The Special Marcoting Live Podcast

Is Blogging Still Worth It in 2026? Why Your Website Needs Fresh Content More Than Ever

Most entrepreneurs have heard the same tired line: nobody reads anymore. Short-form video is king. Blogs are dead. It sounds convincing until you realise that Google still dominates over eighty percent of online search, and it still relies heavily on blog content to serve up answers. Blogging in 2026 isn’t just alive — it’s one of the most underrated growth tools a solopreneur or startup founder can have. That’s the central argument Alison Ver Halen, founder of AV Writing Services [https://avwritingservices.com/], made on a recent episode of The Special Marcoting Live Show. Alison writes the words that go on websites — blogs, landing pages, sales pages, bios — and she’s seen firsthand how consistent, high-quality blogging drives real business results. Not vanity metrics. Actual leads, trust, and sales calls that don’t feel like pulling teeth. What followed was a sharp, no-fluff conversation about why blogging still matters, how to structure content for both humans and robots, the role of AI in content creation, and why trying to game the system with stolen content will eventually blow up in your face. Google Isn’t Dead — And Neither Is Blogging Let’s get this out of the way: Google is not dead. It’s losing some market share in the online search space, sure, but it still commands over eighty percent of search. And Google loves blogs. It uses blog content to determine relevance, authority, and freshness. The newer the publication date on your content, the more likely you are to show up — not just on Google, but in AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity as well. But SEO visibility is only half the story. Alison made a point that too many business owners overlook: once someone actually lands on your website, they’re not going to just take your word for it. They’re going to explore. Especially in B2B or professional services, visitors want proof that you actually know what you’re talking about. And where do they go? Straight to the blog. According to Alison, most people consume five to seven pieces of content before making a buying decision, before even reaching out for a consultation. That’s not a stat you can afford to ignore. Your blog isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the engine that builds trust before the sales call even happens. The Breadcrumb Strategy: Stop Expecting One Blog Post to Close the Deal Here’s where a lot of businesses go wrong. They write a solid informational blog post, stick a “Schedule a Consultation” button at the bottom, and wonder why nobody clicks it. The problem? That reader isn’t ready for a sales call. They just found out they might have a problem. They’re dipping their toes in. Asking them to book a call at that stage is like proposing on a first date. Alison calls it the breadcrumb approach — and it’s the most underused content strategy out there. The idea is simple: don’t try to do everything with one piece of content. Instead, create a trail. A short-form video catches attention on social media. That video links to a deeper blog post. The blog post offers a newsletter sign-up. The newsletter keeps you top of mind, week after week, educating your audience until they’re ready to buy. By the time that person reaches out, they already trust you. They’ve read your stuff. They understand your approach. They’re not going to hop on a call and try to tell you how to do your job. They’re coming to you as the expert — and that makes the entire sales process smoother and more profitable. Disqualifying the Wrong Clients Through Content There’s a flip side to this that most marketers won’t talk about openly. Your content should also repel the wrong people. If you make it clear how you work, what you believe, and what your tone is, the people who aren’t a good fit will self-select out. And that’s a gift, not a loss. Alison brought up a brilliant point about language as a tribal signal. Humans are tribal creatures — our brains haven’t evolved past that. We look for cues that tell us whether someone is “our people.” Word choice, tone, even whether you swear in your content — these all signal tribe. If your ideal clients are the kind of people who appreciate a well-placed F-bomb, put it in your content. The right people will lean in. The wrong ones will bounce. Either way, you win. Long Content Works — If You Format It for Real Humans One of the most persistent myths in web design is that people won’t read long text on a website. They’ll run away screaming. So the advice becomes: less text, more photos, more flashy effects. Alison disagrees, and the data backs her up. People who are genuinely interested will read every word — but only if you make it easy. The trick isn’t to write less. It’s to format better. Short paragraphs. Short sentences. Even one-sentence paragraphs, if that’s what it takes to give the reader’s brain a break. White space is your friend. Subheadings every few hundred words help readers scan to the section that interests them. And those same subheadings help search engine bots understand and index your content, sometimes sending people directly to a specific section. The Table of Contents Trick For longer, in-depth posts, Alison recommends putting a table of contents at the top. It lets readers see at a glance what’s covered and click straight to the part they care about. This is especially powerful for pillar content — those comprehensive posts that cover a broad topic under one umbrella. Think of it like a Netflix series. You have an overarching narrative, but each section (or episode) can stand on its own. You can link related blog posts together, creating a web of content that keeps people moving through your site. Each click is another breadcrumb. Each breadcrumb is another step toward conversion. Evergreen Content and the Republishing Strategy Marco described himself as an “evergreen content lover,” and Alison is right there with him — with an important nuance. Evergreen content is the backbone of your blog, especially when you’re starting out. It establishes you as a thought leader and gives you a library to fall back on during slow periods. But evergreen doesn’t mean “publish and forget.” Alison shared a specific republishing tactic that most people get wrong. The process isn’t just tweaking a few words and hitting save. You need to unpublish the post entirely, update it — check that all links still work, make sure the information is current — and then republish it with a brand new publication date. This signals to search engine bots that it’s fresh content, and they’ll treat it accordingly. Alison has one post on her website that she’s republished four times because it keeps driving traffic. On days when she doesn’t have time to write something new, she goes back to that high-performer and gives it new life. The key is to pick the pieces that are already getting traction. Don’t waste the republishing strategy on posts nobody cared about the first time. The SEO Myths That Won’t Die: Ranking Number One and Overnight Success Every SEO professional has heard it: “I want to be number one on Google.” Usually for some impossibly competitive keyword. A realtor in Chicago wants to rank for “realtor Chicago.” A financial planner wants to rank for “financial planner.” Alison’s advice? Get specific. She shared the example of a Chicago-based financial planner who specifically helps women going through divorce. They weren’t trying to rank for “financial planner Chicago.” They ranked for “Chicago financial planner divorce” — and they got a flood of highly targeted traffic because the keyword matched exactly what their ideal client was searching for. The other myth is speed. There is no overnight success in SEO. It takes at least a couple of months for bots to even scan, digest, and cache your content. And then it takes time to earn their trust — just like earning the trust of any audience. You have to show up consistently, not just in terms of schedule, but in quality, voice, tone, and topical focus. Google is watching to see if you’re serious or if you’re going to write three posts and disappear. What Has Always Worked (And Always Will) Google changes its algorithm constantly, but the goal has never changed: help users find the best answer to their questions. Every algorithm update is designed to get better at identifying high-quality content. Keyword stuffing used to work. Hidden text in the same colour as the background used to work. None of that works anymore because Google got smarter. What has worked for ten years and will work for the next ten? Consistently creating high-quality content that’s tailored to your audience, answers the questions they’re asking, and uses the language they’re using. That’s it. No hacks. No tricks. Just showing up and being genuinely useful. AI Is a Tool, Not a Shortcut — And Stolen Content Will Catch Up With You The conversation took a sharp turn when Marco brought up something he’d seen on LinkedIn: a post advising people to grab a well-performing YouTube video (someone else’s video), feed it to an AI, generate a carousel, and post it on LinkedIn to “add value to the community.” The problems here are obvious and layered. First, there’s no mention of crediting the original creator. Second, and more damaging for the person doing it: what happens when someone reaches out for your services based on that carousel, and you can’t actually deliver because the expertise was never yours? Alison was clear on where AI fits in the content process — and where it doesn’t. AI is great for repurposing your own content. You record a video, feed the transcript to an LLM, and have it break that into blog posts, social media snippets, and email content. That works because the expertise, the language, and the unique perspective are yours. AI is just reformatting it. AI is also useful for ideation — brainstorming blog topics, for instance. Alison shared how she dumped a client’s blog link into Claude and asked for five new topic ideas that hadn’t already been covered. It worked well, but she still ran every suggestion through her keyword research tool (SERPstat) to make sure there was actual demand and that the topic hadn’t been covered to death. The Real Opportunity in the Age of AI Slop Here’s the counterintuitive upside of all the low-quality AI content flooding the internet: it’s actually getting easier to stand out. People are tired of the polished, generic, obviously-AI-generated content. They want real. They want the uhs and ums and the dog yanking on the leash during a live video. They want to work with people they know, like, and trust — and you can’t build that with content that sounds like it was written by a committee of robots. Alison hesitated to use the word “authentic” — it’s been co-opted by people who are anything but. Still, the principle holds. If you show up as your actual self, with your real voice and your real perspective, people will notice. And in a sea of AI slop, that’s not just a differentiator. It’s a competitive advantage. Distribution Is the Game Most Creators Are Losing One of the biggest mistakes content creators make — and I freely admit to being guilty of this — is spending far more time producing content than distributing it. You can write the most brilliant blog post in your industry, but if you don’t actively get it in front of people, it might as well not exist. Alison laid out the distribution essentials: social media (tailored to where your audience actually hangs out), email marketing (get people on your list so you’re reaching them directly), and partnerships (getting other websites to link to yours). For B2B professionals, LinkedIn is the obvious play. For visual brands, Instagram and Facebook. And YouTube gets a special mention because it’s owned by Google — which means Google naturally favours its own platform in search results. Instagram also got a significant SEO boost towards the end of last year when it announced a deeper integration with Google search. So if you’ve been sleeping on Instagram for SEO purposes, it’s time to wake up. The bottom line: create once, distribute everywhere. And spend at least as much time on distribution as you do on creation. Key Takeaways Blogging in 2026 remains one of the most effective ways to build trust, generate qualified leads, and rank in both traditional search engines and AI-powered tools. The fundamentals haven’t changed: create high-quality, audience-focused content consistently, format it for scanability, use specific long-tail keywords, and distribute it aggressively across the channels where your audience actually spends time. AI is a powerful ally for repurposing and ideation — but only when you’re feeding it your own expertise, not someone else’s. Alison’s Favourites 📚 Book: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 🎬 Film: Sinners (wished it had won Best Film at the Oscars) 📺 TV Show: Severance 🛠️ Tool: SERPstat [https://serpstat.com/] — for keyword research, audits, and domain analysis 🔁 Habit: Morning stretching with good music before walking the dog Find More About Alison https://avwritingservices.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-ver-halen/ You Might Also Like Want to boost your content? These are the tools I use and love! 😉 Some links are affiliate links (I earn a commission at no extra cost to you): 🎥 StreamYard: Professional live streaming directly from your browser ➡ https://streamyard.com/?fpr=mfcnovo 🌟 Magai: Your new best productivity friend! Join thousands who have already transformed their workflow ➡ https://magai.co/?via=marco 〽️Metricool. Manage and measure your social media performance: https://f.mtr.cool/UQGBYC [https://f.mtr.cool/UQGBYC] 👉 What if your livestream could also be your store? With Estreamly, viewers can discover and buy products directly inside your video. Start exploring here:https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo [https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo] 📜 Castmagic: Transform audios into ready-made content | Code “marcoting20” = 20% off ➡ https://get.castmagic.io/ozhbxxx1bv3n 🤳 Be Relatable: Authentic content that works ➡ https://berelatable.pro/?fpr=mfcnovo 💰 Streann: Monetize your videos ➡ https://fas.st/t/tFgYFdcY 🎞️ Opus Pro: Viral short videos from your long content | 30% off ➡ https://www.opus.pro/marco30 🤖 Short.ai: Automatic faceless videos with AI ➡ https://www.short.ai/?ref=MARCOTING 📢 Stampede Social: Automatic reach | Code “MARCO20” = 20% off ➡ https://app.stampede.social/svc/onboard?aff=1FjTihKpsAns 📦 Equipment (affiliate links): • My equipment: https://amzn.to/4ahWJVD • For beginners: https://amzn.to/40wQf1L • For outdoor: https://amzn.to/40mytNg 📲 Connect with me on social media: 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mfcnovo 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mfcnovo/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfcnovo/ 🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/mfcnovo 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mfcnovo 📝 Substack: https://mfcnovo.substack.com/ Get full access to Marcoting Live at mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe [https://mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Live Shopping: How to Turn Live Streams Into Sales

Most e-commerce experiences are fundamentally broken in one way: they ask people to trust a collection of static images, a paragraph of copy, and maybe a handful of reviews written by strangers. There’s no conversation. No demonstration. No real human on the other side answering the one question that’s nagging you before you hit “buy.” Live shopping changes that equation entirely. By layering real-time interaction on top of e-commerce, it lets sellers demonstrate products, answer objections on the spot, and give buyers a frictionless path to purchase — all in the same moment. As a marketing consultant, I’ve always believed that trust and confidence are among the most powerful currencies a company can offer its customers. Live shopping, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to deliver exactly that. That’s why I invited Laura Lashmar, who runs marketing at eStreamly [https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo], onto The Special Marcoting Live Show to dig into this topic. Laura’s perspective on when live shopping is right for you — and crucially, when it isn’t — was packed with the kind of honest, practical advice I love bringing to my audience. Here’s what we covered. You’re Probably Not Ready Yet (And That’s Fine) I like to start conversations a bit differently these days. Instead of the usual pitch, I’ve become increasingly interested in helping people understand when a product or tool is not the right fit for them. I do this as a consultant — I want people to know whether I’m a good fit to work with them or not — and I think it applies perfectly to live shopping tools. So I asked Laura straight up: Who is eStreamly not for? Her answer was refreshingly honest: “If you are fresh out of the gates and you’ve never done live streaming before, we are not right for you. We would really recommend that you start online — on Instagram, on YouTube, those free tools that help you discover if you have a voice.” The benchmark she offered is roughly five thousand followers, but she was quick to add nuance. In niche industries — she mentioned airsoft as an example — a smaller but deeply engaged community can be more valuable than a large passive one. The real signal isn’t follower count alone. It’s whether people are actually talking to you. Are they commenting? Are they showing up when you go live? Is there genuine back-and-forth? And even when the audience is there, Laura was honest about the timeline. She estimates it takes about six months of consistent live streaming on a platform like eStreamly before you start hitting a real rhythm and seeing meaningful returns. That’s six months of showing up regularly, not three attempts followed by silence. I drew an analogy I use often: you don’t start Formula One by jumping into a Formula One car. You begin with free tools, a phone camera, and the willingness to be