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AI can hand you information in seconds, but information on it’s own is nothing without the ability to interpret, adapt, and act with lived experience.
In this episode, Sam and Leon unpack why experience is becoming the most valuable currency in business again, especially in a world flooded with AI-generated answers. You’ll hear how markets overheat, why trust is at an all-time low, and what smart business owners must do to stay ahead.
From spotting the signs of industry saturation to navigating market corrections and pivoting with speed, this conversation is packed with insights that will help you cut through the noise and build credibility that lasts.
The big takeaway? AI can give you answers, but only experience can tell you which ones are worth trusting. AI can amplify your ideas, but it can’t replace the wisdom of experience.
WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:
- 00:02 – Why information alone isn’t enough
- 06:13 – The value of experience over theory in business
- 11:31 – How asking better questions and applying lived knowledge separates useful insights from misleading ones
- 14:24 – Spotting overheated markets (plus warning signs to watch for)
- 24:25 – Why credibility is now the ultimate differentiator
- 26:16 – How to adapt messaging quickly and why testing ideas is the smartest way to stay relevant
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
CONNECT WITH LEON FLITTON
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 00:00
Right now we’re living in a world where information has never been more available. AI can write your marketing plans, it can build your funnels, it can write your ads, it can generate content. But no one is really talking about this. If everyone has access to the same information, what actually separates the businesses that succeed from the ones that struggle.
I’m Samantha Riley and welcome to the Business Growth Lab, where visionary entrepreneurs come to experiment, evolve and expand what’s possible.
Hey, welcome to today’s episode of Business Growth Lab. I’m your co host. Samantha Riley.
Leon, thanks for joining me again.
Leon Flitton
Oh, thank you. Thanks for inviting me back.
Samantha Riley
That sounds kind of weird, because we’re business partners. Last I was gonna say last week’s episode, but it wasn’t last week’s episode. The week before Episode 679, was the last episode that you and I recorded together. And I think it’s one of, not the highest number of people reach out, but it’s definitely really right up there with the amount of people that reached out, and it really struck a chord with them, which was super interesting, right? We were talking about AI and talking about an event we’d been at, and sort of unpacking what business is like. And I cried. A lot of people reached out. I’ll try not to lose I’ll try not to lose my shit this episode. But it was so lovely to have so many people reaching out, wasn’t it?
Leon Flitton 01:35
Yeah, yeah. I think some of them may have been actually crying with you.
Samantha Riley 01:38
So very emotional. Probably was too. It’s really not I just say it was for everyone that reached out. Thank you so much, because it really does feel like sometimes that you just really talking at a screen and you forget that, well, you don’t forget, but it’s nice to know that people you know you that are listening actually is listening like you see the numbers on the screen logically, you know it, but it’s just sometimes it’s, it’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Because we’re just speaking at a screen, and I don’t know, sometimes you kind of don’t, how do I even say I think everyone knows what I’m trying to say, because most people create content.
Leon Flitton 02:20
Yeah, it feels like no one’s actually there. But if you actually look at the analytics and the data of how many people are there, if you put all those people into a room in front of you, and it’d be pretty full on. It’d be crazy, like, how many people you’re actually talking to. So not to make you feel nervous or anything like that, but you know,
Samantha Riley 02:38
absolutely, shout out to the 85% of our listeners who are in the US. Thank you for listening to us. Obviously our accent isn’t putting you off, and I’m sure I talk too fast, but sorry, I don’t think like I said, 85% of our listeners are Americans, so they must be able to get something out of it.
