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If your business still needs you every day to survive, it’s time to flip the script and scale for freedom.
In this episode, Samantha Riley and Kel Holliday unpack what scaling to freedom really means, and why growth without structure often leads to burnout, tech overwhelm, and businesses that collapse the moment the owner steps back.
You’ll hear what needs to come first before systems or technology ever work, how to think about your business when life throws curveballs, and why mindset, planning, and clarity matter more than any shiny new tool. They also dig into how to choose technology that actually supports long-term growth, instead of locking you into constant switching, patching, and relearning.
During this conversation we discuss automation, AI, and systems ,with a very clear line drawn around what should be automated and what absolutely shouldn’t. If you work in a people-based business, you’ll hear why relationships still matter more than efficiency, how to use technology without losing your voice, and what really allows a business to keep running when you step away.
If you want a business that gives you choice, not one that traps you, this episode will help you see where freedom is really created. It’s not about doing less. It’s about building differently.
It’s time for you to design a business that supports your life, not the other way around.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- 01:57 – What forces business owners to rethink their model
- 06:43 – How systems protect your business when life doesn’t go to plan
- 10:20 – Why mindset must come before systems or technology (and how limiting beliefs keep you stuck)
- 14:35 – How future-focused thinking changes your decisions today (especially around tools, money, and growth)
- 18:58 – Why chasing shiny tools can create more work, not less
- 25:22 – Why all-in-one systems reduce complexity, cost, and mental load as your business scales
- 30:11 – What should be automated, what shouldn’t, and why people-based businesses still need human connection
- 35:55 – How AI fits into a values-led business without replacing relationships or trust
- 40:40 – Why the right people can make or break a business transition
ABOUT KEL HOLLIDAY
Kel is a 5-time best-selling author and internationally recognised leadership expert featured by Fox, ABC, and NBC. A lifelong entrepreneur and tech educator, he has founded and scaled 13 companies from $500k to $45M. Kel now empowers entrepreneurs worldwide to scale with freedom-focused systems, smart technology, and team development for sustainable growth.
WHERE TO FIND KEL HOLLIDAY
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelvin.Holliday
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelvinholliday
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transformationalhub/
- Website: https://productivityhub.tech/
- Website: transformationalhub.com
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:03
Welcome to today’s episode of Business Growth Lab. I’m your host, Samantha Riley, and today we’re going to talk about scaling, as we often do, specifically how to scale to freedom. And I’ve invited Kel Holliday to join me, who I’ve known for many, many, many years, and he’s got some very cool stories to share. So Kel, well, welcome to the show.
Kel Holliday 0:28
Thank you, Samantha, it’s been great having you as a friend for many years, but it’s really great to be on the show today. Absolutely.
Samantha Riley 0:35
I can’t believe you haven’t actually been on the show. So this has been exciting that you’re here joining me, seeing we’ve known each other for so long. It’s kind of weird that sometimes I think, how have I known this person for so long? And then all of a sudden, you’re like, hang on a minute. Have you been on the show?
Kel Holliday 0:53
Oh, man, I’m a bit of enigma. I like to jump around a little bit. I probably dodged you a couple of times, but you’re finally …
Samantha Riley 1:01
So scaling to scale to freedom. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. You’ve been in business and in the coaching space for over 30 years now, but what you’re doing now is very, very different. You’re over, living in Thailand, living the dream, doing all the cool things and I want to say, and I wanted to sort of set that context, because you have been around for so long. There was no, you know, technology and AI, when you and I were running our businesses back in the 90s. Can you talk about, let’s kind of like, move forward a little bit. You moved to Thailand. In 2022 you completely changed your business model. Let’s start there, and then we’ll work backwards and move forwards again. Like what was it that happened in 2022 that made you completely change your business model?
