🤦‍♂️ I Did Everything Wrong…

What you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:

• 🤦‍♂️ I Did Everything Wrong [True Story]

• 🤯 Meta Just Bought Manus…

• 🚨 The BIG AI Trends Heading into 2026

• ⚒️ Make Realistic Images with Nano Banana

• 💰 Agentic AI Will 10x Your Business in 2026...

Happy New Year Beardos 🎉 

Welcome to 2026! I’ve got some BIG plans for the new year and I’m very excited to share them with you over the next couple weeks.

Enjoy this week’s newsletter and I’ll see you next Monday.

By the way, tickets are now open for Ecom Mastery AI featuring BDSS in Nashville this April.

Find the details here: https://www.ecommastery.ai/

😡 I Did Everything Wrong… [TRUE STORY] 

Back in the early 1980s, I was working with my father at his woodworking facility during my summer break from college.

He built solid, well-made furniture and wooden products, and somehow.

The company had several government contracts with the Province of Ontario.

For a small operation, that was a BIG deal.

These contracts kept the shop busy and the lights on.

As the end of the goverment contract approached, my father pulled me aside and said something that made my stomach drop.

“Norm, I want you to go down and meet with the purchasing department at Queen's Park.”

I was about 18 years old.

Up until that point, I had no sales experience. I worked in the shop. I knew the products. I knew the people.

But pitching?

That was a different story.

I was terrified.

To make it worse, I was a jeans and t-shirt kid.

But this was a suit and tie territory.

So I put on a suit that felt stiff, uncomfortable, and completely not me, and headed off to Toronto.

I walked into Queen’s Park, feeling completely out of place, like everyone could tell I didn’t belong there.

I was shown into a meeting room where two women from the purchasing department were waiting for me.

I’m pretty sure they could tell I was nervous the second I opened my mouth.

My voice was shakey.

My hands probably shook. I was overthinking every word.

They knew I was nervous and they just listened.

They didn’t rush me. They didn’t intimidate me.

They asked simple questions and actually listened to the answers. Slowly, without realizing it, I stopped trying to “pitch” and started just talking.

I talked about the products, the quality, how my father ran the shop.

Somewhere in that conversation, my fear faded.

When the meeting ended, I walked out with no clue how it went.

I got back in my car and thought, “Well… that could have gone a lot worse.”

A short time later, we found out we landed the contract for another year.

Without realizing it at the time, I had just had my first real sales experience.

Business Lesson:

Confidence doesn’t come before action, it comes from action.

Most people wait until they feel ready before stepping into uncomfortable situations, but that moment rarely arrives on its own.

In business, deals are won by being prepared, honest, and willing to show up as yourself.

Growth almost always lives just outside your comfort zone.

— Norm

🍾 Meta Just Bought Manus, an AI Startup That Has Everyone Talking

Meta dropped $2 billion to buy Manus, a Singapore-based AI startup that’s been making waves since launching earlier this year with a slick demo of AI agents doing everything from hiring to trip planning to stock analysis.

Benchmark led a $75M round in April, valuing Manus at $500M, with Tencent and Sequoia China (now HSG) already in early.

By December, Manus claimed millions of users and $100M+ in annual recurring revenue.

Just as Meta investors are sweating the company’s $60B AI infrastructure binge, Manus shows up as a shiny, profitable proof point.

Meta plans to run Manus independently, while injecting its AI agents into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Meta AI possibly giving its underwhelming chatbot experience a serious upgrade.

Manus’ roots trace back to China, founded in Beijing in 2022 before moving to Singapore.

That triggered political alarms in the U.S., especially from Senator John Cornyn, who criticized Benchmark for backing a “Chinese AI company.”

Meta’s response?

Cut all China ties. Manus will exit China, sever Chinese investors, and operate fully outside Beijing’s reach.

He Keeps Buying Anvils on Amazon… Then Sends Them Right Back

For anyone just catching up, I posted about this guy last year.

The guy’s entire bit is that he repeatedly orders extremely heavy anvils using Amazon Prime’s free shipping, then immediately returns them.

Just buy, ship, return, repeat.

The goal is to force Amazon to eat the shipping and handling costs over and over again.

