Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Will AI Replace the SmallBizLady

Transcript

Will AI Replace the SmallBizLady · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero.
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  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
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  small business.
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  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
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  your business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Bitch Chat podcast today.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, and welcome to another edition of the Small Bitch Chat podcast.
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  I am Melinda Emerson, your host, and I am America's number one small business expert.
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  And I am so excited to join you for a solo podcast.
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  I haven't done one in a while.
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  I haven't felt compelled.
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  But you know what?
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  I recently had a conversation that made me know that I needed to bring it to the podcast.
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  So let me give you guys the scenario.
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  I was in a meeting with a SaaS brand that wanted to partner with my company to help them
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  raise their brand awareness in the marketplace, and I was very excited.
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  I am still actually interested in this brand, but what was really interesting to me about
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  the, the people that I was meeting with, you know, of course, they have an AI driven brand
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  and and and product that they're trying to bring to the market.
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  And then it is potentially a disruptive product, but they, you know, they've got a long
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  way to go.
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  Nobody's heard of them.
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  So, you know, I don't know why it is that all of these SaaS brands do not wanna invest in
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  brand awareness.
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  Instead, they wanna go right to conversions.
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  And I'm like, I feel like I've been saying this all year till I'm blue in the face.
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  Look, nobody cares about your SaaS brand.
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  There's 50,000 other people out here that are doing the same thing you're doing differently
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  at a different price point, and they've got more brand awareness than you.
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  And I really want brands to think about this because I am constantly bombarded because of
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  how big my brand is.
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  You guys know you've been following me for a long time.
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  My brand reaches about a million people a week.
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  So I'm a good target for, you know, brands, SaaS brands in particular, be like, oh, we
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  think you'd be a great partner.
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  We think you'd be a great referral partner.
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  Listen, hear what I say.
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  I am not interested in being your referral partner and nobody has heard of you.
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  If you're not willing to invest in brand awareness, I can't really help you because all
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  you have is your software.
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  And all I have is my trust relationship with your target customer.
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  And I'm not giving it to you on the hopes that someday it converts and you will eventually pay
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  me.
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  So let me just say that.
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  But, you know, that was just a public of service announcement.
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  Let me get back to my story.
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  I'm in a meeting with some younger people.
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  They weren't young, but they were younger than me.
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  And they were like, look, you know, you're gonna be obsolete in five years.
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  Your business won't even exist in five years.
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  That's what this person who needed my help told me to my face.
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  And I thought, wow.
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  And they said, because they thought that AI was going to replace me.
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  And I had to sit there with a straight face and think about that.
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  Because I was like, wow, is that true?
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  Should I be completely offended?
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  Is this person ridiculously naive because they actually need my help, but then ins instead
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  decided to insult me in a meeting?
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  Luckily, I'm not that thin skinned, but I was taken aback by the comment.
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  But then I said to myself, when I get home later on tonight, I'm gonna ask AI if I am
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  gonna be replaced in five years because I it actually was a worthy question.
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  Now one of the things I wanna tell you about, for those of you that are using these AI tools
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  out here, AI has been programmed to be nice to you.
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  So when you want the chat GPT or Perplexity or whatever you're using, If you want one of these
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  AI tools, ChatGPT, Perplexity, to tell you the truth, have to give them permission to be
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  brutally honest with you.
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  So when I got home that evening, I got on my computer and I went inside ChatGPT and I said,
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  Hey, am I going to be replaced in five years by AI?
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  And it was a really interesting experience because I got an interesting response back.
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  And to be honest with you guys, I think my AI was more pissed off by this question I got
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  asked than I was.
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  So that was a really, really cool response.
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  So here's what AI said, because I printed it out so I could read it to you guys because I
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  thought it was this interesting.
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  It said, AI won't replace the small biz lady, but it could replace big chunks of what generic
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  business coaches do.
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  And really it can make you even more impactful in the marketplace.
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  The core of the small biz lady brand to end small business failure with practical
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  frameworks, real accountability, and community.
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  My promise has never been about information.
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  It's always been about transformation and AI can actually help me deliver that faster.
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  But let's be honest, there are some things AI is, is gonna be better able to do than me.
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  They, it already is.
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  Right?
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  AI crushes information at scale, right?
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  Playbooks, checkbooks, launch calendars, outreach scripts, personas, all of it in
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  seconds.
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  It can produce personalized but generic ninety day plans to help businesses do all kinds of
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  things and, you know, marketing things.
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  It's great at accountability nudges, you know, daily reminders, KPI dashboards, progress
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  summaries.
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  It can do that stuff because it never sleeps.
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  And certainly it's content engine that drafts blogs, emails, social media posts, all of that
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  stuff.
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  AI will always be able to do better than humans.
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  It all, it already does.
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  Right?
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  But now let's talk about where me as the small biz lady, where I still win.
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  I will always win when it comes to trust and credibility.
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  Right?
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  It it I just I've been doing this too long.
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  I didn't start doing it last week.
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  I'm not learning what I do from AI.
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  I'm enhancing what I do from AI.
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  The other thing is is that, you know, as a coach, I don't give answers.
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  I help business owners do hard things like raise prices, fire people, stop scope creep,
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  fix offers.
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  That's not anything AI is gonna be able to do.
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  There's also nuance to what I do.
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  You know, whether you know, experience is always gonna beat the algorithm.
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  I also think there's relationship capital is valuable.
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  I have the power to do intros, partner with people, and open doors for people at times.
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  And that's my brand and my network.
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  And then there's live facilitation.
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  Here's one thing AI will never be able to do.
