Human-First AI Marketing Podcast by Avenue9

Send us Fan MailAI is giving marketers some incredible new superpowers, but the real opportunity is figuring out which ones are actually worth using. In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, I sit down with Will Francis, AI educator, author, and digital marketing expert, to share practical AI skills you can put to work right now. We talk about how Will uses Claude, ChatGPT, and AI agents to build custom apps, track marketing performance, research trends, and run an AI-powered command center for his business. We also share some of our favorite examples of AI computer use, including automating those tedious marketing tasks that always seem to end up at the bottom of your to-do list.We also get into the bigger questions facing marketers as AI becomes part of everyday work. How do you decide what to automate? What happens to the value of expertise, education, and creative work when everyone has access to AI? And how do you grow an audience while keeping the personal connections that make people trust you? Will shares some fascinating lessons from his days at MySpace, his perspective on the future of AI, and why he still personally responds to his audience of hundreds of thousands of followers. If you're looking for practical ways to expand your capabilities, get more done, and keep the human side of marketing alive, I think you'll enjoy this conversation. Check out Will's website for more AI education and tutorials, and connect with him on LinkedIn for his latest insights.Key TakeawaysFocus on practical AI skills. Look beyond the hype and learn how to use AI to solve real marketing problems.Use AI to develop new superpowers. Take on projects you previously lacked the time, resources, or technical skills to accomplish.Build your own AI command center. Connect your analytics, emails, calendar, meeting notes, and tasks so AI can help you manage your business.Put AI agents to work behind the scenes. Use AI to research competitors, identify trends, analyze performance, and discover new opportunities.Keep audience engagement human. Respond personally to comments, messages, and conversations to build authentic relationships.Prioritize trust over follower counts. A smaller, highly engaged audience can generate more business than a massive following with weaker relationships.Make your expertise personal. People value educators, coaches, and consultants who provide individualized guidance, accountability, and practical application.Learn AI computer-use skills. Tools like Claude and ChatGPT can increasingly navigate applications, conduct research, edit content, and complete repetitive digital tasks.Delegate work strategically. Let AI handle data processing and routine tasks so you can concentrate on creativity, expertise, and human connection.Make technology easy to use. Will's experience at MySpace taught him that convenience and user experience often determine which platforms succeed.Prepare for AI to become everyday technology. AI will continue evolving into a familiar part of work and life, bringing new opportunities alongside cybersecurity challenges.Recognize the growing value of human attention. As AI makes information and automation more accessible, personal relationships and individual attention remain valuable reasons for customers to choose you.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Send us Fan MailPositioning gets more valuable as AI makes everything easier to copy.That was one of my favorite themes from this week’s Human-First AI Marketing Podcast with Chris DuBois, founder of Dynamic Agency OS.Every CRM has AI now. Every tool records calls. Every platform has a chatbot, assistant, or “copilot” wearing a tiny SaaS hoodie somewhere in the interface.The features are starting to blur together.Chris made a great point: positioning lives in the mind of the buyer. They are going to put you in a box whether you help them or not, so your job is to influence the label on that box.That label gets stronger when you are clear about who you serve, why that focus matters, and what problem you solve better than the alternatives.AI can help you create more content, build more workflows, and move faster, but it will also reinforce generic ideas if you let it. Strong positioning gives your AI better direction, sharper context, and something worth amplifying.Key Takeaways:Positioning lives in the buyer’s mind. Chris emphasized that buyers will put your company in a box no matter what, so your job is to influence the label they use and make that box as clear and ownable as possible.Generic claims collapse quickly. Saying you get results, have the best team, offer great service, or deliver strong ROI sounds like every competitor, which means the claim fails unless you can prove why it is meaningfully different.Market focus is one of the easiest ways to stand out. Chris shared that choosing a specific niche, city, audience, or category can make positioning stronger when there is a clear benefit to the buyer.A niche needs a reason behind it. Picking an audience because they have money is weak positioning, while choosing an audience because you understand their world, care about their success, or have special knowledge