Are You Delivering A Transformation Or Just Selling Information?

Welcome to the Scalable Expert, the podcast where we unlock the secrets to building a business that grows with you, not around you. I'm your host, Tara Bryan, business strategist, mentor, and creator of the Infinite Scale Method. If you're a coach, consultant, or service provider who's maxed out with one on one work, overwhelmed by the grind, and ready to scale your expertise into a business that works for you, then you're in the right place. Each week, I'll share actionable tips, inspiring success stories, and proven strategies. to help you reclaim your time, grow your income and create a business that delivers results without sacrificing quality. Let's dive in and make your business infinitely scalable. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this week's episode. I am so happy that you're here. Hey, in this episode, I want to tackle a couple different things. I'm so excited because you know that moment when you've been talking about something for years and years, and you feel like no one's listening or no one hears what you're saying. I feel like that has been something that I've been struggling with for quite some time. I would say it's been about five years ago now. I was part of a high level marketing group, and one of the things I always struggled with was, so my expertise is in creating e-learning so high end courses, if you will, for corporations. 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 of challenge with how the employees were doing their job or, they didn't have the tools or they didn't have the training or they, there's something that was going on. So for example, we had a golf company that we 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 percentage was and they're like, we need help. We can't figure out why all of these golf clubs are being returned, like what is happening? And so anyway, we went in, we did a big assessment to try and figure out what was going on at the end of the day. It turned out that there was a hiccup in terms of the process on the assembly line. And that is why things were derailed. So it costs the company millions of dollars and issues with customer retention. So those are the kinds of programs or curriculum that we would be a part of. Again, large, super large projects. But the one key component of those was always, there was always a transformation. There was always something, some problem that needed to be solved, some issue that, needed a training intervention for it so that the change could happen, and you could see from a business result that if you were to tackle this training problem, then the business results would mirror that. And even in that industry that we were a part of, there was a huge sort of divide between those kind of training interventions and we just need some sort of training to check the box, saying that people did it. And even if you look at that, in that world that was maddening, right? So our agency really focused on business results. Don't hire us to just create fluffy information based training that didn't actually move the needle in the business. And we were pretty adamant about that even early on. As we were growing, it was what we were known for because there was a lot of fluffy e-learning out there. If you have experienced it, you know what I'm talking about, where it's just like. You just click the next button in the e-learning and you don't actually have to do anything. Then you take a quiz and then you're done. My husband who's in healthcare has all 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 actually need to change anything. So like cyber security, we don't really need them to know anything or do anything different, we just need them to check the box. What an, what a missed opportunity. So there was always This difference in terms of transformation and information, and which one was better. And unfortunately, it all comes and 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 you go figure out what to do with that information, have fun, figure it out. And the better approach is actually to put somebody in a position where they can practice in a safe environment, and be able to learn what they need to learn and then apply it and then keep moving forward. That's how you create transformation. Throwing people a bunch of information and hoping that they do something with it does not actually help anyone. So anyway, we were having that problem even in the e learning industry, which you would think, from a corporate perspective, everybody would want transformational training, especially when they're paying millions of dollars for it. Not the case. So then I go into more of the entrepreneur business owner digital marketing space, and everybody is talking about all these information based courses. We're just going to throw up a bunch of videos, give people as much information as possible, and then, charge them for it and then, call it a day. And I remember, very vividly when I was at one of these conferences for marketing the, there was a speaker up, it was a huge conference, thousands and thousands of people, and there was a speaker up and she said I just, just to create my course, I just like, throw my phone up and start recording videos while I'm on my yacht. And I lost my, I just lost it. So if anyone's listening who was there with me, you know that I lost it. But that to me was the moment I was just like, come on. There's got to be a different way. I've got to be able to communicate this to people. That it's all about how do you help somebody create a transformation? How do you move them from where they are today, like the problem that they have, to the solution that they're looking for, and help them be able to do that, right? How do you give them the fast track to be able to do that? That is why people want you, is because you can help them actually do the thing that they can do. Learning is not a passive activity. Change is hard, so you have to be able to help somebody go through that transformation. Information, or throwing something up on a membership site and charging for it, doesn't serve anyone. At the end of the day, it doesn't serve you because you're not retaining those people, and it doesn't