September 4, 2025 • 37 mins
* In light of the INBOUND conference taking place right now, we decided to re-release the biggest takeaways from the 2024 event. While this episode was originally released last year, the information is still very relevant to solopreneurs now, so be sure to tune in! *
HubSpot hosted their massive annual conference that covered the latest trends and tactics in marketing, sales, and AI…and we had two people attend who are ready to give you the biggest takeaways from the event that apply specifically to solopreneurs.
Co-host of this podcast and founder of LifeStarr, Joe Rondo attended, and our very own George B. Thomas not only attended, but presented multiple times. So you have some very credible sources sharing their insights today.
From groundbreaking strategies to fresh perspectives on automation, AI, and scaling small businesses, this episode is packed with golden nuggets for solopreneurs who want to stay ahead of the curve.
Whether you're looking for new ways to generate leads, streamline your processes, or take your customer experience to the next level, this episode has you covered.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carly Ries (00:00):
This podcast episode is being released in early
(00:02):
October twenty twenty four. Andjust over a week ago, HubSpot
hosted their massive annualconference that covered the
latest trends and tactics inmarketing, and AI. we had two
people attend who are ready togive you the biggest takeaways
from the event that appliesspecifically to solopreneurs. My
cohost and founder of LifeStarr,Joe Rando, attended, and our
(00:25):
very own George B Thomas notonly attended but presented
multiple times. So you have somevery credible sources sharing
their insights today.
From groundbreaking strategiesto fresh perspectives on
automation, AI, and scalingsmall businesses, this episode
is packed with golden nuggetsfor solopreneurs who wanna stay
ahead of the curve. Whetheryou're looking for new ways to
(00:45):
generate leads, streamline yourprocesses, or take your customer
experience to the next level,this episode has all of these
for you. You're listening to theaspiring solopreneur, the
podcast for those just takingthe bold step or even just
thinking about taking that stepinto the world of solo
entrepreneurship. My name isCarly Ries and my cohost Joe
(01:07):
Rando and I are your guides tonavigating this crazy but
awesome journey as a company ofone. We take pride in being part
of LifeStarr, a digital hubdedicated to all aspects of
solopreneurship that hasempowered and educated countless
solopreneurs looking to build abusiness that resonates with
their life's ambitions.
We help people work to live, notlive to work. And if you're
(01:29):
looking for a get rich quickscheme, this is not the show for
you. So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who've
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
alone. You guys, I put this on aLinkedIn post last week about
(02:37):
having FOMO about a conference.you know, nobody's ever like,
oh, I'm so sad at missing thesesessions or this or that. I was
genuinely sad and I know it wasmy decision to not go. So The
blame is not on either of you.It is on me.
But I had genuine FOMO.
Joe Rando (02:53):
I would too.
Carly Ries (02:56):
I am so happy that you guys got to go, but also
jealous. Again, my own decision.And before we hop in to your
biggest takeaways forsolopreneurs from Inbound,
HubSpot's biggest conferencethat talks about marketing,
sales, automation, all the bignames in those fields are there,
I just had to say, George, Itold you I'd take any
(03:18):
opportunity to do this today.
But at the time of thisrecording
George B. Thomas (03:22):
Oh Boy. It is George B. Thomas' birthday, But
I will say happy birthday. Andthank you for spending it with
us today.
Aw, thank you! I appreciate it.I mean, there's no one else
other than my family, because ifthis gets out to the public and
they listen, other than myfamily, I would love to hang out
with you folks during mybirthday, so it's exciting.
Carly Ries (03:44):
You guys got to hang out together in person. For
those of you that don't know,Joe and I have worked together
off and on since since 2016. Ihave never met you. George, you
and I have been all of us havebeen working together for a few
years now.
George B. Thomas (03:57):
Yeah.
Carly Ries (03:57):
I have never met you. It has to happen,
George B. Thomas (04:00):
We gotta fix that. We gotta have, like, a
Lifestar retreat or something atsome point.
Joe Rando (04:05):
I was just thinking of, Inbound San Francisco
George B. Thomas (04:07):
There you go . Yes. I like that.
Carly Ries (04:10):
Good segue into the topic for today. I wanna make
sure we dive in.
Joe Rando (04:16):
So Let's do it.
Carly Ries (04:17):
Let's get at it. offline
Joe Rando (04:19):
I'm just really psyched we didn't have to sing.
Carly Ries (04:22):
Well, we have an event after this, and I might
make you sing
And bring out your electricguitar. But we talked about, a
few of the things that werebiggest takeaways for you
offline. And so let's dive intothe first one. You mentioned
that a big focus was that AI isshifting from acceleration to
transformation. Joe, why don'tyou kick things off?
(04:44):
What do you think about that?George, I want to speak to you
after.
Joe Rando (04:47):
Well, this was Yamini Ragan, who's the CEO of HubSpot,
making this claim that rightnow, we're working faster,
getting more done with with AI.Right? So you need to write a
blog and, you know, if you'resmart, you're not letting AI
write it for you, but maybeyou're letting AI either review
your blog or give you ideas fortopics that you might write
(05:08):
about you know, content youmight write about the topic. And
it's accelerating us, you'regetting more work done in less
time. But she's arguing that thenext phase is gonna be actual
transformation, and we'll dig inprobably in more detail about
those kinds of things.
But AI is gonna start doingstuff for you. So I think in
terms of, like, answering youremails or scheduling meetings
(05:33):
and these kinds of things thatare coming very quickly
according to her. So it's reallyclaiming that it's gonna be a
different world, and I'd likeGeorge's take on it before I wax
on.
George B. Thomas (05:44):
Yeah. I definitely think we are on the
precipice of transformation and,Joe, I gotta be honest with you.
When I was sitting there andlistening to Yamini talk about
this shift because we've, by theway, been accelerating our
business with AI for a while nowand to hear her talk about
(06:05):
transformation, I actuallystarted to think about the
solopreneurs and the power inwhich is going to be in their
hands moving forward.
And especially when I waswatching Andy Petrie and he was
releasing a couple products inparticular. One, I thought about
the solopreneurs when they weretalking about the social media
(06:26):
agent basically where and Imean, it's not just like it's
smart enough to post for you butthey were showing how it would
know when to post based on theplatform and what was popular
before, so therefore, what to doin the future.
And for solopreneurs who are outthere and they're strapped for
time, Heck, I even knowsolopreneurs out there, Joe,
(06:50):
that don't like social media andthe thought of being able to
have an agent that would do thesocial media for them is
probably more exciting than thefact of how I nerd out about it.
But this idea of adding to yourteam but still being a
solopreneur because again,there's the social media agent.
Another one that excited meespecially for solopreneurs is
(07:13):
the prospecting agent whereit'll actually do some sales
prospecting for you. Again, whenwe do things like success
sessions or problem solvers hereat LifeStarr, we're always
hearing how generating leads orfollowing up with leads is a
pain point and so now we'removing into this
transformational period thatthere's gonna be these agents,
(07:35):
that solopreneurs who embracethe ability to transform their
one person business, it doesn'thave to be through humans, it
can be through these agents thathelp assist them.
Carly Ries (07:48):
So let me ask this. I wanna know if they addressed
it when they were there. So wehave solopreneurs of all types
tuning in right now. What ifthey're like, but I'm a virtual
assistant or but I offer peoplesales coordination and I do the
prospecting for people? Like,should they be concerned, or can
these still be tools just toenhance their business?
Joe Rando (08:09):
They better be tools because it's gonna get very
noisy with people that aren'tputting a human around this
technology, and it's gonna getvery hard to get noticed
compared to even what it is nowbecause so many people are gonna
be just spewing up stuff. Andthat was my next point on this
topic is you're going to have tobecome really authentic, really
(08:30):
be yourself, and learn how toput that out there using the AI
to basically do your work foryou in some ways, but not be
you. George, I would think youwould agree with that. Right?
