The Business Millennials Podcast

Business Lessons From The Movie Cars, How AI Can Be Used For Business Growth

• Ashley Dreager & Safa Harris • Season 1 • Episode 7

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In this episode of the Business Millennials podcast, hosts Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager, founders of Scale and Thrive Co., delve into the crucial role of adaptability and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in achieving sustainable business growth. Drawing insights from the movie Cars, they illustrate how businesses must diversify and innovate in response to market changes to stay competitive and thrive in the long run.

The conversation explores the transformative impact of AI on various aspects of business, including:

  1. Productivity and efficiency gains
  2. Streamlined content creation and marketing processes
  3. Data-driven strategy development and decision-making
  4. Personalized and targeted customer experiences

Safa and Ashley emphasize the importance of shifting towards personalized and strategic offers to meet evolving consumer expectations and stay ahead of the curve. They highlight the potential of AI to support businesses in rapidly adapting to new trends, technologies, and market dynamics.

The hosts also discuss the evolution of coaching and mentorship in the AI era, exploring how businesses can leverage AI-powered tools and insights to expand their offer suite and meet customers at different stages of their journey. By embracing change and integrating AI into their operations, businesses can unlock new opportunities for growth and success.

Key Takeaways:

  • Adaptability is essential for long-term business survival and growth
  • AI is transforming the business landscape, from productivity to personalization
  • Businesses must diversify their offers to meet evolving customer needs
  • Data-driven strategies and AI-powered tools can help businesses stay competitive
  • Embracing change and leveraging AI is crucial for sustainable success

Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome to the Business Millennials Podcast!
00:58 The Unforgettable Business Lesson from 'Cars'
07:15 Adapting to Market Changes: The Weight Watchers Case
11:43 The Power of AI in Business Adaptation and Growth
23:13 Leveraging AI for Content Creation and Strategic Marketing
34:03 The Future of Coaching and Mentorship in the AI Era
44:48 Conclusion: Embracing Change and Leveraging AI

Is your business just not the vibe right now and you can't seem to get it going, even though you feel like you're doing #AllTheThings? Fill out the linked audit form to give us the inside scoop on your current situation, challenges, and goals. That way we can spot your strengths, opportunities, and outline next steps, keeping a sustainable & scalable business in mind.

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https://scaleandthriveco.com/strategy-assessment/

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Welcome to the business millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered real world advice to accelerate your business growth for longterm success. I'm Safa Harris and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a full service marketing and business development firm, helping visionary companies scale sustainably. Expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six to Seven or even eight figures, as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more via fly on the wall as we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout, and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode.

Safa Harris:

