626: The Content Strategies That Will Die In 2026 (And What’s Taking Over)

00:00
Welcome back to the podcast, the show where I cover all the latest strategies and current events related to e-commerce and online business. In this episode, Tony and I share our bold predictions for what’s coming in the content creation world in 2026 and why the strategies that worked last year might not work anymore. We break down the shifts that we’re seeing, the trends that are about to explode and what you need to start doing right now to stay ahead of the competition. But before we begin, I want to let you know that tickets for Seller Summit 2026 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com.

00:27
And if you sell physical products online, this is the event that you should be at. Unlike most events that are filled with high-level fluff and inspirational stories, Seller Summit is all about tactical, step-by-step strategies you can actually use in your business right away. Every speaker I invite is in the trenches, people who are running their own e-commerce stores, managing inventory, dealing with suppliers, and scaling real businesses. No corporate execs and no consultants. Also, I hate large events, so I intentionally keep it small and intimate.

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We cap attendance at around 200 people so you can actually have real conversations and connect with everyone in the room. We’ve sold out every single year for the past nine years and I expect this year to be no different. It’s happening April 21st to 23rd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And if you’re doing over 250K or $1 million in revenue, we also offer a private mastermind for high level sellers. Right now, tickets are the cheapest they’re ever gonna be. So if you want in, go over to sellersummit.com and grab your ticket. Now on to the show.

01:30
Welcome to the My Wife, Quitter, Drop podcast is the beginning of the year. So what I thought we would do today is talk about our predictions for 2026 in the content creation space. I’m excited. I feel like content creation has made a resurgence. You know, I’m excited and I’m also a little apprehensive at the same time because I’m seeing these trends, especially with AI kind of taking over the creator economy. And, yeah, I’m curious what you have to say about it, too.

02:01
I mean, AI has already affected my businesses in a fundamental way, right? Yeah. My blog, I think every blog in my blogging mastermind has been essentially decimated by AI. Yeah. My thing with AI right now is that it’s so hard to know what to believe. Yes. Right. Like I feel like when I’m watching something, especially because like, OK, we’re talking it’s the beginning of the year, NFL is in the playoffs. A lot of coaches have been fired. Right.

02:29
I think there’s like seven coaching vacancies and there’s all these like TikToks and Instagram reels where it’s like the coach. But it’s like, is that actually him talking? Is that AI? Like, it’s hard to tell like what’s real and what’s not, which I think is my biggest problem with AI and how it’s changing, like how people create content. I mean, from a creator perspective, what I’m more worried about is less that aspect of what to believe and what doesn’t, because that doesn’t really affect me.

02:55
What affects me are these guys that I’m seeing on YouTube and like these acquaintances that I hear about that have like hundred AI channels pumping out like 20 pieces of content a day, which means just by sheer volume, you’re going to get diluted out. Like if there’s enough of those guys out there and I’m seeing all of these courses from people teaching faceless AI generated content where they had these automations where literally

03:23
you have AI write the script, you hit a button, and then it just pumps out all these videos that automatically get broadcast to all the platforms, shorts, reels, TikToks. And so you get enough people doing that. And if you’re a real creator putting out good stuff, you’re still gonna get drowned out, right? I don’t know. So I think I talked about this on one of the podcasts we recorded before the break, but I told you that my son created a TikTok channel, right?

03:51
where he’s, and it’s AI generated cartoons, right? So he’s writing the scripts. He’s coming up with the ideas. Well, one month ago yesterday, he launched on Instagram. And it’s kind of funny, because my kids all grew up on social media, right? We used to do a lot of publicity and TV. And so they all pretty much have shunned social media. Most of them don’t really like to be on it.

04:16
Aside from like personally, so he’s my first kid that’s like actually kind of taken it and run with it It’s like, you know, maybe I can make this into something And so he started on Instagram a month ago and he when he started I said hey, you know Instagram’s a much slower growth than tick-tock, right? It’s gonna take you a while, you know, cuz he doesn’t have a platform. He has nothing right? So yesterday he hit a hundred K on Instagram Wow in one month nice and what this tells me is that

04:45
really clever content still wins, right? Because the stuff he’s putting out is really clever, right? It’s interesting, it’s funny, it’s different, right? So he’s got an angle and I feel like a lot of times with like he’s using AI to help him as far as like generate the videos, you know, cause it’s all animated, but outside of that, like the scripting and everything else is his ideas. And so I think ideas still win and I don’t think AI can trump that right now. Now.

