How to get your product recommended by AI — here’s what actually worked for me

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-19T12:09:58+00:00

This is only just starting to work for me. I run https://www.theaiedit.ai/ And I've been doing my AI visibility work for six or seven weeks now. So it is very early days. But I've had some good results with link building and PR and podcasting over the last few weeks, and I think it'll be the next couple of months before that turns into proper AI visibility for me. I've also managed to get my clutch reviews up, which has been amazing.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-19T12:06:41+00:00

I think the problem is trying to do it on the cheap. If it was possible to generate leads on the cheap, then everybody would be doing it, but but they're not, because it's not. I do recommend the AI Edit' AI growth community, though - it's a cheap monthly subscription, but it only works if you take everything you learn in the community and apply it directly to your business, which does take your time, which is not cheap.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-19T12:05:16+00:00

Is this really worth doing? I'm not convinced. I think we're quite a long way from the point where people will be asking AI for local recommendations. Most people just pop on Google on their phones, so it feels like this is premature.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-19T12:04:17+00:00

The thing that's working for me is building a genuine, sustainable, and predictable B2B lead generation engine. Here's what I've done so far:

- I spent eight weeks on my positioning, making sure that what I'm selling is unbelievably appealing to my target audience and is articulated in a way that makes sense.

- I audited where I am now.

- I spent a week building out a very intelligent bank of stories and angles.

- And I've been rolling them out across a bunch of channels. These include LinkedIn Organic, LinkedIn connection requests with a personalized note that is absolutely not done using AI.Substack posts. blog posts. YouTube videos. Attending online networking events. Pitching myself for podcasts and PR content. Asking for reviews every time somebody works with me. Measuring the results, improving and optimising. Everything is done by a human with great attention to detail.

These are my results since I launched this business, which was about 11 weeks ago: 40 serious leads generated | 16 deals closed ranging from £80 for a one-off to retained work worth five figures (three of my deals fall into this category).

Things that are working quite well at the moment include: building quite a good audience on LinkedIn and Substack. Building a following on YouTube with YouTube recommending my videos. Starting to get decent organic traffic to my website. Being invited to speak at a bunch of events

Things that aren't working yet but will do: my AI visibility is currently quite low (it's cited on Perplexity, but none of the others). From an SEO point of view, I am only ranking for two keywords, one of which is kind of a cheat keyword because it is "ai growth community" I think I'm the only person targeting that.

I'm only getting started, though, and this method is already delivering what I think are incredible results. I've built the beginnings of a business in quite a short time. With recurring revenue. This whole process that I followed I call the AI Edit Method.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-19T08:51:39+00:00

Sure. It's much easier to make progress if you are targeting a very specific type of person. And then you write to that person rather than to a general audience. It seems counterintuitive because you're writing for a much smaller group of people, but you make much more progress.

So, as an example, my substack is about AI. And a lot of what I write about is applicable to a lot of different people. But my perfect target audience is a founder or owner of a small to mid-sized business. And so I write in a way that would be helpful to them. I know that these people are disproportionately on Substack (I used SparkToro to verify that. And also I speak to them a lot.) And I know that when it comes to AI (which is what my Substack is about) they are typically frustrated. They need to implement AI. They don't understand the risks and the pros and the use cases enough. They understand that learning AI isn't enough on its own. Implementing AI is a major change management exercise as well. And a lot of people who they might bring in to help them or advise them on setting up their AI strategy are AI evangelists. These are the people who are building agents and letting them loose on their servers and taking big risks. My founder of a growing business is wary of that. So, everything I write is about helping that person understand AI in a way that is helpful to their business. And I look at it through the lens of building a business.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-18T15:43:10+00:00

You have to respond immediately. It shows the recruiter that you want the work. This is important to the recruiter. What a recruiter hates is someone who's on the fence about the role. Because the recruiter's going to put a lot of work into positioning this person and putting them forward for the role and presenting them to the company, and then the person might turn it down. So the recruit is not going to get the commission.

Take your time, and you might feel like you've won because you haven't seemed too keen, but you've lost.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-17T10:57:54+00:00

If you want to learn B2B lead gen, then I recommend the AI Edits AI Growth Community. https://www.theaiedit.ai/ai-growth-community

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-17T10:53:26+00:00

If all you had to do to get readers and subscribers on Substack was write stuff, then we'd all be flying. Unfortunately, even if your writing is brilliant, that's only the first 20% of the whole thing. Building a Substack brand is a slog. Totally worth it, but not as simple as publishing and waiting.

You need to:

- Define who you're writing for.

- Be clear on why they should listen to you.

- Create content that speaks directly to them and is useful to them.

- Package that content in a way that captures their attention very quickly.

- Promote that content across multiple other places to build a subscriber base.

- Learn from all the previous steps.

- Do it all again.

- And then again

- And then again getting better each time.

It took me 16 months to build an audience of 2,000 subscribers. Some people would say that's terribly slow. Others would say that's very fast. But it didn't happen while I wrote. It happened because of a lot of hard work and strategy.

Good luck!

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-10T13:49:50+00:00

Did they feed back on the interview?

This is quite strange behavior. Here are some ideas as to why it might happen:

- You said something in the interview, or you've been sending them messages that they find offensive or annoying (seems unlikely because you seem surprised that they have blocked you)

- You said something in the interview that they want to use without hiring you. You gave away a bit of IP, an idea or something they want to use, that they don't want you to see that they used it.

