21 million 393,122

followers across all platforms for

Leila, Sharon, and me in the ACQ brands.

And I want to break down how to build a

personal brand in 2026, both leveraging

AI, but more importantly in spite of AI,

and how you can actually prove yourself

as somebody that people will want to

listen to. And so, I think the big thing

that has to be understood in AI is that

AI will not equally disrupt all

creators. And so, creators actually sit

on this continuum. You have low risk,

and then you have high risk.

So, how can you have a high-risk creator

or low-risk creator? Well, it depends on

what is being asked of the consumer. So,

for example, if you consume a meme or

you consume a stand-up comedy clip,

the risk that you have is just the time

that you're putting into consuming the

clip, and the product of that creator is

the clip itself. It's self-contained.

Meaning, when you consume it, if you

laugh, the value's already delivered.

You have a complete cycle. And so, these

fall under the category of entertainers.

And so, entertainers, and I define

entertainment as one thing, which is the

objective of the content is to be

consumed. So, if you think about a

perfect retention curve, if 100% of

people watch 100% of a video, you would

have a video that would go ultra ultra

viral, right? But there's nothing after

that. It's just you consumed it, you

have been entertained.

So then, what are the other parts on

this continuum?

So, the next one you would have would be

what I could consider a B2C educator.

So, what does that look like?

Now, to be fair, do you have to be only

one of these things? Of course not.

You're going to vary along this

continuum. It's not like there's a box

that you're like, "I'm only this or I'm

only this." The different types of

content you make may correspond with

different parts on this continuum, and

you also might even have within the same

piece of content a couple elements. You

might have a little joke that you say

that's entertaining in itself, but then

you have a point that you'll make, which

might lead to something else. We have to

answer the next question, which is,

"What's the point of education?" The

point of education is to change

behavior, right? Like, you don't put

your kid in school so that they act the

same. You put their kid in school so

they can start reading or they can start

writing or they can start speaking or

they start doing math. They can change

behavior, right?

And so, uh the stakes are significantly

lower for B2C educator. So, imagine uh a

girl who's doing a hair tutorial or a

makeup tutorial or a a fitness thing for

diet or for working out or somebody

who's giving maybe relationship advice.

The reason that I say it's lower risk is

that let's say you start the diet and it

doesn't work as well. It's not the end

of the world, right? If you buy some

lash extensions and it doesn't work as

well, not the end of the world. Now, can

these people drive sales? Absolutely. I

mean, Huda Beauty built an empire off of

just this concept, right? And the thing

is is that she had credibility within

that domain because she could

demonstrate it live, right? She actually

used the product. You see a before and

after in real time using the implement.

You say, "I'm willing to take this

risk." And so, you do it. Now, AI

will be best suited

to interrupt the stuff on this side. Why

is that? Because if you see a clip of an

AI avatar girl who's doing her lashes or

doing her hair and giving you tips on

how to do it, the likelihood that you'll

listen to it even if it's AI is probably

decently high as long as the stuff seems

like it makes sense. You may be like,

"Oh, I didn't know that. Maybe I'll give

that a shot, right?" Now, as you move

along this continuum, when the stakes

get higher, you're less and less likely

to listen to someone who does not have

third-party proof that's as

demonstrable. So, I'll explain. So, this

middle tier here would be what I would

consider a kind of B2 prosumer.

All right? So, this is kind of where you

get into your

uh money stuff. So, you look at people

who talk about savings and uh investing

money. That's like is there certainly

more risk to what you do with your

savings and your money and investing

than uh lashes and your hair and maybe

even a diet? Ask most people, the answer

probably be yes, right? So, if you look

at some of the top creators in the

space, like let's think of some of them.

So, you've got like Erica taught me,

who's done an awesome job. Now, why do

people listen to her? Because she talks

about how to like make disputes and ask

for refunds. It's all about money. What

is she? She's an attorney, right? She

has more real-world credibility. What's

another example?

Um Vivian Tu. So, she's a uh she's also

she's uh somebody came from finance and

so she has that credibility of kind of

Wall Street, etc. And so she's leveraged

that and she talks about saving and

investing and stuff. Uh you think about

like Dave Ramsey, right? He obviously

has his big business success, uh which

has big overlay on this and he's

obviously been doing this for a really

long time. So, for each of these people,

there's a little bit more proof that's

required. Now, are there people who are

making uh content in the space that have

zero proof?

Maybe. Are they the biggest? No. Why?