Now, one of the things that we talked about last episode was that we had been chatting to someone that was on our mastermind table, and after our mastermind I just casually mentioned that I’d been in business for 32 years, and he was like, Oh, my God, what? Hey, why didn’t you say that earlier? And you know, at the time, I was, like, almost bit awkward, kind of leading with that, like, that’s sort of a big head thing, and that’s where the the last episode that we recorded came from. Because he was like, Oh my God. Like, no. Like, we want to lean into that experience. And I guess we’ve reflected on that a lot in the last couple of weeks, because that response from him just really opened up such a massive conversation with us, right? Leon, like it really stuck with us. It opened up a whole new pathway of thoughts. Because when he’s like, oh, people, you know, people need to know that. It’s really, really important, because there’s lots of people teaching business who haven’t lived through the cycles, and I think that was sort of the gold there, because we’re seeing obviously this massive rise of AI. And AI can give us the answers, but there’s something that you and I can see that AI still is not able to bring out, and that’s that, you know, we can get all of that information from Ai, but it can’t replicate experience. And you know, between the two of us, we’ve been in business for more than 60 years. Me in small business and running multiple six and seven figure businesses like I’ve grown up all of them from the ground up. I sold some of them. We still have some of them. You’ve been in corporate, and I think that, you know, a lot of people don’t put the two and two. Together of you know, there’s a lot of things that I don’t know that you do in corporate that you’re able to bring to the table too. And when you put the corporate experience and running billion dollar accounts and how teams work and how systems work in corporate, and put it together with the very speedy movement of small business, and you have to be speedy. We’re going to talk about that a little bit more later, but when you put both of those together, it means that we have a lot of perspective. We’ve seen a lot of cycles, a lot of you know, technology starting different changes, different pivots, different economic cycles. We’ve seen what works, we’ve seen what breaks. We’ve seen strategies that work. We’ve seen those same strategies absolutely fall and break because they’re, you know, being fatigued. Yeah, say we’re broken stuff ourselves, right? So thinking about that and the time that we’re in right now. Why do you think that experience is becoming more valuable again right now?
Leon Flitton 06:09
Yeah, so there’s, there’s a whole number of things here, and my brain’s going all over the place at the moment. Think about what we’ve just talked about. Yeah, the first thing is, I don’t know why we don’t talk more about our experience to how much we have, and I feel that myself, if I have a mentor, I want them to have gone through and been where we’re going. Yes, yeah. So I feel like that’s that’s something. I feel that that makes right or wrong. I feel that makes them a better mentor. And I think as we go through the episode, we’ll probably break it down a bit further as well. Yeah.
Samantha Riley 06:44
PS, really, do you really think it’s the right or wrong thing? Like, no, I’m pretty learning from someone that has never done what they’re trying to teach.
Leon Flitton 06:54
So having a mentor that to me anyway, I think it’s important that they’ve actually been where I’m going or along the same journey line that I’m going on. I think that’s that’s really important. So that’s one thing. When it cuts back to things like AI and what you’re talking about and what we’ve just spoken about just now, I feel you can get the information, but I’m also not so sure that you can get the right information, if that makes sense. And I’ll say, if it makes
Samantha Riley 07:24
sense, yeah, it does make sense, because there’s a lot that I use, let’s say chat, GPT or Manus or Gemini or whatever I’m using. And we do use them all, Claude, and I ideate with them a lot, like I run ideas past them a lot. And it’s amazing how many of those conversations I go, Oh, that’s not actually right. And I’ll and I’ll correct it, and I’ll say, Well, this is the way I see it, and or this is what I found, or I don’t think that’s true. Now let me just say I do know that AI is primed to always like, make you right like, so I’ll put that in air quotes. However, at the same time, what it’s giving me back is, is, I guess, stuff that other people have plugged in there. Well, with all of my experience, I go, No, that’s not right. And I will, I will, like, really go deep with that and say, but this is what I’m seeing. Or actually, I’ve seen this cycle before, and did it, did it. And that where this is really interesting is that people say, but I can get all the answers from Ai. But how do you know if the answers are true or correct or right, or however you want to say it, I think that you still need experience and your own lived knowledge to realize that some of the stuff you get back is BS, because AI doesn’t have judgment.
Leon Flitton 08:55
Yeah, well, it doesn’t. So there’s, I think there’s actually quite a few layers to this issue as well, because the very first one is, what’s the question you’re asking? And yeah, between the two of us now, you are a very good question, asker, and what you get and what I get is completely different when asking the same damn question. Well, probably me
Samantha Riley 09:21
not the same question.
