Welcome to the fifteenth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Simon Sinek’s TED talk didn’t go viral because of superior content. Fields Wicker-Miurin’s presentation was just as clear and compelling.

The difference, according to Vanessa Van Edwards’ studies on TED Talks, was body language, specifically hand gestures. Sinek used 465. Wicker-Miurin used 272.

That 70% increase in hand gestures correlated with a 4,200% increase in views.

We’re not talking about a “performance hack.” It’s about a fundamental truth of human communication, that your body language shapes how people perceive you and whether they stay engaged with what you’re saying.

You can have brilliant content delivered with a monotone voice and stiff, locked-down body language… and people will tune out.

Or you can have good content delivered with an open posture, expressive gestures, and purposeful movement… and people will lean in.

Your body is part of the message itself.

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Back in 2005, I made a drastic decision after a near-death experience.

After spending the previous four years building an innovative real estate business fueled entirely by digital marketing and processes, I walked away.

This was the business that generated more personal income for me than if I had made partner at the big law firm I left in 1998. And I simply stopped doing it.

I tried to work out a sale of the business. It didn’t work because it was so dependent on me that there was nothing there without me.

That was the crux of the problem.

I was the marketing engine behind the business, and no one else understood how it worked. I was also the entire management layer, who still worked personally with investment-level clients. But I had no transferable systems for any of it.

And then I shifted to a model that better suited my talents and temperament. The fairy tale ending followed: I made substantially more money every year, sold the business and made substantially more than that, and received recognition as a pioneer in digital business and marketing.

Emergency brain surgery led me to quickly realize that the real estate business was only designed to prove I could make a lot of money at something other than the practice of law. I didn’t love the work by any means, and I decided that life was too short to do things solely for money.

So I became properly aligned and profited highly from it, which I think is no coincidence. But I wrongly blamed client services as the source of my previous discontent.

Even though I went on to build three seven-figure businesses and one eight-figure firm without doing client work at all, I had simply moved into a smarter model where others handled the systems while I handled marketing and drove product development. And at the time, selling software was highly lucrative.

In the last few years, I’ve been back to working with clients in a coaching capacity. It’s been deeply satisfying because I can now have a real impact on the desired outcome when I get personally involved, as opposed to only teaching (which I enjoy for other reasons).

And now I have technology that functions the same way my human collaborators did in the previous businesses. It allows me to do what I’m good at, and handles what I struggle with.

In short, if I were brand new to the game in 2026, I’d still start off with client services. And this is what most people do, for very good reasons.

But now, with the right application of automation and artificial intelligence, you don’t need to shift into products in order to efficiently manage the business as a solo and profitably scale.

More importantly, outcome-based services may be the only highly profitable revenue model that remains viable going forward. Let’s dig into my reasoning on that.

The Sure-Fire Path to 7-Figure Small

For years, the standard path for expertise-based businesses followed a logical progression:

1. Start with client services (validate demand, generate revenue).

2. Hit a time ceiling (you can only serve so many clients).

3. Create information products such as courses to scale (trade margin for volume, leverage your time)

This worked, and it made sense. Your time was the limiting factor, so you had to choose: Stay small with high-touch services, or scale with lower-touch information products.

In fact, my Personal Enterprise strategy recognizes client work as the smart starting point, while laying out a path to productize sooner rather than later. Diversification of revenue streams is the justification, but under the surface is the reality that solo services simply don’t scale.

That once-enduring truth has begun to disappear over the last decade. You don’t hit the time ceiling with services as quickly, thanks to automation. And now with AI, perhaps not at all on the way to 7-figure revenue.

Here’s the thing. The trend toward powerful solo and very small client service businesses started before AI went mainstream a few years ago. Which means we’re now at the cusp of something truly revolutionary as AI adoption skyrockets among savvy solopreneurs.

According to 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data, client services dominate the million-dollar, no-employee business category. The data reflects 16,279 one-person client services businesses earning $1-2.49 million annually. Another 2,465 hit $2.5-4.9 million.

Not info products. Not courses. Not software. Client services.

And that data comes from before AI made service delivery three to five times more efficient, and opened the door to developing entirely new revenue models built on delivering desired outcomes.

Sequoia Capital, the VC firm behind Apple, Google, and Airbnb, recently published an analysis explaining why they’re betting on services over software in many markets. Its key insight:

Services deliver actual outcomes. The client doesn’t have to implement — they get the result they paid for.

They call it “services as software,” a complete inversion of the software-as-services model that has dominated both the VC and bootstrapped entrepreneurial landscape for 20 years. And it may coincide with altered demand for courses and other information products as well.

Think about the difference:

Software/Course approach:

• Gives the customer the tool or information, but

• The customer still has to figure out how to use it;

• The customer is responsible for the implementation; and

• The customer owns the outcome risk.

Client services approach:

• The provider delivers the completed outcome;

• The client gets the result without the implementation burden;

• The provider is accountable for success; and

• The risk transfers to the expert.

This distinction has always mattered. But now, AI is:

1. Providing knowledge for essentially free, and

2. Eliminating the reason people get burned out and frustrated by a client services model.

Here’s what used to be true: A client engagement required 40 hours of your time. You could serve maybe four or five clients per month at full capacity. To make more money, you had to either raise prices (often uncomfortable) or create digital products (a different business entirely).

Here’s what’s true now: AI handles 80% of the execution work. You provide 8-10 hours of strategic judgment and oversight. You can serve 12-15 clients in the same timeframe.

Traditional model:

• 40 hours per client project

• Maximum four clients monthly

• Revenue ceiling: 4 × $10,000 = $40,000/month

AI-augmented model:

• 10 hours of your judgment per project

• AI handles the other 30 hours of execution

• New capacity: 12 clients monthly

• Revenue potential: 12 × $10,000 = $120,000/month

• Same hours worked, 3x the revenue

Sequoia funneling VC money into service businesses was unheard of in years past. But the bigger shift involves individuals building next-generation outcome models without outside capital at all.

Why “Done For You” Sells Better Than “Learn How To”

There’s another reason to start with client services. They’re easier to sell than products, especially information products, which require much more savvy “selling” than most people realize.

When you’re selling a product such as a course, for example, you’re asking people to:

• Invest time they don’t have

• Learn skills they know they need but may not necessarily want

• Implement on their own

• Take responsibility for the results

When you’re selling a service, the value proposition is simple:

• You have a problem

• I deliver the solution

• You get the outcome

• I’m accountable if it doesn’t work

Motivated buyers with budgets prefer “done for you” over “teach me how to.” They don’t want to become experts themselves; they just want the problem solved. And they’re willing to pay high-ticket prices for it.

If you’re 50+ with decades of experience, you’re not really selling information anyway. You’re selling judgment, lived pattern recognition, and strategic expertise applied to a specific situation.

That’s client services in a nutshell. And AI just made them highly scalable.

Here’s the breakthrough… You now have the efficiency of software combined with the judgment and experience of a seasoned human in one tiny yet powerful firm.

What AI handles:

• Research and data gathering

• Initial drafting and formatting

• Revisions based on your direction

• Project management and logistics

• Client communication scheduling

• Everything that’s execution, not judgment

What you provide:

• Strategic direction (what approach will actually work here)

• Expertise from pattern recognition (I’ve seen this 100 times)

• Quality control and taste (good vs. generic)

• Nuanced judgment (what the client actually needs vs. what they’re asking for)

• Accountability for the outcome

The result: Clients get expert-level “done for you” outcomes. You work a fraction of traditional consulting hours. The math finally works at scale.

And when you factor in the difference in price points, the relative ease and higher likelihood of success by selling services becomes crystal clear:

• Instead of: “How to Do Strategic Planning” course ($297) Offer: Strategic planning service with deliverable plan ($8,000-15,000)

• Instead of: “Marketing Masterclass” membership ($97/month) Offer: Complete marketing strategy with implementation roadmap ($10,000)

• Instead of: “Business Development Program” group coaching ($497) Offer: Business development consulting with accountability ($5,000/month)

The best clients don’t want to learn how to do it, they want it done. And they want it done by someone who’s done it before, and who provides accountability for the outcome.

