AI makes creating content easier than ever. You can generate dozens of social posts, articles, and emails in minutes.

But does publishing more content mean more people will find you, trust you, or want to work with you?

That’s what Jesse Kennedy and I discussed when I joined The Shift AI Show, presented by AWeber.

I’ve helped business owners improve their online visibility since 1996, and I’ve learned that being everywhere isn’t the answer (I used to think it was the answer and have changed my mind over the last few years). Especially when you’re running a business on your own and have limited time for marketing.

In our conversation, I shared why I’ve narrowed my focus to LinkedIn and Substack, how I use my Visibility Loop to get more value from fewer pieces of content, and where AI fits into my process. You can stay visible online without posting every day by focusing on one or two platforms, repurposing useful content, and giving readers a clear next step. AI can help you work faster, but your experience and judgment should guide what you publish.

I use AI regularly to repurpose content, explore ideas, and even build simple interactive tools. But I still decide what gets published, what sounds like me, and what will be useful to my readers.

The bigger message? You can build a consistent online presence without creating something new every day. A focused approach, useful content, and a clear next step for your readers can make your marketing easier to maintain.

5 actions you can take after watching

1. Choose one or two platforms to focus on.

Look at where your ideal buyers spend time and where you’re comfortable publishing. Pick one or two platforms and focus on them for the next 30 to 90 days instead of spreading yourself across several channels.

2. Put one piece of content through a Visibility Loop.

Start with a social post that addresses a question your audience asks. Expand it into a newsletter article, then use that article to create several follow-up posts from different angles. Connect those posts back to your main article so interested readers can learn more.

3. Review your content for a clear next step.

Choose three recent posts or articles. After reading each one, ask yourself: What’s the next logical question someone would have? Use that question to plan your next piece of content. And make sure readers have a clear action they can take, whether that’s subscribing, commenting, exploring a resource, or contacting you.

4. Use AI to give an older article new life.

Find an article, newsletter, or video transcript that still has useful information. Ask your preferred AI tool to identify what needs updating and suggest ways to repurpose it. Review the suggestions, verify any new information, and choose what fits your voice and your audience.

5. Experiment with one AI tool and one practical task.

You don’t need a collection of AI subscriptions to get started. Choose ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and give it one task that takes too much of your time. That might be turning a transcript into an article outline, creating social posts from a newsletter, or organizing your ideas. Start small, evaluate the results, and build from there.

Better Visibility Starts With Better Choices

If creating content feels like a never-ending job, consider whether you need more content or a better way to use what you’ve already created.

I’d rather publish something useful that leads a reader to their next step than fill five platforms with content that goes nowhere.

Watch the conversation, then tell me in the comments:

Leave a comment

In my PromptoberFest Bingo experiment, Claude created a working game in minutes. Then I started asking what players would experience, and someone outside the project spotted a major problem I’d missed.

If you’re creating an interactive assessment, challenge, AI tool, or other resource for your audience, you’ll want to test how people use it before inviting everyone to participate.

These 6 questions and 3 AI prompts will help you find what needs attention, decide what to fix first, and get your project ready for its first real users.

Read more

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can let people experience our expertise before they decide to work with us.

Think about the last PDF guide or ebook you downloaded. Did you read it? Did you do anything with it? I’ve got plenty sitting in folders that I meant to get back to.

I still think downloadable guides have their place. I’ve created many myself. But I’m more interested now in what happens when someone can interact with what we know and get a useful result.

Maybe they answer a few questions and find out where they need help. Or they use a simple tool to make a decision. They get to experience how we think and work, rather than simply reading about it.

I’ve been experimenting with this idea in my own business, and my latest project took an unexpected turn.

In 3 days, with Claude building it, I created an interactive bingo game for the AI Success Club.1

Nobody has played it yet. And that’s part of the story.

Why I’m experimenting with interactive content for visibility

A few months ago, I shared some thoughts about how a simple AI tool can make your expertise easier to experience.

I explained the idea during a conversation with about going beyond traditional lead magnets. We talked about creating small tools that let people accomplish something using your knowledge.

One thing I said in that conversation has stayed with me. When someone gets a useful result from something you’ve created, they may begin thinking about what else you could help them accomplish.

That’s a different kind of connection.

It also led me to create the Visibility Momentum Map, a free assessment that helps you identify which part of your online visibility needs attention first.

The Map gives someone a way to use my approach to diagnosing visibility problems. They answer a few questions and get a starting point for improving their marketing.

The more I experiment with interactive content, the more possibilities I see for experienced solo business owners.

You’ve developed processes, asked hundreds of client questions, and learned how to help people make better decisions. Some of that experience could become a small interactive tool or activity that introduces people to your work.

I wanted to try this idea in another format, something with a little more fun and a reason for people to come back.

That’s where bingo came in.

How the PromptoberFest Bingo idea started

In late September, and I were discussing what we could do for our 3rd Annual PromptoberFest for the AI Success Club. We were getting a late start, so whatever we chose had to be something we could create quickly.

Before asking Claude for ideas, I wrote down our requirements. The event needed to be fun, interactive, affordable, different from our usual prompt libraries, and realistic to put together in a short time.

Claude suggested 8 formats. I narrowed them down to Bingo, Makeover hot seats, and an Escape Room.

I chose Bingo. People already know how to play, and I could see how each square might give participants something useful to accomplish with AI.

I wanted players to try prompts, create something, and see what they could do with AI. The game would give them a reason to experiment over several days.

The first AI-built bingo card took minutes

I asked Claude to show me what a sample interactive bingo card would look like and how it would work.

In less than a minute, I had a clickable card right in the chat. You could mark squares, get 5 in a row, and call bingo. Progress was saved in the browser.

I was impressed. And I immediately started thinking about what else we could do with it.

I wanted each square to contain an AI prompt. Claude added a pop-up window with the prompt and a button to mark the activity complete.

Then I realized anyone could open all 24 prompts on day one and finish the game.

That wasn’t how we wanted the experience to work. The idea was to keep people participating throughout the week.

I asked Claude for ways to release the prompts over time, similar to a bingo caller announcing numbers. It suggested 4 options, and we chose code words.

Each square now stays scrambled until players enter the correct code.

That one question changed how the game worked.

A friend spotted a problem I missed

By October 2, we had added the AI Success Club colors, logo, and an Oktoberfest beer tent theme. The game was looking pretty good.

Over breakfast, I explained and showed it to a friend.

She pointed out that if everyone had the same card, everyone could get bingo at the same time.

Of course! How had I missed that?

I’d been testing the prompts, buttons, and design. I hadn’t considered what would happen when several people played at once.

We changed the game so every player gets a unique, shuffled card with its own ID number.

You can get so familiar with what you’re creating you miss what someone else notices immediately.

Getting the game ready for real people

Andy and I worked out the business details in one meeting. We settled on a $17 entry fee, with a $7 price for AI Success Club members, and scheduled PromptoberFest for October 19 through 23.

Players will receive bingo codes by email, and we’ll host 3 live calls during the event.

Then came more questions.

Would people know how to use the online card? What happens if someone joins late? How will winners claim their prizes? What if we need to rebuild the game?

Each answer led to another change. We added help instructions, created a simple prize claim form, and saved a backup of the project.

Claude handled much of the technical work. I kept making decisions based on what I wanted participants to experience.

And that’s one of the things I enjoy about working with AI. I can quickly get a working version of an idea in front of me, then spend time thinking about how to make it useful for the people who will use it.

Curious about the game? Check out PromptoberFest Bingo and see how you can join us.

How can interactive content help people experience your expertise?

This is the visibility question I keep asking.

When someone reads an article, watches a video, or downloads a guide, they’re learning about your work.

An interactive experience gives them a chance to do something with what you’ve shared.

A business coach could create a short assessment that helps people identify their next business priority. A consultant might offer a tool that helps someone prepare for a project. A travel advisor could create a 5-day activity that helps someone make decisions about a trip.

The idea is to give people a small result that comes from your experience.

That result may give them a reason to remember you, share the experience, subscribe, or explore working with you.

PromptoberFest Bingo is another way I’m testing this belief. Players will be using AI prompts to complete activities, and the game gives them a reason to return throughout the week.

I don’t know yet how many people will participate or what they’ll think of the experience. I’ll have more to share after the event.

For now, I’m interested in what you could create from something you already know.

Try this: Turn one part of your expertise into an interactive experience

You probably have a process you use repeatedly with clients, a set of questions you ask, or an activity you guide people through.

Start there.

Give yourself 15 minutes to answer these 3 questions:

1. What is one problem people regularly ask me to help them solve? Choose something familiar that you already know how to address.

2. What could someone do with my guidance? Think about one action they could take, such as answering questions, comparing options, practicing a skill, or completing a short task.

3. What would they have when they finish? It might be a decision, recommendation, plan, completed activity, or clearer idea of what to do next.

This is the principle I’ve been using in my own AI projects:

One problem. One action. One outcome.

You can apply it to an assessment, calculator, short challenge, interactive worksheet, or another simple activity.

Once you’ve chosen an idea, use this AI prompt2 to work out what a first version might look like.

AI prompt: Create an interactive experience from your expertise

“I’m a [type of business owner] who helps [audience] with [problem].

One thing I regularly help people do is [describe the process, decision, or activity].

I want to create a simple interactive experience that gives someone a chance to use my expertise and get [specific result].

Suggest 3 possible formats, such as an assessment, short challenge, interactive activity, or small AI tool.

For each idea, explain:

1. What the person would do

2. What they would get when they finish

3. How the experience would reflect my expertise

4. What I would need to create a small first version

Keep the ideas realistic for a solo business owner with limited time. Recommend one idea to test first and explain why. Ask me questions if you need more information.”

Your goal is to finish with one idea you could realistically create and test.

You may find something you’ve been teaching for years could be useful in a format you hadn’t considered.

What happens next with PromptoberFest Bingo?

As I write this, the game is ready. The 24 squares are complete. We’ve prepared the welcome email, daily emails with bingo codes, and reminders.

Nobody has played yet.

I don’t know how many people will sign up, how many will complete the game, or whether it will bring new members into the AI Success Club.

We’ll find out after October 23, and I’ll share what happened, including what worked and what I’d change.

What I can say now is that creating this game has given me another chance to test my belief in interactive content.

If you’ve been thinking about creating something that lets people experience your expertise, I encourage you to start small. Choose one result you can help someone get, then see what you can create with AI.

And if you’d like to see our experiment in action, join us for PromptoberFest Bingo, October 19–23. You’ll get to try the prompts, play along, and see what we’ve created.

I’ll report back on how it goes.

Got questions about creating simple interactive apps for your business? Post them in the comment thread or send me a private message.

You know something about your online visibility needs attention.

Maybe people aren’t clear about what you do. Your content isn’t leading to inquiries. People find you but don’t stay connected. Or you’re sharing useful information, yet your experience isn’t coming through.

The question becomes:

What should I change first?

When I look at a client’s visibility problem, I usually don’t start by asking which channel needs more activity. I look for where the connection breaks down. Can people understand the value? See the experience behind it? Know what to do next? Stay connected?

I tend to see visibility problems show up in 5 places: people don't understand your value, you aren't answering the questions that affect their decisions, your experience isn't visible, the next step isn't clear, or people have no easy way to stay connected.

Trying to fix everything at once gives you more work and less useful information. A smaller change gives you a better chance of seeing what makes a difference.

Here are 5 places to start…

How can you make your value clearer online?

Look at the first screen of your homepage or the profile where people are most likely to find you.

Can a new visitor quickly tell:

• who you work with

• what you offer

• why it matters to them

If the answer isn’t clear, work on the opening message.

Leave the rest of the page alone for now.

After you change it, pay attention to the conversations and inquiries you get. Are people coming to you with a better sense of what you do?

Are you answering the questions buyers ask before they act?