05:13
Not to say that it can’t in the future because I feel like AI just gets better and better. But I think cleverness and, you know, an angle still works regardless. But it’s harder because you’re right, there’s so much content out there that’s just being like massively generated every single day. You really you can’t just be average anymore. You’ve got to be really good. I mean, I agree with your assessment and all these platforms are actually doing a good job of, you know, rating these people and only delivering

05:42
content that’s actually enticing that people want to watch. I guess the problem is if there’s just too much volume for these algorithms, someone still has to swipe and you still have to get data, right? But if it gets to the point where it’s like uh 1,000x what it is today, there’s going to be just too much content for people to swipe through and there won’t be enough data and everything gets diluted. I don’t think that’s going to happen in 2026, but if this continues in the coming years of everyone doing automations,

06:11
It’s going to get to that point, which is why I kind of like China’s law, which which we discussed in a previous episode where you can only put out content about finance, health and law if you have some sort of credential. So I think this is um we were just talking about our friend Tiffany Ivanovsky, but another person that is start is doing this well right now is Jeff Rose. um You know, he’s like revived his Facebook page or his Facebook channel. I don’t really know what they call it anymore, but. um

06:39
I think having that shareable or commentable content is where I think you can stand out from just the massively produced AI content. uh

06:50
Jeff Rose is doing that. To me, he’s a little too click-baity controversial, but whatever, it’s working, right? Because he’s like, would you tip? And he shows a receipt, and it’s like, no tip. And everybody has an opinion on whether you should tip or not, right? And he’s posting content like that that people are sharing and commenting. Tiffany Iovinovsky does the exact same thing, right? She posts a piece of content um that she knows people are going to um comment on and share. uh

07:18
She’s much less controversial. She’s more funny, right? She gets like the humor angle of it and incorporates all of her family’s like crazy adventures. um And I think that’s why my son’s stuff is doing well, too, because if you look at like the amount of likes, comments and shares that his stuff gets, like that’s why his channel has grown so quickly. Right. Because he’ll put out a video and it’ll get 4000 shares. Right. And it’s really hard to do that with like AI generated, just generic content. Yeah. Because people aren’t people just don’t share that stuff. Right.

07:48
It’s not interesting. I actually just had Jeff on the pod. His episode hasn’t come out yet, but your son could make like 40 to $50,000 a month doing that. Yeah, I know. We’re working on it. We’re working on it. you just have to get approved. Like, I’m trying to get approved right now to do that. I just submitted mine too after we talked about that. uh I did that the other day. um Yeah, he totally could. um He could do it. But what’s funny for him is that it’s open doors for like really interesting partnerships with people. um And because he’s doing like

08:16
Bible history, which is such a strange topic, right? To just go viral on. um He’s had conversations with archaeologists and historians that, because he’s doing all, he’s like all I do all day at work, because he works in a restaurant and he works in the back of house, so he listens to podcasts on historical archaeology digs. So he’s educating himself all day long on all this information.

08:42
and then matching up history with documentation and then making it funny. Right. So he’s basically taking information that’s like pretty hard. Like none of us are going to read the Dead Sea Scrolls. Right. But he’s he’s reading them and learning about him and then breaking them down and making them entertaining and interesting. And I feel like that angle, I don’t think will ever die. Like, I think that is interesting. You know what I mean? And I think that’s honestly why.

09:07
you have had the success that you’ve had is that you are really good at taking complicated information like how to start an e-commerce business, right? There’s like, there’s a million people offering a course on that, right? But you’ve taken it and made it a lot more simple for people to understand. You’ve broken it down step by step. You tell the truth to people. You’re not trying to be like in a Lamborghini with a money gun. um And so I think if you can still do that with any topic, you can have success because

09:35
That’s what I think AI doesn’t do. It does break down things so you can understand them, but then doesn’t represent them in a way where I feel like people can really resonate with. Have you ever wondered what your business is actually worth? Well, I worked with Quiet Lake Brokerage for over a decade. And one thing that I learned over the years is that most sellers wait way too long to find out the answer to that question. When I sold one of my businesses through them, I was surprised by how little I knew about what it actually takes to prepare a business for sale.

10:04
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10:32
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10:53
Yeah, totally. And I’ve been just really shocked after talking to Jeff about the ends that Facebook’s willing to pay for now. Yes. What you were telling me is insane. It’s insane. know it’s insane. I’m trying to get approved. It’d be pretty easy because he walked me through his strategy on the pod. Yeah. And it’s pretty easy to pull off. I figure I guess there’s two forms of content like the ones that I’ve been putting out has been ones that

11:20
give me influence, meaning like people sign up for the class and whatnot. What Jeff is doing doesn’t necessarily give him influence, right? Because it’s just like funny memes, but it gives him a lot of cash. So. Well, and he’s on like the hot button topics, right? And it’s like all this stuff that you see, like, obviously I just got back from traveling, but like the hot button topic in travel is do you give up your airline seat for a family to sit together? Right? Like that is.

11:48
Every video I see, every piece of content, it’s like, you know, either people complaining that someone didn’t give up their seat or someone complaining that they got asked to give up their seat. Right. But everybody has an opinion on this. Right. Every single person in the world has an opinion on whether you should give up your seat or not. And it’s like if you want to get people to, like, engage and share and tag their friends and talk about it and go back and forth in the comments, you have to be, you know, and that’s like what Jeff has done really well is he finds those types of topics.