George B. Thomas (08:42):
I absolutely agree with that, Joe. Honestly,
it was literally part of my talkthat I did about AI and
humanizing the future of contentand your humanity and Carly I
love the question becausethere's some fear narratives
that are out there of like AI isgoing to take my job. Listen, AI
(09:04):
cannot replace your creativity.AI cannot replace your strategy.
AI cannot replace you and yourempathy and the understanding of
everything from micro internetactions to micro in real world
actions that we pay attentionto.
What it is, is it is a tool thatcan be used. So if you are
(09:26):
somebody that does theprospecting for an organization
well then you have an assistantassistant to the prospecting
that you do streamlining yourprocess. And I could just list
more and more examples of howyou can use that tool. And one
of the things that really hithome with the folks that were in
(09:47):
the audience is I said thesewords because again I'm not a
big fan of fear. I'm a big fanof embracing change and acting
upon it in the right way.
One of the things I said isyou've never heard a
construction worker complainabout a hammer stealing their
job or a surgeon complain abouta scalpel stealing their job. So
(10:09):
these marketers, thesesolopreneurs, these business
owners, it's not a replacementfor, it's a tool to augment and
expand their capabilities overtime.
Joe Rando (10:21):
But it's gonna require some adaptation.
George B. Thomas (10:23):
Oh, yes.
Joe Rando (10:23):
The surgeons that didn't have scalpels, I'm not
sure if that was a thing
But well, the ones that operatedwith their hands, remember
those? But anyway Back in theday. or, you know, before we had
true hammers, I mean, let'sthink about something more real
like, a bulldozer. Or a backhoe.You know, we did lots of
(10:46):
construction without those, butwhen we developed those, new
skills were required because thepeople that learned how to
operate those machines became indemand. And it's no different
now.
It's not gonna take your job butit's gonna require you to adapt.
George B. Thomas (11:01):
It's interesting, Joe, because when
you say that, my brain goes tobecause we started this with
like AI shifting fromacceleration to transformation,
what we're talking about here istransforming you, the human.
Understanding what you need tobecome to be successful in this
new world with these new tools.I love that mindset for
(11:26):
solopreneurs moving forward.Absolutely.
Carly Ries (11:30):
Well, I think we could talk about AI all day, you
guys. So I want to go on to thenext point that you really took
away, which was the traditionalgrowth strategies are dying. I
would love to know what thatmeans and what's replacing them.
Joe Rando (11:48):
Do you wanna go, George? You want me to talk
first?
George B. Thomas (11:50):
I'll go with this one because here's the
thing. As soon as you ask thatquestion, I go to a session that
I know Joe and I both were in,and it's a session where Marcus
Sheridan was the speaker. He'sspoken at InBound for years.
He's famous for, they ask, youanswer. He's famous for the big
Five which is like cost, priceversus best type of articles
(12:12):
that you should be writing.
But when I sat in his session Istarted to get fired up because
we really are in a world wheretraditional growth strategies,
I'm gonna do blogging andeverybody's gonna show up at my
website because it's gonna be anSEO play, well Google's kinda
changing the game and thereforeyou probably should too And what
(12:35):
I love about this where thetraditional growth strategy
you're dying, every timesomething dies, something is
born and even I have been kindof pushed out of my comfort zone
because one of the things thatMarcus was talking about is the
sticky five and what the stickyfive is, it's obviously a play
off of his big five but ittalked about short form video
(12:59):
content. Now I as a marketerlove to create video content but
you know what I don't like tocreate? I don't like to create
short form content because I'mnot used to that method, I'm not
used to that madness, thatmuscle memory isn't there for me
because I've been creatingvideo, long form video,
tutorials, interviews since 2014before video was even cool but I
(13:25):
have to take some of my ownadvice from the thing that we
just talked about.
It's time to transform Georgeinto somebody who gets the
muscle memory of these shortform videos. And by the way,
this is only one example. Thereare so many things that you've
historically done as asolopreneur to try to grow your
business or things that youhaven't done that you need to
(13:49):
start doing? Like, again, let'sjust go back to this is a time
of transformation based onthings that used to work don't,
and things that you thoughtwouldn't work probably do. Joe,
what are your thoughts?
Joe Rando (14:01):
Well, yeah. I agree with everything that you said.
you know, the problem is that wealways have this kind of view
that if we can put some contentout there, that people are gonna
find us. And I know that's notas much of an expectation from
solopreneurs because, we're notbig companies. But still, there
(14:22):
are a lot of solopreneurs thathave managed to get in whatever
niche they've picked noticed onGoogle.
And the problem is now Google isgonna answer those queries with
an answer instead of with alist. And, the way it was put
that I thought was very eloquentis that Google search gives you
a research project. I go in andI search Google, then I get a
bunch of web pages. I gotta goin. I gotta dig in.
Blah blah blah. now with the AI,it's giving you an answer that's
(14:48):
going to be wrong sometimesbecause it is. I mean, AI is
wrong sometimes. If you don'tbelieve it, go in and ask it
some questions and watch whatcomes back because it will
hallucinate, just freely. So yougotta watch out for it.
But regardless of the fact thatit's not always accurate, people
prefer it to the researchproject. Because you know why?
(15:08):
Because people are lazy. And ifyou don't think people are lazy,
I don't know what to tell you,but people are gonna go with the
easier option. I'm no exception.
And even though I know sometimesit's wrong. So that's kind of
what's happening. And then youhave to figure out what are your
strategies in order to getaround that. And the things you
need to do are kinds of contentthat AI cannot kind of summarize
(15:32):
and present.
So if you've got a worksheetlike I showed you guys today. I
went in to AI. He said, write mecode for HubSpot's CMS that will
take this spreadsheet and put itinto my into my web page. And I
just basically had this littlespreadsheet I made about
calculating return oninvestment, And it created the
(15:52):
code. I popped it in.
Boom. There it is. What's GoogleAI gonna do with that? If I'm
going, wait. What kind of returnon investment can I get with a
CRM?
Your thing shows up. Now you'rein. So that kind of strategy is
the way people need to bethinking. But with AI and with
your own insights into what theneeds are of your industry, you
can, win that battle but not bydoing the same old thing.
George B. Thomas (16:12):
See, and I think I wanna double down on
this because another thing thatMarcus was mentioning and
definitely solopreneurs need tothink about is this idea of
we've historically createdwebsite pages, created content,
whatever level you've done sothat you could be found in
Google but what are you doingright now to actually be found
in AI? Like are you creatingcontent in a way that you can
(16:36):
educate the model? Because bythe way even though it is a
large language model it does notknow everything. I literally
opened up a free account becausewith a team's account in chat
GPT, not to get too nerdy, yourdata doesn't get used to
actually teach the model. Iopened up a free account so that
(16:57):
I could start putting content orhaving conversations with the AI
model so it would start to learnabout who is George B Thomas,
the HubSpot expert?
What is the superhumanframework? Like, what are the
sidekick strategy products andservices? So, if you're not
actively figuring out, how can Icreate content in a way that AI
(17:17):
picks it up, therefore there's alink in a conversation with a
human on the other side of theplanet that goes back to my
website, like these are the typeof things we need to start to
think about?
Carly Ries (17:29):
Can you guys elaborate? Because the other
points you two wanted to makewere about how content still
matters and AI is a copilot, andI feel like we have discussed
that. But a question that I havebased off what you were just
saying is SEO, we all had rulesthat we could follow. Like, put
it in the h one tag, do the metadescription, blah blah blah blah
blah. Where is AI pulling from?what are these optimization
(17:51):
techniques that people should befocusing on? Because I now use
ChatGPT more than Google, but Ihave no idea where the source is
coming from. I'm not looking atthe search engine results pages
anymore. What do people need tobe doing?
George B. Thomas (18:07):
Yeah. Joe, you wanna go?
Joe Rando (18:09):
No. Ah, okay. I don't know the answer.
George B. Thomas (18:12):
So here's the thing. What's funny, Carly, is
you actually started out with,talking about a set of rules,
and the funny thing is even backwhen you were paying attention
to those rules, the cardinalrule that you should have been
paying attention to, and I knowyou were by the way, I'm
speaking more broadly to theaudience, is that you were
creating content that was forthe humans. You were creating
(18:36):
content for the searcher and thesearch engine. So yes, there was
a set of rules that you knew youkind of had to pay attention to
of like title length and metadescription length and you knew
that Google had the, this iswhat valuable content is and so
you wanted to play by thoserules. Listen, if you've been
(18:56):
playing by those rules andcreating content for humans and
you know what valuable contentis, creating that, it doesn't
change.
It's just that now you'retraining the large language
model to the content that you'recreating, who you are. Think
about things about what do Ibelieve? what are my core
(19:18):
values, how do I navigate theworld and when you start to
inject that in, all of a suddenit starts to show up in places.
Here's the fun part and I don'thave the link ready but maybe we
can put it in the show notes. HubSpot literally came out
with, do you remember theirwebsite grader where you could
go and you could put yourwebsite in and then it'd give
(19:40):
you the grade? They have an AIgrader where you can go in and
put your business and it'll tellyou if it can find it in
different AI systems or languageor if you're prepped to be that.
So there's literally a toolalready starting to be built.
Obviously it's in its infancy, Iwould call it beta but still it
(20:00):
should excite the crap out ofbusiness owners especially
solopreneurs that at leastthere's a place I can go test if
the things that I'm testing toget into these models is working
or not and kind of pivot andtransition as needed.
Carly Ries (20:15):
And for anybody that's like, I don't wanna go
look at back show notes, it'shubspot.com/AI-search-grader.
Will be in the show notes butthere it is as well.
Joe Rando (20:26):
Hey. just a quick point on that, though. I wanna
make one point. Regardless ofall of this talk about AI and
about this, Neil Patel, who ispretty much a leading authority
on SEO, that's kind of what hebuilt his business on, says that
human generated content is rightnow getting 5.4 times more
traffic than AI generatedcontent. So going back to that,
(20:50):
yeah, AI is a thing. You need tounderstand it.
But that human purely humangenerated traffic, is only about
12% of all content being creatednow, gets 5.4 times more
traffic. So that's where youropportunities open up. There's
more stuff, more and more stuff.
But if you do it you know, ifyou can become somebody that,
can represent your own real selfand put out that content from
(21:13):
you, you're gonna have thatchance even with all this extra
content of getting that lift ofup to 5.4% times because it's
generated by you and not an AI.
George B. Thomas (21:23):
Joe, I love a couple things. One that you
named Neil, two that you put insome stats there, and three that
you talked about fully human.Like, there is something special
when whether it's in real life,your blog or whatever, if you
can show up as a whole human. Iusually throw another word in
there but I don't like to curseon podcasts. But if you can,
(21:45):
show up as a whole human.
Here's the thing. One of thethings that we taught again in
our session was how you canactually bookmark your human or
bookend bookend your humanitybut still put AI to work. And
what I'm talking about is anysolopreneur that's listening to
this right now needs to realizethat the mindset should be human
(22:08):
powered AI assisted. So bookendon the left side, I need to do
research. I wanna know sometopics I could talk about.
I'm tired of having writingblocks so let me get a starting
point. Bookend. I don't need bythe way AI to be a writer. I
just need AI to be the typist,the fastest typist for $20 a
month humanly possible causeit's gonna be my human
(22:29):
creativity, it's gonna be myhuman direction, it's gonna be
my human strategy. Solopreneurs,it's gonna be your creativity,
strategy, direction.
And then the right end bookmarkis now there's a checklist. By
the way, we literally gave thischecklist away for free for
anybody who attended the Inboundsession, but I wanna give it
away for free for anysolopreneur that wants it. You
(22:50):
can go tosidekickstrategies.com/inbound24
and you can get the AI toolkitwhere we talked about this
checklist and the five thingsyou need to do in the exact
order you need to do it so thatyou're spitting out a human
piece of content even though itwas AI assisted.
Carly Ries (23:08):
Oh, I love that. George, I feel like you were
made for the AI era because yourbread and butter is human first.
George B. Thomas (23:15):
Oh, I've been talking about the humans
for forever!
Carly Ries (23:19):
This is your thing. I mean, I feel like you've
always had a spot in thespotlight. I don't know. That's
good. Haven't said that yet.
But you know what I mean. Butnow is like really your time to
shine because George has alwaysbeen known to put humans first.
No matter what best practicescome and go, it's human first
and foremost. Socongratulations, George. You
(23:40):
predicted the future.
George B. Thomas (23:42):
Listen. God has a plan. I'm just along for
the ride, but I am having funbecause I agree with you, Carly.
It feels like there's this thingthat is just happening around
what we've built our personalbrand around, the humans, what's
happening with AI and technologyand what's actually gonna win
moving forward.
(24:03):
We're in a really good place, sothanks for noticing that.
Carly Ries (24:06):
Yeah. Well, and to tie all of that back together,
so obviously, we've been talkingabout humanization,
personalization. One thing thatwe mentioned offline was that
podcasts and newsletters thriveon personalization. I wanna talk
about those two thingsspecifically.
Can you guys dive into that alittle bit?
Joe Rando (24:23):
Sure. Well, I went to the session with, John Lee Dumas
and Alex Lieberman. AlexLieberman cofounded the morning
brew, which I think it has,like, four and a half million
subscribers to the newsletter.And John Lee Dumas has one of
the most popular podcasts calledEntrepreneurs on Fire. And they
obviously are experts in thesethings. basically, let's start
(24:46):
with the podcasts. John LeeDumas' podcast was he interviews
entrepreneurs. And he said thattoday, interview format podcasts
are not the way to go. He saidthe data is not pointing there.
The way to go now if you'retrying to launch a podcast is to
focus on finding he said, find50 problems that your target
(25:10):
customer has and then do shortepisodes addressing and solving
individual problems.
And, the more niche, the better.So that was his advice. Just
make these short episodesaddressing a problem. That's
what's getting traction. He alsosaid to, look at YouTube as a
(25:31):
podcast outlet because somepodcasts are growing faster on
YouTube than they are on thepodcast platforms.
So that was an interesting pieceof advice. With respect to
newsletters, kind of similar.You know, basically, Alex
Lieberman said that you want toreally niche down. So he said
this is really nichey just youknow, he used the word weird.
(25:54):
weird newsletters on thesespecific topics. he didn't list
any examples that I canremember, but, it could be
something like, people whocollect, matchbox cars of
Volkswagens or something.
The more the niche, the morelikely you are to get some
traction, and that's what'sreally growing right now. And
(26:15):
he's just really saying that,this idea of keeping it really,
really focused is the only wayto get noticed. He said, to
think about things like eitherdoing news or analysis or,
possibly, some other kinds ofinsights to give people
something. But what he said waswhatever you choose to do, try
(26:37):
to be indispensable becausethat's the secret to growing a
newsletter.
George B. Thomas (26:41):
Yeah. Couple of things on that, Joe. First of
all, how did you know that Icollect matchbox cars of
Volkswagens? That's really weirdthat you picked that out.
Joe Rando (26:48):
You're joking.
George B. Thomas (26:50):
Yeah. I am joking.
Joe Rando (26:52):
That would have been so cool.
George B. Thomas (26:54):
funny If I just pulled one up and put it in
camera shot. people are like,oh my gosh. But but here's the
funny thing. You went to thesession.
I actually had a chance to sitin the thirty minute q and a
that they had after the session,And there's a couple of things
that I just wanna hit uponespecially for solopreneurs who
are watching or listening tothis. One thing, Joey, you
(27:16):
mentioned focus. Yes. Likefocus, focus, focus. The thing
that I really took out of the qand a though was also
consistency. People arecreatures of habit. so the
newsletter goes out a certainday at a certain time, the
podcast happens at a certain dayat a certain time but also this
(27:36):
idea of becoming an expertconsistently. And what I mean by
that is John Lee Dumas, andagain Entrepreneur on Fire is a
great podcast, but what wascrazy is he did it as a daily
podcast. And so he was tellingthe story about how for most
mere mortal humans,solopreneurs, they're gonna
(27:58):
start a podcast and maybe it isa short form video answering
questions like you said, Joe,and they're gonna do one of
those episodes a week. And forthem to get to a 100 episodes,
it's gonna take them, well,let's just say a while.
