How to Humanize Your AI Copywriting (Ex-DC Journalist POV) - w/ Joshua

AI is exceptionally bad at creating the final product. Even now, especially now, he used to be a reporter for The Hill in DC, covering stories coming straight out of the White House. Now, Joshua Altund is the fractional chief communications officer for high growth firms. I love being a reporter. It was a great job. I thought that's what I would basically be doing for my career. In 2026, everyone and their grandma is using AI to write, but most people are actually just creating AI slop that no one reads and worse, it destroys their brand instead of building it once you know the formula and this is true in any industry is then you can break it. He revealed the oneword trap that might be

revealed the oneword trap that might be killing your brand credibility. Turns out being personable can be a huge blunder. Let's say you're a healthcare practice. They don't want a friendly relationship with you. His workflow isn't about being efficient. It's about being human. That is how AI would write that line. And I hate it. It sucks. Joshua shares the first few detailed steps on how to not write slop that I just read that you can start using today. We are the experts at communicating your expertise.

experts at communicating your expertise. That's where the fractional model is different than we're not an outside agency where you send a brief. Subscribe for weekly episodes and remember, life is lived in the arena. Roll it. Welcome to the only podcast in the world featuring stories of high agency individuals who are just a few steps ahead of us. Joshua, welcome. Thank you for having me. So excited to deep dive into just the wide variety of worlds that you've seen. worlds that in my experience I have not only not been exposed to but I don't even fully grasp where they end and begin. So want to kick off with your um origin story so to speak when you were doing journalism around the congressional or the government space. Do you mind kind of leading us into the waters with what

leading us into the waters with what that was like and then maybe uh once you've once you're done covering that you can kind of share with us why you chose to transition into Beltway Media and the work that you do over there. I love being a reporter. It was a great job. I went to journalism school. I thought that's what I would basically be doing, you know, for my career.

doing, you know, for my career. It was fun to do. Incredibly interesting. You're learning new things every day that you're covering, you know, co uh Congress, politics, all of that. Um I then switch to what I'm doing now sort of by accident. I was with a newspaper, many people are probably familiar with it called The Hill. It's dates in DC. could cover Capitol Hill, uh, the White House, government agencies, campaigns, and I left that thinking I would go and be a freelance reporter. While trying to build that up, I was, you know, someone asked me if I could help build a website for a local news organization. Someone else asked if I could help with their small business.

I could help with their small business. And sort of this just became a thing what I was doing. And I saw this need there that people wanted someone with a tech background because I was a digital media producer. I was doing video, I was doing web creator for the newspaper and also doing writing. So, people kind of wanted a little bit of both and one person who could kind of help manage, you know, the technical side of a project and the content side of a project and really, you know, strengthen their organization and grow their business that way. So, I never went back into a newsroom like I thought I would do after a year or two of freelancing and now I do this. So you mentioned that your degree was in you know journalism related aspects and you know when when I talk to people the

you know when when I talk to people the first thing they tell me is that yeah we've thought about doing tech stuff but it feels so inaccessible it just feels such like a you know steep wall to climb that most people don't even realize where to start with that. So how was that like for you? How were you able to do that so seamlessly it sounds like? So I studied you know digital and broadcast journalism at ashual and then I was a you know cameraman shooter editor producer for the Hill newspaper. So it was basically for me very seamless because you know we had you know classes in you know digital reporting this goes back a few years we were you know learning HTML we were learning you know CSS you know we were basically writing you know program you know simple

you know program you know simple front-end type program for coding that you know once I got into the newsroom we did interactive maps you know using you know Google map API you know for congressional districts and it was really easy because those are well-known shape files and we were able to just, you know, overlay it on a map and that was there and but we were able to code that and make that work. So for me it was very seamless because I already had the technical background and was really doing them simultaneously. Uh in terms of people kind of, you know, thinking it's a little daunting just start with one little thing. You know, you know, you're picking up your

know, you know, you're picking up your iPhone and saying, "Oh my, I can't build an iPhone." You don't have to. We already have an iPhone. But if you think, you know, you want to, you know, have, you know, an automation that you could, you know, get an email every day with, you know, the headlines for three newspapers, you could pretty much automate that, you know, with AI fairly simply with a couple of the no code tools or very low code tools and you could get started through that with, you know, one bite-sized project.

with, you know, one bite-sized project. So it sounds like the signal for you was just the fact that you've you had all of these various people all come to you and tell you that hey could you help us with this? Could you help us with the tech part of this? And you kind of took that and ran with that just knowing that obviously if these people want it there probably are others that want it as well. So why don't I just start doing this completely like with all my and the content that they were looking for. So tell me more about the copies with the bowl because you know neither exists in a vacuum. You have to have something the tech has to you know have something to

tech has to you know have something to fill it. You know an iPhone is without you know content without you know the internet without the app is pretty much just a circuit board and a screen. Really what makes it work for all of us is the stuff we use it to access. And if we didn't have a way to access all that content, then what good is it if we can't really use it? So people were looking for someone who could make their content accessible, you know, make it something that people could really use.