Kel Holliday 1:57
Interesting question. It was, we just came out of covid, all right. And so a lot of us understand, we talk about that pivot. I’m not exactly the fan of the pivot sort of thinking, but I had actually retired in 2018 fully retired, and a couple of things happened, and I had to restart up in business, etc. And when I started up in business, then Covid hit, come out to 2022, I’ve sort of like, been through that lockdown like everybody else, and rediscovered what it was to be in business. And as you said, 30 years in coaching, I realized that technology was still my passion, and I love that. But I also went through a couple of years from 2022, to now, of poor health. All right, so I’ve just, just recently, last week, went through the 10th time of having covid. And when you get yourself knocked out like that, you’ve got to reinvent yourself, and you got to scale, and you got to be able to, your business has got to be able to run without you. And so me being confronted in 2022 with that first bout of Covid, lot of other trauma going on in my life. I actually, unfortunately through a divorce, and I escaped to Thailand to live the life that I’d already wanted, always wanted to live, and I had to reinvent how it was and what it was I was doing in the past. How could I bring that forward and live that free life, doing what I love to do? So covid was a big trigger. Health was a big trigger. Change of life. You know, we all go through changes of life, and now we get belted around a little bit. I got belted around with some different relationship issues and so I come out the other side going, well, what is it that I, what I know passionately, what is it that thing that I do best? What do I want to do? So I had to re-look at my purpose in life, and I said, this is, this is, this is the direction I’m going to go. And so it’s a bit, a bit of a change, a lot of a change. And, yeah, it was a, it was a, and it’s, but it’s been a fun journey. Yeah, might have been in hospital a lot of that time. Did 26 weeks in three years in hospital. It’s insane. But when you’re laying in bed a lot, and you’ve got that sort of level of poor health, you’ve got to think differently. And yeah, it’s been a fun time and an unfun time.
Samantha Riley 4:33
Yeah, well, sorry that you’ve had so many health issues, but I’m really glad that you shared that, because I think that, from the outside, people can look and say, oh, you know, Kells living in Thailand, is living the dream, which is one side of the story, but it doesn’t need to be like a he’s living the dream, or it’s a really like a shit time, because you’re going through these health issues, it can be both it’s you’re living the dream and you’ve got health issues. And I think that one of the important parts of this story is that we all have challenges. You know, sometimes, you know, my clients will be like, Oh, it’s different for me. I don’t understand that. Or it’s different for me because I don’t have XYZ in place, or, you know, whatever the story is. But we all have those times that are hard, that are challenging, that almost break us with, you know, different traumas that come up. And it’s about using those or leaning into them and saying, Well, how can I almost use these to either share my message more or to make my business better, or, you know, whatever it is, and that’s essentially what you’ve done. You’ve been like, well, help it. You’ve always helped coaches to grow, and now it’s about helping them to also get their freedom, their time back. And I think that’s really, really important. And I really want to dive into this today, because I think that there’s a majority of people that think that having these, you know, 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week means that you just step away from your business. But it’s actually not the case. You have to have things in place so that it continues to run while you’re 10 hours or 20 hours or in hospital, you know, it could be looking after a sick parent or having sick children or your own health or, you know, whatever it is. But putting the things in place right now so that you’ve got that freedom, or that choice of freedom if something happens, or just if you want to go lie on a beach is really important now, not you can’t do it when it happens.
Kel Holliday 6:43
Absolutely. I say it very clearly. If you don’t dig the well deep enough first, you are really going to struggle in the end. I love that the Forrest Gump sort of comment, life is like a box of chocolates. You got it. There’s lots of variety of things that can be toxic and, or, you know, sweet in life, and, and if you’re not prepared for pretty much anything that can come your way, anything can knock you out. Yeah, and, yeah, you got it. You’ve got to be tough. You got it. You got to. And we talked about resilience. There’s resilience, and then there’s, you know, resilience, it’s like you really got to tough it out sometimes, and sometimes it’s just damn harm. And if you give up too early, if you don’t have those systems in place, if you don’t have the right sort of framework and mindset to say, regardless of what happens, I’m focused on my purpose, how I want to add value into into the clients and the people I work with. If you’re not clear on that, you will start to stray. And that’s when levels of self doubt and self belief, that was, that were the things that, in some respects, I might have been just too much of a blockhead. You know, I blockhead. Yeah? Like, I just went, Yeah, nah. I know I’ve got something to contribute, and I will say this, Sam, and we said this at the start, you and I have been around together. We’ve known each other for a long time, and I’ve watched your podcasts, and we’ve got some good friends, right, mutual friends, and some of them other mentors. And so having that, that right group of people around you when the times do get tough, such an important factor. And so they can pick you, they could pick you up, right? They can say to you, Hey, kill Yeah, you might be sick now, but just keep on pressing forward, rather than those people who, the negative Nellies who go out and say, Oh, gee whiz. Just take some time out. Well, if that’s not how you’re wired and or if you are wired, these sounds can give up for a little while. You really got to challenge yourself and say, what is the most important thing for you?
