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I've talked about AI before, but never like this.
I tested it, poked at it, and shared some early observations. But I've been careful about one thing: not pretending I had it figured out when I didn't. There's enough of that going around. I've seen enough over-promises to "10x" myself or to spit out 1,345,234 ads or custom landing pages in 7 minutes, that's made my eyesroll out of my head more times than I can count. Misleading people for attention and clout is a deadly sin in my book. And I refuse to be the guy who brags about activity without outcomes. Early in my sales career, I remeber telling my manager I did 100 dials in a day with a proud smile. He replied, "Cool. How many meetings did you book?"
...none.
He wasn't impressed. Neither am I when I see AI bros flexing their AI output with zero results attached. So here's the line I've been holding: talking about AI is one thing. Actually doing something real with it is another. For the last three months, I've entered into the second camp — and now I have something worth saying.
Here's what changed...
A few months ago, prospects and clients started asking how I was using AI. This wasn't "if you are" questioning. They expected something tangible. And I didn't have a good answer. I know so because I could tell them but didn't feel confident showing them. So I realized I'd been procrastinating. I knew the time would come: either adopt or accept a slow path to becoming obsolete.
So I went all in.
For the last three months, I've been quietly building, testing, refining. And a few things have clicked in a way that went way beyond my expectations.
Here's what I built...
I took the POV narrative process I've run manually for years — the one that helps companies find their villain, their positioning, their external story — and I downloaded all of my thinking into a documented system. The prep. The workshop. The v1, v2, and final narrative doc. I've now run it for three clients using this system. All three loved the output. All three loved the process.
I also built what I'm calling a founder-led content system.
It's how I'm helping companies turn their CEO's expertise and perspective into highly-engaging content that converts. And it's pretty slick.
The founder records a call or drops a transcript. That input runs through a series of custom prompts and turns into a topic generator → LinkedIn brief → newsletter brief → newsletter draft. Then a human refines and publishes. The founder shows up as a real voice, not a robot. The system makes it consistent so output and growth metrics see serious increases.
And I "cracked the code" on my own LinkedIn post process. I have a library of proven formats — with my breakdown of why each one works and how to recreate it.
I drop in a transcript from a sales call or consulting session. The system finds the best ideas and matches them to the right format. A couple weeks ago, a post hit 60,000+ views. It took me 12 minutes to write.
That's when I knew I was onto something.
But here's the thing that took me longest to learn — and the reason most people are struggling.
You can't scale a process you haven't built. You can't automate thinking you haven't documented.
Read that again because it's the whole thing. The marketers I speak with aren't avoiding AI because they don't care. They care a lot. But they're stuck in a brutal catch-22: too slammed to slow down and build the thing that would actually make them less slammed. One CMO I work with put it perfectly: "I want to go fast. I want to be creative and win. But I'm handcuffed." That's not a motivation problem. It's a "how to" problem. And honestly? I ran into the same wall. My first attempts at using AI was just... talking to it. Conversational prompts, no real structure, none of my actual thinking baked in. The output was meh. So I did what many did — I said "forget it" and went back to doing it myself. Slow, sure. But my work was high quality. The purist in me was happy. That worked fine at first. But I was capped. Not good if you're trying to grow. The issue wasn't the tools (though I've since learned Claude is WAY better than OpenAI.) It was that I was asking AI to do the thinking instead of using it to extend mine. Generic prompt in, generic content out. You can't scale a process you haven't built. You can't automate thinking you haven't documented.
Volume is not the goal. Leverage is.
Here's how I'm thinking about it.
And I'll be honest, I'm still building this in real time:
Step one is taste and judgment. Before you prompt anything, you need a point of view. A way of doing things that's actually yours. This is the part you can't outsource and shouldn't try to.
Step two is the playbook. Documented, repeatable prompts and workflows that capture how you think — so the output sounds like you, not like everyone else using the same tool.
Step three is automation. Once the prompts and workflows are proven, you systematize them. Right now I'm in the middle of step three with my own work and starting to bring clients into it. I don't have this fully figured out. What I have is a direction that's working, proof points I can point to, and three months of real reps building it. That's enough to share. Most people skip steps one and two and wonder why step three produces garbage.
I'm sharing this because you might be in the same spot I was a few months ago.
You know you should be doing more with AI.
You've probably got a board mandate or a CEO asking about it.
But you don't know where to start, and everything you're seeing online feels either too basic or too bro-y to trust.
That's exactly how I felt. And now I'm on the other side of it — with a process that works, clients who've validated it, and a pretty clear picture of how to build this for other teams.
I'm starting to bring this into my client work in a more formal way. If that's something that interests you, keep reading. I'll share more about what that looks like over the next few weeks.
For now, one question: where are you actually stuck with AI in your content or marketing work? Not the surface stuff — the real friction. If you have any big wins, reply and tell me. Might be a great fit to feature you in my new content series, Playmakers.