Because listening to their advice is

riskier than listening to somebody who

has some visible proof. Hey guys, real

quick, many of you guys are getting

started in business and don't know, but

other entrepreneurs have already tried

to help. And so, 3.6 million copies were

donated by other entrepreneurs in my

book launch and I'm donating these books

as well. And so, if you're starting in

business and you would like the ultimate

business backpack, all three books, this

one shows you how to figure out what to

sell, this shows you how to get people

to find out about it, and this one shows

you how to make money from it. When you

have all three, you can actually get

started. All right, on top of that, you

have 30 days of school that you can get

absolutely free and all of this,

including the books, including school,

including shipping, is 16 bucks. Yeah,

like we lose money on this. So, go grab

it. Um

it's the ultimate thing I can give you,

my gift. Uh enjoy. Um if you go there

and it's shut down, it's cuz we ran out,

but as long as the link still works,

there's books. So, as we move along the

continuum, we have our

B2B creators, right? And so, I would

consider myself in this category

for a lot of my content, this included.

I started this video by saying that we

have over 20 million plus subscribers,

followers, etc. across platform because

I have to give some credibility as to

what I'm saying, right? Now, me giving

credibility around that an AI could

totally replicate because if an AI has a

lot of followers, for example, then that

AI would be able to talk about it

because it would have proof about it.

That all makes sense. Now, if an AI is

saying, "Hey, do this thing in your

business." until there are AIs that have

built

gigantic companies that no human was

involved in, then the likelihood that

the AI will have the ability to gain the

trust of the audience so that they

listen to the advice goes down. Right?

And so like why do we actually care

about proof or demonstration in general

to begin with, right? Well, we take it

as a signal to decrease our own personal

risk.

And so if you have two people that

you're listening to, one person that

just GPT'd, "Hey, this is six things you

need to do to scale your sales team."

never sold anything in their life, never

built a sales team, versus somebody

who's built 10 sales teams and says,

"Here are six things that you need to

do." If the content was the same, which

one of these two people do you think

would have significantly larger

followings? This one. Why?

Because people can actually believe it.

They're actually willing to take action

on it because they'll say, "Okay, this

guy probably knows what he's talking

about because he's done this in the real

world." Now, there is a little bit of

chicken and egg of the the six things

this guy comes up with versus the six

things this guy's come up with. These

ones will probably be a little bit

better because he has in the trenches

knowledge and so there is a little bit

of chicken and egg, but assuming the

information was literally identical, the

person who has the most credibility wins

and not just by a little bit, by a lot

of it. Like why is Elon the number one

business influencer in the world?

Because he's the richest man in the

world, right? And so

it will be it is it will be increasingly

difficult for AI to create the proof

required for B2B and higher-risk types

of content.

And so when we think about this, you're

like, "How do I make my brand or build

my brand in a world where AI can

duplicate anything?"

Well, we have to focus on proof. We You

to focus demonstration. And if we're

looking at this continuum, the more

you're this way,

probably the safer you are at least in

the short-to-medium term. Underneath of

that, we get the next question, which

is, "Okay,

if that is indeed the case, what do I

need to do in order to create content at

scale that can compete with AI?"

Well, it's going to come down to, "How

can I do demonstration

at scale? How can I provide proof at

scale in real time?" For sure, it's

great to have accomplishments,

accomplishments you can mention, right?

You can say them one time, people can

know that you sold a company or or

you're scaled or you're doing $250

million a year in revenue, whatever it

is, right?

You can have that stuff.

But, demonstrating in real time is

something that is incredibly difficult

to fake, right? Now, is there a world in

the future where AI can can can can take

calls? Absolutely, it's probably a year

or two away. It's not even that It's not

even that far.

Maybe by the end of this year. But, to

what are you going to do today, like

watching this video? Well, I'm going to

give you a couple things that have

worked really well for me.

So, number one is, instead of saying,

"Hey, uh you know, of course you want to

do epic and then document it and

then do more epic and then document

it." That's uh no no question. That

would be more of a content creation

method. So, it's like you look at your

calendar, you look at all your meetings,

you put a plug-in for each of the

meetings because you do them virtually,

so you transcribe them, then you say,

"Hey AI, tell me the interesting moments

from these meetings." And then you can

talk about them. So, rather than you

making up stories, you actually give

real examples, right? That is further

along this proof-to-risk spectrum. So,

that's a good thing. But, is there

something that's even better than that?

And I think there is, which is, is there

a way that you can engineer within your

existing business motion, which is, "How

do you service customers of whatever it

is that you sell,

that you can bake in components of

proof?"

