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Hey there, Marissa here. If you can say yes to no team, no time, no traction, then you want to stay and listen to this week's podcast episode where I share a little bit of my predictions for 2026 and how you can change that using AI. So stay tuned.

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From burnout to breakthrough, we'll rewrite your story with AI strategy. Let's amplify your authority.

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Hello everyone. Welcome to the Amplify Your Authority Podcast. I am your host, Marissa Shadrick, and I am very honored that you're listening to this podcast episode. And I promise I'm going to try to make it worth your time in this short episode. So we're talking about AI. Boy, what a year it has been. We have seen a lot of transition into AI, not just in individual businesses, but in large companies, in the tools that we're using. AI is just being weaved into everything. So where does that leave us as a solo business owner? Well, let's do a quick overview of what's happening. So according to a lot of experts, solo business owners are either on the edge or fully into the digital shift that they really can't ignore any longer. Some statistics show that 75% of small to mid-size businesses have invested in AI this year. 78% of small to mid-size business leaders believe AI is a game changer, not only for their company, but for their team as well. My prediction is that in 2026, using AI will be as normal as using the internet or your smartphone. We just can't ignore it anymore. It is here. It does help us shave off some time. It helps us with those heavy tasks that we have to do every single week, maybe daily. It helps us be able to work smarter, especially for solo business owners, because those are the people I'm talking to. You, the one that doesn't have a team, that doesn't have any time, and doesn't see any traction. We need to really consider how to coexist with AI and business moving forward in 2026. I didn't say it before because I didn't like scare tactics about you're behind and all this other stuff. But in 2026, if you don't begin to use AI strategically, it's going to begin to show because competitors will be using it strategically. We can't just put in a prompt and have it blurt out some words and then post that somewhere. We have to be very much a part of the AI process. That's why I say coexist because it's not just handing it off. Now, eventually, once you get really good at AI and you begin to create some custom GPTs or some custom gems, then you can begin to see things working really well and have a certain amount of autonomy where you're just editing a few things, then you can begin to think about workflows and connecting some of these custom AI tools to create a workflow. But until you have some really good AI assistants that are working really, really well, it's best to just focus either one of two things. Where is the bottleneck and consider that that would be your first custom AI tool? Or do you need a business partner? Do you need an AI tool that will help you think through some processes, maybe some things that you want to implement in 2026? What are the pros and cons? Let's do some research. Maybe your email list isn't growing, problem solve that. If you need a thinking partner, maybe that will be your first one. It just depends. For every business, it's different. Okay, another prediction. If you learn the skill of prompting, you can use it across many of the generative AI tools. For example, a lot of experts are talking about Chat GBT, Gemini, and Claude. They're all just slightly a little different, but when you learn to communicate with it and prompt, you can use any of these tools. Those skills are transferable. That's why for people that have never used a tool, I always recommend starting with Chat GBT and using it just for personal stuff. Like I used it over the Thanksgiving holiday to create my menu for Thanksgiving, to create the shopping list. I used it for personal things, and those skills will transfer over to business skills. So ChatGBT can help you do a lot of things. I'm telling you, it can do like 90% of what solo business owners have to do, whether it's podcasting, creating YouTube videos, creating a newsletter, creating articles, whatever it might be, ChatGBT can do a lot of it. But many people don't realize the features that are inside of ChatGPT. So you can create prompts with the right knowledge, right? You need resources so it learns about you and your business and your voice and your style, and it can create the blogs, it can create client emails, it can create even content for your courses. It can do a lot for you. So my prediction as far as these AI tools is that the next wave of profitable solo business owners will outsource the busy work to AI and double down on creativity, connection, and strategy. You must focus on creativity, connection, and strategy. So you need that margin which these AI tools can give you to ideate, to reimagine what business can look like. Number three, as far as my 2026 predictions, has to do around content marketing. According to industry trends, content creation is booming. So what does that mean for solo business owners? Well, we're gonna see more newsletters, more blogs, and even more books. The book industry has to be doing the happy dance because all of their programs and their things related to