awkward on screen until you’re not. I talk from experience — I look back at my first videos compared to now, and the difference is enormous. And I’m a stage animal. Even for someone like me, it took time. Laura reinforced this brilliantly. She pointed out that expensive microphones and fancy cameras — like the ones I have — can actually work against beginners. The expectations rise with the gear, but the output is still a newbie output. Your phone can be fantastic. Start there. Figure out whether you even like being on camera before investing in tools. Stop Building on Rented Land Once you’ve validated that you can hold an audience’s attention live, the next strategic move is getting them off platforms you don’t control. Laura framed this as the “rented land” problem, and it’s something I think every entrepreneur building on social media needs to hear. Instagram can change its algorithm overnight. TikTok can get banned for a day — or longer. Your Facebook account can get flagged and locked with no warning. These platforms are powerful distribution tools, and Laura doesn’t suggest abandoning them. But if they’re your only presence, you’re one policy change away from losing everything you’ve built. This is where tools like eStreamly become strategically important. The platform lets you stream simultaneously to your own website and to social channels like YouTube and Instagram via RTMP keys. Your website becomes the home base — the place where you own the relationship, the data, and the experience. Social media becomes the megaphone, not the foundation. I reinforced this with something I think everyone who’s ever watched a live stream on Facebook will recognise: you’re watching, you’re engaged, and then a notification pops up — your friend just got engaged, someone posted a photo — and suddenly the viewer is gone. On your own site, that distraction layer disappears. The viewer is there for you and your products, with nothing competing for their attention. Friction Is the Silent Killer of Live Shopping Sales The conversation kept circling back to one theme: friction destroys conversion. Laura and I both hammered this point from different angles, and it’s worth sitting with. When someone is watching a live stream and they see a product they want, the window of intent is small. If buying requires leaving the stream, navigating to a separate site, creating an account, entering shipping details, and confirming payment — most people won’t do it. They’ll say “I’ll come back later,” and later almost never comes. We all know this because we’ve all done it. Before we were business owners, we were customers. I don’t think anyone was a business owner before being a customer. So think about how you behave when buying something is complicated. With eStreamly, products appear directly within the live stream. If the seller’s e-commerce is integrated — the platform works with Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Salesforce, and others — viewers can check out right there on the video. Apple Pay and similar quick-payment options add another layer of ease. The sale happens in the moment of maximum trust and interest, not twenty minutes later when the moment has passed. Laura also highlighted an important distinction for affiliate marketers — and this is where I got genuinely excited. I have affiliate links for maybe ten different software tools. Instead of stacking those links in a YouTube video description and hoping people scroll down and click, I could run a live show walking through each tool, demonstrating it in real time, and giving viewers a direct path to purchase — all in one experience. eStreamly supports affiliate link integration via a spreadsheet upload. The viewer sees the product information alongside the video. The checkout doesn’t happen on-screen in this case (since the e-commerce isn’t yours), but the affiliate link stays intact, and the path from “I like this” to “I’m buying this” is dramatically shorter than a list of links buried in a description. Instead of having ten affiliate links on my videos, I could have just one: “Watch this live show and get all my recommendations.” I genuinely think that’s the smarter play. Email and SMS: The Unsexy Engine That Makes Live Shopping Work Here’s the part most people skip when they think about live shopping: getting people to actually show up. You can plan the best live shopping event in the world, but if your only promotion strategy is an Instagram post, you’re relying on an algorithm that shows your content to roughly one percent of your followers. I know this firsthand — it’s ridiculous. I like to call email marketing “the Rolling Stone of digital marketing.” People keep trying to kill it, but it refuses to die. Laura had an even better line: “It’s the cockroach — it will still be there after everything else.” Maybe not the most glamorous metaphor, but she’s right. eStreamly builds this directly into its workflow. When viewers subscribe, you capture both email and SMS permissions. You can then craft email campaigns with an embedded countdown to your next live event. That countdown code is clever: it transforms into the actual live player when the event starts, and the link remains functional afterward so viewers can watch the replay. It’s one persistent link that adapts to wherever the viewer is in the timeline. The SMS piece is equally practical. A text message five minutes before you go live cuts through the noise in a way that social media posts simply cannot. People genuinely intend to watch your live but forget because life happens — they’re at the store, they’re driving, their kids need something. A well-timed text is the nudge that turns intention into attendance. Laura also mentioned an Instagram-specific feature: you can prompt followers to drop a keyword like “shop” in the comments of a pre-event post, and eStreamly automatically sends them a DM with a link to the live. It’s an organic audience migration tool — moving people from Instagram’s rented land to your owned experience without paid ads. I also talked about what I do with my students when teaching the inbound process: the last step is turning a customer into an ambassador. There are two things about this. First, you don’t recommend something that would hurt your reputation — you only share what you genuinely trust. Second, people trust a recommendation from a friend or someone knowledgeable far more than any advertisement. I like to call it “the after-vacations effect.” When you visit a place that exceeds your expectations, you come home and can’t stop talking about it — the hotel, the restaurant, the food, the view. We like being seen as a source of good recommendations. Having the ability to share a live shopping experience taps into exactly that dynamic. Authenticity Sells More Than Perfection The conversation took an interesting turn when Laura and I started talking about what happens when things go wrong on a live stream. I shared my own greatest hits of live fails — broadcasting for twenty minutes with the microphone off (what I call “doing a Charlie Chaplin”), my image freezing mid-stream in a ridiculous pose during the early COVID days when platforms were glitchy. I couldn’t stop laughing at myself frozen on screen like that. At this point, I’m okay with all the live streaming failures. Laura’s take was that this vulnerability is actually a competitive advantage, especially in an era flooded with AI-generated content. “We know that user-generated content drives sales,” she said. “Well, going live is like doing that on steroids.” When a product demo doesn’t go perfectly, when the presenter fumbles, when something unexpected happens — that’s proof that what you’re watching is real. And real is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. I’ve always said that live streaming is, without question, the most risky content format. It’s like being at the circus on top of the high wire without a safety net — you never know what may happen. But that vulnerability is something I believe audiences genuinely appreciate and understand. But Laura drew an important line between authentic vulnerability and poor brand management. I brought up a restaurant here in the north of Portugal that has wildly polarised reviews — lots of five stars, but also one and two star ratings — and when they get bad reviews, they reply rudely. My thought is: if someone reacts that badly in a public setting, how would they deal with me if there’s a warranty issue or a problem with my order? Probably not well. Laura’s response was nuanced and genuinely funny. She told me about a café near her in England that was famous specifically for being rude, with signs everywhere warning customers about their behaviour, and it was wildly popular because that rudeness was the brand. The lesson isn’t “always be nice.” It’s “know who you are, be consistent, and make sure your audience expects what they’re getting.” If you’re getting five stars and one stars with huge gulfs between them, your problem isn’t trolls — it’s your messaging attracting the wrong audience. The Real Value Is in Listening