12:17
Because everyone has them, right? Like my biggest pet peeve in traveling is people who stop at the top of stairs or an escalator, right? And they just stop and like open up the map. And I was like, maybe don’t stop right in front of the top of the escalator. Like if I posted that, it would get a thousand comments, right? Of like other people’s pet peeves of how people walk around in another city. So. And that’s what it takes. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

12:41
Or just be a crazy expert, right? Like I always follow the plastic surgery people who are like, did Bradley Cooper have plastic but those are interesting too, right? They are interesting, but like, know, but that’s, that’s once again using like kind of what you’re doing, your expertise to make commentary, right? On things and teach people. So I think there’s still two ways to go about it. Okay. So the next thing I want to talk about are podcasts and video podcasts. I think we’ve reached peak podcast.

13:09
OK, but did you see what was the award show Golden Globes? Was that what just happened with Nikki Glaser? Yes. Yes. I think that was Golden Globes. They entered this year. This year was the first year they had a category for best podcast. Yeah, that’s how you know, you like everyone in their month. So I went to a couple of events recently and everyone wants to start a podcast, not not a YouTube channel, but like a podcast. Yeah.

13:38
And I was chatting with this one person. I’m like, you realize that podcasting is way harder to grow than a regular YouTube channel and arguably less effort. A lot less effort. A lot less effort. I guess it just depends. But if everyone and their mother wants to start a podcast, that’s usually when I think we’ve hit peak podcasts. And everyone and their mother has a podcast now. Yeah. And it’s funny, all the celebrities that are starting

14:08
to have podcasts or also now going on podcasts. Yeah, exactly. Like they’re all interview based podcasts, too. Like Amy Poehler won um the other night for her podcast, which, you know, but here’s the thing. I think the way to grow your podcast, if you have one already or you’re you you made the decision to start, is that I think how Amy Poehler has been successful, other than the fact that she’s Amy Poehler. So like right there, you know, she’s got lots of lots of clout.

14:37
And she can get, I mean, she had Gwyneth Paltrow on, right? So she’s getting like major celebrities. like all the clips that come out, right? The clip I saw yesterday was her and Gwyneth Paltrow talking about how their dream time to eat dinner is 6 p.m. so that they can be in bed at eight, right? And it’s like, once again, hundreds of comments, super relatable. Gwyneth’s like, I like to be the first person in the restaurant. She’s like, and if I can be in bed at eight? And Amy Poehler’s like.

15:04
That’s the dream, isn’t it? Like, they’re just like, but you know what I mean? But like, I didn’t listen to the whole podcast, right? But that clip has, you know, a hundred thousand likes and, you know, and that’s how people are, are, you know, making their podcasts work. I don’t know how many people actually sit and watch the entire. I mean, people still do. My kids, my kids all listen to podcasts, right? Yeah, there’s just so many. So I listen to a podcast every time I run. the ones I listen to tend to be about like an hour and a half, two hours.

15:34
Yeah. And I mean, how many podcasts I run two or three times a week. How many podcast episodes can I listen to? Right. Very many. Not very many. And the number of podcasts out there, interview shows, if you can get someone huge on your podcast, then yes, of course. But if you’re just starting out, like with an interview podcast of just people that no one knows, I think it’s going to be really hard at this point. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah.

16:01
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16:30
just sign up right there on the front page via email and I’ll send you the course right away. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show. I mean, I’ve been podcasting for over a decade, so I already have like an established base, but if I were starting all over today, I probably would not go to the podcast route, unless I had some very special angle and or access to like, know, people who have a large audience.

16:59
Yeah, actually, my son called me yesterday. He’s like, I think I’m going to start a podcast. And I’m like, that’s how you know you’ve reached peak. I know. And I’m like, I’m like, dude, you started doing this two months ago and now you’re like, you know, internet famous. You got to calm down a little bit. oh But yeah, I mean, but he like wants to do one on like, you know, historical, like all this stuff. And I was like, you know what? I think there’s still space for those types of things. Yeah, I think that would work because that’s something that’s random. I’m just talking about like your old interview based show that everyone, their mother’s doing.

17:29
Exactly. But I still you know, it’s funny, even with all of that, we know people who watch podcasts on their TV at night instead of Netflix. Yes. Yeah. So I mean, crazy to me. And the other conversation I had with someone the other day was, know how when you’re browsing shorts and just the sheer amount of content that’s out there these days, like I’m not really loyal to anybody.

