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The 7—no, 8!—Skills Content Marketers Need to Thrive · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
  [on-hold music] Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly. Today, big surprise, we're talking about AI. A little bit of a different angle, though.
• 0:14
  I recently wrote a blog post on the Superpath blog, which is called "The Eighth Skill: How Content Marketers Should Think About AI in 2026." This is a follow-up to an article I wrote about five years ago.
• 0:25
  It was about the seven skills that help content marketers thrive in their work. AI was not on that list because it was five years ago, and I felt that it really needed an update.
• 0:34
  So I wrote a new article kind of summarizing those first seven skills, going deeper on the AI part of it. I won't tease too much. We go through it in significant detail in this episode.
• 0:45
  I do feel that a professional community like Superpath is one of the best ways to level up your AI skills.
• 0:52
  Uh, we're doing monthly show-and-tells where people are showing us the workflows that they are creating, the things they're vibe coding. It's really cool. You can kind of build along as well.
• 1:00
  It's like a really nice way to, like, carve out some time for your own professional development. And then we have an AI channel where people are always sharing things they're building, asking questions.
• 1:09
  There's just, like, tons of inspiration. Even if you want to be a fly on the wall, like, you'll learn a ton in the AI channel. So obviously, go learn all about that at superpath.co.
• 1:16
  We got a 30-day free trial if you want to come check it out. Okay. With all that said, I'll get out of the way now and enjoy this episode with Chloe and Eric on the eighth skill. Hey, everybody. Jimmy here.
• 1:25
  Another episode of Content Briefly. We have a new and exciting topic today, AI. Just kidding. It's, it's not new. It is exciting though. Finally. Yeah. [chuckles] Yeah.
• 1:34
  The people have been asking, "When will you talk about AI?" The day is finally here, especially Chloe. Oh, yeah. Exactly. You know, before we dive into this, I thought it might be fun to just quickly go around.
• 1:46
  Each of us are in new or relatively new roles, and I thought it might be fun to just give, like, a quick update on what we're doing, how it's going, and then let's dive into this. Chloe, do you wanna go first? Sure.
• 1:56
  Well, I celebrated my one month on Thanksgiving, so I am still very, very new in my role.
• 2:03
  And I think the first month of any role is just kind of understanding processes and stakeholders and kind of getting to know, like, who your allies within the business is gonna be.
• 2:13
  So I've been doing a lot of that and just uncovering a lot of foundational work that the company has to do in terms of trying to figure out, you know, what we're publishing, who we're publishing for, getting our content to a higher quality, and getting it out the door.
• 2:28
  So I'm really focused on looking at the processes and just who's inputting what where right now. Nice. That's awesome. And brain my AA hat on. Nice. Yeah, Eric, for you, same company, but new role within the company.
• 2:43
  Yeah. So I've been promoted. I'm doing air quotes to head of marketing at Dock from-- I was previously content lead, now I'm head of marketing. I'm still the only marketer at Dock.
• 2:53
  My role has not really changed whatsoever other than the title. We had a funny conversation actually with my boss, Alex.
• 3:01
  He's like, "Do you wanna just retroactively change your title and pretend you were never content lead?"
• 3:04
  And I was like, "Well, there's a long trail on the internet of me talking about being content lead at Dock, including hundreds of episodes of podcasts or whatever, so."
• 3:13
  But yeah, so I mean, it was an interesting career development because maybe a year ago, I had a sort of a frank conversation with Alex, my boss, and he was like, "Do you wanna be a content marketer, or do you wanna be a marketer?
• 3:25
  And, like, if you wanna be there, here's kind of what you need to do. Like, I need to see you own product marketing a little more. I need to see you own growth and, like, look at the numbers once a week.
• 3:35
  You know, I need you to, like, think less in content world and more also just the marketing things that move the business." And so I guess in the last year, I've demonstrated those skills more.
• 3:44
  And so when I visited San Francisco a few weeks ago, we had a nice conversation where he said, "I think you're ready, and let's do this." Cool. That's awesome. That's really cool. All right, I'll go last. Quick update.
• 3:55
  So I'm working at Reforge now.
• 3:56
  I was hired to do content, so my boss Brian and I went back and forth on a content strategy exercise as kind of like our first bit of work we did, and we just couldn't, we just, like, couldn't figure it out.
• 4:06
  Like, we went back and forth on a couple of iterations of it, and we just couldn't really find something that felt right, and then we realized why.
• 4:13
  Basically, the company has other more pressing needs right now than content. So we had a conversation about me working on product marketing instead of content marketing, at least for the next couple of months.
• 4:25
  So I've been pouring all of my energy into product marketing, which has been really fun. It's kind of a nice mix of things I know how to do and things I don't know how to do.
• 4:33
  So it's not all brand new and overwhelming, but it's kinda, like, just challenging enough.
• 4:39
  And the company's just in an interesting spot because it has a nine-year history of being an education business, and then now we're in the process of launching SaaS products, AI SaaS products.
• 4:50
  And so there's no precedent for software product marketing, certainly educational product marketing at the business.
• 4:56
  And anyway, so it's been great to, like, sync up with the PMs, sync up with sales, try to, like, understand the full picture.
• 5:03
  We have a lot of, like, marketing 101 to do related to the software stuff because it is brand new. And so our blog has been relatively quiet because we're prepping a bunch of stuff for launches coming up.
