Well, hello friends. It's episode 324, and I am so thankful that you're here today because we're talking about the three shifts that will matter most for small business owners in 2026. This is key to the success of your business from here on out because oh, the the online landscape and the small business world are a changing. Today we're going to talk about those changes, and I'm so, so excited for you. If you're new here, welcome. I have no doubt you're going to find this podcast very helpful no matter where you are on your business journey. If you're in the idea stage starting or growing, or if you're starting a podcast, scroll down right now in the show notes and get the free resources. I have all kinds of printables and free goodies for you. Why would you pass up anything that's free that can really, really help you? Don't let free fool you. Okay, my friends. And then I also have a master spreadsheet of all the tools and apps that I recommend. And I'm laughing too. I just have to tell y'all that I got a one-star review and I got a hater. And I'm thankful for the hater. I am thankful for the hater. I think it was a gentleman if I read the name correctly. And I thank the hater because you're right. Um the hater said I they lost me, or he said she lost me because her intro was too long. Just get to the point. So I said, you know what? He's right. I'd already been wanting to even scale it down. So I've scaled it down, y'all. I usually try to get it around a minute. So sometimes having a hater is good. I think it was Arch Manning. If y'all are familiar with the University of Texas and Arch Manning, I think one of his uncles told him that, you know, you don't you don't really become a top-notch quarterback until you get booed off the field or, you know, you got haters. So maybe I've made it. Maybe this is a sign that I've actually made it that I got a hater. But I actually appreciate the suggestion because I was already thinking it. Anyway, so these will be a lot faster. You'll notice the the last couple episodes, I tried to do it fast. So, anyways, that's it. I'm so excited you're here. Okay, on to the episode. Well, hello, friends. I am so excited that you are here today. This is gonna be a great episode. It's gonna get you fired up for 2026 because yes, there are shifts in the marketplace. I know you've probably thought about it for your business with everything going on with AI and just how social media and TikTok and YouTube and everything is coming into play in just, you know, how to sell and how to look authentic and just all the things. And we're gonna talk about those today. And I think this is really going to be good news for you because I think a lot of us have felt like we have to be sometimes something that we are not. I don't want that ever to happen to you. I want you to get to be your authentic self in all ways that you run your business, from the products and services you offer to your branding, to the things you say, to the way you market your business. Like I want you to get to be yourself and use the gifts that God has given you because that's how I believe that you will run a successful and impactful business. It won't be just about the money and it won't turn into a hobby. It'll be a smart way where you get to be yourself and run your business. So let's talk about the shifts that will matter most for all of us in 2026. The first one is that you are going to go from having just tested AI. Like maybe you've done that where you've tested Chat GBT or Perplexity or Claude or Gemini. But now the testing is over. You have to have AI integrated into your workflows because it will save you massive amounts of time and it will keep you doing things more efficiently and effectively. Okay. Sometimes we like to believe that we are the best at doing the work for our business, but the truth is that AI can really help us all and enhance what we're already doing and make workflows and things go a lot faster. I remember like a little over a year ago when me and GrowGetters, or is that right English? Myself and my GrowGetters were on a Zoom call and we were all talking about chat GBT and talking about AI and using using it. And we were all just like testing it. We're like, we're like, what? You can ask it this, or you can have it revise an email. And it was just this whole new world that we were entering into, and that was just so cool. So that's the good news is that we are now past the testing phase and we need to be using it in our business. And I thought it'd be fun too, just to share with you real quick how I use AI in my business right now. Now, my business may be totally different than yours because I'm running a coaching business. I'm an online business owner, I have a podcast. So you may not have this exact strategy or setup for your business, but I think it will just help you to know what I use it on a weekly basis for. So basically, what I do is I use it for my podcast in terms of a little bit of research. So I usually come up with the idea. Okay. I have a running list of ideas of things. And then I ask Chat GBT, or I ask, um, you know, I've just started testing Gemini to see how it is. And I started seeing like what information more can it give me? Or maybe I need some studies or some stats. And I'm able to do that with Chat GBT. It's able to give me more information than I originally had that I came up with on my own. I think it would be real easy to say, oh, come up with an episode and just chat GBT, you