That’s you. And now you can deliver it profitably at scale.

Are Information Products Dead?

No, I don’t think so.

But there are things you have to realize about the past, current, and future context of selling courses, paid newsletters (more appropriately called a membership model), and other digital information products.

• First, just about anyone you can think of with a course or membership model started out with client services. Beyond the fact that it’s easier to do at the beginning, working with clients is also where the content and the credibility for the paid education come from.

• Second, what you don’t see in many course businesses is the hidden service component that’s the actual profit center. You only get the call-to-action for expensive one-on-one services once you’ve progressed far enough up the typical offer ladder of either loss-leader or break-even information products. This is where many a “guru” makes their real money, all while preaching about “passive” income.

• Third, as the proliferation of artificial intelligence continues into the mainstream, there’s no doubt that what people will spend their money on when it comes to learning and knowledge acquisition will change, and perhaps drastically slow. Keep in mind that even today, only a relatively tiny fraction of people make a living from courses, paid newsletters, and digital information products, compared to the number of people trying.

With those three points in mind, here’s the winning go-forward path that combines the best of the past with the unavoidable promise of the future:

Start with client services:

• Fastest validation of what people will actually pay for

• Highest revenue per customer

• Easiest to sell (outcome = clear value)

• Learn what people actually need (not what you think they need)

Stay with client services:

• AI makes them scalable without hiring

• Higher margins with fewer sales than courses

• Better client outcomes (done for you > learn how to)

• Can build $200K-$1M+ business with services alone

Add courses and memberships strategically:

• If you want to serve lower-budget segments

• If you want a solid client-qualification mechanism

• If you want additional revenue streams

• If you enjoy teaching

Client services can easily be your entire business now if your client acquisition game is dialed in. Before the AI execution layer became a viable reality, freelancers and consultants who built audience-first service models often had to turn prospective clients away and raise prices, or hire and manage people to scale.

But now? Let’s talk realistic numbers.

Conservative client services model:

• 3 ongoing clients at $5,000/month = $180,000 annually

• 25-30 hours/week of your strategic time

• AI handles execution ($20-100/month in subscriptions)

• Minimal overhead, no employees, location-independent

That’s more income than most corporate jobs, with complete control over your time and location. Plus, there’s no low ceiling that requires you to pivot to a different business model if you want to make more. That’s demonstrated by a more aggressive approach.

Aggressive client services model:

• 8-10 clients at $5,000-10,000/month = $480,000-$1,200,000 annually

• 35-40 hours/week (same as corporate demanded)

• AI handles 80% of execution work

• Still no employees, still location-independent

These aren’t edge cases. The Census data shows 16,279 client-serving, non-employee businesses generating $1M-2.49Min annual revenue, and that’s before AI made client services even more scalable.

The 7-figure Small movement is just getting started.

What’s Next

The bottom line: Services are more valuable than software and information products in markets where outcomes matter. And those are the most valuable markets to pursue.

Solo and very small non-employee client services businesses were already hitting $1M+ at record rates, thanks to the reach of the internet and the efficiency of automation. Now AI has supercharged it: You can deliver expert services at scale without hiring anyone.

Client services are always the smart place to start when you’re transitioning from employment to your own thing. Now, it’s even more indisputable, and it may be the only revenue source you need.

Meanwhile, corporations are cutting costs. They’re using their own investment in AI to eliminate expensive employees like you. But you can use the same user-friendly technology to build something better of your own.

Start with client services. Let AI handle execution while you provide what people are really paying for. Deliver valuable outcomes at scale, and charge value-based prices.

And there’s another strategic advantage to starting with client services that most people miss.

This one determines how fast you can actually build your business and to what level of revenue you can eventually reach.

We’ll explore that next week.

Welcome to the fourteenth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Your voice is your primary instrument.

Not your slides. Not your body language. Not even your words, because the same words delivered with different vocal qualities create entirely different effects.

Your voice is what carries emotion, emphasis, meaning, and authenticity. It’s what makes the difference between a presentation people tolerate and one they remember.

The challenge is that most people have never consciously thought about how they use their voice. They just... talk. And that’s fine for casual conversation, but it’s not enough for persuasive presenting.

You need to understand the elements of vocal control and how to use them to calculated effect.

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Your job trained you to be the wrong thing.

Not incompetent. Not unskilled. Just optimized for a role that doesn’t exist outside the employment machine.

For decades, you learned to analyze situations, make recommendations, and contribute your expertise to team outcomes. You got good at it. You were valued for it. Your performance reviews praised your strategic thinking, your insights, your ability to see patterns others missed.

All of that made you an excellent knowledge worker.

And that’s the problem.

Because knowledge work — the thing your career trained you to excel at — isn’t a business. It’s a role in someone else’s business. And when you leave employment (or employment leaves you), that role doesn’t translate the way you think it should.

What Your Job Trained You to Be

Let’s be clear about what a knowledge worker actually does.

You analyze data and situations. You develop insights. You make recommendations. You contribute your expertise to larger initiatives. You’re part of a team that delivers outcomes, such as strategy documents, marketing campaigns, operational improvements, and financial plans.

Success as an employee meant being good at your part of the whole. The analyst who provides sharp analysis. The strategist who sees three moves ahead. The pro who catches problems before they become crises.

So your value was in both your knowledge and your ability to apply it within the system. You were measured on the quality of your thinking, the soundness of your recommendations, and the reliability of your judgment.

What you weren’t responsible for was the ultimate outcome. That was distributed: The team owned the results, or lack thereof, and the company produced the final deliverable. You contributed your piece.

This worked perfectly in an employment context. You were a specialized component in a larger machine. Your knowledge fed into execution systems. From there, implementation teams took your analysis and turned it into action. You did your part; others did theirs.

But here’s what that means when you leave: You’re trained to contribute to outcomes, not produce them.

Why Knowledge Work Isn’t a Business

When you go solo, clients don’t want your contribution to their outcome. They want the outcome itself.

They don’t want your analysis of their marketing problem. They want the marketing problem solved.

They don’t want your recommendations for their strategy. They want the strategy delivered and working.

They don’t want your insights about their operations. They want the operational improvements implemented.

The gap between what employment trained you to deliver (knowledge, insights, recommendations) and what clients actually want to buy (finished results, solved problems, achieved outcomes) is massive.

And AI just made it permanent.

The AI Shift

Here’s the brutal reality: Information is now essentially free.

For $20 a month, ChatGPT will analyze their situation. Claude will generate recommendations. Any flavor of AI will provide frameworks, best practices, and step-by-step guides. Instantly. At whatever level of detail they want.

If you’re selling knowledge such as information, analysis, frameworks, and recommendations, you’re competing with a practically free and instantaneous alternative that more and more people are turning to.

But there’s something AI can’t do. And that’s own the outcome.

AI can analyze the problem. It can’t be held accountable for whether the solution works.

AI can generate the strategy. It can’t take responsibility for whether it succeeds.

AI can draft the plan. It can’t guarantee the implementation.

That’s the difference between knowledge work and outcome production. And it’s why you need to shift your identity from one to the other, while adding your uniquely human skills to produce what clients are really paying for.

The Outcome Producer Role

An outcome producer doesn’t contribute to results; they deliver them. This changes several things:

• Accountability shifts from distributed to singular. As a knowledge worker, you provided good analysis, and the team owns whether the initiative succeeds. As an outcome producer, you own whether the client gets the result they paid for.

• The deliverable shifts from input to output. As a knowledge worker, you provide analysis, recommendations, and strategic insights. As an outcome producer, you provide a complete solution, implemented strategy, and an achieved outcome.

• Client expectations shift from “help me figure it out” to “you handle it.” As a knowledge worker, they want to learn from you and understand the situation better, so they can make informed decisions. As an outcome producer, they want the problem solved without having to become experts themselves.