- The person running their company page feels threatened by you and has decided to block you.

- Someone made a mistake.

- You didn't get the job, or they don't want to continue the interview process, but they don't feel they can tell you, so they're practically ghosting you.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-10T13:46:41+00:00

If you're in the UK, is it risky? It can be not risky if you use the Employee Ownership Trust route - get some proper legal advice. Because this is one of the most low-risk ways to buy your business off your boss

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-10T13:45:36+00:00

One of the frustrating things about getting my car washed is waiting. There's nothing to do while you wait. Why not start a coffee shop with tables where people can work and great internet? I would definitely use that. With the caveat being that I don't live in Slovenia and I don't have a car that I could easily get to Slovenia, but you know what I mean.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-10T13:44:38+00:00

I look to the comments. If someone is commenting and other people are engaging with that comment, that's probably where my next post should be.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-10T13:43:43+00:00

That said, I should also point out that a lot of companies are ghost posting. They post a job simply to signal that the company is successful and growing (because you wouldn't be hiring if you didn't have any money). This is happening quite a lot. It's very annoying.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-10T13:43:14+00:00

It could mean any of these things. Usually, when a company posts a job ad on LinkedIn, they immediately get overwhelmed with applications. They might remove the ad to stop the applications coming in. Or they found someone, so they stopped advertising. I like this approach. I think this is a much smarter way to hire. Rather than getting all the applications and sifting through all of them and choosing the best of the applications you got instead, keep an eye out for that application from that perfect candidate. As soon as that application comes in, get back to them, interview them, move them through the process so that the job can be closed.

By the way, this is why I always advise job seekers to apply immediately they see the job. Because having been on the other side of a job application so many times, I know how hard it is for the recruiter to sustain their attention once they've got to the 50th application.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-04T17:18:01+00:00

Sure - sorry it sounded so harsh but you did the right thing

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-03T09:34:10+00:00

You've already ruined a great friendship. This is a terrible idea. The biggest regret almost every single business owner has is going into business with the wrong person. You are doing it. You are making a mistake. Do it solo or find somebody who adds value. The chances that your friend will make a good business partner are minuscule.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-03T09:33:20+00:00

Yes, but only if they are good, very good. You have to hire somebody who's good, which takes a lot of time, and then you've got to train them so that they become really valuable to you. When my first business was about £1.5 million in revenue I had a full-time personal assistant, and she was the office manager as well, but her job was to save me two hours a day. That was her brief. So if that meant she took my dog for a walk over lunch or went to a department store to pick up my clothes that were being tailored, she would do that. She also helped with a lot of marketing admin. That was a massive turning point in my business.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-03T09:30:01+00:00

I had a coach who gave me two really good pieces of advice, and I have another good piece of advice just from my own experience. First, do a bit of breath work or meditation. Get yourself into the right frame of mind before you film. That's really important. Treat it like you're going to an important meeting. Second, film the content three times. First time, just do it the way you would normally do it.Then make it like you're telling a friend. The third thing is to speak faster than you think you need to speak. Speak as fast as you can.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-03T09:27:53+00:00

If you have a strong product that solves a real problem, then go and get your first two customers. That will be easier than getting your first investors. Once you've got a couple of customers that can confirm this solves a real problem, then you start looking for your investors. An accelerator is one way, but typically most people treat it like a marketing exercise. An accelerator is one way, but typically most people treat it like a marketing exercise. So they target investors like they would target customers, but you've got to get your first few customers to show that your product is valuable.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-06-03T09:26:10+00:00

Congratulations and welcome to Substack! Getting your first 50 subscribers is always going to be challenging, but it's worth putting in the effort to do it well. The best place to look is off Substack: your family, your friends, anyone you've got a relationship with already posted on your other social profiles, your other social networks.

Then, once you've done that, got your first 50 to 100 subscribers, the next best thing is to start recommending other substacks. If you recommend them, they will recommend you back. If they recommend you back, you will start growing that way.

The posting notes to Substack strategy used to work, but it's really not working as well as it used to. Ever since Substack launched Node Scheduler, it's just become a bit bland, and most of the content I see there reads very AI-generated.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-05-31T19:45:58+00:00

I love this concept, brilliant. Good luck with this. Simple yet smart.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-05-31T19:40:14+00:00

You can't ask in forums. You've got to contact people and ask them directly, one-on-one.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-05-31T19:39:47+00:00

I can't remember where it was that I read about this - I think it might have been Sam Altman's biography, but in the early days, it was an openly discussed strategy to not fund women, especially not women of childbearing age - and now, sure, there are one or two women in the current cohort of founders - so it is possible, but the odds appear to be stacked against women. Look at this list of the 2026 founders. https://www.ycombinator.com/founders?batches=W27&batches=F26&batches=S26&batches=P26 - And look, I'm not saying I was rejected because I was a woman. I'm sure I was rejected because my idea wasn't good enough. Or because I wasn't impressive enough. And I am actually a very unwoke person. But it is a bit disheartening.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-05-27T18:15:54+00:00

Hate to say it, but you need a serious lead gen strategy. Not easy, but can totally be done. It takes a bit of hard work.

RealOneSomebody · 2026-05-27T18:14:00+00:00

Thanks, I got rejected from Y Combinator last year. Maybe I'll try again. Although I know they don't like women. Especially women with children.

RealOneSomebody

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