17:56
Right. Yeah. someone flashes by, like I don’t go out and seek all their content, just watch it. I’m just like blindly scrolling now. And I literally have to see someone maybe 20 times before I even remember who they are as I’m scrolling. I’m definitely very unloyal, except for, you know, unless you get sucked in. Right. There’s always the and that’s that’s once again going back to like, what are you doing? It’s so interesting or so captivating. Yeah.

18:24
Remember the lady? Of course, we we always laugh when we try to do this because we have such different tick tock algorithms. But like the lady who did the folding laundry, she like taught people how to remember. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So she just got married. Right. And I like did I watch go through every single wedding tick tock? Oh, yes, I did. Right. Like because I was so invested in her from her laundry days. Right. But for the most part, I’m going to scroll by anything like that. So you’re right. You’ve got to really have an interesting.

18:52
I mean, even full length YouTube videos that I watch, like, I watch it just for the topic, but like, it’s very few people that like actually grab me where I actually want to check out like the rest of their channel. And even same with the podcast, I find myself listening to podcasts now because of who’s on and not necessarily because of who the actual show is. Yeah. Right. Who belongs to, because again, I think we’re just getting to this point where just so much content out there.

19:22
The other thing I’m getting kind of tired of and I’m hoping this prediction will come true. Like on my TikTok feed and my Instagram feed, it’s every third person is pushing some product. Yes. I don’t know if your feed is like that. And it’s gotten to the point where I don’t think any of this stuff is genuine at all. I don’t like it because I feel like back back in my day, like.

19:48
When I talked about a product, it was because I had used it, I liked it, I was willing to vouch for it, but there’s a product in my feed all the time, and here’s how I know that they have shipped it to every celebrity. Bethany Frankel is doing it, as well as Shawn Johnson, the gymnast, right? And it’s some liver detox, get your cortisol, it’s totally the menopause level stuff that’s in my feed. But I’m like.

20:14
These you’re telling me these two different people use this product and this is like why like no you’re fit because you’re a gymnast and you’re fit because you have like great genetics and you also probably eat two avocados a day. Right. So like you know I don’t know that to me I agree with you. I think it’s such overkill. I don’t trust anything that comes out anymore especially from like bigger creators. And then occasionally I’ll see something that’s AI and it’s very well done.

20:43
but it’s pitching some product also. uh This is probably happening more on TikTok, because I guess I’m more on TikTok than I am on the other platforms. But if it gets to this point where everyone’s putting out, getting paid to pitch something, and then you use AI to have like a human fake pitch something, no one’s going to believe anything anymore. And just the whole influencer economy is just kind of going to go to crap. At least we’re pitching. I wouldn’t be mad about.

21:13
I would not be mad about, but I don’t know how you fix that problem, right? Yeah. Like, how do you get real, genuine reviews of a product? Yeah, I don’t I don’t know anymore, honestly. Like, I feel like I don’t know. I definitely that’s one of those old, like, nostalgic. I miss the old days where it’s like when when someone was talking about a product, it’s because they actually cared about and used it. And, you know, even though I fought so hard for like creators to be paid right and for like to

21:43
Fairly like, you know, we talked about the day that, you know, I got a free Twinkie for posting about Weight Watchers Twinkies. Like I don’t want to go back to that. Right. Where it’s like, hey, create four well edited, greatly produced videos for a box of, you know, snacks. But yeah, I don’t know how you combat that, especially as I’m saying the influencer economy is dead. mean, if you have someone who has like a good reputation. Yeah. I mean, it’ll still work like.

22:11
Me, for example, like I don’t ever take on those things. Yeah. Right. So if I say I like a product, I’m willing to stake my reputation on it in general. You know, for that product. And it’s definitely not dead because like so Shalene, um who she you know, she doesn’t she does some sponsored stuff, but a lot of times she’ll be like she’ll post a picture and she’s like, I got these shoes on Amazon. Right. And you go click. You can’t buy those shoes on Amazon anymore. Like they sell out. Like if she talks about a product.

22:41
It’s gone, right? And there are people like her that like, know, Bethany’s another one where she does a lot of sponsored stuff, but also she’s like, hey, got like, I’m wearing these pants right now that I bought on Amazon because she talked about how great they were. And I was like, these are like, look cute. They’re like travel pants. Right. And, know, I went and bought them. I was so excited they were still in stock because most of the time when she talks about something and you go to click on it, if you’re not watching the video in the first 30 minutes, you can’t get the product, especially on it, especially an Amazon product.

23:11
I mean, so that’s the type of influencer marketing. Yeah. And again, I think AI has just made everything just so much worse. Yeah. Because there’s entire platforms out there that are designed for you to use AI avatars to pitch your products in e-commerce now. Right. Yeah. So I’m guessing like a lot of these shop owners are like, hey, why do I need to pay so much money for these influencers anymore? Right. Especially since the whole influencer economy does not really depend on how many subscribers you have anymore. Right. It’s based on how good the content is.

