1653: AI Content Visibility for Authority Building with Lisa Apolinski

Robert Plank 0:00 Lisa Apolinski is here to help us be clear, consistent, and congruent. And Miss Lisa says that the content most businesses overlook might be the content that gets you found. And we used to think, okay, well, a customer or someone does a search and finds us through SEO. But hey, now there's someone else doing our research for us that's AI. So we're talking about getting found by AI, and Lisa has helped clients generate more than $1.5 billion in new revenue by turning expertise into authority. And we're here to talk about it on the Marketer of the Day podcast with Robert Plank. We're brought to you by dfypodcast.com, and they handle editing, publishing, and promotion, so you can focus on the interview. And today's interview we're focusing on is well, if AI does not see what you do, did it really happen? Well, that's the crazy world that we're coming into today, where AI makes it very easy to produce more content. But now we have to kind of figure out well how that fits into human judgment, experience, and storytelling, and making that more valuable, and along the way, helping others, making money, growing a business, getting found-all those other, you know, pesky items on the checklist we're looking for. So, Miss Lisa, great to see you again. How are you?

Lisa Apolinski 1:15 I'm doing well, Robert. I'm excited for this talk, and it's funny that I actually. That I actually have had this conversation a couple more times since you and I chatted, which is apropos, isn't it?

Robert Plank 1:31 Yeah, where where it's it's just becoming more and more important, and I just every week I use AI probably like 5% more, especially in my searching. Like you know, like when I have a podcast guest like you, of course I'll see how does Lisa show up on Google, on YouTube, on LinkedIn, on Amazon. What's important to her? But more and more, I'm like you know, I'll search it on AI because AI really do the. It'll like check some podcasts and it'll check other nooks and crannies of the internet. I hadn't thought to, and like give me five minutes of work in 15 seconds. So like, it's even the AI search is slowly creeping in on me as well.

Lisa Apolinski 2:10 Yep, it's happening to all of us.

Robert Plank 2:13 Yeah, like it or not, and and so if someone like it maybe needs some catching up on this, if if they come to you and they say, "Hey, Lisa, how can you help me get better found? Or like, what am I missing? What's the kind of introductory statement in all this?

Lisa Apolinski 2:30 The authority on authority power. My first recommendation to anybody, and you should be doing this just as your business habit now, because, like you said, if AI doesn't see it, did it actually happen? Go into your AI of choice, or pick one that you have never used. Either way, and put in, you know, in third person. So I'd put in, "What is Lisa Aplinski known for? and see what comes back. Sometimes the results are great, and you're like, "Oh, wow! Thanks for making me feel good about myself today. And sometimes it has such old information or information that you thought you were clear on, but AI wasn't able to detect it, which means now you need to go into your LinkedIn website, YouTube, social media of choice, and add in that language so that AI can now update. And it's amazing how sometimes it's pulling information that's you know 10 years old, which in digital terms, is like 1000, right? Or you thought you were really clear on something. I had a client who thought super clear on what problem they solved, and then we looked on AI, was never mentioned, and then she went back and looked, and she went, "Oh, yeah, it's been living in my head. I never actually got it out and put it in my LinkedIn profile and put it on my website and talked about it. I've been storing it in my brain, and AI can't see that. So she ended up having to update her content to make it more visible to AI.

Robert Plank 4:19 Nice, so this is really important stuff to make sure we have that. I mean, self awareness is part of it, but it's kind of like there's like the making sure that your own self awareness matches what others see about you. And I forget about this. I think it's a helpful reminder that AI will give us the answer to whatever we ask it. We just have to ask it the right thing. So you say go to AI, and I, I, I mean, you're giving us a great homework assignment. I love this. Go to an AI that you you you don't use. And so I'm thinking like, well, I've used like Claude once or twice. I've used Gemini once or twice, and then like ChatGPT I use every day. So you go to like a brand new AI and say, hey, what what. What does the world know about Lisa? And then you compare the answer to what you would want it to be. And if you say, well, if if you're like that client where you had certain things in your head, then hey, you can then ask AI like, what do I change? Right? You sort of the screenshot of your LinkedIn of your web page. You say, well, what should I add to adjust to make what the future reality in a month or two match what I I thought incorrectly today was like so it's like okay we're on the right path to fixing this problem.