One underrated benefit of live shopping that both Laura and I emphasised is the feedback loop. When someone comments during a live asking if a shirt comes in orange and it doesn’t, that’s not just a missed sale — it’s market research. It’s a potential product opportunity delivered directly from your target customer, in real time, for free. Laura put it bluntly: “Even if you get no sales from it, you are understanding something really important — that you haven’t got your product right, or you haven’t got your audience right. One of those two things is happening in that moment. Everything is telling you something. You’ve just got to be willing to listen.” That resonated with me deeply. When you address someone’s question live, they feel important. They feel heard. Sometimes a comment that sounds like a critique is actually a business opportunity in plain sight. Plan Like a Retailer, Not a Content Creator During the show, Laura gave us a backstage walkthrough of eStreamly, and it revealed something important about the mindset shift live shopping requires. This isn’t just going live and chatting — it’s building a store experience inside a live stream. Laura walked through the event planning interface, where sellers create upcoming events, assign products to them, and manage interactivity. Her recommendation for a thirty-minute live was five to ten products — enough to showcase meaningfully without overwhelming the viewer. The analogy she used was a physical store: a badly laid-out shop with too much crammed in drives people away. Your live stream is no different. And as I pointed out, the complexity of the product matters too — talking about a pen is very different from talking about a cell phone. She also stressed the importance of choosing the right time to go live, and her advice was refreshingly non-prescriptive. There’s no universal “best time.” If your audience is young mothers, weekday evenings after bedtime make sense. If you’re targeting professionals, a weekday slot works better. If you’re doing an F1 follow-up, probably right after the race. The only way to know for sure is to ask your audience — I suggested using LinkedIn polls for this — and then experiment within the window they give you. Maybe Tuesdays beat Thursdays. Maybe 7:30 outperforms 8:30. You won’t know until you test. But Laura was clear: avoid guesswork or you risk going live to an empty room, which is incredibly frustrating. The distribution features round out the picture. eStreamly auto-populates your website with upcoming and past lives, provides embed codes for placing streams anywhere on your site, and generates email-friendly code that drops into HubSpot, MailChimp, or any HTML-capable email tool as a lightweight GIF-like embed that doesn’t bloat your email size. You can even set a delayed start time to trim the awkward “waiting for people to join” opening from your replays — a detail I thought was genuinely clever. I also floated an idea during the show that I’m still thinking about: I have a Substack with two publications, and I was wondering if I could embed eStreamly live shows there to showcase my affiliate tools. Laura wasn’t sure about Substack’s embed compatibility but promised to look into it. The challenge is that Substack lets you schedule live content and provides a page, but working with custom embed code is a different story. It’s something I want to figure out, because instead of scattering affiliate links across video descriptions, having one dedicated live shopping experience for my tool recommendations feels like the smarter, more effective approach. The Long-Form vs. Short-Form Future Near the end of our conversation, Laura and I touched on something I find increasingly fascinating: the divergence between long-form and short-form content platforms. Social media sites are splitting. You’ve got the long-form spaces — Substack, Medium, Reddit — where deeper, more relational content lives. And then you’ve got the short-form hook spaces like Instagram and TikTok. Laura’s prediction is that both will grow, but the audiences and the style of engagement will be fundamentally different. The era of creating one piece of content and blasting it identically across every platform is ending. Long-form spaces will foster deeper relationships. Short-form spaces will deliver enjoyment and discovery. But the relationship-building — the kind that actually drives live shopping sales — will increasingly happen in long-form environments. I pushed back on the narrative I hear constantly that one format is “killing” another. Blogging is dead? Take a look at Substack and talk to me again. I’ve also been noticing a growing number of Portuguese-speaking users on Substack, which tells me the platform is gaining real traction beyond the English-speaking world. These shifts matter for anyone thinking about where to invest their live shopping energy. Live Shopping Is a Long Game Worth Playing Live shopping isn’t a hack. It’s not going to transform your business overnight, and Laura was admirably honest about that throughout our conversation. It takes an existing audience, a commitment to showing up consistently for at least six months, and a willingness to be imperfect on camera. But for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who have built a community and are looking for a way to convert trust into transactions without the friction of traditional e-commerce, it’s one of the most compelling formats available right now. You get to demonstrate products in real time, answer objections before they become deal-breakers, build deeper relationships with your audience, and collect the kind of direct feedback that most businesses pay consultants to gather. If you’ve been treating live streaming as just another content format, it might be time to think of it as what it really is: a storefront with a personality. Key Takeaways Live shopping works best when you’ve already built an audience and proven you can hold attention on free platforms — don’t invest in tools before you’ve earned the right to use them. Own your audience by bringing them to your website rather than relying solely on social media, and reduce every possible friction point between “I want this” and “I bought this.” Email and SMS remain the most reliable way to get people to show up to live events, and the authenticity of live — including the inevitable mishaps — is becoming a genuine competitive advantage in a world increasingly saturated with polished AI content. Commit to six months, experiment with timing, listen to your audience’s feedback like it’s gold, and treat every live stream like you’re building a store experience, not just creating content. Laura’s Favourites 📚 Book: The Secret Life of Bees 🎬 Film: The Royal Tenenbaums (all-time favourite) / Conclave (most recent) 📺 TV Show: Stumble — a comedy parody of a fly-on-the-wall cheerleading documentary 🛠️ Tool: Claude AI 🔁 Habit: Hand-building ceramics Find Mora About Laura and eStreamLy https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo [https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo] (affiliate) https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralashmar/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/estreamly You Might Also Like Want to boost your content? These are the tools I use and love! 😉 Some links are affiliate links (I earn a commission at no extra cost to you): 🎥 StreamYard: Professional live streaming directly from your browser ➡ https://streamyard.com/?fpr=mfcnovo 🌟 Magai: Your new best productivity friend! Join thousands who have already transformed their workflow ➡ https://magai.co/?via=marco 〽️Metricool. Manage and measure your social media performance: https://f.mtr.cool/UQGBYC [https://f.mtr.cool/UQGBYC] 👉 What if your livestream could also be your store? With Estreamly, viewers can discover and buy products directly inside your video. Start exploring here:https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo [https://try.estreamly.com/videocommerce-marco-novo] 📜 Castmagic: Transform audios into ready-made content | Code “marcoting20” = 20% off ➡ https://get.castmagic.io/ozhbxxx1bv3n 🤳 Be Relatable: Authentic content that works ➡ https://berelatable.pro/?fpr=mfcnovo 💰 Streann: Monetize your videos ➡ https://fas.st/t/tFgYFdcY 🎞️ Opus Pro: Viral short videos from your long content | 30% off ➡ https://www.opus.pro/marco30 🤖 Short.ai: Automatic faceless videos with AI ➡ https://www.short.ai/?ref=MARCOTING 📢 Stampede Social: Automatic reach | Code “MARCO20” = 20% off ➡ https://app.stampede.social/svc/onboard?aff=1FjTihKpsAns 📦 Equipment (affiliate links): • My equipment: https://amzn.to/4ahWJVD • For beginners: https://amzn.to/40wQf1L • For outdoor: https://amzn.to/40mytNg 📲 Connect with me on social media: 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mfcnovo 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mfcnovo/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfcnovo/ 🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/mfcnovo 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mfcnovo 📝 Substack: https://mfcnovo.substack.com/ Get full access to Marcoting Live at mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe [https://mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

