Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Silicon Valley to Sexpert CEO: Susan Bratton’s Journey to Building a Sexual Wellness Empire

Transcript

From Silicon Valley to Sexpert CEO: Susan Bratton’s Journey to Building a Sexual Wellness Empire · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Today we sit down with intimacy expert to millions, Susan Bratton.
• 0:06
  Susan is a serial entrepreneur who made a bold shift transitioning from the tech space to the sexual wellness industry 20 years ago.
• 0:16
  She shares her personal journey, which was driven by her desire to save her marriage by gaining a proper education on intimacy and lovemaking.
• 0:26
  Susan discusses how her greatest challenge in her personal life turned into a lucrative business, allowing her to help people worldwide through her publishing company, Personal Life Media.
• 0:38
  Her work provides couples with valuable information on lovemaking techniques and intimacy that are often stigmatized or misunderstood in society.
• 0:49
  Susan also recounts the challenges and stigmas associated with working in the sexual wellness industry, particularly with increasing censorship from social media platforms and search engines.
• 1:02
  The strong emphasis on personal development, longevity, and empowerment.
• 1:08
  She highlights the significance of understanding and utilizing your strengths to achieve both personal and professional fulfillment.
• 1:17
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:22
  All right, Susan Bratton, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:26
  Hey, Dave.
• 1:27
  I'm all about fulfillment of all kinds, so I'm happy to be here, and it's so nice to meet you and be introduced to you.
• 1:32
  Thanks for the connection.
• 1:34
  Absolutely.
• 1:34
  Yeah.
• 1:35
  We appreciate you taking the time to be here.
• 1:37
  Okay, so you made quite a radical shift from the tech space to the sexual wellness space almost 20 years ago, and that was due to a personal pain point.
• 1:51
  Can you just talk more, Talk more about how that happened and what it was like?
• 1:56
  Yeah, I remember that.
• 1:58
  So I launched a publishing company 20 years ago because I'd almost lost my marriage due to.
• 2:04
  Honestly, Dave, neither of us knew what we were doing, and our intimate relations just kind of fell apart after about 12 years.
• 2:11
  And we thought, gosh, we love each other, we're great together, but we've got this issue.
• 2:15
  Let's just figure it out.
• 2:17
  And when we figured out what to do by learning and getting kind of an education about lovemaking, we'd gone to workshops and things like that because we were in the Silicon Valley.
• 2:31
  And so we were, you know, close to this kind of, like, the intersection of personal transformation and sexuality and personal growth.
• 2:38
  And so there were a lot of workshops and.
• 2:40
  And we're like, wow, it was so easy to get good in bed together and heal our marriage.
• 2:46
  And we know all our friends are getting divorced, and we know it's not money because we're all making tons of dough in Silicon Valley, so maybe we should bring all of these kind of workshop experiences online.
• 2:57
  And so I started publishing the work of my mentors, and that's when we launched Personal Life Media.
• 3:03
  And one of the programs I published was a program by a wonderful man named Jim Benson.
• 3:10
  And he said a phrase to me once that really, really resonated.
• 3:14
  And I think it can for so many people.
• 3:16
  And that is your greatest wound becomes your greatest gift if you allow it.
• 3:22
  And that's really what happened for me was my greatest wound almost losing my marriage and you know, messing up my daughter's childhood and all of those kinds of things due to just a lack of knowledge, a lack of
• 3:32
  knowing what to do because we're not taught these things.
• 3:36
  That became the gift of my business.
• 3:38
  And helping people all over the world access information to have really rich and pleasurable intimate lives in their marriages.
• 3:47
  That's what people it became.
• 3:50
  And so it was the gift I beg was, you know, able to give.
• 3:54
  So that that was what was happening.
• 3:58
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• 4:23
  And I love that quote, by the way.
• 4:25
  Your greatest, your greatest gift, your greatest wound can become your greatest gift if you allow it.
• 4:31
  Yeah, but making a shift into, you know, such a highly stigmatized industry.
• 4:37
  Right, I'm sure was very challenging.
• 4:39
  I mean what when you had this experience and you realized what learning what to do did for your marriage and now you wanted to share with the world.
• 4:49
  I mean, what was that like, you know, starting out in, in an industry like sexual wellness?
• 4:56
  Well, it's become harder and harder and harder over time.
• 5:01
  Even though what I teach are passionate lovemaking techniques, bedroom communication skills and intimate wellness information so that you can extend your sex span to have a longer, healthier, happier health span.
• 5:15
  And everything that I'm teaching is, you know, for couples it's loving, it's, it's non pornograph traffic.