Leon Flitton 09:24
It’s not the same question. We’re asking the same thing. So we’re trying to find the answer to a particular problem, and then the way you ask the question, when I ask the question, is completely different, and as she brings up a completely different answer. And now the next part is, do you know that what it’s brought up is actually in line with what you’re asking? Is it legit, or did it absolutely just lie to you as well? Outright lie and make things up. I’ve also found that, from my point of view, that it has lied, it has like missed pieces as well. What I. Go back and go. But what about this? Only because of my experience that I know about it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known about wouldn’t known to ask, and would have just gone on my merry way and not even realized. So the thing is different levels to it. So there’s knowing what’s asked in the first place, and then there’s the did it spit out something that was actually going to work? Was it useful?
Samantha Riley 10:20
Yeah, yeah. So what I want to talk about is some of the things that we’ve picked up that, I guess AI isn’t necessarily picking up right now. No, what we’re specifically talking about here is, like, the language models, like I said, chat, GPT, Manus, Claude, Gemini, and there’s a gazillion more. We’re not talking about claw bot. Claw bot. I’m actually not sure which one it is. I’ve heard it both. I’m not talking about all of that, and we will start to cover that in some of the upcoming episodes. But today, this is all we’re talking about, and these are some of the things, or some of the cycles that we’re seeing Leon that are not popping up in these language models, because we’ve got to remember that the information that’s being spat out is based on the information that has been input. And some of this information isn’t quite right yet, or it hasn’t been input or picked up, and this is what we’re seeing. So I definitely want to talk about it. And that first is, I guess, markets overheating, because in just every industry goes through phases like you know that every industry has no peaks and troughs, if I think about it, you know, the first one pops to mind is McDonald’s. That was my first job. And when I worked there, in the, you know, really, like, very late 80s, early 90s is kind of when I was there, they were the, like, you know, all of us McDonald’s people say they’re the good old days. They’re the days where, yeah, yeah, I remember where our McDonald’s was, and it was like in the bottom car park of a one of adelaide’s biggest Westfield Shopping Centers, and the Oban opened up, which was one of the big bus interchanges. And the Oban was a huge thing in Adelaide opening because it was the, I think Germany is the only other place in the world that’s got an Oban, which is actually busses that drive on a track, like a train, and then they can come off the track and drive onto the road. And it meant that the commute from the city, from sort of where we were into the city, went from, you know, like 40 minutes, down to, oh, gosh, don’t quote me on this, but like, 10 or 15 minutes. And it was super cool. Everyone wanted to go on the Oban. And the day that that had its official opening was that was the biggest day that our particular McDonald’s store had did, had done, sorry, and the the lines across all the registers, across the front counter, went all the way back to, like the bins, you know, sort of where you put all your rubbish after you’ve eaten, which is almost all the way out, pretty much. That’s exactly right. And it was like that all day, like we did out that was, I don’t think we ever broke those records in that store, and that store still there, but we broke the hourly records. Who broke the day record? We broke the night like it was just, it was such an exciting day to be there. All of the workers were on such a high because there was just cues and cues and cues of people all day. It was the best I can still remember it now, you know, as a generator and someone that loves working like I can viscerally feel how cool that day was. And, you know, here I am talking about, I don’t know how many years later, I don’t even can’t do maths, a lot of years later. You know, it’s still exciting. And there are still some of those people that I used to work with, and we actually still talk about those days. It was cool, right? That is McDonald’s at its peak. Because if you walk into a McDonald’s store now, it’s not like that at all, like there’ll be people in the store, but it’s not cues of people. It’s just got a different vibe in there. I think people are a lot more I could be wrong here. Maybe it’s just the people that we hang around, but I think that people are more like health focused now they they know that, you know, McDonald’s isn’t really the way to go. So that’s that that’s a market at its peak and at its trough, right? I think, I think McDonald’s has gone through a phase, and I don’t think it’ll ever get back to that phase again. Could be wrong, but you know, so at first there’s opportunity and growth and hype, and when hype takes over, the market overheats. So