AI is great, isn’t it?
🤖 It suggests new shows for you to binge on Netflix (anyone else feeling bummed that the latest season of Love Is Blind is over soon?)
🤖 It lets you get answers faster than waiting for someone to answer your question on the phone (something I waited 2 hours for yesterday)
🤖 It can take the jumbled to-do list in your Notes app and arrange it on your calendar in a beautiful way so you don’t have to spend hours juggling your calendar
And while AI is doing such a great job of simplifying our lives, it’s doing something else to real humans working to make a real living with a life-first business…
AI has given people a reason to actively avoid conversations involving cringe-y pitching, awkward pauses, or excruciating wait times.
That’s according to new research from Forrester, who determined that AI has shifted how people research products, find new ideas, and kickstart projects. It used to be people who did this heavy lifting. Now it’s a bot, and that’s bad for the people who once believed you could pick up new business simply by blasting a few DMs on LinkedIn, letting them know you were available.
And while that can feel frustrating in some ways, I actually find it refreshing.
The strategy for growing a business that doesn’t require sacrificing time with your kids, time at home, or travel has shifted in the best way.
My little online business just became a teenager, which means I’ve had over 13 years of watching the pendulum swing from one side to the other and back again. It started with simple blogging to show up in search results, simple networking to earn new business, and simple emails to nurture people into a contract.
Then, the complex funnels set in (which I still love for a lot of reasons).
Then, complicated marketing event strategies took center stage (which can still be valuable in many ways).
Now, AI is predicting and responding to buying behaviors in a way that seems to be totally taking people out of the mix.
As far as the pendulum has swung away from simplicity, it’s now coming back again to center, and I believe that’s thanks to AI.
We’re at a tipping point for building businesses online.
In that same Forrester research interview, VP and Research Director Steven Casey said, “If all you’re really focused on is growing your revenue, and you’re just pushing the buyer as quickly [as possible] through the process that you’ve built, you’re going to keep doing things that just really don’t meet [their] needs, like bombarding them with emails and cold calls.”
That statement proves that all the digital business strategy chaos is returning to center. We get to automate, create, and show off our brains while also keeping things simple, human, and relatable.
What a relief!
💡 Complex funnels are actually personalized experiences, using technology to simplify your job as the business owner hoping to land new customers or contracts.
💡 Marketing events are an invitation for a human touch instead of a daunting two-week bombardment that steals you, the entrepreneur, away from your family morning, noon, and night in a make-or-break scenario.
💡 And you don’t have to go through the tormenting pain of cold-pitching your audience in ways that feel gross but instead can forge new connections with intentional networking.
As much as people are leaning into AI to actively avoid talking to people, they’re still leaning on trusted friends and influencers to cut through the noise and make buying decisions.
💞 We crave human connection in a screen-filled world.
💞 We crave someone trusted to help us make decisions.
💞 We crave personal touch.
The humanity is still there. Our behaviors are just shifting so we can have both AI and human touch to keep our lives simpler, easier, and less noisy.
If you’re ready to build a business where referrals come your way after your name was name dropped in small, authentic side conversations, you need intentional networking. Next week, The Prosper Network is hosting a free event that’ll show you what that looks like and could even open new doors to help your business ideas flourish.
Save your seat for The Smart Woman’s Secret to Networking next Wednesday, March 12 at 9 Pacific/Noon Eastern. There will be a replay if you can’t be on live.
This is the way,