Louis Swart shows coaches and SMB owners how to use AI to create six months of content in one hour, without losing the voice that makes clients trust you.
GROWTH PILLAR: AI & Automation
WHO THIS IS FOR: Coaches / Consultants / SMB owners / Solopreneurs building a content presence
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A practical system for AI content creation that keeps your real voice, beats burnout, and builds trust with the right clients.
You know you should be posting more. But every time you sit down to write something, it comes out sounding like a brochure, or worse, like everyone else.
Louis Swart spent 35 years building and selling companies before he built IronBrij to fix exactly that. In this episode, Louis breaks down how to feed AI your real language, your values, and your stories — and get back content that makes the right clients stop scrolling and book a call. He covers NLP reframing, the filtering skill most owners were never taught, why delegation should happen before you think you're ready, and the simple process that lets you walk away with six months of ready-to-post content in one focused hour. Two of his clients cried when he read their AI-generated content back to them. That's how close to the bone this gets.
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Bernie (00:22)
So from an audience perspective, how can you create real human content without burning out or sounding like a robot?
That's what our guest will talk about. How coaches and business owners can use AI to keep their true voice, save hours every week, and turn posts into clients instead of noise. If you're tired of guessing what to write and doing everything yourself, this episode will show you a simpler way. Listen in and learn how to make content that connects, builds trust, and actually converts. Our guest today is Louis Swart from IronBrij
He is a seasoned business coach for coaches and founder of IronBrij a human AI-powered virtual assistant company that helps coaches avoid burnout and build self-sustaining businesses. With over 35 years of experience building and selling companies, managing over more than 450 staff and training coaches worldwide, he specializes in teaching effective delegation and growth strategies.
He's also a published author and was a top fifty finalist in the next top speaker competition. And he speaks internationally to help individuals reclaim their time, profitability, and peace of mind. it's an absolute pleasure having you here today. Thank you so much for joining us. Do you have your favorite quote or saying you in the share?
Louis (01:43)
Well, I mean, let's just get it done. I think I think there's I think we can do do so much learning. you know, everybody you can go on YouTube and there's a million things you can learn, but how much of it are we actually getting done? How much are we actually implementing? 'Cause that's where the trick is.
Bernie (02:01)
That's true. So
Your your backstory. What was the moment you realized coaches were burning out from trying to do everything themselves? It almost sounds like, the one man claxon show where you have the drums and the you know the monkey just joining you just for just the odd entertainment value. W when was the time that you realized, hang on, that you you guys are burning out? Like what what was the epiphany?
Louis (02:27)
Well, I'll tell you I'll tell you my story if that's okay. pretty much when I was 30, I just sold a business for five million. I had we had my it was a business my brother and myself had. We had 200 staff. And I remember sitting in the bank and they were counting out the money on one of those those machines, you know, like grrrr and then put an elastic band and grrr. Amazing feeling, I gotta tell you. But I was sitting there and I was thinking about the businesses that I'd had before.
And why this one had been so successful. And five years before, I had a plumbing business and I had 10 plumbers. And you know, it was 25 bulletproof 10 plumbers. I thought, man, I'm gonna sell this business and retire. And I went to a broker and I said, Hey, I want to sell my plumbing business. And he said to me, Louis, who does the accounts? And I'm like, Well, I do it. And who does the quality control? I do it. And who does the quoting? Well, I do And I do I. And he said, Louis, your business is worth nothing.
And I still to this day remember that kind of sinking feeling of I had this thing that I thought was worth all this, you know, money, but it was worth nothing. And he said, because I've got to find another Louis who knows how to do plumbing, knows how to do accounts, knows how to do all these things to be able to buy the business and who wants to work the crazy hours that you work. and so the next five years.
I literally just focus on delegation. How do I delegate? How do I get everybody to do everything for me? So when it came to selling the next business, they were like, Who does the accounts? Who does this? Who does that? It was one of those, you know, just fingers pointing in every different direction. and literally the guy just said, I'll get four other people and the each of them come up with a million and that was that was the deal done. Because it was very easy for them to step in and just take over. immigrated to Australia, had some like
You know, epic fails, some awesome wins. The last business that I had, I was turning over, we grew it over eight years to turning over sort of 35 million, 450 staff, like a really big thing with using all the delegation stuff that I'd learned before. but then I got to a point where I felt I felt kind of empty.
You know, and I know if you you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs all the time and and they get to that point where you feel empty and you go like, Man, I I I've reached this kind of level and I really should be happy, but I wasn't happy. And so I felt like I was broken and I was like, Man, I gotta just fix this. And so having always done businesses, I was like, Well, I'll treat it like a business. Okay. I'll go in and I'll find all the people that can help me and I'll get them to help me. And I went in and I studied NLP.
you know, neurolinguistic programming, became an NL and P master practitioner, I became a hypnotherapist, a timeline therapist, I became all these different modalities to try and fix me. So I spent about two years, like really just intensely working with all these different people. And the one thing that I realized through this whole thing was that most of these people who were salt of the earth, just you know, such beautiful people, they were really just out there to help others. They were all
Just kind of eking out a living. Most of them had a second job to support their kind of, you know, coaching hobby, or they were eating into their savings, hoping that one day they'd get that big break. And so it seemed like such a, such a massive difference between corporate, where it's just like bang, bang, bang, bang, and then people that are actually trying to really, really help others, you know, suffering. And so then I felt like.