creates a stronger reason to believe.AI makes original thinking more important. Chris explained that AI-generated best-practice content gives other models and buyers little reason to pay attention, while content built from unique thoughts, interviews, and expertise creates something worth citing and sharing.AI should augment your intelligence. Chris prefers thinking of AI as augmented intelligence because the best use cases help humans work faster, refine ideas, and create better outputs without handing over the strategic thinking.AI can help agencies move faster without skipping the hard parts. His Dynamic Agency OS uses AI to support worksheets, positioning exercises, asset creation, and marketing systems, while the client still has to think, choose, refine, and own the strategy.ChatGPT can reinforce weak ideas if you let it. Chris and Mike discussed how general AI tools often validate the first idea you give them, which makes expert judgment and structured frameworks more important for positioning work.Context is the real advantage in AI systems. Chris shared how his “chief of stuff” works better because it has access to his meetings, tools, notes, podcast history, and business context, allowing it to help with specific tasks instead of generic answers.The future rewards clearer positioning. Chris believes AI will make markets more personalized and more specific, which means businesses will need sharper positioning around who they help, how they help, and why buyers should choose them.Connect with Chris DuBois on LinkedinVisit Dynamic Agency OS At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Send us Fan MailAI can help solopreneurs save time, streamline workflows, and grow their businesses, but how do you use it without sacrificing the creativity, critical thinking, and personal connections that make your work valuable? In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Joe Casabona, founder of Streamlined Solopreneur, to explore practical ways to use AI for productivity while protecting your voice and judgment. They share real-world examples of AI-powered automations, custom tools, meeting summaries, and customer insights that help entrepreneurs work smarter. Joe also introduces his guiding principle, "Tasks, not craft," for deciding what to automate and where human thinking matters most.Mike and Joe also tackle the growing problem of AI-generated slop, the relationship between writing and thinking, and why efficiency alone is a poor measure of success. They discuss the importance of authentic storytelling, human oversight, and using AI to uncover better questions and deeper customer insights. Looking ahead, they explore why solopreneurs who prioritize craftsmanship, quality, and personal relationships may have a significant advantage in an AI-saturated marketplace. The takeaway: Use AI to multiply your capabilities while preserving the human qualities that make your business worth choosing.Key Takeaways • Automate tasks, preserve your craft. Use AI to handle repetitive, technical, and administrative work while keeping your creativity, expertise, and personal judgment at the center of your business.• Writing is thinking. Developing your own ideas and putting them into words strengthens your thinking, while letting AI generate your first draft can influence the direction and originality of your message.• Use AI to build tools that solve your specific problems. Small, custom AI-powered apps and automations can simplify everyday workflows without requiring expensive or complicated software.• Focus on effectiveness over efficiency. Getting things done faster only creates value when the results improve your work, customer experience, or business outcomes.• Ask your customers what they want. Real conversations with your audience provide firsthand understanding and insights that AI-generated assumptions can miss.• Turn conversations into actionable intelligence. AI can analyze customer calls, identify recurring patterns, and uncover unanswered questions that inspire valuable content and better business decisions.• Your personal stories make your content unique. AI can help organize and polish your ideas, while your lived experiences, emotions, and perspectives give your message its authenticity.• Maintain human quality control. Your judgment and discernment are essential for reviewing AI-generated work and ensuring it meets the standards your customers deserve.• Be transparent about AI-generated content. Disclosing when AI creates content helps establish clear expectations and reinforces trust with your audience.• Craftsmanship will become increasingly valuable. Joe predicts that as AI-generated content becomes commonplace, people will develop a stronger appreciation for thoughtful, personalized, human-created work.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Daniel Disney, social selling expert, author, and founder of The Daily Sales, explores LinkedIn’s AI-flooded future. They unpack shifting algorithms, declining engagement, vertical video, automated outreach, and why authentic personalization matters. The conversation also examines AI as a sales assistant, the rise of autonomous agents, and how human skills could shape the next era of B2B selling.

