Hi there, and welcome to Less Is the Strategy, the podcast that helps you simplify and scale your online business. My name is Ant Hodges, I'm the author of the book Simplify the Funnel. It's your guide to simplifying your business and your marketing, enabling you to generate more leads and sales online, whilst escaping the cult of hustle and complexity.
You know, I live in this online world. It's a world where I hear many people saying it's a world for the young. But more and more, particularly over the last few years, I've been seeing more and more of an older generation coming online and actually making the online world work for them. I've looked back through my products and my programs, and I've seen a disproportionate level of people, probably 45, 50 years old and over, in my programs compared to younger people. I myself, I'm 45 right now as I'm recording this. And I know that the world that I'm building, the business that I'm building around AI, around the technology that's simplifying things, is actually a way in which I wanna grow my business moving forward.
So I wanna cover off four key things in the podcast today, where I feel like we need to dispel a few different myths around all of this. And we need to see that the online world is for the older generation as much as it is for the younger generation, and what each age group could teach the other.
The first, let's deal with this stereotype about the online world and the age of those in the online world. I think it's running backwards. What I mean by this is, everyone does assume that the internet belongs to the young. Well, what I can see has actually happened in recent years is the complete opposite. Yes, we now have all of the tech in the world that we can kind of put into our businesses and use in our lives. But where people think that the online world is for a younger generation, we have to really stop and think about it. It is, but it isn't as well.
Today, if we just look at AI, I believe AI has made things so easy. The tools now are not the advantage. Learning how to use different tools and things isn't the advantage, because we can go to a chatbot or an AI and we can have the tool open next to us, and we can ask it what we should do next, and it will just give us all the answers. We can just follow instructions, then we can use online tools. I think the scarce thing online today is judgement. And judgement, human judgement, actually takes decades to earn.
And you know, in over 20 years of running my own marketing agency, my businesses and my programs, I mentioned earlier that many of my members and clients have been in their 50s and even 60s. Their experience and their work ethic gets things moving fast. And it's not just what I'm seeing right now. Both MIT and the Census Bureau did some research, and they found that the average age of founders of the fastest growing new companies was 45. And a 50 year old founder is nearly three times more likely to build a successful business or a successful startup than a 25 year old.
It's those decades of experience that set the bar. It's the 20 or 30 years working as a CFO that puts somebody at that age at far more of an advantage than a university grad coming in as a CFO to a company. For me, the older generations, and those that have built experience over years, have got so much to give. That knowledge should be seen as a vault that we should try and break into and tap into. We should come to an older generation and drink from the font of knowledge in that sense.
And the online world today, by simplifying things, makes it far easier to be able to get a message out there. So that fear that, oh, I'm too old for this, this is for a younger generation, that's not an excuse anymore. Because please, use one of these devices, record a video, upload it somewhere, and people will see it. It doesn't take more time than you would if you were just taking a photo or a video of a family member, and then opening the YouTube app or your app and just clicking upload. Today, the technology, whilst it's complex behind the scenes, it's simple for us to be able to use.
And that moves me on to my next point. The online tech divides people by attitude, not by age. I think both generations get AI wrong. Well, I'm using AI because it's what everyone's talking about right now. But I think the younger generations often ask AI to be the expert, to then publish what comes out, and ultimately flood the internet with just AI slop. And that doesn't really carry any lived experience. There are even people out there today training people how to create digital products, programs, even books, with just a few prompts, asking AI to do all of that, and then copy and paste that and put it into another AI to then create the product and then sell it. There's no human experience built into this. And most users often assume that AI can do everything for them in that way.
And the older generations, more experienced users, will often actually assume that AI is just beyond them. When in actual fact, AI, and tools such as ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini, and all of the kind of AI tools that we can have conversation with, the older generation are best placed to be able to use it. Because what it spits out, they can deduce and discern whether it's right or wrong from their decades of human experience. And I find it bizarre that nobody's thought about it this way.
There's a line, I don't know if it's still there, I'm not a big ChatGPT user, I'm an Anthropic and Claude fan, ChatGPT used to have this line, you know, AI can get things wrong. And absolutely, AI can get things wrong. If you've got 25 years of experience doing something, you can ask AI to help you with something, and you'll know when it's got it wrong or not, because of your experience. But a younger person wouldn't necessarily know, because they might not have that experience.
So my rule is simple. AI for me belongs in the back office, and humans belong at the front face. That means I believe humans should be creating content, humans should be the one interfacing with their customers and having conversation as much as possible. And put all of the systems, and all of the processes, and the automations in the background, to get them to a point, even leading people to a point of having a human conversation. I believe that AI could be used for things like appointment setting and stuff like that. But when it actually comes down to a conversation, not just okay, well, are you free on Tuesday at four, when it comes down to an actual conversation, maybe some coaching or some consultancy, that belongs in the human element.
The third point I wanna make is that generations need each other, and my own business is the proof. You know, I've been running my business for a number of years, and I've had a lot of younger people working in my business. I remember when AI came out, when ChatGPT was born, I kind of jokingly put the soundtrack and a screensaver for Skynet from Terminator on my computer, and said, look, AI is taking over. Not one person in the office actually understood what I was talking about, because none of them had actually seen Terminator. And I'm like, wow, there's a generational gap here.
