Ep 358: Smart ways for your business to stay relevant in 2026, 2027.

Welcome And Why The Market Shifted

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Well, hello friends. This is Kimberly and it's episode 358. I'm so happy that you're here today. We're talking about the business models that are working right now. What's happening here in August of 2026 and going to last probably into 2027 and who knows when, right? The market's changing so fast. But I thought this would be a good time to let you in on what is working. So you can think about if you're starting a business or if you're pivoting your current business, if what you're doing is feeling either not fun or it's not working, have you thought about other ways that you could build your business and make money? And we're going to talk about those ways that are working. I've got a lot of stats I'm throwing at you. You can look down in the show notes and see some of that as well, because it's probably going to be hard to remember it all. But I want to share it all with you because I want you to get the big picture of what is actually working right now. So you don't beat your head up against a wall and try to build a business that isn't what people want right now. If you're new here, welcome. I'm so glad that you found this podcast. I have no doubt it's going to help you along your business journey, whether you're in the idea stage, starting or growing, this is for you. Whether you have a home-based business, a store, a mobile business, maybe you do shows and markets and booths, whatever it is. I'm so happy you're here and I'm so excited for you and your future because yes, you're just getting started. And I'm so happy for you. Make sure you get plugged in and get the resources. Now, you know I have this podcast. It's free, it's valuable. It's everything from my last 26 years as a business owner. I share everything from the heart. So if you're new, I'm so glad that you're here to listen and learn because I think that's the most important thing we can all do. And I do it too, all the time. Try to learn from people who have gone before me. So make sure you hit follow. Like if you're an Apple Podcast, hit follow right now so that every week you get a little notification in Apple Podcasts that I dropped a new episode. It's usually on Thursdays. So make sure you check that. And then also I have free checklists and guides for you for starting a business, also for growing and for starting a podcast. If you've been thinking about doing what I do, it's such a fun thing to do as a podcast. It's awesome. And I have information on that. And if you've been listening, well, thank you to all my loyal listeners. I just was thinking today about how far this business has come since 2019 and everything we've been through together with COVID and my group coaching programs and courses and just all the fun. And it's just been such a journey. Today, though, we're talking about what's actually working because it's shifted since I started this business in 2019. I always say I started my first online business in 2003. I'd started before that with friend. And what, you know, changed over the from 2003 to 2019 when I closed my online businesses. What changed there is not near as much as what has changed in the last six years. Like we are changing at a super fast rate. And so that's why I think today's episode is important. So I hope you will listen all the way

From 2003 To AI Speed

SPEAKER_01 3:15

through. Okay, on to the episode. Well, hello, friends. I'm so glad you're here. I think today is super important. I think we we have to have a check-in now a lot more frequently than we used to about what is working in the business world. Like I said in the intro, what changed from 2003 to 2019 was a lot. Businesses started booming. I started it online in 2003 when Amazon was known for books, right? And I had started a local business with a friend in 2000 before that. But everything went online. That's when everything was booming and everyone was getting websites, and then Etsy started popping up. And, you know, I was on different platforms. That's what really changed, I think, from then was what website platforms everyone was using and what you had available to you. And I remember, gosh, it was maybe 2012, 2013. I think it's when I moved here to Houston when Shopify was really coming on the scene. And I was like, I've got to switch over because what I was using before was so difficult and laborious. And I was freaking out at how awesome Shopify was. And I mod migrated both my stores. And um, truth be told, I'm opening another store coming soon. I know I've kind of been teasing the this on the past episodes that I was gonna be creating tangible goods for all of you business owners, which I'm so excited about. All I want to do is support you and help you and guide you. And this is just another way I'm gonna get to do that. Anyway, so I'm kind of in this mode of Shopify right now to be able to sell what I'm going to be selling, which I'm super excited. So, um, anyways, you'll hear some little snippets about that sooner. You can get on the wait list for when it launches. But my point is, y'all, it's changing so fast. We all know this. Like, life, this is no surprise. Life is changing fast for all of us with AI and everything. I can't even imagine. We're probably gonna just be able to speak it into a microphone and be like, can you build me a website that's on this? I want to carry, you know, 50 t-shirts and 20 bowls and blah, blah, blah. And it's gonna do it all for you. I just have a feeling it's gonna do it all for you. So, what does that mean? Is everyone just gonna easily have a website? I think so. Because it used to be whoever could just grind the most and get the website up and who was willing to take on that hassle, right? I was willing to take it on years and years and years ago, but a lot of people weren't, right? So let's talk about it. Again, these things are gonna be thrown at you. I'll have them in the show notes, but I want you to get the big picture of this because I don't know what stage you're in. If you're thinking about starting a business, if you just started a business or you've been in business a while and you're like, where is the market going? I think the smartest thing you can do as a business owner is follow where the market is going. I'm not saying that you have to abandon what you're doing just because you want to follow what the market is doing, but I think you have to acknowledge what it is that people want and how do they want to receive it. And you have to be part of that if you want to stay relevant, right? It's like blockbuster video. They could sit there all day and say, no, I still want to sell VHS tapes, but that is not the way that people want to receive it. They want to receive it now on their TV through Netflix or Apple TV or whatever, right? So you have to think