For John because he was doing itdaily he got to a 100 episodes
in a hundred days which means hewent from sucking because by the
(28:22):
way when you start a newsletter,when you start a podcast it
might have to suck at first butit can get better over time. So
iteration. Right? Focus,consistency, iteration to get it
where it needs to go. Butbecause he did a 100 or the
daily episodes in a hundreddays, it was like from crappy to
great.
Yeah. so I want solopreneurs tothink about a, like do you even
(28:46):
have these things that we'retalking about? And if not, why
not? And when you get started,at what rate should you maybe
start doing them so that you canget better at them quickly and
then go back or fall back to aregular cadence of what you want
to do? Just some things to thinkabout.
It was very intriguing to methat q and a session with those
(29:10):
two.
Joe Rando (29:11):
And, on that, when he started his podcast speaking of
that niching down, there wereother interview shows with
entrepreneurs going on at thetime.
Carly Ries (29:21):
Yep.
Joe Rando (29:21):
But they were weekly or biweekly and he was the only
one that did it daily seven daysa week. He had a podcast seven
days a week. And they were therewas a subset of the audience
that wanted one every dayinstead of waiting a week, and
that got him at notice. So histhing wasn't, oh, I'm doing
something different in the senseof the content as much as it was
(29:41):
I'm doing something different interms of the frequency.
So there are a bunch ofdifferent ways to kind of, focus
your offering. And I wouldimagine it's the same for
newsletters. So yeah.
Cool stuff.
Carly Ries (29:54):
Oh, you guys, so I'm taking so many notes mentally
right now. Luckily, this is allrecorded because it's a podcast,
and I can totally see it as manytimes as I want. But is there
anything we haven't touched onthat you would want our
listeners to know that youlearned about at Inbound?
George B. Thomas (30:09):
So this isn't gonna be shocking or as shocking
as it could have been sinceCarly was like, George, you've
always been about the humans.But the thing that I learned
this year was it really is allabout the humans. I had the
pleasure to actually speak fivetimes this year at Inbound, and
I don't say that beingbraggadocious, I say that
(30:30):
humbly, but what that means isthere were humans in an
audience, there were humans thatI was walking around with, there
were humans that I talked to. Ithink there was like 12,000 or I
don't know, there was a lot ofhumans but it's all about the
humans. But in particular Iwanna pull out one story and I
wanna pull this story outbecause I want the solopreneurs
(30:52):
to know that sometimes it makessense to invest in yourself,
sometimes it makes sense for youto go to an event even though
you might be stretchingbudgetary means to get there
because I was able to bring mysidekick and I don't mean my
wife because my wife was theretoo and she's my lifelong
(31:12):
sidekick. But I was able tobring my sidekick, Jorge.
We flew him in from Mexico, hecame to the Inbound event and
after the event was over, we hada chance to sit down and eat
dinner, my wife, him and I andwe're sitting there talking and
I say, hey, what do you thinkabout oh, at first it was
overwhelming but it's great andI love the people and I love the
(31:34):
learning and all the things thathe loved about it and then I
asked him this question, I said,Jorge, so now that you've been
at Inbound, what's your nextdream? And he goes, oh I just
want you to realize because I'vecome to Inbound I believe I can
dream. And I was like, oh mygosh, like I just got
(31:56):
goosebumps. To understand thatan event, three days, could
dramatically change his life,his outlook, perspective of who
he was, who he could be on theplanet, if I could wave a magic
wand, every solopreneur watchingthis or listening to this, I'd
(32:18):
wave a magic wand that theycould hit an event and then have
a belief in themselves and abelief in their future that they
didn't have before that eventoccurred.
And for us, many times for methat's been Inbound and so that
for me again, it's all about thehumans and it's all about going
back to our first thing, it'sabout the transformation of the
(32:41):
humans through the time spent inan educational situation.
Carly Ries (32:47):
George, I don't know if you saw me shaking my head
when you teed up that storybecause you told me that story a
few days ago. I got teary eyedon that call and when I was
shaking my head, I startedwelling up again. I was like, oh
my gosh. I'm gonna cry on cameraduring our podcast. I just love
that.
And for listeners, Jorge is thebest human being ever. We adore
him, so shout out to Jorge. Joe,your turn to top that story.
Joe Rando (33:11):
Yeah. I really should have gone first. I don't have
anything to compete with that. Iwill say that I think there are
a lot of other things that Ilearned there.
I come out of this so pumped up.And then Monday morning, I have
this kind of weird state thatI'm, you know, now realizing how
(33:32):
hard it's gonna be to implementall these great ideas. So it's a
little bit of you know,bittersweet. But, yeah, I get
very inspired there as well. Ithink my thing was, you know,
just good old fun was getting tomeet in person Nancy Harhut and
Jay Schwedelson, two people thathave been on the podcast, two
people that I love talking to,communicating with on LinkedIn
(33:57):
and any chance I get.
So that was just great to kindameet them in person. But, yeah,
I got nothing to top the Jorgestory. But I agree. Jorge is a
fine human being and also one ofthe most decorated
Carly Ries (34:13):
Yeah.
Joe Rando (34:13):
HubSpot certification people on the planet as far as I
can tell.
George B. Thomas (34:19):
It's funny. I really wasn't trying to make it
a competition. But yeah. ButJorge, 50. 50 HubSpot
certifications, which is crazy.again, solopreneurs, it is about
what you do in your business toimpact those that you serve and
(34:42):
you have the abilities to dowhat we've talked about today.
You have this new world that isAI assisted, you, the human
powered, that you can have thesesuccesses. You can do these
things that maybe once beforeyou couldn't do.
Carly Ries (35:02):
And George, I could not wrap up this episode better.
That was the perfect way to endthis show, so inspiring. I have
loved everything you both havesaid today, both from an
educational standpoint, but nowI'm gonna be signing off and
like, I can do this. I have Ihave the knowledge. I have the
tools. bring it on AI. Bring iton competition. Let's roll. I
(35:28):
just appreciate both of you.Joe, it looks like you wanna say
something really quick.
Joe Rando (35:32):
Just if people are inspired, you know, join us, at
lifestarr.com. Come in. Youknow, the the solo suite intro
is free. We've got events wherewe network and get together.
We've got a community that wecan chat on anytime we want. So
if this is inspiring, interactwith us. We can share more
(35:53):
ideas. We can get ideas fromyou. I just wanna say that
because that's really where therubber meets the road on this
stuff.
Carly Ries (35:59):
Yes. I agree. And people not looking at the show
notes, it's lifestarr.com, butall of that will be in the show
notes as well. George, it's sofunny. We have all these guests
that come on, and we reallyenjoy these interviews, and
they're wonderful, wonderfulpeople. But it's so nice to hang
out with you two even though wespoke literally an hour ago in a
separate meeting. I just likehanging with you guys.
(36:21):
So bring on 2025, San Francisco
George B. Thomas (36:24):
Let's go.
Carly Ries (36:24):
Three of us will go and be like, we are the three
best friends that anybody canhave, and we'll just go in
skipping. So can't wait for it.I guess I'm gonna do the show
there instead of on the highnote that George left it
Joe Rando (36:37):
Image of all of us skipping. Okay.
George B. Thomas (36:39):
Yeah. I like that. We definitely need to have
a videographer that canvideotape us skipping into
Inbound 2025 together. Thatwould be awesome.
Carly Ries (36:47):
When they do the big, yay, and they jump in the
air.
Joe Rando (36:50):
Yeah. We're bringing Cian. Cian's coming along.
Carly Ries (36:53):
Cian is our editor. You will hear this, so that's
happening. But the way Iactually have to end this show
is, listeners, this has beengreat for us. We hope it was
just as great for you. We wouldlove that five star review.
We would love the subscriptionon YouTube, any of your podcast
platforms. Please show yourlove. We so appreciate it.