Samantha Riley 9:02
100% oh my goodness, I could not agree more. Last year, you know, you mentioned you need to have good self confidence and self worth and all of that. I actually did not. Last year, I went through a period of, oh my goodness. What am I doing? Like, am I meant to be doing this after all these years, like, I went through some all sorts of like, personal stuff last year, but I was surrounded by a really good group of people that, you know, did pick me up, but it was also because I was so wired into my purpose. So it was very easy when it was just a simple question for me to go, oh god, yeah, of course, like, this is totally what I’m meant to be doing. And it was just showing me, let’s do it a better way. So let’s talk more about a better way, because that’s what you are really good at. And it’s really about bringing the technology piece in so that you can build a business that can run without you. So my question here is, is systems are also just as important as the technology for someone that’s listening, what’s the very first thing that you want to share around? Like, what comes first technology or systems, or how do they work together?
Kel Holliday 10:20
What comes first is getting this right.
Samantha Riley 10:25
For anyone that’s listening, it’s your mindset, it’s your head, your mindset.
Kel Holliday 10:29
If you have a mindset, is nobody can do it as good as I can. I’m the only one that can do it. I don’t have enough money to buy that piece of technology or to get the help. If you have those mindsets, they’re the limiting beliefs. Your mindset has got to come first. And then what I would say is that building the systems is about getting the right pieces of technology. Then you can build your team, because if you’re, if you are starting to control things. If you have, if you think that you are the only one that can do what you do, stop just stop it. You have got to actually say how the flip side, or the perspective you need to have is, how do I get out of my head what it is that I am doing every day that’s taking my time that doesn’t need me. That’s step number one. So look, I’ve been doing this for a long time, so just writing a list of all the things you do, that’s called a time in motion study, you just write down all the things you do. I’m posting on social media. I’m doing this. I’m doing all those things, answering emails. How do you then build a system that you can give that somebody else to do so you can do what you’re best at that makes the money. That’s the reality, because those things that you don’t like doing are going to pull you down, and things you don’t like doing you stop doing. That’s generally the most important things, quite often in the marketing, the sales, the having those continuing conversations. So once you get that mindset in place, then you start to use some technology. So technology to build systems, screen capture software, a bit of AI. So some of those different training videos you might need to train somebody else to do what you do. That’s the starting point. Then once you’ve got those sort of things, and you may already have a CRM that the technology, and CRMs and all the different AI, yeah, it’s, it’s phenomenal, what’s out there. But you’re thinking, then you actually get your technology, the right technology stack, all right? It’s a very important thing. And if I say in that technology stack, one of the biggest and the fundamental challenges we have, and every client I talk to, is they go and they go, when they start to use that technology, they start looking for technology. They get that mindset of, I can’t afford anything. And so they go for the free version. They go for the freebie. Just stop it. I can’t say that enough. If you cannot afford to have the subscription for the one you need, therefore you don’t need it. All right, having the subscription. Yeah, just look, and I’ll just use Chat GPT is a great example. The difference between Chat GPT, if a free version, compared to the pay version for 20 bucks a week, is phenomenal, and 20 bucks a month, like your top the amount of time you save, will save you more than $20 a month. So having the right mindset, the mindset is, soon as you go, I can’t afford it, I’m going to look for the freebie version. You’re already in danger, danger zone. It’s a trap, yeah, yeah, all right. And it’s a marketing trap that these software companies, and I’m a software company now they we go, there we go, Hey, here’s your free version, all right? And you get so stuck in it and so much to use it. Then when you want to do a little bit more, they then start to charge you, and it goes up and up and up. And now you’re caught in a situation where your subscription levels go up because you’re using it more. Yes, and you’ve done no planning, no thinking about where do I want to be long term, and how do I pick the right technology stack today that will serve me into where I want to be.
Samantha Riley 14:35
Totally. It’s thinking about who that person is in the future, so that you can do it right now, because who wants to be changing software as well? Like, I’ve seen this happen so much. It’s like, well, I know that I want to be at, you know, 100k a month, for example. And then, you know, coming back and choosing the free of something you can’t be that. 100k person now, because you don’t have the systems and the technology to create that now. And I know years ago, I don’t have it on my laptop anymore, because I think it was so ingrained in my thinking that I don’t need the constant daily reminder. But it’s, what do I need to be able to do to afford that? And I used to have on my laptop. So every time, when I was starting off, when, you know, I needed a piece of software, or I wanted to go on a holiday, whatever it was, it was like, instead of saying, I can’t afford it, or what do I need to do to be able to afford it, and it flips the the actions that you take, it’s like, oh, okay, so what I need to do is be able to assign a new MRR client. Okay, well, what do I need to be able to do that rather than I can’t afford it, so I’ll spend my time going to look for the free thing. It completely changes the actions.