🎙️ Missed Calls, Missed Money… and the Voice AI Revolution 📞🤖

Why Voice AI Is Really a Trust Solution for Small Business Here’s a thought that should stop every small business owner mid-scroll: the technology you’re most afraid of might be the one that finally levels the playing field. Not because it replaces you — but because it protects your most valuable asset. Trust. That’s the core argument Laurent, a French-born entrepreneur who splits his time between the US and Israel and has worked in digital since 2002, made on a recent episode of The Special Marcoting Live Show. Laurent is the force behind GetOblic [https://getoblic.com/], a voice AI platform built specifically for small and local businesses, and his perspective on AI is refreshingly human. Most conversations about AI fall into two camps: breathless hype or existential dread. Laurent refuses both. He spends roughly twelve hours a day working with AI — not as the core of his business, but as a constellation of assistants — and his conclusion is blunt. AI will not replace humans. It will replace some tasks, sure. Some jobs, yes. But not us. Why? Because AI without human judgment is a liability. And judgment, as he puts it, is a purely human quality. Judgment Is the Skill AI Can’t Automate Laurent doesn’t sugarcoat the limitations of AI. He’s caught AI lying — not in a subtle, interpretive way, but blatantly fabricating information. When he called it out, the AI admitted it. His takeaway isn’t panic. It’s perspective. Five years ago, if a human lied to you, you’d either exercise judgment or be naive. The same rules apply now. The scalability problem compounds this. Ask AI one good question, and you’ll probably get a great answer. Ask a derivative of that question twenty times, and the quality starts to erode. Push for five hundred or a thousand operational items, and the whole thing falls apart. AI, as it stands, doesn’t scale the way we want it to — and Laurent suspects there’s a financial reason behind that. Platforms don’t want to spend too many tokens, so they try to dump as much information as possible into a single response. For the person on the other end, trying to build something step by step, that’s a real workflow problem. The antidote? Diligence, organisation, and a framework that Laurent’s team uses daily. The Operational Book: A Framework for AI Continuity One of the most practical takeaways from the conversation is what Laurent calls the Operational Book, or Op Book. The problem is simple: when you’re deep into a project with AI, you know when you start but never when you finish. You need sleep. The AI doesn’t. And when you pick things up the next morning — often in a new thread because the old one is overloaded and sluggish — you’ve lost context. The Op Book solves this. Every time Laurent and his team hit a meaningful threshold in their work, they ask the AI to write a comprehensive summary: every task completed, every problem encountered, every solution found. Then they download it as a PDF and store it locally. The next day, when they open a fresh thread, they upload the Op Book to give the AI a running start. It’s not bulletproof, Laurent admits, but it helps tremendously. And there’s a deeper strategic reason to do this. What happens if ChatGPT disappears tomorrow? What if you want to migrate from Claude to Gemini in six months? If your operational knowledge lives only inside a chat thread on a single platform, you’re one outage away from losing everything. The Op Book is insurance — platform-agnostic, portable, and human-controlled. Trust Is the Product, Not the Technology This is where Laurent’s thinking gets genuinely distinctive. When his team at GetOblic [https://getoblic.com/] set out to build a voice AI solution, they assumed they were building an AI product. They quickly realised they were building a trust solution. The reasoning is sharp. Small business owners spend years building relationships with their customers — often through their own voice, in person or over the phone. That relationship is built on trust. Now, if you delegate that trust to a voice AI and don’t disclose it, you’re breaking the very thing that made your business work. Laurent goes further. GetOblic can technically clone a business owner’s voice. They refuse to do it. Because imagine a long-time customer calling in, hearing what sounds like the owner, and three minutes in, something feels off. That’s not just an awkward interaction — it’s a lie. And a lie, in Laurent’s framework, is a trust break you don’t recover from. This conviction runs through everything they do. Their social media uses AI-generated video — and they leave the watermarks on deliberately. They don’t care. The generation isn’t the point. The content and the message are the point. Disclosure isn’t a concession; it’s the strategy. Laurent extends this principle beyond his own company. He flags how easy it is to spot AI-generated text now — the dashes, the spacing, the bullet point patterns, the telltale phrasing. He recounts reading a two-thousand-word post by a French politician where every single line screamed AI, with no disclosure and no attempt to even edit it. If leaders can’t be transparent about AI use, what chance does trust have? Voice AI, the Moment Economy, and an SEO Surprise GetOblic’s model is clever. They’ve built a directory — think digital-era Yellow Pages — where each business listing automatically deploys a free voice AI agent trained on that company’s information. Business owners can interact with their own voice AI, understand how it works, and see how easily it can be trained. This is the trust-building phase. Once they’re comfortable, they can subscribe and turn that voice AI into a live phone line or embed it on their website. Here’s where serendipity — a word Laurent distinguishes carefully from pivot — enters the story. After deploying 1.8 million listing pages with voice AI agents, the team noticed something unexpected. Google was indexing their pages significantly higher than anticipated. The reason? People were spending more time on pages with voice AI. They were engaging, asking questions, exploring. Google measures that dwell time, and it rewards it. Laurent didn’t plan this. It emerged from the data. And it means that any small business using GetOblic’s voice AI on their website isn’t just getting an AI agent — they’re getting an SEO retention tool that improves their search rankings. For anyone who’s been told SEO is dead, this is a sharp counterpoint. The data advantage compounds further. With 1.8 million active voice AI agents generating hundreds of minutes of conversation daily, GetOblic feeds that data back into their training models through what they call crowd training. This means voice AI agents for chiropractors learn from real chiropractor-customer interactions. Agents for real estate brokers learn from real estate conversations. The training is specific, field-tested, and constantly improving — something a single business could never achieve on its own. Protecting the Moment — Why Small Businesses Need This Most Laurent frames the small business reality with a concept he calls the Moment Economy. Large corporations operate on quarterly reports and annual boards. A missed call means nothing at scale. For a small business owner, a missed call can ruin a day, a week, a mood. And if you’re upset, you don’t work well. The ripple effects are real. The telephone itself, Laurent points out, is a bizarre invention when you think about it. You pay for ten digits, and from that moment on, anyone in the world can decide to interrupt you at any time, on their own terms. Voicemail was the first patch. Chatbots were the next. But chatbots don’t convey emotion. Modern voice AI does. Laurent notes that today’s voice AI solutions can understand human emotions and respond appropriately. He’s honest enough to admit that he himself doesn’t answer customers as well on a Friday afternoon as he does on a Monday morning. A well-configured voice AI, with proper guardrails — meaning it knows its boundaries — and fallbacks — meaning it knows when to hand off to a human — provides consistency that most humans simply can’t. The deeper payoff is mental relief. A business owner who closes the door at seven and goes home to family shouldn’t spend the evening agonising over missed calls. Voice AI, properly deployed, removes that anxiety. It doesn’t replace the owner. It frees the owner — to think, to rest, to grow, and ultimately, to hire more people. The Content Trust Problem Nobody Talks About The conversation also touched on a growing trend that should concern every entrepreneur creating content. I described a LinkedIn post advising people to find trending YouTube videos, feed them into ChatGPT, generate carousels, and post them as their own content on LinkedIn. No credit. No original insight. Just repackaged authority. Laurent’s response was multilayered. First, AI-generated