a couple months and update on what's, what's actually working, what they actually look like, how they work, all that kind of stuff.

A (51:36)

I love it. Well, we'll see you guys next week.

B (51:38)

Bye.

A (51:45)

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