Visibility in the Age of AI: Stephen A. Hart on Tapping New Markets | EP175

Recent studies show that over 80% of small‑business owners struggle to stay visible online, especially as AI and shifting consumer behavior reshape how audiences discover content. If you’re a “business of one” trying to stand out without burning out, this episode is your playbook.

Marketing strategist Stephen A. Hart breaks down why YouTube is becoming a must‑have visibility channel in the age of AI assistants and connected TV. He shares practical ways to overcome content paralysis, build a sustainable content strategy, and stay top‑of‑mind even with limited time and resources. We also explore the visibility tactics that work especially well for solo entrepreneurs and the trends small businesses should lean into.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamstephenahart/ 

Website:  https://bluoakmarketing.com/explain-on-camera-visibility-system/ 

Email: stephen@stephenahart.com 

Let's Stay in Touch!

• LinkedIn (be sure to mention you heard the podcast ;-))
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Transcript

Stephen Hart 0:00

What are the questions that come up more than anything each and every day, right? That you're hearing over and over again. Make note of those questions and just focus initially on answering those questions.

Kelly Leonard 0:17

That was Stephen A. Hart. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he was featured in episode 16 and episode 21, way back when. 2019. Stephen is the founder and marketing strategist behind Blue Oak Marketing, where he helps businesses of one stay visible without doing all the work themselves. In today's episode, he shares practical strategies to tap into new markets. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is the BOOST Podcast.

Announcer 0:52

Welcome to the BOOST Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. In each episode, host Kelly Leonard and her guests dive into one aspect of Kelly's Signature BOOST Framework, ensuring you get practical, actionable insights, tips, and takeaways to build your brand, optimize relationships, obtain more leads, secure thought leadership space, and tap into new markets. And now, here's Kelly Leonard.

Kelly Leonard 1:24

Stephen A Hart! Welcome to the BOOST Podcast, my friend. Welcome back, actually. Welcome back back. Because look, you've been here twice previously. Yes. In 2019, my friend. Wow. Time has flown by. Hasn't it?

Stephen Hart 1:44

So you know, originally you were a guest of my show back in probably 2016.

Kelly Leonard 1:49

Oh my goodness. Full circle, right? Yeah. Good stuff. But for folks who are newer listeners and who are hearing your name for the very first time, tell them a bit about yourself.

Stephen Hart 1:59

Absolutely. So I always start from a place of gratitude, and I'm most grateful to be Kristin's husband. And uh together we have two growing crumb snatchers. One's in high school, one's in middle school now. So I have friends, my my internet friends tell me I need to stop calling them the crumb snatchers.

Kelly Leonard 2:19

But you do, because they're snatching whole loaves, especially look, expensive. These kids are expensive, Stephen.

Stephen Hart 2:26

Absolutely are. And so beyond home, uh, I am a business and marketing coach. I help businesses to expand their visibility, especially right now, right? In in the climate we're in. I left corporate about a year and a half ago, where I was the former head of content marketing for one of the world's largest cybersecurity training firms. And so that's a little bit about me.

Kelly Leonard 2:54

Nice, nice. And so you alluded to the climate that we're in. And I know, especially lately, you've been talking a lot about the importance of YouTube, especially with AI assistance and the rise of Connected TV. So, why is YouTube becoming such a critical visibility channel for small businesses in particular?

Stephen Hart 3:16

Yeah. So you touched on a couple key things that I'll get into here. Uh, but I've been as you and I are both diehard LinkedIn people, and I'm still, you know, true to LinkedIn, but YouTube especially has my focus this year. Uh, it's always been a great search asset. It's owned by Google uh and is the second largest search engine. But with AI, many of us are now using our AI tool or ChatGPT or Gemini to search for answers. Right. And and so that's the first thing, right, is that we're looking at that as replacing people by default going to Google, right? Um and and when that happens, Chat GPT Gemini, one of the formats that it loves to go to and indexes really well, is a YouTube video. Now, not so much the video itself, but if you think about how that YouTube video is constructed, there is a video title, there is a description, there are tags that you're gonna put on that video, uh, there are chapters that come with minute markers. So chat GPT, sometimes I call her Chatty, right? Chatty can come back and say, hey, look, uh, in regards to the question you asked, right? The one minute 52 second marker of this video, Kelly Leonard answers your question clearly. Right? So that's reason number one. Um, reason number two, you touched on uh the acronym CTV. That's a really big shift that's happening. So CTV is actually referring to what's called connected TV. So any television that's connected to the internet or smart TVs, or many of us have a Roku box and we're we're going off to these different apps to Netflix and YouTube and the others, Connected TV as of May of 2025, so the viewership of people on connected television surpassed the combined viewership of cable and broadcast together. Big shift, big shift in consumption, but also big shift in ad dollars. And so what's happening, what we're seeing now with YouTube is that you're no longer having to necessarily be on a laptop or be on your cell phone. We might start on a cell phone and we can go and finish consuming that Diary of a CEO on the television, right? Yes, uh, your long form content. And now what we're seeing is, and by the way, YouTube has the largest share of markets for Connected TV, even more so than Netflix, which really was surprising to me. So when you look now, what's happening? Apple is Apple Podcasts, which used to own all of the podcast market share, yep, is now saying, hey, we're gonna start putting video back in the app or optimize the video. Really worried about YouTube taking on the podcast market share. And if you go look in your Netflix app right now, guess what you're gonna see? Podcasts. Yes, they're now bridging into podcasts, so everyone is aware that YouTube is taking share of market, and so if you can begin to consistently start creating content, valuable content, and putting that on YouTube, you are going to be seen. And I think, again, I'm not dismissing LinkedIn or to Instagram, but YouTube is different than many of these other platforms where discoverability is happening.