Well, if I can go out and actually help people with all the stuff that I know from having run businesses and all the mindset stuff that I know, 'cause I mean a lot of it is a lot of it is mindset, then I can I can really uplift that whole community to be able to, you know, help more people. Cause one of my highest values is helping people. And if I can help a person who helps people, it's kind of, you know, along the lines it just
Duplicating what you what you can do, you know, and leverage. So yeah. So that's that's kind of how I got into it.
Bernie (06:48)
NLP is kind of an interesting thing. I mean it's
Interesting the the experience like owning a plumbing business, right? And then you realize, you know, being the the source source of tooth for all things is not good because you know you're gonna carve yourself up so so many times.
Would it have made sense in and in retrospect looking back that if let's say to sell the plumbing business, not to sell it just to a competitor and have them ab absorb it? And they would have just, you know, because they would have already had a a Louis for the the canning, a Louis for the sales piece, it just would have given them more more territory? Or is it did it require
the source of SOPs, you know, standard operating procedures built around everything. It wouldn't it wouldn't have mattered whether you 'cause you didn't have that.
Louis (07:44)
Well, I sold it for the equipment, the basic the equipment value. So I sold it for what the equipment was worth and everything because Yeah, it it you didn't have the people to sell with it. So the the idea was that when we sold the second business, a manager, an investor could just step in and actually take over. Whereas the first business, it wasn't quite the same.
But I understand your concept with bigger organizations. So just absorb the small guys and then just bring them under the pool. but it's you know, your multiples are so much less if you know if you know, if you're getting absorbed by somebody big, it's just literally they're just buying you out for what your stuff's kind of worth.
Bernie (08:29)
But do you found that in that particular path and maybe franchising might have been the way to go? there's a gent down in Florida that we were chatting with, and he says, you know, if someone has a business, they got it all down and then they franchise it because it at the end of the day is how do I scale this? And i it can be scaled, then it can be sold, right? And so franchise is kind of an easier way so you don't literally have to be everywhere.
you I you do have to have some more manpower. So would would franchising have been an option too?
Louis (09:04)
I'd already started another business and so I was actually I was pretty much out of that business, but I'd already started something else. I I I was doing plumbing and then I the business that I started with my brother was we did we did puppy telephones and so it was a it was a it was a you know completely different completely different type of business.
Bernie (09:30)
Yep, that was a change of pace.
Louis (09:33)
Yeah, like I mean
Bernie (09:34)
Want
her to telecom. Yeah.
Louis (09:36)
Yeah, and and also, you know, I realize that the demand was much was much bigger in the, you know, the the the demand was much bigger in the telephone space. The you know, and it wasn't as much it wasn't as labor intense wasn't as labor intensive. You weren't chasing money. Plumbing you're chasing money, you you're constantly chasing money.
Bernie (09:58)
It sounds like a very f this is gonna be a bad pun, a very fluid dynamic. sorry about that. so neuro linguistics, what brought that into into the gameplay of, you know, because obviously you're not h hypnotizing your clients or your staff, but w how did it become a tool that you could leverage to help succeed?
Louis (10:19)
We all actually do NLP techniques. We all already do those techniques. we all already do hypnosis techniques. It's something that we're naturally born with that we do. All that they're doing with the training is they're really just how a enabling you to enhance it. So for example, I give an example, we do we do a thing called reframing.
So, you know, your child doesn't want to go to school. They're like, I don't want to go to school. I don't want to go to school. Like everybody doesn't love me, doesn't like me at school. And then you say, Isn't your best friend Johnny gonna be there today? And they're like, yeah, Johnny's gonna be there. And you go, Johnny likes you, and they go, Yeah, Johnny likes me, and then off they go, you know? You've reframed the child's perception. Okay. the same with a client. The client goes, look at you know, I I
Spending spending five thousand dollars is really expensive for me at the moment. And you will say something like, Well, this kind of investment, you know, do you think that this investment's gonna help gonna help you long term? You've reframed it. So you've taken their thought and you've given them back the exact same thought but with a twist on it, right? Just a different looking at the world in a different perspective. So we do that. We all do that, but really
By learning NLP, you learn how why it works and how you can actually enhance the way that that works. You know, and in NLP they got some cool stuff like Milton Models where you do some stuff like, you know, what if you didn't not do that? What would happen? You know? and it it's meant to mess with your brain, you know? What if you what if you did run a podcast? What if you didn't run a podcast?
What if you did not run a podcast? What if you did do a podcast? And and it it kind of it it really messes with your brain because you you you're kind of going, well, if I didn't not do that, what would happen? And and and it kind of it brings out a whole different level of thinking. Now, in my coaching or you know, when I'm helping business owners, I can actually just slip in these techniques. So I can just reframe something for people.
and reframing is super powerful. I can just reframe something for them. I can slip in a Milton model where I can ask them, well, what if you didn't not do this? Then what would happen? And you can s you you kind of they have a thing called pattern interrupt, where we're all going through the world and then suddenly you see something and you're like, dung, this is this is different. you know, you you're just walking down the street and you see a purple elephant, you go, Well, okay, that's different. And it's called pattern interrupt. And and the idea is
We want to stop them and then go, okay, this is what I want to tell you. And so there's all these things that you learn in NLP. You know. And then, you know, with the hypnotherapy, I know that when I first thought about him, when I grew up, hypnosis was like, it was like, you know, you'd been overtaken by evil spirits type thing. But the reality is that it's just moving your brain to a into a different state. You know, and when we're going to sleep.
