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Strategy Is Not Enough Anymore: What Guest Experts Say About the Real Business Shifts Coming in 2026

The noise on the internet is louder than ever. AI is flattening everything. Strategic advice contradicts itself everywhere you look. And a lot of businesses that appear successful and thriving are actually bleeding energy, trust, and profit.

For so many of us, we don't know where to turn. Because everybody has such different opinions, and it can be really hard to figure out what you should be focusing on whilst also trying to keep up with all the changes happening at lightning speed.

So I brought together four incredible business women who see this from completely different angles. Strategy. Performance leadership. Live launching. Nervous system capacity. And the backend of what actually scales and sells.

What emerged from our roundtable conversation was striking: from four completely different perspectives, we all kept coming back to the same core truth.

Strategy is not enough anymore.

Meet the Panel

Before we dive in, let me introduce you to the women who brought their wisdom to this conversation:

Annelise Worn, marketing agency owner and scale strategist with nine years in business, four children, and a world-schooling lifestyle. She brings the strategy, marketing, and structure lens.

Danni Vee, performance coach with over 25 years in business, bridging peak performance with inner alignment through energetics and mindset. She works with high-achieving women stepping into new identity levels.

Jada, online offer growth specialist with 15+ years as an entrepreneur across events, in-person services, and online business. She specialises in live launching and helping women grow aligned businesses.

Jess Patra, spiritual mentor and business coach celebrating five years in her current business after multiple ventures in app development, marketing, and personal development. She brings the lens of personal narrative and energy.

Four different niches. Four different approaches. But as you'll see, one unified truth about what's actually working now.

What's Not Working Anymore: The Hard Truths

Fake It Till You Make It Is Costing You Everything

Danni opened with something that made the entire conversation snap into focus: "Fake it till you make it just doesn't work any longer."

She works with two levels of clients. Her mastermind holds high-end women already successful but wanting to reach a new identity level. Her membership supports women who've been in business for years but aren't showing up as their true selves.

And what she's seeing is devastating.

"Especially my elite clients, this is where they lose their identity because they've been so busy faking it till they make it, they actually forget who they truly are," Danni explained.

Think about that for a moment. Women who've been in business for 10 to 15 years, who've reached corporate leadership positions, who look successful from the outside, have forgotten who they actually are.

This is what emotional resilience for entrepreneurs addresses at the deepest level. Not just surface behaviours, but the core identity underneath.

The hidden cost? Financial stagnation. Their businesses get stuck at a certain level. They can't make more money, or they're actually losing money. They don't feel good enough. They break trust with themselves constantly.

"You can't build trust with others if you don't build trust for yourself," Danni said. "And if you're breaking that trust with yourself constantly, you're breaking that trust with your audience."

But here's what I loved about this conversation: Annelise immediately asked the question so many of you are probably thinking.

"How do you speak to clients about jumping in when they don't feel fully ready? Because I lived by fake it till you make it to start my business initially."

And Danni's answer was brilliant: "Be your future self now."

The difference between faking it and embodying it? Understanding who you want to be, because she's already inside you. Then doing the work on your inner alignment and intrinsic values.

This is what authentic leadership for entrepreneurs actually requires. Not pretending. Not performing. But becoming.

Lazy Marketing and AI Over-Reliance

Annelise brought the hard truth about what's happening in the marketing space: "What's not working is lazy marketing."

Anyone with an over-reliance on AI or automation is getting mediocre results. Because there's such a low barrier to entry now, anyone can have a business up and running in 20 minutes without doing anything meaningful.

"We are just outsourcing our genius," she said. "Yes, use AI, it's amazing. Make it amplify and leverage and go faster. But if you're getting AI to just write your content, it's going to be very general, very vanilla, and you're going to blend in with everybody else."

She's seeing this in her agency. Clients using low-cost staff who utilise AI for everything are getting mediocre results. Because it's not coming from the genius of the person who built the business.

"There's no difference then from someone who has no experience to someone who has 20 years experience," Annelise explained. "There's no distinguishing factors anymore."

This is what holistic business strategy must address now. Not just tactics, but how to use tools like AI to amplify your unique voice rather than replace it.

I shared how we've created custom bots in my business, deeply trained in my voice, with transcripts of me coaching. Not to think for me, but to enhance my voice.

"It's about using it as a thinking partner," Annelise said. "As long as we're the start and the end, then great. It's more about amplifying rather than replacing."

Surface-Level Launching Strategies Don't Convert Anymore

Jada brought the live launching perspective, and what she shared will resonate with so many of you.

"What I'm seeing not working so well is following the base formula or base strategies, even doing very textbook incredible launches or funnels, but not getting the results."

People are frustrated because they're putting massive effort, time, and energy into things that should work. They've followed the formula. They've copied what someone else is doing. But they're still not getting results that match their effort.

"The surface-level strategy is not working so well anymore," Jada explained. "It needs to be more juicy. It needs to be more personalised."

Think about your inbox right now. How many free webinars have you signed up for and never watched? How many launches have become background noise?

This is what transformational coaching for soulful women must break through. Not more tactics, but deeper connection.

The Universal Year 9: Identity Deaths and Resets

Jess brought in the numerology lens, and it explained so much of what we've all been feeling.

"It is a universal year nine, and what I'm seeing is this resetting. This letting go of old identity," she shared.

People are feeling guided to close offerings that don't feel good in their body anymore. But they're forcing things because they think they should still be doing them.

"If you're not willing to let go of this version of you to let the next version come through for 2026, the universal year one, then you may be really pushing against yourself," Jess explained.