• Pricing shifts from time-based to value-based. As a knowledge worker, you receive an hourly rate or a salary for your thinking. As an outcome producer, you receive a project fee or value-based pricing for the outcome delivered.

• Success metrics shift from the quality of thinking to the achievement of the outcome. As a knowledge worker, you ask, “Was the analysis sound? Were the recommendations good?” As an outcome producer, you ask, “Did we achieve the result? Is the problem solved?”

In practice, this looks like:

• Knowledge worker delivers: Market analysis showing three strategic options with pros and cons for each.

• Outcome producer delivers: Market positioning that’s implemented, messaging that’s live, and three qualified leads in the pipeline.

• Knowledge worker delivers: Recommendations for operational improvements with an implementation roadmap.

• Outcome producer delivers: New operational system running smoothly with documented 30% efficiency gain.

• Knowledge worker delivers: Strategic plan with quarterly milestones and success metrics.

• Outcome producer delivers: Executed strategy with measurable results against the metrics that matter.

The most valuable clients don’t want your expertise applied to their problem so they can solve it. They want your expertise applied to their problem so it’s solved.

How AI Enables This Shift

Here’s what used to make outcome production problematic for solo practitioners:

Producing complete outcomes required too much execution work. You’d need a team to handle research, drafting, implementation, documentation, revisions, and project management.

You couldn’t afford that team as a solo business. So you were forced to sell knowledge and advice instead of outcomes.

AI has eliminated that barrier, just as it made generic information unsaleable.

Now AI handles the knowledge work:

• Research and data gathering

• Situation analysis and pattern recognition

• Initial drafting and documentation

• Plans for process execution and logistics

• Revisions based on your direction

• Project coordination and tracking

While you provide the outcome production:

• Strategic direction: What approach will actually work here

• Expert judgment: What I’ve seen succeed and fail in similar situations

• Quality control: The difference between good and generic

• Accountability: I own whether this achieves the intended result

• Final delivery: Client gets the completed outcome, not homework

Example: Strategic Planning

Knowledge worker approach (pre-AI):

• 40 hours: Analyze client situation

• 20 hours: Research best practices and case studies

• 30 hours: Draft recommendations

• 10 hours: Present findings and answer questions

• Total: 100 hours of your time

• Client gets: Recommendations to implement itself

Outcome producer approach (AI-augmented):

• AI: Research, data gathering, initial drafts based on your direction

• You: 10 hours of strategic thinking and direction

• AI: Execution of plan based on your expert guidance

• You: 5 hours of quality control, refinement, delivery decisions

• Total: 15 hours of your time

• Client gets: Implemented strategy producing results

Same expertise. Same quality of strategic thinking. But you’re producing the outcome, not just contributing the knowledge.

This wasn’t usually possible before AI. Now it’s not just possible — it’s the only sustainable model.

Why This Shift Is Hard (and Necessary)

If this feels uncomfortable, that’s normal.

You spent your career building an identity as a knowledge worker. Employment rewarded you for your quality of thinking, sound analysis, and reliable judgment — and these things are still essential aspects of your skillset. It’s just that your expertise was valued for its contribution to larger initiatives.

Shifting to outcome producer means moving:

• From “I know things” to “I deliver results;”

• From advisor to owner;

• From contributor to accountable partner; and

• From providing input to producing output.

It feels risky. What if the outcome doesn’t work? What if you’re held responsible for things outside your control?

But here’s the reality: You can’t build a sustainable business selling knowledge anymore. AI provides knowledge for next to nothing. Clients can get analysis, frameworks, and recommendations anywhere.

What they’ll pay premium prices for is what AI can’t provide, and that’s someone who will own the outcome based on their expertise and judgment. Someone who takes accountability for the result. Someone who delivers the finished solution, not just the roadmap.

The mindset shift required:

Stop thinking: “I’m an expert who shares knowledge and advice.”

Start thinking: “I’m a producer who delivers outcomes clients need.”

Stop positioning: “I’ll analyze your situation and recommend solutions.”

Start positioning: “I’ll solve your problem and deliver the result.”

Stop pricing: Based on your time and expertise level (knowledge worker model).

Start pricing: Based on the value of the outcome produced.

This shift unlocks everything that follows: The right business model. The right positioning. The right pricing. The right client relationships.

But it starts here, with your identity. With understanding what you actually need to be in the age of artificial intelligence.

What Comes Next

Your job trained you to be a knowledge worker, and that made sense in the employment context because you were part of a larger system that was responsible for producing outcomes.

But as a solo business owner, knowledge work isn’t enough. Information is free, and analysis is abundant; AI provides frameworks and recommendations instantly.

What clients will pay you for (and what creates a sustainable business) is outcome production — being the person who doesn’t just contribute expertise, but delivers finished results.

AI just made this possible for individual business owners by handling the knowledge work while you focus on producing outcomes. The next question is: What model actually supports outcome production?

That’s what we’ll explore next week.

As promised, we’re taking a break from our regularly-scheduled lesson flow for a very special “behind-the-scenes” video that explains the why and the how of the product on of this course.

Here’s what’s covered:

• A reminder of why “face time” in front of your audience is increasingly important.

• My secret motivation for doing this course.

• The keys to scripting tight videos that don’t sound like you’re reading.

• How to edit video and audio like an article.

• Why sound enhancement is crucial.

• The instance in which AI has gotten worse instead of better.

• How to position your camera for best results.

• What to do with your hands while presenting.

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Greetings from somewhere over the Northern Atlantic!

We’re on our way to France as I write this, and I’m going to do my best to do the impossible for me… sleep on a plane. We’ll see how it goes.

So, no video this week for the Persuasive Presenter course. But I did want to let you know that I’ve added AI prompts to every existing lesson that will help you implement the devices and ideas you’ve learned in the lessons.

I waited until now to add the prompts to make sure you knew the “why” and the “how” of using these persuasion techniques without AI. We’re never going to outsource our thinking and understanding, but once we grasp why a certain technique works and how to use it, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of assistance.

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Welcome to the twelfth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

You’ve learned some powerful rhetorical devices: metaphor and analogy, open loops, the Rule of Three, refutatio, anaphora, and antithesis.

Each one is powerful on its own. But master communicators don’t use them in isolation. They layer them, combining multiple devices in multiple moments to create compound effects that are far more persuasive than any single technique could achieve.

This is the difference between a competent presentation and mastery.

Read more

Note: The replay of our first Premium Member Q&A is here.

Welcome to the eleventh lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Antithesis is a rhetorical technique that places two opposing ideas in parallel structure to highlight their contrast.

The word comes from the Greek antithesis, meaning “opposition” or “setting against.” You’re not just presenting two different ideas. You’re deliberately positioning them as opposites to sharpen both.

When done well, antithesis makes ideas more memorable, more quotable, and more persuasive. When done poorly (like the AI-generated “It’s not X, it’s Y” cliché), it becomes a meaningless formula that signals lazy thinking and poor writing.

Let’s explore how to do it well.

Classical Antithesis: The Rhetorical Foundation

Antithesis has been a cornerstone of persuasive communication for thousands of years. Some of the most famous lines in history are built on antithetical structure:

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The storm has been brewing for a while now.

Is it finally about to hit? Will the dual threat of recession and artificial intelligence result in the mass layoffs that pundits have been predicting?

It seems more and more likely. But the encouraging news is that a lot of people aren’t sitting around waiting for it.

But first, let’s look closely at those storm clouds.

The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a widespread and unexpected downturn for a job market that continues to struggle across a broad range of sectors.

The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4%. That’s not terribly high, but the problem is that no one is hiring. Everything from economic uncertainty to expectations that artificial intelligence will reduce staffing needs has employers sitting on their hands.

On that note, the U.S. economy grew at just 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025, which is half the rate they initially told us. Meanwhile, core inflation ticked up to 3.1%, well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

And these numbers came before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran, a now extended event that sent oil prices spiraling upward thanks to the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz. This supply disruption pushes inflation even higher — immediately at the gas pump, and then everywhere else over the coming months.

