The 4 Trends Every Business Must Master for 2026

Mastering ads into micro offers and obsessing over your messaging, your funnels is going to be huge. And a micro offer is solving one specific problem. You are solving one specific pain point for your audience. And it's usually for the audience that you want in that higher ticket offer or the thing that you want them to eventually go into.

And we're back with another episode of.

He Said, she Said.

All right, so today we're going to take everybody through the four trends that we are predicting that you must master to be successful in 2026. So these are four small business trends. And guys, we see a lot of evidence that these four things, like, you're not going to have a choice if you want to learn them. You're not going to have a choice if you'd like to participate in them. The four trends that we're talking about, like, it's getting tougher, it's getting more saturated, it's getting more, what's the word I'm looking for? Competitive. And if you are not capitalizing on the upcoming trends in small business, then you're going to be working really hard. No one's going to be able to poke a hole in your work ethic, except you're not going to be getting anything in return for it.

There's just so many people out there who are now all doing the same things. And obviously with the rise of ChatGPT, anybody can put a product out there that is decent. Ish. And so what's happening is a lot of people, they are talking about a trust recession. That's kind of something that some people in the industry have been coining because, you know, you've gone into so many different people's worlds and all of a sudden they have a product, they buy it, and they've bought so many different products and found that they just aren't moving the needle or they're just not great or a big part of it is even the trust recession is with themselves. They don't complete these models. It's maybe the models are too in depth or they just are not integrating them. So they've even stopped kind of trusting themselves that they're going to get the thing done on their own.

So trend number one, this one surprises me. But I've literally dug deep and saw the evidence because I was hearing it, I was hearing it in our master, our high level mastermind. I was hearing it in our entry level mastermind, mcm. I was hearing it from friends and peers. I'm like, come on, not a chance. But as I Dug into it. It's true. Facebook traffic is back.

This is crazy to me.

Facebook traffic is, like, really back. Like, this was the platform that we all fled because our parents were on it. You know, I mean, like, I'm actually.

Having trouble believing this right now. I know you told me about it last week, but I'm like, how what?

I still think it's just such an ugly platform and it's just like, garbage on there. But the problem is, you can't argue with the numbers. Facebook traffic is really back. Let me give you a little bit of proof here. Facebook daily active users went from 2.01.1 billion daily users to 3.07. So basically from 2.1 billion to 3.1 billion daily active users from last year at this time to this year at that. This time.

What the heck?

Yeah, hold on. Let's really look at this as a percentage. So you might hear that and have a hard time quantifying it when you hear things in the billions, like, what does that mean for me, guys? That means it basically went up by 50%. So if you had, I don't know, 10 people at your event, that's like your event suddenly going up to 15 people, right? So, same thing with this. It went from 2.1 billion daily users to 3.1. That's a 50% increase year over year. That is massive, because from 23 to 24, it was flat. It only grew 1.6%, which is like, not growing at all. So for something to grow 50% year over year, and the year prior, it had Only grown. Grown 1.6. That shows you that's evidence that everything is rushing back to Facebook. Now, here's another one that might trip you out, too. Facebook stories, from a strictly percentage of viewers to your audience, is way higher than Instagram stories. So if you actually went on and did intentional Facebook stories, it's going to get significantly more views per following size than if you did the same thing on your Instagram. I don't know why, but the algorithm is pushing Facebook stories.

This is so interesting, because what you're going to have to learn then. What I want to go back and learn is what offers will sell to who is watching over there, though. We have to find out who the person is, the quality of the person, what they're willing to pay, what they're looking for. Because I do believe it is a very different demographic over there. So I think the key to this, before even really understanding it, is you have to know what that audience wants over there. So you might be getting the engagement, but if you're selling them something that the audience doesn't want, you're going to be like, well, this isn't working anyway, so you will have to figure out what that is.

I should have pulled real demographic information, but one thing that I did see to be true was the 30 somethings fled Facebook's Facebook rating. All that. The 20 somethings really fled Facebook. And the people who are now 40 something, 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago, they had fled Facebook because they were a 30 something that didn't want to be at it anymore. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. Now we're seeing the highest spike in people in their 30s and 40s using Facebook.

Interesting.

And so if you have a product, I don't care if it's courses or physical products or whatever it might be, if you've got a product aimed at anyone in their 30s, anyone in their 40s, Facebook's the hotspot to get back to for 2026, or you're going to be fighting the same old views. Being low on Instagram. This doesn't mean you abandon Instagram. This doesn't mean you abandon TikTok. TikTok. Live shopping is only getting hotter. That is another trend. It didn't make our top four list here, but might as well be number five. Because live TikTok shopping, it's only getting better. But Facebook is back and you can either choose to be like, oh, yuck, I don't want to go back there. Like that feels it. Or you can just suck it up and go get the views, baby.