• 5:21
  It's actually the antidote to porn because that's really some, in some ways where people think they should learn about sex and, and that's not, you know, positive toward women and things like that.
• 5:32
  And so things were easier in the past because traffic was a lot cheaper to buy because we were an online entity, digital entity.
• 5:40
  It was digital direct downloads of audios, videos and ebooks.
• 5:44
  It still is.
• 5:45
  And we had a lot of affiliate partners and they could really get traffic and they built big email lists and we cross promoted each other and that kept going for, you know, 12 or 15 years, but it hit
• 5:58
  the skids and more and more now the big search engines and social media are censoring content of all kinds.
• 6:08
  The algorithms are running things.
• 6:10
  There's no real appeals.
• 6:11
  So I could be talking about passionate marriage and get flagged.
• 6:15
  And then I'm shadow banned and I can't grow my.
• 6:17
  Can't grow my, you know, my social media.
• 6:20
  And so it's gotten harder and harder and harder.
• 6:23
  My friend Perry Belcher calls it a bad neighborhood business.
• 6:26
  And it's funny because I recently also launched a longevity newsletter on Substack.
• 6:32
  It's Longevity Wins.
• 6:34
  And I decided to just try out because so much of what I do is intimate wellness.
• 6:39
  I'm also a big biohacker and I get a lot of stage opportunities to speak about sexual biohacking.
• 6:47
  And so I really talk not just about intimate wellness and longevity, but overall longevity.
• 6:51
  And when I launched that newsletter, I was like, oh my God, this is so much easier.
• 6:57
  Why am I in this business?
• 6:58
  And I'm in the business 20 years later because it's my passion is passion.
• 7:04
  I love helping people have a part of their lives that's so important.
• 7:09
  I think, you know, pleasure and connection are one of the jewels in the crown of what makes a life well lived with the love of family, your faith, if that's important to you, nature, food, music, you know, poetry,
• 7:26
  all of the most beautiful things include the connection to our humanity and to our love and to our heart and to each other.
• 7:33
  And so it, it's very appealing in that way where the quality of my fans and followers and how much they love me and appreciate me, you can't get that with a lot of businesses.
• 7:46
  You, right now with the market the way it is, I'd like to be in the commodities business, but frankly, it wouldn't be as interesting to me.
• 7:54
  You know, this is my path, but it is a hard, hard path.
• 7:59
  And we have to work 10, 100 times harder to drive traffic and conversions in our business than almost any other business owner I've ever met.
• 8:12
  Yeah.
• 8:12
  And do you find too, because certainly in recent years, right, you've seen that there's been this kind of focus, I guess you could call it like the porn epidemic and like you said, a lot more censorship in trying
• 8:24
  to solve for that.
• 8:26
  Do you find just because of the nature of your business that you get lumped into that category?
• 8:31
  Yes.
• 8:31
  Yeah, the algorithms.
• 8:32
  Just look at anything.
• 8:33
  I could be talking about passionate marriage and I'm lumped in with porn yeah.
• 8:39
  Okay.
• 8:39
  And then so what, what are.
• 8:41
  Clearly you've had to be creative to, to overcome that and continue to, to grow your business.
• 8:46
  Like what are some, some ways that you've, you've done that?
• 8:50
  Well, what I do is I look for ways to drive traffic.
• 8:53
  You know, I have over 30 free gift funnels where I give a lot away for free because I have to earn people's trust.
• 9:02
  Because sexuality is such a shame ridden business, people are worried.
• 9:08
  They don't trust, they don't know if you know, they don't know what my flavor is, if you will.
• 9:12
  So I have a lot of free gift funnels.
• 9:14
  And really my, my business is that I publish these online programs that solve problems and create opportunities for people in their relationships.
• 9:25
  And so I teach passionate lovemaking techniques and bedroom communication skills.
• 9:31
  But I also have a supplement company that has really high quality, very nice sexual vitality supplements.
• 9:38
  And that's about a third of my revenue.
• 9:40
  And then a third of my revenue is affiliate marketing for other people's products because I can't make everything and there's a lot of great stuff out there.
• 9:48
  So I'm also a recommender.
• 9:50
  I wouldn't call myself an influencer, I would call myself influential.
• 9:54
  And I think that's very different.
• 9:56
  I've built a body of work.
• 9:57
  I've written over 30, I've written 34 books and programs myself and I've published the work of my mentors, so 10 other online programs.
• 10:07
  And because of that, I have a wide and vast knowledge of essentially, you know, heart connected, passionate lovemaking and pleasure techniques.