some of the signs that a market is overheating that we can see more in the coaching, consulting and the service based industries. One of the things that we might start to notice is that too many people are selling the same thing. Yeah, and we. We’ve certainly seen that in the coaching space. And what happens when a lot of people come in is people’s messaging starts to become identical. They’re all doing, or they’re all sort of promising, the same thing, using the same language, the same hooks, and the only way to get ahead is to exaggerate things. So we’re going to get you these bigger results in this shorter time you’re going to earn, you know, seven figures in the next 10 seconds. Income claims get a bit ridiculous. Overnight success stories sort of come on to the stage. And so it Yeah, it overheats, yeah, yeah. And then you know what happened? Because people exaggerate things to stand out, audiences become skeptical, trust drops, buyers hesitate, and that’s kind of what we’re seeing now, right this we’ve spoken about a lot in the last few episodes, the trust deficit, and that’s exactly what’s happened in the coaching industry. And it’s not just the coaching industry. It happens in it happens in lots of industries, but we’ve definitely seen it in the coaching industry.
Leon Flitton 16:12
Yeah, so I just gonna say, just quickly back to Maccas. I remember that time where Mac is first came out, and we had the first one in New South Wales. I don’t know where it was exactly, but that was near me anyway. And, yeah, so I think at a time where people ate at home more, yeah, and then they had macus. Remember you had, like, Burger King, Hungry Jacks, and the burgers were better, apparently, Hungry Jacks, this is, this is, like, exactly what’s happened to the coaching industry, right? Because they have this. Here’s the coaching course, mentorship, whatever you want to call it. And then someone else comes along and goes, but mine’s better. I’ll get you there faster, and I’ll get you more money, and I’ll get you seven figures overnight. It’s the same thing. And before you know it, the market’s flooded. So then there’s, you know, there’s always other different fast food joints, for example, with mackers that were competing piece of the market. So it made harder for MacOS as it went along. But same happens with the coaching issue. You can see it happening. It’s like, there’s just so many more out there. The claims get bigger and gets gets crazier, yeah. And then they try and more, do more, trendier things that that make it more exciting. And it’s similar to this. Now, if anyone’s ever played Black Ops on PlayStation or whatever,
Samantha Riley 17:27
me, PS,
Leon Flitton 17:29
Sam doesn’t do that. I hate gaming. Yeah, no, I used to play when my daughter was young. We used to play together on Black Ops two, and we absolutely loved it. And it was a really fun game, super simple. It wasn’t super high tech. And then as the games went on, they had to get better and better. All of a sudden you had jet packs bouncing off balls, this and that crazy, weird guns. And it just got weirder and weirder and weirder. And it’s just like, just and, but it lost its shine, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that’s what happens. And then some of this, some of the coaching things, lose their shine, because everyone’s just talking, talking, talking, talking, and it’s not delivering.
Samantha Riley 18:07
Yeah, totally. And it’s not just like we’ve talked then about, you know, income claims, so we’re specifically talking about business coaches. But I remember distinctly the day that someone told me they had a personal trainer. I’m like, you. What are you a millionaire? Because can you remember, like, back in the 80s, the only people that had personal trainers were a movie star. They were, they were Hollywood stars, right? That’s the only people. And now most people have a trainer. Like I’ve had a trainer for 20 years now, even when I was a trainer, I had a trainer I was I know most trained, most personal trainers don’t have a trainer themselves that but I liked someone else just telling me what to do, because I’ve always been someone that’s quite happy to hand my decision fatigue to someone else. But you know, seen in the fitness industry, leadership coaches. Same thing. I think leadership coaching is huge now compared to what it was 20 years ago. Gosh, we pulled some Instagram statistics for a webinar that we recently did, and looking at the number like the percentage that leadership coaching has gone up. It is absolutely insane. It was one of the biggest growth numbers that we’ve seen in all of coaches. Yeah, huge, huge, you know. So it’s not just business coaching, it’s, it’s fitness, it’s wellness, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s
Leon Flitton 19:36
just quickly, though you are a trained PC, yeah, and amongst other things, there’s lots of letters up your name, but what I wanted to say was the value you get from having your own PT, even though you are a PT is quite interesting, yeah, because you kind of go well. Why would a PT have their own PT? Aren’t they good enough?
