Are You Delivering A Transformation Or Just Selling Information?

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the rules of online business are changing and transformation is the name of the game. In this episode, we dive into why information-based programs are no longer enough in an era where AI makes information more accessible than ever. Simply providing information doesn’t create lasting value for your customers; instead, they crave curated experiences that help them achieve real results. We discuss why businesses that continue relying on outdated, information-heavy models will struggle to retain customers, while those who prioritize transformation will thrive. This episode is your wake-up call to rethink how you design your offers, shifting from passive content consumption to action-driven, transformational learning experiences that drive engagement, satisfaction, and long-term loyalty. If you're looking to future-proof your online business and build a reputation for delivering results, this episode is a must-listen.

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Welcome & Episode Introduction

02:15 – Why Information-Based Courses Are Failing in the AI Age

05:30 – The Rise of Transformation-Focused Offers & Products

08:45 – How Customer Expectations Have Evolved

11:20 – Real-World Example: The Golf Company’s Costly Mistake

14:50 – The Critical Mindset Shift for Business Owners

18:35 – Practical Steps to Create Transformational Experiences

22:10 – Why This Shift Will Future-Proof Your Business

26:00 – Final Thoughts & Call to Action

📲 Connect & Take Action:

If you’re ready to shift from information-based offers to transformational experiences that customers rave about, let’s chat! Book a free strategy call here: https://taralbryan.com/step/15-learn-to-scale-call/

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-bryan/

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About Me:

Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results. 

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business. 

Join us each week as we dive into different strategies, tactics and tips you can apply immediately to your business.

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Episode Transcript

Tara Bryan (00:00):
Welcome to the Scalable Expert, the podcast where we unlock
the secrets to building a businessthat grows with you, not around you.
I'm your host, Tara Bryan, businessstrategist, mentor, and creator
of the Infinite Scale Method.
If you're a coach, consultant, orservice provider who's maxed out
with one on one work, overwhelmed bythe grind, and ready to scale your
expertise into a business that worksfor you, then you're in the right place.

(00:23):
Each week, I'll share actionabletips, inspiring success
stories, and proven strategies.
to help you reclaim your time, grow yourincome and create a business that delivers
results without sacrificing quality.
Let's dive in and make yourbusiness infinitely scalable.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to this week's episode.

(00:44):
I am so happy that you're here.
Hey, in this episode, I want totackle a couple different things.
I'm so excited because you know thatmoment when you've been talking about
something for years and years, andyou feel like no one's listening
or no one hears what you're saying.
I feel like that has beensomething that I've been struggling

(01:06):
with for quite some time.
I would say it's beenabout five years ago now.
I was part of a high level marketinggroup, and one of the things I always
struggled with was, so my expertiseis in creating e-learning so high end
courses, if you will, for corporations.

(01:26):
So we would go into their organization,and we would uncover all of kind
of the performance challenges,things that were going on in the
business that weren't working, right?
Most of the time there was some sort ofchallenge with how the employees were
doing their job or, they didn't have thetools or they didn't have the training or
they, there's something that was going on.

(01:47):
So for example, we had a golf company thatwe worked with and they were having a ton
of quality issues with their golf clubs.
And it was a huge problem.
They had lost millions of dollars.
Customers were unhappy.
There was a ton of returns.
I don't remember what the percentagewas and they're like, we need help.

(02:08):
We can't figure out why allof these golf clubs are being
returned, like what is happening?
And so anyway, we went in, we did a bigassessment to try and figure out what
was going on at the end of the day.
It turned out that there was a hiccup interms of the process on the assembly line.
And that is why things were derailed.