• 10:18
  And so I like to recommend other people's products.
• 10:22
  And people trust me, trust, you know, they have to get to know me, then they have to trust me and then they begin to like me.
• 10:29
  And I am not the kind of person who's just trying to get you to buy something from me.
• 10:33
  I have a long 20 year company.
• 10:35
  I'm very patient, I'm very giving, and so I give a lot of free things to people to earn their trust.
• 10:43
  And so what I found is that there are some places that are really good for me for getting the traffic to the systems that I've built.
• 10:50
  So I've got all these books and programs.
• 10:52
  I've got this newsletter that's my engine for telling you, giving you great ideas, teaching you things, and you feel like God.
• 11:01
  I got to stay on this newsletter because every single one of these teaches me something new.
• 11:05
  I love it.
• 11:06
  But I also make offers in those newsletters.
• 11:09
  And so for me, it's about Getting traffic into my newsletter so that people are like, damn, I didn't even know there was all this great stuff out there.
• 11:16
  I love this.
• 11:17
  I want to try that toy.
• 11:18
  I want to get that book.
• 11:19
  I want to, you know, do these.
• 11:20
  I want to expand.
• 11:21
  Like, my customers are people who are personal development oriented, which is why I was so happy that you asked me on your show, because your, your viewers and listeners want to get better, and not everybody does.
• 11:37
  A lot of people are like, I'm good.
• 11:39
  Everything's good.
• 11:39
  I don't need.
• 11:40
  I'm good.
• 11:40
  There's nothing to learn.
• 11:41
  You know, they're like, against learning.
• 11:43
  And your entrepreneurs are like, the more I know, the better I get.
• 11:48
  And that has the same effect in your intimate life.
• 11:52
  So I found that getting traffic is the number one thing that I need to do.
• 11:56
  And podcasts have been a terrific source of traffic for me because generally I go on a lot of the kind of, like, I go on comedy shows, I go on personal growth, and I go on a lot of
• 12:08
  entrepreneur shows.
• 12:09
  I go on a lot of, you know, like, I've been on Diary of a CEO.
• 12:12
  I've been, you know, on a lot of different shows.
• 12:16
  And sex cuts across everything.
• 12:19
  You know, it's, It's.
• 12:20
  It's interesting to almost everyone, but only the people who want to learn and realize they can learn something are my customers.
• 12:26
  And so podcasting has driven a lot of traffic into my newsletter.
• 12:30
  For me, another thing that I have done recently is I've started something called the Intimacy alliance, because I'm in my 60s now, and I've done very well in my business, and I'm unusual in that way that I am
• 12:46
  a business that has done well.
• 12:47
  I'm what I call a 21st century mom and pop shop.
• 12:51
  I, My husband and I run the business together with our team in the Philippines.
• 12:55
  Primarily in the Philippines.
• 12:56
  We've got some people in.
• 12:57
  Got a person in Japan, we've got a person in India, you know, but.
• 13:00
  But a global distributed team of people who've been with us for over a decade, many of them, and we're just really, really good at running our business together.
• 13:11
  But for me, it's.
• 13:13
  I built the whole, you know, infrastructure.
• 13:16
  It's for me, always getting traffic in.
• 13:19
  And luckily, podcasting is a fairly uncensored medium right now still where social media is not.
• 13:26
  So I can't really grow that well on social media.
• 13:30
  I mean, I'm still very active on it.
• 13:32
  I.
• 13:33
  I promote everything on social media, but I, I don't get a lot of traffic from social media.
• 13:37
  It tends to be more of an insular kind of an experience where podcasters, they're eager to learn, they want to be up to date and they want to learn new things.
• 13:48
  And so I've used that as well as speaking from stage a lot.
• 13:53
  I've, I've done those two things to get a lot of traffic.
• 13:56
  But then my intimacy alliance is me with 40 other sexperts.
• 14:01
  I'm teaching them everything I know about monetizing their business.
• 14:05
  It's all about revenue generation, using traffic and conversion, what they need to do, what's worked for me and they've become.
• 14:14
  I'm slowly working with them on all of their offers so that I can grow the number of offers that I have to promote to my fans and followers.
• 14:22
  I'm helping them learn how to conversion optimize their sales pages and build out their funnels and things like that so that I can have more things to offer to my own followers.
• 14:34
  And we cross promote for each other to generate our revenue.
• 14:39
  So I'm very much a team oriented, collaborative CEO.
• 14:45
  And you have to be when you're in a business like mine, you can't exist by yourself.