This is how Dan Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, oil market expert, and vice chairman of S&P Global, put it:

For a time, we wondered whether the catalyst would come from the emerging problems in the private-credit market, or perhaps a backlash to the frothy A.I. hyperscaling economy. But the truth is that the Franz Ferdinand moment is often a surprise — the incident one least suspects. Could the catalyst come instead from Trump’s potentially misbegotten military adventure in Iran?

I’ll take ALL OF THE ABOVE for $200, Alex. The coming storm is starting to look like a perfect storm of suck.

Didn’t You Mention Some Good News?

Oh yeah, I did. And it’s the kind of news that gets me fired up for this inevitable and unavoidable revolution in the workforce.

The Census Bureau reports that 532,000 Americans started new businesses in January alone, a 36.8% increase from the previous year.

And according to the Wall Street Journal, 150,000 Americans left the country entirely in 2025, which is the first net negative migration since the Great Depression.

Let’s connect those dots.

Slowing growth plus rising inflation equals stagflation, which is the same economic environment that crushed workers when we were kids. Economists are already seeing “a whiff of the 1970s” in the current data.

Corporate’s response is predictable: When margins compress, they eliminate their most expensive employees first.

And if you’re over 50 with 25-30 years of experience and a salary that reflects it, that’s you.

So, those people are responding by fleeing to entrepreneurship and to geographic arbitrage.

The key is not to react in panic, but to start and build strategically.

In other words, will you build your exit strategy while you still have leverage, or will you scramble after the layoff notice arrives?

The Economic Reality No One’s Saying Out Loud

Let’s be clear about what’s happening.

The Commerce Department revised Q4 GDP growth down to 0.7%. That’s half the initially reported 1.4%. The economy was “losing momentum” even before the geopolitical crisis sent energy costs higher.

Core inflation rose to 3.1% in January, moving very much in the wrong direction. And with oil prices spiking due to the Middle East conflict, that number is anticipated to climb precipitously.

Slowing growth plus rising inflation equals one thing for corporate America: mass layoffs.

When companies face compressing margins, they do the math. Replace one experienced professional earning $150K with two junior hires at $60K each. Call it “reorganization.” Analysts approve. Stock price rises.

You’re not being replaced because someone younger is better. You’re being replaced because the Excel spreadsheet says so.

The corporate calculation is simple. But here’s what they’re not calculating: Your expertise is worth more outside your company than inside it. You just need a plan to extract that value before they make the decision for you.

The Location-Independence Play

Then there’s the exodus: 150,000 Americans who left the country in 2025. And it’s not just the wealthy or adventurous anymore.

Jen Barnett, a 54-year-old from Alabama who founded Expatsi, a company helping Americans relocate abroad, told the Wall Street Journal:

Previously, the Americans leaving were super-adventurous and well-credentialed. Now they’re ordinary people, like me.

Her company organized three group scouting trips in 2024. This year? Fifty-seven trips are planned. Expatsi’s stated goal: “Move one million Americans.”

When the economic shit hits the fan — possibly for years — you have options corporations don’t. Build a service business earning U.S. rates while living somewhere your dollar goes two or three times further. That’s personal cost-cutting that doesn’t require laying off the people who do the actual work.

The sovereign startup model means independence from your boss, yes. But it also means independence from a zip code that’s bleeding you dry.

Build your client base in the U.S., where clients pay U.S. rates. Live where your dollar actually works. Deliver your expertise remotely while AI handles logistics.

You don’t need to leave the country to build a startup. But the fact that you can, and it’s in your economic interest to do so, is another aspect that makes it sovereign.

The New Founder Explosion (And Why Most Will Fail)

Over half a million people started businesses in January. LinkedIn reports a 69% year-over-year increase in people listing themselves as founders.

The Wall Street Journal calls it “a mental shift toward self-reliance,” with many new founders feeling “they are better off on their own — or have no other choice after a fruitless job search.”

Some are chasing opportunities. Most are fleeing threats. And in their haste, a lot of them are building the wrong things entirely.

Entrepreneur Scott Cohen used AI tools to build a news app for $400 instead of hiring a coder, calling it “the democratization of invention.”

But guess what?

Everyone else can build that app too. And frankly, the last thing you should be building is an app, given that the software and SaaS markets are being decimated thanks to the very technology these newbie founders are building with.

AI both creates the threat and the opportunity, which means you have to understand the “value add” only humans can offer. Here’s what actually separates winners from the many of those 532,000 scrambling founders:

Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill notes that while AI can handle “hard” skills like coding and bookkeeping, “many [entrepreneurs] find the so-called soft stuff is actually harder.”

Hard skills are now easy. AI handles code, data analysis, graphic design, project management, and anything involving that damn Excel spreadsheet.

The much-maligned “soft skills” are now everything. Communication. Empathy. Positioning. Judgment. Taste. Curiosity. Connection with other humans.

And if you’re 50+ with decades of corporate experience? You have soft skills in abundance. You just need to know how to strategically use them to gain a unique competitive advantage.

Entrepreneurism Will Both Steal Your Job and Save Your Economic Life

So far, the layoffs attributed to AI, which number in the hundreds of thousands, have been at the big tech companies — Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, etc. And that makes sense, as that kind of adaptability is baked into their culture.

And then one of them finally came out and admitted it. Block CEO Jack Dorsey laid off nearly half his staff, specifically due to AI implementation:

“Within the next year, I believe the majority of the companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes,” Dorsey told analysts. “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late.”

So the “regular” companies are next, right? Maybe not in the way you think, though, because most corporations have the nimbleness of a glacier trying to parallel park.

But it’s happening as we speak nonetheless, thanks to a new breed of AI-powered entrepreneurs who are taking aim at line items in corporate budgets. They’re starting with legal, accounting, and other outsourced services, after originally selling tools to the lawyers and accountants.

And if you think that’s ruthless, next up will be entire departments of employees. And your company can’t wait:

On the issue of job loss and headcount reduction … the survey results suggest that companies are making decisions to reduce headcount before they see the benefits of AI’s impact. A majority of surveyed organizations have already made either low to moderate (39%) or large (21%) headcount reductions in anticipation of AI. Another 29% is hiring fewer people than normal in anticipation of future AI.

Here’s the thing: Your ideal solo business will do the same thing, augmented by AI. Or you’ll provide exceptional outcomes to consumers and small businesses using the same processes.

I’ll be laying this all out for you in the coming months. But it’s still up to you to get started.

How 50+ Professionals Win This Game

This isn’t about whether to build your own solo or small company. It’s about whether you’ll build strategically or reactively.

Path 1: Hope

Hope you survive the next round of layoffs. Hope the economy improves before your position is eliminated. Hope the ageist job market suddenly values your experience.

Hope is not a strategy. And when GDP is at 0.7%, and you’re the most expensive line item on the spreadsheet, hope is a dangerous bet.

Path 2: Panic

Wait for the layoff notice. Join the feeding frenzy of everyone else who is in the same boat. Compete on price with desperate former colleagues. Burn through savings trying to figure it out.

Panic-building puts you in the worst position: No validation, no revenue, no time, depleting savings, competing with thousands in the same situation using the same tools.

Path 3: Build Strategically

Build while you’re still employed. Use that corporate paycheck to finance your transition. Validate your model before you need results. Position distinctly while others compete generically. Exit on your terms with proven revenue.

This is harder in the short term because you’re essentially working two jobs for several months. But it’s exponentially easier in the long term. Plus, just an hour or two a day of learning and setting the stage can get you far ahead of the pack.

• If corporate cuts you, you’re ready. Existing clients, proven model, no scramble.

• If corporate doesn’t cut you, you still choose to leave when your revenue target hits.

Either way, you’re entering sovereignty from a position of strength. Mark my words, we’re all going to get there one way or another… except for those who don’t make it at all.

