Amplify Your Authority

Discover how to save AI credits and still get great results.

AI can now analyze files, organize information, create visuals, help with research, and produce finished work. That can feel a little magical until you discover that all of that processing comes with limits.

If you find yourself using more credits than expected, the answer is not necessarily to buy more.

In this episode, I share how to save AI credits by cleaning up files, consolidating key business information, and creating focused skills that do their jobs without repeatedly sorting through unnecessary files and instructions.

The goal is not to make AI do less. The goal is to help it do the right work, with the right amount of information, so you can conserve credits and still get excellent output.

 

What You’ll Discover In This Episode

• Why adding every file and document can create unnecessary AI processing
• How to decide what AI needs before you upload anything
• The value of keeping foundational business information organized and accessible
• Why specific image edits and cropped screenshots can save time and usage
• How to use everyday chat for thinking and reserve advanced features for work that truly needs them

 

Key Takeaways

• More context is only helpful when it is relevant to the task.
• Focused AI skills can reduce repetitive uploading and give you more consistent results.
• Two well-organized foundational documents can often serve your AI assistants better than many scattered files.
• Specific instructions help AI make targeted revisions instead of redoing work you already like.
• Advanced AI features are valuable; use them intentionally for research, analysis, multi-step work, and finished deliverables.

 

Memorable Quotes

“Efficiency is not asking AI to do less. It’s removing all of the stuff that really adds no value and just makes it work super, super hard.”

“I want you to do workflows, but I want you to do it in a way that’s not going to cost you a lot of credits.”

 

Episode Timeline

00:00 Why AI usage limits can sneak up on you02:07 Choosing an AI platform and noticing unnecessary usage07:28 Creating a business knowledge base and operating system11:17 Decide on the task before choosing the files13:42 Build AI skills through conversation first15:05 Revise selectively and use focused screenshots17:05 Use clear constraints—and avoid overcorrecting19:02 Save advanced AI power for work that truly needs it21:41 Monitor your usage to understand your own workflow22:43 Free guide: 12 Ways to Use AI More Efficiently

 

Free Resource

Before your next larger AI task, take one minute to define the outcome and identify only the files or context that will genuinely help. That simple habit can make your work clearer, faster, and more cost-conscious.

For additional practical ideas, download the free guide, 12 Ways to Use AI More Efficiently:https://learn.marisashadrick.com/AIUsage

 

Your Next Step

Choose one recurring task that feels heavy or takes longer than it should.

Before automating it, define what a strong result looks like, what expertise the work requires, and what information AI needs from you.

If you want practical support using AI to simplify your marketing, join the AI Lab for Solopreneurs.

Read more: https://marisashadrick.com/ai-lab-for-solopreneurs/

 Follow Marisa on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

How to Leave a Podcast Review

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Marisa Shadrick

AI Marketing Strategist and Certified Copywriter

Host of the Amplify Your Authority Podcast

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your Authority Podcast 

Episode #154

Did you know some AI tools can go directly into a folder on your computer, find the information they need, process it, pull it together, analyze it, and then give you—ta-da!—a finished product?

Honestly, watching it can feel magical. But there was one thing I did not anticipate when I started using one particular AI tool: I kept hitting my usage limit.

So I bought more credits. Then it happened again, and I bought more credits. Finally, I realized, “Wow, I’m buying a lot of credits. Enough. I need to figure out what’s going on.”

That is what we are going to talk about today.

If you are burning through your credits, stay tuned. I’m going to share how you can conserve credits and still get amazing output here on the Amplify Your Authority podcast.

Hey there, and welcome back. This is Marisa, your host of the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m so glad you are here.

Over the next 20 to 25 minutes, I want to give you some helpful information so you can use AI more wisely, regardless of which platform is your favorite. Many people have their favorites, and I understand that. But you can conserve credits by using a few simple practices.

Here is what happened to me.

I have been following AI, and of course, I use Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT because I want to understand what each one does well. But the bottom line is that the AI platform you focus on and work with the most is going to understand you and learn from you.

I do not think there is one platform that is automatically better than all the others. Some people think Claude is better, but they have been Claude users from the beginning. Of course, Claude is going to understand them and learn what they want.

I have used more than one platform, but I started with ChatGPT. It has learned how I work, and the output has been incredible. So it is up to you.

Regardless of which platform you use, they all have amazing features that can do many different things. And now, even ChatGPT can use up credits when you begin using more advanced features. So we need to be mindful of how we use these tools.

When I was using Claude, Cowork, and Skills, I was burning through credits. It was fun to watch it work, and it could do some amazing things. But I thought, “I do not want to upgrade my subscription or keep buying more credits. I need to figure out what is going on.”

That is what I did, and I want to share a few simple ideas with you.

I also have a free resource that summarizes not only the tips I am sharing today, but additional ways to use AI more efficiently. I will tell you how to get that before we finish.

To understand what may be going wrong, let’s go back a little bit.

When we first started using AI, the assumption was that more context would provide better results. That was true to a point because we were strangers. AI did not know who we were, and we were not sure what AI was going to do.

It was learning from each individual user. Jane, John, Sally, Mark, and Marisa were all using AI, and it was trying to understand what was unique about each person.

If we did not provide enough context, AI would do the best it could with what it could find online and fill in the blanks. In the beginning, we were asking questions and getting answers. But AI has become much more sophisticated.

When I started using Claude and exploring all the different features, I burned through a lot of credits. I wanted to use workflows, so I began paying closer attention to how AI processes information.

What I realized was that there was a lot of duplication. I was uploading documents repeatedly when it really was not necessary. I needed to understand how AI thinks and how it processes information.

Across the board, regardless of which platform you use, this is a general principle that can help you.

It is similar to website platforms. Most of them work in roughly the same way. Many are drag-and-drop now. Once you learn one tool, you can usually look at another application or platform and figure out how it works because they speak a similar language and operate in a similar way.

AI is similar.

I also realized that, especially now that we are getting into Skills, I needed to clean up my foundational information.

If you do not know what a Skill is, it is simply an assistant you create that is really good at one thing. You use it for that one thing.

For example, I can have a Skill that is good at helping me write content, like an editor. I can have a different Skill that is good at copywriting because that requires a different skill set. I can have another Skill that is good at creating images.

Each Skill has its own nuance because you explain what you want, give it the context it needs, and fine-tune the result you want to see. It is learning, adapting, and helping create the kind of assistant that aligns with your brand and voice.

So I went back to the drawing board.

Because everything has been evolving with new features over the past few years, I decided it was time to clean up everything. I realized that many of my Skills would use similar knowledge for certain tasks, so it made sense to consolidate that information.

I ended up with two important documents that would give AI what it needed to understand me, my business, and my audience.

The first was my Business Knowledge Base. That became the source of truth for my business.

Instead of having audience information in one document, offers in another document, and brand voice in another document, I consolidated everything into my Business Knowledge Base.

The second document was my Business Operating System.

The Business Operating System was a little different. That is where I keep my values, principles, processes, standards, methodology, and the why behind the choices I make. It helps AI understand not only what it needs to know about my business, but also how I want it to think about and approach the work I do.

I needed this cleanup because I had many documents. Think about someone who buys a small starter home and then adds another bedroom here, another room there, and another piece onto the property. Eventually, you have all these additions, and you lose the cohesive outline of the house.

It does not look like one connected home anymore. It looks pieced together.

That is what had happened with my AI documents. I wanted everything consolidated and cleaned up.

It probably took me half a day to gather all the documents, go through them with AI, explain what I wanted to do, and explain how I wanted to use the information now and in the future.

We cleaned up the documents, I reviewed them, we made some revisions, and then I had a final product.

Once that was done, I was able to create new Skills and update many of the Skills I had already created in Claude. I started from scratch.

By that time, ChatGPT had made its Skill feature available on lower plans, so I decided this was the direction I needed to take.

I recommend creating Skills the same way I recommend creating anything with AI: start with a conversation.

Let AI know in a simple chat what you want to do, what the objective is, and the things you may not be clear about. Have a conversation with it.

It may help you realize that what you want is really the job of two or three Skills. Or it may help you see that one Skill can handle variations of the work you want to do.

Talk to AI, and it can give you recommendations.

At the end of the day, I wanted an entire organizational chart with all my AI assistants. I have shared that in another podcast.

But this is where AI usage comes in.

When you begin using Skills and features like scheduled tasks, you will start using credits. You have a certain amount of AI power included with your subscription.

You can use chat throughout the day without many issues. But when you go a step above that and want charts, analysis, PowerPoint presentations, or a more finished product, those advanced tasks can use more credits.

In ChatGPT, that may mean using the Work tab. In other platforms, it may be called something different. Claude has Cowork. The names are different, but the purpose is similar.

When I first started, I realized that the way I had been using Claude was a big mistake. I was having it go into my desktop, open a folder with many other folders, and sort through too much information for a task that could have been simplified.

That is why I was burning through credits and tokens. Every platform measures usage differently, but I was reaching a ceiling and needed more.

So here is the first principle: decide what the task is before choosing the files.

When you are creating a Skill, ask AI, “For this Skill, what files do I need?”

I have my two foundational documents that it can reference. But if it needs anything additional, I want to know exactly what those files should be.

AI can look at the information you give it and help you determine what will work for the Skill and what will not. It can sift through the information and say, “This is helpful. This is not. This can be referenced only when needed.”

That keeps the Skill lean and clean.

It also saves credits because AI only has to process and review the information needed for that specific task.

When we upload many documents without thinking through what is needed, AI has to go through everything over and over again. That is work, and it can use more credits.

Start with the task you need completed. Then ask what files are needed, if any additional files are needed at all.

I am finding that with my Skills and my two foundational documents, I seldom have to upload anything else. I may upload an example or a document with a format I like and say, “I want something similar to this, but with this content instead.”

That gives AI a little extra instruction. But most of the time, it already knows what it needs to do because the standard operating procedure is built into the Skill.

Ask AI what information would help support the assistant you are creating. Once you have that conversation, it can help write the prompt for your Skill.

Both ChatGPT and Claude have Skill creators, but I would not start there.

Start in a regular chat. Go back and forth. Work through the messy part. Upload documents if you need to. Ask questions. Let AI help you sort through it.

Then it can give you a summary of what it is doing and write a prompt you can use in the Skill creator.

That is how you create something lean and focused.

If the Skill needs to reference your foundational information, it can. But it does not need to access everything for a simple task where that shared knowledge is not important.

Your shared knowledge can live in your library. The Skill can reference it when necessary and leave it alone when it is not.

That saves credits, too.

The next thing to remember is to revise selectively.

If you are using images and you want to change something in an image, you may love almost everything about it but notice one small detail that does not look right.

Be specific. Tell AI to leave everything else alone and change only that one thing.

For example, you might say, “Leave the design, lighting, and characters exactly as they are. Change only this one detail.”

When you communicate clearly, AI can target that one change instead of regenerating the entire image.

You do not want it to regenerate the whole image if you already like it. You want to preserve what is working and change only the one thing that needs attention.

Here is another small tip.

If you are sharing an example or troubleshooting something with a screenshot, take a screenshot of only the part AI needs to see.

Sometimes I would take a picture of my whole screen when AI only needed to see one little section. It did not need to review the entire image.

Crop the screenshot to the relevant part and share only that. It makes it easier for AI to focus on what matters and may save credits as well.

At the same time, you do not want to overcorrect and fail to give AI enough information.

A long prompt is not automatically wasteful. You may need to explain something clearly so AI can produce the result you want.

A large file is not automatically a mistake, either, if it is relevant.

That is what matters: is the information relevant to the task?

This is one reason Skills can be so helpful. When you have that conversation and try to determine what the Skill needs, AI can sort through the information and help you decide what belongs there and what does not.

Research, advanced reasoning, and multi-step work are worth the usage when the result requires them. You simply want to make sure AI is not doing extra work you do not need.

If you want research, tell it you need research. Then provide some constraints.

If you need ideas, tell it how many you need. Otherwise, AI may give you more information than you want to read through.

You might say, “I want three credible resources with links,” or “Give me five suggestions.”

Give it parameters. You probably do not need 30 ideas. You may not even need 12. Maybe you need three ideas that you can review, or three resource links you can look at.

Otherwise, AI may search the internet and give you much more than you need. That is more work for AI, more information for you to read, and more usage than may be necessary.

For ideation, do the thinking and the messy work in a regular chat first.

Once you have things dialed in, then you can move on to the advanced tools. In ChatGPT, that could be Work. Claude has Cowork, and other platforms have similar tools with different names.

The goal is not necessarily a smaller prompt. The goal is to have the right amount of information for the job.

Efficiency is not asking AI to do less. It is removing the things that add no value and simply make it work harder.

I used to tell people, “You are not behind. You are not behind.”

But I will tell you honestly, as a friend, now is a good time to look at AI.

If ChatGPT is the one you have been using, I understand why. A lot of people started with ChatGPT and did not want to add another subscription with Claude.

ChatGPT has improved so much in its writing and image creation. Remember when AI struggled with things like six fingers on one hand? It is not like that anymore.

There is a lot you can do now. The workflows and features that were available in other tools are becoming more available across platforms.

These are the kinds of things we are covering inside AI Lab for Solopreneurs.

My goal is not to teach something that requires a higher plan or more credits if solopreneurs do not need that level of power.

Sometimes you hear people talk about everything AI can do, but they may be working for a company that gives them access to a full account with a higher plan. They do not have to worry about credits.

But solopreneurs do.

If you are doing complicated multi-step workflows, it can cost a pretty penny. I want you to use workflows, but I want you to use them in a way that does not cost you a lot of credits.

There are ways to do that.

I have a complete guide with additional ideas to help you conserve credits. It is free.

Even if you do not download the guide right away, one thing you can do is check your usage in your settings.

When you are doing multi-step processes or creating workflows, and you are wondering whether a task is using credits, check your usage before you start.

Then do your work. At the end of the day, check your usage again.

That will help you understand how much usage different tasks require. Over time, you will get a feel for how many credits a certain kind of task may use.

When you start doing scheduled tasks and other advanced work, usage can add up. If you reserve your credits for the higher-level work you really want to do, you can get a lot from one tool.

ChatGPT is about $20 a month, which can be a very good value. You simply want to use those credits wisely.

Inside AI Lab for Solopreneurs, we are learning about all of this, and we will continue to do that.