Kelly Leonard 7:05

So that's powerful And I'm anchoring on, you said, if you can produce so content. Content.

Stephen Hart 7:14

Content.

Kelly Leonard 7:14

And a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with um with creating content because they just, you know, this it's stuck. Like in the grand scheme of all the different things that we have to do, we feel stuck. And so they believe that they either don't know what to say or they don't know how to say it, what their audience needs, all these things. And so, how does someone break through that and build a simple, sustainable sort of content strategy?

Stephen Hart 7:43

Yeah. So it was odd to me that so many people and really accomplished, really smart people, I'm talking about professors who are in front of hundreds of students every single day. They would make excuses in a consulting capacity on why they couldn't record a video. And I'm like, what is happening here? And I actually found research, Kelly, that points to the fact that we look for subconsciously, we're looking for feedback when we're speaking. And so you and I right now, we are looking at each other. Yes. I can feel your energy, you can feel mine, I can see you. We can't get feedback from a camera lens. Right. And so our mind translates that silence to a threat. And it tells us, hey, mm-mm, we don't want to record. So if you feel that, no, it's not just you, right? Also, the not knowing what to say is real. And so what I what I often say is look, the first thing you want to do is understand what are the questions uh that come up more than anything each and every day, right? That you're hearing over and over again. Make note of those questions and just focus initially on answering those questions on YouTube. Too many people think that they have to gatekeep the content. And what's happening, Kelly, if you are looking for a landscaper to come in and do some work at the house, and you jump on YouTube and you start finding yourself going down a rabbit hole of a landscaper in Montgomery County, and he provides answers to every one of your questions. Who's likely gonna be one of the first people you call?

Kelly Leonard 9:41

I'm smiling so big, and folks can't see me because we're only gonna, you know, show them the audio version, but I'm smiling really big because this is making me think back to a conversation you and I had years ago when you introduced me to "They Ask You Answer".

Stephen Hart 9:56

"They Ask You Answer". I have that book right here. I keep it on my desk. Yeah, Marcus Sheridan. Yes, and that's that's a big, you know, Marcus Sheridan does a great job in that book of explaining this this whole process, right? But it is so important that we think about not what we want to put out, but what's of value to the person on the other end. I call that compassionate creativity, right? Thinking about what value am I providing, what use am I to the person watching the video on the other end? How am I creatively delivering that content? And and too often we think that when we're creating that video or that piece of content, our video is the only video this person is gonna see. So we want to start off, hi, I'm Stephen Hart, I'm the owner of Blue Oak. Guess what? I've already when I'm watching that video in the feed of the million videos that I'm thumbing through at night, right? Or in the middle of the day, if you started there, I'm gone. I am gone. So you have to position your content as well, structure it in a way where immediately, in three seconds, you need to be very direct about the problem you want to solve. So you open a video with a hook, and I always start my structure of a video with the problem in a question format. What is the problem, the one problem this video is going to solve? We're not going all over the place, right? One question, one problem that you're gonna solve in that video, you're gonna provide value for and create an immediate hook. Bring them in quickly, say hi, I am such and such, and you get right into the talking points of your video. And please, at the end of your video, end it with a call to action. Tell them exactly what they should do next.

Kelly Leonard 11:56

Love it, love it. And so you specialize in helping solopreneurs stay visible without burning out, and I hear a lot of that structure and sort of even in the simplistic way that you shared, sort of the the, I guess, the format of a powerful, compassionate video. Um and so, what's one visibility strategy that works especially well for businesses of one?