We go from the superactive state down to a lower state. And then in that lower state, we're more susceptible. You know, so they the in hypnosis, they use the example where they say, you know, close your eyes. And what I want you to do is I want you to think of, you know, you're walking into your kitchen and there's a there's a big lemon, there's a big juicy lemon on the counter. Okay. And then you cut open the lemon, and then I want you to like just take the lemon and then just squeeze it into your mouth.
And most people actually get saliva in their mouth or they're like, they get that like, you know.
Bernie (14:12)
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Louis (14:15)
And really that's been that's hypnosis. That person has been hypnotized. Okay. Because you've invoked that additional saliva or you've invoked that feeling just by telling them some words. And that's all that hypnosis is. It's exactly the same thing. You just you literally just people are more susceptible to receive information.
you know, like for smoking. For smoking, they do the same thing and then, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you get them into this really, really relaxed state, and then you go, Okay, so you know, what would your life look like in 10 years time if you keep smoking? You know? And you, you know, you're kind of telling them, you know, what about lung cancer and all the terrible things that could happen to them that they've told you about previously, you know, and then what would your life look like if you didn't? And then you tell them all the beautiful things that they told you.
they wanted to achieve. and their their brain actually starts creating this future path, which is really where they end up going. And amazing, amazing. And it's not is isn't there's no hublum goobloom to it. It's literally it's literally just a science. So
Bernie (15:29)
Fascinating. So you're employing this as part of the coaching techniques for people. So you kinda gearing them up. And earlier we were talking about in the intro, that you're helping them get past, you know, leveraging tech and content and you know n and I I I guess what the end of the day is I've you know, there's a race, you know, if you're
Almost like if you're operating under the veil of scarcity, all right, then everything everything is, you know, a problem as opposed to, you know, fli reframing it, you know, from the other perspective. So how do you get the how do you get folks to kinda like, okay, chill? I mean, if there's if there's an elephant to be eaten, it's one bite at a time as the story goes. but if
You have to manage that elephant and have to get it consumed sooner. How how do you make that kind of phase in? How do you how do you bring that about?
Louis (16:28)
Great question. Great question. So I find a lot of people are super scattered with where they want to be. they're like, I need to do this and this and this and this and this and that and the other thing. And then you go, okay, tell me where you want to be in five years' time. And they're like, I'm not quite sure. I I want to be successful, which is a terrible re terrible thing because successful doesn't really mean anything. You know, successful to you might be
I get to spend, you know, eight hours a day with my children. Successful might be, you know, I'm got 50 Lamborghinis in the garage. It doesn't it it means different things to different people. So, you know, unless they start doing the smart goals, and so many people don't actually know where they want to be in five years. So many people haven't got that big picture. And so it's it's like that Alice in Wonderland, you know, she's walking along the path and then she gets to the tree and she says to the Cheshire cats, which way shall I go?
And he goes, Where do you where are you going? And she says, I don't know. And he goes, Well, then you can go either way. And it's literally, it's literally that. You know, we and and so people are scattered. They they're doing a lot of busyness, without actually focusing on what the big picture is, where they want to be. So once we get clear on where the big picture is, then we can say, Okay, these are the kind of steps that we've got to do to get to the big picture. And then, you know,
start working on those one at a time. And and I think a lot of coaching is really just bringing people back in again, saying, hey, we don't need the logo right now. We need to kind of work out where we want to go first. You know, we don't need to spend all our time on the on the app, on the logo for the app. Let's work out what is the app actually going to do. Who's it actually going to help? And then that helps us to go forward. So
Yeah, it's it's really just bringing it in. And you know, somebody was saying that that two of the people that have got the most singular focus were Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. And literally they've got this like absolutely singular focus. If anything's outside of that focus, they're not interested. You know, and people think lots of people think, to focus means that I really need to focus on what I should be doing. And it's
Actually, you should be focused on what you shouldn't be doing, you know. So it's easy to focus when something's easy. Like, okay, I need to, you know, I'm busy writing a book and I need to write my book. And then a party comes up and it's it's a party for a family member or something. Okay. Real focus is when you say, Hey, I've actually dedicated, I've got to write this book. I'm not gonna attend that that event because I'm gonna write this book.
That's singular, that's singular focus. Okay. You know, as opposed to us going, okay, I'm gonna spend more time writing my book. So it's it's really getting rid of those things that aren't in line with where you wanna be.
Bernie (19:34)
So when you're working with a client to bring him on the home stretch and you you you know, f focus on stuff but not I guess so narrow that you f you forget that you're you know you you gotta eat, right? Like it's almost like if someone you know, just if if if you totally ignore your your your own internal signals, right? You just you don't sleep, you don't eat, and eventually you fail.
How do you get a balance in that? and and then at the same time have them bring out their own their own core message. Because I I can I can find you know three different three different folks in in the same business, but three different personalities. You know, somewhat close, you know. Let's see if you're talking accountant, they'll be usually detail oriented, but at the same time different personas,
Like how how do you get them to deliver their core message that it stays true? Because if they're trying to reach somebody, right, and how how do you get them to hit the mark?