Kel Holliday 15:53
Absolutely it flips it. And so once you get out of that freedom mindset, the same thing is, when it comes to building your team, they say, I can’t afford to put on any stuff. Well, the reality is, if you want to scale and grow and if you want freedom, it’s either got to be a technology solution or engaging in a team solution to give you the freedom you want. You can’t do nothing and expect to get income. You’ve got to actually invest into the right technology and or the right team, but you’ve got to get your thinking right first. And so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a never ending circle. You got to think it through, plan it through. Just like we put a business plan together, you got to have a technology plan. So you know, what is the technology pieces I need now that’s going to take me to where I need to be, and while I’m on that, like, I used chat GPT earlier as an example, but there’s now a number of different versions. Like, you’ve got Manus, you got perplexity, you got all these different ones. You got Gemini coming. Okay? And you said it earlier, Sam, that the amount of time we spend learning a particular piece of software, that’s there’s a cost to your time. And then if you do have team, and you change technology, now it’s you’ve got to learn it, and your team’s got to learn it, now you’re compounding the cost by changing technology, like bright, shiny, shiny objects are going to be everywhere for you, and every piece of software is going to promise you freedom and saving you time. But in fact, it’s actually wasting you time at the start, so planning it at the first step, and then maybe, and I say, maybe you might want to look at it, say, once a year, or once every six months, and look at your technologies that, and say, does this serve me well? Now that’s planned. It’s not going, Oh, here’s another bright, shiny object. I’ll just change over to that one, because, you know, these people are doing good on it. So I’ll just change over there. It’s a thinking process. It’s a mindset planning process throughout the whole thing.
Samantha Riley 18:08
totally Well, let’s talk about that technology stack, because, let’s face it, there are millions of options of different technology we can use. It can be easy to get caught up in. I’ll just Leon and I talk about this a lot on the podcast, about getting lots of different bright, shiny objects and like duct taping them together and then wondering why they’re breaking or it’s not working. What are some of the considerations for someone that’s listening to this right now or watching on the technology stack that they need to have in place, how do they start to really get clear on what they need and what just might be bright and shiny and not really what they need?
Kel Holliday 18:58
Yeah, fantastic question. Well, for me, when I look at a technology stack for either my business or any business, I always look at like just because it’s new and shiny and it looks good now, who is the company behind it? It’s really important. Let me just give you an understanding like open AI with Chat, GPT coming up first, it was the one that hit the market a couple of years ago. Changed our whole perspective of business. Yeah, cut for a second.
Samantha Riley 19:41
Just get your breath back.
Kel Holliday 19:47
Excuse me, hang on.
Samantha Riley 19:49
No, please take your time. I know what it’s like, and it just catches.
Kel Holliday 19:56
Yeah, okay, so. Yeah, so Chat GPT came out, hit the market. It’s got about 30, 40% of the market space now. But here’s a little thought for you. Gemini, Google was late to the party, in the AI party, it was late. So, yeah, you had other AIS coming out research type AI, as I’m talking about the agentic first level of AI. Now Gemini is on the market. It is starting to take off, and it’s getting more and more traction. I would be looking at that one. There’s Gemini over and above, chat, GPT. There’s another one called Manus. Between those three, you really don’t need a lot. What other ones? Yeah, there’s perplexity. There’s a lot of other ones around. But the basic principle is, what I’m saying to you is have a look at the company behind the AI. When you think of something like grok, yeah, we’ve got Elon Musk sitting behind that now. Elon Musk is, yeah, very intelligent guy, and he’s got a lot of resources behind him, but nowhere near the resources of Google, nowhere near it. Google is by far the largest on the planet, so I’d always think of that Microsoft, you know, in their sort of inversion there, they’ve partnered up with open AI and chat GPT, and they’re sort of like amalgamated, so they look like they’re going ahead, but the reality is, it’s just a partnership and behind the scenes. So always have a look at the technology to see what’s behind it. Who was who was there. And so when you pick it, don’t necessarily pick the piece of software that is the best right now, look at the software and say, what is going to be the best in three months, six months, 12 months time. And sometimes that’s a bit of, you know, bit of a wish or hope or or it might be just a bit of logic. So look, look at those things. There’s a lot of platforms out there that are now becoming individual. As I said, 500 new AI apps coming out per week. That’s in 500 pain to me. Yeah, in two in just over two years since open AI really got started, and it really took off the whole AI in two years, 45,000 AI applications on the market today. That’s crazy as a business owner, as a solepreneur, even if you’ve got two or three in your team, there is no way you can keep up with it. And if you think that changing from one to the other every day is going to be good for you, that’s the wrong sort of thinking. It is going to cause you damage, you’re going to get into tech overwhelm. And if you’re not tech overwhelmed, your team will be, and everybody else. And even when you go to your branding, you know like Manus or chat GPT, all these different ones will do things differently, and it affects your brand and your image. So pick one, pick it well, plan it out. Know where you’re going to go and do a bit of research on it. Spend your time researching the application, rather than chopping and changing and testing this and trying that.