Lisa Apolinski 5:28 Absolutely and you can start to lean into that language when you're having conversations when you're being interviewed when you're in networking events just so you're reinforcing your own message so that it matches the whole idea is an experience, right? We want to have a consistent experience for anyone who is looking to give their hard-earned money to us to help them get to a future success point. And if the the experience is clear, it's consistent and it's congruent, they will be more likely to hire us, and having that automatic and really just record time feedback, like you said, is fantastic. And sometimes you learn things that that you maybe knew subconsciously, but you've never actually articulated them. One of the things that I knew I believed in, but I never actually said it, and AI reflected it back to me, was that I don't necessarily want people to worry about call to actions, and I know that sounds weird, right? Shouldn't I be telling people what to do next? This isn't anyone's first rodeo. They know when they're on a website, when they're on a YouTube video, they have a tendency to know what to do next. You can offer a suggestion, a soft CTA, but not buy now or sell. You don't need to do that. And I had no idea that that subtly I was bringing in that language of let your buyer's journey be their journey, not yours. It's it's their experience, not yours. And AI translated that to me just beautifully, and I was like, oh my god, I should be leaning into this more. Yes, you know you can offer pathways, but I think the call to action, this really in-your-face call to action, is highly unnecessary when you're trying to build a relationship and trust.

Robert Plank 7:34 Yes, it seems a little old-fashioned. It seems more 510, years ago, and it's I'm I I was trying to get my brain wrapped around this idea of like the feedback loop and being more managerial in what you do because like that's what's so great about podcasting right you you have enough of the talky talk where sometimes you might just by accident say some kind of phrase and then AI it's like hey you should use that and sometimes I'll I'll say something, or I'll have some idea in my head. I'll like, hey, you know, because AI is like a calculator for a language. I can say, you know, I say this phrase. Did I accidentally steal this from someone, or does someone else say it better than me? Or what I'm always hoping for is like, did someone else say it like 20% different from me? So I can say, hey, now this differentiator, this builds on that. So, like your soft CTA example, is a good reason of that. And you know, the kids these days they don't appreciate what this this instantaneous feedback is, right? Because even five years ago, if we wanted to do what you're talking about, we'd maybe go to like a speaker coach of some kind, and they'd give us a long list. They'd say, "Hey, I hate this and that about your website, and we were just dependent on their opinion. And then we also couldn't apply the changes easily. We'd have a big long list of homework. So it's it's a great time to be alive to kind of like recycle and repurpose what we already say, and so that we we can kind of get closer to our authentic self and reach your ideal people if we use the tool properly.

Lisa Apolinski 9:05 Absolutely, and I think that's a key thing that you just said. If we use the tool properly, and that to me is is all the difference. I think owning your narrative and making it personally yours is still a human aspect. AI will not replace that. If you are looking for AI to create something on your behalf, I would rather that you think about and come up with your, you know, what problem you solve, what three a.m. problem you solve, how you do it uniquely, transformatively, disruptively. So none of the er language, right? Better, chapter, cheaper, faster. None of that. Stop selling yourself short. I'm giving you permission to say, hey, I actually do this. I think better than 95% of the. People out there, and this is why. And having that confidence then can be reflected into how you are categorizing yourself and the kind of language that you're using around your area of genius. And you can help kind of hone that message in and tweak it and make it a little little more polished with AI, but sometimes AI can go way off the mark, and you're like, "No, this isn't me at all, or it just tries to blend it down to a a very vanilla type of that you think, "Oh, well, this would work for everybody, and we don't want to go there either. The riches are in the niches. We want to know specifically who we want to target and why that right fit client is ideal for us. And again, it doesn't mean that you can't service more people. But when we're trying to establish our authority, what is that absolute? If you got 15 of like this one type of client, that just every time you saw that person on your schedule, you were like, "Hooray! Like I saw our call for today, and I was like, "Yes, I get to talk to Robert. That's the that's the days I want for you. I want you to be excited and just attracting anybody really can attract anybody. So we we want to be a little more decisive in who we work with and the problem that we solve, and that will help us to attract more of that. Like attracts like. So really getting into that language and that singularity of who you serve and the problem that you solve.