But that generational gap within a business is hugely important. You know, if you've got decades of judgement and experience and relationships that come from your years of working in an industry like, for instance, mine. You know, I'm 45 now, but it was 15 when I started doing graphic design, so it's been 30 years I've kind of been in and around the graphic design and marketing world, when I jumped into a job and I started my own business, and I've run agencies and been involved with agencies for over 20 years. All of that experience is there. It's the coalface of being involved with all of that. And then I come alongside my daughter Hannah, who's working for me, and she brings in that newness of the online world and the Gen Z perspective of how to do certain things, and how to engage in different ways, and how different platforms that she's clued up on work.
You know, if you're under the age of 25 or even 30, then find someone with the exact same number of years experience as your age in what you're doing, and serve them and learn from them. Those with more experience, tap into a younger generation, take someone under your wing to mentor them in some way, so that you can understand the platforms, the systems and the tech of today. But please do keep things simple.
Those who are just discovering technology, I see all these bro marketers and Gen Z's with all their videos, you know, they've just seen this brand new AI tool, and they've got to consistently talk about all of these new tools all the time. There's an excitement about this discovery, and all they're doing is they're telling people to do this and do that and do this and do that, and it's just adding more and more complexity to a business. And it's almost adding things to businesses and adding things to systems where it's just not needed.
Inside my book I talk about it, the minimum viable funnel. And the minimum viable funnel is made up of four steps really. A single traffic source, becoming visible and building an audience first. Then we move on to a low cost offer, where you build a list of buyers, not just a list of freebie hunters. You need to create some kind of conversion event after that purchase for your main core offer, and as human as you can. And then nurture, deliver and build relationships, maybe in community and with real human contact. These four stages of a funnel, this minimum viable funnel, is one that you can use that gets people's attention, that gets people buying, that delivers and builds community. Go and grab a copy of my book, and read and see how you can implement the minimum viable funnel for yourself.
And my final point. If you're in the older generation, if you classify yourself as being in the older generation, maybe you've got 20, 30, 40 years of experience doing what you do. For the younger generation, you are laying down rings. A work in life is like the rings of a tree. Every year, life is laying down another ring. And those rings on a tree make that tree more valuable, as the rings become more and more. It makes the tree stronger and stronger.
At 25, the temptation is just speed, virality, let's chase the algorithm, let's go, let's dance on TikTok, let's do all of the stuff that is getting attention. But let me just say, all of those roads burn people out. What compounds today is consistent, useful content for a specific audience, and bringing them real results before you make the big claims. And those results come from the years of experience behind you that you're bringing to the table. Simplicity scales, complexity fails.
The experience that you bank in your 20s and 30s is the asset that the online world will now pay you for at the age of 50, 55 or older. Those people who were in my products and in my programs, who were of that age and older, were able to package that knowledge into digital products and programs, to serve an audience of people who wanted to tap into somebody's knowledge, who'd been there, done it, actually got results. Not just saying, oh, this is what you can do and you'll get these results, but actually saying, this is what I did, and these are the results that I got, or that my clients have got over the years.
We need to understand that in this age of technology, there is a balance between the young and the old that needs to be married up. The online world is not just for the young people. The older people are not just sat getting retired off. Don't retire your experience, package it, sell it. That's what simplifying is all about. Subtracting all of the mess and all of the chaff, doing the minimum that you need to be able to go out to the market and help other people.
I'd love to know your thoughts. You know, how are you set for the rest of your life? If you're in that sort of, if you're my age, 45, 50, if you're older, does the experience that you've had over your lifetime start to trigger in your mind, how can I still be of use, how can I still create impact, how can I serve people? If you're asking those questions, then come and join my community. My community exists to help people to simplify. If you grab a copy of my book, you'll be invited to come and join the community. So head over to simplifythefunnel.com and grab a copy of my book. There is a community link there as well.
My community exists to help people to understand how to take their knowledge, package it, and sell it online in a simplified way. We'll remove all the barriers of technology. There's actually no difficult way of doing this in my programs, and I wanna help you to do that. I wanna serve you in a way that I've served other people.
I remember getting a tap on the shoulder from a lady at the Kajabi conference that I attended one year. And she basically just said, your teaching enabled me to be able to give up my job, so that I could teach online baking and spend more time with my husband while he was ill before he died. And now my grandchildren are gonna enjoy the fruits of my labour, my successful membership, the thousands of people that I've got that I teach baking to every week. And all she did was, with her phone on a tripod in her kitchen, record baking and cake decorating techniques, and send that video to a membership every single week. And they paid a membership fee, and it just kept growing.
You know, I think for me there is a very simple way to be able to take the knowledge and wisdom and experience you've got, if you're in that older age bracket, be able to share it with the world. Genuinely, I want to help and I want to serve. Head over to anthodges.com, you can contact me there, there's a WhatsApp button, there's ways in which you can book a call. Grab a copy of my book at simplifythefunnel.com. I'm here to help you to simplify. I want you to simplify, I want you to be able to succeed.
The online world is not just reserved for the young people. The online world is a multi generational world, people who are embracing that technology and learning it, but also the people who've got the experience and credibility to stand in the gap and really serve people.
I'm Ant Hodges, less really is the strategy, and that's why this podcast exists. If something about this podcast has resonated with you, or even if you feel like you'd love somebody else to hear this message, then please do send them a link so that they can listen, or watch this video on YouTube. I really want to help you to move things forward and to simplify. Make sure that you're subscribed wherever you're listening or watching this podcast. Leave a review, leave a comment, let me know your thoughts as well. And I look forward to catching up with you on the very next episode of Less Is the Strategy.