something that people could really use. And sometimes they were really starting from scratch. Sometimes it was a rebuild. Sometimes it was migrations. But basically it was everyone who was looking for we need stuff and we need new tech or new visuals that go with it and make it work well. Um and then I think that naturally and this really is the question that I was really wanting to ask you. Um when so when when you have somebody like you right that has a you know pro professional or like um official background in journalism and and then when you're having to write content which it sounds like you were you were trying to do that. I I really want to hear you kind of peel back the layers on what that looks like from your

what that looks like from your perspective. So just for context, what I mean by that is for me what I was always taught and nobody really taught me this officially, right? I just read six different blogs that kind of say the same thing, right? So they say you start with a hook, you then have like you identify your problem and then you identify the solution and then you end with a call to action. I feel like that is the gold standard for content at least in 2025 26. I want to hear your perspective on a whether that's accurate would you say and b from your lens what this all looks like like what is the blueprint for effective writing and let's face it right any video any Tik

let's face it right any video any Tik Tok any real starts with a a script right you can't have a good reel without a good script so yeah what can you share on this writing piece when it comes from your POV well I'll start with something you kind of said at the end there which is it All starts with a good script. One of the first things I learned in production, you know, video, digital production was 95 to 99% of what you do is pre-production. pre-production. The rest of, you know, then there's the doing, then there's postp production.

doing, then there's postp production. But if you haven't planned it out, well, you'll be doing a lot more during production and post that you didn't have to do. And that's time and that's money. And for some of our viewers that might not be super well versed, what where does production end and where does post-production begin? It's kind of a fluid line in some cases especially now that you have you know so much you know AI and CGI tools that are helping with both with you know really pre-production and post.

pre-production and post. Okay. So it is a kind of fluid line but if you think of you know production is where we are creating the thing where we are shooting you know but also some of that could all be done now on computers and you might have to build some of those environments if you're you know doing something that involves backgrounds or interacting with a digital environment you might have to build that in first before you can even bring in your act. So it is a much more fluid line than it kind of used to be. Yeah. Yeah. But you kind of can think about it you know what is the core we are shooting or we are writing

we are writing sense like the filming where the filming ends ends the filming or the writing stage or the photographing you know that's the big chunk of it that would be your production element. Gosh. Everything before pre everything after co and you're doing a lot beforehand because like you said, you have to start with that script. And it's more than the script. It's the script, the budget, the people, the planning, all of it. You know, even down to the logistics. You know, we're having people all day for a shoot for whatever we're doing. Do we have food? Like, do we have even bottles of water for people? Yep.

of water for people? Yep. You know, if we're going to be on this, you know, set all day. And it's little logistic things like that. You know, I was working with a client recently and they do a lot of full day, you know, events, you know, hosting people at, you know, conference center and we did a whole, you know, series of posts about their date of check. Here are the things we do every day. And to them, they they had down cold and they don't think about it because they do this, you know, could be dozens of times a month. But to someone who's just looking in and thinking about hiring them, oh, they've thought about validating parking, they've thought about, you know, snacks during the day

about, you know, snacks during the day for people and how we check people in and get people out and between rooms. So those kinds of things can be really important. If you go back to, you know, your original question, you know, about content and does that formula still hold if you're doing something s, you know, really based essential, you know, corporate blog post, you know, have a hook, call to action at the end, fill in the middle, you have a problem, that's great and it's really, you know, it's going to get the job done, but it's very formulaic. formulaic. One thing you can do once you know the formula and this is true in any industry is then you can break you know that's where you can start

you know that's where you can start doing these sort of fun checklists that are helpful there's no hook I mean besides you know here's our day of checklist and I'd have to look what we actually wrote but yeah no it was makes a little better than here's our day of check but you know it did set up the problem they were having and it was a basically just a long list broken out by sections.

just a long list broken out by sections. And that's where you could start doing different things. That's where you could do a little more narrative. Yeah. If you want to, you could create different types of content, but you're not going to go raw, you know, following a pretty simple basic, you know, corporate writing book. Yeah, I really like that idea because I think um I forget where it was. I think it was some painters that would that got really famous that said that the whole point of learning the rules of painting is to know that when you can break them, right? And it's the when you decide to break them that then gives you really striking art which you would not get otherwise if if you just followed the rules all the time. Um and then

the rules all the time. Um and then around what you said about that idea that you had with this particular firm that you were working with. Um what is your process for coming up with content ideas, right? So maybe we can just treat me as a guinea pig here, right? Um so for my podcast, uh I actually on my YouTube channel, I do stuff other than just the podcast. I also just do other videos. So for for you when when you're trying to brainstorm these content ideas, what are is there a checklist that you go through that this is true to this brand? This adds value to their um you know target audience and such like how do you go about churning out your um content ideas? Well, you touched on it

content ideas? Well, you touched on it right there is does this add value? Everything should add value. An ad for an ad's sake doesn't do much anymore. We're not creating billboards or we have to provide some value beyond buy our stuff. stuff. Gotcha. So that's really what we're looking at. And then you know kind of broadly for any you know company we're working with we'll ask them some questions. You know what are your pain points? What do people come to you and ask? You know when you're you know trying to sell you know your product your services what are the biggest questions people asked you? Mhm.