• 14:50
  You must have the support of others.
• 14:52
  You can't do it alone.
• 14:53
  And so that's one of the things that I've done most recently to replace the affiliate business that dropped out from the loss of traffic.
• 15:00
  It was to build my own new affiliate group of people who have great business offers but don't know how to market them.
• 15:10
  Okay, wow.
• 15:11
  So a lot, a lot to get into with what you just broke down there.
• 15:16
  Appreciate that answer.
• 15:18
  Okay, so you're in your 60s and you're so passionate about what you do.
• 15:24
  You're constantly running new promotion.
• 15:27
  I mean, it's very atypical when I think about the people I know that are that age in business per se.
• 15:33
  Like.
• 15:33
  Yeah, what, what I guess drives you to just continue being so, so creative after all the years and success that you've had in business?
• 15:45
  Well, a couple of things.
• 15:46
  One, I really practice what I preach around longevity.
• 15:49
  So I have a lot of energy.
• 15:51
  I work out three to five times a week.
• 15:54
  I ride my mountain bike instead of drive my car wherever possible.
• 15:59
  My current goal for my 64th birthday is to lift my body weight.
• 16:04
  I'm a tall woman and I' I've got a lot of good muscle.
• 16:07
  You can't see it in my, my, my jacket, but it's solid as a rock because I want to sail into my 80s and 90s and hundreds just, like, flexible with balance, with energy, with stability, with, you know, just
• 16:21
  firepower.
• 16:23
  And so I'm trying to lift my body weight 160lbs by my sick by my 64th birthday.
• 16:29
  So I always have, like, physical goals.
• 16:32
  I also really look.
• 16:33
  I cook really healthy.
• 16:36
  I cook at home.
• 16:37
  Most of the time.
• 16:39
  I really focus on my sleep, and I think that those things are very, very, very important.
• 16:48
  But generally, to keep me going, I'm focused on mitochondrial energy.
• 16:52
  I'm focused on having a lot of cognitive function and mental and physical energy.
• 16:59
  So everything that I do around my longevity stack is to support just the vitality, the lust for life that I have, because my brain is always just like, you know, wow.
• 17:12
  Just I want to do so many things.
• 17:13
  I have so many ideas that I need the stamina and the, you know, the energy to get everything done that I want to do.
• 17:20
  And I'm lucky because my team's been with me for so long, and we just keep learning new things together.
• 17:25
  Like, the hallmark for me of hiring someone is, are they loyal, are they smart, and do they want to learn new things?
• 17:35
  And if they have those three things, they tend to be great employees.
• 17:38
  I bring people in, and sometimes I'll hire two or three people at one time, and I'll give them a bunch of different jobs and see who does well, see who keeps showing up and wants to learn new systems
• 17:50
  and functions.
• 17:51
  Because over the last 20 years, we've moved from platform to platform to platform, and we have to build our own tech internally.
• 17:58
  We don't use any SaaS us, because the minute a company wants to get institutional investors, they're like, we got to get rid of you.
• 18:06
  You can't be on our platform anymore.
• 18:07
  We can't have any sex.
• 18:08
  People on our platform, like, only Fans was an example of that, where they were trying to go public, and they're like, we got to get rid of all the, you know, the sex workers.
• 18:16
  Like, well, that's literally your business, you know, and they had to backpedal on that, right?
• 18:19
  They realized, oh, you know, we have to.
• 18:22
  We have to keep these people on here.
• 18:23
  And so I think right now, what I'm doing with my Filipino team is we're all learning how to optimize and automate our business using AI.
• 18:37
  So we're all, like, thick into leveraging every aspect of our business so it runs itself.
• 18:45
  Nobody's going to be out of a job.
• 18:47
  There's always things to do, and humans use the tools.
• 18:50
  But for us, it's about, how do we harness the Power of the tools to continue to excel, expand our business and do well together at the same time.
• 19:00
  Because we've been together for so long, we've had lots of babies, we've put lots of kids through college.
• 19:06
  Like one of my, my head writers, she's getting her master's degree right now.
• 19:12
  And we, because we are like a fault tolerant system, we always are able.
• 19:18
  If someone needs to like go, you know, defend their master thesis, you know, their master's thesis, that we're like, she has as much time as she needs to do that.
• 19:27
  We're all gonna work to.
• 19:29
  We're all gonna do her work.
• 19:30
  I have a guy who's been working for me.
• 19:32
  He's kind of like a, he'll do anything in my company.
• 19:35
  He's so cross functional.
• 19:37
  And he was like, I need 90 days off.
