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You already have automations running. A welcome sequence, a few tags firing, maybe a workflow you built two years ago and have not looked at since. Then AI showed up and everybody started talking about automation like it was brand new, and now you are wondering whether what you have is still doing its job.

Steph Blake has been in the online space for over a decade helping small business owners simplify and automate so they can work 20 hours a week or less. In this episode she walks through what she actually has running in her own business right now, from inbox drafts to call transcripts to a full lead dashboard, and she is clear about which parts she refuses to hand over.

In this episode:

- Why automating everything is the wrong goal, and what to look at instead
- The one automation Steph thinks every business owner should already have running
- How she turns every call into a searchable library of quotes, pain points and content ideas
- The connectors she uses every single day and why your email tool should be first
- How she built her own second brain in Google Drive instead of Obsidian
- The 30 minute flash sale process that used to take her a day and a half

Start with the things that do not need you, and keep a human in the loop everywhere else.

If you want help deciding what to automate in your own business and actually building it, come join us in the AI Mastermind.
https://mastermind.destinicopp.com/

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Almost everybody I talk to has been using AI for a couple of years now. They have a paid subscription, they have watched the videos, they can tell you what an AI agent is. And then you ask what systems they actually have running, and how any of it is helping them make more money, and there is not much of an answer.

I open this one with the thing I changed in my own business, which is that I stopped building my slide decks in Canva and started getting a finished, polished deck in about ten minutes using Claude and Gamma. Then I walk you through the AI in Action Summit, running September 15 through 17, session by session, so you know exactly what is in it before you register.

In this episode:

- The ten minute workflow that replaced an afternoon in Canva
- Why knowing how to use AI and having AI run part of your business are two different things
- The one instruction I gave every speaker before they submitted a session
- Who is teaching what, across agents and automation, selling your expertise, content and visibility, and client systems
- My three live sessions, including the one where five people bring something they are stuck on and we build it live
- How the summit week works and what is in the VIP pass

The gap is not what you know about AI. It is whether any of it is running without you.

Register free for the AI in Action Summit, September 15 through 17.
https://lab.destinicopp.com/ai-in-action-summit

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The event we ran last month is the first one I did not touch. Not the funnels, not the products inside them, none of it. My team handled everything, and that was a first.

Steph asks what is under the hood at HobbyScool. How we source speakers, who the three humans are, and what changed when Claude and the MCP connectors entered the workflow.

In this episode:

- The repeatable monthly system the whole year gets planned against
- How we find speakers, and why their list growth is the entire pitch
- Three people, and what each of them owns
- What the Kit connector replaced
- Why the marketing calendar comes before any AI question

Map the next three months first. Then ask what AI can do with it.

If the connector workflow is the part you want, we build it together in the mastermind.
https://mastermind.destinicopp.com/

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A free summit does not make money. The pages behind it do. Registration page, VIP pass, order bump, upsell, membership, and a downsell if they say no to the annual.

Steph walks me through the whole thing and I give her the actual numbers, including what the ads cost and how much goes back out to affiliates.

In this episode:

- The difference between an order bump and an upsell, and how I price each
- The conversion rates I expect at every step
- Why I use dollars off instead of a percentage above a certain price
- The annual first, monthly as the downsell test that surprised me
- A $37 VIP pass against a $17 cost per conversion

Test the offer before you build another one on top of it.

If you want to know where your own funnel is leaking, start with the scorecard.
https://scorecard.destinicopp.com/

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I spend about five hours a week on HobbyScool. Three contractors run the rest of it, and the last event went out the door without me touching a single funnel. It took years to get here, and nobody starts at five hours a week.

Kate Kordsmeier asks how it actually works. Who is on the team, what they own, how I manage people in a different time zone, and the two things I still will not hand off.

In this episode:

- The three roles that run a business doing an event every month
- The twice daily report that replaced most of my management time
- Building the thing myself first, then turning it into a skill and handing it over
- The two things I will not outsource, and the control freak reason why
- How long it actually takes, said honestly

If a question keeps reaching you, the answer is missing from your documentation.

If you want to build the AI skills that let you hand work off once instead of explaining it every time, that is what we do in the mastermind.
https://mastermind.destinicopp.com/

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Most people know me as the Creator's MBA person. A lot of them have no idea I run a whole second company, in a niche I have zero personal interest in. I am not crafty. I built a craft business anyway.

In this episode Kate Kordsmeier interviews me about HobbyScool: where the name came from, the two business models I tried before virtual summits worked, and how the funnel behind a free summit actually makes money.

In this episode:

- Why I picked a market I am not a customer of
- The paid bundles that made revenue but did not grow the list
- What a free virtual summit is, and how the VIP pass monetizes it
- What speakers get when nobody is paying them to show up
- Why I made sure the business was never about me

You do not have to love the thing you sell. You have to be right about the market.