Samantha Riley 23:22
Totally, I am. I got caught up in this a couple of years ago because I was looking for a software where, essentially, I could ask questions I can’t think of like what it’s called, but essentially, I wanted to be able to ask questions, survey. That’s what I was after a survey software, and I picked up something that actually was really good, but I picked it up on AppSumo, so and, of course, like anything on AppSumo, they’re usually, like startups, and we went to use it a couple of months ago, and I went, where’d it go? And they’re not there anymore, like, because they just there was a whole story behind it. But essentially, you know, that’s also something to take into consideration. To have something that is, I from there, it’s like, okay, has it been around for a while? Is it robust? Does it like, you know, do what I want it to do? Because sometimes it’s, there’s even a little bit more behind the story. Yeah.
Kel Holliday 24:22
And also, as I said, like, if you, if you want a technology stack every, you just gotta look at your time every time you go, I’m going to use this, this tool for this job, and this tool for this job, and this tool for this job. Now you got 567, 1020, tools, all right, that you actually now bouncing around on saving all these passwords that within itself is a is a bit of a mind meld, but you gotta, you gotta start to think of what is it that’s a lot of what I what I call all in one systems. Now, they don’t do everything, but there’s a lot of all in one systems that can bring your tech. Technology together in such a way that they might not be the absolute best on the market.
Kel Holliday 25:07
Okay, for some reason, my camera does that every now and again.
Samantha Riley 25:17
I was like, is it river side of your camera? Yeah, it’s my camera.
Kel Holliday 25:22
There’s a lot of technology around these days that are starting to put pieces together. In other words, they’re an all in one style solution, like Zoho has done it. HubSpot has done it, Salesforce, which is one of the first CRMs, have done it, and they’ve all done it, okay, go high level is probably the one that now it’s been going around for about six years, seven years, yeah, but I would say that’s been reasonable. It’s been going since 2018 and I’ve been using it since 2019 but it is one platform that is totally now got its solid foundation, and it’s got a lot of the pieces in it that you’ll need for your business. And it’s becoming extremely popular. It’s now most people don’t know this. It’s the number one CRM on the planet, being used by the majority of businesses.
Samantha Riley 26:12
It is. I knew that it had certainly taken off. Well, I had no idea it was the number one.
Kel Holliday 26:18
It has got the most amount of users in the world,
Samantha Riley 26:22
wow, as a single
Kel Holliday 26:23
platform, great platform. And what I like about high level, go high level, whatever you’d like to your school of thought, or GHL. A lot of people, I was gonna say GHL, GHL, go high level, or high level, yeah, they get into that debate. Just know that’s a good piece of technology, and it’s now got a solid foundation. That’s the sort of technology that becomes your, what I call your platform. Originally, we would always would go, Okay, let’s get a Google platform or a Microsoft or maybe an Apple as our operating system. That’s what we’ve all that’s what we’ve been trained to think of since, you know, since the internet really come out, Google was the first one. So Google is a great place to have a company, but high level is fast becoming a solution that’s going to actually not take over Google, but it’s actually combining that Google sort of philosophy. In other words, it allows you to build everything inside of it and build your business. So you’ve got one application or one sign in to be able to do 90% of the work you need to your business. Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s a, and so again, doing that research, would I have said this for you three or four years ago? No, now, absolutely, you know, I didn’t quite know about I took a bit of a punt myself, thinking, Oh, this could be, could get there. There’s been another several, all in one touch, CRMs, that’s come and gone in that time. Some of them are still sort of like hanging on there, but they’re not anywhere within QE on it. So that’s one that I use that I recommend. I find that, yeah, that’s a really good, solid base. And the AI components in it for your AI voice bots and your normal tech spots and conversational bots, it’s all there. Is it the best? No, it’s not has its performance increased significantly? Absolutely, is it fast becoming equivalent to some of its competitors? Yes, it is. That’s what you got to look at. It’s the same principle across any technology. Where is it now and is it heading in the right direction that it’s going to save you time. Now, I know myself that some of the features inside of that don’t quite work as well as what I would like, as good as some other individual, standalone type applications, but I can put up with that because I don’t have to cut and paste and pay an extra subscription. Yeah, that actually, and you said it before, like all the pieces of software, we’ve got to hold together with sticky tape, and we’ve got to use things like Zapier and make or Nan. Once you got an all in one system, it all talks to each other. You don’t have this what I, data leakage, all right? Or the copy and paste sort of phenomenon that’s still taking your time, yeah, it’s, it’s having the right technology, that right technology stack that works for you, so that you can be free. That’s the key.