serve your customers because they're not actually doing anything, so there'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 define your expertise in your body of work? What does that look like? For me, I knew that, and I have known that in my core for 20 years that I've been doing this work because I always had that passion. But that moment I was like, that is it. I love it. So I have been talking about that for years. Like I said, 20 years. But specifically with this digital marketing group, for years. And it's landed with a lot of different people who are like, oh yeah, I really want to do that. Like especially coaches and business owners who know that you can't just give something, somebody a bunch of, information and hope that they do something with it. But what was happening is some people weren't hearing me and it was very difficult to get that message across because they were thinking about marketing. They were thinking about their bottom line. They were thinking about just sales, right? Fulfillment is just this random thing over 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 when I bring them in because I'm just going to focus on bringing people in, and then the rest will take care of itself. And you and I both know that is crap. But, that was the mentality. And, what's so fascinating, and this is, gets me to my point, what's so fascinating, is the other day one of sort of the big voices out there in digital marketing came out with a post that was, what's happening now is that if you are not focusing on transformation, with your customers, you are going to be knocked out of the game. Information, for information's sake, is not going to be the thing that people want. Because again, we have AI now. AI, you could go out and be like, give me all the information topics about blah blah blah. And it will spit it out, it will create the 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 were just selling a bunch of crap that was just, basically a Google dump are now going to be in a position where their consumers are more sophisticated. Their consumers are not going to buy anymore because there's not going to be an element of transformation, an element of a curated experience that helps somebody go from where they are today to where they want to go. And I just, it makes me so happy because it's finally going to be something that people hear. And so this is my moment because I have been talking about this for 20 years and I still have had people go, wait, what? Obviously I have awesome people like you who know exactly why this makes a difference to your customers. And, honestly, to your bottom line, who are really committed to building something that solves a real problem and helps people move from where they are today to where they want to go to create that transformation. Now what's exciting about that is you can create this transformation in a similar format than you could creating information type courses, right? It's just a different approach. It's just a different way of putting the pieces together to make it into an experience that helps somebody actually do what they want to do versus just dumping them full of information. So I was very excited when I saw that because it means that the industry is changing. It means that now the people who that was falling on deaf ears before are now of course, talking about it, which is very exciting and totally frustrating at the same place because they have a bigger platform so they're able to share it wider, but I am thrilled that messaging is coming out because it's 100 percent true, which is what all of my clients realize and why they have committed to not only packaging their expertise, but creating an experience 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. I, 90 percent of it can be automated. But you're doing it by creating an experience as they go. So you're thinking about the journey that your customers are going on, and you're putting different pieces in place to help them actually become successful along the path. Not just giving them all of your expertise in terms of all the information and all of the things It's really looking at what they need at the time that they need it so that they can do the thing that they need 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 is how you stay out of becoming irrelevant in the AI game you are creating a curated experience for your people to help them go from point A to point B that requires more than just a bunch of information that can be spit out from AI. So I am thrilled, but I was so happy to hear that conversation kind of bubbling up because it is something that you're going to hear about more and more as we start to transition from the sort of the old school traditional, like, automated courses or evergreen courses into how do we leverage the power of automation and platforms to create a curated experience that feels personalized and moves people into action at the right times throughout the journey. So I am so excited for what is to come. If you are interested in talking a little bit about this and wait, do I have just a course that's full of informational videos and topics, or do I have something that's curated? Interesting. Let us know. I would be happy to take a look at what you have and offer some suggestions in terms of how to start shifting it into a transformation. If you are starting to build your online experience or business for the very first time, and you're like, I want to make sure I start right so I don't end up in a position where either nobody buys or you've built all of this stuff and it's not actually what people need? Again, get on my calendar, schedule a call. I would be happy to talk through a strategy for how do you move that forward. All right, my friends, thank you so much for listening to this episode, and I just challenge you to start thinking about the transformations that you are going to be able to create for your customers, not only once when they come into your world for the first time, but over and over again as they become a customer for life. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you give it a like or subscribe depending upon what platform you are listening to it on. Alright, take care until next time.