Samantha Riley 20:02
But I think many, yeah, because it’s very, very rare, very rare for a trainer to train with someone else.
Leon Flitton 20:09
Yeah, and what’s that saying you have, if you can’t read the label from inside the jar? Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s what it is. So just if anyone’s worrying, why we have a PT when we are trained. PT, will Sam’s a tranquility. Anyway, when you think about it from that point of view, if you want to be better and improve and always be improving, then that makes way more sense that you have someone that works with you, because you can’t see what’s going on, necessarily good. So I think, yeah, I think, you know, we’re talking about, you know, you want even more quality training, and want to be getting better and better, and I think having that person on your side is a really good thing to have.
Samantha Riley 20:49
Yeah, I really like that. You brought that up. Hadn’t really thought about that, because when I was a dance teacher, and that’s where most of my letters come from, I actually have a lot of qualifications in teaching classical ballet. So have a ton of letters after my name, which, of course, I don’t use now because I don’t teach ballet anymore, but I always did class. So I would teach 30 something hours a week, and I would also go to class because I was also always, I was still doing exams. I was still going further. I was I was doing at one point when I was when I was studying for one of my, like, sort of high, really high level exams. I was still dancing with a teacher who was the head in Australasia, because I always wanted to be going to the best. I was still dancing with her, 30 something hours a week. I was doing ballet for over 70 hours a week. That’s insane. When I was a mom, two full time jobs doing that, okay? Three full time jobs. Oh, God, you ever sleep? Did you sleep? Well, it is funny. Just you know I was in it, and I knew I was tired, and I knew I was busy, but I think I was so busy I didn’t have time to think about how busy I was. And it was only just last week, funnily enough, that my daughter said, she said, I’ve always wanted to ask this Mom, why? Why did you do that much? I just, I actually didn’t think about I just did it. I don’t know. Anyway, we totally got off the track there. Yeah, no,
Leon Flitton 22:23
but I think it was important to talk about the, you know, like we have, like, you know, PT for PT. And then, you know, we, we also have our own mentors as well. So, and I think that’s any, I think it’s important factor in, you know, keeping moving forward. And it’s almost like a mini mastermind, I suppose, even with the PT, you know, yeah, yeah, maybe some of you can bounce things off together to get even faster, so to speak.
Samantha Riley 22:48
Yeah, totally, totally. So we’ve just talked about markets overheating, and then let’s talk about what we’re seeing right now is that I’m seeing a huge market correction. And what I mean by that is where we’ve actually seen it over, especially over the last 1218, months, a lot of coaching businesses disappear, like the what I’m going to say the weaker coaching businesses disappear. And what I mean by weaker is they were on the high of 2020 because that’s that was a massive high for coaching businesses, and then they just couldn’t sustain it, right, because they didn’t understand things at depth, because it had been so easy over over that time. So we’ve seen a lot of weaker businesses disappear. We’re seeing even because the market is correcting, it’s dropped below that sort of neutral line. And things are quite difficult right now, from an economic standpoint, from an AI standpoint, from trust deficits, all that’s a big one playing into it, right? And so right now, credibility becomes really, really important, because that’s the piece that’s going to get you through. And what I think we’re going to see, and we’re seeing it now, and I think we’re going to continue to see it is that experience is because is going to become valuable again,
Leon Flitton 24:22
yep, yep. 100% Yeah. I think, like you said, though, that things like the trust deficit right now, it’s huge, yeah, and and definitely experience is going to become more valuable. Yeah, way more valuable
Samantha Riley 24:36