Samantha Riley 29:38
Let’s talk about that being free. We’re talking about the technology here, to be free, to have the choice to use our time in different ways. What are some of the things that people need to consider that they can’t walk away from? So we’re not just going all right, well, I’m just going to not be there today, but then the business. This doesn’t fall over. What are some of the things that we want our technology to keep doing on our behalf while we’re not there?
Kel Holliday 30:11
This is the era of automation, all right, so when we start to talk about automation and making sure things are happening without us while we’re asleep. So our lead generation, our social media marketing, or whatever it might be, not a problem at all. Like, let’s automate as much as we can of those sort of processes. A lot of people have gone to the stage of, well, let me make a deep fake and we’ll make a look at me, and we’ll do all these false, you know, false, fake sort of videos and stuff like, and then they start to get into the space of, oh, hang on a second. I’ll do voice AI, yeah, to do my sales work. Now. I know it’s working for some people now, and some people are saying, from a freedom point of view that gives me the freedom that I want. I’ve got a business, or I’ve got a product or service that I’m selling, that will do okay. But if you’re in the people business, people still want to talk to people.
Samantha Riley 31:15
And as coaches, we are in the people business, absolutely.
Kel Holliday 31:20
If you’re, I’ve done a lot of public speaking. I’ve been, as you know, I’ve been coaching for a long time. People want to talk to the people. People want to talk to their coach. They don’t want to talk or they don’t want to engage with an AI. You Yeah. Now, there are some things you can do there, but in my opinion, and what I’ve done within my business, if I’ve used AI for anything, I’ll always say, Hey, this is AI kill.
Samantha Riley 31:48
So it’s really clear. Call it out up front.
Kel Holliday 31:50
You call it you call it as it is. Hey, I’m just saving a bit of time. This is AI kill, bringing you live some of this stuff. So if you are transparent with people that tell them when it’s AI, tell them when it’s not AI, but keep the relationship. Your business will thrive on relationships, not on the use of technology. Yeah, and you’re the only person. You’re the only commodity as a business owner and leader, you’re the only commodity that cannot be replaced. So you’ve just got to automate the things you don’t like doing, the email, the emails, the social media, that all that sort of stuff can be done, automating all your task management, building a system so that one of your team members can do things, but don’t take away the personality. It’s that’s, that’s going to be the challenge.
Samantha Riley 32:48
Because that personality is, that is your USP, and it’s, you know, we can talk about, well, you know your USP is your offer or your, you know, your messaging. But really it’s, it’s you, it’s who you are, because people connect with that difference, but of what makes you you, of the way that you think, the way that you act, the way that you know you communicate, whatever, whatever it is. And I think, personally, I believe that that is what’s going to make us stand out, and it already is like most of us can already read a post and go, Oh, I know. AI, write that because it’s got a certain cadence, it’s got a certain flow. So to have that cut through, it’s actually about leaning in and creating, you know, the way that you normally create, even if it isn’t, you know, put in air quotes perfect, because that’s why, you know, a lot of us leaned into AI, and most of us did. You know, I’m, you know, I pull back from it a little bit now and go, Okay, well, I don’t want to lose the way that I write. I don’t want to lose my little quirks in the way that I communicate, because that’s what makes me, me.
Kel Holliday 34:02
Yeah, absolutely. And so this is, this is where, in some respects, with the AI space, you got to understand the levels of AI and, and where does, where does the human fit into that space? Where does it fit? So, yeah, where does it, where do we fit, all right, into that space. And that’s, that’s the mentality. It’s about, where does the AI fit into our environment, not where we fit into that? Yes, and, and so once you start thinking about the levels, what you’ve got the knowledge sort of level? Yeah, your Chat GPTs manage those sort of levels. And then you’ve got your automation sort of level, and then you’ve got your agent level. In other words, the agents then replace you. That’s, that’s the position. So there’s three, but also chat, GPG can write emails, but just have a closer look. All right, there’s lots of way to program your now. There’s, there’s, there’s a little learning for you to do to make sure that you’re getting the right. Information out of Chatty or manage perplexity, or whatever you’re going to use. But once you’ve got that content, make it your own. You still got to do something to it, all right? And your humanity will actually do that. Your personality will do that. When you get into automation, that is just hey, this needs to be done. That task needs to be done. Move that here. Move that there. That’s not too much of a challenge. It’s when you get into the agent space, if you’re going to start building AI agents, I use them. They’re great. Just be aware that your clients might not like them. The people you’re dealing with on a day to day might not like them. It might be good for you to get free, but if you take yourself 100% out of the business, is it your business, or is it just an AI business running in the background? And is that sustainable?