text is riddled with watermarks — trained eyes spot it immediately. Second, and more importantly, this is a trust break. If someone approaches you for business because of content that isn’t actually yours, you can’t deliver. You don’t have the knowledge. You don’t have the authority. The trust collapses on the first real contact. This loops back to Laurent’s central thesis. Whether you’re deploying voice AI, creating content, or building a business, trust is the asset. Break it once, and you’re out of the game. You don’t need to break it twice. Key Takeaways Voice AI isn’t coming to replace small business owners — it’s arriving to protect the moments that matter most, from missed calls to late-night customer anxiety. The real competitive advantage isn’t the technology itself but the trust framework you build around it: disclose your AI use, maintain human judgment over every output, and use tools like the Operational Book to stay in control of your knowledge across platforms and sessions. Small businesses that embrace voice AI now, with proper guardrails, won’t just improve customer experience — they’ll gain unexpected SEO benefits and free themselves to do the deeply human work that no machine can replicate. Laurent’s Favourites 📚 Book The Infinite Game [https://amzn.to/4bcfURI] by Simon Sinek [https://amzn.to/4bcfURI] (affiliate) 🎬 Film Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg) and Carlito’s Way (Brian De Palma) 📺 TV Show Silicon Valley 🛠️ Tool HeyGen (generative video), Gemini (AI/content/images), ChatGPT Find More About Laurentand GetOblic GetOblic https://getoblic.com/ Laurent’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-cohen-usa/ You May Also Like: Want to boost your content? These are the tools I use and love! 😉 Some links are affiliate links (I earn a commission at no extra cost to you): 🎥 StreamYard: Professional live streaming directly from your browser ➡ https://streamyard.com/?fpr=mfcnovo 🌟 Magai: Your new best productivity friend! Join thousands who have already transformed their workflow ➡ https://magai.co/?via=marco 〽️Metricool. Manage and measure your social media performance: https://f.mtr.cool/UQGBYC 📜 Castmagic: Transform audios into ready-made content | Code “marcoting20” = 20% off ➡ https://get.castmagic.io/ozhbxxx1bv3n 🤳 Be Relatable: Authentic content that works ➡ https://berelatable.pro/?fpr=mfcnovo 💰 Streann: Monetize your videos ➡ https://fas.st/t/tFgYFdcY 🎞️ Opus Pro: Viral short videos from your long content | 30% off ➡ https://www.opus.pro/marco30 🤖 Short.ai: Automatic faceless videos with AI ➡ https://www.short.ai/?ref=MARCOTING 📢 Stampede Social: Automatic reach | Code “MARCO20” = 20% off ➡ https://app.stampede.social/svc/onboard?aff=1FjTihKpsAns 📦 Equipment (affiliate links): • My equipment: https://amzn.to/4ahWJVD • For beginners: https://amzn.to/40wQf1L • For outdoor: https://amzn.to/40mytNg 📲 Connect with me on social media: 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mfcnovo 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mfcnovo/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfcnovo/ 🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/mfcnovo 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mfcnovo 📝 Substack: https://mfcnovo.substack.com/ Get full access to Marcoting Live at mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe [https://mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Own Your Content: Why Creators Need More Than YouTube

Own Your Content: Why Creators Need More Than YouTube in 2026 Two things I keep coming back to in content creation. One, you should own the house — you should own the land where you’re building. And two, you need to understand how to monetize your content. It’s nice to produce great work, but if you can’t turn it into revenue, you’ve got a hobby, not a business. And let me tell you, that monetization piece is trickier than most people admit. I invited three guests onto the Special Marcoting Live Show to dig into both of these problems: Caren Glasser, a tech evangelist whose mission is to take the fear out of technology; Jan Creidenberg, who manages product and growth at Open Video [https://open.video/]; and Connor Shield, head of creator success at the same platform. What followed was one of the most practical conversations I’ve had about what it really means to own your content and build a sustainable creator business. Owning the Land Isn’t a Metaphor — It’s a Business Decision I’ve been saying this for a while, and Caren has been saying it even longer: if you’re putting your content exclusively on platforms you don’t own, you’re taking a massive risk. And I’m not being dramatic. I had a Facebook page stolen by a hacker a few years ago. I asked Facebook to give it back more times than I can count. Never got it back. All that content, all those followers — gone. Caren echoed this from her own experience. “I have colleagues — I’m sure you have colleagues, Marco — that have been shut down for no apparent reason. They’re just done,” she said. That’s why she was already storing her content across Google Drive, Vimeo, OneDrive, Apple Drive, and YouTube before she found Open Video. She knew the risk was real. And it’s not just about accounts disappearing. I’m an Amazon content creator, and I upload videos to Amazon.com, Amazon UK, and Amazon Canada. The same videos — same language, same content. Some get approved on one platform and rejected on the others. AI moderation is wildly inconsistent, and when you don’t own the platform, you have zero control over those decisions. The Platform Doesn’t Work for You — It Works for Itself Jan made a point during the conversation that really stuck with me. He said these platforms want to maximise watch time on their platform. They don’t care whether it’s your video or somebody else’s. A YouTube subscriber is essentially a vanity metric — it shows how popular you look, but you have no clue who those people actually are. You don’t have their email. You can’t contact them directly. You’re completely dependent on an algorithm that serves the platform’s interests, not yours. Connor took this further with a parallel that should worry every video creator. He and Jan have spent years in the publishing space, and they’ve already watched what happened to text-based content. Publishers who built their businesses on Google search traffic saw everything collapse when Google started keeping users on its own platform with AI-generated overviews. Overnight, businesses that depended on that traffic lost their lead generation. “We see the same risk profile in video,” Connor said. If YouTube decides to stop sending traffic your way, what do you have left? Do your viewers know about your brand, your website, and your products? For most creators, the honest answer is no. This is the core argument for owning your content on your own domain. It’s not about abandoning YouTube — Caren was very clear about that. Open Video is not instead of YouTube. It’s in addition to YouTube. You still use the big platforms for discovery. But your home base, the place where you truly own the relationship with your audience, needs to be on land you control. How Open Video Changes the Creator Equation What drew me to this conversation was how practical the Open Video solution is. Connor walked through the dashboard live on the show, and the first thing that struck me was the simplicity. Creators are already juggling too many platforms, so the last thing anyone needs is another complicated tool. The dashboard covers everything you’d expect — video management, analytics, channel hosting, audience management, and monetization settings. But the details matter. When someone subscribes to your Open Video channel, you actually get their email address. Compare that to YouTube, where a subscriber is just a number with no way to reach them directly. You can also upload existing email lists, and the platform automatically notifies your subscribers when new content drops. Caren demonstrated the YouTube import app, which lets you either manually import individual videos or set up automatic syncing so every new YouTube upload also lands on Open Video. The metadata — titles, descriptions, thumbnails, categories — all transfer over. You can tweak everything within Open Video’s interface, which mirrors YouTube’s familiar fields. One feature I found particularly interesting is the custom domain connection. Caren’s videos live at videos.carenglasser.com — her own property, with her own branding. “It literally looks like a YouTube screen,” she said. “It has all the components. So it’s not foreign. It’s very comforting. But it’s yours.” The platform works with WordPress via a plugin, and also integrates with Webflow and other CMS platforms through DNS settings. I also asked about playlist segmentation — something critical for me since I create content in at least two languages. Jan confirmed you can set up different playlists and configure email notifications to go out only for specific playlists or areas of the channel. So a subscriber can choose to follow just the topics or languages