as this correction is happening. I think it’s really important. I just want to touch on this a little bit. And potentially we might do a whole episode about this. If it’s something want to hear. People want to hear about. Let’s talk about pivot. Now, in 2020 I was, I was the one that was putting out content saying, Oh my God, if I hear pivot one more time, I’m going to be ill. But in saying all of that. At like we need to be moving fast right now. The world is moving fast. When we were at our mastermind a couple of weeks ago, and someone said to me, and this is someone that’s in multi seven figures, said that they’ve they’ve slightly tweaked their messaging around 20 times in the past four months. There’s a massive like, let’s shine a spotlight on what you really need to be paying attention to right now, because the old like, stick to it. And like, really, hold you, hold yourself. Like, very, very in a straight line and and focus. And did it? Did it? Yes and no it there is an end. It’s not one or the other. It’s yes and like, don’t you don’t need to change massively what you’re doing and do a pivot from, you know, a speaker coach, to a painting coach, an artist coach. I don’t know if there’s such thing. I’m sure there is actually there is my son had one by talking about he used to go to art classes. But what I’m talking about is, and this is the way we describe our business, Leon, when we’re in public a lot, is we almost use our business like a crash test dummy. You know, the the YouTube videos that you see where people are testing out new cars, and they have the dummies in and they they throw the car into the wall, and you see how, you know what happens to the to the little yellow man with the little triangles all over him, that’s what he looks like,
Leon Flitton 26:29
doesn’t he? Yeah, he’s got on his head. He’s got triangles, usually yellow, and they’re like, Yeah, yep, yeah. Well, we
Samantha Riley 26:34
use our business like that, right? It’s, How can we teach it if we haven’t tried it. And I think this goes back to the personal training thing that we were talking about, because I remember when I when I signed up to do my personal trainer course, there was young guys in there that had never, ever had a personal trainer. They’d never been trained by anyone. And I’m like, Are you guys serious? Like, how can you do that, how can you train someone else when you haven’t experienced it? And this is exactly the same thing, and it’s why we use our business like a crash test dummy. We’re always trying new things. We’re always trialing because we want to know. Well, we do know, out of the 10 things that we teach, we’ve probably tried 30 things or 40 or 50 things to come up with those, those things that we teach. It’s like, because we put we put our own we put money on the line, we put time on the line, we put everything on the line to try it out. And I think that that’s what’s really, really important, and that’s where you have to be like, it’s no longer good enough to teach from do as I say, not as I do. It’s, it’s not okay anymore. Yeah, you just brought us
Leon Flitton 27:49
something there that speaks to a lack of experience as well. That, like the young guys, I don’t know any girls in there, in that class,
Samantha Riley 27:54
talking about it was, funnily enough, we were all older, yeah, I think we were all older, yeah, but
Leon Flitton 28:00
that’s a great example of the lack of experience and never having had a PT before that the way they were going into it, unless they had someone like you to learn from, even though you were doing the course at the same time, they wouldn’t have picked these things up. But they don’t know what it’s like, but they don’t know how to deal with their client well enough for what they need to do, like how they need to come across, like they haven’t had the experience from the other side, even, you know, or had been able to watch someone with a with good experience to see what they should be doing. So that’s a really good, good example of that. The other thing I just want to say now is that, yes, crash test dummy, it all comes back to data. So probably the last four years particularly, and as we’ve gone through like after 2020, whatever else. But as we’ve gone through closer to this point in time, the need for more data and more testing is sped up as everything else is sped up. So we’ve had to test more, oh my goodness, yes, throw more speed at the wall. We’re gonna call it just to see what sticks, because you just need more data. Everything just gets going faster and faster and faster. So the amounts of data that you need to learn because of the way rate of the market moving has to be a lot more. So we’ve been, yeah, just a lot.
Samantha Riley 29:15
It’s a lot. It is, and it’s also because what did work two years ago doesn’t work now. What did work six months ago doesn’t work now.