So good. Okay, okay. Taking a moment for a rich girl tip for you. If you're somewhere between 500k and a million and trying to scale beyond that and feeling weirdly stuck right now, I'm going to tell you something that no one in your circle is going to ever tell you. You're not stuck. You're just surrounded by people who can't take you where you want to go. So we need to be honest. You've outgrown your current circle. You've outgrown the rooms that you're in. And probably a whole lot of the advice that you have been getting is only going to have you regress or keep you stuck exactly where you are. So, rich girl rule number one, proximity is a power move, you guys. You can't scale from asking people who haven't built what you want. And number two, if you're the one mentoring everyone, you're in the wrong room. So trust me, Chris and I have Learned this the very expensive way. I have to tell you, this is going to hurt. We once paid 75k each for a mastermind where we were the most successful people in the room. Cute for our ego, terrible for our business and our pocketbooks. That was one of the most expensive, expensive lessons we've ever had to learn. No one was stretching us. No one had the answers that we really needed to scale. No one was playing much bigger than us. And we will never do that again. You guys, everything changed when we finally got into the spaces where people talked investments, systems scale and hiring like CEOs not just hustling more rooms where conversations literally collapse. Timelines, you guys. And that's why we created the Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind. It is two, three and a half day luxury in person retreats with incredible experiences and it's monthly challenges, challenge solving calls, it's direct access to Chris and myself. It's a curated high level network where money moves faster because everyone is thinking so much bigger. Thinking big and making millions of dollars is the baseline in this room. So if you're ready for that type of room that finally matches your ambition, if you're done being the biggest thinker and pouring into everyone in your space and not getting poured into, just go to Instagram and DM me the word apply. Or you can go to show notes and you can click on the link below that says Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind. I will send you all of the details and from there we can book a call if you have more questions. You guys, don't forget about rule number three is to not wait for your circle to elevate you get in the room that literally upgrades your entire identity. And we also have the mentor collective Mastermind if you have not hit over 500k yet. So go and check that out. And I am so excited to spend time with you in these incredible in person rooms. Next year, trend number two, mastering ads into micro offers and obsessing over your messaging, your funnels is going to be huge. So this is actually some things that we are going to be integrating into our business and working on over the next year. Because you know, Chris and I have the mentor collective Mastermind which is a Mastermind anywhere from 0 to 5000 to 500,000 and for a year that's around the 10k ish price. So it's, it's a little bit of a higher ticket offer, 7 to 10k. But in order to get audience growth, in order to keep building the email list, there's a lot of things that we want to be doing for micro offers. And a micro offer is solving one specific problem. So imagine something like how to build your opt in that sells to your offer or your high ticket offer. That's just an example. Like you're you, you are solving one specific pain point for your audience and it's usually for the audience that you want in that higher ticket offer or the thing that you want them to eventually go into. So I wouldn't be trying to teach them how to make sourdough bread. That wouldn't be the low ticket offer. Like you make the best sourdough bread in one day. I don't know. I don't know anything about sourdough bread. But that would not be a good low ticket offer for someone who's about to go into learning how to grow a business and our mentor, collective mastermind.

But it would be if somebody was selling a lot of bakery supplies or something like that. Right? So you always have to sell the low ticket offer that relates to the higher ticket offer that you want. So here's what's happening, guys. It's always been this way in the past. Then for many years, we got away from having to sell a low, low, low ticket offer. It's almost like a tripwire. Now, back when digital marketing first hit the scene, these ascension offers were the thing you'd start with. What they call the tripwire is 9 to $19, maybe 29 if you're lucky, but typically 9, 19. And that's how you got someone to get their credit card out. Then you'd sell them into something that was a few hundred dollars. And then because you earned their trust with those two purchases, you'd sell them into something that was several thousand dollars or even your mastermind or something like that. Then we were able for many years to skip right to selling the high ticket thing. You could just do a launch and sell them right into your $2,500 course. You could do a launch, sell them right into your mastermind. Whether it's a lower ticket mastermind or higher ticket mastermind, you could do a launch and sell them right into your event. Right now that's not working because you can't launch on Instagram. You've heard us talk about this on here before. The new algorithm goes out to more than half the people with each of your posts that don't even follow you. Therefore, there's no like and trust factor. So when you try and sell anything, they're like, ugh, yeah. So you now have to start with the lowest barrier of Entry offer in your field. Right. It's gotta be related to what you're gonna sell up the chain, but it's gotta be so overwhelmingly quality that you blow their mind for the no brainer, yes, I'll get my credit card out for, you know, whatever, 2737, $47.

