Over the past decade we’ve seen personal brands carry more influence in the business world than corporate brands. Tesla would not be the same without Elon Musk, Apple would not have been the same without Steve Jobs, Spanx would not be the same without Sara Blakely. Why? People buy from people and it accelerates the speed of trust for consumers.

Today we're diving in on the word looming around in every business leader's mind...recession. Whether you believe we are in a recession or not, it has been a topic of conversation in every boardroom the past few months with 95% of businesses fearing a recession. As you meet with your leadership to discuss your operations, financial forecasting, cashflow planning and sales tactics, it's easy to leave out what some view as discretionary spend – marketing.

Podcasts are the new blog. Like me, you have probably heard of several brands this past year expressing interest in starting their own podcast for a good reason – it is one of the fastest growing mediums for content consumption with 85 million Americans listening to at least one per week and 75 million who listen every month (statista).

At every meeting or event this past month, there has been one topic dominating the conversation. The executive’s new best friend, ChatGPT.

I’ve heard executives share case study after case study on how they have been utilizing the latest version released by OpenAI, ChatGPT-4. I’ve heard everything from creating legal documents, making some executives sound “like a CEO” via email, to drafting a company financial analysis. One executive even joked that we should turn our computers toward each other to conduct the full meeting via ChatGPT!