book publishing is gonna soar because more people see it possible now to write books because of AI. So we're gonna see more books. So what does that mean? There's gonna be more competition, right? There's gonna be more people just inundated with more books and blogs and newsletters. But readers want specific solutions to a problem that they have. They want clarity, they want simplicity, and they don't want clutter. So even if you do decide to create a newsletter, a blog, keep it simple and keep it true to your brand and to your voice and put a little bit of yourself into it. Put stories into it, make it real, human to human. And I always say the best way to think about this is that if you were talking to someone across a kitchen table, would you use a lot of flowery language or would you use everyday language? So my prediction in 2026 is more books, more blogs, but it won't be about how much content you publish. It will be about how much heart and originality you bring while amplifying your brand, your values, and your vision. There are three skills that I believe you're gonna need moving forward to 2026. And they're skills that you already possess. Maybe some of them are dormant, maybe some of them come easy to you, but these are the three things that I see are important to move forward, and it really circles around leadership. The first is clear communication. Communication is key as we enter into this era of AI. AI isn't magic, it mirrors what you give it, what you provide. So when you communicate your background, your goals, your audience, your brand, and what you want AI to do for you, it will produce better output. As we move into 2026, communication becomes the bridge between your expertise and the AI's capacity to give you good output. The clearer the direction, the stronger the results. So clear communication is the one skill that we need to lead with to be able to use AI really well, regardless of which AI tool you need. The second is ongoing delegation. Now, this is something that solo business owners didn't really think about a lot because they do it all. They do their marketing, they do their social media, they do their product creation, they do their emails, they do everything, right? So we don't think about delegation as much, but now we need to shift that mindset. We can't carry all of the weight. We need to continue to delegate and always lean towards simplicity and not complexity. Complexity is a killer. And with all these AI tools that are coming out now, people are complicating everything because they say, Oh, this tool does this and this tool does that. Let me do this, let me do that. And they're moving away from what really matters. You need to focus on your offer. Have one simple offer that you're gonna focus on and create and sell. What is that offer? And then you're gonna have one lead magnet that will be part of the funnel to lead people toward that product or service that you provide. And sometimes that lead magnet needs to be looked at and you have to look at the analytics and tweak it and adjust it if it's not performing well. So beyond the one offer and the one lead magnet, you want to have one audience that you're targeting and you want to have one main problem that you're solving. And based on that problem, you have one main transformation. This should be super simple. We're not talking about features or benefits yet. If we can distill it down to a word or a few words, maybe less than seven words, what would it be? What's your simple offer? What's your lead magnet about? Who's your one audience that you're targeting? What's the main problem you solve? And what's the one transformation that you're bringing or the solution that you're bringing? AI can't give you that because it doesn't know all your expertise. It can help you with ideas as you begin to give it knowledge, it can help you shape that, but it's not a one and done that'll just give you the answer out of the air. You need to work with it and you need to really test to see if this is a viable offer. You need to test many, many times and do many iterations. That's why I'm saying that complexity is death to a business. If you're thinking of doing this, this, and this that you're gonna sell, it's too much. You need to focus on one thing and refine it and get it really, really clear. So when you have your one offer, your one lead magnet, your audience, your main problem, your transformation, then you have something to give AI, and now we can begin to delegate. And delegation isn't sometimes the first thing we think about. And I know it wasn't easy for me either, but the day I was able to use Chat GBT to create a client proposal draft, that was a game changer for me because those took me a long time to do because they had to be customized based on what the client wanted. But delegation starts first with a mindset before it becomes a system. So we want to change how we view delegation because we're not talking about hiring a virtual assistant. We're not talking about contract workers, we're talking about delegating to AI. So the question will shift now from can I do this to should AI be doing this? And if we begin to then think about AI as a possibility of an assistant that you can delegate a task that you're doing, that's where you start. And then those types of things that feel heavy, repetitive, or they're mentally draining, you can take time with the margin that you're making from using