I had to share my own experience here. Over the last three days before this recording, everything kept going wrong. Glass in my foot. Washing machine flooding. The dog waking up multiple times. All seemingly little things.

But I was being presented with an opportunity to observe a particular stress reaction pattern of mine. An identity pattern that was showing me: you're not done. Pay attention.

This is what subconscious reprogramming looks like in real time. The universe, your body, your life circumstances all conspiring to show you what needs to shift.

What IS Working: The Unified Truth

From four completely different angles, we all kept circling back to the same core principles.

Embodiment Over Performance

Instead of fake it till you make it, we talked about believing it till you make it. Holding the vision strongly enough and staying in the energy of embodiment.

"It's about being yourself, but you do have to hold that future belief or vision of your future self," Jada said.

This isn't about copying someone else or following someone else's values. It's about continuously working towards alignment whilst taking action from that aligned place.

And here's the key: you have to grow the human alongside the business.

"If you are earlier in business and you can take that away, that if you do that work alongside now, you are going to get to where you want to go a lot faster," Jada explained. "And you're going to have a more easeful experience because you're operating in alignment with core values."

This is what nervous system regulation for entrepreneurs creates. Not just better tactics, but a foundation that can actually hold your growth.

High-Trust Offers at the Front End

Annelise predicted a major shift for 2026: high-trust offers at the front end rather than automated, low-value memberships.

"What we are going to see more of is more access early on to then build that trust and upsell on the backend," she explained.

Why? Because so many people jumped online during the pandemic. Lots got burnt spending money on people who had no idea what they were doing. Now there's a trust deficit, plus everything happening with the economy.

"Information's a commodity," Annelise said. "We can go to ChatGPT and have a full conversation. So why would people invest in high-ticket products? For personalisation, customisation and access to the people."

Her example: instead of a general membership with broad content and maybe one live thing a month, create something with a lot less content tied to a very specific outcome and more access to you or your team.

This is what scaling your business with ease actually looks like now. Not automating yourself out of your business, but creating leverage whilst maintaining human connection.

Community and Storytelling

Jess brought this home beautifully: "Community is really going to be the biggest key to success."

After the pandemic, in this AI world, we're losing human touch and connection. We need more events, more connection, more belonging.

But community doesn't just mean in-person events. "You can speak to your audience as though they are already your community, even though they're not paying for you yet," Jess explained. "It's the energy you tap into."

And the way you build that community? Storytelling.

"With so much promotional material and information out there, everyone's regurgitating the same stuff," she said. "But the moment you start to be your true self by telling your story, people will stop."

People will feel your energy when they feel your story. That's what draws them in.

This is what intuitive business coaching emphasises. Not just strategy, but the authentic expression that creates magnetic connection.

The Capacity to Hold What You're Calling In

Danni brought in something critical that ties everything together: the concept of holding space.

"It's the capacity of being able to keep level-headed, being able to keep within your body and having that leadership energy within yourself," she explained.

If you're trying to take on more than you can handle, more space than you can hold, you'll actually end up repelling it.

I gave a practical example: a client who wanted more money but had made the goal feel so big in her body that she completely contracted around it. She didn't even believe it was possible. Then she slipped up and said she was actually really happy with what she was earning, which was half of her stated goal.

"She did not have the capacity to hold more clients," I explained. "Why would the universe give you more when you just said you're happy where you are?"

This is what body-led decision making addresses. Understanding what your nervous system can actually hold, then building both your internal capacity and external systems to support that growth.

The Business Reality Check

Annelise said something that needed to be said: "We were in this little bubble where we thought business was easy because it was in that really magical moment in history. But actually business has just gone back to how it used to be, which is really freaking hard."

I recorded a Reel about this recently. In what entitled world do we live in where we think we can have this huge vision, huge impact, all this money, but it's just going to be super easy and linear?

"We can have it all, but it doesn't just fall in our laps," Annelise said.

The people who will thrive in 2026 are the ones willing to do the work. Both the internal work of becoming the woman who can hold it, and the external work of showing up with excellence, personalisation, and genuine care.

What This Means for You

Whether you're a coach, service provider, or soul-led entrepreneur, here's what you need to take from this conversation:

Stop outsourcing your genius. Use AI to amplify, not replace. Your unique perspective, your story, your voice, that's what people are buying.

Do the identity work first. You can't fake your way to sustainable success. Embody the woman who already has what you want. Live from those values now.

Build high-trust experiences. Whether it's your front-end offer or your content strategy, prioritize connection and personalization over automation and scale.

Create community, not just content. Speak to your audience like they're already part of your world. Tell your story. Be fully expressed.

Understand your capacity. You can't hold what you're not ready to hold. Do the nervous system work. Build the internal foundation alongside the external strategy.

Accept that it's hard. And that's okay. The work is worth it when you're building something that honors both your soul and your strategy.

Ready to do the deep work that allows you to hold your next level? Visibility Rebirth is launching in February 2025. This is where we do the identity recalibration, the nervous system regulation, and the embodiment work that creates sustainable success. Not fake it till you make it, but become her now. DM me on Instagram @jessica.read.ilc to learn more.

Because here's the truth every woman on this panel agreed on: you have to grow the human alongside the business. You can't separate strategy from soul. You can't build sustainably if you're not willing to do the internal work whilst implementing the external tactics.

The businesses that will thrive in 2026 aren't the ones with the best funnels. They're the ones led by women who've done the work to become fully expressed, deeply grounded, and completely aligned with who they actually are.