I am also creating a course that will review ChatGPT from the beginning for people who are new to it, as well as for those who want a refresher.

If you have not gotten on board yet, now is a good time.

What you missed in the past was a lot of feature releases, dashboard changes, and constant adjustments. You missed the ups and downs of trying to keep up with everything as it changed.

Now, I believe these tools are more ready for everyday solopreneurs to use.

If you would like to download the free guide, it is called 12 Ways to Use AI More Efficiently.

Go to:

https://learn.marisashadrick.com/aiusage

That resource will help you use AI more efficiently, create amazing output, and begin setting up workflows.

When you get your foundational information cleaned up and ready, you can start building Skills. And when you have that in place, you will be ready for the next step: workflows.

I hope this has helped you see that you can conserve your credits. There are practical ways to get more from AI while getting more from your day.

Until next time, take care, and I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

AI didn’t invent low-quality slop. It made it faster, cheaper, and easier to produce and distribute.

AI slop may sound like a new problem, but the internet was filled with low-quality content long before OpenAI arrived. We had articles written for search engines, canned social posts, overused templates, recycled trends, clickbait headlines, and comments that added nothing to the conversation.

AI didn’t invent slop. It put it on a production line. Now generic content can be created faster, in greater volume, and with far less effort. But that does not mean everything created with AI deserves the label. AI-assisted content and AI slop are not the same thing.

In this episode, Marisa explains why good people produce forgettable content when they are tired, overwhelmed, and pressured to keep feeding the content machine. She also explores what happens when AI over-polishes your work, scrubs away your quirks, and leaves behind something technically correct but missing the person who created it.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• What AI slop actually is and why using AI does not automatically make content slop
• How AI gave an old content-quality problem a much faster production line
• Why overwhelmed solopreneurs can hand over too much of the creative process
• What gets erased when AI sanitizes your slang, opinions, humor, and odd comparisons
• How to push back and improve an AI-assisted draft

 

Key Takeaways

• Slop existed before AI. What changed is the speed and scale at which it can now be produced.
• The pressure to publish consistently can make visibility feel more important than value.
• Polished is not the same as personal. A technically correct draft can still sound like it belongs to someone else.
• Your quirks are not mistakes. Your stories, observations, slang, humor, and convictions help people recognize you.
• AI works best when it has your thinking to work with. Give it your opinions and examples, then push back when it removes too much of you.

 

Memorable Quotes

“AI did not invent the slop. However, it gave it a faster production line.”“Polished is not the same as personal.”“AI scales what is already there.”

 

Episode Timeline

00:00 How AI can polish away the writing voice you worked hard to develop01:24 LinkedIn’s AI-slop label and the fear it created02:16 What AI slop means and why the term caught on03:39 The low-quality content that existed before generative AI04:13 How AI put slop on a faster production line05:26 Why polished is not the same as personal06:49 The pressure to publish consistently08:59 How AI sanitizes content and removes your fingerprints10:51 Why stories, observations, and quirks create interesting content11:38 Two words for better AI-assisted content: push back15:33 Why AI scales what is already there16:25 The “Do I still hear me?” content check18:13 Using AI to express something personal without creating slop20:47 Ethical AI use and deciding whether a draft deserves your name22:34 Put back what AI scrubbed away23:37 A practical exercise for revising one AI-assisted draft24:27 How the same principle applies to video, audio, and images

 

Practice What You’ve Learned

Choose one AI-assisted draft and read it out loud. Circle or highlight anything you would never naturally say. Then explain your real opinion, observation, example, or story to AI in your own words and ask it to revise the draft without removing your personality.

 

Your Next Step

Choose one recurring task that feels heavy or takes longer than it should.

Before automating it, define what a strong result looks like, what expertise the work requires, and what information AI needs from you.

If you want practical support using AI to simplify your marketing, join the AI Lab for Solopreneurs.

Read more: https://marisashadrick.com/ai-lab-for-solopreneurs/

 Follow Marisa on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

How to Leave a Podcast Review

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Marisa Shadrick

AI Marketing Strategist and Certified Copywriter

Host of the Amplify Your Authority Podcast

 

Podcast Transcript

AI Didn’t Invent Slop. It Put It on a Production Line.

Amplify Your Authority Podcast | Episode 153 | Clean Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the speaker’s original meaning and conversational style.

It can take years to find your writing voice. And if you’re a writer, you know what mentors have said to you. You need to find your voice. What does that even mean? Where did it go that you have to find it? Is it hiding under the sofa? But over time, you do find it. You recognize how you explain things, the phrases you use, the odd comparisons you make, what you believe, and what you refuse to say just because everybody else says it. And that’s not what you say. Then you hand the hard-earned voice to AI and say, can you polish this? And AI can come back with a bucket of hand sanitizer and bleach, scrub every little quirk out of your content, and hand you something that is perfectly polished, but it doesn’t sound like you. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today—what AI slop is, why it happens, and how to use AI without having it eliminate your voice that you worked so hard to develop. Stay tuned.

Welcome everyone to the Amplify Your Authority Podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick, and I am so glad you are here. Today we’re gonna talk about a hot topic that maybe is hot, but it’s actually an old topic that has resurfaced, and that is AI slop. LinkedIn now gives people an option to report a post or a comment with a dropdown that says, seems like AI slop. Well, that got everybody nervous. They’re wondering now, if I use ChatGPT, does it make my content slop? What does slop mean? Could somebody actually tell that I used AI to help me with this post and then report me just because they don’t think it’s me or authentic? There’s all these questions going on. No, AI-assisted content and AI slop are not the same thing. And honestly, the word itself sounds terrible.

Slop. It sounds like something you throw into a trough to feed a bunch of pigs, doesn’t it? Slop. It just sounds terrible. We certainly don’t view our audience as a bunch of pigs in a pigpen. It is an insulting word, and that is partly why it caught on, I suppose. And that’s probably why I’m creating this podcast around it, because I like to give pushback to stuff that I hear online. So let’s talk about what AI slop is. A simple definition, it’s low-quality digital content that’s created with very little human thought.

And we’ve had this for a while. It can be text, images, video, automated comments, articles, heck, even webinars. You’ve been on those, haven’t you? I’ve been on those where you get on and you’re going, do they teach anything? Or was this just a promotion of some sort and regurgitated content that you’ve heard a million times? It’s anything made quickly and dumped online because somebody wants more clicks, more traffic, or simply more content. But AI-assisted work doesn’t automatically create slop, and this is what needs to be clarified. Okay, so let’s take it one step at a time. Slop existed before AI. Let’s be honest, we had plenty of slop before AI. We had boring articles written for search engines.

We had canned social posts. In fact, there were tools that helped people copy other people’s social posts, right, if they were trending. We had overused templates. Remember templates back in the day? Everybody would use templates and literally copy somebody’s template and regurgitate it on their own post or blog or whatever it might be. We had recycled trends on YouTube. We had people copying people’s titles for videos. I mean, constant clickbait headlines and comments. AI did not invent the slop.

However, it gave it a faster production line because now with AI, more of what we used to have can be generated with AI. So what I’m trying to say is we had slop before AI. There’s simply more of it now because AI makes volume cheap and easy. We can produce it much faster. But are people really at fault? I mean, why does AI slop happen? Now, maybe some people are just careless and they don’t care, but I believe in people. And I think most people are not waking up in the morning saying, I think I will pollute the internet today. They are rushed. They are overwhelmed, especially solo business owners.

They are trying to run a business, wear all the hats, keep feeding this content machine. And especially when algorithms keep changing. They’re trying to switch things up. They’re trying to figure out what works, right? They’re trying to manage ad costs. If they’re paying for ads, they’re trying to find the content that’s going to get that click or get people on their email list. And they don’t have a lot of time to do this. And they don’t have the support or the team to do this. There’s always another post, another email, article, video, a caption, a newsletter that supposedly needs to go out.

AI gives you a polished answer in seconds. Oh, we’ve been mesmerized by watching it work on our behalf, and poof, there it is, the answer. And when you’re tired, that polished work can look pretty good. I have to admit myself, you know, sometimes I go, is this good enough? But I have to say, no, no, no, I’m not going to go to the dark side. I’m going to look at this and make sure it is something worthy of being published. So here’s the takeaway for you. Polished is not the same as personal. If you give AI only a topic, it has to fill out everything else.

It has to figure out the premise, the opinion, the examples, the tone, the conclusion, all of it. It doesn’t have your lived experience unless you bring it into the conversation. That is how we end up with content that is technically okay, but could belong to somebody else, right? Because AI is just going through the internet and finding things and pulling it and delivering it to you in seconds. So there’s a lot of pressure. The demand for constant content can cause people to hand over too much of their creative process. Speed starts to matter more than thought. There’s a pressure. Visibility starts to matter more than value.

The pressure continues. And suddenly we are publishing because the calendar says Tuesday, not because we have something meaningful to say. Now I have to admit, there are times that I go dark. I’m not publishing things as consistently. And everybody knows the rule, consistency, consistency. That is the rule. That is what we do. But sometimes if I know I’m going to produce stuff that is—since this is a family-friendly podcast, I will say low quality, but I had another word in mind.

But if I was to produce something that’s low quality, I’m not going to do it. I’m not that important. Nothing is going to break. Nothing is going to fall apart if I don’t post for a week, two weeks, four weeks. Nothing’s going to happen, and things just pick up right when you start posting again. So this pressure is pressure that we allow all of these platforms to put upon us. So don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing people that are consistent. My applause to you if you’re consistent.

Sometimes I just can’t be consistent between client work and other things when it’s just me as a solo business owner. It’s hard, and if you manage to do that, you are my hero. What is your secret? But don’t let this consistency get you sick or make you work until midnight, or create this pressure that you have to produce to the point that it begins to lower the value of the content, or you compromise what you worked so hard to build, and that is your brand. Your brand is so important. So for writers, coaches, consultants, and anyone building authority, there is another cost. Not only are you losing the brand, but you’re losing your voice as an entrepreneur, and your voice matters so much because it’s part of your brand. So don’t let AI sanitize your content.

So what do I mean by this? Okay, we all know what hand sanitizers are. Takes off all the germs, leaves everything squeaky clean. AI is trained to smooth things out, right? It’s trained to do that. It fixes strange sentences. It softens the strong opinions. It removes slang, which drives me crazy because I use a lot of slang when I talk. That’s just the way I am. I was born in New York and raised in LA.

There’s gonna be a lot of slang ’cause I’m a city girl even though I live in Tennessee. Love Tennessee. I wish I had the accent, but I’m a dead giveaway. I’m a city girl. AI may treat your quirks like mistakes and they’re not. Those quirks are what make people recognize you. It can take something that you’ve written and remove all your fingerprints from it. Until it’s so polished that there are no fingerprints left.

Nothing left. No sign of you at all. The content is too squeaky clean. It’s too generic. It may be correct, but the person writing it disappeared. The writing voice includes you. It is the rhythm of your sentences. It’s the words you naturally use.

Or the words you would never use. It’s your humor, your slang, your frustrations, your tenderness, your convictions. The comparisons that make perfect sense to you and make somebody else say, I never thought of it that way. And they probably didn’t because you’re that quirky to think of it that way. But that’s a good thing. We need quirky people. We need people with a different point of view. We need people that express things differently so that we can understand content that we’re trying to understand.

You need to add the stories and the observations you earned by living and working, not by prompting. And I’ve lived a long time. I’m not a spring chicken. So I got lots of stories, observations, experience that I can share. And maybe that will help someone that is a peer, or maybe it’ll help someone that is younger than me so they don’t make the same mistakes. And this is what really creates interesting content. So how do we prevent AI slop when we’re right there inside the tool, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude? two words: push back. Those are two words that I’ve said for a long time inside my AI Lab for Solopreneurs.

Give AI pushback and begin to not argue necessarily, but question. Why did you do that? Why did you take that out? Why did you remove what I put in that paragraph? And sometimes what I do is I let it know that I do not want this to sound like everybody else. I don’t want heavy editing. I want to use this story just the way I’m recording it and you’re receiving it as it transcribes my voice using the microphone. I said, don’t leave those things out. I want you to include them because that’s me explaining something. So I give it pushback and we’ll go through revisions until my voice is back in it. Now, AI will continue to learn, and if you give it good knowledge, it will understand what it needs to do.

But it needs to be reminded because it tries to always be super helpful to the point where it wants to make you invisible. And so you need to give it pushback. The goal is not to make your writing polished. The goal is to improve your communication without removing the communicator. So sometimes we have a whole lot of ideas and we’re recording and it’s a mishmash of stuff. For example, to create this podcast, I used AI to help me create the recording notes and I just went on a rant. I just recorded and I said that the podcast was gonna be about AI slop. I don’t even like the term slop ’cause it reminds me of a bunch of pigs and we’re not writing to pigs.

And I went on a rant. Some of it I could not publish when I go on a rant, but AI is very forgiving. It has a lot of grace with me, and I let it know what I actually think. So I go on a rant, and I let it know my opinions, and then I have it maybe search like where did this come from? And that’s when I realized, you know, it started a while ago, way before LinkedIn did what they did this year, because I knew the term was public a year ago because I think I even published something in a podcast about AI slop. But it just kind of took off, right? So I was explaining this. And I explained my years of writing and going to writing conferences and everybody telling me about discover your voice, develop your writing voice, your writing voice. And everybody coveted the writing voice.

What is a writing voice? How do you find your writing voice? I explained all this to AI, right? I didn’t have it go search AI slop for a podcast, right? And then I said, you know, I don’t like being removed. I feel like somebody bleached my whole conversation, took me out, and left some other person there. And it feels like over-sanitizing or bleaching. I don’t know, maybe that’s not the right way to explain it, but that’s what it feels like. Because, you know, bleach makes things white and sanitizers take all the germs away. Maybe it’s not the best comparison, but it’s my comparison, right? And then I explained to them, you know, I want them to understand that I’m not criticizing them. I understand the pressure. Because there’s always pressure to create more, more, more, more.

Sometimes less is more. And these solopreneurs wear many, many hats. I continued my rant, and this was to prepare the recording notes for this podcast. And I said, don’t sanitize my voice. Keep my quirky humor, if there is humor there. Keep my slang, my odd comparisons, and some of my opinions too. But I never want to be offensive, so I’ll make sure I’m not too over the top. And I say all this to AI as I’m talking about AI slop, and I give it some actual data research that I found, and I have it help me create the recording notes.