(37:13):
Otherwise, we will see you nexttime on The Aspiring
Solopreneur. Take care. You maybe going solo in business, but
that doesn't mean you're alone.In fact, millions of people are
in your shoes, running a oneperson business and figuring it
out as they go. So why notconnect with them and learn from
each other's successes andfailures? At LifeStarr, we're
(37:34):
creating a one person businesscommunity where you can go to
meet and get advice from othersolopreneurs.
Be sure to join in on theconversations at
community.lifestarr.com.
This podcast episode is being released in early
(00:02):
October twenty twenty four. Andjust over a week ago, HubSpot
hosted their massive annualconference that covered the
latest trends and tactics inmarketing, and AI. we had two
people attend who are ready togive you the biggest takeaways
from the event that appliesspecifically to solopreneurs. My
cohost and founder of LifeStarr,Joe Rando, attended, and our
(00:25):
very own George B Thomas notonly attended but presented
multiple times. So you have somevery credible sources sharing
their insights today.
From groundbreaking strategiesto fresh perspectives on
automation, AI, and scalingsmall businesses, this episode
is packed with golden nuggetsfor solopreneurs who wanna stay
ahead of the curve. Whetheryou're looking for new ways to
(00:45):
generate leads, streamline yourprocesses, or take your customer
experience to the next level,this episode has all of these
for you. You're listening to theaspiring solopreneur, the
podcast for those just takingthe bold step or even just
thinking about taking that stepinto the world of solo
entrepreneurship. My name isCarly Ries and my cohost Joe
(01:07):
Rando and I are your guides tonavigating this crazy but
awesome journey as a company ofone. We take pride in being part
of LifeStarr, a digital hubdedicated to all aspects of
solopreneurship that hasempowered and educated countless
solopreneurs looking to build abusiness that resonates with
their life's ambitions.
We help people work to live, notlive to work. And if you're
(01:29):
looking for a get rich quickscheme, this is not the show for
you. So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who've
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
alone. You guys, I put this on aLinkedIn post last week about
(02:37):
having FOMO about a conference.you know, nobody's ever like,
oh, I'm so sad at missing thesesessions or this or that. I was
genuinely sad and I know it wasmy decision to not go. So The
blame is not on either of you.It is on me.
But I had genuine FOMO.
Joe Rando (02:53):
I would too.
Carly Ries (02:56):
I am so happy that you guys got to go, but also
jealous. Again, my own decision.And before we hop in to your
biggest takeaways forsolopreneurs from Inbound,
HubSpot's biggest conferencethat talks about marketing,
sales, automation, all the bignames in those fields are there,
I just had to say, George, Itold you I'd take any
(03:18):
opportunity to do this today.
But at the time of thisrecording
George B. Thomas (03:22):
Oh Boy. It is George B. Thomas' birthday, But
I will say happy birthday. Andthank you for spending it with
us today.
Aw, thank you! I appreciate it.I mean, there's no one else
other than my family, because ifthis gets out to the public and
they listen, other than myfamily, I would love to hang out
with you folks during mybirthday, so it's exciting.
Carly Ries (03:44):
You guys got to hang out together in person. For
those of you that don't know,Joe and I have worked together
off and on since since 2016. Ihave never met you. George, you
and I have been all of us havebeen working together for a few
years now.
George B. Thomas (03:57):
Yeah.
Carly Ries (03:57):
I have never met you. It has to happen,
George B. Thomas (04:00):
We gotta fix that. We gotta have, like, a
Lifestar retreat or something atsome point.
Joe Rando (04:05):
I was just thinking of, Inbound San Francisco
George B. Thomas (04:07):
There you go . Yes. I like that.
Carly Ries (04:10):
Good segue into the topic for today. I wanna make
sure we dive in.
Joe Rando (04:16):
So Let's do it.
Carly Ries (04:17):
Let's get at it. offline
Joe Rando (04:19):
I'm just really psyched we didn't have to sing.
Carly Ries (04:22):
Well, we have an event after this, and I might
make you sing
And bring out your electricguitar. But we talked about, a
few of the things that werebiggest takeaways for you
offline. And so let's dive intothe first one. You mentioned
that a big focus was that AI isshifting from acceleration to
transformation. Joe, why don'tyou kick things off?
(04:44):
What do you think about that?George, I want to speak to you
after.
Joe Rando (04:47):
Well, this was Yamini Ragan, who's the CEO of HubSpot,
making this claim that rightnow, we're working faster,
getting more done with with AI.Right? So you need to write a
blog and, you know, if you'resmart, you're not letting AI
write it for you, but maybeyou're letting AI either review
your blog or give you ideas fortopics that you might write
(05:08):
about you know, content youmight write about the topic. And
it's accelerating us, you'regetting more work done in less
time. But she's arguing that thenext phase is gonna be actual
transformation, and we'll dig inprobably in more detail about
those kinds of things.
But AI is gonna start doingstuff for you. So I think in
terms of, like, answering youremails or scheduling meetings
(05:33):
and these kinds of things thatare coming very quickly
according to her. So it's reallyclaiming that it's gonna be a
different world, and I'd likeGeorge's take on it before I wax
on.
George B. Thomas (05:44):
Yeah. I definitely think we are on the
precipice of transformation and,Joe, I gotta be honest with you.
When I was sitting there andlistening to Yamini talk about
this shift because we've, by theway, been accelerating our
business with AI for a while nowand to hear her talk about
(06:05):
transformation, I actuallystarted to think about the
solopreneurs and the power inwhich is going to be in their
hands moving forward.
And especially when I waswatching Andy Petrie and he was
releasing a couple products inparticular. One, I thought about
the solopreneurs when they weretalking about the social media
(06:26):
agent basically where and Imean, it's not just like it's
smart enough to post for you butthey were showing how it would
know when to post based on theplatform and what was popular
before, so therefore, what to doin the future.
And for solopreneurs who are outthere and they're strapped for
time, Heck, I even knowsolopreneurs out there, Joe,
(06:50):
that don't like social media andthe thought of being able to
have an agent that would do thesocial media for them is
probably more exciting than thefact of how I nerd out about it.
But this idea of adding to yourteam but still being a
solopreneur because again,there's the social media agent.
Another one that excited meespecially for solopreneurs is
(07:13):
the prospecting agent whereit'll actually do some sales
prospecting for you. Again, whenwe do things like success
sessions or problem solvers hereat LifeStarr, we're always
hearing how generating leads orfollowing up with leads is a
pain point and so now we'removing into this
transformational period thatthere's gonna be these agents,
(07:35):
that solopreneurs who embracethe ability to transform their
one person business, it doesn'thave to be through humans, it
can be through these agents thathelp assist them.
Carly Ries (07:48):
So let me ask this. I wanna know if they addressed
it when they were there. So wehave solopreneurs of all types
tuning in right now. What ifthey're like, but I'm a virtual
assistant or but I offer peoplesales coordination and I do the
prospecting for people? Like,should they be concerned, or can
these still be tools just toenhance their business?
Joe Rando (08:09):
They better be tools because it's gonna get very
noisy with people that aren'tputting a human around this
technology, and it's gonna getvery hard to get noticed
compared to even what it is nowbecause so many people are gonna
be just spewing up stuff. Andthat was my next point on this
topic is you're going to have tobecome really authentic, really
(08:30):
be yourself, and learn how toput that out there using the AI
to basically do your work foryou in some ways, but not be
you. George, I would think youwould agree with that. Right?
George B. Thomas (08:42):
I absolutely agree with that, Joe. Honestly,
it was literally part of my talkthat I did about AI and
humanizing the future of contentand your humanity and Carly I
love the question becausethere's some fear narratives
that are out there of like AI isgoing to take my job. Listen, AI
(09:04):
cannot replace your creativity.AI cannot replace your strategy.
AI cannot replace you and yourempathy and the understanding of
everything from micro internetactions to micro in real world
actions that we pay attentionto.