Think about the questions people ask before they hire you, subscribe, book a call, or buy.

Choose one question connected to a decision and answer it in one piece of content.

Look at client conversations, emails, discovery calls, comments, or questions you’ve answered more than once.

Examples:

• “How do I know if I’m ready for this?”

• “What happens after we start working together?”

• “Can I do this myself?”

• “How is this different from the other options I’ve seen?”

Choose one and answer it from your experience.

Then watch the response. Replies, follow-up questions, clicks, and conversations can tell you whether you’ve addressed something people care about.

Does your content show your expertise?

Open something you’ve already published.

Ask yourself:

Where can I show how I know this?

Add one specific example from your work or experience.

It could be a client observation, something you tested, a result, a mistake, a lesson, or a decision you changed after seeing what happened.

You don’t need a formal case study.

One specific example can tell the reader far more about your experience than another paragraph of general advice.

Is the next step clear in your content?

Pick one page, article, newsletter, or post that already gets attention.

Ask the question one of my mentors drilled into me years ago:

What’s the next logical step?

If someone likes what they just read, what do you want them to do?

Subscribe? Read another article? Download something? Look at a service? Book a call? Reply?

Choose the action that makes sense for that content and make it easy to find.

I still catch myself missing this. I’ll create something useful, publish it, and later realize I left the interested reader nowhere to go.

Review one piece of content and check its next step.

Can people who find you online stay connected?

Someone finds you through search, reads an article, sees a LinkedIn post, hears you on a podcast, or arrives through a referral.

They like what they find.

Can they easily hear from you again?

Choose one place where people discover you and check what happens next.

For me, email is often the best answer. Yours may be different.

Give someone who finds you today a clear way to stay connected.

Then pay attention to new subscribers, follows, repeat visitors, replies, or whichever measure makes sense for your business.

A specific place to begin matters

Kathi Laughman put this well after taking the Visibility Momentum Map:

“I knew something wasn’t quite connecting, but I hadn’t been able to identify where the gap was... Best of all, Denise doesn’t just leave you with a diagnosis. She gives you a specific action to take, so you know exactly where to begin.”

That’s the point.

Once you know where attention is needed, the next move should be specific enough to act on.

How long should you test a visibility change?

Give your change enough time to be seen.

A homepage message viewed by 12 people doesn’t tell you much. One newsletter CTA may not tell you much either.

Look for evidence over time. Depending on the change, that could include:

• clicks

• replies

• subscriptions

• inquiries

• better-fit conversations

• different questions from potential buyers

Then decide what comes next.

Keep the change. Adjust it. Or test something else.

Make one change. Observe what happens. Decide what to do next.

That’s enough to learn something useful without turning the fix into another major project.

How can AI help you choose one visibility change?

If you see several things you could work on, AI can help you narrow the list.

My online visibility needs attention in this area:

[VALUE CLARITY / AUDIENCE QUESTIONS / EXPERTISE EVIDENCE / NEXT STEP / ONGOING CONNECTION]

Here is the page, profile, content, or marketing asset I want to review:

[PASTE IT HERE]

Identify 3 small changes I could make related only to this area.

For each one, tell me:

1. What to change

2. Why it may matter to a potential buyer

3. What I can watch afterward to see if the change helped

Each suggestion should take about 30 minutes or less. Do not suggest a complete rewrite or a new marketing campaign.

Base your recommendations on what I provided. Tell me if you need more information before making a recommendation.

AI can give you options. You make the call based on what you know about your business and your audience.

Where should you start improving your visibility?

Choose the area that’s getting in the way right now and make one change.

If you’re not sure which area deserves your attention first, take the Visibility Momentum Map. In about 2 minutes, you’ll see where your visibility may need attention and have a clearer starting point.

Take the Visibility Momentum Map

Got questions about improving your visibility? Post in the comment thread. ⬇️

Leave a comment

Everything contained in the prompt below, I’ve been doing in a hit or miss way for several months. I finally asked ChatGPT to review my work and create a prompt that reflects the questions I’ve been asking about optimizing my articles for AI.

The prompt is the result of that request and months of tweaking every article to give it a better shot at being found and cited by AI Search.

You can write a strong article for your reader and still miss a few things that make it easier for search engines and AI tools to understand what the article is about.

That’s where this prompt comes in. ⬇️

I use this kind of review after I write the article. The point is to improve findability without turning the piece into something stiff, repetitive, or packed with search terms.

Your article should still sound like you. It matters if you want your experience and judgment to come through clearly.

Read more

You’re publishing useful content. You’re sharing it. You’re showing up where your buyers spend time.

And getting found can still feel harder than it should.

I’ve worked in digital marketing since 1996, so I’ve seen plenty of changes in how people find businesses online. AI is changing it again.

People can now find experts, businesses, and answers through AI tools without visiting Google or clicking through to a website first.

I recently spent 2 podcast episodes talking with on the Flow Flex Scale podcast (links below) about online visibility, AI search, content, and some of the experiments we’re both running.

Looking back at our conversation, I realized how much my thinking about visibility has changed over the past year.

I still believe in creating useful content, showing up consistently, and building relationships with the people you want to serve.

I’ve changed what I pay attention to.

AI search is changing how people find experts

For a long time, I could talk about online visibility and know Google would be a big part of the conversation.

Now someone might discover you without visiting Google or your website first.

Jennifer gave me a great example. Two people booked discovery calls with her on the same day. When she asked how they’d found her, both said Claude had recommended her.

Those prospects had a problem. They asked an AI tool for help. Jennifer’s expertise was connected to their questions, and they took the next step.

That changes one of the questions I’m asking about visibility:

Can AI systems figure out what you know and which problems you can help someone solve?

I’ve written quite a bit about AI search in Your Visibility Edge, so I won’t repeat all of that here. Jennifer and I go deeper into it on the podcast.

For me, the practical change is paying closer attention to whether my expertise is clear enough online for people and AI systems to understand it.

I’m looking at my old content differently

I’ve been publishing online for decades. I have years of articles on my website plus 2 years of Your Visibility Edge.

Recently, I used AI to review that body of work. I wanted to identify the topics I consistently talk about, the questions I’ve already answered, and the questions my content doesn’t answer well enough yet.

That changed how I looked at my archive.

An older article can answer a question someone is asking today. A group of articles can show a pattern of expertise. Something I wrote years ago may contain an idea worth updating for the way people search now.

If you’ve been in business for years, you’ve probably accumulated articles, presentations, podcast interviews, workshops, videos, emails, and client materials.

There’s a good chance you already have answers your future buyers are looking for. Those answers may be sitting in older content that AI search systems can find, cite, and connect with your expertise.

The opportunity is to make those answers easier to find.

AI has made my judgment more important

Jennifer and I also talked about repurposing. She has a useful 3 Rs framework: repurpose, republish, and re-syndicate.

AI makes all 3 much faster. Give it one article and it can produce enough variations to keep you publishing for weeks.

Which creates another problem.

Just because AI can create something doesn’t mean I should publish it.

This is a line I keep coming back to from our conversation:

I decide which idea deserves another format. Which point needs more explanation. Which AI suggestion doesn’t sound like me. Which question my reader needs answered next.

AI gives me options quickly, and my experience tells me what to do with them.

Yours does too.

Find out what AI knows about you

You may be wondering how to tell whether AI can connect your name with your expertise.

Try this.

Open ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini and ask a question a prospective buyer might ask when searching for an expert in your field.

Don’t include your name.

For example, a career coach might ask:

“Who are some career coaches who work with women over 50 making a career change?”

Then try 2 or 3 variations based on problems your buyers bring to you.

Look at the names and sources that appear. More importantly, look at why those people appear. What content is being cited? What questions does it answer? What evidence of expertise can you see?

If you don’t appear, you’ve learned something useful. If you do appear, you’ve learned something useful too.

Either result gives you a place to start.

Make your expertise easier for people and AI to find

Every new AI feature can make you feel as if there’s another thing you’re supposed to learn.

I’ve been putting more of my attention on what I’ve already created.

You have years of knowledge, stories, answers, client experience, opinions, and judgment. AI gives you new ways to examine that work, find gaps, update useful ideas, and make more of it available to the people searching for answers.

The question I keep asking myself is:

How can I make what I already know easier for the right people to find and use?

That’s a useful question for your business too.

Jennifer and I cover much more in our 2-part conversation, including AI search, repurposing, interactive tools, and how we’re experimenting with AI in our businesses.

Want to go further with the AI search test?

The Get Cited by AI Skill Bundle takes you beyond the quick test above. The Skills help you examine how AI sees your expertise and find changes you can make so your content is easier to find, understand, and cite.

Get Cited by AI

I’m curious, have you checked to see if AI search tools are citing your content?

Leave a comment

Is it possible to bypass this stagnation entirely? The “Prompt Write Sell 2.0” methodology, demonstrated by , suggests that you can bridge the gap from raw shower thought to a full-scale launch campaign in a quarter of an hour. By leveraging a high-level AI workflow, creators are no longer builders. They are executive decision-makers.

1. Speed as a Filter: The 15-Minute Validation

The primary value of AI in product development isn’t just writing. It is rapid prototyping. When you force the development process into a 15-minute window, speed acts as a pressure test. It eliminates the “perfectionist procrastination” that typically kills a project before it starts. By reducing the time-to-market, you minimize sunk-cost bias; if an idea doesn’t hold up under a 15-minute sprint, you haven’t wasted weeks of effort.

In the demo, the Digital Product Navigator transformed a vague idea (a tool for people with too many projects) into a concrete product brief. This initial step requires the creator to define their role and commitment (e.g., 5 to 10 hours) and identify their audience’s primary “watering holes.” As Andy noted:

“There’s a lot of second-guessing in your own mind about certain ideas... I just feel like there’s not enough of a validation before what I’m going to show you.”

By moving at this velocity, you bypass the “messy middle” of drafting and move straight to testing the “bones” of the offer.

2. Human Judgment: Why You Should Argue with Your AI

A critical mistake in AI implementation is accepting the machine's first output. In a high-level strategist’s workflow, the AI handles the “sausage-making,” the tedious drafting of notes and structures, while the human focuses exclusively on the executive decision-making layer.

During the demonstration, Andy, a professional copywriter of 25 years, pointedly rejected headline suggestions from Claude. He identified a common AI flaw: the tendency to lean toward generic or “negative” framing. For example, he rejected the headline, “You don’t need more discipline, you need a tiebreaker,” in favor of the more benefit-driven, “The fast way out of the idea graveyard.”

“I don’t want to be confused when I’m reading a headline... I don’t want to tell people in a headline what they don’t need.”

“Humanizing” the AI output is the most critical step. The AI provides speed and structure, but the human provides taste, empathy, and the final strategic filter.

3. The “One Problem, One Solution” Beta Test

One of the most effective ways to use this system is for rapid market testing. I highlighted a “one problem, one solution” strategy: create a small, high-impact product, like a $27 offer, to see “if anybody cares about it” before building a full-scale version.

This approach offers a profound strategic insight: AI helps you identify whether your offer's value lies in your time or your system. I used the Digital Product Navigator skill to develop a workshop. After receiving real-time feedback, I realized my physical presence was actually a bottleneck. The process allowed me to evolve the workshop into a standalone, evergreen digital product. By launching the “small” version first, I eliminated the friction of manual delivery and scaled my expertise.

4. Launch Sequences Need a “Reason to Exist”

A successful launch requires more than a sales page; it requires a coordinated campaign that maintains momentum without being repetitive. The Liftoff phase of the methodology ensures the marketing effort matches the offer.

The strategy involves instructing the LLM to ensure each launch email has a “distinct reason to exist” rather than merely echoing the sales page. For a simple $27 product, the system generates a streamlined, high-efficiency package:

• A distinct email sequence: Each message addresses a different psychological angle or barrier.