figure it out, and I just regurgitate that. But I just can't in my heart of hearts do that. Like I already have my ideas of my points, and I just kind of ask it what it thinks and if there's anything I should add. And it may give me a few ideas. Like for this episode, I did that. And I was, it was already giving me information that I was already giving you in terms of like the topics and what's important, which was cool, but it did have me think in other ways. But I'm still writing this podcast episode myself. And I when I say writing, I'm not actually writing it. I'm just making an outline and then I'm talking to those points. So I do do that for a little bit of research on my podcast episode. And if I need stats or other data, it is very useful for that. Cause then I don't have to weed through. So that would be the main thing that I would use it for. Like if I need stats or data. Okay. So then after I record my episode, I take the transcript because the software that I use called Alato, I take that transcript and I, you know, it creates a transcript for me. And then I upload it to ChatGBT and I say, put this in my voice. Now I do this every week. So it's kind of a workflow. So the first thing I do is have it create a blog post in my voice. And that's what I meant to say. When I'm taking the transcript and having it rework it, it's to put it in a readable format that I can put on my website. So for example, if you go to Kimberleybrock.com forward slash blog, that's B-L-O-G forward slash 324, you will see what ChatGBT has turned my words that I'm speaking right now into. And it is put it into a readable format that is searchable by Google and and other platforms and and is basically what I'm saying, okay? Because it's already using my words. I'm talking. So it is in my words. That's a good news, but the summary is still in my tone and my casual way and all that. So it does that for me. I do read through it and make sure that I like it. I don't want it to sound like a robot. So I do read through it and I go, okay, great. I paste it into Kajabi, which is my website platform that hosts the blog. Put that in there. And then I also at the same time have it create the keywords for me. Like we you could call those tags, SEO tags, keywords. So sometimes you'll see people use like hashtags. And so I don't put the hashtags there in the tags because I don't need to, but I have it generate the keywords from what I said in this podcast episode. So it does that for me. I paste that into my podcast hosting provider and on the blog page so that it's searchable. That's all so that search engines and everything know what it's about. I don't know if we're gonna still need to use those, to be honest. I don't know. I haven't researched this at all. But I'm thinking, do I really need to do tags? I feel like AI is so smart now that it would be able to read through my podcast episode and know who to show it to and know the keywords and all that. But, anyways, I use it for that. Um, and then sometimes if I have to do like a one or two sentence quick description, which you may see if you scroll down in the show notes right now, like in your Apple Podcasts, I may have a one or two sentence description of this episode. A lot of times I just write those myself because I want it to be real brief and exactly what I just talked about. But sometimes I'll see what AI comes up with. Sometimes they just have sentences that are not my voice and they use words I wouldn't use. And how does it know all the words that I use? It doesn't. But I sometimes just, you know, I'm like, I'll just write that myself. So uh the one thing I wish I could do is just have it create me a quick image with the title of the episode. I still have to do that myself in Canva. So I take an image and I overlay the title of the episode, and that appears on that blog page that I told you about. And it's like at the top, like if someone shares my blog page, then it uses that image. So I create those image images. AI doesn't do that. Okay, so what else do I use AI for? So I do it for my podcast, which it saves me so much time for me having to write my blog page myself and all that. I use it for weekly emails. If I'm sending an email about that podcast episode, I usually write the episode email first. So I write the email, then I just put paste it in ChatGBT or whatever and say, can you make this any better? Did I have any punctuation mistakes? Whatever. Usually I just say write it in my voice because it knows because I do this every week. So it's like a workflow. And so boom, it spits it back. And I'm like, okay, that looks good. Sometimes I get upset because it has too many emojis or it had that M-dash. I had to tell Chat GBT stop using the M-dash because that is a dead giveaway that someone used ChatGBT. So I started testing Gemini and actually really like it. So that's kind of fun. I don't know which one you like, but um, I'm liking both of those. So anyway, so I use it for emails. And then sometimes if I'm doing an Instagram post and that, you know, all the wording that I use there on the post, there in the little description text area, I will write my own and then have it clean it up. I will tell you that, and I don't know if you feel this way, that when I'm reading Instagram posts or emails from other business owners, sometimes I can tell that it's written by AI. And it's really starting to bother me. And I don't want to be that person that just has generic posts that are