• 19:39
  I've got.
• 19:39
  My, My son is not thriving.
• 19:41
  They had a new baby.
• 19:42
  My son is not thriving.
• 19:43
  We're not doing well.
• 19:44
  We're having struggles getting a good nanny.
• 19:46
  My wife is exhausted.
• 19:47
  I just need some time.
• 19:49
  And I'm like, take a, take a three month sabbatical and see how you do and let us know.
• 19:53
  And then Paul and MJ took over his two big buckets of tasks.
• 19:58
  They already kind of 98% knew how to do them because we cross trained.
• 20:02
  And Christian will come back and if he doesn't, if something doesn't work out, it's okay because nothing happened.
• 20:09
  Like he could literally come to us and say, I need three months off.
• 20:12
  And a week later he wrote up things and parsed out his stuff to the other parts of the team and he gets three months off.
• 20:19
  And if he needs more, he needs more.
• 20:20
  We'll take him back when he's ready to come back.
• 20:22
  So we, you know, we just are really good at supporting each other like a big family in it together for the long run.
• 20:32
  That's our mentality is we're a family.
• 20:34
  We're a group of families that are living our lives together, learning new things and continuing to grow our business together.
• 20:43
  And it's so lovely to be in that kind of a, just that kind of a business, you know, and, and I honestly feel like our customers feel that too.
• 20:53
  They feel the love.
• 20:54
  My customer care team's with been with me for 15 years.
• 20:58
  Like, they feel that they're taken care of because when you're dealing with something where there's shame and fear, which is what sexuality is for a lot of people, you need to have a very loving heart.
• 21:10
  So whether it's me Giving all of my knowledge to the Intimacy alliance to help them make money and to enjoy that part of the wisdom of my 60s, or knowing that I'm getting one of my head writers, and
• 21:22
  when I hired, I'm like, we're getting you a PhD, little girl.
• 21:24
  This is not just the end of it for you.
• 21:27
  We're in this for the long term.
• 21:28
  We want you to be Dr.
• 21:30
  Basya.
• 21:31
  Right.
• 21:32
  And so I think when you enter your business that way you get a loyal, loving team, and it just builds on itself.
• 21:40
  You know, every.
• 21:41
  Everybody feels like they're in that web of love together.
• 21:45
  And also technical chops, like, we're a little company, but we do some really gnarly tech together.
• 21:55
  And I love that too.
• 21:57
  Yeah.
• 21:58
  And, you know, you mentioned that the challenges earlier with being in a, quote, bad neighborhood business.
• 22:04
  Yeah.
• 22:05
  Do you think the fact that everything was so much harder has kind of galvanized your team to.
• 22:10
  To create that type of, like, the synergy you just mentioned?
• 22:14
  Yeah, I.
• 22:15
  I think some people don't even realize how hard it is because they're only doing the parts of it.
• 22:19
  I think Tim and I feel the hardness compared to other people.
• 22:24
  And, boy, launching that longevity list and seeing how easy it is, it's like, damn, I am in.
• 22:29
  It gave me, like, the perspective.
• 22:30
  Wow.
• 22:30
  I am in a really hard business, but I'm also up for the challenge.
• 22:35
  I'm a warrior.
• 22:37
  I'm a lionhearted, you know, courageous fighter for what is right.
• 22:44
  It's just part of my person.
• 22:45
  I've been like that since I was a little kid.
• 22:48
  This little pendant I'm wearing is a lion.
• 22:50
  I am a lion.
• 22:53
  Wow.
• 22:54
  Okay.
• 22:55
  And so you mentioned, of course, you go on a lot of podcasts, and you mentioned your.
• 23:00
  Your appearance recently on the Diary of a CEO.
• 23:02
  Yeah, that was a good one.
• 23:04
  So you.
• 23:04
  You did a post right after that on LinkedIn that I saw, and it was.
• 23:09
  It was titled the Courage to Be Disliked.
• 23:12
  And you talked about how your appearance there was polarizing, and with all the comments, you got so much hate from so many people.
• 23:21
  And I think the quote was, you haven't really made it till half the market hates you.
• 23:26
  Can you just talk more about where that.
• 23:29
  That courage comes from to just continue to do what you do despite the, you know, the backlash that you get from.
• 23:35
  From various groups?
• 23:37
  Well, it's interesting because the.
• 23:42
  The backlash that I get from that particular group is people who are quite conservative and very religious, and I understand their perspective, and it just moves me into a compassionate heart where what I realize is that their anger
• 23:59
  is actually fear.