• Supporting social posts: Tailored content for specific platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn.

• A simple launch calendar: A clear execution plan showing what goes out and when.

This prevents the common error of over-engineering a launch for a low-priced product, ensuring the marketing energy matches the revenue potential.

5. Strategy Over Software: You Aren’t Married to the Tool

A common misconception is that these results are tied to a specific platform like Claude. In reality, the logic of the prompt—the “Project File”—is where the value resides, not the specific chat window.

While the demo used Claude “skills,” the methodology is entirely LLM-agnostic. You can apply the same structural logic to ChatGPT, Grok, or any advanced model. This flexibility is vital for the freelancer or strategist who may be “all over the place” and needs a system that works no matter which tool leads the market. The tool is just the engine; the “Prompt Write Sell” framework is the steering wheel.

The End of the “Hem and Haw” Era

AI-assisted workflows are fundamentally lowering the barrier to entry for digital creators by reducing the cost of failure. When you can generate the “bones” of a product and a launch plan in 15 minutes, you are free to experiment, iterate, and discard ideas with zero emotional or financial penalty.

The era of long-term “hemming and hawing” is over. We have entered the era of the executive creator.

If you could pressure-test your most persistent “back-burner” idea in the next 15 minutes, what is stopping you from doing it today?

Create → Convert → Launch

As I close out the 2-year anniversary month for Your Visibility Edge, I’ve been thinking about what I hope you take away from all the articles, experiments, data reviews, and tools I’ve shared.

Online visibility is how easily the right people can find your work, understand what you offer, see why it matters to them, trust your expertise, and know what to do next.

The people you want to reach might be clients, customers, buyers, readers, subscribers, members, listeners, viewers, participants, or something else.

The Visibility Momentum Map looks at how well your visibility supports that relationship.

That thinking led me to create the Map around 5 areas: Value Clarity, Audience Questions, Expertise Evidence, Next Step, and Ongoing Connection. Each one affects what happens after someone discovers you.

I went through my article archive and chose 2 resources for each area. Once you know which part of your visibility deserves attention, you have somewhere useful to start.

Why should you care about these 5 areas?

Every article you publish, email you send, interview you do, and profile you update takes time.

People can find your work and still leave without moving any closer to taking action. They may enjoy an article, agree with your ideas, or spend time on your website and never figure out whether what you offer fits their situation.

One weak area can limit the result you get from work you’ve already done.

A focused change can lead to more interest from the right people, stronger responses to your content, greater recognition for your experience, more inquiries or sales, or more people staying connected until the timing is right for them to act.

1. Value Clarity: Can the right people quickly understand what you offer?

The result you want: People who are a good fit recognize your work applies to them.

A new visitor should be able to see what you offer, who it’s for, the need you address, and what they can expect to gain. That’s the focus of Value Clarity in the Visibility Momentum Map.

When this area is working, people can spend their time deciding whether your work fits rather than figuring out what you do.

How Do I Turn Online Visibility Into Client Inquiries?

Start here if your content gets attention and you’re unsure how that attention connects to inquiries or other meaningful action.

Should You Focus on Your Website, Social Media, or Email Newsletter?

Use this to decide what job each channel should have in helping people understand your work and decide what to do next.

2. Audience Questions: Does your content answer what people need before they take the next step?

The result you want: Your content gives people information they can use to make a decision.

The people you want to reach often have questions before they act.

Does this fit my situation? How does this person approach the problem? Have they worked with someone like me? What happens if I sign up, buy, subscribe, join, or get in touch?

Those questions can be very different from the topics that fill your publishing calendar.

How to Create Content That Attracts Clients

Use emails, call notes, DMs, comments, and past conversations to find questions connected to real decisions.

Which Buyer Questions Should You Answer First in Your Content?

This gives you a way to decide which questions deserve your publishing time first.

3. Expertise Evidence: Can people see why your advice is worth trusting?

The result you want: The right people can see the experience and judgment behind your work.

Years of experience don’t automatically show up in your content.

People can judge what they can see: examples, decisions, results, observations, methods, stories, and lessons from work you’ve done. Those details give them something concrete to consider when deciding whether your ideas, products, services, or offers fit what they need.

How AI Recognizes Expertise in Your Content

Use the 5 types of evidence in this article to make more of your experience visible in your content.

How to Use Your Content Data to Decide What to Create Next

This is an example from my own 2-year YVE review. I used my publishing data to examine what worked, what didn’t, and what I wanted to change.

4. Next Step: Can an interested person tell what to do next?

The result you want: Interest turns into action.

Someone reads your article, watches your video, listens to an interview, or visits your website. They’re interested. Can they easily figure out what comes next?

That action could be subscribing, replying, reading something else, reviewing an offer, registering, buying, joining, or contacting you. Someone who wants more should be able to see where to go.

Visibility Is a User Experience

Use this to spot points of confusion that can make someone hesitate or leave.

The Next Question Matters

This shows how one article can lead naturally to the next question a reader needs answered.

5. Ongoing Connection: Do people have a reason to stay connected?

The result you want: More of the right people remember you when their timing changes.

Someone can like your work today and have no reason to act today.

Your newsletter, publishing rhythm, follow-up, collaborations, and personal contact give that person more chances to hear from you.

When this area is working, you have a repeatable way to stay useful and recognizable after the first interaction.

Posting More Isn’t the Problem

Use this to choose a publishing pace you can keep long enough for people to become familiar with your ideas.

Melanie Benson: Proximity Makes Visibility More Human

This conversation with looks at partnerships and collaboration as another way to become known by the people you want to reach.

Which part of your online visibility should you work on first?

Start with the area most likely to affect what happens after someone finds you.

The Visibility Momentum Map looks at 5 areas: Value Clarity, Audience Questions, Expertise Evidence, Next Step, and Ongoing Connection. Your result identifies one area that may deserve attention first, along with an area that appears to be working well.

The free assessment takes about 1 to 2 minutes.

Then do one thing:

Come back to this article, choose one resource under your priority area, and make one change this week based on what you learn.

That gives you a specific place to put your time and attention.

Take the Assessment

Thank you for being on this journey with me!

You probably have more product ideas than you have time to create.

A question clients ask repeatedly. A process you use in your work. A workshop you could turn into a self-study resource. A checklist, guide, template, or training based on something you already know well.

You may already have half of it somewhere. Old workshop slides, a Google Doc you started months ago, notes from client sessions, a checklist you made years ago, a training recording you forgot about, or a folder full of ideas you still think have potential.

I know that feeling well.

I’ve been a solo business owner for 24 years. I’ve had plenty of ideas I thought could become good digital products. Then I’d start thinking through everything that had to happen before someone could buy one.

Define the offer. Decide what goes in it. Set the price. Create the product. Write the sales page. Set up the checkout. Write the emails. Plan the promotion. Create the graphics. Test everything.

I could do all of it. At this point, I could probably do most of it in my sleep.

I was tired just thinking about doing all of it.

Sometimes I procrastinated long enough that someone else created something similar. Other times I decided the idea simply wasn’t worth all the work required to get it up and out the door.

AI has changed that calculation for me.

I’m more willing now to take an idea, create a beta version, put it in front of people, and see whether there’s a response. I can find out whether an idea deserves more of my time without turning it into a major project first.

That’s a big difference for one person running a business.

Getting an idea out the door takes more work than it seems

Creating the product itself may be the part you enjoy.

You know the topic. You understand the problem. You know what people ask you and how you usually help them.

Then come all the tasks surrounding the product.

You need to decide who it’s for, how much belongs in it, what format makes sense, and what to charge. Then there’s the name, description, sales page, checkout page, emails, promotional content, delivery, and follow-up.

Knowing how to do those things doesn’t create more hours in the day.

And the decisions are connected. Change the audience and the sales copy changes. Change the scope and the price may need another look. Change the promise and the promotional emails may need revision.

One decision you haven’t settled can add another afternoon of work later.

This is one reason a promising idea can stay in a folder for months. You can see all the work waiting on the other side of the idea.

I certainly can.

Sometimes experience makes me hesitate

There’s an odd side effect of doing this for a long time.

I know what comes next.

Someone newer to product creation may think, “I could turn this into a course.”

My brain immediately starts running through the next 30 things that will need to happen before that course makes a sale.

The knowledge is useful. It has saved me from making plenty of poor decisions.

It can make me hesitate too.

I’ve talked myself out of products that might have been worth testing because I pictured the finished version and everything required to get there.

That’s one of the biggest changes AI has made for me.

I don’t have to approach every idea as if I’m committing to the full finished product. I can test a smaller version first.

How AI helps me test digital product ideas faster

For me, creating and selling digital products with AI is less about asking it to come up with ideas.

I have ideas.

What I want is a partner that helps me move an idea through the work that comes next.

If I’m considering a new product, I can use AI to work through questions such as:

• Is the problem clear enough?

• Who is most likely to buy this?

• What belongs in a beta version?

• What material do I already have?

• What could I leave out for now?

• What price range makes sense?

• What questions will a buyer probably have?

• What needs to be on the sales page?

• What promotional content will I need?

I can work through those questions much faster than I used to.

And some days, I simply want a first draft I can react to instead of another blank page.

The order of the work matters

Years of creating products have taught me one decision often affects several that follow.

You need enough clarity about the buyer before writing the sales page. You need a defined offer before deciding whether the price makes sense. The finished offer and sales message give you the material for the campaign.

That matters when you put a project aside for 2 weeks because client work got busy.

I’ve reopened projects and spent the first half hour trying to remember what I had already decided.

What was the price?

Was this going to include the bonus?

Who did I decide the product was for?

Which version of the description was final?

AI can help keep those decisions together.

That’s the kind of partnership I find useful. I want a place to put the details so I don’t have to rebuild the project every time I come back to it.

It helps with consistency too.

If product planning happens in one conversation, sales copy in another, and launch planning somewhere else, the offer can start changing along the way. The buyer shifts. The promise gets rewritten. The promotion introduces another angle.

Then you’re spending time bringing everything back together.

I’d rather carry the decisions forward and keep working from the same source material.

Why digital products are still worth creating

With all those steps involved, it’s fair to ask why I keep creating digital products.

One reason is they give people an easy way to use my expertise.

Someone may read my newsletter for months without needing private consulting. A past client may need help with one specific problem. A new reader may want to learn from me before considering a larger purchase.

A focused product gives that person somewhere to go.

They can solve one problem, learn one process, use one template, or take one useful action without making a larger commitment.

Products also help keep your business top of mind.

You can write about the problem the product addresses, answer related questions, share examples, teach parts of the process, and refer people to the product when the topic comes up in a newsletter, podcast, social post, or conversation.

You’re giving people more opportunities to encounter your expertise and remember what you do.

A smaller product gives a buyer a chance to experience how you think and work. That can matter later when they need more help.

And after years in business, you may already have much of the product sitting in your files.

A workshop you taught 5 years ago may contain a process people still need. A client exercise may become a useful template. A group of articles may contain the beginnings of a guide. A training recording may contain an idea worth updating.

The work doesn’t have to stay buried in a folder.

Which product idea should you test first?

If you have several ideas, choosing one can become another reason to put the whole thing off.

I tend to look for 3 things:

• People already ask me about the problem.

• I have useful experience or material I can draw from.

• The result is easy for a buyer to understand.

That gives me something concrete to work with.

I’m less interested these days in starting with the biggest product I can create. I’d rather start with something useful, get it in front of buyers, and learn from their response.

A beta makes that possible.

It lets me find out whether people understand the offer, whether the problem matters enough for them to pay for help, what questions they ask, and what they want more of.

Then I can decide what deserves more work.

That feels very different from spending weeks building something and hoping I made the right choices.

Try one idea for 20 minutes

Pick one question clients or customers ask you repeatedly.