questions people asked you? Mhm. And they're telling us, okay, well, they ask us about pricing, they ask us timelines, they ask us, you know, these seven questions. Great. Well, that is at least seven pieces of content, probably a lot more because we can break those down further, right? right? And that's where we kind of start finding the most value is with repurposing content. So, you know, you create your podcast, you put it on YouTube, you create shorts, let's go on social media, you know, you have a lot of this one thing that we're doing right now will be cut and repurposed many times before it done. You I can take it and you know, it could be go on an email newsletter, it could go on a website, it could become a blog post. There are lots

could become a blog post. There are lots of options there and we repurpose that because each thing can be used and then also be useful and provide value. So if you think okay well I wrote this post and you know we talk about our three core values with our startup and or the three problems that we're solving. Guess what? Those three things are now each their own post. Wow. And then if you had on here three subheadings in that each of those that three more and you could keep going at that nearly indefinitely. True. And what I like about that also is that if somebody just lands on the third one then they know that there were two before this. So if they like the third one they'll probably want to check out the first couple as well just because you know we call out that this is number

you know we call out that this is number three of three. So that all your story you have the related links on your website when you post it on you know Instagram or wherever you post that you know makes sense for you guys. Yeah. You would say you know check out parts one and two or if it's number two out of three check out part one part three coming next week. So you have a lot of choices to keep people engaged. And once you start breaking things down like this, you now have the building block for something longer form. You have the building blocks for your white paper, for your longer YouTube interview, for a live stream, for you know a multi-person conversation. If you're doing a podcast, you could have three guests on, but

you could have three guests on, but you've broken it down so many times. You can now put those pieces back together in different ways. That makes sense. Huh. And then also something you said about how you try to interview the clients to come across or to identify their key value proposition. I think that part's interesting because has it ever happened where what they think their value proposition is turns out to be different from what you identify it to be once you ask these questions to them? them? Yeah, I mean that happens fairly often because because really their website might have been written five years ago and they've evolved since then. So, what I thought it was off their website and what we're learning in this conversation isn't that it's, you know, inaccurate what they're telling me. It's that they've added a

telling me. It's that they've added a product or service that they've changed a little bit. That where they used to, you know, be, you know, 24-hour service that wasn't working for them, now they're a, you know, different speed, now they turn things around faster, slower, right? Depending on their client's need. So we're always looking for that and even within you know one engagement we have that changes over a year or two you know something could start out with you know they're doing B2B only but you know they know in the pipeline they're coming up with a consumer version that they want to reach new people so that is a little different and that's one thing places we come in is we work with companies very early in that process So you're not bringing in your

So you're not bringing in your communications person towards the end where you're like, "Okay, we're done. We're ready to market this." We're right at the beginning. So we know your product. So if you're adding a consumer of your product two years from now, we know that and we can start preparing, you know, we can exactly start laying the groundwork because if you come in right when you're ready to launch or a couple months before, you're behind.

before, you're behind. Mhm. Yeah. And also especially you know there is nothing in the world that doesn't benefit from some proactive planning right so if you know that this is going to happen 2 years down the line that's always something that one can you know really run with so I am curious though from what you've mentioned so far it does sound like you have just so many interesting clients that you work with over at Beltway so do you mind maybe sharing like a couple of your you can think of these as your flagships like this was some of the most meaningful engagements that we've had. Um kind of just like a case study maybe for our you know um listeners to familiarize themselves with the kind of work that

themselves with the kind of work that you've been doing. Yeah, definitely check out our website where we do kind of have case studies and information. Totally. Yeah. Uh we also have, you know, free guides that people can kind of check out. Amazing. I'll be linking all of them in the show notes for people to find easily. Yep. Uh we worked with a clean energy company that was trying to do smart grids in Africa using you know this goes back a few years they were trying to use tokens to tokenize micro grid and they ran into some funding problems but it was a really interesting company to work with. Mhm. And sorry just before sorry really sorry to interrupt when you say work with your job here was to be their public mouthpiece. Is that right? Almost we had a few roles. So sometimes they're a public mouthpiece.

