Stop Posting More! The Skill That Will Grow Your Business in the Age of AI

Are you posting more on social media but still struggling to turn your content into clients and sales? In this episode, I share why storytelling might be one of the most valuable skills you can learn in the age of AI. After more than 10 years of podcasting and 85 million downloads, I've seen firsthand how powerful it is when people feel like they actually know you. I break down the podcast statistics behind why people trust hosts and buy from their recommendations, how to tap into audiences that already trust someone else, and why learning to tell your story and pitch yourself can help you get booked on podcasts instead of waiting to be discovered. Tune in to learn how to stop chasing followers, build trust with new audiences, and turn your story into more opportunities for your business. Check out our Sponsors: Shopify - Launch your business before Black Friday, go to http://shopify.com/happy to start your free trial. Monarch Money - Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off at http://Monarch.com with code EYH. Northwest Registered Agent - Visit http://northwestregisteredagent.com/EarnFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Fabric - Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at http://meetfabric.com/EARN. Meetfabric.com/EARN. Quince - Find the fall pieces you’ll reach for most at Quince. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns and when Quince asked how you heard about them, let them know it was here on Earn Your Happy. Gloss Genius - Run a business that takes appointments? Use code HAPPY at https://glossgenius.com/earnyourhappy for 50% off your first two months of a premium plan. Faire - Sign up today and get 50% off your first wholesale order, up to $100 at http://faire.com/happy50. Terms may apply. Life at the Speed of Play - Go to http://getmarksbook.com/earn to get two copies for the price of one—one for you and one for a friend. HIGHLIGHTS The marketing shift happening right now that could completely change how you attract clients. Why storytelling matters more than follower counts in the age of AI. The numbers behind why podcast audiences trust hosts. How podcast recommendations influence buying decisions. Why people are pulling back from social media. Why your real-life experiences help you stand out in the age of AI. How to pitch yourself without feeling like you're bragging. The 60-second story that can help you get booked. Turning podcast guesting into a consistent source of clients and income. RESOURCES Learn how to turn podcast guesting into massive sales, ⁠⁠save your spot for the free live training HERE⁠⁠! Make your own ⁠Million Dollar Media Kit HERE! Try glōci for 40% off your first order with code HAPPY at checkout - head to getgloci.com FOLLOW Follow me: @loriharder Follow glōci: @getgloci

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  This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Ready to launch your business before Black Friday? Go to Shopify.com/happy to start your free trial. Monarch Money, Monarch breaks the debt cycle, turning that endless gloom into a plan with an end date. Use code EYH at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. Northwest Registered Agent, Northwest gives you access to thousands of free guides, tools, and attorney drafted documents to help you run your business with confidence. Visit NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com/earnfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Indeed, spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates

• 0:43Speaker 00

  who check all your boxes. They're giving Earn Your Happy a $75 sponsored job credit. Go to Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Life at the Speed of Play, Mark is offering our listeners two books for the price of one. Go to GetMark'sBook.com/earn. Sequencing, sequencing.com is offering your listeners up to 10% off your full genome test plus free shipping. Go to sequencing.com and use promo code EARN for 10% off.

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  going to need you to listen in very closely because the internet just changed who people actually trust.

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  Welcome back to the show. It's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. And if you are still trying to grow your business by posting more on social media, I'm going to need you to listen in very closely because the internet just changed who people actually trust. And it's not the people with the most followers. I will tell you that. It's the people who can tell a story. So today I'm going to give you the numbers. I think storytelling and learning how to pitch yourself is the most important skill you can learn right now in the age of AI. And I think most people are about to miss it because they are not prepared to learn a new skill set. And this is a time of going all in if we have seen anything.

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  So here's why I care about this. Before I ever had a podcast, I built my audience by writing super long, honest, kind of embarrassing captions on Facebook. And then I also went live on Facebook when that feature came out all of the time. And those stories did something that no ad could ever do. They made people feel like they knew me. Then I started this podcast over 10 years ago, 85 million downloads later, and I can tell you the same exact thing is true. When people hear your voice and you're telling a story, week after week after week,

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  something happens that social media, that Instagram, that TikTok literally cannot touch. I don't want you to actually just hear this and take my word for it. I want to go and show you what has actually been happening on social media, the last year especially, but the last couple of years. So a survey from Cumulus Media asked weekly podcast listeners which type of influence matters most to them. And 56% said podcast hosts. Only 18% actually said social media influencers. Okay, I need you guys to understand right now, the math is not

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  in front of you. That is three times more trust. So if you are not on a podcast, you are missing out on three times more people trusting you when they hear you and buying from you. And so Spotify actually found something similar. 63% of people said they trust their favorite podcast hosts more than their favorite social media influencer. Why do you guys think that is? It's because it's really, really freaking hard to fake an hour. You can fake 15 seconds all you want. You can fake a filter. You can filter a photo. You can edit your videos and clog now. You can read teleprompters. But when somebody actually hears you talk for 45

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  freaking minutes straight, they actually hear how you think. They feel your energy. They hear you laugh. They hear you screw up. They hear you get emotional. It's really hard to get around that in this world. And it's really hard to continue to show up consistently and do that week after week after week after week. So trust is really nice, but what I want to start looking at is does that pay? So Odyssey studied this and found that 76% of podcast listeners have bought something after their favorite host recommended it. 76%. That's three out of four people, you guys. And here's the awesome part, is the podcast study in 2026