• 24:02
  And I understand that fear because I've dealt with so many people who've come to me and said, you know, I grew up in a purity culture, or my wife was ab.
• 24:11
  Or my husband was abused.
• 24:13
  What do we do to have the intimacy and connection that we need?
• 24:16
  There is a lot of trauma in this area.
• 24:19
  And so when people call me a, you know, a slide or a Jezebel, you know, all of those kinds of things for teaching lovemaking, for teaching heart connected love me, I realize that that's nothing to do with me.
• 24:35
  And it makes me feel not sad for them.
• 24:38
  Yes.
• 24:39
  I mean, sad, but like, I get it.
• 24:42
  You know, it's.
• 24:43
  It's just beyond where you are right now.
• 24:45
  And that's okay, too.
• 24:46
  You're not hurting me.
• 24:48
  I'm.
• 24:49
  I'm fine.
• 24:50
  My gosh, I'm fine.
• 24:52
  I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm loved, I'm appreciated.
• 24:56
  I'm, I make great money in my business.
• 24:58
  I could always make more.
• 25:00
  Like, I am always working my ass off.
• 25:03
  Just, I don't grow much, but I hold my own, you know, like, you can do what you can do, right?
• 25:11
  So I just look at that and go, okay, well, I've hit a level of exposure where there are going to be people who don't.
• 25:21
  They're not there.
• 25:21
  They're not where I am.
• 25:22
  And that's okay.
• 25:23
  I'm fine with that.
• 25:25
  Okay.
• 25:27
  And so where do you, you've been in this industry, like you said, almost 20 years.
• 25:31
  And you know, the, what you're teaching, like you said, heart, heart connected lovemaking and helping people, which it's, it's interesting too, because I don't know if you, like, studied Napoleon Hill, but like one of, like the, the basic
• 25:46
  human needs he said was sex, right?
• 25:49
  And it's such an integral part of everyone's life.
• 25:51
  And you're teaching people how to do it better and how to have success and how to learn and all these positive things.
• 25:57
  I mean, where do you see this industry going, you know, in, in the next, you know, in the coming years with, with, with what you see in the market right now?
• 26:06
  Well, with Project 2025 being completely against sexuality, I think that there's going to be a lot more censorship, there's going to be a lot more difficulty.
• 26:17
  I think it's going to be harder to get traffic.
• 26:20
  I think we are targets.
• 26:23
  And so I'm concerned about it.
• 26:26
  I'm very concerned about it.
• 26:27
  And I'm also concerned about the, you know, the economic fears that our country is having right now with regard to getting supplies for their, and what the stock market's doing and loss of things like potential loss of things
• 26:39
  like Social Security and Medicaid.
• 26:42
  And you know, I understand trimming a fat government, but there, you know, there are probably ways to go about it that may be a little more methodically driven that could potentially have been a little easier on our system.
• 26:59
  So I'm, I literally just got done with my executive staff meeting and the three of us, my cto, my COO and I, we were talking about what's happening now in the US and what our concerns are this year
• 27:16
  from a revenue perspective and what we're going to focus on and how we're going to.
• 27:23
  For an example, one of the things that we talked about is that, you know, there's, there's either the move, move away or move toward.
• 27:30
  There's either the, you know, fix the PA or provide the inspiration.
• 27:37
  And I've always been an aspirational brand and I've always been like, did you know the body can have 20 kinds of orgasms and you can learn how to have them all?
• 27:46
  You know, those kinds of things.
• 27:49
  Here are 48 erotic play dates to, to get rid of that monotony of monogamy and give you guys all kinds of fun things you can do together in the bedroom to create new relationship energy.
• 27:59
  You know, like those are platforms of mine.
• 28:01
  And one of the things that we're doing is we're subtly altering our, our market positioning to be more about calming stress and getting out of anxiety and what you can do to slow down and relax and, you know,
• 28:22
  more mindset oriented types of things and just, just being aware that people are a lot of people, some people are blissfully happy.
• 28:30
  They're not paying attention to anything.
• 28:32
  They're totally fine.
• 28:33
  But if you're an entrepreneur, you're freaking looking at the markets, you're, you're paying attention to what's going on, right?
• 28:38
  You know, you see it, you're looking at the market, you're looking at your stock market, you're looking at your 401ks, you're looking at your Roth IRAs, you're looking at everything.
• 28:46
  You're wondering what the tax laws are going to be.
• 28:48
  You know, you're putting your attention on that you're probably buying some gold in a Swiss Eft, you know, whatever you're doing.