Robert Plank 11:45 Very nice. Well, this is very helpful and something that maybe is not discussed enough with AI, right? Because I I feel like it's so tempting to get lost in the weeds, right? There's some new tool, there's some new SaaS, there's some new term, right? Like, well, you figured out quad. Well, now there's quad code or quad cowork or there's agents. Like there's, it's like I'm always resisting the temptation to get lost in the weeds, and I'm more like, well, I'm okay being like a little ignorant of the cutting edge because I'm more interested in like the the thing I'm I'm having fun the last like week and a half is I I just now realized that my AI can connect with Gmail. So now when I have a big long list of inbox messages, I'm like, hey, instead of me going one at a time, I'm like, just pick out 10 and let's just like talk about it and tell me what the replies would be. And I'm I'm also tempted to like say, okay, send whatever reply. But when I read it, I'm like, you know, this sentence it's too AI. This sentence is like it's not what I would say. So I'm always trying to like hang on for dear life with the kind of sparring skills and to say like, well, even though it can give me a wall of text, like I still want to read it and think and adjust it because if you let it go on its own, then you end up with the slop that's right there in front of you, and so you're speaking my language here, right? This marketing 101 idea of you say, well, who's the one person that I'm speaking to? That way, I can really. That way, if they know who they are, then it's like, hey, we're really connecting. But you combine that with, well, hey, I'm excited to talk with this person. Like now, we're on the right track, and so I'm curious. Like, did you always have this this figured out? Like, you're great with the the personal branding, AI visibility, but did you ever have to go through some kind of like a personal transformation to get to where you are?

Lisa Apolinski 13:34 Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So I had been practicing authority power for decades and never defined it as such. And I started a full service agency in 2012. We offered soup to nuts solutions like everybody else. And in 2023, I made the decision to basically blow up my business. Kaplowe, shocking, scary, and at the same time really exhilarating. Getting back to that core, that fundamental. What is it that if I could only practice one thing for the rest of my career, what's the one thing I want to do? And it's it's language, it's content, it's writing. That has always been my core competency, my area of genius. And stripping everything else away and just focusing on that. And I had to go through several iterations to figure out how to share that area of genius with my clients. I tried personal branding, but everyone was doing personal branding, and I was fighting for recognition and everything in a sea of sameness. I was like. Okay, this isn't going to work. And then I tried content as business development. Well, that doesn't sound exciting at all. Like, I mean, that's not a three a.m. problem. People don't wake up and say, "I really need to use my content as business development. That is not a thing. And then I went, "Okay, no, no, no, try again. And I happened to have a conversation with my now boss and editor Henry Devries, and I threw out the term authority power, and he almost like drove the car off the road. He was like, "That's it, that's what you need to use, and I was like, "Oh, okay, and I started using that, and again, getting into this idea of intentionality around your language. When I talk about authority power, I don't talk about building authority power. I don't talk about finding authority power. I don't talk about creating it. No, you have it within you. You have that superhero trait already inside of you. I want to unleash it. Like if you think about a superhero movie where superhero doesn't know they have superpowers, and then all of a sudden they're in a situation and it comes out, it doesn't come out in a trickle, right? It comes out in a kaplow, a big boom. Everyone has that within them. I want you to tap into that, get out of your own way, and unleash that authority power. So I recognized if if I want people to have intentionality with their language, I too must practice intentionality with my language, and so really getting into that again that that very narrow niche, going this is the problem that I solve, and then owning that like nobody's business.