Send us Fan MailHow do you grow your business with AI and automation while preserving the human connections that make your brand special? In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Noah Fleming, author of Soul at Scale, to explore how businesses can maintain their human edge in an increasingly automated world. From the Savannah Bananas' remarkable success to the power of personal customer experiences, they discuss why doing things that don't scale can create extraordinary growth, loyalty, and long-term competitive advantages.Mike and Noah explore practical ways to simplify your business, strengthen customer relationships, and use AI to amplify what makes your company unique. They discuss the importance of getting closer to your customers, eliminating unnecessary complexity, measuring the value of memorable experiences, and knowing where human judgment and AI capabilities work best together. You'll discover why making every customer interaction meaningful, memorable, and personal is a powerful strategy for building trust, creating organic growth, and scaling your business without losing its soul. Connect with Noah Fleming on LinkedIn to follow his work and insights.Key Takeaways:• Do things that don't scale to build a business that does. Personal phone calls, direct customer conversations, and small acts of care create the loyalty and word-of-mouth that fuel organic growth.• Stay close to your customers and employees. Leaders who spend time on the front lines gain firsthand insights into customer needs, employee challenges, and opportunities to improve the business.• Protect the human moments in your customer experience. Identify the touchpoints where personal attention, empathy, and genuine connection make the biggest difference before introducing AI automation.• Simplify your processes before automating them. Fix broken processes, remove unnecessary complexity, and eliminate customer frustrations before using technology to scale your operations.• Make every customer interaction meaningful, memorable, and personal. Evaluate your customer experience through these three qualities, including how your business handles difficult conversations and delivers bad news.• Focus on existing customers to create compounding growth. Investing in customer retention, repeat business, and referrals creates sustainable growth while reducing the constant pressure to acquire new customers.• Turn customer feedback into meaningful conversations. Use surveys, reviews, and customer data as opportunities to personally follow up, solve problems, and show customers that their opinions matter.• Empower employees to create memorable experiences. Give your team the freedom, tools, and confidence to surprise customers through thoughtful, unexpected acts of service that generate lasting loyalty and word-of-mouth.• Make your company's soul a competitive advantage. As automated interactions become increasingly common, businesses that preserve authentic human connections can stand out and build stronger customer relationships.• Use AI to amplify your expertise and creativity. Noah shares how he uses AI to build custom tools, improve productivity, develop ideas, and support his writing while maintaining his personal voice, experience, and professional judgment.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when digital marketing gets so crowded that physical experiences start feeling fresh again? In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Kirby Hasseman, author of Hybrid Marketing and founder of Hasseman Marketing, to explore why the strongest marketing strategies blend digital reach with real-world human connection. They dig into the comeback of promotional products, direct mail, events, and face-to-face experiences; why useful, high-quality branded merchandise can create lasting impressions; and how marketers can stand out as digital channels become increasingly crowded.Kirby also shares lessons from building Hasseman Marketing and hosting the Delivering Marketing Joy podcast, including the value of consistency, experimentation, relationships, and creating marketing people genuinely enjoy receiving. The conversation offers a practical reminder for marketers navigating AI and automation: technology gives us more ways to reach people, while memorable brands still earn attention through creativity, generosity, and human connection. You’ll leave with ideas for building a hybrid marketing mix that connects online and offline experiences, creates more memorable customer touchpoints, and delivers a little more joy along the way.Read the episode recap here.Key Takeaways:Hybrid marketing creates more ways to be remembered. Combining digital channels with physical experiences like promotional products, direct mail, events, and face-to-face interactions gives brands more meaningful opportunities to connect.Quality and usefulness make promotional products more powerful. Kirby sees growing demand for merchandise people genuinely want to keep and use, which also makes usability a practical form of sustainability.Physical marketing can cut through digital overload. As inboxes, feeds, webinars, and downloadable content become increasingly crowded, a thoughtful tangible experience can earn attention and stay visible longer.Marketing should create joy for the recipient. Kirby’s “Delivering Marketing Joy” philosophy encourages marketers to think about how an interaction makes someone feel and create experiences people appreciate receiving.Human relationships remain a valuable marketing channel. Networking, trade shows, conversations, and personal connections create memorable moments that can complement scalable digital outreach.Consistency compounds over time. Kirby’s experience building his business, content, and podcast demonstrates how consistently showing up builds familiarity, relationships, and trust.Experimentation keeps marketing moving forward. Marketers benefit from trying ideas, learning from the response, and continually improving their mix instead of searching for one perfect tactic.The best marketing mix connects online and offline experiences. Hybrid marketing treats physical and digital channels as parts of the same customer journey, allowing each interaction to reinforce the others.