• 5:13
  And I imagine I'll probably work on content at some point, but at the moment, there's, like I said, there's just sort of this, like, big, giant bucket of work that needs more attention. So it's been fun.
• 5:24
  Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I've been in the exact same space because we rebranded or sort of repositioned Dock as a sales enablement company rather than just digital sales room.
• 5:33
  So s- there's been all this positioning, messaging, product marketing work to do.
• 5:39
  And I think it does relate to our upcoming discussion today about AI skills, because I think so much of the inputs for AI is, like, core product marketing work that a lot of content marketers are gonna find themselves doing.
• 5:53
  Like, how do we talk about our product?
• 5:55
  You know, how do we define our customer segments, our ICP, all these things that are in the realm of product marketing?Are very necessary inputs for AI, and so all of us are gonna have to be thinking about those things more than we did in the past.
• 6:08
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I would just argue that we all should have been thinking about those things.
• 6:14
  Like, I've always said that like content goals have to derive from your product goals, from your sales goals, from your marketing, from your business goals, and all of that starts with like a really big understanding of like who you're speaking with, what your product does, why it's important.
• 6:29
  And I just love the-- when I see the intersection of content and product marketing.
• 6:34
  We have a really strong product marketing team at Visier that has been hugely helpful in just helping fast track my own knowledge, and I just think that's really important.
• 6:43
  So content marketers, if you're not talking to product marketing people in your business, like go find them. They're amazing.
• 6:50
  [chuckles] You know, it's interesting you say that, Chloe, because I feel like I made a mistake in my first 30 or so days at Reforge. I was just thinking about content.
• 6:59
  Like I learned this lesson at Animals when I switched over to sales, and I was like, "Wow! Our marketing is not really working. [chuckles] I could use some help over here."
• 7:07
  And I kinda had that same experience, like, once I started talking with the product folks, realizing like, wow.
• 7:11
  There-- like there's so much to learn here about these products, 'cause there are a couple of them, and these customers, before I can start thinking about like what content we should do. So it's a good reminder. Mm-hmm.
• 7:23
  All right, skills. We took skills, as you teased, Eric. So like 100 million years ago, I wrote this article for the Superpath blog called Seven Skills Required for a Content Marketer to Thrive, or something like that.
• 7:34
  And I, I actually thought that post would last forever. I never really thought it would need to be updated, and I never also thought that AI would change everything about the way that we work. So I revisited that post.
• 7:47
  I wrote an addendum to it, which we just published on the blog this week, and I thought it'd be interesting to chat with you guys about first the seven. Uh, have they held up?
• 7:56
  Are they as evergreen as I thought they were five years ago? And then, you know, quickly run through the AI component of it too.
• 8:03
  So I'll just go ahead and quickly read the, the seven skills that made up the original article, and we'll link to both of these also in the show notes if people wanna read them. Okay, we have writing.
• 8:11
  It's obviously a core skill, every content marketer.
• 8:14
  Storytelling, which is related to writing, but different in the sense that it's about more creating narratives that keep readers engaged over a long arc, as opposed to just clear, concise writing that could appear in many places and is probably consumed in a very short-term way.
• 8:29
  Organization, because you're always managing a bunch of stuff. You need to know where all your things are. I think of this as like a,
• 8:36
  yeah, I don't know, like a mechanic or something whose tools are always in the right place, knows where everything is, helps them work very efficiently.
• 8:42
  Analysis, how you'll basically be able to analyze your own data, g- have access to your own data, be able to analyze it, understand what's going on, and let that inform your work.
• 8:51
  Communication, synchronous and asynchronous. Basically, how do you talk to your team? How do you talk to your manager? How do you talk to your customers? Just clear, strong communication skills.
• 9:02
  That definitely feels evergreen. Say, empathy is another.
• 9:06
  This is-- I think this is cuts across all marketing, just like understanding your customers well, like seeing them as people and not kind of silly made-up personas like Sass Sally, things like that, Marketing Mike.
• 9:18
  And then the last one, getting shit done, which I feel like is the quote unquote "soft skill" that every boss loves more than any other, which is just, can I trust this person to just do it?
• 9:31
  And then for you, for the individual, to be able to like take the many pieces, the whole mess of it, and bring a project across the finish line. Okay, so Eric and Chloe, any reaction to that?
• 9:42
  Side note, I literally have a plaque that says, "Get shit done," that I got from Etsy, and it is in my office, and it's fantastic. That's awesome.
• 9:52
  I do-- I have a lot of thoughts, but I think the first thought actually as you were reading through this is just I feel like this is a really good basis for bringing this to your manager after you've sort of rated yourself on how you feel like you're doing in this skill set.
• 10:08
  So like first of all, I agree with this skill set. I think it makes sense. I also think it's core to a lot of different types of jobs, but I do see all of these pieces in content marketing in particular.
• 10:19
  But I just am thinking to myself, this would be really interesting, like rating yourself across these seven skills and then trying to spend 2026 like upskilling yourself across a couple of different of these.
• 10:32
  I think these are incredibly evergreen. I think, uh, writing was the one that sort of maybe had the only little asterisk in my mind. I think that- Oh, interesting. Tell me... I think the core- I agree...