So we watch cars a lot. In, in my household, because I have boys, they are obsessed with cars. And I know that's not the case for you at your house because you have girls and they're not watching cars. But for me, who I am as a person, my default setting is really just thinking about how things are connected, macro issues, like micro results and business strategy at all time. Like I can't shut it off. So we're watching cars for the 50 millionth time. And I, the biggest business lesson stood out to me, especially in light of everything that's been going on in the business world recently and things that are happening and how people are needing to change and pivot and things like that. But I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the best lesson that can be learned. And it's from Cars. Good job, Disney. So for context. Cars, if you haven't watched it. What happens is there's Lightning McQueen, and he's a race car, and he, for XYZ reasons, ends up in this small town called Radiator Springs. And it used to be like this huge tourist destination. It was right on the highway. People would use it for its commute. Anyways, it was like this big booming little town that got a lot of traffic just because of Where it was located on this highway and then What people do they built another route that was faster that bypassed the town And then that caused the town's economy to Plummet because it wasn't getting that traffic from the highway anymore. People weren't stopping in. So like the hotel was run down. The gas stations weren't making the money. Like all the businesses were just kind of like, wah, wah, wah. And they were waiting for people to show up and they would get super excited and have the best client experience when that one person did show up and it was like a little bit too much. And they were like, Oh, I want to be here. But anyways, so for whatever reason, Lightning McQueen ends up in radiator Springs. And he doesn't want to be there. He's like, I'm in the soda town. I'm too good. And then there's like this whole like lesson for the children of like being a good person, but the lesson for us adults is this business lesson. So essentially by the end of the movie, what happens is this lightning McQueen moves his operations to Radiator Springs, and then he becomes the attraction for people to come back to the town and then it flourishes as the businesses. Again, because now there's something else bringing them in, even though the road is still off the beaten path, they had to bring something else in, and in this case, it happened to be Lightning McQueen and his headquarters that brought the traffic back to town and brought, like, the money and everything and revitalized that town's economy. So, my epiphany moment was like, oh my gosh, this is speaking to how you need to Continue to diversify your business and be innovative and respond to what is happening in a micro level, in a macro level, in your environment to have those micro results in your business. So, if, so, in the concept, in the idea, example of Radiator Springs. They were used to getting traffic off off the highway. They stopped getting that traffic and they're just sitting there waiting be like, oh one day it'll come back. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting and nothing happens from that wait, you know, they just keep waiting and it's not gonna happen. But once they made a change, they diversified. They brought in something different and new. Things popped off. They were willing to Well, Lightning McQueen really forced them into innovating and diversifying their economy into making it this tourist attraction for a racing car. So it's, you have to diversify or die. You have to stay innovative, especially when things are changing. And so, What this is like a lesson to learn, especially in the way things have been 2023 going into 2024, just the past few years is the markets are changing how people are buying, selling, interacting with business, doing things is different now than it used to be. So you have to be willing to be responsive to the market, to the consumer of one, where are they looking To buy for things to what are they looking to buy? What price points are they looking to buy? Like understanding where the market is and what they need and what they want and adapting your business to be in that way. And then, but also still being very nuanced in making sure you're not complete. You're like pivoting out of what your brand identity is either. So that's what I learned from cars.

Ashley Dreager:

Okay. So in that car's example, there were external factors that that town needed to adapt to. Right. Because those external factors, they weren't changing. They weren't going away. They weren't going to reroute anything to go back through that town. Like this was just the new environment, business environment market that they were going to have to adapt to, right? And so just waiting around was never going to work because they had no control. And the factor that did change. Was a very key factor, right? They needed to bring reroute people intentionally because their town apparently did very well just because of the location. And they were very dependent on this one factor that they really had no control over, which isn't great for long term business sustainability, right? You should want to be in control as many factors as you can, but there's only so much that you can do, right? Like things are going to happen. Things are going to change. Like AI, right in the business world. But that reminded me of a podcast that I was just listening to about this with Weight Watchers. So Oprah Winfrey had just donated her shares or her ownership of Weight Watchers. Because she came out and said that she was taking this weight loss medication, she's now going to be focusing on this and just to avoid the conflict of interest. She wasn't going to be selling anything. She was just walking away from it. She was just donating her part of it. And there was a lot of skepticism that Weight Watchers was going to go down. Completely. They were going to go out of business because of this weight loss medication, because this is makes it easier for people to lose weight. They don't have to put in as much effort. Really? Everything that weight watchers built their programs on would you say at risk? It was threatened by this new development of weight loss medication.

Safa Harris:

under, undermined.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. So they could either continue to push their philosophy and their programs and try to convince everybody that the way that they do it is best because of X, Y, Z, or they could adapt to this new trend or interest in weight loss medication, like Ozempic, I think is the name brand for, for this medication. And so now they are incorporating that into their weight loss programs. I think they have a membership to get you access to the doctors that can prescribe this medication so that you can take it while continuing your Weight Watchers journey, get the community benefits and all of that kind of stuff. So they're adapting their business model to the market changes, to interest changes and all of that kind of stuff. So I just thought that that was like a Perfect timing to come across that that clip because it's fascinating to see how businesses adapt to the market in real time, because things change very fast. And if you are not in that mindset of, okay, this is what the new reality looks like for the market,

Safa Harris:

What

Ashley Dreager:

going to, you're going to go out,

Safa Harris:

Exactly.