So what it does is it helps you express your thinking, all that rant. It helps you express it a little better so it makes sense and you don’t sound like a crazy person on a rant, right? Because if I published what I recorded in AI, you probably would not listen to another episode of Amplify Your Authority. So the more of yourself you put into the process, the less AI has to fill all those empty spaces with generic language. And that’s the difference. AI scales what is already there. So if you give it a blank page, it’s going to fill the page with average blah. Give it your thinking, give it your rant, and it has something to work with, and it’ll help you express it a little better.

So if you want to audit the finished product of something you’re going to publish or record, you can do the do I still hear me check. And one of the things you can do is you can read it out loud. Does it sound like something you would say? Your ear will catch what your eye misses when you’re reading it. Would you actually say this to someone, or would you explain this in this way? Is there a real opinion here, or is it just a collection of research sentences? Did you include an observation or an experience or something that you believe? Could the exact post that you’re about to publish appear under ten other people’s names? Right. That happened to me one time. I had a topic that I wanted to find an angle for it, and it gave me suggestions. And I said, oh, these are great suggestions. Let’s go with this suggestion.

And it helped me with it. And then I read that angle on somebody else’s post. And I went, coincidence, maybe, maybe not. And I realized, hmm, are you telling everybody the same thing, AI? Are you giving everybody the same insights here? So that’s when I realized I needed to scrutinize some of the things it was producing. You always got to fact-check for sure, but you also got to ask it, where’d you get that idea from? Was that published somewhere else? Again, what are the two magic words? Push back. Push back. You don’t have to fear AI because I don’t want you to think like, oh, I don’t want to use it because I don’t want people to think I’m producing AI slop. No, no, no, no.

Don’t let any of this stop you from using AI or be afraid to use AI. Use it for brainstorming, for organizing, for research. Oh, it’s so good for research, for revisions, for putting into words what you’re feeling. And to repurpose things and find gaps in your thinking, like what did you leave out? And to express things. Like I just did a post at the time of this recording. I found out that our beloved Dolly Parton had passed away, and I was—it just threw me. It—I stopped what I was doing when I heard the news, and I had to create a post on LinkedIn, but I was actually heartbroken, and I didn’t know what to say to honor someone who was not only iconic for her music, skill, and talent, but as a human being. And I went on a rant about Dolly Parton, and I shared everything because I live in Tennessee.

One of the first things I wanted to do is go to Dollywood. And I went on a rant, and I said, I’m feeling, I’m feeling actually emotional, which is strange because this is a celebrity, yet I just love Dolly Parton so much, and I want to make sure that this rant that I’m going through right now, that it could somehow be read and make sense. And I had AI help me express what I recorded with ChatGPT, and it was still my voice, it was still what I was sharing, but it helped me articulate what I was trying to articulate from my heart, but I felt sadness and it was hard to do. And AI can help you with that. And that is not slop. It is not slop. So that’s just one example. I don’t usually get emotional when I’m writing posts, but this one was, you know, a situation that I can use in this example here.

Because I couldn’t think clearly for a second. It really kind of knocked me for a loop, you know, because I’ve always loved Dolly Parton, loved her music, loved her as a human, and I just wanted to make sure I didn’t say something weird on LinkedIn. So anyway, the post is there. I think it turned out fine, but you can see an example if you want. Go look at it. I don’t think it sounds like AI slop. I think it sounds like me. But you know, if somebody says it is, well, I’ll just say, you know, all of those thoughts, feelings are mine.

So if AI helped me articulate it and you think that’s AI slop, well, you know, that’s up to you if you want to push that little button on LinkedIn and say this is AI slop. And that’s the thing, we have no control over what people do, but we can control what we do, right? And we can, with best intentions, use AI ethically. So you don’t have to fear AI because average content is becoming easier to produce and recognize. So your content will become more valuable, not less, when you put in your perspective, when you stay true to your brand. AI can help you still create a draft. You decide whether the draft deserves your name or not. So you can work with AI, and what they’re really cracking down on are all those automations and things, the massive amount of content that’s being produced that’s just generic junk and doesn’t really say anything. Most of my listeners, even though I don’t know you personally, if you’re listening to this, I feel like you’ve got values, you have passion for what you’re doing.

You’re going to share from your heart. For many of my followers, it’s not just about the money; it’s about the purpose it fulfills and what they want to do. I’ll just say this: you’re okay. Don’t worry. So, as I close here this podcast episode, slop is not new. It’s been around forever. The internet had low-quality content long before OpenAI.

What changed is the speed and scale of it. And the answer is not to avoid AI or to become afraid of AI. The answer is to value your voice, your brand, your authenticity enough to notice when AI has scrubbed it away and then put it back in, quirks and all. We love your quirks. We love your personality. You share your personality, who you really are. People will love it. I promise they will.

So use AI. Let it make your work easier and stronger, especially when you’re trying to share something from the heart and you don’t know exactly how to articulate it. It can help you with that. I hope this clears up a little bit about AI slop and it puts your mind at ease. And you don’t have to worry about the AI police. I wouldn’t. I don’t. So just take one AI-assisted draft and read it out loud.

Take a look at it. Figure out with that little checklist I gave you, you know, do I share an opinion? Take a look at it and see if this is something you would say. And then you could just maybe print it out and circle or highlight areas that don’t belong there and then explain it to AI. Just say, we’re going to do a redo on this and I don’t want you to remove some of the things that I’m pretty passionate about. And then replace at least one of those sentences with your own observation, opinion, or example, and explain it to AI using the microphone in just your natural voice. Nobody’s hearing you. So you can rant, it’s perfectly okay, nobody’s hearing you. And then see what you can produce and see if you like it better, because I want you to be proud of what you produce.

And that goes along with video, and that goes with audio and text and even images. Even images can have AI slop. And we’re getting to the point where the tools are getting so sophisticated now that we can begin to really customize our images based on our brand. I don’t know if we were able to do that without a lot of cost before, but now it’s possible to do it, especially now that many of these tools have skills. We can create skills that are aligned with our brand as well, so even our images can improve. Because I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of images that all look alike right now, at least on LinkedIn, because that’s where I’m at most of the time. We want to make sure our brand comes through. So with that, I hope you found this podcast episode helpful.

And if you did, please leave a five-star review. I would love it. It would help me get the word out. And of course, as always, until next time, take care, and I’ll talk to you soon.

How Solopreneurs Can Start Using Agentic AI

AI agents can sound like something built for large companies with technical teams, complex automations, and huge budgets.

But agentic AI can be much simpler.

As a solopreneur, you don’t need to automate everything or hand over control of your business to a bot.

You can begin with one recurring task, a clearly defined process, and the right instructions.

In this episode of the Amplify Your Authority podcast, I explain how agentic AI differs from autonomous AI and share a practical way to decide what AI can handle and what still needs your judgment.

 What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• The difference between agentic and autonomous AI
• How to identify work that deserves an agentic workflow
• Why building an AI assistant is similar to hiring a specialist
• How skills, tasks, and schedules work together
• A practical way to begin without creating a complicated automation

 The Simple Framework

An agentic workflow has three elements:

The skill is the how.The task is the what.The schedule is the when.

Together, they give AI the expertise, assignment, and timing it needs to complete multistep work for your review.

 Key Podcast Takeaways

• Not every task needs agentic AI. Focus on recurring work that consumes meaningful time or energy.
• Work backward from the result you want before creating the instructions.
• Give AI the context and standards you would provide to a human specialist.
• Begin with one manageable workflow and evaluate how well it performs.
• Keep your judgment in the process and let AI earn the right to do more.

 Memorable Quotes

“The skill is the how. The task is the what, and the schedule is the when.”

“You review the results instead of managing every single step.”

“The solopreneurs who get the most from AI aren’t the ones who know more about how technology works. They’re the ones who are clear about their own work.”

“Let AI earn the right to do more.”

 Episode Timeline

00:00 Why agentic AI can be simpler than it sounds00:49 Moving beyond questions and answers01:59 Agentic AI versus autonomous AI04:01 Choosing work that merits an agentic workflow04:59 Treating AI like a specialist08:20 How skills, tasks, and schedules work together11:43 A practical content workflow15:33 Creating, testing, and improving an AI skill18:16 Why communication matters more than technical expertise20:31 Starting with one recurring task

 Your Next Step

Choose one recurring task that feels heavy or takes longer than it should.

Before automating it, define what a strong result looks like, what expertise the work requires, and what information AI needs from you.

If you want practical support using AI to simplify your marketing, join the AI Lab for Solopreneurs.

Read more: https://marisashadrick.com/ai-lab-for-solopreneurs/

 Follow Marisa on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

How to Leave a Podcast Review

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Podcast Transcript

How Solopreneurs Can Start Using Agentic AI

Episode #152Amplify Your Authority Podcast

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the original conversation and teaching.

Introduction

AI agents can sound like something designed for large companies with technical teams, complicated automations, and very large budgets.

But agentic AI can be much simpler than that.

In this episode, I’m sharing part of a recent training where I explained how solopreneurs can begin using AI to complete multistep work without removing themselves from the process.

You’ll hear the difference between agentic and autonomous AI, how a skill, a task, and a schedule work together, and how to decide which parts of your business are actually worth delegating to AI.

You don’t need to automate everything. You simply need to identify one recurring task that feels heavy, give AI clear instructions, and review what it produces.

Let’s begin this episode.

Got the solo business blues? Wearing too many hats? Stay tuned for an episode that understands.

AI Is Moving Beyond Questions and Answers

AI agents made simple.

We’re going to discover how solopreneurs can begin using agentic AI to get real work done.

AI is moving beyond questions and answers. When something like ChatGPT first came out, we would ask it a question, get an answer, ask another question, get another answer, and then start working.

Nowadays, it’s a little different.

Now we can set a goal. AI runs a process, takes multiple actions or steps, and delivers finished work. Then we review it.

Agentic AI Versus Autonomous AI

Agentic and autonomous are two words we need to clarify. They’re sometimes used interchangeably, but they’re very different.

Agentic AI can work through multiple steps toward a goal.

You set the destination. In other words, you tell it what you want done. AI handles the driving, but you’re still in the car. AI takes over and completes multiple steps, but we’re still in the loop.

Autonomous AI is different.

Autonomous AI operates with much greater independence. It can make and execute decisions with minimal or sometimes no human involvement.

That’s where we become more hands-off and AI does more for us.

My hesitation with autonomous AI is that everything leading up to it has to be scrutinized and set up clearly and correctly. Otherwise, it could make decisions you don’t want it to make.

We have to be careful when we reach that level of autonomous AI.

But there’s a lot we can do with agentic AI. You may not even want autonomous AI doing everything for you.

Some of what you’re already doing is probably agentic. You may not realize it, but many tools we already use include agentic capabilities.

What Work Deserves Agentic AI?

When you’re thinking about agentic AI, ask yourself: What work merits agentic AI?

Look at everything a solopreneur does. We have blogs, podcasts, websites, lead magnets, newsletters, webinars, YouTube, email, social media, case studies, sales pages, ad creative, and content repurposing.

There are a lot of moving parts, and that may be for only one product. Maybe you sell courses and consulting. Those are two different things.

We have to figure out where we can get the most bang for our buck.

What can I use agentic AI to do that would take a big weight off my shoulders?

Focus on those things.

Some tasks may not be worthy of agentic AI because they don’t take you very long. You may be able to use an AI chat or project instead of creating a multistep agentic workflow.

Think of an AI Agent as a Specialist

Think about an AI agent as if you were hiring someone.

A lot of people use this comparison because it makes it easier to understand how we should communicate with AI.

One thing I realized when I started using AI was how poorly I communicated. I thought I was a good communicator. I was a writer, and I had public-speaking experience.

But when I started using AI, I realized, “Oh, I should have told it that. I left that out. I didn’t give it the context.”

When we treat AI as if we were hiring someone, we’re less likely to omit important information.

Before writing a single instruction for an agentic workflow, work backward from the result.

What do you want it to do?

This is the same thinking you would apply if you were bringing in a contractor or specialist. Some of you are service providers who have done contract work. If you’ve hired a virtual assistant, you would follow a similar process.

Start by asking: What would a great result look like?

You want to communicate what a good output, finished product, sales page, graphic, or funnel would look like.

Then ask: What type of professional would I hire to do this?

Would I need a graphic designer, copywriter, strategist, or business consultant?

Figure out the professional role you need.

Next, determine the process that specialist would follow. What is the standard operating procedure for completing the work?

Finally, ask what the specialist needs to know.

Is there additional context? Do they need a brand kit? Do they need to understand how this task fits into the larger picture of what you’re trying to accomplish?

There’s some thinking that needs to happen first. This helps you set the agentic workflow up for success.

The Skill Is the How

A skill describes how you want the work done. This is where you define the specialist.

A skill isn’t just a prompt. It’s a reusable set of instructions that captures how a specific type of work should be completed.

Everyone has a particular way of doing their work. That’s what you’re trying to capture and share when you create a skill.

You build it once, and then it can work for you repeatedly.

The skill knows how to do the work.

The Task Is the What

The task tells AI what needs to happen.

Imagine you have an expert copywriter sitting on the bench. Then a task arrives.

What is the task?

Is it a sales page, an email sequence, an opt-in page, or social media content?

The task gives the copywriter a specific job.

The skill is the how. The task is the what.

The task should include the specific job, the input, and the expected output.

The Schedule Is the When

Once you have defined how the work should be completed and what needs to happen, a scheduled task tells AI when to do it.

This is when you begin creating the workflows everybody wants.

When you combine the skill, task, and schedule, you can create manageable workflows that help you tremendously without overcomplicating everything.

You’re shifting from having an AI assistant to having AI complete work for you.

Adding a schedule to your skill and task combination means the work can start and often finish without you having to remember to begin it.

We can summarize the entire framework this way:

The skill is the how.

The task is the what.

The schedule is the when.

If you remember that, you’ll be good to go.

Agentic assistants begin doing the work for you. You review the results instead of managing every single step.

A Simple Agentic Content Workflow

An agentic workflow can be this simple.

The trigger might be a schedule. You could say, “Every Monday, I want you to do this,” or, “Every weekday, I want you to do this.”

When the scheduled task is triggered, AI begins.