Leave a comment

Keep going-

Brian

P.S. Ready to transform your expertise into location-independent income and upgrade your life at midlife? Further Premium gives you the complete roadmap, with business building instruction, financial planning advice, expat guidance, and more.

further: flashback

🎶 George Michael - Freedom! ’90, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, 1990 🎶

George Michael reinvented himself from his pop dolly past with Freedom! ‘90. The lyrics are your first clue, followed by the fact that George refused to appear in the video. The burning leather jacket and exploding jukebox from Faith were less-than-subtle finishing touches. (YouTube)

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Welcome to the tenth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Repetition is one of the most fundamental techniques in persuasive communication.

• We remember what we hear repeatedly.

• We internalize what we encounter in patterns.

• We respond emotionally to rhythm.

Those previous three bullet points — We remember, We internalize, We respond — weren’t accidental. That’s anaphora at work: the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or paragraphs.

The word comes from the Greek anaphorá, meaning “carrying back” or “repetition.” You’re carrying the same opening phrase back again and again, each time advancing the idea forward.

But not all repetition works equally well. Random repetition feels redundant. Strategic repetition, specifically anaphora, feels powerful.

Read more

First of all, thank you for your trust as a Premium member.

With The Persuasive Presenter still in full swing, you already have two complete courses in the library: Personal Enterprise Accelerator and The Business of Expertise Blueprint.

Not bad for less than a year in. But we’re just getting started, and I wanted to give you a quick roadmap of what’s ahead.

Replay of Premium Member Q&A: Watch here

We had a fantastic live interactive Q&A session last week, and even if you didn’t submit a question, the replay is worth a watch. I reveal many of my thoughts about where we go from here with AI-augmented expertise businesses, among other useful topics!

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Welcome to the ninth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Steve Jobs understood something that ancient Roman orators had codified two thousand years earlier:

If you want to persuade someone, you need to address their existing beliefs before you can replace them.

That’s what refutatio is. It’s the formal acknowledgment and rebuttal of opposing arguments. But it’s not just about defeating objections. It’s also about the strategic sequencing of those objections relative to your own position.

You present their argument first. Then you dismantle theirs by presenting yours last.

Read more

Welcome to the eighth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

And as a bonus, I got a much needed haircut. Samantha is definitely happy about it.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

You see the Rule of Three used all the time across diverse areas of life.

Why?

Because information presented in groups of three is better remembered than information presented in other item clusters.

For example:

• “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

• “government of the people, by the people, for the people”

• “Friends, Romans, countrymen”

• “blood, sweat, and tears”

• “location, location, location”

• “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”

• “faith, hope, and charity”

• “mind, body, spirit”

• “stop, look, and listen”

• “Sex, Lies, and Videotape”

• “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

The United States Marines are big believers in the Rule of Three when it comes to getting things done and keeping people alive. The Corps apparently experimented with a rule of four, and retention and effectiveness took a nose dive.

If you want something stuck in someone’s head, put it in a sequence of three.

Why Three Works: The Science Behind the Pattern

Read more

I was sitting outside at a cafe in France, sipping a glass of Bordeaux, when the realization hit.

After I sold our StudioPress business in 2018 and went on sabbatical, I finally had some time to reflect on my 20 years of entrepreneurism up to that point.

And that’s when I realized I had been operating within movements with every successful business I had started.

It took this relaxed reflection for me to parse the pattern, because while I had intentionally joined all of these movements, I hadn’t recognized the strategy involved.

To me, I was simply doing things I was interested in that also gave me a sense of purpose.

And as it turns out, I find my purpose by identifying and participating in various business movements where I consider the status quo to be less than optimal or just flat-out wrong.

When you build an audience at the intersection of personal purpose and a collective movement, you can become a leader in something bigger than yourself. I realized that afternoon in France that this has been a critical component of my success over the years, and it also makes crafting meaningful content much easier.

Let Me Show You the Pattern

In 2001, I started an all-digital exclusive buyer’s brokerage. Unlike a traditional real estate firm, it was part of a movement in the real estate world in which agents positioned themselves as representing only home buyers, never sellers.

This movement arose because the home-buying process is heavily weighted in favor of sellers. The exclusive buyer brokerage approach appealed to me and played to my strengths as a former attorney. But from a marketing standpoint, it strongly differentiated my firm in a highly undifferentiated industry.

While I cut my prospective client base in half, those who understood exclusive buyer brokerage instantly wanted to work with me. And my marketing content educated buyers who didn’t know about the concept but liked the idea once they understood it. It was easy to get passionate about explaining this to people who didn’t realize how stacked against them the real estate purchasing process is.

Movement insight: I didn’t start the exclusive buyer brokerage movement; I joined it. And by joining, I became a leader in my local market, reaching six figures in revenue in only six months, by championing something that other Realtors ignored. Plus, I was really good at a form of digital marketing that used educational content as part of the sales process.

In 2006, I joined the blogging movement — specifically, the new movement in entrepreneurial and “professional” blogging. I knew I could help, thanks to my business-building experience with three client services firms powered by online content and digital copywriting.

Because what actually worked was very different from what bloggers believed, Copyblogger quickly transcended the blogging movement and sparked what would later become known as the content marketing movement.

I had no idea when I started Copyblogger that content marketing would become a $655 billion industry 20 years later. But it became an obvious wave to ride forward, given that this movement embodied what I had been doing online since 1998.

Movement insight: I joined one movement (blogging) and pioneered a larger one (content marketing) in the process by simply serving my audience in a unique way that differed from everyone else.

In 2008, I became a recognized leader in the open source WordPress movement. When I started using WordPress in 2005, everything was free. By 2008, I was a catalyst for the fledgling “premium” WordPress space with Thesis, the first paid and supported design framework for WordPress.

Two years later, I shifted to the superior Genesis Framework with StudioPress and was determined to make it one of the biggest brands within the broader WordPress ecosystem. It worked like a charm over the subsequent seven years, which led to the acquisition of StudioPress by WP Engine in 2018.

Movement insight: Again, I didn’t start the WordPress movement. But I became a leader in it by uniquely serving my business-minded audience within the broader community with products that specifically addressed their unique non-technical needs.

In 2019, my first post-acquisition move was to shift my personal newsletter project Further to specifically serve Generation X. In doing so, I discovered multiple meaningful movements through the process of serving a largely 50+ audience:

• The Unretirement Movement that emerged due to a lack of meaning, purpose, and income during retirement.

• The Healthspan Movement that reframed the idea of “old” as a new and vibrant stage of life.

• The Longevity Economy Movement that shifted perception away from a marketing focus on youth culture toward those who actually have the most money.

In 2025, my contributions within the above movements caused me to focus specifically on subset business movements that solved problems for 50+ people, while also matching my particular background and skillset:

• The 7-Figure Small / Bootstrapping Movement, or the idea that a great business is not about raising venture capital and building a billion-dollar unicorn. It’s about powerful bootstrapped companies that give solo founders and tiny teams the freedom to create the perfect business for them, while still generating exceptional revenue.

• The Location-Independent / Digital Nomad Movement, which believes your physical location shouldn’t dictate your economic opportunities or lifestyle options. Instead, business and life should be designed around freedom. And the current geopolitical and cost-of-living crises reveal that “sovereign startups” have outsized opportunities compared with geographically-rooted companies and jobs.

These movements exemplify how I’ve built businesses for decades, and reflect how I’m actually living my life now at age 58. This is my leader/problem fit, even as I operate within the much larger movements that will determine how my fellow Gen Xers survive and thrive in the next decade.

Movement insight: Movements are everywhere, and they often intersect. This is why aligning yourself with movements is much more powerful than “choosing a niche” or even chasing a trend. These are the currents of collective belief that you can ride with like-minded people.

You Don’t Have to Start the Movement to Become a Leader

Starting a movement is hard. Joining one is easy, especially for digital entrepreneurs who pay attention to the purpose-driven currents that lead to movements in the first place.

In fact, the people who join a movement once it begins often become more important to that movement than the person who started it.

Derek Sivers did a brilliant TED Talk called How to Start a Movement, and he argued that it’s the second person, the third, and so on who really make a movement.