Stephen Hart 12:23

So it it touches on what we talked about just now, and that is to one, be consistent, right? Put a schedule down. I help clients record once a month for two hours, and I am a recording buddy. I call it guided capture , right? In my case, I have now recorded thousands of video and podcasts, and I'm just really good at being able to pull out what somebody has of value inside. But even if it's not necessarily coming through a service like mine, what you what it does to help you just get in front of the camera, and even if it's talking between us, right? There is a different energy that's coming out from me right now, talking to you versus recording this in in my cell phone in a selfie mode. I'm able to pull more, and then you could just cut what you need, right?

Kelly Leonard 13:19

So I'm curious, Stephen, in a two hour period, how many, like how many videos typically because I'm I'm assuming that's not like one video, that's like you're you're maximizing the time period to then absolutely so before we even hit record, I'm helping clients develop an entire year's content strategy, right?

Stephen Hart 13:39

So we know what we were talking about just now about getting clear on the questions. I actually lay out an entire calendar and very clear about helping you define your signature message, helping you define what I call content lanes. So for me, right, I help people with visibility. What does that look like? There's branding, there's content, um, there is AI workflow, uh, there's systems, right? And so I am constantly talking about the YouTube and the LinkedIn, the AI workflows, the content system, the branding elements. When we're talking about branding, I lay out a dozen different questions. And I lay out a dozen different questions for each. And guess what? If you could think of four content lanes and a dozen questions or 13 questions for each lane, you have an entire of content if you're posting once a week. And so every time we get into a two-hour call, we structure that call where we're answering one question from each of those lanes. Ah, okay. And the intent is that we work to capture a seven to ten minute long form video. From that long form video, the way I am looking to pull that out of you, I'm also going to get two, three, four vertical short clips. So in addition to you showing up consistently on a Monday at noon, I also have videos that you can place on YouTube Shorts, on Instagram Reels, on your TikTok, on your LinkedIn. And so you now begin to show up everywhere. And by the way, we can take that transcript, we can create a blog post, we can create newsletters, right? So you can repurpose that content as well. But we begin with YouTube at the core.

Kelly Leonard 15:23

Awesome. So last question for you. Um, and I know you've alluded to it a bit already, you sort of like AI and automation and shifting consumer behavior. So, what's really one trend that small businesses should lean into now to stay competitive over the next 12 to 18 months? And I feel like I know the answer, but I'm gonna ask you it the question anyway. So, what's one trend that we should be leaning into?

Stephen Hart 15:50

Um, there's so many things I could speak to. Uh a practical uh tip, if you will, or or action for your listener, give thought to how if you're a chat GPT user, chat GPT actually has a functionality called custom GPTs. The first time I heard this, Kelly, I was thinking, oh, I'm not a developer, I'm not a coder, I won't touch that area. Well, guess what? It has nothing to do with code. And so you could literally take the long conversation thread that you go into each and every week, each and every time. So I'm constantly creating videos, I have to create YouTube thumbnails every week, or I have to write LinkedIn post captions. I actually now write out the workflow in a very detailed instruction. In fact, I'll have GPT help me formulate that that instruction. I say, hey, look, I'm creating a custom GPT. Look at this, help me write this out in in full, right? And now I can open my GPT. I actually have a GPT, um uh, I believe it's Jazz, Jasmine that does my LinkedIn captions, my post captions. I have like 10 of them. Each one does a very specific task. And so I literally take the transcript when I'm done with a YouTube video. I can drop that transcript to Jasmine, and she immediately writes the LinkedIn post caption for me. I don't have to lift a finger. She knows what I want her to do down to you know, down to the hashtags. How I want people to like, post, share, all the things. So I have uh a different custom GPT for each thing that I'm doing, one task per GPT. Right. And I tell you, I have about 10 of them that are now like employees, like agents for me. I can't tell you how much time I ran a team that would take days to execute now what I can get done through the use of custom GPTs in minutes.

Kelly Leonard 17:58

Yeah.

Stephen Hart 17:59

So I tell you that's a practical action item for because a lot of people are using GPT, but we're still just using GPTs. I exactly thread where you could actually be so much more efficient with custom GPTs. Love it, love it.

Kelly Leonard 18:12

And so for anyone who's listening in and wants to tap into your genius, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Stephen Hart 18:18

Absolutely. So I am on the socials, I at @ I amStephen AHart. And the program that I offer that we've been talking about is called Explain on Camera. So you could go to explainoncamera.com to check out uh the offering and learn more.

Kelly Leonard 18:39

Thank you so much for revisiting us again here on the BOOST Podcast. It's always great to be in community with you, Stephen.

Stephen Hart 18:48

Thank you for having me back for the third time.

Kelly Leonard 18:51

Yes, three peat, three peat.

Announcer 18:59

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