(02:28):
So it costs the companymillions of dollars and issues
with customer retention.
So those are the kinds of programs orcurriculum that we would be a part of.
Again, large, super large projects.
But the one key component of those wasalways, there was always a transformation.
There was always something, someproblem that needed to be solved,

(02:52):
some issue that, needed a trainingintervention for it so that the change
could happen, and you could see froma business result that if you were to
tackle this training problem, then thebusiness results would mirror that.
And even in that industry that wewere a part of, there was a huge

(03:13):
sort of divide between those kind oftraining interventions and we just
need some sort of training to checkthe box, saying that people did it.
And even if you look at that, inthat world that was maddening, right?
So our agency reallyfocused on business results.
Don't hire us to just create fluffyinformation based training that didn't

(03:37):
actually move the needle in the business.
And we were pretty adamantabout that even early on.
As we were growing, it was what wewere known for because there was a
lot of fluffy e-learning out there.
If you have experienced it, you know whatI'm talking about, where it's just like.
You just click the next buttonin the e-learning and you don't
actually have to do anything.
Then you take a quiz and then you're done.

(03:59):
My husband who's in healthcare hasall of those courses all of the time.
Compliance is another place where it's,we just need people to check the box
saying that they've watched the training.
They don't actuallyneed to change anything.
So like cyber security, we don'treally need them to know anything
or do anything different, wejust need them to check the box.
What an, what a missed opportunity.
So there was always This differencein terms of transformation and

(04:21):
information, and which one was better.
And unfortunately, it all comesand stems back from the education
system that is out there, right?
Where we just give you a bunch,we open your head, we give you a
bunch of information, and then yougo figure out what to do with that
information, have fun, figure it out.
And the better approach is actuallyto put somebody in a position

(04:41):
where they can practice in a safeenvironment, and be able to learn
what they need to learn and thenapply it and then keep moving forward.
That's how you create transformation.
Throwing people a bunch of informationand hoping that they do something
with it does not actually help anyone.
So anyway, we were having that problemeven in the e learning industry, which you
would think, from a corporate perspective,everybody would want transformational

(05:05):
training, especially when they'repaying millions of dollars for it.
Not the case.
So then I go into more of theentrepreneur business owner digital
marketing space, and everybody is talkingabout all these information based courses.
We're just going to throw up a bunch ofvideos, give people as much information
as possible, and then, charge themfor it and then, call it a day.

(05:27):
And I remember, very vividly when I wasat one of these conferences for marketing
the, there was a speaker up, it was ahuge conference, thousands and thousands
of people, and there was a speaker up andshe said I just, just to create my course,
I just like, throw my phone up and startrecording videos while I'm on my yacht.
And I lost my, I just lost it.

(05:48):
So if anyone's listening who was therewith me, you know that I lost it.
But that to me was the momentI was just like, come on.
There's got to be a different way.
I've got to be able tocommunicate this to people.
That it's all about how do you helpsomebody create a transformation?
How do you move them from where they aretoday, like the problem that they have,
to the solution that they're looking for,and help them be able to do that, right?

(06:11):
How do you give them the fasttrack to be able to do that?
That is why people want you, isbecause you can help them actually
do the thing that they can do.
Learning is not a passive activity.
Change is hard, so you haveto be able to help somebody go
through that transformation.
Information, or throwing somethingup on a membership site and charging

(06:31):
for it, doesn't serve anyone.
At the end of the day, it doesn'tserve you because you're not retaining
those people, and it doesn't serveyour customers because they're
not actually doing anything, sothere's no change that's happening.
So that, to me, was the moment,then, on a previous episode, we just
talked about, like, how do you defineyour expertise in your body of work?

(06:52):
What does that look like?
For me, I knew that, and I haveknown that in my core for 20 years
that I've been doing this workbecause I always had that passion.
But that moment I was like, that is it.
I love it.
So I have been talkingabout that for years.
Like I said, 20 years.
But specifically with this digitalmarketing group, for years.

(07:15):
And it's landed with a lot ofdifferent people who are like, oh
yeah, I really want to do that.
Like especially coaches and businessowners who know that you can't
just give something, somebody abunch of, information and hope
that they do something with it.
But what was happening is somepeople weren't hearing me and

(07:36):
it was very difficult to getthat message across because they
were thinking about marketing.
They were thinkingabout their bottom line.
They were thinkingabout just sales, right?
Fulfillment is just this random thingover here I don't need to worry about.
I just need to keep bringing people in.
Bring them in.
Doesn't really matter what happens whenI bring them in because I'm just going
to focus on bringing people in, andthen the rest will take care of itself.