Louis (20:41)
Well, once again, we've got to work out what that mark is. So when we work on our five year goal, you know, the you Tony Robbins has got that wheel of life. And so when you when you're telling me what your five year goal is, some of the questions may be, well, where do you want your relationship to be? Where do you want your spirituality to be in five years? Where do you want your health to be? Because, you know, like you said earlier, some people will go, I want my business, you know, I want to have
I want to be able to buy a Ferrari in five years. And then they'll just work and then they will completely sacrifice their health. And when they're sacrificing their health, they get halfway to the Ferrari and then they realize that they've got to spend all their money to fix up their health because they've been eating like terribly. So it is about having that balance, but the same rules apply. We've got to know what the five year goal is. You know, I kind of think of it like the you know, eat the elephant.
You walk up there and there's a whole herd of elephants and you go eat the elephant. You can't just start having a bite of each elephant. You've got to kind of go, well, okay, that's the elephant that we're gonna eat. Like, you know, that specific one. and and that's what we're not lots of people aren't doing that. And especially now because we're so bombarded with, you know, you pick up your phone and it's I can help you do this, I can help you do this, I can write help you write a book, I can help you become a speaker.
I can help you do affiliate marketing. don't do affiliate marketing. Do Amazon marketing. Hey, I can help you to just make money. I got a million followers last week just from you know being sexy. I don't know, whatever. You know, and it's it's all these you know, I can help you do and and we kind of get distracted. And I find even with a lot of coaches, is they've got they've got 10 programs that they're in and they're so snowed under just trying to keep up with these 10 different programs that they're not actually doing.
anything in their world. you know, and and I'm not saying that it's, you know, that they're not gonna benefit in the long run from this, but you know, do one, every time you go into a meeting, you need to walk out of the meeting and say, what's one thing that I learned, what's one thing that I can apply? you know, otherwise that meeting wasn't wasn't beneficial.
Bernie (22:53)
Are you finding that even with the advent of AI, so if someone is fire hosing themselves, for lack of better word?
How do you get them to narrow down then enough? And if you're they're capitalizing on AI, it's also you know, then if they start relying on as a as a resource, maybe too much. Where where do you start building out the boundaries so that you you stay on the mark? You you kind of follow the pulse. And obviously, if you realize, you know, for example, if counting is not your thing, right? Hand off to someone that does the books.
Right. That way the the tax tax agency doesn't look at you with the evil eye of Zoran, so to speak. How do you how do you keep that balanced? Because that that's that can be a fine line for some people, right? It's just like yeah. I'll let you answer the question.
Louis (23:51)
Look, I think AI is a tool. and we've got to work out what is it that we want to actually do, you know. So it's it's it comes back to this thing about filtering, you know. I'm I'm very much about filtering. So when you and I went to school, we would go to school and the teacher would say, what's the capital of China? And you'd go, Bangkok, and they'd go, No, and you'd probably go up and get put out your hand and get a you know, the smack across the hand with a ruler or something. And then
You'd go home and then the next day you'd come back and they'd go, What's the capital of Bangkok? You know, what's the capital of China? And you'd be like, I don't know, and you get smacked again. And this would happen over and over until eventually you knew the capital of China. Whereas nowadays, I just go onto I can literally go on my Amazon at home. I can pick up my phone and just say, Hey, what's the capital of China? Or I can do a, you know, type it in, or and it'll come up and it'll say, Here's the capital of China. Do you want to see the
Do you want to see a camera from the tower? Do you want to hear the name in like every country, every, you know, every language humanly possible? There'll be like millions of searches. Now, people have never taught us how to filter that information. We've actually only ever been taught how to learn the information. So especially for older people, we kind of feel like I really need to know this stuff. I need to know exactly how that works and exactly why that works. and that
Lots of younger people are actually much better at tech than we are. Please because they give an app three seconds. And if it doesn't work, they basically shut down the app or they'll turn off their phone and turn it back on again. We as older people will go, I must have done something wrong. There's definitely something that I've done to this app and we'll spend like five minutes trying to fix the app, right? Whereas young people will just go, it didn't work in three seconds. Bang. They'll go just let me download another one and try another one.
Okay, because they've learned they're better at filtering than we are, but we still have as a society haven't mastered filtering. And that's where AI has come in and it's really beautiful. So now you go into Google and you do a search, it actually filters it and it says, Hey, this is probably the answer that you're looking for. you don't have to go through a million different ones to find the answer. So I think what we need to do is look at your business and work out, you know, where is it that you actually need help?
If you need help with the accounting, we've got an AI. We can help you with that. If you need help with sorting out your emails, there's an AI that can help you with that. If you need AI, you know, content. If you're struggling with creating content, there's an AI that can do that. If you need to, you know, if you've got calls coming in and you're missing the calls, there's an AI that can help you with that. so you know, don't jump in and try and look at every AI and then try and work out how it can fit into your business. Look at your business. What do you need? Find that one.
Bernie (26:46)
So authenticity and credibility and client base. So if you're starting out, when's the best time for someone to reach out to connect with you? Is it when they're already wheels up and they're in the air where they start? You know, mapping and and then you know budgeting, you know, what's what's things gonna look like? Is it you know, if the idea is pragmatic, you know, they're they're about to launch, you know, if if they're
Making furry coats for mice. Better be a circus somewhere, right? You know.
Louis (27:23)
I love that business idea. Fairy coats for mice.
Bernie (27:27)
Yeah, they like they don't come they don't come equipped already.
Louis (27:32)
Okay, okay. look, I think in any of the stages, in any of the stages, ideally I find a lot of people have started business and they've been running for a while, but they they haven't actually got that long term goal. They haven't worked out their their big picture yet where they actually want to be. and so their their messaging that they're putting out into the world is not quite right.
