Jim Connolly Marketing

Is your business one of the 50% that prospects now avoid? Probably!

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Anti AI, Avoid AI business, Business AI content, AI pushback

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

Are you getting fewer and fewer customer enquiries? Did you assume it’s mostly down to the economy? 

It’s entirely possible that most, or almost all of this, is because half your prospects are now eager to avoid you.

This is big.

Let’s go!

As everyone reading this will have noticed, posts on LinkedIn have started to sound increasingly familiar. The same is true of the messages you see on social platforms and even in flyers. 

As you know, this is down to the mainstream use of AI for content and copy. Most of you will be using it, as small business owners were very early adopters.

I recommend you stop.

Here’s why.

Deep, dangerous camouflage

Regular readers will know that when small business owners in the same industry offer a similar range of services, charged similar prices, etc., it camouflages them. In short: they sound so similar, that none stood out.

THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE!

Around a year ago, the camouflage became even worse for their business. And in the past few months, it’s become full-on dangerous.

That’s because just as you quickly spot content written by AI, so can your prospects. You no longer offer similar(ish) services, prices, etc., to your competitors you offer them with an AI voice, just like they do.

Danger?

No. DEEP danger!

You, your business and your services have now relocated into the AI bucket. This bucket contains businesses of every stripe, which consumers identify as sounding familiar to each other. You’re in there with pest control, accountancy, roofing, web design, bars… everything giving off that familiar messaging signal.

Why is this massive problem getting even worse?

50%, (and growing) of prospects will avoid you

For around a year, AI marketing messaging was a minority thing. As usage increased, people started to look out for it. Now, we’re unconsciously looking for ‘tells’ whenever we read content. We’re spotting it, without even trying.

We’re also witnessing a huge, and growing, AI pushback. In March, an AI survey from Gartner found 68% of people frequently wonder whether the AI content and information they see is real! Your prospects simply do not trust it.

And in that same survey above, 50% of people said they prefer NOT to give their business to brands using it. This number is growing.

As I wrote recently, on it’s own, AI content (not copywriting) looks okay. It reads fine, too. That’s why millions and millions of small business owners use it daily. And no one ever thinks THEIR AI copy looks like AI. After all, they edited it. Probably unaware EVERYONE edits it.

Here’s the thing: AI copy is everywhere, always with that familiarity… it’s putting your business into a group that’s being avoided. It’s causing prospects to consider if what you’re saying is even real.

It’s your decision, but I recommend you get out of that group.

Keep your messaging human.

Use AI where it works for you, turning a 1-hour boring task into a 10-second breeze.

But for goodness sake, make your connection with your marketplace human and trusted. That’s where the GROWING demand is.

Give your best ideas away for free. Here’s why

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content marketing

What I’m about to share with you may sound a little counter-intuitive. It isn’t. In fact, it could help you achieve breakthrough results.

Allow me to explain.

I come across the following problem a lot. Mainly from service providers, who are struggling to attract new clients with their content marketing.

Their primary concern looks something like this.

I know I need to provide good, free advice via my content. But surely if I give my best ideas away for free, no one will pay to hire me?

I’ve already explained why you should be stingy with your time, but not your ideas. However, there’s another, excellent reason why you should provide outstanding, free advice.

And it’s this

Think for a moment about the alternative.

Imagine you publish newsletters, videos, a blog or a podcast. Now let’s also imagine that instead of sharing great advice, you share weaker information. Average stuff. Nothing special. Nothing that really stands out.

Guess what?

You’ve just given your marketplace a weak, low-impact insight into your work. You’ve painted a lousy picture of how good you are.

So, not only will people be highly unlikely to hire you, they’ll also be unlikely to share your newsletters, videos, podcasts, blog posts or subscribe to you. 

That’s a huge lose, lose.

No. It’s actually a lose, lose, lose, because you’ll also be damaging your reputation as a knowledgeable professional. Ouch!

Here’s what really happens when you give great free advice

Firstly, we have the freebie hunters
Yes, freebie hunters will gobble up all your free advice. It’s what they do… acting like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up anything that’s free. 

But that doesn’t lose you a penny. 

Why? 

Because freebie hunters were never going to hire you anyway. These people are the dabblers. The DIYers. So, they were never a prospective client. 

Secondly, we have the givers
These are a subset of genuine, prospective clients. Yes, they’ll take your free advice and do the work themselves… but unlike the freebie hunters, they appreciate the value you bring. So, when they value your work. They will subscribe. They will share your work with their contacts. That’s how the most successful content marketing successful spreads. Also, I know from experience that many of them will later hire you.

Thirdly, we have professionals, who respect their time
They love the peace-of-mind that comes from getting expert help. They value professionalism. These prospective clients will hire you, so you can do the job properly for them. 

