Rocky Mountain Marketing- Digital Marketing for Entrepreneurs · 2026-04-28 · 13 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
24 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Most business owners treat AI like a mind-reading tool, typing a prompt into ChatGPT or Claude and expecting perfect output without providing any context about their voice, audience, or brand. Katie Brinkley argues the real problem isn't better prompts - it's better context. She draws a parallel to hiring a team member without briefing them: of course they'd struggle without understanding your communication style, messaging, and audience. The episode walks through defining your actual tone (direct, conversational, storytelling), identifying who you're speaking to, and clarifying your distinct beliefs and perspectives. Brinkley emphasizes showing AI examples of content that sounds exactly like you alongside examples that feel off-brand, teaching it what good and bad mean in your specific context. The core insight: once AI understands your patterns and voice, you shift from spending 30 minutes rewriting generic output to spending 10 minutes refining already-aligned content. This is part two of a four-part series on using AI effectively as a business owner.
Because detailed one-time prompts are not the same as context. Without showing AI examples of your actual voice, your messaging, and your audience, it pulls from everything on the internet rather than what makes you specifically different.
Define your tone (conversational, direct, storytelling, etc.), identify your specific audience and their problems, clarify what you believe that others don't, then provide AI with examples of content that sounds exactly like you and examples that feel off-brand so it understands what good looks like.
No - if you do recurring tasks, you should define patterns and structures once, then reuse them across conversations so AI follows your system instead of guessing from scratch each time.
Prompts are one-time instructions that give inconsistent results; context shapes every response going forward, making outputs aligned and reusable across multiple interactions.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode surfaces one genuinely useful reframe - context vs. prompts - but the rest is largely a padded restatement of that single idea, with heavy repetition, throat-clearing, and no novel claims per minute to sustain density across 13 minutes.
prompts are one time instructions. Context is what shapes every response going forward
AI doesn't know what good means to you unless you show it. And it definitely doesn't know what bad looks like unless you call it out
The 'give AI examples of bad output, not just good' angle is mildly interesting, but the core framing - AI needs brand context, define your voice, stop starting from scratch - has been in every AI-content article since 2023 and is not argued from first principles.
The real shift is not better prompts. It is better context
Most people are expecting AI to read their mind
This is a solo monologue episode with no guest whatsoever; the host references 20 years of marketing experience but presents no credentials that establish scale or depth of AI implementation, leaving the episode without any external practitioner perspective.
Welcome back to this week's episode. I'm Katie Brinkley
With my 20 years of experience, I'm here to help you navigate the world of digital marketing
There are virtually no concrete numbers, named tools beyond generic ChatGPT/Claude mentions, case studies, or real client examples; the only figures used (30 minutes vs. 10 minutes) are purely illustrative and offered without any basis.
instead of spending 30 minutes trying to fix something that feels off, you're spending 10 minutes making something that already feels aligned
they open it, they type something in, they get a response, they close it, and then they start all over again the next time
As a solo monologue there is no interviewer dynamic, no pushback, no follow-up questions, and no productive tension; the structure is a simple loop that restates the same point multiple times with a light homework prompt at the end.
And that is a completely different experience, because now, instead of spending 30 minutes trying to fix something that feels off
That is the shift. And it's not that complicated
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Have you ever used AI to write something… and immediately thought, “This isn’t something I would actually say”? You tweak it. You rewrite parts of it. Sometimes you scrap it entirely. And at that point, it feels faster to just do it yourself. That’s not because AI isn’t capable. It’s because it doesn’t understand you yet. In this episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing, we’re continuing the AI series and focusing on the piece most business owners skip. Not tools. Not prompts. Clarity. Because if your voice, your perspective, and your messaging aren’t clearly defined, AI has nothing specific to reflect. So it fills in the gaps with what it already knows. And that’s why everything starts to sound the same. In this episode, I walk through: Why AI output often feels disconnected from your brand The real reason editing takes longer than expected Why adjusting prompts is not fixing the issue How to clearly define your voice and communication style What it actually looks like to “teach” AI how you think Because once AI understands how you operate, everything changes.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: What if AI doesn't sound like you? Not because it can't, but because you've never actually shown it how.