they care about rather than getting everything. Monetization Without the YouTube Gatekeeping This is the part that hit hardest for me. YouTube requires a thousand subscribers and four thousand watch hours before you can join its Partner Programme. For most creators — even those with genuine followings — those thresholds are out of reach. And here’s what really bothers me: YouTube still shows ads on videos that aren’t part of the Partner Programme. They just keep all the revenue for themselves. Open Video takes a completely different approach. Jan explained that the platform covers ad serving fees, and after that, one hundred percent of ad profits go to the creator. There’s no subscriber threshold. There’s no watch-hour requirement. You can start monetizing essentially from day one. Caren was emphatic about the control this gives creators. You can decide how many ads appear in your video, where exactly they’re placed, and whether to set defaults or customise each video individually. “We didn’t have that control,” she said. On YouTube, ads just pop up wherever the platform decides. The platform is backed by Ezoic, a company with fifteen years in the digital advertising and content creation space. That backing gives them the capital to offer the platform for free right now. Jan mentioned future plans for premium features — paywalls, live streaming, additional templates — following a freemium model. But everything currently on the platform is free. I also asked the question I know some people are thinking: what stops someone from gaming the system? Using a VPN to inflate views, or uploading stolen Netflix content to monetize? Connor was straightforward — they’ve built robust detection systems. Between the VPN detection and content verification, they catch it. “Going back to the ten, fifteen years of Ezoic, we’ve dealt with people trying to monetize on the open web in every way possible,” he said. Try it, and you’ll get yourself banned. The SEO Advantage Nobody’s Talking About Connor raised a point during the show that I think deserves its own spotlight. Google made changes roughly two years ago to how video ranks in search. For a video to appear in Google’s video search results, it needs to be the main content on the page — not just an embedded YouTube video accompanying a blog article. Open Video’s watch pages and channel pages are built specifically for this. Jan showed live examples of creators whose videos rank as the top result in Google search on their own websites, above Instagram and YouTube results. All the SEO optimisation is handled automatically — you don’t have to build it yourself. And here’s the part that really got my attention: Connor mentioned that early signals suggest LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini are using Google search rankings as a template for their own answers. So if your video ranks in Google, it’s likely showing up in AI-powered answers too. That’s a significant discovery opportunity that most creators are currently sending to YouTube instead of capturing for themselves. Smart Stacks: Building a Real Content Workflow Caren introduced a concept she calls “smart stacks” — a systematic workflow for content distribution. Here’s how it works: you record a video or live show. It goes to YouTube via StreamYard or Restream. The Open Video app automatically imports it. Then you go in and optimise within Open Video and embed it wherever you want on your website. “Don’t do this by the seat of your pants,” Caren said. And I think that’s the critical mindset shift. This isn’t about adding one more thing to your to-do list. It’s about being intentional with a process that protects your business. Jan reinforced this: “It’s no longer just, ‘Oh yeah, I make a video, I upload it to YouTube.’ It’s being intentional about trying to build that community outside of the platforms.” I asked Caren to give the audience three reasons to embrace Open Video in 2026. Her answer was perfectly Caren: the first reason is that you need to own the land where you put your content. The second reason is that you need to own the land on which you place your content. And the third? Monetization — available from day one without arbitrary gatekeeping. The repetition was intentional. And honestly, it’s the whole point. Key Takeaways Owning your video content on your own domain isn’t a nice-to-have anymore — it’s a business necessity as platforms increasingly prioritise their own interests over creators’. The combination of direct audience connection through email capture, immediate monetization without subscriber thresholds, and SEO benefits from hosting video as primary content on your website makes a compelling case for building beyond YouTube. The shift requires a change in workflow and mindset, but tools like Open Video [https://open.video/] — backed by Ezoic’s fifteen years in digital advertising — make it accessible for creators at any level. Find more about the guests and Open.Video: Caren Glasser: https://www.carenglasser.com/Caren Glasser | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/carenglasser/] Jan Creidenberg:Jan Creidenberg | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-creidenberg-97772171/] Connor Shield:Connor Shield | LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorshield/] Open.Video [https://open.video/] You might also like: Want to boost your content? These are the tools I use and love! 😉 Some links are affiliate links (I earn a commission at no extra cost to you): 🎥 StreamYard: Professional live streaming directly from your browser ➡ https://streamyard.com/?fpr=mfcnovo 🌟 Magai: Your new best productivity friend! Join thousands who have already transformed their workflow ➡ https://magai.co/?via=marco 〽️Metricool. Manage and measure your social media performance: https://f.mtr.cool/UQGBYC 📜 Castmagic: Transform audios into ready-made content | Code “marcoting20” = 20% off ➡ https://get.castmagic.io/ozhbxxx1bv3n 🤳 Be Relatable: Authentic content that works ➡ https://berelatable.pro/?fpr=mfcnovo 💰 Streann: Monetize your videos ➡ https://fas.st/t/tFgYFdcY 🎞️ Opus Pro: Viral short videos from your long content | 30% off ➡ https://www.opus.pro/marco30 🤖 Short.ai: Automatic faceless videos with AI ➡ https://www.short.ai/?ref=MARCOTING 📢 Stampede Social: Automatic reach | Code “MARCO20” = 20% off ➡ https://app.stampede.social/svc/onboard?aff=1FjTihKpsAns 📦 Equipment (affiliate links): • My equipment: https://amzn.to/4ahWJVD • For beginners: https://amzn.to/40wQf1L • For outdoor: https://amzn.to/40mytNg 📲 Connect with me on social media: 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mfcnovo 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mfcnovo/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfcnovo/ 🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/mfcnovo 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mfcnovo 📝 Substack: https://mfcnovo.substack.com/ Get full access to Marcoting Live at mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe [https://mfcnovo.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How to Build Authority as a Freelancer (and Stop Competing on Price)

Most freelancers spend years getting really good at their craft — then spend the rest of their careers racing to the bottom on price. Jason Willis-Lee has spent 26 years proving there is a better way. A medical translator based in Madrid who trained as a doctor, pivoted to life sciences, and eventually built a consultancy teaching business skills to other language professionals, Jason is living proof that deep expertise combined with smart positioning beats generic visibility every time. Jason recently joined the Special Marketing Live Show to talk about authority, direct client acquisition, and how to survive — even thrive — in the age of AI. What came out of that conversation wasn’t a list of tactics. It was a coherent philosophy: know your edge, build a framework around it, and create assets that pull the right clients directly to you. Here’s the substance of that conversation, broken down into the ideas that matter most. The BRIDGE Framework: A System for Building Authority Jason’s approach to authority isn’t vague. He’s codified it into an acronym he calls the BRIDGE — a framework he teaches, talks about across all his content, and builds his entire consultancy positioning around. B is for personal Branding. Your life, your story, your unusual combination of experiences — these are what differentiate you from anyone else on the market. Jason’s background as a medical student who became a translator who now coaches freelancers is unusual, and that unusualness is the point. If you try to sand those edges down to appeal to everyone, you disappear. R is for P2P Relationships — person to person. In Jason’s words, staying human is the most important message he has. LinkedIn, podcasts, direct outreach: all of it should feel like a real conversation between two people, not a broadcast. I is for Impact Content. You need to be publishing material that creates a response — not content for the sake of a posting schedule, but content that