23:41
And so if you can create the content with AI, why bother hiring these influencers? Yeah, we’ll see. Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see. The other thing that’s been on my mind at least has been this uh Gemini summarize button on YouTube videos. I’m not sure if you’ve played around with that. I have. I’ve seen it. I’ve not played around with it yet. So these days, and this is just something that that’s happened to me.

24:08
I actually don’t watch most YouTube videos anymore. You just have Gemini summarizing. I don’t actually use Gemini. That button actually doesn’t work that well just yet if you’ve tried it. Cause you can’t like tell it exactly what you want out of it. So I’ve been using this YouTube plugin, not YouTube plugin, it’s a Chrome plugin that just sends the entire transcript over to ChatGBT. And you can have these set prompts where it just gives you everything in like a bullet pointed list. Yeah.

24:36
So if I see like a 20 minute video or 25 minute video, I’m always thinking to myself, man, there’s no way I want to sit through this video. I just want the guts. Right. And so it just spits out the summary in ChatGPT. And that’s good enough. So we talked about this like two years ago. Do we really? Well, no, we talked about the summarize, the summarize factor. Right when AI was like starting, people were like,

25:04
really getting into it and we were talking about how we used it and I said that my brother was using it to summarize my mom’s text to the group chat, right? Because she often will send like boomer text, right? Like super long informational and like nobody has time to read all this. Like so he would summarize everything in like, I think it was probably chat GBT back then and then like send it to me and my sister. So we were like, oh, her neighbor’s having surgery. You know, she went to someone’s house for dinner or whatever.

25:32
But I feel like this is just like the next generation of that, right? Like who has time to watch a 20 minute video when you can summarize it? So my question then is, if you are making content, right, on YouTube, like how do you make content that people don’t want to summarize so they watch your video? Well, see, that’s what got me thinking that because a lot of my stuff is yours is very summarizable. It’s teaching content, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So.

26:00
maybe I need to switch up my strategy this year and just make it more entertaining in some way. And I know you’re laughing. Like, what are you going to do? I don’t know. Maybe it can be something in a delivery, maybe more like Asian jokes. I don’t know. Or something. Asian jokes don’t transcribe well, you know you’ve got it. I’m just trying. I was trying to think about the creators that I actually watch. Yeah.

26:29
all the way through. And it’s usually the ones who are kind of funny or they do like some crazy editing. Yeah, or they uh they’re just entertaining in some way. It’s just hard to describe. And I’ll sit there and watch it. Because I’m thinking about the most videos I watch these days, honestly, are Niners and Warriors videos. Yeah, yeah. And really, it’s just their takes. And it’s usually just like a talking head, right? Yeah. And those are you would think

26:57
summarizable really easily, right? But I actually sit through and watch the whole video and it’s literally just talking ahead with no video, but it’s because like the words they use to describe it, like the teams and the trades and everything that’s going on, that when you send it to a summary, it’s like not as interesting for some reason. Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because I don’t know, once again, our feeds are so different, but there is…

27:26
There’s always these creators that have like five minute TikToks that it looks like it’s this long involved story. Right. And there’s always the first comment in these in these videos are like, let me get to the point for you. And like literally someone has watched. I’ll watch the video so you don’t have to. Right. There’s people who have actually created TikTok accounts that summarize other people’s videos that are away. Yes. And so um they’re like, she went on the date. This happened. Blah, blah. He never called her back. Then she married his best friend.

27:54
And basically they summarize a 10 minute TikTok video into 35, 40 seconds. So people have already been doing this for years, but now AI is doing it instead. um So I don’t know, for me partly I’m like, well, you know what? Hopefully this makes people get to the point quicker because I often don’t like when I’m watching a video and I have to listen to people ramble. That’s what annoys me. um

28:18
It’s like when back in blogging, when everyone was like, Oh, recipes have to have SEO. So like the first 42 paragraphs of a recipe was like talking about their grandmother’s house in Italy and blah, blah, blah. And you’re like, just tell me how many tomatoes. Right. Right. Right. So I feel like in some ways I don’t mind the summary, but in other ways, like obviously as a creator, you’re not going to make money if people just summarize all your videos and don’t watch them. So you’ve got you’ve got to be interesting enough. I don’t even think you have to be entertaining. I think you have to be interesting. I entertaining works, too.

28:47
Yeah, I’m just thinking about, know, because if it’s just pure based teaching content, which is actually something that we’ve pitched for many years, if it’s just pure teaching content that’s easily summarizable, maybe that won’t last like the next couple of years is what I’m thinking. So you have to uh make it interesting in some way. It could be like your delivery. Yeah, could be. It could be any of these very nuanced things that make you stand out. Well, not to pat us on the back.