It will use a skill if you instruct it to. You could say, “Every Monday, I want you to conduct research. Then use my skill to write a blog post, and use my social media skill to create social posts.”

AI can complete those steps and deliver the results.

Let’s look at a practical example that moves from research to ready-to-review content.

Every Monday, instead of starting your content week from scratch, a scheduled agentic workflow could handle the research, drafting, and repurposing. It could deliver everything before you finish your first cup of coffee.

The workflow begins automatically. You don’t need a separate reminder.

Then it starts researching.

I have a workflow that researches YouTube videos. You can be very specific about what you want AI to research.

If you have particular sites you value, include those in your instructions. You may want to stay current with the content those publications produce.

You can also specify how many topics you want it to research. If you leave the request open-ended, it may use more credits or bandwidth than necessary.

You can ask it to find a specific number of relevant topics and provide parameters.

Explain who the audience is, what you do, and how the information should relate to the people you serve.

Then you can tell it to use your newsletter skill.

If you’ve created a skill for your newsletter, it can include your preferred format, voice, tone, style, subheads, and structure.

You can even ask it to select the topic that best aligns with you.

I provide AI with my brand kit and personal assessments, so it understands what I like and what I don’t like.

Sometimes AI will say, “This sounds like Marisa. I bet you’ll like this suggestion.”

Nine times out of ten, it’s correct. It knows me that well.

After completing the research, AI can write the draft and repurpose the content into social media posts.

You can tell it exactly what type of posts you want. Do you want a quote, video script, regular post, or LinkedIn poll?

Then it delivers everything for your review.

My workflow shows me the five topics it researched and identifies the one it selected. I can review its choice and see which four it decided didn’t align as well.

Then I review the draft.

I usually add my own story and make other adjustments, but I’m not starting from scratch or staring at a blank screen.

I also receive social posts and an original quote. Because AI has my brand kit and examples of my previous quotes, it understands how I like to frame them.

All I have to do is review the work.

That’s where the workflow becomes agentic.

Instead of beginning Monday morning by researching everything myself, I’m reviewing what AI prepared.

Four Ways to Create an AI Skill

The instructions still matter.

There are several ways people can prompt AI and begin creating skills.

The first is structured prompting.

You provide a role, state the task, give it context and guidelines, and establish boundaries. That approach still works well, depending on what you’re doing.

The second is natural prompting.

You can click the microphone, have a conversation, explain your goal, and ask AI to ask you follow-up questions.

Opening the microphone and talking through your ideas is one way to begin creating a skill.

The third approach is learning from success.

Perhaps you’re already working in a chat, going back and forth with AI, and together you produce something amazing.

You can say, “I want to be able to do this the same way next time. Can you create a skill based on what we just did?”

That’s another way to create a skill.

The fourth approach is to plan before you build.

You can begin in a regular chat, explain what you’re trying to create, and develop the instructions. Then you can take that information to a skill creator.

You might say, “This is what I have so far. Help me create this skill.”

If you’re using an outside platform that creates applications, you can also use one AI to help you communicate more clearly with another AI.

I use Lovable and have created several apps. I don’t do all the planning inside Lovable because that can use credits quickly.

Instead, I work through the idea in ChatGPT or Claude. I have it help me explain what I want to see in the app in a way the Lovable platform can understand.

Why not have AI write for AI? It makes the process easier because they understand each other.

Test Before You Expand

Before adding another step or creating a larger agentic workflow, test it.

These platforms generally provide a place in the settings where you can review usage.

When I introduce a new skill with multiple steps, I look at the usage before I begin. Then I create the workflow, run a test, and check the usage again.

That gives me an idea of whether I can use the workflow long-term within my current credits or tokens. If I need to purchase more, I can determine what it may cost.

You don’t need to become an AI expert.

If technology leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you really don’t.

Clear Communication Matters More Than Technical Expertise

Think through your work and determine what would genuinely help you.

Begin by communicating it clearly, perhaps even to yourself first.

You could explain it to your husband or wife and ask, “Do you understand what I’m trying to accomplish?”

Then go to AI and say, “This is what I’m trying to accomplish.”

AI can help you. Tell it to ask questions and identify what you may have left out.

The solopreneurs who get the most from AI aren’t necessarily the ones who understand all the technical details and backend features.

They’re the ones who are clear about their work, their destination, and what they’re trying to accomplish.

If you don’t understand how your funnel should work, you can talk with AI and determine what type of expert you need.

You can conduct research and ask AI to model the thinking of a funnel specialist. Then it can help you assess why your funnel isn’t working.

The important questions are:

What needs to get done?

What can AI reasonably handle in an accurate and helpful way?

What still needs you?

Start With One Recurring Task

Use agentic AI to take one task that feels heavy each week.

Master that workflow. Clean it up and set it up using a scheduled task and a skill.

You’ll begin to see what these workflows can accomplish.

Start with one task, not a complicated automation.

You can include a couple of steps, like the example I shared. Refine it until it performs well.

You’ll also see how effectively you communicated with AI.

Choose something repetitive, something that feels heavy, or something that takes a long time to complete.

Start there and see what happens.

Let AI earn the right to do more.

Once it performs the first workflow well, you can create larger workflows if that’s what you want.

That’s what I have for you today.

I appreciate you being here and listening. It’s always an honor.

I hope this was helpful.

Take care, and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

How to Become a LinkedIn Relationship Builder

Most coaches and consultants are posting more than ever, and still not booking enough discovery calls.

The problem usually isn’t the platform. It’s not the algorithm either. The content is being asked to do a job it was never designed to do on its own.

This episode is a repurposed LinkedIn Live training that gets to the heart of what’s changed in marketing.

It’s for coaches, consultants, service providers, and solopreneurs who are tired of working hard online without seeing results that match the effort.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll understand the real difference between content and relationships, and why one creates visibility while the other creates opportunity.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why posting more often might actually be working against you right now
• The three marketing myths keeping coaches stuck in a content loop they can’t escape
• What the AI content explosion means for authentic human connection — and your competitive edge
• The surprising difference between a posting rhythm and a conversation rhythm
• How making people feel seen, heard, and valued creates stronger business opportunities than likes ever will
• Why every post needs an assignment, not just a topic
• What still works in marketing even as platforms and algorithms keep changing

 Key Podcast Takeaways

• Content builds trust, but relationships create opportunity — you need both sides of that coin
• Random content produces random results; every post should reinforce your positioning
• A 10–15 minute daily conversation rhythm can outperform a full posting schedule

 Key Quotes to Remember

“I was relying on content to do what only relationships can do, and that’s create opportunities.”

“Technology can automate tasks, but it cannot automate trust.”

“Likes don’t pay the bills.”

Marketing has always been about people.

Content builds trust, but the relationships you invest in create opportunities to grow your business.

 

Follow Marisa on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

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Watch Episode #151 on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

LinkedIn Relationship Builder: How to Book Client Calls Without Posting Every DayAmplify Your Authority | Episode 151

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick — an online marketing strategist and AI implementation coach.

Today I have a special episode for you. I recently delivered a live training on LinkedIn, and while it uses LinkedIn as the vehicle, it’s really about marketing. Specifically, it’s about how to secure more discovery calls with prospects.

We all use different platforms — Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. Ultimately, though, we want to connect with people who might benefit from our products and services. As you listen, keep an eye out for the marketing principles and think about how you can apply them in your own strategy.

Before we get started, I’d love it if you’d rate and review the podcast. Follow me on your favorite platform, or subscribe on YouTube and hit the bell so you don’t miss a thing. Now let’s get into the training. I’ll come back at the end with key takeaways.

The Core Question: Content or Opportunity?

Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. No doubt you’re here because you want more leads and more clients — and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why we show up on platforms. That’s why we create content.

The challenge is the method. Sometimes people have resistance around prospecting, sales, and getting clients. Today we’re going to talk about that in a way that feels natural and actually brings results.

Despite all the posting happening right now, not much is moving for most people. That’s the struggle we’re seeing.

This really isn’t a LinkedIn training. It’s a conversation about what has changed in marketing and how it affects the way we show up — not just on social media, but across all our messaging. LinkedIn is simply the vehicle we’re focusing on today. It’s my primary platform, and I love everything about it. But what we discuss here applies to all your marketing assets.

About Marisa

I’m Marisa Shadrick — an online marketing strategist, certified copywriter, and AI implementation coach. I love AI, and I also caution people to use it ethically. I run a private membership called the AI Lab for solopreneurs, where we talk about marketing and implementing AI the right way.

Why Content Alone Isn’t Enough

So — how do you book client calls on LinkedIn without posting every day?

Over the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion of content. AI has made it easier than ever to create. Every platform is more crowded, attention spans are shorter, and algorithms have changed. Many business owners are working hard to stay visible.

But content isn’t just about visibility. Content is about building trust. That’s its job — to spark curiosity and draw people to you. And yet, that’s only one side of the coin.

The other side is relationships. You build relationships one on one, through live events, through DMs, through conversations. Relationships lead to opportunities — podcast invitations, speaking gigs, clients, and collaborations.

So as we go through today’s content, hold one question in mind: Are you spending most of your time creating content, or are you creating opportunities? Because they are not the same thing.

Does This Sound Familiar?

Posting more but getting less traction. Algorithm anxiety. Working harder online without seeing the results you want.

If any of that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Years ago, I tried keeping up with every platform. I created content consistently and didn’t get enough traction to justify the time I was putting in. That’s when I realized something important.

The problem wasn’t that I wasn’t creating enough content — I was consistent. The problem also wasn’t the platform, because we’ve all jumped from one to another thinking that was the issue.

The real problem was that I was relying on content to do what only relationships can do: create opportunities.

The AI Tsunami

Let’s talk about what’s made organic marketing so much harder. And yes, we need to talk about AI.

I love AI. I really do. I’m a bit of a tech nerd. It’s made my life so much easier, and I love implementing it on both the front and back end of my content.

But the AI tsunami hit.

When you think of a tsunami, something triggers it — an earthquake, a volcanic eruption. A tsunami can travel as fast as a jet plane before it slows in shallow water. I think we’re still in jet-plane mode with AI. It hasn’t slowed down yet.

Because of that wave, there’s more content than ever. People think more is better, so they generate content without putting much thought into it. But is more actually better?

The advice we’ve been given for years is: post more, be everywhere, create more content. People are following that advice but not creating momentum. If something isn’t working, maybe it’s time to pause and look at things differently.

Content is part of our marketing, and marketing builds trust. So content should build trust — that’s the spine of every post. But content alone doesn’t create opportunities. It was never meant to do the entire job.

That’s why we say “marketing and sales.” They’re two different things.

Vanity Metrics vs. Real Opportunity

You might say, “But Marisa, my followers are growing. I’m getting more likes and comments.”

I understand why people value those numbers. Likes and comments can stimulate the algorithm and create visibility. But I’m not an algorithm chaser — I think that’s exhausting.

Here’s the truth: likes don’t pay the bills. One of the biggest mistakes I see is confusing activity with opportunity. We post, we check impressions, we check likes, and we start to believe those numbers tell the whole story. They don’t. Algorithms change constantly.

Human nature, though, doesn’t change. People still want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. Content builds that trust. But relationships are what create opportunity. That’s why discovery calls exist — to build the relationship and see if someone is ready for the next step.

Busting the Myths

Let’s challenge some conventional thinking and look at a few myths.

Myth #1: Treating LinkedIn Like Social Media

This is easy to do. Scheduling tools made it simple to push content everywhere from one dashboard. So we post, we wait, we hope for some traction, and then we do it all over again.

But LinkedIn isn’t really a social platform in the traditional sense. It’s a business relationship platform. People come to LinkedIn to learn, to connect, and to network. For coaches, consultants, service providers, and solopreneurs, that’s a real advantage.

The opportunity isn’t more content. The opportunity is building relationships intentionally.

Myth #2: The Goal Is to Create More Content

It’s easy to post when inspiration strikes. It’s easy to react to what’s happening in culture or throw something out there just to stay consistent. But if every post takes your audience in a different direction, they can’t anchor you to one thing.

Your audience needs to know what you do — and hear it often.

That’s why every post needs an assignment. Every post should strengthen your positioning, build trust, and support a larger conversation. Your content should all live under the umbrella of what you’re known for. You don’t have to post as often. Quality over quantity. But give every post a purpose.

Myth #3: Automating Relationships

We’re surrounded by tools that promise to automate everything — outreach, messages, connection requests, follow-up, engagement, customer service. Technology can help us work more efficiently, but it can’t replace relationships. It can’t replace genuine interest in another person.

Over the years, I’ve received connection requests immediately followed by a sales pitch. No conversation. No context. Just a pitch. You’ve received them too. Nobody likes it — because it feels transactional, not relational.

As AI becomes more common, authentic human connection becomes more valuable. If you pursue real connections, you will stand out. People can tell when they’re being treated like a lead versus a person.

Technology can automate tasks. It cannot automate trust.

Trust is built one conversation at a time, one comment at a time, one interaction at a time.

What Still Works

Platforms change. Features change. AI changes. Marketing trends change. But human nature doesn’t.

So why not focus on the constant?

People still want to do business with people they trust. They still want to feel understood. They still want solutions to their problems. They still want relationships.

That’s why relationship building remains one of the most valuable skills you can develop. It takes time, and people do have their defenses up — they’ve been sold to so much. But it’s worth it.

We pursue relationships not because it’s trendy or a hack. We pursue them because it’s human. And frankly, it’s just the right thing to do.

Tools and technology will keep evolving. But trust still matters. Relationships still matter. Conversations still matter.

Best Practices

Best Practice #1: Make People Feel Seen, Heard, and Valued

One of the most valuable lessons I learned didn’t come from marketing. It came from years of serving in ministry and nonprofit work. No matter someone’s background, culture, or challenges — people want a few simple things. They want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want to know they matter.

That’s just as true on LinkedIn as anywhere else.

Stop using your platform as a broadcasting tool. If your content is always about you — your business, your offer, your news — your audience starts to wonder where they fit in the story.

Meet them where they are. Then show them you have a solution.

Behind every profile and every email address is a real person — someone with goals, challenges, dreams, and questions. When we approach people with genuine curiosity instead of an agenda, relationships begin to form.

Best Practice #2: Every Post Needs an Assignment

The biggest shift for me was to stop posting just to post.

For a long time, I thought consistency alone would solve the problem. Just keep showing up, keep creating content, and they will come. But random content creates random results.