Retreats And In-Person Experiences

SPEAKER_01 6:30

logically about your business. That's what we're gonna do today. So let's get started. So the one big thing, and I've said this one before, if you're new here, this may be the first time you're hearing this, but this has been something that we've all seen coming the last few years, and that is retreats and in-person experiences. Y'all, that is working. So if you have a business right now, whatever you sell, even if it's products, if it's services, do you realize that you can offer in-person experiences? If you're an artist and you create art, you can have art events. You can even have retreats, you can do afternoon art events for kids, for adults. People are paying big money for in-person experiences. And why do you think that is? It's because we're all so disconnected. We're also disconnected, even though we're so closely tied. It's the most bizarre juxtaposition ever. But retreats and in-person experiences. So I want you to think about your business. Almost any business I can think of right now could do some kind of in-person experience. Like, think of any business. If you're a maker, you could have an in-person experience making what you make, right? It's candles, you can have candle making classes. I've had a guest on the show who did just that. She makes candles, has a candle brand, sells them wholesale, and in her store offers candle making classes. And at first you may think, am I cannibalizing my own business? No, you're bringing attention to your business that you're an expert in your field and you're creating what people want to pay for right now. Okay. That's what it is. Anybody could do it. If you were an interior designer, um, you could have a fun class where people could learn how to decorate themselves, like the fundamentals of decorating their home. Does it mean that you will lose all of your decorating clients? No, it does not. It just sets you apart as this leader, as this teacher, as this expert in your field and in your area, right? So wellness tourism is heading from 661 billion toward 1.4 trillion by 2027. So it's kind of like I think what it said here was a 16% growth of wellness retreats, okay? Leader-led retreats, and they have high margins, local retreats, local events, right? So I want y'all to think about that. That whatever you sell, products or services, you literally could do an event. It would be so much fun. You would get people together, it would be amazing. So that's number one. Retreats and in-person experiences. I would consider that for your business. Okay. If you feel so inclined, right? Number two, basically anything experienced based at all. Okay. So we said retreats and in-person events, but some type of experience, especially outdoor recreation. That's why pickleball and all these things are becoming so popular, right?

Handmade Goods Beat AI Slop

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Um something. No, forget number two. Forget number two, just delete that. Number two, handmade and human-made goods. Y'all people are loving this. Handmade, human-made, because we're like, it's made by hand and not by a computer and it's not shipped over, you know, from another country. It's supporting people here. Now, I'm for supporting other countries bringing us great products. So I'm not against that. I'm just saying people have a pride in your country, don't you? And when local people are making, whether it be honey, purses, jewelry, whatever it is, you like to support them, right? And that is growing because so many people are sick of the AI slop that's out there. And they will pay a premium for someone who handmade something and put some care and love into it. Okay. So that's number two. Number one, again, what do we say? Retreats, in-person experiences. You can do workshops, workout classes, any kind of event. Amazing. Number two, handmade and human-made goods. If you're a maker, this is your time. Show off your stuff. Put it in pictures, get it online, show up locally, make your stuff shareable so people will share it with people they know, right? Handmade and human-made goods. Number three, local services. People are supporting their local service providers. Referral driven, it can't be automated.