If you want to know which stage of your own flywheel is holding the rest back, take the scorecard.
https://scorecard.destinicopp.com/

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Kate and I live twenty minutes apart in Atlanta and did not know each other. In the exact same month we were both quietly trying to build the same peer mastermind. One person got asked by both of us and said, wait, is this the same thing?

This is the behind the scenes of the Weird Hermits, the peer group I credit with more business impact than anything I have paid for.

In this episode:

- How two people building the same group in the same month found each other
- The commitment rule that kept this one from petering out
- Where the name came from, and the one it replaced
- A normal week: the call, the ads call, the Telegram thread
- The debrief calls where we share numbers nobody posts publicly

The groups that fizzle are the ones nobody was really required to show up for.

If you want a room like this and do not have one to build from, that is what the Council is.
https://lab.destinicopp.com/council

Learn more about the peer mastermind through Inside the Council: https://lab.destinicopp.com/inside-the-council

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Your best PDF is sitting in someone's downloads folder right now, unread. Not because it's bad. Because nobody wants more homework.

This episode kicks off Beyond the PDF, my free event, with a look at more than two dozen creators who ditched the static download and built interactive lead magnets instead. Some are converting over 50%. And here's how I made it: I dropped every contributor story into NotebookLM and had it turn them into a two-host deep dive.

In this episode:

- Why the PDF worked for 20 years and what finally broke it
- Why information being free changes what people will trade their email for
- Claude artifacts, custom GPTs, and installable AI skills that do the work for your subscriber
- Why diagnostic quizzes convert so well, and how to segment every person who takes one
- Interactive calculators that let a B2B buyer close their own deal
- The low-tech format that converted at over 51% with no AI

The takeaway: stop asking your audience to read. Start helping them do.

Sign up for Beyond the PDF (free, July 13-31) and build your own modern lead magnet during Get It Done Week, July 27-31:
https://lab.destinicopp.com/beyond-pdf-registration

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The best decision I've ever made in my business wasn't a course or a tool. It was joining a small room of people who actually get it.

In this episode I walk through why a curated peer mastermind changed how it feels to run my business, and why it's almost never the thing people assume it is.

In this episode:
- Why the big decisions get lonelier as your business grows
- What changes when you stop deciding alone
- The hot seat, and why you can't do it for yourself
- Why curation is the whole product, and what it actually means
- The real cost of staying in a room of one

Resources mentioned:
- The Creator's MBA Council: https://lab.destinicopp.com/council
- The full article on this topic: https://destinicopp.com/blog/curated-peer-mastermind

Not ready to apply? Take the inside look first with the free private podcast, Inside the Council: https://lab.destinicopp.com/inside-the-council

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This month I took my entire business apart. Sales pages, offers, what I was promoting, what I was spending money and time on. All of it went on the table.

In this behind-the-scenes episode, I walk you through the full rebuild using my own Creator Growth Flywheel. I share where I think the market is headed, why the human element is the one thing AI can't replace, and how that belief is reshaping my events, my offers, and what I chose to cut.

In this episode:

- Why this rebuild is about where the market is going, not a one-time cleanup
- The one thing AI can't replace, and how I'm building around it
- A walk through all five flywheel stages: Attract, Engage, Nurture, Retain, Advocate
- Why I'm going all in on live events
- How I'm rebuilding my lead magnets backwards from the offer
- The offer overhaul: the AI Mastermind repositioning, the new Council, and Revenue Stack Studio
- How I used AI to build personalized affiliate pages in my partners' own voice
- What I cut, including Pinterest and the HelloContent store, and why

Your turn:

- Got a question or want a hot seat on a future episode? Send it here: https://forms.gle/E71QahCpGjo8pmup7
- Want to speak at an upcoming event? Apply here: https://lab.destinicopp.com/creators-mba-events
- Watch for my newsletter survey and hit reply. I read every one.

Resources and offers mentioned:

- Creator's MBA Events (Beyond the PDF, Closed Door Panel Talks, AI in Action Summit, AI Newsletter Summit, Creator Pivot Summit): https://lab.destinicopp.com/creators-mba-events
- Creator's MBA AI Mastermind: https://mastermind.destinicopp.com
- Creator's MBA Council (peer mastermind, starts January 2027): https://lab.destinicopp.com/council
- Revenue Stack Studio (done-for-you tier): https://lab.destinicopp.com/revenue-stack-studio
- Newsletter Profit Club: https://lab.destinicopp.com/newsletter-profit-club
- Join the Creator's MBA newsletter: https://signup.destinicopp.com

Want a question answered on the show? Send it in here: https://forms.gle/E71QahCpGjo8pmup7