The avatar that they're looking for is not quite right. So they they they're all over the place. you know, and that might be from somebody that's just starting out or somebody that's actually been running for a while and hasn't been successful. So lots of people that you know are in business, we know that only sort of 16% of businesses actually fail, actually lot actually survive. You know, something like eighty, eighty-four percent of businesses failed in the first two years.
And that's because they haven't got their messaging right. They haven't got their they haven't got their their ideal avatar. Who's the ideal person? And how can they make it sure that they actually talking to that person? And you know, I'll just tell you a personal experience from my side. I help people create content. Okay. So I help people to create content that really resonates with their audiences. And so
One week I was actually helping I I've built this you know, the I've built an AI that that does this. And I was actually working with a client and I created content and then I actually read them back a post that they would be using to put onto their socials and the person started crying. And the first time it happened to me, I was a bit like taken aback and I thought, maybe they're just emotional, you know, they're like an emotional kind of person. But in the same week,
I spoke to a second person who also started crying. Okay. And that actually just really reinforced me into me how powerful this is. Because what AI had done is, you know, most of us are coaching ourselves five years ago or you know, ourselves a couple of steps ago. And so this resonated because they'd given us all their language, right?
And then it had gone in and actually, you know, got the collective language from everybody. Right. And then come up with come up with some posts around that, which were so hard hitting to the people that they were like, Wow, like that's talking directly to me. and that's when you realize how powerful, amazing and dangerous AI is, because it can
can it can really invoke emotions in us.
Bernie (30:24)
Wow.
When you're capitalizing on AI, obviously you'll need the source impression from the people, either that or you show up with a bag of onions and start cutting them open. but assuming you're not doing that, so you gotta get that person into the AI somehow. not not physically, obviously, but you know, their their operating style for lack of better words. Is that something that you find pretty easy? Is it is it like, you know
Do you s do you spend a couple of weeks of having them play with the AI to to get a pattern so that they get of you know, the tempo of the person?
Louis (31:02)
I don't know if you've seen the latest trend going around. and I can send you the link or if you go on my Facebook, it's just Louis SWAT and you'll see the you'll see the the prompt for it. But you can actually say to AI, Hey, I'd like you to make a an animation of me from all the information you already know about me. Okay. And you give it a picture and it actually does a full animation. it does a full animation on you. I don't know if you've ever just
You know, ask ChatGPT or Claude or what whoever you're using. Just ask them what do they know about you. And you'll be fascinated what they actually know. What AI ac I mean, it already, let's face it, AI is on your phone and it's listening to you. Facebook's listening to you. Google's listening to you. Apple's listening to you. You know, all of them are listening to you. The devices we've got in our home are listening to us, our tablets are listening to us, your friend's phone is listening to you. When
You go to a party and somebody else takes a picture, the facial recognition knows that you were there. Okay. You know, because people are like, I don't take pictures at parties and and that's cool. But everyone else that's taking a picture, you literally, if you coming up in that, it it knows that you are there. So we're we're at that point where AI has got a really big database of us already. Okay. But we can actually just, you know, in and with most of them, you know.
I'll talk about GPT because you know it's it's probably one of the first and one of the easiest. GPT, you can literally just click on the if you go down to the bottom where you would normally type in text, you can just go on the right of that. And there's a little white circle with little lines in. You click on that and you can actually talk to it. So you can just talk to it and you can say, hey, I just want to tell you about my life. these are my values. This is what I did when I was a child. This is what I've done now.
etc. And I want you to ask me any questions for any extra information you need. And in the space of, you know, I the on some of them there's a time limit. So I think you can only talk to it for I'm not exactly sure. It it it varies, okay. Yeah. But you know probably an hour or something and then you run out of time on it. but you just talk to it and tell it about your life and then you tell it about your life tomorrow. And then very soon, two or three days and it knows everything about you. It knows your values, your relationships, your business.
your ethos, it's it's kind of it's got all that. And then the content that it can produce for you is
beyond what anything that you could expect you know imagine now. But it's still a tool, you know. So, so people to me it's always interesting that people will say, you know, my my AI it's just always agrees with me. It's it's terrible. It always agrees with me. And I just hate it because it always agrees with me. And I go, have you ever told it not to agree with you? Have you said
I don't want you to agree. I actually want you to be the most argumentative AI ever, right? And I want you to I want you to disagree with me. And then I want you to, you know, argue with me, find counter arguments. Everything I tell you, I want you to completely disagree. And people go, No, I've never done that. I'm like, well, you know, this is this is a thing. I did a I did a I did an AI course for a class.
And we I said, okay, we're all gonna write the story on Little Red Riding Hood. And everyone's like, Yeah, that's cool. And I'm like, okay, so now if we all just typed in, tell me the story of Little Red Riding Hood, it's gonna come up with a generic story because it doesn't know if we've five or fifty or it's doesn't really know. But if before that we put in and we say, Hey, I love fairy tales, I love rainbows and unicorns, and the princess rides off into the sunset. you know, tell me the story about little red riding hood.
And the next person puts in, like, I really love Saw. I love Saw in a horror movies, you know, where the person just gets gored and you know, tell me the red little Red Riding Hood story. And I said, I want you to each do it and put in your own little Red Riding Hood story. And the results were amazing. One girl put in Andrew Tate. She goes, Like, I want you to be Andrew Tate and follow all his stuff and then write the little Red Riding Hood story, you know. And it just showed how.