• 10:44
  skills that go into writing, like, you know, make sure you lead, you know, bluff writing or like some of those essential skills still hold true.
• 10:53
  But I think there's two ways, and this has changed a little bit since 2020, in that, A, you have like AI has like kind of solved the writing challenge a little bit.
• 11:03
  I know there's still a great writer, and I think great writers do better with AI. Bold statement, Eric. I think like you can write more at scale quickly.
• 11:11
  So you still need to have the core writing skills, but I think maybe in terms of just like time spent on these things or priority rather than like I still think it's a box you need to check in having writing skills, but I think I'm able to like write at much larger volumes than I was before, things like that.
• 11:28
  But so like that's just a small asterisk on it. I think like you still need writing skills to write well with AI, so let's just put that aside.
• 11:36
  I think the thing that's missing here is, as we've talked a lot in the past couple years, is I think there's a little more of like a multimedia vibe happening in content marketing- Yeah... than in 2020.
• 11:46
  So like video is missing. You could put that under storytelling.
• 11:51
  You could put that under there, but I think there's just like a wider array of sort of hard creative skills, such as being able to edit a video, that might not fall on this list.
• 12:03
  If I was gonna add like an eighth point, the, the extra skills that will help you in your job, graphic design, things like that. Maybe we'll do a ninth- Mm-hmm...
• 12:11
  'cause-If AI is the eighth, then there could be no-- we, this could be a whole series of articles where we like keep pretending it's done and then releasing another skill later on.
• 12:22
  Well, and I think the other piece of this too, and this is something you talked about a lot based off of our different roles over the years, is sort of the strategy portion of it versus the execution portion of it because, you know, I took, I think, a video editing course in college, and I can probably hack my way through it, but it's gonna be way faster for me to give that, you know, to the multimedia producer on our creative team.
• 12:47
  So I also think it's dependent on how it applies to your current role in terms of the type of content marketing that you do and what type of content marketer that you are in terms of whether you need to be a ten in all of these pieces.
• 13:04
  Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I guess the way I think about these seven is that these are kind of core skills, and then beyond this, people specialize.
• 13:12
  You know, like one thing I talked about a bit in the article is that zero to one looks pretty much the same for most content marketers.
• 13:19
  Like you have to get from you don't have any experience to you're, you're strong on all seven skills, and then- Oh, yeah. That's fair... from there. And then the paths branch quite a bit from there.
• 13:30
  There's like the one-person marketing team route where like you have to wear lots of hats, you have to at least be able to dabble in like many different channels and lots of tools.
• 13:40
  There's the freelance route where you're building a business where content is your product. There's the managerial route where maybe you wanna pursue a track that gets you into a VP or C...
• 13:49
  So that like the skills beyond this change dramatically probably depending on which path you're pursuing. I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, obviously like this article had to be updated to account for AI.
• 14:06
  Like it's just too big to just looming over everything we do, and I felt like, how can we not talk about AI in the context of like skills you need?
• 14:14
  And in thinking more about this, I was trying to think through like AI has just been such a weird couple of years for a bunch of reasons. One of those reasons is that it's kind of been forced on us, right?
• 14:26
  Like it's not like other technologies where it's like, you know, I'm sure like twenty years ago or whatever, people are like, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we had an easier way to share large files?"
• 14:35
  And then like the cloud comes along and like it solves the problem. Like we didn't really have a problem that any of us were looking to solve with AI. Like not, not really, not like something pressing, you know.
• 14:45
  Now everybody's like, "Well, you have to use AI. You have to adopt it."
• 14:48
  And I feel like that part of it has put kind of a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, especially in the content world, where i-in some ways, AI robs us of the creativity and sometimes the fun and satisfaction of the work that we do.
• 15:04
  And I think that, basically I think that we should approach this from a kind of professional development perspective.
• 15:12
  I think it's okay to not love all of this, and I would encourage people to explore it so that you understand it better and decide where it's gonna fit for you. In some cases, you may not really have a choice.
• 15:22
  If you wanna stay in the job that you're in, you may just have to use a lot more AI than you actually want to.
• 15:28
  But perhaps you're a freelancer and you find ways that it supports your work and choose other areas of your work to not go hard on AI. But I feel like you have to understand it before you can make that decision.
• 15:39
  Does that resonate with you guys? Yes. [chuckles] That was like I didn't know if I agreed. [laughs] We were just in stunned silence. You guys know, like AI is not my favorite thing in the world.
• 15:51
  I basically mute Jimmy when he starts talking about vibe coding. And you know, it's just I went to school for a certain thing. I found my job through a certain thing.
• 16:00
  I don't have a desire to be, you know, a developer, an engineer on the side. That's just not who I am, and I don't necessarily see it becoming a new part of my personality.
• 16:10
  I do think that a year ago, I was in a position where my former boss was obsessed with AI, and I would venture to say like we all were trying to figure out how to use it.
• 16:24
  And so I definitely agree with the when it's forced on you, you don't necessarily take to it as well because that's the position that I felt like I was in.
• 16:33
  I think now I'm given a little bit more freedom to be able to play around with it and experiment it, with it a little bit.
• 16:41
  But what I'm still finding is I haven't quite figured out if it's going to help me build the better mousetrap because when I'm trying to figure out like the foundational pieces, it's still faster to do what I'm familiar with than to try to introduce new tools into it.