So, how how would that work?

Well, if I were selling hair extensions,

I would probably have sweepstakes and

lottery tickets inside of the hair,

which then creates a marketing motion

that I can put around it, which why not?

Then the winners I can call in person to

come to my salons where I can install

them for them. And then all of a sudden

I've got this beautiful loop, a

self-licking ice cream cone if you will,

of I sell, you know, customers come in,

they buy products, those products

generate marketing, that marketing gets

more customers, those customers buy more

products, and around and around we go.

That is a self-licking ice cream cone,

and you want to install it at every

business you have, especially in light

of AI where proof is going to matter

more than anything else. If you're in a

B2B setting, it works the same way. Now,

if you're like, "Oh, well, I, you know,

this doesn't work for my business."

You're not going to make it, dude. I I

don't know what to tell you. Like

if you can't think, "How could I

engineer a way

for me to interact with my customers so

that we could demonstrate the value of

the products that we have in a real

way?"

I don't know what to tell you. Like I'm

trying to think of like the the most

basic, you know, version of this. It's

like all consumer products are really

straightforward. Like literally use the

product. That's I mean it's that's

that's that's it's that simple, right?

On the B2B side, it's going to be more

around the

proof that you can demonstrate around,

let's say you're, you know, obviously

your marketing agency. Okay, bring

someone in, walk through the campaign,

bring the customer in, and show it,

right? Even if you're a small agency, do

it with all your customers. Why not,

right? And worst case scenario, you make

a marketing motion that's Let's say you

only have 10 customers. Okay, start

doing these these audits for people for

free and document them. That's the

trade. Hey, let me do a a whole bunch of

work for free, I'll document it, and

I'll just give it away. Who says no to

that?

Right? The big point here, zooming all

the way out, is that AI is going to

disrupt disproportionately the lowest

risk to the higher risk people in that

order. To protect yourself, you want to

do things that AI will be more difficult

for AI to do. Now, is there a world

where AI can literally do everything?

Probably.

Uh are we there yet? No. And so, in the

meantime, what do you do? You win with

what you got, right? Which is we

demonstrate our expertise and the

quality of our products and services in

front of people ideally to our customers

which we document and if you don't have

enough customers to do it you do it for

everybody publicly.

That's the game that I think is going to

keep you ahead of the pack of AI GPT

avatar driven content because the proof

is going to be in the pudding and you

want to make sure that you've got your

first spoon in. I've talked publicly

about my whole content strategy is live

and interactive. That's what I'm doing.

I'm showing you my cards. I'm telling

you what I'm doing. All right, and so

there's two types of content that you'll

be seeing more and more of and I'm

trying to engineer more and more

components of this into my existing

business so that I can document while I

deliver so that it's no extra added

time, right? Cuz it's like how does how

does Alex make so much content? It's the

reality is that like I'm usually not

making content. We're just capturing it.

Right? That's what allows me to do so

much more volume. And so if you're

thinking to you it's like like if you

have to sit down to actively record

every single thing and you want to make

20 pieces 50 pieces of content a day

you're going to do nothing but stand in

front of the camera. That's going to be

really miserable for you, right? But if

you do what you like doing like for me I

love doing Q&A's with business owners.

It's a lot of I've I've had a lot of

reps with it and I just like it fills me

up, right? And so in person when we have

events if I have time I go downstairs

and I take questions. I can't do it all

the time but whenever there is an event

that's happening and I if I have a blank

calendar I'm going to try and get down

there, right? If I do like today when I

do a recording I'm going to take calls

from people who are in our our newly

launched million dollar plus community

for business owners, right? And so all

of this is like how can I feed the proof

machine? Proof is both the third party

these things have happened. That's the

big exits, the revenue, all that like

head count whatever. I have this many

companies.

And then there's the demonstration side

of it which is

um

can I see this person use their

expertise in real life? Now to be clear

this is a

this is

hardcore more along the services side

but you can still do a demonstration

with products. You would just physically

demonstrate them rather than using your

hands to do whatever service you have.

And so hopefully that gives you at least

a handful of ideas to think through

like, not just oh well, I just sit in

front of a computer all day, there's no

way I can like document what I'm doing.

It's like, yeah, you got to create the

opportunity. No And so,

hold a sweepstakes, hold a

a very limited thing where you email

your whole list and say, "Hey." Or you

just take the 10 customers or five

customers you got right now, go to their

houses. Like, of course there's a way to

do it. Um it just takes work, but you

said you wanted to win. So, welcome to

the game.