@stocklett

anvil update month 10 #anvil #amazon

So far he’s bought and returned 263 anvils!

In reality, he’s hurting a third party seller and I’m surprised Amazon hasn’t put a stop to this.

🚨 The Big AI Trends Heading into 2026

1. OpenAI Turned ChatGPT Into a Work Platform

GPT 5.2 built on top of GPT-4.5 with stronger reasoning, fewer hallucinations, & better follow-through on multi-step tasks.

Memory, Atlas-style organization, agents, tasks, apps, & even shopping features pushed ChatGPT past “chat” into something you can actually run work through.

Sora’s progress plus the Sora app kept AI video on the front burner.

2. Google Put Gemini Everywhere

Gemini 3 & Gemini 3 Flash made Google’s assistant feel faster & more competitive for everyday use.

The bigger story was reach. Gemini expanded across Search, Android, Chrome, & Maps, while Gemini Live voice upgrades, camera help, & memory made it feel more assistant-like in real situations.

NotebookLM updates helped turn docs, notes, & PDFs into something you can actually work through without drowning.

3. Claude Stayed the “Trusted” Option, While Open-Source Got Loud

Claude Opus 4, Sonnet 4, & 4.5 pushed long-context work & reasoning forward, plus Claude Code made it easier to use Claude for real dev workflows.

At the same time, open-source had a breakout year. DeepSeek proved you do not need a closed platform to get serious performance.

The model market got competitive in a way you could actually feel.

4. Agents Moved From Buzzword to Background Worker

AI agents stopped being overhyped demos and started quietly running tasks in the background, managing email follow-ups, summarizing meetings, drafting proposals, generating thumbnails, even booking appointments.

It got embedded into CRMs, inboxes, PM tools, and customer service stacks.

Agents stopped being a “future thing.” They just became part of how things got done.

5. Visual AI Went From “Cool” to “Consistent”

Midjourney V7 improved image quality & control. Runway Gen-4 pushed text-to-video with better motion & scene consistency. Sora kept advancing, & Veo expanded Google’s video story.

You could get closer to what you wanted with fewer rerolls & less tool-hopping. For creators & marketers, that is the real unlock.

Visual generation stopped being a gamble & started acting like a workflow.

By the end of 2025, the direction was clear.

More memory, fewer surprises, & tighter integration into the tools you already use changed how people actually worked this year

🌎 Where in the World is The Beard Guy?

🔥 Agentic AI Will 10x Your Business in 2026...

Here are my favorite tips from this episode!

1. Generative search traffic converts better because trust is pre-loaded

Traffic coming from AI-driven search converts significantly higher than traditional search because users assume the answer has already been filtered for relevance and accuracy. Sellers should stop treating SEO as keyword ranking alone and start optimizing for answer inclusion in AI systems, because visibility inside AI responses carries implied authority and shortens the buyer’s decision cycle.

2. Community is the primary moat in an AI-saturated market

As AI reduces the cost of information to zero, differentiation shifts from knowledge to belonging. The episode highlights that communities built around shared beliefs and identity retain customers longer and convert better than feature-led brands. Sellers should invest in community infrastructure that reinforces “who we are” rather than “what we sell.”

3. Performance has moved from targeting to content quality

Modern platforms no longer reward audience targeting as much as engagement signals. Content is the targeting. Authentic, creator-style content that holds attention outperforms polished ads across platforms. Sellers should prioritize volume and variation of messaging over hyper-optimized targeting settings.

4. AI compresses execution timelines

The advantage is no longer access to tools, but the ability to direct them correctly. Campaigns that once took weeks now take hours. Sellers who learn how to prompt, orchestrate, and QA AI workflows will dramatically outpace competitors who treat AI as a novelty or productivity hack.

5. Personal brand is becoming the trust layer above AI

In an environment flooded with AI-generated content, buyers anchor trust to humans, not companies. AI can assist delivery, but credibility flows from the person behind it. Sellers should treat personal brand as top-of-funnel trust infrastructure and use company branding as the conversion layer downstream.

🔥 Watch the full episode here

Find this episode of Marketing Misfits on YouTube and anywhere you listen to podcasts

And that’s it, Beardos.

See you next Monday!

- Norm

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