• 16:59
  So I still would argue that in order to figure out how AI is gonna help you expedite your work, you still need to figure out like what that foundational work is and what those pieces are.
• 17:11
  So I'm starting to get there, but I, I would say like I'm probably a slower adopter than most. But I do think it varies. You know what?
• 17:20
  You bring up a really good point, which is actually a perfect segue into 8A, which is the first-- So I broke the eighth skill, AI, into three subcategories, 8A, B, and C. 8A is adoption and exploration.
• 17:32
  And I feel like what you describe, Chloe, is kind of the exact problem that so many folks are running into, where it's like, yes, it is still in many cases faster to just do the thing the way that you know how to do it.
• 17:42
  And then like what a lot of people do, like I do this a lot, I will like kinda do it the old way and the new way in parallel, and then it takes like five times as much time. Like it's actually a pain in the ass.
• 17:53
  And I like kinda learn something, still end up pushing the project across the finish line the old-fashioned way, and just kinda end up frustrated that I wasted a bunch of time tinkering with these tools that didn't ultimately work.
• 18:04
  And I feel like the thing that we all should do, which I don't do and also should, is set aside time that is dedicated just to explorationYou know, like we did a hackathon by probably in the spring, I think it was May of this year, and tried to just kinda carve out some time and space where people could say, like, "I will dedicate this time, it's on my calendar."
• 18:25
  We gave people a few ideas of things to do with AI, and like that's the learning time.
• 18:30
  And then you can make a more educated decision about should AI augment or replace a workflow that I already use or is the old way better? And I feel like that is just such a better way to do it.
• 18:41
  You know, versus like even what I described in the article, which is like, you know, I had a situation at Reforge recently where someone, one of our PMs had done a bunch of customer research, and I was like, "Okay, cool.
• 18:51
  That's nice." And then I had this like thought of like, oh my gosh, no, I should... AI could like help me solve this. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna spend a few minutes trying to figure out...
• 18:58
  This is like a mini version of this, I guess. I, I carve out like 30 minutes, see like could I figure out something to do with this?
• 19:04
  Because it just seems really valuable, and if I don't do anything with it or if I just watch one of them and extrapolate from it, like that doesn't seem... Like just there's an opportunity here.
• 19:15
  It didn't really take that long before I figured out you could just export all the transcripts and then dump it into a Claude project.
• 19:19
  And then beyond that, I found out they were recorded in Grain, which has MCP, which is a thing we could talk about later or not. So you can just interact with all this content directly in Claude.
• 19:32
  And it was like, wow, okay, now I'm gonna use this little skill I've learned all the time now. That's cool. And I think, again, like I think it depends on what your goal is, what you're trying to use it for.
• 19:44
  I think finding use for AI in organizations is different than trying to find it as a freelancer, which I know a lot of the Superpath community is.
• 19:53
  And I think if you're approaching it from a freelancer perspective, I think you need to approach it in the mindset that if I figure out a solution to X, then that will give me time to potentially bring on Y more clients, which will then give me this much more money, right?
• 20:10
  Like, I think if you almost have to really see the end of the path for what you're trying to accomplish because then it makes, you know, the pain or whatever worth it. Whereas I think you can just while away
• 20:25
  so much time and energy just trying to maybe figure out what that is. Can I throw in two sort of more sources of dissonance that make this tough to wrap it?
• 20:36
  I, I think the Chloes of the world are probably feeling this, and I mean, I do as well. The Chloes of the world. We all need our T-shirts. Our, our Chloe audience. Yeah, Chloheads. We call them the Toppers. Yeah.
• 20:45
  Everyone, everyone tell me, are you Team Chloe or, you know, like [laughs] Yeah. I think there's...
• 20:50
  The other factor is that like we're all having AI forced on us in our personal lives in a way that kind of none of us want. So like, you know, your Facebook Messenger is asking you to use AI.
• 21:04
  Instagram wants you to use AI. Whoa, Eric, you're still on Facebook? I am. Yeah, you know. Actually, my group chat with my friends is Facebook. That's the only thing I use for... But thank you.
• 21:13
  Just, sorry, uh, Snapchat or whatever the kids are using. [laughs] But, you know, whatever. Music is being written by AI. Movie studios are using- Yes...
• 21:22
  all these things that nobody as consumers wants to happen, and we're not like severed in the way that we have our work selves and we have our personal selves.
• 21:31
  Like I think we're all feeling annoyed by AI in our personal lives, and it's very hard to like cut that feeling also when we're working.
• 21:38
  So there's this sort of like general AI fatigue that just creeps in, and I'm fighting hard against that, realizing that like it does have so many benefits for my work life.
• 21:48
  And it's possible to like reject it in your personal life and adopt it in your work life, if that makes sense. So that's kinda one feeling.
• 21:54
  The other is that like software used to be deterministic in the sense that like you use the tool and you know exactly what's gonna happen, and that's very satisfying. But AI is very...
• 22:07
  It's stochastic in the sense that it's kind of random. A- and so it's frustrating in that sense. [laughs] Like one day the thing can work, and the next day it doesn't, which is, creates these frustrating feelings.
• 22:17
  But then the also thing is like the rate of development is so quick that I think what's frustrating is you feel like you can learn a skill, and then six months later, like the best way to do it is totally different.