from AI. Cause I'm sitting here going, why is anyone gonna read anything? Like, I won't keep reading people's stuff because I believe that it's AI generated. I'm like, did someone actually want this? I don't know. I have this weird feeling about it. Like it's not actually someone putting their heart into it. And I guess that's silly because everyone's gonna be using this. And then is anything gonna be really from people's hearts, or is it just gonna be cleaned up by AI? I don't know. I have this real battle in my head about this. And and I don't know if you feel this way too. But anyways, I always try to put my own ideas first. I let it clean it up. I look at it and say, would I have really written this? And if it looks like I would, then bam, I use it. So that's what I do. So that's on a weekly basis. I have updated my website pages, some of them with AI generated content, like meaning I've taken it and said, here, can you clean this up or make this better? It'll do that. But I haven't fiddled with my website very much. I don't need to because, excuse me, the blog pages are, you know, really what people are reading. That's just really what people are reading. And then some of my sales pages, I have had it come up with some sales content, but now, like in Kajabi, which is a software I use, it's crazy. It can create outlines for your courses. It can do all this stuff that saves y'all so much time. It's unbelievable. So, anyways, I want to make sure that you all know that this is how I use it and that you should be using workflows now. This should not be something that you're scared of. It will save you so much time. And that's what's great. This big shift this year, I believe, for 2026. Most of you will be on board using it as a workflow and as like an employee because it can save you money and time. Like you don't have to have an assistant creating your blog posts or doing things. Like you can have AI edit it for you in one second. So it's like the greatest thing ever. So that's number one. That's the big shift that you now have to move from testing this and being like, what is AI? And how do I use Chat GBT to actually having workflows that help you in your business? And you can use it for all sorts of things in your business. Y'all, you can just go on Chat GBT right now and say, hey, how best can I use you? This is the kind of business, this is what I do on a daily and weekly basis. What all can you do to help me? And I think you will be shocked at what all it can tell you that it can do for you. Okay. It can make charts for you, it can make spreadsheets for you, create documents for you. It's pretty snazzy. So, anyways, make sure you're doing that. So that's number one. We're going from AI testing to AI workflows. That's it. Okay. Number two, here's great news that all of your branding and ads get to be human-led. We are no longer in the era of just corporate commercials that, you know, are just generic, like human-led content. And it doesn't even have to be necessarily super produced or look super professional. Everyone now wants to buy from all humans and wants things to feel authentic. Everyone is scared of getting bamboozled. No one is believing anything that they're seeing or hearing. And so it's becoming this weird like moment in time, I believe, because when I look at ads for things, like I sometimes am like, okay, okay, they're touting that this is the greatest thing ever. But I think when I see videos of real humans talking about things that just look like normal everyday humans, I'm more apt to believe it than like a movie star or a musician that is touting some lotion or something that's their favorite thing. I mean, do I give that credibility anymore? I don't know. I got to think it through because I've always been a fan of like Oprah's favorite things. I don't know if any of you did that, but I have always followed that because I always thought, gosh, you know, she's so wealthy. And if she can have anything, man, she'll have these things. But now I'm realizing that there is so much. What's the word? Like uh what is the word? Like favoritism and she's getting paid probably to promote certain stuff. I mean, that's my guess. I don't know. I just feel like it's not as authentic. Maybe it is, but I feel like there's so much going on in the back end for her, like bribery, sort of. Bribery, that's the word. Like, is there that? I mean, I can't say that for sure, but see, that's where we are. I don't totally trust it now. I feel like people are getting paid off. Like these brands are fighting to get on Oprah's favorite things because it they know it will blow up. And of course it will bring more sales. I'm still interested when I see something that's her favorite thing, and it's usually really nice and good. But have y'all seen, like on TikTok, all the TikTok shop ads where it's real people doing reels talking about certain products, whether it's a kitchen product or a weight loss product or a blood test that everyone's doing now, or certain clothes, or anything, beef tallow, it could be anything. I'm seeing it all over. And TikTok shop is blowing up, y'all. It's blowing up. It's the real deal. TikTok is really trying to be what it looks like to me like an Amazon and uh social media had a baby and it's TikTok. And so we're watching reels that are real people, and then we're getting ads thrown in. And I don't know if you've noticed or you're on TikTok, you could download TikTok just to look at the ads because what it is is manufacturers of products will allow their products to be advertised by normal humans who've tested their products. Okay. And it's called TikTok Shop. And they, those humans can run the ads for free and they can talk about how much they love it. And a lot of them are legit. I think a lot of them are legit that they loved a shirt on Amazon, a sweater, these shoes, and they talk about it on a reel. And then you can click a button and go shop now. It will literally take you to the quickest checkout page ever because I tested it myself because I wanted to see how fast it is and how it compared to Amazon. And I added these cute little like bookmark clip things. They were so cheap, but they were so cute. And I was like, oh, that makes a cute little gift to add with a journal or a book or something. Anyways, I want to see how fast this works. So I clicked over, boom, I was on a page where it was like double click for Apple Pay. I double clicked and I was done. Like, y'all, it was faster than Amazon. And then I got the product in a few days. So it is booming. And by the way, if you sell a product, you can get on TikTok shop and then these other people that are running TikTok shop ads can buy samples of your product, try it, and then create ads. And they're they're basically an affiliate for you. And it's amazing, y'all. It's booming. I would definitely consider that. Let people buy your stuff at a discounted rate so that they can show ads that are real and human because people are buying. TikTok shop is booming. So these are real human ads, right? And the same goes for like your branding and everything you do from your podcast to a YouTube channel to maybe guest speaking or whatever you do. You get to be you. People want to trust people. That's all we want is to trust what we're buying, who we're buying it from, that it's going to do what it says. And there's so much mistrust that the great news for all of us in 2026 is that we get to be authentic and we need to. And if you listened, it was like two episodes ago. I think it was 322, episode 322, where I said what your number one competitive advantage is. And y'all, it's trust. Spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to it, you should listen to it because it will reiterate this point that trust is key. And you need to be being yourself and you need to be being honest about everything. Okay. And this is key. And I'm just so excited that the humanness is here, that we don't have to be bots. We don't have to be fake. We don't have to be something we're not. We get to just be ourselves and we get to put our human face forward. Okay. So that's exciting news. So that's number two. So again, number one is we're going from AI testing to AI workflows. Number two is we don't have to have corporate, even super professional branding or ads. I mean, obviously you want to look like your brand. So you want to be professional in your way, but I'm saying you don't have to pay$50,000 for a commercial anymore. You can speak from the heart and be human first on, you know, all your branding and all your ads. Okay. So that's number two. Number three is that you do not Have to have outlandish claims to sell your product anymore. No more saying you're gonna make a million dollars by tomorrow if you follow my thing. No more saying if you're 68 years old that you can look 28 with this face cream. Um, no more of that because people don't believe it now, anyways. They've seen too much of that and all this fake, exaggerated claims are out of style. It's out of style. Do not fall trapped to it. Um, I've seen it since 2019 when I started this business, the coaching business, especially because online coaches were like a new thing. And I saw so many making such outlandish claims. And I've heard from other people who like knew other coaches who were making these claims that they were not making the money that they claimed, or they would tout it as, oh yeah, I made three million dollars from this launch, but you don't know that they had$2 million worth of ads. They had, you know, a half a million dollars on all their employees and some kind of marketing company. You just don't know that they didn't make that much money and you thought they were making millions. And we all would like to think that, oh, yes, there's a magic bullet, a magic pill, there's always good and bad to everything. But I think now we want to buy from people that are realistic, right? If someone says, I've got a workout plan for you, I'm gonna help you with this, you know, in 12 weeks, you can be a different person. Sounds a lot better to me than saying in two to three weeks, you're gonna lose 40 pounds or you're gonna have so much muscle, you're not gonna believe it. Like I just am over all of that. Okay. So you get to be realistic and be honest about everything. Be honest about everything, your ship times or when you can deliver, how you can deliver. Don't overpromise stuff. Do not overpromise. It doesn't go well. People talk to other people now, they give recommendations, they talk in Facebook groups, they give Yelp reviews, they give Google reviews, they will badmouth you, which stinks, which totally stinks. But you just have to watch it. You have to be of the utmost integrity in your business. But look at it this way: you get to be. You don't need to be fake. You don't need to give fake claims, you don't need to over-exaggerate anything to think that you have to sell it. You can be real and honest and then have people of integrity also giving testimonials for you or affiliates that you have running ads for you or whatever it is, right? No more outlandish claims. Y'all, how great is this for us? Because I don't think you would be here if you're the type of person that lacks integrity. I think all of you listening know what I teach and you wouldn't be hanging around listening. So the good news is 2026 is for us because we are going to run our businesses as an honest human being and we don't have to make outlandish claims. Okay. So that is fantastic news. That was the third one. Again, what was the first one? We're going from AI testing to AI workflows. The second one is we get to be a human in all of our branding and our ads. And the third one is we can ditch the outlandish claims and we can be real and we can spot the people that are making outlandish claims too, which I think is wonderful. And then I kind of have a bonus fourth one here for you. For any of you that are online service providers or coaches or consultants, this this bonus one is really for you. Here's the good news is that our programs are gonna do best if we have like micro communities. Obviously, we want a macro community, we want a big community of people, but micro communities are thriving. That just means you have a very small niche following. They are thriving. You don't have to have a bazillion followers. You don't. You just need people that are loyal to you, that trust you. And you can give high touch experiences. Y'all, high touch experiences are in. I think courses, for example, alone, just like courses themselves, those are not seeing the trend upward as much as community-led or higher touch with more personal help. Those are what are working. So you have to think about your industry, even if you sell a product. Have you created a community around your product, a micro community? Do you maybe guest speak about it? Do you show up somewhere? Do you sponsor events? And can you give a high-touch experience? Because people will pay for it. People will pay for it. Like I was even thinking about my daughter trying to take the SAT here coming up in a couple of months. And, you know, she could take a$50 class where there's uh hundreds of people, hundreds of students, and there's a guest speaker who talks about taking the SAT. So that's one way that she can learn about the SAT. She can also learn online too. But if I'm thinking about getting someone to help her, she can A, for$50, go to this group session, or B, we can hire someone personally. It's going to be more expensive, but I'm willing to pay for it and I have the money to pay for it. And maybe it's$200 an hour. I have no idea. I don't know what it is. I'm about to start researching, but I want someone to sit with her, look at her past PSATs, like on Khan Academy, look at what she missed and what she needs to work on. And I will pay for a person to come out and give her strategy for a few hours. Like if we need to come, you know, if that person needs to come over to our house and do it like once every two weeks and do practice tests with her, like I'm more than willing to pay for that. I think that is more effective. That's a higher touch experience, right? That's just one example. But you can think about it in your industry. What is a higher touch offer that you could have? Because these are big right now. Y'all, these are big. So a micro community or a micro community is a great thing for you, but also having a high touch program or offer is what people want. So this is all big for 2026, y'all. This is great news for us. And I hope you are thinking about your business and how it can evolve over this coming year and what you can turn it into so you can make more money and you can make more impact, right? Because this business is here to be a career that you love, but to be super fulfilling. Okay. It's not another job. It's something you're doing from your soul, but you're also doing it in a smart way so that you can keep doing this. And maybe you can quit your part-time job or quit your full-time job and do this forever. And how awesome is that? So I hope y'all enjoyed this. Again, let me review one more time in case y'all forget. In case y'all forget the four. We had the three and then we had a bonus. One was go from AI testing to AI workflows. Two was you get to be human in all of your branding and your ads and your social media. Number three, you don't have to make any outlandish claims. Stop doing that. Do not fall prey to that and try to do that because you other you see other online business owners doing it. And your bonus was that you can build a microcommunity around your product or service, and you can create a high-touch offer that people are really valuing right now because they trust more personal help. They kind of are not believing all the online stuff and they actually want personal help. So that's it. Y'all are amazing. Reach out if you need anything. Hi at Kimberleybrock.com. And I have everything at Kimberlybrock.com as well, all the freebies and all the good stuff. And I'm so excited for you. So that's it. Here's to our 2026. I'm stoked. Okay, have a great day. Bye!

Now, this episode may be over, but our relationship does not have to end here. Head on over to Kimberlybrock.com, and yes, you can get more valuable information for your journey. And you know what? You don't need to go through this alone. I would love to help. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.