Leon Flitton 29:25
So I think something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as well, and we chatted about this a bit, you know quite well I should probably, over the last couple of months, we’re talking about as well, is that, you know, when things change fast, you know, what do you need to be doing to kind of stay ahead of the curve a bit. So, you know, what do the experienced people or experienced operators do? So what? How do they go about it? You know, because you’ve just talked about before, you know. Do you sit and stay and like, Yeah, you get the last few drops of a dying strategy out, you know? And. Where does that lead you, if
Samantha Riley 30:02
anywhere at all? And in all fairness, there’s when a strategy dies. It doesn’t suddenly tap you on the shoulder and go, Hey, by the way, this strategy doesn’t work anymore, like this, and I am out it doesn’t do that. You need to pay attention. Like, don’t be the person that says, I’m just going to do this, because this is what I’ve always done. And can we say Code A can we say, oh my goodness, I can give you a million business names. Can we say blockbuster, so don’t be that person. It doesn’t tell you you have this is why it’s so important to to pay attention to the data and to also like, can I say this? Feel the feedback? Like, sometimes you can just feel that it’s not quite right. And, yeah, so sorry, that was me on my soapbox. I’ll get off for a second. Back to you.
Leon Flitton 30:52
So what I was just thinking was, as well, and we talked about this quite often, is how to be the, well, earlier adopter. I suppose you would say it’s great if you can be the first person to do something. But even if you’re not, and you haven’t got that idea, if you kind of keep an ear to the ground, work out what’s going on, and you can be an early adopter to work out what you think is good, hence the pivoting a lot, and then, you know, adapt early, I think is a good way of going about it. So not all of us are 100% ideas people, but entrepreneurial, we move fast. Yeah, so you know, if you adapt early, move fast and keep moving, that’s the testing
Samantha Riley 31:29
100% Well, look, that’s the reason that we are focusing on different social media channels than now, than we were two years ago, or even even 18 months ago, because we saw shifts in the market. We saw the way that people were responding. We saw what was working and what wasn’t. And I wasn’t about to sit around and go, Oh, just keep doing what I’ve always done, like, That’s ridiculous. It’s just you’re digging your own grave. You do need to notice and you do need to adapt, and that’s what, that’s what will keep businesses ahead of the curve, because, yeah, otherwise, you’ll just get left behind.
Leon Flitton 32:08
Yeah, yeah. And so I think as well, you need to think about things like, you know, your offer may have been relevant six to 12 months ago, but with AI and what that’s done for having more knowledge or information? I should say information, not knowledge. It’s a bit different information. You know, maybe you need to reconsider. You know, how your offer is working for your champagne clients. You know, is it aligning to what they need now, like, you know, with the addition of AI into information, is that working the best for your clients, and do you need to actually reposition it a bit? Maybe?
Samantha Riley 32:46
Can we go over and above that the economy is really, really different now than what it was a little while ago. People are buying for different reasons, like if your offer isn’t in the sweet spot, for people that are actually buying, like Alex hormozi says, you know, find a rich person’s problem. Well, that’s the only thing that’s going to work right now. Find a rich person’s problem. Because if you’re trying to sell your offer to people that are not in a good economic position, like we’re in a cost of living crisis, the whole world is right. So don’t get caught doing the same thing and wondering why people aren’t buying. People are definitely still buying, but not in the same way. It is really, really important to pay attention
Leon Flitton 33:30
to that. I think what I say to people right now is take a breath and reflect and look back. And what I’m going to say now is that if you look back at way the economy has been over the last Well, I mean, last 30 plus years we’ve been in business, there’s always ebbs and flows of different things happening at people at times. So I mean, you think about 2008 for example. And then if you get back, there’s cycles that happens, all right, that it goes through, but off every back of every one of these cycles where someone like, where it’s been, you know, tragic for the world, like you’re losing dollars in the stock market, that kind of stuff. There’s always been millionaires traded 2008 was no different, all right, and this will and at the moment, it looks like there’s a bit of dip happening. I’m not a financial person, but it looks like there’s a dip. But if, even if there is, there’s still opportunity, if you know how to adapt and reposition and pivot the right way, yep, to make money. So don’t think it’s home, receptive and glue. Yeah, it’s not great, don’t get me wrong.