• 22:29
  You're right, yeah. It's changed, yeah.
• 22:30
  And but then I also feel like I'm trying to set the base for myself for like, okay, in the future when this works amazingly, I wanna be ready for that, and I'm not sure if that's the right way to invest my time or not.
• 22:41
  Like should I just put it to the side and ignore this all until all the tools are perfect and ready and someone else has figured it out, or does it benefit me from like a career development perspective to be sort of ahead of 90% of people on this, right?
• 22:55
  So I think that's the other... Like when we're going through all these skill, these AI-based skills, it's like it can feel like we're not there yet.
• 23:03
  But I do ultimately feel like it is useful to be ahead of the curve on this because like that's kind of the nature of marketing is like you're trying to be ahead of the curve of everybody else.
• 23:12
  It's like a bit of a battle, and you have to be first. You know, like so I do think it's helpful to be ahead of people here. Does that feeling make sense?
• 23:21
  Yeah, I think you can't like stick your head in the sand and be like, "I'm just gonna ignore this for two years, and I'm sure nothing will happen." Like, I think I've said that so many times in this past year.
• 23:30
  Like I kinda just wanna hide under my desk and be like, "I don't know. I'm good. What's gonna happen in the next year?"
• 23:35
  But I know the reality of that statement is ridiculous 'cause, you know, if you can think if you've been out of the game in the past two years, like there has to be some semblance of keeping up and educating yourself.
• 23:50
  What do you say? Like just enough to be dangerous or something. So I do think that there's something to be said for that, but I also just believe in the idea of
• 24:00
  you don't have to pivot to become an expert if there are other things that are going to benefit you in the now and in the, you know, somewhat future.
• 24:12
  So I, I guess what I'm saying is I think-It's good to be informed, it's good to play around. I am starting to warm up to the idea that like it is going to become a part of my daily workflow.
• 24:22
  It is-- I was using a bunch of AI tools earlier today, just in the past couple hours, just to fast track some editing and all that stuff, but I still don't necessarily believe that it's gonna be like the end-all, be-all.
• 24:37
  I think it does depend to a large degree on the environment in which you work. Like being at Reforge has been very interesting because it's a-- feel like, like we're building AI products, you know.
• 24:50
  So like this is just how the company is. Like it's relatively small company. We have engineers who all they do is think about AI. We have PMs, and all they do is think about AI and use it, in both cases heavily.
• 25:02
  We have a founder who's, you know, the vision for the business is that we're going to, you know, build and sell these AI products. So like it's just, I, I doesn't feel...
• 25:11
  It-- Actually, I think if I just tried to opt out, it would no longer be a fit, you know, as like a place to work.
• 25:18
  But I think that differs significantly based on the type, the company with the type of company, the size of the company, or if you're freelance, that's like a whole 'nother story.
• 25:26
  I imagine it will start to feel more and more normal, especially as we kinda iron out like, what is this good for? You know, like there's not a ton of best practices around it just yet.
• 25:37
  Like we are definitely still in the exploration phase, which is why I called it out as a, a subcategory of AI because I think at the moment, the open-mindedness is, and the adaptability, like those are really important.
• 25:50
  Yeah, and I would say with that, the trend right now, right, is every company has some component of AI in its product.
• 25:58
  I mean, like my company is an analytics platform, so there's a huge, huge AI component in our product and in our go-to-market.
• 26:08
  So I would agree with you just even that the layman's understanding of how AI ingests data and how it spits it back out and all that, like that's incredibly important just as a, you know, human societal level.
• 26:21
  But I think there's a difference in terms of the type of company that you're working for versus what your role entails day to day.
• 26:29
  Because, for example, like Eric, as a team of one, I can absolutely see not adopting AI to be detrimental, right?
• 26:38
  Because like you're gonna save time, you're gonna be able to tackle all of these other different projects by essentially, you know, trying to figure out how to clone [chuckles] yours- yourself in as many ways as you can.
• 26:50
  But I do think it really depends on the role and the makeup of the team structure and all that, in addition to what your company is actually focused on.
• 26:58
  Let me run through the other two s- called sub-skills real quick, 'cause I feel like there's more to talk about on both of them.
• 27:06
  8B, workflow design, and I feel like th-this is not specific to content or even marketing, but, you know, AI just enables a lot of efficiency in project management and the workflows that you rely on to get your work done, to track it, to update things.
• 27:24
  Like there's just so many opportunities to make a lot of that admin type work that pretty much everybody has to do, w- if not faster, just gone completely.
• 27:34
  Like in so many cases, you can just completely eliminate the human component of stuff that's like doesn't-- It just was like took your time but didn't really require brainpower or any like specialized knowledge of something.
• 27:45
  The example I put in here was I built a style guide for myself by asking Claude to analyze a bunch of stuff that I had written myself, not with AI.
• 27:54
  Now that I apply that style guide automatically in Claude to everything I write, and like I don't have to think about it anymore. It was like there's so many little opportunities like that.
• 28:02
  And then I'll just quickly go through 8C, which is tool mastery, and this is very specific to content marketing in that there's an emerging set of tools that a lot of companies are adopting or, or curious about, and I'm thinking of like AirOps and GrowthX and N8N and Ja-- Like there's a whole bunch of these, like I don't even know, I'm not sure what the name of these tools are yet, you know, kinda like content engineering type of tools.