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Send us Fan MailAI is changing how people search for local businesses. Longer, more conversational searches give tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI-powered search more context to understand what someone actually needs and recommend businesses that are genuinely relevant. In this episode, Mike Montague talks with local SEO expert Tyler Henn of Henn House about what this shift means for local businesses and how reputation, reviews, third-party validation, and a strong Google Business Profile are becoming increasingly important signals for both traditional and AI-powered search.Tyler shares practical strategies for improving local visibility, including building service-specific website pages, creating clear connections between your services and locations, and giving search engines enough context to understand exactly who you serve and what makes your business unique. They also explore a refreshingly simple idea for the AI search era: build the online reputation your business has earned in the real world. AI can help capture customer stories, reviews, expertise, and other trust signals so great local businesses become easier for humans and AI to find, understand, and recommend.Key Takeaways:Third-party validation matters more in AI search. Reviews, citations, and mentions across trusted platforms help search engines and AI systems understand your reputation and credibility.Conversational search rewards specificity. People can describe exactly what they need, making detailed information about your services, expertise, and customers increasingly valuable.Build a reputation worth recommending. Great customer experiences, strong reviews, and consistently doing good work create the signals that help local businesses earn visibility.Your Google Business Profile is the foundation of local SEO. A complete, accurate profile with the right categories, services, and information gives Google important context about your business.Give search engines enough detail to understand what you do. Clearly defining your services, specialties, locations, and customer needs increases your chances of appearing for specific searches.Create dedicated pages for important services. Individual service pages give search engines more context and create more opportunities to match your business with relevant searches.Make your differentiation specific. Concrete practices, specialized processes, customer experiences, and real stories provide stronger reasons to recommend your business than generic marketing claims.Your entire local presence contributes to SEO. Your website, reviews, social activity, networking, business listings, and offline reputation collectively shape how your business is understood online.Use AI to amplify expertise you already have. AI can accelerate research, content, and SEO work when it is guided by someone who understands the strategy and knows what good work looks like.Competitive local SEO still requires expertise and judgment. AI can help establish a solid foundation, while highly competitive markets require thoughtful strategy and ongoing execution.AI search is becoming increasingly personalized. As AI understands more context about a searcher’s needs and preferences, local recommendations can become more specific to the individual.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing Podcast, Mike Montague talks with David Levine, author of Old School Service, New School Tools, about how small businesses can use AI without losing the personal touch that keeps customers coming back. David shares lessons from nearly 20 years of running a brick-and-mortar business, where strong relationships, genuine conversations, and memorable service helped him compete without the biggest budget or the lowest prices.Together, they explore how AI can act as a multiplier for customer service, marketing, and follow-up, freeing business owners to spend more time shaking hands, picking up the phone, listening to customers, and building trust. The big takeaway: technology changes, but human nature does not. The businesses that win will use new school tools to make old school service easier, more consistent, and more scalable.Key Takeaways:Use AI as a multiplier for better human service. David’s core message is that AI should speed up repetitive tasks so business owners can spend more time calling customers, visiting clients, listening, and making people feel valued.Technology changes, but human nature does not. Tools will keep evolving, but people still want to be seen, heard, appreciated, and helped by real humans.Customer experience matters more than customer service departments. David encourages businesses to think of service as the full customer experience, with sales, support, operations, and follow-up all working together.Listening sells better than selling. He argues that many customers avoid salespeople because they feel sold to, while salespeople who listen closely can create better conversations and better outcomes.Authentic reviews build trust; fake reviews destroy it. David warns against buying reviews and recommends earning steady, real feedback from happy customers, even if that means only asking for a few reviews each week.Bad reviews can become opportunities. He explains that AI can help business owners pause, de-escalate, and draft thoughtful responses when emotions are running high after a negative review.Follow-up should add value instead of saying “just checking in.” David points out that generic follow-ups feel empty, while AI can help create more useful, customized messages that serve the customer.Small moments create raving fans. Smiles, sincere apologies, quick communication, surprise value-adds, and anticipating customer needs all help turn ordinary service into memorable experiences.Protect your team if you want happy customers. David connects employee experience to customer experience, sharing that a happy, motivated team is more likely to create positive customer moments.Raving fans beat AI. His biggest takeaway is that companies using AI to create more time for real customer connection will build loyal fans, and those fans remain more powerful than any algorithm.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and clients, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get the visibility and online reputation you deserve!Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report.Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Francis Brero, a go-to-market and revenue technology leader at HG Insights, explores AI’s role in modern B2B sales. They discuss buying committees, account intelligence, capturing top sellers’ playbooks, and separating routine tasks from high-judgment decisions. The conversation also covers voice AI, smarter meeting follow-up, human judgment, trust, and directing AI toward underserved needs.

Sherif Higazy, founder of Megaton AI, benchmarks generative media models. He explores why creative AI needs constant testing, why Chinese video models are advancing rapidly, and how marketers can weigh quality, cost, privacy, and workflow fit. The conversation spans AI video, music, animation, real-time storytelling, world models, Holodeck-style experiences, and the attention tax of AI slop.