I got pitched by a bot. Then I put the guy on my show.

Craig Shoemaker's research agent found my podcast, figured out who I talk to and why he'd be a fit, and handed him the shortlist. Then Craig wrote the email himself. That distinction is the whole episode.

He coaches education entrepreneurs, which is my people under a different name, and he's spent 25 years in big tech and 15 as a course creator. So when he says AI has changed this industry forever and also that you shouldn't burn your business down over it, he's earned both halves of that sentence. We got into the seductive part of AI, the part where you feel invincible and start shipping things you haven't thought through. Guilty. My own audit told me my build muscle was strong and my ship muscle wasn't. Craig got the identical result, which made me feel a lot better.

The part that stuck with me most was his gotcha moment. If you're the kind of person who listens to a podcast about AI, you're further ahead than you think.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

• Why the value of information dropped and what took its place
• The advisor agent that started calling Craig out on his own patterns
• How to run the test that shows you exactly where AI can and can't replace what you teach
• Why your customers still aren't asking Claude the thing you're afraid they're asking
• What hundreds of coaching call transcripts can tell you about your ICP that a blank worksheet never will
• The difference between scrappy validation and shipping your flagship half-baked

CHAPTERS

01:50 Who education entrepreneurs actually are

03:13 What AI has done to this industry so far

05:20 Confidently off in the wrong direction

07:16 The agent that called him out

10:40 Strong build muscle, weak ship muscle

14:09 The Own Your AI Gap assessment

16:20 The gotcha moment nobody mentions

21:10 Hundreds of transcripts beat a blank page

27:28 The niche AI couldn't touch

33:08 Actual intelligence

>MEET CRAIG<<

Craig Shoemaker is a coach who works with education entrepreneurs to scale their business by exposing the blind spots that sit at the foot of growth. With over 15 years as a course creator and 25 years in big tech, Craig lives at the intersection of AI and online education business.

>CONNECT WITH CRAIG<<

Website: https://craigshoemaker.net

GRAB CRAIG'S RESOURCE

Craig built the Own Your AI Gap assessment to answer the question most experts are avoiding. You take a short quiz based on how you actually work with clients and what you sell, and it shows you how exposed your business is to AI. Then it walks you through having the model teach what you teach, so you can see where it holds up and where it falls apart. He's set up a landing page with everything we talked about in this episode.

https://craigshoemaker.net/r/es-school/

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>Your Next Steps:

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>Thanks for Listening!

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