Robert Plank 16:47 Very good. So words are important, and words matter, and having our our focus and our specific solution matters. And as you've shown, sometimes we have the false starts, right? Sometimes we have to have the failed experiments to to land on something that makes it stand out and solves that three a.m. problem, and so I'm curious about yeah I'm curious about maybe like the the mistakes made on this path to success or or what we need to know or or even better what I should be asking you. So I love always asking about the the missing question in these final minutes of these sorts of conversations, and so what do you think? What could be that super great ultimate question that I should be asking you at this moment? I just don't know to ask you.

Lisa Apolinski 17:31 The missing question I would ask, and again, it's because I've had these conversations over the last couple weeks. You have fast fails within your digital marketing, so if someone is telling you, "Give it a couple months, a few months, look at who's asking you and what their motive is for you to continue on that path. Beware of the person who has all sorts of plans for your money. I had a conversation with someone, and they had spent hundreds of dollars on advertisement, and they got nothing for it-000, customers. Oh, but they said I got a bunch of website traffic. Yeah, but it didn't-it didn't convert to what matters, which is a sale. I am giving you permission to pause it, to cut it off, and you should be able to do that early. Your gut tells you this doesn't feel right. When I was doing my false starts, and I was creating these massive programs and six months and all this stuff, and then I wasn't selling anything. And I went, okay, this is wrong. This isn't what my audience needs. What do I change? And I changed one thing at a time, just like a scientific experiment, right? You change one item at a time, and you see what happens. The nice thing is, you'll see what happens relatively quickly? You don't have to wait months and months and months to go. Okay, that didn't work. Let me do this. As soon as I got it dialed in, I mean, you know, you're talking, and I'm sure this is going to irritate some salespeople, and they're going to say, "Raise your rates" or do whatever, and that's fine. 70 to 80% conversion rate. Eight out of 10 people that I talked to were like, "Here's my credit card. How do I work with you? I got it right, and that's your proof. The proof is that you are beating people off with a stick. Then you know you've done something right. Then you can decide: Do I want to raise my rate? And now my business coach, Mark LeBlanc, will say, "Raise it 20% especially if you're feeling comfortable. Raise it. And I have done that. However, if you feel like. I am happy with this rate, and I'm getting what I believe I deserve for the value I'm providing. Then don't worry about it. Again, it's your journey, and it's the journey of your buyer with you, and that's something that that I think every single person Can choose, so again, be okay with cutting things off if they are not working, or at least pausing them. I have no problem with you just going. I'm stopping this. I need to know why this isn't working out, and I need to tweak something. Stop just throwing money and throwing money and throwing money and throwing out time, my God, we have very limited time on this planet. I want you to wake up every day and be like, "I am killing it. That's what I want for you. So feel like you can pause it, and that is okay. And be okay with tweaking and modifying if you feel that you need to.

Robert Plank 21:01 Very nice, great advice here to to be on this journey and to be decisive, right? They say that to to decide is to cut off, and so if there's a if our our business is a mess, and like I think naturally it kind of builds up in the chaos, and that can be one of your seasons. But then it's you say, hey, I'm running the ads, I'm doing all these other activities, like what should go, so that way I run all these random experiments. Now I look at the results, and now I kind of decide like what to change. And I think I've had a few of those moments, definitely not often enough, where, like you say, you change one thing, and you were so close, and like now finally it clicked, right? You get the the branding right, the term, the product name the headline you send that that email you're talking to the right people or talking to have that one sales call that's working you like cool now I'm excited about the results now I'm having fun again that's where we want to be and so as far as us kind of being on this right path and and making those important decisions if they say you know, Lisa is speaking my language, words matter, the branding matters, and the goals matter, right? Because there's the vanity metrics, and there's it leading to actually making a sale, growing our business. How do we find out more about you, and how do we take these next steps when it comes to just you know figuring out our our our authority power and and so much more.