29:16
But I’m going to, as you know, I love to do. But that’s a lot of feedback we get for the course is that people love our interaction with each other. Right. Like how we usually have very different opinions about things and we joke around a lot. And, you know, we’re not afraid to kind of pick on each other a little bit. And we’ve had people that get very turned off by that. Right. We had we had someone on a webinar once that was like, you’re so mean. Right. You are mean. I am mean. But like.

29:45
You need it sometimes. Someone’s got to bring you down to a real life. Right. But but like the people who watch us regularly think it’s hilarious because they know they know our personalities and they know that, you know, we’re we’re obviously very good friends and we don’t have a mean bone in our body towards each other. Right. Like it’s all in fun and games. But I think that’s one thing that makes people gravitate towards the stuff we do is because they do like that interaction. Right. Which you would never get in a summary. In a summary, wouldn’t make any sense. Right. Yeah.

30:14
So so I think, you know, if you can find that angle right where people are like, oh, but I like the back and forth or I or it’s interesting or I like the tension. Right. Like I’ve for some reason my feet has blown up with like the Dax Shepard Kristen Bell drama, which I didn’t even know there was drama until, you know, basically he interviewed Cher on his podcast and she and Kristen Bell was in the room, too. And she kept like trying to mitigate what he was saying and like

30:43
It was like very much like a very dysfunctional relationship. And so people are like over analyzing the. So now I’m like on this whole quest to like find out what’s wrong with their relationship because I’ve gotten sucked into the videos. But like now I will watch all the interaction between the two of them, because I was like, oh, wait, did she just make an excuse for him? Blah, blah, blah. Like what’s happening? You know, but once again, it’s not not necessarily fun. It’s kind of dysfunctional, but keeps you watching.

31:10
We have totally different feeds. Yes, I know. So here’s one thing that’s kind of excited me a little bit too, is the fact that I was on Netflix the other day and I saw Mark Rober’s YouTube videos packaged in a Netflix um special that was ranking in the top 10. Crazy. And why that excites me is that if you have like a huge YouTube audience and you create, like my videos will never make it, but like if you do entertaining videos. Right.

31:40
Like, places like Netflix will buy you. And like, if you watch, I don’t know if you watch any of those videos in the Mark Rober specials, it’s literally his YouTube videos. It’s his YouTube videos with maybe like a short intro that he recorded, like a 30 second intro, and then it’s just a straight YouTube video. So they’re literally just packaging all of his YouTube videos onto Netflix. And the fact that Netflix is willing to do that makes it pretty exciting because…

32:05
So I don’t know if you remember, it was like five years ago, we did a show called Five Minute Pitch. Yes. And we were actually trying to get on Netflix and Hulu. Oh, because I have a buddy who is who is high up at Hulu. Yeah. And I kind of just asked him, he is like, Yeah, sorry, Steve. But like these shows like Netflix just doesn’t buy stuff like that, especially if it’s like a show where there’s like a winner and the winner has already been announced. So yeah.

32:34
Yeah. But now, you know, if you put together something good on YouTube and it gets a lot of traction, you have a chance of making it on Netflix. Well, you know, it’s it’s interesting because it makes sense, right? It follows the book deal model, right? Because I remember when I was like early in the blogging days, any blogger who got big would immediately get contacted about a book deal.

32:58
Right, because it was so easy for the publishing houses to work with a content creator who had a million visits a month to their website because no just regular person who writes a book can promote like that, their own stuff, right? So it’s kind of the same thing as if you ever look at like the Nielsen ratings and how many people are estimated to watch certain things, it’s amazing how little people watch stuff.

33:21
Right. With a small number. So if you’re like Mr. Beast, right, which he’s obviously an extreme example and he’s got his own TV show and everything now. So but like it’s much easier to work with a content creator who already can like promote everything and already has the eyeballs than like launching a brand new show where nobody unless it’s got like like Harrison Ford’s in it or something like that. You know, that’s tough. It’s much easier to work with a content creator because they already have the built in audience. Netflix doesn’t have to do any work.

33:51
Absolutely, absolutely. But, know, just even last year, this was kind of unheard of. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and then the other day you on Netflix. Yeah. Right. I’d have to fundamentally change everything up. But that’d be like a bucket list. Maybe one day I will do it and try to make something just kind of more entertaining in general. Um, okay. So the next thing that I was thinking of prediction.

34:18
is that because of AI and all this artificial stuff going on out there, people are gonna start craving like real people. Yep. Is what I’m predicting. uh events, in-person events like the Seller Summit, I think people are gonna start craving that stuff. Oh, absolutely. I think it’s interesting too, because I feel like we’re finally like truly post pandemic.

34:45
Right? And we hear a lot about people like being forced to go back to work and all this stuff. And so it’s like, I feel like, you know, the mind shift is changing again. And so people want to be interacting with people in real life. Right. Not just from behind a screen, not from um not from the way that they’ve been doing it for a while. My fear is that there is a group of people who grew up basically in this anonymous economy, basically.

35:14
Right? I don’t know if you saw the video of the person who was offered $150,000 a year for a job to work remote, but if they were willing to go in the office, it was $250,000 a year. So same exact job, same exact responsibilities, 150 to do it all remote, 250 to go into the office like four days a week. And they were like, no way I would go into the office for $100,000.

35:41
Right? I’m like, well, who are you that you don’t need another hundred thousand dollars a year? I that’s a significant amount of money for. But so I worry about like this small group of people who like kind of came of age during all of this. And I wonder how they will embrace it. But I feel like anybody who’s like 30 plus, like can’t wait to go in person and like get out there. And even my 19 year old, like she lives to go to like all the Comic Cons and stuff like that. And like.

36:09
meet other creators, meet other people that are into the same things that she is. So I think the events will make a resurgence, right? People will wanna be out there, they’ll wanna connect, they’ll wanna have real friendships and meet people, like meet people that they’ve been talking to online that they have never actually seen in person. You know that analogy about working remote and working in person? Like maybe it’s just I’m an old Chinese man now, but.

36:36
Like I could not imagine not working in person on the engineering teams that I worked at when I had a full-time job. You just can’t get anything done remote. It’s easier just to like, I can’t remember like was countless times where I had to walk over to somebody and work together in person on something. So that I would just never hire that person basically. Well, and I feel like that’s the shift too. is people are not like.

37:02
I think remote work is not going to be the same as it was. I think that’s changing, right? um Well, it’s already changed here in the Valley. Everyone’s got to go in at least three days a week. And like they actually monitor badge swipes now too. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. But I think honestly though, the value of going to um an event in general and interacting with people like um last month I went to a wedding in North Carolina.

37:32
and one of our Seller Summit alumni, Chris Cody, who owns Deb Specks, just happened to live in the same town where this wedding was. So we met up for dinner. And just hanging out with him and chatting about our kid, he has a son, chatting about the kids, chatting about he just relocated there. And then talking some business stuff too, right? But I would never have that relationship with him. I would have never met up with him if I hadn’t met him at Seller Summit.

38:01
Right? Like some random person on the internet, I’m meeting, not meeting up with you for dinner. ah But I just, when we were hanging out, I was like, man, I miss like hanging out with people and having conversations and letting the conversation flow because you’re sitting at dinner for two hours. Right. And at the end of dinner, he’s like, we were talking about something. He’s like, I have an idea for you. And like basically told me, gave me a really great idea. And then, you know, we’ve been following up with email and stuff like that. But, you know, I just feel like

38:29
You can’t get all of that online. I think me and you are different. think you’re fundamentally more social than I am. For me, actually, the reason to go to live events is because I feel like the internet is just so noisy. Like my personality is if I can learn it myself, somehow I’ll usually try to do that. But now with like everyone and their mother putting out content, you have no idea who to trust. Right.

38:57
Going to live events is a way for me to get content from people that I trust or strategies and whatnot for people I trust. I mean, the personal relationships to me are very valuable as well. But I personally, for me, I go to events not necessarily to meet people, but to just get like the real story from people who are actually doing stuff. And the friendships just develop. Yeah. But I think that’s basically the same, right? Because

39:25
You want the real story, but you’re never not never. You can get the real story online. It’s not the same. You have to sift through junk to get the real story now. That’s the problem. You know, actually, last week I got a text from our friend Dana Jean-Zemes, who sent me an article. She’s like, I read this. I thought you would really enjoy it. Right. Well, she knew I would enjoy that because of the interactions we’ve had in person, comments that I have made to her, like not thinking about like I’m not trying to impress her. I’m not trying to, you know.

39:54
just like she knows I’ve said things about this article and was like, hey, this might be interesting to you, right? Like that you can’t we wouldn’t have those same conversations online. Yeah. So I feel like you do get the real deal from people. You always used to joke. I remember this was like your your trick back in the day. um The was the trick. You know this trick. You know it. You would hang out at the bar sober.

40:18
Oh, yes, yes, yes. And wait for people to get a couple of drinks in them and then you would get the real scoop on the business or the project or what was going on. know, that still works today. That still works. mean, really, that’s like the best. Actually, if you think about it this way, no one really ever publishes their full playbook online. Right. No, no. I mean, the stuff that really works, people keep tight to the vest. Yep.

40:44
And it’s only through inebriation sometimes that you can get those facts out of somebody. Like I can’t tell you how many things I’ve just learned going to events at the bar, just learning from the bar. uh Or just even numbers, like raw revenue numbers and just the problems that people are having with their businesses. Like I get this on the podcast too, right? Because when we’re not recording, the person I’m interviewing

41:09
just reveals a whole bunch of stuff. I wish I could just record those moments and I could, but like I would feel disingenuous publishing that, right? But what you hear on podcasts traditionally is rarely the full story for anyone’s podcast. It’s kind of like how reality television, like what you see is not really what’s the reality going on behind the scenes. Yeah, and I feel like too.

