“With AI, I can basically produce content for free, so I can take on way more clients.”
A fellow consultant recently told me that, as a bit of a brag, and it unsettled me for a few reasons.
At first, I felt worried. “Uh oh, is AI coming for my job, too?”
That quickly switched to annoyance. “Oh, so you think your prompts are better than my experience?”
And, finally, I felt relieved. “Because nothing is free. You’re just ignoring the cost.”
I looked at what they were promising and I asked myself if their position was truly strong, or a facade propped up against a hollow shell.
See, that consultant’s position is built on velocity. They can do more, faster and cheaper, than anyone else.
That position can look strong and intimidating if you’re still working manually or at a more premium price point.
But that consultant’s clients thought they were buying content marketing: content that demonstrates their value at a distance.
When you’re producing so much content, so quickly, though, where’s the value coming from? Where’s the voice?
So the question becomes, whose value is being demonstrated? The consultant’s? The client’s? Or the AI’s?
The client got the appearance of value, but what they received were mere tokens, training data, and prompts.
The whole point of content marketing is to stand out, but now they’re blending in.
Only faster.
Friends of mine run a creative agency, and I can sometimes sense their annoyance (or envy) about bigger, more famous agencies.
The ones with the huge clients and the international awards.
But when I go look at these agencies, it becomes fairly clear quite quickly how they’re doing it. They’re almost certainly overspending on their pitches and they’re definitely undercharging for what they’re delivering.
They’re not earning those clients, they’re buying them at a cost to their margins.
Which is kind of funny, right? I mean, you hire an agency to help you sell your products, but they can’t sell their own without giving it away?
Who would want to take advice from a marketer that can’t market their own work profitably?
This is the difference between tradeoffs and compromises.
Tradeoffs are intentional choices you make to be strong in one area that matters at the cost of another that doesn’t. Compromises are a choice to look strong everywhere, but to be inch-deep all around.
When you push on a tradeoff, it pushes back. When you push on a compromise, it collapses.
Here’s how you can spot the difference:
Marketing compromises are all about appearances, which means they come from outside. That consultant isn’t doing something unique and rooted in their own skills, they’re just outsourcing to AI, like anyone could.
Those creative agencies aren’t earning clients based on their own expertise, they’re leveraging their last client’s logo to attract the next one.
That presents us all with a question we need to answer:
Does what makes us different come from us, our skills, our experience, our beliefs, our values... or does it come from outside? Our tools, our tech, or our bargain basement price?
So why did I feel relieved when I thought about that consultant farming everything out to AI?
Because I know that I can do something they can’t do: I can produce content that gets my clients their clients. Based on my unique set of skills, experiences, and values.
Instead of looking outward, I can dig deep into what makes me different and leverage that as a defensible position. No one can write as much or as fast as I can. No one can ask questions like I can. No one can combine those skills as coherently as I can.
By sourcing from what’s inside, what we ultimately externalize has real value because it’s rooted in our own reality.
But when we look outward for what can set us apart, we end up attaching ourselves to someone else’s value, and we end up demonstrating theirs, instead of our own.
So think about your big, scary competitor. Or the new upstart nipping at your heels.
And ask whether what they’re delivering comes from their own unique skillset, or from a tool they’ve purchased, or by giving up their long-term sustainability in service of short-term acquisitions.
This doesn’t absolve us from having to adapt and change!
But it gives us a mechanism for doing so. For adapting to the market, the industry, and our clients’ needs without merely doing what’s fashionable or acting from FOMO.
AI has and will continue to come for my work and my value. So I’ve made sure I’m better at using it than others, while simultaneously avoiding giving up my own abilities.
By combining what makes me unique with what makes it useful, and making that a feature of my marketing.
And you can do the same. You can look at your competitor and find their compromises, and set yourself apart from them by demonstrating your own value.
Next week, I'll give you a simple tool to perform what I call “Backgrounding.”
Instead of seeing your competitor as an invincible fortress, you can see them as a thin facade on top of someone else’s value.
Leaving you room to stand out above that background.
Based on what only you can do.
Kelford Inc. is the marketing team that’s never at a loss for words. If you’re struggling with what to say and where to say it to attract ideal clients, we’ll show you the way.