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  Transform a small business owner.
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  You know, hot seat coaching, building up people's confidence, looking at someone on a
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  live stage and a hot seat coaching moment and telling them they can do it or telling them
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  they shouldn't even bother trying.
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  That's not anything that could be automated.
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  Live workshops, my podcast, all of our live events.
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  Those are things that are not gonna be duplicated by AI.
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  And with all these, you know, agentic AI tools coming to the market, people are gonna crave
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  live events and they're gonna pay a premium for them.
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  So what I like to say is that what I do is instill confidence in outcomes, and I deliver
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  it without fluff.
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  And that's what my real difference is.
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  But I really feel like with all of the AI and deep fakes and all this stuff, there's gonna be
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  a trust backlash to this stuff that's gonna slow pure AI coaching.
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  I believe that there might be hybrid coaches, master AI license and IP, you know, their
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  license, IP to some of these AI tools and platforms, and that's really gonna be my lane.
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  But I just don't and this is what chat told me.
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  I'm, I'm, this is all I, I emailed chat and this is what I got back.
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  I think that for me, you know, I'm gonna double down on basic tasks that AI can do.
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  I'm already using AI every day.
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  I mean, it's really literally increased my personal productivity tenfold.
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  I also think that, you know, I got my own outcomes data.
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  So I think that you have a community, you have a distribution channel, you can win.
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  And I have a huge, network of, of content hubs that we produce from the podcast to the
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  newsletter, to our live events, to our blog, you know, our online school, our alumni circles
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  of people that have gone through our programs.
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  Small Biz Lady network is not rented, it's owned.
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  So I think that I will win because of that.
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  And then certainly all the corporate partnerships that I have, and then the human
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  moments, VIP coaching days, intensives, conferences.
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  You know, I have all these signature small biz lady experiences that nobody could deliver.
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  But is there stuff we're gonna retire?
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  Sure.
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  Is there stuff we're gonna have to reinvent?
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  Absolutely.
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  But we're gonna reinvent them as premium services that we charge top dollar for.
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  But the generic templates, routine accountability, surface level audits, and
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  content repurposing, look, AI is already doing 80% of that stuff for us now.
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  So we're gonna keep that.
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  But I think that one of the things I remember about when I was in graduate school, I had this
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  really annoying strategy professor who taught us very little, but there was something that he
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  said that was truly powerful that I still hold today.
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  And that is strategy in a business.
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  It was about creating something that's not easily duplicatable by your competitors.
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  And I'm a small biz lady.
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  I am not easily duplicatable.
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  There is one now.
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  I am gonna be coaching and licensing coaches underneath my brand.
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  And I'm so excited about that.
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  But I really feel like when I think about my brand five years from now, it's gonna be AI
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  powered by human led transformation.
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  I think that we have the right playbook.
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  We can apply the right pressure, and we can build and strengthen the right partnerships to
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  really be a leader in the future.
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  Because I have all these frameworks and my best greatest skill is teaching people live from the
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  stage and that's not gonna change.
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  But as AI is my copilot, I can, I'm gonna be able to move even faster.
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  So will AI replace the small business lady in five years?
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  No.
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  But a AI will replace some of the tasks of coaching, but not the transformation of
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  coaching.
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  It's gonna erase the middle generic folks for sure.
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  Anyone just selling information with light accountability, they're gonna get knocked out
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  of here.
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  But it's gonna elevate leaders who can pair their trusted brand, real outcomes, and human
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  presence with the AI speed and precision.
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  So I'm still a small business lady.
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  I'm never not gonna be able to command a room.
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  I'm always gonna be able to ask the hard questions and get entrepreneurs to do what's
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  necessary, those scary things, while AI handles the rest.
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  And I hope that this helped you today because I really I was offended and scared at the same
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  time, and my AI reassured me that the small biz lady is something that is uncopyable.
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  So with that, I hope that you guys have a great day.
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  And just remember, if you are struggling with sales in your business, I'm the answer for
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  that.
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  So I want you to head over to smallbizladyuniversity.com and check out our
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  Sales Accelerator Bootcamp course.
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  Listen, in it, I teach how to build a sales process.
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  I show you how to generate leads, but how to qualify leads.
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  I'm also gonna teach you how to close.
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  And when they give you the, let me think about it, I got a response for that.
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  So we're gonna talk about and role play handling objections.
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  Then we're gonna talk about how to sell to corporations, how to do a corporate RFP.
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  We're gonna talk about how to sell in your own backyard if you're a local retailer business.
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  Then we're gonna talk about the tech stack, sales funnels, landing pages, lead magnets.
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  Oh my, all of it.
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  And lastly, I'm gonna show you how to hire sales support.
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  A lot of you guys out here think you need a salesperson.
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  You don't.
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  You need an appointment setter because listen, if you can't sell it, do not hire a salesperson
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  to come in and waste a bunch of your money when you haven't done the work to build your own
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  sales process.
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  So if you are struggling with sales, here's my brand promise to you.
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  I am the last person that's gonna have to teach you sales.
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  So head over to smallbizladyuniversity.com, check out our Sales Accelerator Bootcamp and
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  our High Ticket Closer Certification, because I don't want you to be a coach or consultant that
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  keeps having dry, struggling sales.
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  I don't want that for you.
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  I wanna empower you with information and skills that you will have for a lifetime.
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  So let me help you change your business.
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  Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Small Bitch Chat podcast.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, your host, and I'll leave you with this.
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  You never lose in business.
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  Either you win or you learn.
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  God bless everybody.
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  Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for more fantastic
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  information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.