# Know exactly who you help before you write a word _An afternoon of research, an empathy map and three AI prompts that show you what your buyers are actually saying._ By Terry Rice Published November 9, 2026 **Most experts write their profile, their posts and their offer based on a hunch about what their audience is worried about. An afternoon of research, an empathy map and a few well-built AI prompts will show you what they're actually saying, in their own words, and everything you write after that gets easier.** ## The situation You know your subject cold. You've done the work for years. So when it's time to write a session title, a post or an offer, you write it the way you'd explain it to a peer. That's the trap. Your buyer sits somewhere else entirely. They're describing the problem in different words, worrying about different things, and hesitating for reasons you've stopped noticing because you solved them a decade ago. ## Why guessing costs you A guess that's a few degrees off doesn't look wrong. It looks fine. It just doesn't land. The post gets polite likes. The profile gets views and no bookings. The offer gets "sounds great, I'll think about it." And because nothing is obviously broken, you keep tweaking the copy instead of fixing the real problem, which is that you're answering a question your audience isn't asking. ## How to get clear ![](https://content.everyexpert.com/users/user_3C5hdmjmJN4tpmscq7VFRG40aD1/images/a90fa77a-5c59-4656-bb50-f8f2872dc227.png) ### 1. Write your audience in one uncomfortably specific sentence Not "small business owners." Not "consultants in Manhattan." Include the role, the size, the situation and the moment they're in. Weak: "I help founders with their finances." Clear: "I help first-time founders at seed-stage software companies who just raised and have no idea how to build a budget their board will trust." If the sentence feels too narrow, it's probably right. You can always widen later. You can't write for someone you haven't pictured. ### 2. Interview the AI before you ask it for anything Open Claude, ChatGPT or whichever tool you use. Before you ask it to write a single thing, hand it everything you know. Paste this in and fill every bracket with detail: > I want you to understand my business before I ask you to make anything. > Here's what I sell: [your offer] > Here's exactly who buys it: [role, company size, situation they're in] > Here's what they're struggling with when they come to me: [the real problem, in their words] > Here's how they currently find me: [be honest, even if the answer is "they don't"] > Here's what I've already tried that didn't work: [this matters more than the wins] > Push back on anything that doesn't add up. I'd rather hear it now. That last line matters. Without it, you get a cheerleader. ### 3. Build an empathy map An empathy map splits your buyer into four boxes: what they **say**, what they **think** but don't say, what they **do**, and what they **feel**. The gaps between the boxes are where the good stuff is. What someone says in a meeting and what they think driving home are usually two different things, and your offer should speak to the second one. In the same conversation, ask: > Based on everything above, build an empathy map of my buyer at the moment right before they'd book a call with someone like me. > For each of the four boxes (says, thinks, does, feels), give me five specific entries, written in their words, not marketing language. > Then tell me: where is the biggest gap between what they say and what they think? That's what I should be writing about. ### 4. Check it against what people are posting right now A model working from its training data is summarizing what the internet said a while ago. For today's frustration in today's words, use a tool that can see live posts. Grok is built into X, so it can pull real posts from people in your industry. Any AI tool with live web or social search can do a version of this. > I sell [what you sell] to [very specific audience, including size and role]. > Run a sentiment analysis on how this audience currently feels about [the problem you solve]. > Pull real posts from X from people in this industry, including thought leaders and the replies to their posts. > I want to understand four things: > What they're frustrated about right now > What they're skeptical of, especially anything that sounds like what I sell > The exact language and phrases they use to describe this problem > What would make them hesitate before buying something like what I offer > Then give me specific suggestions for how I should change the way I communicate with this audience. Pay the most attention to the vocabulary. When you describe someone's problem in their exact words, they assume you understand it, because you do. One warning. This only sees people who post publicly, which isn't everyone in your market. Use it as a starting point, then check it against real conversations. ### 5. Confirm it with three real people Pick three people who fit your one sentence: past clients, people in your network, people who've asked you for advice. Ask one question: **"What would have to change for you to get excited about something like this?"** Asking whether they'd want it gets you a polite yes. Asking what would have to change gets you the edit. ### 6. Put it to work Now use what you found, word for word, in four places: - Your session title, in the language they use for the problem. - Your example questions, lifted from the "says" and "thinks" boxes. - Your headline, naming the specific person from your one sentence. - Your next three posts, each one naming a frustration they posted about last week. Run the sentiment check again in a few months. How people feel moves. ## What this could look like Here's how the same process might play out for three different experts. **Say you're an M&A advisor.** You'd assume owners selling a business worry most about valuation. Your empathy map's "thinks" box might say something else: what happens to my employees, and what do I do on Monday after I sell? That points to a session called "Plan your exit before you take the first call from a buyer" instead of "Business valuation review," with example questions about life after the sale. **Say you train ESL teachers.** You've been writing for school administrators. A sentiment check could show the loudest frustration coming from teachers, posting about being handed new students with no support. That suggests a lower-priced async question aimed at individual teachers, the people actually feeling the problem. **Say you're a product photographer.** You describe your work as "brand photography." Your buyers, small e-commerce founders, might keep saying "my product photos look cheap next to the big brands." That line, in their words, belongs in your headline. ## Your homework Write your audience in one uncomfortably specific sentence, then run the empathy map prompt. Fifteen minutes. ## Bring it back Post your one sentence and the single most surprising line from your empathy map in #best-practices. If the output felt generic, bring it to office hours and say "here's my sentence, here's what the AI gave me, why is it vague?" Usually the fix is a more specific sentence, and the room is good at spotting where yours is soft. 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