How do I know with 100% certainty that this works?

Simple: it’s how I grew my own business.

Why your audience isn’t growing in 2026

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Build your list, marketing, subscribers

Dylan Thomas 1937: Photo by Nora Summer

If you feel like you’re being ignored. If your subscriber count is flatlining despite following every best practice the AI marketing gurus are recommending. I want to offer you some reassurance. It isn’t your SEO, GEO, the freshness of your content or your publishing frequency.

The problem is much simpler, and a lot more human than that.

The rise of perfectly okay content

In 2016, we were worried about content creation fatigue. In 2026 we are drowning in a vast, automated ocean of content. Anyone can now generate a mountain of ‘okay quality’ marketing content with an AI prompt.

And that’s exactly what millions are doing. Leaving us swimming in an ocean of automated text.

Further reading: The anti creative ‘AI slop’ problem.

The content experts are telling you to use AI to scale-up your production. They give you prompts, templates and frameworks. But these frameworks make your writing indistinguishable from everyone else’s. They focus on getting the mechanics right.

Here’s the thing.

No one ever felt a connection with the mechanics of AI content. They connect with the person behind the words. And increasingly, there’s no person there. Just a chunk of automated content.

The Real Solution: How to build an audience in 2026

Building an audience today isn’t about out-producing the machines. It’s about out-thinking them. It boils down to three things that no algorithm can fake.

Here they are.

  • Have a point of view worth sharing. Don’t just report the news. Tell us why it matters. Don’t just give us a tip, tell us why the standard advice is no longer effective.
  • Say it with soul. Write in a way that sounds like a conversation over a good cup of coffee. Be brave enough to be imperfect and real. Be yourself.
  • Respect the reader’s time. Whether it’s 200 words or 2,000, make sure every sentence carries value.

    If you do this, something magical happens. You might start with only five readers. That’s fine. Because those five people will feel something. They will feel seen, helped or inspired by your words. And because they felt a connection with you and your thoughts, that can inspire some of them to tell their friends.

    A subset of their friends feel that same connection… repeat.

    The Dylan Thomas test: So rich. So strange. So new

    I’m reminded of the introduction given to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas before a performance in New York. The MC described his work as: “So rich. So strange. So new.”

    In a world of soulless, mechanical, AI-generated sameness, being strange or different is maybe your greatest competitive advantage. I call this the Dylan Thomas Test: if your work isn’t rich with insight, strange (different) enough to be human, and new enough to challenge the consensus, it will be largely ignored.

    Dylan Thomas didn’t become a legend because he optimised his poetry using H2 headings and bullet-points correctly. He didn’t become a household name because he published on the right day of the week. His work isn’t recognisable because he was a mechanically perfect writer.

    He succeeded because his poetic voice was unmistakably his. It was too rich to ignore. It was too human to be replaced.

    In 2026, the world doesn’t need more content. It needs more of you. And it needs you more than ever.

    Marketing 101: Vigorous, written marketing

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    vigorous written marketing, marketing copywriting, content marketing

    Most of the marketing copy I see is at least 75% too long. Overlong copy lacks impact. It also lacks clarity and fails to motivate prospective customers or clients.

    I want to help you avoid this expensive mistake, which is why I wrote this for you.

    Vigorous, written marketing

    And it starts with one of the best-known quotes on the subject.

    “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell“.

    Professor William Strunk Jr. – The Elements of Style.

    The vigorous writing referred to here, is writing that is strong and full of energy. That’s the kind of writing that moves people to take action; to contact you, buy from you or hire you. It’s the kind of writing that gets the results you need.

    How can you and your business benefit from the power of vigorous, written marketing?

    The answer comes from understanding why the problem exists.

    Google usually gets the blame

    That’s because Google’s search algorithm rewards overlong, written content. It prefers 2500 words to 250. So, for over 20 years, online marketing writers have been rewarded for high word counts. That’s certainly not what’s needed for vigorous, written marketing.

    But Google isn’t responsible for the wider problem.

    Email marketing and off-line media is just as ruined by overlong content. Neither of those formats have ever required the writer to dance the Google dance.

    The problem exists because most written marketing is created by people who lack sufficient training. It’s either written by business owners who ‘dabble’ or by below-par copywriters.

    The solution?

    The business owner wishing to switch to vigorous, written marketing has two options.

    1. Learn how to do it effectively.
    2. Pay someone who already knows.

    How to decide?

    • The cost (in time) of learning is considerable. It takes years of practice. However, you’ll start seeing improvements relatively quickly.
    • The cost of hiring an expert is lower. And it’s a lot faster.

    The price you pay for starving your business of vigorous, written marketing is far higher than either of those options. So pick one of them and run with it.