Set a timer for 20 minutes and write down:

• who asks the question

• what result they want

• how you currently help them

• what material you already have

• the smallest useful resource you could create around it

Then stop.

You don’t need to name the product, build the sales page, or start creating slides.

You’re deciding whether this idea deserves another hour of your attention.

That’s a much smaller commitment.

And if the answer is yes, AI can help you take the next step.

Years of doing this work shaped the AI process

This is where Prompt. Write. Sell. 2.0 came from.

1 and I have each spent years creating, selling, promoting, testing, and revising digital products. We’ve had offers that needed more thought, sales pages that needed another pass, launches with too many moving parts, and products that changed halfway through the process.

We’ve learned which questions need answers before pricing, when an offer is getting too big, what buyers need to see on a sales page, and how much promotion makes sense for a particular product.

I learned those lessons by doing the work.

We built them into 3 Claude Skills.

Digital Product Navigator works through the product idea, buyer, scope, format, pricing, content, and business case.

Sales Page Architect picks up from there and works through the buyer’s problem, outcomes, benefits, proof, objections, FAQs, and sales copy.

Liftoff uses the finished offer and sales message to work through campaign timing, emails, promotional angles, social posts, and the other pieces needed to bring the product to market.

The biggest benefit is continuity. I don’t have to keep starting over.

The decisions made while planning the product carry into the sales page. The sales page carries into the launch.

It’s much easier to work on a product in pieces between everything else going on in my business.

I still want to make the decisions

AI can produce options faster than I can. I like that.

I still decide whether the product solves a problem my audience cares about. I decide when the scope has grown too big, whether the price feels right, whether a claim is true, and whether a launch plan fits my audience and my schedule.

Those are decisions I want to make.

What I’m happy to hand off are many of the tasks surrounding those decisions.

I don’t need to create every first draft myself. I don’t need to reorganize the same information several times. I don’t need to turn every sales-page section into emails and social posts on my own.

After 24 years of running a solo business, getting help with those parts feels pretty good.

AI doesn’t replace what I know.

It gives me a partner for putting what I know to work.

An idea doesn’t have to become a big project

If you have a product idea sitting in a folder somewhere, I hope you feel a little more willing to look at it again.

You may already have the expertise. You may already have much of the material. And you probably know more about creating the product than you give yourself credit for.

You can start smaller than you might have a few years ago.

Take one idea. Create a useful beta. Let AI help with the research, organizing, drafting, checking, and promotional tasks. Put the offer in front of people and see what happens.

Then decide what it deserves from you.

That’s the biggest change for me.

Ideas that once felt like too much work to pursue now feel possible to test.

Prompt. Write. Sell. 2.0 grew out of the way Andy and I have learned to work through these decisions over years of creating and selling products. It includes Digital Product Navigator, Sales Page Architect, and Liftoff, along with installation instructions and a guide for using the process with other AI platforms.

If you have an idea that keeps getting pushed down the list, learn more about Prompt. Write. Sell. 2.0 and see if it can help you get that idea up and out the door.

A visibility problem often first shows up as a complaint about something else.

Clients come to me saying things like, “I need more content ideas,” “I need more people visiting my website,” “I need to get more consistent,” or “My newsletter isn’t bringing me clients.”

That gives us somewhere to start. We talk about what they’re doing now, and I review their website, content, offers, emails, or whichever parts of their marketing matter to the situation. We talk about their experience, the clients they’ve worked with, what people hire them for, and what happens before someone decides to work with them.

Often, the problem they first described isn’t where we end up spending our time. The conversation, the content review, and what I learn about their experience point me to the part of their visibility that deserves attention.

Across very different businesses, I keep coming back to 5 areas1:

• Value Clarity

• Audience Questions

• Expertise Evidence

• Next Step

• Ongoing Connection

I think of visibility momentum as what happens after someone finds you. Can they understand the value of your work, get their questions answered, see evidence of your experience, know what they can do next, and have a way to stay connected?

Each area affects what happens after someone discovers you. A weak spot in one can slow the results of the work you’re already doing.

More traffic can send more people to an offer they don’t understand. More content can keep answering questions your buyers aren’t asking. More posting can spread advice without showing why your experience makes your point of view worth paying attention to.

And more attention can disappear when people aren’t sure what to do next or never hear from you again.

That’s why one of the first things I want to know is: where is the momentum slowing down?

Value Clarity: Can people quickly understand what you offer?

I often spot a Value Clarity issue when I compare what someone tells me in conversation with what I see online.

They can explain their work clearly when we’re talking. They know who they enjoy working with, the problems they solve, and what changes for the client. Then I visit their website or primary online profile and find that much of that clarity is missing.

This can happen after years in business. You add services, develop new interests, work with different types of clients, and create more content. Someone arriving for the first time may see all those pieces without knowing which one matters to them.

The Value Clarity result in the Visibility Momentum Map looks at whether people can understand what you offer, who it’s for, the need it addresses, and the value they receive.

This can be easy to misdiagnose as a traffic problem. Sending more people to a page they find confusing gives you more people experiencing the same confusion.

Audience Questions: Does your content answer what buyers need to know?

Audience Questions often become clear when I review someone’s content.

There may be plenty of good information. Tips, commentary, explanations, interviews, newsletters, social posts. Then I look for the questions a potential buyer might have before deciding whether to take another step.

Does this fit my situation? How does this person approach the problem? Have they worked with someone in a similar situation? What would working together involve? What happens if I contact them?

Those questions may be different from the subjects that make up your regular publishing schedule.

You can have plenty of content ideas and still leave the questions tied to a buying decision unanswered. The Audience Questions result focuses on identifying one of those questions and creating something that addresses it directly.

I’ve been paying more attention to this in my own content too. Before deciding what to create next, I ask what someone needs to figure out before they can make a decision.

That gives the content a job beyond filling the publishing calendar.

Expertise Evidence: Can people see the experience behind your advice?

This is an area I pay close attention to with experienced solo business owners.

You’ve spent years working with clients, solving problems, making decisions, testing ideas, changing your approach, and learning from the results. A lot of what you know feels ordinary after you’ve done it for a long time.

Then I review the content and see broad advice where there could be a client example. I find a claim where there could be a result or observation. I find a list of tips where you could explain why you would choose one option over another.

Your experience exists. Someone who has just found you can judge only what they can see.

The Expertise Evidence result looks for concrete signs of your experience, such as results, examples, lessons from your work, methods you’ve developed, completed projects, and explanations based on what you’ve seen firsthand.

Research supports the role this kind of content can play in buyer decisions. In the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report,

Read the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report

This is why I look at the gap between someone’s experience and what appears online. A person can have 20 or 30 years of expertise, yet a new reader may see very little evidence of it.

Publishing more general advice won’t close that gap.

Next Step: Is the action you want people to take clear?

For Next Step, I look at what happens after someone becomes interested.

I click through the website. I read the article. I look at the newsletter or profile. Then I ask myself what I would do if I wanted more from this person.

Sometimes the answer is easy to find. Other times I see several competing choices, vague button copy, or no clear invitation to continue.

The Next Step result looks at whether the action is easy to see, understand, and complete. It could be subscribing, reading something else, registering, replying, booking a conversation, or making another relevant move.

This is another place where the first diagnosis can be misleading.

You may think you need more traffic. When I look at what happens to the people already arriving, I may find plenty of interest with nowhere obvious for that interest to go.

Before working to attract a larger audience, it’s worth checking what you’re asking the current one to do.

Ongoing Connection: What happens after someone finds you?

Someone can have a good first interaction with your work and go back to the rest of their day.

They may find an article through search, hear you on a podcast, see a social post, or get one of your newsletters forwarded by a friend. They may like what they see and have no reason to contact you at that moment.

When I review Ongoing Connection, I look at what happens after that encounter. Is there an easy way to subscribe? Do you send something regularly? Is there useful follow-up? Will this person have a reasonable chance of coming across your thinking again?

The Visibility Momentum Map looks at whether you have a repeatable way to stay useful and recognizable after the first interaction. That could be a newsletter, follow-up email, new content, community update, podcast, video, or personal check-in.

This can be one of the harder visibility gaps to notice. The first part worked. Someone found you and paid attention.

Then the connection ended.

The first problem you name may be a symptom

This is one of the things 30 years of working online has taught me.

Two clients can tell me they have the same problem and need very different changes. “I need more visibility” could lead me to Value Clarity for one person and Ongoing Connection for someone else. “I need better content” might lead to Audience Questions or Expertise Evidence.

Even “I need more traffic” can turn into a Next Step issue once I see what happens to the traffic the business already has.

That’s why my client work starts with conversation and review. I listen to what you think is happening, look at what your marketing shows me, and learn about the knowledge and experience behind your business.

Those pieces don’t always point to the same problem. The differences between them give me clues about where to look next.

And this is where trying another marketing tactic too soon can cost you time. You can end up working harder on an area that was already doing its job.

Find where your visibility needs attention

September marks 2 years since I started publishing Your Visibility Edge.

As I thought about what I wanted to create for the anniversary, I kept coming back to the work I’ve been doing with clients for years. I wanted to give you a simple way to look at your own visibility before adding another marketing task to your list.

So I created the Visibility Momentum Map.2

It’s a free assessment based on these 5 areas, and it takes about 1 to 2 minutes to complete. After you answer the questions, you’ll see a short result showing the area that may deserve your attention first, along with an area that appears to be working well.

You can stop there. If you want more details, enter your name and email and I’ll send you more context about your focus area and one action you can take.

If you want further follow-up related to your focus area, you can choose that option too.

You don’t have to fix 5 things at once. Finding the area that deserves attention first gives you a more useful place to begin.

Use AI to examine your Visibility Momentum Map result

Once you know your focus area, you can use AI to look more closely at what may be happening in your business.

Try this prompt:

My priority area from the Visibility Momentum Map is [FOCUS AREA].

Help me examine this area using three sources of information:

1. What I think is happening
2. What my current marketing and content show
3. The experience, knowledge, and client work I may not be making visible

Start by asking me questions one at a time.

Ask follow-up questions when my answer is vague or when you notice a gap between what I say and what someone looking at my marketing might see.

Wait until you have enough information before giving me recommendations.

Then tell me:

- what you notice
- where visibility momentum may be slowing
- what evidence from my answers led you to that conclusion
- one change I can make this week

Keep the action small enough to finish in about 30 minutes.

I recommend using the prompt after taking the assessment, rather than asking AI to decide which of the 5 areas applies to you. Your expertise and beliefs about your business give you the starting point. The prompt can help you examine what’s happening inside that focus area.

And before you add another marketing task this week, take a look at the work you’re already doing.

Got questions or comments? Leave a comment and I’ll get right back to you.

Leave a comment

Your Visibility Edge turns two this month, which gave me a good reason to review what happened across 212 posts.

I looked at what people read, what they responded to, which posts were followed by new subscriptions, and where people unsubscribed. I wanted to see whether the numbers supported my own sense of what was working.

They didn’t always.

Some articles with strong views and engagement produced little subscriber growth. Other posts with smaller numbers brought in more subscribers. And a couple of articles that looked unimpressive by subscriber growth alone went on to become paid products.

That gave me a much better way to think about content performance.

If you publish content to support your business, the same kind of review can help you decide which ideas deserve another article, a new format, or something you can sell.1

Here’s what I tried: Which newsletter metrics did I review?

Over the past two years, I’ve published tutorials, visibility strategy, AI experiments, interviews, personal stories, search updates, content marketing advice, resources, offers, and announcements.

Some posts came from work I was doing in my own business. Others answered a marketing question or shared an experiment or lesson I was still working through.

I tested headlines, calls to action, free and paid content, interviews, and different ways of presenting an idea. Then I reviewed 212 posts and compared:

• views

• engagement

• signups

• unsubscribes

• net subscriber growth

Across the two years, those posts generated 336 one-day signups and 153 one-day unsubscribes, for net growth of 183 subscribers. The totals gave me context, and the individual posts gave me more to work with.