Speaker B: Welcome to Rocky Mountain Marketing. I'm your host, Katie Brinkley. Join us as we dive deep with the world's leading digital marketing experts every single Tuesday. It's all about giving you the strategies that are working right now directly from those who are making an impact. With my 20 years of experience, I'm here to help you navigate the world of digital marketing. Whether you're looking to sharpen your skills or transform your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started on, uh, today's journey to success. Welcome back to this week's episode.
Speaker A: I'm Katie Brinkley and in the last episode we're doing a four part series here all about using AI and how to have it work for you in a way that actually helps you as a business owner. And we talked, uh, in the last episode about how AI really hasn't changed the game for most business owners yet. Not because it doesn't work, but because most people are using it at surface level. They're asking it for content, ideas and drafts, but they're still doing all the thinking, all the editing and all the decision making. And if you've ever used AI and thought, well, this doesn't sound like me or I'd never actually post this, well,
Speaker B: then you're not wrong.
Speaker A: That's the real problem. It's not because AI is bad, it's because AI doesn't know you yet. That's what we're going to fix today. So, uh, once AI actually understands how you think, how you communicate and how you make decisions, everything changes. You stop fighting the output, you stop rewriting everything, and it finally starts to feel like you're actually helping instead of just giving you more work work. So I'm just going to call a spade a spade here and tell you what's really happening. Most people are expecting AI to read their mind. Yep. Most people open up ChatGPT or Claude, type in a prompt and expect it to just get it. They expect it to know their tone, understand their audience, and somehow magically sound like their brand without giving it any real context. And when it doesn't, they assume the problem is the tool. So they try a, uh, different prompt, they tweak the wording, they add more instructions, they try again and again and again. And what ends up happening is they spend more time trying to get AI to sound right than it would have
Speaker C: taken them to just write the thing themselves.
Speaker A: And that's why a lot of people say, like, AI is helpful, but I still have to do a lot of editing. Of course you do, because you're asking it to perform without giving it any understanding of how you operate. If you hired someone on your team and said, go write our content, but you didn't give them your voice, your messaging, your brand kit, your audience, or any examples, well, they would struggle too. Not because they're bad at what they do, but because they don't know you. AI is no different. This is where I want you to change how you think about AI. Most people are focused on writing a better prompt, prompt engineering. They think the secret is finding the right words to type in so that the output magically improves. But the real shift is not better prompts. It is better context. Because prompts are one time instructions. Context is what shapes every response going forward. If you're starting from scratch every time you open AI, you're always going to get inconsistent results. Sometimes it'll be different, sometimes it'll be completely off, and most of the time it feels very generic. In last week's episode, I said social media has been tough because everyone's all of a sudden posting a whole lot more and it all sounds the same. But when you start giving AI context about who you are, how you communicate and what you care about, the output starts to align. That is the difference between asking someone once and expecting perfection versus actually training them to understand how you work.
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Speaker B: All right, let's get back to the show.
Speaker A: So before you try to get better results from AI, you need to get clear on something. First, you need to know how you think. And this is where most people skip ahead. They want AI to help them Create the content, but they haven't actually defined their voice, their perspective, their messaging in a clear way. So of course the output feels off. AI is pulling from literally everything on the Internet. Everything it knows, not from what makes you different. If you want AI to sound like you, you need to define a few things. You need to know exactly what your tone is. Uh, not what you think it is, but how you actually talk. Are you direct? Are you conversational? Are you more strategic? Do you tell stories? Do you challenge people? Do you simplify things? You need to know who you're talking to. Not a vague audience, but the actual person you're speaking to. What are they dealing with right now? What are they trying to figure out, what frustrates them? And you need to know what you believe. What are the things that you say that other people don't? What are your strong opinions? What do you push back on? This is your brain, and if you don't define that, AI has nothing to work with. Once you have that foundation, the next step is simple. But this is where most people still don't go far enough. You need to show AI what you actually sound like. Not just tell it, show it. This is why it's great. If you have a podcast, yes, it takes something that you've written that you love. A, uh, post, an email, a podcast script, something that feels exactly like you. If you have a book, uh, that's another great thing. Something where you read it and say, yes, this is how I talk.
Speaker C: Give that to the AI.
Speaker A: Then take something that feels completely off.
Speaker C: Maybe it's something AI wrote for you.