• 28:28
  There are other categories as well, but some people I think are in the early stages of developing their careers by mastering the tool itself and then becoming the go-to person for that very thing.
• 28:38
  And actually at Reforge, we hired someone, the title was AI content marketer. Their job is to get us up and running on AirOps, and this person is like it's a s- like a skill set that I haven't really come across before.
• 28:49
  It's really interesting, like very technical, kinda like borderline- Is that still their title? That is still their title. I guess I'll... It-- I don't know if it'll change. I'm not really sure.
• 29:00
  It kinda helped us attract the right person, which was someone who's like they're hardcore about their AI. You know what I mean?
• 29:05
  And like in this case, this person was like kinda like dabbling with programming, like a pretty technical marketer, and then AI just like opened this massive opportunity, you know, to like take their skills to a new level.
• 29:18
  And so I do think that will become a thing, you know, that like there's probably a bunch of people out there who could be AirOps, you know, w- consultants or whatever, you know, partners, where like they're the ones getting you set up and integrating with all your various tools and setting up your knowledge base and all that, and that's-- I think there's gonna be a ton of work there.
• 29:35
  So is that all? No, definitely not. Like there probably could've been A, A, B, C, D, E, F, et cetera.
• 29:40
  Well, I think what's interesting, you say this, right, 8B is prompting as workflow design, and it's understanding your processes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
• 29:49
  But then if you go right back up and you look at your core seven skills, number three is organization, managing the chaos of multiple projects, tools, and stakeholders without losing your mind.
• 30:00
  And I think if we really wanted to, we could apply an AI lens to almost all, if not all, of these skills.
• 30:10
  It's almost like I agree with you with adding AI as being on this list, but I almost would argue thatIt's not an individual skill. Agree totally.
• 30:20
  And I debated, like, do I do the seven skills updated to account for AI, and it's just like a layer that cuts through? Like- Yeah... I think probably could have done that.
• 30:29
  I separated it out because I just felt like there was, like, a little more to explore.
• 30:34
  Like, I do feel like at the m- at, at this moment, and this may need to be updated six months from now, like, these are the three things I think are super, super important. You know?
• 30:43
  Like adoption exploration is not going to be as important a year from now because we'll kind of have gone through that cycle.
• 30:48
  We'll have a better understanding of where this stuff applies, and then we can just do that stuff rather than adopt it, because we'll have already adopted.
• 30:55
  I do think there's a different flavor of workflow design and organization that I have felt as I've-- So the last three weeks, let's say, I've tried to go really deep on AI, and I'm like, "Could I just do our whole blog writing program by myself with AI?"
• 31:10
  Like, let's just try it and see what happened. And what I found was every part of... So you have, like, an internalized workflow that you follow when you're making something.
• 31:20
  So let's say writing a blog post, you have, like, a series of steps you follow. And I found that if I was just asking AI sort of in a large bulk of saying like, whatever, like, "Write a blog post for me.
• 31:32
  Here's the prompt," and it would do a thing. That would had poor results. But if I said, "Okay, what would I actually do if I was writing this post?
• 31:41
  I would, for each of these tools, I would research what are competitors... Like, what do people say about this competitor? What's their pricing like?" I actually have to go find and do that research.
• 31:50
  So there's all these subtasks that you're doing, and I realized that none of these are, like, baked into the tool, for example, and you have to make them yourself, like, as either projects or I made them as Claude skills.
• 32:00
  And once I really, like-- I've literally made a list on a piece of paper, like what are all the tasks that I would do to make a blog post?
• 32:05
  And I made a skill for each one of those things, and then I kind of called on each of those skills one at a time. The blog post that came out at the end was publish ready in, in 15 minutes kind of thing.
• 32:15
  But it took that time investment and my workflow and my process and understanding what would I do as a human and trying to replicate that.
• 32:22
  And so that was different than being organized and having things nicely in Airtable where like, okay, after this step, I email my freelancer.
• 32:31
  Like, it was a different understanding of the process of making content, for example, that was maybe different than being organized.
• 32:39
  And so, yeah, like the deep understanding of the workflow and how to translate that to AI versus skipping steps or like s-sort of painting with a wide brush.
• 32:50
  Can I also just say that some of this has been forced on us for sure.
• 32:55
  I think some of it has been really fun, and I know that opinion is not shared by everybody, but the opportunity to tinker I've really enjoyed, even though I've wasted just a massive amount of time doing it.
• 33:08
  And like, I kind of touched on this in the blog post I wrote a few months ago about the kind of the new T-shaped marketer, where all of our skill sets are a little wider than they used to be, and I think that's cool.
• 33:19
  And I get it. I get like, if you don't agree with me, totally respect that, that perspective. But I think if you are open to it, you can make some really cool stuff.
• 33:29
  And like, maybe, yeah, maybe it doesn't like save you 10% of your time or like maybe it doesn't make the business more money, but like it is like...
• 33:36
  [chuckles] I sometimes think about this, like it's like a thing to do at your computer that is more productive than social media and more fun than work, and like occasionally it's just nice to do that instead of like just kind of do the same old things I always do.