Ashley Dreager:

it.

Safa Harris:

And I think we talk about this a lot. It's always a very big common theme for us is the idea of, you Continuous improvement and just like constantly doing iterations and being responsive and adapting to change and being and I think there is a balance between having, being strategic and forethought and proactive, but also being able to be set up in a way that allows you to be reactive and pivot and change. That's still very strategic and being adaptable to what's going on. So I think, Since 2023, there have been two big changes in the market that have had an impact on business. One has been the economy, how people are spending money, what they're spending money on, and how they are vetting out what they're going to be buying and like where their priorities are. And two, is AI. And the thing about AI is that it makes things faster. So if you are, you're reading this market, things are changing, you need to adapt your business the same way Weight Watchers did. The same way Lightning McQueen made Radiator Springs do. Like you see a change, your business isn't doing well. You need to do something about it. Unless you have like just money sitting around waiting for you to wait it out. You have to make a change. You need to do it quickly because people that are using AI are doing iterations real quick and I'll dig in that real quick. You need to make a change. You need to adapt to the market. You need to see what's on and make that change. And you have to do it in a way that is still strategic, works for your business long term, speaks to your mission, your vision, keeps your brand identity intact, but you're doing it quick and fast. You're being responsive in the moment. And I think that is a great spot to bring in AI. as humans, We can, we only have so much capacity to do so much work. Right? So we can only pump out so much content. can only build so much tech. We can only write so many things. Unless you have this huge team that's working 40 to 60 hours weeks for you and your churn time for work is like two weeks but if it's like a team of two or three or a solopreneur you are lead time something like say a launching a new product or pivoting your messaging or anything like that Is going to be like 6 to 12 weeks but if you're trying to pop this out in like two weeks because you need to Stay up with the trend because things are moving so fast And you have to make that change to be adapted to the market because you need to diversify I think that is where AI comes in and some people are getting content out really, really fast. Like it's literally you'll see something happen in the morning and then that content will be out later that day. I just saw a post day, like the other week where Facebook was down and someone had set up and sent out, like someone I'm subscribed to, I don't even remember who it was at this point like three emails that day being like, Hey, Facebook is down. Don't worry about it. I'm here.

Ashley Dreager:

Wow.

Safa Harris:

the same day. And do you know how like people are turning content out that fast? Either they have a huge team. All they are doing is sitting around creating content or they're using AI. And I think there's stigma around it and all that we can dig into that. But if you want to be quick, you want to be responsive. You need to not be scared of AI.

Ashley Dreager:

Oh, totally. I think that there was much more resistance when it first came out last year, because everybody I think had a very valid fear about what that was going to do to their job stability, their skill set, what, how they were going to be making money. But we quickly realized AI is not going anywhere. And really we've been using AI In our digital lifestyles for a long time, this is just a new version of how it's being applied in the marketplace. And it's solving a very real need. I think that obviously there are some ethical questions and conversations that should be had. And, you know, there's a whole conversation about legalities and, you know, the regulations and policies, which we're not going to get into today. But It is definitely solving a need. And I think that it's improving a lot of businesses. And allowing them to grow and overcome hurdles that they've had in the past, like you said, especially around capacity issues even just general access to knowledge. How do I do this without spending three or four hours watching YouTube videos and Googling and reading blogs, right? It can really cut down your how to searches. Very, very quickly and give you very actionable steps so that you can do things on your own. That's saving money right there. Saving time, allowing you to be more efficient. Like it is really solving a significant need and is being very beneficial for business owners.