If your posts jump from topic to topic without a clear connection, people may enjoy each individual post — but they won’t remember what problem you solve. And if they don’t remember what problem you solve, they won’t think of you when they need help.

Every post should help people understand what you do, who you help, and how you think. Every post should contribute to a larger story. That’s how content compounds.

Best Practice #3: A Conversation Rhythm, Not a Posting Rhythm

Most people focus on a posting rhythm. They have a calendar and know exactly when they’re supposed to post. But very few people create a conversation rhythm — actually connecting with people.

That’s why I spend less time thinking about posting frequency and more time on meaningful interactions. Responding to comments. Checking in with someone. Congratulating a connection on a milestone. Sharing a resource. Following up on a conversation. Just serving people.

You can do this in just 10 to 15 minutes a day — and the results can be remarkable. When I leave a thoughtful comment on someone’s post, I often receive a connection request in return. That’s how relationships begin.

You need both. You need content, and you need to reach out and build real relationships.

What Changes When You Invest in People

Imagine what happens when every piece of content has a purpose. When you’re known for something specific instead of trying to cover everything. When your content builds trust over time and you start making meaningful connections.

Client conversations become more natural and more frequent. Not because you mastered an algorithm — but because you invested in people.

Marketing has always been about people. To me, the simplest definition of marketing is the process of building trust. If content is your marketing collateral, it should build trust. We have more technology than ever, more AI tools, more automation, more ways to reach people around the world. But marketing hasn’t fundamentally changed.

Marketing is still about understanding people, serving people, helping people solve problems, and building trust. Tools have changed. Human nature has not.

Key Takeaways

Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed this training. Let’s recap the key ideas.

The first myth was treating LinkedIn like just another social media platform. Whatever vehicle you’re using, it’s a means to connection — a means to a real person with real struggles, real dreams, and real goals. Think about how you can show up a little more human with the tools you’re already using.

The second myth was random content. Everything you do online should point toward an outcome. Your content shouldn’t be a series of disconnected one-offs. It should all work together to help you reach your goals.

The third myth was automating relationships. Some things can’t be automated. We need to be present and connect with people one on one. Your audience wants to feel seen, heard, and understood — so lead with them, not with yourself.

I hope this training was helpful. If you want to join me live on LinkedIn, I’d love to have you. I host a training once a month, and you can register at learn.marisashadrick.com/events. When you do, you’ll receive a notification when the LinkedIn Live goes live — plus a bonus bundle of nine marketing resources covering email list growth, copywriting, sales discovery calls, and more.

I hope to see you on LinkedIn. Until next time — take care.

Why I’m not getting clients is a question most coaches, consultants, and service providers ask at some point, after they’ve invested in courses and tried every strategy they could find.

The cycle feels frustrating because the effort is real, but the results aren’t coming.

In this episode, Marisa Shadrick gets honest about what’s really happening beneath the surface. The problem usually isn’t your marketing strategy. It’s a limiting belief quietly shaping how you show up across every area of your business, from the clarity of your message to whether you ever hit record or send the sales email.

This episode is for coaches and service providers who are working hard but still not seeing consistent results. If that’s you, Marisa walks you through exactly where the breakdown happens and why the fix has to start from the inside out.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why investing in more courses and chasing the latest marketing tactic may be prolonging the real problem
• How a limiting belief can quietly water down your message without you even knowing it
• What “identity friction” is and why it keeps you vague when you need to be clear
• The neurological reason your brain treats visibility like a physical threat
• Why trust is built through interaction, not just consistent content posting
• What’s really happening when you avoid sales conversations, underprice, or forget to follow up
• How to use AI as a mirror to spot where fear may be showing up in your own content

 

Key Podcast Takeaways

• Getting consistent clients requires addressing what’s internal, not just what’s tactical
• Each of the four marketing areas, message, visibility, trust, and conversion, can be quietly sabotaged by a single limiting belief
• Selling is not pressure; it’s an invitation, and the other person always gets to choose

 

Key Quotes to Remember

“Fear needs permission to exist.”

“Fear erodes our potential. If we don’t face fear head on, it will rob us of our potential.”

“Trust is built through interaction, not just content.”

You don’t need a new strategy. You need clarity on what’s actually getting in the way. Once you see it, freedom is possible, and it only gets better from here.

 

Running a solo business means doing everything yourself. That gets exhausting, and it slows you down.

AI Lab for Soloprenurs helps you use AI in ways that actually fit your business. You’ll stay current, work faster, and finally feel like you’re ahead instead of catching up.

Try it risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee.   https://www.marisashadrick.com/community

 

Follow Marisa on Social Media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 

Subscribe to the Podcast:

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

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Watch Episode #150 on YouTube 

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your Authority Podcast

Episode #150

So many solo business owners struggle with this scenario. They create a website. They invest in courses. But at the end of the day, they still don’t have any clients.

Perhaps it’s not a strategy issue. Perhaps it’s more of a limiting belief. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about in this episode.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick. Today we’re going to talk about a topic that comes up often in the space of coaches, consultants, and service providers — but it’s rarely talked about openly.

No one wants to admit they’re struggling to get clients. I’ve had seasons like this, too. During COVID, that was probably the worst drop in client acquisition I’d experienced. Fortunately, I was able to climb out of that. Then the AI explosion changed everything, and I saw a dip again. These things happen from time to time.

But if you’ve been coaching for a while and this feels like a consistent pattern, here’s where it gets confusing. Most people think it’s a marketing issue. So they go looking for the latest hack, tool, or process. They invest a lot of money in courses, thinking that it will be the silver bullet.

But oftentimes, it’s something internal that shows up in your marketing.

This Isn’t a Criticism

This isn’t meant to be a criticism. I struggled with many fears when I first started out. In fact, it took me five years to overcome some major ones. Public speaking was one. Having people read what I write was another — and I’m a copywriter.

I experienced imposter syndrome. “Who am I to create a business?” I had all of it. And I had to overcome it little by little until I could clearly see the value I brought to my clients.

From time to time, I run across people stuck in that same cycle. They keep looking for tools, courses, and new marketing techniques, thinking that will be the answer. But it’s simply prolonging the inevitable: facing the fear and moving past it.

That’s difficult and painful work. But to grow a business, you need a mindset that pushes you forward. You’re going to do things you’ve never done before. You’re going to put yourself out there in new ways. That level of confidence is available to you. It’s already there. You just have to let it surface.

What the Research Confirms

If you don’t believe me, there’s plenty of research to back this up. People struggle with imposter syndrome regardless of how many credentials, certifications, or years of experience they have. It’s not unique to a certain demographic or age group. It’s human nature.

We want to protect ourselves. We let fear hold us back because we don’t want to be rejected or criticized. And it’s important to realize — not everyone on the internet will be your audience. Even when you narrow your niche, some people will resonate with you and others won’t. That’s just the way it works.

The best approach is to be yourself. Share your stories. Share your perspectives boldly. The right people will find you.

Marketing at a Glance — The Four Key Areas

Before we get into this, if you’re watching on YouTube, please subscribe and leave a comment. If you’re listening on a podcast platform, a rating and review would mean so much.

Now let’s look at marketing at a glance. No matter what you’re selling — a membership, a course, a workshop, or a book — these four fundamentals apply. When you’re trying to market and sell, you have four parts: Message, Visibility, Trust, and Conversion.

I’m going to break each one down and show you how a limiting belief can quietly sabotage the marketing you’re working so hard to implement.

Message

Your message is why you’re showing up online in the first place. For most solo business owners, it’s tied to something they’ve overcome, a past skill, or a passion they’ve validated.

You know what you want to say — but you’re not quite sure how to say it. You don’t want to make big claims or sound salesy. At the same time, you have real value to offer. And somewhere in that tension, the messaging becomes unclear. It’s not clear on your website. It’s not clear on your lead magnet. You downplay your expertise without even realizing it.

You might think, “I don’t want to overpromise. What if they don’t get the transformation I said they would?” But each person is an individual. All you can do is be responsible for your part. Put out the best content you can. Whether someone implements it is up to them.

So watch out for the comparison trap. “Someone else covers this topic and they have a bigger audience.” There still has to be a clear message with a clear “what’s in it for them” — otherwise people won’t pay attention.

Insecurity and imposter syndrome can creep in and affect how you present your work. Beyond comparison, there’s also the fear of being judged by peers. We start questioning whether we have the right to talk about a topic at all.

This is what research calls identity friction. Your internal identity hasn’t caught up to where you want to go. Everyone starts somewhere. Nobody starts as an immediate expert. You start, grow, put things out, evaluate, and refine.

Being vague may feel safe — but it’s not clear. And that will hurt you. Your message won’t land. People won’t feel seen. You might stay too broad because you’re afraid you won’t have enough people to talk to. But the internet is enormous. Narrowing down makes your message stronger, not weaker.

Figuring out your message takes courage because you’re committing to something. It may evolve over time — and that’s fine. But you have to start. Don’t let imposter syndrome or comparison hold you back from building a clear brand.

Visibility

Once you know your niche, your offer, and who you’re serving, you need to be visible. And that’s where fear wants to creep back in.

When you make yourself visible, you’re no longer hiding behind a computer screen. People will see you, hear you, and read about you. And fear shows up again.

You need to show up — but something stops you. You need to record a video — but you don’t like how you look on camera. You need to share a point of view — but you’re afraid someone will disagree. This is where many coaches get stuck.

We stay busy instead. We have been working on the same project for months. We plan a launch six months out and map everything perfectly. But we never hit publish on that article or record that video.

I say this with love because I’ve been there. Many of you want the freedom and flexibility of working from home. Sometimes it’s not even about the money — it’s a message you’re burning to share. Fear is trying to keep you silent. It’s time to embrace your voice.

Something neurological is happening here. The brain actually treats visibility like a threat. It’s trying to protect you. So when you perceive recording a video as a threat, you find every reason not to do it.

Here’s what happens as a result. People can’t find you. Your confidence never builds. And confidence only builds through practice. When you see someone online looking confident on video, that isn’t a sign they already had confidence. They’re building it by showing up.

I still find video uncomfortable. I don’t particularly enjoy it. But I know people need to see me, especially as a coach. When you only write, people see the words — but they don’t get your personality or your heart.

Trust

Trust is the third piece, and it’s a sneaky one. People buy from those they know, like, and trust. You’ve heard that before — but here’s how limiting beliefs get in the way.

You might be posting on social media, but never starting conversations. You hesitate to comment, reach out, or DM anyone. Maybe you’re afraid they won’t respond. So you wait for people to come to you.

We think, “If I build it, they will come.” But that’s unlikely. You need to take the initiative. Yes, it will feel awkward at first. Reaching out is a bit like asking someone to be your friend and waiting to see if they say yes. But the more you do it, the easier it gets.

If you reach out to ten people, maybe two respond. That’s just the 80/20 rule. Not everyone will reply — and that’s okay. If you get on a Zoom call with someone, don’t worry about feeling awkward. They’re probably feeling awkward, too. Just set a simple expectation for the call and let the conversation flow naturally.

Trust is built through interaction, not just content. If you focus only on content and never build relationships, you limit the connections you’re trying to make. No relationship means no trust. No trust means no clients.

And even if someone isn’t a direct client, they might be a collaborator, a referral source, or a podcast host. Go into every connection with a servant mindset — not “what can I get?” but “how can I help?” People put their barriers down when they feel that.

Somebody has to go first. Connection only starts when someone makes the move. I practiced this by starting conversations with strangers in grocery store lines. The more I did it, the more natural it became.

Conversion

Now let’s talk about conversion — the fourth piece, and the one where everything often breaks down.

Here’s what it typically looks like. You hesitate to share your offer because you don’t want to come across as salesy. You procrastinate on launching a webinar. You avoid sales conversations. You don’t follow up after one attempt. You underprice, and when you underprice, people sometimes question the value because it’s so low.

What’s happening underneath? Fear of rejection. Fear of asking for money. Doubt about whether you’re really bringing value. And the other person will sense that. They’ll know whether you’re confident in what you’re offering.

This is where an unhealthy mindset shows up most clearly. Internal doubt becomes external hesitation. And that costs you, because if you’ve gotten to the point of sharing an offer, you’ve already done a lot to get there.

Think of your offer like a diagnosis. You’re identifying what’s broken and how your solution helps them get healthy again. Selling is simply an invitation. It’s not pressure. You extend the invitation, and they get to accept or decline. That’s all it is.

How to Use AI to Self-Diagnose

Now let’s talk about how you can use AI to spot limiting beliefs in your own content.

AI is excellent at recognizing patterns. That makes it a powerful mirror for your business. You can upload content — weekly posts, a sales page, a webinar transcript, a sales call transcript — and ask AI to analyze it.

But let me be clear: AI won’t do the inner work for you. It will identify patterns. Then you need to sit with those insights and decide how to shift your thinking so you can show up more confidently.

Here’s how to frame it. Upload your content and give AI a simple prompt. Tell it you’re trying to uncover limiting beliefs. Ask it to look at where you might be holding back, where your message is unclear, or whether you sound confident or hesitant. Let AI surface the patterns. Then you take it from there.

Recap and Closing

If you’re not getting consistent clients, it may not be a marketing or strategy issue. It could be a limiting belief — and that belief could be quietly shaping your behavior across all four areas of marketing: message, visibility, trust, and conversion.

I know this isn’t easy. But once you know where the real challenge is, freedom is possible. And it only gets better from here.

Don’t stop serving. Don’t stop creating. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop dreaming. And don’t stop doing the next right thing.

Until next time — take care.

 

AI for Business Owners: Is Claude CoWork Better Than ChatGPT?

If you’re a solo business owner who’s been using ChatGPT, you’ve probably wondered whether Claude is worth looking into.

This episode gives you a clear, practical breakdown so you can make an informed decision without guessing.

Marisa shares her own experience adding Claude Cowork to her tech stack and explains what’s actually different about the Cowork feature.

This episode is for solo business owners who regularly create content. If you’re writing newsletters, producing podcasts, building courses, or managing social media on your own, this comparison will help you decide which tool fits your work.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why Claude CoWork and ChatGPT are built for different things, and how to use that to your advantage
• What the Claude Cowork feature actually does and why it’s different from a regular AI chat
• How a simple folder system can eliminate the back-and-forth of uploading files every session
• How Claude’s skills can act like a team of specialists on demand
• How to move your ChatGPT memory directly into Claude without starting over
• The right AI tool is the one that matches how you work. Once you understand what each tool was built to do, using AI gets a lot simpler.