• 33:48
  Yeah, I mean, I think like a really good place to start for if you're on Team Chloe and like you haven't quite figured this stuff out yet, it's like any time that I am doing something that kind of just making my eyes glaze over, and I'm like, "Man, I really wish I could find a faster way to do this," then I take 10 minutes and I try to figure out can AI help me in some capacity.
• 34:17
  And it's just been a really good way of pushing myself to just like...
• 34:23
  You know, I was editing something today and it was, you know, 4:15, and I had to be on with you two in 15 minutes, and I was like, "Wait, I really wanna try and get this to a good place," and my brain was just not functioning.
• 34:38
  So I put a couple prompts into, you know, into Claude and was like, "Help me make this more succinct. Help me adapt it to this. Help me do this."
• 34:46
  And it took three rounds for a few paragraphs, and I was really happy with the result. And I was like, "Great." But I was staring at the computer for way too long before that and just couldn't form thoughts.
• 35:00
  So it helped me just push past like that 4:00 p.m. brain to be like, "Wait, I actually still wanna be producing at the moment." [chuckles] Yeah, yeah.
• 35:09
  AI is great for filling those parts of your day when you're kind of like low energy.
• 35:13
  Like that's-- I kind of do the same thing, like I get that creative burst in the morning, it tapers off and I'm like, "Okay, now I'm just gonna ask AI to do a bunch of stuff for me." [chuckles] Exactly.
• 35:22
  It's replacing the 3:00 p.m. slump. Yeah. I have a thought on tool mastery. I'm seeing this happen in Superpath, and I'm curious if you two feel this will come to fruition, is that there's
• 35:34
  becoming more of a split between enterprise level content marketers or like big company content marketers and small company content marketers and the tools they're using. AirOps being a perfect example. Like- Mm-hmm...
• 35:50
  they're kinda, uh, you know, I talk to them and they're like, "Don't use this. You don't need us." You know, like, "Your company isn't the problem we're solving.
• 35:57
  We're helping companies with 5,000 pages update all of them every day," that, that kind of thing. And so there's...
• 36:04
  People are sort of branching off into-- So we're talking about like using AI, but we're solving very different problems, and I think in terms of the actual tools we're working and the workflows we're doing, like I'm seeing a little bit of like a splintering off, whereas-Of course, big companies before, like you had technical SEO people or people doing things.
• 36:22
  There's still a scale thing happening, but the way I felt it was happening before was probably more like the same things the little companies do, just at a much bigger scale, versus now the tools are built for, they're sort of like these enterprise-y tools and these more end user-y tools, and they're branching off a little bit.
• 36:40
  And I don't know if that will always be true. I think of a tool like Writer as well. They're like sort of an e-enterprise AI writing tool versus like a Grammarly is just like a little helpful spellchecker with AI.
• 36:53
  So I'm feeling that this branching off is happening a little bit, and we might end up with more or less sort of like segmented content marketers in terms of the tools they're using and worlds they live in.
• 37:04
  Who knows if that trend will continue or not, or if those tools will just add like the bottom of the market.
• 37:09
  I think that's fair because if you translate that over into like more of a marketing executive level, I feel like the same thing is happening with CMOs and VPs, where they're essentially telling, you know, people that wanna go down that road, "You're not going to be managing bigger teams or bigger this, like you're gonna be managing agents that are gonna be doing A, B, C, D."
• 37:31
  Whereas there's not really gonna be that need in, you know, in smaller companies. So I think that's a fair assessment.
• 37:40
  And yeah, I mean, Jimmy, you even say this, like if you're doing content at a serious scale, like 100-plus pieces per month, I mean, that was not happening, right?
• 37:50
  At my previous company where there were, you know, 750 people even over three markets, we just weren't doing that volume. So I absolutely think it's dependent. I guess that's another layer, right?
• 38:01
  Like what your organization does and is trying to market, what your actual role is within the company, and then what your go-to-market motion actually is in terms of how you need to be mastering and considering AI.
• 38:15
  Agreed.
• 38:16
  I feel like this is the perfect time to encourage people to join Superpath Pro because [chuckles] there's-- the AI channel to me right now is the most interesting channel in the Slack group because there-- It's like a nice mix of people sharing cool workflows, asking questions, venting a bit, commiserating.
• 38:33
  Like there's a lot going on there, and I think it covers the full spectrum of like, like, "I kinda hate this," and like, "Here's how it's affecting my work in a way that I don't really like," and also like, "Oh, I built this cool thing.
• 38:44
  Check it out. Maybe, you know, maybe it's some inspiration for other people to use too." And it kinda covers all of that.
• 38:49
  And then additionally, we're doing show and tells, so you can come and just see what other people are doing.
• 38:54
  And if you come, I would encourage you to like build along, you know, like have another window open where you're kinda like, you know, following what one of our presenters is doing and seeing if it would help you out too.
• 39:04
  So you can learn all about that at superpath.co. Before we wrap up, can I...
• 39:10
  Speaking of Superpath Pro, I did ask in the community if people had reactions to your blog post or questions about these skills, and so we had two audience questions, member questions that I really wanna quickly get to before we...
• 39:22
  So one is from Ronnie Higgins, friend of the show. He was asking for the experimentation skill, like how do you justify to leadership the time spent on experimentation?
• 39:34
  Like you were talking about like the personal value of it, I think, but when your boss says like, "Why did you spend three hours tinkering?" Like, what would you say to senior leadership?
