Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice

Why do some businesses stay stuck for 10 years while others 10X in three? Blake Erickson, co-founder of Scaling.com and co-author of The Science of Scaling with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, joins Ryan Alford to explain the mindset and moves behind rapid growth. Blake walks through his four steps to scale, from focusing on the future to building a team for the company you want to become. He explains why scaling is 80% psychology, why founders need to stop playing defense, and how big thinkers attract other big thinkers. He also shares a real case study of a company that grew from $20 million to $200 million in 12 months, and how to get The Science of Scaling audiobook for free. Topics Covered: • Four practical steps to scale a business • Focus and doing less, better • Hiring for the future, not the present • Scarcity, fear and the psychology of growth • Playing offense in business • A $20M to $200M case study POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford Links & Resources: • Scaling.com: https://scaling.com/ • Free audiobook: https://scaling.com/free • The Science of Scaling (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Transformation-Science-Achieving-Impossible/dp/1401967639 • Blake on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblakeerickson/ Connect with Ryan Alford: • Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Where does your data go when you hand it to AI? Nicole Jiang, co-founder and CEO of Fable Security, joins Ryan Alford to break down the real security risks of AI adoption, and why most of them start with people, not technology. Nicole explains how messy data and loose permissions can turn AI tools into a liability, how attackers use AI to make phishing and impersonation scams more convincing, and why Fable’s personalized, just-in-time coaching works better than annual training videos. She also leaves listeners with easy habits to start today, from asking AI to sanitize sensitive information to regularly checking what’s being shared that shouldn’t be. Topics Covered: * The human side of cybersecurity * AI adoption across different industries * Data hygiene and AI integrations * AI-powered phishing and social engineering * Rethinking security training * Practical AI security habits POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford Links & Resources: * Fable Security: https://fablesecurity.com/ * About Fable Security: https://fablesecurity.com/about/ Connect with Ryan Alford: * Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/ * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Getting the click is the easy part. Steve Oriola, CEO of Unbounce, joins Ryan Alford to explain what happens after it, and why so many businesses waste ad budget by sending paid traffic to generic pages instead of focused landing pages. Steve explains how to think about customer acquisition cost all the way through to the sale, how attribution can tell you which traffic sources bring your best customers, and how Unbounce uses more than 2 billion conversion events to benchmark performance by industry. He also covers how AI is speeding up page creation and testing. He also shares the lesson every leader is learning in the AI era: when building software gets cheap, focus becomes your biggest advantage. Topics Covered: • Post-click strategy and landing pages • Acquisition cost, lifetime value and attribution • Conversion benchmarks from 2 billion events • AI in conversion rate optimization • Staying focused when software is cheap to build POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford Links & Resources: • Unbounce: https://unbounce.com/ • Conversion Benchmark Report: https://unbounce.com/conversion-benchmark-report/ • The State of Paid Media ROI 2026: https://unbounce.com/paid-media-roi-report/ Connect with Ryan Alford: • Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Scott Scovill was a self-described broken kid. He finished near the bottom of his class and flunked out of college, until a chance encounter with U2’s touring crew showed him a life he wanted badly enough to fight for. He joins Ryan Alford to talk about his new book, Tenacious: The Art of Relentlessly Pursuing Your Wildest Dreams, and the promise he made himself that night. Scott and Ryan unpack the real fear behind not trying, which is proving your doubters right, and why the fear of failure is usually worse than failing. Scott also shares how living like he was “writing a book” led him to astronaut training, Antarctica and touring Europe as Brad Paisley’s opening act. He also explains why grit and resilience can be learned, and how being grateful for the struggle helped him find his why. Topics Covered: Fear of failure and fear of judgment The moment that changed Scott’s life Taking the first step and staying tenacious Living your life like you’re writing a book Grit, resilience and finding your why POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford Links & Resources: Tenacious (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637633874 Scott Scovill: https://scottscovill.com/ Scott on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottscovill Connect with Ryan Alford: Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Cisco put AI agents in the hands of all 90,000 of its employees, and Joe Vaccaro, an SVP at Cisco, is here to share what they learned. He joins Ryan Alford to break down how business leaders can roll out agentic AI quickly while still keeping the trust and guardrails that critical systems need. Joe explains why agents act like overconfident teenagers, why clear and specific direction beats vague prompts, and how giving AI the right context changes everything. He also covers the real cost of AI tokens, how model routing will bring that cost down, and when a company should train its own model on its own data. His closing advice is simple: don’t hand AI off to someone else. Use it yourself, because that’s the only way to see where it can really transform your business. Topics Covered: Lessons from Cisco’s company-wide AI agent rollout Why AI is moving faster than any past revolution Guardrails, trust and safety for AI agents Prompting with clarity and context AI costs, model routing and on-device models Turning your data into a competitive advantage Why leaders need to be hands-on with AI POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford Links & Resources: Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/ Joe Vaccaro (Cisco): https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/executives/joe-vaccaro.html Joe on X: https://x.com/joevaccaro Project Glasswing: https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing Connect with Ryan Alford: Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford