Grow Your Career 1% Daily - I’ll Show You How | Follow for Tips on Learning, Professional Development, and Productivity | Professor | MBA + JD

Is this the part where I talk about brand voice, distribution, and storytelling across the funnel? Or say we “help companies scale content that converts”?

𝗪𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁.

But what we really do is write content your team doesn’t have to worry about, so you can stay focused on strategy, not sentence structure.

𝗛𝗲𝘆, 𝗜’𝗺 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻. 👋

And my path here hasn’t exactly followed a playbook:
Banking → Law School → Teaching → L&D → Content

(Yeah… it’s been a ride.)

Today, I run a B2B content agency with my wife. We keep it lean and personal — just the two of us, plus our kids and a couple barky mini schnauzers. 

At Damn Smart Marketing, we give marketers writing they can trust and results they can stand behind.

✓ Content that sounds like you (not a template, not bland AI)
✓ Full support from idea to publication
✓ A partner who gets content
✓ Zero fluff, zero hand-holding
✓ More time to focus on what matters

In other words: you get to 🚀 while we handle the ✍️.

𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿? 𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸:

1️⃣ 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗲-𝗳𝗼𝗿-𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀.
Blogs, LinkedIn posts, newsletters, case studies. If it’s got words, we’ll write it. You get to run the show without sweating every sentence.

2️⃣ 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀.
We’ve built an AI-assisted workflow that makes posting easy, effective, and actually worth reading.

If you're curious, DM me. 

No cold, hard pitch, I promise. Just a real convo about where you’re headed and whether some damn smart content can help.

Stephen 😀

Stephen Mostrom

Can I run a theory by you? (about writing, Gen AI, and B2B)

Donna and I call it “the commodification of passable writing.” 



Here’s the gist: 

Before ChatGPT went supernova in ’22, if you needed written content for your business (linkedin, website copy, emails, the works), you had three options. 

Write it yourself 
Hire someone to write it 
Staff in-house folks

Sometimes this led to bottom-of-the-barrel stuff that hurt the brand. But most companies putting out content did the minimum to look good.

Then came the Gen AI revolution
(dun dun dun)

And with it the commodification of passable writing. 

With a free account and a five-word prompt, anyone could generate something that looked fine.

No typos
Some kind of point
Basic structure

AI collapsed the floor of B2B writing, pulling everything toward the middle. 

Everything except the top band. 
Because AI didn’t touch the ceiling. 

Original ideas and data
Writing with your fingerprints all over it
Deep empathy for your audience
Storytelling grounded in experience

That’s always been the gold standard. 
And nothing about that has changed. 

Commodification explains so much about what we’re seeing today. Every channel flooded with lifeless, technically correct words. 

It also explains why companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Netflix are scooping up world-class storytellers and paying them up to $1M a yr. To meet hyper-aggressive growth goals, they can't afford to sound like everyone else.

We’re living in an era dominated by passable writing. 
100x more middle. 

Here’s the irony…
The middle is where B2B content goes to die. 

Always has been.

B2B Content & Executive Ghostwriting for Tech and Finance | Human words, AI workflows | JD & MBA | Running a two-person agency with my wife (still married)

If even 10% of LinkedIn was written by a human…




I might want to scroll my feed.

Anyway. Back to the 5 people who still deal in original thoughts.

They’ve earned my attention.

"Can I be real a second? For just a millisecond? Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second?" 🎶

Yes, you can. And you should. 

Why?

Because stories are the new credibility on LinkedIn. 
Because struggles are the new authenticity on LinkedIn. 
Because lessons learned are the new value on LinkedIn. 

AI has turned everyone with a laptop into a “thought leader.” Except… all the thoughts sound the same. 

What’s not the same?

You. Your experiences. Your unique perspective. 

That’s AI-proof content. And when you craft it right, it’s the fastest path to standing out in a feed drowning in "you should be doing XYZ" posts.

Example: 

One of our ghostwriting clients went viral the other day. 

6,380 likes. 369 comments. 161 reposts.

The post? 
Her journey getting rejected from her dream job… 
And the tweaks she made that finally opened the door.

It was simple. It was one-of-a-kind.
And it resonated. 

Because she was real a second.

In the middle of every prospect call, Donna stops and says the same thing. "Full disclosure: We DON’T stay in our lane."

Yes, we’re writers. Hired to write. 

But after 9 years and millions of words, we've learned to spot what others miss.

A content process that could run smoother. 
An angle that could hit harder.

We surface them every time. 

We can do this because we don't operate like a typical agency. For starters, it's just Donna and me. We put eyes on everything.

We've worked across dozens of clients, hundreds of campaigns. We've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Most importantly, we trust our instincts. And we build relationships where our clients do too.

Getting outside our lane has helped us: 

Turn a finance founder's LinkedIn from in-the-weeds tactics to leadership storytelling. 20k followers in 9 months.