What it is, is it is a tool thatcan be used. So if you are
(09:26):
somebody that does theprospecting for an organization
well then you have an assistantassistant to the prospecting
that you do streamlining yourprocess. And I could just list
more and more examples of howyou can use that tool. And one
of the things that really hithome with the folks that were in
(09:47):
the audience is I said thesewords because again I'm not a
big fan of fear. I'm a big fanof embracing change and acting
upon it in the right way.
One of the things I said isyou've never heard a
construction worker complainabout a hammer stealing their
job or a surgeon complain abouta scalpel stealing their job. So
(10:09):
these marketers, thesesolopreneurs, these business
owners, it's not a replacementfor, it's a tool to augment and
expand their capabilities overtime.
Joe Rando (10:21):
But it's gonna require some adaptation.
George B. Thomas (10:23):
Oh, yes.
Joe Rando (10:23):
The surgeons that didn't have scalpels, I'm not
sure if that was a thing
But well, the ones that operatedwith their hands, remember
those? But anyway Back in theday. or, you know, before we had
true hammers, I mean, let'sthink about something more real
like, a bulldozer. Or a backhoe.You know, we did lots of
(10:46):
construction without those, butwhen we developed those, new
skills were required because thepeople that learned how to
operate those machines became indemand. And it's no different
now.
It's not gonna take your job butit's gonna require you to adapt.
George B. Thomas (11:01):
It's interesting, Joe, because when
you say that, my brain goes tobecause we started this with
like AI shifting fromacceleration to transformation,
what we're talking about here istransforming you, the human.
Understanding what you need tobecome to be successful in this
new world with these new tools.I love that mindset for
(11:26):
solopreneurs moving forward.Absolutely.
Carly Ries (11:30):
Well, I think we could talk about AI all day, you
guys. So I want to go on to thenext point that you really took
away, which was the traditionalgrowth strategies are dying. I
would love to know what thatmeans and what's replacing them.
Joe Rando (11:48):
Do you wanna go, George? You want me to talk
first?
George B. Thomas (11:50):
I'll go with this one because here's the
thing. As soon as you ask thatquestion, I go to a session that
I know Joe and I both were in,and it's a session where Marcus
Sheridan was the speaker. He'sspoken at InBound for years.
He's famous for, they ask, youanswer. He's famous for the big
Five which is like cost, priceversus best type of articles
(12:12):
that you should be writing.
But when I sat in his session Istarted to get fired up because
we really are in a world wheretraditional growth strategies,
I'm gonna do blogging andeverybody's gonna show up at my
website because it's gonna be anSEO play, well Google's kinda
changing the game and thereforeyou probably should too And what
(12:35):
I love about this where thetraditional growth strategy
you're dying, every timesomething dies, something is
born and even I have been kindof pushed out of my comfort zone
because one of the things thatMarcus was talking about is the
sticky five and what the stickyfive is, it's obviously a play
off of his big five but ittalked about short form video
(12:59):
content. Now I as a marketerlove to create video content but
you know what I don't like tocreate? I don't like to create
short form content because I'mnot used to that method, I'm not
used to that madness, thatmuscle memory isn't there for me
because I've been creatingvideo, long form video,
tutorials, interviews since 2014before video was even cool but I
(13:25):
have to take some of my ownadvice from the thing that we
just talked about.
It's time to transform Georgeinto somebody who gets the
muscle memory of these shortform videos. And by the way,
this is only one example. Thereare so many things that you've
historically done as asolopreneur to try to grow your
business or things that youhaven't done that you need to
(13:49):
start doing? Like, again, let'sjust go back to this is a time
of transformation based onthings that used to work don't,
and things that you thoughtwouldn't work probably do. Joe,
what are your thoughts?
Joe Rando (14:01):
Well, yeah. I agree with everything that you said.
you know, the problem is that wealways have this kind of view
that if we can put some contentout there, that people are gonna
find us. And I know that's notas much of an expectation from
solopreneurs because, we're notbig companies. But still, there
(14:22):
are a lot of solopreneurs thathave managed to get in whatever
niche they've picked noticed onGoogle.
And the problem is now Google isgonna answer those queries with
an answer instead of with alist. And, the way it was put
that I thought was very eloquentis that Google search gives you
a research project. I go in andI search Google, then I get a
bunch of web pages. I gotta goin. I gotta dig in.
Blah blah blah. now with the AI,it's giving you an answer that's
(14:48):
going to be wrong sometimesbecause it is. I mean, AI is
wrong sometimes. If you don'tbelieve it, go in and ask it
some questions and watch whatcomes back because it will
hallucinate, just freely. So yougotta watch out for it.
But regardless of the fact thatit's not always accurate, people
prefer it to the researchproject. Because you know why?
(15:08):
Because people are lazy. And ifyou don't think people are lazy,
I don't know what to tell you,but people are gonna go with the
easier option. I'm no exception.
And even though I know sometimesit's wrong. So that's kind of
what's happening. And then youhave to figure out what are your
strategies in order to getaround that. And the things you
need to do are kinds of contentthat AI cannot kind of summarize
(15:32):
and present.
So if you've got a worksheetlike I showed you guys today. I
went in to AI. He said, write mecode for HubSpot's CMS that will
take this spreadsheet and put itinto my into my web page. And I
just basically had this littlespreadsheet I made about
calculating return oninvestment, And it created the
(15:52):
code. I popped it in.
Boom. There it is. What's GoogleAI gonna do with that? If I'm
going, wait. What kind of returnon investment can I get with a
CRM?
Your thing shows up. Now you'rein. So that kind of strategy is
the way people need to bethinking. But with AI and with
your own insights into what theneeds are of your industry, you
can, win that battle but not bydoing the same old thing.
George B. Thomas (16:12):
See, and I think I wanna double down on
this because another thing thatMarcus was mentioning and
definitely solopreneurs need tothink about is this idea of
we've historically createdwebsite pages, created content,
whatever level you've done sothat you could be found in
Google but what are you doingright now to actually be found
in AI? Like are you creatingcontent in a way that you can
(16:36):
educate the model? Because bythe way even though it is a
large language model it does notknow everything. I literally
opened up a free account becausewith a team's account in chat
GPT, not to get too nerdy, yourdata doesn't get used to
actually teach the model. Iopened up a free account so that
(16:57):
I could start putting content orhaving conversations with the AI
model so it would start to learnabout who is George B Thomas,
the HubSpot expert?
What is the superhumanframework? Like, what are the
sidekick strategy products andservices? So, if you're not
actively figuring out, how can Icreate content in a way that AI
(17:17):
picks it up, therefore there's alink in a conversation with a
human on the other side of theplanet that goes back to my
website, like these are the typeof things we need to start to
think about?
Carly Ries (17:29):
Can you guys elaborate? Because the other
points you two wanted to makewere about how content still
matters and AI is a copilot, andI feel like we have discussed
that. But a question that I havebased off what you were just
saying is SEO, we all had rulesthat we could follow. Like, put
it in the h one tag, do the metadescription, blah blah blah blah
blah. Where is AI pulling from?what are these optimization
(17:51):
techniques that people should befocusing on? Because I now use
ChatGPT more than Google, but Ihave no idea where the source is
coming from. I'm not looking atthe search engine results pages
anymore. What do people need tobe doing?
George B. Thomas (18:07):
Yeah. Joe, you wanna go?
Joe Rando (18:09):
No. Ah, okay. I don't know the answer.
George B. Thomas (18:12):
So here's the thing. What's funny, Carly, is
you actually started out with,talking about a set of rules,
and the funny thing is even backwhen you were paying attention
to those rules, the cardinalrule that you should have been
paying attention to, and I knowyou were by the way, I'm
speaking more broadly to theaudience, is that you were
creating content that was forthe humans. You were creating
(18:36):
content for the searcher and thesearch engine. So yes, there was
a set of rules that you knew youkind of had to pay attention to
of like title length and metadescription length and you knew
that Google had the, this iswhat valuable content is and so
you wanted to play by thoserules. Listen, if you've been
(18:56):
playing by those rules andcreating content for humans and
you know what valuable contentis, creating that, it doesn't
change.