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  compared a host reading an ad in their own words versus a pre-recorded commercial. 40% of listeners said they'd likely buy after the host read it. Only 27% said that for the canned ad. So that's almost 50% more buying power just because a real person told the story. And honestly, it's no wonder I get paid as much as I do to read ads for brands that I believe in or I think would be great for my listeners, right? So it's not the product. It's not the ad. It's the actual person and what they are sharing. And here's what I want you to understand is that that trust transfers to every guest that I have on. So let's talk

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  about where everyone else is putting their energy right now. There is a survey from Incogni this summer, which found 51% of Americans say keeping up an online presence feels like work. 47% have deleted an app because it was stressing them out and 55% post less than they did five years ago. So more than half of the people are leaving Instagram or they're posting less. They're just not as interested. So if your whole plan is to outpost everyone, you're competing for attention on a platform, people are actively trying to leave. And then honestly, here's where it gets crazy. Not for you though, because you're going to learn how to storytell and

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  you're going to go on podcasts because then there's AI. So meanwhile, podcasting just hit an all time high. And Edison Research found that 58% of Americans 12 and up, that's about 167 million people, listened to or watched a podcast in the last month, which is an absolute record. So this is why storytelling is the skill that you need to learn now. This is why I'm just like going to beat this dead horse, right? This horse is not dead. It's still kicking. It won't stop kicking because it's the most important skill of this decade and maybe of our entire life. Because AI can write anything and can literally create any videos. We're

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  seeing influencers that are being followed by the millions who are AI influencers, but they don't have a story to tell you guys. They can't actually sit there and say, I went through what you went through and here's why you're going to make it out the other side. I've experienced what you've gone through. It's that moment. It's the struggle. It's the shift. It's the how did you do it? It's the solution. It's how dark did it get? How did you come back from that debt? How did you come back from that divorce? How did you come back from that thing that broke you? And telling those stories and those solutions, right? So why you have to learn how to pitch yourself is because it is one of the most important ways to stand

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  out. And I know for some people, selling yourself can feel gross. I think it's one of the most brilliant things that you can do because you were told and taught not to brag, but this is not bragging. It's actually sharing the best parts of you and the reasons why people should work with you.

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• 12:36Speaker 00

  When I launched Glossy, my drinkable skincare brand, I was obsessed with the formula. The product was my baby, but the store part felt way more intimidating. And that's a big reason we built on Shopify in the beginning, because you really don't have to be an e-commerce expert to get up and running. And that's a big deal in the beginning of a business. And here's the biggest lesson I learned about the holidays. You do not want to be building your store in the middle of the rush. You want to be set up, you want to be tested and ready before the traffic hits. So two things I love. First, Shopify mobile app. I'm on planes, I'm on stages, I'm here recording with you and I can still check my inventory, help a customer, see payments right from my phone, which is so much fun. And that's the second they check out.

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  So Shopify checkout with Shop Pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition. When you've worked that hard to get someone to your site, that last click matters. So if you've had a business idea sitting in your notes app for way too long, this is your sign. Launch before Black Friday, a time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/happy to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/happy. Go to Shopify.com/happy today to hear your first.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  So why pitching on a podcast is so important is because you need to get in front of other audiences. Because if 76% of listeners buy from hosts they trust, the fastest way to grow is to get in front of those audiences that already trust someone else. So that means pitching yourself again and again and again, and getting really good at that pitch and being a guest on other people's podcasts, other people's stages, in other people's rooms. And the thing is, is the pitch is not just a story. Who you are, what you've lived, what you'll help their audience with. If you can tell your story in 60 seconds, you can get booked. If you can't, you're going to keep waiting for someone to discover you and it's just never, ever going to happen. So here's what I want to leave you with.

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  People trust podcast hosts three times more than influencers. Three out of four listeners buy what their favorite host recommends. Half the people are pulling back from social and AI just made your real story the rarest thing on the internet. So the game isn't more posting anymore. It's literally better storytelling and being more human, being more you, being authentic, but making sure you know how to package that and having the freaking guts to pitch yourself and show up, even if you get rejected over and over and over and getting good at it. So I hope this hits home, you guys, because this is really important and I love you and I believe in you and I want you to go and tell your story.

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  Cause I want you to keep being able to do that thing that you want to do in the world, that big dream, be that entrepreneur, go and make that money that you want to make. But you're not going to do that if you don't learn these skills. So number one, I have a free training coming up. I would love to have you on it. It's coming up in a couple of weeks. Go and sign up right now. Do not miss this. I'm going to help you get booked and get paid on podcasts. I'm going to tell you again, why it's so important to do this. I'm going to bring in even more reasons, more transformation stories. And we're going to teach you what this looks like to have a new sales channel for this next year, that you can be acquiring new clients if you are not doing this actively

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  and growing on social media like you were before. And I'll tell you, because it's so inconsistent online with all of your posts, I guarantee I know that your income is inconsistent. So let's create a consistent flywheel of going as a guest on podcasts so that you can continue to get paid and get new people into your world. So I'm sending you guys so much love. Go click that link below or you can go to milliondollarguest.com/training and send this to a friend who's maybe struggling right now with your social. Send this to a friend who is already decent at podcasting and just wants to absolutely crush it. Send this to somebody who hasn't gone on a podcast, but wants to start going on podcasts.

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  I'm so grateful for you guys and I will see you next week.