Safa Harris:

So I think there's like, AI is changing the marketplace itself as far as like what consumers are looking for and what they can get easy access for through AI. And then it's also one thing that can be leveraged on the flip side puts you in a better position as a business owner selling to those same people that are using AI for XYZ things. internally you can use it for the same reason like your consumers are using it being like, okay, I want to engage this new tactic by the end of the month. Let's get on it. learning about it, figuring out how we're going to do it, fact checking it, putting it into play with the resources I do have. And it shortens that time, like you were saying, it shortens the education. But what does that mean for business owners that are teaching that skill set now? What does that, like, okay, yeah, if I can just go learn Like SEO from, from AI, chat GPT is going to teach me how to do SEO. And I can implement that with my team within two weeks. And yeah, I'm not an expert, whatever. It's just cutting down on that initial learning time. do the SEO experts that are teaching it, charging for it, and the done for you service providers that are selling the service, What does that need mean for them? How do they need to adapt to the market to close that? And how can they use to kind of ahead of it. They know, okay, they're using AI for this, this, and this. What can I do with the expertise I have that is going to close that gap and get it to market quickly and get ahead of the curve on it? So I think those are like the Questions people need to be thinking as part of like, this is my offer. This is what I do. I know AI is impacting it this way. What innovation, what diversity do I need to do and leverage that same tool that may be my, like detriment right now to me get ahead. Mm

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. I think that just to touch on that a little bit, I think that it really means that people need to audit their own service package and their messaging to make sure that they're not just offering basic services. Because basic services, even with a very skilled offer, Like SEO, it's very technical. There's a lot that goes into it. It's much more than just writing a social media post, right? Using a Canva template, like they're not trying to discount anything around social media management, because there is skill and strategy that goes along with that, but it's not quite as accessible to learn, I think for a lot of people when it comes to SEO.

Safa Harris:

hmm.

Ashley Dreager:

and I think up to this point, it could have been looked at very easily as a quick cash grab. Because it's a skill, right? And it's not as accessible, but there are even platforms coming out that are incorporating AI to make SEO accessible for anyone at a very accessible rate. So you can no longer just depend on the skillset being the selling point anymore, like radiator Springs was depending on that route to bring people to the town. By default. So making sure that this isn't just a basic offering. Now you need to you need to shift your messaging and even this, what comes along with each of your service packages to make sure that it's very custom to that business owner so that they understand why hiring you is going to be a better, faster, Outcome than if they do DIY it themselves with ai or you make AI part of your package and do it with them in some way. Allowing them to utilize AI while getting strategic guidance.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, I think it's going to put people in a position where if you're at a basic level, your sales are going to be, they're going to be harder. They're not, you're going to need to bring in that upper level strategy to set yourself apart of like, Oh, yeah, you're doing, you're doing good. You're doing fine. Like, I'm going to take you to great. Because I'm bridging that gap from, you can get basic at AI. got basic. I'm going to take you to great. And this is how I'm going to bridge that gap with this offer. Or you want to do it yourself. You want to get the basic, you can figure it out, cost saving. Well, here, I'm going to show you what you need and give you the pieces and give you another shortcut to be able to use AI. And I'll see you quicker, easier, better to get you to basic. Because AI has a, has a learning curve too, to get it right and do it and like the right prompts and how to teach it things and do that to get the results you want that matches your business. Like, so there, there are options of what you can do. It's not going to kill you and you shouldn't, you shouldn't be scared of it. You should leverage it in a way that, works best for you.

Ashley Dreager:

Totally. I mean, just even referencing back to social media management, now anybody create can create social media captions. Anybody can take a document, a piece of content that they've done and repurpose that. But like you said, AI is not perfect. So now anyone who wasn't doing anything for their social media or doing very little for their marketing can now get to this one level. Utilizing AI, but there's still all this other way that they could go, right? AI is not perfect. It's not the end all be all solution to this perfectly strategic marketing tool, right? There's still a lot that goes into it. There's still a lot of critical thinking that you need to apply to whatever the output is with your AI content. But it's bringing many people to this one point. And so now as a service provider, you need to bring them. Still here for those that have the budgets and are ready to go to that next level or those next three levels or whatever.