Local Services And Referral Growth

SPEAKER_01 11:00

You know, I mean, it can be automated, right? If you have a local service, but I'm just saying, like, it's a human being that's coming to give a local service, right? You can't have a robot yet come out and decorate your home, or just a robot show up and, you know, stain your fence or repaint your house or whatever it is that you do, landscaping, landscape design, anything. People like local services. They like people that are using their brains and they want to support them. Okay. And you have to realize that if you have a really good referral business, it is unaffected by algorithm changes, right? Like this podcast spread around and spread. And I think it's because a lot of people tell people, but because people stay and listen, the the whatever Apple and Spotify gods out there do show it to other people, right? That are like my listeners, which is amazing. It that means it has good retention, right? And even my son, he's had a fence staining and power washing business locally and it's referral driven. He does Facebook groups and he posts in there for free. And he's driven, his business is driven by referrals, right? So I think if people know who you are or they like what you're offering and they tell other people and it spreads, you don't have to worry about getting knocked out of things because it's showing real proof that people appreciate the referral that they got. Does that make sense at all? So local services are really good. I know I said my podcast, which isn't local local service necessarily, but people around here tell other people, right? But I get people from all around the world. So it spreads and spreads. I don't have to worry about the Instagram, you know, uh algorithm. I don't have to worry about the Google algorithm. I guess you could say Spotify and Apple have an algorithm, but it's straight up by retention, right? So it's kind of the same thing. You want things that kind of get out of these other algorithms that are getting eaten up by AI, right? So think about that. Again, retreats and personal experiences, handmade and human-made goods, local services. If you do anything locally, get on your Facebook groups, get on your Instagram, speak at events, do something, have a booth somewhere, have your friends like give them an incentive to share your business. So maybe you can have your friends share about your business and you give them some type of referral fee, or maybe they just want to do it because they love

Etsy As Discovery Not Ownership

SPEAKER_01 13:45

you. Right? Right. So those are the big things right now. Now, I know many of you may be asking, well, what about like I have an Etsy store? What about that? And Etsy is doing great. Um, I have every reason to think that it is still booming from all the stats that I've seen. It's doing great. It's great as a discovery channel, but you do have to watch out because some of the rules I've heard from others are tightening. Okay, I don't have an Etsy shop myself. I never have. Well, actually, I take that back. I sold a few things on Etsy, but I went through my Shopify stores. But, anyways, the rules have tightened, and there's a lot of AI listings that are flooding the categories. And you don't own the customer on Etsy, right? You don't own them. So I so your goal is to get your own site and have enough traffic. But at the same time, I do know people that are doing well on Etsy for their life right now. They're very excited about it. It's a great discovery channel. But I would just watch out if you were on Etsy because there are so many listings flooding it, right? And Etsy has a grip on you and is tightening the rules. So just watch out. Watch out for that. Another popular thing is print on demand. And it's amazing, you know, all the t-shirts that are being sold on Amazon and everywhere.

Print On Demand Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 15:05

I think print on demand is awesome. It's gonna be really important that you have a tight niche in a story and you have a loyal customer base. Okay. T-shirts and all that have been good, but they're saturated. I've heard that home decor is really on the rise. So that's good. And personalization, which is shocking to me because I had my personalized gifts boutique from 2003 to 2019. And the monogram gift industry was doing well, but it was becoming difficult because the systems weren't in place to automatically have really good like website with personalization tools so people could see it. And we had to manually get orders over a lot of time to the manufacturers. It was very cumbersome. And now, y'all, it is so much easier, which is awesome. Uh, but I think you have to think about print on demand seriously before you jump into it because it is so saturated and the margins are very slim. You have to have a ton of business coming in. I do know people with a very big business doing this. And I think it's amazing and awesome. And that's great. But I think it is hard to now enter the market just because there's so many doing it now and it's become so much easier. Anytime a process gets easier, more people will flood the market doing it. Does that make sense? Okay. So um, one thing to think about too is if you have your own website, realize that getting ranked on Google and all that, that's gone.

Shopify Traffic Requires Ads

SPEAKER_01 16:40

That's what I did back in the days. I just would get ranked on Google. Okay. But we've got AI taking over. So we've got a whole nother issue at hand. It's like, how do you get your website seen? You will have to run ads pretty much, unless you have a huge following already. You are going to have to be really good at ads. That's your game. Your game is ads. Okay. But maybe if you have a medium audience and you run ads, you can run both and you can keep retaining your customers. I think keeping a good, happy customer base is super important, right? Um, someone asked me about coaching the other day. How is coaching going? I think the coaching industry took a hit because a lot of coaches, like myself, sold courses in the beginning without group programs, right? And I think if you're still in that land of just courses, it's really hard to sell unless you have something really niche that people will pay for. I think in general, we can get information off AI. So you need group programs. And group programs worked great for me. I loved it while I did it. I had GrowGetters, many of you know and were in it. It was awesome. And I had a just getting started group and all this. And it was super fun and awesome. But just due to where I wanted my business to go, I realized that one-on-one coaching was where I was creating the most transformation for people. And it was easier for me actually to sell, to be quite honest with it with you.