Speaker A: Maybe it's something you've seen that feels too polished, too generic, or just not your style.
Speaker C: Give it that, too.
Speaker A: Because AI doesn't know what good means to you unless you show it. And it definitely doesn't know what bad looks like unless you call it out. Once you start doing this, you are no longer just hoping that the AI gets it right, you're actually teaching it. And that's when the outputs start to change. This is the moment that most people
Speaker C: are trying to get to, but they
Speaker A: skip the steps that make it possible. When AI has context, examples, and a
Speaker C: clear understanding of how you communicate, the
Speaker A: output starts to get closer. It's not going to be perfect, but close enough that you're not rewriting everything, you're just refining it. And that is a completely different experience, because now, instead of spending 30 minutes trying to fix something that feels off, you're spending 10 minutes making something that already feels aligned even better. That's When AI actually starts saving you time, that's when it starts to feel like it's supporting you instead of slowing you down. And remember, today's episode is part two of this four part series about how to get AI to start helping you as a business owner. Stop just giving it generic outputs, treating it like Google and expecting magic. Another mistake that I see time and time again is people treating every AI interaction like it's brand new. They open it, they type something in, they get a response, they close it, and then they start all over again the next time. That is not how you get better results. If you do the same type of task over and over in your business, you should not be starting from scratch every single time. You should have patterns. If you write emails regularly, there's a structure to how you do it. If you create content consistently, there's a
Speaker C: way that you naturally communicate.
Speaker A: If you record a podcast, there's a
Speaker C: rhythm to how you think through topics.
Speaker A: The more you define those patterns and reuse them, the better results you will get. Because now AI isn't guessing, it is following the system. And that's where it starts to feel like part of your workflow instead of something you're constantly trying to figure out. So let's just make this practical again. Imagine sitting down to write an email and instead of thinking, what do I say? You already have the structure and tone that AI understands. You're not asking it to invent something from scratch. This is the point that AI stops feeling like a tool that you occasionally use and starts feeling like something that you built into how you operate. It understands your voice, it understands your patterns, it understands what you're trying to do. And now when you use it, you're not fighting it, you're not. You're working with it. That is the shift. And it's not that complicated. It just requires you to slow down at the very beginning and define how you think and give it something real to work with. So like I said, this is part two. We have two more parts to go that are really going to change the way that you use AI for your business. If AI doesn't sound like you, it's not because it can't. It's because you haven't taught it how the quality you get from AI and is directly tied to the quality of what you give it. And if you want better results, you need better context, better examples and better patterns. This is how you move from generic output to something that feels aligned with your business. And once you get that part right, everything else in this four part episode is going to get easier. Everything else in your business is going to get easier. So before the next episode, here's your homework. Find one piece of content that you've written or a piece of content from a podcast, something that sounds exactly like you, something that you're proud of, something that feels natural m and then find one piece that feels completely off.
Speaker C: Use both of those as your starting point.
Speaker A: Because in the next episode we're going to talk about how to take this one step further and actually turn AI into something that handles the tasks for you. Yes. Not just rights for you. So if this episode helped you think differently about how you're using AI, please make sure that you're subscribed to the show. Leave us a review. You do not want to miss next week's episode. And if you're ready to take your marketing, uh, to that next step, head over to nextstepsocial.com and learn how we help businesses build smarter, more strategic systems. And here's a question I want to leave you with. If AI actually understood what how you think, what would you finally stop doing yourself?
Speaker B: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing. I hope you're leaving with valuable insights and the inspiration to lead your market. If you've enjoyed our time together and found today's podcast episode useful, I have a small favor to ask of you. Please hit that subscribe button to stay updated with the latest episodes. And if you know someone who could benefit from from these episodes, maybe a
Speaker D: fellow business leader or an aspiring entrepreneur,
Speaker B: go ahead and share this episode with them. Let's spread the knowledge and grow together. Also, I'd love to hear from you and continue the conversation beyond the podcast. Visit me@katie brinkley.com to connect, to find more resources, or just to share your journey. And be sure to pick up your copy of my new book, the Social shift@katie brinkley.com book thanks again for tuning in. I'm Katie Brinkley and I can't wait to dive into more strategies and stories with you on the next episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing. Let's keep on taking your marketing to new heights.
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