a public mouthpiece. Sometimes especially if you are a company like this where it was a you know you had a founder with a founders's name on it. They are the mouthpiece. Gotcha. So you're just kind of a very scenes. Yeah. Yeah. In that case there's a very fine line between the personal brand and the corporate brand when you're when you have you know a founder name on it because they are inseparable. Huh. And why is that? Because isn't this a company? So shouldn't it be separate from the founder? Why? Why is that such a thin line? Well, when your name is on it and people search for it, your social profiles are basically the company profile. I when I got your name is on it, you know, people expect to see you. I gotcha. Especially when you're a very early stage company,

stage company, you know, where people already expect to see a founder, a CEO, a CTO, someone who's really involved. You're not just, you know, a corporate mouthpiece. But when it's a founder name, then that changes the dynamic a little bit. You know, if it's, you know, Jones Corp, people expect to see Mr. Jones, especially at that early stage. Yep, I get it. Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, you were saying about the green green energy. Yeah. So, our role with them was to prepare them. What we did was get them, you know, practice sessions, you know, notes and put them in the room with everything they needed. Also, all their backend content, you know, anything from, you know, folders that people would have meetings to diagram, websites, white. Wow. Wow. That everything work. That that just

That everything work. That that just sounds like like Sorry, I'll let you continue, but that just that's so much part of it is people need to see things more than once. It's very rare that someone sees an ad and buys a product the first time. They might see seven or eight or nine ads for that company and then click number 10 because they had that interaction previously. The same thing when you're dealing with this type of company. people. You don't know what some we're going to connect with someone. One investor's death, you know, they're all going to Google search it. They're all going to visit your website.

going to visit your website. Don't assume that the one interaction you have with them is your presentation. I see. So, your pitch deck serves one purpose, that first one. It's just to get you your meeting. Then you need something new. Once you have that, you know, if we're preparing folders and diagrams for them, one might be good, that diagram might be really good for someone with the engineering background, but the folder narrative might be much better to connect with the, you know, the investor who isn't an engineer, but you know, came from, you know, a finance background and is really looking for the spreadsheets and one pagers from what your company can give them. So they're all going to be different and you don't know what's going to connect with each person. You can make assumptions. If you know this team has, you know, engineers

know this team has, you know, engineers and finance people and computer scientists, you can make inferences, but you still have to hit them all. You still have to get all those points across in a way that's going to resonate with each person. So that's why those tolders were always really helpful is they just had you know company history bio right plans schematics everything they needed and you like this is something that you have to be obviously I'm assuming really proactive about to make sure that who's going to come in that room what their backgrounds are and then cover all of that all of those bases because you can't be alienating anyone right because they all need to know it alienating anyone and you want to make sure you have something that everyone someone can actually, you know, say,

someone can actually, you know, say, "Yes, I understand this tenant." Yep. Yep. And sometimes, you know, who's going to be there, you know, you've met with these people before, you've gotten the names of the people invited, you have a sense, you know, but also if you're just online and you have that your stuff out there, you don't necessarily know or you're meeting with someone and you don't know everyone at their organization who's going to write it.

organization who's going to write it. So, it's good to have a lot as much of this as possible. You can never have everything. You're never going to cover everything for everyone because there's too much, but you can do a lot of it for most and cover a good chunk of what you need. So, I I kind of want to draw that idea out and maybe think of it from not from a company or organization perspective, but maybe a personal brand perspective. Right? So what I'm getting at with this is let's just pick LinkedIn, right? We we we see there's such a lot of interest. I feel like this

such a lot of interest. I feel like this has always been the case, but I feel like now more than ever there is a huge interest in trying to become LinkedIn thought leaders, right? Or like build a following on LinkedIn or what have you. So what you're seeing essentially is that if I have an idea or whatever I stand for or whatever value that I'm seeking to add, I can't have 10 posts all saying the same thing. They need to be catered towards different people. Is is that it? Well, you can be saying similar things because your theme, your topic is probably relatively consistent.

topic is probably relatively consistent. You know, we post a lot about corporate communications and business communication and marketing and brand. I mean, we're not posting about fisheries. Yeah. Something out, you know, totally outside of what we do. Yeah. Yeah. But how we do it is different. Some can be longer, some can be shorter, some can have photos, some can have infographs, you know, some can be linked to videos.

you know, some can be linked to videos. Our newsletter has different things in it that can break down well for different people. They have, you know, links to podcasts. It has, you know, news articles from the last week. It has information from us. So, there's something there for different people to kind of latch on to. But you don't have you can't hit everything in every post.

you can't hit everything in every post. You know, that's one of the big things I see. And if you go back to what you're asking for, how do you create the content? How do you plan it? You not every post has to do everything for everyone. It can't. No. At least not in a way that's clean, organized, and understandable. So what you do is over the totality of your content, are you hitting all these marks? And that's where, you know, a content calendar can really be helpful with planning because you can really see, you know, okay, we make each theme a color. We make each pillar a color.

a color. We make each pillar a color. How are we doing this? Are we hitting everything we need in, you know, a relatively reasonable span of time? If the whole month of February is blue because you've chosen blue as, you know, we're gonna talk about podcasting, you know, you might want to throw some other stuff in there and swap out some of that podcasting stuff for March, April, and May because you want to make sure people know the other thing that you want to talk about, your other key IBS. I think this plays perfectly into the So, I'll be honest. I've learned about the, you know, content planning thing. I think sometimes it's also called a content flywheel if I'm not wrong. Um, I've, you know, I've done the foundational work. I have like four things that like four

have like four things that like four colors that you were referring. I I'm never able to actually follow through with any of this. It's like I find myself doing two or three posts at the beginning of a month and then just forgetting about it forever. And I suspect that a lot of my listeners are probably falling into the same pitfall. Yeah. Yeah. What is something that's super actionable hopefully that I can do that will, you know, make me follow through?

will, you know, make me follow through? One thing I will say is that I'm not using any tools. Is that why is is that the reason why I'm failing? What is it? There are a lot of tools out there there that will get you something. You might be able to get, you know, 90% of where you want without using any fancy tools.

you want without using any fancy tools. And that last 10% or last 9% even you can get with using something a lot, you know, a a tool specifically designed for content creator. If you can get 90% of the way there with a simple workflow, is that other eight or nine% with an expensive workflow really enhancing what you're doing? That's a question each person answers by themselves. I personally don't use, you know, I I try to keep my workflows and my processes as simple and as streamlined as possible with as you love it. One thing I've recently have though taken on is Air Table.

taken on is Air Table. Okay. because you can share that, you know, inside and outside your organization. And it actually does have a little content calendar template built right in. So, I can share that, you know, within my company. I can share that with clients. They can add things. It does have a pretty good tracking ability. But I've seen big organizations that do their content calendar in Excel. Oh, wow. Really? Just just straight Excel? is just Excel and they just manage it that way because they've so too many tools became too complicated. So yeah, that's kind of where they found was just the simplest thing that everyone could understand and it worked. You know, one way to kind of keep yourself posting throughout say a month, you know, is hire a company to help you. You know, we

hire a company to help you. You know, we tell our people we are the experts at communicating your expertise. You are the expert at your company or your personal brand or your tech stack or whatever it is you're building. We are the experts at communicating. So you don't have to be you don't have So you don't have to be the one writing that content. And for a lot of companies that's one of the reasons we come in. table they have their founder or their you know founding engineer their CTO who's still doing this because they were the ones who did it when they just were literally you know in the garage as go back you know started where it was just you know three people in the garage but they don't need to do it themselves anymore and they

to do it themselves anymore and they don't want to because it's taking away from what they're doing which might be why they're not doing it is it takes 10 hours a week 20 hours a week, but it's not a full-time 40hour a week role. So, they don't hire someone. And finding someone part-time might not really be what they're looking for, just that part-time writer. So, that's kind of where we come in with that, you know, fractional chief communications officer role is we're part of your leadership.

role is we're part of your leadership. We can come in and take that, you know, 10-hour a week job that you don't want to be doing because it's not your actual job and it's taking away from what you should be doing. retake that off your plate. And that's however many hours a week free for you to do what you're actually supposed to be doing. Another thing people kind of think of is they have to write when it's running. You don't have to. You can plan these out a week, a month in advance. So, if you know you have, you know, four pieces of content you need to do every month and they're not particularly timely, just put them on, you know, we do this on the second Monday of the month. Okay?

on the second Monday of the month. Okay? And that gets us through the next, you know, five, you know, five weeks. We have one, you know, extra that can go whatever. Just filled into the calendar. And then if you want a news hook to it, you know, you can find something the day it goes live. And that's just part of your routine. All you have to do now is write one or two sentences at the beginning, right? Because the rest of it is already set up. Yep. Because the rest of it set up. All you have to do is put that one sentence in the LinkedIn post that links to the article where you've added one sentence.

article where you've added one sentence. But writing that one sentence each week is a lot less time than trying to break time to do a whole new thing. Now we do a newsletter. I have to, you know, make sure that gets done every week because it has news articles in it from the last week. So there are some things you cannot do that way and plan that far in advance. But a lot of things you can.

But a lot of things you can. Huh. Can you talk me through the standard on boarding phase that you mentioned that you do with you know like tech companies and such? It can be any company doesn't have to be a tech company what the on boarding where you're kind of becoming their chief communications officer like you were saying um how long does that take uh before you're you know you're already hit you've hit the ground running and such. So we come in and we can get you guys started for any company usually within a week and then it takes a little bit of time to get everything going, but we can get started with the first few things relatively quickly because at the very beginning what we're doing is just learning about you. Yep. Yep. We're going to ask you a lot of

We're going to ask you a lot of questions. Kind of like I mentioned before, you know, what are the questions people are asking you about your company? What are the pain points you're hitting with creation? Have you done any of this before? And then we can come in very quickly and start building on that. And a lot of tech companies will be familiar with, you know, iterative development. You know, we don't have to release everything at once.

release everything at once. We're not trying to release everything at once. Very common. I was working with a mental health practitioner and that company, they had a newsletter. It wasn't converting into sales for workshops or books. So the first two I think two newsletters that we did we just did exactly like they'd been done because we just needed to establish a very clear baseline. They had been doing them. We had a lot but in terms of their process we were not involved in that. So we just did one or two that were exactly the same and then we started making changes and it was you know one at a time. change the layout. Move this, you know, section to, you know, buy a newsletter or buy a workshop

newsletter or buy a workshop from the bottom below the scroll to the top above the scroll. Have a nicer uh more friendly introduction because this was a mental health practice. It really kind of started impersonal, the old ones. Yeah. Yeah. So, we made it a little more personal. And each one of these was, you know, maybe two to three weeks between the changes. So there's no you know we need to make every change right now.

to make every change right now. We can make changes over time and you know iterate on it if it's not what worked in June might not work in December anymore. So, we might have to make another change. And they could be simple changing a picture in the newsletter for the workshop course or it could be swapping that out for something else that they because people, you know, it's the same people getting the newsletter every week. They might kind of be tired of that. Yeah. Yeah. So, we put something new in there. So that's kind of where we can start with a lot very quickly, you know, in terms of your content and actually creating it.

your content and actually creating it. We try to get something up pretty fast, you know, within a week or two depending on what you're doing. Sometimes, you know, if it's relatively straightforward, we can go faster. If you have, you know, kind of tech that you're working on and it requires, you know, we need to really make sure these graphics explain your thing well. If you are working on investor relations, which we do for people, that's not something that's going to turn around right away. That is, you know, something you're doing usually quarterly. quarterly. Gotcha. Gotcha. You know, but also you have investors, they might, especially if you're a smaller business startup, they might be kind of involved and people who you're talking to, they're providing advice.

talking to, they're providing advice. Yeah. And I've worked with companies that, you know, they just they take their quarterly update. Sometimes they're much more involved and you kind of got to balance that with the content you're creating. Sometimes they just really want to see, you know, updates. It It varies. Exactly. One one of the other pain points that I hear constantly from some of my friends that are entrepreneurs is um when you're working with any external entity, right? It's very difficult to get the voice to match. you know, like how some companies have a much more, you know, like low-key laid-back type voice versus others that are more authoritative, more, you know, like thought leader type. So, is all of that just a a function of the conversations that you have? Like, do you ask that or do they tell you or who

you ask that or do they tell you or who decides both? Okay. Okay. So, if I I'll look at what they have. So, one thing that's different about us versus an outside marketing agency, we are part of your team. Interesting. So that's where the fractional model is different than we're not an outside agency where you send a brief. We are part of your team. So we know things that are happening really as if we were there full-time. Interesting. Interesting. So that's a big difference where you're not working with someone outside completely. completely. Sorry if I'm dumb. But how does that work though? Like how do you become part of the team? Like is it just do you send people to work with them or how does that

that everything's remote but we're part of your leadership meetings. We're there ah I see I see I see as you make decisions just like if you were a full-time chief communications officer you don't need someone full-time because it's not a full-time role at that company. I see. So you're just like a fly on the wall. You're observing as decisions are made. made. Just as engaged as a full-time employee.

a full-time employee. Okay. But but how are you contributing towards tech decision or tech meetings if you're not we're not engineers right right but we know by being there and that's why I said you bring us into say a product roadmap early when you bring your tech us into a tech meeting then it's something asking like okay do you need to explain this to non- tech investors investors ah I gotcha I gotcha do you need to explain this to someone who needs to buy it and they're just like, I don't understand this. I'm not touching this.

understand this. I'm not touching this. I don't want to be involved. Because, you know, we've kind of got used to phones. If you're having something really disruptive, people just might be like, I don't get it. it. I don't want to buy it, right? It's way too obuse. You have to explain it to them. No. If you if you go back, you know, the iPhone, the iPad, you know, really big development, development, they educated us on what these were. That's true. Yep. Now we think of them as you know just that thing in our pockets but we really did spend time and you know generations of products learning at this as you know consumers. So that's where we're coming into like an engineering meeting like you have to explain this to someone who isn't an engineer.

isn't an engineer. Explain it to me because I am not a chip engineer. engineer. Yep. And if you can explain it to me, we can take that and explain it in graphics, in bullets, in list, in whatever to someone else. But in ter go back to what you were asking in terms of the voice, which is kind of where this started. started. No, we've written for everything from authoritative government agencies with, you know, the full authority of, you know, this has to sound like it is a government agency. Yep. two casual fun you know B TOC companies companies and it's you know in that first conversation we're going to ask you know okay we looked at what you did here how do you want to talk about

here how do you want to talk about things what voice do you want to use your kind of sometimes very formal but sometimes you need to be sometimes very casual do you want to mix are there words you really like some companies love to talk to you they'll explain things to you when you do things. Some don't want to do that. It's a little too casual for them. So, I mean, that's actually one we always ask, do you want to say you?