 

Key Podcast Takeaways

• ChatGPT helps you think. Claude helps you build and execute.
• You can’t push AI to its full potential until you understand what it was built to do.
• As a solo business owner, AI doesn’t replace your thinking; it supports your execution.

 

Key Quotes to Remember

“ChatGPT helps you think. Claude helps you build and execute.”

“You can’t push AI to its full potential until you understand what it was built to do.”

“It doesn’t replace your thinking — it supports your execution. And that’s a big difference.”

 

Running a solo business means doing everything yourself. That gets exhausting, and it slows you down.

AI Lab for Soloprenurs helps you use AI in ways that actually fit your business. You’ll stay current, work faster, and finally feel like you’re ahead instead of catching up.

Try it risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee.   https://www.marisashadrick.com/community

 

Follow Marisa on Social Media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

If you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe and leave a comment.

How to Leave a Podcast Review

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Watch Episode #149 on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your Authority Podcast

Episode #149

Marisa Shadrick 

Introduction

If you’re a solo business owner who’s been tinkering with ChatGPT and wondering whether Claude is worth exploring, this episode is for you. I’m going to give you a clear breakdown of Claude, Claude Cowork, and how it compares to ChatGPT so you can make an informed decision.

Welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick. I’m glad you’re here.

The Overwhelm Solo Business Owners Feel

I recently looked back at some old journal entries. One stood out. I had written: “I can’t go at this pace. Something’s got to give.”

That may resonate with you. A solo business owner wears many hats. We create content, write social posts, build courses and webinars, design email sequences, and make every business decision ourselves. That is a lot of brain power.

When AI arrived in 2022, I jumped on board. I knew I needed help. ChatGPT served me well. I had trained it to write in my voice, and we had a comfortable working relationship. But AI is not just about writing. Technology can help us with so much more than just answering questions or generating text.

Why Marisa Started Looking at Claude

This year, I decided to take a closer look at Claude because of a new feature it introduced: Claude Cowork.

Before I explain that, let me give you some background. Most AI language models offer subscriptions. Free versions exist, but they have usage limits. Paid tiers run around $20 per month. For what these tools can do, that price surprised me at first. But the technology has grown significantly since its early days.

Claude’s Background and History

Claude is Anthropic’s flagship product. It was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, along with other former OpenAI researchers.

In 2022, the model was being trained and tested internally. That same year, ChatGPT launched publicly and got a lot of attention. Claude was still in development. It was publicly launched in 2023.

In 2024, Anthropic introduced the Claude family: a set of models that includes Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku. From 2024 to 2025, both Claude and ChatGPT underwent frequent updates. In 2026, Claude introduced Cowork. That is when I got my subscription and committed to taking a closer look.

All of these rapid changes can feel overwhelming. But we are still in the early stages of AI development. Companies like Anthropic have major investors, including Amazon and Google. OpenAI has Microsoft behind it. The competition between these tools benefits us. The tools keep getting better, and right now the price has stayed steady.

Claude Models Explained: Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku

Here is a quick overview of the current Claude models as of this recording.

Opus is the most intelligent. It is best for hard problems, deep analysis, and complex code. Sonnet balances intelligence and value. It is great for daily work, coding, and long documents. Haiku is built for speed and low cost. It handles quick answers and simple tasks well.

The more a model thinks, the slower it runs, but the more accurate the output. You can use Opus for analysis or complex tasks, then switch back to a lighter model for simpler work. That way, you preserve your token usage.

How Tokens Work and What to Expect

Each Claude subscription includes a set number of tokens. Tokens are used when you work in Claude chat or in Cowork. More complex tasks use more tokens.

In my experience, even working heavily inside Claude Cowork on big tasks like building code and doing deep analysis, I only hit the token limit twice in three weeks. And when I did, I only had to wait a few hours before I could continue. You do not have to wait a full day or week. It just needs a short break, and then you are back to work.

For solo business owners doing content work, the basic tier should be more than enough.

Extended Thinking Mode

Extended thinking is not a model. It is a mode. You can toggle it on for any model to have Claude work through a problem more carefully.

When you turn it on, Claude takes extra time before responding. It breaks the problem into steps, explores options, and plans its approach. This uses more tokens but produces a more thorough output. For solo business owners doing content work, you probably will not need it often. But it is there when you do.

What Claude Cowork Is and How to Access It

When you open Claude in a browser, you will not see Cowork. It is only available through the Claude desktop app, which you download to your computer.

Once installed, you can pin it to your taskbar and open it whenever you need it. Inside the app, you will see all the same features as the browser, plus a few extras. One of them is Cowork. There is a button at the top that lets you switch between Cowork and chat.

Cowork moved me from conversation to collaboration. It was designed for office work. It can handle complex backend tasks and give you polished, finished output. I will explain more in a moment.

How Claude Reads Your Folders

Once Claude is on your desktop, you can give it permission to access a specific folder on your computer. It can then read everything inside that folder, including any subfolders.

It can read transcripts, screenshots, notes, research documents, and more. You do not have to upload files the way you do in ChatGPT. You simply give Claude access to the folder, and it can see everything inside it.

Here is how I set mine up. I organize my content by topic. Each topic gets its own folder. Inside that folder, I put my research, my perspective on the topic, any lead magnets or diagrams related to it, and anything else I have created around that subject. When I am ready to create new content, Claude already has everything it needs.

How Skills Work in Claude Cowork

Once Claude has access to your folder, the next step is deciding what you want it to create. Many of us repurpose content across multiple formats: email newsletters, blog posts, podcast show notes, LinkedIn articles, and social media posts. In Claude Cowork, you create a skill for each one of those assets.

A skill is like an expert. Each skill knows the exact format, word count, tone, and flow for that specific piece of content. If you want show notes, that skill knows how to deliver them. If you want a blog post, that skill knows how to structure it.

I spent about two weeks building 10 to 12 skills for everything I produce each week. Now, when I am in Cowork, I can simply say, “write this week’s Monday Marketing Memo,” and Claude already knows which skill to use. I do not even have to name the skill. It picks it up from context.

Once a piece is done, I can review it, save it, and move on. Then I say, “write a blog post,” and Claude passes the work to the next skill. It is like handing off a baton from one expert to the next.

Creating Multiple Content Pieces from One Topic

The final step in my workflow is social media. I have a skill for that too. It pulls a quote, creates carousel copy, writes a 60-second reel script, drafts a text-only post, and more. All from the same topic folder.

This matters for solo business owners because when content creation takes longer than it should, something else does not get done. And the internal cost is even higher. You feel overwhelmed. You feel like you are never catching up. You cannot take the time to think about your next launch or promotion.

Having that weight removed changes everything. It also removed the frustration I used to feel about social media. It used to be a time drain. Now it is fast, and the content is better.

Why This Matters for Solo Business Owners

Think of Claude Cowork as a smart assistant that can not only read your documents but also take initiative. That is a big difference from a chat tool that just answers questions.

You give it a big job, and it breaks it into smaller steps. It asks questions if something is unclear. And it runs code behind the scenes when the task requires it.

For example, if you need a PowerPoint presentation, you can ask Claude to create one. Give it your topic, your key points, and the number of slides you want. You can even provide your brand kit with specific fonts, your logo, and your brand colors. The output is usually 90 to 95 percent finished. There are very few tweaks needed.

That level of output allowed me to cancel a separate tool I was using just for PowerPoint creation. I expect that pattern to continue. The more sophisticated these tools become, the fewer tools we will need. I think most solo business owners will eventually get down to one, two, or maybe three core tools.

Claude vs ChatGPT: The Real Difference

Claude is not just another ChatGPT. If you already use ChatGPT and are wondering whether to make a change, here is something worth knowing. You can transfer your ChatGPT memory directly into Claude.

Inside Claude’s settings, there is a prompt you can copy and paste into ChatGPT. ChatGPT will then produce everything it knows about you and your preferences. You copy that output and paste it into Claude. Claude is now ready to go with the same knowledge your other AI had. You do not have to start from scratch.

Now, should you switch? That depends on your business and how you work.

ChatGPT is excellent for brainstorming, quick answers, ideation, conversational back-and-forth, and research. It is great when you need clarity or want to compare options. Its image generation has also improved significantly.

Claude is excellent for multi-step tasks, working within your files, and producing finished output.

The simplest way I can say it: ChatGPT helps you think. Claude helps you build and execute.

Claude’s coding strength is what enables it to generate slide decks, diagrams, PDFs, and structured documents at such a high level. That is why so many developers have used it. And that same strength is what makes it so powerful for content workflows.

AI Still Needs Your Review

AI tools are not perfect. They are getting better, but you still need to review everything.

Watch for statements that seem absolute without a clear source. Ask Claude where the information came from. Watch for word choices that do not quite match your voice. Most of the time, the output will be 90 to 95 percent ready. But you do still need to review it.

One tip for editing: use the read-aloud feature in Google Drive or Microsoft Word. When we read our own writing, our brain often fills in missing words automatically. Having it read back to you helps you catch what you might otherwise miss.

Where to Start: Simple First Steps

Here is a simple place to begin.

Start thinking of each week’s content as one topic. Create a folder for that topic. Put everything related to it in that folder. That single shift will help you stay focused and make Claude much more effective.

Next, create your first skill for the one thing you do every single week. If the idea of writing a skill prompt feels intimidating, use ChatGPT to help you write it. These tools are not competing with each other. ChatGPT will help you draft the prompt, and you paste it into Claude. You may need to refine it a couple of times, but you will get there.

After one session, you will likely know whether this is a game-changer for your business.

Final Takeaway

Not every tool is right for every business. But if you are a solo business owner creating regular content, a tool like Claude Cowork is worth exploring.

You can’t push AI to its full potential until you understand what it was built to do.

Until next time, take care.

How Do My Articles Get Discovered? 3 Steps to Rank in AI Search

You’ve written the blog post. You’ve done the research. You hit publish, and nothing happens. If that sounds familiar, the problem likely isn’t your consistency. It’s how you structure your content.

Search has changed. AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overview now pull answers directly from published content. That means the articles that get found are the ones built for both human readers and AI search engines. The old approach of volume and keywords is no longer enough.

This episode is for solopreneurs who are tired of writing content that sits unseen. Marisa walks through a practical, three-part approach for writing long-form content that is discoverable without chasing trends or burning out.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why posting consistently still leaves some articles invisible, and what determines whether content gets found
• How AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overview decide which articles to surface and reference
• What does it mean to write for two target audiences at once, and why skipping one of them costs you visibility
• How to use your past content to identify the 3–5 topic pillars your audience wants
• Why the structure of your article matters more than the word count, and what AI is scanning for
• The one bonus formatting tip that AI search engines favor in blog posts
• Why a small library of well-structured articles can outperform years of inconsistent posting

 

Key Podcast Takeaways

• Structure and clarity matter more than posting frequency because one well-built article has a longer shelf life than dozens of rushed ones
• Writing for AI search engines means answering the main question at the top, using clear subheads, and including standalone statements that AI can quote
• Solopreneurs can compete with larger brands by going deeper on fewer topics rather than trying to match volume

 Key Quotes to Remember

“Consistency isn’t the problem anymore, and many are burning out just trying to put out more content thinking that it’s going to change something.”

“Well-written long-form content has a long shelf life. One strong discoverable article can bring new readers month after month.”

“Consistency is a habit, but discoverability is a strategy. You need both and you can do both.”

You don’t need to post more; you need to post smarter. When you build content around clear topics, structure it for both readers and AI, and commit to depth over volume, your articles keep working long after you publish them.

Marisa Shadrick

AI Marketing Strategist & Certified Copywriter 

 

Download this free resource…

Learn how to research ideas that turn into credible content your audience trusts: https://learn.marisashadrick.com/research

 Ready to Use AI the Right Way in Your Business?

The AI Lab for Solopreneurs is a private membership community where Marisa shows coaches, consultants, and service providers how to use AI ethically and strategically — not just faster.

You’ll get custom prompts, AI skills development, graphic templates, mini courses, and live coaching calls.

Join here: marisashadrick.com/community

 

Follow Marisa on Social Media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

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If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

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How to Leave a Podcast Review

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Watch Episode #148 on YouTube

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your AuthorityEpisode #148The Problem with Content That Goes Unseen

In this episode, we’re talking about what makes long-form content discoverable so you can leverage organic marketing.

 

A lot of people love to write. With AI, people are writing even more content. But they’re finding it isn’t discoverable. It’s not bringing traffic to their blog posts the way they hoped.

 

Search is changing. We must adapt. We’re going to talk about how to structure your article, so it has a better chance of being discovered by AI search engines and indexed by Google.

 

Addressing Misconceptions

Let’s start with some common misconceptions. Many people say you post more consistently and on many platforms.

 

Consistency can work. However, if the content isn’t structured correctly, it doesn’t matter how frequently you post. It’s not going to get the traction you’re looking for.

 

Before we focus on consistency or try to publish everywhere, we need to go back to the basics. It’s not complicated. You can implement this easily when you’re writing content.

 

The Consistency Trap

Let’s talk about the consistency trap. That advice made sense when volume drove reach. But that’s only part of the story now.

 

You can post every single day and still be invisible. The frustration isn’t the work behind writing articles. It’s having those articles sit there without being seen or read.

 

We’ve all been there. You spend a long time researching. You come up with a great idea. You write the blog post. You do everything you think you need to do — and it’s crickets.

 

Some people then look at what’s working for others and try to copy it. But that copycat method often doesn’t work because it isn’t aligned with their audience or their pillar content.

 

Consistency isn’t the problem anymore. Many people are burning out just trying to put out more content, thinking it’s going to change something.

 

How Search Has Changed

So, what has actually changed? Search has changed. It’s time to adapt — especially as solo business owners.

 

Google’s AI Overview, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are now pulling answers from published content. These platforms favor articles that are clearly structured, answer a real question, and align with a defined topic. The old approach was volume and keywords. The new approach is clarity, depth, and structure.

 

Google itself says what matters is whether content is genuinely useful and written for people — not whether it manipulates rankings. They also use the acronym E-E-A-T, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

 

Finding Your Content Pillars

You might wonder how to avoid talking about only one topic. You can use past content to figure out what your content pillars are.