Pitch a Succession tie-in to a bank's blog team. It became one of their top-performing series.

Convince a SaaS CEO client to blow up their newsletter format. One story, one message, no grab bag. Thousands of subscribers followed.

Most agencies live in their lane. 
It's safer that way. For them.

We’re not like that.

After writing 2M+ words for B2B brands, here’s my (very opinionated) ranking of what makes content stick and buyers act:

1/10 - Grammar and spelling
Yes, clean it up. 
No, it won’t save a weak idea.

2/10 - Formatting
White space helps. 
But it doesn’t fix boring.

3/10 - Vocabulary and clever phrasing
Fun to write. 
Rarely the reason someone buys.

4/10 - Word count
Long doesn’t equal depth. 
Short doesn’t equal punch.

5/10 - Headline or hook
A strong opener earns the click. 
The body earns the trust.

6/10 - Point of view
Safe takes get safe results.
A clear stance earns attention.

7/10 - Proof
Metrics. Examples. Testimonials.
Now we’re getting somewhere.

8/10 - Pain
Name the problem. 
The one they vent about after the meeting.

9/10 - Stakes
What happens if nothing changes?
Missed targets. Blown budgets. Career risk.

10/10 - Empathy
Do they feel understood?
Do they think, “This person gets it?”



Most teams obsess over 1-5.
Deals get decided at 6-10.

That’s why Donna and I spend as much time inside the buyer’s world as we do inside the Google Doc.

We sit in on customer interviews. We join case study calls.
We comb through LinkedIn comment sections and debates.

Craft + psychology.
That’s the work.

One of our clients (SaaS CEO, Finance) landed multiple 700k+ impression posts last year. I looked back, and these 4 elements showed up every time:

1. A personal story

Every winning post centered on something emotional and specific:
– Bombing a board meeting
– Absorbing painful feedback early in her career
– Breaking a proven rule to get results

The human story was the wedge. 
We used it to deliver her POV.

2. A dynamite hook

Busy execs don’t read 250-word posts unless the first line earns it.

Her high-performers nailed the hook:
– Picturesque setup
– Hyper-specific tension
– Sparks of curiosity that earn a click

One time, she opened with a tell-all on a thorny relationship she'd had with her past CEO (and what she did about it). 

Readers leaned in.
6,380 likes. 369 comments. 161 reposts. 

3. Real talk, no fluff

She dug into the moments most CEOs keep to themselves.

“This almost broke me”
“Here’s what I got wrong”
“Nobody talks about this part…”

That vulnerability built trust fast.
And it lasted as more and more finance leaders started following.

4. Plain language

I dropped her posts into Hemingway Editor.
Most landed at a 3rd grade reading level.

Complex ideas, easy to absorb. 

Too many leaders try to sound smart on LinkedIn.
But clear is what’s landing.



In 9 months, this CEO went from a lukewarm LinkedIn account to 20k active followers and 10M+ impressions. 

The beauty: it's a playbook any exec can follow. 
If they're willing to drop their corporate armor.

Overrated: sounding smart on LinkedIn.
Underrated: sounding human on LinkedIn.

People have to know and like you before they'll trust you.

Human psychology 101. 
(yes, it applies to B2B)

“I apologize for such a long letter…” 





Mark Twain once said. “I didn't have time to write a short one."

A reminder for anyone who creates.

Great writing isn’t more, more, more.
It’s meaning.

And meaning takes time.

Generic AI writing is a commodity. And it’s the fastest way to go invisible. 

I joined Dorien Morin-van Dam on Strategy Talks to break down what to do when everyone has access to the same baseline of LLM-powered words. 

More, more, more or faster, faster, faster won't help you stand out.
But outwriting AI will. 

And you do that with a unique POV, writing that has your fingerprints all over it, and assets only your business can produce. 

Dorien and I talked about:

- The trap of churning out 160 articles in 90 days (aka the “spray and pray” approach)

- How one of our CEO clients generated 10M+ impressions, 20K+ followers, and pipeline with a simple, human approach to LinkedIn

- Where we recommend deploying AI in the content process, and where human creativity is the only edge left

Check out the full convo here.
https://lnkd.in/gy-V4z_5

Claude called me out on my sh*t yesterday, and I needed it. 

Lately, I've been ending every month by throwing my LinkedIn posts into a painstakingly-built Damn Smart Marketing strategist and asking questions.

Did my posts speak to buyers (or other content people)? 
Did my proof points earn the claims I was making?

Yesterday, I ran my February analysis and… uh oh. 

Exact words: "You're making the argument. You're not proving it. Your best content is sitting in your client work and you're leaving it on the table."

Truth is, my instinct has always been to let the work speak for itself. 

Talk less. Deliver more. Trust that the results will find their way into the right conversations.