It's so ma AI is so malleable for what we want. but we treating it almost like it's a a stand on its own thing. We don't treat it like it's a tool that we that we can actually use.
Bernie (35:41)
IronBrij What what's the story behind the name? I I forgot to ask that earlier. the way you've written it is different. It's not like the word iron and bridge as in to cross over a bridge. What's the story behind it?
Louis (35:57)
So when I started, I wanted a name that I could put on all socials. I wanted a name that I could use anywhere. And so Ironbridge, I actually tried to get Iron Bridge, but obviously Ironbridge was the name was gone. And so I did just put the J instead. Because I mean a lot of the English words, I mean if you think of the word empty, okay, most of the words aren't even well, most of the letters aren't even required. You know, you could just have E T this T.
Like we don't need the P and the T and the the Y and we don't need all those extra words, right? You know, or the word Q. Like we could just have the letter Q. Like w we've got all these other words for some obscure reason. And so it was really just that. I just made it slightly different so that I could get on all the socials. But the idea is that I'm trying to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And that's why I'm so focused on where do you want to be in five years. Let's really get that clear as to what that is.
Bernie (36:56)
Have you found that there's a particular habit that helps an entrepreneur starts capitalizing on it that helps them that doubles their gains in managing their business?
Louis (37:09)
I think the delegation is a really, really, really big one. Okay. Because if you don't delegate, you end up doing everything and it's very difficult to grow. And generally you need to delegate before you think it's time to delegate. So, you know, a lot of us, a lot of people that are working in business are actually so so in their business that they can't work on their business. You know, they're not looking at the big picture.
They're not looking at who's my ideal client. What can I give my ideal? What does my ideal client actually want? Because they're so busy just trying to manage the day-to-day stuff. and I was actually talking to an accountant just before this. and I know with me, when it came time to put on a a bookkeeper, I was like, it's it's a it's gonna cost me extra cash. Hey, I mean, it's gonna, you know, it's gonna cost me a l a lot of extra money to put on a a bookkeeper because I was putting it on somebody in Australia. And I was like,
I I can still s I can still manage it even though I'm working till two in the morning and doing this. And I I don't know if there's enough work for them to do it. And then as soon as I put on a bookkeeper, they were busy eight hours a day. And they were catching up on all the stuff that I hadn't done. And they were like, you know, reconciling and doing all that. And suddenly I was freed up to go, Whoa, okay, I've got extra time. What am I going to do with this extra time? So, you know.
It obviously if you're just gonna use the extra time watching Netflix, you're not gonna benefit. But if you, you know, so then I started using the extra time to go, how can I bring more technology into the business? how can I grow the business? How can I, you know, get better at the sales, how can I get better on my socials? and so then the business jumped a whole it jumped a whole level. And I found that every time we employed somebody, yeah. don't get me wrong, every now and then, hey, we all make bad hires every now and then, you know.
But worst case you're just back where you were. You're back where you were, you know, you don't go all the way back to start
Bernie (39:08)
Speaking of new hires, do you go through a
Because AI, if growing up with it, you'll know or have have a sense of it. But if you've never grown up with it, almost like if you've never seen a car before and someone says, Okay, get behind the wheel. Steph, you know, there's a bit of training required. Is there anything that you're either finding from entrepreneurs then that gets them kind of spun up to speed? And when they go to hire somebody, you know, to make sure that person has the capacity.
And I'll even reframe the question from capacity can be capable but not there yet. In other words, they have the brain power to do it. They just they haven't been trained.
Louis (39:50)
Hmm. Yeah, definitely. But I mean, we're getting to the point now where AI is getting so much easier, you know. stuff like, you know, you before if you were in an Excel spreadsheet and you wanted to do a formula and it was a little bit more complicated, you kind of had to know how to do it or you had to find somebody to know how to do it. And now you can just use something like Gemini and say, Hey, please look at my screen. I'm trying to do this.
And you can talk to it in normal language, just say, I'm trying to do this, and it will actually create the formula for you. It'll tell you what the formula should be. So it's not like you need to do the programming. You know, before the whole realm of doing it was programming. And, you know, you you could sit there behind the guys and they were putting in exclamation marks and all sorts of weird stuff that meant things to them. now we can just talk to it. And I think that's the biggest thing. Like a lot of people are still using.
they're still using Chat GPT like Google. So they they're asking they're asking it a question and then asking it a question. Ask it to ask you questions. Say, hey, listen, I'd really like you to find out about me. Ask me 20 questions that you'd like to know about me. an example is if you want to write a book about your life, So you want to write a book about your life, you just say, Hey, I want to write a book about my life.
From what you know, what do you think 10 good chapters would be? And it'll say, Well, these are the ten good chapters. And you say, Okay, I want you to ask me 10 stories. All right. about each chapter until you, you know, you're convinced that you've got you know enough information to be able to write a a reasonable chapter. And it will ask you a chapter, it'll ask you a story, you know, tell me about when you were a kid, Bernie. And
You tell it about when you were a kid. You know, tell me about the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you as a kid. And you tell it the most embarrassing. What was the most pleasurable time you had as a kid? You know, and then it writes the story. You know, so it it it's not like we have to know all this super technical terms. We just gotta like now we really just gotta use our imagination. And you've got this incredible resource that can do literally anything.
You know, you can go on ChatGPT and you can actually click on the three little, you know, the little white buttons on the right. You can click on the little buttons and you can click on the camera. You can currently do this on your phone. Every single person that's listening to this. So you can go on your phone, you go onto ChatGPT, which is a free app. There is a paid version, but the few free and you click on the three buttons, it comes up, you click on the camera, and the actual camera comes on. And what I want you to do is I want you to go into your kitchen.
And point the camera point just your phone, your normal camera, point it around the kitchen and say, Hey Chat GPT, I want to make a coffee. Can you help me? It will tell you where to find the cups. It will tell you which cups you should use. And then you can point it at the, you know, the pantry and it will tell you what the coffee is. Okay. you can ask it questions like, What do I do now? And it'll say, Pour in the water, you know, can you tell me when to stop? you know,
And you can do this in English and then you can just suddenly say, Hey, can you just tell me how to do that in French? And it'll tell you how to do that in French, or if you do talk French, it'll just talk French to you and help you with the rest of the directions in French. This is already available. Already available, you know. Or you can just point it at something and say, Hey, does this go with this? You know, does this come does this component would this component fit into my computer?
Or how do I use this? Or hey, where how can I get another one of these? Where could I actually go and look for that? That's already available on your phone for free. You know? So we don't have to be super technical anymore. We can just literally use the resources that are there.
Bernie (43:44)
As as you're describing this, and it's like interpolation. In other words, you have a series of data points or if you're doing a graph, you'll have a series of points you can always point in. But extrapolation, do you foresee that as an opportunity? If I'm sitting there as as a business squad, okay, I'm making widgets, help me help me produce this, get my get my comms out there so that I have a messaging to clients. We're we're humming along.
And will it help me look at at a product and say, okay, let's say we're doing the 20 questions. Can it help me extrapolate going into the next generation? It may not be able to come up with the idea like, you know, the mouse jackets should be leather jackets now, right? But can it can it help me see missed opportunities, missed
Or other other avenues going, listen, based on what's happening right now in with let's say tariffs. Doesn't matter where you are, tariffs are just being swung around like, you know, a cat over the head. Is there is there a way to look at something going adverse event? What's the opportunity? Can it help bring that out?
Louis (45:04)
Absolutely. Absolutely. and if you you know, if you have got a competitor who's doing better than you, you can literally go in and say, Hey, point it at their website, point it at their socials and go, please look at this and tell me why they're doing better than what I am. You know, look at this and tell me, you know, where I've got where there's missed opportunities where I could be better. Or, you know, here's the top five
So I do virtually, I've got virtual assistants and I go in and I say, here's the top five companies doing virtual assistance. Here's me. Can you please look at them and tell me if you can see any gaps? Where's the gaps that they're not seeing that the customer wants to, you know, that that that customers need. and and will come back and give us those. another thing is, you know, when we when we do coaching, I'll give I'll give you an example. A real life, this is a real life example. Okay. So if I was doing coaching with you, I would have a Fathom recording running.
in the background. And the Fathom recording at the end of the coaching session, the Fathom recording would send me a full transcription of the meeting. I then have a prompt which says, please tell me if Bernie is a big picture or a detailed thinker. Please do a disc profile on Bernie. Okay. Please tell me the stuff that I spoke to how I could have brought across my message better to Bernie. Please please
Tell me if there was any challenges that were raised that I didn't actually pick up on. Please tell me how I could have sold better to Bernie. Okay. you know, please tell me the words that will inspire Bernie and the words that will demotivate Bernie. Okay. and I can even, I mean, I'm in the health space, I can say, can you please write me a five minute meditation or a 10 minute meditation?
That I could do as a gift to Bernie for actually, you know, helping me with this. And it will come back and it'll give me your disk profile, give me your big picture, small picture, it'll give me exactly how I could sell better to you. And you'll be s it's actually scary how accurate it can actually be. And it picks up stuff that I had a client and this client's a marathon runner. He's run a whole lot of marathons. Now, I'm not much of a marathon runner, you know.
I'm not a marathon. I'm not you I'm a I'm like a potential walker, you know. That's kind of my level of I'm I'm working towards the seven thousand steps. That's my level of thing. But I did a coaching program with him. and then at the end, I made it, I didn't offer and it it wasn't successful. And then I went into GPG and I was like, how could I have done that better?
And it said, well, you know, he's a marathon guy and you know he's run he's run eighty kilometer marathons. You really should have brought that whole thing into the into the pitch at the end. You know, somebody like you that's run eighty marathons, you know, this will be really easy for you to accomplish. Or other things that it said in your pitch you've you've you've said
We're gonna do this and we can do that, and I can do this for you, and I can help you here. And it's gone. This person's is a is a detailed thinker, but they're all about trying, trying things. So your wording should have been let's try and see how we can grow your socials together, as opposed to I can grow your socials for you. You know? And so it's just about the wording.
But it already knows that. So imagine this is what's freely available to you and me for free on our phones. Imagine what big corporations have got in order to persuade us to buy their products, or what governments have got in order to persuade us to go this way or that way. I mean it's from that side it's really, really scary, you know. So but I think it for small businesses, the
Amazing potential. Amazing potential with what we can do with with AI at the moment.
Bernie (49:21)
Louis, if someone says, Hey, listen, this this has been great. I want s I want me some of that. how do they find you and how far afield can they be?