It has to be overwhelming quality and it also has to be something where people want to do an impulse buy. They're like, oh, that's a pain point. You're telling me I'm going to get all of these answers to it immediately and that's what it's saying in the copy. And literally the other thing that I want to share with you before I get into it is that your messaging also has to really be on point. Your data has to be tested around all of messaging to really speak to the pain points of your customer and the fact that you are going to solve it within this low ticket offer. And that's when you're going to get what they call an impulse buy. And you want people to be able to buy that right away and get that problem solved quickly. And for them to be able to take that course pretty easily and be able to integrate it really fast, that makes a really good course and you.

Something we're leaving out. You got to learn ads and run ads. Yes. And your ads probably aren't going to make sense. Like your customer acquisition cost might be higher than the course you're selling. That's because you have to understand LTV and cac. CAC is customer acquisition cost. How much you have to spend on ad to get somebody. LTV is not how much do they spend on the first purchase, it's how much do they spend on the 1st purchase plus the 2nd, plus the 3rd, plus the 4th over the lifetime of being a customer with you. And you have to be willing to, number one, learn ads, you're going to fall behind. Ads are back, baby. Ads are back. It used to be social media and all that stuff was fine. Now ads are back. So you're gonna have to, number one, choose to learn ads or get left behind. And number two, you're gonna have to be okay with spending 50 to acquire a customer that just spent $37 with you, knowing that they're gonna then spend maybe 199 after that 37 and then they're gonna spend, you know, 3, 4 or 5,000 on a mastermind or something like that. So you have to play that long game of Cactus LTB or you're going to be left behind.

Now there's A lot that we are obviously saying to you right now. If this feels overwhelming, trust me, it feels overwhelming to everyone felt overwhel us. It still feels overwhelming. But at the same time there is so many ways, like if you, if you literally just put some focus on this this year, you have to put the time in for sure, you have to learn. But trust me, if you don't, it's going to be really, really tough to do what you did last year or the year prior or the year prior. So things are shifting. They do every single year. But we're seeing a much faster shift now, especially because of the fact of everything that we said in the beginning, everyone can do this now. And AI and all of the things, especially with the algorithm change this last year where your audience is just not seeing you. So you really need to be spending some money on ads and getting them into a low ticket offer which creates that trust. Having them fall in love with your stuff and from there upselling them. So even once they're in your funnel for the low ticket thing, a lot of times what people do is they create a small bump sell that is going to pay for the cost of their ads. So once they're in and they buy the low ticket still hasn't covered your ads, then there's a small bump sell that is now going to cover cost of ads and cover the cost of acquiring that customer. And from there you're going to create other products through your funnel and you're also going to nurture them through your email and continue to sell them. So people think that a customer just comes in and it's kind of this one and done thing. You're actually wanting to acquire that customer, have them pull their wallet out. This is a good customer who's going to spend and most likely someone who's going to complete something. Because if we've learned one thing, anything free, nobody starts showing up. You guys, I have calls right now that are free, that started with hundreds and hundreds of people and we're down to like 60 people on these free calls. But when I charge, we keep a very high retention rate. Even if you charge a low amount, even if it's like $19 or $29. Energetically, there is something about putting money down that literally holds you accountable and that does show that that is a more quality customer. Meaning they're going to do the work, they're going to stick with you longer. They're actually interested because they put money down, showing they're interested.

Yeah, when you pay, you pay attention.

Yeah.