In February, this instinct to avoid the “brag” took over without me realizing it. And it hurt my content. 

Because Donna and I have been in the trenches for years. 

We have metrics that prove our strategies work. 
Testimonials that prove our approach delivers.

And I wasn’t talking about it enough. 

So when I made an argument on LinkedIn, it didn’t have the lived-in umph that comes when you’re backed by years of experience. 

My posts risked sounding more like a talking head or an AI-first think piece. Not someone who’s been there, done that. 

No thanks. 

My gameplan moving into March: 

1 - Keep running monthly analysis. With an LLM that’s willing to push back, like Claude, you can spot LinkedIn gaps in seconds. 

2 - Lead with proof. In B2B, it’s the difference between sounding theoretical and sounding earned. 

3 - Learn, adapt, keep going. February's analysis stung. March's content will be better for it.

Now I’m off to dig up data for my next post. ✌️

AI broke content, right? Everyone sounds the same, right?

I'm joining Dorien today to talk about the path less traveled. How the smartest marketers x founders I know are using their empathy instincts and human voice to write things their audience actually wants to read. 

(Oh, and how they're using AI as an amplifier, not a replacement)

See you there!

Writer for B2B Tech & Finance ✍️ | Running a content agency with my wife (and yes, still married) | Human words, AI workflows | JD & MBA

Look who's talking with me this week? 
Stephen Mostrom, the damn smart marketer!

If you are struggling to stand out when using AI, this one's for you, and you and you and you.  

Live at 7 PM ET on 2/24, and of course, the replay will be available too if you can't make it live.

How to Outwrite AI: Ways to Keep Your Human Voice and Stand Out

Learn from MISTAKES with AI | Tech Transformation | Innovation | Cloud | DevSecOps

Are you struggling to demonstrate the business value of technology?

With over 25 years of experience driving innovation and architecting complex systems, I've seen fantastic technology fail because it did not adequately address the user needs of the people it was built to serve.

I specialize in creating clarity amidst complexity - bridging the gap between technology capabilities and business priorities. My superpower is quickly grasping the heart of ambiguous problems and rallying teams to deliver solutions that create measurable value.

If you are a technology or business leader tired of:

❌ Chasing the latest hype while struggling to justify budgets

❌ Translating technobabble for skeptical executives

❌ Watching projects derailed by misaligned priorities

I can help you cut through the noise to build innovation strategies and technology roadmaps that move the needle for your organization and fully leverage AI and automation.

My approach combines systems thinking, design practices, and technical fluency to:

🎯 Uncover the root causes of business problems

🎯 Rapidly validate solution ideas

🎯 Deliver technology that users love

🎯 Continually optimize to drive outcomes

I've applied this formula to industry leaders like PepsiCo and helped clients build and integrate critical IoT, cloud, data, DevOps, and AI capabilities. 

Let's connect for a discovery call to explore if my expertise can help unlock value in your technology investments.

Daniel Lemire

You want a real AI mistake story?

I set up Claude Code on my new NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor. Hit an issue immediately. In retrospect it probably not smart to run a coding agent on the same machine that's also running a local model. 

Ok, let’s try again and keep ‘em separated.

Got everything running. OpenAI Codex + GPT-5.2 as the main agent, Anthropic sub-agents for the heavy lifting. I tell Claude explicitly: "Use these agents for this project. Always refer to it by this name."

Claude says: great.

Time passes. I check in.

"How's that project going?"

"Oh, I haven't been working on that."

No alarm. No flag. No warning.

"Alright, let's get moving on it."

"Will do." 

Then proceeds to use GPT-5.2 !! (not the Anthropic agents I specified.)

What happened next? We exhausted the Codex tokens. And then everything broke. I had asked for a fallback to the local model but that wasn’t configured with a large enough context window to work with OpenClaw. 

This is the part nobody talks about when they say "just tell the AI what you want."

Context windows drift. Agents forget. Token budgets run dry in the background while you think work is happening.

I found a way to turn this into an asset. But first I had to live through the mistake.

That's the beauty of AI MISTAKES. Right?

Go make some.

ServiceNow AI Consultant | AI MISTAKES | Transformation | DevOps

GPT-5.3 instant. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite. (That's just today)

Every week, we get a new capability. 

Skills. Agents. Interfaces. Apps.

Here's the problem: People often don't really know what to do with it all.

Model choice is a thing, as are all the other new things that arrive apace.

But if your team can't turn that choice into value, you're just adding complexity.

I see this constantly in enterprise AI: Companies and their knowledgeable experts obsess over which model to use rather than asking what problem they're trying to solve. 

Especially when it comes to advanced AI models, we all want the latest, the most accurate, the fastest, the cheapest...

The real problem is neglecting to define success.

The best AI strategy isn't about the model. 