Here’s what happened: Do high views and engagement lead to more newsletter subscribers?

A recent article, Should You Focus on Your Website, Social Media, or Email Newsletter?, had 518 views, 26 reactions, 15 comments, and a 12.1% engagement rate. Within the one-day reporting window, it added two subscribers and lost three.

Another article, The Next Question Matters, had a 7% engagement rate. It added five subscribers and lost none.

I saw the same kind of variation in views.

Maximize Visibility with LinkedIn + Substack had 2,382 views and a 21.1% engagement rate. It produced one signup within the reporting window.

How to Help ChatGPT Cite Your Content had 558 views, 18 reactions, six comments, and a 14.1% engagement rate. It produced no one-day signups.

Each metric answers a different question.

Views tell me whether people found or opened the post. Reactions and comments show that readers responded to it. Subscriber behavior gives me another clue about whether people wanted to keep hearing from me.

If you review your own content, look at several types of response before deciding which topics deserve more of your time.

Can newsletter content drive revenue without growing subscribers?

Those two high-view articles taught me something else about measuring content.

If I judged Maximize Visibility with LinkedIn + Substack only by its one signup, I would miss what happened next. The ideas in that article became The Visibility Loop, my mini-course built around a 10-step content plan.

The same thing happened with How to Help ChatGPT Cite Your Content. That topic developed into Get Cited by AI, a workshop and related AI Skills that help people apply the ideas.

Both articles gave me ideas I could develop into paid offers.

That expands the way I think about the return on a newsletter article. A post can lead to subscribers, and it can lead to a workshop, course, Skill, service, resource, or another offer.

This applies to your content, too.

Look at what happened after you published. Did readers ask follow-up questions? Did one part of the article get more response than the rest? Could the process become a workshop, assessment, resource, service, or AI tool?

Sometimes a piece of content is the first version of something people may eventually pay you for.

What kind of newsletter content made readers want to subscribe?

Several of my stronger recent growth posts showed work in progress and the decisions I was making along the way.

My AI Builder Crushes on Substack added five subscribers and lost none. I Started Building a Simple AI Tool as an Experiment added three and lost none.

In those posts, you could see what I was testing and how I was making decisions. I shared why I chose an option, where I changed direction, what I questioned, and what I learned after trying something.

AI can give you a list of ideas in seconds. It can explain a process or summarize a topic. My experience shows up in the choices I make with that information.

After 30 years of working online, I’ve seen plenty of marketing ideas that sounded good and produced little. I’ve seen simple ideas work for years, and I’ve changed my mind when the evidence gave me a reason.

That decision-making is something I can share with you. If you create content from your own expertise, you can do the same.

Show why you chose an approach and what you ruled out. Share what happened after you tried it and how your experience affected the recommendation you made.

Your reader gets to see how you think through a problem they may be trying to solve themselves.

Why do clear, specific newsletter topics get attention?

Another pattern showed up in the way topics were presented.

Some stronger posts addressed a recognizable question, decision, or problem:

• How to Create Content That Attracts Clients

• Google Search Is Giving AI More Control

• I Started Building a Simple AI Tool as an Experiment

You know the subject before opening the article. Some weaker posts started with broader ideas, and the reason to read was harder to see from the title.

Your reader makes a decision before reaching the first paragraph. They want to know whether the subject connects to something they are dealing with and whether spending a few minutes reading will help them.

Try this with your next headline. Ask whether someone can identify the problem, decision, or result the article addresses before clicking.

How should promotional emails fit into your newsletter?

Offers, announcements, celebrations, and workshop promotions tended to see more unsubscribes than my regular editorial content. I expected that, since promotions ask readers to make a decision.

I run a business, and I’ll keep telling you about services, workshops, and resources I think can help. The data made me pay closer attention to the job of each email.

A teaching email can teach. A conversation email can invite a response. An offer can make the case for an offer.

Trying to fit too much into one message makes the purpose harder to follow. Before you write, decide what you want that email to do.

Here’s what I noticed about content that grows a newsletter

The patterns across 212 posts gave me a clearer way to judge my content. Useful information can bring people in, a clear point of view can give them a reason to return, and a concrete question can make it easier for someone to decide whether an article is relevant.

Showing how you make decisions gives readers access to your experience. An article can earn its place in your business through subscriber growth, conversations, services, products, or ideas worth developing further.

That’s what I want to pay closer attention to in year three.

I have the data from my side, and I’d like your perspective too. Your answer will help me decide which kinds of articles to create more often in year three.

What makes an article most useful to you?

• Seeing what someone tried, what happened, and what they learned

• Getting a clear answer to a specific marketing question

• Having steps I can follow and put into practice

• Seeing examples that help me make a decision

What this means for you: How can you review your own content performance?

You can learn from your content long before you reach 212 posts. Start with your last 10 pieces and look at them together.

Ask yourself:

• Which topics brought people closer to my business?

• Where did my experience and judgment show up clearly?

• Which pieces addressed a problem or decision my readers already have?

• Which idea deserves a follow-up or could become something I sell?

Use whatever evidence your business gives you: newsletter subscriptions, replies, website visits, calls booked, downloads, comments, sales, and referrals.

Then compare what you find across those 10 pieces. Look for topics people responded to, questions that keep coming up, and ideas that led somewhere beyond the original post.

A high-view article may lead to a useful offer. A smaller post may bring in more subscribers. An article with modest subscriber growth may contain the idea for your next workshop or service.

Pay attention to what happens after you publish. That information can help you decide what deserves another article, a new format, or a paid offer.

What will you get from Your Visibility Edge in year three?

The purpose of Your Visibility Edge stays the same: help you get found, show your expertise, build trust, and turn visibility into business without burning out.

The way I share that work is changing. You’ll see more of the experiments I’m running, including what worked, what I changed, and what I learned.

You’ll see more of the decisions behind my recommendations so you can compare them with choices in your own business. I’ll share examples from work I’m doing now, including the AI tools I’m building and the questions I’m asking as I build them.

And I’ll keep coming back to one question that has guided my work for years:

What’s the next logical step?

I want Your Visibility Edge to help you spend less time collecting marketing ideas and more time making good decisions about what deserves your attention.

If that sounds useful, subscribe to Your Visibility Edge and join me for year three. Paid subscribers now have more ways to get direct help from me, with new perks for when you want support applying an idea, making a decision, or finishing a project.

Subscribe now

Two years of publishing gave me plenty of numbers to study. I’m going into year three paying closer attention to what readers do, showing more of the thinking behind my work, and using that evidence to decide what I create next.

P.S. Got questions, comments, feedback? Post them in the comment thread!

Leave a comment

Have you ever had an idea for an assessment, calculator, decision tool, or app and thought, “I wouldn’t know how to build that”?

You may know exactly what the tool should help someone do. The technical part is where the idea stops.

That’s where I was when I started working on the Visibility Momentum Map (now available!).

I’ve spent 30 years working online, but I don’t code or build software. What I did have was an idea based on something I know well: helping solo business owners figure out where their visibility needs attention.

Could I take my expertise from years of working with solo business owners and turn it into a simple AI tool people could use?

That question got me started.1

What I can share now is the thinking behind the build. That may be useful if you’ve wondered whether something from your own experience could become a tool people can use.

What expertise could you turn into an AI tool?

You probably have ways of working that feel ordinary to you after using them for years.

Maybe you ask every new client the same 5 questions. Maybe you can hear someone describe a problem and quickly spot where they’re stuck. Maybe you have a process for comparing choices or deciding what should happen next.

That kind of knowledge can be a starting point.

The Visibility Momentum Map came from patterns I’ve seen repeatedly with solo business owners.

Someone can do plenty of marketing and still struggle to get inquiries. Their offer may be unclear. Their content may answer questions their audience isn’t asking. Their expertise may be hard to see. They may give people no clear next step. Or they may lose contact after someone shows interest.

Those patterns became 5 areas in the assessment:

• Value Clarity

• Audience Questions

• Expertise Evidence

• Next Step

• Ongoing Connection

The framework existed before the app. That gave AI something specific to work with.

How small should your first AI tool be?

Once you start building with AI, ideas can multiply fast.

A simple assessment can suddenly have accounts, dashboards, saved results, integrations, personalization, extra questions, more data, and all kinds of features you hadn’t considered 10 minutes earlier.

Some of those ideas may make sense later.

The rule that has kept the Visibility Momentum Map manageable is:

One problem. One action. One outcome.

For the Map, the problem is lack of clarity about where visibility may be losing momentum. The action is taking the assessment. The outcome is one priority area and one practical next step.

That’s enough for a first version.

Your idea can be small too.

Maybe someone answers a few questions and receives a recommendation. Maybe they enter information and get a calculation. Maybe the tool helps them decide between 2 options or identify which issue deserves attention first.

A useful question here is:

What does someone need to walk away with for this tool to have done its job?

That answer can save you from building a lot of things before you know whether people want the core idea.

Where does your judgment matter when building with AI?

AI can give you options very quickly. Choosing among them is a different job.

One of my beta testers helped me see this when she questioned whether the Map applied to her. The assessment used the word “client,” and that word made the tool feel narrower than I intended.

In my work, the person you want to reach could be a client, customer, buyer, reader, member, podcast listener, video viewer, or someone taking another step with you.

The assessment language didn’t communicate that. Instead, it revealed my bias for the word “client.”

There were several possible ways to respond. I could add N/A choices, create different paths for different business models, or add more personalization.

I went back to what the Map was meant to measure.

The 5 areas still applied. The scoring still made sense. The wording was creating confusion.

So “Buyer Questions” became “Audience Questions.” “Invitation” became “Next Step.” “Follow-Up” became “Ongoing Connection.” I made the welcome page clearer about who the assessment is for and left the scoring alone.

That’s one place your own experience becomes very useful.

How should you use feedback on an AI tool?

If you put a tool in front of real people, they’ll show you things you missed. And it can be humbling!

They may tell you a button moved too fast, a question was confusing, a result felt wrong, or they expected something different.

Their comments give you clues. Your job is deciding what those clues mean.

The “client” issue taught me that. The beta testers were pointing to a real problem, and changing the language fixed it without changing the underlying method.

Another tester noticed something completely different. After clicking an answer, the next question appeared so fast that she wasn’t sure her answer had registered.

AI and I tried a few possible fixes. One version briefly changed the background color between questions.

When I tested it, my reaction was immediate: it looked like an error.

So we tried a simpler response. The selected answer now stays visible for a moment before the next question appears.

Then came a tiny decision that I never expected to make when I started this project.

How long should that moment last?

450 milliseconds felt too fast.

750 milliseconds felt better.

That choice didn’t require coding knowledge. It required using the tool and paying attention to the experience.

You can do the same with anything you create.

How do you decide what to fix first?

Building something new gives you an endless supply of things you could improve.

Deciding what deserves attention now can save a lot of time.

At one point, the live Map took about 15 seconds to load. That was long enough to make me wonder whether I had a hosting problem.

Then I tested it again.

The second load took about 1 second.

Now I had more information. The longer wait appeared to happen on the first load after the app had been inactive.

I changed the loading message so the person using the Map could see something was happening, then kept testing before taking on a larger technical project.

You’ve probably made similar decisions in your business.

What belongs on the “later” list?

One of the easiest ways for a small AI project to grow is by saying yes to every good idea.

The Visibility Momentum Map has plenty of possibilities for future versions.

Saved results could be useful. So could more personalization and integrations. I’d also like to test some visual ideas.

For now, Version 1 has a much shorter job description.

Can people complete the assessment?

Do the questions make sense?

Does the result feel accurate?

Is the recommended action useful?

Do the emails arrive?

Those answers will tell me whether the core idea deserves further development.