Really well said. The third trend for 2026 that you need to know to be successful, you're going to be left behind is that phone sales are back. Phone sales are back in the past. And for less expensive products than you think in the past, you could drive them to a great sales page and people would check out and say, yep, that's for me, or it's not. And you could have a good closing ratio and be fine. There is so much noise out there. Like Lori preferenced before, there's so much garbage out there. Which means when somebody buys garbage and then they see an advertisement or a sales page for your product, even though yours is really good, they think, oh, there's more garbage. Right. Because they've been burnt once or twice because of the amount of garbage out there. So people are holding onto their dollars much tighter. They're partying with them in a much more difficult way. So how do you get them over that hump? You have to take all these leads that you got using the methods that Lori just talked about. Number two. And if you've got a product where, gosh, I even know people doing phone sales for $500 products, I know that sounds crazy, but they're knocking them dead left and right. But if you got a product that's substantial, 500, 2,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, then you got to get back to phone sales and you got to train up closers. Either you're closing or somebody else is closing in phone sales. And this is one of the things you're like, God, listen to all these steps. This is overwhelming. This is the worst news ever. No, this is the accurate news. So that you can choose to be a part of the group that is winning or a part of the group that says, what the hell happened this year? Like, when did this change? I woke up and it was different. Why did I get left behind? And we're keeping you from being left behind. And you're hearing this and you might think, oh, God, this is so much effort. Oh, my God, how am I going to learn all this? Oh, my God, how am I going to set? Well, also, why we're teaching this in depth into all the masterminds this year. The high level one and the low level one, Entry level one. Right. Because we need to make sure everyone is aware of what you're going to have to do to be able to be successful in 2026. And bringing back phone sales is working, and we've implemented this and it's working really good. I mean, really high closing ratio for one of our products and I am so happy the past couple of weeks watching these come in. So phone sales is back. You got to either do it yourself or train somebody up and drive your leads to them. The fourth trend for 2026 is this.

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The more in person your product is, the better. Now this is not all product. It's not like you're having an in person glossy purchase. But guess what? You are having in person glossy meetups. You're doing activations at Pilates studios, et cetera. The more in person your product, or let's just say supporter on your product is the better. Because AI Lori mentioned earlier is already causing everybody to desire a connection to what is real and tangible. They are so inundated by chatgpt shit and now fake AI videos and oh, it's just we're having this knee jerk reaction thing. No, no, no, no, no. I want to know what is real. I want to see, feel and touch it. And so if you can bring what you teach into person, you're gonna do better than the person who doesn't. One of our friends is now teaching how to build your stage presence in person instead of through a course. And she's crushing it because people, and they're signing up left and right. I don't know how many of these she's sold out now because people are like, no, no, no, I don't want to take the course anymore. I don't know if it's another chatgpt piece of shit template or what it, what it is.

It's hard to stick to. They are harder to stick to. Putting yourself through a course is tougher.

Yep. And so they want to learn in person now. They want what's real and what is tangible. So this goes from Lori, you doing Pilates studio activations to sell more glossy. Like we would have never done that in the past, to be honest. To sell a bunch of, what is it, 59 bags of gloce. Right. You wouldn't have gone and done studio activations necessarily. Now It's a big part of your plan in 2026.

Because I know we need community around the brand.

Exactly. So the more in person, the better. Guess these four things. The more in person the better because AI is making everyone have a knee jerk reaction to wanting to know what is real and tangible. Phone sales, bringing those back, driving all your leads to somebody who's willing to close them on the phone, mastering ads into micro offers and obsessing over your funnels is a prerequisite again. We got a nice chunk about five years where it was not a prerequisite is back to being a prerequisite again. And going on to that ugly traffic, the Facebook platform. Facebook traffic is back. Those are the four trends that we're predicting to be successful in 2026. We're going to be teaching a lot of this and bringing in our expert friends. The good news is everyone who's the best at best of all these things, they're all in our circle, they're all our friends and acquaintances. We're going to be really teaching this heavily in both the Mentor Collective Mastermind and in the elite level. Mastermind, just in different ways. Right. Elite level is Everybody who is $500,000 and up, and Metro Collective is everyone who's $500,000 and down. If you want to ask us about one of those masterminds, then DM either one of us the word apply, just go to Lori on Instagram, DM her the word apply, or go to mine, DM the word apply, and we'll have a conversation about which one is the best fit for you. Or if you know you have a specific question, go ahead and just ask it. Because getting into the rooms where these things are going to be taught in detail is maybe we could call that the fifth one, a prerequisite for success in 2026.

We're so grateful for you guys and we hope we get to work with you. And you know, we are. We're obsessive about this stuff. Obsessive because not only for our things that we are doing and we always want to stay on top of things. We're always in those conversations where I'm like, wait a minute, What? Who made $15 million last year on what I need to learn exactly what they're doing. And one of the biggest things that keeps us motivated and going is knowing that we are going to go and bring that back to everyone that we teach. So we know we have to keep on learning in order to keep teaching you guys.

Yeah. If you can't get into the circles where everyone's talking about what's being done in the future that works, then we are in those circles for you. And by you locking arms with us, we're able to share that with you. And that's what we set out to do. All right, guys, thanks for listening. We always love and appreciate you. We promise to always bring you what we think is breaking news in the small business world.

And we'll see you next week. Sam.