genuinely teaches, challenges, or provokes. This is the kind of content that builds an audience that actually wants to hear from you. D is for Data. You have to track what’s working and stop doing what isn’t. Build the habit of looking at numbers and leaning into signals from your audience. G is for Growth through expertise. Every single person reading this has a specialisation that, if articulated well, makes them the obvious choice for a specific type of client. The BRIDGE is built on exploiting that specialisation rather than hiding it. E is for AI Efficiency. Not AI as a replacement, but AI as leverage. Jason estimates he earns more per hour since integrating AI into his workflow than he did before. The work gets done faster. The quality, when you prompt well, stays high. The power of naming a framework like this is that it becomes a shorthand for everything you stand for. People remember names and structures. They don’t remember vague promises. Authority vs. Going Viral: Why the Right Choice Is Counter-Intuitive There is a constant temptation — especially on social platforms — to optimise for reach. Going viral feels like validation. A post with thousands of likes feels better than one with twelve, even if those twelve are the exact people who would hire you. Jason is direct on this: authority is the secret sauce. But building authority means making content that’s specifically for your niche audience, not for the algorithm. It means being willing to lose the casual scroller to keep the attention of the right professional. The image he uses is of a castle with a moat. If you build your personal brand correctly — if you lean into what makes you genuinely different and build a body of work around it — you become a category of one. Your competitors are outside the moat. Inside, you have no competition. The clients who want exactly what you offer will seek you out. Businesses that stall around the 2 million revenue mark, Jason notes, often break through not by changing their service but by building authority assets: a book, a signature framework, a piece of intellectual property that shifts how the market perceives them. That shift is available to any freelancer at any stage of their business. The Three-Part Client Acquisition System: Authority, Magnets, and Social Proof Authority alone does not close clients. Jason breaks the acquisition process down into three components that need to work together. The first is authority — everything covered above. The second is magnets. You need something that attracts people towards you and gives them a reason to enter your world. This could be a PDF download, a video recording of a conference talk, a free chapter from a book. The key point: it should not be thrown together in twenty minutes. A well-crafted lead magnet builds an audience. A poor one damages your positioning. Jason’s own magnet is the first chapter of his book How to Find More Direct Clients — specifically the chapter on niching down, which he titled Niche Your Way to the Top. He gives it away for free on his website. The full book is available for a few dollars. Both serve as entry points into his ecosystem. He also recommends two tools for audience research and lead generation: Tally (tally.so) [https://tally.so/], a free survey tool you can attach a lead magnet to, and ScoreApp [https://www.scoreapp.com/], a more sophisticated quiz platform created by UK entrepreneur Daniel Priestley. ScoreApp in particular works well because the quiz result itself is valuable — it can double as an educational lead magnet while capturing contact data. The third component is social proof. Testimonials, Google Business reviews, LinkedIn recommendations — evidence that you have taken real people from point A to point B. Getting testimonials is awkward, Jason admits. Not everyone wants their name used. But spending twenty minutes occasionally writing to past clients and asking for a short review, with a boilerplate message that focuses on the outcome they received, is one of the highest-leverage activities a solopreneur can do. Pricing Strategy: Stop Competing on Cost, Start Selling Outcomes This is where a lot of solopreneurs lose money they didn’t have to lose. The instinct when a potential client pushes back is to lower the price. The correct response, according to Jason, is not to have introduced the price yet. His first principle: keep price out of the conversation for as long as possible. Warm the relationship. Build desire. Make sure the client understands the value of what they’re getting before a number appears. His second principle: think in terms of outcomes, not services. You don’t sell a translation. You sell a published article in an international journal with the author’s name on it. You don’t sell a coaching session. You sell a client who lands their first direct contract at double their previous rate. This is what he calls outcomes-based selling — and it changes the conversation entirely. His third principle: use ABC pricing. Offer three tiers. Option A is the entry-level. Option B is where you want most clients to land. Option C is the premium, with a meaningful value add. The presence of option C makes option B feel like the sensible, reasonable choice — even if option B is already ambitious. And a fourth practical point, which Marco reinforced from a previous episode: you are not charging for your time. You are charging for the client’s time saved — and for the quality gap between what you produce and what they could produce themselves. Your decade of experience is not what justifies the price. The outcome, delivered faster and better, is. AI and the Human Edge: How to Use Both Without Losing Either Jason has been a medical translator for 26 years. His industry was one of the first to feel the pressure of automation — machine translation has been around for well over a decade. He is not afraid of AI. He uses it daily. But he is precise about what it is and is not. AI is the E of the BRIDGE: efficient use of AI. It handles drafting, editing, routine tasks. It has increased his productivity and, consequently, his hourly earnings. But there are clear limits. Confidential medical data should not be fed into an LLM. Client-sensitive material requires discretion about which tools you use and how you use them. More fundamentally, what AI cannot replicate is the human in the equation. The fact that Jason trained as a doctor before becoming a translator is not something an AI has. His relationships with clients, his understanding of their world, his ability to pick up on the nuances of a brief — none of that is automatable. The personal brand and the P2P relationship are, if anything, more valuable now than they were before AI, precisely because they’re harder to fake. His advice: do the reps. Keep showing up. Whether it’s three podcast episodes a month or a weekly newsletter (his is called Beyond Words), the consistency of presence is what builds an audience that trusts you enough to eventually pay you. The parallel he draws is swimming — he does twenty lengths of a twenty-five metre pool twice a week. The more consistently he shows up, the easier and faster it gets. Business works the same way. Key Takeaways The through-line of this conversation is that authority is built deliberately, not accidentally. Jason’s BRIDGE framework gives solopreneurs a practical structure for building know, like, and trust with the right audience over time. The combination of a strong personal brand, genuine P2P relationships, a well-crafted lead magnet, social proof, and outcomes-based pricing is what separates the freelancers who compete on price from the ones who become a category of one. AI is a tool for efficiency — not a threat to the human who knows how to use it. Thanks for reading Marcoting Live! This post is public so feel free to share it. Jason’s Favourites 🎵 Music The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas; Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber; Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland 📚 Book Any John Grisham thriller; Posie Parker series by L.B. Hathaway 🎬 Film Any Alfred Hitchcock 1950s–60s film (Rope, Rear Window, North by Northwest) 📺 TV Show Knight Rider, The A-Team, Dallas (1980s classics) 🛠️ Tool Claude Projects (Claude Pro) 🔁 Habit Swimming twice a week — 20 lengths of a 25m pool each session Find Jason Willis-Lee Website: entrepreneurialtranslator.com LinkedIn: Jason Willis-Lee, Entrepreneurial Translator [https://www.linkedin.com/in/entrepreneurialtranslator/] Podcast: How to Find Direct Clients Podcast [https://open.spotify.com/show/13UuUgellALnk0Y6WwWdnN?si=1d0b2ce54a434f66] You Might Also Like Want to boost your content? These are the tools I use and love! 😉 Some links are affiliate links (I earn a commission at no extra cost to you): 🎥 StreamYard: Professional live streaming directly from your browser ➡ https://streamyard.com/?fpr=mfcnovo 🌟 Magai: Your new best productivity friend! Join thousands who have already transformed their workflow ➡ https://magai.co/?via=marco 〽️Metricool. 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