• 28:54
  And so we're thinking about that as entrepreneurs right now.
• 28:58
  And one of the things that we're thinking about in our company is continuing to hold people in our hearts and meeting them where they are and where they are is probably unnerved and anxious.
• 29:07
  And so we're not talking about the.
• 29:10
  The aspiration.
• 29:11
  We're talking about, like, get the getting by.
• 29:16
  How are you going to get.
• 29:17
  How are we going to get collectively through these, you know, tumultuous times?
• 29:23
  So that's one thing we're doing, and another thing we're doing is we're looking at the next generation of SEO and looking at how we need to build our.
• 29:31
  Rebuild our websites to appeal to AI and lms.
• 29:35
  So we're looking at that.
• 29:37
  We're also increasing.
• 29:41
  We're doubling down on podcast, you know, being on podcasts for me, because, number one, I love doing it.
• 29:51
  Thank you again for having me.
• 29:53
  I'm glad Luke Introduct introduced us.
• 29:55
  It's my joy.
• 29:56
  I like to talk about this stuff, and I love the opportunity to talk about the business side of what I do.
• 30:02
  I mean, it's, you know, I am equally a CEO and an intimacy expert, but I probably spend 80% of my time in the intimacy expert hat.
• 30:09
  And so getting the CEO hat on is really fun for me to talk out loud to you about, about this and share my thoughts.
• 30:16
  And so we're kind of doubling down on podcasting because it's been a great source of leads.
• 30:22
  When someone can get your flavor, they're either going to not like you at all, which I'm, as we've noticed, I'm fine with, or they're going to be like, I like her.
• 30:30
  You know, I want to find out more about that.
• 30:32
  And then they come into my funnels and they're like, wow, this is incredible.
• 30:36
  I didn't even know all these things.
• 30:38
  This is delightful.
• 30:39
  Delightful.
• 30:39
  I can, I can learn more.
• 30:41
  And so we're doing podcasting more.
• 30:44
  Focus on bookings in that.
• 30:45
  I've got two publicity firms that are working on that with me.
• 30:49
  I've written a bunch of new podcast pitches that my publicist can send out that are the next generation of my thinking.
• 30:57
  I've used AI to do that.
• 30:59
  They don't write the pitches for me.
• 31:00
  I give them everything, and I have them write them in the formats that I want better that I could do it myself.
• 31:06
  I don't use AI to generate any content for me.
• 31:09
  One of the other things that I do is I get a lot of emails from my fans and followers with questions, because I've always said, you can get on my newsletter and you can ask me anything if you're
• 31:21
  on my Newsletter.
• 31:22
  You hit reply to any newsletter you get from me and you ask me anything.
• 31:26
  It doesn't have to be about what that newsletter is about.
• 31:28
  You can ask me anything and I will answer you personally.
• 31:32
  And my newsletter is betterlover.com so if you want, if you have a question about anything, even my CEO stuff, I'm happy to answer.
• 31:41
  And when I get to reply to people, it's what makes me so good at what I do.
• 31:47
  I know what everybody.
• 31:48
  I know what people are doing behind closed doors.
• 31:50
  I know it all.
• 31:51
  And decades of answering questions has helped me get better and better at the answers.
• 31:57
  But it is tedious to write it all out.
• 32:00
  And so because I'm an articulator, I think by speaking out loud.
• 32:07
  When I have to think through something, I need somebody to be my sounding board.
• 32:11
  That's how I process my thoughts.
• 32:14
  That's just the way I pull from my subconscious to my conscious thinking is by saying things.
• 32:20
  We're all different in the way we do things, but that's one of the things that I think makes me good a good person as a podcast guest that I love when I get a host and they ask me
• 32:29
  a great question and I get to think about it and it makes me a better person.
• 32:33
  So it's part of my evolution and growth is being here with you today and what I've been doing.
• 32:41
  Yesterday with ChatGPT I just started, I put my earbuds in and I turned Chat GPT on and I read the e.
• 32:49
  I had seven emails in my inbox I owed people answers to.
• 32:52
  I read the email to ChatGPT and I said here's what I want to tell them.
• 32:59
  I'm going to free flow my information and I want you to sort of it organize it into step by step instructions and put the links to all of the things that I mention in the email.
• 33:11
  And then I cop and then I just literally sent it, I copied it and pasted it into the reply and that person got such a better response than I could have gotten by writing it down, which would have
• 33:27
  taken me forever.
• 33:28
  This took me 15 minutes instead of 40, 45 minutes to do.