You can use the same thinking with your project.

AI is very good at giving you more things to build. You still choose when the first version has enough.

Should you build your AI tool yourself or get help?

Your answer may be different from mine.

I could have hired someone to build the Visibility Momentum Map. I may bring in someone with deeper technical skills as the project develops.

For this first version, curiosity won.

I wanted firsthand experience with the process. I wanted to see how far I could get, where I would run into problems, and what I would learn by trying to solve them.

That learning has changed how I would approach outsourcing too.

After working through the first version, I know much more about what I would ask someone to build. I know which parts matter to me. I know what needs explanation and where I’d want technical guidance.

The useful choice is the one that fits your interest, skills, time, and project.

What could you build from your expertise?

You may have been doing something for so long that you barely notice the judgment involved anymore.

That knowledge may be useful in another form.

It could become an assessment, decision tool, calculator, planning assistant, Skill, small app, or something you haven’t named yet.

You can start with one small question:

What do you know how to help someone do?

Then see where your curiosity takes you.

And now I’m curious about you.

What’s something you’ve thought about creating from your own experience or expertise?

Tell me in the comments.

Leave a comment

If you already have an idea and you’re ready to work out what it could become, we can do that together in a Clarity & Action session. We can define who it’s for, what it needs to do, what belongs in the first version, and create a practical plan to get started.

Subscribe now

Recommended Reading

These prompts are the companion piece for this article. Read the article first, then apply the next-step prompts.

Once you have a bank of buyer questions, AI can help you examine them more closely.

These prompts are meant to pull out your experience and judgment, so the final content reflects how you make decisions.

Read more

In my article about creating content that helps people decide whether to work with you, I suggested looking through emails, call notes, DMs, feedback forms, and transcripts for the questions people ask before they buy.

That can leave you with a long list.

So now what?

I come back to a question a business mentor drilled into me years ago:

What’s the next logical step?

If you have 20 questions sitting in front of you, start with the one that can help someone decide what to do next.

I call this decision weight: how much answering a question can help someone make a useful decision.

A question has more decision weight when your answer can help someone choose, compare, rule something out, take action, or decide whether an offer fits.

There’s another test I keep coming back to:

One problem. One action. One outcome.

I use this idea when I think about building simple AI tools. It works just as well for content.

One useful piece of content can address one clear problem, help someone take one useful action, and move them closer to one outcome.

That gives you a much better way to decide what deserves your publishing time.

How to choose which buyer questions deserve content first

Frequency matters. It doesn’t get the final vote.

You might hear the same question 20 times and still decide it isn’t worth writing about right now.

Maybe the question attracts people who are unlikely to buy.

Maybe it sits far away from the work you want to be known for.

Maybe the answer leads to more research with no clear action.

Maybe it sends you into a topic you no longer want to spend time on.

Your publishing time is limited. Every topic you choose means another topic waits.

Ask:

Will answering this help the right person make a useful decision?

That gets much closer to the job your content needs to do.

Buyer questions about price, fit, timing, and risk

Questions with strong decision weight aren’t always the easy ones.

They may be about:

• price

• fit

• limitations

• timing

• risk

• what happens after someone buys

• when your offer may be a poor fit

• whether someone can solve the problem without buying anything

Those questions can feel harder to answer in public. They can still be some of your strongest topics.

Someone considering an AI consultant may care far more about “Do I need a custom AI app for this?” than “What is generative AI?”

A traveler planning Japan may care more about “Is paying a travel advisor worth it for this trip?” than “What are the top things to see in Tokyo?”

A reader considering a nonfiction book may want to know, “Will this help me if I already know the basics?”

A business owner considering coaching may be asking, “Do I need private help, or can I get what I need from a group program?”

Each question sits close to a decision.

That gives it more decision weight.

Why buyer questions matter before someone contacts you

A lot of research happens before someone contacts a business.

The 2025 6sense Buyer Experience Report, based on nearly 4,000 B2B buyers, found that buyers completed about two-thirds of the buying process before speaking with sellers. Source: 2025 6sense Buyer Experience Report

The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 75% of decision-makers and C-suite executives said a piece of thought leadership led them to research a product or service they had not been considering. Source: LinkedIn and Edelman

These studies focus on B2B buying, so I wouldn’t apply the percentages to every type of business.

The useful point is that your content may be answering questions long before someone sends an email, fills out a form, buys a book, books a trip, or signs up for a program.

That gives your answers real work to do.

Start with buyer questions closest to a decision

Here’s how I’d look at a few examples.

A nonfiction author

Say you wrote a book for people considering a career change after 50.

Readers keep asking:

“Will this book help me if I’ve already changed careers once?”

That question has high decision weight.

The reader is trying to decide whether your book fits their situation.

A useful article could answer that one question directly.

Problem: The reader isn’t sure the book fits their experience.

Action: Read your explanation and compare it with their situation.

Outcome: Decide whether to buy the book.

That piece has a clear job.

A broad article about building a reading habit may be useful. It sits much farther from the decision to buy this book.

An AI builder consultant

An organization asks:

“Do we need a custom AI app, or can we use tools we already have?”

That question carries a lot of decision weight.

The consultant can explain what they consider before recommending a build: the task, repeatability, available data, how many people use it, and what needs to happen after the AI produces an answer.

A good answer might lead someone to decide they don’t need a custom build.

I think that is worth saying.

A travel advisor

A traveler asks:

“Is it worth using a travel advisor for a 10-day trip to Japan?”

There’s a decision sitting inside that question.

A travel advisor can explain what makes a trip more complex, what planning support includes, where an advisor can save time, and what type of traveler may prefer to plan alone.

The content addresses one problem.

The reader takes one action: compare their trip with the criteria.

The outcome is a decision about whether to ask for help.

A business coach

A business owner asks:

“Would private coaching or a group program fit me better?”

That question gives the coach room to show how they think.

The answer could cover the amount of feedback the person wants, the pace they prefer, how much outside perspective they need, and how independently they work.

The reader leaves with a clearer way to choose.

That carries more decision weight than another broad article about the benefits of coaching.

Use the One Problem. One Action. One Outcome. test

Take one question from your list and run it through this test.

One problem

What is the person trying to figure out?

Keep it narrow.

“Should I use a travel advisor for Japan?” is clear.

“How do I plan better trips?” covers a much larger topic.

One action

What can the person do after reading?

They might:

• compare options

• assess fit

• review criteria

• choose a format

• calculate a cost

• rule something out

• book a conversation

• read a sample

• request more information

If you can’t name the action, the topic may still be too broad.

One outcome

What decision becomes easier?

Maybe they decide to buy the book.

Maybe they decide they need an AI assessment before commissioning a build.

Maybe they choose private coaching.

Maybe they decide to plan the trip themselves.

That last one counts.

Your content has done useful work when it helps the right person make a sound decision, including a decision that doesn’t end in a sale.

A 4-part test for ranking buyer questions

Some questions belong in your content now. Others can wait.

If I were sorting a list, I’d ask 4 things:

1. Does this question come up more than once?

2. Can the answer change a buying decision?

3. Does answering it let me show how I make decisions?

4. Does it connect to work I want more of?

A question that scores high on those 4 points goes near the top.

A question can come up all the time and still rank low if it has little connection to what you sell or where you want your business to go.

That is a judgment call.

A formula can sort the list. Your experience decides what deserves your attention.

Use the buyer’s exact question in your content

When you find a strong question, keep the original language.

If someone asks:

“Do I need a custom AI app for this?”

Keep it.

If a traveler asks:

“Is a travel advisor worth it for Japan?”

Keep it.

If a business owner asks:

“Should I choose private coaching or a group?”

Keep it.

Those words tell you how the person is thinking about the decision.

They can give you a title, an FAQ, an email subject, a video topic, or the opening for an article.

They can help search engines and AI systems connect your content with the language people use when they look for an answer.

Try this AI prompt

Use AI to help sort the questions. Keep the final call for yourself.

I have a list of real questions from people who may buy my book, product, service, program, or expertise.

My audience is:
[describe your audience]

My offer is:
[describe the offer]

Here are the questions:
[paste questions]

Help me find the questions with the highest decision weight.

For each question, assess:

1. What problem is the person trying to solve?
2. What decision may sit behind the question?
3. What single action could my content help them take?
4. What single outcome could that action lead to?
5. Does this question give me room to share my experience and judgment?
6. How closely does it connect to the work or offer I want more people to consider?

Do not assume how often I hear each question. Ask me.

After I answer, rank the top 5 questions.

For each one, explain why it deserves priority and where my own experience or judgment needs to appear.

Do not write the content.

AI can sort and compare.

You make the call.

Choose one buyer question and answer it well

You don’t need a 3-month editorial calendar before you can publish something useful.

Pick one question.

Make sure the problem is clear.

Give the reader one useful action.

Help them reach one clear outcome.

Then ask yourself the question I keep coming back to:

What’s the next logical step?

That answer can lead you to the next piece.

Questions, comments, and feedback are welcome. Post in the comment thread below.

Leave a comment

Melanie and I met around 2005. We stayed in touch over the years and recently reconnected on Substack. That says something about visibility on its own. Staying present online can reconnect you with people you knew years ago and create opportunities you couldn’t have predicted.

Our conversation focused on a question I’ve been thinking about a lot:

What can you build with AI that lets someone use your expertise?

I’ve used AI for research, writing, brainstorming, editing, repurposing and planning. More recently, I’ve been experimenting with simple tools that help people solve a problem, make a decision, or get a small result.

That gives someone a chance to experience your work in a different way.

A small result can create a stronger connection

Think about the last PDF or ebook you downloaded. Did you read the whole thing?

I have plenty sitting in folders I meant to read and never did. An interactive tool asks for participation. Someone answers a few questions, enters information, makes a choice, or follows a short process. Then they get a result based on what they gave the tool.

During my conversation with Melanie, I put it this way:

“When somebody accomplishes something based on something you’ve given them... they can say, ‘Okay, this worked. Maybe I want to work with that person.’”

That’s where I see the visibility opportunity. You’re giving someone a chance to experience how you think before they hire you.

The result can be small. They might identify a gap, make a decision, choose a next step, create a piece of content, assess an offer, or prepare for a coaching session.

A useful result that takes a few minutes can tell someone a lot about your approach.

Start with one problem, one action, one outcome

This was the advice I kept coming back to during the interview:

Start with a problem people already bring to you.

Maybe clients repeatedly ask:

• Which marketing channel should I focus on?

• Is this offer ready to sell?

• What should I work on next?

• Why isn’t my content bringing inquiries?

• What should I fix on my website first?

Pick one question.

Then decide what action the person will take inside the tool and what useful result they should get. Your first version might have 5 questions and give someone one recommendation.

That’s enough for a first test.

AI will happily suggest 14 extra features, 6 reports, a dashboard, charts, email follow-up and several things you never asked for. I’ve learned to say no and keep going back to the result I wanted the person to get.

Use this filter before you build anything

An idea can sound interesting and still be a poor first project.

Before spending time on it, check your idea against these 3 questions:

1. Do I already know this subject well?
   Your first tool should come from experience you already have. You shouldn’t have to research an entirely new area to make it useful.

2. Can someone get a useful result in a few minutes?
   Look for a small decision, assessment, recommendation, or output. The person should be able to see what they gained from using it.

3. Does the result connect to work I already do?
   A tool makes more sense for your business when the next step connects naturally to your services, products, newsletter, course, or other work.

Melanie shared ’s offer analyzer as a good example. Someone can use the analyzer, learn something about their offer, and then recognize where they may need coaching or strategic help.

The tool has a job. It gives the person a useful starting point.

What could this look like in your business?

Sometimes the hardest part is seeing how an idea applies to your own work.

Here are a few examples:

Business coach:
Answer a short series of questions and get a recommendation for the business priority that deserves your attention this month.