It's about:
→ Knowing your use case
→ Picking the right tool for the job
→ Shipping something that works
→ Iterating based on real feedback

Stop optimizing for choice. Start optimizing for impact.

We are no longer talking about just an AI chatbot, or even an AI agent. 

This is the help I've been excited about Generative AI making real.

For years, people have been talking about AI as a tool – something you use, something you prompt. What we’re building at  ServiceNow is different – where AI is a true teammate working alongside you. 

We’re launching two new agentic innovations: ServiceNow EmployeeWorks, and near and dear to my heart (and team), ServiceNow Autonomous Workforce! 🚀  

With ServiceNow Autonomous Workforce, AI specialists are augmenting human teams by actually executing jobs – coordinating across systems, making decisions, acting with precision. Because ServiceNow combines AI intelligence with workflow orchestration, AI specialists can interpret a request, decide the right action using business context, and execute autonomously across systems with governance built in.

It’s a new class of digital workforce designed to earn trust every step of the way. Built on our AI Platform. Grounded in our Knowledge Graph. Orchestrated through Workflow Data Fabric. Governed by AI Control Tower.

We’re just getting started! Kudos to everyone on my amazing team who has been working behind the scenes to bring this to life for our customers. Julie Black Greg George Simon Fauvel Amanda Joslin  

Check out my video with Bhavin Shah below and learn more: https://lnkd.in/d56whgXh

Not AI hype. 

Not AI in theory. 

AI you can actually use. 

Register now and let's get to work. 

Seriously. I'll see you there, come on, let's go!

https://lnkd.in/gTj6hDXf

No alternative text description for this image

You've seen it, you visit a website that gives you that great new chatbot experience, and it tells you what to do. 

What you probably haven't see is AI that does it.

Does what?

Expense reports.

Drafting emails.

Handling service desk tickets.

It's not just a platform. It works! 

Let's put AI to work, so you can focus.

Join us live on February 26 to see it in action. https://lnkd.in/gkhd-GGi

The future isn't waiting for your permission to arrive.

Right now, AI is rewriting the rules of work, creativity, and problem-solving at a pace that makes yesterday's innovations feel ancient. 

Some people are paralyzed by the speed of change.
Some are trusting AI blindly, copying and pasting their way to mediocrity.
Others are sitting on the sidelines, hoping it all goes away.

Here's the thing about transformation:
It doesn't care if you're ready.

It's not all good though, so the only way to know is start. 

You need to get started. 

Think about it this way:
→ Every breakthrough started with someone willing to experiment
→ Every innovation came from learning what didn't work
→ Every expert was once a beginner who kept going

MISTAKES aren't just acceptable in this new world.
They're the curriculum.

When you learn to work WITH AI instead of being replaced BY it, something shifts.

You stop being a passenger.
You become a pilot.

The world needs people who can think critically about AI, use it responsibly, and create real value.

What's one AI experiment you've been hesitant to try? 

What's holding you back?

How can I help?

REST is great. 

CRUD is essential.  

But neither of these things means you’ll come away with a functioning app that is easy to use while also data-model compliant 
with governance enabled. 

Build Agent solves this.

For those evaluating vibe coding on ServiceNow: I ran the same app through five approaches and documented everything.

Three paths used Claude Opus from outside the platform. Namely, raw REST API calls, REST to build a workspace, and the ServiceNow SDK with its Fluent API. Two used ServiceNow Build Agent from within. Same brief, a Travel Request app.

Every approach created the data model in minutes. The UI is the hard part.

REST took 2 hours and 4 failed iterations to land on a working UI. The workspace attempt never finished. The SDK deployed the entire backend from a single prompt in 18 minutes and its Workspace Fluent API successfully created a native workspace, something REST couldn't achieve at all. But the custom UI page and dashboard still couldn't reach parity with Build Agent despite multiple iterations.

Build Agent delivered a working custom UI from one prompt in 20 minutes. A full workspace with dashboard, charts, business rules, Polaris, mobile-ready, upgrade-safe. All within five prompts, under 15 minutes.

The AI models are equally capable. The variable is where the agent operates. Build Agent is fastest for interactive building. The SDK is the path for teams who need Git, CI/CD, and promotion pipelines. Both are platform-native. Both sidestep the friction that REST hits.

Full comparison, iteration artefacts, and every limitation documented, see comments for the GitHub repo in case you want to reproduce this.

The Cumaean Sibyl wrote her prophecies on oak leaves and let the wind decide how they landed. Most of us speak in vibes now.

taplio

The Battle

Stephen Mostrom

Daniel Lemire

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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Performance ScoreStephen Mostrom's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDaniel Lemire's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Stephen Mostrom

Daniel Lemire

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Stephen Mostrom's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDaniel Lemire's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreStephen Mostrom's LinkedIn Performance