• 33:33
  And if I start doing those things in a notebook lm, which would be a really nice way to do it, I've got to figure that out and not just use chat GPT but import all those into a notebook
• 33:43
  lm then it starts to get my latest and greatest thinking about the top problems that people are having right now.
• 33:49
  And I can query that for even better answers.
• 33:52
  So I did know I Did load a notebook.
• 33:55
  LM up with all of my books and programs and the top 20 of the best podcasts that I've been on as far as has things I've said that I've loved, where the host has really brought the best out
• 34:08
  in me and they're all in there and I can query my own knowledge all the time, which I love as well.
• 34:17
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:18
  And again, AI is developing so rapidly and, and evolving so quickly, but it's great you can share those types of real world examples as far as, like, how you can use it to, to become a better version of
• 34:30
  yourself and provide more value to others, because that's really what it's about.
• 34:34
  Yeah.
• 34:35
  Okay.
• 34:36
  So, Susan, with such a long and successful career and you still going strong even into your 60s, what's one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self?
• 34:52
  I think that when I first became a CEO, I, I was always a natural born leader and I'd had a lot of executive positions in Silicon Valley, but once I hit CEO of my own company, I was like,
• 35:08
  well, I had a little imposter syndrome.
• 35:11
  Maybe because it's my own company, I don't really deserve to be CEO, but my husband was so supportive of me.
• 35:19
  He was the one who was like, well, you're the CEO, you're the strategy mind.
• 35:22
  My husband is the finance analytics tech.
• 35:27
  He's in the weeds.
• 35:29
  I'm the one who's like, big picture.
• 35:32
  I'm the rainmaker, I'm the one who does the deals.
• 35:34
  We're perfect together.
• 35:36
  You couldn't pick two people.
• 35:38
  And honestly, I am so lucky to get to work with him.
• 35:43
  He is a brilliant man, like, unbelievable.
• 35:48
  The level of throughput, the level of the quality of his work, the quality of his thinking.
• 35:53
  He's a genius.
• 35:55
  I get to be in business with a genius.
• 36:00
  And when he would encourage me and acknowledge my gifts, I really appreciated that.
• 36:10
  And it made me become a more confident CEO and to trust my instincts.
• 36:17
  And one of the things that really helped me was when I did The Strengths Finder 2.0 quiz that Marcus Buckingham did with the Gallup Organization, you can still buy the book.
• 36:29
  Target almost always sells it at a discount.
• 36:32
  And take the quiz and get your answers and find out what your top strengths are.
• 36:39
  And when I did that, and I did that in my 40s, I realized that my strengths were things like strategy.
• 36:47
  I'd sit in meetings and go, why aren't we talking about all these tactics?
• 36:50
  Let's get to the big picture.
• 36:51
  And I realized, oh, well, they're not strategists.
• 36:53
  They're tactic.
• 36:54
  They're tactical people.
• 36:56
  And I didn't realize that until I got that book.
• 36:58
  So knowing what your skills are, I can have someone tell me they can talk to me for half an hour, and I'll spit back to them like a human AI.
• 37:06
  I'll spit back to them the three sentences, Sentences that literally encapsulated everything they just said in the most simplistic and understandable way with a powerful hook.
• 37:15
  There's a prompt for you use that in your AI.
• 37:18
  And that's because I am a born communicator.
• 37:22
  And so once I began to understand that I had these strengths that were better than most of the people that I was dealing with, I leaned into those strengths.
• 37:30
  I went with those strengths, and that made me better.
• 37:35
  So the combination of getting encouragement from someone that I respected so much and understanding what my strengths were made me focus more and more on those and really hone them.
• 37:49
  And that's one of the things that I love about mentoring others, is I can see the strengths in others and help them see them, too.
• 37:57
  Love that.
• 37:58
  All right, well, Susan, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this.
• 38:03
  This valuable wisdom from your journey with our audience.
• 38:06
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 38:08
  Thank you.
• 38:08
  I appreciate it, too.
• 38:09
  It's great to meet you, and thanks for having me on your show.
• 38:12
  I hope I created some value for you today.
• 38:15
  Absolutely.
• 38:15
  And one more time, if people want to get in touch with you, learn more about what you do or reach out for any other reason, what's the best way people can reach out to you?
• 38:23
  Yeah.
• 38:23
  Betterlover.com reply to any email.
• 38:26
  I will answer you.
• 38:28
  All right, we'll link all that in the show.
• 38:29
  Notes for everyone.
• 38:30
  1.
• 38:30
  All right, thanks so much, Susan.
• 38:32
  Take care.
• 38:33
  Thanks, Steve.