Consultant:
Complete a readiness assessment before starting a project and get a list of areas that need attention first.

Copywriter:
Paste in a sales page and get feedback on where the message may be unclear or missing information.

Visibility strategist:
Answer several questions about your current marketing and find the area where your visibility needs attention.

Course creator:
Answer a few questions and find the program or resource that best fits what you need right now.

You could create the same kind of experience around pricing, client intake, content planning, website readiness, offer development, event preparation or another task you already guide clients through.

The useful question is: What small decision or result do people regularly need your help with?

Your judgment stays in charge

This may have been my strongest point in the conversation.

AI can write code, suggest questions, find errors, and propose features. You decide whether those ideas belong in the tool.

When I’m working on something over several days or weeks, I regularly ask AI questions such as:

• What did we originally decide this tool should do?

• What have we added since then?

• Which pieces still matter?

• What remains unfinished?

• Has this become more complicated than it needs to be?

Those questions bring my own judgment back into the process.

Your experience with clients matters here. You already know which questions need to be asked, where people get stuck and what information changes your recommendation.

That knowledge belongs in the tool.

Make it work before you make it pretty

This lesson took me a little longer to learn.

I like things to look good. I can spend way too much time thinking about the name, colors, images, layout and final report.

Get the function working first. Can someone enter information? Does the tool process it correctly? Does the result make sense? Would you give that recommendation to a client?

Once those pieces work, you can spend time on presentation.

My Visibility Momentum Map started very small. Beta testers gave me plenty to think about. Some of their feedback sent me back to parts of the tool I thought were finished.

People use things differently than you expect. Testing shows you where the gaps are and which parts need more work.

Look at work you’ve already created

You probably have several possible tool ideas sitting inside your existing work.

Look through your articles, courses, worksheets, client intake process, presentations and frequently asked questions. Pay attention to the steps you repeat and the decisions you regularly help people make.

My 15-Minute Content Shortcut came from an article. That idea later became part of a larger mini-course.

The same thing can happen with a framework you teach or a process you repeat with clients.

Ask yourself:

There may be a useful tool sitting inside your answer.

Try this prompt to develop your first idea

Once you have a possible idea, take it to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and use this as a starting prompt:

I help [type of client] with [problem].

One step I regularly help them with is [step].

I want to create a very small interactive AI tool that helps them complete this step and get [result].

Suggest the simplest working version I could create.

Keep it focused on one problem, one action and one outcome.

Do not add extra features.

Tell me:

1. What information the user needs to provide

2. What the tool should do with that information

3. What result the user should receive

4. The smallest number of steps needed to make this work

Treat the response as a starting point. Read every suggestion and decide whether it belongs.

You know your clients. AI doesn’t.

A few people I want to acknowledge

A lot of my own experimentation has come from watching what other smart business owners are creating.

was one of the first people who made me look at AI building differently. I saw the sophisticated tools she was creating and asked whether she had made them on a vibe-coding platform. She told me she was working directly with AI and VS Code. I wanted to learn how she was doing it. Ellen and I have since taught 2 hands-on AI app creation programs together.

created Carousel Bot. I volunteered to beta test it after meeting Karen on Substack, and I now use it regularly. Every time I use her tool, I think of Karen. That is a pretty good example of visibility through something useful.

created a process using a Claude Skill and Gemini Gem to create sketchnotes. I can take an article through her process and get a visual I can use with my content within minutes.

Lori Young, a member of Melanie’s Rising Tide Collective, created an offer analyzer. Melanie shared Lori’s example during our conversation. Someone can use the tool, learn something about their offer, and see where they may need more support.

I mentioned the creator behind , too. Her weekly Tuesday visual prompts have become something I look for. I’ve used them, shared the results, and eventually became a paid subscriber.

Each of these examples shows what happens when people can do something with your ideas. They remember where the experience came from.

What you can do next

Set aside 20 minutes and start with one question your clients ask you repeatedly.

Then:

1. Decide what small result would be useful to them.

2. Choose one action they could take to get that result.

3. Run the idea through the 3-question filter above.

4. Use the starter prompt to sketch the smallest working version.

5. Remove anything that makes the project larger than it needs to be.

6. Create a rough version and give it to a few people.

7. Pay attention to what they do, where they stop and what they ask.

You don’t have to decide immediately whether your idea will become a free tool, a paid product, part of a program or something you use with clients.

Create enough to learn whether people find it useful.

One more thing we talked about

Near the end of the interview, Melanie asked me about Substack’s AI detector, Pangram. This article covers the controversy and has info for opting out if you live in the EU or a state that has digital privacy laws.

I had opinions.

My view is pretty simple. I care whether something I read gives me something useful. I use AI in my own work for research, brainstorming, editing, citations, visuals and plenty of other tasks. Here’s my AI Policy.

An AI detector doesn’t change how I decide whether someone’s work is worth reading. I live in California and will be sending an opt-out request to Substack.

You decide how AI fits into your work. Your judgment, experience, and choices shape what comes out of it.

The same applies when you start creating tools. Pick one useful problem, give someone one useful result, and pay attention to what you learn.

Want to see a simple AI build in practice?

My free 15-Minute Content Shortcut grew out of an article I wrote about getting more visibility from the content you’ve already created.

It gives you a simple way to take one piece of long-form content and find more ways to use it, without starting from scratch every time.

It’s a good example of the idea Melanie and I talked about: take something you already know, pull out one useful piece and give people a way to put it into action.

Try the 15-Minute Content Shortcut here

What part of your expertise could become a small tool someone can use?

Leave a comment

That decision may start with recognizing a problem. It may involve comparing options, deciding whether they trust your advice, or working out whether your approach fits what they need.

The prompts below help you apply that idea to your own content.

They are meant to help you think. They will work best when you answer with examples from your client work, your opinions, and the lessons you have learned over time.

Take them one at a time. You do not need to complete all of them in one sitting.

Read more

Several years ago, a woman contacted me about working together in a 6-month VIP consulting program. The program included flying to Los Angeles so we could spend a full day working side by side.

She told me she had been reading my blog for 10 years.

During that decade, she never commented on a post, replied to an email, or contacted me with a question. I had no idea she was there.

Then she reached a point where she needed the kind of help I offered. She knew how I thought, what I valued, and how I worked. She was ready to hire me.

I think about her when people ask whether content brings in clients. Your readers may be paying closer attention than you know.

They could be reading your articles, following your posts, or staying on your email list for years. You might not hear from them until their need and your offer line up.

Your content helps them form an opinion during that time. It gives them information they can use to decide whether you understand their situation and whether they trust you to help.

The decisions prospective clients make before hiring

Once you choose where you want to publish, the next question is usually, “What should I say?”

Start with the decision your reader needs to make. That gives each piece of content a clear purpose.

Your reader may be trying to decide:

• Do I have a problem that needs attention?

• Is this the right time to deal with it?

• Which option makes sense for me?

• Can I trust this person’s advice?

• Would I want this person’s help?

A useful article answers one of those questions. It reduces the number of decisions your future client has to make alone.

This is especially useful when you have years of experience, yet your content still feels broad. You know your subject, but a prospective client may not see how your knowledge applies to their situation.

You may be publishing regularly with few inquiries. You may have several services and feel unsure which one your content should support.

Your content can help close that gap. It can show the reader how you think and what you would recommend.

Ask what the next logical step is

A business mentor drummed one question into me years ago:

I still forget to ask it sometimes. When I remember, it brings me back to what the reader needs.

The next step can be anything that makes sense at that point. It might be another article, a checklist, an invitation to reply, a short assessment, or a conversation with you.

The point is to offer a step that fits the reader’s current decision. Someone who has just discovered you may need more information, and someone who has followed your work for months may be ready to talk.

Ask this question every time you create something:

“After reading this, what is the next logical step for this person?”

Then make that step clear.

Start with the decision your client needs to make

Content ideas are easy to find. Client decisions take more thought.

A topic such as “5 ways to improve your marketing” may give the reader useful information. It may leave them wondering what applies to their business.

A decision-focused article gets closer to the questions they are asking. For example:

• Should I focus on my website, social media, or newsletter?

• Should I create more content or make better use of what I have?

• Which parts of my marketing should AI help me with?

• What should I fix first?

• Can I handle this myself?

• When does it make sense to ask for help?

These questions give you room to share your experience. You can explain what you would consider, what you would recommend, and where you have seen people waste time.

That is where readers begin to see your judgment. They get a clearer sense of what it would be like to work with you.

Create content for moments of client uncertainty

People often look for content when they feel unsure. They know something needs attention, yet they do not know what to do next.

Your content can help at 4 common moments.

Do I have this problem?

Your reader may sense that something is off without having the words to describe it. You can help them recognize what is happening.

An article such as “3 Signs Your Marketing Has Become Harder Than It Needs to Be” gives the reader a way to review their situation. It can help them decide whether the issue deserves attention.

Is this the right solution?

Your reader may be comparing several ways to solve the same problem. They want help making a sound choice.

Share the factors you look at before recommending an option. Explain who each approach fits, where problems tend to appear, and what you would choose under different conditions.

For example, I would not tell every business owner to focus on the same visibility channel. I would look at how they prefer to communicate, where their prospective clients spend time, and which channel they are willing to maintain.

That reasoning matters. It gives the reader more than a list of tactics.

Can I trust this person?

Trust grows when readers see how you think over time. They learn what you pay attention to and how you make recommendations.

This is where your stories, client examples, and lessons from experience matter. They give the reader evidence that your advice comes from real work.

You might explain why you recommend starting with an email newsletter before adding another social platform. You could share what you have learned from helping business owners use AI without losing their voice.

Those details show your experience in use. They help the reader decide whether your approach fits.

Are they the right fit for me?

Your content gives people a sense of what working with you may feel like. Your tone, opinions, and choices all give them useful information.

The right reader may recognize that you respect their experience and will not hand them another long list of things to do. They may see that you care about making a sound decision and finishing the work.

Some readers will decide your approach fits them. Others may realize they need a different type of support, which saves both of you time.

Show your judgment through your content

Information is easy to find. A prospective client needs to see what you do with that information.

You have spent years seeing patterns, testing ideas, working with clients, and learning what tends to go wrong. Share that part of your experience.

You can write about:

• What you would do first

• What you would postpone

• What you would stop doing

• Why you recommend one option over another

• What changed your mind

• What a client taught you

• What you have seen fail more than once

For example, you could write another general article about using AI to create content. Or you could explain which parts of content creation you are comfortable giving to AI and which parts still require your personal judgment.

The second topic shows the reader how you make decisions. It gives them a reason to remember your advice.

You could list several ways to become more visible online. A stronger article would explain how you decide which visibility task deserves attention first when a client has limited time.

That is the work clients hire you to do. Your content can let them see part of that work before they contact you.

Use the questions clients ask before hiring you

You do not need to invent every content idea from scratch. Your clients and prospects have already given you plenty of material.

Look through old emails, consultation notes, direct messages, feedback forms, and call transcripts. Pay attention to the questions people ask before they decide to work with you.

You may find questions such as:

• How long will this take?

• What should I have ready?

• Will this work with what I already have?

• Do I need to learn another tool?

• How much support will I get?

• How will I know what to work on first?

• What happens after our work together ends?

Each question can become a useful piece of content. Your answer helps a future client make the same decision.

Do not stop at the surface question. Ask what decision sits behind it.

A person asking, “How long will this take?” may be deciding whether they can fit the work into an already full schedule. Someone asking, “Do I need another tool?” may be worried that your solution will add more work.

The question gives you the topic. The decision behind it gives the article its purpose.

Give every piece of content a clear next step

The next step does not need to be large. It needs to make sense.

An article that helps someone choose a marketing channel could lead to a worksheet that helps them define the job of that channel. A newsletter about unclear messaging could invite the reader to reply with the sentence they use to describe their work.