Which makes sense. As Sivers pointed out, it’s not until others join in that a lone nut becomes a leader. I’d add that people who tap into a movement with a unique perspective can attract a profitable audience and also become powerful leaders themselves.

Here’s why this matters now more than ever:

Most people think they need to invent something radically new to stand out against AI-generated content. They think they need to be the originator, the first mover, the revolutionary thinker.

But that’s not how movements work. Movements need interpreters, connectors, evangelists, and organizers just as much as they need originators.

When you join a movement and become a vocal leader within it:

• You align with people who already share your worldview;

• You tap into existing energy rather than building from scratch;

• You establish authority by clarifying and articulating what others feel but can’t express; and

• You attract an audience that’s predisposed to trust you because you’re “one of us.”

And none of this can be replicated by AI, because AI has no authentic stake in the game. It has no lived experience within the movement. It’s not “one of us,” and everyone can sense that.

How to Find Your Movement

The movements that are right for you aren’t random. They emerge from the intersection of:

1. Your lived experience and expertise: What have you actually done that gives you credibility? What battles have you fought? What transformations have you experienced?

2. Your core values and worldview: What do you believe about how the world works or should work? What injustices make you angry? What possibilities excite you?

3. Your audience’s shared struggles and aspirations: What are they fighting for or against? What future are they trying to build? What identity are they trying to claim?

When these three things align, you’ve found your movement. In fact, your movement is probably already obvious if you learn how to see it.

• What communities are you naturally drawn to?

• What trends do you find yourself defending or promoting?

• What injustices or inefficiencies make you want to build solutions?

• What future are you already trying to create for yourself?

Those are your movements. You don’t need to start them. You just need to join them, contribute to them, and lead within them. And they’re everywhere once you know how to spot them.

Here are several business movements I’ve spotted recently:

1. The Regenerative Agriculture Movement

Modern industrial farming is destroying soil, ecosystems, and long-term food security. We need to rebuild soil health through practices that work with nature, not against it.

2. The Craft Beverage Movement (Not Just Beer)

Beer/spirits/wine should be made locally, with quality ingredients, by people who care about the craft. Not by conglomerates optimizing for margins and shelf stability, as happened when Big Beer bought many of the early craft breweries.

3. The Right-to-Repair Movement

You should be able to fix what you own. Manufacturers shouldn’t force obsolescence, lock you into their repair networks, or make devices impossible to service. It’s David vs. Goliath, and they’re organized.

4. The Alternative Education Movement

The traditional public school model (sit still, standardized tests, age-based grades, teacher-directed learning) doesn’t serve most children. Education should be child-led, experiential, and develop intrinsic motivation. Parents who recognize this are pulling their kids out of traditional schools despite social pressure and financial sacrifice.

5. The Functional Medicine Movement

Conventional medicine treats symptoms with pharmaceuticals. True health requires addressing root causes — nutrition, lifestyle, environmental factors, gut health, hormones — through a systems-based approach.

Each of these movements has:

• Active rejection of the status quo: Not just “doing it differently,” but consciously opposing the dominant model.

• Shared identity/values: People say “I’m regenerative” or “I’m right-to-repair” as an identity, not just a niche business description.

• Financial sacrifice for principles: People spend money, work harder, and devote precious time to stay aligned.

• Community formation: Members connect and share information through conferences, forums, local groups, and shared language and frameworks.

• Evangelism: Members advocate for the movement and actively recruit others.

Sounds a bit more powerful than “marketing” to me. Especially the push-button AI variety.

What This Means for Business Building in 2026

The businesses that survive and thrive won’t be the ones with AI-generated content.

They’ll be the ones who attach themselves to movements. The ones who build at the intersection of shared values, collective purpose, and authentic human leadership.

This is why I’ve spent 25+ years building within movements. It wasn’t a conscious strategy early on, but it definitely was the pattern that kept producing exceptional results.

And now, in the age of AI, it’s not just one viable path among many. It’s the only path that creates something AI can’t commoditize and turn ineffective.

Your tiny company doesn’t need to compete with AI on technical execution. It needs to lead a tribe that AI can never authentically join.

Find your movement. Join it. And then lead from within it.

Leave a comment

Keep going-

Brian

P.S. Ready to transform your expertise into location-independent income and upgrade your life at midlife? Further Premium gives you the complete roadmap, with business building instruction, financial planning advice, expat guidance, and more.

further: flashback

🎶 The Go-Go’s – Our Lips Are Sealed, Beauty and the Beat, 1981 🎶

The Go-Go’s became the first all-female band that wrote their own music and played their own instruments to achieve a No. 1 album, which kicked off with lead single Our Lips Our Sealed. Beauty and the Beat sold over two million copies, making it one of the most successful debut albums of all time and a cornerstone of American new wave. (YouTube)

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Welcome to the seventh lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think!

Open loops aren’t just for Tarantino films. They work in any context where you need to hold attention, including your presentations.

Let me show you how this plays out in real-world communication.

Back during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I came across an article about some less-than-inspiring aspects of the devastating storm.

It began with this:

An Illinois woman mourns her two young daughters, swept to their deaths in Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters. It’s a tragic and terrifying story. It’s also a lie.

Now, any article detailing fraud in the aftermath of Katrina would contain compelling information. But that opening had me riveted, and it got me reading the entirety of a detailed and lengthy piece that I might have otherwise skipped.

Read more

In 2008, an open source software project was proposed to a small online community.

A savvy founder had a revolutionary idea for a new kind of digital product, powered by a new way to record digital transactions.

It began with a white paper. A technological manifesto designed to spark a movement.

From there, the movement grew, and the proposed peer-to-peer product was launched in 2009. This led more people to join the movement.

To create and spread an idea this revolutionary, capital was required. But instead of seeking VC funding, this founder granted community members digital tokens for their work.

These early “equity participants” were incentivized to invest their time, skills, and even money in both developing and evangelizing the product. As the movement expanded, the tokens slowly gained value… and then eventually skyrocketed in worth.

This strange startup knew no geographical boundaries and operated outside the traditional financial system. It had no employees and, like most open-source projects, was completely community-driven, which blurred the line between developers and customers.

And yet, as of this writing, the product has a market cap of $1.25 trillion (yes, with a T). It’s been valued much higher in the recent past and may again reach new heights.

The founder called himself Satoshi Nakamoto. The product is Bitcoin.

Since no one knows for sure who’s behind that pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto may be more than one person. But at most, it’s one to three people, which means Bitcoin satisfies all the criteria for a sovereign startup.

To clarify, I’m not a crypto bro, and I own no Bitcoin. It remains to be seen if the whole thing drops back to zero or solidifies itself as a mainstream currency.

In other words, I’m not part of this movement. I’m not a true believer.

So when I first encountered the Bitcoin-as-startup idea, I scoffed. This is not a startup, I thought.

This is… something else.

I’ve come to see my initial reaction as the entire point. Something was different, and it’s a prime example for those of us building “different” companies ourselves.

Bitcoin didn’t succeed because of clever marketing. It succeeded because it became a movement. And now and going forward, that distinction matters more than ever.

Why Movements Matter More in the Age of AI

Here’s what changed between the launch of Bitcoin in 2009 and today: AI can now do everything we used to call “marketing.”

Claude can write your emails, your ad copy, your social posts, and your landing pages. It can segment audiences, personalize messages, optimize conversions, and analyze performance. It can do A/B testing at scale. It can create content calendars and execute them flawlessly.

Marketing, as a technical skill, has been commoditized. Worse, this push-button marketing is likely to fail precisely because it’s a commodity.

But here’s what AI can’t do. It cannot lead a movement.

• AI can’t embody shared values.

• It can’t have lived experience that makes it “one of us.”

• It can’t inspire people to believe in something bigger than a product.

• It can’t create the sense of belonging that makes people willing to evangelize an idea for free.

This is why movements transcend marketing. Movements are what AI can’t replicate.