always ask, do you want to say you? Because some companies are very strong yes and some are very strong no. I Yeah, I guess I never realized that the you part is is the distinction here. But now that I think about it, that does make a lot of sense. Like, yeah. Wow. It changes the tone a lot and a lot more casual. Yeah. Yep. Versus the user, the operator, a customer, right? You know, an entity. Wow. Wow. And that, you know, just that one change really shifts the tone. So, if you know, someone listening is saying, you know, we are always just too casual. People tell us we're too casual. Are you using you in your content? And if you if you're not and you're still too casual, call us. Call someone who does this. we might be able to

who does this. we might be able to figure out exactly what it is. But if you are, try switching away from that or maybe only using it very selectively in a call to action at the end or at the beginning because that kind of has a balance between we're very, you know, this is a much more formal business communication, but also also you need to take an action. So, and you can tell me that if this is a really dumb question, but like you know this is so interesting to me like I've never once thought about this or been exposed to this idea, but what benefit is there for a company? And let's just remove government agencies for this part just for a second. But why would they be incentivized to not go down the you method which is more

not go down the you method which is more personable, more like you know we are your friends. This is all pretty hunky dory. Why why would everybody every company just not want to do that? Let's say you're a health care practice or you're creating a medical device. That's not your they don't want a friendly relationship with you. But isn't healthcare built around like empathy and say I'm like a teley medicine stuff. I will help you get to a doctor even if there are no doctors in your area. Yeah. Isn't that nice? Like in for some cases. Yes. That's why it's really I say look at your company because some health care providers they talk about our patients Yep. Yep. as opposed to you. Correct. Correct. Because they you know are separating themselves. You know these are our

themselves. You know these are our patients. These are the people we care for. for. But a tele medicine practice again you know we get you the help you need wherever you are. Two very different businesses. businesses. H wow. Both in the healthcare space. both but they're very different. That is so cool. Yeah, I don't know how I went this far without ever thinking about such a simple concept. And for most media companies though, I guess you've already answered my question. There is no one blanket answer. It just depends on on the company. Yeah.

on on the company. Yeah. And some companies just use it in the call to action. Yeah. It's something avoided elsewhere, but when it's used, you know, very sporadically and specifically, then it stands out. Ah, wow. Wow. Like selectively using a really bright color in an otherwise pretty, you know, monotonous palette. So, so that your eyes are drawn to that. This is so cool. Wow. I'm I'm going to try to steal some of these um techniques in in my, you know, my own um posts and such, but no, this is so helpful. And like as I was saying before, yeah, a lot of my entrepreneur friends struggle with exactly this type of thing. So I think it's perfect that

of thing. So I think it's perfect that what you said around just you know the it's not your problem. Don't worry about this stuff. Go worry about actually building the company. That just makes so much sense to me. Um, for a last segment here, really want to I think it would be remiss for me to talk to you or somebody like you that does what you do and not, you know, just ask about how much you've let AI proliferate into your workflows.

let AI proliferate into your workflows. Um, how much of your writing is at least reliant in some way or another on AI? What are your personal opinions when it comes to um leaning into more and more AI for writing, content creation, whatever that might look like? AI is a tool. It is not the end in itself. So, it is really good at putting out a first draft if you treat that draft as a detailed outline. It is really good at creating an outline. It is really good at doing research. It is exceptionally bad at creating the final product.

bad at creating the final product. Even now like even with the especially now especially now you like you said you know here's the formula that I read on six blogs and I just kind of used it. You will get that formula and it will work and it won't steer you wrong but AI is probably going to give you that formula and it will feel very formulaic. So if you want you can that's where you can break certain habits. You know AI will give you the result. Will it be the best post? Probably not. Will it achieve your goals? Probably not. Maybe 50/50. You'll get something. You won't get everything. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. So we use it but we treat it like a tool not the end.

not the end. So let's help me kind of you know really break this down. So, we'll pretend that this is now two weeks later. This episode is now live. I'm about to write a post on LinkedIn to, you know, drop this episode. So, um, from what you're suggesting, I would just go on, you know, whatever chat, GPT, Gemini, what have you and have it generate like just the main bullets that people probably care about.

bullets that people probably care about. I'll just stop here, I guess. How would you do this exercise using your workflows? workflows? Yeah. So, if we have the full transcript, transcript, we do. Yep. So, we could put that transcript into an AI tool and say, "Help me write a, you know, a LinkedIn post." Okay. Okay. Now, it may pick the things that you think are most important. It doesn't know your audience. You have to be very specific. Say, "My audience are these people. They care about these things."

people. They care about these things." And even then, it might not pick it out. Okay. for a link for one LinkedIn post or if you're doing one of these a week per episode, you might just have a formula that you know works, you know, check out our latest and you've seen that that works. Listing, you know, three bullet points that you know people are going to care about, that you know your audience is going to listen to and putting that out there.

listen to and putting that out there. Now, what it might help you with is read this transcript. Our audience has all here's all the details. what might be something that adds value for them that they weren't anticipating. And you could then look at that and say, you pulled you pull nonsense that makes absolutely no sense. Or I like where that's going, but I want to pull this other clip on that's, you know, a little tighter or on a related theme because we know that it has a better chance of hitting with, you know, more people. So it might do really well at giving you that first step.