 

If you publish on YouTube or have a podcast, go to the platform where your audio or video is uploaded. You can also look at newsletters or blog posts. Extract that content and have AI analyze it. That gives you valuable information about which pieces of content resonated most with your audience.

 

From there, choose 3 to 5 pillar topics. This helps you either create or refine your content pillars — and you’ll know your audience wants to hear about them because the data confirms it.

 

Here’s something many people don’t realize well-written long-form content has a long shelf life. One strong, discoverable article can bring new readers month after month.

 

Step 1: Write for Two Audiences

So what does a discoverable article look like? There are three things that make an article discoverable. Let’s go through each one.

 

Number one: you’re writing for two target audiences. The first is your ideal reader — a human. The second is AI search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google.

 

You have to take a topic and refine it for your audience. But you also need to create a structure that AI search engines can find.

 

That means answering the main question right at the top of the article — not buried below. It also means using clear subheadings that signal to AI what the article is about. Keep the article tight.

 

When I was learning to write articles, I was taught to include sticky statements — think of them as tweetable quotes woven into your paragraphs. This is what AI likes. It can scan and find those standalone statements. It can pull them and use them as answers to a question.

 

A Resource to Help You

I want to take a moment to tell you about AI Lab for Solopreneurs. Inside, you’ll access on-demand training on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and more. Join monthly AI coaching calls so you never fall behind. Use custom GPTs built for your business, done-for-you Canva templates, and a growing AI resource library.

 

These trainings turn complexity into simplicity for solopreneurs. Try it risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee at marisashadrick.com/community.

 

Step 2: Build Around Topics, Not Keywords First

Step two: build around topics, not keywords first. You can add keywords later once you’ve chosen your topic.

 

Ask yourself: what do I teach, or what do I sell? What educational content can I create around that — rather than chasing trends?

 

I use research to analyze everything — my audience, their needs, competitors, even trends. Then I decide what type of content I can deliver that fits within my content pillars. Once I decide on a topic, I do deep research on it.

 

That research can feel overwhelming at first. But I’ll share a resource later that simplifies the process. It gives you so much useful information to shape your personal insights based on credible data.

 

This helps you create rich, long-form content — we’re talking about 1,200 to 2,000 words. That depth is what makes an article comprehensive enough for AI to favor it, if it’s structured correctly.

 

Step 3: Structure Your Content

Step three brings us to structure your content.

 

Answer the question in the first paragraph. Someone scanning your article should be able to tell what it’s about just from the subheadings. Your subheadings should reflect the questions your audience is asking online or the answers they’re seeking.

 

Cover the topic thoroughly from all angles. This builds credibility and authority. If you’ve done research and can cite sources, that’s even better. This isn’t about word count. It’s about creating depth and making the article genuinely useful for the reader.

 

Bonus tip: If your article would benefit from frequently asked questions, add 4 or 5 of them. Include the question and the answer. AI loves this format. It’s primarily recommended for blog posts, but you can test it and see if it works for you.

 

Why the Long Game Matters

So why does all this matter? Because we’re playing a long game.

 

You spend a lot of time writing articles and blog posts. You want to position yourself for longevity — not just check something off your content calendar. You want your content to provide value for you and your readers on an ongoing basis, month after month.

 

When you consistently publish within a defined topic area, you become known for that topic. You become the expert. That matters for your brand, your audience, and for AI search engines.

 

If you deviate too often to follow a trend, you dilute the signal. This matters especially for solopreneurs. We can’t compete with large organizations that have entire teams creating content. But you can compete in depth and clarity.

 

Long-form content helps readers understand you, your business, your brand, and your perspective. They see your frameworks. They begin to know you in a way that short-form content doesn’t allow.

 

If you’ve been inconsistent, don’t feel guilty. A small library of long-form content that’s structured well and focused will outperform years of inconsistent posting. Know your value and build your topic authority.

 

How to Move Forward

Let’s make this practical.

 

Stop worrying about posting all the time, chasing trends, or trying to game the algorithm. That’s exhausting. Instead, ask yourself: do I have 3 to 5 content pillars?

 

Then make sure your articles are structured properly. Inside the AI Lab, we work on this. The structure can differ between a blog post and a LinkedIn newsletter, so create a template for each format.

 

Do your research. You want credible statistics, various insights, pros and cons, consumer perspectives, and audience pain points.

 

I have a free resource you can download that gives you prompts to get the best research from an AI tool — and a second prompt to pull insights and align them to your content pillars. Go to MarissaShadrick.com/research.

 

Final Thought

Consistency is a habit. But discoverability is a strategy. You need both — and you can have both.

 

Slow down a little. Do good research. Create templates that align with the type of long-form content you’re writing. Then watch what it can do.

 

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, take care.

The Wrong Way to Use AI

Most solopreneurs started using AI to save time,  and it worked, at least at first. Content came out faster. Tasks got done quicker. But speed came with a cost, and many are now seeing the consequences of that approach.

This episode takes an honest look at how AI has been used over the past two years and why using it only for content production is the wrong way to use AI. If your engagement has dropped or your results feel flat, this episode is for you.

Marisa shares what she believes is the real power of AI for solopreneurs, and it has less to do with what it writes and more to do with what it can analyze, systematize, and improve behind the scenes.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why cranking out content faster may actually be hurting your business
• What Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year reveals about where AI adoption went sideways
• The backend use case for AI that most solopreneurs are completely overlooking
• Why researchers say audiences are developing an “AI suspicion penalty,” and what that means for your trust
• The difference between using AI as a content machine versus using it as a thinking partner
• Three specific ways to use AI that can actually move your business forward

 

Key Podcast Takeaways

AI is more valuable as a backend systems tool than a content production tool

Your audience wants your voice and your perspective — speed cannot replace trust

The question you bring to AI matters more than the tool itself

 

Key Quotes to Remember

“AI isn’t really a productivity tool. It’s not about how fast we can crank things out.”

“AI is only as strategic as the person directing it. Point it at captions and it writes captions. Point it at your business and it builds systems.”

“Your audience doesn’t need more content from you necessarily. They need you, your voice, and your perspective.”

The tool hasn’t changed, but the question you bring to it can change everything.

This year is the year to move AI from the front end to the back end and use it in a way that actually builds your business.

 

Marisa Shadrick

AI Marketing Strategist & Certified Copywriter

 

Ready to Use AI the Right Way in Your Business?

The AI Lab for Solopreneurs is a private membership community where Marisa shows coaches, consultants, and service providers how to use AI ethically and strategically — not just faster.

You’ll get custom prompts, AI skills development, graphic templates, mini courses, and live coaching calls.

The price is currently $37/month. It goes up to $49 in April.

Join here: marisashadrick.com/community

 

Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 

Subscribe to the Podcast:

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 

Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

If you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe and leave a comment.

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Watch Episode #147 on YouTube How to Leave a Podcast Review

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your Authority Podcast

Episode 147

The Wrong Way to Use AI — And What Solopreneurs Should Do Instead

The Rush to Use AI

If you’ve been using AI to write captions, draft emails, and knock out content faster, that’s not a bad place to start. However, that rush to use AI for quick tasks is the very reason so many of us are using it wrong. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Today, we’re going to talk about the ethical way to use AI.

Welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick. Today, we’re diving into a loaded topic: AI use. There are a lot of different views and perspectives out there.

How AI Adoption Evolved

Some people love AI. Others resist it. What I want to share is what I’ve seen evolve over the last few years.

In 2024, many people dug their heels in. They didn’t want to use AI, and there was real resistance. Then they started experimenting. They said, “Wow, I can actually produce things pretty quickly.” So 2025 became the year of testing — playing in the sandbox, so to speak.

What did that produce? It helped us do a lot of things faster. But there was a consequence. Now we have to look at AI differently and ask: how can we use it to improve the bottom line, create more clients, and serve people better — without burning out?

AI Isn’t Really a Productivity Tool

The big attraction was saving time. But AI isn’t really a productivity tool. It felt that way at first because we were cranking things out faster. Watching words appear on the screen was compelling and fun.

We soon realized, though, that the output wasn’t the greatest. AI was pulling from the internet, mixing it up, and giving it back to us. Chances are someone else had already said the same thing somewhere else. That’s why we started seeing so many em dashes, the word “delve,” and a similar rhythm across posts. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The Real Question

AI isn’t about how fast we can produce. It’s about how efficiently we can do what we’re already doing — and how we can use it to improve, analyze, and work alongside us.

The choice isn’t “don’t use it” or “use it for everything.” The real question is: how do we coexist with AI? Because it’s here to stay. Every industry is implementing some form of AI integration. We’re going to adapt and adjust. But we can decide for ourselves how we’re going to use it — with integrity and as responsible content creators.

The problem isn’t the tool. It’s our focus. The pressure to produce more has always existed. But do we have to lean into that? Can we lean into quality instead? Can we lean into our own perspectives, experiences, skills, and backgrounds?

The Human Is Always in the Loop

People often say there needs to be a human-in-the-loop. I think the human is always in the loop. We bring AI to support what the human is already doing.

We are the decision-makers. We choose which AI tool helps us reach a specific goal. So let’s look at what created the controversy we’re seeing now.

AI made things easier. It lowered the bar of entry. It became easier to produce more content. We saw people creating entire books with AI, and I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. It really comes down to how people use it. Used with integrity, AI can help you communicate more clearly, spot where you repeated yourself, or find places where an explanation fell flat.

Speed Slowed Down Connection

AI sped up production. But it also slowed down the connection. Getting up to speed with AI tools takes time. You have to learn, experiment, and verify that what it gives you is actually correct.

Here’s the thing — everybody is learning. Nobody has it all figured out. Everyone is slowing down a little before they can speed up.

It’s worth noting that Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year was “slop.” They define it as digital content of low quality, produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. We went from trying to be more productive to producing slop. And your audience is savvy. They can tell.

Accountability and the Absolutes

If you put a minimum prompt in, you get junk out. There’s now a call for accountability, and I think that’s a good thing. We have to be careful about what we put out on the internet.

We’re producing more and enjoying it less. The audience is noticing. AI is not the problem. The human should always be in control.

You have to stick to your absolutes whenever you integrate anything new. Ask yourself: Does this align with my brand? Does it align with my values? Does it protect my brand voice and keep me consistent across all platforms and media?

Those absolutes are your constraints. AI has actually given us an opportunity to get clear on them. Because to produce good content with AI, it needs to know a lot about your business — your audience, your products, your transformation. That process has forced many solopreneurs to pause and ask, “Wait, am I actually clear on this?”

A Better Question to Ask

Instead of asking “What can AI write for me?” or “What new tool should I try?” — ask a better question. Ask: What can help me with the task at hand? What is the goal I’m trying to reach? What is the simplest path? Where are the bottlenecks? What resources or tools will I need?

AI can help you analyze all of that.

Using AI to Find Blind Spots

You can use any AI tool for this — Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Start by painting the picture. Most mobile apps have a microphone, so you can simply talk through the outcome you want and ask AI to help you see your blind spots.

For example, if you have a course in draft mode, you can ask AI to analyze the structure and tell you what’s missing. Would this satisfy a student? Have you left anything out? Is there something your audience needs to know before they can implement this?

You can do the same with a lead magnet. Ask AI: Why isn’t this converting? Is it the title? Is it the resource itself? Is the audience not at the right level of awareness yet? Is there something they need first before this becomes valuable to them?

Use AI to audit the things that aren’t performing — or the things that are performing but leaving you exhausted. Can AI help you find a better way so you have more margin?

Backend Systems Over Frontend Content

The more I use AI, the more I notice it is more helpful on backend systems than frontend content. I’ll say that again: AI is more useful on backend systems than frontend content.

I do use it for audience-facing content. I research one topic per week, then create different formats — video, written, newsletter — all on the same topic, built for each platform. But the real value of AI for coaches, consultants, and solopreneurs is on the backend.

You wear so many hats. You are the salesperson, the face of your brand, the writer, the content creator, the social media manager — everything. Backend systems matter enormously for a solopreneur. When you think of AI as a tool for analysis, improvement, and systematization, that is where the power lies.

The goal is to use these technologies to get more leads, serve our audiences well, and improve revenue — without compromising our values.

Assessing Where You’re Spending Time

Organizations that use AI only for surface tasks access only about 5% of what AI can actually do. Many solopreneurs are in that category — using it mainly for social media content while their time gets absorbed and revenue-generating work gets pushed aside.

You have to assess where your time is going. Where is the bottleneck? Are you spending time on social media for vanity numbers, or are people downloading your resource and joining your email list? If it’s working, keep going. If it isn’t, ask AI to help you audit it and identify a better path.

Sometimes the biggest outcome comes from a small adjustment. Just a slight shift can produce a completely different result.

Most of us are not using even 5% of what AI can offer. We’re doing surface-level work. In 2026, I believe this is the year of systems — the year people figure out how to leverage AI to improve their return on investment, whether that’s money or time.

Full Disclosure and a Real Example

I have an AI use policy on my website — right alongside my terms and privacy policy. Full disclosure about how I use AI. That kind of transparency will shape how businesses show up in 2026.

Here is a real example of using AI on the backend. I have a newsletter called the Monday Marketing Memo. I pulled three months of newsletters and the analytics for each one. I loaded them into ChatGPT and Claude and asked: What’s working? What’s missing? How can I improve the open rate and click-through rate?

AI gave me suggestions. I reviewed them, decided what was doable, and then asked them to rebuild my newsletter template based on those improvements. I then took that new template into Claude and created a Skill — an expert assistant that knows exactly how to draft my weekly newsletter. Now, when I bring in my weekly research and topic, Claude uses that Skill to generate a draft in my voice.

That is how you leverage AI. It analyzed what I had, suggested improvements, rebuilt the template, and now runs the system going forward.

Three Ways to Use AI

Here are three specific ways to use AI that can move your business forward.

First, use it to analyze. Give it data, ask it questions, and let it surface what you’re not seeing.

Second, use it to systematize. Ask it to build a process or a template you can reuse.

Third, use it as a thinking partner. If you’re at a crossroads and not sure which direction to take, give AI some context and ask it to walk through the pros and cons with you.

When you use Claude, it will ask you many questions before producing anything. That is a good thing. If you’re using ChatGPT, you may need to push back and ask it to explain its reasoning. Each tool is a little different, but they are more similar than they are different.