Lisa Apolinski 22:22 So I would love it if number one you connect with me on LinkedIn. That would be great. It's very easy to find me. I'm the only Lisa Apolinski on there. Number two, once you've connected with me, subscribe to my newsletter. I give away so much content, it's almost criminal, and number three, I always provide a free 30-minute consult call where you can ask me anything, and I will work with you as if you're already a client to move the needle forward. So if you're like, I need permission to to stop these ads, or I need a little help with my LinkedIn, or what's a couple things I can do right now that will move the needle? I will do that for you. No cost, no selling, no kidding. So connect with me on LinkedIn, subscribe to my newsletter, and then get on my calendar and let's solve this together. I believe everybody can have the career they want, the life they want, and the impact and influence they want that leads to that income.

Robert Plank 23:29 Very good. We just have to take those steps, right, and apply proper goal setting, which includes asking the right questions and getting the right help from the right person, such as you, and going to LinkedIn, subscribing to that newsletter, and then most importantly, the third step in the process is getting that call scheduled because we need to be serious about our future. And a lot of the obstacles, setbacks, difficulties, I feel like maybe it is a test to see how badly we want it. And if you say, "Oh, you know, I've got the social anxiety I'm afraid of speaking to Lisa, well, Lisa wants to help you, and maybe this is one of those tests to see how serious you are about your content making more sense and your website making more sense and having the proper AI visibility and and people beating down your door and beating them away with a stick, as Lisa's saying. If that's something that you want, then it's very worthwhile having this 30-minute conversation, so you search Lisa Apolinski on LinkedIn, and we'll have a link under the episode to find that. You and right there near the top, there's the link to subscribe to her newsletter, and then you message her, and you get that call scheduled. That way, you can figure out some next steps, and you can get on that proper path and stop spinning your wheels so much and kind of narrow down the chaos and become that go-to authority because with over 30 years as a digital insider, Miss Lisa Apolinski guides authors, speakers, consultants, and business owners to become the undeniable authority in your. Space, which means that you then attract those right fit customers ready to invest at higher dollar values. It's what we want, and you can find her at phatkatconsulting.com. We'll have the link as well. That's p h a t k a t consulting.com. But where Lisa really, really wants you to go is LinkedIn. You connect with her, subscribe to the newsletter, send a message, and get that call scheduled so you can talk about some next steps. And as we're performing that homework, there, Miss Lisa, it's time for the scary part of the podcast where I try to stump you. I try to put you on the spot by asking about a fun or interesting quote or lesson that has served you. So, what comes to mind as far as a fun or interesting quote or lesson.

Lisa Apolinski 25:44 So, I have several business coaches and mentors, and and I'm a huge proponent in having several people in your corner. And one of my mentors always says this. Actually, two of them, Mark LeBlanc and Erin DeVries, they say it a little bit differently, but they always say, "I live in the world of multiple right answers, and I love saying that because it gives me choice, it gives me options, and it gives me conversation. It's not it's my way or the highway. It allows me to to listen, to reflect, and to understand someone else's viewpoint, and I say it so often that my better half, when I start saying it, he completes the sentence for me. He's like, "I know you live in the world of multiple right answers. So that is my quote.

Robert Plank 26:36 That's great advice. We live in the world of multiple right answers, so get the guidance from Lisa to figure out the right answer for you, that next logical path forward, and get some focus, get your time back, and pursue some goals. So that's Lisa Apolinski on LinkedIn. Go find her. Go start that conversation. You'll be so glad you did. You'll feel such a weight off your shoulders, and you'll have some clarity and confidence to proceed forward. So thanks for being generous with your time, Miss Lisa, and being raw and authentic. I'm glad that we did this, and I'm I'm so happy for you and what you've accomplished, so thank you.

Lisa Apolinski 27:08 Yes, thank you, Robert. This is fantastic.