Safa Harris:

for sure. And then speaking on AI with social media, so we've touched on this before both of these points of Omnichannel marketing. And earlier on the episode, we were talking about how quick people are getting content out and that they're doing that, they're getting things to market and content to market immediately, like so fast. And part of it, they're, they're probably most likely using AI to do that. And to also. They everyone is everywhere, and it's kind of an expectation of having this huge, large visibility being in all these places, and, we run into like I just can't create that much content. I just don't have the capacity to write that much I can't do so much so quickly. I need my six weeks of late time I need to do have my batch day where I sit down and do all of this content So it's I guess can I? Do you speak a little bit more about like, okay, how important omni channel marketing is right now and how AI can help kind of bridge that capacity gap And then also like the next part of it, it's like, okay, yeah, now you're everywhere and you're trying to be responsive to the market. So, and we've talked about this in a previous episode was the idea of. Doing for your content strategy versus just like, hey, a set content strategy to allow you to be more responsive and have that all kind of placed together for this new iteration of like AI marketing strategy.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. So I think. This is probably going to need to be an episode for another time. But omni channel marketing is so important. And I think now knowing what's going on with the potential TikTok ban, this is huge for business owners and influencers to be considering. Because if all of your eggs Are in one basket. You've only built your audience on Tik TOK and now it gets banned. You're starting over from scratch and you're probably starting over from scratch on a platform that is very difficult to grow on today because of the algorithm, because of the way people prefer to consume content. So having this omni channel marketing strategy. that allows you to diversify your audience, reach people in multiple different ways. So you're catering to how they want to be consuming content when they want to be consuming content, having other places for your content to live outside of a singular platform that you have zero control over. Email list is a, is a part of that. a channel that you own. You own your subscriber list. That's intellectual property. That's not something that's going to be dependent on an algorithm. So if all of these other platforms go away, you still have a way to reach your audience. And that is how omni channel marketing can be very beneficial outside of just not being dependent on an algorithm on an external factor there. But it's a lot of work because you need to figure out a way to connect all the pieces and kind of funnel people from one place to another. If people love consuming your content on Tik TOK, yeah, you have a really, you need to figure out a really strong incentive. to get them onto your email list. People are very protective of their inbox. They get bombarded with emails all the time, and they don't know, are you going to be somebody that sends one or two emails a day? Or are you going to send an email one or two times a year or the many options in between? Right? And so, and I can tell you personally, if you send me one or two emails a day, even two or three emails a week, I'm I'm out. Like I, I don't have time. So it's just, people are very protective of it and they don't, they don't want to go through the effort of opting in. Wondering where you're going to land in this and then figure out that they need to clean out their inbox because you sent them a billion emails in your nurture sequence, right? So you didn't have a really good reason to get them over to your email list, but then that's not enough, right? Your email list then is going to need to connect to a different channel in some way, not just send them back to Tik TOK or social media, right? There's this, you have to look at this bigger picture and AI can really help you. Kind of vet out those options. If hiring a strategic marketer isn't within the budget, there are much easier ways to DIY it than just testing everything and taking six, 12, 18 months to figure out your groove, to figure out how to connect things.

Safa Harris:

it'll help you get to that basic level until you are in a spot that you can bring in like the more human intelligent high level thing to take it up to the next notch.

Ashley Dreager:

Right, right. Exactly. Siri,

Safa Harris:

to create that high volume of content because it is volume. So yeah, you can get the strategy there, but just like churning out, like, 20 social media captions and like, I don't know, blog posts, emails, like everything. Like that's a lot of time writing takes time. So just like using that to turn all of that out and just like multiplying yourself. And as you were talking about algorithms and things like that, and you said earlier that AI has been part of our digital space forever. Like are AI. We just called them the algorithm. Like they've always been there. We've been using them for Facebook ads and the targeting. Like that's, that's really AI.

Ashley Dreager:

Alexa.

Safa Harris:

is. Exactly. It's all been there. Now it's just this new

Ashley Dreager:

I'm Siri.

Safa Harris:

it

Ashley Dreager:

I think.

Safa Harris:

to take. That

Ashley Dreager:

Thanks, Siri.

Safa Harris:

was perfect. So this is just a new iteration of it that we need to take advantage of and use for our And another thing that you mentioned was like having the own channels versus like these social media channels that you like, if it's gone, it's gone. And like, you're just like out of luck. but it's not like you will ever be out of this spot of not being able to leverage those like top of funnel social media channels. Channels to move people into your own channels and onto your own spaces because you're always going to want that visibility in some way or somehow and and you're going to want new people coming into there because there's a turn people go through this journey there if you have a bot for you or that you're no longer a solution to where they are anymore. So you're going to need to continuously still bring in that new traffic and moving them into your own channels. Your own channels and like being adaptive and doing it. And that's as fast as like the world moves. Now you using AI to cut down that learning curve, get you to basic within a week or two weeks is going to be critical to just keep up the space. So you can use it to get content out quicker at a higher volume. You can use it to implement new strategies. because it cuts down your learning curve. And then also use it to help you get to a basic strategic level of knowing what other options are available to you and developing and actually being strategic about you, about everything you're doing in the new innovation and iteration while keeping your core business, your core brand, and your core offers together.

Ashley Dreager:

Like we mentioned before, if you're not in a place where you can hire that. Strategist or that team to be doing this for you or to can be consulting with you leaning on AI to be your consultant. I think is a really powerful decision. It really can empower the solopreneur or that early stage business to get them off the ground, to kind of move them through some of those really difficult hurdles so that you're not opting into seven different freebies and reading everybody's how to guides and their eBooks and all of that to piece everything together. Because AI is very like Claude chat GPT. Those are really the two, two big ones that we see right now in the online space using them to ask questions and almost like having that conversation back and forth of how do I do this? What's the difference? Kind of like learning and getting that base knowledge because we've talked about this before. It is very important for you to have that base knowledge and understanding of what you're doing within your business or why it's important to be doing certain activities within your to be able to lead a team effectively down the road anyways. So, AI, it shouldn't be looked at as this villain to all of these other services, service providers, agencies, etc. Because really an ideal client is going to have this basic understanding anyways. So that you're not just teaching them why you need to be doing what you're doing. Why you're recommending what you're recommending, right? Okay.

Safa Harris:

because you're going to have people that have a basic understanding so they get the value you're offering. And now you're like, I'm going to make it even better. They already, it's not going to be like, Oh, well, it's not worth that much. It's not that they knew everything that went into it. And, and. Like kind of going back to your original point of like, yeah, you're not going to have to opt into 1 million freebies. You're not going to have to buy a course that's like a few hundred dollars that you're going to have to dedicate like six, eight hours, one consuming, two, figuring it out, three, adapting it to your personal thing. You can have that Have AI teach you the basics to ask it questions to refine it for your particular circumstance. And then you can go and implement it with like specific steps and everything like that. But this is something that course creators and like entrepreneurs need to think about of like how they're putting out their Learning education products to to adapt to this as well.

Ashley Dreager:

Like.

Safa Harris:

that speaks to why we've been seeing a big shift to people hiring more done with you more done for you more custom things versus coaching or. Courses and more into templates and all of those things that to kind of bridge that gap and like how they can use it more effectively in their business versus just like learning about it because there's other avenues to learn now.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah, I was going to ask what your opinion was for the coaching and mentorship, because that is almost like directly competing more so than service providers are with AI.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, so I think it is definitely something that needs to be thought about as you're looking into your offers and really leaning into, okay, I can't just do basic. I have to do expert level, what that means. And I don't think people want to just get learning and education from people anymore. Because learning and education has become so accessible now, they want, okay, well, what, what, what else am I going to get out of this? Yeah, you taught me great. Like, I still don't have the capacity to plug it in and make it happen and do anything. And it's almost a disservice to take people's money and just give them information without having some kind of gap bridge that way. And then I think it's going to have an impact on pricing those. offers. If it is just mentorship or if it is just consulting, and there is no done for you, no implementation piece into it. If they can get those answers then they're not going to pay thousands of dollars for you to get on one call with them. And it's not going to be that basic entry level offer anymore. This is not consulting and strategy and mentorship is not going to be the offer for your low ticket clients. It is

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah, I

Safa Harris:

high expertise level that the people that are making. at a minimum 5k can afford a thousand two thousand dollars to you for you to come and be like, okay Yeah, I see your baseline. These are the roadblocks that are keeping you from your x goal There you go, because you can't like really do that With AI because you still need that expertise and like the nuance of being able to see all those things and like the holistic thing. I'm sure you could if you spent like 30 hours plugging stuff into Claude telling it every little thing that's going on here in your business and all of that kind of stuff, but it's going to be that higher level. mentorship And consulting that's going to need it not necessarily like oh, well, let me teach you the basics of Posting on social media and then you go and implement and do it and setting up your offers and things like that Because there's just so much This is a great way to get out of the noise. It's like up leveling yourself.

Ashley Dreager:

think that,, phrase or that, what a lot of coaches and mentors for other people wanting to be coaches and mentors saying you just need to be one step ahead of your audience. I don't think that's going to apply anymore because AI is just one step ahead of that stage for that audience and it's free.

Safa Harris:

for,

Ashley Dreager:

Or 20 a month.

Safa Harris:

Of want you to relate to this, this, to like the buyer journey. When you're selling to someone that, that is just one step behind you, they are very. problem aware. They know exactly what it is and you have the solution for that one problem that puts them, that takes them to the next step. If they are problem aware, they can go plug that problem into AI, find all the solutions, be like, oh that, I like that solution, tell me more about the solution. AI and then go implement and test and then go to the next solution and do all of that. So if we are looking for people that aren't, if you're no longer doing, Hey, I'm just one step ahead because AI is one step ahead. How does this Align in the buyer journey for someone that is at the basic level wants to go to the next level And you're coming in as a higher level Expert to kind of them that next the next next step, you know So like how should you aligning that with your messaging and your marketing

Ashley Dreager:

There's like two different paths that I would want to address with this. I think that at some point there is going to be a frustration with AI that's just not hitting the mark or just not doing enough. And then as that coach or mentor, , you can speak to what specifically AI isn't capable of doing for that person. That's it. Still interested in DIYing it to an extent, instead of having that person on hand on retainer to customize every little thing to their business. Because I think one of the big challenges with AI is its memory and how long it can remember specific details that you are inputting regarding your business. We're seeing this big boom right now with AI. There are going to be some people that are going to say, Hey, this is, this is a really great solution for me. I can still figure this out. I can bridge the gaps. And like you said before, they're going to need to, That coach or their mentor can either just wait it out, or they can figure out how to adapt their coaching or mentorship service package to incorporate AI in some way. But if that's not something that somebody is interested in doing and adapting to AI or incorporating it, I should say speaking to the customization and having that one on one direct interaction to soundboard to strategize to not be limited to. Whatever the AI output is to then have to put two and two together, right? Because it's not necessarily,, here's my question. Here's the answer. Okay, go do it. Sometimes there's a little bit more digging that needs to be done. Like you said, some, it could take three hours of question and back and forth and still strategizing because strategy isn't necessarily just this instant output, right? Like there's, there's more that needs to go into it., Safa Harris: For that, would customer, the buyer, in more of a pain aware stage? Because they know the problem. They've been trying all these things it. It's still just not quite right. They're frustrated. And now they a new pain of this frustration that it's like, Hey, let me come in and diagnose this with you and find something custom for you and refine what you've already got going on to take you to the next level. yeah, it really pushes people back and forth between problem aware and solution aware, like they're going back and forth and that audience, the person in that stage may not necessarily know exactly where they fall and it really is going to depend on what angle you want to be talking to it. Talking at it, talking about it,. I don't know how I'm supposed to be saying that, but it depends on what angle you wanna be coming at this issue with. Right. Are you wanting to come at this? Is this from an angle of you've already been trying AI, or you've been considering ai, or this is how far you've gotten with ai, or are you wanting to bypass that altogether and capture them before they. Attempt to use AI in their business really depends. And it probably is going to go back to who your ideal client is and who you want your ideal client to be