    Photo by Cherrydeck on Unsplash

    Why your subscribers aren’t hiring you (and how to fix it).

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    subscribers to clients, sell subscribers, marketing

    Hannah has almost 2000 newsletter subscribers. Her open rates are always over 80%.

    And yet in 5 years, she’s attracted just 4 paying clients directly from her newsletter readership.

    She asked me what she was doing wrong. I suggested, with her permission, that as this is a really common problem, I’d share my answer with you.

    Marketing data can mislead you

    We’re now able to test and measure our digital marketing with great precision. And it’s causing hard working small business owners to make very expensive marketing mistakes.

    For example. Service providers like Hannah, often look at the data for their newsletter’s open rates, clicks or shares, then write certain styles of headline or content, based on what’s popular.

    That seems to make sense.

    Until we look at the massive difference, between what’s popular with readers… and what generates bankable income for our business.

    The key point here is that readers are mostly just that. They’re readers. They read our free stuff. And that’s it. This is especially the case when you provide free business information. The vast majority of people who subscribe have no intention of spending a dime with us. They’re looking for free information. Period.

    Oh yeah. It really messes with your marketing data

    That’s because the free stuff crowd are also the people most likely to open newsletters and click links.

    They especially love sensational headlines. They’re attracted to them because they dabble rather than hire expert help, so their businesses are constantly struggling. Over-hyped headlines give them hope that they’re one ‘killer free idea’ away from solving their latest problem.

    It’s not a coincidence that none of the 4 readers who hired Hannah directly from her newsletter, had high open rates or click rates. They almost hired her in spite of being on her list. This is because our ‘prospective client readers’ behave very, very differently from the ‘free stuff readers’.

    The same approach that gets opens and clicks from freebie readers, leaves our prospective clients rolling their eyes.

    Allow me to explain.

    Yes, our prospective clients are certainly looking for great, useful information. And that’s a fact.

    The BIG difference, is that they are also looking to provide their businesses with the resources and expertise it needs. This means when they consume our newsletters, podcasts, YouTube videos, whatever, they do so with a prospective need for our services and are building a picture of us.

    And unlike the freebie crowd, they’re looking for clues.

    For example.

    • They’re looking to see how reliable we are over a period of time. They want to know if we regularly show up with ideas or go missing unexpectedly for long periods.
    • They’re also looking for clues as to whether we’d work well together or not.
    • They want to see if our communication style is consistently clear and easy to understand.
    • And they want to see the depth and breadth of our knowledge over a period of time.

    Plus a ton of other things they pick up on, which guides their decision to hire us.

    In a nutshell: Don’t chase the subscriber data that has little, if any, real-world commercial value. Focus instead on creating for your prospects.

    Marketing 101: The sales multiplier tactic

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    sales multiplied, marketing tips, inbound marketing

    At the beginning of my marketing career, I was introduced to a very effective marketing idea. I call it the sales multiplier tactic. It’s spectacularly powerful and there are several ways YOU can benefit from it.

    Here’s how it works.

    The core idea is extremely simple. If you want a business that grows quickly, design your business so that when someone uses your services, they get more value from it if their contacts also use your services.

    • This was how LinkedIn grew. Early users asked their contacts and clients to join, so they could connect. TikTok did the same.
    • It’s also how every hit TV show becomes a hit. The first viewers tell their friends about it, so they can chat about the show with them or share in-jokes, which only fellow viewers would understand, etc.

    However…

    What if you already have a business and it doesn’t have the sales multiplier tactic built in? After all, the vast majority of business owners are in this position.

    One option is to retrofit the sales multiplier tactic to your business. Retrofitting takes a little time and creativity, but it’s relatively easy.

    However, there’s an easy and extremely popular alternative that any business can use.

    Making the sales multiplier tactic work for your business

    A highly popular alternative option, is to add it to your marketing, rather than your service.

    One example is my newsletter. It works like this.

    • Someone within a company or network subscribes to my newsletter.
    • Then, they read one, which will help overcome a problem their company or network has. So, they forward it to a few other people.
    • Why? Because it’s easier for them to get their colleagues on board with an idea I mentioned, if they’re able to read it for themselves.
    • Some of those colleagues will subscribe and do the same.
    • This is how I’ve attracted many of my largest clients, as details on how to hire me are at the bottom of each newsletter.

    That example only works because it’s an ad-free newsletter with useful information, not a series of special offers and sales pitches. For the sales multiplier tactic to work for you, your marketing needs to contain something helpful, interesting or informative. This holds true if you’re using it on a podcast, a YouTube channel, your social media account or anywhere else. 

    Whichever route you choose, if you get it right the impact it can have on your sales results is amazing.