Samantha Riley 35:55
Totally. I know there was a lot of talk last year about AI running sales calls. And, you know, there was a lot of people that were contacting me saying, Hey, you should do this because, you know, it’s really good conversion rates, because the AI is just, you know, relentless. But I know that if I have an AI, a bot agent, I don’t know who they are. I don’t know the right terminology. When they ring me, I can hear it straight away, and I just hang up and I personally, and this is where you need to know where your values sit. Well, I personally don’t want to run a business that’s like that. I love the connection. I love that, you know, I know my clients really well. I want them to know me really well. They, you know, they know the name of my grandbaby, and they, they know what days I don’t work because I’m hanging out with him, and that’s the way I want it to be. And I again, that’s, that’s the way, that’s my values. So it can get, you can get caught in thinking, well, I could do this to make it easier, but does it? Does it align with your values?
Kel Holliday 37:03
Absolutely, that it’s aligning internally. Again, it’s also about your client, the people you’re working with, and so I just put this parallel to you, going back a little while ago, before this whole area of AI, if you got a phone call and the person on the other end of the phone call didn’t have an Australian accent or a European type accent, they might have had a Indian Pakistan in your Asian style accent, you instantly go, this is a cold call. I don’t really want to talk to this. Well, what do we do? No, no, thank you. Honk and we hang up, yep, yep, AI is just the next evolution of that cold caller. If you’re an AI, it’s just another, people can tell that, and they think that, what are they going to do? They’re going to keep on hanging up and and you might, it might work for a period of time, and there’s going to be some things that help now, if you a, knowledge bank area or helping people to get information from you, that will help in the sales process, fantastic. That will save you time, but have the relational conversation, nothing’s going to take nothing’s going to replace the human to human relationship. And if you think it’s going to happen that way, there’s a lot of big gurus out there saying it is. There’s still too many of us old folk, yeah, like, I’ve been in technology since the 80s, you know? So I love technology, I love the advancements, but I still love people more.
Samantha Riley 38:42
That last bit there, because that’s exactly what was in my head. But I love talking with people more, because it’s the connection, it’s the relationships. And I think that that’s something that we really need to remember. I was going to say lean into, but remember, because, you know, part of where we started was we had times that were bad and we leaned on the people around us. You don’t lean on a piece of technology. The technology enhances what you’re doing or makes it easier, but it doesn’t replace the people. It doesn’t replace me reaching out to someone and going, oh my can you know, if you got 10 minutes, can you jump on Zoom? I really need to talk this through. Or I’m really going through this bad time that, you know, I know you can use Chat GPT for that, but it’s not the same as a real person.
Kel Holliday 39:38
It’s a tool. It’s just another tool, the very advanced tool, but it’s still another tool in your toolbox.
Samantha Riley 39:48
Yeah, yeah, totally. Let’s talk about the people more, because I know you’ve got an event coming up, and I guess I want to tell, touch on this, because I’d love to know from your perspective, because you have been in business for so long, if you think about the transition points of different businesses, because both of us have had multiple businesses and sort of exited and started or bought and sold at all of those transition points. How much did you have that group around you to support, and how much did that change the new direction that you were heading? Does that make sense?
Kel Holliday 40:40
Yeah, it does. Having the right people around me, and sometimes the right people are seasonal, yes. So, yeah, very seasonal. So sometimes you like, if you’ve got low self esteem or self belief, or whatever it might be, you need somebody to you need a group of people that are going to pick up. You’re always again, need that, but you don’t need everybody to be that, but sometimes you do, yes. Right now, what we need around us is people in the AI technology space that know that space extremely well, but still give you an unbiased opinion so that you can, they can actually help you, rather than just try and sell you the next thing. So having those people of trust in your environment is going to be the particularly now, with so much happening, social media, your email inbox, everybody’s selling their latest thing, one of the things that it’s a bit of a bit that challenging when I see it, when when I see a friend go out on the Facebook say, Hey, I’m thinking about getting this piece of technology. What’s your experience?
Samantha Riley 41:47
Oh, I meant to ask you about that before.