Samantha Riley 34:32
But no, 100% more millionaires are created in economic downturns than any other time it is that is 100% fact. And we, I say we, I, in my previous businesses, used those economic dips to my advantage. I often talk about the fact that we opened a retail store right in the middle of, like, you know, 18% interest rates in. Australia in a niche that was very, very flat, because it was in dance where we opened it in a mortgage belt. We opened that store in a place where there was two parents working, and they were every single cent was going to their mortgage. But I honestly believe that we wouldn’t have been successful if we didn’t have that as our learning place, I guess is our foundation. Because we had to learn so fast, we had to make really difficult decisions, and it meant that we’re extremely successful coming off the bat. Would we have been that successful if business had have been easy? I don’t believe so not in the long term. Yeah, because what we learned just, it’s, it’s still with me today, like, I am so grateful for those learnings, yeah.
Leon Flitton 35:48
So, yeah, that’s so interesting, right? Like, it’s, you kind of mind boggles a bit when you go. So there’s a downturn, but all these meetings were created. Yeah, it’s quite interesting, yeah.
Samantha Riley 35:58
And yeah, all the learning, the fast pivots, the, oh, the thing that we were doing for the last so, you know, this many years isn’t working the same. Like, yeah, you can. You can flip things really fast, yeah, yeah.
Leon Flitton 36:13
If you are someone’s listening, and you’re not in business for yourself, and you may be still in corporate, and you’re thinking about leaving, but you’re still there. You have a job. I remember reading this book called Who Moved My Cheese, all right? Or who moved the cheese? However, the book’s called exactly, but the gist of it is that you still have to keep a virus, and no matter where you are, you need to keep evolving. So I’ll just bring this up, because the same way that you need to evolve your approach to business, and your own business and you’re learning, and your clients are moving forward. Even if you have a job, you still do the same thing, because otherwise you’ll put it up behind. So in these times where things move fast, you need to move just as fast and evolve as well. So I think it’s for everyone, for everyone listening Absolutely,
Samantha Riley 36:59
although we well, we’ve seen the data. I would say 99.8% of the people that listen to this are in business. So, yeah, it’s but it’s exactly the same. The same principle applies. And I think where I want to finish this episode is that where we started. This is talking about AI and how things are changing, and I want to finish it here again, in saying AI can give you the answers, but Experience tells you which answers to ignore, because there are things that AI will split out, spit out and tell you to do that are just not right. So it’s really, really the time to lean into your experience. You know the old knowledge is power. It’s not true anymore, right? It’s that, you know the modern version of that, or the 2026, version of that, is applied. Knowledge is power, because the people that are going to win moving forward are the people that know what matters, what doesn’t matter, what to do next, so that they can keep moving fast. So, yeah, anything that you want to add to that?
Leon Flitton 38:15
Leon, no, I love that saying, though applied knowledge is power, because my dad is telling me, knowledge is power all the time, but in this day and age, the way things are going, it makes way more sense. So the knowledge, or the information, I should say, is becoming so readily available, but knowing what’s usable, what’s true or not, for example, and how to apply that knowledge is probably going to be the next, next biggest thing.
Samantha Riley 38:40
So yeah, so here’s where I’m going to land it. AI can give you the answers. Experience gives you the wisdom. And when you combine the two, you don’t just move faster, you move smarter. So right now, that’s where we need to be. Like I said, we’re going to talk about AI a lot more in episodes to come, but today we wanted to talk about that experience like it is so so so valuable, so lean into it. And we’re saying that from our own experience of not leaning into it, right? Leo, exactly. There you go. We got the data.
Thanks so much for listening. We’ll catch you next week on another episode of Business Growth Lab.
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