When Satoshi published that white paper, he wasn’t doing marketing. He was articulating a vision that aligned with people’s worldview about money, sovereignty, and freedom from centralized control. Those people became believers, then evangelists, then leaders themselves.

We’re not talking about a marketing funnel. Instead we have a group of people who take collective action based on a unifying vision, and that’s infinitely more powerful.

Movements are built on something AI fundamentally lacks: authentic human identity, shared values, and collective purpose. And that’s why you must think in terms of movements, not marketing, to make it in this brave new world.

The Unity Principle: What AI Can’t Do

In 2016, the social psychology researcher who defined the six fundamentals of influence (reciprocity, authority, social proof, liking, commitment and consistency, and scarcity) added a seventh principle.

His name is Dr. Robert Cialdini, and the new principle of influence is unity.

Unity isn’t just “liking” scaled up. It’s the recognition that people trust and follow those they perceive as fundamentally similar to themselves. Not people they admire from a distance, but people who are “us.”

From the prospect’s perspective, it’s, “I trust people like me. People who value what I value.”

Research shows people now trust others who are similar to themselves more than representatives of traditional power centers, and as much as academic or technical experts.

Now and going forward, this principle becomes the difference between what AI can do and what only humans can do.

• AI can fake authority: It has access to all human knowledge and can present it convincingly.

• AI can fake social proof: It can cite studies, quote experts, and imply widespread agreement that may not exist.

• AI can even fake liking: It can be charming, witty, and empathetic in its responses.

But AI cannot fake being “one of us.” It has no lived experience. No scars from failure. No personal story of transformation. No shared struggle. No authentic membership in a tribe.

This is why movements, which are fundamentally about shared identity and collective purpose, are the human moat that AI can’t cross. And this is what the generic advice of “be human” really comes down to.

Movements vs. Marketing: The Critical Distinction

Marketing asks: “How do I get people to buy my product?”

Movements ask: “What do we believe together, and how do we make that belief the new normal?”

Marketing is transactional. Movements are transformational.

Marketing creates customers. Movements create evangelists.

Marketing says, “Here’s why this product solves your problem.”

Movements say, “Here’s who we are and what we stand for… Join us.”

And this is the key insight: People don’t just buy from movements. They become part of them. They contribute to them. They defend them. They recruit others into them.

• They don’t just adopt the shared belief; they identify with it.

• They’ll defend it to skeptics at dinner parties.

• They’ll bring others into the fold.

• They believe in the mission.

Good marketing tries to connect via identity, but more often misses the mark because it lacks credibility. Movements are inherently about identity, so they work better than marketing in just about every case.

Next week, I’ll share with you how I’ve become a leader in various movements across my entire entrepreneurial career, and how this has been the secret of my success.

You’ll discover why this makes audience attraction and business building much easier compared with “me too” mainstream marketing.

Even better, I’ll share how to find your movement. And how going against the status quo makes creating compelling content your moat against AI commodification.

Leave a comment

Keep going-

Brian

P.S. Ready to transform your expertise into location-independent income and upgrade your life at midlife? Further Premium gives you the complete roadmap, with business building instruction, financial planning advice, expat guidance, and more.

further: flashback

🎶 Van Halen - Unchained, Fair Warning, 1981 🎶

Producer Ted Templeman tells the story of being in the studio with Van Halen while recording Unchained. David Lee Roth started mocking Templeman about his suit during the song, so Ted hit the button in the booth and says, “Come on Dave, give me a break.” Dave responded, “One break, coming up!” The joke, of course, is that the conversation happens during the break of the song, and comes roaring out of it back to the chorus just after Dave has his pun. (YouTube)

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Welcome to the sixth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think!

A middle-aged man storms into his doctor’s office, steaming mad.

“Doc, my new 25-year-old wife is expecting a baby. You performed my vasectomy five years ago, and I’m very upset right now.”

“Let me respond to that by telling you a story,” the doctor calmly replies.

“A hunter once accidentally left the house with an umbrella instead of his rifle. Out of nowhere, a bear surprised him in the woods… so the hunter pointed the umbrella, fired, and killed the bear.”

“Impossible,” the man snaps back. “Someone else must have shot that bear.”

“And there you have it,” the doctor says.

This hardly needs to be said, but… The doctor could have just come out and said the man’s wife must be cheating on him. It was the analogy that allowed the patient to reach that conclusion on his own, which is always much more persuasive.

Lead Them to Their Own Conclusion

This brings us back to one of the core principles of persuasion we established early in this course. It’s not about telling people what to think or do. It’s about leading them to decide that the way you think is the right way for them to think as well, and then take action accordingly.

Read more

What if I told you that the most profitable solo companies aren’t solo at all?

I’ve spent the last several years writing about powerful tiny companies that generate outsized profits and distilling those ideas here at Further:

• The Rise of 7-Figure Small

• The Sovereign Startup

• Small Is the New Big

These are the tiny, expertise-based businesses that allow you to earn everywhere and live anywhere.

The implication (and possible downside) is that you’re on your own. But that’s not quite right.

And that’s because the most powerful solo companies don’t operate in isolation. They collaborate.

I don’t mean in the way traditional businesses collaborate, by raising capital, hiring employees, or even merging into larger entities.

Instead, the solo companies maintain their independence while forming temporary alliances with other sovereign operators to accomplish what none of them could do alone.

This is a sovereign collective. It’s a situation where everyone involved has their own tiny company, but big things happen when these companies work together for a while before the collective disbands.

I’ve been building this way for 20 years without fully articulating the model. Now, with AI fundamentally changing what’s possible for small ventures, the sovereign collective is no longer just one option among many.

I’ll make the case that it’s becoming the dominant model for how the most capable people will work beyond their own solo firm. Let me explain by going back to the beginning.

The Power of the Individual (Then and Now)

Picture this:

It’s 1998. A young attorney, disgruntled with the practice of law, wants to earn a living as a writer instead. Rather than seeking a writing deal in New York or Los Angeles, he looks to the emerging commercial internet to form a direct relationship with an audience.

With no business background and zero traditional marketing knowledge, the young man finds himself becoming a digital entrepreneur through trial and error. His writing ends up playing the role that sales and marketing are supposed to, once he discovers that a compatible product or service should be offered.

Fast forward six years and three successful service businesses later: The young(ish) entrepreneur wants to exit both client work and “real-world business” to focus more on writing and developing a completely online business model.

At this point, it seems many others share this desire, given the rise of the professional blogging movement. He spots an opportunity to achieve his goals both creatively and professionally by helping others succeed in their digital business pursuits.

So, he starts a “blog” in January 2006. The site quickly evolves into more of a digital magazine, with numerous contributors writing for free alongside the founder, who edits every guest article while continuing to write two long-form educational articles each week.

Producing content at the cusp of Web 2.0 and the emergence of social media proves to be incredibly lucrative in terms of traffic. Our entrepreneur takes that traffic and gets people to stick around via email and RSS, and he quickly grows an audience that’s looking for a steady stream of educational content to help them build their own audiences.

From there, three startups emerge from the “magazine” over the next three years, each one attaining over seven figures in profitable revenue within 12 months. There are no investors, and the only employee is someone the third startup inherited through a business partnership.

Okay, enough with the pseudo-suspense.

That guy is me. And I share my story to illustrate the power of an individual who thinks in terms of media, not marketing, when using the internet to reach the right people.

This approach — building audience first, monetizing strategically, partnering selectively — worked then. It works even better now.

But the nature of the partnerships has fundamentally changed. Artificial intelligence doesn’t eliminate the value of human partners, but it does change the equation.

What’s Changed in the 2020s

When I originally coined the term “sovereign collective” in 2022, artificial intelligence wasn’t dominating the conversation. And even though I had known for years it was coming, it wasn’t “ready for prime time” just yet.

GPT-3 existed, but felt more like a parlor trick than a business tool. Everyone was obsessed with Web3, DAOs, and new collaboration platforms that would make it easier for creators to work together.

The mass conversation wasn’t about AI because it wasn’t yet relevant to how we build businesses. Then ChatGPT hit in 2023, and the entire narrative shifted.