Safa Harris:

And who's in your audience right now that you're trying to sell to.

Ashley Dreager:

and who's in your audience. Yeah.

Safa Harris:

Yeah.

Ashley Dreager:

I think personally that it will give you a wider audience to sell to if you have services and offers that incorporate AI, because, you know, going back to the beginning of this episode. AI is allowing people to get to here. Whereas before you were only selling to the people that wanted to get to level six, right? Instead of just people that are going from zero to one, you can now capture people that are going from zero to one with AI and then be with them as they're ready to go to level six to 10. Right?

Safa Harris:

what I was going to say. I was like, this fits perfectly because I love creating offers and products. Like I will do it all day long in my sleep. Like all the time I can like create so many offers and products just like on a whim. And it goes great because we do like growth marketing and business growth. So I'm like all these revenue streams, but this is a great way to expand your business and grow it. And have offers that are hitting each customer at these different stages. So it would be two things. You can capture new people at every space because you have offers that align in each space. All in that entire trajectory. But then also if you grab someone at level zero, they can come with you all the way through your offers, through that graduation and those steps all the way through the end. And guess what? They really, really trust you. That is a re return, repeat customer, like

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

customer life cycle and their lifetime value for you is going to be huge and they are, they are going to be like, they're going to be your stands.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

they got me from like zero. I've been with this person since zero. But that also means like that's, you're going to have to be very, very strategic with your marketing and messaging and how you're talking to people and getting like segmenting your email list and making sure you're doing the changes. So it follows people through and being very, very clear and specific, which AI can't help you do that. You need a

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. I was going to say AI is too advanced.

Safa Harris:

Yeah, that's going

Ashley Dreager:

That's too advanced.

Safa Harris:

type of thing to figure out.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah.

Safa Harris:

so if you're listening to this episode and you're like, Oh, that's a really great idea. You're going to be someone that's going to need like the expert level, like human touch, but selling to the people you're selling to would be to think about the AI thing. Okay, so to wrap this up, since it started with cars and just needing to be the, the point of the, the story is be adaptable, be willing to change, be in tune with the, what the market is doing and what is available to you to leverage and take you up to the next level and the step and what you need to do. And sometimes that's going to be something that's going to force you into, And in, like, reality, it's A. I. It's gonna force you into that change. You're gonna have to use it and you just need to, like, on the train. And that's essentially what Lightning McQueen did to Radiator Springs. It's like, yeah, you guys are just sitting around waiting? No. Like, this is the story now. This is what we're doing. So on that note, , are adapting and leveraging all of those things and trying to be more accessible and meeting people where they are. And so that means we are expanding our own offer suite and product suite, and the way we're doing things as well. So that should be out soon. So if you stay tuned, you guys will. Learn about it and see it and see it in action of how we're doing it. And maybe there can be some behind the scenes with it.

Ashley Dreager:

Yeah. If you guys want to see behind the scenes of all of this, please let us know because I love sharing behind the scenes stuff. But if you guys don't care, then we'll just keep it to ourselves. And that wraps up another episode of the business millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society. Our challenge for you take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, we appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward, share it with an entrepreneur, creative student, or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. So you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. See you next week.