A social post may lead to a longer article. A detailed guide may lead to a consultation or a paid service.

Your offer can be the next logical step when the reader has enough information to consider it. Say what the offer helps them do and who it fits.

For my work, Clarity & Action fits the reader who has plenty of ideas but needs to decide what deserves attention now. We spend 90 minutes choosing the priorities, setting the plan, and identifying the work that can wait.

The following 30 days include email support to help the client put that plan into practice. It is a fit for someone who wants a clear direction and personal input on what to do first.

Use this 5-question content review

Before you plan another month of content, choose one article, newsletter, or social post you already intended to publish.

Review it using these 5 questions:

1. What decision is my reader trying to make?

2. What uncertainty does this piece address?

3. What experience or judgment am I sharing?

4. What will the reader know after reading this?

5. What is the next logical step?

This is the action I recommend taking first. One piece is enough to show you where your content is clear and where it still needs work.

You may find that the topic is useful but disconnected from your service. You may notice that the next step asks too much from someone who has only just found you.

Make the adjustment before you publish. Then watch what changes in the questions, replies, and inquiries you receive.

AI prompt to review content before you publish

Use this prompt to review the piece you selected:

I help [describe your audience] with [describe your service].

Below is a draft of a piece of content I plan to publish.

Review it from the perspective of a prospective client who is deciding whether to hire me.

Identify:

1. The main decision this content helps the reader make
2. Any moments of uncertainty it addresses
3. Where my experience or judgment is visible
4. Sections that sound broad or could have been written by anyone
5. Questions the reader may still have after reading
6. The next logical step the content currently offers
7. Whether that next step fits the reader’s likely level of readiness

Then ask me 5 questions that will help me make the content more specific to my experience.

Do not rewrite the draft until I answer the questions.

AI can point out gaps, but it cannot supply your lived experience. The useful part comes from the examples, decisions, and opinions you add.

Give your content time to work

That woman who read my blog for 10 years reminds me that we do not always see the effect of our content right away. People read, think, compare, and return when the timing fits.

Your job is to keep giving them useful reasons to return. Help them understand their situation, see how you think, and take the next logical step.

Some readers may act this week, and some may contact you years from now. You may never know who is paying attention until they raise their hand.

Advanced prompts for paid subscribers

Paid subscribers can continue with the advanced implementation prompts here:

Get Your Implementation Prompts

The companion post includes prompts for uncovering the concerns clients may never say out loud, turning consultation questions into articles, adding your judgment to a draft, and creating a 30-day content plan tied to your services.

The free article gives you the method and a place to discuss it in the comments. The paid companion gives you the tools to apply the method across your content.

Check this out…

How to Keep Your Marketing Moving Without Adding More Work

Read this article first. The 5 prompts below are based on the article and will help you apply the concept and help you move a reader from interest to inquiry.

You may already have plenty of content.

The first step is to study whether your content helps someone move from interest to inquiry. The following prompts will help you review what is happening now and decide what deserves your attention next.

Read more

A client recently asked me which channel deserved more of her attention: her website, social media, or an email newsletter.

She had all three. She posted on a social platform, published articles on her site, and sent an email when she had something to announce.

Each channel existed, and none had a clear job.

That is where experienced business owners can get stuck. They try to choose the best platform without asking what a prospective client needs to learn, believe, or decide before hiring them.

Your choice should come from your client’s decision process.

A website, social media, and an email newsletter support different parts of that process:

• Social media lets people observe your judgment.

• Your website lets them verify your expertise.

• Your newsletter lets them spend enough time with your thinking to decide whether they trust you.

Your social channel might be LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, or another place where your prospective clients already spend time.

You may use all three channels, and one should take the lead based on where prospective clients lose momentum.

Find Where Prospective Clients Lose Momentum

Think about the inquiries you received during the past year.

Where did those people come from? What did they read? How long had they known you? What happened before they contacted you?

Then look at the people who showed interest and disappeared.

Their behavior tells you more than a list of platform features ever could.

Maybe people discover you on social media, visit your profile, and never take another step. Your website may lack a clear page that explains how you think and how someone can work with you.

Maybe people find your website through search and read an article. They leave without subscribing or contacting you. Your site may answer the immediate question without giving them a reason to continue the relationship.

Maybe people subscribe to your newsletter and read for months. They rarely reply, click, or ask about your services. Your emails may be useful, yet they leave your paid work out of the conversation.

Choose the channel that can repair the weakest part of your client decision process.

Use Social Media to Show Your Judgment

A social platform is useful when your prospective clients need to become familiar with you.

They can see the topics you return to, the opinions you hold, and the advice you give. Depending on the platform, they may read your comments, watch your videos, listen to your podcast, join a discussion, or see how you respond to other people’s ideas.

This gives them a public view of your judgment.

For an experienced consultant, coach, or service provider, judgment carries more weight than a long list of tips. Clients want to know how you assess a situation. They want to see what you notice, what you question, and what you would tell someone to do next.

A useful social post, video, or discussion shows one decision.

You might share:

• A recommendation you gave a client and why

• A marketing tactic you chose to skip

• A pattern you noticed across several client projects

• A choice that saved time or prevented wasted work

• A commonly repeated recommendation that lacks context

The content should give the reader enough information to judge your thinking. It should lead somewhere too.

That next step could be a related article, a short assessment, an email series, or a service page. Without that next step, social media can create recognition without creating a client path.

Research from LinkedIn gives us one example of how public thought leadership can influence buying decisions.

The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 91% of behind-the-scenes buyers become more receptive to sales and marketing outreach after reading strong thought leadership. And 79% are more likely to speak up for that company during an internal buying discussion.

A social post may influence someone who never likes, comments, or contacts you. Your ideas still need to give that person a clear reason to remember you and somewhere to learn more.

Use Your Website to Prove Your Expertise

Once someone becomes interested in you, they often look for proof.

They visit your website to answer practical questions:

• Does this person work with people in my situation?

• Have they handled this type of problem before?

• Can I understand their process?

• What do they sell?

• What might happen after I contact them?

Your website needs to support that review.

A polished homepage alone cannot do the whole job. A prospective client needs pages that show how you think and what your work looks like in practice.

This may include:

• Articles that answer questions clients ask before hiring you

• Case examples that explain the decisions behind the result

• Service pages built around client situations

• A clear description of your process

• Proof tied to the type of work you want to sell

• A next step that fits the reader’s level of interest

The 2025 6sense Buyer Experience Report found that 94% of B2B buying groups rank their preferred vendors before contacting a seller. They buy from the early favorite in nearly 80% of cases.

Your prospective client may review your website long before you know they exist. They may be comparing your articles, services, examples, and point of view with several other people.

Your website needs to give them enough information to decide you belong near the top of their list.

I would focus on the website when people know your name, yet your inquiries are vague, inconsistent, or poorly matched. That often points to missing information during the research stage.

Your Email Newsletter Helps Prospective Clients Assess the Fit

Some services require more trust than one website visit can create.

The client may be considering a long engagement, sharing private business information, changing a process they have used for years, or paying for advice they cannot fully evaluate in advance.

A newsletter gives that person repeated contact with your judgment.

Over time, the reader learns:

• Which problems you take seriously

• How you make recommendations

• How you treat clients

• Whether your advice fits their working style

• What you believe produces a good result

• What kind of work you are available to do

This creates a record of your thinking.

Litmus reports an average return of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing in its report, Email Marketing ROI: What Leads to Better Returns?

That number does not mean sending more emails will bring more clients. The content needs to help readers connect what you know with the work they can hire you to do.

A reader can enjoy your newsletter for months without realizing you sell a service that addresses the problem you write about. Your offers need to appear often enough that the connection becomes clear.

You can mention a client question, explain part of your process, share what you are seeing in your work, or invite readers to get help with the decision covered in the article.

I would focus on the newsletter when people need time before hiring you, referrals matter to your business, or your best clients tend to follow your work for several months before getting in touch.

Give Your Website, Social Media, and Newsletter Different Jobs

You can keep this simple.

Choose one job for each channel you plan to maintain.

Social media: Show how I think about a current client problem.

Website: Give a prospective client the proof and details needed to consider hiring me.

Newsletter: Continue the conversation and connect my ideas to my paid work.

Then choose a lead channel for the next 30 days.

Your lead channel gets your strongest thinking, your clearest invitation, and most of your attention. The other channels support it.

For example, you might publish the full article on your website, share one decision from it on your primary social platform, and send the article to your newsletter subscribers with a short story and an invitation to reply.

Or your newsletter may contain the full article. Your social platform introduces the central idea, and your website holds the service page, case examples, and related resources.

My own newsletter data has shown why these roles matter. Posts with a clear stance and a practical plan brought stronger subscriber growth. Content about LinkedIn and Substack drew broad attention and high engagement, yet produced weak conversion when the next step lacked a clear connection to the topic.

Attention needs direction.

Connect Each Piece of Content to a Client Decision

A good piece of content should change something for the reader.

It may help them:

• Name the problem

• See why the problem persists

• Compare possible choices

• Rule out a poor fit

• Decide what to do next

• Decide who they trust to help

Before you publish, ask:

What decision can the reader make after reading this?

Then ask:

What decision comes after that?

Your call to action should match the second answer.

An article that helps someone diagnose a website problem might lead to a website review service.

A social post about choosing a content channel might lead to a detailed article or a planning session.

A newsletter about inconsistent inquiries might lead to a reply, an assessment, or a consultation.

The connection should feel natural. The paid offer continues the work started by the content.

How to Choose Your Primary Content Channel

Focus on the channel closest to the gap in your client’s decision process.

Choose a social platform when qualified people need to discover your thinking and become familiar with your name.

Choose your website when interested people need stronger proof, clearer information, and a better view of how you work.

Choose an email newsletter when your service requires trust, repeated contact, and time.

Since my Substack newsletter is my primary channel, I use it to publish my strongest ideas and stay in regular contact with readers.

Social media can introduce an idea. My website can answer questions and document my work. The newsletter gives me the space to develop an idea, show my judgment, and connect it to a way someone can work with me.

Useful content may earn attention and trust. It still needs to help the reader see when personal support would make sense.

Turn the Channel Decision Into a 30-Day Plan

Choosing a lead channel is one decision. The harder work comes next.

• What should you publish there?

• Which client decision should the content support?

• How will each article, post, email, or video connect with your paid work?

• What can you maintain for the next 30 days?

These are the types of questions I work through with clients during Clarity & Action: Your 30-Day Marketing Plan.

We meet for 90 minutes, choose the marketing priorities that fit your business, and create a plan you can carry out. You then receive 30 days of email coaching to help you keep moving and make adjustments as you work.

Your plan may center on social media, your website, your newsletter, or a small combination of channels. The choice comes from your clients, your offer, and the decisions that lead someone to hire you.

Learn more about Clarity & Action

Build Your 30-Day Client Decision Content Plan

The next step is to review your current content before choosing a channel or adding more work to your schedule.

In the paid section, you will use advanced AI prompts to find:

• Where prospective clients lose momentum

• Which channel should lead for the next 90 days

• Which client questions deserve content

• How your free content connects to your paid offer

• What belongs in a workable 30-day plan

You will finish with a decision you can use and a plan based on how your prospective clients decide to hire.

You may already have plenty of content.

The first step is to study whether that content helps someone move from interest to inquiry. The following prompts will help you review what is happening now and decide what deserves your attention next.

And when you want personal help making these decisions, Clarity & Action: Your 30-Day Marketing Plan gives us 90 minutes to sort through your options and create the plan together.

The following 30 days of email coaching give you a place to ask questions, report what is happening, and adjust the plan as you put it into practice.

Get Clarity, Take Action

Got questions, comments, ideas, feedback? Please share in the comments.

Leave a comment

Recommended Reading