It's just that now you'retraining the large language
model to the content that you'recreating, who you are. Think
about things about what do Ibelieve? what are my core
(19:18):
values, how do I navigate theworld and when you start to
inject that in, all of a suddenit starts to show up in places.
Here's the fun part and I don'thave the link ready but maybe we
can put it in the show notes. HubSpot literally came out
with, do you remember theirwebsite grader where you could
go and you could put yourwebsite in and then it'd give
(19:40):
you the grade? They have an AIgrader where you can go in and
put your business and it'll tellyou if it can find it in
different AI systems or languageor if you're prepped to be that.
So there's literally a toolalready starting to be built.
Obviously it's in its infancy, Iwould call it beta but still it
(20:00):
should excite the crap out ofbusiness owners especially
solopreneurs that at leastthere's a place I can go test if
the things that I'm testing toget into these models is working
or not and kind of pivot andtransition as needed.
Carly Ries (20:15):
And for anybody that's like, I don't wanna go
look at back show notes, it'shubspot.com/AI-search-grader.
Will be in the show notes butthere it is as well.
Joe Rando (20:26):
Hey. just a quick point on that, though. I wanna
make one point. Regardless ofall of this talk about AI and
about this, Neil Patel, who ispretty much a leading authority
on SEO, that's kind of what hebuilt his business on, says that
human generated content is rightnow getting 5.4 times more
traffic than AI generatedcontent. So going back to that,
(20:50):
yeah, AI is a thing. You need tounderstand it.
But that human purely humangenerated traffic, is only about
12% of all content being creatednow, gets 5.4 times more
traffic. So that's where youropportunities open up. There's
more stuff, more and more stuff.
But if you do it you know, ifyou can become somebody that,
can represent your own real selfand put out that content from
(21:13):
you, you're gonna have thatchance even with all this extra
content of getting that lift ofup to 5.4% times because it's
generated by you and not an AI.
George B. Thomas (21:23):
Joe, I love a couple things. One that you
named Neil, two that you put insome stats there, and three that
you talked about fully human.Like, there is something special
when whether it's in real life,your blog or whatever, if you
can show up as a whole human. Iusually throw another word in
there but I don't like to curseon podcasts. But if you can,
(21:45):
show up as a whole human.
Here's the thing. One of thethings that we taught again in
our session was how you canactually bookmark your human or
bookend bookend your humanitybut still put AI to work. And
what I'm talking about is anysolopreneur that's listening to
this right now needs to realizethat the mindset should be human
(22:08):
powered AI assisted. So bookendon the left side, I need to do
research. I wanna know sometopics I could talk about.
I'm tired of having writingblocks so let me get a starting
point. Bookend. I don't need bythe way AI to be a writer. I
just need AI to be the typist,the fastest typist for $20 a
month humanly possible causeit's gonna be my human
(22:29):
creativity, it's gonna be myhuman direction, it's gonna be
my human strategy. Solopreneurs,it's gonna be your creativity,
strategy, direction.
And then the right end bookmarkis now there's a checklist. By
the way, we literally gave thischecklist away for free for
anybody who attended the Inboundsession, but I wanna give it
away for free for anysolopreneur that wants it. You
(22:50):
can go tosidekickstrategies.com/inbound24
and you can get the AI toolkitwhere we talked about this
checklist and the five thingsyou need to do in the exact
order you need to do it so thatyou're spitting out a human
piece of content even though itwas AI assisted.
Carly Ries (23:08):
Oh, I love that. George, I feel like you were
made for the AI era because yourbread and butter is human first.
George B. Thomas (23:15):
Oh, I've been talking about the humans
for forever!
Carly Ries (23:19):
This is your thing. I mean, I feel like you've
always had a spot in thespotlight. I don't know. That's
good. Haven't said that yet.
But you know what I mean. Butnow is like really your time to
shine because George has alwaysbeen known to put humans first.
No matter what best practicescome and go, it's human first
and foremost. Socongratulations, George. You
(23:40):
predicted the future.
George B. Thomas (23:42):
Listen. God has a plan. I'm just along for
the ride, but I am having funbecause I agree with you, Carly.
It feels like there's this thingthat is just happening around
what we've built our personalbrand around, the humans, what's
happening with AI and technologyand what's actually gonna win
moving forward.
(24:03):
We're in a really good place, sothanks for noticing that.
Carly Ries (24:06):
Yeah. Well, and to tie all of that back together,
so obviously, we've been talkingabout humanization,
personalization. One thing thatwe mentioned offline was that
podcasts and newsletters thriveon personalization. I wanna talk
about those two thingsspecifically.
Can you guys dive into that alittle bit?
Joe Rando (24:23):
Sure. Well, I went to the session with, John Lee Dumas
and Alex Lieberman. AlexLieberman cofounded the morning
brew, which I think it has,like, four and a half million
subscribers to the newsletter.And John Lee Dumas has one of
the most popular podcasts calledEntrepreneurs on Fire. And they
obviously are experts in thesethings. basically, let's start
(24:46):
with the podcasts. John LeeDumas' podcast was he interviews
entrepreneurs. And he said thattoday, interview format podcasts
are not the way to go. He saidthe data is not pointing there.
The way to go now if you'retrying to launch a podcast is to
focus on finding he said, find50 problems that your target
(25:10):
customer has and then do shortepisodes addressing and solving
individual problems.
And, the more niche, the better.So that was his advice. Just
make these short episodesaddressing a problem. That's
what's getting traction. He alsosaid to, look at YouTube as a
(25:31):
podcast outlet because somepodcasts are growing faster on
YouTube than they are on thepodcast platforms.
So that was an interesting pieceof advice. With respect to
newsletters, kind of similar.You know, basically, Alex
Lieberman said that you want toreally niche down. So he said
this is really nichey just youknow, he used the word weird.
(25:54):
weird newsletters on thesespecific topics. he didn't list
any examples that I canremember, but, it could be
something like, people whocollect, matchbox cars of
Volkswagens or something.
The more the niche, the morelikely you are to get some
traction, and that's what'sreally growing right now. And
(26:15):
he's just really saying that,this idea of keeping it really,
really focused is the only wayto get noticed. He said, to
think about things like eitherdoing news or analysis or,
possibly, some other kinds ofinsights to give people
something. But what he said waswhatever you choose to do, try
(26:37):
to be indispensable becausethat's the secret to growing a
newsletter.
George B. Thomas (26:41):
Yeah. Couple of things on that, Joe. First of
all, how did you know that Icollect matchbox cars of
Volkswagens? That's really weirdthat you picked that out.
Joe Rando (26:48):
You're joking.
George B. Thomas (26:50):
Yeah. I am joking.
Joe Rando (26:52):
That would have been so cool.
George B. Thomas (26:54):
funny If I just pulled one up and put it in
camera shot. people are like,oh my gosh. But but here's the
funny thing. You went to thesession.
I actually had a chance to sitin the thirty minute q and a
that they had after the session,And there's a couple of things
that I just wanna hit uponespecially for solopreneurs who
are watching or listening tothis. One thing, Joey, you
(27:16):
mentioned focus. Yes. Likefocus, focus, focus. The thing
that I really took out of the qand a though was also
consistency. People arecreatures of habit. so the
newsletter goes out a certainday at a certain time, the
podcast happens at a certain dayat a certain time but also this
(27:36):
idea of becoming an expertconsistently. And what I mean by
that is John Lee Dumas, andagain Entrepreneur on Fire is a
great podcast, but what wascrazy is he did it as a daily
podcast. And so he was tellingthe story about how for most
mere mortal humans,solopreneurs, they're gonna
(27:58):
start a podcast and maybe it isa short form video answering
questions like you said, Joe,and they're gonna do one of
those episodes a week. And forthem to get to a 100 episodes,
it's gonna take them, well,let's just say a while.
For John because he was doing itdaily he got to a 100 episodes
in a hundred days which means hewent from sucking because by the
(28:22):
way when you start a newsletter,when you start a podcast it
might have to suck at first butit can get better over time. So
iteration. Right? Focus,consistency, iteration to get it
where it needs to go. Butbecause he did a 100 or the
daily episodes in a hundreddays, it was like from crappy to
great.