• 39:44
  Yeah, that's so interesting because I guess I, I haven't had that experience. I mean, I-- this is like sample size of one, but it's the complete opposite at Reforge. That's the same for me too.
• 39:53
  Yeah, they're like, "Yeah, learn it. Like figure this stuff out." You know? Like, nobody's justifying time learning AI because like that's what we're supposed to do anyway.
• 39:59
  So I guess it really just depends the type of work environment that you're in.
• 40:05
  I mean, you know, but to try to answer the question more clearly, like I think it's the same way you would approach any professional development. Like you just have to set aside time. You can't become...
• 40:13
  I mean, you become a better marketer by doing marketing, obviously, but every now and then you've gotta step back and sharpen the saw a bit.
• 40:21
  So I guess I, I can't imagine Ronnie's in, he personally is in that situation at Fresh Paint, 'cause I would imagine they're pretty heavy on AI. But if you are, like I would say find a thing.
• 40:31
  Don't just say like, "Hey, I need a morning to do this." Like, find a thing, find a hackathon. MKT1 actually just yesterday did a virtual event that was a couple hour... Like there's all kinds of things happening.
• 40:41
  It's, I think it's a lot easier to say like, "Hey, give me X dollars and Y hours so I can go do this."
• 40:48
  And I think it should be pretty easy to justify the investment because the AI conversation is just so, it's just constant.
• 40:54
  And I think we also talked about this, I know we did, in the podcast that we had on productivity and AI as well, in terms of how to kind of bring this up the ladder to make it more of an imperative.
• 41:08
  So that would be a good resource to check in on.
• 41:12
  But I do think that this needs to be kind of a top-down conversation in terms of just your boss or your boss's boss or whatever, understanding the impact that AI workflows could bring to your everyday, and then just level setting expectations in terms of what that looks like for your actual experimentation.
• 41:32
  Yeah. I agree. And then Carol had a question, was how do solopreneurs and freelancers make time for this? I know it's probably a similar professional development kind of question, but
• 41:45
  is there room for working this on client projects, or does it have to be sort of, you know, vibe code your own website, experimenta... Like how would you two think about that question?
• 41:55
  Uh, that's a harder one, I think, because if you're working as a freelancer or a consultant, the work and the money are tied very closely together.
• 42:04
  It's not like you're gonna get paid even if you have an unproductive day. Like you have to be productive.
• 42:08
  I feel like in that case, probably to some degree the answer's the same, like take the step back to sharpen the saw, like, and invest in something.
• 42:15
  Invest in a resource you think will help guide you through that, and I do feel like that's a good forcing function to help carve out the space for it.
• 42:21
  The other way I guess I would suggest thinking about it is, are there ways that it can help youWork more efficiently, and are there ways that it can help improve the quality of your work?
• 42:30
  I think the answer in both cases is yes. It's like those are the areas I would focus it on, and I would probably even just ask AI, like, "What do you think?"
• 42:38
  Tell, tell me, you know, like, "Here's my process for writing a case study. Can you help me find some ways to make it 10% more efficient?"
• 42:45
  And you could sort of repeat that with the various types of work you do, and I bet you'd find stuff. Yeah. That's a really good prompt.
• 42:52
  I think I said this earlier, but I think when it comes to freelancers, I think it's gonna be really important to quantify even more so than in like an in-house role.
• 43:01
  And I do think prompting AI actually [chuckles] is a really good starting point for that.
• 43:05
  But I also think trying to narrow your focus in on like one specific part that you want to be more efficient in or that you, again, like what are the things that you don't really like doing?
• 43:19
  Are there ways that AI can take that off your plate? And it might not even be in your actual writing or editing or whatever your specialty is. It might be in like your billing processes, right?
• 43:30
  Like there's a lot of- Yeah, definitely... ways that AI can do other things in your workflow, and if that helps free you up to take on more clients or to do whatever, it's all beneficial.
• 43:41
  So try to think outside the box, I think, Ra- in terms of the application that you're trying to look at using AI for. 'Cause learning those skills, no matter what, I do believe are beneficial.
• 43:52
  Yeah, and there's such a long tail of annoying tasks as a freelancer, like writing emails- Mm-hmm... to a client.
• 43:59
  Like my wife's number one use case of AI is just helping her write better emails faster and quicker and more politely and professionally. Like, and so I think there's all those annoying tasks that none of us like doing.
• 44:10
  Like start there rather than trying to replace yourself and replace your core skills with AI. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Listener questions, more of those. That's great. And email us, podcast@superpath.co.
• 44:22
  We haven't gotten any emails, but we would like to. Did you check that it worked? [laughs] Actually, no, I actually did not check that it worked. [laughs] You should check on it.
• 44:29
  If you've been sending us questions and we've never responded, it's all Jamie's fault. That's my bad. That's my bad. No, it's working. I set this up like three years ago to like forward to me. I, I don't know.
• 44:39
  I'll go check. My guess is we haven't gotten any emails [laughs] but if you'd like to, you, you could do that. The Animals marketing inbox is just getting all of these podcast questions. Yeah, it probably is. Yeah.
• 44:49
  It's some, some legacy thing. Cool. Well, thank you both. Always appreciate you. Fun talking, and we'll see you in Slack. Bye. [outro jingle]