You don’t need more tools right now. You need to figure out which tools work best for your specific business and goals.

Why This Matters: Trust Is an Asset

Your audience is developing what researchers call an AI suspicion penalty. They are disengaging from anything that feels automated.

You’ve probably seen it on LinkedIn. Someone sends you a connection request, you accept, and immediately you get a pitch. That is automated. There’s no relationship, no context — just a pitch. That erodes trust before it even begins.

Automated, AI-generated content reduces engagement. We know this. Speed cannot replace trust. For solopreneurs who are the brand, trust is everything. Your audience doesn’t need more content from you. They need you — your voice, your stories, your point of view.

What to Do Differently

Stop using AI to produce more of the same faster. If it’s working for you, keep going. But if it isn’t, let AI help you analyze why and find a better path.

Start using AI to make better decisions and to systematize what you’re already doing.

One action you can take this week: find one thing you’re doing right now — on the backend or otherwise — and ask AI, is there a better way to do this? Is this the best use of my time? Is it generating leads? Audit one thing and see what comes back.

About the AI Lab for Solopreneurs

I have a private membership called the AI Lab for Solopreneurs. We use AI ethically. I show members how to communicate with AI — whether that’s Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT — to grow their business.

It comes from a solopreneur, for solopreneurs. We focus on strategy, backend systems, and the time-consuming tasks. You get custom prompts, Claude Skills, graphic templates, mini courses, and live coaching calls.

The current price is $37 per month. It goes up to $49 in April, and it will increase again in the fall as we continue adding more.

Join here: marisashadrick.com/community

Closing

AI is only as strategic as the person directing it. Point it at captions, and it writes captions. Point it at your business, and it builds systems. The tool hasn’t changed — but the question you bring to it can change everything.

If you found this episode helpful, please rate and review the podcast. And if you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe. Until next time, take care.

AI for Coaches: Using Short-Form Video as a Lead Generation Tool

If you’ve been avoiding video, you’re not alone. But here’s the truth: Video isn’t just a trend.

For coaches and consultants, it’s one of the most powerful ways to build trust and generate leads.

In this episode, I’m sharing what finally changed my mind, along with the stats, the strategy, and the simple setup I personally use to create short-form video without the overwhelm.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why video builds trust faster than text for coaches and consultants
• The stats behind short-form video and why 30–60 seconds is the sweet spot
• Three common misconceptions about video content
• How to turn your existing content into 60-second video ideas
• A simple 4-part video structure anyone can follow
• How to choose the right platform for your audience
• The minimal equipment setup that keeps things simple

 

Key Takeaways

• Short-form video (30-60 seconds) is highly effective for coaches and consultants looking to generate leads and connect with prospects.
• Repurposing your existing content makes video creation manageable and sustainable.
• Focus on clarity, consistency, and audience relevance over trying to be everywhere.

 

Quotes to Remember

“Video is not creating new work. Video is redistributing what you already have.”

“If coaching is built on trust and trust is built on connection, then video is a great way to build that connection.”

“It’s not about becoming a YouTuber. It’s about meeting your audience in the format that they prefer.”

 

Closing Thoughts

You don’t have to be a tech expert or a “natural” on camera to make video work for you. You just have to be willing to show up as yourself because that’s exactly what your audience is waiting for.

Start small, stay consistent, and trust that your voice, your story, and your expertise are more than enough.

When you create consistent videos, you can build the kind of trust that turns listeners into leads and leads into loyal clients.

 

Free ResourceCapture the Human Knowledge Your AI Needs to Model Your Voice, Values, and Brand Identity

INTRODUCING THE HEART PROFILE

If you’re ready to step off the sidelines and start using AI with confidence, CLICK HERE to grab my free resource.

 

Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

If you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe and leave a comment.

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Watch Episode #146 on YouTubeHow to Leave a Podcast Review

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your Authority Podcast

Episode 146

AI for Coaches: Using Short-Form Video as a Lead Generation Tool

 

Why Video Matters for Coaches and Consultants

Video content is no longer optional for coaches and consultants. However, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming or time-consuming. In fact, it can become one of your best lead generation tools.

 

Coaching is personal. It’s intimate, instructional, and insight-driven. Because of that, your audience needs to trust you before they invest.

 

Video builds that trust faster than text. With video, people can hear your tone, your humor, and your empathy. They can see your personality and energy — and that matters.

 

Most buying decisions are emotional first. When someone resonates with you, they connect. As a result, they’re far more likely to join your email list or book a call.

 

Text has its place. Even so, video creates a level of connection that text simply can’t replicate. The good news is, it’s easier than ever to create.

 

The ROI of Short-Form Video

Everyone wants to know the return on investment. However, ROI isn’t always financial. Sometimes it’s about the return on your time and energy.

 

The Wise Owl 2026 report offers some telling numbers. For example, 91% of businesses now use video. In addition, 63% of people prefer learning about a product or service through short video over text.

 

Here’s the bottom line. According to the same report, 85% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads. Therefore, this isn’t something to keep putting off.

 

This isn’t about becoming a YouTuber. Instead, it’s about meeting your audience in the format they already prefer.

 

3 Common Misconceptions About Video ContentMisconception 1: Video Has to Be Long

Many coaches believe video must be 7, 15, or even 30 minutes long. However, the data tells a different story.

 

According to recent surveys, 30–60 second videos scored the highest effectiveness at 51%. In contrast, videos over two minutes dropped to just 5–4%. Therefore, shorter is actually stronger.

 

You can do a combination of long and short form. Even so, the sweet spot is clearly 30–60 seconds. The good news is — you can do that.

 

Misconception 2: You Should Post Everywhere

If video works, it’s tempting to post on every platform. However, that’s a great way to burn out.

 

Instead, focus on what you can do consistently. Ask yourself what’s sustainable — not what’s possible. As a result, you’ll show up more regularly without running on empty.

 

Misconception 3: You Don’t Know Where to Start

This is a common one. However, the truth is you already have content.

 

Blog posts, newsletters, emails, frameworks, and courses — all of it is rich material. For example, a single long-form piece can easily yield multiple short video ideas. Therefore, video isn’t creating new work. It’s redistributing what you already have.

 

Practical Tips for Creating Short-Form VideoTip 1: Turn Long-Form Content Into 60-Second Videos

You don’t need new ideas. Instead, pull from what you’ve already created. Here are some examples to get you started.

 

Consider sharing an original quote and unpacking it on camera. Alternatively, highlight one key tip, one misconception, or one step from your framework. You could also share a client transformation, answer a frequently asked question, or address a common objection.

 

The goal is simple. Give your audience one micro win in 60 seconds. As a result, one long-form piece can easily generate 10 short video scripts — that’s more than two months of content.

 

Tip 2: Follow a Simple Format

Keep your script to 80–100 words for a 60-second video. Because time is limited, every word needs to count.

 

Start with a hook that gets straight to the point. Then explain why it matters, deliver the tip, and close with a call to action. That’s it — hook, why it matters, tip, call to action.

 

Once you get comfortable, you won’t even need a script. Instead, you’ll instinctively know when to move to the next section.

 

Tip 3: Decide on a Teleprompter

Teleprompters work well for some people. However, they’re not for everyone. For example, a teleprompter can feel unnatural if you’re not used to it.

 

For shorter videos, consider simply knowing your topic, your tip, and your call to action. Meanwhile, if you make a mistake, just keep going. You can edit it out in post-production.

 

Tip 4: Choose the Right Platform

Don’t ask which platform is most popular. Instead, ask where your audience is most engaged. Start there.

 

Once you’ve gained confidence and feedback, you can expand to a second platform. As a result, you’ll grow your reach without starting from scratch.

 

Tip 5: Give Your Videos a Direction

Short-form videos should do more than build brand awareness. Therefore, before you hit record, get clear on your goal.

 

Are you growing your email list? Driving website traffic? Booking discovery calls? Because without direction, even great content can fall flat.

 

Tip 6: Keep Your Equipment Simple

You don’t need a professional studio. In fact, all you need is a phone, a clip-on microphone, and CapCut.

 

CapCut stabilizes shaky footage and removes background noise. In addition, it lets you add text overlays and upload them directly to your platform of choice. Therefore, from recording to publishing, everything can be done from your phone.

 

Start Small, Stay Consistent

Short-form video is one of the most effective tools a coach or consultant can use. However, it only works if you actually start.

 

You already have the content. You already have the expertise. In addition, you now have a simple structure to follow.

 

Remember, video isn’t about chasing trends. Instead, it’s about helping your audience relate to you. Because when they can hear your heart and see your personality, connection happens naturally.

 

Start with 60-second videos — specifically 58–59 seconds. As a result, one video can work across every platform, from YouTube Shorts to Instagram Reels to LinkedIn.

 

If coaching is built on trust, and trust is built on connection, then video is one of the best investments of your time. Therefore, take what you already have and start there.

AI solopreneurs are navigating rapid change.

The tools are accelerating. The updates are constant. And it can feel overwhelming.

In this episode, Marisa explains why the real challenge isn’t technology. It’s the weight of change. And the real advantage in 2026 will belong to AI solopreneurs who prioritize clarity over complexity.

 

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

• Why AI noise can feel overwhelming for solo business owners
• Why the real advantage isn’t more tech skills
• How AI will scale what you clearly understand
• The five skills that actually matter in your business
• Why is critical thinking essential when using AI
• How workflow development creates real leverage
• Why strategic restraint matters in an AI transition

 

Key Podcast Takeaways

• AI solopreneurs must focus on clarity before adding tools.
• AI amplifies confusion if fundamentals are unclear.
• Strategic thinking matters more than technical complexity.
• Systems create infrastructure, not just faster output.
• Editorial judgment protects trust and authenticity.
• Research tools based on function, not popularity.

 

Key Quotes to Remember

“The real advantage isn’t for those that have a lot of tech skills, but for those who value clarity over complexity.”

“AI predicts plausible language.”

“The AI solopreneur of 2026 will prioritize clarity over complexity. Always.”

 Closing Thoughts

The real advantage for AI solopreneurs is not technical mastery. It’s clarity.

When you think strategically, design strong workflows, and give AI thoughtful direction, you create sustainable growth.

 Free ResourceCapture the Human Knowledge Your AI Needs to Model Your Voice, Values, and Brand Identity

INTRODUCING THE HEART PROFILE

If you’re ready to step off the sidelines and start using AI with confidence, CLICK HERE to grab my free resource.

 Follow Marisa on Social Media:

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe to the Podcast:

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

 Rate, Review, & Subscribe:

If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

If you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe and leave a comment.

Thanks so much for your support!

 

Watch Episode #145 on YouTube How to Leave a Podcast Review

Podcast Transcript

Amplify Your Authority PodcastEpisode 145: AI Solopreneurs in 2026:  Clarity Over ComplexityOpening: The Weight of Change

For solo business owners, AI noise can feel overwhelming.

What you’re feeling may not be the weight of technology. It may be the weight of change.

Here’s the good news for AI solopreneurs in 2026.

The real advantage does not belong to those with the most tech skills. It belongs to those who value clarity over complexity.

Welcome to the Amplify Your Authority Podcast. I’m Marisa Shadrick.

Today, we’re talking about AI change and what it means for solo business owners.

AI Is Accelerating

AI tools are moving quickly.

New platforms. New updates. Constant notifications.

It can feel like running on a treadmill that won’t slow down.

AI adoption is accelerating. Clarity and strategy still matter.

In 2026, the advantage will not belong to the most technical solopreneur. It will belong to those who think clearly and strategically.

This Is Another Business Shift

I’ve navigated many shifts.

I started as a writer, submitting articles. Then I became a certified copywriter. That led to coaching and strategy consulting using AI.

Each shift felt intimidating at first.

I focused on fundamentals. I built on what I already knew.

AI is another shift. It is not going away.

As solo business owners wearing many hats, we can adapt without overwhelm.

Review Your Fundamentals First

Before AI scales anything, review your fundamentals.

How do you generate revenue?

Where are your bottlenecks?

Where are you spending too much time?

What outcome are you trying to create?

Do an internal audit.

If you lack clarity, AI will amplify confusion.

Technology will scale what you clearly understand.

The Real Advantage for AI Solopreneurs

You might think the advantage is advanced prompting.

Or AI agents. Or automation stacks.

It’s not.

Critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence are rising skills in an automated economy.

These are human skills.

Your advantage lies in strategic thinking, not in technical complexity.

Skill 1: Clear Communication

Communication has always mattered.

Now it matters even more with AI.

AI needs clarity.

If your input is vague, your output will be vague.

Instead of chasing perfect prompts, explain what you’re trying to accomplish.

Sometimes I use ChatGPT’s microphone to talk through the problem.

It becomes a dialogue.

Clear communication improves results.

Skill 2: Critical Thinking

AI predicts plausible language.

It is not always accurate.

You must verify information. Question it. Edit it.

Ask where the data comes from.

Make sure research is current.

Use deep research or web search when needed.

Critical thinking protects your decisions.

Skill 3: Workflow Development

Many solopreneurs use AI reactively.

They draft an email. Fix a post. Summarize a meeting.

Real leverage comes from repeatable systems.

I created an app using Lovable to track my time.

I discovered a bottleneck in content creation.

Then I built a structured workflow using ChatGPT, Notion templates, and Claude for polishing.

It became infrastructure, not just tool usage.

Systems create leverage.

Skill 4: Editorial Judgment

You must judge the output.

Polished does not mean effective.

Does it sound like you?

Will it resonate with your audience?

Does it build trust?

Marketing is a process of building trust.

Before publishing, evaluate and refine.

Skill 5: Strategic Restraint

There are countless AI tools.

New launches appear constantly.

FOMO creates cognitive overload.

Start with the outcome you want.

Research tools based on function, not popularity.

Test one tool inside one workflow.

AI should reduce overwhelm, not increase it.

A Simple AI Transition Framework

Lead your AI transition with clarity.

Identify your bottleneck.

Determine your desired outcome.

Map your workflow.

Research tools based on function.

Test one tool inside one system.

Clarity comes first.

AI Is Everywhere

AI is accelerating across industries.

It’s in business. It’s in healthcare. It’s in everyday tools.

It is not going away.

Don’t lose your creativity.

Practice critical thinking.

Design your workflow.

Give AI pushback.

Let AI scale what you do well.

Let it support what slows you down.

That is sustainable growth.