Now in 2026, AI overwhelmingly dominates the discourse. And we’re at what many consider a tipping point:

• Claude Code can build sophisticated software with minimal human technical contribution.

• AI agents are beginning to autonomously improve themselves.

• The technical skills that once required years of training and expensive hiring are now accessible to anyone who can describe what they want.

I’ll make the case that this doesn’t mean people become less powerful. It means they become more powerful, but only those who understand what humans still uniquely provide.

The Collaboration Shift: From Technical to Strategic

Here’s what’s changed about partnering since I built those seven-figure companies between 2007 and 2009:

Old collaboration model (2000s-2020s):

• Creator (audience/content) + Partner (technical skills) = Product

• Example: I attracted the audience and then created course content, while my more technical partner handled design, platform development, and operations.

• Example: I defined an SEO strategy for our first SaaS product, and a two-person team built the software.

New collaboration model (2026+):

• Creator (audience/content) + AI (technical execution) + Partners (judgment/taste/trust) = Product.

• Technical execution is commoditized by AI.

• Human collaboration happens at a higher level: strategy, curation, quality control, and community leadership.

What this means in practice:

In 2008, when I entered the emerging WordPress premium market with a unique design framework, a technical partner handled the coding. The product couldn’t exist without that coding capability, so we had a full partnership.

In 2026, Claude Code could easily build that same product. But what Claude Code can’t do:

• Decide if it’s the right product for the market

• Determine if the design has taste or is generic

• Build trust with a community of WordPress developers

• Curate which features matter and which are noise

• Lead a movement around a philosophy of design

Those human elements — judgment, taste, relationships, domain expertise, community trust — are what matter. And even though I’ve never been able to code myself, that’s why I was able to grow and lead an eight-figure software company.

But my technical partners also helped me make better decisions at the strategic level, which went far beyond coding. And that is the realm in which the new collaboration lives.

Here’s Why Humans Stay in the Loop

A company of one or just a few founders can accomplish more than ever. We already know that the number of high six- and seven-figure businesses without investors or employees has increased over the last 15 years, thanks to the internet and related technologies.

But here’s what’s truly new: AI has eliminated the need for most technical collaboration while simultaneously increasing the need for human collaboration around what AI can’t provide.

You don’t collaborate for technical capability anymore. You collaborate for:

1. Strategic Judgment: AI can execute. It can’t decide what’s worth executing. A strategic advisor who’s been through multiple business cycles, who understands market timing, who can smell a bad idea before you waste six months — that’s irreplaceable human value.

2. Taste and Curation: AI generates content. But is it good? Is it distinctive? Does it connect with your ideal prospect? Does it sound like everyone else who uses the same AI? A collaborator with taste can tell you, “This is generic, push harder,” or “This is it, ship it.” That editorial judgment bridges the gap between what’s 90% and all the way there.

3. Relationship Capital: AI doesn’t have a network. It doesn’t have 15 years of trust built with an audience that you can partner with. When you collaborate with someone who has genuine relationships with customers, partners, media, investors, and community members, you’re accessing decades of accumulated social capital that no amount of AI can replicate.

4. Domain Expertise: AI knows everything and nothing. It has broad knowledge but no lived experience. A collaborator who’s actually done the thing you’re trying to do — one who’s failed three times and succeeded once, who knows the subtle nuances AI misses — brings context that is the difference between amateur and professional.

5. Community Leadership: AI can moderate a forum. It can’t be the trusted leader people follow. Community requires a human at the center: someone people trust, someone who embodies their values, someone they’d follow from platform to platform. In other words, the human element behind the technical functionality.

AI augmentation makes it possible for a solo entrepreneur to do more than ever. But your ambition and human need for collaboration may make it feasible to team up to accomplish even more.

The Open-Source Analogy

When I originally wrote about this subject a few years ago, I used open-source software as an analogy for how Web3 collaboration might work. That analogy still holds, but for different reasons.

I spent a decade developing software and hosting solutions in the WordPress ecosystem. WordPress itself is free, open-source software that was “forked” by Matt Mullenweg from another blogging platform. A community of developers built WordPress together, then thousands of commercial products emerged from that shared foundation.

What made WordPress work wasn’t just the code being free. It was:

• A shared vision and philosophy (democratizing publishing);

• Clear initial leadership (Mullenweg as benevolent dictator);

• Community trust and norms (defined by the community itself); and

• Commercial opportunities while contributing back to the community.

It was when the commercial opportunities arose that new leaders began to emerge within smaller segments of the broader community. As two of the first to offer paid, supported WordPress products, both Brian Gardner and I became leaders in the more business-oriented sector of WordPress.

A couple of years later, we teamed up to take things to a much higher level. That led to an array of new products and eight figures in highly profitable revenue.

It’s important to note that we provided leadership to our own communities first, and then the commercial opportunities caused those communities to intersect with the broader WordPress ecosystem. Many others succeeded in that ecosystem over the subsequent years.

This is exactly how AI-augmented collaboration will also work:

The “code” (AI capability) is essentially free and available to everyone. What matters is the vision (what you build with it) and these related skills:

• Leadership (who people trust to guide the project);

• Community (the humans who rally around shared values); and

• Equity (how you capture value and share with contributors).

The technical barrier is gone. The human barriers — trust, taste, judgment, leadership — remain and become even more important.

Why Audience Still Wins

In 2022, I wrote:

The people who develop audiences will always have the upper hand and most leverage when it comes to collaboration.

That’s even more true in 2026. Why?

Anyone can use AI to build a product. AI democratized technical capability. But AI can’t build trust at scale. It can’t develop a reputation for quality. It can’t create a community that follows you from platform to platform because they believe in your judgment.

Audience is the moat that AI can’t cross. If you have an audience that trusts you:

• You can launch products they’ll try because of who YOU are;

• You can attract collaborators who want access to that trust;

• You can charge premium prices because you’re not competing on features; and

• You can pivot when markets shift because people follow you, not your product.

This is why I’ve always emphasized audience-first approaches. The key is not about having the best technology or the most financial resources. It’s about having the relationships and trust that make everything else possible.

And that trust requires a human at the center.

AI can put together your newsletter. But it can’t be you. It can’t have the lived experience, the unique perspective, the personal story that makes people care. That’s the irreplaceable human element.

What This Means for 2026 and Beyond

I don’t think we’re headed toward a world where humans are replaced by AI, at least not at the entrepreneurial level. We’re heading toward a world where:

1. Solo ventures become even more powerful because AI eliminates the need for hiring.

2. Small teams become even smaller but more strategically valuable.

3. Collaboration happens at higher levels, meaning strategy, not execution.

4. Community becomes even more valuable as the trust mechanism AI can’t replicate.

5. Audience remains the ultimate moat that no amount of AI capability can substitute.

The age of seven-figure small continues to accelerate. But now, instead of needing a developer, a designer, and a marketer, you need Claude Code and two trusted humans who can help you decide if what you’re building actually matters.

That’s a sovereign collective. Radically small, exceptionally capable, and entirely human where it counts.

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Keep going-

Brian

P.S. Ready to transform your expertise into location-independent income and upgrade your life at midlife? Further Premium gives you the complete roadmap, with business building instruction, financial planning advice, expat guidance, and more.

further: flashback

🎶 Love and Rockets – Ball Of Confusion, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven, 1985 🎶

When I first heard Ball of Confusion in 1985, I didn’t immediately realize it was a cover of the 1970 hit from the Temptations. But I did know the guys from Love and Rockets used to be in Bauhaus with Peter Murphy, so I was able to maintain my music nerd credibility somewhat. (YouTube)

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Watch, read, and let me know what you think!

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Master copywriter Eugene Schwartz often spent an entire week on the first 50 words (the headline and the opening paragraph) of a sales piece.

Just imagine how disappointed you’d be after crafting a killer title for your presentation, only to lose your audience with an opening that failed to carry the momentum.

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Welcome to the fourth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.

Watch, read, and let me know what you think!

Read more