Kel Holliday 41:50
That to me is a person that is confused and they and what it’s showing me is, is they don’t trust the people in their current network that they should be trusting that they don’t have somebody in their network if they’re throwing it out on social media asking for an opinion, that’s one of two things. It’s a bait post trying to get you to commit to them, engage, all right? And they’ve got, they’ve really got an answer that they’re trying to share with you, or they really don’t know either way. It’s just, that is not the way to get your information by throwing it out on social media because it’s too generic. You need to look at it individually. So over these years, having the right people for the right season is critical. And then there’s an underlying Yes, who are the people that keep you grounded in your life, just in general? So we talk about quite often, that’s family and friends. But I’ve had some relationship challenges, and sometimes those people even change. And you got to know who are the people that they’re going to have your back no matter what, and it’s not until you have something that happens in your life that you really find out who they are.
Samantha Riley 43:08
Oh, very well said, absolutely.
Kel Holliday 43:12
Yeah, so I’m not saying go through don’t go out there and get covid 10 times. Don’t go through a divorce. Don’t change countries. Don’t do that to test your friends? Not a good idea.
Samantha Riley 43:28
I want to share a little story that speaks into that, a little bit about making sure that you’ve got the right people around you. Because about,, for maybe about 12 months ago, I was told, and this is, this is kind of funny and kind of frustrating, but I was told the meta pixel, you don’t need it anymore, like it’s, there’s you don’t need to have on your website. Okay, I took that at face value. Believe me, I’m really, really glad I’ve got the coach that I’ve got right now teaching me, no, you very much need your meta pixel, so you’ve got to make sure that you do have the right people around you.
Kel Holliday 44:07
100%. Yeah, yeah. Kissed her out. I’ve got another story for you. I think this wraps up, and you know, you’ll talk about the event that we’ve got coming up. Sometimes people will come into your life. You’ve got to be very, very astute in who you let in and influence you, compared to who you let in and take you, you know, who tell you to take off the pixel and when you shoot, yeah, going back, going back. Early last year, I was in a, you know, I’ve been through this or this sick, sick period. I’d already run the event unleash con for many, many years, and I stopped it during the covid period. You were one of our guests, everything in that and one of the speakers on one of the early unleash cons. And I’d given up. I’d thought to myself, Hey, I’m getting too old to run events. You know who would want to listen. To me, I’m an old fogy. You know, I might have a lot of experience, but I’ve lost a little bit of self confidence with all the different health and different things. And one lady came into my life, Jacqueline Brooker. Her name is, she come into my life, and it was just the right person at the right time. And sometimes you just should go, be a bit intuitive about going, am I this person seems to be the right person? And then you do a little bit of research behind it. What Jacqueline said to me is, is, she said, You’re never too old. And I sort of knew that, but I’d forgotten it, and my mentors are saying it’s okay, you can still keep on pushing ahead, build your business. But passionate for me is like you probably already taught. You know you already heard me talking here on this podcast. I love to talk, I love to teach. I love to impart knowledge and help. That’s who I am at the core. And Jacqueline said, that’s who you are. Kill. Why are you hiding behind a zoom? Why are you hiding behind emails when you love to be on stage, and she just hit me between the eyes with it, you know? So Jacqueline, if you’re listening, curious to you mate to get me back on the back into the event sort of arena. But it is. It’s like we talked about the relationship, the personalities, having people in our life that we can share experiences with, some of them for a season, some of them for a lifetime. it’s such an important factor to to understand who’s on, who’s in your cheer squad, who’s in your grandstand, and who’s not.
Samantha Riley 54:27
Yeah, because I think the way that I want to wrap this up is to really, and this is something that I’m passionate about as well. Your business is just a vehicle to the life that you want. And we talk a lot about how to get your business to grow and how to get it to scale, but the reason that we want to do that is so that it can fuel the life that we want, whether it’s more travel, whether it’s more time off, whether it’s more money, so we can, you know, put money. To an impact cause, whatever it is, or even just to live out, even just, or to live our purpose. It’s all of that. It’s not just a business, it’s that vehicle.
Samantha Riley 56:22
Yeah, totally. Kel, it’s been such a pleasure to have you here today. Thanks so much for coming and sharing everything that you have
Kel Holliday 57:21
Been an absolute pleasure. I haven’t given too many tears to people of my health stories I’ve had, I’m excited. You’re motivated to go out there and make a difference in the world.
Samantha Riley 57:33
They’re empowering it. It’s all things that we need to think about. Because, like we were talking about in the green room before we started, it might be, you know, sick parents that you need to go and look after. It might be just that you want to go and help out at your children’s school in the week. Whatever it is, if we can have the time to spend how we choose, then that really is the end goal.
Kel Holliday 57:58
Thanks, Sam, been a pleasure mate.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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