41:33
um And obviously we have a closed course so like we teach a lot of stuff in that course that we would not share publicly Right because that’s a space of people that you know have paid to be in there We trust them, you know with information But I feel like it’s very similar at events where when you’re having a conversation with somebody after you kind of get The vibe about them, right? You’re like, oh, you know what? I’m gonna give this person the extra nugget of information right that I’m never gonna share publicly I won’t even maybe even share from the stage

42:02
but I will share it with you because it seems like it will help you in what you’re doing and I know that you’re not gonna go blasted everywhere too, right? um And I feel like you only get that impression from people usually when you’ve hung out in person and had like conversations with them and they’ve built that trust. Plus I love hugs, know, that’s the way I feel.

42:26
All right, and the final thing I want to just kind of bring up here, at least what I’m seeing on YouTube, because I watch a lot of YouTube videos as research for my own channel, is that YouTube has a little space now where you can actually ask it, it’s kind of like the search bar, but not really. But you can ask it what type of videos that you want to see and kind of guide the feed. Because you know, you know, with TikTok, like you have no control over anything. Right. But it’s interesting that YouTube has provided a way to kind of control your feed.

42:54
and I find that pretty interesting too. Do you use it? I used it just in the name of just research, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s better than the search bar. The search bar will give you those videos that you’re searching for, but this other one fundamentally alters your feed. you feel like it, did you get what you wanted from it? Like, did you feel like it worked? It worked, however,

43:24
Like it gave me a bunch of creators that so just to be clear, I was looking for like marketing strategies for the year. It gave me a whole bunch of people who I never heard of before. OK. And unfortunately, a lot of those videos that I got were like really spammy. Yeah. Like how I made like a million dollars and, you know, a month doing doing that. So sitting on top of their Lamborghini. No, no Lambo. But like it was like a kid who looked younger than my my children.

43:54
Yeah. Spouting stuff like that. Immediate trust factor zero. Yeah, exactly. Not to say that young people can’t do it, but the trust factor does diminish greatly. um I haven’t tried it. I’ll have to look into it. um total sidebar, but I was on TikTok and I accidentally hit my phone with my finger and I ended up in the stim section of TikTok. So all of sudden all my videos were science related.

44:23
And I was like, wow, how did my algorithm shift so quickly from from celebrity drama to math equations? uh But anyway, yeah, I was like, oh, the algorithm’s broken. So the reason why I think that’s important is because like if you’re on TikTok and you accidentally breathe a little too long on a video, you’re going to get a whole bunch of those same videos. Right. And you want to be able to control that a little bit. Yes. It’s actually a strategy that I think Sabrina from Bloatado teaches.

44:52
um in her uh when she puts out content is basically when you’re starting a new TikTok channel, you actually want to be in the algorithm that your channel would be in. Right. So you want to only like watch and interact with people that would align with the content that you’re going to put out. And that’s how you basically see a new TikTok account, which we’ve done with ours. And it actually has worked. I mean, it clearly works. um But I think your feet is like just all Dax Shepard and

45:22
Kristen Bell. Bell. That’s my personal feed. My personal feed is garbage. I did spend like two minutes on the STEM feed. I felt much smarter. I’m ready to put in my college applications now and we’re good to go. My whole feed is college apps people actually. Well, I told you last year my feed was the kids getting either their exceptions or rejection letters. they felt… Have you ever seen these videos Of course I have.

45:49
Yeah, of course I have. Well, because you hadn’t when we talked about it. And I was like, was like, it’s literally I can’t it’s too emotional. I get like so sad or so happy for these people. Like I am too invested. It’s actually caused more paranoia in our household than not, because there these kids with awesome resumes who aren’t getting into any schools. Yes, they’re like, I’m the president of every club. I have a five point seven GPA. I’ve scored 10 million on the SAT. I’ve helped homeless pets like and they’re like, and we didn’t get into the community college.

46:19
Yeah, so overall, you know, I’m pretty I’m pretty bullish on the creator economy. I just think that some, you know, some changes need to be made, at least to my strategy going forward to to account for AI and like the behavior of the creator of the of the audience. I still think there’s no better time to be a creator. I think the opportunities are out there. And if you have something interesting, you can still grow.

46:47
a successful channel account, whatever you want to do. I’m actually excited about your son’s account. I think he could be making a lot of money. know. I’m very excited to get him off the mom payroll. Just kidding. He’s not on my payroll. but no, just watching his success over the past two months really has has given me like new excitement about content creation. feel like for a couple of years you and I were really down on it. And now I feel like I’m back back up on the content train again.

47:17
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Content is still king, but AI has clearly changed the game. And for more information and resources, go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 626. And once again, tickets to Seller Summit 2026 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. If you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event. Go over to sellersummit.com.