(07:59):
And you and I both know that is crap.
But, that was the mentality.
And, what's so fascinating, and thisis, gets me to my point, what's so
fascinating, is the other day oneof sort of the big voices out there
in digital marketing came out with apost that was, what's happening now

(08:22):
is that if you are not focusing ontransformation, with your customers, you
are going to be knocked out of the game.
Information, for information'ssake, is not going to be
the thing that people want.
Because again, we have AI now.
AI, you could go out and belike, give me all the information

(08:42):
topics about blah blah blah.
And it will spit it out, it will createthe thing for you, it'll even do your
video without you even doing video.
Right?
The game has changed.
And so all of those people who werejust selling a bunch of crap that was
just, basically a Google dump are nowgoing to be in a position where their

(09:03):
consumers are more sophisticated.
Their consumers are not going to buyanymore because there's not going to
be an element of transformation, anelement of a curated experience that
helps somebody go from where theyare today to where they want to go.
And I just, it makes me so happybecause it's finally going to

(09:24):
be something that people hear.
And so this is my moment because I havebeen talking about this for 20 years and
I still have had people go, wait, what?
Obviously I have awesome people likeyou who know exactly why this makes
a difference to your customers.
And, honestly, to your bottom line,who are really committed to building

(09:49):
something that solves a real problemand helps people move from where
they are today to where they wantto go to create that transformation.
Now what's exciting about that is youcan create this transformation in a
similar format than you could creatinginformation type courses, right?

(10:10):
It's just a different approach.
It's just a different way of puttingthe pieces together to make it into
an experience that helps somebodyactually do what they want to do versus
just dumping them full of information.
So I was very excited whenI saw that because it means

(10:30):
that the industry is changing.
It means that now the people who that wasfalling on deaf ears before are now of
course, talking about it, which is veryexciting and totally frustrating at the
same place because they have a biggerplatform so they're able to share it
wider, but I am thrilled that messaging iscoming out because it's 100 percent true,

(10:54):
which is what all of my clients realizeand why they have committed to not only
packaging their expertise, but creating anexperience that helps people get results
without maxing out their time, right?
There's a way to do it in,I would call it a hybrid.

(11:15):
I, 90 percent of it can be automated.
But you're doing it by creatingan experience as they go.
So you're thinking about the journeythat your customers are going on,
and you're putting different piecesin place to help them actually
become successful along the path.
Not just giving them all of your expertisein terms of all the information and all

(11:38):
of the things It's really looking at whatthey need at the time that they need it
so that they can do the thing that theyneed to do so that they can move on to
the next step and it's as simple as that,but it takes a reframe of your thinking.
And that my friends in a nutshell ishow you stay out of becoming irrelevant

(11:59):
in the AI game you are creating acurated experience for your people to
help them go from point A to point Bthat requires more than just a bunch of
information that can be spit out from AI.
So I am thrilled, but I was so happy tohear that conversation kind of bubbling up
because it is something that you're goingto hear about more and more as we start to

(12:23):
transition from the sort of the old schooltraditional, like, automated courses or
evergreen courses into how do we leveragethe power of automation and platforms to
create a curated experience that feelspersonalized and moves people into action

(12:47):
at the right times throughout the journey.
So I am so excited for what is to come.
If you are interested in talking alittle bit about this and wait, do
I have just a course that's full ofinformational videos and topics, or
do I have something that's curated?
Interesting.
Let us know.
I would be happy to take a lookat what you have and offer some

(13:09):
suggestions in terms of how to startshifting it into a transformation.
If you are starting to build your onlineexperience or business for the very
first time, and you're like, I want tomake sure I start right so I don't end
up in a position where either nobodybuys or you've built all of this stuff

(13:30):
and it's not actually what people need?
Again, get on mycalendar, schedule a call.
I would be happy to talk through astrategy for how do you move that forward.
All right, my friends, thank you so muchfor listening to this episode, and I just
challenge you to start thinking about thetransformations that you are going to be
able to create for your customers, notonly once when they come into your world

(13:54):
for the first time, but over and overagain as they become a customer for life.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure yougive it a like or subscribe depending upon
what platform you are listening to it on.
Alright, take care until next time.