Coaching Needs Human Touch

SPEAKER_01 18:10

One-on-one coaching was easier because getting people in at a certain time in a group program was harder for me. I could get people in when they needed help, but if they had to wait until a new, you know, group came about or cohort, that made it hard. And I just decided, you know what? I think coaching is the way to go for me, especially at this time in my life. And so that's what I chose. But there still are coaches doing some magnificent group programs. I'm in one now, in fact, for something that I'm making for y'all. And I got a lot of help for doing that. And it wasn't really a cohort. So it was kind of a hybrid, but it did work and it helped me. And that's awesome. And so you just have to think about that. If you're some type of fitness coach or something, I would have, you know, if you're a fitness coach, you can be doing local fitness stuff, you know, or you can be creating video trainings where maybe you have a small group or you meet up for accountability and then they do the trainings on their own, or who knows, maybe you do them live on Zoom. I don't know. I just really think that you have to have a personal touch in all of this. I really do. I think we as owners of businesses have to be really involved and we can't, we we can't just sit back. I think we'd love to think that we can just, you know, sit on the beach and just let orders come in and do all this. But I think we're gonna have to show our faces. We're gonna have to be a part of it. You can have a podcast, a YouTube channel. You can show up locally. There's a lot of things you can do. Okay. So the other one that I know some of you had asked about was YouTube and Instagram being a creator. And a lot of creators aren't making that much money, right? Um, it's hard. Instagram's hard unless you're doing something really niche and that's really going viral. Other than that, it's hard, but I think you can do it if you have

Creator Economy On YouTube And Instagram

SPEAKER_01 20:05

a solid niche that's not saturated. But I think that's hard. So YouTube and Instagram as a business model. I have to be honest, I I haven't seen many that are super uber successful. It's hard. They're there. They're there, obviously. You can see them, but they are the top of the top. So just be careful and make sure you have a niche and you are ready to put in the work and show up consistently and really nurture your people. Don't just show up and be a talking head. Like you really have to be nurturing your people. So that's kind of the state of where we're at. So let's just kind of go through it again so you don't forget if you're on a walk or driving or cleaning house, is that the top three things right now are retreats and in-person experiences. The second thing is um handmade and human-made goods are doing very well. And then local services. Again, this is because a human is involved and people like that. They're sick of all the AI junk. And then just think about things. You know, if you've got an Etsy store, just realize what's going on, that the rules have tightened, but you may have this slamming, awesome Etsy store and you're doing great. That's great. But if you're a brand new Etsy owner, I think just think about it and realize what's happening is that the rules have gotten tightened and you don't own your customer. And so that's what always kind of made it hard for me to ever go all in on Etsy, was because I wanted to have my own website, my own email list, and nurture my own people and have access to them, right? Print on demand is super popular. Many of you have heard this. That's like t-shirts and stuff like that, where it has a logo on it. And I think unless you have a specific niche and it's something that is already tied to your audience or something like

Recap Staying Relevant And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 21:55

that, I think it can be hard if you don't already have a big business. Again, I know people with huge print-on-demand businesses, and that's amazing. It's just a little harder to get into right now, but you've got to have a niche, right? And if you have your own website, like a Shopify store, know that it's gonna take an audience you already have or ads or both, probably both, to be able to grow. And you're gonna have to be doing things locally or find some way to do marketing as well. Coaching works, but as a hybrid model where you can do a group program or you can do one-on-one coaching. And let me say that again. I think coaching as just a course is not working as much at all. I think it's gotta be coaching with a course. And maybe you do a group program with a course, or maybe you do one-on-one coaching with a course. Does that make sense? Because that's what I do. Like for my passion to podcast program, I do that with one-on-one coaching. So they have the course and then I work with them one-on-one when they need when they need help as they're working through everything and getting their podcasts up and they have a human touch to it, right? So think about that, y'all. Think about how you are moving forward with your business. Be smart about it, understand where we are today. Because if you fall behind, you will become irrelevant. And you cannot become irrelevant. So I think you should always be thinking of ways to get creative and tell the people what they want to pay for. So I hope that makes sense. Y'all are amazing. I'm so happy you're here. And until next time, bye now.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Now, this episode may be over, but our relationship does not have to end here. Head on over to Kimberlybrock.com, and yes, you can get more valuable information for your journey. And you know what? You don't need to go through this alone. I would love to help. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.