Louis (49:30)
Well, I coach people all over the world. so you know, the the most common countries that I coach in is obviously Australia, America, UK. but I've got I've got clients in I've got a whole lot of clients in France, and Mauritius and wherever. So the easiest way is for them to reach out to me. I've got a LinkedIn and I've got a Facebook. So you can either go under my name, so you know, Louis Swart or Coach Louis Swart, or under IronBrij
if you go under IronBrij you say it's just I R O N B R I J. I'm on all the different social media platforms. And just reach out. You know, you can reach out, you can have a free 30 minute coffee, and we can literally go through like your specific things and and see how I can specifically help you. but one program that I do have that I'm that I'm doing at the moment is where I actually work with people for an hour.
I literally work with you for an hour and I create six months worth of content. And the you know, you can go on and see see the see the reviews and everything. I've got, you know, heaps of reviews and people are loving it. And 'cause this is a big thing that we have. We you know, we I we go, I'm gonna post more consistent for my business. And then you get into bed and I like and I'm looking at my my setting my alarm for tomorrow and I go
my goodness, it's Wednesday. I'm supposed to post on a on Wednesday and I'm like, what am I going to post? What content should I post? And then I do I get out of bed? Do I get out of my pajamas? And then, you know, try and turn the lights on and try and create some content. And and it's it becomes this real messy thing. And then you're like, like, you what, I'll just do it next week. And so then you don't have that consistency. But I can actually work with somebody for an hour and I create six months of solid content for them.
Where we they can actually schedule the content six months in advance and they can put content in between, but they've literally got six months worth of content created. And we use things like we're using the NLP, we're using all this mindset stuff as well as using the the business stuff. and the big things are we we we're trying to work out who's the ideal avatar, you know, who who's the ideal client, what's the service that they offer.
you know what's the top 10 fears and frustrations and dreams and desires because that's super super important we want to take them from you know I'm I'm I'm really scared of this to you know I'm frustrated because everyone says they can help me but no one's helping me to like I'd really like this and then to why do I really want that? You know? And so we so we we actually work all that path out. I give them like you know ideas for like sort of 10,000 videos. I create stories.
a you know to explain their concept. So I'll give you a quick example. You know, you should you should delegate. Everybody should delegate. because if you've got a team around you, it's much easier for you to be solid in business than if you're working on your own. And now that story you may or may not remember you, you know, that that idea. But there was an old man and this old man was dying and he had three sons.
And so what he did was he said his sons were always fighting and he needed them to just be like they needed to work together. And so he got them all to go out into the yard and get two sticks. And they came back with their two sticks and he said, okay, first of all, I want you to break the first stick. And so they all like broke the first stick proudly, you know, and just you know. Then he said, Okay, what I want you to do is get the second stick and I want you to tie all three sticks together. And I want you to, you know, tie them with rope.
And then he said to the youngest, Okay, I want you to break that. And obviously he couldn't break it. It was much thicker now, you know, and the second son couldn't break it, and the third son couldn't break it. And he said the moral is if you work on your own, people are gonna be able to break you. And you're gonna fail. But if you work as a team, nobody's gonna be able to break you. And you've got, you know, because of the support, you've got much less chance of failing. Now, tomorrow
You're not going remember the first thing I told you. But you might see a stick and go, I remember that story about the stick and the three sticks tied together. And so we help you to create 10 stories like that around your business, around the concepts. Because lots of the stuff we do is it's lovely, but it's it con it's a concept. And people can't really get that concept into a solid idea in their mind. and so this is just helping them with that. And then what I do is I create.
20 Facebook posts and LinkedIn posts. we create hooks because you know the you you really need a really good hook for your message. Your hook is so important. You got three seconds to get their attention. If you don't get their tech you've watched people on phones, they they go like this. And sometimes you're sitting next to them and you'll go, That's a really good video. But they've already gone past it because it didn't give them a dopamine hit within three seconds. You know? So
We work on how do we how do we get you 20 really good hooks so that you know people are gonna stop and actually look at your purple elephant and go, whoa, why is there a purple elephant there? What the hell's going on? Okay. and then I create help you create a lead magnet. And the lead magnet is just really something that you can give away. So, you know, in order to build trust, we say, Hey, let me let me give you something for free in exchange, potentially for your email address or, you know, for you booking a call with me, whatever that might be.
and so I we create I create all of that and then I do a 20 minute interview with you and I interview you about your business for 20 minutes and then my team breaks that up into shorts and we give that back to you and you put those shorts on your socials. So it's it's a phenomenal offer, you know it it's worth about two thousand two hundred dollars. I charge $197 for it. unfortunately it takes a lot of my time and you get to work directly with me.
So I can only do sort of five a month. So there the spots go really quickly. But you know, we'll we'll put a link in for it if you're interested and want to do that. like I say, you know, imagine if you've got six months of content. You don't have to think about your content for the next, what's it, till July. You don't have to worry about it. Your socials are pumping till July.
Bernie (55:59)
Louie, I want to say thank you so much to our NAC for business listeners for listening to us today. And listen, if you want to know more about how to eat that elephant or how to make three stick sandwiches, reach out to Louie because you know what? The the whole thing is to have that memorable piece latch in. AI is a tool, it helps you deliver the the resource. And the other thing is you don't have to do it all by yourself. So Louis is comes
It's a little kind of a Swiss army knife of moments here of you know epiphanies that come into one one gelling moment as make you more successful.