AI for other tasks and other writing. You can begin to explore or ask questions with leaders. Like those people inside my membership can ask me any question about something they're trying to create. And since I test a lot of tools, I can let them know what tool is available to be able to implement so that they can execute on that heavy task that they're doing all the time. Curiosity is really the doorway. We need to start just thinking, can I delegate this to AI? And if so, what would that look like? And if you have a mentor or if you're part of my community, you can ask those questions to figure out how can I take this off my plate? How can I make this easier? Okay, the third skill that you already have that might be a little dormant is unlimited imagination. We now can reimagine the future and we can reimagine how we work every day. AI gives you margin, it gives you more thinking time, more planning time, more breathing room. And if it's not, maybe you're not using it to its full capacity. The margin that you gain is where imagination is reawakened, and this is so important. We need to plan and we need to then set goals, and then we need to execute on those goals and stay super focused and keep it simple. I don't know how many times I need to say that. Keep it super simple. When you begin to ask what if, that becomes a strategy question. It's not a wish and it's not a fantasy, it's something that is becoming possible now because of AI. The limits you once hit were often limits of capacity. You've reached capacity, you can't do anymore. It wasn't about creativity. Now with AI, you can have more room, more margin for creativity. When you put all these three skills together, when you begin to communicate clearly, when you begin to think about delegation on an ongoing basis, and when you stop limiting imagination, when you put these together, something remarkable happens. You realize that you don't need every single tool that's being thrown at you. A lot of these tools are not custom made for solopreneurs. A lot of these tools are made for larger companies. And some of these tools are maybe something that you might need five years from now, but not necessarily today. You need relief today, and you need to do it in an easy way, not a way that's going to add more to your plate and more complexity to your day. You need to start with one. And my recommendation is Chachi BT because it does so much. I've said it before, it's like a Swiss Army knife. You just need to know how to use it well. And then depending on what your needs are and your goals, you may need one or two others. So you can do real meaningful work without a lot of tools, without the need of a human team. And you can start with one solid AI partner if you bring communication, delegation, and imagination to the table. And if you nurture these tools, that means work with them, continue to teach them, continue to give it knowledge, you'll lighten your workload, you'll protect your energy and expand what's possible in your business without sacrificing your brand message and the heart that makes your business so unique. Remember, people buy from you. There's lots of people that sell what you sell. There's nothing new under the sun. At the end of the day, the reason why they choose you is because they've heard you speak or they've seen your post or they've read your article. They resonate with who you are, with your values, with your perspectives, with your point of view. They like how you teach or they like how you communicate, how you simplify things. They choose you when they buy from you. It's not necessarily the benefits and the features, because they can find that just about anywhere. So when you protect that, that's the best thing that you can do for your business, especially as we're moving into more AI. That's going to be the differentiator is protect your brand, protect your voice, share more about you, be creative, share stories, be human in a world that is so full of AI output. We can coexist with AI, but we need to make sure that we're using it to leverage what we're doing and not to create more, but to leverage and improve what we're already doing and keep it simple. One simple offer, one simple audience, one simple call to action, one main problem you're solving, one transformation you're providing. Keep it really, really simple so that you have the bandwidth to be able to iterate and do it well and earn revenue. And then don't reinvent the wheel. If it's working well, just consider how can I improve it just a little bit by 5% or 10% so I can sell more of this particular product or service. And then you're really on your way to creating the type of business you wanted in the first place. We didn't start an online business and start working from home to do more and be exhausted and overwhelmed and on the verge to burnout. We did it because we had a mission, we had a vision of something, and we can use AI now to help us execute on those tasks that end up like a bottleneck in our business and keep us with our hands tied from doing anything else. So I hope this podcast episode was helpful for you. If you're interested in finding out more about AI Lab for Solopreneurs that is created by a solopreneur and intended for solopreneurs, then I would love for you to go to marissashadrick.com forward slash community to find out more. So until next time, take care and I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.