at giving you that first step. Gotcha. So you're just getting at the meat, right? So you you're just getting at the key deliverables, we can call them, right? Like if you listen to this, you get A, B, C, D. This is what you have. That's as far as it goes. And then do you manually write the rest? How do you go about it? Gives you the it give me the bullet point. It can give me a draft. It cannot do the final product. Especially when you're concerned about the voice, it gives you an AI voice. It doesn't give you a human voice.

give you a human voice. Even the AI humanizers which are out there that use AI to humanize AI don't give you what a real person sounds like. There was just, you know, our newsletter recently was about authenticity and people want it. I actually think you know people are going to see errors and realize okay that's better for people like I know that that was written by a person person because one thing AI is really bad at is inefficiency and m and making intentional mistakes correct yeah it doesn't do that well so when it seems imperfect imperfect people kind of sense okay there was a human behind it that isn't say make intentional errors So you sound human. Don't do that. You still want good clean product.

still want good clean product. But there's something about how a human produces it that AI doesn't capture. And that's why we are making sure a human is doing pretty much all of it. You know, with the exception of, you know, do some research or research. Exactly. Yeah. I think research is the right umbrella term. you know, if I started with, you know, six bullet points, you know, I want to outline. It could I could have it make a detailed outline, you know, but it doesn't do the pros well.

doesn't do the pros well. Huh. Interesting. I I think the sad part here is that um it sounds like at least as as far as when we're recording this in January of 26 is that there is no solution to actually writing well like manually, right? So, and I know that's a skill that takes sometimes a lifetime to get really good at, but I mean the solution to writing good, what you call manually, I guess for a human to write well, would be to practice the skill just like learning the guitar requires practicing learning the guitar. Yeah. And you know, sure, you could have AI generate a couple of chords for you or even a song, but it's not going to be as, you know, good or the quality and kind of have the, you know, the human

kind of have the, you know, the human part of it as opposed to a person doing it. So that's why it's great for outlast. It is not great for person or final drafts. Yeah. And for those of us like me that you know are trying to you know get better at writing we are still putting in the practice hours but maybe do you have like especially because you are formally trained in this maybe any like notable books any resources any blogs that one can refer to as kind of like a cheat sheet maybe or even if it's a longer book I don't mind going through it because this is something that I've never really been trained on and I want to be really good at this. Yeah, just, you know, practice doing it and read,

you know, practice doing it and read, you know, a lot of, if you're looking for shorter form content, you read good, you know, shorter publications. You know, the New York Times, you know, most of their articles are, you know, 800,200 shorter. Yeah. Shorter. They of course have long features. Read those, too. Read the New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist. Those will kind of give you ideas of different styles, you know, short, medium, long in terms of writing.

in terms of writing. And you kind of just have to read it and then do it. you know, in terms of, you know, a book that's a guide, probably there's some on the shelf that I have from college, you know, sitting back in a box somewhere, but I'd recommend re, you know, just reading good stuff and that stuff is put out fresh all day every day. So, there's always something there. there. Yeah. What you said reminded me of, I think it's a quote by Nal. He said, um, read what you love until you love to read, which which I think is basically kind of what you also said. So, it doesn't really matter as much as what you're reading as long as you're just reading good stuff. Hopefully, it's not garbage, brain rot content. Um, and

garbage, brain rot content. Um, and I listed those publications because they have things from very short to very long narrative, right? And they're available readily for anyone to read. Uh but also you know novels you know are there if you want to practice you know really long form stuff but you'll see a lot of times there are formulas and then they break those formulas like we talked about before classic yep they I I think this is the probably the you know core idea that that was probably present throughout our conversation even though we didn't really plan it but just this core idea of this is why it's important to know the rules because That's when you can break them, right? If you don't know any rules, then you're just like a buffoon

rules, then you're just like a buffoon just, you know, like bull in a china shop just destroying stuff. But if you know what the rules are, then that makes breaking them that much more tasteful. And so you can use them to your exact when you need. need. Exactly. Exactly. Well, um, before I let you go here, I'll be linking all of your links in the show notes, but if somebody wants to get in touch, what would be the one best place to find you?

one best place to find you? Email me if you want to get in touch. Jay alman beltway.mmedia.com. Perfect. Well, Joshua, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. I've honestly learned so much and I'm sure anybody listening is taking away so many incredible insights on not just writing but also just being authentic and you know just putting our real true nature or voice out into the world in a way that represents us whether you're a company or an individual and yeah I really want you to want to thank you for taking the time here today.

taking the time here today. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. That brings us to the end of that episode with Joshua Altman. Honestly, that one takeaway that you versus the user, it just blew my mind. I could not believe that I'd never once thought of that. I hope you took away as much as I did. If you would like to support me, the easiest way to do that is by subscribing on YouTube and leaving me up to a fivestar rating on Spotify or any of your favorite podcast apps. Please share the episodes, the shorts, whatever you want with your friends, near and dear, your family, your cat. I don't know if your cat is into, you know, shots from podcasts. Why not? Catch you all in the next one. New episodes every week.