Everybody can pretend to be an expert now, because AI can write the caption. That is why trust is the real bottleneck, not posting frequency.
In this episode of The Healthy Hustle Podcast, Rachel Feldman sits down with Simone Sauter, a PR and AIO strategist and former journalist, to talk about the Visibility Triangle, why a website still matters, how podcast interviews and media features create proof AI and humans can both trust, and how to pitch press without an agency or a press release.
Simone Sauter is a PR and AIO strategist, visibility expert, and former journalist with more than 20 years of experience in the media industry. She specializes in helping founders, CEOs, and established entrepreneurs build authority recognized by the press, Google, and AI systems that influence public trust. Her career began in journalism before communications and PR roles for brands including Match.com, Siemens, Daimler, and Tupperware. She has been featured in Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Closer, and more than forty international media outlets, continues to write for Business Insider and Parents.com, and has been interviewed on more than ninety podcasts worldwide.
In This Episode, We Cover:
- Why AI-written captions stop building trust once everyone uses the same tools
- Simone’s upside-down Visibility Triangle: website hub, podcast interviews, and media
- The website pages that matter: About, Media and PR, plus person and organization schema
- Why podcast interviews are hard to fake and how to start with smaller shows
- How to repurpose interview transcripts into blogs and captions without losing your voice
- Building a Spotify playlist of your interviews into a welcome email sequence
- The Publicity Rockstar Method: ideal client, what you want to be known for, media list, pitch, performance, promotion
- Featured expert vs contributor, and why press releases rarely work for small businesses
- Common About page and Media page mistakes, and how many speaking topics to list
- Where to find Simone on LinkedIn and in her free AI Visibility Lab on Skool
Captions Alone Do Not Build Trust Anymore
Simone loves AI and runs an AI-first company, but she is clear that when everybody uses AI to write content, the text stops standing out. Before AI, regular posting could build trust because readers assumed the words came from your own thinking. Now anyone can sound like an expert with a prompt, so coaches need another way to prove they are the real deal.
The Visibility Triangle
Simone describes an upside-down triangle with the website at the bottom as the hub. AI looks at it and humans look at it. You can make sales without a website, but a future-proof business that is visible to AI and trusted by people needs one. Key pages include About and Media and PR, plus technical foundations like person schema and organization schema.
From that hub, podcast interviews and media features feed each other. Speak on a podcast and you create long-form language AI can cite. Land media and you get third-party endorsement humans and AI both take seriously. Simone runs her business primarily through PR, a blog, podcast interviews, and media rather than daily social posting. She has close to 12,000 LinkedIn followers and posts about once a week.
Podcast Interviews as Proof You Cannot Fake
Simone says nobody can send an AI agent to a live interview. If you are not an expert, you cannot answer the questions. Clients sometimes arrive ready and sometimes need mindset work first. The upside is you can start with smaller podcasts, practice, and work your way up.
She also recommends turning interviews into a Spotify playlist and putting that playlist in your welcome email sequence so new subscribers hear your voice and story for 30 to 60 minutes. That human signal matters when buyers are deciding who to trust.
Repurpose Without Losing Your Language
Simone uses the interview transcript with a Claude skill and tells it to write a blog post using only what was said in the interview. The same process can create LinkedIn posts and captions tied to audio or video snippets. Her rule is to tell AI to use only what you gave it, then ask for research with sources when numbers are missing, and double-check those sources because AI makes mistakes.
Rachel shares that when she uses AI, she talks into it for five to ten minutes first so the output keeps her own language.
The Publicity Rockstar Method
Simone walks through a six-step framework for getting into media without an agency:
1. Understand your ideal client so you know which publications matter.
2. Decide what you want to be known for, because that is what you will write and speak about.
3. Build a media list from publications you already read and ones relevant to your niche, then study their headlines and topics.
4. Find the right human to pitch: journalist, editor, or freelancer, depending on whether you want to be a featured expert or a contributor.
5. Deliver the performance: the interview or the article.
6. Promote the hit. Put it in your welcome sequence and on your website, then keep pitching the same contact once the relationship starts.
She notes that agencies can cost around $10,000 per month and often send press releases that work for global brands but rarely for small businesses. When Simone started her first business as a relationship coach, press releases got nowhere, which is why she built this personal-pitch approach. The story, the right person, and the right timing matter more than a giant contact database.
What People Miss on Their Websites
Simone often sees About pages that stay stuck on the founder instead of quickly shifting to how the reader is helped. About is one of the most-read pages, so storytelling still has to lead somewhere useful.
She also sees people delay a Media and PR page until they have features. Her advice is to set one up anyway with a photo, three to five niche speaking topics, a bio, and downloadable images. When media hits arrive, add them. Too many topics make you look unfocused.
Your Action Step
Pick one proof asset this week: update your About page so it moves from who you are to how you help, draft a Media page with three speaking topics, or pitch one small podcast using a story from your real client work.
Final Thoughts
AI can write the caption. It cannot sit through a 45-minute interview or earn a third-party media feature for you. Build the website hub, speak where people can hear you think out loud, pitch press with a real story, and promote the proof you earn. That is how trust compounds when everyone else is posting harder.
Resources
- Simone Sauter: https://simonesauter.com/
- Free AI Visibility Lab on Skool: https://www.skool.com/ai-visibility-lab/about
- Podcast one-sheet: https://onesheet.simonesauter.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonesauter/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simoneesauter/
- Email: simone@simonesauter.com
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