Yeah. so I want solopreneurs tothink about a, like do you even
(28:46):
have these things that we'retalking about? And if not, why
not? And when you get started,at what rate should you maybe
start doing them so that you canget better at them quickly and
then go back or fall back to aregular cadence of what you want
to do? Just some things to thinkabout.
It was very intriguing to methat q and a session with those
(29:10):
two.
Joe Rando (29:11):
And, on that, when he started his podcast speaking of
that niching down, there wereother interview shows with
entrepreneurs going on at thetime.
Carly Ries (29:21):
Yep.
Joe Rando (29:21):
But they were weekly or biweekly and he was the only
one that did it daily seven daysa week. He had a podcast seven
days a week. And they were therewas a subset of the audience
that wanted one every dayinstead of waiting a week, and
that got him at notice. So histhing wasn't, oh, I'm doing
something different in the senseof the content as much as it was
(29:41):
I'm doing something different interms of the frequency.
So there are a bunch ofdifferent ways to kind of, focus
your offering. And I wouldimagine it's the same for
newsletters. So yeah.
Cool stuff.
Carly Ries (29:54):
Oh, you guys, so I'm taking so many notes mentally
right now. Luckily, this is allrecorded because it's a podcast,
and I can totally see it as manytimes as I want. But is there
anything we haven't touched onthat you would want our
listeners to know that youlearned about at Inbound?
George B. Thomas (30:09):
So this isn't gonna be shocking or as shocking
as it could have been sinceCarly was like, George, you've
always been about the humans.But the thing that I learned
this year was it really is allabout the humans. I had the
pleasure to actually speak fivetimes this year at Inbound, and
I don't say that beingbraggadocious, I say that
(30:30):
humbly, but what that means isthere were humans in an
audience, there were humans thatI was walking around with, there
were humans that I talked to. Ithink there was like 12,000 or I
don't know, there was a lot ofhumans but it's all about the
humans. But in particular Iwanna pull out one story and I
wanna pull this story outbecause I want the solopreneurs
(30:52):
to know that sometimes it makessense to invest in yourself,
sometimes it makes sense for youto go to an event even though
you might be stretchingbudgetary means to get there
because I was able to bring mysidekick and I don't mean my
wife because my wife was theretoo and she's my lifelong
(31:12):
sidekick. But I was able tobring my sidekick, Jorge.
We flew him in from Mexico, hecame to the Inbound event and
after the event was over, we hada chance to sit down and eat
dinner, my wife, him and I andwe're sitting there talking and
I say, hey, what do you thinkabout oh, at first it was
overwhelming but it's great andI love the people and I love the
(31:34):
learning and all the things thathe loved about it and then I
asked him this question, I said,Jorge, so now that you've been
at Inbound, what's your nextdream? And he goes, oh I just
want you to realize because I'vecome to Inbound I believe I can
dream. And I was like, oh mygosh, like I just got
(31:56):
goosebumps. To understand thatan event, three days, could
dramatically change his life,his outlook, perspective of who
he was, who he could be on theplanet, if I could wave a magic
wand, every solopreneur watchingthis or listening to this, I'd
(32:18):
wave a magic wand that theycould hit an event and then have
a belief in themselves and abelief in their future that they
didn't have before that eventoccurred.
And for us, many times for methat's been Inbound and so that
for me again, it's all about thehumans and it's all about going
back to our first thing, it'sabout the transformation of the
(32:41):
humans through the time spent inan educational situation.
Carly Ries (32:47):
George, I don't know if you saw me shaking my head
when you teed up that storybecause you told me that story a
few days ago. I got teary eyedon that call and when I was
shaking my head, I startedwelling up again. I was like, oh
my gosh. I'm gonna cry on cameraduring our podcast. I just love
that.
And for listeners, Jorge is thebest human being ever. We adore
him, so shout out to Jorge. Joe,your turn to top that story.
Joe Rando (33:11):
Yeah. I really should have gone first. I don't have
anything to compete with that. Iwill say that I think there are
a lot of other things that Ilearned there.
I come out of this so pumped up.And then Monday morning, I have
this kind of weird state thatI'm, you know, now realizing how
(33:32):
hard it's gonna be to implementall these great ideas. So it's a
little bit of you know,bittersweet. But, yeah, I get
very inspired there as well. Ithink my thing was, you know,
just good old fun was getting tomeet in person Nancy Harhut and
Jay Schwedelson, two people thathave been on the podcast, two
people that I love talking to,communicating with on LinkedIn
(33:57):
and any chance I get.
So that was just great to kindameet them in person. But, yeah,
I got nothing to top the Jorgestory. But I agree. Jorge is a
fine human being and also one ofthe most decorated
Carly Ries (34:13):
Yeah.
Joe Rando (34:13):
HubSpot certification people on the planet as far as I
can tell.
George B. Thomas (34:19):
It's funny. I really wasn't trying to make it
a competition. But yeah. ButJorge, 50. 50 HubSpot
certifications, which is crazy.again, solopreneurs, it is about
what you do in your business toimpact those that you serve and
(34:42):
you have the abilities to dowhat we've talked about today.
You have this new world that isAI assisted, you, the human
powered, that you can have thesesuccesses. You can do these
things that maybe once beforeyou couldn't do.
Carly Ries (35:02):
And George, I could not wrap up this episode better.
That was the perfect way to endthis show, so inspiring. I have
loved everything you both havesaid today, both from an
educational standpoint, but nowI'm gonna be signing off and
like, I can do this. I have Ihave the knowledge. I have the
tools. bring it on AI. Bring iton competition. Let's roll. I
(35:28):
just appreciate both of you.Joe, it looks like you wanna say
something really quick.
Joe Rando (35:32):
Just if people are inspired, you know, join us, at
lifestarr.com. Come in. Youknow, the the solo suite intro
is free. We've got events wherewe network and get together.
We've got a community that wecan chat on anytime we want. So
if this is inspiring, interactwith us. We can share more
(35:53):
ideas. We can get ideas fromyou. I just wanna say that
because that's really where therubber meets the road on this
stuff.
Carly Ries (35:59):
Yes. I agree. And people not looking at the show
notes, it's lifestarr.com, butall of that will be in the show
notes as well. George, it's sofunny. We have all these guests
that come on, and we reallyenjoy these interviews, and
they're wonderful, wonderfulpeople. But it's so nice to hang
out with you two even though wespoke literally an hour ago in a
separate meeting. I just likehanging with you guys.
(36:21):
So bring on 2025, San Francisco
George B. Thomas (36:24):
Let's go.
Carly Ries (36:24):
Three of us will go and be like, we are the three
best friends that anybody canhave, and we'll just go in
skipping. So can't wait for it.I guess I'm gonna do the show
there instead of on the highnote that George left it
Joe Rando (36:37):
Image of all of us skipping. Okay.
George B. Thomas (36:39):
Yeah. I like that. We definitely need to have
a videographer that canvideotape us skipping into
Inbound 2025 together. Thatwould be awesome.
Carly Ries (36:47):
When they do the big, yay, and they jump in the
air.
Joe Rando (36:50):
Yeah. We're bringing Cian. Cian's coming along.
Carly Ries (36:53):
Cian is our editor. You will hear this, so that's
happening. But the way Iactually have to end this show
is, listeners, this has beengreat for us. We hope it was
just as great for you. We wouldlove that five star review.
We would love the subscriptionon YouTube, any of your podcast
platforms. Please show yourlove. We so appreciate it.
(37:13):
Otherwise, we will see you nexttime on The Aspiring
Solopreneur. Take care. You maybe going solo in business, but
that doesn't mean you're alone.In fact, millions of people are
in your shoes, running a oneperson business and figuring it
out as they go. So why notconnect with them and learn from
each other's successes andfailures? At LifeStarr, we're
(37:34):
creating a one person businesscommunity where you can go to
meet and get advice from othersolopreneurs.
Be sure to join in on theconversations at
community.lifestarr.com.
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